‘Going to show I belong’ — Meet the four Aussies chasing contracts on Road to UFC Season 4

In fact, only a fortnight on from ‘Della’ creating history as the Australia’s newest UFC king, a crew of the nation’s top prospects are now in China this week looking to ignite their own Octagon deals – on Road to UFC: Season 4.

Kicking off inside Shanghai’s $20 million UFC Performance Institute, the series involves 40 fighters from right throughout Asia, Australia and New Zealand competing in a tournament-style event that eventually awards four division winners a UFC contract.

As part of the 2025 season, four Aussie hopefuls have been chosen to potentially fight their way into the finals later this year — Perth lightweight Jack Becker, Sydney featherweight Sebastian Szalay, Melbourne welterweight Kitt Campbell, and Brisbane lightweight Dom Mar Fan.

Before competing over two nights on Thursday and Friday, all four fighters spoke with Fox Sports Australia about this latest chapter in their incredible MMA journeys.

WATCH ROAD TO UFC SEASON 4 THURSDAY AND FRIDAY @ 9pm AEST ON ESPN via Kayo Sports

Sebastian Szalay

Age: 31

Division: Featherweight

Record: 8-1

Gym: Freestyle MMA

Here’s a bloke wanted to fight Alexander Volkanovski so bad, he drove five days through the desert to find him.

“Which was f***ing awesome,” Perth boy Sebastian Szalay recalls of a trip all dirt stretches, dodging roos, and sleeping nights inside a ute packed high with everything he owned.

Which was scary, sure.

“But that’s how you make the next level,” the fighter shrugs. “It has to be all or nothing”.

Originally hailing from Perth, Western Australia, Szalay has spent the past two years training out of Volkanovski’s Freestyle MMA gym – and after driving 4000km across Australia for the privilege.

“Which proved my best decision,” he told us from a motel room in Shanghai this week. “And why I’m here right now too.”

Currently on a tear of seven straight wins — which includes the Eternal featherweight crown — Szalay now faces Chinese rival Baergeng Jieleyisi in the first round of Road To UFC.

Better, the UFC wannabe is also set to be cornered on fight night by not only Volkanovski’s head coach Joe Lopez but also good mate and training partner, UFC lightweight Jamie Mullarkey.

Quizzed on the advantages of now training daily with arguably the most gifted UFC featherweight of all time, Szalay says: “You get to compare yourself with the man”.

But days must get a tad, err, trying, right?

“It’s funny you say that,” the fighter laughs. “Because, for all of us guys, when you’re there training with Volk – especially when he’s on – mate, he’s f***ing tough to deal with.

“But at the same time, you also know that if you can get an inch on him, well, you know you’re doing well.

“(Laughs) And a lot of times you don’t get that inch.

“But to just get that time in the cage with someone of his calibre, you take all the positives out of it you can.”

And as for the champ’s advice this week?

“Play what’s in front of me,” Szalay said. “Volk just reminded me that I know what to do … that it’s my time.”

And as for a prediction?

“I want to make a statement, get a finish,” the Aussie added.

“Because while I’m not where I want to be just yet, this definitely puts me a step closer.

“I’m going to show why I belong.”

Kitt Campbell

Age: 30

Division: Welterweight

Record: 14-7

Gym: Australian Elite Team

Kitt Campbell could bemoan the fact he’s twice been slated to fight Jack Della Maddalena.

And twice, been denied.

Especially given JDM, right now … well, he’s not only our newest UFC champ, or being hyped for an Islam Makhachev blockbuster, but readying for what his star agent Tim Simpson has declared the ‘Della Era’.

So it would be nice to have a win over him, right?

“Or maybe,” Campbell cackles, “Jack Della would’ve kicked my arse.

“Who knows?”

Almost 13 years after first emerging onto the Australian MMA scene – and through four stints as an Australian champion — 30-year-old Campbell is now readying to punch his way into the same UFC division ‘Della’ now reigns over.

Boasting four wins from his past five fights, the popular Melbourne welterweight is in Shanghai readying to throw down against undefeated Japanese prospect Shogo Sato (5-0).

Importantly, Campbell is coming off an outstanding camp inside Australian Elite Team, where he works under the guidance of head coach Sam Greco and alongside the likes of UFC fighters Jimmy Crute and Jake Matthews.

“Blessed,” is how the fighter feels training within said crew. “And when I get this job done in spectacular fashion, I’ll be joining them on the UFC roster.”

And in a division topped by JDM.

Which would be little more than the latest twist in a story that started way back in 2016, when Campbell was first offered to fight some Perth prospect who had started his career with consecutive losses.

“Yeah, I was offered Jack when he was oh-and-two,” the fighter recalls.

“It was going to be for Hex Fight Series.

“But Jack, I think he got injured and couldn’t take the fight …”

So instead, Campbell moved on while Della recovered, then earned his first professional win.

A first round KO that just happened to kickstart a tear now stretching nine years, 18 fights and, most recently, that upset UFC title win over Belal Muhammad.

And it was somewhere within this rise, around 2019, where Campbell found himself ranked alongside the rising West Australian as the two domestics stars most likely to make a UFC roster.

“Which is when I reached out to Jack again,” Campbell recounted this week.

“We had always been close to crossing paths so I just said ‘hey, it’s only us left domestically. If neither of us gets signed to the UFC, we should fight’.

“But then, Jack got signed …”

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Yet as for Campbell having been aggrieved at an opportunity lost?

“Mate, I was pumped for him,” the fighter stresses.

“I’m not going to get jealous because another Aussie signs with the UFC.

“And to see his growth from there, going undefeated through his next 18 fights, becoming UFC champion — it’s unreal.

“Plus, I believe everyone has their own path.

“Their own timeline.

“And I’ve always known my time will come.

“That it’s not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’.”

Undeniably, Campbell is a story in persistence.

“Because I don’t have the perfect record,” he concedes.

“But I’ve always taken the hardest fights, fought the best of the best here in Australia and always challenged myself.

“Even when I couldn’t get fights at welterweight, I moved to middleweight.

“Pride myself on being a gamer.

“And so I’ve won some, lost some.

“But I think it speaks volumes when you look at how, after those losses, I’ve rebuilt and come back.

“I actually feel like my whole career has been Road To UFC.

“So now to be here this week, it’s actually quite surreal.

“I’ve got nothing left to do but get that UFC contract.”

Jack Becker

Age: 32

Division: Lightweight

Record: 13-5

Gym: Scrappy MMA

Only weeks after helping his great mate become Australia’s latest UFC champion, Jack Becker is now sitting in a Shanghai hotel room, talking you through how a fight between himself and one of the most violent men in UFC history would look

“Yeah, Justin Gathje, I’d love that fight,” Becker says, referencing the former BMF King.

“And I’d be excited by it.

“Justin’s obviously such a wicked fighter. Outstanding.

“But I’m also very comfortable in my own ability to hang with any of the top UFC lightweights … and take them out.”

A longtime training partner of Jack Della Maddalena, Becker was watching on from a pub two weeks ago as his great mate went and defeated reigning UFC welterweight champ Belal Muhammad.

While the lightweight could have travelled to Canada for the UFC 315 headliner, he decided to stay home and ensure there are no disruptions for his own Road to UFC showdown against South Korea’s Jae Hyun Park.

“And I’m sure I could’ve made the trip work,” Becker said this week from his own fight camp.

“But erring on the side of caution, I thought the smart thing was not playing with my sleep pattern too much, or getting on and off flights.

“Especially when you’re cutting weight.

“But to see Jack win the way he did, it was special …”

And as for the pub’s reaction through five rounds?

“Oh, people f***ing love him,” Becker grinned.

While ‘Della’ was initially planning to be in Becker’s corner for the fight, a delayed return home from the US – after winning the belt, conducting a series of media interviews, and then having a flight cancelled – means he will instead be watching on via UFC Fight Pass.

Asked what he takes from training regularly with a guy who not only sits a division higher, but is now UFC champion and Becker laughs: “Our friendship … and the fact Jack doesn’t whack the hell out of me with those small gloves”.

Soon after however, he continues: “Every day Jack shows up and puts it on us in the gym.

“And that really forces me to step up myself, go to a different level.

“It really is a case of rise or drown.

“And given where I’m at with my career, I choose to rise up.”

And as for a prediction against Park?

“I’m going to get a finish, and early,” he stressed.

“If he’s lucky, it will be a submission.

“But I feel I’ll finish him within two rounds.”

Suggested UFC boss Dana White wanted contestants on these shows to do exactly that and Becker continued: “It’s what I need, too.

“Looking back over the past few years, I fell into a trap of needing to win and starting to go down that path of ‘OK, what is the safest path to victory?’.

“But that’s not me.

“It’s not who I am or how I want to represent myself in this sport.

“It’s also not what excites me.

“I want to bring that spirit of fighting which really excites me, and excites the people who I train with.

“The excitement that shakes up a stadium.

“I like that.”

Dom Mar Fan

Age: 25

Division: Lightweight

Record: 6-2

Gym: Team Compton Training Centre

You have to think that even with a different barber, Dom Mar Fan would still be fighting in Shanghai, China this week.

But as Street Buddah?

Probably not.

“Which is funny, right?” the Queenslander cackles. “How a bad haircut has changed everything.”

An Australian lightweight prospect fighting out of Brisbane, 25-year-old Fan is on a run of five wins from six fights and has never lost to anyone not named Quillan Salkilld – who in February announced himself to the UFC via that second fastest KO in company history.

Now this week on Road to UFC, the hyped grappler takes on Japan’s Yuji Yannick Ephoeviga, whose own impressive resume boasts an undefeated tear stretching 11 straight wins.

“So he’s skillful,” Fan told us this week. “And if you let the guy play his game, yeah, he’ll be a handful for you.

“But that’s not what I do.

“I impose myself on opponents.

“Force them to play my game.

“And that’s why he’ll struggle with my pressure, on the feet and ground.

“I’ll finish this guy within two rounds.”

Which is quickly becoming something of a pattern for a fighter whose past four wins have also been finishes within two.

Again, which starts with that trip to the barber two years ago.

“And an undercut, which I had at the time,” Fan recounted this week, grinning.

“But this one day, the barber really messed it up.

“Cut the whole thing off centre, looked terrible.

“It was so dreadful that I actually had to shave all my hair off …”

Which then came with its own issues.

“People were saying I looked like a monk,” Fan laughed. “Or The Last Airbender.”

But Fan?

“This was around the time Jorge Masvidal was going with ‘Street Jesus’,” he explained. “So in a moment of clarity, I just said ‘nah, I’m the Street Buddah’ … and things have gone from there.”

Haven’t they what?

Outside a pair of losses against Salkilld — the most recent of which was for the Eternal lightweight title – Fan has racked up six wins, including two straight over Tom Pratt and Tim Rogers, who had themselves boasted a combined run of nine straight.

Better, it’s seen him cement that fight name.

“After losing to Quillan, I came back with a more aggressive, violent style,” he explained.

“A few of the boys, they said it fitted Street Buddah … so that’s what I’m going with.

“It’s now become a huge part of who I am.”

Pushed on his new approach, the fighter continued: “I used to look at Khabib Nurmagomedov and think his undefeated record was the ultimate goal.

“That it was better than anything else in the sport.

“But after my own perfect record was tarnished, I changed focus on what I desired.

“And my focus became a violent approach.

“Really doing damage to my opponents.

“Yes, I’m a grappler.

“(Laughs) But I’m looking to make grappling great again,

“Find exciting ways to grapple, ways that cause damage.

“Like in my first fight back after losing to Quillan, man, I landed about 40 elbows on the guy while he was on the ground.

“There was actually I point where I was elbowing him and as the referee came creeping in, I could feel him about to say ‘hey defend yourself’ before calling the fight.

“So I pulled it back a bit.

“I was having too much fun.

“The win was irrelevant.

“I wanted to keep hitting the guy.

“And that’s why I’m so grateful for those losses.

“Had I got to this point in my career earlier, I wouldn’t be the fighter I am right now.”