‘You’re a freak’: Aussie’s ‘unbelievable’ injury reveal and bold Melbourne UFC bid

Jack Jenkins has big plans to make up for lost time.

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The Australian featherweight, who earned a UFC contract after a third-round TKO victory over Freddy Emiliano Linares on the Contender Series, looked to be on an upwards trajectory after following up that win with another two against Don Shainis and Jamall Emmers.

But a loss to Chepe Mariscal, during which he suffered a gruesome elbow injury, had Jenkins thinking his career may have already been over.

“There was this two-day period after the injury where I was waiting to see the surgeon and I had to get myself comfortable with the fact maybe the elbow was never going to be the same,” Jenkins said on Wednesday ahead of his fight against Gabriel Santos at UFC 312.

“I might not be able to get it straightened out completely, which would take away my reach, which would take away my ability to throw a right hand.”

In those two days after the injury, when Jenkins was forced to confront the possibility that after just three fights his UFC career could already be over, it would have been easy to let the gravity of it all consume him.

Instead, it “had the opposite effect”.

“Where I thought if my elbow will heal and I have another chance to do this again, I’m going to make sure I take this with both hands,” Jenkins said.

And that is what Jenkins plans to do if he defeats Santos on Sunday, having already scored a TKO victory against Herbert Burns in his comeback fight last August.

If Jenkins wins this weekend’s fight in dominant fashion, he is planning to face a top-15 ranked opponent in the middle of the year and then a top-10 contender at the end of 2025.

As for 2026? Well, the hope is that Jenkins would have built enough momentum by that point to then get on the phone to the Victorian Government and the UFC.

And his vision? To bring the UFC back to Melbourne for the first time since 2019, with a dream of either headlining or featuring on the co-main event of a Fight Night at Rod Laver Arena.

It is an ambitious goal, but if there is anyone who can pull it off it is Jenkins, who knows what it feels like to be doubted — even by one local he used to pour beers to at the pub.

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“I definitely heard people saying (it), even to my face,” Jenkins said.

“I used to work at a pub and I was talking to a guy once and someone told him that I fight, and want to fight in the UFC.

“And the guy sitting there had a sip of his beer and said, ‘You’ll never beat the yanks. You’ll never beat the Brazilians’. I was just standing there thinking, ‘Watch me. I will’.”

And he has. Four times.

“And I’m about to make it 5-0 on Sunday,” Jenkins added.

Ask his parents, coaches, friends, aunties and uncles — they’ll all tell you the same thing.

“I never lacked self-confidence,” Jenkins said.

Not that he needs to look far for inspiration these days anyway. Jenkins only has to scroll TikTok to find edits of his own highlights, and he’s “addicted to them”.

One in particular, set to Akon’s song ‘Lonely’, “slaps” according to the 31-year-old.

“So thank you to whoever made those edits,” he laughed, “ and keep them coming because I love them”.

There was a time earlier in Jenkins’ career though, before he made it to the UFC, where that confidence could have been tested, after he lost two fights in a row. But it never wavered.

“I was like, ‘No I’m good enough. I’m going to get there’. If I didn’t think I was talented and had the work ethic to be a world champion, I just wouldn’t do it,” Jenkins said.

“I have other things I’m passionate about.”

Like horse racing. Jenkins’ ‘Phar Jack’ nickname, if not obvious, comes from the legendary racehorse and was given to him by a coach when he was younger because he wouldn’t give up and wouldn’t stop training.

“A heart as big as Phar Lap,” as Jenkins recalled.

Jenkins may still only be in the early stages of his UFC career, but at the same time he is aware of the fact that nothing is guaranteed, especially at 31 years old.

“It’s been hard to get fights,” he said.

“I wanted to fight again last year. I don’t have all this time up my sleeve. My body’s in really good shape, so while I’m 31 it’s not like I’m pushing (the) time clock where I need to go, but I don’t want to wait around.

“You’ve got to step up. You’ve got to put on big performances. That’s what the UFC rewards. So this is a perfect fight to be able to do that.”

Santos isn’t the top-15 ranked opponent Jenkins had hoped for. In fact, he admitted on Wednesday that when he was first offered the fight he didn’t know who his Brazilian opponent was.

“So I was a bit disappointed because I thought after the last performance I might get some brand value or name value in my next fight be that a (Edson) Barboza, someone around that mark,” Jenkins added.

Then he started to realise that, like himself, Santos may have not had the number next to his name but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a top-10 talent.

So, Jenkins still sees this as a big opportunity. Not just because of the strength of his opponent, but because of the second chance he has been given after that elbow injury.

After those two days spent worrying and questioning whether this was going to be the end of his career, Jenkins met with his surgeon.

He had watched the footage of the incident and read the MRI. He then grabbed Jenkins’ arm and told him: “Mate, you’re a freak”.

“This is unbelievable how much movement you’ve got, how much the swelling has gone down in such a short amount of time,” the surgeon added.

Jenkins was told the risk of re-injury was very low and from that day, as soon as he knew his career and the shot at a world title hadn’t been taken away from him, his mindset changed.

And when he used that same arm to drop Burns in his comeback fight?

“It was like, I’m here,” Jenkins said.

He has no plans of going anywhere anytime soon either.