Jacob Malkoun Hits 186 Pounds, Locking In UFC 333 Prelim Clash

Jacob Malkoun officially hit the scale at 186 pounds for UFC 333, locking in his middleweight prelim bout against Abubakar Vagaev. Stepping on a scale in your underwear is the only time in sports where doing absolutely nothing is treated like a major press conference, but in the fight game, it is the most important part of the week.

Hitting 186 is exactly the non-title middleweight limit. For anyone holding a betting slip on this matchup, the biggest hurdle of the week is officially cleared. There is nothing worse than handicapping a fight for two weeks only to watch a guy miss weight by four pounds and completely nuke the odds.

"MMA Fighting reported Malkoun's official weight at 186 pounds."

The 31-year-old Australian brings a 10-3 record into Abu Dhabi. Fighting out of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, Malkoun has quietly built a solid resume, though he is still looking for that signature win to push him up the middleweight ladder.

This prelim scrap is the appetizer for a massive card at Etihad Arena. When you are fighting on the undercard of Alexander Volkanovski defending his featherweight belt against the undefeated Movsar Evloev, you need to make some noise to get noticed. Throw in the Petr Yan and Merab Dvalishvili trilogy fight, and the spotlight is incredibly crowded.

Now that the scale drama is out of the way, Malkoun gets to rehydrate and actually focus on the fistfight. If he can get past Vagaev on Sunday, he might finally start getting the main-card respect he has been chasing.