Josh Emmett is set to headline Saturday\u2019s UFC Vegas 114 against surging contender Kevin Vallejos, and he knows he needs to get his hand raised.<\/p>\n
The featherweight knockout artist enters the bout on a two-fight skid, and 1-4 in his past five \u2013 with the lone win coming via vicious knockout of Bryce Mitchell. Now that he\u2019s facing another rising featherweight, Emmett knows how pivotal this matchup is for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I don\u2019t feel like my back\u2019s against the wall, but feel like it\u2019s a must-win,\u201d Emmett told MMA Fighting. \u201cI need to go in there and just win. Everything that I\u2019m trying to chase and achieve, I have to win. It\u2019s like winning is everything to me, and I put in hundreds and hundreds of hours for this potentially 25 minute fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I need to go out there and just be me and just be relaxed and and and fight this guy the way that, the way that I fight, and he\u2019s not going to show me anything I haven\u2019t seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his most recent bout, Emmett was submitted in just 98 seconds by Youssef Zalal at UFC 320 this past October. Prior to that, Emmett lost a decision to Lerone Murphy in the main event of UFC Vegas 105 in April 2025. The other two losses during the stretch were to former interim champ Yair Rodriguez and current lightweight champ Ilia Topuria.<\/p>\n
Emmett knows he has a massive experience advantage in the fight \u2013 not just with opposition, but experiencing all of the highs and lows the sport has to offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been doing this for a long time, and some of the most important fights of my life, I was probably at my worst\u2026 I just wasn\u2019t at my best, I\u2019ll say that,\u201d Emmett said. \u201cSo that\u2019s why I took 2024 off, the entire year off to get healthy and get back to feeling great, which I did. And then I came in, I fought Lerone Murphy, we fought a main event, five-round fight. It just and that didn\u2019t go my way. And look, he\u2019s fighting for the number one contender spot the week after me. So it\u2019s like, I know I can compete with any of these guys. I know I can beat any of these guys. I know I can.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then the last fight, I just got caught. I got caught, that\u2019s what happens in this sport sometimes. I felt phenomenal, the best I ever felt, and it was over like that. I didn\u2019t even feel like I fought, you know? It\u2019s so frustrating to me. But yeah, what can you do? That\u2019s life. So I\u2019ve got to just get up, work on not letting that happen again, and figure out what I have to do to get better, and that everything went perfect [and] according to plan this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s highs and lows in this sport, but you have to have a short memory, and you have to just move on, because I\u2019m not going to sit there and dwell on the past. It\u2019s going to do you no good, especially when you\u2019re trying to move forward and achieve greatness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vallejos was a hyped talent coming off of Dana White\u2019s Contender Series \u2013 losing to Jean Silva in one of the best DWCS fights ever in his first appearance, and then punching his UFC ticket with a quick knockout a year later. The Argentinian standout is 3-0 in the UFC with a pair of stoppages, including a bonus-winning knockout of Giga Chikadze this past December at UFC Vegas 112.<\/p>\n
Emmett knows why he\u2019s the guy standing across from Vallejos and expects to get the fight he wants.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s done well,\u201d Emmett explained. \u201cHe\u2019s tough. Honestly, I did not know who he was when my manager called me and said they wanted me to fight him, but then they mentioned the Giga knockout. I saw the highlight of that, and then obviously, since I was going to fight him, then we started watching film and stuff like that on him, and he\u2019s good.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone in the UFC is good and they\u2019re trying to push him, and it doesn\u2019t matter. I like the matchup though, I\u2019ll tell you that. He\u2019s going to come forward and he\u2019s going to strike with me. So I can\u2019t wait for Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Emmett is set to headline Saturday\u2019s UFC Vegas 114 against surging contender Kevin Vallejos, and he knows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-537902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}