Athletes
Jamie Mullarkey | Itching to Fight
Australian Lightweight Discusses Time Away, Renewed Passion, Returning On Home Soil
From the time he made his professional MMA debut at BRACE 23 in Townsville, Australia, in late October 2013 through his bout with Mauricio Ruffy at UFC 301 last year in Rio de Janeiro, the longest Jamie Mullarkey had gone between fights was 14 months. In a career spanning a dozen years and 25 fights, he’d only ever gone a year or more without competing twice: once after he suffered consecutive losses on the regional scene, and again between his first and second UFC appearances.
This weekend in Perth, the veteran Australian lightweight ends a 16-month hiatus when he steps into the Octagon against Rolando Bedoya, and as you can imagine, he’s chomping at the bit to get back in there.
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“Aw man — I gotta go do s***!” Mullarkey said, walking around Perth on a sunny Thursday morning, literally doing what he said he needed to do in order to deal with excitement and anticipation coursing through his veins as he readies to end the longest layoff of his career. “I gotta go get it out of my head.”
Fighters rarely choose to take big, long breaks in the middle of their careers, especially when they’re competing at the highest level. After years spent grafting on smaller shows, building the resume needed to reach the UFC, the idea of pressing pause and resetting is the polar opposite of how many competitors approach things. Everything is about pushing through, continuing to grind, sacrificing time and again because there are myriad people that would kill to trade places with you, and taking a break is the last thing most athletes ever think about doing.
But our bodies need rest, as do our minds, and after a punishing fight with Ruffy in Rio, Mullarkey knew that he needed to take a step back for a while if he was ever going to resume taking steps forward.
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“I needed a good break after my last fight — for the head, the soul, just let myself get that itch and that hunger back,” explained the 31-year-old lightweight, who has gone 5-6 through his first 11 UFC starts, earning a reputation as a tough out in the 155-pound weight class. “I had a little rest, went overseas, went back to being a human.
“I wanted to get back in there at the start of the year, but a little bit of health issues had me sidelined for longer than I would have liked,” continued Mullarkey, who shifted his training to Freestyle MMA under Joe Perez and alongside featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski in January. “I kept getting some staph infections and it was nasty, man; I couldn’t get rid of it. It was with me for a couple months and I had to have some time off the gym.
Jamie Mullarkey TKOs Devonte Smith | UFC Fight Night: Santos vs Walker
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Jamie Mullarkey TKOs Devonte Smith | UFC Fight Night: Santos vs Walker
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“It’s really under-looked, I think,” he said of the need to take time away from the sport in order to allow your mind and body a chance to rest and reset. “It’s so important to just have some time off, which I hadn’t for a long time — I was just grinding, grinding, grinding, working through injuries. I needed a good little reset and had to fall back in love with the sport again.”
And now that the fire has been rekindled, “The Hooligan” is clawing at the walls to step into the Octagon and get after it this weekend.
“It’s unreal,” he said with a smile when asked about his excitement level and renewed passion ahead of this weekend’s clash with Bedoya. “I’ve got that itch back. I want to get back in there and hurt someone. Unfortunately, that’s just part of the game — this is the fight business and you have to be excited and really hungry to kill, and that’s the feeling I’ve got again.”
Every fighter is different when it comes to their feelings about fighting on home soil, but Mullarkey is someone who has always relished the chance to compete in Australia, both because of the energy in the arena and the backing provided by the partisan crowd, but also for little things like remaining on your normal circadian rhythm and not having to deal with jetlag.
In that regard, the fact that his absence extended a little longer than he had wanted, but lined up with him making his return on home soil, feels like an “everything is coming together perfectly” situation for the hungry scrapper.
“It couldn’t have gone any more perfectly,” said Mullarkey, whose last two UFC victories have come in Australia, when asked about making his return in Perth. “Comeback fight, into the win column, and doing it at home; it couldn’t be much sweeter.
“It’s meant to be.”
As an added bonus, he’ll be lined up across from the kind of dance partner he likes to tango with as well.
“He’s a goer, man; he’s a goer,” he said of Bedoya, the 28-year-old Peruvian he’ll share the Octagon with this weekend. “I had seen him fight — I watch his fight against Jai Herbert, so it rung a bell when the name popped up.”
Bedoya impressed in his short-notice promotional debut in the spring of 2023, battling Khaos Williams tooth-and-nail over 15 minutes only to land on the wrong side of a split decision verdict in a bout many people believed he’d done enough to win at UFC 288. The performance left observers clamoring to see what he would do as an encore and with a full training camp behind him, but unfortunately for Bedoya, his last two outings have fallen short of his first, sending him into this one on a three-fight skid.
But that’s likely to have Bedoya coming out with even more fire in his belly, and that sounds perfect to Mullarkey.
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“He’s a goer — he likes to draw a line in the Octagon and go toe-to-toe and I love fighting them guys, man,” he said with a grin. “It brings out the best in me. It’s gonna be a good fight.”
As he strolled around Perth while we chatted, you could tell just how eager the Aussie veteran is to step in and mix it up again. Until these last 16 months, it’s what he’s done routinely for the last dozen years of his life, and being without it for this long has brought him to a place where the days and hours and minutes can’t tick away fast enough.
But as much as he wants to hear the roar of the crowd as he walks out, and step in there and trade hands with Bedoya, the bigger question is how good is it going to feel to do those two things and then stand triumphant in the center of the Octagon for the first time in two years?
Before he could muster an answer, Mullarkey looked skyward, his grin growing into a full-blown smile.
“Aw… indescribable; that’s how good it’s gonna feel.”
UFC Fight Night: Ulberg vs Reyes took place live from RAC Arena in Perth, Australia on September 27, 2025. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!