Athletes
Kevin Vallejos | Stepping Things Up To Start Year Two
Emerging Dana White’s Contender Series Grad Talks Rookie Year, Main Event Assignment
When Kevin Vallejos touched down in Las Vegas last December for his clash with Giga Chikadze on the final fight card of the year, he arrived on his birthday, which meant that the celebrations would have to be delayed until after his fight.
As a confessed food lover who has raved about the gloriousness of the first bite of post-fight pizza, postponing his birthday indulgences until his first year in the UFC was complete created an opportunity to crank things up a notch.
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In the penultimate UFC bout of 2025, Vallejos scored the biggest win of his career, registering a second-round knockout win over Chikadze with a spinning backfist, pushing him to 3-0 in his rookie campaign and vaulting him into the Top 15, setting the table, pun intended, for a massive, celebratory feast.
So how was it?
“It was great. Everything added up: the birthday, the win, Christmas, New Years, the holidays and everything else, and I could eat!” Vallejos said with a huge smile. “My biggest fear was to have a fight scheduled for January, but no, so I was able to eat up and enjoy.”
The win over Chikadaze was a huge statement that transformed his first year on the roster from good to great while accelerating the 24-year-old’s rise through the ranks.
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What made the win stand out — beyond the stunning finish — is how well Vallejos adjusted between rounds. He dropped the first on all three scorecards and seemed to have trouble dealing with the Georgian veteran’s range and kicks. As soon as the middle stanza started, the Argentine freshman pushed forward and attacked, clipping Chikadze with a right hand that backed him into the fence and set up the finishing sequence.
“Mostly that I didn’t backpedal,” he said when asked about the changes he made between rounds. “I think the reason I did that was that I was watching out for the kicks — we knew that’s one of his big strengths — so I was trying to stay away from that. In the second round, we said, ‘Hey, go for it!’ That’s why I started pressuring him; that’s how the knockout was built… It was a risk to take the fight against Giga in just my third fight in the organization, but (I don’t want to) miss out on any opportunities — take them when they come, make the most out of it, and continue to learn. We’ve learned a lot this year.
“I’m very happy with the opportunities that we were given and very happy with being ready for those opportunities no matter what — being someone that’s not going to say no, that’s going to take advantage of them, that is always going to be ready, someone that the organization can count on and give them what they want, the fighting style people want… I’m not gonna shy away from challenges. If you think about Arman Tsarukyan, I said, ‘I’m ready to welcome you to 145 if you wanna come,’ so I’m always ready for the opportunities and always willing to take them on.”
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Tsarukyan threw out the idea of venturing down to featherweight to face reigning champ Alexander Volkanovski earlier this year, seeing as his path to the lightweight title is permanently under construction. He hasn’t said anything more about it since and there is no telling on whether the promotion would entertain such an idea, but if Tsarukyan really did want to drop down a division and was required to show he could hit the mark on the scale without issue, Vallejos wanted to make sure that his interest was on the record.
That willingness to step up to whatever challenge is placed before him has already clearly been registered by the UFC, who tapped the ascending Dana White’s Contender Series graduate to headline for the first time in just his fourth bout with the company against former interim title challenger Josh Emmett.
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“This was not supposed to be the next step,” Vallejos said. “We didn’t think they were gonna step it up that high, be ready for something like this, but again, we don’t say, ‘No.’
“When the UFC says that, and they’re willing to give us higher challenges, we’re willing to take them on.”
Emmett, who is set to celebrate his 10-year anniversary as a member of the UFC roster in May, has been a staple of the featherweight Top 15 for the last several years. Seven wins in eight fights carried him into an interim title fight with Yair Rodriguez at UFC 284, and when Spanish upstart Ilia Topuria needed an elite opponent to full prove himself against, Emmett was the man the UFC called.
Since then, he denotated a right hand on the chin of Bryce Mitchell and fell to a pair of emerging names in the division, Lerone Murphy and Youssef Zalal, putting him firmly in the “truth machine” role in the 145-pound weight class.
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“I think he’s gonna bring what he always brings: his pressure, aggression, the knockout power that we know he has,” Vallejos said. “But we know he’s got pressure on him — the pressure to win because he’s coming off losses. He’s the one that’s gonna have to make things happen.
“I’m chill. I’m cool. I’m just gonna fight my way. I’m not the one that has the pressure on me. As people have said, I’m a baby, so basically, I don’t have any pressure in the fight on Saturday.”
Traditionally, Vallejos’ way of fighting has produced finishes. The rising South American star has earned stoppages in 14 of his 17 professional victories, including two of his three UFC wins to date.
But as confident as he is in his striking, his power, and the work that he’s done in the gym, the Argentine recognizes there is great value in getting to compete in a 5-round fight and that banking some additional cage time against a stalwart like Emmett could have great benefits given his championship aspirations.
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“Normally I would say I’m gonna look for the knockout or knock him out, but I know Josh Emmett is a tough, tough opponent, and I think I will be very happy with a war and just winning this fight,” Vallejos explained. “I think we don’t have many opportunities to get 5-round fights, so I’m gonna make the most out of that.
“It’s a learning opportunity, something that is gonna make me evolve, so I don’t mind winning by decision in a very good fight.”
As for what comes next should he earn another victory this weekend, Vallejos showed that he’s learning about how things work outside of the cage just as much as he’s learning how to find success inside the Octagon.
“Actually, to wait, because it doesn’t matter what I ask for — they always give me something else,” he said with a laugh. “So (what comes next) is just to be ready, to have enough time to recover, to continue to train.
“Be ready for the next one, and I’ll just take whatever they give me.”
UFC Fight Night: Emmett vs Vallejos took place live from Meta APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 14, 2026. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!