Emil Meek | Chris Unger
The Norwegian is coming back after a year plus layoff to face Jake Matthews in New Zealand on the evening’s preliminary card.
It has been a turbulent last few years for Emil Meek but he is hoping this weekend will be the turning point he needs to get his career back on track.
Meek (9-4, 1NC) was signed by the UFC in 2016 off the back of a highlight reel KO of Rousimar Palhares and he was victorious in his promotional debut against Jordan Mein. However, this momentum came to a grinding halt when an injury kept him out of the cage for over twelve months and he dropped a unanimous decision to Kamaru Usman on his return. In his last outing, the Norwegian suffered another loss to Bartosz Fabinski and then went quiet.
The 31-year-old hasn’t competed since July 2018 because he had an unavoidable surgery due to an injury. Meek’s team told the UFC to give them time and that they’d let them know when he was ‘ready to bang.’ As is the case with most of Meek’s injuries, the whole process was complicated and wasn’t easy to fix.
Jake Matthews is the man who has been tasked with welcoming Meek back to competition this weekend. Matthews (15-4) will be making the walk to the octagon for the thirteenth time on Saturday after spending a considerable amount of his career in the promotion. The Australian has shared the cage with James Vick, Kevin Lee and Li Jingliang so is no stranger to competing against high-level martial artists. Meek knows the talent that Matthews possesses but is planning on stealing the show despite being on the preliminary card.
“Jake is a solid fighter and has incredible talent,” stated Meek. “I’m expecting the best version of him to push forward and throw bombs at me. The fans will see an exciting, hard-hitting Aussie and a relentless, wild Viking! I predict violence and a TKO victory for me in the third round. It’s got fight of the night written all over it and I’m coming for that 50k bonus!”
This is the last fight on Meek’s contract and he is also coming off of two losses, so some would say that he has got a lot of pressure going into this bout. Meek disagrees with this opinion though and said that while pressure makes some crumble, it makes him perform better. He also doesn’t plan on exploring what other options are out there as he would prefer to stay in the UFC ‘where the best fighters are.’
Not only has Meek got to contend with facing a tough opponent off the back of a long-term injury, but he also has to travel half way across the world to Auckland, New Zealand in search of victory. It isn’t far from Matthew’s home country of Australia so he is likely to have lots of fans supporting him in attendance. Meek doesn’t mind this though as he’s ‘always going into enemy territory to conquer and burn boats’ so nothing is different. He’s enjoyed New Zealand so far and acknowledged that it is full of good people who respect the athletes. However, that won’t stop him from intending to fulfill his main aim going into Saturday night.
“I’m looking to redeem myself from those last two losses,” mentioned Meek. “I’ve been working with Gray Maynard for this camp and I can say for sure that we’ve brought things to a whole new level. Valhalla 2.0 is coming and we are here to make a statement.”
UFC Fight Night: Felder v Hooker prelims can be viewed on BT Sport 3 at 10pm GMT on Saturday night in the UK and Ireland. Fans in the US can tune in from 4pmET/3pmCT on ESPN+.