UFC is back in Perth for the fourth consecutive year, and Saturday’s card will run in prime time locally at RAC Arena, with Jack Della Maddalena headlining against Carlos Prates. For U.S. viewers, the prelims begin at 4:00 am EST and the main card at 7:00 am EST.
Della Maddalena is making his first appearance since dropping the title to Islam Makhachev at Madison Square Garden last November, a setback that ended a run in which he had looked dominant across his eight previous UFC fights. He had won the welterweight title over Belal Muhammad at UFC 315, and now gets a chance to re-enter a division that remains crowded at the top.
Prates has forced his way into the same conversation. After suffering his first UFC loss last April, he answered with consecutive highlight-reel finishes, knocking out Geoff Neal with a spinning back elbow in Chicago in August and then stopping former champ Leon Edwards at MSG three months later. He earned Performance of the Night bonuses for both wins, the kind of surge that turns a one-night assignment into a statement.
The co-main event keeps the pressure on the lightweight division, with Beneil Dariush meeting Quillan Salkilld. Dariush returned from a torn meniscus in 2024 with a win over Renato Moicano at UFC 317, but he then suffered a 16-second knockout loss to Benoit Saint Denis in November. Salkilld, meanwhile, debuted in the UFC last February with a first-round knockout of Anshul Jubli and has since added wins over Yaal Ashmouz and Nasrat Haqparast.
That mix gives the Perth card a clear shape: a returning former champion trying to steady his place, a fast-rising contender trying to claim one, and a lightweight co-main that could tell as much about the next layer of the division as the main event does about the top. For readers following the rest of the event, UFC Perth also includes bouts such as Junior Tafa vs. Kevin Christian, Themba Gorimbo against undefeated Jonathan Micallef, and Colby Thicknesse facing Vince Morales.
