UFC Winnipeg Results: 7 MMA and BJJ Takeaways
The weekend kicked off with one of the loudest statement finishes of 2026 and ended with one of the most emotional retirements in recent UFC memory. Mike Malott uppercut Gilbert Burns into a walk-off career finale, Charles Jourdain survived a three-round phone booth war in the co-main, and the undercard delivered one of the best top-to-bottom Fight Night cards of the year. Meanwhile, Pomona was packed with grapplers chasing eight gold tickets to ADCC. Here is everything you need to know from a loaded weekend of MMA and BJJ.
1. Mike Malott Uppercuts Gilbert Burns Into Retirement at UFC Winnipeg
Canada Life Centre was already a powder keg before the cage door even shut. By the time referee Marc Goddard waved it off at 2:49 of round three, the building was shaking and Gilbert Burns was sitting on the canvas with his career flashing behind his eyes. Malott, fighting in front of his home country, dropped Durinho with an uppercut down the pipe, walked him into a right hand, and finished the job on the floor with hammerfists.
It was not a flash KO. Malott earned it. Burns attempted seven takedowns and converted zero. He ate repeated left hooks and uppercuts throughout the second round, visibly slowing, visibly hurt, and visibly unable to solve a taller striker who refused to plant his feet. Malott landed 61 significant strikes to Burns’ 36 and controlled every exchange after the halfway point of round one.
The retirement moment came immediately after. Burns removed his gloves in the center of the Octagon, called his family in, and delivered a tearful speech thanking the UFC, his teammates at Kill Cliff FC, and his coach Henri Hooft. It was the fifth straight loss for the former welterweight title challenger and his third KO defeat in that stretch. His last win was against Jorge Masvidal back in April 2023. A black belt under Hooft and a multiple-time IBJJF and ADCC medalist before he ever laced gloves, Burns leaves the sport as one of the most decorated jiu-jitsu-to-MMA crossovers of his generation.
For Malott (14-2-1), this is the win the Niagara-based welterweight has been chasing since 2022. Beating a ranked, decorated, finish-hunting Burns inside his home country officially ends the “prospect” conversation. He called out Ian Machado Garry and Shavkat Rakhmonov from the Octagon. The top 10 is no longer a ceiling for him. It is a starting line.
2. Charles Jourdain Survives the Phone Booth to Outlast Kyler Phillips
The co-main was a bantamweight stylistic clash that turned into a fifteen-minute brawl. Kyler “The Matrix” Phillips opened strong with pressure and three minutes of grinding top control in round one. Jourdain, always the pressure-tester, got back to his feet and started swinging. By the closing seconds of round one, Phillips’ right eye was already beginning to swell.
Rounds two and three belonged to “Air” Jourdain. The Quebec veteran landed check hooks off the fence, cracked spinning elbows on the exit, and put on a clinic in volume striking while absorbing Phillips’ best shots on the inside. Three judges scored it 29-28 across the board for Jourdain, ending a two-fight losing streak for the 30-year-old and putting him back on the fringe of the rankings at 135.
Phillips, for his part, did nothing to disgrace his ranking. The fight was competitive throughout. But on a night where a Canadian needed the home crowd, the home crowd got two of them in the top two fights of the card.
3. Undercard KO of the Night: Herbert Pulls a Rabbit Out of the Hat vs Nallo
If you turned the card off after the Burns finish, you missed one of the best comeback knockouts of the year. Jai Herbert came into his fight with Mandel Nallo behind on the scorecards, losing exchanges in the first, and trading in deep water. Then in round two, Herbert cracked Nallo with a right hand on the break and detonated a follow-up left hook that turned the Canadian’s lights off before he hit the mat.
Herbert has now won three of his last four, and this one was the type of finish that lives on highlight reels. It was also a reminder why Fight Night cards often deliver more absolute violence per dollar than pay-per-views with four-title co-mains.
4. Rest of the Card: Barbosa, Saricam, and a First-Round Back Take
Marcio Barbosa needed exactly 70 seconds to dispatch Dennis Buzukja, catching the New Yorker flush with a right hand on the open and swarming the finish. Gokhan Saricam finished Tanner Boser in round two with a thudding overhand right that ended the Canadian’s night and his four-fight winning streak.
On the prelims, Robert Valentin put his BJJ pedigree on display with a first-round rear-naked choke finish of Julien LeBlanc, taking the back off a failed Leblanc trip attempt and finishing cleanly. Melissa Croden outworked Daria Zhelezniakova over fifteen minutes to sweep the cards 29-28 across the board in one of the most competitive prelim scraps of the night. This was a Paramount+ card top to bottom. There were four knockouts, one submission, and one judges’ decision that felt like a knockout by the end of round three.
5. ADCC West Coast Trials: 700+ Grapplers, Eight Tickets, One Weekend
While Winnipeg was getting its face punched in, the Fairplex Expo Hall in Pomona was packed with more than 700 competitors grinding through the 2026 ADCC West Coast Trials. Eight slots. Two days. Zero second chances.
The 88kg bracket was, on paper, one of the deepest in recent trials history. Previous ADCC trials winner Jacob Couch was there. So was PGF champ Ryan Aitken. So was the UFC BJJ promotion’s rising star Andy Varela. All three in one eight-man absolute gauntlet where only the winner punches a ticket to ADCC 2026. Sarah Galvão, fresh off her historic double-gold Pans run, was also on the bracket in the women’s divisions looking to add a world championship ticket to her 2026 trophy case.
This is the last North American trials event of the season. Anyone who did not qualify in Sao Paulo, Belgrade, or the first NA trials earlier this year either booked their spot today or started a one-year wait. By the time we all wake up tomorrow morning in Taipei, there will be eight brand-new ADCC 2026 qualifiers. For anyone who trains no-gi, this is the most important weekend of the grappling calendar.
6. IBJJF Pans Ripples: Galvão’s Historic Weekend Still Shaping Rankings
We covered the IBJJF Pans 2026 in depth earlier this week, but the aftershocks are still being felt. Sarah Galvão’s double-gold run, including an open-class upset of super-heavyweight favorite Gabi Pessanha in the absolute final, has already started shifting the women’s pound-for-pound rankings. Gabriel Ribeiro’s men’s absolute title, Tainan Dalpra’s middleweight gold, and Diego “Pato” Oliveira’s light-featherweight win all kept them on pace for potential Grand Slam sweeps in 2026.
The knock-on effect into this weekend’s ADCC trials was immediate. With six of the top ten women’s P4P grapplers and a stacked men’s field now all looking at Vegas in September, the sport has not had this much parity and this much narrative compression in years. If you have ever wondered whether jiu-jitsu was having a mainstream moment, this is it. The current UFC contract with Paramount+ even has a UFC BJJ promotion running monthly cards on the same streamer that carried the Burns retirement night.
7. What’s Next: UFC BJJ 8 Looms, Plus a Stacked Late-May Calendar
The combat-sports engine does not slow down in 2026. Next up on the MMA side, UFC returns to the Apex for another Fight Night card headlined by an intriguing middleweight main event. On the grappling side, UFC BJJ 8 hits May 21, free on YouTube, with Mikey Musumeci defending his strap against Diogo Dantzler in a fight that has been quietly brewing since the start of the year. We broke down the stakes in our earlier UFC BJJ analysis, and Dantzler is a tougher stylistic matchup for Mikey than most casual fans realize.
And if you want to cool down from the Burns farewell with a full UFC Winnipeg highlight reel, here is the official post-fight content direct from the UFC’s channel:
For full round-by-round scoring and a broader breakdown of the entire card, Sherdog’s play-by-play file is the cleanest public record, and the UFC’s official results page has every post-fight interview in one place.
Weekend Takeaways
Three things stood out. First, Malott is not a prospect anymore. He is a top-ten welterweight and probably on a short list for a ranked opponent by the end of the summer. Second, Gilbert Burns deserves a hell of a send-off. A jiu-jitsu world champion who became a UFC title challenger is a résumé almost nobody else in the sport can match, and his retirement speech captured what two decades in the hurt business actually looks like when the last round finally ends. Third, jiu-jitsu is having a cultural moment that has nothing to do with MMA and everything to do with ADCC, UFC BJJ, and the Pans-to-Worlds pipeline that is creating recognizable superstars like Galvão, Dalpra, and Pato.
The biggest short-term question now is matchmaking. Malott should get a ranked welterweight next, Jourdain has played his way back into meaningful bantamweight fights, and Burns leaves behind a résumé that deserves respect from both MMA fans and jiu-jitsu people. On the grappling side, ADCC West Coast Trials and the Pans fallout are giving no-gi fans a genuinely stacked spring calendar instead of a dead zone between majors.
Sources
- UFC Winnipeg main card results — official UFC recap for Malott vs Burns and Jourdain vs Phillips.
- UFC Winnipeg prelim results — official UFC recap for Herbert, Valentin, and the prelim winners.
- Sherdog play-by-play for UFC Winnipeg — round-by-round scoring context and retirement details.
- FloGrappling ADCC West Coast Trials preview — bracket context and key names in Pomona.
- IBJJF results hub — standings reference connected to the Pans ripple section.
- IBJJF Pans 2026: 7 Must-Watch Standouts — Taipei BJJ internal coverage of the weekend’s gi storylines.
- UFC BJJ 7 Results: 7 Essential Takeaways — Taipei BJJ internal coverage for the UFC BJJ reference point.
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