Malcolm Wellmaker has put his name on the map with a vicious knockout win over Langston Sykes for Jorge Masvidal’s MMA promotion.

Over the course of the last few years we’ve seen a couple of new mixed martial arts promotions pop up in an attempt to provide fighters with a new avenue into the sport, and potentially, an eventual one-way ticket to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. It’s easier said than done to get to this point but it always helps if the face at the helm is a current or former UFC star.

Case in point: Khabib Nurmagomedov’s Eagle FC and Jorge Masvidal’s iKON FC.

Khabib has already found a great deal of success within Eagle FC but for Masvidal, iKON is still in its infancy, as proven by the fact that they held just their fourth event on Friday evening.

Jorge has taken part in interviews recently in which he’s said that he wants to pit top stars against one another without giving them easy fights, in a similar manner to Dana White’s Contender Series.

On the aforementioned card on Friday, one of the most intriguing contests saw bantamweights Malcolm Wellmaker and Langston Sykes meet in a highly-anticipated clash to kick off the main card.

After an intriguing first few minutes, Wellmaker landed a left hand that could genuinely be seen as a knockout of the year contender - as the commentator noted.

It was such a nasty shot that Sykes span around entirely and was left out cold on the canvas. Wellmaker, meanwhile, promptly left the cage to celebrate with Masvidal who was watching at cageside.

When will Gamebred return?

While iKON FC continues to thrive, there are still plenty of questions surrounding the future of Jorge Masvidal. His ongoing legal issues in relation to his feud with Colby Covington have been well documented, but there still seems to be an appetite for him to return to the Octagon sooner rather than later.

The veteran has spoken about wanting to take on the likes of Conor McGregor and Gilbert Burns when he does eventually step back into the cage but if he’s serious about fighting before the end of the year, we’ll probably need to see an announcement in the next couple of weeks.