Kody Steele explains why UFC Perth feels like he's fighting for free

Kody Steele and Australia is an unlikely collaboration but one the UFC has facilitated now in back-to-back fights.

At UFC Fight Night 275 on Saturday, Steele (7-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) will take the long trip across the pound to Perth when he battles home country fighter Dom Mar Fan (9-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC) at RAC Arena.

"We'll see how the crowd reacts to me," Steele recently told MMA Junkie Radio. "But I'm down for any of that. I'm game. I'm not too worried about it. If they want to boo me, then we can play."

Steele, 31, came into the UFC with a lot of hype, as still a relatively knew MMA practitioner who had made a name for himself for his grappling prowess and hefty power. However, he came up short in his promotional debut in Sydney in February 2025 when he was upset by Zhu Rong.

When the offer for the upcoming fight came through as Australia, Steele accepted it, though he admits he'd preferred to fight down the street at the Meta APEX. For fighters on their rookie contracts, the associated costs with an Australian adventure can be neutralizing. The UFC pays for the fighter and coach to travel, but many athletes pay out of pocket for subsequent cornermen to attend.

"If you get there early, like for me, getting somewhere like Perth is kind of a struggle," Steele said. "I need to get there a little early so I can adjust. But the UFC won't cover that stay. So it's kind of a pain in the ass to go all the way over there to do it. It sucks. We're going into the cage, risking our health, going crazy. The least they can do is pay for our coaches and staying and stuff. But I guess we're not there yet."

"... I feel like in my mind I'm fighting for free. Especially, I'm on my first contract still. I'm going to get taxed like crazy out in Perth. I'm going to fly my team out. I'm going to house them and make sure they have a place to stay. In my eyes, I'm not going to see much from this show and win. I'm pretty much fighting for free. So if I want to get my check, I've got to go get a finish, or I'm going to go get Performance of the Night and get that $100,000. My show and win, that's going to be gone. It sucks, but it is what it is."

Whether it was in Las Vegas or in Perth or on the moon, Steele said he's approaching this fight differently than his debut. Rather than just going in to have fun and mix it up, he's taking a much more calculated approach. He thinks fighting smart will pay its dividends.

"My last fight, to be honest, I wasn't gung-ho on it," Steele said. "I didn't really feel like I wanted to take a fight yet. I got into the UFC through Contender Series. Then, I was like, 'Sick, I'm in.' Now, it's time to fix more things and get to work and fix the things that I know I need to work on before I hit my debut. Then, the debut came out of nowhere and I was like, 'F*ck.' I was like all right, 'Whatever, I'll just go in there.' So I had a lot of things in my game that I was not confident in. I kind of was just thinking in my head before my last fight, 'I'm going to go out there and show my balls, show how tough I am, and it's going to be killed or be killed. Either I'm going to knock him out or he's going to knock me out.' That's kind of my game plan.