Fans, at UFC 302, will witness the return of one Mickey Gall against Bassil Hafez in the early prelims. He had departed from Dana White‘s promotion almost a couple of years ago, but why? Today, we will dive deep into that incident as Gall gears up for his first MMA fight since leaving the UFC.

Mickey Gall was only 24 years old when he stepped into the bright lights of the phenomenon known as the UFC. What was surprising was that he came into the world’s biggest MMA promotion with just one professional fight under his belt. It’s an absolutely rare occurrence, which begs the question: why would Dana White release him since he was highly rated? Well, Gall may not have anyone but himself to blame.

The real reason for Mickey Gall’s departure from the UFC

Mickey Gall was one of those fighters who did not know any other MMA promotion than the UFC. Most of his career was spent fighting under that flag. The 32-year-old even had a flying start to his UFC run, raking in 4 wins in a row. But then, things started to go into a downward spiral for the Green Brook native.

From 2017 to 2021, Mickey Gall would find it difficult to maintain consistency. He would lose one fight and then win the next one, resulting in him racking up a record of 4 wins and 4 losses during that period. But that happens to a lot of UFC fighters, doesn’t it? The final nail in the coffin for Gall was his last two fights, which were back-to-back losses.

With his last two uneventful outings, Mickey Gall would fight out his UFC contract. However, there was still an option for the promotion’s execs to re-sign him again to a new contract. But that didn’t happen, and getting released was in order. After leaving the UFC, he disappeared from the MMA world before returning by signing up again with the promotion a few months back.

Despite his initial UFC run not turning out the way he wanted it to, Mickey Gall still got the limelight for one of his biggest career highlights against WWE superstar CM Punk.

Gall got the spotlight for wrecking CM Punk on his debut

When professional wrestling megastar CM Punk decided to replace his wrestling trunks with UFC gloves, he did not know what was coming. People were already skeptical about his chances inside the eight-sided walls since he was 36 years old when he made his debut at UFC 203. And whom did Dana White decide to put him inside the Octagon with? None other than Mickey Gall, who had scrambled only once at that point in Dana White’s promotion.

What is your view regarding how the fight ended up going down? Well, 2 minutes and 14 seconds were all Mickey Gall needed to finish off CM Punk and make him realize the obvious difference between WWE and the UFC. That win was a boost to Gall’s popularity within the MMA community, getting him more eyes in the promotion.

It will be interesting to see if Mickey Gall can get off to a flyer this time like he did when he joined the UFC last time. What do you think? Will Gall beat Bassil Hafez? Drop your comments below.