McMillen reveals Rahiki sought mutual respect after their UFC Fight of the Night war

Tommy McMillen remained undefeated at 12-0 after outpointing Marwan Rahiki by unanimous decision in the featherweight division at Noche UFC 4, a three-round war that earned both men Fight of the Night honours.

The bout had been framed as a genuine grudge match heading in, with both unbeaten prospects — McMillen at 12-0, Rahiki at 9-0 — trading verbal barbs during the build-up. But the hostility evaporated at the final bell. McMillen says Rahiki, suffering the first professional loss of his career, approached him with a fist bump and what read as a search for acknowledgement.

“He was kind of looking at me, pleading for respect,” McMillen told Full Send MMA. “I was just like, alright, like that was a pretty cool fight… Fck outta here, dude. Cause at the end of the day, even though I’m talking sht to these guys, if you go watch back, I’m smiling all the time. I’m a gangster, down to fight anybody. It’s all fun and games to me.”

McMillen, nicknamed “Gun”, says the pre-fight needle is a performance rather than genuine animosity. He describes his trash-talk as a consistent part of his fight-week routine — one he never takes personally, regardless of how heated the rhetoric becomes publicly.

The fight itself lived up to the tension the build-up generated. Both featherweights went toe-to-toe across all three rounds in a back-and-forth exchange that the judges ultimately scored in McMillen’s favour. The Fight of the Night bonus reflected how competitive the contest was, even if the outcome was one-sided on the scorecards.

With the win, McMillen cements his status as one of the more compelling unbeaten prospects in the UFC’s featherweight division. Rahiki, meanwhile, absorbs his first career defeat but exits with his reputation largely intact after pushing a 12-0 fighter to the kind of fight that earns post-event bonuses.