Colby Thicknesse (8-1)
Bantamweight – 26 Years Old – Freestyle MMA
Every generation of fighters at every gym produces most of its talent. In addition, each generation produces a small handful of people who seem to absorb information at different rates. Colby Thicknesse has spent the better part of a decade in the same gym and on the same mats. He has also spent the better part of a decade in the same training sessions as one of the greatest featherweights of all time. The bet worth making is that none of it has been wasted.
Thicknesse is from Windang in the Illawarra region of New South Wales – the same area, and crucially the same gym, that produced Alexander Volkanovski. He started wrestling at age 6. Later, he moved into jiu-jitsu as a teenager, and has been developing under coach Joe Lopez at Freestyle MMA ever since.
By the time he was a teenager, he was already coaching the kids’ classes at the gym. He was also working security shifts to fund his fighting. Those details matter, not for their human interest alone, but for what they say about the character of a fighter.
They show the character of someone who has been doing the unglamorous work of building himself into a professional athlete. In fact, he has done so since before most of his peers had decided on a career path. He earned his BJJ black belt in 2022. Furthermore, he carries the nickname “Slickness” for the submission game that has always been the most dangerous element of his arsenal.
Thicknesse’s amateur career set the foundation for his career success. Thicknesse went through the 2020 IMMAF Oceania Open Championships – by his own account, carrying a badly swollen knee through the tournament – to win gold in three bouts over three days. He also won the WKBF Bantamweight title as an amateur. By the time he turned professional, he had eight wins from his amateur career.
On the regional circuit, his quality showed immediately. Wins over Sem Kakembo – a fight he described as his toughest to date, having been dropped twice in the first round before coming back to win – Michael Barber and Michael Mannu across his first four professional fights demonstrated he was not simply a product of a good gym getting easy matchups.
At least to begin with, he was a fighter who could absorb adversity, adjust and find a way through.
His regional career culminated in the HEX Fight Series Bantamweight Championship. He claimed that title via first-round TKO. Then he received the short-notice call that changed everything for Thicknesse.
His UFC debut arrived on short notice and under circumstances laced with storyline. When Cody Haddon withdrew from his scheduled bout against Aleksandre Topuria at UFC 312 in Sydney, Thicknesse got the call – allegedly while sitting in his car on a security shift – and agreed to fight on less than two weeks’ notice. The opponent was no soft touch: Aleksandre Topuria, brother of UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria, arriving with all the hype that name recognition carries. Thicknesse lost a unanimous decision, but the fight itself told a more nuanced story than the scorecards. It was a competitive, back-and-forth three rounds against a highly dangerous opponent. With Volkanovski in his corner and a huge Sydney crowd watching on, it was a big moment. For a man who had been on the other side of UFC fight weeks for years – attending as support crew, learning from ringside – finally being the one under the lights meant everything. The debut was not the result he wanted. Nevertheless, it was the foundation he needed.
He came back with a statement. At UFC Perth in September 2025, Thicknesse took on Josias Musasa and won by unanimous decision.
He registered his first UFC victory on home soil. This fight demonstrated the ability to get back on the horse after his debut setback.
Now 1-1 in the UFC, he faces Vince Morales on May 2 in Perth – a gritty, experienced veteran. Morales has competed at some of the highest levels of the bantamweight division and is never easy to look good against. It is a fight that could, with the right performance, establish Thicknesse as a genuine mid-divisional presence. Thus, he could become more than just a prospect with good lineage.
It would be honest to say that Thicknesse has not always faced the strongest competition on the regional scene. Questions about the ceiling of his raw talent are entirely fair ones. What is also fair is recognising that raw talent refined in proximity to elite training is a very different proposition from raw talent left to develop in isolation. Thicknesse has sparred and trained alongside Volkanovski for years. Volkanovski has said publicly that Thicknesse has been his main training partner for most of his career. He called him the hardest worker he knows, and described a dedication and commitment that Thicknesse himself backs up with the way he has conducted his career. This includes coaching kids’ classes as a teenager to accepting a UFC debut on ten days’ notice. That preparation, that character, and a skill set with genuine finishing ability in multiple areas give Thicknesse all the ingredients he needs. The question is whether UFC Perth is the fight where they all come together. Moreover, it is whether the performance against Morales finally gives a wider audience the chance to see what the Illawarra export has been producing alongside its most famous export.
