As we spoke, the surging Canadian disclosed that he’s been chatting with UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby about his next matchup and that he’s confident that all the pieces will come together soon, allowing him to get into the Octagon in the first quarter of 2026 and continue his push towards the Top 15.
But Jourdain isn’t content with waiting for things to happen, either; he’s more of a “speak things into existence” type, or at the very least, someone who isn’t afraid to tell you how his ideal year maps out when you ask him about it over an early morning Zoom call.
“I saw that UFC 326 is very beautifully stacked and I would love to be a part of that card,” he began, wish-casting where his 2026 debut will take place. “It’s violently stacked with the main event for the BMF belt. This is a very violent card, and I would like to be on the BMF card, so let’s see what the UFC does.
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“My vision — which could be derailed by so many things, and I’m not looking ahead, and I don’t want to sound pretentious, but I’m trying to visualize a path, so my goal would be to beat the man they put in front of me and then aim up.
“I doubt Deiveson Figueiredo will beat Umar (Nurmagomedov), which is soon, so Figueiredo, ‘The God of War’ —when you have a title like that, I cannot have someone above me with that title; there is no way. I’m ‘Air,’ but I’m gonna be called ‘Ares’ for this fight; another version of the god of war.
“I’d love to fight Deiveson Figueiredo, and from there on, it depends on what is going on with Merab (Dvalishvili) and Petr (Yan), because they’ve beaten everybody right now. There are so many great things with the ‘35ers. We’ll see if they give Merab a rematch. There are a lot of guys that haven’t fought Yan; there is (Sean) O’Malley, who has beaten Yan; there is so much traffic right now, including Aiemann (Zahabi) as well.