Brendan Allen had everything working against him going into Saturday’s UFC Vancouver main event on short notice, but rather than falter, he made it look like it was Reinier de Ridder who had less than four weeks to prepare for a five-round battle.
Originally, Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez was set to serve as the other half of the middleweight headliner but an injury knocked him off the card and Allen didn’t blink when the UFC came calling to offer him the fight. While it wasn’t an ideal circumstance, Allen was confident he could get ready in time. More importantly he knew he had the experience to dig deep in the toughest moments of any fight, while he personally witnessed de Ridder call it quits in the past.
“You can see it when he fought the Russian guy [Anatoly Malykhin] for the second time in ONE, he did the same thing,” Allen said at the UFC Vancouver post-fight press conference. “I think the third or fourth round, the same thing. I knew I could get it done. 25 minutes is a very, very long time to take punishment.
“I didn’t think he would be able to do it. He took a round longer than I thought but I also didn’t start off too hot in the first. Three rounds of dominance.”
While he was competing in ONE Championship, de Ridder fell to Malykhin in back-to-back fights with the first ending by knockout. The rematch saw “RDR” retire during the third round after absorbing too much punishment.
That was all the information Allen needed to know he could do the same thing to de Ridder in their fight.
While de Ridder did get off to a fast start after taking Allen to the ground and controlling him for almost the entire first round, that much output also played a part in his downfall.
Allen scored a reversal in the second round and after he landed on top of de Ridder, he knew immediately he was going to stay in control until the fight was over.
“I knew I think it was the second [round] when I stayed on top and was just hitting him and hitting him,” Allen said about the moment he knew de Ridder was broken. “I just didn’t want to blow my load, I guess you could say, no weird thing intended. I didn’t want to tank myself by trying to get him out of there. If I would have had like six weeks, for sure, I would have gave him more. I just was trying to be smart. I knew if I get him down again, I know I’m going to get him off. I told other people, there’s no way he can keep that pressure, he was trying so hard, squeezing so hard in the first, there’s no way that he can keep that for more than two rounds let alone five.
“I just stayed smart, stayed composed. Like I said before, I speak grappling fluently. That’s fine, you can have that round. 25 minutes, no problem. I’ll move a little bit and try to see where he’s going and how the movements are and just keep calculating. Keep logging the data that’s occurring and that’s what I did. Got him off in the second and just started to punish him.”
Allen knew he lost the first round, but de Ridder exerting so much energy trying to put him away likely played a part in his eventual exhaustion.
There were moments where the referee actually had to urge de Ridder to get back to his feet or the fight was going to be stopped. After de Ridder returned to his corner at the end of the fourth round, his coaches knew the fight was over.
“Five rounds, three and a half weeks of training. I just wanted to come out and be sharp,” Allen said. “He got the throw [in the first round]. I thought I stepped over but obviously I didn’t step over his feet. He hit the throw. I’ve hit the same throw on other people. It’s a nice throw. Good on him. Just little mistakes. Like I said, it took me a minute to get going, get the wheels going but like I said, 25 minutes is a very long time. I’ve done 25 minutes multiple times. Nothing new.
“This whole thing didn’t present anything that I hadn’t had before. I’ve been in this game for a long time [at] the highest level, fighting some of the best guys in the world. I wasn’t shocked by anything. Nothing had me wavering. I just stayed composed, stayed listening to my team, stayed being open and honest with them about how I was feeling and we talked through it. The performance is what it was.”
With the win, Allen puts himself in an advantageous position in the division, especially considering de Ridder was had a case for a title shot if he was victorious.
Allen mentioned several names during his post-fight interview, but former champion Dricus du Plessis might end up as the best possible choice given the heated relationship they’ve shared in the past. When Allen was suffering through a two-fight losing streak, du Plessis rarely missed a chance to take a shot at him, but the South African was noticeably quiet on Saturday after UFC Vancouver.
An accident? Allen doesn’t think so and he’s more than happy to settle things with du Plessis in the cage once they’re both ready to compete again.
“Never when I’m up,” Allen said about du Plessis taking shots at him. “If that’s what it is, if it fits the timeline because I don’t know when he wants to return. But for now I’m just ready to get home to my family, take some time to mentally recoup.”
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