Kansas City — UFC featherweight Arnold Allen gets his second straight main event assignment this Saturday, paired up with former champ and 145lb great Max Holloway.
Arnold (19-1), a soft-spoken Brit who is undefeated in the promotion through ten fights, hasn’t lost since 2014 and is on a 12-fight winning streak overall.
The match-up with Holloway, he told media outlets including Cageside Press on Wednesday, is one he’s definitely excited for.
“He’s rarely in a boring fight, and I think the way he fights is going to bring the best out of myself,” Allen stated during the UFC Kansas City media day. “I think that makes an exciting fight.”
Hawaii’s Holloway is notoriously hard to knock down — it has never happened, in fact. Arnold Allen isn’t worrying about becoming the first man to do so. Instead, he’s focused on going the distance, a mindset he has ahead of every fight.
“There’s not even a thought about trying to be the guy to put him down. It’s never the thought, whoever you’re fighting,” admitted Allen. “You’re always thinking about the five rounds and doing the distance. Obviously the goal is to try to finish, but the thought is we’re going five rounds, and it is what it is.”
As for Holloway’s ridiculously high output, which often sees him throw hundreds of strikes in a fight, “I’ll probably try to avoid all those, as many as I can,” Allen said with a laugh.
At the end of the day, Allen is an admirer of his highest-profile opponent to date.
“You look at what he’s done in the sport, future Hall of Famer for sure. Ex-champion, one of the greatest featherweights of all time. His resume is nothing short of inspiring. He’s done all the things I want to do, and he’s setting the path for the things I want to do too.”
With that in mind, Allen, who has defeated the likes of Calvin Kattar, Dan Hooker, Gilbert Melendez and others, believes a win will lead him to a title shot.
“I think so. I feel like it has to. It has to,” said Allen. “There’s nowhere else to go, surely.”
To get to this point, Allen has been surrounding himself with the right people, including a couple of other UFC champions.
“Since I got to the UFC, I always tried to surround myself with the best guys. Even before the UFC, but money was a limiting factor before. I get to the UFC and get some money, I’m like ‘alright I’m going to go train where Georges St-Pierre trains.’ To be in a camp with someone like him, the greatest of all time for me, it brings you a level up,” Allen observed. “And then to be back in the U.K. training at Renegade, guys like Leon Edwards, to see him realize his dream and to lift the belt, defend the belt, it’s inspirational.”
Watch the full UFC Kansas City media day appearance by Arnold Allen above.
