Las Vegas — Brazilian featherweight Jean Silva was in good spirits following his win over Arnold Allen at UFC 324 on Saturday, walking into the media space at the T-Mobile Arena with a length of wood, saying since he couldn’t punch any more that night, he’d use that instead.
All in good fun. Silva (17-3) was flying high after returning to the win column care of a unanimous decision victory over Allen, rebounding from a September loss to Diego Lopes.
Silva entered UFC 324 hoping to become the first to stop England’s Allen, but his team convinced him to take a different approach.
“My team [told] me, ‘you must do three rounds, test yourself,'” Silva told media outlets including Cageside Press following the fight. “He’s a tough dude, just lost against [Movsar] Evloev and Max Holloway. But I believe nobody did the damage I did [to] Arnold Allen.”
With his own victory over Jean Silva, Diego Lopes jumped right to a rematch with featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski that arrives next week. Asked for a message to the champ and challenger, Silva exclaimed “who’s going to be the next that I’m going to surf on?”
That was a reference to Silva literally appearing to surf on Allen during Saturday’s contest. The move came just prior to the final horn. Explaining the moment, Silva stated that “Actually, I really trained this position. We knew at that time, he don’t like to be on the ground.” Mentioning practicing with his training partners, when it came to the fight, “I saw the moment and I did it.”
WHAT just happened?! 😅🇧🇷 @JeansilvaMMA96 doing the most at #UFC324! pic.twitter.com/qMDJWSN79c
— UFC Canada (@UFC_CA) January 25, 2026
Silva’s team, The Fighting Nerds, went from red-hot in 2024 and early 2025, to struggling towards the end of last year. That put some pressure on Silva to right the ship to start 2025.
As he told Cageside Press, “I did not fight alone. All The Fighting Nerds were here, all The Fighting Nerds fought this night. And it will be the future: all The Fighting Nerds will fight together.”
Watch the full UFC 324 post-fight press conference with Jean Silva above.
