It seems like main events or big fights ending due to injury is happening at a really high rate this year and it is very unfortunate. Ending events with lackluster finishes takes away from the events as a whole and just leaves everyone with a bad taste in their mouth. This one was even more unfortunate as it really felt like this fight was going to tell us a lot and set up the immediate and longer term future of the featherweight division. Unfortunately, featherweight is still kind of stuck in neutral as the top 5 or so guys have struggled to really separate themselves from the pack. It's going to be interesting to see exactly how all of this shakes out and how the division gets booked going forward because someone is going to have to get a title shot sometime soon. Let's talk about what we can in regards to this past weekend though.
Obviously, there isn't too much to take away from this fight as we only saw a little less than 5 minutes of action before Kattar suffered the knee injury in the closing seconds of the first round. I've seen a lot of really hot takes, mostly from the betting community, as to what your conclusions can or should be from what we saw. Some people (mostly Kattar backers, which I was one) are saying to just throw it out and completely ignore everything we saw because Allen was going to gas out. The Allen backers are convinced that the one round we saw meant Arnold was going to dominate all 5 rounds. The truth lies somewhere in between, as it does in most cases. Now, I am someone who believes Arnold Allen is a really good fighter who was a legitimate top 6 guy in the division. I believed his technical skills and all around ability would be enough for him to win high level fights. However, we had never seen him in a fight at that level. His best wins are Sodiq Yusuff and the featherweight version of Dan Hooker. Even though it was only a first round, Arnold proved that he had the skills to stand in there and take a round from Calvin Kattar on the feet. That isn't nothing. A lot of people believed and speculated that Arnold's technical skills would be enough to compete with Kattar early, but to have that confirmed to us is still meaningful data. I found it interesting that Arnold was able to suppress a lot of Kattar's volume and keep it at a slower, more methodical pace. That is what he needed to do and he was doing it in that round. That doesn't necessarily mean he would've done it for the full five, but it was the start that he needed. There were questions about Arnold's gas tank and rightfully so, but a slow paced round like that would've allowed him to stay fresh longer. Kattar could have just been collecting information and maybe he comes out in the second round and lands like 35 significant strikes, but we don't know. All I can go by is what we actually did see and that round went almost perfectly for Allen. He was landing his left hands pretty cleanly, but we know Kattar is available to be hit, so I wouldn't read too far into that part. I don't think we can assume that Arnold is someone who suppresses volume at an elite level and can go strike for strike with Max Holloway, but at the same time, to act like this round proved literally 0, is a bit overstated as well. It was a good round where Arnold showed an ability to diagnose and execute a game plan against a high level opponent for at least one round. The cardio questions and the volume questions will still be there, but he still did a lot of good things.
We can sit here and debate the takeaways all day, but what can't be disputed is that Arnold Allen collected yet another win and is one step closer to a title shot of some sort, be it for Volkanovski's title or an interim belt. The weird thing about all of this is that featherweight sort of has a lot of guys who are in this weird no man's land with Allen. Allen is now on a long winning streak, but his last two wins are over a depleted Dan Hooker and the Kattar injury forced TKO. Yair Rodriguez has fought very sparingly in the last handful of years and his last two fights are the loss to Holloway and the injury forced TKO of Brian Ortega. Then there's Josh Emmett who is on a long winning streak, but everyone thought he lost his last fight to Kattar, but the judges seemed to think otherwise. This has sort of left us with 3 guys with similar arguments trying to get into a title fight. They all have their positive and negative points to why they should or shouldn't get the shot over the others. Yair has the biggest wins from a historical perspective, but he lacks the recent success. His last clean win came over Jeremy Stephens, who is no longer in the UFC, over 3 years ago. Allen has the current winning streak that you typically look for, but 2 of his 3 biggest wins are serious question marks. Obviously Kattar couldn't continue after the injury and Dan Hooker seems to just be too chinny when making the cut to featherweight. His best clean win is a somewhat close fight against Sodiq Yusuff where Allen started to slow down late. Emmett also has the long winning streak, but his biggest win, also Kattar, was a fight where most people thought he lost. His best clean wins are over Dan Ige and Shane Burgos, who are good wins, but not typically the caliber of victories that put someone into a title fight. Luckily, Alex Volkanovski will be trying his hand at double champ status, so we have some time to figure all of this out. In my opinion, Josh Emmett has the best resume of the three at the moment. When they put together the number one contender bout, I feel like he is probably the safest of the three to be one of the men involved. I think he currently has the best combination of current resume, historical resume, and proven skills. It's really a toss up between Yair and Allen as to who can get that other spot and it may just come down to who can be ready when they decide on a date for that fight. The best way to time it would be to have the number one contender fight be on the Australia card with Volk and I think that probably favors Yair. Allen isn't a guy known for being especially active, even if it is mostly due to injuries and not just preferring slow turnarounds. It feels like doing Yair vs Emmett on the Australia card would probably be a bigger fight as well since Yair brings the most name value out of the three. Allen will be positioned for a big fight and I imagine that comes in March, which is when the UFC likes to do their UK show.
That sort of leaves us wondering exactly who may be the matchup for him. It's sort of tough to nail down a name because they want to set Allen up as a potential contender, but there aren't many options. I don't think they'll make a Max Holloway fight as that just doesn't really seem in the cards at the moment. The UFC is doing a show in South Korea early next year which is rumored to be The Korean Zombie's retirement fight. The current buzz is that he wants that last fight to be Max and I really don't see why Max wouldn't want that fight. Other than a potential matchup with Conor McGregor that gained steam for like a week after Conor was stalking Max on his TV shirtless in the dark in his house when Max fought Yair, I don't see what opportunity could be bigger or more interesting for him right now. That sort of leaves Brian Ortega as the only guy with a really high ranking to potentially put Arnold over. Ortega suffered the shoulder injury in July, so a potential March date does sound like a bit of quick turnaround for a guy who also takes a lot of time off between fights. Kattar is going to be out for awhile and we know Zombie is looking for a retirement fight in Korea. Maybe Giga Chikadze will be available by then, but he hasn't fought since January when he suffered a brutal loss to Kattar and recently pulled out of a fight with an injury. I suppose the winner of the Bryce Mitchell vs Ilia Topuria fight could be ready, but that is a somewhat quick turnaround. Movsar Evloev also just pulled out of a fight with an injury, so who knows what his status could be by then. It's sort of a tough spot for Arnold or whoever doesn't get the spot in the number one contender fight because the options just aren't really clear. Maybe the odd man out just weighs in as a backup incase one of the others pull out. I really don't know what the answer is in this spot.
The last two things I want to talk about is that I think an underrated talking point here is that Arnold Allen is seemingly coming out of a fight healthy for the first time in awhile. Obviously, there is a chance that Arnold was already hurt coming into the fight, but he seemed fairly healthy. He's had some issues with his hands in particular in the past, so hopefully he escaped mostly unscathed. If this indeed is the case, it's probably the first time Arnold can immediately get back in the gym immediately and focus on improving in a few fights. He's normally taking time off to heal and then rehabbing and just working to get back to where he was. Now he'll have an opportunity to actually work on new things and get better. It's only narrative based, but it is still a good sign for him. Hopefully this has him ready to take advantage of a potentially big opportunity of someone falls out of a fight in the first quarter of next year. The last thing is that I hope the Kattar injury isn't as bad as it seemed. I let out earlier that I am currently pursuing a career in healthcare and while I'm certainly nowhere close to an orthopedic surgeon, the evidence we can see on video doesn't look good. Hopefully he avoided major injury, but if not, then we wish Calvin Kattar the best of luck in his recovery. I have no doubts that we'll see him back in the cage before too long and he'll continue his push towards a title shot of his own.
What did you guys think of the fight? Was it playing out how you expected? What do you want to see next for Arnold Allen? Leave any and all additional thoughts below. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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