Brendan Allen avenges past loss to Curtis Curtis in five-round thriller

Brendan Allen showed improved durability in his rematch with Chris Curtis Saturday night in the main event of a UFC Fight Night event at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and the rising middleweight contender was able to avenge a prior loss to “The Action Man.” 

Allen edged out Curtis in a thrilling five-round split decision to extend his current winning streak to seven. Not only did it end up being one of the better fights so far in 2024, but Allen maintained relevant positioning near the top of the compelling 185-pound division.

Despite being previously finished by Curtis in December 2021 at the very same venue, Allen showed zero hesitancy to exchange on the feet.

Although Curtis wound up outlanding Allen in both total strikes (141-128) and significant head strikes (96-72), Allen was able to mix in his high-calibre grappling and it ultimately ended up being the difference in the bout.

Curtis entered the fight with 92 per cent takedown defence — he had fended off 36 of 39 takedown attempts in the UFC, the best rate in the middleweight division — yet Allen managed to complete six of 13 takedown attempts throughout the rematch.

Allen has 11 career wins by rear-naked choke and he repeatedly took Curtis’s back on Saturday looking for the neck, including within the first minute of the opening round, however he never came close to actually finishing the fight. In fact, Allen wasn’t even credited with an official submission attempt and Curtis had two nice reversals in the match.

Curtis, 36, found his range more effectively as the fight progressed and was his busiest in the second round. Allen’s corner specifically told their fighter after Round 2: “You don’t need to box with this guy.”

Allen, 28, was briefly wobbled after eating a crisp one-two down the pipe from Curtis in the third round before the younger fighter turned up the frequency of his takedown attempts in the second half of the fight.

Noticeably fatigued in the final round, Allen dug deep to survive Curtis’s final bursts. Curtis sustained a right leg injury while defending a takedown in the waning seconds of the fight but the athletes both made it to the final horn before collapsing in exhaustion and before Curtis began clutching his hamstring.

“I was tired in the fifth for sure. We had a good pace,” Allen said after the fight. “Short notice, hats off to Chris. I knew what I was up against.”

The event was originally supposed to feature Allen taking on one-time title challenger Marvin Vettori in the headliner, although Vettori pulled out of the matchup injured roughly three weeks ago and Curtis was the only fighter the organization could find who was willing to step in. 

“Yo where’s that title shot…ain’t nobody got the streak that I got,” proclaimed Allen, who hasn’t lost since his aforementioned TKO to Curtis.

Allen added that if he can’t get a shot against current 185-pound champion Dricus Du Plessis then he’d be interested in a rematch with Curtis’s teammate, Sean Strickland. Allen’s only other loss at the UFC level was to Strickland via TKO in 2020 at a catchweight so he has motivation to avenge that loss to the one-time titleholder. 

The Louisiana fighter will likely have to earn at least one more win over a top-five ranked opponent before the UFC would seriously consider him for the next shot. Du Plessis and former champ Israel Adesanya are expected to fight this year, although nothing has been confirmed, and the UFC also recently announced a No. 1 contender’s bout between Robert Whittaker and Khamzat Chimaev set to take place in June.

In other main card action, Ignacio Bahamondes added to his highlight reel with a first-round knockout of Christos Giagos. The 26-year-old Chilean lightweight walked to the cage with tears streaming down his cheeks, singing along to his entrance music and shadowboxing, before showing off his immense talent and skill set.

Bahamondes already has a front kick KO and a spinning wheel kick KO to his name but this one was a clean and traditional foot-to-face head kick KO.

Fellow lightweights Trevor Peek and Charlie Campbell kicked off the main card in style with a back-and-forth brawl that ended with Campbell sweeping the scorecards. Campbell began marking up his opponent’s lead leg with low kicks early and Peek responded with aggressive forward pressure and haymaker overhand rights like he usually does. Campbell’s success battering Peek’s right leg opened other attacks for him and he consistently landed knees up the middle to Peek’s midsection when the pair came together in the clinch.

Campbell seemed to be the fresher fighter in the final round and made sure to not suffer the same fate he did in his first appearance at the UFC Apex.

“Last time I came here I got knocked out on the Conder Series,” Campbell said in his post-fight interview. “I feared this sport, I feared this place. Trevor Peek’s a scary opponent. I feared that, but if you face what you fear, the death of fear is certain, so I didn’t give up in life and here I am getting my hand raised at the Apex.”

In another three-round fan-friendly matchup, Chepe Mariscal extended his winning streak and improved to 3-0 at the UFC level by picking up a split decision win over Morgan Charrière. After 15 completed minutes of furious featherweight fisticuffs, two judges gave the first and third rounds to Mariscal while the other had Charrière winning all three rounds. This bout was named Fight of the Night.

The very next fight also ended with split scorecards after Damon Jackson got the better of Alexander Hernandez in co-main event matchup. Hernandez dropped Jackson within the first 10 seconds of the final round with a right hand but Jackson survived the rest of the round and had already secured the opening two rounds, according to two judges. The third judge gave every round to Hernandez.

“There ain’t no 30-27,” Jackson said after getting the win. “It was 29-28 me all the way.”

Hernandez was one of four fighters scheduled to compete at the event to miss weight on Friday and he was fined 20 per cent of his purse.

Opponents Nora Cornolle and Melissa Mullins both missed weight ahead of their scheduled bantamweight contest and Cornolle finished Mullins with strikes in the opening bout of the prelims.

A scheduled strawweight bout between Piera Rodriguez and Cynthia Calvillo was removed from the card entirely after Calvillo was off by three pounds. Calvillo had lost five consecutive bouts and has missed weight three times in her UFC career, which is not a good look.

Norma Dumont put the 135-pound division on notice with a unanimous decision win over former featherweight champion Germaine de Randamie on the prelims. Dumont, 33, has won seven of eight dating back to her UFC debut in 2020 and has never lost when competing at the bantamweight limit.

This striker vs. grappler matchup ended up favouring Dumont as the Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt accumulated 10:04 of control time and maintained a dominant position for all but 29 seconds of the final round. The fight was even after two rounds on all three official scorecards so that third-round control ended up being the difference in the scoring.

The 39-year-old de Randamie was coming off a 3.5-year hiatus from the sport. She had not previously lost to anyone in the UFC not named Amanda Nunes.

In other preliminary action, Lucasz Brzeski earned his first win in the organization after an 0-3 start to his UFC tenure. The Polish heavyweight handed his Brazilian opponent, Valter Walker, his first loss in the sport via unanimous decision. Brzeski won the first two rounds on all three judges’ scorecards despite Walker securing two takedowns and racking up 3:16 of control time in the opening round. Walker, 26, is the younger brother of popular light-heavyweight fighter Johnny Walker.