Arnold Allen loss to Max Holloway at UFC Fight Night Kansas City, USA

Arnold Allen loss to Max Holloway at UFC Fight Night Kansas City, USA

image of Arnold 'Almighty' Allen, up-and-coming British UFC prospect. Credit: Twitter@Arnoldbfa

Arnold Allen’s 12-fight win streak ended with a return-to-form performance from Max Holloway in UFC Kansas City, USA.

It was all winding up for a glorious night for UK mixed martial arts in Kansas City on Saturday, April 15 2023. Suffolk’s (UK) Arnold ‘Almighty’ Allen looked to seal his 13th consecutive UFC Featherweight victory against future Hall Of Fame legend, Max ‘Blessed’ Holloway in the T-Mobile Centre.

Despite giving an excellent account of himself and never being out of the fight, Allen slowly lost points as the match progressed. Holloway’s incredible tenacity, movement and fight IQ were seemingly back in full effect, denying the young Brit his continued run of victories and a possible title shot.

Although coming off a loss to Australia’s Alexander Volkanovski (the current featherweight champion and former pound-for-pound king across all UFC weight classes) there was little cause for introspection from Holloway. The highly experienced and wily former champion still looked like a man at the top of his game.

Allen is part of the crop of up-and-coming Brits keen to cement their place in the history books, along with the likes of lightweight Paddy Pimblett and heavyweight Tom Aspinall. These next-generation fighters are looking to up the stakes in this fast-developing sport, showing the highly developed and rounded skill sets needed to compete at the very highest level.

And they can take great inspiration from recently crowned welterweight champion Leon ‘Rocky’ Edwards. The Birmingham-based fighter took the belt from then pound-for-pound champion, Kamaru Usman in August 2022 and then defended his title against Usman on March 18, 2023, in London.

Not many British mixed martial artists can claim to have reached the lofty heights of a UFC championship belt (other than Leon Edwards, only Michael Bisping had similar successes starting in 2016), but Arnold Allen appears extremely determined and level-headed.

He holds fighters like Max Holloway in the highest regard, citing him as an early influence in his development. But he was never starstruck and showed the ability, if not necessarily the game plan to get the win.

This is a tough, tough sport and tough lessons were learned by Allen, who we can expect to come back even sharper, fitter and more determined. He remains in the top five of the featherweight division, so we can expect his next opponent to still be a very high-level match-up. But for now, we await news of future opponents for this very exciting British prospect.

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Written by

David Laycock

Dave Laycock has always written. Poems, songs, essays, academic papers as well as newspaper articles; the written word has always held a great fascination for him and he is never happier than when being creative. From a musical background, Dave has travelled the world performing and also examining for a British music exam board. He also writes, produces and performs and records music. All this aside, he is currently fully focussed on his journalism and can’t wait to share more stories from around the world and beyond.

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