Arnold Allen took his respect by force on Saturday at UFC London.
Despite being undefeated and his top 15 ranking in the UFC, Allen gets lost in conversation when featherweight champions are discussed. However, he did everything he could to make that happen in his fight with Dan Hooker. Allen came out guns blazing from the first second of the fight until the last when he finally put together a blistering combination of punches that simply overwhelmed Hooker with the referee rushing into stop the fight at just 2:33 into the first round.
“I’m aware of how much I have to work,” Allen stated after he was promoted to 9-0 at the UFC. “I am a good striker. He was playing his footwork. He was quite slow but he’s so long. He was slow, but he’s so long.
With plenty to prove in a showcase opportunity as the co-main event in his home country, Allen was firing punches in succession like he wanted to put Hooker away before the first minute of the fight expired. Allen cracked Hooker with some incredibly hard shots that had the “The Hangman” rattled and walking on wobbly legs.
Hooker didn’t let his feet get in the way of Hooker. He just dropped his mouthpiece, and began firing shots with his own shotgun. One punch nearly shook Allen to his knees.
Allen quickly jumped right back into the fray while just launching punches in bunches with several stiff shots slipping through Hooker’s defense. Hooker was finally back in the cage and Allen started launching strikes quickly until Hooker became helpless.
While Hooker refused to drop to the ground, the referee saw enough to jump in and save him before Allen could dish out any further punishment.
Allen’s win was a high-profile one that will catapult him up the featherweight ranks. Now he is looking to possibly challenge for title contention against another well-known opponent.
” I’m number five right now, for certain,” Allen stated. Calvin Kattar, what are you thinking? I think that would be a fight people want to see.”
