Brendan Allen Wants #4 Ranking After Beating #4 Guy

Vancouver — Perhaps surprising many, given he took the fight on short notice in place of Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez, Brendan Allen got the job done in the UFC Vancouver main event, leaving Reinier de Ridder unable to continue after four rounds.

Allen (26-7) had an inkling such an ending could be in the offing, given de Ridder had been defeated in similar fashion during his ONE Championship days.

“You can see it when he fought the Russian guy for the second time in ONE,” Allen told media outlets including Cageside Press following UFC Vancouver, referring to RDR’s rematch with Anatoly Malykhin in March of last year. “He did the same thing, I think third or fourth round, same thing.”

“25 minutes is a very, very long time to take punishment. And I didn’t think he’d be able to do it. He took a round longer than I thought, but I also didn’t start off too hot in the first. So three rounds of dominance.”

The slow start on Allen’s part saw him taken down and fending off a rear-naked choke; asked what might have prompted it, Allen pointed to the short-notice nature of the five-round fight. “Five rounds, three and a half weeks of training.”

Allen called out the likes of middleweight champ Khamzat Chimaev and Dricus Du Plessis following the victory, his second straight. With Nassourdine Imavov and Anthony Hernandez almost certainly ahead of “All In,” however, it remains to be seen what comes next.

What he’s at least hoping for, however, is to take de Ridder’s ranking. “We know how these politics work, for some reason they don’t like me. So I’ll probably be f*cking six, seven. But watch my bio, that b*tch is going to say #4 here in a couple minutes. So to me, I’m #4 in the world. I beat #4, I’m #4. They did that sh*t to me after I beat Andre Muniz. Nah, not again.”

Watch the full UFC Vancouver post-fight press conference with Brendan Allen above.