TORONTO – Arnold Allen is confident he’ll prove he’s among the top title contenders this Saturday – even though he’s not fighting a top-five opponent.
Allen (19-2 MMA, 10-1 UFC) takes on Movsar Evloev in the opening bout of the UFC 297 main card. The British fighter admits he wanted an opponent ranked higher than Evloev (17-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC), but he had problems getting the bigger names. Despite fighting down the rankings, Allen believes he’s in a much tougher fight.
“I think he’s a really good athlete, a really good fighter, highly skilled. Yeah, a dangerous opponent,” Allen said at the UFC 297 media day on Wednesday. “I can kind of relate to those feelings when I was coming up when I wanted to fight top guys and no one wanted to give up their rankings to fight someone below them. There are tougher fighters outside of that. Sometimes I look up, and I see someone ranked higher than me, and he’s an easier fight than this one. It’s very easy to be No. 3 and be like, ‘I’m only fighting No. 2 or 1. Everyone does that. It sucks.”
