Brendan Allen is tired of the trash talk and urges Dricus Du Plessis to lay off the social media and interview shots and get in the octagon with him.
Allen (26-7 MMA, 14-4 UFC), a top contender at 185 pounds, has long been calling for a fight against the former champion. Although Allen has caught the attention of Du Plessis (23-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC), as the South African has said several things bout him online, it hasn’t been enough to get Du Plessis to fight him. Allen thinks the fight against Du Plessis makes the most sense at this point in time.
“Based on statistics of where the division sits with the rankings, it just makes sense,” Allen told MMA Junkie Radio. “Plus, he has his sh*t to say about me, but he only has to say something about me when I’m losing. When I’m winning, he’s as silent as a church mouse, and then now he like, ‘Oh, two-fight winning streak.’ Sorry bro, you just got dominated. You didn’t just get beat, you got dominated. You didn’t do anything. You don’t really have a lot of room to speak, no matter if you were the champion, no matter if you were a contender. It doesn’t matter what position you stayed, you still got dominated. That should never happen at that level. You have to fight back no matter what. You’re No. 1, you’re gonna fight back. So, we’ll see if he mans up and takes the fight, or if he’s just going to stay talking.”
Allen is coming off a big upset win over former two-division ONE Championship champion Reinier de Ridder in October. Prior to that, Allen snapped a two-fight losing skid with a decision win over Marvin Vettori. On the other hand, Du Plessis last fought in August, when he lost a unanimous decision to Khamzat Chimaev – a fight that saw him lose the UFC middleweight title and an 11-fight winning streak.
Allen feels very uncertain with this hold up with Du Plessis and with how the division is panning out. What he does know for certain is that he wants to be as active as possible.
“I want to stay active. Hopefully end of March, beginning of April we’ll get to fight again, but we’ll see who’s available,” Allen said. “As of this point, it seems like the division is very funky. I mean. I know you got (Nassourdine) Imavov and Chimaev that will fight, but who knows when that will be. Who knows what’s going to happen with that? Chimaev hasn’t been active for his whole career for whatever reason is – injuries, whatever, personal, I really don’t know exactly. He hasn’t been that active, so let’s see what he does as a champion, but he’s already not starting on the proper foot. So who knows when that will happen. We’ll take those two out of the equation.
“Then you have Dricus, then you have ‘Fluffly’ (Anthony Hernandez) and Sean (Strickland), who are in talks. … So it’s really just me and Dricus left. I’d love to have that fight, and I’ve been asking for that fight for a while. It really just seems like it’s him ducking and making excuses and everything else. So yeah, we’ll see if he wants to do it. If not, I guess I’ll be defending my spot as I have many times before.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Brendan Allen wants former champ Dricus Du Plessis to stop ‘ducking’
About the Author
