Why Brendan Allen Knows He Has An Advantage Over Khamzat Chimaev: Bigger and Better Cardio
Brendan Allen believes he’ll have two distinct advantages in a potential clash with middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev.
‘All In’ scored the biggest win of his mixed martial arts career at UFC Vancouver, forcing Reinier de Ridder to quit on his stool just before the fifth and final round.
The victory moved Allen up to the No. 5 spot in the middleweight rankings, potentially putting him one big win away from his first crack at the division’s top prize.
“I think our wrestling and jiu-jitsu can kind of counteract each other and kind of eliminate those two things for us where maybe he doesn’t want to wrestle as much,” Allen told Submission Radio while discussing a potential clash with Chimaev. “Um, and then it’s just going to be striking. And I think that’s where I beat him.
“I definitely think my endurance is better. I think I’m bigger than I’m trying to think. I’m probably bigger than everyone that he’s fought. Maybe.”
Chimaev captured the 185-pound crown in August, handily defeating ex-titleholder Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 319. Since then, fans have been chomping at the bit to find out who ‘Borz’ would defend his belt against first.
Brendan Allen calls out ‘Quiet’ Dricus Du Plessis
The consensus appears to have landed on Nassourdine Imavov, who currently sits on a five-fight win streak, including a vicious second-round knockout of Israel Adesanya and, most recently, a unanimous decision W over Caio Borralho. ‘The Sniper’ also holds a victory over Allen, having bested ‘All In’ back in September 2024.
As for Allen, there are a few options for his next opponent, chief among them being a long-awaited showdown with Du Plessis.
“Dricus always has something to say when I’m losing because he knows I’m a super tough test and I can probably beat him,” Allen told MMA Junkie. “Obviously he’s a fighter, so he’s going to think he’s going to beat me, but he knows it’s a tough test. It’s easy to say when I’m losing when you know you’re not going to fight me next, but now it’s like, it could happen. When I was super close on a big win streak and it was a possibility, he was super quiet like a mouse in church.
“Now you don’t hear anything from him, but what can you really say now. He literally just got dominated [by Chimaev]. Not a close fight. Not had moments. None of that. You got dominated for 25 minutes. I’ll be nice and say you got dominated for 23.5 minutes. What can you really say? To me that’s a huge word: Dominated. To me that’s a very big word. It carries a lot of weight. That means you did nothing. You had nothing really for the other guy at all. That’s what happened, and you were supposed to be the champion and you got dominated? That’s not supposed to happen at that level.”
