Struggling to find fights, Arnold Allen hopes UFC-ranked opponent kicks off 2021 schedule

UFC featherweight contender Arnold Allen didn’t have the year he wanted – and it largely wasn’t his fault.

Healthy for much of 2020, Allen (16-1 MMA, 7-0 UFC) only once competed inside the cage – a January fight against short-notice replacement Nik Lentz. Allen won and advanced to 7-0 in the UFC – but the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic didn’t make exceptions for surging contenders.

“Before everything shut down, I was trying to fight in June,” Arnold recently told MMA Junkie. “I fought in January and was like, ‘All right, I’ll take a little break, then get back, get ready to fight.’ Obviously, everything shut down. I didn’t get to train for like, I think it was eight weeks that I didn’t step foot in a gym or train or anything. That’s when they started doing ‘Fight Island’ and all that. We started making plans to work around it so we’d be able to train.”

Allen, 26, was booked for a Nov. 7 matchup against Jeremy Stephens that never came to fruition. Weeks prior to their scheduled date, Stephens pulled out due to injury. No suitable replacement was found, so Allen found himself without a fight.

“It really sucked,” Allen said. “To me, that was a breakout fight. I thought Gilbert Melendez would be that, but it didn’t really put me over too much. Stephens is much more relevant right now and one of the most dangerous guys in the division. Everyone knows he’s been knocking out people for years. He’s fought everyone. He’s fought the who’s who at lightweight and featherweight. All the guys who beat him are top-five guys (or) contenders. Obviously, I wanted to put my name there, but unfortunately he got injured.”

Despite his frustration, Allen understands why matchups are hard to come by. In his mind, he’s still the new guy in the rankings and perhaps doesn’t have the name recognition, and thus the reward that would come with a win over him.

“I feel it’s probably that high-risk, low-reward thing,” Allen said. “I’m not the biggest name. I’m not there yet. I need to beat these staple guys to put my name out there. But at the same time, these sort of guys, like Stephens, in his head, I get it. He’s sort of thinking he’s toward the end of his career, so why does he need to fight the up-and-comer? Where does it put him if I beat him?”

In 2021, Allen hopes his luck will change. There are a handful of names Allen is eager to fight. But in order to be worth Allen’s time, he said the opponent has to be either ranked or have name value.

“(Stephens or Josh Emmett) make sense,” Allen said. “I’ve done a camp for both of those guys. They both obviously fell through. (In) 2021, I’ve got to get busy. I can’t be waiting around over here fighting once a year. I’ve definitely got to get busy.”