Dricus du Plessis has been quiet following UFC Vancouver, and one winner on the card thinks he knows why.
Brendan Allen stepped up on short notice to fight Reinier de Ridder in the main event of UFC Vancouver inside Rogers Arena. Allen replaced an injured Anthony Hernandez. “All In” capitalized on his opportunity, forcing de Ridder to quit on his stool before the start of the fifth round.
During an interview with MMAJunkie.com, Allen, who has beef with du Plessis over the past few months, noticed that the former UFC Middleweight Champion was silent after his latest win.
“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 mouth in church.
“Now you don’t hear anything from him, but what can you really say now. He literally just got dominated. 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.”
Allen has moved himself into the top five rankings in the UFC’s middleweight division. He might be due for a big fight that would get him closer to a title opportunity.
Allen has a loss against the most likely No. 1 contender, Nassourdine Imavov. Prior to UFC Vancouver, Allen told Newsweek Sports that he expected Imavov to receive a shot at Khamzat Chimaev regardless of the outcome of his fight with de Ridder.
