Brendan Allen has to respect young fighters like Damian Pinas calling their shot to fight him, but he believes more work needs to be done.
Allen is set to face Christian Leroy Duncan in the main event of UFC Vegas 122 this Saturday at the Meta APEX in Las Vegas. Following his quick knockout win at UFC 332 against Andrey Pulyaev, Pinas called Allen out.
Ahead of his big middleweight headliner, Allen responded.
“We knew it was going to come one day as long as I kept doing my thing,” Allen told MMA Fighting. “I mean, hey, hats off to them, but also you have to think of the position that they’re in. It’s a win-win for them. They fight, they get experience to fight someone like me. I’m the guy that’s been fighting down. Nobody else is fighting down like me. No one else is top 5 in the world fighting out of the rankings, so.
“That’s where my name pops off to the hat. They’re like, ‘Oh, if I talk to this guy, then I can probably get this fight.’”
It’s not the first time Allen has been called out by the newer generation of middleweights, and — as he’s very well aware — it will be far from the last. Allen enters Saturday’s matchup on a three-fight win streak and in the championship picture, while Pinas is 3-0 in the UFC, which includes wins against Cesar Almeida and Wes Schultz.
Allen understands the callouts, and even has heard that the callouts from fighters such as Pinas make him upset — which to Allen is laughable.
“Multiple guys say like, ‘Oh, he gets mad,’ or how can you tell if someone gets mad on Instagram?,” Allen explained. “I’m calling you bro, you can’t get me mad. Like I said, hats off to those guys, but they’re three fights in. I remember when I was three fights in. I think, for me, I was young and I was trying to reach for the stars every now and then, but I tried to keep it in perspective of what I could realistically get. Obviously, to the media, you call out big, you shoot for the stars, get your name going, show that you’re ready, but behind closed doors, you just kind of get what you get.
“But again, I never had any star power, so I don’t know how some of these guys are, and maybe they get to have that discussion, but at the end of the day, guys like him, he’s just a young guy, man. He’s still got a lot to prove. He fought bottom of the barrel guys and think that they can just shoot for the stars eventually just because they get a couple of wins against the low level guys. But it is what it is. That’s just part of the game.”
Allen fully accepts he’s not the most over guy with the fan base. It’s a part of his journey and story to get to where he wants to go — a fully earned it type of career. So he feels that the up and coming fighters don’t need any extra help, although, they might be getting it from the big names calling the fights.
“I mean, it doesn’t help that commentary plays into it and [they] say the things that they say,” Allen said. “That helps them, but again, it is what it is. I’m kind of getting to that point where it’s like, before it would piss me off if someone said my name. I’m like, ‘Oh, all right, I’m going to show you. You think you can beat me, I’m going to show you.’ Now I’m kind of at that point in my life, in my career to where it’s like, ‘Oh, I appreciate the compliment. I appreciate it, but you ain’t getting this. You got to earn it.’ To me, you’ve got to earn it.
`That’s my problem with the young guys and like I said, these young guys just, they’re reaching, man. They’re reaching and hats off to him, that’s what you kind of got to do now to make a name for yourself. But that reach is way out of perspective. So, hey, they earn it, and I’m still here. Any of them can get it.”
