It took the
Ultimate Fighting Championship one day to rope
in a middleweight happy to headline an event at the Apex.
On Thursday, news
broke that
Marvin
Vettori had suffered an injury and could no longer compete
against
Brendan
Allen (23-5) at
UFC Fight Night 240. In his stead will be
Chris
Curtis (31-10, 1 NC), preserving the middleweight main
attraction on April 6. The UFC made this
announcement
on Friday, running back a fight that first took place in December
2021.
When they first met at UFC on ESPN 31, Curtis was riding a
six-fight win streak, including a victory inside the Octagon as an
unexpected middleweight threat. “The Action Man” dropped the first
round but came back in the second stanza, hurting and ultimately
putting Allen away with punches and knees. Since then, Curtis has
maintained a UFC record slightly over .500 while beating
Rodolfo
Vieira,
Joaquin
Buckley and
Marc-Andre
Barriault to remain a 185-pound contender.
Since suffering the knockout loss to Curtis, Allen has not looked
back. The former LFA champ known as “All In” has strung together
six straight victories, with five rear-naked chokes on his way up
the middleweight ladder. Of note, Allen tapped highly regarded
grapplers
Andre Muniz
and
Paul
Craig, and he remains the lone combatant to submit the
former.
UFC Fight Night 240 takes place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on
April 4, and it now celebrates a rematch in the main attraction as
Brendan
Allen tries once more to get past
Chris
Curtis. The co-main event is a bantamweight scrap between
Norma
Dumont and former featherweight champ
Germaine
de Randamie, while additional main card tilts include a
135-pound showdown between
Heili
Alateng and
Victor
Hugo Silva as well as a featherweight collision of
Alexander
Hernandez vs.
Damon
Jackson.