Allen’s Fifth-Round Choke Stuns Duncan at UFC Vegas 122

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Jessica: I have watched a whole lot of fifth rounds in my life, and they almost never end like that. Brendan Allen gets poked in the eye, he's losing momentum, the whole fight is slipping away, and then with two minutes and change left, he just takes the man's back and ends it. Marcus: You could see the exact second Christian Leroy Duncan knew he was done. Allen had been hunting that neck all night, and finally, he got it. Rear naked choke, round five, tap. Jessica: That is what a dark horse does. Allen just strangled his way into the title picture, and honestly, he might be the most underrated middleweight on the planet right now. Marcus: And he's already calling out the ex-champ. Dricus du Plessis, where you at. This is Budocast. Jessica: Welcome to Budocast, MMA, UFC, and martial arts news, every single week. I'm Jessica. Marcus: And I'm Marcus. Last night was UFC Vegas one twenty-two, and Brendan Allen just put on a masterclass in never going away. Jessica: Let's start with the main event, because that fifth round deserves the spotlight. Five rounds, middleweights, and for four of them this thing was a dogfight. Duncan came in red hot, five straight wins, eight of his last nine, and he'd just beaten Jared Cannonier in July. This was his moment. Marcus: And Allen was supposed to be the gatekeeper, right? Number five in the world, on a three fight win streak, but everybody kept saying he couldn't hang with the young killers. Well, the young killer just got strangled in the fifth round. Jessica: The turning point, or almost the breaking point, was that eye poke in round two. Duncan sticks him, and Marc Goddard doesn't hesitate, he takes a point immediately. That's the ref doing his job, because Allen was in real trouble there. Marcus: And credit to Allen, he didn't fold. But here's the thing about that point deduction. In a five round fight, one point is massive. If that goes to the scorecards, that point might have decided the whole thing. Jessica: Exactly. Duncan gave a point away and then lost by finish, so nobody can argue about anything. Don't leave it to the judges, especially when the ref already took one off your card. Allen took the decision out of the judges' hands, literally. He weathered it, he kept grinding with the wrestling, and by the championship rounds Duncan was fading. Allen took his back, sunk the choke at two forty-six of round five, and that was it. Twenty-eight and seven overall, sixteen and four in the UFC, four straight wins. He defended his number five ranking, and then he got on the mic and said, I'm steady, I'm defending my spot, and the bosses are going to reward me. Fight the champion, and if not, where's Dricus du Plessis? He's been running for a little while. Marcus: I love that. No politics, no manager-speak. Just, where is this man at, I want him. And honestly, after that performance, why not? Allen's the most avoided guy in the division because nobody wants five rounds of that. Jessica: Duncan falls to fifteen and three, eight and three in the UFC, and his five fight streak is snapped. But don't write him off. At twenty he wanted to play basketball in America. Eleven years later he's headlining a UFC card as one of the deadliest strikers in the division. That's a movie. Marcus: And the movie's not over. He's thirty-one, he's still in his prime, and that five fight streak didn't happen by accident. One loss doesn't erase any of that. He'll be back in a big fight. The bonuses last night were all about finishes. Four Performance of the Night bonuses, a hundred thousand dollars each, and no Fight of the Night. Allen got one, obviously, for the fifth round submission. Jessica: The second one, Andre Fili, and Marcus, this might be the knockout of the year. Twenty-two seconds into round two, Fili lands a right head kick on Kai Kamaka the third, and Kamaka just goes down in a heap. It was violent. Marcus: Fili is thirty-six, he's about a week away from his thirteenth anniversary as a UFC fighter, and he came in on back to back losses. Everybody was whispering about retirement. And then he does that. He said afterward he's got more in the tank, and everybody's stuck with him for a long time. Jessica: Twenty-six and fourteen now, and Kamaka the third falls to eighteen, nine and one. That is the kind of highlight that lives forever. Thirty-six years old and he just scored the knockout of his life. Marcus: The third bonus went to Otari Tanzilovi, another head kick special. He starched Malcolm Wellmaker in round two, two thirty-nine, head kick and follow up punches. Wellmaker was the Contender Series knockout star, and now he's lost three straight. Jessica: That's how fast this sport moves. One minute you're the prospect, the next minute you're somebody else's highlight. Tanzilovi is eleven and three and a hundred thousand dollars richer. Marcus: And the fourth, Alice Pereira. Women's bantamweight, second fight of the night, and she sliced Daria Zhelezniakova open with a brutal elbow at the end of round one. Zhelezniakova didn't want to continue, and honestly, who could blame her. TKO, retirement, Pereira's night. Jessica: Four bonuses, four finishes, all deserved. Now let's run the rest of the card, because there were stories everywhere. Co-main event, Jai Herbert outworked Matheus Camilo for three rounds, twenty-nine to twenty-eight on all three cards. Marcus: Herbert's the old Cage Warriors champ, the veteran, and Camilo came in two and one in the UFC with real hype. Good win for the old guard. Never count out a veteran who knows how to win rounds. Jessica: Loopy Godinez beat Ketlen Souza at a one hundred seventeen pound catchweight, same scores, twenty-nine to twenty-eight across the board. Workmanlike, professional, gets it done. Marcus: Julius Walker stopped Gerald Meerschaert in round two. And I want to say something about that, because Meerschaert has fought everybody. He's seen every trick in the book. And Walker just ran through him in the second round. That's a statement. Then he gets on the mic and calls out Drew Dober, the all time knockout leader at lightweight. He called him his twin, his brother! I love that. Prado says, I want to fight my twin, my brother Drew Dober, I want to fight in December. That's how you call somebody out, with love and violence at the same time. Jessica: Brendson Ribeiro had his own redemption night. Four straight losses, took this fight on two weeks notice, missed weight himself, and then guillotined Felipe Franco in the first round, one forty-nine. He was emotional afterward, apologizing for the weight, thanking the UFC. You could feel how much he needed that one. Marcus: Nineteen and eleven now, and he fought like his job depended on it, because it probably did. Four straight losses, and then a first round guillotine to save his career. You love to see it. Niko Price stopped Leon Shahbazyan in round one, one fifty-eight. Allen Frye the junior knocked out RJ Harris in round one, two fifty-nine. Jessica: And we even got a majority draw. Ernesta Kareckaite and Melissa Gatto, twenty-nine twenty-seven, twenty-eight twenty-eight twice. Somebody won that fight two rounds to one and still walked out without the win. Judges, man. Marcus: Only in MMA. Quick break. When we come back, Bangkok delivered on Friday, with a career best knockout and an eighteen year old who just won't lose. But first, a word for the tournament organizers listening. Jessica: If you run tournaments, you know the pain. Building brackets by hand at midnight, fighters missing their calls, parents texting you asking when their kid fights. Fight Card ends all of that. Marcus: Automatic brackets, competitor self-registration, weigh-ins, mat scheduling, and live results your fans can follow from home. It's free to start, no credit card, and you can play with the interactive demo right now. Jessica: That's fight card dot pro. Your tournaments will thank you. Marcus: Bangkok on Friday, and ONE Championship gave us another doubleheader at Lumpinee Stadium. Let's start with Friday Fights one seventy-four. Dedduanglek Torfunfarm, twenty-three years old, against Mongkoldetlek in a bantamweight Muay Thai main event. Jessica: And Dedduanglek delivered what ONE is calling a career best knockout. One twenty-six of round two. He'd been hammering the body all fight, then a left hook to the body had Mongkoldetlek reeling, and Dedduanglek just unloaded a six piece combination. The ref dove in. It was beautiful and brutal at the same time. Marcus: Sixty and sixteen now in all striking rules, and he's twenty-three. Twenty-three! The future of that division is scary. Co-main, Khundet PK Saenchai took a majority decision over Kiwthong, and Yodthewin knocked out Arman Moradi in round two, one twenty-nine. Jessica: Then the Inner Circle thirty-four, same building, same night. The main event was a teenager named Rustam Yunusov, and he just keeps winning. Unanimous decision over Suriyanlek, and he's eighteen and oh now. Eighteen and oh as a teenager. Marcus: Suriyanlek missed weight, so it went down at a catchweight, but Yunusov didn't care. He trapped him at the turnbuckle at one point, landed three elbows and a standing eight count. ONE says he's one step closer to that hundred thousand dollar main roster contract, and honestly, sign the kid already. Jessica: Bangkok never sleeps, man. Quick look ahead. Next week, UFC three thirty-three, Abu Dhabi, October twenty-fourth. Petr Yan versus Merab Dvalishvili, the trilogy. That is going to be massive. Marcus: And Asaf Chopurov makes his UFC debut on that card, eleven and oh, Yan's main training partner, against Colby Thicknesse. What a spot for a debut. Jessica: November's loaded too. Kayla Harrison versus Amanda Nunes. The champ against the greatest of all time, coming out of retirement. That might be the biggest women's fight ever booked. Marcus: And it's in New York. That crowd is going to be absolutely electric. Jessica: And on the ONE side, two undefeated prospects making their debuts against each other, Ilmadi Israilov versus Kalandar Tabarov. Plus Joshua Pacio defends the strawweight title against Keito Yamakita. Fall fight season is stacked. Marcus: Before we wrap, a word about Lotus. If you run a martial arts gym or a fitness studio, Lotus is the all in one studio management platform. Forty-nine ninety-nine a month, free trial with no credit card, and a student web portal your members will actually use. Jessica: And for the gamers, Dojo Tycoon. Free to play martial arts management sim, build your gym from nothing, hire coaches, train fighters. Four ninety-nine unlocks the full game. Links for everything are in the show notes. That's the show, folks. Marcus: I'm Marcus. Jessica: And I'm Jessica. And before we go, want the week's biggest stories in your inbox? Join the free Budocast weekly digest at budocast dot com. Marcus: It takes ten seconds, it's free, and you'll never miss a knockout. We'll see you next week.