Arnold Allen will headline UFC Vegas 117 on the same night as Ronda Rousey\u2019s return to MMA, and while he doesn\u2019t care much about sharing the date, he couldn\u2019t help but notice how Rousey has been promoting the matchup.<\/p>\n
Allen is set to face surging featherweight contender Melquizael Costa in Saturday\u2019s headliner at the Meta APEX in Las Vegas. Rousey faces fellow-returning pioneer Gina Carano in the main event of MVP\u2019s first ever MMA card on Netflix.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmighty\u201d didn\u2019t think about the date as he signed the contract, but social media has given a glimpse into the differences of promotion for Saturday\u2019s big MMA events.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be honest, I haven\u2019t thought about that at all,\u201d Allen told MMA Fighting. \u201cI just keep seeing clips of Ronda Rousey talking about stuff and calling UFC fighters out, being on OnlyFans, and I think after this fight I\u2019ll probably be on OnlyFans too. So I\u2019m going to try and make some more money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allen is picking up the pace in terms of in-octagon activity as he\u2019s set to make his second appearance of 2026. At January\u2019s UFC 324 event, Allen dropped a decision to Jean Silva, and has now dropped three of four overall.<\/p>\n
For Allen, he wants his fists to do the talking. But Rousey bringing current flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko having an OnlyFans account into her beef with Hunter Campbell and the UFC\u2019s business practices was not on his bingo card for 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, it\u2019s stupid, like Valentina Shevchenko is such a great role model, she\u2019s a fantastic athlete, one of the best women\u2019s fighters ever,\u201d Allen said. \u201cShe has OnlyFans to\u2026 we all know what she\u2019s doing. She ain\u2019t doing weird stuff on there, it\u2019s just to post videos of her training, like normal stuff. People pay to connect with her, it\u2019s whatever.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get the annotation, but trying to make out that Valentina Shevchenko\u2019s doing like p*rn and stuff, I don\u2019t know. Maybe. I haven\u2019t paid so maybe you go on there, there is that, but I don\u2019t think so. But it\u2019s just stupid, man. Stupid stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rousey has continued to promote her fight and event as the anti-UFC fight promotion. MVP brass has said on multiple occasions that they are bringing a fighter-friendly approach to things, which is something they believe the UFC isn\u2019t doing currently.<\/p>\n
Allen doesn\u2019t really understand why Rousey continues to bite the hand that used to feed her, and feed her quite well.<\/p>\n
\u201c I don\u2019t want to be a, what people call, a bootlicker or whatever, but there\u2019s only one reason she has a big name,\u201d Allen explained. \u201cIt\u2019s because the UFC gave her the opportunity to be. She was the first women\u2019s champion they put in the spot, she was the biggest pay-per-view star for the longest time. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allen faces Costa, who enters his first headliner on one of the more impressive win streaks in the loaded featherweight division. Costa takes a six-fight win streak into the matchup, which includes becoming the first fighter ever to finish Dan Ige at UFC Houston in February.<\/p>\n
As far as how the matchup goes to cap off UFC Vegas 117, Allen promises a fun scrap from a fighter with a massive chip on his shoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be good, man,\u201d Allen explianed. \u201cHe\u2019s sharp, he\u2019s a very good striker, I\u2019m a very good striker as well. We\u2019ve both got different attributes, [we\u2019re] just going to figure each other out and I think it\u2019s going to be a great fight. I think you\u2019re gonna see [that] he\u2019s going to be trying to finish me, I\u2019m going to be trying to finish him because I\u2019m pissed off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to right some wrongs. So it\u2019s going to be good. It\u2019s going to be fun.\u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arnold Allen will headline UFC Vegas 117 on the same night as Ronda Rousey\u2019s return to MMA, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396,14855],"class_list":["post-675023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}