Preview: UFC Fight Night 213 ‘Kattar vs. Allen’

The UFC 280 hangover on Saturday swings into full gear with the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s return to the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, even though there is plenty to like about UFC Fight Night 213. It starts with the main event: a featherweight pairing between Calvin Kattar and Arnold Allen that serves as an excellent bout in one of the promotion’s best divisions and the most important test to date for the latter participant. As far as the rest of the five-fight main draw goes, the clear other standouts are a banger of a welterweight co-headliner between steady vets Tim Means and Max Griffin, along with the opener, which sees Dustin Jacoby take a surprisingly risky but potentially violent matchup against Khalil Rountree at 205 pounds. Rounding out the festivities are two fights low on prior track record but high in entertainment potential, so this should be a solid-enough offering.

Now to the UFC Fight Night “Kattar vs. Allen” preview:

Featherweights

#5 FW | Calvin Kattar (23-6, 7-4 UFC) vs. #6 FW | Arnold Allen (18-1, 9-0 UFC)

ODDS: Allen (-120), Kattar (+100)

Allen has finally arrived at his first UFC main event, and it just might be coming at the best possible time. It has been a long road up the featherweight ranks for “Almighty,” who was just 21 years old when he made his late-notice UFC debut and scored an upset of Alan Omer with a third-round guillotine choke. Normally the UFC would throw a prospect like Allen into the deep end, but instead, it was a slow process—the Brit only fought about once per calendar year, always on European cards, and did not get much of a step up in competition or profile until UFC 239 in 2019. It was a showcase win over Gilbert Melendez that also served as Allen’s stateside debut. It still took nearly two more years for Allen to get the victory that put him into the true top featherweight mix, as he secured a decision over Sodiq Yusuff in April 2021, at which point it was unclear if he could make the jump to contender status. Allen had clearly matured into a physical force in his late 20s and had a well-practiced striking game, but his overall approach had congealed into slow-paced patience that seemingly took a lot of his potential dynamism out of his performances. Then came his March bout in London against Dan Hooker, which suggested that Allen had somehow been saving all his aggression over the previous seven years. Allen scored a stoppage victory in just two and a half minutes behind multiple powerful flurries of offense, landing more strikes in that time than he had in some of his three-round decision wins. If Allen has suddenly developed some pace and volume to his approach, that figures to be a game-changer and potentially the last piece towards making him a true title contender. At any rate, a lot of questions figure to be answered, as he will need to maintain that progress against a divisional stalwart in Kattar.

Kattar seems to be settling in as the gatekeeper to the top of the featherweight division, which is a solid bit of work for someone whose rise came absolutely out of nowhere. Already a decade deep into his pro career, Kattar was not particularly heralded when he got the UFC’s call as a late-notice replacement in 2017. However, it took all of two fights, a clear decision win over Andre Fili and a third-round knockout of Shane Burgos, to mark Kattar as the latest addition to the UFC’s embarrassment of riches at 145 pounds. More diverse strikers like Renato Carneiro and Zabit Magomedsharipov gave Kattar and his boxing-heavy approach some issues, but the Massachusetts native rebounded with a strong 2020 campaign, winning a war with Jeremy Stephens and beating Dan Ige via decision in the first of four straight UFC main events. Then came Kattar’s lone fight of 2021. From Kattar’s standpoint, the less said the better. Max Holloway put on one of the most dominant 25-minute performances in recent memory, pouring on offense as Kattar somehow managed to stay upright for five rounds. It was the type of beating that would break most men, but Kattar rebounded a year later in surprisingly strong fashion, taking the fight to Giga Chikadze and even showing off some of his long-dormant wrestling to earn a clear decision win. Kattar dropped his last fight via controversial split decision to Josh Emmett. It was a mixed bag but overall another strong performance from Kattar. He took a while to feel things out against one of the hardest hitters in the division—an approach that likely cost him the fight—but Kattar clearly took over the fight by the championship rounds and somehow once again kept his streak of never even being knocked down in the UFC intact. There is the worry for Kattar that this fight could go much the same way, particularly if Allen maintains the aggression he showed in beating Hooker. If the threat of Allen’s offense causes Kattar to take a while to heat up, he could turn the fight around on the scorecards a bit too late, particularly with the Brit having a strong wrestling game in his back pocket. Faced with a five-round fight against a seemingly indestructible opponent in Kattar, Allen needs to prove he can keep up a high pace for 25 minutes in order to be the favorite. His career is full of too many lapses where he has given his opponent time to breathe to entirely trust that he will keep the pressure on Kattar, and even if he chooses to do so, it is unclear exactly how long he will be able to keep it up. It will be a pleasant development if this is Allen’s coming-out party as an elite fighter, but the pick is Kattar via decision.

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Griffin vs. Means
Cortes-Acosta vs. Vanderaa
Fremd vs. Gore
Jacoby vs. Rountree
The Prelims