Arnold Allen and Sodiq Yusuff will each look to climb higher in the featherweight rankings in the UFC, as they meet head-on this coming Saturday. Allen is currently ranked 19th in the division, while Yusuff is 11th. Who wins this fight? Check out our prediction for that below.
Allen owns one of the longest win streaks in the UFC among active featherweight fighters. Since entering the UFC in 2015, Allen has not lost, racking up seven wins in a row. But his real win streak is longer than that. In fact, he has not lost in nine fights, a stretch that goes all the way back to his days in the Cage Warriors Fighting Championship and Made4TheCage Fighting Championships. Allen is a striker who has lost just once so far in his professional career. He likes to mix things up, as he has five knockout wins and four victories via submissions. He is more of a striker because of his kickboxing background, but he can get things done on the ground, too. He is averaging 1.36 takedowns per 15 minutes and has a takedown accuracy of 52.94 percent. All of Allen’s last three fights went the distance, which shows he’s got a pretty good cardio.
Like Allen, Yusuff remains undefeated in the UFC, going 4-0 in fights under the most popular MMA promotion in the world. In his last fight, Yusuff defeated Andre Fili via a unanimous decision in January of 2020. Before that, he scored a knockout victory over Gabriel Benitez in August 2019. Yusuff, who has a six-fight win streak going for him, is a dangerous striker. He has six knockout wins and will likely be willing to go toe to toe in a stand-up battle with Allen. So far in his career in the UFC, Yusuff has an average of 6.1 landed strikes per minute — almost double of Allen’s (3.19). He is absorbing 4.06 strikes per minute, though, so his defense seems to be at least a bit vulnerable. That said, he sports a high 72 percent takedown defense. Yusuff once challenged for a title but lost to Luis Gomez back in 2017 in the Titan FC promotion.
