Preview: UFC 275 Prelims

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The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s first pay-per-view out of Singapore on Saturday does not offer much depth in terms of name value, but this seven-bout preliminary slate should provide some constant entertainment. As expected, the vast majority of the UFC 275 undercard focuses around talent out of Asia and Oceania, including the featured attraction, which sees Robert Whittaker stablemate Jacob Malkoun looking for his biggest win to date against Brendan Allen at middleweight. In terms of intrigue, the highlight is probably the televised opener, which sees Andre Fialho fight for the third time in eight weeks against perennial welterweight prospect Jake Matthews; the UFC debut of high-upside Chinese prospect Maheshate Hayisaer is also reason to stay tuned. Beyond those mentions, nobody figures to set themselves up for a huge fight next time out. The UFC at least did well to match up aggressive fighters who should consistently press the action.

Now to the preview for the UFC 275 “Teixeira vs. Prochazka” prelims:

Middleweights

Brendan Allen (18-5, 6-2 UFC) vs. Jacob Malkoun (6-1, 2-1 UFC)

ODDS: Allen (-280), Malkoun (+225)

Allen is in an interesting spot in his career. “All In” was signed off of Dana White’s Contender Series in 2019, and his style figured to hit a clear ceiling sooner rather than later. Allen’s approach centered on messy aggression in the hopes of swamping his opponent on either the feet or the mat, and the thought was that he would eventually get annihilated due to his lack of defense. However, Allen got off to a shockingly strong start to his UFC career, scoring a debut win over Kevin Holland as part of a three-fight winning streak that was stopped by Sean Strickland in November 2020. In the year and a half since, Allen has obviously tried to be more mindful, and he has managed a strong balance between caution and offensive potency thus far, though he is obviously still in a period of transition. A one-sided loss to Chris Curtis in December proved that Allen still has a good way to go to beat the craftier vets in this division, but given that he is somehow still just 26 years old, he should eventually come out the other side of this learning curve as a much better fighter. After rebounding from the Curtis loss with a win over Sam Alvey in February, Allen looks to keep his momentum going against a recent overachiever Malkoun. Australia’s Malkoun got the UFC call after only four professional fights, which figured to be a disservice to “Mamba.” Malkoun showed some solid ideas on the Australian regional scene but did not appear to be the level of athlete or finisher to hang for long at the UFC level, at least at this point in his career. The UFC has consistently matched Malkoun with first-round knockout artists, which has resulted in a mixed bag. He got absolutely torched by Phil Hawes in just 18 seconds but survived early trouble against Abdul Razak Alhassan and A.J. Dobson to grind out some wrestling-heavy decision wins. Allen is not the level of one-shot knockout artist as any of Malkoun’s previous UFC opponents, but this looks like a quite winnable fight for the American. Even as Allen is figuring things out, he still has enough on the feet to take care of the quite hittable Malkoun, and the latter’s reliance on wrestling figures to lead right into Allen’s aggressive and effective grappling game. The pick is Allen via second-round submission.

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Allen vs. Malkoun
Choi vs. Culibao
Garcia vs. Hayisaer
Fialho vs. Matthews
Danaa vs. Kang
Juarez vs. Liang
Edwards vs. Pascual