A featherweight fight between Arnold Allen and Jean Silva is in the works for UFC 324 in Las Vegas on January 24th.

The match-up isn’t what people were anticipating given that Allen had announced only a week ago that he would be moving up to lightweight for his comeback fight after spending a year-and-a-half out of action due to shoulder surgery.

It seems that those plans weren’t set in stone after all though as he’ll instead now continue his 145lb campaign, where he’s still ranked No.6 despite his lengthy absence from the Octagon.

The 31-year-old Allen had earned a unanimous decision win over Giga Chikadze in his last fight, but before that he’d seen a 10-fight unbeaten run in the UFC ended after back-to-back defeats against Max Holloway and Movsar Evloev.

As for the 28-year-old Silva, he’s coming off the first loss of his UFC run, having been TKO’d by Diego Lopes courtesy of a spinning back elbow in September that saw him slip down to No.11 in the rankings.

Prior to that Silva had been taking the division by storm, having finished all five of his UFC fights inside the distance, including a ninja choke submission win over Bryce Mitchell and TKO finish of Drew Dober.

Allen vs Silva joins a UFC 324 card that will mark the first numbered event of the Paramount+ broadcasting deal, which will see events of this kind air on the subscription channel rather than being on pay-per-view.