Brendan Allen and Marvin Vettori will look to settle their differences when they go head-to-head in the Octagon at UFC 318 in New Orleans on July 19th.
Allen and Vettori were first paired to fight each other in April of last year, but the fight fell through due to Vettori having suffered a shoulder injury.
The fight hasn’t been rebooked until now, but due to the bad blood between the two, they actually engaged in brief brawl caught on camera when their paths crossed following PFL 8 at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida last August.
The scuffle was alleged to have broken out after Vettori had thrown a punch at UFC heavyweight fighter George Tokkos, and then footage starts showing a large crowd gathering in the casino as ‘The Italian Dream’ is being held back.
A space in the crowd emerges as Allen and Vettori are now facing each other, and Allen suddenly bursts forward, landing a right hand and then firing off several more as his rival is backing up, bumping into a nearby chair a roulette table as he does so. Vettori then looks for a right hook counter, but it doesn’t land as at the same time others intervene to separate them.
Vettori was still nursing a shoulder injury at the time of the scuffle, and that would continue to keep him out for the entirety of 2024, but he did return in March for a rematch against Roman Dolidze, and suffered a unanimous decision loss despite having won their previous encounter a couple of years earlier.
As for Allen, he went on to fight Nassourdine Imavov a month after the scuffle, but lost by unanimous decision, ending his seven-fight winning streak in the process, and he’s since also lost out on the scorecards to Anthony Hernandez.
As such, Allen has slid down to No.11 in the middleweight rankings, one spot below the 10th placed Vettori.
Allen vs. Vettori is one of only a few fights so far confirmed for UFC 318, which doesn’t yet have a main or co-main event.
Check out a clip of their previous brawl below.
