Sam Alvey was originally scheduled to fight Ian Heinisch at middleweight this coming Saturday night at UFC Fight Night 200, but when he pulled out last month Phil Hawes was drafted in, but now he’s had to step aside too on short notice.
That seemed to be an end to Alvey’s chances of fighting on the card, but the UFC have been working behind the scenes and have rustled up Brendan Allen as a late replacement instead, with the catch being that the fight will now take place at light-heavyweight since Allen wouldn’t be able to get down to his usual 185lbs with so little time to prepare.
The 37-year-old Alvey hasn’t picked up a win in his last seven Octagon outings, so in his mind there was no way he was going to turn down any fight, regardless of the opponent or weight class it would be taking place.
“I’d fight (Francis) Ngannou if they needed me to,” Alvey said. “I really hope they don’t need me to. You know me, it doesn’t matter what weight class. They called me and said, ‘Hey Brendan will take it at 205.’ I said, ‘All right. I’ll cut less weight this time.’”
Truth be told it’s not a major deal for Alvey as it wasn’t all that long ago that he was competing regularly at 205lbs, though it is worth noting that his losing streak started not long after that.
As for Allen, this will be a first for him, though he did compete in a 195lb catchweight bout with Sean Strickland back in November of 2020, losing out by second round TKO.
After that Allen went on to win back-to-back fights against Karl Roberson and Punahele Soriano, but he’s since suffered a TKO defeat to Chris Curtis last month.
