Volume vs Power | Max Holloway vs Arnold Allen Breakdown

This coming Saturday in Kansas City, the UFC Octagon doors will be locked for a main event between one of the greatest featherweight fighters to put on the gloves, and a contender from England who is constantly improving.

Max Holloway will defend his number one ranking against the hard hitter from Suffolk, “Almighty” Arnold Allen. The aforementioned Holloway is coming off the back of a third career loss to the current 145lb champion, Alexander Volkanovski. Allen on the other hand is coming off the back of his 10th consecutive UFC win, against Calvin Kattar.

Unfortunately for Allen in his fight with Kattar, he was unable to showcase the improvements he’d made, due to an awful knee injury for Kattar, at the beginning of the second round.

Despite that, for the large majority of his camp against Kattar, and for this camp against Holloway, he has once again been sharpening his iron with some of the best fighters in the game. Now spending a lot of his time in Birmingham, at the Renegade gym, Allen has been able to rub shoulders with the UFC welterweight champion, Leon Edwards, as well as fighters like Jai Herbert, Jake Hadley and recently, Ian Garry.

Holloway, who always keeps his camp tight knit, has once again been working at Gracie Technics, honing his craft.

This matchup is a classic case of volume vs power. Although Arnold Allen isn’t someone who just walks around starching people, he has a hell of a left hand. “Blessed” Holloway though is the most violent volume puncher in UFC history. Holloway leads the UFC’s significant strikes leaderboard with 2975 significant strikes. The next closest has 1100 less.

With Holloway throwing so many strikes, you’d think his accuracy percentage just wasn’t as good as everyone else’s. His significant striking accuracy is 5% greater than that of Arnold Allen’s, meaning he finds his mark.

Another interesting part of this fight, is that Arnold Allen fights out of a southpaw stance. In the past, Holloway has struggled fighting fighters with opposing stances. On the three occasions that he has fought southpaws, he has lost every time. Having said that though, the last time he fought a southpaw was back in 2019, and it was a lightweight bout against Dustin Poirier.

This fight is going to be about whether Allen can land the heavy shots on Holloway to catch the eyes of the judges. With Holloway having never been knocked down, it is unlikely that Allen is going to get the 31-year-old out of there. But every fighters chin must crumble someday.

Holloway is going to look to keep his range in this fight, utilising his length, despite being at a reach disadvantage. Allen is going to look to counter behind big powerful punches when Holloway steps into range with his flurry of combinations.

During his third fight against Volkanovski, Max Holloway found himself getting his lead leg kicked several times. To try and adjust to that, Holloway took on a more square on stance, and when entering into range would lift his lead leg to stop the low kick of Volkanovski. The champion though made adjustments of his own, and instead of blasting the leg kick as soon as Max came into range, he would counter with punches and then finish with the leg kick.

Allen isn’t a fighter who uses leg kicks very often, but when he does, he’s accurate with them. His three round fight against Gilbert Melendez back in 2019 was the most he’s thrown kicks, landing 14 of 19. Against Hooker he did it well landing all six of his attempted leg kicks, nullifying the movement of Hooker.

With him being the opposite stance to Holloway, the former champion may struggle to adjust to the leg kicks thrown his way, as countering the opposite stance is more difficult.

For the featherweight division, Arnold Allen winning opens up new matchups and provides the champion with a new challenge. With a Max Holloway win, it is unlikely he gets another title shot and will be faced with another challenger on his road back to the title.