Brendan Allen will fight Jacob Malkoun on UFC 275 in Singapore. The middleweight bout between Allen and Malkoun will headline the preliminary card. Neither Brandon nor Jacob feature in the rankings at 185lbs.
Fighting out of Delray Beach, Florida, Brendan Allen is a young prospect in the middleweight division. In 2018, He first came onto the scenes as he became the LFA Middleweight Champion by beating Tim Hiley.
He then went on to defend the title against Moses Murrietta before leaving the promotion in 2019. Subsequently, he beat Aaron Jeffrey via submission in the first round of Dana White‘s Contender Series to punch his ticket into the UFC.
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Similar to Allen, Jacob Malkoun is also pretty early in his UFC career. Fighting out of Sydney, Australia Jacob had a spotless record of 4-0. He mainly fought around the independent circuit before joining the UFC in 2020. He made his debut on 254 against Phil Hawes.
UFC 275 Prelims, Brendan Allen vs Jacob Malkoun: Stats
Stats | Brendan Allen | Jacob Malkoun |
---|---|---|
Wins | 18 | 6 |
Losses | 5 | 1 |
Height | 1.88 m | 1.75 m |
Division | Middleweight | Middleweight |
Reach | 190.5 cm | 185.4 cm |
Age | 26 | 26 |
The Key Points for Brendan Allen to win against Jacob Malkoun
Brendan Allen is a submission maestro who has 10 submission wins and 5 knockout victories in his career. In his last fight, Allen moved up to light-heavyweight to take on Sam Alvey. He out grappled Alvey pretty handily and submitted him via submission in the second round.
The 26-year-old has notable wins over Kevin Holland, Kyle Daukaus and Karl Robertson. A look at his UFC career stats will clear the picture as to what he has to do to beat Jacob Malkoun at UFC 275. Allen’s grappling stats are much better than his striking stats. The middleweight fighter averages 1.04 takedowns per fight. He also has a submission attempt average of 1.7 per fight.
In Striking Brendan lands an average of 4.39 strikes per minute and absorbs 4.59 at the same time. While he enjoys a striking accuracy of 54%, Allen has a defence rate of 44%. Although he has 1 TKO victory in the UFC, the stats make it clear that grappling is his best weapon.
Can Jacob Malkoun overcome Allen’s grappling?
The Aussie also has a background in grappling as he occupied the first place in ADCC (Tokyo) 2019. Although he is a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, topping the 99 kg weight class of an ADCC tournament is never a small feat.
He has also dominated his opponents in the UFC with grappling so far. Jacob landed 8 takedowns on Abdul Razak Alhasssan and had 2 submission attempts during their fight. He followed it up with 6 more takedowns against Aj Dobson. At-an-average Malkoun lands about an insane 6.93 takedowns per fight.
Although he has a better striking stat, Jacob lacks the power that Allen brings to the table. He averages 3.63 strikes per minute and gets hit 2.64 times per minute. However, unlike Brendan, he is yet to knock any of his opponents down. Even in grappling, he does not possess a single submission victory despite being such a dominant grappler.
Who wins between Brendan Allen and Jacob Malkoun at UFC 275?
Looking at the stats, it is clear that Jacob Malkoun is a much better defensive grappler than Brendan Allen. But Allen is evidently better than Jacob in terms of finishing a fight than Malkoun. Hence, the bout between the two will be very intriguing to watch.
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Keeping in mind that Allen is much better at finding submissions, Malkoun may very well choose to take a defensive approach and keep the fight standing. But Brendan does have the power to knock Jacob out at any point. Hence, it will be an uphill battle for Sydney native to pull off a win against the Florida native this Saturday.