The UFC has booked a banger of a co-main event for their return to London in March. The promotion announced today on it’s European twitter page that Dan “The Hangman” Hooker (21-11) will be returning to the featherweight division and he’ll be taking on Arnold Allen (17-1).
As mentioned the matchup will co-headline the promotion’s return to London on March 19th. Allen will be looking for his ninth straight victory in the UFC. He made his debut with the promotion back in 2015 and he’s been perfect since making his debut.
Injuries have prevented him from fighting more consistently, but Allen is really starting to show just how special he was. In his last fight, he took on fellow top UFC prospect Sodiq Yusuff. Allen looked incredibly sharp and was able to win a unanimous decision.
It’s been another extended layoff for Allen, but he’s coming back to a big opportunity. If he’s able to spoil the featherweight return of Dan Hooker, it will vault him near the top of the UFC’s featherweight division.
Hooker return’s to UFC featherweight division
Dan Hooker began his UFC career in the featherweight division. However, things didn’t really go well for him at 145 pounds. After having a mixed bag of results, Hooker decided to move up to the lightweight division. When he did, he saw immediate success.
Hooker won seven of eight fights which earned him a main event against Dustin Poirier. Had he won that fight, he might’ve been looking at a UFC title shot at lightweight. Hooker won the first two rounds of their fight, but Poirier closed strong and won the decision.
Starting with the Poirier fight, Hooker is 1-3 in his last four. However, all three losses came against top competition like Poirier, Michael Chandler, and Islam Makhachev. After his loss to Makhachev at UFC 267, Hooker posted a photo of him online standing on a scale with the scale reading the featherweight limit.
Immediate speculation started regarding his return to the UFC’s featherweight division. We now know that the speculation is justified. Given Hooker’s status at 155 pounds, if he’s able to defeat Allen in March, he will find himself in a really good spot at featherweight.