A top UFC featherweight says he was jumped and beaten on the street in Canada during a recent trip.
In a video posted to YouTube Tuesday, Arnold Allen told followers he was attacked while walking in Montreal because he did not speak French.
“I’m in Montreal currently, training for stuff and I got beat up in the street because I wasn’t using French,” Allen alleged. “Got jumped cuz yeah I didn’t speak French.”
“So that’s what the bruises are about,” the Ipswich, England native added, telling fans not to worry about his bruised face.
Allen then moved on to previewing the upcoming UFC 321, picking Tom Aspinall to defeat Ciryl Gane in the heavyweight main event Saturday.
Allen, who is currently No. 6 in the UFC featherweight rankings, last fought at UFC 304 in July 2024, beating Giga Chikadze.
He is 20-3 overall in his professional MMA career, which began in 2012.
One UFC legend doubts Allen’s story
Details on the alleged beating Allen received in Montreal are slim at the moment, but former UFC star Chael Sonnen is skeptical.
In a video posted on his own YouTube channel, Sonnen called Allen’s account “hard to believe.”
“Okay, that statement alone is very hard to believe,” Sonnen began. “How many guys would it take to beat up Arnold Allen, particularly in a street fight? I mean, Arnold Allen’s striking is nasty. Like that, that would, that you’d be right in his wheelhouse. Okay, so let’s just do this for a third time. Arnold Allen got beaten up in the streets. Now, in Montreal, is a piece of evidence in and of itself. These aren’t the streets of West Linn, Oregon. This is Montreal. They eat French fries, and they put gravy on them.”
Sonnen went on to debate the logistics of the events that Allen describes.
“First off, I don’t think someone could beat him up in the streets. I think that would be a nightmare even if you got the best of him,” he said. “Now, the thing that kicks this off, can we all agree it’s going to take multiple people to deal with Arnold in the streets? So now you’ve got to organize these people. They’ve got to know how to go in and rush at the same time and have some level of coordination. And what upset them was that he didn’t speak French. That’s all. That’s all that happened. He was speaking in a native tongue that was not French. I got a hard time with the story. Oh, and by the way, that doesn’t anger him. He’s not mad about it.”
[ New York Post ]
