Preview: UFC Fight Night 232 ‘Allen vs. Craig’

The Ultimate Fighting Championship on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas will close out its pre-Thanksgiving schedule with UFC Fight Night 232—a solid show that leads into the home stretch of 2023. Middleweights take center stage in what should be an entertaining encounter. Having found success in cutting down to 185 pounds against Andre Muniz, Scottish submission specialist Paul Craig looks to keep his momentum going in a tough test against Brendan Allen in the five-round headliner. Beyond that, a women’s strawweight tilt pairing Luana Pinheiro with Amanda Ribas stands out as the highlight of the main draw. There are also some interesting, high-upside prospects dotting the rest of the card, led by gifted welterweight Michael Morales in the co-main event and bantamweight newcomer Payton Talbott in his promotional debut.

Now to the UFC Fight Night “Allen vs. Craig” preview:

Middleweights

#10 MW | Brendan Allen (22-5, 10-2 UFC) vs. #13 MW | Paul Craig (17-6-1, 9-6-1 UFC)

ODDS: Allen (-410), Craig (+320)

After a surprisingly successful run at light heavyweight, Craig gets his first UFC main event in his second bout at 185 pounds—a big opportunity for the Scotsman to prove he can make a charge towards title contention in his new weight class. Signed by the UFC in 2016, Craig figured to be an entertaining curio for as long as he could hang on the roster, owing to a game built entirely around hunting for low-percentage submissions, usually from his back. That earned Craig a win in his UFC debut, but it looked like he was not long for the promotion after two consecutive knockout losses. However, after getting beaten from pillar to post by Magomed Ankalaev for 14 and a half minutes, Craig managed to sink in a miracle triangle choke and get the tap with one second left, scoring one of the biggest upsets in UFC history and saving his career. Craig continued along his usual path for a while, alternating slick submission wins with fights where he got destroyed on the feet, until he strung together a surprising six-fight unbeaten streak that had him as a fringe title contender. With some highly relevant wins over the likes of Jamahal Hill and Nikita Krylov, it looked like Craig’s high-risk style might just be enough of a changeup to earn him the title in a wide-open division. Just as hopes got high, things went south with losses to Volkan Oezdemir and Johnny Walker, the latter a dishearteningly quick knockout. That led Craig to ply his trade down at 185 pounds in a bit of a surprise, but it is an interesting gambit. It is a much deeper division, but Craig was already a large light heavyweight and has the frame to play more of a bully against middleweights. In Craig’s lone fight in his new weight class thus far, a July victory over Muniz, “Bearjew” did also show his first stylistic improvements in a while. There was still a lot of Craig putting himself in bad positions to hunt for a submission, but there were also some actual instances of him applying pressure and scoring some control time with takedowns as opposed to his usual hunt for 50-50 scrambles. It is enough to suggest that Craig could find a path up the middleweight ladder, though Allen is a tough next test for that proof of concept.

Still just 27 years old, Allen has impressed throughout his four-year stint on the UFC roster, doing everything but scoring the breakthrough win that would get him into title contention. Fearlessness marked the early stages of Allen’s UFC career, and “All In” backed that mentality up with some impressive wins, taking risky approaches against the likes of Kevin Holland and Tom Breese, only to win via stoppage. Allen eventually met his match in a frustrating affair against current champ Sean Strickland—who was able to stay defensively sound and essentially force him to run repeatedly into danger—but he has put in some work in the years since and retooled to become a much better fighter. It has been a slow process as Allen has attempted to stay more patient and fight with a more measured striking game. A 2021 fight against crafty vet Chris Curtis was just the right matchup for Allen to get torn asunder as he was figuring things out on the feet, but he is now an effective all-terrain fighter with the right type of grit to be a perennially tough out. Allen got his own breakthrough win over Muniz in February—a fight where he showed the best of both worlds in breaking down the Brazilian before diving in to score the finish—and after a stay-busy win over Bruno Silva, he gets his highest-profile spot yet against Craig. There is some intrigue here if Craig’s game continues to click at a more consistent level, and in general, it is hard to count either man out once this winds up as a grappling match. Allen is the one much more mindful about putting himself in strong positions rather than playing pure submission hunter, along with being the much more evolved striker at this point. This seems destined to wind up with Allen on top of Craig while pounding out a finish. The pick is Allen via second-round stoppage.

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Allen vs. Craig
Morales vs. Matthews
Hooper vs. Leavitt
Talbott vs. Aguirre
Ribas vs. Pinheiro
Medic vs. Orolbai
The Prelims