Brendan Allen fought Paul Craig in the main event of UFC Vegas 82 on November 18th, 2023 and although he came away with the convincing win, he was caught in a calf slicer for a few seconds in the first round. Allen dominated the fight and managed to submit BJJ black belt Craig in the third round with a rear-naked choke. It was an impressive performance from start to finish really and Allen appeared on the ESPN post-show after the fight to discuss how he thought the fight went:
“I wasn’t expecting him to go for my legs. I saw him do it in like one or two fights, but I wasn’t expecting him to go under. That’s why I kept letting him dive under, because I didn’t really care. I wanted to go for his back but he made me eat my words a little bit with that. I was like, I can’t believe I let him go under like that. I never do that. I came out with the win. I got in one position there that was a little hairy, but I’m not new to this, I’m true to this. Just another day.”
The position that Brendan Allen was referring to occurred in the first round when Paul Craig had a lockdown from half-guard and managed to attempt a calf-slicer. The threat was only there for a few seconds but Craig was really cranking on Allen’s leg hard and he revealed that it wasn’t exactly painless:
“Things were popping, but I think I’ve popped a lot of things in my ankles before. I felt it popping, but I knew at one point, when you do jiu-jitsu enough, you know there’s no more. You know he’s not wrenching anymore and nothing else is going to happen. Again, I’ve been in a lot of positions like that. I’ve been popped in tournaments and stuff like that growing up, so I knew there was nothing left as far as extension-wise. So I was fine, but it’s a little sore right now.”
A calf-slicer is generally intended to cause damage to the opponent’s knee, but Allen suffered the pain in his ankle instead. He was asked about that in the post-show too and he went into a little more detail:
“It’s more my ankle. It was just from that one transition. I felt it in the ankle and in my knee, but I don’t really feel too bad in my knee at all right now. I feel it in my ankle but it was just from that one transition, and I felt it in the second when it went to step out, but again, it’s my fault.”
The full UFC Vegas 82 post-show interview with Brendan Allen where he discusses the calf-slicer that Paul Craig tried to submit him with was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of ESPN MMA: