A pair of intriguing matchups have been booked for UFC London, as
Arnold
Allen will take on Dan Hooker at
featherweight, while Gunnar
Nelson will face Claudio
Silva at welterweight.
Promotion officials announced Allen vs. Hooker, while multiple
outlets confirmed Nelson vs. Silva following an initial report
via Twitter.
UFC Fight Night 204 takes place at the O2 Arena in London and
is headlined by a heavyweight tilt pitting Alexander
Volkov against Tom
Aspinall.
The 28-year-old Allen has won his last 10 professional outings —
including eight in UFC competition. The Englishman known as
“Almighty” fought once in 2021, earning a unanimous decision over
Sodiq
Yusuff at UFC on ABC 2 last April. His ledger also includes
wins over the likes of Nik Lentz,
Gilbert
Melendez and Makwan
Amirkhani.
Hooker will return to 145 pounds for the first time since November
2016, when he dropped a unanimous decision to Jason
Knight at UFC Fight Night 101. “The Hangman” went 3-3 in six
Octagon appearances as a featherweight before moving to 155 pounds,
where he was victorious in seven of his first eight outings. More
recently, Hooker has fallen on hard times, losing three of his last
four bouts — including a submission defeat to Islam
Makhachev at UFC 267.
Nelson hasn’t competed since September 2019, when he fell to
Gilbert
Burns via unanimous decision at UFC Fight Night 160. The
33-year-old Iceland native has lost three of his last four UFC
bouts dating back to a first-round KO defeat at the hands of
Santiago
Ponzinibbio in July 2017.
Silva won 14 consecutive bouts from 2007 to 2019, a run that
featured five UFC victories. In more recent times, the 39-year-old
“Hannibal” has dropped back-to-back decisions against James
Krause and Court McGee
in his last two promotional appearances.