Arnold Allen will headline UFC Vegas 117 on the same night as Ronda Rousey’s return to MMA, and while he doesn’t care much about sharing the date, he couldn’t help but notice how Rousey has been promoting the matchup.
Allen is set to face surging featherweight contender Melquizael Costa in Saturday’s headliner at the Meta APEX in Las Vegas. Rousey faces fellow-returning pioneer Gina Carano in the main event of MVP’s first ever MMA card on Netflix.
“Almighty” didn’t think about the date as he signed the contract, but social media has given a glimpse into the differences of promotion for Saturday’s big MMA events.
“I’ll be honest, I haven’t thought about that at all,” Allen told MMA Fighting. “I just keep seeing clips of Ronda Rousey talking about stuff and calling UFC fighters out, being on OnlyFans, and I think after this fight I’ll probably be on OnlyFans too. So I’m going to try and make some more money.”
Allen is picking up the pace in terms of in-octagon activity as he’s set to make his second appearance of 2026. At January’s UFC 324 event, Allen dropped a decision to Jean Silva, and has now dropped three of four overall.
For Allen, he wants his fists to do the talking. But Rousey bringing current flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko having an OnlyFans account into her beef with Hunter Campbell and the UFC’s business practices was not on his bingo card for 2026.
“To be honest, it’s stupid, like Valentina Shevchenko is such a great role model, she’s a fantastic athlete, one of the best women’s fighters ever,” Allen said. “She has OnlyFans to… we all know what she’s doing. She ain’t doing weird stuff on there, it’s just to post videos of her training, like normal stuff. People pay to connect with her, it’s whatever.
“I get the annotation, but trying to make out that Valentina Shevchenko’s doing like p*rn and stuff, I don’t know. Maybe. I haven’t paid so maybe you go on there, there is that, but I don’t think so. But it’s just stupid, man. Stupid stuff.”
Rousey has continued to promote her fight and event as the anti-UFC fight promotion. MVP brass has said on multiple occasions that they are bringing a fighter-friendly approach to things, which is something they believe the UFC isn’t doing currently.
Allen doesn’t really understand why Rousey continues to bite the hand that used to feed her, and feed her quite well.
“ I don’t want to be a, what people call, a bootlicker or whatever, but there’s only one reason she has a big name,” Allen explained. “It’s because the UFC gave her the opportunity to be. She was the first women’s champion they put in the spot, she was the biggest pay-per-view star for the longest time. I don’t know. I don’t get it.”
Allen faces Costa, who enters his first headliner on one of the more impressive win streaks in the loaded featherweight division. Costa takes a six-fight win streak into the matchup, which includes becoming the first fighter ever to finish Dan Ige at UFC Houston in February.
As far as how the matchup goes to cap off UFC Vegas 117, Allen promises a fun scrap from a fighter with a massive chip on his shoulder.
“It’s going to be good, man,” Allen explianed. “He’s sharp, he’s a very good striker, I’m a very good striker as well. We’ve both got different attributes, [we’re] just going to figure each other out and I think it’s going to be a great fight. I think you’re gonna see [that] he’s going to be trying to finish me, I’m going to be trying to finish him because I’m pissed off.
“I want to right some wrongs. So it’s going to be good. It’s going to be fun.“
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