LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - MAY 16: (L-R) Arnold Allen of England punches Melquizael Costa of Brazil in a featherweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at Meta APEX on May 16, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ed Mulholland/Zuffa LLC)
Zuffa LLC
Arnold Allen held the line on Saturday night at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Allen earned a one-sided unanimous-decision win over Melquizael Costa (50-45 x2, 49-46). Allen showed the streaking Costa that there are levels to the game and that he is still one of the top 145-pounders in the promotion.
The fight capped a solid card that was mostly overshadowed by MVP MMA 1 on Netflix. Here is a look at all of the results, highlights and bonus winners.
Three $100,000 awards went out after the card. The Fight of the Night was the co-main event featherweight war between Choi Doo-ho and Daniel Santos, with both fighters cashing the $100K bonus. After Santos took the first round, "The Korean Superboy" closed Round 2 with the TKO finish to extend his win streak to three.
Choi is an undeniable all-action fighter.
MORE FOR YOU
The two Performance of the Night awards went to Juan Diaz and Alice Ardelean. Diaz submitted Malcolm Wellmaker via rear-naked choke at 4:08 of Round 2 in his promotional debut, and Ardelean pulled off the first-ever Capsule Lock submission in UFC history against Polyana Viana on the prelims.
The story of the fight wasn’t just Allen’s striking , it was mostly his wrestling. Allen went a perfect 7-for-7 on takedown attempts and used his straight left hand to consistently win exchanges on the feet against the streaking Brazilian. That was a bit surprising because there was some thought Costa could win some exchanges on the feet. However, the combination of damage in the pocket and control time on the canvas built up to a near-shutout card.
The win is a critical bounce-back for Allen, who had dropped three of his last four going into this fight against Max Holloway, Movsar Evloev and Jean Silva. Costa entered on a six-fight winning streak with four finishes, including a recent stoppage of Dan Ige, but Allen's experience in five-round main events proved to be the difference at the level Costa hadn't seen before.
Main Card (Paramount+):
Prelims (Paramount+):
The undercard delivered multiple finishes worth flagging. Cody Brundage's 44-second R2 knockout over Andre Petroski was the fastest of the night, and Khaos Williams returned to form by detonating a right hand on Nikolay Veretennikov for a vintage first-round TKO. Tommy Gantt's UFC debut win over Artur Minev rounded out an impressive run of finishes for the Dana White's Contender Series alumni on the card.
Five fighters earned $25,000 finish bonuses on top of the three $100K awards: Bernardo Sopaj, Khaos Williams, Tommy Gantt, Cody Brundage and Nicolle Caliari. That gave UFC Vegas 117 eight total fighters cashing bonus checks, which is the kind of post-event payout that backs up Allen’s claim that this card was deeper than the MVP MMA 1 noise on Netflix made it look.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - MAY 16: Arnold Allen of England reacts after a victory against Melquizael Costa of Brazil in a featherweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at Meta APEX on May 16, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ed Mulholland/Zuffa LLC)
Zuffa LLC
Allen's win likely positions him for another top-10 matchup at 145 pounds. He had been losing decisions to elite-level opponents over the past two years, but the dominant performance against Costa — combined with his proven Performance of the Night history against names like Calvin Kattar and Dan Hooker — keeps him firmly in the title-picture conversation.
The featherweight division is in flux heading into the summer, and Allen is now back in line for the kind of high-stakes bout that could vault him back into immediate title contention. A matchup with another top-10 contender feels like the obvious next step, and Allen has earned the right to ask for one.
此内容由惯性聚合(RSS阅读器)自动聚合整理，仅供阅读参考。 原文来自 — 版权归原作者所有。