Brendan Allen vs. Reinier De Ridder
Conversation between Brendan Allen and Reinier De Ridder
“The first few times I came in, he was there. I just went up to him and said 'hi and what’s up and let’s train,' but he didn’t want to train. I respect that as well. It is what it is. We’ll find out now. I don’t care too much about training. I’ll train with anybody. It's not like you’re going to find out something that you’re going to use against me in the fight, in my mind. He didn’t want to train, so it didn’t happen.- shares his training experience with Allen at Kill Cliff FC.”
“His grappling is good, but a bit sloppy at times. He falls off the back very frequently, so maybe that’s something he’s adjusted by now. He has decent takedowns and decent takedown defense, not too great. But I think the thing that he lacks in the most, he kind of fades in the later rounds. He starts very hard, very sharp, and very good in the first round... but then in the later rounds, he’s not the same guy. We’ll see for this one-shares his opinion on Allen's weakness.”
“For me, I have enough friends in this division. I've got that—I won't fight unless they say my name. If they see my name, then we're gonna get it. And now I know that from the very beginning. And for [Reinier], off like anyone—so without being sad—yeah, I'm not your friend, don't wanna be your friend. I don't disrespect you; if you just respect me, then we'll have no problem. I'll help you; I don't want your help from me, in a kind of way. I look at it like, I know eventually we're gonna fight 'cause I've been asking for him since he came to the UFC. So, before it was even training there... and then, to be honest, like, I got asked—for every, like, middleweight—they wanted [to come to] our gym. I always ask, "Hey, you cool with it?" Like, even [Nassourdine] Imavov came [to] the gym [and] asked me before we were supposed to even fight. I was like, "Yeah, for sure—be cool, have a new look." Then we fought; he stayed where you were. That, and after... "Here's a—have no mind if [I] come..." So I was like, "Alright"-explain's why he has no interest in training with de Ridder”
“I still feel like sh*t, when I walk up the stairs I'm out of breath... I don't want to be too specific because then I'll never get a rematch, but there's some physical stuff that's wrong and I'm going to see if I can fix it before I come back. - shared his health status after fighting Breandan Allen via Submission Radio”