Arnold Allen hopes to fight Dan Hooker on UFC’s return to London

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The UFC are working on a fight between top featherweight Allen and lightweight contender Hooker for their upcoming London card on March 19

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Top UFC featherweight Arnold Allen has revealed the promotion is working on a fight between him and Dan Hooker for their upcoming London event.

The UFC is expected to return to London for the first time in three years on March 19 at The O2 arena.

Allen is looking to return to the octagon for the first time in almost a year, having outpointed Sodiq Yusuff last April to extend his unbeaten run to 10 fights.

Hooker’s return to 145-pounds comes after he was submitted by Islam Makhachev at UFC 267 last October, marking the New Zealander’s third defeat in his last four outings.

And whilst his manager confirmed they have not been sent bout agreements for the fight, Allen is hopeful it will happen in London.

“I think so, that’s what they’re planning. It will probably be that March card in London if it goes ahead,” Allen told Mirror Fighting.

“That would be ideal especially fighting in London, as it’s been a couple years since there’s been an event in London, so that would be really nice.

“That fight [with Hooker] I could see that being a main event fight, I don’t see why not. If it is that date [March 19], it works for me.”

Allen has only fought twice in two years, suffering a broken hand after his fight with Yusuff that forced him out of competition for the rest of 2021.

He was scheduled to face Josh Emmett and Jeremy Stephens the previous year, but they both pulled out of bouts against the Suffolk-based Allen.

Allen revealed the UFC was working on a fight against ‘The Korean Zombie’, but he is now fighting for the featherweight title at UFC 273 against Alex Volkanovski.

“Korean Zombie was the fight we were targeting for a while, he was keen for it but obviously he’s fighting for a title now,” he continued.

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Hooker had a mixed spell when fighting at 145-pounds in the UFC from 2014-16, going 3-3 before he moved up to lightweight.

And Allen joked the promotion should introduce height limits after the 6’0″ fighter is dropping down to his old weight class again.

“They should introduce height limits in divisions, not weight limits! There should be like a three-inch limit, 5’9″ is the cap at featherweight,” Allen added.

“A win certainly jumps me up the division, getting a win over someone like that who is ranked in the weight above, it’s got to put you up.

“It either cements my position where I am or puts me in the position where I’m looking at guys ahead of me rather than people that ranked below and such.”