Brendan Allen is not going away, and he proved it again in the main event of UFC Vegas 122. The No. 4 ranked middleweight needed every bit of one round to get past Christian Leroy Duncan, finally locking up a mounted guillotine choke at 1:49 of the first to force the tap. It wasn't clean sailing. Allen had a point taken away for an eye poke along the way and still found a way to finish the fight anyway, which tells you everything about how badly he wanted this one. Duncan came in off five straight wins and was headlining his first UFC card, so this stings, but he was in a real fight until the final horn basically rang.
The co-main went the other direction on the scorecards. Jai Herbert, England's "Black Country Banger" at 38 years old, out-pointed Brazil's Matheus Camilo over three rounds in a lightweight scrap with plenty of back-and-forth action. Herbert keeps rolling after his win over Mandel Nallo, and a veteran who's been through the wars just showed he can still out-work a younger opponent for 15 minutes.
The knockout of the night conversation starts and ends with Andre Fili. The featherweight vet was trying to snap a two-fight skid against Kai Kamaka III, and he did it in the most violent way possible, landing a right high kick that put Kamaka out cold just 22 seconds into round two. It's the kind of finish that gets replayed for years, and it's hard to imagine Fili not walking away with a bonus check for it.
Otari Tanzilovi provided the other highlight-reel moment of the night. The Georgian bantamweight spent most of his fight with Malcolm Wellmaker getting pressured and dropped, looking like he was headed for a loss. Instead he found a right-left hook combination that set up a right high kick that put Wellmaker away in the second round. It's a brutal third straight loss for Wellmaker, while Tanzilovi gets a signature win out of nowhere.
There was a heavier moment on the prelims. Gerald Meerschaert dropped a second-round knockout loss to Julius Walker and announced his retirement afterward, closing out a career that spanned 59 professional fights, 27 of them inside the UFC. However things ended on the scorecard, that's a long, respected run in this sport.
Loopy Godinez got back on track with a unanimous decision over Ketlen Souza in a strawweight fight that turned into an all-out striking battle, with Godinez coming away bloodied but victorious. Souza had missed weight by a pound heading in, and she still made Godinez earn every bit of that win.
Elsewhere, Niko Price picked up a first-round TKO over Leon Shahbazyan with punches and left the door open for his UFC future afterward, a reminder that "The Rock" still has finishing power whenever he steps in the cage.