Jean Silva bounced back into featherweight contention at UFC 324 with a powerful performance against Arnold Allen in the first fight of the main card.
It wasn’t a sure thing at first — Allen started strong
and seemed to frustrate “Lord” through round one before Silva got comfortable and took over rounds two and three. By the end of the fight, Jean was feeling so loose that he jumped on Allen’s back like a surfer.
The proceeding unanimous decision win put him back within striking distance of a 145 pound title shot, and he had a message for champ Alexander Volkanovski and challenger Diego Lopes, who fight this coming weekend at UFC 325.
“Who’s the next guy that I’m gonna surf on?” he said with a laugh at the post-fight presser.
In an interview with Ag.Fight, Silva discussed the unconventional move more.
“What a laugh that was,” he said (translated from Portuguese). “Man, I’m going to have to drop the [gym] videos, because we really trained that.”
“Those who remember Allen’s fight against Evloev know that it’s hard to keep him on the ground,” Silva said. “I had to throw a lot of blows to the body so that when he fell, he’d want to rest because of the pains. I knocked him down before, and I let him get up and kick his head. That’s what I did on the first fall.”
“”In the end, when I put him on the ground again? In addition to winning by points, I wanted to win in the eyes of the fans, which led to the surfing. I did it, man. I don’t believe it!”
It was another wild moment from the wild man Jean Silva, and fans certainly reacted to it in a big way. So did Arnold Allen, who took the move with about as much humor as one can dig up after a tough loss like that.
“Thanks for the fight,” Allen wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “I am not a surf board though.”
Based on Silva’s comments, anyone at the top of the featherweight division could be a surf board if they end up fighting fight “Lord” down the line.
