Brendan Allen, Marvin Vettori dispute details of casino brawl ahead of UFC 318 grudge match

Brendan Allen and Marvin Vettori remember their recent outside-of-the cage encounter well, though they differ on some of the details.

This past August, the UFC middleweights were involved in a physical altercation at a casino following a PFL event in Hollywood, Fla. Though the scuffle was brief, it appeared that Allen and Vettori were able to make contact with one another before being physically separated.

At media day ahead of their fight Saturday at UFC 318, Allen and Vettori were both asked about the incident.

“Basically, I was there with my wife and some friends, teammates—we were supporting teammates for PFL—and it was time to go, I was leaving, I heard people the whole night telling me [Vettori] was looking for me and my same response was I’m not very hard to find,” Allen said. “I’m pretty easy to find. So on the way out, I was walking, I talked to some guy, he was like, ‘Marvin’s looking for you.’ I said, ‘OK, cool.’ Same response, I’m not hard to find. On the way out the door of the arena into the Hard Rock, I look over at my friend Tuco [Tokkos] is getting swung on by Marvin. At first he’s like, you can see him do this, like, ‘Calm down, chill. We’re not doing that.’ He told him I’m with my wife tonight and she’s pregnant at the time, so that was kind of my thought.

“Anyway, I look and I see him literally swing at my friend Tuco and my boy muffs him in the throat, just hits him in the throat and shoves him back, so then I take off running over there. Then people start grabbing me. There’s probably 40 people, I would assume at that point, and [Vettori] ends up somehow creeping off around the crowd and coming back behind me.”

According to Allen, he lost track of Vettori in the crowd and was actually accidentally struck by Tokkos who was attempting to defend him from a Vettori attack. Then, fellow UFC fighter Michael Johnson was able to clear a path for Allen and Vettori to scrap.

“So I go this way and finally by then I see [Vetttori], he circles back this way, and somehow, some way, Michael Johnson gets everyone to move,” Allen said. “[Vettori] is looking me dead in my eyes as you can see from the camera angles, there’s what, three different angles that I’ve personally seen and that video goes around everywhere. He’s looking me in my eyes, he puts his hands up, everyone separates and what do you do? You walk away and you’re a bitch or you walk over there and hit him. I walk over there and hit him. He just kept moving a lot. He was moving fast, getting back, he was running away almost, fading back, not running.

“Somehow his guy grabbed me from behind—I had, like, 30 teammates there, I still don’t know how that happened—but that’s it. He stayed talking and cops came.”

Allen isn’t sure if he’d describe his beef with Vettori as being personal, but he believes their feud originated from a past comment he made criticizing one of Vettori’s fights. Still, Allen is confused as to why the animosity has lasted as long as it has.

“I always thought the guy was a little bit delusional,” Allen said. “I know we all are delusional to some point, but when you have the same reaction and same interactions with people over and over and it’s just always kind of stupid, to be honest, it’s like, grow up, man. … Apparently, it was he got mad at me saying one of his fights was shit. Man, it takes two people to fight, so if I called your fight shit, it’s both of you guys. It’s not just one. I’ve had shit fights. If I’m saying it, me, as a fighter, and other fighters, imagine how many other people you’re going to see it from and hear it from.

“So if that’s what you got mad at, alright bro, we’re not cut from the same cloth, we’re just different, and that’s OK. But the moment you try to put your hands on me is the moment that we have a problem and the moment you try to put your hands on someone else that I’m close with because you have a problem with me, we have a problem.”

Vettori was less descriptive recalling the encounter, but questioned why there has been no follow-up from Allen since.

“I don’t know, he lives in Florida, but I’ve never seen him,” Vettori said. “Around that time, I said if I see him, it’s on sight. I saw him coming out and I still had my shoulder f*cked up, but I just went at him. Then I landed a few and then he wanted to get me back, but then there were a lot of people in between and I thought there’s too many people around, we’re in a casino, eventually nothing’s going to happen. I look over one second just to see what was going on because there was a bunch of security coming around and stuff and they just let him go. It’s my fault, whatever, but even then it’s nothing. Nothing really happened. He couldn’t even land a punch, even he kind of sucker punched me, but it’s nothing, honestly. I was kind of pissed because nothing really happened and then I haven’t seen him since. He lives around there but I don’t see him.

“But you know, he runs his mouth, some people think nothing’s going to happen. You run your mouth and then you’ve got to move differently because if I see you it’s on sight. It’s like that with me.”

Unlike Allen, Vettori had a much clearer answer when asked if the beef was personal.

“For sure, I definitely don’t like the guy,” Vettori said.