Brendan Allen's Middleweight Record Chase: Where He Stands All-Time

Brendan Allen
Brendan Allen
Christian Leroy Duncan
Christian Leroy Duncan

Image credit: UFC.com

Brendan Allen headlines UFC Fight Night 290 on October 10 against Christian Leroy Duncan at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas. The main event has more on the line than a top-five ranking — a win would tie the most victories in UFC middleweight history.

Allen is 27-7 as a professional and 15-4 inside the Octagon. He rides a three-fight winning streak into his fifth UFC main event, having won every previous headlining assignment.

Brendan Allen (Image: UFC.com)
Brendan Allen (Image: UFC.com)

The record within reach: 16 middleweight wins

The UFC middleweight wins record sits at 16, shared by Brad Tavares and former champion Michael Bisping.

Tavares had a chance to break the tie in March. He lost a unanimous decision to Eryk Anders at UFC Fight Night 269 on March 14, 2026, and the mark stayed knotted at 16. Anders announced his retirement after the win.

Allen sits one behind at 15 UFC victories. A win over Duncan on Saturday gives him No. 16 and a share of the division record.

Bloody Elbow noted the chase is on, writing that Allen "is closing in on the middleweight wins record" after his June decision over Edmen Shahbazyan — the third win of his current run.

The rest of that run: a unanimous decision over former title challenger Marvin Vettori in July 2025, and a main-event win over former two-division ONE champion Reinier de Ridder in October 2025. All three recent wins came by decision, two of them earning Fight of the Night honors.

The streak standard: Silva's 16 straight

The win-streak bar at 185 pounds belongs to Anderson Silva. His 16 consecutive UFC victories remain a promotion-wide record, not just a divisional one.

Silva's middleweight numbers still define the division:

Allen is nowhere near that streak yet. His career-best UFC run was seven straight wins, ended by consecutive decision losses to Nassourdine Imavov in September 2024 and Anthony Hernandez in February 2025. The current three-fight streak is his second-longest Octagon run.

The finish column

Allen's case for the record book is built on the ground. Of his 15 UFC wins, 10 have come inside the distance, per the OctagonStats database:

The rear-naked choke is his signature — it accounts for six of those seven submission wins. Silva, by contrast, built his legacy on knockouts: his eight middleweight KOs remain the division record, along with 13 knockdowns.

Allen's finishing rate sits at 67 percent of his UFC wins. The de Ridder win was the most recent stoppage — a corner stoppage after four rounds in the Vancouver main event.

Christian Leroy Duncan (Image: UFC.com)
Christian Leroy Duncan (Image: UFC.com)

What a win over Duncan would mean

Beating Duncan would:

Duncan is no soft touch for a record-setting night. The Brit is 15-2 overall and 8-2 in the UFC, riding a five-fight winning streak of his own. Consecutive decision wins over Roman Dolidze and former title challenger Jared Cannonier pushed him to No. 10 in the rankings and earned him his first UFC main event.

The full pre-fight breakdown is in our Allen vs. Duncan pre-event facts piece.

What comes next

A fourth straight win would strengthen Allen's argument for a title eliminator. The 30-year-old has fought backwards in the rankings twice this year — first against the unranked Shahbazyan, now against the No. 10-ranked Duncan — choosing activity over protecting his position.

Imavov, one of the two men to beat Allen during his seven-fight streak, has emerged as a likely title challenger. A record-tying win on Saturday keeps Allen one step behind that conversation — and puts his name in the division's history book either way.

Sources

Fight data compiled from public statistical sources (ufcstats.com) and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). OctagonStats is an independent database, not affiliated with UFC / TKO Group.