LAS VEGAS – Jean Silva is a wild one, and fans don’t need to look beyond UFC 324 to see that.
Saturday, Silva (17-3 MMA, 6-1 UFC) pulled one of the wildest moves seen in the octagon during his main card opener bout against Arnold Allen (20-4 MMA, 11-3 UFC). Apart from putting on one of the better fights of the night, Silva capped off his unanimous decision win by jumping on Allen’s back while downed and then jumping off it as the bell rang. It was a move that had social media going crazy.
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“This is really something I train, I trained,” Silva said at the UFC 324 post-fight press conference. “I literally trained it because I knew that Arnold Allen is difficult to maintain on the ground. He gets up with both hands on the ground, and he leaves his back exposed, so I knew at the end of the round I could pull that off and that’s what you guys saw.”
With this win, Silva was able to bounce back from his first UFC loss – a TKO defeat to Diego Lopes last September. Many criticized Silva, claiming he was too eager to finish the fight, which eventually cost him the win. On top of “surfing” Allen, Silva also had in mind to go the full distance and get that octagon experience.
“I really wanted to knock him out in the first round, but this was the plan from my team,” Silva explained. “My team told me that if I really want to become a champion and be the next champion of the division, I have to fight three rounds. He’s a very good fighter and has only lost to Evloev and Holloway, and neither of them did any real damage like I did against him.”
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Next Saturday, the UFC featherweight title will be disputed between Alexander Volkanovski and Lopes in Australia. Silva’s goal is to eventually get his own shot at the belt, and he left both Volkanovski and Lopes a message.
“Who’s going to be the next one that’s going to get surfed by ‘Lord’?”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Jean Silva trained for viral UFC 324 surf move vs. Arnold Allen
