“BRENDAN ALLEN GETS THE SUBMISSION WIN IN THE FINAL ROUND AGAINST CHRISTIAN LEROY DUNCAN,” ESPN MMA wrote on X after UFC Vegas 122 on Oct. 10. That result isn’t in dispute. The dispute is about something that happened earlier, when referee Marc Goddard deducted a point from Duncan for an eye poke on Allen.
The Times of India framed the penalty as a controversy that erupted after the event. Goddard has since explained the call, according to MMA Sucka. The reports available don’t spell out his reasoning, which round the foul came in, or whether a warning came first. So there’s no Goddard quote here, because I’d have to make one up. The man who enforced the rule gets to explain it in his own words, and those words aren’t on the table yet.
The finish is clear. Bovada’s account posted it as a rear-naked choke, and Championship Rounds put it in the fifth round. That makes the deduction a footnote on the official result. A point only matters when the judges’ cards get read, and nobody read them. Any argument that the penalty changed the outcome is speculation. Allen’s choke closed the case.
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Who Was In There
Duncan, 15-3, sits No. 13 at middleweight in the Knockout Daily rankings. He’s a former Cage Warriors middleweight champion out of Gloucester, England, who trains with Range Martial Arts Academy. He came to the UFC in 2023 and stopped Duško Todorović, Denis Tiuliulin and Cláudio Ribeiro. He also beat Andrey Pulyaev on the cards and knocked out Eryk Anders. His two earlier UFC losses, to Armen Petrosyan and Gregory Rodrigues, both went to decisions. Allen is the first opponent to finish him.
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Allen, 28-7, is No. 11 in our rankings and fights out of Kill Cliff FC. He’s a two-time LFA middleweight champion. He earned his UFC contract on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2019 and then submitted Kevin Holland in his debut. Five rounds against a bigger, rangier striker didn’t change his game plan. He still won it with his grappling, like he has most of his career.
What’s Next
No follow-up bout has been reported for either man. Fight commentator Dovy posted the obvious question to X within minutes, asking “who should Brendan Allen fight next???” For Duncan, a lost point is the smaller problem. Anyone who books him from here will look at the fifth-round tape and plan to drag him into deep water.
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