After over two years, Brendan Allen is back in a main event fight at UFC Vancouver, but with a different team. Yes, Allen has been training with different coaches instead of his usual brass at Kill Cliff, which has resulted in one of his cornermen switching sides. Former champion Robbie Lawler, who cornered Allen for the Anthony Hernandez fight, will now corner the Beaufort native’s opponent, Reinier de Ridder.

During an interview with UFC on Eurosport, Brendan Allen addressed this situation, talking about the relationships he’s built with the people he’s trained with. He understands that there will always be those people with whom he “didn’t really have a bond. Like, you probably talked sh– about me or whatever. I expect it.” On the other side of the spectrum, there were people like Robbie Lawler, whom he looked up to.

Brendan Allen did not expect Robbie Lawler to switch sides

Brendan Allen claims to have had a pretty good relationship with ‘Ruthless’ Robbie Lawler. He ‘expected’ the legend to have stuck with him for this camp as well. “But then there’s some people that I expect like to be like, ‘Yo, that’s my guy.’ Like, ‘I ain’t going to do that.’ Robbie’s one of those people that I didn’t really expect that from,” Allen further stated. However, Lawler did not necessarily betray him.

Some coaches and mentors secretly changed teams, and then there are those who tend to be public about issues with cornering a fighter, which happened between Sean Strickland and Eric Nicksick. But Robbie Lawler had a direct approach, and when he made the decision to join Reinier de Ridder, Brenda Allen claims he rang him up about it, which he seems to respect. “But I will say, on the flip side, at least, he was man enough to call me. He called me directly and told me before [switching to ‘RDR’]… It’s all business, I guess, and it is what it is,” Allen added.

It appears that Brendan Allen doesn’t have an impression of Reinier de Ridder. During another interview, ‘All In’ revealed the reason behind his decision not to train with the Dutchman. Here’s what he had to say.

Allen on not training with Reinier de Ridder

Reinier de Ridder recently revealed that he was the one who approached Brendan Allen to train with him, but was denied. When the American fighter responded to these claims, he revealed that the reason was something else. It turns out that every new middleweight that joins Kill Cliff FC needs approval from Allen, and the coaches make sure to run by him when new admissions take place.

However, when Reinier de Ridder came in, nobody took the time to run it by Brendan Allen, which seems to be the root of the issue. “To be honest, I got asked for every middleweight that wanted to come to our gym. I was asked, ‘Hey, are you cool with it?’ Like [Nassourdine] Imavov came to the gym, they asked me before we were supposed to even fight, I was, yeah, for sure, it would be cool to have a new look,” Allen told MMA Fighting.

“Never was asked nothing for [de Ridder]. Never. I was like, ‘Alright f— me? Well, f– you, too.’ How about that? Not towards him but towards whoever made that call,” Allen added. Well, it will be interesting to see whether Robbie Lawler’s decision to join forces with de Ridder works out or not. What do you think? Drop your comments below.