Calgary Journal Online

Calgarian fighter undefeated so far

Music blaring, weights hitting the floor, feet stomping on padded mats and loud grunts from sparring is what you’ll hear when you find Keto Allen training at Canuckles gym.

This local fighter has a 5-0 record after two short years in his professional mixed martial arts career.

Allen started out as a wrestler before becoming a fighter. He began to experiment with MMA after a friend introduced him to it; he immediately fell in love with the sport.

Mixed martial arts fighter Keto Allen.

Photo: Ahmed Osman/Calgary Journal

Allen describes why he became hooked: “When you’re competing it’s like...the other guy doesn’t know what you got and you don’t know what the other guy’s got…It’s just the feeling, the rush you get-the adrenaline.”

Allen has been intensifying his training as of late to roughly five days a week, for the upcoming Heat XC: 6 tournament at the Mayfield Inn in Edmonton on Oct.15.

Allen will face a hardened opponent from the United States, Jason High a former UFC and DREAM fighter with a 10-3 record.

Max Marin, owner of Canuckles and Allen’s trainer, said the reason why Allen’s been so successful thus far is because of traits he possesses that other fighters simply don’t have.

Marin said: “He’s got the attitude, the right tools; he lives a positive-clean lifestyle. It’s the simple things he’s got down…He’s taken it as a career. A lot of guys have work ethic, but he knows how to win.”

Rodney Powell, Canuckles wrestling coach, said Allen does one thing that a lot of other fighters just don’t do.

Powell said, “He’s not naive where he thinks he can just beat anyone, he knows there are a lot of good fighters out there, and doesn’t come to a match unprepared.”

Allen, at five-foot-nine and an intimidating 190 pounds, hasn’t only won, but has won in convincing fashion. In his last tournament at Heat XC: 5, Allen won by a double suplex by grabbing the opponent around the back and flipping him over on the mat – which lead into a ground and pound to finish off the fight in only a time of 1:16.

“It is my calling…god willing I’ll be doing it for a while,” Allen says of his desire and why he competes in MMA.

Allen has already been dubbed as one of the country’s top prospects by a few Canadian mixed martial arts websites.  In one of his earlier fights at Maximum Fighting Championship, other wise known as MFC: 25 in Edmonton, he won by TKO in a preliminary round that was aired live on HDNet.