THE WHITE RHINO CLASHES WITH A RUSSIAN BEAR AS A P4P STAR RETURNS AT A NEW WEIGHT

A British White Rhino clashing with a Russian Bear in Sheffield…

Something that only AI could realistically visualise — however, this Saturday night, we get just that, as fan favourite Dave Allen takes on the hard-hitting Russian giant Arslanbek Makhmudov on home soil, with a solid domestic undercard before it.

After that, former welterweight world champion Jaron Ennis steps back up to super-welterweight for the first time in nearly eight years, as he begins his bid to become a two-weight world champion against the relentless Uisma Lima in Philadelphia.

First off, though, we’ll start in Sheffield.

One of, if not the most popular active fighters in British boxing, Dave Allen is somewhat of an enigma.

Undefeated in his first ten professional contests, he suffered back-to-back defeats to hard-hitters Dillian Whyte and Luis Ortiz.

Since that defeat to Ortiz, he hasn’t put together a win streak of more than four fights, despite huge stoppage victories over the likes of Nick Webb and former world champion Lucas Browne.

Now though, for the first time in a very long time, he looks like he means business.

He gained revenge on Johnny Fisher in May, and it’s safe to say he looks like a man on a mission — especially since linking up with Jamie Moore and Nigel Travis.

Dave Allen 2.0 has finally arrived.

Something that’s testament to Allen’s character is his willingness to test himself against the best.

For his homecoming fight up in Sheffield, he could have gone for a bit of a softer touch, but no — he’s chosen the 6’6” Russian monster Arslanbek Makhmudov, who’s stopped 19 of his 22 opponents so far in his professional career.

Yep, he may be in the best shape of his career physically, but good old Dave Allen is still the potty lad from Donny that we’ve grown to adore over the years.

To the man who’ll be facing him in the other corner on Saturday night — and when we say he is a Russian monster, he quite literally is.

At 6’6”, with a record of 20 wins and two defeats, with 19 of those victories coming by way of stoppage, Arslanbek Makhmudov is every bit as scary inside the ring as his record suggests.

He made light work of the likes of Mariusz Wach and Carlos Takam before suffering two stoppage defeats in three fights — against Agit Kabayel and then Guido Vianello.

The Russian has since returned to the win column in his only fight of 2025, when he stopped the undefeated Ricardo Brown in the first round back in June — so he does go into the fight with some momentum.

So, how will the fight go?

It’s fairly simple for Allen. He needs to use his hand speed and his power to break down Makhmudov.

He’s reacted badly to punishment to the body, as seen in the Kabayel fight, and he’s shown that he’s there to be physically and mentally broken — something Allen is going to need to exploit and work to his advantage.

Allen has boxed over double the amount of rounds that Makhmudov has too, so you’d think the longer this goes, the more it plays into the Englishman’s hands.

If — and it’s a big if given the sheer enormity of the Russian — Allen can avoid taking any clean shots early on, he’ll be in pole position to win this fight.

As for Makhmudov, he needs to land hard and land hard early. Once Dave Allen gets into his rhythm, he’s a difficult man to take out of it — and Arslanbek can’t afford to let him have success early on.

He’s got the reach advantage and he needs to use it. Make sure some part of Allen’s body is on the end of those punches and try to keep it long, because if Allen manages to get easy access on the inside, he’s going to be a proper handful.

A win for Allen will likely open more doors for him than a win for Makhmudov would open for the Russian, with fights against the likes of Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder all being touted for Allen if he wins.

With those carrots being dangled, expect him to put in arguably the best performance of his career.

Before the main event, there’s a cracking undercard.

Junaid Bostan and Bilal Fawaz run it back for the vacant English 154lbs title after their draw at the start of this year, whilst Josh Padley takes on the always-game Reece Bellotti in a really good super-featherweight encounter.

If that wasn’t enough, future stars Hamza Uddin, Ibraheem Sulaimaan and Conner Tudsbury will all be hoping to continue their unbeaten start to life in the pro ranks with solid tests for all three.

With Sheffield out of the way, we now head Stateside, where former IBF welterweight king Jaron Ennis steps back up to super-welterweight to face the tricky Portuguese fighter Uisma Lima.

After barely putting a foot wrong in his professional career so far — which saw him win a world title fairly comfortably — Ennis is widely regarded as one of the best fighters on the planet, but he’s yet to earn the accolades his talent deserves.

He took the ‘0’ of Eimantas Stanionis in his last fight, but now up at 154lbs, he looks like a frightening proposition.

It won’t be an easy task for him on Saturday night though, against the exciting Uisma Lima.

14–1, his only career defeat came to Aaron McKenna, who recently beat Liam Smith in a fairly one-sided contest.

He’s upset the odds on away soil in his last two outings — against Sukhdeep Singh in Canada and then Shervantaigh Koopman in South Africa — and he’ll fancy his chances of doing the same against Ennis here.

However, as we’ve seen time and time again, ‘Boots’ has something a bit special about him.

It almost feels like we are one notable victory away from Boots becoming a global name — and despite Lima being a tough opponent, reports suggest that Ennis could face the undefeated Vergil Ortiz Jr in early 2026.

Victory over Ortiz Jr would rubber-stamp his name as one of the best in the world right now — but first, he must get past Lima.

The Portuguese man is going to bring the fire. He’ll be aware that it’s an uphill task to try and outbox Ennis, so expect him to be intelligently reckless and look to land heavy on Ennis from a variety of angles.

However, if the hype is real about Ennis — which we certainly believe it is — he’ll more than likely have just too much ringcraft for Lima. Nevertheless, this is a fight that’s a lot better than people are giving it credit for.