Arnold Allen has been ruled out of his UFC 333 fight next month.
According to MMA Fighting, the British featherweight didn't have sufficient time to recover from his last UFC victory in May to return for the Abu Dhabi card on October 24.
Allen dropped a close unanimous decision to Jean Silva at UFC 324 in January but bounced back with a comfortable points win over Melquizael Costa in Las Vegas in his last fight.
He was out to cement his status in the top six rankings at featherweight with a win over Bellator standout Pico at UFC 333, but will reportedly no longer be competing.
However, as always in the UFC, this has opened the door to a golden opportunity for Allen's replacement, Losene Keita, who began his martial arts journey after six months in prison.
Keita replaces Allen for UFC 333
Keita scored a viral first-round knockout in his second UFC appearance in France earlier this month and is expected to step in for a potential barnburner with No. 12-ranked Pico at UFC 333.
Allen vs Pico reserved the featured main card slot on the card, behind Petr Yan's trilogy with Merab Dvalishvili and Alexander Volkanovski's featherweight title defence against Movsar Evloev.
And it's likely Keita vs Pico will be held in the same regard.
Keita lost a split decision to Nathaniel Wood on his promotional debut at UFC London in March, but went viral after disposing of Muhammad Naimov in one round at UFC Paris.
After his win, Keita jumped the cage to meet a raucous Paris crowd and took a seat in the front row to applaud his spectacular finish.
Pico, meanwhile, has had a similar start to his UFC journey.
Once dubbed the 'greatest prospect in MMA history,' Pico was on the receiving end of the UFC's Knockout of the Year in 2025 when he met Lerone Murphy on his debut in August 2025.
But like Keita, the American rebounded and eventually proved he belonged in Dana White's promotion, claiming an impressive points win over Patricio Pitbull at UFC 327 in April.
He now battles Belgian talent Keita to decide who progresses towards earning a future UFC featherweight title shot.
Both men will have a close eye on the main event of UFC 333, given one of Volkanovski or Evloev will emerge from it as the new division's champion.
Keita discusses prison past
Speaking to talkSPORT.com in March, Keita, a former two-weight Oktagon MMA champion, revealed how his fighting journey began.
"I started from prison first," 'Black Panther' explained.
"When I came from prison, I was fighting on the street.
"I lived in a neighbourhood where there were a lot of multicultural people, so there was a lot of fighting going on there and I was one of the guys who always fought.
"When I was free, I continued fighting until a friend of mine doing MMA was like, 'Try this, leave the fighting on the street alone and come to the gym.'
"I was like, 'Nah, why should I do that? Fighting isn't big; nobody knows fighting [in Belgium].
"At the time, fighting was not that popular. MMA was not that popular in my area.
"Even my parents didn't know anything about MMA and I originally said it wasn't something for me.
"My friend forced me a little bit, so I went... I fell in love with the sport since then and, after two months of training, I had my first fight."
talkSPORT.com has collectively voted on the best fighters to form a regularly updated UFC pound-for-pound (P4P) rankings system for the rest of 2026 and beyond.
Our P4P list will be updated regularly based on performances in the Octagon â with wins, records, title wins and defences, calibre of opponents, methods of victory and much more all determining who makes it.
UFC champions Islam Makhachev, Tom Aspinall and Sean Strickland feature - but big stars such as Alex Pereira and Arman Tsarukyan miss out.