Allen gets up close view of MMA

We caught up with Vikings All-Pro defensive end Jared Allen recently and had a chance to talk to him about his gig next week at an MMA event in Sacramento.

Allen will work the corner of his close friend and summer training partner Alex Karalexis at a WEC event at Arco Arena. Allen has become a huge MMA fan and has incorporated it into his offseason training regimen.

We did a story on Allen's training with Karalexis last summer that can be found right here.

Karalexis asked Allen to work his corner for his April 24 fight against Anthony Pettis. We asked Jared what his role will be.

"I'm going to pull out as many lines from Karate Kid as I can," Allen said, laughing. "You know, 'Put him in a body bag, Alex.' That's going to be my line. Really, he'll have his trainers. I'm just there for support."

We'll have more in this later tonight online and in the paper Tuesday. We also asked Allen if the loss to the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship game still eats at him.

"No, you can't let it bother you for that long," he said. "New year, new tournament. It's one of those things where you learn from it and hope you can get back there and find yourself in that situation again and end up on the better side of it."