We've made it to another Friday, which means it is time to preview another main event. We have our second Fight Night with a crowd in a row, this time in Columbus, Ohio. This weeks main event may be a bit of a strange matchup given the circumstances and a fight that no one really asked for, but, I'm ultimately ok with it. After all, this is a replacement main event after Jan Blachowicz was forced to pull out of a fight with Aleksandar Rakic due to injury. It is a bit surprising to see Daukaus fighting inside the top 5 again after coming off a loss, but he's a quality fighter, so I'm not upset about it. I don't know if it is what is best for the overall development of his career, but that is a different conversation. In either case, lets start breaking this fight down.
Chris Daukaus will be in the blue corner for this one, so he's up first. Daukaus represents one of the few fresh faces that have broken into the heavyweight top 10 in the last year or so. We've seen Ciryl Gane rise all the way to the interim championship and fighters like Tom Aspinall and Tai Tuivasa have added a bit of parity to a division that could really use it. Daukaus is a little behind those 3, but he's in the back half of the top 10 and is ever improving. His last fight was actually his first fight as a full time mixed martial artist, so his improvement between appearances should be noticeable. Daukaus enters this fight 12-4 overall for his career and 4-1 in the UFC. He won his first 4 fights in the promotion against Parker Porter, Rodrigo Nascimento, Alexey Oleynik, and Shamil Abdurakhimov, which represents a steady progression, but also a pretty quick pace. His last outing was a huge step up and his first main event against Derrick Lewis, which he lost by knockout in the first round. Being knocked out by Derrick Lewis isn't necessarily an indicator of someone's ability to take a punch, but all 4 of Daukaus's career losses have come by finish and 3 of those are by knockout. In fact, Daukaus has only gone to decision once, which was a win back in 2016. I guess that already gets into his style a bit, but Daukaus is someone who is either going to finish the fight or be finished himself. The strength of his game as far as we have seen at the UFC level is his striking. I word it that way specifically because every time he fights, the broadcast seems to stress his BJJ black belt, but we've never seen him use it, but I think we'll at least get a glimpse of that ability in this one. We've seen his brother, Kyle, pull off some pretty nice submissions in the UFC, so if that is any indicator, he does have a decent BJJ game if he needs it. In any case, Daukaus has made it clear that he prefers to stand and strike. It is clear why when you watch him because not only is he a good striker technically, but he's a pretty good athlete for being as large as he is. He's a bigger guy that weighs in around 250 lbs, but he moves much better than that number suggests. He relies on his athletic ability and speed, both with his feet and with his hands, to create problems that his less athletic opponents have a hard time dealing with. On a technical level, Daukaus is a proficient striker, but not necessarily a masterful one. He was having a hard time with Abdurakhimov before he landed a big shot at the end of the first round and then finished the fight early in the second before Shamil could fully recover. Another strength of Daukaus's game so far has been his takedown defense. He hasn't been taken down yet in his UFC career and he's going to need that ability in this one, but we'll get more into that when we break down Blaydes in a minute. At this point in time, Daukaus hasn't really had a ton of weaknesses be clearly exposed, but we do have a few unknowns coming into this fight. One weakness, if you want to call it that, is his offensive wrestling. Daukaus has never landed a takedown in the UFC and he's never really tried too hard to get one. I assume that if he had that skillset in his game, we would have seen it against Derrick Lewis, especially after he was hurt, but we didn't. The problem that plagued him in the Lewis fight was his ability to be pushed back. Lewis brought the pressure and Daukaus was getting backed up against the fence, which he can't allow to happen against Blaydes, but that is an adjustment that I think he can make. It is easier said than done to do in the moment of course, but I am confident that he has the ability to do it on the right night. There are a couple unknowns in this one and the first one is his cardio. Much like I said about Tom Aspinall last week, I don't necessarily doubt that they have decent cardio, but we've just never seen it. We've never seen Daukaus beyond the 6:30 mark in the UFC and he's only been to a decision once in his career overall. Everything we do know about Daukaus tells us that he is a good athlete, so I trust that his cardio is at least average for a heavyweight, but we can't say for sure until we see it with our own eyes. The final unknown, which will be an interesting factor, is his ground game. We just don't know how dangerous Daukaus is off his back. We keep hearing about his BJJ black belt, but it is hard to say where his submission game is at. He's never won a fight by submission, but he does have a submission loss on his record. Reading this back, this section may seem a bit negative, but that wasn't really my intention. To be clear, Daukaus is a good fighter and a tough opponent, especially in the striking. He's a proficient striker who brings a combination of size and speed that a lot of heavyweights just don't have the ability to deal with. Even though he comes in about 15 lbs under the limit, he also brings above average power to the fight as well. I think I also forgot to mention that Daukaus strikes with a really impressive volume. He has pretty solid striking defense to go with it, but he does get hit a little bit. I always say that when you strike with such a high volume, there is going to be openings and someone with the power of Lewis took advantage, but no one else has so far in the UFC.
Curtis Blaydes is much more of the known commodity in this fight. He made his UFC debut in 2016 and is 10-3 in the promotion, which makes his overall career record 15-3. Of his 3 losses, all of them have come by knockout and 2 of those came via the hands of Francis Ngannou. The other came to Derrick Lewis. Being knocked out by arguably the two most powerful strikers of his era in that division isn't enough for me to Blaydes's chin weak, but it definitely can be found. The last knockout to Lewis was particularly vicious and was the type of knockout that we've seen alter fighters careers in the past. Curtis has since returned and picked up a win over Jairzinho Rozenstruik, so he was able to put that fight behind him both physically and mentally. Over his entire career, Blaydes has picked up quite a few nice wins to put on his resume. He holds wins over the likes of Mark Hunt, Alistair Overeem, Junior Dos Santos, and Alexander Volkov. It isn't a bullet proof resume, but those are all really nice wins to have. Given his record and level of skill, it is a bit surprising that Blaydes hasn't gotten his title shot yet. Heavyweight is a slow moving division that often struggles to find fresh contenders, so for someone to be such a good fighter, yet never having gotten that opportunity is just a bit odd. That isn't to say that there is a particular fight that I thought he should have gotten over someone else because that situation never occurred in my mind, but just statistically it seems unlikely. Blaydes has a skill set that is a lot more common historically than it is in the current landscape of the heavyweight division. Blaydes is a wrestler who prefers to use a dominant top control game to grind his opponents down and either get the decision or finish them late after they are damaged over 3 or 4 rounds. He's really the only fighter anywhere near the top of the division who I would define as a wrestler. Stipe has some wrestling skills, Tom Aspinall clearly does, and maybe Francis Ngannou has a little more to offer there too, but I wouldn't refer to any of them as wrestlers. Blaydes will wrestle his opponents early and often. He lands over 6 takedowns per 15 minutes and if you don't prove that you can stuff them, he will be content to take the opponent down over and over again. He also lands his takedowns at over a 50% success rate too. He's both a high level wrestler and a relentless one, which really tests the cardio of his opponents in a division that isn't known for their stamina. For someone who is so dominant in the grappling phase, it is impressive that Blaydes has developed his standup so well. His overall kickboxing is really good and is still improving. He's not technically masterful or anything, but he's such a good athlete that he takes the technical skills he does have a long way. He has good power in his hands and he's been adding some kicks to his game as well more recently, so we'll so how far that has come. The real strength of Blaydes game is his overall athletic ability, which I just hinted at. He's the type of athlete that a lot of heavyweights, especially the older generation of fighter, just doesn't have a ton of answers for. The combination of size, speed, and power leaves a lot of opponents unable to do much because they just don't have the physical skills to match him. He's on the list with Ciryl Gane and Tom Aspinall as athletic specimens who stand out from the rest. If there's any weakness in his game, I think Blaydes does fall into a bit of a comfort zone at times on the mat. He's so comfortable in the wrestling world that he sometimes loses a sense of urgency and doesn't look for a finish as much as some fans would like. He also never has had a submission win and I think adding that ability to his game would make him infinitely more dangerous. Obviously, he can't just go crazy and end up giving up position, but I think being a little more aggressive once he gets the fight down will benefit him. Getting more finishes will push him a little more quickly and he'll be able to avoid damage that way. He does a good job in general of not getting hit, mostly because he spends so much time in favorable positions, but he can be knocked out. In a division where almost everyone has so much power, it would really benefit him to be able to finish fights more quickly and mitigate the risk of being finished himself as much as possible.
If you're a betting type of fan, then you probably already know that Curtis Blaydes is a pretty nice sized favorite in this one and that makes sense to me. Blaydes has a smothering skill set when he's at his best and he's shown that ability against higher level competition to date. However, that isn't to say that Chris Daukaus is just going to get ran over or anything like that. I'll start with the keys for Blaydes because I think those are a lot clearer. Blaydes will try to get this fight to the ground and control his way to a win. He also has a decent reach advantage on the feet, so he should be able to keep Daukaus at the range that he wants him at, whether that is at a distance or when he closes the distance for a takedown. Daukaus has the perfect takedown defense right now, but he'll almost certainly find himself on the ground at some point unless he can find an early finish. As good as Blaydes has become in the striking, I think it is in his best interest to take Daukaus down until he can prove that he can stuff the takedowns or is too dangerous off his back to deal with. Blaydes does need to be careful though and can't just dive in. We saw what happened against Derrick Lewis, so he has to use his striking to set up the takedown. I think a big thing for Blaydes is actually doing MMA. That may not make sense, but it is something the commentators or analysts say quite a bit and I think it applies to Blaydes. Often times he is either striking or wrestling, but doesn't always transition between the two cleanly. If he can mix all of his skills together in a more seamless way, I think that will get him to even another level. As for Daukaus, everything starts with limiting the wrestling and he has a couple ways to do that. If he is just getting taken down over and over and being ground and pounded, it will be a very long night for him. The first way is to not get taken down in the first place, which is obviously much easier said than done. Daukaus has proven to have good takedown defense so far, but he's definitely never had to stop someone on Blaydes's level. It is unlikely that he stops every single takedown, but if he can really make Blaydes work for them and stop some, that will go a long way towards giving him an opportunity. The second way he can limit the wrestling is what he does when he is down. If he can pop right back up most of the time, that will begin to discourage Blaydes and eventually wear on his gas tank. Takedowns are only as good as the damage and control that Blaydes has once the fight is on the ground and if Daukaus can limit that time, that will be to his benefit. Finally, I view his BJJ as sort of wild card. We hear about it every time he fights, but we haven't seen what level of skill he's working with yet. If he can threathen submissions from the bottom, he can use that to potentially finish the fight or at the very least, use that threat to create an opening to get back to his feet. All of that stuff is great, but if he can't take advantage on the feet, then it really doesn't matter. I think Daukaus is the better and more natural striker, but that doesn't mean Blaydes isn't dangerous. I think when it is on the feet, Daukaus needs to make it a fight. He has to get on Blaydes and throw punches in combinations and create a bit of controlled chaos. If the striking is slow paced and allows Blaydes to read and react, I think he can handle himself. That will give Blaydes time to throw some of his own strikes and try to set up his takedown attempts. If Daukaus can create a bit more of a pace and force some exchanges that get a little wild, I think that is where he can take advantage. Because Daukaus is the more comfortable striker, he can get Blaydes into uncomfortable positions where that natural ability can take over. If he can create moments of a fire fight, I think he can catch Blaydes and do some damage. It is possible for him to win a decision just based on volume striking, but he's going to have to keep the fight standing for long stretches in order for that to come into play. I'm really looking forward to seeing Daukaus on the ground and where his submission game is at. His brother has shown himself to be dangerous in that realm, so if Chris has a similar level of submission ability, that makes him a really interesting player in the heavyweight division going forward.
What do you guys think? Who are you picking to win this one? Does Curtis Blaydes dominate this fight in the grappling? Or does Chris Daukaus keep it standing and win the striking? What are your keys to victory here? Leave your thoughts in the comments and thanks for reading. Have a good one.
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