UFC Predictions: UFC Fight Night: Curtis Blaydes vs. Chris Daukaus
This weekend sees the UFC head to Columbus, Ohio for their latest Fight Night card. While there may not be as raucous a crowd as last weekend’s event, the fights should be good at least.
UFC Fight Night: Curtis Blaydes vs. Chris Daukaus features an excellent heavyweight main event, as well as a number of additional intriguing bouts.
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With plenty of fighters looking to climb the ladder this weekend, who will come out on top in the big fights?
Here are the predicted outcomes for UFC Fight Night: Curtis Blaydes vs. Chris Daukaus.
#1. UFC heavyweight division: Curtis Blaydes vs. Chris Daukaus
Initially, this heavyweight bout wasn’t intended to be the headline fight. That spot would’ve gone to a nixed light-heavyweight clash between Jan Blachowicz and Aleksandar Rakic.
Thankfully, its replacement still sees two of the UFC’s better heavyweights doing battle, as Curtis Blaydes is currently ranked at No.4, while Chris Daukaus is ranked at No.8. So which of these two outstanding big men will come out on top?
Interestingly, this fight pits a fighter coming off a win against one coming off a loss. The last time we saw Blaydes in action, he rebounded from a bad loss to Derrick Lewis by outpointing Jairzinho Rozenstruik.
While that fight wasn’t the best to watch, it still showed that ‘Razor’ is probably the best wrestler in the heavyweight division right now. It also marked his fifth win in his last six fights, the loss to Lewis being the lone anomaly.
Blaydes is not just a one-dimensional grappler, though. His hands have improved steadily over the years, to the point where he took out former champ Junior dos Santos standing in early 2020. His ground-and-pound also remains utterly devastating.
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Does ‘Razor’ have any weaknesses? Sure. His cardio often doesn’t appear to be the best, as he was sucking in wind at the end of his five-round clash with Alexander Volkov in 2020. While his takedowns are near unstoppable, the fact that he’s willing to use them so often has, perhaps unfairly, gained him the reputation of a dull fighter.
Some might also argue that Blaydes’ chin isn’t the best, but realistically, there’s no shame in losing by knockout to Lewis and Francis Ngannou, particularly as prior to those losses, he’d absorbed shots from the likes of Mark Hunt and Alistair Overeem.
Daukaus is clearly far less proven than Blaydes. He debuted in the UFC in 2020 and picked up four impressive wins, all via TKO, but then fell pretty badly to Lewis last December.
The native of Philadelphia isn’t a huge heavyweight, but he’s well put together, has skills in all areas and is surprisingly fast, particularly with his boxing game.
The issue for him here, though, is clearly going to be how he deals with the takedown threat of Blaydes. It’s fair to say he’s never fought a wrestler as good as ‘Razor’. More to the point, Blaydes is likely to be the faster, more explosive athlete, too, and that’s not mentioning his size advantage.
Overall, this one just feels like Blaydes’ fight to lose. Even if Daukaus manages to stun him early, it’s unlikely that he’ll take him out in one shot. If that’s the case, then he’ll succumb to the takedown at some point and probably get smashed apart by the ground-and-pound of ‘Razor’.
The Pick: Blaydes via second-round TKO