Tomorrow night, the UFC is hosting their first Fight Night in front of a sold out US crowd for the first time since the pandemic. The promotion has moved away from the APEX for a heavyweight battle between Curtis “Razor” Blaydes (15-3) and Chris Daukaus (12-4).
Daukaus will be looking to bounce back after he suffered his first loss in the UFC. After making his debut in 2020, Daukaus started out hot with five straight wins inside the octagon. All five of those coming via knockout.
That winning streak led him to a fight with Derrick Lewis where he was ultimately knocked out himself. Now, Daukaus is looking to bounce back, but he’s going to have his hands full with Curtis Blaydes.
Curtis Blaydes has put together a great run in the UFC. He’s 10-3, 1 NC in 14 fights but he’s only lost to the best of the best. He’s lost to Francis Ngannou twice and like Daukaus he was knocked out by Derrick Lewis.
In his last fight which came at UFC 266, he used his wrestling to smother Jairzinho Rozenstruik. He will likely try to use a similar game plan tomorrow night.
UFC Columbus Prediction
One thing that intrigues me about this fight is the Jiu Jitsu of Chris Daukaus. We’ve heard a lot about how good he is on the ground, however, we haven’t seen it in the UFC. We’ve only seen his striking on display so it’s hard to gauge his ground skill.
Daukaus is also a smaller heavyweight which could come into play tomorrow night. Curtis Blaydes is very big and he’s a dominant wrestler. There’s no secret when it comes to what Curtis Blaydes wants to do.
Blaydes wants to get Daukaus to the ground and he wants to control him. I’m not convinced the Jiu Jitsu will be good enough to submit Blaydes so I think that Daukaus would have to get it done on the feet.
We’ve seen Daukaus put heavyweights away, but I’m not sure he carries the power that Ngannou and Lewis have. For that reason, I’m leaning with the safe pick at UFC Columbus. I think we see the dominant wrestling win out with Blaydes getting the victory.
Prediction: Curtis Blaydes by Decision