UFC Fight Night 205 Preview

The UFC will be returning to Columbus, Ohio at Nationwide Arena for UFC Fight Night 205. The main event will be in the heavyweight division between #4 Curtis Blaydes and #9 Chris Daukuas.

Blaydes (15-3-1 and 10-3-1 in the UFC) is coming off a unanimous decision win over Jairzinho Rozenstruik at UFC 266 in September. The win was a great rebound from being on the receiving end of one of the best knockouts of 2021, courtesy of Derrick Lewis. Prior to losing to Lewis, Blaydes was on a four-fight winning streak with wins over Alexander Volkov, former champion Junior Dos Santos, Shamil Abdurakhimov and Justin Willis. 

The 31-year-old will be headlining his sixth card for the UFC. He has arguably been one fight away from getting a title shot twice in his career. The losses that put a hault to those title shots came to Lewis and to current champion Francis Ngannou. 

Blaydes also has key wins in his career over MMA legends Alistair Overeem and Mark Hunt. A win over Daukaus has the potential to put Blaydes just one more win away from being granted a title shot. While Blaydes might have preferred another top five matchup, he is not in a rush to get to that illustrious title shot. “I have always said I’m not in a hurry because I’m going to be here for a long time,” Blaydes told Yahoo Sports. “I have seven, eight more years at least. I’m still improving, still getting better, still loving what I do, said Blaydes.

The Chicago native went on to say, “I’m not broke. I’m doing good [financially]. My daughter is my only dependent. I don’t live a flashy lifestyle. I’m comfortable. So I can wait [for a title shot]. I know eventually it’s going to come. I’m a patient guy and the one thing you can tell by paying attention to how they do business is, if you keep winning, sooner or later you’ll get there.”

Blaydes knows he is in for a tough test against Daukaus regardless of where the fight goes in the octagon. Daukaus is Brazilian a Jiu Jitsu blackbelt and has good striking, but Blaydes feels prepared for both. “I’m not a black belt, but in MMA, the difference between a black belt and white belt is just a few elbows,” Blaydes said. “He’s talented on the feet. That’s undeniable. His hands are going to be his biggest issue for me.

Blaydes added, “But if the takedown is there, I’ll go for it. Like I said, my game plan is not adjusted for anyone. I took Aleksei Oleinik down four or five times a couple of years ago. I feel confident in what I can do and until he proves me wrong, I’m going to stick with it.”

Daukaus started 4-0 in his UFC career with all four wins coming by KO. However, he like Blaydes was on the receiving end of a Derrick Lewis KO in his last fight in December. Daukaus is a former full time police officer and quit his job before the Lewis fight. Now the Philadelphian is looking for a huge rebound against Blaydes. 

However, he is surprised that he is in a main event after coming off such a devastating loss. “In my mentality, the UFC gave me an opportunity to main event. I lost, obviously, in dramatic fashion. And I figured that I would not be seeing any kind of main event or co-main event status for a while until I got a few wins under my belt back in the division. But apparently, the UFC has different plans,” said Daukaus.

The 32-year-old has been open about battling the emotions of losing such a high-profile fight to Lewis. Daukaus said on the loss to Lewis, “It’s really horrible, to be honest with you. You start second guessing everything. You start second guessing, especially, that was the first fight after leaving the police department, so there’s obviously that doubt that crept in my head about, you know, I just left my job.”

“I just left my career of 10 years to go pursue this. And I get flatlined on the first go around. It’s that doubt that you have of, am I really good enough to sustain myself in the UFC? Should I have not quit my job. It’s just all big what ifs, and it’s just that self-doubt. But I dealt with that. I got myself back. I stayed in that dark spot for a little bit because I don’t want to feel that again, and I don’t want to just brush that off like it was a fluke or anything like that, or he got lucky. No. He beat me. That’s what he does, and I have to accept that. And I accepted that, and I moved on. I was in that dark spot for a little bit, and it was tough, man. It was really tough.” 

“I lost all kinds of motivation just to get back into the gym a little bit. There’s some days where I just didn’t want to do anything, man. It was just really bad. But I got through it. I was there. I accepted the fact, and now I’m ready to go.”

The Rest of the Main Card:

Women's Flyweight - #7 Joanne Wood vs. #9 Alexa Grasso

Flyweight - #2 Askar Askarov vs. #6 Kai Kara-France

Welterweight - Matt Brown vs. Bryan Barberena

Heavyweight - Ilir Latifi vs. Alexey Oleynik

Lightweight - Marc Diakiese vs. Viacheslav Borschev

ESPN + Prelims:

Welterweight - #9 Neil Magny vs. Max Griffin

Women's Bantamweight - #9 Sara McMann vs. #12 Karol Rosa

Bantamweight - Chris Gutiérrez vs. Danaa Batgerel

Women's Flyweight - #4 Jennifer Maia vs. #13 Manon Fiorot

Flyweight - #7 Matheus Nicolau vs. #10 David Dvořák

Featherweight - Luis Saldaña vs. Bruno Souza