Heavyweights
NR | Chris Daukaus (10-3, 2-0 UFC) vs. #10 | Alexey Oleynik (59-14-1, 8-5 UFC)As the UFC signed seemingly everyone available in 2014, Oleynik was one of the weirder additions. Nearly 40 years old, “The Boa Constrictor” mostly found success via an array of unorthodox chokes that, as it turns out, worked much better than expected at the UFC level. Oleynik tapped Anthony Hamilton in his UFC debut and then blasted top prospect Jared Rosholt for an impressive knockout. For a while, it looked like that would be the end of Oleynik’s unusual success. The Russian needed multiple knee surgeries shortly thereafter and looked flat in his return fight. However, Oleynik was back to his old form by his next fight. He is still creaky enough that he can blasted at any moment, but marching down his opponents with winging power shots and hunting for unusual submissions has still led to success much more often than failure. Oleynik has even had enough momentum to earn some main-event slots, including in his last bout—an August loss to Derrick Lewis. Now 43, Oleynik has to slow down at some point, but for now, he will try to hold serve against Daukaus, who has been a strange prospect to track. The Philadelphia native enjoyed regional success on some strong circuits, but his fights looked much less impressive than his record. In his lone fight against any sort of veteran opposition—a 2019 encounter with Azunna Anyanwu—Daukaus tired himself out and got finished by an opponent he could not immediately overwhelm. To his credit, that has not been an issue in quick UFC wins over Parker Porter and Rodrigo Nascimento Ferreira, though there is still the feeling that Daukaus will hit a hard wall against someone he cannot immediately knock out. Daukaus has the requisite hand speed to shock Oleynik, so another first-round knockout for the younger fighter would not be any sort of surprise. However, given Daukaus’ willingness to apply pressure and go to the clinch, he feels like exactly the type of prospect primed to fall into one of Oleynik’s traps. The pick is Oleynik via first-round submission.
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