With four wins inside the UFC’s Octagon, Chris Daukaus is developing into quite the interesting prospect in the heavyweight division. His most recent win proved that, even if he felt bad about how the fight went.
The heavyweight division is notorious for being underdeveloped and lacking new faces. Daukaus is looking to change that, with his impressive wins starting to pile up in the UFC.
Over the weekend, he had his toughest test to date, by taking on the always tough Aleksei Oleinik at UFC Vegas 19. In the end, he would batter the gritty veteran, picking up his fourth win in a row with a first round TKO.
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Chris Daukaus Felt Bad
With that victory, Chris Daukaus is now right alongside the rest of the prospects in the heavyweight division. As impressive of a win as this was for him though, he actually felt bad doing it.
Speaking in a recent interview, he explained that he looked up to and enjoyed watching Aleksei Oleinik, so to hurt him like that really bothered him. Of course, he does not let that stop him from doing his job.
“I really liked Aleksei. I liked watching him fight. I cheered for him in the past, against certain people,” Daukaus said.
“After stopping him and him kind of falling against the fence, and Herb Dean having to run over and grab him, I kind of felt like damn, kinda bad for doing that to him.
“I’ll feel that way now, but in the cage and leading up to the fight, I don’t have any kind of emotions. I really don’t care. I’ll break your face in front of your parents, I really don’t care. Once I sit back and reflect on things, that’s when I’m kinda like ‘Man, that sucks.'”
That said, Chris did feel like the stoppage was a little late, coming from Herb Dean. In fact, it almost made him take his foot off the gas, so he did not tire himself out, only for the fight to continue.
“There was a point in time where I hit him, and I was hitting him with straight punches, just clean punches and his hands were down,” Daukaus explained.
“I don’t know if it was Herb Dean’s positioning, like he couldn’t see behind me, or if it was caught in a transition where he couldn’t see how Oleinik wasn’t defending very well… In mid-punches, I’m like ‘He’s really not stopping this right now? Like, this isn’t good.’
“Then, that brought me back to ‘Alright, if he’s not stopping it at this, don’t gas yourself out, don’t go super crazy trying to get the finish,’ because if I’m beating him this badly, I don’t know what I’m going to have to do to actually stop him…
“He finally called it, but yeah I was very surprised that it wasn’t stopped maybe ten or fifteen seconds sooner.”
What did you think of the stoppage in that fight? Who would you like to see Chris Daukaus face off against next?
