Dulatov lost the first fight of his career, and has since rattled off a dozen consecutive victories, all of them by stoppage, including his DWCS appearance and promotional debut in July. Coupled with the fact that he’s modeled for Versace and many other massive brands, it’s easy to understand why the Chechen-born welterweight fighting out of Dusseldorf, Germany has emerged as someone plenty of people are excited about in the 170-pound weight class.
As much as I absolutely adhere to the “you can only beat the people they put in front of you” adage, there are — like everything in life — degrees to these things, and beating all of them in devastating fashion is certainly different than eking out wins. The 27-year-old has consistently done the latter, venturing into the second round just once in his career, and exhibiting an outstanding ability to manufacture finishing opportunities and capitalizing on them.
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In his DWCS appearance last fall, Dulatov switched from throwing punches to hitting Vanilto Antunes with a thudding elbow that instantly put the Brazilian on the canvas and halted the action. Against Adam Fugitt in his debut at UFC 318, “The Ripper” was patient and poised before dropping the veteran from the Pacific Northwest with a short left hook and immediately pounding out the finish with nasty, pinpoint hammerfists.
On top of all this, Dulatov has tremendous size for the division, standing six-foot-three with a 75-inch reach, and he does his training camps at American Top Team, so you know he’s getting outstanding coaching and reps every time he’s in the gym.
