Nicolas Dalby is thrown against the young welterweight lion at UFC Qatar
When Nicolas Dalby entered his fifteenth fight within the organization in the Middle East last weekend, he found himself in a precarious situation. While riding a two-fight losing skid, he was coming off a disappointing split-decision loss to Rinat Fakhretdinov and suffered a thrilling knockout against Randy Brown. From an optical perspective, it looked like the Dane was fighting to keep alive his second run as the world leader in mixed martial arts.
However, in his second outing in 2025, Nicolas Dalby received no favors as he prepared to face one of the brightest welterweight prospects from the vaunted Dagestan region. In fact, he was a +340 underdog at some sportsbooks and was tasked with hosting popular promotional newcomer Saygid Izagakhmaev.
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Born and raised in Makhachkala, Russia, Izagakhmaev shone on the international stage while performing on the European regional circuit. It was his three-fight stint with leading combat sports promoter ONE Championship that the 31-year-old welterweight began to make a name for himself, winning three straight bouts under their banner. His most notable win in that fight came when he stopped one of the greatest Japanese competitors of all time, as well as an icon of the sport, Shinya Aoki, finishing “Tobikan Judan” with a monumental first-round knockout.
Nicolas Dalby conquers the opportunities again
With his back against the proverbial wall, Nicolas Dalby had a lot to lose in what could have been his final walk to the Octagon at the packed Ali Bin Hamad al-Attiyah Arena in Qatar. But as ‘Danish Dynamite’ has shown in the past with his phenomenal welterweight victory over the then undefeated Gabriel Bonfim, he always has what it takes to counter the rise of his younger, elite contemporaries.
Replicating the same success he had against the Brazilian, Dalby managed to defeat his compatriot Izagakhmaev and easily score the biggest upset on the entire card. The statistics for the fight told the story of a close battle between the versatile athletes, with both men landing almost the same number of significant strikes and achieving almost identical levels of control time. Dalby took the Dagestani the distance and returned to the win column with a hard-fought split decision, handing the rising welterweight his first defeat since January 2021.
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