I think Kyle is absolutely horrible and I have definitely been hating on him for no reason. He is clearly a decent fighter but he’s frustrating for me to breakdown because i almost think he is never the better fighter. This is another one of those situations. I think straight up skill wise, Marc Andre is better. But Marc Andre is old and has been getting his shit pushed in recently. Even his last fight, it says decision loss on paper, but he was almost finished a handful of times, but then started to take over. The loss to Shara was a great showing as was the loss to Chris Curtis. If we are comparing strength of schedule there is a clear winner here, the problem is though, he hasn’t beaten any of those people. In fact, despite having 6 UFC wins, not a single one of them is over an active fighter.

If i am looking at this fight objectively I do need to recognize that Daukaus has improved his striking and seemingly evolved quite a bit since returning to the UFC. If the version of Marc who fought Shara and Chris Curtis shows up here, he can absolutely win this fight. But relying on a 37 year old who has one win in his last 6 fights, seems like foods gold.

Marc-André Barriault

Marc-Andre Barriault is a well rounded fighter with solid kickboxing, takedowns and jiu jitsu. He is typically looking to pressure forward and wear you down on your feet. He has impressive striking volume with almost 6 significant strikes landed per minute, but he is also hit with about the same. He is not a particularly powerful striker but he is busy enough and tough enough to grind out wins. He is coming off the decision loss to Michael Oleksiechuck where he was in a bad way early but managed to survive

Kyle Daukaus

Kyle Daukas is an ok striker and a very good grappler with solid clinch work and decent boxing. While he is primarily a grappler, he only has a 25% takedown accuracy but an impressive 79% defense. He is very long and can use that well, but is somewhat chinny. He is coming off the KO loss to Bo Nickal at the White House