“I’m big on the whole mental aspect of fighting,” began Daukaus, who scribbles things down in a notebook and has Post-It Notes all over his wall, reminding him of the day-to-day goals he needs to reach in order to achieve his larger goal of rising to the top of the middleweight division and being a UFC champion. “(For me, that’s) just making sure that I control what I can control every single day.
“Every session I have, I try to be the best I can be in that training session. I’m not training in the morning and then focusing on the next training day. I’m not worried about tomorrow; I’m worried about my next training session tonight at 8pm. I’m worried about what I’m going to be doing in that training session and trying to get that much better, that one percent better every session that I have.
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“A big thing that I have is ‘the next 200 feet in front of me,’” he continued. “I got it from a book by Brian Cain, who says if a car is driving in the middle of the night, it’s super-foggy out, and you’ve got the lights on, what do you see? You see the next 200 feet, and that’s what you should be focused on every single day, so that’s all I’m focused on.”
And right now, within those 200 feet stands Dolidze, a grappler from Georgia who has split his first two appearances at middleweight after beginning his career with a victory at heavyweight followed by seven additional triumphs in the 205-pound weight class.
“I’ve seen him fight multiple times, and people are making a big deal about his last fight — that he just held a guy in a body lock for three rounds,” began Daukaus, referencing Dolidze’s victory over Laureano Staropoli in June where he logged nearly 10 minutes of control time, but landed just 14 significant strikes over the course of the 15-minute affair.
“As his opponent, you have to figure out how to get out of that. Me being the person I am and prepping for Holland, I’ve been grappling against the cage and wrestling a ton, so I’m assuming that’s his game plan. He’s not too heavy of a striker and he doesn’t really put combinations together, but once he gets a hold of you, it’s kind of hard to get him off you.
“But I’m not focusing myself on defending everything he does,” he added. “I have to go out there and be positive, be forward, and make him worry about me, as opposed to me worrying about him.”