Don'Tale Mayes

ANALYSIS
Mayes will look to establish some better consistency across 2024. During 2023, he defeated former UFC Heavyweight Champion Andrei Arlovski via second-round TKO but also suffered decision losses to both non-champions Augusto Sakai and Rodrigo Nascimento.

ANALYSIS
It was another lousy effort from Mayes, although better than his May 2020 fight against Nascimento in which he was submitted in Round 2. Don'Tale had real difficulty getting out of the starting blocks here, generating virtually no offense until Round 3. A good portion of that appeared to be the result of Nascimento tiring. There simply wasn't enough volume from Mayes over the course of the first ten minutes for him to have any chance of winning a decision. The very definition of roster depth, "Lord Kong" drops to 3-4 (1NC) in his first eight UFC bouts.

ANALYSIS
Nascimento defeated Mayes at UFC on ESPN 8 more than three years ago. But since then, the latter has recovered with a 3-1 (1) and two TKOs across his last five fights. Mayes will look to redeem himself by defeating Nascimento, who is fighting in his native Brazil.

ANALYSIS
While the final result is fantastic, this was another fight in which Mayes had virtually nothing going prior to the finish. Don'Tale's power is legitimate, as Arlovski found out first hand, but his biggest advantage over fellow UFC heavyweights is his athleticism. That said, Mayes seemingly never fights to his greatest strengths. He's almost always one-and-done in terms of firing off strikes, in addition to displaying stunningly little footwork. Combined with what has been questionable cardio at times, Mayes seems unlikely to put forth any sort of prolonged winning streak moving forward, although this was obviously a great start.

ANALYSIS
Mayes is coming off an ugly loss back in February against Augusto Sakai. He will look to bounce back against the 44-year-old Arlovski who will be making his 40th appearance in the Octagon.