Athletes
Nicolas Dalby | 'Danish Dynamite' Still Explosive At 40
Danish Welterweight May Be In The Veteran Stage Of His Career, But He's Showing No Signs Of Slowing Down
Few athletes in professional sport are still improving at 40 years of age, but Nicolas Dalby is no ordinary athlete.
The Danish star, who captured Cage Warriors welterweight gold back in 2014 before eventually signing with the UFC the following year, endured a tough time in his first UFC stint.
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But now, at the age of 40, Dalby is set to make the walk to the Octagon for the 10th fight of his second stint, as he continues a career that bounced back admirably following his departure from the promotion back in 2016.
When we told Dalby about his milestone, he was genuinely surprised, and said that his second run has surpassed any expectations he might have had following his first stint with the UFC.
“Well, when I first got released from the UFC, I don't think I had any hopes about anything because I was so depressed,” he admitted.
“But no. If you told me that back then, I would probably have doubted that it was possible. So feels good to be back.”
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Since his return, Dalby has been in superb form. Six wins, two losses and one no contest have firmly established him as a welterweight mainstay, and his finish of the previously undefeated Gabriel Bonfim in Brazil in 2023 showed that he remains a dangerous force at 170 pounds.
“All things considered, I'm pretty impressed by myself,” he stated.
“I thought I'd just be able to get back, but then also to be able to climb so high, as I've done, and then get into being one of the 20 best fighters in the world in my weight division? I always knew I had the potential, but being able to kind of fulfil that potential, as well, is another thing. So it feels great.”
Dalby’s last outing ended in a split decision loss to Rinat Fakhretdinov in Riyadh last June in a fight that split those watching, as well as the judges at cageside.
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When asked to share his biggest takeaway from that razor-thin defeat, Dalby needed a moment to think before delivering his answer, but said that the main lesson from that fight was to understand that the onus is always on him to ensure that split verdicts don’t happen.
“My takeaway from that performance is that I need to be more decisive in my fights,” he said.
When you have a fight that's a split decision, it can go both ways. And I guess throughout my career, I've also been on the on the good end of split decisions, close fights. So I need to be more decisive, more dominant. That's it.
“I think I've been hard on myself for losing the fight, but that just put even more motivation on me, more fuel for the fire. I know that, yeah, it was a close split decision. So in a way, I feel like I didn't lose the fight.
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“I know on paper it was a loss, but mentally, I was like, ‘OK, I had a pretty bad day. So if this is my worst day at the office, and I get to a split decision against the guy who's top 20 in the world, that's not the worst-case scenario.’ So I'm definitely feeling like, I (still) carry the momentum.”
That momentum will come in handy as he steps into the Octagon to face Randy Brown. It’s a matchup that offers an interesting clash of styles, and Dalby said that he’s ready to outwork Brown and overwhelm him en route to victory.
“He does good in his fights, but also I feel like he often lets his opponents dictate the pace of the fight. I feel like he's way more laid back than I am about pushing the pace of the fight.”
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