Ilias Bulaid
30 years old – Netherlands – BRAVE – 8-0 (1 NC)
Bulaid is a little older than some of the guys I’ve listed, but as he was a decent-level kickboxer, he switched over to MMA quite late. He started his pro career with Bellator but got out before the PFL merger. At that point in his career, he was likely too inexperienced to be thrown in at a high level anyways.
Since he’s moved on to Brave CF, he’s been impressive and has developed a nice grappling game. He’s even started picking up wins by sub to complement high-level striking. It seems quite hard for him to get meaningful fights on the regionals, so hopefully the UFC picks him up soon. He’s an aggressive and exciting guy who isn’t there to fight for points and wants to get his opponent out of there as soon as possible.