After UFC Paris opens with a matchup between promotional newcomers Delphine Benouaich and Sofa Montenegro, former Hexagone MMA Middleweight Champion Matthieu Duclos will step into the cage for his own UFC debut against Luis Felipe Dias.
Duclos was submitted in the opening round of his professional debut in 2019 and initially went 2-2 to start his career, but a four-fight streak of finishes capped off by winning the Hexagone MMA middleweight belt earned him the call for Dana White’s Contender Series in 2024.
The Frenchman missed out on a UFC contract when Marco Tulio stopped him in the second round on DWCS, but three successful defenses of his Hexagone middleweight title and four-straight wins overall were enough for him to get a spot on this year’s UFC Paris card.
Duclos’ striking game is built around his jab and the variety of kicks he’ll use to attack both the body and head of his opponents. The 31-year-old typically doesn’t have much interest in attacking the legs but is susceptible to leg kicks himself, and he’s also comfortable throwing his kicks from both orthodox and southpaw and will regularly change stances off of them.
He’ll also throw in occasional spinning attacks, but unfortunately Duclos doesn’t always mix his kicks and punches together as much I’d like to see. He will mix in a right straight to both the head and body to compliment his jab, but he largely reserves his left hook as a counter shot when pressured by his opposition.
Duclos can get a bit wild with his counter strikes when he’s really under pressure from an opponent, but he’s shown off decent timing on his takedowns while opponents come forward and will also clinch up along the fence to break their momentum. If he isn’t landing knees to the body from this position, the Frenchman likes to slide around to secure a rear body lock and try dragging things to the mat.
The former Hexagone champion will rinse and repeat these takedown attempts if needed and make an opponent carry his weight if they end up on their knees. If Duclos is able to get them all the way down, he’s happy to settle into side control or half guard and prioritizes keeping top position while mixing up punches to the head and body.
Although he rebounded well from losing to Tulio on DWCS, none of Duclos’ title defenses with Hexagone came against particularly impressive opponents. He also originally won the promotion’s middleweight belt when Alexis Fontes suffered an eye injury just over a minute into their fight, and unfortunately his last outing against the undefeated Ilian Bouafia also ended quickly when Bouafia suffered a leg injury.
I wish we could have seen how Duclos would have faired in a longer fight with Bouafia or in a matchup with Norbert Novenyi Jr. that was booked for June but fell through, as I don’t think his three fights last year answered all that many questions after he was stopped on DWCS.
He’ll at least have a size advantage against Dias at UFC Paris, but I don’t know how much that’s going to help Duclos given that Dias is probably the more dangerous of the two on the ground and also showed of his power on the feet in his own UFC debut in May. Duclos is certainly capable of finding a knockout himself if he’s able to settle into his type of fight on the feet, and if he doesn’t at least get his hand raised here then I anticipate that the Frenchman may have a pretty brief UFC run.
