August 1, 2026 · Belgrade Arena, Belgrade, Serbia
Todorović
13-6-0
UnrankedBelgrade, Serbia | 32 years old
Valentin
11-6-0 (1 NC)
UnrankedZurich, Switzerland | 31 years old
Home Cage, First Time Ever
The Octagon lands in Serbia for the first time ever, and the guy who owns the gym down the street opens his front door to a Swiss back-taker.
O PONTO QUE DECIDE
His Ground Game Runs Through His Fists
Robert Valentin wins 7 of his 11 fights by submission, six of them rear-naked chokes off the back. It's what he does and everybody knows it's what he does. It's what he did to Julien Leblanc in April, and the full sequence is worth replaying: he worked kicks to the body and head, dropped the Canadian with an overhand right, and only then climbed to the back to finish the choke at 2:22. The ground didn't come from a takedown entry. It came from a man on wobbly legs. That detail is the whole fight. Across four UFC appearances the Swiss averages 0.59 takedowns per 15 minutes, which is to say one. The door into his best game is his right hand. And that's exactly where he's most brittle: he lands 1.30 significant strikes per minute and blocks just 33% of what comes back, the worst number on the board. On the other side stands a Serb who lands 4.73 significant strikes per minute at 58% accuracy. To reach the territory where he's clearly better, Valentin first has to win the five minutes where he's clearly worse. And if he gets there, he runs into the wall: across 19 professional fights, Todorović has never been submitted. Not once. Valentin's plan A is the exact thing that has never worked on this guy.
Robert Valentin wins 7 of his 11 fights by submission, six of them rear-naked chokes off the back. It's what he does and everybody knows it's what he does. It's what he did to Julien Leblanc in April, and the full sequence is worth replaying: he worked kicks to the body and head, dropped the Canadian with an overhand right, and only then climbed to the back to finish the choke at 2:22. The ground didn't come from a takedown entry. It came from a man on wobbly legs. That detail is the whole fight. Across four UFC appearances the Swiss averages 0.59 takedowns per 15 minutes, which is to say one. The door into his best game is his right hand. And that's exactly where he's most brittle: he lands 1.30 significant strikes per minute and blocks just 33% of what comes back, the worst number on the board. On the other side stands a Serb who lands 4.73 significant strikes per minute at 58% accuracy. To reach the territory where he's clearly better, Valentin first has to win the five minutes where he's clearly worse. And if he gets there, he runs into the wall: across 19 professional fights, Todorović has never been submitted. Not once. Valentin's plan A is the exact thing that has never worked on this guy.
Truth A
Todorović is 32, he's 4-6 in the Octagon, he's been out for 10 and a half months, he pulled out of a UFC 326 booking in March after re-aggravating his left knee, and he arrives with both knees surgically reconstructed and four round-one stoppage losses on his ledger. The market opened him as an underdog in his own building and the line has drifted further against him through fight week, and books don't usually do that by accident.
Truth B
None of those stoppages came from anyone who looks like Valentin. Three were genuine strikers and the fourth was his knee buckling. The Swiss lands 1.30 strikes per minute and depends on a mat he has reached exactly once in four fights, against a man who has never tapped in his career.
Tale of the Tape
Essentially the same age
Valentin owns a 3-inch reach edge, his one clear physical advantage
Valentin ran this camp in the United States with striking coach Dewey Cooper
Ten Octagon appearances to four
Current Form
Duško Todorović
Noche UFC. Opened a cut over his opponent's eye with a right hand, timed the takedown, went straight to the back and finished the choke at 4:21. Snapped a three-fight skid, but against a man who walked in 0-2 in the Octagon at 11-5 overall, riding three straight losses, the first of which came on the Contender Series rather than in the UFC.
Sub R129-28 on all three cards. Reese rattled him with a right hand in round two and the Serb had to shoot takedowns to slow him down. First fight with the new team and the new gym.
Unanimous DecisionComing off 20 months out, against an undefeated debutant. He marched forward, ate the counter, hit the deck, and took a knee and hammerfists. Over at 2:44 of round one.
TKO R1UFC 286 in London. His knee gave out in a clinch exchange at 1:52 and the referee waved it off. That was the injury, not the chin, and it erased nearly two years. UFC.com reports that knee required reconstructive surgery.
TKO R1Weathered the American's early burst, made his adjustments, and broke him down in the second. Still the Serb's most recent knockout inside the Octagon.
TKO R2One win in his last four, and the context here is almost entirely about knees, both of them. UFC.com, in a feature published in May 2025, reports that both of his knees required reconstructive surgery: one from the in-fight injury against Christian Leroy Duncan, the other attributed by the piece to being hit by a car. He says he made a full recovery from both and describes the process as harder on his head than on his legs. One source conflict is worth putting on the record, because nobody has resolved it: the car incident documented by the press at the time happened on July 22, 2021, when a car ran up onto his foot at a crosswalk, with the damage concentrated in the foot and ankle. He was on crutches, re-opened the wound warming up backstage, and still knocked out Maki Pitolo that December. No 2021 report describes a knee reconstruction. UFC.com does. Both versions stay on the record. The rest of the timeline is clean: in March 2023 his knee buckled in a clinch exchange against Duncan at UFC 286 and erased 20 months. Inside that layoff he was booked against Edmen Shahbazyan on March 23, 2024 and withdrew with a knee injury in camp, replaced by A.J. Dobson. He rushed back against Mansur Abdul-Malik in November 2024 and paid for it in 2:44. Then he opened his own gym, Thunder Top Team in Belgrade, brought in a new head coach, and choked out José Daniel Medina in the first round in September 2025 to end a three-fight skid. Then came the detail that weighs most on this read: on February 21, 2026, he announced himself that he had re-aggravated the left knee and there wasn't enough time to fix it before March 7. He pulled out of the Donte Johnson booking at UFC 326 and Cody Brundage took the slot. In March he said the knee was better than it had been but that there was still work left, and that he'd be ready if the Belgrade card landed in August or September. He arrives with 10 and a half months of rust and on his fourth promotional contract, reported in Serbia on May 22, 2026, saying the camp at Thunder Top Team was run at a high level.
Robert Valentin
UFC Winnipeg. Worked kicks to the body and head, dropped the Canadian with an overhand right, climbed to the back and finished at 2:22. First UFC win on his fourth try. Leblanc was making his promotional debut, but he was no soft touch: he came in at 10-2 on a five-fight win streak, holding the Samourai MMA middleweight title he took off UFC alum Darian Weeks in March 2025.
Sub R1UFC 318. Stopped by strikes at 1:10 of round one by the Cameroonian prospect. A fight that lasted barely a minute and put his striking defense on the record.
KO R1A heavily debated split decision against a short, powerful wrestler. Valentin used the reach in stretches but lost the control battle on the cards.
Split DecisionThe TUF 32 final. Loder got him down, locked the crucifix and battered him with elbows until the referee stepped in at 1:49 of round two. He left that night with surgeries booked and a stretch of depression he later described himself. Not on this list is his armbar submission of Paddy McCorry from inside the TUF house in April 2024: UFCStats and ufc.com count it on the ledger and list him at 12-6, while Tapology, Sherdog and Verdict treat it as an exhibition and list 11-6. This analysis follows the exhibition reading.
TKO R2Last regional bout before TUF, at LFC 10. Won by corner stoppage inside the opening round, keeping the pattern intact: when he wins, he wins early.
TKO R1He showed up as the breakout character of TUF 32, with Alexa Grasso in his corner, and lost his first three in the Octagon: a crucifix and elbows from wrestler Ryan Loder in the season final, a tight split decision to Torrez Finney, and a 1:10 knockout by Ateba Gautier at UFC 318. In that stretch he had surgeries that kept him out of the gym and spoke openly about the depression that followed the TUF final, until friends bought him a plane ticket and effectively shoved him onto a camp in Thailand. Then comes the chapter that never made it onto his record: he was booked against Jackson McVey at UFC Vegas 111 in November 2025, and on the Monday of fight week he got the call that his mother had died of a heart attack. He wanted to fight anyway, but his back seized the next day and left him unable to move for two days, the weight cut became impossible, and he was pulled off the card with Zachary Reese stepping into the slot. In April 2026 it finally clicked: he dropped Julien Leblanc with an overhand right, climbed to the back and finished the rear-naked choke at 2:22 for his first UFC win, and said afterward that Winnipeg was the first time he had cried over his mother, five and a half months after losing her. He ran this camp in the United States with striking coach Dewey Cooper. He's active, three and a half months between fights, and in a better headspace than at any point in his Octagon run.
Level of Competition
No common opponents, and neither man has shared a cage with anyone in the top 15. The difference is the road each took. Todorović has stacked 10 Octagon fights since 2020, almost all against unranked names the promotion was testing, and his wins came over Dequan Townsend, Maki Pitolo, Jordan Wright and a José Daniel Medina who came in 0-2 in the UFC on a three-fight skid. Valentin came in through TUF 32 and has four official bouts, also all unranked, but his three losses came against rising prospects: Ryan Loder, the season winner and a high-level collegiate wrestler, Torrez Finney on a split, and Ateba Gautier, who flattened him in 1:10. His lone Octagon win came over Julien Leblanc, who was debuting for the promotion but arrived 10-2, on a five-fight win streak and holding the Samourai MMA middleweight title. The tougher resume belongs to the Swiss, the winning one belongs to the Serb, and neither owns a signature victory. Outside the UFC, the best name on Todorović's record is Michel Pereira, whom he knocked out in round one for the vacant SBC middleweight title in Novi Sad in December 2018. The other gap is mileage: 10 Octagon fights to four.
Statistical Comparison
Sig. Strikes por Minuto
The widest gap on the whole board: the Serb lands nearly four times as much
Precisão de Strikes (%)
Strikes Absorvidos/Min
Both leak, but Todorović exposes himself far more because he attacks far more
Defesa de Strikes (%)
33% is the worst number in this fight, and it explains both of Valentin's stoppage losses
Takedowns por 15 Min
0.59 for the Swiss is literally one takedown across four UFC fights
Defesa de Takedown (%)
Todorović's open door, and the safest route the Swiss has
Submissões por 15 Min
Valentin hunts the neck five times as often, against a man who has never tapped
Todorović leads in 4 categories · Valentin leads in 3
Win & Loss Distribution
Wins
KO/TKO
Submission
Decision
Two finishers with opposite signatures. Todorović closes with volume and violence: 8 of his 13 wins by TKO, mostly by accumulation, and exactly one decision in his entire career. Valentin closes on the neck: 7 of his 11 wins by submission, six of them rear-naked chokes off the back, and also just one decision. Seven of those 11 wins ended inside the opening round. One source conflict is worth flagging, because nobody has resolved it: UFCStats and ufc.com count the Paddy McCorry bout from inside the TUF 32 house in April 2024 and list the Swiss at 12-6, while Tapology, Sherdog and Verdict treat that as an exhibition and list him at 11-6. This analysis takes the exhibition reading and keeps that bout out of the record and the splits, which subtracts one submission, the McCorry armbar, and leaves the six rear-naked chokes untouched. The no contest itself isn't in dispute: UFCStats carries it too, and it's the Pietro Penini fight at Ares FC 9 in November 2022, waved off for illegal elbows. Valentin met the same Penini again at Ares FC 14 in April 2023 and choked him out. The read doesn't change either way: with seven or with eight, the choke is Valentin's business, and he doesn't really know how to win any other way.
Losses
KO/TKO
Submission
Decision
This is where the fight gets decided. Todorović has never been submitted: zero across six losses and 19 professional fights, with four submissions of his own on the record. And submission is exactly what delivers 7 of Valentin's 11 wins. In exchange, four of the Serb's six losses came by stoppage and every one landed in round one: Punahele Soriano at 4:48 in 2021, Chidi Njokuani at 4:48 in 2022, Christian Leroy Duncan at 1:52 in 2023 and Mansur Abdul-Malik at 2:44 in 2024. The nuance matters: the Duncan one was his knee buckling in the clinch, not his chin giving out. That leaves three genuine chin failures, all inside the opening five minutes, and zero stoppages in rounds two or three across 19 fights. Valentin is no granite statue either: three of his six losses came by strikes, two of them in the UFC (Loder in round two, Gautier in 1:10 of round one), and his only submission loss was a kneebar at Ares FC in 2022. Cross the profiles and you get the fight: the Swiss fighter's plan A is the one route that has never worked on Todorović, and the Serb's plan A is exactly the route that has already put Valentin away twice in the Octagon.
Skills Profile
Todorović
vs
Valentin
Striking em Distância
+3 Todorović
4.73 significant strikes per minute against 1.30, and the Swiss blocks only 33% of what comes back. It's the deepest hole here, even with the Serb giving up three inches of reach.
Striking em Curta Distância
+2 Todorović
Todorović closes distance well and lands in combination. That's how he opened Medina up before the takedown, and in there Valentin's reach edge stops existing.
Poder de Nocaute
+2 Todorović
Eight knockouts in 13 wins for the Serb against three in 11 for the Swiss. But Valentin dropped Leblanc with one overhand, so this lane isn't closed.
Defesa de Striking
Even
Both are leaky for different reasons: Todorović absorbs 4.40 per minute, Valentin blocks barely a third of what lands. Seven of their 12 combined losses came by strikes.
Grappling e Clinch
+3 Valentin
Valentin wins 64% by submission, six of them chokes off the back, and the Serb's 43% takedown defense is the door. The caveat is the entry: one completed takedown in four UFC fights.
Cardio (3 rounds)
+1 Todorović
Average fight time of 7:41 for the Serb against 6:20 for the Swiss, who has cleared 15 minutes exactly once in the Octagon. Neither man has much credit banked here.
Valentin wins this fight in one place, and that place is the mat. Todorović wins it everywhere else, provided he gets through the opening five minutes without getting cracked clean. The question isn't who has more tools, it's who drags the fight onto his own turf first, and the Serb has far more ways to make that happen.
Final Prediction
The Thesis
The thesis is: Duško Todorović wins because the output gap on the feet is grotesque, 4.73 significant strikes per minute at 58% accuracy against Valentin's 1.30, with the Swiss blocking only 33% of what comes back and already stopped by strikes twice in four Octagon appearances, because Valentin's 7 submissions in 11 wins, six of them chokes off the back, run into a man who has never been submitted in 19 professional fights and whose only documented UFC entry is 0.59 takedowns per 15 minutes, and because the Serb arrives with a full camp at Thunder Top Team, the gym he founded, saying the preparation was run at a high level, on his fourth contract and on the UFC's first night in Belgrade.
The thesis is: Duško Todorović wins because the output gap on the feet is grotesque, 4.73 significant strikes per minute at 58% accuracy against Valentin's 1.30, with the Swiss blocking only 33% of what comes back and already stopped by strikes twice in four Octagon appearances, because Valentin's 7 submissions in 11 wins, six of them chokes off the back, run into a man who has never been submitted in 19 professional fights and whose only documented UFC entry is 0.59 takedowns per 15 minutes, and because the Serb arrives with a full camp at Thunder Top Team, the gym he founded, saying the preparation was run at a high level, on his fourth contract and on the UFC's first night in Belgrade.
The path is Todorović surviving the opening five minutes without getting caught clean, closing into the short range where Valentin's three-inch reach edge stops existing, and piling up damage until the referee steps in during the back half. It breaks down if Valentin lands early the way Abdul-Malik did in November 2024, if he gets a takedown in the opening minutes and climbs onto the Serb's back, where that 43% takedown defense is the open door of this fight, or if the left knee he re-aggravated in February gives out on him, on a fighter with both knees surgically reconstructed who has already had an Octagon fight ended by a knee injury.
Conviction
Conviction 5, down from 6, because two pillars of the original thesis did not survive the fact-check. First: Todorović's UFC 326 withdrawal was never a mystery. On February 21, 2026 he announced himself that the left knee injury had come back in training and that there wasn't time to fix it before March 7, and Cody Brundage took the Donte Johnson slot. That's worse than a mystery, because it's a declared recurrence in the left knee, on a fighter who lives marching forward, who has already lost a fight with a knee buckling under him, and who had withdrawn from another booking, against Edmen Shahbazyan in March 2024, with a knee injury in camp. Worth logging what the check corrected here, because it cut the opposite way from the earlier version: UFC.com reported in May 2025 that both of his knees required reconstructive surgery, one from the Duncan injury and the other attributed by the piece to being hit by a car. The press that covered the July 2021 car incident describes damage to his foot and ankle, not his knee, and that conflict stays open. The surgical history does not: two operated knees, and that weighs against the favorite, not for him. Second: the Julien Leblanc that Valentin choked out in April was not making a middleweight debut, he was making a UFC debut, and he walked in at 10-2 on a five-fight win streak as the Samourai MMA middleweight champion. The calibre argument propping up part of the thesis collapses, and what's left is a Swiss fighter who is 1-3 in the Octagon with three losses to prospects and one win over a legitimate regional champion. What keeps Todorović as the pick anyway is the two dimensions the check never touched: statistical, with 4.73 significant strikes per minute at 58% accuracy against 1.30 and 33% defense, and stylistic, a back-take finisher against a man never submitted in 19 fights, with one completed takedown in four UFC appearances as his only entry. That's not enough to go past 5, and it's enough not to switch sides.
What Breaks This Pick
- 01
If Valentin lands clean inside the first three minutes and Todorović wobbles, the thesis is dead. It has happened three times by strikes in the Serb's career, always in round one, and the pattern is too strong to wave off.
- 02
If the Swiss completes a takedown before the midpoint of round one and climbs to the back, the fight moves to the only territory where he's clearly better, and that 43% takedown defense will have failed.
- 03
If the left knee that cost him the UFC 326 booking in February goes again, or if he simply looks stiff after 10 and a half months out, the 4.73-per-minute output never materializes. A knee injury has already ended one of his fights inside the Octagon, against Duncan, and it went on the record as a stoppage loss. Per UFC.com, both knees are surgically reconstructed.
- 04
If Valentin fights from the outside behind his reach instead of pressing forward the way he keeps promising to, the Serb loses the stationary target the thesis needs and this can go to a close decision.
Underdog Path
Valentin uses his three-inch reach edge to hold the Serb on the end of the jab early and waits for the unprotected entry, which is Todorović's structural defect. From there it forks: either he lands the overhand right on the counter and ends it right there, the way he ended Leblanc, or he uses the moment the Serb wobbles to glue himself to the body, drag it down and climb to the back. There's a cheaper route too, and the knee news opened it: Todorović re-aggravated his left knee in February and it cost him the UFC 326 booking, and a compromised leg makes an already bad 43% takedown defense worse. Once he's there it's his backyard, since six of his seven submission wins came from that exact spot. The plan loses strength every minute it drags on, because the Swiss doesn't produce enough on the feet to bank rounds on the cards.
Required Conditions
- Land clean on the counter as Todorović advances, refusing the firefight in close range, where he eats four strikes for every one he lands
- Get to the back within 60 seconds of the shot that hurts, since that's the only entry that has ever worked for him in the Octagon
- Survive round one, the only stretch of the fight in which the Serb has ever been dropped
- Lock the hooks before Todorović can stand up or turn into him, against a 43% takedown defense that is bad but not nonexistent
— Precedent: His own win over Julien Leblanc in Winnipeg, April 2026: kicks to the body and head, an overhand right that dropped him, back mount and a choke at 2:22. The honest caveat is that Leblanc was making his Octagon debut, though he walked in at 10-2 as the Samourai MMA middleweight champion. The precedent that serves the risk side better is Abdul-Malik in November 2024, but the winner there was a genuine striker, which Valentin is not.
Verdict
Winner
Duško Todorović
Method
TKO
Most Likely
- 01
Winner
Duško Todorović
Todorović in his own building is still the strangest line on the main card, and it has drifted further against him through the week from opener. The market is pricing the recent ledger, 4-6, 10 and a half months out, and the knee that cost him UFC 326, and none of that pricing is unfair. What it isn't charging for is the profile matchup: 4.73 strikes per minute against 33% striking defense, and a submission specialist facing a man who has never been submitted in 19 fights. Small stake, because the round-one risk and the physical risk stack on top of each other. Breaks if the Swiss lands clean early or gets a takedown inside the first five minutes.
- 02
Método
Todorović by KO/TKO
Todorović by stoppage because 8 of his 13 wins ended that way and Valentin has already been stopped by strikes twice in four UFC fights with 33% defense. The market underrates the method because it reads the Serb's Octagon ledger and forgets the bad stretch was built on two surgically reconstructed knees and 20 months out, not a drop in skill. Breaks if the Swiss keeps it long behind his three-inch reach edge.
- 03
Como termina (qualquer lutador)
Fight does not go to decision
Add the two records together and you get 24 wins with only two decisions, and only 2 of their last 10 combined fights reached the cards. Seven of the Swiss fighter's 11 wins ended in round one, with average fight times of 7:41 and 6:20. It's the play most consistent with both profiles regardless of who wins. Breaks if the Serb's layoff and mutual respect freeze them at range for three rounds.
Most Likely Outcome
Duško Todorović, small stake
It's the only line in this fight with a confirmed number and any edge: a profile favorite priced as a home underdog. But conviction 5 means keep it small and don't size it up. Todorović's round-one fragility is documented four separate times, and the left knee he re-aggravated in February, on a pair of already reconstructed knees, doesn't disappear because he's fighting in Belgrade.
Stats That Matter
4 of 6
of Todorović's six losses came by stoppage, all four of them in round one
He has never been stopped in round 2 or 3 across 19 professional fights
ZERO
submission losses for Todorović in his entire career
Against a man who wins 64% of his fights by exactly that route
33%
striking defense for Valentin across four Octagon appearances
Facing a Serb who lands 58% of what he throws
The Trap
Valentin by submission
The public will see 7 submissions in 11 wins, six rear-naked chokes, and cross that with Todorović's 43% takedown defense. The math looks obvious and it will move the line. But the Serb has never been submitted in 19 professional fights, and the Swiss averages 0.59 takedowns per 15 minutes in the Octagon, which is one across four fights. The ground he found against Leblanc came after the overhand right that dropped the Canadian, not off a wrestling entry. For this bet to cash, Valentin first has to hurt a man who lands nearly four times the volume he does. That's backing step two of a plan whose step one is the problem.
The public will see 7 submissions in 11 wins, six rear-naked chokes, and cross that with Todorović's 43% takedown defense. The math looks obvious and it will move the line. But the Serb has never been submitted in 19 professional fights, and the Swiss averages 0.59 takedowns per 15 minutes in the Octagon, which is one across four fights. The ground he found against Leblanc came after the overhand right that dropped the Canadian, not off a wrestling entry. For this bet to cash, Valentin first has to hurt a man who lands nearly four times the volume he does. That's backing step two of a plan whose step one is the problem.
COLISEUM - Statistical and tactical analysis. Data sourced from ufcstats.com and public sources.
Duško "Thunder" Todorović vs Robert "Robzilla" Valentin | UFC Fight Night: Medić vs Rodriguez | August 1, 2026 | Belgrade Arena, Belgrade, Serbia
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