This should be a fun scrap to help sort things out at the bottom of
the flyweight division. Buys' UFC career hasn't gone particularly
well since he won a contract on the Contender Series in 2020, the
culmination of years of work, including Buys relocating from his
native South Africa to the United States in order to develop his
game. At his best, "Young Savage" has been able to lean on his
wrestling and grappling, but those skills have hit a clear wall
against UFC-level competition; Buys didn't get much done in his
debut loss to Bruno Silva,
and moving up to face gigantic bantamweight Montel
Jackson was a seemingly unwinnable affair. To his credit, Buys
did at least have some wrestling success against Jackson and
survived for 15 minutes, so hopefully some of those gains hold in
his return to flyweight against Durden. Durden's a fun fighter
who's mostly known for his xenophobic comments after a November win
over Qileng Aori
- which were, in turn, shoved back in Durden's face by Mohammed
Mokaev after Mokaev submitted Durden in just 58 seconds this past
March. As a fighter, Durden's a straightforward but talented boxer
and wrestler that was able to run over most of his regional
competition without much trouble; as a result, Durden still tends
to flag against opponents able to hang around and provide some
resistance, even though he does well to double down and fight
through adversity. That should be enough to get the win here unless
Buys has further unlocked something in the last nine months; Durden
should be able to make the wrestling a wash if not win those
exchanges outright, and he figures to be the more powerful and
effective striker. The pick is Durden via decision.
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