Donchenko Talks His Way Into Paris — Now He Has to Beat Soriano

Daniil Donchenko asked for Paris, and Paris is what he got. After knocking out Theodor Berggren in the second round in Baku this June, the Ukrainian grabbed the mic and lobbied — in fluent French, no less — for a shot at the Accor Arena. This Saturday he cashes that ticket against Punahele Soriano, and it's the toughest name on his short UFC resume.

Donchenko carries a 15-2 record with 10 knockouts into the bout, riding momentum off the TUF Season 33 welterweight title and a run that includes a decision over veteran Alex Morono in February. Soriano is no soft landing, though. The Contender Series graduate is 13-4 and unbeaten since dropping to 170 pounds, riding a four-fight winning streak that most recently saw him grind out Ramiz Brahimaj by unanimous decision in Houston.

The French, for the record, is real. Donchenko explained that he spent one or two months every summer in France for a decade as a kid, kept the friendships going into adulthood, and now counts a Frenchman as his best friend and another as one of his coaches. His Baku call-out was pure slang — the polite translation being roughly "Paris, I'm coming, we're going to tear it up."

The Patience Project

The more interesting thread is what Donchenko says he's learned. Against Morono he nearly gassed himself out swinging for a knockout on every shot, and he went into Baku promising to be more measured. It worked. He said the Berggren finish was a planned sequence — body work, low kicks, then the head kick once the hands dropped. He insists he doesn't just brawl; he builds.

He also sees a version of himself across the cage. Donchenko noted that Soriano became a smarter fighter after cutting to welterweight, no longer emptying the tank in the opening minutes the way he did earlier in his UFC run. That maturity is exactly why this matters: Soriano beat Uros Medic, now a Top 10 name, at the start of last year.

Both men sit outside the Top 15 despite their streaks, and Donchenko framed the fight bluntly — a test, with a finish as his ticket into the rankings. If he stops Soriano, he figures, he's earned a number. The "I guess" he tacked onto that thought says plenty about how murky the two-lane rankings feel to fighters who keep winning and keep waiting.

The math is simple enough. Two ascending welterweights, one four-fight streak, one TUF trophy, zero rankings between them. Somebody's momentum stalls in Paris on Saturday — and Donchenko already told everyone within earshot which way he expects it to go.