Robert Valentin Plays the Villain Again as UFC Lands in Belgrade

Robert Valentin finally has a UFC win, and he's spending it in the worst possible neighborhood — someone else's hometown. The 11-6 Swiss middleweight faces Dusko Todorovic on the main card of the promotion's first-ever event in Belgrade this Saturday, and he's doing it as the outsider crashing a local celebration. Ten of Valentin's 11 career wins have come by finish, and he'll need that killer instinct against a Serbian crowd that won't be on his side.

That first Octagon victory came in April against Julien Leblanc, a bout Valentin dedicated to his late mother, who died during his previous camp. It was overdue. After a standout run on Season 32 of The Ultimate Fighter — a 20-second win over Giannis Bachar and a semifinal submission of teammate Paddy McCorry (now 7-2) — Valentin's actual UFC debut went sideways, dropping the finale to Ryan Loder and then consecutive fights to Torrez Finney and Ateba Gautier (11-1, 9 KO).

Valentin says he didn't linger on the Leblanc win. He describes it as a huge relief, then immediately flew back to Vegas to start the next camp — check the box, move on. That's the mindset of someone who spent three fights staring at a winless UFC ledger and knows exactly how thin the margins get.

The Corner That Clicked

A big part of the turnaround was linking up with striking coach Dewey Cooper at Xtreme Couture. After years of bouncing between gyms, teams and coaches, Valentin describes the pairing as something that was meant to be — calm energy, no nonsense. In Winnipeg he had TUF 32 featherweight winner Mairon Santos (18-1) in his corner too. This time Santos is off preparing for his own fight in Paris, so Volkan Oezdemir, the first Swiss fighter ever signed by the UFC, steps in.

The narrative rhyme here is hard to miss. In April, Valentin was the foreigner spoiling Leblanc's debut in Manitoba. Now he's doing the exact same thing in Todorovic's backyard. He leans into the villain role — says those moments were built for him, that he's fought local guys in foreign countries since his earliest pro bouts, and that he tends to walk out to boos and leave with new fans.

Reading Todorovic

Todorovic, one of seven Serbians competing at home this weekend, arrived via the Contender Series and ran his record to 10-0 with a debut win over Dequan Townsend. Since then, the former national-team wrestler has struggled for consistency and sits at 13-6. Valentin credits his grit and awkward, hard-to-finish style, but thinks he's spotted a crack: Todorovic doesn't look comfortable in chaos. And chaos, Valentin insists, is exactly where he does his best work.