I'm more confused as to why he never tried to implement any sort of grappling, even after getting rocked and dropped. Granted he did okay striking for like 85% of the first round (which says a lot about Daukaus's game IMO), but the result was a foregone conclusion.
Shamil is bigger and has shown the ability to wrestle more than once and other than fending off the advances of Old Man Oleinik, Chris's defensive grappling is largely untested. Instead Abdurakhimov tried to engage in a boxing match with the younger, faster man on a brutal KO streak.