The Sheet

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Fighter Notes:

Fight #13

Alessandro Costa

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Costa will be looking to bounce back from a low-volume decision loss to Steve Erceg, in a fight that Costa accepted on short notice. Erceg outlanded Costa 74-54 in significant strikes, while both fighters landed one takedown Erceg on eight attempts and Costa on six. That’s actually the second time that Costa has stepped into a UFC fight on shorter notice against a highly ranked opponent, after he made his UFC debut against Amir Albazi on three and a half weeks’ notice, where Costa got knocked out in the third round. In between those two losses, Costa landed a second round ground and pound TKO win over a terrible Jimmy Flick, where Costa destroyed Flick’s legs with calf kicks until he could no longer stand. At that point, Costa went to the mat with him and finished him with a series of heavy elbows. Leading up to the loss in his UFC debut, Costa had won seven straight fights, including a July 2022 lackluster split-decision win on DWCS that wasn’t enough to get him a UFC contract. He then returned to the Lux Fight League, where he had been the three-time Flyweight champ leading up to his DWCS match, and proceeded to land a 12 second knockout win that was enough for the UFC to give him a shot. Four of Costa’s last five wins ended in knockouts, and he’s only been to two decisions in his last seven fights.

Now 13-4 as a pro, Costa has four wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and three decision victories. Eight of his 10 finishes occurred in the first round, with another coming in round two, and the third in round three. The first six wins of his career all ended in first round submissions, but his last four finishes all ended in knockouts and he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2019. He’s also been knocked out twice himself (R2 2016 & R3 2022), with his other two losses going the distance.

Overall, Costa is a patient striker who has decent power for the Flyweight division. While he was able to land 65 significant strikes against Flick in just over six minutes of action, he failed to top 54 significant strikes in either of his other two UFC fights or in his DWCS win. At just 5’4” he’s pretty small, which can make it tougher for him to find his range at times against taller/longer opponents. Costa is essentially Diego Lopes’ sidekick and also trains with Alexa Grasso, Irene Aldana, and Loopy Godinez at Lobo Gym in Mexico, so he has a solid team around him. He’s also a BJJ black belt who has shown the ability to quickly lock up submissions when fights hit the mat and loves to look for armbars, which is how he completed five of his six submission wins. However, we also saw him get easily reversed on the mat in his DWCS match and controlled for periods of time on his back in his UFC debut, so it’s hard to know just how effective his grappling will be at the UFC level moving forward. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he only landed one of his six takedown attempts (16.7% accuracy) and all of those attempts came in his last match. On the other side of things, his opponents only got him down on 2 of their 20 attempts (90% defense). Just keep in mind, all three of his UFC fights have been against grapplers, while now he’ll face a one-dimensional striker.

Kevin Borjas

2nd UFC Fight (0-1)

Borjas will be looking to bounce back from a high-volume decision loss in his recent UFC debut against Josh Van, who outlanded Borjas 156-75 in significant strikes and also took him down twice on four attempts. Van landed more significant strikes in the second round alone (77), than Borjas landed in the entire fight (75). Prior to that loss, Borjas won a decision on DWCS, despite getting taken down five times and controlled for eight minutes. While he struggled on the mat, he was able to lead the striking exchanges on the feet, finishing ahead 87-43 in significant strikes, and did way more damage. While those last two fights both went the distance, the first nine fights of Borjas’ career all ended early.

Now 9-2 as a pro, Borjas has eight KO/TKO wins and one decision victory. He has five first round finishes, two in round two, and one in round four. The only time he’s ever been finished was in a 2019 R2 submission, while he also has one decision defeat. While 9 of his 11 pro fights have ended early, his last four matches all made it to the second round, with his last three all making it to the end of the third round. A lot of his wins came against opponents with little to no experience and he only has four wins against opponents with winning records. Borjas has competed at both 125 lb and 135 lb, and his lone loss actually took place at a 139 lb Catchweight. However, his last five fights have all been at 125 lb, and it appears that’s where he’ll stay.

Overall, Borjas is a pure striker who relies mostly on his boxing to win fights. He will mix in knees as well, but he’s mostly looking to knock opponents out with his hands. He spent his entire career before joining the UFC on the smaller Peruvian regional scene, and he’s yet to prove he can win fights at the UFC level against well rounded competition. He doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling and looks pretty lost on the mat, but he throws with bad intentions on the feet and has heavy hands for the Flyweight division. Between his UFC debut and his DWCS fight, he got taken down by his opponents 7 times on 16 attempts (56.3% defense), while failing to land any of his own three attempts. He fights fearlessly and has no problem throwing down in a brawl, so he should make for exciting fights when paired up against other strikers, but anyone that can grapple should be looking to take him down. He’s still only 26 years old so he should still be improving, but he’ll need to show that he’s working on his grappling before we can get too excited about him.

Fight Prediction:

Borjas will have a 1” height and reach advantage.

While Costa often isn’t looking to grapple, he would have to be a stone idiot not to rely on his ground game here with his job likely on the line. Borjas is absolutely terrible on the mat and Costa is a BJJ black belt who spends all of his time with Diego Lopes, so some of that finishing ability has to be rubbing off. It seems like a good buy-low spot on Costa after he stepped into his last fight on short notice and lost a decision to the guy who’s now fighting for the belt in Erceg. Costa also has decent power, so he’s capable of finishing this fight in multiple ways, or outworking his way to a decision victory. Borjas is so one-dimensional that it will be hard for him to beat any well rounded opponents and he’s entirely reliant on knocking opponents out. Costa will also have the home crowd behind him, so he has multiple things working for him. While we don’t fully trust him, we still expect him to take the path of least resistance and use his grappling to win this fight and he looks live to land his first submission win since 2019.

Our favorite bet here is “Alessandro Costa ML” at -122.

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DFS Implications:

Costa is sitting on a 1-2 UFC record and is desperate for a win here to save his job. His agent and the matchmakers haven’t done him any favors and both of his losses came on pretty short notice against the #3 ranked Amir Albazi and the #10 ranked Steve Erceg who’s now competing for the title. However, in his one easier matchup, Costa dominated Jimmy Flick and scored 108 DraftKings points in an early second round TKO. Now he gets another step down in competition against a one-dimensional striker who just absorbed 156 significant strikes in his UFC debut. That makes this a great spot for Costa to find grappling success and land striking volume whenever the fight is on the feet. However, Costa has never shown himself to be a very high-volume striker and has also been pretty sporadic with his grappling, which does make it tougher to trust him. He’s also been knocked out twice and the one thing Borjas does well is punch people with bad intentions. That all leaves Costa with an uncertain floor but a solid ceiling and this looks like a good buy-low spot on him. At his affordable price tag, there are multiple ways for him to return value and a grappling-heavy decision win could still be enough for him to be useful on DraftKings. The odds imply Costa has a 55% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.

Borjas had a 100% finishing rate when he was fighting on the Peruvian regional scene, but finally saw the judges for the first time in his win on DWCS. He showed a gaping hole in his grappling in that match, as he got taken down five times and controlled for eight minutes. However, he was able to do enough with his striking to still pull off the upset. That win only would have scored 79 DraftKings points and 72 points on FanDuel, but in fairness, he did get controlled for half the fight. He followed that up with a high-volume decision loss in his recent UFC debut and so far all he’s shown us is reasons to get excited about playing his opponents. However, Borjas does have knockout power when he’s allowed to remain standing. That at least leaves him with a solid scoring ceiling, but his lack of a ground game also makes him entirely untrustworthy. Working in his favor, Costa has been knocked out twice in the past and is often content with keeping fights standing. So if the fight remains standing, Borjas will have a decent shot at landing a knockout, which would most likely propel him into winning lineups. Neither of these two project to be very highly owned, which makes it an interesting fight to target with upside on both sides. The odds imply Borjas has a 45% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #12

Ismael Bonfim

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

This matchup was originally scheduled to be on the last Brazil card, but Bonfim missed weight by 3.5 lb and Pichel refused to move forward with the fight.

Bonfim had a 13 fight winning streak snapped in his last fight in a first round submission loss to a really tough Benoit St. Denis. While that fight didn’t even last a full five minutes, both guys had their moments, with St. Denis landing numerous heavy body kicks and Bonfim doing some damage with his striking as well. Bonfim was also able to escape the early takedown attempts of St. Denis, but once Bonfim had his back taken he was in real trouble and it didn’t take long for St. Denis to force him to tap. Submissions and specifically rear-naked chokes have been Bonfim’s Kryptonite. Prior to that loss, Bonfim landed a highlight reel second round flying knee knockout win in his UFC debut against Terrance McKinney, which occurred on the second most recent Brazil card in front of Bonfim’s home crowd. Leading up to his debut, Bonfim had won three straight decisions, with the last of those coming on DWCS. To find his second most recent loss, you have to go all the way back to 2014, when he got submitted by Renato Carneiro in the first round when Bonfim was just 18 years old compared to Carneiro being 25.

Now 19-4 as a pro, Bonfim has nine wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and six decision victories. Of his 13 finishes, six came in round one, five ended in round two, and two occurred in round three. He’s been submitted in the first round in all four of his losses, but in fairness, two of those occurred in his first three pro fights back in 2011 when he was just 15 years old and another was in 2014 when he was 18 and facing a really dangerous Renato Moicano. The fourth was against another really dangerous grappler in Benoit St. Denis.

Overall, Bonfim is a dangerous striker and also a BJJ black belt. Between his DWCS appearance and two UFC fights, he landed two of his seven takedown attempts (28.6% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on just 2 of their 11 attempts (81.8% defense). Bonfim will vary his approach between pure aggression and patient counter striking, while also mixing in occasional takedown attempts. He largely relies on his boxing to win fights, but he’s far from the tallest guy at just 5’8”, which will be one of the biggest obstacles he’ll need to overcome at the UFC level as he goes up against taller and longer opponents. He can get a little wild at times, but he’s still just 28 years old and should be improving between every fight.

Vinc Pichel

11th UFC Fight (7-3)

Trying to come back from his second hip surgery as he approaches his 42nd birthday, Pichel is 25 months removed from an April 2022 decision loss to Mark Madsen. Pichel had then been scheduled to fight Jesse Ronson in October 2022, but during training he tore the same hip that he previously had surgery on in 2019. He had to have it completely reconstructed and there was some question as to whether or not he would ever be able to fight again, especially given his age. However, he had been through the process before and was able to come back eight months later after his first hip surgery and win a decision over Jim Miller. So he expected a similar recovery period once again and booked a fight in July 2023, thinking that would be enough time, but ended up suffering a minor setback and was forced to withdraw once again. Then when he finally got back to full health and had a fight booked, Bonfim badly missed weight and Pichel turned down the fight and was forced to wait on the sidelines for another six months. Prior to losing to Madsen, Pichel won three straight decisions against Austin Hubbard, Jim Miller, and Roosevelt Roberts, as hasn’t fought more than once in a calendar year since 2019. Pichel actually made his UFC debut all the way back in 2012, but got knocked out from a suplex in the first round and then didn’t fight at all in 2013. He bounced back with a pair of grappling-heavy decision wins in 2014, but then took all of 2015 and 2016 off before returning in 2017 to land his only UFC finish in a first round knockout of Damien Brown, who went 2-4 with the organization. Pichel then won a decision over Joaquim Silva in 2018, before getting submitted in the second round by Gregor Gillespie later that year, leading up to his three fighting winning streak that got snapped in his last outing. So six of Pichel’s seven UFC wins have gone the distance, while two of his three losses ended early. And all three of his defeats were against wrestlers.

Now 14-3 as a pro, Pichel has eight KO/TKO wins and six decision victories, but he hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2017, with his second most recent finish coming all the way back in 2011, just before he joined the UFC. His first seven pro fights all ended in knockouts in the first two rounds, with the last six of those finishes coming in round two. Then he went on The Ultimate Fighter in 2012 and submitted his first two opponents in the first round, before winning a decision in his third fight and then losing a decision to Al Iaquinta. All four of those fights go down as exhibition matches and don’t show up on his official pro record. In his three pro losses, Pichel has been knocked out once, submitted once, and has one decision defeat.

Overall, Pichel is a hard-nosed decision grinder who’s known for his strength, but has very suspect defensive wrestling. He owns just a 23.3% takedown defense and has been taken down 23 times on 30 attempts from his 10 UFC opponents. Four of his opponents didn’t even attempt a takedown against him, so all of those came in just six fights, with all six of those opponents landing at least two takedowns and three of them landing four or more. While Pichel’s a BJJ black belt, he’s never officially submitted anybody, unless you count his exhibition wins on TUF. He’s got good cardio and has been training at Factory X in Colorado for the last few years. While he’s already 41 years old, he only has 10 fights in the last 11 and a half years, although has been dealing with injuries throughout his career. After over a two year layoff and now in his early forties, it will be interesting to see how Pichel looks here.

Fight Prediction:

Pichel will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while Bonfim is 13 years younger than the 41-year-old Pichel.

This is an interesting matchup between a young prospect and an aging veteran. Pichel has historically struggled against wrestlers, but while Bonfim is a BJJ black belt and will mix in occasional takedown attempts, he’s more of a striker. Pichel will also look to take opponents down, but Bonfim has a pretty solid takedown defense, even if he’s been prone to getting submitted when he has been taken down. Similar to Bonfim, Pichel is also a BJJ black belt, but has never submitted anybody in an official pro fight—although did have two submission wins on TUF in exhibition matches. We’d be surprised to see Pichel lock up a submission here, and Bonfim has never been knocked out or lost a decision. Pichel also has just one knockout win in his 11-year UFC career, which was all the way back in 2017 against a low-level opponent. With Pichel coming off his second major hip surgery, now 41 years old, 25 months removed from his last fight, and now flying down to Brazil to take on an opponent in enemy territory, he’s littered with red flags. So it’s no surprise that he comes in as a massive underdog, even though he’s historically been a tough guy to beat. Bonfim will be the quicker and slicker striker, while Pichel will need to rely on his durability and strength, both of which Bonfim excels at as well. So it should come as no surprise that we’re picking Bonfim to win, but it’s a tougher call as to whether or not he’ll be able to get Pichel out of there. We lean towards no, but it’s also hard to know what Pichel will look like given all of the variables surrounding him and his time away. If he can regain his past form, then look for Bonfim to outland his way to a decision win, while likely mixing in some takedowns. However, if Pichel has gone off a cliff following his most recent hip surgery, then Bonfim should be able to put him away in the first two rounds. We’ll give Pichel the benefit of the doubt and say he survives to lose a decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Bonfim/Bonfim FGTD” at +106.

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DFS Implications:

Bonfim scored 101 DraftKings points when he knocked out Terrance McKinney in the second round of his UFC debut, but was then submitted in the first round of his last fight, which has been his one Achilles heel throughout his career. Prior to knocking out McKinney, Bonfim had fought to three straight decisions, and the last of those would have scored 79 DraftKings points and 89 points on FanDuel. He will mix in occasional takedowns and is a BJJ black belt, but he primarily relies on his striking, leaving him dependent on finding finishes to score well. While he will aggressively look for finishes early in fights, he’s still only landed one in his last five fights and is now taking on a durable, albeit aging, opponent who has only been finished once since 2012. Working in Bonfim’s favor, Pichel comes in with a lot of red flags, as he hasn’t fought in 25 months following his second major hip surgery and is 41 years old. That makes it tougher to truly gauge his current form, but he’s historically been a tough guy to put away (or beat). And at his high salary in DFS, even if Bonfim does finish Pichel, he could still easily get priced out of winning tournament lineups. So he’ll need multiple things to go right here and we won’t be surprised if he ultimately wins an average scoring decision. For what it’s worth, this will be in front of his home crowd and the last time he fought in Brazil was his UFC debut when knocked out McKinney. The odds imply Bonfim has an 81% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.

Pichel has averaged 91 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, despite six of those going the distance. However, after averaging 113 points in his first three UFC victories, he only averaged 75 points in his last four. He scored progressively fewer points in each of his last three wins, which isn’t a good sign for a 41-year-old fighter who’s coming off his second major hip surgery. It’s been over two years since Pichel last competed and almost three years since he last won a fight, where he only scored 68 DraftKings points in a decision win. Now he’s flying into enemy territory to face a much younger opponent and this looks like a tough spot for Pichel. He’s been almost entirely reliant on grinding out decision wins in the UFC, and he hasn’t finished anybody since 2017. Bonfim is 6-0 in decisions, is the busier striker, and has a significantly better takedown defense. That all adds up to a very narrow path to victory for Pichel and even if he does win he’ll likely fail to score well without a finish. At his extremely cheap price tag, there’s always a chance he could still serve as a value play even in an average scoring decision, but we’re not especially excited to play him. The odds imply Pichel has a 19% chance to win, an 8% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #11

Dione Barbosa

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Barbosa will be making her UFC debut following a first round submission win on DWCS, in a fight she took on short notice. That was Barbosa’s first finish since 2018 and her previous three fights all went the distance (2-1). She turned pro in 2018 and submitted each of her first two opponents in the first round, before winning a 2019 decision over UFC Karine Silva, who has since finished nine straight opponents. Barbosa then faced another future UFC fighter in Josiane Nunes and got knocked out in the second round. Barbosa then dropped down from 135 lb to 125 lb and joined the LFA, where she lost a close decision to a 1-0 Jena Bishop, who was able to take Barbosa down three times and control her for seven minutes, while Barbosa did more damage on the feet. Barbosa then bounced back with a pair of wrestling-heavy decision wins just before going on DWCS. However, the last of those decision wins came against a 5-6 34-year-old opponent who was coming off two losses and a three and a half year layoff, and the first was against a one-dimensional 1-1 striker. She then took on a former softball player on DWCS who said she took a kickboxing class to lose weight after getting shot by her boyfriend and then found herself in a new career. So while Barbosa has faced some really good opponents in the past, she’s also faced some far less talented competition.

Now 6-2 as a pro, Barbosa has three first round submission wins and three decision victories. However she only has one finish in her last six fights. The only time she’s ever been finished was in a 2019 R2 TKO at 135 lb against Josiane Nunes, while she also has one decision loss. Barbosa’s first four pro fights were all at 135 lb, while her last four have been at 135 lb.

Overall, Barbosa is a well-rounded fighter and a former multi-time Brazilian national judo champion. She holds black belts in both judo and BJJ, and is also a pretty decent striker who likes to mix in flying knees. She fights out of Kings MMA, so she has a good team around her and tends to come in with smart game plans focussed around attacking the weaknesses of her opponents. So she’s generally looking to grapple against strikers and strike against grapplers. However, she has been a little overly content with riding out decisions on the mat and three of her last four wins went the distance. She’ll get to fight in front of her home crowd here, so maybe she’ll push a little harder for a finish as she tries to put on a show.

Ernesta Kareckaite

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Coming off a high-volume split decision win on DWCS, Kareckaite has fought to four straight decisions (3-0-1), and the last three of those were all split. While most of her opponents are looking to out wrestle here, she got a willing dance partner on DWCS and the two threw down in a crazy paced striking battle, with Kareckaite finishing ahead 184-168 in significant strikes and 208-180 in total strikes. Two of her previous three fights were against a grappler in Laetitia Blot, who’s now 41 years old. Their first fight ended in a draw after Kareckaite was deducted a point, while Kareckaite won a five-round split decision in the rematch. In between those two fights, Kareckaite won another close/split decision against an opponent who was making her pro debut and still took Kareckaite down multiple times and controlled her for half the fight, which has been a theme for Kareckaite.

Now 5-0-1 as a pro, Kareckaite has two wins by R1 TKO, which both occurred in her first two pro fights against opponents with a combined 0-1 record, and three split decision wins. Kareckaite hasn’t faced much in the way of competition and her opponent on DWCS was a 3-0 former softball player who only started training MMA two and a half years and stepped in on 10 days’ notice. Kareckaite still entered that fight as an underdog, which just shows how little the oddsmakers think of her.

Overall, Kareckaite is a Lithuanian one-dimensional kickboxer who looks like they stretched her out on a medieval torture rack. At 5’9’ with a 71” reach, she’s really tall and long for the 125 lb division, but she’s rarely able to fully utilize her frame, as almost everyone is looking to expose her poor grappling. She did start training at MMA Masters down in Florida a month before she went on DWCS, which is encouraging for her development as a fighter, but she still needs to show she’s made improvements with her wrestling. From what she showed on the regional scene, her wrestling is bad and she tends to get controlled for extended periods of time. And she wasn’t even facing high-level opponents at that point, so just imagine how she’ll look against actual good wrestlers. With that said, she did show the ability to rack up striking volume on DWCS when she’s matched up with a fellow striker, so we’ll see if the UFC ever throws her a bone or if they just torture her with a series of grapplers.

Fight Prediction:

Kareckaite will have a 3” height advantage and 5” reach advantage, while also being six years younger than the 31-year-old Barbosa.

Barbosa has proven herself to be a smart fighter and a pretty decent grappler, so it would be shocking if she didn’t look to get this fight to the mat early and often. Kareckaite is a one-dimensional kickboxer who can rack up volume on the feet, but is pretty clueless on the mat. While Kareckaite certainly has the ability to be competitive in a striking battle, we’d be surprised if she’s able to keep this fight standing for long, which will make it really tough for her to pull off the upset. So the only real question is whether Barbosa is able to submit her or if she grinds out a wrestling-heavy decision win. We lean towards the latter but an early submission isn’t out of the question either.

Our favorite bet here is “Dione Barbosa DEC” at +145.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.

DFS Implications:

Barbosa is a well-rounded and smart fighter who does a good job of relying on her wrestling against strikers, so we fully expect her to come into this matchup looking to wrestle. While she locked up a submission in the first round of her last fight, that’s her only finish since 2018 and she’s been largely content with riding out decisions on the mat. We also haven’t seen her put up any big significant striking totals, which leaves her reliant on landing a finish to score well on FanDuel. However, it’s not impossible for her to score well in a grappling-heavy decision on DraftKings, although she will need to get busier on the mat and not just hold positions. At her expensive salary, there are still lots of ways for her to get priced out of winning tournament lineups, but she has a solid floor and a decent ceiling, making her a good play in smaller field contests. The odds imply Barbosa has a 66% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.

Kareckaite put up a crazy striking total in her recent split-decision win on DWCS, which would have been good for 115 DraftKings points and 136 points on FanDuel. While that may get some people excited about her as a cheap value play here, keep in mind that last fight was against a fellow one-dimensional striker who had only transitioned from softball to MMA a couple of years earlier, only came in with three pro fights, and stepped up on short notice. That was an absolute dream spot for Kareckaite to showcase her striking. All of her other recent fights have been her pressed up against the fence and working off her back for extended periods of time and now she’s facing a former multi-time Brazilian national judo champion. It would be completely shocking to see Barbosa engage in a firefight and we fully expect Kareckaite to get controlled on the mat for the majority of this match. However, if we’re wrong, and somehow Kareckaite can keep the fight standing, she has the striking ability to rack up volume and score well in DFS. With that said, we’ll probably need to wait until she faces another one-dimensional striker before she’ll be playable in DFS and we have no real interest in chasing the results from her DWCS match here. The odds imply Kareckaite has a 34% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #10

Mauricio Ruffy

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Ruffy will be making his UFC debut following a low-volume, late third round TKO win on DWCS. While the fight was close and uneventful in the first two rounds, Ruffy was actually losing the fight on two of the three scorecards and needed the late finish to get his hand raised. Prior to that, Ruffy competed in a four-man grand prix last May, where he knocked out two opponents in the same night to win the tournament. He finished his first opponent in the opening round, although did get dropped in that fight, while the fighter he went up against in his second fight had won a decision in the first round and then gassed out in round two against Ruffy in what was his 5th round of fighting on the night. That allowed Ruffy to easily find a finish. Prior to that, Ruffy took on a super low-level, undersized 0-1 opponent in a fight that barely should count towards his professional record as it took place in a boxing ring at what looked like a gym. That opponent is now 0-3 with three first round losses and also got finished in the first round of his only amateur fight. That came after Ruffy suffered his only career loss in a 2019 second round knockout.

Now 9-1 as a pro, Ruffy has nine KO/TKO wins and one R2 KO loss. Six of his wins ended in round one, two came in round two, and the most recent ended in round three. After six of his first seven wins ended in first round knockouts, his last two finishes both occurred in the later rounds. Ruffy has competed at both 155 lb and 170 lb in his career, but his last three fights were all at 170 lb, while he’ll be dropping back down to 155 lb here.

Overall, Ruffy is a dangerous but low-volume striker who never looks to grapple. However, while he hasn’t shown anything in terms of offensive wrestling, his takedown defense has looked solid. He has kind of bladed karate style stance and likes to throw snappy spinning kicks, while keeping his hands low and his chin high. We’ve seen him dropped at multiple points, so durability is a concern for him. He trains with the Fighting Nerds and will have multiple teammates fighting alongside him on this card as he makes his debut in front of his home crowd. Ruffy will be dropping down a weight class so it will be important to monitor him closely on the scale.

Jamie Mullarkey

11th UFC Fight (5-5)

Continuing to exhibit a compromised chin, Mullarkey is five months removed from a quick first round TKO loss to decision grinder Nasrat Haqparast, who’s only other finish in 12 UFC appearances was all the way back in 2019. Prior to that, Mullarkey won a close decision over an aging John Makdessi. Mullarkey’s last three wins all went the distance, while his last three losses all ended by knockout in the first two rounds. We’ve seen him dial back his aggression some in recent fights, which makes sense considering he’s been knocked out three times in the last 26 months. Mullarkey had two knockout wins of his own in 2021, although those were against Devonte Smith and Khama Worthy, neither of whom are still in the UFC. Mullarkey then started his downward spiral in a 2022 R2 KO loss to Jalin Turner and then nearly got knocked out in the first round by Michael Johnson, but was able to survive and squeak out a split decision. He then won an ultra conservative decision over a debuting Francisco Prado, before getting knocked out in the second round as a -500 favorite against Muhammad Naimov, who was making his UFC debut on less than a week’s notice and up a weight class.

Now 17-7 as a pro, Mullarkey has 10 wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and four decision victories. Five of those knockouts ended in round one, three came in round two, and two ended in round three. However, three of his last four finishes ended in round two. He’s also been knocked out five times himself and has two decision losses. While Mullarkey has three submission wins on his resume, his last six finishes all ended in knockouts, with his three submission wins all occurring early in his career in 2014 and 2015. Mullarkey competed at 145 lb until 2018, when he moved up to 155 lb.

Overall, Mullarkey is a decently well-rounded fighter and a BJJ black belt but has fallen in love with his striking and hasn’t submitted anybody since 2015. In his 10 UFC fights, Mullarkey landed 16 takedowns on 47 attempts (34% accuracy), while getting taken down by his opponents on 3 of their 13 opponent attempts (76.9% defense). While he’s only 29 years old and had previously shown the ability to take a beating and keep on going, all of those wars appear to have caught up with him and his chin seems gone at this point. We can easily look past getting knocked out by Jalin Turner and even Naimov has looked fairly dangerous in the UFC, but getting immediately knocked out by Nasrat Haqparast is pretty unforgivable. Mullarkey is still somewhat dangerous offensively, but he gets sucked into striking exchanges and now seemingly can’t take a punch. That puts him in a tough spot as he travels into enemy territory to take on a power puncher who’s been knocking guys out up at 170 lb.

Fight Prediction:

Mullarkey will have a 1” height advantage, but Ruffy will have a 1” reach advantage.

It’s impossible to trust Mullarkey’s chin at this point, especially against an opponent who does nothing but people out. However, Ruffy has his own durability and defensive concerns and will now be cutting down from 170 lb to 155 lb for his UFC debut. It’s been a couple of years since he competed at 155 lb, so there’s always a chance he has a bad weight cut and he comes in with a compromised chin. He likes to fight with his hands low and his chin high up in the air, so Mullarkey will at least have a shot at knocking him out before he gets clipped himself. Mullarkey also has the ability to wrestle, giving him a shot at grinding out a decision win. However, Ruffy’s takedown defense has looked pretty solid and Mullarkey isn’t a great wrestler by any means, so this fight will likely remain standing for the most part. We’d be surprised if this fight made it to the third round, let alone required the scorecards. We fully expect someone to get knocked out early and it will most likely be Mullarkey who wakes up on the canvas.

Our favorite bet here is “Mauricio Ruffy KO” at +100.

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DFS Implications:

Ruffy is a Brazilian KO specialist with all nine of his career wins coming by knockout. He never looks to grapple and doesn’t land much in the way of striking volume, leaving him entirely reliant on well timed knockouts to score well. His recent late third round finish on DWCS only would have been good for 76 points on DraftKings and 92 points on FanDuel, a sign that he needs either a first round finish or a late second round finish to put up a useful score. Working in his favor, Mullarkey’s chin appears to be gone and he’s been knocked out three times in the first two rounds in his last six fights. However, Ruffy has also shown some durability concerns himself, which leaves him with a shaky floor as well. Nevertheless, there’s a high chance that this fight ends by knockout in the first two rounds and whoever wins will have solid scoring potential. And at Ruffy’s reasonable price tag, he may not need to put up a crazy score to end up in winning lineups. The odds imply Ruffy has a 66% chance to win, a 50% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.

Mullarkey has relied on landing finishes to score well, something he hasn’t done since 2021. His last three wins all ended in lower scoring decisions, where he returned DraftKings totals of just 65, 81, and 69. He’s also been knocked out in each of his last three losses, leaving him with a single digit floor in addition to his recent lower ceiling. However, he did score 109 and 128 points respectively in his two UFC knockout wins, so if he does find a finish it’s hard to see him getting left out of winning lineups at his cheap price tag. Working in his favor, Ruffy has shown some durability issues and we’ve seen him get dropped multiple times in the past, as he tends to keep his hands low and his chin up. That at least gives Mullarkey a puncher’s chance, but it’s far more likely that he’s the one that gets knocked out. And given that Ruffy has shown a solid takedown defense and his fights generally don’t include a ton of striking volume on either side, it will be harder for Mullarkey to score well in the unlikely event that he wins a decision. The odds imply Mullarkey has a 34% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #9

Drakkar Klose

11th UFC Fight (8-2)

Klose is fresh off an unusual first round knockout via slam against Joe Solecki on the infamous December 2nd 2023 slate where we saw a pair of back-to-back rare slam knockouts on an Octagon floor that looked like it was made of concrete. As Solecki looked to lock up an armbar early in the first round, Klose slammed him on the mat and his head bounced off the canvas like a golf ball on a cart path, immediately knocking him unconscious and ending the fight in just 101 seconds. Prior to that, Klose hadn’t competed in 17 months after he tore his ACL in 2022. Leading up to the injury, he won a decision against Rafa Garcia, who stepped in on just over two weeks’ notice after Diego Ferreira dropped out. That came after Klose landed his only other finish in the UFC, which occurred in a second round TKO against a low-level opponent in Brandon Jenkins. Klose hadn’t competed in two years leading up to that win, after he had three fights fall through and was injured from a shove during a face off with Jeremy Stephens in April 2021. Klose apparently suffered a herniated disc in the incident and is still dealing with the aftermath to this day. He’s said he’ll eventually need surgery for the injury, but he wants to put it off until he’s done fighting. The last time Klose lost a fight was in 2020 when he got knocked out in the second round of a crazy fight against Beneil Dariush. While three of Klose’s last four fights ended by knockout, he fought to eight straight decisions before that (6-1-1).

Now 14-2-1 as a pro, Klose has six wins by KO/TKO and eight decisions. Four of his five knockout wins were in his first five pro fights and he has just two early wins since 2015. The only time he’s been finished was in a 2020 R2 KO, with his one other loss going the distance in a 2017 decision.

Overall, Klose is a well rounded fighter who mixes in a combination of wrestling and striking as he attacks the opposition with patient pressure. In his 10 UFC fights, he landed 14 of his 46 takedown attempts (30.4% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 12 of their 38 attempts (68.4% defense). While his overall takedown defense has been decent, all eight of the UFC opponents who tried to take him down landed at least one of their attempts. Similarly, Klose landed at least one takedown in 7 of the 8 UFC fights where he attempted one. We generally don’t see huge striking totals in his matches, as he only averages 4.33 SSL/min and 3.40 SSA/min and neither he nor any of his opponents have ever landed more than 100 significant strikes in any of his fights. He also hasn’t looked like much of a finishing threat at the UFC level, with 7 of his 10 UFC fights going the distance. Klose is already 36 years old and has had to deal with multiple injuries. He’s said the next time he suffers a major injury it could force him into retirement.

Joaquim Silva

11th UFC Fight (6-4)

Coming off a low-volume decision win over an aging Clay Guida, Silva will be looking to stitch wins together for the first time since 2016-2017. He only outlanded Guida 46-43 in significant strikes, while both fighters landed two takedowns, Guida on 11 attempts and Silva on three. Prior to that, Silva suffered a third round TKO loss against an incredibly tough Arman Tsarukyan. To Silva’s credit, he was able to hurt Tsarukyan in the second round, but that was the only success he was able to find in the match. Just before that, Silva landed a second round knockout win over Jesse Ronson, who had just been submitted following a PED suspension and was cut following his second straight early loss. Leading up to that win, Silva was knocked out in back-to-back fights by a couple of decision grinders. The first of those was in the second round of a 2019 fight against Nasrat Haqparast, who only has one other finish in his 12-fight UFC career, and the second was against Ricky Glenn, who hasn’t finished anybody else in his 10 UFC fights and was also coming off a three year layoff and has since gone 0-2-1. Silva also hadn’t competed in two years leading up to that loss to Glenn. Silva's third most recent win was all the way back in 2018, when he knocked out Jared Gordon in the third round. Silva did have a grappling match in 2021 against the highly submittable Neil Magney that he won via guillotine, but he’s never submitted anybody in the UFC and his last MMA submission win was in a 2014 armbar.

Now 13-4 as a pro, Silva has seven wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and three decision victories. He’s been knocked out three times and has one decision loss. While his last fight went the distance, his previous five all ended in knockouts (2-3), although four of those made it out of the first round. Silva started his career at 170 lb before dropping down to 155 lb when he went on The Ultimate Fighter Brazil in 2015, where he ended up getting submitted in his third fight on the show.

Overall, Silva’s nickname is “Netto BJJ” and he’s a BJJ black belt, but he’s never submitted anybody in the UFC and rarely looks for takedowns, with just three landed on five attempts in his 10 UFC fights (60% accuracy). On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 16 of their 45 attempts (64.4% defense). Silva has decent power, but he only averages 3.61 SSL/min and failed to land more than 49 significant strikes in 9 of his 10 UFC matches with the one exception coming when he landed 95 against Jared Gordon. Silva trains at American Top Team so he has a good team around him, but he’s already 35 years old. He doesn’t have the best cardio or a great chin, in addition to his subpar takedown defense, and we’ve never been that impressed by him. However, he’ll have a chance to prove us wrong in front of his home crowd here.

Fight Prediction:

Klose will have a 1” height and reach advantage, while Silva is a year younger than the 36-year-old Klose.

While Silva may have the advantage when it comes to finishing ability in this matchup, Klose is the superior fighter everywhere else. He lands more striking volume (4.33 vs. 3.61 SSA/min), while absorbing less (3.40 vs. 4.51 SSA/min). He lands more takedowns as well (1.8 vs. 0.5 TDL/15 min. He also has a better takedown defense (68% vs. 64%), better cardio, and is more durable. That will all make it hard for Silva to win on the scorecards, leaving him reliant on becoming just the second fighter to ever finish Klose. Silva only has one finish since 2018 and it came against a low-level opponent back in 2022. We’d be surprised to see Silva knock Klose out and the only real question we have is whether Klose can wear Silva out and knock him out late or if he grinds out another decision win. Silva has shown cardio issues in the past, but his gas tank looked improved in his last fight, increasing the chances that this goes the distance. While we’re not eliminating the potential for Klose to land a late knockout, we will be picking him to win by decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Drakkar Klose DEC” at +210.

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DFS Implications:

Klose has averaged 88 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, but outside of one monster performance he hasn’t been much of a factor in DFS. While he was able to score a ridiculous 134 points in a second round TKO against a terrible opponent in Brandon Jenkins, six of Klose’s other seven UFC wins went the distance, with him failing to reach 80 points in four of those. He was able to score 98 and 91 points in two of his decision victories through a combination of striking and wrestling, but only scored 78 points in his last decision victory. His one other UFC finish came in his last fight in a flukey slam knockout that scored 98 points. Working in his favor, Silva has been knocked out in three of his four career losses and has gassed out at times late in fights. Silva has also been taken down multiple times in four of his last eight fights and averages 4.51 SSA/min. So we could see Klose fill up the stat sheet, allowing him to score decently in a decision or really well with a finish. However, it’s still hard to trust his finishing ability and the most likely outcome is an average scoring decision win. The odds imply Klose has a 62% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.

Silva has averaged 83 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, but his scoring has been very polarized. He averaged just 59 points in his three decision wins, failing to top 71 points in any of those and only scoring 55 and 50 in the first two. However, he averaged 107 points in his three knockout victories and has shown decent power. That at least shows solid upside, but Klose has only been finished once in his career and Silva only has one finish since 2018. Silva only averages 3.61 SSL/min and rarely lands many takedowns, so even at his cheap price tag he’s less likely to score enough in a decision to be useful. And despite having the home crowd behind him, we’d be surprised to see Silva even get his hand raised if this goes the distance, leaving him as a hail mary KO or bust option in DFS. The odds imply Silva has a 38% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #8

Myktybek Orolbai

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Orolbai recently extended his winning streak to seven with a second round submission win in his short notice UFC debut against a one-dimensional striker in Uros Medic. Orolbai took that fight on just a few days’ notice, making the performance all the more impressive. He was able to take Medic down seven times and control him for almost the entire fight, before finishing him with a neck crank late in round two. That win came just three weeks after Orolbai violently knocked out a Bob Ross stunt double who looked like he learned to fight at an afternoon workshop with Ryan Hall. Orolbai also landed another knockout two months before that, after saying he was going to strike more following a dominant wrestling performance in a May 2022 decision win in his first LFA fight. Prior to that decision victory, Orolbai landed three more TKOs and he’s finished six of his last seven opponents, with five of those ending in KO/TKOs. His last four finishes all came in the later rounds, with his last three ending in round two.

Now 12-1-1 as a pro, Orolbai has six wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and one decision victory. The first four finishes of his career all came by submission, but six of his last seven early wins ended in KO/TKOs. He’s never been finished, with his one career loss ending in a close 2020 decision. He also has a five-round draw on his record and has gone just 1-1-1 with the judges. Orolbai started his career at 155 lb, before moving up to 170 lb in 2021, a year after he suffered his only career loss. However, after missing weight by a pound in 2022 for a 170 lb fight, we saw him weigh in at just 167.8 lb and 167 lb for his next two 170 lb matches, a sign that he was considering a move back down to 155 lb. While he took his short notice UFC debut at 170 lb, he is indeed moving back down to 155 lb now.

Overall, Orolbai has shown a multifaceted approach, as sometimes he’ll look like the Kyrgyzstan Jacob Malkoun, while others he’s content with keeping fights on the feet. It appeared he had made a conscious effort to try and strike more in his last few fights on the regional scene and you could see him almost go for takedowns and then stop in his last two fights before joining the UFC. However, he then completely relied on his wrestling in his recent UFC debut, where he landed 7 of his 10 takedown attempts, so maybe he was just showcasing his striking to try and get the UFC to notice him. He does have solid power, but doesn’t throw a ton of volume. He’s been training at Team Alpha Male, so he’s at a good gym and should be constantly improving.

Elves Brener

4th UFC Fight (3-0)

Still undefeated in the UFC, Brener is coming off a first round knockout win on the last Brazil card, which came against an opponent who was making his short notice UFC debut on just a few days’ notice. There wasn’t a ton of action in that fight leading up to the finish, with Brener finishing ahead 16-8 in significant strikes in the four minute fight, while no one attempted a takedown. While Brener was a decent sized favorite in that matchup, he was a massive underdog in each of his first two UFC fights (+475 & +470), yet still found a way to squeak out wins in each of those matches. The most recent of those wins came against a really dangerous Guram Kutateladze, who had Brener badly hurt early in the fight and won each of the first two rounds. However, Kutateladze was slowing down in the back half of the fight and looked to be running on fumes when Brener punched him in the side of the neck and Kutateladze just sort of slowly collapsed to the mat, with the fight being quickly stopped. If Kutateladze could have just survived for another minute and a half he would have won a unanimous decision. Prior to that, Brener won a close/controversial split decision in his UFC debut against Zubaira Tukhugov. Most people scored the fight for Tukhugov, who was fighting up a weight class, still missed weight, and was cut following the match. Neither fighter landed any of their takedown attempts in the fight, Brener on three attempts and Tukhugov on four.

Now 16-3 as a pro, Brener has three KO/TKO wins, 11 submissions, and two decision victories. Two of his knockout victories ended in round three, with the other ending in round one. Eight of his submissions ended in round one, one came in round two, and two occurred in round three. He’s never been finished and all three of his losses went the distance and he’s just 2-3 with the judges in his career. Brener has spent time both at 145 lb and 155 lb, but he’s remained at 155 lb since 2021. His last fight was actually at a 165 lb Catchweight after the late opponent change.

Overall, Brener is often looking to take opponents down and beat them up on the mat while looking for submissions, although he’s found less success with that approach since he joined the UFC. In his three UFC fights, he landed just 2 of his 10 takedowns attempts (20% accuracy), while his opponents only got him down on one of their seven attempts (85.7% defense). While his takedown defense has held up well in the UFC, we did see Gabriel Santos outwrestle his way to a decision win against Brener on the regional scene back in 2020. Santos was notably moving up from 135 lb for the first time in that 148 lb Catchweight match. Brener has looked pretty hittable in striking exchanges and nearly got knocked out in his second most recent fight, but to his credit, he’s never been put away early. He trains with Charles Oliveira and a bunch of other killers at Chute Boxe in Sao Paulo, so he has a good team around him and will have the home crowd behind him once again.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’10” and 26 years old, but Orolbai will have a 2” reach advantage.

While these two are the same height, Orolbai has been fighting at 170 lb since 2021 and Brener was competing at 145 lb until 2021 when he moved up to 155 lb. So Orolbai has shown the ability to out wrestle larger opponents, while we saw Brener get out wrestled by a 145 lb fighter in Gabriel Santos, who was just moving up from 135 lb. That’s concerning for Brener’s ability to stay off his back, even if he does have an 85% takedown defense in the UFC, in addition to having 11 submission wins on his record. He will look to throw up submissions off his back and has six armbar finishes, a triangle, and a guillotine win, so Orolbai will need to be mindful of his positions on the mat, but he’s never been submitted before. Neither of these two land a ton of striking volume, but Brener absorbs far more damage. Between that and Orolbai’s wrestling, it will be hard for Brener to win a decision, despite having the home crowd behind him. That seemingly leaves Brener reliant on becoming the first fighter to ever finish Orolbai. There’s always a chance that the cut back down to 155 lb doesn’t go smoothly for Orolbai, which could impact his durability and/or cardio, but it’s encouraging that he had already been working his way back down to the lighter weight class in his last couple of regional fights. Neither of these two have ever been finished and this fight will also take place in the larger cage, where we see more decisions. That increases the chances of Orolbai winning a wrestling-heavy decision and Brener lost three of the last four decisions he went to, with the lone win coming in a controversial split. Orolbai has finished six of his last seven opponents and it’s possible he can hand Brener his first early loss, most likely by TKO, but we’ll say he wins a wrestling-heavy decision. With that said, it’s been hard to completely count Brener out and he already has two massive upset wins in the UFC. However, he easily could have lost both of those and eventually his luck will run out.

Our favorite bet here is “Orolbai/Brener FGTD” at -106.

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DFS Implications:

Orolbai is coming off a dominant wrestling performance in his recent short notice UFC debut, where he locked up a late second round submission against a one-dimensional striker in Uros Medic. He landed seven takedowns in that fight and impressively scored 123 DraftKings points and 127 points on FanDuel. That match took place at 170 lb, whereas Orolbai will now be cutting down to 155 lb, where he competed earlier in his career. That does add some additional uncertainty to this matchup, as there’s a greater chance of Orolbai having a bad weight cut that could negatively impact both his cardio and durability. However, he’s only 5’10” and was already coming in multiple pounds underweight for his last couple of fights on the regional scene, so it seemed like he had been planning the move for a while. And while Brener has an 85% takedown defense in the UFC, he hasn’t been tested by any great wrestlers and got beaten on the mat on the regional scene back in 2020 by a much smaller opponent in Grabriel Santos, who had just moved up from 135 lb to 145 lb. Considering that Orolbai has been tossing around 170 lb fighters recently, that’s encouraging for his chances of continuing to find wrestling success here. However, unlike Medic, Brener is a grappler who will threaten submissions on the mat and has shown the ability to be dangerous off his back. Brener has also never been finished and already has two big upset wins in the UFC, while Orolbai will be traveling into enemy territory. We’ve also seen Orolbai neglect his wrestling at times in the past, so there’s no guarantee that he continues to spam takedowns in this fight. And if the fight remains standing, neither of these two land much in the way of striking volume. However, the wrestling upside is there for Orolbai and he has the ability to score well even without a finish if he can put up a big takedown total. The odds imply Orolbai has a 68% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.

Brener has somehow found himself 3-0 in the UFC, but is due for some regression in the near future. He won a controversial split decision in his UFC debut, but only scored 60 DraftKings points in the process. Then he narrowly survived and outlasted Guram Kutateladze, to steal victory from the jaws of defeat in a late third round knockout in a fight he was losing. He was able to score 102 DraftKings points in that late finish with the help of a knockdown and two takedowns. Both of those wins came with Brener as a massive underdog (+475 & +470). Most recently, Brener landed a late first round knockout against an opponent that was making his short notice UFC debut and scored 106 DraftKings points. The opponent change happened so late that Brener was mispriced at just $8,200, despite being a -225 favorite. That resulted in him being 43% owned on DraftKings, after he was just 10% owned for his previous fight and only 6% owned in his UFC debut. Now he goes back to being the underdog, and it will be interesting to see where his ownership checks in following two straight 100+ point performances. This looks like a tough matchup for Brener, as Orolbai is a wrestler who’s coming down from 170 lb and has the potential to control Brener on the mat for extended periods of time. While that could create some submission opportunities for Brener, it will be tougher for him to win a decision or land much striking volume. So even at his cheaper price tag, we’re only really playing him for his finishing upside and Orolbai has notably never been finished. However, it’s always possible that cutting down from 170 lb to 155 lb negatively impacts Orolbai’s durability and/or cardio, which could increase Brener’s chances of handing him his first early loss. Brener will also have the home crowd behind him and landed a first round knockout on the last Brazil card. The odds imply Brener has a 32% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #7

Iasmin Lucindo

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

Coming off her first UFC finish, Lucindo submitted a grappler in Polyana Viana in the second round last August. The fight played out largely on the mat, with Viana landing the first takedown, but Lucindo landing the next two and then finishing the fight late in round two. Prior to that, Lucindo won a lopsided decision over a terrible Brogan Walker, but the fact that Lucindo wasn’t able to get Walker out of there early was disappointing. Lucindo took Walker down four times and outlanded her 53-29 in significant strikes. Just before that, Lucindo lost a hardfought decision in her UFC debut against a really tough Yazmin Jauregui, after winning seven straight fights on the regional scene, with four of those ending in TKOs. In the last of those wins on the regional scene, Lucindo dominated a Judo black belt on the mat in a three-round decision victory. Despite only being 22 years old Lucindo somehow turned pro back in 2017 when she was just 15.

Now 15-5 as a pro, Lucindo has eight wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and four decision victories. While she’s coming off a submission win, her previous four finishes all ended in TKOs. Three of her 10 finishes occurred in round one, six ended in round two, and two were stopped in round three. The only time she’s ever been knocked out was in the first round of a 2018 match in her fifth pro fight against a dangerous striker in Gabriella Fernandes, who’s now in the UFC. She’s also been submitted twice, once in 2018 and then again in 2019. Just keep in mind, all of those early losses occurred when she was just 16-17 years old. Her other two losses were a 2017 split decision that occurred when she was just 15 and a decision loss in her UFC debut. Lucindo dropped down from 125 lb to 115 lb for her UFC debut, but then moved back up to 125 lb for her next fight. She then cut back down to 115 lb for her last match and will finally get some weight continuity as she remains at 115 lb here. She’s also competed as high as 143 lb in the past.

Overall, Lucindo is a very young, athletic fighter with good striking and dangerous ground and pound. However, she’s yet to really put it all together at the UFC level and we wonder about her fight IQ at times, as she’s often attacked her opponents’ strengths instead of their weaknesses. It seems like she’s still trying to figure out how to blend her striking and wrestling, and she’s typically focusing on one or the other individually. She has shown improved boxing since joining the UFC, but has also looked to use more of her grappling in her last two fights. In her three UFC fights, Lucindo landed six of her nine takedown attempts (66.7% accuracy), while her opponents got her down once on three attempts (66.7% defense). Prior to joining the UFC, she was dominating opponents on the mat with ground and pound, but we’ve yet to really see her take that approach in any of her UFC fights.

Karolina Kowalkiewicz

17th UFC Fight (9-7)

After losing five straight fights from 2018 to 2021, Kowalkiewicz has now quietly put together a four-fight winning streak, albeit against a very low level of competition. The most recent of those wins came in a high-volume 30+27 decision against a one dimensional kickboxer in Diana Belbita, who is now 2-5 in the UFC. Despite being terrible on the ground, even Belbita was able to land both of her takedown attempts against Kowalkiewicz. Prior to that, Kowalkiewicz won another high-volume 30-27 decision against a suspect talent in Vanessa Demopoulos, who’s known more for her grappling, but failed to land any of her four half-hearted takedown attempts and got doubled up in striking 139-68. That came just after Kowalkiewicz squeaked out a decision win against a one-dimensional striker in Silvana Gomez Juarez. There was a massive amount of confusion with the scorecards there, as the commissioner frantically made a series of last minute handwritten written changes as he brought the scorecards into the Octagon for Buffer to read. Kowalkiewicz kicked off her current winning streak with a second round submission win in a rematch against a half-retired Felice Herrig, who closed out her UFC career on a four fight skid and was cut after the loss to Kowalkiewicz. That’s Kowalkiewicz’s only early win in her last 18 fights, with her second most recent finish coming all the way back in 2014. That came just after Kowalkiewicz got submitted in the first round by Jessica Penne, following decision losses to Yan Xiaonan, Alexa Grasso, and Michelle Waterson-Gomez, as well as a R1 KO defeat at the hands of Jessica Andrade. Fourteen of Kowalkiewicz’s last 18 fights have gone the distance, with four of those decisions being split.

Now 16-7 as a pro, Kowalkiewicz has one win by TKO, which came in the first round of her 2012 pro debut, three by submission, and 12 decision victories. Three of her four career finishes came in her first five pro fights from 2012 to 2014, with two of those occurring while she was fighting up at 125 lb, before she dropped down to 115 lb in 2014. She’s been knocked out once, submitted twice, and has four decision losses. Her lone career KO loss came against Jessica Andrade in the first round of a 2018 fight, with both of her submission losses also ending in round one.

Overall, Kowalkiewicz has a background in Muay Thai and has historically relied mostly on her striking, averaging a respectable 5.92 SSL/min and 5.55 SSA/min. However, she’s been looking to grapple a little more recently and after only landing one takedown on seven attempts across her first 10 UFC fights, she landed four takedowns on 12 attempts in her last six matches. Looking at her entire 16 fight UFC career, she still only landed 5 of her 19 takedown attempts (26.3% accuracy), but those numbers have at least been improving. On the other side of things, she’s been taken down by her opponents 15 times on 58 attempts (74.1% defense). However, her defensive numbers are somewhat skewed by her first two UFC opponents combining to land just one of their 24 attempts. She also lost five of the last six fights where she got taken down even once. Kowalkiewicz will look for submissions on the mat, but has only completed one since 2014 and is typically looking to outland her way to decision wins. Her fight IQ is dubious at best, which was in full display when she dove head first into the guard of a one-dimensional grappler in Jessica Penne in Kowalkiewicz’s last loss, which ended with Kowalkiewicz getting submitted. However, she did opt not to look for takedowns against another grappler in Vanessa Demopoulos in her second most recent fight, so maybe she’s improving her awareness. She’s definitely made improvements since she started training at American Top Team, but at 38 years old it’s not like she’s ever going to contend for a belt again.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’3” but Lucindo will have a 2” reach advantage and is 16 years younger than the 38-year-old Kowalkiewicz.

This is a big step up in competition for Kowalkiewicz, whose late career resurgence has had more to do with the level of competition she’s been facing. While Kowalkiewicz is a decent striker and can put up big striking totals, she’s not much of a finishing threat and also absorbs a lot of damage. She’s also been prone to getting taken down and lost five of the last six fights where she gave up even a single takedown. While we don’t trust Lucindo’s fight IQ, it’s a good spot for her to find success on the mat and also land a lot of striking volume on the feet. Kowalkiewicz was finished in the first round in three of her last six losses and Lucindo will have a good shot at getting her out of there early if she makes a concerted effort. However, if she lets Kowalkiewicz dictate the pace in a pure striking battle, it’s also possible that Kowalkiewicz could outland her way to a close decision win, making it hard to 100% trust Lucindo in this spot. Nevertheless, Lucindo will have a good shot at landing her second straight finish as she’s the more powerful striker and the better grappler. With the home crowd behind her, we’ll say Lucindo finishes Kowalkiewicz on the mat in round two.

Our favorite bet here is “Iasmin Lucindo R2” at +700.

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DFS Implications:

Lucindo is a solid, well-rounded fighter but has yet to fully use that to her advantage. She strikes with strikers and grapples against grapplers, opposed to attacking the opposition where they’re the weakest. That has made her life unnecessarily difficult and we’ve yet to see her reach her true potential. However, she’s only 22 years old and should be learning and improving all the time, so hopefully she puts it all together soon. She has really good ground and pound that we’ve yet to see at the UFC level, but it’s just waiting to be unleashed from the shadows. While she finally landed a finish in her last fight, she only scored 94 points in the efficient second-round submission. She also scored just 73 DraftKings points in a decision win just before that, so there’s nothing for the boxscore watchers to get excited about—yet. Those lower scores are not really a fair indicator of her true scoring potential, but will help to keep her ownership down. While she’s only averaging 3.33 SSL/min and failed to top 66 significant strikes landed in any of her three UFC fights, she has solid power and is especially dangerous from top position on the mat. While Kowalkiewicz has a 74% takedown defense on paper, that number is inflated by her first two UFC opponents combining to land just one of their 24 attempts. Since then, she’s been taken down 14 times on 38 attempts and lost five of the last six fights where she was taken down even once. Kowalkiewicz has also been finished in the first round in three of her last six losses and is now 38 years old. Lucindo will be fighting in front of her home crowd, so she should be motivated to put on a show, and this would be as good a spot as any for her to finally unleash her vicious ground and pound. And when you combine all that with her low projected ownership, she looks like a great tournament play. The odds imply Lucindo has a 76% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.

Kowalkiewicz has averaged 89 DraftKings points in her nine UFC wins, despite eight of those going the distance. She has a solid volume-driven scoring floor, but doesn’t add a ton in the way of grappling. While she’s recently been able to make that work against a series of low level opponents and is coming off the highest scoring decision win of her career (103 DraftKings points), she’s facing a big step up in competition here. Lucindo is more powerful than Kowalkiewicz and also a much better grappler. However, they both have terrible fight IQs and will make terrible decisions at times. That adds some level of volatility to the matchup, but there’s a good chance that Lucindo is able to finish the 38-year-old Kowalkiewicz. And even if she doesn’t, it will be tougher for Kowalkiewicz to land nearly as many strikes as she has in any of her recent wins, which really caps her scoring ceiling considering she’s not much of a finishing threat. However, at her cheap price tag, an average scoring decision win could still be enough for her to be useful if we don’t get many underdog winners on the card, and she’s especially interesting on FanDuel where striking is more valuable. The odds imply Kowalkiewicz has a 24% chance to win, a 7% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #6

Joanderson Brito

6th UFC Fight (4-1)

Extending his winning streak to four, Brito is coming off a second round submission win over a relentless wrestler in Jonathan Pearce. Brito got controlled for most of the fight, before Pearce lost focus in the second round and found himself stuck in a ninja choke. That’s the fourth straight opponent that Brito has finished in under nine minutes, with his previous three wins all ending in under three minutes. However, his last two wins before facing Pearce both came against opponents making their short notice UFC debuts, so he has had some favorable matchups along the way. To his credit though, he did land a 41 second knockout against a tough Andre Fili in his first UFC win. Brito’s only loss in his last 17 fights came in a decision in his 2022 UFC debut against Bill Algeo. Brito punched his ticket to the UFC with a technical decision win over Diego Lopes on DWCS in 2021, after violently knocking out Jose Mariscal in just 44 seconds. Brito’s last seven wins all ended in under 11 minutes, with five of those ending in the opening six minutes.

Now 16-3-1 as a pro, Brito has gone 15-1-1 in his last 17 fights after starting off his career at 1-2 back in 2013. He has seven wins by KO/TKO, seven more by submission, and two decision victories. Ten of his 14 finishes occurred in the opening three minutes of the first round, while he also has three second round finishes, and another in round three. He was finished by his opponents twice in the first round in his first three pro fights (2013 & 2015), once by TKO and another by submission, with his only other career loss coming by decision in his UFC debut. Brito has primarily competed at 145 lb and 155 lb in the past, but did fight down at 135 lb early in his career. He’s remained at 145 lb since 2019, which is where it appears he’ll stay.

Overall, Brito is a blitzing wild man who throws violent strikes with fight-ending intentions and constantly looks for takedowns. He’ll look for both guillotines and rear-naked chokes in addition to trying to finish opponents with haymakers. He’s dangerous in a variety of ways, but he lacks much finesse and simply tries to bull rush and overpower his opponents. Brito uses so much energy early on in fights that it’s tougher for him to remain competitive later on in matches. Between his DWCS appearance and his five UFC fights, Brito landed 9 of his 12 takedown attempts (75% accuracy), while getting taken down on three of the six attempts against him (50% defense).

Jack Shore

8th UFC Fight (6-1)

Shore is 14 months removed from a second round submission win over the cardiovascularly challenged Makwan Amirkhani, who went 1-5 in his last six UFC fights before getting cut after his loss to Shore and then getting finished again outside of the UFC. That was Shore’s first UFC fight at 145 lb, after his first six matches with the organization all took place at 135 lb. Shore lost the first round to Amirkhani on all three scorecards before predictably outlasting him and finishing him late in round two. Prior to that, Shore suffered the only loss of his career in a second round submission against Ricky Simon. Shore got hurt on the feet late in round two and then Simon pounced on him and quickly locked up an arm-triangle choke to force a tap. Leading up to that loss, Shore had won the first 16 fights of his career. While three of his last four wins all went the distance, 12 of his first 13 career victories ended early, including his first two UFC fights, which both ended in late round submissions.

Now 17-1 as a pro, Shore has four wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and four decision victories. His last five finishes all came in the later rounds, with two in round two and three in round three. The only loss of his career also ended in a late finish, coming in a 2022 second round submission. Shore has seen the second in nine straight fights and the last time one of his matches ended in round one was in 2018. Shore started his pro career in 2016 at 145 lb, before dropping down to 135 lb in 2018. He remained at the lighter weight class until 2023 when he moved back up to 145 lb.

Overall, Shore is a 29-year-old Welsh wrestler and BJJ black belt who does his best work on the mat. In his seven UFC fights, he landed 19 takedowns on 47 attempts (40.4% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on five of their 24 attempts (79.2% defense). All five of those takedowns allowed came in his last three fights as he faced a step up in competition. While Shore has shown the ability to dominate against lower level opponents, he still needs to prove he can find the same level of wrestling success against tougher fighters.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’8” and 29 years old, but Brito will have a 1” reach advantage.

We’re not really sold on Shore at 145 lb and it seems like he just doesn’t want to be cutting as much weight anymore. That puts him at a disadvantage against opponents who are willing to go through bigger weight cuts and Shore will have a tougher time being nearly as dominant on the mat at 145 lb as he was at 135 lb. He gets a really tough matchup here against a dangerous Joanderson Brito and Shore’s striking defense has been somewhat concerning. Brito has the power to knock Shore out and the submission skills to finish him on the mat, which will leave Shore in danger anywhere the fight goes. However, if Shore can survive the first two rounds, we could see Brito tire out in round three, creating the potential for Shore to find another late finish. However, we’d be surprised if the fight lasted that long and we like Brito to find a finish in the opening 10 minutes, most likely in round one.

Our favorite bet here is “Joanderson Brito R1” at +320.

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DFS Implications:

Brito has landed four straight first finishes in the opening two rounds, averaging 108 DraftKings points in those wins. After his first three UFC victories all ended in under three minutes, his most recent came late in round two, which at least shows he has the cardio to still threaten finishes beyond the first round. However, cardio has been a concern for him in the past, which lowers the chances of him finding as much success in the third round of fights. We also saw him get controlled on the mat for two-thirds of his last match, which resulted in him only scoring 87 DraftKings points in the late second round submission. That shows one way he can fail to score enough to be useful even with a finish here, as he takes on another wrestler who has the potential to control him for periods of time. However, Shore is not nearly as big as Jonathan Pearce and we expect Brito to be the stronger fighter in this matchup. Shore had been fighting at 135 lb until his last outing when he moved up to 145 lb. It’s also been 14 months since Shore last competed and if he comes in with any ring rust it could be a short night for him. Brito will have the home crowd behind him, not that he ever needs anyone to hype him up. However, that could result in quicker stand ups if Shore just tries to lay on him or hold him against the cage. Brito has the power to knock Shore out and the submission skills to choke him unconscious, leaving him with multiple paths to putting up a big score. Shore’s striking defense has been a bit shaky and we saw him get outwrestled by Makwan Amirkhani in the first round of his last fight, and we really like Brito’s chances of finding a finish in the opening 10 minutes. However, things could get dicey if the fight makes it to the third round and Brito appears reliant on finding a finish before then to really score well and avoid a potential late cardio collapse. The odds imply Brito has a 62% chance to win, a 40% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Shore has averaged 98 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, showing a really solid floor, and a decent but unspectacular ceiling. His last win ended in a late second round submission, but he “only” scored 94 DraftKings points after getting controlled early on in that match. Shore’s previous three wins all went the distance, but he was still able to average 95 points in those decisions through his wrestling. His grappling-heavy style leaves him with a higher floor on DraftKings than FanDuel, but his finishing ability gives him a decent ceiling on both sites. However, we can’t trust his floor here, as he takes on a dangerous finisher in Joanderson Brito who excels at getting opponents out of there quickly. We’re also not sold on Shore’s decision to move up from 135 lb to 145 lb and it seems like he’s just being lazy about how much weight he wants to cut. He relies on overpowering opponents on the mat and now that he’s facing bigger, stronger opponents, he may have a tougher time achieving that. He’s also facing a step up in competition and there’s a really good chance Shore gets finished early here. However, if he can survive the first two rounds, then we expect Brito to slow down in round three, which could create openings for Shore to find another signature late finish. That leaves Shore with a very wide range of scoring outcomes, but whoever wins this fight will have a really good shot at ending up in the optimal lineup. The odds imply Shore has a 38% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #5

Caio Borralho

6th UFC Fight (5-0)

Borralho won a lackluster, low-volume decision against Abusupiyan Magomedov on the last Brazil card, finishing ahead just 51-38 in significant strikes and failing to land his only takedown attempt. It was a painfully boring fight and Borralho continues to be one of the least exciting fighters on the UFC roster. Four of Borralho’s five UFC fights ended in boring decision wins, with the one exception being a second round submission victory over a one-dimensional striker in Michal Oleksiejczuk, who’s been submitted in five of his seven career losses. Most of Borralho’s UFC fights have been against strikers and he hasn’t faced many dangerous grapplers. Borralho has won 14 straight fights after suffering the only loss of his career in a decision in his second pro fight. However, seven of his last nine fights ended in decisions and he hasn’t been putting many opponents away early. Other than his lone UFC submission win, his only other finish in his last nine outings came in a R1 TKO in his second trip on DWCS. After not getting a contract with a decision win in his first appearance on the show at 185 lb, Borralho returned three weeks later at 205 lb and knocked out Jesse Murray, who’s been finished in all six of his pro losses. That was enough to secure his spot on the UFC roster. Borralho’s UFC debut actually ended in a technical decision with just over a minute left in the third round after he threw an illegal knee, so he was fortunate not to get a DQ loss there.

Now 15-1 as a pro, Borralho has four wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and seven decision victories. His only career loss came in a 2015 decision in his second pro fight. All four of his knockouts ended in the first round, as did two of his four submission wins. He also has one second round submission win and one in round three. Borralho started his career at 170 lb in 2014 before moving up to 185 lb in 2018. His only career fight at 205 lb came in his last fight before joining the UFC, before returning to 185 lb for all of his UFC matches.

Overall, Borralho is a decently well rounded fighter who is a Judo brown belt and a BJJ black belt. He spent extensive time training with Demian Maia, so you know he can handle himself on the mat. With that said, he generally pushes a slower pace, and tends to coast down the stretch in fights. He seems clueless in terms of what the UFC and fans are looking for out of fighters, and hypes himself up way too much after boring decision wins. It’s a shame he doesn’t have that same energy during fights. His karate style paired with his grappling makes for lower significant striking totals in his fights, and he only averages 2.73 SSL/min and 1.98 SSA/min. Between his five UFC fights and two DWCS matches, he landed 12 of his 19 takedown attempts (63.2% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on three of their seven attempts (57.1% defense). While he appears to have all of the physical tools required to be a problem in the division, he still hasn’t totally blown us away with anything he does, and we have also yet to see how he’ll fare against a high-level grappler. However, the UFC has been mostly content with building him up against mostly strikers, not counting his debut where he defeated a wrestler. Borralho will once again have the home crowd behind him here, but that didn’t seem to motivate him to look for a finish in his last fight. He’s the main face of the Fight Nerds team and loves to talk about how smart he fights, which really just translates to him fighting like a coward and he refuses to ever take any chances in fights. He also lies about his height, maybe to try and catch his opponents off guard and gain a competitive advantage. The UFC hilariously lists him at 5’10”, while he’s really all of 6’2”.

Paul Craig

18th UFC Fight (9-7-1)

Craig will be looking to bounce back from a third round submission loss to Brendan Allen in a November main event. Craig had a tough time getting anything going in the fight outside of one failed submission attempt. Allen finished ahead 32-6 in significant strikes, 2-0 in takedowns, and 7:58-0:34 in control time. Prior to that, Craig moved down to 185 lb for the first time and landed a second round ground and pound TKO against another grappler in Andre Muniz. However, Muniz did win the first round on all three scorecards, before Craig really put it on him in round two. Before making the cut down in weight, Craig lost his last two Light Heavyweight fights, which prompted the move down that he now says should have happened a long time ago. The most recent of those losses was a R1 TKO against Johnny Walker, which followed a decision defeat to Volkan Oezdemir. Leading up to those two losses, Craig finished four straight opponents, including first round finishes of Nikita Krylov and Jamahal Hill in the last two of those victories. He also famously has a last second submission win over Magomed Ankalaev on his record, as well as a late submission over Kennedy Nzechukwu, and several of his wins aged quite well.

Now 17-7-1 as a pro, Craig has four TKO wins and 13 submission victories. He’s been knocked out four times, all in round one, and submitted twice, both in the third round. He’s only been to two decisions in 25 pro fights, one of which was his 2022 loss to Oezdemir and the other being a 2019 draw against Shogun Rua. Craig has only even seen the third round six times in his career, with three of those ending in submission in the final 40 seconds (2-1) and another by submission in the opening 40 seconds (0-1). Fifteen of his pro fights ended in the first round (11-4), four ended in round two (4-0), and four more ended in round three (2-2).

Overall, Craig has historically been a very one-dimensional grappler who loves working off his back. He has no problem pulling guard to get fights there and he’s a BJJ black belt who excels at throwing up armbars and triangle chokes. In his 17 UFC fights, Craig only landed 16 of his 71 takedown attempts (22.5% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 10 of their 16 attempts (37.5% defense). While Craig rarely relies on his striking, he has recently talked about how he’s been working a lot on his stand up game and we have seen some improvements. However, he’s still never landed more than 51 significant strikes in any of his 17 Octagon appearances, and only topped 40 once. Similarly, he has only once absorbed more than 59 significant strikes in a match, which occurred in his lone decision loss when he absorbed 72. His unique style of offensive grappling off his back typically means he’s losing fights until he’s not, which leaves him reliant on landing finishes to come out victorious. Despite not having a ton of power behind his strikes, three of his last four wins bizarrely ended in TKOs, with two ground and pound finishes and a slow stoppage following an armbar attempt that dislocated Jamahal Hill’s elbow and turned what should have been a submission into a TKO. So all three of those TKOs were on the mat and he’s never looked like any sort of threat to finish opponents on the feet.

Fight Prediction:

Don’t be fooled by the fact that the UFC lists Borralho at just 5’10”. He’s actually 6’2” and Craig will only have a 1” height and reach advantage, while Borralho is five years younger than the 36-year-old Craig.

Both of these two are grapplers, but Borralho will have the striking advantage and he’s publicly stated that he plans on keeping the fight standing and knocking Craig out. That’s easier said than done, just ask Jamahal Hill. Craig has a knack for forcing grappling exchanges, whether it’s by pulling guard or just creating scrambles and grabbing a limb. And even if you can knock him down on the feet, unless you put him out cold then you still have to go to the mat with him to finish the job. That makes him a tricky customer to deal with, but we have seen him hurt at multiple points throughout his career and he’s often on the verge of getting knocked out just before he locks up a triangle off his back. He’s lighting fast with his grappling and is basically the Venus flytrap of the UFC. While Borralho does appear more equipped than most to deal with Craig, we also haven’t seen him tested against any high-level grapplers and it’s hard to know how good he actually is on the mat. He has the potential to make this fight look easy and just circle the outside of the Octagon picking Craig apart and running away from every potential grappling exchange. Or he could make one mistake and have his arm snapped in two. We almost always get very polarized results when Craig fights and he’ll either look +1000 or pull off a huge upset. He was a sizable underdog in each of his last three wins and he’s a very hard guy for the books to line, considering he’s losing every fight on the scorecards but can finish anyone at a moment’s notice. Whenever you can get his finishing props at a really wide number you have to take them, but you can never be overly confident in his ability to win any given matchup. We’re tempted to take the easy way out here and say Borralho wins another boring decision, but unlike Borralho we’re actually willing to take a risk from time to time. We’ll say Craig submits him in spectacular fashion late in round three after losing every minute of the fight.

Our favorite bet here is “Paul Craig ITD” at +700.

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DFS Implications:

Borralho has averaged just 81 DraftKings points in his five UFC wins and has only topped 80 points once. That came in his lone finish, where he scored 107 points in a second round submission against Michal Oleksiejczuk, who gets submitted by every opponent who can even spell grapple. Borralho’s other four UFC wins all went the distance and despite finding a decent amount of success on the mat in many of those, he still only averaged 75 points in those victories. He has no clue that he’s unbearable to watch and is content with holding positions on the mat or dancing around the Octagon in low-volume sparring matches on the feet. He averages just 2.73 SSL/min and 1.98 SSA/min. He publicly stated that he would not be looking to take Craig down here and that he would instead be looking for a knockout on the feet. While that’s a smart game plan, he’s not a huge knockout threat and Craig will be looking to force him into grappling exchanges. And the idea that he’ll be trying to avoid the ground sets up for a very low-volume tactical battle where Borralho will be reliant on landing a first round knockout to return value at his expensive price tag. Craig is fragile enough that we could see him get knocked out in round one, but if Borralho continues to refuse to take any risks then he’ll have very limited opportunities to land a quick finish. The only two reasons to consider playing Borralho in tournaments is his low projected ownership and the fact that Craig has been finished in six of his seven pro losses. The odds imply Borralho has an 83% chance to win, a 49% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Craig has averaged 96 DraftKings points in his nine UFC wins and has a 100% finishing rate in all 17 of his pro victories. His last six wins all ended in the first two rounds and each scored at least 91 points, but he did have a pair of third round submission victories earlier in his career that each only scored 69 points. While he relies on getting fights to the ground to win, he’s happy to work off his back, which is far from ideal in DFS. He also only averages 2.42 SSL/min and has just a 22% takedown accuracy, which leaves him entirely reliant on landing finishes in the first two rounds to score well. As the second cheapest fighter on the card, it’s not impossible that he could still be useful with a later finish, but it would likely require most of the other underdogs to fail. Borralho is a very conservative BJJ black belt who’s never been finished, so this looks like a tougher spot for Craig to find the early submission he needs to win and score well. However, we also haven’t seen Borralho tested in the UFC against any high-level grapplers, so maybe Craig can outclass him on the mat. The odds imply Craig has a 17% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #4

Michel Pereira

11th UFC Fight (8-2)

Pereira was originally set to face Makhmud Muradov here, but he dropped out and Potieria was announced as the replacement on April 8th, just under four weeks out.

Pereira is coming off back-to-back quick first round finishes since moving up from 170 lb to 185 lb. The most recent of those finishes came in a 61 second submission against the highly submittable Michal Oleksiejczuk, who used to fight at 205 lb. Pereira hurt Oleksiejczuk with a body shot and looked like he might finish him with strikes, before locking up a rear-naked choke instead. Prior to that, Pereira knocked out Andre Petroski in just 66 seconds, in a fight that Petroski took on short notice. Just before that, Pereira had been booked to face Stephen Thompson at 170 lb in July 2023, but missed weight by three pounds and Thompson then turned down the fight. While both of Pereira’s UFC fights at 185 ended in under 67 seconds, his last four fights at 170 lb all ended in decision wins, after he locked up a late third round submission in 2020 to kick off his current seven-fight winning streak. That came after a rocky 1-2 start to his UFC career, where Pereira knocked out a fragile Danny Roberts in the first round of his 2019 UFC debut, but then lost a decision to an undersized debuting Tristan Connelly and then lost via DQ for an illegal knee against Diego Sanchez.

Now 30-11 as a pro, Pereira has 11 wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and 11 decision victories. The only time he’s ever been knocked out came in the first round of a 2018 185 lb fight against Dusko Todorovic, before they joined the UFC. Pereira also has one submission loss (R2 2014), eight decision defeats, and one DQ loss. Pereira’s last two fights both ended in round one, but his previous seven all made it to the third round, with five of those going the distance. Pereira spent most of his career at 170 lb, but has had four fights at 185 lb, all of which ended early (3-1), along with a 190 lb Catweight match in 2018 and a 205 lb open weight fight in 2019 right after that, which both ended in knockout wins. Immediately following that open weight fight, Pereira cut back down to 170 lb, where he stayed until 2023 when he returned to 185 lb.

Overall, Pereira came into the UFC as a barbaric wild man, but has since toned down his antics immensely. Sure he’ll still throw in a random back flip into full mount from time to time, but those circus maneuvers have become few and far between opposed to the central focus of his game plan. He does a good job of utilizing movement to avoid taking much damage and throws solid body kicks to maximize his massive frame and keep his opponents at bay. Pereira holds black belts in both BJJ and karate and has impressive speed, knockout power, and submission skills. He was always massive for the 170 lb division, and doesn’t appear undersized at 185 lb, although he will no longer tower over most of his opponents. In his 10 UFC fights, Pereira landed 11 of his 20 takedown attempts (55% accuracy), while his opponents were only able to get him down on one of their 18 attempts (94.4% defense). While he failed to attempt any takedowns in his last three fights, he landed at least one in six straight fights before that, with multiple takedowns landed in four of those matches. However, his fight IQ is terrible and he can’t be trusted to make smart decisions inside the Octagon, so you never know when he will utilize his wrestling, even in very favorable matchups. Pereira will be fighting in front of his home crowd here, so maybe he’ll be looking to put on more of a show and bring back some of his old tricks, who knows.

Ihor Potieria

6th UFC Fight (2-3)

Potieria took his last fight on short notice, while also moving down from 205 lb to 185 lb—or at least tried to, he missed weight by 1.5 lb. The move appeared to do wonders for his cardio and after consistently gassing out after a round at 205 lb, Potieria showed the ability to go three hard rounds in that last fight and he was even the one threatening a finish in round three. In fairness, he did get a couple breaks in the first round after action was initially stopped for an eye poke and then stopped again for a low blow shortly thereafter. That really seemed to mess with the momentum of the debuting Robert Bryczek, who had knocked out all five of his previous opponents in the first round. Potieria’s size also gave Bryczek issues, who really struggled to find his range in the fight. Potieria finished ahead 67-32 in significant strikes, but failed to land any of his four takedown attempts. That was Potieria’s first credible win in the UFC and his only other victory with the organization came against the corpse of Shogun Rua on the January 2023 Brazil card. Prior to his recent win, Potieria was knocked out in the first two rounds in three of his first four UFC fights. He made his UFC debut in July 2022 and gassed out in round two and got knocked out by Nicolae Negumereanu. Then he was given the teed up matchup against Rua and landed a first round knockout of his own, before suffering a first round knockout loss to Carlos Ulberg. Potieria nearly landed a finish in his next fight against a debuting Rodolfo Bellato, but with a long leash from the ref Bellato was able to survive. Potieria gassed himself out looking for the finish and Bellato then came back and won in a late second round TKO. We expected Potieria to be cut after going 1-3 in his first four UFC fights, but the UFC is desperate for warm bodies and then brought him back to face Bryczek. While Potieria’s last fight went the distance, his previous seven all ended in the first two rounds.

Now 20-5 as a pro, Potieria has nine wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and five decision victories. All but one of his finishes occurred in the first round, with the other ending in round two. He’s also been knocked out four times himself and has one decision defeat. He spent almost his entire career at 205 lb, but did have one fight at 185 lb in 2021, where he landed his only finish to come beyond the first round in a fight that ended late in round two. He returned to 205 lb after that, before dropping back down to 185 lb for his last match, where he won a decision.

Overall, Potieria is a low-level fighter who showed terrible cardio and a bad striking defense when he was fighting at 205 lb. However, his cardio looked dramatically better in his last fight after he moved down a weight class and his size allowed him to do a better job of controlling the range and avoiding damage. He’s still wild with his striking and has poor wrestling, but the ability to avoid dying of exhaustion in round two is a big step up for him. However, he was facing a one-dimensional striker there, so Potieria wasn’t forced to exert any energy wrestling defensively. He also got two lengthy breaks in the first round for illegal strikes, so it’s possible his improved cardio is somewhat of a mirage. Between his five UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Potieria failed to land any of his eight takedown attempts, while his opponents got him down on three of their seven attempts (57.1% defense). He’s looked prone to getting taken down and controlled, but he does have decent power. After missing weight for his last fight, it will be important to monitor him closely on the scale.

Fight Prediction:

Potieria will have a 2” height and reach advantage, while also being three years younger than the 30-year-old Pereira.

Pereira continues to impress and has looked great since moving up to 185 lb, at least in the very limited sample size we’ve seen from him. Neither of his recent two 185 lb fights made it past the 66 second mark, so there’s not a ton to evaluate. However, he’s looked powerful and dangerous at the higher weight class and doesn’t appear to be at all undersized. He recently made short work of a former Light Heavyweight in Michal Oleksiejczuk and will now face another opponent here who also used to compete at 205 lb. Pereira is better than Potieria everywhere, although hasn’t been looking for any takedowns recently. It would make sense for Pereira to try and negate the power of Potieria by taking him down, but Pereira isn’t exactly known for his rational decision making. He also has the ability to knock Potieria out on the feet and we like his chances anywhere this fight goes. While Potieria did show some improvements in his last fight, he still looks like a fraud and we expect Pereira to finish him. Both a knockout or a submission are possible, and Pereira has shown the ability to land finishes a minute into fights or a minute from the final bell, leaving him with a wide range of options to close the show. However, we lean more towards a knockout in the first two rounds, most likely in round one.

Our favorite bet here is “Pereira/Potieria Fight Ends in R1” at +110.

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DFS Implications:

Pereira has averaged 87 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins and is coming off back-to-back quick first round finishes that just missed the Quick Win Bonus. His last win ended in a 61 second submission that was “only” good for 95 DraftKings points because he wasn’t awarded a knockdown or a takedown in the fight. Just before that, he landed a 66 second knockout that scored 103 points, once again just missing the Quick Win Bonus. While each of those fights took place at 185 lb, he had previously been competing at 170 lb. His last four wins at the lower weight class all went the distance, where he returned DraftKings scores of just 74, 80, 91, and 62. He also had two finishes at 170 lb earlier in his UFC career that scored 86 and 102 points respectively. So he’s yet to put up any massive scores in the UFC and now checks in as the most expensive fighter on the card. That makes it easy to see ways for him to get priced out of the optimal lineup, but he also has a lot of scoring potential and could easily put up a career performance here with a well timed finish. Potieria has bad defensive wrestling, averages 5.01 SSA/min, and has been knocked out in four of his five career losses. However, after exhibiting terrible cardio in all of his UFC fights at 205 lb, Potieria dropped down to 185 lb for his last fight and showed a much improved gas tank, despite that fight being on short notice. That makes a finish for Pereira a little less automatic, but we still like Pereira’s chances of getting it done. It will likely just be a matter of whether or not he scores enough to avoid getting priced out of winning lineups. The odds imply Pereira has an 83% chance to win, a 65% chance to land a finish, and a 36% chance it comes in round one.

Potieria recently won a surprise decision in his first fight after dropping down from 205 lb to 185 lb, but still only scored 74 points in the win. His only other UFC win came in a first round knockout against the corpse of Shogun Rua, where Potieria scored 111 points in what was essentially a free win. Potieria was knocked out in the first two rounds in all three of his UFC losses, leaving him with a non-existent scoring floor. He showed some of the worst cardio you could imagine when he was competing at 205 lb, but his gas tank looked remarkably improved in his last fight after cutting down to 185 lb. We’ll see if that was just a product of him taking on a one-dimensional striker and getting two timeouts in the first round, or if he truly does have three rounds of cardio at this point. Either way, it appears we can no longer count on him death gassing after round one, which does leave him with more ways to win fights outside of a quick R1 KO. With that said, he’s the biggest underdog on this card and the odds heavily favor him getting finished here, so he’s still far from trustworthy. Pereira is better everywhere and has also been pretty durable, so Potieria is nothing more than a hail mary KO or bust play. The odds imply Potieria has a 17% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #3

Vitor Petrino

5th UFC Fight (4-0)

Petrino is just nine weeks removed from a lackluster decision win over Tyson Pedro, who then surprisingly retired after the fight. Pedro actually finished ahead 30-27 in significant strikes in the low-volume fight, but Petrino took Pedro down three times and controlled him for five and a half minutes. Neither guy showed much interest in actually fighting, despite it being a co-main event. Prior to that, Petrino landed a first round knockout over Modestas Bukauskas, who’s been finished in five of his six career losses. Petrino took Bukauskas down in the first round of that low-volume fight and controlled him for a half a round, before landing a walk off check left hook a minute into round two. That came after Petrino locked up the first submission win of his career, which came in the third round against a one-dimensional striker in Marcin Prachnio. Petrino appeared determined to showcase his grappling in that match, and it looked like he easily could have knocked Prachnio out if he wanted to. Petrino had Prachnio hurt at multiple points on the feet, but then opted to take him down repeatedly. Petrino landed four of his six takedown attempts with almost nine minutes of control time, before submitting Prachnio late in the third round, after a couple of failed submission attempts in round two. Just before that win, Petrino won a wrestling-heavy decision in his UFC debut against Anton Turkalj. Petrino impressively landed seven takedowns in that fight and also had four reversals on the mat. Petrino originally punched his ticket to the UFC with a second round knockout victory on DWCS in 2022 against Rodolfo Bellato. Just before going on DWCS, Petrino knocked out former UFC fighter Gadzhimurad Antigulov, also in the second round, and Petrino’s last six fights all made it to the second round, but only two of those required the judges.

Now 11-0 as a pro, Petrino has seven wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and three decision victories. The first four knockouts of his career came in round one, while the last three ended in round two. His one submission victory ended in round three and his last four finishes all occurred in the later rounds, after his first four ended in round one. He hasn’t faced the toughest competition in his career, so he still needs to prove he can compete at the top of the division.

Overall, Petrino is a young 26-year-old Brazilian kickboxer who has added a lot of muscle over the course of his career and has really heavy hands. He’s also really developed his grappling game at team CM System in Brazil and has consistently been looking to wrestle in the UFC. His cardio has also looked better lately, so he’s been making improvements across the board and will be a guy to keep an eye on. Between his four UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 15 of his 22 takedown attempts (68.2% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 6 of their 21 attempts (71.4% defense). We haven’t seen a ton of striking volume in any of his UFC fights and he only averages 2.74 SSL/min and 2.49 SSA/min. He’s yet to land more than 44 or absorb more than 55 significant strikes in a UFC fight.

Anthony Smith

22nd UFC Fight (12-9)

Five months removed from a third round knockout loss to Khalil Rountree, Smith has lost three of his last four fights, with his lone win over that stretch coming in a split decision against Ryan Spann. Rountree outlanded Smith 53-47 in significant strikes in the low-volume fight, while Smith failed to land either of his two takedown attempts. While the striking numbers were close, Rountree was landing the far more impactful blows and had Smith hurt at multiple points before finally putting him away early in round three. Prior to that, Smith ran it back with Ryan Spann for no apparent reason and nearly got finished in the second round. However, he was narrowly able to survive and two of the three judges scored the first and third rounds for him, resulting in a split decision win. That came after Smith lost a 30-27 decision to Johnny Walker, who outlanded Smith 92-38 in significant strikes. Looking back one fight further, Smith suffered a second round TKO against Magomed Ankalaev, where Smith broke his leg in the first round and basically had no chance to win after that. After having surgery on the leg following the fight, Smith then had to deal with a blood clot that took months to get past. Smith also had knee surgery leading up to that fight, and he’s been dealing with numerous injuries and medical issues over the last couple of years, in addition to the loss of his Mother. The last time Smith finished anybody was in 2021, when he submitted Ryan Spann in under four minutes in their first fight. That was actually Smith’s third straight first round finish at the time, after he lost three of his previous four fights.

Now 37-19 as a pro, Smith has 20 wins by KO/TKO, 14 submissions, and three decision victories. While he has more knockouts than submission wins on his record, four of his last five finishes have come by submission. Ten of his last 11 wins ended early, and he’s gone just 1-4 in the last five decisions he’s been to, with just one decision win since 2016. He’s been knocked out 11 times, submitted four more, and has four decision losses. Smith fought at 185 lb until 2018 when he got knocked out by Thiago Santos in the second round and then moved up to 205 lb, where he’s since gone 8-6. Seven of those eight wins came early, with five in round one, one in round three, and another in round four. Four of those wins ended in submissions, and three came by knockout, but four of his last five finishes were by submission, with the one exception being a flukey doctor stoppage.

Overall, Smith is a BJJ black belt and has proven he’s dangerous on the ground from just about any position. Despite all of his submission finishes, in his 14 UFC Light Heavyweight fights Smith only landed five takedowns on 20 attempts (25% accuracy), and failed to take any of those 14 opponents down more than once. Over that same stretch, his opponents took him down 10 times on 21 attempts (52.4% defense). He’s a well-rounded fighter, and had been pretty durable for most of his career, but he doesn’t seem to be wearing damage as well lately as he approached his 36th birthday. He only averages 3.21 SSL/min and has never landed more than 91 significant strikes in a fight. So while he’s a dangerous striker and grappler, he lacks both striking and takedown volume, which helps to explain why he’s struggled to win many decisions. He’s also very prone to getting his lead leg chewed up, although he says he’s been trying to work on that and we saw more of a Muay Thai stance from him in his last couple fights, where he didn’t put much weight on his lead leg to try and protect it. We’ve counted Smith out before only to see him bounce back and prove he can still hang, but father time is undefeated and Smith appears towards the end of his career.

Fight Prediction:

Smith will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 70” reach. Petrino is nine years younger than the 35-year-old Smith.

While Petrino failed to impress in his last win, he remains undefeated as a pro and is still only 26 years old. Meanwhile, Smith is on the other end of his career and struggling to find wins lately. Petrino is the more powerful fighter and also looks to wrestle more, while Smith has more experience and the more dangerous jiu-jitsu. So it will be interesting to see if Petrino continues to look to wrestle, or if he’s content with looking for a knockout on the feet, which seems like the smart move. It’s impossible to trust Smith at this point, but if Petrino does look to take the fight to the mat, it’s possible that Smith could throw up a submission off his back, especially early on when he’s still fresh. However, that’s an unlikely outcome and the way Smith has been wearing damage lately, the most likely result is that Petrino knocks him out. Petrino’s last three knockout wins all occurred in the second round and Smith’s last four knockout losses also occurred in the later rounds. Due to how patient each of these two are, we’ll say that trend continues here with Petrino knockout win in the later rounds.

Our favorite bet here is “Vitor Petrino R2” at +420.

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DFS Implications:

PPetrino is a powerful striker who averaged 95 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins and has also shown the ability to rack up takedowns and finish opponents on the mat. However, he’s coming off a lackluster decision win over Tyson Pedro that only scored 67 points on DraftKings, after scoring 116 points in his first UFC decision victory. He also scored “just” 94 points in a poorly timed early second round knockout victory in his second most recent victory, after putting up 104 points in a wrestling-heavy third round submission win just before that. He took down all four of his UFC opponents at least once, landing three or more takedowns in all but one of those fights. However, he will need to be mindful on the mat in this next fight, as Smith is a dangerous BJJ black belt who can throw up submissions off his back. With that said, we’ve also seen Smith get beat up on the mat, so it will be a high-risk, high-reward situation if Petrino does look to wrestle. The safer route appears for him to keep the fight standing, as he has a ton of power and Smith has not been wearing damage well lately. However, Petrino only averages 2.74 SSL/min and if he doesn’t mix in his wrestling it will be hard for him to return value without a well-timed first round finish at his expensive price tag. And even if he does finish Smith in round one, he could still get priced out of the optimal lineup. Petrino has also been highly owned in each of his last three fights, with his DraftKings ownership checking in between 35% and 42% in each of those matches. That lowers his tournament appeal some, although after his recent dud maybe we’ll see that dip a little. The odds imply Petrino has an 81% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.

Smith has averaged 91 DraftKings points in his 12 UFC wins, with 10 of those ending early. However, he’s generally struggled to score well in fights that made it out of the first round and if we remove his four first round finishes, his average drops to just 80 points. He only has one decision win since 2016 and only scored 73 DraftKings points in that win, so he’s been reliant on finishing opponents to score well. The last time he finished anybody was when he submitted Ryan Spann in the first round of a 2021 match, and Smith seems to be on the decline as he approaches his 36th birthday. He’s lost three of his last four fights and easily could be on a four-fight losing streak if he hadn’t squeaked out a split decision win over Spann in their rematch. Now Smith is traveling into enemy territory to take on an undefeated prospect and this looks like a tough spot for Smith to get back on Track. Smith has not been wearing damage well lately and Petrino is extremely powerful. At Smith’s cheap price tag, he may not need a huge score to end up in winning lineups, but it does appear he’ll need a finish, as he only averages 3.21 SSL/min and hasn’t landed more than a single takedown in any of his last 19 fights. The odds imply Smith has a 19% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #2

Jonathan Martinez

14th UFC Fight (10-3)

Quietly on a six-fight winning streak, Martinez obliterated Adrian Yanez with leg kicks in his last fight, becoming just the second UFC fighter with multiple leg kick TKOs on his record. He landed 36 significant strikes before finishing Yanez in round two and 29 of those were leg kicks. Yanez was never able to get much offense of his own going, as he was hobbled early on in the match and forced into survival mode. Prior to that, Martinez pulled off the upset in a hardfought decision over Said Nurmagomedov, who seemed to tire out midway through the fight. Martinez actually finished behind in striking and takedowns, but was still able to squeak out a unanimous 29-28 decision. That came after Martinez notched another big win when he finished Cub Swanson with leg kicks, once again in the second round. Just keep in mind, Swanson was dropping down to 135 lb for the first time in the UFC and his body did not hold up well at all. Leading up to that finish, Martinez won three straight decisions against lower level opponents, after getting knocked out by Davey Grant in the second round of a 2021 match. All 13 of Martinez’s UFC fights have seen the second round, with 10 making it to round three, and eight going the distance. All five of his UFC fights to end early have come in late round KO/TKOs (4-1), with two third wins, and three fights that ended in round two (2-1). His only two losses in his last 12 fights were a questionable 2020 split decision against Andre Ewell and a 2021 R2 KO against Davey Grant.

Now 19-4 as a pro, Martinez has nine wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and eight decision victories. He’s been knocked out once (R2 2021), has two decision losses, and one DQ defeat. Martinez has fought at both 135 lb and 145 lb, after fighting all the way down at 125 lb early in his career. He’s struggled hitting 135 lb at times, notably missing weight by 4.5 lb against Frankie Saenz in 2020, and dropping out of a 2021 matchup due to a botched weight cut. However, he seems to be getting things under control lately, so hopefully his weight struggles are behind him.

Overall, Martinez is a patient striker who loves to throw knees and kicks, but doesn’t really add a lot in terms of grappling. He destroyed the legs of Adrian Yanez, Cub Swanson, and Vince Morales and Martinez notably trains with another violent leg striker in Chris Gutierrez at Factory X in Colorado. Martinez struggled with getting taken down earlier in his career, as he was grounded three times in each of his first two UFC fights, but has since only been taken down five times in his last 11 matches on 27 attempts and holds a 69% takedown defense. He’s still only 30 years old and has been continuing to improve as enters his prime, but now he steps into the biggest fight of his career in a high pressure situation.

Jose Aldo

21st UFC Fight (13-7)

Aldo will be coming out of retirement here to fight out the final leg of his UFC contract. He talked about potentially trying to set up a big boxing pay day after this, but left things somewhat open ended. He’s actually had three boxing matches since leaving the UFC in 2022, all of which went the distance (2-0-1). The last time he competed in an MMA fight was in an uneventful August 2022 three-round decision loss to Merab Dvalishvili. Aldo was able to stuff all 16 of Dvalishvili’s takedown attempts in that fight, but never got much offense of his own going and was outlanded 57-38 in significant strikes and 135-59 in total strikes. That snapped a three-fight winning streak for Aldo and crushed his hopes of making one last title run. Aldo started his career off going 25-1, before getting knocked out in just 13 seconds by Conor McGregor in 2015. That began a downward spiral for Aldo as he went just 3-6 from 2015 to 2020 and began talking about getting close to retirement. In fairness to Aldo, those six losses came against Conor McGregor, Max Holloway (twice), Alexander Volkanovski, Marlon Moraes and Petr Yan. Four of those were title fights and another came against the future Featherweight champ in Volkanovski. He then resurrected his career with wins over Marlon Vera, Pedro Munhoz, and Rob Font, before losing to Dvalishvili.

Now 31-8 as a pro, Aldo has 17 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and 13 decision victories. He’s been knocked out four times, has one submission loss, and three decision defeats. His last three wins all went the distance, as did three of his last four losses. The only one of his last seven fights to end early was a 2020 R5 TKO loss to Petr Yan and the last time Aldo finished anybody was in 2019, before he dropped down to 135 lb later that year. He had previously fought at 145 lb for his entire career.

Overall, Aldo is a BJJ and Luta Livre black belt and had looked good leading up to his last loss. He has a 91% career takedown defense and he’s impressively only been taken down 10 times in his last 28 fights and the only person to get him down more than once was Frankie Edgar who landed two in 2013. Aldo averages just 3.57 SSL/min and 3.74 SSA/min and it’s pretty rare to see him put up huge striking totals, although he did land 114 significant strikes against Pedro Munhoz in his third most recent fight. However, that was almost three years ago and Aldo is now 37 years old and 21 months removed from his last MMA fight. He hasn’t won a fight since 2021 and it’s fair to wonder how much he has left at this point in his career. His last fight was such a bust that it makes sense he would want to compete one last time to change how he goes out, especially if he gets to do it in front of his home Brazilian crowd. Two of his recent boxing matches were at 140 lb, while the other was at 147 lb, so he hasn’t made the cut down to 135 lb since August 2022 and he looked rough at that weigh-in. Obviously he’ll be a guy to monitor closely on the scale.

Fight Prediction:

Martinez will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 70” reach. Martinez is seven years younger than the 37-year-old Aldo.

This is sort of a tricky spot to break down, as we have a massive amount of uncertainty on Aldo’s side of things. How much has he been training in MMA? Is he only doing this to retire in front of his home crowd? Is he just trying to finish his contract and set up a massive boxing pay day? Has he gone off a cliff since we last saw him? Will he consider using his grappling at all? There are so many questions and the list could go on. There’s no debate that vintage Aldo torches Martinez, but it’s impossible to know which version of Aldo we’ll get here. He’s known for having violent leg kicks, just like Martinez, but he’s relied more on his boxing recently. In Aldo’s six fights since moving down to 135 lb, he landed 50 of his 58 leg kick attempts in 108.4 minutes, for just 0.54 leg kicks landed per minute. Meanwhile his opponents landed 121 of their 139 attempts against him over that same stretch, 1.28 leg kicks landed per minute. So he’s been losing the leg kicking battle lately and his last four opponents all landed 19 or more leg kicks against him, with three of those opponents landed 31 or more. Aldo failed to land more than 10 leg kicks in any of those fights, but still went 3-1 in those last four matches. However, it is concerning that his last six opponents landed 87% of the leg kicks they threw and Martinez does serious damage every time he connects on his kicks. If Aldo hasn’t been training at the same level he used to, he may have a tougher time eating leg kicks the way he used to. However, Aldo is far more experienced with the leg kicking game than Martinez’s last opponent, Adrian Yanez, and we expect him to be more prepared to check kicks and also get out of the way. Leg kick TKOs are extremely rare, so trying to predict one is typically a losing endeavor. And considering Aldo has been a decision machine, it seems more likely that this fight will go the distance. They don’t call Aldo the king of Rio for nothing and Martinez will need to convincingly win if he wants to eliminate the potential for some home cooking. We’re expecting a slower paced tactical battle, with Martinez focussed on landing leg kicks and Aldo focussed on defending them and countering. That sort of slower paced fight could make it tougher for Martinez to really pull away, unless he can really destroy Aldo’s lead leg. So it wouldn’t be at all shocking to see Aldo squeak out a close decision win. However, Martinez will have a shot at finishing him if Aldo’s just showing up for a payday, and could also just leg kick his way to a decision victory. The fight is heavily favored to go the distance and barring another unlikely leg kick TKO win for Martinez, we also expect it to hit the scorecards. And given that the fight is in Rio, it’s hard to confidently predict what the judges will do if the right is even remotely close. So a greasy Aldo decision win is entirely possible, but we do see more finishing upside for Martinez in addition to his ability to win a decision, making him the rightful favorite with all of the uncertainty on Aldo’s side of things.

Our favorite bet here is “Jose Aldo DEC” at +240.

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DFS Implications:

Martinez has only averaged 82 DraftKings points in his 10 UFC wins, topping 76 DraftKings points just three times in his career. Six of those 10 wins went the distance and he’s never scored more than 76 points in a decision. He also scored just 68 points in a 2019 third round knockout win. However, his last three finishes also came in the later rounds and he scored 105 or more points in each of those (105, 127 & 115). He’s definitely been improving and two of his last three wins came by leg kick TKO. However, one of those was against Cub Swanson, who was 38 years old and dropping down to 135 lb for the first and only time and the other was against Adrian Yanez, who seemed woefully unprepared to defend leg kicks. Aldo has far more experience landing and defending leg kicks and should come in with a good game plan here. However, Aldo is also 37 years old and coming out of retirement for this fight, so who knows how he’ll look. Aldo hasn’t won a fight since 2021 and the last six opponents he faced landed 87% of the leg kicks they threw against him. That’s encouraging for Martinez’s chances, but it would still be surprising to see him land another rare leg kick TKO unless Aldo is coming off the couch and just showing up for a paycheck, which is always possible. Martinez adds very little in terms of grappling and Aldo is a BJJ black belt with a 91% takedown defense, which leaves Martinez entirely reliant on striking. Barring a multi-knockdown performance, there’s essentially no chance that Martinez puts up a useful score in a decision, leaving him as a KO or bust option in DFS. The odds imply Martinez has a 57% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

Aldo has really struggled to score well with the judges, scoring just 76 and 60 DraftKings points in his only two UFC fights to end in three-round decisions. He’s been a lower volume five-round fighter for essentially his entire career, with 14 straight five-round fights from 2009 to 2017. However, after losing to Max Holloway twice in 2017, he’s been fighting mostly in three round fights, with seven of his last nine matches scheduled to go just three rounds. Aldo decided to hang it up following a decision loss to Merab Dvalishvili in 2022, but still had one fight left on his UFC contract, which he’s decided to complete here in front of his home crowd. It kind of sounds like he just wants to complete his contract to have the freedom to do whatever he wants and potentially land a big boxing payday, but who knows what’s next for him. Regardless, he’s shown no ability to score well in a three-round decision and hasn’t finished anybody since 2019, before he dropped down to 135 lb. He hasn’t landed a single takedown in any of his last 14 fights and only averages 3.57 SSL/min. After 21 months away it would be surprising if he looked better than the last time we saw him and he looks like nothing more than a hail mary KO or bust play in DFS. The odds imply Aldo has a 43% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #1

Alexandre Pantoja

15th UFC Fight (11-3)

Pantoja recently defended the Flyweight belt for the first time in a lopsided 50-45 decision win over Brandon Royval where Pantoja took Royval down eight times and controlled him for nearly 16 minutes. Prior to that, Pantoja won the belt against Brandon Moreno last July in a decision that should not have been split. One judge amazingly scored the last four rounds for Moreno, while the other two scored rounds one, three, and five for Pantoja. It seemed clear that Pantoja won those rounds and we also thought he did enough in round four to win a 49-46 decision, although that round was closer. Pantoja finished the fight with six takedowns landed on 11 attempts, with eight and half minutes of control time. Striking was pretty close, with Moreno finishing slightly ahead, although Pantoja dropped him in the first round. Ultimately the decision went the right way, but it was much closer than it should have been. Pantoja has now won five straight fights, after losing a decision to a solid wrestler in Askar Askarov back in July 2020. Pantoja’s only other loss in his last 11 fights was against the former champ in Deiveson Figueiredo, which also ended in a three-round decision. Four of Pantoja’s last six fights went the distance, with the other two ending in submission wins, each in under seven minutes. Unlike his opponent in this next fight, Pantoja had to scratch and claw his way to the top. Including his fights on TUF, Pantoja has two wins over the #1 ranked contender Brandon Royval, three wins over the #2 ranked contender Brandon Moreno (one on TUF), a win on TUF against the #4 ranked Kai Kara-France, a victory over the #5 ranked Alex Perez, another against the #7 ranked Manel Kape, and also one over #11 ranked Matt Schnell.

Now 27-5 as a pro, Pantoja has eight wins by KO/TKO, 10 submissions, and nine decision victories. All five of his career losses went the distance and he’s never been finished in his 16+ year pro career that began when he was just 17 years old back in 2007. In addition to his 27 official pro wins, he also defeated both Brandon Moreno (R2 SUB) and Kai Kara-France (DEC) on The Ultimate Fighter in 2016, but those victories are counted as exhibition matches and don’t show up on his official pro record. He’s typically looking to lock up rear-naked chokes, which is how he finished the majority of his submissions. He has 10 first round finishes, five in round two, and three in round three. Nine of his last 10 finishes occurred in the first two rounds, with six of those ending in under five minutes.

This will be the 5th five-round fight of Pantoja’s career, but just his third in the UFC. His first two fights scheduled to go five-rounds were in 2014 and 2015 and he submitted each of those opponents in the second round, just before going on TUF. Both of his UFC five-round fights ended in grappling-heavy decision wins.

Overall, Pantoja is an all action fighter who’s constantly hunting for finishes, despite having the demeanor that he’s waiting for a bus. He’s an elite-level BJJ black belt in addition to being a dangerous striker with rare one punch knockout power in the Flyweight division. In his 14 UFC fights, he landed 25 takedowns on 52 attempts (48.1%), while getting taken down by his opponents 23 times on 70 attempts (67.1% takedown defense). He’s been training at American Top Team since 2019, after training at Nova Uniao before that, so you know he’s been well coached. Pantoja generally comes out very aggressively early on in fights, although that’s a tough pace to keep up for three rounds, let alone five. However, even when he’s looked tired late in fights, he’s still shown the ability to dig deep and fight grappling success to ride out decision wins. This will be the first time in the UFC that Pantoja has fought in front of his home Brazil crowd.

Steve Erceg

4th UFC Fight (3-0)

Nine weeks removed from his first UFC finish, Erceg knocked out a fragile Matt Schnell early in round two with a perfect walk-off left hook. Prior to that, Erceg won a pair of 29-28 decisions in his first two UFC fights. In the most recent of those, Erceg defeated Alessandro Costa, who stepped in on short notice. That came after Erceg was the one stepping in on short notice as he made his UFC debut against David Dvorak, who entered the matchup as the #10 ranked Flyweight. It wasn’t the most exciting fight, but Erceg was able to drop Dvorak with a head kick in round two, but failed to put him away as he tried to finish things with a guillotine. Erceg has now won 11 straight fights, with seven of those ending early, although three of his last six fights went the distance. Born and raised in Australia, Erceg had been fighting for the Eternal MMA promotion, where he won the Flyweight belt over a highly suspect Shannon Ross back in 2020. Erceg then took a short notice fight up a weight class in his next match, winning a grappling-heavy decision at 135 lb. He then dropped back down to 125 lb and defended the Flyweight belt in a first round submission win against Paul Loga, who he had already knocked out once before. The promotion then opted not to put the belt on the line in Erceg’s next fight, and when asked why, Erceg said he thought it was because his opponent wasn’t from Australia and he didn’t think the promotion would want to pay to fly him in for future title fights if he won. Erceg once again locked up a first round submission and three of his last four fights before joining the UFC ended in first round submission wins.

Now 12-1 as a pro, Erceg has two wins by KO (both in under six minutes), six submissions, and four decision victories. Four of his submissions ended in round one, while another occurred in round two, and the last in round three. His last five finishes all occurred in under six minutes, with four of those ending in the first round. The only loss of his career came in a 2017 decision in his second pro fight. Erceg has competed at 135 lb a few times, but most of his career has been spent at 125 lb.

This will be the 3rd five-round fight of Erceg’s career, but his first in the UFC. Both of his fights scheduled to go five rounds before he joined the UFC ended in first round submission wins and he’s never been in a fight that lasted longer than 15 minutes.

Overall, Erceg is an Australian BJJ black belt who has really good size for the Flyweight division. Half of his career wins have ended in submissions, although he’s also willing to stand and trade with opponents. He’s got a good left hook, which is how he finished both of his career knockout wins. In his three UFC fights, he landed four of his 13 takedown attempts (30.8% accuracy), while he got taken down by his opponents twice on nine attempts (77.7% defense). His biggest weakness appears to be his striking defense and he looks pretty hittable. However, he’s still only 28 years old and has plenty of time to continue to refine his game.

Fight Prediction:

Erceg will have a 3” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while also being six years younger than the 34-year-old Pantoja.

Despite only being ranked #10 in the division, Erceg is being thrust into a title shot less than a year after he made his UFC debut. It basically came down to a process of elimination and Pantoja had already cleaned out most of the division. Two of Erceg’s three UFC fights have been in short notice situations—one where he was stepping in on short notice and the other where his opponent was. So Matt Schnell was the only fighter who had any real time to prepare for Erceg and even that fight was put together on just four week’s notice—although they had also previously been scheduled to face one another. Erceg doesn’t have any wins over anyone currently ranked in the top 10 of the division, so he’s largely unproven. Sure Dvorak was ranked #10 when Erceg beat him, but Dvorak also came into that matchup on a two fight skid and now hasn’t won a fight since 2021. Meanwhile Schnell has been finished in three of his last four fights and Erceg’s one other UFC win was against Alessandro Costa, who stepped in on short notice and is currently 1-2 in the UFC. We’re not saying that Erceg is bad, just that he’s largely untested.

Erceg has good size for the Flyweight division and has shown improved striking and power, in addition to being a pretty solid grappler. However, his defenses have not been overly impressive and that’s where he could struggle when facing the top of the division. He’s very hittable and also has never seen the championship rounds, leaving his cardio in question. Erceg seems to thrive in a cleaner fight where he can dictate the pace and range, but Pantoja is unlikely to allow him that luxury. Pantoja comes out of the gates hot and is extremely aggressive in round one. That should test the gas tank of both fighters and put Erceg’s questionable defenses to the test. We like Pantoja’s chances of finding Erceg’s chin early on and he has a good shot at ending this one quickly. However, if he can’t end things early then we expect to see his explosiveness fade some in the later rounds, which could make things dicey if Erceg’s cardio holds up—although who knows if it will. The one time we saw Erceg in a grueling grappling match was against Cody Haddon in 2021 and Erceg looked tired late in round two. In fairness, that fight did take place at 135 lb so he was facing a larger opponent. Nevertheless, Pantoja has shown the ability to wrestle for five rounds and could simply outwork his way to a decision win if he can’t get Erceg out of there early. However, with the home crowd pumping him up, we like Pantoja’s chances of blitzing Erceg early and finishing him in the first round.

Our favorite bet here is “Pantoja/Erceg Under 3.5 Rounds” at +120.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.

DFS Implications:

Pantoja impressively scored exactly 143 DraftKings points in each of his recent two five-round decision wins with the Flyweight belt on the line. Despite both of those ending in grappling-heavy decisions, he was also able to put up 145 and 130 points respectively on FanDuel, showing a massive ceiling on both sites. He also averaged 108 DraftKings points in his six UFC finishes, scoring 98 or more points in all of those and 110 or more in half of them. He’s a dangerous finisher with heavy hands and world class jiu-jitsu, in addition to being very durable, as he’s also never been finished himself in 32 pro fights. He’s willing to throw down on the feet, but is also often looking to take opponents down and submit them. He landed at least one takedown in seven of his last eight fights and also has four knockdowns in the UFC. That leaves him with the ability to fill up the stat sheet and now he’s facing an unproven opponent who’s looked pretty hittable. While Pantoja will have to overcome his size disadvantage in this matchup, he has multiple ways to win this fight and will also have the home crowd behind him. He’s got the highest floor and ceiling of any fighter on the card and will deservingly be the highest owned fighter as well. The odds imply Pantoja has a 62% chance to win, a 34% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

Erceg lucked his way into a title shot here with just three UFC fights to his name and only one finish with the organization. That lone early win came just nine weeks ago against Matt Schnell, who’s been finished in all six of his official UFC losses and only has one win in his last five outings. That victory only pushed Erceg up to #10 in the Flyweight rankings, but Mokaev blew his chance at the belt when he was unable to make a statement against Alex Perez. And basically everyone else at the top of the division was either injured or had already lost to Pantoja. So Erceg basically found himself in the right place at the right time to get a title shot. And they needed a Brazilian to headline this card after Alex Pereira got moved to UFC 300 and Pantoja is the only other Brazilian with a belt. So it didn’t really matter who the opponent was, they just needed Pantoja to be the headliner and were desperate to find him someone to fight. While we’re not saying Erceg can’t win, he’s basically an extra in this story. To his credit, he has really good size for the division and has shown improved striking, in addition to being a pretty good grappler. His biggest weaknesses are his lack of experience and his poor striking defense. He’s looked very hittable in the past, even if he’s never been finished. And on the other side of things, Pantoja is a superior grappler who’s also extremely durable and has never been finished in 32 pro fights. Making matters worse, Erceg will be traveling into enemy territory and has also never been in a fight that lasted longer than three rounds. It would be shocking to see him submit Pantoja or win a decision in Brazil, leaving him reliant on becoming the first fighter to ever knock Pantoja out. And while he’s got good striking, Erceg has just two career knockout wins. None of that is especially encouraging for Erceg’s chances, but if he does somehow pull off the stunning upset, then he’ll be a near lock to end up in winning lineups at this cheap price tag. The odds imply Erceg has a 38% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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