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Fighter Notes:
Fight #13
Deiveson Figueiredo
16th UFC Fight (11-3-1)Figueiredo recently moved up to 135 lb for the first time in his career and proceeded to win a unanimous 30-27 decision over a highly ranked, but potentially washed up, Rob Font. The striking numbers were almost dead even, with Font actually finishing ahead in significant strikes 46-45. However, Figueiredo landed the more damaging shots and also secured four takedowns with four minutes of control time. Prior to that win, Figueiredo fought Brandon Moreno four straight times for the Flyweight belt (1-2-1). Moreno finished Figueiredo in the third round in two of those fights, while the other two ended in close decisions. Leading up to the Moreno saga, Figueiredo submitted Alex Perez in the first round of his first title defense, after originally winning the Flyweight belt in July 2020 against an aging Joseph Benavidez, who retired one fight later. That was actually the second straight time Figueiredo finished the former Flyweight champion in Benavidez, but Figueiredo missed weight by 2.5 lb in their first match and was ineligible to win the belt. The first of those wins ended in a second round knockout, which remains Figueiredo’s only knockout victory in his last 11 fights, but he does have three submission wins over that stretch, all in the first round. Figueiredo’s second most recent knockout win was all the way back in 2018.
Now 22-3-1 as a pro, Figueiredo has nine wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and four decision victories. Seven of Figueiredo’s 11 UFC wins ended early with four KOs and three submissions. However, his last two and three of his last four finishes ended in submissions and three of his four UFC knockouts occurred in his first four UFC fights. Amazingly, his last six knockout wins all ended in round two, while all eight of his career submission wins ended in round one. He has one TKO loss and one submission defeat on his record, both in the third round against Brandon Moreno in Figueiredo’s last three fights. The only other loss of Figueiredo’s career was a 2019 decision against Jussier Formiga in a low-volume grappling match where Figueiredo was taken down three times and controlled for nearly half the fight.
Overall, Figueiredo is a BJJ black belt and a powerful striker, who is dangerous anywhere a fight can go. He had crazy power at 125 lb, but at just 5’5” he’s kind of short at 135 lb and still needs to prove his finishing ability can translate to the higher weight class. He does a good job of mixing in takedowns, and landed a career best four in his last fight. He loves looking for guillotines and has a tight squeeze once he gets his hands on you. He also only averages 3.08 SSL/min and 3.46 SSA/min, and has never landed more than 67 significant strikes or absorbed more than 61 in a three round fight. Figueiredo routinely struggled to make 125 lb, and is now 36 years old, so it makes sense that he decided to move up to 135 lb after losing the Flyweight belt for the second time.
Cody Garbrandt
15th UFC Fight (9-5)Garbrandt is coming off his first knockout win since 2020 and only his second since 2016. That finish came against a struggling Brian Kelleher, who was coming off neck surgery and has been finished in the first round in three straight fights. Just before that, Garbrandt won a painfully boring decision over Trevin Jones, in one of the worst “fights” of 2023. Garbrandt danced around the outside of the Octagon for most of the match and almost got knocked out when Jones finally landed something late in the fight. Garbrandt finished ahead just 26-20 in significant strikes in a complete snoozer, while Joe Rogan jerked him off from the broadcast booth. Here were the significant striking totals for Garbrandt-Jones in each round: 17-7, 5-2, and 4-11. Simply amazing. Just before that win, Garbrandt made the foolish decision to move down to 125 lb for the first time, where he got knocked out by Kai Kara-France in the first round. That loss resulted in him immediately returning to 135 lb, where he previously won the Bantamweight belt back in 2016 against Dominick Cruz. Since that 2016 win, Garbrandt has gone 3-5, with four of those five losses ending in knockouts.
Now 14-5 as a pro, Garbrandt has 11 wins by KO/TKO and three decision victories. He’s also been knocked out four times and has one decision loss. Eleven of his 19 career fights ended in R1 KOs (8-3), three ended in R2 KOs (2-1) and one ended in a third round KO (1-0). While six of his last eight fights ended in knockouts in the first two rounds (2-4), two of his last four matches went the distance (1-1).
Overall, Garbrandt had a background in amateur boxing as well as some experience playing football and wrestling in high school. He has historically relied mostly on his striking and only landed a takedown in 3 of his last 12 fights, but did land two takedowns in his second most recent fight as he looked for ways to avoid getting punched in the face. He also shot for 10 takedowns in his 2021 five-round decision loss to Font, completing three of those. Looking at his 14 UFC fights, Garbrandt landed 10 of his 29 takedown attempts (34.5% accuracy), while he’s only been taken down on 3 of 15 opponent attempts (80% defense). For most of his UFC career, he’s been largely content with duking things out on the feet, with his most valuable attribute being his speed. While he does have decent power, it has gotten him into trouble more often than not, thinking he can simply overwhelm his opponents with blitzes of strikes. His combination of speed, power and a fragile chin make for low-volume fights with more anticipation than actual time spent trading and he only averages 3.06 SSL/min and 3.91 SSA/min. He’s never landed more than 68 significant strikes in a fight and that came in his five-round decision win. After spending the majority of his career at Team Alpha Male in California, Garbrandt followed his ex-wife and son to Vegas before his 2023 fight against Trevin Jones and he’s now training at Xtreme Couture.
Fight Prediction:
Garbrandt will have a 3” height advantage, but Figueiredo will have a 3” reach advantage. Garbrandt is four years younger than the 36-year-old Figueiredo.
We’re kicking off the card with two former champs going at it and this one has the potential to go a couple of different ways. Garbrandt has good hand speed, pretty decent power, and a solid 80% takedown defense. However, he’s a delusional, chinny, headcase and gets knocked out everytime anyone lands something clean on him. That has resulted in him refusing to engage in fights at times, and now he’ll have more room to evade in the larger Octagon. Figueiredo is small at 135 lb and could have a tougher time tracking Garbrandt down if he starts running, creating the potential for this fight to bust. However, Garbrandt lives in Las Vegas and is coming off a walkoff knockout win, so maybe he’ll come in with renewed confidence and be more willing to throw down in more of a firefight. Figueiredo has never truly been knocked out and his one TKO loss was due to a doctor stoppage against Brandon Moreno. We’ll take his chin all day over Garbrandt’s, and Figueiredo is also the more dangerous grappler. Figueiredo has a history of either submitting opponents in round one or knocking them out in round two, but still needs to prove his finishing ability can translate to 135 lb, after spending his entire career up until his last fight at 125 lb. There’s no better high-profile opponent than Garbrandt to find a finish against and we expect Figueiredo to finish him in the first two rounds, most likely by knockout, but a guillotine is also possible if Garbrandt gets hurt and shoots for a desperation takedown.
Our favorite bet here is “Deiveson Figueiredo ITD” at -105.
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DFS Implications:
Figueiredo has averaged 97 DraftKings points in his 11 UFC wins, with seven of those ending early and one ending in a five-round decision. In his three three-round decision wins, he only scored 77, 81, and 45 DraftKings points respectively, so he’s been reliant on landing finishes to score well when he only has three rounds to work with. He just moved up from 125 lb to 135 lb for the first time in his last fight and gave a good account of himself as he won a unanimous 30-27 decision over Rob Font, while landing a career-best four takedowns. However, Figueiredo still only scored 77 DraftKings points in the victory, confirming the notion that he needs a finish to score well in DFS. Now he’s facing an opponent in Cody Garbrandt who’s been knocked out in four of his last eight fights, with the last three of those knockouts ending in round one. That’s really encouraging for Figueiredo’s upside in this spot, but if he can’t end things in round one, he may have a tougher time returning value at his expensive price tag with a later finish, or even a first round submission win. Garbrandt only averages 3.91 SSA/min and has an 80% takedown defense and it’s rare to see the stat sheet get filled up in his fights. Garbrandt will also refuse to fight at times, completely ruining fights for both DFS and spectating. Hopefully the fact that he’s opening UFC 300 will prevent him from fighting like a complete coward, but that is one possible outcome. Regardless, we’re probably only playing Figueiredo for his R1 KO upside. The odds imply Figueiredo has a 72% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.
Garbrandt has averaged 95 DraftKings points in his nine UFC wins, but has only topped 88 points once since 2016, which was in his recent first round knockout over a 37-year-old Brian Kelleher, who was coming off neck surgery and has now been finished in the first round in three straight fights. Garbrandt scored just 56 points in his last decision win and only averages 3.06 SSL/min, while only occasionally mixing in any takedowns. His second most recent knockout win came in the closing second of round two, which is basically ideal timing, yet it only scored 88 DraftKings points. So he’s generally reliant on landing first round knockouts to score well and only has one of those in the last eight years. Now he’s facing a durable opponent in Figueiredo, who may be able to take punches even better now that he’s not cutting as much weight. Despite his cheap price tag, Garbrandt is nothing more than a hail mary KO or bust option and his fragile chin leaves him with a zero point scoring floor. The odds imply Garbrandt has a 28% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
Bobby Green
25th UFC Fight (12-10-1, NC)Green is just four months removed from a violent first round knockout loss that the ref allowed to continue for way too long after Green was clearly done. Referee Kerry Hatley basically sat back and had a smoke while he watched Green get his face pummeled into the canvas by Jalin Turner. Green had been scheduled to face Dan Hooker there, before he dropped out and Turner stepped in on short notice. Prior to that, Green landed a quick first round knockout win of his own when he finished Grant Dawson in an October main event. Just before that, Green secured his first submission win since 2013, when he finished a washed up Tony Ferguson six seconds before the fight ended. That came after an unfortunate No Contest against Jared Gordon due to an accidental clash of heads. Green suffered back-to-back KO/TKO losses just before that, in a second round knockout against Drew Dober and a first round ground and pound TKO against Islam Makhachev, in a fight that Green accepted on very short notice. Green was setting a crazy pace against Dober before he got caught, as he outlanded Dober 73-34 in significant strikes in just a round and a half. Prior to the pair of early losses, Green had been extremely durable and hadn’t been finished since 2016 when Dustin Poirier knocked him out in the first round. While Green hasn’t required the scorecards in any of his last six fights, 11 of his previous 12 matches went the distance.
Now 31-15-1 as a pro, Green has 11 wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and 11 decision victories. He has five KO/TKO losses, two submission defeats, and eight decision losses. Both of Green’s submission losses occurred all the way back in 2009 and he only has one submission win since 2013, so his fights generally either go the distance or end in a knockout.
Overall, Green is a high-volume striker (6.14 SSL/min) who likes to put on a show and really feeds off the crowd and tends to shine in the spotlight. Three of his last four wins were on PPV cards, while he was the main event on a Fight Night in the other. On the flipside, he went just 1-3 plus a No Contest in his last five fights at the Apex without a real crowd. His hands-by-his-side fighting style provides a unique look for opponents to deal with and makes it tough to see his punches coming and also easier for him to defend takedowns. With a high school wrestling background, Green is a capable grappler with a solid 74% takedown defense, but hasn’t landed a takedown in any of his last nine fights and is generally looking to keep fights standing. Over that same stretch the only opponent to get him down was Islam Makhachev, who landed one of his two attempts.
Jim Miller
44th UFC Fight (26-16, NC)Miller is exactly three months removed from a third round submission win over Gabriel Benitez. Miller had a massive grappling advantage in that matchup, but never even attempted a takedown in the first round, before landing each of his two attempts in the later rounds and eventually finding a submission. Just before that, Miller landed a violent 23 second first round knockout against a fraudulent debuting fighter in Jesse Butler. Miller had originally been scheduled to face Ludovit Klein there, but he dropped out and Jared Gordon stepped in. Then Gordon announced at media day that he just had a concussion and they pulled him from the card and Butler stepped in on just two days’ notice. Short notice matchups are nothing new for the longtime UFC veteran in Miller, as he’s dealt with numerous late changes in recent years. Going back to early 2021, he had been scheduled to face Bobby Green, but Green collapsed after weigh-ins and Miller ended up losing a decision to Joe Solecki a couple of months later. Then Miller was set to face Nikolas Motta later that year, but tested positive for COVID and instead faced a debuting Erick Gonzalez four weeks later, who Miller knocked out in the second round. The Motta fight was then put back together in early 2022 and Miller landed another second round knockout win against another debuting fighter. The UFC then put the fight back together with Bobby Green, but he failed a drug test and Miller ended up facing Donald Cerrone on short notice, who Miller submitted in the second round. Following three straight wins, Miller was scheduled to fight Gabriel Benitez in early 2023, but he dropped out and Alexander Hernandez stepped in on short notice and outlanded his way to a decision win over Miller, which is the only time Miller has lost in his last six fights. Then the Benitez fight got put back together most recently and Miller locked up a third round submission. Now the Green fight is being put back together and Miller really seems to enjoy tying up loose ends.
Now 37-17 as a pro, Miller has seven wins by KO/TKO, 20 submissions, and 10 decision victories. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted three times, and has 12 decision losses. Miller has lost the last seven decisions he’s been to, but hasn’t been finished since 2018 when Charles Oliveira submitted him in the first round. Miller’s last eight wins all ended early, with his last decision victory coming all the way back in 2016. Four of his last five finishes occurred in the later rounds, but his recent R3 submission win is the only time he’s finished anyone beyond round two since 2011.
Overall, Miller is a high-level grappler and BJJ black belt. While he’s historically looked to end fights with submissions, three of his last five finishes ended in knockouts after only landing four knockout wins in his first 48 pro matches. Just keep in mind, all three of those came against debuting fighters with suspect durability. Now 40 years old, Miller doesn’t land a ton of striking volume, averaging just 2.96 SSL/min in his career, while tacking on 1.6 takedowns landed per 15 minutes. In his last 12 fights, he only landed eight takedowns on 12 attempts (66.67% accuracy), while his opponents got him down six times on 13 attempts (53.8% defense). The last time he landed more than two takedowns in a fight was all the way back in 2016 and it’s rare to see him put up big takedown numbers. For years, Miller had been saying that his plan is to make it to the UFC 300 card in mid 2024 and then retire, but he changed his tune lately, saying he’s not quite ready to hang it up.
Fight Prediction:
Green will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 71” reach. Miller is three years older than the 37-year-old Green.
This is the fourth time this matchup has been put together, with Green dropping out each of the previous three times (2014, 2021 & 2022). So they’ve had literally a decade and four training camps to prepare for one another. They’re both well rounded, but Green looks to have the striking advantage, while Miller is obviously a better grappler. Green has had the much tougher strength of schedule lately, but has also been winning less because of that. While Green has been knocked out in three of his last six fights and Miller has knocked out three of his last six opponents, context is key. Those knockout losses for Green were against absolute killers in Jalin Turner, Drew Dober, and Islam Makhachev, while all of Miller’s recent knockouts were against terrible debuting opponents. Green has a pretty solid 74% takedown defense and Miller generally hasn’t been forcing the grappling too much anyways, so there’s a good chance we see prolonged periods of striking. Green averages more than twice as many significant strikes landed (6.14 SSL/min vs. 2.96 SSL/min) and tends to perform especially well in front of live crowds. However, Miller is still durable and hasn’t been knocked out since 2018 and we’d be surprised to see Green finish him. So give us Green by decision in this one.
Our favorite bet here is “Bobby Green DEC” at +150.
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DFS Implications:
Green has averaged 98 DraftKings points in his 12 UFC wins, scoring 98 or more in each of his last six victories. He went through a period from from 2017 to 2021 where he fought to 10 straight decisions, but now he hasn’t required the judges in any of his last six fights. Maybe that has more to do with the matchmaking, but it does make it tougher to know how his fights will end. He was knocked out in three of his last six matches, including a violent KO just four months ago, so it’s hard to trust his scoring floor. However, he’s shown the ability to score well even in fights that go the distance, leaving him with a wide range of scoring outcomes. However, Miller isn’t an easy guy to score well against, as he’s a dangerous BJJ black belt who you don’t want to take down that also only averages 3.18 SSA/min and hasn’t been knocked out since 2018. In 43 UFC fights, no one has ever landed more than 108 significant strikes against Miller, and Green will need to either soar past that in a decision or hand Miller a rare early loss. Maybe these two old vets will just throw caution to the wind and put up a crazy striking total, but it’s definitely not a great spot for Green to return value. The odds imply Green has a 62% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Miller has gone 5-1 in his last six fights, but all of those wins came in extremely favorable matchups. The most recent was against a one-dimensional striker, who Miller was able to take down and submit in the third round, scoring 97 DraftKings points in the process. Just before that, Miller got a dream matchup against a UFC newcomer in Jesse Butler, who was fighting up a weight class on just two days’ notice. Miller knocked him out in just 23 seconds and scored 126 points with the help of the Quick Win Bonus. Two of Miller’s other five most recent wins were also against debuting fighters and the fourth was against the corpse of a half-retired Donald Cerrone. Nevertheless, Miller has done a good job of capitalizing on the opportunities in front of him and his last eight wins all ended early. He doesn’t land enough striking volume or takedowns to score well without a finish, but that typically doesn’t matter since he hasn’t won a decision since 2016, where he only scored 76 DraftKings points. He’s lost the last seven decisions he’s been to, but also hasn’t been finished since 2018. So whenever he fights we typically either see him land a finish and score pretty well, or lose a decision. While Green has been knocked out in three of his last six fights, we’d be surprised to see Miller knock him out here, and Green is also a tough guy to submit, with a 74% takedown defense and no submission losses since 2009. While Miller is still dangerous enough that he’ll have a shot at finishing Green, it doesn’t appear especially likely and he’ll likely be overowned in DFS. The odds imply Miller has a 38% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Jessica Andrade
27th UFC Fight (16-10)Andrade recently snapped a three-fight losing streak with a second round TKO win over Mackenzie Dern, who failed to get Andrade down on four attempts and was amazingly knocked down four times in the fight as she flopped around the Octagon like a fish out of water. Prior to that, Andrade had been finished in under seven minutes in three straight fights, as she competed five times in 2023. She started the year strong, with a dominant decision win over Lauren Murphy, where Andrade set the record for the most significant strikes ever landed by a female fighter at 231. Andrade then stepped in on short notice in a main event against Erin Blanchfield and got submitted in the second round. Both of those fights were at 125 lb, but Andrade then dropped down to 115 lb and got knocked out in the first round by decision grinder Yan Xiaonan. Remaining at 115 lb, Andrade then got submitted by Tatiana Suarez in the second round of her next fight, before finally righting the ship against Dern. Eight of Andrade’s last nine fights ended in the first two rounds (4-4), with the one exception being her decision win over Murphy. The last time Andrade lost on the scorecards was in a 2020 three-round split decision against Rose Namajunas.
Now 25-12 as a pro, Andrade has 10 wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and seven decision victories. All 18 of her early wins ended in the first two rounds, with five of her knockouts and six of her submissions ending in round one. Nine of her 12 career losses also ended in the first two rounds, with five TKOs and four submissions, while she also has three decision defeats. Her last three submission losses all occurred in the second round. Andrade has won three of the last four decisions she’s been to, with the one loss being split against Rose Namajunas in 2020.
Andrade originally joined the UFC in 2013 and fought her first seven fights at 135 lb (4-3), before dropping all the way down to 115 lb in 2016. After going 7-1 in first eight fights at 115 lb and winning the Strawweight belt against Rose Namajunas in 2019, Andrade immediately relinquished the belt to Zhang Weili and then lost a decision to Namajunas. After suffering back-to-back losses for the first time in her career, Andrade moved up to 125 lb for the first time in 2020 and knocked out Katlyn Chookagian in the first round. That was enough to propel Andrade into a title fight against Valentina Shevchenko, but Andrade got dominated and finished on the mat in the second round. Andrade bounced back with a first round TKO win over Cynthia Calvillo and then dropped back down to 115 lb for one fight when she submitted Amanda Lemos in the first round of a five-round fight. However, Andrade immediately returned to 125 lb for her next two matches, where she won a decision over Lauren Murphy and then got submitted in the second round by Erin Blanchfield. That prompted her to return to 115 lb, where she got knocked out in the first round by Yan Xiaonan and then submitted in the second round by Tatiana Suarez, before landing a second round TKO against Dern most recently. She’ll stay at 115 lb for this next fight. To recap, Andrade has gone 4-3 (57% Win Percentage) at 135 lb in the UFC, 3-2 (60% Win Percentage) at 125 lb, and 9-5 (64% Win Percentage) at 115 lb.
Overall, Andrade is an aggressive striker who constantly pushes forward looking to land fight ending shots and slam her opponents unconscious. She’s willing to take one (or 5) to land one (or 10), which has gotten her into trouble at times. She tends to keep her chin up as she lunges forward, which resulted in her getting knocked out in her third most recent fight. She struggles the most with longer opponents who have good footwork and who can counter her from distance while avoiding the shots coming from Andrande. She averages 6.67 SSL/min and 5.36 SSA/min. Andrade is also a BJJ black belt and has a 72% career takedown defense. In her 19 fights since dropping down from 135 lb, she’s only been taken down on 13 of 50 opponent attempts (74% defense). Over that same 19 fight stretch, Andrade landed 26 takedowns of her own on 50 attempts (52% accuracy). However, she’s only landed one takedown in her last eight fights.
Marina Rodriguez
13th UFC Fight (7-3-2)Rodriguez is coming off a dominant second round TKO win over Michelle Waterson-Gomez, where she brutalized her smaller opponent with elbows and knees out of the clinch, making it look like she just got out of a knife fight. That’s only Rodriguez’s second finish in 12 UFC appearances, with the other also coming in a second round TKO, against Amanda Ribas in early 2021. Prior to her recent win, Rodriguez got smothered on the mat for 12 minutes in a decision loss to Virna Jandiroba, after suffering the only early loss of her career in a TKO against Amanda Lemos in the third round of a November 2022 main event. Leading up to those two losses, Rodriguez won four straight fights, with the last three of those going the distance. However, the last of those decision wins was split and probably should have gone the other way, as it looked like Yan Xiaonan had done enough to beat her. Rodriguez is no stranger to close decisions and actually fought to two majority draws in her first four UFC fights, and also has a split decision loss to Carla Esparz. Eight of Rodriguez’s first nine UFC fights went the distance, but now two of her last three ended in late round TKOs.
Now 17-3-2 as a pro, Rodriguez has seven wins by TKO, one submission, and nine decision victories. While she does have eight finishes on her record, five of those came in her first six fights against less experienced opponents and she only has two early wins since 2018. She also has one TKO loss and two decision defeats.
Overall, Rodriguez is a very solid Muay Thai striker, who throws sharp knees and elbows out of the clinch, but doesn’t offer much of anything in terms of offensive grappling. Between her 12 UFC fights and her DWCS appearance she only landed three takedowns on seven attempts (42.9% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 20 of their 59 attempts (66.1% defense), with all 12 of her UFC opponents attempting at least one takedown against her, and 10 of them finding success. She’s been taken down at least once in nine straight fights. She averages 4.77 SSL/min and 2.89 SSA/min, but she generally doesn’t put up huge striking totals and hasn’t topped 72 significant strikes landed in any of her last seven three-round fights.
Fight Prediction:
Rodriguez will have a 5” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while Andrade is four years younger than the 36-year-old Rodriguez.
This is just great matchmaking, as both of these two have struggled against grapplers, but each have the ability to put on exciting striking battles. We have seen Andrade struggle at times when facing tall, rangy strikers who can use her aggressiveness against her as they counter strike from distance and the larger Octagon should also play into Rodriguez’s favor. It will be interesting to see how effectively Andrade can close the distance and then how much success Rodriguez can have landing elbows and knees out of the Thai clinch when she does. It would make sense for Andrade to try and wrestle, as that’s where Rodriguez has struggled the most. However, Andrade has only landed one takedown on five attempts in her last eight outings, making it harder to trust her ground game. Nevertheless, the potential for her to mix in some wrestling is there, which also creates the possibility of her finding a submission. However, if this ends early, a knockout is still the more likely outcome and each of these two are live to finish the other. While Andrade’s fights tend to end early, most of Rodriguez’s go the distance, making it a trickier spot to predict, with lots of possible outcomes. With the larger cage and Rodriguez often content with counter striking, we slightly lean towards this ending a close decision that could go either way, but the only shocking outcome here would be Rodriguez submitting Andrade—everything else is in play. Andrade lands more striking volume, throws with more power, and has far better grappling, so if we’re forced to pick a winner, it will probably be her, but Rodriguez is a tough test and is more than capable of staying at range, frustrating Andrade, and pulling off the upset.
Our favorite bet here is “Andrade/Rodriguez Split DEC” at +400.
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DFS Implications:
Andrade has averaged a ridiculous 117 DraftKings points in her 16 UFC wins, scoring at least 88 points in all of those and 100 or more in 13 of them. She scored over 130 points in three of her last five wins, including 131 points in her last three-round decision victory. She averages 6.67 SSL/min and can also mix in takedowns at times, although only landed one in her last eight fights. In fairness to her, most of those fights were against either grapplers or opponents with solid takedown defenses. Rodriguez’s biggest weakness has been her defensive wrestling, so it would make sense for Andrade to look for takedowns here. Rodriguez only averages 2.89 SSA/min and no one has ever landed more than 78 significant strikes against her in a three-round fight. When you combine that with the larger cage at the T-Mobile Arena, it could be tougher for Andrade to go nuclear off striking volume alone. Rodriguez has also only been finished once in her career, so she’s not an easy opponent to put away and generally makes for lowering scoring fights. That makes it a far from ideal matchup for Andrade to really score well, but at her cheap price tag there are still plenty of ways for her to end up winning lineups and she’s allergic to scoring poorly. Whether it’s from finding a finish, landing a surprisingly high number of takedowns, or simply racking up more striking volume than expected, Andrade still has multiple paths to success. The line has been moving in her favor, and when you combine that with her cheap salary, recent scoring explosion, and general tendency to score well, it’s hard to see her flying under the radar in tournaments. With that said, everyone on this card is a star and there’s only so much ownership to go around. The odds imply Andrade has a 56% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Rodriguez is a dangerous Muay Thai striker but doesn’t offer anything in terms of offensive grappling and has only landed two takedowns in 12 UFC fights. That leaves her reliant on striking volume and finishes to score well, and she only has two finishes in 12 UFC fights. However, one of those was in her last fight and she looked great in that performance. She really dialed up her aggression once she had Michelle Waterson-Gomez hurt and went on to score a career-best 111 DraftKings points in the second round TKO win. Now she’s facing an ultra-aggressive brawler in Andrade who averages 5.36 SSA/min and has been known to charge head first into a knockout or two. That should force Rodriguez to throw a little more than she’s used to and raises her scoring potential. With that said, she only scored 61 DraftKings points in her last decision win and even a “better” score may still not be enough to be useful if this goes the distance. However, Andrade has been finished in 9 of her 12 career losses and Rodriguez throws slicing elbows and sharp knees out of the clinch, which could be easier to land against a short opponent like Andrade. This is one of the higher upside spots Rodriguez will get and she looks like a solid tournament option. The odds imply Rodriguez has a 44% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Jalin Turner
12th UFC Fight (7-4)Turner is fresh off a violent first round knockout win over Bobby Green, where the referee sat back and allowed Turner to continue to tee off on Green for a criminal amount of time after the fight should have been stopped. Making it even more impressive, Turner stepped into that tough matchup on short notice, despite losing each of his previous two fights in a pair of split decisions. The most recent of those losses came against Dan Hooker, who outlasted Turner in the match after Turner missed weight by 2 lb. That wasn’t the first time those two had been matched up, as Dan Hooker dropped out of their original date on March 4th, before Mateusz Gamrot filled in on a few weeks’ notice. Gamrot won a split decision over Turner, which was Turner’s first loss since 2019. Prior to those two losses, Turner had finished five straight opponents, after starting off 1-2 in the UFC. The only early loss of Turner’s UFC career was a R1 KO in his debut, which came in one of the tougher spots you could ask for, fighting up a weight class against a really tough Vicente Luque. Turner bounced back with a 53 second R1 KO against a questionable Callan Potter, before losing a wrestling-heavy decision to Matt Frevola in 2019.
Now 14-7 as a pro, Turner has only seen the third round five times in his career, losing all five of those fights. All 14 of his wins have come in the first two rounds, with 10 KO/TKOs and four submissions. Eleven of his 14 finishes occurred in the first round, with the other three ending in round two. His last four wins all ended in under six minutes, with three of those being stopped in round one. He’s also been knocked out three times himself and lost all four of the decisions he’s been to. However, two of his three knockout losses occurred very early in his career and the other was in his UFC debut up a weight class. That’s the only time Turner has competed up at 170 lb in his career, and he moved back down to 155 lb immediately after.
Overall, Turner is 6’3” with a 77” reach and gigantic for the 155 lb division. He’s dangerous anywhere fights can go, and in addition to being a powerful striker, he’s a BJJ brown belt who’s locked up submissions in three of his last five wins. However, we have seen him get outwrestled at times and also slow down in the third round of fights. With that said, he’s still only 28 years old and should be learning and improving every time he steps inside the Octagon. Between his 11 UFC fights and DWCS appearance, Turner landed 5 takedowns on 9 attempts (55.6% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on just 10 of their 41 attempts (75.6% defense). He averages an impressive 6.02 SSL/min and always makes for fun fights.
Renato Moicano
16th UFC Fight (10-5)Moicano is just two months removed from a wrestling-heavy decision win over Drew Dober, who has been prone to getting outwrestled and submitted throughout his career. While Moicano was unable to get Dober out of there, he was able to take him down three times and control him for ten and a half minutes, while also finishing ahead in total strikes 142-36. That’s Moicano’s only fight since late 2022, when he submitted Brad Riddell in the first round. He had then been scheduled to face Arman Tsarukyan in April 2023, but ended up pulling out with a knee injury that required surgery. Prior to that, Moicano stepped into a five-round fight against RDA on short notice and got dominated for the entire match. That came just a few weeks after Moicano submitted Alexander Hernandez in the second round. That was Moicano’s second straight R2 rear-naked choke win after he finished Jai Herbert in his previous fight, following a first round knockout loss against Rafael Fiziev. While Moicano’s last win went the distance, his previous five all ended in rear-naked chokes in the first two rounds, including three in round one.
Now 18-5-1 as a pro, Moicano has never knocked anybody out, but has 10 submission wins, and eight decision victories. Four of those submissions came in round one, five ended in round two, and the other occurred in the third round of his 2010 pro debut. All 10 of his submission wins ended in rear-naked chokes. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted once (R3 2017), and has one decision loss, which occurred in his short notice five-round fight against RDA. All three of his KO/TKO losses occurred in 2019 and 2020 in under six minutes, with two ending in round one. Moicano fought at 145 lb until 2020 when he moved up to 155 lb after getting knocked out in each of his last two fights at 145 lb. He’s gone 5-2 since moving up a weight class, with four of those wins ending by submission in the first two rounds. Eight of his last 10 fights ended in either submission wins (5) or knockout losses (3).
Overall, Moicano is a BJJ black belt and a great grappler, but often fails to take the path of least resistance in fights. With that said, he’s been doing a better job of using his grappling recently and he landed 11 takedowns on 25 attempts since moving up to 155 lb, after landing just one total takedown on just two attempts in his last four fights at 145 lb. He has a 47% career takedown accuracy and a 72% defense, while averaging 4.41 SSL/min and 3.80 SSA/min. He’s shown a suspect chin at times, although more so when he was fighting down at 145 lb and he’s looked more durable in recent fights. He won the last five fights where he landed a takedown, while going just 1-4 in the last five matches where he failed to land any. And that one win was in his second most recent fight where he shot for a takedown but then ended up on the back of Riddell without officially securing the takedown.
Fight Prediction:
Turner will have a 4” height advantage and 5” reach advantage, while also being six years younger than the 34-year-old Moicano.
This is an exciting matchup between two fun finishers. Turner is capable of putting opponents away both on the mat and the feet, while Moicano is a rear-naked choke specialist, which is how he finished all 10 of his career finishes. While Moicano isn’t helpless on the feet, he’s been prone to getting knocked out and Turner is a far superior striker. Moicano often keeps fights standing for longer than he should and if he does that here, he’ll likely get put to sleep. While Turner has been outwrestled at times in his career, he still has a solid 75% takedown defense and has never been submitted. He’s also so massive that you have to figure out how to close the distance on him before you can even consider getting him to the mat. We like his chances of knocking Moicano out in the first two rounds, most likely in round one.
Our favorite bet here is “Turner/Moicano Under 1.5 Rounds” at -110.
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DFS Implications:
Turner has been a DFS gold mine when he wins, averaging 116 DraftKings points in his seven UFC victories and scoring at least 106 in all of those. All 14 of his career wins have come in the first two rounds and he’s 0-5 in fights that lasted longer than 10 minutes. In his three UFC decisions losses, he only scored 48, 31 and 22 points on DraftKings, giving us no indication that he can score well in a decision if he ever wins one, even if he does average 6.02 SSL/min. We’re purely playing him for his finishing upside and now he takes on an opponent who’s been finished in four of his five pro losses. While Turner is typically very highly owned, he’s priced just above Gaethje and Tsarukyan, and slightly below Nickal, Harrison, and Weili. That should keep his ownership somewhat in check, adding to his tournament appeal. While there is a chance that Turner gets controlled on the mat or even submitted, his upside is undeniable and this looks like a great spot for him to land another early knockout. The odds imply Turner has a 68% chance to win, a 55% chance to land a finish, and a 30% chance it comes in round one.
Moicano has averaged 95 DraftKings points in his 10 UFC wins, with five of his last six victories ending by submission in the first two rounds. His last fight went the distance, but he was still able to score 97 DraftKings points in the wrestling-heavy victory. We’ve seen Turner get outwrestled in the past at times and it’s possible that Moicano can grind out another decision win on the mat here if he’s unable to find a submission. However, it’s even more likely that Turner knocks him out, leaving Moicano with a very shaky floor. If he wins, it will almost certainly come on the mat, leaving him more ways to score well on DraftKings than FanDuel. While Moicano didn’t quite crack the century mark in any of his last three wins, at his reasonable price tag he may not need to put up a huge score to sneak into winning lineups. The odds imply Moicano has a 32% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Diego Lopes
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Lopes burst onto the UFC scene less than a year ago when he made his debut on short notice against the undefeated Movsar Evloev. While Lopes wasn’t able to pull off the upset as a massive +600 underdog, he gave a good account of himself as he finished with four official submission attempts and looked close to finding a finish at multiple points. He then took on Gavin Tucker and locked up an impressive first round armbar after Tucker foolishly looked to take Lopes down. For context, Tucker was coming off a two and a half year layoff following a 22 second R1 KO loss to Dan Ige and hasn’t won a fight since 2020. Nevertheless, it was a slick submission by Lopes. Then most recently, Lopes took on a high level grappler in Pat Sabatini and knocked him out in just 90 seconds. Sabatini has looked kind of chinny at times in the past, so the results weren’t entirely shocking, but it was another impressive first round finish nonetheless. Lopes originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2021 against a really dangerous Joanderson Brito, and looked close to locking up a submission there as well, but ultimately lost a technical decision following a third round eye poke that he sustained. That forced him to return to the regional scene, where he then compounded the misstep when he lost a five-round split decision, before bouncing back with a pair of late-round KO/TKO victories that resulted in the UFC giving him a shot.
Now 23-6 as a pro, Lopes has nine wins by KO/TKO, 12 submissions, and two decision victories. He has a pair of second round KO/TKO losses (2014 & 2018), and four decision defeats. While his last two fights each ended in round one, his previous six all made it to the second round, with five of those seeing round three, and three ending in decisions. His last six wins all came early, while his last three losses all ended in decisions.
Overall, Lopes is a Brazilian grappler and BJJ black belt who loves looking for submissions off his back, but has also shown a willingness to stand and trade. At 5’11” he’s got good size for the 145 lb division, but doesn’t fight especially long. He’s a patient striker on the feet, but has a dangerous lead left hook. He trains at Lobo Gym and is Alexa Grasso’s jiu jitsu coach, so clearly he’s a respected grappler. Between his DWCS appearance and his three UFC fights, Lopes got taken down by his opponents 8 times on 14 attempts (42.9% defense), while failing to land his only takedown attempt. Because Lopes is so content with playing jiu jitsu off his back, it makes it tougher for him to win decisions and explains why he’s only 2-4 in fights that have gone the distance.
Sodiq Yusuff
9th UFC Fight (6-2)Yusuff is coming off a five-round decision loss to Edson Barboza, where he nearly finished Barboza in round one, but instead just depleted his gas tank pushing for the finish. Following the 10-8 first round, Barboza won all four of the later rounds on the scorecards, even though Yusuff did finish ahead in significant strikes 178-164 in the fight. That loss came just over a year after Yusuff secured the first submission win of his career, when he locked up a guillotine 30 seconds into the first round against Don Shainis, who was making his short notice UFC debut and ended up getting cut after going 0-2 with the organization. Yusuff was then forced to the sidelines as he recovered from herniated discs in his back that kept him out of action. Prior to that, Yusuff fought to three straight decisions, with wins over Alex Caceres and Andre Fili, separated by a 29-28 loss to Arnold Allen. Yusuff punched his ticket to the UFC with a 2018 decision win over Mike Davis on DWCS. Yusuff then landed first round knockouts in two of his first three UFC fights and all eight of his UFC fights have ended in either first round finishes (3-0) or decisions (3-2).
Now 13-3 as a pro, Yusuff has six wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and six decision victories. His last five finishes all occurred in the first round, after the first two of his career came in the first half of round two. He’s never finished anybody beyond the midway point of the second round. The only time he’s ever been finished himself was in a 2017 R1 KO in a Titan FC Featherweight Championship fight. The other two losses of his career both went the distance against a pair of really tough opponents in Arnold Allen and Edson Barboza. Yusuff fought some at 155 lb earlier in his career, but has competed exclusively at 145 lb since 2017. It’s often discussed how he cuts a lot of weight to get down to 145 lb.
Overall, Yusuff is a powerful striker, but generally doesn’t add much in terms of offensive grappling. Between his eight UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he only landed two takedowns on 10 attempts (20% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 9 of their 24 attempts (62.5% defense). While he only has one career submission win, he has three official submission attempts in his last five fights, and he’s talked about how he comes from a jiu-jitsu gym. Yusuff averages 5.72 SSL/min, but failed to land more than 73 significant strikes in any of his seven UFC three-round fights, after landing 111 against Mike Davis on DWCS. Yusuff has a really solid right outside leg kick that was on full display when he destroyed the lead leg of Davis in that match.
Fight Prediction:
Lopes will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
Lopes is a really good grappler, but rarely looks for takedowns. He’s often been content with keeping fights standing until his opponents try to take him down, at which point he aggressively implements his jiu jitsu. He’s got a pretty wide stance and skinny calves, and looks vulnerable to leg kicks, an area where Yusuff excels. Yusuff has only landed two takedowns in his last nine fights and it would be shocking to see him willingly go to the mat with Lopes. And considering Yusuff just gassed out after the first round of his last fight, it would make sense to see a more measured approach from him here, opposed to once again selling out for a first round knockout. We expect Yusuff to chip away at Lopes’ legs and focus more on the win than finding a finish. If a knockout presents itself, he’ll take it, but we like his chances of outlanding his way to a decision win.
Our favorite bet here is “Sodiq Yusuff ML” at +125.
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DFS Implications:
Lopes is a BJJ black belt, a dangerous submission threat, and a decent striker. However, he doesn’t land a ton of striking volume or put up big takedown numbers, leaving him reliant on landing well times finishes to score well. Despite losing his short notice UFC debut to the undefeated Movsar Evloev, he exceeded expectations in the fight and came close to finishing it at multiple points. He kept that momentum going in his last two fights when he submitted Gavin Tucker and knocked out Pat Sabatini, both in the first round, but Lopes notably scored just 90 DraftKings points in the win over Tucker, showing that there are ways he can land a quick finish and still fail to return value due to his dangerous defensive jiu jitsu. In fairness to him, he was able to score 105 points in his recent knockout win, so it’s not like he can’t score well. Despite coming from a grappling background, he’s actually a better play on FanDuel where control time doesn’t matter, but submission attempts do. He’s stepping into a tough matchup here as he faces a dangerous opponent in Sodiq Yusuff, who’s never been submitted and was only once knocked out, which was back in 2017. Lopes is probably being overvalued right now after landing two straight first round finishes in better spots than this, and the field will likely ignore the fact that he’s yet to land a takedown on just one attempt between his three UFC fights and his DWCS match. That lowers the chances of him finding a submission and leaves him more reliant on landing an unlikely knockout. This looks like a good sell-high spot on Lopes. The odds imply Lopes has a 57% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Yusuff has been a R1 finish or bust DFS play throughout his UFC career, as he averaged just 74 DraftKings points in his three decision wins, failing to top 79 points in any of those. However, half of his six UFC wins did end in first round knockouts and he averaged 113 points in those victories. Lopes has been knocked out twice in the past and it’s definitely possible that Yusuff can catch him early and get him out of there. We also like Yusuff’s chances of beating up Lopes’ lead leg, which could increase the potential for Yusuff to land a rare late knockout. However, after Yusuff did a poor job of managing his cardio in his recent five-round decision loss, it’s possible we see a slightly more conservative approach from him as he tries to avoid making that mistake twice. That would lower the scoring potential all around in this one, but who knows if that actually happens. The UFC ramped up the performance bonuses on this card and maybe Yusuff will throw caution to the wind in the hopes of landing a highlight reel finish. At his cheap price tag, it’s not impossible that he could still be useful in a decision if we only get a couple of underdogs winning on the card, but it will definitely take some help. So it’s probably best to treat him as a KO or bust option in a decent matchup. The odds imply Yusuff has a 43% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Kayla Harrison
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making her long awaited UFC debut, Harrison is coming off a three-round unanimous 30-27 decision win over Apen Ladd in the PFL, where Harrison had spent almost her entire pro career. Harrison did have one fight with Invicta in 2020, after the PFL canceled their season that year due to COVID, but Harrison’s other 16 fights have all been with the PFL. Almost a year to the day before beating Ladd, Harrison suffered her only career loss in a 48-47 five-round decision against a massive Larissa Pacheco for the million dollar PFL grand prize. While Harrison’s last two fights both went the distance, seven of her previous eight wins ended in the first two rounds.
Now 16-1 as a pro, Harrison has six wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and four decision wins. Four of her KO/TKOs ended in round one, one occurred in round two, and the other was in round three. Five of her six submission wins ended in the first round, with the other coming round two. She’s never been finished herself, with her only loss ending in a close decision. Most of Harrison’s career has been spent at 155 lb, but she did have a 145 lb fight with Invicta in 2020 and her recent win over Aspen Ladd was at a 150 lb Catchweight. And before Ladd stepped into that fight, Harrison had been scheduled to face Julia Budd at 145 lb.
Overall, Harrison is a two-time olympic gold medalist judoka (2012 & 2016), who started training judo at the age of six and is now a 6th degree black belt. She’s a former training partner of Ronda Rousey and is extremely dangerous on the ground, both with ground and pound and submissions. She’s got good wrestling and top control, and lands a ton of ground strikes. The only real concern with Harrison is the fact that she’s cutting all the way down to 135 lb for the first time, after spending almost all of her career at 155 lb. Obviously it will be essential to monitor Harrison closely on the scale on Friday.
Holly Holm
16th UFC Fight (8-6, NC)Now 42 years old, Holm is coming off a second round submission loss to Mayra Bueno Silva that was later overturned to a No Contest because Bueno Silva didn’t have a therapeutic use exemption for her prescribed ADHD medicine. Prior to that, Holm won a wrestling-heavy three-round decision against Yana Santos, which was Holm’s fourth straight fight to go the distance at the time. Since her infamous head kick KO win over Ronda Rousey in 2015, Holm is just 5-6 (Plus a NC that was really a loss) in her last 12 fights. After winning the women’s Bantamweight belt against Rousey, Holm immediately lost it in her next fight to Miesha Tate in a fifth round submission. Holm then lost a five-round decision to Valentina Shevchenko, before moving up to 145 lb in 2017 for a title shot against Germaine de Randamie that Holm lost by decision. She then moved back down to 135 lb and landed a third round knockout against Bethe Correia, before returning to 145 lb for another failed title attempt in a decision loss to Cris Cyborg. Holm remained at 145 lb for one more fight, when she won a decision over Megan Anderson, before moving back down to 135 lb for yet another title shot, which ended in a first round TKO against Amanda Nunes. Holm has remained at 135 lb since 2019 and bounced back from the loss to Nunes with a three-round decision win over Raquel Pennington, followed by a five-round decision win over Irene Aldana. She then lost a close/controversial split decision to Ketlen Vieira, before winning a three-round decision over Yana Santos, and then going on to face Bueno Silva. The last time Holm finished anybody was in 2017.
Now 15-6 as a pro, Holm has eight wins by KO/TKO and seven decisions. All eight of her knockout wins ended in the later rounds, with five coming in round two, two in round three, and one in round five. Six of those eight KO/TKO wins came in her first seven pro fights before joining the UFC. She’s also been knocked out once herself, officially submitted once, and has four decision losses. She also had another submission loss that was overturned to a No Contest because Bueno Silva didn’t have the right paperwork. Both of those submission losses occurred in the later rounds, while her TKO loss came in round one. Ten of Holm’s 15 UFC fights have gone the distance (6-4). While the majority of Holm’s UFC career has been at 135 lb, she also had three UFC fights up at 145 lb (1-2).
Overall, Holm is a former professional boxer who also has kickboxing experience. She’s also been adding more wrestling into her game lare in her career, and after only landing two takedowns in her first eight UFC fights, she’s landed 13 in her last seven matches. Only once in her first 11 UFC fights did she land more than a single takedown, but now she’s landed four or more in two of her last four fights. Looking at her entire 15 fight UFC career, she landed 15 of her 49 takedown attempts (30.6% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on just 7 of their 33 attempts (78.8% defense). Holm only averages 3.21 SSL/min and 2.79 SSA/min, and has only topped 96 significant strikes landed once in her career, despite all of her past five-round fights.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’8”, but Holm will have a 3” reach advantage, while Harrison is nine years younger than the 42-year-old Holm.
This is a high-profile fight between the past and the future and it certainly seems like the UFC is using Holm’s name to build up the next title contender, the same way they did with Mayra Bueno Silva. Holm is well past her prime and has been more reliant on wrestling and control time to win fights lately, which will be a hard game plan to execute against a world class judoka. Harrison will welcome the clinch, where she’ll look for trips and throws to try and end up in top position on the mat. Holm is just 1-3 in UFC fights where she gave up even a single takedown and hasn’t looked like any sort of finishing threat recently. Holm’s only hope will be that the weight cut goes terribly for Harrison, which is certainly possible considering it’s the first time Harrison has ever tried competing at 135 lb. However, assuming Harrison doesn’t die on the scale, we expect her to find wrestling success against Holm. And while Holm does have a solid 78% takedown defense and has shown the ability to get back up when she has been taken down, she’s at an age where we could see rapid decline in her skills. The larger cage will give Holm more room to evade, which lowers the chances of this ending early. We like Harrison to get the win and likely the next title shot at 135. Harrison will have a shot at finishing her on the mat, with either a submission or a ground and pound finish in play, but we’ll say Holm is able to survive and Harrison wins a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Harrison/Holm FGTD” at -120.
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DFS Implications:
Harrison’s wrestling-heavy style looks great for DFS, especially on DraftKings, as she does a great job of racking up takedowns, control time, and ground strikes. While her last two fights both went the distance, 12 of her 16 career wins ended early, showing clear finishing upside as well. She’s not getting the easiest matchup here, but Holm is 42 years old and seems to be on the decline. With that said, Holm does have a 78% career takedown defense and only averages 2.79 SSA/min, while also generally doing a good job of not being controlled for extended periods of time. However, if Holm is able to return to her feet after getting taken down, that could just open up more opportunities for Harrison to chain takedowns together. That would allow her to score well even without a finish, but as the second most expensive fighter on the DraftKings slate, there are still plenty of ways for Harrison to get priced out of the optimal lineup on this stacked card. The biggest concern with Harrison is that she’s cutting down to 135 lb for the first time, and almost her entire career has been spent at 155 lb. That huge cut has the potential to impact her cardio and/or durability, which does add some uncertainty to this matchup. However, if the weightcut goes smoothly, she could end up having a massive power advantage that allows her to dominate the wrestling exchanges. So it leaves her with a wider range of potential outcomes and Harrison has the potential to put up a huge score here if she can dominate Holm on the mat. The odds imply Harrison has a 78% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
Holm has averaged 85 DraftKings points in her eight UFC wins, but failed to top 65 points in half of those victories. She has looked to wrestle more in her last few fights, which allowed her to score 95 points in a three-round decision over Yana Santos and 133 points in a five-round decision win over Irene Aldana. However, it’s hard to see Holm finding much wrestling success here, as she takes on a two-time Olympic gold medalist judoka. And the last time Holm finished anybody was in 2017. The last time Holm won a three-round decision without landing a takedown, she only scored 65 DraftKings points and even at her really cheap price tag that’s unlikely to be enough to be useful unless all of the other underdogs lose. The one thing that the 42-year-old Holm has going for her is the uncertainty surrounding Harrison’s massive weight cut down to 135 lb. If the cut goes poorly, maybe Harrison will slow down late in the fight and Holm can take over or even land a rare finish. However, it’s hard to count on that and we don’t have a ton of interest in playing Holm here, in what looks like a really tough matchup for her to score well. The odds imply Holm has a 22% chance to win, a 9% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Aljamain Sterling
20th UFC Fight (15-4)Sterling recently lost the 135 lb belt in a second round knockout against Sean O'Malley and will now be moving up to 145 lb for the first time in the UFC. Sterling looked bad in that recent loss, failing to land either of his two takedown attempts and then charging head first into a punch to get dropped in the opening minute of round two. The stoppage was definitely fast, but it was a bad performance from Sterling. That closed out a bizarre title run that involved one close/controversial title fight after the next. His last win ended in a split decision over Henry Cejudo, who was coming out of retirement after three years away. Prior to that, Sterling notched a second round TKO win over T.J. Dillashaw, who entered the matchup with a secretly wrecked shoulder that immediately popped out in the fight. That left Dillashaw fighting with one hand and helpless in the grappling exchanges. That came just after Sterling won a close split decision over Petr Yan in their rematch, after Sterling originally “won” the Bantamweight belt via disqualification when Yan landed the infamous curb stomp style illegal knee after having Sterling on the ropes. Following the DQ win, Sterling opted to undergo neck surgery to repair nerve damage that had been bothering him for years. The recovery process from the surgery forced a 13 month gap between the two title fights. Leading up to his dubious title run, Sterling landed the only first round finish of his 19-fight UFC career when he submitted Cory Sandhagen in just 88 seconds via rear-naked choke. The only other time one of Sterling’s UFC fights ended in the first round was in 2017 when Marlon Moraes knocked him out in just 67 seconds. Sterling’s other 17 UFC matches all saw the second round, with 13 making it to round three, and 10 going the distance. Four of those 10 decisions were split (2-2). Sterling had won nine straight fights in between his knockout losses to Moraes and O’Malley.
Now 23-4 as a pro, Sterling has three wins by TKO (R2 2022, R1 2011 & R3 2014), eight submissions, and 11 decision victories. Six of his eight submission wins occurred in 2015 or earlier and he only has two submissions in his last 15 fights—R1 2020 against Cory Sandhagen and R2 2018 against Cody Stamann. Three of his career submission wins ended in round one, three came in round two, and the other two occurred in round three. Sterling has been knocked out twice and has two split decision losses.
Overall, Sterling is a former NCAA DIII college wrestler, a BJJ black belt, and overall a very dangerous grappler. In his 19 UFC fights, he only landed 33 of his 136 takedown attempts (24.3% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 23 of their 42 attempts (45.2% defense). We saw Sterling really struggle with his takedown accuracy lately and it’s hard to imagine it will look dramatically better at 145 lb as he faces larger opponents. While Sterling was able to take an injured Dillashaw down five times on eight attempts, in his other seven most recent fights he only landed 7 of his 71 attempts (9.9% accuracy), and four of those were against Cejudo who was actively trying to wrestle with Sterling. Sterling’s striking numbers are actually more impressive than his takedown stats, as he’s averaged 4.73 SSL/min and just 2.41 SSA/min. He’s finished ahead in significant strikes in 16 of his 19 UFC fights, while he only trailed by one, four, and eight significant strikes respectively in his other three matches. He’s got good range and movement and will mix in kicks while also utilizing his lengthy reach.
Calvin Kattar
13th UFC Fight (7-5)Kattar hasn’t competed in 18 months after tearing his ACL early in an October 2022 main event against Arnold Allen. The injury happened so early in that fight that it’s hard to take too much away from it. Prior to that, Kattar lost a close/questionable five-round split-decision to Josh Emmett that looked like it definitely should have gone Kattar’s way. Just before that, Kattar had a convincing win over Giga Chikadze, after getting styled on by Max Holloway for 25 minute, where Holloway set the UFC record for the most significant strikes landed in a fight at 445, blowing past the previous record of 290, (also set by Holloway). Holloway amazingly landed more significant strikes in the fourth round alone (141) than Kattar landed in the entire fight (133). That came just after Kattar won a decision over Dan Ige. The only other UFC fighters to defeat Kattar are Zabit Magomedsharipov and Renato Carneiro, with both of those earlier losses ending in three-round decisions. While four of Kattar’s first five UFC wins ended in knockouts, he’s now only knocked out one of his last seven opponents, which was an aging Jeremy Stephens back in 2020.
Now 23-7 as a pro, Kattar has 11 wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and 10 decision victories. He’s never been truly knocked out in his career, but is coming off a TKO loss due to a knee injury. The only other time he’s ever been finished was in a 2008 first round submission in his fourth pro fight. His other five losses all went the distance and he’s won 15 of his last 20 fights. Sixteen of his last 18 fights have made it past the first round, with 14 seeing a third round and 13 going the distance.
Overall, Kattar is primarily a striker with strong boxing skills, but did wrestle in high school. He does a great job of mixing in elbows with his striking, which are some of his most damaging attacks. He averages 5.12 SSL/min and 7.10 SSA/min, but that number is inflated by the 445 significant strikes he absorbed against Max Holloway. Kattar has an elite 91.3% takedown defense and has only been taken down twice on 23 attempts by his opponents, with no one getting him down more than once in a fight. His last six opponents went 0 for 14 on their attempts and the last time Kattar got taken down was in 2019 by Zabit Magomedsharipov, who landed 1 of his 4 attempts. On the other side of things, Kattar has landed 5 of his 17 takedown attempts (29.4% accuracy). Kattar trains with the New England Cartel alongside Rob Font, but they’re both getting older and Kattar is now 36. After so long away, it will be important to monitor him closely on the scale.
Fight Prediction:
Kattar is listed as having a 4” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, but we know for a fact that he’s not as tall as the UFC claims he is and he’s probably closer to 5’9” than 5’11”.
While both of these two are coming off TKO losses, they’ve each been fairly durable for the rest of their careers. Sterling is obviously the superior grappler, but Kattar has a really solid 91% takedown defense and with Sterling coming up from 135 lb, we expect him to have a tough time landing many takedowns. That should result in this playing out as a striking battle and both guys have been involved in high-volume affairs in the past. Sterling is a decent striker and mixes in kicks well, but Kattar has the better boxing and is also the larger man. Kattar also looks like the more durable of the two, so if anyone’s getting knocked out it’s likely Sterling. However, there’s a really good chance this ends in a close decision that will come down to who lands more striking volume. We give the advantage to Kattar, and since he can be had at plus money, he’s an easy underdog play.
Our favorite bet here is “Calvin Kattar ML” at +150.
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DFS Implications:
Sterling has averaged 101 DraftKings points in his 15 UFC wins, scoring at least 81 points in all of those. Even in his six three-round decision wins, he still averaged 92 points, scoring at least 94 in four of those. His last five fights were all five-round title fights and he hasn’t been in a three-round match since 2020, when he locked up a first round submission against Cory Sandhagen. His last three-round decision win was in 2019 against Pedro Munhoz and despite failing to land any of his seven takedown attempts, Sterling still scored 100 DraftKings points and 124 points on FanDuel in the high-volume win. Now Sterling is facing Calvin Kattar, who averages 7.10 SSA/min and owns the record for the most significant strikes ever absorbed in a UFC fight at 445. While that record setting performance from Max Holloway does inflate Kattar SSA average, it also shows that the guy is pretty hittable. That’s encouraging for Sterling’s upside, but it is concerning that this will be his first UFC fight up at 145 lb. He could end up looking undersized, or maybe cutting less weight will benefit him, only time will tell. While Kattar’s 91% takedown defense will make it tougher for Sterling to get much going with his grappling, if both fighters come in willing to engage, we could see a ton of strikes landed. The odds imply Sterling has a 59% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Kattar has averaged 98 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, with 101 or more in four of his last five victories. However, his last two wins both also ended in five-round decisions and now he’ll only have three rounds to work with. Kattar only scored 72 DraftKings points in his lone three-round decision win, which was in his 2017 UFC debut. He lost the last two three-round decisions he’s been to and only scored 41 and 16 points respectively in those fights, so he’s given us no indication that he can score well in three-round decisions. Now he’s facing a grappler who only averages 2.41 SSA/min, which isn’t encouraging for Kattar’s scoring chances in a decision. However, Sterling is moving up to 145 lb for the first time in the UFC, which adds some uncertainty to the mix and he could end up looking undersized on fight night. With that said, Kattar is coming off knee surgery and an 18 month layoff, so he also has some concerns. Kattar’s cheap price tag could keep him in play even without a huge score if not many underdogs win, but it’s more likely that he’ll need a finish here to be useful here. The odds imply Kattar has a 41% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Aleksandar Rakic
9th UFC Fight (6-2)It’s been almost two years since Rakic last competed, when he tore his ACL early in the third round against Jan Blachowicz in 2022. The fight was even on the scorecards after two rounds, with Blachowicz outlanding Rakic 25-12 in the first round, but then Rakic controlling Blachowicz on the mat for all of round two. Rakic then suffered the freak knee injury 71 seconds into the third round of that five-round main event. Prior to that, Rakic won a pair of boring decisions over Thiago Santos and Anthony Smith, after losing a split decision to Volkan Oezdemir in 2019. The last time Rakic finished anybody was in 2019, when he landed a quick 42 second R1 knockout against Jimi Manuwa, who was in the midst of a four fight skid to end his career, with three of those ending in early KOs. He also knocked out Devin Clark in the first round just before that, after Rakic’s first two UFC fights also ended in decision wins.
Now 14-3 as a pro, Rakic has nine wins by KO/TKO, one submission (R1 2013), and four decision victories. Eight of his 10 career early wins have come in round one and he hasn’t finished an opponent beyond the first round since 2014. The only KO/TKO loss of his career resulted from the knee injury in his last fight, with his one other early loss ending via submission in the first round of his 2011 pro debut. He also has one decision loss.
Overall, Rakic is a powerful fighter who throws violent kicks on the feet and can overpower opponents on the ground. However, he has the IQ of a rock and consistently exhibits his cringeworthy cluelessness. He clearly has dangerous finishing ability, but has shown that he’d rather play it safe than take many risks looking for a finish. In his eight UFC fights, he landed 5 of his 20 takedown attempts (25% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on just 2 of their 20 attempts, with both of those successful takedowns coming in his 2017 UFC debut. Rakic has only landed two takedowns in his last six fights, but does have heavy top pressure on the mat and the ability to hold opponents down for entire rounds at a time. Rakic has only topped 75 significant strikes landed in one of his eight UFC fights and failed to land more than 44 in any of his last three matches. He only averages 4.01 SSL/min and 2.30 SSA/min, but has shown the ability to rack up ground strikes on the mat. No one has ever landed more than 63 significant strikes against him and we’ve seen Rakic fight extremely cautiously in his last few fights.
Jiri Prochazka
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Prochazka will be looking to bounce back from a November R2 TKO loss against Alex Pereira for the Light Heavyweight Belt, in a fight that Prochazka was winning on the scorecards and then seemed to be stopped prematurely by the ref after Pereira had Prochazka hurt but far from out. We did see Pereira land a dozen good leg kicks on Prochazka that appeared to do some damage, which is something he’ll need to figure out how to defend. That loss came 17 months after Prochazka won the Light Heavyweight belt in June 2022 against Pereira’s teammate, Glover Teixeira, in a stunning fifth round submission. Teixeira was just 28 seconds away from successfully defending the belt for the first time, after winning three of the first four rounds. The two fighters were scheduled to run it back in December 2022, but Prochazka suffered a really bad shoulder injury and was forced to pull out. He also admirably vacated the belt, as to not hold up the division during his time away. Or if you’re into conspiracies, he pissed hotter than the sun and the injury was all a cover up. Prior to submitting Teixeira, Prochazka landed a pair of second round knockouts in his first two UFC fights against Volkan Oezdemir and Dominick Reyes. Before he joined the UFC, Prochazka had won 10 straight fights with Rizin, where he was the Light Heavyweight champ.
Now 29-4-1 as a pro, Prochazka has 25 KO/TKO wins, three submissions, and one decision victory, with the vast majority of his finishes coming in round one. However, all three of his UFC finishes occurred in later round finishes. He was finished in all four of his pro losses, with three knockouts and one submission. However, three of those four losses occurred early in his career in 2012, 2013, and 2015 and he’s only lost one fight in the last eight years. He’s only been to two decisions in his 34 pro fights, a 2014 draw and a 2016 two-round decision win.
Overall, Prochazka has a wild fighting style filled with unusual movements and strikes from odd angles. He keeps his hands low, which makes it hard to see where his punches are coming from, but also makes him very hittable and he has just a 40% striking defense. He relies mostly on his striking, but did land a surprise submission against Glover Teixeira and then smartly looked to wrestle a little more against Alex Pereira in his last fight. After only attempting one takedown in his first three UFC fights, Prochazka attempted three in just nine minutes against Pereira, landing one of those. In his four UFC fights, he landed 2 of his 4 takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 6 of their 19 attempts (68.4% defense). He’s tall and long and uses his reach well to strike from distance, and he has to be one of the tougher guys to prepare for when it comes to pure striking. He didn’t look quite as explosive in his last fight as he returned from the shoulder injury, so it will be interesting to see if he looks better here after getting a fight under his belt following the long layoff.
Fight Prediction:
Rakic will have a 1” height advantage, but Prochazka will have a 2” reach advantage.
We get a real clash of styles here, as every Prochazka fight has been non-stop action, while all of Rakic’s recent fights have been slow-paced snoozers. We expect Rakic to come in looking to attack Prochazka with a combination of kicks and wrestling, and Prochazka hasn't been great at defending either of those. Prochazka will be trying to punch Rakic’s head into the third row, but outside of his recent knee injury, Rakic has never been knocked out. Perhaps after nearly two years away Rakic will come in with some ring rust and have a tougher time getting a feel for the unorthodox timing of Prochazka and both guys have the power to knock the other out. However, if it goes the distance, we like Rakic’s chances in a decision. The larger cage will benefit Rakic as he tries to keep the fight at kicking range when he’s not looking to clinch/wrestle, and we lean slightly towards Rakic winning a decision here. However, Prochazka’s last 12 fights all ended early and the last time he required the scorecards was in 2016, so it’s always risky betting on his fights to go the distance.
Our favorite bet here is “Aleksandar Rakic DEC” at +275.
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DFS Implications:
Rakic has averaged 100 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, but has been a boom or bust DFS play for his entire career. He only scored 52 points in his last win, which ended in a boring three-round decision over three years ago. He also scored just 55 points in another decision in his 2017 UFC debut. However, he followed up that unimpressive 2017 win up with a dominant 151 point performance in a wrestling-heavy decision win and then landed a pair of first round knockouts that were good for 115 and 126 points respectively. He also scored 99 points in another smothering decision win over Anthony Smith and when Rakic has been able to control opponents on the ground, he’s still shown the ability to score well on DraftKings. However, he’s more reliant on landing knockouts on FanDuel and his win over Smith that scored 99 points on DraftKings was only good for 58 points on FanDuel. Working in Rakic’s favor, Prochazka has been finished in all four of his pro losses, but we’re not sold on Rakic’s drive to finish fights and he seems too stupid to care. He’s a habitually frustrating fighter to back with sporadic tendencies. One fight he’ll dominate an opponent on the mat and the next he’ll stare at them for 15 minutes. That just leaves him with an incredibly wide range of scoring outcomes and good luck trying to predict what he’ll do in any given fight. That makes it incredibly challenging to take any hard stands with him, and you basically want to have just enough exposure that you won’t be screwed whether he scores 50 or 150 points. The odds imply Rakic has a 50% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Prochazka has averaged 112 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, scoring progressively more points in each of those (123 > 119 > 93). All three of those victories ended in later round finishes, with two ending in round two and one in round five. However, prior to joining the UFC, the vast majority of his wins ended in first round knockouts. Now he’s coming off his first loss since 2015, which snapped a 13-fight winning streak. He didn’t look quite as explosive coming off a bad shoulder injury and extended layoff there, so it will be interesting to see if he regains his past form here. Rakic is also coming off a TKO loss and nearly a two-year layoff, which adds some uncertainty on his side of things, but has never actually been knocked out and that recent defeat resulted from a freak knee injury. Rakic also likes to slow fights down by either staying at kicking range or controlling opponents on the mat. That may limit the number of opportunities that Prochazka gets to land a knockout and it would be surprising to see Prochazka land many takedowns against the 90% takedown defense of Rakic, who also averages just 2.30 SSA/min. It seems fair to call Prochazka a KO or bust option in a tough matchup and his cheap salary will likely drive up his ownership some. The odds imply Prochazka has a 50% chance to win, a 35% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Bo Nickal
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Nickal is coming off a quick 38 second R1 TKO win over an undersized Valentine Woodburn, who was making his short notice UFC debut after Tresean Gore dropped out during fight week. The fight ended so quickly that you can take much away from it and Woodburn was just there to be knocked out. That win came just 13 months after Nickal made his pro debut, and he still only has five pro fights on his record, leaving more questions than answers. He finished each of those five opponents in under three minutes with a 33 second knockout in his pro debut, followed by three straight submissions wins. The first two of those submissions came on DWCS, in fights that lasted just 62 and 52 seconds respectively. Then he faced Jamie Pickett in his March 2023 UFC debut, and appeared to land a low blow that helped him get Pickett to the ground, but the ref missed it. Once on the mat, it was evident that Nickal was the stronger man, as he easily controlled Pickett, but his technique looked a little sloppy, even though he did eventually lock up an arm-triangle choke. That’s Nickal’s only fight to last longer than 62 seconds.
Now 5-0 as a pro, Nickal has two wins by R1 knockout and three R1 submissions. He also went 2-0 as an amateur, with another first round knockout and another first round submission win, and he’s never been in an MMA fight that lasted longer than three minutes.
Overall, Nickal started wrestling when he was just five years old and is a three time national NCAA wrestling champion, who also won the 2019 Under 23 Freestyle Wrestling World Championship. He was also awarded the 2019 Dan Hodge Trophy as the nation's best college wrestler and was a finalist in the 2020 US Olympic trials, but came up just short and opted to shift his focus to MMA instead of continuing to chase his Olympic aspirations. He’s still just a BJJ blue belt and has yet to have his cardio tested in an MMA fight, and with so little fight time it’s hard to truly evaluate his complete game. Obviously he’s a very good wrestler, but his striking defense and cardio remain a complete mystery. He’s only 27 years old and is so early in his pro career that he should be improving all the time, especially as he spends some time at American Top Team. However, he’s faced zero adversity in his career as he’s beaten up a bunch of low-level opponents, which makes it almost impossible to know how good he actually is. After fighting five times in his first 53 weeks as a pro, he did take nine months off after his last fight to try and improve his skill set, and seems to be coming in a little more humble now than he did in his previous fights. Maybe he got taught a lesson in the gym and now realizes how little he actually knows. He’s now getting matched up with a wrestler for the first time, so it will be interesting to see how he looks.
Cody Brundage
9th UFC Fight (4-4)Brundage is coming off a flukey first round knockout win via slam, which occurred on a card where it looked like the Octagon floor was made of concrete as we got back-to-back R1 knockouts via slam. Not much happened in Brundage’s fight. He got the fight to the mat 20 seconds in, nearly got caught in a submission, and then picked up his opponent and slammed him to escape the submission attempt and end the fight. Just before that, Brundage “won” a fight via DQ against Jacob Malkoun, who was absolutely mauling Brundage on the mat. Malkoun looked close to finding a finish before he landed an elbow to the back of Brundage’s head that resulted in the ref immediately stopping the fight and calling in the doctor. At that point, Brundage saud he could not continue and instead of ruling the foul unintentional, resulting in a No Contest, Mark Smith curiously ruled it a DQ win for Brundage, who was on the final fight of his contract. Prior to that, Brundage lost three straight fights, with the most recent of those losses coming against Sedriques Dumas in one of the stupidest performances you’ll ever see, where Brundage repeatedly jumped guillotine over and over again, despite having the wrestling advantage. Everyone watching was left saying, “This idiot can’t possibly be going for another guillotine…andddd he did it again.” Eight weeks prior to that June 2023 loss, Brundage got submitted in the second round by Rodolfo Vieira, after getting knocked out in the first round of a December 2022 match against Michal Oleksiejczuk. Leading up to those three losses, Brundage landed two first round finishes of his own, although he nearly got finished again in one of those before pulling off a hail mary guillotine against Dalcha Lungiambula. He then knocked out Tresean Gore in the first round, who appeared to have a brutal weight cut for the match. Brundage’s one other UFC fight was a wrestling-heavy decision loss to Nick Maximov in his short notice UFC debut, and Brundage has made a habit out of taking fights on short notice and typically performing terribly.
Now 10-5 as a pro, Brundage has five wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, one decision victory, and one DQ win. Six of his eight finishes occurred in the first round, while he also has one in round two and another in round three. He’s been knocked out in two of his losses, submitted once, and has two decision defeats. Both of his knockout losses occurred in round one, while his submission defeat came in round two. One of those knockout losses came on DWCS in 2020 against William Knight in a fight took place at 205 lb and Brundage has fought anywhere from 185 lb to 205 lb throughout his career. However, his last nine fights have all been at 185 lb and he claims he could even make 170 lb if he really needed to.
Overall, Brundage is a former college wrestler, who has been working on improving his striking and has decent power. He’s got an unbelievably low fight IQ and makes some of the worst choices you’ll ever see inside of the Octagon. However, he’s still relatively early in his career with just 15 pro fights to his name, and he only turned pro in 2019. Between his eight UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Brundage landed 10 takedowns on 19 attempts (47.4% accuracy), while his opponents got him down 7 times on 26 attempts (73.1% defense). Despite training at altitude at Factory X, his cardio has appeared suspect at times, but that hasn’t stopped him from accepting one short notice fight after the next. His willingness to step in on short notice appears to be why the UFC has allowed him to stick around, as he hasn’t done much to impress inside of the Octagon.
Fight Prediction:
Nickal will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage.
Both of these two come from wrestling backgrounds, but obviously Nickal had a much more celebrated wrestling career. Nevertheless, Brundage is more equipped to defend Nickal’s wrestling than any of his past opponents. That has the potential to turn this into more of a striking battle, which would increase the chances of someone getting knocked out. Nickal’s entire pro career has lasted less than six minutes and there are far more questions than answers surrounding him. His durability and cardio are complete mysteries and we have no idea how he handles adversity in a fight—nor does he for that matter. Typically, when you have fighters that have finished all of their opponents in the first round, they tend to slow down in the later rounds once someone finally forces them into deep waters. Whether or not Brundage is the opponent to do that is a very fair question to ask, as he’s a known quitter, while we’re speculating on the unknown with Nickal. Over the last two and a half years, we’ve had 17 fighters with odds greater than -1000 and 16 of them won, with the one exception being Dean Barry, who was disqualified in the first round against Mike Jackson for an eye poke. That’s not a great sign for Brundage’s chances here, but we also haven’t seen enough from Nickal to actually trust him. That makes this a trickier spot to predict, and it’s tempting to take the crazy plus money odds on Brundage in a bet on uncertainty with Nickal. However, it seems like the UFC knows what they’re doing when they book fights for they’re top young prospects and the organization is invested in the success of Nickal, while they don’t give a shit about Brundage. They’re just using Brundage to continue to build Nickal up and if they didn’t think Nickal was up for the task they would have just found an even easier matchup. So we’re not going to get cute and bet Brundage, despite all of the questions we have about Nickal. So then the question becomes, can Brundage become the first fighter to extend Nickal beyond the first round? Brundage has been finished in three of his five career losses, twice in round one and one early in round two. He nearly suffered another R1 TKO loss in his DQ win over Jacob Malkoun, and when he gets finished it generally ends early. That seems to set up well for Nickal to find another quick finish and a knockout appears more likely than a submission. It still seems like a far more volatile spot than the odds suggest and we don’t want to be heavily invested, but we’ll say it ends in another first round TKO win for Nickal.
Our favorite bet here is “Nickal/Brundage Fight Ends in KO” at +125.
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DFS Implications:
Nickal has yet to make it past the three minute mark in any of his five pro fights and is coming off a 38 second R1 TKO win that was good for 128 DraftKings points with the help of the Quick Win Bonus. Just keep in mind, that came against a low-level, undersized opponent who was making his short notice UFC debut. Just before that, Nickal landed a first round submission in his UFC debut against Jamie Pickett, who went 2-7 with the organization before recently retiring. Nickal has never gone up against any legitimate competition in an MMA fight, has never had his cardio or durability tested, and has yet to face any adversity in his brief career. That makes it really hard to evaluate him and all we really know is that he’s a really good wrestler and the UFC loves him. He seems like the type of guy they’ll protect and build up slowly, allowing him to beat up on low-level opponents while he gets his feet under him. Brundage is a known quitter who has three early losses in under six and a half minutes and it seems like the UFC is trying to set Nickal up for another finish here. With that said, Brundage is still the toughest opponent that Nickal has faced and we’d be surprised to see Nickal finish him in under a minute. And on a slate packed full of stars, if Nickal doesn’t get the Quick Win Bonus, it will be very easy for him to get priced out of the optimal lineup as the most expensive fighter, even with another first round finish. The odds imply Nickal has a 91% chance to win, an 81% chance to land a finish, and a 52% chance it comes in round one.
Brundage has averaged 103 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins, with all four of those wins ending in round one. However, he’s been very fortunate even to go 4-4 in the UFC. His last knockout win came from a flukey slam, after he won via DQ just before that. He was also getting dominated in another one of his wins before he locked up a hail mary guillotine. He hasn’t been at all impressive in the UFC and makes terrible decisions inside the Octagon. Now he’s a ridiculous +1000 favorite and the oddsmakers aren’t giving him much of a chance. However, Nickel's cardio and durability are complete question marks, which is enough uncertainty to have some level of exposure to Brundage and just hope he survives long enough to actually test Nickal. With that said, the most likely outcome is still for Nickal to finish Brundage in round one, so don’t get too carried away with your Brundage exposure. The odds imply Brundage has a 9% chance to win, a 5% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Arman Tsarukyan
11th UFC Fight (8-2)Fresh off a quick 64 second first-round knockout win over Beneil Dariush, Tsarukyan has won three straight and eight of his last nine fights. Just before finishing Dariush, Tsarukyan landed a third round TKO against Joaquim Silva, who stepped in after Renato Moicano dropped out. That came just after Tsarukyan won an impressive 30-27 unanimous decision over a really tough Damir Ismagulov, who had won 19 straight fights coming in. Ismagulov also entered that matchup with an elite 90% takedown defense and it didn’t even matter as Tsarukyan took him down seven times and controlled him for nine and a half minutes. Leading up to those three wins, Tsarukyan lost a close five-round decision to Mateusz Gamrot after winning five straight fights following a decision loss to Islam Makhachev in Tsarukyan’s 2019 short notice UFC debut. While six of Tsarukyan’s 10 UFC fights went the distance, four of his last five wins ended in KO/TKOs.
Now 21-3 as a pro, Tsarukyan has nine wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and seven decision victories. The only time he’s been finished came in a 30 second R1 KO in his second pro fight back in 2015 when he was just 19 years old, with his other two losses going the distance against world-class wrestlers in Mateusz Gamrot and Islam Makhachev. Thirteen of his last 15 fights saw the second round, with 12 making it to round three, and nine going the distance. His last six finishes all came via KO/TKO, with two in round one, another in round two, and three in round three. He hasn’t submitted anybody since 2017, two years prior to joining the UFC.
Overall, Tsarukyan is a really high-level wrestler and also a dangerous striker. He excels at taking opponents down, controlling them on the mat, and beating them up with ground and pound. In his 10 UFC fights, he landed 28 takedowns on 77 attempts (36.4%), while his opponents got him down 10 times on 40 attempts (75% defense). Four of those takedowns surrendered were against Islam Makhachev in Tsarukyan’s UFC debut, while the other six came against Mateusz Gamrot in Tsarukyan’s one other UFC loss. He’s yet to win a fight where he was taken down (0-2), but is 6-0 in the UFC when he’s finished ahead in takedowns. Only twice in his UFC career have there been no takedowns landed, which were in his two first round knockout wins. Tsarukyan only averages 3.85 SSL/min and 1.91 SSA/min and we’ve yet to see him involved in any high volume striking battles. He’s a smart fighter who generally avoids putting himself in unnecessarily dangerous situations and he’s the darkhorse in the Lightweight division to become the next champ. He’s still just 27 years old and trains at one of the best gyms in American Top Team, so he should be continuing to improve all the time.
Charles Oliveira
33rd UFC Fight (22-9, NC)Oliveira had been booked in a rematch against Islam Makhachev last October, but ended up pulling out of the fight, indirectly ruining Alexander Volkanovski’s career in the process. Just like Tsarukyan, Oliveira’s last fight ended in a first round knockout over Beneil Dariush. However, Oliveira spent half a round on his back against Dariush before he was able to eventually get back up, hurt Dariush on the feet, and then finish him with ground and pound. Just before that, Oliveira suffered his only loss since 2017 as he had an 11 fight winning streak snapped by Islam Makhachev in a second round submission for the Lightweight belt. After getting taken down and controlled for the majority of the first round, Oliveira got dropped midway through round two and then couldn’t tap quick enough as Makhachev locked up an arm triangle choke. Prior to that, Oliveira lost the Lightweight belt on the scale in the notorious Arizona weigh-in debacle, where a bizarre turn of events had many pointing to a faulty hotel scale. Despite missing weight by a half pound and being stripped of his belt, Oliveira kept himself in the title picture with a first round submission win over Justin Gaethje. Oliveira originally won the vacant Lightweight belt with an early R2 TKO against Michael Chandler in 2021 and then successfully defended it in a third round submission win over Dustin Poirier.
Now 34-9 as a pro, Oliveira has only been to four decisions (3-1) in 44 pro fights and 26 of his 31 early wins occurred in the first two rounds, with the other five ending in third-round submissions. He has 10 wins by KO/TKO, 21 submissions, and three decision victories. He holds the all time UFC record for the most submission wins as 16, which is five ahead of Demian Maia who’s in second with 11. Eight of Oliveira’s nine career losses have also ended early, with four knockouts and four submissions. His last three losses all ended in round two, two by submission one one by TKO. Prior to that, he had been finished four times in round one and twice in round three, but his last four and five of his last six early losses came in the later rounds. The only decision loss of his career was in 2013 against Frankie Edgar. Oliveira started his UFC career at 155 lb, but after starting out just 2-2 plus a No Contest he dropped down to 145 lb in 2012. Oliveira then moved back up to 155 lb in 2017 after missing weight by a ridiculous 9 lb against Ricardo Lamas in 2016.
Overall, Oliveira is a 3rd degree BJJ black belt and one of the most dangerous grapplers on the planet. He has shown an improved standup game since joining Chute Boxe in 2018 and he’s a technical striker who uses all eight of his weapons and changes things up well. His striking defense remains his biggest weakness, and we saw him get hurt on the feet in all four of his recent title fights, getting dropped in the last three of those. In his last 10 fights, Oliveira only landed 5 takedowns on 17 attempts (29.4% accuracy), with no takedowns landed in any of his last four fights. Over that same timeframe, his opponents took him down six times on 10 attempts (40% defense). He only averages 3.54 SSL/min and 3.19 SSA/min and has never landed more than 73 significant strikes or absorbed more than 81 in a fight.
Fight Prediction:
Oliveira will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while Tsarukyan is seven years younger than the 34-year-old Oliveira.
This is an exciting matchup between a dangerous grappler and a dominant wrestler. Both guys also have good striking, but the exchanges on the mat will likely dictate who wins. Oliveira will have a noticeable height and reach advantage, and despite how dangerous of a grappler he is, we still expect Tsarukyan to be looking to take him down. Tsarukyan has far better wrestling than Oliveira and we trust him to have the positional awareness to avoid getting submitted during those exchanges. Look for Tsarukyan to batter Oliveira with ground and pound until he breaks his will to continue and then forces a TKO stoppage, most likely in round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Arman Tsarukyan KO” at +160.
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DFS Implications:
Tsarukyan has averaged 106 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, scoring 99 or more in each of the last six of those, and 110 or more in four of them. He’s shown massive upside through his relentless wrestling attack, and just showcased his power on the feet in a quick first round knockout against Beneil Dariush. The only times we’ve seen Tsarukyan struggle in the UFC are when he’s facing other world class wrestlers like Mateusz Gamrot and Islam Makhachev. And while Oliveira is one of the best grapplers on the planet, his wrestling is far less impressive. Oliveira has just a 55% takedown defense and can be overly content with working off his back. We’ve also sometimes seen him look for ways out in fights that aren’t going his way. So it will be interesting to see how Oliveira’s body language looks after Tsarukyan gets him down and starts beating him up with ground and pound. With that said, Oliveira is dangerous everywhere and a single slip up from Tsarukyan could cost him the fight, so he’ll need to be sharp and tight. We expect he will be and like his chances of beating up Oliveira with ground and pound until the fight is eventually stopped, allowing him to put up a huge DFS score in the process. Tsarukyan looks like a solid play on both DraftKings and FanDuel, but his wrestling-heavy style makes him especially appealing on DraftKings. The odds imply Tsarukyan has a 64% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.
Oliveira has averaged 96 DraftKings points in his 22 UFC wins, but has never topped 116 points, which came in his 2010 UFC debut. While 20 of his 22 UFC wins have come early, he only reached 100 DraftKings points eight times and often struggles to put up big scores in later round finishes. While his last two wins both ended in the first round and each scored exactly 114 DraftKings points, his previous three finishes all occurred in the later rounds and the only one of those that topped 94 points was a second round TKO over Michael Chandler that included two knockdowns. Oliveira scored just 69 points in a 2020 third round submission win over a wrestler in Kevin Lee, after getting controlled for most of the first two rounds. We could conceivably see something similar here as he takes on another wrestler, showing one way this fight fails to produce a high scorer. However, at Oliveira’s cheap price tag he may not need to put up a huge score to crack the optimal lineup, which does leave him with a wider range of acceptable outcomes. He’s shown the ability to prove the oddsmakers wrong and came in as a slight underdog in two of his last three wins. With his cheap price tag here, we expect him to once again be popular in DFS, which does lower his tournament appeal. The odds imply Oliveira has a 36% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Justin Gaethje
13th UFC Fight (8-4)The UFC brought the BMF belt back for Gaethje’s last fight, in a rematch against Dustin Poirier, who had previously knocked Gaethje out back in 2018. Gaethje returned the favor with an early second-round head kick knockout, while finishing ahead 41-27 in striking. Just before that, Gaethje squeaked out a close majority decision win over Rafael Fiziev that one judge ruled a draw, and easily could have gone in Fiziev’s favor. Gaethje’s only two losses in his last nine outings both came by submission in under seven minutes in a pair of title fights against Charles Oliveira and Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2022 and 2020 respectively. In between those two losses, Gaethje won a high-volume three-round decision against Michael Chandler. Before losing to Nurmagomedov, Gaethje had 11 straight fights end by KO/TKO (9-2), going back to his days on the regional scene.
Now 25-4 as a pro, Gaethje has 20 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and four decision victories. Six of his eight UFC wins came via knockout, with three in round one, two in round two, and one in round five. He’s also been knocked out twice himself and submitted twice in his career. All four of those losses came against world class talent, with his submissions coming against Oliveira and Khabib and his knockouts against Poirier and Alvarez. While his two submission losses both came in under a round and a half, his two knockout losses occurred late in round three and early in round four of consecutive 2017-2018 fights. While 14 of Gaethje’s last 16 fights ended early, both of those decisions came in his last four matches. His first seven UFC fights all ended in knockouts (5-2), but four of his last five ended in either decision wins and submission losses.
This will be the 16th five-round fight of Gaethje’s career (12-3) and 10th in the UFC (6-3). He’s never been the full five rounds in any of those fights and only saw the championship rounds twice, which were in his 2020 R5 TKO win over Tony Ferguson and his 2018 R4 TKO loss against Dustin Poirier. His six fights scheduled to go five rounds before he joined the UFC all ended in knockout wins in the opening three rounds. His first six UFC five-round fights also all ended in knockouts, with him winning five of those. He then got submitted in each of his next two five-round fights, before bouncing back with another knockout most recently. Here are all the five-round fights he’s been part of:
UFC (6-3):
2023 R2 KO W vs. Dustin Poirier
2022 R1 SUB L vs. Charles Oliveira
2020 R2 SUB L vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov
2020 R5 TKO W vs. Tony Ferguson
2019 R1 TKO W vs. Donald Cerrone
2019 R1 KO W vs. Edson Barboza
2018 R1 KO W vs. James Vick
2018 R4 TKO L vs. Dustin Poirier
2017 R2 TKO W vs. Michael Johnson
PRE UFC (6-0):
2016 R3 TKO W vs. Luiz Firmino
2016 R1 TKO W vs. Brian Foster
2015 R2 TKO W vs. Luis Palomino
2015 R3 TKO W vs. Luis Palomino
2014 R2 TKO W vs. Nick Newell
2014 R1 TKO W vs. Richard Patishnock
Overall, Gaethje is an exciting brawler who generally has no interest in going to the ground despite the fact that he has a wrestling background and was a two-time state champion high school wrestler and a D1 NCAA All-American at the University of Northern Colorado. However, after only attempting a single failed takedown in his first 10 UFC fights, he finally landed the first takedown of his career in the closing seconds of his second most recent match and shot for three in that fight against Rafael Fiziev. On the other side of things, he has a solid 75% takedown defense and his opponents only got him down on 5 of their 20 attempts. However, when he has been taken down, he’s looked terrible off his back. In fairness, almost everyone looks bad on the mat against Khabib and Oliveira. Gaethje is a great leg striker who often looks to chop his opponents down early before attacking up top with heavy punches. He also throws destructive uppercuts that are useful when facing an opponent who wants to shoot for takedowns. He’s proven himself to be extremely durable throughout his career, but he is now 35 years old and you have to wonder if we’ll eventually see that durability fade from an accumulation of all the damage he’s taken in his career.
Max Holloway
29th UFC Fight (21-7)Holloway recently landed his first knockout since 2018, after fighting to eight straight decisions (4-4). That finish came in the opening seconds of the third round against The Korean Zombie, who was in the final fight of his career and decided he wanted to go out on his shield as he blitzed Holloway in the opening seconds of the third round and was made to pay for his recklessness. Holloway finished the fight ahead 75-34 in significant strikes and also notched two knockdowns and nearly completed a submission in round two. Just before that, Holloway won a five-round decision over the habitually underrated Arnold Allen. That came after Holloway suffered his third decision loss to Alexander Volkanovski, with all three of those losses coming in Holloway’s last seven fights. In between the second and third losses to Volkanovski, Holloway set the all time UFC record for the most significant strikes ever landed in a fight (445) against Calvin Kattar, soaring past his own previous record of 290 that he landed on Brian Ortega. Holloway landed more significant strikes in the fourth round alone (141) than Kattar landed in the entire match (133). Holloway followed that up with another high-volume five-round decision win, landing 230 significant strikes against Yair Rodriguez. And after landing just five total takedowns in his first 24 UFC fights combined, Holloway landed three against Rodriguez on five attempts, although then failed to land any of his three attempts in his subsequent decision loss to Volkanovski, and didn’t even attempt a takedown in either of his most recent two wins. While the first two fights against Volkanovski were close, Holloway got dominated in the last one, as Volkanovski outlanded him in every round and finished ahead 199-127 in significant strikes and won a unanimous 50-45 decision. Holloway got cut badly above his eye in the second round, but was able to battle through it to at least avoid suffering the first KO/TKO loss of his career. Holloway has won 18 of his last 19 fights against opponents not named Volkanovski, with the one loss coming up a weight class against Dustin Poirier in 2019.
Now 25-7 as a pro, Holloway has 11 wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and 12 decision victories. He’s never been knocked out, with his only early loss coming in a first round submission in his 2012 UFC debut against Dustin Poirier in what was just Holloway’s 5th pro fight and the first of two times that those guys squared off. Holloway’s other six losses all went the distance, with the last four of those decision losses going five rounds. Three of Holloway’s career losses came against Volkanovski, two more were against Dustin Poirier, one was at the hands of Conor McGregor, and the other was against Dennis Bermudez in a 2013 split decision. His last 15 fights all saw the third round, with 10 of those going the distance. Holloway started his career at 155 lb, before dropping down to 145 lb when he joined the UFC. He was actually scheduled to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov at 155 lb in 2018, but the fight fell through. He also moved up to 155 lb once in 2019 to fight Dustin Poirier for the Interim Lightweight belt, where Holloway lost a 49-46 decision. That fight was five years ago to the day from Saturday. The rest of Holloway’s career has been spent at 145 lb, but now he’ll move up to 155 lb to face Justin Gaethje.
This will be the 16th five-round fight of Holloway’s career and 15th in the UFC (10-4). While his last five-round fight ended in a R3 KO win, his previous eight all went the distance (4-4). However, the first five of his UFC career all ended in TKO wins. He also had a 2011 five-round split-decision win before he joined the UFC. Overall, Holloway has gone 5-4 in UFC five-round title fights and also has four more non-title fight five-round victories (three decision wins and one R1 TKO by injury against Charles Oliveira). He’s never lost a five-round fight when the belt was not on the line. Here are all of Holloway’s five-round fights:
UFC (10-4):
2023 R3 KO W vs. The Korean Zombie
2023 R5 DEC W vs. Arnold Allen
2022 R5 DEC L vs. Alexander Volkanovski
2021 R5 DEC W vs. Yair Rodriguez
2021 R5 DEC W vs. Calvin Kattar
2020 R5 DEC L vs. Alexander Volkanovski
2019 R5 DEC L vs. Alexander Volkanovski
2019 R5 DEC W vs. Frankie Edgar
2019 R5 DEC L vs. Dustin Poirier
2018 R4 TKO W vs. Brian Ortega
2017 R3 TKO W vs. Jose Aldo
2017 R3 TKO W vs. Jose Aldo
2016 R3 TKO W vs. Anthony Pettis
2015 R1 TKO W vs. Charles Oliveira
PRE UFC (1-0):
2011 R5 S-DEC W vs. Harris Sarmiento
Overall, Holloway is a high-volume striker who tends to wear on his opponents and win the war of attrition, opposed to knocking them out early. His last five KO/TKO wins all came in the third round or later and he only has two R1 wins in his entire 28-fight UFC career—one of those was from a doctor stoppage and the other came against an opponent who was knocked out in the first two rounds in his last three UFC fights before hanging it up. Holloway holds the record for the most significant strikes landed in UFC history (3197), nearly lapping everyone else, as Angela Hill has landed the second most at 1896. Obviously those records are largely based on how many fights you have, and Holloway has 28 UFC fights under his belt, but he averages an impressive 7.17 SSL/min and 4.75 SSA/min. While Holloway has only landed eight takedowns in 28 UFC fights, three of those came in his fourth most recent fight, showing that he is at least currently capable of looking for takedowns when he wants to and he has a 53% takedown accuracy, while also holding an elite 84% takedown defense and he’s only been taken down eight times in his last 19 fights.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’11”, but Gaethje will have a 1” reach advantage. Holloway is three years younger than the 35-year-old Gaethje.
Moving up a weight class is always challenging and it will be interesting to see how Holloway deals with the power of Gaethje. We’ve seen Holloway have his legs beat up in the past, most notably by Volkanovski, and Gaethje is notorious for his violent leg kicks. The last time Holloway tried moving up to 155 lb was in 2019 when he faced Dustin Poirier, and we also saw Holloway struggle some with the overall physicality of Poirier in that fight, although he was able to find some success of his own and at least survive for 25 minutes. Holloway was also just 27 years old then and hadn’t fully grown into his frame, so he’ll likely come in a little bigger for this fight. We’re not convinced that Holloway has the power to knock Gaethje out and the threat coming back his way could make it tougher for him to just constantly rack up crazy volume the way he has in the past. And with Gaethje landing the more impactful blows, it will be tougher for Holloway to win a decision. While Holloway has only taken down one of his last nine opponents, he will occasionally look for submissions and Gaethje has been prone to getting submitted when he ends up on the mat. Knowing that he’ll be at a power disadvantage, maybe Holloway looks to wrestle a little more here, creating some opportunities to fish for a choke. However, Gaethje has a solid 75% takedown defense and we certainly can’t count on Holloway getting him down, or even attempting any takedowns for that matter. So the two most likely outcomes are either a Gaethje knockout or a decision win. Holloway has never been knocked out in 32 pro fights, but we did see him hurt at multiple points in his only UFC fight at 155 lb. Gaethje has been in 15 five-round fights in his career and not one of those went the distance, while only two even made it to the championship rounds. So there’s a good chance we either see Holloway knocked out for the first time or Gaethje extended to a 25 minute decision for the first time. The move in weight for Holloway makes it a tough spot to predict, but barring a hail mary submission from Holloway, we think Gaethje either knocks him out or wins a decision. We line slightly towards a knockout, but won’t be at all shocked if it goes the distance and Holloway will never quit.
Our favorite bet here is “Justin Gaethje ML” at -162.
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DFS Implications:
Gaethje has averaged 101 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, but hasn’t topped 97 points since 2019. It doesn’t help that two of his last three wins ended in three-round decisions, but even in his last two knockouts, he “only” scored 96 and 97 points respectively. In fairness to him, one of those was a poorly timed early second round knockout and the other was a standing TKO in round five, where he failed to notch a knockdown. Nevertheless, a similar score here probably wouldn’t be quite enough for him to be useful in tournaments at his high price tag. That shows one potential way for him to fail even with a finish, but there are also plenty of ways for him to put up a huge score. While Gaethje doesn’t add much of anything when it comes to offensive wrestling, he averages 7.35 SSL/min and 21 of his 25 pro wins ended early. With five rounds to work with, he has the ability to put up a crazy score through striking volume alone and Holloway averages 4.75 SSA/min. While Holloway has never been knocked out, he’s also only competed at 155 lb one other time in the UFC and looked badly hurt at multiple points in that 2019 five-round decision loss to Dustin Poirier, who scored 113 DraftKings points and 133 points on FanDuel in the win. We’ve seen Holloway vulnerable to leg kicks in the past and Gaethje is great at chopping opponents down with thudding leg strikes. That could leave Holloway compromised late in this fight, making it easier for Gaethje to tee off on him and increasing the chances of a finish. Holloway only has one knockout win of his own since 2018, and it would be far more surprising to see him move up to 155 lb and knock Gaethje out, although it’s not impossible that Holloway could submit Gaethje, even if it is highly unlikely. That leaves Gaethje with a solid scoring floor and a decent ceiling as well if he can just avoid another poorly timed finish. However, both fighters will be very popular, so if Gaethje does once again fail to crack 100 points, then there will be a ton of leverage to be gained in tournament lineups that fade this fight. It’s still far more likely that whoever wins scores really well and ends up in the optimal, and you definitely want to stack the fight in low-risk contests. The odds imply Gaethje has a 57% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Holloway has averaged 104 DraftKings points in his 21 UFC wins, scoring anywhere from 64 to 209 DraftKings points in those victories. He averages 7.17 SSL/min and holds the record for the most significant strikes ever landed in a UFC fight (445), as well as the second most (290). While he doesn’t look to wrestle a ton, he will mix in occasional takedown attempts and submissions as well. He’s never been knocked out in 32 pro appearances, and will never quit. However, all but one of his 28 UFC fights have been at 145 lb and now he’ll be moving up to 155 lb here. The one other time he competed at 155 lb was in 2019, when he lost a high-volume five-round decision to Dustin Poirier for the Interim Lightweight belt. Even in that loss, Holloway still scored 78 DraftKings points and 114 points on FanDuel, which is pretty interesting given Holloway’s cheap price tag on this slate. If he can avoid getting knocked out, Holloway could potentially still return a useful score even in a decision loss. Just keep in mind, Gaethje has been in 15 five-round fights in his career and not one of them made it to the scorecards. Nevertheless, Gaethje averages 7.50 SSA/min (most on the slate) and Holloway has the potential to put up a huge striking total. The downside with Holloway is that he’ll be an extremely popular underdog play, making it much more difficult to create unique lineups that include him. The odds imply Holloway has a 43% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Zhang Weili
11th UFC Fight (8-2)Weili is coming off a dominant, wrestling-heavy five-round decision win over a dangerous Amanda Lemos. Weili took Lemos down six times on seven attempts and controlled her for over 16 minutes, while also amazingly finishing ahead in significant strikes 163-24 and in total strikes 296-29. Outside of Lemos looking for a couple of submissions, it was a completely one-sided performance. Just before that, Weili recaptured the Strawweight belt in a second round submission win over a 35-year-old Carla Esparza, who hasn’t looked good since 2021. That came just after Weili landed a second round knockout in a rematch against Joanna Jedrzejczyk, who immediately retired after the fight. Leading up to the pair of second round finishes, Weili lost back-to-back fights against Rose Namajunas in a 2021 R1 head kick knockout and then a split decision in the rematch later that year. Just before that, Weili fought Jedrzejczyk for the first time and won a 2020 five-round split decision in an all out war to maintain the Strawweight belt that she had just won over Jessica Andrade in a 2019 R1 TKO. Prior to losing to Namajunas, Weili had won 21 straight fights after losing her 2013 pro debut in a two-round decision.
Now 24-3 as a pro, Weili has 11 wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and five decision victories. While her last two finishes both occurred in round two, her previous three all ended in round one. Weili has never landed a finish beyond round two and of her 19 career finishes, 11 ended in round one, with the other eight coming in round two. The only time she’s ever been finished herself was when she got knocked out in the first round by Namajunas in April 2021, with her other two losses both ending in decisions. Weili started off fighting at 132 lb before dropping down to 115 lb in her fourth pro fight. All but one of her early wins have come in China or other parts of East Asia, while four of her five UFC wins in the US went the distance. Her second round submission win over Esparza is the only time she’s ever finished an opponent in the US.
This will be the 8th five-round fight of Weili’s career and 7th UFC title fight. She had one fight scheduled to go five rounds before she joined the UFC, but she knocked her opponent out in the second round. She landed another knockout in her first UFC title fight, which ended just 42 seconds into the first round against Jessica Andrade. Immediately after that, Weili won a five-round split decision over Joanna Jedrzejczyk to defend the belt, before getting knocked out in the first round by Rose Namajunas and then losing a five-round split-decision in the rematch. She then won the belt back in a second round submission win over Carla Esparza, before defending it in another five-round decision most recently, that time over Amanda Lemos. So Weili is 4-2 in UFC title fights, with two of them ending in first round knockouts (1-1), one ending in a second round submission win, and the other three going the distance (2-1).
Overall, Weili is a powerful striker and a BJJ brown belt, who’s really focussed on her wrestling lately, where she’s become a dominant threat on the mat. In her 10 UFC fights, she landed 19 takedowns on 45 attempts (42.2% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on three of their nine attempts (66.7% defense). After failing to land more than two takedowns in any of her first six UFC fights, Weili landed three or more in three of her last four matches, after she started training at Fight Ready in Arizona with Henry Cejudo. She also trains in Thailand and spent some time training at Syndicate MMA with Merab Dvalishvili to close out this camp. In addition to her solid wrestling, Weili averages a healthy 5.94 SSL/min and 3.44 SSA/min and is dangerous anywhere a fight can go.
Yan Xiaonan
11th UFC Fight (8-2)Yan is coming off a first round knockout win over Jessica Andrade, who was moving down from 125 lb to 115 lb after getting submitted by Erin Blanchfield, and was in the midst of a three-fight skid, with all three losses ending early. That’s Yan’s only finish since 2016 and all of her other UFC wins went the distance. Andrade fought ultra aggressively and was just recklessly charging in, which she was made to pay for midway through the first round. Prior to that, Yan won a close five-round majority decision against Mackenzie Dern, after losing a somewhat controversial three-round split decision to Marina Rodriguez. Just before the pair of close decisions, Yan suffered her only early loss in the UFC, when Carla Esparza finished her in round two with ground and pound. Leading up to that defeat, Yan started her UFC career off with six straight decision wins.
Now 17-3 as a pro, Yan has seven wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and nine decision victories. She has one TKO loss (R2 2021), one by submission (R1 2010), and one decision defeat. While her last fight ended in round one, her previous nine UFC fights all saw the second round, with eight of those going the distance.
This will be the second five-round fight of Yan’s career, with her first ending in a 2022 split-decision win over Mackenzie Dern.
Overall, Yan relies mostly on her striking to win fights, but will mix in occasional takedowns. In her 10 UFC fights, she landed 8 of her 12 takedown attempts (66.7% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 10 of their 34 attempts (70.6% defense). Five of the six opponents who tried to take her down were successful, with four of them landing multiple takedowns, and defensive wrestling has been her biggest weakness. However, after getting dominated on the mat by Carla Esparza, Yan started training at Team Alpha Male and has shown some improvements to her ground game. Nevertheless, it’s her striking where she earns her keep and she averages a respectable 5.55 SSL/min and 3.56 SSA/min. She has good movement and mixes in a variety of kicks and punches, along with an occasional spinning backfist.
Fight Prediction:
Yan will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 63” reach and are each 34 years old.
Weili is the much more well rounded fighter in this matchup and we expect her to continue to lean on her wrestling because of that. Yan has struggled on the mat and we’d be surprised if she was able to consistently defend the takedowns of Weili. And while Yan just knocked out an overly aggressive Andrade, that’s her only finish since 2016. That makes it tough to see her pulling off the upset, even if she is a good striker and could keep this competitive on the feet for as long as it stays there. The tougher question to answer is whether or not Weili will be able to finish her on the mat. Yan went five rounds with Mackenzie Dern, who’s obviously a very dangerous grappler, but also got pounded out on the mat by Carla Esparza, who failed to finish anyone else in her other 13 most recent fights. Weili has never finished anybody beyond the second round, so if history is any indicator, this will either end in the first two rounds or go the distance. The larger Octagon at the T-Mobile Arena will give Yan more room to evade and increases the chances of a longer fight. And while there are multiple ways for Weili to finish Yan, we slightly lean towards Weili winning another wrestling-heavy decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Zhang Weili DEC” at +185.
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DFS Implications:
Weili put up a face-melting 191 DraftKings points and 166 points on FanDuel in her recent wrestling-heavy five-round decision win over Amanda Lemos. Weili dominated that entire fight and completely filled up the stat sheet in the process, more than doubling the 94 DraftKings points she scored in a second round submission win over Carla Esparza just before that. Looking at her entire UFC career, Weili averaged 117 DraftKings points in her eight UFC wins, and the only time she failed to score at least 90 points in a victory was when she scored just 68 points in a three-round decision in her 2018 UFC debut. If you take away her two three-round decision wins, Weili’s average jumps to 130 points. She put up 121 or more points in four of her eight UFC wins and the 94 points she scored against Esparza looks like a total fluke where she failed to land any knockdowns or takedowns in the fight, before locking up a terribly timed early second round submission. Weili will once again have a massive wrestling advantage in this next matchup, and while Yan is coming off a knockout win, that’s her only finish since 2016. That leaves Weili with an insane scoring floor and ceiling, and on a card full of stars, she shines the brightest for DFS. The only downside is that she’ll also be ridiculously popular, which will make it a lot harder to create unique tournament lineups that include her. The odds imply Weili has an 80% chance to win, a 48% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Yan averaged 85 DraftKings points in her eight UFC wins, despite seven of those wins going the distance. She’s coming off her first early win in the UFC, which ended in a R1 KO against Jessica Andrade, who was moving down a weight class and basically charged head first into all of Yan’s strikes. It seems like that finish had more to do with Andrade than Yan and we don’t believe that Yan is suddenly some sort of dynamic knockout artist. With that said, she is a good striker and if you allow her to remain standing, she has the ability to rack up striking volume. However, she’s also shown poor grappling and defensive wrestling, which we expect to be her downfall here. Weili’s last opponent came in with an 81% takedown defense and Weili landed six of her seven takedowns in that fight. So despite Yan having a 70% takedown defense, we’d be surprised if she was able to keep this fight standing. That will make it really tough for her to do enough to win a decision and it would be shocking to see her finish Weili. The only reason to consider playing Yan is because if she does somehow pull off the upset she’ll be the biggest leverage play on the slate. The odds imply Yan has a 20% chance to win, an 8% chance to land a finish, and a 2% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Alex Pereira
8th UFC Fight (6-1)Pereira recently captured his second belt in his last four fights, with the help of both the matchmakers and referee Marc Goddard. The closest thing to a grappler that Pereira has faced in the UFC was Jan Blachowicz and the organization has done a masterful job of masking his non-existent ground game. They matched him up with three straight strikers in his first three UFC fights, and even Andreas Michailidis and Bruno Silva each took him down twice. Then Sean Strickland refused to even attempt a takedown, in typical Strickland fashion. Pereira then amazingly got his first UFC title shot just 53 weeks after making his UFC debut, with just seven MMA fights under his belt. And even more amazingly, he won that fight in a comeback 5th round TKO against Adesanya who was up three rounds to one in the fight. That was the first time those two squared off in MMA, but Pereira had two kickboxing wins over Adesanya previously (2016 DEC & 2017 R3 KO). Five months after Pereira won the UFC Middleweight belt against Adesanya, they ran it back and Adesanya enacted his revenge in a second round knockout win.
Pereira then moved up to 205 lb and won a close/questionable split-decision over a 40-year-old Jan Blachowicz, who was able to take Pereira down in each of the three rounds. That fight took place at elevation in Salt Lake City, which appeared to take its toll on Blachowicz’s cardio especially, as he set a high wrestling pace. That’s probably what won Pereira the fight, as Blachowicz’s body language was terrible in the later rounds. After dominating the first round and nearly finding a submission, the later rounds were both fairly close and that was enough for two of the three judges to score the fight for Pereira. That close decision win in his first MMA fight at 205 lb propelled Pereira into a title shot against Jiri Prochazka, who hadn’t competed in 17 months after winning the belt in a fifth round submission against Glover Teixeira, but then suffering a really bad shoulder injury, which resulted in him vacating the belt and sitting on the sideline for a year and a half. Jamahal Hill then won the vacant belt against Glover Teixeira, but then Hill suffered an achilles injury and also vacated the belt, leaving it up for grabs between Pereira and Prochazka. Pereira did a good job of landing leg kicks against Prochazka, in a slower paced fight where each fighter only landed 11 significant strikes in the first round. Prochazka isn’t known for his wrestling, but he was able to take Pereira down in the first round and control him for nearly half the round. However, as he shot for another takedown in round two, Pereira was able to land a series of elbows that resulted in Prochazka falling backwards and the fight immediately being stopped, before you could even tell how badly Prochazka was actually hurt. He bounced right back to his feet and seemed okay, so it’s hard to argue the stoppage was justified. Looking back to before Pereira joined the UFC, he only had one MMA fight in the five and a half years prior to making his UFC debut, which was a November 2020 violent R1 KO win in the LFA. His first three MMA fights were back in 2015 and 2016 and he returned to kickboxing after that, winning the Glory Kickboxing Light Heavyweight Belt in a January 2021 split-decision and then losing the title in a rematch via decision in September 2021, just two months before making his UFC debut. So he’s only been consistently competing in MMA since 2020.
Now 9-2 as a pro in MMA, Pereira has seven wins by KO/TKO and two decision victories. Three of those knockouts came in round one, three ended in round two, and the other was in round five. He’s been knocked out once in the second round, and submitted once in the third round. After competing at 209 lb in his last two kickboxing matches, Pereira dropped back down to 185 lb for his UFC debut, where his first nine MMA fights all took place. However, he then moved back up to 205 lb in 2023 and is now 2-0 at Light Heavyweight.
This will be the 4th five-round fight of Pereira’s career. The first two were both against Adesanya, with Pereira landing a comeback 5th round TKO in the first and then getting knocked out in round two when they ran it back. Then in his recent 205 lb title fight, Pereira won in a second round TKO. Pereira lost three of the first four rounds in the first fight against Adesanya and then also lost the first round in the rematch and the first round against Prochazka, so he hasn’t been faring very well on the scorecards in any of these five-round matches, winning just one of the six scored rounds.
Overall, Pereira is a dangerous kickboxer, but has yet to show anything in terms of grappling—although he has been working with Glover Teixeira to try and improve that faucet of his game. In his seven UFC fights, he’s been taken down 9 times on 30 opponent attempts (70% defense), while he landed his lone takedown attempt, which came against Adesanya. While his MMA experience is still very limited, he has 40 kickboxing fights to his name (33-7) including knockouts over Israel Adesanya (2017) and Dustin Jacoby (2014), along with another decision win over Adesanya in 2016. Pereira has also been knocked out twice himself in kickboxing matches. He has a dangerous left hook and throws violent kicks and knees to maximize his massive frame. While his cardio was a major concern early in his career, he seems to have improved in that area. His chin has also been kind of suspect, but maybe not having to cut the additional 20 lb down to Middleweight will help him to be more durable. Once again he’ll face a pure striker, but the UFC won’t be able to hide him from wrestlers forever.
Jamahal Hill
9th UFC Fight (6-1, NC)In January 2023, Hill won the vacant Light Heavyweight belt against a 43-year-old Glover Teixeira, who then immediately retired. However, in July 2023, Hill ruptured his achilles playing basketball and then vacated the belt, just as Jiri Prochazka had done before him. That allowed Prochazka and Pereira to compete for the vacant belt when Prochazka returned from his shoulder injury and now Hill will compete for the belt as he returns from his achilles injury. In his last fight, Hill went into enemy territory in Brazil and dominated the former champ in Teixeira. Hill impressively won every single round of the fight, including a 10-8 4th round on all three scorecards. Teixeira was only able to land 2 of his 17 takedown attempts and got reversed once on the mat. Hill outlanded Teixeira 232-75 in significant strikes and 248-108 in total strikes. The fight could have been stopped, as Teixeira had a terrible cut over his eye, but it was allowed to continue and went the full 25 minutes. Prior to that decision win, Hill landed three straight knockouts against Jimmy Crute, Johnny Walker, and Thiago Santos, and hadn’t required the judges since a decision win in his 2020 UFC debut. Following that victory, Hill knocked out Klidson Abreu in the first round, but the results were overturned to a No Contest when Hill tested positive for THC. Following a brief suspension for the failed drug test, Hill returned and knocked out Ovince St. Preux in the second round of his next fight. Hill then suffered the only loss of his career when he had his elbow dislocated in an armbar attempt from Paul Craig early in the first round of a June 2021 match. Hill bounced back with an impressive 48 second R1 KO win over Jimmy Crute and then followed it up with another first round knockout against Johnny Walker, leading up to a R4 TKO win over Thiago Santos.
Now 12-1 as a pro, Hill has seven wins by KO (not counting the R1 KO that was overturned to a No Contest) and five decision victories. All but one of those knockouts occurred in the first two rounds, with four ending in round one, two in round two, and his most recent in round four. His only loss went down as a R1 TKO, but it was caused by an armbar submission against Paul Craig.
This will be the fifth five-round fight of Hill’s career and fourth straight in the UFC. The first five-round fight of his career came prior to joining the UFC in 2018 against Dequan Townsend where Hill won by decision. The second five rounder of his career came against Johnny Walker, who Hill knocked out in the first round. Hill then saw the championship rounds for the first time since joining the UFC in his next fight and landed a fourth round TKO against Thiago Santos. And most recently, Hill won a five-round decision over Glover Teixeira. So three of his previous four five-round fights made it to the championship rounds, with two going the distance.
Overall, Hill is a high-volume striker who averages 7.31 SSL/min while only absorbing 3.35/min. He’s got good power and mixes in kicks well with his boxing. He relies entirely on his striking and has never even attempted a takedown in the UFC. Between his eight UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Hill’s opponents got him down 14 times on 52 attempts (73.1% defense). When Hill has been taken down, he’s shown the ability to return to his feet, so it’s not like he’s helpless on the mat and he’s a tough guy to hold down. While he’s listed as a BJJ brown belt, he hasn’t looked like any sort of submission threat and doesn’t even have a submission attempt in the UFC.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’4” with a 79” reach, but Hill is four years younger than the 36-year-old Pereira.
This sets up as a fun, high-stakes striking battle between two fighters that have essentially zero desire to grapple. Hill has never attempted a takedown in eight UFC fights, and Pereira only attempted one in his seven UFC appearances. While Pereira’s biggest weakness is his grappling, we don’t expect Hill to look to exploit that. They’re both really dangerous strikers, but Pereira is a little sharper and more technical with his strikes, while Hill is the more durable of the two. They should both be fairly familiar with one another, as Pereira’s close training partner, Glover Teixeira, just fought Hill, and Hill reached out to Adesanya for advice on fighting Pereira. The biggest question mark is how Hill will look just nine months after rupturing his achilles, which is impossible to know and adds some inherent volatility to the matchup. Hill seems to stand pretty heavy on his lead leg, which could leave him vulnerable to leg kicks, and Pereira is one of the best leg kicks in the game. Between his eight UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Hill’s opponents landed 66 of the 72 leg kicks they threw against him (91.7% accuracy). On the other side of things, in Pereira seven UFC fights, he landed 98 of the 130 leg kicks he threw (75.4% accuracy). Pereira has landed 1.25 leg kicks per minute in the UFC, while Hill has absorbed 0.79/min (including his DWCS fight). Hill doesn’t have the biggest calves and it will be interesting to see how his legs hold up. However, Pereira will also need to be careful not to blindly throw leg kicks or we could see Hill counter him over the top. We’d be surprised to see this fight go the distance and we’re expecting somebody to get knocked out, with a good chance it comes in round two once they’ve gotten a feel for each other’s timing but are also still relatively fresh. As the odds suggest, this seems like a very even matchup and both guys are live for a finish. We expect both guys to be landing heavy shots and at that point it will come down to who can absorb the most damage without going down. That’s where Hill’s durability advantage comes into play and we could see Pereira compromising Hill’s lead leg early, but for Hill to fight through it, get his timing, and catch Pereira with something in the opening 10 minutes that puts him down. Hill by R2 KO will be the pick, but this one could definitely get dicey.
Our favorite bet here is “Jamahal Hill KO” at +210.
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DFS Implications:
Pereira has only averaged 90 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, despite four of those ending in knockouts. While he was able to score 110 points in a first round knockout win over Sean Strickland, he “only” scored 98 points in his recent second round TKO win over Jiri Prochazka, just 92 points in a R5 TKO win over Adesanya, and 87 points in an early second round knockout in his UFC debut. He also scored just 67 points in his last three round decision win, but was able to put up a more respectable 87 points in a higher volume three-round decision win over Bruno Silva. He doesn’t add anything in terms of grappling, which leaves him entirely reliant on striking volume and knockouts to score well. Hill only averages 3.35 SSA/min and no one has ever landed more than 75 significant strikes against him, which is how many Glover Teixeira landed on him over the course of five rounds. And the only time Hill has ever lost a fight was when he suffered a dislocated elbow against Paul Craig, so his chin has always held up. We have seen Hill look pretty vulnerable to leg kicks and Pereira is known for having some of the best leg kicks in the game, which presents a path for Pereira to compromise Hill even if he can’t put him to sleep. Hill is also just nine months removed from rupturing his achilles, which adds some uncertainty on his side of things, while Pereira has had another fight to adapt his body to 205 lb, as it’s only been a year since his last 185 lb fight. Perhaps cutting less weight will increase his durability, but we’re still not sold on his chin and his wrestling is still terrible. However, Hill has never even attempted a takedown in the UFC, and is an unlikely candidate to expose Pereira’s non-existent ground game. Pereira has consistently been popular in DFS and at his relatively cheap price tag we don’t expect that to change here. While that lower salary does theoretically lower the amount of points he needs to score to be useful, there are still lots of ways for him to fail even in a win if we get a higher scoring slate. That creates an interesting leverage opportunity by being underweight on him in tournaments. The odds imply Pereira has a 55% chance to win, a 42% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Hill has averaged 104 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, and put up a slate-breaking 137 points in a five-round decision win over Glover Teixeira in his last fight. His four wins prior to that all ended by knockout, not even counting a 2020 R1 KO win that was overturned to a No Contest when Hill tested positive for THC. The most recent of those finishes came in the fourth round against Thiago Santos, who mastered the art of slowing fights down late in his career and only averaged 2.57 SSA/min. So it’s not surprising that Hill only scored 86 points in that finish and we won’t really hold that against him. He’s shown more upside in his other finishes, although the only time he topped 103 DraftKings points in a finish was with the help of the Quick Win Bonus. While he’s never even attempted a takedown in the UFC, he averages an impressive 7.31 SSL/min and has shown the ability to push a pace for 25 minutes and still be dangerous late in five-round fights. When you combine that with his cheaper price tag, durability, power, and Pereira’s suspect chin, Hill looks like a great play in all contest types. Obviously Pereira is a very dangerous striker, so there’s always a chance Hill gets knocked out himself. And Hill’s recent achilles injury adds some additional volatility, but we still see both a higher scoring floor and ceiling for Hill opposed to Pereira in this matchup. The odds imply Hill has a 45% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter @dfs_mma with your winnings so we can see how you did!
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Top UFC PrizePicks Play of the Week:
Aljamain Sterling OVER 55.5 SS
