The Sheet

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Fighter Notes:

Fight #14

Loik Radzhabov

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Radzhabov stepped into this fight on just six days’ notice after Kamuela Kirk dropped out. Fourteen months removed from a first round submission win, Radzhabov has fought for the PFL million dollar prize not once, but twice, although he lost five-round decisions both times. Eight of his last 10 fights have gone the distance, with the two exceptions being his recent first round submission win and a 2021 27 second R1 TKO victory.

Now 16-4-1 as a pro, Radzhabov has seven wins by KO/TKO, five by submission, and four decision victories. However, nine of his 12 finishes occurred in his first nine pro fights and he hasn’t looked like much of a finisher lately, with 9 of his last 12 fights going the distance. He’s never been finished, with all four of his losses ending in decisions. Loik has competed at both 155 lb and 170 lb, and his last fight was actually at 165 lb, but his 10 before that were all at 155 lb, where he’ll be making his short notice UFC debut.

Overall, Radzhabov relies largely on his wrestling to win fights, but isn’t helpless on the feet and has looked very durable. It will be interesting to see if he has 15 minutes of wrestling in him after accepting this fight on six days’ notice, but he’s shown the ability to dominate opponents on the mat in the past. He’s not the most explosive or impressive fighter by any means, but he just keeps on going and can wear on his opponents. He’s already 32 years old, trains at Kill Cliff FC, and has twice competed with a million dollars on the line, so we expect him to be prepared to handle the bright lights of making his debut on a PPV card.

Esteban Ribovics

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Ribovics had been scheduled to face Kamuela Kirk here, but Kirk dropped out and Radzhabov was announced as the replacement six days out.

Coming off a first round KO win on DWCS, Ribovics has knocked out three straight opponents in 90 seconds or less and remains undefeated with a 100% finishing rate. He came out swinging on DWCS, but a low blow momentarily paused the action. However, as soon as action resumed they went right back at it until Ribovics dropped his opponent and the fight was stopped 90 seconds in. Prior to that, he landed a 27 second knockout and a 7 second knockout and he hasn’t been in a fight that lasted longer than 90 seconds since 2020. Five of his last six fights have ended in round one and after looking to grapple more early in his career, he seems content with relying on knockouts lately.

Now 11-0 as a pro, Ribovics has six wins by KO/TKO and five by submission. Six of his wins have come in round one, one ended in round two, and four occurred in round three. However, his last five victories have all ended in knockouts, and five of his last six finishes have come in the first round.

Overall, Ribovics is an aggressive brawler who’s all offense and no defense. He comes out swinging and the only defensive grappling technique he knows is to look for kimuras. His takedown defense has looked bad, but he’s done a decent job of using kimura attempts to reverse positions on the mat and quickly return to his feet. He has also been training at Kill Cliff FC and is still just 26 years old, so he should be making improvements between every fight.

Fight Prediction:

Ribovics will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage. He’s also five years younger than the 31-year-old Radzhabov.

Despite Radzhabov stepping in on short notice, he checks in as a sizeable favorite due to his experience and wrestling advantages. He’s been fighting a much, much higher level of competition than Ribovics and has also shown the ability to grind out decision wins, whereas Ribovics has been entirely dependent on landing finishes. Radzhabov has looked extremely durable and has never been finished in his career, so unless the short notice weight cut absolutely destroys him here, we’d be surprised if Ribovics was able to get him out of there. And while taking the fight on short notice could affect Radzhabov’s cardio, Ribovics hasn’t been in a fight that lasted longer than 90 seconds in three years and we have no idea what his cardio will look like late in this fight, especially if he’s being forced to wrestle defensively the whole time. With both guys having the potential to slow down later on in the fight, things could get sloppy down the stretch, but we like Radzhabov to grind out a decision win on the mat.

Our favorite bet here is “FGTD” at +158.

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DFS Implications:

Radzhabov’s wrestling-heavy style naturally makes him a better fit for the DraftKings scoring system, but it will be interesting to see if he has 15 minutes of hard wrestling in him after accepting this fight on just six days’ notice. We’ve also seen him keep fights standing at times, so there’s no guarantee we see him dominate the whole fight on the mat. He’s also not some world beater that will just come in and run through opponents, but he is extremely durable and never stops working in fights. Another concern with him is that he’s not especially active on the mat, so he’s less likely to land a ton of ground strikes or constantly hunt for submissions. Eight of his last 10 fights have gone the distance, and he’s a position over submission type fights. All of that makes it tougher for him to put up really big scores without a finish, and we’re far less interested in playing him on FanDuel. His expensive price tag and the fact he stepped in on short notice should keep his ownership low and he gets a favorable matchup against a fellow debuting fighter. Ribovics also hasn’t shown much of a takedown defense and instead tries to defend every grappling exchange with a kimura attempt. That should allow Radzhabov to put up a big takedown total, as long as his cardio holds up and he doesn’t allow Ribovics to lock up a kimura or knock him out on the feet, both of which are unlikely. So in the end, Radzhabov will have a solid DraftKings floor but may need a finish to really hit his ceiling and outscore the outer high priced fighters. The odds imply he has a 71% chance to win, a 40% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.

Ribovics is making his UFC debut with an undefeated record and a 100% finishing rate, which always looks go paper, but he’s coming off the dubious Argentinian regional scene and hasn’t really fought anyone decent in his career. This will be a major step up in competition for him as he takes on a far more experienced wrestler who’s never been finished. Ribovics is a one trick pony on the mat as he looks for kimuras every time he’s involved in a grappling exchange. On the feet, Ribovics is an aggressive brawler who’s shown the power to knock opponents out, but we wonder about his cardio considering he hasn’t been in a fight that lasted longer than 90 seconds in the last three years and has never been to a decision. While it’s not impossible he lands something clean and hands Radzhabov the first early loss of his career, we’re not expecting to see it happen. And since we expect Radzhabov to be looking to wrestle and control Ribovics, it’s also unlikely that Ribovics scores well even if he does somehow win a decision. His record and recent first round knockout win on DWCS will result in him carrying some ownership, so we’re also not expecting him to be low owned. So while his aggressive fighting style may have us interested in playing him in the future, this does not look like the right spot to be on him. The odds imply Ribovics has a 29% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #13

Farid Basharat

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Making his UFC debut following a dominant decision win on DWCS, Farid Basharat is the younger brother of UFC fighter Javid Basharat. While Farid Basharat was unable to find a finish on the show, he put on an impressive performance as he finished ahead in significant strikes 116-27, in total strikes 163-39, in takedowns 3-0, and in control time 9:05-0:00. Prior to that decision victory, he landed a pair of late-round submission wins.

Now 9-0 as a pro, Basharat has one knockout win (R1 2019), five submission victories, and three decisions. All five of his submission wins have come by rear-naked choke, with four coming in the later rounds. His last five fights have all made it out of the first round, but only two twp of those required the judges.

Overall, Basharat is a really solid fighter, just like his brother. He has a Taekwondo background and is also a really solid grappler, with a great takedown defense and heavy top pressure. He’s quick on his feet, counters well, and looks really well rounded and ready to hit the ground running. He’s trained with lots of big names and everyone has nothing but good things to say about the pair of brothers. Farid looks a little more aggressive than his brother Javid, but both guys fight smart and rarely find themselves in bad situations.

Da'Mon Blackshear

2nd UFC Fight (0-0-1)

Coming off a draw in his short notice UFC debut against Youssef Zalal, Blackshear hasn’t been defeated in his last five matches, with three of those fights ending in submission wins and two going the distance (1-0-1). Blackshear got taken down early in the first round of that fight and controlled for half a round on Zalal’s only attempt in the fight, but constantly looked for submissions off his back, which was enough to win him the round. He then won the second round as well, but nearly got finished in round three, which two judges scored as 10-8, resulting in a draw.

Now 12-4-1 as a pro, Blackshear has one win by TKO (r2 2018), eight submissions, and three decision victories. All four of his losses have gone the distance, with one of those notably coming against UFC fighter Pat Sabatini and another against former UFC fighter Kris Moutinho. Despite nine of Blackshear’s 12 pro wins coming early, all but one of his 17 pro fights have made it out of the first round, with 11 making it to round three, and eight going the distance. He has one first round submission win, four in round two, two in round three, and one in round four. Blackshear has fought at both 135 lb and 145 lb, with five of his earlier career fights up at 145 lb. However, he hasn’t fought at 145 lb since losing a 2018 decision to Pat Sabatini.

Overall, Blackshear is a former high school wrestler and relies very heavily on his grappling. He scrambles well on the mat and does a good job of transitioning and looking for submissions from a variety of positions. Most of his fights end up playing out as grappling battles, with five of his last six wins ending in submissions. We saw him get exposed on the feet in the third round of his debut against a not very dangerous opponent in Zalal, who fought to seven straight decisions in the UFC before being cut. That leaves us concerned with how Blackshear will do in striking exchanges moving forward at the UFC level.

Fight Prediction:

Blackshear will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage. He’s also three years older than the 25-year-old Basharat.

This sets up as a very difficult matchup for Blackshear. He relies on his grappling to win fights and Basharat’s takedown defense and grappling are very solid. On the feet, Basharat will have a massive striking advantage and even on the mat looks like the better fighter. We expect Basharat to wear Blackshear out in this fight and finish him in the later rounds, despite Blackshear never having been finished in his career. We could see Basharat finishing this with either a knockout or a rear-naked choke, but he typically likes to choke his opponents out late in fights.

Our favorite bet here is “Farid Basharat ITD” at +175.

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DFS Implications:

Basharat looks to be just as highly skilled as his brother Javid, but offers the aggressiveness that his brother lacks. While Farid Basharat’s recent DWCS fight ended with the judges, he still would have scored 117 DraftKings points and 108 points on FanDuel in the dominant win. He offers a solid combination of striking and grappling that allows him to score well even when he’s unable to find a finish, not to mention, six of his last eight wins have come early. While he’s a dangerous striker, all but one of his early wins have come by rear-naked choke, with most of those finishes occurring in the later rounds. While we don’t know how he’ll react to the bright lights of a PPV card as he makes his UFC debut, he projects to get overlooked by the field among high priced fighters with all of the attention being paid to Bo Nickal, Valentina Shevchenko, and Shavkat Rakhmonov to a lesser extent. The field will also come in with a Basharat bias based on Javid Basharat’s inability to find finishes and really score well in his three UFC fights. And while Blackshear has never been finished in his career, he was seconds away from getting knocked out by Youssef Zalal, who couldn’t finish a hot meal in seven UFC appearances. Basharat looks like a great tournament pivot off the more highly owned expensive options on this card. The odds imply he has a 78% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 15% chance it comes in round one.

Blackshear is coming off a draw in his UFC debut that was only good for 35 DraftKings points and he got saved by the clock at the end or else he would have gotten finished. He looks like a one-dimensional submission threat and will be massively outgunned as he steps into his second Octagon appearance. His grappling-heavy style seems better suited to the DraftKings scoring system, although he does go for a lot of submission attempts, which has the potential to help him on FanDuel. We expect him to struggle to land takedowns in this fight, so he’ll likely need Basharat to take him down and then try to throw up a hail mary submission off his back. We’d be very surprised if he was able to complete a submission and Basharat looks solid on the mat, leaving Blackshear as a hail mary or bust submission play. The odds imply he has a 22% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #12

Tabatha Ricci

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

This matchup had originally been scheduled back in October, but Penne withdrew citing an illness.

Ricci is coming off a pair of decision wins over Polyana Viana and Maria Oliveira, after suffering a R2 TKO loss in her short notice debut against Manon Fiorot, which took place up a weight class at 125 lb, opposed to at 115 lb where Ricci has spent the rest of her career. Ricci showed in her last fight she has no problem going to the ground with a dangerous submission threat as she fully neutralized Viana on the mat. Ricci originally turned pro in MMA in 2013 at just 18 years old. However, she then went and fought in a Japanese hybrid Judo league called SEIZA for a while before returning to MMA in 2020. Upon her return, she joined the LFA and defeated a series of very low level opponents in Kelsey Arnesen, who was fighting for the first time as a pro, a 36-year-old Vanessa Marie Grimes, who came in with a 1-5 pro record with four early losses, and Shawna Lee Ormsby, who entered with a 2-3 pro record. Following the string of wins Ricci joined the UFC with a perfect 5-0 record and proceeded to suffer her first career loss.

Now 7-1 as a pro, Ricci has one win by KO, two by submission, and four decisions. Her only career loss was the R2 TKO in her UFC debut. Both of her submission wins have come by R1 armbar, while two of her last four fights ended in round two TKOs (1-1).

Overall, Ricci relies on her grappling to win fights. She’s a BJJ and Judo black belt and a training partner of Mackenzie Dern, so unsurprisingly she has a solid ground game and looks most dangerous with her armbar submissions. She can explode for flurries of strikes, but doesn’t have a ton of power so really isn’t much of a knockout threat. The fact that she wasn’t able to land a finish against a debuting Maria Oliveira is concerning for her ability to land finishes in the future and all of her pre-UFC finishes came against a very low level of competition.

Jessica Penne

8th UFC Fight (3-4)

Penne recently turned 40 and is just 2-4 in her last six fights, with one of those wins coming in a dubious split decision and the other against a kamikazee-ing Karolina Kowalkiewicz who dove head first into an armbar. Four of Penne’s last five scheduled fights have been canceled, with her withdrawing from three of those, so hopefully she actually shows up to this one. Penne quite literally limped to the finish line in her last fight as she got her leg destroyed by a debuting Emily Ducote, who landed a ridiculous 51 leg strikes. Penne failed to land any of her eight takedowns in the match and looked completely helpless for the entire 15 minutes.

Penne was thrown straight into the fire early in her UFC career, getting a title shot against Joanna Jedrzejczyk in just her second UFC fight. Penne didn’t look even remotely ready for that fight and went 0 for 11 on takedowns and was outlanded 126-25 in significant strikes and 162-28 in total strikes in a third round TKO defeat. A year later, the UFC paired her up with Jessica Andrade and once again Penne absorbed a life shortening beatdown, as she was again massively outlanded 117-27 in significant strikes and 118-28 in total strikes, while failing to land any of her six takedown attempts and getting finished by TKO in the second round. She then faced a much easier opponent in Danielle Taylor, but ended up losing a close decision. Following her third straight loss, we didn’t see Penne inside of the Octagon for almost exactly four years as she battled a USADA suspension, claiming her innocence all along. She finally returned in April 2021 when she faced Godinez.

Now 14-6 as a pro, Penne has two wins by KO, eight by submission, and four decisions. She has two TKO losses, one by submission (2012 R4 armbar), and two decision defeats. Two of her last four decisions have been split, and she won both of those, or else she would be just 1-6 in the UFC. All three of her early losses occurred in the later rounds, while six of her 10 early wins came in round one. Penne started her pro career at Strawweight, but moved down to Atomweight in 2012, where she went 3-1. However, she moved back up to Strawweight in 2014 when she went on The Ultimate Fighter in 2014 and never returned to the Atomweight division.

Overall, Penne is a one-dimensional grappler and BJJ black belt. She’s tall for the strawweight division, but doesn’t use her length especially well on the feet and is a bad striker who only averages 2.62 SSL/min. She’s gone just 7 for 43 (16.3%) on her takedown attempts in the UFC, although for some reason her official stats also include her Invicta numbers. She’s also been taken down five times on 12 opponent attempts (58.3% defense).

Fight Prediction:

Penne will have a 4” height advantage and 6” reach advantage, but Ricci is 12 years younger than the 40-year-old Penne.

It feels like we’ve already seen this fight play out when Ricci defeated Polyana Viana, with the only difference being Viana is significantly more talented than Penne. Both Viana and Penne are 5’5” with a 67” reach and excel at locking up armbars. Ricci looked entirely comfortable in the grappling exchanges against Viana, and we don’t see her having too many issues with Penne’s grappling. However, it would also be surprising if Ricci was able to finish Penne, which seems to make a Ricci decision victory inevitable and that’s how we expect this one to end.

Our favorite bet here is “Ricci DEC” at -125.

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DFS Implications:

Ricci is coming off a pair of grappling-heavy decision wins that were good for 93 and 100 points on DraftKings. Her style of fighting is much better suited to the DraftKings scoring system compared to FanDuel, where she’s more reliant on landing finishes. This looks like another tough matchup for her to find a finish as she takes on a fellow grappler, so we don’t have much interest in playing her on FanDuel. And while she scored well in each of her last two fights, at her high price tag she’ll likely need to do even more to crack winning lineups. Working in her favor, she projects to be low owned, keeping her in the tournament play discussion. Just keep in mind there are more ways for her to bust than succeed here and she’ll need a career best performance to pay off. The odds imply she has a 72% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

Penne relies on her grappling to win fights and now she’ll face a fellow BJJ black belt who looks like a better wrestler. Neither one of these two are good strikers, so we still expect the fight to hit the mat. That will at least give Penne the opportunity to look for the hail mary submission she needs to score well. Her last decision win was only good for 69 DraftKings points and even at her cheap price tag she would need a lot of help to crack tournament winning lineups without a finish. The only thing Penne has going for her is her low ownership, but we still don’t have much interest in playing her here and Ricci has shown the ability to calmly defend submission attempts from superior grapplers. The odds imply Penne has a 28% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #11

Cameron Saaiman

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Fresh off a third round TKO win in his UFC debut, Saaiman was fortunate not to get disqualified in that fight after he landed a blatantly illegal knee in the second round square to the face of a grounded opponent. He’s lucky he wasn’t facing Aljo or else the fight wouldn’t have kept going, but Steven Koslow agreed to keep fighting after explaining to Chris Tognoni that he in fact was not a bitch. Nevertheless, he looked compromised from that point on and Saaiman dominated the rest of the fight after losing the first round. Koslow also notably took that fight on short notice and had never been past the first round before, so he may have been gassing out anyways. Saaiman landed another third round knockout just before that on DWCS, although that also came against a lower-level opponent who was quickly fading. Saaiman has still only required the judges once in his short career, which came in a five-round title fight win just before he went on DWCS.

Now 7-0 as a pro, Saaiman has five knockouts, one submission win, and one decision victory. Four of his last five finishes occurred in the later rounds, with his last three matches all making it to the third round. His six early wins have been split evenly across the first three rounds, but his fights have been getting progressively longer as he’s faced tougher competition.

Overall, Saaiman is still really young at just 22 years old, but is a teammate of Dricus Du Plessis and started training with him as a young teenager. Saaiman only turned pro in December 2019 and is still developing both physically and as a fighter, but he throws good, snappy kicks and has decent hands. He doesn’t have a very imposing frame but seems to make the most of what he’s got, and will mix in takedowns and look for both ground and pound and submissions on the mat. He also loves looking for guillotine chokes and does a good job of using them to reverse positions and gain top position on the ground. Given his age, he should be making improvements between every fight, although it’s only been three months since he won his debut. After making his debut against a low-level one dimensional grappler who stepped in on short notice, Saaiman will face a tougher test here.

Mana Martinez

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

Martinez is coming off a split-decision win over Brandon Davis and has now gone the distance in all three of his UFC fights after 9 of his first 10 pro bouts ended early, including eight KO wins in the first two rounds of fights. He also won a split decision in his UFC debut over an aging Guido Cannetti, before losing a decision to Ronnie Lawrence, who took Martinez down six times in the fight. To Martinez’s credit, he finished that fight strong, knocking Lawrence down twice in the third round, after Lawrence knocked him down twice in round two and once in round one.

Now 10-3 as a pro, Martinez has eight wins by KO and two decision victories, which were both split. Five of those knockouts occurred in round one, with the other three ending in round two. His last six KO wins all came in under six minutes, with five ending in round one, and three coming in 60 seconds or less. The only time he’s ever been finished was in a R1 submission on DWCS against Drako Rodriguez. His other two losses both went the distance. Only one of his first 10 pro fights made it past the seven minute mark, which ended in a split-decision loss in his second pro bout. Martinez is the only fighter to ever finish TUF winner Ricky Turcios.

Overall, Martinez is a karate black belt and a BJJ purple belt. He’s an Orthodox fighter but will sometimes switch stances and has an incredibly dangerous left hand. He doesn’t offer much in terms of grappling and is essentially a one-dimensional power puncher who’s never landed a knockout beyond the seven minute mark. With that said, between his three UFC fights and DWCS appearance, he’s landed three takedowns on seven attempts (42.9% accuracy). He’s struggled to defend takedowns, as he’s been taken down on 8 of 11 opponent attempts (27.3% defense). Martinez had been training at Glory MMA with James Krause, so he was forced to relocate following that whole debacle. He’s now training with Bob Perez at Main Street Boxing and Muay Thai, which isn’t overly encouraging for his need to improve his grappling. He says he's expecting/hoping for a striking battle but also expecting Saaiman to look to grapple at some point.

UPDATE: Martinez missed weight by 1 lb!

Fight Prediction:

Martinez will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage. He’s also four years older than the 22-year-old Saaiman.

Prior to joining the UFC, Martinez had been knocking everyone out early in fights, but he’s now fought to three straight decisions since making his debut. To his credit, he landed two knockdowns in each of his last two fights, but he was unable to get either of those opponents out of there. Saaiman looks like the better grappler, but both of these two are primarily strikers, although each guy will mix in occasional takedown attempts. While they’re both still young, Martinez is the more experienced of the two and has almost twice as many pro fights. Martinez is also more physically developed at this stage in his life, while Saaiman just turned 22 in December and is very young and still growing into his frame. So if anyone’s getting finished here, we think it will be Saaiman getting knocked out. However, Martinez’s patient approach makes it more likely for fights to end in close decisions when he’s unable to land knockouts, which has been all of his UFC fights so far. Amazingly, three of his four career decisions have been split, with him winning the last two of those. While it sort of feels like chasing, we wouldn’t be surprised to see another split decision here, just based on the way he fights. If Saaiman is smart, he’ll look to grapple more, as Martinez has really struggled to defend takedowns. However, we’re not expecting an extremely grappling-heavy gameplan from him, which will likely result in another close decision here that comes down to who lands the bigger shots, assuming Martinez doesn’t knock him out. From a straight pick ‘em perspective we still give Saaiman a slightly better chance to win, but the odds seem too wide in this fight and we’re more interested in Martinez’s side of things when it comes to betting.

Our favorite bet here is “Martinez KO” at +650.

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DFS Implications:

Saaiman is the 22-year-old protege of Dricus Du Plessis and is decently well-rounded. He’ll mix in takedowns, and has okay, but unexceptional striking volume at 4.06 SSL/min. While he was able to score a really solid 118 DraftKings points in a late third round TKO in his recent UFC debut, on close examination you’ll see that score was propped up by a ridiculous six reversals. If you take those away he would have been looking at just 88 points, which coincidentally is exactly what he would have scored in his previous third round knockout win on DWCS. Saaiman’s recent two wins both came against lower level opponents and we expect to see some growing pains soon for the young kid. Now he faces an opponent with solid power who’s never been knocked out in his career and this will be a tougher spot for Saaiman to return value at his high price tag. It looks like he’ll need a well timed finish in the first two rounds to really score well. The odds imply he has a 72% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.

Martinez has now fought to three straight decisions in the UFC after looking like a prolific knockout artist on the regional scene, with all eight of his pre-UFC wins coming by knockout in the first two rounds. He has landed a pair of knockdowns in each of his last two fights, which still allowed him to score a somewhat respectable 91 DraftKings points in his most recent split-decision win. At his cheap price tag, it’s not impossible for him to serve as a value play even in a decision win, but we’re more so relying on his knockout ability to score well. Saaiman is still just 22 years old and only has seven pro fights, so despite being undefeated he’s not an overly imposing opponent and is still pretty green. On a slate with a ton of huge underdogs, we’re going to need to catch some breaks to find the few that end up in winning lineups, and Martinez has the one punch power to get us there. The odds imply he has a 31% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #10

Ian Garry

4th UFC Fight (3-0)

Coming off his second straight decision win, Garry defeated a tough and durable Gabe Green in an impressive striking performance. Garry nearly got Green out of there in the third round after knocking him down, but Green was able to survive to lose a unanimous 30-27 decision. Just before that, Garry won a far less exciting decision against Darian Weeks, after knocking out Jordan Williams in the final second of round one in Garry’s UFC debut. Prior to joining the UFC, Garry went 7-0 with Cage Warriors and won the vacant Welterweight title in a 25 minute decision in June 2021 just before moving up to the big leagues. Garry has now gone the distance in three of his last four fights.

Now 10-0 as a pro, Garry has five wins by KO, one by submission, and four decisions. After going the distance in his 2019 pro debut, Garry landed five straight finishes in the first two rounds before winning the Cage Warriors Welterweight title in a five-round decision. His last four finishes have all come by KO, and his only submission victory occurred in the first round of his third pro fight. He has two first round knockouts on his record and three in round two.

Overall, Garry is still just 25 years old and appears to be improving every time he steps inside the Octagon. He looked much better in his last decision win than the one before that and it’s just a matter of time until he starts finding more finishes. At 6’3” with a 74” reach, he has really good size for the division and is a very accurate striker with good footwork, while also being a judo black belt. After failing to attempt a takedown in his first two UFC fights, Garry landed one of his two attempts in his last match (50% accuracy). He’s also been taken down twice on eight opponent attempts (75% defense). Hailing from Ireland, Garry has been hyping himself up as the next Conor McGregor, and is overall very cringe to listen to in interviews, but that self promotion should help to push him into looking for more finishes. The UFC seems to be buying into the hype, as Garry has exclusively fought on PPV cards, even making his debut at Madison Square Garden. Garry joined Sanford MMA (now Kill Cliff FC) leading up to his UFC debut and trains with a bunch of high-level UFC fighters.

Song Kenan

7th UFC Fight (4-2)

Two years removed from a first round knockout loss against Max Griffin, it’s been over three years since Kenan won a fight when he landed a first round knockout of his own against Callan Potter. Kenan originally exploded onto the UFC scene in 2017 with a 15 second R1 KO win followed up by another knockout victory in the second round of his next match. For context, the first win came against Bobby Nash, who came into the fight 0-2 in the UFC after getting knocked out in the second round twice and was released following his third straight KO loss. The second win was against Hector Aldana, who was making his UFC debut after nearly a three year layoff from fighting and is now 0-3 in the UFC with two KO losses and hasn’t fought since 2019. Following the pair of knockouts, Kenan lost a decision to Alex Morono in 2018, but bounced back with a decision win over Derrick Krantz, who entered the fight 0-1 in the UFC and was cut after his second UFC loss. Both fighters were so exhausted by the third round, the strikes being thrown were comically pathetic. Since that 2019 decision win, Kenan has fought just the two times, with both fights ending in first round knockouts (1-1) at exactly the 2:20 mark. To sum that up, four of Kenan’s six UFC fights have ended in knockouts in the first two rounds, with three ending in round one. This will be Kenan’s second fight in the US, after his first five UFC fights were all abroad.

Now 19-6 as a pro, Kenan has nine wins by KO/TKO, eight by submission, and two decision victories. He’s been knocked out in three of his losses, with the other three going the distance. The first early loss of his career actually came against Israel Adesanya in a R1 KO with the WFC organization, his second KO loss came in the second round of a 2017 fight against Brad Riddell, and his third KO loss was in the first round against Max Griffin. So all of his early losses have come against world class competition.

Overall, despite Kenan having eight submission wins on his record, he looks like a one-dimensional striker and has never even attempted a takedown in six UFC appearances, while his opponents have taken him down six times on 12 attempts (50% defense). He’s shown bad cardio and has lost three of the five decisions he’s been to in his career. After two years away, there is some uncertainty surrounding his current form, but if he doesn’t quickly shake off the ring rust there’s a good chance he’ll get finished before he ever gets going.

Fight Prediction:

Garry will have a 3” height and reach advantage and is seven years younger than the 32-year-old Kenan.

This looks like a clear setup to get Garry a big finish on a huge PPV card and boost his stock in the company. Kenan hasn’t competed in two years and there’s no other reason for him to be on this card. He’s been knocked out three times before and is basically a much worse version of Garry, as they’re both tall and long strikers. Kenan didn’t show any sort of chin or striking defense in his last match and we’d be very surprised if he even made it to the third round in this fight. We’ll take Garry by KO in the first two rounds, most likely in round one.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in KO” at -150.

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DFS Implications:

Garry showed improvements to his output and aggressiveness in his last fight and nearly notched a third round knockout, but Gabe Green was narrowly able to survive. Garry was still able to score 95 DraftKings points in a decision win, after only scoring 62 points in his previous decision win. While Garry’s post fight interviews are tough to watch, his striking is a thing to be seen. He’s still just 25 years old and seems to be improving every time he steps inside the Octagon, and now gets a teed up matchup against an opponent who’s been knocked out three times and hasn’t competed in two years. The UFC is clearly using Kenan to build Garry up here, making it a prime explosion spot in DFS. We expect Garry to knock Kenan out without too much trouble, at which point the only question is whether or not he can outscore the other high priced fighters. While that’s a crapshoot and will require things to break the right way for him, we know Garry will be significantly less owned than Nickal and Shevchenko, making him a no-brainer tournament pivot. The odds imply he has an 85% chance to win, a 60% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.

Kenan is the sacrificial lamb being brought to slaughter in this matchup so we obviously don’t have any interest in playing him in DFS. He’s a KO or bust fighter who’s only been able to knock out low-level opponents and will now be going against the undefeated Garry, who has looked defensively sound and has Kenan beat anywhere the fight goes. The only reason to even consider playing Kenan is his very low ownership and the fact that freak injuries and DQs happen from time to time in fights. Kenan is nothing more than a lottery ticket on chaos occurring. The odds imply he has a 15% chance to win, a 9% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #9

Marc-Andre Barriault

10th UFC Fight (3-5, NC)

Looking to bounce back from a third round submission loss against Anthony Hernandez, Barriault’s last three fights have now all ended early and he’s only been to one decision in his last six matches, after his first three UFC matches all went to the judges. Prior to his recent defeat, he submitted Jordan Wright in the first round, after getting knocked out in round one by Chidi Njokuani. Barriault’s only trip to the judges since 2019 came in a 2021 decision win over Dalcha Lungiambula. Barriault notched his first official UFC finish just before that when he landed a late third round TKO against an exhausted Abu Azaitar. Barriault also finished his previous opponent in a second round knockout of Oskar Piechota, but the results were overturned to a No Contest when Barriault failed a drug test. Barriault had a rocky start to his UFC career, as he lost three straight decisions to Andrew Sanchez, Krzysztof Jotko, and JunYong Park.

Now 14-6 as a pro, Barriault has nine wins by KO, one by submission, and four decisions. Four of his six losses have gone the distance, with the other ending in a R1 KO and a R3 submission, both in his last three matches. Six of his nine UFC fights have made it to the third round, with four going the distance.

Overall, Barriault typically relies on his striking and cardio to win fights, and seems to enjoy working out of the clinch. He averages 5.35 SSL/min and 4.83 SSA/min and will occasionally land a takedown. On the other side of things, Barriault has been taken down 20 times on 52 attempts (61.5% defense) in his nine UFC fights. We saw him get ragdolled by Anthony Hernandez for two and a half rounds in his last fight before he was eventually submitted, and JunYong Park was also able to take him down five times on 10 attempts.

Julian Marquez

6th UFC Fight (3-2)

Marquez had been scheduled to fight Deron Winn back in December, but Winn withdrew the day before the event. Fight cancellations have plagued Marquez throughout his UFC career, as four of his last five scheduled fights have been canceled. The last time we actually saw him inside the Octagon was in June 2022, when he got knocked out for the first time in his career by Gregory Rodrigues in the first round. Prior to that, Marquez had landed a pair of later round submissions against Sam Alvey and Maki Pitolo. His one other UFC win also ended in a late round submission, in the second round of his 2017 UFC debut. The last time Marquez knocked anybody out was in 2017 on DWCS, when he finished Phil Hawes in the second round. Marquez lost a debatable split decision to Alessio Di Chirico in 2018 and suffered a potentially career ending injury when he completely tore his latissimus dorsi muscle. He didn’t return to the Octagon until 2021, when he landed a comeback third-round submission against Maki Pitolo in a fight that Pitolo was up 20-18 on all three judges’ score cards.

Now 9-3 as a pro, all nine of Marquez’s career wins have come early, with six KOs and three submissions. His last four wins all occurred in the mid-to-later rounds, with three ending in R2 and one in R3. He does have four first round knockouts on his record but those all came earlier in his career and he hasn’t finished an opponent in round one since 2017. He’s coming off the first early loss of his career in a R1 KO, while his other two defeats both went the distance.

Overall, Marquez is a dangerous finisher both with his hands and his chokes, but he’s not a guy that’s going to blow you away with anything he does. He’s just a durable and powerful fighter with an innate finishing ability who will snatch up your neck if you give him the opportunity but can also maul you with his hands. He’s not the most technical striker and has short arms for his size, but he can take one to land one and has shown a solid chin. He’s only a BJJ purple belt, but he’s got a tight squeeze and it’s also easier to choke guys out when they’re already half unconscious. He had been training at Glory MMA with James Krause, but after the whole Krause betting scandal Marquez moved to Factory X in Colorado, and is now training at altitude. It will be interesting to see what changes he’s made with a new team behind him.

Fight Prediction:

Marquez will have a 1” height advantage, but Barriault will have a 2” reach advantage.

This sets up as a fun fight between two guys that are both willing to push the pace. Neither one of them has required the judges in their last three fights and they’re both coming off early losses. Marquez just got knocked out for the first time in his career, so we’ll see if that changes his approach any, but we’re hoping it doesn’t. He’s looked like the more dangerous finisher of the two, but neither one of these two have defeated any truly high-level talent. Marquez has more power, a better chin, and better submission skills, and we like him to find another finish to keep his 100% finishing rate in tact. Give us Marquez by second round submission.

Our favorite bet here is “Marquez ITD” at +200.

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DFS Implications:

Barriault started slow in his UFC career with three straight decision losses, but has since shown he can excel in the right matchup. Two of his last three wins have come early, and both of those finishes came in great matchups. Despite putting up a big striking total in his lone UFC decision win, he only scored 80 DraftKings as he added nothing on the ground. He’s only landed two takedowns in nine UFC appearances, which leaves him reliant on landing a finish to score well. Marquez has only been finished once in his career, although that was in his last fight. If Marquez’s chin isn’t what it used to be, perhaps Barriault can find another finish here, but more likely if Barriault wins it will be in a decision and he won’t score quite enough to be useful. The odds imply he has a 57% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.

Marquez is coming off the first knockout loss of his career, which adds some uncertainty here as you never know how fighters will respond to that. But assuming Marquez doesn’t retreat back into his shell, he generally makes for exciting fights and 100% of his wins have come early. However, he doesn’t land a ton of striking volume (4.18 SSL/min) and has never landed a takedown in the UFC, and all three of his UFC finishes have come by submission in the later rounds. Because of that, he’s only averaged 88 DraftKings points in those three victories, scoring just 74 and 85 points in two of them. He was able to put up a more respectable 105 points in his last finish, showing at least decent upside. At his mid-range price tag, he doesn’t need to put up a slate-breaking score to end up in winning tournament lineups, but his lower past scores definitely present a way he finds a finish and still gets left out. Working in his favor, Barriault has been finished in two of his last three fights and we like Marquez’s chances of finishing this fight early. The odds imply he has a 43% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #8

Amanda Ribas

8th UFC Fight (5-2)

Ribas is coming off a close/questionable split-decision loss to Katlyn Chookagian in her first fight after moving up from 115 lb to 125 lb. Ribas was able to take Chookagian down in all three rounds, but finished slightly behind in striking and Chookagian did what she does best and went on to win a close decision. Ribas then had been scheduled to face Tracy Cortez in December, but Cortez withdrew the day before the fight due to a medical issue. Ribas originally joined the UFC in 2019 and won her first four fights, before getting knocked out by Marina Rodriguez in 2021. She bounced back with a decision win over Virna Jandiroba, before moving up to 125 lb in her recent loss to Chookagian.

Now 10-3 as a pro, Ribas has two wins by TKO, four by submission, and four decisions. She’s been knocked out twice and has one decision loss. One of her KO losses came in the first round of a 2015 fight against Polyana Viana before either of them joined the UFC, while the other occurred in the opening minute of round two against Marina Rodriguez. So both of her early career losses ended in under six minutes. All six of her early wins also came in the first halves of fights, including four in round one and two early in round two. Ribas spent almost all of her career at 115 lb before moving up to 125 lb in her last match, but did fight a terrible Paige VanZant at 125 lb in 2020 and landed a first round submission.

Overall, Ribas is the most dangerous on the ground. While her striking isn’t terrible, she’s been pretty hittable on the feet and has been knocked down in two of her last three fights. She holds black belts in both Judo and BJJ and likes to look for head and arm throws. She’s landed at least one takedown in all seven of her UFC fights, but whoever has finished ahead in significant strikes has won all seven of those matches.

Viviane Araujo

9th UFC Fight (5-3)

Looking to bounce back from a five-round decision loss to Alexa Grasso, Araujo also had a close/questionable decision loss to Katlyn Chookagian not that long ago, which occurred in her third most recent fight. In between those two losses, Araujo defeated Andrea Lee in a grappling-heavy decision win, and Araujo has gone the distance in seven straight matches after landing a third round knockout in her 2019 UFC debut, which took place up at 135 lb. Prior to her string of decisions, Araujo’s first eight career fights all ended early. Three of her last four wins have come against grapplers, while she’s lost to two of the last three strikers she’s faced.

Now 11-4 as a pro, Araujo has three wins by KO, four by submission, and four decisions. She’s been knocked out once (R1 2017), and has three decision losses. After fighting at 115 lb early in her career, Araujo made her UFC debut at 135 lb, before dropping down to 125 lb, where she’s stayed since. We’ve yet to see any of her 125 lb fights end early.

Overall, Araujo is a BJJ and Luta Livre black belt. She’s landed at least one takedown in seven of her eight UFC fights, with 17 total takedowns landed on 35 attempts (48.6% accuracy). On the other side of things, she has an elite 90.5% takedown defense and has only been taken down twice on 21 opponent attempts in the UFC. In addition to being a solid grappler, she’s a crisp striker with good power. She tends to get hit a decent amount and averages 5.33 SSA/min, while landing 4.82 SS/min of her own. She’s been outlanded in significant strikes in six of her last seven matches, despite winning four of those seven fights. The one other concern with her is her cardio, and we’ve seen her slow down late in fights. However, she went five rounds in her last match, which is encouraging.

Fight Prediction:

Araujo will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage. Ribas is seven years younger than the 36-year-old Araujo.

Ribas is a beast at 115 lb, which made it surprising when she moved up to 125 lb. She’s now facing bigger, stronger opponents, which diminishes her grappling advantage. Both of these ladies are BJJ black belts with elite takedown defenses (88% and 90%), which likely turns this into predominantly a striking battle. Araujo is the more powerful of the two and Ribas has been a bit chinny at times in the past. That creates the potential for Araujo to knock her out, but otherwise we expect this to end in a close decision. While Ribas has the potential to land more striking volume, we expect Araujo to be landing the bigger shots. Between her size and power advantage, we like Araujo’s chances of pulling off the upset either in a knockout or a close decision.

Our favorite bet here is Araujo’s ML at +100.

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DFS Implications:

Ribas has averaged 93 DraftKings points in her five UFC wins, but has relied on her grappling to really score well, whether it be landing submissions or controlling opponents on the mat. The last time she faced a fellow grappler was when she won a decision over Virna Jandiroba, but Ribas only scored 79 DraftKings points in that victory. Now she’ll face another grappler in Viviane Araujo, who has an elite 90% takedown defense and is larger and more powerful than Ribas. That will make it really tough for Ribas to find much grappling success, and we’ve seen her get exposed on the feet, with two knockout losses on her record. That leaves Ribas with a low floor and ceiling, and we’re not a huge fan of her competing up at 125 lb these days. Perhaps we’ll see her move back down to 115 lb if she suffers her second straight loss at 125 lb here. We don’t see Ribas cracking tournament winning lineups unless she becomes the first fighter to ever submit Araujo. The odds imply Ribas has a 52% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

Araujo has a similar outlook as Ribas, as she’s been reliant on grappling and finishes to score well and Ribas also has an elite 88% takedown defense. The last time Araujo won a decision without landing a takedown, she scored just 65 DraftKings points. Even at her cheaper price tag, that won’t be enough to crack winning lineups, which appears to leave her reliant on finding a finish to score well. Working in her favor, Araujo has solid power and Ribas has been knocked out twice before. Ribas also moved up from 115 lb to 125 lb for her last fight, so she’s a little undersized at this weight class. That gives us some optimism that Araujo can knock her out, just keep in mind Araujo has gone to the judges in seven straight fights after landing a knockout in her UFC debut. The odds imply she has a 48% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #7

Dricus Du Plessis

5th UFC Fight (4-0)

Fresh off a third round submission win over Darren Till, Du Plessis has won six straight and 14 of his last 15 fights. The only time he’s ever required the judges was in his second most recent fight, in a decision win over Brad Tavares. Prior to that victory, he landed a pair of knockouts in his first two UFC fights. While Du Plessis’ last two fights have both made it to the third round, eight of his previous nine ended in under 10 minutes. He nearly finished Till in round one, before looking to tire in round two. However, he dug deep in round three and took Till down midway through the round and submitted him with a neck crank that Till immediately tapped to. Du Plessis impressively landed all six of his takedown attempts in that fight, while also setting a high striking pace.

Now 18-2 as a pro, Du Plessis has seven wins by KO, 10 by submission, and won the only decision he’s ever been to. All seven of his knockouts have come in the first two rounds, with four ending in round one. His submission wins have been more spread out, with four in round one, three in round two, and three more in round three. He has eight first round finishes, six in round two, and three in round three. The only time he’s ever been knocked out was against Roberto Soldic in the third round of 2018 KSW Welterweight Championship fight. That was a rematch after Du Plessis knocked out Soldic just six months earlier in the second round when those two first fought for the KSW Welterweight belt. The only other loss of Du Plessis’ career was a 2014 third round submission. Du Plessis has moved between 170 lb and 185 lb throughout his career, but has exclusively fought at 185 lb since suffering the 2018 KO loss to Soldic at 170 lb.

Overall, Du Plessis is an explosive fighter with the ability to finish fights at any moment. He’s a powerful striker and a decent grappler, who trained judo as a kid and loves to look for guillotines. He’s made his title aspirations clear and always looks for finishes, owning an impressive 94.4% finishing rate in his wins. While Du Plessis looks to tire later in fights, he’s shown the ability to go three hard rounds, despite his explosive fighting style. He operates at such a high pace that it wears on both his own cardio and that of his opponent and he averages 6.62 SSL/min and 3.73 SSA/min. He’s also landed 8 takedowns on 17 attempts (47.1% accuracy), while he’s only been taken down once on two opponent attempts (50% defense). He likes to look for guillotines, which is how he finished four of his last five submission victories.

Derek Brunson

21st UFC Fight (14-6)

Thirteen months removed from his first loss in his last six bouts, Brunson got violently knocked out by Jared Cannonier, who bounced Brunson’s head off the mat with a series of concussion elbows late in the second round of a title eliminator fight. Prior to that, Brunson submitted a struggling Darren Till in the third round of a September 2021 match, after winning a five-round grappling-heavy decision over Kevin Holland. Brunson’s one other finish over that five-fight winning streak was an August 2020 third round TKO over Edmen Shahbazyan, and there’s a clear pattern of Brunson finding the most success against pure strikers, especially ones that struggle to defend takedowns. Brunson’s second most recent loss was all the way back in 2018 when he got knocked out by Adesanya in the first round. Following that loss, Brunson switched camps to Sanford MMA (now Kill Cliff FC) in 2019 and demonstrated a much more patient fighting style than he had in the past, which translated to five straight wins. All five of those fights have made it to the third round, with three going the distance, after 9 of his previous 10 ended in round one. However, he’s now only been to one decision in his last four matches. In his 10 fights prior to joining Sanford, Brunson landed a total of just two takedowns. However, in his six fights since making the move he’s landed 22.

Now 23-8 as a pro, Brunson has 12 wins by KO, four by submission, and seven decisions. Three of his four submission wins occurred in 2013 or before, and 17 of his last 18 fights have ended in either knockouts (7-5) or decisions (4-1), with the one exception being his submission win over Till. He’s been knocked out in six of his eight losses, with the other two ending in decisions. Four of the times he’s been knocked out came in the first round.

Overall, Brunson relies very heavily on his wrestling and he was a three time D2 All-American wrestler in college, in addition to being a BJJ black belt. While he constantly looks to take fights to the mat, he’s looking for more heavy ground and pound than submissions once he gets there. However, when presented with a submission opportunity he will take it when an opponent gives up their back. In his last six fights, Brunson has landed 22 takedowns on 58 attempts (37.9% accuracy), and he’s only been taken down by his opponents once in his career. We’ve seen Brunson hurt on the feet at various points in his career and his striking defense is his biggest liability, however he’s never been submitted. Brunson is now 39 years old, and leading up to that fight, Brunson announced his plans to fight twice more and then retire—win or lose. So if he sticks with that then this should be his retirement fight, although it sounds like he may be back tracking some. Regardless, he’s already brought up the idea of retiring soon and you can't put that genie back in the bottle.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 6’1” but Brunson will have a 1” reach advantage. However, Du Plessis is a full decade younger than the 39-year-old Brunson.

Brunson went on one last title run, but came up just short of getting his first title shot when Cannonier knocked him out in the second round. Now he’s 39 years old, 13 months removed from a violent KO loss, and fighting the #10 ranked Du Plessis. It’s now unclear how much longer Brunson plans on fighting, but he claimed going into his last fight that he only wanted to fight twice more, so clearly he’s almost ready to call it quits. A win here wouldn’t immediately put him back in the title conversation, while another loss would almost certainly be the end of any future title talk. He looks to have a compromised chin and when he can’t get opponents to the ground that becomes very problematic. Now he’s facing a motivated finisher with heavy hands and a dangerous guillotine. While Brunson has never been submitted in his career, if Du Plessis does lock something up, Brunson may just retire then and there in a move of self preservation. However, it’s still more likely that Du Plessis knocks him out. Du Plessis said these two trained together a little back in 2018 or 2019, before Du Plessis joined the UFC, so they should be familiar with one another to some extent—not that it’s any sort of secret what Brunson’s game plan will be. Du Plessis has only faced two takedowns so far in the UFC, so it’s hard to fully evaluate his takedown defense, but he did start off training in judo. It’s not inconceivable that Brunson is able to get him down and control him, potentially even finishing him on the mat. However, with all things considered and with Brunson potentially already having one foot out the door, we like Du Plessis’ chances of finishing Brunson, most likely by knockout in the first two rounds.

Our favorite bet here is “Dricus Du Plessis R2 KO” at +550.

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DFS Implications:

Du Plessis continues to beat everyone the UFC sticks in front of him and is quickly climbing the ranks after four straight wins with the organization, with three finishes. He scored a career best 126 DraftKings points in a third round submission win in his last match, which came against Darren Till, who has made a career out of slowing fights down and sabotaging DFS production. If you can score well against Till, you can pretty much score well against anybody. Du Plessis has only been to the judges once in 20 pro fights and pushes the pace with a combination of striking and grappling that makes for DFS friendly fights. It will be interesting to see how he handles the relentless wrestling of Brunson, as Du Plessis has only faced two takedown attempts so far in the UFC, getting grounded on one of those. So there’s certainly the possibility for Brunson to take him down and control him, as we’ve seen Brunson do in the past. However, if that doesn’t happen, Brunson has been knocked out in six of his eight career losses and has a dubious chin. He’s also on the verge of retiring, at least according to him before he last fought. That’s a huge red flag for Brunson, and a boost for Du Plessis’ outlook. Based on the way these two guys fight, whoever wins should score well, unless Brunson controls Du Plessis for all of round one and then gets knocked out early in round two—or as we affectionately call it, the Phil Rowe special. Du Plessis will have a tougher time returning value if this fight manages to go the distance, but his fights rarely do. The odds imply Du Plessis has a 68% chance to win, a 50% chance to land a finish, and a 25% chance it comes in round one.

Brunson is drifting towards the end of his career and has already begun talking about retirement, which is always a major red flag for aging UFC fighters. However, he’s put up big scores in his last three wins, averaging 119 DraftKings points over that stretch, although one of those did come in a five-round decision. His wrestling-heavy approach to fighting is better suited to the DraftKings scoring system, but his cheaper price tag and ability to rack up takedowns and land finishes keeps him in play on both sites. He’s shown a suspect chin and has been knocked out in six of his eight career losses and will now be going up against a dangerous finisher, leaving Brunson with a non-existent floor but a solid ceiling. We expect him to be a pretty popular underdog option, slightly lowering his tournament appeal, but if he pulls off the upset he most likely ends up in winning lineups. The odds imply he has a 32% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #6

Cody Garbrandt

13th UFC Fight (7-5)

Garbrandt had been scheduled to face Julio Arce here, but Arce withdrew and Jones stepped in on four weeks’ notice. That was Garbrandt’s third straight opponent to drop out against him, after Rani Yahya dropped out of two scheduled fights in 2022.

After a failed attempt at dropping down to 125 lb for his last fight, Garbrandt will now be returning to 135 lb where he previously won the Bantamweight belt back in 2016 against Dominick Cruz. Since that win, Garbrandt has just one win over the last 6+ years, which came against an aging Raphael Assuncao in June 2020. In his other five most recent fights, he’s been knocked out four times and lost a five-round decision to Rob Font. His last three KO losses all ended in the first round, affectionately earning him the nickname Cody “No Chin” Garbrandt.

Now 12-5 as a pro, Garbrandt has 10 wins by KO/TKO and two decision victories. He’s also been knocked out four times and has one decision loss. Ten of his 17 career fights have ended in R1 KOs (7-3), three ended in R2 KOs (2-1) and one ended in a third round KO (1-0). Five of his last six fights have ended in knockouts in the first two rounds (1-4).

Overall, Garbrandt had a background in amateur boxing as well as some experience playing football and wrestling in high school. He relies mostly on his striking and has only taken two of his last 10 opponents down. With that said, he shot for 10 takedowns in his five-round decision loss to Font in his second most recent fight, completing three of those. Looking at his 12 UFC fights, Garbrandt has landed 8 of his 26 takedown attempts (30.8% accuracy), while he’s only been taken down twice on 12 opponent attempts (83.3% defense). However half of his completed takedowns came in his first two UFC fights, all the way back in 2015. He’s been largely content with duking things out on the feet, with his most valuable attribute being his speed. While he does have solid 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 3.16 SSL/min and 4.22 SSA/min. He’s never landed more than 68 significant strikes in a fight and that came in his five-round decision win. Garbrandt has been outlanded by his opponents in six of his last seven fights and he’s largely reliant on landing knockouts to secure wins. After spending his career at Team Alpha Male in California, Garbrandt followed his ex-wife and son to Vegas before this fight and is now training at Xtreme Couture for the first time, so it will be interesting to see what changes they have made to his game. It’s also been 15 months since he last competed, so perhaps the time off will have helped his chin.

Trevin Jones

6th UFC Fight (1-3, NC)

Desperate for a win, Jones has lost three straight fights, but has had one of the tougher schedules you’ll ever see to start a UFC career. He made his short notice UFC debut in August 2020 against the 16-2 Timur Valiev and after nearly getting finished in round one, Jones bounced back and knocked Valiev out in round two. However, the win was overturned to a No Contest when Jones tested positive for THC. Then he took on Mario Bautista, who’s been destroying everybody lately, and Jones knocked him out in the second round. Next, Jones faced an incredibly tough Saidyokub Kakhramonov and lost via third round submission. He followed that up with a pair of decision losses to Javid Basharat and Raoni Barcelos, and Jones has literally faced five straight killers so far in the UFC. He had fights scheduled against Rany Costa, Tony Kelley, Ronnie Lawrence, and Mana Martinez, but all four of those opponents withdrew. In his recent decision loss to Barcelos, Jones was never able to get anything going as Barcelos ran laps around him. Barcelos finished ahead 73-11 in significant strikes, 119-15 in total strikes, 2-0 in takedowns, and 7:07-0:00 in control time.

Now 13-9 as a pro, Jones has three wins by KO/TKO (not counting the knockout win in his debut that was later overturned to a No Contest), four by submission, and six decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but has been submitted twice and has seven decision losses. If we include his knockout that was later overturned, Jones’ last three early wins all occurred in the second round. While five of his last seven fights have ended early, he’s seen the second round in six straight fights and only two of his last 19 fights have ended in round one.

Overall, Jones is a decently well-rounded fighter, but has struggled in the grappling exchanges against higher-level competition. In his five UFC fights, he’s only landed 2 of his 18 takedown attempts (11.1%), while his opponents have taken down 4 times on 12 attempts (66.7% defense). His counter striking style also isn’t conducive to coming out ahead in the striking numbers, as he averages just 2.33 SSL/min but 4.96 SSA/min, and has been considerably outlanded in four of his UFC matches. That generally leaves him reliant on landing finishes to win fights and he’s lost the last four decisions he’s been to. Despite his lack of volume, somehow six of the last nine decisions he’s been to have been split. Jones said he actually feels like he’s done better on shorter notice fights than with full camps, which proved to be true in his UFC debut in all fairness. He trained some at Fortis MMA leading up to this fight, so we’ll see if he’s added anything to his game.

Fight Prediction:

Garbrandt will have a 1” height advantage, but Jones will have a 5” reach advantage.

Both of these two are desperate for a win, with Jones on a three fight skid and Garbrandt only having one win in his last six fights, which was three years ago. Neither one of them throws much striking volume and they each absorb more strikes than they land. The main difference is that Jones can actually take a punch and has never been knocked out, while Garbrandt has been knocked out in four of his last six fights. We expect to see a slower paced match, with Garbrandt potentially looking to mix in more wrestling. The key to the fight will be whether or not Jones can land his sneaky powerful lead right hook that he used to knock out Mario Bautista and Timur Valiev. If he can, look for Garbrandt to get knocked out again, but if he can’t then he’ll likely lose a close, low-volume decision. We like Jones’ chances of knocking Garbrandt out in the first two rounds, most likely in round two.

Our favorite bet here is “Trevin Jones ITD” at +250.

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DFS Implications:

Garbrandt is a R1 KO or bust fighter who has lacked the striking volume or grappling stats to score well beyond that. He’s never shown the ability to score well in decisions, or even in later round knockouts. He only scored 88 DraftKings points in his last second round KO win, and just 91 points in a third round KO victory earlier in his career. His lone UFC three-round decision win was only good for 83 points, and even in his 2016 five-round decision victory over Cruz he still scored just 84 points, despite landing two knockdowns. Now he’s going up against an opponent who’s never been knocked out and it’s unlikely Garbrandt will notch the first round knockout he needs to score well, especially when you consider the fact that he has just one win since 2016, which was also the year he landed his last first round knockout. The odds imply he has a 61% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one, which all seem generous.

Jones is a low-volume striker who only averages 2.33 SSL/min and has been outlanded in all but one of his UFC fights. He has just an 11% takedown accuracy and will now be going against the solid 83% takedown defense of Garbrandt, so it will be tough for him to add much in terms of grappling. That leaves him reliant on landing an early knockout to score well. Working in his favor, Garbrandt has been knocked out in the first two rounds in four of his last six fights, and has one of the worst chins in the UFC. Due to his lack of activity, Jones is still unlikely to put up a huge score even with a finish and his last knockout was only good for 94 DraftKings points, but at his cheap price tag he doesn’t need to notch a slate-breaking score to crack tournament winning lineups. Just keep in mind, there are ways he knocks Garbrandt out and still gets left out of winning lineups if this ends up being a higher scoring slate with multiple underdogs landing finishes. The odds imply he has a 39% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #5

Bo Nickal

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

This matchup had originally been booked for December 10th but got pushed back after Nickal withdrew citing an injury that had been bothering him since he went on DWCS.

Now making his UFC debut in just his fourth pro fight, Nickal has yet to be in a pro fight that lasted longer than 62 seconds. He made his pro debut in June 2022 and knocked out an opponent in 33 seconds. Then he went on DWCS in August 2022 and landed a first round submission in 62 seconds after immediately taking his opponent down. However, with just two pro fights to his name, Dana White wanted him to come back on DWCS one more time before handing him a contract, and Nickal landed another first round submission, this time in just 52 seconds.

Now 3-0 as a pro, Nickal has one win by knockout and two by submission. He also went 2-0 as an amateur, with another first round knockout and another first round submission win.

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 won the 2019 Dan Hodge Trophy as the nation's best college wrestler. He 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 trains at American Top Team and has a good team around him, but is still just a BJJ blue belt and has yet to have his cardio tested in an MMA fight. With just 147 seconds of total professional fight time, it’s hard to really evaluate Nickal very thoroughly, but he’s shown some level of striking in addition to his elite wrestling, and also the ability to look for submissions. Still just 27 years old and only nine months into his pro MMA career, Nickal should be making drastic improvements to round out his skillset between every fight. He has so much wrestling experience that he should be used to fighting in front of crowds and with the pressure on, but it will be interesting to see if he has any nerves to deal with as he makes his UFC debut. Nickal wasn’t hit a single time in either of his DWCS matches, and barely got touched in his pro debut, so we have no idea what type of chin he has.

Jamie Pickett

7th UFC Fight (2-4)

Continuing to struggle, Pickett has been finished in the first two rounds in each of his last two fights and is now just 2-4 in the UFC and barely clinging to his job. After losing a decision in his 2020 UFC debut against Tafon Nchukwi, Pickett got finished in just 64 seconds via TKO against Jordan Wright in his next fight. While Pickett bounced back with a pair of boring decision wins, he then got submitted in the final second of the first round by Kyle Daukaus, showing a lack of awareness as he tapped with literally one second left in the round. Most recently, Pickett got knocked out by a one dimensional striker in Denis Tiuliulin, who’s been finished in his other two UFC fights. Pickett has yet to look offensively dangerous in the UFC and has only been able to defeat struggling opponents in boring decisions.

Now 13-8 as a pro, Pickett has eight wins by KO, one by “submission” and four decisions. His only submission wins came by punches in 2014. Pickett has been knocked out twice, submitted three times, and has three decision losses. While eight of Pickett’s 13 pro wins have come by KO/TKO, he’s only landed one knockout in his last nine matches, which was on DWCS in 2020 against a suspect opponent. Pickett has not looked dangerous at the UFC level and has been content with grinding out decisions by pushing opponents up against the cage. Three of his last four wins have gone the distance.

Overall, Pickett has yet to do anything to impress us since joining the UFC and while he’s got decent athleticism, he is habitually tentative with his striking. He also hasn’t been impressive with his grappling despite being a BJJ brown belt. He only averages 3.25 SSL/min and has failed to top 60 significant strikes landed in any of his six UFC fights or his three trips on DWCS. Between his six UFC fights and his three DWCS appearances, Pickett has landed 8 of his 22 takedown attempts (36.4% accuracy), while he’s been taken down nine times on 26 opponent attempts (65.4% defense). He said he’s been training with Chris Weidman to prepare for the wrestling in this matchup, so it will be interesting to see what improvements he’s made.

Fight Prediction:

Pickett will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage. Nickal is seven years younger than the 34-year-old Pickett.

Based on the odds and the past history of these two, it seems like almost a forgone conclusion that Nickal will finish Pickett early in this fight. However, what happens if Pickett survives the first round? Does Nickal begin to slow down? We don’t know the answer to that because he’s never been in an MMA fight that lasted longer than 122 seconds going back to his amateur career, and his three pro fights have all ended in 62 seconds or less. Yes he had a lengthy wrestling career, but NCAA wrestling matches are generally seven minutes long. With so much pressure being put on Nickal as he opens a PPV main card in his UFC debut, there’s just no way to know how his cardio will hold up later in a fight. Perhaps we won’t find out and he’ll blow threw Pickett the same way he demolished his last three opponents, but there’s a lot of uncertainty in this match if it goes into the later rounds. With that said, Pickett has been finished in the first two rounds in his last three losses, with two of those ending in round one. He’s been entirely unimpressive throughout his UFC career and looks to be on his way out. Pickett hasn’t looked dangerous so he’ll need an epic collapse from Nickal to pull off the upset.

Barring Nickal dying of exhaustion, the real questions we have are whether or not Nickal finds another first round finish and if so does it come via submission or KO/TKO. He’s still just a BJJ blue belt, while Pickett is a brown belt, but Pickett has been submitted three times in the past. We don’t see a ton of submission wins from debuting fighters, so if history is any indicator a knockout is more likely. Nickal’s last two wins both came by submission, which play into the odds favoring a submission victory, but we’d rather take the plus money on a knockout here. If the fight does somehow last longer than five minutes, there’s a decent chance it goes all the way to the judges, but a first round finish for Nickal remains the most likely outcome. We’ll take Nickal by R1 KO, but it would be nice to see him get extended here so we learn more about him for the future.

Our favorite bet here is “Nickal/Pickett Fight Ends in R1 KO” at +280.

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DFS Implications:

Nickal has just three pro fights to his name and none of those made it past the 62 second mark, which leaves more questions than answers as we don’t know what his striking volume or cardio will look like. Obviously he’s an elite wrestler, which creates the potential for him to put up a huge score even without a finish, especially on DraftKings, but first he’ll need to show that he has the cardio to go three hard rounds in an MMA fight. That’s not to say he can’t, but we also don’t know if he can. His recent two wins on DWCS would have been good for DK/FD scores of 122/114 and 102/123, with his larger DraftKings score benefiting from the quick win bonus. As the most expensive fighter on the slate and in direct scoring competition with Valentina Shevchenko based on their pricing proximity, there are lots of ways he gets priced out of winning tournament lineups if he fails to put up a slate-breaking score. However, he unquestionably has a massive floor and ceiling despite his extremely limited resume, and we expect him to be the highest owned fighter on the card. The odds imply he has a 91% chance to win, an 80% chance to land a finish, and a 48% chance it comes in round one.

Pickett scored exactly 66 DraftKings points in each of his two UFC wins, which both ended in decisions, and hasn’t looked like any sort of finisher at the UFC level. While he is a BJJ brown belt, he hasn’t looked like any type of submission threat, with zero submission attempts in his five UFC fights, and no actual submissions in his career if you look closer at his record. While he has seven times as many pro fights as Nickal, Pickett will be at a massive disadvantage in the grappling exchanges. Therefore he’ll need to be extremely careful to keep the fight standing and remain at range where he can utilize his reach advantage and try to simply outlast Nickal. That sort of game plan isn’t conducive to DFS production, and the only way we see Pickett scoring well is with a finish. If that somehow happens, it will be harder for him to get left out of winning tournament lineups as the cheapest fighter on the slate. As the lowest projected owned fighter on the slate going against the highest projected owned fighter, he would also be the ultimate leverage play in that scenario, just keep in mind he’s one of the biggest underdogs in UFC history. The odds imply he has a 9% chance to win, a 6% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #4

Mateusz Gamrot

7th UFC Fight (4-2)

Turner had been scheduled to face Dan Hooker here, but Hooker dropped out and Gamrot was announced as the replacement 18 days out.

Gamrot is coming off an insane grappling battle against Beneil Dariush that ended in a Dariush decision win after Gamrot was only able to land 4 of his 19 takedown attempts and finished with just 127 seconds of control time. Dariush also knocked Gamrot down in the third round, while outstriking him in the later rounds. Prior to that loss, Gamrot won a five-round decision over Arman Tsarukyan, which was Gamrot’s fourth straight win after losing a controversial split decision in his 2020 UFC debut. Gamrot bounced back from that loss with a second round knockout win over Scott Holtzman. He then submitted Jeremey Stephens in the first round and landed a second round TKO against Diego Ferreira leading up to his win over Tsarukyan.

Now 21-2 as a pro, Gamrot has seven wins by KO, five by submission, and nine decisions. All seven of Gamrots KO/TKO wins have occurred in the later rounds, with five ending in round two and two in round three. However, three of his five submission wins occurred in the first round, with another ending in round two, and the final coming in the fourth round of a 2018 KSW Lightweight Championship fight. He’s never been finished, with both of his career losses going the distance. Gamrot has spent almost his entire career at 155 lb, but did drop down to 145 lb once in 2018 to secure his second KSW belt. He generally tends to wear on his opponents and 16 of his last 17 fights have made it out of the first round, with 11 of those seeing a third round, and eight going the distance.

Overall, Gamrot is a relentless wrestler, a BJJ black belt, and a decent striker. He’s the former KSW Lightweight and Featherweight Champion who came into the UFC with a perfect 17-0 record and a ton of experience under his belt. He’s gone 22 for 70 (31.4% accuracy) on his takedown attempts so far in his six UFC fights and is constantly looking to get his opponents to the mat. He’s only been taken down once on 10 attempts by his opponents and owns an elite 90% takedown defense. He’s not a guy who generally puts up big striking totals, as he averages just 3.26 SSL/min and just 3.34 SSA/min, but he did say he’s been working on his striking since his last fight to have a more well rounded approach in the future. He lives in Poland, but trains at American Top Team so he has a great team around him.

Jalin Turner

9th UFC Fight (6-2)

Turner had been preparing to fight Dan Hooker, who’s predominantly a striker, but will wrestle sporadically. Then Gamrot, a relentless wrestler, stepped in on 18 days’ notice, so Turner hasn’t had a ton of time to prepare for such a wrestling heavy match.

Turner is fresh off the two most impressive wins of his career, where he landed a second round TKO against a really tough Jamie Mullarkey and then submitted another tough City Kickboxing fighter in Brad Riddell in just 45 seconds. Turner has now won five straight fights after his starting off 1-2 in the UFC. He made his debut in one of the tougher spots you could ask for, fighting up a weight class against a really tough Vicente Luque, and Turner got knocked out cold late in the first round. He bounced back with a 53 second R1 KO against a questionable Callan Potter, before losing a wrestling-heavy decision to Matt Frevola in 2019. However, since that loss he finished his last five opponents in the first two rounds and has looked unstoppable.

Now 13-5 as a pro, Turner has only seen the third round three times in his career, losing all three of those fights. All 13 of his wins have come in the first two rounds, with nine KOs, and four submissions. He’s been knocked out three times and has lost both of the decisions he’s been to. Ten of his finishes have occurred in the first round, with the other three ending in round two. While Turner has been knocked out three times in his career, two of those came very early in his career before he joined the UFC. The other was against Vicente Luque in Turner’s 2018 UFC debut, which he took up a weight class when he was just 23 years old. 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. Since then, Turner’s gone 6-1 with the only loss coming in a 2019 decision to Matt Frevola.

At 6’3” Turner is huge for the 155 lb division and as a BJJ brown belt he’s a dangerous finisher both on the feet and the mat. He has crisp striking and a massive 77” reach, making him a tough guy to deal with. Still just 27 years old, he seems to be improving every time we see him and continues to win despite facing increasingly difficult competition. He’s still never won a fight that’s made it past the second round, which will be his next hurdle to cross, and is now facing an opponent who’s never been finished. Between his eight UFC fights and DWCS appearance, Turner has landed 4 takedowns on 5 attempts (80% accuracy), while getting taken down himself on just 6 of 27 opponent attempts (77.8% defense).

Fight Prediction:

Turner will have a 5” height advantage and 7” reach advantage. He’s also five years younger than the 32-year-old Gamrot.

This is a fun matchup that should test the defensive wrestling of Turner and the striking of Gamrot. Turner’s only loss at 155 lb in the UFC came in a fight where he got taken down four times and controlled for five minutes, but that was also nearly four years ago and Turner has grown a lot since then. However, Gamrot is a far better wrestler than Matt Frevola and will present the toughest wrestling test that Turner has ever faced. The fact that Gamrot stepped into this matchup on less than three weeks’ notice adds some additional uncertainty to the mix, as neither fighter had much time to prepare for a prolonged wrestling match. However, Gamrot said he never stopped training after his last fight, so we’re not overly concerned about his cardio despite the lack of preparation time. It will be more interesting to see how prepared Turner is for Gamrot’s style of fighting. While Turner’s 100% finishing rate is impressive, Gamrot has never been finished in his lengthy career and poses a very tough test for Turner. While both of these two pose a very difficult test for the other, we like Gamrot’s chances of grinding out a decision win through his wrestling.

Our favorite bet here is “Gamrot DEC” at +270.

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DFS Implications:

Gamrot has been a consistently solid DFS contributor, scoring 97-108 DraftKings points in all four of his UFC wins. Just keep in mind three of those came early and the other was in a five round fight. In the split-decision loss in his UFC debut, he scored 55 points, which would have been good for 85 had it gone his way, and he only scored 38 points in his most recent decision loss. So while his wrestling-heavy approach presents scoring upside, especially on DraftKings, we’ve yet to see him put up a big score in a three-round decision win. He’s stepping into this fight with less than three weeks to prepare, so there’s also the potential for him to dial back his pace a little to preserve his cardio, which would also make it tougher for him to really score well in a decision. Also, Turner is a dangerous finisher with crazy size for the division and an 80% takedown defense and this is no easy matchup. With all that said, if Gamrot can dominate this fight on the ground, he can still theoretically score well in a decision on DraftKings, but will be more reliant on landing a finish on FanDuel. The odds imply Gamrot has a 66% chance to win, a 40% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.

Turner has been a DFS gold mine when he wins, averaging 116 DraftKings points in his six UFC victories, with at least 106 points in all of those and topping 125 twice. All 13 of his career wins have come in the first two rounds and he’s 0-3 in fights that last longer than 10 minutes. In his two losses, he scored just 22 and 12 points, so he’s been a boom or bust commodity who relies on finishes. Now he’s facing a seasoned veteran who’s never been finished in 24 pro fights, and this looks like a tougher matchup for Turner to find a finish. However, the fact that Gamrot stepped in on relatively short notice does add some uncertainty to the mix and we also saw Gamrot get dropped in the third round of his last fight. At his cheap price tag and coming off five straight finishes, we expect Turner to be a popular underdog play and the last two times he fought he was 34% and 46% owned on DraftKings. That lowers his tournament appeal to some extent, but if he is able to hand Gamrot the first early loss of his career, then Turner would likely end up in tournament winning lineups. The odds imply Turner has a 34% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #3

Shavkat Rakhmonov

5th UFC Fight (4-0)

This matchup had originally been booked for January 14th, but Neal withdrew due to an injury and it got pushed back nearly two months.

Rakhmonov is coming off a dominant second round submission win over Neil Magny, as he continues to run through everyone the UFC puts in front of him. He made his UFC debut in October 2020 and submitted UFC veteran Alex Oliveira late in the first round with a guillotine choke. Then he faced another longtime veteran in Michel Prazeres, who had previously never been finished in 30 pro fights, and Rakhmonov submitted him in the second round. Next, Rakhmonov took on up and comer Carlston Harris, who had landed five straight finishes of his own with both of his UFC wins coming in round one, and Rakhmonov knocked him out in round one with a spinning hook kick. Then most recently, Rakhmonov controlled Magny on the mat for almost two full rounds before submitting him in the closing seconds of round two with a guillotine choke on the mat. Rakhmonov remains undefeated in his career, with a 100% finishing rate and has only even seen the third round once in his career.

Now 16-0 as a pro, Rakhmonov has eight wins by KO/TKO and eight by submission. Six of his knockouts have come in round one, one ended in round two, and one came in round three. He has three first round submissions and five in round two, with five of his last six submission victories ending in the second round. Four of his last five wins/finishes occurred in the final minute of the first two rounds and Rakhmonov excels at landing finishes towards the end of rounds. The only time he’s been to the third round in his career was in a 2018 KZMMAF Welterweight title fight. His last four fights prior to joining the UFC were all title fights in the KZMMAF and M-1 organizations.

Overall, Rakhmonov is dangerous anywhere a fight can go and is very well rounded. Despite all of his early wins, Rakhmonov is somewhat of a patient, calculated fighter who’s less likely to land a ton of volume, averaging just 2.54 SSL/min, but makes it count when he does land. At 6’1” and with a 77” reach, he has good size for the 170 lb division and he’s dominated everyone he’s faced so far in the UFC.

Geoff Neal

10th UFC Fight (7-2)

Finally looking like his old self, Neal impressively handed Vicente Luque the first KO loss of his career in the third round of their recent match. Just before that, Neal notched his first win since 2019 when he squeaked out a close split-decision victory over Santiago Ponzinibbio. Prior to that, Neal lost a May 2021 three-round decision to Neil Magny after dropping a December 2020 five-round decision to Stephen Thompson. Neal had originally been scheduled to fight Magny on August 29th 2020 before suffering a life threatening health scare a few weeks before the fight. Neal spent a week in the ICU hooked up to a dialysis machine after suffering severe septic shock and being told his heart almost failed. It’s unclear what caused the condition or what lasting impact it had/has on him, but Neal didn’t look like the same fighter after suffering the scare, and appeared more sluggish and far less explosive. However, he finally started to look a little better late in his fight against Ponzinibbio, and we saw that momentum carry over into the Luque fight. In fairness, Luque looked terrible in that fight, so it’s tricky to decipher if Neal looked so good he made Luque look that bad or if Luque was so terrible he made Neal look that great. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, with a strong showing by Neal accentuated by a poor outing from Luque.

Now 15-4 as a pro, Neal has nine wins by KO, two by submission, and four decisions. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has two decision losses. His lone KO loss came up a weight class at 185 lb in the third round of a 2017 fight against Kevin Holland before they joined the UFC. His one submission loss was also in the third round, but occurred in his third pro fight back in 2013 against a highly suspect Martin Sano, which is tougher to explain. While both of his early losses occurred in the third round, 10 of Neal’s 11 early wins came in the first two rounds, with six in round one and four in round two. Neal typically fights at 170 lb, but has fought three pro fights at 185 lb where he’s gone 2-1.

Overall, Neal is more or less a pure striker, averaging 5.27 SSL/min and 5.28 SSA/min, and only occasionally mixes in takedown attempts, but has a really good takedown defense. Between his nine UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Neal has landed four takedowns on nine attempts (44.4% accuracy), while his opponents have only been able to take him down four times on 28 attempts (85.7% defense). Hopefully Neal has completely recovered from his past health issues and can keep his recent momentum going, as he’s a fun fighter to watch when he’s at his best.

UPDATE: Neal missed weight by 4 lb!

Fight Prediction:

Rakhmonov will have a 2” height and reach advantage and is four years younger than the 32-year-old Neal.

Neal has an elite 85% takedown defense, and when he has been taken down, he’s done a great job of quickly returning to his feet. However, Rakhmonov is the most dangerous grappler Neal has ever faced, so look for that takedown defense to be tested here. At the same time, Rakhmonov has yet to face an opponent with as good a takedown defense as Neal’s, so it will be interesting to see how much grappling success Rakhmonov can have. If Neal can keep the fight standing, he has the better boxing of the two and is also the more active fighter, while Rakhmonov mixes in more kicks and will likely find more success keeping the striking exchanges at kicking range. We’ve yet to see Rakhmonov face any adversity in the UFC, but that could easily change here if he can’t get Neal down and keep him there. Despite the odds being heavily in Rakhmonov’s favor, this has the potential to be a much closer fight if Neal can avoid getting controlled on the mat. While we’re still picking Rakhmonov to win, we expect this to be a closer fight than the odds suggest and would be surprised to see it end in the first round.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Starts R2 (YES)” at -174.

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DFS Implications:

Rakhmonov remains undefeated with a 100% finishing rate, and has looked dominant since joining the UFC in 2020. He’s only been past the second round once in 16 pro fights, and is dangerous everywhere a fight can go. He’s massive, making it tougher for opponents to find their range against him, and when anything does get close to him he takes them down and dominates them on the mat. It will be interesting to see how Rakhmonov’s grappling does against the really solid 85% takedown defense of Neal, who has also historically been a really tough fighter to hold down in the rare occasions he has been taken down. If Rakhmonov is unable to find his usual level of grappling success, he’ll have a much tougher time scoring well, as he only averages 2.54 SSL/min and is a patient striker. While Rakhmonov has averaged 105 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins, all of which came in the first two rounds, his scores have benefited from three finishes in the final minute of rounds. The one time he landed a finish in the middle of a round, he only scored 98 DraftKings points. Neal has only ever been finished twice in his career, both of which came in the third round of fights, and one of which was up a weight class. The only time he’s been finished at 170 lb was in his third pro fight. At Rakhmonov’s price tag, he likely needs either a first round finish or a late second round finish to return value, and he’ll be competing with high-ceiling alternative expensive options like Bo Nickal and Valentina Shevchenko to crack tournament winning lineups. Since the start of 2021, there has not been a single winning lineup in the main DraftKings tournament that included three fighters priced above $9,000. So at most, two of the five fighters priced at $9,100 or above on this slate will end up in the winning lineup. That makes it very easy for Rakhmonov to get priced out of winning tournament lineups as he steps into the toughest fight of his career. The odds imply he has an 80% chance to win, a 59% chance to land a finish, and a 30% chance it comes in round one.

Neal is coming off a career performance where he scored 121 DraftKings points in a third round KO win over a tough Vicente Luque. He landed a career best 121 significant strikes in that fight, while also tacking on a takedown and a pair of knockdowns. Prior to that, he had struggled in recent years, failing to top 64 points in his previous three fights. It’s been tough to know which version of Neal will show up over the past few years after he dealt with severe health scare in 2020 where he nearly died. He didn’t look like himself over his next couple fights, but seems to finally be regaining his past form. However, we’ve yet to see anyone look even remotely good against Rakhmonov. Neal has struggled to score well without a finish and in his two UFC decision wins he put up DraftKings scores of just 80 and 64 points, while he averaged 109 DraftKings points in his five early wins. So even at his cheaper price tag, he may still need a finish to end up in tournament winning lineups, unless we get another slate where only a small handful of underdogs win. Obviously pulling up the upset will be a tough enough task as he faces an extremely dangerous undefeated opponent, let alone finding a finish, but if Neal can keep the fight standing it’s certainly not impossible that he knocks Rakhmonov out, but it is unlikely. Based on his name recognition and recent scoring explosion, Neal will likely be owned above his actual chances of landing the finish he needs to really score well. The odds imply Neal has a 20% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #2

Valentina Shevchenko

15th UFC Fight (12-2)

Shevchenko finally faced some adversity at 125 lb in her last fight as she appeared to lose the first three rounds against Taila Santos, but got bailed out by two of the three judges, who gave her round two despite getting taken down and controlled for nearly four minutes, while also getting reversed on the mat at one point. Shevchenko finished the fight strong after a clash of heads caused Santo’s eye to nearly swell shut midway through the fight. Nevertheless, Shevchenko got taken down three times, reversed twice, and controlled for nearly nine minutes in the match. Shevchenko narrowly held onto her belt with a split decision win, although one judge (Clemens Werner) apparently wasn’t even watching the fight and scored it 49-46 for Shevchenko. The other two judges had it coming down to a single round. That was Shevchenko’s ninth straight win since moving down to 125 lb following her second loss to Amanda Nunes at 135 lb back in 2017. Shevchenko started that winning streak with a second round submission win over Priscila Cachoeira in 2018, before winning the Flyweight belt over Joanna Jedrzejczyk later that year and defending it seven times since. She’s finished five of her nine Flyweight opponents, with all five finishes coming in the later rounds, including three in round two, one in round three, and the other in round four. The last four of those finishes have all come by KO/TKO.

Now 23-3 as a pro, Shevchenko has eight wins by KO, seven submissions, and eight decision victories. The only time she’s ever been finished came in a 2010 second round doctor stoppage after Liz Carmouche landed an upkick that split Shevchenko open above her eye. Shevchenko’s other two losses both came in decisions against Amanda Nunes when Shevchenko was still fighting up at 135 lb. The most recent of those was a five-round split-decision for the Bantamweight belt. After fighting almost all of her early career at 135 lb, Shevchenko dropped down to 125 lb following the second loss to Nunes. All 14 of Shevchenko’s UFC fights have made it out of the first round, with 10 seeing round three, and seven going into the championship rounds. Eight of her 14 UFC fights have gone the distance, two have ended in second round submission wins, and four have finished in KO/TKOs. Her first seven UFC fights all ended in decisions (3-2) or submissions (2-0), while her last seven all ended in decisions (3-0) or KO/TKOs (4-0). She appears primarily focused on finishing opponents with strikes at this point in her career, typically through ground and pound.

Fighting in her 9th straight title fight and 10th of her UFC career (8-1), Shevchenko’s first title shot ended in a decision loss to Amanda Nunes at 135 lb. Shevchenko then dropped down to 125 lb and after submitting Priscila Cachoeira was thrust into a title fight against Joanna Jedrzejczyk, which Shevchenko won by decision. Shevchenko followed that up with a second round KO win over Jessica Eye, a decision victory over Liz Carmouche, a third round TKO over Katlyn Chookagian, a decision win over Jennifer Maia, a second round TKO against Jessica Andrade, and a fourth round TKO over Lauren Murphy, leading up to her recent split decision win over Santos. So four of her title fight wins came by decision and the other four ended in mid round KO/TKOs. Shevchenko also had two non-title fight five-round matches at 135 lb prior to her loss to Nunes, which ended in a decision win over Holly Holm and a second round submission win over Julianna Pena.

Overall, Shevchenko offers a dangerous combination of striking and grappling. She seamlessly stitches together combinations of punches and kicks and does a great job of controlling the distance and counter striking. She’s also landed at least one takedown in all of her UFC fights except her last match against Nunes. Since moving down to 125 lb, Shevchenko has landed 31 takedowns on 44 attempts (70.5%). Outside of going 5 for 14 on takedowns against Jedrzejczyk, Shevchenko has amazingly landed 26 of her 30 attempts (86.7%) in her other eight Flyweight fights. Also notable since dropping down to Flyweight, the only opponent to land more than 55 significant strikes against Shevchenko was also Jedrzejczyk, who landed 78. Shevchenko has impressively absorbed an average of just 1.49 SS/min in her nine fights since moving down a weight class, down from her already impressive career average of 1.90 SSA/min. After seeing Shevchenko struggle for the first time at 125 lb in her last fight, it will be interesting to see if she rebounds with a more inspired performance or if that was a sign that she’s beginning to slow down at 34 years old. Keep in mind, the same question was being asked about Amanda Nunes, who’s just two months younger than Shevchenko, following Nunes’ loss to Pena, and Nunes responded with one of the most dominant performances we’ve ever seen from her. Obviously it’s not an apples to apples comparison as Nunes gassed and got finished and then fought in a rematch, while Shevchenko squeaked out a split decision win and moved onto the next opponent.

Alexa Grasso

11th UFC Fight (7-3)

Grasso propelled herself into a title shot with a recent five-round decision win over Viviane Araujo. The fight seemed a lot closer than the score cards indicated, with the striking numbers almost even in four of the five rounds, and Araujo landing two takedowns in the other round. However, those were the only two takedowns Araujo was able to land on 10 attempts. That was Grasso’s fourth straight win since moving up to 125 lb, after she went 3-3 at 115 lb in her first six UFC appearances. Eight of her 10 UFC fights have gone the distance (6-2), with the two exceptions being a 2018 R1 submission loss to Tatiana Suarez and a 2022 R1 submission win over Joanne Wood. Grasso’s last loss came in a 2019 majority decision against Carla Esparza, who was able to take Grasso down 4 times on 11 attempts and control her for over seven minutes.

Now 15-3 as a pro, Grasso has four wins by KO, one by submission, and 10 decisions. Three of her four KO wins came in her first three pro fights against opponents who entered with no experience and the other was in her 6th pro match, back in 2014. She’s never been knocked out and the only time she’s been finished was in a 2018 R1 submission loss to Tatiana Suarez. Her other two losses both went the distance.

This will be the 2nd five-round fight of Grasso’s career, after she recently won a five-round decision in her first fight scheduled to go longer than 15 minutes.

Overall, Grasso is a solid striker and has talked about how she’s been working on her grappling to become a more well rounded fighter. The stats back that up, as Grasso only landed one takedown in her first six UFC fights, but has landed three in her last four matches. In terms of her defensive grappling, she’s been taken down 17 times on 48 attempts (64.6% defense) in her 10 UFC fights, and her last six opponents who have tried to take her down have all landed multiple of their attempts. She’s a BJJ purple belt and will look for submissions on the mat, with five official submission attempts since joining the UFC, although she’s only completed one submission in her career. We’ve seen her put up big striking totals at times, averaging 5.14 SSL/min and 4.02 SSA/min in her career.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’5” with a 66” reach.

We’ve seen Grasso struggle in the past against grapplers, although she was able to get past a BJJ black belt in Viviane Araujo in her last fight. However, she’ll face a much taller task here and Shevchenko has been exceptionally efficient with her takedown attempts, completing 70% of her attempts. Shevchenko is also a much more dangerous striker than Grasso, who hasn’t landed a KO/TKO win since 2014. While we saw Shevchenko struggle against a talented grappler in her last match, Grasso doesn’t pose the same risk and looks to be reliant on landing a hail mary armbar or a freak doctor stoppage to pull off the upset. We expect to see a motivated Shevchenko who comes in looking to prove a point and make up for the grappling struggles in her last fight. Look for her to take Grasso down and beat her up with ground and pound until the referee is forced to stop the fight. Give us Shevchenko by R2 or R3 TKO.

Our favorite bet here is “Valentina Shevchenko R2, R3 or R4 KO” at +550 (FanDuel).

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DFS Implications:

Shevchenko narrowly escaped her last fight with a split-decision win, but was still able to score 115 DraftKings points despite being taken down three times and controlled for nearly nine minutes. Even on her back, she never stopped landing strikes, which still allowed her to score well on DraftKings as she landed 234 total strikes, although that was only good for 89 points on FanDuel. In her nine Flyweight fights, Shevchenko has averaged 115 DraftKings points, with seven scores of 107 or more and three slate-breaking totals of 134 or greater. The only two times she’s struggled to score well at Flyweight were in a poorly timed early third round finish of Katlyn Chookagian in 2020 and a bizarrely low-volume 2019 five-round decision against Liz Carmouche—who happens to be the only person to ever finish Shevchenko (back in 2010 when they first fought). In Shevchenko’s last four wins, she’s averaged 124 DraftKings points and now faces an opponent who’s been prone to getting taken down. While Shevchenko’s last seven finishes have all come in rounds two through four, her combination of grappling and striking allows her to still put up huge scores even with mid round finishes. We literally just saw her lose a fight (okay, not according to two of the three judges) and still score 115 points. Three of her last four decision wins have scored 111 or more and her nickname might as well be “bulletproof” instead of “bullet” because she has the highest floor and ceiling of any fighter on the slate. As the second most expensive fighter on the card, of course there are always ways she gets priced out of winning tournament lineups if she doesn’t go nuclear, but the same can be said about all of the expensive fighters. She is a little more reliant on landing finishes on FanDuel, but five of her nine Flyweight wins have come early. The only downside with Shevchenko is that we expect her to be popular once again and we’ve seen here DraftKings ownership steadily rise from 36% to 45% to 49% to 58% in her last four outings. However, with Bo Nickal priced right above her, look for her ownership to come in a little lower than the last time we saw her. The odds imply she has an 83% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.

Grasso has gone the distance in 8 of her 10 UFC fights and only has one early win since 2014, so she’s unsurprisingly struggled to score well in DFS for most of her career. However, she landed a good amount of striking volume in her recent five-round decision win, allowing her to put up a respectable 99 DraftKings points despite adding nothing in terms of grappling. However, now she’ll face the greatest women’s Flyweight of all time who only averages 1.90 SSA/min and will be looking to take Grasso down. That will make it nearly impossible for Grasso to put up a big striking total and she’ll be reliant on pulling off a miracle finish to both win this fight and score well. The odds of that happening are exponentially low, but if she somehow pulls it off then she will have slate-breaking potential at her cheap price tag and low ownership. Just keep in mind, if she gets controlled for a round or two first, then a mid round finish wouldn’t score especially well and there would still be a chance for her to get left out of winning lineups, so she may need a finish in the first two rounds. Her only other hope will be that Shevchenko suddenly forgets how to wrestle and this fight stays standing, but even then, Grasso will be at a disadvantage on the feet. Ultimately, you’re really just betting on complete and utter chaos if you play Grasso and hoping for a hail mary armbar or a freak injury to Shevchenko. Hey, anything can happen in a fight, but we don’t have much interest in playing Grasso here. The odds imply Grasso has a 17% chance to win, an 8% chance to land a finish, and a 2% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #1

Jon Jones

23rd UFC Fight (20-1, NC)

Finally making his long-awaited return, when Jones steps inside the Octagon on Saturday it will have been 1,120 days since he last competed. He’s also moving up to Heavyweight for the first time in his career, so overall he’s shrouded in uncertainty. The last time we saw Jones in the cage was in a February 2020 razor close five-round decision win over Dominick Reyes, who’s since been violently knocked out in three straight fights, so the win hasn’t aged especially well. Prior to that, Jones won a low-volume split decision over Thiago Santos, who blew out his knee early in the second round but somehow toughed through it for four more rounds. Santos has gone 1-4 since the loss, so again that win hasn’t aged well. Looking back one fight further, Jones won a convincing decision over Anthony Smith, after landing a pair of third round knockouts against Alexander Gustafsson and Daniel Cormier. Gustafsson has been finished in all three of his fights since that loss, while Cormier fought one more time at Light Heavyweight before vacating the belt and moving up to Heavyweight. Jones’ win over Cormier was overturned to a No Contest after Jones tested positive for steroids, which was the second time he had tested positive for PEDs. Jones originally won the Light Heavyweight belt against Shogun Rua all the way back in 2011 and then defended it 14 straight times, although as previously mentioned, one of those was overturned to a No Contest.

Now 26-1 as a pro, Jones has 10 wins by KO/TKO, six by submission, and 10 decision wins. His only career loss came in a 2009 DQ for illegal elbows in a fight he was winning. His last nine fights have all seen the third round, with seven of those ending in five-round decision wins. Jones has just two early wins since 2013, which were the pair of third round knockouts over Gustafsson and Cormier.

This will be the 16th five-round fight of Jones’ career, and he hasn’t competed in a three-round fight since 2011, just before he won the Light Heavyweight belt. Jones has won all 15 of those five-round fights, with eight decisions, four knockouts, and three submissions. However, five of those seven finishes came in his first six title fights, and his last three and seven of his last nine went the distance.

Overall, Jones has a wrestling background and a massive frame at 6’4” with an insane 84” reach. He utilizes his length exceptionally well with a variety of kicks that allow him to control the range in fights and keep opponents guessing. In his last 10 fights, Jones has landed 19 takedowns on 59 attempts (32.2% accuracy), below his 44% career takedown accuracy. The only time he failed to attempt at least three takedowns in that 10 fight stretch was when he faced Thiago Santos in his second most recent fight and failed to land his only attempt. However, he also never landed more than three takedowns in any of those matches. If we look at just his last five fights, he’s only landed six takedowns on 26 attempts (23.1% accuracy), so his accuracy has been steadily declining. Jones has an elite 95% takedown defense and has only been taken down twice in 22 UFC appearances, once by Gustafsson and another time by Cormier. Jones averages 4.30 SSL/min and just 2.22 SSA/min, however, he absorbed a career high 116 significant strikes (4.64/min) in his last fight against Dominick Reyes. Obviously Jones will be a guy to keep an eye on during weigh-ins as he prepares to make his Heavyweight debut.

Ciryl Gane

10th UFC Fight (8-1)

After losing a close decision for the Heavyweight belt against Francis Ngannou early last year, Gane bounced back in his last fight when he knocked Tai Tuivasa out in the third round of an exciting back and forth brawl. Tuivasa was the first fighter to ever knock Gane down, but the fleet-footed Frenchman quickly recovered and began landing devastating body shots that swung the momentum back in his favor. Then late in round three Gane finished Tuivasa with a combination of punches, to close out what was Gane’s most exciting fight since joining the UFC. In his previous loss to Ngannou, we surprisingly saw Ngannou turn into a wrestler, and after landing just one takedown in his first 13 UFC fights, he landed four of his five attempts against Gane. No one could have seen that coming, including Gane, and we’d be surprised if Gane had spent much time working on his defensive wrestling going into the fight against the most devastating power puncher on the planet. Despite the surprising approach from Ngannou, that fight couldn’t have been any closer and if Gane hadn’t given up top position in the fifth round to go for a heel hook, he would have won a 49-48 split decision. After the fight, Ngannou revealed he had torn his MCL and damaged his ACL just three weeks before the fight, but fought through the injuries. Prior to that loss, Gane started his pro career 10-0, with wins in his first seven UFC matches, including a win over Derrick Lewis for the controversial Interim Heavyweight belt in a August 2021 R3 TKO. Gane submitted his first two UFC opponents, but his last seven fights have all ended in either knockouts (3-0) or decisions (3-1), with all three knockouts ending in round two and three.

Now 11-1 as a pro, Gane has five wins by KO, three by submission, and three decisions. His only career loss came in his five-round decision defeat against Ngannou, and he’s never been finished. His last eight fights have all made it past the first round, with seven of those seeing a third round, and four going the distance—including three five-round decisions in his last five fights (2-1). Three of his five early wins in the UFC have ended in round three and he’s never in a rush to look for finishes.

This will be Gane’s 6th straight five-round fight in the UFC and all three of his pro fights prior to joining the organization were also scheduled to go five rounds. However, none of those three fights made it past round two as Gane finished two of those opponents in the first round and the other in round two. In his five UFC five-round fights, Gane has fought to three decisions (2-1) and landed a pair of third round KO/TKOs over Derrick Lewis and Tai Tuivasa.

Overall, Gane is a high-level Muay Thai striker who averages 5.11 SSL/min and just 2.25 SSA/min. He’s very light on his feet and great movement for a Heavyweight. He’ll also mix in grappling at times, but in his nine UFC fights, he’s only landed 6 of his 28 takedown attempts (21.4% accuracy). On the other side of things, he’s been taken down four times on nine opponent attempts (55.6% defense), with Ngannou being the only fighter to ever get him down. Gane will also look for submissions in the mat and seems to be a fan of heel hooks. Gane only turned pro in MMA in August 2018 after previously competing in Muay Thai from 2016-2018.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 6’4” but Jones will have a 3” reach advantage. Gane is three years younger than the 35-year-old Jones.

Jones is littered with red flags and uncertainty as he prepares to make his Heavyweight debut following a 37 month layoff. He’s been on a decline since he got popped for steroids in 2017, and no one truly knows how he’ll look on Saturday. While Jones should have a wrestling advantage, he’s only landed six takedowns in his last 21 rounds inside the Octagon, and who knows how effective his wrestling will be against a significantly larger opponent than what he’s used to. We also have no idea how Jones will look carrying the additional weight, and how it will affect his speed and cardio. So while we know exactly who Gane is and what we can expect from him, Jones has the potential to show up as a much worse version of his former self. We also don’t know if Jones is back on the juice, but as a repeat offender we certainly can’t eliminate that possibility. With so many unknowns in play, this is a volatile fight to predict, but Jones has too many red flags for us to lay the chalk on him and we’ll take the plus money on Gane, or simply bet this fight to go the distance considering neither one of these two have ever been finished. Give us Gane by decision in this one, although if Jones has really gone off a cliff then Gane could very well finish him.

Our favorite bet here is Gane’s ML at +140.

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DFS Implications:

Jones struggled to score well in three of his last four fights, where he only put up DraftKings totals of 85 and 54 in his last two five-round decision wins and just 77 in his last early victory, which ended in the third round. The only time he’s scored well in the last eight years was when he dominated Anthony Smith for five rounds and scored 141 points, as Smith basically shelled up and went into survival mode. You have to go all the way back to 2015 to find the second most recent occurrence of Jones topping 95 points. Now he’s 37 months removed from his last fight and moving up to Heavyweight for the first time at age 35. Those are all red flags and he has the potential to look dramatically worse than in the past. While he should have the wrestling advantage in this matchup, he only landed six takedowns in his last five fights and half of those were against Anthony Smith, who was barely putting up any resistance. We expect Gane to have improved his defensive wrestling following the loss to Ngannou and his movement combined with the larger cage in this fight should make it tougher for Jones to get him down. Jones’ reputation and the fact that Gane got outwrestled by Ngannou should drive Jones’ ownership up well past his chances of actually ending up in winning tournament lineups and we’ll definitely want to be under the field on him in tournaments. The odds imply Jones has a 59% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

Gane has averaged 92 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, and while he’s shown a solid floor, he’s failed to hit the century mark in any of his five recent five-round fights. His two decision wins were good for 94 and 85 DraftKings points, while his two third round knockouts returned totals of 99 and 89. He also scored just 39 points in his decision loss to Ngannou, which still would have only been good for 69 points had the decision gone his way. His patient approach to fighting makes it tougher for him to put up big scores and he’s only landed one takedown in his last four matches. Now he’ll be going against the elite 95% takedown defense of Jones, which will make it tough for Gane to add anything in terms of grappling here. Jones also has a ridiculous 84” reach and uses his kicks well to keep opponents at bay, only averaging 2.22 SSA/min in his career. That will make it harder for Gane to put up a big striking total, leaving him reliant on landing a well timed finish to score well. Jones has never been finished in his career, although we also don’t know exactly what version of him we’ll get here. That uncertainty gives Gane at least some hope to end this early, but the most likely outcome is a lower volume decision with the winner failing to really score well. Gane’s cheap price tag still keeps him in the value play discussion, but it will likely require a slate where only a few underdogs win for him to crack tournament winning lineups unless he lands a finish in the first two rounds. The odds imply Gane has a 41% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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