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Fight Day Scratches: Josh Quinlan/Jason Witt AND Ariane Lipski/Priscila Cachoeira are BOTH OFF!
Fighter Notes:
Fight #12
Mayra Bueno Silva
7th UFC Fight (3-2-1)Staying at 135 lb after moving up a weight class in her last fight, Bueno Silva’s first five UFC fights were all at 125 lb. However, she had competed at 135 lb prior to joining the UFC, so the division wasn’t completely foreign to her. After landing a first round submission at 135 lb on DWCS in 2018, Bueno Silva dropped down to 125 lb for her UFC debut and submitted Gillian Robertson in the first round, which is the only time Robertson has been submitted in her career. Bueno Silva then lost a high-volume decision to Maryna Moroz, before landing another first round armbar submission win. She then fought Montana De La Rosa to a draw before losing a decision to Manon Fiorot, leading up to her recent decision win.
In her last fight, Bueno Silva showed she’s not lacking power for the 135 lb division and she was clearly the stronger fighter in the match. She had been accustomed to getting outlanded in terms of striking numbers at 125 lb, as she came into her last fight averaging 3.82 SSL/min and 5.22 SSA/min. However, she actually outlanded Wu Yanan 87-62 in significant strikes and 88-75 in total strikes. Yanan landed the only takedown in the fight, but Bueno Silva immediately looked for a submission off her back and appeared close to locking it in before Yanan escaped. While Yanan threw more volume in the fight, she only connected on 62 of her 218 significant strike attempts and Bueno Silva went on to win a unanimous decision.
Now 8-2-1 as a pro, Bueno Silva has one win by TKO, five first round submissions, and two decision victories. Both of her losses also ended in decisions and she’s never been finished. All 11 of her pro fights have either ended in the first round or gone the distance.
Overall, Bueno Silva is a powerful striker and dangerous submission threat, but she only uses her submission skills defensively. She’s only attempted one takedown in the UFC, which she failed to land in her last fight. She’s extremely durable in addition to being very dangerous off her back, which makes her a really tough opponent to put away. She’s a BJJ purple belt and trains out of Chute Boxe Diego Lima with the Lightweight champ Charles Oliveira. Bueno Silva has a 69% takedown defense, but all six of her UFC opponents have taken her down at least one and she’s been grounded 10 times on 33 attempts overall.
Stephanie Egger
4th UFC Fight (2-1)After losing a decision to Tracy Cortez in her short notice UFC debut, Egger has bounced back with a pair of finishes in her last two fights. The first of those came in a second round ground and pound TKO against a terrible Shanna Young, while the most recent was a first round armbar submission against Jessica-Rose Clark. Just prior to joining the UFC, Egger won three straight fights, including two in the first round.
In Egger’s last fight, Clark foolishly looked to grapple with the Judo black belt in the opening seconds of the match. After the two fought for position over the next few minutes, Egger got Clark to the mat and began beating her up before masterfully working her way to an armbar finish. Not much else happened in the fight, but Egger showed she was clearly the superior grappler and it didn’t look close.
Now 7-2 as a pro, Egger has three wins by KO, three by submission, and one decision. She’s never been finished, with both of her losses going the distance.
As a Judo black belt, Egger is most comfortable getting opponents down and trying to finish them on the mat opposed to standing and trading on the feet. She’s landed 5 takedowns on 12 attempts (41.7 %) in her three UFC fights and both of her wins/finishes came on the ground. She’s yet to land more than 29 significant strikes in a fight or absorb more than 22.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’6” but Egger will have a 2” reach advantage.
Bueno Silva is a better striker than Egger, which will leave Egger with no choice but to test Bueno Silva on the mat. Both of these two are dangerous submission threats and they each excel at locking in armbars. Bueno Silva is most comfortable working off her back, but that also means when she’s unable to lock up an armbar she tends to spend extended periods of time being controlled. Every UFC opponent Bueno Silva has faced has taken her down and this matchup should be no different. It will be tough for Bueno Silva to lock up a submission against the Judo black belt in Egger, and while it’s possible Egger can submit Bueno Silva, it’s more likely Egger grinds out a decision win on the mat while the two are forced to respect the submission threat the other poses.
Our favorite bet here is “Egger DEC” at +170.
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DFS Implications:
Bueno Silva has been a R1 or bust fighter throughout her career, with all 11 of her pro fights either ending in first round wins or decisions. She excels at landing submissions off her back, which isn’t ideal in DFS as it means she’s not banking any takedowns or control time. Her two first round submission wins scored just 95 and 91 DraftKings points, but did a little better on FanDuel where they were good for 112 and 106 points. While Bueno Silva has solid power, she lacks the striking volume to score well in decisions, as she averages just 4.25 SSL/min. She’s also never landed a takedown on just one attempt in the UFC, and now she’ll face a Judo black belt in Egger, so the chances of her landing takedowns or a high number of strikes are both slim. The only way Bueno Silva puts up a really big score here is if she gets a submission in the first 60 seconds, but a score in the 90s could potentially still allow her to serve as a value play at her reasonable price tag. With that said, she would still need to land a first round submission to pull that off and Egger has never been finished. So overall, Bueno Silva looks like a R1 submission or bust play with a low ceiling in a tough matchup. After opening as a slight favorite, the line has flipped and now Bueno Silva is the underdog in this matchup. That should lower her DraftKings ownership as she’s now mispriced, but that’s one of the few things she has going for her here. The odds imply she has a 45% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Egger is coming off back-to-back impressive performances where she landed a second round TKO and a first round submission that were good for 104 and 109 DraftKings points respectively. Those both came in favorable matchups and now she’ll face a tougher test in Bueno Silva. While Bueno Silva is a powerful striker and very dangerous off her back, she’s still been prone to getting taken down, with all six of her UFC opponents getting her down at least once. So as long as Egger can remain conscious of Bueno Silva’s dangerous guard, she should be able to get the fight to the ground and control Bueno Silva on the mat. Neither one of these fighters has ever been finished and it’s still more likely we see this fight go the distance, but Egger can score well on DraftKings through takedowns and control time even in a decision win. We’re less excited about her on FanDuel, where she’ll likely need a finish to return value. As a Judo black belt, Egger is also always live to land a submission, but this will be a tougher matchup to do so. The odds imply she has a 55% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Cory McKenna
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Looking to bounce back from her first UFC loss, McKenna has been involved in two close decisions since joining the organization, after winning another decision on DWCS to punch her ticket to the big show. It’s been over three years since one of her fights ended early, dating back to a 2019 R1 TKO win in her Cage Warriors days. After winning a decision over Kay Hansen in her November 2020 UFC debut, McKenna didn’t compete in 2021 as she dealt with health concerns and an ankle injury, before returning in March 2022 for her recent loss on the first London card of the year.
In her last fight, McKenna fought in front of her home London crowd, but didn’t put on a very good performance. Despite taking on a one-dimensional striker, McKenna was only able to finish with 3:46 in control time as she landed three of her seven takedown attempts. Reed finished ahead in significant strikes 76-60 and in total strikes 121-99 and went on to win a split decision. Reed got dominated on the mat in her fight before that and the one after, and it was a teed up matchup for McKenna to showcase her wrestling but she failed to capitalize.
Still just 6-2 as a pro, McKenna has two wins by TKO, one by submission, and three decisions. She’s never been finished, with both of her losses going the distance. Both of her TKO wins occurred in round one, while her submission victory came in round two. Impressively, McKenna has never faced an opponent with a losing record in her career.
Overall, McKenna is still very green at just 23 years old. She has T-Rex arms with just a 58” reach and stands just 5’3”. She’s more or less of a one-dimensional grappler, but hasn’t been that impressive on the mat. Training both for MMA and powerlifting since she was a young teenager, McKenna is the first female Welsh fighter in the UFC, but she now trains out of Team Alpha Male with Maycee Barber and Xiaonan Yan, so at least she has some other professional fighters around her. McKenna has been largely unimpressive, but at such a young age she should be making sizable improvements between every fight if she’s putting in the work.
Miranda Granger
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Coming off a 21 month layoff, Granger will step back inside the Octagon for the first time since having a baby. She’s lost two straight fights and her only UFC win came in a decision in her 2019 debut against Hannah Goldy up at 125 lb. Following that victory, Granger dropped down to 115 lb and got submitted by Amanda Lemos in the first round. She then lost a decision to Ashley Yoder most recently.
In her last fight, Granger nearly got submitted in the first round again as Yoder was close to locking up an armbar towards the end of the round. Yoder also looked seconds away from locking up a rear-naked choke at the end of the third round, but simply ran out of time as Granger appeared ready to tap. The fight played out largely as a grappling match, with Yoder landing two of her four takedown attempts, with three official submission attempts. Yoder finished ahead in control time 8:19-3:16 and 151-87 in significant strikes, while Granger led in significant strikes 33-26.
Now 7-2 as a pro, Granger has one win by KO, five by submission, and one decision. All five of her submission wins occurred in the first round. She’s been submitted once and has one decision loss, with both of those defeats coming in her last two fights.
Overall, Granger is a low-level fighter coming off an extended layoff. While most of her wins have come by submission, she’s allegedly a Taekwondo black belt. We’ve seen nothing from her to support that claim however. She’s looked very prone to getting submitted, despite only having one submission loss on her record. While she has five submission wins on her record, Granger has yet to attempt a takedown in her three UFC fights, but she’s been taken down by her opponents three times on five attempts. Sitting on a 1-2 UFC record, Granger is likely fighting for her job here.
Fight Prediction:
Granger will have a 4” height advantage and 10” reach advantage. She’s also seven years older than the 23-year-old McKenna.
This sets up as a low-level grappling match between two non-UFC level talents. McKenna is at least young and should still be improving, while Granger is trying to come back after having a baby and taking nearly two years off. Granger constantly finds herself in precarious situations on the mat, and if ring rust plays a factor she could find herself defending a submission before she ever gets comfortable back inside the cage. With that said, McKenna only has one career submission win, so she’s not the most likely to take advantage of Granger’s sketchy defensive grappling. Regardless of whether she’s able to finish Granger on the ground, we like McKenna to bounce back from her recent loss with a win here.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in SUB” at +440.
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DFS Implications:
McKenna scored 83 DraftKings points in a decision win in her UFC debut and then 54 points in her recent decision loss. So she’s been consistent but underwhelming, and will need to do a lot more if she wants to return value at her expensive price tag in this fight. Working in her favor, she does offer grappling upside and now faces an opponent who’s been prone to getting taken down, is coming off a 21 month layoff, and recently had a baby. With that said, McKenna failed to capitalize on another teed up matchup in front of her home London crowd in her last fight, so we don’t have a ton of confidence in her here. The best thing she has going for her in tournaments is that she’ll be incredibly low owned despite being a sizable favorite. She’ll either need a finish or a dominant grappling-heavy decision win to score well, but both of those are possible. The odds imply she has a 66% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Granger has been entirely unimpressive in her three UFC fights, failing to top 58 DraftKings points in any of those. She’s averaged just 2.91 SSL/min and has yet to attempt a takedown. Also working against her, McKenna has never been finished and looks like the better wrestler. Granger will need some sort of flukey finish to be useful here and we don’t have much interest in playing her, even at her low ownership.The odds imply she has a 34% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Josh Quinlan
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Quinlan is making his UFC debut following a 9-month steroid suspension, which came just after he landed a 47 second R1 TKO win on DWCS in September 2021. That win was overturned to a No Contest following the failed drug test. Quinlan was born and raised in Kauai, Hawaii, but trains out of Las Vegas. His background is actually in soccer opposed to a combat sport, and he didn’t start training MMA until he was 19 years old.
In his last fight, Quinlan landed a huge right hand 30 seconds into the first round that seriously dazed his opponent, who had accepted the fight on just three day’s notice. Then Quinlan immediately went to work with a flurry of punches and elbows to force the 47 second R1 stoppage. He finished ahead 13-2 in significant strikes in the quick fight.
Still just 5-0 as a pro after his 6th win was overturned to a No Contest, Quinlan has three wins by KO and two by submission, and has yet to require the judges. One thing to keep in mind is the level of competition he’s been facing, as his opponents entered with records of 0-0, 1-0, 0-0, 6-3, 3-1, and 5-1. Not counting his recent R1 KO against a short notice replacement that was overturned to a No Contest, his fights have been getting longer as he’s faced stiffer competition. Quinlan finished his first two opponents in the first round, his third opponent in round two, and his next two opponents in round three.
Overall, Quinlan throws a ton of kicks, which makes sense considering his background is in soccer and not martial arts. He’s pretty explosive and has good power, and loads up with everything he throws. He’s rarely looking to land takedowns but does have the ability to reverse positions on the mat and is actually listed as a BJJ black belt, which is somewhat surprising considering he got a late start in MMA. Considering Quinlan is coming off a steroid suspension, it will be important to monitor him closely at weigh-ins.
Jason Witt
6th UFC Fight (2-3)Continuing to alternate wins and KO losses over his last six fights, Witt is looking to bounce back from a second round TKO loss to Phil Rowe. Witt has still never lost two fights in a row in his career, and has landed submission wins following six of his previous seven defeats. He made his short notice UFC debut in 2020 on just over a day’s notice against Takashi Sato and got knocked out in 48 seconds. However, he bounced back with a second round submission win over Cole Williams. Next, Witt got knocked out in 16 seconds by Matthew Semelsberger, before rebounding with a wild decision win over Bryan Barberena. Most recently, Witt got knocked out again, this time in the second round by Phil Rowe.
In that last fight, Witt landed his first takedown attempt a minute into the fight. Rowe was able to return to his feet 30 seconds later, but Witt immediately returned him to the mat. Witt basically just layed on Rowe for the rest of the round before Rowe again returned to his feet towards the end. Witt immediately looked to return the fight to the mat in round two, landing two more takedowns, but Rowe was once again able to return to his feet and land a combination of punches to put Witt away without much resistance. Each fighter only landed eight significant strikes in the fight, while Witt led in total strikes 25-8. Witt also landed 4 of his 7 takedown attempts with 5:11 of control time.
Now 19-8 as a pro, Witt has three wins by KO, eight by submission, seven decisions, and one DQ win. Six of his eight submission wins have occurred in round one, with one more in each of the later rounds. Seven of those submissions were by rear-naked choke, while his last submission win ended in an arm-triangle. He’s been finished in all eight of his losses, with six KOs and two submissions. Seven of those eight losses occurred in the first two rounds, with three in round one and four in round two.
Overall, Witt is a chinny wrestler who’s too thick to make 155 lb, but too short to really compete at 170 lb. Nevertheless, he’s spent the vast majority of his career trying to make the most of things at 170 lb with intermittent success. He trains out of Glory MMA & Fitness and is actually teammates with Dallas Jennings who fought Josh Quinlan in March 2021. Witt has landed 14 takedowns on 29 attempts (48.3%) in his five UFC fights, with at least two takedowns landed in each of his fights to last longer than 48 seconds.
Fight Prediction:
Quinlan will have a 2” height and reach advantage, in addition to being six years younger than the 35-year-old Witt.
This fight has a ton of factors in play. On one side, we have a guy with very little pro experience making his UFC debut following a steroid suspension and on the other we have a veteran wrestler with a suspect chin. We don’t know how Quinlan will look off the juice or how he’ll handle the pressure of stepping inside the Octagon for the first time. However, we know exactly what we get with Witt, as he’ll spam takedowns and casually look for submissions while remaining focused on controlling his opponents on the mat. Things are always dicey for Witt on the feet as his chin is terrible and now he’ll face an opponent with explosive striking. Quinlan is listed as a BJJ black belt, which could make it tougher for Witt to find a submission here, but Quinlan hasn’t been overly impressive on the ground from what we’ve seen. While it’s always incredibly risky backing Witt, there are also a ton of red flags on Quinlan’s side of things as well. While the obvious result would be for Quinlan to knock Witt out with the first clean punch he lands, it wouldn’t be shocking to see Witt get this fight to the ground and either grind out a decision win or potentially even lock up a submission. Forced to choose, we’ll still say Quinlan knocks him out, but this one could be closer than the odds suggest (or Witt could get knocked out in 15 seconds).
Our favorite bet here is “Witt DEC ONLY (Finish = No Action)” at -125.
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DFS Implications:
Quinlan comes into the UFC undefeated (5-0) and with a 100% finishing rate, but he’s a wild card with all of the uncertainty surrounding him. He’s making his UFC debut with very limited pro experience, he’s coming off a steroid suspension, and he’s facing a UFC veteran who will be looking to wrestle. There’s a strong chance that Quinlan lands a knockout in this fight, but he also has the potential to get taken down and ground out on the mat. So he has a massively wide range of scoring outcomes and we generally see fighters struggle in their UFC debuts. We’re always looking to target both sides of a Jason Witt fight, but that burned us last time when Phil Rowe landed a second round knockout, but only after getting controlled for a round and a half. Because of that, he only scored 83 points on DraftKings and 92 points on FanDuel. That presents a clear path to how this fight fails, and could leave Quinlan more reliant on landing a first round knockout to really score well, as a later round knockout would likely mean he got controlled for the earlier portion of the fight. Quinlan is allegedly a BJJ black belt, which theoretically lowers his chances of getting submitted, but he hasn’t blown us away with his grappling to this point. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a 49% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Witt has continued to alternate wins and KO losses and has yet to lose two fights in a row in his career. In his two UFC wins, he put up DraftKings scores of 108 and 105 and FanDuel totals of 106 and 104. So he’s been a solid contributor on both sites, but he’s also incredibly chinny and has been knocked out in all three of his UFC losses, including twice in the opening minute. And looking at his entire pro career, all eight of his losses have come early, while he’s 7-0 in decisions. Habitually priced as the underdog, Witt is always in play in tournaments, you just have to hope he can somehow survive. He’s proven he can score well even without a finish and he’s landed 14 takedowns on 29 attempts (48.3%) in his five UFC fights. The odds imply Witt has a 32% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Bryan Battle
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Moving down to 170 lb for the first time in his career, Battle is 2-0 in the UFC but has only faced fellow TUF contestants so far. After winning TUF 29 with a second round submission against a late replacement in the finals in Gilbert Urbina, the UFC rebooked the original finale of Battle and Gore most recently and Battle won a decision. Prior to going on TUF, Battle’s previous five pro fights had all ended in the first two rounds, with him winning the last four of those.
In his last fight, Battle started strong, outlanding Gore 50-15 in significant strikes in the first round. Gore came out more aggressive in round two, but continued to struggle with the size and length of Bryan Battle. However, Gore’s takedown defense held up well in the fight, as Battle was only able to land one takedown on eight attempts, while Gore landed two takedowns of his own on just three attempts. The fight ended with Battle ahead 112-57 in significant strikes and 119-86 in total strikes as he went on to win a decision.
Now 7-1 as a pro, Battle has one win by KO, four by submission, and two decisions. His only career loss came in a 2019 R1 submission in his second pro fight. Four of his five early wins have occurred in round two, with the other ending in round one.
Overall, Battle is an uptempo fighter who throws a lot of kicks and knees out of the clinch, but he doesn’t have the most explosive hands. He leads the slate in striking volume, averaging 7.10 SSL/min, and has also landed a takedown in each of his UFC fights, but just 2 of his overall 9 attempts. He’s generally looking to choke out his opponents after wearing them down, and if we include his two exhibition matches on TUF, five of his six career finishes have occurred in round two.
Takashi Sato
6th UFC Fight (2-3)Entering this matchup on a two fight skid, Sato has now lost three of his last four fights after landing a second round TKO win against the corpse of Ben Saunders in his 2019 UFC debut. Sato’s only other UFC win came against a chinny Jason Witt, who was making his short notice UFC debut on just over a day’s notice.
Sato stepped into his last fight on just 12 day’s notice against a tough opponent in Gunnar Nelson, who had a massive grappling advantage. It made no sense for Sato to accept that fight, and that showed as Nelson was able to take him down and control him throughout the fight. Nelson efficiently took him down three times on three attempts, once in each round, and controlled him on the mat while landing ground strikes for the duration of the fight. Nelson finished ahead 44-9 in significant strikes and 140-16 in total strikes, while accruing just over eight minutes of control time.
Now 15-5 as a pro, Sato has 11 wins by KO, two by submission, and two decisions. He’s been knocked out once, submitted three times, and has one decision loss. All three of Sato’s UFC losses have come against tough opponents in Belal Muhammad, Miguel Baeza, and Gunnar Nelson. He holds the dubious honors of being the only fighter to ever get submitted by either Belal Muhammad or Miguel Baeza, and that’s the only time Muhammad has ever even landed a finish in the UFC. So overall, Sato has looked incredibly prone to getting submitted. Sato’s last seven victories all ended in knockouts, with five of those ending in round one and two in round two.
Overall, Sato is a one-dimensional striker who’s made a career out of trying to land knockouts before his opponents submit him. He only averages 2.28 SSL/min, but that’s partially due to the fact that he spends so much time being controlled by his opponents. He’s been taken down 6 times on 15 attempts (60% defense) in his five UFC fights, while landing just one takedown of his own on two attempts.
Fight Prediction:
Battle will have a 3” height advantage and 4” reach advantage. He’s also five years younger than the 32-year-old Sato.
The fact that Battle is dropping down to 170 lb for the first time in his career and didn’t look good on the scale adds a ton of uncertainty to this matchup. With that said, Sato has been incredibly prone to getting submitted, which is how Battle has landed four of his five career finishes. So on paper at least, this looks like a great opportunity for Battle to choke Sato out. However, if Battle left his chin on the scale, Sato has a good chance of knocking him out. Either way, we’d be surprised to see this fight go the distance and we expect it to end in the first two rounds, with either a Sato KO, most likely in R1, or a Battle submission, most likely in round two. We’re worried about how Battle looked after the weight cut so we’re leaning that Sato knocks him out.
Our favorite bet here is “Sato KO” at +420.
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DFS Implications:
Battle averages 7.10 SSL/min (most on the slate) and has also attempted nine takedowns in his first two UFC fights, but landed just two of those. Five of his last six wins have also come early, and now he’ll face an opponent who’s been incredibly prone to getting submitted. All of those things look great for Battle’s chances of landing a finish and putting up a big score, but the concern is that he’s dropping down to 170 lb for the first time and looked rough on the scale. That makes this a much higher variance spot than it otherwise would be, as Battle has been durable up until this point in his career. We see fighters move down a weight class and leave their chin on the scale all the time, but if Battle can avoid being another name on that list then he has a good chance to score well here. He put up 97 DraftKings points in a second round submission win in his UFC debut, and then scored 87 points in his recent decision victory. So he’s shown a solid floor, but we’re still waiting on a real ceiling performance out of him. The odds imply Battle has a 70% chance to win, a 30% chance to get a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Both of Sato’s UFC wins have ended in knockouts, which were good for DraftKings totals of 133 and 93. His last five wins before joining the UFC all ended in knockouts as well, and he’s essentially a KO or bust fighter. He doesn’t add anything in terms of grappling and is a liability on the mat, while also only averaging 2.28 SSL/min. So he’s not a guy that can score well in decisions, and even at his cheaper price tag it appears he’ll need a finish to be useful. While Battle has never been knocked out in his career, he looked rough on the scale after cutting down to 170 lb for the first time, which increases the chances that Sato is able to land a knockout here. All three of Sato’s UFC losses have come against tough opponents in Belal Muhammad, Miguel Baeza, and Gunnar Nelson, so this is a step down in competition for him, while Battle has yet to face anyone other than TUF contestants in the UFC so far. While there’s still a good chance that Battle gets Sato down and submits him, Sato is a high upside underdog in a decent spot to land a knockout at fairly low ownership. The odds imply Sato has a 30% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Terrance McKinney
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Looking to bounce back from his first UFC loss, McKinney gassed out midway through the first round and lost via R1 TKO to Drew Dober back in March. That came just two weeks after McKinney submitted Fares Ziam in late February, so at least McKinney has the excuse that he took the fight on short notice. All of his fights have been electric, and McKinney landed a seven second first round knockout against Matt Frevola in his June 2021 UFC debut. McKinney originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2019, nearly submitting Sean Woodson as he controlled his back for most of the fight until Woodson was able to escape and land a flying knee KO early in round two.
In his last fight, McKinney dropped Dober 10 seconds into the fight, but Dober was able to absorb the initial blitz and return to his feet. McKinney then appeared to land a flying knee that knocked Dober backwards. Dober tried to take McKinney down to change the momentum but instead found himself on his back. Again Dober was able to return to his feet, although after a brief exchange on the feet McKinney took Dober back to the mat. McKinney looked to be slowing down as Dober stood up, and as McKinney shot for one final takedown Dober landed a knee to put him on his back and then forced a stoppage through ground and pound. The fight lasted just three minutes and 17 seconds, but it was the third longest fight of McKinney’s 16-fight career. McKinney finished ahead in significant strikes 36-17 and in total strikes 43-31. Both fighters landed a knockdown, while McKinney landed two of his three takedown attempts and Dober missed on his only attempt.
Now 12-4 as a pro, McKinney has never been to the judges. He has five wins by KO and seven by submission. He’s also been knocked out three times and has one submission loss. He’s never been in a fight that lasted longer than 11 minutes and 14 of his 16 fights have ended in round one (11-3). Amazingly, seven of those first round finishes ended in the opening minute (5-2), and his last eight and 11 of his 12 career wins have come in under three minutes. One of his four career losses results from a leg injury, while the other three were all against fighters currently in the UFC, in Sean Woodson, Darrick Minner, and Drew Dober. McKinney turned pro in 2017 and started off at 145 lb before moving up to 155 lb. He went back and forth between the two weight classes early in his career and even fought as high as 170 lb once, but it appears he’s settled in at 155 lb. Notably, three of his four career losses came down at 145 lb.
Overall, McKinney is an explosive striker with dynamite in his hands, but he was also a college wrestler and can compete both on the feet and the mat. The only concern with him is his cardio, as he sells out for finishes early on in fights and we saw him gas out after three minutes in his last match. After facing a really tough Drew Dober on short notice, McKinney gets a much easier matchup in this next one.
Erick Gonzalez
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Also coming off an early loss, Gonzalez was knocked out for the first time in his career in his October 2021 UFC debut by Jim Miller. While Gonzalez only has one UFC fight under his belt, his last three losses have all come against current or former UFC fighters, in Jim Miller, Humberto Bandenay, and Rafa Garcia. Both of those earlier two losses came in three-round decisions, but the Garcia fight is incorrectly documented as a five-round fight on multiple websites for what it’s worth. Gonzalez has a bizarre three-fight pattern of winning two fights and then suffering a loss going back 15 straight fights, not that we put much stock into those sorts of things.
In his last fight, Gonzalez took Miller down early in the fight, which is always a risky move against a dangerous BJJ black belt like Miller, who’s great at landing armbars and guillotines off his back. However, Gonzalez returned to his feet before Miller could lock anything up. Then, Gonzalez appeared to wobble Miller on the feet, but Miller landed a desperation takedown to buy some recovery time, which served its purpose before Gonzalez was able to return to his feet with under two minutes left in the round. The two fighters then stood and traded for the remainder of the round and Miller was able to land multiple solid left hands out of his southpaw stance. Gonzalez was unable to make any adjustments between rounds and Miller knocked him out cold with another clean left hand in the opening seconds of round two. Miller finished ahead 32-14 in significant strikes and 43-22 in total strikes, while both fighters landed one of their two takedown attempts.
Now 14-6 as a pro, Gonzalez has eight wins by KO, one by submission, and five decisions. He’s been knocked out once, submitted twice, and has three decision losses. Both of his submission losses occurred in round one, while his KO loss came in the opening seconds of round two.
Overall, Gonzalez is a pretty wild and sloppy fighter, but that also makes him unpredictable. While he often looks to get fights to the ground, he’s not much of a submission threat and is instead looking to throw elbows and finish fights with ground and pound. He’s only landed one finish since 2019, which came in the third round of a 2021 fight, so he hasn’t been extremely dangerous. He slowed down late in the first round of his UFC debut, so his cardio will be something to monitor moving forward.
Fight Prediction:
Gonzalez will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
This sets up for a wild first round brawl that’s unlikely to make it to round two. McKinney is the much more dangerous of the two, but he also appears to have a three minute gas tank, which in the end, could be the great equalizer. While we’re not expecting Gonzalez to survive the initial blitz of McKinney, it’s certainly possible. It will be interesting to see if McKinney dials things back any after gassing three minutes into his last fight, but he’s been fighting that aggressively for so long that it would be somewhat surprising. The other question going in is whether or not McKinney will be looking to grapple, as he should have a major wrestling advantage. McKinney has the ability to finish this fight both standing or on the ground, but we’re leaning that he looks for the knockout opposed to a submission. Whatever happens, this should be a wild few minutes of action and we like McKinney to land another first round finish, most likely by knockout.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in R1 KO” at +180.
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DFS Implications:
McKinney appeared on his way to landing his sixth straight first round finish in his last fight before he gassed out three minutes into the fight and Drew Dober turned the tables to land a first round knockout of his own. In fairness to McKinney, he took that fight on just 8 day’s notice after fighting just two weeks earlier. McKinney scored 127 and 97 DraftKings points in his first two UFC fights, and with seven career wins in the opening 60 seconds of fights he might be the most likely fighter on the UFC roster to land the DraftKings Quick Win Bonus every time he steps inside the Octagon. His combination of striking and wrestling make him a tough guy to prepare for, but it will be interesting to see how opponents adjust to his ultra aggressive fighting style. Amazingly, 11 of his 12 career wins have come in under three minutes, but that also means he’s generally a R1 or bust fighter. As the highest projected owned fighter on the slate, the chances for a large split in tournaments dramatically increase if McKinney is in the winning lineup, while roughly half the field will be eliminated from contention if he’s not. He’s also the most expensive fighter on the card, which creates the potential for him to get priced out of the winning lineup even with a finish. While his upside is undeniable, there’s also a massive leverage opportunity here in tournaments should you choose to take it. The odds imply McKinney has an 86% chance to win, a 72% chance to land a finish, and a 45% chance it comes in round one.
Gonzalez hasn’t done anything to impress us and got knocked out by a grappler in Jim Miller in his recent UFC debut. To Gonzalez’s credit, that’s the only time he’s been knocked out in his career. Nevertheless, that’s far from encouraging for his chances of surviving the opening minutes against McKinney. However, if Gonzalez can make it past the three minute mark we could see McKinney gas out once again. Just keep in mind, Gonzalez’s cardio didn’t look good in his debut either, so there’s always a chance both guys gas out and things get weird. Gonzalez has only landed one finish since 2019, so he hasn’t been especially dangerous and this looks like the UFC’s attempt at getting McKinney back on track with a major step down in competition. So while the leverage opportunity that Gonzalez presents is enticing, it’s still very unlikely to pan out. At his low ownership, it’s easy to leverage the field without going crazy. The odds imply Gonzalez has a 14% chance to win, a 9% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Michal Oleksiejczuk
9th UFC Fight (4-3, NC)Moving down to 185 lb for the first time in the UFC, the only other time Oleksiejczuk has fought at 185 lb was in his 2014 pro debut. He’s always been undersized and overweight at 205 lb, so it’s not at all shocking that he’s finally making the move that people have been making for him for years, especially considering he lost his last fight at 205 lb. Ironically, in his first 185 lb UFC fight he’ll be taking on an opponent who also just fought at 205 lb. Oleksiejczuk originally came into the UFC in 2017 with a 12-2 record and on a nine fight winning streak. However, after winning his 2017 UFC debut by decision over Khalil Rountree in 2017, Oleksiejczuk tested positive for a banned estrogen blocker and was suspended for a year along with the results of the fight being overturned to a No Contest. He landed a pair of first round knockouts when he returned, but was then submitted in back-to-back fights before righting the ship with a split-decision win followed by another first round knockout victory leading up to his recent decision loss to Dustin Jacoby.
In Oleksiejczuk’s last fight, Jacoby fought through leg and foot injuries and threw almost no leg kicks in the fight, which is typically one of his primary attacks. Nevertheless, Jacoby was still able to outland his way to a decision win with his boxing and actually looked close to finishing Oleksiejczuk in round two, but the fight ended up going the distance. Jacoby finished the fight ahead 89-69 in significant strikes and 107-72 in total strikes, with both fighters landing one of their two takedown attempts.
Now 16-5 as a pro, Oleksiejczuk has 11 wins by KO, one by submission, and four decisions. He’s been knocked out once, submitted three times, and is coming off his first decision loss. Oleksiejczuk has only landed one finish in his last five fights, but all three of his early wins in the UFC ended in first round knockouts.
Overall, Oleksiejczuk is a pure striker who’s constantly pressuring his opponents and looking for violent body shots out of the southpaw stance. He’s only landed one takedown in his last seven fights and really doesn’t add anything in terms of grappling. It will be interesting to see how his speed and power translate to 185 lb after finally making the move down from 205 lb.
Sam Alvey
24th UFC Fight (10-12-1)Alvey has fought eight times in the last four years. He’s won zero of those fights, but did have one tie if we’re looking for moral victories. It’s been stated that this will be his final UFC fight, regardless of the outcome. His last win was a 2018 split decision over Gian Villiante. After fighting his first 13 UFC fights at 185 lb (8-5), Alvey moved up to 205 lb in 2018. However, after winning his first two fights at Light Heavyweight, he went 0-4-1 in his next five before dropping back down to 185 lb in 2021 where he then lost his next two. His last fight was moved up to 205 lb when Brendan Allen took it on short notice, but now Alvey will move back down to 185 lb for his final UFC appearance.
In Alvey’s last fight, Allen looked to grapple early, but Alvey was able to keep the fight standing. That ended up working out fine for Allen, as he was able to methodically pick Alvey apart from the outside, while Alvey looked to counter strike as he always does. To Alvey’s credit, he was able to land some clean shots, but Allen hurt Alvey late in the round as he dropped him to a knee with a stiff punch. Alvey was narrowly able to hang on and survive to see round two, but Allen then dropped Alvey again and immediately hopped on his back as he rained down ground and pound and then quickly locked up a no-hooks rear-naked choke to force a tap. The fight ended with Allen ahead 36-24 in striking and Alvey’s chin did not look to be in good shape.
Now 33-17-1 as a pro, Alvey has 19 wins by KO, three submissions, and 11 decisions. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted three more, and also has 11 decision losses. He’s gone 0-7-1 in his last eight fights, with two of those losses ending in knockouts, two by submission, and the other four fights going the distance.
Overall, Alvey has historically been a tough guy to finish, but looks to be fading fast as we’ve seen him get rocked at multiple points in his recent fights. His last two submission losses easily both could have been knockouts had his opponents looked for ground and pound instead of chokes after dropping Alvey on the feet. Alvey hasn’t finished anybody since 2018, when he knocked out a terrible Marcin Prachnio in the first round. Alvey’s second most recent finish was all the way back in 2016.
Fight Prediction:
Alvey will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, but Oleksiejczuk is nine years younger than the 36-year-old Alvey.
Alvey knows this will be his final UFC fight and we rarely see fighters win in those situations, especially when they’re facing young, hungry competition. The wildcard here is how Oleksiejczuk will look down at 185 lb, after he’s competed at 205 lb for 20 straight fights. He looked fine at weigh-ins, and always appeared to have some weight he could afford to lose at 205 lb, so we’re not overly concerned, but it still creates the potential for uncertainty. With that said, Alvey also fought at 205 lb the last time we saw him and he actually looked rough on the scale and initially missed weight by a pound before taking the extra time to cut the final pound. So if we’re concerned with anyone’s weight cut, it’s Alvey’s. While Alvery has historically been very durable, his chin has been fading for the last few fights and he’s been dropped in three of his last four matches. Oleksiejczuk has heavy hands and we like his chances to land an early knockout here.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in KO” at -135.
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DFS Implications:
Oleksiejczuk is a pure striker who relies on striking, knockdowns, and finishes to score well and has only landed one takedown in his last seven fights. He’s been a R1 KO or bust DFS play throughout his career, averaging 122 DraftKings points in his three first round finishes in the UFC, while scoring just 59 points in his lone UFC decision win. Alvey hasn’t been knocked out since 2019, but he’s already got one foot out the door and his chin isn’t what it used to be. The fact that Oleksiejczuk is moving down to 185 lb for the first time since his 2014 pro debut adds some uncertainty to the mix, but Alvey also fought his last fight at 205 lb and looked pretty rough on the scale after cutting back down to 185 lb. Oleksiejczuk’s floor is unreliable, but he has a huge ceiling and the ability to land knockdowns in bunches as he prepares to face a half-retired aging fighter. The odds imply he has an 82% chance to win, a 50% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Alvey hasn’t topped 62 DraftKings points in a fight since 2018 and is now finally on his way out of the UFC. He’s facing an opponent in Oleksiejczuk who’s only career knockout came all the way back in 2014, but the weight cut narrative does make this a higher variance spot. Alvey averages just 3.30 SSL/min and hasn’t landed a takedown in his last nine fights, so even at his cheap price tag he looks like nothing more than a washed up KO or bust option. His last decision win (2018) scored just 62 DraftKings points, and we’re not going to waste anyone’s time continuing to talk about Sam Alvey. The odds imply he has an 18% chance to win, a 9% chance to get a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #6
Ariane Lipski
8th UFC Fight (3-4)After getting finished with ground and pound on the mat in back-to-back fights against Antonina Shevchenko and Montana De La Rosa in 2020 and 2021, Lipski bounced back with a dominant decision win over a terrible Mandy Bohm in her last fight. Lipski had been scheduled to face JJ Aldrich in March, but ended up withdrawing due to a shoulder injury and it’s now been almost 11 months since she last fought. After her first three UFC fights all went the distance, she landed her only early win with the organization in a first round kneebar submission against Luana Carolina leading up to her pair of second round TKO losses.
In Lipski’s last fight, Mandy Bohm attempted to take her down in the opening minute, only to have it reversed, with Lipski ending up in top position. At that point, Bohm clung on with a body triangle, praying for the ref to stand the fight up. However, as Lipski postured up to land strikes Bohm was able to kick her off and return to her feet. Maybe she should have stayed on her back though, because things weren’t going her way on the feet either. Things only got worse as the fight went on, with Lipski landing a pair of knockdowns in the later rounds and finishing ahead in significant strikes 87-36 and in total strikes 116-47. She also led in control time 4:26-0:26, despite failing to land her only takedown attempt, with Bohm going 0 for 4 on her takedown attempts.
Now 14-7 as a pro, Lipski has six wins by KO, three by submission, and five decisions. She has three TKO losses and four decision defeats. Seven of her last eight fights have made it out of the first round, with five of those going the distance.
Overall, Lipski is a decent striker with okay submission skills, and she has said she’s been working on her wrestling since switching camps to American Top Team following her loss to Shevchenko. She’s a BJJ purple belt and her last three early wins all ended in first round submissions. However, she’s only landed one takedown on five attempts in the UFC, which came in her UFC debut. On the other side of things, Lipski has been taken down 8 times on 18 attempts (55.6% defense) in her seven UFC fights.
UPDATE: Lipski missed weight by 2.5 lb!
Priscila Cachoeira
8th UFC Fight (3-4)Coming off a questionable decision win over Ji Yeon Kim, Cachoeira has now won three of her last four fights after starting off 0-3 in the UFC. In fairness to her, she was thrown straight into the fire in her UFC debut when she was matched up against Valentina Shevchenko. Shevchenko absolutely dominated her for two rounds, elbowing her face through the mat before submitting Cachoeira late in the second round. Cachoeira followed that up with decision losses to Molly McCann and Luana Carolina, before landing a pair of knockouts against low-level opponents in Shana Dobson and Gina Mazany. She then got submitted at the end of round one by Gillian Robertson, leading up to her recent decision win.
In her last fight, Cachoeira threw down in a high-volume striking battle, but was massively outlanded by Ji Yeon Kim 170-102 in significant strikes. Cachoeira appeared to be the one doing more damage and the judges valued that over volume in the end. Towards the end of the fight, Cachoeira was landing nothing but heavy elbows and finished strong. Cachoeira also landed the only takedown attempt in the fight and won a unanimous 29-28 decision.
Now 11-4 as a pro, Cachoeira has six wins by KO and five decisions. She’s never been knocked out but has been submitted twice, and has two decision losses. All six of her KO wins have come in the first two rounds, as have her two submission losses. Cachoeira fought some at 135 lb earlier in her career, but has been down at 125 lb since 2017.
Overall, Cachoeira is a straight brawler who just wants to throw down and see who’s chin holds up. Her striking defense is non-existent and she averages 7.91 SSA/min (most on the slate). She’s been outlanded by her opponents in five of her seven UFC fights and finished three strikes ahead in the other two. In her three UFC fights to go the distance, her opponents landed 170, 107, and 111 significant strikes. She’s also a complete liability on the mat and is terrible off her back. She’s been taken down 9 times on 26 attempts (65.4% defense) in her seven UFC fights, while landing just one takedown of her own on three attempts (33.3% accuracy). Cachoeira has struggled with weight cuts throughout her career so she’s always one to keep an eye on at weigh-ins.
Fight Prediction:
Cachoeira will have a 1” height advantage, but Lipski will have a 2” reach advantage and is five years younger than the 33-year-old Cachoeira.
This sets up as an action packed brawl between a pair of Brazilian strikers. While they’ve each only landed one takedown in their respective UFC careers, if this fight does hit the mat Lipski is the superior grappler, but they’ve both struggled mightily off their backs. Lipski is the more calculated striker, while Cachoeira has more power and just wants to brawl. If things stay standing we could see Lipski land more volume but Cachoeira has a better chance to land a knockout. While Lipski has three TKO losses on her record, the last two of those have come from ground and pound opposed to getting starched on the feet. So it’s still more likely than not that we see a wild firefight that goes the distance. You never know how judges will score Cachoeira’s fights, as she typically gets outstruck, but is often the one inflicting more damage. That makes it much tougher to know who will get their hand raised in a decision, but between Lipski missing weight, Cachoeira’s higher chances of landing a knockout and her plus odds, we’ll tentatively say Cachoeira wins a close fight as long as she can stay off her back.
Our favorite bet here is “Cachoeira KO” at +550.
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DFS Implications:
Lipski has averaged 99 DraftKings points in her three UFC wins, despite two of those going the distance. Those scores were bolstered by three knockdowns in those two decisions, in addition to large amounts of control time and ground strikes. Cachoeira has only been knocked down once in her UFC career, and Lipski may have a tougher time scoring well if this fight never hits the mat. Working in her favor, Cachoeira averages 7.91 SSA/min (most on the slate), so this is a great spot for Lipski to land a ton of strikes, but she’ll need to be cautious of the power coming back her way. While Cachoeira is terrible off her back, Lipski hasn’t landed a takedown in her last six fights, so may have a tougher time putting her there. However, if she can land a takedown, this is a great opportunity to dominate on the ground. Pure striking volume should provide Lipski a decent scoring floor and the potential to dominate on the ground creates a high ceiling. We like her to set a career mark in striking if this fight goes the distance, and at her reasonable price tag, she can still return value even without a finish, but it’s not a certainty. The odds imply Lipski has a 61% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Cachoeira’s brawling fight-style is great for DFS as she’s constantly forcing the action, getting punched in the face, and looking for knockouts. She’s also terrible off her back, which provides another avenue for opponents to score well against her. She absorbs far more strikes than she lands on average (4.46 SSL/min vs. 7.91 SSA/min), and doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling, which leaves her largely reliant on landing knockouts to score well. She returned DraftKings scores of 87 and 128 in her two UFC knockout wins, but just 77 points in her recent high-volume decision victory. At her cheaper price tag there’s always the chance she could still serve as a value play in a decision win, but it would require the majority of the other underdogs on the card to fail. We expect this to be a wild brawl and both fighters have a solid floor, making it an interesting fight to target in DFS. As the cheaper of the two, that also keeps Cachoeira in the cash play discussion. The odds imply Cachoeira has a 39% chance to win, a 17% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #5
Serghei Spivac
9th UFC Fight (5-3)Coming off a first round KO win over Greg Hardy, Spivac has won four of his last five fights, with his lone loss over that stretch coming against Tom Aspinall. And in fairness to Spivac, he took that fight against Aspinall on just a week’s notice after Aspinall’s original opponent dropped out. After getting knocked out in 50 seconds in his 2019 UFC debut against Walt Harris. Spivac bounced back with a second round submission victory over Tai Tuivasa that has aged quite well. He then got bodied for 15 minutes by a larger Marcin Tybura before rattling off three straight wins against low-level debuting fighters in Carlos Felipe and Jared Vanderaa and an aging opponent in Alexey Oleynik. He then suffered the setback against Aspinall before bouncing back with the win over Hardy.
In that last fight, Spivac landed a takedown in the opening minute, but Hardy was able to power his way back to his feet. However, Hardy remained in Spivac’s grasp and Spivac chain wrestled him back to the mat on a pair of slams and then quickly assaulted him with ground strikes until the fight was soon stopped. The match ended in 136 seconds with Spivac ahead 14-7 in significant strikes and 17-7 in total strikes, while landing three of his four takedown attempts.
Now 14-3 as a pro, Spivac has six wins by KO, six by submission, and two decisions. He’s been knocked out twice and has one decision loss. Prior to joining the UFC, he landed nine straight finishes in the first two rounds, with eight ending in round one. Since joining the UFC, he’s had three fights end in first round TKOs (1-2), a pair of second round wins with one TKO and another by submission, and has gone to three decisions (2-1).
Overall, Spivac is a rare Heavyweight grappler, and does his best work from top position on the mat. He’s not a great striker on the feet and relies on getting fights to the ground to win. He’s 1-3 in UFC fights where he’s failed to land a takedown, but 4-0 with when he’s landed at least one.
Augusto Sakai
8th UFC Fight (4-3)Stumbling in with three straight knockout losses, Sakai’s career has quickly taken a turn for the worse after he won his first four UFC fights. The skid started with a R5 TKO loss to Alistair Overeem in what was Sakai’s first career five-round fight. Sakai actually started strong in that fight but faded late and couldn’t stop a takedown to save his life in the later rounds as Overeem beat him up on the mat. Sakai followed that up with another KO loss, this time in the final second of round one against Jairzinho Rozenstruik. Most recently he took on another power puncher in Tai Tuivasa and got knocked out 26 seconds into the second round.
In that last fight, we again saw Sakai circle around the outside of the Octagon with a more passive approach like we saw in his previous fight against Rozenstruik. Tuivasa eventually tracked him down and engaged in the clinch to keep him in one place. The two briefly broke apart with two minutes remaining in the round but soon found themselves back on the fence. Tuivasa began landing big shots late in the round, but Sakai was able to hang on in the clinch to see a second round. However, as soon as the second round started Tuivasa began landing a heavy combination of punches and folded Sakai like a cheap lawn chair. Tuivasa finished ahead in significant strikes 34-21 and in total strikes 44-40.
Now 15-4-1 as a pro, Sakai has 11 wins by KO and four decisions. He’s been knocked out three times and has one decision defeat. Despite 11 of his 15 career wins coming early, Sakai has just two first round finishes in his last 16 matches and just one since joining the UFC. He did start his pro career off with four straight first round knockouts in 2011 and 2012, but those came against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-1, 0-0 and 2-4. Since then, he’s knocked out seven more opponents—two in R1, three in R2 and two in R3. Two of his last three wins have notably ended in split-decisions and five of his seven UFC fights have made it to the second round, with four seeing a third round, and two going the distance.
Overall, Sakai is an average talent Heavyweight who discovered his limitations once he began facing tougher competition. He lands a decent amount of striking volume, averaging 5.04 SSL/min, but has only landed one takedown in his UFC career and none in his last six fights. He is a BJJ brown belt, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at his ground game and he’s looked pretty helpless off his back. In addition to being just an average talent, Sakai’s confidence appears at an all time low, which is understandable considering the streak he’s on. He’s been fighting not to lose lately, and still getting finished every time he steps inside the Octagon. He did switch camps to American Top Team for this fight, so we’ll see if that changes anything. Sakai’s takedown defense looks decent on paper, but that’s heavily skewed by his DWCS fight, where his opponent landed just 1 of his 7 attempts. In his seven UFC fights since then, Sakai has been taken down four times on seven attempts and the only opponent to try and fail to get him down was a non-grappler in Tai Tuivasa who failed on his one half-hearted attempt.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’3” but Spivac will have a 1” reach advantage and is four years younger than the 31-year-old Sakai.
This sets up as a striker versus grappler battle and Sakai will need to keep the fight standing if he wants to win. We fully expect Spivac to try and get this fight to the ground early and often. Sakai’s takedown defense is fraudulent and is far worse than it appears on paper. We’d be surprised if he was able to stuff all of Spivac’s attempts, and once they end up on the mat Spivac should be able to work his way to a finish. That will leave Sakai reliant on landing an early knockout to pull off the upset and we don’t see it happening. We like Spivac to dominate this fight on the ground and find a finish in the first two rounds, most likely through ground and pound.
Our favorite bet here is “Spivac KO” at +190.
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DFS Implications:
Spivac is coming off a massive performance with he scored 114 DraftKings points and 126 points on FanDuel in an easy R1 TKO win over Greg Hardy. That's the second time he’s put up massive numbers in his last four outings, as he scored 132 DraftKings points and 124 points on FanDuel in a second round TKO win over Jared Vanderaa back in 2021. Looking back earlier in his career, he also scored 120 DraftKings points and 130 points on FanDuel in a second round submission win against Tai Tuivasa, so Spivac has made a habit out of putting up slate-breaking scores. Of some concern for his scoring floor, he has been knocked out twice in the first round in the UFC, but one of those times was in his UFC debut and the other was on short notice against Tom Aspinall, so we’re willing to give him a pass. This looks like a great matchup for Spivac to get the fight to the ground and find a finish, as Sakai has been taken down four times on seven attempts in his last four fights. Spivac’s wrestling-heavy style is perfectly suited to the DraftKings scoring system, but he’s a solid play on both sites. He’s just more reliant on a finish on FanDuel, which he showed when he scored 101 DraftKings points in a decision win over Carlos Felipe, but just 82 on FanDuel. One concern with Spivac is that he’s not a great striker, so if Sakai can keep the fight standing, Spivac will have a tough time scoring well or even winning the fight. The other concern with Spivac is his ownership. We’ve seen it fluctuate a ton, ranging from 18% to 54% over his last five fights. We really saw it skyrocket (18% to 54%) after his slate-breaking win over Vanderaa and now Spivac is coming off another big performance. So while Spivac was just 20% owned the last time we saw him when he was coming off a pair of disappointing performances, we should see that number rise significantly as the field chases his recent success. The odds imply Spivac has a 70% chance to win, a 49% chance to land a finish, and a 25% chance it comes in round one.
Sakai is a KO or bust DFS option who has averaged 115 DraftKings points in his two early UFC victories, but just 60 points in his two decision wins. While Sakai lands a decent amount of volume at times, averaging 5.04 significant strikes landed per minute, he’s only landed one takedown in seven UFC fights, which came in his debut. Now he’ll face a Heavyweight wrestler and Sakai will likely have limited opportunities to land strikes before he finds himself on his back. And while Sakai has 11 KO wins on his pro record, he only has two first round finishes in his last 16 fights. So while Spivac has been knocked out in the first round twice in the UFC, Sakai isn’t the most likely fighter to capitalize on that. However, at Heavyweight there’s always a chance for a knockout at any moment, which is what Sakai will be relying on. With Sakai coming off three straight KO losses, we have basically no confidence in him, but if he can somehow land a knockout he’ll be a solid tournament leverage play. The odds imply he has a 30% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Juliana Miller
1st UFC Fight (0-0)This fight will decide who is the Women’s Strawweight winner for The Ultimate Fighter 30.
Miller had just three pro fights to her name before recently going on TUF and was the youngest contestant on the show. She secured her spot in the finals with a second round submission win after winning a close decision in her first fight on the show.
In her first TUF fight, we saw a high-paced scrap with Miller getting pieced up on the feet for the first round and a half by a dangerous Claire Guthrie. However, Guthrie went through a tough weight cut that even required her to cut her hair to lose the final quarter pound and make weight. The tough weight cut showed in the back half of the match as Guthrie faded down the stretch and got controlled by Miller for the last round and a half to lose a decision.
In her second fight on the show, Miller took on a less talented opponent in Kaytlin Neil and was able to finish ahead in striking, get the fight to the ground at multiple points, and land a second round armbar submission.
Still just 2-1 as a pro, both of Miller’s pro wins prior to going on TUF ended in submissions, while her one loss was a highly questionable May 2021 decision to Claire Guthrie in their last fight before going on the show. After the loss to Guthrie, Miller had four grappling matches in September and October 2021 before going on TUF. Three of her last four amateur fights were at 115 lb, but all of her pro and TUF fights have been at 125 lb, and at 5’7” she’s certainly not small for the 125 lb division.
Overall, Miller is an aggressive fighter who constantly pushes forward throwing wild strikes and looking to take opponents down. She’s primarily a grappler, but won’t shy away from striking exchanges, despite having a near non-existent striking defense. She trains with Pearl Gonzalez who has a decision win over Walker, so there’s the potential she gets some extra intel from her here, although obviously Miller just spent 12 weeks around Walker so maybe that matters less than normal.
Brogan Walker
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Prior to going on TUF, Walker had lost two of her last three fights. The one win came in a first round submission over Emilee King, who is now 5-7 as a pro with all seven of her losses coming by submission, and has lost three straight and four of her last five. Walker fought her first four pro fights in Guam, before joining Invicta in 2018, where she went 3-2 in her last five fights. Walker faced a pair of replacement fighters on TUF in Hannah Guy and Laura Gallardo, after Melissa Parker didn’t pass her medicals and Chantel Coates was sent home for being vastly overweight. That’s not to say Walker didn’t face any adversity on the show, as she suffered a minor knee injury in training before her first fight.
In her first TUF fight, Walker took on a replacement fighter in Hannah Guy who was stepping in for Melissa Parker, who ended up not getting medically cleared for the show. Walker led the dance for the first round and a half, but Guy was able to take her down and control her back for the final couple of minutes in round two. Walker landed the only takedown she attempted in the fight. Everyone on the show appeared to expect a third round to take place but the judges thought Walker did enough early in round two to win the round.
In her second fight on the show, Walker was able to stuff all of Laura Gallardo’s takedown attempts and outland her way to victory in another decision. Walker didn’t attempt any takedowns of her own in the fight, but continued to press forward looking to land strikes.
Now 7-2 as a pro, Walker has seen eight of her nine pro fights go the distance (6-2), not including her two exhibition matches on TUF, which also both ended in decisions. The only time she’s been involved in a fight that ended early was in a first round submission win in her last fight before going on the show (August 2021). She had lost a pair of decisions against Erin Blanchfield and Pearl Gonzalez leading up to that, after winning a questionable decision over Miranda Maverick. So she’s fought multiple opponents who currently have UFC experience. Just keep in mind, when they fought, Maverick was only 21 years old with three pro fights to her name and was coming off an injury and year long layoff. Despite what the scorecards said, the fight was extremely close and Maverick arguably should have won 29-28 after controlling Walker for extended periods of time in each of the first two rounds and finishing both those rounds in top position.
Overall, Walker has a Muay Thai background, but is also a BJJ black belt (allegedly). She hasn’t shown us much in terms of grappling, and generally relies on striking to win fights. She’s right handed but often fights out of the southpaw stance. She’s been living in Guam for the last decade, but trains out of California where she was born. She’s pretty defensively sound, but not much of a threat to finish anybody, which is evident by the fact that 89% of her pro fights and both of her TUF fights went the distance.
Fight Prediction:
Miller will have a 3” height advantage, but both fighters share a 67” reach. Miller is six years younger than the 32-year-old Miller.
Walker is the last chance for a Team Nunes victory, as both of the Heavyweights in the finals are from Team Pena. While Walker did a great job of defending takedowns in her last fight, that was against a late replacement opponent on the show, who’s last pro fight was down at 115 lb, opposed to 125 lb where the TUF matches took place. Prior to that, we had seen Walker really struggle with defending takedowns and getting controlled on the mat. While she’s technically a BJJ black belt, her background is actually in Muay Thai and she hasn’t shown us much on the ground. This fight will likely all come down to whether or not Walker can keep it standing, and while her last fight may lead people to believe she can, we’re not buying that she all of a sudden has some great takedown defense after struggling to defend takedowns throughout her career. Miller is a far greater submission threat than Walker on the ground and even if she can’t submit her, there’s a good chance she can control her for extended periods of time to bank rounds. With that said, if Walker can keep it standing, she’ll have a striking advantage against the aggressive, but highly hittable Miller. However, Walker hasn’t looked like any sort of threat to knock anyone out, so her only path to victory is to keep the fight standing and outland her way to decision win. There are two other variables in play here that add some uncertainty to the mix. First, Walker suffered a knee injury on the show leading up to her first fight. Apparently it was somewhat minor, but the lingering effects are unknown. And second, Miller’s last fight on the show was on July 19th (18 days before this upcoming card), while Walker’s last fight on the show was July 5th (32 days before this upcoming card). So Walker has had two additional weeks to recover and prepare for this upcoming fight. Regardless, we like Miller to take Walker down, control her, and either find a submission or outgrapple her way to a decision win.
Our favorite bet here is Miller’s ML at -115.
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DFS Implications:
Miller’s uptempo pace and aggressive approach to fighting makes for the perfect combination in DFS. Her grappling heavy style gives her a higher floor on DraftKings, but her constant pursuit of submissions presents a solid scoring ceiling on both sites. Outside of her inexperience, her biggest weakness is her striking defense. However, she’s never been finished in her short career, and Walker has gone the distance in all but one of her pro fights, so it’s unlikely Miller gets finished early. That should give her plenty of opportunities to look for takedowns and submissions and she also frantically throws a high number of strikes on the feet. The line has moved in Walker’s favor, which should reduce Miller’s ownership and adds to her tournament appeal. The only concern with Miller is that she relies heavily on her grappling and if she can’t get this fight to the ground, she’ll likely get pieced up on the feet and we don’t see her winning a pure striking battle. The odds imply Miller has a 53% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Walker was gifted a relatively easy path to the finals as both of her TUF wins came against late replacements after two of the original contestants dropped out due to medical and weight cutting issues. She lost two of her previous three fights before going on TUF and she has been prone to getting taken down and controlled in the past. Despite claiming to be a BJJ black belt, her background is actually in Muay Thai and she didn’t start jiu-jitsu training until later in her life. Six of her seven pro wins and both of her victories on TUF ended in decisions and the only early win of her career came against a struggling 5-7 opponent who’s been submitted in 100% of her losses. Walker is unlikely to want to test Miller on the mat in this match, and has never knocked anybody out, so her finishing upside is pretty limited. That will leave her reliant on putting up a massive striking total to really score well, although at her cheaper price tag she has the potential to serve as a value play with a slightly more modest score. Working in her favor, Miller has looked incredibly hittable and is constantly walking into punches. So if Walker can keep this fight standing she should be able to land a good amount of volume unless she spends the whole fight pushed up against the fence, which is also possible. Walker was dealing with a minor knee injury on the show, which is a potential red flag, although she may now be past that. The odds imply Walker has a 47% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Zac Pauga
1st UFC Fight (0-0)This fight will decide who is the Men’s Heavyweight winner for The Ultimate Fighter 30.
Pauga was briefly signed by The Houston Texans back in 2011 as a RB, but never saw any game action in the NFL and then tried his hand in rugby before pursuing a career in law enforcement. He then turned pro in MMA in 2020 as he continues to try and find his calling.
In his first fight on TUF, Pauga took on a pig-farming wrestler in Nyle Bartling and did a good job of defending takedowns and easily outlanding his way to a two-round decision win. In what was Pauga’s first fight at Heavyweight since his amateur days, he admitted to gassing late in that fight.
In his second TUF fight, Pauga took on a welder from Nebraska and made things look easy as he easily outlanded him before knocking him out early in round two.
Now 5-0 as a pro not counting his two exhibition wins on TUF, Pauga has one KO win and four by decision. He competed at Heavyweight as an amateur, but dropped down to Light Heavyweight in his 2020 pro debut, where all five of his pro fights have been. However, he moved back up to Heavyweight for TUF and was still able to win both of those fights. In his first TUF fight he weighed in at 241.5 lb and in his second fight he weighed 244 lb, but he’s said that a return to Light Heavyweight is in his long term plans.
Overall, Pauga is athletic and has decent speed at Heavyweight. He trains with guys like Curtis Blaydes at Elevation Fight Team in Colorado, but his cardio didn’t actually look great in his first TUF fight and his second appearance on the show ended early in round two before his cardio could even be tested. He’s also spent time training with Usman prior to going on TUF, so these two are very familiar with each other.
Mohammed Usman
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Looking to follow in his brother’s footsteps, Mohammed Usman narrowly secured a spot in the finals with a split decision win in the TUF semi-finals. He also won a decision in his first fight on the show and didn’t look like much of a finisher. Similar to Pauga, Usman also has a football background, as he played Defensive End at University of Arizona. He also wrestled in high-school.
In his first fight on TUF, Usman beat a terrible shit-talking Mitchell Sipe in a low-volume decision. Sipe notably got knocked out by Don’Tale Mayes on DWCS back in 2018 to give you an idea of his skill level. Nevertheless, Sipe was able to knock Usman down in the first round but wasn’t able to do much else. Usman looked to land massive over hand bombs but never came close to getting a finish, and in the end the fight came down to the third round where Usman landed a little more volume to get his hand raised.
In his second fight on the show, Usman threw more volume and won a close split decision against a massive Heavyweight in Eduardo Perez, who didn’t look great in the match and slowed down after the first round. Neither guy was ever in any danger of getting finished.
Now 7-2 as a pro, Usman has three wins by KO, two by submission, and two decisions. He’s never been knocked out but he was dropped multiple times and then submitted by a 40-year-old Brandon Sayles in his last fight before going on TUF. Sayles hadn’t fought in three and a half years leading up to that fight and was knocked out in his only match since, so it’s not a great look. All five of Usman’s early wins occurred in the first round, with his two submission victories both ending in kimuras in his first two pro fights. Only three of his seven wins have come against opponents with winning records and he has a 2018 decision loss to Don'Tale Mayes on his resume.
Overall, Usman is overly jacked and relies too much on landing overhand right bombs to do damage. He barely made it past two unimpressive Heavyweights to reach the TUF finals, and has looked somewhat chinny. The Heavyweight talent in general on the show was highly questionable and we don’t see any of these guys making any noise in the UFC.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’2” but Usman will have a 3” reach advantage.
These two have trained together both on TUF and before that, which adds an interesting dynamic to a fight, as they’ll be very familiar with one another. Pauga looks like the more technical striker, while Usman loads up on his shots and misses a lot. However, Usman will have the size advantage and looks like the more powerful of the two, although his chin hasn’t looked great. Usman has also been very vulnerable to having his lead leg attacked, and Pauga surely knows that. It would make sense for Pauga to try and compromise Usman’s leg early in this fight, and he at least seems to be the type of fighter that would opt to take the path of least resistance. However, you never know with some of these guys. We’ve yet to see Pauga in a Heavyweight fight that lasted longer than 10 minutes, and he looked tired by the end of his two-round decision win in the first round of TUF. So it will be interesting to see how he looks if this fight makes it to a third round. We also didn’t see his chin really get tested on the show, both of which add some uncertainty into the mix here. With that said, neither of these two have ever been knocked out, and we still like this one to go the distance—but that’s always a riskier bet at Heavyweight. While neither of these guys have been very impressive, we like Pauga to win a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Pauga R3 or DEC” at +120.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
Pauga fought at Light Heavyweight prior to going on TUF, so we don’t have a ton to go off of in terms of his Heavyweight history, as it’s just what we saw on the show. Both of those wins came against really low-level opponents, so while Pauga looked decent, the results need to be taken in context. While Usman has also been unimpressive, he’s still more dangerous than either of the guys Pauga fought in his first two TUF fights. Pauga didn’t attempt any takedowns in those last two fights and his striking volume wasn’t anything impressive. So at his high price tag it appears clear that he needs to hand Usman the first knockout loss of his career for Pauga to be useful. While that’s always possible, we still think it’s unlikely for a guy that just recently moved up from Light Heavyweight. However, we have seen Usman get dropped both on TUF and in his fight before the show, so he may not be as durable as his record and physique suggest. The odds imply Pauga has a 70% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Usman won a pair of close decisions on TUF to make it to the finals and didn’t land a ton of volume or wrestle much. The last time he finished an opponent was in 2019, a year when he landed two first round knockouts, although those both came against lower-level opponents who never fought again. We haven’t been impressed by Usman and if it wasn’t for his last name he likely wouldn’t be here. With that said, five of his seven pro wins (not counting the exhibition matches on TUF) ended in first round finishes, and now he’s facing an opponent who only recently moved up from Light Heavyweight to Heavyweight and hasn’t had his chin tested since the switch. At his cheap price tag, it’s hard to see Usman getting left out of winning lineups with a finish, although he’s unlikely to score well in a striking-heavy decision. The odds imply Usman has a 30% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Vicente Luque
19th UFC Fight (14-4)Luque is looking to bounce back from his first loss in his last five fights and just his second in his last 12 Octagon appearances. His last four and 12 of his last 14 wins have come early, but he’s gone just 1-4 in UFC decisions, with the lone win coming in a 2019 split-decision over Mike Perry. In fairness to him, his last three decision losses came against tough opponents in Belal Muhammad, Stephen Thompson, and Leon Edwards.
In his last fight, Belal Muhammad forced Luque to chase him around the Octagon, while shooting for takedowns any chance he got. Muhammad landed his first takedown midway through round one, with Luque returning to his feet late in the round. That was enough for Muhammad to steal the first round after trailing in significant strikes. Muhammad continued to land one takedown in every round of the fight, while trailing in significant strikes in three of the rounds and narrowly leading in the other two rounds. Muhammad finished the fight behind in significant strikes 60-84, but led in total strikes 136-102 and in takedowns 5-0, as he went on to win a boring decision. It was an excruciatingly painful fight to watch and Muhammad is about as exciting as a pet rock.
Now 21-8-1 as a pro, Luque has 11 wins by KO, eight by submission, and two decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but he’s been submitted twice and has six decision losses. Both of his submission losses occurred early in his career in 2010 and 2013. Of Luque’s 14 UFC wins, eight have ended in knockouts, five in submissions, and just one by decision. All four of his UFC losses have gone the distance. Of his 13 UFC finishes, eight (62%) occurred in round one, three (23%) ended in round two, and two (15%) were in round three.
Overall, Luque is a powerful high-volume striker who averages 5.30 SSL/min, while absorbing 5.18/min. He rarely lands takedowns, with zero in his last 12 fights, but he has landed 10 knockdowns in his last 15 UFC fights, while only getting knocked down twice himself. Luque was awarded his black belts in both BJJ and Luta Livre in 2021, but his submissions are purely opportunistic and we rarely see him try and take fights to the mat.
Geoff Neal
9th UFC Fight (6-2)Coming off his first win since 2019, Neak 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 has not looked like the same fighter since suffering the scare, and he’s looked more sluggish and far less explosive. However, he finally started to look a little better late in his last fight, so it will be interesting to see if he can keep that momentum going here.
In his last fight, Neal trailed Santiago Ponzinibbio in significant strikes in each of the first two rounds and got taken down in round two. However, Neal finished strong in round three and two of the three judges thought he did enough to win a split-decision, with one of them even giving Neal all three rounds. Ponzinibbio finished ahead in significant strikes 91-85 and in total strikes 91-86, while landing one of his four takedown attempts.
Now 14-4 as a pro, Neal has eight 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 submission loss was also in the third round, but occurred in his third pro fight back in 2013 against a highly suspect Martin Sano. While both of his early losses occurred in the third round, Neal has never landed a finish of his own beyond 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 and he’s only landed three takedowns in his last nine fights. His takedown defense has been solid (85%) and he’s only been taken down three times in the UFC. Neal averages 4.63 SSL/min and 4.91 SSA/min, but has never landed more than 85 significant strikes in a fight and is more of a technical striker than a brawler.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’11” with a 75” reach.
This sets up as a fun fight to watch between two solid strikers. While Neal is coming off a win and Luque a loss, it’s still Luque who has been the more impressive fighter recently. They’ve both been very durable throughout their careers, but Luque is the higher volume striker and we like him to outland his way to victory and either finish Neal late in the fight or get his hand raised in a decision. Luque has never been knocked out, and the only way we see Neal pulling off the upset is in a close decision, but we’re taking Luque here.
Our favorite bet here is “Luque R3 or DEC” at +180.
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DFS Implications:
Luque has been a consistent DFS contributor who’s averaged 107 DraftKings points in his 14 UFC wins, with 13 of those victories coming early. His lone decision victory scored just 64 points on DraftKings and 70 points on FanDuel, showing that he is reliant on landing finishes to score well and is unlikely to be useful in a decision. The only two times Luque failed to score at least 104 points with a finish were both in first round submission wins where he scored 95 and 93 DraftKings points. We’d be surprised if either fighter in this upcoming matchup looked for a takedown, so the only way Luque lands a submission is if he first knocks Neal down. So we’re not really concerned about Luque landing a hyper efficient submission win that fails to really score well. This spot seems pretty cut and dry, either Luque finishes Neal and scores well or he doesn’t. The odds imply he has a 63% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Neal has also struggled to score well without a finish as he relies almost entirely on his striking and is rarely looking to grapple. In his two UFC decision wins he put up DraftKings scores of 80 and 64 points, while he has averaged 106 DraftKings points in his four early wins with the organization. While Neal landed a first round submission win in his 2018 UFC debut, his last three finishes all ended in knockouts. Those all occurred in 2018 and 2019 and it’s been a while since we’ve seen Neal finish anybody. Making matters tougher, Luque has never been knocked out and hasn’t been submitted since 2013, so this looks like a really tough spot for Neal. While we are expecting to see a good amount of striking volume and Neal is affordably priced, he’ll still likely struggle to crack winning lineups without an early win unless only 2-3 underdogs on the slate win, which is always possible. The odds imply Neal has a 37% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Jamahal Hill
7th UFC Fight (4-1, NC)Coming off a pair of impressive first round knockouts, Hill’s last five fights have all ended in the first two rounds (3-1, NC), with four of those ending in round one. The only opponent to take him past the first round since his debut was OSP, who Hill knocked out in round two. Following that win, Hill had his elbow dislocated by Paul Craig early in the first round of a June 2021 fight, which is the only loss of Hill’s career. Hill bounced back with an impressive 48 second R1 KO win over a dangerous Jimmy Crute. Hill dropped Crute twice in that quick fight, although somehow, Hill wasn’t credited with an official knockdown on the first of the two. He then kept his momentum alive with a first round starching of Johnny Walker in his last outing.
In that last fight, we saw a feeling out process early on, with the fight starting out at kicking range until Walker looked to clinch. Hill escaped and after starting the fight in his normal southpaw he decided to give Walker a new look and switch to an orthodox stance. As soon as he did that he connected on his first punch to the head of Walker and toppled him like a redwood to end the fight. Walker actually finished ahead in significant strikes 12-6 and in total strikes 12-7, while no takedowns were attempted in the fight, but Hill landed the only shot that really counted.
Now 10-1 as a pro, Hill has six wins by KO (not counting the R1 KO that was overturned to a No Contest) and four decision victories. All of those knockouts occurred in the first two rounds, with four ending in round one and two in round two. It would have been five in round one if one of those hadn’t later been overturned. His only loss went down as a TKO, but it was caused by an armbar submission. If we include the knockout that was later overturned for pot, eight of his 12 fights have ended early, all in the first two rounds, with six ending in round one. The only time he’s seen the third round since 2018 was in a decision win in his 2020 UFC debut.
Overall, Hill is a high-volume striker who averages 7.06 SSL/min while only absorbing 3.71/minute. He relies entirely on his striking and has never even attempted a takedown in the UFC. While we saw him get taken down six times in his UFC debut, he hasn’t been taken down in his last five fights or his DWCS appearance. Hill is a wiry Light Heavyweight who has sneaky power and the ability to finish anyone with a single punch.
This will be the third five-round fight of Hill’s career and second in the UFC. The first five-round fight of his career came prior to joining the UFC in 2018 against Dequan Townsend and Hill won a decision. The second five rounder of his career came in his last match when he knocked out Johnny Walker in the first round.
Thiago Santos
24th UFC Fight (14-9)Now 38 years old, Santos is just 1-4 in his last five fights and has fought in three straight staring contests. His only win in those last five fights was a 48-47 five-round decision win over Johnny Walker, who’s also just 1-4 in his last five fights. Basically nothing happened in that fight and Walker actually finished ahead in striking 48-44. Santos hasn’t been the same since returning from double-knee surgery after tearing his ACL, MCL, PCL and meniscus in his left knee and the meniscus in the other in his 2019 split-decision loss to Jon Jones. Following those surgeries in 2019, we didn’t see Santos inside of the Octagon again for 16 months as he recovered. He finally returned in November 2020 and got submitted by Glover Teixeira in the third round of a main event. Santos then lost a slow-paced three-round decision to Aleksandar Rakic leading up to his win over Walker. Most recently, he lost another slow-paced five-round decision, this time to Magomed Ankalaev.
While there wasn’t much to get excited about in that last fight, Santos actually dropped Ankalaev late in round two after nothing really happened in the first nine and a half minutes. Despite getting knocked down and holding a wrestling advantage, we still didn’t see Ankalaev even attempt a takedown until round four, when he landed his first attempt in the fight. Ankalaev was able to pull away in striking in the later rounds to some extent, finishing ahead in significant strikes 78-60 and in total strikes 114-81, while landing 1 of his 2 takedown attempts.
Now 22-10 as a pro, Santos has 15 wins by KO, one by submission, and six decisions. He’s been knocked out three times, all in the first round, and submitted three times as well, with two of those also coming in round one. He also has four decision losses. While five of his six early losses occurred in the first round, his last nine fights have all seen the second round, with eight making it to round three, and five going the distance—including three five-round decisions. Four of his last five fights have ended with the judges, with the other ending in a third round submission loss. It’s been three and a half years and several knee surgeries since he knocked anyone out, with his last early win coming in a 2019 third round TKO over Jan Blachowicz. The last time he was knocked out was in 2018, when he was still fighting down at Middleweight. Santos fought at 185 lb until 2018, when he moved up to 205 lb against Eryk Anders. All of his 205 lb fights have made it out of the first round.
Overall, Santos is a BJJ and Muay Thai black belt. He’s still a powerful striker, but he’s clearly lost a step and seems to just be coasting down the home stretch of his career. He’s painfully patient and the UFC is torturing its fanbase by continuing to allow him to headline events. Santos has only attempted two failed takedowns in his last five fights and relies entirely on his striking.
This will be the seventh five-round fight of Santos’ career, with all six of those previous matches occurring in his last eight fights. While he’s gone 3-3 in five-round bouts, with a pair of third round KO wins, he’s lost three of his last four five-round fights and just barely came out ahead in the one win. All six of those five-round fights have made it to the third round, with three ending in round three (2-1) and the other three going the distance (1-2). Both of those round three knockout wins came prior to his knee surgeries.
Fight Prediction:
Hill will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage. He’s also seven years younger than the 38-year-old Santos.
It’s puzzling why the UFC continues to force five-round Santos fights down our throats and the only thing that makes any sense is that they’re contractually obligated to do so. Hopefully that contract is almost up. We’ve now seen 13 straight rounds of inactivity in Santos’ last three fights, so it’s hard to think this one will be different. The only reason it would be is if Hill is dramatically more aggressive than Santos’ last three opponents, which is certainly possible. Santos claimed this fight will be different and that he would push forward, but what else is he going to say? “Hey guys, get ready for another boring fight. I’m just here to cash a paycheck.” With that said, we could definitely see Hill being more aggressive than Santos’ last few opponents, so the chances of a knockout appear a little higher. Hill has never finished an opponent beyond the second round, and we like him to either land another early knockout or win a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Hill DEC” at +600.
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DFS Implications:
Hill has scored 98 or more DraftKings points in his last three wins, but only topped 103 in one of those, which resulted from a Quick Win Bonus when he scored 127 points against Jimmy Crute in a 48 second R1 KO. While he doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling, Hill averages 7.06 SSL/min (2nd highest on the slate). However, Santos averages just 2.37 SSA/min, and only one UFC opponent has ever landed more than 69 significant strikes against him. This looks like the type of matchup where Hill’s scoring potential will steadily decrease as the fight goes on, and he appears reliant on landing a first round knockout to return value. Working in his favor, Santos has been finished in the first round in five of his six early losses, however, those all occurred when he was fighting down at 185 lb. While it seems obvious that this fight has a high potential to bust, Santos’ last three five-round opponents have all been 44-46% owned on DraftKings. Maybe this will be the time the field finally catches on, but Hill still projects to be highly owned. That creates an interesting leverage opportunity in tournaments, as even if Hill lands a knockout, if it comes beyond the first round there’s a really good chance he gets priced out of winning tournament lineups. The odds imply Hill has a 72% chance to win, a 56% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Santos is a low-volume striker (3.77 SSL/min) at the tailend of his career, who has been involved in three straight staring contests. He’s failed to top 48 DraftKings points in any of his last five fights (1-4), despite all of those making it to the third round and three going five full rounds. Even at his cheap price tag, he looks like nothing more than a KO or bust DFS play, and now he’s going against an opponent who’s never actually been knocked out, and who’s only career loss resulted from a dislocated elbow caused by a Paul Craig armbar. Santos scored just 48 DraftKings points in his lone career five-round decision win and just 81 points in his last knockout victory, which occurred in the third round of a 2019 fight just before Santos blew out both of his knees against Jon Jones. So even if he does knock Hill out, it will likely need to come in the first two rounds to score well. After seeing Santos do almost nothing in his second and third most recent fights, the field finally threw in the towel on him and we saw his ownership plummet from 34% to 7% between his last two fights. That’s really the only argument for having any exposure to him here in tournaments. The odds imply Santos has a 28% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in the first round.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter @dfs_mma with your winnings so we can see how you did!
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