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Fight Day Scratches: None
Fighter Notes:
Fight #12
Julio Arce
8th UFC Fight (4-3)Continuing to alternate between wins and losses over his last six fights, Arce is looking to bounce back from the first KO/TKO loss of his career. That loss came at the hands of surging #9 ranked Bantamweight Song Yadong, who’s gone 10-1-1 in his last 12 fights and most recently knocked out Marlon Moraes in the first round. Yadong jumped out to an early striking lead, pulling ahead 17-5 in significant strikes in a slower paced first round. Arce got a little more aggressive in round two, but it was too little too late as Yadong landed a solid right head kick early in the round that appeared to daze Arce, and then followed up with a combination of punches to force the stoppage along the fence. The fight ended with Yadong ahead in striking 30-13, with neither guy attempting a takedown.
After fighting at 145 lb for his first five UFC fights (3-2), Arce dropped back down to 135 lb for his last two matches, where he started his pro career off 8-2 before moving up to 145 lb in 2016. Both of those earlier career losses notably came against UFC fighter Brian Kelleher, before either guy joined the UFC, and Arce made the decision to move up to 145 lb immediately following the pair of 2015-2016 consecutive losses. He won his first seven fights at 145 lb, including his first two fights with the UFC, but lost two of his last three 145 lb fights in split-decisions and decided to move back down to 135 lb in 2021. He’s now 17-5 as a pro, and has gone 8-2 at 145 lb and 9-3 at 135 lb. Not only are his records similar at the two weight classes, so are his results. He’s gone 4-1 in decisions at 135 lb and 3-2 in decisions up at 145 lb. He has five career early wins in both weight classes, with his finishes split evenly between knockouts and submissions. However, both of his early losses came down at 135 lb—one by submission and the other by TKO.
In his 2021 return to the 135 lb division, Arce landed a late R2 TKO against Andre Ewell, who had previously only lost by KO/TKO once in his first 24 pro fights, although was recently cut from the UFC following his third straight defeat. In fairness, it looked like sort of a quick stoppage as the ref quickly stepped in as Arce had Ewell wobbled along the fence. Ewell protested the stoppage saying he was good and a lot of refs would have let the fight go longer, although it’s likely the results would have been the same and Ewell was clearly hurt. Arce finished ahead in significant strikes 42-31, and no takedowns were attempted in the fight.
Only two of Arce’s 22 pro fights have ended in the first round and his last 16 matches have all made it to round two, with 11 seeing a third round and seven going the distance. Arce’s first five UFC fights all made it to the third round, while his last two have both ended in second round knockouts. He’s lost his last two trips to the judges in split-decisions, but he did win a decision over a tough Dan Ige in his 2018 UFC debut. His last three wins have all come early with a R2 KO, a R3 KO and a R3 submission.
Arce is a former boxer and won the NY Golden Gloves Championship in 2011 before switching over to MMA. He’s also a second degree black belt and has as many career wins by submission (5) as knockout. He owns a solid 93% takedown defense, and the only time he’s ever been taken down came in his UFC debut against Dan Ige, who was only able to get him down once on 13 attempts. After going just 2-3 in his last five fights, this will be an important spot for Arce to get a win as he goes up against a UFC newcomer.
UPDATE: Arce was extremely slow to weigh in, missed weight by a half pound, and looked terrible on the scale!
Daniel Santos
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Finally making his UFC debut, Santos had been scheduled to make his debut against Timur Valiev in October 2021, but Valiev withdrew. Then Marcelo Rojo stepped in to replace Valiev, but Santos ended up withdrawing. Santos was then forced to wait four months to book a new opponent until this matchup was put together back in February. Santos hasn’t fought in 28 months since December 2019, so it will be interesting to see how much ring rust he has to knock off.
Santos comes into the UFC with an 8-1 pro record, with four wins by KO, one by submission, and three decisions. His only career loss came in a 2019 decision against Russian wrestler Murad Kalamov, who was able to control Santos on the mat for the majority of the fight. Santos bounced back with a pair of first round finishes in his last two fights and three of his last four wins have come in round one—two by spinning back kick TKO and another from an armbar. Santos loves throwing spinning attacks, and also has a KO by spinning back elbow earlier in his career. He trains out of Chute Boxe Diego Lima in Brazil with several high profile UFC fighters, including the Lightweight champ, Charles Oliveira.
Santos has competed anywhere from 125 lb to 145 lb in the past, but the majority of his fights have been at 135 lb. He’s primarily a striker, but he did submit his last opponent with an armbar, which is the only submission of his career. Three of his four career KO/TKO wins have come from spinning kicks and elbows. He doesn’t land a ton of striking volume and generally comes in with a patient approach. Santos is still just 27 years old and considering it’s been two and half years since he last competed, it’s hard to know what improvements he has made since we last saw him. He’s been holding his own against decent competition prior to joining the UFC, so we expect him to look decent at the next level, but the long layoff is certainly of some concern.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’7” but Arce will have a 3” reach advantage.
After going up against Song Yadong in his last fight, Arce will now get an easier matchup against a UFC newcomer who hasn’t competed in 28 months. Santos didn’t look terrible on tape and comes in with a solid 8-1 pro record, but this is a tough spot to be making your UFC debut in. Arce is a 2nd degree black belt and a former Golden Gloves winner so overall he has a well rounded skill set. Santos has relied on spinning attacks to land the majority of his finishes, so Arce will need to make a point of avoiding those. UPDATE: We were all set to pick Arce to win this fight with either a late finish or in a decision, but he looked so terrible on the scale that we have to go with Santos now, and the rough weigh-in should increase Santos’ chances to land a finish.
Our favorite bet here is Santos’ ML at +165.
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DFS Implications:
While Arce has landed finishes in his last three wins, those all came in the later rounds and still scored just 88, 90 and 76 DraftKings points respectively. He’s never landed more than one takedown or 74 significant strikes in a fight and his patient fighting style is generally not conducive to DFS scoring. In Arce’s lone UFC decision win, he scored just 63 DraftKings points, showing that he’s entirely reliant on a finish, likely in the first round, to return value at his lofty price tag. Working in Arce’s favor, he gets a step down in competition against a UFC newcomer who’s coming off a 28 month layoff. He should also be incredibly low owned due to his price as few people will be willing to click Arce’s name at $9,000 when they see the other top priced options. So he makes for an interesting leverage play in tournaments, but he’ll have a tough time outsourcing the other expensive options even if he does land a finish. UPDATE: He looked so bad at weigh-ins that we’ve essentially lost all confidence in Arce winning this fight, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. The odds imply Arce has a 63% chance to win, a 27% chance to get a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
This is a tough spot for Santos as he comes into his UFC debut following a 28 month layoff and goes up against a UFC veteran who averages just 3.05 SSA/min and owns a 93% takedown defense. It will be tough for Santos to score well without a finish, and Arce has only been finished twice in his career. We have seen Santos finish multiple opponents with spinning attacks, and his best chance to win this fight could be to land one of those low percentage shots. However, it’s hard to rely on that, but it at least gives him a path to victory as a lottery ticket underdog in tournaments. He’s primarily a striker, and Arce is a second degree black belt with a rock solid takedown defense, so Santos is unlikely to add much of anything in terms of grappling to boost his scoring. He also doesn’t land a ton of volume and even at his cheap price tag, we don’t see him ending up in winning lineups without a finish. UPDATE: After seeing how terrible Arce looked at weigh-ins, we have more interest in playing Santos now. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Piera Rodriguez
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making her UFC debut with a perfect 7-0 record following a decision win on DWCS last October, Rodriguez has five wins by KO/TKO and has only required the judges twice in her career. Three of her finishes have come in round two, one ended in round three, and the other ended in the 5th round of an LFA title fight in her second most recent win.
Rodriguez is a patient but powerful striker who frequently looks for takedowns, although she doesn’t have the best accuracy when it comes to landing them. In her recent DWCS fight, she landed 3 of her 13 attempts and finished the fight with over four minutes of control time. She led in significant strikes just 43-36, but trailed in total strikes 66-58. While her power was impressive, her takedown accuracy and striking volume were underwhelming.
Rodriguez trains at Black House MMA with Mackenzie Dern, but Rodriguez is only a BJJ blue belt and has yet to show herself to be any sort of submission threat. She’s more so looking for ground and pound on the mat, which is how she landed her most recent finish to capture an LFA title in her second most recent fight.
It’s fair to wonder about the level of competition that Rodriguez has faced for much of her career as her opponents entered with records of 0-0, 3-1, 0-0, 1-2, 1-0, 13-4, and 8-2. With that said, her last two opponents both looked pretty solid. Overall, Rodriguez is a rare power puncher in the women’s Strawweight division, but it will be interesting to see how her finishing ability translates to the UFC level.
Kay Hansen
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Looking to bounce back from a pair of decision losses, Hansen attempted to move up to 125 lb in her last fight, but has now decided to immediately move back down to 115 lb. While her first two UFC fights had been at 115 lb, Hansen bounced between the two weight classes earlier in her career, and has now gone 5-3 at 115 lb and 2-2 at 125 lb. She’s 3-0 in fights where she has just moved down from 125 lb to 115 lb for what it’s worth.
In her recent decision loss at 125 lb, Hansen really struggled with the size of UFC newcomer Jasmine Jasudavicius, and Hansen was only able to land 1 of her 7 takedown attempts with just 83 seconds of control time. On the other side of things, Jasudavicius landed 2 of her 3 attempts with just over six minutes of control time. Jasudavicius also led in significant strikes 50-44 and in total strikes 99-52 as she went on to win a unanimous decision.
Prior to that loss, Hansen didn’t compete at all in 2021. Her second most recent fight/loss was a November 2020 decision against another debuting fighter in Cory McKenna. That fight was much closer than Hansen’s loss to Jasudavicius. Hansen led in significant strikes 67-57, in takedowns 2-0 and in control time 5:22-3:05. However, McKenna was able to take the lead in total strikes 156-87 as she constantly threw strikes even when Hansen had her back. Whether or not those far less impactful strikes should count for much is debatable. Despite trailing in pretty much every statistical category the judges unanimously awarded McKenna a 29-28 decision win.
Hansen’s lone UFC win came in her June 2020 UFC debut against another debuting fighter in Jinh Yu Frey. In a low-volume affair, Hansen went just 2 for 11 on her takedown attempts, while leading 31-26 in significant strikes and 43-27 in total strikes with four and a half minutes of control time. The fight was close and Frey found some success on the feet, but Hansen landed a third round armbar submission to get the win.
Now 7-5 as a pro, Hansen’s last 10 fights have all made it to the third round, but only half of those went the distance. The other five all ended in third round finishes for Hansen. She has two career TKOs, and four submissions, but just one decision win. Her last three finishes came by third round submission, with the two prior to that ending in third round TKO wins. Her only career finish to come before the third round was a first round armbar in her 2017 pro debut. While she’s gone just 1-4 with the judges, the only time she’s ever been finished was a second round TKO in her second pro fight back in 2018.
All three of Hansen’s UFC fights have come against opponents making their UFC debut, and now Hansen will face another UFC newcomer.
UPDATE: Hansen missed weight by 2.5 lb as she attempted to move back down from 125 lb to 115 lb.
Fight Prediction:
Rodriguez will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 63” reach. Rodriguez is seven years older than the 22-year-old Hansen.
Hansen has the grappling advantage in this matchup and she does a decent job of utilizing trips to help finish takedowns. However, Rodriguez is easily the more powerful striker and will hold a major advantage on the feet. Hansen is primarily looking for armbars on the ground, so as long as Rodriguez can keep her arms out of danger she should be able to win this fight. Hansen has lost four of the last five decisions she’s been to and her lone path to victory appears to be landing a submission. We expect Hansen to be looking to get this fight to the mat from the start as she’ll be at a major disadvantage on the feet. While there’s always a chance Hansen can lock up a submission, Rodriguez has shown good awareness in the past to avoid getting ambarred and Hansen has just a 21% career takedown accuracy so she could struggle to even get the fight to the ground. We like Rodriguez to get the win and expect it to come from either a late KO/TKO or in a decision.
Our favorite bet here is Rodriguez’s ML at -118.
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DFS Implications:
Hansen’s last 10 fights have all made it to the third round, which has capped the scoring ceiling for both her and her opponents in DFS. She scored just 78 points in her lone UFC win despite landing a third round finish. Since that finish, she’s lost a pair of decisions, and is likely fighting for her job here as she sits on a 1-2 UFC record. She attempted to drop back down to 115 lb after moving up to 125 lb in her last fight, but missed weight by 2.5 lb. Hansen has gone just 1-4 in decisions in her career, with six of her seven pro wins coming early. However, her last five finishes have all come in the third round and she generally struggles to make much of an impact on the stat sheet. She’s yet to land more than 67 significant strikes or two takedowns in a fight as she averages just 3.35 SSL/min and owns a putrid 21% career takedown accuracy. Hansen will likely either need a finish in the first two rounds or a career best grappling performance to put up a useful score even at her cheaper price tag. The odds imply she has a 47% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in the first round.
Rodriguez is making her UFC debut with a perfect 7-0 record, with five of those wins coming early. However, all of those finishes came in the later rounds and she doesn’t land a ton of striking volume or have a great takedown accuracy herself. So she’s in a somewhat similar position to Hansen, where she likely needs either a finish in the first two rounds, or a more impressive grappling performance than what we’ve seen in the past. Her recent decision win on DWCS would have been good for just 73 DraftKings points and 64 points on FanDuel. While she attempted a solid 13 takedowns in that fight, she only landed three of them (23%) and that came against a kickboxer, while now she’ll take on a grappler in Hansen. With that said, Hansen may be more accepting of getting taken down as she would likely rather hunt for armbars off her back than stand and trade on the feet. Rodriguez does have solid power, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see her land a KO/TKO, but Hansen should be looking to grapple which will slow down the striking pace in the fight. The odds imply Rodriguez has a 53% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Aleksei Oleinik
16th UFC Fight (8-7)Oleinik had been scheduled to fight Ilir Latifi two weeks ago, but Latifi dropped out the day of the fight. That matchup was rebooked for this slate, but Latifi dropped out again and Vanderaa stepped in on nine day’s notice.
Having now lost three straight, Oleinik has just two wins in his last seven outings and four of his last five losses have come by KO in the first six minutes of fights. He’s coming off his first decision loss since 2016, but he’s also only been to two decisions over that 12 fight stretch. He’s faced a series of tough opponents recently in Derrick Lewis, Chris Daukaus, and Serghei Spivac, so it’s hard to blame him too much for losing all of those fights.
In his most recent loss, Oleinik lost a slow-paced decision over a fellow Heavyweight grappler Serghei Spivac. who never appeared very driven to hunt for a finish in the match, and fought like he had bet his own decision line. Spivac finished ahead in significant strikes 71-59 and in total strikes 112-98, but failed to attempt a takedown in the match while Oleynik landed one of his two attempts. Despite that, Spivac led in control time 4:51-3:31 and finished the fight in top position on the mat after a failed Oleynik takedown attempt. Despite spending the final 100 seconds on top of Oleynik, he curiously didn’t really look to land the ground and pound that he’s previously used to put opponents away. Oleinik at least showed the ability to survive to see a decision, after getting knocked out in the first six minutes of his previous two fights.
Now 44 years old, Oleinik insanely made his pro debut all the way back in November 1996 and this will be his 77th pro fight. He currently owns a ridiculous 59-16-1 pro record with 54 early wins, including eight KOs and 46 submissions. Of his 16 career losses, 11 have come early, with nine KOs and two submissions. The last time he was submitted was 2004, with the other coming in 1997. So while he’s been prone to getting knocked out, no one ever submits him. Oleinik has a 46% career takedown accuracy. We somewhat expected that number to get worse as he’s aged, but it’s actually improved. In his last five fights he’s actually landed 5 of his 7 attempts (71%).
UPDATE: After weighing in at just 228 lb for his last fight, Oleinik tipped the scales at 246 lb two weeks ago and then 244 lb for this matchup. The only other time we’ve seen him come in that heavy in the UFC was when he took on Curtis Blaydes and weighed in at 246.2 lb on his way to losing by R2 TKO due to a doctor stoppage.
Jared Vanderaa
5th UFC Fight (1-3)Stepping into this matchup on a week and a half’s notice, Vanderaa appears to enjoy taking fights at the last minute, although the last time he accepted one on extremely short notice he ended up dropping out after weigh-ins when he wasn’t medically cleared.
Vanderaa is coming off a close split-decision loss to another aging UFC veteran in Andrei Arlovski. In a slower paced fight, Vanderaa actually led in significant strikes 70-64, in total strikes 102-71, and in control time 2:44 to zero. However, Arlovski may have been landing the more impactful shots, even if there weren’t really any big moments in the fight. One of the judges at least thought Vanderaa did enough to win, and it seemed like it could have gone either way, but neither fighter really set themselves apart.
Prior to that loss, Vanderaa had been scheduled to face UFC newcomer Azamat Murzakanov on short notice back in December 2021, but ended up not being medically cleared at weigh-ins and the fight was scrapped. Before that, Vanderaa got finished on the mat through ground and pound for the second time in his first three UFC fights. That more recent early loss came at the hands of Alexander Romanov, while he also got finished in the second round of his UFC debut by another Maldovian Heavyweight grappler in Sergey Spivak. Vanderaa actually did a good job of returning to his feet after getting taken down against Romanov in the first round, something he really struggled with against Spivak. However, Romanov was able to put Vanderaa on his back early in round two and keep him there as he beat him up on the mat, eventually finishing it with ground and pound late in the round.
After getting finished essentially the same way in his UFC debut by Spivak, Vanderaa bounced back with a win over Justin Tafa in a bloody high-volume decision in second UFC fight. Vanderaa looked far more comfortable without having to worry about getting taken down as he led Tafa in significant strikes 121-74 and in total strikes 141-74. Neither fighter attempted any takedowns in the 15 minute striking match, and Vanderaa easily won a decision. Vanderaa did get cut open in the second round and the ref took a hard look at him as he bled all over the Octagon, but the fight was allowed to continue.
Vanderaa originally punched his ticket to the UFC with a November 2020 R1 KO win on DWCS, against a terrible Heavyweight in Harry Hunsucker, who’s been knocked out in the first round in all five of his career losses. Following the win, Vanderaa made a bold call out of Sergey Spivak, and Spivak accepted. Apparently they had almost fought earlier in their careers, and Vanderaa was still eager to see the matchup play out. Vanderaa clearly bit off more than he could chew on that one.
Vanderaa is now 12-7 as a pro, with seven of his wins coming by KO, three by submission, and two by decision. He’s also been submitted twice himself, and has two R2 TKO losses, with his other three losses going the distance. His most recent submission loss occurred in the second round of a 2019 match, while he was also submitted in round five earlier in his career. Overall, three of his four early losses have occurred in round two.
While 7 of his last 10 fights have ended early, only one of his last 12 has ended in the first round. He’s also had three fights make it to the 5th round in his career, with two of those ending in decisions. He appears to have the gas tank to remain competitive later in fights and he’s already gone to two decisions in the UFC.
His biggest weakness is getting taken down and surviving off his back and he has just a 20% career takedown defense, which certainly doesn’t bode well going against another Heavyweight grappler here.
Fight Prediction:
Vanderaa will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share an 80” reach. Vanderaa is notably 15 years younger than the 44-year-old Oleinik.
Now 44 years old and coming in on a three fight losing streak, Oleinik is just 2-5 in his last seven fights but refuses to call it quits. He still appears to have some fight left in him and perhaps the step down in competition will do him some good. Vanderaa is okay on the feet, but really struggles off his back, which is exactly where Oleinik will be looking to put him. While Oleinik has been prone to getting knocked out, Vanderaa hasn’t shown a ton of power so far in the UFC, and only has one knockout since 2019, which came against a fragile opponent in Harry Hunsucker, who’s been knocked out in the first round in all five of his career losses. Oleinik’s recent KO losses have come against far more dangerous strikers than Vanderaa in Chris Daukaus, Derrick Lewis, Walt Harris, Alistair Overeem, and Curtis Blaydes. While it wouldn’t be that surprising to see Vanderaa get a finish, we like Oleinik’s chances to get the fight to the ground early where he should have a good chance to land a submission. However, if he can’t get Vanderaa out of there, then there’s a good chance Oleinik gasses out in the back half of the fight, making it more likely for Vanderaa to get a mid-to-late round finish. Nevertheless, we’re leaning that Oleinik submits him in the first half of this match, but it’s by no means the most confident pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Under 1.5 Rounds” at -115.
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DFS Implications:
Oleinik consistently puts up decent scores when he wins, the problem is that he rarely wins anymore. In fairness to him, he’s faced a series of really tough opponents in his last three fights, and now he finally gets to face a lower level opponent. Vanderaa has been finished on the mat in two of his three UFC losses, and while both of those fights ended in ground and pound, he has also been submitted twice in his career. It’s hard to say how much Oleinik has left in the tank, but we expect him to sell out for an early submission, with a good chance he lands it. However, if he fails, he’ll likely gas out and increase the chances that Vanderaa knocks him out in the later rounds. The odds imply Oleinik has a 48% chance to win, a 40% chance to get a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in the first round.
While 10 of Vanderaa’s 12 career wins have come early, his only UFC victory ended in a decision where he scored just 83 DraftKings points even in a high-volume brawl. Oleinik will be looking to make this a grappling match, so there’s very little chance it turns into a barnburner on the feet, and if it does make it to a decision we wouldn’t expect Vanderaa to score well even if he does win. Therefore, he’s reliant on a finish to put up a big score. Oleinik has been knocked out in five of his last six losses, which is encouraging for Vanderaa’s chances of landing his first UFC finish. However, Vanderaa hasn’t shown a ton of power so far, as he’s been more of a volume guy despite his size. Nevertheless, there’s a good chance Oleinik simply gasses out if he’s unable to land an early submission, making a knockout for Vanderaa far more likely in the later rounds. He’ll need to avoid getting controlled on the mat for the entire first round and then landing an early round two KO, as that would still be unlikely to score enough for him to be useful, so there are ways we see this fight end in the first two rounds and still fail to produce a piece in tournament winning lineups. The odds imply Vanderaa has a 52% chance to win, a 35% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Mike Malott
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut following a 39 second first round submission win on DWCS last October, Malott has only been past the first round once in his nine fight career, which ended in a draw in a 2015 Bellator fight. Since that draw, Malott has only competed three times in the last six and a half years. He took all of 2016 off before competing just once in early 2017 and not at all in 2018 or 2019. After nearly four years away, Malott finally resumed his career with a first round submission win in December 2020, followed by his recent October 2021 victory. He’s accrued just 177 seconds of cage time since 2015, with his three fights during that stretch lasting 39, 102, and 36 seconds. He holds a 7-1-1 pro record, with four of his seven wins coming in under a minute, and the other three finishing in the second minute of fights. He has never won a fight that lasted longer than 120 seconds, and his lone career loss came in a late first round 2014 knockout against UFC fighter Hakeem Dawodu.
In his recent DWCS match, we only saw a single significant strike landed before Malott’s opponent shot for a takedown and Malott wrapped up a guillotine to end the fight. Just prior to that, Malott took on a stout Solomon Renfro and was getting pieced up in the first round before flipping the script with a sharp right hand that dropped Renfro. Malott immediately jumped on his back and choked him unconscious despite having no hooks in.
Malot turned pro in 2011 when he was just 19 years old and started out at 145 lb. He went back and forth between 145 lb and 155 lb early on in his career, but as he continued to grow into his frame making that weight became more and more of a challenge. He then stepped away from MMA for a few years following a 2017 fight and focussed more on his grappling, where he earned a BJJ black belt and had ADCC aspirations. He said his passion to fight in MMA just wasn’t there anymore at the time, but he took a position as a striking coach at Team Alpha Male so he was still involved in the sport and cornered several fighters. He said during his time away that his passion for fighting returned and he finally began competing again in 2020, although at that point he had added a good amount of muscle and moved up to 170 lb. So despite his lack of activity, at least he’s been consistently training and active in the MMA world.
Malott opted to primarily prepare for his upcoming debut in Ontario Canada, opposed to at Team Alpha Male, although he did spend a couple of weeks down at Team Alpha Male during the camp as well.
Mickey Gall
11th UFC Fight (6-4)Continuing to trade wins and losses for eight straight fights, Gall is coming off a decision loss to Alex Morono. Gall got dropped by a jab in the first round, however Morono went to the mat with him to look for a finish. That instead gave Gall time to recover while he unsuccessfully looked for a kneebar. Morono isn’t much of a finisher, with just one early win in his last seven matches, and he was unable to get Gall out of there. Nevertheless, Morono easily outlanded his way to a unanimous 30-27 decision win as he finished ahead in significant strikes 90-65 and in total strikes 93-69. Gall failed to land his only takedown attempt and never got his grappling going.
Prior to that loss, Gall landed a first round submission win against a struggling Jordan Williams, who’s now 0-3 in the UFC. Gall’s striking looked improved in that fight, but Williams also looked legitimately terrible so it’s hard to fully gauge if Gall actually looked good or if Williams just looked bad. It’s not as if Gall was putting on a striking clinic or anything and Williams actually finished ahead in strikes 13-11, but Gall did land some solid shots. Nevertheless, when it came to looking for a finish, Gall is still entirely focussed on hunting for submissions, as all six of his early wins have come by rear-naked choke, including five in round one and one in round two. Four of those notably occurred in his first four pro fights against suspect competition. Other than those six submissions, his only other career win was a 2019 decision over another questionable talent in Salim Touahri, who went 0-3 in the UFC and hasn’t fought since the loss to Gall.
Now 7-4 as a pro, three of Gall’s four career losses have gone the distance, with his lone early loss coming in a second round TKO against Diego Sanchez. Gall claimed that was due to liver failure for what it’s worth. After getting beat up in a decision loss to Mike Perry in June 2020, Gall took 13 months off before returning to fight Williams. Gall has shown questionable cardio in the past and in that fight against Perry he looked exhausted by the middle of the match and nearly got finished at the end of the second round but Perry simply ran out of time. Perry ended the fight ahead in significant strikes 76-55 and in total strikes 103-59, while landing his only takedown attempt and stuffing all six of Gall’s attempts. That’s Mike Perry’s only win in his last five matches.
Interestingly, Gall made his UFC debut in his just second pro fight back in 2016, so he really didn’t have much time to develop before being thrust onto the biggest stage. With that said, his first three opponents had never fought professionally before, which is now crazy to think the UFC was allowing guys to make their pro MMA debuts in the UFC. Only three of Gall’s six career submission wins have come against opponents who have ever fought professionally before, and four of his six submissions came against fighters who have never won a UFC fight.
Despite being a BJJ black belt and submission specialist, Gall only averages 1.1 takedowns landed per 15 minutes and has only totaled three takedowns in his last seven fights. He’s also only landed more than one takedown once in his career, which was when he landed two in a 2016 match. He has shown improvements in his striking, but we’ve still never been impressed by Gall. He’s 1-4 in fights that have lasted longer than seven minutes and is still really only dangerous on the mat.
Fight Prediction:
Gall will have a 1” height and reach advantage.
Malott has stated that this fight will not go 15 minutes and he believes he’s better than Gall anywhere the fight goes. It’s clear his intentions are to go in and finish Gall and based on his track record we wouldn’t expect anything less. Malott’s inactivity over the last several years is certainly concerning and makes this a higher variance spot as we simply haven't seen enough of him recently to fully evaluate where he’s at right now. With that said, he should be the more well rounded fighter in this matchup despite the fact that he’s making his UFC debut, while this will be Gall’s 11th fight with the organization. Malott has put on a ton of muscle in recent years in addition to rounding out his grappling skills. And after serving as the striking coach at Team Alpha Male, it’s hard to think he would get outclassed on the feet by a grappler like Mickey Gall. We don’t know what Malott’s cardio will look like beyond the first round, as he’s only seen the second round once in his career and that was back in 2015 when he was fighting down at 145 lb. However, we know Gall doesn’t have good cardio, so it’s less of a concern that Malott will fade late and Gall will take over. If the fight does make it to the back half we could see both guys potentially exhausted, but we like Malott to land an early finish. He seems to have fallen in love with his jiu-jitsu and once he gets an opponent hurt he’ll quickly snatch up their neck. While Gall has never been submitted, it wouldn’t be surprising to see that change here. We like Malott to hurt Gall through striking and then choke him out on the mat in the first round.
Our favorite bet here is “Malott R1” at +340.
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DFS Implications:
All seven of Malott’s career wins have come in two minutes or less, indicating that he’s likely a boom or bust DFS play. We really don’t know what he’ll look like if this fight makes it past the first round, which makes it tougher to trust him in low-risk contests, but his ceiling looks great for tournaments. While Gall has only been finished once in his career, he’s come close a few other times and is overall an underwhelming talent. Malott is a BJJ black belt, just like Gall, so both guys are dangerous on the mat, but Malott should have the striking advantage and looks to be the more powerful fighter as well. While it’s tougher to know exactly what we’re going to get out of a guy with 177 seconds of cage time in the last 6+ years who’s making his UFC debut on a PPV card in front of a live crowd, Malott should come in lower owned due to his price tag and he makes for a very interesting tournament play. The odds imply he has a 64% chance to win, a 43% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Gall padded his early UFC record with submission wins against a pair of fighters that had never fought professionally before and then landed two more submissions against questionable opponents who are no longer in the UFC. And more recently he submitted Jordan Williams, who’s now 0-3 in the UFC. Gall has never defeated a decent opponent and has never knocked anyone out, which leaves him entirely reliant on landing submissions to score well and he scored just 67 DraftKings points in his lone career decision win. Malott is a BJJ black belt who has never been submitted, so this looks like a tough spot for Gall to get a finish. With that said, Malott is making his UFC debut and has just three fights dating back to 2015, so this is still somewhat of a high variance spot and it’s always possible the moment is too big for Malott. The odds imply Gall has a 36% chance to win, a 24% chance to get a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #8
Raquel Pennington
16th UFC Fight (10-5)Ladd had been scheduled to face Irene Aldana here, but Aldana ended up withdrawing and Pennington stepped in on 14 day’s notice.
Pennington is fresh off her first finish since 2015, and her previous six wins all went the distance. Pennington had been scheduled to face Julia Avila in December, but Avila withdrew after suffering a knee injury and Macy Chiasson stepped in on short notice. Because of that, the fight took place up at 145 lb instead of 135 lb where Pennington normally competes, which is the only time Pennington has competed at 145 lb in her career. Despite fighting up a weight class, Chiasson still missed weight by 2.5 lb, and took the dubious honors of setting the UFC record for the heaviest female fighter weigh-in of all time. In fairness to Chiasson, she’s a giant and should probably be fighting at 145 lb normally. Chiasson was able to take Pennington down to close out the first round and the fight was close early on. However, after taking the fight on short notice and missing weight Chiasson slowed down a ton in round two. Pennington was able to land some clean shots and then as Chiasson looked for a health-hearted takedown Pennington locked up a standing guillotine to force a tap without much resistance. It really looked more like Chiasson simply gassing out and giving up than Pennington doing anything exceptional. Pennington finished ahead 45-26 in significant strikes, while Chiasson led in total strikes 64-61 and in takedowns 1-0.
Five of her last six and 11 of Pennington’s 15 UFC fights have gone the distance (7-4). Her four UFC matches to end early were a 2014 R1 submission win, a 2015 R2 submission win, a 2018 R5 TKO loss to Amanda Nunes, and then the recent R2 submission win. Looking at her entire career, she owns a 13-8 pro record, with one win by TKO, which came in the second round of her 2012 pro debut, four wins by submission and eight decision victories. The only two times she has been finished were in a 2018 R5 TKO loss to Amanda Nunes and a 2012 second round submission loss to Cat Zingano. Her other six losses all ended in decisions. Only two of her 21 pro fights have ended in the first round and her last 12 fights dating back to 2014 have seen round two. Her five UFC losses have all come against top level opponents in Holly Holm (twice), Germaine de Randamie, Amanda Nunes, and Jessica Andrade.
After serving a six month USADA suspension for “accidentally” ingesting a banned substance, we didn’t see Pennington inside the Octagon for 15 months following a June 2020 decision win over Marion Reneau. Upon her return, she defeated a surging Pannie Kianzad, who had won four straight decisions coming in. As she often does, Pennington was able to control Kianzad for periods of time in the clinch along the fence. Kianzad actually finished ahead in significant strikes 50-48, but Pennington led in total strikes 98-85 and in control time 6:16-5:34, while both ladies landed one takedown.
Pennington has only landed more than 82 significant strikes once in 15 UFC fights. She’s also failed to land more than one takedown in her last eight matches and is generally looking to grind out decision wins in the clinch along the cage. Pennington has a 64% career takedown defense, but if we look at her last seven fights that number drops down to 53% and her last three opponents all landed 50% of their attempts against her.
Aspen Ladd
7th UFC Fight (6-2)Ladd is coming off one of the worst fights of all time in a 25 minute staring contest with Norma Dumont. Ladd took that fight on short notice after Holly Holm dropped out and it took place up at 145 lb after Ladd missed weight trying to make 135 lb two weeks earlier. After 25 minutes of Jedi mind battling, Dumont finished ahead in significant strikes 65-33 and 113-86 in total strikes. Ladd failed to land any of her five takedown attempts, while Dumont landed her only attempt. Ladd’s round-by-round significant striking totals were 3, 4, 9, 12, and 5. Ladd’s corner pleaded with her to pick up the pace and wake up, and Ladd made very minor improvements as the fight went on, but it was far too little too late and Dumont cruised to a decision win.
Prior to that October 2021 decision loss, Ladd had four straight fights canceled, and hadn’t competed since December 2019. She was scheduled to face Julianna Pena in March 2020, but Pena withdrew citing an injury. Then Ladd was booked against Sara McMann in June 2020, but Ladd tore her ACL and MCL and the fight was obviously canceled. After recovering from the knee injury, Ladd was scheduled to face Macy Chiasson twice, but Chiasson withdrew from a July event citing an injury and then Ladd was most recently forced to withdraw due to the botched weight cut. Ladd has now only fought once since returning from her knee injury, so it will be interesting to see how she looks in this next fight.
Despite the fact that Ladd has only fought once since 2019, she’s still just 26 years old. Her last win ended in a R3 TKO against Yana Kunitskaya in what had been a close fight leading up to that point. Ladd is now 9-2 as a pro, but has lost two of her last three fights. Other than the recent decision defeat, Ladd lost in a 2019 16 second R1 TKO in a curiously quick stoppage against Germaine de Randamie. De Randamie dropped Ladd with a right cross to start the fight, but Ladd landed on all fours and clearly wasn’t out. As De Randamie went in to land ground and pound, Herb Dean immediately stopped the fight without giving Ladd a chance to recover. Of her nine wins, she has six KO/TKOs and one submission to go along with two decisions.
Four of her six UFC fights have ended in TKOs (3-1), while her one decision win with the organization came against Sijara Eubanks in 2019 just before losing to De Randamie. That was actually the second time those two had squared off, as it was a rematch of an earlier Invicta fight that also ended in a decision win for Ladd.
After starting her pro career at 125 lb, Ladd moved up to 135 lb in 2016 in her third pro fight, where she stayed until her recent appearance up at 145 lb. Prior to the knee injury, Ladd had been great at getting opponents to the mat and beating them up with ground and pound. In fact, all three of her UFC KO wins have come via ground and pound and once she gets going on the mat she sounds like a Chihuahua choking on a chew toy as she hammers away at her opponents. She does have the ability to go for submissions and notably finished with three official submission attempts against Sijara Eubanks, but she only has one submission win on her record and she really specializes in ground and pound. It will be interesting to see if she can shake off her recent sleepwalking performance and be more aggressive in this next fight.
Fight Prediction:
Pennington will have a 1” height and reach advantage, while Ladd is six years younger than the 33-year-old Pennington.
Ladd needs to come in and look to be aggressive from the start if she wants to win this fight. She needs to get Pennington down and beat her up on the mat to prove that she’s not a broken fighter at this stage in her career. For all the talk about her coach being too hard on her in her last fight, he was simply saying what everyone watching the fight was thinking. She looked like she had been game planning with Maycee Barber as the two recovered from knee surgeries and it was a painful site to watch. Pennington has only been taken down 17 times on 48 attempts in her career (35%), but her last three opponents have landed four takedowns on eight attempts and Pennington was grounded at least once in each of those fights. So if Ladd can get this fight to the mat a couple of times, she has a solid shot at pulling off the upset, most likely in a decision win but potentially with a late round ground and pound TKO. We could see this playing out similar to the Ladd/Kunitskaya matchup, as Pennington loves to control opponents up against the fence similar to Kunitskaya. With that said, Pennington is probably a better striker than Kunitskaya out in open space. While there’s a good chance Pennington can do enough on the feet to win a decision here, we expect it to be a close fight with Ladd finding some success in getting it to the mat. If it goes the distance we expect to see a close 29-28 decision and the results will likely just come down to how many takedowns Ladd can land. There’s a slight chance Ladd can land a late-round ground and pound TKO and a much smaller chance that Pennington can lock up a submission, but we expect it to go the distance. Based on how terrible Ladd looked in her last fight, it’s really hard to pick her to win, but all the betting value appears to be on her side in a fight that looks closer to a coinflip than the odds suggest. Maybe it’s the plus money talking, but we’ll say Ladd bounces back and pulls off the upset here.
Our favorite bet here is “Ladd R3 or Decision” at +220.
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DFS Implications:
Pennington is an unlikely candidate to put up big scores in DFS with DraftKings totals of 93, 75, 95, 71, 78, 77, and 64 in her last seven wins. She did put up totals of 107 and 102 back in 2014-2015 in her first two early wins in the UFC, but she scored just 93 points in a second round submission in her last fight. She has averaged 77 points in her seven UFC decision wins, with just one score above 78, which was when she set her career high in significant strikes in 2020 against an aging Marion Reneau and scored 95 points. Ladd has never been submitted and Pennington’s only career win by KO/TKO came in her 2012 pro debut, so this certainly doesn’t set up as a good spot for Pennington to hit a ceiling performance. Pennington will likely be dependent on landing a hail mary submission to even have a chance at returning value, and even then she’ll still need to outscore the other high priced fighters. We don’t have much interest in playing her, but she will be very low owned, which arguably makes her an interesting leverage play in tournaments. The odds imply she has a 63% chance to win, an 18% chance to get a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in the first round.
In her four UFC wins, Ladd has recorded DK/FD totals of 99/102 (R3 KO), 88/103 (DEC), 115/133 (R1 KO), and 95/97 (R2 KO). Her lone decision win was bolstered on FanDuel by three submission attempts or else it would have scored exactly 88 points on both DFS sites. Prior to her last fight, Ladd has generally done a good job of landing takedowns and controlling her opponents as she batters them with ground and pound. At her reasonable price tag, there’s a pretty good chance she ends up in winning lineups if she can pull off the upset, and even if the fight does go the distance she has a decent shot to serve as a value play depending on what the other cheap underdogs do. While Pennington has a 64% career takedown defense, that number has waned recently and her last three opponents have all been able to get her to the mat on 50% of their attempts. However, if the fight stays standing the whole time then the winner will really struggle to put up a useful score without a finish. Ladd’s ownership should come in lower than normal following her recent 25 minute staring contest defeat, which adds to her appeal in tournaments. The odds imply Ladd has a 37% chance to win, a 13% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Anthony Hernandez
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Hernandez was originally scheduled to face Albert Duraev on this card, but then Duraev withdrew. Then he was booked against Dricus Du Plessis, but Du Plessis then tried to upgrade opponents to face Kelvin Gastelum who needed a new opponent after Nassourdine Imavov withdrew due to visa issues. Gastelum then ended up dropping out due to an injury, but Josh Fremd had already stepped in to face Anthony Hernandez, so Du Plessis was left opponentless and pulled from the card. So Fremd is the third booked opponent for Hernandez and this final matchup was put together on 11 day’s notice. Overall it was a big game of musical chairs with Du Plessis left holding his dick, Fremd finally getting a shot in the UFC and Hernandez seemingly getting an easier matchup.
Now 14 months removed from a massive upset win over Rodolfo Vieira, Hernandez withdrew from his last two scheduled fights, which resulted in the long layoff. He was probably just taking a year-long victory lap after submitting an undefeated world champion grappler. In that fight, Vieira gassed out so hard in the first round that he was essentially helpless to start round two and Hernandez went on to submit him early in the round. While Hernandez did a great job of surviving early in the fight, the finish was inevitable once it was clear Vieira had nothing left. That was essentially a must win spot for Hernandez who entered the fight with a 1-2 UFC record.
Prior to that win, Hernandez was knocked out in 39 seconds by Kevin Holland in May 2020, which is the second time Hernandez has been finished in his four UFC fights. Holland hit Hernandez with a heavy elbow 30 seconds in and followed it up with two sharp knees to the mid section that folded Hernandez up like a cheap lawn chair. The ref quickly stopped the fight as Holland pummeled the facedown Hernandez.
Looking back to his second UFC fight, Hernandez took on Jun Yong Park, who came in on a seven fight winning streak and had only been finished once in his career up to that point. After starting slow in the first round, Hernandez was able to submit Park late in the second round with an anaconda choke. He landed six takedowns on nine attempts in the match. Hernandez made his 2019 UFC debut against Markus Perez and that time it was Hernandez who got submitted in the second round via anaconda choke.
While Hernandez has just one official knockout on his record, which came in the first round of his first pro fight against a 2-0 opponent, he also knocked out Jordan Wright 40 seconds into his 2018 appearance on DWCS. However, the result was later overturned when Hernandez tested positive for THC so it doesn’t show up as a knockout or a win on his record.
Hernandez has only been to one decision in his 11 fight career, which was a 2018 five-round LFA title fight against Brendan Allen that Hernandez won. His other 10 matches have all ended in the first two rounds. If we count the DWCS win that was later overturned to a No Contest, he has two first round knockouts on his record, both in under a minute, and six wins by submission, with four in round one and the last two in round two. He’s also been knocked out once in the opening minute of a fight and has been submitted in the second round. Three of his four UFC fights have ended in second round submissions.
Josh Fremd
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut on 11 day’s notice, Fremd is two month’s removed from a second round submission win on Dana White’s Lookin’ for a Fight. He’s won seven of his last eight fights, with six of those eight matches ending in the first two rounds. He has only required the judges in 3 of his 11 pro fights and only once in his last six matches. He comes into the UFC with a 9-2 record that includes four knockouts, three submissions, and two decision wins. The only time he’s ever been finished came against UFC fighter Gregory Rodrigues in a first round knockout for the vacant LFA Middleweight belt in May 2021. His one other career loss was a 2018 decision in his third pro fight. All seven of his early wins have come in the first two rounds, with three first round KOs, another in round two, and three second round submission wins.
Fremd bounced back from the loss to Rodrigues with a hardfought decision win followed by his recent submission victory. He did get dropped in the first round of that decision, which has been an issue for him at times. In his next fight he was able to lock up a rear-naked choke despite having no hooks in, so there are definitely some things he can clean up.
Prior to getting knocked out in the first round by Rodrigues, Fremd landed three straight first round knockouts of his own, and overall he’s an aggressive fighter who likes to push forward and force the action. He trains with Dustin Jacoby out of Factory X at elevation in Colorado, so despite taking the fight on short notice, cardio may be less of a concern than your typical short notice replacement. Fremd is a dangerous striker with good size for the division and he likes to throw violent flying knees. His aggressive fighting style has gotten him into trouble at times and he’s been prone to getting dropped, so you could argue his chin is his biggest weakness.
Fight Prediction:
Fremd will have a 4” height advantage and 1.5” reach advantage.
This sets up as a fun fight between two guys who rarely see the judges. Fremd looks like the more dangerous striker, while Hernandez relies more on submissions to finish fights. We expect both guys to be looking for a finish from the start and it would be surprising if this went the distance. While both are capable of finishing fights on the feet or the mat, Hernandez relies more on his grappling to get guys out of there, while Fremd is generally looking for knockout blows, but will mix in his wrestling. We have a few different narratives in play, with Fremd making his short notice UFC debut and Hernandez coming off an extended layoff, but we generally see guys struggle more in Fremd’s position, although long layoffs are far from ideal either. With that said, if Fremd can land something clean early in this fight, he could very well get a quick finish. We haven’t seen Fremd have to defend much grappling so far in his career, so it’s hard to say how his grappling defense will hold up, but he has been vulnerable to getting knocked down. Overall he relies more on his offense to win fights than his defense, so if he can’t land an early finish of his own, there’s a good chance Hernandez will get him out of there, most likely by submission. This one could go either way and Fremd is definitely live for an early finish, but forced to choose, we'll give the slight advantage to the veteran in Hernandez who didn’t take the fight on short notice and say Hernandez finishes things with a second round submission as long as he can avoid getting knocked out before then.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Round 2 Submission” at +700.
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DFS Implications:
Hernandez is coming off a massive upset win over Rodolfo Vieira, but it’s been over a year since that happened so it will be interesting to see both how much ring rust he has and how much if any that bumps up his ownership. Considering his somewhat expensive price tag and the other high priced options on the slate, we’d be surprised if he ended up being overly popular, but he does have the second highest chance of landing a finish on the slate which should also drive up his ownership some. Overall this looks like a high upside fight with two guys who rarely make it to the judges. Hernandez is generally looking to choke his opponents out and has only been past the second round once in his career. Now he faces a short notice replacement making his UFC debut, which is generally the type of spot you want to target in DFS. Hernandez scored 94 and 135 DraftKings points in his two UFC wins, which both ended in second round submissions. He’s shown a massive ceiling when he can land takedowns in addition to getting a finish and offers tournament winning upside. The odds imply he has a 63% chance to win, a 50% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.
Fremd finds himself in a tough spot as he makes his short notice UFC debut against a UFC veteran, but he still has a solid shot at pulling off the upset, which would most likely come from an early finish. He’s a dangerous striker who will also mix in occasional grappling, and while his defense is questionable, seven of his nine career wins have come in the first two rounds. At his cheap price tag, it would be surprising to see him land a finish and not end up in tournament winning lineups, but he may have a tougher time scoring well in a decision. He looks like a boom or bust play and we expect him to either land a finish or get finished. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Ian Garry
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Garry extended his undefeated record to 8-0 with a first round knockout of Jordan Williams just before the first round ended in his recent UFC debut. He wasn’t overly impressive prior to the finish and actually slightly trailed Williams in striking. The fight took place at Madison Square Garden for UFC 268, so the stage couldn’t have been much bigger for the young fighter to make his introduction to the organization. He’s been hyping himself up as the next Conor McGregor, so he certainly had put a lot of pressure on himself to put on a big performance. While he didn’t land many big shots in the fight outside of the finish, he showed decent movement and quickness and also has decent size for the division. Williams finished ahead in significant strikes 22-18 and in total strikes 24-22, but failed to land the only takedown attempt in the fight. Garry seemed like he was looking for the perfect shot for much of the round opposed to just trying to chip away at Williams. He only even threw 28 significant strikes, while Williams attempted 50. As Williams pushed forward, Garry would frequently circle away from him opposed to engaging. With that said, the final knockout shot came as Williams lunged forward and Garry leaned back out of range and then clipped him with a perfect counter right hand. So it’s possible he was just trying to set that up by evading early on to frustrate Williams and get him to overextend coming forward.
Prior to making his UFC debut, Garry went 7-0 with Cage Warriors and won the vacant Welterweight title in a 25 minute decision in June 2021 just before joining the UFC. He suffered a minor knee injury leading up to that fight and then 10 days before the match his team abandoned him for unknown reasons (probably talked too much shit to them), but he was still able to get the win regardless. A day after the fight, the UFC reached out to sign him and Garry joined Sanford MMA with Henri Hooft to prepare for his debut. That’s just one of two times Garry has required the judges or even been past the second round.
His previous five wins all ended in the first two rounds after he won a three-round decision in his 2019 pro debut. He has five wins by KO, one by submission and two decisions. He knocked out former UFC fighter Rostem Akman with a second round head kick in his second most recent finish.
Still just 24 years old, Garry’s at a point in his career where we should be seeing improvements every time he steps inside the Octagon if he’s putting the work in, and it will be interesting to see if his future performances can match the expectations he’s set for himself as being the next Irish champion. He’s certainly not at that level yet, but we’ll see what type of improvements he can make.
Darian Weeks
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Weeks is looking to bounce back after narrowly losing a decision to Bryan Barberena in his recent short notice UFC debut. Barberena found some success attacking the lead leg of Weeks early on, but Weeks still finished the first round ahead in significant strikes 26-21, in total strikes 29-24, in takedowns 1-0, and in control time 1:20-0:21. So at least according to the stats, Barberena lost the round. However, the judges put more importance on the leg strikes that Barberena was landing, and he may have simply been getting the vet treatment in what was still a relatively close round. Both guys picked up the pace in round two, but Weeks outlanded Barberena 49-32 in significant strikes, while also landing both of his takedown attempts. Barberena finished the fight strong, finally leading a round in striking, as he outlanded Weeks 55-43 in significant strikes in the final five minutes, but Weeks was able to land another takedown. The fight ended with Weeks ahead in significant strikes 118-108, while Barberena led in total strikes 134-125. Weeks also landed 4 of his 8 takedown attempts with over three minutes of control time, while Barberena didn’t attempt any takedowns. In the end it was a close fight that could have gone either way, but we thought Weeks did enough to get his hand raised.
The recent loss in his debut was both the first time Weeks has ever been past the second round and the first time he has ever been defeated. It was also just the 6th fight of his pro career. He finished his first five opponents with four knockouts and one submission. Four of those finishes occurred in the second round, while he also has one first round knockout. His last win was in the LFA, but his four prior matches took place in smaller Missouri promotions. So overall he hasn’t faced much in terms of competition, and his first five opponents entered his fights with records of 2-0, 0-0, 2-0, 8-3-1, and 3-4. He’s also competed in a few boxing matches and did have a good number of amateur fights from 2016-2018, but we’ve still yet to see him face any high level competition. He just turned pro in 2019, actually the same month as Ian Garry for what it’s worth. Weeks had been scheduled to go on DWCS back in September 2021, but was forced to withdraw due to COVID protocols, so he’s been on the UFC’s radar for a little bit.
Fight Prediction:
Garry will have a 4” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
Garry has better movement than Weeks and looks quicker, but Weeks seems to possess a slight power advantage. Both guys have some wrestling ability, but they’re each so young in their careers that it’s hard to say who has the grappling advantage. Garry has all the hype coming in, but he’s yet to really prove that he deserves it. Neither guy blew us away in their respective debuts, and the jury is still out on each of them. Weeks at least has the excuse that he took his debut on short notice. Garry has still never been defeated, while Weeks’ only loss came in his recent decision, so neither one of them is accustomed to losing. Weeks may have a tougher time finding his range against the taller, longer, and quicker Garry, and we give the advantage to Garry to get the win here, but we’re not entirely discounting Weeks’ chances of pulling off the upset. Neither guy has ever been finished, but the most likely outcome is still for one of these two to get knocked out, and there’s a good chance it comes in round two. With both guys so young and new to the UFC, there’s more uncertainty here than normal, but this feels like it could be closer than the odds suggest. With that said, we’re still going with Garry, and could see him baiting Weeks into walking into a knockout blow.
Our favorite bet here is “Under 2.5 Rounds” at -134.
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DFS Implications:
Garry got bailed out in DFS with a first round knockout just before the first round ended in his recent debut. He was on a 15 minute pace to land just 54 significant strikes and no takedowns prior to the finish, and he finished behind in significant strikes 22-18 in a fight that lasted just one tick under five minutes. That win came against Jordan Williams, who has been finished in the first round in back-to-back fights since moving down to 170 lb, is 0-3 in the UFC and has lost four of his last five fights overall. Despite all of those recent struggles, Williams appeared to be winning the fight prior to the knockout. None of that bodes well for Garry, but he was making his UFC debut on a PPV card at Madison Square Garden and still landed a first round knockout, so it’s fair to cut him a little slack. One concern for DFS is that Garry seems a little too content with circling away from action at times, which makes it tougher for him to put up big striking totals. We did see him mix in more grappling prior to making his UFC debut, but he failed to attempt a takedown in that recent fight. It’s hard to see him returning value at his steep price tag without a finish even if he does tack on a takedown or two, and there’s a good chance he’ll get outscored even with a later round finish considering who he needs to outscore on this slate in the 9K price range. The best argument for playing Garry in tournaments is that he’ll be significantly lower owned than Chimaev, Yan, and Volkanovski, so if he is able to outscore them, he makes for a solid leverage play in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 75% chance to win, a 48% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Weeks only has six pro fights to his name but all five of his wins have come in the first two rounds, albeit against a much lower level of competition. Despite taking his recent UFC debut on short notice, he put on a good performance as he landed 118 significant strikes and four of his eight takedown attempts. Had the decision gone his way, like it arguably should have, he would have scored 105 DraftKings, but instead scored 75 in the loss. Regardless of the outcome, his production was encouraging for his future scoring potential, and at his cheap price tag there’s a very good chance he would end up in winning lineups if he can pull off the upset. He’s facing another young fighter going into just his second UFC fight, so there’s a good amount of uncertainty surrounding both guys, making Weeks an interesting tournament play, despite being a sizable underdog in this matchup. The odds imply Weeks has a 25% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Vinc Pichel
10th UFC Fight (7-2)This fight had originally been scheduled for February 12th but got pushed back two months after Madsen initially withdrew, so they've had tons of time to prepare for each other.
Pichel is quietly on a three fight winning streak, after recently defeating Austin Hubbard, Jim Miller, and Roosevelt Roberts in three straight decisions. In his 2012 UFC debut, Pichel got knocked out after landing on his head from a suplex by International Master of Sport in Combat Sambo, Rustam Khabilov. His only loss since then came against former DI wrestler Gregor Gillespie in a 2018 second round submission. Six of his seven UFC wins have gone the distance, with the one exception being a 2017 R1 KO.
In his recent win over Hubbard, Pichel was able to outland his way to victory despite Hubbard taking him down four times on seven attempts. Pichel notably landed 27 leg strikes in the match and finished ahead in significant strikes 71-56 and in total strikes 96-66. He failed to land any of his four takedown attempts but still came out slightly ahead in control time 2:29-2:14.
Prior to his last fight, Pichel began training at Factory X in Colorado, which has just further strengthened his already solid cardio. While Pichel comes into this fight at 39 years of age, he doesn’t have a ton of mileage on him—at least inside the Octagon—as he has just 16 pro fights and only six since 2014. He’s had to deal with numerous injuries throughout his career and after making his UFC debut in 2012, he didn’t fight at all in 2013, 2015 or 2016. He’s basically been fighting once a year since 2017, with the one exception being when he fought twice in 2018.
Pichel is 14-2 and has won all six of the decisions he’s been to. While 10 of his 16 career fights have ended early, with 8 KO wins, one KO loss and one submission loss, his last three and six of his last eight fights have gone the distance. While he’s technically a BJJ black belt, he’s never submitted anybody who looked very dangerous on the mat. Prior to joining the UFC, he had knocked out all seven of his opponents in the first two rounds, but that finishing ability never really translated to the next level.
After getting knocked out in his UFC debut, he took 13 months off before winning a pair of decisions in 2014. Then he nearly retired following a torn labrum and bicep and didn’t fight again for over three years until June 2017, when he returned with a R1 KO victory—his only finish since 2011. He followed that up with another decision win before suffering his second career loss at the hands of Gregor Gillespie in a 2018 R2 submission. Since then he rattled off three straight decision wins and actually looks as good as ever despite the fact that he’ll be turning 40 in November.
Pichel is known for his strength, but his biggest weakness is his wrestling defense. He owns just a 25% takedown defense and has been taken down 20 times on 27 attempts from his nine UFC opponents. Four of his opponents didn’t even attempt a takedown so all of those came in just five fights, with all five of those opponents landing at least two takedowns and three of them landing four or more.
Mark Madsen
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Madsen extended his undefeated record to 11-0 with a close split-decision win over Clay Guida in his last fight, and for the first time since joining the UFC he won a fight without relying on his wrestling. He only even attempted one takedown in the fight, which he failed to land, but he was able to outland his way to victory as he finished ahead 98-72 in significant strikes and 101-72 in total strikes. Neither guy was ever close to finishing the fight, and we didn’t see many big strikes being landed.
That was Madsen’s first camp with Fight Ready out of Arizona, and he has since permanently moved from Denmark to Arizona to train full time with them. It will be interesting to see if his striking-heavy game plan was opponent specific or if his new team is looking for him to generally rely on his wrestling less and execute a more well-rounded game plan. It would make sense for that to have simply been an opponent specific approach given his opponent’s wrestling background, but it was still strange to see Madsen only attempt one takedown in that fight after attempting 12 in his previous match. Despite being 37 years old, Madesn has just three UFC fights under his belt and is still evolving as an MMA fighter following a distinguished wrestling career where he previously won a silver medal in the Olympics in Greco-Roman Wrestling.
Madesen has tons of wrestling experience, but switched to MMA late in his career and is still pretty green with his striking. While he did have a pair of pro MMA fights back in 2013 and 2014, he didn’t really fully commit to MMA until after the 2016 Olympics and his third pro MMA fight was just in 2018. He started off competing at 170 lb until he joined the UFC and dropped down to 155 lb. He had previously wrestled at 163-165 lb.
Madsen made his UFC debut in 2019, a few days after his 35th birthday. In what was his first fight ever competing at 155 lb, he quickly landed a takedown and finished the fight in 72 seconds via ground and pound. The win came against Danilo Belluardo, who entered 0-1 in the UFC and was released following his second KO loss, so it didn’t come against the most impressive competition by any means.
Following the quick win in his debut, Madsen dealt with a shoulder injury and a staph infection before stepping back inside the Octagon six months later for his second UFC fight in March of 2020. In that match, Madeson took on Austin Hubbard, who entered 1-1 in the UFC and is now 3-4 with his most recent loss coming against Vinc Pichel. Madsen was able to control Hubbard for the first two rounds with his wrestling but appeared to be gassing out late as Hubbard took the third round. The fight ended with Madsen going 8 for 12 on his takedown attempts with over eight minutes of control time, but Hubbard leading in significant strikes 41-15 and in total strikes 45-20. Madsen showcased his wrestling ability in the match, but didn’t offer anything in terms of striking on the feet.
Madsen did notably break his jaw early in the second round in that fight, which could definitely have played a factor in him slowing down late in the fight and is part of the reason he didn’t fight again for 17 months. Apparently after his jaw surgery he suffered an infection that required a second surgery. He then tested positive for COVID after finally recovering from the jaw injury. After that he dealt with various family ordeals and said he was close to hanging it up.
Of his 11 career wins, Madsen has three KOs, three submissions, and five decision wins. All six of his finishes occurred in the first round. His last two fights and five of his last seven have gone the distance, with his only two finishes over that stretch in his UFC debut and the fight prior. His debut came against a suspect Danilo Belluardo, who’s been knocked out in three of his last four fights and Madsen’s previous finish came against an opponent fighting for the first and only time as a pro. The other four finishes of Madsen’s career came in his first four pro fights, with two of those occurring back in 2013 and 2014 when he was fighting at 168 lb. Those early four finishes came against opponents who entered with records of 0-1, 0-0, 1-0, and 9-8. So overall, four of Madsen’s six finishes have come against opponents with one combined pro win and the other two were against an opponent who’s been knocked out in four of his last five fights and one that has been knocked out in three of his last four. We’ve yet to see Madsen ever finish anyone even remotely decent. All five of his fights to make it past the first round have gone the distance.
Fight Prediction:
Pichel will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 72” reach. Madsen is two years younger than the 39-year-old Pichel.
Pichel is a better striker than Madsen, so Madsen will need to revert back to a wrestling-heavy approach to win this fight. However, if Madsen wrestles more than he’ll also likely tire himself out by the second half of the fight making it more likely that Pichel can land a knockout in the later rounds. Madsen has gone the distance in five of his last seven fights and Pichel has seen the judges in six of his last eight, but neither one of these two have ever lost a decision, so something will have to give here. Despite only shooting for one takedown in his last match, we expect Madsen to come in looking to wrestle early. He should be able to win the first round on the mat, so then the question will just be how his cardio holds up and whether or not he can continue to find grappling success in the later rounds. There’s a good chance that he’ll be able to do enough to win at least one of those later rounds as long as he doesn’t completely gas out or get knocked out in the second half of the fight, which is also entirely possible. A round two or round three knockout win by Pichel wouldn’t be surprising, but we’re leaning that Madsen narrowly hangs on to win a decision here.
Our favorite bet here is “Madsen Wins by Decision” at +280.
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DFS Implications:
In his six UFC decision wins, Pichel has averaged 89 DraftKings points, but that number is propped up by two grappling-heavy performances in 2014 where he landed eight takedowns in each fight with massive control time numbers. It would be very surprising to see him find such wrestling success here against a former Olympic silver medalist in Madsen and if we just look at Pichel’s last four decisions, he’s only averaged 75 DraftKings points. That leaves him reliant on a finish to return value in DFS, and he’s only been able to finish one opponent since 2011, which occurred back in 2017. Madsen has not only never been finished, he’s never lost a fight, which isn’t overly encouraging for Pichel’s chances here. With that said, Pichel should have the striking and cardio advantages, so if Madsen gasses himself out from wrestling, we could see Pichel knock him out in the back half of the fight. However, if Pichel gets controlled on the mat for the first half of the match, that could very well still fail to score well, so overall this is a tougher spot for Pichel to return value. Pichel was curiously 33% owned on a 12 fight slate the last time he competed and 32% owned on an 11 fight card the time before that. So despite his scoring struggles, the field seems infatuated by him, maybe it’s the stache. That’s just one more reason not to play him in tournaments, and he’s also never landed more than 71 significant strikes in a fight. The odds imply he has a 54% chance to win, a 20% chance to get a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Madsen is coming off his worst DFS performance after abandoning his wrestling against Clay Guida. He scored 71 DraftKings points in a decision win that stayed entirely on the feet, after landing 8 of his 12 takedown attempts in his previous match. He’s a former Olympic silver medalist in Greco-Roman Wrestling and now he goes against an opponent with just a 25% takedown defense who has struggled against wrestlers. If Madsen doesn’t come in looking to wrestle early and often, he should immediately be tossed in the shark tank. We’re betting that his recent lack of wrestling was an opponent specific approach as he faced another wrestler in Clay Guida, and he’ll return to his roots here, but there’s always a chance Madsen has fallen in love with his striking despite it not being anything special. He was 40% owned the last time he fought when he was priced at $9,100 and now he’s just $7,800 on DraftKings. Madsen has only ever finished low level opponents and it seems unlikely he’ll be able to get Pichel out of there, so he’s most likely reliant on a dominant grappling-heavy decision win to score well. The last time we saw that type of performance out of him he still scored “just” 91 DraftKings points against Austin Hubbard as he landed eight takedowns with eight minutes of control time, but landed just 20 total strikes in the fight. At his cheaper price tag that could still be enough to end up in winning lineups, but he’ll need the other dogs on the slate to struggle. That middling score also gives some merit to being lighter on this fight in general in tournaments. The odds imply Madsen has a 46% chance to win, a 22% chance to get a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Mackenzie Dern
9th UFC Fight (6-2)Coming off just her second career defeat, Dern lost a five-round decision to Marina Rodriguez. While Rodriguez did a good job of stuffing Dern’s takedowns for the most part, she did allow Dern to sort of pull guard and drag her to the mat in round two. While Dern was able to keep Rodriguez on the mat for essentially the entire second round, Rodriguez kept it standing for the majority of the other four rounds and Dern went just 1 for 8 on her takedown attempts. Dern didn’t notch an official takedown attempt in round one, but she was trying to get the fight to the ground with no success midway through the round. Rodriguez went on to win a unanimous 49-46 decision and she lapped Dern in significant strikes as she finished ahead 144-49 and 148-80 in total strikes. That was the first five-round fight of Dern’s career. Following that loss, Dern notably underwent knee surgery.
Prior to that loss, Dern had won four straight fights, with three of those ending in first round submissions. Her most recent win came in a first round armbar against Nine Nunes, who tapped with just 13 seconds remaining in the first round. While Dern may be the best female grappler on the planet, she has only landed three takedowns on 28 attempts in her eight UFC fights and has a putrid 10% takedown accuracy. However, Dern was able to get Nunes down without too much trouble early in the first round on just two attempts despite Nunes entering the fight with a 77% takedown defense. Dern then had nearly four minutes to advance her position and hunt for a submission and she patiently used nearly all of it before tactfully finishing the fight with just seconds remaining.
Dern is now 11-2 as a pro and 6-2 in the UFC with four of her last five wins ending in first round submissions and both of her career losses ending in decisions. Of Dern’s 11 career wins, seven have ended in submissions, including six in the first round. Her other four wins have all come by decision and all 13 of her fights have ended in either decisions or submission wins. Her only fight to make it past the first round and not end in a decision was a 2017 third round armbar submission victory.
While Dern’s takedown accuracy is terrible, she has such a large bag of tricks to entangle herself with her opponents that she often doesn't rely on traditional takedowns to engage in grappling. Whether that’s pulling guard, grabbing a limb or pretending to slip on a banana peel, Dern generally does a good job of finding ways to get fights to the mat. As a high level BJJ black belt and ADCC world champion, once Dern gets opponents down she’s exceptional at finishing fights, however now she’ll face a tough UFC veteran who has never been finished in her career.
Tecia Torres
15th UFC Fight (9-5)After losing four straight fights in a gauntlet of top-shelf opponents in 2018 and 2019, Torres bounced back with three straight wins against easier competition over the last two years. Her recent three wins came against Brianna Fortino, who had just one UFC fight under her belt, Sam Hughes, who was making her short notice UFC debut, and gatekeeper Angela Hill. The four losses came against three former Strawweight champions in Jessica Andrade, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Weili Zhang, and then then the current #3 ranked Strawweight in Marina Rodriguez. The only other loss of Torres’ career came against the current Strawweight champion in Rose Namajunas. All five of those losses ended in decisions, and Torres has never been finished in her career. It’s also rare to see her finish anybody else, and only two of her 18 pro fights (13-5) have ended early. The first of those was a 2017 second round submission win over a 35-year-old Juliana Lima, who has lost four of her last five fights and was cut from the UFC one fight after her loss to Torres. The only other “finish” of Torres’ career came against short notice replacement and UFC newcomer Sam Hughes who told her corner she couldn’t see in between the first and second rounds and the fight was stopped.
In her last fight, Torres defeated Angela Hill in a unanimous decision for the second time in their careers after also winning a decision over Hill back in 2015. After failing to land more than 96 significant strikes in her first 13 UFC fights, Torres set a career high in her last fight as she outlanded Hill 144-96, landing 50% more significant strikes than her previous best. Hill has now dropped four of her last five fights, although three of those four losses ended in split decisions. Hill was able to land a pair of takedowns on seven attempts with nearly two minutes of control time, while Torres went one for six on her attempts. The first of those takedowns for Hill came after she caught one of Torres’ kicks.
Torres has mostly been facing strikers lately, but she did defeat Brianna Fortino (formerly Brianna Van Buren) in her third most recent fight back in June 2020. Fortino was only able to land two of her seven takedown attempts, and Torres did a good job of remaining on her feet for most of the match. While Torres only has a 58% career takedown defense, that number is skewed by one bad performance against former Bantamweight and overall powerhouse Jessica Andrade who was able to slam Torres to the mat 10 times on 12 attempts. In Torres’ other 13 UFC fights, she has only been taken down 13 times on 43 attempts, showing a solid 70% defense in those other matches. And in her last six fights that number climbs to 74%, as she’s only been taken down 7 times on 27 attempts since facing Andrade. She also does a good job of scrambling on the mat and generally gets up quickly after being taken down. Torres has black belts in karate and taekwondo, which is evident in her kick-heavy approach, but she has just a blue belt in BJJ. She has no problem looking for her own takedowns, but she has no desire to play jiu-jitsu off her back.
Torres will be fighting on the same card as her partner Raquel Pennington. The last time these two fought on the same card was June 2020 and both ladies won. That likely won’t make a huge impact, but it’s always interesting when spouses or siblings fight on the same card and it will likely remove their ability to corner one another.
Fight Prediction:
Dern will have a 3” height and reach advantage.
It will be interesting to see if Torres dials back her kicks some as she faces an opponent who will be looking for all possible ways to get this fight to the mat. At the very least, it would be wise of her to be more aware of when and where she throws kicks, as we’ve seen her get taken down in the past after her opponent catches one of her kicks. Dern will happily grab a limb and drag opponents to the mat, so Torres can’t just aggressively throw the kitchen sink at her like we’ve seen in her past couple of fights. That should force Torres into a more tactical game plan as she comes off a career best striking performance and we expect to see her striking numbers come back down to earth as she’s forced to defend far more grappling in this matchup. With that said, if Torres can keep the fight standing, she should have no problem outclassing Dern on the feet, even if it requires her to use less than her full arsenal of strikes. And while Torres hasn’t been shy about looking for her own takedowns, we’d be surprised to see her try and take Dern down as that’s exactly where Dern wants the fight to be. So overall, the outcome here will simply depend on whether or not Torres can keep the fight standing to outland her way to a decision. While Torres has never been finished in her career, she’s also never faced Mackenzie Dern. If this fight does hit the mat there’s a very real chance Dern can hand Torres the first early loss of her career. We expect this fight to either end in a first round submission win for Dern or a decision victory for Torres, with the latter being the more likely outcome.
Our favorite bet here is “Torres Wins by Decision” at +160.
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DFS Implications:
In her eight UFC fights, Dern has four first round submission victories and two decision wins. Her four finishes have returned DraftKings scores of 111, 102, 92, and 106. Her one lower DraftKings score came in a hyper efficient finish of Hannah Cifers where Dern basically accumulated no other stats other than the submission win as she failed to land a takedown leading up to the finish and totaled just five significant strikes. She’s so good at submitting opponents, yet so bad at landing takedowns, that there’s always the potential for her to get the fight to the ground somehow without landing an official takedown and then finishing the fight with a submission. At her reasonable price tag that’s less of a concern, but the potential for her to land a first round finish and still get left out of winning lineups is still there. In her two decision wins, she scored 71 and 75 DraftKings points and she’s an unlikely candidate to return value without a finish as she only averages 3.13 SSL/min and has never landed more than one takedown in a UFC fight. So overall she’s been a round one submission or bust play for her entire UFC career and now she faces a tough UFC veteran who has never been submitted. Dern is still fully capable of handing Torres the first early loss of her career, but this isn’t an easy matchup for her by any means. And while Torres has a 58% career takedown defense, that number has improved to 74% in her last six fights. The odds imply Dern has a 52% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and just a 13% chance it comes in round one.
After failing to top 92 DraftKings points in her first 12 UFC fights, Torres has recently been overachieving and scored 97 and 116 in her last two matches. The 116 point performance came against a UFC newcomer who took the fight on short notice and quit after the first round ended. The more recent 97 point performance came in career best striking performance against Angela Hill, who’s always down to take part in a striking battle and averages an inviting 5.15 SSA/min. Considering that Dern will constantly be looking to take this fight to the ground, we expect Torres to be more careful with her striking selection and throw less kicks as she risks being taken down if they’re caught. We don’t expect to see Torres shoot for any takedowns, after bolstering her last two scores with a takedown in each fight. Torres also hasn’t landed a knockdown in her last 13 fights, and overall this will be a tough spot for her to do much on the stat sheet outside of striking. So overall, this a much tougher spot for Torres to put up another useful score, and while there’s a really good chance she wins a decision, we would expect it to more closely resemble the earlier decisions in her career, where she averaged 82 DraftKings points prior to her most recent one. The odds imply Torres has a 48% chance to win, a 16% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Khamzat Chimaev
5th UFC Fight (4-0)Extending his undefeated pro record to 10-0 with a first round submission win against Li Jingliang in his last fight, Chimaev has gone full mythical creature at this point in his UFC career. He’s finished all four of his UFC opponents in seven minutes or less, with the last three taking a combined six minutes and 42 seconds, and the only significant strikes he has absorbed in those four fights came four seconds into his UFC debut. He’s still never been past the second round and his last nine fights have all ended in under seven minutes. Three of his four UFC fights have taken place in Abu Dhabi, with the one exception being his second most recent fight when he knocked out Gerald Meerschaert in 17 seconds in the Apex. This next fight will be the first time he’s fought in front of an American crowd.
Chimaev exploded onto the UFC scene in July 2020 with a pair of dominating finishes spaced just 10 days apart, followed by 17 second R1 KO win just two months later. He made his debut at 185 lb against one-dimensional power puncher John Phillips, who went 1-5 in the UFC before being released. Chimaev predictably dominated Phillips on the mat before submitting him early in the second round. Ten days later he dropped down to 170 lb somehow and took on another striker in Rhys McKee and again dominated the fight on the mat on his way to a first round TKO by ground and pound. Next, Chimaev took on a one-dimensional grappler in Gerald Meerschaert and knocked him out in just 17 seconds while never even thinking about looking for a takedown. Most recently he took on another striker in Li Jingliang and immediately shot for a takedown and carried him around the Octagon like he was burping a baby while carrying on a conversation with Dana White who was sitting ringside. After finally deciding it was time to put him to sleep, Chimaev laid Jingliang down and eventually choked him unconscious midway through the first round. So overall he’s faced three pure strikes and he has immediately shot for takedowns in all three of those fights. The one time he faced a grappler in the UFC, he kept the fight standing and landed a knockout.
Looking back to his pre-UFC career, Chimaev fought undefeated Combat Sambo World Champion Ikram Aliskerov in 2019, and while he did attempt to unsuccessfully take the fight to the ground, he ultimately finished it with a violent knockout on the feet. So in general, when he faces strikers he gets them to the mat and easily finishes them, but when he faces grapplers he’s more willing to stand and trade and generally knocks them out on the feet.
Chimaev had been scheduled to face Leon Edwards on three separate occasions following his win over Meerschaert, but all three were canceled due to COVID, with Edwards testing positive the first time and then Chimaev dealing with ongoing effects of a serious COVID case after that. At one point, Chimaev even announced that he was retiring due to the lingering effects. Thankfully he was finally able to get past it and resume his career.
Having previously split his time between the Welterweight (170 lb) and Middleweight (185 lb) divisions, Chimaev has gone 5-0 at 170 lb and 5-0 at 185 lb in his career. Six of his 10 career wins have come by KO, while four have ended in submissions. His last five knockouts have all come in round one, with his lone second round KO win coming in his 2018 pro debut. His submission wins have been split over the first two rounds, but two of his last three have ended in round two. So he’s incredibly dangerous both on the feet and the mat and 7 of his 10 career wins have come in the first round.
We have yet to see Chimaev face any sort of adversity since joining the UFC and his four opponents have ridiculously combined for a single significant strike landed against him, with his last three opponents failing to make any sort of mark on the stat sheet.
Chimaev will finally face a well rounded opponent in his next match after facing four one-dimensional fighters in his first four UFC fights, and this has to be the most intriguing fight on the card. One final note, Chimaev took forever to weigh in for his last fight and then missed weight by a half pound before using the extra hour to hit the mark. Considering he’s spent half his career at 185 lb, he’ll be a guy to keep an eye on during weigh-ins, but we’re not overly concerned.
Gilbert Burns
18th UFC Fight (13-4)Bouncing back from a third round TKO loss to Kamaru Usman with a decision win over Stephen Thompson in his last fight, Burns has now gone the distance in four of his last five wins. His only finish since moving up to 170 lb in 2019 came against an aging Demian Maia in March 2020, while his lone loss at Welterweight was the third round TKO against Usman. He’s gone 5-1 since the move up, although keep in mind those wins came against a 35-year-old Alexey Kunchenko who’s lost three straight and is no longer in the UFC, a 31-year-old Gunnar Nelson who’s lost two of his last three, a 42-year-old Demian Maia who lost his last two and is no longer in the UFC, a 38-year-old Tyron Woodley who’s lost his last four and is no longer in the UFC, and a 38-year-old Stephen Thompson who’s lost his last two. So the average age of those five opponents in his Welterweight wins has been 37 and they’ve combined to go 1-6 following their losses to Burns, with three of them no longer in the UFC. And that’s not to completely discredit the level of competition he’s been facing lately, it’s just to point out that he’s recently been facing opponents who are towards the end of their careers opposed to up and coming prospects.
In his last fight, Burns predictably looked to turn it into a grappling match against the one-dimensional karate style striker in Stephen Thompson. While Thompson came into that fight with a solid 78% career takedown defense, that number has dipped down to 63% after he was taken down 10 times on 15 attempts in his recent two fights against Burns and Belal Muhammad. Burns was able to get Thompson to the mat on three different occasions, landing a takedown in each round and finishing 3 for 6 on his attempts. Thompson has still never won a UFC fight where he was taken down even once (0-4-1). Burns finished the low-volume decision ahead in significant strikes just 29-19 and in total strikes 101-59 as far more ground strikes were landed than on the feet. Burns also accrued over seven minutes of control time as he was able to hold Thompson on the mat for over three minutes in both the first and third rounds. Thompson was able to remain on his feet for almost the entire second round before Burns landed a late takedown in that round as well. All three judges rightfully ruled the decision 29-28 in Burns’ favor.
Prior to that win, Burns suffered a third round TKO loss to former teammate Kamaru Usman in his long awaited title shot and Burns was an emotional wreck following the loss. Burns looked good early on in the fight and landed a big right hand early in the first round, but Usman showed why he’s the champ as he took everything Burns had to offer before hurting him badly in the second round and then knocking him out to start the third.
Leading up to that loss, Burns had been on a six fight winning streak since getting knocked out by Dan Hooker in the first round of a 2018 match. The first two of those wins came down at 155 lb, before Burns moved up to 170 lb following a 2019 second round submission win over Mike Davis. That is notably Burns’ only submission win in his last 12 fights dating back to 2016. Burns fought his 2014 UFC debut at 170 lb, where he won a decision, but then dropped down to 155 lb for his next 10 fights. He moved back up to 170 lb in 2019 against Alexey Kunchenko, where he’s stayed since for his last six fights. He's now 6-1 at 170 lb in the UFC, with five decision wins and a R1 KO victory. At 155 lb in the UFC, Burns went 7-3 with four wins by submission, two by KO and one by decision. So while 86% of his wins at 155 lb came early, 83% of his victories at 170 lb have gone the distance. Two of his four UFC losses have come by decision, but he’s also been knocked out in his most recent two losses (R1 2018 KO against Dan Hooker and 2021 R3 TKO versus Usman).
A 3rd degree BJJ black belt, Burns impressively won all seven of his fights prior to joining the UFC in the first round, with three KOs and four submissions. However, since joining the UFC, he has just three first round wins in 17 fights and just one in his last 12. While Burns is a dangerous grappler and a powerful puncher, there’s no denying that he’s been far less of a threat to finish fights early up at 170 lb.
Fight Prediction:
Chimaev will have a 4” height and reach advantage and is eight years younger than the 35-year-old Burns.
This will undoubtedly be the toughest test that Chimaev has had in his career and it has the potential to propel him into the title conversation. Chimaev has generally looked to grapple against strikers and strike against grapplers, but Burns is the first well rounded fighter Chimaev has faced so far in the UFC, making his approach a little more uncertain. With that said, we’re expecting Chimaev to come in looking to strike in this fight, and Burns has been knocked out twice in his career but never submitted. If the fight does hit the mat, the grappling exchanges should be fascinating as we get a dominant wrestler in Chimaev going against a high-level grappler in Burns. We generally favor the wrestler in those types of matchups, but Burns is very dangerous on the mat. Burns appears to be coming in with the game plan of simply outlasting Chimaev, which seems like a mistake going against a guy who has finished every opponent he’s ever faced in under a round and a half. We like Chimaev’s chances to knock Burns out in the first half of this fight.
Our favorite bet here is “Under 1.5 Rounds” at +100.
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DFS Implications:
Leading the slate in fantasy point per fight, Chimaev has put up DraftKings scores of 117, 127, 122 and 124 in his first four UFC fights and has amazingly absorbed just one significant strike in those four matches, which came in the opening seconds of his debut. This will clearly be the toughest test of his career, but Burns has been knocked out in his last two losses and notably used to fight at 155 lb, while Chimaev has spent half of his career up at 185 lb. We expect Chimaev’s size advantage to play a major factor and he’ll likely be able to dictate where the fight takes place, especially when you consider Burns has just a 36% takedown accuracy and a 50% takedown defense. There’s a decent chance Burns will look to drag this fight out and test Chimaev’s cardio, which has the potential to make for a slower start than we’ve seen in Chimaev’s last four fights if Burns can be successful in doing so. Keep in mind this card takes place in Jacksonville with the larger Octagon in use. That generally makes it easier for fighters to evade their opponents as there’s more room to operate. While that doesn’t necessarily take away from Chimaev’s ceiling it does add some uncertainty regarding his floor. Considering how popular he is every time he fights, that gives some merit to being under the field on him in tournaments and just hoping he doesn’t put up another slate-breaking score. That’s always a risky proposition as he’s broken every slate he’s been on, but it has the potential to leapfrog you over nearly half the field if it pans out. With that said, Chimaev is always a great play in all formats anytime he steps inside the Octagon and he’s truly a special talent. Working in Chimaev’s favor, Burns was knocked down twice in each of his last two losses before getting knocked out in each of those fights. The odds imply Chimaev has an 79% chance to win, a 55% chance to get a finish, and a 32% chance it comes in round one.
While much has been said about this being the toughest matchup of Chimaev’s career, it’s also probably the toughest matchup of Burns’ career outside of facing Usman. Burns has been a sporadic DFS producer as he’s scored anywhere from 54 to 106 DK points in his six UFC decision wins with DraftKings totals of 84, 102 (5 Rounds), 54, 79, 106, and 67. However, if we take away the five round decision win over Woodley, Burns has averaged just 78 points in decision victories, with only one score above 84 points. So even at his cheap price tag, there’s a good chance he’d fail to score enough to end up in winning lineups without a finish. The only time Burns has finished an opponent in his seven fights at 170 lb was when he knocked out a 42-year-old Demian Maia in 2020. That’s not overly encouraging for his chances of finishing a much larger, younger, and undefeated opponent in Chimaev. With that said, we’ve yet to see anyone test Chimaev’s chin and he’s amazingly only absorbed one significant strike so far in the UFC. Despite his odds of winning, Burns also projects to be a very popular play due to his name recognition and cheap price tag. That makes him even less appealing in tournaments and there’s far more leverage to be had fading this fight altogether than playing Burns with the idea of him being a leverage play against Chimaev. The odds imply Burns has a 21% chance to win, a 10% chance to get a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Petr Yan
10th UFC Fight (8-1)After winning the vacant Bantamweight belt against Jose Aldo in July 2020, Yan relinquished it in his first title defense when he was notoriously disqualified for landing a blatantly illegal knee against Aljamain Sterling in March 2021. The two were scheduled for a rematch in October 2021, but Sterling withdrew citing a neck injury, so Yan instead fought Cory Sandhagen for the interim title, who he defeated in a five-round decision. Now 13 months removed since they originally fought, Yan and Sterling will finally run it back to determine the undisputed Bantamweight champion.
Yan had Sterling on the ropes just before he went full American History X on him, so it will be interesting to see what changes Sterling makes to his gameplan. He attempted to drown Yan in volume in their first matchup, but that strategy backfired as it resulted in Sterling gassing out while Yan remained fresh late in the fight. While Sterling was visibly exhausted by the middle of the fight, he actually started slowing down just three minutes into the first round after Yan knocked him down with a big right hand. Sterling’s corner continued to tell him to push the pace saying, “The volume is killing him“ after the first round and then, “You’re out striking the guy 10:1…the more you mix it up, the less he does. It’s that simple” after round two. For the record, the total striking numbers in round two were dead even at 24 a piece, but hey, who’s counting.
While Sterling was able to take an early lead in significant strikes, Yan was landing the more impactful shots, and he was also winning the grappling exchanges. Even when Sterling was his freshest in the first 10 minutes of the fight, he landed just one of his eight takedown attempts, while Yan landed all three of his attempts during that stretch. That trend continued as the fight went on, as Yan finished the fight 7 for 7 on his takedown attempts, while Sterling landed just 1 of his 17 attempts. Yan did a good job of catching kicks and utilizing trips to officially land takedowns without ever going to the mat with Sterling on the majority of those takedowns.
Sterling was really laboring in round four as Yan began to pull away both in terms of striking numbers and damage. It looked like there was a good chance he’d be able to get Sterling out of there, or at the very least coast to a decision, but with just over 30 seconds remaining in the fourth round he landed the illegal knee to give it all away.
The fight ended with Sterling ahead in significant strikes 97-86 and 119-103 in total strikes, but those numbers are somewhat misleading as Yan was inflicting far more damage, and Sterling’s striking numbers were propped up by the lead he took in round one. Despite being a high-level grappler, Sterling was never able to get anything going on the mat and Yan was routinely able to trip him to the ground and kick at his legs. At no point in the fight was Yan ever in danger either on the mat or the feet.
Following the DQ loss, Yan took on Cory Sandhagen for the interim Bantamweight title. As he generally does, Yan started slow in the first round as he felt out his opponent and prepared to take over in the later rounds. That allowed Sandhagen to outland his way to winning round one as he took an early lead in significant strikes 37-19. However, that was the only round Sandhagen won in the fight as Yan really took over in rounds three and four especially on his way to winning a unanimous 49-46 decision. While Sandhagen landed a ton of volume and finished ahead 169-149 in significant strikes and 172-158 in total strikes, he wasn’t landing many clean or impactful shots and it was Yan that did more damage.
Prior to fighting Sterling for the first time, Yan won the vacant Bantamweight belt in July 2020 against Jose Aldo. Yan looked to hurt Aldo’s ribs early in the fight, but the striking numbers were actually extremely close early on. While the final significant striking totals of 194-83 tell a different story, it wasn’t until late in that fight that Yan really pulled away in terms of the numbers. And if it wasn’t for the ref allowing Yan to land an extra 80 strikes or so on a bloodied, battered and bruised face down Aldo, the final tally wouldn’t have finished nearly as high. That win over Aldo marked Yan’s 10th straight victory at the time and moved him to 7-0 in the UFC.
Yan owns a 16-2 pro record, with seven wins by KO, one by submission and eight decisions. Other than his DQ loss to Sterling, Yan’s only other career loss occurred prior to joining the UFC in a 2016 five-round split decision against Magomed Magomedov. To his credit, Yan avenged the loss a year later in another five-round decision against Magomedov. Yan generally wears on his opponents as fights go on and only two of his seven knockouts occurred in round and just one more in round two. Three have ended in round three and one came in round five. 14 of his 18 career fights have seen the third round, while his lone submission win came in the first round of his third pro fight back in 2015. Even his lone second round TKO came following the second round as his opponent’s corner threw in the towel. His last six fights have all made it at least to round three and his last three fights have made it to the championship round. Yan’s only first round finish in his last 14 fights came in his 2018 UFC debut against Teruto Ishihara, who came in having lost three of his last four fights and has now gone 1-7-1 in his last nine.
Yan is a calculated striker who wears on his opponents with his crisp, powerful striking and has elite defensive wrestling with an impressive 89% takedown defense. He effectively utilizes a high guard to avoid absorbing many clean shots and has a solid 62% striking defense. He does a great job of catching kicks and mixing in trips to ground his opponents, although he’s only looking for ground and pound on the mat and would generally prefer to keep fights standing. His patient approach often results in him trailing in striking early in fights, and he’s actually been outlanded overall in significant strikes by three of his last five opponents, but it’s clear when you watch his fights that the striking totals need to be taken in context, as Yan is the one landing the more impactful blows. Yan has already proven he’s the superior fighter in this matchup, so it will be up to Sterling to try and change something up if he wants a shot at winning this fight.
One final note on Yan, his entire corner team was denied visas so they won’t be with him for this fight. There’s been talk about Henry Cejudo and Sean O'Malley stepping in to corner Yan, but we’ll believe that when we see it. So who knows who will be in Yan’s corner come Saturday.
Aljamain Sterling
Xth UFC Fight (0-0)Following his DQ win over Yan to claim the Bantamweight belt by default, Sterling opted to undergo neck surgery to repair nerve damage that had been bothering him for years. The recovery process from the surgery forced him out of their original October booking and it’s now been 13 months since Sterling last competed.
Prior to fighting Yan in March 2021, Sterling landed the only first round win in his 15 fight UFC career when he submitted Cory Sandhagen in just 88 seconds via a rear-naked choke. The only other time one of his UFC fights ended in round one was when Marlon Moraes knocked him out in just 67 seconds in 2017. His other 13 UFC matches have all seen the second round, with 11 making it to round three, and eight going the distance. That loss to Moraes is the only time Sterling has been defeated in his last nine fights dating back to 2017 and he’s currently on a six fight winning streak. Those recent wins came against a series of tough opponents in Cory Sandhagen, Pedro Munhoz, Jimmie Rivera, Cody Stamann, and Brett Johns.
His recent title fight against Yan, was Sterling’s first five round fight in the UFC, although he did have four straight fights scheduled to go five rounds just before joining the UFC. However, only one of those made it past the third round, which was a 2011 decision win in his 5th fight the year he turned pro. That remains the only time he’s ever been to the 5th round.
The only time Sterling has been finished in 22 pro fights was when Marlon Moraes knocked him out cold with a perfect knee to the chin as Sterling shot in for a reckless takedown a minute into their 2017 match. His other two career losses were a pair of split decisions against Bryan Caraway and Raphael Assuncao in 2016 and 2017 respectively. He’s now 20-3 as a pro, with two wins by KO, eight by submission, and nine decisions.
After the KO loss to Moraes, Sterling beat a 15-0 Brett Johns in a lopsided unanimous 30-27 decision, outlanding him 89-27 in significant strikes and 3-1 in takedowns. Next, Sterling took on a tough Cody Stamann, who was on a 10 fight winning streak and 3-0 in the UFC. Sterling showed just how impressive his grappling skills are against an elite wrestler in Stamann. Sterling ended the fight in the second round with a kneebar, leaving Stamann writhing in agony on the mat.
Following the submission win, Sterling took on another highly ranked opponent in #5 Jimmie Rivera who had won 21 of his last 22 fights. Sterling was one of the few people to really make Rivera look bad. He masterfully used his length and reach advantage to control distance and badly outland Rivera 101-24 in significant strikes. Despite going 0 for 7 on takedowns against Rivera’s elite 92% takedown defense, Sterling easily cruised to another unanimous 30-27 decision.
Sterling then took on a surging Pedro Munhoz, who’s stock was at an all time high after he had just knocked out Cody Garbrandt and Bryan Caraway in back-to-back first rounds and defeated Brett Johns in a decision. Again, Sterling did a great job of controlling distance and using his reach to his advantage. He also showcased his elusiveness to avoid the majority of Munhoz’s strikes, who landed with just a 39% accuracy. Once against Sterling went up against an opponent with an elite takedown defense, this time 80%, and once again he went 0 for 7 on takedowns. However, he showed that he’s not just a wrestler and impressively outlanded Munhoz 174-105 in significant strikes in this high-paced brawling three round decision, which Sterling won unanimously 30-27.
Next, Sterling took on another red hot opponent in #4 ranked Cory Sandhagen, who came in undefeated in the UFC and on a seven fight win streak. Sterling showed he doesn’t need to get opponents to the ground to take their backs, as he backpacked Sandhagen on his feet and went after his neck. After falling backwards onto the mat and then attempting to escape, Sandhagen tapped 88 seconds into the fight just as he lost consciousness.
So overall, Sterling has shown the ability to beat high-level opponents, and he’s likely being somewhat undervalued based on how his last fight went followed by a year of inactivity, but this is still a brutally tough matchup for him.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’7” but Sterling will have a 4” reach advantage.
The biggest question going into their first fight was whether or not Sterling would be able to find any grappling success and the answer was a resounding no. Therefore, it makes sense that the line is so much wider in the rematch, after Yan entered the first fight as a slight -120 favorite, but now checks in at -500. Another reason for the much more lopsided line is how hard Sterling faded in the last match in the later rounds. He clearly demonstrated that he can’t keep up the pace that he set in the first three minutes of the fight, and he’s not going to win a technical striking battle against Petr Yan. So if Yan can again negate his grappling there’s really no path to victory here for Sterling. It will be interesting to see if Sterling and his team make any adjustments to their game plan as they never appeared to make any in-fight adjustments during the last match. They were obsessed with the idea that they could overwhelm Yan with volume, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Sterling didn’t have the cardio to execute that game plan. It would seem crazy to come in with the exact same strategy, but it also wouldn’t be all that surprising. It likely won’t matter if they change anything up, and we like Yan to do what he always does—start slow, turn it on in the middle rounds, and either land a late knockout or win a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Yan Wins & Over 2.5 Rounds” at -190.
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DFS Implications:
Even in the R4 DQ loss to Sterling the last time these two fought, Yan still scored 90 DraftKings points and under the current rules, 106 points on FanDuel. Under FanDuel’s old scoring system when they still counted takedowns defended, Yan scored 153.6 points and amazingly led the slate in scoring despite losing the fight. Regardless, he was on pace to put up a huge score in the fight, just keep in mind his score was heavily bolstered by his seven official takedowns. The majority of those came from catching kicks and/or utilizing trips, and he rarely actually went to the mat with Sterling. If we see Sterling throw less kicks in this next fight, that will also likely result in fewer takedowns for Yan and he has never landed more than three in any of his other eight UFC fights. However, while we can’t assume he’ll put up another huge takedown number, he consistently lands knockdowns, with eight in his last five fights and at least one in all of those. He’s got 10 total in his nine UFC matches, and ranks #1 all time among Bantamweights in total number of knockdowns landed. He also averages a respectable 5.98 SSL/min and even if we remove all seven of his takedowns in his last fight against Sterling, he was still on pace to score 109 DraftKings points and 108 points on FanDuel if the fight had gone the distance. With the takedowns, he was on pace to score 120 DraftKings points and 126 points on FanDuel (current scoring system) had the fight gone the distance. Following the DQ loss, Yan scored 108 DraftKings points and 126 points on FanDuel in a five-round decision win over Sandhagen, and prior to fighting Sterling he scored 154 DraftKings points in a 5th round TKO win over Jose Aldo. So overall, he’s been rock solid and the only times he’s failed to score 108 or more DraftKings points in his UFC career came in three-round decisions and the DQ loss. The odds imply he has an 81% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Sterling has been a consistent albeit unspectacular DFS contributor who scores well when he wins but rarely puts up slate-breaking scores. His ceiling is less important here at his incredibly low price tag, and a win of any kind would likely be enough for him to end up in winning lineups. The bigger concern is how low his chances of actually winning are. At no point in their first matchup did he ever appear to have Yan in danger and his chances of winning this fight are significantly lower than his projected ownership. Therefore, he makes for a poor tournament play despite his cheap price. The odds imply he has a 19% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Alexander Volkanovski
11th UFC Fight (10-0)Volkanovski had originally been scheduled in a trilogy match against Max Holloway on March 5th, but Holloway was forced to withdraw back in January due to an injury and this matchup with Chan Sung Jung was then announced in early January.
Volkanovski recently defended the Featherweight belt for the second time and extended his winning streak to 20 with a convincing decision win over Brian Ortega. All three of his recent title fights have gone the full 25 minutes and seven of his 10 UFC fights have ended in decisions. He hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2018 or submitted anybody since 2015. His three UFC fights to end early all ended in second round TKO wins, and those all came against opponents who never fought again in the UFC. The first of those occurred in his 2016 against Yusuke Kasuya, who was 0-1 in the UFC at the time, got cut after, and has now lost six of his last seven fights. The next was in 2018 versus Jeremy Kennedy, who entered with a 3-0 UFC record but was still released after the loss and has been knocked out in 2 of his 3 career losses. Volkanovski’s most recent early win was in 2018 against Chad Mendes who never fought again and has been knocked out in three of his last four fights.
In his recent September 2021 decision win over Ortega, Volkanovski dominated the striking as he finished ahead 214-88 in significant strikes and 229-101 in total strikes. Ortega was able to land two of his five takedowns, but finished with just 54 seconds of control time, although he did have three official submission attempts and was incredibly close to finishing Volkanovski with a mounted guillotine and also briefly locked in a triangle choke. Volkanovski finished with two reversals and nearly four minutes of control time and nearly got Ortega out of there in the third and fourth rounds after escaping the submission attempts. While Ortega faded in the back half of the fight, specifically in the fourth round, Volkanovski appeared to get stronger as the fight went on. That fight had originally been scheduled for March 2021, but Volkanovski was forced to withdraw due to a bad case of COVID and then the two fighters went on to coach TUF before rescheduling their title fight for September.
Prior to defeating Ortega, Volkanovski won a pair of decisions over Max Holloway—although it’s easy to make the case that he lost the second of those, which ended in a razor close split decision ( 47-48, 47-48, 48-47). All three judges scored the first two rounds for Holloway and rounds three and four for Volkanovski. Interestingly it was round five and not round three where the judges were split. In round five, Volkanovski led in significant strikes 37-23 and also landed two takedowns. In round three, Volkanovski led 25-15 in significant strikes with no takedowns. Despite the optics of the fight in live time, Volkanovski was able to dig deep and outland his way back into the fight as he won the last three rounds after losing the first two. The live striking totals and broadcast commentary appeared to play a large part in driving the narrative that Holloway won the first three rounds, thus leaving Volkanovski reliant on a finish. While the official total striking numbers ended up at 27-18 in favor of Volkanovski in the third round, the live striking totals were 28-24 in favor of Holloway. That just goes to show that the live striking totals should always be taken with a grain of salt, as they had Holloway ahead 161-148 in total strikes, while the official numbers showed that Volkanovski led 139-111. Nevertheless, the second fight was much closer than their first matchup. The first time they fought, Volkanovski was able to tear up the legs of Holloway as he executed a perfect game plan and led in significant strikes 157-134, although he went 0 for 4 on takedown attempts. In their second fight, Volkanovski led 137-102 in significant strikes, while going 3 for 9 on takedowns. Holloway didn’t attempt a takedown in either fight.
Prior to the three title fights, Volkanovski won his first seven UFC matches with four decisions and three second round TKOs. Volkanovski never landed more than 100 significant strikes in any of those earlier fights and never absorbed more than 82. He has an impressive career striking differential, as he’s averaged 6.42 SSL/min, while absorbing just 3.34/min in his 10 UFC fights. He’s also averaged 1.77 takedowns per 15 minutes, but has just a 34% takedown accuracy to go along with a more reliable 70% takedown defense. In his last five fights, he’s landed just 3 of his 16 takedown attempts (19%).
Volkanovski is currently 23-1 as a pro, with 11 wins by KO, three by submission and nine decisions. His only career loss came in a 2013 R3 TKO in his fourth pro fight, which took place up at 170 lb. After fighting his first five pro fights at 170 lb, Volkanovski dropped down to 155 lb in 2014. He then moved down to 145 lb later that year but went back and forth between competing at 155 lb and 145 lb until his second UFC fight when he made the permanent commitment to the 145 lb division. The last time he competed at 155 lb was in his 2016 UFC debut.
Volkanovski was recently awarded his black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and started training in Greco-Roman Wrestling as a kid before switching to rugby for a while, before fully committing to MMA. He’s been taken down 8 times on 27 attempts in his 10 UFC fights and owns a 70% career takedown defense. His only opponent not to attempt to take him down was Max Holloway, and five of his other eight opponents were able to get him down at least once. However, he’s a tough guy to control on the mat and no opponent has ever controlled him for more than 99 seconds in a fight, which came in his debut. Since then, no one has accrued more than 59 seconds of control time against him in his last nine fights, and he’s been controlled for a total of just 234 seconds (2.53% of the time) in those nine matches.
Chan Sung Jung
11th UFC Fight (7-3)Coming off a grappling-heavy decision win over Dan Ige, Jung landed three takedowns on five attempts with over 10 minutes of control time. Prior to that fight, Jung hadn’t landed a takedown in six straight fights since 2012, and hadn’t even attempted one in his last three matches. Ige went 0 for 4 on his own attempts and the only fighter to get Jung down in his last six matches was Brian Ortega, who landed three of his 10 attempts. Over that recent six fight stretch, Jung has only been taken down those three times on 23 attempts (13%). So while he has a solid 77% career takedown defense, that number has climbed to 87% since he returned in 2017 following a three and a half year layoff. While Jung was able to dominate Ige on the mat, the striking numbers were pretty close, with Jung ahead in significant strikes 92-80 and in total strikes 154-137.
Prior to that win, Jung suffered a five-round decision loss against Brian Ortega, which was the first time Jung made it to the judges in his UFC career. His first eight UFC fights ended early and he hadn’t been to a decision since 2010. Ortega outlanded Jung 127-62 in significant strikes and 129-64 in total strikes, while completing 3 of 10 takedowns on his way to a unanimous 50-45 decision win. Ortega hadn’t competed in nearly two years leading up to that fight. His striking looked much improved following the layoff and the win vaulted him into a title shot against Volkanovski. Ortega was then completely outclassed when it came to striking against Volkanovski, which isn’t a great sign for Jung’s chances against Volkanovski.
Holding black belts in Hapkido, Taekwondo and Judo, Jung landed a pair of R1 KOs over Frankie Edgar and Renato Carneiro leading up to the loss against Ortega. His second most recent loss came in a 2018 R5 buzzer beating KO against Yair Rodriguez with an insane no-look reverse upward-elbow as time expired. Those two practically fought to the death, with Jung leading 126-119 in significant strikes and 130-129 in total strikes. Both fighters failed to land a takedown—Jung on five attempts and Rodriguez on four.
Prior to the last second loss, Jung knocked out Dennis Bermudez in the first round in what was Jung’s first fight back following a three and a half year layoff from August of 2013 until February of 2017. The extended layoff was due to a combination of injuries and Jung completing his South Korean mandatory military service.
Just before the layoff, Jung fought for the Featherweight belt against vintage Jose Aldo in 2013. Aldo knocked Jung out in the fourth round to maintain the belt, while also handing Jung his first UFC loss. He had impressively submitted a young Dustin Poirier in the fourth round of a 2012 fight to get that title shot. Jung made his UFC debut in 2011 and landed a rare twister submission in his first fight, before landing a seven second first round knockout in his next. That propelled him into the Poirier fight in 2012 and he was fighting for the belt in just his fourth UFC fight. Interestingly, Jung lost his last two and three of his last four fights just before joining the UFC.
He currently holds a 17-6 pro record, with six KO wins, eight submission victories, and three decisions. Ten of those 14 finishes have come in the first round, with three more ending in round two. The only time he’s finished an opponent beyond the first round was his fourth round submission win over Poirier. Three of his six losses have come by KO, with the other three ending in decisions. Two of his three KO losses came in the championship rounds, with a 2013 R4 KO at the hands of Jose Aldo and a 2018 R5 KO against Yair Rodriguez. The other was a second round KO by head kick in his last fight before joining the UFC.
After turning pro in 2007, Jung fought his first three pro fights at 154 lb before moving down to 145 lb in 2008. He’s a patient striker who fearlessly stalks his prey and has no problem walking through fire to land a shot. He’s lost three of the last four decisions he’s been to and absorbs almost as many significant strikes as he lands (3.87 SSA/min vs. 4.07 SSL/min).
Fight Prediction:
Jung will have a 1” height and reach advantage.
This is a brutally tough matchup for Jung and the odds and betting market both agree. After opening anywhere from -330 to -450 depending on where you look, Volkanovski has seen his odds swell to as high as -800. Three of Jung’s last four wins have come by round one KO and he’s gone just 1-3 in fights that have lasted longer than three minutes since 2013. Meanwhile, Volkanovski is on a 20 fight winning streak and the only loss of his career came in a third round TKO back in 2013 when he was fighting up at 170 lb. On the other side of things, Jung’s last three losses have all come beyond the third round, with a fourth round KO, a fifth round KO, and a 25 minute decision. Volkanovski’s last three wins have also come in five-round decisions and we expect him to extend that to four here. While it’s possible Volkanovski can finish things with a late KO, the only time Jung has been knocked out since 2013 came in a flukey last second elbow against Yair Rodriguez. We expect to see Volkanovski outland his way to another decision win.
Our favorite bet here is “Over 4.5 Rounds” at -160.
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DFS Implications:
Volkanovski is coming off a career performance where he landed 214 significant strikes on his way to scoring 136 DraftKings points and 148 points on FanDuel. Just keep in mind that came against Brian Ortega who averages 6.69 SSA/min and allowed Max Holloway to land 290 against him in 20 minutes. In comparison, Jung averages just 3.87 SSA/min and no one has ever landed more than 127 significant strikes against him. He’s also a tough guy to takedown, with a 77% career takedown defense that has swelled to 87% in his last six fights. Volkanovski has just a 34% takedown accuracy and has failed to land a takedown in four of his last five fights, so you can’t rely on him boosting his score much with grappling here. That leaves him more reliant on either landing a well timed finish or putting up a huge striking total to end up in winning lineups at his high price tag. He scored “just” 103 and 94 DraftKings points and 120 and 114 points on FanDuel in his other two most recent five-round decision wins, which likely wouldn’t be quite enough to crack winning lineups at his high price. Volkanovski also hasn’t finished anybody since 2018 and hasn’t landed a first round win since 2016, before joining the UFC. His most recent 2018 second round KO against Chad Mendes scored decently with 102 DraftKings points, but there’s still a good chance that wouldn’t be quite enough to win tournaments. Volkanovski has one of the most reliable floors on the slate and is an excellent low-risk option, but he’s far from a lock in tournaments and there are plenty of ways he wins, scores pretty well, but doesn’t end up in winning lineups. The odds imply he has an 84% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Jung consistently scores well when he wins, as he’s averaged 116 DraftKings points in his seven UFC victories with 107 or more in his last six. As the cheapest fighter on the slate, it’s hard to see him getting left out of winning lineups if he pulls off the upset, but that’s easier said than done. He’s the biggest dog on the slate by a wide margin and the odds are heavily stacked against him. Volkanovski has won 20 straight fights, has never been outlanded in striking in a UFC fight, has only been knocked down once in his UFC career, and owns a 70% takedown defense. So it’s hard to see Jung winning a decision here and only one of his 14 career finishes came beyond the second round. Considering that Volkanovski appears to get stronger as fights go on, Jung will likely be dependent on finishing Volkanovski in the first 10 minutes. Despite the fact that Jung was able to put on an impressive grappling performance in his last fight, we don’t see him finding that same success against Volkanovski. The odds imply Jung has a 16% chance to win, a 10% chance to get a finish, and a 3% chance it occurs 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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Top UFC PrizePicks Play of the Week:
- Petr Yan Over 126.5 Pts
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