Tip: Hard Refresh this page (Cmd + Shift + R on a Mac, Ctrl + F5 on PC) to assure you're looking at the most up to date version of The Sheet.
Fighter Notes:
Khadis Ibragimov
4th UFC Fight (0-3)Ibragimov came into the UFC 8-0 but has since been knocked out, choked out, and beaten in a decision in his first three UFC fights. Fresh off a discombobulating round 1 KO loss to psychopath Roman Dolidze, Ibragimov is almost certainly fighting to keep his spot in the UFC at this point.
In his first two UFC fights, Ibragimov looked like a chaotic looping puncher, head hunting for KO’s but lacking much technical skill. Prior to joining the UFC, he did have two KO and three submission wins, but those are slowly fading into the horizon. His aggressive style makes him somewhat of a scary guy to completely fade in DFS but he’s also not someone you want to trust. One thing worth noting is that he’s successfully defended all five takedowns that have been attempted by his opponents—one by Da Un Jung and all four by Ed Herman. The biggest thing he has going for him in this next fight is what looks to be a much softer opponent. This was one of the two fights hyped by Dana.
Danilo Marques
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Coming off a two and a half year layoff, Marques is making his UFC debut at 34 years old. He did win his last two fights, but has exclusively fought questionable at best competition. Here are the records of his opponents in his last four wins beginning with the most recent: 5-4-1, 0-16, 5-9, 0-3. Marques remains a bit of an unknown, but what we have seen is far from impressive.
He appears to primarily be a grappler with four total wins by submission including 2 of his last 3 victories. He does have four KO wins, but all four came in his first six fights against highly suspect opponents with records of 0-1, 0-2, 2-4, and 0-8. Only one of those opponents ever even fought again and that was the 0-8 clock puncher who’s been knocked out in R1 seven times in eight fights (heart of a lion).
The only reason for optimism with Marques is that despite going against questionable competition, 8 of his 9 wins have come early (flashbacks to the Beverely Hills Ninja) and most importantly he gets to fight Ibragimov.
In his second most recent loss Marques showed no chin whatsoever getting KO’d in R1 by 7-7 Marcio Telles who had lost 3 of his previous four fights. Ibragimov could easily land something similar and end this fight early but that’s far from a sure thing. This is such a gross fight and honestly neither one of these two deserve to be in the UFC. Ideally they wouldn’t be fighting each other and we could bet on them both to lose.
Both of these two have 11 pro fights under their belts and both have seen nine of those end early. This makes it hard to just pass on this fight as there's a good chance one of these clowns manages to lose to the other donkey early. On the bright side we don’t think either one will be overly owned in DFS, so matching the field on both could be a reasonable punt play. We give the edge to Ibragimov in this one but that pick comes with a barf bag.
Juan Espino
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Almost two years removed from a R1 submission win on the Ultimate Fighter, Espino battled "a series of unsuccessful surgeries on his hand." Now seemingly fully recovered he’s making his UFC debut at the ripe age of 39 years old.
A rare heavyweight submission specialist, Espino only has one KO victory to his name, but has six early stoppage wins by submission. Despite his age, he only has 10 pro fights under his belt and he only lost one of those. That loss came in a 2011 nine second R1 KO against 22-1 Vitaly Minakov. Four of his last five, and eight of his career 10 fights have ended early. His score from the Ultimate Fighter win is actually listed on DraftKings, which was a whopping 123 points. This leads the slate in per fight scoring, which will surely boost his ownership.
Jeff Hughes
4th UFC Fight (0-2, NC)Jeff “Lights Out” Hughes has yet to turn the lights on in his UFC career. Two of his three UFC fights ended in decision losses and the other was ruled a No Contest after a R1 eye poke. Not counting the NC, five of his last 6 fights have now ended in decisions. The one exception was a R1 KO win on the Contender Series. His other three career KO wins all came in his first five pro fights against opponents with records of 1-2, 0-3, and 10-8 (the 10-8 guy had been finished early in the four fights prior to the Hughes fight, including three R1 KO’s). Hughes’ lone submission win came in his pro debut in 2014 via Guillotine Choke.
Working in Hughes’ favor (or really just against Espino’s upside) is that Hughes has never been submitted and has a 75% takedown defense. It’s worth noting that Hughes lost to Maurice Green in his UFC debut and Espino submitted Maurice Green in the semifinals of the Ultimate Fighter. That was an exhibition match so it doesn’t show up on Espino’s official record.
We’re not touching Hughes on DraftKings but you could argue that he has at least some upside on FanDuel if his takedown defense can hold up and at just $9 salary. With that said, we like Espino to flip a switch in his debut and turn the lights out on “Lights Out”.
Aleksa Camur
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)A regular sparring partner of Stipe Miocic, undefeated Camur has only six pro fights to his name but ended his first five with KO wins (three in R1 and two in R2). He earned a UFC contract with a R2 Flying Knee KO on the Contender Series in 2019.
He was unable to keep his KO streak going in his UFC debut, but ended up winning a decision against Justin Ledet—who’s only been finished early once in 12 pro fights. Camur is still a pretty raw talent who likes to throw a lot of kicks for a big guy.
Note: In the two fights we have stats on for Camur, his opponents did not attempt any takedowns so we don't have any data on his takedown defense.
William Knight
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Despite being 32 years old, Knight only started his pro MMA career 28 months ago and only started fighting as an amateur back in 2016. He does have a wrestling background to build on as a state champion in high school.
A physical specificman, the “Knightmare” has now had nine pro fights and all nine ended via TKO. Only once was Knight the victim in those finishes and that was said to have been a controversial loss. Less than four weeks ago, he earned a UFC contract with his second KO on the Contender Series. He started that fight off pretty rough, but bounced back for the R1 victory. In his previous appearance on the Contender Series he scored a R3 KO that earned him a developmental contract.
In that first fight on the Contender Series he landed 4 of 7 takedowns while landing 97 significant strikes over the course of 14 minutes and 34 seconds. That would have been good for north of around 113 points on DraftKings and 138 points on Fanduel. Since those weren’t UFC fights you won’t find those DFS scores listed anywhere.
This fight feels like a coin flip and we think you need to have exposure to each fighter. Both guys are powerful, raw talents who just need to land one square strike to finish the other. Knight offers additional scoring potential through takedowns, while Camur has an extra year of experience as a pro and the benefit of training with Miocic. We hate to be so indecisive on picks but it’s better than pretending to be confident in a pick when we’re not. If this fight makes it past the first round, we think Knight has a higher scoring ceiling and you get him at a discounted price so that’s as good a tiebreaker as any.
Shane Young
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Dealing with some personal issues in recent years, Young has only fought twice since 2017—once in June of 2018 and most recently in February of 2019. Now 19 months removed from his last fight, you always have to wonder how much rust he’ll have to knock off. He did win his last two fights after brutally making his UFC debut on just eight days notice against current champ Alexander Volkanovski. He did survive that setup to lose in a decision, but UFC debuts don’t get much tougher.
Young has won 7 of his last 8 fights and has never been finished early with all four of his career losses ending in decisions. He’s also put his opponents away early in 3 of his last 4 wins and 10 of his career 13 wins. While his last fight did end in a decision, he landed 120 significant strikes and still put up a respectable DFS score with 100 DraftKings points in the win. That followed up his massive 130 point DraftKings score in his previous R2 KO. He also won his two fights prior to joining the UFC, both with R1 submissions. In addition to MMA training he’s also competed in boxing and kickboxing so you know he’s a well rounded striker. Oh, and he’s half Maori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) and sometimes screams at his opponents in his native tribal tongue just to keep them on their toes, like he did at face offs.
Ludovit Klein
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut on short notice, Klein has won his last seven straight fights including six KO's—three in R1. His only two career losses both came early, with a R1 Rear-Naked Choke submission and a R1 KO, both in 2017. This guy has no interest in being part of a low scoring fight and half of his career wins have come in R1.
In his last fight he knocked his opponent down in R1 with a vicious head kick and then finished him with hammer punches. In the fight prior to that, he knocked his opponent out cold with a high kick. This dude is cold blooded.
Klein does have eight submission wins, but they all came earlier in his career within his first 10 pro fights. His last submission win was in 2017, which was now nine fights ago. In his more recent fights he hasn’t seemed to have any interest in taking the fight to the ground.
This sets up quietly as one of the more intriguing fights on the card and you’ll want to have exposure to both sides. We like Klein’s chances of getting an early finish based on his explosive striking but it won’t come easy against Young, so don’t be surprised if this one makes it out of R1.
Important to pay attention to in DFS, FanDuel released their pricing at the beginning of the week when Klein was a +145 dog and therefore priced both fighters accordingly. However, DraftKings waited until Thursday to add these two fighters to their player pool. At that point the line had flipped to Klein being a -115 favorite so unlike FanDuel, DraftKings priced Klein as the favorite.
UPDATE: Klein weighed in at 150 lb, 4 lb over the limit.
Jake Matthews
12th UFC Fight (9-3)Matthews comes into this fight as the largest favorite on the slate by a wide margin. He’s coming off back to back wins after losing to Anthony Rocco Martin by a R3 submission. He’s now won 5 of his last 6 fights, however 5 of his last 7 have ended in decisions—which is interesting because 14 of his 20 pro fights have ended early. Of his four career losses, three have come early, with only one coming by decision.
His last two early finishes both came by Rear-Naked Choke submissions and he hasn’t landed a KO since 2015. His other three career KO's all came in his first 5 pro fights against opponents with records of 1-5, 0-1 and 6-3. He only has one R1 win in his last 15 fights, which is concerning for his DFS upside.
Diego Sanchez
28th UFC Fight (15-12)Sanchez is coming off a DQ win from an illegal knee against crazy person Michel Pereira, in a fight Sanchez was clearly losing. If not for the DQ, Sanchez would be on a 2 fight skid and loser of 4 of his last 6 fights. At 38 years old, “The Nightmare” seems about over at this point. Despite having 16 early wins to his name, amazingly he only has one early win since 2008 (not a typo). That lone finish came against Mickey Gall in 2019 by way of R2 KO. Blind squirrel, broken clock, yadda yadda yadda.
Other than the one flukey finish that resulted in a 133 point DraftKings performance, Sanchez hasn't scored over 83 DraftKings points in his last 10 fights. In his seemingly 65 year long UFC career, Sanchez has only been finished early four times, all by KO—he has never been submitted. Three of those KO’s came in his last four losses though.
If we had more confidence in Matthews’ KO ability we would say this is a great spot for him to knock Sanchez out. However based on Matthews’ recent track record, this fight feels more like a letdown spot from a DFS perspective. You would think the lopsided Vegas line would drive up his ownership, but the DFS community may prove sharp enough that it’s lower than expected. We think Matthews still wins this fight easily, but more likely than not, it ends in a lower scoring decision.
Brad Riddell
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Former kickboxing world champion, Riddell is coming off three straight decision wins after his first six pro fights all ended early (four in R1 & two in R2). In those first six fights he had five KO wins and one armbar submission loss. Despite the string of decisions, he has legit KO power and is due for his first UFC KO win. He’s part of City Kickboxing and joins his teammates Adesanya, Kara-France and Young on this card.
In his UFC debut he was able to score over 100 points on DraftKings despite the fight ending in a decision. However, his last fight was a lower scoring decision win despite landing a R1 knock down. Riddell will likely need to keep this fight standing up for him to score well. This is of some concern considering his 57% takedown defense and his opponents fighting style. This was one of the two fights hyped by Dana.
Alex Da Silva
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Professional finisher, 20 of Da Silva’s 21 pro wins have come early with 13 KO’s and 7 submissions. He is coming off his only career decision win, but that came against Rodrigo Vargas who's never been KO'd in his career and who’s only been submitted once in 15 pro fights.
In his only career submission loss, Da Silva was unsuccessful in his UFC debut losing by Guillotine Choke. That was only the second time he’d been defeated in his career, but both losses came in his last 5 fights. He has an absurd 17 R1 wins in his 23 pro fights and makes for an interesting underdog play—albeit in a tough matchup. A large number of those early victories did come against opponents with limited to no experience so we shouldn’t overvalue them. Somewhat alarming is that Da Silva only landed 17 significant strikes on his way to a decision win in his last outing.
In a fight between two finishers who are both coming off decisions we’re hoping these two come out aggressive and put on a good show. Opening as a large betting favorite with his odds continuing to grow as the week went on, Riddell most likely wins this one early. However, you’ll definitely want some exposure to Da Silva who has a higher ceiling than his DraftKings sheet will lead many to believe.
Zubaira Tukhugov
7th UFC Fight (4-1-1)A heavy striker, Tukhugov won his first three UFC fights before going 1-1-1 in his last three. Just looking at his past DraftKings performances he jumps out as a volatile boom or bust DFS play with scores of 124 and 110 points in R1 wins, but failing to score over 63 points in his other four fights. He’s somewhat of a risky play as he doesn’t score well in decisions and 13 of his 23 pro fights have gone to the judges.
His only submission win and his only submission loss both came by Rear-Naked Choke early in his career in 2010. His only career KO loss came in R1 in 2012. Since the 2012 KO loss, he won nine in a row before suffering a decision loss followed by a draw. Three of his last four fights and six of his last nine have now ended in decisions.
UPDATE: Tukhugov weighed in at 150 lb, 4 lb over the limit.
Hakeem Dawodu
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Dawodu comes in on a four fight win streak after losing his UFC debut in 39 seconds by Guillotine Submission against Danny Henry, which remains Dawodu’s only loss in his 12 fight career. Three of his last four fights have ended in decisions, resulting in very pedestrian DFS scoring. Even his one finish only came by R3 KO, which only scored 95 points on DraftKings.
He does have seven KO wins on his record but six of them came in his first seven fights against a lower level of competition. He only has one KO win in his last six fights.
Dawodu stated his disappointment with his last performance and promised to put on a better show next time, but he’ll have his work cut out for him against Tukhugov. The most likely outcome in this fight is a lower scoring decision, that’s likely a better real fight than it scores in DFS. Look for each guy to land powerful strikes that test the other’s toughness. If you told us it ended early we would put our money on Tukhugov winning by KO.
Ketlen Vieira
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Built like a linebacker, Vieira will have a 4” height advantage and 1” reach advantage in this fight. She’s nine months removed from her first pro loss, where she was dropped in R1. The slightly long layoff was not intentional though. Vieira’s last four fights/opponents have been canceled/rescheduled going back to May.
The entire 5/9/20 event was canceled due to COVID negating her scheduled match against Marion Reneau. Then she was scheduled to fight Yana Kunitskaya on 8/1/20 but it was rescheduled for 8/8/20—however Vieira then withdrew from that match. Then the fight with Marion Reneau was rescheduled for 9/26 but Reneau withdrew last week due to an injury and now Eubanks stepped in on short notice after literally just beating Julia Avila.
Four of Vieira’s last six fights have ended in decisions. When you combine that with her low striking volume, high price tag (at least on DraftKings), and tough opponent, she doesn’t make for a very exciting play. Even in her one UFC submission win she only scored 87 DraftKings points and Eubanks has never been finished early.
However, there’s certainly an argument to be made to play her on FanDuel where she’s priced as the cheapest favorite and will actually cost you less than several of the dogs. We’re not trying to say FanDuel hates women, but...FanDuel hates women. Another benefit to playing her on FanDuel is her 92% takedown defense going against an opponent who likes to shoot for takedowns but only has a 48% accuracy rate. We could easily see Vieira rack up a ton of takedowns defended in this one. And even if she doesn’t finish Eubanks with a submission, she can still score points attempting them which she does more often than not in fights.
Sijara Eubanks
7th UFC Fight (4-2)On an extremely quick turnaround after beating Julia Avila just two weeks before this fight, Eubanks’ last seven fights have ended in decisions. She’s now won her last two fights and four of her last six, bouncing back from a year in 2019 where she lost both her matches.
Eubanks has only two career early finishes, both by KO. However, they came in two of her first three pro fights against 1-3 Gina Begley and 1-2 Amberlynn Orr. While she typically doesn’t score highly in DFS, she’s coming off a career best performance where she scored 104 DraftKings points and ended up in optimal lineups. She was priced at $6,800 on DraftKings and $10 on FanDuel for that slate so she has seen her price go up some.
We like this fight to end in another decision as the Vegas lines suggest. Vieira comes in as the favorite and while we think Eubanks definitely has a chance to keep her winning streak going, we’re leaning in the direction that Vierira wins this one. She’s just too big and too strong and her stellar takedown defense puts her over the top for us.
Kai Kara-France
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Ironically nicknamed "Don't Blink" all of Kara-France’s UFC fights have ended in decisions. He has won 9 of his last 10 fights as well as 14 of his last 16. His last three losses all came by decision and you have to go back to 2014 to find a time he’s been finished. There was, however, a period of time where he won 7 of 8 fights by KO from 2015 to 2017 but since then his only finish came from a R1 Rear-Naked Choke submission in his last fight before joining the UFC in 2018.
He does have respectable striking skills and on paper a solid takedown defense. But one thing to consider when looking at his 90% TD defense is who he's fought:
• Nam (0% Career TD Accuracy) 0 for 4
• Moreno (40% Career TD Accuracy) 0 attempted
• De La Rosa (13% Career TD Accuracy) 1 for 7
• Paiva (20% Career TD Accuracy) 0 for 4
• Garcia (14% Career TD Accuracy) 1 for 7
We’re not suggesting his takedown defense is necessarily bad, it just hasn’t been truly tested in the UFC.
Both of his submission losses came consecutively in 2014, well before joining the UFC. He was submitted by Rear-Naked Choke and Brabo Choke. Neither of those are submissions that Royval has ever used to win a fight.
Brandon Royval
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Coming off a R2 submission win in his UFC debut on just a week's notice, Royval now has three straight submission wins—two in R1 and one in R2. His only loss in his last 7 fights came via a R5 decision against Casey Kenney. Ten of Royval’s 11 wins have come early while all four of his losses were by decision.
Breaking down his seven submission wins, he finished those fights with: 3 Armbars, 3 Triangle Chokes and 1 Arm-Triangle Choke. It would seem fair to say he’s comfortable going for submissions off his back. The only question is whether or not Kara-France will ever afford him that opportunity. The logical answer would be no but how many times have we seen fighters gladly join submission specialists on the ground for no apparent reason?
We see two possible outcomes for this fight. The most likely outcome, as is represented by the odds, is that Kara-France keeps the fight standing up and wins another low scoring decision. The only time he’s scored over 69 DraftKings points in his four UFC decision wins were when he was able to get a knockdown in addition to a takedown or multiple advances. The second possible outcome we see is for Kara-France to slip up and allow Royval to sneak in one of his crafty submissions.
Dominick Reyes
8th UFC Fight (6-1)Reyes is coming off a close and controversial five round decision loss against Jon Jones, which was Reyes’ first career loss in 13 pro fights. Reyes outstruck Jones for the first three rounds before Jones outstruck Reyes in rounds four and five. Jones was able to land some brief takedowns that may have swung the decision—at least if you ask him. Reyes, among others, clearly thought he won the fight as he attempted to do the math afterwards (1+1+1 < 1+1?). Maybe Jones is moving up to heavyweight now to avoid a rematch with Reyes? Just saying...
Nine of Reyes’ 12 wins have come early, but now 3 of his last 4 fights have ended in decisions. He is the quintessential boom or bust UFC fighter in terms of DFS scoring from a guy who almost never loses. All 13 of his fights have either ended in R1 or gone to a decision. And he does not put up useful scores in decisions—ever. In his four UFC R1 wins his DraftKings scores were: 104, 110, 109 and 107. In his three UFC decisions he scored: 58 (R5 Loss), 52 and 87 points. This is only his second five round fight so we don’t have much data to go off of but even had he got the decision against Jones he would not have put up a usable score in DFS. There are reasons to believe he remains a R1 KO or bust play.
Blachowicz’s last loss did come via KO, but that was in R3 and also against non-human knockout monster Thiago Santos. Blachowicz’ four losses prior to that one all came via decision. You have to go all the way back to 2011 to find his second most recent early loss. Blachowicz has only been submitted one time in his lengthy career and that was in his fifth fight all the way back in 2007.
If common opponents interest you, Reyes beat Jared Cannonier with a R1 KO back in 2018. This was just after Blachowicz beat Cannonier in a three round decision.
In his R1 KO against Cannonier, Reyes landed 20 significant strikes (6.85/min) while absorbing only 6 (2.05/min). Reyes notched a knockdown but was 0/1 on takedowns. That was good for 110 DraftKings points.
Over the course of three rounds against Cannonier, Blachowicz landed 50 significant strikes (3.33/min) while absorbing only 26 (1.73/min). He also scored a knockdown and went 4/5 on takedowns. He won a unanimous decision with all three judges scoring it 29-28. The win only scored 91 DraftKings points though.
Jan Blachowicz
14th UFC Fight (9-4)Now 37 years old, Blachowicz is coming off a vicious R1 KO win over Corey Anderson. This surprisingly was Blachowicz’s first R1 win since 2014. He’s now won his last three fights and 7 of his last 8. Here are his last eight results beginning with the most recent: R1 KO Win, R5 Decision Win, R2 KO Win, R3 KO Loss, R2 Submission Win, R3 Decision Win, R3 Decision Win, R2 Submission Win.
Looking at Blachowicz eight fights prior to his last two, he consistently scored between 91-95 DraftKings points—regardless of if he ended them in Rounds 2/3 or if they went to a decision. However, in his three losses over that period he only scored 10, 42 and 14 points respectively. Now looking at his five round fight, he only scored 66 DraftKings points in a decision. He did score 107 points in his R1 KO over Corey Anderson, which leads us to believe he needs a R1 win to score over 100 DraftKings points and is unlikely to score much at all in a loss. At his low DraftKings price tag you could certainly argue that scoring in the low to mid 90’s is decent but it’s far from a sure thing to make the optimal lineup.
While knocking out Corey Anderson was impressive, it’s not something that hasn’t been done before. In fact, Anderson’s last three losses all came by KO. Reyes on the other hand has never been finished early as a pro or even as an amateur. Hell, he’d never even lost a fight (pro or amateur) until the suspect decision against the GOAT Jon Jones. There’s no doubt that Blachowicz has insane power, it’s just a matter of whether or not that’s enough to finish Reyes.
When originally looking at this slate, this fight seemed like one you had to have a piece of. But after carefully reviewing everything this fight actually feels like it could be a trap. Sure, both guys have elite knockout talent but they’re also both incredibly tough to finish. This could likely be another fight that’s way more entertaining from a pure fight perspective than it is useful for DFS scoring. We think Reyes wins in the later rounds or in a decision but if either guy lands a clean shot this one could certainly end early. We recommend being under the field on both guys but it feels strange saying that.
Israel Adesanya
8th UFC Fight (7-0)
Adesanya is coming off a bizarre ultra low-volume, 25 minute stand-up decision win against Yoel Romero, where we only saw a total of 88 significant strikes landed
With a 19-0 pro MMA record, Adesanya has never lost a fight since switching over from kickboxing. While his first 12 pro fights all ended with KO victories, three of his last four and five of his last seven fights have ended in decisions. He does have seven R1 wins but six of those came prior to joining the UFC, including three in his first three fights.
Adesanya is able to rely on his elite evasiveness to avoid taking much damage in fights. With a kickboxing background and zero career takedowns, he’s heavily reliant on knockdowns to score well in DFS—in fact he’s never scored over 100 DraftKings points without one. On paper this could potentially pose a problem as Costa has only been knocked down once in his career—this came in his last fight against Romero.
It’s worth remembering that in his five UFC fights Costa has only spent roughly 36 minutes of total fight time in the UFC Octagon. And obviously he’s never been in a five round fight, so he’s completely in uncharted territory if this fight doesn’t end early. The only time he’s been in a fight that lasted longer than 7 minutes and 38 seconds was in his last outing, which ended in a decision. He definitely looked like he was slowing down starting around the midway mark so maybe he’ll gas out and be easier to knockdown late in a five round fight.
Paulo Costa
6th UFC Fight (5-0)Eleven months removed from surgery to repair a torn bicep, Costa comes into this fight 13-0 with 12 early finishes. His only opponent to go the distance was Yoel Romero in his last fight. Just like Adesanya, Costa has never lost a pro fight, adding to the intrigue of this matchup.
It’s debatable as to the level of talent that Costa has gone up against. His five UFC wins starting with his first came against:
• 38-year-old (then 35) McLellan. 13-7 record, 1-4 UFC record. No longer in the UFC. Has lost his last 4 fights and 5 of last 6.
• Bamgbose. 6-4 record. 1-4 in the UFC. Has lost his last 3 fights and 4 of his last 5.
• Hendricks. 18-8 record, 13-8 in the UFC, but 37 years-old and has lost 5 of his last 6 fights and 7 of his last 10.
• Hall. 15-9 record. 8-6 in the UFC, has lost 4 of his last 7 fights.
• 43-year-old (then 42) Romero. 13-5 record, 9-4 in the UFC and has lost 4 of his last 5 fights. Romero is still tough, don’t get us wrong, but he’s old.
In a classic battle between quickness and strength, Adesanya should look to pick Costa apart with his technical striking while Costa will look to land knockout blows.
Costa is coming off the longest fight of his career and his first match to see a decision which was against Romero 13 months ago. Prior to that bout, Costa’s longest fight was 7 minutes and 38 seconds. Costa looked to be getting a little tired halfway through the fight and you have to wonder how he’ll fair in the later rounds of a championship fight if it makes it that long.
We like Adesanya to win this one, likely either in the later rounds or possibly by decision. He’s a smart fighter and we don’t see him approaching this recklessly. He should look to dissect Costa, while allowing Costa to tire himself out. Look for Adesanya to turn it up a notch in the middle rounds once Costa is sufficiently compromised.