The Sheet

Late Scratches: None

Fighter Notes:

Fight #14

Carlos Felipe

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

After starting his pro career off 8-0 with six R1 KOs, Felipe lost a decision in his July 2020 UFC debut against a tough Sergey Spivak, who exposed Felipe’s non-existent ground game. However, Felipe bounced back with a pair of decision wins over Yorgan De Castro and Justin Tafa. Felipe’s recent split decision win over Tafa was pretty close and could have gone either way, as Tafa actually led in significant strikes 86-77 and total strikes 109-77, but Felipe appeared to do a little more damage.

Prior to making his UFC debut, Felipe hadn’t fought in three and a half years, as he was handed a two-year suspension after testing positive for steroids in 2017. We’ve notably yet to see him knock anyone out since he got off the juice.

Felipe has been consistent with his striking volume in his two recent decision wins, landing 77 and 78 significant strikes in those two fights. He’s essentially a pure boxer, who doesn’t throw many kicks and has no grappling skills. He’s notably never been knocked out or really even looked in danger of getting finished on the feet, so he does appear to be very durable.

Jake Collier

9th UFC Fight (4-4)

After joining the UFC in 2014 in the Middleweight division (185 lb), Collier went 2-2 with a R1 KO loss, a decision win, a R2 KO loss and a R2 KO win. He then decided to move up to Light Heavyweight (205 lb), where he went 1-1 in a pair of decisions. Following a 2017 decision win, Collier took almost three years off due to a combination of factors, including injuries, suspensions and canceled fights. He finally stepped back inside the octagon in 2020, although he was barely recognizable 60 lb heavier and in the Heavyweight division.

Going against a mauler in Tom Apinall in his Heavyweight debut, Collier’s first fight back didn’t last long. Aspinall disposed of Collier in just 45 seconds with an effortless KO. Honestly, the fight ended so quickly it was hard to take much away other than Collier looked terrible and Aspinall is clearly a problem for the rest of the Heavyweight division.

Collier bounced back from the devastating loss with a decision win over another former Light Heavyweight in Gian Villante in his most recent fight. Villante was also fighting in just his second Heavyweight match after losing to a terrible Maurice Greene in his first time up at Heavyweight. Collier weighed in at 264.5 lb for that fight, while Villante was just 243 lb. The fight turned into a surprising high-volume scrap with Collier setting a career high in significant strikes, outlanding Villante 123-80. Neither fighter attempted a takedown or landed a knockdown and we saw just two seconds of combined control time. Prior to that fight, Collier had only landed above 67 significant strikes once in his career, which occured in a 2017 decision where he landed 94.

Collier’s lone early win in the UFC came against Alberto “Uda”, who went 0-2 in his UFC career with two early losses, before being shown the door. On the other side of things, Collier has been knocked out in three of his four UFC losses, with two of those coming in the first round and one in the second. Although two of those KO losses notably occurred when he was fighting at Middleweight.

Looking at his entire pro career, Collier now sits on a 12-5 record, with eight of his wins coming early, including five KOs and three submissions. Four of his five losses have also come early, with three KOs and once submission. While he’s only been to five decisions in his 17 pro fights, three of those came in his last four fights.

For what it’s worth, which probably isn’t much, Collier has alternated wins and losses over his eight UFC fights and is now coming off a win.

Fight Prediction:

Collier will have a 3” height and reach advantage.

Both of these two are lower level Heavyweights, who have been mostly unimpressive in their respective UFC careers. Felipe has been the more durable fighter of the two, as he’s never been finished in 11 pro fights, while Collier has been knocked out three times and submitted once in his five career losses. So if this fight were to end early, it would likely be from a Felipe knockout. With that said, it appears far more likely it will end in a decision, and in that scenario Collier could easily outland his way to another high-volume decision win, which is the outcome we’re predicting.

Our favorite bet here is “Collier Wins by Decisions” at +370, but you can also consider betting the fight goes the distance at -136. Or on Felipe’s side, it’s worth considering his KO line at +300 or his R1 KO line at +750, but we’re less interested in either of those.

DFS Implications:

Both of these guys are better FanDuel plays compared to DraftKings, as we expect this fight to remain entirely on the feet with significant strikes being the only stat accumulated. Felipe has shown he needs a finish to put up a decent DFS score, with DK/FD totals of 62/72, 66/70 and 18/38 (L) in his three UFC fights, which all ended in decisions. He’s your prototypical R1 or bust Heavyweight, with no grappling stats to boost his DFS scores. While we do expect a pace up fight here, striking volume alone will still not be enough for him to score well in a decision unless we see multiple knockdowns landed and insane volume, which is very unlikely considering Felipe has yet to land a single knockdown in three UFC fights and Collier has only been knocked down once in his career. The odds imply Felipe has a 62% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and just a 10% chance it comes in the first round, which is likely what he would need to be relevant in DFS at his high price tag. It is important to note that three of Collier’s four UFC losses have come by knockout, including two in the first round and one in the second, but the first two came in 2014 and 2015 when Collier was fighting all the way down at Middleweight (185 lb).

Collier is coming off a career best striking performance in his last fight against an undersized Heavyweight in Gian Villante, where Collier scored 80 DraftKings points and 94 points on FanDuel in a decision win. Now he’ll go against a true Heavyweight in Carlos Felipe, so it will be interesting to see if that affects Collier’s approach any. At his cheaper price tag, it’s possible Collier could still serve as a value play with a decision win, but he would likely need to land a knockdown for that to happen, at least on DraftKings. He has seen the line move in his favor, but this looks like a tough spot for Collier to get a finish, so you’re likely relying on another ultra high-volume brawl for this fight to be relevant in DFS. That’s always a tough ask with Heavyweights, so more likely than not, the winner here will not crack winning lineups, but Collier has a better chance than Felipe at being relevant in DFS. The odds imply he has a 38% chance to win, an 18% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in the first round.

---

Fight #13

Fares Ziam

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Ziam made his UFC debut in September 2019 and spent almost the entire fight pushed up against the cage or on his back. He ended up landing just 10 significant strikes. To his credit, his opponent didn’t do much either, landing just 21 significant strikes and going 3 for 12 on takedowns, while Ziam went 0 for 4.

Thirteen months later, Ziam took on Jamie Mullarkey in his most recent fight last October. Mullarkey led in significant strikes 47-20 and total strikes 54-29, while landing 5 takedowns on 11 attempts. Ziam landed just 1 takedown on 5 attempts. Mullarkey also led in control time 6:56-1:12, yet somehow ended up losing a unanimous 28-29 decision in a complete head scratcher. So Ziam should absolutely be 0-2 in the UFC, and both of his fights went the distance.

Ziam notably started his pro career off at 185 lb, before dropping down to 170 lb for his third pro fight. After two fights at 170 lb, Ziam then dropped down to Lightweight (155 lb), with a 159 lb Catchweight loss in between.

With a kickboxing background, Ziam won his most recent five fights prior to joining the UFC, with four finishes over that stretch. Impressively, nine of his 11 career wins ended early, with five KOs and four submissions, but he hasn’t looked like much of a finishing threat at the UFC level. Appearing to be a tough fighter to score well against, he’s never been knocked out, but has been submitted twice, which came in a pair of 2016 R1 Rear-Naked Chokes. His long legs and lanky frame make him tough to get down, as you can never lift him very far off the ground.

Ziam is a patient, low-volume striker, who has averaged just 1.9 significant strikes landed per minute in his first two UFC fights (5th fewest on the slate). He’s also gone 1 for 9 on takedowns in those two fights and doesn’t appear to have any real grappling skills.

Luigi Vendramini

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Vendramini is coming off a 72 second R1 KO against a terrible Jessin Ayari, who’s lost three straight fights, is 1-3 in the UFC and hadn’t fought in two years leading up to that match. That was Vendramini’s first UFC win after he got knocked out in his UFC debut two years earlier, fighting up a weight class against Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos.

In his UFC debut, Vendramini was clearly undersized, but still managed to survive an initial submission attempt and then go for a Rear-Naked Choke of his own. He wasn’t able to complete the submission, but the BJJ black belt did an aggressive fighting style as he constantly looks for finishes. After surviving the first round, Dos Santos was able to land a violent flying knee in the second round to knock out the undersized Vendramini. While he’s yet to land a takedown so far in the UFC, Vendramini attempted five in his debut and one in his last match, so the potential is certainly there.

All 10 of his career fights have ended early, with him winning nine of those. He has five career KO wins and four by submission. He’s only been past the first round three times and has only been to the third round once. However, his eight wins prior to joining the UFC were against pretty suspect opponents who came in with records of 0-0, 0-2, 0-0, 0-2, 0-1, 0-2, 6-3, and 7-5.

Fight Prediction:

Ziam will have a 5” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.

While Vendramini will notably be giving up 5” of height in this matchup, he was at a similar disadvantage in his last fight as he stood 4” shorter than his previous opponent and still landed a first round knockout in just 72 seconds. With that said, it’s still possible that Ziam’s height and reach advantage give Vendramini trouble in terms of closing the distance. That could motivate Vendramini to look to take the fight to the ground to negate those advantages and capitalize on Ziam’s submission vulnerabilities and lack of grappling skills. We think there’s a good chance that’s how this fight plays out and like Vendramini’s chances to get a submission win.

Both of Ziam’s career submission losses have come in the first round, as have all four of Vendramini’s career submission wins. So “Vendramini Wins by R1 Submission” at +2300 looks like a great bet as well as his overall submission line at +950. We also like his ITD line at +250 and R1 win line at +650.

DFS Implications:

Ziam is an uninspiring low-volume striker with an underwhelming ground game. It’s interesting to see that the line has moved in his favor, but that looks fraudulent if you ask us. Hopefully that line move drives up his ownership, as on paper he now looks like somewhat of a value play. We’ve seen nothing out of him in his first two UFC fights that makes us want to have much if any exposure to him, and he clearly should have lost the decision in his last fight, which would have left him 0-2 in the UFC. Even after stealing the decision, he still scored just 67 DraftKings points and 72 points on FanDuel. And he only scored 20 DraftKings points in a decision loss in his UFC debut. This looks like an easy guy to pass on for all contest types. The odds imply he has a 53% chance to win, a 26% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1. Those all seem way too high.

Vendramini has yet to be part of a fight that required the judges, which is obviously encouraging for his DFS scoring potential. He also seems prepared to capitalize on Ziam’s vulnerable ground game and there’s a great chance he lands a submission here. While Vendramini hasn’t landed much striking volume so far in the UFC, he also has just seven and a half minutes of Octagon time and six of those came against the much larger Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos. So we don’t truly know what we will get out of him in a longer fight, but we’re playing him for a finish here and not in the hopes that he will score well in a decision. The odds imply he has a 47% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance to end it in R1.

---

Fight #12

Steven Peterson

6th UFC Fight (2-3)

Peterson is coming off a 21 month layoff after landing his first early win in the UFC with a 2019 R2 Spinning Backfist KO against Martin Bravo, who went 1-3 in the UFC and hasn’t fought since that loss. Prior to that, Peterson had lost two straight decisions, and it easily could have been four, as his only win in his previous four UFC fights came in a 2018 split decision.

Peterson made an appearance on DWCS in 2017, but after losing a decision he was forced to return to the LFA. He landed a second round KO in his next fight and that was enough to get him the call up to the UFC. In his 2018 UFC debut, Peterson lost a decision to Brandon Davis, who went 2-5 in the UFC before being released in 2019. Davis outlanded Peterson 114-73 in significant strikes and 119-82 in total strikes, while Peterson landed just 1 of 10 takedown attempts with Davis failing on his lone attempt.

In his second UFC fight, Peterson took on Matt Bessette, who finished his UFC career with an 0-2 record. Peterson outlanded Bessette 74-57 in significant strikes and 115-88 in total strikes, while landing 2 of his 6 takedowns attempts and stuffing all three of Bessette’s attempts. Peterson finished with just over seven minutes of control time and won a split decision (29-28, 28-29, 28-29).

Following his first UFC win, Peterson took on Luis Pena and lost a unanimous 30-27 decision in a low-volume grappling heavy battle. Pena finished ahead in significant strikes 52-34 and 66-57 in total strikes, while landing 1 of 3 takedowns with Peterson landing 4 of 8. Peterson edged out Pena in control time 5:09-4:48, despite losing all three rounds.

Peterson then lost another decision, this time to Alex Caceres, who outlanded Peterson 94-67 in significant strikes and 95-87 in total strikes. Peterson went 2 for 2 on his takedown attempts, while Caceres didn’t attempt any.

In his most recent fight, Peterson took on a struggling Martin Bravo, who came into the fight on a two fight losing streak and 1-2 in the UFC. Bravo actually outlanded Peterson 86-49 in significant strikes and 93-53 in total strikes, while going 2 for 5 on his takedown attempts. However, Peterson was able to steal the fight with a second round Spinning Backfist KO 91 seconds into the second round.

Peterson is now 18-9 as a pro, with 13 of his wins coming early, including five KOs and eight submissions. However, he only has one finish in the last four years since joining the UFC and doesn’t appear to be a major threat to end fights early. He fought mostly at 135 lb before joining the UFC, but then moved up to 145 lb in 2017, where he’s stayed since. He notably absorbs the highest average number of significant strikes per minute on the slate at 5.59, although Hooper is probably the most unlikely candidate to actually take advantage of that.

UPDATE: Peterson was one of the last fighters to weigh in after nearly an hour delay and missed weight by 2.5 lb.

Chase Hooper

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

After starting his career at 155 lb, Hooper dropped down to 145 lb in his fourth pro fight after finishing his first three opponents early. Just keep in mind those three opponents entered with records of 1-1, 0-0 and 1-4. Hooper won his first fight at 145 lb in a five round decision, but then moved back up to 155 lb for one more fight, where he landed another finish. At 5-0 with four finishes, Hooper was invited onto DWCS in 2018, when he was just 19 years old. He won a decision, while going 0 for 3 on takedowns, but it wasn’t enough to get him a UFC contract, however, they did give him a developmental deal. Hooper fought to a draw in the CFFC in his next fight, before landing a second round KO with Square Ring Promotions in 2019. Continuing his promotional tour, he then landed a first round submission with Titan FC, and at that point the UFC decided to give him a shot.

In his 2019 UFC debut, Hooper took on a struggling Daniel Teymur, who entered the fight 1-3 in the UFC and never fought again after. Hooper was extremely close to getting a submission finish in the fight, but ended up closing it out with ground and pound instead. Hooper landed 1 of his 3 takedowns attempts in the match.

Still undefeated at that time in his career (9-0-1) and fresh off a first round finish in his debut, Hooper then faced a major step up in competition against long time UFC veteran Alex Caceres, who had 21 UFC fights under his belt compared to Hooper’s one. Caceres abused Hooped on the feet, outlanding him 103-53 in significant strikes and 109-60 in total strikes. Caceres also landed his only takedown attempt and stuffed both of Hooper’s attempts on his way to an easy unanimous 30-27 decision win. That fight really opened peoples’ eyes as to just how bad Hooper’s striking truly is.

Following his first career loss, Hooper was giftwrapped a teed up Peter Barrett, who had just been absolutely destroyed by Youssef Zalal in his UFC debut. Despite the low level opponent, Hooper really struggled for the first two rounds as Barrett outstruck him and chewed up his lead leg, while Hooper failed on all of his takedown attempts. Fighting desperately in the third round, Hooper was able to dive/roll into a leglock and eventually submit Barrett following an odd exchange on the ground. Hooper finished the fight going 0 for 6 on his takedown attempts and has now only landed 1 of his 11 attempts in his three UFC fights, while also failing on all three of his attempts on DWCS.

Hooper’s striking is next level bad and that’s clearly the area of his game that he needs to improve on if he wants to stand a chance in the UFC. Whatever the opposite of old man strength is, that’s what Hooper has. While he’s extremely dangerous on the ground, he’s terrible at getting opponents to the mat and has just a 7% takedown accuracy.

Despite struggling mightily in the striking department, Hooper still owns a 10-1-1 pro record, with eight of his wins coming early, including three KOs and five submissions. He’s somehow never been finished despite striking worse than a wet match.

Still just 21 years old, Hooper is definitely at an age where we theoretically should see major improvements from one fight to the next, but that hasn’t been the case over his last few fights, so it will be surprising if he shows up dramatically improved on the feet in this one. With that said, the UFC loves this kid. All three of his UFC fights have been on PPV cards and they’re now spoon feeding him his third trashcan in four UFC fights. They’re truly giving him every opportunity to succeed.

Fight Prediction:

Hooper will have a 3” height advantage and 4” reach advantage. He’s also 10 years younger than the 31-year-old Peterson.

The game plan for defeating Hooper has clearly been laid out—stay off the mat at all costs and force him into a striking battle. Whether or not Peterson can achieve that is another story. Peterson is a low level fighter coming off a 21 month layoff, and isn’t that great of a striker himself. He also likes to shoot for a lot of takedowns with limited success, as he’s landed just nine of his 26 attempts in his five UFC fights. He doesn’t come across as the brightest guy, so it’s entirely possible he blindy walks into this fight looking to grapple, but you would have to think that at this level he would have someone with half a brain advising him as to how he should approach this fight. He has just one early win in the UFC, which came in his last fight via a second round Spinning Back Fist KO. His previous two knockouts (2017 & 2014) also occurred in the second round. Five of Hooper’s career finishes have come in the first round (2 KOs & 3 Subs), two have come in the second round (1 KO & 1 Sub) and his most recent finish came via R3 Submission. The only time Peterson has ever been finished came in a 2013 R1 KO, five years before he joined the UFC.

Hooper’s 7% takedown accuracy combined with Peterson’s 75% takedown defense isn’t very encouraging for Hooper’s chances to get the fight to the ground, but keep in mind Hooper takes the Mackenzie Dern (10% career takedown accuracy) snotball approach to takedowns, and will use every trick in the book to get the fight to the mat, even if it doesn’t count as an official takedown attempt. Stats aside, if Peterson can keep this fight standing up, he wins. However, if Hooper gets it to the ground, we like him to land another submission. We give the slight edge to Hooper based on how unimpressive Peterson has been, but this really feels like a coinflip and the only thing we’re confident in is that the loser (and also likely the winner) will look terrible.

This is sort of a weird spot for bets in a fight that could go a lot of ways, so we’re just looking at taking a few small stabs. “Hooper Wins by Submission” at +350 is our favorite bet. Peterson’s last three KOs have all come in the second round, so getting that at +1700 looks like decent value. We also like “Fight Ends in R1” at +230 and “Fight Ends in R2” at +440.

DFS Implications:

Hooper came into his last fight as a -280 favorite, priced at $9,300 on DraftKings on a 10 fight card and was just 23% owned by the field. After narrowly winning the fight with a late comeback submission, Hooper is now essentially in a pick‘em spot and priced down at $7,800. It will be interesting to see how the field reacts as he’s been progressively less popular over his last couple fights as he continues to struggle with his striking and takedown accuracy. He hasn’t put up a usable score since his UFC debut when he landed a first round KO and scored 112 DraftKings points and 128 points on FanDuel. Since then, he’s lost a decision and landed a desperation R3 leg lock that still scored just 74 DraftKings points and 94 points on FanDuel. You would naturally think that Hooper’s grappling heavy fighting style would be a better fit for the DraftKings scoring system, but he’s actually scored higher on FanDuel in his two UFC wins. A big part of that is that he doesn’t accrue a ton of control time, but does attempt numerous submissions. He has four official submission attempts in his three UFC fights and had three attempts in his DWCS fight. Hooper lacks the striking volume and takedowns to score well in a decision, so he still needs a finish to be useful, even at his cheaper price tag. The odds imply he has a 47% chance to win, a 32% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in the first round.

Hooper’s terrible striking and mind blowingly bad takedown accuracy keep Peterson in play, especially on FanDuel, where he’s curiously priced below Hooper despite being a slight favorite. Although Hooper will also look to roll into leg locks, which apparently don’t count as takedown attempts, so keep in mind that he generally ends up with less official takedown attempts than you might expect based on watching his fights. Still, Hooper has landed just one takedown on 14 attempts combined between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, so the potential for multiple takedowns defended is always there and he’s gone 0 for 8 on takedowns in his last two fights. When Alex Caceres defeated Chase Hooper in a decision, he notably scored 92 DraftKings points and 106 points on FanDuel, keeping Peterson potentially in play even in a decision win. In his two UFC wins, Peterson has notably scored 100 and 96 DraftKings points, with that second score coming in a decision. Those scores were good for 125 and 90 points on FanDuel, so he has been a decent producer in his rare wins. We’re still not overly excited about Peterson however, and his decision win was propped up by takedowns, control time and clinch strikes, which is not where he wants to be to succeed in this fight. He’s definitely not a fighter we’re confident in whatsoever and really doesn’t have much business even being in the UFC, but he does still have the ability to return value at his price in this matchup and should be very low owned in DFS. However, coming off a 21 month layoff is certainly of some concern. The odds imply he has a 53% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in the first round.

---

Fight #11

Matt Frevola

6th UFC Fight (2-2-1)

Frevola absolutely cannot catch a break. Going back to April of last year, Frevola had been scheduled to fight Roosevelt Roberts, but the event was canceled due to COVID. Then he was booked to face Frank Camacho last June, but one of Frevola’s cornermen tested positive for COVID and he was forced to withdraw. Then he was rebooked against Roberts in September, but Frevola fractured his foot leading up to the fight and was forced to withdraw again. Next, he was scheduled to face Ottman Azaitar, but Azaitar was pulled from the card for violating COVID protocols. That time Frevola did manage to get a new opponent on just a day’s notice. However, drawing Arman Tsarukyan with one day to prepare is really no reward. Then after three canceled fights and an opponent change, Frevola finally gets the Camacho fight rebooked, just to have Camacho withdraw again in the days leading up to the fight. So in the last 14 months Frevola’s last five fights have all been canceled or given a last minute opponent change.

In his lone fight to actually take place since October of 2019, Frevola took on Arman Tsarukyan with just a day’s notice, as Tsarukyan had also lost his opponent the day before. Tsarukyan is definitely not the guy you want to fight on short notice and already owning a size advantage, Tsarukyan missed weight to make the difference even more noticeable. Frevola had originally been a +130 dog in his matchup against Azaitar, but that number jumped all the way up to +515 against Tsarukyan. Tsarukyan dominated Frevola in a grappling heavy decision win, where he landed 10 takedowns on 12 attempts and amassed nearly eight and a half minutes of control time. Tsarukyan also led in significant strikes 50-16 and total strikes 103-51. Frevola went 0 for 2 on takedowns and had just two seconds of control time.

This will be Frevola’s 6th fight in the UFC since joining the organization in 2018 following a R2 Submission win on DWCS in 2017. Frevola was knocked out a minute into his 2018 UFC debut by a struggling Marco Polo Reyes who went 1-4 in his last five UFC fights, with all five ending in KOs, before the UFC finally cut Reyes in 2019. The win over Frevola was Reyes’ only victory since 2016 over that five fight period. In fairness to Frevola, 7 of Reyes’ 9 pro wins were by KO.

Following the loss, Frevola fought Lando Vannata to a draw in 2018. After that, Frevola won tough decisions over Jalin Turner and Luis Pena. There was some controversy over the Pena decision, but while the striking was close, Frevola was able to land four takedowns on seven attempts to Pena’s one. Frevola also landed four takedowns on 13 attempts against Turner in a low-volume grappling heavy match. Turner led in significant strikes 35-31, but Frevola led in total strikes 49-42 and finished with just over five minutes of control time. Frevola notably landed an illegal upkick at the end of the second round, but it was deemed accidental and the fight continued with no point deduction.

Frevola wrestled when he was younger and is a BJJ brown belt. He’s never landed more than 66 significant strikes in a fight and averages just 2.73 significant strikes landed per minute (6th fewest on the slate). Frevola notably attempts an average of seven takedowns per 15 minutes but only lands an average of 2.6. Frevola is now 8-2-1 as a pro, with his only two losses coming in his UFC debut and his most recent fight. While he hasn’t landed a finish since joining the UFC, he does have three submissions and a KO on his record, but three of those finishes came in his first four pro fights against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 1-1, and 2-0.

Terrance McKinney

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Making his short notice UFC debut after Frank Camacho was forced to withdraw on Tuesday after getting in a car accident, McKinney has only ever been in one fight that lasted longer than seven minutes and has never been to the judges in his 13 fight career.

Impressively, 11 of his 13 fights have ended in the first round, with six of those ending in the first minute. He’s 10-3 as a pro, with four KO wins and six by submission. He’s also lost twice by TKO and been submitted once, although one of his TKO losses resulted from a leg injury early in his career, and his other two early losses came against fighters who are currently in the UFC in Sean Woodson and Darrick Minner.

Looking at his last five fights beginning with his appearance on DWCS in July 2019, McKinney nearly submitted Sean Woodson as he controlled his back for essentially the entire fight until Woodson was able to escape and land a Flying Knee KO early in the second round.

McKinney suffered another loss in his next fight against submission ninja Darrick Minner. McKinney got Minner to the ground, but the dangerous submission specialist was able to quickly throw up a Triangle Choke and quickly get McKinney to tap. We didn’t see McKinney fight again for 17 months following the pair of disappointing losses.

After taking a year and a half off, McKinney exploded back onto the MMA scene this Spring with what appeared to be improved striking as he landed three straight first round KOs over the last three months, with the most recent coming just last week. In his first fight back, McKinney won with a 16 second R1 KO this past March against a suspect Dedrek Sanders, who was coming off a pair of early losses and is now 3-3 as a pro. McKinney landed a violent left head kick that dropped Sanders and then finished it with ground and pound.

Then less than two months later, McKinney landed another ultra quick KO with a 17 second finish in April against a 37-year-old opponent in Luiz Antonio Lobo Gavinho, who’s only loss in his last six fights came against Cory Sandhagen. McKinney again went for a left head kick and landed his shin to the head of Gavinho to start the fight and immediately finished it with aggressive ground and pound.

Most recently, McKinney was in a significantly longer fight that made it all the way to the 72 second mark before McKinney finished it with his third straight first round KO. So those three fights amazingly lasted a combined 105 seconds. That most recent win came against Michael Irizarry, who had won 7 of his previous 8 fights. McKinney fearlessly pulled guard as he confidently rolled Irizarry over his own body and ended up on top and then impressively knocked Irizarry out while in full guard on the mat.

With a college wrestling background, McKinney clearly has a solid grappling background that he utilizes with a kinetic pace, but his striking has also really improved in the last couple years. For such a lean frame, he definitely has knockout power, which he’s put on full display in 2021.

McKinney turned pro in 2017 and started off at 145 lb before moving up to 155 lb in his fourth pro fight. He notably won all three of those first three 145 lb fights with first round submissions. He’s also fought as high as 170 lb and dropped back down to 145 lb at a couple of different points, where he went 1-3. So all three of his career losses have been at 145 lb, whereas he’s fighting at 155 lb now. His most recent fight was actually at a 160 lb Catchweight and he only has four career fights at 155 lb, which ended in a 2018 R3 Submission Win, a 2019 R1 Submission Win, and a pair of 2021 R1 KOs.

Fight Prediction:

McKinney will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.

Frevola is an absolute grinder. He’s only lost twice in his career and has only been finished once. No one has ever landed more than 67 significant strikes on him and his last four fights have all gone the distance. So overall, basically the opposite of Terrance McKinney. It will be interesting to see which fighters’ pace prevails, with only one of Frevola’s last seven fights ending in the first round and only one of McKinney’s last nine fights making it out of the first round. Look for McKinney to look to land wild left head kicks, with Frevola looking for an opportunity to take his back. McKinney is an exciting young prospect and we like his chances both on the feet and the mat. It’s probably fair to temper expectations a little considering he just fought last week and is taking this fight on short notice, but he looks pretty legit and we think he has a good chance to pull off the upset here with an early finish.

The books continue to hold our late replacement lines hostage and still haven’t released lines as of Friday, despite having multiple days to set them. Fucking cowards. If you see McKinney’s R1 Win line at +600 or better, bet it. UPDATE: The books took our line and ran with it, setting McKinney's R1 Win line at +600. We like betting that, along with his ITD line at +300 and R1 Submission line at +2500.

DFS Implications:

Frevola has yet to score well in DFS, with DK/FD scores of 75/76 and 85/73 in his two decision wins, despite landing four takedowns in each of those fights. He simply lacks the striking volume to score well in decisions, so he’s still reliant on landing a finish to return value. Now priced near the top of the heap, he should go low owned, despite having a great chance to land a finish, so he makes sense as a low-owned contrarian play who’s going against an unproven fighter who’s been finished in all three of his career losses. McKinney has also never been in a fight that lasted longer than 11 minutes and that was three years ago. Since then, 8 of his 9 fights have ended in three minutes or less, so we really don’t know what his cardio will look like late in fights, while Frevola has no issue going the full 15 minutes. This is the type of high variance spot where we’re looking to be over the field on both guys, just remember that Frevola’s wins have generally been lower scoring so there are ways this fight busts. The odds imply he has a 69% chance to win and a 41% chance to get a finish.

McKinney is going to be a name that we expect will continue to pop up in DFS for the foreseeable future. He’s had 13 pro fights that lasted a combined 29 minutes and 57 seconds. That’s a ridiculous average of 2 minutes and 18 seconds per fight. The intros last longer than most of this guy’s matches. He’s an exciting striker and grappler who looks to get straight down to business. While this is definitely not a favorable matchup for him to excel, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Frevola has been knocked out early before and was taken down 10 times on 12 attempts in his last fight. It’s unlikely we see that sort of wrestling dominance here, but it’s certainly not impossible. McKinney is the ultimate high variance play who has the potential for a big performance or to completely underachieve on the biggest stage and provide a springboard for a Frevola ceiling performance. Either way, he looks like the spark required for this fight to produce a high scorer, regardless of who wins, and there’s a solid chance he pulls off the upset. The odds imply McKinney has a 31% chance to win and a 22% chance to get a finish.

---

Fight #10

Pannie Kianzad

6th UFC Fight (3-2)

As a +135 underdog in her last fight, Kianzad was controlled by Sijara Eubanks on the ground for essentially the entire first round of the fight, but bounced back to win the later two rounds on her way to winning a close, but unanimous 29-28 decision win. Kianzad outlanded Eubanks 92-49 in significant strikes and 132-70 in total strikes, while Eubanks went 2 for 4 on takedowns and accrued six and a half minutes of control time.

That was Kianzad’s third straight decision win and 5th straight fight to go the distance. In fact, the only fight in her last nine not to end in a decision was a 2018 R2 Submission loss to Macy Chiasson on The Ultimate Fighter Finale. Kianzad fought her next fight outside of the UFC, where she won a decision and then returned to the organization to lose a decision to Julia Avila in 2019. After starting off 0-2 in the UFC, Kianzad has now won her last three and finds herself as the #11 ranked women’s Bantamweight.

Kianzad has impressively totaled at least 92 significant strikes in three straight fights, but has only landed one takedown in her five UFC matches, and is really just a pure striker. While she was taken down twice on four attempts in her last match, she still owns an 83% career takedown defense and has only given up one other takedown on 14 of her opponents’ attempts in her previous four fights.

Looking at her entire pro career, Kianzad is 14-5, with three wins by KO and 11 decisions. Two of her three KO wins came in her first three pro fights, with the third coming in her 6th pro match back in 2014. Those knockouts came against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-0 and 1-1. Two of the knockouts occurred in the third round, with one coming in R1. Three of her five career losses have ended early, with a 2015 R2 KO, a 2017 R1 Rear-Naked Choke Submission and a 2018 R2 Rear-Naked Choke Submission.

Alexis Davis

13th UFC Fight (7-5)

Davis started her pro career off up at 145 lb before dropping down to 135 lb in 2009, where she stayed until 2017 when she curiously decided to drop down to 125 lb following a decision win. Davis won her first fight down at 125 lb, but then lost the next three before taking 19 months off. She resurrected her flatlined career at 36 years old by moving back up to 135 lb and winning a smothering decision over Sabina Mazo this past February.

In that recent fight, Davis dominated the first round on the ground, catching a Mazo kick just over a minute in and then using a trip to drop Mazo to the mat. The second round stayed mostly on the feet, with Davis constantly attacking Mazo’s lead leg. Davis didn’t even attempt a takedown in the round until 30 seconds before it ended, when she got Mazo back to the ground as she caught another kick and drove through it, then finishing the round in top position. Mazo foolishly continued to put kicks out there like invitations to be taken down, showing a low fight IQ and a complete inability to make in-fight adjustments. Davis took full advantage as she caught another kick just 20 seconds into the third round and again used a trip to put Mazo on her back. Davis spent the rest of the round controlling Mazo on the ground as she cruised to a unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-26). It’s notable that all three of Davis’ takedowns began with catching a kick, and she didn’t shoot for any other attempts. Mazo actually led in significant strikes 64-49, but Davis led in total strikes 128-71, while going 3 for 3 on takedowns and notching just shy of nine minutes of control time. Mazo had no answer off her back as Davis just continued to grind on her.

Prior to the win Davis lost a trio of decisions against tough competition in Viviane Araujo, Jennifer Maia and Katlyn Chookagian. Interestingly, Davis actually finished ahead in significant strikes in all three of those losses ( 68-67, 72-60 and 70-62), while also leading 1-0 in takedowns in two of the three fights.

Davis’ second most recent win came all the way back in 2017 in a grappling heavy 15 minute controversial split decision, with over 12 minutes of combined control time (5:50 for Davis). Davis was outlanded in total strikes 191-132 and significant strikes 49-23. She also lost the takedown battle 4-1 and lost in control time 6:33-5:50, yet somehow won a split decision. The crowd did not agree with the decision and if you saw the massive swelling in Davis’s head it would be hard to argue she won anything.

Davis likes to make fights ugly, and isn’t one to encourage a firefight. A BJJ black belt, she generally prefers to mix things up in the clinch than out in open space. No one has landed more than 67 significant strikes against her in Davis’ 12 fight UFC career. She’s also failed to land above 72 significant strikes in a fight herself.

Two of her five UFC losses have come early, with a 16 second 2014 R1 KO loss against Ronda Rousey for the Bantamweight Title and a 2016 R2 Submission loss to Sara McMann. Six of her seven UFC wins have ended in decisions with the one exception being a 2015 R2 Armbar against Sarah Kaufman, who is no longer in the UFC and has been submitted in three of her five career losses. While half of Davis’ 20 career wins have come early (2 KOs & 8 submissions), 9 of those 10 finishes came prior to joining the UFC in 2013. Hilariously, one of Davis’ two career knockouts somehow came against a young Amanda Nunes back in the second round of their 2011 match. Her only other KO victory came in her second pro fight back in 2007. Five of her submission wins have come by Rear-Naked Choke with the other three ending in Armbars. She has four first round submissions, and two in both rounds two and three. Four of her last five submissions have come in the later rounds.

Davis has been knocked out three times in her career. However, the first time was in the third round of her first pro fight back in 2007. The second was from a doctor stoppage in 2009 with 37 seconds to go in the fight, and the third was against Ronda Rousey in 2014.

Fight Prediction:

Kianzad will have a 1” height advantage, but Davis will have a 2” reach advantage. Kianzad is notably seven years younger than the 36-year-old Davis.

This is an eerily similar stylistic matchup to Davis’ last fight. Mazo came into that fight against Davis with an 83% takedown defense and now Kianzad comes in with an identical 83% takedown defense. Both Mazo and Kianzad are pure strikers who land an above average amount of volume and like to throw leg kicks—although Mazo has longer legs that look easier to grab, while Kianzad looks a little snappier with her kicks. Both Mazo and Kianzad are 3-2 in the UFC, with four of their five UFC matches ending in decisions. Both are 5’7” and fight out of the Orthodox stance. Both were decent favorites over Davis, with Mazo’s line set at -225 and Kianzad’s at -200. We could go on, but you probably get the idea—Davis should be able to approach this fight with a similar game plan to her last match. If she finds similar success, then she should be able to pull off another upset and likely win a decision with a slight chance of landing a submission. However, if Kianzad’s takedown defense holds up, then she should point her way to a decision win here.

The value is on Davis’ side in this one. We like her moneyline at +164, her decision line at +250 and her submission line at +900. Her R2 submission line at +3400 is also an interesting dart throw.

DFS Implications:

Kianzad is almost entirely reliant on striking to score well in DFS, as she has landed just one takedown on seven attempts across her five UFC fights. She also hasn’t landed a takedown her last three fights and now goes against a pure grappler, so she shouldn’t even be looking to take the fight to the ground. While Kianzad does land a high amount of volume at 5.14 significant strikes landed per minute (5th highest on the slate), it’s not enough to return value at her price in a decision. Her three decision wins have scored 79, 72 and 72 DraftKings points and 81, 94 and 85 points on FanDuel. That leaves her reliant on a finish to score well, something she hasn’t done in seven years going back to her 6th pro fight. This looks like an easy fade at her high price tag, which is why we expect her to be the lowest owned favorite on the slate. So the only argument for playing her is that she’ll be a low-owned favorite if you’re looking for a contrarian option in tournaments. If you insist on taking a stab, she’s clearly a better FanDuel play since the vast majority of her strikes go down as significant and she should have a chance to defend multiple takedowns. Just keep in mind that Davis is not the type of fighter to attempt a ton of takedowns, as she’s never attempted more than four in a fight, and she was very efficient in her last match, going 3 for 3 on her attempts. The odds imply Kianzad has a 64% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.

Coming off the highest scoring DraftKings performance of her career, Davis totaled 96 DK points, but just 70 points on FanDuel. The only time Davis has ever put up a usable FanDuel score was in her lone UFC finish, which came in a 2015 R2 Armbar Submission over a suspect Sarah Kaufman. So clearly she needs a finish to put up a usable FanDuel score. Prior to her last fight, her previous five wins had scored 82, 73, 91, 82 and 64 DraftKings points. While she landed three takedowns in her last match, she only had a total of three takedowns in her previous six fights combined and has never landed above 72 significant strikes in a UFC fight. There’s some reason to think Davis could have a similar showing to her last outing based on all the similarities between Mazo and Kianzad, but just keep in mind that was a ceiling performance and shouldn’t be considered the norm. Kianzad has notably been somewhat vulnerable to being submitted, with two of her five career losses ending in submissions, with the most recent one occurring in 2018, but Davis hasn’t submitted anybody since 2015, so it’s still an unlikely proposition. Davis makes some sense as a low owned value play on DraftKings in the hopes that she puts on another dominating grappling performance and wins a decision, but that’s about it. The odds imply she has a 36% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.

---

Fight #9

Movsar Evloev

5th UFC Fight (4-0)

Prior to joining the UFC, Evloev spent most of his time down at Bantamweight (135 lb), with just a couple of fights at Featherweight (145 lb). However, he moved up to Featherweight for good in his UFC debut and hasn’t looked back. While 7 of his first 10 pro fights ended early, all four of his UFC matches have gone the distance.

Evloev had been scheduled to fight on December 5th against Nate Landwehr but was forced to withdraw when he tested positive for COVID. Once recovered, he stepped into a fight against Nik Lentz on short notice back in January. Coincidentally Lentz had originally been scheduled to fight Mike Grundy, who Evloev had just defeated in his last fight. Despite filling in on short notice, Evloev was a massive -700 favorite for that fight, which took place at 150 lb catchweight. Lentz consistently hunted for Guillotines Submissions, but Evloev calmly dealt with each one of them, showing off his iron neck. Evloev notched his fourth straight UFC decision win, outlanding Lentz 82-46 in significant strikes and 137-50 in total strikes. He went 2 for 2 on his takedown attempts with four and half minutes of control time, while Lentz went 1 for 5 on his attempts with just under a minute and a half of control time. That win extended Evloev’s perfect pro record to 14-0, after he went 10-0 on the tough M-1 Russian scene before joining the UFC.

In his second most recent fight, Evloev squared off against wrestler Mike Grundy and narrowly escaped several dangerous submission attempts. After going 9 for 27 on takedowns in his first two UFC fights, Evloev didn’t attempt a single one against Grundy. That can likely be explained by the fact that Grundy clearly wanted the fight on the ground and Evloev obviously had the advantage on the feet. Evloev is a smart fighter and seems fully capable of adapting his approach to attack his opponent’s weaknesses.

While he’s not a power puncher, he tends to wear on his opponents. He does have three knockouts on his record (R1, R2 & R5). He also has four submission wins, including one in R1, two in R2 and one in R3, although three of those submissions came in his first four pro fights.

Evloev lands a solid and consistent amount of striking volume, averaging 4.7 significant strikes per minute (8th most on the slate). He also lands an average of 2.8 takedowns per 15 minutes. However, he’s notably gone just 2 for 2 on takedowns in his most recent two fights after going 9 for 27 in his first two UFC matches. Although that can likely be explained by the fact that he’s gone up against a pair of wrestlers in his most recent two fights, so we could see him incorporate more grappling in this next fight against a pure striker in Dawodu.

Hakeem Dawodu

7th UFC Fight (5-1)

Rolling in on a five fight winning streak after suffering his only career loss back in his 2018 UFC debut, Dawodu is coming off a decision win over a tough, but spineless Zubaira Tukhugov. Tukhugov notably missed weight by 4 lb for that fight. Tukhugov strangely refused to fight in the second half of the third round as he literally just circled away from Dawodu with a smile on his face as if he thought he was ahead two rounds to none. Dawodu was literally walking him down with his hand by his side screaming, “LET’S FUCKING FIGHT!” while the ref hilariously told him, “No cursing, be respectful!” Instead, Tukhugov simply ran out the clock, frustratingly passing on giving even the slightest effort to win the fight or put on a good show.

Looking back at the beginning of his UFC career, Dawodu’s UFC debut couldn’t have gone much worse as he was submitted in just 39 seconds by a Danny Henry Guillotine Choke. Since that loss, four of his last five fights have ended in decisions, and all five made it to the third round. The one fight to end early over that stretch was a 2019 R3 KO win.

He does have seven KO wins on his record but six of those came in his first seven fights. It should be noted that he has faced decent competition throughout his career, and his record is by no means padded. With that said, he only has one KO win in his last six fights and 10 of his last 11 fights made it past the first round, with eight making it to round three. Only two of his seven career KO wins came in the first round and both of those occurred in his first three pro fights. Three of his other five occured in R2 and two ended in R3.

With a Muay Thai background, Dawodu is a crisp, powerful striker, but doesn’t really offer anything in terms of grappling and has only attempted one takedown in six UFC fights, which he didn’t land. However, he does have a very solid 85% takedown defense. He also does land a high number of significant strikes, checking in with the fourth highest average on the slate at 5.15/minute.

Fight Prediction:

Dawodu will have a 1” height and reach advantage.

This should be a great technical battle between two high-level fighters who only have one combined loss in 28 career fights between them. Both guys are solid strikers, but Dawodu should have the advantage on the feet, while Evloev will have a big advantage on the mat. We expect Evloev to mix in more takedown attempts than in his last two fights, knowing that the path of least resistance will be to get the fight to the ground. Actually taking Dawodu down is easier said than done however, as he owns a legit 85% takedown defense, while Evloev has just a 37% takedown accuracy. If Dawodu’s takedown defense holds up, he has a solid chance to pull off the upset here and win a decision. However, if Evloev can consistently ground him, then he’ll get the nod assuming it goes the distance, but he also has a chance to land a submission. With that said, we’re expecting this one to end in a decision and think the odds are a little wider than they should be between the two fighters. We like Dawodu’s chances to keep it standing up and to win a decision here, but Evloev is as tough as they come, so we expect an ultra close fight.

We expect this fight to go the distance so you can consider betting that line at -186, but we also think Dawodu has a good chance to win the decision, so we see more value in betting his decision line at +460. If it does end early, the most likely cause would be a Evloev submission, so we also like that line at +500.

DFS Implications:

This looks like a better real life fight than for DFS purposes, but there are a few ways for either guy to return a useful DFS score.

In Dawodu’s five UFC wins, he’s scored just 58, 69, 91, 71 and 62 DraftKings points and 79, 59, 113, 112 and 77 points on FanDuel. His one score to top 71 DK points came in a third round KO and none of his decision wins have scored well. He hasn’t landed any takedowns in the UFC, which obviously doesn’t help his DFS scores, and he’s only attempted one, which came in his second UFC fight. He’s also only been taken down 4 times on 27 attempts and owns an 85% takedown defense. Dawodu is more interesting on FanDuel, where his high percentage of significant strikes are more valuable, he can score from takedowns defended, and he’s relatively cheaper. Evloev notably attempts an average of seven takedowns per 15 minutes, but with just a 37% accuracy he also misses an average of five. So a high-volume decision win for Dawodu with 5+ takedowns defended could still score decently on FanDuel, while it wouldn’t be useful on DraftKings. The odds imply Dawodu has a 32% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in the first round.

Here are Evloev four DK/FD scores beginning with the most recent: 92/93, 66/94, 84/99, and 110/86. The only time he’s broken 100 points on either DFS site came in his UFC debut where he landed 5 of 16 takedown attempts and racked up nearly 12 minutes of control time while adding on 121 total strikes and 50 significant. Outside of landing a submission win, that would be his path to returning value in this fight if he can’t get a finish, indicating that he’s a better play on DraftKings. With that said, it’s hard to see him matching that grappling success against the 85% takedown defense of Dawodu, so he’s still likely dependent on a finish to to put up a useful DFS score, and if he does end the fight early he could be live on both sites. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a 20% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in the first round.

---

Fight #8

Joanne Calderwood

13th UFC Fight (7-5)

Coming off a career best striking performance in a decision win over Jessica Eye, Calderwood came out ahead 148-77 in significant strikes and 214-104 in total strikes. Eye went 1 for 4 on takedowns, while Calderwood went 1 for 3. That marks the 5th time in 12 UFC fights that Calderwood has landed over 100 significant strikes and third time in her last four matches.

Prior to that win, Calderwood watched her title shot disappear in an attempt to stay active when she opted to accept a fight with Jennifer Maia, in an everything to lose, nothing to gain nightmare scenario. In fairness to Calderwood, she was waiting on Valentina Shevchenko to recover from knee surgery, with no clear time table for a return. They had originally been scheduled to fight back in June 2020, but Shevchenko pulled out due to injury. Not knowing when Shevchenko would finally be healthy enough to fight, Calderwood accepted the Maia fight, which took place two months after that fight with Shevchenko had originally been scheduled to happen. Calderwood had already been waiting for an extended period of time, with her previous fight happening all the way back in September 2019. It was really just an unfortunate lose lose situation for Calderwood, and in a worse case scenario outcome Maia submitted Calderwood in the first round via Armbar, which is the third time Calderwood has been submitted in the UFC. Those are also the only three times she’s been finished as a pro.

Calderwood came into the UFC in 2014 fighting in the Strawweight division (115 lb). However, after going 2-1 in her first three fights she decided to move up to Flyweight (125 lb) for a fight, which she won by R3 KO. She moved back down to 115 lb after the win, but lost two straight to Jessica Andrade and Cynthia Calvillo, and then decided 125 lb was looking a lot better and moved back up. She’s now fought her last six fights (4-2) at 125 lb, bringing her UFC Flyweight record to 5-2. Two of her three submission losses notably came down at Strawweight (2015 R1 Armbar & 2016 R1 Guillotine Choke), while both of her UFC early wins came at Flyweight (2016 R3 KO & 2018 R1 Submission). Four of her last five fights have now ended in decisions.

Prior to joining the UFC in 2014, Calderwood had a perfect 8-0 record with four KO wins and four by decision. Her seven UFC wins have consisted of five decisions, a R3 KO and a R1 Triangle Choke Submission. Her lone UFC KO win came against Valerie Letourneau who got dropped by the organization in 2016 after three straight losses, including the one to Calderwood. The submission win came against Kalindra Faria, who has also lost her last three fights and hasn’t fought since. So it seems like Calderwood has really only been able to finish lower level competitors.

Calderwood averages the second highest number of significant strikes landed on the slate at 6.59/minute, but also absorbs the third most at 4.4/minute. She’s outlanded her opponents in significant strikes in all of her UFC fights that have made it out of the first round (8), including in her two UFC decision losses. She’s impressively landed over 100 significant strikes in three of her last four fights, with the one exception being the R1 submission loss in her second most recent match. She also averages 1.8 takedowns landed per 15 minutes.

Lauren Murphy

11th UFC Fight (6-4)

After originally being booked to take on Cynthia Calvillo in her last fight, Murphy ended up instead fighting late replacement Liliya Shakirova, who was making her UFC debut, after Calvillo withdrew. Shakirova actually slightly led in significant strikes, while Murphy finished ahead 32-27 in total strikes. However, Shakirova missed all three of her takedown attempts, while Murphy landed her one attempt and then finished the fight with her first career submission win.

That marked Murphy’s fourth straight win, after losing four of her first six UFC fights. However, her February 2020 split decision win over Andrea Lee was pretty questionable, as Lee outlanded Murphy 104-80 in significant strikes. The other two wins over that stretch were a decision win over an aging Roxanne Modafferi and a third round KO against a suspect Mara Romero Borella, who’s lost four straight and five of her last six fights. Murphy’s only other two UFC wins were a 2017 decision win over a 38-year-old Barb Honchak, who went 0-2 in the UFC before retiring, and a R3 KO against Kelly Faszholz, who had just three pro fights at the time and also finished her UFC career 0-2. So Murphy really doesn’t have any impressive wins on her record and it’s a complete mystery how she managed to become the #3 ranked women’s Flyweight as she hasn't beaten anyone who’s currently ranked in the top eight in the division.

Murphy has notably never been finished early in her 17 pro fights, with all four of her career losses ending in decisions. Five of her eight KO wins came in her first five pro fights against opponents with records of 1-1, 0-1, 2-0, 1-2, and 2-2. Four of those five women never fought again.

Fight Prediction:

Calderwood will have a 1” height advantage, but Murphy will have a 2” reach advantage. Calderwood is also two years younger than the 37-year-old Murphy.

We’ve been sounding the fraud alert on Lauren Murphy for the past year, and we’re definitely not backing off that now. This will be Murphy’s toughest test to date, despite the fact that Murphy is ranked #3, while Calderwood is #6 in the division. We expect Calderwood to outland her way to a decision win, assuming Murphy doesn’t somehow steal another decision or land a hail mary submission.

Our favorite bets here are Calderwood’s moneyline at -148 and “Calderwood Wins by Decision” at +120. If you want to throw a dart at something, check out “Murphy Wins by Submission” at +2600.

DFS Implications:

Calderwood looks like a solid value play at just $8,200 on DraftKings. Her last six wins have scored 108, 96, 89, 96, 139 and 138 DraftKings points. She also scored 69 DK points in a decision loss to Chookagian, which would have been good for 99 points had the decision gone her way. Averaging the second most significant strikes landed per minute on the slate at 6.59, while also landing an average of 1.8 takedowns per 15 minutes, Calderwood has a solid floor and a huge ceiling in DFS. She’s also proven she doesn’t need a finish to score well. Expect her to be more popular following her recent striking explosion, but her ownership shouldn’t get completely out of control on a slate this size. Calderwood looks like a great play for both low-risk and high-risk contests. The odds imply she has a 57% chance to win, a 16% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.

Lauren Murphy is completely overrated and not really someone we’re ever looking to play in DFS. Her first nine UFC fights all made it to the third round, with only her recent R2 submission win over a short notice UFC newcomer ending in the first 10 minutes. Even in that finish, Murphy still scored just 88 DraftKings points, as she generally lacks the volume to really score well without a first round finish. She does average 1.2 takedowns landed per 15 minutes, but has notably never landed more than two in a fight. She’s only scored above 88 DRaftKings points once, with scores of 88, 74, 87, 71, 73 and 118 in her six UFC wins. That 118 point performance came in a complete outlier performance against a non-UFC level talent, who was making her debut in just her fourth pro fight, and finished her UFC career with an 0-2 record, where Murphy landed 95 significant strikes and 188 total strikes while adding over six minutes of control time and getting a R3 KO. Her more recent R3 KO win scored just 71 DraftKings points. The only reasons for optimism here are that Calderwood has been vulnerable to being submitted and throws so much volume that it will be a pace up matchup for Murphy. The odds imply Murphy has a 43% chance to win, a 12% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in the first round.

---

Fight #7

Eryk Anders

12th UFC Fight (5-5, NC)

This will be a rematch of their last fight when the match was ruled a “No Contest” for an illegal knee thrown by Anders late in the first round as he had Stewart on the ropes. That last fight took place at 185 lb, while this one will be up at 205 lb. In their initial fight, Stewart entered as a -185 favorite and the -190 decision line implied a 63% chance the fight would go to the judges. Now Anders is a -140 favorite and the -120 decision line implies a smaller 52% chance the fight goes the distance.

Both guys came out swinging in their first bout, and Stewart actually landed some early shots, but Anders dropped Stewart late in the first round with a stiff left hand and appeared moments away from finishing him with ground and pound. However, Stewart was able to hang on and as he tried to stand up, Anders landed a knee near Stewart’s head while he was still grounded that looked dangerously close to being illegal, but the action continued. Stewart then did manage to return to his feet as Anders laid it on thick, with Stewart simply in survival mode. With 30 seconds left Anders curiously decided to go for a takedown opposed to continuing to punish Stewart on the fence. He didn’t get Stewart all the way down, but put him back down on one knee and then Anders foolishly kneed the downed Stewart in the head and this time Herb Dean did stop the action and the doctor called the fight.

Anders’ last three fights have been at 185 lb, but he’s fought at 205 lb far more recently than Stewart and you only have to go back two years to find his last 205 lb fight. Getting down to 185 lb has been a tough cut for him, and he actually had to drop out of a November 2020 fight due to weight cutting issues after looking dreadful on the scales. Anders has fought three times in the UFC at 205 lb, where he went 1-2 with a 2018 R3 KO loss to Thiago Santos, a 2019 R3 decision loss to Khalil Rountree and a 2019 R1 KO win against a terrible Vinicius Moreira. All of his pre-UFC fights took place at 185 lb.

Prior to the recent “No Contest” Anders’ lost a decision to a suspect Krzysztof Jotko back in May 2020. That marked the 5th straight fight Anders didn’t land a takedown after landing 12 in his first five UFC fights. However, Anders got back to some grappling in the one round we saw against Stewart, where Anders landed three takedowns in less than five minutes.

While 9 of his 13 career wins have come early (8 KOs & 1 Submission), six of those came in his first seven pro fights, against mostly a lower level of competition. Not really a submission threat, Anders’ lone submission win came in a 2016 R1 Rear-Naked Choke in his fourth pro fight.

The only person to ever finish Anders was Thiago Santos, who won by R3 TKO stoppage in a 2018 five round fight. Anders has never been submitted in 18 pro fights.

Since landing a R1 KO in his 2017 UFC debut, eight of Ander’s last nine fights (not counting the recent “No Contest”) have made it to the third round. The one exception was a fight against human punching bag, Vinicius Moreira, who has been finished in the first six minutes of all four of his UFC fights.

Darren Stewart

14th UFC Fight (5-6, 2 NC)

Stewart started his pro career fighting at 205 lb, where he won his first seven fights with five KO’s, including four in the first round, and two decisions. Then he joined the UFC in 2016 and initially stayed at 205 lb. His first UFC fight was ruled a “No Contest” due to an accidental clash of heads. They ran that fight back and Stewart ended up losing a decision. Following his first career loss, Stewart dropped down to 185 lb, where he’s been fighting ever since. He’s gone 5-5-1 plus another “No Contest” at 185 lb, so it’s not like he was setting the world on fire. It will be interesting to see how Stewart looks back up at 205 lb, after spending the last four years at 185 lb. It’s also worth noting that Stewart often weighed in at just 202-203 lb when he was fighting at 205 lb earlier in his career.

Stewart started his UFC career off with three straight losses following the “No Contest” in his UFC debut. Two of those three losses ended in submissions, which remain the only two times Stewart has been finished in his career. He was able to right the ship somewhat, landing R2 KOs in each of his next two fights following the string of losses, however, he then lost a decision against Shahbazyan. He bounced back from that loss with a pair of decision wins in 2019.

When the UFC was temporarily shut down in the Spring of 2020 due to COVID, Stewart opted to fight on Cage Warriors, and lost in a smothering decision against Bartosz Fabinski. He then returned to the UFC with a R1 submission win over Maki Pitolo. This was notably Stewart’s first career submission win and only early win going back to 2018.

However, he then lost a decision to Kevin Holland. Not counting the “No Contest” five of Stewart’s last six fights have ended in decisions. While he’s a powerful striker with two-thirds of his career wins coming early, Stewart has mostly struggled to land finishes lately, and now gets an opponent who’s only ever been finished once.

Fight Prediction:

Anders will have a 1” height and reach advantage.

There are two interesting narratives at play here. First, we all saw what happened the first time these two fought and Anders clearly was on the verge of landing a first round finish, so there will be a clear recency bias in favor of Anders. And second, now that they’re moving up to 205 lb, which could benefit Anders as he was cutting a ton of weight to get down to 185 lb, while Stewart was cutting far less. After getting hurt early in that last fight, it would make sense for Stewart to approach this next one more conservatively. Whether that’s looking to clinch more, hunting for takedowns or simply keeping his distance, we’d be surprised to see as fast paced a start as we saw in their first matchup. While Anders clearly showed the ability to finish Stewart in their first matchup, we still think this one is more likely to end in a decision, with Anders more likely to win it.

Our favorite bet here is “Anders Wins by Decision” at +210, but you can also consider his R1 KO line at +650 or “Fight Goes the Distance” at -142.

DFS Implications:

Anders was on pace to break the slate before his illegal knee in their first fight. Previously priced at just $7,300 on DraftKings for that fight, Anders scored 50 points in the first round, which would have been good for 120+ points if he could have simply finished Stewart legally, which he appeared on the verge of doing. Now priced up to $8,600, Ander is somewhat less exciting, unless you think we see a similar performance, which is certainly possible. However, we’re expecting a more conservative approach out of Stewart that will cap both fighters’ upside and it’s hard to see Anders returning value in a decision win. Although, after failing to land a takedown in five straight fights, Anders did go 3 for 7 in under five minutes of action in their last fight, so the potential is there to score well from grappling, but it’s clearly unreliable. We expect the success Anders had in their first fight will bump up his ownership, along with the fact that Stewart will be somewhat undersized at 205 lb. You’ll definitely want some exposure to Anders here, but this has a lot of the makings for a trap. With that said, the odds imply he has a 56% chance to win, a 31% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1.

Here are Stewart’s DraftKings scores in his five UFC wins: 96, 63, 47, 92, 94. While he does occasionally land a finish (the three highest scores), he’s yet to really put up a big score when he does. His last R1 KO came in 2016, prior to joining the UFC, and now he gets an opponent who’s only been finished once in his career and will have a noticeable size advantage. So this certainly doesn’t set up for an explosion spot. The only two arguments that can be made for playing Stewart in DFS are that he’s now fairly cheap and will be a low-owned contrarian play after his poor showing the last time these two fought. Even at his cheaper price tag, Stewart will still need a finish here to be useful as he only scored 63 and 47 DraftKings points in his last two decision wins. He does have a chance to bolster his FanDuel score with takedowns defended against the poor 35% takedown accuracy of Anders, who went 3 for 7 on his attempts in just one round during their last fight, but it still won’t be enough for him to score well in a decision. The odds imply he has a 44% chance to win, a 17% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.

---

Fight #6

Drew Dober

17th UFC Fight (9-6, NC)

Coming off an all too predictable submission loss to world class grappler Islam Makhachev in what was clearly a bad matchup for Dober going in, now we get to see Dober compete in the type of fight that he’s build for. While Dober has six submission wins on his record and wrestled some in high school, he is not a grappler. He hasn’t even attempted a takedown in his last five fights and his background is primarily in Muay Thai and Taekwondo, where he’s a black belt. He does have a brown belt in BJJ, so we’re not saying he’s helpless on the ground, but that’s not where his bread is buttered. So we really don’t hold his recent loss against him. Makhachev predictably spent almost the entire fight controlling Dober, with 9:26 of control time in a fight that lasted 11:37. Makhachev led in significant strikes 15-10, but that jumped all the way to 102-14 in total strikes. Anyways, those results are more or less irrelevant for Dober’s next matchup against a pure kickboxer in Brad Riddell.

Prior to the loss, Dober had knocked out three straight opponents, including a 67 second R1 KO against Marco Polo Reyes, a 70 second R1 KO against Nasrat Haqparast and a R2 KO against Alexander Hernandez. Dober’s only other loss in his last eight fights resulted from another submission in a R2 Armbar against talented grappler Beneil Dariush. In fact, Dober has been submitted in his last four losses, and that appears to be his only area of weakness. He’s only been knocked out in one of his 10 career losses, which came all the way back in 2011, a couple of years before he joined the UFC.

Dober struggled some at both the start of his pro career, where he lost two of his first three fights, and the start of his UFC career, where he started 1-3 plus a “No Contest” for a bad stoppage, which was originally another Dober submission loss. Since that rough patch to kick off his UFC career, Dober has won 8 of his last 11 fights, with five wins by KO and three by decision, with the three losses all ending in submissions. His last five fights have all ended early, with only one of those making it to the third round. Only five of Dober’s 16 UFC fights and just two of his last 10 have gone the distance.

Looking at his entire pro career, 16 of his 23 wins have come early, with 10 KOs and six submissions. Half of his 10 pro losses have also ended early, with one KO and four submissions.

Dober averages 4.33 significant strikes landed per minute since joining the UFC. However, if we just look at his last five wins, that average jumps up to 7.07 SSL/min. Dober started his career at 170 lb before moving down to 155 lb. He has notably never been knocked down in any of his 16 UFC fights.

Brad Riddell

4th UFC Fight (3-0)

A member of the City Kickboxing crew, Riddell comes in having won six straight, with his last four all ending in decisions. The only loss of his career resulted from a 2018 R1 Armbar Submission a little over a year before he joined the UFC. He’s 9-1 as a pro in MMA, but also has 69 kickboxing matches to his name, where he went 59-10 and was a former world champion.

While Riddell’s last four MMA matches all went to the judges, his first six fights all ended early. During that time, he landed three R1 KOs, a pair of R2 KOs and was submitted once in the first round. We’re obligated to point out that Riddell’s five career KOs came against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-1, 12-3, 1-2, and 8-4-1, so several of those came against very inexperienced opponents and he’s yet to finish anyone at the UFC level.

Riddell’s last fight before joining the UFC was a five round Welterweight Championship match under the Wollongong Wars organization, where Riddell won the title in a 25 minute decision, so he clearly has solid cardio.

Riddell came into the UFC in 2019 against Jamie Mullarkey, who went 3 for 15 on takedown attempts in that fight. The fight turned into an absolute brawl with Riddell leading in significant strikes 91-36 and total strikes 104-41. Riddell landed his only takedown attempt.

Following the win in his debut, he took on Magomed Mustafaev, who went 8 for 11 on takedown attempts against Riddell. In a grappling heavy affair, Riddell made the most of his strikes outlanding Mustafaev 38-28 in significant strikes and 60-36 in total strikes, while landing an early knockdown. And again, Riddell landed his only takedown attempt.

Then, most recently Riddell defeated Alex da Silva Coelho, who went 3 for 9 on takedown attempts. Riddell might have been able to get a R3 KO in this fight, but the ref paused the fight after Riddell landed a clear punch to the eye of Da Silva, which Da Silva protested as a poke and was awarded with a timeout. Riddell finished ahead 67-54 in significant strikes and 86-70 in total strikes. He also finished with six official takedowns attempts in that fight, but only landed one of them—and in reality many of those were defensive maneuvers as his opponent looked to grapple.

So while Riddell has been taken down 14 times in his three UFC fights, he’s also defended 21 attempts. It’s rare for a fighter to face 35 takedown attempts in their first three UFC fights, and we’ve yet to see the numbers Riddell could put up in a pure striking battle. Riddell notably started his career off at Welterweight (170 lb), before moving down to Lightweight (155 lb) when he joined the UFC.

UPDATE: Riddell was one of the final two fighters to weigh in after nearly an hour delay but curiously came in a pound under the limit. It sounded like he apologized and blamed a “bad scale” and said he was still healthy, despite looking a little rough.

Fight Prediction:

Dober will have a 1” height advantage, but Riddell will have a 1” reach advantage.

This sets up as an absolute war, after both of these exciting strikers were forced to take on grapplers in their previous matches. Riddell has never been knocked out and it’s been over a decade since Dober’s lone career KO loss, so both are extremely durable, but both guys have been more vulnerable to being submitted. However, there’s no way Riddell lands a submission here and it’s unlikely, but not impossible, that Dober does either. Unless Dober decides to get back to grappling, we expect this to remain almost entirely on the feet, with the two bruisers trading sledgehammers until someone breaks or they run out of time. Based on their durability, it wouldn’t be that surprising to see it go the distance, but based on their power there’s also a good chance someone gets knocked out. This is a really tough one to predict, but that’s part of what makes it such an exciting matchup. For what it’s worth (not much), the previous two times Dober was submitted, he bounced back with a R1 KO win in each of his following fights. But both of those bounce back fights were against considerably easier opponents, so we wouldn’t put much stock into that happening again—we’re just reaching for a tiebreaker in a fight that’s too close to call. The oddsmakers think this one ends in a decision, setting that line at -150 early in the week, implying a 57% likelihood and installing Dober as the slight favorite, so we’ll defer to the lines on this one, but it feels like a coin flip.

While there’s a decent chance this one ends in a decision, there’s not much value to be had on that side of things. Therefore we’re looking to take a few stabs on plus odds. Betting the “Fight Ends in KO” at +180 is interesting, as is “Fight Ends in R2 KO” at +750 and “Fight Ends in R3 KO” at +900. Dober does have six submission wins on his record, and the only time Riddell has ever been finished also came by submission, so you can consider Dober’s submission line at +1500. If you think Dober continues to bounce back from submission losses with R1 KO wins, you can also consider his R1 win KO line at +1200 or his R1 win line at +900, if you want to hedge for a submission.

DFS Implications:

We expect a high-volume brawl here and if either guy gets a finish, there’s a great chance they end up in winning lineups considering their reasonable price tags. The more important question is whether or not they can be useful in a decision win.

Dober has won the last three decisions he’s been to with DK/FD scores of 90/71, 92/107 and 84/81. So overall, he really only put up one usable score in those three fights, with a 107 point FanDuel performance in a high-volume brawl against Frank Camacho. We saw insane striking volume in that fight with Dober leading in significant strikes 145-106 and total strikes 161-148. Interestingly, Dober shot for six takedowns in that match, but didn’t land any of them. That’s probably about the most strikes we could hope for in a three round fight and Dober still didn’t quite put up a usable DraftKings score. Who knows, maybe he will mix in a little more grappling against a one-dimensional striker like Riddell, but it’s hard to count on that considering Dober hasn’t attempted a takedown in his last five fights. While there’s still a slight chance Dober could put up a useful score in a decision, it appears more likely it would come up just short, especially on DraftKings. That leaves him more or less reliant on a finish to score well. The odds imply he has a 57% chance to win, a 23% chance to get a finish and just a 9% chance it comes in the first round.

Riddell has generally not scored well in his three decision wins with DK/FD scores of 68/84, 68/70, and 84/117, but did have the one big FanDuel performance in his UFC debut on the back of 12 takedowns defended and 91 significant strikes landed. Giving Riddell a slight boost in DFS, he’s landed one takedown in each of his three UFC fights. While Dober hasn’t attempted a takedown in his last five fights, we have seen him shoot for them in bunches in the past with very limited success, as he owns just a 17% career takedown accuracy. If Riddell gets him hurt it wouldn’t be surprising to see Dober look to grapple, at which point Riddell could prop up his FanDuel score with takedowns defended. There’s a good chance Riddell sets a career mark in significant strikes landed here if this turns into the brawl we’re expecting, so at his cheaper price tag he has a wider range of acceptable outcomes and could potentially still return value in a decision win, especially on FanDuel. Obviously if he gets a finish he’ll almost certainly end up in winning lineups. The odds suggest he has a 43% chance to win, a 19% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in R1.

---

Fight #5

Jamahal Hill

4th UFC Fight (2-0, NC)

This fight was originally scheduled back in March, but Hill was forced to withdraw after he tested positive for COVID.

Coming off an impressive R2 TKO stoppage win against a tough Ovince St. Preux last December, Hill’s previous May first round KO win was unfortunately overturned to a “No Contest” and he was subsequently suspended after testing positive for THC. Ignoring the irrelevant aftermath of the overturned knockout, Hill should be 9-0 as a pro with five KO’s, including three in R1. He’s also fought to four decisions, although three of those came in his first four pro fights, including one that went five rounds. He’s knocked out four of his last five opponents and looks incredibly dangerous on the feet.

Hill got his shot in the UFC with a second round KO win on DWCS in 2019. However, after successfully defending all four of the takedowns attempted against him in his 2019 DWCS fight, Hill was taken down six times on nine attempts in his January 2020 UFC debut against Darko Stosic. Hill still won the fight in a decision, but it does bring into question his takedown defense, which will be critically important in this upcoming fight. Neither of Hill’s last two opponents attempted a takedown, so we have pretty limited data to work with.

Hill is a high-volume striker who leads the slate with 7.9 significant strikes landed per minute while only absorbing 3.15/minute. He’s never attempted a takedown and is a one-dimensional striker, who relies on keeping fights on the feet.

Paul Craig

12th UFC Fight (6-4-1)

With no losses in his last four fights (3-0-1), Craig’s stock appears to be at an all time high after he started his UFC career off 3-4 with four early losses, including three first round KOs. Only one of Craig’s eleven UFC fights has gone the distance, which came in a 2019 Draw against Mauricio Rua, but he notably had three fights end in the final 40 seconds of the third round, including two that ended in the final nine seconds and one that ended with a single tick left on the clock.

Craig is coming off his first KO win in the UFC, which came via ground and pound against the 38-year-old Mauricio Rua in a rematch of their previous fight that ended in a draw. Craig was able to take the back of a face down Rua and opted to finish the fight with ground and pound opposed to attempting a Rear-Naked Choke. That was just the second KO win of his entire pro career, with the first occurring in 2014 before he joined the UFC. All 14 of Craig’s career wins have ended early, with his other 12 wins coming by submission. All four of his career losses have also ended early, with three first round KOs and one third round submission loss.

Most of Craig’s UFC wins have come against washed up or terrible opponents in Mauricio Rua, Gadzhimurad Antigulov, Vinicius Moreira, Kennedy Nzechukwu and Henrique da Silva, but he is notably the only person to ever defeat Magomed Ankalaev. However, that win came in a last second desperation Triangle Choke in a fight which Craig was losing badly. What that does show is that Craig is never out of a fight as he can quickly throw up a submission and win a fight at any point.

Fight Prediction:

Hill will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.

Craig is incredibly dangerous off his back, wth seven of his 12 career submission wins coming by Triangle Choke and two more ending in Armbars. However, ending up on his back requires either his opponent to take him down or for Craig to pull guard—which he will do. Considering Hill hasn’t even attempted a takedown in his last four fights, there will be less opportunity for those types of defensive submissions in this match. With that said, Craig is still dangerous from other positions and the potential to land a submission against a pure striker like Hill is still pretty good. Craig notably does own just a 26% takedown accuracy, but he did go 4 for 8 on his takedown attempts in his last match. We expect this fight to end early with either a Hill KO or a Craig Submission, with a Hill R1 KO being the most likely outcome if he can remain on his feet.

Our favorite bet early in the week was “Hill Wins by R1 KO” at +410, but the value has since been sucked out of that line as the week went on and it’s now +220 (a little higher in some places). So Craig Wins by Submission at +550 seems like a solid play. We also like Craig’s R1 submission line at +1400 and R3 submission line at +2400.

DFS Implications:

Hill was unfortunate in his last fight from a DFS scoring perspective that he didn’t get a knockdown as the ref stopped the fight on the feet as Hill went to work on OSP. That resulted in him “only” scoring 98 DraftKings points and 116 FanDuel points in the R2 TKO win. His previous first round KO explosion doesn’t show up correctly on his DraftKings score sheet—only showing a 26 point score without the first round win bonus—but in reality he scored 116 DraftKings points and 132 points on FanDuel in the first round win that included two knockdowns. It’s actually good that it doesn't show up as that should help to keep his ownership down a little as much of the field is too oblivious to actually realize what’s going on there. So while his DraftKings FPPF (scoring average) should actually lead the slate at 95 points, it instead shows up at a meandering 64.7 points. When you also factor in the fact that we have three high priced five round favorites on the card, Hill’s ownership should remain under control despite the fact that he has the best odds on the slate to land a finish. He’ll still be the most popular three round favorite on the card, but he would be around 50% higher owned on a normal card with a single five round fight. He easily has the ability to outscore all of the five round fighters, he just has a more narrow path to doing that in a three round fight, along with a lower floor. While Hill landed just over 100 significant strikes in his lone UFC decision and leads the slate in SSL/min, he doesn’t add anything in the ground game, which clearly makes him reliant on an early finish to score well. The odds imply Hill has a 72% chance to win, a slate-leading 52% chance to get a finish and a 20% chance it comes in the first round.

On the other side of this fight, Craig looks like another great option for tournaments. He’s only been to one decision in his 19 career fights and his last three wins all came in the first two rounds. While Craig will be in trouble if this fight remains on the feet, he has a massive advantage if he can get it to the ground, as 12 of his 14 career wins have ended in submissions. Combine that with the fact that he’s the second cheapest fighter on DraftKings and the cheapest on FanDuel and it’s clear he has a great chance at cracking the optimal lineup with a win here. The odds imply Craig has a 28% chance to win, a 19% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in R1. We love targeting both sides of this fight and it’s one where you’ll want to have a good amount of exposure to each fighter.

---

Fight #4

Belal Muhammad

14th UFC Fight (9-3, NC)

Three months removed from absorbing one of the worst eye pokes in recent memory, Belal was not granted a rematch with Edwards, but was interestingly put on the same card in what could be considered a troll move by the UFC or an attempt to keep them on the same fight schedule for a potential rematch down the road.

Prior to his recent match against Edwards, Belal took on a struggling Dhiego Lima. Belal landed a career high 129 significant strikes, but absorbed a massive 26 strikes to his legs. That striking total blew away Muhammad’s previoius career high of 88 significant strikes landed in a match.

Since joining the UFC in 2016, 9 of Muhammad’s 13 fights have ended in decisions, including 8 of his last 9, not counting his recent “No Contest.” Impressively, he’s only lost once in those nine matches, which came in a 2019 decision against Geoff Neal. Muhammad’s lone finish over that period was a R3 Rear-Naked Choke Submission victory over Takashi Sato, who’s last three losses have all come by submission. Even with that one finish, Muhammad’s last nine fights (not counting the last one) all made it to the third round.

In his 2016 UFC debut, Muhammad lost a decision to Alan Jouban, but bounced back with a 2016 R3 KO in his next fight just 41 seconds before the fight ended with the judges. Following his only KO win in the UFC, Muhammad suffered his only KO loss, which came in the first round of his 2016 fight against a violent Vicente Luque. Since that early loss, Muhammad has shown the ability to go the distance with several dangerous finishers.

A big part of Belal’s game is to shoot for lots of takedowns and he averages seven attempts per 15 minutes, although he has a putrid 28% takedown accuracy. We suspect he’ll dial that way back in this match and look to keep this one standing up.

Demian Maia

33rd UFC Fight (22-10)

A 5th degree BJJ black belt and former BJJ world champion, Maia is now 43 years old, but still trying to stick around in the UFC, although this could be his final fight.

In his last fight Maia had taken the back of Gilbert Burns midway through the first round, but Burns escaped and quickly dropped Maia with a left hook to the chin and then finished him with ground and pound. That was just the second time Maia had been finished in 38 pro fights, and the first since August of 2009 when he was also knocked out in the first round. Of his 32 UFC matches, 18 have gone the distance, including five that went five rounds. He’s been in seven five round fights in the UFC—two of those he won with submissions in the first and third rounds. It’s now been 15 months since Maia last fought, and at his age the potential for a drastic drop off is much higher, although that’s generally more concerning in the striking department opposed to grappling. If Maia can get this fight to the ground, he’s still always a submission threat on the mat.

Maia has gone 10-4 in his last 14 fights, with the losses coming against Tyron Woodley, Colby Covington, Kamaru Usman and Gilbert Burns. His losses to Woodley and Usman ended in five round decisions, while Covington defeated him in a three round decision. Five of his last ten wins ended in submissions (2 in R1, 1 in R2 & 2 in R3), while the other five went the distance.

Prior to his recent loss, Maia had won three straight fights, after losing three straight in a Woodley, Covington, Usman gauntlet. His most recent win came in an ideal matchup for him against another one-dimensional grappler in Ben Askren. Maia was able to submit Askren late in the third round, while landing a career high number of significant strikes (69). Maia interestingly didn’t attempt a single takedown in the fight, instead relying on reversing Askren’s attempts. Askren went 4 for 7 on takedowns, but Maia landed two reversals.

Just before that, Maia defeated Anthony Rocco Martin in a three round decision. Maia went 3 for 9 on takedowns in that one and amazingly landed just three significant strikes in 15 minutes of action, but did finish with over six minutes of control time and 74 total strikes. Looking back one fight further, Maia submitted power puncher Lyman Good in the first round via Rear-Naked Choke. Maia went 2 for 4 on takedowns, controlling almost the entire fight (2:11 of control time in a 2:38 fight). Neither fighter landed a single significant strike in that one, and Maia led just 2-0 in total strikes.

In his five round loss to Usman, Maia went 0 for 15 on takedowns and was outlanded 66-27 in significant strikes. In his three round decision loss to Covington Maia went 0 for 13 on takedowns and was outlanded 88-53 in significant strikes. And in his five round decision loss to Woodley, Maia amazingly went 0 for 21 on takedowns and was outlanded 57-28 in significant strikes. So Maia ridiculously went 0 for 49 on his takedown attempts during that three fight stretch, while being outlanded 211-108 in significant strikes. All three of those opponents smartly didn’t attempt a single takedown against the dangerous grappler. So the formula for defeating Maia is pretty simple—don’t let the fight go to the ground and you can easily win standing up. With that said, most of Maia’s opponents are so concerned with defending takedowns that they don’t land much striking volume. Usman landed just 2.64 SS/minute and Woodley landed just 2.28 SS/minute. Maia also has no issue milking a lead, as we saw against Anthony Rocco Martin, where Maia was clearly up two rounds and spent the third round circling away from contact.

Fight Prediction:

Maia will have a 2” height advantage, but Belal is notably 11 years younger than the 43-year-old Maia.

Belal has gone 7 for 40 on takedowns in his last five fights, with at least six attempts in each of those matches, but attempting to take Demian Maia to the ground has generally been a recipe for disaster and the last five fighters to defeat Maia didn’t attempt a single takedown. Belal is a smart guy, so we’d be surprised if he didn’t change up his approach here as he should be able to easily win a striking battle, but if he stubbornly sticks with his normal game plan then he could quickly get himself into trouble against one of the most dangerous submission specialists on the planet. As long as Belal keeps this standing up, we expect him to point his way to a decision, with a slight chance he gets a knockout. However, if he comes in thinking he can have success taking Maia down, there’s a decent chance he gets submitted. We’ll bet on Belal playing this one smartly and winning a decision on the feet.

We’re not overly excited about any of the lines here, but Belal wins by decision at +110 and “Fight Goes the Distance” at -148 are probably the safest options. The two long shots to consider are Maia’s R1 and R3 submission lines at +1000 and +1700 respectively.

DFS Implications:

This is a tough spot for Belal to excel in a pace down matchup where he’ll be far less likely than normal to want to shoot for any takedowns. The only way he returns value on DraftKings will be with an early KO and his last knockout win came in the third round of his second UFC fight back in 2016. He only has one first round KO win on his record and that was in his first pro fight all the way back in 2012 and also just a single R2 KO, which occurred in his third pro fight in 2013. In terms of Belal’s FanDuel appeal, Maia attempts the second most takedowns on the slate at 10 per 15 minutes and averages seven missed attempts per 15 minutes with a piss-poor 26% takedown accuracy. When you combine that with Belal’s 85% takedown defense, he makes for a more interesting play on FanDuel, but he’ll still need to defend a ridiculous number of takedowns to be relevant. Also, it should be noted that Belel hasn’t really faced any exceptional grappler and his listed takedown defense is based on just 14 attempts. And nine of those attempts came from struggling opponents in Chance Rencountre (26% career takedown accuracy) and Jordan Mein (58% career takedown accuracy), who combined to only land one. Belal has only had five other takedowns attempted on him in his other 11 UFC matches, with just one landed, and none of his other opponents shot for more than two attempts. We’re not suggesting that he has a bad takedown defense, just that it’s a little less proven than the numbers may lead you to believe. The odds imply Belal has a 67% chance to win, a 24% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.

Maia is a one-dimensional grappler who lands a slate low 1.82 significant strikes/minute. He also only absorbs 2.03 SS/min. Maia’s grappling heavy fighting style lends itself more to the DraftKings scoring system, but this looks like a tough matchup for him as he goes against an opponent who has never been submitted and with an 85% takedown defense (even if it’s somewhat unproven). If he can’t get the fight to the mat, he has no hope of scoring well in a striking battle. Maia will need a finish to be useful on FanDuel, but theoretically could win a grappling heavy decision and still be relevant at his cheap price tag on DraftKings. However, his last two decision wins still scored just 76 and 89 DraftKings points (just 40 and 58 points on FanDuel), so he still likely needs a finish. The odds imply he has a 33% chance to win, an 18% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in the first round.

---

Fight #3

Leon Edwards

14th UFC Fight (10-2, NC)

After waiting 20 long months and enduring four canceled fights, Edwards finally returned to the Octagon against Belal Muhammad back in March, just to have the fight stopped 18 seconds into the second round due to an accidental eye poke that was so terrible it left Muhammad hysterical and in tears. Edwards landed a violent head kick just over two minutes into the fight that wobbled Muhammad and left him bleeding from the side of the head. However, Muhammad was able to recover and survive the round. That was the only big moment in the fight before it was stopped for the eye poke and ruled a “No Contest.”

Edwards had been scheduled to take on Tyron Woodley in March 2020, but the entire event was cancelled due to COVID. Then he was booked to take on Chimaev in December, but Edwards tested positive for COVID. The fight was rescheduled for January, only to get canceled again due to Chimaev’s lingering effects of his own COVID case. The fight was once again rebooked for March, but Chimaev was forced to withdraw again as he continued to deal with the after effects of COVID. That last time, instead of keeping Edwards waiting any longer, the UFC found him a new opponent in Belal Muhammad, who had just fought four weeks prior.

Prior to his recent “No Contest” the last time we saw Edwards inside of the Octagon was July 2019, when he defeated Rafael dos Anjos in a low-volume five round decision, which was Edwards’ second five round fight in the UFC. Edwards split RDA open just above the eye, with a sharp elbow out of the clinch, which looked like it might get the match stopped early on, but was handled well by the cutman.

Prior to that, Edwards won a bizarrely low-volume three round split decision against Gunnar Nelson where Edwards led in significant strikes 31-9. Nelson led on takedowns with three landed on four attempts, but Edwards also took the high-level grappler down twice on three attempts.

The first five round fight of Edwards’ career was another decision win, this time against Donald Cerrone in 2018. Edwards won a unanimous, but close 48-47 decision. He outlanded Cerrone 84-60 in significant strikes in the low-volume affair, but went 0 for 4 on takedowns. However, he also limited Cerrone to 1 for 9 on his attempts.

Edwards has just two losses in the UFC and none since 2015. His first loss came in his 2014 debut, in a split decision against Claudio Silva. His other UFC loss came in another decision, this time in 2015 against Kamaru Usman. His one other career loss came prior to joining the UFC, back in 2012 in what was Edwards’ third pro fight, where was disqualified for throwing an illegal knee in the third round.

Prior to his recent “No Contest” Edwards won eight straight fights, with his previous 10 matches all making it to the third round. His only two finishes over those 10 were a pair of R3 wins, with a 2016 R3 Rear-Naked Choke submission win and a 2018 R3 last second KO.

Looking at his entire career, half of his 18 wins have come early, with six KOs and three submissions. However, six of those came prior to joining the UFC, in his first nine pro fights. He has just one finish in the first two rounds since joining the organization in 2014, which was an 8 second R1 KO in his second pro fight against an opponent who had been knocked out in the first round in two of his previous four fights, and had lost four of his last five. So it appears that win was teed up for him after he lost a split decision in his UFC debut just before that. Edwards has never been finished either as a pro or an amateur.

Edwards is a patient low-volume striker who’s only landed above 53 significant strikes in two of his 13 UFC matches, which unsurprisingly were in his two five round fights where he landed 84 and 92 in a pair of decision wins. While we only saw just over a round of action in his last fight, he led 19-8 in significant strikes, which is right on his normal pace and would have ended up 90-38 if that had continued for five rounds.

Nate Diaz

26th UFC Fight (15-10)

Coming off a 19 month layoff, longtime UFC veteran Nate Diaz finally steps back inside the Octagon at 36 years old after withdrawing back on May 15th when this fight was originally booked, citing an injury. The last time we saw Diaz he lost via R3 TKO due to a doctor stoppage going into the fourth round of a five round fight against Jorge Masvidal. No one was happy about the stoppage, and Masvidal promised a rematch, but that never materialized. Diaz absorbed a ton of damage in the match, as Masvidal outlanded him 112-43 in significant strikes, while Diaz actually came out ahead in total strikes 125-114 as he threw anything he could in the clinch and off his back. Masvidal landed his only takedown attempt while Diaz went 0 for 2. Masvidal also finished with nearly seven minutes of control time or just shy of half the match.

That was Diaz’s eighth UFC fight up at 170 lb, where he’s gone 4-4. His other 17 UFC matches were all down at 155 lb. Diaz originally joined the UFC in 2007 at 155 lb and won his first five fights with the organization, including four in the first two rounds. However, after losing three of his next four fights (all by decision) he moved up to 170 lb—well actually all the way up to 177 lb catchweight. Diaz won that fight in the first round via knockout and followed it up with a third round submission win. However, then he lost another pair of decisions and dropped back down to 155 lb in 2011.

After dropping back down to 155 lb, Diaz won three straight with a first round submission win, followed by a decision victory and then a second round submission. However, he then lost a five round decision to Benson Henderson before getting finished for the first time in the UFC at the hands of Josh Thomson in 2013 via R2 KO. He bounced back with a first round KO of his own over Gray Maynard, but then lost a decision to RDA. He won his last fight at 155 lb in a 2015 decision win over Michael Johnson, but then moved back up to 170 lb in 2016 and impressively defeated Conor McGregor with a second round Rear-Naked Choke submission. However, they ran it back five months later and McGregor defeated Diaz in a five round decision.

Following the loss to McGregor, we didn’t see Diaz return to the Octagon for nearly three years to the day, before he came back in a three round fight against Anthony Pettis in August 2019. Diaz defeated Pettis in a high-volume decision where he won the significant striking battle 114-69 and led in total strikes 205-86. He also landed his only takedown attempt and amassed nearly six minutes of control time. That was Diaz’s most recent win, as his only fight since was the match against Masvidal, which ended in the third round.

Diaz has impressively only been finished twice in 25 UFC fights and one of those resulted from a third round doctor stoppage in his most recent match. The previous time was a 2013 R2 KO, when he was fighting at 155 lb. He was also submitted once, prior to joining the UFC, in the first round of a 2006 fight. He’s landed eight submissions with the organization and three KO wins. Just over half (13) of his UFC fights have gone the distance.

The winners in Diaz’s last five fights have averaged 8.04 significant strikes landed/minute, with Diaz averaging 7.45 SSL/minute over that time and his opponents averaging 6.86/minute. We saw a total of 1,062 combined significant strikes landed in those five matches. Diaz went 2-3 during that stretch and four of the five ended in decisions, one of which went five rounds. So while his career averages are 4.62 SSL/minute and 3.78 SSA/minute, those numbers have skyrocketed in his most recent fights.

Fight Prediction:

Edwards will have a 2” height advantage, but Diaz will have a 2” reach advantage. Edwards is notably seven years younger than the 36 year old Diaz.

This is a pretty easy fight to pick the winner in—spoiler, it’s Edwards—but it’s a little trickier to determine when he wins. We generally expect his fights to go the distance, but Diaz may slam his head into Edwards’ hands enough times that the fight gets stopped. Diaz has notably only been finished three times in his career, and only twice in his 25 UFC fights. With that said, he’s only fought twice in nearly five years and his last fight ended in a TKO loss from a doctor stoppage. It certainly wouldn’t be surprising to see another mid to late round TKO stoppage here as Diaz should consistently force the action. So overall, we’re expecting either a mid to late TKO or decision win for Edwards.

This is somewhat of a tricky spot for betting as there’s no value in Edwards’ moneyline or decision line. You can consider his ITD line at +120 or his R2, R3, R4 or R5 win lines at +850, +1000, +1400 and +1800 respectively. Our favorite is his R3 win line at +1000.

DFS Implications:

This sets up for Edwards to land a career high number of significant strikes, but the question remains, will it be enough for him to return value as the most expensive fighter on the DraftKings slate? In his two previous third round UFC finishes, Edwards put up DK/FD scores of just 78/83 and 103/102. The 103/102 point performance came in a KO with literally one second remaining in the third round, which is essentially the best case scenario for a third round finish. At his elevated price tag, that is unlikely to be enough to crack winning lineups, but if Diaz can force him into setting a career high space in significant strikes as we suspect he might, then there’s a great chance Edwards can surpass those previous scores. Diaz has also notably been knocked down five times in his last two losses, which is further reason to believe that Edwards can set a career best here in DFS scoring. Not counting his last fight, since it ended so abruptly, Edwards has landed at least two takedowns in six of his last eight fights, but has never landed more than three. Diaz notably has just a 42% takedown defense. While we think Edwards is capable of scoring well here, just keep in mind that he scored 99 and 68 DraftKings points and 108 and 94 points on FanDuel in his previous two five round fights, which both ended in decisions. So there are still definitely reasons for concern with his ceiling. Edwards projects as the lowest owned five round favorite on this card, but gets the most favorable matchup of the three to score well. And in the end, that’s the biggest reason to be excited about Edwards in DFS come Saturday. The odds imply he has a slate-leading 83% chance to win, a 41% chance to get a finish (second highest on the slate) and a 12% chance it comes in the first round. We’ve also seen a massive -200 line move in Edwards’ favor, just confirming what we already believed.

It’s rare for a Diaz fight not to produce a high DFS producer, whether it’s him or his opponent. Here are Diaz’s DK/FD scores in his last five wins beginning with the most recent: 125/106, 110/140, 92/112 (R3 DEC), 104/123 and 113/125. And here are the scores his opponents put up in his last five losses (DK/FD): 128/153, 135/172, 95/78 (R3 DEC), 103/115, 172/172. So you can see the only times we didn’t see big scores came in three round decisions, which isn’t a concern in this next fight. That makes this an interesting spot for projections, as Diaz is constantly in crazy high scoring brawls, while Edwards pretty much exclusively fights in slower paced tactical matches that generally score poorly in DFS. As the biggest underdog on the slate by a wide margin, it’s hard to see Diaz winning this fight, and he projects to be over owned by the field, but if he does somehow pull off the unlikely upset, then he’ll almost certainly end up in winning lineups. The odds imply he has a slate-low 17% chance to win, a 12% chance to get a finish and a 4% chance it comes in R1.

---

Fight #2

Deiveson Figueiredo

12th UFC Fight (9-1-1)

Despite there being a non zero percent chance that Figueiredo has tasted human flesh, he’s somehow still the less creepy of the two fighters in this match. Figueiredo was secretly hospitalized the night before he fought Moreno the first time due to a stomach infection, which was reportedly related to his second weight cut in three weeks. Apparently the fight was in jeopardy of even happening, but Figueiredo toughed it out and went five rounds despite his condition. The fight ended in a draw, but Figueiredo would have won had he not been deducted a point for an accidental groin strike.

In that fight, Figueiredo aggressively hunted for a KO in the first round as he consistently pushed forward, showing little respect for anything that was coming back his way. Moreno did a good job of using his speed, movement and reach advantage to make it difficult for Figueiredo to close the distance early, but as the fight went on, it turned into more of a brawl. Figueiredo landed a devastating groin strike in the third round that cost him a point, and potentially Moreno the ability to father any more children moving forward. Thankfully the fight continued, and Moreno nevertheless looked like the fresher fighter in the fourth round. However, then Figueiredo came out seemingly refreshed in the final round, while Moreno looked to be dealing with some sort of forearm injury at that point—although later he said it was actually his shoulder.

In the end, Moreno put up a great fight, much better than expected. But still, the best he could do was battle to a draw, even with the point deduction helping him out and against an opponent who had just been hospitalized the night before the match with a stomach infection. In addition to that, Figueiredo will now have more time to prepare for Moreno. And sure you could say Moreno didn’t have a ton of time to prepare either, and had also fought just three weeks earlier (on the same card), but Figueiredo has a much tougher weight cut and Moreno was likely already thinking about how he would attack Figueiredo as he knew who the champ was if he was given an opportunity to fight him, while Figueiredo wasn’t certain who his next opponent would be. Overall, it wouldn’t be surprising if Figueiredo looked a little better in this fight based on all the circumstances surrounding the last match.

Prior to the fight against Morena, Figueiredo had successfully defended his title for the first time against Alex Perez after winning the vacant Flyweight belt against Joseph Benavidez, who he finished in back to back fights—most recently with a R1 Rear-Naked Choke Submission last July. He had previously knocked Benavidez out in R2 of their prior match, but because Figueiredo missed weight in that first first, he was ineligible for the belt.

Figueiredo’s only career loss came in an ultra low-volume (26-14 in significant strikes) three round decision against Jussier Formiga in March 2019. A large portion of the fight was spent with Formiga lying on top of Figueiredo doing very little work, but it was enough for him to squeak out a decision. The stalling strategy seems like one of the only ways to defeat Figueiredo, but he’s generally a tough guy to hold down. Figueiredo bounced back from his first and only career loss with a decision win over a tough Alexandre Pantoja, before landing four straight finishes in the first two rounds.

Seven of Figueiredo’s nine UFC wins have come early, four by KO and three by submission—all four of the KO’s came in R2, while all three submissions came in R1. Looking at his entire pro career, 17 of his 20 career wins came early with nine KO's and eight submissions. Eleven of those early finishes came in R1. This will be Figueiredo’s fifth straight five round fight, although he didn’t make it out of the first two rounds in the first three.

UPDATE: Figueiredo was the last fighter to weigh in after nearly an hour delay and looked rough. He came onto the stage with a spotter hovering around him to make sure he didn’t fall over and then went straight to the shame box, where they curiously didn’t even make him even raise his hands as he weighed in—queue the conspiracy tweets. Outside of missing weight, that was a near worst case scenario weigh-in for the champ and should definitely be considered a big red flag.

Brandon Moreno

11th UFC Fight (6-2-2)

Prior to taking on Figueiredo in his most recent fight, Moreno was credited with a R1 KO against Brandon Royval after Royval dislocated his shoulder just before the end of R1. To Moreno’s credit, he controlled Royval on the ground for an extended period of time before the injury, but he would not have gotten the R1 finish without the injury.

Moreno came into the UFC in 2016 on an 8 fight winning streak and submitted Louis Smolka in the first round of his debut with a Guillotine Choke. He then beat Ryan Benoit in a decision before getting another submission win in his third UFC fight—this time with a R2 Rear-Naked Choke.

The explosive start to his UFC career was enough to land him a main event spot against Sergio Pettis, which Moreno went on to lose in a decision. He followed that up with his only other UFC loss to date, in a three round decision loss to Alexandre Pantoja.

Following the pair of losses, Moreno fought a 2019 match in the LFA where notched a R4 KO. He then returned to the UFC with a split decision draw against Askar Askarov. After the draw, he won a pair of decisions before being credited with the TKO against Royval.

Moreno is extremely durable and has never been finished in 25 pro fights, with all five of his career losses going the distance. Six of his last seven UFC fights have now made it to the judges, after two of his first three ended with early wins.

Up until his recent brawl with Figueiredo, Moreno had only landed above 54 significant strikes one, which was when he landed 91 against Kai Kara-France. So to see him go off for 132, even in a five round fight, was certainly unexpected. Moreno has landed 482 significant strikes in his 10 fight UFC career and 27.4% came in that one match, which accounted for just 17.7% of his total Octagon time.

Fight Prediction:

Moreno will have a 2” height and reach advantage and is six years younger than Figueiredo.

We saw a potential fight of the year candidate the last time these two fought, which is likely what most people will be expecting in the rematch, and there’s definitely a possibility we get it. With that said, we expect to see a more prepared version of Deiveson Figueiredo, after it sort of looked like he thought he would easily steamroll Moreno in the first round of their last match. It wouldn’t be surprising to see a more calculated approach in the rematch, but Figueiredo is fearless, so you never know. Moreno is extremely durable, so maybe he’s the perfect opponent to survive Figueiredo’s early assaults, but there’s still a decent chance Figueiredo can get a finish in the first two rounds. Figueiredo has shown a long history of submitting opponents in R1 (all eight of his career submissions) or knocking them out in R2 (his last six KOs), but he notably didn’t attempt any submissions in their first fight, while he was constantly swinging for the fences with his punches. If Figueiredo can’t get a finish in the first 10 minutes, then we expect this one goes the distance once again.

UPDATE: After seeing Figueiredo’s brutal weight cut, it’s entirely possible he gasses out later in a five round fight, which makes Moreno more live in the later rounds and increases his chances to win a decision. It also could increase his chances for a knockout, so predicting the outcome here has become a bit murky following weigh-ins.

Based on Figueiredo’s record, you always want to bet his R1 Submission line (+2300) and his R2 KO line (+950), but this is definitely a tougher matchup than most for him to get a finish. So you can consider his decision line at +185, but the value has been mostly sucked out after it was +400 the last time these two fought. We also like his R1 and R2 win lines at +470 and +750. If you like Moreno’s chances to win, the lines to consider are his moneyline at +185, his ITD line at +550 and his decision line at +380. Moreno’s R4 and R5 wins lines at +3300 each are also interesting now.

DFS Implications:

In his last six finishes, Figueiredo has scored 92, 129, 96, 93, 124, and 116 DraftKings points, while scoring 114, 165, 119, 116, 139 and 126 points on FanDuel. So while three of his last four finishes haven’t quite scored enough to be useful at his elevated price on DraftKings, he consistently scores higher on FanDuel with the help of takedowns defended and submission attempts. He’ll also score better on FanDuel in a decision win, so overall he makes for a better FanDuel play compared to DraftKings. He’s only been past the third round once, which came in his last match, but had the decision gone his way he would have scored 98 DraftKings points and 126 points on FanDuel. He’s definitely not a bad DraftKings play, and has the ability to put up slate breaking scores, but another finish in the low to mid 90’s is highly unlikely to end up in winning lineups at his price. And if this fight does end in a decision, it will more likely than not include less striking volume than the last one, leaving you more reliant on a finish. The odds imply he has a 66% chance to win, a 38% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1.

Moreno actually outscored Figueiredo in their first match, scoring 80 DraftKings points and 109 points on FanDuel, while Figueiredo scored 68 DraftKings points and 106 points on FanDuel. Keep in mind, because the fight was a draw, neither one received the additional 30 point decision bonus on DraftKings and 20 points on FanDuel. So Moreno would have put up very respectable scores (110 DK and 129 FD) with a win. Now checking in as a big underdog once again, Moreno looks like a cheap value play who would almost certainly return value on DraftKings in a win. He shot for eight takedowns and landed four in their first fight, and he certainly has the ability to boost his DFS scores with grappling. While opponents don’t get any tougher, the odds imply Moreno has a 34% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish and a 5% chance it comes in R1. One thing to keep in mind, Moreno had not historically been a great DFS scorer in the past and had never been a high-volume striker until the title was on the line. It really came down to Figueiredo’s willingness to walk through fire to look for finishes, but as long as Figueiredo doesn’t dial it back, Moreno will be forced to defend himself.

---

Fight #1

Israel Adesanya

11th UFC Fight (9-1)

Dropping back down to Middleweight (185 lb) to defend his belt after a failed attempt at capturing the Light Heavyweight belt where he suffered his first career loss, Adesanya squares off in a rematch with Marvin Vettori after defeating him once already in a 2018 three-round split decision. That was just Adesanya’s second UFC fight at the time and Vettori’s fifth.

In their first match, Adesanya led in significant strikes 57-46 and total strikes 67-60, while Vettori went 2 for 6 on takedown attempts. Vettori also finished with three minutes and 18 seconds of control time while losing what probably should have been a unanimous decision in favor of Adesanya, but ended up being split. Both takedowns came in the third round and Adesanya was winning the striking battle in the first two rounds, so it’s hard to say Vettori won more than a single round. With that said, it was a pretty close fight and it would have been interesting to see where it would have gone had there been two more rounds, considering Vettori was starting to find some success with his wrestling in the third round.

In his 10 UFC fights, Adesanya’s opponents have attempted a combined 57 takedowns, but landed just 10 (18% success rate). The majority of those came in his first three UFC fights, where his opponents went 6 for 33 on their attempts. In his most recent six Middleweight fights, Adesanya’s opponents have gone just 1 for 19 (5%), although three of those six opponents didn’t actually attempt any. The three who did were Derek Bruson, who went 0 for 7 before getting knocked out late in the first round, Kelvin Gastelum, who went 1 for 9 on his way to losing a five round decision, and Yoel Romero who went 0 for 3 and also lost a five round decision. Most recently, Adesanya was taken down three times on five attempts by Jan Blachowicz up at Light Heavyweight, but Jan’s size advantage appeared to play a large role in his success.

One thing that will be interesting to monitor is where Adesanya weighs in for this fight. His average weight in his nine UFC Middleweight fights was just 184.25 lb, and he’s fought as low as 183 lb (2 lb under the championship 185 lb limit). After checking in at 200.5 lb for his recent Light Heavyweight fight, it’s possible he’ll retain some of the additional weight for this fight and be incrementally stronger (or slower), but we’re really splitting hairs talking about the effect a single pound will have. UPDATE: Scratch that idea, he weighed in at 183.5 lb.

Three of Adesanya’s four UFC KO wins have come in the second round with the other coming in the first. Even if we include his 11 pre-UFC fights, which he impressively won all by KO, he’s never landed a finish beyond the second round as he has seven career round one KOs and eight in round two. His other six fights all went the distance (5-1).

Adesanya comes into this fight 9-1 in the UFC, and 20-1 as a pro. This will be his 6th straight title fight and 9th five round fight of his career (two were prior to joining the UFC). He landed a pair of R1 KOs in his two five round title fights before he joined the UFC, however, in his six UFC five round fights he beat Brad Tavares in a 2018 decision, then won the Interim Middleweight Belt against Kelvin Gastelum in a 2019 decision, followed by a R2 KO over Robert Whittaker for the Undisputed Middleweight Belt, and then defended the belt with a decision win over Yoel Romero, before finally defending the belt again with another R2 KO over Paulo Costa. He then most recently took a stab at the Light Heavyweight belt, but lost in a decision. So four of his six UFC five round fights have gone the distance, while he’s landed a pair of R2 knockouts in the other two.

After switching over from kickboxing, Adesanya won his first 11 pro fights by knockout—all in the first two rounds. He then came into the UFC in 2018 and continued that trend with another R2 KO. However, since then he has been to five decisions compared to just three knockouts. Three of his four UFC knockouts came in the second round, while his lone first round finish in the organization was a late KO against Derek Brunson with 9 seconds remaining in the period. Looking at his entire pro career, seven of his 15 knockouts have come in R1, while eight have occured in R2.

Adesanya’s calculated counter punching fighting style generally requires his opponent to be the aggressor for him to land a finish. Prior to his dismantlement of Paulo Costa, Adesanya fought Yoel Romero to a bizarre ultra low-volume, 25 minute stand-up decision, where we only saw a total of 88 significant strikes landed between the two fighters (Adesanya 48 total, 1.92 SS/min & Romero 40 total, 1.6 SS/min). For the majority of the fight, Romero was content with looking to land violent counter punches, just hoping Adesanya would walk into one. Adesanya mostly attacked Romero’s legs from the outside, smartly knowing that trading in a phone booth with a gorilla wasn’t his path to victory. From the reaction of the crowd (and anyone with eyes), it was clear that no one enjoyed the show. Adesanya was fully aware of the visuals and appeared to come into his next match with a chip on his shoulder looking to prove a point against Costa, and he did with another second round KO.

Adesanya generally does his best work when he feels like he has a chip on his shoulder and people are doubting him. Over his last five matches, he’s alternated five round decisions and second round KO victories.

Marvin Vettori

11th UFC Fight (7-2-1)

Coming off back-to-back five round decision wins, Vettori’s last two fights both involved a late opponent change. Vettori stepped in on short notice against Jack Hermansson back in December after Kevin Holland tested positive for COVID. Vettori had already been scheduled to fight a week later, so it wasn’t a big deal to fill in on short notice. After defeating Hermansson, Vettori had then been scheduled to fight Darren Till most recently, but Till suffered a broken Collarbone leading up to the match and coincidentally Kevin Holland stepped in on short notice, just three weeks after a smothering five round decision loss to Derek Brunson.

While Vettori attempted just one failed takedown against the dangerous grappler in Hermansson, he relentlessly attacked Holland’s vulnerable ground game with 11 takedowns on 17 attempts and a tick over 20 minutes of control time. It’s honestly a little surprising that was enough to even get him a title shot, as Robert Whittaker appeared next in line following a win over Kelvin Gastelum.

After averaging 4.33 significant strikes landed per minute over his first eight UFC fights, Vettori exploded for 164 significant strikes (6.56/min) in his first UFC five round fight, when he took on Jack Hermansson this past December. That fight amazingly set the record for the most significant strikes landed in a Middleweight fight in UFC history. Vettori pushed the pace to start the fight and dropped Hermansson with a stiff left cross in the first round. However, he was unable to put him away as he kept looking for the Guillotine Choke on the ground opposed to simply laying on heavy ground and pound. The second and third rounds were far less eventful, with neither fighter in danger of getting finished at any point, and Hermansson looked like he clearly won the third round. Vettori increased his output in the fourth and fifth rounds as the two fighters traded punches for the final 10 minutes. Vettori interestingly only attempted one takedown in the fight, which he didn’t land, potentially showing respect for Hermansson’s submission game or the fact that he’s now far more comfortable with his own stand up game. He said after the fight that he wanted to make it a boxing match, which is how it played out.

Vettori started off 2-2-1 in the UFC, but has won his last five fights since losing to Adesanya in 2018. Eight of his last nine fights have ended in decisions, including the last two going five rounds. His lone finish over that time came in a R1 submission against Karl Roberson, who has been submitted in the first round in all four of his career losses. Vettori’s only other early win in the UFC came in his 2016 UFC debut, which he won with a first round Guillotine Choke submission. Vettori is now 17-4-1 as a pro. With a pair of KO wins and nine wins by submission. All four of his career losses have ended in decisions and he’s never been finished. Vettori started his pro career in 2012 at 170 lb, but moved up to 185 lb in 2016 and it looked like it took him a little while to really grow into a 185 lb frame.

Fight Prediction:

Adesanya will have a 4” height advantage and 6” reach advantage.

The first time these two fought, back in 2018, Vettori was 24 years old with four fights under his belt in the UFC and Adesanya was 28 years old in just his second UFC match. Both fighters have improved their games since then, with Vettori improving his striking and Adesanya improving his takedown defense—at least against Middleweights. Some people may try to use Kevin Holland’s defensive wrestling struggles against Vettori as a comp for projecting how this fight goes, but just keep in mind Adesanya stuffed all seven of Derek Brunson’s takedown attempts when they fought before knocking him out late in the first round, while Brunson was able to absolutely dominate Holland on the ground. It should go without saying, but comparing Adesanya to Holland is a superficial comparison based on them both being tall, skinny strikers who struggle off their backs. Adesanya has an 82% takedown defense, while Holland’s is just 47%.

We expect to see a motivated Adesanya here, looking to re-stake his claim as not just another champion of the Middleweight division, but a dominant one, with no direct threat to his title. Look for Adesanya to try and prove a point come Saturday, not just win the fight. With all that said, neither of these two fighters have ever been finished in their respective careers and there’s still a good chance that this fight goes the distance, with the oddsmakers setting the decision the line at -135, implying a 55% likelihood. If it does end early, we like Adesanya to get another second round KO, with a slight chance it comes in R1.

The safest bet here is Adesanya’s moneyline at -275, but our favorite bet is his R2 KO line at +950. You can also consider his R1 KO line at +700 and his decision line at +145. If you think Vettori has a chance, the best bet on his side is his decision line at +410. The other line worth considering is the “Fight Goes the Distance” at -132.

DFS Implications:

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, and he’s never scored over 100 DraftKings points without one. However, he impressively has 10 knockdowns in his last seven fights, and somehow knocked Derek Brunson down three times in less than a round. He also had a ridiculous four knockdowns against Kelvin Gastelum over 25 minutes, two against Robert Whittaker in a little over eight minutes and most recently, one against Paulo Costa in nine minutes. However, Vettori has notably never been knocked down in his 10 UFC fights. If we remove all of the knockdowns from Adesanya’s DraftKings scores, he would be left with totals of 35, 92, 49, 86, 77, 56, 96, 82, 55 and 94 in the UFC. So if this goes to a decision and Adesanya fails to knock Vettori down, it’s hard to see him returning value.

After three straight slate-breaking performances with DraftKings scores of 125, 129 and 156, Vettori is now the third cheapest fighter on the DraftKings slate, which will surely drive up his ownership. His grappling heavy style generally scores better on DraftKings the longer fights go, with no better example than his last fight where he scored 156 points on DraftKings but only 105 on FanDuel. Even if Vettori finds some success in taking Adesanya down, it won’t resemble anything close to that fight, so we shouldn’t see such a wide gap between his two scores on the respective DFS sites. With that said, he still makes for a better DraftKings play than on FanDuel.

If we extrapolate the three round numbers from the first time these two fought over the course of five rounds, Adesanya would end up ahead 95-77 in significant strikes and 112-100 in total strikes, while Vettori would wind up with three takedowns on 10 attempts and five and half minutes of control time. If no other stats were accumulated for either fighter that would leave Adesayna scoring 71 DraftKings points and 98 points on FanDuel in a decision win, while Vettori would score 90 DraftKings points and 84 points on FanDuel with a decision win. While we don’t expect the fight to play out identically, we do expect it to look somewhat similar. So it’s clear Adesanya has a higher floor on FanDuel, where he should notch several takedowns defended, and will have a much tougher time returning value on DraftKings without a finish. Vettori, on the other hand, was on pace to put up more similar scores between the two DFS sites, but clearly is still geared to score better on DraftKings in a decision due to control time and ground strikes. Even in a losing effort, Vettori was on pace to somewhat decently for his price, so if he is somehow able to pull off the upset we would expect his stats in a win to exceed that pace and therefore almost certainly return value at his price on both sites, but especially on DratKings.

The three most likely outcomes here are an Adesanya win in the first two rounds, an Adesanya decision win or a Vettori decision win. Adesanya is very unlikely to return value in a decision win. In his previous four five round decisions he’s scored 35 (L), 49, 117 and 82 DraftKings points. The outlier 117 point performance came on the back of a ridiculous FOUR knockdowns. So it appears Adesanya would need at least two knockdowns in a decision to score 100 DraftKings points, and that very well might still not be enough. The fact that Vettori has never been knocked down in his career makes that an unlikely proposition. That leaves Adesanya reliant on getting an early finish to score well.

One final note, the last thing everyone saw from these two fighters was Adesanya getting dominated on the ground by Blachowicz and Vettori dominating on the ground against Holland, so it seems pretty clear where the recency bias lies, and even people who expect Adesanya to win will still have more reason for doubt based on those two recent performances. Because of that, look for Adesanya’s ownership to be somewhat lower than it otherwise would be and Vettori’s to be higher.

Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter with your winnings so we can see how you did! @dfs_mma

---