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Fight Day Scratches:
Fighter Notes:
Fight #14
Maxim Grishin
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Grishin had been scheduled to face Ed Herman here, but Herman dropped out and Knight was announced as the replacement on January 28th, 15 days prior to the event.
Likely fighting for his job here as he sits on a 1-2 UFC record, Grishin is coming off a decision loss to Dustin Jacoby in a fight where Grishin missed weight by 4.5 lb, making matters worse. Grishin unsurprisingly looked massive on fight day after missing weight so badly. Grishin started off well in the fight, landing two knockdowns in the first round, but Jacoby bounced back and appeared to win the second round. The third round was close, but all three judges gave it to Jacoby and he went on to win a unanimous decision, despite being knocked down twice in the first five minutes. Grishin appeared shocked by the results, but he should have done more in the last two rounds if he wanted to secure a victory. Grishin did come out slightly ahead on significant strikes 66-57, but Jacoby destroyed his calf throughout the fight. It’s now been almost a year since that February 2021 loss, and while he had been scheduled to face OSP in June 2021, he ended up withdrawing from that matchup.
Since getting knocked out in the 5th round of a 2011 fight, Grishin has gone an impressive 19-3-2, with the two draws coming in weird two round tournament matches and the three losses coming against a top Light Heavyweight in Magomed Ankalaev, a Heavyweight in Marcin Tybura, and the another really tough opponent in Dustin Jacoby most recently.
In his tough July 2020 UFC debut, Grishin stepped in on short notice and up a weight class as he gave up 29 pounds to his opponent Marcin Tybura. He was clearly undersized for the Heavyweight division at just 223 lb and Tybura took full advantage of the size difference as he pushed Grishin up against the cage for the majority of the fight.
He moved back down to Light Heavyweight for his second UFC match against Gadzhimurad Antigulov and finished the fight with a flurry of punches just before the end of the second round. In a slower paced fight than what was expected, Grishin outlanded Antigulov 34-12 in significant strikes and added on a takedown with over two minutes of control time. He also successfully defended 4 of Antigulov’s 5 takedown attempts.
Now 37 years old and with 42 pro fights under his belt, Grishin came into the UFC very late in his career. He has 31 pro wins, including 16 KOs, six submissions, and nine decisions. His nine losses are evenly split between three KOs, three submissions, and three decisions, however the only time he’s been finished since 2011 came in the 4th round of a 2016 fight against Magomed Ankalaev, who’s currently the quickly rising #6 ranked Light Heavyweight in the UFC.
A Master of Sport in Hand-to-Hand Combat, Grishin is a slower paced fighter who averages just 2.95 SSL/min and 2.33 SSA/min. While 7 of his last 16 fights have ended early (6-1), only two of those finishes occurred in the first round, while 2 ended in round two, 2 in round three, and 1 in round four.
William Knight
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Coming off a close decision win over Alonzo Menifield, Knight was controlled for extended periods of time in the fight, but Menifield failed to do much of anything with those positions and was made to pay for it in the end. After getting controlled for over three minutes in the first round, Knight landed a late knockdown to secure the round and nearly got a finish. Round two stayed entirely on the feet, with Menifield leading the dance in striking to even the fight at one round a piece. Instead of continuing to try and win the fight through striking, Menifield reverted back to pushing Knight against the cage for several minutes in round three and that decision appeared to cost him the fight. In the limited time spent in space the third round, Knight led in striking and Menifield did nothing along the cage to score points when it came to determining a decision. Knight finished strong as he tried to steal the round by being the aggressor in the closing seconds, backing Menifield up against the cage with Knight landing a few final strikes. That was just enough to win the fight showing how razor thin the margin was. The fight ended with Knight ahead in significant strikes 55-44 and total strikes 82-66. He also landed the only knockdown and the only takedown in the fight, while Menifield dominated control time 6:25-0:43.
Prior to that close decision win, Knight landed his only finish in the UFC when he knocked out Fabio Cherant in the first round. That loss for Cherant came just after he was submitted in the first round by Menifield in his UFC debut. Cherant narrowly led Knight in significant strikes 15-14 before suffering the late first round KO in a low-volume fight with no takedown attempts.
Looking back one fight further, Knight was overpowered by Da Un Jung who easily took Knight down eight times on nine attempts and accrued over 12 minutes of control time. Prior to that grappling explosion, Jung hadn’t landed a takedown in any of his previous three UFC fights. Jung finished ahead in significant strikes 28-17 and 73-38 in total strikes in a fight that played out almost entirely on the mat.
Knight made his UFC debut in September 2020 against Aleksa Camur, who he defeated in a grappling heavy decision as he finished ahead in significant strikes just 38-17, while Camur came out slightly ahead in total strikes 59-58. However, Knight landed four of his five takedown attempts with over six and half minutes of control time, while Camur went one for four on takedowns with just under five and a half minutes of control time.
Knight is now 11-2 as a pro with nine wins by KO and two by decision. He has one KO loss and one decision loss, and all 13 of his fights have ended in either knockouts or decisions. Seven of those 10 knockouts ended in the first round (6-1), one ended in round, two and two finished in round three. Knight doesn’t have any submission wins as a pro, but he did have three as an amateur and will occasionally look for submissions. He’s just yet to land one—probably because he can’t fit his forearm under anyone’s chin.
Despite already being 33 years old, Knight started his pro MMA career less than four years ago and only started fighting as an amateur back in 2016. He did have a wrestling background to build on, as he was a state champion in high school.
He’s been on DWCS twice, first in 2019 and then most recently in September 2020. In his first appearance he scored a R3 KO that earned him a developmental contract. In that fight, he landed 4 of 7 takedown attempts while adding 97 significant strikes over the course of 14 minutes and 34 seconds before finishing the fight late.
In his second appearance on the show, he had a brutal start as he was immediately taken down, then gave up his back and was absorbing heavy ground and pound while face down on the mat. The fight looked close to being stopped, however, Knight was able to stall long enough to get back to his feet. As his opponent shot for a second takedown, Knight landed several elbows to the side of his head which abruptly ended the match. It was a pretty flukey finish and he looked to be in real trouble prior to flipping the script, but it was enough to get him a shot in the UFC.
UPDATE: Knight missed wight by an insane 12 lb and this fight was then moved up from Light Heavyweight to Heavyweight so that it could continue.
Fight Prediction:
Grishin will have a 5” height and reach advantage, while Knight is four years younger than the 37-year-old Grishin.
It will be interesting to see how well Knight is able to deal with the massive height and reach advantages that Grishin will have. All of Knight’s recent wins have come against other somewhat stocky fighters who were all 6’1” or shorter, while his lone UFC loss came against a taller fighter in the 6’3” Da Un Jung, who is the exact same height with the same reach as Grishin. Jung landed 8 takedowns on 9 attempts in that fight as he continued to take Knight down with the same Polish throw time after time. Knight was unable to ever make any adjustments to stop it. Grishin would be wise to test Knight to see if he has since learned how to defend being taken down from that technique or if it’s a fundamental flaw to his defenses. With that said, Grishin has gone just 1 for 3 on his takedown attempts in his three UFC fights and has mostly been content with keeping fights standing. While Knight has immense power and has shown both destructive power on the feet and the ability to exert heavy top pressure on the mat, it’s concerning how much he struggled the last time he faced a much taller opponent. Grishin has looked powerful in his past fights and if he can get Knight down, we could see extended periods of control time similar to the Jung fight. At the same time, Grishin is 37 years old, 1-2 in the UFC and coming off nearly a year layoff, so he has plenty of his own concerns. Both guys have the ability to knock the other out on the feet and we like the chances that this fight goes the distance, with Grishin the most likely candidate to get his hand raised.
Our favorite bet here is “Knight Wins by Decision” at +550.
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DFS Implications:
Note: Knight missing weight by 12 lb makes this a much higher variance spot. Also, this is not the first time Knight has fought around 220 lb. He has a 2019 R1 KO loss against Tafon Nchukwi at a 225 lb Catchweight where Knight weighed in at 221 lb, which is the only time he’s ever been finished. Knight also has a 2019 R1 KO win at 218 lb.
Grishin is a patient low-volume counter striker, who appears generally reliant on finishes to score well. He landed just 18 significant strikes across 15 minutes of inaction in his ill-fated UFC debut at Heavyweight, and then landed just 34 significant strikes on his way to a late second round TKO in his second UFC fight. Even with a favorable late R2 KO, he still scored just 99 DraftKings points. His recent decision loss scored just 51 DraftKings points, so even if it had gone his way he still would have scored just 81. Unless he puts on a completely dominating grappling performance, it’s hard to see Grishin return value at his high price tag without a finish. Knight has notably only been finished once in his career, which was back in 2019 before he joined the UFC. The most intriguing reason to play Grishin is that he projects to go very low owned, so if can surprise us and land a finish he makes for a great leverage play in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 62% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Knight has shown a somewhat decent but entirely unspectacular floor in his two UFC decision wins, but only put up a usable score in his lone UFC finish. Now he faces an opponent who’s much larger than him and has only been finished once in the last 11+ years. While Knight’s immense power always keeps him in the discussion for potentially landing a knockdown, this looks like a really tough matchup for him to excel in. Knight is generally a popular play amongst the field, which makes him even less interesting in tournaments. It’s possible Knight could serve as a value play in a decision at his reduced price tag, but it would likely require the other underdogs priced around him to fail, and more realistically he likely needs a finish to end up in tournament winning lineups. The odds imply he has a 38% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #13
Jeremiah Wells
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Wells had originally been scheduled to face Tim Means on last week’s card, while Mathetha had been set to fight Orion Cosce on this card. However, after both of their opponents dropped out, this matchup was announced three weeks ago on January 21st.
Wells is coming off an explosive short notice UFC debut, where he pulled off a huge upset against UFC veteran Warlley Alves with an early R2 KO finish. Wells shot out of the gates like a bat out of hell, looking dangerous from the start as he capitalized on an early slip from Alves and immediately took top position. While Alves was able to slow down the pace to close the first round while attempting a late guillotine choke, Wells started fast again in the second round as he clipped Alves on the feet and quickly turned the lights out with ground and pound.
Following his debut, Wells had been set to face another UFC veteran in Jake Matthews early on in December 2021, but the fight was canceled the day of the event after Wells’ cornerman tested positive for COVID.
A training partner of Paul Felder, Wells is a BJJ black belt with immense power. However, you do have to wonder about his gas tank later on in fights based on his energy expenditure when he comes out as explosively as did in his debut. With that said, two of his last five fights have been five-round decisions (1-1), although his last three matches have all ended in eight minutes or less.
Wells looked a little tentative early in his career but has seemed more on the offensive in his last few fights. He bounced back from a five round decision loss in early 2019 with an immediate R1 KO in his next fight. However, that win came against a 38-year-old opponent who has now been knocked out in the first round in 3 of his last 4 fights. Three months later Wells put on a smothering grappling performance where he dominated his opponent on the ground after blitzing him early on to close the distance, eventually landing a second round submission. That win also came against an opponent who has lost three of his last four fights. He most recently proved those wins were no fluke with a R2 KO of Alves in his debut, giving Wells three straight wins in the opening two rounds.
Despite being 35 years old and turning pro back in 2012, Wells has just 12 pro fights under his belt with nine wins, two losses, and a draw. Seven of his wins have come early, with four KOs and three submissions. Three of his KO wins have come in the first round while the most recent occurred 30 seconds into round two. All three of his submission wins have occurred in round two as well. He’s never finished an opponent beyond the 10 minute mark. Wells is 2-2-1 in his five career decisions. While his last three fights have all ended early, five of his six prior to those went the distance, including three five-round decisions. He’s never been finished in his relatively short career, and both of his losses notably ended in five-round decisions.
Mike “Blood Diamond” Mathetha
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut following nearly a two year layoff, Diamond last competed in February 2020 for the Australian promotion Eternal MMA. That was just his third pro MMA fight after a lengthy kickboxing career, and the first time he had gone the distance since transitioning to MMA. Diamond has an awkward striking style, somewhat similar to Randy Costa as he lands strikes from all angles and throws up all sorts of unorthodox kicks. Diamond will fight out of both stances but his left hand is his power hand, which can be sneaky when he’s fighting out of the conventional stance.
In his last fight, Diamond showed you always have to be on your toes when you fight him as he threw all sorts of crazy spinning kicks that you wouldn’t normally expect. However, he also looked pretty hittable, even against a pretty unimposing opponent who came in 4-1 but now holds a 5-4 record. Diamond did a pretty good job of utilizing his length by throwing a lot of kicks up the middle, but his footwork looked subpar. For a kickboxer, he doesn’t appear very light on his feet. He’s got a sloppy brawling fight-style and looks content with taking one to land one as he bets on his chin to hold up better than his opponent’s. While that can be successful against lower level opponents on the regional scene, it’s a dangerous game to play at the UFC level. He also doesn’t appear to offer much when it comes to grappling, which makes sense considering his kickboxing background.
Prior to winning a decision in his last fight, Diamond had finished his first two MMA opponents. He made his pro debut in 2017 and landed a round two TKO. That win was against an opponent who came in with a 1-2 record and is now 2-4. Diamond’s second MMA fight came 14 months later and he actually finished it with a first round rear-naked choke despite his non-existent grappling skills. That win came against an opponent fighting professionally for the first and only time. Following the July 2018 win, Diamond had another extended layoff before returning 19 months later in February 2020 for his last fight.
A teammate of Israel Adesanya at City Kickboxing, Diamond will be charged with kicking off the card that Adesanya will close out. Another teammate in Carlos Ulberg will also be fighting on the card, giving Diamond plenty of supporting figures as he steps into the Octagon for the first time.
Fight Prediction:
Diamond will have a 2” height advantage, but Wells will have a 1” reach advantage.
Both of these two are dangerous strikers, but Wells will have a commanding advantage on the mat, making this a case of a BJJ black belt going against a kickboxer with very limited grappling experience. It would make sense for Wells to look to get this fight to the mat quickly, although he’s also fully capable of knocking Diamond out if the fight remains standing. There’s always a chance that Diamond lands one of his unconventional spinning kicks or a perfect left hand to knock Wells out, but we like Wells’ chances to get a finish of his own, most likely on the mat where he should find the least resistance.
Our favorite bet here is “Wells R2” at +500.
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DFS Implications:
Wells overcame the odds in his short notice UFC debut to land an early second round KO against longtime UFC veteran Warlley Alves. That early second round win was good for 96 DraftKings points and showed how explosive and energetic Wells can be early in fights, but it didn’t last long enough for us to see how Wells’ cardio would hold up later in fights. While Wells has gone to three five-round decisions in his career, he’s lost two of those and came into his most recent five-round fight with a much slower pace than we saw in his recent UFC debut. He appears to manage his pace more in fights he expects to go long, and doesn’t always just explode out of the gates looking for an immediate finish. That makes it tougher to rely on him in DFS and increases his potential range of outcomes as he can be extremely explosive but also painfully patient at times. That really means you want to play him more when he’s low-owned and less when he’s high-owned. The potential to dominate the grappling exchanges in this matchup make Wells more interesting on DraftKings, where he could still potentially score well in a decision if he dominates the fight on the ground from start to finish. The odds imply he has a 67% chance to win, a 55% chance to get a finish, and a 35% chance it comes in the first round.
Blood Diamond is a wild one-dimensional striker, who lands a solid amount of striking volume but won’t boost his DFS scoring with any grappling. He’s making his UFC debut against a BJJ blackbelt who will have a clear grappling advantage. Wells should be looking to get this fight to the ground, which may limit Diamond’s ability to return value on striking alone, even at his cheaper price tag. Diamond will likely be reliant on being the first fighter to ever finish Wells to score well. That’s certainly not impossible considering his unorthodox attacks and large amount of kickboxing experience, but this doesn't look like a favorable spot for him. The odds imply he has a 32% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
Sergey Morozov
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off an upset win to notch his first UFC victory, Morozov won a lopsided decision against Khalid Taha. Morozov executed his grappling-heavy game plan with great success as he landed six takedowns on 16 attempts with over eight and a half minutes of control time. He also led in significant strikes 50-33 and in total strikes 99-66 as he cruised to a unanimous 30-27 decision victory.
Prior to that win, Morozov made his UFC debut in a really tough spot against undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov. Morozov didn’t even attempt a takedown in that matchup, but was taken down 5 times on 11 attempts by Nurmagomedov, who ended up submitting Morozov in the second round with a rear-naked choke. Nurmagomedov’s lightning quick head kicks and dangerous grappling made it hard for Morozov to close the distance and get his offense going as he spent the entire fight on the defense. Nurmagomedov finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 25-7 and in total strikes 32-8 with three minutes of control time in a fight that lasted just under nine minutes.
Morozov is a former M-1 Bantamweight Champion and fought to a 25 minute title fight decision victory in his last bout before joining the UFC. That was his 5th straight win at the time, with three of those ending in knockouts, including two in R1. Morozov has gone 8-2 in his last 10 fights, with both of those losses coming against undefeated UFC fighters in Movsar Evloev, who submitted him in the third round of their 2018 matchup, and then by Nurmagomedov who submitted him in round two of his UFC debut.
Of his 17 career wins, eight have come by KO, three by submission, and the remaining six have ended in decisions. Four of his five losses have come early, including one by KO and three submissions. His lone career KO loss came in the first round of a 2016 match, and his only submission loss to come against someone outside of the UFC occurred all the way back in 2015 in his fifth pro fight. He’s won 6 of the 7 decisions he’s been to in his career, with his only career decision loss occurring in 2016.
Overall, Morozov is a well rounded fighter but he relies heavily on his grappling and struggles when he goes against a superior grappler. He tends to wear on his opponents and 8 of his last 10 fights have made it past the first round, with six seeing a third round, and four going the distance. While he relies heavily on his grappling, he hasn’t landed a submission since 2015 and is generally looking to knock opponents out or grind out grappling-heavy decisions. Of his last 10 wins, six have gone the distance, while four ended in KO/TKOS.
Douglas Silva de Andrade
10th UFC Fight (5-4)Continuing to alternate between wins and losses for seven straight fights, Silva de Andrade is coming off just his second early win in his nine UFC fights after starting off his pro career 22-0 with 19 early wins. That recent win came against a low-level talent in Gaetano Pirrello, who went 0-2 with two early losses in the UFC before being recently released. The fight lasted just 124 seconds, so we didn’t see much happen leading up to the finish as Silva de Andrade led in significant strikes 10-5 with no takedowns attempted. Silva de Andrade finished things with a perfect check left hook that sent Pirrello crashing to the mat.
Looking back one fight further, Silva de Andrade lost a hardfought low-volume decision against a really tough Lerone Murphy, one of the many high-level opponents that Silva de Andrade has faced in the UFC. That list also includes Rob Font, Marlon Vera, and Petr Yan.
Silva de Andrade was fighting at 145 lb before joining the UFC, where he made his UFC debut, but then dropped down to 135 lb after losing his debut to Zubaira Tukhugov. He won his first two fights at 135 lb, but lost his third to Rob Font, who submitted Silva de Andrade in R2 with a guillotine choke. That was the first time Silva de Andrade had ever been finished in his career. He bounced back with a decision win over Marlon Vera before getting matched up with current Bantamweight champ Petr Yan.
Yan handed him his first KO loss due to a corner stoppage after the second round. Following the loss, Silva de Andrade decided to move back up to 145 lb where he immediately beat a clearly washed up Renan Barao in a decision before most recently losing a decision against a much tougher talent in Lerone Murphy. Silva de Andrade then decided to move back down to 135 lb where he had previously gone 3-2 in the UFC and is now 4-2. That seems to be the right weight class for him as he’s gone just 1-2 up at 145 lb.
Now 27-4 as a pro, Silva de Andrade has 20 wins by KO, one by submission, and six by decision. He has one loss by TKO, another by submission, and two by decision. Both of his early losses came in the back halves of fights and 8 of his last 9 fights have made it to round two, with six of those seeing a third round and five going the distance. Silva de Andrade has been taken down 11 times in his nine UFC fights and owns a 66% takedown defense. He’s gone just 1-4 in UFC fights when he’s been taken down at least once.
Fight Prediction:
Silva de Andrade will have a 1” height and reach advantage, while Morozov is four years younger than the 36-year-old Silva de Andrade.
The only times Morozov has lost in the last 5+ years is when he got outgrappled and submitted, which is not something we expect to see out of Silva de Andrade, as he has 20 career wins by KO, and just one by submission. In fact, both of these two generally get their finishes through knockouts, but they’re also both extremely durable and each have just a single loss by KO/TKO on their records. Silva de Andrade is just 1-4 in UFC fights where he gets taken down at least once, which doesn’t bode well for his chances here. This sets up for Morozov to grind out a grappling heavy decision win and that’s how we expect it to end.
Our favorite bet here is “Morozov Wins by Decision” at +115.
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DFS Implications:
A former M-1 Bantamweight Champion, Morozov showed in his last fight that he has massive grappling upside as he landed 6 takedowns on 16 attempts with over eight and a half minutes of control time. That was good for 105 points on DraftKings, but just 86 on FanDuel. A similar output appears likely here, so Morozov looks like a better play on DraftKings than FanDuel. Morozov’s high price tag should keep his ownership in check as he looks to be a solid play with a high floor and a pretty decent ceiling. It’s unlikely he’ll get a finish, which is what he would need to put up a really huge score. He could end up right on the edge of cracking winning lineups depending on what the higher high priced fighters do. The odds imply Morozov has a 68% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Now 36 years old, Silva de Andrade is coming off a career best performance where he topped 89 DraftKings points for the first time as he landed his first finish since 2016. That came in an ideal matchup against a low-level opponent who went 0-2 in the UFC with two early losses and has since been released. Now, Silva de Andrade faces a much tougher opponent and this looks like a really tough matchup for him to win. Some of the field will likely chase his recent score, especially now that he’s priced way down, but this does not look like a spot where we’ll see a repeat performance out of him as he goes against an opponent who’s only been knocked out once in his career (2016) and will come in looking to grapple. Silva de Andrade is a KO or bust play who has never scored more than 75 DraftKings points in a decision, and while anything can happen inside the Octagon, this looks like a good sell high spot on him. The odds imply he has a 32% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
AJ Dobson
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Coming off crazy brawling first round submission win on DWCS, Dobson came out swinging bombs and nearly landed a quick knockout, but his opponent was able to hang on for dear life on the mat. Later in the round, Dobson was able to lock in a rear-naked choke despite not even really having his opponent’s back or any hooks in, as he choked him out from a weird side angle.
That finish extends Dobson’s perfect record to 6-0, with five of those wins ending in the first round and one going the distance. Four of Dobson’s five career finishes have come in 60 seconds or less and this guy is all business from the jump. He throws violent punches out of the gates and will also look to wrap up chokes on the mat. He’s pretty wild with his striking and swings for the fences with everything he throws, so you have to wonder about his cardio later in fights, especially considering only one of his six pro matches has made it out of the first round.
Dobson played college football for a year before dropping out to pursue a career in MMA. He has fought at both 170 lb and 185 lb in the past, but it appears he will be sticking at 185 lb at least for the time being. He claimed he was intentionally being ultra aggressive in his DWCS match to make a big impression for the boss and that he would be more technical in future fights, but we’ll believe it when we see it.
Jacob Malkoun
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Continuing to only fight on undercards of his training partner Robert Whittaker, Malkoun is coming off his first UFC win in a smothering decision victory over Abdul Razak Alhassan. After getting knocked out 18 seconds into his UFC debut, Malkoun wasted no time shooting for a takedown against Alhassan as he got the fight to the ground in the opening seconds. While it didn’t take long for Alhassan to return to his feet, Malkoun relentlessly shot for takedowns for the entire match and continued to wear on the questionable gas tank of Alhassan. The low-volume grappling match ended in a decision with Malkoun ahead in significant strikes just 27-21 and in total strikes 91-32, while landing 8 takedowns on a ridiculous 24 attempts along with nearly 12 minutes of control time and a pair of submission attempts. This appears to be the way Malkoun plans on fighting after showing just how dubious his chin is in his debut.
After just turning pro in 2017, Malkoun also only has six pro fights on his record. Now 5-1 as a pro, he has three wins by decision and a pair of knockout victories (R1 & R3). He tends to wear on his opponents as fights go on, but doesn’t look very explosive. His last two wins have both gone the distance.
Despite his grappling prowess, Malkoun had a short stint in pro boxing, winning all three of his matches. He also has wrestling experience, which is evident with how he approaches MMA fights.
Fight Prediction:
Dobson will have a 4” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
This fight has two very obvious outcomes, as Malkoun will either get it to the ground to try and grind out another decision or get knocked out trying. The less obvious but still potentially possible ways this fight ends would be with a Dobson submission or a late round finish from Malkoun if Dobson gasses out. Malkoun has looked very hittable on the feet and if Dobson connects with anything then it should be a short night. While it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see Malkoun get him down and grind out a decision, we like Dobson’s chances to land another first round finish.
Our favorite bet here is “Dobson R1 Win” at +300.
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DFS Implications:
Dobson’s fighting style appears perfect for DFS as he looks to nuke his opponents in the opening seconds of fights with four of his six wins coming in 60 seconds or less. He’s a prime candidate for the DraftKings Quick Win bonus, which would obviously propel him into tournament winning lineups. However, he’s also making his UFC debut following a win on DWCS and looks like a boom or bust play with only one of his six pro fights making it out of the first round. It would not at all be surprising to see him gas out hard in the back half of this fight if it makes it that long, especially with Malkoun looking to grapple the entire time. That’s actually a good thing for DFS as it would allow Malkoun to score better if Dobson fails to land an early finish. So overall this is a fight to target both sides of with your exposure and just hope nothing bizarre happens to ruin the scoring potential of the winner (i.e. Malkoun controls all of round one and then Dobson knocks him out early in round two à la Phil Rowe). The odds imply Dobson has a 50% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Malkoun is coming off a dominating grappling performance where he landed eight takedowns with nearly 12 minutes of control time. That was good for 115 points on DraftKings and 94 points on FanDuel and he’s the type of fighter that will almost always score better on DraftKings due to his grappling. As he’s shown in his first two UFC fights, he has an extremely wide range of potential outcomes after scoring zero points in his UFC debut where he was knocked out 18 seconds in. This fight has the potential to end in another immediate knockout or for Malkoun to grind out another grappling-heavy decision win and it’s essentially impossible to know which one of those two things will happen. So overall it’s a fight you want to target both sides of as the winner should put up a big score. The odds imply Malkoun has a 50% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Ronnie Lawrence
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Almost a year removed from a dominating third round TKO victory in his February 2021 UFC debut, Lawrence had been scheduled to fight in July 2021 but ended up withdrawing due to a botched weight cut. In his one-sided debut, Lawrence outlanded Vince Cachero 77-15 in significant strikes and 102-23 in total strikes, while also landing 8 of his 9 takedown attempts with nearly eight minutes of control time. Cachero had no answer for anything Lawrence was doing and Lawrence eventually wore him out and finished him with ground and pound midway through the third round.
That debut came just after Lawrence won a grappling-heavy decision on DWCS in September 2020, where he landed a ridiculous 12 takedowns on a Dvalishvili-esque 17 attempts. However, he didn’t really do much on the ground once he got there and only landed 28 significant strikes and 47 total strikes across 15 minutes of action. His opponent in that fight looked like a decent striker but had a nonexistent takedown defense.
Lawrence originally started his amateur MMA career off in 2012, but following his third amateur fight, which occurred in May 2013, he took two and half years off before making his pro debut in October 2015. Then, after starting his pro career off with a 3-1 record, he took another two and a half years off following his only career loss, which came in an October 2016 decision against UFC fighter Steve Garcia. Since returning in February 2019, Lawrence has gone 4-0 with a 2019 R1 KO on the Kentucky regional scene, followed by a pair of decision wins leading up the the recent R3 TKO victory in his debut
Lawrence likes to throw a lot of of spinning back kicks, which is how he landed two of his four career KOs, but he doesn’t seem to have exceptional striking with his hands. It would be surprising to see him willingly stand and trade with Martinez for extended periods of time in this next fight. Lawrence has never won by submission, nor has he ever been finished early. He’s had just eight pro fights and now owns a 7-1 record with four KOs and three decision wins, to go along with his one decision loss.
Operating at a crazy pace, Lawrence has averaged an insane 10.9 takedowns landed per 15 minutes over his last two fights, while also adding on 3.80 SSL/min.
Mana Martinez
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Seemingly everything that could go wrong did go wrong for Martinez leading up to his recent UFC debut. He had not one, but two late opponent changes, his fight then got pushed back a week, he missed weight by 4 lb, and worst of all, his coach tragically passed away less than two weeks before his match. So he ended up having 28-year-old Adrian Yanez cornering him. Known for his early knockouts, Martinez uncharacteristically started slow in the fight, losing the first round on all three judges’ score cards as Guido Cannetti outlanded him 27-19 in the opening five minutes. With nothing going his way, Martinez dug deep and turned the tides in round two and then pulled away in round three to notch his first career decision win in a split-decision.
Martinez had previously only been in one fight that lasted longer than seven minutes, which was when he lost a 2017 split-decision in his second pro fight. Now 9-2 as a pro, Martinez has eight wins by KO to go along with his recent decision victory. FIve of his KOs have come in round one, including three in 60 seconds or less, with the other three ending in the first half of round two. Five of his last six knockouts have ended in the first round. The only time he’s ever been finished resulted from a R1 submission on DWCS against Drako Rodriguez. After losing on DWCS in 2020, Martinez landed a pair of quick first round knockouts to get another crack at the UFC roster in his recent debut.
Martinez is originally from Houston, where he still fights out of, so he should have the support of the hometown crowd behind him. He’s a karate black belt and a BJJ purple belt and notably knocked out recent TUF winner Ricky Turcios in the first round of a 2018 match, which is the only time Turcios has ever been finished. So despite this being just his second UFC fight, he’s fought several opponents that have competed in the UFC. Martinez is an Orthadox fighter but will sometimes switch stances and has an incredibly dangerous left hand, which makes him tough to prepare for.
Martinez’s takedown defense remains somewhat of a mystery as it’s rarely been tested. Ricky Turcios went 0 for 3 on his attempts when they fought back in 2018, but that fight also lasted just three minutes. Drako Rodriguez was able to land his only attempt on DWCS, which is the only other time we saw anyone try to take Martinez down since.
Fight Prediction:
Martinez will have a 2” height and reach advantage.
Martinez will have to land some serious damage early in this fight to slow down the relentless chain wrestling of Lawrence. Luckily, that’s exactly what Martinez specializes in with 8 of his 9 career wins coming by KO, all in seven minutes or less, and three ending in the opening 60 seconds. So while Lawrence will have a commanding advantage if can get a hold of Martinez and get the fight to the ground, there’s a very real chance that Martinez can knock him out before Lawrence ever has a chance to do that. However, if Martinez fails to capitalize on his limited opportunities to land damage on the feet, then he’s likely in for a long day of getting repeatedly slammed to the mat. Nevertheless, with the home crowd behind him, we like Martinez to use his uppercuts to help defend takedowns and we’re going to go out on a limb and say he pulls off the major upset and knocks Lawrence out in the first round.
Our favorite bet here is “Martinez Wins by R1 KO” at +1200.
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DFS Implications:
Lawrence absolutely broke the slate the last time he stepped inside the Octagon, scoring 135 DraftKings points and 144 points on FanDuel. He’s now landed 20 takedowns on 26 attempts in his last two fights going back to his DWCS match and he offers the perfect uptempo grappling-heavy skill set to dominate in DFS. With that said, he also hasn’t faced the toughest competition or any real adversity in his recent fights, so it will be interesting to see how he fairs as he begins to face tougher opponents. It’s hard to see him not scoring well with any sort of win here unless Martinez is able to completely neutralize his takedowns, which appears highly unlikely. So realistically, the only way Lawrence fails is if Martinez knocks him out, which makes this a great fight to target in DFS. The odds imply Lawrence has a 73% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Martinez’s skill set is also perfectly suited for big DFS performances, as 8 of his 9 career wins have come by KO, all in seven minutes or less. He’s coming off the first decision win of his career in his recent UFC debut, but we’re willing to give him a pass on not getting a finish since his coach passed away 11 days before that fight on top of having to deal with multiple late opponent changes. That less impressive performance should actually keep his ownership in check, especially with everyone on Lawrence. So this looks like a great leverage spot in tournaments and Martinez has a solid shot to hand Lawrence the first early loss of his career. Whoever wins this match should put up a big score, and it’s one of our favorite fights to target on the slate. The odds imply Martinez has a 27% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Carlos Ulberg
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Coming off one of the crazier fights in 2021, Ulberg lost his UFC debut when he punched himself out against a ridiculously durable Kennedy Nzechukwu. Ulberg landed an insane 83 very significant strikes in the first round and another 63 in round two, before simply gassing out. As a result, Kennedy was able to easily put him away midway through round two. The fight ended with Ulberg ahead in significant strikes 146-82 as he crazily landed 17.56 SSL/min.
That was the first loss of Ulberg’s short MMA career after he started off 3-0 in his three pro fights. He’s only been past the nine minute mark once, and after seeing him gas out in his debut, it’s fair to question his cardio and energy management later on in fights.
Ulberg has a kickboxing background and is a member of the City Kickboxing team. He made his way into the UFC with a R1 KO win on DWCS in 2020 just 122 seconds into the match. While Ulberg is still somewhat of a raw talent in terms of overall mixed martial arts, his striking ability and power are impressive. While he doesn’t add anything in the grappling department, he’s always a threat to finish opponents on the feet and now he gets a much easier matchup than his debut.
Fabio Cherant
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Desperate for a win, Cherant has been finished in the first round in both of his first two UFC fights. Showing off a low fight IQ in his short notice UFC debut, Cherant allowed himself to get submitted by a Von Flue choke by power puncher Alonzo Menifield just 71 seconds into the fight. This came as a result from refusing to let go of a misguided guillotine attempt. The fight was so short that it was hard to take much else away from it, other than Cherant will look to defend takedowns with guillotines as he doesn’t know when to cut his losses. Cherant missed weight for that fight by half a pound, but in fairness he stepped into it on just a few days notice after Menifield lost his original opponent,
In his most recent loss, Cherant got knocked out by William Knight late in round one. As Cherant rushed in, Knight caught him with an unimposing left hand that didn’t appear to have much behind it, but it was still enough to drop Cherant and end the fight.
Cherant only turned pro in February 2018, and now holds a 7-3 record with 8 of those 10 fights ending early. He has five wins by submission, including four in the first round and two decision victories, but has never knocked anybody out. For context, four of his five submissions came in his first four pro fights against opponents who entered with records of 0-3, 1-1, 1-5, and 0-0. All three of his losses have come in the first two rounds, two by KO, and one by submission.
His first career loss coming on DWCS in 2019 against Aleksa Camur, who’s 1-2 in the UFC. In his DWCS fight, Camur outlanded Cherant 44-7 in significant strikes before landing a second round KO with a flying knee. No takedowns were attempted in the match and it was primarily just Cherant circling away from Camur.
Following the loss, Cherant joined the LFA where he landed another first round submission, this time against Erick Murray, who has now been finished in four of his last six fights. Cherant missed weight badly in that fight, coming in at 213.6 lb for the 205 lb fight, claiming “quarantine took its toll”. Cherant landed a few early strikes and then grabbed the neck of Murray when he shot in for a takedown. He was able to finish him with an anaconda choke moments later.
Cherant won a three round decision in his subsequent match, but notably missed weight again, coming in at 209 lb. He took on 3-0 Yu Ji in that fight, who had fought his three previous fights at 185 lb and had never been in a fight that lasted longer than three minutes. Ji looked exhausted late in the match and was barely throwing any strikes or even putting up much of an effort. Cherant loves going for guillotine chokes and attempted another one early in the match but was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, he easily won a unanimous decision against the undersized opponent.
In his last fight before joining the UFC, which took place just six weeks before his UFC debut, Cherant took on his most experienced opponent to date in Myron Dennis, who entered the fight with an 18-7 record. This bout went the full 25 minutes in an LFA title fight for the vacant Light Heavyweight belt. Cherant’s striking looked somewhat improved in the match, but his defense still left something to be desired. He landed one of two takedown attempts, but really wasn’t looking to take the fight to the ground much. He even allowed Dennis to get back to his feet as opposed to keeping him grounded in the 5th round.
While all five of Cherant’s finishes have come by submission, he’s really more of an opportunistic submission threat than someone that hunts to submit his opponents. Any time an opponent has tried to take him down he immediately looks for a guillotine, which is how he’s finished most of his submission wins. He doesn’t look for many takedowns and is more of a counter puncher than anything else. His power is decent, but he doesn’t throw a ton of volume and has a below average striking defense. He also stands a little flat footed and doesn’t look very elusive.
With Cherant’s constant weight issues, he’ll be a guy to keep an eye on during weigh-ins.
Fight Prediction:
Ulberg will have a 3” height and reach advantage.
Ulberg left it all out there in his UFC debut, but simply went against an immovable object in Kennedy Nzechukwu. Now, he’ll face an opponent who got knocked out by a swat in his last fight and this looks like a prime bounce back opportunity for Ulberg. As long as he doesn’t come in shell shocked after suffering his first pro MMA loss, he should be able to put away Cherant with ease early in this fight. If Cherant is somehow able to survive, there is always the chance that Ulberg gasses out again, but we’d be really surprised if this fight lasted long enough for that to happen. We pick Ulberg by R1 KO here.
Our favorite bet here is “Ulberg R1 KO” at +185.
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DFS Implications:
Ulberg was on pace to break the slate in his recent debut before he gassed out against what appeared to be an indestructible Kennedy Nzechukwu. Ulberg landed an insane 146 significant strikes (17.56 SSL/min) in just over a round and a half before getting knocked out midway through round two. We don’t see many humans able to absorb the type of damage he was dishing out, and Cherant is on the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of durability compared to Nzechukwu. It’s possible we see Ulberg come in slightly less aggressive as he looks to preserve his gas tank, but we fully expect him to knock out Cherant in the first round nevertheless. The odds simply imply that Ulberg has a 71% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 35% chance it comes in round one.
Cherant’s low volume striking and infrequent takedown attempts don’t provide much of a foundation for DFS scoring potential, and while he’s never knocked anyone out, he does have five submission wins in just 10 pro fights. Keep in mind that all of the finishes came against low level competition and Cherant has given us no indication he can get it done on the UFC level. The only two things Cherant has going for him in DFS is that he’ll be incredibly low owned and Ulberg gassed out hard in the second round of his last fight. Cherant may also be fighting for his job so he should be fully motivated to leave it all out there. The odds imply he has a 29% chance to win, a 22% chance to get a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Kyler Phillips
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Phillips was defeated by former Flyweight Raulian Paiva in what was Paiva’s first UFC fight up at Bantamweight, and he’s now looking to bounce back from a controversial decision loss. Phillips knocked Paiva down in the opening minute of the fight, but Paiva quickly recovered and returned to his feet. Phillips was able to hurt Paiva at multiple other points in the first round and very nearly got a finish as the round ended. Paiva seemed to recover between rounds and started off much better in round two as he landed some good shots on Phillips, who appeared to be tiring but was still able to land a pair of takedowns. Both guys looked exhausted in the back half of the fight and the second and third rounds were extremely close after Phillips dominated round one. One judge ruled the fight a draw, but the other two did not award Phillips a 10-8 in the first round and all three gave Paiva the latter two rounds. Phillips did more damage, landed the only knockdown in the fight, outlanded Paiva 74-51 in significant strikes, 95-72 in total strikes and 4-2 on takedowns, but still managed to lose the fight through some sort of glitch in the Matrix.
Phillips has now gone the distance in three of his four UFC fights, after five of his seven pre-UFC fights ended early. He owns a 9-2 pro record, with five wins by KO, one by submission, and three by decision. He’s never been finished, and both of his losses have gone the distance. Five of his six finishes have occured in round one, with the other ending in the opening minute of round two. He’s gone 3-2 in his career in fights that last longer than six minutes.
To this point in his career, Phillips’ crowning achievement is a close 29-28 decision win over Song Yadong in 2021. Yadong actually finished ahead in significant strikes 67-59 and in total strikes 89-69, but Phillips landed three takedowns on five attempts, while Yadong didn’t attempt any. Yadong doubled up Phillips’ striking in the third round, but Phillips won the first two rounds to take the decision. Phillips’ other two UFC wins were against an opponent who came in 0-1 in the UFC and hasn’t fought since, as well as a short notice UFC newcomer who also hasn’t fought since the 2020 loss to Phillips.
Phillips originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2017, but despite landing a 46 second R1 KO victory he was not awarded a contract. Following the appearance on the show, Phillips suffered his first and only career loss in a 2018 split decision to Victor Henry, who recently pulled off a massive upset in his UFC debut. Phillips then landed another first round knockout and at that point the UFC was ready to give him a shot.
A Jiu Jitsu brat and recently minted black belt, Phillips started “training” at a remarkable three years old when his dad got him involved with the Gracie academy. He now trains out of Phoenix, Arizona at the same gym as Sean O’Malley.
Marcelo Rojo
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)After getting knocked out in the third round of his UFC debut up a weight class on short notice against a really tough Charles Jourdain, Rojo will now drop back down to Bantamweight and look to notch his first UFC win against another tough opponent. In his recent loss, Jourdain outlanded Rojo 106-74 in significant strikes and 128-80 in total strikes, while Rojo landed one of his two takedown attempts. Rojo did notably win the first round on all three judges’ score cards, before Jourdain bounced back to win round two and get a finish in round three. It had also been a year and a half since Rojo had fought going into his debut, so he really had everything working against him. Nevertheless, he put on a good fight in a scrappy brawl and showed a lot of heart and future potential.
A training partner of Brandon Moreno, Rojo has now gone just 3-3 in his last six fights, but one of those other losses was against another UFC fighter in John Castaneda. Now 16-7 as a pro, Rojo has only required the judges in 3 of his 23 fights. He has eight wins by KO, six by submission, one by decision, and one DQ victory. While he’s only been knocked out once, which came in his recent debut, he’s been submitted four times and has lost two of the three decisions he’s been to. Eleven of his 14 early wins have come in the first round, two have come in round two and just one has occurred in round three. On the flipside, three of his five early losses have ended in round three, while also getting finished once in each of the first two rounds. Overall, he’s generally landing finishes early in fights and getting finished late in fights, typically with submissions. His last three and five of his last six wins have come by KO/TKO, with all six of those wins ending in round one. His last three losses have all ended in the third round. His last 18 fights have ended early and he hasn’t been to the judges since 2012.
The last time Rojo competed at Bantamweight (2019) he missed weight by 3 lb. Most recently he’s fought up at Featherweight, so he’ll be an important guy to keep an eye on during weigh-ins.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’8” but Phillips will have a 1” reach advantage.
This sets up as one of the most exciting fights on the card between two high-paced brawlers. Both guys are looking to bounce back from a loss and we expect them to each leave it all out there. It’s interesting that the line is as wide as it is, but Rojo got beat up pretty badly in the back half of his last fight, so clearly that didn’t leave a good impression with either the oddsmakers or the public. We expect this to be a closer fight than the odds indicate and it’s important to keep in mind that Rojo just fought a dangerous 145 lb opponent, while Phillips is coming off a loss against a guy who had just moved up from 125 lb. Both of these two are the most dangerous early on in fights, and we’ve seen each of them begin to slow down in the back halves of past fights. If this gets to the third round we’ll likely be looking at two exhausted fighters trying to dig deep to see who has anything left in the tank. Rojo has been prone to getting finished in the third round, but Phillips has never landed a finish beyond the six minute mark, so it’s less likely that he’ll be able to take advantage of that. It wouldn’t be that surprising to see an absolute war that still goes the distance. While the value appears to be on Rojo’s side when it comes to betting, Phillips is the more well rounded fighter with the more dangerous striking, so we’re still taking him to win. But, we’re expecting this one to be a back and forth banger that could go either way.
Our favorite bet here is Rojo’s ML at +333.
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DFS Implications:
Phillips has been a consistent albeit unspectacular DFS contributor, with DraftKings scores of 74 (L), 73, 98, and 91. Had the close decision gone his way in his last fight he would have scored a career best 104 DraftKings points, showing that he can still score well even in fights that go the distance. This sets up as a high-paced brawl that should produce a solid score for the winner, but at Phillips’ high price tag he’ll need more than just a good score to end up in tournament winning lineups. He has a solid floor, but he really needs to hit his ceiling here to return value. Notable for the chances we see that happen, Rojo’s last opponent, Charles Jourdain, scored 117 DraftKings points and 138 points on FanDuel against him in a third round TKO. Even if the fight had gone the distance it still would have been good for over 100 points on both sites. Rojo has been finished in five of his seven pro losses and hasn’t been to the judges in almost a decade. In the end, this looks like a fight you want to target. The odds imply Phillips has a 78% chance to win, a 49% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
With 15 of his 16 career wins ending early including 11 in the first round, Rojo has an undeniable upside even if this is another tough matchup for him. Keep in mind he fought his debut up a weight class, on short notice, following an extended layoff, and against a really tough opponent. Now, he’s dropping back down to 135 lb with more time to prepare, but he’ll again face a really tough opponent who’s never been finished. While we don’t love this matchup when it comes to Rojo’s chances of landing a finish, it should be a high pace slugfest with a ton of striking volume and Rojo could easily still score well with a decision win. He has a better chance to win this fight than the lines indicate, but he still has his work cut out for him. You’ll definitely want to be over the field on this guy and if he loses again it will just mean an even better opportunity in his next fight. The odds imply he has a 22% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #7
Casey O'Neill
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Casey O'Neill landed yet another second round TKO as she continues to dominate every time she steps inside the Octagon. She’s now finished three of her last four opponents. In her most recent win, O'Neill had some initial struggles controlling Antonina Shevchenko on the mat, and consequently ended up on her back as she tried to get the fight to the ground. However, after returning to her feet she was able to take Shevchenko down midway through the round and control her for the next two minutes before Shevchenko was able to return to her feet with less than a minute remaining in the round. O'Neill got the fight back to the mat 90 seconds into round two, and that time never relinquished the position as she methodically worked her way to full mount, beating her up on the mat until the fight was eventually stopped with 13 seconds remaining in the round. Some refs may have let the round finish, but Shevchenko really wasn’t intelligently defending herself by the end as her face was battered and swollen. O'Neill finished ahead in significant strikes just 52-40, but led in total strikes 128-58. She also landed 3 of her 8 takedown attempts and had nearly six minutes of control time.
Still perfect as a pro, O'Neill owns an 8-0 career record, with her last four and five of her eight wins coming early. She’s finished her last four fights early including all three of her UFC opponents. Four of her five career finishes have come in the later rounds, with three ending in round two and one in round three. Her only first round finish occurred in her second pro fight as she wears on her opponents more than dominating them from the start. She has two career submission wins, three by KO, and three by decision. However, all three of her decisions came in her first four pro fights and she’s finished four straight opponents.
O'Neill made her UFC debut in February 2021 and put on a dominating ground and pound performance against Shana Dobson. O'Neill finished the fight ahead 49-16 in significant strikes and 132-27 in total strikes. She went 4 for 6 on her takedown attempts, which hilariously improved Dobson’s career takedown defense from 0% to 14% after she had been taken down on all eight of her previous opponents’ attempts over her first five UFC fights. O’Neill also accrued almost seven and half minutes of control time in a fight that lasted just over eight and a half minutes. Honestly, O’Neill couldn’t have asked for a better matchup in her debut as she has shown that she generally wants to get fights to the mat as quickly as possible and the UFC gave her an opponent with no ground game, coming in with a 0% takedown defense.
Taking on a far more experienced grappler in her second UFC fight, O'Neill went up against BJJ black belt Lara Procopio. The first round was close, with Procopio coming out ahead in strikes and takedowns. She then immediately took O’Neill down to start the second round, but O'Neill completely took over the fight as she dominated Procopio from that point on before submitting her in the third round. O'Neill finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 71-41 and in total strikes 176-76. She also landed 1 of her 2 takedown attempts with nearly six minutes of controle time, while Procopio went 2 for 5 on her attempts with just under three minutes of control time. It is worth mentioning that Procopio was apparently dealing with some sort of stomach issue that may have played a role in her dramatic drop off midway through the fight. The UFC surprisingly cut Procopio (1-2) after that fight, so maybe there was something else they were displeased with as most fighters in her situation would get at least one more chance.
O'Neill started her pro career at 115 lb, but moved up to 125 lb in 2020 for her fourth pro fight, where she’s since gone 5-0, after going 3-0 at 115 lb. She trained at Tiger Muay Thai for a period of time, but moved to Vegas in 2020 when Thailand was essentially shut down due to COVID. O'Neill’s father is a former fighter and the owner of Eternal MMA, which is the Australian promotion O'Neill fought her first four fights under and where she became the Strawweight Champion.
Still just 24 years old, O'Neill lacks the experience and technical refinement that many of her opponents possess, but she’s been able to overcome that with pure aggression and athleticism. Her biggest weakness at this stage in her career appears to be her striking defense. She needs to continue to improve her head movement to avoid taking so many straight shots up the middle. With that said, she doesn’t have to worry about absorbing too many shots when she’s exerting heavy top pressure on the mat and beating up her opponents with ground and pound, or choking them out when they give up their back.
Roxanne Modafferi
12th UFC Fight (4-7)Stepping into the Octagon for the final time, Modafferi announced this will be her final fight. She’s lost 3 of her last 4 matches and has been to eight straight decisions. While it’s fair to question how she stacks up with the other ranked fighters in the women’s Flyweight division, you can’t deny Modafferi’s toughness and durability as she hasn’t been finished in her last 20 fights dating back to 2011. Ten of her 11 UFC fights have gone the distance, with the one exception being a 2018 R2 TKO win.
In her last fight, Modafferi lost a one-sided decision against an extremely tough Taila Santos, who’s now 19-1 as a pro. Santos filled up the stat sheet as she led in significant strikes 55-18 and in total strikes 118-43, while also landing a knockdown in the third round. Santos also landed all five of her takedown attempts with eight minutes of control time, while stuffing all four of Modafferi’s attempts.
Now 25-19 as a pro, Modafferi has four wins by KO, five by submission, and 16 wins by decision. The only time she’s ever lost via KO/TKO was in a 2010 R3 slam KO. She has been submitted three times, but those occurred in 2006, 2009, and 2011, so it’s been a while. Her last 10 and 15 of her 19 career losses have gone the distance.
Fight Prediction:
Modafferi will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 69” reach. O'Neill is also notably 15 years younger than the 39-year-old Modafferi.
Modafferi already has one foot out the door as she prepares for retirement, which is never where you want to be when you step inside the Octagon—just ask Marion Reneau who had never been finished in her career until she was knocked out in the third round of her recent retirement fight by Miesha Tate. It will be interesting to see if that changes anything in her relentless approach to fighting that has allowed her to be so durable throughout the years. Who could blame her if she simply covered up on the mat to avoid taking additional damage; who wants to start off their retirement badly injured? At no point in Modafferi’s UFC career has she ever owned a winning record with the organization and this looks like another incredibly tough matchup for her to win. It’s entirely possible that Modafferi’s durability will allow her to survive to see one final decision, but outside of landing a hail mary armbar off her back it’s really hard to see her winning this fight. We pick O'Neill to win with either another late finish or in a smothering decision.
Our favorite bet here is “O'Neill R2 KO” at +1300.
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DFS Implications:
O'Neill has broken the slate in all three of her UFC fights with DraftKings scores of 131, 110, and 140, and FanDuel scores of 124, 109, and 133. Her grappling-heavy, ground and pound fighting style doesn’t even require finishes to score well, at least on DraftKings. However, it does require takedowns, so if anyone ever forces her to remain on the feet, things could get hairy. However, Modafferi has a putrid 25% career takedown defense that has only gotten worse as of recently. Her last two opponents landed all nine of their attempts and her last four opponents landed 14 of 16 attempts. There’s little reason to think O'Neill will have trouble getting this fight to the mat. With that said, it may be tough to land her 5th straight finish as no one has been able to put Modafferi away since 2011. Although we really don’t know where Modafferi’s head is at right now considering she has already announced her retirement following this fight, it’s entirely possible that she makes a business decision at some point in this fight if she’s getting beat up on the mat and simply covers up to force a stoppage. A finish here is at least somewhat more likely than in previous Modafferi fights. Whether or not O'Neill gets a finish, we expect her to put up a big score and the only ways we can see her failing are if she’s unable to get this fight to the mat or somehow gets armbarred on the ground. Just keep in mind when you’re building lineups that O'Neill will be incredibly popular in all formats and there are more ways for her to fail to put up a big score on FanDuel than DraftKings. The odds imply she has a 78% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Despite her last three wins ending in decisions, Modafferi managed to score 96, 95, and 109 DraftKings points in those fights. She’s been a major beneficiary of the new DraftKings scoring system, as she typically racks up a decent amount of control time and a large number of total strikes. We’re definitely not predicting her to win by any means, but if she does somehow pull off the massive upset she’ll likely score well even in a decision. Based on how popular O'Neill will be, Modafferi is the gross type of play that can win you large-field tournaments if she somehow miraculously pulls off the upset. The odds imply she has a 22% chance to win, a 10% chance it comes early, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Andrei Arlovski
36th UFC Fight (20-14, NC)Coming off a close decision win over Carlos Felipe, Arlovski’s last eight wins have now all ended with the judges as he hasn’t finished an opponent since 2015. Impressively, he’s won the last five decisions he’s seen. His only two fights in his last 14 to end early were a 2021 R2 submission loss to Tom Aspinall and a 2019 R1 KO loss to Jairzinho Rozenstruik. Arlovski narrowly outlanded Felipe 83-73 in significant strikes, which was enough to win two rounds on all three judges’ scorecards.
Now 43 years old, this will be Arlovski’s 53rd pro fight, an incredible feat not even counting the two that were overturned to No Contests. He has 17 wins by KO, three by submission, and 12 by decision. He’s also been knocked out 11 times, submitted twice, and has seven decision defeats.
Arlovski originally joined the UFC in 2000, but left the organization in 2008, before returning in 2014. He won his first four fights back in 2014 and 2015, including a pair of round one knockouts, but has since gone 7-10 plus a No Contest, which was originally a decision loss.
In his last 30 fights over the course of the last decade, the only people to knock Arlovski out are Stipe Miocic (2016 R1), Alistair Overeem (2016 R2), Francis Ngannou (2017 R1), and Jairzinho Rozenstruik (2019 R1). Although he was also submitted by Aspinall in his most recent loss. Arlovski has really struggled with the top guys in the division, but has been able to take his non-elite opponents to decisions and has quietly been on a bit of a run as he’s gone 4-1 in his last five fights. He’ll now face another lower level opponent, although it’s entirely fair to argue that Arlovski’s last two opponents were less of a threat to defeat him.
Jared Vanderaa
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Vanderaa had been scheduled to face UFC newcomer Azamat Murzakanov on short notice back in December, but ended up not being medically cleared at weigh-ins.
Prior to that cancellation, Vanderaa suffered his second UFC round two ground and pound KO loss in his three fights with the organization. The first of those came in his UFC debut against Sergey Spivak, while the most recent was against Alexander Romanov. Vanderaa actually did a good job of returning to his feet after getting taken down against Romanov in the first round, something he really struggled with against Spivak. However, Romanov was able to put Vanderaa on his back early in round two and keep him there as he beat him up on the mat, eventually finishing it with ground and pound late in the round.
After getting finished on the mat in his UFC debut, Vanderaa bounced back with a win over Justin Tafa in a bloody high-volume decision in second UFC fight. Vanderaa looked far more comfortable without having to worry about getting taken down as he led Tafa in significant strikes 121-74 and in total strikes 141-74. Neither fighter attempted any takedowns in the 15 minute striking match, and Vanderaa easily won a decision. Vanderaa did get cut open in the second round and the ref took a hard look at him as he bled all over the Octagon, but the fight was allowed to continue.
Vanderaa originally punched his ticket to the UFC with a November 2020 R1 KO win on DWCS, where he immediately made a bold call out of Sergey Spivak, and Spivak accepted. Apparently they had almost fought earlier in their careers, and Vanderaa was still eager to see the matchup play out. Vanderaa clearly bit off more than he could chew on that one.
Vanderaa is now 12-6 as a pro, with seven of his wins coming by KO, three by submission, and two by decision. He’s also been submitted twice himself, and has two R2 TKO losses, with his other two losses going the distance.
While seven of his last nine fights have ended early, only one of his last 11 have ended in the first round. He’s also had three fights make it to the 5th round in his career, with two of those ending in decisions. On paper, he appears to have the gas tank to remain competitive later in fights as we recently saw him go three hard rounds against Tafa. He’s now been finished in the second round in his last three losses, once by triangle choke in 2019 and then by ground and pound in his most recent two. After losing the first two decisions of his career, he’s won the most recent two he’s been to.
Fight Prediction:
Vanderaa will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
Arlovski hasn’t attempted a takedown in his last eight fights and he’s an unlikely candidate to take advantage of Vanderaa’s struggles on the mat. He’s also only been taken down once over that stretch, which is when Aspinall submitted him, and we fully expect this fight to play out entirely on the feet similar to what we saw in the Justin Tafa fight. Vanderaa was able to easily outland his way to a decision victory in that fight, but it’s unfair to compare a low-level talent like Tafa to a long established veteran like Arlovski. Nevertheless, that showed that when Vanderaa is allowed to remain on his feet he can land a large amount of volume. His reach advantage in this matchup should help him in what projects to be a pure striking battle. Vanderaa’s higher output should allow him to remain competitive in this fight and we expect it to end in a close decision. While that’s reason enough to look hard at Vanderaa’s decision line, we’ll still give Arlovski the slight edge to win a close decision as Vanderaa has the potential to find himself in a hole if he gets caught stargazing early on.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Goes the Distance” at -166.
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DFS Implications:
With his last eight wins all ending in decisions, Arlovski has unsurprisingly struggled to score well in DFS. His DraftKings scores in those fights were 63, 74, 44, 50, 94, 88, 70, and 58. The only time he topped 90 points during that stretch came in a career best 152 significant strikes landed against Ben Rothwell in a 2019 decision. Unless he comes in looking to surprise Vanderaa with a random grappling-heavy approach, it’s hard to see him scoring well without a finish. Considering it’s been almost seven years since he finished anybody, that’s also an unlikely outcome. Vanderaa could turn this into a higher paced battle, which would give the winner a decent floor, but it’s unlikely we see a ceiling performance from either fighter here. The odds imply Arlovski has a 58% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
While 10 of Vanderaa’s 12 career wins have come early, his only UFC victory ended in a decision and he now faces a decision grinding UFC veteran. No one has landed more than 88 significant strikes on Arlovski since 2006 and the only people to score well against him are the top-level guys who have been able to finish him. Even if Vanderaa does win a decision, he’s still unlikely to score well and we expect the winner of this fight to be left out of tournament winning lineups regardless of who it is. We could see Vanderaa come in with a little extra motivation here, as he may be fighting for his job where he sits with a 1-2 UFC record, but we’d still be surprised to see him do enough to put up a big score. The odd simply he has a 42% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Bobby Green
18th UFC Fight (9-7-1)After fighting to 10 straight decisions, Green landed his first finish since 2013 when he recently finished washed up fighter-turned-realtor Al Iaquinta. Al was fighting for the first time in over two years and has now lost his last three fights. Green dropped Iaquinta midway through the first round with a straight right hand and then forced a stoppage with ground and pound. Iaquinta seemed to lean into the punch with his hands down like a guy looking for a way out of the fight. It was more of an incredibly unimpressive performance by Iaquinta than an impressive performance by Green.
Prior to the win, Green lost a pair of decisions against Rafael Fiziev and Thiago Moises. Despite losing on the scorecards, Green actually outlanded both fighters, as he led Fiziev in significant strikes 143-104 and Moises 85-42.
His fight against Fiziev was an absolute brawl, as the two stood and traded from close range for basically the entire match, but especially in the second half. Green landed 66 significant strikes in R3 alone, compared to Fiziev’s 43. Despite the crazy striking output, one judge still gave Fiziev that round, while the other two rightfully awarded it to Green. Amazingly, Green outlanded the high-level striker Fiziev in all three rounds. That decision loss to Fiziev marked Green’s 10th straight decision (4-5-1).
Looking back one fight further, despite outlanding Thiago Moises 85-42 in significant strikes, and matching him on takedowns with two, Green lost a unanimous 28-29 decision, seeming genuinely shocked by the outcome.
Green is now 28-12-1 as a pro with 10 KOs and eight submission victories to go along with 10 decision wins. He’s been knocked out twice and submitted two more times in his career, while losing eight decisions. However, he’s only been finished once since 2010, which was when Dustin Poirier knocked him out in the first round of their 2016 fight. On the flipside, the last time Bobby finished anybody was in 2013 when he got a round one TKO stoppage against James Krause from a body kick. In his last 15 fights, he’s been to 13 decisions, while landing one first round finish and getting finished once in the first round. Green’s hands-by-his-side fighting style provides a unique look for opponents and makes it tough to see his punches coming.
Nasrat Haqparast
9th UFC Fight (5-3)Haqparast will be looking to bounce back from a grappling-heavy decision loss against Dan Hooker, who landed three of his seven takedown attempts with over seven minutes of control time. Hooker also led in significant strikes 73-27 and in total strikes 177-35, while stuffing Nasrat Haqparast’s only takedown attempt. The first round stayed entirely on the feet before Hooker looked to grapple in rounds two and three. Haqparast entered that fight with a solid 84% takedown defense and had only been taken down once in his previous six fights, so it was somewhat surprising to see Hooker come in with such a wrestling-heavy approach and execute it so successfully. That fight almost didn’t happen as both guys scrambled to get their visas in time to hop on last minute flights to arrive in Vegas just in time to weigh in.
Prior to that loss, Haqparast won a pair of high-volume decisions against a pair of debuting opponents as six of his eight UFC fights have gone the distance. The two expectations were a 2020 R1 KO loss to Drew Dober and a 2019 R2 KO win over a struggling Joaquim Silva, who’s been knocked out in his last two fights, losing three of his last four. All five of Haqparast’s UFC wins have actually come against new or struggling UFC opponents. His first two wins with the organization came against Marc Diakiese, who’s gone just 2-5 in his last seven UFC fights. Then Haqparast defeated Thibault Gouti, who went 1-5 in his last six UFC fights before getting released following the loss to Haqparast. While Haqparast is a solid striker, his one-dimensional fighting style has resulted in him coming up short when he’s faced tougher opponents, though he’s been able to take advantage of his easier matchups. He’s only landed one takedown in the UFC, which came in his debut, so he really doesn’t offer much when it comes to grappling.
All nine of Haqparast’s pre-UFC fights ended early (8-1 only losing his first pro fight). Nine of his 13 career wins have come by KO (6 in R1, 2 in R2 & 1 in R3), while his other four wins have ended in decisions. Other than getting knocked out by Dober, his only other early loss came via submission in his first pro fight all the way back in 2012. He’s also lost a pair of decisions in the UFC.
Haqparast has spent the majority of his pro career in the 155 lb division, but he did move up to 170 lb for a three fight period in 2014 and 2015. He notably went 3-0 at 170 lb before moving back down to 155 lb in 2016.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’10” but Haqparast will have a 1” reach advantage and is nine years younger than the 35-year-old Green.
We’re expecting to see an uptempo boxing match here and would be shocked if it ended early. Green seems to really feed off the crowd and we could see the live audience fuel his intensity as the fight goes on with his fan-friendly fighting style. While we’re expecting this to be a close fight that could go either way, we’re going with Green by decision here.
Our favorite bet here is “Green Wins by Decision” at +190.
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DFS Implications:
With just one early win in his last 15 fights, Green is a decision grinder who’s coming off his first early win since 2013. While he generally doesn’t offer much when it comes to a DFS ceiling, he has shown a decent floor with DraftKings scores of 98, 111, 77, 95, 56, and 84 in his six UFC decision victories, as he’s averaged 87 points in those fights. We expect this to play out as a high-volume boxing match, but Green is often looking to mix in some grappling as well. Don’t forget, we just saw Haqparast get dominated on the mat in his last fight. Green has the potential to still put up a decent score even without a finish, although a ceiling performance would likely still require this fight to end early. The odds imply he has a 57% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Haqparast is entirely reliant on striking and finishes to score well in DFS and his only takedown in his eight UFC fights came back in his 2017 debut. While he did score 100 DraftKings points in a 2018 decision win, his other three decision victories all failed to top 80 points. He’ll likely need to land a knockdown to really score well in a decision. After landing a knockdown in each of his first four UFC fights, he’s failed to land any in his last four matches. Also working against him, Green hasn’t been knocked down in any of his last nine fights, despite keeping his hands by his side most of the time. It’s unlikely we see Haqparast get a finish, as the only person to finish Green since 2010 was Dustin Poirier back in 2016. Overall, this looks like a tough spot for Haqparast to score well, but there’s always a chance he could still serve as a value play if we see the majority of underdogs on this card lose, which has happened several times in the past on PPV cards. The odds imply he has a 43% chance to win, an 18% chance to get a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Renato Moicano
12th UFC Fight (7-4)Moicano returned to his grappling roots after getting knocked out in the first round of his previous match by pulling off a smothering second round submission win over one-dimensional striker Jai Herbert. Moicano quickly took the fight to the mat in the first round and while Herbert was briefly able to return to his feet late in R1, showing glimpses of his striking advantage but spending the majority of the fight on the ground. By the second round Herbert lacked the energy and skills to get off the mat and Moicano easily wore him down as he worked his way towards the submission finish late in round two. The fight ended with Moicano ahead in significant strikes 26-7 and in total strikes 61-18, while he landed 5 of his 7 takedown attempts with over seven and a half minutes of control time in a fight that lasted just nine and a half minutes.
That was just Moicano’s second win in his last five fights, and he’s been knocked out in six minutes or less in all three of his losses during that stretch. His last six fights have all ended in the first two rounds, with a pair of first round submissions wins, another in round two, two first round KO losses, and another one in round two.
Moicano’s second most recent win came in a 2020 bout, ending in a 44 second R1 rear-naked choke win over one-dimensional striker Damir Hadzovic, who once tapped to a shrunken turtleneck. That was Moicano’s first fight after moving up to Lightweight, after he had previously fought his entire career down at Featherweight. The move seemed necessary after Moicano had been knocked out by Jose Aldo and The Korean Zombie in back-to-back 2019 fights.
Following that win, Moicano took on a dangerous Muay Thai striker in Rafael Fiziev. Moicano was far too willing to keep the fight on the feet and only shot for one half hearted takedown three minutes into the first round. Fiziev was able to easily stuff it to keep the fight standing. A minute later he dropped Moicano with a violent combination of punches to end the fight.
A BJJ black belt, Moicano is now 15-4-1 as a pro. He’s never won by KO, but has eight career submission victories, with the last seven coming in the first two rounds. His other seven career wins all went the distance. All four of his career losses have occurred in his last eight fights and all four came early, with three KOs and one submission. While Moicano is extremely dangerous on the mat, he’s dangerous to himself on the feet as he has a suspect chin and an overinflated ego. He’s also not the brightest guy so you never know if he’ll take the path of least resistance and look to get fights to the ground or try and prove how tough he is by keeping things standing.
Alexander Hernandez
9th UFC Fight (5-3)Alternating wins and losses over his last seven fights, Hernandez is coming off a first round KO win over short notice replacement Mike Breen, who was making his UFC debut on eight days’ notice. Apparently that was enough for Hernandez to think he earned a spot on the main card as he has been publicly bitching about how he has to fight on the prelims. Pretty entitled for a guy that hasn’t put two wins together since 2018, but we wouldn’t expect anything less from this guy.
Prior to the recent win, Hernandez lost a decision to Thiago Moises in a fight that surprisingly played out entirely on the feet. Moises narrowly outlanded Hernandez 53-50 in significant strikes in a pure kickboxing battle and appeared to do a better job defensively to avoid taking any real damage, while also landing the more impactful shots. Hernandez was absolutely shocked that he lost.
That was Hernandez’s first decision loss since joining the UFC and just the second of his career, with the first one coming in a split-decision against Jamall Emmers in Hernandez’s third pro fight. Hernandez’s other two UFC losses both ended in second round knockouts, at the hands of Drew Dober and Donald Cerrone.
Hernandez made a name for himself in the UFC in his 2018 debut with a flukey 42 second R1 KO against incredibly tough veteran Beneil Dariush, who hasn’t lost a fight since—including a submission win over Drew Dober who dominated Hernandez. Hernandez showed his true colors in the opening seconds of his introduction to the UFC, starting the fight with a scummy fake touch of gloves kick to the body cheapshot. Unsurprising, Hernandez says he idolizes T.J. Dillashaw.
Hernandez followed up his debut with a low-volume three round decision win against Olivier Aubin-Mercier, before getting knocked out by Donald Cerrone on a Dillashaw undercard. He must have been devastated, and to make matters worse Dillashaw got knocked out in 32 seconds and then popped for PEDs and suspended. Tough night to be an asshole overall.
Hernandez bounced back from the loss as he narrowly beat Francisco Trinaldo in a three-round staring contest, where both guys landed just 25 significant strikes and no takedowns. Following the win over Trinaldo, Hernandez took a beating from Drew Dober who ended their fight late in the second round after nearly landing twice as many significant strikes. Hernandez again bounced back from a loss, this time with a R1 KO over Chris Gruetzemacher, who was coming off a two and a half year layoff and looked rough.
Hernandez is now 13-4 as a pro, with six wins by KO, two by submission, and five by decision. He’s been knocked out twice, both times in the second round, and has lost a pair of decisions. Seven of his eight early wins ended in the first round, while having a 2017 R3 KO victory to his name.
Hernandez was a high school wrestler and is a BJJ brown belt. He’s never landed more than 50 significant strikes in a fight and has failed to land a takedown in six of his eight UFC matches. He did, however, land seven combined takedowns in his other two UFC fights and has the ability to wrestle when he wants to. More important for this next matchup will be his takedown defense, which remains more or less of an unknown as he’s only had to defend one takedown in his last five fights. However, in his first three UFC fights he was taken down three times on seven attempts. The only opponent to ever attempt more than one takedown on Hernandez was Olivier Aubin-Mercier, who went 2 for 6 on his attempts, but notably has just a 33% career takedown accuracy. By that measure, Hernandez’s takedown defense could be considered just average. Cerrone, who also has a 33% career takedown accuracy, was able to get Hernandez down on his only attempt, while Moises (35% career takedown accuracy) failed on his only attempt. Moicano has an exciting 60% career takedown accuracy, nearly twice as good as anyone Hernandez has had to deal with.
Fight Prediction:
Moicano will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters have a 72” reach.
Both of these mirror jerkers have ridiculously over inflated egos which makes it tougher to predict how this fight will play out, as Hernandez will likely tell you he’s the better grappler. Moicano will probably say he’s the better striker. In reality, Moicano needs to get this fight to the mat to win and Hernandez needs to keep it standing. While Hernandez has never been submitted, Moicano has made a regular habit of getting knocked out, which would seemingly give the advantage to Hernandez. However, we also haven’t seen Hernandez get tested on the mat much, so his defensive grappling remains more or less a mystery. We expect this fight to either end with Hernandez knocking Moicano out in the first round or Moicano submitting Hernandez in the first two rounds. Which one of those comes to fruition will largely depend on just how quickly Moicano looks to get this fight to the ground and we trust his decision making about as much as we trust his ability to count past 10. We’ll give the slight advantage to Hernandez just because we’ve yet to see him get submitted, while Moicano has been incredibly prone to getting knocked out.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Doesn’t Go the Distance” at -162.
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DFS Implications:
Moicano’s last six fights have all ended in two rounds or less (3-3) and his combination of high-level grappling and glass chin make for the perfect combination when we’re looking for fights to target in DFS. His last three wins have returned DraftKings scores of 126, 122, and 115, while his last three losses have resulted in his opponents scoring 109, 133, and 80. The one low score in that group came from a worst case scenario early round-two KO with no knockdown. Otherwise, we’ve seen nothing but huge performances from the winners in his last six fights. Moicano’s opponent in this fight, Alexander Hernandez, has never been submitted, but he’s also never been tested by anyone like Moicano. That makes this a tougher outcome to predict, but it’s safe to say you’ll want heavy exposure to both sides. The odds imply Moicano has a 61% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Hernandez has more or less been a bipolar R1 KO or bust play in DFS, with DraftKings scores of 108, 112, and 128 in his three R1 KOs, but just 41 and 93 points in his two decision victories. At his cheaper price tag there’s always a chance he could still return value without an early knockout, but we’re pretty much just playing him for his knockout abilities. Working in favor, Moicano has been knocked out in six minutes or less in his last three losses, which have all come in his past five fights. If Hernandez can keep this fight standing he should have a great opportunity to land a quick knockout and pull off the upset. We haven’t seen his defensive grappling tested much, but he is a BJJ brown belt with a background in wrestling. There are reasons for optimism when it comes to his chances of remaining upright. The odds imply he has a 39% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Jared Cannonier
12th UFC Fight (7-4)This matchup had been scheduled for January 22nd but was moved back to this card in case they needed a backup for the main event.
Cannonier is coming off a close five-round decision win over Kelvin Gastelum where Gastelum narrowly led in significant striking 89-81, while Cannonier squeaked out total strikes 91-89. Though the striking totals were extremely close, Cannonier had the more impactful moments in the fight as he dropped Gastelum in the third round and also defended all eight of Gastelum’s takedown attempts. That was the only time Cannonier fought in 2021 after also only competing once in 2020.
While Cannonier still landed 10 leg kicks on Gastelum (0.4/min), he threw far less than we usually see out of him. When asked about that after the fight he said that it was part of the game plan to avoid being taken down. It would make sense for him to take the same approach in his next fight. For comparison, in his previous three-round decision loss to Robert Whittaker, Cannonier landed 22 leg kicks (1.47/min). Looking back one fight further, he landed five on Jack Hermansson in a fight that lasted just 5:27 (0.92/min), and before that he landed 10 on Anderson Silva in a fight that lasted just 4:47 (2.09/min) and ended with a leg kick TKO. If you’ve watched Cannonier fight you probably don’t need the stats to tell you that he’s fond of attacking his opponents’ legs with powerful kicks, but they do help to contextualize the reduction we saw in his last match.
One of Cannonier’s other major strengths since moving down to Middleweight has been his takedown defense. He’s only been taken down once in his last four fights after David Branch was able to ground him three times in the opening minutes of what was Cannonier’s first fight down at Middleweight in 2018. While Cannonier’s overall career takedown defense is “just” 62%, he’s been incredibly tough to get down and keep down since making the move to Middleweight. He’s now successfully defended 22 of the 26 attempts from his opponents (85%) at Middleweight, and even more impressively, he’s defended 15 of 16 attempts (94%) in his last four fights. We should point out that the four opponents to try and take him down at Middleweight have an average career takedown accuracy of just 32%, although his next opponent, Derek Brunson, has a similar 34% career takedown accuracy.
Cannonier was close to locking up a title shot, but lost a three-round decision to Robert Whittaker in October 2020 in his second most recent fight. Cannonier had won his previous three fights leading up to that loss. Whittaker led in significant strikes 69-53 and in total strikes 75-58. Cannonier was able to defend both of Whittaker’s takedown attempts, but Whittaker dropped Cannonier with a head kick in the third round and nearly got the finish. Whittaker was forced to settle with a unanimous 29-28 decision win, despite Cannonier recovering from the head kick and attempting to mount a late comeback before the fight ended.
In one of the great transformative changes you’ll see in a professional athlete, Cannonier went from losing his UFC debut at Heavyweight to being a Middleweight contender in just five years’ time (2015-2020). Cannonier came into the UFC at 235 lb and got knocked out in the first round of his debut by southpaw fighter Shawn Jordan. Undeterred, Cannonier tried adding on 6 lb to be more competitive at Heavyweight and it appeared to work as he won his second UFC fight with a R1 KO of his own. Nevertheless, he decided that Light Heavyweight would be a better weight for him and cut down to 204 lb over the next several months. Eight months after his first win in the UFC at Heavyweight, Cannonier won a decision at Light Heavyweight against a tough Ion Cutelaba.
Cannonier was then thrown into the Light Heavyweight gauntlet with fights against Glover Teixeira, Jan Blachowicz, and Dominick Reyes in three of his next four fights. He survived to lose decisions against Teixeira and Blachowicz but was knocked out by the southpaw Reyes in the first round. In between his losses to Teixeira and Blachowicz, Cannonier did get a third round KO against a debuting Nick Roehrick, who took the fight on just 3 days notice and never fought with the organization again.
Following consecutive losses to Blachowicz and Reyes, Cannonier dropped another 20 lb to move down to Middleweight. At 34 years old and testing his third UFC weight class, the late bloomer appeared to have finally found his home.
Cannonier seemed to hang on to much of his Heavyweight power, while gaining some speed and quickness as he got leaner. Rattling off three straight KO wins, each in under six minutes, Cannonier shot up the Middleweight rankings and soon found himself one win away from a potential title shot before suffering the loss to Whittaker.
Now 14-5 as a pro, Cannonier has nine wins by KO, two by submission, and three victories by decision. He’s been knocked out twice, once at Heavyweight in his UFC debut and then at Light Heavyweight by Dominick Reyes, but he has never been submitted. He also has three decision losses on his record, all against top level opponents in Teixeira, Blachowicz, and Whittaker. Four of his last five wins have come by KO, with two of those ending in the opening 30 seconds of round two, one in the final 15 seconds of round one, and the other in round three.
Cannonier has only landed one takedown in his 11 UFC fights, and he relies entirely on his striking and his knockout power to win fights. He only averages 3.60 SSL/min and has never landed more than 84 significant strikes in a UFC fight.
Derek Brunson
20th UFC Fight (14-5)After recently submitting a struggling Darren Till in the third round, Brunson enters this matchup on an impressive five fight winning streak since getting knocked out by Adesanya in 2018. With that loss, Till has now gone just 1-4 in his last five fights with the lone win coming in a split-decision over Kelvin Gastelum, who’s now just 1-5 in his last six. Till has now been finished in three of his last four losses. Till entered the fight against Brunson with a solid 82% takedown defense, but after an initial feeling out process, Brunson was able to land 3 of his 6 takedown attempts and control Till on the ground for almost the entire fight. Brunson landed his first takedown just over a minute into the first round and landed several heavy punches and elbows from top position. Till was finally able to return to his feet with a minute left in the round as Brunson opted for damage over control. Brunson immediately looked to get the fight back to the ground in round two, and while Till was able to defend the initial two attempts, Brunson relentlessly pursued the takedown and finally landed it two minutes into the round, controllin Till for the remainder of the round. Till did a better job of staying upright and landing strikes early in round three and appeared to have Brunson hurt at one point, but Brunson responded by immediately landing another takedown. As he began to land ground and pound, Till gave up his back looking like he was ready to concede and Bruson quickly wrapped up a rear-naked choke, forcing a tap.
Since switching camps to Sanford MMA in 2019, Brunson is 5-0 and has demonstrated a much more patient fighting style. Not coincidentally, all five of those fights have made it to the third round, after 9 of his previous 10 ended in round one. Three of his last five fights have ended in decisions, along with a pair of third round finishes, with one by ground and pound and then the recent rear-naked choke. In his 10 fights prior to joining Sanford, Brunson landed a total of just two takedowns. However, in his five fights since making the move he’s landed 19 takedowns. We’re essentially looking at two completely different fighters as he’s evolved his game dramatically. Just prior to defeating Till, Bruson was able to dominate Kevin Holland and Edmen Shahbazyan on the mat, but in fairness neither one of them offers much of anything when it comes to defensive wrestling. Till was a much tougher test and Brunson still passed with flying colors, but Cannonier looks like Brunson’s toughest test to date when it comes to defending takedowns.
Now 23-7 as a pro, Brunson has 12 wins by KO, four by submission, and seven by decision. Three of his four submission wins occurred in 2013 or before, and 16 of his last 17 fights have ended in either knockouts (7-4) or decisions (4-1), with the one exception being his recent submission win over Till. He’s been knocked out in five of his seven losses, with the other two ending in decisions. Four of the times he’s been knocked out came in the first round while the other was in round three. We’ve also seen him hurt on the feet at various other points as his striking defense is his biggest liability.
Coincidentally, all 30 of Brunson’s pro fights have either ended in round one (18), round three (3), or in a decision (9). He’s never been a part of a fight that ended in the second round and the only time he’s been past the third round was when he won a five-round decision over Kevin Holland in his second most recent fight.
A three time D2 All-American wrestler in college, Brunson is also a BJJ black belt. While he constantly looks to take fights to the mat, he’s looking for more heavy ground and pound than submissions once he gets there. But as we saw in his last fight, if you do give him your back he will quickly look to lock up rear-naked chokes. He averages a solid 3.2 takedowns per 15 minutes, despite owning just a 34% takedown accuracy. On the flipside, Brunson has only been taken down once himself in the UFC.
Brunson has looked very vulnerable to head kicks. Whittaker caught him with a clean one to the side of the head just before finishing him with strikes back in 2016, as did Jacare Souza in 2018. Adesanya went for the trifecta, catching Brunson with a knee, a head kick, and a then punch, knocking Brunson down three times in about 30 seconds of action. Even Ian Heinisch landed an early head kick in their match as Brunson looked to be in trouble, but was able to recover. Brunson is now 38 years old, and said in his media day interview that this will be his second to last fight before retiring. His hopes are to win this fight, get one title shot, and then ride off into the sunset.
Fight Prediction:
Brunson will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 77” reach. Cannonier is 37 years old, while Brunson is 38.
This fight simply comes down to how well Cannonier’s takedown defense holds up. This is no secret and it will be interesting to see how both guys prepare for Brunson’s open-book game plan. It would make sense for Cannonier to throw less leg kicks and uppercuts to help in staying upright, but no one has been able to stay entirely upright against Brunson in his last five fights since he switched over to Sanford MMA. Cannonier has also been good about quickly returning to his feet when he has been taken down, while Brunson has been great at holding opponents on the mat. In all honesty, this should be Cannonier’s toughest test to date to remain on his feet while this is Brunson’s toughest opponent to land takedowns on. Their two skill sets meet somewhere in the middle, where we see chips in Cannonier’s takedown defense, but also see Brunson struggle more than usual to land takedowns. It’s also entirely possible that Cannonier can clip Brunson coming in and land an early knockout. Cannonier is generally a patient striker, which helps to explain why 8 of his last 10 fights have made it out of the first round, with six of those seeing round three and five going the distance. He’s only landed one first round finish since early 2016, which was when he finished Anderson SIlva late in the first round with a leg strike that resulted in a knee injury. With Brunson’s last five fights also making it to round three, with three of those going the distance, we probably shouldn’t get this one to end in the first two rounds unless Brunson does end up getting clipped as he shoots in. This is an ultra high stakes career defining fight for both of these guys as the winner should get the next title shot, while the loser will likely never fight for the title considering how old they both are. With so much on the line, it’s possible we see them coming in a little more tight and conservative, but you never really know how different people will react to those situations. We expect this fight to end with either a third round KO win for Cannonier or a decision victory for Brunson, but if Cannonier can keep things standing the whole time then we don’t see any path to victory for Brunson and Cannonier could win a decision. Depending on where the fight ends up taking place, either one of these two have the potential to look like a -300 favorite, but it all just depends on how Cannonier’s takedown defense holds up. The bigger cage in Houston should theoretically give Cannonier more space to evade Brunson’s takedown attempts, but it also means if Brunson does get him down in the middle of the cage, it could be harder to get to the fence and use it to stand back up. We’ll give the slight edge to Cannonier based on his solid takedown defense and Brunson’s dubious chin, but this one is too close to confidently call in either direction.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Starts R3” at -108.
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DFS Implications:
Cannonier is a patient low volume striker (3.60 SSL/min) who’s landed just one takedown in 11 UFC fights, leaving him reliant on landing a first round knockout to really score well in DFS. He’s never topped 93 DraftKings points in fights that have made it out of round one, with his two second round KO wins scoring 92 and 93 points and his lone third round KO win scoring just 85. His lone three-round decision win in the UFC was good for just 64 points and even his recent five-round decision victory scored just 74. The only way we see him returning value beyond the first round would be by landing multiple knockdowns in combination with a later round finish. While Brunson was knocked down an astounding three times in a single round by Middleweight champion Adesanya, he’s only been knocked down a total of two times in his other 18 UFC fights. The odds of Cannonier landing multiple knockdowns appear somewhat low. Further working against him, Cannonier has just one first round finish in his last 10 fights, which was when he blew out Anderson Silva’s knee with a leg kick in 2019. Cannonier will be over-owned relative to his chances of landing a first round finish, so we don’t have a ton of interest in playing him much in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 60% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
On an impressive five-fight winning streak, with three straight big scoring performances, Brunson will be a very popular underdog on this slate despite this setting up as his toughest matchup he’s seen when it comes to landing takedowns. He dominated his last three opponents on that mat, which resulted in DraftKings scores of 102, 144, and 110, with the largest of those scores coming in a smothering five-round decision over Kevin Holland and the other two ending in third round finishes. The last two, three-round decisions Brunson has won scored just 81 and 80 DraftKings, but he does have the grappling upside to score more even without a finish. With that said, Cannonier has only been taken down 4 times on 26 attempts (15%) in his last five fights since dropping down to Middleweight and just once on 16 attempts (6%) in his last four fights. Cannonier’s overall 62% career takedown defense is somewhat misleading and could cause projection based models to overvalue Brunson’s chances to find grappling success. That should just further contribute to Bruson being highly owned, and provides a potential edge that will go overlooked by much of the field. It’s also possible that Brunson can overcome Cannonier’s defense and still get this fight to the mat, but it won’t be easy: Cannonier has been incredibly tough to both get down and keep down. Keep in mind that he used to fight all the way up at Heavyweight and he’s incredibly strong for a Middleweight. Brunson’s cheap price tag makes it easier for him to return value even without a huge score, but there are more ways this fight fails to produce a big score for the winner than most people probably realize. It makes sense to have some exposure to Brunson based on how dominant he’s been on the mat lately, but this is a terrible matchup for him and being under the field in tournaments is the right play. The odds imply he has a 40% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Derrick Lewis
24th UFC Fight (17-6)Fresh off a round one knockout victory over a surging Chris Daukaus, Lewis has now won 5 of his last 6 fights with his only loss since 2019 coming against Ciryl Gane. In his recent win over Daukaus, we saw a typical feeling out process that occurs whenever Lewis fights, but Lewis looked intent on pushing forward more and forcing the action more than we’ve seen out of him in the past. Lewis really let his hands go in the final two minutes as he unloaded a violent combination of punches along the fence to finish the fight. With that win, Lewis set the record for the most Heavyweight knockouts of all time.
While that was Lewis’ fourth straight fight to end in a knockout, it was his first fight to be finished in the first round going back 15 matches since 2016. Over that 15 fight stretch, Lewis has gone 11-4 with one win by R1 KO, three by R2 KO, two by R3 KO, one by R4 KO, and four victories by decision. All four of his losses came early, with a R2 KO, a R2 submission, a R3 KO, and a R4 KO. In his 34 pro fights, the only time Lewis has been knocked out in the first round was all the way back in 2014, in what was just his 3rd UFC fight. Looking at his entire career, Lewis holds an impressive 26-8 pro record, with just six of those 34 fights going the distance. He has 21 wins by KO, one by submission, and four by decision. He has five KO/TKO losses, one by submission, and two defeats by decision.
In his second most recent fight, Lewis was finished in a R3 TKO against Ciryl Gane for the Interim Heavyweight belt. Gane proved to be too fast, too long, and just too technical for Lewis, who simply couldn’t keep up with the light footed Frenchman. Gane is an inch taller than Lewis with a 2” longer reach as he did a great job of maximizing his length by darting in and out of the pocket. He landed all 32 of his leg kick attempts, which allowed him to stay out of range while chopping at Lewis’ base. Gane clearly frustrated Lewis with his speed and technical advantages. Combining that with his defensively sound approach, Lewis had no answers as Gane outlanded him with an incredible 98-16 in significant strikes and 112-16 in total strikes before knocking him out late in the third round. Notably, that fight took place in Lewis’ hometown of Houston and inside the larger Octagon, the exact same location of this next fight.
Tai Tuivasa
11th UFC Fight (7-3)Blazing into this heat-check matchup, Tuivasa has knocked out four straight opponents in a combined 12 minutes and 21 seconds. His most recent win came against Augusto Sakai, who has now been knocked out in three straight fights. To Sakai’s credit, he was the first only one of Tuivasa’s recent four victims to make it past the first round, but that celebration didn’t last long as Tuivasa ruthlessly knocked him out 26 seconds into round two. Sakai spent most of the fight circling the outside of the Octagon, looking to engage in the clinch. While he found some success with knees out of the clinch, he was clearly outgunned when it came to the heavy artillery his Australian opponent shelled at him. That was Tuivasa’s first ever finish beyond the first round and just the second time he’s ever won a fight that lasted longer than five minutes.
Prior to that win, Tuivasa knocked out Greg Hardy in just 67 seconds. Tuivasa started that fight as he often does with several heavy leg strikes. Then, Hardy actually looked to have Tuivasa somewhat hurt but overplayed his hand and mistakenly rushed in, getting caught with a clean left hand. Tuivasa celebrated in true fashion with a cage top shoey as he continued being a fan favorite who thrives off of live crowds. The UFC is fully aware of this and 7 of Tuivasa’s last 9 fights have taken place on PPV cards, with him winning five of those.
Tuivasa started his current winning streak with knockouts against terrible short notice replacement and UFC newcomer Harry Hunsucker, as well as Stefan Struve who then promptly retired. Struve lost five of his final six UFC fights, with three of those ending in knockouts, while Hunsucker hasn’t been able to stay conscious long enough to toast a bagel, having been knocked out in the first round in three of his last four fights.
Overall, Tuivasa’s recent four knockouts came against a fighter who was on the verge of retirement (Struve), a short notice newcomer who’s been KO’d 3 times out of his last 4 fights (Hunsucker), an ex football player who’s been knocked out in his last two (Greg Hardy), and Sakai, who’s been knocked out in three straight.
Tuivasa started his pro career off with an impressive streak of six straight first round KOs before getting the call up to the UFC in 2017 and extending that streak to eight in his first two UFC fights. In his 2017 debut, Tuivasa knocked out Rashad Coulter, who came in 0-1 in the UFC and finished 1-3 before getting released in 2018. Coulter has now lost four of his last five fights—all by KO in the first two rounds. Tuivasa then landed another first round finish, this time against Cyril Asker, who went 2-3 in the UFC before getting released in 2018 (all three of his UFC losses were by R1 KO). Tuivasa then made it out of the first round for the first time in his career and won a close, low-volume decision against Andrei Arlovski, but then went on to get knocked out in round two by Junior dos Santos in a 2018 main event. He then lost a decision to the Bulgarian tank Blagoy Ivanov, before getting manhandled by Sergey Spivak on the ground and submitted in the second round of a 2019 fight. Overall, Tuivasa won his first three UFC fights, lost his next three, and then won his most recent four. Five of his seven UFC wins have come by R1 KO, while two of his three losses occurred in round two. He’s gone 1-1 in decisions and also has a recent early round two KO win.
Tuivasa has no ground game and it showed in his fight against Sergey Spivak. He was once asked what his favorite grappling move is and responded, “Get up.” To his credit, he is decent at getting up. He has no interest in going to the ground after knocking an opponent down and would much prefer to let them also get up as well.
Now 13-3 as a pro, Tuivasa has 11 wins by R1 KO, one by R2 KO ,and one by decision. He also has one decision loss to go along with a pair of second round losses, one by KO and the other by submission.
Fight Prediction:
Lewis will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage. Tuivasa is nine years younger than the 37-year-old Lewis.
This Heavyweight banger is set as a major step up in competition for Tuivasa and a step down for Lewis. Tuivasa has made the most out of a series of struggling opponents, while Lewis has mostly been squaring off against the top of the division. Lewis’ biggest vulnerability is gassing out later in fights, especially in matches scheduled to go five rounds, though Tuivasa really only excels early in matches. Tuivasa is extremely unlikely to take Lewis into deep waters and finish him late in this fight, but Lewis could easily force Tuivasa past the first round and either finish him in rounds two or three or win a low-volume decision. Also, don’t be surprised if Lewis shoots for a takedown or two in this fight. While he has just a 25% career takedown accuracy, he’s landed 4 of his 19 attempts in his last 15 fights and has attempted at least one takedown in five of his last six fights. Tuivasa is absolutely dreadful on the mat and is most dangerous early in fights, so it would make a lot of sense for Lewis to try and neutralize him off his back. We like Lewis to win this fight either in the later rounds or by decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Lewis R3 or Decision” at +430.
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DFS Implications:
Lewis generally struggles to score well in DFS due to his low striking volume (2.52 SSL/min) and propensity to finish fights in rounds two and three. He’s coming off of his only first round finish in his last 15 fights going back to 2016, which occurred just two months ago and is still fresh on people’s minds. Less fresh on everyone’s mind will be the fact that 4 of Lewis’ last 11 wins have gone the distance and he had only topped 100 DraftKings points in one of his previous 14 fights. Now priced at $8,800 and with recency bias likely driving up his ownership, this looks like a prime spot to fade Lewis and this fight overall. Even if Lewis does get another knockout, which he very well might, there’s a really good chance he gets outscored by the other high priced fighters and fails to end up in the optimal lineup. There’s no doubt he can’t score well in decisions, with DraftKings scores of 41, 51, 38, and 45 in his four UFC decision victories. In his third round finishes, he’s put up totals of 77, 86, and 66, which are nowhere close to where he would need to score to be useful. Even in his second round finishes he’s scored just 83, 109, 99, and 105, leaving him on the fringe of being useful when he gets a finish in round two. Overall, you need a finish out of Lewis in the first two rounds to even have a chance with him in DFS, and even then it’s a crapshoot as to whether or not he can ctrack the winning lineup. The odds imply he has a 64% chance to win, a 51% chance to land a finish, and a 32% chance it comes in the first round.
Coming off four straight KO wins, Tuivasa now faces the toughest test of his career. While all 12 of Tuivasa’s early wins have come in five and a half minutes or less, Lewis has only been finished within that time frame once in his 34 pro fight career. Always a fan favorite due to his post fight foot fetish rehydration ritual, Tuivasa will now be stepping into Lewis’ backyard and will have to play second fiddle to the hometown favorite. It will be interesting to see where Tuivasa’s DFS ownership ends up after all of his recent success. Now priced as the underdog, it’s hard to see him coming in low enough owned to make him worth playing in DFS based on this sort of matchup. Even at his cheaper price tag, he can’t return value without a finish. While anything is possible in a fight, especially at Heavyweight, this looks like one of the worst matchups Tuivasa could ask for in terms of scoring well in DFS and this looks like a solid spot to gain leverage on the field by fading this fight. The odds imply Tuivasa has a 36% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #1
Israel Adesanya
12th UFC Fight (10-1)This will be a rematch of a 2019 title fight that Adesanya won with a second round KO. He also dropped Whittaker right at the end of the first round with a counter right hand, but “The Reaper” was saved by the horn. Adesanya did a great job of countering as Whittaker lunged forward throughout the fight. Adesanya absorbed a strike from Whittaker before landing two clean punches of his own, sending Whittaker stumbling to the mat after a clean left hand to his chin. The fight was then almost immediately stopped just as Adesanya went in to ground and pound for a finish. Adesanya finished ahead in striking 40-32 with a pair of knockdowns and no takedowns were attempted in the fight.
Adesanya is now coming off of an easy decision win over a delusional Marvin Vettori, where Adesanya won every single round on all three judges’ scored cards. Yet to this day, “The Angry Orc” Vettori is still babbling on about how he thinks he won the fight. Vettori was able to get the fight to the ground early in round one as he caught a leg kick and drove through for a takedown. However, Adesanya was able to work to the fence and force his way back up without much trouble. After landing that early takedown, Vettori finished just 4 of 14 on his attempts with under seven minutes of control time in the 25 minute fight. Adesanya finished ahead 96-58 in significant strikes and 122-91 in total strikes. That includes a career best of 41 leg strikes landed as Vettori did nothing to ever deter him from attacking his lead leg outside of catching one in the first round. He was never able to do much with his takedowns and Adesanya did a good job of getting back up or reversing the position when he was taken down. The only time Vettori ever appeared to have a chance in the fight was when he momentarily took Adesanya’s back and looked for a rear-naked choke, but Adesanya quickly reversed the position, turning into Vettori, and began landing ground and pound. That was the most times Adesanya has been taken down in a fight. In his 11 UFC fights, Adesanya’s opponents have attempted a combined 71 takedowns, but have landed just 14 (20% success rate).
Prior to that recent title defense, Adesanya attempted to capture a second belt as he moved up to Light Heavyweight to take on a much larger Jan Blachowicz. The size difference proved to be too much to overcome as Blachowicz was able to control the second half of the fight on the ground after the first half played out as a close tactical striking battle on the feet. Blachowicz ground out a decision victory, although it was surprising that the score cards ended up as lopsided as they did. That was Adesanya’s first career loss after winning his first 20 pro MMA fights.
Now 21-1 as a pro, Adesanya has 15 wins by KO and six decision victories to go along with the one decision loss. This will be his seventh straight title fight and eighth five-round fight since joining the UFC in 2018. Four of those previous six title fights have gone the distance, while the other two have ended in round two knockouts.
Overall, three of Adesanya’s four knockouts in the UFC 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 seven fights have all gone the distance (6-1).
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 in 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, hoping that Adesanya would walk into one. Adesanya mostly attacked Romero’s legs from the outside, knowing that trading shots 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 so with another second round KO. Adesanya has yet to fight to three straight decisions in his career, but has seen six of his seven career decisions come in pairs. We’ll see if he can continue that trend in this next fight as his last two fights have both gone the distance.
Robert Whittaker
18th UFC Fight (14-3)Since getting knocked out by “The Last Stylebender” in October 2019 and losing the Middleweight belt, Whittaker has rattled off three straight decision wins over Darren Till, Jared Cannonier, and Kelvin Gastelum. His last five wins have now gone the distance, with four of those coming in five-round fights. In his recent decision over Gastelum, Whittaker set career highs in both striking and takedowns. After landing just six combined takedowns in his first 16 UFC fights, Whittaker landed four on seven attempts against Gastelum. After only topping 89 significant strikes once in his first 16 UFC fights (when he landed 128 against Yoel Romero) Whittaker landed 150 against Gastelum, who landed just 62 and went 1 for 5 on takedowns. Not to take anything away from Whittaker’s performance, but to keep things in perspective, Gastelum is now 1-5 in his last six fights. While we’re talking about records, Darren Till has also been struggling mightily, going just 1-4 in his last five fights. After the fight Whittaker talked about how he had been wrestling a lot more with his training partner Jacob Malkoun in preparation for that fight, who has exclusively competed on Whittaker undercards in his own two UFC fights.
Whittaker’s second most recent win came in a three round decision over Jared Cannonier, Whittaker’s only three round fight in his last six fights. Whittaker had Cannonier badly hurt in the first minute of the third round, but couldn’t put him away as Cannonier was able to recover. Whittaker went on to win a unanimous 29-28 decision.
Now 23-5 as a pro, Whittaker has nine wins by KO, five by submission, and nine by decision. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted once, and has two decision losses. Whittaker fought at 170 lb to start his career, where he went 3-2 in his first five UFC fights before moving up to 185 lb in 2014 where he’s stayed since. Since moving up to Middleweight, Whittaker has gone 11-1 with his only loss coming against Adesanya. Whittaker’s only other career KO loss came in a 2014 R1 KO against Stephen Thompson down at Welterweight. He’s also been submitted once, but that was over a decade ago in the first round of a 2011 match. He hasn’t lost a decision since suffering a 2013 split-decision defeat against Court McGee (also at Welterweight), and has gone 8-0 with the judges since then.
Fight Prediction:
Adesanya will have a 4” height advantage and 7” reach advantage.
Whittaker keeps his hands low, which makes it harder to see his jab coming and he also mixes in his right head kick well into combinations. Despite having 17 UFC fights under his belt, Whittaker is still just 31 years old and he’s now mixing in more wrestling into his game plans, making him an even tougher guy to prepare for. With that said, there appears to be a clear hierarchy in the Middleweight division—Adesanya > Whittaker > everyone else. All the talk has been about how much better Whittaker has looked recently, but let's not forget that Adesanya is also still improving, especially when it comes to his defensive grappling. Despite being a year older than Whittaker, Adesanya has only been in the UFC for four years, while Whittaker is in his 10th year with the organization. Despite Whittaker being a formidable opponent, we don’t believe he has much of a chance to win this fight and for us the only decision to be made is whether Adesanya knocks him out or wins a decision. Adesanya is just too good and we don’t see him slowing down at this stage in his career. Adesanya has never finished an opponent beyond the second round, while three of his last four knockouts have occurred in the second round, including the first time he fought Whittaker. We expect Whittaker to come into this fight a little more cautiously than the last time these two fought, which increases the chances it goes the distance. We agree with the odds here that Adesanya’s chances for a finish compared to winning a decision are about equal, but forced to choose we’ll say he knocks him out again in the second round.
Our favorite bet here is “Adesanya R2 KO” at +950.
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DFS Implications:
This will be Adesanya’s 8th five-round fight in the UFC and he’s won seven of those. In his previous six five-round wins, he put up DraftKings totals of 85, 102, 49, 106, 117, and 82, averaging 90 points in those fights. If we separate those between KOs and decisions, he averaged 83 DraftKings points in his four five-round decision wins and 104 points in his two knockout victories. The only time he topped 106 points in those six wins was in a 2019 decision against Kelvin Gastelum where he landed an incredible four knockdowns but failed to top 82 points in his three five-round decisions that didn’t include a knockdown. As you can see, he’s heavily reliant on landing knockdowns to score well, something he’s done sporadically throughout his career. He has 11 knockdowns in his 11 UFC fights, but nine of those came in three fights from 2018 to 2019 and he only has two in his other nine matches and just one in his last four fights. In fairness, he’s recently gone up against some really durable opponents who are tough to knock down in Yoel Romero, Paulo Costa, Jan Blachowicz, and Marvin Vettori. Maybe he can get back to his old ways against Whittaker, who Adesanya knocked down twice in less than two rounds the last time they fought on his way to scoring 106 DraftKings points in the second round knockout. Adesanya averages just 3.94 SSL/min and with no grappling to boost his DFS production he either needs a finish or a multiple knockdowns to return value. With that in mind, we should point out that all 15 of his career knockouts/finishes have come in the first two rounds.
Even if he does get a finish, there’s still a pretty good chance Adesanya will be outscored by some of the other high priced fighters, so it’s hard to feel very comfortable playing him. One thing to keep in mind is that the field has picked up on his recent struggles to score well and he’s only been 38% owned in each of his last two fights after being 51% owned against Costa in his third most recent match. While that’s not a completely fair comparison as the Costa slate only had 11 fights on it, it still appears the field is no longer just blindly clicking his name as the five-round favorite. With that said, the fact that he’s already knocked Whittaker out once should boost his ownership up some and we project him to be owned in the low 40’s for this match. That’s still higher than his chances of ending up in the optimal lineup, so being under the field on him in tournaments, and this fight overall for that matter, looks like the play. The fact that we’re extremely confident that he wins this fight, along with the fact that he also has a good chance to land a knockout means he has a decent floor and still a solid low-risk play. There’s always the potential he puts on another multi-knockdown performance and ends up in winning tournaments lineups, but that’s where your personal risk tolerance will come into play for where you decided to set your exposure. The odds imply he has a 72% chance to win, a 35% chance to get a finish, a 12% chance it comes in round one, and an 8% chance it comes in round two.
After failing to top 88 DraftKings points in his previous five fights, Whittaker is coming off of a career performance where he set personal bests in both striking and takedowns as he totaled 122 DraftKings points in the decision win over Gastelum. Normally that would have the field chasing, and it may still to some lesser extent, but the public generally hates betting on the guy who lost the first fight in rematches. Despite his cheap price tag and impressive recent performance, Whittaker still projects to be low-owned. That might normally get us excited, but not in this case. We don’t see any likely paths to victory for Whittaker and still think his chances of winning are lower than the odds suggest. Putting that aside, Whittaker does project to go lower owned than his implied chances of winning, which is typically what you’re looking for when selecting underdogs. That’s the argument for having some level of exposure, but we also have no problem taking our chances fading him. Adesanya is a really hard guy to hit, averaging just 2.59 SSA/min, and owns a solid 80% takedown defense, so even if Whittaker can somehow win, it’s possible he still gets outscored by some of the other underdogs on the slate with so many high-ceiling underdog options to choose from. The odds imply Whittaker has a 28% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter @dfs_mma with your winnings so we can see how you did!
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