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Fighter Notes:
Fight #12
Melissa Mullins
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Coming off a decision win in her UFC debut, Mullins remains undefeated in her brief pro career. She had to overcome some early adversity in that last fight, as she got dropped in the first round by Irina Alekseeva, but took over for the rest of the match. While she failed to land her only takedown attempt, she did a good job of winning the scrambles on the mat and finished with over eight minutes of control time. Just before joining the UFC, she landed a R1 ground and pound TKO against Dariya Zheleznyakova, who recently won a lackluster decision in her own UFC debut. Zheleznyakova was touching Mullins up on the feet before Mullins got it to the mat. And then for some reason the ref decided to stop the fight as the round ended in what definitely appeared to be a premature stoppage. Prior to that, Mullins won a pair of decisions, with the most recent of those coming in a very slow paced match at 145 lb against a judo specialist.
Now 6-0 as a pro, Mullins has three first round KO/TKO wins and three decision victories. The first two finishes of her career came in her first two pro fights against opponents who entered with records of just 1-1 and 0-0 and the other was a bad stoppage. Mullins had one fight at 145 lb, but the rest of her career has been at 135 lb. Mullins notably lost all four of the decisions she went to as an amateur.
Overall, Mullins is a bully of a fighter who uses her physicality to overpower opponents on the mat. However, her striking defense is pretty terrible and she’s been very prone to getting caught on the feet. She has the ability to land heavy ground and pound on the mat and is also a BJJ black belt, but she’s also been overly patient at times and doesn’t do a great job racking up volume. Despite already being 32 years old, Mullins only turned pro in June 2021 and doesn’t have much experience as she got a late start in MMA. Hailing from England, she says her background is in breakdancing, so she doesn’t have a traditional martial arts background and still seems pretty green when it comes to combat sports. She had a fight get canceled on the regional scene when she missed weight, so she’ll be someone to keep an eye on during weigh-ins.
UPDATE: Mullins missed weight by 2 lb!
Nora Cornolle
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Cornolle also recently won a decision in her UFC debut, despite getting taken down five times and controlled for nearly nine minutes by a striker in Joselyne Edwards, who even looked close to locking up a rear-naked choke in the third round. Cornolle did finish ahead in significant strikes 40-18 and in total strikes 85-75, in addition to notching three reversals, but failed to attempt any takedowns of her own and only had two minutes of control time. It seemed like the decision had more to do with the fact that she was fighting in front of her home French crowd than anything she did in the fight and the fact that two judges scored it 30-27 in her favor is utter insanity. In the second round, both ladies landed four significant strikes, while Edwards led in total strikes 31-15, in takedowns 3-0, and in control time 2:47-0:46. Two of the judges still scored that round for Cornolle. Prior to that, Cornolle had finished six straight opponents on the regional scene, after losing a decision in her July 2021 pro debut. Her last four finishes all ended by TKO. but she had been facing a ton of suspect competition. Her last early win resulted from her opponent suffering a freak knee injury before much could happen in the match. Prior to that, Cornolle took on an opponent making her pro debut and easily finished her in round one with ground and pound after flattening her out on the mat following a 50/50 position. Leading up to that win, she landed a pair of second round TKOs via ground and pound.
Still just 7-1 as a pro, Cornolle has five wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and one decision victory. Her only loss was a decision in her 2021 pro debut. Just keep in mind, she was facing a really low level of competition before joining the UFC. Cornolle turned pro at 145 lb, before dropping down to 135 lb in her second pro fight. She’s also had a couple of 139 and 142 lb Catchweight matches.
Overall, Cornolle is a solid striker with a Muay Thai background, who will also look to take opponents down and finish them on the mat with ground and pound. She’s very big and physical and does a good job of landing elbows and knees out of the clinch. Despite already being 34 years old, she’s still very early in her MMA career after only turning pro in July 2021, so we should expect to see some continued growing pains from her as she begins facing more legitimate competition. That was evident in her recent debut where she showed absolutely terrible defensive wrestling, getting taken down five times on eight attempts by a striker in Joselyne Edwards who has a history of getting dominated on the mat herself.
UPDATE: Cornolle missed weight by 2.5 lb!
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’7”, but Mullins will have a 1” reach advantage and is two years younger than Cornolle.
Cornolle looks to have the striking advantage in this matchup, but Mullins looks far superior on the mat and we expect her to take Cornolle down and beat her up on the ground. Cornolle looked like she had absolutely no clue what she was doing in the wrestling exchanges in her debut and Mullins has shown good top control and decent ground and pound. Cornolle also looks clueless when it comes to defending submissions, and even if Mullins has never submitted anybody before, she is a BJJ black belt and will have a shot at locking up her first career submission here. Mullins’ striking defense has been pretty awful, so if Cornolle can somehow keep the fight standing, she’ll be very live to pull off the upset, but it’s hard to imagine Mullins won’t just take her down and negate that striking threat. We like Mullins to win this fight on the mat and she’ll have a good shot at landing a finish, with both a submission or a ground and pound finish being in play.
Our favorite bet here is “Mullins/Cornolle FDGTD” at +165.
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DFS Implications:
Mullins only scored 73 DraftKings points in a decision win in her recent UFC debut, despite finishing with over eight minutes of control time. That’s both concerning and encouraging, but at least shows that she has the physicality to control opponents on the mat at the UFC level. However, she definitely needs to get busier and look for more damage on the ground, and she’s shown at times that she’s willing to do that. That win came against a grappler, so Mullins had to be a little more cautious of positions to make sure she didn’t leave herself open to getting submitted, but now she’ll face a pure striker in a far more favorable matchup. We just saw Cornolle get taken down five times by a striker in Joselyne Edwards, who had landed a total of two takedowns in her previous six UFC fights combined, and Cornolle looked clueless in the grappling exchanges. That’s extremely encouraging for Mullins’ chances of dominating this fight on the mat, and we expect her to open up on the ground far more than she did in her debut. After that poor scoring win and now priced as the second most expensive fighter on DraftKings, not many people will be looking to jam Mullins into their lineups, despite this being an amazing matchup for her. That makes her a great low-owned play with tournament winning potential. Just keep in mind, her striking defense has been terrible and there’s also the potential for her to throw a frustratingly low amount of ground strikes, so there are still plenty of ways for her to fail. The odds imply Mullins has a 74% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Cornolle was fortunate to walk away with a decision win in her recent UFC debut, as she was taken down five times and controlled for almost nine minutes, and also nearly submitted in the third round. While Cornolle showed the ability to land finishes on the mat against low-level opponents on the regional scene, she looks like a complete liability on the mat and doesn't even have a clue when it comes to defending takedowns. That will make it really hard for her to win many fights at the UFC level and we expect everyone with a working eye to be looking to take her down. She does have decent striking, but that requires her to keep fights on the feet to show it. She only turned pro in July 2021, so maybe her wrestling will improve, but she’s also already 34 years old and she got a late start in MMA. Working in her favor, Mullins has looked really hittable, but Cornolle’s finishes have come on the mat and she hasn’t been starching girls on the feet. If Cornolle tries to go to the mat with Mullins, she’ll likely just get reversed and end up in bottom position. That makes it hard to get excited about her here, but both of these two are very inexperienced, which does add some inherent volatility to the matchup. And even if Cornolle was facing a low level of competition before joining the UFC, she still landed six straight finishes and showed some finishing upside. The odds imply Cornolle has a 26% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Dylan Budka
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Budka is making his UFC debut on three and a half weeks’ notice following a lackluster decision win on DWCS, where he finished ahead in significant strikes just 22-11. Most of the fight was spent in the clinch or on the mat, with Budka landing 2 of his 7 takedown attempts with six and a half minutes of control time and his opponent failing to land any of his eight takedown attempts, but finishing with five and a half minutes of control time. A week and a half before taking that DWCS fight on short notice, Budka “fought” at Heavyweight in a mockery of a pro fight. He took on a 35-year-old 2-4 muscle bound opponent who was too swole to even swing his arms and just got immediately submitted after Budka took him down. Just before that, Budka lost a five-round split decision for the LFA Interim Middleweight belt, after defeating a series of low-level opponents. Four of Budka’s last five fights went the distance, with the one exception being his “fight” at Heavyweight.
Now 7-2 as a pro, Budka has one KO/TKO win, two submissions, and four decision victories. Two of his three finishes occurred in his first four pro matches, with the one other coming in his Heavyweight clown show. He was submitted in the third round of his 2022 pro debut, with his one other loss ending in a five-round 2023 split decision.
Overall, Budka comes from a wrestling background but was kicked out of college in 2019 and then was homeless for a little bit, before moving into the back of his gym in 2020. He only made his amateur MMA debut in 2021, turned pro a year later, and then got signed to the UFC in 2023. He’s still very green in all areas and appears kind of undersized at 185 lb. Dana even said when he signed him on DWCS that he wanted him to move down to 170 lb, but that has yet to happen. While Budka seems pretty strong and has good top pressure on the mat, he’s not a world class wrestler and his wrestling defense has been unimpressive, as have his submission abilities. He also doesn’t have great striking, nor does he throw much in the way of volume. He’s more or less reliant on taking opponents down and controlling them long enough to win decisions. He trains at an unknown gym in Ohio, the Demolition Fight Team, and he’s not surrounded by a bunch of other high-level fighters that he can learn from. He’s one of these guys that seems to have been brought on more for his story than his abilities and we expect to see some serious growing pains out of him.
Cesar Almeida
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Almeida was originally scheduled to face Josh Fremd here, but Fremd dropped out and Budka was announced as the replacement on March 12th.
Coming off a decision win on DWCS, Almeida had originally been scheduled to make his UFC debut against Christian Leroy Duncan in November, but ended up dropping out due to an infection. After Almeida’s first three pro MMA fights all ended in first round knockouts, we finally saw him get extended on DWCS. He showed decent defensive wrestling and the ability to land heavy ground and pound from top position, but he also looked pretty lost off his back when he did get taken down. His opponent landed 3 of his 10 takedown attempts, while Almeida never attempted a takedown, but did get one reversal on the mat and was able to find himself in top position following scrambles at other points in the fight. Almeida finished ahead 71-28 in significant strikes and was the one doing all the damage in the fight.
Now 4-0 as a pro, Almeida has three first round KO/TKO wins and one decision victory. Two of his knockouts came in 68 seconds or less, with one ending in a single punch.
Overall, Almeida is a credentialed kickboxer who only has four pro MMA fights and one of those was all the way back in 2016. He didn’t make his second MMA appearance until 2021, but he fought twice that year, before returning to kickboxing in 2022, before going on DWCS in 2023. Almeida was 47-8 in kickboxing, where he won a world championship, and also notably went the distance with Alex Pereira three times (1-2). Almeida is now 36 years old and trains in Las Vegas at Xtreme Couture so he has lots of good training partners around him, but he still has very limited MMA experience. He relies on his striking, where he’s looked very dangerous and dense, with heavy hands and quick striking. He’ll be a problem if he can stay off his back, which is ultimately the biggest question with him given his lack of cage time.
Fight Prediction:
Almeida will have a 1” height advantage, while Budka will have a 1” reach advantage and is 12 years younger than the 36 year-old Almeida.
This is a classic wrestler versus striker matchup, where Budka will need to avoid a striking battle at all costs if he wants to win. There’s no question that Almeida is the more dangerous fighter, it will just be a matter of whether or not Budka can lean on his wrestling to negate Almeida’s striking. We haven’t been at all impressed by what we’ve seen from Budka, while Almeida at least has a really dangerous stand up game. In fairness to Budka, he is much younger and only turned pro a couple of years ago, so he should be improving, but even in wrestling exchanges he’s often been underwhelming. He does look decently powerful and has the ability to hold top position, but he’s not doing much damage and doesn’t have amazing submissions, and judges aren’t rewarding pure top control the way they used to. Almeida should be able to put on a clinic when this fight is out in space, but Budka will likely be looking to engage in the clinch as much as possible. It will be interesting to see how his cardio looks after stepping in on somewhat short notice, which could make it tougher for him to wrestle for 15 hard minutes. We’ve also seen Budka get taken down with relative ease and if Almeida gets on top he can land really heavy ground and pound. While conventional wisdom often says to take the wrestler over the striker, we expect Almeida to be doing far more damage. He’s far more live to land a finish and could win a decision even if he gets controlled for periods of time. We’re not convinced that either one of these two are fully prepared for what they’ll face in the UFC, but Almeida is at least really good in one area, which is more than we can really say about Budka. While it’s possible that Budka can just outcontrol his way to a decision win, we like Almeida to pull off the upset here. A knockout or a decision are both in play, but given how much Budka will be looking to slow things down with his wrestling, we lean slightly towards Almeida winning a close 29-28 decision on the merits of damage.
Our favorite bet here is “Cesar Almeida ML” at +145.
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DFS Implications:
Budka relies heavily on his wrestling and control time to win fights, which makes him a much better play on DraftKings than FanDuel. His last four 185 lb matches all went the distance, and it’s best to ignore his novelty win at Heavyweight, as that wasn’t a legitimate fight. He only turned pro in 2022 and is still super green and trying to learn on the job, meaning he has a ton of holes in his game. He doesn't land much volume and isn’t any sort of submission wizard, but has looked pretty strong during wrestling exchanges. However, he’s also been prone to getting taken down, at least before he went on DWCS. While on paper this looks like a good stylistic matchup for Budka as he takes on a kickboxer, we’re not convinced that he’s a good enough wrestler to make this look easy. The ref will only allow Budka to hold Almeida up against the cage but for so long and anytime this fight returns to space Budka will be at a massive disadvantage. Budka only would have scored 69 DraftKings points and 50 points on FanDuel in his decision win on DWCS and his finishing ability has been unimpressive. So he’ll really need to rack up takedowns to score well, as he doesn’t land a ton of ground a pound. The odds imply Budka has a 57% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Almeida is a dangerous striker who’s still relatively new to MMA, but has over 50 kickboxing matches. He went the distance three times with Alex Pereira, and while he lost two of those, that does speak to his durability. He also showed decent defensive wrestling on DWCS and the ability to reverse positions on the mat. So he’s not entirely helpless in the grappling exchanges, but he doesn’t offer much of his back. That leaves him as a more volatile DFS play, as he has the ability to land a quick knockout or get controlled on the ground. He only would have scored 79 DraftKings points and 63 points on FanDuel in his recent decision win on DWCS and now he’ll be facing a wrestler who will be looking to control him throughout the fight. That will make it really tough for Almeida to score well in a decision and he looks like a KO or bust play even at his cheaper price tag. While Budka has never been knocked out, he also hasn’t faced much in the way of competition. Almeida will have a shot at finishing him, but will have limited opportunities, as we expect Budka to be looking to grapple throughout the mat. That means there’s a good chance this ends in a lower scoring decision for whoever wins. The odds imply Almeida has a 43% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Jean Matsumoto
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Matsumoto will be making his UFC debut following an impressive decision win on DWCS, where he landed 100 significant strikes, despite getting taken down twice and controlled for three minutes. He also absorbed 99 significant strikes, but the numbers don’t come close to telling the full story and he dominated the fight in terms of who was landing the more impactful strikes. Matsumoto never attempted any takedowns of his own in the fight. Prior to that, locked up a second round guillotine in the LFA against a previously undefeated 7-0 opponent who looked really solid. That came just after he won a decision over a 9-1 opponent and he’s been facing a lot of really solid opposition. We see so many fighters come into the UFC with padded records, but only once in his career did Matsumoto face an opponent with a losing record and that was in his second pro fight when he took on a 2-3 fighter.
Now 14-0 as a pro, Matsumoto has three TKO wins, five submissions, and six decision victories. All three of his TKOs occurred in his first four pro fights and his last 10 matches all ended by either submission (4) or decision (6). Six of his last eight fights went the distance, with the other two ending in second round guillotines. All five of his career submissions ended in some form of choke. Matsumoto has competed at both 125 lb and 135 lb, but his last six fights were all at 135 lb, and it appears that’s where he’ll stay moving forward.
Overall, Matsumoto is a 24-year-old undefeated Brazilian prospect who started training Muay Thai when he was six and jiu-jitsu when he was eight. He turned pro when he was just 18 years old and has won belts at both 125 lb and 135 lb, with three of those coming in five-round decisions, showing that he has solid cardio. The one knock on him has been his defensive wrestling, and he was taken down multiple times in two of his last three fights. However, it’s not completely terrible and it’s no surprise his opponents are looking to take him down based on his impressive high-volume striking game. He also likes to look for guillotines, which is generally less effective in the UFC than on the regional scene. He does a good job of stitching combos together and mixing in a lot of leg kicks with his punches, which allows him to easily rack up striking volume. He doesn’t load up on his strikes, which reduces the potential for him to land knockouts, but also makes it tough to see his strikes coming and he has good speed and better footwork than most fighters who come from Muay Thai backgrounds. He looks like a really solid prospect and kind of reminds us of Christian Rodriguez.
Dan Argueta
5th UFC Fight (1-1, 2 NC)Argueta recently lost a decision to Miles Johns, but the results were later overturned to a No Contest when Johns failed a drug test. Both fighters landed 2 of their 6 takedown attempts, with around four minutes of control time apiece, but Johns was doing more damage on the feet and finished ahead 43-33 in significant strikes. Argueta now has two straight No Contests on his record, as his previous fight ended in a premature stoppage by the ref just as Argueta looked to be locking up a first round submission against Ronnie Lawrence, who has since stepped away from fighting following that result. Prior to that, Argueta notched his first UFC win in a wrestling-heavy decision against a short notice UFC newcomer in Nick Aguirre, who went 0-2 in the UFC before being cut. Following the win over Aguirre, Argueta dropped back down to 135 lb for the first time in the UFC, after competing at 145 lb in each of his previous two fights. Leading up to that win, Argueta lost a wrestling-heavy decision in his own short notice UFC debut against Damon Jackson, who took Argueta down twice and controlled him for ten and half minutes. A month after that loss, Argueta had shoulder surgery to correct an injury that he said had been plaguing him for his last five fights. Argueta originally tried to crack the UFC roster through The Ultimate Fighter, but ultimately lost a decision to Ricky Turcios, who went on to win the show. Argueta then returned to the LFA and rattled off three straight victories with a pair of finishes followed by a five-round split decision to secure the vacant LFA Bantamweight belt just a month before he made his UFC debut.
Still 9-1 as a pro after his last two fights both ended in No Contests, Argueta has two wins by TKO, four submissions, and three decision victories. Five of his six early wins occurred in the first round, with the other ending in a third round TKO. However, all six of his finishes also occurred in his first seven pro fights and four of his last five fights went the distance, with the one exception being the No Contest in his second most recent fight that robbed him of a potential submission win. Argueta’s only official pro loss was the decision to Damon Jackson in Argueta’s short notice UFC debut, although he also had another decision loss on TUF in 2021. However, that counted as an exhibition match and doesn’t show up on his official pro record.
Argueta turned pro in 2019 at 145 lb and then fought three straight fights at 150 lb Catchweight followed by another one at 145 lb. He then dropped down to 135 lb when he went on TUF, where he stayed until his short notice UFC debut back up at 145 lb. He remained at 145 lb for his second UFC fight as well, before dropping back down to 135 lb in 2023, where he’s stayed since.
Overall, Argueta relies heavily on his college wrestling background and shoots for a high number of takedowns. In his four UFC fights, he landed 8 of his 16 takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 4 of their 10 attempts (60% defense). He has solid top pressure and ground and pound, but doesn’t offer a ton off his back other than looking for guillotines. He’s not an especially dangerous striker and while two-thirds of his wins have come early, it’s on the mat where he gets his finishes. He’s looked very hittable in the past and really needs to improve his striking defense if he wants his chin to hold up long term, but he has proven himself to be durable up to this point. His fights typically play out as back and forth wrestling matches with Argueta wearing on his opponents as they go on and simply outlasting the opposition. However, he’s also faced four straight wrestlers, while now he’ll be going up against a striker.
Fight Prediction:
Argueta will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 68” reach. Argueta is six years older than the 24-year-old Matsumoto.
This is another striker versus wrestler matchup where the striker has looked like the much more dangerous of the two. Argueta pushes a high wrestling pace, but is way too hittable on the feet. And on the flipside, Matsumoto is a really solid striker, but has been somewhat prone to being taken down. So both fighters are set up to capitalize on the weakness of the other, it will just come down to where the fight takes place. If Matsumoto can keep the fight standing, look for him to dominate the striking exchanges. But if Argueta can effectively close the distance and get his hands on Matsumoto, he’ll have a good shot at landing takedowns. While they’ll both look to lock up chokes, neither of them seem to possess one-punch knockout power, nor has either man ever been finished. And with Argueta looking to slow things down with his wrestling, there’s a high chance this goes the distance. The judges will be forced to weigh Argueta’s wrestling against Matsumoto’s striking, and it seems like those situations have continued to favor the striker lately. There’s certainly a path to victory for Argueta where he’s dominant enough on the mat to remove any doubt from the scorecards, but we’re once again going to side with the more impressive striker in Matsumoto to win by decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Jean Matsumoto SUB” at +700.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.
DFS Implications:
Matsumoto is an impressive, young, high-volume striker who will also mix in takedowns. While that’s all great for DFS, six of his last eight fights went the distance. And despite landing 100 significant strikes in his recent decision win on DWCS, he still only would have scored 73 DraftKings points and 80 points on FanDuel. Now he’ll be facing a wrestler who will be looking to take him down and control him, which will make it even tougher for Matsumoto to land enough volume to score well in a decision. He also likes to look for guillotines, which are generally the lowest scoring finishing method, as they don’t require a takedown or knockdown. So at Matsumoto’s expensive price tag, he appears reliant on a well-timed knockout to score well, and Argueta has never been finished. The odds imply Matsumoto has a 59% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Argueta has gone the distance in three of his four UFC fights, losing two of those decisions, although one of those losses was later overturned to a No Contest. His only official UFC win came in a wrestling-heavy decision win over a short notice replacement in Nick Aguirre, who was making his UFC debut on just a few days’ notice, tends to slow down after the first round anyways, and went 0-2 in the UFC before being cut. Argueta scored 101 DraftKings points in the win and was then robbed of a first round submission win in his next match, when the ref prematurely stopped the fight after Argueta locked up a guillotine choke. Had that held up as a submission, instead of being overturned to a No Contest, Argueta would have scored 107 DraftKings points and 118 points on FanDuel. So Argueta has shown solid upside through his wrestling, but has looked like a liability on the feet. All of his UFC fights have been against fellow wrestlers, so it will be interesting to see how he looks against a striker here. This sets up as a more volatile matchup, as Argueta has the potential to either look really good on the mat or really bad on the feet. That volatility is great for tournaments, as it keeps his odds/salary down, while still leaving him with a high ceiling if he can find wrestling success. Based on his style, he’s a better play on DraftKings and his decision win that scored 101 DraftKings points was only good for 82 points on FanDuel. The odds imply Argueta has a 41% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Victor Hugo
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Hugo had originally been scheduled to face Alatengheili here, but Alatengheili dropped out early in the week and Falcao was announced as the replacement on Wednesday.
Hugo originally was set to make his debut back in November against Daniel Marcos, but ended up missing weight by 2.5 lb and the fight was canceled. Just a month before that, Hugo secured a UFC contract with a second round kneebar submission win on DWCS. Just before that, he locked up a heel hook in just 23 seconds, following a second round TKO via leg injury, and Hugo is consistently looking to attack the legs of his opponents. Hugo has impressively won 13 straight fights going back to 2014 and his only loss in his last 19 matches resulted from a 2014 rib injury.
Now 24-4 as a pro, Hugo has seven wins by KO/TKO, 10 submissions, and seven decision victories. He also has two TKO losses, one by submission, and one decision defeat. All four of those losses occurred early in his career between 2012 and 2014. Hugo went up against a lot of dubious competition early in his career, but has faced more experienced opponents recently. He’s fought anywhere from 135 lb to 170 lb and his second most recent fight notably took place at 155 lb, after he competed at 170 lb just before that. He dropped down to 135 lb when he went on DWCS, although he had competed at the weight class before from 2015 to 2017.
Overall, Hugo is a good wrestler and a dangerous grappler who loves looking for leg locks. While he has power in his striking, he’s not a guy that will land a ton of volume and he’s typically using his striking to set up his wrestling. His father was a kickboxer and Hugo started training when he was five years old, competing in various combat sports. Hugo has more experience than your typical debuting fighter and is already 31 years old, so we’re interested to see if he can hit the ground running in the UFC. Considering he missed weight for his last fight and has competed as high as 170 lb in the past, he’s definitely a guy to keep an eye on during weigh-ins as he once again tries to make 135 lb.
Pedro Falcao
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Falcao was only announced as the replacement in this matchup on Wednesday, so he had essentially no time to prepare. He’s coming off a November 2023 second-round submission win, but that’s his only MMA fight since October 2021 when he landed a third round knockout on DWCS, but wasn’t awarded a contract in the slower paced fight. He took on a 39-year-old wrestler in that matchup and most of the fight played out in the clinch or on the mat. Falcao landed three of his five takedown attempts with seven minutes of control time, while his opponent got him down on one of his six attempts and had three and a half minutes of control time. Falcao finished ahead 42-8 in significant strikes before finding a late ground and pound finish. Prior to that, he had been competing with Shoot Brazil since 2015, but after not getting a contract on DWCS in late 2021 he took all of 2022 off. He then made his pro boxing debut in 2023, but the fight ended in a draw and Falcao returned to MMA in late 2023. Five of his last six fights ended early, with the one exception being a 2020 decision victory.
Now 16-3 as a pro, Falcao has six KO/TKO wins, five submissions, and five decision victories. While his last finish ended via submission, his previous five ended by knockout and his second most recent submission victory was all the way back in 2015. The only time Falcao has ever been finished was in a 2018 R1 TKO due to an arm injury. His other two losses came in a pair of consecutive 2015 decision losses. Falcao has bounced between 135 lb and 145 lb throughout his career. His last few fights before going on DWCS were all at 145 lb, before he dropped down to 135 lb when he went on the show. His last fight was at a 140 lb Catchweight, but now he’ll be cutting back down to 135 lb.
Overall, Falcao is a BJJ black belt and a good grappler who has smothering control. He trains in Las Vegas at Xtreme Couture, which allowed him to step into this fight on such short notice. We’ve seen Falcoa look tired at multiple points late in fights, but he’s also shown the ability to fight through that and still find late success. However, that is still concerning, especially since he took this on short notice. With only one MMA fight in the last two and a half years, there are a lot of questions surrounding Falcao’s current form. And since his last two fights played out almost entirely on the mat, we haven’t gotten to see what improvements he’s made to his striking. By taking a pro boxing match, it seems like he’s at least been trying to improve in that area, which is a good sign. Given how little time he had to prepare for this fight, he’ll definitely be a guy to monitor closely on the scale.
Fight Prediction:
Hugo will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.
Both of these two are grapplers, so it will be interesting to see if that turns this into more of a striking battle or if they look to test each other where they’re each the strongest. There’s a lot of uncertainty on both sides, as Hugo battles with the scale and Falcao struggles with inactivity. Considering they’ve both spent a lot of time at 145 lb, it’s kind of surprising they didn’t move this from 135 lb to either 145 lb or at least a 140 lb Catchweight given the short notice nature of the matchup. Hugo has been the more impressive and dangerous fighter, but Falcao has looked pretty decent on the mat as well. Falcao seems decently equipped to defend the dangerous leg locks of Hugo, but you always have to be careful engaging in a grappling battle against a guy so good at leg locks. Any wrong move and the fight could be over, and if Falcao tires out late in the match, his reaction speed may end up being just a step behind. We’d be very surprised to see Falcao finish Hugo or outgrapple him for 15 straight minutes, which will make it hard for him to pull off the upset. Hugo has finished four straight opponents in the first two rounds and only one of his last seven wins made it past the 10 minute mark. Falcao may be able to hang early on, but we like Hugo’s chances of eventually catching him with something and finding a finish in round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Victor Hugo ML” at -130.
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DFS Implications:
Hugo was originally a -140 favorite against Alatengheili when DraftKings released salaries and amazingly that hasn’t changed much with his new matchup, so pricing is still accurate. He looks like an interesting fighter for DFS, especially on DraftKings. He’s constantly looking to grapple and is a dangerous finisher who will aggressively attack leg locks. While that can be a dangerous game to play and we’ve seen guys get pounded out while refusing to let go of an opponents’ leg, it also gives him a path to finishing any fight at a moment's notice. He also has the wrestling ability to grind out decisions, and the power to finish opponents on the feet. Now he’s facing a fellow grappler who stepped in on just a few days’ notice, so while it’s not an ideal stylistic matchup, the circumstances surrounding it are very favorable to Hugo. However, one concern with him is the weight cut down to 135 lb, as he’s fought as high as 170 lb in the past and just missed weight when he was originally scheduled to make his debut back in November, which resulted in that fight being canceled. Nevertheless, he’s in a favorable spot to succeed and comes into every fight with a ton of finishing upside. The odds imply Hugo has a 57% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Falcao’s grappling-heavy style makes him a better play on DraftKings than FanDuel, but four of his last five wins did come early. The biggest concern with him is that he stepped into this fight on Wednesday and had no time to prepare. However, his level of inactivity is also concerning, and he’s only had one MMA fight since he went on DWCS in October 2021. Furthermore, he’s facing a fellow grappler and this looks like a tough stylistic matchup for him to dominate the fight on the ground. We’ve seen Falcao tire late in fights in the past, and it’s hard to imagine the lack of prep time will help with that. That could leave him reliant on finding an early finish to pull off the upset and Hugo hasn’t lost a fight since 2014. However, both of these two are still unproven in the UFC, which carries a certain amount of uncertainty with it. The odds imply Falcao has a 43% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Norma Dumont
9th UFC Fight (6-2)Dumont is coming off a decision win over Chelsea Chandler, who has since moved down to 135 lb (or at least tried to). Dumont was able to take Chandler down three times and had her badly hurt early in the first round, which blessed us with the infamous Chandler sprinting away meme. Dumont went on to win every round of the fight in a low-volume decision where she controlled Chandler for almost nine minutes. Prior to that, Dumont won another low-volume decision over Karol Rosa and Dumont has gone the distance in seven straight fights (6-1), after getting knocked out in the first round of her UFC debut against Megan Anderson. Rosa was able to knock Dumont down in the third round, in an otherwise uneventful fight where Dumont finished ahead in significant strikes just 35-33 and in takedowns 1-0. Just before that, Dumont won a decision over a debuting one-dimensional boxer in Danyelle Wolf, who Dumont was easily able to take down in the back half of the fight once she actually attempted a takedown. Dumont continued to showcase her non-existent IQ in that fight as she waited until midway through the second round to attempt her first takedown and never pushed for a finish on the mat. Dumont’s only loss in her last seven fights came against the freakishly tall Macy Chiasson, who was able to take Dumont down six times and win a split decision.
Now 10-2 as a pro, Dumont has two career R1 submission wins and eight decision victories. She’s also been knocked out once and has one decision loss. Her two submission wins came in her first three pro fights against opponents who entered with records of 0-0 and 0-2 and Dumont has never finished an opponent who has won a single pro fight. Dumont has fought at both 135 lb and 145 lb in her career, but has shown no ability to successfully make 135 lb since joining the UFC. Following the loss to Anderson in her debut at 145 lb, Dumont attempted to drop down to 135 lb but never even came close to hitting the mark, weighing in at 139.5 for her one fight to actually happen at 135 lb and having another fight canceled because she missed weight so badly. Her last five fights have all been at 145 lb, but now she’ll be attempting to cut to 135 lb once again. Amazingly, she’s even missed weight trying to make 145 lb.
Overall, Dumont is a BJJ brown belt and a black belt in Sanda, which is a form of Chinese kickboxing, so she’s fairly well rounded. She’s never knocked anybody out and hasn’t looked like any sort of submission threat at the UFC level, but her biggest issue is her non-existent IQ and she’s just completely clueless about pretty much everything. She has all of the physical tools required to make a run in the division, but it almost seems like she consciously chooses not to use them. She only averages 3.41 SSL/min and 1.99 SSA/min and has been content with grinding out boring decisions and then calling for title shots. In her eight UFC fights, she landed 11 takedowns on 17 attempts (64.7% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 7 of their 25 attempts (72% defense). Obviously Dumont will be someone to monitor closely on the scale and the next time she makes 135 lb will be the first (in the UFC).
Germaine de Randamie
10th UFC Fight (7-2)When they lock the Octagon doors on Saturday, it will have been 1,281 days since De Randamie last competed in October 2020. In that last fight, De Randamie locked up the first submission win of her career in the third round against Julianna Pena. The fight was even going into round three, with De Randamie winning round one and Pena round two. Pena took De Randamie down three times on six attempts and finished with just under six minutes of control time, while De Randamie finished ahead in significant strikes 37-27. De Randamie’s second most recent fight was a December 2019 five-round decision loss to Amanda Nunes for the Bantamweight belt. That was a rematch of a 2013 fight that Nunes won via R1 TKO, and Nunes is the only fighter to defeat De Randamie in her last 10 fights. De Randamie has decision wins over former and current champs in Holly Holm and Raquel Pennington, and she actually won the vacant Featherweight belt against Holm in a 2017 five-round decision.
Now 10-4 as a pro, De Randamie has four wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and five decision victories. Three of her knockouts came in round one, with the other ending early in round two. She also has one TKO loss, one submission defeat, and two decision losses. Her lone submission loss came in the first round of her 2008 pro debut, while her TKO loss was in the first round against Amanda Nunes in 2013.
Overall, De Randamie is a Dutch kickboxer with a background in Muay Thai, where she went 46-0. She went pro in MMA all the way back in 2008, but only has 14 pro fights and now hasn’t competed in three and a half years after she had a baby. While De Randamie has no interest in taking fights to the ground, she did show some submission skills in her last fight. She only even attempted two takedowns in 12 UFC fights, failing to land either of them. On the other side of things, her opponents got her down on 22 of their 73 attempts (69.9% defense). That’s not bad for a one-dimensional striker who had been facing the top of the division. The only fighters to get her down in her last seven fights were Pena and Nunes. After so long away and now 39 years old, who knows how De Randamie will look on Saturday.
Fight Prediction:
De Randamie will have a 2” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while Dumont is six years younger than the 39-year-old De Randamie.
There’s a ton of uncertainty on both sides of this fight, as De Randamie is coming back from a three and a half year layoff after having a baby, and Dumont is attempting to successfully cut down to 135 lb for the first time in the UFC. Dumont’s previous attempts at making that weight have been an unmitigated disaster, and our confidence level in her is very low. We also have no clue how the 39-year-old De Randamie will look after so long away, making her hard to trust as well. Dumont is a skilled fighter, she’s just a stone idiot and doesn’t know how to best use her skills. Obviously she should grapple here against a one-dimensional striker, but are we confident that she will? No, not at all. Dumont’s so dumb she makes Brendan Allen look smart and she’s so cocky that she makes Alexander Hernandez look modest. It will not be at all shocking if the weight cut takes its toll on her chin and she idiotically stands and trades with De Randamie until she gets knocked out. However, there’s also a very good chance that she does use her wrestling and makes this look easy in another decision win. It’s just impossible to know what she’s thinking, because she’s not. We’ll take Dumont to win a decision, largely based on all of the red flags on De Randamie’s side of things, but we trust Dumont about as far as we can throw her.
Our favorite bet here is “Norma Dumont DEC” at +110.
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DFS Implications:
Dumont is one of the most frustrating fighters to play in DFS as she actively tries to sabotage her scoring production and refuses to take the path of least resistance in fights. Her rock chewing mentality to fighting and disconnect with reality make it impossible to trust her, and she’s fought to seven straight decisions, winning six of those. She averaged 82 DraftKings points in those six decision wins, but the only time she ever really scored well was in a 2020 decision victory over Ashlee Evans-Smith, in a 135 lb fight where Dumont showed up at 139.5 lb, and scored 103 DraftKings points. She’s been fairly inconsistent since then, returning scores of 90, 63, 92, 74, and 69. The two times she was able to score 90+ points were when she landed multiple takedowns and finished with large amounts of control time. She hasn’t landed more than 68 significant strikes in any of her last six fights. We have seen De Randamie get taken down, but only by Amanda Nunes and Julianna Pena in her last seven fights. Who knows how the 39-year-old De Randamie will look after three and a half years away, but we also don’t know how Dumont’s chin and cardio will hold up after cutting back down to 135 lb. So this seems like a more volatile spot, but we fully expect Dumont to find a way to ruin it. The odds imply Dumont has a 53% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
De Randamie is now 39 years old and hasn’t fought since October 2020. She had a baby in her time away and we thought she was done with fighting. Maybe Nunes retiring and Pennington winning the belt lit a fire under her, as she lost to Nunes twice, but has a win over Pennington. The only two times that De Randamie scored well in DFS were in her two first round knockouts (2016 & 2019). She has a second round TKO win that only scored 82 points and she only put up 65 points in a third round submission victory in her last fight. She only returned scores of 59, 63, and 53 in her three three-round UFC decision wins and only scored 76 points in a five-round decision victory. So she’s given us no indication that she can score well in longer fights and now she may have a good amount of ring rust to knock off. Even at her cheaper price tag, she looks like a KO or bust option, but Dumont is definitely dumb enough to stand in front of her and get knocked out. The line has been moving in De Randamie’s favor heavily, but we still don’t expect her to be especially popular in tournaments. That line move may drive her ownership up some in smaller contests though. The odds imply De Randamie has a 47% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Valter Walker
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Walker will be making his UFC debut following a R4 TKO win over former UFC fighter Alex Nicholson. Both guys nearly died of exhaustion in that match before the fight was abruptly stopped early in the fourth round for no apparent reason. Walker took Nicholson and suddenly the ref stepped in and stopped the fight, leaving the broadcast team and everyone watching confused. For context, Nicholson went just 1-3 in the UFC and was recently knocked out in the first round on the regional scene by multi-time UFC reject Chase Sherman. Prior to that win with Titan FC, which took place in Serbia, Walker had been beating up on undersized, low-level opponents in Moscow with the unheralded MMA Series promotion. While Walker’s last four fights all ended in KO/TKO wins, his four before that all ended in decision victories.
Now 11-0 as a pro, Walker has six KO/TKO wins, one submission, and four decision victories. His lone submission win came in the first round of his second pro fight back in 2020, while five of his six knockouts ended in under eight minutes. Just take his record with a huge grain of salt based on the very low level of competition he’s been facing.
Overall, Walker is a sea monster of a man, standing 6’6” and nearly pushing the Heavyweight limit on the scale. All of his weight appears to be in his upper body and it’s amazing his legs can even support him. He looks like a sack of potatoes propped up by a pair of chopsticks. His brother is Johnny Walker, which is probably the only reason he’s getting a shot in the UFC at this point, but the two brothers couldn’t be much more different. While Johnny is a jacked Light Heavyweight striker who trains in Ireland, Valter is a sloppy Heavyweight wrestler who trains in Russia. Valter has terrible cardio and trains in a fraudulent gym (GOR MMA), alongside a fraudulent teammate (Bogdan Guskov), and has been fighting out of a fraudulent promotion (MMA Series). In addition to his poor cardio, Walker has also shown a dubious IQ, sometimes refusing to use his wrestling. However, his game plan is generally to take opponents down and crush them with his weight, while landing occasional ground and pound. He relies on his sheer size to overwhelm the opposition and doesn’t have a whole lot else going for him. However, the UFC is setting him up for success in his debut against a terrible opponent.
Lukasz Brzeski
4th UFC Fight (0-3)Still in search of his first UFC win, Brzeski is 0-3 in the UFC and coming off a first round knockout loss to Waldo Cortes-Acosta, who went the distance in all of his other four UFC fights. Brzeski came out firing leg kicks, but Cortes-Acosta put him on skates with a big right hand midway through the round and then face planted him into the Octagon floor in a highlight reel finish. Prior to that, Brzeski lost a pair of decisions in his first two UFC appearances. He got completely dominated in the wrestling exchanges in the most recent of those losses by Karl Williams, who took him down eight times on 13 attempts with over 10 minutes of control time, while also knocking him down once. Brzeski had absolutely no answers in that matchup, but gave a better account of himself in his UFC debut where he got robbed in a split decision against Martin Buday. Brzeski finished ahead in significant strikes 118-66 and in total strikes 124-66, while no other meaningful stats were accrued in the fight. Despite finishing well ahead in striking in all three rounds, two of the three judges mysteriously scored the fight for Martin Buday in a real head scratcher. Prior to the questionable decision loss in his UFC debut, Brzeski was involved in further controversy, after his DWCS match was stopped in the third round as the ref thought his short notice opponent tapped when he actually did not. It probably didn’t matter, as Brzeski was well ahead in the fight, and likely would have finished the choke anyway. Following the win, Brzeski was suspended for nine months after failing a drug test. Just before going on DWCS, Brzeski landed a May 2020 R2 TKO, which is his only official finish since 2018.
Now 8-4-1 plus a No Contest as a pro, Brzeski has five wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and one decision victory—in addition to his third round submission win on DWCS that was later overturned to a No Contest due to Brzeski failing a drug test. He has two first round knockout losses and two decision defeats. While Brzeski has only been to four decisions in 14 pro fights, he saw the second round in 9 of his last 10 matches, with five of his last seven making it to round three and four of those going the distance.
Overall, Brzeski is from Poland and has trained with Jan Blachowicz, but is a smaller Heavyweight and doesn’t have much in terms of one punch knockout power at the weight class. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Brzeski landed two of his four takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 8 of their 14 attempts (42.9% defense). While Brzeski has yet to land a takedown in the UFC, he had previously looked to grapple more than your typical Heavyweight and likes to look for finishes on the mat. He throws decent calf kicks and a good amount of volume, but we’ve also seen him slow down later in fights and have issues with his durability. He doesn’t look to be in the best shape and has only been weighing in between 235 lb and 245 lb, so you have to wonder if he should really be competing at Light Heavyweight. After losing his first three UFC fights, this will be Brzeski’s final opportunity to save his job.
Fight Prediction:
Walker will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while being five years younger than the 31-year-old Brzeski.
This is a low-level Heavyweight matchup between two fighters who have done nothing to show they belong on the UFC roster. They’re both overweight with cardio concerns and things could get really, really sloppy if this makes it to the third round. We’ve seen Brzeski get dominated in wrestling exchanges, which is likely why the UFC put him in this matchup in the first place, as they attempt to find Walker winnable fights. However, if Walker isn’t able to quickly get the fight to the mat, look for Brzeski to attack his twig calves. It may not take much to compromise Walker’s fragile base and Brzeski landed 10 leg strikes in the opening three minutes of his last fight. That at least creates a path to victory for Brzeski, but we think the UFC knew what they were doing here. They’re using Brzeski’s last gasp in the organization to build up a name in a division devoid of depth. Walker will be 20 to 30 pounds bigger than Brzeski, which will make it tough for Brzeski to escape bottom position after being taken down and will quickly wear on his gas tank as he tries. Walker will have a decent shot at landing a ground and pound finish in the first two rounds, but if he can’t get him out of there in the first two rounds then both guys will be dying of exhaustion in round three and we’ll likely see Walker limp to a decision win. The low skill level and cardio concerns that these two share creates some inherent volatility in the matchup, but we’ll say Walker wins either by TKO in the first two rounds or decision, and we lean slightly towards the latter.
Our favorite bet here is “Valter Walker DEC” at +350.
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DFS Implications:
Walker is the latest undeserving UFC spouse/sibling to be brought on board, which rarely works out well. For every good Burns, you get Herbet Burned and for every Shevchenko you get a Shevstanko. JP Buys was so bad his wife divorced him and changed her name just to extend her UFC career and Tracy Cortez’s brother, Reyes, wasn’t even good enough to make it past DWCS on two attempts. Mo Usman? More like less Usman. Long story short, there’s almost always a bad spouse or sibling, and it’s not Johnny Walker in this family. Valter Walker comes into the UFC littered with red flags, as he has bad cardio, a terrible strength of schedule, poor training partners, and not a ton of overall skill. He’s just massive and has been able to rely on his sheer size to overwhelm undersized opponents on the regional scene. However, he does get a very favorable stylistic matchup here and the UFC totally set him up for success, as long as he doesn’t completely fumble the bag. Brzeski is an undersized 0-3 Heavyweight who typically weighs in 20-30 lb under the limit and also has just a 42% takedown defense, in addition to terrible cardio, a suspect chin, and not much in the way of knockout power. Walker won’t need to do a whole lot to win this fight, he just needs to take Brzeski down and lay on him for a bit until Brzeski gasses out trying to return to his feet. The only question is whether or not Walker will have the cardio to land a finish or if he’ll also gas out and just lay-and-pray his way to a decision win. As the most expensive fighter on the card, he’ll need to stay busy on the mat to score enough to be useful and simply laying on Brzeski for three rounds won’t cut it. There’s also the potential that he’s so bad/dumb that he doesn't immediately look to wrestle and gets leg kicked to death before he even knows what happened. So he’s far from a safe play and the line has been moving against him. However, if he can avoid gassing out, he’s got solid scoring potential through takedowns and ground and pound, but that’s a big if. Ultimately, he has a wide range of scoring outcomes, which makes it hard to trust his floor, but the ceiling is there. The odds imply Walker has a 68% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.
Brzeski is coming off a quick and violent knockout loss and is now fighting for his job at 0-3 in the UFC. He’s got bad cardio, bad wrestling, no power, and he’s undersized at Heavyweight. He hasn’t won a fight since he got busted for PEDS after DWCS and he currently looks like the before photo in a miracle diet infomercial. The UFC is just using him to build up other Heavyweight prospects and it’s impossible to have even an ounce of confidence in Brzeski at this point. With all that said, Walker also looks like a fraud and his legs look ripe to be kicked. Brzeski landed 10 leg kicks in the opening minutes of his last fight, so clearly has that weapon in his arsenal. Leg kicks are the great equalizer in fighting and that looks like Brzeski’s most likely path to pulling off the upset. Both guys also have terrible cardio, but if one can outlast the other, then they would be in a great position to take over. And as the cheapest fighter on the card, Brzeski doesn't need to put up a huge score to be useful. So in what could be a volatile Heavyweight matchup, it makes sense to have some exposure to Brzeski, as long as you realize he could spend the entire fight on his back and score almost no points if things go wrong, which they more likely than not will. The odds imply Brzeski has a 32% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Alex Morono
20th UFC Fight (12-6, NC)Morono will be looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Joaquin Buckley, who finished ahead in both the striking and the wrestling, winning every round of the fight. Morono was never able to get much going in the fight and finished behind in significant strikes 40-68 and in takedowns 1-2. Prior to that, he landed a second round submission against Tim Means, although Morono did lose the first round on all three scorecards in that fight. Just before that, Morono stepped into a 180 lb Catchweight fight on short notice against Santiago Ponzinibbio and was winning until he got knocked out in the third round. He won four straight fights leading up to that loss, with the last three of those wins all going the distance, after he landed a first round knockout against a washed up Donald Cerrone back in 2021, which is the last time Morono knocked anybody out. That’s Morono’s only knockout victory in his last 11 fights and only his second in 19 Octagon appearances. He also has two submission wins in the UFC, both by guillotine. Three of his four UFC finishes ended in round one, with the other coming early in round two. He’s gone 8-4 in 12 UFC decisions, and was also knocked out three times with the organization, although one of those was overturned to a No Contest when Nico Price tested positive for THC.
Now 23-9 as a pro, Morono has six wins by KO/TKO, seven submissions, nine decision wins, and one DQ victory (when his opponent bit him). Three of Morono’s six submission wins were R1 armbars very early in his career, while his last three all came via guillotine. Morono has never been submitted, but he’s officially been knocked out three times. In reality, he’s been knocked out four times, but one of those was overturned to a No Contest when Niko Price later tested positive for THC. Morono also has six decision losses. Morono is definitely more focused on looking for knockouts at this stage in his career and he’s constantly confirming that by saying, “Knockouts are gold, submissions are silver and decisions are bronze.” So while he’s a 2nd degree BJJ black belt, he’s also a black belt in Taekwondo and clearly prioritizes finishing fights on the feet. However, he only has two knockout wins since he joined the UFC in 2016, so he hasn’t been especially effective at achieving his goals. His fights generally either end very quickly or go the distance and 11 of his 13 career finishes occurred in the first round as did two of his three official KO losses.
Overall, Morono is a well rounded fighter but chooses to rely mostly on his striking to win fights. He’s only landed five takedowns on 22 attempts (22.7%) in his 19 UFC fights, with three of those takedowns coming against Rhys McKee. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 17 of their 34 attempts (50% defense). He likes to look for guillotines, which doesn’t help with his takedown defense, but his defensive wrestling has not been great. He’s put up decent striking totals at times, averaging 5.02 SSL/min and 4.17 SSA/min, but we’ve also seen him involved in much lower volume affairs and he failed to top 40 significant strikes landed in any of his last three fights. Morono has talked about how he’s looking for finishes when they present themselves, but won’t go crazy trying to get opponents out of there. That lines up with the tape, and we’ve seen him hurt opponents at multiple points and not pounce on the opportunity to finish those fights. That has resulted in him only finding two finishes in the last five years, however, to Morono’s credit he’s won six of the last eight decisions he’s been to.
Court McGee
22nd UFC Fight (10-11)Now 39 years old, McGee is coming off back-to-back first round knockout losses followed by the same spine surgery that Aljamain Sterling and Chris Weidman had. His most recent loss came against a fellow old in a 42-year-old Matt Brown, who had lost three of his previous four fights and came in as a sizeable underdog. Brown completely melted McGee with the first really clean shot he landed, with no follow shots needed. Prior to that, McGee suffered another first round knockout loss when he took on a dangerous Jeremiah Wells. While his last two fights both ended in first round KO losses, leading up to those defeats McGee had fought to nine straight decisions (4-5), since getting knocked out in the first round by Santiago Ponzinibbio in 2016. And before the Ponzinibbio loss, McGee had fought to seven more decisions (4-3), after submitting his first two UFC opponents in the later rounds of a pair of 2010 fights, which is the last time McGee finished anybody. McGee won the last two decisions he went to against a pair of grapplers in Ramiz Brahimaj and Claudio Silva who both gassed out. However, McGee lost three straight decisions before that and is only 2-5 in his last seven fights and just 3-7 in his last 10 matches.
Now 21-12 as a pro, McGee has five wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and 11 decision victories. However, all 10 of his finishes came early in his career and he hasn’t gotten anyone out of there since 2010. He’s been knocked out three times, all in the first round, and has nine decision losses. Nine of his last 11 and 16 of his last 19 fights went the distance. McGee started his career off at 185 lb, but dropped down to 170 lb in his sixth UFC fight following a pair of decision losses in 2012.
Overall, McGee is the definition of a gritty decision grinder. He has great cardio, and just wears on opponents with his wrestling as fights go on. He had been extremely durable before getting violently knocked out in each of his last two fights, however, it seems like his chin may be gone at this point, and it’s also hard to know how he’ll look following spine surgery. In his last 10 fights, he landed 12 of his 51 takedown attempts (23.5% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 8 of their 26 attempts (69.2% defense). He won three of the last four fights where he landed a takedown and lost the last five where he didn’t. He was coming into the final fight of his deal, but the UFC actually just re-signed him to a new contract, which is surprising given his age and recent track record. Maybe that’s just a gesture of goodwill and we’ll see how many more fights McGee’s body agrees to.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’11” but McGee will have a 3” reach advantage. Morono is six years younger than the 39-year-old McGee.
Morono continues to stake out the retirement home and has talked about how he loves fighting these old vets. It hasn’t always worked out for him, as he lost a decision to Anthony Pettis and was knocked out by Santiago Ponzinibbio, but he did submit Tim Means and knock out Donald Cerrone. McGee’s chin looked completely shot in his last fight and it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see Morono knock him out quickly, despite not having the heaviest hands. However, if McGee can avoid eating the big shots, it’s not a terrible spot for him to find wrestling success against the 50% takedown defense of Morono. It’s hard to know how McGee will look following spine surgery, but Morono loves looking for guillotines and may look to do some durability testing on the surgically repaired neck of McGee, who’s never been submitted in 33 pro fights. If McGee can avoid dying, he’ll have a shot at grinding out a decision win, but it’s impossible to trust a 39-year-old who’s coming off back-to-back first round knockout losses and spine surgery. So give us Morono in this one and we’ll say he hands McGee his third straight first round knockout loss.
Our favorite bet here is “Alex Morono R1” at +380.
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DFS Implications:
Morono has averaged 86 DraftKings points in his 12 UFC wins, only hitting the century mark in four of those. Eight of his 12 UFC wins went the distance and he only averaged 79 points in those decisions, with just one score above 79, which was an outlier performance where he scored 126 points in a career performance against Rhys McKee. Morono consistently scored between 69 and 79 DraftKings points in his other six most recent decision wins. Three of his four finishes in the UFC ended in the first round, but he only has two finishes in his last 11 fights and scored just 85 points in a second round submission win in his last early victory. Morono failed to top 85 points in any of his last six fights, which when combined with his really high price tag will leave the field scoffing at the idea of playing him. However, McGee is a washed up 39-year-old vet coming off spine surgery and two straight first round knockout losses. He showed no ability to take a punch in each of those fights and it seems like his chin is gone. So while this isn’t a spot where we expect Morono to land much volume or find much wrestling success, it’s a prime opportunity for him to land a first round knockout at low ownership. However, if he fails to finish McGee in the opening five minutes then it’s highly unlikely that he’ll be able to score enough to be useful unless he lands multiple knockdowns and a well timed second round finish. The fact that McGee will be looking to grind Morono out with his wrestling is concerning, as it could limit Morono’s opportunities to find the knockout he needs to score well. Also somewhat concerning, Morono likes to jump for guillotines, which even if successful won’t score enough for him to return value unless it comes in the opening minute, and if unsuccessful will result in him being stuck on his back. So there are far more paths to failure than success with him, but the matchup and low ownership are both very appealing. The odds imply Morono has a 72% chance to win, a 43% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
McGee hasn’t finished an opponent since 2010 and relies on grinding out decisions along the fence. That makes him a DraftKings specific play who will need to absolutely dominate this fight to score well. He’s absolutely littered with red flags, as he’s 39 years old, coming off spine surgery, and was knocked out in the first round in each of his last two fights. His whole shtick has always been his durability and grittiness, but if he can’t take a punch anymore then those days are done. He just got put away with a single punch from a 42-year-old opponent and we have serious concerns with McGee’s chin at this stage in his career. And who knows how he’ll look after spine surgery, which just adds even more uncertainty. The only thing he has going for him is the opponent, as Morono doesn’t have massive power and owns just a 50% takedown defense. So if McGee can get him down and control him for 15 minutes, he can definitely return value on DraftKings in a decision at his cheap price tag, as he’s averaged 91 DraftKings points in his eight UFC decision victories. The odds imply McGee has a 28% chance to win, a 9% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Charlie Campbell
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Campbell is coming off a first round knockout win in his recent short notice UFC debut against Alex Reyes, who was coming off an insane six year layoff. Reyes put up essentially zero resistance in the fight, as Campbell easily dismantled him, finishing ahead 43-14 in significant strikes, while easily stuffing both of Reyes’ takedown attempts. Campbell took that fight on just over a week’s notice, but couldn’t have looked much better. Three months prior to that, Campbell landed another first round knockout with the CFFC organization. Campbell originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2022, but got violently knocked out by Chris Duncan in just 103 seconds. Campbell nearly landed a knockout of his own and had Duncan badly hurt, but got caught with a counter shot as he went in for the kill and ended up unconscious. Leading up to that loss, Campbell had won five straight fights, with the last four of those wins coming by knockout.
Now 8-2 as a pro, Campbell has six wins by KO/TKO and two decision victories. He’s also been knocked out once himself and has one decision defeat, which occurred in his second pro fight. After three of his first four pro matches went the distance, his last six all ended in knockouts in under seven minutes, with none of his last four fights even making it to the four minute mark. He had a couple of fights with Bellator, but most of his pre-UFC career was spent with the CFFC.
Overall, Campbell is an aggressive knockout artist who comes into every fight looking to end things early. He’s got dangerous hands, with fast, precise boxing, and also solid kicks that he’ll throw to all three levels. He trains at Serra-Longo fight team with a bunch of solid grapplers, and he’ll occasionally mix in takedowns, but not very often. When he does end up on the mat, he looks to finish opponents with ground and pound and he’s never submitted anybody. It’s rare to see Campbell’s fights last longer than a round and a half, but he did win the last decision he went to, and was still pushing for a finish late in that fight, which is encouraging for his cardio. We still need to see how he’ll hold up against higher level opponents and how recovered his chin is after that brutal KO loss to Duncan, but Campbell looks like an exciting young prospect and at 28 years old he has plenty of time to grow.
Trevor Peek
4th UFC Fight (2-1)We recently saw a much more measured version of Peek in his last fight, as he traveled around the world and into enemy territory to take on a debuting Mohammad Yahya in Abu Dhabi, where Yahya lives and trains. After failing to land a takedown in either of his first two UFC fights, Peek landed four of his seven attempts against Yahya and finished with over five minutes of control time. Peek finished ahead 61-43 in significant strikes in the lower volume fight, while Yahya seemed largely disinterested in doing a whole lot. Two of the three judges scored every round for Peek, while the other had it 29-28 in his favor. Prior to that, Peek suffered the first loss of his career in a decision against Jose Mariscal, who was making his short notice UFC debut up a weight class. That fight was absolutely bananas, but Mariscal was the more well-rounded fighter and used that to land four takedowns in between periods of brawling to secure every round in the fight. That came after Peek landed a knockout in the final second of the first round in his UFC debut against a terrible Erick Gonzalez, after landing a second round knockout on DWCS. Peek got taken down four times by Gonzalez, but Gonzalez did a poor job of holding positions, which allowed Peek to return to his feet each time and eventually find a finish. Peek also got taken down four times in his DWCS match and that’s been an ongoing theme in his fights. He also nearly got knocked out in that DWCS match, but he was able to recover and come back to land his own knockout after his opponent gassed out. Just a month before going on DWCS, Peek knocked out a fragile Khama Worthy late in the first round.
Now 9-1 as a pro, Peek has eight KO/TKO wins and one decision victory. Six of his finishes ended in round one with the other two coming in round two. He’s never been finished, with his one career loss going the distance. While his last two fights both went the distance, those are the only two fights of his career to make it past the 8:02 mark. Outside of Chepe Mariscal, Peek hasn’t faced much in the way of competition, so take his record with a grain of salt. Peek has fought between 155 lb and 180 lb in his career, but has remained at 155 lb since 2022 and it appears that’s where he’ll stay moving forward.
Overall, Peek is an aggressive brawler who generally comes into every fight looking to knock opponents out, whether it be on the feet or through ground and pound on the mat. However, we saw a more composed version of him in his last fight and he seems to be trying to calm himself down some and round out his game with some wrestling. We’re not convinced that’s a good thing for him and we know it’s now what the fans want to see. Far more often than not, when these aggressive finishers try to dial things back, they just remove what got them to the UFC, without actually adding a whole lot. There are always exceptions, but Terrance McKinney, Randy Costa, and Yohan Lainesse are just a few examples of brawlers who tried and failed to reinvent themselves at the UFC level. If you’re gonna go out, at least go out swinging Trevor Peek. Anyways, maybe Peek will get more aggressive in this next fight after a less eventful fight in his last matchup, albeit in a win. He still averages 5.09 SSL/min and 4.37 SSA/min and between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance he landed 5 of his 10 takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 13 of their 27 attempts (51.9% defense). After landing one takedown on DWCS, Peek failed to land his only attempt in his first two UFC fights, before landing four of his seven attempts in his last match. Everyone who’s tried has gotten him down, with three of his last four opponents each landing four takedowns against him. So defensive wrestling has been a real problem for him. Peek normally trains at Agoge Combatives in Tennessee, but went out to Dwayne Ludwig’s Fighter House in Colorado for the first time to prepare for this fight. Training at elevation should be a boost for his cardio, and having new bodies to work with is always a plus. In a recent interview, Peek said he was trying to be more composed in his last fight, but took it a little too far and needs to find the right balance. He’ll get a more willing dance partner here.
Fight Prediction:
Campbell will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
Trevor Peek’s last fight was a complete disappointment, but we’re hoping he just overcorrected and we see a vintage performance from him here. If he thinks he’s going to come in and win by being the more technical fighter, he’s sorely mistaken. He’s an undersized brawler who needs to outwork his opponents and force them to make mistakes to find success. While he’ll never find sustained success in the UFC, he can at least make the most of the opportunities in front of him and try to rack up fight of the night bonuses. Or he can pretend he has an actual shot at the belt and limp his way to an inevitable pink slip. That’s the harsh reality for 99% of raw brawlers who outhustle their way to the UFC, even if most people are unwilling to talk about it. Peek will get a willing dance partner here in Charlie Campbell, who’s constantly looking for knockouts and sometimes gets ahead of his skis pushing too hard. Campbell is the taller, longer, quicker, and more technical of these two, but has also looked less durable. So while Campbell should be able to piece Peek up, if he gets over zealous he could find himself waking up on the mat. Peek’s one advantage in this matchup is his durability and he needs to force Campbell into a firefight if he wants to have a shot at winning. So it’s concerning that Peek was looking for less of a brawl in his last match and it’s hard to know what version of him we’ll get here. Peek always has a puncher’s chance and his fights are generally action-packed, but we’re still backing Campbell here as he simply looks like the superior fighter. Peek has never been knocked out and looks as durable as a mule, while he’s also talked about being more composed. Similarly, Campbell has said he needs to be careful not to rush in for finishes when he has opponents hurt. That seems kind of like the perfect recipe for this fight to go the distance more often than the odds suggest. While most people will be expecting a knockout, which is very possible, we’ll say Campbell wins a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Charlie Campbell KO or DEC” at -110.
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DFS Implications:
Campbell is coming off a first round knockout win in his short notice UFC debut that was good for 117 DraftKings points and 138 points on FanDuel. Just keep in mind, that came against Alex Reyes, who hadn’t fought in six years after getting knocked out by Mike Perry in just 79 seconds back in his 2017 UFC debut. So we definitely have to take that finish with a grain of salt, but there’s no question that Campbell has looked dangerous. He has crisp striking and he’s hyper aggressive, which has resulted in his last six fights all ending by knockout in under six and a half minutes. We did see him get sent into the shadow realm on DWCS against Chris Duncan, which makes Campbell a hard guy to fully trust, and he can get overzealous looking for the kill after hurting his opponents. Perhaps we can chalk that up to a learning experience, as that’s the only time he’s ever been finished, but his chin remains his biggest question mark. He lands a ton of striking volume, which when combined with his history of knockouts is great for DFS. He’ll also occasionally mix in takedowns, but not frequently enough that you can count on that. Considering his high price tag, he’ll have a hard time cracking tournament winning lineups on striking volume alone, leaving him reliant on landing a knockout. However, he projects to land a ton of striking volume, so if he does knock Peek out, he’ll have a huge ceiling. The odds imply Campbell has a 61% chance to win, a 48% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.
Peek scored a face-melting 131 DraftKings points in his UFC debut against a terrible Erick Gonzalez, in a perfectly timed knockout in the final second of the first round with two knockdowns behind it. He then faced his first real test in Chepe Mariscal and lost every round of the fight in what was the first decision Peek had ever been to. That looks even worse when you consider Mariscal was making his short notice UFC debut up a weight class. Peek followed that up with a less impressive decision win and after his first eight pro victories all ended by knockout in the first two rounds, now he’s coming off two straight decisions. After his last fight, Peek said all of the normal things that previously reckless brawlers say after they put up their first stinker. He talked about how he wanted to be more composed, and prove that he was more than a brawler, and that he still thought he could be a world champion, yada, yada, yada. That all equates to career suicide when you you’ve built yourself up as a exciting brawler. It’s extremely rare to see these wild finishers like Terrance McKinney, Randy Costa, and Yohan Lainesse suddenly reinvent themselves at the UFC level and find success. Normally it’s just a self neutering process that eliminates enjoyment for everybody involved. With that said, Peek’s last opponent didn’t look to push the pace one bit in that fight and it’s entirely possible we’re completely overreacting to one bad fight. Maybe Peek will bounce back with a vintage performance where he throws caution to the wind and tomahawk punches his way to victory. Campbell did get knocked out cold by Chris Duncan on DWCS and has a tendency to get overeager looking for a finish. Peek is nothing if not durable, and he’ll have a puncher’s chance of landing a knockout. He’s also cheap enough that if he wins a high-volume decision he could still score enough to be useful. Just keep in mind, Peek has been between 41% and 49% owned in all three of UFC fights and the field absolutely loves this guy. That greatly lowers his tournament appeal and has us more interested in looking at ways he fails. However, if he does win, he’s probably going to be in the winning lineup so it’s hard not to have some exposure. The odds imply Peek has a 39% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Ignacio Bahamondes
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Bahamondes recently had a three-fight winning streak snapped in a decision loss to Ludovit Klein. Bahamondes came into that fight with a 95% takedown defense, but Klein was able to get him down three times on five attempts and control him for six minutes. Prior to that, Bahamondes won an uneventful decision against Trey Ogden, who seemed to be sleepwalking through the fight. Bahamondes methodically picked Ogden apart for three straight rounds, outlanding him 99-42 in striking, while stuffing Ogden’s only takedown attempt. Bahamondes did a good job of mixing up his levels and landed 41 leg kicks in the fight. Ogden took that fight on short notice and looked like he just showed up for a paycheck with the goal of not getting knocked out. That came 14 months after Bahamondes secured the only submission win of his career against Rongzhu in the third round of a February 2022 match. He also nearly locked up a guillotine attempt earlier in that match and appears to be adding some submission skills to his already dangerous striking. Prior to that win, Bahamondes landed a highlight reel spinning wheel kick KO against Roosevelt Roberts in the closing seconds of an August 2021 match. That’s the only time Roberts has been knocked out in his career, but it was just the cherry on top for Bahamondes, who landed nearly twice as many significant strikes as Roberts in the fight, while also stuffing all 12 of Roberts’ takedown attempts. Just before the pair of third round finishes, Bahamondes lost a split decision in his UFC debut against longtime UFC veteran John Makdessi, after landing a second round knockout on DWCS in 2020 to punch his ticket to the UFC. Bahamondes has won 10 of his last 12 fights, with the two losses both ending in decisions. Three of his last four wins ended in late round finishes and he’s seen the second round in nine straight fights, with eight of those making it to round three and six going the distance.
Now 14-5 as a pro, Bahamondes has nine wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and four decision victories. Four of his last five finishes came in the later round and his last first round finish was in 2018. He’s never been knocked out, but he’s been submitted twice and has three decision losses. Both of those submission losses ended in the first round over his first six pro fights. One of those was against Preston Parsons, who’s now in the UFC. While all three of his UFC fights have been at 155 lb, his previous two fights had both been up at 170 lb and he has bounced between the two weight classes throughout his career. Both of his submission losses occurred at 170 lb and he’s never been finished at 155 lb.
Overall, Bahamondes is really tall and long for the Lightweight division, standing 6’3” with a 75” reach (the same height as Jalin Turner). He loves to throw a ton of kicks to maximize his length and his last two KO/TKO wins both came by head kick in the later rounds. He’s a dangerous striker and has shown improvements to his grappling from earlier in his career, both in his takedown defense and his submission abilities. With that said, this kid is a striker and we still expect him to struggle when facing legitimate wrestlers. However, he’s still just 26 years old and at a stage in his career where we should be seeing improvements between every fight. He was born into fighting, as his father owns a martial arts school in Chile, but Bahamondes came to the United States to pursue his UFC dream at just 16 years old. He landed 99 or more significant strikes in four of his five UFC fights and he averages an impressive 6.97 SSL/min and 4.36 SSA/min. Between his five UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, his opponents got him down on just four of their 27 attempts (85.2% defense), while he failed to land any of his own five attempts. He’s never lost two fights in a row and bounced back from three of his previous four losses with a knockout win.
Christos Giagos
14th UFC Fight (6-7)Looking to bounce back from yet another submission loss, Giagos was recently finished by Daniel Zellhuber in the second round. As soon as Zellhuber locked in the choke, Giagos was immediately looking to panic tap, after winning the first round on all three scorecards. Giagos failed to land any of his six takedown attempts in the fight, but finished ahead 38-36 and had Zellhuber rocked on the feet at one point in the first round. Prior to that, Giagos notched his only win in his last four fights in a quick 95 second knockout of the previously durable Ricky Glenn, who had previously never been knocked out in 30 pro fights, but now has back-to-back R1 KO losses. That’s Giagos’ only knockout win since 2016. Just before that, Giagos was the one who got finished in the first round in back-to-back fights. The first of those losses came in a TKO against an incredibly tough Arman Tsarukyan, while the second ended in a submission against a dangerous BJJ black belt in Thiago Moises. Giagos also has submission losses to Gilbert Burns and Charles Oliveira on his UFC record, in addition to a knockout loss to Josh Emmett, so he’s faced some really tough opponents in the past. However, he’s also faced numerous terrible opponents and Giagos has had one of the most polarized strength of schedules we’ve ever seen. Giagos originally joined the UFC in 2014, but after starting out 1-2 he was released. After going 4-2 in his next six fights outside of the UFC, they brought him back in 2018 to lose to Charles Oliveira in 2018. Then they finally started giving him more favorable opponents and he won four of his next five fights, with all of those wins coming in teed up matchups, before losing to Tsarukyan and Moises.
Now 20-11 as a pro, Giagos has eight wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and eight decisions. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted six times, and has three decision losses. While his last five fights all ended in under nine minutes, his previous four all went the distance. He’s been finished in five of his seven UFC losses, with three of those defeats ending in round one and the other two in round two. He won four of the last five decisions he went to.
Overall, Giagos has historically been a low-volume striker (2.98 SSL/min) who has relied heavily on his wrestling to win fights. However, he’s been training at Kill Cliff FC for his last few fights and he’s shown improved striking and way more power since making the move. In his 13 UFC fights, he landed 22 takedowns on 59 attempts (37.3%), but he’s just 1-6 in UFC fights where he failed to land a takedown. While he’s a decent wrestler, he’s not a great grappler and is very prone to getting submitted. He also has shown suspect cardio and tends to slow down later in fights and then panic once he gasses out.
Fight Prediction:
Bahamondes will have a 5” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while also being eight years younger than the 34-year-old Giagos.
Giagos is the more well rounded fighter in this matchup, but also has bad cardio and tends to panic once he starts to gas out. That has resulted in him getting submitted at multiple points, although Bahamondes only has one career submission win and is a far better striker than a grappler. Giagos’ striking has looked a lot more dangerous in recent fights, but only in the first round when he’s fresh, while Bahamondes’ power will carry into the later rounds. Bahamondes has never been knocked out, but we have seen him get cracked early in fights and it’s not inconceivable that Giagos could catch him early on and put him away. However, it’s far more likely that this makes it to the later rounds and then it becomes a contest of whether or not Giagos can survive to see the scorecards. We just saw Bahamondes get outwrestled in a decision loss, showing a path to victory for Giagos if he can get past Bahamondes’ solid 85% takedown defense, and then avoid getting submitted on the ground. However, it’s hard to trust fighters with bad cardio to win decisions and Bahamondes will have a good shot at landing a late finish if Giagos once again gasses out. Trying to predict cardio collapses is an inherently volatile game to play, making it harder to feel confident in a pick here. If Giagos can pace himself better and find wrestling success, he should be able to grind out a decision win, but we’re not convinced he can and we’ll say Bahamondes finishes him in the third round. However, after seeing how rough Bahamondes looked on the scale, it’s hard not to like the odds on Giagos’ R1 KO line.
Our favorite bet here is “Christos Giagos R1 KO” at +2100.
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DFS Implications:
Bahamondes is a high-volume striker who averages 6.97 SSL/min and has an 85% takedown defense. However, he’s yet to land a takedown in the UFC and relies entirely on striking volume and finishes to score well. That makes him a better fit for the FanDuel scoring system compared to on DraftKings, and his two third-round finishes were good for 136 and 125 points on FanDuel but “just” 99 and 104 points on DraftKings. He lands enough volume to still put up solid scores even with late finishes, but at his expensive price tag he can still easily get priced out of winning DraftKings lineups in fights that make it past the second round. His lone decision win only scored 70 DraftKings points and 79 points on FanDuel, and he would have to put up a massive striking total and/or land multiple knockdowns to score well with the judges. Working in his favor, Giagos has been finished in 8 of his 11 pro losses and tends to gas out later in fights. However, Giagos has been far more prone to getting submitted than knocked out and Bahamondes only has one career submission win. Giagos also looks to wrestle a good amount, which if successful, will make it tougher for Bahamondes to rack up striking volume, making it even harder for Bahamondes to return value with a late finish. One thing that Bahamondes does have going for him in tournaments is that he’s never been more than 22% owned on DraftKings in any of his five UFC fights, and should fly mostly under the radar once again as he’s coming off a loss. The odds imply Bahamondes has a 74% chance to win, a 49% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Giagos continues to be a boom or bust fighter, with DraftKings scores of 16, 104, 3, 2, 96, 93, 56, 92, 96, 8, 24, 111, and 2 in his 13 UFC fights. While he’s shown tons of upside when he wins, he was finished in the first two rounds in three of his last four fights and has a non-existent floor. He’s impressively averaged 99 points in his six UFC wins, scoring 92 or more in all of those, and at his cheap price it’s harder to see him getting left out of winning lineups if he pulls off the upset. However, to get his wrestling going he’ll have to get past the 85% takedown defense of the 6’3” Bahamondes. He’ll also have to avoid gassing out if he wants to win a longer fight, so there will be multiple hurdles to overcome. Nevertheless, he’s shown he has enough power to land an early knockout and good enough wrestling to score well in a decision, so he also has multiple paths to winning and scoring well. Bahamondes also looked pretty rough on the scale, and a tough weight cut could raise Giagos’s chances of landing an early knockout. The odds imply Giagos has a 26% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Morgan Charriere
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Charriere was originally scheduled to face Seung Woo Choi, but he stopped out and Mariscal was announced as the replacement a month out.
Extending his winning streak to four, Charriere landed a first round knockout in his recent UFC debut against a terrible Manolo Zecchini, who was also making his debut. That fight took place in front of Charriere’s home French crowd and was a clear setup spot for him to get a finish. Prior to that, he landed two more TKO wins (R1 & R3) with Cage Warriors. He was more tentative in his July 2023 R3 TKO just before making his UFC debut, but if you listen to him talk about it, he said that he was trying to find a finish while making sure not to take any damage so that he would be able to turn around and fight on the Paris card just six weeks later, which he was successful in doing. That win came against the gatekeeper to the UFC in Diego Silva, who also helped propel Muin Gafurov, Dan Argueta, and Jay Perrin into the organization. Prior to that, Charriere in a post R1 doctor stoppage TKO, after fighting to three straight split decisions (1-2). Amazingly, Charriere’s last seven decisions were all split/majority (2-4-1). His last four losses all ended in split decisions, with the last three of those coming in five-round Cage Warriors title fights.
Now 19-9-1 as a pro, Charriere has 11 wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and five decision victories. The only time he’s been finished was in a 2015 R1 submission in his fourth pro fight, but he’s gone just 5-8-1 with the judges. All three of his submission wins occurred in under a round and a half, with two of those coming in the first half of round one. While he has six first round knockout wins, five of his last seven knockouts occurred in the later rounds, with four of those ending in the third round. While his last three fights all ended in KO/TKO wins, six of his previous eight fights went the distance. Charriere has more fights (29) than trips around the sun (28), after turning pro when he was just 19 years old.
Overall, Charriere is a well-rounded French fighter who started his training in Judo when he was just seven years old and eventually earned his black belt. He also has a brown belt in Luta livre and a BJJ purple belt. He offers a solid combination of striking and grappling, although hasn’t submitted anybody since 2018. While he has the ability to rack up strikes, he’s also been overly patient at times, which has resulted in a lot of close/split decisions for him. We’ve seen him get reversed on that at multiple points, so controlling positions is one area he could work on. It also kind of seems like he often mirrors his opponents, and if they want to brawl he’ll brawl, or if they want to wrestle he’ll wrestle. However, that also means when he gets a more passive opponent we end up with slower paced fights. He’s still only 28 years old, so he has plenty of time to continue to evolve and he looks like a guy to keep an eye on.
Chepe Mariscal
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Still undefeated in the UFC, Mariscal recently pulled off his second straight upset win in R2 TKO via arm injury against Jack Jenkins. In fairness to Jenkines, he won the first round on all three scorecards before snapping his elbow backwards as he tried to post on his arm as Mariscal took him down in round two. Mariscal was winning the second round leading up to the injury, so the fight was essentially even before it was stopped. A little over two months prior to that, Mariscal won a wild brawling decision in his short notice UFC debut against Trevor Peek, which Mariscal took up a weight class at 155 lb. Mariscal landed 4 of his 12 takedown attempts in that fight, controlled Peek for five and a half minutes, and outlanded him 71-51 in significant strikes and 145-65 in total strikes, while winning every round on the score cards. Even before joining the UFC, Mariscal had already competed against numerous UFC fighters on the regional scene. Some of those names include Sean Soriano, Steve Garcia, Joanderson Brito, Youssef Zalal, Pat Sabatini, Carl Deaton, Bryce Mitchell, and Gregor Gillespie. He went just 2-5 plus a No Contest in those fights and arguably could have lost both of those wins as they came in very close decisions against Sabatini and Zalal, but he at least has a ton of experience fighting UFC level competition. Mariscal won a close, grappling-heavy split decision over Pat Sabatini back in 2018, showing that he could hang on the mat, but also somehow got held on his back for three rounds by an absolutely terrible grappler in Sean Soriano. The only explanation we can come up with is that Mariscal was not the same fighter after getting violently knocked out by Joanderson Brito in 2019, where the referee should have been sent to jail after allowing him to nearly get knocked out after an early low blow and then later get his lifeless body pounded into the mat before the fight was finally stopped. The aftermath was a scary scene as Mariscal tried to fight off his corner team for what felt like minutes after he finally woke up and literally had to be carried out of the cage as he continued to struggle. That loss likely took years off his life and began a stretch where he dropped three out of four fights. He then got back on track against some easier competition, and has now won five straight fights.
Now 15-6 as a pro, Mariscal has seven wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and five decision victories. His last four KO/TKO wins all occurred in round two, after two of his first three ended in round one, with the other coming in round four. All three of his submission wins occurred in the first round of fights earlier in his career (2014, 2016 & 2018). He has three KO/TKO losses on his record and three decision defeats. One of those TKOs came in a very questionable second round stoppage against Steve Garcia in 2020, with the other two coming in the first round against Gregor Gillespie in 2016 and Joanderson Brito in 2019. Two of his three decision losses came against Sean Soriano and Bryce Mitchell, so five of his six defeats were against UFC fighters. Mariscal made his 2014 pro debut up at 170 lb, before dropping down to 155 lb for his next fight. He then moved down to 145 lb in 2016, where 16 of his last 18 fights have been. He did have a 155 lb fight in 2022 where he landed a second round TKO, before attempting to drop back down to 145 lb for his last fight before joining the UFC. However, he missed weight by 4 lb in that match, blaming the airlines for losing his weight cutting gear. He then took his UFC debut up at 155 lb, before moving back down to 145 for his last match, where he successfully made weight. After that fight he talked about wanting to get with a nutritionist, so maybe the weight cut didn’t go entirely smoothly.
Overall, Mariscal is an aggressive, well-rounded fighter with a ton of high-level experience. He’s a judo black belt and trains at Elevation Fight Team in Colorado with a lot of other UFC fighters, including Justin Gaethje, who’s one of his main training partners. He’s generally looking to mix in takedown attempts, and is a threat to finish fights on the mat, but doesn’t have the best top control and often loses positions. Between his two UFC fights, he landed 5 of his 13 takedown attempts (38.5% accuracy), while also successfully defending the only attempt against him. He’s also good at making fights ugly and beating opponents up out of the clinch. We’ve seen Mariscal look really good and really bad at times in the past, which adds some uncertainty with what version of him you’re going to get. However, he’s looked really good lately and is in the prime of his career, so maybe he finally has things figured out.
Fight Prediction:
Charriere will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 69” reach. Charriere is three years younger than the 31-year-old Mariscal.
This sets up as an exciting matchup between two talented and well-rounded fighters. On paper, they matchup pretty evenly. They’re both around the same size, have identical reaches, are similar in age, each have 20+ pro fights of experience, and are both judo black belts. Neither guy seems to have any gaping holes in their game, although they’ve each been somewhat prone to losing top position on the mat. Charriere looks a little more technical, while Mariscal has been the more aggressive of the two. However, Mariscal also has three KO/TKO losses on his record, while Charriere has never been knocked out. In fairness, Mariscal has also had the tougher strength of schedule and has been tested by numerous opponents who went on to join the UFC. After Mariscal’s first two UFC fights were in front of ruckus crowds, now he’ll be fighting at the Apex for the first time, with a very limited audience. Mariscal seems like the type of fighter to really feed off the crowd and if we look back at the most head-scratching loss of his career, a decision loss to Sean Soriano, it was during the peak of COVID with no real crowd to hype him up. Soriano is a striker with really bad grappling and was still able to take Mariscal down four times and control him for nine and a half minutes in that fight. That fight will always haunt us whenever we consider really trusting Mariscal, and is concerning for both his defensive wrestling and his ability to show the best version of himself without a big crowd to hype him up. He’s also struggled to make 145 lb at times, so you never know when he’ll have another tough weight cut, and he notably stepped into this fight on about four weeks’ notice. Charriere is also a few years younger and is the more likely of the two to be making noticeable improvements at this stage in his career. He also looks a little more athletic and a little quicker than Mariscal, while also doing a better job of avoiding damage.
There’s a good chance that this ends in a close decision, but Charriere has good grappling that he hasn’t shown yet in the UFC and Mariscal has suspect defensive wrestling that also hasn’t been shown in the UFC. So most of the field will be overlooking each of those factors and it will not be at all shocking if Charriere dominates this fight on the ground to everyone’s disappointment. While Charriere didn’t even attempt a takedown in any of his last three fights, we counted seven takedowns landed with over seven minutes of control time in his last decision win, and a similar result here is entirely possible. However, he’s well rounded enough that he doesn’t need to use his grappling and this could also play out entirely on the feet. That leaves Charriere with multiple paths to victory, as he could knock Mariscal out, outstrike him on the feet, or dominate him on the mat. Meanwhile, Mariscal basically needs to out-dog Charriere with no real crowd to hype him up.
With money coming in on Mariscal, this is now essentially a pick’em, which seems fair on the surface. However, we see more of a potential for Mariscal to put up a dud than Charriere and if we can get Charriere at even money we will gladly take it. So we’re happy to patiently wait as the field continues to bet Mariscal, and then we’ll slide in and grab Charriere’s moneyline late in the week or even right before the fight starts depending on the movement. There’s still a good chance that this ends in a close decision and who knows what the judges are even watching, but we see more upside with Charriere and he’ll be our pick to win by decision here, despite his past struggles in split decisions.
Our favorite bet here is “Morgan Charriere DEC” at +240.
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DFS Implications:
Charriere is coming off an impressive first round knockout win in his recent UFC debut, which was good for 110 DraftKings points. Just keep in mind, it came in front of Charriere’s home French crowd against a terrible opponent who was also making his debut. He’ll get a much tougher test here in Mariscal, but it’s still a good high-upside matchup. Mariscal likes to push the pace, has been knocked out three times in the past, and has shown poor defensive wrestling at times—most notably when he got taken down four times and controlled for nine and a half minutes by a kickboxer and terrible grappler in Sean Soriano, who went 0-4 in the UFC with three submission losses. It’s hard to overlook that loss, yet most of the field has no idea it ever even happened. Mariscal has only had to defend one takedown so far in the UFC, and his defensive wrestling really hasn’t been tested lately. Maybe it’s improved, or maybe it will get completely exposed in the near future. It’s hard to know what Charriere’s game plan will be, as he’s very well rounded and didn’t even attempt a takedown in any of his last three fights. However, he landed seven takedowns in his last decision win, another stat that will go largely overlooked by the field since it came with Cage Warriors and there are no publicly available official stats to look at. That creates a sneaky chance for Charriere to dominate this fight on the ground, but both fighters are judo black belts and it’s not like Mariscal is a completely terrible wrestler. At Charriere’s reasonable price tag, he could still be useful even in a decision win if he can fill up the stat sheet and it’s a good fight to see that happen. The betting market has been all over Mariscal and we expect the DFS field to be heavy on him as well, especially with Mariscal now slightly underpriced after the line moved in his favor. However, with Charriere coming off a big finish, he won’t go completely overlooked either and this fight should be highly owned in general. Whoever wins will have a good shot at scoring well, but we see more upside for Charriere and he’ll also be the lower owned of the two, which makes him our preferred tournament play. The odds imply Charriere has a 52% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Mariscal has been crushing so far in the UFC. He won a unanimous 30-27 decision in his short notice UFC debut up a weight class against a brawler in Trevor Peek, scoring 108 DraftKings points in the process. Mariscal then moved back down to 145 lb and faced a tougher test in Jack Jenkins, who won the first round against Mariscal on all three scorecards. Mariscal came back in round two to control Jenkins along the fence and land a ton of clinch strikes, and then the fight ended as Mariscal went for a takedown and Jenkins snapped his elbow in two as he tried to brace his fall. That freak injury resulted in Mariscal being awarded a R2 TKO win, allowing him to score 105 points. Who knows how that fight would have gone had it not been for the injury, but Mariscal’s lead leg was incredibly beat up and it definitely would have been interesting going into round three tied up on the scorecards. All the breaks have been going Mariscal’s way, but now he’ll face another tough test and it’s just a matter of time before things don’t bounce his way. Charriere is a tough opponent who’s never been knocked out and there’s also the potential for Mariscal to get controlled for periods of time, meaning there’s no guarantee that he will score enough to be useful in a decision win, even at his cheap price tag. The line has been moving in Mariscal’s favor since it opened, leaving him underpriced on DraftKings. When you combine that with his past scoring success, it’s the perfect recipe for him to be over owned. And while there’s no question that Mariscal’s uptempo fight style is conducive to DFS production, his higher ownership presents a solid leverage opportunity in tournaments, although it makes sense to play him in low-risk/cash contests. Ultimately, Mariscal is a fun fighter and it’s hard not to root for him, but he’s also had numerous bad performances in the past that are going overlooked by the field due to his recent success. He’s the type of fighter that you want to play when he’s low owned and fade when he’s high owned and with everyone on him here, we definitely want to be heavier on the other side. With all that said, similar to the Peek fight, it’s hard not to have some level of exposure to each side and the winner will have a good shot at ending up in the optimal lineup. The odds imply Mariscal has a 48% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Alexander Hernandez
13th UFC Fight (6-6)Continuing to struggle, Hernandez has lost three of his last four fights and hasn’t put two wins together since he won his first two UFC fights back in 2018. He was outclassed by Bill Algeo for three straight rounds in his last match, as he lost a unanimous 30-27 decision. Hernandez was outlanded in every round of the fight, and also got knocked down in round two and taken down in round three. That fight took place at 145 lb, as did Hernandez’s second most recent loss, but in between those he took a short notice fight against Jim Miller back up at 155 lb, which he won by decision. That’s nothing unusual for Miller, as he’s lost the last seven decisions he’s been to. Before beating Miller, Hernandez dropped down to 145 lb for the first time in the UFC and got finished in the second round by Billy Quarantillo. That was the second straight fight where Hernandez got finished in round two, after he got submitted by Renato Moicano at 155 lb in his previous match. Hernandez’s second most recent win was all the way back in 2021, when he landed a knockout just 80 seconds into the first round against Mike Breeden, who was making his short notice UFC debut. That came just after he lost a decision in a striking battle against a grappler in Thiago Moises, after landing another first round knockout against Chris Gruetzemacher, who was coming off a two and a half year layoff and has been finished in all five of his pro losses. Four of Hernandez’s six UFC losses ended in the second round, with the other two going the distance. He’s 3-2 in his five UFC decisions, with his other three UFC wins ending in first round knockouts.
Now 14-7 as a pro, Hernandez has six wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and six decisions. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted once, and has three decision losses. All four of his early losses occurred in the second round, while seven of his eight early wins ended in round one. Hernandez fought some at 145 lb early in his pro career, but moved up to 155 lb 2014, where he stayed until 2022 when he dropped back down to 145 lb and got finished in the second round. He then took a short notice fight back up at 155 lb, before dropping back down to 145 lb for his last match. The last time he won a fight at 145 lb was in 2013.
Overall, Hernandez was a high school wrestler and is a BJJ brown belt, but in his 12 UFC fights, he only landed 9 of his 29 takedown attempts (31% accuracy), failing to land a takedown in six of his last seven fights. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 8 of their 20 attempts (60% defense). Three of his last four opponents were successful in taking him down and each of the three of the opponents who shot for multiple attempts landed two takedowns against him. Hernandez averages 4.63 SSL/min and 4.90 SSA/min and has only once landed more than 75 significant strikes in a fight. He’s shown cardio issues when forced to wrestle and tends to panic once he starts gassing out, which generally results in him being finished in the second round in those situations. All 12 of Hernandez’s UFC fights fall into one of three categories: first round knockout wins (3-0), second round early losses (0-4), or decisions (3-2).
UPDATE: Hernandez initially missed weight by 4 lb but took the extra hour and somehow shaved off 2.5 lb to only officially miss by 1.5 lb.
Damon Jackson
12th UFC Fight (5-4-1, NC)Looking to bounce back from two straight losses, Jackson dropped a close decision to Billy Quarantillo in his last fight. He won the first round on all three scorecards, but then slowed down midway through round two and lost each of the later rounds. He was able to take Quarantillo once in each round, finishing with three takedowns on 13 attempts and over six minutes of control time, but Quarantillo finished ahead 100-67 in significant strikes. Prior to that, Jackson had a four-fight winning streak snapped in a violent second round walk-off knockout at the hands of Dan Ige, who was coming off three straight losses. Jackson later revealed that he fought both that fight and the one before it with a torn pec, which helps to explain why he didn’t look to wrestle much against Ige. That injury was disguised in his previous win with a quick finish, as he landed a 69 second R1 TKO against Pat Sabatini, who was coming off six straight wins. That was Jackson’s first KO/TKO win since 2018 and only his second since 2013, as he’s primarily known for his submissions. Jackson has gone 6-3 in his last nine matches, with his only other loss over that stretch ending in another violent knockout, that time against Ilia Topuria in the first round of a 2020 fight. Jackson really has a knack for losing in dramatic fashion, with his third most recent loss ending 10 seconds into the first round of a 2019 PFL fight when he ate an immediate flying knee. He also got knocked out by a suspect Kevin Aguilar in 2017 and was hit with a reverse bulldog choke by Yancy Medeiros in 2014. That’s not even counting a 2015 first round submission loss that was later overturned to a No Contest. Jackson originally joined the UFC in 2014 and did everything but win in his first three fights, notching a 0-1-1, NC record before getting cut following a 2016 draw. After getting dropped by the organization, Jackson fought 10 times outside of the UFC from 2016 to 2020, going 8-2 before getting called back up. In his September 2020 return to the organization, nearly five years after being released, Jackson pulled off the short notice upset in a comeback win against Mirsad Bektic. In a fight he was losing badly, Jackson landed a R3 guillotine to steal the victory and notch his first UFC win. He then got knocked out by Topuria, but bounced back with a decision win over Charles Rosa, a second round submission victory over Kamuela Kirk, and then a decision win over a debuting Dan Argueta, leading up to his first round TKO over Sabatini.
Now 22-6-1 as a pro, Jackson has four wins by KO/TKO, 15 submissions, and three decision victories. Three of his four knockout wins ended in round one, with the other occurring 33 seconds into round two. Of his 15 submissions, six ended in round one, eight came in round two, and one occurred in round three. Jackson has been finished in five of his six career losses, with four knockouts and one submission. He would have two submission losses, but a 2015 R1 submission defeat was later overturned to a No Contest when his opponent tested positive for a banned diuretic. Jackson’s only official submission loss came in his 2014 UFC debut against a striker in Yancy Medeiros. Fourteen of his last 17 fights ended early and he’s only been to five decisions in 30 pro fights (3-1-1). Jackson started his career at 155 lb before dropping down to 145 lb in 2013.
Overall, Jackson is primarily a submission threat but has shown some improvements to his striking. He’s historically done a good job of wearing down his opponents, although he was the one looking tired in the last two third rounds he went to. His biggest weakness has been his chin and four of his last five losses ended in highlight knockouts. In his 11 UFC fights, Jackson landed 17 of his 49 takedown attempts (34.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 13 of their 22 attempts (40.9% defense). In his six UFC fights where he landed a takedown, he went 4-1 plus a No Contest that was originally a loss, while he went just 1-3-1 in fights where he failed to land a takedown. Six of his opponents have tried to take him down, with five of them being successful, but Jackson still went 3-1-1 in fights where he gave up a takedown, showing that he really just wants to be on the mat, regardless of how it gets there. Jackson only averages 3.02 SSL/min and 3.46 SSA/min and it’s very rare to see big striking totals in his fights. Jackson opened up a satellite gym of Fortis MMA not too long ago, so he's been doing a lot of teaching and business owner type stuff lately, in addition to his own training.
Fight Prediction:
Jackson will have a 2” height advantage, but Hernandez will have a 1” reach advantage and is four years younger than the 35-year-old Jackson.
Jackson promised an action-packed first round here, which would be a smart game plan to try and test the cardio of Hernandez. The only problem with that strategy is that Jackson has been prone to getting knocked out in the first round and all three of Hernandez’s finishes in the UFC ended in first round knockouts. It’s a high-risk, high-reward strategy, but it’s also the best way to try and break Hernandez, who has lost the last four fights where he gave up even a single takedown, with three of those losses ending in the second round. Hernandez has shown he can space himself for 15 minutes in a slower paced striking battle, but he constantly gasses out when he’s forced to wrestle. Jackson is basically the opposite, he’s only really found success through his grappling and almost always loses when he’s unable to get opponents down. Hernandez only has a 60% takedown defense and everyone who’s attempted more than single takedown against him has landed multiple. That’s a good sign for Jackson here, and as long as he can avoid getting knocked out early, we like him to wear Hernandez down and submit him in the later rounds, most likely in round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Damon Jackson SUB” at +500.
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DFS Implications:
Hernandez has largely relied on landing first round knockouts to score well in DFS, with DraftKings scores of 108, 112, and 128 in his three R1 KO wins, but just 79, 41, and 93 points in his other three UFC victories, which all went the distance. He landed a career best 108 significant strikes in his last decision win, but still only scored 79 points. The one time he scored decently without a finish was when he landed a career high four takedowns in a 2018 decision win over Olivier Aubin-Mercier and returned a DraftKings score of 93. However, we’d be surprised to see Hernandez look for takedowns here, as his advantage is clearly on the feet. And at Hernandez’s expensive price tag, even if he does trip into a couple of takedowns, it will still be surprising to see him score enough to be useful in either a decision or even in a late knockout. Working in his favor, Jackson has been knocked out in four of his last five losses, although the only two opponents to knock him out since 2019 were Dan Ige and Ilia Topuria, who are both far more dangerous than Hernandez. Another factor to consider is that Hernandez has been bouncing between 145 lb and 155 lb lately, but has yet to win a UFC fight at 145 lb (0-2). In fairness to him, this will be the first time he’s actually remained at 145 lb for two straight matches to give his body a chance to get used to the new weight class. Regardless, he’s yet to impress at the lighter weight and hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2021, when he quickly finished Mike Breeden, who was making his short notice UFC debut and went 1-3 in the UFC before being cut. Despite Hernandez generally struggling to score well, he’s always over owned relative to his chances of landing the first round finish he needs to score well. That objectively makes him a perennial bad tournament play, regardless of the results on any given slate, but if you want to sprinkle in a little exposure just given the matchup we can’t blame you. Either way, being underweight on him in DFS is always the right move. The odds imply Hernandez has a 64% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.
Jackson has averaged 92 DraftKings points in his five UFC wins, scoring 101 or more in three of his last four. He’s been prone to getting knocked out, so it’s no surprise that he’s generally looking to grapple, which is where he finds his most success. He’s typically able to push a good pace, but we did see him slow down in the back half of his last fight after a great first round, and the same thing happened in his second most recent decision. That’s somewhat concerning for a guy that we’re relying on to win the cardio battle, but he still won three of his last four fights that made it to the third round. Hernandez lost the last four fights where he gave up even a single takedown and struggles with his cardio when forced to wrestle. Hernandez is also cutting additional weight now after dropping down to 145 lb, which could further drain him. That’s all encouraging for Jackson’s upside and he just needs to get this fight to the ground before he gets caught on the feet. Hernandez only has a 60% takedown defense and everyone who’s attempted more than single takedown against him has landed multiple of their attempts, leaving Jackson as a great tournament play, even if his floor is uncertain due to his suspect chin. The odds imply Jackson has a 36% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Brendan Allen
14th UFC Fight (11-2)Allen was originally scheduled to face Marvin Vettori here, but Vettori dropped out and Curtis was announced as the replacement 22 days out.
Winner of six straight, Allen hasn’t lost a fight since December 2021 when Chris Curtis knocked him out in the second round the first time these two faced one another. Similar to this rematch, Curtis was stepping in on short notice after Allen’s original opponent dropped out. Allen failed to land any of his three takedown attempts in that fight and then Curtis knocked him out two minutes into the second round, while finishing ahead 61-43 in significant strikes and winning the first round on all three scorecards. Allen bounced back from that loss with a second round submission win over a washed up Sam Alvey and then won a controversial decision over Jacob Malkoun, who took Allen down seven times and controlled him for over seven minutes. Since then, Allen locked up four straight rear-naked chokes. The first of those ended late in round one against a journeyman in Krzysztof Jotko, who had previously excelled at ruining fights but isn’t at all dangerous. Next, Allen finished a one-dimensional grappler in Andre Muniz late in the third round. Then Allen finished a highly submittable one-dimensional striker in Bruno Silva. And most recently, Allen took on another one-dimensional grappler in Paul Craig and landed another third round submission. So Allen’s been facing a ton of one-dimensional fighters who can’t match his well-roundedness. Even in his wins before facing Curtis, there weren’t many complete fighters. He beat Punahele Soriano, who does come from a wrestling background, but is mostly looking to strike, Karl Roberson, a one-dimensional kickboxer, Kyle Daukaaus, a one-dimensional grappler, Kevin Holland, a one-dimensional striker, and Tom Breese, a one-dimensional head case. The only other really well rounded opponent that Allen faced was Sean Strickland, who knocked Allen out in the second round, just like his teammate Chris Curtis. And while Curtis isn’t well rounded in the sense he looks to wrestle offensively, his defensive wrestling has been so good that it nullifies opponents’ ground games.
Now 23-5 as a pro, Allen has five wins by TKO, 14 submissions, and four decision victories. All five of his knockouts came in round one, while he has five first round submissions, five in round two, and two in round three. He’s also been knocked out twice himself, both times in the second round, and submitted once, which occurred in his third pro fight against Trevin Giles back in 2016. Allen’s other two losses both went the distance in five-round LFA title fights against Anthony Hernandez and Eryk Anders. All five of his career losses were against current UFC fighters, but three of those occurred before he joined the UFC. Ten of his 13 UFC fights ended early (8-2), while he won all three of the decisions he’s been to with the organization. Seven of his eight UFC finishes ended in submissions, with six of those coming via rear-naked choke, while he also had a ground and pound TKO victory over Tom Breese in his second UFC appearance. He’s yet to knock anyone out on the feet in the UFC and the last two times he knocked an opponent down, he finished them with a rear-naked choke.
This will be the 7th five-round fight of Allen’s career, but only his second in the UFC. His first five-round fight was with the smaller Valor Fights promotion in 2016 and Allen won by second round submission. He then joined the LFA in 2017 and lost a pair of five-round decisions to Anthony Hernandez and Eryk Anders. However, he rebounded from those losses with a 2018 R3 submission in his next LFA title fight and followed that up with a five-round decision win just before he went on DWCS in 2019. Then, in his one UFC five-round fight, he submitted Paul Craig in the third round. So Allen is 4-2 in five-round fights, with three mid-round submission wins, but only went 1-2 in those three five-round decisions.
Overall, Allen is a BJJ black belt and is most dangerous on the mat, but also has pretty decent striking. He’s shown a low fight IQ at multiple points in the past and often fails to take the path of least resistance, instead stubbornly looking to fight opponents where they’re the strongest. However, he did at least try to take Bruno Silva down in his second most recent fight, so perhaps he’s evolving to some degree since he’s been going to a sport psychologist a couple of years ago. He’s only 28 years old and trains at Kill Cliff FC, so he’s got a good team around him and appears to be consistently improving, but his chin and IQ remain a concern. He’s a fairly patient striker on the feet, averaging just 3.87 SSL/min and 3.60 SSA/min, and he’s also never landed more than two takedowns in a UFC fight. Between his 13 UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 11 of his 23 takedown attempts (47.8% accuracy), while he was taken down by his opponents 12 times on 29 attempts (58.6% defense).
Chris Curtis
9th UFC Fight (5-2, NC)After a fast 3-0 start in the UFC, Curtis has struggled to string wins together over his last five fights (2-2, NC). He’s coming off a high-volume split-decision win over Marc-Andre Barriault, which took place in front of Barriault’s home Canadian crowd. After a slow start to the fight, things picked up in the second round and Curtis finished ahead 140-122 in significant strikes, outlanding Barriault in every round. Curtis also fought on the previous Canada card, but his fight was unceremoniously stopped midway through the second round and ruled a No Contest following an accidental clause of heads that caused a nasty cut just above Curtis’ right eye. Curtis was losing the fight up to that point, as Nassourdine Imavov won the first round on all three scorecards, after becoming the first fighter to ever take Curtis down. Imavov also lapped Curtis in striking, finishing ahead 57-26 in significant strikes. Just before that, Curtis lost a close, somewhat controversial decision to Kelvin Gastelum where a second round clash of heads helped Gastelum to secure the win. Unlike in his more recent fight, the clash of heads against Gastelum did not result in a cut or the fight being paused, but it definitely still played a factor. Looking back one fight further, Curtis landed a second round knockout against Joaquin Buckley, after losing a decision to Jack Hermansson. Curtis won eight straight fights leading up to the Hermansson loss, including a 3-0 start with the UFC. After landing a first round knockout against Phil Hawes in his November 2021 UFC debut, Curtis hopped right back inside the Octagon a month later and knocked out Brendan Allen in round two. He then won a decision over Rodolfo Vieira in June 2022, a month before his loss to Hermansson. Curtis originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but despite landing a third round knockout he was not awarded a contract.
Now 31-10 plus a No Contest as a pro, the 36-year-old Curtis has 17 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and 13 decision victories. Eight of his last 11 wins were by knockout, with six of those occurring in the later rounds. He’s only been knocked out once himself (R2 2019) and also submitted once (R3 2011), with his other eight losses going the distance. In fairness to him, that lone KO loss came in a night where he fought twice in the PFL playoffs. While he landed a first round knockout in his UFC debut and another three fights before that, those are his only two fights of his last 25 to end in round one, and he’s generally putting guys away in the later rounds. His last seven matches all made it to round two, with four of those going the distance. While he’s been fighting exclusively at 185 lb in the UFC, where this next fight will also be, Curtis previously bounced between weight classes in the past and spent much of his career down at 170 lb. He’s also fought as high as 205 lb. His last fight before joining the UFC was at 170 lb but he seems content with staying at 185 lb, and even recently talked about wanting to add on some muscle.
This will be the 9th five-round fight of Curtis’ career, but first in the UFC. His first five-round fight was in 2016 and Curtis won in a R1 TKO for the CES Welterweight belt. However, he then lost a split decision immediately after that in another five-round main event, but both fighters showed up overweight and the belt wasn’t on the line. Curtis then defended the belt in 2017 and won via second round TKO. He then fought for the vacant PMMAC Welterweight belt just after that and won in a R4 TKO. Immediately after that he went over to another random promotion and won their vacant Welterweight belt in a five-round decision. He then returned to CES in 2018 and defended his belt in another five-round decision win, just before going on DWCS. After not getting a contract on the show, he returned to the regional scene and moved up to Middleweight, where he won another belt in another five-round decision win. He then dropped back down to 170 lb and following a failed run in the PFL, he defended one of his four belts in a post R4 TKO win. So Curtis has gone 7-1 in five round fights, with the last five of those all making it to the fourth round and three of his last four ending in decision wins. One last thing to note, all but one of his five-round fights were at 170 lb, while he won a majority decision in his one that took place at 185 lb.
Overall, Curtis is a counter striker who relies on his boxing, durability, and defensive wrestling to win fights. While he has yet to attempt a takedown in the UFC and doesn’t offer much of anything in terms of offensive grappling, his takedown defense has been elite—at least up until his fight against Nassourdine Imavov. In his first six UFC fights, Curtis stuffed all 35 of the takedown attempts against him, but he was then taken down three times on four attempts by Imavov. No takedowns were attempted in Curtis’ last match and looking at his UFC career as a whole, his opponents got him down on just 3 of their 39 attempts (92.3% defense). While he lands a good amount of striking volume, he also tends to get hit a lot, as he averages 5.96 SSL/min and 6.58 SSA/min. However, he’s built like a tank and is extremely durable, with his one vulnerability being headbutts (in case you ever get into a fight with him at a bar). He’s shown the ability to go five full rounds at multiple points in his career, although he is stepping into this next fight on just a few weeks’ notice. He doesn’t cut much weight and is undersized at 185 lb, which is actually a good thing when it comes to taking short notice fights. He’s generally a slow starter and lost the first round in five of his last six fights, but tends to finish strong, as he won the third round in all four of his UFC fights that made it that far. Curtis is 3-0 in the UFC when fighting in Las Vegas, which is where he lives so he doesn’t have to travel. However, he’s gone just 2-2 plus a No Contest in the UFC when fighting outside of Las Vegas.
Fight Prediction:
Allen will have a 4” height advantage, but both fighters share a 75” reach. Allen is eight years younger than the 36-year-old Curtis.
Rematches are always interesting to break down, but often end up being somewhat underwhelming when it comes to the actual fight. It seems like once fighters have already gone to battle with an opponent the element of surprise is gone to some extent and everyone has a better feel for each other’s timing. It’s just like with movie sequels, it’s great that you already know the characters, but now the plot kind of sucks. Of course there are always exceptions, maybe this will be one of those, who knows. On paper, Curtis is a really tough matchup for Allen, as he’s a durable striker who can test Allen’s suspect chin and also has an elite 92% takedown defense that will make it hard for Allen to get the fight to the mat. However, we did see Nassourdine Imavov take Curtis down three times in eight minutes and then take his back and nearly lock in a rear-naked choke. Had that been Allen on Curtis’ back, there’s a good chance that rear-naked choke would have been completed. And you don’t have to take someone down to submit them. Allen could take his back on the feet, knock him down, pounce on him after a slip, etc. And on the other side of things, Curtis has already knocked Allen out once and there’s no reason to think he can’t do it again. However, they are both well aware of all of that and should each be looking to avoid falling into those traps. So maybe we do end up getting a more tactical striking battle, where Allen knows the takedowns won’t come easy, so he doesn’t even attempt very many and instead focuses on remaining defensively sound after already getting knocked out by Curtis once. And considering Curtis only had a few weeks to prepare, he may want to conserve his energy some, while also being careful not to engage in any grappling exchanges. However, let us not forget that we’re dealing with Brendan Allen here, and outside of circus music, we don’t know what’s going on inside his head. He’s always trying to prove a point, and maybe he’ll want to get that first knockout back. Ultimately, this is a volatile matchup because of that, but we see it ending in one of three ways—an Allen submission, a Curtis knockout, or a close decision. We kind of lean towards it going the distance and we think Allen will find a round or two of control to sway things in his favor.
Our favorite bet here is “Allen/Curtis FGTD” at +190.
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DFS Implications:
Allen has averaged 96 DraftKings points in his 11 UFC wins, with five scores of 102 or more. However, the only time he ever scored more than 96 points in a fight that made it out of the first round was in a second round submission win in his UFC debut that was good for 102 points. His last three mid-round finishes returned DraftKings totals of 86, 79, and 96, which presents a clear path for how he could bust even with a finish. It’s trickier to predict how he’ll score in a decision win, as he has really good grappling, but Curtis also has elite defensive wrestling. Allen has never landed more than two takedowns in a UFC fight, but has also never been past the third round in the UFC. Allen averages just 3.87 SSL/min and has already been knocked out once by Curtis. That makes it hard to know how aggressive Allen will be in this fight, and he may not fully take advantage of just how hittable Curtis is (6.58 SSA/min). That leaves a wider range of scoring outcomes and we could see a slower paced decision that scores poorly, or a much higher paced scrap. For what it’s worth, the first time these two fought, Curtis was on pace to land 219 significant strikes over 25 minutes while Allen was on pace to land 154. Allen also failed to land any of his three takedown attempts in that fight. The fact that Allen got knocked out in their first fight should keep his ownership somewhat lower than your typical main event favorite and Allen was only 36% owned as the favorite against Paul Craig in his last main event. We expect to see him similarly owned here, which raises his tournament appeal to some extent. However, he’ll likely need either a first round finish or a higher volume decision win to return value and there are multiple ways he fails. The odds imply Allen has a 66% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Curtis exploded into the UFC in 2021 with huge upset wins in back-to-back knockouts, with one of those coming against Bredan Allen in a fight that Curtis took on short notice. However, Curtis has now only landed one more knockout in his last six fights since defeating Allen, which was against Joaquin Buckley, who has since moved down to 170 lb. However, Curtis has still shown the ability to rack up striking volume and still owns an elite 92% takedown defense, making him a tough opponent to deal with. That seems to be the perfect recipe for defeating Allen, who’s a chinny grappler with a low fight IQ. Just keep in mind, Curtis stepped into this fight on only a few weeks’ notice, so he didn’t have much time to prepare. That leaves some question marks surrounding his cardio in a longer fight, although his cardio has always been great in the past. After successfully defending the first 35 takedown attempts against him in the UFC, Curtis did get taken down three times in eight minutes by Nassourdine Imavov, which is concerning in this matchup as Allen is a really good grappler and will have a good shot at subbing Curtis if this fight hits the ground. That makes it tough to trust Curtis’ scoring floor, but if he can keep the fight standing he’ll have a good shot at either landing another knockout or winning a decision. And while there’s the potential for this to end in a lower volume decision, at Curtis’ cheaper price tag he may not need to put up a huge score to still find his way into winning lineups. Since he already has the one win over Allen and a large portion of the field/world lacks any sort of imagination, we expect Curtis to be a fairly popular underdog play, which does detract from his tournament appeal. The odds imply Curtis has a 34% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
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Here's our top play on the house! For the rest of our PrizePicks plays, check out the DFS Cheat Sheet in our premium DFS content on: patreon.com/mmadfs.
Top UFC PrizePicks Play of the Week:
Alex Morono UNDER 65.5 SS
