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Fighter Notes:
Fight #11
Marc Diakiese
15th UFC Fight (7-7)Looking to bounce back from a pair of losses, Diakiese recently got submitted by an always dangerous Joel Alvarez. Diakiese had no good options in that fight, as he was outgunned on the feet and was destined to get submitted if he opted to grapple, which is what happened in the second round after Diakiese got outstruck in round one. Prior to that, Diakiese lost a decision to Michael Johnson, who was well equipped to defend the wrestling of Diakiese, stuffing all six of his attempts. Leading up to those two losses, Diakiese had won two uneventful wrestling-heavy decisions against one-dimensional strikers. Diakiese’s UFC career has been incredibly symmetrical. He won his first three fights, then he lost his next three. Then he won two in a row, before losing two in a row. Then he won two more, and then he lost two more. So every time he’s gone on a winning streak, he’s amazingly followed it up with a corresponding losing streak of the same length. Diakiese has gone the distance in 8 of his last 11 fights (4-4), with the three exceptions all being submission losses. The last time he finished anybody was in 2017, when he knocked out a terrible Teemu Packalen 30 seconds into the first round.
Now 16-7 as a pro, Diakiese has six wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and nine decision victories. He’s never been knocked out, but he’s been submitted three times, and has four decision losses. Diakiese’s only two finishes in the UFC came in 2016 and 2017 knockouts against low-level opponents who finished their respective UFC careers 0-3 and 1-3.
Overall, Diakiese made a name for himself early in his career with his flashy striking, but he’s basically turned into a one-dimensional wrestler lately and hasn’t been very impressive on the feet. The last and only time he won a UFC fight without landing a takedown was in 2017, which coincidentally was also the last time he finished anybody. In his 14 UFC fights, he landed 37 takedowns on 83 attempts (44.6% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 10 of their 32 attempts (68.8% defense). He’s 6-2 in UFC fights where he landed at least one takedown, but just 1-5 when he failed to land any. He only averages 2.69 SSL/min and 2.73 SSA/min and has never landed more than 68 significant strikes in a fight. After facing a pair of tougher veterans in his last two fights, Diakiese will now square off against a newcomer.
Kaue Fernandes
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut in front of his home Brazilian crowd, Fernandes is coming off back-to-back quick knockout wins in the LFA. The most recent of those ended in just 45 seconds against an opponent who’s been finished in five of his six pro losses. The other ended in 128 seconds against an opponent who only had six pro fights. Prior to that, Fernandes lost a decision where he completely gassed out in the later rounds. Fernandes turned pro all the way back in 2014, but only has nine pro fights to his name and has never fought more than once in a calendar year until now.
Now 8-1 as a pro, Fernandes has four wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and two decision victories. All four of his knockout wins ended in under 90 seconds, while both of his submission wins came via armbar, with one in just 22 seconds in his 2014 pro debut and the other in the first half of round two. Fernandes started his career at 145 lb, before moving up to 155 lb in 2019.
Overall, Fernandes is decently well rounded as he has striking experience and is also a BJJ black belt. He’s got a very wide stance that leaves his skinny lead leg exposed and he likes to throw a lot of kicks. He’s shown really suspect cardio in the past, and he completely gassed out the last time he saw the second round. He looks like a Brazilian Steve Erceg also fights somewhat similarly to him. His takedown defense hasn’t looked great, but he is dangerous off his back and has an active guard, where he likes to look for armbars. We’re not really sold on him yet, but he’s young enough that he should be making improvements between every fight and he trains at a good gym in Nova Uniao.
Fight Prediction:
Diakiese will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 73” reach.
Diakiese has been so dead set on relying on his wrestling that he even took Joel Alvarez down, who basically begs opponents to take him down so that they end up in his extremely dangerous guard. Unsurprisingly, that resulted in Diakiese getting submitted. Regardless, the fact that Diakiese still looked to wrestle there just shows that he doesn’t care who he’s facing, he’s going to look for takedowns. Now he’s taking on a UFC newcomer, who is a BJJ black belt with an active guard off his back, but has also struggled to defend takedowns. While that creates the theoretical potential for Diakiese to get submitted once again, this is a massive step down in competition for Diakiese and he’s been far more prone to getting choked out then armbarred, which is generally how Fernandes is looking to submit opponents. Fernandes has also shown cardio concerns and if Diakiese can grind him out on the mat while focussing on remaining out of danger, we’ll likely see Fernandes slow down and become less dangerous as the fight goes on. Diakiese hasn’t looked like any sort of finishing threat and we expect him to be entirely focussed on securing the win after dropping two straight, so a more conservative game plan would make sense. We like Diakiese to win another wrestling-heavy decision and snap his current two-fight skid.
Our favorite bet here is “Marc Diakiese DEC” at +125.
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DFS Implications:
Diakiese has averaged 101 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, despite five of those going the distance. He’s been extremely reliant on his wrestling lately, but is also prone to getting submitted. That makes him a very matchup specific play in DFS and you want to target him against opponents with poor takedown defenses, who ideally pose less of a submission threat. He couldn’t have asked for better matchups in his last two decision wins, as he took on two of the most one-dimensional strikers in the division and returned DraftKings scores of 113 and 119, as he landed a combined 19 takedowns with 26 minutes of control time. Then he faced the 80% takedown defense of Michael Johnson and the dangerous guard of Joel Alvarez and predictably lost both of those fights. Now he’s going up against a UFC newcomer in a slightly less clear-cut matchup, as Fernandes is a BJJ black belt with submission abilities off his back, but also struggles to defend takedowns. The submission threat of Fernandes will likely keep some people off of Diakiese, which just adds to his tournament appeal as it should keep his ownership under control. We’re not especially concerned with Diakiese getting submitted here, as he’s always been more prone to getting choked out and both of Fernandes’ career submissions have come via armbar. While the threat of a submission does lower Diakiese’s scoring floor, it makes less of an impact on his ceiling and he still has the potential to dominate this fight on the mat for three rounds. That leaves him as a DraftKings specific play, but this looks like a good bounce back spot for Diakiese. The odds imply Diakiese has a 63% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fernandes will be making his UFC debut in front of his home crowd against a longtime UFC veteran, which puts a lot of pressure on a young fighter. While he’s a BJJ black belt, he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2017 and his last three finishes all ended in first round knockouts. That’s somewhat surprising considering his striking hasn’t been all that impressive, but also speaks to the level of competition he’s been facing. The last time he saw the second round was in 2021 and he completely gassed out in that fight, which is concerning for him here as he takes on an opponent who’s never been knocked out and should be looking to wear Fernandes down with his wrestling. We don’t see Fernandes knocking Diakiese out or defending takedowns especially well, leaving him as a hail mary submission or bust play. The odds imply Fernandes has a 37% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Eduarda Moura
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Fresh off a dominant first round submission win on DWCS, Moura will be making her UFC debut with an undefeated record that includes finishes in all but one of her nine wins. In her recent win on DWCS, she immediately landed a takedown in the opening seconds and never gave up the position as she worked towards a finish late in the round. She did a good job of landing ground and pound until a submission presented itself, where she immediately locked up a rear-naked choke. Prior to that, she won the vacant Strawweight belt with the Demo Fight organization in her first career fight down at 115 lb. She only turned pro in March 2022, initially fighting at 135 lb. Her first three pro fights took place over a seven week stretch, all of which she finished in under half a round. She then dropped down to 125 lb in June 2022 and landed another quick finish, before seeing the judges for the first and only time in a September 2022 split decision win for the vacant Flyweight Demo Fight belt. She followed that up with a quick submission win, before working her way down to 115 lb with a 121 lb Catchweight match that she ended with another first round submission. She then saw round two for just the second time in her career when she landed a R2 TKO in her second most recent fight to capture her second belt. So she’s only had two fights at 115 lb.
Now 9-0 as a pro, Moura has three wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and one decision victory. Seven of her eight finishes ended in round one, with the other coming in round two. She hasn’t faced much in the way of competition, and only four of her nine wins came against opponents with winning records. Her second most recent win came against a 4’11” opponent and the one prior to that was against a 19-year-old kid.
Overall, Moura is a relentless grappler who trains with Jailton Almeida at Galpao da Luta in Brazil. She has good ground and pound and submissions skills and has done a great job of controlling opponents. We still need to see how her skills will translate to the next level as she begins facing a higher level of competition, but she looks like someone to keep an eye on at 115 lb and we have high hopes for her. She’ll be fighting in front of her home crowd for her debut, with her teammate headlining the card, as she takes on a smaller opponent who just got dominated on the mat in her last fight.
UPDATE: Moura missed weight by 3.5 lb!
Montserrat Conejo Ruiz
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Looking to bounce back from two straight TKO losses, Ruiz is just three months removed from a third round TKO against a grappler in Jaqueline Amorim. Ruiz got completely dominated on the mat in the first two rounds, and while she was able to hold top control for a couple of minutes in round three, as soon as Amorim reversed the position she was able to force a stoppage through ground and pound. Amorim finished with four official submission attempts, two reversals, one takedown, and eight minutes of control time, while also finishing ahead 86-6 in significant strikes and 141-20 in total strikes. Prior to that loss, Ruiz hadn’t competed in 25 months after she got knocked out by Amanda Lemos in just 35 seconds back in July 2021. Ruiz had then been booked to face Mallory Martin in December 2021, but ended up withdrawing and then underwent knee surgery in April 2022 to extend her absence. Before she got knocked out by Lemos, Ruiz won a smothering decision over Cheyanne Vlismas in her 2021 UFC debut, where Montserrat finished ahead in significant strikes 31-15 and in total strikes 136-49, while landing 4 of 5 takedowns and amassing nearly 10 minutes of control time. She did a good job of setting up her takedowns with flurries of punches and utilized her signature headlock throw time-after-time to get the fight to the ground. Just before that she landed a first round submission in Invicta via Scarf Hold Armlock, which is her go to move.
Now 10-3 as a pro, Ruiz has three wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and five decision victories. Four of Ruiz’s five finishes came in her first six pro fights and she only has one finish since 2016, which was a 2020 R1 submission against a low-level opponent on a four fight losing streak. On the other side of things, Ruiz has two KO/TKO losses and one decision defeat.
Overall, Ruiz has a wrestling background and is most comfortable in the clinch or in top position on the mat, but has looked terrible off her back. She’s basically a one-trick pony who looks to spam head and arm throws to try and lock up scarf hold submissions while rabbit punching her opponents relentlessly. We have seen her let her hands go in the striking exchanges as well, but she only has a 61” reach and is just 5’0” tall, so she’s pretty undersized, even at 115 lb. The one time she faced a decent grappler was in her last match, and she got absolutely torched on the mat. Sitting on a 1-2 record, she’s likely fighting for her job here as she travels into enemy territory to take on another dominant grappler.
Fight Prediction:
Moura will have a 6” height and reach advantage.
We just saw Ruiz get absolutely dominated on the mat a few months ago, and not to let recency bias drive the bus, but this looks like a matchup that could go very similarly. Ruiz is tiny and we expect her to struggle mightily with the physicality and top control of Moura. Look for Moura to quickly get this fight to the ground and exert her will until she can eventually find a finish. The only questions we have are when will Moura end things and will it come via ground and pound or submission? Ruiz did show the ability to escape submission attempts in her last match, but was far more helpless when it came to defending ground and pound. However, Ruiz did nearly get submitted at multiple points in that match and Moura has more wins by submission than knockout. So it could definitely go either way, but three of Moura’s last four wins did end in first round submissions for what it’s worth. With the home crowd behind Moura, we expect a finish to come sooner rather than later in the fight, most likely in the opening round or round and a half. We’ll say she gets on top of Ruiz and goes to work with ground and pound. If Ruiz gives up her back, Moura should lock up a rear-naked choke, but otherwise the stoppage will likely come via TKO and we think that’s a little more likely based on what we’ve seen from Ruiz on the mat.
Our favorite bet here is “Eduarda Moura KO” at +270.
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DFS Implications:
Moura will be making her UFC debut in front of her home Brazilian crowd, so it will be interesting to see how she handles the pressure. She’s been dominating a bunch of low-level regional opponents on the mat, finishing all but one of them. While we still need to see how that translates to the UFC, she’s getting a favorable matchup here against an opponent who got destroyed on the ground just three months ago. In that recent loss for Ruiz, her opponent scored 120 DraftKings points and 128 points on FanDuel, which is very encouraging for Moura’s upside here. Moura’s grappling-heavy style of fighting leaves her with a safer floor on DraftKings, but she’s shown a solid scoring ceiling on both sites and her recent R1 submission win on DWCS would have been good for 111 DraftKings points and 115 points on FanDuel. Her ability to control opponents while racking up ground and pound, means she can score well on DraftKings even without a finish, but is more reliant on getting opponents out of there early on FanDuel. She checks in as the second most expensive fighter on the card, sandwiched between Bonfim and Almeida, which will keep her ownership in check as not many people will have the stones to click her name over Almeida’s or the other expensive options. That makes her a great low-owned tournament option with a massive scoring floor and ceiling. The odds imply Moura has an 83% chance to win, a 55% chance to land a finish, and a 27% chance it comes in round one.
Ruiz showed solid DraftKings upside in her UFC debut when she scored 103 points in a decision win as she racked up control time and ground strikes, but it’s important to point out that came against a one-dimensional striker. In the two and a half years since that win, Ruiz got knocked out in 35 seconds by Amanda Lemos, had knee surgery, and then got absolutely dominated on the mat just three months ago. She looks like a one-trick pony who will struggle against grapplers, or anyone that knows how to defend a head and arm throw. This is another bad matchup for Ruiz and it doesn’t help that she’ll have to fly into enemy territory for the fight. She’s massively undersized at just 5’0” and we fully expect her to get obliterated in this matchup. However, if she does somehow pull off the miracle upset, at her cheap price tag, she would have a really good shot at ending up in winning lineups and will also be low owned. Those are the only good things we can say about her and we are fully expecting her to get finished on the mat and then cut from the UFC. The odds imply Ruiz has a 17% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Denise Gomes
4th UFC Fight (0-0)Coming off her second straight knockout win, Gomes recently handed the previously undefeated Yazmin Jauregui the first loss of her career. The fight lasted just 20 seconds, as Gomes immediately dropped Jauregui and then swarmed her to force a stoppage. Just before that, Gomes landed a R2 TKO against a debuting striker in Bruna Brasil, after losing a decision in her UFC debut against Loma Lookboonmee. Gomes was able to take Brasil down three times and also knock her down as she bullied her way to a finish. Prior to that, Gomes was the one that got taken down four times in a decision loss in her UFC debut against Loma Lookboonmee. To Gomes’ credit, she came close to locking up multiple submissions in that fight against Lookboonmee, despite being known as a striker coming into the fight. That loss also came on short notice just three and a half weeks after she secured a UFC contract with a decision win on DWCS. Before going on DWCS, Gomes landed a pair of third round TKO wins in her two previous matches. However, she was losing the most recent of those up until the third round and actually got knocked down twice in round two by former UFC fighter Milana Dudieva, who has lost six of her last seven fights and isn’t an exceptional striker.
Now 8-2 as a pro, Gomes has six wins by KO/TKO and two decision victories. Her last four knockout wins all occurred in the later rounds and only one of her nine pro fights ended in round one, which was a TKO in her first pro win against an opponent fighting for the first and only time. The only time Gomes has been finished was in a 2017 R2 TKO in her pro debut. She bounced back with six straight wins before suffering the only other loss of her career in a decision in her short notice UFC debut. Gomes made her pro debut at 135 lb in 2017, but after getting knocked out in round two she dropped down to 125 lb for her next two fights. She then moved down to 115 lb for a fight in 2021, before moving back up to 125 lb for her next two matches. She dropped back down to 115 lb when she went on DWCS, where she has stayed in the UFC.
Overall, Gomes is an aggressive striker with a Muay Thai background, who has recently shown improvements to her grappling. She’s struggled some with being taken down, and between her DWCS appearance and her three UFC fights, she’s been taken five times on 10 attempts (50% defense). While she didn’t attempt any takedowns on DWCS and failed to land any of her six attempts in her UFC debut, she landed all three of her takedown attempts in her next match, and no one had time to attempt a takedown in her most recent fight. She’s also happy to throw down in a brawl and definitely shows up to fight. She’s still just 23 years old and should be continuing to improve everytime she steps inside the Octagon. Now she’ll get to fight in front of her home crowd and we expect her to be looking to put on a show.
Angela Hill
24th UFC Fight (10-13)Looking to bounce back from a five-round beatdown loss at the hands of Mackenzie Dern, the 38-year-old Hill has now gone just 3-6 in her last nine fights. Everyone expected Dern to have a massive grappling advantage, but it was far more surprising to see Dern beat Hill up on the feet as she outlanded her 126-66 in significant strikes and 247-94 in total strikes, while tacking on a knockdown, three takedowns, and 13 minutes of control time. Prior to that, Hill won a pair of decisions over Emily Ducote and Loopy Godinez, impressively outlanding Ducote 182-71 in significant strikes. However, Hill lost three straight decisions before that. Her last 10 fights all went the distance, going back to a 2020 R2 TKO win over Hannah Cifers.
Now 15-13 as a pro, Hill has five wins by KO/TKO and 10 decision victories (4-6). Three of her five knockouts occurred in her first six pro fights, with two of those coming in Invicta. Her only two early wins in her last 22 fights came in a 2019 R3 TKO victory via doctor stoppage and a 2020 R2 TKO against a helpless Hannah Cifers. Hill has never been knocked out, but she has been submitted in the first round twice (2015 & 2019) and has 11 decision losses. She’s been to five split decisions in her career, losing the last four of those and has never won a split decision in the UFC. Nineteen of her 23 UFC fights went the distance (8-11).
Overall, Hill has always been a decent striker, although she’s not much of a finishing threat and relies more on volume to outland her way to decision wins. She averages 5.46 SSL/min and 4.97 SSA/min. To her credit, she’s been improving her grappling in recent years and has a 76% career takedown defense. In her first 16 UFC fights, Hill landed just six total takedowns, while she’s now matched that number in her last seven fights. No one has ever taken her down more than three times in any of her 23 UFC fights, and only three of her last 18 opponents got her down more than once. Hill has won five of the last six fights where she wasn’t taken down, with the one exception being the close split-decision loss to Amanda Lemos.
Fight Prediction:
Hill will have a 1” height and reach advantage, while Gomes is 15 years younger than the 38-year-old Hill.
Hill is approaching her 39th birthday and didn’t look great in her last fight. Perhaps she was just so focussed on defending the grappling of Dern that she didn’t account for the striking, but getting dropped by Dern is definitely a bad look and Hill got hurt at multiple points in that fight. That’s not a great sign for Hill, considering Dern has never knocked anybody out in her career and doesn’t have great striking. It also shows that while Hill is comfortable in a technical striking battle, when you put a more aggressive, unorthodox fighter in there she may struggle to defend what’s coming at her. Now she’ll be going against a backyard brawler in Gomes, who’s a lot more dangerous than Dern on the feet. The last time we saw Hill face someone like that was when she lost a decision to Amanda Lemos and nearly got knocked out in the first round. Perhaps Hill can bounce back and dictate the pace of this next fight, but at her age that’s far from a given. We think Gomes’ aggressive style will give Hill problems and wouldn’t be at all shocked to see Hill get knocked out for the first time here. Considering she’s fought to 10 straight decisions, it’s still more likely that we see this one go the distance as well, but unlike most of Hill’s fights, it’s far from a given. Either way, we’re taking the younger fighter in Gomes here.
Our favorite bet here is “Gomes ITD” at +240.
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DFS Implications:
Gomes absolutely shattered the last two slates she was on, scoring 133 and 132 DraftKings points respectively, despite coming in as a sizable underdog priced at just $6,900 both times. Gomes has always been an aggressive brawler, but has also added more grappling to her game recently, which increases her scoring potential. While Hill has historically been very durable, we just saw Mackenzie Dern beat the breaks off her and Hill is now 38 years old. Perhaps that durability is beginning to fade and Gomes will surely test it. We’re expecting a high-volume fight and both fighters could potentially mix in some takedowns. That’s a solid recipe for DFS production and neither of them are prohibitively priced. It kind of feels like chasing on the Gomes side of things, but these two fighters are headed in opposite directions and her aggressive fighting style is all you can ask for in DFS. Gomes has the potential to score decently even without a finish, although it will require her to really fill up the stat sheet. The odds imply Gomes has a 56% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Hill’s last fight couldn’t have gone much worse outside of getting finished, but she did impressively score 104 DraftKings points in a decision win just before that, as she landed a career best 182 significant strikes. If that version of Hill shows up to this next fight, then she’ll have a very real shot of pulling off the upset and scoring well even without a finish. However, if the version we saw against Dern flies down to Brazil, it’s gonna be a long night. Hill got hit with all sorts of shots she never saw coming in that match and Gomes is an aggressive brawler who will make this fight ugly. That’s concerning for Hill’s scoring floor and at 38 years old, the cliff could be coming at any moment. Gomes’ aggressive style is conducive for scoring on both sides, leaving Hill with a wider range of scoring outcomes. That makes her a decent tournament play, but her floor isn’t as safe as it has historically been and we would not be shocked if she suffered the first knockout loss of her career here. The odds imply Hill has a 44% chance to win, a 9% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Vitor Petrino
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Fresh off the first submission win of his career, Petrino appeared determined to showcase his grappling against Marcin Prachnio, who he easily could have knocked out if he wanted to. Petrino had Prachnio hurt at multiple points on the feet, but then opted to take him down repeatedly. Petrino landed four of his six takedown attempts with almost nine minutes of control time, before submitting Prachnio late in the third round, after a couple of failed submission attempts in round two. Prior to that win, Petrino saw the judges for just the second time in his career as he won a decision in his UFC debut against Anton Turkalj. Petrino impressively landed seven takedowns in that fight and also had four reversals on the mat. He originally punched his ticket to the UFC with a second round knockout victory on DWCS in 2022. Just before going on DWCS, he knocked out former UFC fighter Gadzhimurad Antigulov, also in the second round.
Now 9-0 as a pro, Petrino has six wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and two decision victories. The first four knockouts of his career came in round one, while the last two ended in round two. His one submission victory ended in round three and his last three finishes all occurred in the later rounds, after his first four ended in round one. Four of his nine career wins came against opponents with a combined 1-23 pro record, and two more of his victories were against the same opponent, who he defeated for the second time on DWCS. So he has faced a pretty limited level of competition.
Overall, Petrino is a 26-year-old Brazilian kickboxer who has added a lot of muscle over the course of his career and has really heavy hands. He’s also really developed his grappling game at team CM System in Brazil. His cardio has also looked better lately, so he’s been making improvements across the board and will be a guy to keep an eye on. Between his two UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 11 of his 15 takedown attempts (73.3% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 6 of their 19 attempts (68.4% defense).
Modestas Bukauskas
7th UFC Fight (3-3)Bukauskas is coming off a very questionable decision win over Zac Pauga, where Bukauskas finished behind in every statistical category, got outlanded in every round, and was hurt in each of the first two rounds. Amazingly, all three judges scored the fight for Bukauskas and one judge even had it 30-27 in the total head scratcher. Prior to that, Bukauskas won another close low-volume decision, that time over Tyson Pedro, who was apparently dealing with some sort of illness at the time. That was Bukauskas’ first fight back with the UFC after he got cut in 2021 following three straight losses and getting his knee blown out by Khalil Rountree in the second round of a September 2021 match. After recovering from that injury, Bukauskas returned to Cage Warriors where he had been the former Light Heavyweight champ. Upon his return, Bukauskas won a decision over 37-year-old journeyman Lee Chadwick to immediately get back into title contention with the organization. He then fought for the vacant belt against 39-year-old Chuck Campbell, who Bukauskas knocked out early in the fourth round to recapture the belt he had vacated when he joined the UFC.
Bukauskas originally made his UFC debut in July 2020 and got a slightly bizarre R1 TKO stoppage after the round ended. His opponent, Andreas Michailidis, shot for a takedown with under 10 seconds remaining in the round and Bukauskas landed several elbows that looked just barely legal to the side/back of Michailidis’ head. As the horn sounded, Michailidis lay hunched over, grasping the back of his head, right next to the door to the cage. The cornermen entered and the ref told Michailidis he had to get up so Michailidis began to sit up, but went to lean against what he thought was the cage. Instead he leaned against an open door and fell backwards, and the ref immediately stopped the fight. It appeared that he would have had a chance to push off the cage and stand up, had the door not been open—but he also didn’t look entirely there so who knows. That was Bukauskas’ seventh straight win at the time, all coming early, with five first round finishes. However, Bukauskas then got knocked out in round one by Jimmy Crute, lost a decision to Michal Oleksiejczuk, and got his knee destroyed in a R2 TKO loss to Khalil Rountree.
Now 15-5 as a pro, Bukauskas has nine wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and four decision victories. Four of his nine knockout wins ended in round one, three came in round two, and two occurred in round four. His two submission victories both came in the first round of consecutive 2018 fights, both by rear-naked choke. He’s been knocked out three times himself, submitted once, and has one decision loss. Three of his four early losses ended in 121 seconds or less, with the other coming midway through round two. After winning a decision in his 2015 pro debut, Bukauskas had 13 straight fights end early, with nine ending in the first round. However, since then he’s seen the second round in six straight fights, with five of those making it to round three and four going the distance. The last time he landed a finish within 15 minutes was in his 2020 UFC debut.
Overall, Bukauskas is a Lithuanian kickboxer who lives and trains in England. He’s a karate black belt, and has only attempted one takedown in his six UFC fights, which he failed to land, while his opponents got him down on three of their 12 attempts (75% defense). He’s a painfully patient striker who only averages 3.46 SSL/min and hasn’t been very aggressive in his UFC fights, often content with waiting on his opponents to throw first and looking for counter shots. He hasn’t landed more than 58 significant strikes in any of his six UFC fights, nor has he absorbed more than 67. However, he has been prone to getting rocked and only has a 48% striking defense. It’s unclear why the UFC opted to bring him back on, as he’s not very good and tries to make fights boring.
Fight Prediction:
Bukauskas will have a 1” height and reach advantage, and is three years older than the 26-year-old Petrino.
Bukauskas is outgunned everywhere in this match and Petrino has multiple paths to victory, whether it be knocking Bukauskas out on the feet, finishing him with ground and pound on the mat, submitting him, or outworking him to a decision victory. Bukauskas’ chin isn’t very good and Petrino has paint cans for hands, so a knockout is the most likely outcome. However, Bukauskas also has cowardly tendencies and we’ve seen him content with running away for entire matches, like when he fought Michal Oleksiejczuk. This fight will be in the larger cage, so it’s possible Bukauskas ruins it by simply avoiding contact for 15 minutes. However, he was more willing to engage in his last match, so perhaps getting cut once from the UFC has convinced him to at least try and fight. Both guys tend to keep their heads kind of stationary and they’re there to be hit, so it’s not entirely impossible that Bukauskas could land something clean and pull off a miracle knockout win. But we’d be very surprised to see it happen. And while Bukauskas was able to steal a decision in his last fight and also beat Tyson Pedro on the scorecards in his home of Australia, it would take multiple corrupt judges for him to get his hand raised here. Petrino is the obvious pick and we like his chances of finishing Bukauskas, most likely in an early knockout.
Our favorite bet here is “Vitor Petrino KO” at +220.
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DFS Implications:
Petrino is a powerful striker who has also shown the ability to rack up takedowns and finish opponents on the mat. He’s undefeated as a pro and seven of his nine wins ended early. Even in the decision win in his UFC debut, he still scored 116 DraftKings points, although that was only good for 90 points on FanDuel. Nevertheless, he’s shown a solid floor even when he’s been unable to find a finish. He also scored 104 DraftKings points in his recent third round submission win and now he’s taking on an opponent who’s been finished in four of his five pro losses. However, Bukauskas will fight like a coward at times, content with evading contact for entire matches, as we saw in his loss to Michal Oleksiejczuk. That adds some uncertainty to Petrino’s scoring potential, but we still like his chances of tracking Bukauskas down and finishing him at some point in this fight. He’s also fully capable of securing takedowns against Bukauskas, which adds to his scoring appeal. He still probably needs a finish to return value at his high salary and it’s unfair to expect him to score 116 points in a decision again like he did in his debut, as that required him to tack on four reversals and seven takedowns. That’s an outlier result, although Petrino’s grappling does leave him with a decent floor. The odds imply Petrino has a 68% chance to win, a 42% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.
Bukauskas has failed to top 56 DraftKings points in any of his last five UFC fights, after “only” scoring 97 points in an ideally timed post R1 TKO in his UFC debut. He’s a painfully patient counter striker who offers nothing in terms of grappling and is entirely reliant on early knockouts to score well. He only averages 3.37 SSL/min with zero takedown landed on just one attempt in six UFC fights and is now facing a dangerous, undefeated opponent. While Bukauskas narrowly won decisions in each of his last two fights, he only scored 56 and 52 DraftKings points respectively. Even at his cheap price tag, that’s not enough to be useful, leaving him as a KO or bust option in a tough matchup. The odds imply Bukauskas has a 32% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Rinat Fakhretdinov
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Fakhretdinov is fresh off a quick 55 second first round submission win over Kevin Lee. Fakhretdinov dropped Lee 30 seconds into the fight with a clean right hand and then as Lee desperately looked to grab a leg to buy time to recover, Fakhretdinov locked up a guillotine and put him to sleep. Prior to that, Fakhretdinov won back-to-back smothering decisions, where he dominated Bryan Battle and Andreas Michailidis on the mat, landing 12 combined takedowns with over 27 minutes of total control time. Fakhretdinov has won 20 straight fights dating back to 2013, when he suffered his only career loss in a decision in his second pro match.
Now 21-1 as a pro, Fakhretdinov has 11 wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and four decision victories. His lone loss came in a 2013 two-round decision in his second pro fight. All 17 of his finishes have come in the first two rounds, including 13 in round one and 4 in round two. Six of his last nine finishes have come by KO/TKO, while his last five submission wins all ended in guillotines. Fakhretdinov started his career at 185 lb before dropping down to 170 lb when he joined the UFC. He also had one 170 lb fight in 2018 that he won by R1 TKO, but the vast majority of his career has been spent at 185 lb.
Overall, Fakhretdinov is a relentless Russian wrestler who typically dominates opponents on the mat. However, he showed in his last fight that he’s dangerous on the feet as well and has solid power in his hands. He’s only been to the third round four times in 22 pro fights, but three of his last five fights went the distance. He’s primarily looking for control and ground and pound on the mat, but will lock up a guillotine when the opportunity presents itself, which is how he finished five of his six submission wins. In his three UFC fights, he’s landed 12 of his 19 takedown attempts (63.2% accuracy), while defending all three of the attempts against him (100% defense). We haven’t seen him face any adversity recently, so we still don’t know how he’ll respond when he does, but he’s been very impressive to this point.
Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos
14th UFC Fight (10-3)Zaleski dos Santos is coming off a low-volume, split-decision win over Abubakar Nurmagomedov, after serving a year-long suspension due to a failed drug test. Zaleski dos Santos has only competed once since October 2021, when he won a violent decision over Benoit St. Denis in a controversial fight that should have been stopped early as Benoit St. Denis took a hellacious beating. That was Benoit St. Denis’ UFC debut and he was fighting up a weight class. Prior to that, Zaleski dos Santos lost a split decision to Muslim Salikhov, after winning a decision over Alexey Kunchenko. While his last four fights all went the distance, his four before that all ended early (3-1), including a R1 KO win over Sean Strickland. Zaleski dos Santos then knocked out an undersized debuting fighter in Luigi Vendramini, before submitting Curtis Millender in the first round, and then suffering a 2019 R3 TKO loss to Li Jingliang, which is the only time Zaleski dos Santos has been finished in the UFC. Zaleski dos Santos lost a split decision in his 2015 UFC debut against Nicolas Dalby, but bounced back with seven straight wins before getting finished by Jingliang. Of Dos Santos’ 13 UFC fights, 10 made it to the third round, with eight ending in decisions.
Now 24-7 as a pro, 14 of Dos Santos’ wins ended in KO/TKOs, three came by submission, and seven were by decision. He’s been knocked out once and submitted twice, and has four decision defeats. All three of his submission wins came by rear-naked choke (R2 2012, R2 2014 & R1 2019), while both of his submission losses also came by rear-naked choke in the second round (2012 & 2013). It’s been four years since one of his fights ended early.
Overall, Zaleski dos Santos is a BJJ black belt who utilizes a flashy Capoeira style of fighting that includes spinning kicks and unorthodox attacks that can catch his opponents by surprise. However, he generally doesn’t land a ton of striking volume or takedowns. In his 13 UFC fights, Zaleski dos Santos landed just five of his 35 takedown attempts (14.3% accuracy). While he attempted at least one takedown in 12 of his 13 fights, he never landed more than two in a fight, a number he only reached once. On the other side of things, he’s been taken down by his opponents on 20 of their 58 attempts (65.5% defense), but still won five of the last six fights where he gave up a takedown. After getting taken down 14 times in his first three UFC fights, he’s only been taken down six times in his last 10 matches. However, he’s now 36 years old and facing a relentless wrestler.
Fight Prediction:
Fakhretdinov will have a 1” height and reach advantage, in addition to being four years younger than the 36-year-old Zaleski dos Santos.
Zaleski dos Santos has looked kind of haggard since returning from his PED suspension and at 36 years old he may not have much left in the tank. He’s only fought once in the last two years and wasn’t very impressive in that split decision win. Fakhretdinov should be able to come in and exert his will in this matchup, although you always have to be a little careful when fighting Zaleski dos Santos, due to his unorthodox striking and submission abilities. Because of that, we could see Fakhretdinov playing it a little safer and just grinding out a decision on the mat, but we also won’t be shocked if he finds a finish. Fakhretdinov by decision is the pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Rinat Fakhretdinov DEC” at +175.
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DFS Implications:
Fakhretdinov has averaged a ridiculous 123 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, scoring exactly 130 points in each of his last two wins. His wrestling-heavy style is a better fit for the DraftKings scoring system, and in his two decision wins, he averaged 123 DraftKings points, but only 89 points on FanDuel. That leaves him reliant on either landing a finish or an absurd number of takedowns to score well on FanDuel. Zaleski dos Santos has only been finished once since 2013, so at least on paper this doesn’t look like the best matchup for Fakhretdinov to end things early. However, Zaleski dos Santos is now 36 years old and one fight removed from a PED suspension, so the wheels could fall off at any moment. That leaves Fakhretdinov with a solid ceiling on both sites, as well as a high scoring floor on DraftKings. The odds imply Fakhretdinov has a 75% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Zaleski dos Santos has generally relied on landing first round finishes to really score well, and has only once topped 86 DraftKings points in a fight that made it out of round one. That was in an outlier performance against an undersized Benoit St. Denis, where Zaleski dos Santos just mauled the debuting fighter in a match that should have been stopped. Only twice in 13 UFC appearances has Zaleski dos Santos topped the century mark on DraftKings, which were in his twp first round finishes in 2018 and 2019. He doesn’t look like the same fighter now that he was back then, and he got suspended for PEDs before his last match. When he came back from suspension, he only scored 49 DraftKings points in his recent split-decision win and even at his cheap price tag he appears entirely reliant on landing a hail mary finish to be useful. The odds imply Zaleski dos Santos has a 25% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Elves Brener
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Brener had been scheduled to fight Esteban Ribovics, but he dropped out and Kruschewsky was announced as the replacement on Tuesday night.
Brener has squeaked out wins as a massive underdog in each of his two UFC fights. The most recent of those came against a really dangerous Guram Kutateladze, who had Brener badly hurt early in the fight and won each of the first two rounds. However, Kutateladze was slowing down in the back half of the fight and looked to be running on fumes when Brener punched him in the side of the neck and Kutateladze just sort of slowly collapsed to the mat, with the fight being quickly stopped. If Kutateladze could have just survived for another minute and a half he would have won a unanimous decision. Prior to that, Brener won a close/controversial split decision in his UFC debut against Zubaira Tukhugov. Most people scored the fight for Tukhugov, who was fighting up a weight class, still missed weight, and was cut following the match. Neither fighter landed any of their takedown attempts in the fight, Brener on three attempts and Tukhugov on four.
Now 15-3 as a pro, Brener has two knockout wins, 11 submissions, and two decision victories. Both of his knockout victories ended in round three, while eight of his submissions ended in round one, one came in round two, and two occurred in round three. All three of his losses went the distance and he’s just 2-3 with the judges in his career. Brener has spent time both at 145 lb and 155 lb, but he’s remained at 155 lb since 2021.
Overall, Brener is often looking to take opponents down and beat them up on the mat while looking for submissions, although he’s found less success with that approach since he joined the UFC. In his two UFC fights, he landed just 2 of his 10 takedowns attempts (20% accuracy), while his opponents only got him down on one of their seven attempts (85.7% defense). While he’s certainly not helpless on the feet, he’s looked pretty hittable in striking exchanges and nearly got knocked out in his last fight. He trains with Charles Oliveira and a bunch of other killers at Chute Boxe in Sao Paulo, so he has a good team around him and he trains just up the street from this week’s venue. Brener is very fortunate to be 2-0 in the UFC and could easily be 0-2 instead. Nothing he’s done has blown us away, but he is still just 26 years old and should be improving all the time.
Kaynan Kruschewsky
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut on just four days’ notice, Kruschewsky was announced as the replacement on Tuesday night after Esteban Ribovics dropped out. Kruschewsky is fresh off a first round submission win on DWCS, which occurred just a month and a half ago in mid September. Prior to that, Kruschewsky landed three more finishes with the Jungle Fight promotion, with the last two of those being for the Jungle Fight Lightweight belt. Both of those title fights made it into the championship rounds, before Kruschewsky secured late finishes. Kruschewsky’s only loss in his last seven fights was in a 2022 decision to Damien Lapilus, the brother of UFC fighter Taylor Lapilus.
Now 15-2 as a pro, Kruschewsky has four wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and two decision victories. The only time he’s ever been finished was in a 2019 R1 knockout, with his one other loss going the distance. Four of his last five fights made it out of the first round, with three of those seeing the third round, but only one going the distance.
Overall, Kruschewsky is a Muay Thai and BJJ black belt who stands very flat footed and doesn’t have a ton of movement. He can get pretty wild with his striking at times, although he’s improved on that over the years and is much more technical now than he was a few years ago. He seems decently solid everywhere, but doesn’t stand out as being exceptional anywhere. While the majority of his wins have come by submission, he doesn’t attempt a ton of takedowns and is generally content keeping things on the feet. He’s pretty aggressive and lands a good amount of striking volume. Considering he stepped into this matchup on just a few days’ notice, it will be important to monitor him closely on the scale.
Fight Prediction:
Kruschewsky will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while also being six years older than the 26-year-old Brener.
The obvious hurdle that Kruschewsky will have to overcome here is the fact that he took the fight on four days’ notice. That leaves you wondering what kind of shape he’s in and how prepared he’ll be, but if he shows up looking like his normal self, he’ll have every opportunity to win this one. Brener is lucky to be 2-0 in the UFC, and arguably lost one of those and was a minute and a half away from losing the other. The perception around him would be a lot different if he had lost one of both of those matches and it’s not like he looked amazing in either fight. While Brener hasn’t impressed us, Kruschewsky isn’t some world beater either. However, Brener leads this slate in significant strikes absorbed at 5.48/min, so if Kruschewsky’s cardio holds up, there’s a very real possibility that he can outland Brener. Both guys are decent grapplers, but Brener looks to initiate more wrestling, which could help his case if this hits the scorecards, which it has a good chance of doing. While either guy is capable of finishing the other, and the potential for Kruschewsky to gas out is in play, we like this to end in a close decision that will likely come down to whether or not Brener can win the grappling exchanges. If Kruschewsky was coming in with a full camp, we’d be picking him to win outright, but it’s so hard to step in on a few days’ notice and pull off the upset and we’ll say Brenner is able to mix in a few takedowns after getting cracked on the feet to squeak out a close decision win.
Our favorite bet here is “FGTD” at +200.
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DFS Implications:
Brener had been a -160 favorite against Esteban Ribovics when DraftKings released pricing, but then we saw a late opponent change and Brener is now a -200 favorite, leaving him slightly underpriced. If DraftKings released pricing with the current matchup, Brener would be $8,500 instead of $8,200. That value should drive up his ownership a little, especially on small-field and low-risk contests. However, the mispricing is small enough that his ownership shouldn’t get completely out of control. Kruschewsky was announced as the replacement on Tuesday night, leaving him with very little time to prepare and it remains to be seen what type of shape he’s in. That’s a boost for Brener’s scoring potential, but keep in mind that he only scored 60 DraftKings points in a decision win in his UFC debut. In fairness to him, he was unable to land any takedowns in that fight and he does offer some wrestling upside that adds to his DraftKings appeal. At his reasonable price tag, a wrestling-heavy decision win would give him a good shot at ending up in the winning DraftKings lineup, but he needs a finish to be useful on FanDuel. He’s the type of fighter that protects his hands with his face, as he averages a slate-leading 5.48 SSA/min. That makes it hard to trust him, even if he’s never been finished, and he almost got knocked out in his last fight. That leaves him with a wider range of scoring outcomes and with Kruschewsky stepping in on such short notice, this is a more volatile fight. The odds imply Brener has a 65% chance to win, a 38% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
Kruschewsky has decent power and is also a BJJ black belt, so he has multiple ways to finish fights and his last five wins all came early. On paper, Brener looks good, as he’s never been finished and is 2-0 in the UFC. However, he probably should have lost a decision in his UFC debut and lost both of the first two rounds in his last match before snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in the final two minutes of round three. So Brener is probably being overvalued right now and hasn’t looked all that impressive. He gets hit a ton, which is encouraging for Kruschewsky’s scoring potential. However, there are obvious concerns with Kruschewsky after he stepped into this fight on less than a week’s notice and we don’t know what kind of shape he’s in. We generally see fighters struggle when making their UFC debut on short notice, but that’s not always the case, especially when the lines are closer, as they are here. So we don’t hate Kruschewsky as an underdog play in tournaments, but he is a riskier option than he otherwise would be if he had a full camp to prepare. He’ll need a finish to really score well, but it’s not impossible that he could serve as a value play in a high-volume decision win. The odds imply Kruschewsky has a 35% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Armen Petrosyan
5th UFC Fight (3-1)After all seven of Petrosyan’s pre-UFC fights ended in knockouts, all four of his UFC matches have gone the distance. He outlanded his way to victory in three of those decisions, but got dominated on the mat by Caio Borralho in the other. The last time he finished anybody was in 2021 when he went on DWCS and landed a late first round knockout. He then made his debut against Gregory Rodrigues, who foolishly opted not to utilize his grappling for most of the match, which ended in a split decision for Petrosyan. That decision by Rodrigues looked even more idiotic after Borralho easily controlled Petrosyan on the ground for basically the entire time in his next match. Since then, Petrosyan faced a pair of strikers, who weren’t equipped to expose Petrosyan’s grappling deficiency.
Now 9-2 as a pro, Petrosyan has six wins by KO/TKO and three decision victories. The only early loss of his career came in a 2021 63 second R1 KO, with his one other defeat coming in a 2022 decision. His last two, and three of his six knockout wins occurred in round one, while he has two more in the second round, and one in round three. His last four early wins all occurred in the first two rounds. Petrosyan fought his last five fights prior to joining the UFC up at 205 lb, but dropped down to 185 lb for his debut, where it appears he’ll stay.
Overall, Petrosyan is a karate black belt and a former Muay Thai world champion. He’s a pure striker who offers absolutely nothing in terms of grappling and he tends to give up his back when trying to return to his feet after getting taken down. Apparently he went to Dagestan prior to going on DWCS to work on his defensive wrestling, so he’s at least trying to improve that gaping hole in his game, but we’ve yet to see any major improvements. Between his four UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he was taken down 12 times on 19 opponent attempts (36.8% defense), while he landed one of the three takedowns he attempted (33.3% accuracy). He got taken down three times on DWCS in less than a round and twice in his UFC debut, despite the fact that Rodrigues didn’t even attempt a takedown until late in round two. He then got taken down four times and controlled for 10 minutes in his one UFC loss and even got taken down three times by AJ Dobson, who isn’t a great grappler by any means. To Petrosyan’s credit, he’s never been submitted before. He throws a ton of leg kicks, landing 37, 52, 26, and 39 in his four UFC fights respectively. He also throws good body and head kicks, as he relies heavily on his long legs opposed to his shorter arms (6’3” with a 71” reach).
Rodolfo Vieira
7th UFC Fight (4-2)Coming off a second round submission win over Cody Brundage, Vieira has traded wins and loses over his last five fights. He made his UFC debut in 2019 and started out with a pair of submission wins, both in under eight minutes. Then he had the infamous loss to Anthony Hernandez, where Vieira death gassed late in round one and got submitted by Hernandez in round two, which was the first loss of Vieira’s career. We then saw a much more tentative version of him in his next fight, where he was clearly focussed on preserving his cardio against Dustin Stoltzfus. He was successful in doing so and ultimately locked up a submission in the third round. He then faced the elite takedown defense of Chris Curtis and failed to land any of his 20 takedown attempts and saw the judges for the first time in his career, losing a decision. In his last fight, Vieira got dropped by Brundage midway through the first round, but was able to recover and survive the round. Early in round two, Brundage foolishly jumped guillotine unsuccessfully and then got submitted by Vieira shortly thereafter.
Now 9-2 as a pro, Vieira has one win by TKO (R1 2018) and eight by submission. Of those eight submissions, four ended in round one, two came in round two, and two occurred in round three. His last four and five of his six UFC fights made it out of the first round, with two of his last three seeing round three. The only time he’s ever been finished was in the 2021 R2 submission loss to Anthony Hernandez, with his only other loss coming in his lone decision against Chris Curtis in 2022. Vieira turned pro in MMA in 2017 at 205 lb, before dropping down to 185 lb in his third fight, where he’s stayed since.
Overall, Vieira is a celebrated BJJ black belt and a world champion grappler with numerous titles under his belt. He only transitioned to MMA in 2017, and didn’t show many improvements to his striking until after he suffered his first career loss. Gassing out and getting finished in that match changed him as a fighter moving forward, as he stopped emptying his tank in the first round to hunt for immediate takedowns and submissions. He’s made noticeable improvements to both his striking and his energy expenditure since that loss, although it’s made him a far less exciting fighter to watch. In fairness to him, his two losses came against two really tough opponents, as he faced a grappler with a never ending gas tank in Anthony Hernandez and then the impenetrable takedown defense of Chris Curtis. He’s submitted all of the other fighters he’s faced in the UFC and never stopped trying to get Curtis down. In his six UFC fights, Vieira landed 13 of his 50 takedown attempts (26% accuracy), while he defended all three of the takedowns against him. Vieira’s last four opponents were all either grapplers or fighters with really solid takedown defenses, but now he’ll get a one dimensional striker who has struggled to defend takedowns.
Fight Prediction:
Petrosyan will have a 3” height advantage, but Vieira will have a 2” reach advantage. Petrosyan is two years younger than the 34-year-old Vieira.
This is about as clear cut of a striker versus grappler battle that you’ll ever see so it’s not a complicated fight to breakdown. If Petrosyan can keep the fight standing and keep Vieira off his back, he wins. However, if Vieira can get this fight to the mat or take Petrosyan’s back on the feet, he’ll likely find his way to a submission win, most likely by either rear-naked choke or arm-triangle choke. It’s also not entirely impossible that Vieira could win a grappling heavy decision, but his next one will be his first one. While Vieira has struggled with his takedown accuracy in his recent matches, those were all much tougher opponents to get down and we expect him to get this fight to the mat with relative ease. While Petrosyan has never been submitted before, we expect that to end here. Look for Vieira to get him down early and as soon as Petrosyan gives up his back as he tries to stand up, Vieira will lock up a rear-naked choke and end the fight.
Our favorite bet here is “Rodolfo Vieira SUB” at +200.
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DFS Implications:
Petrosyan has been consistently unspectacular since joining the UFC, with all four of his UFC fights going the distance (3-1). In those three decision wins, he returned DraftKings scores of 81, 77, and 81. While he’s shown the ability to rack up striking volume, he offers next to nothing when it comes to grappling, which leaves him reliant on landing knockouts to really score well. The last time he finished anybody was in his 2021 DWCS fight and he hasn’t even knocked anybody down since joining the UFC. Now he’s facing a high-level grappler who’s never been knocked out and who will be looking to take Petrosyan down and submit him. That will limit the number of opportunities that Petrosyan gets to land the knockout blow he needs, but we did see Vieira get knocked down in the first round of his last fight by Cody Brundage. Vieira has also gassed out in the past, so it’s possible Petrosyan can outlast him and find a later finish. However, there’s a good chance the fight doesn’t last long enough to test Vieira’s cardio as Petrosyan has just a 36% takedown defense. That leaves him as a risky KO or bust option in a tough stylistic matchup. The odds imply Petrosyan has a 50% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Vieira is a world champion grappler with a 100% finishing rate, but his striking defense and cardio are both a little suspect. He’s been much more patient in recent fights to try and manage his energy expenditure, which has resulted in him seeing the second round in four straight matches. After scoring exactly 106 DraftKings points in each of his first two UFC submission wins, he only scored 91 and 84 points respectively in his last two submissions. However, he’s also been facing a series of opponents with good defensive wrestling, which won’t be the case in this next match. So if Vieira decides to get a little more aggressive early on, he should have an easier time getting this fight to the mat against the 36% takedown defense of Petrosyan. And once on the ground, Vieira will have an insanely massive advantage. While Petrosyan has never been submitted, he’s also never faced anyone like Vieira. The closest comparison would be Caio Borralho, who has really struggled to find many finishes, but was still able to dominate Petrosyan on the mat. Vieira is lightyears ahead of Borralho when it comes to locking up submissions and we’d be surprised to see Petrosyan survive the ground if he gets taken down in this fight. The line has been bouncing around even for the last two weeks, but hopefully Petrosyan closes as the favorite to prevent Vieira’s ownership from skyrocketing, especially since he’s already projected to be highly owned. That’s the main knock on Vieira in tournaments, so you’ll have to include some low-owned options around him if you want to avoid dupes. The other two concerns are that he could either gas out and/or get knocked out if he can’t lock up an early submission, but that’s all baked into his price tag. The odds imply Vieira has a 50% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Caio Borralho
5th UFC Fight (4-0)Borralho had been set to face Nursulton Ruziboev here, before Ruziboev dropped out and Magomedov was announced as the replacement about four weeks before the event.
Still undefeated in the UFC, Borralho finally secured a finish in his last fight, after his first three UFC matches all ended in decisions. His recent win ended in a second round submission over Michal Oleksiejczuk, who’s been submitted in four of his six pro losses and is a liability on the mat. Prior to that, Borralho outgrappled his way to decision wins over Makhmud Muradov, Armen Petrosyan, and Gadzhi Omargadzhiev. Borralho has won 13 straight fights after suffering the only loss of his career in a decision in his second pro fight. However, six of his last eight fights ended in decisions and he hasn’t been putting many opponents away early. Other than his recent submission win, his only finish in his last eight outings came in a R1 TKO in his second trip on DWCS. After not getting a contract with a decision win in his first appearance on the show at 185 lb, Borralho returned three weeks later at 205 lb and knocked out Jesse Murray, who’s been finished in all five of his pro losses. That was enough to secure his spot on the UFC roster. Borralho’s UFC debut actually ended in a technical decision with just over a minute left in the third round after he threw an illegal knee, so he was fortunate not to get a DQ loss there.
Now 14-1 as a pro, Borralho has four wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and six decision victories. His only career loss came in a 2015 decision in his second pro fight. All four of his knockouts ended in the first round, as did two of his four submission wins. He also has one second round submission win and one in round three. Borralho started his career at 170 lb in 2014 before moving up to 185 lb in 2018. His only career fight at 205 lb came in his last fight before joining the UFC, before returning to 185 lb for all of his UFC matches.
Overall, Borralho is a well rounded fighter who is a Judo brown belt and a BJJ black belt. He spent extensive time training with Demian Maia, so you know he can handle himself on the mat. With that said, he generally pushes a slower pace, and tends to coast down the stretch in fights. He seems clueless in terms of what the UFC and fans are looking for out of fighters, and hypes himself up way too much after boring decision wins. His karate style paired with his grappling makes for lower significant striking totals in his fights, and he only averages 2.59 SSL/min and 1.86 SSA/min. Between his four UFC fights and two DWCS matches, he landed 12 of his 18 takedown attempts (66.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on three of their seven attempts (57.1% defense). While he appears to have all of the physical tools required to be a problem in the division, he still hasn’t totally blown us away with anything he does, and we have also yet to see how he’ll fare against a high-level grappler. However, the UFC has been mostly content with building him up against mostly strikers, not counting his debut where he defeated a wrestler. Borralho will have the home crowd behind him here.
Abus Magomedov
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Stepping into this matchup on four weeks’ notice, Magomedov is four months removed from a second round TKO loss to Sean Strickland. The UFC surprisingly thrust Magomedov into a main event spot following a 19 second R1 TKO win in his UFC debut against a suspect Dustin Stoltzfus. You have to go all the way back to December 2020 to find Magomedov’s third most recent fight, where he locked up a second round guillotine but then didn’t fight again until his September 2022 UFC debut. Magomedov hasn’t seen the third round since a 2018 decision win and 14 of his last 15 fights ended in the first two rounds, with nine of those ending in round one. So he’s clearly looking for early finishes and he gassed out after the first round in his recent loss to Strickland when he was unable to end things quickly. Magomedov was notably knocked out by a 39-year-old Louis Taylor in just 33 seconds in the 2018 PFL finals with a million dollars on the line and has only fought four times since then (3-1), as he’s struggled with fight cancellations.
Now 25-5-1 as a pro, Magomedov has 14 wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and five decision victories. Fifteen of his 20 finishes occurred in round one, with the other five ending in round two. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted twice, and has one decision loss. Both of his submission losses were back in 2013 and his last two defeats both ended in knockouts. All four of his early losses also occurred in the first two rounds. He’s only been in one fight that lasted longer than 10 minutes since 2015, which was a 2018 decision win. Magomedov fought at 170 lb early in his career, before moving up to 185 lb in 2016.
Overall, Magomedov is a dangerous finisher with powerful striking and decent grappling. Most of his submission wins have come via guillotine, but he will also look for other chokes and kimuras as well. The one glaring weakness that got exposed in his last fight is his cardio, and he gassed out after the first round in that match. In fairness to him, he has gone 5-1-1 in the seven decisions he’s been to, although several of those were only two round fights. He grew up wrestling in Dagestan, before moving to Germany when he was 15 years old, where he then began focussing more on striking. He’s shown both patience and explosiveness in the past, so perhaps we’ll see him dial back his pace here after emptying his tank in the first round of his last match. No one has tried to take him down in the UFC, but he did show a pretty decent takedown defense on the regional scene. Magomedov has never before lost two fights in a row, so it will be interesting to see how he responds to his recent loss here.
Fight Prediction:
The UFC lists Borralho as being just 5’10” and they have since he joined the organization. That is clearly wrong and he’s actually 6’1” or 6’2”. Magomedov may still have a slight 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
This is a good test for Borralho, as Magomedov is more well rounded than any of the previous fighters Borralho has faced in the UFC. Magomedov is the more dangerous striker in this matchup and also has some wrestling/grappling ability. We expect Borralho to be looking to take him down, but if Magomedov can keep this standing then things will get interesting in a hurry. Magomedov also likes to look for guillotines, so Borralho can’t be sloppy with his shots. The biggest concern with Magomedov is that he gassed out after five minutes in his last fight, but we’ve seen Borralho slow down late in fights as well, although typically not until the third round. Magomedov could come in looking to manage his cardio after he completely gassed out against Strickland, which creates the potential for a slower start to this match. With that said, Magomedov has 31 pro fights under his belt, with 20 finishes in the first two rounds, so it’s also possible he’s just okay with going for the quick kill or gassing out trying.
With less than two rounds of Octagon time under his belt, and only two fights since 2020, there are still a lot of question marks surrounding him, which leaves this as a more volatile fight. Magomedov is dangerous enough to finish Borralho, and also well-rounded enough to win a low-volume decision if we see a slower paced match where Magomedov tries to preserve his cardio and can also defend the takedown attempts of Borralho. With Magomedov coming off a loss/cardio-dump and Borralho coming off his first early win in the UFC, it seems like the line was set a bit wide based on recency bias and the betting market agrees as it has steadily been getting closer since odds came out. However, Magomedov still seems like too big of an underdog, even if he is traveling into enemy territory with less than a full camp to prepare. While there is some concern that he could gas out once again and Borralho is on an impressive 13-fight winning streak and fighting in front of his home crowd, we’re going to steer into the fire here and take the dog shot on Magomedov. While he has a decent shot at landing a finish, we’re also not eliminating the possibility of him winning a decision, despite his questionable cardio and this fight being in Brazil.
Our favorite bet here is “Magomedov’s ML” at +250.
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DFS Implications:
Borralho is coming off his first usable DFS score in a second round submission of Michal Oleksiejczuk that was good for 107 DraftKings points. Just keep in mind, Oleksiejczuk has been prone to getting submitted throughout his career, with that being his fourth submission loss. Prior to that finish, Borralho had gone the distance in all three of his UFC fights, winning all of those, but only scoring 75-80 DraftKings points in each of them. His grappling-heavy style will typically score better on DraftKings than FanDuel, but his lack of urgency on the mat is disturbing. And while he trains with “The Fighting Nerds,” he seems like an idiot with no self awareness. That has resulted in him being content with riding out boring decisions on the mat in all but his recent finish. Now he’s facing a well-rounded opponent who spent the first 15 years of his life wrestling in Dagestan, which could make it tougher for Borralho to find his usual level of success on the mat. With that said, no one has tested Magomedov’s defensive wrestling yet in the UFC, so all we can go off of is regional tape from 3+ years ago, where his takedown defense and getup game both looked pretty decent. We did just see Magomedov completely gas out and get finishes in the second round of his last fight, which is somewhat encouraging for Borralho’s chances of finding a finish. However, Borralho hasn’t shown great cardio either and it’s possible they both gas out and this gets really sloppy in the back half. With potential cardio concerns on both sides and Magomedov’s degree of wrestling acumen still somewhat of an unknown, this is a volatile spot with a wide range of scoring outcomes. However, for Borralho to return value at his high price tag, he’ll still likely need a finish. The odds imply Borralho has a 72% chance to win, a 43% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.
Magomedov has shown explosive finishing ability, but also an explosive gas tank that can blow at any second. Maybe we can chalk up his recent cardio dump as a learning experience, but with 31 pro fights under his belt and 20 finishes in under 10 minutes, this also may just be who he is. It’s also possible that he knew he had no chance to keep up with Strickland’s pace for 25 minutes and intentionally decided to go for broke in round one. To his credit, he has shown the ability to win three-round decisions in the past. Borralho tends to slow down in the third round himself, so it’s possible that both of these two come in looking to pace themselves to some extent, creating the potential for a slower start. Only time will tell, and we don’t fully know what to expect from Magomedov with less than two rounds of Octagon time so far in his brief UFC career. That leaves him as a volatile cheap option in DFS, with a huge ceiling and a non-existent floor. His defensive wrestling has yet to be tested at this level, but he did spend the first 15 years of his life in Dagestan, before moving to Germany. He also showed a pretty decent takedown defense on the regional scene, so there’s reason to think he’ll be able to stuff many of the takedown attempts of Borralho. Magomedov has been very popular in both of his UFC fights, and despite losing his last match, his cheap price tag will likely keep his ownership pretty high. That lowers his tournament appeal some, but if he does find a finish, he’s a near lock to end up in winning lineups. The odds imply Magomedov has a 28% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Rodrigo Nascimento
5th UFC Fight (3-1, NC)Coming off back-to-back split decision wins, Nascimento has just barely been squeaking by lately. His most recent split decision win came against a 40-year-old Ilir Latifi, who landed the only two takedowns in the fight and controlled Nascimento for nearly four minutes. One judge thought that was enough for Latifi to get his hand raised, but the other two disagreed. Total strikes were dead even at 76 apiece, while Nascimento finished ahead in significant strikes 68-49. Prior to that, Nascimento narrowly defeated Tanner Boser, despite finishing behind 36-62 in significant strikes and 91-163 in total strikes. However, he was able to take Boser down three times and control him for eight minutes, which was enough for two of the three judges to score the fight for him. Just before that, Nascimento landed a second round knockout win over a terrible Alan Baudot in July 2021. However, the win was overturned to a No Contest when Nascimento failed a drug test. It seemed like a technicality as Nascimento tested positive for Ritalin, something he’s been prescribed to take for years. He’s since been granted a therapeutic use exemption for the medicine. Leading up to that No Contest, Nascimento got knocked out by Chris Daukaus in just 45 seconds, after submitting Don'Tale Mayes in the second round of his 2020 UFC debut.
Now 10-1 plus a No Contest as a pro, Nascimento has two official TKO wins, six submissions, and two split-decision victories. Both of those TKOs came in the first round in his first three pro fights in 2012 and 2014. He landed another TKO in the second round of a 2021 fight, before it was overturned to a No Contest. All six of his submission wins ended in the first two rounds, with four coming in round one and two in round two, although he hasn’t submitted anybody since his 2020 UFC debut. The only loss of his career came in a first round knockout and he’s only seen the third round twice in his career, although both of those instances were in his last two outings.
Overall, Nascimento is a Brazilian Heavyweight grappler, who’s typically looking to get fights to the mat to hunt for submissions. He hasn’t looked great on the feet, so expect for him to struggle against legitimate competition when he’s unable to land takedowns. Nascimento has yet to land more than 68 significant strikes in a fight and only averages 4.20 SSL/min. Between his five UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 5 of his 12 takedown attempts (41.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 2 of their 8 attempts (75% defense).
Don'Tale Mayes
8th UFC Fight (3-3, NC)Mayes recently notched his first win since 2021 in a low-volume second round TKO over a 44-year-old Andrei Arlovski. Prior to that, Mayes lost a decision to Augusto Sakai, who was coming off four straight knockout losses and was cut following the boring win. Just before that, Mayes lost a split-decision to a low-level short notice replacement who was making his UFC debut—although the defeat was later overturned to a No Contest when Hamdy Abdelwahab tested positive for PEDs. Hamdy was able to knock Mayes down in the first round, take him down three times, and control him for six and a half minutes while also outlanding him 58-47 in significant strikes. It was a terrible showing by Mayes, who was coming off his first early win in the UFC in a third round TKO victory over another low-level Heavyweight in Josh Parisian. That came just after Mayes won a decision over Roque Martinez who went 0-3 in the UFC before being cut. Mayes was a regular on DWCS as he made appearances in 2017, 2018 and 2019. After getting knocked out in the third round of his first appearance, he notched R2 and R1 KO victories in his most recent two trips on DWCS in 2018 and 2019 respectively. Mayes then got his shot in the UFC in 2019 in a brutally tough matchup against Ciryl Gane. Mayes nearly got finished in the first round of that fight, but narrowly survived, only to later get submitted in round three. Mayes then got submitted again in his second UFC fight, when he originally fought Nascimento.
Now 10-5 as a pro, Mayes has six wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and three decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, submitted twice, has one official decision loss, and one DQ loss. He’s seen the second round in all seven of his UFC fights, with five of those making it to round three, and three going the distance. And looking back further, only one of Mayes’ last 13 fights ended in round one.
Overall, Mayes is a big Heavyweight who appears athletically gifted but still pretty green when it comes to MMA. He showed improvements to his wrestling against Josh Parisian in 2021, but it’s hard to tell how much of that was simply due to Parisian being terrible off his back. Between Mayes’ seven UFC fights and his three DWCS appearances, Mayes landed 7 takedowns on 15 attempts (46.7% accuracy), but the majority of that success came against Parisian, who Mayes took down six times on eight attempts. Mayes landed just one takedown on seven attempts against the other nine opponents. He only averages 3.39 SSL/min and has never landed more than 59 significant strikes in a UFC fight, although he did land 98 in a late second round knockout win on DWCS in 2018.
Fight Prediction:
Mayes will have a 4” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
This is the rematch that literally nobody asked for. These two originally squared off back in 2020 and Nascimento submitted Mayes in the second round. Nascimento was easily able to take Mayes down in that fight, and while it appears Mayes has worked on his wrestling since then, he still struggles with being taken down and controlled. When you combine that with the fact that this rematch will be taking place in front of Nascimento’s home crowd, it’s tougher to see Mayes getting his hand raised if this goes the distance. That leaves him more reliant on landing a finish to pull off the upset. And while Mayes’ last two wins did both end in TKOs, the potential for him to get taken down and controlled could reduce the amount of opportunities he’ll have to find a finish on the feet. With that said, this is a low-level Heavyweight fight and Nascimento has been knocked out in the past, so it’s hard to trust either guy. Nevertheless, we like Nascimento to win and we’ll say he gets it done in a decision, but there’s a chance he can lock up another submission.
Our favorite bet here is “Rodrigo Nascimento DEC” at +270.
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DFS Implications:
Nascimento’s grappling-heavy style generally lends itself more towards the DraftKings scoring system opposed to FanDuel. While he didn’t attempt any takedowns in his last fight, that can be attributed to the fact that he was taking on a former Swedish National Greco-Roman wrestling champion with a 100% takedown defense. Now he’s going against a striker who he’s already shown he can take down and finish on the mat. While it’s rare to see rematches play out the same as the original, that is encouraging for Nascimento’s scoring potential and he put up 100 DraftKings points in a second round submission the last time these two fought. However, Nascimento hasn’t been especially impressive since that win, failing to top 95 points in any of his last four fights, and progressively scoring less points in each of his wins. He only scored 59 DraftKings points in his last decision win, although that’s because he never looked to wrestle any. Prior to that, he scored 85 points in a grappling-heavy decision win—better but still not enough to be useful at his fairly high price tag here. While 15 minutes of pure grappling domination could result in him scoring well on DraftKings, he clearly needs a finish to be useful on FanDuel, and more likely than not still needs a finish on DraftKings. We often see rematches underwhelm and we won’t be at all surprised if this ends in a disappointing decision where Nascimento wins but fails to score quite enough to be useful. The odds imply Nascimento has a 63% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Mayes is coming off a second round TKO win over Andrei Arlovski that was only good for 91 DraftKings points in a lower volume fight. Prior to that, he lost a pair of decisions, failing to top 26 points in either of those matches. The only time Mayes really scored well in the UFC was against a low-level opponent in Josh Parisian, where Mayes suddenly turned into a wrestler, landing six takedowns with 11 and a half minutes of control time leading up to a third round TKO. That allowed him to score 124 DraftKings points as he dominated the fight on the mat. However, in Mayes’ other six UFC fights and his three DWCS appearances, he only landed one other takedown, and that performance seems like an anomaly where Mayes was simply able to capitalize on Parisian being terrible. Now Mayes is facing a grappler and we’d be surprised to see him find much grappling success. That leaves him as a KO or bust option, who’s shown no ability to score even somewhat decently with the judges. The field has historically been terrible at predicting when Mayes will succeed and he was 16-18% owned in each of his last two wins and 31-33% owned in each of his last two losses. So in general he’s a guy you want to take a shot on when he’s low owned, but fade when he’s high owned. The odds imply Mayes has a 37% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Gabriel Bonfim
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Continuing to dish out first round submissions like they’re Halloween candy, Bonfim is fresh off a 73 second submission win over Trevin Giles, after landing a 49 second submission in his UFC debut against Mounir Lazzez. Both of those finishes ended in guillotines. Bonfim punched his ticket to the UFC with another first round submission, that time against a gigantic Trey Waters on DWCS in September 2022. And just before that he landed yet another first round submission to win the LFA Welterweight belt in just 79 seconds. Bonfim has only made it out of the first round once in his last six fights, and he’s only been to the third round twice in his career. One of those times was in the 2021 LFA Welterweight Grand Prix where rounds were only three minutes long and only once in Bonfim’s career has he been in a fight that lasted longer than 10 minutes.
Now 15-0 as a pro, Bonfim has three wins by KO/TKO and 12 submissions. He has eight first round finishes, five in round two, and two in round three. While he currently fights at 170 lb, Bonfim turned pro in 2014 at 135 lb when he was just 17 years old before moving up to 155 lb later that year. He then moved up to 170 lb in 2019, where he’s remained since.
Overall, Bonfim is a well rounded fighter who started boxing when he was 14 years old, before starting his MMA training a few years later. So despite the majority of his wins coming by submission, he started out striking before adding jiu-jitsu to his game. That makes him a very dangerous fighter to deal with, and he’s a threat to finish fights both on the feet and the mat. He has crisp striking and fast hands as he seamlessly stitches combinations together, although he does leave his chin a little high and seems more focussed on offense than defense. He loves to look for chokes after hurting opponents on the feet, which is why he has so many submission finishes. Between his DWCS match and his two UFC fights, he landed both of his takedown attempts and defended the only attempt against him. In addition to working with his brother Ismael, Bonfim has trained with Vicente Luque. Because he ends all of his fights so quickly, we still don’t really know what his cardio will look like in a 15 minute war, but he’s shown no signs of fatiguing from what we’ve seen from him. Bonfim will be fighting in front of his home Brazilian crowd, so we expect to see an inspired performance from him.
Nicolas Dalby
12th UFC Fight (6-3-1, NC)Coming off three straight decision wins, all against opponents with cardio concerns, Dalby defeated Muslim Salikhov, Warlley Alves, and Claudio Silva. Two of those guys were 39 years old and the other was a washed up Warlley Alves. Dalby was able to outlast all of them and outpoint his way to victory. Prior to those three wins, Dalby lost a decision to Tim Means, after winning a close/questionable decision over Daniel Rodriguez. The only time Dalby hasn’t made it to the judges in his last seven fights was when he got finished in the first round of a 2020 match against Jesse Ronson, but the results were later overturned to a No Contest when Ronson failed a drug test. After starting 13-0 as a pro, Dalby originally joined the UFC back in 2015 and won a decision in his debut. However, after going 1-2-1 with four decisions in his first four UFC fights, Dalby was released by the organization. The UFC then re-signed him in late 2019 and Dalby won his first fight back in a low-volume decision over Alex Oliveira leading up to his fight against Ronson.
Now 22-4-1 as a pro, Dalby has six wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and 12 decision wins. He’s never technically been finished, with all four of his official losses going the distance, although in reality he was submitted in the first round by Jesse Ronson in 2020 before the results were overturned to a No Contest when Ronson failed a drug test. While 10 of Dalby’s 22 career wins have come early, all of those finishes occurred outside of the UFC. Seventeen of his last 18 fights made it out of the first round, with the one exception being the Ronson No Contest—if that even counts. Sixteen of those 18 fights made it to the third round, with 12 going the distance. Not counting the No Contest, all of his UFC fights have ended with the judges.
Overall, Dalby is a karate style fighter who has not shown the ability to finish opponents at the UFC level, with all six of his UFC wins ending in decisions. He’s a green belt in Ashihara karate and a BJJ brown belt. He only averages 3.93 SSL/min and 3.39 SSA/min, but he did land a career best 119 significant strikes in his second most recent win and then 86 significant strikes in his last fight. Prior to that, he had only once landed more than 57 significant strikes in a UFC fight. After landing eight combined takedowns in his first two UFC matches, he’s only landed a total of four takedowns in his last nine fights with the organization. He has a 62% takedown defense, having been taken down 15 times on 40 attempts in his 11 UFC fights. However, we’ve seen him struggle with being controlled on the mat, which will be a concern anytime he faces a grappler. Dalby will turn 39 years old just 10 days after this fight, so he’s definitely getting up there in age, although hasn’t shown many signs of decline just yet.
Fight Prediction:
Bonfim will have a 2” height advantage, but Dalby will have a 2” reach advantage. Bonfim is 12 years younger than the 38-year-old Dalby.
It’s interesting that the UFC opted to put an aging decision grinder like Dalby in the co-main event, but obviously he’s not the main attraction here. It seems like they’re just using Dalby to build up the local undefeated prospect in Bonfim, giving him the opportunity to become the first fighter to ever officially finish Dalby—although Dalby did get dropped and then submitted in the first round of a 2020 match before the results were overturned to a No Contest due to a failed drug test. Considering that Dalby has never finished anybody in the UFC, relies on winning close decisions, and will now be traveling into enemy territory as a massive underdog, we don’t see many paths to victory for him. Bonfim should be landing more volume on the feet, looks like the better grappler, and will have the crowd behind him, which should help him with the judges if this manages to go the distance. That likely leaves Dalby more reliant on landing a hail mary finish to pull off the upset, which we don’t see happening. So the only question we have is whether Bonfim becomes the first fighter to officially finish Dalby or if Dalby becomes the first fighter to take Bonfim to the judges. Considering Dalby is about to turn 39, was unofficially finished by a lower level talent in Jesse Ronson, and the crowd will be pumping Bonfim up, we lean towards Bonfim keeping his finishing streak alive with another early submission here, but it’s certainly not the easiest matchup.
Our favorite bet here is “Gabriel Bonfim SUB” at +140.
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DFS Implications:
Bonfim is undefeated as a pro with a 100% finishing rate and has submitted both of his UFC opponents in 73 seconds or less. The first of those finishes came in under a minute and scored 119 DraftKings points with the help of the Quick Win Bonus, while his most recent win was “only” good for 97 points. Both of those finishes ended in guillotines, which generally aren’t ideal for DFS as they don’t require landing a knockdown or a takedown. At Bonfim’s expensive salary, that creates a clear way he finds another first round finish and still gets priced out of winning lineups. He’s also facing an opponent in Dalby who’s never been officially finished and only averages 3.39 SSA/min, so it’s not an ideal spot for Bonfim. However, Dalby was unofficially club and subbed back in 2020, the results were just overturned to a No Contest when his opponent failed a drug test. Dalby is also quickly approaching his 39th birthday and his age could catch up with him at any time now. We’ve also seen Dalby get controlled on the mat at times, which is encouraging for Bonfim’s upside if he decides to lean more on his grappling. He has the ability to win fights both on the mat and feet, but generally looks to aggressively attack his opponents with his boxing before finishing them with submissions. Ultimately, we’d be surprised to see him return value in a decision and he looks reliant on landing a well timed finish to end up in winning lineups. The odds imply Bonfim has an 82% chance to win, a 63% chance to land a finish, and a 39% chance it comes in round one.
Dalby has never finished anybody in the UFC, with all six of his wins going the distance. He averaged 77 DraftKings points in those wins, but was able to score 90 or more points in each of his last two victories. However, he’s about to turn 39 years old and will now be traveling into enemy territory to take on an undefeated Brazilian prospect. That makes it tougher to get very excited about Dalby’s chances, although if he somehow pulls off the major upset, he could easily serve as a value play even in a decision win. Bonfim has only been in one fight that made it past the 10 minute mark, so his cardio remains somewhat of an unknown. So there’s always a slight chance that he could get a little too amped up looking for the finish in front of his home crowd and empty his gas tank prematurely. That’s probably Dalby’s best hope and it’s definitely a long shot. In the end, the only real reason to consider playing Dalby in tournaments is his low ownership. The odds imply Dalby has an 18% chance to win, a 7% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Jailton Almeida
6th UFC Fight (5-0)Almeida had been scheduled to face Curtis Blaydes here, but Blaydes dropped out and Lewis was announced as the replacement on October 9th, just under four weeks out.
Continuing to finish everyone the UFC puts in front of him, Almeida recently faced a major step up in competition, but the results were the same, as he submitted Jairzinho Rozenstruik in the first round. Rozenstruik was able to fend off the first takedown attempt from Almeida, but wasn’t so lucky on attempt number two. Once on the mat, Almeida patiently worked towards the finish and Rozenstruik was never close to getting back up. That was Almeida’s 14th straight finish, with all of those wins coming in under eight minutes, with 11 of those ending in round one. Six of his last eight finishes were submissions, with the other two ending in ground and pound. Both of those TKO wins came against opponents with grappling/wrestling backgrounds. The only time Almeida made it to round two in the UFC was in a second round TKO win over Shamil Abdurakhimov, just before his recent win over Rozenstruik. The only time he’s ever been in a fight that lasted longer than that was in his lone trip to the judges, which he lost back in 2018 when he was still fighting all the way down at 185 lb.
Almeida remained at 185 lb for two more fights after that in 2018, landing first round finishes in both of those. Then just four months later he moved all the way up to Heavyweight and landed two more first round finishes. He then dropped down to Light Heavyweight in 2019, before going on DWCS in 2021 and submitting a 9-0 Sambo fighter in the second round. Almeida stayed at Light Heavyweight for his UFC debut, finishing a grappler in Danilo Marques with ground and pound midway through round one. Almeida was then scheduled to face another Light Heavyweight in Maxim Grishin, but Grishin withdrew and the UFC couldn’t find a replacement at 205 lb. However, Parker Porter was willing to take the fight at Heavyweight and Almeida agreed to move up a weight class to take on an opponent who was stepping in on short notice. The additional weight didn’t seem to matter much in the fight, as Almeida landed a late first round submission over Porter. Almeida then planned on facing Abdurakhimov, remaining at Heavyweight, but Abdurakhimov dropped out. So instead, a short notice 220 lb Catchweight match was booked against UFC newcomer and career Light Heavyweight, Anton Turkalj. Almeida cruised to another first round submission win and then the fight against Abdurakhimov was put back together. However, once again Abdurakhimov dropped out. Almeida then planned on returning to Light Heavyweight to face Maxim Grishin (again) in November 2022, but Grishin dropped out (again). The UFC then rebooked Almeida back up at Heavyweight in January 2023 against Abdurakhimov, and the third time finally paid off as the fight actually happened. Given the success he was having at Heavyweight, Almeida decided to remain at the weight class as he took on a higher ranked opponent in Rozenstruik, to propel Almeida into the top 10 of the division.
Now 19-2 as a pro, Almeida has seven wins by KO/TKO and 12 submission victories. His only early loss came in a 2017 16 second R1 KO in his fifth pro fight, while he also lost the only decision he’s ever been to. All 19 of Almeida’s wins have come in under eight minutes, with 14 ending in round one and the other five finishing in the opening three minutes of round two.
This will be the 3rd five-round fight of Almeida’s career and second in the UFC. His two previous five round fights both ended in first round submissions and he’s never seen the championship rounds.
Overall, Almeida comes into every fight with the same game plan of getting things to the mat as quickly and as violently as possible, where he’ll then aggressively hunt for finishes. He’s a BJJ black belt and an absolute powerhouse, but has about a round and a half to two rounds of cardio from what we can tell. He was sucking wind midway through round two in his second most recent fight, and was fortunate to find a finish when he did or he might have gassed out. Between his five UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Almeida landed 13 of his 19 takedown attempts (68.4% accuracy), while he got taken down once himself on two attempts (50% defense). Both of those attempts against him were on DWCS and no one in the UFC has tried to get him down. Almeida has faced almost no resistance or adversity in any of his UFC fights, as he’s been able to steamroll all of his opponents. Almeida will have his home crowd behind him on this Brazil card.
Derrick Lewis
28th UFC Fight (18-9)Lewis recently snapped a three-fight losing streak with a quick 33 second R1 TKO win over Marcos Rogerio de Lima. Lewis came out ultra aggressively in the match as he blitzed De Lima right out of the gate with a flying switch knee that dropped De Lima. Lewis then finished him with ground and pound in the one-sided assault. Prior to that, Lewis had been finished in under seven minutes in three straight fights. The most recent of those losses ended in a first round submission against Serghei Spivac, after Lewis got knocked out in just 55 seconds by Sergei Pavlovich and in the second round by Tai Tuivasa. The last time Lewis went three full rounds was in a 2020 decision win over Ilir Latifi, who just wanted to clinch the whole time. While Lewis’ last two wins both ended in first round knockouts, you have to go all the way back to 2016 to find his third most recent R1 knockout victory.
Now 27-11 as a pro, Lewis has 22 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and four decision victories. He’s been knocked out seven times, submitted twice, and has two decision defeats. His last four wins all came via KO/TKO in under seven minutes, with two ending in round one and the other two occurring in the opening 90 seconds of round two. His last nine losses all ended early, with seven knockouts and two submissions, and the last time he lost a decision was in 2011. While four of his last five fights ended in the first round, he’s still seen the second round in 15 of his last 19 matches. In his 38 pro fights, Lewis has only been knocked out in the first round twice and was also submitted in the first round once.
This will be Lewis’ 14th five round fight of his career (11th in the UFC), and he has never been past the fourth round. The first three five-round fights of his career came prior to joining the UFC. The first was in 2012 and ended in a No Contest just 48 seconds in for “Illegal Strikes.” His next was later in 2012 and ended in a second round KO win in a Legacy FC Heavyweight Championship fight, immediately followed by a third round KO win in a 2013 defense of that title. His first five-round fight in the UFC was in 2016 and ended in a fourth round KO win, immediately followed by a second round knockout victory in 2017 and then a fourth round KO loss against Mark Hunt in 2017. Lewis’ next five-round fight was for the belt against Daniel Cormier in 2018 and Cormier submitted Lewis in the second round. Lewis was then finished again in another five-round match as he was knocked out by Junior dos Santos in the second round of his next fight. Lewis bounced back with a pair of three-round decision wins, before landing back-to-back second round knockouts in fights scheduled to go five-rounds against Alexey Oleynik and Curtis Blaydes. He then got knocked out in the third round of his next five rounder by Ciryl Gane, before knocking out Daukaus in the first round of his next main event. Then in his last five-round fight, Lewis got submitted by Serghei Spivac in the first round. To sum that up, Lewis is 7-5 plus a No Contest in his 13 career five-round fights. All 13 of those fights ended early, and ignoring the No Contest, all but two of them made it out of the first round. Six ended in round two (4-2), with two ending in round three (1-1), and two more in round four (1-1).
Overall, Lewis is a low-volume power puncher, who averages just 2.60 SSL/min and he hasn’t landed more than 39 significant strikes in any of his last 15 fights. He’ll often look to mix in a takedown or two to keep opponents guessing, but failed to land any takedowns in six of his last seven fights. He’s pretty agile for his size and will also throw head kicks. His gas tank is limited so we often see him conserve it early on and/or wear down midway through fights. He has just a 52% career takedown defense and he’s been taken down 13 times on 26 attempts in his last 11 fights. At Media Day leading up to his last fight, Lewis said that his weight had been an issue for him in his recent losses and he actually passed out at the UFC PI before weigh-ins for his second most recent fight. However, he said he had since gotten his weight under control for that last match and he would no longer be doing any extreme last minute weight cutting that caused him issues in the past. That fight ended so quickly that it was hard to take too much away from it, but he did look explosive and rejuvenated for as long as it lasted, so we have no reason to question the validity of what he said leading up to the match. Now he accepted this next match on just under four weeks notice, so it’s fair to wonder if he kept his weight lower after his last outing or if he’ll have to cut more in a shorter time for this fight.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’3” with a 79” reach, but Almeida is six years younger than the 38-year-old Lewis.
We originally had a much more compelling matchup here between a pair of wrestlers/grapplers in Jailton Almeida and Curtis Blaydes. That would have been a much more interesting fight and a more complex breakdown. Instead we get, “Can Derrick Lewis land a hail mary knockout before he gets taken down and finished on the mat?” We saw Lewis achieve that against Blaydes in early 2021, presenting at least a sliver of hope that lightning can strike twice for him. However, Almeida is so quick and explosive with his takedowns that Lewis will likely only have a split second to land the perfect shot and if he fails to connect he’ll almost certainly end up on his back. And while Lewis has shown the ability to get back up after being taken down, Almeida is so powerful and smothering with his top control that Lewis is unlikely to escape after getting taken down. We’ve seen Lewis give up his back on the mat as he tries to return to his feet, and if he does that here, Almeida will almost certainly lock up a rear-naked choke. We also saw Lewis get arm-triangled with relative ease in his last five-round fight, another move that Almeida is proficient in completing. Lewis has stated that he doesn’t have any desire to compete in five-round fights or make a run for the belt, so you have to imagine the UFC just offered him more money than he could refuse to take part in this one. We expect Almeida to take him down in the opening seconds of the fight and then control him and land ground and pound until Lewis gives up his back and quickly taps to a rear-naked choke.
Our favorite bet here is “Jailton Almeida SUB” at -115.
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DFS Implications:
Almeida has finished 14 straight opponents and all 19 of his career wins have come in under eight minutes. In his five UFC wins, he averaged 116 DraftKings points and 125 points on FanDuel. The only time he failed to score at least 114 points on DraftKings was in his last win, where he scored “just” 104 points in a more efficient finish. He’s shown the explosiveness and power to compete at both Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight, but he’s been given no reason to resume weight cutting, as he’s been able to manhandle the big boys up at Heavyweight. There’s no doubt that Almeida is a one-trick pony, who’s only path to winning fights is to get opponents down and finish them on the mat in the first two rounds before he dies of exhaustion. However, he’s phenomenal at executing that approach and so far no one in the UFC has been able to show any ability to stop him. This is a similar stylistic matchup to Almeida’s last fight, and Almeida just needs to avoid eating any clean shots as he shoots in. Lewis has shown the ability to get back up when he’s been taken down, but that could just raise Almeida’s ceiling if it happens, as he would be more likely to secure multiple takedowns in that scenario. That’s what happened in Lewis’ last main event spot, where he got taken down six times by Serghei Spivac in just 185 seconds before getting submitted. Spivac scored a ridiculous 134 DraftKings points and 148 points on FanDuel in that win. Almeida ended up in the winning DraftKings lineup in four of his five UFC fights, but did get priced out of it in his last win. Similar to this next slate, Almeida was the most expensive fighter on that last card at $9,600 and ended up getting priced out of the optimal lineup on both sites. It’s certainly possible we see a similar outcome here, but he has a massive scoring floor and ceiling and it’s more likely that he puts up a huge score and ends up in winning lineups. The odds imply Almeida has a 79% chance to win, a 75% chance to land a finish, and a 53% chance it comes in round one.
Lewis couldn’t have asked for a much tougher spot here as he stepped in on less than a month’s notice and will be flying down to Brazil into enemy territory to take on a dominant grappler in Almeida. While Lewis landed a 33 second R1 TKO win in his last fight, he got finished three straight times just before that and was dominated on the mat by Serghei Spivac and submitted in the first round in his last loss. That’s not very encouraging for his chances here and Lewis is nothing more than a hail mary R1 KO or bust option who will likely have just one split second opportunity to land the perfect kill shot before Almeida takes him down and submits him. If Lewis does manage to pull off the impossible and knock Almeida out in round one, then it’s hard to see him getting left out of winning lineups at his cheap price tag. However, if he somehow survives long enough to see round two, then keep in mind that Lewis failed to end up in winning lineups in his 2021 R2 KO win over Curtis Blaydes, despite also being the cheapest fighter on that card. So not only does Lewis need to knock Almeida out, he likely needs to get it done in the first round. The odds imply Lewis has a 21% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
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Marc Diakiese OVER 2 TDs
