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Fighter Notes:
Fight #14
Caolan Loughran
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Looking to bounce back from his first career loss, Loughran dropped a decision in his recent UFC debut against Taylor Lapilus. That matchup was changed up on fightweek, and Loughran had originally been scheduled to face UFC newcomer Yanis Ghemmouri as a -300 favorite, but closed as a +145 underdog against Lapilus, who already had one stint with the UFC and was making his return in front of his home French crowd. So obviously it was a much tougher spot for Loughran and he had almost no time to prepare for the change in opponent. Nevertheless, Loughran was the aggressor for most of the fight, as he relentlessly looked for takedowns against the really tough 77% takedown defense of Lapilus. Loughran was only able to land 2 of his 11 attempts, while finishing with six and a half minutes of control time. Lapilus outlanded Loughran 84-48 in significant strikes and went on to win a unanimous 29-28 decision. Prior to that, Loughran won the Cage Warriors vacant Bantamweight belt with a R2 TKO in a wild brawl. Amazingly, that was Loughran’s fourth straight fight to end in a R2 TKO win and eighth straight win since turning pro in 2019. His previous three second round finishes all resulted from relentless ground and pound, but Loughran showed in that fight that he can throw down on the feet as well.
Now 8-1 as a pro, Loughran has five wins by TKO, two submissions, and one decision victory. The first three wins of his career all ended in round one, with two of those coming by submission. He then saw the judges for the first time in 2021, notching his lone decision victory, before rattling off four straight second round TKOs. The only knock on his record is the level of competition he had been facing early in his career, with his first two pro opponents entering with flatlined records of 0-31 and 0-39 opponents. His next three opponents entered with records of just 3-5, 0-0, and 0-1, before he finally started facing opponents with a pulse in his last four matches.
Overall, Loughran is a tree stump of a man but fights with unabashed confidence as he stands in front of his opponents almost completely flatfooted and waits to unload flurries of strikes and takedowns. He was extremely effective with his takedown attempts, control, and ground pound on the regional scene, but he still needs to prove his style can be effective at the UFC level. He does a great job of utilizing his stocky frame to pin opponents down and he knows how to force a stoppage as he unloads with vicious ground and pound from full mount. One adjustment he’ll have to eventually make is to his movement, as you can’t just stand there on the center line against high-level strikers and expect to survive. However, he’s made it work for him thus far and his wrestling threat combined with his striking makes him a tough opponent to deal with. He also spent some time in this camp training at Fight Ready, which is encouraging for his growth, and we’re expecting to see the best version of him here.
Angel Pacheco
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Pacheco will be making his UFC debut following a crazy high-volume decision loss to Danny Silva on DWCS back in September 2023. Silva outlanded Pacheco 204-197 in significant strikes and also took him down twice on three attempts. Pacheco nearly had his ear punched off his head and it seemed to be dangling on there towards the end of the fight. Pacheco also got dropped early in the second round, which has been a trend for him lately. The last time Pacheco won a fight was in August 2022, when he locked up a second round submission against a smaller 5-2 opponent, who also dropped Pacheco in round one. That came just after Pacheco landed back-to-back first round knockouts against a struggling 42-year-old opponent who was on a four fight losing streak and about to retire. The opponent claimed the first knockout was from illegal strikes to the back of the head so they ran it back and he got knocked out again in just 79 seconds.
Now 7-2 as a pro, Pacheco has five KO/TKO wins and two submission victories. Five of his finishes ended in round one, with the other two coming in round two. He lost both of the decisions he’s been to and has never won a fight that lasted longer than eight and a half minutes. Pacheco has bounced between 145 lb and 155 lb throughout his career, but will now be cutting down to 135 lb for the first time as a pro.
Overall, Pacheco is a high-volume striker who comes out of a small gym in Minnesota called Start BJJ. He’s also trained with the New England Cartel, which is where he finished his last two camps. That seems like an odd choice for someone looking to find a bigger gym who isn’t from the area, but that’s what he went with. While Pacheco is a BJJ brown belt and has a couple of rear-naked chokes on his record, his wrestling has been unimpressive and he’s typically content with keeping fights standing. In addition to his poor defensive wrestling, his striking defense has also looked terrible. Without much defense to fall back on he’s forced to rely entirely on his offense, and he’s at least shown a willingness to throw down in a firefight, which is the only reason the UFC brought him on. He looks like the quintessential, “Not here for a long time, here for a good time” type of fighter.
Fight Prediction:
Pacheco will have a 2” height and reach advantage, while Loughran is five years younger than the 32-year-old Pacheco.
This is a dream matchup for Loughran to showcase his talents, as he faces an uptempo opponent with no defense. The UFC is clearly doing Loughran a favor after he was willing to accept an alternative matchup during fight week in his debut to keep the Paris card intact. Loughran has the ability to win a pure striking battle here, but we fully expect him to take the path of least resistance and get this fight to the ground. He has a massive wrestling advantage and should be able to beat Pacheco up on the mat and find a finish in the first two rounds. While we’re not sure if Pacheco can even survive the first round, Loughran has seen the second round in six straight fights, with four of those ending in second round TKOs and we’ll say that trend continues here with another second round ground and pound TKO victory.
Our favorite bet here is “Caolan Loughran R1 or R2” at +115.
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DFS Implications:
Loughran was put in a brutally tough position for his recent UFC debut, as his matchup was switched up on a few days’ notice and he went from being a massive favorite to an underdog against a far more experienced Taylor Lapilus, who has a really solid takedown defense. That was one of the worst spots Loughran could ask for to really showcase his talents, although he still made the fight close and landed a couple of takedowns. After accepting that late change in a much tougher matchup, the UFC is showing their appreciation to him here as they tee him up a dream matchup against an uptempo opponent in Pacheco who has no striking or wrestling defense and will be cutting down to 135 lb for the first time in his career. Pacheco absorbed an obscene 204 significant strikes on DWCS against Danny Silva, while also getting taken down twice and knocked down early in the first round. This looks like a spot where Loughran should be able to do whatever he wants and he has massive scoring potential. His normal game plan is to take opponents down and beat them up with ground and pound until the ref pulls him off, and seven of his eight career wins have come early. The fact that Loughran is coming off a loss should prevent him from being too highly owned, but he also won’t go completely overlooked either. Regardless of his ownership, he’s easily the best play on the slate in all contest types and it’s not close. The odds imply Loughran has a 75% chance to win, a 51% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.
Pacheco is a fun fighter who throws a lot of volume and has a lot of heart, but those are the only positives we can point out. He gets hit a ton, has terrible defensive wrestling, was dropped in the first round in each of his last two fights, and has fought a super low level of competition. While he’s been splitting time at the New England Cartel to finish his camps, he comes from a small gym in Minnesota with dubious training partners. The UFC brought him on because he took part in an exciting fight on DWCS, but he lost every round of that brawl and he’s done nothing to show us that he can win fights at the UFC level. While his 100% finishing rate and crazy striking volume give him some theoretical upside, we don’t see him winning many, if any, UFC fights and it would be very surprising to see him make it to a second contract. We’ll be looking to hammer all of his opponents in DFS, so enjoy it while it lasts. The odds imply Pacheco has a 25% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #13
Jacob Malkoun
7th UFC Fight (3-3)Malkoun is coming off an unfortunate R1 DQ loss to Cody Brundage, where Mark Smith stopped the fight for an illegal shot to the back of the head. Normally we see refs warn fighters first, but Smith just immediately stopped things and then gave Brundage a way out, which he happily accepted. Brundage even said later on that he could have continued, but why should he have to if he wasn’t 100%? Well the same could be said for every foul ever, but you’re taking part in a fist fight so who expects to be at 100% anyways once you start absorbing damage, legal or illegal. Malkoun was absolutely dominating Brundage leading up to the stoppage and Brundage was ready to quit at the first opportunity. Brundage did land an early takedown in that fight, but Malkoun quickly got back up and then took Brundage down, before raining down strikes on him, finishing ahead 44-3 in total strikes before the fight was stopped late in round one. After getting knocked out just 18 seconds into his 2020 UFC debut against Phil Hawes, Malkoun fought to four straight wrestling-heavy decisions, winning three of those and losing a close decision in the other. That lone decision defeat came against Brendan Allen, who Malkoun took down seven times and controlled for over seven minutes, while the striking numbers were close, with Allen finishing ahead 45-33 in significant strikes and 89-66 in total strikes. Malkoun bounced back from the loss with a win in his next fight over a fellow wrestler in Nick Maximov. However, it can’t be overlooked that Maximov suffered a leg injury in the first round that left him extremely compromised for the rest of the match.
Now 7-3 as a pro, Malkoun has two wins by TKO and five decision victories. Both of his TKO wins occurred in his first three pro fights and his last four wins all went the distance. He has one KO loss, one decision defeat, and one DQ loss.
Overall, Malkoun is a relentless wrestler, but hasn’t been much of a finishing threat at the UFC level, with all three of his wins going the distance. He was pushing harder for a ground and pound finish in his last fight, but ultimately that led to him being disqualified for landing an illegal elbow to the back of Brundage’s head. Malkoun hasn’t shown much in the way of striking and has a suspect chin, while he’s also never landed a submission in his career. Despite his wrestling heavy approach, Malkoun had a short stint in pro boxing, winning all three of his matches, but you wouldn’t guess it by watching him fight. In his six UFC fights, he landed 31 of his 70 takedown attempts (44.3% accuracy), landing six or more takedowns in each of his last four fights that made it out of the first round. The only two opponents to try and take Malkoun down were Brendan Allen, who landed both of his attempts, and Cody Brundage, who also landed his only attempt. So we’ve yet to see Malkoun successfully defend a takedown, and now he’ll face another wrestler.
Andre Petroski
7th UFC Fight (5-1)Petroski recently suffered his first UFC loss in a R1 TKO against Michel Pereira, who was moving up from 170 lb to 185 lb for the first time in the UFC. In fairness to Petroski, he stepped into that fight on very short notice and had to fly around the world from Thailand to make it, while cutting a stupid amount of weight. That seemed to seriously impact his chin and Pereira quickly finished him before Petroski could land a single strike or even attempt a takedown. Prior to that, Petroski won his first five UFC fights, with his last two victories ending in decisions against a pair of grapplers in Gerald Meerschaert and Wellington Turman. While Petroski’s last two wins both went the distance, he landed back-to-back submissions just before that, including a first round submission over a strong wrestler in Nick Maximov. Petroski also landed a third round ground and pound TKO in his 2021 UFC debut. Just before making his debut, he went on The Ultimate Fighter, but got submitted by Bryan Battle in his second fight on the show.
Now 10-2 as a pro, Petroski has four wins by KO/TKO, four more by submission, and two decision victories. Four of his finishes occurred in round one, two ended in round two, and two came in round three. He was knocked out in both of his official pro losses, but he was also submitted in the second round on TUF, although those fights are technically counted as exhibition matches so it doesn’t show up on his official record. Petroski made his 2018 pro debut at 170 lb, before moving up to 185 lb for his second fight, where he’s stayed since.
Overall, Petroski is a BJJ brown belt and former college wrestler. He trains at Renzo Gracie Philly with a bunch of other solid grapplers like Pat Sabatini, Sean Brady, Jeremiah Wells, Joe Pyfer, and Kyle Daukaus. Petroski has shown somewhat dubious cardio at times, but has managed to power through that in most of his UFC fights and seven of his last nine fights made it out of the first round, with four of his last six seeing round three. He’s talked about how he started swimming and biking to improve his cardio, as he acknowledged that was an area of weakness for him. Considering his last two wins both went the distance, it does look like he’s made some improvements in that area. In his six UFC fights, Petroski landed 18 of his 33 takedown attempts (54.5% accuracy), while his opponents only got him down twice on seven attempts (71.4% defense). Petroski always talks about how he wants to prove he’s the best wrestler in the division, and this next fight will really put that to the test.
Fight Prediction:
Petroski will have a 3” height advantage, but both fighters share a 73” reach. Malkoun is four years younger than the 32-year-old Petroski.
Oftentimes when we have two wrestlers going up against each other we see more striking than expected. We feel pretty confident in saying that will not be the case here. Malkoun is one of the most one-dimensional wrestlers on the roster and has no desire to keep fights standing, while Petroski is on a lifelong dick measuring contest to prove he’s the best wrestler in the division. So both guys will be looking to test the other on the mat, which is really what people want to see anyways when you get two high-level wrestlers squaring off. Petroski has looked far more dangerous, but Malkoun has done a little better job of racking up takedowns and controlling opponents, while also showing better cardio. Therefore, a long fighter favors Malkoun, but Petroski is more of a threat to land a finish. Petroski has nice front chokes and decent power in his striking, and Malkoun has looked pretty chinny. So either a knockout or a submission win are in play for Petroski, and it’s also possible that he could do enough damage to win a decision, even if Malkoun finishes ahead in takedowns and control—similar to what we saw in the Brendan Allen fight. We see more ways for Petroski to win, which when combined with his wide underdog price tag makes him a no-brainer dog play, even if Malkoun is a really good wrestler and could end up controlling him for extended periods of time. We’ll even go out on a limb and say Petroski finishes Malkoun in the first round.
Our favorite bet here is “Andre Petroski ML” at +205.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.
DFS Implications:
Malkoun looked well on his way to landing his first UFC finish in his last fight, as he was raining down heavy ground and pound on Cody Brundage, who looked like he wanted to quit just a few minutes into the fight—and eventually did. An unfortunate DQ stoppage robbed Malkoun of what would have been another huge score and likely his first finish. All three of his UFC wins went the distance, but he still managed to average 125 DraftKings points and 107 FanDuel points in those victories, scoring 115 or more on DraftKings in all of them. Just keep in mind, two of those were in very favorable matchups and in the other Nick Maximov got injured very early on and was almost helpless for the rest of the fight. Malkoun arguably should have won the fight against Brendan Allen, but still would have scored a career worst 98 DraftKings points if the decision had gone his way. That’s obviously not a bad score, but at Malkoun’s expensive price tag, it may not be quite enough in tournaments. Malkoun has also been kind of chinny, leaving him with an uncertain scoring floor. Nevertheless, when he does win, he offers massive scoring potential through his wrestling, with six or more takedowns landed in each of his last four fights that made it out of the first round. We’ve also seen Petroski slow down at times later in matches, which opens up the possibility for Malkoun to really turn it on late in this fight. However, the fact that Malkoun is facing a fellow wrestler does add some uncertainty when it comes to his ability to completely dominate the fight on the mat for three rounds and Petroski is also a finishing threat both on the ground and the feet. That leaves Malkoun with a wide range of scoring outcomes. It will be interesting to see where his DraftKings ownership checks in, but it’s been on the rise in each of his last four fights (23%, 25%, 35%, to 56% most recently). The last three of those fights were smaller 11-fight cards, but the field does appear to like him. That creates some merit in being a little underweight on Malkoun and over on Petroski to gain leverage on the field in tournaments, but whoever wins here will have a really good shot at scoring well and it’s definitely a fight where we want to have exposure to both sides. And based on Malkoun’s scoring potential and projected ownership, he makes a lot of sense in low-risk contests. The odds imply Malkoun has a 68% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Petroski is 5-1 in the UFC and has generally scored well, averaging 100 DraftKings points in his wins, but he’s coming off his first UFC loss in a quick R1 knockout, after putting up his lowest scoring win just before that in a 79 point decision. However, in his previous four victories he returned DraftKings totals of 104, 91, 118, and 106, with three of those ending early. He has dangerous front chokes and decently heavy hands, and Malkoun has looked kind of chinny in the past. Petroski will also have plenty of opportunities to look for submissions, as Malkoun does nothing but wrestle. Petroski also claims to be the best wrestler in the division and Malkoun failed to defend any of the three takedowns against him so far in the UFC, so Petroski could also score decently in a decision win. At his cheap price tag, he has multiple ways to end up in the winning lineup and Malkoun has yet to finish anybody in the UFC, leaving Petroski with a safer floor. However, it’s also possible that Malkoun’s wrestling will prove to be too good and Petroski will get controlled for the entire match. It’s always hard to know how things will play out when you have two good wrestlers squaring off, which makes this a more volatile matchup than the odds suggest. However, whoever wins should score well and will have a good shot at ending up in winning tournament lineups. The odds imply Petroski has a 32% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
Melissa Gatto
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Suddenly on a two-fight skid, Gattos is coming off a split-decision loss to Ariane Lipski that we thought she won. Gatto finished ahead in significant strikes 85-66, in total strikes 100-81, and on control time 2:57-0:47, but failed to land any of her seven takedown attempts, while Lipski landed her only attempt. Gatto nearly doubled Lipski up in significant strikes landed in round one (28-16), yet Sal D'amato somehow still scored that round (and the later two) for Lipski, so you truly never know what the judges are watching—or if they even are. Fourteen months prior to that, Gatto suffered the first loss of her career in a close decision against a tough wrestler in Tracy Cortez. Cortez landed two of her three takedown attempts with almost eight minutes of control time, while Gatto landed three of her six takedown attempts with three minutes of control time. Leading up to those two losses, Gatto finished three straight opponents, including a pair of late round TKO wins in her first two UFC fights. The most recent of those wins came in an early third round TKO against Sijara Eubanks, which is the only time Eubanks has ever been finished. Just before that, Gatto notched a post R2 TKO in her UFC debut against Victoria Leonardo, who suffered a broken arm that stopped the fight after round two. Gatto took nearly three years off prior to making her UFC debut, after submitting Karol Rosa in the first round of a 2018 match on the Brazilian regional scene.
Now 8-2-2 as a pro, Gatto has two wins by TKO, four submissions, and two decision victories. All four of her submissions came in the first round, two by armbar, one by kimura, and another by rear-naked choke. Both of her TKO wins occurred in the later rounds, with one ending in round three and the other ending just before round three started. Gatto started her career at 135 lb, before dropping down to 125 lb when she made her UFC debut.
Overall, Gatto is a slick grappler and dangerous submission threat who has shown improvements to her striking since joining the UFC. Don’t get confused by her two TKO wins, she’s typically looking to submit opponents, and isn’t much of an actual knockout threat. One of those TKOs came from an ongoing arm injury and the other was a TKO by body shot. Gatto has looked good since dropping down to 125 lb, and physically she’s all muscle it seems like. The fight with Eubanks was extremely close before the flukey finish, and the outcome likely would have come down to who could control the other on the mat in the third round had it not been for the finish. In her four UFC fights, Gatto landed 4 of her 19 takedown attempts (21.1% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 4 of their 11 attempts (63.6% defense). One issue for Gatto has been her inactivity, as she’s only fought four times since 2018. Now that she’s getting a fight in early in 2023, maybe she can fight more than once this year.
Viktoriia Dudakova
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Keeping her undefeated record intact, Dudakova recently won a close 29-28 decision over Jinh Yu Frey. Dudakova showed some improvements to her striking in the fight, but is clearly still very green overall. She failed to land any of her three takedown attempts in the fight, while she got taken down and controlled by Frey for nearly four minutes in round two. While Dudakova did eventually throw up some armbar attempts, she looked pretty lost off her back leading up to that. She also notably missed weight by 0.6 lb for that fight and will now be moving up to 125 lb for the first time. Prior to that decision win, Dudakova’s UFC debut ended much quicker due to a freak arm injury suffered by Istela Nunes in the opening minute of the match, resulting in a R1 TKO win for Dudakova. Eleven months prior to that, Dudakova won a wrestling-heavy decision on DWCS, after finishing her first five pro opponents. She wasn’t especially impressive in her DWCS fight, but was able to land four takedowns with over 10 minutes of control time. It looked like she hurt her knee late in the second round of the fight as she took a really bad step, but afterwards she claimed that she came into the fight with that injury. Regardless of when the injury happened, she had ACL surgery a couple of weeks afterwards, which resulted in the long layoff leading up to her debut.
Now 8-0 as a pro, Dudakova has two first round TKO wins, four submissions, and two decision victories. Three of her four submission wins occurred in the later rounds. Keep in mind, she had been facing really suspect competition before going on DWCS so all of her finishes should be taken with a grain of salt. After fighting her entire career at 115 lb, now she’ll be moving up to 125 lb for the first time.
Overall, Dudakova is a 24-year-old Russian grappler who’s always looking to take opponents down and control them. She only turned pro in 2020 and is clearly still trying to put it all together, but you can see some improvements to her striking. We’ve often seen her get reversed looking for takedowns, where she’s the one who ends up on her back, and her wrestling has not been especially impressive. Dudakova’s background is actually in swimming opposed to martial arts, before she decided to take her career in a different direction. Between her DWCS fight and her two UFC fights, she landed 5 of her 12 takedown attempts (41.7% accuracy), while she got taken down twice on four attempts by her opponents (50% defense). We’re not really sold on Dudakova and she’s yet to impress us yet, but in fairness to her, she’s still just 25 years old and should be improving all the time.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’5”, but Gatto will have a 2” reach advantage and is three years older than Dudakova.
While Dudakova just scraped by against a former 105 lb fighter, now she’ll be going up against a much more dangerous opponent who used to compete at 135 lb. This will be Dudakova’s first fight at 125 lb, after she missed weight by 0.6 lb trying to make 115 lb in her last fight, and we expect Gatto to be the stronger of the two. They’re both grapplers, so it will be interesting to see who shoots for the first takedown, or if this turns into more of a striking battle than expected. We expect Gatto to have more success on the mat and she’ll have a good shot at locking up her first UFC submission win here. It’s only been five months since Dudakova last competed at 115 lb, so she hasn’t had a ton of time to grow into the new weight class and Gatto was undefeated at 135 lb before joining the UFC. Ultimately, we give the experience, grappling, and physicality advantages to Gatto, who will also have a reach advantage if the fight stays standing. So outside of Gatto just laying a complete egg or tripping into an armbar, this is her fight to lose. She’ll have a good shot at finishing Dudakova, but since they’re both grapplers it also won’t be completely shocking if we get somewhat of a stalemate on the mat and it goes the distance. Either way, Gatto is the pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Melissa Gatto ML” at -140.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.
DFS Implications:
Gatto was able to score 117 DraftKings in a post R2 TKO win in her UFC debut, but then only scored 82 points in a R3 TKO in her one other UFC win. She also scored exactly 42 DraftKings points in each of her two UFC decision losses, so she’s given us no indication to this point that she can score well in fights that make it past the second round. However, six of her eight career wins ended early, with five of those finishes coming in 10 minutes or less. Now she’ll face an opponent who’s moving up from 115 lb to 125 lb for the first time and Gatto actually spent her entire pre-UFC career at 135 lb. We expect that to result in Gatto being the more physical of the two and she also has more experience in general. Gatto’s ownership has continued to decline in each of her last two fights and it looks like a good buy-low spot on her following the pair of losses. While Dudakova is undefeated, we’re still not sold on her and Gatto will be the toughest opponent she’s ever faced. The odds imply Gatto has a 58% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Dudakova only scored 77 DraftKings points in her recent decision win, after lucking into a 121 points score in her UFC debut that ended in a freak arm injury just 34 seconds in and garnered the Quick Win Bonus. Dudakova slightly missed weight for her last fight and will now be moving up to 125 lb for the first time, so she still needs to prove she can remain competitive at the higher weight class. It’s not like she was even really battle tested at 115 lb, and overall she remains unproven. She has plenty of holes in her game, but is still just 25 years old and should be improving all the time. Her striking looked better in her last fight, but her wrestling has been spotty and she looked pretty lost on her back. Now she’s facing a dangerous grappler, so it will be risky even to look for takedowns. Gatto has also never been finished before and it looks like a tough spot for Dudakova to score well. The odds imply Dudakova has a 42% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Ibo Aslan
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut following a first round knockout win on DWCS, Aslan has knocked out four straight opponents in the first round, after getting submitted by Anton Turkalj in the second round of a 2020 Brave CF match. That looks like the only time Aslan ever competed with a legitimate promotion, with all of his other fights taking place on the unknown Austrian regional scene. His recent win on DWCS came at 205 lb against Paulo Renato Jr., who also lost to Jamal Pogues at Heavyweight a year earlier and has competed as light as 170 lb in the past. Prior to that, Aslan landed another first round knockout against a 5’9” taxi driver who came in with a 5-9 pro record and on a seven fight losing streak, while looking like he had never been in a fight before. That came after Aslan knocked out a 42-year-old opponent who came in on a five-fight losing streak and with a 18-21 pro record. That fight took place in a boxing ring and not a cage. Looking back one fight further, he took on another 5’9” 44-year-old opponent who came in on a four fight losing streak and with a 6-7 pro record. Those three opponents he knocked out in between his loss to Turkalj and his DWCS currently combine for a mind blowing 28 fight losing streak, with individual losing streaks of 9, 7, and 12. The fact that beating those three guys got Aslan a spot on DWCS is just insanity.
Now 12-1 as a pro, 100% of Aslan’s wins have come by KO/TKO, with 11 in round one and one in round three. The only loss of his career came in a second round submission and he’s only been in one fight that made it past the seven minute mark. Take all of his finishes with a massive grain of salt, as this guy has faced some of the worst competition out there.
Overall, Aslan is a Turkish KO specialist with bad cardio, a fraudulent record, and poor grappling. While he does have immense power, it seems to only be effective in the first round, at least from what we saw in his first fight against Turkalj. He’s been training in Thailand recently and also spent some time at Xtreme Couture, so he is at least making the rounds to get looks with legitimate competition. He looks like he’s on a bucket of steroids and it won’t be at all surprising if he pisses hot in the near future. Everything about this guy screams fraud, but he definitely throws with violent intentions and has the power to finish opponents when he lands clean. He’ll also mix in heavy leg kicks and elbows out of the clinch, so it’s not only his hands that you have to watch out for. However, any well-rounded legitimate opponent will be able to figure out how to beat him at the UFC level and we don’t see him going far.
Anton Turkalj
4th UFC Fight (0-3)Still in search of his first UFC win, Turkalj was recently knocked out in the first round by Tyson Pedro, who then abruptly retired one fight later. That’s the only time Turkalj has ever been knocked out, although he did also get submitted by Jailton Almeida in the first round of his 2022 short notice UFC debut, which took place at a 220 lb Catchweight, opposed to 205 lb where Turkalj normally competes. Following the loss to Almeida, Turkalj returned to 205 lb for his next match, when he took on another killer in Vitor Petrino. In that fight, Turkalj landed 5 of his 15 takedown attempts with nearly five minutes of control time, while Petrino took him down seven times on nine attempts with over six minutes of control time. The striking numbers were close, but Petrino was the one doing more damage and won all three rounds on the scorecards. While we don’t give participation awards, Turkalj was at least able to survive to see a decision. Before joining the UFC, Turkalj won a wrestling-heavy decision on DWCS, where he looked pretty hittable but landed 11 takedowns on 16 attempts with nearly 12 minutes of control time. That was the first time Turkalj had ever been to the judges, after he finished his first seven pro opponents in the first two rounds. He said after his DWCS fight that he thought it was five rounds, which you hope was a joke, but otherwise you have to question his IQ. He also walked right by Dana White after the fight and then asked if Dana was in the building, so he doesn’t appear to be the brightest bulb. Before going on DWCS, Turkalj landed a 13 second R1 KO via spinning backfist, after locking up a R2 rear-naked choke against Ibo Aslan in 2020.
Now 8-3 as a pro, Turkalj has five wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and one decision victory. Five of his finishes ended in the first round, with the other two coming in the first half of round two. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has one decision loss, with both of his early losses ending in round one. Turkalj has spent almost his entire career at 205 lb, but did have one fight down at 185 lb and another at a 220 lb Catchweight.
Overall, Turkalj is a young 27-year-old Swedish fighter who still appears to be finding his identity in mixed martial arts. He looked like a one-dimensional chain wrestler on DWCS, but has been more willing to stand and trade in other fights. With that said, he’s very hittable and hasn’t impressed us at all with his striking. While he has no problem spamming takedown attempts, he’s not the most dangerous fighter on the mat, and we’ve also seen him get controlled on his back at times. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Turkalj landed 16 of his 31 takedown attempts (51.6% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 10 of their 12 attempts (16.7% defense). Turkalj trains out of All Stars in Sweden with Gustafsson and Chimaev, so he does have experienced fighters around him and theoretically should be improving, but he’s yet to show that in the Octagon and is presumably fighting for his job now as he sits on an 0-3 UFC record.
Fight Prediction:
Turkalj will have a 1” height and reach advantage, while both fighters are 27 years old.
This will be a rematch of a 2020 Brave CF fight that Anton Turkalj won in a second round rear-naked choke after Aslan slowed down. We’d say both of these two look like frauds, but we’re not sure if anyone still actually thinks Turkalj is good. Regardless, this is a low-level fight between a power puncher in Aslan who has shown about a round of cardio, and a desperate fighter in Turkalj who’s trying to keep his job. Turkalj is kind of a Jack of all trades master of none type, and doesn’t offer a ton of power or great grappling, but can wrestle some. He seems to be buying into his own shtick a little too much and spends more time talking about pleasuring people to death than actual fighting. While we generally don’t like predicting rematches to go the same way as the first fight, Aslan definitely has the cardio deficiencies to get finished in round two once again here, that is if Turkalj can survive the opening five minutes. While Aslan’s record is completely fraudulent, his power is real and he’s still dangerous in the opening round. We just saw Turkalj’s chin fail him for the first time, making it tougher to trust him here. However, we also don’t think that just because you get knocked out once your chin is automatically gone and Turkalj notably went the distance with another power puncher in Vitor Petrino. So while it will be a sweaty five opening minutes, we like Turkalj to survive the first round and finish an exhausted Aslan in round two, either with ground and pound or another submission. We actually think ground and pound is a little more likely. It’s also not impossible that Turkalj just lays on him for the final 10 minutes and wins a decision, but we’ll go with Turkalj by R2 TKO.
Our favorite bet here is “Anton Turkalj R2” at +750.
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DFS Implications:
Aslan is your stereotypical juiced up power puncher with terrible cardio, except he’s yet to even show he can finish anyone decent. All of his wins have come on the unknown Austrian regional scene against a series of opponents that shouldn’t have even been allowed to participate in sanctioned fights. His last three opponents before going on DWCS all came in with losing records and are currently on a combined 28-fight losing streak. Two of those opponents were only 5’9” and two of them were in their forties. Like what are we even doing here? Somehow, that was still enough for the UFC to bring Aslan onto DWCS, where he faced another terrible opponent who was moving down from Heavyweight to Light Heavyweight after losing a decision a year earlier on DWCS to Jamal Pogues. Aslan literally has zero credible wins on his record, yet here he is making his UFC debut. That’s not to say he can’t land a knockout, he has tons of power and definitely can. However, you don’t want to get caught up chasing his record and this guy is littered with red flags. He’s only seen the second round twice in his career and gassed after round one and got submitted when he originally faced Turkalj back in 2020. A similar outcome is very much in play here if Aslan can’t end things in round one. We expect the field to overlook most of Aslan’s concerns, and at his reasonable price tag he should be very popular. That will make it all the more stupid if he does knock Turkalj out, but the right move in tournaments is to be way underweight on Aslan, regardless of the results. The odds imply Aslan has a 53% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 32% chance it comes in round one.
Turkalj has yet to win a fight, or even a round in the UFC, but has shown some wrestling-upside. He landed 5 of his 15 takedown attempts in his decision loss to Petrino, and would have scored 89 DraftKings points had the decision gone his way. He also landed 11 of his 16 takedown attempts on DWCS, with nearly 12 minutes of control time. That would have been good for 125 DraftKings points and 99 points on FanDuel. While that’s encouraging for his DFS scoring potential moving forward, especially on DraftKings, he’s been finished in the first round in two of his three UFC fights and just suffered the first knockout defeat of his career. Now he’s going up against another power puncher, leaving him with a non-existent floor. However, if Turkalj can survive the first round, we expect Aslan to slow down in round two, creating a great opportunity for Turkalj to find a late finish. He’s desperate for a win following an 0-3 start to his UFC career, but he’s also had a brutally difficult schedule. This is a step down in competition and looks like a good buy-low spot on Turkalj. He’s also already beaten Aslan once, which has to be a boost for his confidence. The odds imply Turkalj has a 47% chance to win, a 31% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Dennis Buzukja
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Looking to bounce back from the first early loss of his career, Buzukja was finished in a 49 second R1 TKO against Jamall Emmers, who had never finished anybody in any of his previous five UFC fights. To make matters worse, that fight took place in front of Buzukja’s home New York crowd. Prior to that, Buzukja lost a unanimous 30-27 decision in his recent short notice UFC debut against Sean Woodson. Buzukja got outclassed everywhere in that fight, as Woodson outlanded him 71-42 in significant strikes and 163-46 in total strikes, while also finishing ahead 4-0 in takedowns and 5:52-2:30 in control time. That’s pretty embarrassing for Buzukja considering Woodson is a one-dimensional boxer and Buzukja trains with a bunch of solid wrestlers. It wasn’t easy for Buzukja to make it to the UFC, as he went on DWCS twice and didn’t get a contract either time. He originally went on the show in 2020 and lost a decision to Melsik Baghdasaryan. Buzukja then returned to the regional scene and won three straight fights before they brought him back on DWCS in 2022. Buzukja won a low-volume decision that time around, but it wasn’t enough to get him a contract and he once again returned to the regional scene and won three more fights before finally getting the call up from the UFC. Just keep in mind, Buzukja had been facing a lot of really low-level opponents on the regional scene and his last win came against a fighter who has gone 2-4-1 in his last seven fights. And just before that, Buzukja beat a guy who came in on a four fight losing streak. Those are the only two opponents he finished in his last seven fights and he’s never put away anyone decent.
Now 11-4 as a pro, Buzukja has four KO/TKO wins, one submission, and six decision victories. All five of his finishes ended in under seven minutes, with four of those coming in round one. He’s coming off the only early loss of his career in a quick first round TKO, with his other three defeats all going the distance. Buzukja started his career at 155 lb before dropping down to 145 lb in his third pro fight.
Overall, Buzukja is a young 26-year-old fighter who trains at Serra-Longo Fight Team in New York, so he has plenty of UFC fighters in the room to learn from. While Buzukja has shown some improvements over the last few years and is decently well rounded, he hasn’t stood out anywhere and he’s struggled whenever facing non-terrible competition. He was unimpressive in each of his two DWCS matches, but didn’t look as bad the second time around. He’s a karate brown belt and will also mix in some wrestling. Between his two DWCS appearances and his two UFC fights, he landed 3 of his 10 takedown attempts (30% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 5 of their 19 attempts (73.7% defense). Despite three of those four fights going the distance, he failed to land more than 57 significant strikes in any of them and only averaged 3.30 SSL/min and 4.93 SSA/min.
Connor Matthews
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Matthews will be making his UFC debut following a decision win on DWCS, which was actually the second time Matthews was on the show. The first didn’t go nearly as well, as he got dominated by Francis Marshall in a 2022 decision loss. Marshall took Matthews down six times, controlled him for nearly six minutes, and outlanded him 110-74 in significant strikes and 146-87 in total strikes. Matthews then returned to the New England regional scene and secured a first round submission in his next fight to earn another shot on DWCS. He made the most of his second opportunity, as he took on an undefeated Brazilian and outworked his way to a decision win. Matthews landed 7 of his 12 takedown attempts with almost five minutes of control time and led in significant strikes 80-57 and in total strikes 93-57. He did slow down in the third round and was getting touched up some down the stretch, but two of the three judges still scored it 30-27 in his favor. His opponent seemed to gas in round two but found a second wind in round three.
Now 7-1 as a pro, Matthews has one KO win, five submissions, and one decision victory. His lone knockout came seven seconds into his 2019 pro debut, while his last five finishes all ended in first round submissions. He’s never been finished, with his one career loss going the distance. Just keep in mind, all of his finishes were against a very low level of competition on the New England regional scene, including a win over the infamous 15-97 Jay Ellis. Four of his six finishes were against opponents with a losing record and the only time he faced legitimate competition was when he went on DWCS.
Overall, Matthews seems decently well rounded and looks to be in great shape, but we’re not convinced he’s quite talented enough to find sustained success at the UFC level. He has the ability to look good against low-level opponents, but he was absolutely dominated by Francis Marshall in the first real test of his career. He did seem to make some improvements between that fight and his second appearance on DWCS, but he still showed plenty of holes in his game. He tends to slow down later in fights, he’s very hittable, and he’s just not a world class athlete. To his credit, he seems to be making the most of his physical abilities and he’ll mix in a good amount of wrestling with his striking, but he’s not any sort of grappling wizard and all of his submissions were against completely inept opponents. Between his two DWCS appearances, he landed 7 of his 12 takedown attempts (58.3% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 6 of their 12 attempts (50% defense). He trains with the New England Cartel and used to be in the Air Force, and it doesn’t seem like technique or discipline are the problem for him, he just seems a half step behind when facing legitimate UFC level talent. He’s already 31 years old, so he’s not a super young prospect that we would expect to see major improvements from.
Fight Prediction:
Buzukja will have a 1” height advantage, but Matthews will have a 1” reach advantage. Buzukja is five years younger than the 31-year-old Matthews.
These two appear pretty evenly matched in a lot of ways. They both went on DWCS twice, where they each lost a decision in their first fight but one a decision in their second fight. Neither of them have any UFC wins, obviously this is Matthews’ first crack at it, while Buzukja is 0-2 with the organization. They’ve both shown the ability to finish low-level opponents, but neither of them has ever finished a decent fighter. Also, neither of them has ever landed a finish beyond the seven minute mark. Matthews is the more physically imposing of the two and has been more active with his striking and wrestling, which may give him the slight edge. However, they’re both low-level unproven fighters and it’s hard to confidently back either one of them. We’ll say Matthews wins a decision, but this fight belongs in the CFFC and not the UFC.
Our favorite bet here is “Buzukja/Matthews FGTD” at -130.
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DFS Implications:
Buzukja is coming off the first early loss of his career and hasn’t done anything to impress us so far in either of his UFC fights or his two trips on DWCS. The only times he’s found success in his career were when he was beating up on low-level opponents on the regional scene. He landed three takedowns between his two DWCS matches, but failed to land his only attempt in his two actual UFC fights and also averages just 3.30 SSL/min. He only scored 27 points in a decision loss in his UFC debut and in his decision win on DWCS, he only would have scored 77 DraftKings points and 67 points on FanDuel, despite landing a knockdown in the fight. So he’s given us no indication that he can score in a decision and is now facing an opponent who’s never been finished. His moneyline has been coming down as the week has gone on, leaving him overpriced on DraftKings, which when combined with how terrible he’s been should result in being low owned. The only other thing he has going for him is the matchup, as he takes on a fellow average talent in Matthews who we’ve seen absorb a lot of damage at times. Ultimately, this is a low-level fight, which carries some inherent volatility that could result in one of them overwhelming the other and scoring well. Or they could be so evenly matched that very little happens. Only time will tell. The odds imply Buzukja has a 51% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Matthews’ recent decision win on DWCS would have been good for 108 DraftKings points and 115 points on FanDuel, as he landed seven takedowns in the victory. That’s encouraging for his scoring potential in favorable matchup moving forward, but we’re not getting overly excited about him in general. He seems a little slow and a step behind when facing legitimate competition, and while he has six first round finishes on his record, those all came against horrendous competition. However, Buzukja hasn’t done anything to prove that he belongs in the UFC and maybe he’s bad enough that Matthews can treat him like they’re back on the New England regional scene. Even a one-dimensional boxer like Sean Woodson was able to take Buzukja down four times, although Buzukja did step into that fight on short notice and was making his UFC debut. Buzukja then most recently got knocked out by Jamall Emmers, who had zero UFC finishes coming into that matchup. So Buzukja has been making everyone look good and maybe he can do the same for Matthews. The upside is certainly there for Matthews, but keep in mind he also looked absolutely terrible in his first trip on DWCS and he has a wide range of potential outcomes. He’s only been out of the first round twice in his career and slowed down some in the later rounds in each of those instances. After the line moved in his favor, he’s now underpriced on both sites, which should drive his ownership up, especially in smaller contests. That lowers his tournament appeal some, but if he does put up another big takedown total or land a finish, he’ll almost certainly end up in winning lineups. The odds imply Matthews has a 49% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Julio Arce
10th UFC Fight (5-4)Making his return to the Octagon following a 16 month layoff, Arce had been scheduled to face Cody Garbrandt in early 2023, but suffered a torn ACL leading up to the fight that instead resulted in his extended absence. Arce has traded wins and losses for his last eight fights, losing a November 2022 decision to a really tough Montel Jackson in his last fight. While Jackson is a really good wrestler who even had Olympic aspirations, he failed to get Arce down on any of his three takedown attempts, but did knock him down once in the third round. Prior to that, Arce won a decision over a debuting Daniel Santos, who has looked pretty dangerous and is now 2-1 in the UFC. Just before that, Arce suffered his only knockout loss, which came in the second round against Song Yadong. That came just after Arce landed a second round knockout against Andre Ewell, in what was Arce’s first UFC fight down at 135 lb, after he competed at 145 lb in his first five UFC fights (3-2). Arce’s only two UFC losses at 145 lb both ended in split decisions, while two of his three wins at 145 lb ended in third round finishes. He also won a 2018 decision over Dan Ige at 145 lb, in what was the debut for each of them. While Arce’s last four fights were all at 135 lb (2-2), he’ll now be returning to 145 lb for this upcoming match.
Now 18-6 as a pro, Arce has five wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and eight decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has four decision losses. His last 18 fights all made it to the second round, with 13 of those seeing round three, and nine going the distance. He started his pro career in 2012 at 135 lb, before moving up to 145 lb in 2016, where he stayed until he moved back down to 135 lb following a 2019 split decision loss to Hakeem Dawodu. Now he’ll be returning to 145 lb for the first time since that loss.
Overall, Arce is a former boxer and won the NY Golden Gloves Championship in 2011 before switching over to MMA. He’s also a second degree black belt and has as many career wins by submission as knockout, but has only landed once submission since joining the UFC, which came in the third round of his second UFC fight back in 2018. He has an elite 95.2% takedown defense and his opponents were only able to get him down once on 21 attempts, which occurred in his 2018 UFC debut, where Dan Ige landed 1 of his 13 attempts. On the other side of things, Arce has landed 4 of his 13 takedown attempts (30.8% accuracy), between his nine UFC fights and his DWCS appearance. He’s never landed more than a single takedown in a fight. This will be the final fight on Arce’s contract, but he won’t have to travel far for it, as he trains out of Tiger Schulmann's MMA in New York.
UPDATE: Arce missed weight by 1 lb, then took the extra hour to try and keep cutting, and somehow weighed in at 1.25 lb over in his second attempt. It was a different guy operating the scale at that point, so it may have been user error, but a very strange turn of events nonetheless.
Herbert Burns
5th UFC Fight (2-2)The last time we saw Herbert Burns, he was being carried out of the Octagon by his big brother Gilbert, aftering quitting in the second round against Bill Algeo. Burns claims to have reinjured his knee in that fight for what it’s worth, but it was also the second straight fight where he basically just gave up in round two when things weren’t going his way. That loss took place in July 2022, and you have to go all the way back to August 2020 to find his second most recent fight, which ended in another second round TKO, that time against Daniel Pineda. Prior to those two losses, Burns landed a pair of round one finishes in his first two UFC fights, knocking out Nate Landwehr with a knee in his 2020 UFC debut and then submitting a washed up Evan Dunham after that. Burns also submitted Darrick Minner in the first round on DWCS in 2019 to punch his ticket to the big show.
Now 11-4 as a pro, Burns has one win by KO, eight submissions, and two decisions. He has two R2 TKO losses and two decision defeats. Eight of Burns’ nine finishes came in round one, while he also has one in the first half of round two. Burns is just 1-4 in his last four fights to make it out of the first round and 0-3 in his last three fights to make it past the midway mark of round two, so he’s been reliant on landing quick finishes to win fights and is a total front runner who melts under adversity.
Overall, Burns is a decent grappler, but not much of a striker and he’s the definition of a quitter. While he’s a 3rd degree BJJ black belt, no one is confusing him for his brother and it’s unlikely he would even be in the UFC if he had a different last name. Between his four UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Burns landed six of his eight takedown attempts (75% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on two of their five attempts (60% defense). At 36 years old and coming off yet another knee injury, it’s kind of surprising that Burns still even wants to compete, as he showed very little competitive desire in either of his last two fights. He also missed weight by 3.5 lb for his second most recent fight, so he’s always a guy to monitor during weigh-ins.
Fight Prediction:
Burns will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while Arce is two years younger than the 36-year-old Burns.
Both of these two are coming off knee injuries and extended layoffs, so either one of them could come in with some ring rust. Burns is the larger man and Arce has bounced between 135 lb and 145 lb throughout his career. Burns’ fights all seem to play out the same way. He comes in aggressively looking for an early submission, and when he’s unable to find one he quickly starts to look for a way out of the fight. He’s got no heart or durability and will now be taking on a second degree black belt in Arce, who also has an elite 95% takedown defense and will have the crowd behind him. That will make it really tough for Burns to lock up an early submission, and even getting the fight to the mat will be a challenge. Arce has a history of landing late finishes, with his last seven finishes ending in rounds two or three, and Burns has a history of quitting and getting finished in the second round. Arce is also fighting for his job, so he should come in motivated to land a finish and prove he still belongs in the UFC. We like Arce to weather the early storm from Burns and then finish him in the later rounds, most likely in round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Julio Arce R2” at +430.
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DFS Implications:
Arce has never been much of a DFS contributor, despite the fact that he’s landed finishes in three of his last four wins. He only scored 88, 90, and 76 DraftKings points respectively in those three early victories, as they all occurred in the later rounds. He nearly doubled his previous career high in significant strikes landed in his last win (127 vs. 74), but still scored just 81 DraftKings points in the decision victory. He’s only landed four takedowns in nine UFC appearances, never landing more than one in a fight. Now he’ll be facing a grappler in Burns, lowering the chances that Arce will be looking for takedowns here. However, Burns is a notorious quitter and the last two opponents he faced both finished him in the second round and scored 107 and 137 DraftKings points against him respectively. That means we’re always looking to play fighters against him and Arce appears very well equipped to deal with the grappling of Burns, as he has an elite 95% takedown defense and is a second degree black belt. That should allow him to stay safe in round one and then take over in the later rounds and likely get a finish. It will just be a question of whether or not he can rack up enough strikes to return value as the most expensive fighter on the card. His past scoring history would say no, but the matchup screams yes, so we could see it going either way. It may just come down to how long the ref lets Arce beat on Burns before they stop the fight. The odds imply Arce has a 76% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.
Burns is a fragile, weak-minded quitter who relies on landing early submissions to win fights. He’s now 36 years old and has only competed once since 2020. He had to be carried out of the Octagon by his brother following that last loss, which would have been a fitting end to his career. He’s battled knee injuries in the past, and claimed to have suffered another injury in that fight and it’s been almost two years since he last competed and almost four years since he last won a fight. He’s an early submission or bust play and now he’s facing the really tough 95% takedown defense of Arce, who’s also a second degree BJJ black belt, with the only submission loss of his career coming in the third round of his fourth pro fight, all the way back in 2013. Burns is a head case and the crowd will be behind Arce, which will likely result in Burns giving up even faster once he realizes he’s not locking up a submission. While Burns does have theoretical upside if he can fulfill his win condition, we really don’t see it happening. The odds imply Burns has a 24% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Loopy Godinez
11th UFC Fight (7-3)Continuing to stay very active, this will be Godinez’s fifth fight in the last 12 months. She’s coming off a split-decision win over Tabatha Ricci, where she outlanded Ricci in every round and stuffed all six of Ricci’s takedown attempts, yet some Ricci simp judge scored the fight 30-27 for her, while the other two had it 29-28 for Godinez. Prior to that, Godinez absolutely dominated a one-dimensional striker in Elise Reed in a second round submission win. Godinez put on an absolute clinic as she landed all five of her takedown attempts with six and a half minutes of control time and a ridiculous six official submission attempts in a fight that only lasted eight and a half minutes. She also finished ahead 21-3 in significant strikes and tacked on a knockdown, before locking up a rear-naked choke in the back half of round two. Just before that, Godinez had fought to six straight decisions, defeating Emily Ducote and Cynthia Calvillo in the last two of those, after losing a decision to Angela Hill, where Godinez was coming off a hip injury. Godinez also lost a questionable split decision in her UFC debut against Jessica Penne, which looked like more or less of a robbery. She bounced back with a first round submission win over Silvana Gomez Juarez, but then foolishly took a fight up a weight class just a week later and lost a short notice decision to Luana Carolina. She then won a pair of wrestling-heavy decisions over a pair of strikers, leading up to her loss to Hill. Eleven of her last 13 fights ended with the judges.
Now 12-3 as a pro, Godinez has one TKO win, two submission victories, and nine decision victories. Two of her early wins occurred in the first round, with the other ending in round two. All three of her losses ended in close decisions, with one of those being a questionable split result against Jessica Penne in Godinez’s UFC debut, another coming against Luana Carolina, where Godinez was fighting up a weight class just seven days after submitting Silvana Gomez Juarez, and the third on short notice against Angela Hill in front of Hill’s home crowd, where Godinez was coming off an injury. Her last loss was at a 120 lb Catchweight, since it was on short notice, and the loss before that was at 125 lb, also on short notice. So she’s only once been defeated at 115 lb.
Overall, Godinez is a really solid wrestler, and a good boxer. She landed 30 takedowns on 64 attempts in her 10 UFC fights (49.9% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on just 4 of their 29 attempts (86.2% defense). She has a high fight IQ and does a good job of relying on her wrestling against strikers and striking against grapplers. The one exception that people seem to still hold against her was her fight against Angela Hill, where she didn’t wrestle. However, that can be explained by the fact that she came into that match with a hip injury that really limited her in that short notice fight. She’s shown the ability to put up big striking totals when she’s not wrestling, and she landed 132 significant strikes against Emily Ducote and 98 against Tabatha Ricci. Godinez is facing a grappler here, so you can expect her to rely on her striking once again.
Virna Jandiroba
9th UFC Fight (5-3)Ten months removed from a wrestling-heavy decision win over Marina Rodriguez, the 35-year-old Jandiroba had been scheduled to face Tatiana Suarez last August, but then suffered a knee injury that required surgery. In her last win, she was able to take Rodriguez down three times on seven attempts and control her for 12 of the 15 minutes. That win came almost exactly a year after Jandiroba executed a similar game plan against Angella Hill, where Jandiroba won another wrestling-heavy decision, landing three of her eight takedown attempts with seven minutes of control time. Prior to that, Jandiroba lost a decision to a fellow grappler in Amanda Ribas, who Jandiroba was only able to takedown once on eight attempts. The only one of Jandiroba’s last five fights to end early was a 2021 post R2 TKO victory over Kanako Murata, who suffered a broken arm from a Jandiroba armbar attempt. That’s the only wrestler/grappler that Jandiroba has defeated in the UFC, losing decisions against the other three she faced (Amanda Ribas, Mackenzie Dern, and Carla Esparza).
Now 18-3 as a pro, Jandiroba has one win by TKO (Post R2 2021), 13 submissions, and five decision victories. Her lone TKO win would have gone down as a submission, but her opponent never tapped to the armbar that broke her arm and eventually forced the stoppage. Eight of her submission wins ended in the first round, four came in round two, and one occurred in round three. Jandiroba has never been finished, with all three of her losses going the distance.
Jandiroba came into the UFC in 2019 as a scrawny one-dimensional grappler, but has added a lot of muscle and improved her striking in recent years. She’s still not a great striker by any means, but she’s no longer entirely helpless on the feet. As a high-level BJJ black belt, her strength is still clearly her grappling, but she can at least set up her takedowns with striking now. Prior to joining the UFC, Jandiroba won 14 straight fights, with 11 of those coming by submission. Her last 12 finishes have all come in the first two rounds and she’s the most dangerous in round one. In her eight UFC fights, she landed 15 of her 38 takedown attempts (39.5% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 6 of their 23 attempts (73.9% defense). She only averages 2.34 SSL/min and 3.03 SSA/min and has never landed more than 63 significant strikes in a fight or absorbed more than 88. We’ve seen her find a lot of success against strikers, but she tends to struggle when facing fellow grapplers.
Fight Prediction:
Jandiroba will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while Godinez is five years younger than the 35-year-old Jandiroba.
Godinez is the much more well rounded fighter in this matchup and we fully expect her to only use her wrestling for defensive purposes. While she can rack up takedowns when she wants to, she has a high fight IQ and knows when she should keep fights standing, which will be the case here against a dangerous grappler in Jandiroba. Godinez is the superior striker and we don’t see her having any problem outlanding her way to a decision win as long as she can remain upright. While Jandiroba has added some muscle over the years and made improvements to both her striking and her wrestling, she has still struggled when facing other grapplers and we expect that trend to continue, especially with her coming off knee surgery and a long layoff. Godinez by decision is the obvious pick, which is why the line is so terrible, but it’s still the pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Loopy Godinez DEC” at -125.
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DFS Implications:
Godinez has averaged 99 DraftKings points in her seven UFC wins, despite six of those going the distance. While she only scored 70, 88, 66, and 86 points in four of those wins, she scored 128, 129, and 127 points in the other three, showing massive scoring potential when given the right matchup. And it’s not complicated determining the right matchup. All of those explosion spots came against one-dimensional strikers where she was able to rely heavily on her wrestling. She’s well rounded with a high fight IQ and does a great job of attacking opponents where they’re the weakest. So when she faces strikers she wrestles and when she faces wrestlers she strikes. It’s not rocket science, yet so many fighters struggle with executing smart game plans. Both of Godinez’s early UFC wins came against strikers and she’s yet to show any sort of ceiling when taking on grapplers. She faces another grappler in this upcoming matchup, so we don’t have much interest in playing Godinez and she’ll need a finish to return value. Jandiroba has never finished, and we’d be surprised to see that change here, making Godinez an easy fade on this slate. The odds imply Godinez has a 66% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Jandiroba has averaged 92 DraftKings points in her five UFC wins, with her first three UFC victories all ending early, but her last two both going the distance. She’s now 35 years old, coming off knee surgery, and hasn’t finished anyone since 2021. All three of her UFC finishes were against opponents that have since been cut and she’s just 1-3 against grapplers in the UFC. This looks like a really bad stylistic matchup for Jandiroba as she goes up against the 86% takedown defense of Godinez. Jandiroba will have a really tough time winning this fight if she can’t get it to the mat and an even tougher time scoring well. And even if she can get Godinez down once or twice, she’ll be hard pressed to dominate her on the ground long enough to score well without a finish. We’re treating her as a hail mary submission or bust play in a terrible matchup and have very little interest in playing her. The odds imply Jandiroba has a 34% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Jamall Emmers
7th UFC Fight (3-3)Emmers stepped into this matchup with just over three weeks to prepare after Pat Sabatini dropped out. Fresh off his first UFC finish, Emmers knocked out Dennis Buzukja in just 49 seconds, although wasn’t eligible for a bonus because he missed weight by a pound leading up to the fight. That’s the only Emmers has ever finished anybody in the UFC, with his second most recent finish coming in a 2020 third round submission in the LFA, just before Emmers made his UFC debut. Emmers has traded wins and losses over the course of his UFC career and came out on the wrong end of a split decision against Jack Jenkins in his second most recent fight. The striking numbers were actually almost dead even in the fight, with Jenkins finishing slightly ahead, and both fighters landed one takedown. However, Emmers had two reversals and over four minutes of control time and most people thought he won. Prior to that loss, Emmers won a decision over an undefeated debuting fighter in Khusein Askhabov, who has since been suspended for PEDs, arrested for kidnapping, and cut from the UFC. Askhabov also hadn’t competed in almost three years leading up to that fight, which showed in his cardio as he slowed down considerably in the back half of the fight. Emmers also slowed down in the third round and hadn’t competed in 18 months after injuring his knee in an August 2021 first round heel hook submission loss to Pat Sabatini. That loss came a year after Emmers notched his first UFC win, which came in a decision over short notice replacement Vince Cachero who was fighting up a weight class. Five months prior to that win, Emmers lost a close split decision in his March 2020 UFC debut against Giga Chikadze. Emmers had been scheduled to fight Chas Skelly following the win over Cachero, but just before he was set to walk out for the match he was forced to withdraw due to back spasms that he was suffering backstage. Emmers originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but got knocked out in the second round by a southpaw in Julian Erosa and was forced to return to the regional scene and work his way back up. Emmers also has a 2016 R5 TKO loss to Thiago Moises on his record (at 155 lb), as well as a 2017 decision victory over Cory Sandhagen, and a 2013 decision win over Alexander Hernandez.
Now 20-7 as a pro, Emmers has eight wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and nine decision victories. Of his 11 finishes, five came in round one, three ended in round two, and three came in round three. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted two more times, and has three decision losses. All three of those decision losses were split. Three of his four early losses occurred in the later rounds, with two ending in round two. The only time he’s been finished since 2018 was in a 2021 first round heel hook against Pat Sabatini.
Overall, Emmers is a well-rounded fighter with a wrestling background, and he also just got his BJJ black belt. He’s solid everywhere, but not really exceptional anywhere. Between his six UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 9 of his 22 takedown attempts (40.9% accuracy), while defending 10 of the 11 attempts against him (90.9% defense). Despite four of his six UFC fights going the distance, the only time Emmers has topped 62 significant strikes landed was when he landed 103 against Vince Cachero, who was making his UFC debut on short notice up a weight class and finished 0-2 in the UFC. We wonder about Emmers’ fight IQ at times, as he’s often content with engaging opponents where they’re the strongest, as we saw him willing to strike against Chikadze and willing to play around on the mat against Sabatini. That resulted in him losing both of those fights, while failing to use his well-roundedness to attack his opponents’ weaknesses. However, he looked great in his last fight, at least for as long as it lasted, but that was against a much lower level opponent. After missing weight by a pound for that last match, he’ll be a guy to monitor on the scale.
Nate Landwehr
8th UFC Fight (4-3)Landwehr was originally set to pace Pat Sabatini, but he dropped out and Emmers was announced as the replacement on March 8th.
Looking to bounce back from his first loss since 2021, Landwehr had a three-fight winning streak snapped by Dan Ige in a decision loss. Ige hurt Landwehr in the closing seconds of round one and then dropped him in the closing seconds of round two, but ran out of time before he could finish him. Prior to that, Landwehr locked up a second round submission win over Austin Lingo, who isn’t very good and took the fight on short notice. That came after showed he cared more about putting on a show than landing a finish and he easily should have finished an exhausted David Onama, but was too busy pandering to the crowd. Onama nearly knocked Landwehr out in the first round, but Landwehr was able to survive and take over in the later rounds as Onama’s cardio went off a cliff. Looking back one fight further, Landwehr outlasted another opponent in Ludovit Klein who gassed out in the back half of the fight and got submitted by Landwehr in the third round. Landwehr originally made his UFC debut in January 2020 and got knocked out in the first round by a suspect Herbert Burns, but bounced back with a decision win in a high-volume bloody war against Darren Elkins. He then got knocked out again in the first round, that time by Julian Erosa, before going on a three fight winning streak.
Now 17-5 as a pro, Landwehr has eight wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and seven decision victories. He’s been knocked out twice (R1 2020 & R1 2021), submitted once (R2 2015), and has two decision losses. He won seven of the last eight decisions he’s been to, despite three of those being split/majority. Landwehr’s last five and 8 of his 10 career finishes came in the later rounds, with six in round two and two in round three. He hasn’t finished anybody in round one since 2016.
Overall, Landwehr is a brawling striker who averages 6.14 SSL/min and 5.58 SSA/min. However, he did recently start adding some grappling to his game after he moved down to MMA Masters in 2021. After failing to attempt a takedown in his first three UFC matches, he landed five of his 12 attempts in his last four fights (41.7% accuracy). On the other side of things, he’s only been taken down on 3 of his 22 opponent attempts and has a solid 86.4% takedown defense. After starting his career on the Tennessee regional scene, Landwehr went over to Russia in 2017 and fought for M-1 Global, where he won the Featherweight belt and then defended it twice before making his UFC debut. This will be Landwehr’s fourth straight fight in front of a big crowd, and he’s definitely the type of fighter that feeds off the energy of the audience, sometimes a little too much. However, he seems to have matured some in his last couple of fights and he’s now 35 years old, recently had a baby, and got his BJJ purple belt.
Fight Prediction:
Emmers will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while being a year younger than the 35-year-old Landwehr.
Emmers appears to hold advantages both on the mat and the feet in this matchup, while also being a little taller and longer. However, he is filling in on just a few weeks’ notice and Landwehr has that dog mentality to never give up and constantly push the pace. So there is a chance we see Emmers slow down in the back half of the fight. That could open a window for Landwehr to force a close decision or even find a late finish if Emmers really gasses out, but we still like Emmers’ chances of using his superior skill, movement, and speed to outland Landwehr from distance and get his hand raised with the judges.
Our favorite bet here is “Emmers/Landwehr FGTD” at -116.
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DFS Implications:
Emmers’ DFS scoring has been kind of all over the place. His first UFC win was against a terrible short notice replacement who was competing up a weight class in his UFC debut and Emmers did whatever he wanted in the fight, finishing with 103 SSL and 5 TDs, which allowed him to score 109 DraftKings points in a decision win. Emmers then got submitted in the first round of his next fight and only scored six points. After taking a year and a half off for a knee injury he then bounced back with a decision win, but only scored 72 points. He then lost a split decision, but only would have scored 79 points even if it had gone his way. Most recently, he landed a quick 49 second knockout that was good for 131 points with the help of the Quick Win Bonus. From what he’s shown, he needs to completely fill up the stat sheet to score well without a finish. And while Landwehr does average 5.58 SSA/min, he also has an 86% takedown defense. Also, Emmers stepped into this fight on three weeks’ notice and it remains to be seen if he can keep up a high pace for 15 minutes with so little time to prepare. It’s not necessarily a bad matchup, but it is a volatile one, which seems to be the theme of this card. Landwehr was knocked out in the first round in two of his three UFC losses and also got dropped in his last fight. With Emmers coming off his first UFC finish, maybe he’ll be a little more aggressive here. Or maybe he’ll realize he needs to pace himself due to his lack of preparation. Either is possible, leaving a wider range of potential scoring outcomes in this one. The odds imply Emmers has a 61% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Landwehr failed to top 92 DraftKings points in any of his first four UFC fights, but scored 104 and 102 points in his last two wins. He added some grappling to his game after moving down to MMA Masters in 2021, and is suddenly a submission threat on the mat. He also averages 6.14 SSL/min and loves to entertain the crowd. However, Emmers is tall, long, and fast, making him a tougher guy to hit and he only averages 3.79 SSA/min, while also owning a 90% takedown defense. He’s been a tough guy to score well against unless you can finish him and he only has one early loss since 2018. However, Emmers did step into this matchup on just a few weeks’ notice and if Landwehr can push a pace and tire Emmers out, maybe a late finish will present itself. At his cheap price tag, Landwehr may not need to put up a huge score to still serve as a value play. The odds imply Landwehr has a 39% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Chidi Njokuani
6th UFC Fight (2-3)Entering this matchup on a three-fight skid, Njokuani has decided to cut back down to 170 lb, where he fought at much earlier in career, but not since 2016. He then had three Catchweight fights in late 2016 and early 2017, before officially moving up to 185 lb in late 2017. In a 2018 interview, he said he was done cutting down to 170 lb and that cutting that much weight twice in a short period had actually done permanent damage to his vocal cords, which is a new one for us but perhaps left him with a career in narration once his fighting days are done. Njokuani lost numerous battles on the scale trying to make 170 lb and it’s really surprising that he’s decided to put himself through that once again, even if he has lost three straight. His last loss came against a really tough Michal Oleksiejczuk, who finished Njokuani in a late R1 ground and pound TKO in a back and forth action-packed striking battle. Prior to that, Njokuani took on a wrestler in Albert Duraev and lost a boring split decision. Just before that, Njokuani suffered a R2 TKO loss to Gregory Rodrigues in a wild fight where Njokuani split Rodrigues’s face wide open early in round one. Njokuani then wilted in the second round of that fight as Rodrigues finished him with ground and pound on the mat. Leading up to his recent struggles, Njokuani started off his UFC career with a pair of first round knockout wins. He exploded onto the UFC scene in 2022 with a 16 second knockout of a previously very durable Marc-Andre Barriault, who had never been knocked out before or since. Njokuani then finished a far less durable Dusko Todorovic in a late first round knockout.
Now 22-10 as a pro, Njokuani has 14 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and seven decision victories. Nine of his knockout wins occurred in round one, one came in round two, and four ended in round three. He’s been finished in 8 of his 10 pro losses, with five KO/TKOs and three submissions. He’s 7-2 in decisions, but lost the last two he went to. Six of his eight early losses came in the first round, while the other two occurred in round two. Njokuani primarily fought at 170 lb until 2017 when moved up to 185 lb. He went just 5-5 since making the move up, with seven of his last nine fights ending early. Now he’ll be moving back down to 170 lb, where four of his last five fights at the weight class surprisingly ended in decision wins.
Overall, Njokuani is a really dangerous striker who was tall and long for the 185 lb division, so you can only imagine at 170 lb. In addition to his 22-10 pro MMA record, Njokuani went 12-1 as a kickboxer. Despite allegedly being a BJJ black belt, Njokuani's biggest weakness is his grappling and we’ve seen him struggle with being controlled both on the fence and on the mat in the past. Between his five UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Njokuani has been taken down on 7 of 18 opponent attempts (61.1% defense), while he failed to land any of his own three attempts. Make sure to monitor Njokuani closely on the scale as he makes his return to 170 lb here.
Rhys McKee
4th UFC Fight (0-3)Still in search of his first UFC win, McKee is now 0-3 and on his second stint with the organization. The UFC did him no favors in his first go of things, as they paired him up with Khamzat Chimaev in his McKee’s July 2020 UFC debut. McKee got shut out on the statsheet in that fight, as Chimaev outlanded him 40-0 in significant strikes and 68-0 in total strikes, while taking him down and controlling him for all but 10 seconds of a three minute fight, before finishing him with ground and pound. McKee then lost a decision to UFC veteran Alex Morono and got outlanded 176-124 in significant strikes and 3-0 in takedowns, all career best numbers for Morono. The UFC had seen enough at that point and released McKee before he even got a third fight. At that point McKee returned to Cage Warriors and rattled off three straight late round KO/TKO wins, with the last two of those being for the Welterweight belt. The first of those title fights got pretty dicey, as McKee got taken down five times and suffered a really nasty cut over his eye from a slicing elbow that would have stopped many fights. However, with a long leash from the doctor, McKee was able to survive and fold his opponent over in the third round to secure the Cage Warriors title. He then defended the belt in a post R4 corner stoppage TKO win against a 39-year-old opponent who retired immediately afterwards. That was enough for the UFC to bring him back on, and in his last fight he squared off against Ange Loosa, who looked close to finding a finish at times in the first two rounds as he poured in on McKee with a combination of wrestling and striking. However, McKee survived the onslaught and then nearly finished Loosa in the final minute of the fight, but simply ran out of time as an exhausted Loosa hung on to get his hand raised.
Now 13-5-1 as a pro, McKee has 10 wins by KO/TKO and three submission victories. One of his submission wins occurred in his 2015 pro debut, with his other two coming in 2017 and 2019, and he’s typically looking to knock opponents out. While 5 of his 10 knockouts occurred in the first round, his last three all came in rounds three and four and he hasn’t put anyone away in the opening five minutes since 2019. He also has two first round TKO losses and two decision defeats, going 0-3-1 in his four career decisions. McKee made his 2015 pro debut at 170 lb, but then dropped down to 155 lb until 2019, when he moved back up to 170 lb one fight before making his UFC debut. It looks like he’s finally started to fill out his frame at 170 lb now.
Overall, McKee is an uptempo brawler who pressures opponents with a high-volume attack of strikes, averaging 6.06 SSL/min and 9.47 SSA/min. He’s typically not looking to grapple any, and defensive wrestling has been his biggest weakness, as we’ve seen him get dominated on that mat at multiple points. He’ll never shy away from a firefight, and is happy to take one to land one. At 6’2” with a 78” reach, he’s got good size for the division, despite the fact that he spent so much time at 155 lb. McKee didn’t have much of a chance to showcase his skills in his first UFC stint, but we expect to see improvements from him in his second opportunity, although defensive wrestling remains a concern and he still looks like a one-dimensional striker.
Fight Prediction:
Njokuani will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while McKee is seven years younger than the 35-year-old Njokuani.
Both of these two are giants for the division, which takes away the size advantage that they normally both hold over their opponents. They’re also both strikers who have struggled with being controlled on the mat, but we’re expecting to see far more of a striking battle here. Njokuani does his best work early on in fights and tends to slow down after the first round, while McKee is just the opposite and tends to start slow and finish strong. That creates two obvious ways for this fight to play out, where either Njokuani knocks McKee out in round one or McKee survives the opening five minutes, outlast Njokuani, and finishes him in the later rounds. Both scenarios are very in play, but when you factor in Njokuani cutting an additional 15 pounds, we like McKee’s side of things and we’ll say he wins in a late TKO.
Our favorite bet here is “Rhys McKee R2 or R3 KO” at +550.
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DFS Implications:
Njokuani exploded into the UFC in 2022 with back-to-back first round knockouts that were good for 130 and 108 DraftKings points respectively. However, he then came back down to Earth with three straight losses since then and is now making the desperation cut back down from 185 lb to 170 lb. That’s a really tough additional amount of weight to cut and we’ve seen numerous fighters struggle in the past when attempting that move. Njokuani himself made it sound like it was destroying his body trying to make 170 lb earlier in his career and we can’t imagine it will be any easier in his mid thirties. That’s a big red flag and he’s already struggled with both his cardio and durability at 185 lb. However, he gets a dream matchup against Rhys McKee, who’s 0-3 in the UFC and averages an other-worldy 9.47 SSA/min, while also having terrible wrestling. Njokuani has bad wrestling as well, but now he shouldn’t have to worry about that weakness being exposed and can even shoot for takedowns of his own if he wants to. While McKee is tough and has a knack for coming back late in fights, he also has two KO/TKO losses on his record and if Njokuani can somehow navigate the weight cut without killing himself, this is a prime bounce back matchup for him with tons of scoring potential. However, it’s also an extremely volatile spot and there’s a good chance he gets finished himself, leaving a massively wide range of scoring outcomes. The odds imply Njokuani has a 56% chance to win, a 46% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.
McKee is an all action fighter who always makes for fun and exciting fights that we’re looking to target in DFS. While he’s yet to win in the UFC, he’s had three really tough matchups and at least all of his opponents scored really well. While he’s facing another dangerous opponent here, if McKee can simply survive the first round he’ll be in a great position to take over in the later rounds and Njokuani quickly wilts under pressure after about 4-5 minutes when opponents really make him work. McKee’s aggressive style and pace should test Njokuani’s cardio, and with Njokuani cutting down from 185 lb to 170 lb for the first time since 2016, we have legitimate concerns about his already bad cardio/durability will look. McKee will still be at risk of getting knocked out early, which leaves him with a zero point floor, but he looks like a great tournament option with a high ceiling. According to the odds, this is the most likely fight on the card to end early. Whoever wins should score well, which has always been true of McKee’s fights in the past. The odds imply McKee has a 44% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Bill Algeo
9th UFC Fight (5-3)Algeo is coming off a decision win over Alexander Hernandez, who Algeo was able to outland 110-75 in significant strikes and also takedown once on his only attempt, while Hernandez failed to get Algeo down on his only failed attempt. Aleo used his length well and mixed in knees to keep Hernandez uncomfortable and easily cruised to a unanimous 30-27 decision win. Prior to that, Algeo secured his first UFC submission win when he locked up a rear-naked choke against the highly submittable TJ Brown in the first half of round two after an action-packed start. Preceding that finish, Algeo suffered his only loss in his last five fights in a split decision against Andre Fili, although even having one judge score the fight for him was generous. Just before that, Algeo notched his only other “finish” in his last 10 fights, in a second round TKO against Herbert Burns, who injured his knee in the fight and simply wouldn’t continue. Algeo had fought to six straight decisions (3-3) leading up to that fight against Burns. He originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2019, but lost a decision to Brendan Loughnane and was forced to return to the regional scene. After winning a decision with CFFC the UFC then brought him on and he traded decision losses and wins for his first four UFC fights, with both of his wins coming against opponents with suspect cardio and both of his losses resulting from his poor defensive wrestling.
Now 18-7 as a pro, Algeo has four wins by KO/TKO, seven submissions, and seven decision victories. He’s never been knocked out, but has been submitted twice, and also has five decision losses. After his first two pro fights ended in first round submissions in 2012 (1-1), 22 of his last 23 matches have seen the second round, including his most recent 18 fights. Eight of his 11 finishes occurred in the second round and his last six fights to end early all ended in round two (5-1). One of his two submission losses occurred in the first round of his second pro fight, back in 2012, with the other coming in the second round against Shane Burgos in 2014. No one has finished him in his last 17 fights.
Overall, Algeo is a cocky BJJ black belt with terrible defensive wrestling who generally relies on outlasting his opponents to win fights. Between his eight UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Algeo was taken down by his opponents on 25 of 57 attempts (56.1% defense), with eight of those nine opponents landing at least one takedown and five of them landing multiple. On the flipside, Algeo landed seven of his own takedowns on 15 attempts in those matches (46.7% accuracy). Algeo sets a good pace, averaging 6.11 SSL/min, and we’ve seen him outlast opponents with cardio concerns, which is how he secured most of his UFC wins. He likes to showboat on the feet, but isn’t an especially dangerous striker.
Kyle Nelson
9th UFC Fight (3-4-1)Coming off a decision win over Fernando Padilla, Nelson was narrowly able to edge out the striking in a slower paced fight, while no takedowns were landed by either fighter. That was Nelson’s second straight decision victory and fourth straight fight to his the scorecards (2-1-1). Just before defeating Padilla, Nelson won a low-volume decision win over Blake Bilder, which was Nelson’s first win since 2019 and he did it in front of his home Canadian crowd. Bilder outlanded Nelson in the first round and looked to be cruising, but Nelson turned the tides when he hurt Bilder late in the round and then not a lot happened down the stretch as Nelson finished ahead 59-45 in significant strikes, with no takedowns landed in the match. Prior to that, Nelson fought to a draw against Doo Ho Choi, who was coming off a 3+ year layoff and had lost three straight fights. Choi would have won the fight but was deducted a point in the third round for a questionable headbutt, so Nelson was fortunate to walk away with the draw. That came just after Nelson lost a slow-paced decision to Jai Herbert, with yet another low striking total. While his last four fights all went the distance, his first three UFC fights all ended early. His only finish in the UFC came against Marco Polo Reyes, who was attempting to move down to 145 lb for the first and only time in his career after getting knocked out in three of his previous four fights at 155 lb. Just before that win, Nelson amazingly got submitted by a terrible Matt Sayles, after getting knocked out in the second round of his UFC debut by Diego Ferreira. Following his win over Polo Reyes, Nelson got knocked out in the third round by Billy Quarantillo.
Now 15-5-1 as a pro, Nelson has five wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and six decisions. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted once, and has two decision losses. While his last four fights all went the distance, his previous seven all ended early (4-3), with all four of those early wins coming in round one and all three of the losses ending in the later rounds. His recent two decision wins are the only times he’s won a fight that made it past round one since 2016. He’s fought at both 145 lb and 155 lb in his career, and after making his UFC debut at 155 lb he dropped down to 145 lb for his next three fights before moving back up to 155 lb for a fight in 2022. However, he then dropped back down to 145 lb for his last three matches and it appears that’s where he’ll stay.
Overall, Nelson has been a tail of two fighters in his UFC career. He started out as a brawler with bad cardio, but changed his approach after gassing out against Billy Quarantillo in 2020 and has now settled into being a boring decision grinder. He said he's walking around with less muscle now so the weight cuts are going easier and his cardio is way better because of that. He’s been trying to incorporate a little more wrestling, but he’s not any good on the mat, despite being a BJJ brown belt, and he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2017. In his eight UFC fights, Nelson landed just 7 of his 34 takedown attempts (20.6% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 4 of their 15 attempts (73.3 % defense). He has okay power, but he’s not very quick and can’t compete on the feet against high-level strikers. He also doesn’t land much volume, averaging just 3.46 SSL/min, while absorbing 4.56/min. Ultimately, Nelson is a low-level fighter and he’s overachieved simply lasting as long as he has in the UFC.
Fight Prediction:
Algeo will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while Nelson is two years younger than the 34-year-old Algeo.
Algeo’s biggest weakness is his defensive wrestling, but Nelson isn’t a good enough wrestler to capitalize on that. Algeo is taller, longer, faster, more durable, and has better cardio than Nelson, so it’s hard to see Nelson winning this fight. Algeo likes to push a high pace, while Nelson is just the opposite and has been intent on slowing things down lately. We expect Algeo to easily outland his way to a decision win and if he can really force Nelson to expend energy, then it’s even possible a late finish could present itself. With that said, a decision is far more likely.
Our favorite bet here is “Bill Algeo DEC” at +125.
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DFS Implications:
Algeo has averaged a respectable 97 DraftKings in his five UFC wins, but has yet to top 91 points without a finish. While he was able to submit the highly submittable T.J. Brown and scored a TKO when Herbert Burns quit, we’re still not overly impressed by Algeo’s finishing abilities, making it tougher for him to return value at his high price tag. Nelson used to be a guy we were looking to target, but he reinvented himself as a boring decision grinder after his 2020 R3 KO loss to Billy Quarantillo and now appears dedicated to ruining every fight he’s part of, with his last four fights all ending in boring, low-volume decisions. That’s far from ideal for Algeo, who relies on filling up the stat sheet to score well. Maybe Algeo can force Nelson into a more uptempo fight, but we’ll believe it when we see it and we’re not very interested in playing either guy in this matchup. And even if Algeo does find a finish, he’ll still need to outscore the other expensive options, leaving him with multiple ways to be left out of the optimal lineup. The odds imply Algeo has a 68% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Nelson came into the UFC as more of a brawler and used to at least have a puncher’s chance of scoring well, but now he just sabotages all the fights he’s part of and turns them into slow-paced decisions where no one can score well. He put up exactly 63 DraftKings points in each of his last two decision wins, after totaling 47 points in a draw just before that. It’s been almost four years since one of his fights ended early, which was when he got knocked out by Billy Quarantillo in 2020. The last time Nelson actually finished anybody was in 2019, when he knocked out the corpse of Marco Polo Reyes, who was attempting to move down to 145 lb for the first and only time in his career after getting knocked out in three of his previous four fights at 155 lb. That’s the only time Nelson finished anybody in his UFC career and now he’s taking on a durable opponent who’s never been knocked out. Even at Nelson’s cheap price tag, we don’t see him scoring enough to be useful in a decision here, leaving him reliant on landing a hail mary knockout. The odds imply Nelson has a 32% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Nursulton Ruziboev
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Coming off a quick 77 second R1 KO win in his short notice UFC debut against a dangerous Brunno Ferreira, Ruziboev has finished nine straight opponents in the first round and hasn’t lost a fight since 2019. However, he’s also only competed once in the last 23 months, with his previous eight wins all coming between January 2021 and April 2022. The last time he was in a fight that even made it to the four minute mark was in a 2019 decision loss, where he spent extended periods of time on his back eating ground and pound. He’s been taken down by most of his opponents since then, but has been able to land multiple submissions off his back. Five of his last nine wins came via submission, with three of those ending in kimuras.
Now 33-8-2 as a pro, Ruziboev has an absurd number of fights for a 30-year-old. He has 11 wins by KO/TKO, 20 submissions, and two decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has six decision losses. His lone KO loss came in the second round of a 2014 fight in what was just his third pro appearance, while his one submission defeat came in the second round of a 2016 fight. He hasn’t won a decision since 2017, going 0-5-2 in his last seven trips to the judges, and has as many draws as decision wins on his record. Looking at his entire career he’s gone just 2-6-2 in fights that went the distance. Ruziboev has fought anywhere from 155 lb to 195 lb, but most of his career has been split between 170 lb and 185 lb. He’s fought a lot of suspect competition and his last win before joining the UFC came against an opponent with a 12-12 pro record.
Overall, Ruziboev is an insanely tall, rangy 6’5” BJJ purple belt from Uzbekistan, who’s now training in Philadelphia at Renzo Gracie Philly with several other grappling-heavy UFC fighters, including Andre Petroski, who he’ll be fighting alongside, and Pat Sabatini, who had been on this card before he dropped out. Ruziboev absolutely loves looking for kimuras and can throw up quick armbars as well. His takedown defense is non-existent and he’s struggled with being controlled on his back at times, but has shown the ability to reverse positions. He’s got long skinny legs that look prone to getting chewed up, although the majority of his fights are spent on the mat or end so quickly that there’s no time for leg damage to add up. While he’s been able to lock up kimuras against numerous low-level opponents, that’s rarely an effective finishing method at the UFC level, but is helpful for reversing positions on the ground. Considering he’s still just 30 years old and trains with several UFC grapplers in Philadelphia, he should be continuing to improve his wrestling. However, with just 77 seconds of UFC Octagon time there are still far more questions than answers with him.
Sedriques Dumas
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Fresh off a close decision win over a one-dimensional striker in Abu Azaitar, Dumas was easily able to take Azaitar down in round one and control him for the essentially the entire round, but then curiously never attempted a takedown in round two and only went for one failed attempt in round three. Considering how easily he got the first takedown, you really have to question that strategy, although ultimately he wasn’t made to pay for the poor decision making. That was Dumas’ second straight decision win, after he defeated a dejected Cody Brundage just before that in his first UFC victory. Although for the record, Brundage stepped in on short notice and had one of the worst performances you’ll see as he jumped guillotine so many times he should have been deducted a point. Nothing Dumas did in the fight was especially impressive and he more or less won by default. Prior to that, Dumas suffered his first career loss, when he got submitted in the second round of his UFC debut against Josh Fremd. Dumas was never able to get anything going in the fight, as Fremd had him hurt on the feet and was also able to take him down twice on two attempts and easily control him on the mat and eventually work his way to a guillotine finish midway through round two. Dumas had originally been scheduled to face Abu Azaitar there, but Azaitar dropped out and Fremd was announced as the replacement 16 days out. Leading up to that loss, Dumas won his first seven fights after turning pro in September 2020 and punched his ticket to the UFC with a 47 second first round submission win on DWCS. Just keep in mind, he hadn’t been facing much in the way of competition.
Now 9-1 as a pro, Dumas has four wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and three decision victories. Four of his finishes occurred in the first round, with the last three of those ending in 90 seconds or less. His other two early wins both ended in round two. Just keep in mind, all of finishes came against a low level of competition before he joined the UFC. His first three opponents all had losing records and his next two each coming in just 1-0 in their respective careers. Then he took on a struggling undersized opponent, leading up to his win on DWCS. While he locked up a submission win on DWCS, four of his last five finishes have come by KO/TKO. His only career loss was the second round submission in his UFC debut.
Overall, Dumas has a Dutch Kickboxing striking style, and is also a BJJ purple belt who looks to mix in grappling, but looked terrible off his back in his debut. However, he showed some improvements in each of his last two fights, but you can tell he’s still super green and makes a lot of mistakes. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Dumas landed two of his four takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on six of their 10 attempts (40% defense). After landing a takedown on DWCS, he’s only landed one more in his three UFC fights, while each of his three UFC opponents got him down twice. He has dangerous kicks that he uses to attack his opponents at all levels, and has both head kick and leg kick KO/TKOs on his record. However, he’s yet to look very dangerous in the UFC and is also averaging just 1.88 SSL/min and 2.01 SSA/min.
Fight Prediction:
Ruziboev will have a 3” height advantage, but Dumas will have a 3” reach advantage and is two years younger than the 30-year-old Ruziboev. Ruziboev has more than four times as many pro fights as Dumas (45 vs. 10), so it’s clear who has the experience advantage. Ruziboev is also taller and has a better team around, but struggles with being taken down, and can be overly dependent on his submission game during grappling exchanges, which makes it hard for him to win minutes in those situations. He’s also pretty heavy on his skinny lead leg that he puts so far out in front of him that he’s almost baiting opponents to kick it so he can try to counter over the top, as we saw in his UFC debut. Dumas is dangerous with his kicks and has a leg kick TKO win on his record, so it will be interesting to see how much success Dumas can have attacking Ruziboev’s lead leg. We’re also curious to see how much Dumas looks to wrestle, considering he seemed disinterested in going to the ground against one-dimensional striker in the final two rounds of his recent win, despite easily landing a takedown in round one. Now he’ll be squaring off against a grappler, so maybe he’ll have even less interest in looking for takedowns. However, Ruziboev gives up takedowns incredibly easily, so they should be there if Dumas wants them. It’s just hard to know what’s going on in Dumas’ head during fights and he’s a wildcard who you can’t trust to make smart decisions. On the other side of things, Ruziboev looks to be improving, but it’s still concerning how much time he’s spent on his back at times in the past. From what he’s shown in the past, his wrestling is way behind his grappling, which can help to explain why he’s gone 0-5-2 in his last seven decisions. He also doesn’t land a ton of striking volume or takedowns, leaving him reliant on landing finishes to get his hand raised. Ruziboev has only been finished twice himself in 45 pro fights, so he’s been very durable, but we do wonder about how his lower body will hold up against leg kicks in a longer fight. That looks like Dumas’ most likely path to landing a finish, but if he pulls off the upset a decision is still the more likely result.
Both fighters are lower volume and we expect to see a slower paced fight because of that. However, Ruziboev’s history of landing first round finishes does mean the fight has the potential to end quickly, leaving us with a pretty wide range of potential outcomes. The two most likely results are either a Ruziboev submission win, likely by kimura, or a Dumas decision victory, but they’re also both capable of knocking the other out and this fight could go multiple ways. We haven’t seen enough of Ruziboev in the UFC to know if he’s for real and we’ve seen too much of Dumas to trust him, so we definitely don’t want to be laying any chalk in a volatile spot like this. The odds imply that a Ruziboev submission win is the most likely outcome, and while that’s very possible, it’s juiced so heavily that it leaves value elsewhere. While we can’t trust Dumas to make smart decisions, Ruziboev’s tendency to get taken down and controlled opens a window for Dumas to win his third straight decision. It also doesn’t hurt that we get a larger cage and neither guy has historically landed much striking volume. Is it a comfortable pick? Absolutely not, but the odds give us plenty of margin for error so it’s worth a stab and we’ll say Dumas squeaks out another decision win.
Our favorite bet here is “Sedriques Dumas DEC” at +650.
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DFS Implications:
Ruziboev scored 97 DraftKings points in a first round knockout in his recent short notice UFC debut. That was his 9th straight first round finish, so clearly he’s very dangerous. However, he also has terrible defensive wrestling and is overly reliant on looking for kimuras during grappling exchanges. Furthermore, he has a counter striking style that doesn’t include much striking volume or takedowns, which contributes to why he’s gone 0-5-2 in his last seven decisions. While he’s massive at 6’5” that also means he has long skinny legs that look ripe to be kicked with his wide stance. So there are plenty of holes in his game, but he does train with a good team at Renzo Gracie Philly and should be improving all the time. Nevertheless, when you combine his low output and high price tag, he looks like a R1 finish or bust play in DFS. Dumas was submitted in the only loss of his career, but has shown some improvements since then and also has pretty good size, as well as the reach advantage in this fight. Ruziboev’s tendency to get controlled on his back is concerning, as that could bleed time off the clock, condensing his already narrow window of returning value. And neither of these two land much in the way of striking volume, which further limits the number of opportunities that Ruziboev will have to land a finishing blow. The oddsmakers are still expecting Ruziboev to finish Dumas, but even if he does he’ll still need to outscore the other high priced options to end up in the optimal lineup. As long as Dumas can survive the opening minute, there’s a very good chance that Ruziboev fails to score enough to be useful, regardless of the result. Therefore, it seems like a good sell-high spot on Ruziboev, as both the field and the books will be putting too much stock into the 77 second knockout win in his debut. The odds imply Ruziboev has a 65% chance to win, a 57% chance to land a finish, and a 34% chance it comes in round one.
Dumas has yet to really impress so far in the UFC and while he was able to bounce back from getting submitted in his UFC debut with two straight decision wins, he only scored 79 and 64 DraftKings points respectively in those two wins. He showed zero fight IQ in his last match, as he easily landed a takedown in round one and then abandoned his wrestling in the later rounds, which nearly cost him the match. He also averages just 1.88 SSL/min and has yet to land more than 34 significant strikes in any of his three UFC fights. He’s still very green in MMA, so he should continuously be improving, but he’s certainly not a guy you can trust. Working in his favor, Ruziboev has terrible defensive wrestling and has gone 0-5-2 in his last seven decisions, opening a path for Dumas to out wrestle his way to a decision win. However, Ruziboev does have dangerous submissions and striking, leaving Dumas with a very untrustworthy scoring floor, in addition to having not shown any sort of ceiling in the UFC. Unless Dumas completely dominates this fight on the ground, he’ll need a finish to score well, and Ruziboev has only been finished twice in 45 pro fights. That’s not very encouraging for Dumas’ chances, but at his cheap price tag, it’s possible he could serve as a value play even in a decision win. Ruziboev hasn’t been past the first round since 2019, so who knows what his gas tank looks like right now. If he gasses out, then Dumas’ chances of finding a finish or dominating the fight would both go up. So we understand having a little exposure, but we’ll be looking to be underweight on both guys. The odds imply Dumas has a 35% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Bruno Silva
9th UFC Fight (4-4)Silva is coming off a decision loss to Shara Magomedov, a one-dimensional striker and Dagestani pirate who was making his UFC debut. Silva got beat up on the fight for half the fight, which turned him into a wrestler for the first time since he faced Alex Pereira. While Silva was able to land three takedowns and control Magomedov for nearly seven minutes in the back half of the fight, Magomedov was still outlanding Silva off his back and all three judges scored the fight 30-27 for Magomedov, even unanimously giving him round three, despite Silva landing two takedowns with 4:19 of control time in the final five minutes of the fight. Prior to that, Silva got submitted in the first round by Brendan Allen, who actually knocked Silva down as opposed to taking him down to get the fight to the ground. Two months before that, Silva knocked out Brad Tavares in the first round, which is Silva’s only win in his last five fights, dating back to 2021. Keep in mind, Tavares is now just 1-3 in his last four fights, with his last two losses both ending in knockouts, and has been knocked out five times in his career. Leading up to that win, Silva got submitted in the third round by Gerald Meerschaert, and even before getting finished, Silva looked terrible in that fight. He somehow got outlanded by Meerschaert 46-29 in significant strikes, before getting dropped in the third round just before the submission. That came just after Silva suffered his first UFC loss in a decision against Alex Pereira, which snapped a streak of seven straight knockout wins for Silva, with the last three of those coming in the UFC. Silva had originally been scheduled to make his debut against Deron Winn all the way back in June 2019, but instead was suspended for two years after testing positive for steroids.
Now 23-10 as a pro, Silva has 20 wins by KO/TKO and three decision victories. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted seven times, has two decision losses, and one by DQ. Silva has gone 18-5 in his last 23 fights dating back to 2012. Just four of those 23 fights went the distance, while 16 ended in knockout wins, including 13 in the first round.
Overall, Silva is basically a one-dimensional power puncher who struggles on the mat, despite allegedly being a BJJ black belt. In his eight UFC fights, he’s been taken down by his opponents on 8 of their 30 attempts (73.3% defense), while he’s landed 5 of his own 18 attempts (27.8% accuracy). All five of those takedowns came against one-dimensional strikers in Alex Pereira and Sharabutdin Magomedov. We’ve consistently seen Silva struggle against opponents that know what they’re doing on the mat, and he was submitted by the last two grapplers he faced. He also got completely outwrestled by Andrew Sanchez back in 2021, before Sanchez completely gassed out in round three and Silva was able to force a standing TKO stoppage along the fence. Sanchez was cut following that loss after losing three of his last four UFC fights.
Chris Weidman
19th UFC Fight (11-7)Refusing to retire, Weidman has had more surgeries than pro MMA fights, but claims he’s not quite ready to hang it up yet, despite being 39 years old and only having one win since 2017, which was in a 2020 decision over Omari Akhmedov. After horrifically snapping his right leg in two 17 seconds into the first round of an April 2021 match against Uriah Hall, Weidman underwent numerous surgeries and complications before finally returning in August 2023 to take on Brad Tavares. Naturally, Tavares tested Weidman with kicks and Weidman did not wear them well at all. A minute into the second round, Weidman could barely even stand on his left lead leg anymore, forcing him to switch stances and put his surgically repaired leg in front, which you could tell he didn’t want to do. Weidman failed to land any of his eight takedown attempts in the fight, while Tavares kind of coasted down the stretch and refused to really push for the finish against a hobbled opponent. With that loss, Weidman is just 1-4 in his last five fights and just 2-7 in his last nine, with six of those seven losses ending by KO/TKO. While two of Weidman’s last three fights went the distance, his previous seven all ended early, with six KO/TKOs (1-6) and one submission win. Weidman was made famous by dethroning a 38-year-old Anderson Silva back in 2013 and then sort of solidifying the win with a follow up R2 TKO by freak leg injury as Silva’s leg snapped in their rematch, eerily similar to Weidman’s own injury. Weidman made a career out of defeating aging opponents, but things have been going sideways for him since 2015.
Now 15-7 as a pro, Weidman has six wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and five decision wins. Six of his seven losses ended in KO/TKO’s, while he’s coming off his first decision defeat. He’s only landed one finish since 2015, which was a 2017 third round submission against an undersized Kelvin Gastelum.
Overall, Weidman is a former two-time NCAA Division I All-American wrestler who then transitioned to MMA and started off his career with a perfect 13-0 record. However, since suffering his first pro loss back in 2015, he’s never been able to get his career back on track and has now only competed once in the last 35 months. At 39 years old, any fight could be his last, but the UFC is letting him dictate his own terms to close out his career. He only averages 2.98 SSL/min and 3.27 SSA/min, but tacks on a respectable 3.6 TDL/15 min and does a decent job of controlling his opponents. In his 18 UFC fights, Weidman landed 43 of his 99 takedown attempts (43.4% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 8 of their 23 attempts (65.2% defense). However, in his last three fights, he was only able to land 5 of his 24 attempts (20.8% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 4 of their 8 attempts (50% defense). Durability has been a concern for him, with all but one of his losses ending in KO/TKOs. However, he did show toughness just to survive for 15 minutes in his last fight, as his legs were shot. Weidman was born in New York and made his pro debut in Atlantic City, so everything seems to be coming full circle here in a potential retirement spot. With that said, he claims he feels great, although did admit that retirement crossed his mind when he found out where this fight would be. So we’ll see what happens after the fight and it’s definitely possible he hangs it up.
Fight Prediction:
Weidman will have a 2” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, but Silva is five years younger than the 39-year-old Weidman.
This sets up as a striker versus wrestler battle and will come down to whether or not Weidman can get the fight to the mat and keep it there. Silva is younger and far more dangerous on the feet, but has really struggled against grapplers and is incredibly prone to getting submitted. However, Weidman only has one submission win since 2011, which was all the way back in 2017, so who knows if he can actually lock something up even if he does find himself in a good position. However, he will have a really good shot at taking Silva down and controlling him, as Silva’s wrestling is bad. Weidman’s inability to defend leg kicks in his last fight was concerning, but Tavares is known for his leg kicks, while Silva relies more on his boxing. Silva will mix in some leg kicks though and has landed 30 leg strikes in his eight UFC fights, although only once landed more than eight in a fight. And you can’t leg kick off your back, which is where Silva will be if Weidman has any say in the matter. If Weidman can’t land takedowns, it probably doesn’t even matter if he’s getting kicked in the leg or punched in the face, he’ll likely get knocked out either way, as Silva is far more aggressive than Brad Tavares was. The oddsmakers are expecting Silva to hand Weidman the seven knockout loss of his career here and there’s a good chance that does come to fruition, but if Weidman can get his wrestling going, he’ll have a good shot at either finding a rare submission or grinding out a decision win. With the fight taking place near his home state of New York, we should get rare wrestling support from the crowd, lowering the chances of the ref standing the fight back up. We think this is kind of a tailor made matchup for Weidman to find wrestling success and we’ll go out on a limb and say he pulls off the upset, most likely in a decision
Our favorite bet here is “Chris Weidman ML” at +215.
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DFS Implications:
Silva has been a R1 KO or bust option so far in the UFC. All four of his UFC wins ended in knockouts, with three of those ending in the first round. He averaged 107 points in those three first round finishes, but only scored 79 points in a third round knockout in his one other victory. While he was able to land three takedowns in his last fight against a one-dimensional striker, the only other opponent that Silva has taken down in the UFC was Alex Pereira and Silva does not offer much in the way of wrestling, despite allegedly being a BJJ black belt. He’s also never landed more than 70 significant strikes in a UFC fight, struggles off his back, and has been very prone to getting submitted. His chin has also been deteriorating since his loss to Pereira, and Silva was dropped in two of his last four fights, both times by grapplers. He’s given us no indication that he can score even remotely well in a decision and will now face a wrestler who will be looking to control him. Working in Silva’s favor, Weidman is almost 40 years old and has been knocked out six times in his career, and any fight could be his last. So the upside is definitely there for Silva, but he’ll likely need a well timed knockout in the first two rounds to score well. And even with a knockout, Silva will still need to outscore the other high priced options, as he checks in as the third most expensive fighter on DraftKings. Considering Silva is just 1-4 in his last five fights, he’s a tough guy to trust and there are lots of ways for him to fail here, in what shapes up to be a volatile matchup. The odds imply Silva has a 66% chance to win, a 54% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.
Weidman has averaged a respectable 101 DraftKings points in his 11 UFC wins, but is now almost 40 years old and hasn’t won a fight in almost four years. He snapped his leg in two following his last win and then dealt with an excruciating recovery as he had to undergo numerous surgeries. So who knows what version of him we’re even getting at this stage in his career and even before the injury he had really been struggling. He’s gone just 2-7 in his last nine fights, with his third most recent win coming all the way back in 2015. That leaves an obscene amount of uncertainty with his current form and this very well could be his final UFC fight, despite his claims that he wants to continue fighting. With all that said, this is a great stylistic matchup for him to find wrestling success and Silva has struggled with being controlled on the mat and submitted throughout his career. That makes Weidman an especially interesting play on DraftKings, as he only has one submission win since 2011, which was back in 2017. It’s still possible he locks something up here, but a decision is his more likely path to victory. At his cheap price tag, Weidman likely doesn't need to put up a huge score to end up in winning lineups, he just needs to find a decent amount of wrestling success. He’s still a really risky play and there’s also a good chance he gets knocked out, leaving him with a non-existent floor. The field is also notorious for clinching onto the past for way too long and Weidman was 24% owned in his last fight and never seemed to have a chance in that match, albeit in a much tougher stylistic matchup against the 80% takedown defense of Brad Tavares. Weidman was also 29% owned in his second most recent fight, so based on his name alone he probably won’t end up low owned. That puts a slight damper on his tournament appeal and you can’t trust him in low-risk/cash contests, but it still makes sense to have some exposure. The odds imply Weidman has a 34% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Vicente Luque
21st UFC Fight (15-5)Luque had originally been scheduled to face a grappler in Sean Brady here, but he dropped out and Buckley was announced as the replacement about six weeks out. Luque had also been scheduled to fight Ian Garry back in December, but Garry got sick and dropped out in the middle of fight week and Luque was pulled from the card. Luque then said he decided to spend the holidays with his family opposed to immediately trying to get rebooked. The last time Luque competed was in August 2023 when won a slow-paced, grappling-heavy, five-round decision over an aging Rafael dos Anjos, who’s undersized at 170 lb and moved back down to 155 lb after the loss. Luque was able to use his size advantage in that matchup to win the wrestling exchanges, despite the fact that Dos Anjos is the much more celebrated grappler. We’ve never seen Luque grapple that much and he landed 8 of his 11 takedown attempts and finished with 12 minutes of control time, while Dos Anjos was only able to get Luque down twice on seven attempts and had less than four minutes of control time. It was one of the least eventful Luque fights we can remember, which is concerning for his outlook moving forward, as he no longer looks like the exciting brawler that used to put on one banger after the next. Prior to that win, Luque took a year off after suffering the first knockout loss of his career, which came in the third round against Geoff Neal in August 2022. Luque never looked like himself in that fight either and he was just there to be hit and got knocked down twice in 12 minutes after previously only getting knocked down twice in his first 18 UFC fights combined. In one of the scarier injury reports you’ll come across, Luque left that fight with “brain bleed” which resulted in a yearlong medical suspension and for him to get cleared by a neurosurgeon and a neurologist before he was allowed to return. Just before that loss, Luque lost a five-round decision to Belal Muhammad and the last time Luque finished an opponent was in August 2021 when he submitted Michael Chiesa. His last two early wins both ended in first round Brabo chokes against a pair of aging veterans in Michael Chiesa and Tyron Woodley. The last time Luque knocked anybody out was in August 2020, when he finished Randy Brown late in the second round. While Luque is still only 32 years old, he’s had as many pro fights as birthdays and he’s absorbed a massive amount of damage in his career.
Now 22-9-1 as a pro, Luque has 11 wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and three decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, submitted twice, and has six decision losses. Both of his submission losses occurred in the third round of fights early in his career in 2010 and 2013, while his lone knockout loss also occurred in the third round, in August 2022 against a dangerous Geoff Neal.
Overall, Luque is a powerful striker who has historically landed a lot of volume, averaging 5.17 SSL/min and 5.15/min in his career. However, in his first fight back from getting knocked out, he only averaged 2.88 SSL/min and 2.64 SSA/min and he’s talked a lot recently about fighting smarter and showing more of a well-rounded skill set with more wrestling and grappling. That showed up in his last match, where he landed 8 takedowns on 11 attempts, after not attempting a single takedown in 13 straight fights before that. And it’s not like he was going against some one-dimensional striker, he was facing a high-level black belt who wanted the fight on the ground. So it appears the brain injury that Luque suffered in his second most recent fight has made a major impact on his fight style and he’s telling anyone that will listen that he plans on utilizing more wrestling moving forward. While that’s not what fans want to hear, it’s totally understandable from his perspective and his options were basically retiring or evolving into a less exciting wrestler. With that said, it was his first fight back from the injury and it’s always possible he was being overly tentative, so we don’t want to overreact to a one fight sample. It will be interesting to see if he gets a little more aggressive this week. Even if he hasn’t historically looked to wrestle a ton, at least prior to his last fight, Luque is a BJJ black belt and an opportunistic submission threat who loves to look for Brabo chokes on the mat. He only has a 62% takedown defense and six of his last seven opponents were able to take him down, with the one exception being Tyrone Woodley, who failed to land his only attempt. While he had been living in Brazil and now lives in Florida, where he trains at Kill Cliff FC, Luque was actually born in New Jersey, so this will be a homecoming for him.
Joaquin Buckley
12th UFC Fight (7-4)Coming off a decisive decision win over Alex Moreno, Buckley has won both of his fights since dropping down to 170 lb, after starting his UFC career off 5-4 at 185 lb and losing the last two of those 185 lb matches. He outlanded Morono 68-40 in significant strikes and also landed two of his four takedown attempts with two and a half minutes of control time, while winning every round of the fight. Prior to that, Buckley landed a late second round knockout against Andre Fialho, who has now been knocked out in the later rounds in four straight fights. There weren’t many strikes landed in that fight, with Buckley finishing ahead 26-22 in significant strikes and once again landing two takedowns. That came after Buckley got knocked out in the second round of his final 185 lb fight against Chris Curtis, following a decision loss to Nassourdine Imavov. However, leading up to those losses Buckley had won five of his previous six fights after getting knocked out in the third round of his short notice 2020 UFC debut against Kevin Holland. Five of Buckley’s seven UFC wins ended in knockouts, with four of those ending in round two and one in round three. His last seven and 11 of his last 12 fights made it to the second round, with the one exception being a 2021 R1 KO loss to Alessio Di Chirico. However, he only required the judges in three of those fights (2-1), with the other nine ending in knockouts (6-3).
Now 17-6 as a pro, Buckley has 12 wins by KO/TKO and five decision victories. Four of his knockout wins occurred in round one, six ended in round two, and two came in round three. He’s also been knocked out four times himself and has two decision losses. Two of his knockout losses occurred in round one, one ended in round two, and the other came in round three. At just 5’10”, Buckley was always undersized at 185 lb and often came in under the 186 lb limit by multiple pounds. After he moved down to 170 lb, he said he had previously been fighting at his natural weight and didn’t even have to cut down, which adds up when you see where he had been weighing in. He did start his career at 170 lb, going 8-2 at the weight class in his first 10 fights, before he moved up to 185 lb in 2019 when he joined the LFA. He then stayed at 185 lb when he came into the UFC and after starting out 5-2 with the organization he never had a real reason to drop back down to 170 lb until his two fight skid in 2022. So looking at his entire pro career, he’s 10-2 at 170 lb and 7-4 at 185 lb. Five of his 12 170 lb fights went the distance (41.7%), while only 2 of his 11 185 lb fights required the judges (18.2%). Only one of his last five 170 lb fights ended early and that was against Andre Fialho, who may have the worst chin in the UFC. Also notable, Buckley won four of the last five decisions he’s been to at 170 lb.
Overall, Buckley has historically been a power puncher who relies mostly on his striking, but he’s continued to work on his wrestling and in his 11 UFC fights he’s landed 11 of his 30 takedown attempts (36.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 8 of their 23 attempts (65.2% defense). He landed two takedowns in each of his fights since moving down to 170 lb, after only landing seven total takedowns in his first nine UFC fights, with five of those coming against Alhassan. He still hasn’t looked like any sort of submission threat on the mat, but it’s nice to see him mixing things up. He only averages 3.87 SSL/min and 3.31 SSA/min, but is coming off a career best 68 significant strikes landed, after failing to top 51 in any of his first 10 UFC fights. Similarly, the only fighter to ever land more than 51 significant strikes against him was Kevin Holland, who landed 79 in Buckley’s 2020 short notice UFC debut. It’s been more about quality than quantity when it comes to striking in his fights and anyone could get put out at any moment.
Fight Prediction:
Luque will have a 1” height advantage, but Buckley will have a 1” reach advantage and is three years younger than the 32-year-old Luque.
If this matchup was put together a few years ago, we would be all over Luque. However he really seems to be slowing down at this stage in his career, despite only being 32 years old. He only has one win since 2021 and that came against an undersized 38-year-old opponent who then dropped back down to 155 lb. Luque's reactions appear to have slowed down and he’s not wearing damage as well, leaving him forced to wrestle, which is not his strong suit. Now he’s facing a younger, hungrier opponent in Buckley, who had been competing at 185 lb before he dropped down to 170 lb for his last two fights. Buckley looked good in each of his last two fights at the new weight class and seems to be on the way up, while Luque is on the way out. While it’s not impossible that we see a rejuvenated version of Luque here after getting back in the win column in his last fight, it’s more likely that his best days are behind him. Four of Buckley’s last six opponents got him down and we expect Luque to continue to try and wrestle more, which should slow this fight down. And it’s not like we ever see a ton of striking volume in Buckley’s fights anyways, we just see a lot of big shots being attempted. Both guys are capable of knocking the other out, but if Luque does look to wrestle more, as we’re expecting, there should be fewer opportunities for a knockout. Buckley has also been far more prone to going the distance in his 170 lb fights compared to his 185 lb matches, and Luque hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2020. Luque does have some sneaky Brabo chokes, and both guys have been looking to wrestle more lately, which could create opportunities for him to lock something up on the mat. However, no one has ever been submitted in any of Buckley’s 23 pro fights, but that does create one other way this fight could end. That leaves this as a more volatile spot to predict but we’re taking Buckley by decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Joaquin Buckley R3 or DEC” at +240.
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DFS Implications:
Luque has averaged 109 DraftKings points in his 15 UFC wins, scoring 93 or more in all but one of those and at least 104 in 12 of them. Ironically, he’s coming off probably the most unimpressive, but also the highest scoring win of his career, where he put up 134 DraftKings points in a five-round wrestling-heavy decision win over Rafael dos Anjos. He landed more takedowns in that fight (8) than in his previous 14 UFC fights combined (6), and finished with 12 minutes of control time in the slow paced snoozer. Buckley’s been taken down in four of his last six fights, but he’s only given up one takedown since dropping down to 170 lb. Maybe Luque can continue to find wrestling success here, but keep in mind he’ll only have three rounds to work with and if that win over Dos Anjos had ended after 15 minutes, Luque only would have scored 85 DraftKings points and 71 points on FanDuel. Also, Dos Anjos is really a 155 lb fighter who was undersized and only has a 55% takedown defense, while Buckley recently moved down from 185 lb and has a 65% defense. Luque will also need to be wary of Buckley’s power and the larger cage could make it tougher for Luque to back Buckley up against the fence. So we’d be surprised to see Luque put up another really big wrestling-heavy score in a decision win here, but his newfound desire to wrestle does leave him with more ways to score well. While Luque’s reasonable price tag theoretically lowers the bar when it comes to the amount of points he needs to score to be useful, that will also drive his ownership up. He’s gone just 1-3 in UFC three-round decisions and only scored 64 points in that lone win, while failing to top 33 points in any of the three losses. Even if he does land a few takedowns, he’s still probably not getting there in tournaments without a finish. And while Buckley has been knocked out four times in his career, three of those were in 185 lb fights and Luque hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2020. Luque has been habitually popular in DFS and despite his clear decline, we expect that to continue here following his recent scoring explosion. That creates a very interesting leverage opportunity in tournaments by being underweight or even fading altogether if you have the risk tolerance for it. The odds imply Luque has a 51% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
Buckley has averaged 93 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, with five of those ending in late round knockouts. While he averaged a respectable 104 points in his four second round knockouts, he failed to top 80 points in any of his fights that made it past the second round. He scored just 80 points in a third round knockout and only 73 and 80 points respectively in his two decision wins. While he has been looking to wrestle a little more lately, he only averages 3.87 SSL/min and none of his fights have been high-volume. It will also be risky for him to look for takedowns in this matchup, as Luque is a BJJ black belt with eight submission wins on his record. That leaves Buckley reliant on landing a knockout in the first two rounds to score well. Luque does appear to be on the decline and was knocked out in the third round of his second most recent fight, but that’s still the only KO loss he’s suffered in 32 pro fights and now he seems to want to wrestle more to try and slow fights down. That could limit the number of opportunities that Buckley gets to land the knockout blow he needs to score well and there’s a good chance we see this fight run long and fail to score enough to be useful. Both fighters have a history of being popular in DFS, which creates a very interesting leverage opportunity in tournaments by being underweight on the entire fight, but you’ll definitely be holding your breath for at least the first 10 minutes if you go that route. The odds imply Buckley has a 49% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Erin Blanchfield
7th UFC Fight (6-0)Still undefeated in the UFC, Blanchfield is coming off her toughest test to date in a close decision win over Taila Santos, who was impressively able to stuff all 14 of Blanchfield’s takedown attempts. However, Blanchfield finished with eight minutes of control time as she looked for takedowns along the fence and also ended up in top position at one point in the second following a failed takedown attempt from Santos. Blanchfield also finished ahead in significant strikes 61-55 and in total strikes 119-96. Santos won the first round on all three scorecards, but Blanchfield unanimously won each of the later rounds. And in fairness to Blanchfield, Santos came in with a solid 78% takedown defense and had arguably beat Valentina Shevchenko in a title fight just before that. Prior to that, Blanchfield notched another big win in a second round submission against Jessica Andrade in a February 2023 main event. Although you have to keep in mind that Andrade stepped into that matchup on just a week’s notice and only four weeks after she won a decision over Lauren Murphy. Nevertheless, Blanchfield showed improved striking before finally getting Andrade to the mat in round two and quickly locked up a rear-naked choke. Three months prior to that win, Blanchfield submitted Molly McCann in the first round in a dominant victory at Madison Square Garden. That came just after Blanchfield submitted J.J. Aldrich in the second round, following a pair of decision wins over fellow wrestlers in her first two UFC fights. So Blanchfield has faced three strikers in the UFC, and submitted all three of them in the first two rounds, with her other three UFC wins going the distance against wrestlers. Blanchfield also has a decision win over another grappler in Kay Hanson before either of them joined the UFC. Blanchfield has won nine straight fights dating back to her Invicta days.
Now 12-1 as a pro, Blanchfield has two wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and six decision victories. Three of those finishes occurred in the first round, with the other three ending in round two. Her only career loss came in a 2019 split-decision against Tracy Cortez when they were still fighting with Invicta.
This will be the 2nd five-round fight of Blanchfield’s career. The first was just over a year ago against Jessica Andrade in February 2023, who Blanchfield submitted in the second round. So Blanchfield has never been past the third round, but looks to have really solid cardio.
Overall, Blanchfield is a BJJ black belt and relies largely on her grappling. However, she’s still just 24 years old and her striking continues to improve. She’s averaging a very respectable 5.58 SSL/min and just 3.32 SSA/min. In her six UFC fights, she landed 12 of her 33 takedown attempts (36.4% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on just 2 of their 12 attempts (83.3% defense). She’s looked really dominant on the mat, however, 10 of her 12 takedowns came in her first two UFC fights and she only landed 2 of her last 22 attempts in her last four fights. We’ve consistently seen Blanchfield win decisions over grapplers and submit strikers, so it will be interesting to see if that trend continues here.
Manon Fiorot
7th UFC Fight (6-0)Also coming in with an undefeated 6-0 record in the UFC, Fiorot recently won a low-volume decision over Rose Namajunas, who was moving up to 125 lb for the first time and broke her pinky a minute into the fight. The striking numbers were close throughout the fight, with Namajunas actually finishing ahead in significant strikes 60-58 and Fiorot in total strikes 62-60, while Namajunas failed to land any of her six takedown attempts and Fiorot also missed on her only attempt. However, numbers don’t tell the full story and Fiorot looked to be landing the more impactful shots. That was Fiorot’s fourth straight decision win, after her previous five victories all ended in TKOs, going back to her UAE Warriors days. She started off her UFC career by landing a pair of second round TKOs against a pair of debuting opponents, in a terrible Victoria Leonardo, and an undersized Tabatha Ricci who was fighting up a weight class on short notice. Fiorot then outpointed a series of higher-level and extremely durable opponents in Mayra Bueno Silva, Jennifer Maia, Katlyn Chookagian, and most recently Rose Namajunas. In those four decision wins, Fiorot unanimously won 10 of the 12 rounds on the scorecards, with the two exceptions being the first round against Chookagian and the third against Namajunas. Fiorot notably tore her ACL in the fight against Chookagian, but was still able to fight through the injury and win each of the later rounds.
Now 11-1 as a pro, Fiorot has six wins by KO/TKO and five decision victories. She’s won 11 straight fights since losing a split decision in her 2018 pro debut. Most of her TKOs have come in the later rounds, with three in round two and two in round three, while she’s finished just one opponent in the first round. While she only turned pro in 2018, Fiorot had extensive amateur experience as she won the 2017 IMMAF World Championships. She was notably competing at 135 lb at that time, before dropping down to 125 lb for her second pro fight, back in 2019.
This will be the 3rd five-round fight of Fiorot’s career, but first in the UFC. She won a five-round decision for the EFC Worldwide Flyweight Championship in just her third pro fight back in 2019, although that was against a 4-1 opponent who then never competed again. Nevertheless, Fiorot showed she had plenty of cardio as she pushed hard for 25 straight minutes, winning every round of the fight and even securing a 50-43 scorecard from one judge. She also nearly locked up a submission in the fifth round and showed good offensive wrestling in the match. Fiorot was then also scheduled to go five rounds in 2020, just before joining the UFC, but she won that fight via first round TKO.
Overall, Fiorot’s karate style makes her a tough fighter to deal with as she does a masterful job of controlling distance with her kicks. She also utilizes a destructive check right hook as she backs out of striking range against her opponents. Once she has opponents hurt, she’ll unload with explosive combinations of punches to close out fights. She’s a karate black belt, and a BJJ brown belt. She averages an impressive 6.05 SSL/min and just 3.31 SSA/min, and easily outlanded her first five UFC opponents, before slightly trailing to Namajunas in her last match. She’ll also mix in occasional takedown attempts and has landed 7 takedowns on 15 attempts (46.7% accuracy) in her six UFC fights, with at least one in five of those six matches. On the other side of things, she’s only been taken down once herself on 12 opponent attempts (91.7% defense). We’ve seen some limitations to her finishing ability lately as she’s climbed the Flyweight rankings, but in fairness to Fiorot, she’s been facing some of the most durable opponents around.
Fight Prediction:
Fiorot will have a 3” height advantage, but Blanchfield will have a 1” reach advantage and is 10 years younger than the 34-year-old Fiorot.
This is an exciting top contender fight that will help sort out the top of the Flyweight division. On paper, it sets up as a grappler versus striker battle, but they’re both pretty well rounded. Fiorot is the superior striker and the larger fighter, who will also mix in wrestling and has an elite 91% takedown defense. Meanwhile, Blanchfield is the superior grappler, but will need to get the fight to the mat to show that. Fiorot has only been taken down once in the UFC on 12 opponent attempts and she has a very similar frame to Taila Santos, who Blanchfield was unable to take down on 14 attempts. Fiorot is actually even an inch taller than Santos, although Santos is a better grappler. Fiorot has been a tough fighter to close the range on, as she utilizes a karate style and a ton of movement. The larger cage will play into her favor, as she’ll want to keep the fight at kicking range and avoid getting backed up against the fence. However, while Fiorot was able to compete in front of her home French crowd in her last fight, now she’ll be traveling into enemy territory into Blanchfield’s home state of New Jersey. That could result in Blanchfield getting a longer leash from the ref as she works along the fence in the clinch and may also help sway the judges in any potentially close rounds. With that said, Blanchfield will be hard pressed to win this fight if she can’t land takedowns. So determining her likelihood of getting this fight to the mat is the most important factor to key into.
Fiorot has faced numerous grapplers/wrestlers, but it’s worth pointing out the context surrounding her 91% takedown defense. The first wrestler she faced was Victoria Leonardo, who’s absolutely terrible and failed to land her only takedown attempt. Then Fiorot faced a good grappler in Tabatha Ricci who also went 0 for 1 on her attempts, but keep in mind that Ricci is a tiny 115 lb fighter who was making her short notice UFC debut up a weight class. Next, Fiorot took on Mayra Bueno Silva, who’s a really dangerous grappler but a bad wrestler and she never even attempted a takedown. Then you get to Jennifer Maia, who went 1 for 4 on her attempts. Maia is also a decent grappler but not as good of a wrestler and has only landed five takedowns in 12 UFC fights, while owning just a 27% career takedown accuracy. Fiorot then faced a striker in Chookagian who never attempted a takedown, before facing Rose Namajunas, who was moving up to 125 lb for the first time, broke her pinky a minute into the fight, and then went 0 for 6 on her attempts. So while Fiorot’s takedown defense has been elite to this point, she also hasn’t been tested by any high-level 125 lb wrestlers. That adds some level of volatility to this matchup and it will be fascinating to see how effective Blanchfield can be in closing the distance and landing takedowns.
We were initially very bullish on Blanchfield in this spot, but after rewatching all the tape and taking a deeper dive into the stats, we’re far more uncertain. Fiorot is a big, strong, physical fighter and actually has shown decent wrestling. We expect her karate style to give Blanchfield problems finding her range in space and the larger Octagon could play a big factor in Fiorot’s ability to keep her back off the cage. Neither of these two have ever been finished and they also both have solid cardio. If anyone does land a finish, we think it will be Blanchfield on the mat, but there’s a good chance it goes the distance. And at that point, it may come down to how the judges weigh distance strikes versus clinch work, and we’ve seen judges basically penalize fighters for trying to grapple lately. Blanchfield is still really young at just 24 years old and is coming off arguably her worst UFC performance to date in what had been the biggest spot of her career. We’ll see if she can find more grappling success here, but we’re slightly leaning towards Fiorot being able to keep the fight mostly standing and outlanding her way to a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Manon Fiorot DEC” at +320.
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DFS Implications:
Blanchfield has averaged 107 DraftKings points in her six UFC wins, but is coming off a career worst DFS performance where she only scored 81 DraftKings points and 57 points on a FanDuel in a three-round decision victory over a really tough Taila Santos. Blanchfield failed to land any of her 14 takedown attempts in that fight, as she really struggled with the size and strength of the 5’6” Santos. Blanchfield did finish with eight minutes of control time and 119 total strikes, but only 61 significant. If we extend those numbers over five rounds, she would have been looking at 114 DraftKings points, but just 81 points on FanDuel. Now she’ll face an opponent with a very similar frame to Santos, in the 5’7” Manon Fiorot, who comes in with an elite 91% takedown defense. That’s somewhat concerning for Blanchfield’s ability to get this fight to the ground, and we don’t see her winning a striking battle against Fiorot. However, Blanchfield is a really good wrestler and if anyone could get Fiorot down it would be her. Prior to that recent decision win, Blanchfield submitted three straight strikers, each in under eight minutes. She’s shown a massive ceiling when she can get her wrestling going, with three scores of 115 or more. Although, two of her last three submission wins came in more efficient second round finishes and “only” returned scores of 98 and 95 DraftKings points respectively. At her high price tag, that’s unlikely to be quite enough for her to end up in the optimal lineup. That leaves a couple of ways for her to fail, but she’s been super durable and has at least shown great cardio in three-round fights, even if she’s never been past the third round before. Fiorot has also fought to four straight decisions, which should leave Blanchfield with a solid scoring floor, making her a good play in smaller tournaments and low-risk contents. And if Fiorot’s takedown defense doesn’t hold up, Blanchfield will have the potential to put up an astronomical score if we see five rounds of effective wrestling out of her. Ultimately, she’s a high-floor, high-ceiling play, but in a really tough matchup. The odds imply Blanchfield has a 64% chance to win, a 34% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Fiorot is a high-volume striker, who averages an impressive 6.05 SSL/min, while absorbing just 3.31/min. She’s also landed at least one takedown in five of her six UFC fights to further bolster her scoring. However, after landing five straight TKOs from 2020 to 2021, her last four fights all went the distance as she began facing tougher competition. We’ve seen her DraftKings scores consistently decline over her last five fights ( 120 > 88 > 82 > 75 > 55) and now she’ll face a really tough wrestler in Blanchfield. That creates the potential for Fiorot to get taken down, controlled, and possibly even finished for the first time, so it’s tougher to trust her floor in this matchup. However, Fiorot has an elite 91% takedown defense and has only been taken down once in the UFC on 12 opponent attempts and immediately got back up in that lone instance against Jennifer Maia. We’ve still never seen her defense tested by anyone with as good wrestling as Blanchfield, but if Fiorot can keep the fight standing then she should be able to win a striking battle. While we’d be surprised to see Fiorot finish Blanchfield, she’ll have a really good shot at landing enough volume to still score well in a decision, especially given her cheap price tag. And with Fiorot’s recent scoring struggles and the line moving in Blanchfield’s favor, we should be able to get Fiorot had relatively low ownership for a five-round fighter. The odds imply Fiorot has a 36% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
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Caolan Loughran OVER 97.5 Pts
