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Fight Day Scratches: None
Fighter Notes:
Fight #14
Nicolas Dalby
9th UFC Fight (3-3-1, NC)Thirteen months removed from a decision loss to Tim Means, Dalby is fortunate to only have one loss and not multiple in his last three fights. He was finished in the first round in 2020, but the results were later overturned to a No Contest when Jesse Ronson failed a drug test. Then Dalby won a close/questionable decision over Daniel Rodriguez in his second most recent fight, despite getting outlanded in significant strikes 83-50 and in total strikes 105-58, while going 0 for 7 on his takedown attempts. After going 13-0 to start his career, Dalby originally joined the UFC back in 2015 and won a decision in his debut. However, after going 1-2-1 with four decisions in his first four fights, the UFC released him. The UFC then re-signed Dalby in late 2019 and Dalby won his first fight back in a low-volume decision over Alex Oliveira before losing to Ronson.
In Dalby’s last fight, Means was able to get the fight to the ground early in round one following a fast paced start on the feet. Dalby was able to return to his feet with two minutes remaining in the round, and Means failed to land any other takedowns in the fight on four total attempts. After winning the first two rounds on the feet, Means looked to be hurt in round three but was able to ride out a 29-28 decision win in the clinch late in the fight. The fight ended with Dalby ahead in significant strikes 54-53, but Means ahead in total strikes 94-84, in takedowns 1-0, and in control time 8:03-1:31.
Now 19-4-1 as a pro, Dalby has six wins by KO, four by submission, and nine decisions. He’s never technically been finished, with all four of his losses going the distance, although in reality he was submitted in the first round by Jesse Ronson in 2020 before the results were overturned to a No Contest when Ronson failed a drug test. While 10 of his 19 career wins have come early, all of those finishes occurred outside of the UFC. Of those 10 finishes, he has only three career R1 wins, with the last one occurring in 2013. In his last 15 fights, 14 have made it out of the first round, with the one exception being the Ronson No Contest, if that even counts. Thirteen have made it to the third round, with nine going the distance. Not counting the No Contest, all seven of his UFC fights have gone the distance.
Overall, Dalby is a karate style fighter who has not shown the ability to finish opponents at the UFC level, with all three of his UFC wins ending in decisions. He’s a green belt in Ashihara karate and a BJJ brown belt. He only averages 3.26 SSL/min and 3.56 SSA/min and he’s only landed more than 57 significant strikes in a fight once (84) and has also only absorbed more than 57 once (83). After landing eight combined takedowns in his first two UFC matches, he’s only landed a total of one in his last six fights with the organization. He has a 65% takedown defense, having been taken down eight times on 23 attempts in his eight UFC fights.
Claudio Silva
8th UFC Fight (5-2)Now 39 years old, it’s been 14 months since Silva last competed and he’s lost two straight decisions. His last win came in a 2019 first round submission over a terrible Cole Williams. After losing his 2007 pro debut by DQ, Silva rattled off 14 straight wins before losing a pair of decisions in his last two fights. Silva originally joined the UFC in 2014 and won his first two fights by decision, including a win over Leon Edwards. However, while dealing with a plethora of injuries, Silva then didn’t fight from November 2014 until May 2018. He landed three straight submissions upon his return, including two in the first round. Following the third straight submission win, he took 14 months off and now hasn’t won a fight since 2019. While he’s from Brazil, he fights out of England and we suspect this may be his retirement match, although that’s just a guess.
In Silva’s last fight, Court McGee dictated the grappling exchanges, but also didn’t shy away from going to the mat with Silva. McGee landed 3 of his 5 takedowns attempts, while only allowing Silva to land one takedown on 10 attempts. McGee finished ahead 8:03-1:48 in control time, 37-21 in significant strikes, and 110-81 in total strikes. Silva really slowed down as the fight went on, as he typically does.
Now 14-3 as a pro, Silva has two wins by KO, nine by submission, and three decisions. He’s never been finished, with two decision defeats and one DQ loss. Five of his last eight fights have gone the distance (3-2), while the other three ended in submission wins. Silva competed at 185 lb earlier in his career, up until his second UFC fight when he dropped down to 170 lb, where he’s stayed since.
Overall, Silva is a BJJ black belt and more dangerous on the mat than standing up. He throws big looping punches that have the potential to cause damage when they connect, but can easily be spotted a mile away. Silva had landed just 3 takedowns on 22 attempts in his last two fights and doesn’t appear to have much left in the tank.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’11” but Dalby will have a 3” reach advantage and is two years younger than the 39-year-old Silva.
Neither one of these two have been very impressive lately, but Dalby clearly has a lot more left in the tank and Silva is limping into the end of his career. Silva’s last three wins have come by submission, but it’s been nearly three years since the most recent of those victories. The last time he won a fight by any method other than submission was 2014 and he looks like a submission or bust play with a very limited gas tank, so his window for a finish keeps getting smaller. Dalby has never officially been finished in his career, although was submitted in the loss that was later overturned to a No Contest against Jesse Ronson. That gives a sliver of hope for Silva to land a submission, but we like Dalby to win a decision here. However, there’s a slight chance he can find a late finish if Silva completely gasses out.
Our favorite bet here is “Dalby R3 or DEC” at +110.
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DFS Implications:
Dalby has yet to put up a usable DFS score in eight UFC fights and the closest he came was when he scored 86 DraftKings points in a decision win in his 2015 UFC debut. His last two decision wins were good for just 54 and 69 points and at his high price tag it appears clear he’ll need a finish to be useful. He’s only landed one takedown in his last six fights, and he’s even less likely to want to take the fight to the ground here against a dangerous submission threat in Claudio Silva. Averaging just 3.26 SSL/min in his career, Dalby has failed to land more than 57 significant strikes in any of his last six UFC fights and even a late finish would likely struggle to return value at his high price tag. Making things even tougher on Dalby, Silva has never been finished in his career. The only reason to even consider playing Dalby in tournaments is his low ownership. Just keep in mind you're relying on him to land his first UFC finish for him to pay off, and it likely needs to come in the first two rounds. The last time he finished an opponent in the first round was in 2013, two years prior to joining the UFC. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a 33% chance to get a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in the first round.
Silva is now 39 years old and nearly three years removed from his last win. He has bad cardio, poor striking, and is now facing an opponent who’s never officially been finished, but did have a first round submission loss overturned to a No Contest. Silva looks like a R1 submission or bust play and even at his cheaper price tag it’s tougher to see him scoring well if he somehow wins a decision. Dalby has decent 65% takedown defense, and has only been taken down eight times on 23 attempts in his eight UFC fights. In Silva’s two UFC decision wins, which both date way back to 2014, he scored 84 and 85 DRaftKings points, landing three takedowns in each of those. He only averages 2.81 SSL/min and Dalby only averages 3.56 SSA/min, and we’re not expecting much striking volume in this fight. The odds imply Silva has a 32% chance to win, a 16% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #13
Mandy Bohm
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Hoping to bounce back from an absolutely dreadful performance in her recent UFC debut, the German-born Bohm got mollywhopped by the previously struggling Ariane Lipski. That was the first loss of Bohm’s career, which makes you seriously wonder about the level of competition she had been facing. And on that note, only three of her seven career wins have come against opponents with winning records.
In her recent loss, Bohm attempted a takedown in the opening minute, only to have it reversed and end up in bottom position. At that point, she clung on with a body triangle, praying for the ref to stand the fight up. However, as Lipski postured up to land strikes Bohm was able to kick her off and return to her feet, showing at least some ability to get out of a bad position. Maybe she should have stayed on her back though, because things weren’t going her way on the feet either. Things only got worse as the fight went on, with Lipski landing a pair of knockdowns in the later rounds and finishing ahead in significant strikes 87-36 and in total strikes 116-47. She also led in control time 4:26-0:26, despite failing to land her only takedown attempt, with Bohm going 0 for 4 on her takedown attempts.
Now 7-1 as a pro, Bohm has two wins by KO, two by submission, and three decisions. As we mentioned, her recent decision loss was the only time she has tasted defeat, and she’s never technically been finished in her short career. However, the No Contest in her 2014 pro debut was originally a submission loss. Five of her last six fights have seen the third round, with four of those going the distance. Bohm has competed at 135 lb a couple of times in her career, but most of her time has been spent down at 125 lb.
Overall, Bohm has poor defensive grappling, and poor striking defense. She’ll mix in takedowns and can be somewhat dangerous from top position, but she’s looked bad off her back. She’s also prone to getting controlled on the mat for extended periods of time and we’ve seen her slow down late in fights. So far, she’s been very unimpressive, but she’ll now face a fellow low-level fighter.
Victoria Leonardo
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Still in search of her first UFC win, Leonardo was forced out of her last fight following the second round due to a recurring arm injury. She was thrown into the fire in her January 2021 UFC debut against Manon Fiorot, and then faced another tough opponent in Melissa Gatto in her last fight. Prior to joining the UFC, Leonardo landed a R2 TKO win of her own on DWCS in November 2020.
In that last fight, the first round played out largely on the mat with the two exchanges positions on the ground and three total reversals being landed in the round. Gatto constantly looked for submissions, while Leonardo was forced to defend the whole time. The second round remained on the feet with Gatto pulling away in striking. Following the second round, Leonardo told her corner that her arm “wasn’t working” and the fight was quickly stopped after the doctor checked it out, despite Leonardo saying she could continue. Leonardo had recently had surgery on that same arm, so this has been an ongoing injury for her. After 10 minutes of action, Gatto led in significant strikes 70-43 and in total strikes 96-59. She landed 1 of her 5 takedown attempts, with just under two minutes of control time, while Leonardo went 0 for 3 on her takedown attempts.
Now 8-4 as a pro, Leonardo has one TKO win, four submission victories, and three decisions. She’s been finished in all four of her losses, with three second-round KO/TKOs (all in her last five fights) and a first round submission loss. All four of those losses came against really tough competition in Miranda Maverick, Erin Blanchfield, Manon Fiorot, and Melissa Gatto. Clearly Leonardo’s manager hasn’t been doing her any favors.
Overall, Leonardo is a low-level grappler who hasn’t looked great on the feet or the mat. While she’s faced several tough opponents in her career, she’s been finished by all of them, and she’s defeated an opponent with more than five pro wins. After opening as the underdog the last time she fought only to see the line flip in her favor, the same thing is happening on this slate and betters just can’t quit her. Proceed with caution.
Fight Prediction:
Bohm will have a 2” height advantage and 7” reach advantage.
This is a very low level women’s MMA fight, which means there’s a wide range of potential outcomes. Further mudding the waters, Leonardo keeps breaking the same arm in fights, so there’s always a chance that happens again. Neither one of these two have looked good on the feet, but Leonardo should have the wrestling advantage. It will be interesting to see if Bohm can capitalize on her massive reach advantage in the striking exchanges, as that’s really her one advantage, other than the fact that she’s never been finished and Leonardo has been finished in all four of her losses. Leonardo has faced multiple high-level opponents, while Bohm has yet to face anyone good, so the experience advantage should be in Leonardo’s favor. While we expect this to be a sloppy mess on the feet, we like Leonardo to find some success in landing takedowns. There’s a chance she can find a finish on the mat, but we pick her to win a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Leonardo DEC” at +240.
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DFS Implications:
Bohm looked dreadful in her UFC debut and scored just 17 points in a lopsided decision loss to Ariane Lipski, who had been finished in each of her two previous fights. Bohm looked bad on the feet and the mat, and there really wasn’t a single positive takeaway we had for her after rewatching that match. The one hope with her is that she just had a terrible case of the Octagon jitters and maybe she’ll look somewhat improved in her second UFC fight. However, she’s already 32 years old and at this point she likely isn’t going to change much, to a large extent. Working in her favor, she’ll face a fellow low-level fighter, which widens the potential range of outcomes. Bohm will look for takedowns, so she theoretically has the ability to score well through a combination of striking and grappling. As a fact, Leonardo has been finished in all four of her pro losses. This is a hold your nose and hope this fight isn’t close type of spot, where we’ll need one fighter to fall on their face and the other to dominate for one of them to put up a big score. After seeing the line move heavily in Leonardo’s favor, Bohm should be incredibly low owned, which makes her an interesting leverage play. The odds imply she has a 51% chance to win, a 20% chance to get a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Leonardo isn’t very technically skilled, but she is aggressive and likes to grapple, which gives her a solid DFS ceiling. While she’s yet to top 35 DraftKings points in the UFC, with both of her fights ending in second round TKO losses, she did land a second round TKO win of her own on DWCS in 2020, which would have been good for exactly 121 points on both DraftKings and FanDuel. Now she’ll face a step down in competition after facing a pair of tough opponents in her first two UFC fights, and if Leonardo can get her grappling going, she has a solid chance to return value, even if she can’t land a finish. With that said, five of her eight career wins have come early, and four of her last five fights have ended in second round TKOs, although she lost three of those. The massive line move in her favor will drive her ownership up, which lowers her tournament appeal, but she makes for a solid low-risk option. The odds imply she has a 49% chance to win, a 17% chance to get a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
Jai Herbert
5th UFC Fight (1-3)Looking to bounce back from a second round KO loss to Ilia Topuria on the last London card, Herbert is just 1-3 in the UFC, with all four of those fights ending early. In fairness to him, his losses have come against a series of tough opponents in Ilia Topuria, Renato Moicano, and Francisco Trinaldo. The one time he faced an easier opponent in Khama Worthy, Herbert landed a first round knockout victory in his second most recent fight, showing his finishing potential in more favorable matchups. Prior to that win, Herbert suffered a smothering second round submission loss to veteran Renato Moicano, where Herbert was no match for the relentless grappling of the BJJ black belt. Looking back one fight further, Herbert was thrown straight to the wolves in his July 2020 UFC debut as he went up against longtime veteran Francisco Trinaldo. To make matters more difficult, Trinaldo showed up 4 lb overweight for the fight and didn’t even appear to try and hit the 156 lb mark as he prepared to move up to 170 lb for his next fight. Herbert overall looked good in the fight, dropping Trinaldo in the second round, but struggled in the grappling and clinch exchanges and early in the third round, Trinaldo caught Herbert with a left hand to the dome that dropped Herbert in a delayed cartoon-like knockout.
In his last fight, Herbert couldn’t have asked for a much tougher matchup as he took on an undefeated Ilia Topuria, who took the fight up a weight class. Despite entering the matchup as a +425 underdog, Herbert showed up ready to fight and dropped Topuria with a head kick in the opening minute of the fight. Topuria desperately looked to grapple to buy time to recover. Herbert was able to defend the initial takedown attempts before finally getting slammed to the mat. However, he was able to remain out of danger on the mat and returned to his feet with 90 seconds left in the round. The rest of the fight played out as a striking battle, and while Herbert was looking good on the feet, everything changed in an instant as Topuria landed a lethal combination of punches that concluded with one of the more violent knockouts we’ve seen in a while, where Herbert’s soul left his body before he hit the mat. The fight ended with Herbert ahead in significant strikes 22-20 and in total strikes 50-31, with both fighters landing a knockdown and Topuria landing one of his four takedown attempts.
Now 11-4 as a pro, Herbert has nine wins by KO, one by submission, and one decision. He’s been finished in all four of his career losses, with three knockouts and one submission. Herbert started his amateur career at 170 lb before dropping down to 155 lb in 2014 just before going pro, where he's stayed since. He has only been to the third round three times in his career, with two of those fights ending in third round knockouts (1-1). He’s only required the judges once in his 15 pro fights, which came in a 2018 win. Nine of his 10 finishes have occurred in the first two rounds. The first five early wins of his career all ended in round two, while four of his last five finishes have come in round one. His only pre-UFC loss came in a 2016 R1 KO against Rhys McKee, who later went 0-2 in the UFC before heading back to Cage Warriors. McKee has notably been fighting up at 170 lb opposed to 155 lb where Herbert competes.
Overall, Herbert is a solid striker with fast hands, but is extremely vulnerable on the mat and prone to getting knocked out. He’s basically all offense with no defense and is a finish or get finished type of fighter. A training partner of Leon Edwards at Team Renegade in the UK, Herbert has also spent time at Syndicate MMA in Las Vegas.
Kyle Nelson
5th UFC Fight (1-3)Moving up to 155 lb following an extended layoff, Nelson is also 1-3 in the UFC and desperate for a win. Honestly, we thought he got cut after his September 2020 loss to Billy Quarantillo as he hasn’t fought since. His only win in his four UFC fights 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. The weight cut didn’t help Reyes any, and Nelson knocked him out on his feet 96 seconds into the first round. Reyes was cut following the loss.
In his last fight, Nelson took on a tough opponent in Billy Quarantillo, who forced Nelson to defend takedowns for much of the first two rounds as Quarantillo landed two of his six takedown attempts in the opening 10 minutes. We saw the pressure of Quarantillo wear on Nelson, who appeared to be fading in the back half of round two. Quarantillo nearly finished Nelson at the end of the second round, but ran out of time. Quarantillo then face-planted Nelson with his first punch 7 seconds into round three. The fight ended with Quarantillo ahead in significant strikes 79-56 and in total strikes 112-62. He landed 2 of his 6 takedown attempts, while stuffing all four of Nelson’s attempts.
Now 13-4 as a pro, Nelson has five wins by KO, four by submission, and four decisions. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted once, and has one decision loss. His last seven fights have all ended early (4-3), with all four of those wins coming in round one and all three of the losses ending in the later rounds. He’s fought at both 145 lb and 155 lb in his career, and actually made his UFC debut at 155 lb, before dropping down to 145 lb for his last three fights. He’ll now be moving back up to 155 lb.
Overall, Nelson is a brawler with no cardio who’s moving up a weight class following a nearly two year layoff. His only UFC win came against a corpse and it’s surprising that Nelson is still in the UFC. While he has decent power it appears to quickly diminish as fights go on, and it will be interesting to see how it translates up at 155 lb. Nelson averages just 3.63 SSL/min (16th on the slate), while absorbing 6.82/min (Most on the slate). He’s failed to land a takedown in three of his four UFC fights, landing just 2 of his 16 attempts overall.
Fight Prediction:
Herbert will have a 2” height advantage and 6” reach advantage.
This sets up for violence between two offensively minded fighters. Herbert has only required the judges in 1 of his 15 pro fights, while Nelson hasn’t been to a decision since 2016. Both guys have shown dubious chins, and Nelson hardly even has the cardio to make it three rounds. The main variables in play are that Herbert was violently knocked out just three months ago and Nelson is moving up a weight class following a 22 month layoff. That adds some uncertainty on each side, but Herbert is a significantly better fighter and should win if his chin holds up. That’s unquestionably a major “if”, but Herbert has only been losing to tough opponents and Nelson doesn’t even belong in the UFC. We expect this to be an exciting back and forth fight early on, but for Nelson to slow down late in round two and Herbet to capitalize on that with a late second round knockout.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in KO” at -170.
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DFS Implications:
Herbert has been on the wrong end of more than one highlight reel KO, but this looks like a get-right spot for him against a lower level opponent who’s moving up a weight class following a 22 month layoff. Nelson has been finished in all three of his UFC losses and fades hard late in fights. It’s possible the move up in weight will change things for him, but that’s yet to be determined and most likely it will just reduce the effectiveness of his power shots. Herbert has landed finishes in 10 of his 11 career wins, with all but one of those occurring in the first two rounds. Also working in Herbert’s favor from a DFS scoring perspective, Nelson averages the most significant strikes absorbed on the slate at 6.82/min and this looks like a great spot for Herbert to put up a ceiling performance. The odds imply he has a 70% chance to win, a 50% chance to land a finish, and a 27% chance it comes in round one.
Nelson has yet to require the judges in four UFC fights (1-3). His one win came in a first round KO against a terrible, struggling opponent. To Nelson’s credit, his last four wins have all come in the first round. He’s an aggressive fighter who looks for finishes, but tends to gas out later in fights so he basically has a round and a half to get the job done or he becomes a sitting duck. There’s always a chance he’s improved his cardio over the last 22 months since we last saw him, but we’ll believe it when we see it. The best thing he has going for him is that Herbert has a really suspect chin and has been finished in all four of his pro losses. You have to at least give Nelson some chance of landing something clean and getting a finish, but we’re still not super high on him. The odds imply he has a 30% chance to win, a 21% chance to get a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Muhammad Mokaev
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Coming off a quick win in his debut, Mokaev extended his undefeated record to 7-0 with a 58 second R1 submission of Cody Durden. A Dagestani-Russian refugee who relocated to England in 2012, Mokaev will be fighting in front of his home crowd for the second consecutive time.
His recent debut ended so quickly that it’s tough to take much away from it, as Mokaev landed a flying knee early on and then immediately locked up a guillotine choke to force a tap in the opening minute. Durden landed just a single significant strike in the fight and has now been submitted in three of his four career losses.
Of his seven wins, two have come by TKO, three have ended in submissions, and two by way of decision. Mokaev only turned pro in 2020, but had a lengthy 23-0 undefeated amateur career from 2015 to 2020 and was regarded by many as the best amateur in the world. After winning both of his amateur fights in early 2020, including the IMMAF Bantamweight Championship, he won his first four pro fights that year as well. He then won two fights in 2021 and had a third match ruled a No Contest for an accidental groin strike. Mokaev competed at both 125 lb and 135 lb as an amateur, but his first four pro fights were all at 135 lb. He then dropped down to 125 lb in 2021. However, his last two fights before joining the UFC both took place at a 130 lb Catchweight. He dropped back down to 125 lb for his debut and that’s where we expect him to stay moving forward.
Overall, Mokaev has a wrestling background, which is evident to anyone that has watched him fight. He’s extremely fluid with his transitions and is relentless with his takedown attempts. He’ll seamlessly chain takedowns together and reverse positions quicker than a greased up python. He’s certainly not helpless on the feet either, but his wrestling is what got him to the UFC. Still just 21 years old, Mokaev has talked about how he wants to become the youngest UFC champion of all time, which is understandable considering he has never tasted defeat.
Charles Johnson
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut following four straight victories with three of those ending early, Johnson’s last three wins have all come in LFA Flyweight championship fights, with two of those making it to the 5th round and one going the distance.
In his last fight, we saw Johnson get taken down midway through the first round, but he did a good job of escaping the position and consistently sprung back to his feet whenever his opponent tried to take him down. The fight played out as a high-volume striking match, with Johnson turning it on late and landing a knockout 45 seconds into the 5th round.
Now 11-2 as a pro, Johnson has five wins by KO, three by submission, and three decisions. He’s never been finished, with both of his losses ending in decisions. The most recent of those was in a 2018 LFA fight against Brandon Royval, which is encouraging for Johnson’s chances of avoiding submission attacks. His last five fights have all made it out of the first round, with three seeing round three, and two making it to round five in LFA championship fights.
Overall, Johnson is an uptempo striker with decent defensive grappling, but not a ton in terms of offensive wrestling. While we’ve seen him get taken down without too much trouble at times, he does a good job of returning to his feet quickly, and he proved it’s not a fluke that he’s never been submitted by going three full rounds against Brandon Royval. He doesn’t look especially dangerous and he tends to wear on his opponents, with five of his eight career finishes coming beyond the first round.
Fight Prediction:
Johnson will have a 4” height advantage and half inch reach advantage. Mokaev is 10 years younger than the 31-year-old Johnson.
This should be a good test for Mokaev’s finishing ability as he takes on a former LFA champion who has never been finished and is 10 years older than him. Johnson has looked good at returning to his feet after getting taken down, so the potential for Mokaev to put up a big takedown total is here. We don’t see Johnson stuffing all of Mokaev’s takedown attempts, or winning the wrestling exchanges, and he’s not dangerous enough on the feet to knock him out. Ultimately, it’s really hard to see Johnson pulling off the upset. The toughest question to answer is whether Mokaev will be able to hand Johnson the first early loss of his career, or if he’ll win a grappling-heavy decision. We’re leaning towards the latter, but neither would be that surprising. However, any other result would surprise us. Give us Mokaev by decision here.
Our favorite bet here is “Mokaev DEC or SUB” at -220.
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DFS Implications:
Mokaev’s wrestling-heavy approach to fighting gives him both a solid floor and ceiling in DFS, especially on DraftKings. His history of finishes is also encouraging, and he scored 126 DraftKings points in his recent 58 second first round submission win. However, he’s still just 21 years old and will likely have some growing pains along the way as he squares off against grown men early in his UFC career. As the most expensive fighter on the slate, there are also lots of ways for him to get priced out of winning tournament lineups if he fails to put up a slate-breaking score. The field was much lower on him then we were for his recent debut, where he checked in at just 28% DraftKings ownership, but we expect him to be more popular now following the big performance. That lowers his tournament appeal to some extent, but he has the potential to land a ton of takedowns and control time in this fight, putting up a big score even without a finish. He also has just an 11% chance of getting finished according to the odds, and we’d argue even that’s high, so he has a great floor for low-risk contests. The odds imply he has a 79% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Johnson is an uptempo striker, but doesn’t offer much in terms of offensive grappling and doesn’t have a ton of power in his striking, which lowers his scoring ceiling. As the cheapest fighter on the slate, he does have a wider range of acceptable scoring outcomes for him to still serve as a value play if he wins without putting up a big score score, but this looks like a tough matchup for him put up a big striking total as he’ll face a relentless wrestler in Mokaev. Outside of landing a hail mary knockout, it’s hard to see Johnson scoring well in this spot, but he will be extremely low owned, which is really the only thing he has going for him. The odds imply he has a 21% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Jonathan Pearce
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Entering this fight on a three fight winning streak, Pearce is coming off his first trip to the judges in his last nine outings. Prior to that win, Pearce handed Omar Morales the first early loss of his career in a second round submission, after finishing Kai Kamaka with a second round TKO just before that. Leading up to the string of wins, Pearce suffered a demoralizing R1 KO loss in his 2019 UFC debut, where he was finished in 93 seconds by a washed up Joe Lauzon. Following the rough loss in his debut, Pearce didn’t fight for 13 months after having shoulder surgery and then he dropped back down to 145 lb where he started his pro career. He’s fought as low as 135 lb and as high as 155 lb in the past, but his DWCS fight and UFC debut were both at 155 lb, while his last three fights have all taken place at 145 lb, where it appears Pearce will stay. He’s got great size for the division, so as long as the weight cut is manageable it looks like the spot to be for him.
In his last fight, Pearce had been scheduled to face Austin Lingo, but Lingo withdrew and Christian Rodriguez was announced as the replacement just six days before the event. Rodriguez had mostly been fighting at 135 lb, but that fight took place at 145 lb, so Pearce seemingly had everything going for him. Apparently no one told Rodriguez that, however, as he made the fight close at multiple points. As Pearce looked to get the fight to the ground early on, Rodriguez locked in a guillotine choke midway through round one and looked close to finishing it. Pearce was narrowly able to escape, but came dangerously close to getting choked out. That ended up being the theme of the match, as Pearce landed 6 of his 10 takedown attempts with over 11 minutes of control time, but Rodriguez finished with three official submission attempts. We didn’t see much striking in the fight, with Rodriguez finishing ahead in significant strikes 26-18, but Pearce leading in total strikes 59-38. Pearce also looked to tire out down the stretch, and it definitely wasn’t the dominant performance we were expecting from him in that spot.
Now 12-4 as a pro, Pearce has eight wins by KO, two by submission, and two decisions. He has one TKO loss, two by submission, and one decision defeat. All three of his early losses came in the first round, with his two submission losses coming in back-to-back 2016 fights and his TKO loss occurring in his 2019 UFC debut against Joe Lauzon.
Overall, Pearce relies on getting opponents to the mat and beating them up with ground and pound while he threatens submissions. He tends to wear on his opponents as fights go on, with only one of his 10 career finishes occurring in the first round. Six of his finishes have ended in round two and three in round three. His lone first round win was all the way back in 2015 in his third pro fight and his last eight finishes have come in the later rounds. He’s landed at least five takedowns in each of his three UFC wins, with a total of 17 landed on 28 attempts (60.7%). He’s also been taken down four times on seven attempts by his opponents. He’s faced a series of strikers, so this will be an interesting matchup to see how he fares against a fellow grappler.
Makwan Amirkhani
13th UFC Fight (7-5)Finally snapping a three fight skid with a first round submission win on the last London card, Amirkhani is still just 2-4 in his last six fights after starting out 5-1 in the UFC. While three of those four losses came against really tough opponents in Shane Burgos, Edson Barboza, and Lerone Murphy, Amirkhani also lost a decision to a short notice replacement and UFC newcomer in Kamuela Kirk. That’s the only time we’ve seen Amirkhani lose against lower level competition, and his one other loss came against Arnold Allen earlier in his UFC career.
Amirkhani’s last fight only lasted 57 seconds, so there’s not much to discuss. He took on a wrestler in Mike Grundy, who shot for a takedown in the opening seconds and Amirkhani immediately grabbed his neck and set up his patented Anaconda Choke. Grundy tried to fight through it but Amirkhani choked him unconscious. Not a single strike was landed in the fight.
Now 17-7 as a pro, Amirkhani has one TKO win, 12 by submission, and four decisions. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted once, and has four decision losses. Eleven of his 12 submission wins have occurred in the first round, as did his lone TKO victory. His one submission loss also occurred in round one, all the way back in 2011 in his third pro fight. He’s lost three of the last four decisions he’s been to, with the one win being split. Both of his KO/TKO losses occurred in the later rounds.
Overall, Amirkhani is a slick grappler, but doesn’t offer much on the feet as checks in dead last on the slate averaging 1.36 SSL/min. He’s never landed more than 32 significant strikes in a fight and relies entirely on his grappling to win. Amirkhani has a 43.5% takedown accuracy and has landed 30 takedowns on 69 attempts in his 12 UFC fights. The only two times he failed to attempt or land a takedown were in his 8 second flying knee KO win in his UFC debut and his recent 57 second submission win.
Fight Prediction:
Pearce will have a 2” height advantage, but Amirkhani will have a 1” reach advantage.
We haven’t seen Pearce have to deal with a fellow grappler yet in his recent string of wins, so it will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Neither of these two offer a ton on the feet, and both rely entirely on their grappling to win fights. Pearce has never had to deal with a submission threat like Amirkhani on the ground, and was almost submitted in his last fight by a far less experienced opponent. Amirkhani is the more dangerous submission threat in this matchup, but Pearce has the size advantage and may be able to bully Amirkhani in the wrestling exchanges, although that’s yet to be determined. It’s always tougher to predict how a wrestling match will play out, but we’d be surprised if neither guy was willing to grapple and we like Amirkhani’s chances of finding his way to Pearce’s neck and locking something up early.
Our favorite bet here is “Amirkhani R1 SUB” at +800.
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DFS Implications:
This looks like the toughest matchup Pearce has faced since he joined the UFC and we saw him struggle to land many ground strikes in his last fight as he fought off submissions. We could see something similar here, as Amirkhani is very dangerous on the mat. That lowers the scoring potential for Pearce to some extent, but if this plays out as a pure wrestling match, there’s also the chance for a high number of reversals and submission attempts in addition to takedowns and control time. So we could still see the box score get filled up, even if the striking totals stay relatively low. Pearce has been a consistent DFS producer, with DraftKings scores of 96, 123, and 134 in his three UFC wins. At his high price tag, another score in the 90s likely wouldn’t be enough for him to end up in tournament winning lineups, so he may still need a finish here. The odds imply Pearce has a 63% chance to win, a 39% chance it comes early, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Amirkhani scored a slate-breaking 115 DraftKings points with the help of the Quick Win Bonus in his last fight, which also took place in London. That recent scoring explosion should drive his ownership up some, and historically he hasn’t been a guy that puts up many huge scores. With that said, he was on pace to put up another big total in his second most recent fight before getting knocked out in the second round by Lerone Murphy. Amirkhani averages an anemic 1.36 SSL/min, and is entirely dependent on grappling stats and finishes to score well. His cheap price tag still keeps him in play with a wider range of scoring outcomes and he doesn’t need to put up a monster score to end up in winning lineups. However, he does likely need to land a submission in the first two rounds. This looks like a tougher matchup for him to exert any grappling dominance, so there are ways even a second round finish fails to score well if he gets controlled for most of round one. Considering 11 of his 12 finishes have come in the first round, he’s generally been a R1 or bust play. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 24% chance to get a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Nathaniel Wood
7th UFC Fight (4-2)Moving up to 145 lb for the first time in the UFC, Wood had one pro fight at Featherweight earlier in his career, which ended in a 2016 R3 submission win in Bellator. Wood started strong in the UFC, landing three straight late round submission wins in his first three UFC fights. He then got knocked out by John Dodson in the third round of a 2020 match, before splitting a pair of decisions in his last two fights. All six of his UFC fights have seen the second round, with four making it to round three, and two going the distance. While Wood has lost two of his last three fights, he landed eight straight finishes prior to that. Wood had been set to fight on the last London card, but Vince Morales pulled out in the days leading up to the fight. Wood has dealt with multiple fight cancellations lately, which has resulted in a 21 month layoff since he last fought in October 2020.
In his last fight, Wood narrowly lost a close/questionable high-volume decision to Casey Kenney. That striking explosion saw Wood outland Kenney 136-123 in significant strikes, but Kenney did land two takedowns on six attempts.
Now 17-5 as a pro, Wood has nine wins by KO, five by submission, and three decisions. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted twice, and has one decision loss. Only four of his 22 pro fights have made it to the judges and one of his two submission losses came by R1 armbar, which he’ll need to watch out for in this next match.
Overall, Wood is a solid striker who lands a ton of volume, averaging 6.28 SSL/min. He’s also landed six takedowns on 13 attempts in his six UFC fights, with at least one takedown landed in four of those fights. He’s attempted exactly three takedowns in five of his last six fights, so he’s been pretty consistent with the amount of grappling he mixes into his striking.
Charles Rosa
13th UFC Fight (5-7)Rosa has lost his last two and three of his last four fights. His only win over that four-fight stretch came against a terrible Justin Jaynes in a split decision. Rosa has gone to six straight decisions and the last time one of his fights ended early was in a 2019 R1 armbar submission win over Manny Bermudez. Rosa has faced a series of grapplers and the last time he faced an actual striker he suffered his only career KO loss against Shane Burgos in the third round of a 2017 fight. He’s been dominated on the ground in his last four losses, getting taken down 19 times on 28 attempts in those fights.
Rosa took his last fight up a weight class on short notice and got smothered by TJ Brown on the mat. Brown landed six of his eight takedowns against Charles Rosa, while also leading in significant strikes 58-46 and in total strikes 88-71. Brown also finished with over seven and a half minutes of control time, three submission attempts, and two reversals, as he completely filled up the stat sheet. Brown had been scheduled to face Gabriel Benitez at 145 lb in that fight, but Benitez dropped out mid fight week and Rosa stepped in on Wednesday morning and the fight was moved up to 155 lb.
Now 14-7 as a pro, Rosa has three wins by KO, eight by submission, and three decisions. However, 9 of those 11 finishes came in his first nine pro fights against low level opponents. Since then, he’s only landed two finishes in his last 12 fights and both of those came in fights that he was losing.
Overall, Rosa is a BJJ black belt but is far too comfortable operating off his back and in his last four losses we’ve seen his opponents notch control time totals of 7:39, 10:24, 12:34, and 12:51. He thinks far too highly of his own jiu-jitsu despite having only landed two submissions in 12 UFC fights (2015 & 2019). Following an April 2017 R3 KO loss to Shane Burgos, Rosa suffered a career threatening neck injury that kept him sidelined until October 2019. He’s gone 3-4 since returning from that injury and has looked terrible. In his seven fights since returning from that neck injury, Rosa has attempted just seven takedowns. In contrast, he went 14 for 41 on takedowns in his first five UFC fights, while attempting at least four and landing at least one in every match.
Fight Prediction:
Rosa will have a 3” height advantage, but both fighters share a 69” reach. Wood is seven years younger than the 35-year-old Rosa.
Rosa generally brings down the quality of fights, while Wood makes them more exciting, so it will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Rosa isn’t a great striker or wrestler—or fighter—and if we compared his fighting style to a game of Madden, he’s the guy that throws a hail mary on every single pass dispute almost never connecting on one. His only move is to look for armbars off his back, and the last time he landed one of those was in 2019 against a fighter who was immediately cut afterwards. To Rosa’s credit, he has been durable, with just one early loss in his career (2017). Considering Wood is also moving up a weight class, a finish here appears less likely and we like Wood to easily outland his way to a lopsided decision win. With that said, it certainly wouldn’t be shocking to see him finish Rosa with the home London crowd behind him.
Our favorite bet here is “Wood DEC” at -130.
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DFS Implications:
Wood is a high-volume striker who averages the 5th most significant strikes landed on the slate at 6.28/min. He also generally tacks on a takedown or two, and now goes against one of the easier guys to takedown in the division in Rosa, who generally welcomes being taken down and has just a 38% takedown defense. With that said, Rosa is active off his back looking for armbars and has no chance of hanging with Wood on the feet, so the smarter approach for Wood is to keep the fight standing. In his lone decision win, Wood scored 90 DraftKings points, and he also scored 55 points in his recent decision loss. So he’s shown a solid floor, but no real ceiling when he’s unable to find a finish. While Rosa has been terrible, he’s still only been finished once in his career (R3 2017). We’ve seen multiple fighters put on impressive grappling performances against Rosa lately, but we’re more expecting Wood to rely on his boxing. And as the second most expensive fighter on the slate, it will be tough for him to crack tournament winning lineups without a well timed finish. Working in his favor, he projects to be low owned, so if he can put up a big score he has tournament winning upside. The odds imply he has an 82% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Rosa looks like a submission or bust play and the last time he submitted anybody was in 2019. He’s only landed four takedowns in his last seven fights and averages just 3.05 SSL/min. He’s not a very dangerous striker and it’s highly unlikely he lands a knockout. In his three UFC decision wins, Rosa has scored 85, 58, and 74 DraftKings points, and even at his cheap price tag that’s probably not going to be enough to be useful. Even in his two UFC submission wins, he still scored just 93 and 95 points, and his style of offensive grappling off his back is not really conducive to DFS production. The only arguments for having any exposure to Rosa are that Wood is moving up a weight class following a long layoff, in addition to having been submitted twice in his career, and Rosa will be incredibly low owned in tournaments. The odds imply he has an 18% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Marc Diakiese
12th UFC Fight (6-5)Coming off a dominant grappling-heavy performance, Diakiese predictably looked to wrestle against a one-dimensional kickboxer in Viacheslav Borshchev. Prior to that win, Diakiese was submitted in the first round by Rafael Alves, and had lost five of his previous seven fights. In his second most recent loss, Diakiese lost a decision to an extremely dangerous striker in Rafael Fiziev. Diakiese showed off his toughness as he absorbed a barrage of violent strikes and at least survived to see the judges.
In his recent win, Diakiese took Borshchev down early and often, as he landed a career best 11 takedowns on 18 attempts with nearly 12 and a half minutes of control time. We didn’t see much striking in the match, with Diakiese finishing ahead in significant strikes 17-12 and in total strikes 40-32.
Now 15-5 as a pro, Diakiese has six wins by KO, one by submission, and eight decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but has been submitted twice, and has three decision losses. Five of his last six fights have gone the distance, with the one exception being a 2021 R1 submission loss in his second most recent fight. While Diakiese landed knockouts in two of his first three UFC fights in 2016 and 2017, he hasn’t finished anybody since. Those knockouts also came against low-level opponents who finished their respective UFC careers 0-3 and 1-3.
Overall, Diakiese is a flashy kickboxer who likes to throw lots of spinning kicks and five of his six career knockout victories occurred in the first round with the other occurring in round two. His lone submission victory came in his fourth pro fight in 2014 and most of his knockouts also came early in his career. Diakiese has landed 27 takedowns on 63 attempts in his 11 UFC fights (42.9%). If we break that down between wins and losses, he’s landed 25 takedowns on 43 attempts (58.1%) in his six UFC wins, while landing just 2 takedowns on 20 attempts (10%) in his five losses. He’s 5-1 in UFC fights when he’s landed at least one takedown, but just 1-4 when he’s failed to land a takedown. So while Diakiese is known as a kickboxer, his past success has been directly tied to his ability to land takedowns. Now he’ll face a one-dimensional striker with no grappling ability, similar to his last matchup.
Damir Hadzovic
9th UFC Fight (4-4)Thirteen months removed from a high-volume decision win, Hadzovic snapped a two fight skid with a decision win over Yancy Medeiros. Prior to that, he hadn’t fought in 15 months following a 44 second first round submission loss to Renato Moicano, after losing a smothering decision to Christos Giagos, where Hadzovic got taken down 6 times on 13 attempts. That wasn’t the first time we’ve seen Hadzovic struggle against grapplers, as he got taken down 9 times on 15 attempts and controlled for over 12 minutes by a suspect Alan Patrick back in 2018. Hadzovic also got taken down on all four of Marcin Held’s attempts in a 2017 match. Even Yancy Medeiros took Hadzovic down twice and Medeiros had previously landed a total of one takedown across his first 14 UFC fights.
In that recent fight against Medeiros, Hadzovic started strong, landing a takedown of his own in each of the first two rounds and teeing off on Medeiros with combinations of punches. However, he seemed to punch himself out and was noticeably tiring midway through the second round. Hadzovic found a small second wind early in round three as he again pushed for a finish with a combination of punches, but Medeiros was able to survive and take an exhausted Hadzovic down to the mat twice in the second half of the third round. Medeiros locked in a rear-naked choke at the end of the third round, but simply ran out of time as the fight ended. With another 5-10 seconds on the clock he likely could have completed the submission, but instead Hadzovic narrowly hung on to win a decision. The fight ended with Hadzovic ahead 121-103 in significant strikes and 125-109 in total strikes, with both fighters landing a pair of takedowns.
Now 14-6 as a pro, Hadzovic has seven wins by KO, three by submission, and four decisions. He has four first round finishes, four in round two, and two in round three. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has four decision losses. Both of his early losses occurred in the first round. All four of his UFC wins have come against low level and struggling opponents on multi-fight losing streaks.
Overall, Hadzovic relies almost entirely on his boxing to win fights. He’s landed five takedowns in his eight UFC fights, but he’s a bad grappler with a terrible 37% takedown defense as he’s been taken down 22 times on 35 attempts in his eight UFC fights. Three of his opponents landed 100% of the takedowns they attempted against him, while two more landed six or more on double digit attempts. Hadzovic has bad cardio and slows down considerably in the back half of fights.
Fight Prediction:
Diakiese will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, and is also six years younger than Hadzovic.
This looks like a dream matchup for Diakiese, who should be able to win either on the feet or the mat, but his path of least resistance is clearly to get the fight to the ground, where Hadzovic is as helpless as a turtle off its back. As long as Diakiese doesn’t let his ego get in the way, he should be able to execute the exact same game plan that he did in his last fight, when he easily outgrappled another one-dimensional striker in Viacheslav Borshchev. We’re not sure why people were acting so surprised with Diakiese’s recent grappling explosion, as he came into that fight attempting four or more takedowns in 7 of his previous 10 UFC fights. Sure, he’s known for his kickboxing, but he consistently looks to get fights to the mat, averaging 3.2 takedowns landed per 15 minutes on 7.5 attempts. It would be insane for Diakiese not to come in with a wrestling heavy approach to this fight and we like him to once again out grapple his way to victory. He’ll most likely win another decision, but seeing how hard Hadzovic gasses out late in fights it also wouldn’t be surprising for Diakiese to land a late finish. While he only has one submission win in his career, this is a great spot for him to land his second. As a long shot option we like Diakiese’s R2 and R3 submission lines, but we’re still expecting him to win a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Diakiese DEC” at +150.
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DFS Implications:
Diakiese is coming off a massive wrestling performance where he landed 11 takedowns on 18 attempts with 12 and a half minutes of control time in a decision win, scoring 119 DraftKings points and 96 points on FanDuel. He nearly doubled his previous career high in terms of takedowns landed in a fight (6), so we certainly can’t expect that out of Diakiese every time he fights. However, this looks to be another dream matchup for him to put on a dominant grappling performance, as he takes on another one-dimensional striker who’s been very prone to getting taken down. The only real concern here is that Diakiese could potentially let his ego get in his way where he tries to put on a more impressive striking performance after getting booed by his home crowd of London in his last fight. It may also be tougher for Diakiese to land quite as many takedowns as Hadzovic has looked worse at returning to his feet compared to Diakiese’s last opponent, Viacheslav Borshchev. The potential to chain wrestle multiple takedowns together appears to be a little lower, but he still has a good chance to rack up a ton of control time. Diakiese is also capable of finishing Hadzovic on the feet if he opts to go that route, although he’s never been a very high-volume striker, averaging just 2.84 SSL/min, and isn’t a guy that can return value from striking alone without a finish. Prior to his recent scoring explosion, Diakiese had only averaged 83 DraftKings points in his first three UFC decision wins and hadn’t finished anybody since 2017. While he has a really solid floor, he’s struggled to put up big scores for most of his career. With that said, this matchup is too good to pass up on and we like his chances of hitting another ceiling performance. The odds imply Diakiese has a 75% chance to get a finish, a 37% chance it comes early, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Hadzovic is coming off the first high-volume fight of his career, which unsurprisingly came against Yancy Medeiros, who averages a crazy 5.67 SSA/min in his career and isn’t a grappler. Hadzovic was able to score 98 DraftKings points in a decision win as he landed 121 significant strikes and a pair of takedowns. Look for his output to come back down to Earth here, as he faces Marc Diakiese, who averages just 2.56 SSA/min and should be looking to wrestle. That should leave Hadzovic reliant on being the first fighter to ever knock Diakiese out to score well, unless Hadzovic randomly lands a hail mary submission, which appears unlikely. Hadzovic has okay hands, but he doesn’t mix in many kicks. He’s also helpless on the mat and has terrible cardio. Overall, he’s not a guy that we’re interested in playing and this looks like a terrible spot for him to succeed. The odds imply Hadzovic has a 25% chance to win, a 9% chance to get a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Mason Jones
4th UFC Fight (1-1, NC)Klein had been scheduled to face the 6’3” Ignacio Bahamondes here, but he withdrew due to visa issues and Mason Jones stepped in on nine day’s notice. With that said, Jones said he’s been training for this card for 13 weeks and was just waiting on an opponent. He was so sure he would be on the card he said he bought 50 tickets for friends and family. Jones
Jones threw down in a fight of the year candidate in his January 2021 debut against Mike Davis, but ultimately lost a close decision. Then, Jones was absolutely destroying Alan Patrick in his next fight before the fight was stopped midway through round two for an inadvertent eye poke. Jones finally notched his first UFC win in another brawling decision in his last fight. Prior to making his UFC debut, Jones landed back to back first round KO victories under the Cage Warriors promotion, where he won both the vacant 155 lb and 170 lb belts, bringing his record to a perfect 10-0 at the time.
In his recent decision win, Jones took on David Onama, who was making his UFC debut on short notice and fighting up a weight class. Despite everything working against him, Onama held his own in the fight and actually finished ahead in significant strikes 90-87 and in total strikes 121-116. However, Jones took Onama down 8 times on 14 attempts with nine minutes of control time to win a unanimous 29-28 decision. Onama has since dropped back down to 145 lb and finished two straight opponents, so it’s hard to be overly critical of Jones for “simply” winning a decision.
Now 11-1 as a pro, Jones has four wins by KO, three by submission, and four via decision. The only loss of his career came in a close decision against Mike Davis in Jones’ January 2021 UFC debut. Four of his finishes have come in the first round, one in the second, and two in the third. All three of his submission wins occurred in his first four pro fights, and he appears to have settled more into looking for KOs as of recently. Other than his one title fight at 170 lb, all of Jones’ career fights have been at 155 lb.
Overall, Jones is a BJJ black belt who also holds black belts in kickboxing and Judo, and overall is a very well rounded fighter. He’s a high-volume brawler with solid cardio and also has no problem competing on the mat. He’s ridiculously durable and at just 27 years old, he looks like he’s going to be a problem in the division for a while.
Ludovit Klein
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Klein had been preparing to face a one-dimensional grappler in Ignacio Bahamondes, but will now have to deal with a much more well rounded opponent in Mason Jones. The vast majority of Klein’s career has been spent down at 145 lb, although he missed weight by 4 lb for his 2020 short notice UFC debut, which he won by first round knockout. He made weight for his next two fights, but lost both of those (DEC & R3 SUB), before moving up to 155 lb for a short notice fight against Devonte Smith the last time we saw him. After winning a split decision in his last outing to keep his UFC hopes alive, Klein will remain at 155 lb for this next match. Klein holds the dubious honors of being the only fighter to ever get submitted by Nate Landwehr, in a fight where Klein faded hard after the first round and never looked comfortable being pressured.
In his last fight, Klein was able to rock Devonte Smith midway through the first round, but Smith was able to tie him up in the clinch to buy time to recover. The rest of the fight was pretty close, although Klein looked to have Smith hurt again early in round three, before once again getting tied up in the clinch. The fight ended in a lower volume split decision win for Klein, where he led 60-53 in significant strikes, with both fighters landing exactly 80 total strikes and neither landing a takedown—Smith on three attempts and Klein on two attempts. Klein did finish ahead in control time 6:39-0:14, and also had the bigger moments in the fight, where he had Smith hurt at two different points.
Now 18-4 as a pro, Klein has eight wins by KO, eight by submission, and two decisions. His last seven finishes have all ended in knockouts, while his submission wins occurred earlier in his career, including six in his first six pro fights. Nine of his 16 finishes occurred in the first round as he generally does his best work early in fights. He’s been knocked out once, submitted twice, and has one decision defeat. He’s only been past the second round six times in 22 pro fights (4-2).
Overall, Klein likes to methodically stalk his prey and time left head kicks, but he has struggled when pressured. He’s landed four takedowns on 11 attempts throughout his four UFC fights, but he landed those four in only one of those matches. In addition, he didn’t do anything on the mat with the four takedowns he did land against Michael Trizano. Conversely, he’s been taken down once on five attempts by his opponents and got submitted on the mat following that one takedown. Overall, we’ve been unimpressed by his grappling, but he does have solid power with his striking. However, he doesn’t land much volume, averaging just 3.58 SSL/min, and he’s largely reliant on landing power shots to knock opponents out. His cardio has looked pretty suspect and he tends to slow down later in fights, leaving him even more reliant on early knockouts to secure victories. We did see him narrowly win a split-decision in his last match, but that occurred in a slower paced low-volume affair.
Fight Prediction:
Jones will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
This sets up as an exciting fight between two solid strikers. While both guys have shown the ability to grapple, we give the advantage to Jones when it comes to wrestling and overall he’s been the much more impressive fighter. He’ll also hold advantages in cardio and striking volume and has shown the ability to win fights up at 170 lb, while Klein has spent most of his career down at 145 lb. That leads us to believe that Jones will be able to bully Klein in this matchup, leaving Klein reliant on landing a first round knockout, likely from a perfectly placed head kick. The odds of that happening appear unlikely, as Jones has never been finished in his career despite facing multiple dangerous opponents. When you add in the fact that Jones will be fighting in front of his home crowd in England, we expect to see the best version of him and like his chances to wear Klein down, likely finishing him late in the fight.
Our favorite bet here is “Jones ITD” at +110.
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DFS Implications:
Jones is a high-volume striker, with black belts in BJJ, kickboxing and Judo, who can compete wherever the fight goes. He averages the third most significant strikes landed on the slate at 6.71/min and the second highest number of takedowns landed at 6.7 per 15 minutes. He put up a massive 127 point score in his last outing, despite the fact that the fight ended in a decision. He was also on pace to break the slate just before that, but the fight was stopped in the second round for an inadvertent eye poke. Seven of his 11 career wins have come early, but he’s yet to land a finish in the UFC and seems due for that to happen very soon. Working in his favor, his opponent Klein recently moved up from 145 lb, has been finished in three of his four career losses, and struggles with his cardio late in fights. Jones also has the edge in that he will be fighting in front of his English home crowd for the first time in the UFC. However, we’ve also seen Klein slow fights down. He’s a very dangerous striker in his own right, so he’s far from a dream matchup. The odds imply he has a 74% chance to win, a 43% chance to get a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Klein is lethal with his head kicks, but his patient fighting style is far from ideal for DFS scoring and generally leaves him reliant on landing an early finish to score well. That was confirmed in his last fight when he scored just 70 DraftKings points in a low volume split-decision win. With that said, his cheap price tag leaves him with a wider range of usable outcomes, and this is set to be a pace up matchup against a high-volume striker in Jones who notably averages the fourth most significant strikes absorbed on the slate at 5.59/min. We’ve seen Klein struggle with pressure and his cardio later in fights, both of which Jones will be pushing, so we could see Klein struggle down the stretch if the fight makes it that long. That leaves him more reliant on being the first fighter to ever finish Jones if he wants to pull off the upset. The odds imply he has a 26% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Volkan Oezdemir
11th UFC Fight (5-5)Stumbling in on a two fight skid, Oezdemir only has two wins in his last seven outings and one of those victories ended in a split decision. All seven of those fights made it out of the first round, with four seeing round three, and three going the distance. In fairness to Oezdemir, he’s been fighting guys at the top of the division, with his last five losses coming against Magomed Ankalaev, Jiri Prochazka, Dominick Reyes, Anthony Smith, and Daniel Cormier. Oezdemir hasn’t been very active lately, with just one fight in each of 2020 and 2021. His last win came all the way back in 2019.
In his last fight, Oezdemir was methodically dismantled by Magomed Ankalaev for three rounds. Ankalaev finished ahead 66-48 in significant strikes and 76-56 in total strikes, while landing one of his four takedowns attempts with 1:45 of control time. He also landed a knockdown in the first round and the strong start to the match allowed him to coast down the stretch as he was clearly going to get his hand raised.
Now 17-6 as a pro, Oezdemir has 12 wins by KO, one by submission, and four via decision. Eleven of his 12 knockout wins occurred in the first round with the other ending in round two. His lone submission victory all ended in round one. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted twice, and has two decision losses. He was nearly submitted a third time by Daniel Cormier in a 2018 title fight, but Oezdemir was saved by the bell at the end of round one and finished with ground and pound in round two instead. Three of those four early losses came in the second round, with the other ending in round three. Three of the six decisions he’s been to have been split (2-1).
Overall, Oezdemir is a powerful striker who throws violent leg kicks. His background is in kickboxing and he doesn’t offer much in terms of grappling, with just two takedowns landed in his 10-fight UFC career, and none in his last four matches. However, he does have a solid 80% takedown defense and has only been taken down 6 times on 30 attempts from his opponents. However, his last three and five of his last six opponents to try and take him down have landed at least one takedown against him.
Paul Craig
14th UFC Fight (8-4-1)Coming off his fourth straight finish, Craig hasn’t lost a fight since 2019, going 5-0-1 in his last six matches. All five of those wins have come in under nine minutes, including four in the first round. He's faced mostly a high level of competition throughout his career, with fights against guys like Tyson Pedro (L), Magomed Ankalaev, Jimmy Crute (L), Jamahal Hill, and Nikita Krylov.
While Craig is generally a one-dimensional submission threat, two of his last three wins have actually ended in TKOs. The most recent of those was due to the referee failing to stop the fight when he should have after Craig dislocated the elbow of Jamahal Hill with an armbar. Hill refused to tap, and the referee failed to recognize the injury resulting in a delayed stoppage that was eventually ruled a TKO instead of a submission, which is what caused the injury. Craig pulled guard to get the fight to the mat and immediately looked to lock up Hill’s arm as he worked towards the armbar submission that eventually caused the injury. Just prior to that win, Craig landed his first KO/TKO win in the UFC, which came via ground and pound against a 38-year-old Mauricio Rua in a rematch of their previous fight that ended in a draw. Craig was able to take the back of a face down Rua and opted to finish the fight with ground and pound opposed to attempting a rear-naked choke like he normally would.
In his last fight, the fights started fast and quickly ended up on the mat with Craig on his back. Krylov spent the next several minutes landing heavy ground and pound and digging his forearm into Craig’s neck. However, everything changed in a second as Craig whipped his right leg around and threw up a violent triangle to quickly force a tap.
Now 16-4-1 as a pro, Craig has three wins by TKO and 13 by submission. He’s been knocked out three times (all in R1) and submitted once himself, and the only time he’s ever been to the judges ended in a 2019 draw against Mauricio Rua. Craig later finished Rua in the second round when they ran it back a year later. Craig has only seen the third round four times in 21 pro fights. Fourteen of his fights ended in the first round (11-3), three have ended in round two (3-0), and three more have ended in round three (2-1). All three of his fights that ended in round three, finished in the final 40 seconds, so we’ve seen multiple dramatic finishes in his fights, including a last second submission win over Magomed Ankalaev.
Overall, Craig fights like a Venus flytrap. He has no problem pulling guard and drawing opponents into his comfort zone off his back. He’s a BJJ black belt, and excels at throwing up armbars and triangle chokes. He’s never landed more than 51 significant strikes in a fight, and has only topped 31 once. Similarly, he has never absorbed more than 59 significant strikes in a match and only more than 25 twice. His unique style of offensive grappling off his back typically means he’s losing fights until he’s not, which leaves him reliant on landing finishes as it’s tougher for him to win rounds off his back. However, that has yet to be an issue for him as he never requires the judges.
Fight Prediction:
Craig will have a 1” height advantage, but Oezdemir will have a 1” reach advantage and is two years younger than the 34-year-old Craig.
While this is essentially your classic grappler versus striker matchup, Craig is a unique type of grappler who will not only look for traditional takedowns but also has no problem pulling guard. That makes him a tricky puzzle to crack as there are so many ways he can draw opponents into a grappling match. Craig hasn’t even needed to land a takedown in two of his last four finishes to lock up submissions off his back. While Oezdemir’s 80% takedown defense has been solid, even if it technically holds up, Oezdemir could find himself getting submitted from top position. While this fight has some trap vibes to it with Craig on a roll and Oezdemir coming off losses to two of the top guys in the Light Heavyweight division, we haven’t been very impressed with Oezdemir in a while, and the last time he faced a true jiu-jitsu fighter (Anthony Smith in 2018), he got submitted in the third round. While it’s possible Oezdemir lands something clean and knocks Craig out early, we still like Craig to find a way to get this fight to the ground and land a submission.
Our favorite bet here is “Craig ITD” at +180.
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DFS Implications:
Oezdemir has been a boom or bust DFS commodity, with monster DraftKings scores of 122, 120, and 127 in his three UFC KO wins, but just 67 and 70 points in his two decision victories. While Oezdemir has only landed one knockout in his last seven fights, he’s been facing really tough competition. Not that Craig isn’t a tough opponent, but he has been knocked out in the first round in three of his four losses, and if Oezdemir can somehow keep this fight standing he’ll have a massive advantage on the feet. Craig was also insanely 41% owned in his last fight in a similar spot to this, so Oezdemir will make for an interesting leverage play if we see ownership check in with similar numbers here. Overall, Oezdemir is a massive boom or bust play who will likely either get submitted or land a knockout. He faced two of the toughest Light Heavyweights in the world in his last two fights, so the fact that he looked bad in those fights is at least somewhat understandable. With that said, he hasn’t looked like the same guy he used to be so perhaps his best days are well behind him. Just keep in mind he’s still just 32 years old, two years younger than Craig. Long story long, Oezdemir is a KO or bust leverage play against the most popular three-round dog on the slate. The odds imply he has a 60% chance to win, a 41% chance to get a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
All 16 of Craig’s career wins, as well as his four losses have come early, so whoever wins typically scores well. With that said, Craig’s style of offensive grappling off his back means he’s not accruing any control time and often not officially landing takedowns to get there if he pulls guard as he sometimes does. He’s the rare type of grappler who actually scores better on FanDuel than DraftKings. While Craig has averaged 95 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, he only scored 69 points in his two third round finishes. He also failed to top 98 DraftKings points in three of his other early wins, and has only topped the century mark in three of his eight UFC finishes. The only two times he’s topped 103 points on DraftKings were when he faced a washed up 38-year-old Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua and scored 118 points and when he faced one of the worst Light Heavyweights we’ve ever seen in Vinicius Moreira and scored 119 points. While Oezdemir has been struggling lately, we’re not quite ready to put him in the wretched bin with those other guys, so Craig is less likely to hit that sort of ceiling. Oezdemir notably has an 80% takedown defense, and the only time he’s ever been taken down more than once in a fight was when Daniel Cormier took him down twice in a title fight. While we like Craig’s chances of landing a submission, his high ownership and history of oftentimes not putting up huge scores in early wins has us less excited about playing him in tournaments. Just keep in mind it’s tougher for him to fail on FanDuel than DraftKings. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 22% chance it comes early, and a 10% chance it occurs in round one.
Fight #5
Molly McCann
9th UFC Fight (5-3)Coming off her first early win in the UFC, McCann finished Luana Carolina with a spinning back elbow in the third round on the last London card. We’ve seen McCann struggle against solid grapplers, but she’s defeated everyone else she’s faced in the UFC.
In that recent win, McCann blitzed Carolina early, overwhelming her with punches and it looked like she might be working towards a first round finish. However, Carolina was able to survive the early attack and settle into the fight. McCann took her down twice in round two with three minutes of control time and the striking numbers were close in round three before McCann landed a perfectly placed spinning back elbow that knocked Carolina out cold midway through the round. McCann finished ahead in significant strikes 85-64 and in total strikes 99-76, while landing both of her takedown attempts and leading in control time 4:30-0:27.
Now 12-4 as a pro, McCann has five wins by KO and seven decisions. The only time she’s ever been finished was in a second round submission in her UFC debut against Gillian Robertson. Her last 11 fights have all made it to the second round, with nine going to round three, and eight ending in decisions. She had fought to six straight decisions (4-2) in between the submission loss to Robertson in her first UFC fight and the third round KO in her most recent one. All three of her UFC losses have come against grapplers in Lara Procopio, Taila Santos, and Gillian Robertson.
Overall, McCann brings a WWF vibe to the Octagon as she looks to put on a good show every time they lock her in the cage. She’s a high-volume striker who averages 5.83 SSL/min and 4.93 SS/min, and she also mixes in takedowns, averaging 1.8 takedowns landed per 15 minutes. Her biggest weaknesses are getting taken down herself and operating off her back, which is why she’s struggled so much against grapplers. When she faces strikers and has the luxury of standing and banging or looking for takedowns of her own, she’s never lost a UFC fight.
Hannah Goldy
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Coming off her first UFC win and also her first UFC fight up at 125 lb, Goldy lost a pair of decisions at 115 lb in her first two UFC appearances before moving up a weight class and landing a first round submission most recently. Prior to that early win, Goldy had fought to five straight decisions and her first seven pro fights had all seen the second round. One thing to note about Goldy’s recent move up to 125 lb, it came against Emily Whitmire, who was also moving up from 115 lb, so it was almost like a Catchweight match between two Strawweights. Now Goldy will face an actual Flyweight in her upcoming bout.
In her last fight, Goldy got taken down twice in the first round by Emily Whitmire on just two attempts and controlled for over three minutes in the short fight. After getting tripped to the mat for the second time and controlled for the next few minutes, Goldy slowly worked her guard towards the head of Whitmire until she was eventually able to swing her leg around and lock up an armbar. That’s the 5th time Whitmire has been submitted in her career and third in a row and she’s completely helpless when it comes to defending submissions.
Now 6-2 as a pro, Goldy has one win by KO, one by submission, and four decisions. Both of her losses also went the distance and she’s never been finished. With that said, she got dropped in the first round of her second most recent fight and looked close to getting finished.
Overall, Goldy is primarily a striker who relies heavily on kicks, but she has been incorporating more grappling recently. She didn’t attempt any takedowns in her UFC debut or her DWCS match, but landed two on six attempts in her second most recent fight and then landed the first submission of her career in an armbar off her back in her last fight. In fairness that came against one of the most submittable fighters on the roster in Emily Whitmire, who’s been submitted in all five of her career losses in just nine pro fights. Goldy’s first two UFC opponents didn’t try to take her down, but Whitmire was able to land both of her attempts, so we’ve yet to see Goldy successfully defend a takedown in the UFC. However, she defended four of the six attempts against her on DWCS which factors into her 50% career takedown defense.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’4” but McCann will have a 1” reach advantage.
Goldy likes to keep fights at kicking range, while McCann is an aggressive boxer who will consistently look to close the distance to try and fight in a phone booth. That could result in Goldy remaining on her back foot and circling away from McCann to try and keep her at bay, but we expect McCann to be able to cut her off and bring the fight to her. McCann will also likely look to get the fight to the ground at times and we believe she’s both the superior striker and wrestler. You can tell Goldy is strong just by looking at her, but she’s still very green and overall hasn’t been very impressive. The main question we have is whether McCann can be the first fighter to ever finish Goldy or if this ends in another decision. No one feeds off the London crowd more than McCann, so while she’s been a decision machine for most of her UFC career, we elevate her chances here to find a knockout. With that said, it’s still much more likely she wins a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “McCann DEC” at -130.
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DFS Implications:
McCann is coming off a career best DFS performance where she scored 110 DraftKings points in a third round KO win on the last London card. She feeds off the home crowd, which appears to raise her scoring potential as she came out in the last fight pushing a crazy pace. She’s a high-volume striker, who averages 5.83 SSL/min and this looks like a pretty decent matchup for her to land a good amount of volume as Goldy averages 4.85 SSA/min. McCann will also mix in takedowns to further boost her scoring potential. The dilemma we have is her high price tag, as she’ll need to outscore the majority of the other high priced fighters to end up in tournament winning lineups. While she showed that’s possible in her last fight, she had also fought to six straight decisions leading up to her recent third round KO victory and only topped 93 DraftKings points in one of those. She did score 109 points in a 2019 decision win where she landed five takedowns in addition to 113 significant strikes, so it’s certainly not impossible for her to return value without a finish, but it will take the perfect combination of striking and grappling to do so. More likely, she’ll need to hand Goldy the first early loss of her career to be useful in tournaments. The odds imply she has a 77% chance to win, a 24% chance to get a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Goldy scored 98 DraftKings points in her recent first round submission win after losing her first two UFC fights in decisions. She’s not all of a sudden a good grappler, she was just facing a helpless Emily Whitmire, so let’s keep the recent finish in the proper perspective. She showed the ability to land a good amount of striking volume and mix in takedowns in her previous decision loss to Diana Belbita, but McCann is easily the toughest opponent Goldy has faced since joining the UFC. It's hard to see the judges in England awarding Goldy a close decision win over the hometown hero in McCann, so Goldy will either need to land a finish or win decisively to pull off the massive upset. We don’t really see either one of those happening, but at her cheap price tag she would have the potential to serve as a value play even in a decision win if we’re wrong. McCann has never been knocked out and we don’t see Goldy subbing her, so the outlook for Goldy here is bleak. With that said, she’ll be incredibly low owned and crazy things happen all the time, which is really the only reason we’re even considering having any exposure. The odds imply she has a 23% chance to win, an 11% chance to get a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Nikita Krylov
16th UFC Fight (8-7)Looking to bounce back from a first round submission loss to Paul Craig, Krylov has now lost his last two, three of his last four, and four of his last six. In fairness to him, he’s been going against really tough competition with his last four losses coming against Paul Craig, Magomed Ankalaev, Glover Teixeira, and Jan Blachowicz. Krylov originally joined the UFC in 2013, but following a 2016 first round submission loss to Misha Cirkunov, Krylov parted ways with the UFC and fought his next four fights outside of the organization and then returned in 2018.
In his recent loss to Craig, Krylov came out of the gates firing and the two fighters quickly ended up on the mat with Krylov in top position. Krylov spent the next several minutes landing ground and pound and digging his forearm into Craig’s neck. However, everything changed in an instant as Craig threw up a lightning fast triangle and quickly forced a tap. The fight ended late in the first round with Krylov ahead 19-2 in significant strikes and 30-11 in total strikes, while also leading 3:49-0:02 in control time.
Now 27-9 as a pro, Krylov has 11 KOs, 15 submissions, and one decision win. He’s only been knocked out once in 38 pro fights, but he’s been submitted six times, and has two decision losses. Overall, 91.7% of his career fights have ended early. However, while Krylov has only been to three decisions in 36 pro fights, those all came in his last four fights. Six of his last seven fights have made it out of the first round, after 25 of his first 29 pro fights ended in round one. His last four early losses all ended in submissions, as did his last early win, and no one has been knocked out in one of his fights since 2018. Krylov started his career at Heavyweight, before dropping down to 205 lb following a 2014 R1 KO win over Walt Harris.
Overall, Krylov is a black belt in Kyokushin Karate and a Ukrainian Master of Sports in Army hand-to-hand combat and submission fighting. He’s a solid grappler and powerful striker, who tends to start strong but tires out later in fights. All 26 of his early wins have come in the first two rounds, while his lone KO loss occurred in round three. He’s also just 1-2 in decisions and overall he’s 1-3 in his career in fights that have lasted longer than 10 minutes. He’s still just 30 years old, but with 36 pro fights under his belt he has a lot of wear and tear on his body.
Alexander Gustafsson
18th UFC Fight (10-7)After fighting once a year from 2016 to 2020, it’s now been two years since Gustafsson last competed, when he moved up to Heavyweight and got submitted in the first round by Fabricio Werdum. He’s been forced to withdraw from numerous fights throughout his career as he’s dealt with a variety of injuries. He had been booked against Paul Craig back down at 205 lb in September 2021, but once again withdrew due to an injury. Then he was scheduled to face Ben Rothwell in May 2022 but the fight was scrapped when Rothwell was cut. Now Gustafsson will be booked back down at 205 lb in this next matchup.
Gustafsson has been finished in three straight fights and his last victory was a 2017 R5 KO win over Glover Teixeira. His only other win in his last seven fights came just before that in a 2016 three-round decision win over Jan Blachowicz. Over that seven fight stretch, Gustafsson got knocked out by Anthony Johnson, lost a five-round decision to Daniel Cormier, got knocked out in the third round by Jon Jones, and was submitted in the fourth round by Anthony Smith leading up to his recent first round submission loss to Werdum. In that last fight, Gustafsson got taken down a minute into the match, and after a brief scramble where he tried to escape he ended up with Werdum on his back. Werdum quickly transitioned to an armbar, and while Gustafsson fought it off for a little bit, it was just a matter of time and Werdum eventually locked it in and forced a tap.
Now 18-7 as a pro, Gustafsson has 11 wins by KO, three by submission, and four decisions. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted three times, and has two decision losses. His last two fights both ended in submission defeats and four of his last five losses have ended early. After a failed attempt at moving up to Heavyweight in his last fight, he’ll now move back down to 205 lb where he’s spent the rest of his career. Gustafsson fought for the Light Heavyweight belt three times, but came up short in each of those, with a pair of losses to Jon Jones and another to Daniel Cormier. While his last four fights have all ended early, five of his seven before that went the distance. With that said, 7 of his 10 UFC wins (70%) have come early, with three in round one, three in round two, and one in round five. He’s also been finished in five of his seven UFC losses (71%), with three submissions and two knockouts. Three of those ended in the first round, one ended in round three, and the other came in round four.
Overall, Gustafsson is primarily a striker with a boxing background but is also a BJJ purple belt. He utilizes a ton of movement and we generally don’t see huge amounts of striking volume in his fights as he averages 4.02 SSL/min and 3.42 SSA/min in his career. Those numbers have dropped to 3.69 SSL/min and 2.67 SSA/min in his last five fights and he’s never landed more than 76 significant strikes in a three-round fight or absorbed more than 59. He has an 83% takedown defense and has only been taken down 8 times on 49 attempts, with no opponent ever landing more than one against him. On the other side of things, he has a 39% takedown accuracy, landing 19 takedowns on 48 attempts in his 17 UFC fights. It’s rare to see him land more than one takedown in a fight, but he does have three multi-takedown performances in his career.
Fight Prediction:
Gustafsson will have a 2” height and reach advantage, while Krylov is five years younger than the 35-year-old Gustafsson.
Both of these two fighters have only one win in their last four outings and are desperate to get back on track. Krylov has been very prone to getting submitted in his career, with six of his nine pro losses coming by submission, but Gustafsson hasn’t submitted anybody since 2011 and isn’t a great grappler. Gustafsson has also looked prone to getting submitted lately, which is how he’s lost each of his last two fights. Krylov has 15 career submission wins, and it looks like a decent spot for him to extend that number to 16. While he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2019, he’s faced a series of really tough opponents so that’s not entirely surprising. Gustafsson hasn’t competed in two years, hasn’t won a fight since 2017, and is coming back down to Light Heavyweight after a failed experiment at Heavyweight in his last match. We’d be surprised if he found his old form here and we like Krylov to get the fight to the ground and either land a find a finish in the first two rounds or grind out a grappling-heavy decision win.
Our favorite bet here is Krylov’s ML at -190.
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DFS Implications:
Krylov has averaged 112 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins with at least 97 in each of those. All but one of his 27 career wins have come early, with all 26 of those finishes coming in the first two rounds. Now he’ll face an aging opponent who’s been finished in three straight fights, hasn’t competed in two years, and hasn’t won a fight in over five years. This looks like a good spot for Krylov to bounce back after losing two straight and three of his last four matches. However, there are some potential areas of concern. Gustafsson has an 83% takedown defense and no one has ever grounded him more than once in a fight. He’s also constantly moving and is a tougher guy to track down and this fight will take place in the larger cage. Gustafsson only averages 3.42 SSA/min in his career and no one has ever landed more than 59 significant strikes against him. Krylov also tends to slow down later in fights and is just 1-3 in his career in fights that have made it past the second round. The wildcard here is whether or not Gustafsson has gone off a cliff at this stage in his career. He’s 35 years old and has dealt with a variety of injuries over the years, so he has the potential to look somewhat decent or completely terrible. Krylov’s grappling heavy approach lends itself more towards the DraftKings scoring system, but his history of landing finishes makes him a solid play on both sites. The odds imply he has a 63% chance to win, a 39% chance it comes early, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.
Gustafsson tried to move up to Heavyweight for his last fight back in July 2020 and got submitted in the first round by a 42-year-old Fabricio Werdum. It’s now been two years since he competed as he moves back down to 205 lb where he spent the rest of his career. We’re not convinced he has much left in the tank at this stage in his career, but it’s always possible he surprises us and it’s hard to know exactly how he’ll look after so much time away. What we do know is that he’s been finished in three straight fights and hasn’t beaten anybody since 2017, which isn’t encouraging for his chances of beating a much younger grappler in this matchup. While it’s unrealistic to expect Gustafsson to completely turn back the clock here, he has notably averaged 105 DraftKings points in his 10 UFC wins, with 96 or more in all but one of those. However, his ability to score well has been tied to landing finishes and clusters of takedowns in two of his three decision wins. After getting submitted in his last two fights, it would be somewhat surprising if Gustafsson was looking to take Krylov down here, which leaves Gustafsson more reliant on landing a finish to score well, as he’s not a high-volume striker. While Krylov has been prone to getting submitted, he’s only been knocked out once in 36 pro fights and Gustafsson hasn’t submitted anybody since 2011. That leaves us skeptical regarding Gustafsson’s chances of getting an early win, and his most likely path to victory is to keep the fight standings and rely on his footwork to outland his way to a lower volume decision win. Even at his cheaper price tag, that’s unlikely to score enough to be useful and the one time Gustafsson won a three-round decision without landing multiple takedowns he scored just 77 DraftKings points. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 20% chance it comes early, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Paddy Pimblett
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Rolling in on a four fight winning streak where all four had first round finishes, Pimblett is just 2-0 in the UFC, but already one of the more polarizing characters on the roster. There are several holes in his game, but he’s been able to mask them with pure offense so far since joining the organization. He landed a first round KO win in his September 2021 UFC debut, though he faced some early adversity in that fight as he absorbed several big punches from Luigi Vendramini early on. Pimblett kept his chin high and his hands low. He got taken down a minute into the fight, but was able to return to his feet relatively quickly. Pimblett found his timing late in the round, and once he smelled blood, he really turned it on late and landed a knockout in the final minute of the round.
In his last fight, both guys came out swinging, which caused Pimblett to look for a takedown very early in round one. However, Vargas was able to stuff it and end up in top position. Two minutes into the round, Pimblett was able to work back up to his feet, but curiously, Vargas continued to push him up against the cage, volunteering to remain in the clinch. Pimblett made him pay for that decision as he tossed Vargas to the mat. Vargas gave up his back as he tried to return to his feet and Pimblett quickly wrapped up his neck and forced a tap. Vargas finished ahead 7-3 in significant strikes and 16-5 in total strikes in a short fight that played out almost entirely as a grappling match.
Now 18-3 as a pro, he has six wins by KO, eight by submission, and four decisions. He’s never been knocked out, with his only early loss ending in a 2013 first round submission in his fifth pro fight against a suspect Cameron Else, who has recently been finished in the first six minutes of both of his UFC fights. Since that early loss, Pimblett has gone 14-2 with both of those losses ending in five-round decisions in Cage Warriors Championship fights. The first of those was against UFC fighter Nad Narimani down at 145 lb. Following that 2017 loss, Pimblett moved up to 155 lb, where he won his first fight in a 2018 second round armbar submission. He then lost a 2018 five-round decision to Soren Bak for the vacant Cage Warriors Lightweight belt before landing four more finishes since. Pimblett actually started his career all the way down at 135 lb back in 2012 when he was just 17 years old. After going 6-1 at 135 lb, he moved up to 145 lb in 2014 in his eighth pro fight. He then went 7-1 in his next eight fights at 145 lb, before moving up to 155 lb in 2018 when he was 23 years old, where he’s since gone 5-1, with all five of those wins coming in under six minutes and the one loss ending in a five-round decision.
Pimblett easily could have lost another five-round decision to Julian Erosa back in 2016, but squeaked out the win, so he’s often struggled in five-round fights. Had the judges not ruled that one in his favor, he’d be 0-3 in five-round decisions and 1-3 in Cage Warriors title fights, as he landed a first round KO to win the belt just before facing Erosa. Of his 14 early wins, 11 have ended in round one with the other three coming in the first half of round two. He’s never landed a finish beyond the midway mark of round two. All six of his career knockouts have occurred in the first round and 11 of his last 13 wins have come early. Pimblett has lost his last two fights to make it past the six minute mark and that easily could have been three, so cardio is one potential concern with him.
Overall, Pimblett appears very undisciplined both inside and out of the Octagon, keeping his chin high and mouth stuffed during and after fights. He turns into a competitive eater once his fights are done, which is sure to eventually catch up with him and likely contributes to his cardio issues. He comes into every fight looking for a quick finish without much regard for his striking defense, and it’s also just a matter of time before that catches up with him as well.
Jordan Leavitt
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Coming off a close split-decision win over UFC newcomer Trey Ogden, Leavitt’s record looks decent on paper but it’s important to dig a little deeper. He made his debut against a 37-year-old Matt Wiman, who had lost two straight and three of his last four. Leavitt slammed Wiman to the mat 22 seconds into the first round knocking him unconscious in the process. One total strike was landed in the fight. After that, Leavitt suffered his first career loss in a sluggish grappling-heavy decision to Claudio Puelles, who was able to control Leavitt for most of the fight as he finished with 10 minutes of control time on four takedowns, while stuffing 5 of Leavitt’s 7 attempts. Leavitt bounced back from the loss with a second round submission win, but it came against a terrible Matt Sayles, who has zero grappling skills, was fighting up a weight class, and hadn’t competed in two years since getting pantsed by Bryce Mitchell in a first round twister submission loss.
In his last fight, Leavitt faced a debuting one-dimensional grappler in Trey Ogden and nearly got submitted late in the first round as Ogden locked in a guillotine choke. However, Leavitt survived as time expired and Ogden faded in the later rounds, landing only 16 significant strikes in round two and eight in round three. Leavitt went 0 for 3 on his takedown attempts in the fight, while Ogden went 1 for 4. Leavitt spammed leg kicks for basically the entire fight, with 52 of his 69 significant strikes landed coming by leg strike.
Now 10-1 as a pro, Leavitt has one victory by KO, six by submission, and three decisions. He’s never been finished, with his one loss also going the distance. His six submission wins have been split across the first two rounds and he’s fought to decisions against the two grapplers he’s faced so far in the UFC. He fought his first four pro fights at 145 lb, before moving up to 155 lb in February 2020 where he’s stayed since.
Overall, Leavitt is a former high-school wrestler and one-dimensional grappler, but showed that he’s at least trying to improve his striking as he added feeble leg kicks to his arsenal of attacks. He still hasn’t shown any sort of boxing skills and isn’t at all dangerous on the feet. Leavitt also hasn’t shown that he can outgrapple other grapplers. He’s landed just four takedowns on 18 attempts in his four UFC fights, and also landed his only attempt on DWCS, which is factored into his 26% takedown accuracy. However, we’ve actually seen his accuracy go down with each of his fights, and he landed just one of his last nine attempts over his last two matches. It’s only been three months since Leavitt last fought, so while he’s still just 27 years old and should be improving all the time, he hasn’t had a lot of time to get better since we last saw him.
Fight Prediction:
Pimblett will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
Seemingly the entire non-UK betting world is champing at the bit for the opportunity to bet against Pimblett, but first we need an opponent that can take advantage of the glaring weaknesses in his game—primarily his striking defense and cardio. Unfortunately this does not appear to be that opportunity. Leavitt has no striking to speak of and has never finished an opponent beyond the eight minute mark in a fight. Paddy can keep his chin as high as he wants and Leavitt is in no position to make him pay for it. We’ve also seen Leavitt struggle against other grapplers. Leavitt got taken down on all four of Claudio Puelles’ attempts and controlled for 10 minutes, while only landing two takedowns of his own on seven attempts. Leavitt then failed to land any of his three takedown attempts against Trey Ogden and nearly got submitted at the end of the first round. Sure, it’s possible that Leavitt can outlast Pimblett in terms of cardio and lay and pray his way to a decision win, but that’s probably his lone path to victory outside of landing some sort of hail mary submission and we don’t see that happening. Leavitt’s chin remains a mystery, as we’ve yet to see it really get tested, but we’d be surprised if it was great. We like the grappling of these two to largely cancel each other out and for Pimblett to knock Leavitt out in the first round and a half.
Our favorite bet here is “Paddy Pimblett R1 or R2 Win” at +115.
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DFS Implications:
Pimblett’s reckless uptempo striking combined with his solid grappling ability and history of early finishes is the perfect recipe for DFS success. He’ll also get to fight in front of his home English crowd for the second straight time, and will likely be looking for a highlight reel finish after coming away somewhat disappointed with the first round submission win in his last fight. While Leavitt has never been finished in his career, he also hasn’t really been tested as the level of competition he’s faced so far has been low. The UFC wants nothing more than to build Pimblett up and this is another low-risk matchup for him against an opponent with no ability to expose his poor striking defense. Leavitt has also given us no indication that he can win a competitive grappling battle and has struggled with his takedown accuracy (26%). We expect Pimblett will look to keep this one standing to try and land a knockout, however, if he can’t land a finish early we could definitely see him gas out in the back half of the fight. He’s never finished an opponent beyond the midway mark of round two. At his high price tag, an early second round finish could also leave him on the outside looking in when it comes to tournament winning lineups, so he’s still largely reliant on putting Leavitt away in round one. The odds imply he has a 70% chance to win, a 49% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Leavitt has failed to top 86 DraftKings points in his last two wins and now steps into the toughest matchup of his career inside of enemy territory. His first four UFC fights, as well as his DWCS match, all took place at the Apex in Las Vegas, and this will be his first time fighting in front of a crowd in the UFC. That adds some uncertainty as to how he’ll handle the pressure. His chin also remains an unknown, as he’s yet to face a decent striker in the UFC and hasn’t had to absorb any really big shots yet. He’s relied on his grappling to get him this far, but did begin to utilize leg strikes more in his last match. He’s still very raw on his feet and doesn’t pose any sort of threat that we’ve seen with his hands. Leavitt has also struggled to get his ground game going against other grapplers, getting taken down four times and controlled for 10 minutes by Claudio Puelles and failing to land any of his three takedowns against Trey Ogden. We’d be surprised if he was able to come in and dominate Pimblett on the mat, although it’s certainly possible he finds some late success with that if Pimblett gasses out as he’s been prone to doing. Leavitt scored just 78 DraftKings points in his recent decision win, and even at his cheaper price tag he’ll either need a finish or a stronger grappling performance in a decision to be useful. He’s still a better play on DraftKings than FanDuel and looks like a submission or bust FanDuel play. We’re not overly excited about Leavitt here and there’s more of a chance the fight busts than Leavitt scores well if you’re looking for a contrarian stand against Pimblett. The odds imply Leavitt has a 30% chance to win, a 16% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Chris Curtis
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Continuing to treat UFC opponents like blind dates, Curtis has shown he’s willing to step into any matchup on a moment’s notice. This time, he’s filling in on two and a half week’s notice for Darren Till, who’s really struggled to make it to fights in recent years.
Curtis is less than a month removed from a decision win over Rodolfo Vieira and will be making his fourth UFC appearance in the past eight months going back to his November 2021 debut. In his first two UFC appearances, which were spaced just four weeks apart, Curtis landed back-to-back short notice knockouts as a sizable dog against tough opponents, in Phil Hawes and Brendan Allen. Curtis has won eight straight fights, with six of those wins ending in knockouts. He originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but despite landing a third round KO he was not awarded a contract.
In his last fight, Curtis stepped into a seemingly daunting matchup against a world champion grappler in Rodolfo Vieira, but appeared in complete control throughout the fight. Vieira pathetically went 0 for 20 on his takedown attempts, as Curtis did an exceptional job of refusing to get taken down. Neither guy ever looked close to finishing the fight, as Vieira went to the judges for the first time in his career. Curtis finished ahead in significant strikes 109-86 and in total strikes 128-90.
Now 29-8 as a pro, the 35-year-old Curtis has 16 wins by KO, one by submission, and 12 decisions. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has six decision losses. That lone KO loss came in a night he fought twice in the PFL playoffs in 2019 while his one submission loss dates all the way back to 2011. Overall, he’s been extremely durable. While he’s landed two first round knockouts in his last six fights, those are the only two of his fights out of his last 20 to end in round one, and he’s generally looking to put guys away in the later rounds. While he’s been fighting exclusively at 185 lb in the UFC, where this next fight will also be, Curtis has bounced around weight classes in the past and spent much of his career down at 170 lb. He’s also fought as high as 205 lb. His last fight before joining the UFC was at 170 lb but he seems content with staying at 185 lb.
Overall, Curtis is primarily a boxer and relies on his hands to win fights. While he has yet to attempt a takedown in the UFC and doesn’t offer much of anything in terms of offensive grappling, his takedown defense has been perfect, stuffing all 26 of the attempts against him so far in three UFC fights. He’s built like a tank and has looked extremely durable. He’s been in several five round fights in the past and conditioning isn’t really a concern for him, despite the fact that he jumps into so many short notice matchups. Throughout his career he’s made a habit out of quick turnarounds with solid results, so taking this fight on short notice and in a quick turnaround is nothing new for him.
Jack Hermansson
15th UFC Fight (9-5)Looking to bounce back from a five-round decision loss to Sean Strickland, Hermansson has alternated wins and losses for his last six fights and hasn't lost two in a row since 2012-2013. Prior to his recent loss, he won a three-round decision over Edmen Shahbazyan, after losing another five-round decision to Marvin Vettori. Before that he landed a first round heel hook submission on Kelvin Gastelum just after getting knocked out in the second round of a 2019 fight by Jared Cannonier. While four of his last six fights have gone the distance, including three five-rounders, seven of his first eight UFC fights ended early.
In his recent five-round decision loss, Hermansson was unable to get Sean Strickland to the ground on eight failed attempts. Because of that, the fight stayed in Strickland’s comfort zone on the feet where he could slowly pick Hermansson apart with his jab. Strickland finished ahead in significant strikes 153-137 and in total strikes 161-137, while also landing the more impactful blows.
Now 22-7 as a pro, Hermansson has 11 wins by KO, six by submission, and five decisions. Ten of those early wins occurred in the first round, one ended in round two, five were stopped in round three, and one came in round four. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted two more times, and has three decision losses in his career. The only fighters to knock him out are Jared Cannonier and Thiago Santos, who have both spent time up at 205 lb and are known for their power. His submission losses occurred earlier in his career, in 2013 and 2016.
All three of his TKO wins in the UFC resulted from heavy ground and pound earlier in his career in a four-fight stretch from 2017 to 2018. Two of those TKOs came in round one and the other ended in round three. His last three finishes all ended in first round submissions, and he also owns three UFC decision wins.
Whether it’s through his submission game or via ground and pound, Hermansson generally finishes his opponents on the mat and is less of a threat on the feet. The only time he’s won a UFC fight without landing a takedown is when he landed an early first round heel hook against Kelvin Gastelum in 2020. Overall, he’s 1-3 in UFC fights where he’s failed to land at least one takedown, but 8-2 when he does land one or more. Now he’ll face an opponent who has yet to be taken down in three fights with the organization.
Fight Prediction:
Hermansson will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
A training partner of Sean Strickland, who defeated Hermansson in a February 2022 five-round decision, Curtis should be more prepared than most to fight Hermansson on short notice. Hermansson relies on landing takedowns to win fights, which makes this a tough matchup for him as Curtis has yet to be taken down on 26 attempts from his opponents in his three UFC fights. While Hermansson has much more UFC experience, Curtis is actually a year older and has eight more pro fights than Hermansson. If Curtis can keep this fight standing, which we think he can, we pick him to either land a knockout or more likely win a close decision.
Our favorite bet here is Curtis’ ML at -110.
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DFS Implications:
Curtis finally saw some regression in terms of his DFS production in his last fight, which ended in a decision win that scored just 78 DraftKings points. This was followed by a pair of early knockouts in his first two UFC matches that were good for 109 and 106 points. Curtis has historically relied on his durability and power to knock opponents out in the later rounds, with 8 of his last 10 knockouts coming beyond the first round. With no grappling to boost his scoring, Curtis is entirely reliant on landing knockouts to score well, and later round knockouts still have the potential to bust depending on the timing and amount of volume behind them. Hermansson has only averaged 3.83 SSA/min in his career and no one has ever landed more than 40 significant strikes on him in a three-round fight in his UFC career. Hermansson has also only been knocked out twice in 29 pro fights and both of those came against power punches in Jared Cannonier and Thiago Santos, who have both spent time at 205 lb. He’s been pretty durable for the majority of his career and this could be a tougher spot for Curtis to find a finish. The odds imply Curtis has a 50% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Hermansson has typically scored well when he wins, as he’s averaged 107 DraftKings points in his nine UFC victories. However, he’s just 2-3 in his last five fights. Six of his UFC wins have come early, while three ended in decisions. His two three-round decision wins were good for 97 and 83 DraftKings points, showing a decent floor, but an unspectacular ceiling in fights that go the distance. He relies heavily on landing takedowns to both win fights and score well. Working against him, he’s now going against the 100% takedown defense of Chris Curtis, who has stuffed all 26 of the attempts against him so far in the UFC. It’s not like those attempts were coming from bums, as Curtis shut down three straight solid wrestlers/grapplers in Phil Hawes, Brendan Allen, and Rodolfo Vieira. Those three fighters entered their matchups against Curtis with career takedown accuracies of 38%, 45%, and 52% respectively. Hermansson’s career takedown accuracy is just 30%. Notably, Hermansson is just 1-3 in UFC fights where he’s failed to land at least one takedown, but 8-2 when he does land one or more, and his lone win where he failed to land a takedown ended in a quick first round heel hook that still scored just 91 DraftKings points. The likelihood that Hermansson struggles to get this fight to the ground has us much lower on him and he has a higher chance than normal to bust in a win. The odds imply Hermansson has a 50% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #1
Tom Aspinall
6th UFC Fight (5-0)Fighting in front of his home crowd in London for the second straight time, Aspinall enters this matchup on an eight fight winning streak. All of the wins have ended in under seven minutes, including seven in the first round. He faced some really soft competition in his first two UFC fights, landing first round knockouts against Jake Collier and Alan Baudot, but has since finished three straight veterans and finished them all. He’s the only fighter to finish Arlovski since 2019, putting away the veteran with an early second round submission. He then knocked out Sergey Spivak in the first round, followed by a first round submission of Volkov in his last fight. The only grappler Aspinall has faced so far in the UFC, Spivak was unable to take Aspinall down on either of his two takedown attempts and failed to land a single strike in the match.
In his last match, Aspinall took Volkov down 45 seconds into the first round. After a minute and a half of taking damage on his back, Volkov was able to return to his feet, but Aspinall took him down again a minute later. It didn’t take long for Aspinall to lock up a straight armbar and force a tap. Aspinall controlled all aspects of the fight and finished ahead in significant strikes 29-13 and in total strikes 35-13, while landing both of his takedown attempts with nearly two minutes of control time.
Now 12-2 as a pro, Aspinall has nine wins by KO and three by submission. He’s never been to a decision or even seen the third round. Eleven of his 12 wins have come in round one, with his other ending 69 seconds into round two. Both of his losses also occurred in the second round, with the first of those coming in 2015 by heel hook in his fourth pro fight, and the other from a 2016 DQ for a downward elbow. He’s never been knocked out. After turning pro in 2014, Aspinall would likely have more MMA fights on his record, but he tried his hand at boxing in 2017. He later returned to MMA in 2019.
Overall, Aspinall is known for his knockout ability, but he’s also a BJJ black belt who can always fall back on his grappling when he needs it. He’s only had to defend two takedowns so far in the UFC, and he stuffed both of those against Sergey Spivak. While he has a 100% takedown defense, we haven’t seen it tested much. With 9 of his 12 wins taking 95 seconds or less and all 12 ending in the opening seven minutes of fights, the biggest question mark with Aspinall is his cardio. We thought we might see that get tested in his last fight, but Aspinall finished the fight too quickly for that to happen. Now his cardio will really be tested if he doesn’t land a first round finish, as he squares off against a relentless wrestler.
This will be the second five-round fight of Aspinall’s career, with his recent first round win over Volkov being his first. However, it’s never mattered in the past how long his fights have been scheduled to go as he’s never been in one that lasted longer than nine minutes. He’s just 1-2 in fights that have made it out of the first round, so it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.
Curtis Blaydes
16th UFC Fight (11-3, NC)Coming off a second round knockout of Chris Daukaus, Blaydes has won six of his last seven matches and two in a row since getting violently knocked out by Derrick Lewis in February 2021. Blaydes bounced back from the loss with a largely uneventful three-round decision win over Jairzinho Rozenstruik in September 2021. Blaydes was able to take Rozenstruik down once in each of the three rounds and finished with three takedowns on six attempts. Rozenstruik notably landed a big flying knee in round two that damaged Blaydes’ right eye, but Blaydes responded by immediately taking him down. Things would have gotten very interesting with the doctor if the fight had been scheduled to go five rounds as it was essentially swollen shut by the end of round three. That’s the same eye that forced his first fight against Francis Ngannou to be stopped following the second round and appears to be an ongoing point of concern with him.
In his recent win, Blaydes came in looking to make a statement that he’s not just a wrestler as he declined to attempt a takedown for the first time in 15 UFC fights after landing 62 on 115 attempts in his first 14 UFC appearances. Blaydes outlanded Daukaus 30-13 in striking and dropped him early in round two and immediately forced a stoppage with ground and pound.
Now 16-3 as a pro, Blaydes has 11 wins by TKO and five decision victories. His last nine KO/TKO wins all came in rounds two and three, after he won his first two pro fights with first round TKOs. Seven of his early wins ended in round two, with two finishing in round three. That doesn’t even include a 2017 R2 TKO win that was overturned when Blaydes tested positive for pot. All three of his losses have ended in KO/TKOs, with one coming in the second round against Derrick Lewis and the other two against Francis Ngannou. The UFC didn’t do Blaydes any favors in his 2016 UFC debut, pairing him up against Ngannou right off the bat. The fight was stopped following the second round by the doctor after Blaydes’ eye swelled shut. The two would run it back in 2018 and that time Ngannou finished Blaydes’ just 45 seconds into the first round. The loss against Lewis came early in round two and all three of Blaydes’ losses ended in 10 minutes or less. If we include the TKO win that was later overturned to a No Contest, amazingly 10 of Blaydes’ 20 pro fights have ended in R2 KO/TKOs (8-2).
Overall, Blaydes is a relentless wrestler who owns the UFC record for the most takedowns landed in a Heavyweight fight at 14. He’s gone 8-1 in UFC fights when he’s landed at least one takedown, but just 3-2 when he’s failed to land any. With zero submission attempts, let alone wins, Blaydes is not a submission threat on the mat. His goal is to get opponents down and then smash them with punches and heavy elbows as he looks for ground and pound finishes,
This will be the 6th five-round fight of his career. The first came in 2018 and Blaydes got knocked out by Francis Ngannou in 45 seconds. The second was in 2020 and Blaydes landed a second round knockout of his own against Junior dos Santos. The only time Blaydes has made it to the championship round came in his third five-round fight, when he set the Heavyweight takedown record against Alexander Volkov and looked like he was ready to die of exhaustion by the end as he limped down the stretch to a decision win. He followed that up with a second round KO loss to Derrick Lewis, and then most recently landed a second round knockout of his own to bring his five-round record to 3-2. Overall, three of his last four five-round fights have ended in second round knockouts (2-1), while he’s also been the full 25 minutes once and was knocked out in the first round of his first headliner.
Fight Prediction:
Aspinall will have a 1” height advantage, but Blaydes will have a 2” reach advantage.
Blaydes hasn’t faced many opponents who offer much in terms of grappling, so it will be interesting to see how the wrestling exchanges go here if the fight makes it that long. As a BJJ black belt, Aspinall has shown the ability to land takedowns and finish fights on the mat either through ground and pound or by submission, but he’s not a wrestler like Blaydes. We’ve yet to see Aspinall get taken down or operate off his back in the UFC, so that part of his game remains a mystery. Aspinall has faster hands if things stay on the feet, but Blaydes showed he has solid power in his last fight and certainly isn’t helpless when it comes to striking. Nevertheless, he’s shown he’s more comfortable on the mat and he’ll likely be in trouble if he can’t get it there. With Aspinall’s cardio and defensive wrestling remaining more or less of a mystery, things could get interesting if Blaydes can get him down and force him to fight beyond the first round. With that said, we’ve seen Blaydes’ eye swell up badly at multiple points in his career and he was completely exhausted by the end of his only fight to go to the championship rounds, so he has his own late-round concerns as well. Between Aspinalls’ striking advantage and submission skills, we like him to find another finish in the first two rounds, most likely by R1 KO, but this looks like a great test for both fighters.
Our favorite bet here is “Aspinall R1, R2 or R3 Win” at +190.
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DFS Implications:
Aspinall has been a scoring machine, as he’s finished all five of his UFC opponents in seven minutes or less, with four of those ending in round one. He has averaged 110 DraftKings points in those five wins, with four scores of 103 or more. The only time he failed to top 100 points was in an early second round submission over Andrei Arlovski that scored “just” 95 points. The one big question that remains with him is his cardio, as he’s never been to a third round and is just 1-2 in fights that have made it to round two. Now he’ll face a wrestler in Blaydes who should put that cardio to the test if we don’t see a finish in the first round. With that said, Blaydes has been knocked out in the first two rounds in all three of his pro losses, so this sets up as a good spot for Aspinall to land another finish. We also haven’t seen Aspinall have to operate off his back, as he’s defended the only two takedowns against him so far in the UFC. Notably, he is a BJJ black belt, but he’s also English so it’s tougher to trust his wrestling. At his cheaper price tag, it’s hard to see Aspinall getting left out of tournament winning lineups with a win, but if you’re looking for ways this fight fails, there’s always a slight chance he gets an early second round finish without a knockdown/takedown and gets outscored if this slate ends up being higher scoring. The odds imply he has a 55% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish, and a 15% chance it comes in round one.
Blaydes has shown the ability to put up other worldly scores, like the 173 point DraftKings total he notched against Alexander Volkov in 2020. However, he scored just 92 and 82 DraftKings points in his last two early wins, both by R2 TKO, so he’s shown a wide range of scoring outcomes. Aspinall is a tough test for Blaydes, as he’s more of a well rounded fighter than most of the guys Blaydes has beaten and is also very quick. It’s always tougher to predict how wrestling exchanges will go when you have two guys that can grapple, especially in this case where we’ve yet to see Aspinall operate off his back or get taken down in the UFC. That adds a decent amount of uncertainty here and makes it a little trickier to predict how this fight will play out. Blaydes has gone 3-2 in his career when he has failed to land a takedown and didn’t top 92 DraftKings points in any of those fights. At his cheaper price tag, it’s tougher for him to fail and he doesn’t need to put up a monster score to end up in tournament winning lineups, but there are still ways he wins and gets left out. The odds imply Blaydes has a 45% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter @dfs_mma with your winnings so we can see how you did!
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