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Fighter Notes:
Fight #13
Luis Saldana
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off a decision loss to Austin Lingo, Saldana arguably should be 0-2 in the UFC, but won/stole a close decision over Jordan Griffin in his UFC debut. In that fight, Saldana took the early striking lead but was then taken down twice to close out the first round. That continued into round two as Griffin dominated Saldana on the mat and looked seconds away from finishing him with a rear-naked choke but Saldana was saved by the bell. We didn’t see much happen in the third round as Griffin led just 11-8 in significant strikes, but a failed submission attempt resulted in Saldana spending a minute and a half in top position before Griffin was able to reverse the position and finish the fight on Saldana’s back. The fight ended with Saldana ahead 36-33 in significant strikes and 40-39 in total strikes, while Griffin landed 4 of his 7 takedown attempts and amassed over six minutes of control time. It was strange that the judges all gave Saldana both the close first and third rounds as both of those seemed like coin flips at best for Saldana. We thought Griffin clearly won the fight. Saldana’s corner told him he was going through an adrenaline dump and he certainly looked to be slowing down after the first round, which has now become a trend that we’ve seen in both of his UFC fights.
In his more recent decision loss to Lingo, the overall striking numbers were again close with Saldana actually ahead in significant strikes 77-73 and in total strikes 81-74. However, while Saldana led in striking in round one, Lingo led in the later rounds and also landed a knockdown from a body shot late in round three. Lingo foolishly went to the mat with him opposed to immediately making him stand up or else the fight may have been stopped. Instead he got tied up on the mat and let the clock run out. Saldana hurt his foot in the first round of that fight and then faded hard down the stretch. It’s hard to know what impact the injury had on that but he’s now faded late in both of his UFC fights.
Prior to his two UFC fights, Saldana landed an early R3 KO win on DWCS in November 2020, which was his fourth straight early win at the time. Saldana dominated the striking in that fight as he finished ahead 77-13 in significant strikes with neither fighter attempting a takedown.
Saldana is now 15-7 as a pro, with 14 of his wins ending early, including nine KOs and five submissions. Three of his seven losses have also come early, with one KO and two submissions. The KO loss came against Mike Santiago, who later went on to fight in the UFC, but went 0-3 before being released. Both of Saldana’s submission losses ended in rear-naked chokes, one in the third round of a 2015 match and the other in the first round of a 2012 fight. Despite all of the finishes, 12 of Saldana’s last 14 fights have made it out of the first round.
Saldana lost his right index finger in a freak accident at work, which may have some effect on the impact of his punches from that right hand, which is notably his power hand. Overall, Saldana is primarily a striker who likes to throw a ton of kicks. He’s shown questionable cardio in his first two UFC fights and has only appeared dangerous in the first round. With that said, his last three wins prior to joining the UFC all came in the later rounds, so maybe he’s just been dealing with adrenaline dumps as we’ve heard his corner mention. His last two early losses both occurred in round three, and he was nearly finished in the third round of his last fight. He hasn’t been facing much in terms of competition and overall does not appear like he’ll last long in the UFC.
Bruno Souza
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Looking to bounce back from a decision loss in his recent short notice UFC debut, Souza came into the UFC on a 10 fight winning streak with his only other career loss coming in another decision in his 2016 pro debut. After taking his recent debut on short notice, Souza missed weight by 2.4 lb. He was also taking on an extremely dangerous striker in Melsik Baghdasaryan, so overall he had a lot working against him. Baghdasaryan finished ahead in significant strikes 75-46 and 77-47 in total strikes, while Souza went 0 for 4 on his takedown attempts. A karate style fighter, Souza was mostly content with circling away from contact, but finally got a little more aggressive in the third round to try and save face in a fight he was clearly losing.
Seven of Souza’s last eight fights have ended in either decisions (6) or DQs (1). Three of those decisions were split, and Souza has been involved in numerous close fights. His only finish during that stretch was a 2020 R2 TKO win over an opponent who’s lost three of his last four fights and has been knocked out in his last two. That’s the only time Souza has won by KO/TKO in his career, although he also has two submission wins on his record, although those were back in his second and fourth pro fights. Now 10-2 as a pro, he also has one win by DQ, while his other six wins have ended in decisions. He’s never been finished and both of his losses went the distance.
Overall, nothing stands out as exceptional with him and he doesn’t look like much of a threat to finish fights early. His defensive karate stance generally slows down fights and lowers the chances for either him or his opponent to land a finish. He has a black belt in karate and is a BJJ brown belt, but he hasn’t shown much in terms of grappling. He’s generally looking to point his way to close decision wins and focuses more on avoiding damage than inflicting it.
Fight Prediction:
Saldana will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
Neither one of these two have done anything to impress us, but Souza appears to be the more defensively sound of the two. While Saldana has proven himself to be a finisher outside of the UFC, we’ve yet to see it inside of the Octagon and he’s only even remotely looked dangerous in the first five minutes of fights. That should allow Souza to take over in the later rounds and point his way to victory with a slight chance for a late finish if Saldana really gasses out. With that said, we expect Souza to win a low-volume decision here.
Our favorite bet here is “Souza Wins by Decision” at +175.
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DFS Implications:
Saldana scored just 54 DraftKings points in a decision win in his debut and just 34 points in a decision loss in his most recent fight. He’s been unimpressive outside of a few body kicks and he tends to fade hard after the first round. Now he squares off against a defensively minded karate style fighter who’s never been finished and this looks like a terrible matchup for Saldana to score well even if he does win, which we don’t think he will. The betting line supports that belief as it flipped against him after he opened the week as a slight favorite, but is now a slight underdog. That should keep his ownership lower on DraftKings, which is one of the few things he has going for him. The only other reason for optimism is that all 14 of his pre-UFC wins came early, so he did at least show constant finishing ability prior to joining the UFC. The odds imply he has a 49% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Souza’s karate style of fighting is toxic for DFS and he landed just 46 significant strikes in a decision loss in his recent UFC debut, while going 0 for 4 on his takedown attempts against a one-dimensional striker. While this looks like a much more favorable spot for Souza to succeed, we still expect that to result in a lower scoring decision win as Souza points his way to victory. There is a slight chance that Saldana gasses out and allows Souza to land a late finish, but Souza has just a single early win in his last seven victories and is generally a decision machine. He is notably underpriced after the line flipped in his favor, so he makes sense as a cash play as a mispriced favorite and that’s likely where he will be the most popular. The odds imply he has a 51% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
David Dvorak
4th UFC Fight (3-0)After losing decisions in two of his first four UFC fights, Dvorak has been on an absolute tear, winning 18 of his last 19 matches and now on a 16 fight winning streak. He hasn’t lost a match since 2012, when he suffered the only early loss of his career in a R2 TKO. He owns a 20-3 pro record, with eight wins by KO, eight by submission, and four decisions. While two of his three UFC fights have gone the distance, he landed 13 straight finishes just before joining the organization. All 16 of his career finishes have come in the first two rounds, with 10 ending in round one and six ending in round two.
He’s coming off his first early win in the UFC, which came against short notice replacement Juancamilo Ronderos. Dvorak had originally been scheduled to face Raulian Paiva, but Paiva was forced to withdraw due to a botched weight cut, so Juancamilo Ronderos was announced as the last minute replacement just as weigh-ins began. Dvorak made short work of Ronderos, finishing him in just 138 seconds with a one armed rear-naked choke. Ronderos was making his UFC debut on extremely short notice and doesn’t appear to be a UFC level talent, so obviously the win should be taken with a grain of salt, but Dvorak continues to defeat everyone they put in front of him.
Prior to that finish, Dvorak won a pair of decisions in his first two UFC fights. The most recent of those came against Jordan Espinosa, where Dvorak focussed on chewing up the lead leg of Espinosa as he landed a ridiculous 30 leg strikes. The fight played out entirely on the feet with each fighter failing on their only takedown attempt. Dvorak finished ahead in significant strikes 68-50 in a slower paced tactical striking battle.
In his prior UFC debut against Bruno Silva, Dvorak finished with similar stats, coming out ahead 67-45 in significant strikes and again going 0 for 1 on takedowns. He was however forced to defend multiple takedowns in that match, as Silva shot for 11 attempts, but landed just three.
Dvorak is a very calculated fighter, who is more focused on winning opposed to landing finishes, but clearly has the ability to end fights both on the feet or the mat. He’s more of an opportunistic finisher and if it’s there he’ll go for it but he’s far less likely to sell out for it. He’s notably coming off elbow surgery that kept him out for a little while, but he said in a recent interview that it only caused him to miss training for a month. He also mentioned that he recently signed a new four-fight UFC contract, so despite this being his fourth UFC fight, he’s already gotten the contract taken care of. Despite half of his career finishes coming by submission, Dvorak has yet to land a takedown in the UFC on just two attempts.
Matheus Nicolau
7th UFC Fight (5-1)Coming off a pair of close decision wins in 2021, Nicolau has now won four straight since being released from the UFC in 2018. After the first two of those wins, the UFC brought him back in 2021, and he’s squeaked out two decisions since his return. The most recent of those came against veteran grifter Tim Elliott, who was only able to land one of his 10 takedown attempts on Nicolau. Overall, the stats were close in the fight, with Elliott leading in significant strikes 70-64, but Nicolau ahead in total strikes 128-105. Both fighters landed one takedown, although Elliott on nine attempts, while Nicolau only shot once. Control time was also similar, with Elliott leading 2:28-2:08, however, all three judges agreed that Nicolau did enough to win a unanimous 29-28 decision. Elliot won the first round, but Nicolau narrowly outlanded him in round two and then landed a takedown with two minutes of control time in round three that likely decided the fight.
Just prior to that win, Nicolau faced Manel Kape, who stepped in on short notice after fighting in his UFC debut just a month earlier. Nicolau did a good job of controlling Kape as he landed 2 of his 3 takedowns in the first round with two and half minutes of control time. Just as he did in his UFC debut, Kape started slow, as Nicolau led in significant strikes just 7-2 in the first round. Kape bounced back in the second round as he led in strikes and defended all three of Nicolau’s second round takedown attempts, but the third round was a close striking battle and two of the three judges thought Nicolau did enough to win a split-decision. The fight ended with Kape leading in significant strikes 61-55, while Nicolau led in total strikes 76-73 and went 2 for 9 on his takedown attempts with two and a half minutes of control time. Both guys had their moments in the fight and the decision could have gone either way, but Kape was shocked it didn’t go in his favor and to this day swears he 100% won the fight.
A BJJ black belt, Nicolau holds a 17-2-1 pro record and has won 10 of his last 11 fights, with his last three and 5 of his last 7 going the distance. He has four wins by KO, five by submission, and eight decisions. He’s only finished one opponent since 2015 and that came outside of the UFC. His last two early wins both ended in Japanese necktie submissions, and he hasn’t knocked anyone out since 2014. Both of his losses have come by round one KO and he’s yet to lose a decision.
After originally joining the UFC at just 22 years old in 2015, Nicolau fought just four times from 2015-2018. Despite owning a 3-1 record, he was curiously released from the organization in 2019 following his first UFC loss in a 2018 R1 KO. A large part of why Nicolau fought just four times in four years in his first stint with the UFC is that he tested positive for PEDs in October 2016 and was suspended for a year. His only finish in the UFC came in a third round submission in his UFC debut, and his last four UFC wins have all gone the distance, with two of those ending in split-decisions.
Following his release, Nicolau signed with Future FC and won his next fight with a first round submission in May 2019 and then followed it up with a decision victory in August 2019. We then didn’t see him compete for 19 months following a few cancellations in 2020 and early 2021, before he made his return to the UFC in March 2021 against Manel Kape.
Nicolau has fought at both 125 lb and 135 lb in his career. He made his UFC debut at 135 lb where he landed his only UFC finish, before dropping down to 125 lb after that. He did move back up to 135 lb for his two fights outside of the UFC in 2019, but dropped back down to 125 lb when he returned and that’s where he’s stayed.
Fight Prediction:
Nicolau will have a 1” height advantage, but Dvorak will have a 2” reach advantage.
Both of these two are well rounded fighters and will be jockeying for position in the top 10 of the Flyweight division, as Nicolau comes in ranked #7, while Dvorak is currently ranked #10. Honestly that section of the rankings is pretty soft, with guys like Rogerio Bontorin, Matt Schnell, and Time Elliott just sort of hanging around. We’ve been more impressed by Dvorak than any of those other guys, including Nicolau, but this will be his chance to prove it. Nicolau just barely won his last two fights and was knocked out in the first round of his third most recent UFC match, while Dvorak has won 16 straight and hasn’t lost a match since 2012. Both fighters appear content with fighting to decisions, although they’ve each also demonstrated finishing ability in the past. Still, we’d be somewhat surprised to see this fight end early and like Dvorak to win a close decision.
Our favorite bet here is Dvorak’s ML at -120.
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DFS Implications:
Dvorak’s calculated approach has been great for his record, but less beneficial in DFS. Neither guy in this matchup has landed more than 68 significant strikes in their last three fights, and Dvorak has yet to land a takedown in the UFC. This won’t be the best time to land his first either, as Nicolau is a BJJ black belt. That will likely leave Dvorak reliant on landing a knockout to score well and he scored just 58 and 74 DraftKings points in his two decision wins. Working in his favor, Nicolau has been knocked out in the first round in both of his pro losses, but the last one of those occurred back in 2018 and he doesn’t appear overly prone to getting finished. This fight likely ends in a lower volume decision, and while we like Dvorak to win, we don’t see him returning value if that’s how the fight plays out. However, with the line moving against him, we could see Dvorak’s ownership come in lower than it should. And while it’s more likely than not that this fight goes the distance, Dvorak’s history of finishes and lower ownership make him an interesting tournament play. The odds imply he has a 52% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
While Nicolau had two big DraftKings scores earlier in his career, he totalled just 77 and 71 points in his recent two decision victories and also scored just 50 points in a 2016 decision. In his one decision to score well back in 2017, he amazingly landed three knockdowns in the first round against Louis Smolka to go along with two takedowns and a decent number of strikes and control time to score 122 DraftKings points and 139 points on FanDuel. He similarly landed two knockdowns and three takedowns in his 2015 UFC debut to score 117 DraftKings points and 135 FanDuel points in a third round submission victory. However, it’s been five years since he put up a usable DFS score and he appears to have settled into fighting to slower paced decisions with occasional submission attempts mixed in. There’s still a chance he could serve as a value play at his cheaper price tag even if this fight does go the distance, but he’ll more likely need a finish to put up a big score. The only time Dvorak has ever been finished was all the way back in 2012, which was also the last time he lost a fight. The line move in Nicolau’s favor will likely boost his ownership up, which makes him a less appealing tournament play. The odds imply Nicolau has a 48% chance to win, a 20% chance to get a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Manon Fiorot
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Fiorot finally saw the judges for the first time in the UFC in her recent win over Mayra Bueno Silva. That was also the first time Fiorot has faced an opponent with any UFC experience, after her first two opponents were making their debuts, one up a weight class. Bueno Silva was able to take everything Fiorot could throw at her and keep on going, showing just how tough she is and why she has never been finished in her career. However, Fiorot dominated the fight from start to finish and finished ahead in significant strikes 91-48 and in total strikes 112-92, while also landing two takedowns on six attempts with over four minutes of control time. Bueno Silva did not attempt any takedowns despite her perceived grappling advantage. The differences in strikes thrown were even greater, as Fiorot threw 267 significant strikes and 291 total strikes, while Bueno Silva threw just 111 significant strikes and 156 total strikes. Impressively, Fiorot has yet to lose a round in the UFC on even a single judge’s score card in any of her three fights.
That marked Fiorot’s eighth straight win since losing a split-decision in her 2018 pro debut. Six of those wins ended in knockouts, while just two have required the judges, and she had landed five straight TKOs prior to her recent decision victory. Most of her TKOs have come in the later rounds, with three in round two and two in round three, while she’s finished just one opponent in the first round. While she has less than four years of pro experience, Fiorot had extensive amateur experience as she won the 2017 IMMAF World Championships. She was notably competing at 135 lb at that time, before dropping down to 125 lb for her second pro fight, back in 2019.
Fiorot exploded onto the UFC scene in 2021 with a pair of second round TKO wins in her first two fights with the organization. Appropriately nicknamed “The Beast,” Fiorot is an animal when it comes to striking, although it’s fair to point out that her first two UFC wins came against a highly questionable opponent in Victoria Leonardo and then a one-dimensional grappler fighting up a weight class on short notice in Tabatha Ricci. Both of those opponents were making their respective UFC debuts, so we’ve yet to see Fiorot finish anyone with any UFC experience.
While Fiorot has landed four takedowns in her three UFC fights, with at least one in each match, we’ve yet to see anyone come close to taking her down, although she’s only had to defend two attempts. While she’s a karate black belt, she’s just a BJJ purple belt, and while we’ve yet to see her operate off her back, that’s almost certainly where she would be the most vulnerable.
Fiorot’s karate fighting style makes her a tough fighter to deal with as she does a masterful job of controlling distance. She also utilizes a destructive check right hook as she backs out of striking range against her opponents. She also offers explosive combinations of punches to close out fights. We’ve
We’ve been calling her a future contender since before she made her UFC debut, and we still see a bright future for Fiorot, although her grappling remains a question mark. She’s made her way into the rankings at #13 and will now look to move further up the ladder as she takes on the #4 ranked Jennifer Maia.
Jennifer Maia
9th UFC Fight (4-4)Continuing to alternate wins and losses for six straight fights, Maia has now gone the distance in 11 of her last 12 matches, with the one exception being a 2020 round one submission victory over Joanne Wood. Maia hasn’t faced all that many dangerous finishers, she did go five rounds with the most dangerous Flyweight in the world in Valentina Shevchenko, albeit in a decision loss, but Maia was at least able to win one round. Maia also has a three-round decision win over Jessica Andrade back in 2012, before they each joined the UFC. It’s been 10 years since anyone was able to finish Maia, with her lone KO loss coming in a 10 second 2012 R1 KO. She’s also been submitted once, which occurred just two fights prior to her KO loss. She’s gone 20 fights since the 2012 KO without being finished. Her other six losses have all ended in decisions and she now holds a 19-8-1 pro record. While nine of her 19 career wins have come early, with four KOs and five submissions, 7 of her last 8 wins have gone the distance. Her second most recent early win was all the way back in 2015. Four of her nine finishes occurred in her first four pro fights and she has just one early win in the UFC.
Maia has still never lost two fights in a row in her career, and will now be looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Katlyn Chookagian, who she also lost to back in 2019. Chookagian outlanded Maia 72-52 in significant strikes and 81-60 in total strikes, while also landing one takedown on four attempts with three and a half minutes of control time. Maia failed to land either of her two takedown attempts. Chookagian won a unanimous 30-27 decision and the striking numbers were very similar to the first time they fought, back in 2019, when Chookagian finished ahead in significant strikes 73-58.
While Maia has been very durable for the last decade, her offense hasn’t been overly impressive, and she’s gone just 2-3 in her last five fights. In fairness those three losses came against the top of the division in Valentina Shevchenko and Katlyn Chookagian (twice). At the same time, you could easily argue that Maia should be on a three fight losing streak with just one win in her last five matches.
Maia’s lone win in her last three came in a close/questionable decision over Jessica Eye, where Maia appeared fortunate to walk away with a unanimous decision victory after she was slightly outlanded in significant strikes with 100-98 and in total strikes 104-102. That was both the most significant strikes that Maia has landed and absorbed of any fight of her career. Maia was also taken down twice on three attempts and did not attempt any takedowns of her own. Eye had her forehead split wide open with an accidental clash of heads, and perhaps all of the blood unfairly swayed the judges in Maia’s favor. Eye also controlled the center of the Octagon for essentially the entire fight, so clearly the judges thought Maia was the one doing more damage as she trailed in every statistical category. In fairness, it was a close fight and Eye wasn’t able to do much of anything with either of her takedowns, but it seemed like the decision easily could have gone her way. That win came just after Maia lost a five-round decision to Shevchenko.
Maia did better than most against the champ and impressively controlled her at times early in the fight, winning her the second round. With that said, Maia still lost a unanimous 49-46 decision and was outlanded 62-36 in significant strikes and 249-94 in total strikes. Shevchenko also landed 5 takedowns on 6 attempts with 9:34 of control time, while Maia went 1 for 2 with 7:51 of control time. Shevchenko was also notably returning from knee surgery for that match, which could have had something to do with her slower start.
Despite holding a BJJ black belt, Maia has only landed two total takedowns on just six attempts in her eight UFC fights, but half the whole world keeps expecting her to come in looking to grapple against strikers. She’s also a Muay Thai black belt and appears mostly content with relying on her striking. While she seldomly lands or even shoots for a takedown, Maia did show against Joanne Wood that she can use her Jiu-Jitsu to look for submissions off her back if she’s taken down by her opponent.
Fight Prediction:
Fiorot will have a 3” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
Fiorot is an extremely active and dangerous striker, and it’s really hard to see her losing this fight. However, there are still two unanswered questions regarding Fiorot. First, how will she look off her back when she finally gets taken down for the first time in the UFC? And second, will she be able to finish the more durable opponents at the top of the division? Finishes are far tougher to come by once you start facing top ten ranked opponents in the women’s Flyweight division, and when we do see them they’re often completed on the mat either by submission or ground and pound. Outside of fights that Jessica Andrade is involved in, we don’t see many standing KOs at that weight class with the top ranked fighters. That’s not to say that Fiorot can’t change that, but the one time she’s gone up against an experienced veteran she was unable to land a finish, so it will be interesting to see how her second attempt goes. There’s no question that Fiorot can cut through lower ranked opponents like a buzzsaw, but we should have a better idea of just how dangerous she can be in terms of contending for a title after this next fight. Based on Maia’s track record of being extremely durable, it’s more likely that Fiorot outlands her way to another decision win here, but if she does get a finish, look for it to come by TKO in the later rounds, most likely round two. Our official pick is Fiorot by decision, but we won’t be at all shocked if she simply overwhelms Maia with strikes along the fence, forcing Maia to cover up and we see a mid to late round TKO stoppage.
Our favorite bet here is “Fiorot R2 or R3 KO” at +600
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DFS Implications:
Fiorot is a high-volume striker, who averages the fourth most significant strikes landed on the slate at 7.10/min, while absorbing just 2.55/min. She comes into this matchup on an impressive eight fight winning streak, with TKO wins in six of those. She dominated her first two UFC opponents, finishing both of them in second round TKOs. She scored 120 and 100 DraftKings points in those wins and 146 and 116 points on FanDuel. However, when she faced her first real test since joining the UFC in an extremely durable Mayra Bueno Silva, Fiorot was unable to get a finish and scored just 88 DraftKings points and 87 points on FanDuel in a decision win. Now Fiorot will face another durable opponent, this time in the #4 ranked Jennifer Maia, so it will be interesting to see if the results are the same. While Buena Silva averages 5.22 SSA/min in her career, Maia only averages 4.08 SSA/min and no one has ever landed more than 100 significant strikes against her. So while Fiorot throws enough volume to still theoretically put up a decent score even in a decision, especially if she can tack on a few takedowns, Maia isn’t the best dance partner for an insanely high volume brawl. And that’s what Fiorot would need to return value at her high price tag without a finish. Maia hasn’t been finished in her last 20 fights and has only been knocked out once in her career, which was all the way back in 2012. That will make it tougher for Fiorot to end this fight early, and overall this looks like her toughest spot yet to score well. The last time we saw Fiorot fight, she was 54% owned, albeit on a 10 fight card. The time before that she was 60% owned on a 14 fight card, although that time she was mispriced at just $8,500 as a -550 favorite after a late opponent change when prices had already been released. Either way, the field has been all over her for her last two fights, after overlooking her in her debut. We expect her to again be very popular, which makes it even tougher to get excited about playing her in tournaments. With that said, she has a solid floor and is still a good low-risk option, as it’s hard to see her losing this fight and she should land a good amount of volume, with the potential to tack on a takedown or two. The odds imply she has an 80% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Maia looks like a submission or bust lottery ticket and has fought to decisions in 11 of her last 12 matches, with the one exception being a 2020 round one armbar submission win over Joanne Wood. Her second most recent submission win was all the way back in 2014, over four years before she joined the UFC. She’s also only landed two takedowns in eight UFC fights, so you’re essentially relying on Maia to land an armbar off her back after Fiorot takes her down. That’s certainly possible, but it’s unlikely. While Maia scored 100 DraftKings points in the first round submission win over Wood, she’s failed to top 75 points in her three UFC decision wins, so even at her cheap price tag, she’s unlikely to even serve as a value play if she does somehow win a decision. She set a career high for significant strikes landed (98) against Jessica Eye in her last decision win, and still scored just 70 DraftKings points. And while Fiorot pushes the pace in her fights, she throws so many kicks that it’s hard for her opponents to land many strikes on her. While Maia would be a massive leverage play at incredibly low ownership if she does get a finish, it’s tough to get excited about playing her. The odds imply she has a 20% chance to win, an 8% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #10
Aliaskhab Khizriev
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Khizriev had originally been scheduled to make his debut against Wellington Turman in February 2021, however Turman withdrew. Then Khizriev was booked to debut against Kyle Daukaus in April 2021, but the fight was canceled due to COVID protocols. Then he was scheduled to face Alessio Di Chirico in August 2021, but Khizriev ended up withdrawing. Next he was booked to face Abusupiyan Magomedov on this card, but Magomedov withdrew. At that point Denis Tiuliulin stepped up and was announced as the replacement on Sunday, just six days before the fight. So this will be Khizriev 5th different opponent that he has been booked to make his UFC debut over the last 13 months.
Khizriev finally comes into his UFC debut with a perfect 13-0 record, with 4 of his last 5, and 8 of his last 10 wins coming in the first round. Four of those first round finishes were by rear-naked choke with the other four ending in KOs. While he has four decision wins on his record, three of those came in two-round fights and he’s only seen the third round once in his career.
He originally went pro back in 2014 competing at 170 lb. He fought 11 of his first 12 fights at 170 lb, with the one exception coming when he dropped down to 155 lb for one fight in 2015. Following a 2018 R1 KO win over Rousimar Palhares, who was five years removed from fighting in the UFC and 38 years old at the time, Khizriev took two and half years off before moving up to 185 lb for a September 2020 appearance on DWCS. It’s now been 18 months since that win, and Khizriev has 50 seconds of ring time in the last four years.
Despite the long layoff and fighting up a weight class, Khizriev made short work of his opponent, submitting him in just 50 seconds. It’s hard to take a ton away from the hyper efficient finish, but Khizriev gave us a glimpse of his grappling. The quick finish punched Khizriev’s ticket to the UFC, where he’ll stay at 185 lb for his debut. At just 5’9”, Khizriev is definitely a meatball for the division, but he has a lengthy 74” reach that helps to make up for his height. With that said, it would be somewhat surprising if he didn’t move back down to 170 lb in the future and if he really cut back on the borscht he might even be able to make 155 lb again.
With relentless wrestling and high-volume barrages of ground and pound, Khizriev looks like a wrecking ball when he’s winning. However, we’ve yet to see him face any adversity, so it’s hard to say how he’ll handle it. With an undefeated record and a 69% finishing rate, his upside is evident, but he does have a few red flags coming into the UFC, with his shorter height and lack of activity.
Denis Tiuliulin
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut on just six days’ notice, it’s been just over a year since Tiuliulin last competed. He’s coming off a first round KO win, but was submitted in the third round of his second most recent fight in a smothering defeat against Combat Sambo World Champion Ikram Aliskerov, who entered the fight 9-1 (now 12-1) with his only loss coming against Khamzat Chimiev.
Tiuliulin’s last eight wins have all come by KO, with the last three ending in the first round. All eight of his knockouts have come in seven minutes or less, with six ending in the first round. He’s only been to three decisions in 14 pro fights, and one of those was a two round decision in his 2013 pro debut, which was the only time he’s won a fight that didn’t end in a knockout. He’s been knocked out once, which came in the first round of his third pro fight back in 2013, and has been submitted twice (R2 2017 & R3 2020). He’s 0-3 in fights that have seen the third round with two split-decision losses on top of his submission loss.
Tiuliulin has a background in Thai boxing and doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling. While he’s got decent power, he’s not super explosive with his striking and he gets taken down and controlled far too easily. Only two of nine career wins have come against opponents with winning records and most of his wins have come against questionable competition. When he did take a step up in competition level, he got absolutely dominated by Ikram Aliskerov.
Amazingly, Tiuliulin has competed anywhere from 155 to 205 lb in the past, but his last eight fights have all been at 185 lb.
Fight Prediction:
Tiuliulin will have a 4” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
It’s pretty crazy that we have a former Welterweight with 50 seconds of cage time in the last four years making his UFC debut at Middleweight as a -1000 favorite against a much larger knockout specialist, yet here we are. The line on Khizriev opened at an understandable -350, but was amazingly bet up to -1000 as the week went on. Tiuliulin has looked so helpless on the mat that it makes sense for him to be a big dog in this spot, considering that’s where Khizriev excels, but still, it’s hard not to take a look at Tiuliulin’s betting lines at this point. Ignoring the odds for a moment, this does look like a stylistic nightmare for Tiuliulin, who is a pure boxer with no grappling skills. So the only question will be can Tiuliulin remain on the feet long enough to catch Khizriev with a bomb and knock him out. The short answer is probably not, but it’s possible the size advantage that Tiuliulin has will make it tough for Khizriev to get him down. That’s really all you can hope for, as if this fight does hit the ground there’s a good chance it never returns to the feet. Khizriev has the ability to finish opponents with both ground and pound and submissions and six of his eight career finishes have come in under 60 seconds.
Our favorite bet here is “Under 1.5 Rounds” at -185.
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DFS Implications:
Finally making his UFC debut after the first four bookings fell through, six of Khizriev’s 13 career wins have come in 60 seconds or less, including his last two victories and three of his last four. Impressively, eight of his last 10 wins have come in the first round and it just remains to be seen if he can transition that finishing ability over to the UFC. He’s shown all the potential for a slate breaking performance, with massive takedown numbers, sky high striking volume, and a propensity for finishes. However, that’s all come outside of the UFC. Despite being a massive -1000 favorite, he’s not without red flags. He fought almost his entire career at 170 lb, with one fight even down at 155 lb, before moving up to 185 lb just in his last matchup, where he’ll stay for his debut. He also has just one fight and 50 seconds of cage time in the last four years, so his activity level is comparable to Nick Diaz’s. Now he goes up against a much larger opponent, so there’s always a chance Khizriev could struggle to get the fight to the ground, although Tiuliulin’s takedown defense has been pretty terrible. The only time Khizriev has ever landed a finish beyond the first round was in his 2014 pro debut, and his last four fights to last longer than four minutes all went the distance. His grappling heavy style still has the potential to score well in a decision, but considering he hasn’t been in a fight that lasted longer than 58 seconds since 2017, we have no idea what his cardio will look like. Despite what the odds say, this still feels like a high variance spot with a wide range of outcomes. The odds imply Khizriev has an 87% chance to win, a 70% chance to land a finish, and a 41% chance it comes in round one.
Tiuliulin is a KO or bust boxer who offers nothing in terms of grappling, but has landed knockouts in eight of his nine career wins, with six of those ending in round one and another in round two. He’s making his short notice debut with just six days to prepare, so he’ll likely be looking for an early knockout as much as ever. If he gets taken down he’ll be in real trouble, but there’s always a chance he can use his size advantage to remain on the feet. While we don’t have much confidence in him, Tiuliulin will be a massive leverage play with a huge ceiling if he can pull off the upset with an early finish, and it’s hard to see him getting left out of winning lineups in that scenario. The odds imply he has a 13% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Batgerel Danaa
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Danaa had been booked against Montel Jackson here, but Jackson withdrew and Gutierrez stepped in on February 14th with plenty of time to prepare.
After losing a decision in his 2019 UFC debut to Heili Alateng, Danaa responded with three straight first round knockouts. While the first two of those came against pretty suspect opponents in Guido Cannetti and Kevin Natividad, he recently handed a previously very durable Brandon Davis the first KO loss of his career.
In that fight, Danaa had no problem overcoming his height and reach disadvantage and landed several heavy shots on Davis from the start. He dropped Davis with a huge right hand, and while Davis was able to return to his feet, Danaa continued to pressure him and forced a stoppage shortly after. Davis had no answer for the striking of Danaa, and the fight ended with Danaa ahead in striking 22-7 in the one-sided affair.
Prior to that recent win, Danaa knocked out Kevin Natividad in just 50 seconds after finishing Guido Cannetti in just over three minutes. It’s worth pointing out that both of those opponents have been prone to getting finished, with all three of Natividad’s career losses coming by KO, including both of his UFC fights, and five of Cannetti’s six career losses also coming early. Although, Cannetti had been submitted four times but had never been knocked out until he faced Danaa. That’s not to take anything away from Danaa, who has sneaky power and he impressively dropped Natividad with a left hook as Danaa backed away. Danaa also notably knocked down Cannetti with a left hook before finishing him on the mat, so that’s consistently one of his most dangerous weapons. However, he showed against Davis that he has power in both hands, and it can be hard to see his punches coming.
Impressively, Danaa’s last seven wins have all come early, with his last five victories occurring in round one and the two before that ending in round two. He’s now 10-2 as a pro, with six KOs, two submissions and two decisions. Both of those submissions came by rear-naked choke, and with zero takedowns in his four UFC fights, it seems safe to say that Danaa is primarily a striker as his background is in kickboxing. Both of his career losses have gone the distance, with his only UFC loss ending in a decision in his 2019 debut. Despite outlanding his opponent 85-36 in significant strikes and 119-63 in total strikes, the judges did not think Danaa had done enough to get the victory. He was taken down three times on seven attempts and controlled for nearly three minutes, so that apparently ended up being the deciding factor. Danaa also notably has a decision win over UFC fighter Kai Kara-France on his pre-UFC record, although that was all the way back in 2013.
Danaa hasn’t been in a fight that lasted longer than 181 seconds since 2019, and has only been past the second round four times, with all four going the distance (2-2).
Chris Gutierrez
8th UFC Fight (5-1-1)Similar to Danaa, Gutierrez hasn’t lost a fight since being defeated in his UFC debut, although he’s done it in far less exciting fashion. After getting submitted by Raoni Barcelos in the second round of his 2018 debut, Gutierrez has gone 5-0-1 in his last six fights, with five of those going the distance. The only time he’s gotten a finish in the UFC was in a 2020 R2 TKO by leg strikes against Vince Morales. Two of his five UFC decisions have been split and another ended in a draw.
One of those split decisions came in his most recent win over Felipe Colares and the fight seemed slightly closer than the numbers indicated. There weren’t many big moments in the match, but Gutierrez finished ahead in significant strikes 96-41 and in total strikes 115-70. He failed to land any of his takedown attempts, while Colares landed just one of his seven attempts, but had four minutes of control time. Gutierrez started slow in the fight landing, just 19 total strikes in round one, but bounced back to land 41 in round two and 55 in round three. He continued to land leg kicks as he always does, finishing the fight with 25, but he wasn’t able to do as much damage with them as we’ve seen in the past and Colares did his best to remain light on his lead leg. Overall, it wasn’t a very exciting fight, but Gutierrez did enough to earn the decision.
Looking back one fight further, Gutierrez won a decision over Andre Ewell. Gutierrez relentlessly attacked Ewell’s legs and nearly finished him with leg strikes in the third round as he landed 22 leg strikes in that round alone. That fight took place at a 140 lb Catchweight and Gutierrez’s lone early win in the UFC was at 145 lb, but his other five fights have all been down at 135 lb.
Prior to his recent win, Gutierrez fought UFC newcomer Cody Durden to a draw. Primarily a wrestler, Durden completely controlled Gutierrez on the ground in the first round but looked to tire out late in the fight after taking it on short notice. Gutierrez picked things up in the next two rounds resulting in the draw.
Gutierrez won his previous fight with a R2 TKO by leg kicks. He completely destroyed the legs of Vince Morales, attacking him with a variety of kicks from both stances. Leg kicks are Gutierrez’s primary weapon for ending fights early and that’s how he landed his last two TKOs. He does have one submission win on his record, but he’s not much of a threat on the ground and he’s only landed three takedowns in his seven UFC fights. All of his UFC fights have made it to the second round, with five ending in decisions.
Gutierrez is now 17-4-2 as a pro with seven wins by KO, one by submission and nine decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but has been submitted once to go along with three decision losses. Five of his seven KO wins have come in the later rounds and he tends to wear on his opponents as fights go on, largely by chipping away at their legs.
Fight Prediction:
Gutierrez will have a 2” height advantage, but Danaa will have a 3” reach advantage.
Gutierrez has yet to face anyone with the power of Danaa since joining the UFC, and outside of facing Barcelos in his UFC debut, Gutierrez hasn’t had the toughest schedule. Gutierrez will be looking to rely on his footwork and movement to remain at kicking range and chip away at the lead leg of Danaa, while attempting to avoid eating any clean shots. The larger Octagon in Ohio should benefit Gutierrez in this matchup, and we expect Danaa to be the one pushing forward. Danaa has been so dangerous early on in recent fights that he hasn’t been in one that lasted longer than about three minutes since 2019. However, he went three hard rounds in his UFC debut so we’re also not really concerned with his cardio. In that fight, he progressively landed more strikes in each round as that fight went on. Had that close decision gone his way, he would be on a seven fight winning streak right now with six finishes, including five in round one. He’s got knockout power in both of his hands and if he has a weakness it’s probably his grappling. However, Gutierrez is an unlikely opponent to really test that. This fight will likely come down to how Gutierrez’s chin holds up, as Danaa is too sharp with his punches not to land something clean at some point early in the match. Gutierrez does have good footwork, which could help him to survive, but there’s a good chance he suffers his first career KO loss here. However, if he’s able to survive the first 7-8 minutes, we could see a shift in the momentum as the leg kicks of Gutierrez begin to add up. That could make the decision a close one if this does go the full 15 minutes, but we still like Danaa’s chances to land yet another early knockout.
Our favorite bet here is “Danaa R1 KO” at +550.
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DFS Implications:
Coming off three straight first round knockouts, Danaa has unsurprisingly been a scoring machine lately, with DraftKings totals of 109, 128, and 107 in his last three fights. He just finished Brandon Davis, who had previously never been knocked out, and now he’ll face another opponent who has also never lost by KO. So this sets up as another tough challenge to get a finish, but Danaa has looked great in his last three matches and has proven he’s no fluke. While Danaa lands a solid amount of volume at 6.28 SSL/min, he’s yet to land a takedown in the UFC and only even attempted one back in his debut. So if this does go the distance, he’s not a guy that we would expect to score well in a decision and Gutierrez only averages 2.50 SSA/min. Danaa has also never finished an opponent beyond the second round, so you’re likely relying on him landing a knockout in the first half of this fight to return value. His streak of finishes should drive his ownership up, which takes off some of his shine in tournaments, but his upside is undeniable and at his reasonable price tag it’s hard to see him getting left out winning tournament lineups if he lands another finish here. The odds imply he has a 56% chance to win, a 36% chance to get a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Gutierrez landed a career best 96 significant strikes in his last fight and still scored just 75 DraftKings points in a decision win. The only time he’s scored more than that in his five UFC victories was when he landed a second round TKO by leg kicks against Vince Morales in 2020. Five of his last six fights have gone the distance and his second most recent finish was back in 2018, prior to joining the UFC. Outside of his leg kicks, he hasn’t looked especially dangerous, and you’re essentially relying on another leg kick TKO victory for him to return value. This is his toughest opponent since he lost to Barcelos in his 2018 UFC debut, and Danaa has notably never been finished as a pro. Gutierrez has seen the line move in his favor, which could slightly boost his ownership as a perceived value play, which further lowers our interest in playing him. The odds imply Gutierrez has a 44% chance to win, a 17% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Karol Rosa
5th UFC Fight (4-0)Coming off four straight decision wins, Rosa most recently sent Bethe Correia off into retirement. Correia was no match for Rosa, who landed more than twice as many significant strikes as she finished ahead 125-62. Rosa also led in total strikes 145-85, while both ladies failed to land a takedown on two attempts each. Rosa was very patient in the fight and the first round was essentially one long feeling out process. Rosa then began to turn it on in the later rounds as she really pulled away in striking.
While all four of Rosa’s UFC fights have gone the distance, her seven fights just before joining the UFC all ended early (5-2). She’s now 15-3 as a pro, with four wins by KO, two by submission, and nine decisions. She’s never been knocked out, but has been submitted twice, while losing just one of the 10 decisions she’s been to. Both of her submission losses came in 2018, one of those was against Melissa Gatto, who’s now in the UFC, and the other was against Larissa Pacheco, who had just been released by the UFC and who’s only two losses in her last seven fights both came against Kayla Harrison in the PFL.
Rosa has won six straight fights since suffering the 2018 submission loss to Gato, and has shown great striking and decent wrestling in her four UFC fights. She landed 120 or more significant strikes in each of her three UFC striking battles, while she relied on her wrestling to defeat a striker in Joselyne Edwards. Rosa finished that fight with over 11 minutes of control time as she landed four of her six takedowns attempts. She was also able to land 135 total strikes in the match, while Edwards landed 70. Edwards attempted three takedowns of her own, but only landed one and finished with just two seconds of control time. Edwards is a dangerous striker and was able to bust open the mouth of Rosa, but it didn’t deter Rosa from continuing to dominate the fight on the ground. Rosa had originally been scheduled to take on Nicco Montano in that matchup, but Montano pulled out a week and a half before the fight and Joselyne Edwards stepped in on short notice.
Rosa has really struggled with canceled fights over the past couple years. Even before joining the UFC she had two fights scheduled and canceled in 2019. Then following her UFC debut, Rosa was scheduled four different times to take on Julia Avila, but withdrew from two of those and the other two events were canceled due to COVID. Following her second UFC fight, she was scheduled to take on Sijara Eubanks back in September 2020, but Rosa withdrew and was "hospitalized for a botched weight cut." Then Montano withdrew from a fight and most recently Rosa withdrew from another booking with Eubanks back in June 2021. This will just be Rosa’s 5th fight to actually happen in her last 14 bookings.
While Rosa has yet to face a powerful wrestler, she has faced one grappler so far in the UFC, which was in her 2019 UFC debut when she defeated Lara Procopio. Rosa was able to stuff all five of Procopio’s takedown attempts and has only been taken down once on 12 attempts in her entire UFC career (91.7% takedown defense).
Rosa is an ultra high-volume striker who relies more on wearing down her opponents then overwhelming them with power. Her last three early finishes all came in the third round (2018, 2019 & 2019), and the one prior to that was a corner stoppage following the second round. She also had a second round armbar victory just before that one.
Sara McMann
13th UFC Fight (6-6)Coming off a 14 month layoff and with just two fights since 2018, the 41-year-old McMann has not been a very active fighter to say the least. She also has just one win since 2017, as she’s gone 1-3 in her last four fights, with all three of those losses ending in late round submissions. Despite being an Olympic wrestling silver medalist, McMann has been submitted in four of her six career losses. She’s also been knocked out once, while she’s gone 6-1 in fights that go the distance. Rounding out her 12-6 pro record, McMann has one win by KO and five submissions victories. So overall, 9 of her 18 career fights have ended in submissions.
She’s coming off a third round submission loss to Julianna Pena in a fight that McMann controlled for the majority of the first two rounds, as she landed all three of her takedown attempts in rounds one and two with over seven minutes of control time. Pena was able to be offensive off her back as she landed strikes and hunted for submissions in round two, but McMann still had top position and then her back for most of the round. Pena was able to return to her feet late in round two, but at that point McMann simply pushed her up against the cage for the final 90 seconds. McMann was visibly slowing down in round three and Pena was able to take her down early in the round and work her way towards a rear-naked choke late in the round. While McMann is a solid wrestler, she’s pretty terrible at defending submissions. Her last four losses have all come by submission.
McMann will often spend the first 30-120 seconds of fights striking, but she only does that to set up her takedowns. She’s one of two fighters to be able to take down Ketlen Vieira (90% takedown defense), although she still went on to lose that fight. McMann’s last three losses have all gone somewhat similarly. She found early grappling success in all of those fights, but was then submitted later in the matches. She had over seven minutes of control time with three takedowns landed before getting submitted in the third round by Pena. She had over five minutes of control time with two takedowns landed before getting submitted in the second round by Marion Reneau. And she had five and half minutes of control time with one takedown landed before getting submitted in round two against Ketlen Vieira. That’s the only time Vieira has finished an opponent in the UFC and the only opponent Reneau defeated in her last six fights. Pena had also lost two of her previous three fights and had yet to submit anyone in the UFC before submitting McMann. Overall, McMann does not handle adversity well, and while she’s heavy in top position, she’s basically helpless off her back and taps as soon as an opponent locks in a submission.
Fight Prediction:
McMann will have a 1” height advantage, while Rosa will have a 1” reach advantage. Rosa is notably 14 years younger than the 41-year-old McMann.
While McMann is extremely prone to getting submitted, the big question here is how good is Rosa’s Jiu-Jitsu? It’s been three years since she submitted anybody, and both of her submission wins came prior to joining the UFC. We’ve yet to see her notch any official attempts in her four UFC fights and we also haven’t seen her have to work off her back. McMann has landed at least one takedown in all of her UFC fights except the two against Ronda Rousey and Amanda Nunes, who both finished her in the first round. So despite Rosa’s solid 91% takedown defense, it’s unlikely she’ll be able to stay off her back for the entire fight. And when McMann does get opponents down she generally spends extended periods of time in top position. So she generally wins rounds where she lands takedowns, except when her opponents are throwing up non stop submissions and strikes off their backs like we saw Pena do in the second round of their last fight. That’s where the uncertainty comes in, as we’ve yet to see Rosa operate off her back in the UFC. She has one armbar submission win on her record, but her other career submission victory came from an arm-triangle choke, which she would have landed from the top. McMann is so helpless off her own back that it could make sense for Rosa to proactively look to land a takedown of her own to prevent getting taken down herself, but it’s hard to know what her strategy will be coming in. Our guess is that McMann will spend the first 30-60 striking and then shoot for a takedown, with a good chance she lands it. She’ll likely control Rosa for the remainder of the first round and look to implement a similar strategy in round two. That’s when the fight will likely be decided. If Rosa can either reverse the second round takedown attempt or throw up a submission off her back against a slightly tired McMann, then she has a good shot of landing a second round submission. However, if McMann can again control her for the entire round then Rosa will go into the third round down 2-0 and desperate for a finish. We don’t expect Rosa to completely shut down the takedown attempts of McMann and force this into a striking battle where she can easily point her way to a decision win, and she’ll likely need to land a submission to win the fight, as it will be hard for her to simply outwrestle McMann for the majority of the match to win a decision. Based on how submittable McMann has been, Rosa has a chance to show us a part of her game that she hasn’t so far in the UFC and land second round submission, but if she fails to do that then there’s a really good chance McMann wins a decision or potentially lands a submission of her own.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Submission” at +240.
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DFS Implications:
This is a tough spot for the normally reliable Rosa in DFS. No one has ever landed more than 48 significant strikes on McMann in her 12 UFC fights, and nine of her opponents have landed 27 or less. McMann has accrued over 20 minutes of control time in her last two fights alone, which makes it tough for opponents to land many strikes in general. However, while McMann is an Olympic wrestling silver medalist her submission defense is terrible and she taps at the first sign of adversity. So there’s a much higher chance than normal that Rosa could land a submission here, even though that’s not what she’s known for. That still makes her a much riskier DFS play than normal, and we can’t rely on her scoring well in a decision here. And even if she does land a submission, if it comes in the later rounds after getting controlled for the first half of this fight, it may not score especially well. The last three fighters to submit McMann put up DK/FD scores of 91/84, 82/94, and 89/101. All three of those finishes came in the later rounds, and Rosa is flirting with a R1 or bust label in this matchup. The odds imply she has a 66% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
McMann averages an impressive 4.4 takedowns per 15 minutes and she’s scored at least 88 DraftKings points in four of her last five wins, with totals of 89, 105, 88, 70, and 95. Even in her losses she generally finishes with a good amount of control time, she simply succumbs to getting submitted in the later rounds. This does look like a touger test for her, as she goes up against the 91% takedown defense of Rosa, but we’ve yet to see Rosa really be tested on takedowns by a good wrestler like McMann. We expect McMann to find some success in landing takedowns, and if she can avoid getting submitted for the millionth time then she has the potential to score well either with a submission win or in a wrestling-heavy decision. Her style of fighting is specifically geared to DraftKings and she’s not someone you really want to play on FanDuel where control time doesn’t count for anything. She doesn’t come without red flags, as she’s 41 years old, and hasn’t competed in 14 months. She’s also been submitted in three of her last four fights. While she’s been incredibly prone to getting submitted, Rosa hasn’t submitted anybody since 2019 and only has two submission victories in her career. So that part of Rosa’s game remains mostly a mystery, and we haven’t seen her have to fight off her back yet in the UFC. That makes this somewhat of a high variance spot, as Rosa could look terrible off her back or could surprise us and land submission. Either way, McMann’s floor is uncertain, but she’s proven she has a solid DraftKings ceiling. The odds imply she has a 34% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Neil Magny
26th UFC Fight (18-7)Magny has now fought to five straight decisions, winning four of those. His most recent win came against a struggling Geoff Neal where Magny finished ahead 55-35 in significant strikes and 89-37 in total strikes. Magny also notably threw 174 significant strikes, while Neal looked sluggish and threw just 73. Magny landed 2 takedowns on 10 attempts, while Neal landed 1 of his 2 attempts. Even when Neal was landing shots in that fight, they just weren’t as crisp or powerful as what we saw out of him earlier in his career, and Neal hasn’t looked the same since his August 2020 health scare.
Prior to that win, Magny lost a smothering five-round decision to Michael Chiesa, where Magny landed just 12 significant strikes in 25 minutes, while Chiesa landed just 24. Chiesa also outlanded Magny 93-52 in total strikes, while landing four of his six takedown attempts with over 15 minutes of control time. Magny went one for three on his own takedowns with just over two minutes of control time.
Magny had won three straight decisions in 2020 leading up to that loss, after taking 16 months off following a R4 KO defeat against Santiago Ponzinibbio in November of 2018. Magny has won six of his last eight fights, with five of those wins ending in decisions.
Since joining the UFC in 2013 he’s fought 24 times with 13 of those going the distance, however five of his seven UFC losses have come early. He was submitted in R1 via Triangle Choke of his 2013 match against Sergio Moraes. Then in 2015, he was submitted in R2 by Demian Maia via Rear-Naked Choke, and then knocked out by Lorenz Larkin in R1 of a 2016 fight. Rafael dos Anjoes also submitted him in R1 via Arm-Triangle Choke, and then his most recent loss was the R4 KO at the hands of Santiago Ponzinibbio. So in summary, he’s been submitted three times in the UFC and knocked out twice. He was also submitted once prior to joining the UFC. His last four losses prior to his recent decision notably all ended early.
He’s won 15 of the 17 decisions he’s been involved in as a pro (some dubiously), with 12 of those wins coming in the UFC. Four of his 10 early victories notably came prior to joining the UFC and he only has two early wins in his last 15 fights. The most recent of those came in 2018 against a very low level opponent in Craig White, who’s no longer in the UFC and has lost his last five fights beginning with the loss to Magny. The only other opponent Magny has finished since 2015 was Hector Lombard in 2016. Lombard has lost six straight fights beginning with the loss to Magny.
Now 25-8 as a pro, Magny has seven wins by KO, three by submission, and 15 decisions. He’s been knocked out twice and submitted four times, but he’s only lost two decisions. He’s only been knocked out once since 2016, which came in the fourth round against Santiago Ponzinibbio in 2018. The last time Magny was submitted was in the first round of a 2017 fight against Rafael dos Anjos. So overall, while Magny has been finished in six of his eight career losses, he’s still been fairly durable as of late.
Max Griffin
13th UFC Fight (6-6)Appearing to peak late in his career, Griffin comes in on a three fight winning streak, after previously never even winning two in a row in his first nine UFC fights. Eight of Griffin’s 12 UFC fights have gone the distance (3-5), while four have ended in knockouts (3-1). The only time he’s been finished in the UFC was in a third round TKO in his 2016 UFC debut against Colby Covington. He bounced back with a first round knockout, before fighting to seven straight decisions. While he went just 2-5 in those seven decisions, many of those were extremely close/questionable and two were split. One of those was a blatant robbery. He knocked Thiago Alves down once, outlanded him 112-83 in significant strikes and 117-91 in total strikes and led in takedowns 2-0, but somehow the judges gave it to Alves. If you rewatch the fight it’s hard to find two rounds that Alves won. Following that run of decisions, he landed back-to-back KO/TKOs hin his second and third most recent fights, before most recently winning a decision over Carlos Condit.
In that recent fight, Griffin led Condit in significant strikes 93-63 and in total strikes 95-66, while stuffing all four of Condit’s takedown attempts and landing his only attempt with 71 seconds of control time. Griffin also landed a knockdown in the first round, but Condit was able to recover. After the strong start, Griffin slowed down some in round two and allowed Condit to get back into the fight. Griffin did better in round three as he finished the fight strong with a takedown to secure a unanimous decision victory.
Prior to that decision win, Griffin landed a pair of knockouts and said he changed his mental approach to fighting and is just trying to go out and have fun now. Apparently it worked, because after having only notched one finish in his first nine UFC fights, he landed a devastating R1 KO in his second most recent fight after he previously punched the ear off Ramiz Brahimaj’s head. Prior to the freak injury, that fight did look destined to end in a decision, but Griffin was clearly way ahead.
Now 18-8 as a pro, Griffin has nine wins by KO, two by submission, and seven decisions. He’s only been finished once in his career, which came in a third round KO against Colby Covington in his UFC debut. His other seven losses all ended in decisions. Overall, Griffin is a solid fighter who relies mostly on his striking, but will mix in takedowns and has landed at least one in six of his last eight fights. He’s most threatening for knockouts in the first round of fights, with six of his nine career KO wins coming in round one.
Fight Prediction:
Magny will have a 4” height and reach advantage.
It’s becoming cliche to say, but one of Magny’s best weapons is his cardio and Griffin appeared to slow down some after the first round in his last fight. Magny has gone the distance in five straight fights, while Griffin has fought to decisions in 8 of his last 10. That leads us to believe that this fight is unlikely to end early, but if we do see a finish, look for it to come from a Griffin knockout, likely in the first round. Magny has gone 15-2 in decisions in his career, while Griffin has gone just 7-7, so if history is any indicator, Magny is far more likely to get his hand raised by the judges. The only decision Magny has lost since 2013, came when he got outwrestled for 25 minutes against Michael Chiesa in his second most recent fight. He’ll have the cardio advantage in this matchup, so it will be essential that Griffin wins the first round to have a chance to win a decision. If Griffin loses round one, the chances of him winning the later two rounds to steal a decision are very unlikely. While we expect Magny to win a decision here, we’re intrigued by the betting value on Griffin’s side of things.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Goes the Distance” at -200.
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DFS Implications:
Outside of one flukey performance, where Magny landed a million significant strikes through ground and pound on a helpless Hector Lombard in a fight that should have been stopped much sooner, Magny has never been a huge volume striker or power puncher. He has bolstered his scores at times with takedowns in bunches, but has also failed to land a takedown in five of his last 11 matches, and Griffin has a solid 70% takedown defense. With his last four and six of his last seven wins going the distance, it’s tougher to see Magny putting up a huge score here, but he has been able to score pretty well even in decisions at times. His last six decision wins have returned DraftKings totals of 72, 100, 63, 99, 88, 64. Just keep in mind the two times he topped 88 points came on the back of grappling-heavy performances, where he landed four takedowns each time with a large amount of control time and ground strikes. Griffin has only been taken down three times in his last 11 fights and none in his last three. So this does not look like a good matchup for Magny to find much success on the mat. He’ll more likely need to be just the second person to ever finish Griffin, which also appears unlikely. It’s far more likely this fight ends in a lower scoring decision, with the victor being left out of winning lineups. The odds imply Magny has a 70% chance to win, a 21% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Griffin has looked great lately, but now faces his toughest matchup in a while. Griffin has only really scored well when he lands a first round knockout, and his third round TKO win in his third most recent fight scored just DraftKings 77 points. His UFC decision victories have been good for DraftKings totals of 85, 93, and 73, so they haven’t been terrible, and there’s still a chance he could serve as a value play without a finish, but he’s not the type of guy to generally put up a huge score without an early knockout. He has a well rounded game with good striking and will mix in occasional grappling, but he lacks the volume to trust his floor in decisions. Also working against him, Magny has only been knocked out twice in 33 pro fights and is 15-2 in fights that go the distance. So while Griffin’s cheap price tag is certainly appealing, this looks like a tough spot for him to get the win. With that said, he still has somewhat of a shot to either land a knockout or serve as a value play in a decision win, so there are worse plays on the board. The odds imply he has a 30% chance to win, a 17% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Viacheslav Borshchev
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Fresh off an impressive first round KO win in his January 2022 UFC debut, Borshchev finished Dakota Bush late in the first round with a vicious body shot to the liver that crumpled him to the mat and then Borshchev finished it with ground and pound. Prior to the finish, Bush was able to get the fight to the mat where he needed it at two different points, but Borshchev was able to return to his feet both times. Bush also appeared to hurt Borshchev to some extent on the feet midway through the round, but Borshchev was able to recover. Bush seemed to be winning the fight leading up to the body shot that put him down, as he landed two of his three takedown attempts with 90 seconds of control time in a fight that lasted just under four minutes. Borshchev finished ahead in significant strikes 16-11 and in total strikes 17-11.
That was Borshchev’s fourth straight KO win, with his previous victory coming in an early round two KO on DWCS in October 2021. He landed a solid liver kick in the first round of that fight that immediately forced his opponent, Chris Duncan, to look for a takedown to survive. Duncan was able to take advantage of Borshchev’s poor grappling and got him to the mat to buy time to recover. However, Duncan got a little too aggressive looking for ground and pound, giving Borshchev a window to kick him off and return to his feet. Thirty seconds later Duncan was able to pick Borshchev up and slam him back to the mat, but again was unable to keep him there. Early in the second round Borshchev clipped Duncan with a perfectly timed counter left cross to end the fight with no follow up shots necessary.
Borshchev is a former Russian Kickboxing champion with literally hundreds of kickboxing matches on his resume but just seven MMA fights since turning pro in June 2019. A kickboxing coach at Team Alpha Male, Borshchev has been working on improving his defensive grappling, and has been doing a decent job of returning to his feet when he does get taken down. While his takedown defense is still pretty poor, he’s gotten better about not accepting positions on the mat and he’s constantly looking for ways to return to his feet. Nevertheless, his grappling still appears to be his biggest weakness and we expect he’ll struggle whenever he faces an opponent with good wrestling.
Borshchev came dangerously close to getting finished in his third most recent fight. He was knocked down and then nearly choked out early on, but was saved by the bell at the end of the first round. With that said, he bounced back to land a late second round KO to win the match. He’s now 6-1 as a pro, with his only loss ending in a 2020 split-decision in his third pro MMA fight. Five of his six wins have come by KO/TKO in the first two rounds, while he also has one decision win on his record from his second pro fight.
Overall, Borshchev’s appearance is somewhat unimposing, but he’s a solid striker who does a great job of ripping the body of his opponent with punches and throwing snappy kicks, frequently targeting the liver. He’s still pretty green when it comes to grappling and will likely spend most of his time in the UFC defending takedowns as that’s clearly the path to defeating him. He’s yet to face any high-level grapplers in his short MMA career, so it will be interesting to see how helpless he looks on the mat at the next level. He’s likely in for some rough outings where he gets smothered on his back.
Marc Diakiese
11th UFC Fight (5-5)Looking to bounce back from a first round submission loss by guillotine choke against Rafael Alves, Diakiese has now lost two straight and five of his last seven. He immediately absorbed a low blow in his fight against Alves, which paused the action before it could ever begin. After action resumed, Alves caught Diakiese with a left hand followed by a flying knee that had Diakiese looking for a takedown. A guillotine specialist, Alves immediately wrapped up Diakiese’s neck and locked in the guillotine to force an immediate tap. That’s the second time Diakiese has been finished in his career, both times coming in his last six fights, both by guillotine.
Diakiese is now 14-5 as a pro, with six wins by KO, one by submission, and seven decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but has lost twice by guillotine as we just mentioned. His other three losses all went the distance. Four of his last five fights have gone the distance (2-2), as have six of his 10 UFC fights (3-3). While he 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.
In his second most recent fight, 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. He kept the striking close, with Fiziev leading 78-68 in significant strikes. However, Fiziev appeared to be the one doing more damage for the majority of the fight. Diakiese went 0 for 4 on his takedown attempts, while Fiziev landed 1 of his 2 attempts.
A flashy kickboxer, Diakiese 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. While we haven’t seen him land any finishes lately, he’s still just 29 years old.
Diakiese notably landed seven combined takedowns in his last two wins and we’ve sporadically seen him mix in takedowns in bunches. He’s landed 16 on 45 attempts (35.6% accuracy) in his 10 UFC fights, but has also failed to land any in half of those fights.
While Diakiese offers solid striking, he only averages 3.06 SSL/min and has never landed more than 68 significant strikes in a UFC fight despite going to six decisions. He also doesn’t absorb a ton of strikes and only averages 2.80 SSA/min.
Fight Prediction:
Borshchev will have a 1” height advantage, but Diakiese will have a 4” reach advantage.
This sets up as a fun kickboxing match, although it would make sense for Diakiese to mix in takedowns and we expect to see that out of him. He’s landed at least one takedown in four of his five UFC wins, while he’s failed to land a takedown in four of his five UFC losses. The only time he’s landed a takedown and lost a fight was in a 2017 split-decision, and the only time he’s failed to land a takedown and won a fight was in a 2017 30 second R1 KO. Borshchev looks very prone to being taken down, but has shown a decent ability to get back up. Borshchev has generally relied on knocking his opponents out to win fights and Diakiese has never been knocked out, so this at least appears to be a tougher spot for Borshchev to get a finish. With that said, Borshchev does a great job of attacking his opponent’s liver, and even if you have a good chin, taking a clean liver shot is a different story. If Borshchev is unable to get a finish, however, Diakiese’s takedowns could be what sets him apart if this fight goes the distance. While it’s possible Diakiese could also land a knockout, he hasn’t finished anybody since 2017 and Borshchev has yet to be finished in an MMA fight. So overall, both guys have good enough striking to knock the other out, but neither one of them has ever been knocked out, which raises the chances that this ends in a close decision with Diakiese’s takedowns being the difference maker, allowing him to pull off the upset with the judges.
Our favorite bet here is “Diakiese Wins by Decision” at +350.
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DFS Implications:
Borshchev scored 112 DraftKings points in his recent R1 KO win in his UFC debut against Dakota Bush, who was then released by the UFC despite that being just his second fight with the organization. Now Borshchev will face a much more seasoned UFC veteran in Marc Diakiese who should provide a much tougher test. Diakiese has never been knocked out in 19 pro fights and only absorbs an average of 2.80 SSL/min, which will make it tougher for Borshchev to put up a big score here. He’ll be reliant on handing Diakiese his first career KO loss and it’s hard to see Borshchev landing enough striking volume to return value in a decision. After landing a knockout just two months ago and leading the DraftKings slate in FPPF, expect Borshchev to be a popular play despite the tougher matchup. He was notably 52% owned on DraftKings in his recent debut, which was on just a 10 fight card, but clearly the field loves this guy. This looks like a good spot to gain leverage in tournaments by fading him. The odds imply he has a 58% chance to win, a 40% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Diakiese has generally struggled to put up big DFS scores, but he’s shown potential at times with a 30 second R1 KO back in 2017 that scored 127 DraftKings points, a R2 KO in his 2016 debut that was good for 97 points, and a 2019 decision that still scored 92 points in his second most recent win. At his cheaper price tag, even a 92 point decision win has the potential to allow him to sneak into winning lineups as a value play depending on what the other dogs on the slate do. Just keep in mind that his other two decision wins in the UFC scored just 76 and 82 DraftKings points, so there’s still a good chance he could win a decision and fail to score enough to be useful. He doesn’t land a ton of striking volume, as he averages just 3.06 SSL/min, but he has landed at least one takedown in all four of his UFC wins to last longer than 30 seconds and at least three takedowns in three of those four fights. So he has the potential to boost his score with grappling and Borshchev has looked incredibly prone to getting taken down. Considering Diakiese hasn’t finished anybody since 2017 and Borshchev has never been finished, it’s less likely that Diakiese gets an early win and really puts up a big score, so we’re really just looking for him to grind out a decision and serve as a value play. The odds imply Diakiese has a 42% chance to get a finish, a 22% chance it comes early, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Ilir Latifi
15th UFC Fight (8-6)Now 38 years old, Latifi narrowly avoided extending his losing streak to four in a close/questionable split-decision win over Tanner Boser in his last outing. Boser outlanded Latifi 45-10 in significant strikes and 84-51 in total strikes. He also almost finished the fight in the second round as Latifi appeared to think he was poked in the eye but the fight played on and Boser hammered him on the mat. Just barely able to survive with some help from the ref, Latifi finished the fight going 2 for 3 on takedowns with over six and a half minutes of control time. The decision looked to come down to who the judges thought won the first round, where Boser was the one landing all the strikes (8-1 in significant strikes and 14-6 in total strikes), but Latifi was able to get him to the mat and control him for a couple of minutes without doing any damage. Latifi did nothing but pay on Boser with his two takedown attempts and it’s somewhat surprising the judges rewarded him for that.
A former Light Heavyweight, Latifi just moved up to Heavyweight for his last two fights, after losing his last two fights at Light Heavyweight. In his first fight up at Heavyweight, Latifi lost a low-volume, grappling-heavy close decision to Derrick Lewis where he was outlanded by Lewis just 20-5 in significant strikes, but led in total strikes 62-27 and control time 8:48-0:41, while also landing three takedowns on seven attempts. Just like his last fight, Latifi didn’t do much with his takedowns, and that time the judges didn’t put any value into them as they unanimously awarded Lewis a 29-28 decision, despite the fact that he landed just 20 significant strikes. In fairness, Lewis definitely did more damage with the strikes he did land and finished the fight strong with a hard push for a finish. The fact that Latifi was able to move up to Heavyweight and still throw a behemoth like Lewis around while absorbing several destructive blows was impressive in its own right, especially after he had been knocked out four times down at Light Heavyweight. Following that loss, Latifi didn’t step back inside the Octagon for 16 months.
In his final fight down at Light Heavyweight, Latifi was knocked out by Volkan Oezdemir. Latifi landed an early takedown, but Oezdemir was able to get right back up and control the fight from that point on, outlanding Latifi 64-18 in significant strikes and 92-20 in total strikes, while tacking on a pair of knockdowns on his way to a late second round KO. Latifi ended up going 1 for 5 on takedowns in the match. Before his loss to Oezdemir, Latifi lost a low-volume decision to Corey Anderson, where both fighters went 0 for 4 on takedowns, but Anderson led in significant strikes 40-33 and total strikes 45-34.
A former Swedish National Greci-Roman wrestling champion, Latifi’s only finish since 2016 resulted from a 2018 R1 guillotine choke against Ovince St. Preux. Latifi nearly knocked out OSP, but instead finished him with a standing guillotine choke. Latifi’s other three most recent wins all went the distance.
Now 15-8 as a pro, Latifi has six wins by KO, four by submission, and five decisions. While he’s never been submitted, he’s been knocked out four times and has lost four decisions.
Aleksei Oleinik
16th UFC Fight (8-7)Having now lost three straight, Oleinik has just two wins in his last seven outings and four of his last five losses have come by KO in the first six minutes of fights. He’s coming off his first decision loss since 2016, but he’s also only been to two decisions over that 12 fight stretch. He’s faced a series of tough opponents recently in Derrick Lewis, Chris Daukaus, and Serghei Spivac, so it’s hard to blame him for losing all of those fights.
In his most recent loss, Oleinik lost a slow-paced decision over a fellow Heavyweight grappler Serghei Spivac. who never appeared very driven to hunt for a finish in the match, and fought like he had bet his own decision line. Spivac finished ahead in significant strikes 71-59 and in total strikes 112-98, but failed to attempt a takedown in the match while Oleynik landed one of his two attempts. Despite that, Spivac led in control time 4:51-3:31 and finished the fight in top position on the mat after a failed Oleynik takedown attempt. Despite spending the final 100 seconds on top of Oleynik, he curiously didn’t really look to land the ground and pound that he’s previously used to put opponents away. Oleinik at least showed the ability to survive to see a decision, after getting knocked out in the first six minutes of his previous two fights.
Now 44 years old, Oleinik insanely made his pro debut all the way back in November 1996 and this will be his 77th pro fight. He currently owns a ridiculous 59-16-1 pro record with 54 early wins, including eight KOs and 46 submissions. Of his 16 career losses, 11 have come early, with nine KOs and two submissions. The last time he was submitted was 2004, with the other coming in 1997. So while he’s been prone to getting knocked out, no one ever submits him.
UPDATE: After weighing in at just 228 lb for his last fight, Oleinik tipped the scales at 246 lb for this matchup. The only other time we’ve seen him come in that heavy in the UFC was when he took on another wrestler in Curtis Blaydes and weighed in at 246.2 lb on his way to losing by R2 TKO due to a doctor stoppage.
Fight Prediction:
Oleinik will have a 4” height advantage and 7” reach advantage.
Now 44 years old and coming in on a three fight losing streak, Oleinik is just 2-5 in his last seven fights but refuses to call it quits. He still appears to have some fight left in him and perhaps the step down in competition will do him some good. Latifi also doesn’t appear to have much left and at 38-years-old we don’t see him fighting much longer. He’s been content with lying on opponents on the mat since moving up to Heavyweight, and he arguably should be on a four fight losing streak. This is sort of a weird matchup between a really old submission specialist and a slightly less old wrestler who has never been submitted. While Oleinik has been prone to getting knocked out, Latifi has landed 30 combined significant strikes in his last six rounds of action and hasn’t totaled more than 18 significant strikes landed in a fight since 2018. He also hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2016 and that came down at Light Heavyweight, so he’s a less likely candidate to take advantage of how prone Oleinik has been to getting KO’d. So if Oleinik can’t be the first fighter to ever submit Latifi and Latifi lacks the ability/drive/volume to knock out Oleinik, then this fight would appear destined to go the distance. And while both of these two have been highly unimpressive lately, at least Oleinik is willing to push to win fights. This will likely be a sloppy fight with some wrestling mixed in, and we could see it going either way. Maybe it’s the dog money talking, but we like Oleinik to come out with a Werdum-like performance and win a close decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Oleinik Wins by Decision” at +800.
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DFS Implications:
Latifi scored just 64 DraftKings points in his recent split-decision win and has never topped 84 points without a first round finish. He doesn’t appear to have much left in his tank at 38 years old and has been content with lying on his opponents and riding out fights since moving up to Heavyweight for his last two matches. He probably should be on a four fight losing streak right now, but he squeaked out a split-decision win in his last fight. The last time he finished an opponent was in a 2018 guillotine choke and the last time he knocked anybody out was in 2016. While Oleinik has been prone to getting knocked out himself, we’re not convinced that Latifi is up for the task. Without a finish, it’s hard to see Latifi returning value even with his wrestling heavy approach. When he does get opponents down, he simply lies on them and doesn throw any ground strikes or look for submissions, which obviously isn’t great for DFS scoring. His UFC decision wins have been good for 64, 84, and 67 points. He’s also never finished an opponent beyond the first round in a UFC fight, which appears to leave him reliant on knocking Oleinik out in round one to be useful. The odds imply he has a 64% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Oleinik consistently puts up decent scores when he wins, the problem is he rarely wins anymore. In fairness to him, he’s faced a series of really tough opponents in his last three fights, and now he finally gets to face a fellow washed up fighter. With that said, it’s not a great stylistic matchup for Oleinik to score well as he goes up against a bowling ball wrestler who’s never been submitted. While Oleinik has only been to two decisions in his last 12 fights, both of those came in his last four matches, and despite what the odds say, there’s a good chance this one goes the distance. So while we know Oleinik would likely return value with an unlikely submission win, we’re more interested in how he might score in a decision. There’s not a whole lot to go off when it comes to that, as he’s only been to three decisions in his 15 UFC fights (1-2). His lone UFC decision win scored 91 points in a 2020 decision win over Fabricio Werdum. His two decision losses scored 43 and 55 points, which would have been good for 73 and 86 points had the decisions gone his way. Working against him, Latifi has never been taken down in the UFC and only absorbs an average of 2.86 SS/min. So this fight will have to get pretty weird for Oleinik to score well without a finish. The odds imply he has a 36% chance to win, a 26% chance to get a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #4
Askar Askarov
5th UFC Fight (3-0-1)Still undefeated with an impressive 14-0-1 pro record, the closest Askarov has ever come to a loss was a 2019 draw in his UFC debut against Brandon Moreno. Since then, he’s defeated a series of highly ranked Flyweights in Tim Elliott, Alexandre Pantoja, and most recently Joseph Benavidez. While all four of his UFC fights have gone the distance, he landed 11 straight finishes in his first 11 pro fights. Four of those ended in knockouts and seven in submissions. Only two of those finishes occurred in the first round, and those were in his second and fourth pro fights back in 2013 and 2014. Six of his 11 finishes came in round two, two ended in round three, and one came in round five. His last 11 fights have all made it to round two. His last four finishes all came by submission.
In his recent win over Benavidez, Askarov controlled the fight throughout the match and finished ahead in significant strikes 58-46, in total strikes 71-61 and more importantly, in takedowns 5-0 on six attempts and in control time 5:00-0:00. Prior to that he outlanded another top Flyweight contender in Alexandre Pantoja 41-32 in significant strikes and in 44-40 in total strikes, while landing 2 of his 15 takedown attempts with just over five minutes of control time.
Askarov has gone 11 for 39 (28%) on his takedown attempts so far in his four UFC fights. So while his takedown accuracy has been bad the attempts have been there and he’s coming off a career best five takedowns landed. While he’s yet to record an official submission attempt on the stat sheets, and has a very patient fighting style, it's just a matter of time before Askarov lands his first submission in the UFC. He’s constantly taking the backs of his opponents. Askarov is a Dagestani wrestler and is good at controlling his opponents and avoiding taking damage. He’s mostly deaf, so he has the unique challenge of being unable to hear instruction from his corner during rounds, which could contribute to his methodical approach to fighting.
Askarov notably missed weight by 1 lb for his last fight, so he’ll be a guy to monitor at weigh-ins.
Kai Kara-France
9th UFC Fight (6-2)Weirdly coming off two straight first round knockout victories, Kara-France hadn’t knocked anybody out in his previous nine fights and went the distance in seven of those (6-1) with the other two ending in submissions (1-1). His first five UFC fights all ended with the judges, before he was submitted in the second round by Brandon Royval in his third most recent fight.
His most recent win came against glass-jawed Cody Garbrandt, who was dropping down to 125 lb for the first time to really exacerbate that vulnerability. Garbrandt looked terrible and Kara-France was able to knock him down midway through the first round. While he briefly recovered and shot for a desperation takedown, he wasn’t able to control Kara-France on the mat and the fight returned to the feet. Garbrandt continued to defend his hands with his face and appeared to be sleepwalking at that point as Kara-France continued to tee off and again dropped Garbrandt to force the stoppage. Credit to Kara-France for doing what he needed to, but the bigger question is who wouldn’t have knocked out Garbrandt there? He might as well have shown up with a blindfold and his hands tied behind his back because Garbrandt was helpless in the match.
Just prior to that, Kara-France had a crazy R1 KO comeback win against grappler Rogerio Bontorin. Kara-France was taken down by Bontorin who then took Kara-France’s back just 90 seconds into the fight. He spent the next three minutes hunting for a rear-naked choke and looked moments away from getting the finish at multiple points. However, with less than 30 seconds left in the round, Kai was able to shake Bontorin off and get back into open space. He landed multiple right hands that face planted Bontorin into the mat in a walk off KO. Then things got weird. As soon as he dropped Bontorin, Kai took a victory lap without even waiting for the ref to call the fight. As he circled back around the Octagon to the grounded Bontorin, it looked like maybe Kai thought the ref never stopped the action and went in for the kill shot. Herb Dean grabbed Kai before he could land anything, but Bontorin saw what was going on and got up off his back and threw his mouthguard at Kai in disgust. Kai seemed oblivious to what was going on, as he sprinted around the Octagon in celebration after landing his first KO in his last 10 fights and first one in the UFC. That was also the first time Bontorin had ever been knocked out—and by the most unlikely candidate at that.
Kara-France came into the UFC in 2018 on a five fight winning streak, and proceeded to win three straight decisions. However, at that point he began facing stiffer competition and dropped two of his next three matches against Brandon Moreno and Brandon Royval.
He lost a 2019 decision to Moreno in a standup striking battle with solid, but unexceptional striking volume. He then beat Tyson Nam in a slightly lower volume decision, before taking on Royval in a chaotic scrap that ended with Royval choking Kara-France out in the opening minute of the second round. This then he knocked out two straight opponents to put himself into title contention.
While Kara-France is just 3-2 in his last five fights, he’s still impressively won 11 of his last 13 fights. Prior to getting submitted by Royval in his second most recent fight, Kara-France hadn’t been finished in his previous 17 fights going back to a 2014 submission. And he hasn’t been knocked out since his third pro fight in 2012.
Kara-France is now 23-9 as a pro, with 11 wins by KO, three by submission, and nine decisions. He’s been knocked out twice (in his 2nd and 3rd pro fights), submitted three times and has lost four decisions. Kara-France is part of the City Kickboxing team and is a decent striker, but doesn’t offer much in terms of grappling and hasn’t landed a takedown in his last five fights. To his credit, he did show the ability to defend submission attempts against Rogerio Bontorin. He also has an 87% career takedown defense and has only been taken down three times on 24 attempts in his eight UFC fights. However, that number has the potential to be somewhat fraudulent as the majority of those attempts came from highly questionable opponents. In his 2018 UFC debut, Elias Garcia (14% career takedown accuracy & went 0-2 in the UFC) went 1 for 7 on his attempts. Next, Raulian Paiva (23% career takedown accuracy) went 0 for 4. Then, in Kara-France’s third UFC fight, Mark De La Rosa (13% career takedown accuracy & 2-5 in the UFC) also went 1 for 7 on his attempts. In his 5th UFC fight, Tyson Name (0% career takedown accuracy), went 0 for 4. Kara-France has only faced three decent grapplers in his UFC career—Brandon Moreno, Brandon Royval, and Rogerio Bontorin. The first two of those guys didn’t attempt a takedown, while Bontorin landed his only attempt. Kara-France went 1-2 in those three matches and was dangerously close to getting submitted in the third before he bounced back to knock Bontorin out. So he easily could be 0-3 with two submission losses in his three UFC fights against decent grapplers.
Fight Prediction:
Askarov will have a 2” height advantage but Kara-France will have a 2” reach advantage.
This will be the first one-dimensional striker Askarov has faced since joining the UFC and it comes in a spot where Askarov needs to make a statement to stake his claim as the next in line to get a title shot after Figueiredo/Moreno 12 finishes up in 2030. Kara-France has struggled in fights against high-level grapplers and his recent string of knockouts is nothing more than a mirage. He’s a one dimensional striker who doesn’t have exceptional power and is coming off a teed up matchup but now goes up against a buzzsaw. We expect Askarov to control this fight from start to finish and find success in taking Kara-France down, despite Askarov having just a 28% takedown accuracy and Kara-France having an 87% defense. Both of those numbers are largely based on the opponents these two have faced and we expect to see regression on each here. Askarov has a really good chance to land a submission here, but it will largely depend on whether or not he gets a little more aggressive than he’s been in the past. If he continues to be extremely patient, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him win another decision instead, but we like his chance to land his first finish and we’ll say he submits Kara-France in the second round.
Our favorite bet here is “Askarov Wins by Submission” at +360.
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DFS Implications:
Askarov is coming off a career best DFS performance, but still notched just 90 DraftKings points as he fought to his fourth straight decision since joining the UFC. He was finally able to improve his takedown accuracy and land 5 of his 6 attempts, but he’s not a guy that lands much striking volume, as he averages just 3.37 SSL/min. So even with five takedowns and five minutes of control time, he still wasn’t able to put up a big score in a decision. However, this looks like Askarov’s best opportunity to date to get a finish, as he faces a one-dimensional striker in Kara-France who has mostly struggled against grapplers. Kara-France has been submitted three times in his career, once in his last three fights, and nearly a second time in his second most recent match. Askarov is probably the best pure wrestler Kara-France has ever faced and motivation should be at an all time high as each of these two try to make a case for why they should be next in line for a title shot. We like Askarov to put on a ceiling performance here, and he’s habitually low owned, which raised his appeal in tournaments. While he’s yet to show us he can return value without a finish, it’s also possible he could just dominate Kara-France on the mat for 15 minutes and still score well in a grappling-heavy decision. And while all four of his UFC fights have gone the distance, he finished 11 straight opponents prior to joining the UFC. The odds imply he has a 76% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Kara-France is coming off two straight flukey first round knockouts, which will surely drive up his ownership some as the field chases ghosts. Despite the finishes, he’s not all of a sudden some massive KO threat and he was just in the right place at the right time against a chinless Cody Garbrandt. Not only has Askarov never been knocked out, he’s never lost a fight. He’s a smothering wrestler who rarely gets hit and this looks like a nightmare spot for Kara-France. Despite the terrible matchup, his recent scoring explosions and cheap price tag will likely drive up his ownership, which results in us having zero interest in playing him in any format. In Kara-France’s four UFC decision wins, he’s put up DraftKings scores of 62, 82, 64 and 111. The only usable score there was in his UFC debut against a terrible opponent, who finished 0-2 in the UFC, and Kara-France finished with 10 minutes of control time and 157 total strikes. That won’t happen here, so Kara-France will need a knockout to be useful, even at his cheap price tag. The odds imply he has a 24% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #3
Matt Brown
Xth UFC Fight (0-0)This fight had originally been scheduled for December 2021, however, Brown tested positive for COVID and was replaced by UFC newcomer Darian Weeks on short notice.
Finally notching his first win since 2019, Brown landed a June 2021 second round knockout against Dhiego Limo, who’s now been knocked out five times in his last 14 fights, with four of those coming in the first round. The fight started off slowly, with Brown outlanding Lima 15-12 in significant strikes in the first round. Lima came in with his normal leg kick heavy approach and was chewing up Brown’s lead leg, landing 11 of the 12 leg strikes he threw. Lima once agains showed up his glass chin in the second round as Brown landed what didn’t even look like that big of a shot, but it was enough to face plant Lima into the mat in a walk off KO. Overall, it was a pretty uninspiring performance by Brown, but he did finish ahead in significant strikes 27-23 and 30-23 in total strikes. Lima also went 0 for 4 on his takedown attempts and continues to prove he’s not a UFC level talent in his second stint with the organization. The fight was on pace for Brown to finish ahead just 50-43 in significant strikes had it gone the distance.
Prior to that win against a highly suspect Lima, Brown lost a January 2021 decision to a 37-year-old Carlos Condit in his second to last fight before retiring. Brown has landed just four takedowns on 13 attempts in his last 10 fights and the majority of those attempts came against Condit where Brown went just 1 of 6, while Condit landed 2 of his 4 attempts. Condit led in significant strikes 39-28 and in total strikes 157-37 in that fight, while Brown led in control time 6:06-4:52 and Condit went on to win a unanimous 30-27 decision.
Looking back one fight further, Brown was knocked out in the second round by Miguel Baeza in May 2020. Brown was able to stumble Baeza at one point in the first round, however, Baeza bounced back and knocked Brown down late in round one, before putting him down for good just 18 seconds into round two. Brown showed decent power and the ability to land heavy elbows out of the clinch, but he appeared to slow down after his early attempts to land a finish didn’t pan out.
We couldn’t even find the last time Brown won a single round on the judges’ scorecards, but it’s been at least 5+ years. He lost the first round to Lima before bouncing back with a knockout in round two, he lost all three rounds to Condit, he lost the first round to Baeza before getting knocked out in round two, and even lost the first round before landing a second round KO against a washed up Ben Saunders who was cut following the loss. Considering how seldom he has a round scored in his favor, Brown is unsurprisingly just 2-5 in decisions in his career, with those two wins coming in 2011 and 2012.
Now 23-18 as a pro, Brown has 15 wins by KO, six by submission, and two decisions. He’s also been knocked out three times, submitted 10 more, and has five decision losses. His last three fights to end early, finished in second round KOs (2-1), and he’s lost the three decisions he’s been to since 2012. Thirteen of his last 16 fights have ended early, with two ending in submissions (1-1) and 11 in knockouts (8-3). Prior to 2016, Brown had never been knocked out as a pro, but since then he’s been knocked out three times in his last seven fights. He’s gone 3-5 in his last eight fights, with his only wins over that stretch coming against a highly suspect Dhiego Lima and fellow aging fighters Diego Sanchez and Ben Saunders. Looking back even further, Brown is just 4-7 in his last 11 fights and has really been struggling all the way back to 2014.
One thing that will be working in Brown’s favor for this next matchup is that he’ll be fighting in front of his home Ohio crowd, where he’s gone 2-0 in the UFC with a 2014 R3 KO win over Erick Silva, who finished 7-8 in the UFC, and a 2009 R1 KO win over Pete Sell, who finished 2-5 in the UFC and was cut after the loss. Both of those wins were a lifetime ago, so we wouldn’t put too much significance into the outcomes, but Brown should have the support of the crowd behind him.
Bryan Barberena
14th UFC Fight (7-6)Fortunate to notch a decision win over short notice replacement Darian Weeks, who was making his UFC debut, Barberena found some success attacking the lead leg of Weeks early on, but Weeks still finished the first round ahead in significant strikes 26-21, in total strikes 29-24, in takedowns 1-0, and in control time 1:20-0:21. So at least according to the stats, Barberena lost the round. Obviously the judges put more importance on the leg strikes that Barberena was landing, and he may have simply been getting the vet treatment in what was still a relatively close round. Both guys picked up the pace in round two, but Weeks outlanded Barberena 49-32 in significant strikes, while also landing both of his takedown attempts. Barberena finished the fight strong, finally leading a round in striking, as he outlanded Weeks 55-43 in significant strikes in the final five minutes, but Weeks was able to land another takedown. The fight ended with Weeks ahead in significant strikes 118-108, while Barberena led in total strikes 134-125. Weeks also landed 4 of his 8 takedown attempts with over three minutes of control time, while Barberena didn’t attempt any takedowns. In the end it was a close fight that could have gone either way, but Barberena desperately needed the “W” to try and salvage his recent losing record.
That was Barberena’s third straight fight to go the distance (2-1), after his two prior to that both ended in third round KO losses. In his second most recent fight, Barberena lost a decision against one-dimensional grappler Jason Witt, who was able to take Barberena down 8 times on 18 attempts and control him for just over five and half minutes. Barberena led in significant strikes 50-35 and in total strikes 114-56, but was unable to do much until the third round when we saw a chaotic finish with Barberena nearly finishing Witt late in the match. Earlier in the fight, Witt was actually even able to briefly drop Barberena what appeared to be twice in the second round, but was only credited with one of those. He also wrapped up a Guillotine Choke but was unable to force a tap and eventually hung on to win the decision.
Before the loss to Witt, Barberena won a decision against no-longer-in-the-UFC Anthony Ivy, where Barberena saw an insane 24 takedowns attempts come his way, which he was able to successfully defend 19 of. Barberena finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 63-36 and in total strikes 175-54 as tapped on the side of Ivy’s head for 15 minutes while Ivy relentlessly attempted takedowns. Barberena attempted and failed on one takedown of his own, but did finish with two official submission attempts. Ivy led in control time 5:50-1:57, although most of that time was spent simply pushing Barberena against the cage as he attempted takedowns. Despite the win, we thought Barberena looked terrible compared to his past fights. He looked significantly heavier as he plodded around the cage and lacked any sort of bounce in his step. He also appeared to have lost some of his power and overall it was not at all encouraging for his potential moving forward. Ivy has lost four straight fights and has been finished in four of his six career losses, but Barberena was unable to capitalize and get him out of there. Prior to that fight, Barberena notably underwent back surgery, which resulted in a 15 month layoff.
Barberena has really struggled with getting taken down lately, as his last three opponents landed a combined 17 takedowns on a ridiculous 50 attempts. Most of those attempts came against one-dimensional grapplers Anthony Ivy (5 of 24) and Jason Witt (8 of 18), but it’s just something to keep in mind with Barberena moving forward.
The last time Barberena finished an opponent was in 2018, when knocked out a struggling Jake Ellenberger in the first round. For context, that was the final time Ellenberger fought in his career after getting knocked out in four straight fights and losing 6 of his final 7 UFC matches. Barberena’s other two UFC knockouts came against Joe Proctor and Jake Ellenberger’s twin brother Joe Ellenberger. Proctor finished 4-4 in the UFC and never fought again following the loss to Barberena. Joe Ellenberger finished 1-1 in the UFC and also never fought again following the loss to Barberena. So all three of Barberena’s UFC knockouts came against opponents in their final professional fight. He’s also gone just 3-4 in UFC fights that have gone the distance.
While six of Barberena’s 13 UFC fights have ended early, only two were stopped in round one and 10 of his 13 matches saw the third round, with seven going the distance. His only UFC fight to end in round two was a 2016 submission win over Sage Northcutt, while three of his fights ended in third round knockouts (1-2).
Now 16-8 as a pro, 12 of Barberena’s wins have come early with 10 KOs and 2 submissions, but his last two victories both went the distance. Barberena has been finished early in three of his eight career losses, with a pair of third round KOs and 2010 third round submission in his third pro fight. So all eight of his losses have made it to the third round, with five coming by decision. Barberena started out in the UFC at 155 lb before moving up to 170 lb in his third UFC fight.
Overall, Barberena has a brawling fighting style and hasn’t landed a takedown in his last 10 fights. He’s put up big striking totals at times, but has been inconsistent throughout his career. In his 13 UFC fights, Barberena has only won two fights in a row once, which was back in 2016 in his third and fourth UFC matches.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’0” but Brown will have a 3” reach advantage. Barberena is 9 years younger than the 41-year-old Brown, but it definitely doesn’t feel like he’s just 32.
Barberena has been involved in a series of drawn out fights with his last five matches and 10 of his 13 UFC fights going over 2.5 rounds. On the other side of things, 7 of Brown’s last 9 fights have ended in under 2.5 rounds and he’s only been to one decision since 2015. Both of these two are well past their prime, so it’s tougher to predict who’s chin will hold up better. Neither guy offers much in terms of striking defense at this point in their career, and there’s a good chance they’ll just go out there and swing at each other until one of them drops. Barberena throws much more volume, while Brown is trying to land the more impactful shots. That should give Barberena an advantage when it comes to striking totals if this fight actually makes it to the judges, but Brown will have the home crowd behind him, which could help sway the decision his way. Considering how infrequently Brown goes the full 15 minutes, it’s still more likely we see a finish here. Brown finished in four of his last five losses, while Barberena has been put away in two of his last three defeats. However, all three of Barberena’s early losses in his career came in the back half of the third round, so he hasn’t been an easy guy to get out of there early. Conversely, we’ve seen Brown get knocked out in under six minutes in two of his last four losses, and his chin appears a little more shot at this stage of his career. So if Barberena can connect with something clean early on, there’s a decent chance he can get Brown out of there. Neither one of these two have impressed us with anything they’ve done lately and it’s completely gross picking either one of these to win a fight in 2022. It makes sense the line opened as a pick ‘em as the oddsmakers appear to have felt the same way. We’ll give the edge to Barberena to win, whether it comes by KO or decision, but this is definitely a hold your nose type of pick.
Our favorite bet here is Barberena’s ML at -106.
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DFS Implications:
Brown hasn’t won a decision since 2012, and has only been to three in his last 16 fights, with eight of his last nine fights ending early. So with all of his recent victories coming early, it’s no surprise that he generally scores well when he wins. He’s averaged 110 DraftKings points in his last five wins, with 108 or more in four of those. While that all sounds great, especially when you consider his cheap $8,200 DraftKings price tag, keep in mind that he hasn’t been doing a whole lot of winning lately. Brown has lost 2 of his last 3, and 7 of his last 11 fights. His only wins since 2015 have come against struggling competition in Dhiego Lima, Ben Saunders, and Diego Sanchez. Now 41 years old, Brown is reaching the end of his career, but he will be fighting in front of his home Ohio crowd for potentially the last time. So he should at least come in with maximum motivation to put on one last good show. Barberena is also looking a bit long in the tooth, despite being nine years younger than Brown, and has been knocked out twice in his last five fights. However, both of those came in the back half of the third round against tough opponents in Randy Brown and Vicente Luque. Brown generally doesn’t land a ton of striking volume, averaging just 3.68 SSL/min. He’s also landed just four takedowns in his last 10 fights, so he won’t boost his score much with grappling. Because of that, he’s heavily reliant on landing early finishes to score well, and is less likely to put up a huge score with a later finish or in a decision. The odds imply Brown has a 49% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.
Similar to Brown, Barberena’s wins have been sporadic and he’s gone just 2-3 in his last five and narrowly beat a short notice replacement making his UFC debut in his most recent fight. Unlike Brown, Barberena hasn’t scored well in his last couple of wins, with DraftKings totals of 79 and 81. Both of those fights went the distance, and while Barberena put up a decent significant striking total of 108 in his last fight, he hasn’t landed a takedown in his last 10 matches so it’s tougher for him to score well off striking alone. He’s only topped 100 DraftKings points in two of his seven UFC wins, despite four of those ending early. He totaled 120 and 111 in those two instances, which both resulted from first round knockouts. He has shown a decent floor, averaging 89 DraftKings points in his other five UFC wins, so he still has the potential to serve as a value play at his cheaper price tag if this fight makes it past the first round. He likely still needs a finish to remain in the DFS discussion though, as Brown only averages 2.68 SSA/min and no one has ever landed more than 80 significant strikes on him in 28 UFC fights. Overall this is a high variance fight between two struggling vets and it has the potential to end in either a high scoring knockout or a disappointing decision. That makes it a tricky spot for DFS, but an important one to get right. The odds imply Barberena has a 51% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish and a 12% chance it occurs in the first round.
Fight #2
Alexa Grasso
9th UFC Fight (5-3)Thirteen months removed from a decision win over Maycee Barber, Grasso was originally scheduled to face Wood back in November, but Grasso ended up withdrawing. Then she was booked against Viviane Araujo in January, but Araujo ended up withdrawing due to an injury and the Wood matchup was rebooked. Grasso has won both of her fights since moving up to 125 lb in 2020, after spending the first seven years and 14 fights of her pro career at 115 lb.
In her February 2021 win over Barber, Grasso came in with a patient gameplan while Barber bizzarley tried to jab Grasso from across the Octagon at multiple points during the fight. That was Barber’s first fight back after tearing her left ACL in what was her first career loss, 13 months earlier against Roxanne Modafferi. Between Barber’s complete lack of distance awareness and extended periods of time spent in the clinch, we didn’t see many significant strikes landed in the first two rounds, as Grasso led 13-10 in round one and 12-8 in round two. Barber finally got more aggressive in round three, where he outlanded Grasso 22-13 in significant strikes and 2-0 in takedowns to win the round. That was enough for Barber to finish the fight ahead in significant strikes 40-38 and 3-0 on takedowns, but Grasso led in total strikes 95-50 and in control time 5:10-3:14. She also had a submission attempt and reversal late in round two after Barber took her down. Barber landed just 40 of the 152 significant strikes she threw (26%), which is not at all surprising considering she was 10 ft away from Grasso when she threw most of those. Grasso threw just 81 significant strikes, but landed 38 of those. In the end, Grasso won the first two rounds, while Barber won round three, and all three judges agreed, awarding Grasso a unanimous 29-28 decision win.
Six months prior to the win over Barber, Grasso made her Flyweight debut against Ji Yeon Kim, and said she felt healthier and overall better at the higher weight class. Grasso outlanded Kim 88-68 in significant strikes and 123-85 in total strikes, while also landing one of her two takedown attempts, on her way to winning a unanimous decision.
Mostly known as a striker, Grasso did fight wrestler Carla Esparza to a close decision back in 2019, and nearly ended the fight both standing up and with an armbar attempt in the third round. However, she went on to lose a decision and then moved up to 125 lb after going 3-3 at 115 lb.
Despite nearly finishing Esparza, Grasso’s last seven wins have all come by decision and the only time she didn’t go the distance in her last 10 fights was when she got submitted in the first round of a 2018 match by Tatiana Suarez. That was the only time Grasso has been finished in her career, while her other two losses both came by decision. Now 13-3 as a pro, she has four KOs to go with her nine decisions, however, three of her four KO wins came in her first three pro fights against opponents who entered with no experience and the other was in her 6th pro fight in 2014. Grasso has talked about how she’s trying to improve her grappling, and we saw her looking for submissions against both Esparza and Barber most recently, while she has four official submission attempts since joining the UFC. She looked to have an armbar locked in against Esparza, but Esparza was somehow able to escape.
Grasso has only topped 88 significant strikes landed in one of her eight UFC fights and landed 65 or fewer in five of those. Similarly, only one opponent has ever landed more than 68 against her and five landed 45 or fewer. She’s also only landed two takedowns in those eight fights and just one in her last seven.
Joanne Wood
15th UFC Fight (7-7)Desperate for a win, Wood has lost two in a row and three of her last four, while going just 2-4 in her last six matches. Wood’s most recent loss came in yet another first round submission against an extremely dangerous Taila Santos. That’s the fourth time Wood has been submitted in the first round in the UFC, which are the only four times she’s been finished in her career. Santos dropped Wood late in the round, and while Wood was able to recover and return to her feet, Santos dropped her again just 30 seconds seconds later. At that point she took her back and quickly worked her way to a rear-naked choke that she completed with 11 seconds left in the round. The striking ended up being pretty close, with Santos leading 30-27 in significant strikes and 36-30 in total strikes. That loss came very shortly after Joanne Wood, previously Joanne Calderwood, married her head coach John Wood and ended up with a slightly short name.
After having a title shot against Valentina Shevchenko booked in June 2020, Wood was forced to wait after Shevchenko withdrew due to a knee injury. However, with an undetermined timeline for Shevchenko’s recovery, Wood opted to take a fight with Jennifer Maia in August 2020 instead of continuing to sit on the shelf. In fairness to her, it has been 11 months since she last fought, she was 34 years old and probably couldn’t afford to sit and wait for an indefinite amount of time. Regardless, what setup as a very winnable fight against Maia, quickly turned into a nightmare, as Wood was submitted via armbar in the first round. That loss resulted in Maia getting the title shot instead of Wood. While Wood was able to bounce back with a decision win over Jessica Eye, she then lost a questionable split decision to Lauren Murphy in a fight where Wood finished ahead 123-80 in significant strikes and stuffed five of Murphy’s six takedown attempts. The decision came down to who won the first round and the later rounds were clearly split one a piece. In that first round, Wood outlanded Murphy 55-29 in significant strikes and 64-40 in total strikes, while stuffing Murphy’s only takedown attempt. The only explanation is that the judges thought Murphy did more damage as Wood nearly doubled Murphy’s number of significant strikes landed in the round. Following the win Murphy was then awarded a title shot, so you have to be pretty bitter at that point if you’re Wood after your last two opponents to beat you were both awarded title shots in very winnable matches, including one that you seemingly did enough to win. After once again getting close enough to smell a title shot just to get turned away, Wood then suffered another setback in her recent loss to Santos. So overall she’s been put through the ringer over the last couple of years, and now 36 years old and freshly married, you almost have to wonder how much longer she’ll keep doing this if her title aspirations evaporate. this next fight could be a make or break one for Wood because of that.
Now 15-7 as a pro, Wood has five wins by KO/TKO, one by submission, and nine decisions.However, four of her five KO/TKO wins occurred in her first six pro fights from 2012 to 2013, and she’s finished just two opponents in her last 16 fights (2016 R3 TKO & 2018 R1 submission). While she’s never been knocked out, she’s been submitted four times, all in the first round, and has lost three decisions. Thirteen of her 14 UFC fights have ended in either decisions (5-3) or submissions (1-4), with the one exception being a 2016 R3 TKO against an opponent in the midst of a three fight losing streak.
Wood came into the UFC at 115 lb in 2014 following a submission loss on The Ultimate Fighter against Rose Namajunas. That fight was counted as an exhibition match so the loss doesn't show up on her official record or else she would have five submission losses. After going 2-1 in her first three UFC fights, Wood decided to move up to 125 lb for a fight, which she won by R3 TKO. She moved back down to 115 lb after the win, but lost two straight to Jessica Andrade and Cynthia Calvillo, and then decided 125 lb was looking a whole lot better and moved back up, where she’s stayed since. She’s now fought her last eight fights (4-4) at 125 lb, bringing her UFC Flyweight record to 5-4.
Overall, Wood is a high-volume striker and former Muay Thai champion, who is a liability when it comes to grappling. She’s landed over 100 significant strikes in her last four and six of her nine UFC fights to make it out of the first round. She’s looking to outland her way to decision wins and has actually never been outlanded in any UFC fight that has gone the distance, even in her three decision losses.
Fight Prediction:
Wood will have a 1” height advantage, but Grasso will have a 1” reach advantage and is eight years younger than the 36-year-old Wood.
There are several similarities between these two ladies. They both have striking backgrounds, both started their UFC careers at 115 lb, both BJJ purple belts, both win most of their fights by decision, and are both about the same size. However, Grasso is a more patient boxer, who looks to land more powerful punches, while Wood is simply trying to land as much volume as possible. Wood has also been far more prone to getting submitted, and while Grasso has yet to ever complete a submission, she does have four official attempts in the UFC and nearly finished Carla Esparza with an armbar. If you combine Wood’s submission vulnerability with Grasso’s power advantage, if anyone is going to get finished it will likely be Wood. With that said, both of these two habitually fight to decisions and that’s how we expect this fight to end. Grasso has generally done a good job of slowing down fights to her desired pace, and limited Maycee Barber and Ji Yeon Kim to a combined 108 significant strikes landed in her recent two decision wins. However, Wood has never been outlanded in a decision and is generally looking to push the pace, so it will be interesting to see which fighter is able to dictate the pace. If Grasso can slow the fight down, she should win a decision, however, if Wood can turn this into a firefight then we would expect her to come out ahead in terms of volume, but likely behind in terms of the more impactful strikes. That would leave things up to the judges as to which they deem more valuable, and we would expect it to end in a close, if not split decision. As long as Wood doesn’t put herself in a stupid position and get armbarred, she’s a live dog to outland her way to a decision win. With that said, Grasso has a significantly better striking defense (64% vs. 52%) and we expect her to come in with a more calculated approach that allows her to keep the striking numbers close, while landing the more impactful shots. So while Wood is the more interesting side for betting and DFS, our official pick is Grasso by decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Split Decision” at +350.
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DFS Implications:
The only time Grasso has topped 81 DraftKings points was when she landed 148 significant strikes against Karolina Kowalkiewicz in 2019 and still scored just 92 points. All five of her UFC wins have come by decision, and she’s averaged 80 DraftKings points in those victories. While this does look like a good pace-up matchup with the slight potential for Grasso to land a submission, it’s still hard for her to return value at her $9,000 price tag. She’s only landed one takedown in her last seven fights and only averages 4.96 SSL/min. Outside of her one striking explosion, she’s never topped 88 significant strikes landed in a fight, and generally comes in with a patient game plan. She’ll also look to slow fights down in the clinch at times, which just make it even tougher for her to put up a big striking total. Working in her favor, we expect her to be low owned despite the favorable matchup. So if this does turn into a wild shootout in front of the Ohio crowd, or if Grasso is able to hand Wood another submission loss, then Grasso would make for a great tournament play with tournament winning upside. That’s certainly not the most likely outcome, but it’s also not out of the realm of possibility. The odds imply she has a 68% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Wood has averaged a ridiculous 110 DraftKings points in her seven UFC wins, despite five of those ending in decisions. Her high-volume striking mixed in with occasional takedowns is the perfect recipe for DFS production, unfortunately her wins have been few and far between lately and she’s lost three of her last four fights and is just 2-4 in her last six. She also gets another tough opponent who will likely be looking to slow the pace down, so despite Wood’s appealing $7,200 price tag, this is not an ideal spot for her to hit a ceiling performance. However, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen, and she should be desperate for a win here in front of a live crowd that could help her to push the pace. So while the matchup isn’t a great one, we’re always interested in playing Wood in DFS. She’s scored 96 or more DraftKings points in six of her seven wins and has twice broken slates with scores of 138 or more. She’s also never been outlanded in a decision, even in her three losses. If she can draw Grasso into a firefight, she could still put up a huge striking number and squeak out a decision. And if that happens at her cheap price tag, she’ll likely end up in winning lineups. The odds imply she has a 32% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Curtis Blaydes
15th UFC Fight (10-3, NC)After getting violently knocked out by Derrick Lewis early in the second round of a February 2021 match, Blaydes bounced back with a less eventful 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 with over six minutes of control time. He landed his first takedown 64 seconds into the match, but Rozenstruik was at least able to return to his feet for the final two minutes of the round. Despite spending three minutes in space, Rozenstruik still landed just six significant strikes in the round, while Blaydes landed 19 in addition to landing the takedown. The later rounds were even slower paced, with Rozenstruik leading 10-8 in significant strikes in round two and Blaydes leading 5-2 in round three. In total, Blaydes finished ahead 32-18 in significant strikes and 113-46 in total strikes, while leading in takedowns 3-0 and in control time 6:19-0:00. Rozenstruik landed a big flying knee in round two that damaged Blaydes’ right eye, but Blaydes responded by immediately taking him down. Rozenstruik appeared rightfully worried about the wrestling of Blaydes, while Blaydes was weary of the power coming back his way from Rozenstruik. Both guys fought pretty tentatively because of that, which resulted in periods of inaction on the feet. Blaydes controlled Rozenstruik on the mat for over three minutes in the final round, as Blaydes’ eye continued to swell. 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 three rounds. 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.
That post round two doctor stoppage TKO loss to Ngannou came in Blaydes’ 2016 UFC debut. It was just Blaydes’ sixth pro fight after turning pro less than two years earlier. He won his first five pro fights by TKO before suffering his first career loss to Ngannou. Blaydes bounced back from the loss in his debut with six straight wins, including four more TKO victories, however, one of those was later overturned to a No Contest when he tested positive for THC. Nevertheless, the UFC gave him a rematch with Ngannou in 2018. The rematch went even worse than the first fight for Blaydes, as Ngannou got him out of there with a R1 TKO in just 45 seconds. Blaydes again bounced back from the loss, this time with four straight wins, including two by R2 TKO and two more by decision. We finally saw his cardio really get tested in the last of the wins when he saw the championship rounds for the first time in a five-round decision win over Alexander Volkov, where Blaydes set the Heavyweight record for the most takedowns landed in a fight at 14. Blaydes was absolutely exhausted late in the match, to the point that it looked like Volkov might have a chance to win in the 5th round if he could simply stay on his feet and land something clean. Blaydes was narrowly able to ride out the victory, but it was not a smooth landing. He then got knocked out cold for the first time in his career in the second round of a 2021 fight against Derrick Lewis, leading up to his recent decision win over Rozenstruik.
Now 15-3 as a pro, Blaydes has 10 wins by TKO and five by decision. His last eight TKO wins all came in rounds two and three, with seven of his last nine ending in round two. That includes the 2017 fight that was later overturned to a No Contest. His only two first round finishes came in his first two pro fights. While Blaydes has shown the ability to finish opponents on the mat with ground and pound, his last two wins have both gone the distance, as have three of his last five victories and five of his last nine. So as he’s moved up the ranks, he’s had a tougher time getting guys out of there. His more recent finishes have all come against aging opponents in Junior dos Santos, Shamil Abdurakhimov, Alistair Overeem, and Alexey Oleynik. It’s been over two years since he finished anyone. All three of his career losses ended in KO/TKOs in 10 minutes or less, two to Francis Ngannou and one to Derrick Lewis. So only top Heavyweight power punchers have been able to defeat him.
Overall, Blaydes is one of the rare Heavyweight wrestlers, which presents a mismatch for the majority of his opponents. However, 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 until fights are stopped.
Chris Daukaus
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Daukaus wasted no time getting back inside the Octagon as he’s looking to quickly bounce back from his first UFC loss after getting knocked out by Derrick Lewis just three months ago. Lewis was a little more aggressive in that matchup than we’ve seen him recently and it had been five years and 15 fights since he had finished anyone in the first round. He was still patient as he looked for his shots, but he was generally the one methodically pushing forward and not waiting for the fight to come to him. After landing a roundhouse kick a few minutes into the round, Lewis finally uncorked his power on Daukaus along the fence in a flurry of violent strikes. He paused for a moment to briefly consider a takedown before resuming his striking to close the show. With that win, Lewis set the record for the most Heavyweight knockouts of all time. Daukaus relies mostly on his speed and accuracy to win fights, but Lewis simply looked too big and too powerful for him.
That was the first real test of Daukaus’ UFC career and his previous two opponents, Shamil Abdurakhimov and Alexey Oleynik, are a combined 84 years old and have each lost their last three fights. Daukaus was able to finish each of them in under seven minutes and his last 11 fights have all ended in KO/TKOs in the first two rounds (9-2). He made his debut in August 2020 against Parker Porter, who was also debuting on short notice and knocked him out late in the first round. Then Daukaus knocked out Heavyweight grappler Rodrigo Nascimento in just 45 seconds in his second UFC fight, before finishing Alexey Oleynik in under two minutes. Daukaus finally caught a glimpse of the second round in the UFC against Shamil Abdurakhimov, but then knocked him out 83 seconds into round two after nearly getting the first round finish.
Only one of Daukaus’ 16 career fights has made it past the first round, which was a 2016 decision win in his 5th pro fight. Five of his last six and eight of his last 11 fights have ended in the first round. He’s now 12-4 as a pro, with 11 wins by KO and just one decision. Eight of those KOs wins came in round one, with the other three ending in the first half of round two. He’s been finished in all four of his losses, with three KOs and a 2015 second round submission. Two of those knockout losses occurred in round one and the other was late in round two. Up until the Lewis fight, he hadn’t had to take much damage in any of his UFC fights, so as a smaller Heavyweight with 100% of his losses coming early, it’s entirely fair to question his durability. His cardio remains a question mark, as he’s 1-1 in fights that have made it past the midway mark of round two and hasn’t been to the third round since he was introduced to it for the first and only time all the way back in 2016.
Another question mark is his grappling. He’s only had to defend to takedowns so far in the UFC and while we haven’t seen any of Daukaus’ UFC fights hit the mat, he is notably a BJJ black belt. With that said he trains out of a smaller gym with no big names, so it’s hard to say how legitimate that is. We’ve seen plenty of “black belts” look lost on their backs—especially at Heavyweight.
UPDATE: Daukaus came in heavier for this matchup, tipping the scales at 243 lb, after weighing 235.5 lb for his fight against Lewis, and 231 lb, 234 lb, 227 lb, and 241 lb for his previous four UFC fights.
Fight Prediction:
Blaydes will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage.
This sets up as a classic striker versus grappler matchup where the whole world knows Blaydes will be shooting for takedowns, while Daukaus will be looking to keep it standing. However, Daukaus’ grappling and cardio remain a complete mystery at the UFC level, which makes this a trickier one to predict. However, considering 11 of his 12 wins have come by KO and 15 of his 16 pro fights have ended in the first two rounds, it would be surprising if either his cardio or grappling were great, largely because he never has to use either one. Unfortunately we can’t do much more than speculate until we see either one. He was able to fend off Alexey Oleynik’s early grappling attempts, but that’s a completely different animal than what Blaydes will bring to the table. The only opponents to defeat Blaydes have been monster power punchers in Francis Ngannou and Derrick Lewis. Daukaus certainly does not fit that mold and he generally relies on his speed and accuracy to finish his opponents with combinations of strikes opposed to one big nuke. That will make it tougher for Daukaus to put Blaydes away before Blaydes takes him down, but it’s certainly not impossible. Blaydes has been prone to having his right eye swell up quickly, so if Daukaus can use his accuracy to land a few perfectly placed punches, he may be able to win this one through a doctor stoppage and not need to actually knock Blaydes out. And while Daukaus doesn’t have the power of a Lewis or Ngannou, he still has decent power and a knack for knockouts, so he’s far from helpless out there. To win this fight, he’ll need to rely on his speed to evade the takedowns of Blaydes while making him pay for missed attempts. This event will be taking place in Columbus, Ohio, so we should be looking at a full sized cage opposed to the smaller Octagon at the Apex. That should play into Daukaus’ favor as it will give him more room to evade takedowns. Whether or not that will be enough for him to remain upright and try to land a knockout is a different story. While Daukaus has a chance to land a knockout early in this fight, we like Blaydes to get this fight to the ground early and often and eventually finish Daukaus on the mat with ground and pound in rounds two or three.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in KO” at -180.
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DFS Implications:
Blaydes has been a more volatile DFS contributor lately, with DraftKings scores of 85, 12, and 173 in his last three fights. His wrestling-heavy approach to fighting provides a massive ceiling and a reliable floor when he’s able to successfully execute his game plan and he holds the UFC Heavyweight record for the most takedowns landed in a fight at 14. In his 10 UFC wins, he has averaged 113 points on DraftKings and 103 points on FanDuel. If we remove his four three-round decisions, since this will be a five round fight, he has averaged 122 DraftKings points and 121 points on FanDuel in his other six wins. Five of those ended in TKOs in round two and three, while the other ended in a five-round decision. He has shown a lower floor than we’d like for DFS and his last finish scored just 82 DraftKings points and 92 points on FanDuel. That was notably the only time he’s ever finished an opponent without landing a takedown and it came early in the second round, so overall it was basically the worst case scenario. His other four early wins in the UFC were good for DK/FD totals of 120/120, 99/96, 121/134, and 135/136. So he’s failed to top 100 points on either DFS site in two of his five early UFC wins, but averaged a massive 125/130 DK/FD points in his other three finishes. He also scored a slate-breaking 173/145 points in a five-round decision victory when he set the takedown record against Alexander Volkov. So overall, we would expect him to score well if this somehow goes the distance, and based on his past results, he’ll put up huge scores two-thirds of the time in his finishes, but fail to top 100 the other third of the time. Part of that is due to the fact that his last nine finishes (including one that was later overturned to a No Contest) have come in the second or third rounds, and he hasn’t finished an opponent in round one since his first two pro fights. He’s also never landed a finish beyond the third round.
All three of Blaydes’ career losses have come by KO/TKO in the first two rounds, so when he loses it generally comes quickly. In fairness those losses were against Derrick Lewis and Francis Ngannou (twice). Blaydes relies on his wrestling to win fights, and it’s rare to see him win a striking battle, although he did pull that off against an aging Junior Dos Santos in 2020. Nevertheless, he’s gone 1-2 in his last three fights where he didn’t land a takedown, so if Daukaus is somehow able to keep this fight standing, Blaydes will be in real trouble. With that said, the opponents Blaydes has struggled to takedown have all been much larger than Daukaus, and if Blaydes can get his hands on Daukaus, he should be able to drag him to the mat. Daukaus hasn’t been past the seven minute mark since joining the UFC and has only seen the third round ocne in his career, which was way back in 2016, so we really don’t know what his cardio looks like later in fights. However, if Blaydes comes in and ragdolls him for a round or two we could see Daukaus’ cardio quickly fade, making a mid round finish more likely for Blaydes. That’s the most likely scenario for how this fight plays out and if it goes that way, expect it to come with a big DFS score on both sites. The odds imply Blaydes has a 76% chance to win, a 50% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Daukaus is coming off his first UFC loss after capitalizing on four favorable matchups to start his UFC career. Despite being the favorite according to the odds, he predictably struggled with the size and power of Derrick Lewis in his last fight, and as we predicted he got knocked out early in the match. Now he’ll face another tough, but different type of test in Heavyweight wrestler Curtis Blaydes. The only two fighters to ever stop Blaydes are Heavyweight behemoths Derrick Lewis and Franci Ngannou. Daukaus is a completely different type of Heavyweight, who’s undersized and relies on his speed and accuracy to win fights. Daukaus’ four UFC knockouts have come with significant striking totals of 37, 13, 34, and 38, so you can see he generally relies on inflicting damage through volume more so than finishing fights with a single bomb like Lewis and Ngannou. That will make things tougher for him against Blaydes, who has been vulnerable to getting nuked as he shoots for a takedown, but generally won’t give his opponents enough time on the feet to rack up strikes and he only averages 1.65 SSA/min in his career. That will leave Daukaus reliant on successfully defending multiple takedown attempts, while chipping away at Blaydes’ power bar. Blaydes’ has been prone to having his right eye swell shut, so if Daukaus can utilize his accuracy to attack that vulnerability, while also avoiding getting takedown, it’s possible he could force a doctor stoppage in the middle rounds.
In the end, it will all just come down to whether or not Daukaus can stay off his back. While his takedown defense is listed at 100%, he’s only had to defend two so far in the UFC—one from Derrick Lewis (28% takedown accuracy) and another from Aleksei Oleinik (46% takedown accuracy). Blaydes has a 53% career accuracy and averages 11.8 attempts per 15 minutes. Blaydes has weighed in right around 260 lb for his last three fights, while Daukaus has been in the low to mid 230’s. While that likely provides a speed advantage for Daukaus, it doesn’t bode well for defending takedowns once Blaydes does get his hands on him. The wildcard here is that Daukaus is allegedly a BJJ black belt. We’ve yet to see him grapple any and Blaydes has never been submitted in his career, but there’s always a chance Daukaus could be better on the mat than expected. We’re certainly noy counting on that, but it remains an unknown going into this matchup. In Blaydes’ three UFC losses, which all ended in KO/TKOs, his opponents put up DK/FD scores of 83/91 (Derrick Lewis 2021 R2 KO), 130/120 (Francis Ngannou 2018 R1 KO), 89/97 (Francis Ngannou 2016 R2 TKO). Opponents are generally so concerned with defending his wrestling that they don’t throw as many strikes and Blaydes has only been taken down once in his last 12 fights. While that is somewhat concerning for Daukaus’ scoring ceiling, his cheap price tag makes it less likely that he would win and be left out of winning lineups. However, for Captain/MVP purposes, it also makes Daukaus less likely to lead the slate in scoring if he does pull off the upset. Working in his favor, Daukaus currently holds the record for the highest average number of knockdowns per 15 minutes at 5.26 and he’s landed two in three of his four wins. So he has shown the ability to score points quickly. Generally a field favorite, Daukaus was 46% owned in his last fight and 37% and 48% in his two three-round fights prior to that. Now coming off his first UFC loss but priced at just $7,000 on DraftKings, it will be interesting to see how much the field backs off. The odds imply he has a 24% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish and a 7% 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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