The Sheet

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Fighter Notes:

Fight #12

Wang Cong

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Wang will be making her UFC debut just two years after her pro MMA debut, but she’s not short on combat experience. She’s a former Sanda and kickboxing world champion and also famously has a kickboxing decision win over Valentina Shevchenko back in 2015. She then transitioned to MMA in 2022, where she finished her first two opponents. She followed that up with a pair of high-volume decision wins, with the second of those coming against former UFC fighter Yanan Wu. She then took part in a non-tournament bout on Road to UFC and locked up a first round submission to secure a spot in the UFC.

Now 5-0 as a pro, Wang has one TKO win, two submissions, and two decision victories. All three of her finishes came in the first two rounds, with two ending in round one. Wang has competed at both 125 lb and 135 lb, but two of her last three fights were at 125 lb, where she’ll be fighting in the UFC.

Overall, Wang is a high-volume Chinese striker who’s shown the ability to land a ton of volume. While she has two submission wins on her record, she’s normally content with keeping fights standing, although has at least shown she’s not helpless on the mat. She has good speed and quickness and blends her kicks and punches well, while constantly pushing forward and forcing the action. The UFC is giving her a teed up matchup to showcase her talents here against a 1-3 opponent.

Victoria Leonardo

5th UFC Fight (1-3)

Somehow still on the roster despite a 1-3 start to her UFC career, Leonardo is 15 months removed from a R1 TKO loss to Natalia Silva. Leonardo looked like a punching bag and Silva made short work of her, as the ref had seen enough three minutes in and stopped the fight on the feet, after Leonardo had already been dropped once and split open. Leonardo attempted one failed takedown in the fight and basically just absorbed punishment the rest of the fight. That came 10 months after Leonardo secured her lone UFC win in a battle with Mandy Bohm to determine who the worst female fighter on the roster was. Leonardo won a low-volume decision where she landed two of her six takedown attempts in the fight, with seven minutes of control time, while Bohm finished ahead in significant strikes just 52-39. Leonardo was forced out of her previous fight against Melissa Gatto following the second round due to a recurring arm injury. She originally broke that arm in her UFC debut against Manon Fiorot, which also ended in a second round TKO loss, and all three of Leonardo’s UFC losses came by TKO in the opening two rounds. Prior to joining the UFC, Leonardo landed a R2 TKO of her own on DWCS in November 2020. She also got knocked out in the second round by Erin Blanchfield in a 2020 Invicta fight and five of Leonardo’s last seven fights ended in TKOs (1-4).

Now 9-5 as a pro, Leonardo has one TKO win (R2 2020), four submissions, and four decision victories. All four of her submission wins came in the first two rounds of her first six pro fights. She’s been finished in the first two rounds in all five of her losses, with four KO/TKOs and one submission. All five of those defeats came against tough competition in Miranda Maverick, Erin Blanchfield, Manon Fiorot, Melissa Gatto, and Natalia Silva.

Overall, Leonardo is a low-level grappler who hasn’t looked great on the feet or the mat. While she’s faced several tough opponents in her career, she’s been finished by all of them, while all of her wins have come against fellow low-level fighters. Between her four UFC fights and her DWCS appearance, she landed 5 of her 18 takedown attempts (27.8% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on two of their seven attempts (71.4% defense). She absorbs more damage than she lands, averaging 3.27 SSL/min and 4.70 SSA/min. It’s amazing the UFC even brought her back after she went 1-3, but they love using her to build up prospects and on page one of the UFC hype manual you’ll find, “Knock out the soccer mom” in big bold letters.

Fight Prediction:

Wang will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while also being two years younger than the 34-year-old Leonardo.

This isn’t even really a fight as much as it is a setup and the UFC normally only calls Leonardo when they need to build up a prospect. Leonardo has shown no ability to defend herself against legitimate competition and it’s borderline reckless endangerment what the UFC is doing here. While Wang hasn’t looked like that dangerous of a finisher, Leonardo lacks the striking defense to intelligently defend herself for 15 min and at some point in this fight the referee will likely have seen enough and stop the fight on the feet due to an accumulation of damage. Historically for Leonardo, that point has always come in the first two rounds, most often in round two.

Our favorite bet here is “Wang Cong R2 KO” at +500.

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DFS Implications:

Wang is a high-volume striker whose style is perfectly suited to the FanDuel scoring system. While she does have a couple of submission wins on her record, including her most recent win, she generally doesn’t look to grapple a ton and comes from a striking background. While she doesn’t look like any sort of potent finisher, she gets an absolute dream matchup here against Victoria Leonardo, who’s been finished in the first two rounds in all five of her pro losses and is just 1-3 in the UFC. Leonardo is who the UFC calls when they want to build up a prospect and this is more of a hit then a fight for Wang. The UFC pulled out all the stops on this hype train, as Wang has a 2015 kickboxing win over Valentina Shevchenko that you’ll undoubtedly hear all about on the broadcast come Saturday. They not so coincidentally have Wang debuting on the same card that features the TUF finals that Shevchenko is coaching and this is bordering on WWE levels of predetermination. Wang is the first fight of the night so they’ll have as much time as they want to talk about her past win over Shevchenko. They’ll pretend like Leonardo is some great wrestler who refuses to ever give up on herself. Then Leonardo will predictably give up on herself midway through the fight as she absorbs a ton of damage with no clue how to defend herself. Next, the broadcast team will freak out over the win and start hurling superlatives at Wang, saying she already looks ready for the top 10 and we could be looking at a future contender and a Shevchenko rematch in the near future. It’s already been written folks, we’re just waiting for the pageantry to play out. While it will generally be tougher for Wang to put up huge scores on striking alone, when you pair a ton of volume with a well-timed finish, then you have something—especially on FanDuel. Wang will never have another opportunity this good and this isn’t a spot you want to be late on, despite the fact that she’s the most expensive fighter on the card and doesn’t wrestle much. She’s going to put up a huge striking total and then finish Leonardo late in round two, returning a big score on DraftKings and an even bigger one on FanDuel. The field will be reluctant to hammer a debuting female fighter at that price, which will keep her ownership down despite the dream matchup and just further adds to her tournament appeal. The odds imply Wang has an 89% chance to win, a 59% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.

Leonardo was left for dead after her R1 TKO loss to Natalia Silva 15 months ago and very rarely do we see 1-3 fighters in the UFC get a fifth fight, especially when all three of those losses ended early. So clearly the UFC has ulterior motives for keeping her around and it’s not exactly hard to see what those are. They’ve used her to build up multiple prospects in the past and they’re doing the same thing here. She’s the UFC’s Jay Ellis and make no mistake about it, she’s being brought in to lose here. She has no idea how to defend herself on the feet and has a recurring arm injury that has broken in multiple fights. While her aggressiveness and desire to grapple are traits we’re typically looking for in DFS, she’s just not any good. We’ve seen her get dominated anytime she faces decent competition and now she’s going up against the UFC’s latest kickboxing revenge pet project. We have no interest in lighting money on fire by putting it on a sacrificial lamb and the UFC knows exactly what they’re doing here. The odds imply Leonardo has an 11% chance to win, a 6% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #11

Nathan Fletcher

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Fletcher lost a wrestling-heavy two-round decision against Kaan Ofli in his first fight on The Ultimate Fighter, but is getting a second opportunity anyways. Ofli was able to land takedowns with ease and controlled Fletcher on the mat for most of the fight, outside of one hail mary submission opportunity for Fletcher in the second round. Fletcher later discovered that he broke a bone in his leg early in that fight. Prior to going on the show, Fletcher had spent his entire career with Cage Warriors, where he won his last two fights after getting knocked out in the third round of a 2021 match.

Now 8-1 as a pro (not counting his “exhibition” match on TUF), Fletcher has one TKO win, six submissions, and one decision victory. His only official career loss ended in a 2021 third round knockout. Fletcher spent his entire pro career at 135 lb, before moving up to 145 lb when he went on TUF. While he’ll remain at 145 lb for this next fight, we imagine he’ll cut back down to 135 lb after this.

Overall, Fletcher is an English grappler who trains at Next Generation in Liverpool with Paddy Pimblett and Molly McCann. He hasn’t shown a ton in terms of striking, but he’ll relentlessly pursue submissions on the mat, typically looking to end fights with rear-naked chokes. He’s shown the ability to control opponents on the mat for extended periods of time, but generally doesn’t land a ton of ground and pound. While he wasn’t able to find much grappling success at 145 lb on TUF, he could find more success in the UFC if/when he drops back down to his normal weight class of 135 lb. He’s also still only 26 years old, so he should be improving all the time and has a decent team around him.

Zygimantas Ramaska

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Ramaska was moments away from competing in the semi-finals on The Ultimate Fighter, before the doctors told him he wasn’t medically cleared and was being replaced. So through no fault of his own he lost the opportunity to compete in the finals, but the UFC took mercy on him and is giving him a chance to earn a UFC contract anyways. His first fight on TUF was absolute pandemonium, as he threw down in a wild war against Bekhzod Usmonov. Ramaska started fast, but then got dropped in the first round and nearly finished. However, he recovered and did enough to still somehow win the round. He then pulled away in round two to win a crazy high-volume two-round decision. Unfortunately for him, the exciting win came at a cost and he suffered a facial fracture in the match that eventually forced him out of the semi-finals. Prior to going on the show, Ramaska had been competing on the Lithuanian regional scene, where he had finished three straight opponents in under seven minutes, after losing the only official decision he’s ever been to back in 2021.

Now 9-2 as a pro (not counting his “exhibition” match on TUF), Ramaska has five wins by KO/TKO and four submission wins. All nine of his wins ended in the first two rounds. He lost the only official decision he’s ever been to (not counting the two-round exhibition match on TUF), and has also been knocked out once from a 2018 first round body shot. Ramaska has competed anywhere from 145 lb to 170 lb in his career and his last fight before going on TUF was at 155 lb.

Overall, Ramaska is a complete psychopath who looks to do serious bodily harm every time he steps inside the cage. He’s a Master of Sports in Combat Sambo and is actively part of the special forces, and even said that he was out on a military exercise just a few weeks before going on TUF. He fights people like they just ran over his dog and swings with unhealthy intentions. He’s also a dangerous grappler, but his all gas and no breaks approach to fighting does leave him vulnerable to being countered. He has really good size at 145 lb, which allows him to bully his opponents. However, we have seen him taken down and controlled at times and overall he has little regard for defense in general. His aggressive, reckless fighting style may not be conducive to a long career, but you won’t want to miss a second of his UFC career.

Fight Prediction:

Ramaska will have a 4” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.

Fletcher is a 135 lb English grappler, while Ramaska is a 145 lb/155 lb Lithuanian special forces madman and we expect the size and aggression of Ramaska to play a major factor in this matchup. While Ramaska’s recklessness could result in him being taken down, he has a fair amount of grappling experience, although has been a little overly content with relying on referee stand ups when he’s on his back. So there is some concern that he could lose minutes on the mat, but we also don’t trust a 135 lb English grappler to hold him down for 15 minutes. Ramaska is bigger and stronger than Fletcher and he should be able to overwhelm Fletcher with his physicality whenever the fight is standing. So look for Fletcher to do everything he can to turn this into a grappling match. That increases the chances for this to end in a submission, although Ramaska could also catch Fletcher shooting in and knock him out. While Ramaska’s lack of defense makes him a tough guy to trust, he’s the far more dangerous fighter in this matchup and we like his chances of pulling off the upset with a finish.

Our favorite bet here is “Zygimantas Ramaska ML” at +142.

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DFS Implications:

Fletcher is an English grappler who’s getting a second opportunity here after he lost a wrestling-heavy decision in his first fight on TUF. That was his first fight up at 145 lb and he’s been accustomed to outgrappling smaller 135 lb fighters during his Cage Warriors days. He’ll remain at 145 lb for this next fight, as he takes on a much larger opponent in Ramaska. That’s concerning for Fletcher’s ability to dominate the fight on the mat, but we have seen Ramaska controlled on the ground at times in the past. Fletcher’s grappling-heavy style is a better fit for the DraftKings scoring system, but his history of locking up submissions leaves him in play on both sites. However, he has a very uncertain scoring floor as he takes on a dangerous finisher in Ramaska. Assuming the UFC keeps him around, we’ll be more interested in playing Fletcher in the future, once he moves back down to 135 lb. With that said, you’ll always want to have exposure to both sides of a Ramaska fight. The odds imply Fletcher has a 59% chance to win, a 46% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.

Ramaska looks like a DFS goldmine, as he pushes a crazy pace, has a 100% finishing rate in his nine official pro wins (he did win a two-round decision in a TUF exhibition match), and has very little regard for defense. He has the ability to both strike and grappler, although we have seen him get controlled on the mat at times in the past. While his reckless style makes it hard to trust that he’ll always win, we can trust that he’ll always try to make fights exciting and whoever comes out ahead should generally score well. He’s huge at 145 lb and has competed a good amount at 155 lb and even as heavy as 170 lb in the past, while he’ll be taking on a 135 lb English grappler here at 145lb. That’s encouraging for Ramaska’s chances of overpowering the opposition and he offers tons of finishing upside at a reasonable price. The only concern is that Fletcher is habitually looking to slow fights down with his grappling, so Ramaska won’t have a willing dance partner to throw down in a wild brawl the way he did on TUF. Nevertheless, we expect Ramaska to manufacture several finishing opportunities and he’ll always be a fighter we’re looking to target based on his action-packed style and aggressive finishing ability. The odds imply Ramaska has a 41% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #10

Jacqueline Cavalcanti

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Cavalcanti is just under a year removed from a dominant decision win in her UFC debut against Zarah Fairn, where Cavalcanti finished ahead 127-39 in striking. She failed to land her only takedown attempt, but was able to stuff both of Fairn’s attempts. Not only was that Cavalcanti first UFC fight, she also took it on short notice and was traveling into enemy territory, making the dominant performance all the more impressive. Prior to that, Cavalcanti won a five-round decision for the LFA Bantamweight belt, after landing a pair of knockouts. The most recent of those finishes was also at 135 lb, but the previous one was at 145 lb. Cavalcanti took on a much smaller opponent in that match, who only weighed in at 137 lb, in a fight where you wonder how it even got sanctioned with such a weight difference. Just before that, Cavalcanti suffered the only loss of her career in a 2022 split decision in a PFL fight that took place all the way up at 155 lb. That came just after Cavalcanti won a 2021 decision at 145 lb over Nora Cornolle, who was making her pro debut and has since joined the UFC. Three years before that win, Cavalcanti made her pro debut on the Portugal regional scene in a 2018 R1 knockout victory against an opponent fighting for the first and only time. So while Cavalcanti turned pro in 2018, all but one of her fights have occurred in the last three years.

Still just 6-1 as a pro, Cavalcanti has three wins by KO/TKO and three decision victories. Two of her finishes ended in round one, with the other coming in round two. Her only loss was a split decision at 155 lb and she’s never been finished in her brief career. Cavalcanti has competed anywhere from 135 lb to 155 lb. Her UFC debut was at a 140 lb Catchweight, but now she’ll be cutting down to 135 lb.

Overall, Cavalcanti is a solid striker, but doesn't add much in terms of grappling. She’s got really good size and uses it well with a combination of straight shots and kicks and she’s shown the ability to put up big striking numbers and has pretty decent power. She trains at Black House MMA in California with a lot of other high-level fighters, so she has a good team around her. She’s also only 26 years old and should be improving all the time, so we’re interested to see what improvements she’s made over the last year since we last saw her.

Josiane Nunes

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

Nunes will be looking to bounce back from her first UFC loss, which ended in a unanimous 29-28 decision against Chelsea Chandler, who was able to take Nunes down twice on two attempts and control her for seven minutes. Chandler also finished ahead 58-47 in significant strikes and 100-49 in total strikes, but Nunes was clipping her at times on the feet. That loss came 14 months after Nunes won a close decision over a terrible Zarah Fairn, who went 0-4 in the UFC. Fairn won the first round on all three scorecards but Nunes won each of the later rounds to get her hand raised. Fairn actually finished ahead 117-102 in significant strikes and no takedowns were attempted in the fight. Eleven months before that, Nunes won another decision against another terrible opponent in Ramona Pascual, who went 0-3 in the UFC. Nunes landed two knockdowns in that fight and looked close to finding a finish, but couldn’t close the show. Pascual was able to land three takedowns, but did nothing with them. Looking back one fight further, Nunes’ lone UFC finish came in a late first round knockout against another super low-level opponent in Bea Malecki, who’s 2-1 in the UFC, but never fought again following that loss.

Now 10-2 as a pro, Nunes has seven wins by KO/TKO and three decision victories. Three of her finishes ended in round one, while four ended in round two. She’s never been finished, with both of her losses going the distance. One of those was in her second pro fight, in a 2013 decision against a really tough opponent in Taila Santos, while the other was in her most recent fight. However, outside of facing Santos early in her career, Nunes has exclusively fought a very low level of competition, so all of her wins need to be taken in context. Despite being just 5’2”, Nunes has fought as high as 154 lb in the past. She made her UFC debut at 135 lb, but then moved up to 145 lb for her next two fights, before cutting back down to 135 lb for her last match.

Overall, Nunes is a pure striker who doesn't offer much of anything when it comes to grappling. Her best submission defense is the fact that she doesn’t have a neck to choke. Her takedown defense has been unimpressive, and both of the opponents who tried to take her down landed multiple of their attempts. In her four UFC fights, she’s been taken down five times on 12 attempts (58.3% defense), while she never attempted a takedown of her own. Nunes typically puts up big striking numbers, as she averages 5.99 SSL/min and 5.25 SSA/min and has no problem throwing down in a wild brawl.

Fight Prediction:

Cavalcanti will have a 6” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while also being four years younger than the 30-year-old Nunes.

Cavalcanti is a really talented prospect, while Nunes is a misshapen brawler who’s only found success against terrible opponents. While we enjoy Nunes’ style and commend her perseverance, she has no shot at ever making an actual run in the division, while Cavalcanti has the potential to be somebody if she can start fighting more frequently. Cavalcanti is taller, longer, younger, and far more technical than Nunes, and it’s hard to see Nunes winning this fight unless she can land a hail mary knockout. We’re curious to see if Cavalcanti will be looking to wrestle more given her size advantage, but she’s typically content with keeping fights standing, Neither of these two have ever been finished, so while they both can crack, we’re still expecting this to go the distance and for Cavalcanti to get her hand raised in a decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Jacqueline Cavalcanti KO or DEC” at -150.

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DFS Implications:

Cavalcanti is a talented striker with the ability to put up big striking totals, but doesn’t add much in the way of grappling. She landed 126 significant strikes in her short notice UFC debut, but now hasn’t competed in almost a year since then and only scored 81 DraftKings points in that win. However, that performance was good for 96 points on FanDuel and her striking-heavy style of fighting is definitely better suited to their scoring system. Nunes averages 5.25 SSA/min (most on the slate) and is 6” shorter than Cavalcanti, which will force her to come crashing forward. That leaves Cavalcanti with another great opportunity to put up a big striking total and it won’t be surprising to see a similar box score as what we saw in her last fight. Maybe she can even mix in some takedowns, as Nunes has just a 58% takedown defense. It will be tougher for Cavalcanti to put up a big score on striking alone, and Nunes has never been finished in her career. So while we love Cavalcanti’s scoring floor, it will be harder for her to hit a real ceiling unless she can either end things early or find more wrestling success than in past fights. The odds imply Cavalcanti has a 66% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

Nunes’ brawling fighting style lends itself well towards DFS production, but she doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling, which leaves her reliant on striking, knockdowns, and knockouts to score well. In her three UFC wins, she impressively averaged 97 DraftKings, but has scored progressively fewer points every time she’s stepped inside the Octagon and has been facing exclusively poor competition to this point. She’s coming off her first UFC loss, where she only scored 20 DraftKings points in a decision against Chelsea Chandler. Prior to that, she landed 102 significant strikes in a decision win, but still only scored 75 DraftKings points. That’s actually exactly what she would have scored in her previous decision victory had she not landed two knockdowns that allowed her to still score 95 points without a finish. Leading up to those decisions, she put up a slate-breaking 121 points in a first round knockout in her UFC debut against a terrible Bea Malecki who then never competed again. While Nunes averages a healthy 5.99 SSL/min, she’s now facing her toughest test by far in the UFC against a much taller and more skilled opponent, who’s also never been finished. It could be hard for Nunes to find her range in this fight and she’ll have to take some risks to close the distance. While she has no problem doing that, she’ll likely be getting clipped on her way in, which won’t help her case on the scorecards and could even result in her getting knocked out for the first time. At Nunes’ cheaper price tag, she likely won’t need to put up a huge score to end up in winning lineups and we’re expecting a higher paced striking battle, but we’re also expecting her to lose. The odds imply Nunes has a 34% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #9

Viacheslav Borshchev

7th UFC Fight (2-3-1)

Borshchev got absolutely dominated by Chase Hooper in his last fight. He surprisingly got dropped on the feet by Hooper in the opening minute and was then brutalized on the mat for the next round and a half before Hooper finally locked up submission midway through round two. Hooper finished ahead 62-2 in significant strikes and 129-2 in total strikes, while also tacking on a knockdown and a takedown in the one-sided performance. Prior to that, Borshchev fought to a rare draw against Nazim Sadykhov, where Borshchev won the first and third rounds on all three scorecards but lost a 10-8 round in round two. Borshchev finished ahead 143-91 in significant strikes, but got taken down four times and controlled for three and half minutes. If Sadykhov wasn’t completely braindead, he could have easily won the fight on the mat, but instead tried to duke it out on the feet for the first half of the fight. To Sadykhov’s credit, he was able to hurt Borshchev in round two, which is ultimately how the fight finally got to the mat. Ironically, Sadykhov only went to the ground when he should have made Borshchev stand up and he showed zero fight IQ. Borshchev showed off his toughness just to survive in the second round and then came back and won round three to force a draw. Prior to that, Borshchev saved his job with a second round TKO win over a fellow one-dimensional striker in Maheshate. Borshchev put on a striking clinic in that match, outlanding Maheshate 85-32 in significant strikes, while tacking on three knockdowns in a fight that lasted just over a round and a half. Leading up to that win, Borshchev got dominated on the mat in back-to-back decision losses against Mike Davis and Marc Diakiese, where he got taken down 20 total times and controlled for over 20 minutes. Prior to those losses, Borshchev knocked out four straight opponents in the first two rounds, including a second round finish on DWCS against Chris Duncan followed by a first round knockout in his January 2022 UFC debut against Dakota Bush.

Now 7-4-1 as a pro, Borshchev has six wins by KO/TKO and one decision victory. Three of those knockouts came in round one, with the other three ending in round two. His lone decision win was in his second pro fight and his last five victories all ended by knockout. He’s never been knocked out himself, while he’s coming off his first submission loss. However, he’s just 1-3-1 with the judges and is winless in the last four decisions he went to.

Overall, Borshchev is a one-dimensional striker and former Russian Kickboxing champion with literally hundreds of kickboxing matches on his resume. He’s still relatively new to MMA, as he only turned pro in 2019 and his wrestling—or lack thereof—is clearly a massive weakness. He’s a kickboxing coach at Team Alpha Male, and claims he’s been working on improving his defensive grappling, but that work hasn’t translated to the Octagon as he’s been taken down by his opponents 29 times on 45 attempts (35.6% defense) between his six UFC fights and his DWCS match. He’s never attempted a takedown of his own and offers nothing in terms of offensive grappling. While Borshchev’s appearance is somewhat unimposing, he’s a really dangerous striker who does a great job of ripping shots to the body of his opponents, frequently targeting the liver. He’s an absolute problem when he can keep fights standing, but he’s helpless when he can’t. Also concerning is that he’s been dropped in each of his last two fights, and now his durability is in question. He’s just 1-3-1 in his last five fights and desperately needs a win here to secure his spot on the roster.

James Llontop

2nd UFC Fight (0-1)

Llontop is coming off a forgettable UFC debut where he was submitted in the first round by Chris Padilla, who stepped in on a few days’ notice to make his own UFC debut. Padilla entered as a +340 underdog, but was still able to take Llontop down three times on three attempts and then locked up a submission late in round one. Llontop also notably missed weight by a half pound for that fight. Prior to that loss, Llontop won a lopsided decision on DWCS, which capped off a 12-fight winning streak for Llontop. That win came against Malik Lewis, who was making his second appearance on the show after getting knocked out by Trevor Peek in the second round a year earlier. Llontop had Lewis pretty hurt at a couple points, but couldn’t quite get him out of there. Nevertheless, he won every round of the fight and two of the judges even scored it 30-26. Before going on DWCS, Llontop had spent most of his career on the Peruvian regional scene, where he won the Fusion FC 170 lb belt and defended it once before dropping down to 155 lb for his DWCS match.

Now 14-3 as a pro, Llontop has seven KO/TKO wins, one submission, and six decision victories. His lone submission win came in the second round of his second pro fight back in 2018 and his last six finishes all ended in KO/TKOs. Four of his last five finishes came in the later rounds, with two of his last three occurring in round three. While he’s never been knocked out, he’s been submitted twice and has one decision loss. Llontop has competed at both 155 lb and 170 lb, but it appears 155 lb will be his home in the UFC—at least if can make weight this time.

Overall, Llontop is a Peruvian fighter who loves working out of the clinch, where he does a good job of beating up his opponents and sometimes mixing in takedowns. He looks strong in those positions and racks up a good number of total strikes, but not nearly as many significant strikes. While his takedown defense has been poor, he’s done a decent job of returning to his feet when he has been taken down, although can leave his neck exposed in the process, which he was made to pay for in his recent submission loss. Between his UFC debut and his DWCS appearance, Llontop was taken down five times on 10 attempts (50% defense), while he never attempted a takedown of his own. He’s only a BJJ blue belt and rarely looks for submissions on the mat, preferring to rain down ground and pound instead. After missing weight for his debut, he’ll be a guy to monitor on the scale.

Fight Prediction:

Llontop will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while also being seven years younger than the 32-year-old Borshchev.

Borshchev’s fights are all pretty similar, as he either gets dominated on the mat or knocks out his opponents on the feet. His defensive wrestling is so horrendous that it’s impossible to trust him and now we’ve seen him knocked down in back-to-back fights, so even his durability is in question. However, he’s still a very dangerous striker and capable of finishing opponents at any point. The biggest question here is whether or not Llontop will look for takedowns, but you have to imagine that will be a big part of his game plan if he has even half a brain. Borshchev is the much more technical and experienced striker and will hold the advantage on the feet. However, there’s a clear path to Llontop winning a decision if he can make this a grappling match. That creates two distinctly different but possible directions this fight could go, but we lean towards Borshchev keeping the fight standing and bouncing back with a knockout win.

Our favorite bet here is “Viacheslav Borshchev KO” at +170.

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DFS Implications:

Borshchev is a one-dimensional kickboxer who has landed knockouts in the first two rounds in six of his seven pro wins. He scored 112 DraftKings points in a R1 KO win in his UFC debut and then put up a massive 134 points in a R2 knockout in his more recent victory. When he can keep fights standing, he’s an absolute monster. However, he may have the worst ground game in the UFC outside of Junior Tafa and owns a putrid 35% takedown defense. Mike Davis and Marc Diakiese combined to take him down a ridiculous 20 times with over 20 minutes of total control time, while Chase Hooper would be in prison in multiple states for the things he did to Borshchev on the mat in his last fight. So Borshchev is at the mercy of the UFC matchmakers and he tends to get dominated by anyone with a decent ground game. While Llontop showed some grappling ability on the regional scene, he failed to attempt a takedown in either of his last two fights and it remains to be seen if he can implement a grappling-heavy game plan at the UFC level. If Borshchev can keep the fight standing, he’ll be in a good position to hand Llontop his first knockout loss and should put up a big DFS score in the process. However, the potential for Borshchev to get taken down and dominated on the ground leaves him with a non-existent scoring floor and makes it impossible to really trust him. He’s a volatile play with a wide range of scoring outcomes, but we always want to be targeting his fights since whoever wins tends to put up a huge score. Ignoring his one draw, the winner of his other five UFC fights averaged a ridiculous 124 DraftKings points. The odds imply Borshchev has a 66% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.

Llontop is coming off a first round submission loss in his UFC debut, where he completely choked as a -450 favorite facing a short notice debuting replacement. However, he has shown decent scoring potential in the past, especially on DraftKings. His decision win on DWCS would have been good for 112 DraftKings points and 88 points on FanDuel, although he did land two knockdowns in that fight and if you take those away his scores wouldn’t be nearly as impressive. He loves to operate out of the clinch and rack up control time and clinch strikes, which makes him a much better play on DraftKings than FanDuel. And while he didn’t attempt a takedown in either of his last two fights, we have seen him look to wrestle more on the regional scene, which would be the smart game plan here against a dangerous one-dimensional striker. However, it’s hard to trust people with face tattoos to make smart decisions and there’s still a decent chance this stays on the feet and Llontop gets knocked out. So just like Borshchev, he has a high ceiling but a wide range of potential scoring outcomes. Nevertheless, this is a great fight to target and whoever wins should score well. The odds imply Llontop has a 34% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #8

Zachary Reese

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Fresh off his first UFC win, Reese knocked out Julian Marquez in just 20 seconds with a deadly uppercut in a fight that ended before it ever really got started. Just before that, Reese suffered the first loss of his brief career in his UFC debut against Cody Brundage. The fight ended in a rare slam knockout, on a card where that same type of finish happened in back-to-back fights on an unusually dense Octagon floor. Reese found himself on his back early in the match and as he looked for a submission Brundage picked him up and slammed him to the mat to turn out the light. Prior to that, Reese once again found himself on his back early in a fight when he went on DWCS, but that time he was able to lock up an armbar. Before going on DWCS, he had been beating up low-level opponents on the Texas regional scene with the Fury FC organization.

Now 7-1 as a pro, Reese has yet to see the second round as a pro. He has five first round knockout wins and two by submission, while his only loss also ended in a first round knockout. All but one of his eight fights ended in 109 seconds or less, with four of his last five wins coming in under a minute. It’s important to keep in mind that he’s been fighting a very low level of competition. His first three wins came against opponents with one combined pro win between them and his last win on the regional scene was against a 5-10 opponent. Reese has spent most of his career at 185 lb, but did have one fight up at 205 lb in 2022.

Overall, Reese is a physically gifted but still very green fighter who only turned pro in April 2021. He tends to stand very upright with his lead leg extended forward, just begging to be kicked. That leaves him more vulnerable to being taken down as well, and we’ve yet to see him successfully defend a takedown attempt from an opponent. He’s also been content with playing jiu jitsu off his back opposed to really trying to prevent takedowns or stand back up. He trains at the WAR Training Center and works with guys like Alex Morono and Trevin Giles. He also went out to Thailand to train at Bangtao leading up to his debut. He’s never been out of the first round as a pro, so his cardio remains a mystery, but he hasn’t looked very durable or defensively sound whatsoever. However, he’s definitely a physical specimen and a very dangerous finisher. It will be interesting to see how he looks in a longer fight once he starts facing more legitimate competition, but the UFC seems content with building him up slowly in easier matchups.

Jose Medina

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Medina is one of the rare fighters who got his ass kicked on DWCS and still got a contract because Dana likes him. In that October 2023 fight, Medina lost a unanimous 30-27 decision to a fraudulent Magomed Gadzhiyasulov, who took Medina down six times on seven attempts, controlled him for six minutes, and outlanded him 73-24 in significant strikes and 117-48 in total strikes. Gadzhiyasulov gassed out in the third round or else he might have found a finish. Prior to that, Medina had been facing an extremely low level of competition on the South American regional scene. His last win came in a split decision against a 4-2 opponent who dropped Medina in the first round, after Medina landed a ground and pound finish against an 11-23 hobbit.

Now 11-3 as a pro, Medina has eight wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and one decision victory. While he’s never been knocked out himself, he’s been submitted once and has two decision losses. Keep in mind, only 3 of his 11 wins came against opponents with winning records and even those opponents were just 2-1, 2-0, and 4-2. Medina has competed at both 185 lb and 205 lb, but his last seven fights were all at 205 lb and now he’ll be dropping down to 185 lb for the first time since 2019. Two of his three career losses came at 185 lb and he’s generally struggled at the weight class even against terrible opponents.

Overall, Medina is a low-level brawler who mixes in a combination of striking and wrestling. However, he’s not very good anywhere and the UFC is probably just going to use him to build up other prospects, as they always like to keep a few of these guys around. Medina said on DWCS that he was working full-time as a vet on a poultry farm and just training MMA on the side, but after getting the UFC he contract he went out to Thailand for a few months to train and then finished his camp at Entram Gym in Tijuana, so it looks like he took some time off from his full time job and is actually focussed entirely on fighting at the moment. Nevertheless, nothing he has shown to this point indicates that he can be competitive at the UFC level, although he does seem to have a lot of heart. It will be important to monitor Medina on the scale as he moves down from 205 lb to 185 lb here.

Fight Prediction:

Reese will have a 4” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, in addition to being three years younger than the 33-year-old Medina.

The UFC must really like Reese, as they’re bringing in fighters who lost on DWCS for him to beat up on. Both of these two are very green and unproven, but at least Reese is a physical freak and has the potential to be decent with the right coaching. Medina is a 33-year-old journeyman who was brought on because Dana liked the way he carried himself in a lopsided loss. It remains to be seen how Medina will look at 185 lb, but make no mistake, the guy was plump at 205 lb and had plenty of weight to lose. The biggest question mark with Reese is his cardio, as he’s never seen the second round and only even made it to the two minute mark once. That certainly leaves the potential for him to gas out if he can’t find a finish, but this looks like another good spot for him to end things quickly. He has the power to knock Medina out and the submission skills to finish him on the mat and Medina will look for takedowns, which could open up submission opportunities for Reese. However, he gets it done, we expect Reese to finish Medina early.

Our favorite bet here is “Reese/Medina Fight Ends in R1” at +100.

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DFS Implications:

Reese is coming off a 20 second first round knockout win that was good for 127 DraftKings points with the help of the Quick Win Bonus. That came after he suffered his first career loss in a bizarre R1 slam KO in his UFC debut. Both of those fights ended so quickly that it’s hard to take much away from them, and he’s still never been past the first round in eight career fights. Seven of his eight fights ended in under two minutes, with four being stopped in under 60 seconds. So clearly the Quick Win Bonus will remain in play for him, although keep in mind he’s been facing a lot of terrible opponents. His cardio remains a complete mystery, making it hard to trust his scoring floor, but his ceiling is undeniable. He’s tall, athletic, and explosive, and at least has all of the physical tools required to be successful, even if he is still very green and unproven. He can be a little too content with playing jiu jitsu off his back, but he does have some submission skills, in addition to his raw athleticism. He’s facing another low-level opponent here and it looks like the UFC is determined to build Reese up before throwing him into the deep end of the division. We expect Reese to be popular after his recent scoring explosion, which leaves some merit in betting against his unknown cardio in tournaments and hoping that Medina can simply survive the opening five minutes and outlast him. However, that’s a risky game to play in this matchup and there’s a high probability that Reese lands another quick finish. The odds imply Reese has an 82% chance to win, a 69% chance to land a finish, and a 38% chance it comes in round one.

Medina was awarded a contract on DWCS for showing how much of an ass kicking he could take, which needless to say isn’t how most fighters end up in the UFC. He lost a unanimous 30-27 decision where he was taken down six times and tripled up in significant strikes landed at 73-24. Prior to that, he had been fighting low-level opponents on the South American regional scene and now he’s dropping down from 205 lb to 185 lb for the first time since 2019. It remains to be seen how he’ll look at the new weight class, but in his past 185 lb fights he didn’t do especially well. He’s not very talented, isn’t very athletic, and had only been training part-time until recently. He’s never fought anyone decent and was involved in a split decision against a 4-2 opponent who dropped him just before going on DWCS. It’s honestly shocking that the UFC even brought him on, and our expectations couldn’t be much lower for Medina. He looks outgunned in every avenue coming into his debut, but the one thing he has going for him is his experience in longer fights, while Reese has never been past the first round. So if Medina can survive early on, there’s always a chance that Reese will gas out and Medina can Homer Simpson his way to victory. The odds imply Medina has an 18% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #7

Francis Marshall

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Marshall is stepping in on very short notice and was only announced as the replacement on Tuesday after Danny Silva dropped out.

It’s been a year since we last saw Marshall compete, when he got run over by Isaac Dulgarian in a first round ground and pound TKO. He got taken down early in the fight and was never able to return to his feet against the dangerous wrestler. Prior to that, Marshall suffered his first career loss when he came out on the wrong side of a low-volume split decision. That defeat came against William Gomis, who finished ahead just 27-15 in significant strikes, while Marshall led 2-0 in takedowns and nearly locked up a couple of submissions in the third round. Ultimately, it was too little, too late in the eyes of two of the judges. Just before that, Marshall burst onto the UFC scene with an impressive second round knockout in his UFC debut against Marcelo Rojo. That came just after Marshall put on a complete performance in a decision win on DWCS, where he landed six takedowns and 110 significant strikes.

Now 7-2 as a pro, Marshall has one knockout victory, four submissions, and two decision wins. All four of his submissions came by rear-naked choke, with two ending in round one and two more in round three. His lone knockout victory came in the second round of his UFC debut. He’s coming off his first early loss in a R1 TKO, with his only other defeat ending in a split decision. While six of his eight pro fights ended early, only one of his last six matches ended in round one. His first two pro fights were at 155 lb before he dropped down to 145 lb in 2021.

Overall, the 25-year-old Marshall is still very early in his career with just nine pro fights to his name, and he only turned pro in 2019. However, he looks like an interesting prospect with a well rounded game. After his last loss, he went from New Jersey to training down at American Top team, and is now putting in a ton of work with Grant Dawson. Marshall is a former high-school wrestler and football player, and looks strong inside the cage. Between his DWCS fight and his three UFC matches, he landed 9 of his 18 takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while giving up a takedown on the only attempt against him. He’s generally looking to finish fights on the mat with rear-naked chokes, but showed he has knockout power in his debut. Perhaps landing that knockout resulted in him falling in love with his striking a bit too much, as he only attempted one failed takedown attempt in the first two rounds of his next fight. When he finally did commit to his wrestling in round three he was able to get the fight to the mat and nearly locked up a couple of submission attempts, but ended up running out of time and losing the fight. In an interview after that, he said his biggest takeaway from that fight was that he needs to get his grappling going earlier, so at least he’s aware of his mistake and it sounds like he’ll be looking to get his grappling going earlier in fights in the future. He’s now working with a ton of high-level wrestlers at ATT, which is encouraging for his growth. Marshall is sitting on a 1-2 record and will likely be fighting for his job here—unless he was awarded a new contract for stepping in on short notice, which is certainly possible.

Dennis Buzukja

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Buzukja had been scheduled to face Danny Silva here, but Silva dropped out and Marshall was announced as the replacement on Tuesday.

Coming off his first UFC win, Buzukja landed a third round knockout against Connor Matthews, who was making his UFC debut. Buzukja outlanded Matthews 83-60 in significant strikes, but never looked to wrestle, while Matthews landed one of his three takedown attempts. Prior to that, Buzukja got knocked out in 49 seconds by Jamall Emmers, who had been a decision grinder since joining the UFC. To make matters worse, that fight took place in front of Buzukja’s home New York crowd. Just before that, Buzukja lost a unanimous 30-27 decision in his short notice UFC debut against Sean Woodson. Buzukja got outclassed everywhere in that fight, as Woodson outlanded him 71-42 in significant strikes and 163-46 in total strikes, while also finishing ahead 4-0 in takedowns and 5:52-2:30 in control time. That’s not a great look for Buzukja considering Woodson is a one-dimensional boxer and Buzukja trains with a bunch of solid wrestlers. It wasn’t easy for Buzukja to make it to the UFC, as he went on DWCS twice and didn’t get a contract either time. He originally went on the show in 2020 and lost a decision to Melsik Baghdasaryan. Buzukja then returned to the regional scene and won three straight fights before they brought him back on DWCS in 2022. Buzukja won a low-volume decision that time around, but it wasn’t enough to get him a contract and he once again returned to the regional scene and won three more fights before finally getting the call up from the UFC. Just keep in mind, Buzukja had been facing a lot of really low-level opponents on the regional scene and his last win before joining the UFC came against a fighter who has gone 2-4-1 in his last seven fights. And just before that, Buzukja beat a guy who came in on a four fight losing streak.

Now 12-4 as a pro, Buzukja has five KO/TKO wins, one submission, and six decision victories. Five of his six finishes ended in under seven minutes, with four of those coming in round one, although his most recent finish ended early in round three. The only time he’s ever been finished was in a quick first round knockout, with his other three defeats all going the distance. Buzukja started his career at 155 lb before dropping down to 145 lb in his third pro fight.

Overall, Buzukja is a young 26-year-old fighter who trains at Serra-Longo Fight Team in New York, so he has plenty of UFC fighters in the room to learn from. While Buzukja has shown some improvements over the last few years and is decently well rounded, he hasn’t stood out anywhere and he’s struggled whenever facing non-terrible competition. He was unimpressive in each of his two DWCS matches, but didn’t look as bad the second time around. He’s a karate brown belt and will also mix in some wrestling. Between his two DWCS appearances and his three UFC fights, he landed 3 of his 10 takedown attempts (30% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 6 of their 22 attempts (72.7% defense). Despite three of those five fights going the distance, he failed to land more than 83 significant strikes in any of them and only averaged 4.16 SSL/min and 5.09 SSA/min. Sitting on a 1-2 UFC record, Buzukja is likely fighting for his job here.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’9”, but Marshall has a 2” reach advantage.

We’ve got a pair of young 1-2 fighters here who are each trying to avoid the dreaded 1-3 start to their respective UFC careers. Marshall is clearly the more talented of the two, but he’s stepping in on just a few days’ notice, which adds a lot of volatility to the mix. With that said, he’s been training hard down at American Top Team and looks to be in good shape. Given his 1-2 UFC record, we don’t think he would have taken this fight unless he was completely ready and that shows in the odds as he comes in as the favorite. We love the fact that he left New Jersey to go train at a better gym after losing two straight and you couldn’t ask for a better place to get wrestling work in than ATT. Marshall already had a good ground game to begin with and at 25 years old he should be making major improvements, especially after a year away. We saw Buzukja get outwrestled by a boxer in Sean Woodson in his UFC debut, albeit on short notice, which is really encouraging for Marshall’s chances of winning this fight on the mat. Marshall has good rear-naked chokes, and is also fully capable of winning a wrestling-heavy decision and we’re not overly concerned about the fact that he stepped in on short notice. Marshall by submission or decision is the pick.

Our favorite bet here is “Francis Marshall ML” at -138.

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DFS Implications:

Marshall is stepping in on less than a week’s notice and hasn’t fought in a year, after suffering the first early loss of his career in a R1 ground and pound TKO against Isaac Dulgarian. That came after Marshall lost a split-decision to William Gomis, where Marshall only scored 28 DraftKings points and was nowhere close to scoring well even if the decision had gone his way. However, he was able to score 100 points in a second round knockout in his UFC debut and if you look back at his decision win on DWCS, he would have scored 122 points on both DraftKings and FanDuel, so he does have the ability to score well even without a finish. He’s still only 25 years old and growing pains are inevitable for young fighters, but it’s really encouraging that he started training at American Top Team after suffering his second straight loss and is now working with fighters like Grant Dawson on a daily basis. We expect to see immediate improvements from that and he looks prepared to step in on short notice. Buzukja is a big step down in competition from Gomis and Dulgarian and Marshall has shown the ability to dominate fights on the mat. Buzukja struggled with his defensive wrestling against a boxer in Sean Woodson, which is really encouraging for Marshall’s chances of fighting a ton of wrestling success. Buzukja had been preparing to face a boxer in Danny Silva, so this is a huge stylistic change for him and Marshall has a ton of scoring potential on both DraftKings and FanDuel. The odds imply Marshall has a 57% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

Buzukja had been a +200 underdog against Danny Silva when DraftKings released pricing, but is now only a +120 underdog against Marshall, leaving him $500 underpriced on DraftKings. He’s coming off a third round knockout win over a debuting opponent, but still only scored 89 DraftKings points in that victory. Prior to that, he got knocked out in just 49 seconds by Jamall Emmers, who had never finished anybody else in the UFC. And that came after Buzukja got outwrestled by a boxer in his short notice UFC debut, only scoring 27 points in a decision loss. So he’s been largely unimpressive in the UFC outside of his recent knockout win, which may have had more to do with who he was facing. The fact that he’s taking on a short notice replacement combined with Buzukja’s mispricing on DraftKings should bump his ownership up some from where it would otherwise be, although he’s never been very popular to begin with. So his ownership shouldn’t get out of control, but should be higher than normal. We expect Marshall to be looking to wrestle, which will make it tougher for Buzukja to score well without a finish. We’ve never been high on Buzukja and would be surprised to see him win here against a talented young fighter in Marshall. So while the short notice nature of this matchup does increase the volatility, we still don’t have a ton of interest in having much exposure to Buzukja in DFS. The odds imply Buzukja has a 43% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #6

Edmen Shahbazyan

11th UFC Fight (6-4)

Shahbazyan is coming off a first round knockout win over AJ Dobson, but even in the step down in competition Shahbazyan still struggled early in that fight. Dobson hurt Shahbazyan on the feet midway through the first round and then reversed a position on the mat after Shahbazyan landed a desperation takedown. However, after getting controlled for a period of time Shahbazyan was able to return to his feet and caught Dobson sleeping on his defense and then put him to sleep. Even with that win, Shahbazyan is just 2-4 in his last six fights and just before that victory he suffered a third round TKO loss against Anthony Hernandez. Shahbazyan predictably gassed out after round one and then got mauled for the rest of the match. Prior to that, Shahbazyan secured his only other win since 2019 in a late second round TKO against Dalcha Lungiambula, who just like Shahbazyan, has terrible cardio and came into that fight on a three-fight losing streak. Neither guy pushed the pace in the low-volume fight, with Shahbazyan finishing ahead 54-23 in significant strikes in a fight that lasted just under 10 minutes. Prior to that win, Shahbazyan moved to Xtreme Couture, after spending the first part of his career at Glendale Fighting Club. Before making the move, Shahbazyan suffered a R2 TKO loss to Nassourdine Imavov, a decision loss to Jack Hermansson, and a R3 TKO loss to Derek Brunson. All three of those losses came on the mat and Shahbazyan has really struggled with his ground game. Leading up to the string of losses, Shahbazyan started his UFC career with a decision win over Darren Stewart followed by three straight first round wins and eight of his last nine fights ended early.

Now 13-4 as a pro, Shahbazyan has 11 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and one decision victory. Eleven of his 12 finishes ended in round one, while the other ended in round two. He has three late-round ground and pound TKO losses and one decision defeat, with all of those losses coming in his last six fights. Ten of his first 11 pro fights ended in round one, but five of his last six made it to the later rounds, with three seeing round three, and one going the distance.

Overall, Shahbazyan is a Shotokan Karate black belt and a powerful striker who’s dangerous early in fights, but tends to gas out after the first round. He’s really struggled on the mat, and it doesn’t seem like a whole lot has changed with him since switching camps in 2022. Between his 10 UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Shahbazyan landed 12 takedowns on 31 attempts (38.7% accuracy). However, after going 8 for 21 in his UFC debut, he’s gone just 4 for 10 on his attempts in his last nine fights, so his numbers are skewed from one outlier performance and he hasn’t looked to wrestle a ton lately. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down 14 times on 38 attempts (63.2% defense). He’s still just 26 years old so he theoretically has plenty of time to improve, but unless he can improve his cardio he’ll never get very far.

Gerald Meerschaert

21st UFC Fight (11-9)

Meerschaert is coming off a teed up second round submission win over a one-dimensional striker in Bryan Barberena, who spent most of his career at 170 lb and even 155 lb, but competed at 185 lb against Meerschaert. That allowed Meerschaert to find a ton of wrestling success, as he landed 3 of his 7 takedown attempts and controlled Barberena for five m of the nine minutes before choking him unconscious late in round two. That’s just Meerschaert’s second win in his last five outings and he dropped two straight leading up to it. The most recent of those losses came in a split decision to a fellow grappler in Andre Petroski, after Meerschaert got knocked out in the first round by Joe Pyfer, in a fight where Meerschaert foolishly never attempted to grapple. Meerschaert’s only other win since 2021 was a 2022 third round submission over the highly submittable Bruno Silva, who looked terrible throughout the fight and was actually outstruck by Meerschaert and dropped on the feet in round three, before getting finished with a guillotine on the mat. Just before that, Meerschaert lost a decision to Krzysztof Jotko, who has always been a tough guy to take down. However, leading up to that loss to Jotko, Meerschaert did lock up three straight submission wins, after getting quickly knocked out in the first round of back-to-back fights. Only two of Meerschaert’s last 11 fights required the judges (0-2), while he was knocked out three times in the first round over that stretch and secured six submissions. In fact, his last eight wins all came by submission, with his last non-submission victory coming in 2017 in a second round knockout. Meerschaert lost the last five decisions he’s been to, and the last time he got his hand raised by the judges was in 2013, three years before he joined the UFC. So all 11 of his UFC wins ended early, with 10 of those ending in submissions. He submitted each of his first two UFC opponents in the first round, but seven of his last eight submissions ended in the later rounds with three in round two and four in round three.

Now 36-17 as a pro, Meerschaert has six wins by KO/TKO, 28 submissions, and amazingly just two decision victories in his 53 pro fights. He’s been knocked out four times, submitted eight more, and has five decision losses. The first seven losses of his career all ended in first round submissions, including one to the notorious Jay Ellis, who’s currently sporting an impressive 16-110 record. However, Meerschaert has only been submitted once since 2013, which came in the first round of a 2018 fight against Jack Hermansson. Three of Meerschaert’s four knockout losses also ended in round one, with the other occurring early in round two. So 11 of his 12 early losses ended in the first round. Meerschaert fought at 170 lb early in his pro career, but transitioned to 185 lb in 2013-2014, where he’s essentially stayed since, although he did venture up to 205 lb once in 2016.

While Meerschaert is a BJJ black belt and a solid grappler, he has a suspect chin and three of his last five losses ended in quick knockouts. Seven of his UFC fights ended in the first round (3-4), five ended in round two (4-1), four more ended in round three (4-0) and four went the distance (0-4). So we’ve consistently seen him struggle early on in fights and with the judges, but he finds ways to land late finishes and has only once been finished in the later rounds himself. He only landed 24 takedowns on 63 attempts in his 19 UFC fights (38.1% accuracy) and only twice in his last 13 fights did he take an opponent down more than once, but he’ll gladly go to the ground by any means necessary, even if it means working off his back, as he has just a 34% takedown defense. After his loss to Pyfer, Meerschaert moved his family down to Florida and he’s training full time at Kill Cliff FC now, opposed to just going down there for his camps.

Fight Prediction:

Shahbazyan will have a 1” height advantage, but Meerschaert will have a 2” reach advantage. Shahbazyan is 10 years younger than the 36-year-old Meerschaert.

This one seems fairly straightforward. Shahbazyan will be trying to knock Meerschaert out before gassing out, while Meerschaert will need to submit Shahbazyan, although often stubbornly refuses to look for takedowns until it’s too late. The most likely outcome is for Shahbazyan to knock Meerschaert in the opening round and Meerschaert is pretty chinny. However, if Meerschaert can simply survive the first round, he’ll be in a great position to find a late submission. So it’s a very volatile fight that starts out heavily favoring Shahbazyan and then swings in Meerschaert’s favor the longer it goes. Shahbazyan will also look for occasional submissions and guillotines so it’s not impossible he could submit Meerschaert on a sloppy entry, but that is far less likely. These two have the shared fight IQ of an apricot, and we wouldn’t trust either one of them to hold a dollar, but forced to choose we’ll lean slightly towards Shahbazyan knocking Meerschaert out early.

Our favorite bet here is “Gerald Meerschaert SUB” at +550.

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DFS Implications:

Shahbazyan has averaged 110 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, but after a hot 4-0 start to his UFC career he’s now gone just 2-4 in his last six fights. He has terrible cardio and bad defensive wrestling, which has left him reliant on landing early knockouts to win fights and 11 of his 12 career finishes ended in round one, with the other ending in round two. The UFC pushed him hard early in his career, but after seeing his limitations they’ve now started giving him much easier opponents. That at least leaves him more likely to hit his narrow win condition and Meerschaert has been knocked out four times and submitted eight more. Meerschaert also stubbornly refuses to wrestle at times, which would be great for Shahbazyan’s chances of landing a knockout. However, Shahbazyan’s high projected ownership leaves us more interested in ways he fails and there are several. If the fight makes it past the first round, he’s unlikely to score enough to be useful even if he can manage to land a later knockout. There’s also the possibility for him to lock up an early submission that doesn't score enough for him to return value or a TKO without a knockdown or takedown. So his actual chances of ending up in the winning lineup are lower than his implied chances of landing a first round finish, while his projected ownership is significantly higher. That objectively makes him a bad tournament play, despite the high likelihood of him finishing Meerschaert. You’ll definitely be holding your breath for five minutes if you go underweight on him, but it’s the right move in tournaments. The odds imply Shahbazyan has a 74% chance to win, a 59% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.

Meerschaert has 11 wins in the UFC, with all of those ending early, including 10 by submission. However, eight of his last nine finishes have come in the later rounds, and he’s often struggled to really score well in third round finishes, which is where four of his last seven wins occurred. Looking at his 11 UFC victories as a whole, he averaged 95 DraftKings points, but if we just look at his four third round finishes, that average drops to 80 points. While he may not need to put up a huge score to end up in winning lineups at his cheap salary in this matchup, there are still ways he locks up a late submission and doesn’t end up in the optimal if we get a slate with multiple underdog winners. With that said, more often than not he would, we’re just pointing out some of the ways this high-owned fight fails to produce a piece of the optimal. We still like Meerschaert for his submission upside, but he has a non-existent scoring floor and is prone to being knocked out early. He also doesn’t wrestle as much as he should, which is why some of his later finishes don’t score especially well. Maybe the team at Kill Cliff has talked some sense into him and he did look for more takedowns in his last fight, but we’ve been burned before and we’ll be burned again expecting Meerschaert to execute a smart gameplan. The odds imply Meerschaert has a 26% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #5

Michael Morales

5th UFC Fight (4-0)

Morales is coming off a pair of decision wins, after knocking out his first two UFC opponents. His most recent victory came against Jake Matthews, who Morales outlanded 84-57 in significant strikes. Each fighter only shot for a single takedown, with neither of them landing one in the pure striking battle. Prior to that, Morales won a decision over another veteran in Max Griffin. Morales actually lost the first round on all three scorecards, before turning it on in the later and dominating down the stretch. That came after Morales landed a third round TKO win over Adam Fugitt, who was making his UFC debut on just nine days’ notice. Morales again lost the first round, however, it was Morales who was landing the bigger shots and that eventually caught up with Fugitt as Morales dropped him twice early in round three just before the fight was stopped. Prior to that win, Morales landed a first round knockout in his UFC debut against Trevin Giles, who was dropping down to 170 lb for the first time in his career. That came after Morales won a decision on DWCS to get his shot in the UFC.

Now 16-0 as a pro, Morales has 11 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and four decision victories. Seven of his 12 finishes occurred in the first round, four ended in round two, and his most recent came in round three. His lone submission win was a 2019 R1 triangle choke, and his last six finishes all ended in knockouts. While three of his last five fights went the distance, 10 of his last 13 matches still ended early.

Overall, Morales is a former Ecuadorian national wrestling champion and both of his parents are judo black belts. However, he’s generally content with relying on his striking. Between his four UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 5 of his 12 takedown attempts (41.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on just 2 of their 24 attempts (91.6 defense). After landing four takedowns on DWCS, Morales only landed one on just four attempts in his four UFC fights. Morales has good range and explosive striking, but he likes to feel out his opponents early on before looking for finishes once he settles in. After he smells blood in the water, he’ll really let his hands go, but his patient approach has resulted in him losing the first round in each of his last three fights. If that continues, it’s bound to catch up with him eventually on the scorecards and you definitely don’t want to consistently rely on winning both rounds two and three to get your hand raised when you can’t find a finish. That also generally means you’re betting off live betting him after round one than pre flop. Another concern with Morales is that he keeps his chin high and his hands low, which leaves him reliant on his reflexes to remain out of danger, but also makes it harder for his opponents to see his punches coming. That high-risk approach to striking increases the chances of a knockout for both him and his opponents in his fights. Morales is still just 25 years old, and should be improving all the time, and he notably spent time helping Belal Muhammad to prepare for Leon Edwards.

Neil Magny

33rd UFC Fight (21-11)

Continuing to trade wins and losses over his last seven outings, Magny is coming off a big upset win over Mike Malott, who was ahead 2-0 on the scorecards going into round three but then gassed out in the final two minutes of the fight, got flattened out on the mat, and was finished with 15 seconds left on the clock. Magny had absolutely no business winning that fight and completely snatched victory from the jaws of defeat down the stretch. Malott was able to beat up Magny’s lead leg and was ahead 41-11 in significant strikes after two rounds, before Magny roared back in round three to finish the fight ahead 57-45 in significant strikes. Malott also took Magny down four times and controlled him for six minutes, while Magny landed one takedown of his own. Prior to that, Magny lost a lopsided decision to Ian Garry, in a fight that Magny stepped into on a week and a half’s notice after Geoff Neal dropped out. Garry destroyed Magny’s lead leg and it’s amazing that Magny even survived to see the judges. Garry finished ahead 91-27 in significant strikes and also landed both of his takedown attempts. Just eight weeks before that, Magny won a low-volume split-decision over Phil Rowe. Magny’s last two decision wins were both split and if those had both gone the other way then Magny would be looking at a 2-5 record in his last seven outings. He only finished two of his last 13 opponents, with both of those finishes coming in round three. His third most recent early win came all the way back in 2018. Magny was submitted in two of his last three losses, which has been an issue for him throughout his career. In fairness to him, those two submissions were against really good grapplers in Gilbert Burns and Shavkat Rakhmonov.

Now 29-11 as a pro, Magny has eight wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and 17 decision victories. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted six times, and has three decision losses. Four of his six submission defeats occurred in the first round, with the other two ending in round two. One of his two knockout losses also ended in round one, with the other ending in round four. Despite all of those early losses, Magny has only been finished twice since 2018 and has impressively gone 17-3 in his 20 career decisions.

Overall, Magny wears on his opponents with a combination of striking and grappling as he weaponizes his cardio and often comes out ahead in the later rounds. While he generally doesn’t put up huge significant striking totals, averaging just 3.47 SSL/min, he tacks on 2.2 TDL/15 min to help grind on his opponents’ gas tanks. Magny typically doesn’t get hit a ton either, averaging just 2.42 SSA/min in his career, but his biggest weakness has been his defensive grappling and his 54% takedown defense isn’t anything to write home about. His last four opponents all got him down at least once. Four of his last six losses came against grapplers in Gilbert Burns, Shavkat Rakhmonov, Michael Chiesa, and Rafael Dos Anjos, with three of those ending in submissions. He also got knocked out by Santiago Ponzinibbio in the fourth round of a 2018 fight and most of his losses ended early. Now 37 years old, this will be Magny’s 33rd UFC fight, so he’s been around for a while and we could see him begin to slow down soon. It seems like the UFC often likes to use him as a measuring stick for up-and-coming prospects, which they’re doing again here.

Fight Prediction:

Magny will have a 3” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while Morales is 12 years younger than the 37-year-old Magny.

Continuing his role as gatekeeper to the top 10 of the Welterweight division, Magny is a couple of scorecards and 15 seconds away from being just 1-6 in his last seven fights, but instead had every break go his way to squeak out a 4-3 record over that stretch instead. However, unlike Magny’s last opponent, Morales has shown the ability to go three hard rounds and is also well-rounded enough to hang with Magny anywhere the fight goes. So while it may be somewhat jarring to see Morales installed as a massive -900 favorite, we agree that Magny doesn’t have many obvious paths to victory in this tough matchup. Could he do Neil Magny things and hold Morales up against the cage long enough to make some of the rounds close and potentially force a split decision? Maybe, but that’s probably the only way he has a chance. Morales is a better striker than Magny and clearly has age on his side. Magny has looked very vulnerable to leg kicks, and Morales notably landed 27 leg kicks against Jake Matthews in his last fight. We expect Morales to win all of the striking exchanges in space and he really just needs to keep his back off the cage to cruise to victory. Magny wasn’t even remotely competitive in the striking exchanges in his last two fights and we like Morales to either knock him out late or win a decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Michael Morales R2/3 KO” at +550.

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DFS Implications:

Morales is coming off a pair of decision wins that were only good for 64 and 65 DraftKings points respectively. Both of those wins were against tough veterans, after Morales started out his UFC career with a pair of knockout victories over lower level opponents, returning scores of 100 and 118 DraftKings points. So it seems quite apparent that Morales is reliant on finishes to score well in DFS and he wasn’t even remotely close to scoring well in either of his trips to the judges. Now he’s facing another veteran in Magny who only averages 2.42 SSA/min and unless Morales can suddenly turn into Khabib he’ll have no shot at scoring well without a finish. Magny’s only been knocked out twice in 40 pro fights and loves to operate out of the clinch and wear on his opponents, which isn’t encouraging for Morales’ chances of getting him out of there early. Morales has also been a slow starter lately and lost the first round in each of his last three fights. That lowers the chances of him landing a first round knockout and as the second most expensive fighter on DraftKings a later finish won’t guarantee him a spot in the optimal lineup. There’s actually a pretty good chance he would get priced out with a late knockout, which really lowers our interest in playing him. The odds imply Morales has an 86% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.

Magny is coming off a crazy comeback where he lost the first 13 minutes of the fight against Mike Malott, but then fully capitalized on Malott gassing out late and finished him with ground and pound just 15 seconds before Malott would have won a decision. Magny still only scored 87 DraftKings points in the victory and landed just 11 significant strikes in the first two rounds of that fight, before turning it on late. The win had far more to do with Malott’s suspect cardio than anything Magny was doing and it was a rough showing from Magny up until the final two minutes. Magny also got dominated for three rounds by Ian Garry in a decision loss just before, to the extent that one judge scored it 30-24 and the other two had it 30-26. Magny is now 37 years old and hasn’t won two fights in a row since 2021-2022. He’s facing an undefeated prospect and shouldn’t have a problem going three hard rounds and this looks like a tough spot for Magny to win and an even tougher spot for him to score well even if he does. Magny only scored 66 DraftKings points in his last decision victory and even at his extremely cheap price tag he would still need a slate where not many underdogs win to be useful with a similar score here. So we don’t have much interest in playing Magny in DFS and it would be shocking to see him land another finish. The odds imply Magny has a 14% chance to win, a 7% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #4

Mairon Santos

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

This will be the Featherweight finals for The Ultimate Fighter.

Santos had a rocky road to the finals, as he won a split decision in his first fight on TUF, where he got controlled on the mat for all of the first round before coming back to win the later rounds after his opponent fell apart. Then he missed weight for his second fight where he was scheduled to fight Zygimantas Ramaska in the semi-finals. Ramaska still agreed to fight him despite the miss, but then literally as he was getting his hands wrapped for the fight Ramaska found out he wasn’t medically cleared. The teams had been preparing for that possibility, so they had a couple of backup options ready and Santos ended up facing a teammate instead who had lost in the first round. Santos won another decision against the last minute replacement, although it wasn’t the most impressive performance and he once again gave up a couple of takedowns. Before going on TUF, Santos had actually been booked by the UFC to step in on short notice and fight Sean Woodson in Nashville in August 2023, however, Santos had to drop out due to visa issues. Prior to that, Santos won a low-volume decision with the LFA in March 2023, in what was his last official pro fight. That came a year after Santos got absolutely dominated on the mat in his first fight with the LFA by Dan Argueta, who finished Santos in the third round with ground and pound in one of the more lopsided performances you’ll see. That snapped a 12-fight winning streak for Santos that he had amassed on the Brazilian regional scene.

Now 13-1 as a pro (not counting his two “exhibition” matches on TUF), Santos has seven wins by KO/TKO and six decision victories. His only loss also ended in a TKO. While 8 of his 14 pro fights ended early, he’s seen the second round in seven straight fights, with four of those going the distance—not even counting his two decisions on TUF. Santos actually started his career all the way down at 125 lb in 2019, but also competed all the way up at 176 lb that same year, so we’ve seen wild fluctuations in his weight. He was fighting at 155 lb somewhat consistently from 2020 to 2022, but curiously dropped all the way down to 135 lb in the middle of that stretch when he took on Dan Argueta in his LFA debut and got mauled. He moved to 145 lb for his next MMA fight after that loss, although did notably miss weight for one of his TUF fights at 145 lb.

Overall, Santos is a one-dimensional Brazilian striker who’s shown no ability to grapple. He’s still only 24 years old and has at least shown improvements to his takedown defense, but we haven’t seen any submission skills or offensive wrestling from him. He throws good leg kicks, but generally doesn’t land a ton of striking volume either. The last time he finished anybody was in February 2021, when he knocked out a 7-16 stat-padding rando on the Brazilian regional scene. We haven’t been very impressed by Santos, but he is at an age where he should be improving all the time and he’s training at Xtreme Couture, so he has plenty of high-level fighters to learn from.

Kaan Ofli

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Ofli outgrappled his way to a two-round decision win in his first fight on TUF and then locked up a quick guillotine in his second fight to secure his spot in the finals. Prior to going on the show, he won eight straight fights, after starting out just 3-2-1 as a pro. In his last win before the show, Ofli won the HEX Featherweight belt in a third round submission win, after locking up a first round submission just before that.

Now 11-2-1 as a pro (not counting his two “exhibition” matches on TUF), Ofli has two wins by TKO, five submissions, and four decision victories. One of his two TKO wins came in his 2014 pro debut and five of his last six finishes have been by submission—not even counting his submission win on TUF. He’s never been finished himself, with both of his losses going the distance in his first six pro fights (2014 & 2016).

Overall, Ofli is a BJJ black belt and the BJJ coach at a small gym in Bali, Indonesia. While Ofli is of Turkish descent, he was born and raised in Australia and that’s where he called home until he moved to Bali. He does a good job of getting fights to the mat and leaning on his grappling to come out victorious, but he’s also not helpless on the feet and has decent striking. However, we have seen him get rocked on the feet before on the regional scene and his striking defense is far from perfect. He’s also not the tallest guy at 5’6”, although that leaves him with a low center of gravity as he engages in wrestling exchanges. He’s already 31 years old, so he’s getting a later start in the UFC, but that also means he’s in his prime right now. While he’s far from a world-beater, he’s got a good enough ground game to find success in the UFC and he gets a favorable matchup here against a one-dimensional striker.

Fight Prediction:

Santos will have a 6” reach advantage and is seven years younger than the 31-year-old Ofli.

Despite being the underdog, Ofli has a massive grappling advantage in this matchup and we fully expect him to lean on that. He’s also a good enough striker to be competitive on the feet, so he shouldn’t have to panic if he can’t immediately get the fight to the mat. In comparison, Santos will need to keep the fight standing at all costs and has looked bad on the mat and hasn’t even looked all that dangerous on the feet. Santos had the easiest path to the finals of anyone on the show and still barely made it in a pair of decisions. So it’s surprising that he’s the favorite here, but he does train at a better gym and is seven years younger, so he should be improving all the time. Nevertheless, we like Ofli to pull off the upset either by submission or in a grappling-heavy decision win.

Our favorite bet here is “Kaan Ofli ML” at +170.

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DFS Implications:

Santos is a low-volume, one-dimensional striker who will be entirely reliant on knockouts to score well in DFS. And with that in mind, he hasn’t finished anybody in three and a half years and that was against a 7-16 opponent. Santos throws good leg kicks and has decent power, but is lacking when it comes to output and offers nothing in terms of wrestling. Now he’s facing a grappler who’s never been finished and who will be looking to take Santos down and submit him. So it’s hard to find any reasons to play Santos in DFS and he looks like an early hail mary or bust KO option in a bad matchup. The odds imply Santos has a 65% chance to win, a 31% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.

Ofli’s grappling-heavy style looks great for DFS, especially on DraftKings, and this is a great matchup for him to find success on the mat. We’ve seen Santos get absolutely dominated on the ground in the past and Dan Argueta put on a wrestling clinic against him with the LFA in 2022. Santos has shown some improvements to his defensive wrestling since then, but this still looks like a great matchup for Ofli. He’ll have a safer floor on DraftKings, where he can still score well in a grappling-heavy decision, while the potential for him to lock up a submission leaves him with a high ceiling on both DraftKings and FanDuel. And it’s not like he’s helpless on his feet either, leaving him with the potential to really fill up the stat sheet. We’re honestly surprised that Ofli isn’t the favorite here based on what we’ve seen from Santos when it comes to grappling, making Ofli a great play in all contest types. The odds imply Ofli has a 35% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #3

Robert Valentin

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

This will be the Middleweight finals for The Ultimate Fighter.

Valentin landed a pair of round one finishes in his first two fights on TUF. He knocked out his first opponent in the opening seconds of the fight with a violent lead elbow, and then helped out with coaching for the rest of the show, likely to gain as much intel as he could on his future opponents. He then had to fight a teammate in the second round, someone who he had just cornered. We saw more of a feeling out process there, but Valentin did get rocked on the feet just before getting the fight to the ground and locking up a submission to secure his spot in the finals. Prior to going on TUF, Valentin had been bouncing around the European regional scene, where his last eight fights also all ended early. In the most recent of those, he landed a ground and pound finish against a 15-25-1 journeyman, after locking up a pair of submission wins against more formidable opponents. One of those was a rematch after Valentin had a 2022 fight stopped and ruled a No Contest after his opponent caught him with a blatantly illegal 12 to 6 elbow to the back of his head. Valentin got the last laugh as he left his opponent a bloody mess in both of those matches.

Now 10-3 as a pro (not counting his two “exhibition” matches on TUF), Valentin has three KO/TKO wins, six submissions, and one decision victory. On the other side of things, he has one TKO loss, one by submission, and one decision defeat. All of his finishes came in the first two rounds and he lost the last three fights that made it to round three, with two of those ending early. One of those early losses came in a 2018 TKO against Ibo Aslan, who recently joined the UFC, and the other was a 2022 kneebar. Valentin started his career at 205 lb, before dropping down to 185 lb in 2019 following his only career KO/TKO loss.

Overall, Valentin is a well-rounded, aggressive finisher who’s dangerous on both the feet and the mat. However, he can get a little wild in the striking exchanges and we’ve seen him hurt at multiple points, although he’s often come back to win those fights and has shown a lot of heart. He’s got a decent submission game, and also good ground and pound, where he likes to throw heavy slicing elbows. He was born in Germany, but grew up in Switzerland, and is now training in Thailand. He’s still only 29 years old and has plenty of time to continue to grow and shore up some of his defensive holes.

Ryan Loder

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Loder locked up a quick submission win in his first fight on TUF, where he was immediately able to take down a one-dimensional striker and easily work his way to a head and arm choke. His second fight on the show wasn’t nearly as easy, but he still managed to win a three-round decision to secure his spot in the finals in a low-volume decision where he was able to land a few takedowns in the first two rounds, but then coasted down the stretch in round three. It was a pretty lackluster performance and showed some of the limitations in his game. Prior to going on TUF, Loder took part in the United fight League Grand Prix. He landed a first round ground and pound TKO win over Leon Shahbazyan, brother of Edmen Shahbazyan, in the first stage of that tournament and then followed it up with a decision victory in the semi-finals. The finals were supposed to take place in December 2023 but ended up being canceled and then Loder went on TUF in early 2024.

Now 6-1 as a pro, (not counting his two “exhibition” matches on TUF), Loder has four KO/TKO wins and two decision victories. While he doesn’t have any official submission wins, he did complete a submission on TUF. He’s never been finished, with his lone career loss ending in a 2023 split decision. All but one of his fights either ended in the first round or went the distance, with the one exception being a R2 KO win in his second pro fight back in 2022.

Overall, Loder is a former DI All-American wrestler who only started training MMA when he found himself at Team Alpha Male training during COVID and is now a wrestling coach there. He only turned pro in late 2021, less than three years ago. He said he wants to get some MMA fights under his belt before focussing entirely on coaching. While he has good wrestling and solid top pressure, his striking is still a work in progress, but he’s shown some improvements on the feet. However, he comes into every fight with the game plan of getting fights to the mat and controlling his opponents. He’s already 32 years old, so he’s not especially young and got a late start in MMA after coming over from wrestling.

Fight Prediction:

Valentin will have a 1” reach advantage and is four years younger than the 33-year-old Loder.

While Loder comes in with a DI All-American wrestling background, Valentin is the more dangerous striker, the better submission grappler, and has far more MMA experience despite being three years younger. Loader has shown the ability to finish low-level opponents on the mat, but hasn’t looked like a huge threat on the feet and still needs to prove his one-dimensional wrestling attack can be effective against the next level of competition. Valentin is the more dangerous of the two and will have a good shot at finding a finish early on in this matchup. He’s capable of knocking Loder out or submitting him and just needs to avoid being taken down and controlled for extended periods of time, which is Loder’s best path to pulling off the upset. We like Valentin to finish Loder in under 10 minutes and a submission is more likely than a knockout but both are in play.

Our favorite bet here is “Robert Valentin ITD” at +140.

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DFS Implications:

Valentin is an aggressive finisher who ended both of his TUF fights in the first round, after his previous eight fights also all ended early (6-1, NC). He can get kind of wild on the feet, but swings with bad intentions and is also a good grappler and dangerous submission threat. That leaves him with multiple ways to score well, although now he’s taking on a former DI All-American wrestler who will be looking to take him down and control him. While that’s far from ideal for Valentin’s ability to fill up the stat sheet, it could increase the number of opportunities he has to find a submission in the grappling exchanges. And because Loder is so predictable with his wrestling-heavy attack, it won’t be surprising if Valentin can time it right and catch him with something coming in. Valentin is a good enough grappler that in general he even has the potential to score well in a rare decision win, although that could be tougher against a wrestler like Loder. The odds imply Valentin has a 59% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.

Loder’s wrestling-heavy style will generally make him a better play on DraftKings than FanDuel, although he does offer some finishing upside on that mat that leaves him with a decent ceiling on both sites. However, he hasn’t faced much in the way of competition and is very one-dimensional, to the extent that he tells everyone who’s ready to listen that his plan will be to get fights to the ground early and often. It’s hard to find sustained success as a specialist in this day and age and he’s already 32 years old. He does have a good squad around him at Team Alpha Male, but he’s definitely still a work in progress on the feet. And it’s not like he’s a world champion wrestler either, and we have seen him struggle to complete takedowns at times when opponents know they’re coming. He gets a tough test here against a well-rounded and dangerous opponent in Valentin, and Loder will be at risk of getting finished at any point in the fight. We’d be somewhat surprised to see Loder finish Valentin, which lowers our interest in playing Loder on FanDuel, but it’s definitely possible for him to return value on DraftKings even in a decision win. The odds imply Loder has a 41% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #2

Angela Hill

26th UFC Fight (12-13)

Fresh off the first submission win of her career, Hill finished Luana Pinheiro with a late second round mounted guillotine. While Pinheiro is a judo black belt, Hill actually took her down twice and stuffed six of Pinheiro’s seven attempts. Hill also finished ahead 28-17 in significant strikes and 39-25 in total strikes. Prior to that, Hill traveled into enemy territory down in Brazil and won a decision over Denise Gomes, who was coming off back-to-back TKO victories. After only landing 12 total takedowns in her first 23 UFC fights combined, Hill surprisingly took Gomes down five times and controlled her for eight minutes, while also finishing ahead in significant strikes 76-62. Gomes won the first round on two of the three scorecards, but Hill came back to unanimously win each of the later rounds. Just before that, Hill suffered a five-round beatdown loss at the hands of Mackenzie Dern. Everyone expected Dern to have a massive grappling advantage, but it was far more surprising to see Dern beat Hill up on the feet as she outlanded her 126-66 in significant strikes and 247-94 in total strikes, while tacking on a knockdown, three takedowns, and 13 minutes of control time. Leading up to that loss, Hill won a pair of decisions over Emily Ducote and Loopy Godinez, impressively outlanding Ducote 182-71 in significant strikes. However, Hill lost three straight decisions before that and 11 of her last 12 fights went the distance (5-6), with three of those 11 decisions being split (0-3).

Now 17-13 as a pro, Hill has five wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and 11 decision victories. Three of her six knockouts occurred in her first six pro fights, with two of those coming in Invicta. Her only three early wins in her last 24 fights came in a 2019 R3 TKO victory via doctor stoppage against Ariane Carnelossi, a 2020 R2 TKO against a helpless Hannah Cifers, and her recent R2 submission win. Hill has never been knocked out, but she has been submitted twice in the first round (2015 & 2019) and has 11 decision losses. She’s been to five split decisions in her career, losing the last four of those and has never won a split decision in the UFC. Twenty of her 25 UFC fights went the distance (9-11).

Overall, Hill has always been a decent striker, although she’s not much of a finishing threat. She relies more on volume to outland her way to decision wins, and averages 5.38 SSL/min and 4.86 SSA/min. To her credit, she’s been improving her grappling in recent years and has a solid 76% career takedown defense. In her first 16 UFC fights, Hill landed just six total takedowns, while she’s now landed 13 in her last nine fights. No one has ever taken her down more than three times in any of her 25 UFC fights, and only three of her last 20 opponents got her down more than once. Hill has won five of the last six fights where she wasn’t taken down, with the one exception being a close split-decision loss to Amanda Lemos. Hill did turn 39 years old back in January, so she’s getting up there in age, but she’s shown no signs of slowing down and has now won four of her last five matches.

Tabatha Ricci

8th UFC Fight (5-2)

Ricci has fought to two straight split decisions (1-1) and arguably lost both of those. The most recent came against Tecia Pennington, who was coming off a 25 month layoff after having a baby. Pennington outlanded Ricci 80-54 in significant strikes, while Ricci was only able to land 1 of her 10 takedown attempts. All three judges scored the first round for Pennington and the last for Ricci, while two of the three also gave Ricci round two. Pennington notably finished ahead in significant strikes in every round, but Ricci had large amounts of control time in each of the later rounds and was getting some clinch strikes off during that time. Prior to that, Ricci had a four-fight winning streak snapped in a split decision against Loopy Godinez. Ricci failed to land any of her six takedown attempts in the fight, but did show improved striking, although Godinez finished ahead 98-84 in significant strikes and outlanded Ricci in every round. Just before that, Ricci put on an impressive performance in a decision win over Gillian Robertson, after locking up a second round submission against Jessica Penne. That followed a pair of decision wins over Polyana Viana and Maria Oliveira, after Ricci got finished in her short notice UFC debut, which took place up a weight class against Flyweight contender Manon Fiorot. Ricci originally turned pro in MMA in 2013 at just 18 years old. However, she then went and fought in a Japanese hybrid Judo league called SEIZA for a while before returning to MMA in 2020. Upon her return, she joined the LFA and defeated a series of very low level opponents before joining the UFC.

Now 10-2 as a pro, Ricci has one TKO win (R2 2021), three armbar submissions, and six decision victories. The only time she’s been finished was the R2 TKO in her UFC debut, while she also has one decision loss. Her four finishes were split across the first two rounds, but her last eight fights and 10 of her last 11 matches made it to round two. Her last three and five of her last six fights went the distance.

Overall, Ricci has historically been reliant on her grappling to win fights, but has recently made some improvements in the striking department. She’s a BJJ and Judo black belt and a training partner of Mackenzie Dern, so unsurprisingly she has a solid ground game and looks most dangerous with her armbar submissions. She’s shown she has no problem going to the ground with other dangerous grapplers, and even seems to relish the opportunities to see how she stacks up in those matchups. She typically wins fights by either grinding out grappling-heavy decisions or locking up armbars, but we’ve also seen her striking output increase in her last few fights. In her seven UFC fights, she landed 18 of her 51 takedown attempts (35.3% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on just two of their nine attempts (77.8% defense).

Fight Prediction:

Hill will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while Ricci is 10 years younger than the 39-year-old Hill.

We fully expect Ricci to be looking to wrestle here, but Hill’s grappling has really improved in recent years and she holds a 76% takedown defense. Meanwhile, Ricci landed just 1 of her 16 takedown attempts in her last two fights. That’s not overly encouraging for Ricci’s chances of getting the fight to the ground and Hill is the superior striker. Maybe Ricci can steal another decision through cage control and favorable aesthetics, but we like Hill’s side of things at a slight plus money price tag and think she wins a close decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Angela Hill DEC” at +150.

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DFS Implications:

Hill has averaged 88 DraftKings points in her 12 UFC wins, with nine of those going the distance, two ending in late TKOs, and via second round submission. While five of her last six wins ended with the judges, she was impressively able to score 109 and 104 DraftKings points respectively in her last two decision victories and then followed that up with her first career submission victory. She landed a career best five takedowns in her win over Denise Gomes, allowing her to score 109 DraftKings points and 96 points on FanDuel leading up to her recent submission victory. And just before that, she set a career high in significant strikes landed, when she outstruck Emily Ducote 182-71 and scored 104 DraftKings points and 129 points on FanDuel. So despite now being 39 years old, Hill is still setting new career records every time she steps inside the Octagon. Just keep in mind, Ducote has absorbed over 100 significant strikes in each of her last four fights, Gomes is a short brawler with a poor takedown defense, and Luana Pinheiro has bad cardio and looks pretty fraudulent. So all of those recent high scores came in favorable spots, whereas now Hill will be facing a decent grappler in Ricci who should be looking to slow things down in the clinch and with her wrestling. While Hill may be able to defend many of those attempts, it will be harder for her to put up a big striking total and we’d be surprised to see her get Ricci down, or land another finish. So it’s more likely that this ends in a lower scoring decision and we don’t anticipate another big score from Hill. The odds imply Hill has a 47% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

Ricci is coming off a split decision win where she only scored 74 DraftKings points and arguably lost the fight. That’s her second straight fight to end in a split decision (1-1) and third straight to require the scorecards. The only one of her last six fights to end early was a submission victory over a washed up Jessica Penne, where Ricci scored 123 DraftKings points. Ricci’s other four UFC wins all went the distance and she scored progressively fewer DraftKings points in each of those as she began facing tougher competition (100 > 93 > 86 > 74). A few years ago we would have called this a favorable stylistic matchup for Ricci, but Hill has really improved her ground game and takedown defense. There’s a good chance this plays out similarly to Ricci’s last fight, where she struggles with her takedown accuracy and is reliant on control time to win minutes. Hill is the superior striker and Ricci can’t get her wrestling going then it will be really hard for her to win or score well even if she does. The line has moved in her favor, so she’s now underpriced on both DraftKings and FanDuel, which could drive her ownership up some as well, thus further lowering her appeal in tournaments. Maybe she can prove us wrong and find more wrestling success than expected, but keep in mind she landed just 1 of her 16 takedowns attempts in her last two fights. The odds imply Ricci has a 53% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #1

Caio Borralho

7th UFC Fight (6-0)

Borralho is coming off a second round knockout win against a one-dimensional grappler in Paul Craig, in a fight where Borralho smartly refused to engage on the mat with Craig. He was able to defend all six of Craig’s takedown attempts, while never looking for a takedown of his own and finishing ahead 36-22 in significant strikes. That’s Borralho’s first knockout win in the UFC and only his second KO/TKO victory since 2018. Prior to the win over Craig, Borralho won a lackluster, low-volume decision in front of his home Brazilian crowd against Abusupiyan Magomedov, finishing ahead just 51-38 in significant strikes and failing to land his only takedown attempt. That followed Borralho’s only other early win in the UFC, which ended in a second round submission victory over a one-dimensional striker in Michal Oleksiejczuk, who’s been submitted in six of his nine career losses. While two of Borralho’s last three fights ended early, his first three UFC fights all ended in low-volume, grappling-heavy decision wins. Borralho has won 15 straight fights after suffering the only loss of his career in a decision in his second pro fight. However, 7 of his last 10 fights ended in decisions and he hasn’t been putting many opponents away early. It took him two tries on DWCS to earn a contract and after not getting signed following a decision win in his first appearance on the show at 185 lb, Borralho returned three weeks later at 205 lb and knocked out Jesse Murray, who’s been finished in all six of his pro losses. Borralho’s UFC debut actually ended in a technical decision with just over a minute left in the third round after he threw an illegal knee, so he was fortunate not to get a DQ loss there.

Now 16-1 as a pro, Borralho has five wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and seven decision victories. His only career loss came in a 2015 decision in his second pro fight. Four of his five knockouts ended in the first round, with the other coming in the first half of round two. Two of his four submission wins also ended in round one, while he also has one in round two and another in round three. Borralho started his career at 170 lb in 2014 before moving up to 185 lb in 2018. He also had one fight at 205 lb just before joining the UFC, before returning to 185 lb for all of his UFC matches.

This will be the 2nd five-round fight of Borralho’s career and first in the UFC. Just before he went on DWCS, he won a five-round decision for the vacant Future FC Middleweight belt in 2020. That was a slower paced striking battle and Borralho didn’t look to grapple much in the fight until the final round.

Overall, Borralho is a well rounded fighter who owns black belts in BJJ and Muay Thai and is also a Judo brown belt. He spent extensive time training with Demian Maia, so you know he can handle himself on the mat. With that said, he generally pushes a slower pace, and tends to coast down the stretch in fights. He seems clueless in terms of what the UFC and fans are looking for out of fighters, and hypes himself up way too much after boring decision wins. His karate style paired with his grappling makes for lower significant striking totals in his fights, and he only averages 2.91 SSL/min and 2.06 SSA/min. Between his six UFC fights and two DWCS matches, he landed 12 of his 19 takedown attempts (63.2% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on three of their 13 attempts (76.9% defense). While he appears to have all of the physical tools required to be a problem in the division, he still hasn’t totally blown us away with anything he does, and we have also yet to see how he’ll fare against the top of the division. He’s the main face of the Fight Nerds team and loves to talk about how smart he fights, which is a nice way of saying he’s boring. The UFC had been misrepresenting Borralho’s true height up until now, as they had him listed at 5’10” ever since he went on DECS, but they finally just changed his official height to 6’1”.

Jared Cannonier

18th UFC Fight (10-7)

Cannonier is just 11 weeks removed from a R4 TKO loss in a main event against Nassourdine Imavov, albeit in a very quick stoppage on the feet. The momentum was definitely in Imavov’s favor and he had Cannonier hurt, but Cannonier was actually ahead on two of the three scorecards at that point and seemed to be surviving and recovering to some extent after getting rocked when the fight was stopped. Imavov finished ahead 82-64 in significant strikes and 2-1 in takedowns, but Cannonier was able to control him along the fence for extended periods of time and finished with over six minutes of control time. That came a year after Cannonier put on a record-setting performance against Marvin Vettori, where Cannonier landed the most ever significant strikes in a Middleweight fight (241), blowing past Strickland’s previous record of 186. Cannonier actually got hurt 30 seconds into the first round, but quickly recovered and then nearly landed a finish of his own in round two. While Vettori was able to survive, Cannonier continued to lay it on him for the remainder of the match, finishing ahead 241-153 in significant strikes and also taking Vettori down four times on six attempts. Following that win, Cannonier was scheduled to face Roman Dolidze in December, before getting the call to step in and face Khamzat Chimaev on short notice in October. However, Cannonier then tore his MCL at practice within an hour of the news. That forced him out of both of those matchups and resulted in his year-long layoff. Prior to defeating Vettori, Cannonier won a close five-round split-decision over Sean Strickland, where Cannonier finished behind 152-141 in significant strikes. Cannonier actually made his UFC debut all the way up at Heavyweight in 2015, but after starting off 1-1 he dropped down to Light Heavyweight. He then went 2-3 at Light Heavyweight before making the move down to Middleweight, where he’s since gone 7-3. His first two losses at Middleweight were a 2020 three-round decision to Robert Whittaker and a 2022 five-round decision loss to Israel Adesanya. Cannonier’s last eight fights all saw the second round, with five of his last seven fights going the distance, including four five-round decisions. His last four fights all made it to the championship rounds and he had fought to three straight five-round decisions leading up to his recent R4 TKO loss.

Now 17-7 as a pro, Cannonier has 10 wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and five decision victories. Both of his submission wins came very early in his career, in 2011 and 2013, when he was still fighting in Alaska. While the first five knockout wins of his career ended in round one, four of his last five KO wins occurred in the later rounds, with three in round two and one in round three. He’s also been knocked out three times himself, and has four decision defeats. Two of his KO/TKO losses ended in the first round, although one of those was at Heavyweight and the other was at Light Heavyweight. He’s coming off his first early loss at 185 lb, which ended in a R4 TKO. He’s never been submitted.

This will be the 7th five-round fight of Cannonier’s UFC career. His first was in 2019 against Jack Hermansson and he won in an early second round TKO. His next four five-round fights all went the distance, with a 2021 win over Kelvin Gastelum, a 2022 loss to Israel Adesanya, a 2022 win over Sean Strickland, and then a win over Marvin Vettori. He was then finished in the fourth round of his most recent five-round fight against Nassourdine Imavov.

Overall, Cannonier is a powerful striker who throws violent leg kicks and has demonstrated a really solid takedown defense since dropping down to 185 lb. In his 10 fights since making the move down, he successfully defended 33 of the 44 attempts against him (75% defense), which is noticeably higher than his 61% career takedown defense across three weight classes. And while it’s historically been rare to see Cannonier land any takedowns of his own, he surprisingly took Vettori down four times on six attempts and then landed his only takedown attempt in his last fight. Prior to that, he had only attempted eight total takedowns in his first 15 UFC fights, completing just two of those. While Cannonier averages 4.62 SSL/min, he said after the loss to Adesanya that he realized he needs to increase his output and his actions backed up his words as he proceeded to land a career best 141 significant strikes against Strickland (5.64 SSL/min), after failing to top 90 in his previous 14 UFC fights and only averaging 3.73 SSL/min in those first 14 matches. Then he went on to land a record setting striking total in his next fight, where he averaged 9.64 SSL/min. However, he only averaged 3.86 SSL/min in his last match and is now 40 years old and less than a year removed from knee injury. So it will be interesting to see how Cannonier looks here and to see how much he has left in the tank. In a recent interview, Cannonier said he was offered a main event spot on the Denver card a month ago but had to turn it down because he was too heavy at the time. He then confirmed that this matchup was put together on fairly short notice, so it will be interesting to see how he looks on the scale.

Fight Prediction:

Borralho will have a 2” height advantage, but Cannonier will have a 2” reach advantage. Borralho is nine years younger than the 40-year-old Cannonier.

This matchup was announced less than three weeks ago, which adds some volatility to the mix as we don’t know what kind of shape these two are in. Cannonier is also making a really fast turnaround here after suffering a R4 TKO loss in a main event just 11 weeks ago. Sure it was a quick/bad stoppage and he wasn’t actually knocked out, but he still absorbed a good amount of damage in the fight and he’s 40 years old. And while Cannonier was somehow ahead on two of the three scorecards, it wasn’t a very impressive performance from him and he looked to be on the decline as he came off a year long layoff following a knee injury. And while Cannonier had previously been known for his durability since moving down to 185 lb, he’s been hurt in each of his last two fights and that durability may be on the way out. However, Borralho doesn't land many knockouts, with just two on his record since 2018. And while Borralho is a good grappler, he excels more at controlling his opponents then submitting them and Cannonier has never been submitted. We’ve also seen Borralho get away from his grappling in his last two outings, where he failed to land any takedowns on just one attempt. And when you combine that with the fact that he doesn’t have the best cardio and will now be going five rounds for the first time in the UFC, we could see him look to preserve his gas tank by not looking to wrestle much early on. Cannonier has way more experience in five-round fights, but that directly ties back into how old he is, which is our biggest concern with backing him. He has good enough defensive wrestling to force Borralho into a striking battle, which on the surface seems like a decent reason to take the plus money on Cannonier’s side of things. Borralho’s karate-style stance also seemingly leaves his lead leg open to being kicked, and Cannonier is known for his heavy leg kicks. However, while Cannonier seems to be on the decline, Borralho looks to be making improvements to his striking and is in the prime of his career. If this fight took place two years ago, we would definitely be backing Cannonier, but it feels trappy at this stage in his career and we lean towards Borralho winning a low-volume decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Borralho/Cannonier FGTD” at +114.

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DFS Implications:

Borralho has averaged just 84 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins and scored 80 or fewer points in four of those. The only time he’s topped 96 points was in a 2023 second-round submission win against a one-dimensional striker who gets submitted by everyone. In his four UFC three-round decision wins, Borralho averaged just 75 DraftKings points and if we extend his numbers in those fights over the course of five rounds, he would have averaged 106 DraftKings points, but just 73 points on FanDuel. Now he’s facing the toughest test of his career and Cannonier is a hard guy to take down and control, even if he is now 40 years old. Borralho also only averages 2.91 SSL/min and 2.06 SSA/min and has yet to land more than 51 significant strikes in a UFC fight, which seemingly leaves him more reliant on landing a finish to score well. While he’s coming off a knockout win over Paul Craig and Cannonier is just 11 weeks removed from a TKO loss, Borralho only has two knockout wins since 2018 and Cannonier’s recent loss was the first time that he’s has been finished at 185 lb. Maybe Cannonier is rapidly declining at this stage in his career, but if not, it’s less likely that Borralho will get him out of there early. And because Borralho is so focussed on fighting smart and winning, he’s really not a guy you can trust to even push for a finish. He’ll probably win a boring low-volume decision and then call for the next title shot. The odds imply Borralho has a 70% chance to win, a 35% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.

Cannonier has averaged 101 DraftKings in his seven UFC wins since dropping down to 185 lb and scored a slate-breaking 155 DraftKings points the last time he got his hand raised, where he set the Middleweight record for the most significant strikes landed in a fight at 241. He also tacked on four takedowns, after only landing two in his first 15 UFC fights combined. However, he then blew out his knee and was forced to take a year off leading up to his recent R4 TKO loss to Nassourdine Imavov. While that was a quick stoppage and some may point to the fact that Cannonier was ahead on two of the three scorecards, things were not looking good for him and it seemed like Imavov was well on his way to winning regardless. Cannonier didn’t look great in the fight and we’ve now seen him rocked in each of his last two matches, which is concerning for a 40-year-old fighter who’s less than a year removed from a knee injury. Maybe he can turn back time here, but that’s rarely how things go and he’s jumping right back into action just 11 weeks after that TKO loss. Cannonier said he turned down a five-round opportunity in July because he was too heavy at the time, so there are some concerns regarding the type of shape that he’s in, which had previously never been an issue. Also, Borralho’s combination of grappling and karate-style striking make it hard to rack up strikes against him, as he averages just 2.06 SSA/min and has yet to absorb more than 38 significant strikes in a UFC fight. When you combine that with the fact that he’s never been finished, this looks like a low upside spot for Cannonier. With that said, he likely doesn’t need to put up a huge score at his cheap price tag to end up in winning lineups, but we won’t be looking to use him in the MVP/CPT spot this week. And on a higher scoring slate where multiple other underdogs win, it’s even possible for Cannonier to pull off the upset and still not score enough to end up in winning lineups. That leaves us lukewarm on this fight in general and it makes sense to be underweight on it as a whole to help create more unique tournament lineups on this smaller slate. The odds imply Cannonier has a 30% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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