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Fight Day Scratches: None
Fighter Notes:
Fight #14
Zviad Lazishvili
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Stepping in on short notice after Aaron Phillips withdrew from this fight, Lazishvili is the rare late replacement favorite in this matchup. He had been scheduled to make his debut back in September against Jack Shore, but ended up withdrawing from that matchup.
Thirteen months removed from an LFA R1 submission win, the Georgian grappler Lazishvili is undefeated as a pro with either an 8-0 or a 12-0 record depending on where you look. We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and call it 12-0. Nine of those wins have come by submission, with three ending in decisions and he’s clearly a grappling/submission specialist. We can’t talk about his record without pointing out that he never faced an opponent with any experience prior to joining the LFA in 2019 for his most recent two fights. And we mean any. Amazingly, none of his first 10 opponents had a single professional fight on their record, so we might as well be calling Lazishvili 2-0 if we want to actually talk about “professional” fights he’s been part of.
Lazishvili clearly just wants to get fights to the mat, and does a great job of catching kicks to take opponents down. Once he gets you to the ground he’s a tough guy to get off you and he does a great job of maintaining top pressure and working towards submissions. He also has the ability to chain wrestle if the first attempt doesn’t stick and will eventually find himself in top position. He also offers slick submissions off his back and is dangerous from just about any position on the mat. While he’s a great grappler, Lazishvili looks very vulnerable on the feet and doesn’t offer much in terms of striking.
Jonathan Martinez
8th UFC Fight (4-3)Martinez lost his original opponent this week after Phillips dropped out, which seems somewhat fitting after Martinez dropped out of his last scheduled fight due to a botched weight cut. Hitting 135 lb has recently been an ongoing issue for Martinez and he actually moved up to 145 lb when he took on Thomas Almeida in his second most recent fight after he missed weight by 4.5 lb against Frankie Saenz previously. However, the rest of his UFC career has been spent in the 135 lb division.
He’s now coming off the first early loss of his career in a March 2021 R2 KO against Davey Grant. Martinez started that fight off strong and dropped Grant late in R1, but Grant was able to recover and turn the tables in R2 before eventually knocking Martinez out with a left cross midway through the second round. The fight ended with Grant ahead in significant strikes 48-29, while he failed on his only takedown attempt.
All of Martinez’s UFC fights have made it out of the first round, six have seen the third round and four have gone the distance. His only UFC match not to make it to the third round was his last fight when he got knocked out in R2. Prior to that he had a pair of R3 KO wins and was 2-2 in four UFC decisions. He struggled with getting taken down some earlier in his career as he was grounded three times in each of his first two UFC fights, but has since only been taken down once in his last five matches on 10 attempts.
Martinez came into the UFC with a 9-1 record with his only loss coming from a DQ for an illegal knee against Matt Schnell. It’s worth noting that five of Martinez’s seven KO wins occurred in his first five pro fights. In fairness to him, all of those opponents had at least four pro fights of experience unlike most of the fighters we see. Martinez is most dangerous with his legs and likes to throw flying knees, which he’s used to knock opponents out.
Looking at his entire career, Martinez is 13-4 with seven KOs, two submissions and four decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, lost two decisions and has one DQ loss, but he’s never been submitted.
Fight Prediction:
Martinez will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
Martinez had been scheduled to face Aaron Phillips, before getting a new opponent mid fight week, so he’s had little to no time to adjust for the grappling-heavy style of Lazishvili. For the record, Phillips is a low-level one-dimensional striker who’s 0-3 in the UFC and has never landed a takedown, so it was a very different stylistic matchup that Martinez was preparing for. Nevertheless, Martinez’s takedown defense appears to be improving in his time with the UFC, as he was taken down six times on nine attempts in his first two UFC fights, but has only been grounded once on 10 attempts in his last five fights. It would make sense for Martinez to cut back on the number of kicks he throws as Lazishvili excels at catching kicks and turning them into takedowns. Whether or not Martinez is wise enough to pick up on that remains a different story. But if he comes in focussing on his boxing and preventing takedowns then he should have the decided striking advantage and the potential to land a knockout or win a low-volume decision. However, if he doesn’t adjust his game plan for Lazishvili and comes in with his normal kick-heavy approach then we fully expect Lazishvili to take him down, control him on the mat and either submit him or win a grappling heavy decision. So while it’s tough to know what Martinez’s strategy will be coming in, those are the two ways we see this fight playing out. Based on the fact that Martinez has had very little time to prepare for this fight, we’ll say it’s more likely he fails to make the necessary adjustments and comes in with his normal kick heavy attack, which should lead to him getting taken down, controlled and likely submitted or at the very least on the wrong side of a grappling heavy decision. We will close this out by saying that Martinez’s last two early wins have both come by R3 KO and if can simply survive the opening rounds he has the potential to land a late finish against a fighter stepping in on short notice who may run into cardio issues in a longer fight. So we wouldn’t entirely give up on Martinez and start live betting Lazishvili if he gets taken down early, but it definitely won’t be a good sign.
The books have been incredibly slow to release props on this fight, but we’re interested in “Martinez Wins by KO,” “Martinez Wins by R3 KO,” “Lazishvili Wins by Decision,” “Lazishvili Wins by Submission,” “Lazishvili Wins by R1 Submission,” and “Lazishvili Wins by R2 Submission.”
DFS Implications:
Lazishvili’s grappling heavy fighting style will generally score better on DraftsKings than FanDuel in a decision, but his high number of takedowns and nack for landing submissions makes him a very intriguing play on both sites. It is notable that Martinez has only been taken down once in his last five fights on 10 attempts and has never been submitted, but he also hasn’t faced any huge submission threats since joining the UFC, so this should be his toughest test to date in that regard. This fight will entirely come down to whether or not Lazishvili can get it to the ground as he doesn’t offer much of anything on the feet. When you combine that with the fact that he’s making his UFC debut on less than week’s notice, this makes for a high variance spot with a wide range of outcomes. Those types of situations are always interesting for tournaments as they present sneaky upside, but uncertain floors. The odds imply Lazishvili has a 55% chance to win, a 29% chance to get a finish and a 15% chance it comes in R1.
Martinez has only topped 75 DraftKings points in one of his four UFC wins, which was a R3 KO that included three knockdowns. His other R3 finish scored just 68 DK points and with average striking volume and just one takedown landed in his last five fights he’s generally not a guy that helps you in DFS. Considering FanDuel just removed takedowns defended from the scoring system this week (because that was totally their biggest problem), we don’t even get the benefit of taking that angle as he now faces a one-dimensional grappler. Because Lazishvili is making his UFC debut on short notice, this is somewhat of a high variance spot and there’s always a chance Martinez can keep this on the feet and simply overwhelm Lazishvili with striking. That’s really the only way we see Martinez being useful here, as he lacks the ability to score well in a decision with DK scores of just 59 and 75 in his two decision wins. The odds imply he has a 45% chance to win, a 24% chance to get a finish and an 11% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #13
Livinha Souza
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Looking to bounce back from the first early loss of her career, Souza ran into a buzzsaw in Amanda Lemos and lost in a R1 TKO. Lemos essentially pitched a shutout as she landed a pair of knockdowns and led in significant strikes 29 to 1 in a fight that lasted less than four minutes. Souza didn't even have a chance to attempt a takedown in that fight after landing eight in her first four UFC fights.
Souza is primarily a grappler and is a former member of the Brazilian Olympic Judo team. She entered the UFC with an 11-1 pro MMA record with her only career loss coming against Angela Hill in their Invicta days. In her 2018 UFC debut, Souza took on a struggling 39-year-old Alex Chambers, who came into that fight 1-3 in the UFC with two of those prior losses coming by submission. Souza landed a Guillotine Choke just 81 seconds into the match and Chambers hasn’t fought since.
Souza then took on Sarah Frota, who was making her UFC debut, and Souza defeated Frota in a low-volume decision. Frota lost her next fight as well and finished 0-2 in the UFC. After starting her UFC career off 2-0, Souza then lost a decision to a debuting, but tough Brianna Van Buren, who outlanded Souza 72-23 in significant strikes and won the takedown battle 3-2. Souza bounced back from the loss with a decision win over Ashley Yoder in August 2020 before losing to Lemos most recently.
Looking at her entire pro record, Souza is 14-3 with two KOs, eight submissions and four decision wins. In her three defeats, she’s lost two decisions, and the only time she’s been finished was in her recent R1 TKO loss. She’s never been submitted. In addition to her Olympic Judo background, she's a BJJ Blackbelt who is more comfortable on the ground and likes to hunt for submissions. Failing to land more than 46 significant strikes in any of her five UFC fights, Souza is a low-volume striker who generally likes to throw a single right hand over the top, opposed to attacking opponents with longer combinations.
Randa Markos
18th UFC Fight (6-10-1)Skidding into her 18th UFC fight, Markos has dropped four straight and has just one win in her last six matches. She’s coming off an unfortunate R1 DQ loss after she landed an illegal upkick against UFC newcomer Luana Pinheiro. We saw Markos get taken down almost immediately in the fight with a Judo throw, which is notable as she now goes against another Judoka. Markos opened that fight very aggressively and seems to be aware she’s fighting for her job at this point in her career. She appeared genuinely distraught that she landed an inadvertent illegal upkick to lose the fight.
Prior to the DQ loss, all 21 of Markos’ career fights had ended in Armbars (4-2) or decisions (6-8-1). The last five of those Armbars all notably occured in R1. However, three of her four Armbar wins came prior to joining the UFC, in her first 5 pro fights and 13 of her 17 UFC fights have gone the distance.
Markos has only been finished twice in the UFC, and has only landed one finish of her own. Here other 13 UFC bouts leading up to the recent DQ loss all went the distance. Also notable, the only person to finish her since 2016 was Mackenzie Dern. Markos defeated Carla Esparza in a 2017 split-decision, outlanding Esparza 48-32 in significant strikes. Esparza was able to land four takedowns in the match, while Markos didn’t land any of her own.
Markos has made a career out of grinding out low-volume decisions, while losing more often then she wins. In her 17 UFC fight career, she has never won two fights in a row, but up until her recent four fight skid, she had also never lost two in a row. No one can question Markos’ toughness, but at age 36 and with just one win in her last six fights, you have to wonder how much time she has left in the UFC.
Fight Prediction:
Markos will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 63” reach. Souza is notably six years younger than the 36-year-old Markos.
While Markos has now lost four straight fights, she’s gone up against a series of really tough opponents in Amanda Ribas, Mackenzie Dern, Kanako Murata and Luana Pinheiro. This next matchup appears to be a step down in competition for her and we like Markos’ chances of bouncing back. She always has a slight chance to land an Armbar submission, but she’s far more likely to outland her way to a decision. We’re taking Markos in a lower volume decision here.
It’s a little bizarre that despite being a favorite Souza’s decision line (+170) is wider than Markos’ (+145), but we also sort of get it and think Markos is more likely to win a volume based decision—we just wish the books weren’t onto that as well. So we don’t hate taking either of those lines, Souza by Decision for the value, or Markos by Decision because that’s how we expect this fight to end. The other line worth considering is “Fight Ends in R1 Submission” at +950 or “Fight Ends in Submission” at +410.
DFS Implications:
Both of these two look like R1 submission or bust DFS plays, so if you decide to fade this fight you can hedge by betting that the fight ends in a R1 submission at +950.
Souza has scored just 63 and 76 points in her two UFC decision wins and she checks in with the third lowest average number of significant strikes landed at 2.06 SSL/min. While her grappling heavy style theoretically make her a better DraftKings play compared to FanDuel, she’s only landed three takedowns in her last three fights and she fought to three straight decisions leading up to her recent R1 KO loss. There’s always a chance she randomly lands a ton of takedowns based on her Judo background, but there’s no evidence that we should expect it. That leaves Souza reliant on landing a finish to score well, something she’s only done once in her last six fights. The only appealing thing about Souza is her ownership, which projects to check in close to single digits, which obviously makes her a contrarian tournament play. With that said, we don’t have much interest in playing her and think the actual chances of her landing a finish are lower than the odds suggest. The odds imply she has a 53% chance to win, a 21% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
Markos has similarly struggled to score well outside of her lone early win in the UFC and her grinding fighting style appears to leave her reliant on a R1 Armbar Submission to return value. She only has one takedown in her last six fights and has never landed more than 78 significant strikes in a match. There’s a slight chance she could serve as a value play if she really ups her striking pace, but we still think it’s unlikely. Just like Souza, the only real reason to consider Markos outside of her R1 finishing chances are that she’ll be incredibly low owned and will serve a contrarian tournament play. The odds imply she has a 47% chance to win, an 11% chance to finish it early and a 6% chance it comes in R1. We recommend treating both of these fighters as R1 or bust plays and expect this fight to end in a lower scoring decision.
Fight #12
Jeff Molina
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Training out of Glory MMA & Fitness under James Krause, Molina is coming off a crazy high-volume decision win in his UFC debut where he amazingly landed 127 significant strikes...in just the third round. After two very close early rounds, Molina seemingly landed almost every punch he threw in the third round. Going against another UFC newcomer in Aoriqileng, Molina took advantage of Aoriqileng non-existent head movement as he peppered him with punches for the entire third round. The first two rounds were nearly dead even in striking, with Molina leading 18-17 in R1 and 44-42 in R2 before turning it to 11 in R3 where he led 127-57. He finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 189-116 and in total strikes 210-125, which was good for a ridiculous 12.6 SSL/min. Aoriqileng did notably take Molina down three times on four attempts, while Molina failed on his only takedown attempt. Molina wasn’t putting much behind his striking, which is part of why he was able to put up such a huge number as Aoriqileng essentially walked through it and Molina never gassed out. He was somewhat reminiscent of Joanne Calderwood in that way, which if that trend continues, Molina could consistently put up huge striking totals. With that said, Aoriqileng’s lack of head movement and zombie-like approach to fighting played a major factor and we shouldn’t assume Molina will automatically land insane striking totals moving forward, but it is something to monitor.
That was Molina’s second straight decision win after eight of his first nine pro fights ended early. He’s now 9-2 as a pro with three KOs, four submission wins and two decision victories. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted once and has lost one decision. Both of those losses occurred in his first three pro fights in 2017 and he’s now on an eight fight winning streak. His last three finishes have all come by submission and he doesn’t appear to have much in terms of knockout power—at least with his hands. He does throw head kicks and knees that can put opponents out. All seven of his early wins have occurred in the first two rounds, including five R1 finishes. His only early loss also came in the first round, which was a Rear-Naked Choke in his 2017 pro debut—which he notably fought up a weight class at 135 lb.
Molina made his way into the UFC with a decision win on DWCS in August 2020. Simply getting a contract without landing a finish on the show tells you it was a good fight. After the match ended, he could be heard saying that he broke his foot in the first round, although it’s unclear if that was ever verified. Molina was actually outlanded 83-76 in significant strikes, 90-86 in total strikes and 2-0 in takedowns, but definitely appeared to do more damage, and the judges agreed.
It’s notable to point out that Molina was taken down twice on two attempts on DWCS and then three times on four attempts in his UFC debut and now he’s going against a grappler who will also be looking to take him down.
Daniel da Silva Lacerda
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut, Brazilian fighter Daniel Lacerda—or Daniel da Silva depending on where you look—comes in with an impressive 11-1 record, having never been past the second round and with only one fight to make it out of R1. His only career loss resulted from an arm injury that ended a 2019 fight just 37 seconds in.
Lacerda is primarily a grappler but also likes to throw a decent number of kicks on the feet. He looks to have solid submission skills and six of his 11 career wins have come by submission, with five ending in KOs. He also looks for ground and pound on the mat, which is where a chunk of his KOs have come from. His last five fights have all ended in the first round and he’s on a three fight winning streak since his arm injury TKO loss. All six of his submission wins have come in the first round either by Armbar or Triangle Choke and he’s incredibly active off his back hunting for submissions, while he’s more so looking for ground and pound from top position.
Overall, Lacerda looks like an interesting prospect with a clear ability to finish fights quickly. What we don’t know is what kind of cardio he has later in fights or how he’ll handle adversity in the UFC so this makes for a high-variance spot with a wide range of outcomes.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’6” but we can barely get Lacerda’s name sorted out let alone his reach.
Molina comes in with the advantage of having already gotten his UFC debut out of the way while Lacerda will be experiencing all of the hoopla for the first time. With that said, Lacerda looks like a potentially tough matchup for anyone in the Flyweight division and Molina can’t take him lightly. We expect Lacerda to be looking to get this fight to the ground from the jump and Molina’s 16% takedown defense over his last two fights is not very encouraging for his chances of staying upright. With that said, it’s a pretty small sample size and at just 24 years old Molina is likely improving all the time and there’s always a chance we see an improved takedown defense out of him as he’s been preparing to face a grappler. Nevertheless, Lacerda has a great chance to get this fight to the ground where he will look for ground and pound and submissions. However, if Molina can keep the fight standing he’s shown he can outland his way to decision wins. And while we shouldn’t overlook the fact that seven of Molina’s nine career wins have come early, this looks like a tougher matchup for Molina to land a submission and we’re not sold on his ability to knock opponents out. The one wildcard will be Lacerda’s cardio as he’s never been past the second round and has only even seen the second round once. So there’s a chance he gasses out late and Molina puts him away because of that. Otherwise we expect this fight to end with either a Molina decision victory or a Lacerda finish on the mat through ground and pound or a submission and we’re actually leaning Lacerda gets the win here.
We like the value on Lacerda’s side of things for betting as well. Our favorite bets are his submission line at +550, his R1 and R2 win lines at +650 and +1000, and his R1 and R2 Submission lines at +1300 and +2000. You can consider hedging with Molina’s ITD line at +320 or “FDGTD” at +104.
DFS Implications:
While Molina went nuclear in the third round of his UFC debut to score 131 DraftKings points and 160 points on FanDuel in a decision victory, his previous DWCS decision win would have been good for just 67 DraftKings points and 66 points on FanDuel. So clearly he has a wide range of outcomes and his recent striking explosion was greatly helped by his statuesque opponent. He’ll now face a grappler making his UFC debut and another volume driven DFS eruption is less likely than in his last fight. With that said, anytime we get a fighter making their debut it makes for a high variance spot with a wide range of outcomes and these are the exact spots we’re looking to target in tournaments. When you also factor in that eight of Molina’s 11 pro fights have ended early (7-1) as well as all 12 of Lacerda’s (11-1), this looks like a great fight to target in DFS. Lacerda has never been past the second round, so if he gasses out late Molina could have the potential to put up another dominating third round. With so many unknowns you definitely want to have solid exposure to both of these guys as the winner has a huge ceiling, even if the floor may not be quite as high as it initially appears. The odds imply Molina has a 59% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and an 11% chance it comes in R1.
If Lacerda’s finishing ability can even partially translate to the UFC then he has all the makings to be a DFS slate-breaker. All 11 of his career wins have come early, including 10 in the first round and one in R2. We’ve seen him come out of the gates aggressively hunting for finishes and he looks very dangerous on the mat. And working in his favor, Molina notably has just a 16% takedown defense. More often than not, fighter’s making their UFC debuts struggle, especially when they enter as underdogs, so we should temper our expectations to some extent, but you also want to be ahead of the curve for tournaments and Lacerda is definitely a guy you want to be over the field on. The odds imply he has a 41% chance to win, a 24% chance to get a finish and an 11% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #11
Jai Herbert
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Coming off a smothering second round submission loss to veteran Renato Moicano, Herbert eventually succumbed to the relentless grappling of the BJJ black belt. The fight ended with Moicano ahead in significant strikes 26-7 and in total strikes 61-18, while he landed 5 of his 7 takedown attempts with over seven and a half minutes of control time in a fight that lasted just nine and a half minutes. Herbert was briefly able to return to his feet late in R1 and showed glimpses of his striking advantage, but he was unable to get the finish in his very limited opportunities. By R2 he lacked the energy and skills to get off the mat and Moicano easily wore him down as he worked his way to the submission finish.
Looking back one fight further, Herbert was thrown straight to the wolves in his July 2020 UFC debut as he went up against longtime veteran Francisco Trinaldo. To make matters more difficult, Trinaldo showed up 4 lb overweight for the fight and didn’t even appear to try and hit the 156 lb mark as he prepared to move up to 170 lb for his next fight. Herbert’s kinetic pace and reach advantage gave Trinaldo some trouble early on, as Herbert throws his jab out like he’s poking you with a broomstick from across the Octagon. He also follows up that prodding jab with a lightning fast right cross. However, Trinaldo was able to close the distance and get Herbert down to the mat a minute in. As Herbert looked to return to his feet, Trinaldo attempted a standing Guillotine Submission, but Herbert was able to escape danger and return to his feet. However, Trinaldo was able to keep Herbert pinned up against the cage and returned him to the mat a minute later. While he was able to work his way back to his feet, essentially the entire first round was spent either in the clinch or on the mat, which is definitely not where Herbert wants to be.
Herbert started the second round fresh and dropped Trinaldo with a cattle prod right hand just six seconds in, which was notably just the third time Trianldo had been knocked down in 22 UFC fights up until that point. However Trianaldo was able to recover as he bear-hugged Herbert and then was forced to give up his back as Herbert looked for a Rear-Naked Choke. Trinaldo was able to use the time on the mat to recover and eventually return to his feet, but Herbert dominated the round.
Early in the third round, Trinaldo caught Herbert with a left hand to the dome that dropped Herbert with a delayed cartoon-like reaction. Trinaldo stood above the fallen Herbert with his fist cocked waiting for Herb Dean to call the fight but Dean bizarrely forced Trianaldo to land a few more unnecessary shots while Dan Hardy understandably lost his shit in the commentary booth. Up until that point, Herbert looked great in the fight and just happened to get caught with a clean left hand—it happens. While we didn’t see a huge number of strikes landed, Trinaldo led 30-21 in significant strikes and both fighters landed just 37 total strikes. However, that can largely be attributed to the fact that we saw over six and half minutes of combined control time in a fight that lasted 11 and a half minutes. Herbert is most comfortable in open space, so he’ll just need to figure out how to stay out of the clinch moving forward so he can fully utilize his reach and explosive striking ability.
Herbert started his amateur career at 170 lb before dropping down to 155 lb in 2014 just before going pro, where he's stayed since. He has only been to one decision in his 13 pro fights, which came in a 2018 win. His other nine wins have all come early, with eight KOs and one submission. Only one of his nine finishes has occurred after the second round, with his first five early wins ending in R2 and three of his last four finishes coming in R1. Prior to his recent pair of early losses in the UFC, Herbert’s only other career loss came in a 2016 R1 KO against Rhys McKee, who went 0-2 in the UFC before heading back to Cage Warriors. However, McKee has notably been fighting up at 170 lb opposed to 155 lb where Herbert competes.
Overall, Herbert is a solid striker with sharp striking, but is extremely vulnerable on the mat. He’s also been prone to getting knocked out at times so he’s generally a finish or get finished type of fighter.
Khama Worthy
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Looking to bounce back from consecutive R1 KO losses, the shine on Worthy is quickly fading after he previously won seven in a row, including early wins in his first two UFC fights as a significant underdog in each. Worthy made a name for himself in his 2019 UFC debut against his friend and former training partner, Devonte Smith. While no one was giving Worthy a chance to win that fight as he entered as a +640 underdog, he stepped in on short notice and knocked Smith out late in the first round.
He followed up his explosive debut performance with a June 2020 R3 Guillotine Choke submission win against Luis Pena, who controlled Worthy on the ground for the majority of the second round, but was unable to get the finish. Worthy reversed the position late in the second, only to have his corner scream at him to get back up opposed to looking for any offense out of top position, showing that even in a dominant position on the mat they would prefer to keep things on the feet—at least against a grappler like Pena. Nearly immediately after getting back up, Pena was able to return him to the mat. However, in the third round Worthy did a better job of quickly sprawling to avoid takedowns, before he finally finished the fight with a Guillotine Choke on Pena’s final attempted takedown.
We next saw Worthy take on a dangerous striker in Ottman Azaitar, who came into the fight red hot, with a 12-0 pro record, including 11 finishes, and back-to-back first round knockouts. Azaitar kept his streak alive with a flurry of early punches that put Worthy down to end the fight in just 93 seconds. Most recently, Worthy took on tough Australian Jamie Mullarkey, who made even shorter work of Worthy, as Mullarkey knocked him out in just 46 seconds.
Worthy’s current two fight KO skid is actually the third time in his career he’s been knocked out in back-to-back fights. The first time was in 2015 and Worthy bounced back with a R3 KO following a pair of R2 KO losses. More recently in 2016-2017, Worthy was knocked out in the first round in consecutive fights and bounced back with a decision win. You always have to wonder how fighters will respond to being knocked out, as we often see a more tentative approach in their subsequent fight. Worthy has been knocked out seven times in his career with his only other pro loss coming by submission, so we have plenty of examples to look back on. Here are the results from Worthy’s next fight following his first six career KO losses: R3 Dec W, R2 KO L, R3 KO W, R1 KO L, R3 DEC W, R1 KO L. So he’s gone 3-3 in his career following KO losses, with two decision wins, a R3 KO victory and three early KO losses. So take it for what it’s worth, but all three of the times he’s bounced back from a KO loss with a win, his next fight has made it to the third round.
Worthy’s last five fights have all ended early, with three of his last four ending in R1. He’s now 16-8 as a pro with nine wins by KO, three by submission and four decisions. All eight of his losses have come early, with seven KOs and one submission. Worthy has two Rear-Naked Choke victories on his record and one Guillotine Choke. His only submission loss was a R2 Rear-Naked Choke in his 2012 pro debut. Five of his seven KO losses have notably come against UFC fighters, with pre-UFC KO losses against Paul Felder, Billy Quarantillo and Kyle Nelson. All eight of his pro losses have occurred in the first two rounds, while five of his 12 career early wins have ended in R3. He only has three first round victories in his career, with his other four ending in R2. He’s notably never lost a fight that made it past the second round.
Worthy fought his first four pro fights at 155 lb but then dropped down to 145 lb from 2013 until 2017. He then moved back up to 155 lb in 2018 and has gone 7-2 since.
Fight Prediction:
Herbert will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
This sets up as an exciting striking battle that you won’t want to miss. We’d be surprised if we saw any grappling, as neither guy has even attempted a takedown so far in the UFC. These two have many similarities in that they’re both one-dimensional strikers coming off consecutive early losses and they generally either knock their opponents out or get knocked out. Both have shown a somewhat dubious chin, although Worthy’s has failed him more often and his last four losses have all come by R1 KO. Herbert is taller, longer and looks to be the more active striker so assuming Worthy doesn’t catch him with something clean we like Herbert to knock Worthy out early in this fight and notch his first UFC win.
Our favorite bets here are Herbert’s R1 and R2 KO lines at +360 and +600 respectively. You can also consider dropping down to his R1 and R2 lines at +300 and +500 on the off chance he finishes the fight with a choke. His overall KO line at +125 is fine also. The two hedges we’re going with are “Fight Ends in R1 KO” at +220 and “Worthy R3 KO” at +1600.
DFS Implications:
If you thought we wouldn’t be doubling down on Jai Herbert after his last outing, guess again. This looks like a prime bounce back spot for him in a matchup where his non-existent grappling shouldn’t be an issue. Herbert had two really tough matchups in his first two UFC fights as he faced the ageless Trinaldo, who’s never been knocked out in 34 pro fights, followed by the UFC veteran BJJ black belt, Renato Moicano, who returned to his grappling roots and put on a grappling clinic. Herbert spent a ridiculous 51.66% of the time in those two fights being controlled. Now Herbert squares off against Khama Worthy, who has been finished in all eight of his career losses and knocked out in the first round in his last four, including his last two fights. Worthy is a pure striker, like Herbert, and has only amassed 4.11% control time in his four UFC fights. Herbert’s steep price tag, 0-2 record and pitiful box scores should keep his ownership under control and if he’s ever going to make any noise, this is the time. It’s safe to ignore all of Hebert’s striking statistics as he’s been controlled for so long in his two UFC fights that those numbers are incredibly skewed. He throws a good amount of volume in space, but you’re really playing him for his finishing upside, which is high considering he’s only been to one decision in 13 pro fights and Worthy has been knocked out seven times. Worthy is somewhat of a dangerous finisher himself and Herbert has shown a dubious chin at times, so you will want exposure to both sides of this fight in your tournament exposure, but we love this spot for Herbert in a stylistic matchup that sets up exponentially better than his last two. The odds imply he has a 63% chance to win, a 41% chance to get a finish and a 24% chance it comes in R1.
Worthy exploded onto the UFC scene in 2019 with a massive R1 KO upset of Devonte Smith, and followed it up with a Guillotine Choke submission victory over Luis Pena as he defended a takedown. However, he’s since been knocked out in his last two fights in just 93 and 46 seconds and his chin appears to be a major liability. With that said, we’re only playing for upside in tournaments and 12 of Worthy’s 16 career wins have come early, as have all three of Herbert’s career losses, so it makes sense to play Worthy for his chances of landing a finish. This is definitely a fight we’re looking to target and it would be shocking to see it go the distance. We’re expecting an up-tempo striking match and would be surprised to see any takedown attempts as neither fighter has attempted one since joining the UFC. We fully expect this fight to end with an early KO and it will just be a test to see who’s chin holds up. The odds imply Worthy has a 37% chance to win, a 27% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #10
Laureano Staropoli
6th UFC Fight (2-3)Coming off a super lame ultra low-volume grappling heavy decision loss to former Light Heavyweight Roman Dolidze, Staropoli moved up to 185 lb for the first time since joining the UFC, but it was hard to gauge how he looked at the new weight class based on how the fight played out. Dolidze finished ahead in significant strikes just 14-9 and in total strikes 52-25. He landed 5 of his 9 takedown attempts with nearly 10 minutes of control time while he clung onto the back of Staropoli on the feet for most of the fight. Staropoli went 4 for 5 on his own takedown attempts but finished with just 50 seconds of control time.
Staropoli has now lost three straight decisions after winning a pair of decisions in his first two UFC fights. However, while all five of his UFC fights have gone the distance, all eight of his matches prior to joining the organization ended in the first two rounds (7-1), with six knockouts (5-1) and two submissions (2-0). With that said, it’s important to note that his seven pre-UFC wins came against a ton of very inexperienced opponents, who entered with records of 1-0, 0-0, 0-0, 1-0, 1-1, 1-0 and 6-5.
While this will just be Staropoli’s second UFC fight up at 185 lb after competing at 170 lb for his first four fights with the organization, he did compete at 185 lb three times earlier in his career when he landed three early finishes in 2015. Staropoli opted to move up a weight class after he missed weight by 3.5 lb for his last Welterweight fight when he took on Tim Means.
In that fight, Means outlanded Staropoli 85-71 in significant strikes and 126-81 in total strikes while taking him down twice on six attempts with over six minutes of control time. Means was also able to control Staropoli against the cage for periods of time and that seems to be an ongoing issue for Staropoli in his losses.
Staropoli’s first UFC loss came against another tough opponent in Muslim Salikhov, who was able to take Staropoli down three times on five attempts and outland him 63-42 in significant strikes. While his last three wins have come against tougher opponents, Staropoli’s first two UFC wins were against struggling opposition in Hector Aldana, who went 0-3 in the UFC, and Thiago Alves, who has lost four of his last five fights.
Staropoli is a flashy striker, but is lacking in the grappling department and has been taken down at least twice in all three of his UFC losses, but just once in his two UFC wins. He does his best work in open space where he has his entire striking arsenal at his disposal as he likes to throw a lot of spinning attacks. He’s now 9-4 as a pro with five wins by KO, two by submission and two by decision. He’s only been finished in one of his three career losses, which came in the first round of his third pro fight back in 2013 via knockout. Following that loss, he moved up to 185 lb for a three fight stretch in 2015, where he landed a pair of first round knockouts and a second round Kimura submission victory. He then moved back down to 170 lb in 2016 and notched two more knockout wins before being called up to the UFC in 2018. He extended his winning streak to seven with a pair of decision wins before suffering his recent three decision losses.
Jamie Pickett
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Still searching for his first UFC win, Pickett is coming off his first career KO loss against a terrible, albeit sometimes dangerous, Jordan Wright. Pickett lasted just 64 seconds in that match and appeared to panic once Wright got him in the Thai Clinch and started throwing knees. So at that point Pickett instinctually shot for a takedown but left his head exposed and absorbed a series of heavy elbows. While Pickett momentarily recovered, Wright regained the clinch and landed a knee that dropped Pickett and then finished him on the ground and the fight was quickly stopped.
Prior to that, the only two times Pickett had been finished had both come by submission. Now 11-6 as a pro he also had three decision losses. Eight of his 11 wins have ended in knockouts, while he also has one submission and two decision victories.
He lost a decision in his UFC debut against Tafon Nchukwi, who was coming down from Light Heavyweight for the first time and has since moved back up to Light Heavyweight after going 1-1 at Middleweight. Pickett didn’t do much to impress us in that fight, and failed to really capitalize on his speed advantage. The two fighters clashed heads at the end of the second round, which appeared to compromise Pickett from that point on as he struggled to shake it off. Midway through the third round, Nchukwi dropped Pickett with a head kick and followed it up with a knee to the body from the Thai clinch that looked like something Wright would actually be able to pull off. Pickett showed off his heart and durability as he absorbed ground and pound from Nchukwi but was able to survive to see a lopsided decision (25-30, 26-30, 26-30). The fight ended with Nchukwi ahead 120-40 in significant strikes and 159-40 in total strikes. Nchukwi went 0 for 2 on takedowns, while Pickett went 1 for 4.
If Pickett had not gotten a shot in the UFC it wouldn’t have been for a lack of effort. He attempted to earn a UFC contract on DWCS not once, not twice, but thrice. And as is often the case, the third time was the charm. In his first DWCS appearance back in 2017, he was submitted by UFC fighter Charles Byrd in R1. In his second time on the show, he lost a three round decision to dangerous UFC finisher Punahele Soriano in 2019. But on his third try, which occurred in August 2020, he landed a R2 KO and finally made it into the UFC. He unleashed an explosive flurry of punches to finish that fight, something that we didn’t see in his earlier fights.
Overall, Pickett still appears to be a very raw fighter lacking much technical skill as he relies mostly on athleticism to win fights. He’s never landed more than two takedowns in a match and has a career takedown accuracy of just 40%. And on average, he absorbs almost twice as many significant strikes (5.35 SSA/min) as he lands (2.87 SSL/min).
Fight Prediction:
Pickett will have a 1” height advantage and crazy 9” reach advantage.
Both of these two strikers are desperate for a win as Pickett has started 0-2 in the UFC and Staropoli has dropped three straight. This looks like a far more favorable matchup for Staropoli compared to what he’s faced in his recent three losses and we expect him to finally right the ship as he outstrikes his way to victory. It wouldn’t be surprising to see him knock Pickett out either, as Staropoli is the far more technical striker and will be throwing all sorts of crazy spinning attacks that are more likely to land against an unrefined fighter like Pickett. So look for this to end with either a Staropoli KO or decision win.
We don’t love this fight from a betting perspective, but we like taking a couple of stabs at Staropoli’s R1 and R2 KO lines at +800 and +1100 respectively. We also considered his decision line at +135, his KO line at +320 and his ITD line at +200.
DFS Implications:
Staropoli has yet to even sniff a decent DFS score with DraftKings totals of 23, 31, 18, 58 and 69 in his five UFC fights, which all ended in decisions. While he occasionally lands a takedown, he’s essentially a one-dimensional striker who’s entirely reliant on landing a finish to score well—something he hasn’t done since before his UFC days. While Pickett has been fairly durable for most of his career and had never been knocked out until his last fight, he was nearly finished in his UFC debut as well. Based on his super low projected ownership, we actually like Staropoli as a sneaky contrarian tournament play and it’s easy to leverage the field without getting carried away. The odds imply he has a 66% chance to win, a 28% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in R1.
Now just 2-3 in his last five fights and 0-2 in the UFC, Pickett lands a below average number of significant strikes and looks to be outgunned in this matchup. Pickett occasionally lands a takedown, but not enough to make much of a difference. While Staropoli has been knocked out once in his career, that was all the way back in 2013 and he’s been fairly durable since. He was notably fighting down at 170 lb until he moved up to 185 lb in his last fight, so that’s one wildcard here. Pickett likely needs to be the second person to ever finish Staropoli to score well and we don’t really see it happening. With both guys desperate for a win, the odds that they each come in more tentatively and fight to a lower volume decision are also higher than normal. We don’t really have much interest in playing Pickett here, but he should go very low-owned, which is probably the best thing he has going for him in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 34% chance to win, a 13% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #9
Tabatha Ricci
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Ricci sacrificed her debut to secure her spot in the UFC when she took on Manon Fiorot up a weight class on short notice in an impossible fight for her to win. Now she’ll drop back down to her natural 115 lb division, where she’s fought her entire career and should look like a completely different fighter. Fiorot terrorized the much smaller Ricci for a round and a half on the feet before finishing her midway through the second round with an onslaught of strikes. The fight ended with Fiorot ahead in significant strikes 84-17, while she also landed her only takedown and stuffed Ricci’s lone attempt.
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 took on Kelsey Arnesen, who was fighting for the first time as a pro. Ricci won a grappling heavy decision, but was never close to finishing the fight.
Next, Ricci took on 36-year-old Vanessa Marie Grimes, who came in with a 1-5 pro record with four early losses. The fight lasted just 67 seconds before Ricci won via Armbar Submission, which was the second first round Armbar win of her young career.
Then in April 2021, Ricci took on another terrible opponent in Shawna Lee Ormsby, who entered with a 2-3 pro record. Ricci nearly landed another R1 Armbar Submission, but couldn’t quite finish it. Then late in the second round, Ricci landed her first career TKO as she forced a stoppage as she rained down ground and pound, although the stoppage was pretty weak and a lot of refs would have let the fight go on.
A BJJ and Judo black belt, Ricci is notably a training partner of Mackenzie Dern, so unsurprisingly she has a solid ground game and looks most dangerous with her Armbar submissions. She can explode for flurries of strikes, but doesn’t have a ton of power so really isn’t much of a knockout threat.
Maria Oliveira
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Oliveira looks like a plodding striker with no ground game. While she landed a R1 KO in her most recent fight, she’s just 2-2 in her last four and was finished in both of those losses. In fairness, one of those losses was a R1 KO against UFC fighter Marina Rodriguez on DWCS Brazil in 2018, but the other was notably a R2 Armbar submission just prior to that. That’s the second Armbar loss of her career, which is important to keep in mind as she now goes up against an Armbar specialist.
In her most recent fight, Oliveira finished her opponent with a knee to the body just 63 seconds into the first round, but that victory should be taken with a massive grain of salt as her opponent was fighting for the first and only time as a pro. In fact, Oliveira’s entire pro record has been padded with trash cans as her wins have come against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-0, 0-1, 1-4, 1-3, 0-0, 1-0, 2-0, 0-5, 3-3, 0-1 and 0-0. So she literally has two wins against opponents with winning records and one of those ended in a split-decision. Any time she has faced an opponent with even a little bit of experience she has lost and three of her four career losses have come early.
While her record doesn’t mean much based on who she’s fought, she’s 12-4 with seven wins by KO, one by submission and four decisions. She’s also been knocked out once, submitted twice by Armbar and lost one decision. She got manhandled on the mat by a 5’2” Kanna Asakura in 2017 on her way to getting submitted via Armbar in the second round, which appears ominous coming into her upcoming debut against another grappler.
Fight Prediction:
Oliveira will have a 4” height advantage and massive 8” reach advantage.
This feels like the UFC is doing Ricci a solid in return for her stepping into an obvious ambush in her recent short notice UFC debut. They appear to be giving her a perfect matchup with a fraudulent debuting fighter who’s been extremely vulnerable on the mat and prone to getting Armbarred. It’s impossible to believe that Oliveira belongs in the UFC after looking at the competition she’s beaten, along with what has happened to her when she’s tried to go up against anyone with professional experience. But hey, we love these types of fighters for betting and DFS so we’re not complaining. Ricci should have a field day on the ground here as long as she can overcome her size disadvantage and get the fight to the mat, which we believe she can. Look for Ricci to get an early finish, most likely by Armbar in the first round.
Our favorite bets are “Ricci ITD” at +250, “Ricci Wins by R1 Submission” at +450 and “Ricci Wins by R2 Submission” at +800.
DFS Implications:
Everything is aligning perfectly for Ricci here in DFS. She’s coming off a wretched debut where she was fighting up a weight class on short notice against a monster in Manon Fiorot and predictably got destroyed, which will allow her to fly mostly under the radar here despite the fact that she’s now dropping back down to 115 lb and facing a terrible debuting opponent who’s entire pro record is padded with opponents who have either never fought before or own losing records. On top of that Oliveira has looked especially prone to getting dominated on the mat and submitted with Armbars, which is precisely what Ricci excels at. It almost feels like the UFC made a deal with Ricci that if she accepted the previous murder spot in her debut that she could hand select her next opponent. It will be interesting to see how much of the field picks up on what’s going on here, but Ricci projects to be relatively low owned at her expensive price tag despite the dream matchup. The odds imply she has a 69% chance to win, a 31% chance to get a finish and a 19% chance it comes in R1.
Oliveira has no business being in the UFC. The combined record of the 12 opponents she’s beaten is 8-17, with four of those wins coming against opponents who had never fought professionally before. Seven of those 12 opponents were still searching for their first career win and only two of the 12 had winning records (1-0 and 2-0). We suppose you could look at the fact that she was able to finish eight of those 12 opponents early as a positive, but looking past the level of competition she’s been facing is tough to do. When she has attempted to compete against more experienced fighters she’s looked terrible as she was knocked out by Marina Rodriguez in the first round of a DWCS Brazil fight just after she was controlled on the mat and submitted by 5’2” Kanna Asakura. Normally we would point out that this is a high variance spot with a fighter making her UFC debut going against an opponent who got destroyed in her UFC debut, but we don’t have any interest in playing Oliveira here, which likely leads to the only reason you would want to play her in tournaments—ownership. The odds imply she has a 31% chance to win (split take), an 18% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #8
Mason Jones
3rd UFC Fight (0-1, NC)Mason Jones had been scheduled to face Alan Patrick here after their last fight ended in a No Contest due to an inadvertent eye poke, but Patrick withdrew to avoid another life shortening beating and David Onama stepped into his UFC debut mid fight week.
It’s really unfortunate that Jones wasn’t awarded the finish in his last fight as he was absolutely murdering Patrick before an inadvertent eye poke gave Patrick a way out of the fight and he immediately took it. The fight was nearly stopped earlier as Jones went to work, but Patrick was narrowly able to survive. It looked like he was on his last legs when the eye poke occurred and if the doctor had asked him if he could see before the eye poke the answer likely would have been the same, as he looked seriously dazed.
That was the second straight banger performance that Jones has put on since joining the UFC after he threw down in a fight of the year candidate in his January 2021 debut against Mike Davis. Coming into the UFC, Jones called on Dana White and Sean Selby to "Find the biggest, deadliest lightweight monster you can find - because I'm a lightweight guy - and I'll go out there and dismantle him.” The UFC obliged, and while Jones didn’t get the results he was looking for, the rest of us all came out winners.
In that fight, Jones threw down in an absolute war against Davis. While he suffered his first career loss in a close decision that seemingly could have gone either way, Jones had nothing to hang his head about after leaving it all out there. Jones led in significant strikes 117-108 and total strikes 132-111. Davis did land three takedowns on nine attempts, while Jones went just one of four in the match, but Davis wasn’t really able to do a whole lot with any of those takedowns as Jones consistently got back up to his feet. Judging by their faces after the match, Davis clearly did more damage, and the fight was so close you couldn’t really argue with the decision whichever way it went.
Prior to that loss, Jones landed back to back first round KO victories under the Cage Warriors promotion, where he won both the vacant 155 lb and 170 lb belts, bringing his record to a perfect 10-0 at the time. Both of those wins came against submission specialists, so he has no issue taking on pure grapplers and quickly finishing them. In the most recent win, Jones moved up to 170 lb and landed a pair of knockdowns in the first round before finishing his opponent with ground and pound late in the first round. In his second most recent win he knocked his opponent down with a knee to the body, also late in the first round, and again finished with ground and pound.
A BJJ black belt, Jones also holds black belts in kickboxing and Judo, so he clearly has a well rounded game. Other than his one title fight at 170 lb, all of Jones’ career fights have been at 155 lb. Of his 10 career wins, seven have come early, with four KOs and three submissions. Four of his finishes have come in the first round, one in the second, and two in the third. All three of his submission wins occurred in his first four pro fights, and he appears to have settled more into looking for KOs as of recently.
Jones is a high-volume brawler with a never ending gas tank who also has no problem competing on the mat. He’s ridiculously durable and at just 26 years old, he looks like he’s going to be a problem in the division for a while.
David Onama
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his short notice UFC debut with a perfect 8-0 pro record, Onama has spent his entire pro career fighting out of the Missouri regional scene against questionable competition. He notably trains out of Glory MMA & Fitness under James Krause and alongside teammate Grant Dawson, so you know he’ll be well coached. All eight of Onama’s career wins have come early, with five KOs and three submissions, with a pair of Guillotines and a Rear-Naked Choke.
He doesn't appear to be much of a grappler and relies on his athleticism to overpower his opponents. He’s only been in one fight that lasted longer than seven minutes and none that made it past the 12 minute mark, so considering he took this fight on short notice you have to wonder about his cardio if this fight makes it to the back half.
Four of Onama’s last five fights have ended in under four minutes, although his second most recent KO came in a flukey knee injury that his opponent suffered as he threw a kick. Onama’s a patient striker, who seems to choose his spots carefully, but once he gets an opponent hurt he’ll unload with a flurry of strikes to close the show. Overall, Onama is a young raw fighter who definitely appears to have the athleticism to compete in the UFC, but his technical skill set is what he’ll need to improve if he wants to hang around for long.
This will be a massive step up in competition for him coming off the smaller regional scene, so it will be interesting to see how he looks against much tougher opponents. His takedown defense has essentially been to go for Guillotines in the past and he doesn’t offer much resistance to being grounded, so we anticipate UFC opponents to look to attack that weakness. He does have a decent Guillotine Choke, but once you get past that he doesn’t appear to be any sort of threat off his back.
Onama has split his career between 145 lb and 155 lb, and interestingly had his last fight booked at Lightweight (155 lb), but weighed in at just 145 lb. Assuming that’s not a statistical error, it’s certainly interesting and we’re curious to see where he will weigh-in for this fight.
UPDATE: Onama weighed in at just 153.5 lb for this fight, 2.5 lb under the limit where Jones tipped the scales.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’10” but Onama will have a 1” reach advantage.
This looks like an incredibly tough spot for Onama to succeed as he squares off against a motivated monster in Mason Jones who’s been close enough to taste his first UFC win in each of his first two fights with the organization, just to end up with a decision loss and a No Contest. We expect Jones to come out looking for blood after having his last victory snatched away from him just before he could close the show. Jones should have no trouble identifying Onama’s vulnerable takedown defense and we expect him to look to implement a ground and pound attack just as he did against Patrick in his last fight. Jones holds black belts in BJJ, Judo and kickboxing and should have no trouble controlling this fight on the mat assuming he doesn’t finish it on the feet first. A Jones KO victory is the most likely outcome, but there’s always a chance he finishes it with a submission if Onama gives up his back as three of Jones’ seven career finishes have ended in submissions, but his last three have all ended in R1 KOs. Either way, give us all the Jones here.
Our favorite bets here are Jones’ R1 and R2 KO lines at +310 and +550 along with his R1 and R2 win lines at +220 and +410. We also like his overall KO line at +105. We have a slight hedge on “Onama Wins by Submission” at +2000 on the off chance he lands a Guillotine, but that’s really just a value bet. You can also consider “Fight Ends in R1” at +155 and “Fight Doesn’t Start R3” at -142.
DFS Implications:
DraftKings waited to release pricing on this fight until late in the week after Onama was already announced as the replacement, so we don’t have any sort of mispricing to worry about.
Jones is a solid striker, with black belts in BJJ, kickboxing and Judo, who can compete wherever the fight goes. He averages the second highest average number of significant strikes landed on the slate at 7.33/min and adds two takedowns per 15 minutes to further boost his box score. On top of that, 70% of his career wins have come early, so he’s essentially a DFS scoring machine. Jones was on the brink of a scoring explosion in his last fight before it was stupidly stopped for an inadvertent eye poke just as it appeared Jones was about to land a finish. Had it gone down as a R2 KO instead of a No Contest he would have scored 107 DraftKings points and 127 FanDuel points at the moment it was halted, which doesn’t even factor in the knockdown or takedown that he likely would have notched to close it out. So while Jones’ listed scores won’t jump off the screen, he’s clearly on the verge of a massive breakout. Going against a short notice newcomer always adds some variance to the mix, but we don’t see Onama winning this fight unless he lands a hail mary Guillotine submission which is extremely unlikely. Jones looks like one of the best plays on the slate for all contest types. The odd simply he has a 79% chance to win, a 55% chance to get a finish and a 29% chance it comes in R1.
Onama couldn’t ask for a much tougher spot as he prepares to make his short notice UFC debut against a caged lion who’s had red meat teased in front of his face for two straight matches without actually getting to taste it. While Onama looks to be a powerful striker with a good amount of athleticism, Jones has looked nearly unstoppable since joining the UFC and when you factor in the technical advantage that Jones holds, Onama is in for a long day at the office. You’ll really just relying on Onama landing the perfect shot or catching Jones with a Guillotine choke for him to get a finish. Obviously the short notice nature of this fight adds some uncertainty, but we’re convinced Jones would fight a grizzly bear if you asked him to. Of course people will look at the fact that Onama is 8-0 as a pro with all of his wins coming early as a reason to get excited about him, but there are serious question marks when it comes to the level of competition he was facing on the Missouri regional scene. Onama will have James Krause in his corner, which is always a plus, but we don’t see it being enough to make a difference. We don’t have much interest in playing Onama, in case that wasn’t clear, but the odds do imply he has a 21% chance to win, a 13% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #7
Junyong Park
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Coming off three straight decision wins, Park most recently defeated Tafon Nchukwi in a bizarrely scored match where one judge ruled it 28-28, while another had it 30-25 and the third scored it 29-26. So it was either a draw or one of the more lopsided three-round decision wins you can have depending on who you ask. Anyways, regardless of how inconsistent UFC judging is, Park finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 71-58 and in total strikes 79-64, while he also landed two takedowns on five attempts with nearly four minutes of control time and two submission attempts. Nchukwi landed one of his two takedown attempts and multiple low blows and was deducted a point in the second round which skewed the scoring. Park spent the final three minutes of the fight beating up Nchukwi on the mat and nearly got a finish.
Just prior to that recent win, Park won a smothering decision over John Phillips, where Park controlled Phillips on the ground for nearly the entire fight with over 13 minutes of control time on four takedowns. He ridiculously landed 260 total strikes, but just 10 significant. Phillips is one of the more helpless fighters you’ll ever see on the mat, so the win certainly needs to be taken in context.
Park’s first UFC win came against Marc-Andre Barriault, where Park outlanded Barriault 77-51 in significant strikes and 83-57 in total strikes, while landing 5 of 10 takedowns. He wasn’t able to keep Barriault on the ground long in that fight, finishing with just three and a half minutes of control time.
Park made his UFC debut in 2019 against Anthony Hernandez and was submitted in the second round via Anaconda Choke. That’s Park's only loss in his last 11 fights and only the second time in his career he’s been finished—the other was a R2 2016 Rear-Naked Choke Submission against monstrous UFC prospect Shavkat Rakhmonov. Park’s other two pro losses both went the distance and he’s now 13-4 as a pro. While his last three wins have all ended in decisions, 8 of his 13 pro wins have come early with five KOs and three submissions.
While nothing really stands out as exceptional with park, he’s a durable grinder who wears on his opponents as fights go on. Despite claiming he’s a boxer, he’s generally looking to get opponents to the mat and has landed 11 takedowns in his last three fights on 19 attempts. While he’s never been knocked out, he has been submitted twice and that appears to be the one place he’s vulnerable.
Gregory Rodrigues
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Rodrigues recently stepped into his short notice UFC debut just two weeks after landing a R1 KO in the LFA and won a decision against a shell shocked Dusko Todorovic, who was coming off the first loss of his career in a knockout against Punahele Soriano. The relatively slow-paced fight ended with Rodrigues ahead in significant strikes 71-37 and in total strikes 73-46. Rodrigues also landed three takedowns on five attempts, while Dusko went 0 for 4. However, Rodrigues was never able to do anything with the takedowns and control time was essentially identical between the two fighters with 85 seconds for Rodrigues and 86 seconds for Dusko.
Just two weeks prior to winning his UFC debut, Rodrigues landed a first round KO to win the vacant Middleweight LFA belt, and his last four fights before joining the UFC all ended in KOs (3-1). Three of those ended in the first round and the other just barely made it into round two. Ten of his 13 career fights have ended early, including seven in the first round. All 10 of those finishes occured in the first seven minutes of fights. Two of his three career losses have come by R1 KO, with the third ending in a split-decision. Eight of his 10 career wins have come early, split between four KOs and four submissions to go along with two decision victories. Rodrigues has won 9 of his last 10 fights, with his only loss during that stretch coming in a R1 KO against undersized UFC fighter Jordan Williams who just recently moved down a weight class.
We weren’t impressed by the competition Rodrigues defeated leading up to his UFC debut as took on undersized opponents like 5’8” Al Matavao, who was also coming off a KO loss on DWCS when he was violently put to sleep by Tafon Nchukwi one week before Rodrigues was knocked out on the show. The two fighters didn’t even look like they belonged in the same weight class. Regardless, Rodrigues has been able to take care of pretty much anybody they put in front of him, but he’ll face drastically tougher competition in the UFC.
Rodrigues is a BJJ black belt and 8-time National BJJ Champion. He has solid power, but isn’t necessarily the quickest and also looks pretty hittable. With a BJJ background, he’s theoretically a threat on the mat, but hasn’t submitted anybody in over three years. Still just 29 years old, Rodrigues looks like he’s 49, but we’ll take his word for it.
Fight Prediction:
Rodrigues will have a noticeable 5” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
This looks like a tough matchup for Park stylistically as he’s found the most success in his last two fights exploiting the non-existent ground games of John Phillips and Tafon Nchukwi, but will now face a celebrated BJJ champion who should pose a much greater threat on the mat. It will be interesting to see if Park even attempts any takedowns or if he instead looks to keep this fight on the feet since he claims to be a boxer. The last time we saw Park face a grappler he was taken down six times on nine attempts by Anthony Hernandez and submitted in the second round. So without the ability to dominate opponents on the mat, Park’s path to victory becomes much more narrow. He’s unexceptional on the feet and will basically be left with trying to squeak out a close low-volume decision if you remove his ground attack. And if he does look to take the fight to the ground he’ll need to worry about getting submitted. It will also be interesting to see how much Rodrigues is looking to grapple as he should have no issue competing in a striking battle with Park. So it’s somewhat tough to predict how either of these two will approach the grappling in this fight, but overall this does not look like a good matchup for Park and we like Rodrigues’ chances of winning this fight.
We’re purely looking at value here and our favorite bets are “Rodrigues Wins by Decision” at +250, “Rodrigues Wins by Submission” at +750, his R1 and R2 submission lines at +1800 and +2600 and his R1 and R2 wins lines at +650 and +1000.
DFS Implications:
Outside of his ridiculous ground domination over John Phillips, Park has struggled to really score well in DFS, with DraftKings totals of 77 and 93 in his other two decision wins. So while he’s shown a decent floor, he has a harder time turning out a ceiling performance and this looks like a tough matchup for him to rack up stats on the mat in the way he has in the past as he now goes against a celebrated BJJ black belt. That will likely leave Park reliant on landing a knockout to return value, something he hasn’t accomplished since prior to joining the UFC. While Rodrigues has been knocked out in two of his three career losses and Park does have five knockouts on his record, Park’s striking has been generally unimpressive at the UFC level and Rodrigues will have a massive 5” height advantage in this matchup. So overall we don’t have much interest in playing Park in any sort of contests. The odds imply he has a 50% chance to win, a 21% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.
Rodrigues’ last three wins before joining the UFC notably all ended in knockouts in the first two rounds, but he had been fighting exclusively bad competition and will now face an extremely durable Junyong Park. So while we think a knockout is unlikely, Park has been submitted twice in the past and that appears to be where he is the most vulnerable. Rodrigues is a BJJ black belt and 8-time national BJJ champion, so we like his chances if this fight hits the mat. With that said, it’s still more likely to end in a lower-volume decision similar to Rodrigues’ last fight, at which point it will be tough for him to score enough to be useful, even at his cheaper price tag. So while there’s a slight chance he could serve as a value play with a decision win, he more likely needs a finish to return value. The odds imply Rodrigues has a 50% chance to win, a 22% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #6
Nicolae Negumereanu
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off a close split-decision win over Aleksa Camur, Negumereanu came dangerously close to being deducted a point for repetitive fence grabs as he pushed Camur up against the cage for extended periods of time and used the fence to keep him there. Negumereanu walked through everything being thrown at him as he followed Camur around the Octagon when he didn’t have him pinned against the side. Camur finished ahead in significant strikes 102-71 and in total strikes 118-99, while Negumereanu landed the only takedown in the fight on five attempts as he defended both of Camur’s attempts. Negumereanu also finished with nearly five minutes of control time, although the majority of that was spent pushing Camur against the wall of the Octagon. Both guys showed their durability and had no issue taking one to land one.
Negumereanu has now fought to a pair of decisions in his two UFC fights after winning his first nine pro fights early, with six KOs and three submissions. All nine of those finishes came in the first two rounds, including five in R1. His last two early wins both came by submission, after six of his first seven ended in knockouts. However, one thing to keep in mind when looking at Negumereanu’s pre-UFC record is how terrible his opponents were. They entered his fights with records of 1-3, 0-0, 0-1, 2-1, 3-2, 12-41, 7-5, 2-15 and 10-13. With that said, he finished everyone they put in front of him and looks to have heavy ground and pound and okay grappling.
Negumereanu lost a decision in his March 2019 UFC debut against a super sketchy Saparbek Safarov. In fairness to Negumereanu, Safarov blatantly grabbed the fence 25 times in that match and probably should have been disqualified after ignoring a dozen warnings and then compounding the violations with an incredibly late and heavy elbow to the face of Negumereanu after the ref called time to address the fence grabs. Following the bizarre loss, Negumereanu didn’t fight again for 27 months leading up to his recent decision win.
Ike Villanueva
5th UFC Fight (1-3)Coming off his 8th straight fight to end in a KO (5-3), Villanueva has now been knocked out in three of his four UFC fights and it’s somewhat surprising he hasn’t already been released. His lone UFC win came in a R2 KO against one of the worst UFC fighters we’ve ever seen in Vinicius Moreira, who went 0-4 in the UFC with three R1 losses followed by the R2 loss against Villanueva. In his most recent fight, Villanueva was finished early in the second round with a body kick that just completely shut him down. In a fight that lasted under six minutes against another highly suspect fighter in Marcin Prachnio, Villanueva was outlanded 59-34 in significant strikes as he absorbed 9.94 SS/min in the match.
Villanueva has never outlanded an opponent in the UFC with significant striking totals of 59-34 (R2 KO L), 24-24 (R2 KO W), 15-7 (R1 KO L) and 51-16 (R2 KO L). They essentially roll him out there to be a heavy bag for his opponents and his last eight fights have all ended in six minutes or less, with five of those ending in under four minutes.
Interestingly, neither of Villanueva’s first two UFC opponents are even in the same weight class as him. He made his debut up at Heavyweight against Chase Sherman and got knocked out in the second round as he was clearly undersized in the match, giving up 20 lb and 3” of height. Sherman notably was also flagged by the USADA after a positive drug test following the fight, so that match had all sorts of weird things going on. Then Villanueva took on a Middleweight in Jordan Wright who was simply too quick for him and Wright won with a flukey doctor stoppage early in the first round. Wright caught Villanueva with a spinning heel kick to the head right of the bat. He then landed a series of violent knees to Villanueva’s face inside the Muay Thai Clinch. Split open by one of the knees, the doctor stopped the fight just 91 seconds into the first round.
Of his 18 career wins, 15 have come by KO with three going the distance. Of his 12 career losses, 11 have come early with six KOs and five submissions. The last submission came in 2016 against Trevin Giles in the third round via Arm-Triangle Choke. Before that you have to go back to 2012 when Villanueva lost back-to-back fights by Armbar submission, with one of those coming against another UFC fighter in Justin Ledet.
Villanueva had a stretch from 2016 to 2017 where he fought five times at Middleweight (185 lb), including the 2016 third round submission loss to UFC fighter Trevin Giles. He then took over two years off and when he returned he fought all the way up at Heavyweight for one fight before dropping back down to Light Heavyweight. Since returning from that two year layoff, Villanueva has fought seven times (4-3) with all of his fights ending in knockouts in the first six minutes.
Overall, Villanueva is a 37-year-old one-dimensional short-armed boxer who has no business being in the UFC.
Fight Prediction:
Villanueva will have a 1” height advantage, but Negumereanu will have a 5” reach advantage.
Like this has to be the last time we see Ike Villanueva, right? Don’t get us wrong, we hope he stays in the UFC forever so we can continue to bet against him, but this certainly appears like the end of the road with another early loss. We love Negumereanu to finish this fight in the first two rounds, although it’s tough to say if it will come by KO or submission, so keep that in mind when you’re betting. There’s not much else to say here. Villanueva is terrible. Always bet that he’ll lose in the first two rounds.
Our favorite bet here is “Negumereanu R1 or R2” at +150. We also love his R2 win line at +600 and his R2 submission line at +1600 as a long shot.
DFS Implications:
After failing to score well in his first two UFC fights, this looks like an eruption spot for Negumereanu as he gets a dream matchup in a prime spot for a quick finish. Hopefully the fact that Negumereanu fought to a pair of decisions in his first two UFC fights along with his lofty price tag keeps his ownership somewhat under control, but most of the field is probably savvy enough at this point to realize that betting against Villanueva is always the right move. Negumereanu will stand and trade on the feet but also likes to get opponents to the mat and beat them up with ground and pound or hunt for submissions, so he has the potential to score in a variety of ways. He looks like an exceptional play on all DFS platforms and this is definitely a spot we want to be over the field on. The odds imply he has a 66% chance to win, a 45% chance to get a finish and a 21% chance it comes in R1.
Despite his history of knockouts earlier in his career, Villanueva is not someone we’re looking to play on this slate as he’s incredibly prone to getting finished and hasn’t shown the ability to remain competitive with actual UFC fighters. Now he faces an extremely durable Negumereanu, who’s only lost one fight in his career and has never been finished. Barring some sort of freak injury or a DQ, we don’t see Villanueva having any chance to win this fight. With that said, the odds imply he has a 34% chance to win, a 21% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #5
Francisco Trinaldo
24th UFC Fight (16-7)Now 43 years old, Trinaldo moved up to 170 lb from 155 lb for the first time in his career in his most recent fight and proceed to lose a unanimous 27-30 decision to a dangerous striker in Muslim Salikhov. Despite the loss, Trinaldo demonstrated that his durability could translate to the higher weight class as he absorbed several heavy shots and kept on ticking. In typical Trinaldo fashion, the fight ended in a hard-hitting low-volume decision with Salikhov leading in significant strikes 62-39 and in total strikes 71-51. He also landed two takedowns on three attempts, while Trinaldo missed on his only attempt. Salikhov also landed a knockdown in the first round, but Trinaldo was able to survive.
That was Trinaldo’s 34th pro fight (23rd in the UFC) and he still has never been knocked out. He now owns a 26-8 pro record, with nine KO wins, five by submission and 12 decisions. While he’s never been knocked out, he has been submitted three times and has lost five decisions. Four of his last five fights have gone the distance with the one exception being a R3 KO win over Jai Herbert in Trinaldo’s second most recent fight. That win over Herbert marked Trinaldo’s third straight victory leading up to his recent loss, although Trinaldo notably missed weight by 4 lb for that fight just before moving up a weight class.
Trinaldo’s last 12 fights have all made it out of the first round, with 10 of those, including his last five, making it to round three, and eight going the distance. He’s only been finished once since 2013, which came in a 2017 R2 Rear-Naked Choke against Kevin Lee.
Dwight Grant
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Coming off a low-volume split-decision win, Grant has now alternated decisions (4-1) and KOs (4-1) for 10 straight fights. His recent decision win came against Stefan Sekulic, who hadn’t fought in two and half years, but the fight was very close and Grant appeared focussed on keeping himself out of danger for the majority of the match opposed to aggressively hunting for a finish. Nevertheless, he nearly got submitted with a Guillotine Choke as the fight ended after he got clipped on the feet in the moments leading up. Grant finished ahead in significant strikes 49-43 and in total strikes 52-39, while Sekulic took him down three times on seven attempts with Grant landing just his second UFC takedown in the fight. Many would argue that Grant lost the fight and we were a little surprised it went his way.
Just prior to that, Grant took part in a chaotic R1 KO loss to Daniel Rodriguez. Fighting on just a day’s notice after both of their previous opponents dropped out, both Grant and Rodriguez came out ready to brawl. Grant dropped Rodriguez just 40 seconds into the scrap, but Rodriguez was narrowly able to survive the barrage of ground and pound, with the help of a long leash from the ref. Rodriguez was able to get up and amazingly drop Grant three times in the next minute before the ref finally stopped the fight. In a dust up that lasted less than half of the first round, we ridiculously saw four knockdowns.
Outside of the D-Rod brawl, Grant has generally been a patient counter striker who’s never landed more than 49 significant strikes in a UFC fight and never absorbed more than 33. Despite the lack of volume, Grant is dangerous on the feet as he throws strikes from odd angles, which makes it tougher for opponents to defend. He’s now 3-2 in the UFC with three low-volume decisions (2-1) and a pair of R1 KOs (1-1).
Looking at this entire career, he owns an 11-3 pro record with all 14 of his fights either ending in knockouts (7-1) or decisions (4-2). Grant’s only knockout win since joining the UFC came in the first round against Carlo Pedersoli Jr., who finished his UFC career 1-2 with a pair of R1 KO losses. Now 37 years old, Grant is no spring chicken as he got a very late start on his UFC career.
Fight Prediction:
Grant will have a 4” height advantage and 6” reach advantage and is six years younger than the 43-year-old Trinaldo, although it feels like much more.
Trinaldo is as tough as they come and seemingly plans on fighting forever, but you have to imagine that his days are numbered now that he’s well into his 40’s. So the question will be what happens first, does he go off a cliff or retire? Betting on Trinaldo to get knocked out is like trying to time a bottom on a bear market and so far every prediction has been wrong. This once again looks like a tough test against another power puncher, but that’s never stopped him before and Grant actually appears to be the more vulnerable of the two to getting finished. We’re still expecting a close low-volume decision, but both of these two are theoretically capable of finishing the other. Trinaldo also has the potential to to end fights with submissions, while Grant has exclusively been a striker with no ground game. We’ll give the slight edge to Trianldo to win a decision as he lands slightly more volume on average and will occasionally mix in takedowns, but we’re expecting this one to be close and it could go either way.
We don’t love any of the lines here, but you can consider “Trinaldo R3 or Decision” at +155, “Fight Goes the Distance” at -140 or “Trinaldo KO” at +400
DFS Implications:
You typically want to avoid Trinaldo flights in DFS as they generally end in low-volume decisions. When they do end early, it’s typically Trianldo landing a late KO, and with a lack of volume those still generally don’t score great, with DraftKings totals of 89, 98 and 73 in his last three finishes. Trinaldo has never been knocked out in 34 fights and Grant is a one-dimensional striker who has never submitted anybody. The wildcard here is that Trinaldo is 43-years-old and moved up to 170 lb for the first time in his career in his most recent fight, so it’s possible that he ends up not being quite as durable against larger opponents, although he survived against a dangerous striker in Muslim Salikhov in his first test at the new weight class. Either way, that adds enough variance that we want to have a sprinkle of exposure to both sides of this fight in tournaments, just keep in mind the most likely outcome is for the winner to score poorly in a low-volume decision. The odds imply Trinaldo has a 57% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
Grant is a low floor, average ceiling DFS play in an incredibly tough matchup as he’s entirely reliant on landing a knockout to score well and now goes against Trinaldo, who’s never been knocked out in 34 pro fights. The fact that Trinaldo is 43 years old and fighting at 170 lb for just the second time in his career is somewhat encouraging for Dwight’s chances, but trying to bet on when Trinaldo will suffer his first career KO loss has so far been an exercise in futility. Grant scored just 56 and 45 DraftKings points in his two decision wins, and even at his cheap price tag he still needs a knockout to be useful in DFS. The odds imply he has a 43% chance to win, a 20% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #4
SeungWoo Choi
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Coming in on a three fight winning streak, Choi is coming off an impressive 97 second R1 KO win over Julian Erosa, which was his first early win since joining the UFC in 2019. After losing his first two UFC fights in tough matchups against undefeated Movsar Evloev and Gavin Tucker, Choi responded with a pair of decision wins in his next two fights leading up to his recent KO victory.
Movsar Evloev beat Choi in a grappling-heavy decision, as he took Choi down five times on 16 attempts and accrued nearly 12 minutes of control time. Evloev also led in significant strikes 50-26 and 121-94 in total strikes. Choi went 0 for 2 on his own takedown attempts, but he’s primarily a striker, so that was just a brutal way to be introduced to the UFC.
Next, Choi got another tough matchup in his second UFC fight, which came against Gavin Tucker. Similar to Evloev, Tucker took Choi down five times on 13 attempts and finished with just over six minutes of control time. Choi did manage to land both of his takedown attempts in that match, but Tucker led in significant strikes 37-23 and 49-42 in total strikes, before finishing the fight with a third round Rear-Naked Choke Submission.
In his third UFC fight, Choi finally got in the winning column against Suman Mokhtarian, who came into the match with an 8-1 record but 0-1 in the UFC after losing his debut to a violent Sodiq Yusuff. After Choi got taken down five times in each of his first two UFC fights, he successfully defended the only attempt in that fight, which made a big difference. Choi didn’t attempt any takedowns of his own, but still managed to get nearly seven minutes of control time. He won the lopsided striking battle 95-33 in significant strikes and 158-67 in total strikes. Following that win, Choi didn’t fight at all in 2020, before returning 14 months later.
In his second most recent match, Choi took on a durable Youssef Zalal, who notably accepted the fight on short notice. Choi outlanded Zalal 41-23 in significant strikes and 73-46 in total strikes, while landing 2 of his 3 takedown attempts. Zalal went 3 for 9 on his own attempts and led in control time 4:29-3:39, but Choi won his second straight unanimous decision.
Choi is a really solid striker, but doesn’t offer a ton in terms of grappling. Prior to joining the UFC, five of his seven wins were by KO, including three in the first round. His other two victories during that stretch both ended in decisions and he’s never submitted an opponent. Now 10-3 as a pro, Choi has six wins by KO and four decisions. He’s been knocked out once (R1 2017), submitted once, (R3 2019) and lost one decision, which came in his 2019 UFC debut against Evloev.
Overall, Choi excels when he can keep fights on the feet, but struggles off his back. He does have a decent takedown defense (66%), but most opponents don’t want to stand and trade with him so he’s seen a ton of attempts against him in his five five UFC fights (39). No one has ever landed more than 50 significant strikes on Choi and he only absorbs an average of 2.55 SS/min.
Alex Caceres
25th UFC Fight (13-10, NC)Quietly on a four fight winning streak, Caceres has greatly benefited from a series of low-level opponents. Three of those wins ended in decisions, while he was able to submit short notice replacement Austin Springer, who was making his UFC debut. Leading up to that, Caceres won decisions over a suspect Steven Peterson and a one-dimensional grappler in Chase Hooper. Following the win over Springer, Caceres won a decision against Kevin Croom, who was fighting for the second time in the UFC, although his submission win in his debut was overturned to a No Contest. Regardless, it’s been a while since Caceres faced anyone good and this next fight looks like a massive step up in competition.
That R1 submission win over Springer is notably Caceres’ only R1 win in his 24 UFC fights and just his second finish of any kind since 2014, with the other one resulting from an eye Injury. He primarily fights to decisions, with 9 of his 13 UFC wins going the distance. The four exceptions were a 2012 R2 Triangle Choke, a 2014 R3 Rear-Naked Choke, a 2017 R2 TKO by Eye Injury and the R1 Rear-Naked Choke against Springer. Half of his 10 UFC losses have come by submission, but he’s also been knocked out once in the first round of a 2015 match.
Caceres made his UFC debut in 2011 in the Featherweight division (145 lb), but after starting 0-2 with the organization he dropped down to 135 lb later in 2011, where he stayed until 2015 going 5-4 during that stretch. However, after losing three fights in a row at 135 lb in 2014 and 2015, Caceres decided to move back up to 145 lb to try and keep his job. The switch appears to have helped him as he’s since gone 8-4 back up at Featherweight, with two of those losses coming in split-decisions, including one against Yair Rodriguez.
Looking at his entire career, Caceres is 18-12 with three wins by KO, six by submission and nine decisions. He’s only been knocked out once, but has been submitted seven times and has lost four decisions. Despite owning twice as many submission wins as KOs in his career, Caceres has only landed two takedowns in his last nine fights and is more of an opportunistic grappler than an offensive one as he’s only even attempted two takedowns in his last five fights. His karate style approach to fighting generally results in somewhat lower volume striking battles as he averages 4.41 SSL/min and 2.82 SSA/min.
Fight Prediction:
Choi will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
Both of these two are strikers who have struggled at times against grapplers. While we could potentially see one of them try to exploit the others’ grappling weakness come Saturday by testing a takedown or two, we’ve expecting a striking battle here. With that said, Choi looks so much crisper and more powerful on the feet that we expect him to easily win the striking exchanges, which could force Caceres to look to grapple more. While Caceres has been a tough guy to knock out, with only one KO loss in 31 pro fights, Choi has the firepower to get it done, but we also wouldn’t be surprised to see this one go the distance. Either way, we like Choi to win and think Caceres’ only shot will be to land a hail mary submission.
Five of Choi’s six career KOs have come in the first round and if he does knock Caceres out that’s the most likely time for it to happen. So at +800, Choi’s R1 KO line is certainly decent. You can also consider his overall KO line at +320 or his decision line at +100, although we wish that decision line was wider. If you want to take a flyer on the other side, check out Caceres’ submission line at +1200.
DFS Implications:
Choi is a great striker, but his one-dimensional fighting style generally leaves him reliant on landing a finish to return value in DFS—although he did have one somewhat flukey high scoring decision on DraftKings where he racked up a ton of control time despite not landing any takedowns and scored 103 points in a decision. His more recent decision scored just 69 DraftKings points, which seems more in line with what a decision win here would score as Caceres averages just 2.82 SSA/min. We absolutely loved Choi going into his last fight, but this certainly isn’t as favorable a matchup and he’s now more expensive and should carry more ownership, so it’s a tougher spot to double down on. With that said, his steep price tag should keep his ownership under control and we still like his upside here if he can land a knockout. The odds imply he has a 72% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish and a 12% chance it comes in R1.
Caceres rarely puts up big DFS scores and even in his lone R1 UFC win he still totalled just 98 DraftKings points. His other five most recent wins have been good for 76, 92, 68, 65 and 105 DK points and now he steps into the toughest matchup he’s faced in a while. So overall it’s hard to get excited about playing Caceres and the only way we see him scoring well is with a finish as Choi only averages 2.55 SSA/min. Caceres notably has just two early wins since 2014 and one of those resulted from an eye injury with the other coming against a short notice replacement making his UFC debut. So the chances of a finish against a tough opponent in Choi are unlikely. The odds imply he has a 28% chance to win, a 13% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #3
Jessica-Rose Clark
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Coming off a R3 TKO win over a terrible Sarah Alpar, Clark actually tore her ACL in the fight, which resulted in her subsequent 13 month layoff as she recovered from surgery. The fight ended in a bizarre R3 KO where Alpar was actually finished twice, but due to a referee error it was extended following what appeared to be an initial TKO. As Clark laid it on Alpar in the third round, Alpar literally just sat down against the cage and unsurprisingly caught a knee to the face just before she hit the mat. The referee thought it was an illegal knee and paused the action but didn’t officially stop the fight as it had initially appeared. It seemed like the fight would end, either from an illegal knee or a TKO as Alpar sat bleeding out of her face, but the ref resumed the action rules be damned. Clark continued to pulverize Alpar who proceeded to paint the canvas red as she put up no real defense. After a few more minutes of abuse, the fight was then stopped for good with 39 seconds remaining in the third round. The fight ended with Clark ahead in significant strikes 76-12 and in total strikes 124-26. She also landed her only takedown attempt and amassed over eight minutes of control time while Alpar went 2 of 11 on takedowns with just under three and a half minutes of control time.
Prior to that finish, Clark had fought to 11 straight decisions and hadn’t finished an opponent in the previous six and a half years. She made her UFC debut in 2017 and won decisions in her first two UFC fights before losing decisions in her next two matches leading up to her recent R3 TKO win. She started at 125 lb in the UFC, where she went 2-1 before moving back up to 135 lb in 2019, where she had previously been fighting prior to joining the UFC. She’s since gone 1-1 at 135 lb, with a decision loss followed by a R3 TKO win. Clark was recently given a new contract, and this will be the first fight on her new deal.
Looking at her entire career, Clark is now 10-6, with three KO wins, two submissions and five decisions. All six of her pro losses have ended in decisions as she’s never been finished. Four of her five early wins occurred in her first five pro fights, and while the tough Australian is primarily a striker, she’s generally not a major threat to end fights early.
Joselyne Edwards
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Looking to bounce back from a smothering decision loss to Karol Rosa, Edwards accepted both of her first two UFC fights on short notice—just three weeks apart from one another. Now Edwards will finally get an actual training camp with time to prepare for an opponent, so it will be interesting to see what difference that makes for her.
In her recent loss to Rosa, Edwards was taken down four times on six attempts and controlled for 11 minutes. Rosa also led in significant strikes 57-38 and in total strikes 135-70. Rosa wasted no time getting the fight to the mat and shot for an immediate takedown as soon as the fight started.
A few weeks prior to that loss, Edwards made her January 2021 short notice UFC debut against Wu Yanan. Edwards looked good in the fight, and nearly submitted Yanan in the first round with a neverending armbar attempt that could have spanned a commercial break. Yanan was able to narrowly survive the submission attempt, but never really looked like the veteran in the match, and went on to lose a decision. Edwards looked better both on her feet and on the ground, and appeared to be the stronger fighter.
Now 10-3 as a pro, eight of Edwards’ wins have come early, with five KO and three submissions. All eight of those finishes occurred in the first two rounds, including six in R1. With an aggressive guard, Edwards likes to go for Armbar submissions off her back, which she’s finished two opponents with and nearly landed another in her UFC debut. She’s only been finished once herself, which was also by Armbar, in the second round of her second pro fight back in 2015. Her other two career losses both ended in decisions, with the most recent coming in her last fight. Her other decision loss coincidentally came against Sarah Alpar in a 2018 five-round split decision, which is obviously concerning. Edwards was out grappled in both of those decision losses, which seems to be her biggest weakness. She appears mostly reliant on landing Armbar submissions after getting taken down and when that doesn’t work she gets in trouble on the mat. After her first six pro fights all ended early, four of her next seven and three of her last four have ended in decisions.
Fight Prediction:
Edwards will have a 3” height advantage and 6” reach advantage. She’s also 7 years younger than the 33-year-old Clark.
Edwards looks to be the more powerful puncher in this matchup and also the more dangerous off her back, even if she is somewhat of a one-trick pony in that regard. She’ll also have a noticeable size and reach advantage, so Clark will need to be a technician to win this fight. It would also make sense for Clark to attack the legs of Edwards. The fact that Clark is coming off ACL surgery and a 13 month layoff is also concerning for her outlook and there are several reasons to like Edwards in this one. While we expect it to be somewhat of a close striking battle, we like Edwards’ chances to pull off the upset, most likely in a decision, but with a slight chance of landing a finish.
Our favorite bet here is Edwards’ moneyline at +145. We also like taking stabs at her R1 and R2 win lines at +1100 and +2000 respectively.
DFS Implications:
On paper, Clark has quietly been somewhat of a consistent DFS producer with DraftKings scores of 105, 82 and 96 in her three UFC wins. Although we should take her last score with a grain of salt as the referee was prepared to let Alpar die in the Octagon and the fight should have been stopped much sooner in the third round, which would have resulted in a lower score. So we should probably pay more attention to her other two scores where she totaled 82 and 96 DraftKings points and 76 and 101 points on FanDuel in a pair of decision victories. That leaves her with a semi-decent floor when she wins, but a lackluster ceiling. While Clark is coming off an easy matchup against a one-dimensional grappler in Sarah Alpar, she’ll now get a much different and tougher task against a striker in Edwards. We expect this to play out as a striking battle, but Clark does average one takedown landed per 15 minutes. She’s notably landed at least one takedown in all three of her UFC wins and has failed to land a takedown in either of her losses. Still, with just one takedown landed in her last three fights, we’d be surprised if much of this fight was spent on the mat. Clark was notably just 4% owned on a 14 fight card as a -210 favorite priced at $8,900 for her last fight, so it will be interesting to see where her ownership checks in for this fight. We expect the career best performance to boost it some, but she didn’t score enough to really get the field chasing. The odds imply she has a 61% chance to win, a 19% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in R1.
With Clark coming off a high-scoring performance in an easy matchup and Edwards coming off a low scoring effort in a tough matchup, this looks like a decent tournament spot for Edwards, but it’s not an overly favorable matchup for scoring as Clark has never been finished in her career. Nevertheless, we’re always looking for live underdogs and Edwards fits the bill as she’ll have noticeable height, reach and power advantages in what we expect to be a striking battle. Also encouraging for her scoring potential, 8 of Edwards’ 10 career wins have come early, including six in the first round and two in round two. This will also be the first time she actually had time to prepare for an opponent after taking her first two UFC fights on very short notice. And further adding to her allure, her opponent, Clark, is coming off ACL surgery and a 13 month layoff. Edwards scored just 32 and 77 DraftKings points in her last two fights, which should keep her ownership down as there’s nothing there for the field to chase. So overall there’s a lot working in Edwards’ favor coming into this fight, although the line has notably moved against her and we generally try not to bet against Australians. The odds imply Edwards has a 39% chance to win, a 13% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #2
Grant Dawson
6th UFC Fight (5-0)Another Glory MMA & Fitness fighter, James Krause is going to have a busy day of coaching on Saturday. Dawson is coming off a last second R3 KO win over a really tough, albeit aging, 41-year-old Leonardo Santos, who not only owns an 89% career takedown defense, but had also gone 12-0-1 in his previous 13 fights and hadn’t lost since 2009. Dawson unsurprisingly struggled to get the fight to the mat as he finished just 1 for 13 on his takedown attempts, but he made the most of that lone takedown, which occurred early in the fourth round against a tiring Santos. Dawson was able to control Santos on the mat for the remainder of the round and then finally postured up to look to land damage in the closing seconds of the fight. As he did, Santos looked for a Heel Hook submission, but Dawson used that as an opportunity to land several heavy hammer fists and knock Santos out with just one second remaining on the clock. Dawson finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 46-30, while total strikes were almost dead even with Dawson ahead 75-74. Both fighters landed one takedown, Santos on two attempts and Dawson on 13, while Dawson led in control time 8:18-1:21. It wasn’t the dominating wrestling performance that we’re accustomed to seeing out of Dawson, but that can likely be attributed to Santo’s stellar takedown defense and dangerous submission skills.
It’s also notable that was Dawson’s first UFC fight up at 155 lb, after his first three fights with the organization took place at 145 lb followed by a 150 lb Catchweight. So while it’s easy to write off Dawson’s takedown struggles to Santo’s 89% takedown defense, we’ve yet to see him find the wrestling success he had down at 145 lb at the higher weight class at the UFC level. That’s certainly not to say he can’t or won’t, just that he hasn’t. And for the record, Dawson actually began his pro career fighting at 155 lb, but moved down to 145 lb in 2016—one fight before going on DWCS in 2017.
A BJJ brown belt, Dawson comes into this fight on an eight fight winning streak and is 5-0 in the UFC with a pair of decision wins, two second round submission victories and the recent R3 KO. Looking at his entire career, he has an impressive 17-1 record, with his lone career loss coming in a 2016 R1 KO at 155 lb. That was in his third most recent fight at the weight and his last five fights at 155 lb have all notably ended in knockouts (4-1). While his lone loss during those five fights ended in R1, three of the four wins ended in R2, followed by the recent R3 victory. Of Dawson’s 17 career wins, 15 have come early, with four KOs and 11 submissions. However, seven of his last eight finishes have occurred in the later rounds with six ending in R2 and one in R3.
Ricky Glenn
8th UFC Fight (4-3)After taking nearly three years off and recovering from hip surgery, Glenn exploded back onto the UFC scene with a 37 second R1 KO of Joaquim Silva, who was also coming off an extended layoff and has now been knocked out in his last two fights and has lost three of his last four. That was Glenn’s first fight back up at 155 lb, after his previous five fights all took place down at 145 lb. His only other UFC fight at 155 lb was his 2016 debut, where he lost a decision. In fact, Glenn’s first six UFC fights all ended in decisions, with him winning three of those, although two of those wins ended in close split-decisions.
Glenn’s second most recent fight was a 2018 decision loss to an unimpressive Kevin Aguilar. Following the loss, Glenn switched camps from Team Alpha Male to Absolute MMA and Fitness and moved from California back to Iowa, where he’s originally from. Glenn said he had previously been trying to fight through a hip injury, but realized he needed to get it taken care of, which he finally did during his extended time away.
The last time we saw a takedown in a Glenn fight was in his third most recent fight, when Dennis Bermudez took him down six times on 14 attempts and finished with over four minutes of control time. Glenn narrowly finished ahead in significant strikes 48-42 and in total strikes 59-56, and two of the judges thought that was enough to award him a decision despite Bermudez leading 6-0 in takedowns. Bermudez has generally struggled with the judges and that was actually his third straight split-decision loss. Just prior to that fight, Glenn was taken down twice on three attempts by Myles Jury, who won a unanimous 30-27 decision over Glenn.
A BJJ brown belt, Glenn is now 22-6-1 as a pro, and while seven of his last eight fights have ended in decisions, 16 of his 22 career wins have come early, with 12 KOs and four submissions to go along with six decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted twice, although only once since 2009. His other four career losses all ended in decisions. Prior to his recent R1 win, Glenn had seen the second round in 19 straight fights and had been to the third round in eight straight.
Fight Prediction:
Glenn will have a 2” height advantage, but Dawson will have a 2” reach advantage.
Both of these two just moved back up to 155 lb from 145 lb in their most recent fights, so we’ll call that a wash and in reality what this fight really comes down to is simply whether or not Glenn (66% career takedown defense) can stop the relentless takedowns of Dawson (34% career takedown accuracy). We expect Dawson to continue his career numbers of landing a third of his attempts, but that should be enough to control this fight on the mat. Glenn has shown an active guard in the past, but Dawson is great at exerting heavy top pressure and we expect him to wear on Glenn as the fight goes on. Dawson has a chance to land a mid to late round finish, but Glenn has notably only been finished once since 2009 and a decision win for Dawson seems to be the most likely outcome.
Our favorite bets here are “Dawson Wins by Decision” at +150, “Dawson Wins by Submission” at +420, “Dawson Wins in R3 or by Decision” at +100, “Dawson R2 Win” at +650, and “Dawson R2 Submission Win” at +1500.
DFS Implications:
Dawson leads the slate in takedowns at 3.4 landed per 15 minutes on an average of 10 attempts. While three of his five UFC wins have come early, his two decisions scored 93 and 107 DraftKings points, but just 69 and 95 points on FanDuel and his wrestling heavy fighting style can still score well on DraftKings in a decision, but will struggle to get there on FanDuel.
Dawson is coming off a career low in terms of DFS production as he went just 1 for 13 on his takedown attempts against the elite 89% takedown defense of former 7-time Jiu-Jitsu world champion Leonardo Santos. Dawson was able to land a last second KO to salvage his DFS scoring to some extent, but still finished with just 89 DraftKings points and 87 points on FanDuel in the brutally tough matchup. Dawson’s other two UFC wins both ended in R2 submissions where he returned DraftKings scores of 101 and 105 and FanDuel scores of 106 and 114. Dawson’s striking is average at best, so he’s entirely reliant on his wrestling to score well, but that generally hasn’t been an issue for him leading up to his last matchup. This will just be his second UFC fight up at 155 lb, and we’ve yet to see him put on a dominating wrestling performance in the higher weight class after starting at 145 lb with the organization. So that does add a slight level of uncertainty, but Glenn also recently moved up from 145 lb to 155 lb, so that could be a wash. We expect Dawson to either win a grappling heavy decision or land another mid to late round finish, so he looks to have a solid DFS floor and a decent, albeit not massive ceiling. His price tag leaves him more reliant on returning a ceiling performance, so while he looks like a solid low-risk play, he’ll need things to go just right to end up in tournament winning lineups. He still has a chance to get there in a decision on DraftKings, but needs a finish on FanDuel to be useful in high-risk contests. The odds imply he has a 78% chance to win, a 35% chance to get a finish and a 19% chance it comes in R1.
Prior to his recent R1 KO win, Glenn had fought to seven straight decisions dating back to just before he joined the UFC. He won four of those, and amazingly three of those victories ended in split-decisions, so he’s been great at squeaking out close fights. He’s been a massively bipolar DFS producer with DraftKings scores of 140, 52, 139 and 61 in his four UFC wins. He’s had a couple of outlier performances, which include his recent R1 KO where he landed two knockdowns while still notching the 60 second quick win bonus. He also had a decision win over Gavin Tucker where the referee refused to stop the fight and Glenn landed a million strikes late in the match. Outside of those two aberrations, Glenn scored a humbling 52 and 61 DraftKings points in his other two decision wins, which appears to be more of what we can generally expect from him. Hopefully Glenn’s recent scoring explosion boosts his ownership some as we don’t see a repeat performance coming for him. We don’t have much interest in playing Glenn here, but the odds imply he has a 22% chance to win, a 10% chance to get a finish and a 4% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #1
Marvin Vettori
12th UFC Fight (7-3-1)Coming off a unanimous 45-50 five-round decision loss to Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, Vettori still apparently thinks he won the fight despite failing to win a single round on any of the judges' score cards. He was able to get the fight to the ground early in round one as he caught an Adesanya leg kick and drove through it. However, Adesanya was able to work to the fence and force his way back up without too much trouble. After landing that early takedown, Vettori finished just 4 of 14 on his attempts with under seven minutes of control time in the 25 minute fight. Adesanya finished ahead 96-58 in significant strikes. Vettori was never able to do much with his takedowns and Adesanya did a good job of getting back up or reversing the position when he was taken down. The only time Vettori ever appeared to have a chance in the fight was when he momentarily took Adesanya’s back and looked for a Rear-Naked Choke, but Adesanya quickly reversed the position as he turned into Vettori and began landing ground and pound. Despite getting outlanded in every single round and failing to do much of anything with his takedowns, Vettori hilariously said he thought he won after the fight.
That really shows you just how dominant Adesanya is in the Middleweight division, after Vettori easily won a pair of five round decisions in his previous two fights. Vettori showed the ability to gameplan for his opponents in those previous two fights as he struck with the grappler in Jack Hermansson and grappled with the striker in Kevin Holland.
Both of those fights involved a late opponent change, as Vettori stepped in on short notice against Jack Hermansson back in December after Kevin Holland dropped out and then Holland returned the favor by stepping in on short notice when Darren Till dropped out of a fight against Vettori. So while there wasn’t much time to prepare in either of those fights, it’s notable that Vettori had been preparing to fight another grappler in Jacare Souza just a week later when he upgraded to the main event spot against Hermansson, while Hermansson had been preparing to fight a striker in Holland. Then Vettori was preparing to face a striker in Till, when he was replaced by another striker in Holland. So neither one of those short notice opponent changes required Vettori to make any real changes to his preparations, while his opponents were given very little time to prepare for his grappling heavy approach.
While Vettori attempted just one failed takedown against the dangerous grappler in Hermansson, he relentlessly attacked Holland’s vulnerable ground game with 11 takedowns on 17 attempts and a tick over 20 minutes of control time.
Vettori started off 2-2-1 in the UFC with a R1 Guillotine Choke submission victory in his 2016 UFC debut followed by a decision loss to Antonio Carlos Jr., a decision win over Vitor Miranda, a draw against Omari Akhmedov and a three-round decision loss to Adesanya. Following his first loss to Adesanya, Vettori won five straight fights with four decisions and a R1 Rear-Naked Choke over the highly submittable Karl Roberson, but then recently lost another decision to Adesanya. So out of Vettori’s last 10 fights, the only one to end early was the submission over Karl Roberson, who’s been submitted in the first round in four of his last seven fights. Vettori’s last three fights have all ended in five-round decisions.
Looking at his entire career, Vettori is now 17-5-1 as a pro, with a pair of KO wins, nine wins by submission and six decisions. All 11 of his early wins have occurred in the first round, but five of those came in his first six pro fights from 2013 to 2014 and he only has one early win since 2016. All five of his career losses have ended in decisions as he’s never been finished. Vettori started his pro career in 2012 at 170 lb, but moved up to 185 lb in 2016 and it looked like it took him a little while to really grow into a 185 lb frame. He’s primarily a grappler, but has been more willing to strike at times in recent years. He’s generally looking to take the path of least resistance, so expect him to grapple with strikers and strike with grapplers.
Paulo Costa
7th UFC Fight (5-1)After nursing his wounds (i.e. ego) for the last 13 months, and apparently stuffing his face, Costa will now look to bounce back from his first career loss, after he was deflowered by Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya. Costa hilariously blamed the loss on drinking too much wine the night before and doesn’t seem big on accountability. Adesanya picked Costa apart with leg strikes early in the fight before dropping him late in the second round with a left hand following a head kick that split Costa open. Adesanya then quickly finished Costa on the mat with ground and pound as he punctuated the win with a couple of deep thrusts. Adesanya finished ahead in significant strikes 55-12 as Costa struggled to land anything against the far superior striker.
Costa had been scheduled to face Robert Whittaker back in April and then Jared Cannonier in August, but he withdrew from both matches and has now only fought once in the last 26 months. Costa similarly took 13 months off leading up to his title shot as he recovered from a torn bicep following a three-round decision win over Yoel Romero. That remains the only decision Costa has ever been to in his 14 pro fights, as 11 of his 13 wins have ended in knockouts, with the other ending in a 2016 Rear-Naked Choke submission. With his only career loss coming in his recent R2 KO, Costa has only been beyond the second round once, as his first nine pro fights all ended in R1 wins. Interestingly, his last five fights have all made it to the second round, however, with four ending in R2 KOs (3-1).
In his fight against Romero, the two fighters traded knockdowns in the opening minute, but both guys were able to immediately recover. Romero was able to take Costa down once on four attempts and led in striking 125-118, but Costa nevertheless won a unanimous 29-28 decision. Romero is only the second person to take Costa down in the UFC, but he did so right as the second round ended so we didn’t get to see how Costa would fare off his back. Costa is notably a BJJ black belt, but has never landed a takedown in the UFC and only even attempted one, while he’s been taken down three times on 15 attempts from his opponents. It’s worth pointing out that the five fighters who have attempted a takedown on Costa own career takedown accuracies of just 30%, 38%, 46%, 33% and 22%, while Vettori has a 47% career takedown accuracy.
The only other fighter to take Costa down was Oluwale Bamgbose (33% career takedown accuracy), who did so twice on five attempts in a fight that lasted just over six minutes before Costa landed a R2 KO. While Bamgbose was able to get Costa to the mat, he had a tougher time keeping him there or getting anything done on the ground.
All five of Costa’s wins have come against struggling opponents, many of whom were at the tailend of their careers. Costa made his 2017 UFC debut against then 35-year-old Garreth McLellan who came in having lost three of his last four fights and has now lost five of his last six with three of those losses ending in KOs. Then Costa faced Oluwale Bamgbose, who was 1-2 in the UFC at the time and finished his UFC career 1-4 with three KO losses. Next Costa took on a 34-year-old Johny Hendricks in his final UFC fight. Hendricks had lost four of his previous five matches. Following the win over Hendricks, Costa defeated Uriah Hall, who had lost three of his last four fights with two R1 KOs coming into the fight. That win aged the best of all of Costa’s victories, which is saying something. Costa’s most recent win was in a close decision against a 42-year-old Yoel Romero, who came in having lost two of his last three and has now lost four straight and five of his last six. Costa is a powerful striker, but the last time he knocked anyone out was over three years ago in July 2018.
Fight Prediction:
Costa will have a 1” height advantage, but Vettori will have a 2” reach advantage.
This fight had originally been scheduled to take place at 185 lb, but as most people are aware then Costa said he couldn’t make the weight and it was moved to a 195 lb Catchweight. Then it was moved again to a 205 lb Catchweight—also known as Light Heavyweight. We don’t know all the reasons for why Costa couldn’t make the weight, so whether it’s strategic or if he’s dealing with some sort of injury remains a mystery. Maybe he’s just fat and lazy, who knows. Our take on this is that it doesn’t change Costa’s outlook much as he was already reliant on landing a knockout in the first two rounds to win. However, it could make things tougher on Vettori when it comes to grappling as he’ll now have the extra weight to deal with.
These two delusional juice boxes are both still struggling to come to terms with their recent losses to Adesanya as they each showed their asses before, during and after their respective title shots. Now they’ll each get their chance to get back on track, which also means one of them will suffer a further setback. Going from title contender to a two fight losing streak is a big swing, so there’s a ton on the line for each of these two. We fully expect the winner to demand a rematch with the champ and for the loser to dispute the results.
Costa has only been in one fight that lasted longer than nine minutes in his entire career and we have serious concerns about his cardio in the later rounds, while Vettori has gone five rounds in three straight matches. Costa is clearly the superior striker, and Vettori should once again come in looking to grapple. So this fight will likely come down to how the 47% takedown accuracy of Vettory fares against the 80% takedown defense of Costa. We’re not sold on Costa’s takedown defense being quite as good as it appears on paper, and we still like Vettori’s chances to get this fight to the ground. Based on Vettori going to decisions in 9 of his last 10 fights and Costa being a BJJ black belt, an early submission appears unlikely, but isn’t impossible. The more interesting question will be whether or not Costa gases out late, keeping a later finish in play. However, Vettori has his own cardio to deal with and has never looked especially dangerous late in fights himself and we expect Vettori to grind out another grappling heavy decision win here.
Our favorite bet here is “Vettori Wins by Decision” at +200 and we like hedging it with “Fight Doesn’t Start R3” at +170. We also really like “Vettori Wins in Round 4, 5 or by Decision” at +140, which if you pair with “Fight Ends in Under 4 Rounds” at +110 is a great way to lock in a 5-20% gain.
DFS Implications:
Prior to his recent loss, Vetorri had put up three slate-breaking performances with DraftKings scores of 156, 129 and 125. His grappling-heavy fighting style generally scores better on DraftKings than FanDuel the longer fights go, with no better example than his last win where he scored 156 points on DraftKings but only 105 on FanDuel. As long as Vettori can survive the first two rounds, which we expect him to, he should be able to grind out another grappling heavy decision win here and score well on both sites, but especially on DraftKings. With just 1 of his last 10 fights ending early, it would be surprising, but not impossible for this fight to end early as Costa has a ton of power in his strikes and Vettori will hunt for chokes, despite his history of decisions. All 11 of Vettori’s career finishes have come in the first round and all 12 of Costa’s early victories have come in the first two rounds, with the first nine ending in R1 and the last three coming by R2 KO, so if we do see a finish we expect it to come in the first 10 minutes. The odds imply Vettori has a 63% chance to win, a 29% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.
This looks like a really tough matchup for Costa as he prepares to face a grappler who has never been finished in his career. Costa has been great at knocking out struggling and aging fighters, but he’s now fought just once since 2019 and has just one finish since 2017. So while Costa is a powerful striker and should hold the striking advantage in this match, the key will be whether or not he can stay on his feet. Costa is notably a BJJ black belt, but we’ve seen so little out of him on the mat it’s hard to tell if that actually means anything, but at the very least it could make him harder to submit. Costa’s cardio will be a major concern if the fight sees a third round, as only 1 of his 14 career fights has made it past the second round and he lost that lone third round on the scorecards to a 42-year-old Yoel Romero as Costa appeared to be slowing down. So he’s likely reliant on a landing finish in the first two rounds to win this fight, which is important to keep in mind when determining your exposure. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 27% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter @dfs_mma with your winnings so we can see how you did!
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TOP PRIZE PICKS PLAYS FOR UFC THIS WEEK:
- Ricci Under 50.5 Significant Strikes
- Ricci Over 97.5 Fantasy Points
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