The Sheet

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Fight Day Scratches:

Fighter Notes:

Fight #13

Dustin Jacoby

8th UFC Fight (4-2-1)

Jacoby stepped into his last fight on less than a week’s notice but nevertheless extended his undefeated streak to seven with a decision win over John Allan. Despite taking the fight on short notice, Jacoby put on a striking clinic as he outlanded Allan 153-77 in significant strikes in a pure striking battle with zero seconds of combined control time and no takedowns attempted.

Jacoby’s last 11 wins have all either ended in R1 KOs or decisions and he hasn’t lost a fight since 2015. The only time he’s landed a finish beyond the first round in his career was a 2011 R2 TKO by doctor stoppage. His other 15 wins have all ended in either decisions (5) or first round wins (10). All but one of those first round finishes came by KO, but he did land a triangle choke in 2011 in his third pro fight. The only time he’s ever been knocked out was in the second round of a 2014 Bellator fight, but he has been submitted twice (2012 & 2015), and has also lost two decisions (2011 & 2012). He also has a draw against Ion Cutelaba in his third most recent fight to round out his 16-5-1 pro record.

Just before his recent decision win, Jacoby landed a R1 KO against Darren Stewart, which was the first KO/TKO loss of Stewart’s career. In fairness, that was only Stewart’s second fight back up at 205 lb, after he has been fighting down at 185 lb since 2017. Jacoby’s only other early win in the UFC was a R1 KO against Justin Ledet in 2020. That was Jacoby’s first fight back with the UFC after he originally joined in 2011 at just 23 years old, but was cut in 2012 following an 0-2 start. Following his departure, he went 6-3 in MMA fights outside of the UFC with three R1 KO wins, three decision victories, one decision loss, a R2 KO loss, and a R2 submission loss. He also stepped away from MMA entirely to try kickboxing for a four year period from 2015 to 2019, where he also went 6-3, including a win over UFC fighter Karl Roberson.

Upon returning to MMA in 2019, Jacoby won a pair of decisions, including a high-volume beatdown on DWCS in August 2020. In that fight, he put on an impressive striking display with 117 significant strikes landed while only absorbing 30. He also notched a knockdown and went 1 for 1 on takedowns, while impressively defending 10 of his opponent’s 11 takedown attempts. His striking looked remarkably improved since his 2011-2012 UFC tape and his kickboxing experience was evident. Of some concern, he did look like he punched himself out late in the second round after starting the fight at an unsustainable pace. Despite the DWCS match ending in a decision, Jacoby was still awarded a UFC contract and made the most of it when he finished Ledet in the first round of his first fight back in the UFC.

In Jacoby’s initial stint with the UFC he fought at 185 lb, however, he’s since moved up to 205 lb in his return to MMA. Jacoby acknowledged that he probably wasn’t ready for the UFC at 23 years old and lacked the confidence required. He says he’s in a much better place now and is ready to make a run in the Light Heavyweight division. He’s gone 6-0-1 in his last seven fights, although five of those did end in decisions.

Michal Oleksiejczuk

8th UFC Fight (4-2, NC)

Coming off an impressive R1 KO win over a previously undefeated Shamil Gamzatov, Oleksiejczuk notched his first finish since 2019, after going 1-2 in his previous three fights. Oleksiejczuk relentlessly pressured forward in the match and used his power left hand out of the southpaw stance to dig to the body of his opponent before finishing the fight with a perfectly placed uppercut. He showed he has no problem taking one to land one, as he actually finished behind in significant strikes 35-32, despite being the aggressor throughout the match.

Just prior to that finish, Oleksiejczuk won an up-tempo but ultimately lower volume split-decision over Modestas Bukauskas, who was recently cut by the UFC following his third straight loss. Bukauskas spent much of the fight circling away from contact, but closed out the second round strong. Nevertheless, Oleksiejczuk appeared to do more damage in the fight and rightfully won the decision as he never stopped pressing the action in the fight. The striking was close, with Bukauskas ahead in significant strikes 58-56, but Oleksiejczuk ahead in total strikes 77-62. No takedowns were landed, but Oleksiejczuk attempted two with Bukauskas attempting one.

Oleksiejczuk originally came into the UFC in 2017 with a 12-2 record and on a nine fight winning streak. However, after winning his 2017 UFC debut by decision over Khalil Rountree in 2017, Oleksiejczuk tested positive for a banned estrogen blocker and was suspended for a year along with the results of the fight being overturned to a No Contest.

After 14 months away, he got back inside the Octagon against Gian Villante and finished him in the first round with a body shot. Dan Hardy perfectly summarized the look on Villante’s face after absorbing the shot to the liver as, “He looks like he swallowed a hard candy and he’s not sure what to do with it.”

Oleksiejczuk then took on Gadzhimurad Antigulov, who looked like he was fighting on a frozen pond as he lunged forward towards Oleksiejczuk. That amazingly resulted in Oleksiejczuk scoring three knockdowns and a KO in a fight that lasted just 44 seconds.

At that point Oleksiejczuk was 2-0 in the UFC, not counting the win that was overturned to a No Contest, and hadn’t lost in his last 12 fights going back to 2014. He then took on a much larger Ovince St. Preux in 2019. Oleksiejczuk brought the fight to OSP early in the match, but OSP did a better job of controlling the distance early in the second round. Midway through the fight OSP was able to take Oleksiejczuk down and submit him with his patented St. Preux Choke.

Coming off his first loss in nearly five years, Oleksiejczuk then got his toughest test to date against Jimmy Crute, who immediately looked to take the fight to the ground. Crute amazingly landed eight takedowns in a fight that lasted just three and a half minutes before he submitted Oleksiejczuk with a Kimura.

Oleksiejczuk is a little undersized for the Light Heavyweight division and broadcasters are constantly moving him down to Middleweight. That could be part of the reason why three of his four pro losses have come by submission, as he sometimes gets bodied by larger opponents. Two of those three submission losses occurred in the first round, with the other ending in round two. His only other pro loss was a 2014 R1 KO in his 5th pro fight, so all four of his career losses have ended early, but he hasn’t been knocked out in his last 16 fights. Of his 16 pro wins, 12 have come early, with 11 KOs and one submission. He has been to five decisions (including the No Contest) in his 20 pro fights, but two of those came in his first two career matches back in 2014. Two more were in 2016 and 2017. Also, his first decision win came in his first pro fight and it was only a two round fight. All 12 of his early wins and all four of his early losses occurred in the first two rounds, so he’s only been to the third round four times in his career. Eleven of his 21 fights have ended in round one (8-3) and five ended in round two (4-1). Five of his last six fights have ended early, four in round one and one in round two. Overall, Oleksiejczuk is a pure striker who’s constantly pressuring his opponents and looking for violent body shots out of the southpaw stance.

Fight Prediction:

Jacoby will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.

The UFC knew what they were doing when they scheduled this fight to kick off the night as it sets up as an exciting standup battle between two dangerous strikers. Oleksiejczuk relies more on his hands, while Jacoby throws a ton of kicks. It will be interesting to see to what extent Oleksiejczuk’s relentless pressure limits Jacoby’s ability to land kicks, but the larger Octagon could benefit Jacoby some as it will give him more space to move around. Oleksiejczuk will need to successfully close the distance as not only does Jacoby have the kicking advantage he’s also taller and longer than Oleksiejczuk. So if Jacoby can control the distance, he should be able to pick Oleksiejczuk apart from the outside and either land a finish or point his way to a decision victory. However, if Oleksiejczuk can effectively crowd the kicker then this fight could quickly become a coinflip if they end up trading in a phone booth. Both of these two are fully capable of knocking out the other, but we still give the advantage to Jacoby and expect him to once again either land a first round knockout or more likely win a decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Jacoby Wins by Decision” at +250.

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DFS Implications:

Jacoby is a quintessential R1 or bust DFS play, which generally makes it easy to determine your correct exposure level. He’s scored 106 and 119 DraftKings points in his two R1 KOs and 91, 45, and 55 in his three decision wins. Up until his recent massive striking performance, where he landed 153 significant strikes in a decision win, he had never come close to scoring well in a decision. He’s a pure kickboxer with just one takedown in seven UFC fights and he’s entirely reliant on striking, knockdowns and finishes to score well. This sets up as an uptempo striking battle, but it’s still unlikely Jacoby puts up a usable score without a finish and 10 of his 11 career finishes have come in the first round. The odds imply he has a 64% chance to win, a 38% chance to end it early, and a 19% chance it comes in the first round.

Oleksiejczuk is another pure striker who relies on striking, knockdowns, and finishes to score well and he hasn’t landed a takedown since his UFC debut in 2017. Even as an uptempo striker, he still hasn’t shown the ability to score well in decisions, so despite his cheaper price tag, it appears he still needs a finish to be useful. The last time Jacoby was finished, or even lost a fight, was 2015, so this is far from a favorable matchup for Oleksiejczuk. The fact that he’s coming off a big performance in a R1 KO win could bump his ownership up a little, which reduces his tournament appeal, but he’s still fully capable of landing a knockout and his fighting style is conducive to putting up big DFS scores. Just keep in mind, he’s generally struggled when faced with tougher competition like Jacoby. With that said, he’s not a terrible play by any means and if he gets a finish he will almost certainly end up in winning lineups. The odds imply he has a 36% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #12

Devonte Smith

6th UFC Fight (3-2)

Trying to steady the ship after getting knocked out in two of his last three fights, Smith was most recently KO’d by a surging Jamie Mullarkey, who was able to take everything Smith had to offer and continue to push forward and land heavy punches and leg kicks. After a strong start to the fight, Smith faded in round two and Mullarkey finished him midway through the round with a TKO stoppage.

Smith’s last win came against former UFC fighter and terrible better Justin Jaynes, who was clearly outgunned in the match. Smith got the second round finish from a doctor stoppage as Jaynes’ eye looked like it was about to pop. That fight took place at a 160 lb Catchweight, but Smith normally fights at 155 lb. He had been scheduled to fight grappler Alex da Silva there, but da Silva withdrew and Jaynes stepped in on short notice. Smith did a good job of controlling the distance with his jab and finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 34-11 and in total strikes 46-19. He also landed his only takedown with over three minutes of control time while stuffing both of Jaynes’ attempts. He was able to beat up Jaynes on the mat and nearly finished the fight with a rear-naked choke before Jaynes was able to escape just to have the fight stopped.

Prior to that win, Smith suffered an Achilles rupture, which kept him out for all of 2020. He originally secured his spot in the UFC with a R1 KO victory on DWCS back in 2018. Coming into the organization with an 8-1 record, and having never been to a decision, Smith exploded onto the scene with back-to-back first round knockouts, including a 46 second finish over Julian Erosa in his debut.

At 2-0 in the UFC in 2019, and on a six fight winning streak, with five of those ending in the first round, Smith had then been scheduled to fight John Makdessi. However, Makdessi was forced to withdraw, so Collard stepped in briefly. Then Collard was forced to withdraw due to health issues and Smith’s training partner and good friend Kamara Worthy stepped in on short notice, which is sort of a weird situation to be in for a young fighter.

Despite being a -1000 favorite, Smith got knocked out by the debuting Worthy late in the first round. Following the loss, Smith suffered an Achilles injury during training. After a grueling recovery process, Smith finally returned to the Octagon following an 18 month layoff in his win over Jaynes.

Overall, Smith is a power puncher who has just one takedown since joining the UFC. However, he lands a solid amount of volume as he averages 5.10 SSL/min (6th highest on the slate). This is a big spot for him to avoid losing three of his last four and it comes against an opponent who took the fight on just over a week’s notice after Smith’s original opponent, Erick Gonzalez, dropped out due to an injury.

Now 11-3 as a pro, Smith has yet to see the judges. He has 10 wins by KO and one by submission. All three of his losses have also come by knockout and he hasn’t been past the second round since 2017.

Ludovit Klein

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Klein was announced as the replacement for this fight just nine days before the event and he normally fights at 145 lb, while Smith is a lifetime 155 pounder, where this fight will take place. However, Klein has fought at 155 lb at least twice before, and won both matches by KO, but other than a 150 lb Catchweight fight in his UFC debut when he missed weight by 4 lb, he’s been at 145 lb since 2019.

Klein is coming off consecutive losses for the first time in his career, and is now sitting on a perilous 1-2 UFC record. After landing a highlight reel knockout in the first round of his debut, he lost a close/controversial decision in his second UFC fight against Michael Trizano. He followed that up with a shocking third round submission loss to brawler Nate Landwehr in his most recent fight, which is the only time Landwehr has submitted anybody in his career. Klein faded hard after the first round in that fight and never looked comfortable being pressured.

Prior to the pair of losses, Klein landed a 76 second R1 KO in his short notice UFC debut. He did notably miss weight by 4 lb for that fight, which drew the ire of Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya due to the fact that it was his teammate Shane Young on the wrong end of the knockout. Klein is known for his violent left head kick and showed why in his debut as he landed one flush to the face of Shane Young and then followed it up with a flurry of punches to put Young out. Despite that fight ending so quickly, you could see how patient Klein is as he stalks his prey to time his kill shots. However, that strategy only works when your opponent isn’t constantly pressuring you.

Klein is now 17-4 as a pro, with 16 of his 17 wins and 3 of his 4 losses ending early. Eight of his wins have come by KO with eight more by submission, but his last seven finishes have all ended in knockouts, while his submission wins occurred earlier in his career—including six in his first six pro fights. Nine of his 16 finishes notably occured in the first round. He’s been knocked out once (2017 R1), submitted twice, and has one decision loss. He’s only been past the second round five times in 21 pro fights.

Fight Prediction:

Smith will have a 2” height advantage and 4” reach advantage.

While Klein is extremely dangerous in space, he’s really struggled with pressure in his last two fights and his opponents are picking up on this. You can take away his most dangerous weapon, his left high kick, by keeping him on his back foot and not allowing him to remain on the edge of kicking range. He also doesn't look nearly as dangerous outside of the first round, so simply surviving the first five minutes is half the battle when it comes to defeating him. Considering how little time these two fighters had to prepare for one another, there’s always a chance Smith overlooks some of this, but we expect he’ll do his homework. However, if he doesn’t, it’s entirely possible he gets finished by Klein early in this fight and both guys are dangerous strikers. While Smith will have a 4” reach advantage, it’s possible that could actually be a bad thing in this fight if he tries to use his reach to stay at range. That would play perfectly into Klein’s preference of keeping the fight at kicking distance. Both of these two are coming off early losses and have dropped two of their last three matches, so it will also be interesting to see if either or both of them come in a little more cautiously because of that. Smith has still never gone the distance in 14 fights and Klein has only required the judges in 2 of his 21 matches, so it would be surprising not to see a finish here, but both guys are most dangerous early on in fights, so there’s always a chance this fades down the stretch if we don’t get an early finish. Considering Klein took the fight on nine day’s notice and is fighting up a weight class, we’re inclined to go with Smith here, but this could be a close fight.

Our favorite bet here is “Under 2.5 Rounds” at -165.

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DFS Implications:

Smith has still never been to a decision in his 14 pro fights (11-3) and hasn’t been past the second round in his last seven matches, with five of those ending in round one and two in round two. His three UFC wins have been good for 97, 108, and 130 DraftKings points. In his two UFC losses his opponents scored 108 and 109 DraftKings points, so the winners of his fights have historically scored well. Now he faces a short notice replacement who’s moving up a weight class, but this is no easy matchup. Both guys will be desperate for a win after losing two of their last three, and this fight could go either way. Klein has only been knocked out once in his career and that was back in 2017, but he hasn’t looked great in either of his last two matches and slows down late in fights. This fight will likely come down to either who lands the first perfect shot or who’s cardio lasts longer. It’s a higher variance spot with Klein moving up to 155 lb for the first time in the UFC, so you’ll want to have exposure to both sides, while realizing that it will be a popular fight to target. The odds imply Smith has a 59% chance to win, a 40% chance to get a finish and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Klein is lethal with his head kicks, but his patient fighting style is far from ideal for DFS scoring and generally leaves him reliant on landing a R1 finish to return value. However, at his cheaper price tag, a later finish would also likely score enough, but we don’t see him scoring well in a decision in the unlikely event this goes the distance. Working in Klein’s favor, Smith has been knocked out in all three of his career losses, including two of his last three fights. However, Klein has faded later in fights and hasn’t handled pressure well, so it appears he needs to set up the perfect shot early on in this match to get a finish. That’s certainly possible, but every time this guy fights we see more holes in his game. Sitting on a 1-2 UFC record, this could be a make or break spot for him, so he should come in motivated to get the win. The odds imply he has a 41% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #11

Tagir Ulanbekov

3rd UFC Fight (2-0)

Entering this matchup on a five fight winning streak and 2-0 in the UFC, Ulanbekov is coming off a smothering decision win over Allan Nascimento. In a low-volume grappling match, Ulanbekov landed 4 of his 5 takedown attempts with over 12 minutes of control time. Nascimento actually finished ahead in significant strikes 25-18 and in total strikes 74-62. Both guys were constantly throwing up submission attempts, which is likely why one judge ruled the decision in favor of Nascimento, despite Ulanbekov controlling him for nearly the entire fight.

A year prior to that victory, Ulanbekov won a decision in his UFC debut against a tough Bruno Silva. Ulanbekov had three fights scheduled between his first and second UFC fights, but withdrew from all three. In his debut, Ulanbekov took Silva down 5 times on 11 attempts with a little under four minutes of control time, while Silva landed 4 takedowns on 8 attempts with a little over two minutes of control time. Silva did a good job of beating up Ulanbekov’s lead leg as he landed 17 leg strikes to the skinny stilts of Ulanbekov, including 11 in the first round. The significant striking totals were almost dead even, with Silva ahead 47-46, but Ulanbekov leading in total strikes 69-59.

A teammate of Khabib, Ulanbekov’s only career loss came in a five-round decision against UFC fighter Zhalgas Zhumagulov in 2018. Ulanbekov is currently 14-1 as a pro, with two wins by KO, six by submission and six decisions. While four of his last six fights have gone the distance, he landed back-to-back second round submission victories just before joining the UFC. While he does have eight finishes on his record, his last 10 fights have all made it out of the first round, with eight of those seeing the third round and six going the distance.

Overall, Ulanbekov is primarily a grappler and is an unlikely candidate to land a high number of significant strikes. He does have the ability to compete on the feet, but he generally does so just to set up takedowns. He’s extremely skinny, which leaves him prone to getting his lead leg beat up, which is just all the more reason for him to get fights to the mat early and often.

Tim Elliott

16th UFC Fight (6-9)

Coming off a decision loss, Elliott has now lost four of his last six fights, while four of his last five matches have gone the distance, including his last three. Interestingly, his last 20 fights have all ended in either decisions (7-6) or submissions (3-4). All of those submissions have come in the first two rounds and three of the last four have been losses. Five of his six UFC wins have gone the distance and his only early win in the UFC was a 2017 R2 anaconda choke against a terrible Mark De La Rosa.

His most recent decision loss came in a close fight against Matheus Nicolau, where Elliott led in significant strikes 70-64, but Nicolau led in total strikes 128-105. Both fighters landed one takedown, Elliott on 10 attempts and Nicolau on just one. Control time was also similar, with Elliott leading 2:28-2:08, however, all three judges agreed that Nicolau did enough to win a unanimous 29-28 decision.

Prior to that loss, Elliott put on a dominating grappling performance against Jordan Espinosa, where Elliott accrued over 13 minutes of control time on his way to a lopsided decision win. Elliott led in significant strikes 25-13 and in total strikes 91-22 as he took Espinosa down four times on seven attempts and controlled the entire fight. That was Elliot’s 15th UFC fight, but just the second time he’s won two fights in a row with the organization, and the first since winning his second and third UFC fights back in 2012 and 2013.

In fairness, Elliott has gone up against numerous top Flyweight opponents, with losses to John Dodson, Joseph Benavidez, Demetrious Johnson, Deiveson Figueiredo, Askar Askarov and Brandon Royval and he notably took Demetrious Johnson to a five-round decision back in 2016.

Elliott originally joined the UFC in 2012, however, after going 2-4 he was released in 2015. Five of those fights ended in decisions, while the sixth was a R1 guillotine choke loss against Joseph Benavidez. After getting released, Elliott went 3-0 in Titan FC with a pair of five-round decision wins and a R2 guillotine choke victory. He then worked his way back into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter, which he ended up winning to get a shot at the Flyweight title against Demetrious Johnson. While Elliott lost a five-round decision to Johnson, it more importantly got him his spot back on the UFC roster.

Following the loss and sitting at 2-5 in the UFC, Elliott put up a career best grappling performance in a decision win against Louis Smolka in 2017. Elliott landed 12 takedowns, three reversals and eight minutes of control time to go along with 57 significant strikes as he cruised to a unanimous 30-27 decision win.

However, following the highlight reel performance, Elliott lost four of his next five fights with three of those losses ending in submissions in the first two rounds. He notably tore his ACL in June of 2018, which resulted in nearly a two year layoff from December 2017 until October 2019 and he lost his first three fights after coming back. Since then, Elliott has been training out of Glory MMA with James Krause and won two straight decisions leading up to his recent decision loss. After gassing out against Brandon Royval in his second most recent loss, Elliott has done a better job of managing his cardio with the help of Krause and now appears more focussed on actually winning fights opposed to just putting on a good show.

Prior to his decision win over Espinosa, Elliott outlanded Ryan Benoit 67-55 in significant strikes, but amazingly went just 1 for 13 on takedowns. Elliott squeaked out a unanimous 29-28 decision, which ended a three fight losing streak. He also came dangerously close to getting submitted with a kneebar in the second round. He looked slightly more methodical in that match than he has in the past and seemed to pace himself better. That can likely be attributed to the coaching of James Krause.

A former high school state champion wrestler, Elliott is now 17-12-1 as a pro, with three wins by KO, six by submission and eight decisions. He’s only been knocked out once, but has been submitted five times and has lost six decisions. His only career KO loss came in his third pro fight back in 2009 and all three of his career KO wins occurred between 2009 and 2011 before he joined the UFC.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are listed at 5’7” but Ulanbekov will have a 4” reach advantage and is 5 years younger than the 35-year-old Elliott.

While Elliott has an unimposing 56% takedown defense, he hasn’t been taken down more than once in any of his last nine fights, so it will be interesting to see how effective Ulanbekov can be with his grappling. Elliott’s background is in wrestling, so this should be a good test for Ulanbekov. The last time we saw Elliott gas out was when he was forced to defend the relentless grappling of Brandon Royval and since then Elliott has only had three takedowns attempted against him in his last three fights and two of those were successful. So it wouldn’t be at all surprising if Ulanbekov’s grappling wears Elliott out, making a mid to late round submission a more likely possibility. However, if his cardio holds up then we would expect Ulanbekov to win a decision here. Either way, we like Ulanbekov to get the W.

Our favorite bet here is “Ulanbekov Wins by Decision or Submission” at -180.

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DFS Implications:

Ulanbekov’s wrestling-heavy attack will generally perform better on DraftKings than FanDuel, and he scored 93 and 85 DraftKings points in his first two UFC fights, but just 60 and 78 points on FanDuel. He doesn’t land many ground strikes and is more so looking for submissions, which makes it tough for him to put up a big score without a finish on either site, but he can’t even sniff a decent score on FanDuel without a finish. With that said, Elliott has been submitted in three of his last five losses, so there’s a decent chance Ulanbekov can notch his first UFC finish here. At low projected ownership, Ulanbekov makes for an interesting tournament play with sneaky upside as he’s yet to have a ceiling performance since joining the UFC. The odds imply he has an 68% chance to win, a 31% chance to get a finish and a 15% chance it comes in round one.

Elliott’s uptempo grappling-heavy fighting style lends itself well towards DFS production when he wins, but those victories have not come often and he’s actually been fighting at a slightly less frantic pace lately. His last two wins were good for just 97 and 76 DraftKings points, while his previous four returned scores of 108, 150, 154, and 133. His slate-breaking days appear well behind him and the only thing those past numbers represent at this point is a carrot for the field to chase. With that said, the public seems to mostly be coming to terms with the fact that Elliott is slowing down and his ownership is no longer as inflated as it used to be. This looks like a really tough matchup for Elliott to excel as he faces a 14-1 Dagestani wrestler who will not be easy to control. We don’t have much interest in playing Elliott here, but the odds imply he has a 32% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #10

Umar Nurmagomedov

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Nurmagomedov had been scheduled to face Jack Shore on the upcoming March 19th slate, but that fight was canceled and this matchup was announced instead on February 10th. It was originally set to take place at 135 lb but it was moved to 145 lb in late February.

Fourteen months removed from a near flawless R2 submission win in his UFC debut, Nurmagomedov defeated a tough Sergey Morozov, who was also debuting. Nurmagomedov showcased his explosive kicking and smothering grappling in the match, as he outlanded Morozov 25-7 in significant strikes and 32-8 in total strikes, while landing 5 takedowns on 11 attempts in a fight that only lasted eight and a half minutes.

A cousin of Khabib, the 25-year-old Umar is now 13-0 and has submitted three of his last four opponents. Despite his impressive striking, he only has one win by KO, but six by submission. He also has six decision victories. All seven of his finishes have come in the first two rounds, with three in round one and four in round two. Nurmagomedov is light on his feet and loves to throw a ton of slick question mark kicks in addition to his explosive grappling. He looks like he’s going to be a real problem for the 135 lb division.

Brian Kelleher

14th UFC Fight (8-5)

Coming off a pair of grappling-heavy decision wins against low-level opponents, Kelleher will now face an immensely tougher foe in Umar Nurmagomedov. Kelleher’s last fight was just 7 weeks ago and he signed up for this fight less than a month out after Jack Shore dropped out, so he hasn’t had a ton of time to prepare. Kelleher has bounced between 135 lb and 145 lb throughout his career, and while his last fight was at 145 lb, his one before that was at 135 lb. His last fight had actually originally been scheduled to take place at 135 lb against Saidyokub Kakhramonov, but after Kakhramonov dropped out mid fight week, Kevin Croom stepped in on just a few days’ notice and it was moved up to 145 lb.

While Croom looked to push the pace early in that fight, Kelleher dropped him in the first round, although he was immediately able to recover and never looked very hurt. Kelleher was also able to land a takedown later in the round, and then went on to land two more in round two and three in round three as he continues to rely on his grappling as of late. While Croom finished ahead in significant strikes 60-38 and in total strikes 83-67. Kelleher led in takedowns 6-0 and in control time 6:26-0:47 on his way to winning a unanimous decision.

His previous win came against a highly questionable Domingo Pilarte, who’s now officially 0-2 plus a No Contest in the UFC. In reality, Pilarte has lost all three of his UFC fights if you look past the fact that a 2020 R1 KO loss was later overturned to a No Contest when his opponent tested positive for THC. Nevertheless, Kelleher was able to control the grappler in Pilarte on the mat for essentially the entire fight, as he finished 3 for 3 on his takedown attempts with nearly 13 minutes of control time. It could have been even more but Kelleher attempted a pair of unsuccessful guillotine chokes in the second round that left him on his back for a brief period of time. Kelleher also finished ahead in significant strikes 28-3 and in total strikes 236-117 as he easily cruised to a unanimous 30-27 decision victory. In his post-fight speech, Kelleher acknowledged that it wasn’t the most exciting fight, but said he needed the W so he had to fight smart. That seems to suggest he’ll look to put on more exciting performances in the future. The lopsided win on the back of a smothering wrestling performance appeared inspired by Ricky Simon, who dominated Kelleher on the mat in his previous fight. Kelleher had never landed more than a single takedown in his previous 11 UFC fights up until that point.

Kelleher has struggled against solid wrestlers throughout his career, with losses to Ricky Simon, Cody Stamann, Montel Jackson, John Lineker, and Marlon Vera, which doesn’t bode well for his chances in his upcoming matchup. While both of his UFC losses at 145 lb went the distance, all three of his losses at 135 lb have come early, including a pair of R1 submissions and a R3 KO.

In his loss to Ricky Simon, Kelleher was taken down 6 times on 9 attempts and trailed in significant strikes 45-19 and in total strikes 72-25. Simon also finished with over eight minutes of control time as he was in complete control the majority of the fight.

Prior to that loss, Kelleher landed a 39 second R1 guillotine choke submission win against last minute replacement Ray Rodriguez back in September 2020. Kelleher was originally booked against Ricky Simon for that fight, but Simon was forced to withdraw and Kevin Natividad stepped in on relatively short notice. Unfortunately, Natividad was also forced to withdraw and Ray Rodriguez, who the UFC brought in as backup, stepped in on the day of the event. Amid the chaos, Rodriguez apparently didn’t get a chance to watch much tape on Kelleher, as he left his neck wide open on a takedown and Kelleher responded with his seventh career win by guillotine choke, with six of those coming in the first round. He also has three rear-naked choke victories on his record.

He’s so fond of the guillotine that he renamed it the “boomatine”. Along with those submission wins, he has eight career knockouts and six wins by decision to round out his 24-12 pro record. Of his losses, he’s only been knocked out once, but he’s been submitted six times, and has lost five decisions. Five of his six submission losses have come in the first round as have 8 of his 10 submission wins.

Eight of Kelleher’s 13 UFC fights have ended early (5-3), with five of those ending in first round submissions (3-2). He has also knocked out two opponents in the later rounds and was knocked out himself in the third round of a 2018 fight against John Lineker. While all five of his UFC fights resulting in submission wins or losses ended in the first round, all of the knockouts occurred in the later rounds.

Fight Prediction:

Nurmagomedov will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.

While Kelleher has been able to capitalize on favorable matchups, he’s really struggled against tougher opponents, especially wrestlers, and this looks like a terrible matchup for him. He’ll likely be left trying to land a hail mary guillotine submission to win the fight, and we fully expect Nurmagomedov will be ready for that and will be conscious enough with his head position that he won’t allow it to happen. Considering six of Kelleher’s 12 career losses have come by submission, as have six of Nurmagomedov’s 13 career wins, we like Nurmagomedov to finish this fight with another submission in the first two rounds, but he’s also fully capable of winning a striking battle.

Our favorite bet here is “Nurmagomedov Wins by Submission” at +210.

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DFS Implications:

Nurmagomedov scored 112 DraftKings points in a R2 submission win in his UFC debut, but now hasn’t fought in 14 months, which is really the only reason to have any concern with him. He should be able to control this fight anywhere it goes and he offers a solid combination of striking and grappling to fill up the statsheet. He does project to be very popular and is also the most expensive fighter on the slate, which are really his only downsides other than his extended layoff. His high price tag should keep his ownership from getting completely out of control, but we still expect him to be the most popular three round fighter on the card. The odds imply he has a slate-leading 85% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Kelleher is coming off back-to-back impressive performances where he scored 103 and 126 DraftKings points against low-level opponents, but the field is unlikely to chase that too much as he’s now the biggest underdog on the slate by a wide margin. Kelleher will likely need to land his patented guillotine choke to win this fight and the odds of that happening are slim as he faces the undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov. Kelleher doesn’t look like anything more than a dart throw in tournaments and we don’t have much interest in playing him, although if he does pull off the upset, he’ll be a massive leverage play and he generally scores well in victories. The odds imply he has a 15% chance to win, a 10% chance to get a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #9

Mariya Agapova

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

Bouncing back from an embarrassing R2 TKO loss to Shana Dobson, Agapova choked out Sabina Mazo early in the third round of her last fight. Agapova looked much more controlled with her energy expenditure as she set a sustainable pace while continuing to effectively outstrike Mazo. The fight ended a minute into the third round after Agapova dropped Mazo and then jumped on top for a lightning fast rear-naked choke. Agapova finished ahead 93-62 in significant strikes and 99-63 in total strikes in a fight that lasted just under 11 minutes. No takedowns were attempted in the match.

Prior to that win, Agapova completely gassed out after just one round against Shana Dobson, where Agapova entered as a ridiculous -1400 favorite but lost in an early R2 TKO. She 100% emptied her gas tank in the first round with a completely unsustainable pace, as she looked like she was jacked up on bath salts the way she came out wildly swinging.

Prior to the loss, Agapova had won three straight fights in the first round with a pair of rear-naked chokes and a TKO. The most recent of those finishes came in her UFC debut against a terrible Hannah Cifers, while the first two occurred in Invicta. Agapova originally tried to get in the UFC through DWCS in 2019, but lost a smothering decision to Tracy Cortez and was forced to wait a bit longer. That decision loss to Cortez was the first defeat of Agapova’s career as she entered the match 6-0 with four finishes.

Agapova is now 10-2 as a pro with three wins by KO, five by submission and two decisions. The only time she’s ever been finished was the R2 TKO against Dobson, with her only other loss coming in the DWCS decision against Cortez. Her last five fights have all ended early and she’s only been to the third round four times in her 12 fight career.

Maryna Moroz

9th UFC Fight (5-3)

Finally stepping back inside the Octagon after almost exactly a two year layoff, Moroz has withdrawn from her last four scheduled fights. The last time we saw her was in a high-volume March 2020 decision win over Mayra Bueno Silva. Moroz finished ahead in significant strikes 139-88 and in total strikes 179-92, while also landing 2 of her 8 takedown attempts with four and a half minutes of control time.

Prior to that striking explosion, she had only landed 297 significant strikes in her first seven UFC fights combined, which is especially crazy considering only one of her eight UFC fights has ended early. She landed 56 or fewer significant strikes in six of her eight UFC matches and has fought to seven straight decisions.

Now 10-3 as a pro, Moroz has one win by KO, five by submission and four decisions. Notably, all six of her finishes came in her first six pro fights, with all of the submission wins ending in armbars. Her only early win in the UFC came in a R1 armbar in her UFC debut against Joanne Wood. Moroz has never been finished, with all three of her losses going the distance.

Moroz has shown she’ll look for takedowns at times, but has only landed four in eight fights. Her first six UFC bouts were all down at 115 lb, before she moved up to 125 lb for her last two matches, both of which she won in decisions. She’s a Master of Sports in boxing and kickboxing and was a member of the Ukrainian National Boxing Team, so her background is all striking based.

Fight Prediction:

Moroz will have a 1” height advantage, but Agapova will have a 1” reach advantage and is 6 years younger than the 30-year-old Moroz.

These two ladies have serious beef with each other so it will be interesting to see how Agapova does in terms of managing her adrenaline and cardio. We won’t go into the details, but let’s just say if this fight wasn’t taking place inside of the Octagon, it very well might have happened in the streets. Moroz is the far more experienced fighter with almost three times as many pro fights, so we would expect her to do a better job of managing her energy than Agapova, which makes her a little more interesting the longer this fight goes. Agapova is still just one fight removed from the Dobson debacle, where she completely emptied her gas tank in the first round and had nothing left by round two. While Agapova did a much better job managing her output in her last match, we still need to see that more than once out of her to fully trust her. With that said, Moroz’s extended layoff is very concerning for her chances, but it’s possible she outlasts Agapova to win a decision. Nevertheless, we still like Agapova to win this fight, and think she has a good shot to hand Moroz the first early loss of her career.

Our favorite bet here is “Agapova Wins by Submission” at +420.

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DFS Implications:

Both of Agapova’s UFC wins have come early, as have 8 of her overall 10 career victories. After completely gassing out after the first round in her second most recent fight, she did a much better job of managing her cardio in her last fight while still remaining offensively effective. It will be interesting to see how she handles her emotions and cardio in this matchup where there’s some personal drama behind the scenes, but that likely just makes it a higher variance spot. While this doesn’t look like a favorable matchup for Agapova to get a finish considering Moroz has never been finished in her career, Moroz is coming off a two year layoff so she could have some ring rust. And Agapova is live to get a finish any time she steps inside the Octagon as she has crisp striking and cat-like submission skills. The odds imply she has a 63% chance to win, a 32% chance to get a finish and a 15% chance it comes in round one.

Moroz has fought to seven straight decisions (4-3), with only one of those wins scoring above 74 DraftKings points. That occurred in a striking explosion where she totaled 111 points in her last fight, which was all the way back in March 2020 before her recent two year layoff. Her previous three decision wins scored just 74, 37, and 61 points, making it tougher to rely on her scoring floor in decision wins. So she’s shown a wide range of potential outcomes when fights go the distance, but does have the ability to return value even without a finish. The fact that she hasn’t fought in two years is certainly concerning, but at her cheap price tag and low ownership there are worse plays to be had. The odds imply she has a 37% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #8

Kennedy Nzechukwu

6th UFC Fight (3-2)

Negumereanu had originally been scheduled to face Ihor Potieria here, but Potieria dropped out and Kennedy was announced as the replacement on February 3rd with a month to prepare.

Looking to bounce back from the first knockout loss of his career, Kennedy went from looking indestructible in his previous two fights to getting finished three minutes into the first round in his last outing. In fairness, that came against a tough opponent in Da Un Jung, who’s gone 14-0-1 in his last 15 fights, with 12 of those wins ending early. Kennedy started a little slow as he typically does, and midway through the first round was made to pay for it as Jung landed a series of heavy elbows to end the fight. We only saw 22 combined strikes landed, with Jung leading 16-6.

Prior to that loss, Kennedy had won three in a row after suffering his only other career defeat in a late R3 triangle choke in his 2019 UFC debut against submission specialist Paul Craig. He bounced back from that initial loss with a decision win over Darko Stosic and then he put on a true Homer Simpson-esque performance against Carlos Ulberg on his way to landing a second round knockout. In that fight, Kennedy absorbed an insane 146 significant strikes in just eight minutes and 19 seconds of action before finishing the gassed UFC newcomer in Ulberg midway through the second round.

Kennedy then went on to outlast one-dimensional grappler Danilo Marques in his next fight, where we saw Marques control Kennedy’s back for the first half of the fight before Kennedy was finally able to get into open space and force an early R3 TKO stoppage along the fence.

While Kennedy has historically relied on his durability to outlast his opponents, it will be interesting to see if he makes any adjustments now that he’s coming off his first career KO loss. He actually fought his first pro fight up at Heavyweight before moving down to Light Heavyweight from that point on. After starting his pro career off with a pair of wins, one by KO and another by decision, he made an appearance on DWCS in just his third pro fight back in 2017. However, despite winning a split-decision Kennedy was relegated back to the regional scene. He followed up the decision win with a pair of knockouts in the first two rounds over his next couple fights, and was then invited back on DWCS in 2018. That time Kennedy capitalized on the opportunity and landed a R1 KO via head kick, which was enough to earn him a UFC contract.

Now 9-2 as a pro, Kennedy has six wins by KO and three by decision. Both of his losses came early, one by KO and the other by submission. Three of his six KO wins occurred in the second round, two ended in round one and the third ended in round three. However, both of his knockout victories in the UFC came in the later rounds and that appears to be when he’s the most dangerous after he’s worn his opponents’ hands down with his face. He’s been taken down 7 times on 38 attempts so far in the UFC, and has done a good job of getting up quickly when he has been taken down. So while he doesn’t offer any offensive grappling, his takedown defense has been solid at 80%.

Nicolae Negumereanu

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

Coming off a win against one of the worst Light Heavyweights in the division, Negumereanu finished Ike Villanueva in the first round with a TKO stoppage. The fight lasted just 78 seconds and ended with a flurry of punches between the two that left Villanueva crumpled on the mat absorbing some potentially illegal shots to the back of the head. It ended so abruptly that it’s hard to take much away from it, but Negumereanu did attempt one failed takedown before forcing the stoppage.

Just prior to notching his first finish in the UFC, Negumereanu won his first career decision against Aleksa Camur, who’s now 1-2 with the organization. The judges were split on who won, with Camur leading in significant strikes 102-71 and in total strikes 118-99, while Negumereanu landed the only takedown in the match (on five attempts) and finished with nearly five minutes of control time. 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 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 (definitely where Negumereanu learned the move) 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 after undergoing back surgery leading up to his recent pair of wins.

Prior to joining the UFC, Negumereanu finished his first nine pro opponents in the first two rounds, with six KOs and three submissions. 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 wrestling. He holds an impressive 11-1 pro record, with seven KOs, three submissions and one decision, with his only loss also going the distance.

Fight Prediction:

Nzechukwu will have a 5” height and reach advantage.

Negumereanu has faced three straight low-level opponents in the UFC, so this matchup represents a step up in competition for him. Negumereanu is frequently looking to get fights to the mat, but has landed just one of his six takedown attempts so far in the UFC, so his accuracy has been awful. Now he goes against the 80% takedown defense of Kennedy, so things won’t be getting any easier. That will likely keep this fight a striking battle for the most part, and while Negumereanu knocked out Villanueva in his last fight, who hasn’t? We haven’t been overly impressed by Negumereanu’s striking and Kennedy should have the advantage on the feet. While you can never be certain how fighters will respond to being knocked out for the first time, we like Kennedy to bounce back and win this fight either with a late knockout or in a decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Nzechukwu’s ML” at -135.

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DFS Implications:

With no grappling to boost his scoring, Kennedy is entirely reliant on striking and finishes to score well in DFS. His lone decision win scored just 50 DraftKings points and he generally doesn’t throw nearly enough volume to score decently without a finish. Even his third round finish scored just 57 DraftKings points, although that was partially due to the fact that he spent the first half of the fight being controlled by Marques before landing a worst case scenario early round three finish. All of his fights have been somewhat bizarre, so you never know what to expect when he steps inside the Octagon. With that said, he’s generally a slow starter who relies on his durability to outlast his opponents and land knockouts in the mid to late rounds. Working against him in this matchup, Negumereanu has never been finished, but also hasn’t really faced any decent competition. We expect Negumereanu to look to wrestle to some extent, which lowers the potential for a high-volume shootout and Kennedy could spend periods of time pressed against the cage. Kennedy does notably have an 80% takedown defense, while Negumereanu has landed just 1 of his 6 takedown attempts so far in the UFC, and Kennedy is also good about quickly returning to his feet when he does get taken down. Either way, that could slow things down and make it tougher for Kennedy to return value even with a third round finish and he likely needs a knockout in the first two rounds to really score well, at least on DraftKings. He could potentially still get there with a third round finish on FanDuel. The odds imply he has a 55% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.

Negumereanu is coming off the best matchup you could ask for against punching bag Ike Villanueva, but now gets an opponent on the other end of the durability spectrum—at least for most of his career. Kennedy is coming off his first KO loss as a pro, but that was against a far tougher opponent than Negumereanu, and we’re not ready to give up on Kennedy’s chin. To Negumereanu’s credit, he did take advantage of his recent opportunity as he landed a first round TKO, but he wasn’t overly impressive in the finish and it looked like it had more to do with Villanueva being terrible than Negumereanu being especially impressive. Nevertheless, recency bias should have the field overestimating Negumereanu’s finishing ability and underestimating Kennedy’s durability, so Negumereanu could end up being the higher owned of the two despite being an underdog. That reduces our interest in playing him in tournaments, but it’s important to point out that these two fighters absorb the most significant strikes per minute on the slate, so there is the potential we see more strikes landed than we might be expecting. Nevertheless, we don’t see either guy ending up in tournament winning lineups without a finish. The odds imply Negumereanu has a 45% chance to win, a 22% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #7

Marina Rodriguez

9th UFC Fight (5-1-2)

Coming in on a three fight winning streak, Rodriguez has back-to-back five-round decision wins since knocking out Amanda Ribas in the second round of a 2021 fight. In her recent win over Mackenzie Dern, Rodriguez did a good job of stuffing Dern’s takedowns for the most part, but did allow Dern to sort of pull guard and drag her to the mat in round two. While Dern was able to keep Rodriguez on the mat for essentially the entire second round, Rodriguez kept it standing for the majority of the other four rounds, as Dern went 1 for 8 on her takedown attempts. Rodriguez went on to win a unanimous 49-46 decision and she finished ahead in significant strikes 144-49 and in total strikes 148-80.

Just prior to that win, Rodriguez took a five-round fight on short notice against Michelle Waterson and won another decision where she led 125-88 in significant strikes. That win came just after Rodriguez knocked out Amanda Ribas (twice) in the second round of a 2021 fight where it looked like the fight was initially stopped but Herb Dean forced Rodriguez to finish Ribas a second time due to what appeared to be an earlier stoppage but apparently wasn’t—at least according to Dean.

Rodriguez’s only career loss came in a 2020 split-decision against Carla Esparza. Rodriguez finished ahead in significant strikes 40-33, but Esparza was able to take her down 5 times on 9 attempts with nearly nine minutes of control time and led in total strikes 118-91.

Rodriguez originally landed her shot in the UFC with a 2018 R1 KO on DWCS, but then fought to five straight decisions. Somehow, two of those ended in draws against Randa Markos and Cynthia Calvillo. She then landed her only UFC finish with the R2 KO against Ribas, before fighting to two more decisions most recently.

With a 15-1-2 pro record, Rodriguez has never been finished early and her only career loss came by split-decision. While eight of her 15 pro wins ended in decisions, she does have six KOs and a submission win on her record. However, five of those seven finishes came in her first six fights against less experienced opponents who entered with records of: 2-0, 0-2, 2-0, 4-3, and 4-5. With that said, Rodriguez is a very solid Muay Thai striker, but she doesn’t really offer anything in terms of grappling and she’s landed just one takedown in her eight UFC fights. She throws a decent amount of volume, as she averages 5.05 SSL/min while only absorbing 3.00 SS/min. She relies on calculated power to pick her opponents apart and uses her length well to control the distance.

Yan Xiaonan

8th UFC Fight (6-1)

Looking to bounce back from her first loss since 2010, Xiaonan was smothered by wrestler Carla Esparza on the mat for the entire fight before getting finished in the second round by ground and pound. It took Esparza all of five seconds to land her first takedown and she went 3 for 3 on her attempts in the match, while controlling Xiaonan for seven minutes and 18 seconds in a fight that lasted just seven minutes and 58 seconds. Esparza got the fight back to the ground 30 seconds into round two and worked her way to a crucifix position where she eventually forced a stoppage as she battered a bloodied Xiaonan.

That was just the second loss of Xiaonan’s career, with the first coming in a 2010 R1 submission in her third pro fight. She now holds a 13-2 pro record, with five wins by KO and eight decisions to go along with a 2010 submission loss and her recent TKO defeat. So impressively she’s gone 8-0 in decisions in her career. All five of her KO wins came early in her career, prior to joining the UFC, in 2016 and earlier. While she’s a solid striker, she doesn’t really have explosive KO power, which isn’t unusual for the women’s Strawweight division. She does land a good amount of volume though, as she averages 5.95 SSL/min, while only absorbing an average of 3.61/min.

Xiaonan won unanimous decisions in her first six UFC fights, leading up to her recent TKO loss. Her last win came over Claudia Gadelha in November 2020, where she outlanded Gadelha 74-36 in significant strikes and 133-84 in total strikes. Gadelha was only able to land two of her 10 takedown attempts.

A pure striker, Xiaonan generally won’t look to engage in offensive grappling, but we saw her land five of her six career takedowns in her second most recent win as a defensive tactic to counter Karolina Kowalkiewicz’s grappling attempts.

Of note, almost all of Xiaonan’s UFC wins came against struggling opponents, with five of those six opponents never winning another UFC fight following their losses to Xiaonan. Four of those opponents were in the midst of 3+ fight losing streaks. Prior to joining the UFC she hadn’t been facing much in terms of competition either, as her opponents entered with records of 2-1, 1-0, 2-2, 0-1, 0-0, 0-1, 0-0, 0-0, and 18-10. So overall she’s rarely been tested. She does have a decision win over Angela Hill, where Xiaonan outlanded Hill 94-71 in significant strikes.

Fight Prediction:

Rodriguez will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.

Xiaonan will need to effectively close the distance to try and outland her way to a decision win here, which could be a challenge against the crisp striking of Rodriguez, who’s not the type of fighter you can just blindly charge in against. While Xiaonan has historically been the busier fighter of the two, she’s never faced a striker like Rodriguez so this will be a whole new test. It will be interesting to see if Rodriguez’s slightly more methodical pace slows down the action in this one or if Xiaonan’s uptempo striking forces Rodriguez into more of a firefight. Most likely, it will fall somewhere in between, with Rodriguez forced to throw more volume than normal and Xiaonan landing less than she normally does. It should be an entertaining striking battle, but we expect Rodriguez to win a decision, with a chance she can land a knockout in the first two rounds. We will say that Rodriguez should have more of an opportunity to land a knockout in this fight than she has typically had in the past, as she’s generally faced opponents looking to grapple, whereas we expect Xiaonan to throw down in a striking battle.

Our favorite bet here is “Rodriguez R1 or R2 KO” at +490.

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DFS Implications:

Rodriguez is a dangerous Muay Thai striker who has likely been craving a matchup like this where she doesn’t have to worry about her opponent looking to take her down. That should make this an entertaining fight to watch, but with no grappling expected it leaves Rodriguez reliant on landing an insane amount of striking volume, or more likely a finish to return value. And on that note, she’s fought to decisions in seven of her eight UFC fights, but does have six knockouts and a submission win on her record to go along with eight decision victories. So nearly half of her career wins have come early, however all but one of those came prior to joining the UFC. Xiaonan has only lost one fight since 2010, but that was by R2 TKO in her last fight—although that came from ground and pound and not on the feet. With that said, she’s also never faced a striker as dangerous as Rodriguez. On paper this fight appears destined to go the distance, with 7 of Rodriguez’s last 8 fights ending with the judges and 6 of Xiaonan’s last 7, but we wouldn’t be at all shocked to see Rodriguez land a knockout and she projects to go low owned. Working against her, she has only topped 89 DraftKings points in one of her five UFC wins (100). That actually came in a high-volume 2019 decision and not her more recent R2 KO win, which only scored 88 DraftKings points as there was very little volume behind it after she got controlled on the mat for much of the first round. So at her high price tag and with an unexciting DraftKings scoresheet, it’s hard to see her carrying much ownership when you look at the other high priced options the field has to choose from. While it’s still more likely we see Rodriguez win a high-volume decision and not quite return value, she certainly makes for an interesting tournament play based on her ownership. The odds imply she has a 69% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in R1.

Xiaonan is also a pure striker who’s almost entirely reliant on striking volume and finishes to score well. Working in her favor, she’s one of the cheapest fighters on the slate, so she could sneak into tournament winning lineups with a lower score than Rodriguez. Her path to victory appears to be outlanding her way to a decision win as all six of her UFC victories have gone the distance. She scored 72, 114, 78, 90, 58, and 70 points in those wins, with her one big score coming when she managed to fall into five takedowns, which appeared flukey and defensive in nature as they were reactionary to her opponent looking to take her down. So chasing that score would be a mistake and you can look at her other results to get a better idea of her more likely potential scoring in a decision win. It’s also important to keep in mind that she’s mostly faced struggling opponents throughout her career, and this will be her toughest test to date. That lowers her expected scoring potential as Rodriguez does a good job of controlling range to avoid absorbing a large number of significant strikes—just 3.00 SSA/min in her career. Working in Xiaonan’s favor, we expect this fight to remain entirely on the feet, so she should have the opportunity to throw as many strikes as she wants without having to worry about getting controlled for extended periods of time. So while it’s a tough matchup from an opponent standpoint, it’s favorable stylistically. She averages the second highest number of significant strikes landed on the slate at 5.95/min, so if she can effectively close the distance without taking too much damage, then she could still put up a solid striking total. The odds imply she has a 31% chance to win, a 10% chance to get a finish and a 4% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #6

Jalin Turner

7th UFC Fight (4-2)

Coming in on a three fight winning streak, Turner made short work of one-dimensional striker Uros Medic in his last match. Turner was able to take Medic down early in the first round and control him for half the round before the fight briefly returned to the feet. Medic was clearly outmatched wherever the fight went, and Turner quickly had Medic covering up along the cage and then crumpled him to the mat. The ref gave Medic every chance to remain in the fight, which simply resulted in Turner going to the mat with him and immediately choking him out opposed to being awarded a TKO stoppage. It was a near flawless performance from Turner, after he entered as a slight underdog. Just keep in mind that Medic fought his entire pre-UFC career out of Alaska and defeated a terrible Aalon Cruz in his only other UFC fight.

Prior to that win, Turner landed a pair of second round finishes in 2020 against two short notice replacements. Turner had actually originally been scheduled to face Jamie Mullarkey in February 2020, but Mullarkey dropped out due to an injury and Josh Culibao stepped in,up a weight class, for his UFC debut. Then Turner was set to take on Thiago Moises in September 2020, but Moises tested positive for COVID and an absolutely terrible Brok Weaver stepped in. Turner finished Culibao with ground and pound before choking Weaver out, both in the second round. So all three of Turner’s recent wins have come in favorable spots against questionable opposition.

Before those three wins, Turner went 1-2 in his first three UFC fights with a R1 KO loss to stud Vicente Luque in his 2018 UFC debut, a R1 KO win against Callan Potter in 2019 and a decision loss to Matt Frevola in 2019. In fairness to Turner, the loss to Luque came up at 170 lb, whereas Turner has fought the vast majority of his career at 155 lb. We also shouldn’t put too much stock into the win over Potter, as that was Potter’s debut and he finished his UFC career with a 1-2 record with both losses coming by R1 KO.

It’s important to keep in mind the level of competition that Turner’s UFC wins came against, as his four opponents in those matches entered with UFC records of 0-0, 0-0, 1-1 (only win was by DQ), and 1-0. While he looked impressive in all of those finishes, we’ve yet to see him defeat anyone good at the UFC level, and he lost a unanimous 30-27 decision to an average Matt Frevola. In that fight, Frevola took Turner down 4 times on 13 attempts with over five minutes of control time. Turner narrowly held the lead in significant strikes 35-31, while Frevola led in total strikes 49-42 in the low volume affair.

Now 11-5 as a pro, Turner has eight wins by KO and three by submission. Nine of his 11 wins have come in the first round, while the other two ended in round two. He’s seen the third round three times in his 16 pro fights and he was knocked out in one of those and lost decisions in the other two. He’s also been knocked out twice in the first round and 14 of his 16 pro fights have ended early.

Jamie Mullarkey

5th UFC Fight (2-2)

Heating up in his UFC career, Mullarkey bounced back from an 0-2 start with the organization to land knockouts in each of his last two fights. His last six wins have all come by KO and his last 12 victories have all ended early, while his last two losses both went the distance.

He’s coming off an impressive R2 TKO win over power puncher Devonte Smith. Mullarkey was able to absorb several big shots from Smith while continuing to push forward and he landed a ton of heavy leg kicks. Mullarkey’s striking looked explosive and his chin continued to look solid in the match. He really turned it on in the second round and compromised Smith’s leg early in the opening minute before trapping him up against the cage and finishing him with strikes midway through the round. Smith simply couldn’t keep pace with Mullarkey, who looked to get stronger as the fight went on.

Still just 27 years old, Mullarkey appears to be improving every time he steps inside the Octagon. Prior to his recent win over Smith, Mullarkey landed a R1 KO against Khama Worthy, who had also previously knocked out Devonte Smith. Mullarkey dropped Worthy with a left hook to the chin just 46 seconds into the first round. We only saw 11 combined strikes landed in that one, as Mullarkey led 6-5 before closing the show.

Prior to notching that first UFC win, Mullarkey lost a pair of decisions in his first two fights with the organization. In his 2019 debut, he took on Brad Riddell, who was also making his debut. Mullarkey showed his toughness in the match, absorbing a 15 minute life-shortening beating from Riddell, who outlanded Mullarkey 91-36 in significant strikes and 104-41 in total strikes. Mullarkey shot for an eyebrow-raising 15 takedown attempts, but only landed three of them. Simply surviving to see a decision was more impressive then some of the wins we’ve seen and that was one of the most entertaining fights of all time. It was especially impressive considering Mullarkey took it on just three week’s notice and was fighting in front of his home Australian crowd.

Mullarkey then took on French kickboxer, Fares Ziam, in October 2020, in what was the second UFC match for each fighter. Ziam came into the fight with a 75% takedown defense, after he defended 9 of 12 attempts in his only other UFC fight. Mullarkey lowered that percentage some as he went 5 for 11 on takedowns in the match. Mullarkey controlled most of the action, adding nearly seven minutes of control time onto his five takedowns. Ziam did lead in significant strikes 47-20, but went 1 for 5 on his own takedown attempts. It looked like Mullarkey had clearly done enough to win the fight, but the judges disagreed and ruled it a unanimous 29-28 decision for Ziam.

Prior to joining the UFC, 13 of Mullarkey’s 14 pro fights ended early, with him winning 11 of the 13. He hadn’t seen the judges since 2014, all the way back to his second pro fight. Mullarkey originally went pro in 2013, at just 19 years old, and won his first eight fights with four KOs, three submissions, and just one decision. Then he ran into a buzzsaw in Alexander Volkanovski and suffered his first career loss in a 2016 R1 KO. Mullarkey was then knocked out again in his next fight just five months later, that time in the second round. Following the pair of setbacks, Mullarkey landed four straight KOs of his own before getting called up to the UFC.

Mullarkey notably fought at 145 lb until 2018, when he moved up to the 155 lb division two years after suffering his two career KO losses. He’s now 14-4 as a pro with eight of his fights ending in the first round (7-1). However, 5 of his last 7 finishes have come in the later rounds, with four ending in round two. His lone first round loss was in the fight against Volkanovski. Ten of his career wins have come by KO and three have been by submission, to go along with just the one decision victory. The only two times he’s been finished both occurred in 2016 KOs down at 145 lb, with his other two career losses ending in decisions in his first two UFC fights.

Fight Prediction:

Turner will have a 3” height and reach advantage.

There’s no doubting that Jalin Turner is a solid fighter, but he’s also unquestionably been the beneficiary of several highly favorable matchups. The last time we saw Turner go against an opponent with any sort of well rounded game he lost a 30-27 unanimous decision to Matt Frevola. Since then, Turner has had one favorable matchup after the next. Turner submitted his last two opponents, but if you’re expecting Turner to outgrapple Mullarkey, just keep in mind Mullarkey is a BJJ black belt, while Turner is a brown belt. We expect Mullarkey to take Turner into deep waters and finish him in the mid to later rounds, with a second round knockout being the most likely outcome.

Our favorite bet here is Mullarkey’s ML at +140.

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DFS Implications:

Turner has shown a huge DFS ceiling with DraftKings totals of 112, 125, 107, and 129 in his four UFC wins. He also averages the most significant strikes landed on the slate at 6.20/min and all 11 of his career wins have come early. Now coming off three straight wins and priced at just $8,200 on DraftKings, expect him to be a popular option amongst the field. The majority of the field will overlook the fact that Turner’s UFC wins have all come against low-level opponents who entered his fights with UFC records of 0-0, 0-0, 1-1 (only win was by DQ), and 1-0. While Turner has done a great job of capitalizing on his opportunities against terrible opponents, keep in mind he also lost a unanimous 30-27 decision to an average Matt Frevola and was knocked out in the first round by Vicente Luque, albeit up a weight class in his debut. Turner is a solid fighter, don’t get it wrong, but this is his toughest opponent since his debut and we like Mullarkey to pull off the upset. With that said, if Turner does win he’ll likely once again score well and end up in tournament winning lineups at his cheap price tag. The odds imply he has a 60% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.

After losing a pair of decisions in his first two UFC fights, Mullarkey has answered back with consecutive knockout wins that were good for 128 and 109 DraftKings points. While he attempted 26 takedowns in his first two UFC matches, landing just eight, he’s seemed more comfortable keeping things on the feet recently and went just 1 for 2 in his last two fights. Either way, the potential to grapple is there and he’s a BJJ black belt. With that said, he prefers to look for knockouts, which is how he’s notched his last six wins. Of his 14 career wins, 13 have ended early and his only career decision win occurred in his second pro fight back in 2014. Also notable, three of Jalin Turner’s five career losses have ended in knockouts, so this sets up well for another Mullarkey KO victory. The odds imply Mullarkey has a 40% chance to win, a 26% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #5

Serghei Spivac

8th UFC Fight (4-3)

Spivac will be looking to bounce back from a first round knockout loss against an extremely dangerous Tom Aspinall, after he won three in a row prior to that. Aspinall shut Spivac out on the statsheet as he finished ahead 16-0 in striking and stuffed both of Spivac’s takedown attempts before knocking him out midway through the opening round. In fairness to Spivac, he took that fight on just a week’s notice after Aspinall’s original opponent dropped out.

Spivac’s last win came in a slow-paced decision over a fellow Heavyweight grappler in Alexey Oleynik. Spivac never looked very driven to hunt for a finish in the match, and fought like he had bet his own decision line. That was just the second time Oleynik made it to the judes in his last 12 fights, so no one expected it to go the distance. Spivac finished ahead in significant strikes 71-59 and in total strikes 112-98, but failed to attempt a takedown in the match while Oleynik landed one of his two attempts. Despite that, Spivac led in control time 4:51-3:31 and finished the fight in top position on the mat after a failed Oleynik takedown attempt. Despite spending the final 100 seconds on top of Oleynik, he curiously didn’t really look to land the ground and pound that he’s previously used to put opponents away.

Prior to that decision win, Spivac absolutely mauled a debuting Jared Vanderaa and notched a second round ground and pound TKO. Spivak caught a leg kick early in the first round and drove through it to take Vanderaa down. Spivak controlled Vanderaa on the ground for the remainder of the round in smothering fashion. Idiotically, Vanderaa threw a head kick to start R2 and as soon as it missed, Spivak was able to take the back of Vanderaa, as his momentum swung him around, and Spivak immediately got the fight right back to the ground. He once again controlled Vanderaa on the ground for an entire round, although this time he turned up the intensity late and finished the fight with heavy ground and pound that left Vanderaa’s face a bloody mess.

Just before that, Spivac won a decision against one-dimensional boxer in Carlos Felipe who was making his UFC debut. The clock ran out with Spivac laying down ground and pound, although that time he was unable to get the finish. Spivac outlanded Felipe 73-44 in significant strikes while going 3 for 7 on takedowns.

Spivac started his UFC career off in 2019, but his debut against Walt Harris only lasted 50 seconds before Spivac got knocked out. He landed just one significant strike in the fight, while absorbing 17. No takedowns were attempted. He bounced back from the loss with a second round arm-triangle choke win over Tai Tuivasa. He outlanded Tuivasa 23-21 in significant strikes, but more importantly went 6 for 8 on takedowns.

He followed that up with a one-sided decision loss to Marcin Tybura before his decision win over Felipe. The 234 lb Spivac notably seemed to struggle with the size and power of the 246 lb Tybura, who was able to control Spivac on the ground and against the fence. Tybura outlanded Spivac 43-23 in significant strikes in the low-volume match while going 2 for 8 on takedowns. Spivac failed on his only takedown attempt in the fight.

Looking at his entire pro career, Spivac has five wins by KO/TKO and six by submission, with just two of his 13 victories requiring the judges. All three of his losses have come in the UFC, with two R1 KOs and the decision loss to Tybura. Prior to joining the UFC, he landed nine straight finishes in the first two rounds, with eight ending in round one.

Spivac is a rare Heavyweight grappler, and does his best work from top position on the mat. He’s not a great striker on the feet and relies on getting fights to the ground to win. He’s 1-3 in UFC fights where he’s failed to land a takedown, but 3-0 with a pair of second round finishes when he’s landed at least one.

Greg Hardy

10th UFC Fight (4-4, NC)

Greg Hardy has just one win by knockout in his last six fights after his first five pro victories all ended in R1 KOs. And that lone recent KO victory came against a terrible Maurice Greene. Five of Hardy’s last six fights have made it out of the first round, with the one exception being when he was knocked out in the first round of his last fight by Tai Tuivasa.

Tuivasa started that fight as he often does with several heavy leg strikes. Then, Hardy actually looked to have Tuivasa somewhat hurt but overplayed his hand and mistakenly rushed in and got dropped with a clean left hand to end the fight in just 67 seconds. That was Hardy’s second straight KO/TKO loss, which are the only two times he’s been finished in his career.

In his second most recent fight, Hardy essentially conceded towards the end of the second round against Marcin Tybura. Hardy won the first round but then gassed out midway through the second and was entirely helpless off his back once Tybura took him down late in the round. Tybura was easily able to finish him with ground and pound as Hardy simply covered up.

Now 7-4 as a pro, Hardy has six wins by KO and one by decision. He’s been knocked out twice, lost one decision, and has one DQ loss. He would have had a second decision win, but the results were overturned to a No Contest because he was caught using an inhaler in between rounds 2 and 3. Only one of Hardy’s six KO wins came outside of the first round and even that ended just 72 seconds into round two. So he’s only been a finishing threat in the first halves of fights and has a seriously questionable gas tank.

Hardy made the switch from the NFL to MMA in 2016 and had his first pro fight in 2018 on the Contender Series. He won that fight with a 57 second R1 KO, which he followed up with a 17 second R1 KO—again on DWCS just seven weeks later. Still not deemed ready for the UFC, he took a fight on Xtreme Fight Night a month and a half after that and landed his third straight R1 KO—this time in 53 seconds. Following that KO victory, the UFC decided to give him a shot four months later.

In his UFC debut, Hardy made it to the second round for the first time in his career. He was promptly disqualified in R2 after landing a brutally blatant illegal knee to a grounded opponent. Referee Dan Miragliotta was visibility disgusted and you could hear him immediately react with “Are you fucking kidding me?!” on the broadcast.

To his credit, Hardy bounced back with a pair of first round knockouts leading up to his No Contest. He then fought to a pair of decisions before finishing Maurice Green early in R2 and then getting finished himself in his last two fights. Now just 2-3 in his last five and on a two fight skid, this will be a pivotal fight in Hardy’s career if he wants to last much longer in the UFC.

Fight Prediction:

Hardy will have a 2” height and reach advantage, but Spivac is six years younger than the 33-year-old Hardy.

Both of these two fighters are looking to bounce back from KO losses, so it will be interesting to see if that results in either or both of them coming in a little less aggressive. The game plan for both is obvious, with Hardy needing to keep the fight on the feet and land an early knockout and Spivac looking to take Hardy down, wear him out and look for a finish on the mat. We’d be very surprised to see this fight last longer than two rounds, and fully expect it to end with either a Hardy KO in the first seven minutes or a Spivac finish in round two. The key will be how quickly Spivac can get it to the mat, as he should be able to quickly drain Hardy’s gas tank with an early takedown. That’s easier said than done and Hardy is a giant, claiming he weighed 295 lb in the middle of fight week and that he walks around at 310 lb. Hardy has a solid 80% takedown defense, but he’s absolutely helpless off his back when he does get taken down. Working in Hardy’s favor, Spivac hasn’t shown a great chin and two of his three UFC losses have come by R1 KO. So this fight truly could go either way, but forced to choose we’ll side with Spivac.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Doesn’t Start R3” at -130.

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DFS Implications:

Spivac has totaled 101 or more DraftKings points in three of his four UFC wins, with his only disappointing score coming in his decision win over Alexey Oleynik where he scored just 75 points. While he still put up big scores on FanDuel in his two second round finishes (124 & 130), he scored just 63 and 82 FanDuel points in his two decision wins. So while his grappling-heavy fighting style can still score well on DraftKings in a decision, he needs a finish on FanDuel to be useful. Working in his favor, Hardy has been finished in the first two rounds in his last two fights, has a terrible gas tank, and is helpless off his back. However, getting Hardy down can be difficult, as he has an 80% career takedown defense and has only been taken down twice on 10 attempts so far in the UFC. With that said, he’s only faced one decent grappler, which was Marcin Tybura who was able to get Hardy down in round two and finish him on the mat. While things will be extremely dicey for Spivac on the feet, if he can get Hardy down he should be able to finish him given enough time. The odds imply he has a 66% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Hardy is your classic R1 KO or bust fighter who relies on landing knockout blows before his tank goes. He’ll have a major power advantage on the feet so all he needs to worry about is not getting taken down, but that’s easier said than done. The last time Hardy faced a grappling Heavyweight he started strong but then gassed in round two and was taken down and easily finished. Seeing an identical result here appears entirely likely, but Hardy is fully capable of knocking Spivac out before the fight ever hits the mat. In his three UFC KO wins, Hardy has scored 110, 130, and 97 DraftKings points, so at his cheap price tag he would almost certainly end up in tournament winning lineups if he can land a finish. When determining your exposure, just keep in mind that five of Hardy’s six knockouts came in round one and the other occurred 72 seconds into round two. The odds imply he has a 34% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #4

Kevin Holland

14th UFC Fight (8-4, NC)

Desperately in need of a win, Holland is moving back down to 170 lb, where he last competed in a 2017 LFA decision loss. That was the only time he’s lost at 170 lb, where he went 5-1 from 2015 to 2017. All five of those wins came in the first two rounds with two KOs (R1 & R2) and three submissions (R1x2 & R2).

Holland went from winning five fights in 2020 to going 0-2 plus a No Contest that could have been a submission loss in 2021. His two 2021 decision losses came against highly ranked grapplers in Derek Brunson and Marvin Vettori, while his most recent fight was against another grappler in Kyle Daukaus. That fight ended up being ruled a No Contest due to an accidental clash of heads, which began the finishing sequence of Daukaus choking Holland out. The fight lasted less than four minutes, with Daukaus going just 1 for 5 on his takedowns. It only took 14 seconds for Daukaus to attempt his first takedown in the match and the entire fight was spent mostly in the clinch along the fence. Dan Miragliotta separated the two fighters midway through the round and just seconds later is when the clash of heads occurred. As soon as Holland fell face first to the mat, Daukaus jumped on top of him, which appeared to wake Holland up. As he tried to recover, Daukaus wrapped up a choke. While Holland escaped the initial submission attempt, as soon as he returned to his feet Daukaus took his back and wrapped up a standing rear-naked choke that forced Holland to tap. At that point there was much deliberation before it was finally ruled a No Contest as the clash of heads began the entire finishing sequence.

Prior to that No Contest, Holland got dominated on the mat for 10 straight rounds in back-to-back lopsided five-round decision losses. Brunson was able to take Holland down 6 times on 12 attempts with almost 17 minutes of control time, and then Vettori took Holland down 11 times on 17 attempts with over 20 minutes of control time. Holland had a few good moments on the feet in both of those five-round fights, but his poor takedown defense and inability to get up off his back have given opponents a clear blueprint on how to defeat him.

Following the pair of smothering losses, Holland trained with former champion Johny Hendricks, who was a NCAA DI wrestler and national champion. However, Holland’s last fight ended so quickly, it was hard to take too much away from his performance, although he did stuff four of Daukaus’ five takedown attempts.

It’s been almost six months since Holland last fought, so it will be interesting to see how much he’s improved his wrestling, as that is clearly what he’s been focussing on. Holland is a BJJ black belt and a second degree black belt in Kung Fu, but his wrestling defense has been terrible and his only submission win in his last 14 fights was against John Phillips, who couldn’t be any more helpless on the mat.

Holland is now 21-7 as a pro with 12 wins by KO, five by submission and four decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted twice to go along with five decision losses. His first submission loss came in 2015 from a R1 rear-naked choke in his sixth pro fight. His most recent submission loss was also a rear-naked choke, this time against Brendan Allen in the second round of a 2019 fight.

It will be important to monitor Holland closely at weigh-ins considering he’s dropping down to 170 lb for the first time in the UFC.

Alex Oliveira

22nd UFC Fight (11-9, NC)

Now on a three fight skid and having lost six of his last eight fights, Oliveira is pretty clearly on his way out of the UFC in the very near future. He’s coming off a close decision loss to Niko Price after getting submitted in the first round in each of his previous two fights. Oliveira’s last eight fights have all ended in decisions (2-3) or submissions (0-3).

We saw more time spent grappling than expected in his recent loss to Price, with Price leading in control time 4:50-3:14, while both fighters landed a single takedown. Oliveira actually finished one significant strike ahead at 65-64, but Price led in total strikes 108-83 and did enough to win a unanimous 29-28 decision as he finished strong in the match by taking Oliveira down and closing out in top position with ground and pound. That very well may have been what won him the decision as the second half of the fight was very close.

Prior to that decision loss, Oliveira amazingly tapped to a one armed rear-naked choke against Randy Brown in the first round of an April 2021 match. Brown dropped Oliveira 87 seconds into the fight and looked close to landing a knockout. Oliveira was able to hang on and return to his feet, but Brown took his back on the feet and got one arm under his chin, which is apparently all he needed as he dragged Oliveira back to the ground and immediately forced a tap. That recent loss came six months after Oliveira was submitted again in the first round by an absolute savage in Shavkat Rakhmonov, who was making his UFC debut.

Prior to those two submission losses, Oliveira had fought to four straight low-volume decisions, winning the most recent two. He had lost three fights in a row leading up to the pair of decision wins, with a R2 rear-naked choke against Gunnar Nelson beginning his skid. Oliveira hasn’t finished an opponent since September 2018 when he knocked out Carlo Pedersoli Jr. in the first round. That win deserves a disclaimer, as ​​Pedersoli Jr. went 1-2 in the UFC and was knocked out in the first round in both of those losses.

Oliveira looks well past his prime and is incredibly prone to getting submitted and tapping without much resistance, but he’s still somewhat of a tricky opponent to prepare for. He uses his long reach and leg strikes to keep his opponents at bay and mixes in a lot of movement and feints to make him harder to hit. He’s only landed above 50 significant strikes three times in 21 UFC fights. His opponents have also only landed above 50 significant strikes against him three times. His last fight was the highest volume of his last 10 matches in terms of significant strikes landed and it still ended with just 129 combined between the two fighters.

Now 22-11-1 as a pro, Oliveira has 12 wins by KO, five by submission and five decisions. He’s only been knocked out once in his career, which came in the third round against Yancy Medeiros of their 2017 fight, however, he’s been submitted six times to go along with four decision losses. While Oliveira has averaged 2.3 takedowns landed per 15 minutes over the course of his career, he’s landed just 2 of 9 attempts over his last five fights.

Fight Prediction:

Holland will have a 4” height advantage and 5” reach advantage. He’s also five years younger than the 34-year-old Oliveira.

There’s all sorts of uncertainty surrounding this matchup. On Holland’s side we don’t know how he’ll look down at 170 lb or how improved his grappling defense is after he’s put so much time into it. On Oliveira’s side of things, it’s unclear how much he has left in the tank and how many more opportunities the UFC will give him—this has to be the last one…right? With so many variables in play, it’s hard to be confident in how this fight plays out, but the fact that they have one combined KO loss between them in 62 pro fights makes us inclined to think this either ends in a submission or more likely goes the distance. It wouldn’t be shocking to see Holland come out trying to prove a point and submit Oliveira, but that is hardly something you can count on considering Holland has one submission win in his last 14 fights and his grappling has looked unimpressive. If Holland can successfully make the cut down to 170 lb without sacrificing his speed, power, or durability, then it’s also possible he hands Oliveira his second career KO loss, however, we like Holland to win a decision here.

Our favorite bet here is “Holland R3 or Decision” at +175.

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DFS Implications:

Holland has been a fairly consistent DFS producer when he can find a finish, with DraftKings scores of 97, 113, 98, 131, and a 133. However, he’s scored just 84, 86, and 73 in his three UFC decision victories. So based on his past history, he hasn’t shown the ability to return value in a decision and doesn’t always break a hundred even when he does get a finish. There are several unknowns here that make this a higher variance spot, as Holland is moving back down to 170 lb for the first time since 2017, prior to joining the UFC. He’s also been working on his wrestling, so there’s a chance he could incorporate that more. And he’s going against an aging opponent on a three fight losing streak. Considering Holland hasn’t won any of his last three fights and is now one of the more expensive fighters on the slate, we don’t expect him to carry a ton of ownership, which makes him more interesting in tournaments. Working against him, while Oliveira has been highly submittable, he’s only been knocked out once in 34 pro fights. While there’s definitely a chance that Holland could come in looking to show off his improved grappling and land a submission, his last seven wins have all come by KO or decision. The odds imply he has a 74% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.

Oliveira is a low-volume striker who’s landed just two takedowns in his last five fights and struggles to score well in DFS in fights that go the distance. His last two decision wins were good for just 59 and 62 DraftKings points and he hasn’t finished an opponent since 2018. He’s on a three fight losing streak and has gone just 2-6 in his last eight matches. Holland has notably never been knocked out and has just one official submission loss since 2015. He’s also been working on his wrestling defense, but it wouldn’t be that surprising to see Oliveira look to test it. It’s entirely possible that Holland’s defensive grappling hasn’t improved much and Oliveira is able to find more success on the ground than he has in a while, but that’s hardly something you can rely on. If the fight plays out primarily on the feet, neither guy will be able to return value without a finish and they have one collective KO loss in 62 combined pro fights. That likely leaves Oliveira reliant on landing a submission to put up a decent score and the last time he landed one of those was in 2018. Working in his favor for DFS, he projects to be very low owned and this is a high variance spot with Holland moving down to 170 lb for the first time in the UFC. The odds imply Oliveira has a 26% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #3

Bryce Mitchell

6th UFC Fight (5-0)

A year and a half removed since he last fought, Mitchell extended his perfect record to 14-0 with a decision win over his toughest opponent to date in Andre Fili. Mitchell made it look easy as he controlled Fili for over 10 minutes as Mitchell landed 7 of his 13 takedown attempts. Fili entered that fight with a solid 69% takedown defense and had never been taken down more than four times in any of his previous 15 UFC fights. Mitchell also finished ahead in significant strikes 46-27 and in total strikes 100-51 as he cruised to a unanimous decision win.

That was Mitchell’s second straight dominating grappling decision win where he accrued over 10 minutes of control time and 3+ takedowns. His second most recent win came against Charles Rosa, where Mitchell landed all three of his takedown attempts with nearly 13 minutes of control time and five official submission attempts. He also led in significant strikes 40-5 and in total strikes 60-12 as he essentially shut Rosa out in the match.

Mitchell’s only finish in his last six fights came against a suspect talent in Matt Sayles via a rare first round twister submission. That fight only lasted four minutes and twenty seconds and Mitchell controlled Sayles for four minutes of that. Prior to that, Mitchell had been involved in two much close decisions in his first two UFC fights after making his way up through The Ultimate Fighter in 2018. Still just 27 years old, Mitchell appears to be improving every time he steps inside the Octagon so it will be interesting to see how he looks after a year and a half away.

A BJJ black belt, Mitchell started his pro MMA career with eight straight submission wins, including seven in the first round and the other in round two. The first time he saw a third round came in his 9th pro fight when he won a decision over Jose Mariscal just before going on The Ultimate Fighter. He was actually submitted in the third round on TUF by Brad Katona, although that officially counts as an exhibition fight and doesn’t go on his official pro record. His teammate on the show and former DI college wrestler, Tyler Diamond, also lost his second fight on the show but the UFC had them fight for a roster spot in 2018 and Mitchell won a close decision. Mitchell then won another competitive decision in his second UFC fight before his recent three fight streak of absolutely dominating opponents on the mat.

Mitchell has grown into his identity as an absolute smothering wrestler and no one has been able to remain on their feet against him recently. Now he’ll face the biggest name of his career, so it will be interesting to see if he can find the same success.

Edson Barboza

27th UFC Fight (16-10)

Now 36 years old, Barboza is looking to bounce back from a third round TKO loss against Giga Chikadze in August 2021. Barboza has gone 2-2 since dropping down to 145 lb in 2020, after he lost his last two and four of his last five fights up at 155 lb.

In Barboza’s recent loss, Chikadze won the first two rounds on the judges’ score cards as he outlanded Barboza in significant strikes 17-10 in round one and 22-19 in round two. Then Chikadze clipped Barboza early in round three with a solid right hand just after landing a knee to his body. Barboza attempted to circle the Octagon to buy some time to recover, but Chikadze cut him off and dropped him with punches. Barboza hung onto his ankle for dear life and then Chikadze attempted to wrap up a choke as the two continued to tangle on the mat. However, Chikadze was unable to complete the choke on two official attempts. After the pair of failed submission attempts, Chikadze wisely returned to his feet where he was quickly able to drop an unstable Barboza for a second time and the fight was then immediately stopped. Chikadze finished ahead in significant strikes 60-33 and went 70-33 in total strikes, while landing a pair of knockdowns.

That was the fourth KO/TKO loss of Barboza’s career and third in his last eight fights. However, it was the first time he’s been finished since moving down to 145 lb. Barboza has also been submitted twice in his career, once by Tony Ferguson in the second round of a 2015 fight and previously by Donald Cerrone in the first round of a 2014 match. Now 22-10 as a pro, Barboza’s other four defeats all ended in decisions. Of his 22 wins, he has 13 KOs, one submission, and eight decisions. Fifteen of his last 16 fights have made it out of the first round, with 13 seeing round three and nine going the distance. The only time he’s had a fight end in round one since 2014 was when Justin Gaethje knocked him out in the first round in 2019. Three of Barboza’s last four wins have come by KO, with two ending in round three and one in found two. At the same time, he’s lost three of the last four decisions he’s been to.

Prior to his recent loss to Chikadze, Barboza landed an impressive R3 KO against Shane Burgos and notched consecutive wins for the first time since 2016-2017 when he defeated Gilbert Melendez and Beneil Dariush. After knocking out Dariush in the second round of a 2017 fight, Barboza lost five of his next six matches as he went through the the Lightweight gauntlet of Khabib Nurmagomedov, Kevin Lee, Dan Hooker, Justin Gaethje and Paul Felder. He then dropped down to Featherweight (145 lb) and lost a split-decision to Dan Ige before finally righting the ship with a decision win over Makwan Amirkhani followed by a KO victory over Burgos. However, after his recent loss, he’s just 2-4 in his last six fights.

His second most recent win against submission specialist Makwan Amirkhani played out as a game of feints in an ultra low-volume decision, where Barboza led in significant strikes 32-11 and total strikes 34-25. Barboza did land a pair of knockdowns in the staring contest, while Amirkhani went 3 for 6 on takedowns but couldn’t do anything with them (two came right at the end of the first two rounds).

The last time Barboza faced a really solid wrestler was when he was finished with a 5th round TKO against Kevin Lee in a 2018 match. Lee was able to take Barboza down a minute into the fight and punish him with heavy ground and pound for the next four minutes. He was able to return Barboza to the mat a minute into the second round and once again smashed him with ground and pound for another four minutes. Barboza finally got some offense going in round three as he clipped Lee with a spinning heel kick that had Lee doing the chicken dance. Lee shot for a desperation takedown with the few faculties he was still clinging on to, but Barboza was able to stuff his initial attempt before Lee landed his second. Barboza was finally able to get back to his feet without the help of the bell, but Lee looked recovered, while Barboza looked gassed after the exhausting first two rounds. Thirty second into the fourth round Lee continued to implement his grappling game plan as he took Barboza back down and kept him there for another round as he continued to take years off his life with ground and pound. Midway through the 5th round, the ref stopped the action to have the doctor check on Barboza’s eye and the fight was stopped. Lee finished ahead in significant strikes 142-51 and in total strikes 233-64, while landing 4 of his 9 takedown attempts with 15 minutes of control time. That was just the second time we’ve seen Barboza get taken down more than three times in a fight, with the first coming one fight earlier against Khabib, who landed 4 of his 13 attempts in a three round decision win over Barboza.

Obviously Barboza’s takedown defense will play a major role in this fight assuming he doesn’t land an immediate knockout, which is unlikely. While Barboza has a solid 78% career takedown defense, that number drops down to 60% in his four fights at 145 lb, where he’s been taken down four times on ten attempts. And if we just look at the last three real grappling threats that Barboza has faced (Amirkhani, Lee & Khabib), Barboza was taken down 11 times on 28 attempts (61% defense). Barboza went 1-2 in those fights with all three matches lasting at least 15 minutes.

Fight Prediction:

Barboza will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.

This is a classic striker versus grappler matchup and we don’t expect Mitchell to be nearly as patient looking for takedowns as Amirkhani was when he faced Barboza. A better comparison here would be the Barboza/Lee fight, where Lee was able to dominate Barboza on the ground for the majority of the match. While Amirkhani is a slick submission threat, he’s not nearly as controlling of a wrestler as Lee or Mitchell and Amirkhani has also notably lost three straight and four of his last five fights. So pointing to the fact that Barboza was able to defeat Amirkhani seems like a fallacy that many people may make this week. Barboza will likely need to land one big knockout blow to win this fight, as he won’t have the time on the feet required to work towards a finish by attrition, which is how he completed his only two KO wins since 2017. That will leave him reliant on landing a finish similar to what he did against Beneil Dariush back in 2017 when he caught him with a perfect knee to the face as Dariush shot in. That’s always in play, but never something you can rely on.

While Mitchell has proven himself to be a dangerous submission threat in the past and loves to go for twister submissions, Barboza is a BJJ brown belt in his own right and has only been submitted twice in his career—which occurred back in 2014 and 2015. Considering five of Mitchell’s last six wins have gone the distance, it appears more likely he’ll grind out another wrestling heavy decision win opposed to finishing Barboza. We expect Barboza to be more focussed on remaining upright then landing a ton of volume, so he’ll likely come in with a defensive game plan that involves a lot of footwork to try and circle away from the grasp of Mitchell while landing counter strikes. It’s always tougher to rely on your kicks when you go against a grappler, as you have to worry about getting a kick caught and then getting taken down, so we expect Barboza to choose his shots wisely. Nevertheless, we still expect Mitchell to track him down, take him down, and grind out a decision victory.

Our favorite bet here is “Mitchell Wins by Decision” at +260.

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DFS Implications:

After struggling to score well in his first two UFC fights, Mitchell made major improvements to his wrestling and strength and conditioning and has looked remarkably better in his last three outings where he’s averaged 103 DraftKings points and 99 points on FanDuel. His grappling-heavy approach lends itself more towards the DraftKings scoring system than FanDuel the longer fights last and he scored 113 DraftKings points, but just 95 on FanDuel in his most recent win. He’s generally focussed on controlling positions and working towards submissions on the mat and he typically doesn’t land a ton of ground and pound, which has capped his ceiling to some extent, but he’s still been a fairly consistent scorer with DK/FD totals of 113/95, 88/87, and 108/115 in his last three fights. The only time he topped 100 points on both sites was in his lone finish in the UFC, which came in the first round against a pretty questionable opponent. So you can see he’s more reliant on landing a finish on FanDuel. Barboza has never been taken down more than four times in his 26 UFC fights, which lowers the potential for Mitchell to match the seven takedowns he landed in his last fight. With that said, Barboza is also now 36 years old and you never know when that cliff is going to come. It’s entirely possible Mitchell wears Barboza out with his grappling early and makes it tougher for Barboza to defend takedowns and submission attempts later in the fight. At his cheaper price tag, Mitchell doesn’t need to lead the slate in scoring to end up in tournament winning lineups, and he’s always in play to put up a big grappling-driven score, especially on DraftKings. The odds imply he has a 59% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.

With low striking totals, only one takedown in his last 10 fights, and zero first round finishes in his last 16 matches, Barboza rarely scores well in DFS. His wins generally come later in fights as he wears down his opponents, which does not typically translate well to big DFS scores. He’ll be especially reliant on landing an early knockout here, as Mitchell will be looking to take him down early and often opposed to standing and trading with him. That leaves Barboza reliant on landing the perfect shot and being the first fighter to not just beat Mitchell, but also finish him. While that’s certainly possible, it still appears unlikely. The odds imply Barboza has a 41% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #2

Rafael Dos Anjos

31st UFC Fight (19-11)

Dos Anjos had been scheduled to face Rafael Fiziev here, but Fiziev tested positive for COVID and dropped out and Renato Moicano stepped in on just four days’ notice. Dos Anjos had been a +200 underdog against Fiziev, but is now installed as a -180 favorite against Moicano.

Now 37 years old and 16 months removed from his last fight, Dos Anjos’ opponent in his last fight also dropped out the week before and he ended up fighting Paul Felder, who accepted the five round fight on less than a week’s notice. So this is becoming a trend. Last time, Dos Anjos went from fighting a wrestler in Islam Makhachev to taking on a striker in Felder. This time, he went from fighting a striker in Fiziev, to a grappler in Moicano.

In that fight, Dos Anjos was able to control Felder for nearly three rounds of total time, as he landed 6 of his 22 takedown attempts with over 14 minutes of control time. Felder actually finished ahead in significant strikes 98-92, but Dos Anjos led in total strikes 155-134. Felder landed one of his two takedown attempts, but simply had no answer for the grappling of the 4th degree BJJ black belt in Dos Anjos. Although, one of the judges (Chris Lee) was apparently grappling blind as he scored the fight 48-47 in favor of Felder, while the other two judges both had it 50-45 for Dos Anjos.

That was Dos Anjos’ first fight back down at 155 lb, where he had previously held the belt back in 2015. His previous eight fights from 2017 to 2020 all took place up at 170 lb, where he had gone 4-4. Dos Anjos has had much more success down at 155 lb where he’s gone 15-7 in the UFC.

Dos Anjos had the previously canceled matchup against Islam Makhachev rescheduled in October 2021, but Dos Anjos ended up withdrawing that time, which resulted in his extended layoff. His matchup with Fiziev was initially booked two weeks ago but got pushed back before Fiziev ultimately withdrew.

Prior to moving up to 170 lb in 2017, Dos Anjos lost his last two fights at 155 lb with a five-round decision loss to Tony Ferguson and a R1 KO loss to Eddie Alvarez in 2016. To find his second most recent 155 lb victory you have to go all the way back to 2015 when he knocked out Donald Cerrone in the first round. His last 12 155 lb fights have all ended in either knockouts (3-1) or decisions (6-2). All of those knockouts occurred in the first two rounds, with three ending in round one.

It makes sense why Dos Anjos moved back down to 155 lb as he lost four of his last five fights at 170 lb, all by decision. In fairness, those losses came against Colby Covington, Kamaru Usman, Leon Edwards, and Michael Chiesa. It is interesting that we saw Chiesa control Dos Anjos for 10 minutes as he landed 6 of his 8 takedown attempts in what was a rare three-round fight for Dos Anjos. At just 5’8” RDA seemed to struggle against some of his recent taller opponents in 6’1” Chiesa and 6’2” Edwards. Both guys were able to get RDA down and control him on the ground.

Six of Dos Anjos’ last seven fights have ended in decisions, with the only exception coming in a R4 submission win over Kevin Lee. He’s only been finished three times in 43 pro fights, all by KO—a 2016 R1 KO vs. Eddie Alvarez, a 2010 R3 KO vs. Clay Guida, and a 2008 R3 KO vs. Jeremy Stephens. His other 10 losses all went the distance and he’s never been submitted. Of his 30 career wins, he has five KOs, 10 submissions, and 15 decisions. Looking strictly at his UFC career, 19 of his 30 UFC fights have ended in decisions, four in submissions, and seven in KO's. His last 5 losses all ended in decisions, and four of those were in five-round fights.

Renato Moicano

13th UFC Fight (8-4)

After fighting just three weeks ago, Moicano is making a quick turnaround on short notice. This match was moved from 155 lb to a 160 lb Catchweight, which should help him some, but he still had a ton of weight to cut in a short amount of time after flying into Vegas mid fight week. This will just be the second five round fight of Moicano’s career and the first ended in a 58 second R1 KO loss against The Korean Zombie in 2019, so he’s never been past the third round. It’s hard to imagine his cardio will be prepared to go the distance.

In his recent round two submission win over Alexander Hernandez, Moicano’s striking looked decent on the feet, but he was still consistently looking to get the fight to the ground as he landed 2 takedowns on 6 attempts in a fight that lasted just under six and half minutes. Just before finishing the fight with a rear-naked choke, Moicano hurt Hernandez on the feet and overall Moicano looked good in the fight. Hernandez finished ahead in significant strikes 37-33, while Moicano narrowly led in total strikes 39-38 and in control time 1:43-0:05.

That was Moicano’s second straight round two submission win after he choked out one-dimensional striker Jai Herbert with another rear-naked choke in his second most recent fight. Moicano quickly took the fight to the mat in the first round and while Herbert was briefly able to return to his feet late in R1, showing glimpses of his striking advantage but spending the majority of the fight on the ground. By the second round Herbert lacked the energy and skills to get off the mat and Moicano easily wore him down as he worked his way towards the submission finish late in round two. 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.

Prior to the pair of submission wins, Moicano had lost three of his previous four fights—all by KO in six minutes or less. His last seven fights have all ended in the opening two rounds (4-3), with four submission wins and three KO losses. Moicano’s last four fights (3-1) have been up at 155 lb, after he had previously been competing at 145 lb for his entire career. His only loss at 155 lb came in a 2020 R1 KO against Rafael Fiziev, who’s spot he took in this fight.

A BJJ black belt, Moicano is now 16-4-1 as a pro. He’s never won by KO, but has nine career submission victories, with the last eight coming in the first two rounds. His other seven career wins all went the distance. All four of his career losses have occurred in his last eight fights and all four came early, with three KOs and one submission. While Moicano is extremely dangerous on the mat, he’s got a suspect chin on the feet and an over inflated ego that often gets him into trouble. With that said, he’s been doing a better job of using his grappling in his last two fights, but now he’ll face another high-level BJJ black belt who’s never been submitted in 43 pro fights.

Fight Prediction:

Moicano will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while also being 5 years younger than the 37-year-old Dos Anjos.

It’s not wonder that Dos Anjos opted to take a near ideal matchup in Moicano at 160 lb opposed to a near certain loss against Islam Makhachev at 170 lb. This looks like a great stylistic matchup for Dos Anjos as he’s a 4th degree BJJ black belt who’s never been submitted in 43 pro fights and Moicano has never knocked anyone out or been past the third round. So as long as Dos Anjos can avoid getting submitted early, it’s unlikely Moicano will be prepared to remain competitive in the later rounds after taking this fight on just a few days’ notice. It’s also unlikely that Moicano lands his first career knockout, although his striking actually looked decent in his last fight. That leaves Moicano reliant on handing Dos Anjos his first career submission loss in the opening 10 minutes, and since that’s unlikely to happen, we like Dos Anjos to win this fight. There are multiple ways he could get it done, but essentially we either expect him to knock Moicano out early if the fight remains on the feet or to outlast Moicano and finish him late. For what it’s worth, Dos Anjos hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2015 and his only two finishes since then both ended in submissions. Despite the fact that six of Dos Anjos’ last seven fights have gone the distance, it would be surprising to see Moicano’s gas tank last 25 minutes. However, if Dos Anjos doesn’t really push for the finish it’s always possible he just grinds on an exhausted Moicano for the duration of the match, but it remains less likely. Either way, we expect Dos Anjos to win this fight.

Our favorite bet here is Dos Anjos ML at -178 (or -130 on PointsBet as of 10 AM EST Friday).

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Dos Anjos is wildly mispriced on DraftKings at just $7,300 because pricing was released when he was a +200 underdog against Rafael Fiziev. After Fiziev dropped out and Moicano stepped in, Dos Anjos became a -180 favorite but his DraftKings price tag was already locked in. So this is the ultra rare spot where we get a mispriced favorite in a five-round fight. Obviously that will drive Dos Anjos’ ownership up through the roof.

So in this fight, we have two fighters priced as underdogs, which makes it much harder for the winner to get left out of tournament winning lineups. However, that’s not to say it can’t happen. For the winner to get left out, they would need to be outscored by at least two and probably three underdogs as well as 3-4 favorites.

In 2021, 2 of the 12 (16.7%) winning underdogs on single five-round cards were left out of the winning DraftKings Lineup (Derrick Lewis $6,800/82.8 DK points in a R2 KO over Curtis Blaydes & Norma Dumont $7,800/73.81 DK points in a decision win over Aspen Ladd). In multi five-round cards, 2 of the 7 (28.6%) winning underdogs were left out of the DraftKings winning lineup—amazingly on the same card (Julianna Pena $6,500/109.55 DK points in a R2 submission over Amanda Nunes & Charles Oliveira $7,600/94.43 DK points in a R3 submission win over Dustin Poirier). In fairness, Pena was in the true optimal, but no one hit it. But that still leaves 3 of the 19 (15.8%) underdogs who won five-round fights in 2021 left out of tournament winning lineups. The best comp for this upcoming matchup is Charles Oliveira, based on his grappling fighting style. His early third round submission win scored decently at 94.43 DraftKings points, but he was still outscored by 10 other fighters on the slate, including four other underdogs, and didn’t end up in the winning lineup despite his $7,600 price tag. So anyone that says it’s not possible for the winner to get left out here simply isn’t paying attention. A back and forth fight followed by a mid round finish could absolutely leave the winner of this matchup on the outside looking in, but it’s still far more likely that whoever wins does end up in the winning lineup. Winning large-field DFS tournaments isn’t just about playing for what should happen, it’s about what can happen. And this concentrated ownership presents the ultimate high-risk strategy as these two fighters project for nearly 90% combined ownership. So while we’re not suggesting you fade this fight, the leverage play is to have less combined ownership than the field.

This looks like a good stylistic matchup for Dos Anjos, as he’s never been submitted and Moicano has never knocked anybody out. Dos Anjos has historically scored well with DraftKings totals of 135, 99, 132, 102, 76 (R3 DEC), 101, 148, 95 (R3 DEC), 107, and 111 in his last 10 fights. So the only times he’s failed to score at least 99 points are in three round decisions, which are irrelevant here. With that said, he’s now 37 years old and hasn’t fought since November 2020, which are both red flags. He’ll also face another BJJ black belt in this matchup, so it’s possible we see less grappling, which could lower his scoring potential. Furthermore, Dos Anjos hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2015, which is Moicano’s biggest vulnerability. Considering Moicano took this fight on just a few days’ notice and has never been past the third round, it would be surprising to see his cardio hold up for a 25 minute fight and it will be interesting to see if he sells out early for a finish or slows the pace initially to try and preserve his cardio. A preservation approach would also lower the scoring potential and increase the chances that this fight gets left out of tournament winning lineups. Dos Anjos has fought to decisions in 6 of his last 7 fights, with five of those going 25 minutes, so he has no problem grinding out decision wins in five round fights. However, we’d be surprised to see Moicano make it that long and we are expecting this fight to most likely end early. As long as Dos Anjos can avoid suffering his first career submission loss early in the fight, we like him to get the win and the most likely scenario is that he ends up in the winning lineup at insane ownership, but it’s definitely not a certainty. The odds imply Dos Anjos has a 62% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

Moicano’s last seven fights have all ended in the first two rounds (4-3) and his combination of high-level grappling and glass chin generally make for the perfect combination when we’re looking for fights to target in DFS. However, now he faces another high-level BJJ black belt who rarely knocks anybody out, so it will be interesting to see how this matchup plays out. It would make sense for the fight to be close in the first two rounds with Moicano fading late as he took the fight on just a few days’ notice and has never been past the third round. That likely leaves him reliant on a finish in the first half of the fight to get the victory. And with that in mind, all nine of his career finishes have come by submission, and Dos Anjos has never been submitted in 43 pro fights. So on paper at least, this looks like a terrible matchup for Moicano to get the victory, even if he hadn’t taken the fight on such short notice. Working in Moicano’s favor from a tournament perspective, Dos Anjos projects to be three times as popular as Moicano, so if Moicano can somehow pull off the upset, he’ll be a massive leverage play. His last four wins were good for DraftKings scores of 97, 126, 122, and 115, so if he can get a finish he’s very likely to end up in winning lineups unless underdogs go absolutely wild on this slate and Moicano has more of a floor performance, which is also possible. The odds imply Moicano has a 38% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #1

Colby Covington

15th UFC Fight (11-3)

Coming off his second loss to Kamaru Usman in his last three fights, Covington was able to survive to see a decision this time but trailed in significant strikes, total strikes, knockdowns and takedowns in the match. Usman nearly finished him on the feet in the second round as he landed a pair of knockdowns, but Covington was able to survive and Usman didn’t really look to push for the finish despite having him clearly hurt. Covington was able to make the fight competitive in the later rounds, but overall it was a much less exciting match than the first time they squared off and it seemed like both guys were playing it safe. Usman won a unanimous decision as he finished ahead in significant strikes 123-107, in total strikes 158-119, in knockdowns 2-0, and landed his only takedown attempt while Covington went 0 for 11. For comparison, the first time they fought it lasted 50 seconds less than the full 25 minutes, with Usman leading in significant and total strikes 175-143 and in takedowns 2-0, while no takedowns were attempted.

Those are Covington’s only two losses in his last 10 fights dating back to his first career loss, which ended in a 2015 first round guillotine choke defeat against Warlley Alves. While five of Covington’s first six UFC fights ended early, six of his last eight have gone the distance. The two exceptions were when he got knocked out in the 5th round by Usman in 2019, and when Tyron Woodley verbally tapped in the 5th round of Covington’s next fight in 2020. His last five fights have all been scheduled to go five rounds and all of those made it to the 5th round, with three going the distance. His three fights prior to those all ended in three-round decisions.

In his lone win since 2019, Covington defeated a thoroughly washed 38-year-old Tyron Woodley in September 2020. The fight ended in a R5 TKO by verbal forfeit as Woodley clearly had no desire/ability left to fight. Even in an emotionally driven matchup against Colby Covington, Woodley showed zero motivation to win. He seemingly tried to get the doctor to stop the fight in the third round for an eye graze, before eventually quitting via a verbal tap for an alleged rib injury in the 5th round. Covington finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 78-34 and in total strikes 232-67 in a boring match that was spent largely out of the clinch. He landed three of his eight takedowns attempts with 12 minutes of control time, while Woodley landed his only attempt. That was Woodley’s third straight loss at the time and after losing one more afterwards he was released from the UFC.

Covington’s second most recent win was in August 2019 against another aging fighter in the midst of a four fight losing streak in 37-year-old Robbie Lawler. Like everyone does, Covington was able to land a ton of significant strikes against Lawler, as he outlanded him 179-78 in a five-round decision. Covington also completed 10 of his 18 takedown attempts with nearly nine minutes of control time. For context, that was the third time in his last five matches that Lawler has absorbed 150 or more significant strikes in a fight and he’s essentially a punching back at this point in his career. He most recently absorbed 150 significant strikes from a dilapidated Nick Diaz in less than 10 minutes of action (13.98 SSL/min).

With just one early win since 2016, Covington has settled into being a novelty sideshow decision grinder, who competes just one a year. Taking a closer look at Covington’s finishes early in his career, most of them didn’t age well. He landed a R1 TKO in his 2014 UFC debut against Anying Wang who finished his pro MMA career with an impressively terrible 2-4 record. Covington then submitted Wagner Silva Gomes, who went 0-2 in the UFC with two submission losses. Following a decision win in his third UFC fight over journeyman Mike Pyle, Covington then was submitted in the first round by Warlley Alves in 2015. He bounced back from the loss with a submission win of his own with a 2016 round three rear-naked choke against Jonathan Meunier, who finished his UFC career just 1-1. Covington then got a tougher test in a debuting Max Griffin and was able to finish Griffin with a third round TKO, which is the last time we saw Covington actually finish anybody (aside from Woodley quitting) and the only time he’s ever finished anybody half decent in the UFC. So just to summarize all that, Covington has five finishes in his 11 UFC wins, with four of those coming in 2016 or prior. The UFC records of the opponents in his first four finishes were 1-0 (just two pro fights), 0-1, 0-0, and 0-0. The 5th “finish” came against Woodley, who was essentially a training dummy at that point in his career and literally quit in the 5th round. It’s no wonder that he’s been to so many decisions in his recent fights when he’s yet to show the ability to finish high-level opponents.

Looking at his entire pro career, Covington is now 16-3, with four TKOs, four submissions and eight decision wins. He’s been knocked out once and submitted another time, while his only career decision loss came in his most recent fight. He’s been to at least the third round in 10 straight fights and 12 of his last 13.

A former DI college wrestler, Covington doesn’t possess one punch KO power, but he excels at putting non-stop pressure on his opponents with an uptempo pace of striking and grappling. He’s landed at least one takedown in 11 of his 14 UFC fights, with the two exceptions coming against Usman (twice) and Demian Maia. Covington notably switched teams from American Top Team to MMA Masters in May 2020 after ATT got tired of dealing with his bullshit.

Jorge Masvidal

21st UFC Fight (12-8)

Similarly looking to bounce back from a pair of losses to Usman, Masvidal hasn’t won a fight since 2019 when he was awarded a third round TKO win due to a doctor stoppage following the third round against Nate Diaz. His only other two wins in his last seven fights dating back to 2017 were against Ben Askren, who was one more loss away from retirement, and Darren Till, who has now gone 1-4 in his last five matches.

In his last fight against Usman, Masvidal got taken down twice on two attempts by Usman in the first round, with 102 seconds of control time. The second round didn’t last long, but it remained entirely on the feet as Usman looked for a way in and then quickly closed the show with a violent right hand in a highlight reel for the ages. That was the first time Masvidal has been knocked out in the UFC and just the second KO/TKO loss of his career, with the first coming all the way back in 2008. The only other two times Masvidal has been finished in his 50-fight pro career both came by submission, in a 2005 R1 rear-naked choke and a 2009 R3 inverted triangle choke.

Now 35-15 as a pro, Masvidal has 16 wins by KO, two by submission, and 17 decisions. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted twice more, and has 11 decision losses. His last five wins have all come by KO, while 10 of his last 11 losses have gone the distance.

Masvidal has been taken down two or more times in five of his last 12 fights, and has gone 1-4 in those matches, which doesn’t bode well for his chances against a wrestler like Covington. Interestingly, four of his last six decision losses have been split, although his last two have both been unanimous. Masvidal started his career at 155 lb before moving up to 170 lb in 2015 where he’s stayed since. He went 5-2 at 155 lb in his first seven UFC fights before going 7-6 since moving up to 170 lb.

While Masvidal owns a 75% career takedown defense, if we look just at his 12 fights since moving up to 170 lb, that drops down to a slightly less impressive 65% defense, as he’s been taken down 19 times on 54 attempts since moving up a weight class in 2015. Usman landed 5 takedowns on 16 attempts in their first matchup and both of his attempts in their last fight. While Nate Diaz went 0 for 2 and Ben Askren didn’t attempt a takedown in the five seconds that fight lasted, Darren Till landed his only attempt ub 2019 and Demian Maia landed 4 on 12 attempts. So while Masvidal hasn’t been easy to takedown, his defenses are far from impenetrable.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’11” but Masvidal will have a 2” reach advantage. Covington is three years younger than the 37-year-old Masvidal.

These two have one combined win since 2019 and that was when Covington defeated the corpse of Tyron Woodley in September 2020. They’re both more concerned with their personas outside of the Octagon than their performances inside of it, so it will be interesting to see just how hungry they each look in this fight. Covington should come in looking to wrestle, while Masvidal will want to keep it a boxing match. We expect Covington to be able to control Masvidal for extended periods of time and make this fight ugly. It’s unlikely we see this fight end early and look for Covington to outgrapple his way to a decision win.

Our favorite bet here is “Masvidal Finish Only” on DraftKings at +140.

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DFS Implications:

Covington’s grappling-heavy fighting style has a safer floor on DraftKings than FanDuel, but he’s shown a massive ceiling on both sites. His last five fights have all been scheduled to go five rounds (3-2), and all five have made it to the 5th round, with three going the distance. In his three wins, he put up DK/FD totals of 139/90, 172/187, and 136/121. The only two fighters to keep him below 116 DraftKings points in his last 10 fights have been Kamaru Usman (twice) and Demian Maia. Those are the only three fights in Covington’s UFC career where he failed to land a takedown. While Masvidal has a solid 75% career takedown defense, that number has dropped down to 65% since he moved up to 170 lb in 2015. So while it could be tougher for Covington to land double digit takedowns, he should still be able to complete a good number, while also tacking on a large amount of control time and striking. We expect this fight to go five rounds so he should have ample opportunity to fill up the stat sheet and we expect him to put up a big score in a decision win. He has the highest scoring floor and ceiling of any fighter on the slate and will be owned accordingly by over 50% of the field. The odds imply he has a 73% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

With his last five victories all coming by KO, Masvidal has unsurprisingly scored well when he wins. While that appears to be his only plausible path to victory here, if he did somehow win a decision that would almost certainly score well enough to be useful at his cheap price tag. And considering 10 of his last 11 losses have gone the distance, it also makes sense to stack this fight in low-risk contests on DraftKings, as he should contribute at least something in a loss. In tournaments, Masvidal will be a massive leverage play if he can pull off the upset, just keep in mind this is a really tough matchup for Masvidal to get the finish he likely needs. Covington has only been knocked out once in his career and that came in the 5th round against Kamarau Usman. Either way, we expect the winner of this fight to end up in tournament winning lineups. The odds imply Masvidal has a 27% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.

Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter @dfs_mma with your winnings so we can see how you did!

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