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Fighter Notes:
Tyson Nam
4th UFC Fight (1-2)After losing his first two UFC fights, Nam is coming off a recent 32 second R1 KO of late replacement fighter Zarrakh Adashev, who looked like the guy in a bar who claims he could win a UFC fight. Nam has only been finished early three times in 30 pro fights—all three by KO. The first two times were in 2006 and 2008 and then most recently in 2013 against current #3 ranked Bantamweight Marlon Moraes. Since the KO loss to Moraes, Nam has gone 14 fights over 7+ years without being finished early. He has also never been submitted, which is important to note in this matchup.
Nam was scheduled to fight Matt Schnell last week before Schell had to withdraw right before weigh-ins due to a weight cutting issue. Meaning this fight against Rivera was scheduled on less than a week's notice, although Nam had at least already been training for a fight.
Nam has not allowed a takedown in his three UFC fights, although the only fighter who’s attempted one on him was Kai Kara-France who went 0 for 4.
Jerome Rivera
1st UFC Fight (0-0)A rangey submission specialist making his UFC debut at 25 years old, Rivera is still pretty raw with just 12 pro fights under his belt. He’s coming off a R3 decision win on the Contender Series a little over a month ago where he only landed 48 SS and was 0/5 on takedowns with 0 submission attempts. He is on a three fight win streak, with the two wins prior to the recent decision both coming early via R2 Triangle Choke and R1 Armbar. Four of his last five and nine of his last 12 pro fights have ended early. Those numbers could give him a slight boost in ownership Saturday but we’re still projecting him in the single digits.
Rivera’s only “TKO” loss came on a freak arm injury in a 40 second loss against Brandon Royval where it appeared Rivera’s elbow dislocated as he pushed off the cage. It seems unfair to count that as a TKO but that’s how it goes down.
It seems like both of these fighters are good at defending the strengths of the other, which leads us to believe this could end in a lower scoring decision for Nam. If it does end early it will likely be either by a Nam KO or a Rivera submission, with the Nam KO being the more likely outcome.
TJ Laramie
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut a little over a month after getting a R1 KO on the Contender Series, 22-year-old Laramie is a stocky 145 lb 5’6” up-and-comer. He’s only been defeated three times in his career and two of those were against the same opponent. Alex Morgan is the only fighter to ever KO Laramie, and he did it twice—in 2017 and then most recently in 2018. Laramie’s only other loss came in a decision early in his career back in 2016.
He has seven career KO wins and two wins by submission. Eleven of his 15 pro fights have ended early although two of the four decisions came in his last three fights, including a five rounder. He also has two R1 KO’s in his last four outings. Laramie has never been submitted, which will almost surely be tested by Minner given the opportunity. This was one of the two fights hyped by Dana.
Darrick Minner
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Submission specialist Darrick Minner had a tough UFC debut on just 11 days notice, against smothering wrestler Grant Dawson (16-1) who came into the fight a few pounds overweight to make things even tougher. Minner was unable to submit Dawson, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort. Dawson seemed to wear down Minner over the course of R1 until he was able to submit him early into R2. Dawson almost ended the fight at the end of R1 but Minner was saved by the bell.
Minner is 7-5 in his last 12 fights, which have all ended early (11 by submission & 1 by KO). Seven of those ended in R1, while the other five only lasted until R2. The lone KO came in a R2 loss against Kevin Croom, who just stunningly upset Roosevelt Roberts 31 seconds into R1 last Saturday with a Guillotine Choke submission. Minner’s other recent loss came against Herbert Burns on a R1 submission in the Contender Series. Going back a little farther, he was also submitted by Jordan Griffin, who we’re not saying is an exceptional talent but he is in the UFC, just like the other three opponents who have most recently beaten Minner.
Minner is a decent betting underdog, starting the week at +235 and working his way up to +260 by Friday aftertoon. So while it’s unlikely he wins, in the chance he does, it will very likely score well—especially on FanDuel where you score points for submission attempts. And on the flipside, if he loses that will also likely come early, in which case Laramie should score well. We like having exposure to both of these fighters in DFS. In terms of picking the most likely outcome, we think Laramie wins in late R1 or early R2, but the only real surprise would be if this fight made it the distance.
Andre Ewell
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Ewell comes into this fight having alternated wins and losses over his five fight UFC career. All three of his UFC wins have come by decision, while both losses came early (slightly). The two losses were against legit opponents in Marlon Vera (R3 KO) and Nathaniel Wood (R3 SUB). Ewell has yet to show any sort of usable DFS ceiling with DraftKings scores of 70, 25, 67, 8, 72 in his 5 UFC fights.
He does have 7 KO’s and 4 submissions on his pro resume, but those also came earlier in his career. Here are the records of the opponents he was able to finish early: 1-18, 2-5, 0-13, 1-11, 0-3, 0-12, 12-7, 0-1, 8-2, 6-4-1, 11-6. We’ll save you the time and do the math for you, that’s a combined record of 41-82-1. Not too good.
Ewell will have a 2” height advantage and a 7” reach advantage in this matchup as he often does.
Irwin Rivera
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off his first UFC win in two attempts, Irwin has been involved in two low-volume decisions where he only landed 36 and 34 significant strikes respectively. Those were good for 61 and 17 points on DraftKings. Rivera did win his three fights prior to joining the UFC by KO, but two of those were in R4 of five round fights. Rivera has been KO’d twice in his pro career but has never been submitted.
This sets up as one of the easiest fights to fade in DFS (so for sure it’s going to be in the optimal) as neither guy has ever scored well and it’s one of the most likely fights to end in a decision according to Vegas. The only reason to play either fighter is to be contrarian, and even then we think there are better options elsewhere. We think Ewell ends up winning this in another close low scoring decision.
Journey Newson
3rd UFC Fight (0-1, NC)Newson is coming off a 38 second R1 KO victory that was later overturned to a NC because of a meaningless failed drug test for smoking the reefer. He came into the UFC on a six fight win streak that included five early finishes, but lost his short notice UFC debut in a three round decision against Ricardo Ramos. In that fight, Newson only landed 38 significant strikes and was 0/1 on takedowns with one submission attempt, showing he likely needs an early finish to score well in DFS. He also showed good quickness and power and a solid chin.
Newson has KO’d three of his last four opponents, with two of his last three fights ending in 80 seconds or less. He’s only been finished early once, which came in a R1 KO back in 2016.
Randy Costa
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Costa came into the UFC after winning all four of his pro fights in 71 seconds or less but then lost his UFC debut on a R2 Rear-Naked Choke submission. The loss came against oversized Bantamweight Brandon Davis. Prior to that fight, Davis had fought at both Lightweight (155 lb) and most recently Featherweight (145 lb) and after the fight while marveling that he was even able to make 135 lb, Joe Rogan asked him what he weighed at the moment and Davis said 160 lb.
Costa did bounce back with a R1 KO in his most recent fight and didn’t seem too affected by the loss. All six of his pro fights have ended in 6:12 or less and all five of his wins have ended in KO's in 2:15 or less.
This fight sets up to be a quick one as both guys have a tendency to look for early KO’s. Costa will notably have a 5” height advantage and 5.5” reach advantage, which should come in handy with his powerful straight punches. Costa sets up as one of the most intriguing underdog plays on the card and we think this will be reflected in his ownership. Whoever wins, we see them scoring highly as this should be a quick fight. We agree with the close Vegas line and could see this going either way, but we’ll go out on a limb and say Costa gets the early KO although it should be Newson who’s more desperate for a win.
Jessica-Rose Clark
5th UFC Fight (2-2)“Jessy Jess” Jessica-Rose Clark’s fight results are more redundant than her nickname. Here are the results from her last 11 fights:
R3 Decision L, R3 Decision L, R3 Decision W, R3 Decision W, R3 Decision W, R3 Decision L, R3 Decision L, R3 Decision W, R3 Decision NC, R3 Decision L, R3 Decision W.
She does have two KO’s and two submissions to her name, but all 4 came in her first 5 pro fights from 2012 to 2014 against questionable opponents. She throws above average volume at times but just isn’t much of a threat to end fights early.
Clark did put up one usable DFS score in her UFC debut, but it required a perfect storm of 101 significant strikes, 2 takedowns, 1 reversal and three advances in a decision win. That came against an opponent who allows 5.66 SS/min on average whereas her opponent Alpar this week only allows 3.79 SS/min. Note: Alpar’s SSA/min stat is based on just an eight minute sample size from her recent Contender Series fight so it’s possible she’s more of a punching bag than we think.
We do think Clark is a little more playable on FanDuel than on DraftKings. While she’s overpriced on DraftKings at $8900/18%, she’s tied for the cheapest favorite $16/16% on FanDuel. Going against a grappling heavy opponent will also give Clark the potential of scoring points on takedowns defended in addition to possible submission attempts if they do end up on the ground. Working against her on FanDuel is how the scoring heavily benefits early finishes, which she’s unlikely to pull off.
Sarah Alpar
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making her UFC debut on a three fight win streak, we last saw Alpar winning by way of a R2 submission on the Contender Series in August of 2019, now 13 months removed. She has finished 2 of her last 3 opponents early, so while she’s mostly an unknown there would at least appear to be some early finishing upside. As a wrestler, she offers some additional scoring upside on both DFS sites, just keep in mind we really don’t know what her floor is.
Considering this is Alpar’s first UFC fight and she’s coming off a 13 month layoff this is a tough fight to project. But there are some things we do know. First, Clark has never been submitted or KO’d in 15 pro fights, which puts a damper on the idea that this fight has much of a chance to end early. Second, Clark has a 1” height advantage, a 4” reach advantage and is almost certainly the more technically refined striker. So for Alpar to win it would likely need to come by way of ground control. And for her to score decently she would need to rack up takedowns and advances/submission attempts. Clark has a pretty average takedown defense at 62% over her career. Not great, not terrible, but good enough to most likely prevent an outlier performance by her opponent. Overall, it’s hard to see either lady scoring well enough to be in the optimal lineup. Most likely Clark wins this one in a medium scoring decision but it’s worth playing some Alpar in the hopes she can out wrestle Clark and sneak out an upset.
David Dvorak
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Dvorak is coming off a disappointing win in his UFC debut, but only in the sense that he didn’t finish the fight early as he had in his previous 14 fights. Impressively, nine of those 14 finishes came in R1. His last loss came in 2012 in a R2 KO, which was the only time he’s been finished early. While he does have a few decisions on his record, most of those came very early in his career. He has eight wins by KO and seven by submission (5 Rear-Naked Chokes, 1 Armbar & 1 Heel Hook). At only $8200 on DraftKings, Dvorak looks like an exceptional value.
Jordan Espinosa
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Espinosa will be dropping back down to 125 lb (where he fought the 6 previous fights) after fighting at 135 lb back in June in a decision win against Mark "Bumblebee" De La Rosa, who's on a 4 fight losing streak. The win brought Espinosa’s UFC record back to .500 after getting quickly submitted in R1 of consecutive fights by Arm Triangle and Triangle Choke in his previous two matches. Espinosa has four submission losses on his record with the other two both coming by Rear-Naked Choke. Notably, he has never been KO’d though.
Dvorak has won 2 of his last 4 fights in R1, while Espinosa has lost 2 of his last 3 fights in R1. This sets up as a great spot for Dvorak to win early. The fact that Dvorak’s first UFC fight went to a decision should help to keep his ownership lower than it should be. This will only be helped by the fact that Espinosa is coming off a win in which he landed a career high in strikes by a wide margin. We like Dvorak to win this one in the first two rounds, most likely by Rear-Naked Choke.
Mayra Bueno Silva
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off her first pro loss in her short six fight pro career, Bueno Silva won four of her first five fights in R1—including her UFC debut against Gillian Robertson. Three of her four early wins have come via submission (2 Armabrs & 1 Ninja Choke) but she did have one KO in her first pro fight. She suffered a knee injury in her UFC debut victory that forced her to take all of 2019 off before returning for her most recent loss.
Bueno Silva looks like a better play on FanDuel where she’s a little cheaper and will score points for takedowns defended and submission attempts.
Mara Romero Borella
7th UFC Fight (2-4)On a 3 fight skid, Borella is coming off a R1 Armbar submission loss to Courtney Casey. She’s now lost 4 of her last 5 matches and could be fighting to stay in the UFC. Three of her last four wins have come by decision, but she does have three submission finishes in her last six wins, including two in R1. Her jittery fighting style doesn’t include a lot of volume and she’s entirely dependent on an early finish to score well. In her six UFC fights, her only time scoring above 61 DraftKings points came on a R1 submission win in her UFC debut.
Borella looks like an easy fade in DFS, so the real question is whether or not to play much Bueno Silva. Her 9k price tag will surely keep her ownership down so an argument could be made to use her as a contrarian play. However on such a large slate it’s a little hard to see her outscoring enough of the other fighters to sneak into the optimal lineup. As mentioned above, she makes a little more sense on FanDuel but we would still tread lightly. We think this ends with a Bueno Silva decision win, but wouldn’t be completely surprised if she pulls off a submission. One thing to keep in mind is that even if she gets a R1 submission win she’s still not guaranteed to be a top scorer on the slate if she doesn’t do much else—just look at her UFC debut where she scored 96 points on DraftKings in a R1 win.
Mirsad Bektic
10th UFC Fight (6-3)After winning 6 of his first 7 UFC fights, Bektic finds himself on a two fight skid after losses to stiff competition in Dan Ige and Josh Emmett. Coming off a close split decision loss to Ige, Bektic’s prior two losses both came by KO—he has never been submitted in his career. Three of his last four wins came early, two in R1 and one in R2.
Bektic was originally scheduled to fight Eduardo Garagorri, before Garagorri tested positive for COVID mid fight week. Both DFS sites priced Bektic at or near the top of all fighters based on his opponent being Garagorri (13-1 & 1-1 in the UFC) when pricing was released. It’s hard to say if Jackson is dramatically better or worse than Garagorri, but at least in the eye’s of DraftKings they’re comparable as DraftKings didn’t change the price of the underdog in this fight when they added Jackson, which they could have.
Damon Jackson
4th UFC Fight (0-1-1, NC)Jackson had a brief three fight stint in the UFC from 2014 to 2016 but was shown the door after three fights that ended in a R2 Submission Loss, a No Contest, and a Draw (his opponent was deducted a point for an illegal knee and eye poke).
Since leaving the UFC, Jackson has gone 8-2, mostly in the LFA. His last nine fights have all ended early (six by submission and three by KO), including five in R1 and two in R2 in his last seven. Both of his losses over that period came by KO, including a 10 second KO in his second most recent fight.
As noted above, Jackson took this fight on short notice after Bektic’s original opponent dropped out due to COVID in the week leading up to the fight. Jackson will have a 3” height and reach advantage over Bektic.
We think Bektic turns things around here and gets a R1 KO victory, but it’s certainly possible Jackson pulls the upset. Either way we think this ends early and is a fight you likely want to target.
Kevin Holland
8th UFC Fight (5-2)Fresh off his second KO win in the last four months, Holland will have a 3” height and 7” reach advantage in his appointment with the “The Dentist”. Holland has slowly made people forget that he failed to score over 71 DraftKings points in 4 of his first 5 UFC fights (3-2). In fairness though, he dislocated his shoulder in at least one of those. As far as we’re aware, that injury hasn’t reared its ugly head since the Di Chirico fight, but chronic injuries are always something to be wary of.
Holland’s only two UFC losses came in a R2 RNC submission against talented grappler Brendan Allen, and a R3 decision against Thiago Santos. Five of his seven UFC fights have made it to R3 but his last three all ended early.
He’s scored over 100 DraftKings points in his last two fights and 3 of his 7 total UFC fights. However, he hasn’t scored above 71 points in any of his three decisions, which leads us to believe he would need an early finish to score well in this one. This was one of the two fights hyped by Dana.
Darren Stewart
10th UFC Fight (5-3, NC)Stewart started his UFC career in less than ideal fashion kicking it off with a NC (Accidental Clash of Heads in R1) before losing three straight, including two early submission losses. He was however able to right the ship somewhat, landing a R2 KO in both of his next two fights. However, he was then relegated to the Ultimate Fighter where he lost in a decision against Shahbazyan in the finale. Despite the loss, he did get invited back into the UFC and proceeded to win his first two fights back, both in decisions.
When the UFC was temporarily shut down in the Spring due to COVID, Stewart opted to fight on Cage Warriors, and lost in a smothering decision against Fabinski. He then most recently returned to the UFC with a R1 submission win over Maki Pitolo. This was notably Stewart’s first career submission win and the first fight in his last five not to end in a decision.
Neither of these fighters have ever been KO'd, but each guy has been submitted twice. Both guys fought on the August 8th card, just six weeks prior to this fight, and both landed early finishes. Fresh on people’s minds, that could slightly bump up their ownership in what seems more likely than not a fight that ends in a lower volume decision. Looking at both fighter’s low average of significant strikes absorbed, this fight seems to have a higher bust potential than one might initially think. Add that to the fact that both guys typically rely on KO’s to score early finishes, yet neither fighter has ever been KO’d, and we seem to have the perfect recipe for a bust.
Holland certainly has the talent to flush all those stats down the toilet and end this one early, but we at least see enough reason not to be overweight on him. It’s highly unlikely Stewart wins unless something crazy happens like Holland re-dislocating his shoulder or slipping on a banana peel. We’ll take Holland by decision in this fight.
Mackenzie Dern
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Now 8-1 as a pro and 3-1 in the UFC, Dern is coming off a R1 submission win against human stat-booster Hannah Cifers. Dern’s only pro loss came via decision against Amanda Ribas (10-1 and undefeated in the UFC) in 2019. A submission specialist, Dern has four R1 submission wins in her nine fight pro career—including two in her last three fights. All of her other fights have made it to R3 with three of those four ending in decisions.
At only $16 on FanDuel, Dern seems like the value play of the week, tied with Jessy Jess Jess for the cheapest favorite.
Randa Markos
15th UFC Fight (6-7-1)Not counting her one draw, Markos has alternated wins and losses over her entire UFC career going back to 2014. Her last three fights and 8 of her last 9 all ended in decisions. Surprisingly, she has never been involved in a fight where someone got KO’d. She's only been submitted one time, which was a R1 armbar by Courtney Casey in 2016.
The only time Markos scored over 86 DraftKings points was a R1 submission win against Angella Hill in 2019. In her last 10 fights she’s averaged 82.5 DraftKings points in her wins and 26.8 points in her losses. She would need a R1 finish to put up a usable score in DFS. In a slate with 28 fighters, we think you need to completely fade a few. Markos is one of those fades for us. For us, it’s just a question of whether Dern can get the submission or not and we’ll say she gets it done.
Johnny Walker
6th UFC Fight (3-2)This fight was originally going to happen on September 5th but Walker tested positive for COVID while training for that date and asked that it be pushed back a couple of weeks. Derailing his hype train, Walker is coming off back to back losses, after winning his first three UFC fights. Four of his five UFC fights have ended in R1. Prior to getting KO’d in R1 of his second most recent fight, he had won nine straight, all by KO, with seven ending in R1. Of his 22 pro fights, 20 have ended early, 16 in R1. He claims to have made several changes in his life and that he’s 100% focused on training and eating right, and “No partying, no going out.”
His kinetic fighting style and one punch power make for unpredictable action and a non-existent DFS floor—for both him and his opponents. He typically throws more faints and fakes than actual strikes as he tries to set up for a KO blow or an occasional illegal kick. In his four fights that ended in R1 he landed 1, 4, 7 and 10 significant strikes respectively. In his lone decision loss he only landed 37 significant strikes across three rounds. He does have a knockdown in all three of his UFC wins however, which is the only thing lifting his scores to usable levels.
Ryan Spann
5th UFC Fight (4-0)Riding an eight fight win streak, Spann’s four wins prior to joining the UFC all came in R1. However, since joining the UFC he’s only been able to finish one of his bouts in the first round—and that was against geriatric Antonio Nogueira. He did have a R2 submission win over Devin Clark but only landed 17 significant strikes and was a bust in DFS. His other two UFC fights both ended in low scoring decision wins.
Spann’s patient fighting style and relatively low striking volume make him completely dependent on a R1 finish to score well in DFS. He does have 14 R1 wins in 23 fights though, so it’s not as if that’s uncommon. Another thing Spann has going for him is that Walker tends to force the action, so both guys have a boosted potential for an early finish.
Spann has been KO’d twice in his career. Once by Karl Roberson in a 15 second R1 KO in a Contender Series fight back in 2017, and the other time in a 21 second R1 KO in 2014. He was also submitted once in R2.
This one feels like a coinflip and Vegas pretty much agrees. It makes sense to match the R1 KO %’s of both guys in your usage and let the chips fall where they may.
Khamzat Chimaev
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Guess who's back? Back again...Chimaev's back...Tell a friend.
Fresh off not one, but two dominating July performances spaced just 10 days apart, Chimaev comes in as a big favorite against officially offended veteran and neglected middle child Gerald Meerschaert. Meers had been scheduled to fight Ed Herman 7 weeks ago (on the infamous Trevin Giles fainting slate) before testing positive for COVID just hours before the fight. Meers took public offense to the UFC already discussing scheduling Chimaev for another fight in October against Maia, as if it was a given that Chimaev would win this first one and leave unscathed.
So in case you needed a little controversy, because it feels so empty without KC...
Anyways...guessing 98% of people reading this didn’t catch that reference and the other 2% didn’t care for it so let's move on.
Chiamev will be going back up to 185 lb, where he fought his UFC debut against Phillips, after dropping down to 170 lb to fight McKee. In a one-sided affair against Phillips, Chimaev savored his meal, allowing the “fight” to go into early round two before deciding to end things at the 6:12 mark. In those six minutes Chimaev landed 42 significant strikes, 2 takedowns and 2 advances, while taking no damage from Phillips. So why not run it back a week and a half later while dropping a weight class?
Against McKee, it was much of the same. Throw one punch, shoot for a take down, drag/carry his prey to his corner, and then smother/pummel it to death. In that fight he cut his finish time in half, down to 3:09.
In fairness, we have yet to see Chimaev face any sort of adversity—those first two opponents combined for one significant strike and even that may have been generous scorekeeping. This next test will be Chaimaev’s first opponent against a veteran with any UFC grappling experience.
Gerald Meerschaert
12th UFC Fight (6-5)Meerschaert comes in fresh off the previously mentioned COVID case and obviously with a chip on his shoulder. After starting his UFC career winning four of his first five fights, he’s now lost four of his last six. Impressively, all six of his UFC wins have come early, including five submissions. He was KO’d just a minute into his last fight but his two losses prior to that came in decisions. Nine of his 11 UFC fights have ended early, four in R1 (2-2). His four fights prior to his last one all made it to R3.
If you’re nervous to go all in on another young and mostly unproven fighter in Chimaev, after watching Hooper, Shahbazyan, Agapova and O’Malley all recently disappoint we can’t blame you—but we’re sticking with our boy on this one. Sure, of course you want to sprinkle in some Meerschaert if you’re making a bunch of lineups. It’s a fight and weird shit happens. But we think Chimaev ends this one early while likely showcasing a little more of his stand up game. Who knows maybe he’ll pin Meerschaert down while forcing him to hit himself or maybe dangle a loogie over his face. Either way, we’re looking for Chimaev to make a statement victory and silence at least some of the doubters.
Niko Price
12th UFC Fight (6-4-1)Both wildman Price and old man Cerrone (at least in UFC years) are coming off May 9th losses. Price duked it out for 13 and a half minutes in a close brawl with Luque before the doctor stopped it in R3. Price landed 129 significant strikes to Luque’s 130. Price also tacked on a takedown and an advance in that match. Price has alternated wins and losses over his last six fights—all 6 of those ended in KO's, with three in R1. The losses came against tough opponents in Luque, Neal and Alhassan (back when that guy couldn’t be stopped). His last 11 fights (6 wins, 4 losses, 1 NC) all ended early. Only 1 of his 18 pro fights has gone to a decision and that was pre UFC back in 2016. He’s only been submitted one time as a pro which came in 2017 in his first fight against Luque. He's scored at least 106 DraftKings points in 4 of his last 5 wins.
Donald Cerrone
36th UFC Fight (23-12)Cerrone finds himself on a four fight train wreck after three early KO losses against elite talent in Ferguson, Gaethje and McGregor, and then most recently coming off a decision loss to Anthony Pettis. This guy forgot to show up to his own retirement party. Having now fought an insane 51 pro fights since 2006 and 35 UFC fights since joining in 2011, Cerrone has lost 8 of his last 12 and looks like he’s running out of tread on the tires at 37 years old.
This fight sets up to score highly in DFS. Price’s last two wins both came in R1 and prior to his most recent decision loss, Cerrone had back-to-back R1 KO losses (and a R2 KO loss before that). Five of Cerrone’s last 12 fights have ended in R1 (2-3 in those 5), and 14 of his last 18 fights have ended early. The last time he had consecutive decisions was in 2015. We like Price to get the R1 KO in this one, but with his brawling approach it’s always possible Cerrone lands something clean and sneaks out a finish.
Colby Covington
13th UFC Fight (10-2)This will be universally-hated Colby Covington’s first fight back since getting his jaw broken by Usman last December. That was only Colby’s second career loss. Prior to the Usman stand-up brawl, Colby had won seven fights in a row including five straight decisions most recently—two 5 rounders and three 3 rounders. His only other pro loss came back in 2015 on a R1 submission against Warlley Alves.
In his last six fights Colby is averaging 5.18 significant strikes landed per minute while absorbing 3.68 SS/min. Colby is coming off two massively high volume fights, landing 143 and 179 significant strikes against Usman and Lawler respectively, with 10 takedowns against Lawler. We think people will be expecting something close to similar in this perfect let down spot—especially given the animosity between these two fighters and the media hype going into the bout. However, the only fighter to score well against Woodley in his last six fights was Usman. In many ways this fight has similar vibes to the Usman/Masvidal fight.
Tyron Woodley
15th UFC Fight (9-4-1)Woodley comes into this fight 38-years-old and on a two fight losing streak, both in 5 round decisions against Usman and Burns. His last KO victory came in 2016 against Robbie Lawler and 5 of his last 6 fights have ended in decisions. His last 7 fights have all been scheduled to go 5 rounds, so he’s very accustomed to dragging fights out for 25 minutes. While much of the hype is nudging us to give in to our collective desire to see Woodley KO Covington, the likelihood of that actually happening seems pretty low.
Sporting an elite 90% takedown defense and a history of lights out power, Woodley is typically a tough guy to score well against. He did allow two takedowns in each of his last two fights after only allowing three total takedowns in his 23 fights prior. He’s only been finished early once in his career, which came in a 2012 R4 KO. In his last six fights Woodley is averaging only 2.58 significant strikes landed per minute while also only absorbing 2.32 SS/min.
There seem to be three possible outcomes for this fight. The first, which has a puncher’s chance but we think is unlikely, would be for Woodley to land a square face shattering punch on Colby’s noise box ending the fight in round 1. The second would be for Colby to put up another high-volume attack en route to a high scoring decision, which is possible but we don’t think happens. The third option, and what we’re predicting, is a more similar result to Woodley’s recent fight against Burns where Woodley goes into defense mode and looks more like a wounded animal you have trapped in the corner. Woodley will keep the volume lower by threatening booming blows and when the fight gets close he’ll use his grappling to put the fight on pause.
Woodley’s dirt cheap price on DraftKings ($6900/14% of budget) will likely attract a decent amount of ownership for a large main event underdog, especially people betting with their hearts. He’s more expensive on FanDuel ($17/17% of budget), but his takedown defense could boost his score over there unless Colby just completely forgos attempting any, as he did against Usman. However, since we don’t see Woodley likely winning the fight we’re not excited about playing him on either site.
Colby should be the highest owned fighter on the slate unless Chimaev surprisingly squeaks out those honors. While we’re not suggesting you completely fade the main event we think you want to be a little under the field on both guys, which clearly goes against conventional wisdom in MMA DFS.