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Fighter Notes:
Fight #14
Shauna Bannon
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Bannon was originally scheduled to face Ravena Oliveira here, but Oliveira dropped out and Ardelean was announced as the replacement two weeks out.
Bannon is a year removed from a decision loss in her UFC debut against Bruna Brasil, who was able to take Bannon down twice and control her for three and a half minutes, while also stuffing both of Bannon’s attempts. The significant striking totals were almost even, with Brasil finishing ahead 56-54, but Bannon was landing a lot of push kicks and less impactful blows that weren’t doing any damage and even the broadcast was criticizing her point fighting style. The fight played out like a sparring session and at no time was it even remotely close to ending early. That July 2023 loss came just 15 months after Bannon made her pro debut in April 2022 and she’s still very early in her career. Her last four fights all went the distance (3-1), after she landed a pair of ground and pound TKOs in her first two pro fights.
Now 5-1 as a pro, Bannon has two TKO wins and three decision victories. Both of her TKO wins came in under eight minutes. She hasn’t faced much in the way of competition and her five pre-UFC opponents entered her fights with records of 1-1, 3-0, 3-0-1, 1-2, and 6-4. Bannon fought as high as 145 lb as an amateur, but worked her way down to 125 lb by the end of her amateur career and then cut to 115 lb when she turned pro. She did have one pro fight back up at 125 lb, but the rest of her pro fights have been at 115 lb.
Overall, Bannon has a kickboxing background and is a black belt in Taekwondo, which is clear when you see the way she fights. Her dad owns a kickboxing gym and both her and her sister have spent their entire lives kickboxing. She has numerous kickboxing accolades, but is still very green when it comes to MMA. With that said, she did show some grappling abilities on the regional scene and likes to get opponents down and beat them up on the mat, while looking for occasional submissions. However, her wrestling is poor and we’ve also seen her get controlled for extended periods of time on her back or along the fence. She trains with Molly McCann, who will share the card with her, but the same was true in her UFC and she still lost. It will be interesting to see what improvements Bannon has made in the year since we last saw her. It’s crazy to think that almost as much time has passed between her UFC debut until now as between her pro debut and her UFC debut. So theoretically she could have grown a lot, although she is already 30 years old and we’re not entirely sure just how serious she is about progressing as a fighter.
Alice Ardelean
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making her UFC debut on short notice, Ardelean is coming off almost a year long layoff following a first round submission win against an 0-3 opponent on the Romanian regional scene. That came after Ardelean won in a post R1 doctor stoppage TKO against a 2-0 opponent who looked like she had never fought before. Just before that Ardelean defeated another world class 0-1 opponent in a quick 55 second TKO via ground and pound. While she won all three of those fights on the mat, her fight leading up to those was a pure striking battle where she won an uneventful decision against a 3-4 opponent. While Ardelean has won five straight fights against a series of people they seemingly pulled out of the crowd, she started her career 4-5 and has a pair of submission losses against Diana Belbita and Zhang Weili. The Weili fight went as anyone would have expected with Weili absolutely dominating Ardelean on the mat for two rounds before locking up a rear-naked choke late in round two.
Now 9-5 as a pro, Ardelean has four wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and one decision win. She’s never been knocked out, but she’s been submitted by the only two legitimate fighters she ever faced and also has three decision losses. All of Ardelean’s wins need to be taken with a dump truck full of salt, as they came against opponents who entered with records of 0-3, 2-0, 0-1, 3-4, 3-0, 1-0, 0-4, 0-0, and 0-3. That’s good for a combined record of just 9-15. Here three decision losses were against opponents who came in with records of 1-3-1, 4-4, and 1-0, so she can’t even always win in these teed up matchups. Ardelean has competed at both 115 lb and 125 lb, and even all the way up at 132 lb early in her career. However, she’s only 5’3” and she’s not even a big Strawweight.
Overall, Ardelean is getting a shot in the UFC due to the size of her…we’ll go with “following” on TikTok/Onlyfans/etc. Let’s just be honest and acknowledge the fact that she’s done nothing to earn her spot on the roster in the biggest fighting organization in the world. The opponents she’s beaten in her wins are the level of fighter you would expect to face in your first ever professional fight, not your last before joining the UFC. That makes it tougher to even evaluate her skillset, but she at least looked aggressive in her last few wins, although that wasn’t really the case in her last decision victory. However, she does appear to have made some improvements since then, it’s just hard to know if they’re a mirage resulting from who she’s been facing. While she’s been able to finish opponents on the mat in her past few fights, she’s not a good wrestler/grappler and struggles off her back. She’s super green, despite turning “pro” all the way back in 2012, and is already 32 years old. She’s from Romania but trains in England, so it made some sense for the UFC to call her when they needed someone to step in on short notice and fill a slot, as that seems to be her area of expertise if you’ve seen any of her posts. Maybe she’s improved over the past year since we last saw her, but we can’t take her seriously at this point based on the tape we’ve watched and the level of competition she’s been facing. She’ll also be someone to keep an eye on during weigh-ins as she cuts back down to 115 lb on short notice.
Fight Prediction:
Bannon will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while also being two years younger than the 32-year-old Ardelean.
Both of these two spend half their time posting peach pics on social media, and it’s hard to take either one of them very seriously when it comes to fighting. Not that we’re morally objecting or anything, but for two fighters who desperately need to focus on refining their skills, they seem somewhat distracted. They’re both incredibly green and have tons of holes they need to shore up. However, Bannon is the much more technical striker and is at least training with UFC fighters. However, she lacks power and relies heavily on her kicking, which could make it tougher for her in a brawl. Bannon will either want a clean fight where she can dictate the action from the outside, or she’ll want to be in top position on the mat. We have seen her try to throw up submissions off her back, but she’s never actually completed one. Despite Ardelean coming down from 125 lb, Bannon is the taller and longer fighter, as Ardelean is just 5’3” with only a 62” reach. Action has been coming in on Ardelean, but it seems like that’s just people looking to fade Bannon or a lack of understanding of just how bad Ardelean’s recent opponents were. Ardelean was able to get by on pure aggression and physicality on the regional scene against a series of training dummies, but with the larger cage to work with, we think Bannon will have a good shot at controlling the range and outpointing her way to victory. With that said, they’re both so bad off their backs that a finish could present itself for either of them if this fight hits the ground. Ultimately this is an ultra low-level WMMA match, which carries a lot of inherent volatility, but Bannon by decision is the pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Shauna Bannon DEC” at +115.
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DFS Implications:
Bannon is coming off a loss in her UFC debut where she only scored 38 DraftKings points and showed us nothing to be excited about moving forward. She failed to land either of her two takedown attempts against a striker who has lost her other two UFC fights and was taken down in each of those losses. Bannon also landed just 54 significant strikes and got taken down twice herself and controlled on her back. She showed no power in her striking and nowhere close to enough volume to score well in a decision. When you combine that piss poor performance with her expensive price tag in this next fight, along with the line moving against her, absolutely no one will want to play her, despite the very favorable matchup she’s receiving. She’s taking on an Onlyfans star who is dropping down a weight class to make her UFC debut on short notice following a year layoff. If Bannon can’t win this matchup, we don’t need to see the next two fights on her contract, just cut her now. Bannon is the taller and longer fighter and should be able to land her kicks, but we don’t see her landing a knockout on the feet or putting up a big enough striking total to score well in a striking-heavy decision. That leaves her reliant on getting the fight to the ground and hunting for a finish. While we have very little confidence in Bannon’s skills, we have seen Ardelean struggle off her back. So if Bannon can take her down, she’ll have a shot at landing the finish she needs to score well. While that may be an unlikely scenario, she projects to be so low owned that it’s easy to gain leverage on the field and she looks like a good tournament play in this volatile influencer matchup. The odds imply Bannon has a 62% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Ardelean has given us no indication that she’s a good or even a decent fighter and her last win was against an 0-3 opponent. She was submitted in the only two fights of her career where she faced legitimate competition and is now making her UFC debut on two weeks’ notice, following a year layoff, while also dropping back down to 115 lb. The only two things she has going for her are that she’s generally pretty aggressive and her opponent is also bad. Maybe Ardelean has made improvements in her year away, but she’s already 32 years old and has never beaten a legitimate opponent. Working in her favor, she’s facing a fellow low-level fighter who has struggled with being taken down and controlled, which gives Ardelean a path to scoring well if she does win. However, we’re not buying that she belongs in the UFC and Bannon’s kick-heavy style is not really conducive to overall scoring production in fights that remain standing. So there are a wide range of scoring outcomes in this matchup and neither of the two project to be very highly owned, which adds to their tournament appeal in what looks like a volatile matchup between two low-level fighters. The odds imply Ardelean has a 38% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #13
Mick Parkin
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Still undefeated as a pro, Parkin is coming off his third straight decision win since joining the UFC a year ago. The most recent of those was against a low-level Heavyweight in Mohammed Usman, who Parkin outlanded 72-57, including 31 leg strikes. No takedowns were attempted by either man. Prior to that, Parkin defeated UFC newcomer Caio Machado, who Parkin took down three times and controlled for six and a half minutes to secure the win. However, Parkin wasn’t able to do much with the takedowns and never threatened a finish. Both guys slowed down in round three and limped to the finish line. Surprisingly, all three judges scored the first round for Machado and the third round for Parkin, despite Parkin landing two takedowns in the first round and controlling Machado for over two and a half minutes, and then failing to land a takedown in round three and getting outstruck by Machado 35-23 in the final five minutes. In the end, Parkin landed 3 of his 10 takedown attempts, while Machado finished ahead 76-39 in significant strikes. While that decision was close, in his UFC debut just before that, Parkin easily cruised to a unanimous 30-27 decision win in a pure striking battle against Jamal Pogues, finishing ahead 95-36 in significant strikes. That fight took place in front of Parkin’s home London crowd, as he fought alongside his teammate Tom Aspinall. However, just before that, Parkin fought in the Apex for his DWCS match and locked up a first round submission—the only submission win of his career. Parkin only turned pro in 2019, but finished his first six opponents in the first two rounds before joining the UFC. Prior to going on DWCS, he had exclusively been fighting on the English regional scene.
Now 9-0 as a pro, Parkin has five KO/TKO wins, one submission victory, and three decision wins. Four of his finishes ended in round one, with the other two coming in round two. After he finished his first three pro opponents in the first round, five of his last six fights saw round two, with his last three going the distance. None of Parkin’s first five pro opponents came in with winning records, and he hasn’t looked like much of a finishing threat since joining the UFC.
Overall, Parkin is an English Heavyweight, who spent the majority of his early career on the regional scene looking to take opponents down and finish them fight ground and pound on the mat. While he’s still pretty green, you can tell he’s been working on his striking and he’s been more comfortable on the feet since joining the UFC. He’s done a great job of attacking his opponents’ leg, with 42 leg kicks landed in his UFC debut and 31 in his last fight, although he only landed four against Caio Machado. However, Parkin is still pretty lumbering and doesn’t look very explosive with his striking. We did see Parkin look to wrestle more against Machado, but he didn’t look very dangerous on the mat and struggled to land takedowns later in the fight. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 5 of his 12 takedown attempts (41.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on two of their four attempts (50% defense). The fact that Parkin trains with Aspinall is encouraging for his continued growth as a fighter, and at just 28 years old, Parkin is still a baby in the Heavyweight division. He gets another easy matchup here as the UFC continues to try and build him up. He’ll also get to fight in front of his home crowd and claims he wants to secure his first UFC finish.
Lukasz Brzeski
5th UFC Fight (1-3)Coming off his first UFC win, Brzeski outlasted a debuting Valter Walker, who completely gassed out in the fight. Walker took Brzeski down four times on five attempts and controlled him for over seven minutes, but was far too content with just holding him on the mat and Brzeski finished ahead 58-33 in significant strikes and 135-56 in total strikes. Despite losing his first three UFC matches, the UFC still opted to re-sign Brzeski following that win, showing that they’re desperate for bodies at Heavyweight. Prior to his recent win, Brzeski was violently knocked out in the first round by Waldo Cortes-Acosta, who went the distance in all of his other five UFC fights. Brzeski came out firing leg kicks, but Cortes-Acosta put him on skates with a big right hand midway through the round and then face planted him into the Octagon floor in a highlight reel finish. Prior to that, Brzeski lost a pair of decisions in his first two UFC appearances. He got completely dominated in the wrestling exchanges in the most recent of those losses against Karl Williams, who took him down eight times on 13 attempts with over 10 minutes of control time, while also knocking him down once. Brzeski had absolutely no answers in that matchup, but gave a better account of himself in his UFC debut where he got robbed in a split decision against Martin Buday. Brzeski finished ahead in significant strikes 118-66 and in total strikes 124-66, while no other meaningful stats were accrued in the fight. Despite finishing well ahead in striking in all three rounds, two of the three judges mysteriously scored the fight for Martin Buday in a real head scratcher. Prior to the questionable decision loss in his UFC debut, Brzeski was involved in further controversy, after his DWCS match was stopped in the third round as the ref thought his short notice opponent tapped when he actually did not. It probably didn’t matter, as Brzeski was well ahead in the fight, and likely would have finished the choke anyway. Following the win, Brzeski was suspended for nine months after failing a drug test. Just before going on DWCS, Brzeski landed a May 2020 R2 TKO, which is his only official finish since 2018.
Now 9-4-1 as a pro, Brzeski has five wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and two decision victories—in addition to his third round submission win on DWCS that was later overturned to a No Contest due to Brzeski failing a drug test. He has two first round knockout losses and two decision defeats. While Brzeski has only been to five decisions in 15 pro fights, he saw the second round in 10 of his last 11 matches, with six of his last eight making it to round three and five of those going the distance.
Overall, Brzeski is a Polish striker and has trained with Jan Blachowicz, but is a smaller Heavyweight and doesn’t have much in terms of one punch knockout power at the weight class and his defensive wrestling has looked terrible. Between his four UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Brzeski landed two of his four takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 12 of their 19 attempts (36.8% defense). Both of the takedowns he landed were on DWCS and he’s yet to land a takedown in a UFC fight. He throws decent calf kicks and a good amount of volume, but we’ve also seen him slow down later in fights and have issues with his durability. He doesn’t look to be in the best shape and has only been weighing in between 235 lb and 245 lb, so you have to wonder if he should really be competing at Light Heavyweight instead of Heavyweight.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’4” but Parkin will have a 1” reach advantage. Parkin is also four years younger than the 32-year-old Brzeski.
While Parkin’s wins haven’t been flashy, he knows how to win fights and has looked very composed for such a young Heavyweight. He’s durable, well-rounded, and should be improving between every fight. He trains with Aspinall and will get to fight in front of his home crowd against a terrible opponent in Brzeski. We expect Parkin to patiently pick Brzeski apart on the feet and he should also be looking to take him down, as Brzeski’s defensive wrestling has been terrible (36% takedown defense). The only real question we have is whether or not Parking can finish Brzeski or if he wins his fourth straight decision. The betting market is expecting it to go the distance close to 60% of the time, but that still leaves a decent amount of room for Parkin to land a finnish, which he claims he’ll be going for. He hasn’t been even remotely close to finishing any of his previous three opponents, so we’re still going to say he wins a decision here, but if he was ever going to finish anybody, this would be one of his better opportunities.
Our favorite bet here is “Mick Parkin DEC” at +105.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.
DFS Implications:
Parkin has won three straight decisions since joining the UFC almost exactly a year ago, but only averaged 70 DraftKings points in those wins, failing to top 83 in any of them. While he’s looked pretty solid overall, he doesn’t push the pace enough to score well without a finish. We saw him look to wrestle more on the regional scene where he had a 100% finishing rate before joining the UFC, but that could speak more to the level of competition he had been facing. Nevertheless, it does leave us with some hope that he could come in with a more wrestling-heavy gameplan, especially considering how terrible Brzeski has looked on the mat. And if Parkin can get his wrestling going AND find a finish, then he could be looking at a truly massive score. It’s still more likely that he wins another average scoring decision and fails to return value at his expensive salary, but at his low projected ownership you he looks like a decent tournament play in a great matchup. The odds imply Parkin has a 75% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Brzeski is coming off his first UFC win, but only scored 75 DraftKings points in the close/sloppy decision victory. And even in that win, he was still taken down four times and only came out ahead because Valter Walker completely gassed out. That came after Brzeski started out 0-3 in the UFC and was violently knocked out in the last of those losses. He’s consistently struggled with being taken down and is undersized at Heavyweight, as he’ll be giving up 30+ pounds in this matchup against Parkin. That could be especially problematic for Brzeski if Parkin decides to wrestle, and it will be tough for Brzeski to get the larger opponent off of him. Parkin looks better than Brzeski everywhere and has also been very durable, so unless Parkin completely gasses himself out wrestling, we don’t see any likely paths to victory for Brzeski. And even if he does somehow win, he’s yet to show the ability to score well without a finish. The odds imply Brzeski has a 25% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
Sam Patterson
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Patterson is coming off his first UFC win and also his first pro fight up at 170 lb. He took on a low-level power puncher in Yohan Lainesse, who went 1-3 in the UFC with three early losses and a questionable, low-volume split decision in his lone win. Lainesse curiously looked to engage in the grappling with Patterson, at which point Patterson was able to drag Lainesse to the mat, take his back, and quickly lock up a rear-naked choke. Prior to that, Patterson was violently knocked out in just 75 seconds in his UFC debut at 155 lb. The 6’3” Patterson then decided to move up from 155 lb to 170 lb for the first time and he’s so tall it’s kind of crazy he could even make 155 lb. Prior to getting knocked out in his debut, Patterson hadn’t lost a fight since 2017, in his second pro bout. He went 9-0-1 in between those two losses, with eight of those wins ending early. His last four wins all ended in the first two rounds, including three in round two, with three submissions and one TKO. He had been competing with the Brave CF organization, before going on DWCS in 2022, where he punched his ticket to the UFC with a second round submission victory. He has a R1 KO win over former UFC fighter Felipe Silva, but the washed up Silva went 1-2 in the UFC and has now been knocked out in the first round in three straight fights and has been finished in 5 of his last 6 matches. Patterson’s last two opponents before going on DWCS had both lost three of their last four fights, so overall Patterson hadn’t been facing the toughest of competition.
Now 11-2-1 as a pro, Patterson has four wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and one decision victory. All four of his knockout wins occurred in the first two rounds, with three ending in round one. Four of his six submission wins were by guillotine, while he also has two rear-naked chokes. Only two of his six submission wins ended in round one, while three came in round two, and one in round three. Both of his career losses ended in first round knockouts. Patterson competed at 155 lb until 2024 when he moved up to 170 lb.
Overall, Patterson is a young 28-year-old English fighter who fights out of a smaller gym (Team Crossface) with no other UFC fighters. He said he wants to prove he can be successful with just that team, so he hasn’t done any cross training with more experienced training partners or anyone with UFC experience—smart. The UFC loves physical freaks and Patterson fits the bill at 6’3”, although now that he’s moving up from 155 lb to 170 lb he won’t stand out quite as much, but he still has good size even at the higher weight class. He does a decent job of utilizing his size and reach, but is pretty hittable and is definitely still a work in progress. He just received his BJJ black belt in June 2024 and he loves looking for guillotine chokes and does a good job of using his long skinny arms to get under opponents’ necks, especially later on in fights. His biggest weaknesses are his poor striking defense and suspect durability, and we’ve seen him wobbled at multiple points in his career, in addition to getting knocked out twice. However, it’s possible the cut down to 155 lb was impacting his chin so we’ll see how it holds up at 170 lb. He’s talked about how much work he puts into his cardio, allowing him to outlast his opponents, although we’ll see how he carries the additional weight in longer fights at 170 lb. He’s talked about how the pressure has gotten to him in the past and the last time he fought in front of his home UK crowd he got immediately knocked out. Now he’ll have a shot at redemption as he once again gets to fight at home.
Kiefer Crosbie
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Crosbie is 10 months removed from a first round submission loss in his short notice UFC debut against Kevin Jousset, who had previously never submitted anybody in his career. We saw a fast start to that fight, with Crosbie finishing ahead 39-29 in significant strikes. However, Jousset was doing more damage and had Crosbie’s face bloodied and his calf beat up just minutes into the fight. Crosbie then foolishly looked for a throw against the Judo black belt and instead got taken down himself and immediately submitted with a rear-naked choke that he put up zero resistance to. Crosbie’s last five fights all ended in round one (2-3) and just before making his UFC debut he landed a R1 TKO win over former UFC fighter Alex Oliveira. Just before that he knocked out a stat padder in Brian Lo-A-Njoe, who’s lost four straight and 8 of his last 10 fights. Prior to that, Crosbie suffered back-to-back first round losses in Bellator, with a post R1 TKO doctor stoppage, followed by a submission loss. He then got released by Bellator after going 4-3 with the organization and was forced to fight in some random regional promotions. He then had an exhibition boxing match after his win over Oliveira, where he won a decision less.
Now 10-4 as a pro, Crosbie has five wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and three decision victories. Three of his five career knockout wins came in his first four pro fights from 2016 to 2018, while his two submission wins occurred in 2016 and 2019. His only two finishes since 2019 were against a terrible 6-12-3 opponent and a washed up Alex Oliveira. He has one post R1 TKO loss via doctor stoppage, two submission defeats, and one DQ loss, with all four of his defeats coming in five minutes or less. Crosbie started his career at 170 lb, but slowly worked his way down to 155 lb as his Bellator career wound down. He then moved all the way up to a 177 lb Catchweight in his next fight, before settling back in at 170 lb for his last two matches. Crosbie’s last 12 fights all either ended in the first round (5-4) or went the distance (3-0).
Overall, Crosbie is a wild Irish brawler who trains at SBG Ireland, but tends to run a little hot and cold. Once he gets going down hill he’s a tough guy to stop and throws lengthy combinations of punches and elbows. He’s definitely not the most technical fighter or the most durable and he’s very hittable. He’s already 34 years old and his style of fighting is definitely not conducive to a long career, so it’s fair to wonder how many years he has left in the tank. He’ll mix in a little grappling and isn’t helpless on the mat, but he’s typically more focussed on his striking. Crosbie definitely makes for exciting fights, especially when he has a willing dance partner, and now he’ll get to fight in front of a ruckus UK crowd on a PPV card.
Fight Prediction:
Patterson will have a 4” height advantage and 8” reach advantage, while he’s also six years younger than the 34-year-old Crosbie.
This sets up as an exciting fight that’s unlikely to require the scorecards. Both guys have suspect durability and rarely require the judges. Patterson has only gone the distance in two of his 14 pro fights, while 11 of Crosbie’s 14 pro rights ended early. Most of Crosbie’s fights end in the opening five minutes, and while both of Patterson’s UFC fights also ended in round one, he has a track record of landing finishes in the later rounds if you go back to his regional days. In addition to being the much larger fighter, Patterson will have a significant grappling advantage, so it would be wise for him to get this fight to the mat, opposed to engaging in a brawl with Crosbie, which is where Crosbie would have his best shot at pulling off the upset. Patterson’s suspect durability leaves him vulnerable to being knocked out and if Crosbie can close the distance without getting caught in the clinch, he’ll have a decent shot at knocking Patterson out. However, if Patterson can simply remain conscious then he should be in a good position to find a finish of his own and we like his chances of submitting Crosbie.
Our favorite bet here is “Sam Patterson R2/3 SUB” at +500.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.
DFS Implications:
Patterson was violently knocked out in just 75 seconds in his UFC debut at 155 lb, but then moved up to 170 lb for his last fight and locked up a first round submission that was good for 98 points. He has a history of finishing fights with guillotines, often in the later rounds, which isn’t necessarily ideal for DFS, especially at his high salary. However, he gets a dream matchup here against an uptempo Irish brawler who’s been prone to getting finished and who has also competed at 155 lb. Crosbie tends to absorb a ton of damage, which he doesn’t wear well, and also looks pretty easy to submit. However, Crosbie will aggressively pursue knockouts and Patterson has looked pretty chinny, which leaves Patterson with an uncertain floor, but solid upside. However, he will need to avoid an efficient or poorly timed submission win, as he could easily get priced out of tournament winning lineups in that scenario. So there’s no guarantee that the winner of this ends up in the optimal, but we still expect the winner to score well and the betting markets are expecting this fight to end in under five minutes. The odds imply Patterson has a 78% chance to win, a 65% chance to land a finish, and a 39% chance it comes in round one.
Crosbie is an aggressive brawler who’s style of fighting is perfectly suited for DFS production for both him and his opponent. While he got submitted in the first round of his short notice UFC debut, he still landed 39 significant strikes leading up to the finish as he set a furious pace. Now he’s facing an opponent with suspect durability who’s been knocked out in the first round in each of his two pro losses. In fairness, all four of Crosbie’s pro losses also ended in the first round and he looks like the ultimate boom or bust play. At his dirt-cheap salary, it’s hard to see a scenario where he wins the fights and gets left out of tournament winning lineups, but there’s also a very high chance he gets finished. The odds imply Crosbie has a 22% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Muhammad Mokaev
7th UFC Fight (6-0)Mokaev is coming off a lackluster decision win over Alex Perez, after which Mokaev said he was sick for the fight. Mokaev finished ahead 47-30 in significant strikes, 56-47 in total strikes, and 3-0 in takedowns, but Perez did a good job stuffing 17 of Mokaev’s 20 takedown attempts, although never really got much offense of his own going. Prior to that, Mokaev locked up a third round submission win against Tim Elliott in a fight where two of the three judges somehow had Elliott ahead. Mokaev took Elliott down three times and controlled him for eight and a half minutes, while also nearly slamming him half unconscious in the second round. Mokaev also led in total strikes 118-71, while Elliott was ahead in significant strikes 30-14. That was Mokaev’s second straight close call after he was nearly submitted in the third round of his previous fight from a Jafel Filho kneebar attempt that would have left 99.9% of the roster tapping. However, he paid the price for those heroics, as he left the fight with a grade 2 partial MCL tear. However, it looked a lot worse at the time and the injury only required six to eight weeks of recovery time. Mokaev also came into that fight with a shoulder injury, so perhaps the time off is just what he needed after he competed four times in his first year in the UFC. Mokaev exploded onto the UFC scene in March 2022 in front of his home London crowd with a 58 second submission win over Cody Durden. He followed that up with a dominant wrestling-heavy decision win over Charles Johnson, before landing three straight third round submissions in his last three fights. Mokaev only turned pro in 2020, but had a lengthy 23-0 undefeated amateur career from 2015 to 2020 and was regarded by many as the best amateur in the world. After winning both of his amateur fights in early 2020, including the IMMAF Bantamweight Championship, he won his first four pro fights that year as well. He then won two fights in 2021 and had a third match ruled a No Contest for an accidental groin strike. He said his goal was to become the youngest UFC champion of all time, which drove him to fight through injuries and compete as often as possible, although that dream is no longer possible.
Now 12-0 as a pro, Mokaev is still undefeated with two wins by TKO, six submissions, and four decision victories. Both of his TKO wins ended in round one, while four of his submission victories ended in round three, with the other two coming in the first two rounds. Mokaev started his career at 135 lb, but all of his UFC fights have been at 125 lb.
Overall, Mokaev is a celebrated wrestler and highly touted prospect who’s still just 23 years old and should be improving all the time. He’s extremely fluid with his transitions and is relentless with his takedown attempts. He’ll seamlessly chain takedowns together and does a good job of quickly reverse positions. He’s not helpless on the feet either, but his wrestling is what got him to the UFC. In his six UFC fights, he landed 28 takedowns on 67 attempts (41.8% accuracy), while he‘s also been taken down on all three of his opponents’ attempts. He’s yet to land more than 47 significant strikes in a UFC fight or absorb more than 30 and only averages 1.53 SSL/min and 1.36 SSA/min. Mokaev has mostly been facing fellow grapplers in the UFC, but now he’ll take on a highly ranked striker in Kape. Mokaev moved to England when he was a kid and will get to fight in front of his home crowd here.
Manel Kape
7th UFC Fight (4-2)Kape had been scheduled to face Matheus Nicolau at two different points this year, but missed weight so badly in the first of those that the fight was canceled and then he dropped out when they were rebooked. The last time he competed was in September 2023 when he won an action-packed decision over a debuting Felipe dos Santos. Kape has won four straight fights, after losing a pair of decisions in his first two UFC appearances. The UFC threw him straight into the deep end in his 2021 UFC debut, when he squared off against Alexandre Pantoja, who has since won and defended the Flyweight belt. Pantoja outlanded his way to victory in a striking battle, surprisingly only attempting one failed takedown in the fight. Kape then faced Matheus Nicolau and lost a close split decision, which to this day Kape claims he won easily. Kape also seemed to think he beat Pantoja for what it’s worth. Kape bounced back from the pair of decision losses with back-to-back first round knockouts against Zhalgas Zhumagulov, who went 1-6 in the UFC, and Ode Osbourne, who’s currently 4-5 in the UFC. Kape then had his next fight canceled due to a failed drug test, followed by another cancellation when Rogerio Bontorin botched his weight cut. Kape finally returned in late 2022 and won a decision over David Dvorak, who was in the midst of a three-fight losing streak. Kape was then scheduled to face Alex Perez, but he dropped out on the night of the fight. Next Kape was booked to face Deiveson Figueiredo, but he ended up not being medically cleared. Kape was then set to face Kai Kara-France, but Kara-France pulled out due to a concussion suffered in training and UFC newcomer Felipe Dos Santos was announced as the replacement 19 days out. Dos Santos gave Kape all he could handle, but Kape still won a unanimous decision. All six of Kape’s UFC fights ended in either first round knockout wins (2) or decisions (2-2).
Now 19-6 as a pro, Kape has 11 wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and three decision victories. He hasn’t submitted anybody since 2018 and his last five finishes all ended in KO/TKOs. While he’s never been knocked out himself, he’s been submitted twice and has four decision losses, with two of those being split. Nine of his 16 early wins occurred in round one, three ended in round two, three finished in round three, and the other was in round four. All six of his career losses made it to the third round, with both of his submission defeats occurring late in round three, in 2014 and 2017 respectively. Kape has competed at both 125 lb and 135 lb in the past, but dropped down to 125 lb when he joined the UFC, where he’s stayed since.
Overall, Kape started his training in boxing as a child because his father was a boxer. He’s a quick striker who can throw flurries of punches, but he can also be overly patient at times and his fight IQ is questionable. He loves to showboat and seems to prioritize that over pushing for finishes at times. In his six UFC fights, he landed three of his eight takedown attempts (37.5% accuracy), although all but one of those attempts came in his debut and he only attempted one takedown in his last five matches, which landed late in the fight against Dos Santos to ride out the victory. On the other side of things, he’s been taken down on 4 of 18 opponent attempts (77.7% defense). While he’s a BJJ black belt, his defensive wrestling still leaves something to be desired. However, he does train with the Basharat brothers at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, and at 30 years old he should still be improving.
Fight Prediction:
Mokaev will have a 2” height and reach advantage, while also being seven years younger than the 30-year-old Kape.
This is a prototypical striker versus grappler match and whoever can dictate where the fight takes place will win. Mokaev is a really slick grappler, but is coming off his least impressive performance to date, which is likely leaving him undervalued. Meanwhile, Kape is a dangerous striker with impressive hand speed, but lost both of his UFC fights against highly ranked opponents and has been submitted twice in his career. Mokaev will have zero interest in taking part in a striking battle and you can expect him to be looking to wrestle for the duration of this match. Kape does have a 77% takedown defense, but has also been taken down four times in the UFC and we expect Moakev to have some success in getting this fight to the ground, it’s just a question of whether or not he can dominate the fight there. Because if he can’t, Kape is lightyears ahead in striking and Mokaev will be at risk of getting knocked out anytime this fight is standing. That makes this one of those fights where it’s rightfully closely lined, but whoever wins could easily look -1000. We lean towards the grappler more often than not in situations like this, but it’s definitely a risky matchup for Moakev. Both a submission or a wrestling-heavy decision win are in play and the odds imply that this fight is expected to go the distance about 60% of the time. While that seems fair, we’ll take the other side and say Mokaev locks up another late submission.
Our favorite bet here is “Muhammad Mokaev SUB” at +450.
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DFS Implications:
Mokaev has averaged an impressive 107 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, with three scores of 120 or more. However, he only scored 74 points in his recent lackluster decision win over Alex Perez, who’s a wrestler himself and did a good job defensively against Mokaev. That’s the only time that Mokaeve failed to score at least 99 DraftKings points in a UFC fight and he’s historically had both a really solid scoring floor and ceiling due to his relentless wrestling. He’s facing a dangerous striker in Kape here who is a BJJ black belt and also has a good 77% takedown defense, but we still like Mokaev’s chances of winning this fight on the ground. The only fighter that Kape has faced in the UFC with grappling as good as Mokaev’s was Pantoja, who interestingly only tried to take Kape down once and didn’t complete it. Two of the other three fighters who tried to take Kape down landed multiple of their attempts. And if Mokaev can control this fight on the mat, he has the ability to score well on DraftKings even without a finish. However, he will be at risk of getting knocked out anytime the fight is standing, so it’s still not the safest matchup for him. The odds imply Mokaev has a 59% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Kape has averaged 101 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins, with two of those victories ending in first round knockouts and two going the distance. While he was able to fill up the stat sheet and still score 92 DraftKings points in his most recent decision win, he only scored 72 points in his previous decision victory. And had the split decision gone in his way in his first fight against Nicolau, he still only would have scored 58 points on DraftKings. So Kape has generally been reliant on landing knockouts to score well and he’ll have limited opportunities to land strikes in this matchup against an undefeated wrestler. That makes him a pretty straightforward KO or bust play even at his cheap price tag. Kape has been highly owned in each of his last few fights and we expect him to be overowned relative to his chances of landing the knockout that he needs to score well here, which makes it hard to get excited about playing him in this really tough stylistic matchup. The odds imply Kape has a 41% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Preston Parsons
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Parsons recently saved his job with a wrestling-heavy decision win over Matthew Semelsberger, who Parsons was able to take down seven times and control for six and a half minutes. Parson also finished ahead 47-28 in significant strikes and 116-33 in total strikes on his way to winning a unanimous 30-27 decision. That win came 10 months after Parsons lost a split-decision to Trevin Giles, where Parsons was close to submitting Giles in the first round, but couldn’t quite get him out of there. Giles continued to accumulate damage as the fight went on, which Parsons did not wear very well as his eye swelled up. Parsons did win the grappling exchanges though, as he landed 3 of his 11 takedown attempts with over five minutes of control time and three official submission attempts. The fight took place in front of Giles’ home crowd, which could have played a factor in two of the three judges scoring it in his favor. With that said, the optics were pretty bad for Parsons and Giles clearly did more damage, although weighing submission attempts versus striking can get a little murky. Parsons made his UFC debut on short notice against Daniel Rodriguez in July 2021 and got knocked out in the first round, before bouncing back with the first decision win of his career against Evan Elder, who was making his own short notice UFC debut and also took the fight up a weight class. Parsons dominated the fight on the mat and took Elder down four times and finished with close to eight minutes of control time and five official submission attempts. Parsons said he broke his hand in each of those two fights, which resulted in longer layoffs than he would have liked after each of them. He took nine months to return following the loss in his debut and then took 11 months off after his win over Elder. Parson will now be competing twice in a calendar year for the first time in the UFC. Parsons has only been past the second round three times in his career, but those were his last three fights, which all went the distance (2-1).
Now 11-4 as a pro, Parsons has never knocked anybody out, but has nine submission wins, including eight in round one and one in round two, and two decision victories. He was finished in three of his four losses, with two R1 TKOs and a second round submission. One of those TKOs came against Mike Perry in 2015 in Parsons’ third prio fight, and the other was against Daniel Rodriguez in his 2021 UFC debut. Parsons also had a fight against UFC fighter Ignacio Bahamondes back in 2016, who Parsons submitted in the first round. Parsons started his career at 155 lb but has been at 170 lb since 2016.
Overall, Parsons looked like a one-dimensional grappler early in his career, but has improved his striking some over the years and also added a lot of muscle. Don’t get us wrong, he still relies primarily on his grappling, and we saw what happened when he was unable to land takedowns in his UFC debut against Rodriguez. Parsons holds brown belts in both BJJ and Taekwondo, and nearly locked up multiple submissions in each of his last three fights, finishing with 10 combined submission attempts, but wasn’t able to complete any of them. In his four UFC fights, Parsons landed 14 of his 32 takedown attempts (43.8% accuracy), while successfully defending four of the five takedown attempts against him (80% defense). He owns his own gym called Elevate MMA in Jacksonville, Florida, where he trains with a handful of other entry-level UFC and regional fighters, such as Trey Waters and Steven Koslow. The fact that Parsons owns the gym and teaches most of the classes seemingly makes it a lot tougher for him to go train at a bigger gym for any extended period of time, which is somewhat concerning for his personal growth moving forward in the UFC. And with that in mind, his striking defense has looked pretty terrible, which is the area where he needs to improve the most. He also doesn’t wear damage very well and his face was a mess by the end of his fight against Giles, despite Giles not landing many huge shots. Parsons will be breaking in his new contract as he fights outside of the US for the first time in his career.
Oban Elliott
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Elliott is coming off a decision win in his UFC debut against Val Woodburn, who was cutting down from 185 lb to 170 lb for the first time and is now 0-2 in the UFC. Elliott got caught in the opening minute of the fight but responded by landing a takedown and went on to dominate the fight on the ground. He took Woodburn down three times and controlled him for nine minutes, while finishing ahead 70-23 in significant strikes and 136-30 in total strikes. Woodburn was also able to land each of his own two takedown attempts, but couldn’t do anything with them and Elliott cruised to a decision win after the initial scare in the opening minute. Prior to that, Elliott won a majority decision on DWCS and Elliott has gone the distance in five straight fights after his first seven pro bouts all ended early (5-2). Elliott nearly got knocked out and submitted in the second round of his DWCS fight, and was fortunate that his opponent appeared to gas out going for the finish, allowing Elliott to recover and take over in the third round. One of the judges scored the fight a draw due to a 10-8 second round, while the other two scored it 29-28 for Elliott. Prior to going on DWCS, he spent his entire career with Cage Warriors, after turning pro in 2019.
Now 10-2 as a pro, Elliott has two R1 KO/TKO wins, three submissions, and five decision victories. Both of his knockouts came in his first five pro fights against low-level opponents who entered with records of 0-2 and 2-2. His last two submission wins also both ended in round one, after he landed a second round submission win in his 2019 pro debut. He was knocked out in the later rounds in each of his two losses, with one of those coming against UFC fighter Michal Figlak. Elliott started his career at 155 lb, but has been at 170 lb since 2021 and even took one fight up at 185 lb in 2022.
Overall, Elliott is a decently well rounded fighter but doesn’t stand out as being exceptional anywhere. He’s got okay striking but not a ton of power and generally doesn’t land a ton of volume. His wrestling is alright and he’ll mix in a decent number of takedowns, but often loses positions on the mat. Between his UFC debut and his DWCS appearance he landed 7 of his 14 takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on both of their two attempts. His biggest issue has been his durability and he looks pretty chinny. He fights with a lot of heart, but he also has an over inflated ego. He trains at Jack Shore’s gym in Wales, and will get to fight in front of his home crowd here.
Fight Prediction:
Elliott will have a 1” height and reach advantage and is three years younger than the 29-year-old Parsons.
This is an interesting matchup between two fighters who have each relied on their wrestling in all of their recent wins. Parsons looks to be the superior grappler, which seemingly leaves Elliott reliant on winning a striking battle. Both guys have shown durability concerns, but neither of them have looked like a huge knockout threat. Elliott has gone to five straight decisions, but was close to getting knocked out in each of his last two wins, while Parsons somehow has gone to three straight decisions, despite securing 10 official submission attempts in those fights. So it does seem like they’re each due for a fight to end early eventually. Elliott has never been submitted, but he also hasn’t faced many high-level grapplers. In past fights, we’ve seen Elliott get hurt and then use his wrestling to buy time to recover, but he won’t really have that option here, as Parsons will welcome the grappling exchanges. Even a striker like Val Woodburn was able to get Elliott down twice, which bodes well for Parsons’ chances and we like him to go into enemy territory and secure his first UFC finish, most likely with a submission in the first two rounds.
Our favorite bet here is “Preston Parsons SUB” at +410.
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DFS Implications:
Parsons has yet to finish anybody in the UFC in his four Octagon appearances after all nine of his wins on the regional scene ended by submission. However, it hasn’t been for a lack of effort and Parsons has 10 official submission attempts in his last three fights. It seems like just a matter of time before he completes one, but even in his decision wins he’s shown a ton of scoring potential through his wrestling. In those two decision victories, he averaged 111 DraftKings points and even 107 points on FanDuel where submission attempts are worth something. He puts up big takedown and control numbers, while also landing a decent amount of strikes. Now he’ll be fighting outside of the country for the first time in his life as he travels into enemy territory, which adds a little volatility to the mix. He’s also taking on an opponent who’s often looking to wrestle as well, so it will be interesting to see how the grappling exchanges play out, but we’re expecting Parsons to come out ahead on the mat. The only downside with Parsons in tournaments is that he tends to be highly owned, but there are plenty of other ways to get unique on this larger slate and after the line moved against him his ownership could take a dip. The odds imply Parsons has a 56% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Elliott offers a combination of striking and wrestling, which allowed him to score 102 DraftKings points in a decision win in his recent UFC debut. However, despite landing four takedowns in his previous decision win on DWCS, he only would have scored 84 DraftKings points, so he hasn’t shown a consistently high ceiling through his wrestling alone. And while he faced a pair of strikers in those two matchups, now he’s going against a dangerous grappler in Parsons, which will make it tough for Elliott to find nearly as much success on the mat in these matchups. And considering that his last five fights all went the distance and he hasn’t looked like much of a knockout threat, it’s tougher to see him scoring well here even if he does pull off the upset. He’s also looked pretty chinny and Parsons is a dangerous submission threat, leaving Elliott with an uncertain scoring floor. He’ll likely either need a knockout or for Parsons to completely gas out to score well and this looks like a good sell-high spot on Elliott. The odds imply Elliott has a 44% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Modestas Bukauskas
8th UFC Fight (3-4)Bukauskas will be looking to bounce back from a second round knockout loss against Vitor Petrino, who took Bukauskas down in the first round of that low-volume fight and controlled him for a half a round, before landing a walk off check left hook a minute into round two. Prior to that, Bukauskas won a very questionable decision over Zac Pauga, where Bukauskas finished behind in every statistical category, got outlanded in every round, and was hurt in each of the first two rounds. Amazingly, all three judges scored the fight for Bukauskas and one judge even had it 30-27 in a total head scratcher. Just before that, Bukauskas won another close low-volume decision, that time over Tyson Pedro, who was apparently dealing with some sort of illness at the time. That was Bukauskas’ first fight back with the UFC after he got cut in 2021 following three straight losses and getting his knee blown out by Khalil Rountree in the second round of a September 2021 match. After recovering from that injury, Bukauskas returned to Cage Warriors where he had been the former Light Heavyweight champ. Upon his return, Bukauskas won a decision over 37-year-old journeyman Lee Chadwick to immediately get back into title contention with the organization. He then fought for the vacant belt against 39-year-old Chuck Campbell, who Bukauskas knocked out early in the fourth round to recapture the belt he had vacated when he joined the UFC. That was enough for the UFC to bring him back.
Bukauskas originally made his UFC debut in July 2020 and got a slightly bizarre R1 TKO stoppage after the round ended. His opponent, Andreas Michailidis, shot for a takedown with under 10 seconds remaining in the round and Bukauskas landed several elbows that looked just barely legal to the side/back of Michailidis’ head. As the horn sounded, Michailidis lay hunched over, grasping the back of his head, right next to the door to the cage. The cornermen entered and the ref told Michailidis he had to get up so Michailidis began to sit up, but went to lean against what he thought was the cage. Instead he leaned against an open door and fell backwards, and the ref immediately stopped the fight. It appeared that he would have had a chance to push off the cage and stand up, had the door not been open—but he also didn’t look entirely there so who knows. That was Bukauskas’ seventh straight win at the time, all coming early, with five first round finishes. However, Bukauskas then got knocked out in round one by Jimmy Crute, lost a decision to Michal Oleksiejczuk, and got his knee destroyed in a R2 TKO loss to Khalil Rountree, at which point the UFC let him go.
Now 15-6 as a pro, Bukauskas has nine wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and four decision victories. Four of his nine knockout wins ended in round one, three came in round two, and two occurred in round four. His two submission victories both came in the first round of consecutive 2018 fights, both by rear-naked choke. He’s been knocked out four times himself, submitted once, and has one decision loss. Three of his four early losses ended in 121 seconds or less, with the other coming midway through round two. After winning a decision in his 2015 pro debut, Bukauskas had 13 straight fights end early, with nine ending in the first round. However, since then he’s seen the second round in seven straight fights, with five of those making it to round three and four going the distance. The last time he landed a finish within 15 minutes was in his 2020 UFC debut.
Overall, Bukauskas is a Lithuanian kickboxer who lives and trains in England. He’s a karate black belt, and has only attempted one takedown in his seven UFC fights, which he failed to land, while his opponents got him down on four of their 14 attempts (71.4% defense). He’s a painfully patient striker who only averages 3.28 SSL/min and hasn’t been very aggressive, often content with waiting on his opponents to throw first and looking for counter shots. He’s never landed more than 58 significant strikes in a UFC fight, nor has he absorbed more than 67. However, he has been prone to getting rocked and durability is a major concern for him. It’s unclear why the UFC opted to bring him back on, as he’s not very good and tries to make fights boring. Now he’ll get to bore the home crowd.
Marcin Prachnio
10th UFC Fight (4-5)Prachnio is fresh off a unanimous 30-27 decision win over a wrestler in Devin Clark, who looked terrible in the fight and failed to take Prachnio down on just two attempts. Prachnio outlanded Clark 101-53 in significant strikes and even took Clark down once on his lone attempt. Prior to that, Prachnio got dominated by Victor Petrino in a third round submission loss, which is the only time Petrino has ever submitted anybody. Petrino took Prachnio down four times on six attempts and finished with over eight and a half minutes of control time. Just before that loss, Prachnio won a bizarre decision over William Knight, where Knight just stood there for 15 minutes absorbing kicks, with Prachnio finishing ahead 79-8 in striking. It was one of the most uninspired performances of all time from Knight and he was immediately cut afterwards. That came just after Prachnio lost a grappling-heavy decision to Philipe Lins, where he was taken down four times by Lins and controlled for nearly five and a half minutes. Prachnio started off his UFC career with three straight first round knockout losses, before saving his job with a close decision win over Khalil Rountree, followed by his only UFC finish in a second round TKO against a terrible Isaac Villanueva.
Now 17-7 as a pro, Prachnio has 11 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and five decision victories. All but one of his finishes came prior to joining the UFC and we’ve yet to ever see him finish anybody legitimate. Eleven of his 12 finishes came in round one, with the other ending in the opening minute of round two. He’s also been knocked out four times, submitted once, and has two decision defeats. Three of his KO losses also occurred in round one, with the other ending in round three against Aleksandar Rakic in 2014 before they both joined the UFC. His submission loss also occurred in round three.
Overall, Prachnio is a pure striker and karate black belt who has only landed one takedown in the UFC on just five attempts (20% accuracy). On the other side of things, his opponents got him down 10 times on 24 opponent attempts (58.3% defense). He doesn’t have crazy power, but likes to throw a high number of kicks, which was clearly evident in his fight against Knight where 63 of the 79 strikes he landed were kicks. He averages a respectable 5.61 SSL/min and 3.30 SSA/min and has twice topped the century mark in significant strikes landed, while he’s never absorbed more than 64 significant strikes in a fight. Prachnio’s durability is obviously one of his biggest issues and he’s very prone to getting knocked out in the past, although in fairness to him it’s been almost four years since his last knockout loss.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’3” but Bukauskas will have a 4” reach advantage. Bukauskas is six years younger than the 36-year-old Prachnio.
Both of these two are karate black belts who rely almost entirely on their striking. Neither of them have impressed us and they both appear reliant on outlanding their way to decision wins at the UFC level. They both have suspect durability and have each been finished five times in the past, including four knockout losses apiece. While that theoretically creates the potential for this to end early, neither of them have looked like much of a finishing threat and we like Prachnio’s chances of outlanding his way to a decision win.
Our favorite bet here is “Marcin Prachnio DEC” at +320.
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DFS Implications:
Bukauskas has failed to top 56 DraftKings points in any of his last six UFC fights, after “only” scoring 97 points in an ideally timed post R1 TKO in his UFC debut. He’s a painfully patient counter striker who offers nothing in terms of grappling and is entirely reliant on early knockouts to score well. He only averages 3.28 SSL/min with zero takedown landed on just one attempt in seven UFC fights and struggles to make an impact on the statsheet. He also has very dubious durability and has been finished in five of his six pro losses, which leaves him with a low scoring floor and ceiling. It’s been four years since his last UFC finish, but he will be taking on an opponent who also has durability issues, so Bukauskas will at least have a puncher’s chance of landing the early knockout he needs to score well. The odds imply Bukauskas has a 59% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Prachnio has put up one usable score in nine UFC appearances, which was when he scored 104 DraftKings points in a second round TKO against a human punching bag in Ike Villanueva, so it should include an asterisk on his DraftKings scoresheet. His other three UFC wins all went the distance and only returned DraftKings scores of 79, 62, and 72 points. He’s only landed one takedown in the UFC, so relies entirely on his striking to score points. He throws a ton of kicks, which allows him to put up decent striking numbers, but he hasn’t looked like much of a finishing threat and now he’s facing an opponent who likes to slow fights down. That will make it tougher for Prachnio to land enough strikes to score well in a decision and he appears reliant on landing a rare knockout to return a useful score. While Bukauskas has been knocked out four times in the past, Prachnio is an unlikely candidate to finish anybody and he’s never a guy we have much interest in playing. The odds imply Prachnio has a 41% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Caolan Loughran
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Loughran was originally scheduled to face Ramon Taveras here, but Taveras dropped out and Hadley was announced as the replacement on July 19th, eight days before the event.
Coming off his first UFC win, Loughran found success in a teed up matchup as he won a unanimous 30-27 decision against a debuting Angel Pacheco, who was moving down a weight class following a crazy high-volume decision loss to Danny Silva on DWCS. Loughran outlanded Pacheco 140-88 in significant strikes and also took him down three times and controlled him for nearly five minutes, getting close to a finish at times in the second round. Prior to that, Loughran lost a decision in his UFC debut against Taylor Lapilus. That matchup was changed up during fight week, and Loughran had originally been scheduled to face UFC newcomer Yanis Ghemmouri as a -300 favorite, but closed as a +145 underdog against Lapilus, who already had one stint with the UFC and was making his return in front of his home French crowd. So obviously it was a much tougher spot for Loughran and he had almost no time to prepare for the change in opponent. Nevertheless, Loughran was the aggressor for most of the fight, as he relentlessly looked for takedowns against the really tough 77% takedown defense of Lapilus. Loughran was only able to land 2 of his 11 attempts, while finishing with six and a half minutes of control time. Lapilus outlanded Loughran 84-48 in significant strikes and went on to win a unanimous 29-28 decision. Before he joined the UFC, Loughran won the Cage Warriors vacant Bantamweight belt with a R2 TKO in a wild brawl. Amazingly, that was Loughran’s fourth straight fight to end in a R2 TKO win and eighth straight win since turning pro in 2019. His previous three second round finishes all resulted from relentless ground and pound, but Loughran showed in that fight that he can throw down on the feet as well.
Now 9-1 as a pro, Loughran has five wins by TKO, two submissions, and two decision victories. The first three wins of his career all ended in round one, with two of those coming by submission. He then saw the judges for the first time in 2021, before rattling off four straight second round TKOs. The only knock on his record is the level of competition he had been facing early in his career, with his first two pro opponents entering with flatlined records of 0-31 and 0-39 opponents. His next three opponents entered with records of just 3-5, 0-0, and 0-1, before he finally started facing opponents with a pulse in 2022. Most of Loughran’s career has been spent at 135 lb, but he has competed up at 145 lb a couple of times.
Overall, Loughran is a tree stump of a man but fights with unabashed confidence as he stands in front of his opponents almost completely flatfooted and waits to unload flurries of strikes and takedowns. He was extremely effective with his takedown attempts, control, and ground pound on the regional scene, but he still needs to prove his style can be effective at the UFC level. He does a great job of utilizing his stocky frame to pin opponents down and he knows how to force a stoppage as he unloads with vicious ground and pound from full mount. One adjustment he’ll have to eventually make is to his movement, as you can’t just stand there on the center line against high-level strikers and expect to survive. He has already begun to improve in that area to some extent, but he’s still there to be hit and averages 5.73 SSA/min (most on the slate). Nevertheless, his wrestling threat combined with his striking makes him a tough opponent to deal with and in his two UFC fights he landed 5 of his 15 takedown attempts (33% accuracy), while no one has tried to take him down.
Jake Hadley
6th UFC Fight (2-3)Hadley is wasting no time getting back inside the Octagon after a May decision loss to Charles Johnson, and was willing to step in on short notice up a weight class to fight in front of his home crowd. That’s an especially bold decision considering he’s lost two straight fights and really needs a win. His fight against Johnson felt and looked a lot higher paced than the box score indicates, as Johnson outlanded him 70-48 in significant strikes, but threw 168 to Hadley’s 128. Hadley failed to land any of his 11 takedown attempts in the fight and also got knocked down by Johnson in the second round. Prior to that, Hadley lost a decision to Cody Durden in a fight where Hadley had some moments and nearly submitted Durden in round two, but ultimately finished behind in significant strikes 38-26, in takedowns 4-0, and in control time 7:25-2:04, as he went on to lose a unanimous 30-27 decision. That came after Hadley finished two straight opponents in under eight minutes, after suffering the first loss of his career in a wrestling-heavy decision in his May 2022 UFC debut against grappling ace Allan Nascimento. Hadley bounced back from that loss with a second round submission win over Carlos Candelario in a high-volume fight. That was the first time anybody had ever finished Candelario, who was coming off a decision loss in his debut against Tatsuro Taira, following another decision loss on DWCS to Victor Altamirano. Hadley impressively landed 90 significant strikes in a fight that only lasted a round and a half, and never even attempted a takedown before locking up a triangle choke after Candelario took him down. Hadley followed that up with a 61 second R1 TKO win over Malcolm Gordon, who Hadley dropped with a nice body shot and then finished with ground and pound as Gordon immediately covered up. Leading up to the loss in his debut, Hadley locked up a second round submission on DWCS in 2021, and his last three wins all ended in under nine minutes, while his last two decisions ended in unanimous 30-27 defeats.
Now 10-3 as a pro, Hadley has three TKO wins, five submissions, and two decision victories. All three of his TKO wins occurred in the first round, as did his first two career submission victories. However, his last three submission wins all came in the later rounds, with his last two both ending in round two. Both of his career decision victories occurred in five-round title fights—one for the EFC Flyweight belt and the other for the Cage Warriors Flyweight title. While he’s never been finished, he lost all three of the three-round decisions he’s been to. Hadley has spent his entire career competing at 125 lb up until this point, and will now be competing at 135 lb for the first time.
Overall, Hadley is a young, well-rounded English fighter and a former Cage Warriors champion. He’s still only 27 years old and only turned pro in 2018, so he’s still relatively early in his career. He’s just a BJJ purple belt, but has an active guard off his back as well as solid top pressure and quickly threw up a triangle after getting taken down in his second most recent win. He tends to leave his liver exposed in striking exchanges as he raises his right elbow to defend punches, which may catch up with him once someone times a body shot right. He also stands very upright, which makes it tougher to defend takedowns. While he came into the UFC as more of a grappler, his wrestling has been severely lacking and he’s yet to land a takedown with the organization on 14 attempts—all of which occurred in his last fight. However, he did land his only attempt on DWCS, so including that he’s landed one of his 15 attempts (6.7% accuracy). On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 9 of their 14 attempts (35.7% defense), and we’ve seen him struggle against grapplers. His striking has looked decent at times, although he got outclassed on the feet in his last fight against Charles Johnson. Hadley had already been angling to get on this card even going into his last fight, so it’s not shocking that he was willing to step in on short notice.
Fight Prediction:
Despite coming up a weight class, Hadley will still have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
While it’s never easy to take a fight on short notice or up a weight class, there are some reasons for optimism with Hadley here. While his poor defensive wrestling is definitely a concern, he does have decent jiu-jitsu off his back, which is not something that Loughran has really had to deal with up to this point. Hadley is also a pretty good striker and has much better movement than Loughran, and the larger cage should benefit Hadley. He had also been trying to get on this card for a while, so we assume he was staying ready and he looks to be in pretty good shape from what we’ve seen. Hadley will have the home crowd behind him as well and he’s never been finished in his career. Meanwhile, Loughran is dangerous from top position and has fairly heavy hands, but has plenty of holes in his game, as he gets hit a ton, averaging 5.73 SSA/min. He had been preparing to face a one-dimensional striker and you have to imagine he was coming in with a wrestling-heavy gameplan, which should still be largely effective against the 35% takedown defense of Hadley. However, those wrestling exchanges could also open up opportunities for Hadley to look for a submission off his back. The most likely outcome is still that Loughran is able to get Hadley down and control him on the mat for enough time to win a decision, although this isn’t a fight where we’re overly confident in either guy. If Hadley can land a decent amount of damage then we could easily see him winning a close and probably controversial split decision in front of his home crowd, even if he does get controlled for periods of time in the fight. That’s probably our favorite angle to take a sprinkle on from a betting perspective in a fight that’s expected to go the distance almost two-thirds of the time, but Loughran still wins the fight more often than not just based on his wrestling.
Our favorite bet here is “Jake Hadley S-DEC” at +1000.
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DFS Implications:
Loughran is coming off his first UFC win, where he impressively landed 140 significant strikes and three takedowns, scoring 111 DraftKings points in a high-volume decision win. Just keep in mind, that came in a dream matchup against an opponent who had just absorbed 204 significant strikes on DWCS and is also a poor wrestler. Prior to that, Loughran only scored 45 points in a decision loss in his UFC debut, where he didn’t look very impressive against a much tougher Taylor Lapilus. So Loughran has shown us that he may be matchup dependent to score well and he still has plenty of holes in his game. However, there are several things working in his favor in this next matchup, as Hadley stepped in on just over a week’s notice and is taking the fight up a weight class. Hadley also has just a 35% takedown defense and has struggled with being controlled on the mat in the past. With that said, Hadley has decent grappling off his back and Loughran will need to be mindful of positions or he could find himself in a submission. And on the feet, Loughran’s defense is a liability as he averages the most significant strikes absorbed per minute on the slate at 5.73. Hadley has never been finished and in his three UFC losses his opponents only averaged 80 DraftKings points, so we’ve yet to see anyone score well against him. While it won’t be surprising to see Loughran find some wrestling success, we’d be more surprised to see him finish Hadley and we don’t see Loughran filling up the stat sheet nearly as well here as he did in his last matchup. The circumstances surrounding Hadley stepping into this fight on short notice and up a weight class make this a more volatile matchup, which leaves Loughran with a wider range of scoring outcomes. However, we expect him to be popular as the field chases his last result and being underweight on him definitely looks like the move in tournaments, as he faces a tougher test than his last one. The odds imply Loughran has a 66% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Hadley has shown solid upside in his wins, averaging 107 DraftKings points in a pair of finishes. However, his other three UFC fights all ended 27 decision losses where Hadley averaged just 22 points, and he’s shown no ability to even come close to scoring well without a finish. While he has decent submission skills, both his offensive and defensive wrestling have been terrible since he joined the UFC and he’s only averaging 3.36 SSL/min and 3.56 SSA/min. While he has shown the ability to quickly rack up striking volume at times, he’s been inconsistent at best and only landed 48 significant strikes against Charles Johnson in a 15 minute striking battle in his last match. Hadley is now stepping in on a week’s notice and up a weight class against a wrestler, so we don’t see Hadley landing many takedowns, while there’s a strong chance he gets controlled for periods of time. So even though Loughran averages a slate-leading 5.73 SSA/min, it may be tougher for Hadley to put up a massive striking total, which is likely what he’ll need to score well without a finish. And neither of these two have ever been put away early, in a fight that is expected to go the distance close to two-thirds of the time. Even at Hadley’s cheap price tag, it looks like he’ll need to hand Loughran his first early loss to return a meaningful score. The odds imply Hadley has a 34% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Molly McCann
13th UFC Fight (7-5)Fresh off the first submission win of her career, McCann recently moved down to 115 lb for the first time and made a statement at the new weight class in a rematch against Diana Belbita, who McCann dominated for the second time. Those two originally fought back in 2019 at 125 lb and McCann won a unanimous 30-25 decision. The win came much sooner this time around, as McCann locked up an armbar in the final second of round one, after taking Belbita down twice and outlanding her 42-29 in significant strikes. McCann’s last four fights have now all ended in round one, after her previous 11 all made it to the second round, with eight of those going the distance. McCann was submitted in the first round in each of her last two fights at 125 lb by Julija Stoliarenko and Erin Blanchfield. Those two defeats snapped McCann’s three fight winning streak that included two fairy tail knockouts in front of her home UK crowd. McCann had fought to six straight decisions (4-2) leading up to those two early wins, after getting submitted in the second round of her 2018 UFC debut by Gillian Robertson. McCann lost to all five of the grapplers she’s faced in the UFC, but defeated all seven of the strikers she’s gone up against.
Now 14-6 as a pro, McCann has six wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and seven decision victories. While she’s never been knocked out herself, she’s been submitted three times and has three decision losses.
Overall, McCann is a high-volume striker who averages 5.79 SSL/min and 4.94 SS/min, who will also mix in takedowns, averaging 1.8 takedowns landed per 15 minutes. Her biggest weaknesses are getting taken down herself and operating off her back, which is why she’s struggled so much against grapplers. When she faces strikers and has the luxury of standing and banging or looking for takedowns of her own, she’s never lost a UFC fight. In her 12 UFC fights, McCann landed 15 of her 39 takedown attempts (38.5% accuracy) and went 6-0 in fights where she landed even a single takedown. On the other side of things, her opponents got her down on 17 of their 30 attempts (43.3% defense), and McCann went 1-5 in fights where she was taken down even once. She loves looking for spinning back elbows, which is how she finished both of her UFC knockouts, with both of those coming in front of her home crowd, where she seems to turn into some sort of super hero. She’ll once again be looking to put on a show for the Uk fans here.
Bruna Brasil
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Coming off a low-volume decision loss to Loma Lookboonmee, Brasil is now 1-2 in the UFC and likely fighting for her job. Lookboonmee outlanded Brasil 58-28 in significant strikes, while they each landed one of their two takedown attempts. Lookboonmee was easily able to get Brasil down in round one but never got the fight back to the mat on just one attempt in the later rounds. Prior to that, Brasil notched her only UFC win in another low-volume decision, that time against a debuting Shauna Bannon, where Brasil finished ahead just 56-54 in significant strikes. Brasil was able to land two takedowns and stuff both of Bannon’s attempts, but it looked like a sparring match. Brasil has now been involved in two straight uneventful decisions after getting knocked out in the second round of her UFC debut against Denise Gomes, who took Brasil down three times and outlanded her 54-15 in significant strikes before finding a ground and pound finish. Leading up to that loss, Brasil punched her ticket to the UFC with a R2 head kick KO against a terrible Marnic Mann on DWCS and had won seven straight fights after starting her pro career just 1-2-1. While Brasil more or less controlled that DWCS match and eventually landed a knockout, she did get taken down three times in the fight, something she has often struggled with.
Now 9-4-1 as a pro, Brasil has three wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and four decision victories. Both of her submission wins came by guillotine in the later rounds. She was knocked out in three of her four losses, with the first of those ending in the first round of her 2014 pro debut against UFC fighter Ariane Carnelossi. She then got knocked out in the second round of her fourth pro fight and then again in the second round of her recent UFC debut. She’s now coming off the first decision loss of her career. While her last two fights each went the distance, seven of her previous nine ended early. Despite so many of her pro fights ending early, 12 of her last 13 matches made it to the second round.
Overall, Brasil is a former Brazilian kickboxing champion and relies heavily on her kicks in MMA. She does a good job of mixing up her target and will attack opponents with leg kicks, head kicks, and kicks up the middle. At 5’6” she’s got good size for the 115 lb division, which when combined with her kick-heavy approach can make it tough for less aggressive opponents to find their range against her, often resulting in lower volume fights as she’s a pretty patient striker herself. She’s not entirely helpless when it comes to grappling and will occasionally mix in takedown attempts, but she definitely earns her keep on the feet. She will look for guillotines and armbars or leg locks off her back, but she’s not especially dangerous on the mat. Between her DWCS match and her three UFC fights, Brasil landed 5 of her 8 takedown attempts (62.5% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 7 of their 15 attempts (53.e% defense).
Fight Prediction:
Brasil will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while also being four years younger than the 34-year-old McCann.
It seems pretty obvious what’s going on here. Brasil is coming off two lackluster performances and the UFC has seen enough and is now sacrificing her to the UK MMA gods. Brasil struggles with aggressive pressure and takedown attempts from her opponents and that’s what McCann does best. McCann’s career is at the mercy of the matchmakers and she always wins when they give her one-dimensional strikers and always loses when they pair her up against grapplers. So of course they’re going to use Brasil to build McCann back up in front of her home crowd. We expect Brasil to struggle with the pressure of McCann and we also expect McCann to land takedowns with relative ease, where she’ll have a good shot at landing a finish on the mat. While McCann is coming off a submission win, that’s the only time she’s ever submitted anybody and it was against the highly submittable Diana Belbita, who has an insane five submission losses on her record. While Brasil has been knocked out three times, she’s never been submitted and if McCann is going to find another finish, a knockout is far more likely in this matchup. And considering that McCann’s last three fights in England all ended early, there’s no reason to think she can’t find another finish here, as she seems to feed off the home crowd more than any other fighter we’ve ever seen. McCann by knockout will be the pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Molly McCann KO” at +260.
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DFS Implications:
McCann is 7-0 in the UFC when facing strikers, but 0-5 when going up against grapplers, which makes it pretty obvious when we should be looking to play her. Whoever wins the grappling exchanges almost always wins her fights, as McCann is terrible off her back but good from top position. So it’s not hard to see why she has struggled when facing grapplers, but she looks almost unstoppable when she can be the one in control of the wrestling exchanges. She’s 6-0 in fights where she landed even a single takedown, but just 1-5 in fights where her opponents got her down even once. Her combination of wrestling and striking is great for DFS and she averaged 103 DraftKings points in her seven UFC wins, scoring 109 or more in four of her last five victories. Now she’s facing a striker who struggles against aggressive opponents and with being taken down, basically everything that McCann is good at. Brasil was knocked out in three of her four career losses and McCann’s last three wins all ended early. This looks like a good spot for McCann to find another finish and her best performances tend to come in front of her home crowd. The odds imply McCann has a 74% chance to win, a 35% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Brasil is a patient kickboxer who will occasionally mix in takedowns, but is generally reliant on landing a finish to score well. While McCann has struggled with being submitted by grapplers, she’s never been knocked out. This looks like a really tough matchup for Brasil, who tends to have problems against aggressive fighters and/or wrestlers and McCann fits both of those descriptions. Brasil only scored 72 DraftKings points in her lone UFC win and even at her cheap price tag an unlikely decision victory still probably wouldn’t be enough for her to be useful unless we get a slate where very few underdogs win. Brasil will need to land a hail mary finish in enemy territory to score well, and it’s far more likely she’s the one who gets finished. The only reason to even consider playing her is her low projected ownership, but that’s not enough to get us excited in this spot. The odds imply Brasil has a 26% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Nathaniel Wood
11th UFC Fight (7-3)Wood will be looking to bounce back from his first loss since he moved up to 145 lb in 2022. That loss came in a fight where Wood entered as a sizable -350 favorite against Muhammad Naimov, who used every dirty trick in the book to pull off the upset. Wood did get hurt on the feet early in round one, but then Naimov landed a knee square to the cup on Wood in the back half of the round and then before the ref could pause the action landed an even harder knee to Wood’s solar plexus to compound the damage. As soon as round two started, Naimov came out and kicked Wood straight in the dick and then landed another low blow early in round three—although that one was not spotted by the ref and didn’t halt the action. Naimov was simply trying to hang on and survive down the stretch, as Wood took him down and was landing heavy ground and pound in the closing seconds of the fight. Naimov illegally grabbed the inside of Wood’s glove during that exchange to prevent Wood from finishing him and the ref even saw it and yelled at him to stop, but never took a point in the fight. We counted six illegal actions from Naimov in the match (three low blows, two fence grabs, and one glove grab), although there may have been more that we missed. Wood had Naimov hurt at three different points in the fight, but couldn’t quite put him away and ultimately Naimov won a 29-28 decision, which easily could have been a 28-28 draw if he had ever been penalized for all of his blatant cheating. Prior to that, Wood won a close decision over Andre Fili in an action packed fight, where both guys dropped the other and nearly forced a stoppage. That was Wood’s third straight decision win at the time, after he defeated Charles Jourdain and Charles Rosa in his first two fights at 145 lb. Prior to that, he had spent almost his entire career at 135 lb, but it seemed like the weight cuts were becoming too much for him. Wood’s first four UFC fights all ended in late finishes, with three submission wins followed by a third round TKO loss to John Dodson. However, his last six fights all went the distance (4-2) and it’s been four and a half years since one of his fights ended early. All 10 of Wood’s UFC fights have seen the second round, with eight making it to round three, and six going the distance.
Now 19-6 as a pro, Wood has eight wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and six decision victories. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted twice more, and has two decision losses. However, he only has one early loss since 2016. While only eight of his 25 pro fights have made it to the judges, he hasn’t finished anybody since 2019.
Overall, Wood is a well-rounded fighter and a solid striker who lands a ton of striking volume, averaging 5.91 SSL/min and 4.22 SSA/min. He does a good job of attacking his opponents’ legs, landing 7 leg strikes against Muhammadjon Naimov, 36 leg strikes against Andre Fili, 22 against Jourdain, 31 against Rosa, 57 against Kenney, and 58 against John Castaneda in his last six fights. We’ve yet to see him knock anyone out at the UFC level, and now that he’s moved up a weight class it may be even tougher for him, but he did land three straight late-round submission wins in his first three UFC fights. He does a good job of mixing in takedowns, and in his 10 UFC fights, he landed 15 takedowns on 31 attempts (48.4% accuracy), with at least one takedown landed in 9 of his last 10 fights. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 10 of their 34 attempts (70.6% defense). He’s been in several close fights lately and failed to capitalize as a large favorite in his last matchup, but he’ll get a shot at redemption here in a favorable matchup in front of his home UK crowd.
Daniel Pineda
13th UFC Fight (5-6, NC)Quickly approaching his 39th birthday, Pineda is 13 months removed from a grappling-heavy decision loss to Alex Caceres. Both fighters were able to control the other on the mat for extended periods of time in the first two rounds, before Caceres pulled away in round three with his striking and was close to finding a finish after hurting Pineda to the body early. That was the first time Pineda required the judges since 2016 and his previous 12 fights all ended early, with the last 11 of those ending in the first two rounds. Just before losing to Caceres, Pineda locked up a second round submission against Tucker Lutz in front of Pineda’s home Texas crowd. He dropped Lutz in the first round of that last fight and then finished him with a guillotine in round two. Prior to that win, it had been 21 months since Pineda competed following a June 2021 No Contest against Andre Fili, due to the fact that Pineda got suspended when he tested positive for Adderall, despite being prescribed it by a doctor. He then suffered knee and calf injuries that prolonged his layoff. Pineda originally joined the UFC in 2012, but after going 3-4 with three first round submission wins, three decision losses, and one R1 KO loss, he was released in 2014. He then returned to the regional scene, before getting re-signed by the UFC in 2020. He took on Herbert Burns in his return, who missed weight by 3.5 lb and looked terrible on the scale. Pineda finished Burns in R2 via ground and pound and Burns hasn’t won a fight since. Pineda then got knocked out by Cub Swanson in the second round of a December 2020 match and was then about to get knocked out by Andre Fili before an accidental eye poke stopped the match early in round two, resulting in a No Contest. So Pineda only has one win since 2020, which was against Lutz who went 1-3 in the UFC.
Now 28-15 as a pro, Pineda has a 100% finishing rate when he wins, with nine KO/TKO victories and 19 submissions. He’s also been knocked out three times himself, submitted six more, and lost all six of the decisions he’s been to. All six of his submission losses came prior to 2011 and his last eight losses all ended in either knockouts (3) or decisions (5). He turned pro all the way back in 2007, but has only seen the third round nine times in 46 pro fights. Pineda has fought a decent amount at both 145 lb and 155 lb, and even competed all the way up at 170 lb early in his career, but his last eight fights were all at 145 lb.
Overall, Pineda is an aggressive bonus hunter with a kill or be killed mentality. He’s a BJJ black belt and is dangerous both on the feet and the mat. He throws a lot of kicks as he constantly pushes forward. He hasn’t looked very durable, and when he’s unable to find a quick finish of his own, it generally results in him getting finished. Since returning to the UFC in 2020, he’s been taken down six times on 12 opponent attempts (50% defense), while landing six of his own 24 takedown attempts (25% accuracy). Pineda will now travel into enemy territory for one of the toughest tests of his career.
Fight Prediction:
Pineda will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 69” reach. Wood is eight years younger than the 38-year-old Pineda.
Wood checks in as the biggest favorite on the card in what sets up as an action packed fight against an aggressive finisher in Pineda. Both guys are well-rounded and land good leg kicks, but Wood is significantly younger and has better cardio. While Pineda generally relies on landing early finishes, Wood has shown the ability to finish guys late or simply grind out decision victories. Wood lands significantly more striking volume than Pineda (5.91 vs. 3.09 SSL/min) and has also been more efficient with his wrestling. Both guys have been finished numerous times in their careers, but three of Wood’s four early losses were in 2016 or prior, and the only time he’s been stopped since then was in 2020. Meanwhile, Pineda was finished by Cub Swanson, then nearly finished by Andre Fili before the unfortunate eye poke, and then even nearly finished by a decision grinder in Alex Caceres. So durability is a major concern for Pineda and if Wood were ever going to get another finish this seems like the spot. Pineda looks especially vulnerable late in fights, which is where Wood’s last three finishes occurred. While Pineda has six submission losses on his record, all of those came early in his career, and he hasn’t been submitted since 2010 and his last three early defeats all came by KO/TKO. Wood hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2018, but a finish by attrition wouldn’t be surprising here. While Pineda is always somewhat live for a finish of his own and never holds back in fights, he looks to be slowing down in his late thirties and we like Wood’s chances of getting him out of there, most likely with a late finish.
Our favorite bet here is “Nathaniel Wood R3 or DEC” at +135.
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DFS Implications:
Wood has averaged 96 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, although has only topped 90 points once in his last seven outings. His first three wins with the organization all ended in late round submissions, where he averaged 104 points, while his last four victories all went the distance, where he averaged 91 points. While he was able to score 108 points in one of those decisions, that required a career best five takedowns, which came against the terrible defensive wrestling of Charles Jourdain. Wood has never landed more than two takedowns in any of his other UFC fights and he only scored 87, 77, and 90 DraftKings points in his other three decision wins. He also lost a close, high-volume decision to Casey Kenney in 2020, but still only would have scored 85 points had that gone his way. So he appears reliant on either landing a finish or finding a lot of grappling success to return value here as the most expensive fighter on the card. Both of those outcomes are very much in play, as Wood gets a favorable matchup against Daniel Pineda, who is a couple of weeks away from his 39th birthday and has been finished nine times in his career. While Pineda is a BJJ black belt, he only has a 50% takedown defense and tends to fade in the final round of fights. We’ve also seen him get torched early on in the past and overall he’s an offensively minded fighter who doesn’t mind taking risks. So Wood will have a chance to put on a show in front of his home crowd, he’ll just need to be careful not to get stuck in a submission, as Pineda does have good submission skills. It’s very possible that Wood puts up a solid score and still gets priced out of the optimal lineup, but that’s true for most 9K+ fighters and this is a great matchup for him to hit his ceiling. The odds imply Wood has a 78% chance to win, a 48% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.
Pineda has always scored well when he wins, with DraftKings totals of 102, 137, 103, 106 and 108 in his five UFC victories. However, his reckless fighting style is inherently volatile, making him a tough guy to trust. He’s also about to turn 39 years old and has a lot of wear on his body with 46 pro fights to his name. He’s only been to the judges once since 2016 and has a kill or be killed mentality that is great for DFS production for whoever wins his fights. He’s coming off a 13 month layoff following a loss to Alex Caceres and will be traveling into enemy territory as the biggest underdog on the card, which makes it hard to have much confidence in Pineda’s ability to pull off the upset. However, we have seen Wood blow it before as a large favorite and Wood is somewhat undersized at 145 lb, although Pineda isn’t very tall either. Wood has also been finished four times in the past, although three of those were early on in his career. Nevertheless, Pineda is always live to lock up a submission and all 28 of his pro wins ended early. As the cheapest fighter on the card, if he does somehow pull off the massive upset, you better believe he’ll find his way into the optimal lineup. The odds imply Pineda has a 22% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Arnold Allen
13th UFC Fight (10-2)Suddenly on the first losing streak of his career, Allen is coming off a pair of decision losses in two of the toughest matchups you could ask for. The most recent of those came in a three-round fight against an undefeated wrestler in Movsar Evloev, who took Allen down five times on 17 attempts but only finished with three and a half minutes of control time. Allen actually finished ahead 59-51 in significant strikes, but ultimately lost a unanimous 29-28 decision. Prior to that, Allen tasted defeat for the first time in the UFC in a five-round decision loss to Max Holloway, who outlanded Allen 144-76 in significant strikes. That came after Allen started his pro career off 19-1 and won his first 10 UFC fights. His last win ended abruptly in the second round when Calvin Kattar suffered a freak knee injury that had nothing to do with anything Allen did in the fight. However, Allen was looking good prior to the injury and won the first round on all three scorecards, finishing ahead 28-14 in significant strikes, with no takedowns attempted on either side. However, it’s hard to take too much away from the match after it ended so abruptly. Looking back one fight further, Allen landed his first UFC KO/TKO win, which came against Dan Hooker who was dropping down a weight class in a failed experiment. Prior to the pair of TKO victories, Allen had won four straight decisions, with the last of those coming against Sodiq Yusuff. Allen does have two third round submission wins in the UFC, both by guillotine, but those came in 2015 and 2018 and six of his 10 UFC victories went the distance.
Now 19-3 as a pro, Allen has seven wins by knockout, four submissions, and eight decision victories. However, six of those early wins came in his first seven pro fights. He’s never been finished, with all three of his losses going the distance.
Overall, Allen is a crisp striker, with fast hands and good footwork. While his last two wins both ended in TKOs, he’s generally not bonus hunting or looking for highlight reel finishes and has said in the past that he’s purely focused on winning fights. He’ll mix in occasional takedowns, but he’s only landed three in his last nine fights, so they’ve been somewhat sporadic and he only averages 1.0 TDL/15 min despite having a 50% takedown accuracy. He’s also shown a solid 75% takedown defense and his last eight opponents combined to go 5 for 32 on their attempts against him. He has been taken down 17 times on 68 opponent attempts in the UFC, but most of those takedowns surrendered occurred in his first four UFC fights. He also owns a solid 61% striking defense, and Max Holloway is the only fighter to ever land more than 51 significant strikes against him. He’s also very durable, as he’s never been finished, and is overall very defensively sound. He’ll have the chance to get back on track here in front of his home crowd.
Giga Chikadze
10th UFC Fight (8-1)Chikadze is 11 months removed from a decision win over Alex Caceres and has been struggling with inactivity in recent years, as he continues to only fight once per calendar since 2021. He narrowly outlanded Caceres 65-62 in the pure stand up affair, where neither fighter attempted a takedown. That came 19 months after Chikadze got beat up by Calvin Kattar for five rounds back in January 2022. Prior to his loss to Kattar, Chikadze won nine straight fights following a 2018 submission loss to Austin Springer on DWCS. The last three of those wins all ended in knockouts, after Chikadze’s first four UFC victories all went the distance, including two split decisions. The most recent of those knockouts impressively came against Edson Barboza in the third round of an August 2021 main event. Prior to his win over a 35-year-old Barboza, Chikadze finished a 37-year-old Cub Swanson with a liver kick in the first round. Before that fight, Chikadze landed his first UFC finish against short notice UFC newcomer Jamey Simmons, who is not a UFC level talent.
Now 15-3 as a pro, Chikadze has nine wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and five decision victories. Eight of his nine knockout wins occurred in the first round, while his most recent came in round three. It’s worth pointing out that six of those nine knockouts occurred earlier in his career as part of the “Gladiator Challenge” against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 1-10, 0-13, 0-1, 0-0 and 0-1. His lone submission win was also under that same promotion against an opponent who entered with a ridiculous 2-31 record. Amazingly, the first time Chikadze ever defeated an MMA opponent with a winning pro record was in his UFC debut when he won a split-decision over Brandon Davis. He’s never been knocked out, with his one early loss ending in a 2018 R3 submission. His other two defeats both went the distance.
Overall, Chikadze is a one-dimensional striker who throws violent kicks and is dangerous on the feet. However, he offers next to nothing in terms of grappling and was submitted by a terrible Austin Springer on DWCS in 2018. Between that DWCS bout and his nine UFC fights, Chikadze has been taken down by his opponents 11 times on 36 attempts (69.4% defense), while he landed two of his own six attempts (33.3% accuracy). However he didn’t land a takedown in any of his last seven fights and didn’t attempt any in his last four matches. Most of his opponents have failed to really capitalize on his grappling weakness, but it’s there for the taking. The only time Chikadze landed more than 65 significant strikes in a UFC fight was in his five-round decision loss to Kattar and he only averages 4.08 SSL/min and 3.44 SSA/min. He’ll now face the toughest test of his career in enemy territory following a long layoff.
Fight Prediction:
Chikadze will have a 4” height and reach advantage, while Allen is five years younger than the 35-year-old Chikadze.
This is a big step up in competition for Chikadze and a big step down for Allen and it seems like the UFC is trying to get Allen back on track with a win in front of his home crowd. Allen is the more well-rounded fighter in this matchup and also has much better boxing, so he just needs to avoid hanging out at kicking range to be successful. While he didn’t even attempt a takedown in any of his last four fights, he’s a smart fighter and will surely recognize his wrestling advantage in this matchup. It would be pretty shocking if he didn’t look to take Chikadze down, although we also believe he’s a good enough striker to defeat Chikadze on the feet. Both of these two have been durable and it would be surprising to see this fight end early and we like Allen to win a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Arnold Allen DEC” at +100.
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DFS Implications:
Allen is coming off two straight losses, but there’s no shame in losing to Max Holloway and Movsar Evloev. Prior to that, Allen had started off 10-0 in the UFC, although he only averaged 74 DraftKings points in those wins and only once topped 82 DraftKings points, which was in his lone UFC first round finish in a 2022 R1 TKO over Dan Hooker who was making an ill advised trip back down to 145 lb. Allen scored 110 DraftKings points in that win, but then only scored 82 points in an early R2 freak injury TKO win over Calvin Kattar just after that. Those are Allen’s only KO/TKO wins in his last 13 fights dating back to a 2014 R1 TKO win with Cage Warriors. Allen’s first eight UFC fights all made it to the third round, with six of those ending in low scoring decision wins and two in low scoring third round submission victories. He only averaged 68 DraftKings points over that eight fight stretch, failing to put up even a single usable score. So he’s given us zero indication that he can score well in a decision or even with a finish in the later rounds. Now he’s facing an opponent who’s never been knocked out, and we expect Allen to be more focussed on winning than putting on a show as he tries to shake off a two-fight losing streak. And at Allen’s high salary, even if he does finish Chikadze, he could still get priced out of the optimal. The odds imply Allen has a 66% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Chikadze is a pure kickboxer who doesn’t offer much of anything in terms of grappling. His one dimensional fighting style generally makes it hard for him to score well in DFS barring an early KO. In his five UFC decision wins, he averaged just 63 DraftKings points, failing to top 70 in any of those. Now he’s traveling into enemy territory to face one of the most defensively sound fighters on the roster in Allen and it’s really hard to see Chikadze scoring well—or even winning the fight for that matter. Allen averages just 2.91 SSA/min and has a 61% striking defense, while he’s also never been finished. That leaves us with little to no interest in playing Chikadze in DFS. The odds imply Chikadze has a 34% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Christian Leroy Duncan
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Duncan is coming off a pair of second round TKO wins in two teed up matchups. The most recent of those came against Claudio Ribeiro, who went 1-3 in the UFC with all three of his losses ending in second round knockouts, before being cut following the loss to Duncan. Amazingly, Duncan outlanded Ribeiro 65-4 in significant strikes and also took him down in round two and finished him on the mat two minutes into round two with elbows and punches. That came after Duncan landed a late second round TKO win over an unimpressive Denis Tiuliulin, who was stepping on very short notice and is now 1-4 in the UFC with all of those fights ending in the first two rounds. Duncan was easily able to push Tiuliulin up against the cage and wear on his gas tank in round one, before opening up with things on the feet and putting him away. That win came after Duncan suffered his first career loss in an uneventful decision against a fellow striker in Armen Petrosyan, who outlanded Duncan 89-59 in significant strikes and took him down once, while stuffing all three of Duncan’s takedown attempts. Prior to that, Duncan’s UFC debut ended unceremoniously before it ever really began when Dusko Todorovic randomly blew out his knee in a freak injury less than two minutes into the first round. Just before that anticlimactic debut win, Duncan won a pair of Middleweight title fights with Cage Warriors. Both of those fights were scheduled to go five rounds, but neither made it past the 11 minute mark, with one ending early in round three and the other late in round one. Duncan only turned pro in September 2020 and has just 11 pro fights under his belt, but he had a lengthy amateur career. While he’s only required the judges twice as a pro, he went 5-6 in amateur fights that went the distance and has generally been reliant on landing finishes to win.
Now 10-1 as a pro, Duncan has eight wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and one decision victory. He has four first round finishes, four more in round two, and one in round three. He’s never been finished himself, with his one loss ending in a decision.
Overall, Duncan is a powerful striker who likes to mix in flashy strikes like jumping knees, spinning back elbows, and roundhouse kicks. One consistent issue we’ve seen from him is a tendency to leave his fingers outstretched and he’ll run the risk of poking opponents in their eyes until he fixes that. He also struggles off his back and doesn’t offer much in terms of grappling, although did land his first UFC takedown in his last fight, where he found a finish on the mat and he said he’s working on his wrestling. In his four UFC fights, Duncan landed one of his seven takedown attempts (14.3% accuracy), while his opponents got him down once on two attempts (50% defense). One thing to keep in mind is that he’s only been facing strikers in the UFC, so his defensive wrestling has yet to really be tested by anyone that can grapple at the UFC level. On the regional scene, opponents were generally looking to take him down, which often contributed to lower striking totals in his fights. By our count, he gave up six takedowns on 16 attempts in his last six fights on the regional scene and spent a large amount of time being controlled. However, he still never lost a fight as a pro before he joined the UFC. Duncan’s last three UFC fights were all in Vegas, but now he’ll get to compete in front of his home crowd in the UK.
Gregory Rodrigues
9th UFC Fight (6-2)Rodrigues recently landed an early third round standing TKO against longtime UFC veteran Brad Tavares, who now has five KO/TKO losses on his record and is just 1-3 in his last four outings. Tavares has historically been a tough guy to get down and owns an 81% takedown defense, but Rodrigues took him down twice on six attempts and controlled him for over three minutes, while also outlanding him 71-37 in significant strikes. Rodrigues then overwhelmed Tavares with a barrage of strikes to start the third round to force the stoppage. Prior to that, Rodrigues was given one of the easiest matchups he could ask for in Denis Tiuliulin and surprisingly took the path of least resistance for the first time in his life, as he actually looked to use his grappling early on against the one-dimensional striker. We typically see Rodrigues avoid grappling until he’s already tired and/or hurt. Once the fight was on the mat, Tiuliulin had no chance and Rodrigues easily finished him with ground and pound. Maybe getting knocked out in the first round by a debuting Brunno Ferreira just before that knocked some sense into him. Just before that loss, Rodrigues almost got finished again in round one when Chidi Njokuani split Rodrigues open so badly it looked like his face was peeling off. The cut was so horrific that Rodrigues actually looked for takedowns, but was unable to complete either of his two attempts in the first round. The tides began to turn late in the round as Njokuani slowed down and Rodrigues began to put it on him. That momentum carried into round two where Rodrigues landed a takedown and finished Njokuani with ground and pound. That came after Rodrigues became the first fighter to ever finish Julian Marquez, and did so in an impressive first round knockout, where Rodrigues landed a ridiculous three knockdowns in less than three and a half minutes of action. However, that win didn’t age well and Marquez has now been knocked out in three straight fights. That came just after Rodrigues suffered his first UFC loss in a questionable split decision against Armen Petrosyan, where Rodrigues showed a non-existent fight IQ by refusing to grapple in the first half of the fight against a one-dimensional kickboxer who’s helpless on the mat. Rodrigues is also the only fighter to ever knock out a very durable JunYong Park, although Park also almost finished Rodrigues.
Now 15-5 as a pro, Rodrigues has 10 wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and two decision victories. He has five first round knockouts, four in round two, and one in the opening minute of round three. Two of his submission wins also ended in round one (2014 & 2018), with the other ending in round two (2016). He’s only landed two finishes beyond the midway point of round two and his fights generally end in the opening round and a half with someone getting knocked out. He’s also been knocked out in the first round three times himself, with his other two losses ending in split decisions. One of his three KO losses came in his 2014 pro debut against an opponent who also had zero professional fights, another was on DWCS in 2020 against Jordan Williams, who went 0-3 in the UFC, and his third came against a short notice debuting opponent. So his early losses have all come in surprising spots against not the toughest level of competition.
Overall, Rodrigues is a BJJ black belt and an 8-time National BJJ Champion, but prefers to bang it out on the feet, which makes for exciting but dicey fights. He hasn’t submitted anybody since 2018 and his last eight finishes all ended in knockouts. He has a lot of power, and is a dangerous striker, but he’s also been very hittable, averaging 6.08 SSL/min and 5.30 SSA/min. While he’s always a threat to finish fights on the feet, he hasn’t really lived up to his jiu-jitsu resume so far in the UFC. Between his eight UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he was able to land 11 of his 24 takedown attempts (45.8% accuracy), while also stuffing all six of the attempts against him. However, he failed to complete his only two submission attempts and even when he’s had opportunities to look for submissions on the mat, he’s often opted to rely on ground and pound instead. So while he does have a grappling background, it’s hard to know when he’ll actually use it and how effective it will be even when he does. He gets a great opportunity to rely on his grappling here, but whether or not he capitalizes on that is a different story.
Fight Prediction:
Rodrigues will have a 1” height advantage, but Duncan will have a 4” reach advantage and is four years younger than the 32-year-old Rodrigues.
Both of these two are dangerous strikers, but Rodrigues has a huge grappling advantage—it’s just a matter of whether or not he chooses to use it. He prefers to duke it out on the feet and generally refuses to come in with a smart game plan. So while it would make all the sense in the world for him to immediately look to get this fight to the ground against a one-dimensional striker, we can’t confidently count on him to do that. However, we do still expect him to mix in some grappling at some point, hopefully before he’s half unconscious. Duncan has faced a series of strikers so far in the UFC, but his defensive wrestling looked like a liability on the regional scene. The only fighter to try and take him down in the UFC was a fellow one-dimensional striker in Armen Petrosyan, who was successful and went on to win a decision and hand Duncan his first career loss. For context, that’s the only time that Petrosyan has landed a takedown in six UFC fights. While Duncan has said he’s been working on his wrestling, we’d be surprised if he had made drastic improvements in the last year since that loss to Petrosyan and Rodrigues has the potential to dominate this fight on the ground if he can get out of his own way. However, if it stays standing then they’ll both be at risk of getting knocked out and Rodrigues has been a little chinny at times, while Duncan has never been finished in his short career. Duncan will be heavily reliant on a knockout to win, while Rodrigues has multiple paths to victory. A submission is always possible for Rodrigues, but he also hasn’t completed one since 2018, and his last 13 fights all ended either by knockout (8-2) or with the judges (2-1). Considering that Duncan has never been finished and Rodrigues has the potential to control him on the mat, a decision win for Rodrigues is somewhat in play, but it’s more likely that someone gets knocked out here. They both have the power to get the job done, but when you combine Rodrigues’ grappling advantage with his plus money price tag, we’d rather take the dog shot on him.
Our favorite bet here is “Gregory Rodrigues ML” at +125.
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DFS Implications:
Duncan has averaged 108 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, all of which ended in TKOs in the first two rounds. He only scored 96 points in a R1 TKO in his UFC debut, but that’s because it came in a freak knee injury and he never landed a knockdown. He then landed a perfectly timed late R2 TKO in his next win that was good for 120 points and followed it up with another second round TKO that returned 107 points. He even landed a takedown in that last fight, which is rare to see from him. However, all of his wins came against pretty suspect competition and he also hasn’t faced any grapplers in the UFC who can expose his poor defensive wrestling. He’lll finally be taking on an opponent with a grappling background here, although Rodrigues is often content with throwing down in a brawl instead of taking the path of least resistance. That leaves Duncan with a high ceiling, as Rodrigues has been knocked out in the first round three times before and averages 5.30 SSA/min. However, it also leaves Duncan with an uncertain floor if Rodrigues does look to grapple, or if Rodrigues knocks Duncan out. Duncan only scored 28 DraftKings points in his decision loss, so he’s given us zero indication that he can score well without a finish and he’ll be reliant on landing a knockout to return value. The odds imply Duncan has a 55% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Rodrigues has averaged 106 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, with the last five of those ending early. His most recent win was a poorly timed early third-round standing TKO and only scored 91 DraftKings points in that worst case scenario type of finish. However, he’s shown a massive ceiling in the past, with two scores of 120 or more. He’s also a celebrated BJJ black belt, although you typically wouldn’t know it by watching him fight. He prefers to throw down on the feet, but he does have his grappling to fall back on when he needs it, we just wish he would be a little smarter and look to grapple early against one-dimensional strikers. He has a major advantage on the ground in this matchup and the path of least resistance is definitely to take Duncan down. There’s a good chance he’ll forgo that path, but it at least gives him multiple ways to win. Duncan has never been finished, but also only has 11 pro fights to his name and is still largely untested. Rodrigues has the power to knock him out and the ground game to finish him on the mat or ride out a decision win, so it’s hard not to like him at his underdog price. Both guys have a high-ceiling and a scary low floor, and neither of them are prohibitively priced. So in a fight that is expected to end early, there’s a high probability that whoever comes out victorious will end up in tournament winning lineups. That makes it an obvious fight to target, although the one downside is that everyone else will be thinking the same thing. The odds imply Rodrigues has a 45% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
King Green
26th UFC Fight (13-10-1, NC)Green is fresh off a dominant decision win over Jim Millar at UFC 300, where Green outlanded Miller 186-57 in significant strikes and 187-58 in total strikes, while also knocking him down once and landing his only takedown attempt. One judge went as far as scoring it 30-25 for Green, while the other two both gave Miller the first round, despite Green outlanding him 43-17 in the opening five minutes. Green nearly finished Miller at the end of the fight, but simply ran out of time as s bloodied and battered Miller barely hung on with a long leash from the ref. That came just four months after Green was violently knocked out in the first round by Jalin Turner in a fight that the ref allowed to continue for a criminally long amount of time after Green was clearly done. Referee Kerry Hatley basically sat back and had a smoke while he watched Green get his face pummeled into the canvas by Turner. Green had been scheduled to face Dan Hooker there, before he dropped out and Turner stepped in on short notice. Prior to that, Green landed a quick first round knockout win of his own when he finished Grant Dawson in an October main event. That came after Green secured his first submission win since 2013, when he finished a washed up Tony Ferguson six seconds before the fight ended. That followed an unfortunate No Contest against Jared Gordon due to an accidental clash of heads. Green suffered back-to-back KO/TKO losses just before that No Contest, in a second round knockout against Drew Dober and a first round ground and pound TKO against Islam Makhachev, in a fight that Green accepted on very short notice. Green was setting a crazy pace against Dober before he got caught, as he outlanded Dober 73-34 in significant strikes in just a round and a half. Leading up to the pair of early losses, Green had been extremely durable and hadn’t been finished since 2016 when Dustin Poirier knocked him out in the first round. While only two of Green’s last eight fights made it to the scorecards, he fought to 10 straight decisions before that (4-6).
Now 32-15-1 as a pro, Green has 11 wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and 12 decision victories. He has five KO/TKO losses, two by submission, and eight decision defeats. Both of Green’s submission losses occurred all the way back in 2009 and he only has one submission win since 2013, so his fights generally either go the distance or end via knockout.
Overall, Green is a high-volume striker (6.45 SSL/min) who likes to put on a show and really feeds off the crowd, as he tends to shine in the spotlight. Four of his last five wins were on PPV cards, while he was the main event on a Fight Night in the other. On the flipside, he went just 1-3 plus a No Contest in his last five fights at the Apex without a real crowd. His hands-by-his-side fighting style provides a unique look for opponents to deal with and makes it tough to see his punches coming and also easier for him to defend takedowns. With a high school wrestling background, Green is a capable grappler with a solid 74% takedown defense, but only landed one takedown on six attempts in his last 10 fights and is generally looking to keep fights standing. Over that same stretch, the only opponent to get him down was Islam Makhachev, who landed one of his two attempts. However, not many fighters have been trying to get him down and Green only faced seven attempts in his last 10 fights. Now he’ll travel into enemy territory to face a grappler, so we should see his defensive wrestling tested here.
Paddy Pimblett
6th UFC Fight (5-0)Pimblett hasn’t been very active lately, with just one fight since December 2022, which ended in a December 2023 unanimous 30-27 decision win over the corpse of Tony Ferguson. Pimblett outlanded Ferguson 106-62 in significant strikes and 151-90 in total strikes, while he also took him down once, knocked him down once, and controlled him for nearly nine minutes. He nearly got him out of there late in round one, but simply ran out of time. It looked like he gassed out pushing for the finish as he appeared tired in round two and exhausted in round three, as he lay on top of Ferguson for the final two rounds of the fight. That came almost exactly a year after Pimblett won a controversial decision over Jared Gordon. Pimblett had to undergo ankle surgery following that win due to an injury he sustained in the fight. He said he had to have complete ligament reconstruction and was out for three months while he recovered. Prior to facing Gordon, Pimblett finished his first three UFC opponents. He landed a first round knockout win in his September 2021 UFC debut, although he faced some adversity in that fight as he absorbed several big punches from Luigi Vendramini early on. Pimblett kept his chin high and his hands low. He also got taken down a minute into the fight, but was able to return to his feet relatively quickly. Pimblett found his timing late in the round, and once he smelled blood, he really turned it on late and landed a knockout in the final minute of the round. He then landed a first round submission win over Rodrigo Vargas, although got taken down and controlled for half a round before finding the finish. Both Vendramini and Vargas were cut following those losses. Pimblett then took on a one-dimensional grappler in Jordan Leavitt and landed another submission win, this time in the second round. Those last two finishes both took place in front of Pimblett’s home UK crowd, while his last two decision wins and his UFC debut were all in Vegas.
Now 21-3 as a pro, Pimblett has six wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and six decision victores. He’s never been knocked out, with his only early loss ending in a 2013 first round submission in his fifth pro fight against a suspect Cameron Else, who has since gone 0-2 in the UFC and was finished in the first six minutes in each of those losses. Since that early loss, Pimblett has gone 17-2 with both of those more recent losses ending in five-round decisions in Cage Warriors title fights. The first of those was in a 145 lb match against another fighter who went on to join the UFC in Nad Narimani. Following that 2017 loss, Pimblett moved up to 155 lb, where he won his next fight in a 2018 second round armbar submission. He then lost a 2018 five-round decision to Soren Bak for the vacant Cage Warriors Lightweight belt before bouncing back again with a pair of first round finishes leading up to his UFC debut. Pimblett actually started his career all the way down at 135 lb back in 2012 when he was just 17 years old. After going 6-1 at 135 lb, he moved up to 145 lb in 2014 in his eighth pro fight. He then went 7-1 in his next eight fights at 145 lb, before moving up to 155 lb in 2018 when he was 23 years old, where he’s since gone 8-1, with six of those eight wins coming in under eight minutes and the one loss ending in a five-round decision. Pimblett easily could have lost another five-round decision to Julian Erosa back in 2016, but squeaked out the win, so he’s often struggled in five-round fights. Had the judges not ruled that decision in his favor, he’d be 0-3 in five-round decisions and 1-3 in Cage Warriors title fights, as he landed a first round KO to win the belt just before facing Erosa. Of his 15 early wins, 11 ended in round one with the other four occurring in round two. All six of his career knockouts came in the first round, while his submission wins were split pretty evenly across the first two rounds. Pimblett has often struggled in fights that have made it past the eight minute mark.
Overall, Pimblett is an offensively minded fighter who comes from a grappling background. He has all sorts of holes in his game, but he’s very marketable, mostly in the UK, so the UFC has been pushing him. He has terrible striking defense and he keeps his chin high up in the air, he only has about two rounds of cardio, and he’s been prone to getting controlled. Basically, he’s all offense with no defense. He’s got pretty good grappling, decent power, and has been durable to this point, as he’s never been knocked out. However, he puts on a ton of weight in between fights and it’s just a matter of time until the extreme weight cutting catches up with his chin. He’s very undisciplined both inside and out of the Octagon, which is a disaster waiting to happen. He comes into every fight looking for a quick finish, which can be a successful strategy against low-level opponents, but we saw in his last two fights that when he can’t end things early he’ll typically wilt down the stretch. Two of his three UFC finishes came in front of his home UK crowd and he really thrives in that environment, but when he’s fought in front of US crowds, he’s looked far less impressive. In his five UFC fights, he landed just 3 of his 12 takedown attempts (25% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 7 of their 16 attempts (56.3% defense). All three of the opponents who tried to take him down were successful, with the last two of those each getting him down three times. Pimblett will get to fight in front of his home crowd here, but he’ll also face a major step up in competition.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’10”, but Pimblett will have a 2” reach advantage and is eight years younger than the 37-year-old Green.
Green holds massive advantages when it comes to striking and cardio in this matchup, so it’s kind of surprising that money has been coming in on Pimblett since the line originally opened. Obviously Pimblett will have the home crowd behind him and a sketchy decision is in play, but Green should be in a good position to dominate down the stretch if the fight doesn’t end quickly. And even in the first round, Green just needs to avoid getting taken down or eating any wild haymakers to lead the dance. He has a solid 74% takedown defense and hasn’t been submitted since 2019, while only top-level opponents have been able to knock him out. We would be surprised to see Pimblett find a finish and we also fully expect him to slow down in the back half of the fight. That will make it hard for Pimblett to win an honest decision and also increases the potential for Green to find a late finish. We think Green will look good enough that it will be hard for the judges to rob him of the win if this goes the distance, but we also have no doubt that they’ll be looking for ways to give it to Pimblett if it’s even remotely close. Because of that, Green would be wise to really push for a finish and he’ll have a good shot at putting Pimblett away late if/when he gasses out. Regardless of whether he finds a finish, we like Green to win, but we won’t be at all surprised if there’s one random UK judge that scores the fight for Pimblett to make it closer than it should be. We just hope there aren’t two.
Our favorite bet here is “King Green ML” at -110.
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DFS Implications:
Green has averaged 100 DraftKings points in his 12 UFC wins, scoring 105 or more in each of his last five victories, in what has been a late career resurgence. He went through a period from from 2017 to 2021 where he fought to 10 straight decisions, but three of his last five wins now ended early and even in his recent decision wins he’s been putting up big scores. He only averaged 78 DraftKings points in his first four UFC decision wins, but that has jumped all the way up to 109 points in his last four decision victories. He’s also been knocked out in under eight minutes in each of his last three losses, so overall his fights have been higher scoring recently for whoever wins. While he rarely lands any takedowns, he has a solid 74% takedown defense and a good getup game, so he doesn’t spend much time being controlled. That has allowed him to average 6.45 SSL/min and he landed 137 or more significant strikes in each of his last three fights that saw the third round. Green does his best work in front of a crowd and now he’ll be traveling into enemy territory to take on the UK’s golden boy in Paddy Pimblett, who’s very hittable and has terrible cardio. So while the chances of Green getting screwed in a close decision are higher than normal, this is a high-upside matchup for him where he should find a ton of success on the feet as long as he can avoid being taken down and controlled. His recent scoring success and reasonable price tag will prevent him from being low owned, but he also won’t need to put up a slate-breaking score to end up in the optimal lineup. The odds imply Green has a 51% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Pimblett has averaged 96 DraftKings points in his five UFC fights/wins, but has relied on favorable matchmaking to score well. His two UFC first rounds finishes came against a pair of opponents who were immediately cut after their losses to Pimblett, while his recent high scoring decision win (112 DraftKings points) came against the corpse of Tony Ferguson. Pimblett only scored 88 DraftKings points in a second round submission win when he faced a fellow grappler in Jordan Leavitt, and then just 63 points in a controversial decision win over Jared Gordon. Pimblett will not face a step up in competition as he faces Bobby Green, who has a solid 74% takedown defense and only averages 3.75 SSA/min. While Green is approaching his 38th birthday, he’s shown no real signs of slowing down and turns into a superhero when you stick him in front of a crowd. Green hasn’t been submitted since 2009, and while he has three KO/TKO losses in his last seven fights, those came against a murderers' row of opponents in Jalin Turner, Drew Dober, and Islam Makhachev. It would be surprising to see Pimblett finish Green or to dominate him on the mat for three rounds. And if he can’t do either of those, then he’s unlikely to win or score well even if he does. Pimblett’s suspect cardio and poor striking defense are likely to be exposed in this matchup barring an immediate early win and this looks like the fade spot we’ve all been waiting for, even if we could get slightly sketchy judging in front of Pimblett’s home crowd. The odds imply Pimblett has a 49% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Tom Aspinall
9th UFC Fight (7-1)Aspinall recently won the Vacant “Interim” Heavyweight belt in a quick 69 second knockout against Sergei Pavlovich, where Aspinall finished ahead 10-1 in striking, while no takedowns were attempted. Aspinall stepped into that matchup on just two and a half weeks’ notice after the Jones/Stipe fight got canceled, which Pavlovich had been the backup for. Aspinall’s last five fights all ended in under four minutes, with his last three all ending in 73 seconds or less. Just before terminating the Russian terminator, Aspinall knocked out Marcin Tybura in 73 seconds, which was Aspinall’s third straight time headlining a London card. Unfortunately, in the second of those headlining spots he suffered a knee injury 15 seconds in, which resulted in a R1 TKO win for Curtis Blaydes in July 2022, as Aspinall suffered his only UFC loss. Aspinall spent the next year working his way back to action after having surgery to repair a torn MCL and meniscus, in addition to a damaged ACL. Aspinall did later say his knee had been bothering him since before he joined the UFC, so it wasn’t a completely new injury. Just before losing to Blaydes, Aspinall submitted Alexander Volkov in the opening round of his first career five-round fight, after landing another first round knockout against Serghei Spivac just before that. Aspinall has won 10 of his last 11 fights, and only made it past the four minute mark in one of those matches, which was when he submitted Andrei Arlovski 69 seconds into the second round of a 2021 fight. He’s still never been past the second round in his career, and 14 of his 17 pro fights ended in under four minutes. He notably lost two of his three fights that saw the second round, but both of those were early in his career and one was a DQ for an illegal elbow, while the other was a heel hook submission in his fourth pro fight.
Now 14-3 as a pro, Aspinall has 11 wins by KO/TKO and three submissions. Thirteen of his 14 wins ended in round one, including 12 in under two minutes, with the other coming early in round two. While his last loss officially went down as a R1 TKO via injury, each of his previous two losses occurred in the second round. The first of those was a 2015 heel hook in his fourth pro fight, and the other from a 2016 DQ for a downward elbow. After turning pro in 2014, Aspinall would likely have more MMA fights on his record, but he tried his hand at boxing in 2017. He later returned to MMA in 2019.
This will be the 5th five-round fight of Aspinall’s career, but none of his previous four even made it to the four minute mark, with his last three each ending in 73 seconds or less. He submitted Volkov in three minutes and 45 seconds, before suffering a knee injury in a loss that lasted just 15 seconds. Then he landed a knockout in just 73 seconds, and followed it up with a 69 second knockout win most recently. So we still don’t know what his cardio will look like in a longer fight, but the scheduled duration of his fights has never mattered in the past, as he’s never been past the nine minute mark.
Overall, Aspinall is most well known for his knockout ability, but he’s also a BJJ black belt who can always fall back on his grappling when he needs it. In his eight UFC fights, he landed all four of his takedown attempts, while also successfully defending each of the two takedowns against him. His cardio remains a mystery, but he’s in great shape for a Heavyweight and moves like a much lighter fighter. At his massive size, his unique combination of speed, power, and grappling make him a nightmare to deal with and he’s also still only 31 years old, which is just a baby at Heavyweight. Aspinall will now look to defend the belt for the first time against one of the best wrestlers in the division.
Curtis Blaydes
19th UFC Fight (13-4, NC)Blaydes is fresh off a second round knockout win over a dangerous grappler in Jailton Almeida, who was able to take Blaydes down a ridiculous nine times in the first round. However, Blaydes was able to survive the ground and continued to return to his feet, which wore Almeida down and left him shooting for a sloppy desperation takedown to start the second round. Blaydes was able to stuff the attempt while also hammering away to the side of Almeida’s head with hammer fists to end the fight. That win came 11 months after Blaydes suffered a first round knockout loss to Sergei Pavlovich, where Blaydes idiotically didn’t even attempt a takedown until he was already half unconscious and ultimately paid the price for his foolishness. That came nine months after Blaydes won by default against Tom Aspinall, who blew out his knee 15 seconds into the first round. The fight ended so quickly there’s not much to be taken away from it, other than the fact that Blaydes didn’t shoot for an immediate takedown. Looking back one fight further, Blaydes landed a second round knockout against Chris Daukaus in a fight where Blaydes once again never attempted a takedown. That was the first time Blaydes had failed to attempt a takedown in the UFC after landing 62 of his 115 attempts in his first 14 UFC appearances. The last time Blaydes took anyone down was in a 2021 three-round decision win over Jairzinho Rozenstruik, which came just after Blaydes failed to get Derrick Lewis down and was violently knocked out in round two as he shot for an attempt. Besides Lewis and Pavlovich, the only other fighter to ever defeat Blaydes is Francis Ngannou, who has two KO/TKO wins over Blaydes.
Now 18-4 as a pro, Blaydes has 13 wins by KO/TKO and five decision victories. Ten of his last 11 TKO wins occurred in rounds two and three, with the one exception being his R1 TKO win due to injury against Aspinall. Looking at his entire career, he has three first round finishes, eight in round two, and two in round three. That doesn’t even include a 2017 R2 TKO win that was overturned when Blaydes tested positive for THC. All four of his losses also ended in KO/TKOs, with two ending in R1 and two in R2. If we include the TKO win that was later overturned to a No Contest, amazingly 11 of Blaydes’ 23 pro fights ended in R2 KO/TKOs (9-2).
Overall, Blaydes comes from a wrestling background and has shown the ability to put up massive takedown numbers. He owns both the Heavyweight record for the most career takedowns landed at 62 and the most takedowns landed in a single Heavyweight fight at 14, which came against Alexander Volkov in 2020. However, since setting that record against Volkov, Blaydes only took down one of his last six opponents and has just a single takedown attempt in his last four fights, which he failed to land. He trains at Elevation Fight Team with Justin Gaethje and actually said not too long ago that he wants to be more like Gaethje and only use his wrestling to keep fights standing at this point in his career, now that he’s more comfortable on the feet. That’s certainly interesting considering Blaydes has gone 8-1 (plus a NC that was really a win) in UFC fights when he landed at least one takedown, but just 5-3 when he failed to land any. He has a solid 53.4% takedown accuracy, landing 62 of his 116 takedown attempts. On the other side of things, only four fighters have ever tried to take Blaydes down—Jailton Almeida (2024), who landed 9 of his 13 attempts, Alexander Volkov (2020), who landed one of his two attempts, Daniel Omielanczuk (2017), who failed to land his only attempt, and Cody East (2016), who landed all three of his attempts. So Blaydes has given up 13 takedowns on 19 attempts from his opponents (31.6% defense). With zero submission attempts, let alone wins, Blaydes is not a submission threat on the mat and is exclusively looking for ground and pound when he does take opponents down. He also has pretty heavy hands on the feet, but doesn’t wear damage especially well and has been prone to having his right eye swell up badly in fights. After years of waiting, Blaydes will finally get his first crack at the Heavyweight belt on Saturday.
Fight Prediction:
Aspinall will have a 1” height advantage, but Blaydes will have a 2” reach advantage. Aspinall is two years younger than the 33-year-old Blaydes.
Blaydes has shown us and even told us that he wants to use his wrestling less, and he has become more of a striker in recent years. So while he does still have that tool in his back pocket, we should no longer be expecting him to use it as his primary option. That doesn’t mean he’ll never come into another fight with a wrestling-heavy gameplan, it just means we can’t rely on him to do that. And while he has dangerous striking and power, he’s not the best Heavyweight striker in the UFC by any means. You’re chasing ghosts if you’re expecting him to wrestle and you’re chasing his wide moneyline if you’re expecting him to win a striking battle. Aspinall is bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, more durable, and has better jiu-jitsu than Blaydes, while he’ll also have the home crowd behind him. Sure Aspinall has never seen the third round, but the only time Blaydes has made it past the third round was when he almost died of exhaustion in a five-round decision win over Alexander Volkov. So who even actually knows who has the better cardio? We expect Aspinall’s quickness and power to win him the fight in yet another early knockout, which will leave a lot of Blaydes backers muttering into the void about how they can’t believe he didn’t look to wrestle more.
Our favorite bet here is “Tom Aspinall R1 KO” at +175.
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DFS Implications:
Aspinall has averaged 108 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, with six of those ending in the first round. The only time he failed to score at least 103 points in a win was in an early second round submission win that returned 95 points. And the only time he’s been defeated in the UFC was when he suffered a freak knee injury against Curtis Blaydes the first time they fought. Aspinall offers a unique combination of size, speed, power, and grappling that makes him extremely dangerous and leaves him with the ability to finish fights both on the feet and the mat. He also has a high fight IQ and knows when to lean on his grappling and when to keep fights standing. In his last seven fights, he faced four strikers and three grapplers. He never looked for a takedown against any of the grapplers, but took down three of the four strikers, finishing all three of them on the mat and securing submissions in two of those wins. Now he’ll face one of the best wrestlers in the division and it would be surprising if Aspinall looked for takedowns in this matchup. All four of Blaydes’ UFC losses came via KO/TKO in 10 minutes or less and we expect Aspinall to make that five here. The biggest question we have is whether or not Aspinall will score enough to avoid getting priced out of the optimal lineup at his expensive salary. While he has consistently scored well, he only topped 106 points in one of his last six wins, which was when he took Volkov down twice and submitted him in the first round. While Blaydes’ takedown defense has been poor, we’re not expecting Aspinall to be looking to grapple here, and his knockouts are generally so efficient that he can’t put up slate-breaking scores unless he obtains the Quick Win Bonus, which he hasn’t done since his UFC debut. So if he can’t get Blaydes out of there in the opening minute, he’ll likely need a lower scoring slate with a decent amount of value to end up in the optimal lineup. However, both of those scenarios are squarely in play and he also looks like a great option in smaller contests where you don’t necessarily need to hit the true optimal to win. The odds imply Aspinall has a 77% chance to win, a 71% chance to land a finish, and a 45% chance it comes in round one.
Blaydes has averaged 109 DraftKings points in his 13 UFC wins and in fights where he’s landed at least one takedown that average has jumped to 122 points. However, from what he’s said and shown in recent fights, he now wants to wrestle less and strike more. That takes away his best attribute when it comes to both fighting and DFS. He only scored 77 DraftKings points in his recent R2 KO win over Jailton Almeida, who dominated Blaydes on the mat in the first round. Blaydes also scored just 92 points in a second round TKO win over Chris Daukaus in his third most recent win and without his cheat code wrestling his winning scores have been far less impressive lately. In fact, the only time he topped 92 points since 2020 was in his “win” over Tom Aspinall in their first meeting where Aspinall blew out his knee 15 seconds into the first round and Blaydes was awarded the Quick Win Bonus by default. So even if Blaydes does pull off the massive upset, there’s still no guarantee he’ll put up a big score. However, at his cheap price tag, he likely won’t need a massive score in a win to still crack the optimal lineup, unless we get a slate where a ton of dogs win. The odds imply Blaydes has a 23% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Leon Edwards
18th UFC Fight (14-2, NC)Stepping into his second title defense, Edwards is coming off a unanimous 49-46 decision win over Colby Covington, who looked terrible and hardly looked to wrestle much early on in the fight. Edwards did a great job of slowing things down and dictating the pace, which is pretty typical in most of his fights. Over the course of 25 minutes, Edwards outlanded Covington just 57-44 in significant strikes, while both fighters landed two takedowns, Edwards on three attempts and Covington on 10. However, Covington only attempted one takedown in the first two rounds, which he failed to land. The only round that Covington won was the fifth, after Edwards ended the fight in bottom position following a failed submission attempt. Prior to that, Edwards defeated Kamaru Usman in back-to-back fights to win and then defend the Welterweight belt. Edwards snatched the belt from the former champ with a head kick knockout in the final minute in the first of those, before solidifying the victory with a decision win when they ran it back in what was actually a trilogy fight, as Usman won a three round decision over Edwards all the way back in 2015. Edwards won another five-round decision over Nate Diaz just before competing for the belt and his last four fights all lasted at least 24 minutes, with three of those going the distance. Before he faced Diaz, Edwards had a fight against Belal Muhammad stopped in the opening seconds of round two due to an accidental eye poke, resulting in a No Contest. Only twice in his 17-fight UFC career has Edwards not made it to the final round, with that No Contest being one of those two instances. The other was an eight second knockout win all the way back in 2015 in his second fight with the organization. While 12 of his 17 UFC fights went the distance, including five five-round decisions, Edwards also has three late finishes in the final rounds of fights. The most notable of those was his head kick knockout against Usman that came with just 56 seconds left on the clock. However, Edwards also had a third round TKO with one second remaining in a 2018 fight against Peter Sobotta and a 2016 third round submission win with 119 seconds left. So his last three finishes all occurred in the final two minutes of fights. Ignoring the No Contest, six of his last seven fights went the distance, with five of those coming in five-round fights, with the one exception being his knockout win over Usman. The last time Edwards lost a fight was in a 2015 three-round decision, the first of three times he faced Usman, and since then, Edwards has won 12 fights.
Now 22-3 as a pro, Edwards has seven wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and 12 decision victories. He’s never been finished, with two of his losses going the distance and the other ending in a 2012 DQ for an illegal knee. One of his UFC losses came in his 2014 UFC debut in a split decision against Claudio Silva, while the other was a 2015 three-round decision against Usman in Edwards’ fourth UFC fight. Ignoring his 2021 No Contest, Edwards’ last 14 matches have seen the third round, with 11 going the distance.
This will be the 8th five-round fight of Edwards’ career. His first five-round fight ended in a low-volume 2018 unanimous 48-47 decision win over Donald Cerrone. The second was another low-volume decision, this time in 2019 against RDA, where Edwards won all but one of the rounds. He then had the unfortunate No Contest against Belal Muhammad, where Edwards won the first round before the fight was stopped early in round two. After that, Edwards won another low-volume five-round decision against Nate Diaz in 2021, and similar to the RDA fight, Edwards won the first four rounds but lost round five. Edwards then won the first round against Usman in his first title fight, but lost the next three rounds and was a minute away from losing when he landed the infamous head kick knockout to steal the belt, in a fight that notably took place at elevation. Next, Edwards won another lower volume decision in the final leg of his trilogy against Usman. Edwards was deducted a point in the third round, which resulted in it being closer than it needed to be, with the scorecards coming in at 48-46, 48-46, and 47-47. Then most recently, Edwards won another low-volume decision against Colby Covington, where he again won the first four rounds but lost round five. In summary, Edwards went the distance in five of his seven five-round fights (5-0), had one stopped in the second round for an eye poke, resulting in a No Contest, and landed one knockout in the final minute in a fight he was losing.
Overall, Edwards is a patient low-volume striker who only averages 2.75 SSL/min and 2.34 SSA/min. He’s only landed above 57 significant strikes in 4 of his 17 UFC fights. He’s talked about how he’s improved his grappling over the course of his UFC career, and he’s definitely looked much better recently then he did early in his UFC career, both offensively and defensively. In his 17 UFC fights, he’s been taken down 31 times on 104 opponent attempts (70.2% defense), while landing 24 of his own 69 attempts (34.8% accuracy). Ten of the 12 UFC opponents who tried to take him down were successful, but Edwards has still gone 8-2 in the UFC when he’s surrendered a takedown, winning the last eight of those fights. He’s able to slow fights down and dictate the pace, and while Edwards’ patient approach doesn’t make for action-packed matches, he’s incredibly skilled and a very tough guy to deal with as he’s a crisp striker who throws slicing elbows and forces everyone to fight his style of fight. He’s got good size for the division at 6’2” and is in the midst of his prime at 32 years old. Now he’ll get to defend his belt in front of his home crowd.
Belal Muhammad
19th UFC Fight (14-3, NC)Muhammad is 14 months removed from a five-round decision win over Gilbert Burns, in a fight where Burns suffered a left shoulder injury early on and was compromised for most of the match. He still toughed it out and made it to the scorecards, but got outlanded 132-81 in striking and failed to land any of his four takedown attempts, as he fought most of the fight with one arm. Muhammad never attempted a takedown of his own and in fairness to him, he came into the fight with a sprained ankle. Prior to that, Muhammad put on the most impressive performance of his career in a late second round standing TKO against Sean Brady at UFC 280 in Abu Dhabi. Muhammad had the luxury of training with Khabib leading up to that fight, as well as having him in his corner, and the crowd behind him. Muhammad never even attempted a takedown in the fight, while he stuffed all five of Brady’s attempts and outlanded Brady 80-58 in striking. Muhammad’s only other finish since 2016 came in a 2019 R3 submission over a one-dimensional striker in Takashi Sato and not counting Muhammad’s No Contest against Edwards, 12 of his last 14 fights went the distance.
Now 23-3 as a pro, Muhammad has five wins by TKO, one submission, and 17 decision victories. The only time he’s ever finished an opponent in the first round was a R1 TKO in his 2012 pro debut. He’s also been knocked out once and has two decision losses. His lone early loss came 79 seconds into the first round of a 2016 fight against Vicente Luque, while his two decision defeats were against Alan Jouban, in Muhammad’s 2016 UFC debut, and Geoff Neal in 2019.
This will be the 5th five-round fight of Muhammad’s career and 4th in the UFC. His first five-round fight came with Titan FC in 2016 and Muhammad landed a R4 ground and pound TKO. His first UFC five-round was against Leon Edwards and the match was unfortunately stopped early in round two for an accidental eye poke and ruled a No Contest. His next five-round fight ended in a low-volume decision win over Vicente Luque, while his most recent ended in a decision win over an injured Gilbert Burns.
Overall, Muhammad has spent the vast majority of his UFC career grinding out decision wins through a combination of striking and grappling, but showed much more of a willingness to throw down on the feet in his last couple of matches, albeit against a pair of high-level grapplers who he probably had no desire to share the mat with. He’s historically relied on outworking his opponents and had never looked like any sort of a finishing threat before putting Sean Brady away, and you could argue that was kind of a quick stoppage. Muhammad was then unable to finish an injured Gilbert Burns in his last fight and it seems like the Brady finish was an anomaly. In his 18 UFC fights, Muhammad landed 34 takedowns on 97 attempts (35.1% accuracy), while his opponents were only able to get him down three times on 45 attempts (93.3% defense). No one has ever gotten him down more than once in a fight and he’s only been taken down once in his last eight fights, as he’s shown an elite takedown defense. Muhammad failed to land a single knockdown in any of his 18 UFC fights, but got knocked down himself three times in his UFC debut against Alan Jouban, twice by Geoff Neal, and once by Vicente Luque. However, outside of those losses he’s been very durable and wasn’t knocked down in any of his other 15 UFC fights. Now he’ll face the toughest test of his career in a rematch he’s been waiting over three years for.
Fight Prediction:
Edwards will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while also being four years younger than the 36-year-old Muhammad.
While this is technically a rematch, that first fight ended abruptly in a No Contest just seconds into the second round and it was also over three years ago. So we don’t want to put too much stock into it, but Edwards was having his way with Muhammad in round one and had him hurt early on in that one. Edwards is taller, longer, quicker, younger, and more powerful than Muhammad, in addition to having the home crowd behind him and being the incumbent champion, which is always helpful in a close decision. However, Muhammad is a dog who will never quit and arguably has the cardio and wrestling advantages. However, Edwards is a master of slowing fights down and dictating the pace, which should nullify any cardio advantage that Muhammad has, as we saw in Edwards’ fight against Covington, who is basically a more talented version of Muhammad. It won’t be surprising if Muhammad is able to land a takedown or two, but we’d be shocked to see him dominate this fight on the mat and Edwards has a massive striking advantage. We expect Edwards to effectively slow things down and control the action, as he wins another tactical striking battle in a fight that goes the distance far more often than not. He’s capable of knocking Muhammad out or slicing him open with an elbow out of the clinch to force a doctor stoppage, but Edwards by decision will be the pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Leon Edwards R4/5 or DEC” at -105.
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DFS Implications:
Edwards has only averaged 83 DraftKings points in his 14 UFC wins and even if we remove his five three-round decisions, that average still only rises to 89 points. Only once in his last 13 wins did he reach the century mark, which was in a 2018 TKO win in the final second of round three where he scored 103 points. He only scored 84 DraftKings points in his R5 knockout win over Usman and then followed that up by returning DraftKings totals of just 72 and 79 points in a pair of five-round decision wins. He has five UFC five-round decision wins on his record and he only averaged 82 points in those, failing to top 100 points in any of those or even 80 points in three of them. In addition to only averaging 2.75 SSL/min, now he’s facing an opponent in Muhammad who has good wrestling with an elite 93% takedown defense, which will make it hard for Edwards to get any wrestling of his own going. That likely leaves him reliant on landing a well timed finish in the first two rounds to return value at his high salary. That seems unlikely to happen, although we also don’t expect Edwards to be very highly owned, which adds to his tournament appeal a little. With that said, there’s a very high chance this fight busts and Edwards wins another low scoring decision. The odds imply Edwards has a 70% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Muhammad is 14 months removed from a five-round decision win over Gilbert Burns that only scored 83 DraftKings points, despite Muhammad landing a career-best 132 significant strikes. That’s largely due to the fact that he never even attempted a takedown, which has historically been his path to scoring well. With that said, Muhammad did land a rare finish against another grappler in Sean Brady just before that, showing that he’s not incapable of getting it done on the feet. Muhammad has averaged 91 DraftKings points in his 14 UFC wins and put up three straight 102+ scores leading up to his recent dud, after failing to top 95 points in 13 of his first 14 UFC appearances. While that’s encouraging for his general scoring potential moving forward, he’s stepping into one of the toughest matchups he could ask for, both in terms of winning and scoring well even if he does. Edwards is a master of slowing fight down and ruining them for DFS and has also improved his defensive wrestling and owns a 70% takedown defense. We expect Muhammad to struggle to close the distance and the larger Octagon will make it harder for him to trap Edwards against the fence. It would be shocking to see Muhammad win a striking battle and even if he can land a couple of takedowns and make a decision close, he’s traveling into enemy territory to take on the current champ and you have to imagine that a close decision will still go Edwards’ way. So essentially, Muhammad will either need a rare finish or a clear decision win, and we don’t see either of those happening. Due to his cheap price tag, he’ll end up decently owned, and it looks like an easy fade spot to gain leverage on the field. The odds imply Muhammad has a 30% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 4% 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!
Here's our top play on the house! For the rest of our PrizePicks plays, check out the DFS Cheat Sheet in our premium DFS content on: patreon.com/mmadfs.
Top UFC PrizePicks Play of the Week:
Kiefer Crosbie OVER 16.5 SS
