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Fighter Notes:
Fight #15
Juliana Miller
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Miller recently landed a third round TKO against Brogan Walker to win the finale on The Ultimate Fighter. Miller was able to land all four of her takedowns in the match and control Walker for nearly 10 minutes leading up to the late finish. That was just Miller’s fourth pro fight, although she did also have two exhibition wins on the show. She secured her spot in the finals with a second round submission win after winning a close decision in her first fight on the show. Miller turned pro in 2019 and landed a pair of first round submissions, before losing a 2021 decision before going on TUF. She did have four grappling matches between that decision loss and TUF.
Still just 3-1 as a pro, Miller has one TKO win and two by submission, while her only career loss ended in a questionable May 2021 decision. Three of her last four amateur fights were at 115 lb, but all of her pro and TUF fights have been at 125 lb, and at 5’7” she’s certainly not small for the 125 lb division.
Overall, Miller is an aggressive fighter who constantly pushes forward throwing wild strikes and looking to take opponents down. She’s a BJJ brown belt and primarily a grappler, but won’t shy away from striking exchanges, despite having a near non-existent striking defense. Miller is so green when it comes to MMA that we should expect some bumps in the road as she continues to try and grow as a fighter. She wasn’t forced to stand and trade much at all in her last fight, which definitely covered up a lot of holes in her game.
Veronica Hardy
6th UFC Fight (1-4)Coming out of retirement after she recently married Dan Hardy, Veronica Hardy dealt with a series of concussions earlier in her career that resulted in her stepping away from the sport after starting out 1-4 in the UFC. She hasn’t competed since she lost a high-volume March 2020 decision against Bea Malecki. Prior to that loss, Hardy locked up a first round submission against Polyana Viana in August 2019, which is Hardy’s only victory since 2016, the year she turned pro. Leading up to that win, she lost her first three UFC fights, with a 2016 R3 TKO against Ashlee Evans-Smith, a 2018 decision against Andrea Lee, and a 2019 second round submission against Gillian Robertson. Just before making her 2016 UFC debut, Hardy fought to a draw and her second most recent win was a 2016 third round submission.
Now 6-4-1 as a pro, Hardy has one TKO win (R1 2016), two submissions, and three decision victories. She’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has two decision defeats. She started her career at 135 lb, before dropping down to 125 lb in her second UFC fight. She then moved back up to 135 lb for her last match, but will be returning to 125 lb here.
Overall, Hardy is a high-paced striker with a Taekwondo background and has also shown the ability to lock up submissions. In her five UFC fights, Hardy has landed just 2 of her 11 takedown attempts (18.2% accuracy), while she’s been taken down by her opponents 8 times on 15 attempts (46.7% defense). Every opponent who has tried to take her down has landed at least one of their attempts. After setting an insane pace early on in her last fight, Hardy faded down the stretch and it will be interesting to see how her cardio looks after three years away. She looks to be in much better shape than the last time we saw her and claims to have made a lot of changes since the last time we saw her. That really makes her a wild card after all this time away and it’s hard to know what we can expect from her.
Fight Prediction:
Miller will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
This sets up as a fun grappler versus striker battle, although Miller has shown a willingness to throw down in a brawl when she can’t get fights to the ground, and Hardy has shown the ability to throw up armbars off her back. Hardy is the more experienced fighter, but after three years away we really don’t know what we can expect from her. It’s possible she’ll look much better than the last time we saw her, or she could be covered in ring rust. If she can somehow keep the fight standing, she should have a significant striking advantage, but her 46% takedown defense isn’t overly encouraging for her chances of staying off her back. The fact that she was able to submit Polyana Viana is impressive, and Miller will need to be careful not to get armbarred on the ground. Between her striking advantage and ability to throw up submissions, Hardy is more live here than the odds indicate and we would not be that shocked if she pulls off the upset. Miller is the better wrestler, which gives her an easier path to winning as long as she can continue to land takedowns, but the fight will be taking place in England where Hardy currently lives and she could get the home crowd boost if this ends in a close decision with her winning the striking exchanges and Miller not being super active on the mat when she does get it there. We’re going to go out on a limb here and say Hardy pulls off the surprise upset in a close back and forth fight.
Our favorite bet here is Hardy’s ML at +350.
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DFS Implications:
Miller scored 115 DraftKings points and 111 points on FanDuel in her recent grappling-heavy third round TKO win in her UFC debut. She landed all four of her takedown attempts in that fight and basically controlled the entire match on the mat, which meant her non-existent striking defense was never exposed. She’s likely being overvalued because of that, but her wrestling upside is undeniable and all three of her pro wins have come early. Now she’ll face her first opponent with UFC experience in Veronica Hardy, who’s coming off a three year layoff and has historically struggled to defend takedowns. That’s encouraging for Miller’s chances of getting this fight to the ground where she wants it, but if she’s unable to do so we expect Hardy to outstrike her on the feet. That makes this a more volatile spot than the odds would suggest and the results will hinge on Miller’s ability to land takedowns and control Hardy on the mat while not getting armbarred. Whoever wins here should score well and both women can throw punches in bunches. Miller’s style is better suited to the DraftKings scoring system, while Hardy’s will generally score better on FanDuel, but they can each put up solid scores on both sites. The odds imply she has a 79% chance to win, a 47% chance to land a finish, and a 22% chance it comes in round one.
Hardy is just 1-4 in the UFC, hasn’t fought in three years, and comes in as a massive underdog, so obviously she’s got her work cut out for her. With that said, she’s a high-volume striker and has shown the ability to throw up submissions off her back, which she demonstrated in her lone UFC win when she submitted armbar specialist Polyana Viana in just 69 seconds. It’s hard to know how Hardy will look after so long away, but we should embrace that unknown in tournaments and focus on her upside. And when you pair up her striking volume with Miller’s suspect striking defense, Hardy has the potential to put up a big striking total if she can keep the fight standing. And if/when the fight does hit the mat, she has a shot at locking up a submission. At her cheap price tag, that gives her multiple ways to crack winning tournament lineups and she projects to be the lowest owned fighter on the slate. That makes it easy to gain leverage on the field without going crazy here. The odds imply she has a 21% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #14
Ludovit Klein
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Klein is coming off a massive upset decision win over Wales’ own Mason Jones on the last London card, where Klein entered as a +310 underdog but won a unanimous 30-27 decision over a very dangerous Jones. Klein nearly finished the fight early in round two when he dropped Jones to start the round, but was unable to hand Jones the first early loss of his career. Klein has now gone the distance in his last two fights and three of his last four, after landing a head kick KO in his UFC debut down at 145 lb. Klein then lost his next two fights at 145 lb, before moving up to 155 lb for his last two matches. The vast majority of Klein’s career has been spent down at 145 lb, although he missed weight by 4 lb for his 2020 short notice UFC debut, and seemed to struggle to make the weight these days.
Now 19-4 as a pro, Klein has eight wins by KO, eight by submission, and three decision wins. His last seven finishes have all ended in knockouts, while all of his submission wins occurred earlier in his career, including six in his first six pro fights. Nine of his 16 finishes occurred in the first round and he generally is the most dangerous early on in fights. He’s been knocked out once (R1 2017), submitted twice (R1 2017 & R3 2021), and has one decision defeat. He’s only been past the second round seven times in 23 pro fights (5-2).
Overall, Klein likes to methodically stalk his prey and time left head kicks, but he has struggled when pressured. He’s landed four takedowns on 12 attempts in five UFC fights (33% accuracy), but all of those successful takedowns came against Michael Trizano and he failed to land a takedown in his other four fights. Also, he didn’t do anything on the mat with the four takedowns he did land against Michael Trizano. On the other side of things, he’s been taken down once on eight attempts by his opponents and got submitted on the mat following that one successful takedown. While we’ve been unimpressed by his grappling at the UFC level, he does have solid power with his striking. However, he doesn’t land much volume, averaging just 3.51 SSL/min, and he’s largely reliant on landing power shots to knock opponents out. His cardio has looked pretty suspect and he tends to slow down later in fights, leaving him even more reliant on early knockouts to secure victories.
Jai Herbert
6th UFC Fight (2-3)Also coming off a decision win on the last London card, Herbert squeaked out an uncharacteristic close snoozer, which is the only time Herbert has gone the distance in his last nine fights. Prior to that win, he got violently knocked out by Ilia Topuria and Herbert has been finished in all four of his career losses, with three of those finishes coming in his five UFC appearances. The only opponent he’s finished in the UFC was a terrible Khama Worthy, who has been knocked out nine times in his career. Prior to that win, Herbert suffered a smothering second round submission loss to veteran Renato Moicano, where Herbert was no match for the relentless grappling of the BJJ black belt. Looking back one fight further, Herbert was thrown straight to the wolves in his July 2020 UFC debut as he went up against longtime veteran Francisco Trinaldo, who knocked Herbert out in the third round.
Now 12-4 as a pro, Herbert has nine wins by KO, one by submission, and two decision victories. He’s been finished in all four of his career losses, with three knockouts and one submission. All three of his UFC losses came in the later rounds, with two ending in round two and one in round three. Herbert started his amateur career at 170 lb before dropping down to 155 lb in 2014 just before going pro, where he's stayed since. He has only been to the third round four times in his career, with two of those going the distance, but four of his five UFC UFC fights have made it out of round one. Nine of his 10 early wins occurred in the first two rounds.
Overall, Herbert is a solid striker with fast hands, but is extremely prone to getting knocked out and he’s a liability on the mat. He’s basically all offense with no defense and is a finish or get finished type of fighter. A training partner of Leon Edwards at Team Renegade in the UK, Herbert has also spent time at Syndicate MMA in Las Vegas. He only averages 2.45 SSL/min and 2.85 SSA/min and he’s never landed more than 36 significant strikes in a UFC fight or absorbed more than 41. He’s never landed a takedown in the UFC on just a single attempt, while he’s been taken down by his opponents on 8 of 18 attempts (55.6% defense).
Fight Prediction:
Herbert will have a 6” height advantage and 5” reach advantage. Klein is six years younger than the 34-year-old Herbert.
Both of these two are dangerous strikers, but neither one of them throws much volume. Herbert also offers nothing in terms of grappling, while Klein has only taken one of his five UFC opponents down and did nothing on the mat. That should result in this playing out as a high-stakes, low-volume striking battle. Herbert has looked very prone to getting knocked out, while Klein has just the one KO loss on his record and has been much more durable. However, Herbert will have a sizable height and reach advantage, making it tougher for Klein to close the distance. With that said, Klein throws a nasty head kick and it will likely only take one to land cleanly for him to put Herbert away. It’s not impossible that Herbert could knock Klein out, but it’s far less likely. If neither guy connects on anything really flush, this could also end in another disappointing decision. If we don’t see a knockout in the first round and a half, there’s a good chance it does go the distance. We’re leaning that Klein knocks Herbert out early, but a close, slow-paced decision would not be at all shocking.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in KO” at -130.
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DFS Implications:
Klein is lethal with his head kicks, but his patient fighting style is far from ideal for DFS scoring and generally leaves him reliant on landing an early finish to score well. That was confirmed in his last two fights where he scored just 76 and 70 DraftKings points in a pair of decision wins. The only time we’ve actually seen him score well was in a R1 KO in his 2020 UFC debut down at 145 lb, where he put up 104 DraftKings points. He has since moved up to 155 lb and we’ve yet to see him finish any of his larger opponents. With that said, he gets a favorable matchup here against Jai Herbert, who’s been finished in all three of his UFC losses and has a highly questionable chin. However, we don’t expect to see a ton of striking volume here, so even a later round finish could struggle to really score well. The odds imply Klein has a 64% chance to win, a 44% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Herbert has been on the wrong end of more than one highlight reel KO and was unable to put away a very low-level opponent in Kyle Nelson in his last fight. That’s not at all encouraging for his chances of landing the finish he needs to score well here, and the only UFC opponent Herbert has been able to get out of there was Khama Worthy, who’s now been knocked out an insane nine times in his career. Klein is a dangerous striker and Herbert won’t be able to just sit there and tee off on him without worrying about the danger coming back his way. However, Herbert will have a massive 6” height advantage and 5” reach advantage, which should help him to land his strikes. It’s certainly not impossible that Herbert can put on a more inspired performance than his last one and find a finish, but we don’t love his chances and he’s far too fragile to trust when going against dangerous strikers. Herbert also scored just 65 DraftKings points in his recent decision win and even at his cheaper price tag it appears he’ll need a finish to crack winning lineups. The odds imply he has a 36% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #13
Joanne Wood
16th UFC Fight (7-8)Winding down her career, Wood has lost three straight fights and is just 1-4 in her last fight. Three of those four losses, including her last two, ended in first round submissions, and she continues to be extremely prone to getting submitted. In fairness to her, those submission losses came against the current Flyweight champ in Alex Grasso and past title contenders Taila Santos and Jennifer Maia. Wood also lost a split decision to Lauren Murphy over her current skid, but we thought she won that fight. Prior to getting submitted by Grasso in the first round of her last fight, Wood was ahead 34-16 in significant strikes.
Now 15-8 as a pro, Wood has five wins by KO/TKO, one by submission, and nine decisions. However, four of her five KO/TKO wins occurred in her first six pro fights from 2012 to 2013, and she’s finished just two opponents in her last 17 fights (2016 R3 TKO & 2018 R1 submission). While she’s never been knocked out, she’s been submitted five times, all in the first round, and has lost three decisions. Fourteen of her 15 UFC fights have ended in either decisions (5-3) or submissions (1-5), with the one exception being a 2016 R3 TKO against an opponent in the midst of a three fight losing streak. Wood came into the UFC at 115 lb in 2014 following a submission loss on The Ultimate Fighter against Rose Namajunas. That fight was counted as an exhibition match so the loss doesn't show up on her official record or else she would have six submission losses. After going 2-1 in her first three UFC fights, Wood decided to move up to 125 lb for a fight, which she won by R3 TKO. She moved back down to 115 lb after the win, but lost two straight to Jessica Andrade and Cynthia Calvillo, and then decided 125 lb was looking a whole lot better and moved back up, where she’s stayed since. She’s now fought her last nine fights (4-5) at 125 lb, bringing her UFC Flyweight record to 5-5.
Overall, Wood is a high-volume striker and former Muay Thai champion, who is a liability when it comes to grappling. She’s landed over 100 significant strikes in six of her nine UFC fights that make it out of the first round and averages 6.76 SSL/min and 4.54 SSA/min. She’s looking to outland her way to decision wins and has actually never been outlanded in any UFC fight that has gone the distance, even in her three decision losses. In her 15 UFC fights, she’s landed 16 takedowns on 29 attempts (55.2% accuracy), but didn’t attempt a takedown in any of her last three matches.
Luana Carolina
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Carolina will be looking to bounce back from her first career KO loss, which came in the third round against Molly McCann in the same building where this next fight will take place. Prior to that loss, Carolina narrowly notched a pair of upset decision wins, where she entered as a +185 and +200 dog.
Now 8-3 as a pro, Carolina has two wins by TKO, one by submission, and five decisions. However, all three of the finishes occurred in her first four pro fights against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-0, and 2-1. She’s also been knocked out once, submitted once, and has one decision loss. Her last five wins have all gone the distance, while both of her UFC losses ended early. The only decision loss of her career came in 2015 pro debut and the judges were split. Since that loss, she’s won 8 of her last 10 fights. While Carolina has competed at 125 lb for her entire UFC career, her three fights prior to joining the organization were up at 135 lb and she’s big for the 125 lb division.
Overall, Carolina is a Brazilian pure Muay Thai striker who hasn’t even attempted a takedown in any of her five UFC fights. However, she has a really solid 82.1% takedown defense and has only been taken down five times on 28 opponent attempts in between her five UFC fights and DWCS appearance. She only averages 4.64 SSL/min and 3.55 SSA/min, but she’s spent a lot of her career defending takedowns, and is capable of taking part in higher volume fights, as she showed when she landed 111 significant strikes in her UFC debut. Her best attribute is her size, but she throws decent kicks and it will be interesting to see how she looks in a pure striking battle.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are listed at 5’6” while Carolina will have a 4” reach advantage. Carolina is eight years younger than the 37-year-old Wood.
This sets up as a fun high-paced striking battle between two Muay Thai strikers. While Wood’s last two matchups have been brutally tough, she finally gets a favorable matchup here and if she can’t win this one then it’s probably time to hang it up. Wood’s weakness has been her defensive grappling, and working in her favor, Carolina has never attempted a takedown in the UFC. So the only way we see Wood getting submitted here is if she shoots for a misguided takedown and falls into a guillotine, which is always possible. In terms of pure striking, few fighters can keep up with Wood’s pace and we expect her to put up a big striking total and get her hand raised in a decision in her triumphant return to the UK.
Our favorite bet here is “Wood DEC” at +100.
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DFS Implications:
Wood has averaged a ridiculous 110 DraftKings points in her seven UFC wins, despite five of those ending in decisions. She’s scored 96 or more DraftKings points in six of her seven wins and has twice broken slates with scores of 138 or more. Her high-volume striking mixed in with occasional takedowns is the perfect recipe for DFS production, unfortunately her wins have been few and far between lately and she’s lost four of her last five fights. However, after facing the top of the Flyweight division in her last two fights, now she’ll get a much easier matchup and we like Wood to bounce back here. Her recent struggles should result in her going overlooked by the field and she looks like a sneaky good play in all contest types. The odds imply she has a 61% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Carolina struggled to score well in her last two decision wins, but was able to put up 102 DraftKings points in her UFC debut decision victory. We expect this fight to play out as a pure striking battle, so Carolina should have a shot at putting up a bigger striking total, although with zero takedowns attempted in her career, it’s still tougher for her to really score well without a finish, or knockdowns/reversals like we saw in her debut. With that said, her cheaper price tag could allow her to serve as a value play even in an average scoring decision win if we don’t see many underdogs on the slate win. While Wood has never been knocked out, she has been submitted five times, so there’s always a chance Carolina could lock up a guillotine if Wood shoots for an ill advised takedown. The odds imply Carolina has a 39% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
Jake Hadley
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Fresh off his first UFC win, Hadley landed a second round submission in a high-volume fight against Carlos Candelario, who had previously never been finished in his career. Hadley impressively landed 90 significant strikes in a fight that only lasted a round and a half, and never even attempted a takedown in the fight before locking up a triangle choke after Candelario took him down. Prior to that, Hadley suffered his first career loss in his UFC debut against a tough grappler in Allan Nascimento. Hadley’s second most recent win also ended in a second round submission, which occurred on DWCS in 2021.
Now 9-1 as a pro, Hadley has two wins by TKO, five by submission, and two decisions. Both of his two 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. Both of his career decision wins occurred in five-round title fights—one for the EFC Flyweight belt and the other for the Cage Warriors Flyweight title. His only career loss came in a three-round decision in his UFC debut. His last four and six of his last seven fights have made it out of the first round, but four of his last five wins ended early.
Overall, Hadley is a young English grappler and a former Cage Warriors champion. He’s still just 26 years old and only turned pro in 2018, so he’s still relatively early in his career. While he’s looked most dangerous with his grappling, he set a frantic striking pace in his last fight, before ultimately locking off a submission on the mat. 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 last outing. He’s got decent striking, but has tended to leave his body exposed with defending strikes in the past, which is something he’ll need to clean up before someone decimates his liver down the road. He also stands very upright, which makes it tougher to defend takedowns, and he’s been taken down five times on eight attempts (37.5% defense) in his last three fights. He only attempted one takedown of his own in those matches, although he did land it. Considering his age, we should be seeing improvements from Hadley between every fight, so it will be interesting to see how he looks here fighting in front of his home crowd.
Malcolm Gordon
6th UFC Fight (2-3)Coming off a third round submission loss to Muhammad Mokaev, Gordon showed decent grappling in the match but ultimately got caught in an armbar in the final minute of the fight. With that loss, Gordon is now just 2-3 in the UFC, but he did win his previous two matches. Gordon got submitted in the first round of his 2020 debut by a really tough Amir Albazi, and was then knocked out in just 44 seconds by Su Mudaerji in his next match. He rebounded with a decision win over Francisco Figueiredo after the pair of losses, and then won by R1 TKO due to an arm injury of his opponent in his last match. Eleven of Gordon’s last 12 fights have ended early (8-4), with nine of those ending in round one.
Now 14-6 as a pro, Gordon has five wins by KO, six by submission, and three decisions. All six of his career losses have come early, with four KOs and two submissions. Five of his six losses ended in the first two rounds, with three of his last four defeats ending in round one. He’s only been to the third round four times in his career, although two of those were in his last three fights. Gordon has fought a few times at 135 lb, but the rest of his career has been spent at 125 lb.
Overall, Gordon is a BJJ black belt who’s typically a finish or get finished type of fighter, and he’s only been to one decision since 2015. He’s shown decent grappling, but a suspect chin. While he’s been submitted twice in the UFC, both of those losses came against really high-level grapplers. In his five UFC fights, Gordon has landed 4 takedowns on 13 attempts (30.8% accuracy), while he’s been taken down by his opponents on 10 of their 11 attempts (9.1% defense). He only averages 1.90 SSL/min and 2.04 SSA/min, so we haven’t seen a ton of striking in any of his fights, as four of them have played out as grappling battles.
UPDATE: Gordon missed weight by 3.5 lb!
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’7” but Gordon will have a 1” reach advantage. Hadley is six years younger than the 32-year-old Gordon.
This sets up as a fun fight between two finishers who rarely require the judges. Hadley looks like the superior striker and has only attempted one takedown in his last three fights, so it would make sense for him to try and keep this fight standing and test the dubious chin of Gordon. However, most of Gordon’s fights end up on the mat pretty quickly and Hadley’s takedown defense has been poor. So there’s a good chance this one hits the mat before long. Gordon showed decent grappling in his last fight and Hadley got controlled on the ground for nine and half minutes in his debut, so Gordon definitely has a chance in a grappling battle. With that said, we’ve never been impressed by Gordon and like Hadley’s chances of finding a finish. Based on how bad Gordon’s chin has looked, both a knockout and submission are in play and we’d be surprised if Gordon survived to see the third round.
Our favorite bet here is “FDGTD” at -190.
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DFS Implications:
Hadley scored 109 DraftKings points in his recent second round submission win, despite failing to land either a knockdown or a takedown in the fight. He set a crazy high striking pace as he laned 90 significant strikes in less than eight minutes, which is encouraging for his scoring potential moving forward. However, that’s likely unsustainable and we also saw him get controlled on the mat for the majority of the fight in his UFC debut, where he scored just 19 points in a decision loss. So he’s been a boom or bust fighter and now takes on another grappler. However, Gordon has generally been a guy we’re looking to attack in DFS, with all six of his career losses coming early. So this looks like another good spot for Hadley to find a finish, at which point it will just come down to whether or not he’s able to outscore the other high priced options. On a slate this large, that becomes somewhat of a crapshoot when you have so many high-ceiling options at the top of the price chart. The odds imply he has a 78% chance to win, a 51% chance to land a finish, and a 27% chance it comes in round one.
Gordon is a fragile finisher who has only topped 80 DraftKings points in one of his five UFC fights, which was when he notched 102 DraftKings points in a first round TKO win due to an opponent’s arm injury. He also has one decision win in the UFC that was good for 80 points, while he’s been finished in all six of his career losses, with three of those occurring in the UFC. The one reason for optimism in him is that he had his moments on the mat in his last fight against Muhammad Mokaev and we saw Hadley lose a grappling battle in his UFC debut. Gordon is also a BJJ black belt, while Hadley is just a purple belt if you want to compare laundry. However, Gordon has been unimpressive throughout his career and we’d be surprised to see him pull off the win here, let alone find a finish. With that said, at his cheap price tag he’ll likely end up in tournament winning lineups if he does win, so it still makes sense to have some level of exposure, especially when you consider that 11 of his 14 career wins have come early. The odds imply he has a 22% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Christian Duncan
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Duncan will be making his UFC debut in front of his home crowd following a pair of Middleweight title fight wins on Cage Warriors. Both of those fights were scheduled to go five rounds, but neither made it past the 11 minute mark, with the most recent ending late in round one. While the undefeated Duncan only turned pro in September 2020 and has just seven pro fights under his belt, he had a lengthy amateur career prior to that. While he’s only required the judges once as a pro, he went 5-6 in amateur fights that went the distance and has generally been reliant on landing finishes both as a pro and an amateur.
Now 7-0 as a pro, Duncan has five wins by KO/TKO, one by submission, and one decision victory. He has three first round finishes, two in round, and one in round three. Both of his second round finishes came in the opening 18 seconds of round two, while his lone third round finish occurred in the opening minute of round three. So he likes to come out hot early in rounds and five of his seven pro fights have ended in under five and a half minutes.
Overall, Duncan is a dangerous striker who likes to mix in flashy strikes like jumping knees, spinning back elbows, and roundhouse kicks. All seven of his pro fights have been with Cage Warriors, so he hasn’t faced the most diverse competition. 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 a ton in terms of grappling. Opponents are often looking to grapple him because of that clear weakness, which has often resulted in lower striking totals in his fights. It will be interesting to see how his takedown defense holds up at the UFC level and we expect it to be tested often.
Dusko Todorovic
7th UFC Fight (3-3)Todorovic is coming off a second round ground and pound TKO win over Jordan Wright, but before he found the finish he got taken down three times in the first round and controlled for almost the entire round while absorbing strikes. Wright then gassed out in round two and Todorovic landed 103 strikes in the round as he beat Wright up on the mat until the fight was finally stopped. Todorovic lost three of his four previous fights leading up to that win and has struggled when facing large, powerful opponents. The only three UFC opponents Todorovic has found success against in the UFC were a terrible Jordan Wright, who gassed out in the fight and finished his UFC career 2-5, Maki Pitolo who used to fight down at 170 lb and went 1-5 in the UFC, and an aging/bad Dequan Townsend, who went 0-4 in the UFC. All three of his UFC wins have come via ground and pound, with one ending late in round one and the other midway through round two. However, two of his three UFC losses have come by R1 KO, with the other ending in a decision against Gregory Rodrigues, who was making his UFC debut on short notice. Todorovic is notably the only person to ever knock out Michel Pereira, which occurred in the first round of a 2018 fight just before Todorovic went on DWCS in 2019.
Now 12-3 as a pro, Todorovic has eight wins by KO/TKO, three by submission, and one decision victory. He has two R1 KO losses and one decision defeat. Thirteen of his 15 career fights have ended early, with all of those stoppages occurring in the first two rounds. Nine ended in round one (7-2) and four ended in round two (4-0). Todorovic’s last three and five of his six UFC fights have ended in KO/TKOs.
Overall, Todorovic came into the UFC as an undefeated fighter brimming with confidence who relied on head movement to avoid taking damage. However, after getting knocked out by Soriano in 2021 he has never looked quite the same and now tends to wilt under pressure, while struggling to absorb damage. He hasn’t looked nearly as comfortable on the feet and has relied on getting opponents down and finishing them with ground and pound. The only problem with that is he has just a 12% takedown accuracy and has only landed 4 of his 32 attempts between his six UFC fights and his DWCS appearance. However, when he is able to get opponents down, he does a great job of raining down ground and pound from full mount and has the ability to put up huge striking totals on the mat, with all three of his finishes coming from ground and pound. He holds black belts in both BJJ and Taekwondo, but we’ve yet to see an official submission attempt from him in the UFC.
Fight Prediction:
Duncan will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.
Todorovic’s main problem in grappling exchanges appears to be a lack of physical strength, which has resulted in him struggling to complete many takedowns. However, he should have a major grappling advantage in this matchup if he can just get the fight to the mat. Duncan has looked bad off his back, and Todorovic will be super live for another finish if he can get him there. However, Todorovic hasn’t looked even remotely durable lately and if Duncan catches him on the feet the fight may end quickly. There’s been a stark contrast in competition level between Todorovic’s UFC wins and losses (Chidi Njokuani, Gregory Rodrigues, and Punahele Soriano vs. Jordan Wright, Maki Pitolo, Dequan Townsend), and at least on the surface it appears Duncan belongs more in that first group than the second. However, he’s a much worse grappler than any of those guys, and that keeps Todorovic in this fight. The most likely outcome is that Duncan knocks Todorovic out early, but another Todorovic ground and pound finish is definitely still in play. The results will just come down to whether or not Todorovic is able to take Duncan down and keep him there. Regardless of which way it goes, we’d be surprised if this fight made it past the second round. The official pick is Duncan by R1 KO.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in KO” at -165.
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DFS Implications:
Duncan will be making his UFC debut on a PPV card in front of his home crowd, which is a lot of pressure for a young guy, but could also motivate him to look for a spectacular finish. He’s a powerful striker with a history of landing finishes, but doesn’t add a whole lot in terms of grappling and generally doesn't put up big striking totals. That leaves him as a boom or bust option who’s entirely reliant on landing early knockouts to score well. Working in his favor, Todorovic has been knocked out in the first round in two of his three UFC losses and looks very prone to getting finished. However, Todorovic should also be looking to get this fight to the ground, which could limit Duncan’s opportunities to find a finish. According to the oddsmakers, this is the most likely fight on the slate to end early, which should result in Duncan being pretty popular as the favorite in the matchup. The odds imply he has a 66% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 27% chance it comes in round one.
Todorovic has been a feast or famine DFS play with DraftKings scores of 106, 119 and 120 points in his three UFC wins, but just 19, 19, and 9 points in his three losses. Five of his six UFC bouts have ended in knockouts in the first two rounds and he has only been to two decisions in 15 pro fights. All three of his wins have come via ground and pound, and we expect Todorovic to be looking to get this fight to the ground to end it in a similar fashion. While it’s a good stylistic matchup for that strategy, Todorovic has just a 12% takedown accuracy and has struggled mightily to complete takedowns. When you combine that with his fragile chin, he’s a tough guy to trust, but you can’t question his scoring ceiling. Unless we see Todorovic hold Duncan up against the cage for the first five minutes and then Duncan immediately knock Todorovic out in round two, the winner of this fight should score well, as we expect someone to get finished in the opening 10 minutes. The odds imply he has a 34% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Lerone Murphy
5th UFC Fight (3-0-1)Murphy had been scheduled to fight Nathaniel Wood here, but Wood got hurt in training and dropped out in early February. It took a while to find a replacement, before Santos was finally announced as the replacement a week out.
Murphy has really struggled with fight cancellations and four of his last five bookings have fallen through. The last time he actually competed was in October 2021 when he knocked out Makwan Amirkhani early in the second round, after getting controlled on the mat for almost the entire first round. Since then, Murphy withdrew from a scheduled March 22022 fight against Nate Landwehr and then apparently got hit by a car while riding his bike in May in what was described as a near-death experience that left him hospitalized. Prior to the win over Amirkhani, Murphy was twice booked to face Charles Jourdain, but both times fell through as Murphy dealt with Visa issues during the pandemic. His second most recent fight was a decision win over Douglas Silva de Andrade back in January 2021, after he knocked out Ricardo Ramos in the first round of a July 2020 match. Murphy originally made his UFC debut in 2019 and fought Zubaira Tukhugov to a draw, which is the only time he hasn’t come out victorious in a fight.
Now 11-0-1 as a pro, Murphy has seven wins by KO/TKO and four decision victories. While his last knockout came 14 seconds into round two, his previous six all ended in round one. He’s alternative knockouts and decisions for his last six fights and is coming off a knockout for what it’s worth. Murphy started his pro career at 155 lb but dropped down to 145 lb in 2018, where he’s stayed since.
Overall, Murphy is a dangerous striker with good hands and seems to be trying to improve his grappling but he’s gotten into trouble at times with being reversed as he’s looked for takedowns of his own. In his four UFC fights, he’s landed two takedowns on six attempts (33.3% accuracy), while he’s been taken down by his opponents 12 times on 19 attempts (36.8% accuracy). He only averages 2.58 SSL/min and 1.90 SSA/min, and he hasn’t landed more than 48 significant strikes in a fight or absorbed more than 39.
Gabriel Santos
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Stepping into his UFC debut on short notice, the undefeated Brazilian Santos is coming off a pair of knockout wins in the LFA, where he just won the Featherweight belt. He also has a decision win over Elves Brener Oliveira, who recently won a questionable decision over Zubaira Tukhugov in his own UFC debut. While he looks like a decent grappler, he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2019.
Now 10-0 as a pro, Santos has three wins by KO/TKO, four by submission, and three decision wins. All four of his submission wins occurred in the first round, while all of his knockouts occurred in rounds two (1) and three (2). While seven of his 10 wins have come early, his last four fights vae all seen the second round, with three of those making it to round three. Santos started his career all the way down at 125 lb, before moving up to 135 lb in 2019, and then 145 lb in 2021. All of his submission wins occurred when he was fighting at the lighter weight classes.
Overall, Santos is an aggressive fighter who rarely takes a step back and does a good job of mixing in grappling and striking. It’s hard to fully gauge his chin, as he nearly got knocked out a minute into the first round of his second most recent fight, although he was narrowly able to survive and comeback to land a knockout of his own early in round two. However, you can’t question his heart and this kid will just keep coming at you. He’s still just 26 years old and should constantly be improving, although his last fight was just seven weeks ago, so it’s hard to imagine he’s made any major changes in such a short amount of time. That was a really hard fought fight for the 11 minutes it lasted and he also fought in November, so he hasn’t had a ton of time for his body to recover.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’9” but Murphy will have a 3” reach advantage and is five years older than the 31-year-old Murphy.
We rarely see short notice debuting fighters come out victorious, let alone when they’re taking on undefeated veterans. So while Santos looks like a somewhat interesting prospect moving forward, he’ll likely have to pay his dues here before he can think about getting his hand raised. With that said, Santos should have a grappling advantage in this matchup and looks like the busier striker. So if Murphy is unable to knock Santos out, it doesn’t seem impossible that Santos could make a decision close. However, with this being a home game for Murphy, we would expect any close decision to go his way, making it even tougher for Santos to pull off the upset. Santos also got dropped early in the first round of a November 2022 fight, and there’s a good chance Murphy knocks Santos out early. That’s how we’re expecting the fight to end, but it wouldn’t be shocking to see Santos survive to lose a decision.
Our favorite bet here is Murphy’s ML at -175.
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DFS Implications:
Murphy is basically a one-dimensional striker, although will occasionally mix in a takedown attempt. While he’s yet to lose a fight in his career, he’s only once topped 82 DraftKings points, which was when he scored 107 DraftKings points in a 2020 first round knockout of Ricardo Ramos. While he landed a second round knockout in his last fight, it came in the worst possible situation, where he was controlled for the entire first round and then immediately found a finish to start round two. That unsurprisingly scored just 82 DraftKings points, although it’s not a fair representation of what he would typically score in a second round finish. That low score could actually help to keep Murphy’s ownership down and at his very reasonable price tag he could still be in play even with a later round finish. While Santos has never lost a fight, let alone been knocked out, he was moments away from getting knocked out early in the first round last November, so it’s definitely possible Murphy knocks him out early here, after Santos stepped in on a week’s notice. However, Murphy only scored 60 DraftKings points in his lone decision win and it’s tougher to see him scoring well without a finish unless we see an insane amount of striking volume in this one. And with that in mind, he only averages 2.58 SSL/min and 1.90 SSA/min. The odds imply Murphy has a 62% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Santos is making his short notice UFC debut with a perfect 10-0 record, but he’s stepping into a really tough matchup in enemy territory against an undefeated Lerone Murphy. With that said, Santos’ fighting style does look conducive to DFS production, as he’s an aggressive fighter who mixes in a combination of striking and grappling. He knocked out his last two opponents in the later rounds, but we’d be surprised if he was able to hand Murphy the first early loss of his career. At his cheap price tag, a decision win could still score enough for him to serve as a value play, especially if he can find a decent amount of grappling success. However, we’d be surprised if Santos got his hand raised here, making it tougher to get excited about playing him in DFS. He looks like a guy who we’ll want to play in his next fight after he suffers his first career defeat in this matchup. The odds imply he has a 38% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Muhammad Mokaev
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Keeping his undefeated record alive, Mokaev exploded onto the UFC scene almost exactly a year ago on the first London card of 2022 with a 58 second submission win over Cody Durden. Mokaev has now won all three of his UFC fights, with a pair of submissions and a dominant decision win over Charles Johnson. 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. All three of his UFC wins came in 2022 and he has continued to stay active as he chases his goal of becoming the youngest UFC champion of all time.
Now 9-0 as a pro, Mokaev is still undefeated with two wins by TKO, four by submission, and three decision victories. Both of his TKO wins ended in round one, while his submission victories have been spread across the first three rounds. Mokaev competed at both 125 lb and 135 lb as an amateur, but his first four pro fights were all at 135 lb. He then dropped down to 125 lb in 2021. However, his last two fights before joining the UFC both took place at a 130 lb Catchweight. He dropped back down to 125 lb for his debut and that’s where we expect him to stay moving forward.
Overall, Mokaev has a wrestling background, which is evident to anyone that has watched him fight. He’s extremely fluid with his transitions and is relentless with his takedown attempts. He’ll seamlessly chain takedowns together and reverse positions quicker than a greased up python. He’s not helpless on the feet either, but his wrestling is what got him to the UFC. In his three UFC fights, he’s landed 18 takedowns on 33 attempts (54.5% accuracy), while he‘s also been taken down on both of his opponents’ attempts. The one concern with Mokaev is that he has a sketchy AC joint shoulder injury that he sustained in training after his last fight. It was bad enough that they told him he should consider surgery, but he opted to rehab it instead to avoid a long layoff as he continues to chase the record of being the youngest champ. He made it sound like there’s still the potential he’ll need surgery on it after this fight, which definitely makes you wonder about just how healthy he is. With that said, when asked about the shoulder at media day, he claimed it was fine and he was ready to go.
Jafel Filho
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Coming off a low-volume third round TKO win on DWCS, Filho has finished five straight opponents, including a 2019 R2 TKO win over Vinicius Salvador, who is also preparing to make his UFC debut following a knockout win on DWCS. Filho’s last nine fights have all ended early (8-1), with only two of those making it to the third round.
Now 14-2 as a pro, Filho has five wins by KO/TKO, eight by submission, and one decision victory. That lone decision win came in his second pro fight, and his last 12 wins have all come early. The only time he’s ever been finished was in a 2017 third round submission, with his one other loss coming in a 2014 decision. He has only been to two decisions in 16 pro fights. Filho had two fights at 135 lb before going on DWCS
Overall, Filho has far more finishes than your typical Flyweight and looks really strong for the division. He’s typically looking to choke opponents out, but does have three TKO wins in his last five fights and has pretty heavy hands. He’s only fought twice since 2019, and one of those fights ended in just over three minutes, so we have limited recent tape to work with. That makes it tougher to fully evaluate him, but he seems fairly well-rounded, even if he doesn’t land a ton of striking volume.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’7” but Mokaev will have a 2” reach advantage. Filho is seven years older than the 22-year-old Mokaev.
Between Moakev’s uncertain shoulder health and Filho’s inactivity, there’s a little more uncertainty in this one than you would expect based on the odds. With that said, Moakev is confident enough in his shoulder to put his undefeated record on the line and we don’t actually know if it will even play a factor. If the shoulder isn’t an issue, Moakev should be able to outgrapple his way to another win, but we’d hate to be too heavily invested in him only to realize when it’s too late that the shoulder is actually worse than originally thought. That makes this a trickier spot to navigate and staying away could be the best course of action at least when it comes to betting. With that said, we’re still picking Mokaev to win. However, it’s tough if he’ll be able to find a submission against a fellow grappler or if he grinds out a decision win, and neither betting line is very appetizing. Forced to choose, we’ll say he wins by decision.
This is the rare fight we’re not betting on.
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DFS Implications:
Mokaev has been spectacularly consistent, with DraftKings scores of 122, 120, and 126 in his three UFC fights. His wrestling-heavy approach to fighting gives him both a solid floor and ceiling in DFS, especially on DraftKings, where he still scored 120 points in his one UFC decision win, while that was good for just 99 points on FanDuel. So at his high price tag, he’s more reliant on landing a finish on FanDuel, while he’s shown the ability to put up a massive DraftKings score regardless of whether or not he finds a finish. However, he hurt his shoulder after his last fight and it’s unknown if that will have any lingering effects in this matchup. For what it’s worth, he claimed he’s 100% at media day, but what else is he going to say? While he certainly could be fine, there is some reason for concern here. That makes this a trickier spot, as he’s the most expensive fighter on the card, projects to be very popular, and has scored at least 120 DraftKings points in all three of his wins. After being just 28% owned on DraftKings in his UFC debut and 29% the next time, his ownership skyrocketed all the way up to 57% in his last outing. We don’t expect him to be quite that popular on this large of a slate, but he will still be very highly owned. The potential shoulder injury creates one way he fails to return value if it hinders his ability to perform at all, but that’s not something we can rely on. That leaves him with a wide range of potential scoring outcomes, making it tougher to take a really hard stand. However, as the most expensive fighter on the DraftKings slate, there are more ways he gets priced out of the winning lineup, so he’s certainly not a lock to end up in the optimal just because of his past scoring success. The odds imply he has an 85% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.
Filho is making his UFC debut in an incredibly tough spot as the biggest underdog on the card and fighting in enemy territory. While his last 12 wins have all come early, his recent R3 TKO victory on DWCS would have only scored 82 DraftKings points and 96 points on FanDuel, and he didn’t exactly fill up the statsheet. Now he’s taking on an undefeated grappling phenom, and this looks like a tough spot for Filho to find much success. With that said, if Mokaev’s shoulder injury flares up in the fight, that would be one way for Filho to find more success than the odds suggest he’ll have. Filho is also really strong and Mokaev is still a 22-year-old kid, so it’s not inconceivable that Filho could either catch him on the feet or overpower him on the mat. With all that said, a healthy Mokaev should dominate this fight, and we’re basically betting on complete chaos if we play Filho. As the cheapest fighter on the card, he wouldn’t need to put up a huge score to be useful, which also adds to his appeal. He also projects to be incredibly low owned, so if chaos does strike, he has six-figure upside. Just keep in mind, the most likely outcome is for him to get dominated on the mat here. The odds imply he has a 15% chance to win, an 8% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Sam Patterson
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Patterson will be making his UFC debut in front of his home England crowd following a second round submission win on DWCS. He’s won six straight and is 9-0-1 in his last 10 fights. His last four and six of his last seven fights have made it out of the first round, but he’s only been to one decision in his last six fights. He’s finished his last three opponents in the second round. 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 have both lost three of their last four fights, so overall Patterson hasn’t been facing the toughest of competition.
Now 10-1-1 as a pro, Patterson has four wins by KO/TKO, five by submission, 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 five submission wins have come by guillotine. Only one of his submission wins ended in round one, while three came in round two, and one in round three. His only career loss came in a R1 KO in his second pro fight back in 2017.
Overall, Patterson is a young 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. The UFC loves physical freaks and Patterson fits the bill as a 6’3” Lightweight. He does a decent job of utilizing his size and reach, but is definitely still a work in progress. He’s a BJJ brown belt, who loves looking for guillotine chokes and does a good job of using his long skinny arms to get under opponents’ necks. He doesn’t appear to have the best chin and we’ve seen him wobbled at multiple points in his career, but he generally finds ways to come back and win fights after facing early adversity. He’s talked about how much work he puts into his cardio, allowing him to outlast his opponents. He said that he wasn’t able to perform at his best on DWCS because the pressure of the moment got to him, so it will be interesting to see how he handles the pressure of making his UFC debut on a PPV card in front of his home crowd.
Yanal Ashmoz
1st UFC Fight (0-0)A year to the day removed from his last fight, the undefeated Ashmoz has limited experience and fought half of his six fight career in 2017 before taking nearly four years off and returning in 2021. He looked like a different guy when he returned, which can partially be attributed to the fact that he dropped down from being a chunky Welterweight to a jacked Lightweight. While all six of his pro fights have made it out of the first round, he’s only been to the judges once, which came in a grappling-heavy decision in the PFL in his last fight.
Now 6-0 as a pro, Ashmoz has three wins by KO/TKO, two by submission, and one decision victory. He has three second round finishes and two in round three. The first two finishes of his career both came by rear-naked choke, while the last three were all by KO/TKO. He still hasn’t fought any decent competition, so take all of his wins with a grain of salt. He started his career at 170 lb in 2017, but then took four years off and returned in 2021 at 155 lb.
Overall, the 27-year-old Israeli Ashmoz is a stocky striker who loads up on his punches, but isn't a very technical striker. He’s a habitual fence grabber, but has never been punished for it so likely will continue to do it. He has heavy top pressure on the mat, but has looked prone to getting taken down and hasn’t looked like any sort of submission threat off his back. He’s still very green at this stage in his career and is probably being done a disservice by getting signed to the UFC roster before he’s actually ready, but they have a seemingly unlimited number of slots to fill these days.
Fight Prediction:
Patterson will have a 6” height advantage and 10” reach advantage.
Both of these guys are young fighters who still make a lot of mistakes and neither of them appear especially ready to face elite level talent. However, that works out since they’re facing each other. Patterson has twice as many pro fights and is definitely the superior of the two, but has looked a little chinny at times. Ashmoz loads up on his punches, so if he connects on one of his big hooks it’s definitely possible he puts Patterson down. However, he’ll first need to close the distance, which will be easier said than down as he gives up a ridiculous 10” of reach. Patterson also has a nice guillotine and if Ashmoz gets overly aggressive closing the distance and shoots for a sloppy takedown he could get choked out. On the other side of things, Ashmoz’s takedown defense has been pretty suspect, but Patterson doesn’t shoot for many attempts, so he’s less likely to fully take advantage of that. Ashmoz was able to land takedowns and rain down punches from top position in his last fight, but hasn’t landed many takedowns in his other fights, so it’s hard to know exactly what his approach will be, especially after a year away. We could just see these two duke it out on the feet, but they have both been prone to getting taken down so there’s still a decent chance it ends up on the mat at some point. The fact that both guys have shown lots of holes in their games and are each making their respective UFC debuts, makes this a more volatile spot, but we expect Patterson to win the fight as long as he doesn’t get knocked out or stuck in bottom position for extended periods of time. While it’s rare for either of these two to require the judges, Ashmoz has never been finished and Patterson’s only early loss came in his second pro fight. That makes it tougher to confidently predict whether or not this fight ends early, but we’ll say Patterson either finds a late finish or wins a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Patterson Wins & Over 1.5 Rounds” at +100.
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DFS Implications:
Patterson is making his UFC debut in front of his home England crowd on a PPV card. You never know how a young fighter will react to the pressure of a situation like that, which automatically makes this a more volatile spot. With that said, nine of Patterson’s 10 career wins have come early and he’ll be facing a fellow debuting fighter. He’s also a giant at Lightweight and will have a huge height and reach advantage, in addition to being a more dangerous submission threat. However, Patterson generally hasn’t put up big striking or takedowns totals on the regional scene and his last four fights all made it out of the first round. At his high price tag, that will make it tougher for him to put up really big scores and return value. His recent second round finish on DWCS would have been good for 95 DraftKings points and 100 points on FanDuel. While that’s decent, it’s not quite enough for him to be useful on this slate. That likely leaves him reliant on landing a first round finish and with four of his five submission wins coming by guillotine, he could still struggle to put up a big score with a submission victory. The odds imply he has a 70% chance to win, a 42% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Ashmoz only has six pro fights to his name and hasn’t fought any real competition, but has finished five of those opponents and throws with a lot of power. He also showed the ability to land takedowns followed by ground and pound in his last fight, while he struggled to land many takedowns earlier in his career. However, he still looks very green and will now be making his debut in enemy territory as a large underdog, and it’s hard to have much confidence in him. Working in his favor, Patterson’s chin has looked sort of suspect, so if Ashmoz can land something clean we could see him find a finish. With that said, he’ll be at a 10” reach disadvantage and simply closing the distance won’t be easy. His low ownership and potential to land a knockout gives him slate-breaking potential, but his chances of actually pulling it off are slim. The odds imply he has a 30% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Omar Morales
7th UFC Fight (3-3)After starting out 10-0 as a pro at 155 lb, Morales sent his career into a downward spiral when he attempted to drop down to 145 lb in 2020. He lost a decision in his first 145 lb fight, before winning a boring decision against Shane Young in 2021, he then suffered the first early loss of his career in a 2021 second round submission against Jonathan Pearce. After going 1-2 at 145 lb, he decided to move back up to 155 lb for his last fight, but proceeded to get knocked out by Uros Medic in the second round and has now lost three of his last four fights. Prior to getting finished in his last two fights, Morales went the distance in his first four UFC matches. The last time he finished an opponent came in a second round TKO by leg kicks on DWCS in 2019.
Now 11-2 as a pro, Morales has two wins by KO, five by submission, and four decisions. All five of his submission wins occurred in his first six pro fights from 2011 to 2016, with all of those finishes ending in round one. He then landed back-to-back KO/TKO stoppages in the first two rounds of fights in 2018 and 2019, but hasn’t finished anybody since. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has one decision loss, with all three of those losses occurring in his last four fights. Both of his early losses ended in round two.
Overall, Morales had looked like a durable fighter prior to his recent pair of early losses, but at 37 years old and constantly switching weight classes, you have to wonder about him now. He generally slows down the pace in fights and he’s never landed more than 69 significant strikes in a UFC match or absorbed more than 65, and he averages just 3.47 SSL/min and 3.12 SSA/min. He’s also only landed three takedowns in his last six fights, despite having five submission wins on his record. After losing three of his last four, Morales could be fighting for his job here, but we don’t have the details on his contract.
Chris Duncan
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Duncan had originally been scheduled to face Michal Figlak here, but Figlak withdrew and Morales was announced as the replacement a little over a month out.
Making his UFC debut following a first round KO win on DWCS, the Scottish Duncan nearly got finished for a second time on the show, but was narrowly able to survive and land a miracle knockout of his own. Prior to that victory, Duncan won a decision, after getting knocked out in the second round of his first appearance on DWCS, which came against Viacheslav Borshchev in 2021. Seven of Duncan’s last eight fights have ended by knockout in the first two rounds, but four of his last five fights have seen round two.
Now 9-1 as a pro, Duncan has seven wins by KO/TKO, one by submission, and one decision victory. The only loss of his career came in his R2 KO loss on DWCS. His lone submission win came via R2 guillotine in his 2018 pro debut, while his last seven finishes have all ended in knockouts. Four of those KOs came in round one, two ended in round two, and one came in round three. However, his last six all ended in the first two rounds. Duncan actually moved up to 170 lb for his fight in between his two DWCS appearances. He also has a couple of 160 lb Catchweight matches, but the rest of his career has been spent at 155 lb.
Overall, Duncan is a brawling striker who trains at American Top Team. He’ll have the home UK crowd behind him and he said he’ll have about 150 family and friends showing up for his debut. While Duncan will mix in takedowns at times, we normally only see him do that once he’s hurt and he’s really just looking to knock everyone out. He hasn’t looked very durable and he got hurt badly at multiple points in both of his DWCS matches.
Fight Prediction:
Morales will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage. Duncan is eight years younger than the 37-year-old Morales.
It will be interesting to see how Morales responds to getting knocked out for the first time in his career. Considering he’s already a slower paced fighter, it wouldn’t be surprising if he came in a bit tentative. Duncan is an aggressive brawler, so we sort of have a clash of styles here. Everyone saw Duncan’s two DWCS appearances end in early knockouts, which will influence the public perception that this fight will also end quickly, but if Morales circles away from contact looking to land leg kicks, this definitely has bust potential. With that said, if Morales is willing to engage then this could quickly turn into a firefight, as Duncan’s chin and striking defense have both looked bad. We’re more inclined to think Morales looks to evade early on, which has the potential to frustrated Duncan and cause him to walk onto something, or just get his lead leg chewed up until he can barely walk. As long as Morales can avoid eating any clean shots, we like him to rely on his experience to win this fight. Duncan’s chin has looked so bad that a knockout is definitely possible, but Morales hasn’t knocked anybody out in years and we won’t be surprised if he wins a disappointing decision, even in enemy territory. Just keep in mind, this is a pretty volatile spot that could go a lot of ways.
Our favorite bet here is Morales’ ML at -105.
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DFS Implications:
Morales has failed to top 74 DraftKings points in any of his three UFC wins and his slower paced striking-heavy fighting style is poorly suited to DFS scoring production. However, he’s in a very favorable pace-up matchup against a low-level debuting brawler, so if he was ever going to score well, this would be the time. However, at 37 years old and coming off his first knockout loss, we have no idea how much Morales has left in the tank, or where he’s at mentally right now. He could be fighting for his job and we wouldn’t be surprised to see a more tentative approach from him, which would be terrible in DFS. He throws good leg kicks and seeing him circle away from contract and using leg kicks to strike from distance is entirely possible. However, Duncan’s chin has looked very suspect, so if Morales can land something clean an early knockout is definitely in play. Overall, there’s a wide range of potential outcomes, making this kind of a tricky spot. The odds imply he has a 50% chance to win, a 31% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Duncan is an aggressive brawler who has only required the judges once in his career, and that fight was up at 170 lb instead of 155 lb where he normally competes. All nine of his 155 lb fights have ended early, with the last eight ending in knockouts and the last seven being stopped in the first two rounds. That presents clear scoring upside for him. However, his defense looks terrible and he’s facing a more tentative UFC veteran who may be less willing to throw down in a scrap. That creates two ways for him to bust, either by getting knocked out, or the fight being much slower paced than expected. That makes it tougher to know what to do with Duncan, but you’re basically just playing him for his ability to land a knockout. There are definitely some serious trap vibes going on here, but if Duncan can force Morales into a fire fight then someone should get knocked out and score well. The odds imply he has a 50% chance to win, a 35% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Jack Shore
7th UFC Fight (5-1)Looking to bounce back from his first career loss, Shore got hurt on the feet late in round two and then Simon pounced on him and quickly locked up an arm-triangle choke to force a tap. Prior to that, Shore had won the first 16 fights of his career. While his last three wins all went the distance, 12 of his first 13 career victories ended early, including his first two UFC fights, which both ended in late round submissions. For context, those two finishes came against opponents who combined to go 0-6 in the UFC.
Now 16-1 as a pro, Shore has four wins by KO, eight by submission, and four decisions. His last four finishes have all come in the later rounds, with one in round two and three in round three. He’s coming off his only loss, which ended in a second round submission after he got rocked on the feet. Shore has seen the second in eight straight fights and the last time one of his matches ended in round one was in 2018. Shore has now made the decision to move back up to 145 lb, after fighting his last nine matches at 135 lb. He actually started his career at 145 lb, before dropping down to 135 lb in 2018. He went 7-0 at 145 lb, with all of those wins coming early, including five first round submissions.
Overall, Shore is a 28-year-old Welsh wrestler and BJJ black belt who will get to fight in front of his home crowd for this fight. In his six UFC fights, he’s landed 18 takedowns on 46 attempts (39.1% accuracy), while he’s been taken down by his opponents four times on 21 attempts (81% defense). All four of those takedowns allowed came in his last two fights as he faced a step up in competition. While he’s also shown improvements to his striking, getting dropped by a wrestler in Ricky Simon in his last fight certainly isn’t a great look. It will be interesting to see how Shore looks at his new weight class and whether or not he can find the same wrestling success against larger opponents.
Makwan Amirkhani
14th UFC Fight (7-6)Coming off a second round TKO loss, Amirkhani has now dropped four of his last five fights, with his lone win over that stretch coming in a 57 second R1 submission over English wrestler Mike Grundy, who finished 1-3 in the UFC. That win took place almost exactly a year ago on the first London card in 2022. That fight went so well for Amirkhani that they invited him back for the next London card, but that one didn’t end nearly as well for him. While it ultimately ended with him getting finished on the mat via ground and pound late in round two, Amirkhani was able to land three takedowns in the first round and looked close to locking up a choke at one point. However, after a high-paced start, Amirkhani faded in round two and he’s now lost his last five fights that have made it out of the first round. In fairness to Amirkhani, most of his losses have come against tough competition, but he did also lose a decision to a short notice replacement and UFC newcomer in Kamuela Kirk.
Now 17-8 as a pro, Amirkhani has one TKO win, 12 by submission, and four decisions. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted once, and has four decision losses. Eleven of his 12 submission wins occurred in the first round, as did his lone TKO victory, which came eight seconds into his 2015 UFC debut from a flying knee. His one submission loss also occurred in round one, all the way back in 2011 in his third pro fight. He’s lost three of the last four decisions he’s been to, with the one win being split. All three of his KO/TKO losses occurred in the later rounds.
Overall, Amirkhani is a slick grappler, but doesn’t offer much on the feet and only averages 1.35 SSL/min. He’s never landed more than 32 significant strikes in a fight and relies on his grappling to win fights, typically with early Anaconda chokes. In his 13 UFC fights, Amirkhani has landed 33 takedowns on 76 attempts (43.4% accuracy). The only two UFC fights where he failed to attempt or land a takedown were in his 8 second flying knee KO win in his UFC debut and his recent 57 second submission win. Only four of his 13 UFC opponents have tried to take him down, landing 8 of their 13 attempts against him (38.5% defense).
Fight Prediction:
Amirkhani will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage. However, Shore is six years younger than the 34-year-old Amirkhani.
While Amirkhani has an impressive Anaconda choke that he sets up well, he failed to ever evolve the rest of his game and has settled into being a one-dimensional prop bet at this stage in his career. It’s been almost five years since he won a fight by any method other than Anaconda choke, which was a 2018 split decision. His second most recent non-Anaconda choke win was over seven years ago. When he can’t lock up an early submission, he tends to fade later on in fights, and three of his last five losses have come by KO/TKO in rounds two and three. That matches up perfectly with Shore’s late round finishing ability, as his last five finishes have all come in the later rounds. The fact that Shore is moving up a weight class does add some uncertainty to the mix, but if Amirkhani can’t lock up a hail mary Anaconda choke in the first round, look for Shore to finish him in the back half of the fight. While Amirkhani’s early losses have mostly come by knockout, more often than not Shore is looking to put guys away with rear-naked chokes. So we could see Shore finishing this fight with either method in the second or third round, but regardless of how he gets it done, we like Shore to land a mid-to-late round finish.
Our favorite bet here is “Shore R3 Win” at +850.
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DFS Implications:
Shore has averaged 99 DraftKings points in his five UFC wins, showing a really solid floor, but an unspectacular ceiling. However, we just saw Jonathan Pearce score 145 DraftKings points and 153 points on FanDuel against Amirkhani in a second round TKO, and Amirkhani’s tendency to gas out late in fights and get finished creates a great scoring opportunity for Shore, who excels in late round finishes. The one wildcard here is that Shore is moving up a weight class following his first career loss, so we’ve yet to see how he looks at 145 lb in a UFC fight. That adds some volatility to the mix, as does the fact that Amirkhani is a slick grappler who excels at locking up early Anaconda chokes. That creates a clear path for Shore to completely bust here, but if he can avoid getting choked out, he has the potential to put up a huge score. The oddsmakers don’t seem overly concerned about it, installing Shore as a massive -550 favorite in his Featherweight debut. Shore has historically been very popular, but his high price tag, his recent loss, and the size of this slate should keep his ownership from getting completely out of control. However, as the second most expensive fighter on the card, he’ll need a career performance here to crack winning tournament lineups, and there are lots of ways he gets priced out even with a finish. The odds imply he has an 81% chance to win, a 49% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Amirkhani has watched his career spiral into novelty prop bet status and he’s lost four of his last five fights. His last three wins have all come by Anaconda Choke in the first two rounds and he was able to score 115 DraftKings points with the help of the Quick Win Bonus on a London card almost exactly a year ago. However, his second most recent win came almost three years ago against a washed up opponent who never fought again, and Amirkhani’s wins have been very few and far between. He’s a boom or bust option who generally relies on landing first round finishes before he gasses out and 11 of his 12 career early wins have come in round one. His one other finish occurred in round two and only scored 86 points on DraftKings. While that could still be enough to be useful at his cheap price tag, there’s no guarantee on a slate this size. It’s safer to treat him as a R1 or bust play and he averages an anemic 1.35 SSL/min. The odds imply he has a 19% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Marvin Vettori
14th UFC Fight (8-4-1)Looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Robert Whittaker, Vettori has fought to five straight decisions since he submitted Karl Roberson in the first round of a 2020 fight. That’s Vettori’s only fight to end early in his last 12, with his second most recent finish coming in a first round submission in his 2016 UFC debut. After losing a decision to Antonio Carlos Jr. in his second UFC fight, Vettori has gone 7-3-1 in his last 11 matches, with his only three losses coming in a pair of decisions against Israel Adesanya and his recent decision loss to Whittaker.
Now 18-6-1 as a pro, Vettori has two wins by KO, nine submissions, and seven decision victories. All 11 of Vettori’s early wins have occurred in the first round, but five of those came in his first six pro fights from 2013 to 2014 and he only has one finish since 2016, which was a 2020 R1 submission over the highly submittable Karl Roberson. He’s never been finished, with all six of his losses going the distance. Prior to his recent three-round decision loss, Vettori had competed in four straight five-round fights (3-1). Vettori started his pro career in 2012 at 170 lb, but moved up to 185 lb in 2016 and it looked like it took him a little while to really fill out at 185 lb.
Overall, Vettori started off as a pure grappler, but has continued to improve his striking in recent years. He’s generally looking to take the path of least resistance, so expect him to grapple with strikers and strike with grapplers. He’s shown the ability to put up big striking and takedown totals, just keep in mind all of those explosion spots were in five-round fights. He averages 4.20 SSL/min and 1.9 TDL/15 min. He’s landed 27 takedowns on 61 attempts (44.3% accuracy) in his 13 UFC fights, while his opponents have taken him down 9 times on 35 attempts (74.2% defense). Five of the nine times he’s been taken down occurred in his first two UFC fights, and since then he’s only been taken down 4 times on 20 attempts (80% defense) in his last 11 fights. Vettori has proven himself to be very durable, but has yet to knock anybody out in the UFC. While he’s somewhat of a submission threat, he still generally relies on outworking his way to decision wins.
Roman Dolidze
8th UFC Fight (6-1)Fresh off his third straight finish and fourth win in a row, Dolidze has stayed very active lately after taking a year off following a lackluster June 2021 decision win. Following his year hiatus that may or may not have included some pharmaceutical supplementation, Dolidze exploded back onto the scene in June 2022 with a 73 second R1 KO win over Kyle Daukaus. He followed that up with another first round knockout, this time against Phil Hawes. Before knocking Hawes out, Dolidze destroyed his knee with a leg lock, and the fight probably should have been stopped right then and ruled a submission victory. However, Hawes' futility tried to fight through the injury and Dolidze mercifully released the lock after he felt Hawes’ knee go. Most recently, Dolidze stepped in on short notice in December and knocked out Jack Hermansson in the second round.
Now 12-1 as a pro, Dolidze has seven wins by KO, three by submission, and two decisions. His only career loss came in a 2021 decision in his first fight down at 185 lb, and he’s never been finished. He’s coming off a second round knockout, but his previous six UFC fights all either ended in first round knockout wins (3) or decisions (2-1). Dolidze made his UFC debut at 205 lb in July 2020 and landed a first round knockout against a terrible Khadis Ibragimov. Then he won a grappling-heavy split decision over John Allan, before curiously choosing to move down to 185 lb for the first time in his career despite owning a perfect 8-0 pro record. He initially looked significantly worse after moving down from 205 lb to 185 lb in 2021 as he fought to a pair of unimpressive decisions (1-1), but then took a year off and suddenly looked like his old self. And speaking of his old self, Dolidze had notably been suspended for a year just before he joined the UFC when he tested positive for steroids. So it’s an indisputable fact that he’s been on the juice in the past, but whether or not he’s back on it remains unknown.
Overall, Dolidze is a powerful striker with a grappling background who can finish fights both on the feet and the mat. He loves looking for heel hooks, but he hasn’t officially finished a fight with one since 2017 in his second pro match. However, he used a leg lock to completely shred Phil Hawes’ knee in his second most recent fight, even if that ultimately went down as a knockout. He only averages 2.62 SSL/min and 2.06 SSA/min and hasn’t landed more than 51 significant strikes or absorbed more than 47 in any of his seven UFC fights. He’s landed 9 of his 17 takedown attempts (52.9% accuracy), while he’s been taken down on 8 of 12 opponent attempts (33.3% defense). All five of the opponents to try and take him down have been successful. This will be Dolidze’s third fight in the last five months and it will be interesting to see if that high-level of activity eventually catches up with the 34-year-old.
Fight Prediction:
Dolidze will have a 2” height and reach advantage, while Vettori is five years younger than the 34-year-old Dolidze.
This is an interesting matchup between two guys who both have grappling backgrounds but have improved their striking over the years. While Dolidze has been finishing everybody lately, Vettori has never been finished, so something will have to give here. Dolidze is the much more powerful of the two, while Vettori looks quicker. While they each have grappling backgrounds, Dolidze is more focussed on looking for submissions, while Vettori is better at controlling positions on the mat. Vettori is also the much more active striker, and when you add those together it’s hard to see Dolidze winning a decision. That leaves him reliant on handing Vettori the first early loss of his career to pull off the upset here. Conversely, Dolidze has never been finished and Vettori has just one early win in his last 12 fights. So it would be very surprising to see Vettori find a finish, especially against a fellow grappler. While it’s not impossible that potentially juiced up Dolidze could land a hail mary finish, we fully expect Vettori to grind out a decision win here.
Our favorite bet here is “Vettori DEC” at -125.
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DFS Implications:
Vetorri has averaged 109 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, but it’s essential to point out that his last three wins all came in five-round decisions, where he averaged 136 points. He also has two first round submission wins on his UFC resume, where he scored 125 and 108 points respectively. However, one of those was in his UFC debut and his only finish in his last 12 fights came against the highly submittable Karl Roberson in 2020. The three wins of Vetorri’s that we should be focussing on in this matchup are his three-round submission victories. In those three fights, he only averaged 76 DraftKings points, failing to top 82 in any of them. Now he’s going against a powerful finisher with a grappling background in Dolidze. That will make it tougher for Vetorri to land a ton of striking volume or lock up a submission, as he’ll have to respect the danger coming back his way. Dolidze’s takedown defense has been poor, but he’s very active off his back, which will make it harder for Vetorri to simply control him for extended periods of time on the mat. It’s possible we see some crazy scrambles on the mat which creates the potential for reversals to be had, but outside of that it’s tougher to see Vetorri returning value here. He’ll likely need either a well-timed finish or an absurd number of takedowns, neither of which are likely. Vetorri’s name and past scoring success, regardless of the context, should drive his ownership up some and he was just 29% owned in a terrible spot against Robert Whittaker. That further reduces our interest in playing him in tournaments and both fighters will likely be overowned here relative to their chances of cracking tournament winning lineups. The odds imply Vetorri has a 31% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Dolidze has been slicing through everyone lately, with three straight finishes against solid competition. However, he recently strengthened the notion that he needs a first round finish to really score well, when he only totalled 84 DraftKings points in a later second round TKO. With that said, he’s still shown a solid floor on DraftKings with later round finishes or decision wins, and put up 86 and 92 points in a pair of decision wins earlier in his career. And when he does land a first round finish, obviously he puts up big scores, with totals of 109, 115, and 108 in his three first round knockouts in the UFC. However, Vetorri will be the toughest test of his career, as he’s a fellow grappler and has also never been finished. Vettori is also the more active striker and has a much better takedown defense. Because of that, it’s tougher to see Dolidze winning a decision here and it looks like he’ll need to hand Vetorri the first early loss of his career to win the fight. While Dolidze has shown he can only put up big scores with first round finishes, his cheap price tag could allow him to serve as a value play with a finish in the later rounds, but he would need most of the other dogs to fail. The odds imply he has a 31% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Casey O'Neill
5th UFC Fight (4-0)Ten months removed from knee surgery, O'Neill completely tore her ACL in training early last year. Just before that, she won an ultra high-volume decision against a retiring Roxanne Modafferi, where O'Neill set the record at the time for the most significant strikes ever landed in a women’s Flyweight fight (229), although Andrade since topped that at 231 against Lauren Murphy. Prior to that decision win, O'Neill had finished her first three UFC opponents on the mat, beginning with a second round TKO against Shana Dobson in her February 2021 UFC debut. She then choked out BJJ black belt Lara Procopio in the third round of her next fight, before landing another second round ground and pound TKO, this time against Antonina Shevchenko. Dobson and Procopio were both cut from the UFC following those losses to O'Neill.
Now 9-0 as a pro, O'Neill has three wins by KO/TKO (all in R2), two by submission (R1 & R3), and four decision victories. Her last seven fights have made it past the first round, but only three of those required the judges. While her last fight went the distance, her previous four wins all came early. O'Neill started her pro career at 115 lb, but moved up to 125 lb in 2020 for her fourth pro fight, where she’s stayed since. While two of her three 115 lb fights went the distance, four of her six 125 lb matches have ended early.
Overall, O'Neill is an aggressive junkyard dog who puts a pace on her opponents that generally melts them in the later rounds and she leads the slate in striking volume at 8.65 SSL/min. While she’s faced some adversity in the first round of fights and still needs to improve her technique and striking defense, what she lacks in experience she makes up for in tenacity. She’s also still just 25 years old and improving all the time, so the O'Neill you saw last year may not be the same one you see now. While she’s typically looking to take opponents down and relentlessly beat them up with ground and pound, while also looking for submissions, she showed more of a willingness to take part in a pure striking battle in her last fight, where she failed to complete either of her two takedown attempts, but landed a ridiculous 229 significant strikes. That made a lot of sense considering she was going against a grappler in Modafferi and shows O'Neill can adapt her game plan based on her opponent. Her striking also looked improved in that fight, although part of that can be attributed to who she was facing. O'Neill is a BJJ brown belt and trained at Tiger Muay Thai for a period of time, but moved to Vegas in 2020 when Thailand was essentially shut down due to COVID. O'Neill’s father is a former fighter and the owner of Eternal MMA, which is the Australian promotion O'Neill fought her first four fights under and where she became the Strawweight Champion. While she mostly grew up in Australia, she was born in Scotland so fighting in the UK will be a homecoming for her. In her four UFC fights, O'Neill has landed 8 of her 18 takedown attempts (44.4% accuracy), while she’s been taken down by her opponents four times on 10 attempts (60% defense). She’ll now face the toughest test of her career in former title challenger and BJJ black belt Jennifer Maia.
Jennifer Maia
11th UFC Fight (5-5)Fresh off a decision win over Maryna Moroz, Maia has now gone the distance in five straight and 13 of her last 14 fights. Her only fight to end early since 2015 was a 2020 R1 submission win over Joanne Wood, who’s been submitted in five of her eight career losses. Prior to the recent win, Maia had lost two in a row and three of her previous four fights. In fairness to her, those losses came against the top of the division in Valentina Shevchenko, Katlyn Chookagian, and Manon Fiorot.
Now 20-9-1 as a pro, Maia has four wins by KO, five by submission, and 11 decision victories. It’s been 11 years since anyone was able to finish Maia, with her lone KO loss coming in a 10 second 2012 R1 KO. She’s also been submitted once, which occurred in the second round just two fights prior to her KO loss. She’s gone 22 fights since the 2012 KO without being finished. Her other seven losses have all ended in decisions. While 9 of her 20 career wins have come early, with four KOs and five submissions, she only has one finish in her last 14 fights (2020 R1 SUB) and her second most recent finish was all the way back in 2015.
Overall, Maia has been very durable for the last decade, but her offense hasn’t been overly impressive. Despite holding a BJJ black belt, Maia has only landed three total takedowns on just 10 attempts in her 10 UFC fights. On the other side of things, Maia has been taken down 15 times on 34 attempts (55.9% defense), and had been taken down at least once in five straight fights leading up to her last match where no takedowns were attempted. She’s also a Muay Thai black belt and appears mostly content with relying on her striking. While she seldomly lands many takedowns, Maia did show against Joanne Wood that she can use her Jiu-Jitsu to look for submissions off her back if she’s taken down by her opponent.
Fight Prediction:
O'Neill will have a 2” height advantage and 5” reach advantage. She’s also nine years younger than the 34-year-old Maia.
This will be a tougher test for O'Neill, especially considering she’s coming off knee surgery and a 13 month layoff. Maia has more than three times as many pro fights as O'Neill and turned pro a full decade earlier. While Maia is prone to getting taken down at times and has just a 55% takedown defense, she’ll throw up armbars off her back and we’ve yet to see anyone completely dominate her on the ground. She’s pretty tanky and has a block for a head and even Shevchenko was unable to finish her. She has decent footwork and won’t stay in the same spot waiting to be hit, but her last four opponents did all land 72 or more significant strikes against her. It will be interesting to see what O'Neill’s strategy will be in this one, after she was largely content with keeping her last fight standing. Maia looks like the more technical striker, with better footwork and head movement, so O'Neill would likely have to rely on sheer output to win a pure striking battle. However, if O'Neill does look to take the fight to the ground, she’ll need to be careful not to get armbarred, which is how Maia finished her last three submission wins, although two of those were much earlier in her career. O'Neill’s finishes have come when she’s been able to beat up lower-level opponents on the mat until they quit, but she’ll have a much tougher time pulling that off against Maia, who hasn’t been finished in her last 22 fights.
Maia’s defensive grappling is far superior to anyone O'Neill has faced so far and her striking is much better than O'Neill’s last opponent as well. So far in the UFC, O'Neill hasn’t faced anyone as well rounded as Maia and the closest comparison was Lara Procopio, who is sort of a younger, storebrand version of Maia. And O'Neill was losing that fight until Procopio appeared to gas out, complaining of a stomach ailment. In O'Neill’s other three fights, she was able to capitalize on her opponents being very one-dimensional, as she beat up a pair of strikers on the mat and defeated a grappler in a striking battle. She won’t have that luxury here, as Maia is unspectacular but defensively sound everywhere. We also don’t know how the 25-year-old O'Neill will handle the pressure of fighting in front of her home UK crowd, where she spent the first 10 years of her life, as she tests her surgically repaired knee following a year away from fighting. Maybe the crowd support will bring out the best in her, but that remains to be seen. That adds some level of uncertainty here as O'Neill faces a major step up in competition, and makes it harder to confidently predict the outcome in this one. Both fighters are theoretically capable of finishing the other on the mat, although betting on a finish in Maia’s fights is a long term losing strategy considering 13 of her last 14 fights have gone the distance. If the fight stays standing, O'Neill is the less technical striker, so will need to rely on sheer volume to come out ahead. That would likely result in another close decision, that could be swayed in her favor through some home cooking and a supportive crowd. That’s ultimately how we see it playing out, but this has greasy decision written all over it.
Our favorite bet here is “O'Neill Split Decision” at +650.
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DFS Implications:
O'Neill has broken every slate she’s been on so far in the UFC, averaging 126 DraftKings points, with scores of 140, 110, 131, and 122. We’ve unsurprisingly seen her ownership rise throughout her career as the field has caught on to her scoring abilities. After being just 17% owned in her UFC debut, she has been right around 40% in each of her last two fights, despite being priced at or above 9K on DraftKings in each of those matches. Now her price has dropped to 8.5K after she scored 122 points in her recent decision win, despite landing no takedowns, and we expect her to once again be incredibly popular. This is clearly a step up in competition for her and she’s coming off ACL surgery. Maia also hasn’t been finished in her last 22 fights and is a BJJ black belt who will look for armbars off her back. That will make it much tougher for O'Neill to find a finish, leaving her more reliant on putting up another huge striking total—or a combination of striking and grappling—to score well in a decision. In Maia’s four UFC losses in three-round fights, her opponents averaged 77 DraftKings points and 71 points on FanDuel, with no one scoring more than 87 DraftKings points or 82 points on FanDuel against her. That’s not overly encouraging for O'Neill’s chances of putting up another huge score here, but as long as she doesn’t get armbarred she should have a decent scoring floor, with the potential for another high scoring performance, even if the chances are much lower than in past fights. The odds imply she has a 62% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Maia has been a submission or bust lottery ticket in the UFC and failed to top 78 DraftKings points in any of ehr four UFC decision wins. The only time she put up a usable score was in her lone UFC finish, when she landed a first round armbar against Joanne Wood and scored 100 DraftKings points. However, we just saw Roxanne Modafferi land 120 significant strikes (8 SSL/min) against O'Neill, after coming into that fight averaging just 2.97 SSL/min. Modafferi was also able to take O'Neill down twice and would have scored 96 DraftKings points and 104 points on FanDuel had the decision gone her way. That gives reason for optimism in Maia here, who averages 3.98 SSL/min and landed 98 or more significant strikes in her last two wins. Maia will also occasionally mix in takedown attempts, but not often enough that we can rely on it and she only has three takedowns in her last seven fights. Considering 13 of Maia’s last 14 fights have gone the distance, the chances of her finding a finish are slim, and she’ll likely need to win a high-volume decision in the hopes of serving as a value play. She’s going into enemy territory, which could make that a little tougher, as a close decision will be less likely to go her way. Working in her favor for DFS tournaments, we expect her to be very low owned and for O'Neill to be incredibly popular, so if Maia does win and score decently, she’ll be a massive leverage play. The odds imply she has a 38% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Gunnar Nelson
15th UFC Fight (9-5)Nelson had originally been scheduled to face Daniel Rodriguez here, but Rodriguez withdrew and Barberena was announced as the replacement 23 days out.
Nelson is coming off a smothering decision win over Takashi Sato and his last three fights have now all gone the distance, after eight of his first 11 UFC fights ended early, including seven submission wins. While Nelson was unable to lock up a submission against the highly submittable Takashi Sato, it’s worth pointing out that Sato completely sold out to prevent the submission as he locked up an arm of Nelson on the mat with the goal of self preservation and never really tried to return to his feet or win the fight. Prior to his recent victory, Nelson hadn’t fought in two and a half years after he lost a pair of decisions to Leon Edwards and Gilbert Burns in 2019. In addition to dealing with the pandemic and the training limitations associated with it in Iceland, Nelson suffered two rib injuries during training, one of which came in a friendly wrestling match against “The Mountain” from Game of Thrones, who weighs 350 lb, whereas Nelson said he weighed 185 lb at the time. Nelson is just 2-3 in his last five fights and his only other win since 2017 came in a 2018 second round rear-naked choke against Alex Oliveira. While seven of his nine UFC wins ended in submissions, four of his five UFC losses went the distance.
Now 18-5-1 as a pro, Nelson has four wins by KO/TKO, 12 by submission, and two decision victories. All 16 of his early wins occurred in the first two rounds, with his last three finishes all ending in second round submissions. All four of his TKO wins occurred in his first six pro fights in 2007 and 2008. His last 11 finishes have all come by submission. The only time he’s ever been finished was in a 2017 82 second R1 KO against Santiago Ponzinibbio, with his other four losses ending in decisions. Three of the seven decisions he’s been to have been split (0-2-1).
Overall, Nelson is a black belt in Goju-ryu karate and a 2nd degree BJJ black belt. He was a karate champion as a teenager and then later a 2009 Pan Am Gold Medalist in jiu-jitsu. His karate stance and grappling-heavy approach generally results in very little striking volume in his fights, and he’s never landed more than 44 significant strikes in a three-round fight or absorbed more than 47. He only averages 1.83 SSL/min and 3.05 SSA/min and the one time we saw him absorb a higher number of strikes was in a 2014 five-round match. Nelson relies heavily on his grappling to win fights and he’s 8-1 in UFC matches when he’s finished ahead in takedowns, with the one loss coming in a split decision against Leon Edwards. Conversely, he’s 0-4 in fights where he’s been taken down even once. In his 14 UFC fights, Nelson has landed 18 of his 30 takedown attempts (60% accuracy), while he’s only been taken down six times by his options.
Bryan Barberena
17th UFC Fight (9-7)Stepping into his second straight terrible matchup, it should surprise no one that Barberena is his own agent as he steps in on short notice to face a high level grappler after just getting submitted with ease by another high-level grappler. Barberena’s recent second round submission loss to RDA snapped a three fight winning streak that was built against a debuting fighter and two guys on the verge of retirement. Barberena’s last win was a second round TKO over a 40-year-old Robbie Lawler, which was Barberena’s first finish since 2018. Prior to that, Barberena won a split decision over a 41-year-old Matt Brown, after winning another close decision against a short notice replacement making his UFC debut in Darian Weeks. Looking back one fight further, Barberena lost a decision against another grappler in Jason Witt, who finished his UFC career 2-4 with four KO losses.
Now 18-9 as a pro, Barberena has 11 wins by KO, two by submission, and five decisions. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted twice, and has five decision losses. While he’s won three of the last four decisions he’s been to, he’s consistently involved in close scorecards and two of his last three decisions have been split/majority rulings. Fourteen of his 16 UFC fights have seen the second round, with 11 making it to round three and eight going the distance. Barberena’s first three UFC knockouts came against opponents in their final professional fight, and the other was against a 40-year-old Robbie Lawler who hasn’t fought since. All four of Barberena’s early losses occurred in the later rounds, with one in round two and three in round three. Barberena fought all the way up at 185 lb very early in his professional career, before dropping all the way down to 155 lb for his first two UFC fights. He then moved back up to 170 lb for his third UFC fight, where he’s stayed since.
Overall, Barberena is a brawer who hasn’t landed a takedown in his last 13 fights. He’s put up big striking totals at times, but has been inconsistent for most of his career when it comes to stringing wins together. He averages a healthy 5.92 SSL/min and 4.90 SSA/min and generally makes for higher paced fights. However, Barberena has really struggled with being taken down, and in his 16 UFC fights he has been taken down 45 times on 99 opponent attempts (54.5% defense). He’s been taken down four or more times in five of his last six fights, with the one exception coming in his fight against Lawler, where no takedowns were attempted. And keep in mind, prior to his fight against RDA, he wasn’t fighting elite grapplers, as he squared off against Anthony Ivy (Cut), Jason Witt (Retired), Darian Weeks (Cut), and Matt Brown (Retired). Now he’ll face a 2nd degree BJJ black belt and Pan Am Gold Medalist.
Fight Prediction:
Barberena will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 72” reach. Barberena is one year younger than the 34-year-old Nelson.
This is an absolutely terrible stylistic matchup for Barberena, who has struggled against grapplers. He accepted the fight on just a few weeks’ notice and didn’t have much time to prepare and we just saw him get mauled on the mat by RDA in December. The only way Barberena will have any chance in this fight is if he can keep it standing. And with that in mind, he has just a 54% takedown defense and the last five opponents who tried to take him down all landed four or more of their attempts. Barberena is also more of a volume striker who wears on his opponents, opposed to having one-punch knockout power, so his chances of getting Nelson out of there quickly before getting taken down are slim to none. It was idiotic for Barberena to accept this matchup on short notice and he has no chance of winning unless Nelson shows up hurt or gets hurt in the fight. Give us Nelson by submission in the first two rounds.
Our favorite bet here is “Nelson SUB” at +120.
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DFS Implications:
Nelson has locked up submissions in 7 of his 9 UFC wins, but his low striking volume and slower pace has kept his scoring somewhat in check. He averaged 95 DraftKings points in his nine UFC wins and 98 points in his seven finishes. His last three finishes all occurred in the second round and returned DraftKings scores of 95, 85, and 102. However, he does have three first round submission wins in the UFC, which were good for 108, 109, and 105 points. He also scored 96 points in his recent grappling-heavy decision win. So while he’s shown a solid floor, we haven’t seen a huge scoring ceiling from him. With that said, he gets an extremely favorable matchup here against an opponent in Barberena who stepped into this matchup on just a few weeks’ notice, has been taken down 26 times in his last six fights, and just got submitted three months ago. Barberena also doesn’t have one-punch knockout power to worry about. That makes this a dream spot for Nelson. The fact that Nelson was unable to submit Takashi Sato is actually a plus and not a minus in tournaments, as it will help to keep Nelson’s ownership lower. And if you watched that fight, it was clear that Sato completely sold out to prevent a submission on the mat as he focussed on controlling one of Nelson’s arms with both of his hands for basically the entire fight, opposed to actually trying to escape the position. We expect Barberena to put more effort into returning to his feet or landing punches on the mat, which should open up more submission opportunities. Nelson was only 21% owned on DraftKings in a similar spot the last time he fought and we once again expect his high price tag to keep his ownership in check. Just keep in mind, he still needs either a well timed finish or a more active grappling performance to crack winning lineups and there are lots of ways he gets outscored by the other high priced options and fails to crack winning tournament lineups even with a submission win. The odds imply he has a 78% chance to win, a 47% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.
Barberena’s defensive grappling was once again exposed in his last matchup and now he steps into a similarly terrible spot without much time to prepare. Barberena has only been able to find success against low-level or washed up opponents and we don’t see him having much of a chance in this fight. The last fight opponents who tried to take him down all landed four or more of their attempts and he was submitted just three months ago on the mat. Barberena also doesn't have one punch knockout power, and more wears on his opponents as fights go on, which will make it tougher for him to land a hail mary knockout before he finds himself on the mat. His only chances will be to keep this fight standing and outland his way to victory, and we really just don’t see that happening with his below average 54% takedown defense going against the 60% takedown accuracy of Nelson. We have absolutely no interest in playing Barberena here and fully expect him to get submitted. The odds imply he has a 22% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Rafael Fiziev
8th UFC Fight (6-1)Roaring in on a six-fight winning streak, Fiziev is coming off a pair of late round knockouts against tough opponents in Brad Riddell and RDA. Prior to those two finishes, three of Fiziev’s first four UFC wins ended in decisions. His only career loss came in an 86 second R1 spinning back kick TKO in his 2019 UFC debut.
Now 12-1 as a pro, Fiziev has eight wins by KO, one by submission, and three decisions. His lone submission win came in a 2016 R1 rear-naked choke in his second pro fight and all of his other fights have ended in either knockouts or decisions. His only loss was a R1 TKO in his 2019 UFC debut. Six of his nine early wins came in round one, while he also has one second round KO win, another in round three, and one in round five. While his first seven pro fights all ended in the first two rounds, five of his last six have made it to round three, with three of those going the distance.
Overall, Fiziev is a violent striker and a coach at Tiger Muay Thai. While he doesn’t offer much in terms of offensive grappling, with only two takedowns in seven UFC fights and none in his last four matches, he has an elite 92% takedown defense and has only been taken down on 3 of 38 opponent attempts. And when he has been taken down, he’s done a good job of quickly returning to his feet.
Justin Gaethje
11th UFC Fight (6-4)Looking to bounce back from his second title fight loss in his last three fights, Gaethje hasn't been especially active lately, as he’s only fought twice since his October 2020 second round submission loss to Khabib. He bounced back from the loss 13 months later with a November 2021 three-round decision win over Michael Chandler in a wild war that somehow made it to the judges, and then most recently got submitted in another title fight, this time in the first round of a May 2022 match against Charles Oliveira. Gaethje has won five of his last seven fights and has only required the judges once in his last 14 fights dating back to 2014—three years before he joined the UFC. His first seven UFC fights all ended in knockouts (5-2), although two of his last three have now ended in submission losses. However, the only fighter to ever get Gaethje down more than once in a fight is Khabib, who landed two of his three takedown attempts. Gaethje was able to beat up Khabib’s leg in the fight, but looked helpless on the mat.
Now 23-4 as a pro, Gaethje has 19 wins by KO, one by submission and three decisions. Five of his six UFC wins have come by knockout, with three in round one, one in round two, and one in round five. He’s been knocked out twice and submitted twice. All four of those losses came against world class talent, with his submissions coming against Oliveira and Khabib and his knockouts against Poirier and Alvarez. While his two submission losses both came in under a round and a half, his two knockout losses occurred late in round three and early in round four of consecutive 2017-2018 fights. He bounced back from those with four straight knockouts of his own, but now hasn’t finished an opponent since May 2020.
Overall, Gaethje is an exciting brawler who has no interest in going to the ground despite the fact that he has a wrestling background and was a two-time state champion high school wrestler and a D1 NCAA All-American at the University of Northern Colorado. He’s only attempted a single takedown in his UFC career, which he failed to land in his second UFC fight. He has a solid 75% takedown defense, but has looked terrible off his back when he has been taken down, although in fairness, everyone looks bad on the mat against Khabib and Oliveira. Gaethje is a great leg striker who often looks to chop his opponents down early before attacking up top with heavy punches. He also throws destructive uppercuts that are useful when facing an opponent who wants to shoot for takedowns. He’s proven himself to be extremely durable throughout his career, but he is now 34 years old and you have to wonder if we’ll eventually see that durability fade from an accumulation of all the damage he’s taken in his career.
Fight Prediction:
Gaethje will have a 3” height advantage, but Fiziev will have a 1” reach advantage and is four years younger than Gaethje.
You have to wonder about where Gaethje is mentally these days. He’s already worked his way to two title shots (not even counting his interim title win over Ferguson), and both times got easily submitted by the current champ. Now Islam Makhachev holds the belt and Gaethje has to know that fight would almost certainly end poorly for him. That’s not to say he doesn’t want another title shot, but he just got submitted in the first round in front of his home crowd and he’s only human. On the other side of this matchup, you have Fiziev, who’s still working his way towards his first title shot and is the younger, and potentially hungrier fighter. Both of these two do a good job of mixing in kicks with their punches, but Gaethje is focussed on leg kicks, while Fiziev is a more nimble kicker who will whip out violent body, head, and leg kicks. Gaethje is the more active striker (7.46 SSL/min), with a more brawling approach, while Fiziev is more calculated and only averages 4.81 SSL/min. Gaethje throws nasty uppercuts and will likely be looking to close the distance and fight out of a phonebooth, while Fiziev likes to work at kicking range, where he has all of his weapons available to him.
We’re not expecting any grappling in this fight, as these two should trade strikes until someone goes down or time expires. While they’re both durable, they’ve each also been knocked out before. With that said, Fiziev’s only KO loss came in his 2019 UFC debut and Gaethje hasn’t been knocked out since 2018, when Poirier finished him early in round three. The last time we saw Gaethje in a war on the feet was against Michael Chandler in 2021, and despite the odds in that fight being -250 to end early, it ultimately went the distance. So while Gaethje’s fights generally end early, that gives some reason to think this could again go the full 15 minutes. Both guys are extremely dangerous, but whoever can control the distance will likely win the fight. The bigger cage should help Fiziev in that regard, and as the younger fighter who does a better of avoiding damage, we agree with the oddsmakers that he should be favored—although you could definitely argue that the odds are a bit wide We’ll tentatively say Fiziev wins with either a late knockout from an accumulation of damage or by decision. However, this matchup has fight of the night or even year potential, and we’re more looking forward to watching it then confidently betting on the outcome.
Our favorite bet here is “Gaethje DEC” at +750.
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DFS Implications:
Fiziev has generally struggled to put up big DFS totals, scoring 72 or less DraftKings points in four of his six UFC wins, and only 87 points in his recent R5 knockout win over RDA. The only time he’s topped 87 points was in his lone UFC first round finish, which was good for 109 points. He only averaged 70 points in his three decision wins, failing to top 72 in any of those. Even in a third round knockout of Brad Riddell, Fiziev still only scored 72 points. His style of fighting will generally score better on FanDuel, but that knockout win over Riddell still only scored 90 FanDuel points. While Gaethje always makes for pace-up matchups, with no grappling to boost his scoring, it’s still hard to see Fiziev returning value at his high price tag without a well timed finish, especially on DraftKings. Working in Fiziev’s favor, we expect Gaethje to be very popular in tournaments, so if Fiziev can knock him out, he’ll be a massive leverage play. The odds imply he has a 66% chance to win, a 40% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.
Gaethje has averaged 105 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins and has never scored less than 93 DraftKings points when he gets his hand raised. The only time he failed to score at least 97 points came in his three-round decision win over Michael Chandler, where he still scored 93 points in a crazy brawl. However, it’s been almost three years since Gaethje knocked anyone out and that last finish came in a R5 TKO over Tony Ferguson, who followed it up with four more losses and is clearly washed. Just before that, Gaethje knocked out Donald Cerrone, who was also towards the end of his career and hasn’t won a fight since. So while Gaethje is a fun brawling fighter who’s unquestionably dangerous and extremely durable, we haven’t seen him knock anyone out in their prime recently. With that said, Gaethje is definitely live to knock Fiziev out, but it won’t come easy. Gaethje is consistently popular in DFS, as he was 36% owned against Khabib, 41% owned against Chandler, and 44% owned against Oliveira. At his cheap price tag in this matchup, we expect him to be highly owned once again, with his ownership exceeding his chances of winning (according to the odds), let alone his chances of landing a knockout. Gaethje was able to put up a pretty solid score in his last decision win, which is the only time he’s required the judges since 2014, but that was also against Micahel Chandler, who’s a more reckless brawler than Fiziev. Gaethje could still serve as a value play in a decision win if we don’t see multiple underdogs find finishes on this slate, but he’s not a lock to end up in tournament winning lineups unless he lands a finish. And if he does fail, he’ll take a huge chunk of the field down with him, so it’s clear where the leverage lies here. The odds imply he has a 34% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Kamaru Usman
17th UFC Fight (15-1)Now 35 years old with bad knees and coming off his first career KO loss, Usman was finally dethroned by Leon Edwards after winning 19 in a row prior to that. Usman originally won the Welterweight belt in 2019 against Tyron Woodley and then defended it five times, with two matches against Colby Covington, two against Jorge Masvidal, and one against Gilbert Burns.
In their last fight, Usman was able to land 5 of his 12 takedown attempts with 10:36 in control time. However, Edwards was also able to become the first fighter to ever take Usman down, which occurred in the first round where Edwards then took Usman’s back and controlled him for the second half of the round as he looked for a rear-naked choke. Edwards looked affected by the Salt Lake City altitude after the first round, as Usman took over in rounds two through four, winning all three rounds. Edwards was able to take Usman’s back on the feet early in round four, but then got taken down and controlled for the second half of the round. Usman failed to land either of his takedown attempts in the fifth round and after pushing Edwards against the cage for a minute or so Herb Dean broke the fighters up with half a round remaining. Then with 56 seconds remaining on the clock, Edwards changed history with a walk-off head kick knockout, just as the broadcast team wrote him off for dead. Usman finished ahead 83-55 in significant strikes, 189-64 in total strikes, 5-1 on takedowns, and 10:36-2:55 in control time, but ultimately finished the fight staring straight into the abyss of his own mortality as Leon Edwards danced on his grave.
Now 20-2 as a pro, Usman has nine wins by KO, one by submission, and 10 decisions. His first career loss occurred in his second pro fight in a 2013 R1 rear-naked choke, with his only other defeat coming in the recent fifth round knockout. Seventeen of his last 18 fights have made it past the first round, with the one exception being a 2017 R1 KO win over Sergio Moraes. Seven of his last nine fights have made it to the fifth round, with five of those going the distance and two ending in late knockouts (1-1). His last 15 fights have all either gone the distance (10-0) or ended in knockouts (4-1), but he’s only been to one decision in his last four fights.
This will be Usman’s 10th straight five-round fight and eighth consecutive title fight. Five of his eight wins in his previous five-round fights went the distance, while the other three ended in knockouts (R2, R3 & R5). Here are the results of his previous eight five-round fights:
2022 R5 KO LOSS vs. Leon Edwards (Title Fight)
2021 R5 DEC Win vs. Colby Covington (Title Fight)
2021 R2 KO Win vs. Jorge Masvidal (Title Fight)
2021 R3 KO Win vs. Gilbert Burns (Title Fight)
2020 R5 DEC Win vs. Jorge Masvidal (Title Fight)
2019 R5 KO Win vs. Colby Covington (Title Fight)
2019 R5 DEC Win vs. Tyrone Woodley (Title Fight)
2018 R5 DEC Win vs. Rafael dos Anjos
2018 R5 DEC Win vs. Demian Maia
Overall, Usman is winding down a very impressive career, but his body finally appears to be breaking down. He’s dealt with hand surgery recently and apparently his knees are so bad that he struggles to walk on concrete or go down the stairs normally, and we finally saw his chin fail him in his last fight. Nevertheless, he’s always been an elite wrestler and a BJJ black belt and he’s also grown to be more comfortable with his striking as his career has progressed. He’s landed 55 takedowns on 114 attempts in his 16 UFC fights (48.2% accuracy), and has only been taken down once in his career, which was by Leon Edwards in their last fight. After landing just three knockdowns in his first 10 UFC fights, Usman’s notched seven in his last six matches, with three knockouts over that stretch as well. It will be interesting to see how Usman responds to getting knocked out for the first time, which occurred just seven months ago. Not that he’s completely washed, but we’re not convinced he’s still the same guy he used to be. However, he’ll have his chance to prove us wrong come Saturday.
Leon Edwards
16th UFC Fight (12-2, NC)After losing a three-round decision to Usman the first time Edwards fought him all the way back in 2015, Edwards won 10 straight, not counting a No Contest that was abruptly stopped in round two due to an accidental eye poke. Seven of those 10 fights went the distance, and prior to knocking Usman out recently, Edwards only had one KO win since 2015, which came in the final second of a 2018 match against Peter Sobotta. Edwards’ only other finishes in the UFC were a 2016 R3 submission and a 2015 R1 KO in his second UFC fight. Edwards’ biggest struggle in recent years has simply been staying active and following a 2019 five-round decision win over RDA, he had four fights canceled before finally stepping inside the Octagon against Belal Muhammad, only to have that fight stopped 18 seconds into round two for an eye poke. Edwards was then booked to face Nate Diaz who withdrew from the first booking before they eventually fought a month later. Edwards won a decision, but things got dicey late in the fight as Diaz clipped Edwards with a left hand in the final 90 seconds, leaving Edwards hanging on for dear life to see the judges. Edwards was then booked to face Masvidal, but he dropped out and Edwards ended up sitting on the sidelines for another 14 months before he finally took on Usman.
Now 20-3 as a pro, Edwards has seven wins by KO, three by submission, and 10 decisions. 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 12 matches have seen the third round, with nine going the distance. The only time one of his UFC fights ended in the first round was in a 2015 R1 KO win in his second Octagon appearance. Eight of his 12 UFC wins have gone the distance, while he also has two third round finishes (2016 & 2018) and one in round five. Three of his four UFC finishes have come in the final two minutes of fights, with two of those ending in the final minute.
This will be the 6th five-round fight of Edwards’ career. Prior to his recent R5 KO win over Usman, Edwards won decisions over Donald Cerrone (2018), Rafael dos Anjos (2019), and Nate Diaz (2021) in three of his previous four, with the one other ending in a second round No Contest due to the eye poke against Belal Muhammad. Edwards remains undefeated in five-round fights, and not counting the No Contest, all of those fights have lasted at least 24 minutes. All three of those decision wins were slower paced, with significant striking totals of 84-60, 92-81, and 77-76. He was also trailing 83-55 in significant strikes in his recent win over Usman.
Overall, Edwards is a patient low-volume striker who only averages 2.59 SSL/min and 2.28 SSA/min. He’s only landed above 55 significant strikes in three of his 16 UFC fights. He’s talked about how he’s improved his grappling over his UFC career, and he has looked better on the mat over the years, both offensively and defensively. In his 16 UFC fights, he’s been taken down 25 times on 79 attempts (68.4% defense), while landing 22 of his own 65 attempts (33.8% accuracy). While Edwards’ patient approach doesn’t make for action-packed matches, he’s well rounded and a very tough guy to deal with as he’s a crisp striker who throws slicing elbows. He’s tall, long, and strong, and is really just now entering his prime. It will be interesting to see what adjustments he makes coming into this trilogy match.
Fight Prediction:
Edwards will have a 2” height advantage, but Usman will have a 2” reach advantage. Edwards is four years younger than the 35-year-old Usman.
The last time these two fought it was in Salt Lake City at elevation, which clearly took its toll on Edward’s cardio especially, who had just a couple weeks to try and acclimate, while Usman trains at altitude. Not only does Edwards no longer have to deal with the elevation, now he gets to fight in front of his home crowd. Before he tired out in the middle rounds of the last fight, Edwards won round one, became the first fighter to ever take Usman down, and then controlled his back for half a round while he fished for a rear-naked choke. While Usman was able to control Edwards along the cage for extended periods of time throughout the fight, we expect to see a quicker trigger finger from the ref in England, fueled by a booing crowd urging for immediate separations. These two also fought back in 2015 when Edwards was just 24 years old and Usman was 28. Usman was able to take Edwards down six times and control him for nearly 11 minutes in that three round fight, while Usman landed five takedowns with 10 and half minutes of control time over five rounds the last time they fought. So Usman’s game plan didn’t change much in those two fights, but Edwards was able to do a better job with his defensive wrestling in their last fight.
We once again expect Usman to be looking to wrestle here, but Edwards has shown he can get back to his feet when he does get taken down, and we expect Edwards to have more energy and do a better job of getting off the fence in this matchup, perhaps with some help from the ref. While Edwards only has one submission win in his last 15 fights, which occurred all the way back in 2016, he did show the ability to take Usman’s back in their last fight. If Usman continues to rely on his wrestling, as we expect him to, it’s possible Edwards is able to reverse a position and take his back once again and look for a choke. However, it’s more likely Edwards will be looking to keep this a striking battle as much as possible, and he should be brimming with confidence after his recent KO win. Both guys are capable of knocking the other out, but Edwards looks to have the striking advantage at this stage in their careers. So if Edwards can remain upright and keep his back off the cage, we like his chances of winning a low-volume striking battle and either finding another knockout or winning a close decision.
There are a lot of question marks surrounding Usman as he enters this matchup and would anyone be that surprised if he retired after this fight? That uncertainty also makes us lean more towards Edwards. And if you look back at other trilogy matches, we often see the younger fighter and/or the guy who wins the second fight ending up winning the third as well. We saw that with Stipe vs. Cormier, where Cormier won the first and then the younger Stipe won the next two. The same can be said about Poirier vs. McGregor, as well as GSP vs. Matt Hughes. Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos, Tim Sylvia vs. Andrei Arlovski, and Forrest Griffin vs. Tito Ortiz also all saw the winner of the second fight come out ahead in the trilogy match as well. When you combine the past trilogy trends with the uncertainty surrounding Usman and the trajectories of these two fighters’ careers, and then add in some very favorable plus money odds on the current champion, this seems like a no-brainer spot to take Edwards to win this fight and solidify a new era in the Welterweight division—at least until Shavkat comes knocking.
Our favorite bet here is Edwards’ ML at +205.
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DFS Implications:
Usman has been one of the most consistent DFS scorers around, averaging 139 DraftKings points in his last seven wins. Even in his recent R5 KO loss to Edwards, Usman still scored 98 DraftKings points through a combination of striking, grappling, and control time, although that didn’t score quite as well on FanDuel, where he only returned 80 points. However, it’s worth pointing out that Usman’s DFS production has been melting less faces in recent years. After putting up ungodly DraftKings scores of 195, 168, 130, and 156 from 2018 to 2020, his most recent three wins “only” scored 104, 104, and 113 points. Also notable, he landed five knockdowns across those three lower scoring wins or else his scores would have looked much worse. With that said, Usman was less than a minute away from scoring 128+ pts in his last fight before he got knocked out. So despite Edwards historically slowing fights down and making for lower scoring affairs, Usman showed he can still score well in this matchup, especially on DraftKings. However, our confidence in the 35-year-old Usman is at an all time low as he comes off the first knockout loss of his career and is dealing with hand and knee issues. It looks like he may be retiring sooner rather than later, and who’s to say this isn’t his final fight? So while he still has a high scoring ceiling, that leaves us with concerns regarding his floor. Considering he was a minute away from winning that last fight and scoring well, we expect the majority of the field to go down with the ship on him, making this an interesting tournament leverage spot, especially if he’s gone off the cliff in his career. And even if Usman shows up looking more or less like his old self, he may have a tougher time holding Edwards against the cage without the ref stepping in, considering this fight will be in front of Edwards’ home crowd. And if Usman can’t rack up takedowns, control time, and ground/clinch strikes, he’ll have a really tough time putting up a big score in more of a striking battle against Edwards. The odds imply Usman has a 68% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Edwards has consistently underwhelmed in DFS and only scored 84 DraftKings points and 81 points on FanDuel in his recent R5 KO win over Usman. Edwards only averages 2.59 SSL/min, and while he was able to take Usman down once in their last fight, that’s the only time Usman has been taken down in his career. So it will be tough for Edwards to add much in terms of grappling, while Usman should be looking to slow things down by taking him down and controlling him along the cage. That will make it tougher for Edwards to score well without a well timed finish, but at his cheap price tag he doesn’t need to put up a huge score to end up in winning lineups. After knocking Usman out, Edwards won’t be as low owned as he was last time on DraftKings (19%), but he will still be a solid leverage option if he can pull off the upset once again. Usman’s now 35 years old and dealing with knee and hand issues, and if he has gone off the cliff in his career, Edwards has the potential to exceed expectations. We also expect Edwards to look better here in front of his home crowd and not at elevation like their last fight in Salt Lake City, which really appeared to zap Edwards’ cardio. The odds imply Edwards has a 32% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter @dfs_mma with your winnings so we can see how you did!
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