The Sheet

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Fight Day Scratches: Matthews/Wells is OFF!

Fighter Notes:

Fight #14

Louis Smolka

16th UFC Fight (8-7)

Almost exactly a year removed since he last fought, Smolka is coming off an up-tempo second round TKO win over Jose Quinonez. In what was a close fight, Smolka led in significant strikes 59-43 and in total strikes 64-47, while landing 3 of his 4 takedown attempts and getting taken down twice on three attempts by Quinonez. Smolka also notably absorbed 18 leg strikes in the fight as we saw nonstop back and forth action leading up to Smolka taking Quinonez down early in round two and finishing him with ground and pound.

The reason it has been so long since we last saw Smolka inside the Octagon is that he dealt with injuries early in 2021 and then had been scheduled to face Sean O’Malley back in July but was forced to withdraw due to a Staph Infection.

Win or lose, Smolka has no desire to leave things up to the judges at this point in his career. He initially joined the UFC in 2014 at just 22 years old and saw six of his first 10 fights go to decisions and he lost four of those. Then, after losing four straight fights in 2016 and 2017 he was let go by the UFC and forced to fight elsewhere in 2018.

He seemed to take the release in stride as he won his next three fights in 2018 with a R1 KO, a R3 Guillotine Submission and a R2 KO. Following the string of early victories, the UFC decided to give him another shot less than a year after releasing him. After fighting his first stint with the UFC down at 125 lb, Smolka moved up to 135 lb upon his return to the organization. He drew a tough matchup in his first fight back against a debuting Su Mudaerji, but Smolka made the most of the opportunity as he finished Mudaerji with a R2 Armbar Submission. The weight switch seemed to do Smolka good and he has talked about how rough the cut down to 125 lb was for him based on his height. He also talked about dealing with alcohol abuse earlier in his career, which he has since gotten past.

Since his return to the UFC, Smolka has alternated wins and losses for five straight fights (3-2). Both of his recent two losses have come in first round submissions, while his last two wins have each come by TKO spread across the first two rounds. His last eight fights have all ended early (6-2), with seven of those ending in the opening two rounds.

Smolka is now 17-7 as a pro with eight wins by KO, seven by submission and just two decision victories. While he’s never been knocked out, he has been submitted three times, all in the first round and with two of those coming by Guillotine Choke. He also has four decision losses on his record.

Overall Smolka is an exciting offensively minded fighter who does his best work on the mat as he works towards finishing fights with either ground and pound or submissions depending on what his opponents give him. While he doesn’t have incredible power, his relentless pressure wears down his opponents and eight of his 15 career finishes have occurred in the second round, while four have come in round one and three in round three.

One final narrative at play here is that Ricky Simon, who’s the cousin of Morales and cornered Morales for his last fight, trains with Smolka on a regular basis. Take that as you will.

Vince Morales

6th UFC Fight (2-3)

Morales bounced back from the first TKO loss of his career with a recent decision win over Drako Rodriguez, who was coming off a KO loss in his UFC debut. The two fighters seemed somewhat tentative coming off their respective KO/TKO losses, which kept the pace down, but Morales was able to control the center of the Octagon for the majority of the match. Rodriguez was able to take Morales down three times on five attempts, while Morales landed one takedown of his own on four attempts. Morales did a good job of quickly getting up every time he was taken down and also led in significant strikes 76-55 and in total strikes 84-60.

Morales has now gone the distance in 5 of his last 6 fights, with the one exception being a May 2020 R2 TKO loss by leg strikes against Chris Gutierrez. Morales was violently chopped down by Chris Gutierrez for nearly two rounds before he could no longer stand and the fight was stopped late in round two. Gutierrez landed 36 leg strikes in the fight as he averaged an absurd 3.81 leg strikes landed per minute and was on pace to land 57 had the fight gone the distance. Morales was never able to get anything going in the match and finished behind in striking 60-8.

Prior to that, Morales lost a close decision to Benito Lopez, who also relentlessly attacked Morales’ legs as Lopez landed 39 leg strikes over the course of three rounds (2.60/min). Morales led in significant strikes 64-54 and in total strikes 67-54 and dropped Lopez in the first round, while also outstriking him in round three, but all three judges ruled it 29-28 in favor of Lopez. Prior to that, Morales split a pair of decisions in his first two UFC fights, including a loss to a really tough Song Yadong in Morales’ UFC debut.

Morales originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but was submitted in the second round by Domingo Pilarte, who has since gone 0-3 in the UFC—although one of those was later overturned to a No Contest for a positive THC test. Morales then won a decision in Bellator before getting the call up in 2018 against Yadong.

While five of Morales’ last six fights have gone the distance, seven of his 10 pro wins haven’t required the judges, with five KOs and two submissions. His first nine fights all ended early (7-2) and he’s been submitted twice in his career (2015 R2 Armbar & 2018 R2 Rear-Naked Choke) in addition to his TKO loss by leg strikes. His other two career losses both came in the UFC in decisions and he now owns a 10-5 pro record.

Following his loss to Gutierrez, Morales dealt with multiple injuries that forced him into a 15 month layoff, and during that time he relocated to Vegas and switched teams to Syndicate MMA. While Morales has a background in wrestling, he is almost exclusively a striker and hadn’t even attempted a takedown in the UFC until his last fight when he landed one on four attempts.

Fight Prediction:

Smolka will have a 2” height advantage, but Morales will have a 2” reach advantage.

Any fight Louis Smolka is in is a fun fight to watch as he’s always looking to push the pace and hunt for finishes. While Smolka has been prone to getting submitted, Morales is essentially a one-dimensional striker even though he has a wrestling background and two submission wins on his record. We expect Smolka to be looking to get this fight to the mat where he does his best work, while Morales will try to keep it a striking battle. So the outcome of this fight will likely hinge on how Morales’ 50% career takedown defense holds up and whether or not he’s able to return to his feet after being taken down. Smolka has never been knocked out, but if Morales can keep the fight standing he’s certainly capable of winning a decision. With that said, we like Smolka to wear on Morales for the opening minutes and eventually control him on the mat in round two and finish the fight, most likely with a submission.

Our favorite bet here is “Smolka ITD” at +220.

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DFS Implications:

Since returning to the UFC and moving up to 135 lb, the winners in Smolka’s five fights have put up DraftKings scores of 112, 103 (L), 124, 102 (L) and 106. Three of those fights ended in the first round with the other two ending in round two and it’s been four years since Smolka has required the judges. His fighting style is ideally suited for DFS production as he’s constantly pushing the pace, landing strikes and takedowns and hunting for finishes. The odds are also generally close whenever he fights, so his price tag never gets out of control. Smolka has alternated wins and losses for five straight fights and is coming off a victory, and you want to have exposure to both sides in DFS anytime he steps inside the Octagon. With that said, we like Smolka to control the grappling exchanges and notch consecutive wins for the first time since 2018. The odds imply he has a 57% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish and a 13% chance it comes in the first round.

Morales has struggled to score well in decisions with DraftKings scores of 68, 37 (L), 54 and 32 (L) in his four UFC fights that have gone the distance. He has decent, albeit unspectacular hands, but generally doesn’t mix in any grappling so he would need to put up a huge striking total to score well in a decision. So even at his cheaper price tag, he appears to be reliant on landing a finish to return value. However, his pathetic DFS scoresheet should keep his ownership low, and this actually looks like a decent spot for him to put up a ceiling performance if he can pull off the upset as Smolka is constantly looking to push the pace and has been finished in the first round in his last two losses. So this looks like a fight where you’ll want to be over the field in tournaments on both guys. The odds imply Morales has a 43% chance to win, an 18% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in the first round.

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Fight #13

Chris Gruetzemacher

7th UFC Fight (3-3)

Looking to put together two wins in a row for the first time since 2014-2015, Gruetzemacher is coming off a massive upset decision win over Rafa Garcia after looking to be in real trouble early in the first round. Gruetzemacher was able to recover after getting hurt early and simply outlasted the cardio of Garcia who landed 5 of his 12 takedown attempts in the fight with over six and a half minutes of control time. Gruetzemacher finished ahead in significant strikes 100-72 and in total strikes 176-90 and was the only one doing damage in the later rounds as he went on to win a unanimous 29-28 decision.

After not fighting for two and a half years from 2018 to 2020 following a combination of injuries including a torn ACL, Gruetzemacher stepped back inside the Octagon in October 2020 for his second most recent fight and looked absolutely terrible as he got pieced up from the start by Alexander Hernandez and then knocked out just 106 seconds into the first round.

Gruetzemacher is now 35 years old and has lost three of his last five fights. He only has three UFC wins, with the first coming in a decision in his 2015 UFC debut on The Ultimate Fighter finale against a fighter who never competed again in the UFC and has since gone 3-3 on the regional scene. His next UFC win came against a washed up 34-year-old Joe Lauzon who was in his 42nd pro fight and came in having lost three of his last four. That fight ended following the second round from a merciful corner stoppage. His third win was in his recent decision over Garcia, so he has just one finish in the UFC. However, in his three UFC losses, Gruetzemacher has been submitted twice and knocked out once. Both of those submissions came by Rear-Naked Choke and he was also submitted with a Guillotine Choke earlier in his career.

We’ve seen Gruetzemacher struggle against grapplers as he was taken down twice and controlled for nearly five minutes of time before getting submitted early in the second round by Chas Skelly back in 2017. He then took on Davi Ramos and was taken down 5 times on 9 attempts and controlled for nearly four minutes of time before getting submitted in the third round. Then most recently Garcia was able to take him down 5 times on 12 attempts with six and half minutes of control time.

Now 15-4 as a pro, Gruetzemacher has seven KO wins, three by submission and five decisions. All four of his career losses have ended early, with three submissions spread across the first three rounds and a R1 KO loss. He notably has landed 100 or more significant strikes in all three of his UFC wins and averages 6.93 SSL/min (2nd highest on the slate).

Claudio Puelles

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

Coming off a painfully slow-paced grappling match against one-dimensional wrestler Jordan Leavitt, Puelles has yet to impress us at the UFC level. However, he was able to control Leavitt for most of the fight as he finished with 10 minutes of control time on four takedowns, while stuffing 5 of Leavitt’s 7 attempts, but he never threatened a finish and Leavitt led in significant strikes 21-20 and in total strikes 170-71. Puelles won a unanimous 29-28 decision and has now somehow won three fights in a row.

After making his 2016 UFC debut at just 20 years old, Puelles then didn’t fight at all in 2017 or 2020 and just once in each of 2018 and 2019. He returned to the Octagon in June 2021 to defeat Leavitt and will now be fighting twice in a calendar year for the first time since 2014.

Puelles made his way into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter Latin America and lost his 2016 debut to Martin Bravo, who then lost his next three UFC fights before being released. Bravo knocked out Puelles in the second round, while outlanding him 56-29 in significant strikes and 64-29 in total strikes. Puelles looked pretty hittable and Bravo was on pace to land 121 significant strikes if the fight had gone the distance. Puelles went 1 for 6 on takedowns in the match, and was only able to notch 34 seconds of control time. He was anything but impressive and ended up going down from a liver shot early in the second round and the fight was quickly stopped moments later.

Following the 2016 loss, Puelles didn’t fight again for 18 months before taking on Felipe Silva, who came in 1-1 in the UFC, was cut following the fight, and has now lost three straight matches outside of the UFC. Puelles defeated Silva with a R3 Kneebar submission to notch his first UFC win, however, Silva was absolutely dominating the fight up to that point, as he led in significant strikes 70-16, total strikes 103-16 and control time 2:52-1:28. Silva also went 1 for 1 on takedowns, while Puelles ended up 2 for 7. Puelles didn’t want any part of a striking battle and even pulled guard a couple of times to try and get the fight to the mat. Silva nearly finished Puelles late in the second round, but Puelles was saved by the bell. Less than a minute into R3, Silva dropped Puelles with a stiff right hand and the fight looked moments away from being stopped, as Silva continued to obliterate Puelles. However, Puelles shot for a desperation takedown and despite failing on the attempt, he was able to go for a hail mary Kneebar as Silva appeared to let his guard down for just a second—likely due to how easily he was controlling the fight. Puelles was able to force a tap from Silva in one of the crazier comebacks in recent memory. While it goes down as a finish for Puelles, that was about as lucky as he could get in a fight that he had no business winning.

In his next bout, Puelles took on Marcos Mariano, who entered 0-1 in the UFC and was also cut immediately afterwards. Puelles won a smothering decision, with a bizarrely low 22-2 significant striking total, but leading 101-5 in total strikes. Puelles landed 4 of 6 takedowns and amassed a ridiculous 13 and a half minutes of control time against an opponent who managed to do literally nothing for 15 minutes. Easily one of the worst performances of all time, it’s not surprising Mariano was cut following the absentee showing. Mariano finished his UFC career 0-2 with just shy of four rounds of total Octagon time, and landed an absurdly low 5 combined significant strikes and 9 total strikes with no other stats to show for himself. Truly one of the more puzzling “careers” anyone could have.

Puelles does not appear to be a UFC level talent and is simply a one-dimensional grappler who’s only ever threatened to finish anyone at the UFC level with Kneebar submissions. He’s never landed more than 29 significant strikes in a UFC fight and has been outlanded in three of his four matches.

Fight Prediction:

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

This is an interesting/gross matchup matchup between two unimpressive fighters who each have massive holes in their games. Gruetzemacher seriously struggles with grapplers as he’s been taken down 12 times in his last three matches where he’s gone against grapplers and he has been submitted in three of his four career losses. On the other side of things, Puelles has absolutely no stand up game and is more of a position over submission type grappler who only has one submission win since 2014. So if this fight remains on the feet Gruetzemacher will have a massive striking advantage, but if Puelles can get it to the mat he should be able to control Gruetzemacher and have a small chance to submit him. We expect Puelles to consistently look to take Gruetzemacher down and would be surprised if he even attempted to compete in a striking battle. So this fight will simply come down to how the 47% takedown accuracy of Puelles fairs against the 61% takedown defense of Gruetzemacher. We could absolutely see periods of time spent with the two pressed up against the cage with Puelles slowly working towards a takedown. With that said, Gruetzemacher’s takedown defense is far from elite so we do expect Puelles to find at least some success in taking him down. Puelles’ grappling should greatly slow down the pace of this fight and will make it hard for Gruetzemacher to put up a high striking total, but Puelles’ stand up game is so poor it’s entirely possible he gets clipped with something on the feet and finished if he’s not careful. Assuming we don’t see a Gruetzemacher KO victory or a Puelles submission win, we expect this to end in a close low-volume decision with Gruetzemacher leading in strikes and Puelles leading in takedowns and control time. While we wish we could bet on both of these guys to lose, we’ll give the slight edge to Gruetzemacher simply based on how terrible Puelles is, but it’s entirely possible Puelles grinds out a grappling heavy decision win. If it does end early, it will come by either a Gruetzemacher KO or a Puelles Submission, but neither guy has looked like much of a finisher lately.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Goes the Distance” at -158.

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DFS Implications:

While Gruetzemacher has landed 100 or more significant strikes in all three of his UFC wins, he has yet to land a knockdown, takedown, reversal or submission attempt, so he’s been entirely reliant on striking and finishes to score well. While Puelles is far from impressive, he’s still only been finished once in his career and Gruetzemacher’s only finish in the last nine years was from a post round two corner stoppage against an aging Joe Lauzon in 2018. We expect Puelles to constantly be looking to get this fight to the mat, which should cap Gruetzemacher’s striking output and make it extremely difficult for him to return value in a decision. That leaves him reliant on landing a finish to score well, which simplifies determining your exposure in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 50% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish and a 10% chance it comes in the first round.

Puelles is a one-dimensional grappler with questionable submission skills and relies purely on takedowns and control time to score well in DFS. While this actually is a favorable matchup for a grappler going against a one-dimensional striker in Gruetzemacher who has been submitted in three of his four pro losses, we’re not sure Puelles can fully take advantage of this teed up matchup. We do expect Puelles to find some success in getting the fight to the ground and controlling Gruetzemacher for periods of time, but we don’t really see him getting a finish so he’ll need to put on a completely one-sided grappling performance where he controls Gruetzemacher for close to the entire fight to score score well in a decision. He’s more likely to return value in a decision than Gruetzemacher, but we’re still not very excited about playing Puelles in DFS. With that said, the odds imply he has a 50% chance to win, a 21% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in the first round.

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Fight #12

Alonzo Menifield

7th UFC Fight (4-2)

This is the third time this matchup has been booked in the last 10 months after it fell through in February and March due to COVID. It had appeared that both fighters had given up on trying to make it work as they had moved onto other opponents, but here we are.

After losing both of his fights in 2020, Menifield bounced back with a pair of wins in 2021 against easier opponents. He most recently won the first decision of his career against a 40-year-old Ed Herman. Menifield outlanded Herman 93-41 in sinificnat strikes while tacking on a takedown.

Just prior to that, Menifield landed the second submission win of his career against UFC newcomer Fabio Cherant who was filling in on short notice for WIlliam Knight back in March after Knight was forced to withdraw due to COVID protocols. Menifield was able to finish Cherant with a Shoulder Choke just 71 seconds into the first round.

Leading up to the pair of wins, Menifield suffered his only two career losses with a 2020 R2 KO loss to OSP and a 2020 decision loss to Devin Clark. He’s now 11-2 as a pro, with eight wins by KO, two by submission and one decision. All 10 of his early wins have ended in six minutes or less, with eight in round one and two in the opening minute of round two. Menifield won his first two UFC fights with R1 KO wins over a couple of grapplers in Paul Craig and Vinicius Moreira after landing another R1 KO just eight seconds into a 2018 DWCS fight to punch his ticket to the UFC.

Menifield is a former college, CFL and Arena League football player. His explosive power is evident, but he has struggled with cardio later in fights and at times gets controlled too easily in the clinch. He has a solid 85% takedown defense and has only been taken down once in six UFC fights.

William Knight

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

Knight bounced back from a smothering decision loss with a R1 KO win over Fabio Cherant who had just been submitted by Menifield in the first round of his UFC debut. Cherant actually led Knight in significant strikes 15-14 before suffering the late first round KO in a low-volume fight with no takedown attempts.

Just prior to that, Knight was overpowered by Da Un Jung who surprisingly took Knight down eight times on nine attempts and accrued over 12 minutes of control time. Prior to that grappling explosion, Jung hadn’t landed a takedown in any of his previous three UFC fights. Jung finished ahead in significant strikes 28-17 and 73-38 in total strikes in a fight that played out almost entirely on the mat.

Knight made his UFC debut in September 2020 against Aleksa Camur, who he defeated in a grappling heavy decision as he finished ahead in significant strikes just 38-17, while Camur came out slightly ahead in total strikes 59-58. However, Knight landed four of his five takedown attempts with over six and half minutes of control time, while Camur went one for four on takedowns with just under five and a half minutes of control time.

Knight is now 10-2 as a pro with nine wins by KO and one decision. He has one KO loss and one decision loss, so all 12 of his fights have ended in either knockouts or decisions. Knight doesn’t have any submission wins as a pro, but he did have three as an amateur and will look for Keylock submissions on the ground.

Despite already being 33 years old, Knight only started his pro MMA career a little over three years ago and only started fighting as an amateur back in 2016. He did have a wrestling background to build on, as he was a state champion in high school though.

He’s been on DWCS twice, first in 2019 and then most recently in September 2020. In his first appearance he scored a R3 KO that earned him a developmental contract. In that fight, he landed 4 of 7 takedown attempts while adding 97 significant strikes over the course of 14 minutes and 34 seconds before finishing the fight late.

In his second appearance on the show, he had a brutal start as he was immediately taken down, then gave up his back and was absorbing heavy ground and pound while face down on the mat. The fight looked close to being stopped, however, Knight was able to stall long enough to get back to his feet and as his opponent shot for a second takedown, Knight landed several elbows to the side of his head which abruptly ended the match. It was a pretty flukey finish and he looked to be in real trouble prior to flipping the script, but it was enough to get him a shot in the UFC.

Fight Prediction:

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

There’s no question that Menifield needs to keep this fight standing and out of the clinch if he wants to win. Knight is a powerful wrestler and it would make sense for him to try and get this to the mat where he should have a decided advantage. However, Menifield has already faced Devin Clark with a similar game plan, so you would think he learned something from that loss. Both Knight and Menifield are dangerous strikers, but Knight’s wrestling should give him an advantage assuming he decides to use it. With that said, Menifield’s 85% takedown defense makes him a tough guy to get to the mat, which could result in periods of stagnation spent pressed up against the cage. It’s also worth pointing out that Knight didn’t even attempt a takedown in his last fight, so there’s always a chance he looks to stand and trade with Menifield. While this could be a close fight, we like Knight’s chances to pull off the upset.

Our favorite bet here is “Knight R3 or Decision” at +310.

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DFS Implications:

This is the third time this fight has been booked and we’ve seen the odds and DFS pricing change each time. It was originally scheduled for February 27th and Knight was a slight favorite, priced at $8,200 on DraftKings with Menifield at $8,000. Then it was rescheduled for March 27th after Menifield tested positive for COVID. That time both fighters were priced at $8,100, but then Knight withdrew due to COVID protocols. Now scheduled for the third time, Menifield has shot up to $8,700, while Knight is priced at just $7,500.

Menefield is your prototypical R1 or bust fighter, who has never landed a finish beyond the six minute mark in a fight. It’s now been two and half years since he knocked anyone out, but he does have one submission win over that stretch. Knight has notably only been finished once in his career, so this does not appear to be a favorable matchup for Menifield to land a knockout, but he always has a puncher’s chance. You definitely can’t expect Menifield to return value in a decision and he scored just 74 points in his only career decision win, which occurred in his last fight. We’ve seen Menifield get controlled along the fence by wrestlers in the past, which lowers his scoring potential even further and just emphasizes the fact that he’ll need a first round finish to be useful. The odds imply he has a 58% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish and a 16% chance it comes in the first round.

Typically a fantasy field favorite, Knight was 34% owned on DraftKings priced at $7,600 as a +145 underdog when he made his September 2020 UFC debut on an 11 fight card. Then he checked in with 35% ownership, priced at $7,800, as a +110 underdog on a 14 fight card for his next fight. After getting manhandled in that match we saw his ownership dip down to 25% in his most recent match where he was priced at $9,400 as a -175 favorite and set a career high with 106 DraftKings points in a late first round KO win. Now priced at just $7,500, we expect him to be a popular underdog play and the line has already moved in his favor. Menifield has notably only been finished once in his career, although at Knight’s cheap price tag it’s possible a grappling heavy decision win still scores well enough for him to serve as a value play as he scored 86 points in his lone UFC decision victory. He looks like a solid option for low-risk contests but his elevated ownership makes him a little less appealing in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 42% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish and a 15% chance it comes in the first round.

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Fight #11

Cheyanne Vlismas

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Cheyanne had been scheduled to fight two weeks ago but tested positive for COVID leading up to the fight and was forced to withdraw. Apparently she had somewhat of a bad case and she said in a recent interview that her lungs were still not right as she continued to recover. It all sounded pretty sketchy considering she accepted a new fight so quickly, so that’s definitely something to keep in mind, especially the longer this fight goes.

Coming off her first UFC win, Cheyanne was dangerously close to landing an illegal kick as she rifled one off to the head of Gloria de Paula just as she was standing up and just as she pulled her hand off the mat. Cheyanne thought the fight was over and began to celebrate but it had not been stopped so she jumped on top of De Paula and finished her with ground and pound for a 60 second R1 TKO. While Cheyanne was narrowly able to win within the rules that time, considering her hotheaded approach to fighting it just seems like a matter of time before she does something illegal and gets disqualified.

In her prior UFC debut, Cheyanne lost a smothering decision against Montserrat Ruiz and tried to start a fight after the fight, which seems redundant. That was Cheyanne’s sixth straight time going the distance after she landed a third round TKO in her pro debut. She came out ahead in significant strikes 31-15, but was outlanded in total strikes 136-49 as Montserrat landed 4 of 5 takedowns and notched nearly 10 minutes of control time along with a pair of submission attempts.

Cheyanne punched her ticket to the UFC with a unanimous 30-27 decision win on DWCS in August 2020. She led in significant strikes 92-35 and in total strikes 103-53 with over eight minutes of control time. She failed on both of her takedown attempts, but also negated all five of her opponents attempts.

Cheyanne appears to fight on pure aggression and definitely has a crazy side to her. During her DWCS fight, she aggressively barked at her grounded opponent to “Get the fuck up” only to be scolded by the ref for her language. Later in the fight she verbally reminded herself that she can’t headbutt and after the fight she called Dana White out for not responding to her on Instagram after she’s been “DM’ing him for two years.” She then took his phone out of his hands and appeared to follow herself with it. Then after she got smothered in her UFC debut she screamed at her opponent “I’ll follow you home bitch!” So there’s never a dull moment with her and there is a 100% chance she has keyed a few cars in her time.

Now 6-2 as a pro, Cheyanne has two wins by TKO and four decision victories. Both of her losses have also gone the distance. She certainly hasn’t faced the toughest competition as her pre-UFC opponents entered her fights with records of 0-0, 1-0 (L), 3-0, 6-4, 0-2 and 4-1.

Mallory Martin

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Ten months removed from a first round submission loss against BJJ champion Polyana Viana, all three of Martin’s UFC fights have ended in submissions in the first two rounds (1-2). Martin is a grappler herself, but is far less of a submission threat compared to Virna Jandiroba and Polyana Viana who both finished her with relative ease. Viana pulled guard in the opening minute of the fight against Martin and methodically worked her way towards an Armbar Submission, which Martin did a poor job of defending.

Martin made her short notice UFC debut in December 2019 in a tough spot against submission machine Vinra Jandiroba. She went on to only land nine significant strikes before getting choked out in the second round.

To balance the scales, in Martin’s second fight the UFC threw her a softball in Hannah Cifers and Martin let it hit her in the face as she got dropped by Cifers midway through the first round. Cifers emptied her clip, and very nearly got the finish as she unloaded on Martin. However, Martin was able to survive the first round after she pulled guard and hung on for dear life. Then to start the second round she immediately shot for a takedown and was able to take Cifer’s back and submit her shortly after. Martin’s primal scream following the stoppage appeared to melt the eyebrows off referee Chris Tognoni who was crouched just over her face as he stopped the action.

Prior to joining the UFC, Martin was on a five fight winning streak, with two of those wins coming by KO (R2 & R3) and one by a R2 Rear-Naked Choke submission. She is currently 7-4 as a pro, with two wins by KO, two by submission and three decisions. The only two times she has been finished were her two submission losses in the UFC. Both of her other two career losses were by decision in her first three pro fights. And one of those decisions was notably against UFC fighter Maycee Barber (before she sucked). The only time any of Martin’s 11 pro fights have ended in the first round was her recent submission loss to Viana.

Fight Prediction:

Martin will have a 1” height advantage.

It’s hard to know how much Cheyanne’s recent case of COVID will affect her in this fight, but we imagine it will be more of an issue with her cardio later in the match. Despite her recent R1 head kick TKO victory, Cheyanne has still been a decision fighter throughout her career and that was the first time one of her fights ended before the third round. We saw her struggle with the grappling of Montserrat Ruiz, so it will be interesting to see if Martin is able to find success on the mat. On the feet, Cheyanne appears to have a decided advantage, so the results of this fight will hinge on whether or not Martin can get it to the ground and keep it there. Considering Hannah Cifers nearly finished Martin on the feet, we have very little confidence in her stand up game, but Martin notably landed five takedowns in her DWCS fights and one in each of her last two matches, so she definitely has a chance to control this fight with her wrestling and either land a submission or win a decision. When you combine her grappling advantage with Cheyanne’s ongoing recovery from COVID, we kind of like Martin to pull off the upset with either a late finish or in a decision, but we fully expect to see Cheyanne destroy her on the feet if that’s where the fight stays.

Our favorite bet here is Martin’s ML at +150.

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DFS Implications:

Cheyanne bounced back from a smothering decision loss in her UFC debut with a semi-flukey borderline-illegal head kick TKO in her last fight that completely broke the slate with 135 DraftKings points as she notched the win at exactly the 60 second mark to narrowly snatch the Quick Win bonus on DraftKings. Cheyanne is an aggressive striker who treats the Octagon like a street fight and is always on the verge of doing something crazy. She reminded herself out loud during her DWCS fight that she wasn’t allowed to headbutt, then tried to start a fight after the fight in her UFC debut, and recklessly threw a head kick to a downed opponent in her last match, although narrowly didn’t pay for it as De Paula simultaneously returned to her feet and may have just barely lifted her hand off the mat. You could argue that it was great timing, but we honestly believe Cheyanne didn’t even care or think about that when she threw the kick. We’d be shocked if she didn’t end up getting disqualified in a fight at some point in her career for landing an illegal strike, but living on the edge also might be her edge when it comes to fighting. It will be interesting to see how she deals with another grappler after she struggled so mightily in her debut. We expect her to come out firing which both presents the chance that she lands another early finish or gets taken down as she charges forward. Either way, her aggressive fighting style makes this an interesting fight to have exposure to on both sides. With that said, we don’t really see Cheyanne returning value without a finish here so you won’t want to get too carried away. In her DWCS performance she landed 92 significant strikes and over eight minutes of control time, but she still would have scored just 83 DraftKings points. That shows that she would really need to put up a massive striking number to score well on this slate if the fight goes the distance. The chances of that happening as she squares off against a grappler are less likely. The odds imply she has a 61% chance to win, a 21% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in the first round.

Martin will need to turn this into a grappling match to win the fight. If that happens it should score decently on DraftKings and at her cheap price tag a decision win could easily be enough to be useful. We saw Cheyanne get controlled on the ground for extended periods of time in her UFC debut and now that she’s coming off a slate-breaking 135 point performance she should be fairly popular. That makes Martin an intriguing leverage play for tournaments, although the fact that Hannah Cifers nearly knocked her out in her second most recent fight is certainly concerning. We definitely want to have exposure to both sides of this one and being over the field on Martin in tournaments is clearly the play regardless of the results. The odds imply she has a 39% chance to win, a 13% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.

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Fight #10

Jake Matthews

16th UFC Fight (10-5)

Looking to bounce back from a third round submission loss against Sean Brady, who’s notably a teammate of Jeremiah Wells, Matthews has now been submitted in the third round of his last two losses. Despite Matthews being a BJJ black belt with seven submission wins on his record and entering on a three fight winning streak, Brady who’s also a BJJ black belt, had a clear advantage on the mat. Matthews was able to catch a kick while simultaneously landing a right cross that put Brady on his back midway through the first round. However, Brady immediately recovered and reversed the position to end up on top, where he worked his way towards another one-armed Guillotine attempt and ultimately finished the round in dominant position. Brady returned the fight to the ground 90 seconds into the second round and again spent the remainder of the round in top position hunting for a Guillotine. Then Brady wobbled Matthews with a left hook early in R3 and a minute later had him biting him so hard on a takedown feint that Matthews actually fell forward and then Brady was able to grab his neck and work around to his back on the mat. Brady continued to dominate from top position as he worked his way to an Arm-Triangle Choke and quickly forced a tap. It was a one-sided dominating performance by Brady and he continued to showcase his well rounded game both on the feet and the mat.

Despite being just 27 years old, Matthews already has 15 UFC fights to his name after he joined the organization at just 19 years old. Prior to his recent loss, Matthews had won his last three fights and six of his last seven. However, five of those six wins went the distance and he hasn’t looked like much of a finisher. Notably, no one has ever landed more than 50 significant strikes on Matthews in his UFC career. At the same time, Matthews has only landed above 63 significant strikes once, which was when he totaled 72 against a washed Diego Sanchez in his second most recent fight.

While he’s not one to absorb a ton of strikes, Matthews has been finished in four of his five career losses, with three submissions and one knockout. While 11 of his total 17 career wins have come early, six of those came in his first six fights prior to joining the UFC and he only has one early win since 2016. With that said, he has four career KOs and seven submissions to go along with six decision wins.

Matthews is a decent striker but isn’t much of a threat to end things on the feet. His only UFC KO came in a 2015 doctor stoppage following the second round. He has good mobility, which helps him to avoid taking much damage, and he only absorbs an average of 2.73 significant strikes/minute. He’s also a pretty good wrestler with four UFC submission wins and seven in his career. He averages 1.9 takedowns/15 minutes, but has just a 41% takedown accuracy.

Jeremiah Wells

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Coming off an explosive short notice UFC debut, Wells pulled off a huge upset against UFC veteran Warlley Alves with an early R2 KO finish. Wells shot out of the gates like a bat out of hell and looked dangerous from the start as he capitalized on an early slip from Alves and immediately took top position. While Alves was able to slow down the pace some to close the first round and attempted a late Guillotine Choke, Wells started fast again in the second round as he clipped Alves on the feet and quickly turned the lights out with ground and pound.

A training partner of Paul Felder, Wells is a BJJ black belt with immense power, but you have to wonder about his cardio later in fights based on his energy expenditure when he comes out as explosively as did in his debut. With that said, two of his last five fights have been five round decisions.

Wells looked a little tentative early in his career but seemed to be more on the offensive in his last few fights. He bounced back from a five round decision loss in early 2019 with an immediate R1 KO in his next fight. However, that win came against a 38-year-old opponent who has now been knocked out in the first round in 3 of his last 4 fights. Three months later Wells put on a smothering R2 submission performance where he dominated his opponent on the ground after blitzing him early on to close the distance. That win notably also came against an opponent who has lost three of his last four fights. Then he most recently proved those wins were no fluke with the R2 KO of Alves in his debut, so Wells has now won three straight in the opening two rounds.

Despite being 35 years old and turning pro back in 2012, Wells has just 12 pro fights under his belt with nine wins, two losses and a draw. Seven of his wins have come early, with four KOs and three submissions. Three of his KO wins have come in the first round while the most recent occurred 30 seconds into round two. All three of his submission wins have occurred in round two as well, so he’s never finished an opponent beyond the 10 minute mark. While his last three fights have all ended early, five of his six prior to those went the distance, including three five round decisions. He’s never been finished in his relatively short career, and both of his losses notably ended in five round decisions.

Fight Prediction:

Matthews will have a 2” height advantage, but Wells will have a 1” reach advantage. Matthews is also eight years younger than Wells despite having 14 more UFC fights to his name.

This is an interesting matchup between two BJJ black belts, but it’s actually the underdog in Wells that looks far more explosive on his feet. It will be interesting to see how Matthews deals with that explosiveness, but we could see it giving him trouble, while he’s also been prone to getting submitted on the mat. Add in the fact that Well’s teammate Sean Brady recently submitted Matthews in the third round and we like Wells to pull off the upset here, although it does feel a little bit like chasing after his recent upset win in his UFC debut.

Our favorite bet here is Wells’ ML at +158.

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DFS Implications:

Matthews is generally not one to put up big DFS scores as five of his last six wins have come by decision. He does offer a mix of striking and grappling that generally provides a decent floor when he wins, but it’s tough for him to return value at his price without a finish. Wells has notably never been finished in his career and is a BJJ black belt to go along with his explosive striking, all of which are not encouraging for Matthews’ scoring potential. The biggest thing Matthews has going for him in tournaments is that he projects to go incredibly low owned and he’s a solid leverage play against Wells, who should be fairly popular following his explosive R2 KO win in his recent UFC debut. Matthews was notably just 13% owned in his last fight as a +185 dog against Brady priced at just $6,900, so now that his price has soared all the way to $9,100 we could be looking at single digit ownership on a slate this size. The odds imply he has a 62% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish and an 11% chance it comes in the first round.

Wells overcame the odds in his short notice UFC debut to land an early second round KO against longtime UFC veteran Warlley Alves, which will surely drive up his ownership this week in DFS. While this would normally be a prime fade spot for tournaments as the field chases Wells’ last performance, we actually like Wells to win this fight so at just $7,100 on DraftKings he looks like a solid underdog play with a high scoring ceiling. Matthews has notably been finished in four of his five career losses, and Wells has finished three straight opponents in the opening two rounds. We do still have some concerns with Wells’ cardio later in fights, but his upside is undeniable. The odds imply he has a 38% chance to win, a 26% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in the first round.

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Fight #9

Bryan Barberena

13th UFC Fight (6-6)

Continuing his downward spiral, Barberena is coming off a decision loss against one-dimensional grappler Jason Witt and has now lost three of his last four fights. Witt was able to take Barberena down 8 times on 18 attempts and control him for just over five and half minutes. Barberena led in significant strikes 50-35 and in total strikes 114-56, but was unable to do much until the third round when we saw a chaotic finish with Barberena nearly finishing Witt late in the match. Earlier in the fight, Witt was actually even able to briefly drop Barberena what appeared to be twice in the second round, but was only credited with one of those. He also wrapped up a Guillotine Choke but was unable to force a tap and eventually hung on to win the decision.

Before the loss to Witt, Barberena won a decision against no-longer-in-the-UFC Anthony Ivy, where Barberena saw an insane 24 takedowns attempts come his way, which he was able to successfully defend 19 of. Barberena finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 63-36 and in total strikes 175-54 as tapped on the side of Ivy’s head for 15 minutes while Ivy relentlessly attempted takedowns. Barberena attempted and failed on one takedown of his own, but did finish with two official submission attempts. Ivy led in control time 5:50-1:57, although most of that time was spent simply pushing Barberena against the cage as he attempted takedowns. Despite the win, we thought Barberena looked terrible compared to his past fights. He looked significantly heavier as he plodded around the cage and lacked any sort of bounce in his step. He also appeared to have lost some of his power and overall it was not at all encouraging for his potential moving forward.

Prior to that fight, Barberena notably underwent back surgery, which resulted in a 15 month layoff. Leading up to the surgery he had lost two fights in a row and four of his last six. However, in fairness those losses came against Randy Brown, Vincente Luque, Leon Edwards and Colby Covington. He fought Covington and Edwards to decisions, while Luque and Brown both knocked him out in the third round in consecutive 2019 fights.

Now 15-8 as a pro, 12 of Barberena’s wins have come early with 10 KOs and 2 submissions. His last two finishes both ended in R1 KOs. Other than his two recent R3 KO losses, Barberena has only been finished early one other time in his career, which was from a R3 Armbar in his third pro fight back in 2010. So all three of his early losses have occurred in the third round. His other five career losses all ended in decisions.

His fight against Luque set a UFC record for the most significant strikes landed in a three round Welterweight fight with the two fighters landing an absurd 169 and 163 respectively. Luque ended up knocking Barberena out with 6 seconds to go in a very close fight.

Barberena started out in the UFC at 155 lb before moving up to 170 lb in his third UFC fight. He had been scheduled to face Daniel Rodriguez back in November 2020, but instead underwent an “emergency exploratory laparotomy due to internal bleeding from a couple ruptured arteries in his omentum,” so he’s had to deal with various ailments in recent years.

Darian Weeks

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Filling in on very short notice for his UFC debut after Matt Brown dropped out, Weeks has just five pro fights on his record. He’s never been past the second round in any of those and holds a perfect 5-0 pro record. His most recent win took place in the LFA, but his four prio matches took place in smaller Missouri promotions.

Weeks just turned pro in 2019 and four of his five wins have ended in knockouts, while he also has one Rear-Naked Choke Submission win on his record. One of his finishes came in the first round, while the other four ended in round two. He’s never been in a professional fight that lasted longer than nine minutes, so his cardio later in fights remains a question mark. He’s yet to face anyone with much pro experience as his opponents have entered with records of 2-0, 0-0, 2-0, 8-3-1 and 3-4. He’s also competed in a few boxing matches and had a lengthy amateur MMA career as well. His second most recent MMA fight actually took place in a boxing ring, which further brings into question the level of competition he’s been facing.

Weeks had been scheduled to go on DWCS back in September, but was forced to withdraw due to COVID protocols and it’s now been 10 months since he last fought in an MMA fight, although he did have one boxing match since then back in April, which he lost in a split-decision.

In his last fight, Weeks did a good job of landing a ton of striking volume and eventually finishing his opponent midway through the second round. He showed solid power, but we again wonder about the level of competition he was facing as he entered that fight as a -900 favorite. While Weeks has said his background is in wrestling, he’s generally just looking to strike, but will occasionally mix in takedowns. We’ve yet to see much of a submission game out of him other than the one Rear-Naked Choke.

Fight Prediction:

Barberena will have a 1” height advantage.

In a tale of two fighters we get the struggling longtime UFC veteran in Barberena going against the short notice replacement fighter making his UFC debut in Weeks. That’s generally a smash spot for the veteran, but Barberena has looked so rough in his last couple of fights that it’s hard to get overly excited about him. It’s worth pointing out that his last two fights were both against grapplers and ended in decisions (1-1), while the three before that were all against strikers and ended in knockouts (1-2). So maybe in a striking battle where he’s not constantly defending takedowns Barberena can look a little better, but that remains to be seen. We expect this to turn into a high-volume brawl and most likely end in KO, so we should get an answer as to just how washed Barberena is. We’ll still give him the slight edge just based on how little time Weeks had to prepare after accepting this fight early in the week, but we think Barberena is just about done in the UFC.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in KO” at +125.

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DFS Implications:

Barberena has now lost three of his last four fights with his lone win over that period coming against a really struggling Anthony Ivy. However, we’re expecting this one to turn into more of a brawl than Barberena’s last couple of fights where he was taking on one-dimensional grapplers, so there should be plenty of scoring potential for whoever comes out on top. Fighters making their UFC debuts on extremely short notice generally struggle, which is encouraging for Barberena’s chances, but it’s unclear how much he actually has left in the tank at this stage in his career. Nevertheless, this is clearly a high-variance spot and Barberena has a massive experience advantage, so as gross as he’s been you’ll want to have some exposure here. He’s been in some wars in the past and this could be another one of those fights. His last five wins were good for 81, 120, 111, 93 and 99 DraftKings points, so he does generally score well when he does win. The odds imply he has a 53% chance to win, a 31% chance to land a finish and a 15% chance it occurs in the first round.

Weeks only has five pro fights to his name but he won all five of those in the first two rounds and clearly has the raw talent needed to finish opponents. However, his lack of experience is certainly concerning going against a longtime UFC veteran so we should definitely temper expectations to some extent. He’s also yet to face any real competition in his career, so we should learn a lot about him here. This could end up turning into a high-volume brawl, so you’ll want decent exposure to both guys and Weeks will occasionally mix in takedowns to help bolster his scoring potential. The oddsmakers are giving Weeks a ton of respect considering the circumstances, as the odds are near even with Weeks just +100 and Barberena -125. Clearly we’re not the only ones that think Barberena’s time in the UFC is drawing to a close. The odd simply Weeks has a 47% chance to win, a 28% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1.

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Fight #8

Manel Kape

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Coming off his first UFC win in three attempts, Kape landed a Flying Knee R1 KO against Ode Osbourne after fighting to a pair of close but underwhelming decisions. His last fight again started off slower paced with the striking near dead even and Kape finished ahead 19-18 in significant strikes with the late first round finish. No takedowns were attempted and we saw more feints than actual strikes landed. That was notably the first KO loss of Osbourne's career, although he protested the stoppage saying that it was too quick.

Prior to that, Kape lost a pair of close decisions spaced just five weeks apart in February and March of 2021. While his last decision was split and could have gone either way, he failed to set himself apart in his first two fights and he showed absolutely no sense of urgency in either of those two losses, while appearing perplexed by the results when they didn’t go his way.

In his more recent decision loss, Kape came out slightly ahead in significant strikes 61-55, but trailed in total strikes 76-73 and was taken down twice on nine attempts and controlled for two and half minutes while failing to attempt any takedowns of his own. Saying Kape started slow in the fight may be an understatement, as he landed just two significant strikes in the first round while getting taken down twice on three attempts. He did a better job in the later two rounds as he led in strikes in both of those, but things were still close enough for two judges to rule against him.

Before that recent loss, Kape fought to another low-volume decision loss in his UFC debut against a really tough Alexandre Pantoja, who outlanded Kape 74-49 in significant strikes and 77-51 in total strikes. Kape went 2 for 7 on takedowns, while Pantoja went 0 for 1. Kape appeared to disagree with the unanimous decision against him, which is silly to anyone that watched the fight as Pantoja clearly won.

Prior to his UFC debut against Pantoja, Kape had three straight second round knockout wins in Rizin, where he won the Rizin Bantamweight Belt in the last of those. His last nine fights before joining the UFC were all in Rizin, with him winning six of those—all with early finishes (5 KOs & 1 Submission). His opponents definitely were not overly impressive however. His last three Rizin wins came against Seiichiro Ito, who’s lost his last three fights, former UFC fighter Takeya Mizugaki, who’s lost five of his last seven, and Kai Asakura, who’s lost two of his last four.

Impressively, 15 of Kape’s 16 career wins have come early, with 10 KOs and 5 submissions. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted in two of his six pro losses—a 2014 R3 Rear-Naked Choke and a 2017 R3 Arm-Triangle Choke. Kape is a quick striker who can throw flurries of punches, but his ground game looks pretty suspect and his fight IQ is questionable at best.

Kape has fought between 125 lb and 135 lb in the past, but more so at 135 lb until he joined the UFC where he’s fought exclusively at 125 lb—or at least tried to. He notably missed weight by three pounds for his last fight, so it will be important to monitor him at weigh-ins. His last two fights before joining the UFC were both at 134.5 lb (61 kg).

Zhalgas Zhumagulov

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Also coming off his first UFC win in three attempts, Zhumagulov landed the first submission of his career as he locked up a standing Guillotine Choke against UFC whipping boy Jerome Rivera, who went 0-4 in the UFC with three losses in the opening six minutes of fights. Zhumagulov had Rivera hurt on the feet and Rivera instinctually shot for a takedown while Zhumagulov immediately wrapped up his neck and forced a tap on the feet.

Also similar to Kape, Zhumagulov lost a pair of close decisions in his first two UFC fights. His most recent loss came against a slick submission specialist in Amir Albazi after he previously had a decision stolen from him against Raulian Paiva. Prior to his recent submission win, Zhumagulov had fought to seven straight decisions, including four five round bouts.

Albazi outlanded Zhumagulov 68-59 in significant strikes and 94-74 in total strikes, while also landing a pair of takedowns on three attempts and accruing over three and a half minutes of control time. Zhumagulov went just 1 for 3 on his takedown attempts.

Prior to that recent loss, Zhumagulov fought to a close/questionable decision loss in his July 2020 UFC debut against Raulian Paiva. Zhumagulov opened slowly in the fight but seemed to improve as the match went on. He actually outlanded Paiva 66-52 in significant strikes and 73-56 in total strikes, while landing 2 of 11 takedown attempts, while Paiva had no attempts. It seemed like the decision likely should have gone Zhumagulov’s way, but all three judges ruled it 29-28 for Paiva.

Before he joined the UFC, Zhumagulov had won four straight decisions with the last three going five rounds. Eight of his 14 career wins have come early, including seven KOs and one submission, but he only has one early finish since 2017. Also notable, six of his eight career finishes came in his first six fights against highly suspect opponents. The records of those opponents were: 0-0, 0-1, 0-0, 0-0, 2-0, and 3-0.

Four of his five career losses have ended in decisions and the only time he’s ever been finished was a 2015 R2 KO. We shouldn’t have to worry about his cardio late in fights, as four of his last five fights before joining the UFC were five round decisions.

Fight Prediction:

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

It wouldn’t be surprising to see Zhumagulov make this fight closer than the odds suggest, but it still looks like a tough one for him to win. Considering Kape has gone the distance in two of his last three fights and Zhumagulov has seen the judges in seven of his last eight, we expect this one to also end in a decision. Despite the odds seeming a little wide, we still do like Kape to get the nod.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Goes the Distance” at -148.

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DFS Implications:

Kape has given us no indication that he can score well in a decision with DraftKings totals of just 28 and 31 in his two decision losses. While he finally showed a ceiling in his recent R1 KO win, this looks like a tougher matchup to get a finish and we have no desire to chase his last result. Prior to that late R1 win, Kape had been past the first round in nine straight fights and his patient fighting style does not lend itself to sustained DFS production. While 15 of his 16 career wins have come early, all but one of those came prior to joining the UFC and he still needs to prove himself at the UFC level with more than a single well placed Flying Knee. He looks like a R1 or bust DFS play and Zhumagulov has only been finished once in 19 pro fights, which came in a 2015 R2 TKO. This is not a fight we’re looking to have much if any exposure on. The odds imply Kape has a 70% chance to win, a 29% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in the first round.

Zhumagulov has also given us no signs that he can score well in decisions after he posted DraftKings scores of 32 and 39 in his two losses. Similar to Kape, he’s also coming off a R1 win but we’re not looking to chase that result either. However, Zhumagulov is priced extremely cheap, so there’s always a chance that he could serve as a value play with a win of any sort, but there’s still a good chance he would fail to score enough to be useful without a finish. While he does average a good number of takedown attempts, he has just a 21% takedown accuracy going against the 80% defense of Kape, so he’s unlikely to land many. So we really don’t see many paths to him scoring well without a finish and Kape has notably never been knocked out, while Zhumagulov has just the one career submission win. The odds imply he has a 30% chance to win, a 13% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.

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Fight #7

Dusko Todorovic

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Oh how quickly things can change in the life of a professional fighter. Dusko has recently watched his perfect 10-0 pro record fade into a two fight losing streak with a R1 TKO loss against power puncher Punahele Soriano, followed by a decision loss to short notice UFC newcomer Gregory Rodrigues. After suffering his first career loss in the TKO against Soriano, Dusko appeared to go back to the drawing board and ditched his hands down fighting style in favor of a more traditional hands up approach. He still largely relies on head movement to avoid taking damage, but he’s now also keeping his hands higher in the hopes of preserving his chin. Unfortunately playing it safe has never been his MO and the increased defense appeared to come at the expense of his previously fluid offense. Maybe he was just shell shocked after losing for the first time in his career, but it remains to be seen if he can ever regain his previous form that relied on sheer confidence.

Prior to the recent pair of losses, Dusko was 10-0 as a pro with 9 of his 10 wins ending early, including six KOs and three submissions. In his October 2020 UFC debut, Dusko finished Dequan Townsend in the second round with ground and pound that resulted in a TKO stoppage. While Townsend entered that fight 0-3 in the UFC, he had previously only been knocked out once and submitted once in 32 pro fights, so he had been a tough guy to finish.

The only other time Dusko required the judges prior to his recent decision loss was in his August 2019 DWCS decision win over Teddy Ash. In that high-volume decision, he landed 213 total strikes, 102 significant strikes and 9:41 of control time. He notably did go 0 for 14 on takedowns in that fight while he racked up control time against the cage.

Prior to that win, Dusko had eight straight early victories, including six in R1 and two in R2. He notably knocked out Michel Pereira in his previous fight before going on DWCS, which is the only time Pereira has ever been knocked out in 37 pro fights.

Maki Pitolo

6th UFC Fight (1-4)

This matchup had actually originally been scheduled for last June but Pitolo withdrew citing an injury and Dusko ended up fighting Rodrigues instead.

Somehow Pitolo remains on the UFC roster despite holding a 1-4 record with the organization and losing three straight. You have to think this will be Pitolo’s final chance in the UFC if he doesn't get a win, but who knows what kind of dirt he has on Dana to even make it this long. Pitolo’s most recent loss came against Julian Marquez in a fight where Pitolo looked to grapple far more than he ever has in the past. He landed 5 of his 11 takedown attempts, which is more takedowns than he had landed in his previous five fights combined (4). In the past, Pitolo has been more of a brawler than a grappler so it will be interesting to see his approach in this next fight. Marquez outlanded Pitolo 41-32 in significant strikes, but Pitolo led in takedown 5-0 and Pitolo actually won the first two rounds on all three judges scorecards before Marquez stole the fight with a third round Anaconda Choke Submission finish as Pitolo was clearly slowing down.

Pitolo got his shot in the UFC with a R1 KO win on DWCS back in 2019. While many fighters drop down a weight class when they go on DWCS and/or join the UFC, Pitolo actually moved up to 185 lb after previously fighting at 170 lb. In his first fight up at Middleweight (185 lb), Pitolo crumpled his opponent Justin Sumter with body shots and the ref immediately stopped the fight. Sumter has notably lost 3 of his last 5 fights in the first round.

Pitolo then moved back down to 170 lb for his 2019 UFC debut where he lost a decision to Callan Potter. Pitolo outlanded Potter 60-48 in significant strikes, but Potter was able to take Pitolo down three times on four attempts and control him for eight and a half minutes of the fight. Pitolo went 0 for 2 on his own takedown attempts.

Following the loss in his UFC debut, Pitolo moved back up to 185 lb and bounced back with a R2 KO of 37-year-old Charles Byrd, who’s lost his last three fights and is 1-3 in the UFC.

Following his lone UFC win, Pitola was submitted in the first round by Darren Stewart via Guillotine Choke and then lost a decision against Impa Kasanganay just three weeks later. Pitola fought three times in two and a half months in the Summer of 2021, so considering he lost the last two, he likely regrets the decision to fight as often as physically possible.

Pitolo is now 13-8 as a pro. With seven wins by KO, three by submission and three decisions. He’s also been knocked out twice, submitted four times and has lost a pair of decisions. Eight of his last 10 fights have ended early (4-4) and he hasn’t won a decision since 2016.

Fight Prediction:

Dusko will have a 3” height advantage, but Pitolo will have a 1” reach advantage.

Both of these guys are desperate for a win as Dusko has lost two in a row and is 1-2 in the UFC and Pitolo has lost three in a row and is 1-4 in the UFC. It’s somewhat amazing that Pitolo hasn’t already been cut and he’s definitely being given a longer leash than most fighters receive. However, it’s hard to see him getting another shot with a loss here. It’s always interesting to see if fighters come in more conservatively or leave it all on the line in do or die situations like this, but ignoring that factor this sets up as a high-paced brawl between two up-tempo fighters. With that said, both guys seem to be lacking in confidence at the moment as they try to get out of their respective slumps so it’s hard to know what to expect in this one. We’re tempted to give Dusko one more chance now that he’s gotten past his first loss and his first fight following his first loss, but if he doesn’t look better here it will be time to cut bait. We’ll reluctantly say Dusko gets a win, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see these two start off a little more cautiously than normal and fight to a decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Goes the Distance” at +138.

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DFS Implications:

After dropping a massive 120 point score in his UFC debut, Dusko looked like a shell of himself in his last fight when he totalled just 19 DraftKings points in a three-round decision loss. That came just after he suffered his first career loss in a R1 KO, so it will be interesting to see if being one more fight removed from that allows him to open up a little more or if he’s simply broken. It’s really hard to know what to expect out of him following such a massive regression and we would like to think he could bounce back but that honesty requires a complete leap of faith. It appears he’s trying to rework his fighting style to incorporate a less reckless defense, but it’s yet to be seen how that will translate to offensive production. This does look like a better matchup as he faces a smaller opponent who’s been finished in six of his eight career losses and has dropped three straight. Sitting on a 1-2 UFC record, it may be now or never for Dusko if he wants to remain in the UFC. It wouldn’t be shocking to see him again come in more conservatively and simply try to grind out a decision win, but there is always a chance he says fuck it and turns the page back to what got him here. So there are a wide range of outcomes here but we can’t say our confidence level is high. The odds imply he has a 59% chance to win, a 31% chance to land a finish and a 14% chance it comes in R1.

Sitting on a 1-4 UFC record after dropping three straight fights, Pitolo is even more desperate for a win than Dusko and has to be fighting for his job here. Encouraging for his DFS potential, Pitolo shot for 11 takedowns in his last fight, landing five of them. While he was submitted in the third round, he scored 67 DraftKings points and won the first two rounds on all three judges’ score cards. So had he simply survived the round he was on pace to score over 100 points in a decision win. With that said, he scored just 29 and 40 DraftKings points in his previous two decision losses and was nowhere close to scoring well in either of those. So similar to Dusko, Pitolo has a wide range of outcomes and also has the potential to come in more conservatively. While this fight absolutely has shootout potential, there’s still concern that both fighters will come in a little more cautiously as they each desperately need a win to keep their jobs. That makes it tricky when determining your DFS exposure for tournaments, but luckily neither one of them projects to be very highly owned so you don’t sacrifice much by simply matching the field. The odds imply Pitolo has a 41% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish and an 11% chance it comes in R1.

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Fight #6

Alex Morono

15th UFC Fight (9-4, NC)

Looking to keep his momentum going, Morono is coming off a pair of wins in fights he took on short notice. His most recent victory came in a unanimous 30-27 decision over David Zawada. While the final numbers were close, with ​​Morono leading in significant strikes 90-86 and Zawada leading in takedowns 1-0, Morono was the one landing the more impactful shots and he also controlled Zawada’s back at times during the fight.

Prior to that, Morono landed a late first round TKO against Donald Cerrone, who’s winless in his last six fights, with four of those ending in knockouts. Morono outlanded Cerrone 35-17 in significant strikes, while both fighters went 0 for 2 on takedowns. Morono was able to land multiple heavy shots before forcing a stoppage along the fence with just 20 seconds remaining in the round.

Morono is always looking for finishes and specifically knockouts and he loves to say, “Knockouts are gold, submissions are silver and decisions are bronze.” So while he has a 2nd degree black belt in BJJ, a black belt in Taekwondo and an equal number of knockouts and submission wins on his record, he clearly prioritizes finishing fights on the feet, and his last two finishes have both come by R1 KO. Since joining the UFC, he has two wins by KO, one by submission and six decisions. Three of his last four fights have gone the distance, so he’s clearly underachieving by his own standards.

Now 6-2 in his last eight fights, Morono’s only losses during that stretch came in a low-volume decision against Anthony Pettis and a 27 second R1 KO against Khaos Williams. A month prior to losing to Pettis, Morono put on a striking clinic in a three-round decision win where he outlanded Rhys McKee 176-124 in significant strikes and 208-133 in total strikes, while going 3 for 3 on takedowns. So he’s shown he can put up big numbers in the right matchups. Morono also notably has a decision win over Max Griffin.

Morono is 20-7 as a pro, with six wins by KO and six by submission. He has seven decision victories and one rare DQ victory for “biting.” He’s never been submitted, but he has two official KO losses and five by decision. One thing to point out is that Morono’s 2017 “No Contest” against Niko Price was originally a R2 KO loss, but it was later overturned to a “No Contest” when Price tested positive for pot [again]. So Morono’s record doesn’t really tell the full story, as he’s really been knocked out three times and not twice. Three of Morono’s six submission wins were R1 Armbars very early in his career, and he’s definitely more focused on looking for knockouts at this stage despite what his record indicates. He has notably failed to land a takedown in 12 of his 14 UFC fights and is generally content in striking battles.

Morono has returned very polarized results throughout his career as 11 of his 12 career finishes have come in the first round as have both of his official KO losses. So of his 28 pro fights the only ones to not end in either the first round or a decision were a 2014 R3 DQ win for biting, a 2015 R3 KO win and a 2017 R2 KO loss that was later overturned to a No Contest.

Mickey Gall

10th UFC Fight (6-3)

Gall is coming off a R1 Rear-Naked Choke Submission win against a struggling Jordan Williams who’s now 0-3 in the UFC. Gall’s striking looked improved in that fight, but Williams also looked legitimately terrible so it’s hard to fully gauge if Gall actually looked good or if Williams just looked bad. It’s not as if Gall was putting on a striking clinic or anything and Williams actually finished ahead in strikes 13-11, but he did land some solid shots. Nevertheless, when it came to looking for a finish, Gall is still entirely focussed on hunting for submissions, as all six of the early wins in his career have come by Rear-Naked Choke, including five in round one and one in round two. Four of those notably occurred in his first four pro fights against dubious competition. His only other career win was a 2019 decision and he now sits atop a 7-3 pro record. Two of his three career losses have gone the distance, with his lone early loss coming in a R2 TKO against Diego Sanchez. Gall claimed that was due to liver failure for what it’s worth. Gall has alternated wins and losses for seven straight fights and is now coming off a win.

After getting beat up in a decision loss to Mike Perry in June 2020, Gall took 13 months off before returning to fight Williams. Gall has very questionable cardio and it showed in that fight against Perry as he was exhausted by the middle of the match and nearly finished at the end of the second round but Perry simply ran out of time. Perry ended the fight ahead in significant strikes 76-55 and in total strikes 103-59, while landing his only takedown attempt and stuffing all six of Gall’s attempts.

Interestingly, Gall made his UFC debut in his just second pro fight back in 2016, so he really didn’t have much time to develop before being thrust onto the biggest stage. With that said, his first three opponents had never fought professionally before, which is crazy to think the UFC was allowing guys to make their pro MMA debuts in the UFC back then. So only three of Gall’s six career submission wins have come against opponents who have ever fought professionally before, and four of his six submissions came against fighters who still have never won a UFC fight. So we’ve yet to ever see him defeat anyone that’s actually good.

Gall has been dominated in all three of his career losses and generally looks bad/tired after the first round. Despite being a “submission specialist” he only averages 1.3 takedowns landed per 15 minutes and has only totaled three in his last six fights. He’s also only landed more than one takedown once in his career, which was when he landed two in a 2016 match.

Fight Prediction:

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

Despite finishing Williams in the first round and looking somewhat improved in his striking, we’re not buying that Gall is suddenly a good fighter and we fully expect him to struggle with Morono here. While we’re not giving Gall much of a chance to actually win, it’s a little trickier to determine how Morono gets his hand raised. Of his 28 pro fights, 25 (89%) have either ended in the first round or gone the distance, but Gall appears more vulnerable in the later rounds as his cardio wanes. So there’s reason to think that Morono could potentially get a later round finish opposed to his normal tendencies. Gall also has good size for the weight class and has only been finished once in his career, so the most likely outcome is still probably for Morono to win a decision. Either way, we’re confident Morono wins this fight, it’s just a matter of when.

Our favorite bet here is Morono’s ML at -225.

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DFS Implications:

Morono has been a R1 or bust DFS play for almost his entire UFC career, with the one exception being a high-volume brawl against Rhys McKee where Morono still scored a massive 126 DraftKings points in the decision win on the back of 176 significant strikes landed, 208 total strikes and three takedowns. Morono’s other three most recent decision wins have been good for just 69, 74, and 71 points. Gall is a submission specialist who has never absorbed more than 76 significant strikes in a fight, so it seems unlikely that Morono will be able to put up a usable score at his high price tag without a finish. And 11 of Morono’s 12 career finishes have come in the first round, so he’s generally not one to finish fights late. One thing that could change that is Gall has highly questionable cardio later in fights, so it’s possible Morono can use that to either get a late finish or land a ton of volume once Gall is worn down. That’s really the only thing keeping us from calling Morono a complete R1 or bust play in this spot. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish and a 10% chance it comes in the first round.

Gall padded his early UFC record with submission wins against a pair of fighters that had never fought professionally before and then landed two more submissions against questionable opponents who are no longer in the UFC. And most recently he submitted Jordan Williams, who’s now 0-3 in the UFC. Gall has never defeated a decent opponent and has never knocked anyone out, which generally leaves him reliant on landing submissions to win fights as he only has one career decision win. Morono is a 2nd degree BJJ black belt who has never been submitted, so this looks like a really tough matchup for Gall. We expect Gall’s ownership to get a slight bump following his recent first round submission win, which further reduces our interest in having any exposure to him. Gall scored just 67 DraftKings points in his lone decision win and lacks the striking volume to score well without a finish, so consider him a R1/R2 submission or bust play even at his cheap price tag. The odds imply Gall has a 32% chance to win, an 18% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in the first round.

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Fight #5

Brendan Allen

7th UFC Fight (5-1)

Allen was originally scheduled to face Brad Tavares, but Tavares withdrew and Dolidze Stepped in a little over two weeks ago. Then Dolidze also withdrew and Curtis stepped in on November 22nd.

Coming off a decision win against previously undefeated power puncher Punahele Soriano in a fight that remained entirely on the feet, Allen appears intent on showcasing his striking opposed to relying on his grappling prowess. Allen has proved that he can win fights on the feet, but it’s his grappling that has gotten him here and he’s the most dangerous when he mixes in a combination of striking and grappling. He only shot for one unsuccessful takedown against Soriano, although in fairness Sorian also has a background in wrestling, so that could have deterred Allen from grappling more. Regardless, Allen was able to wear Soriano down and finish ahead in significant strikes 94-66 in the pure striking battle. That was just the second time that Soriano had been out of the first round in his career and he was clearly slowing down after round one.

That was also just the second time Allen has been to the judges in his last seven fights going back to his DWCS match and he has never been to consecutive decisions in his career. Prior to the decision win, Allen bounced back from a November 2020 R2 KO loss to Sean Strickland with a first round submission victory over Karl Roberson in April 2021. Allen had that submission win teed up for him against the one-dimensional kickboxer Roberson who was previously 9-3 with all three of his career losses ending in submissions. It came as absolutely no surprise that after attempting to outbox Strickland and paying for it with his consciousness that Allen would return to his wrestling roots to attack Roberson’s glaring weakness.

Allen has won 9 of his last 10 fights with 6 of those wins coming early, including four submissions and two KOs. Four of those six finishes occurred in the first round. Allen has faced stiff competition since joining the UFC in 2019, with fights against Kevin Holland, Tom Breese, Kyle Daukaus, Sean Strickland, Karl Roberson and most recently Punahele Soriano, but he’s managed to come out victorious in all but one of those matches.

While Allen only has one loss in the UFC, he’s 17-4 as a pro with all four of his career losses coming against current UFC fighters. Prior to his KO loss to Sean Strickland, the only person to ever finish Allen was Trevin Giles, who submitted him in 2016 with a R2 Rear-Naked Choke in Allen’s third pro fight when he was just 20 years old. His second career loss came in a 2017 LFA five round decision against Eryk Anders and his third career loss similarly came in a 2018 LFA five round decision against Anthony Hernandez. A BJJ black belt, only three of Allen’s 17 career wins have required the judges. He has five wins by KO and nine submission victories. Nine of those finishes came in round one, four in round two and just one in round three.

Chris Curtis

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Stepping in on short notice less than a month after making his UFC debut, Curtis pulled off a major upset against Phil Hawes as a +275 underdog. Hawes was completely controlling the fight as he outlanded Curtis 48-21 in significant strikes, but Curtis caught Hawes with a clean left cross late in the first round that Hawes was never able to recover from. Curtis followed it up with a few more strikes and Hawes crumpled to the mat as the fight was stopped. Hawes was on pace to outland Curtis 162-71 in striking and appeared in complete control of the match leading up to the point where he got caught. With that said, Curtis looked durable and seemed capable of absorbing everything coming his way.

Curtis originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but despite landing a third round KO he was not awarded a contract. He finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 84-62 in a methodical striking match that played out entirely on the feet. Curtis was forced to return to the regional scene and then fought some in the PFL before finally getting the call from the UFC.

Curtis originally turned pro in 2009 and is now 34 years old. He sits on a 27-8 pro record, with 15 wins by KO, one by submission and 11 decisions. In 35 pro fights, he’s only been knocked out once, submitted once and has lost six decisions. He’s primarily a boxer and doesn’t seem to really push the pace. Only two of his last 18 fights have ended in R1 and 13 of those have made it to the third round with eight going the distance. He’s been in several five round fights, so conditioning isn’t really a concern.

While he made his UFC debut at 185 lb where this next fight will also be, Curtis has bounced around weight classes and has spent much of his career down at 170 lb, but has also fought as high as 205 lb. His last fight before joining the UFC was at 170 lb, so if this one doesn’t go his way it will be interesting to see if he moves back down to 170 lb.

Fight Prediction:

Allen will have a 4” height advantage and is nine years younger than the 34-year-old Curtis.

Interestingly, Sean Strickland, the one person to ever knock Brendan Allen out, was in the corner of Chris Curtis for his recent UFC debut. So presumably he’ll be able to pass on anything he learned from fighting Allen to Curtis going into this next fight, but considering we’re talking about Sean Strickland it will probably just be a bunch of incoherent ranting about how much of a pussy Allen is. All four of Allen’s finishes going back to his DWCS fight have come on the mat, while his only loss in his last 10 fights occurred when he stubbornly looked to slug it out with Sean Strickland. Considering Curtis appears to be a one-dimensional striker, it will be interesting to see if Allen can get past his ego and look to get this fight to the ground or if he’ll engage in the fight that Curtis is looking for on the feet. We’d be surprised if Allen didn’t at least try to get the fight to the ground, but he’s still capable of winning a striking battle. We like Allen to win this fight regardless, but if he’s going to get a finish it will likely come on the ground.

Our favorite bet here is “Allen ITD” at +120.

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DFS Implications:

Allen checks in as the most expensive fighter on the slate and is coming off a lower scoring decision win. While he’s generally been a consistent DFS producer, he’s never been one to put up massive scores with DraftKings totals of 68, 111, 94, 109 and 102 in his five UFC victories. Curtis has looked durable and has only been finished in two of his 35 pro fights, but he also has less than one round of experience in the UFC, took this fight on short notice and has often fought down at 170 lb. So there are several reasons to think he could struggle here. He also absorbed 48 significant strikes (10.79 SSA/min) in his brief UFC debut that lasted less than a round, which is encouraging for Allen’s upside. Also noteworthy, 14 of Allen’s 17 career wins have come early and he should have a massive grappling advantage as he’s a BJJ black belt going against a much shorter one-dimensional striker. With Curtis coming off a massive R1 KO upset win less than a month ago in his UFC debut, we should also see recency bias drive up his ownership despite the fact that he was getting pieced up before he flipped the script with a finish. When you combine Curtis’ popularity with Allen’s lofty price tag, we should see Allen come in somewhat lower owned than he otherwise would be. While his grappling gives him a solid floor even in decisions—at least when he uses it—he still likely needs a finish to crack the winning lineup at his slate-leading price. The odds imply he has a 75% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish and an 18% chance it comes in the first round.

Curtis is a one-dimensional striker who only has two first round wins in his last 18 fights so he’s generally going to struggle to really score well. With that said, at just $6,600 on DraftKings a late finish could still be enough. He’s coming off essentially a best case scenario late first round KO win, and has only shown his ceiling so far in the UFC. When you combine that with the fact that it occurred less than a month ago and is fresh on people’s minds, along with his cheap price tag, we expect Curtis to be a popular underdog play despite the long odds. This looks like a tough matchup for Curtis to excel in, as Allen can compete on the feet but will also have a massive grappling advantage. Curtis' only hope will be to keep the fight standing and hope Allen partakes in a striking battle, which we have seen Allen do in the past. The move in tournaments is to be under the field on Curtis as the field chases his recent performance. The odds imply he has a 25% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish and an 8% chance it comes in R1.

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Fight #4

Leonardo Santos

10th UFC Fight (7-1-1)

Coming off his first loss since 2009, the 41-year-old Santos was finished for just the second time in his career and for the first time since 2006. The KO loss came at the hands of Grant Dawson with just one second remaining on the clock in the final round. Santos’ 89% takedown defense was near perfect in the fight as he defended 12 of Dawson’s 13 takedown attempts, but Dawson made the most of that lone takedown, which occurred early in the fourth round against a tiring Santos. Dawson was able to control Santos on the mat for the remainder of the round and then finally postured up to try and land damage in the closing seconds of the fight. As he did, Santos looked for a Heel Hook submission, but Dawson used that as an opportunity to land several heavy hammer fists and knock Santos out with just one second remaining on the clock. Dawson finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 46-30, while total strikes were almost dead even with Dawson ahead 75-74. Both fighters landed one takedown, Santos on two attempts and Dawson on 13, while Dawson led in control time 8:18-1:21.

Santos notably knocked out Kevin Lee in the first round back in 2015, and then won a decision before taking nearly three years off from 2016 to 2019 as he battled injuries. Upon his return in June 2019, Santos hit the ground running as he landed a first round knockout in just 137 seconds. Then Santos took on an undefeated Russian wrestler in Roman Bogatov, who was making his UFC debut. As he always does, Santos did a great job of stuffing takedowns, limiting Bogatov to just one successful takedown on 11 attempts, which came very late in the fight. Santos nearly finished the fight with strikes in the second round but Bogatov demonstrated his toughness and survived numerous clean shots. Santos actually punched himself out as he landed so many heavy shots. When you combine that with a first round eye poke, two knees to the groin, and a blatantly illegal knee to the head, it’s somewhat understandable why Santos looked gassed late in the fight. After hitting the trifecta of illegal strikes Bogatov was deducted two points late in the third round on his way to a unanimous 29-26 decision loss.

Santos is a 4th degree black belt in BJJ and a former 7-time Jiu-Jitsu world champion. He’s never landed more than 66 significant strikes in a match and he’s also never absorbed more than 50 significant strikes. Impressively, he’s only been taken down 4 times on 39 attempts across his nine UFC fights and only twice in his last eight fights. Somewhat surprisingly considering his BJJ background, he has just seven takedowns of his own since joining the UFC and only four in his last six fights.

Now 18-4-1 as a pro, Santos has three wins by KO, nine submissions, five decisions and one DQ victory. He’s been knocked out twice and has lost two decisions, but has impressively gone 12-1-1 in his last 14 fights. The biggest question marks with him are his age and his cardio as he’s really slowed down later in fights recently.

Clay Guida

32nd UFC Fight (16-15)

Fresh off a split-decision loss to Mark O. Madsen, Guida has now dropped three of his last four fights and has only finished one opponent in the last decade. His kinetic fighting style essentially relies on outlasting his opponents to win decisions and six of his last eight losses have come early, with four of those ending in submissions including three by Guillotine Choke.

In his recent fight against Madsen, we surprisingly saw the fight play out entirely on the feet, despite Madsen’s Olympic wrestling background. Madsen curiously only shot for a single takedown attempt as he was comfortable sitting behind his jab to try and win a striking battle. Guida was unable to take advantage of Madsen’s striking inexperience, which isn’t a good sign for Guida’s chances moving forward. The fight ended with Madsen ahead in significant strikes 98-72.

Just prior to that, Guida notched his only win since 2019 in a decision victory over Michael Johnson. Guida was able to take Johnson down three times on seven attempts with nearly seven minutes of control time, while Johnson led in significant strikes 58-49 and in total strikes 70-65.

With a wrestling background, Guida has just one early win since January 2011, which came in a 2017 R1 KO over an aging Joe Lauzon who was in the midst of a three fight losing streak and 11 months away from retiring. In Guida’s other 17 fights since 2011, he’s won seven decisions, lost four decisions, been knocked out twice and submitted four times. His last three submission losses were all first round Guillotine Chokes.

Amazingly entering his 58th career fight after turning pro in 2003, Guida holds a 36-21 record, but is just 16-15 in the UFC. While 20 of his 36 pro wins have come early, with seven KOs and 13 submissions, only one of those finishes has occurred in the last decade and he’s really not much of a finishing threat. Twelve of his 21 losses have come early, with two KOs and 10 submissions.

Fight Prediction:

Santos will have a 5” height and reach advantage.

This is sort of a weird matchup between a fighter in Santos who has been struggling with his cardio late in fights and another in Guida who relies on his endless cardio to grind out decision wins. With a background in wrestling, Guida also relies on taking opponents down to get his hand raised and he’s gone 1-8 since 2007 in fights where he’s failed to land at least one takedown. So going against a world champion BJJ 4th degree blackbelt with a 89% takedown defense is obviously a rough matchup for him. The only way we see Guida winning this fight is by tiring Santos out in the first round so that he can take over in rounds two and three. He’ll also need to be careful not to get submitted along the way as Santos has nine career submission wins on his record and Guida has 10 career submission losses. With that said, the last time Santos actually landed a submission was 2015 and his last two early wins came by R1 KO. It will be interesting to see how Santos responds to his first loss since 2009 and the first time being knocked out since 2006, but we could see him come in more cautiously or looking to grapple more than he has been recently. Now 41 years old, who knows how much longer he’ll continue to fight so it’s hard to know where his head is at right now. This fight most likely ends in a close decision with Santos leading early and trying to hang on late, but we like him to bounce back with a win and there’s a chance he can end it with a submission in the first two rounds.

Our favorite bet here is Santos’ ML at -180.

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DFS Implications:

Santos lacks the striking volume (2.65 SSL/min) and takedown numbers (1.1 TDs/15 min) to score well in decisions and has returned DraftKings scores of just 74, 39 and 73 in his three UFC decision wins. That’s not a typo, he once scored just 39 points in a decision win. And yes, you get 30 points just for the win bonus. So he’s shown a non-existent floor when he’s unable to get a finish. He also lacks the cardio finish fights beyond the second round, something he’s never achieved in his 19 year pro career. Due to his lack of output, even his second round finishes have failed to score well, totalling just 83 and 89 DraftKings points. So it’s safe to treat Santos as a round one or bust play for DFS purposes, which makes determining your exposure pretty simple. The odds imply he has a 63% chance to win, a 31% chance to land a finish and a 15% chance it comes in the first round.

Guida is almost always just looking to grind out grappling heavy decisions and now he goes against the 89% takedown defense of the BJJ world champion Leonardo Santos. So this looks like a really tough matchup for him to control the grappling exchanges and you’re really just banking on Santos gassing out early in the second round for Guida to have any chance to win this fight. Guida has notably gone just 1-8 in his last nine fights where he failed to land a takedown and that one win was Guida’s only early victory in the last decade. Guida’s last two decision wins scored just 80 and 81 DraftKings points and he’s now lost three of his last four and four of his last six fights, so wins have been few and far between for him. We don’t have much interest in playing Guida here, but the argument for playing him is that he projects to be very low owned and he’s going against a 41-year-old fighter with cardio concerns who’s coming off his first UFC loss in a last second KO. With that said, we don’t see Guida returning value even at his cheaper price tag without a finish. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.

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Fight #3

Jimmy Crute

7th UFC Fight (4-2)

Coming off a freak injury R1 TKO loss against Anthony Smith, Crute suffered what appeared to be an O’Malley-like peroneal nerve injury from a Smith leg strike. Now in fairness, Smith was doing a great job of landing his jab in the first round while Crute landed several heavy leg kicks. The injury took place late in the first round, but Crute was able to immediately take Smith down following the injury to avoid getting the fight stopped—at least until after the round ended when he still couldn’t walk on his foot properly. Smith finished ahead in significant strikes 26-18, while Crute led in total strikes 34-27. Crute also landed all three of his takedown attempts, which all occurred after the injury as he panic wrestled to mask the injury. Smith had a 2” reach advantage in that matchup and used it perfectly as he maximized his jab and masterfully controlled the distance against an absolute savage in Jimmy Crute.

That was Crute’s fifth straight fight to end in the first round (3-2) and his seventh in a row to end early (5-2). Impressively, 10 of his 14 career fights have ended in the first round (8-2). He now owns a 12-2 pro record, with five KOs, four submissions and three decision wins. His only other career loss was a 2019 R1 Submission against grappling specialist Misha Cirkunov.

A BJJ blackbelt, Crute made his UFC debut in 2018 against Paul Craig, and submitted the submission specialist with a third round Kimura in the closing seconds. Craig is notably now coming off a first round “TKO” against Jamahal Hill in what should have been stopped earlier and gone down as a submission as Craig dislocated Hill’s elbow with an Armbar Submission attempt.

Crute is extremely explosive with both his striking and his grappling and landed EIGHT takedowns in just three and a half minutes of action, before submitting Michal Oleksiejczuk with a Kimura in February 2020. Crute followed that up with a R1 KO of Modestas Bukauskas, where he landed two knockdowns in a fight that lasted just 121 seconds. Crute punched his way to the UFC with a R1 KO on the Contender Series back in 2018. He landed an exhausting 65 significant strikes in less than four and a half minutes in that fight—a blistering 14.8 SSL/min.

Jamahal Hill

5th UFC Fight (2-1, NC)

Looking to bounce back from a gnarly arm injury, Hill had his elbow dislocated by Paul Craig early in the first round of his last fight, but showed off his toughness as he refused to tap. That decision combined with the referee's complete lack of awareness caused the fight to go down as a TKO loss opposed to a submission, which is what caused the injury. So chalk that one up as a bad beat for anyone that had Craig Wins by R1 Submission at +1400, not that we’re still bitter or anything. Craig actually pulled guard to get the fight to the mat and immediately looked to lock up Hill’s arm as he worked towards the Armbar submission that eventually dislocated his elbow. The fight only remained on the feet for a minute, which is the main reason why Craig finished ahead 23-1 in significant strikes and 43-3 in total strikes.

That was the first loss of Hill’s career, so it will be interesting to see how he bounces back from not only his first career loss, but also what appeared to be a severe arm injury suffered less than six months ago. Prior to that, Hill owned a perfect 8-0 record that would have been 9-0 had his first UFC R1 KO win not been overturned to a No Contest when he tested positive for THC. Of his eight official wins, he has four KOs split across the first two rounds and four decisions.

His most recent win came in an impressive R2 TKO stoppage win against a tough Ovince St. Preux in December 2020. Just before that Hill had a first round KO win overturned to a No Contest after he tested positive for THC, which also resulted in a short suspension.

Hill got his shot in the UFC with a second round KO win on DWCS in 2019. However, after successfully defending all four of the takedowns attempted against him in his 2019 DWCS fight, Hill was taken down six times on nine attempts in his January 2020 UFC debut against Darko Stosic. Hill still won the fight in a decision, but it does bring into question his takedown defense. Neither of Hill’s next two opponents attempted a takedown, so we have pretty limited data to work with and Craig officially went 0 for 1 on takedowns but got the fight to the mat by pulling guard.

Hill is a high-volume striker who leads the slate with 7.5 significant strikes landed per minute while only absorbing 3.6/minute. He’s notably never attempted a takedown in the UFC.

Fight Prediction:

Hill will have a 2” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.

Based on how many jabs Crute absorbed while being at a 2” reach disadvantage against Anthony Smith in his last fight and how easily he was able to take that fight to the mat even with one of his legs shot, it would be shocking if Crute didn’t look to get this next fight to the mat sooner against a one-dimensional dangerous striker in Hill. Two of Crute’s four UFC wins have come by Kimura, so if there are any lingering effects from Hill’s arm injury, we could see those get tested. While this fight should remain competitive on the feet, Crute’s biggest weakness is likely his striking defense which is Hill’s one hope to win this fight. With that said, we like Crute to dominate the fight on the mat and likely finish it with a submission. Just keep in mind both of these two are coming off the first TKO loss of their respective careers, albeit not from getting knocked out, but we often see fighters come into their next fight a little more cautiously in that situation.

Our favorite bet here is Crute’s ML at -160.

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DFS Implications:

Crute has the ability to break every DFS slate he’s on with his well rounded attack that includes lethal striking and relentless grappling. He leads the slate with an average of five takedowns landed per 15 minutes and once landed eight in a fight that lasted just three and half minutes. His four UFC wins have returned DraftKings scores of 118, 138, 106 and 88. His last seven fights have all ended early, with six of those ending in round one. He should have a serious advantage on the ground in this matchup and we expect him to rely heavily on his wrestling against a one-dimensional striker like Hill. That’s not to say that he can’t win on the feet, but it’s certainly not the path of least resistance. Hill is coming off a dislocated elbow just six months ago and Crute has a pair of Kimura submission wins in the UFC, so there’s a good chance he’ll test Hill’s arm strength. While this isn’t an easy matchup, we like Crute to bounce back from the freak injury he suffered in his last fight with a submission here. It’s also possible he puts on a dominating grappling performance and still scores well if this somehow goes the distance. The odds imply Crute has a 63% chance to win, a 43% chance to land a finish and a 26% chance it comes in the first round.

Hill is coming off a brutal dislocated elbow injury suffered less than six months ago, which was also the first loss of his career, so it will be interesting to see how he responds. Prior to that he had proven himself to be a dangerous knockout specialist who’s DraftKings scores would look better had he not tested positive for THC and had a R1 KO 116 point score overturned to a No Contest that now shows up as a meager 26 points. While this is an incredibly tough matchup for Hill, and we don’t see him remaining competitive in a grappling battle, Crute did look vulnerable to the jab of Anthony Smith in his last fight and Hill will notably have a 5” reach advantage. So if Hill can keep this fight standing then it could end up being much closer than the odds/pricing suggests. While that appears to be an unlikely scenario, it’s reason enough to have some exposure to both sides of this one. Hill also notably leads the slate with 7.50 SSL/min, yet is the 4th cheapest fighter on the card. So if this somehow turns into a high-volume brawl he could also potentially serve as a value play even in a decision, although that’s far less likely. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish and a 15% chance it comes in R1.

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Fight #2

Rafael Fiziev

6th UFC Fight (4-1)

Fresh off a high-volume banger, Fiziev won a seemingly close decision against Bobby Green despite being outlanded 143-104 in significant strikes. Even though Green outlanded Fiziev 66-43 in the third round, one judge still ruled the fight 30-27 in Fiziev’s favor while the other two scored it 29-28. Fiziev did appear to be slowing down a little late in the match, which just reconfirms the notion that he’s the most dangerous early in fights. Six of his seven career finishes have occurred in round one with the other ending in round two. Now 10-1 as a pro, he also has three decisions to go along with his six KOs and one submission victory. His only career loss ended in an 86 second R1 TKO in his 2019 UFC debut against Magomed Mustafaev.

Now on a four fight winning streak since losing his UFC debut, prior to his recent decision win Fiziev landed a R1 TKO win over Renato Moicano in December 2020. Fiziev showcased his crisp, violent striking as he picked Moicano apart for four minutes before dropping him with a perfect combination of punches to get the fight stopped late in round one. Moicano protested the stoppage immediately, but looked to be badly hurt. The fight ended with Fiziev ahead in strikes 21-15 and with both fighters failing on their only takedown attempt.

Fiziev’s first two UFC wins both went the distance and he’s now seen the judges in three of his last four fights. Still just 28 years old, prior to joining the UFC Fiziev was 6-0 with all six of his wins coming early, including five in R1 and one in R2. His lone submission win came in a 2016 R1 Rear-Naked Choke in his second pro fight.

A coach at Tiger Muay Thai in Thailand, Fiziev’s Muay Thai background is evident when you watch his violent leg strikes as well as his exceptional balance. Made famous for his Matrix style maneuvers, which he uses to dodge head kicks in exciting fashion, this guy definitely has a future hustling the Limbo circuit if fighting doesn’t work out for him. He’s also now successfully defended all 18 of the takedowns attempted against him in the UFC. As is often the case with Muay Thai fighters, Fiziev doesn’t add much in the ground game, but he does have two takedowns in his five UFC fights.

Brad Riddell

5th UFC Fight (4-0)

Extending his winning streak to seven with his last five fights all going the distance, Riddell has won as a slight underdog in two of his four UFC fights. The most recent of those occurred in his last match when he pulled off the upset against a dangerous Drew Dober, who appeared to have Riddell hurt early in round one. Riddell bought himself some time to recover by looking to grapple, something that he’s done more of recently. After going 2 for 2 on takedowns in his first two UFC fights, Riddell went 1 for 6 in his third fight and then 5 for 11 against Dober. With a kickboxing background, Riddell isn’t a submission threat, but appears to be working on expanding his MMA arsenal with wrestling.

Just like Fiziev, Riddell is now 10-1 as a pro. He has five wins by KO and five decision victories. The first five wins of his career all ended in knockouts, three in round one and two in round two, while his most recent five wins have all gone the distance. The only loss of his career resulted from a 2018 R1 Armbar Submission a little over a year before he joined the UFC. While he only has 11 pro MMA fights, he also has 69 kickboxing matches to his name, where he went 59-10 and was a former world champion.

Riddell’s last fight before joining the UFC was a five round Welterweight Championship match under the Wollongong Wars organization, where Riddell won the title in a 25 minute decision. So he clearly has solid cardio and appears to get stronger if anything as fights go on. Riddell has notably lost the first round on all three judges' score cards in his last three fights, but came back to win all of those matches. Keep that in mind for live betting if Fiziev wins round one of this next fight.

Riddell has been forced to defend a ton of takedowns since entering the UFC. He came into the organization in 2019 against Jamie Mullarkey, who went 3 for 15 on takedown attempts in that fight. The fight turned into an absolute brawl with Riddell leading in significant strikes 91-36 and total strikes 104-41. Riddell landed his only takedown attempt.

Following the win in his debut, he took on Magomed Mustafaev, who went 8 for 11 on takedown attempts against Riddell. Mustafaev was notably coming off a R1 KO win over Fiziev. In a grappling heavy affair, Riddell made the most of his strikes outlanding Mustafaev 38-28 in significant strikes and 60-36 in total strikes, while landing an early knockdown. And again, Riddell landed his only takedown attempt.

Then, Riddell defeated Alex da Silva Coelho, who went 3 for 9 on takedown attempts. Riddell might have been able to get a R3 KO in this fight, but the ref paused the fight after Riddell landed a clear punch to the eye of Da Silva, which Da Silva protested as a poke and was awarded with a timeout. Riddell finished ahead 67-54 in significant strikes and 86-70 in total strikes. He also finished with six official takedowns attempts in that fight, but only landed one of them—and in reality many of those were defensive maneuvers as his opponent looked to grapple.

Most recently, Dober went 1 for 5 on takedown attempts. Dober hadn’t attempted a single takedown in his previous five fights, but Riddell tends to make wrestlers out of everybody. So while Riddell has been taken down 15 times in his four UFC fights, he’s also defended 25 attempts. Riddell notably started his career off at Welterweight (170 lb), before moving down to Lightweight (155 lb) when he joined the UFC and it looks like he cuts a ton weight to hit 155 lb.

Riddell appeared to go through a tough and unusual weight cut for his last fight, blaming a bad scale as he took forever to weigh in and then came in under the limit. That didn’t appear to affect his performance, which is something to keep in mind during weigh-ins.

Fight Prediction:

Fiziev will have a 1” height advantage.

This sets up to be an absolute brawl between two durable high-level strikers and it should be an exciting fight to watch. Fiziev is a faster starter, but Riddell does a better job of enduring later in fights, so it would not be at all surprising to see Fiziev take the first round before seeing the momentum shift in Riddell’s favor in the later rounds. Both guys are so tough that it’s unlikely we see a finish, but if one does occur the most likely scenarios would be a Fiziev R1 KO or a Riddell R3 KO. With that said, it’s more likely this ends in a close decision. While it’s basically a coin flip as the odds suggest, we’re leaning that Riddell wins the later rounds to get the nod with the judges.

Our favorite bet here is Riddell’s moneyline at +110.

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DFS Implications:

Fiziev lands an above average number of significant strikes, but doesn’t really offer much in terms of grappling so he’s reliant on landing a finish to score well. His three decision wins were good for just 72, 72 and 66 DraftKings points, but he did notch 109 points in a R1 KO win in his second most recent fight. This is another tough spot for Fiziev to get a finish, as Riddell has never been knocked out in his career. This looks like a fight that will be better in real life than in DFS, and Fiziev projects to be somewhat popular at his reasonable price tag. He’s generally a R1 KO or bust play and with that in mind the odds imply he has a 54% chance to win, a 20% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in the first round.

Prior to his recent five takedown performance in a decision win over Drew Dober, Riddell had also struggled to score well in decisions, with DraftKings scores of 100, 68, 68 and 84 in his four UFC fights. Fiziev notably has a 100% takedown defense as he has stuffed all 18 of the takedowns attempted on him, so it’s hard to rely on Riddell once again propping up his DFS scoring with grappling. We did see Bobby Green land 143 significant strikes on Fiziev in their recent fight, but Riddell has never landed more than 91 significant strikes in a match, which came in a grueling brawl against Jamie Mullarkey. Riddell would basically need to double that total to break the century mark on DraftKings in a decision if he can’t pad his score with grappling, which seems unlikely. So even at his cheaper price tag you likely need Riddell to land a finish to be useful and his last five wins have all ended in decisions. Based on the odds that it goes the distance, this fight projects to be higher owned than it should be so it’s one you want to be under the field on despite the tempting price tags. It’s not impossible for either guy to get there in a decision, but it’s far more likely they fail to eclipse 90 DraftKings points. The odds imply Riddell has a 46% chance to win, an 18% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.

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Fight #1

Rob Font

13th UFC Fight (9-3)

Font is coming off a five-round decision win over Cody Garbrandt, which was the first time he’s headlined a UFC card and just the second fight of his career scheduled to 25 minutes. The first occurred in 2013 prior to joining the UFC and Font won with a R1 KO, so his last fight was the first time Font had ever been to the championship rounds. That could be part of the reason why he came in with a more patient and methodical game plan to assure his cardio would hold up for 25 minutes, but he also acknowledged that he didn’t want to trade hooks with Garbrandt, as he patiently fought behind his excellent jab for the duration of the match. Font notably had a 6” reach advantage in that fight, which helped to make his jab especially effective.

Font finished ahead of Garbrandt in significant strikes 176-63, while tacking on two takedowns on three attempts and stuffing 7 of Garbrandt’s 10 attempts. Font significantly picked up the pace as the fight went on as he landed and threw more significant strikes in the final two rounds (96 of 198) than he did in the first three rounds (80 of 167). He averaged 5.33 SSL/min over the first three rounds, but nearly doubled that output at 9.60 SSL/min in the final 10 minutes. So now that he’s seen he can go five rounds without tiring, it will be interesting to see if he looks to start any faster in this next fight or if he again comes in with a patient approach.

Prior to defeating Garbrandt, Font landed a R1 TKO upset of Marlon Moraes, who somewhat surprisingly took Font down twice in the opening minutes. However, Font was able to return to his feet and quickly flip the script as he landed several stiff left jabs followed by heavy combinations of punches that dropped Moraes. Font then got the stoppage through heavy ground and pound.

Font hadn’t fought in just over a year prior to that, after he tore his ACL in his previous decision win against Ricky Simon. In that fight he did a great job using his jab to utilize his reach advantage against Ricky Simon, while also defending takedowns well for the most part (Simon went 6 for 16) and getting up quickly when he was taken down. Font’s defensive wrestling definitely looked improved from earlier in his career.

The last time Font lost was in a July 2018 decision against Raphael Assuncao, who did a great job of slowing down the pace, controlling the distance, grappling effectively and counterpunching in the low-volume 15 minute fight. Assuncao was able to get Font down early in the second round and midway through the third as he kept Font grounded for nearly half a round both times. Font later noted that as a reason he worked on his wrestling going into the fight against Simon and it showed.

Font is 19-4 as a pro with 12 of those wins coming early, including eight by KO and four by submission. Eight of his early wins have come in the first round and three have come in round two. So when he does finish opponents it generally comes early in fights and his only finish to occur beyond the second round was a 2012 Guillotine Choke. Font has never been knocked out, with his only early loss ending in a submission. He’s also lost three decisions. Four of his last five fights have gone the distance after six of his first seven UFC fights ended early.

In the lone early loss of his career, Font was actually leading Pedro Munhoz 30-20 in striking, but got caught with a left hook clean to the chin that did enough damage that it had Font desperate and looking for a takedown on Munhoz. That’s rarely a good idea, as Munhoz is known for his devastating Guillotine Choke, which he used to submit Font almost immediately.

Font used to fight up at 145 lb, but dropped down to 135 lb when he made his 2014 UFC debut. He actually even started his pro career up at 155 lb before dropping down to 145 lb in his third pro fight.

Jose Aldo

19th UFC Fight (12-6)

Now 2-2 since dropping down to 135 lb, Aldo has won two in a row and looked rejuvenated in his most recent fight. ​​After starting off his career going 25-1, Aldo was knocked out in just 13 seconds by Conor McGregor in 2015. That began a downward spiral for Aldo as he went just 3-6 from 2015 to 2020 and began talking about getting close to retirement. In fairness to Aldo, those six losses came against Conor McGregor, Max Holloway (twice), Alexander Volkanovski, Marlon Moraes and Petr Yan. Four of those were title fights and another came against the future Featherweight champ in Volkanovski.

After losing four of his final seven fights at 145 lb, Aldo dropped down to 135 lb in 2019 and lost two more with a three-round split-decision loss to Marlon Moraes and a R5 TKO loss against Petr Yan for the vacant Bantamweight belt. Seemingly on the verge of hanging it up for good, Aldo bounced back with decision wins over Marlon Vera and Pedro Munhoz. Aldo looked energized and powerful in his recent win over Munhoz as he set a career high in significant strikes landed at 114 (7.6 SSL/min). As he often is, he was still patient for much of the fight, but landed an impressive 51% of the strikes he threw compared to his 45% career average.

Aldo has been to seven five-round decisions in his career, but previously had never landed more than 102 significant strikes in a fight and only averages 3.63 SSL/min. So he more than doubled his career average in his last match, but it is notable he had a 5” reach advantage in that fight and did a great job of making the most of it as he outlanded Munhoz 114-75 in striking. No takedowns were attempted and Aldo now hasn’t landed a takedown in 12 straight fights, although he was able to control the back of Marlon Vera for the entire third round in his second most recent fight. It’s also rare for Aldo to get taken down as he’s a BJJ and Luta Livre black belt with a 91% career takedown defense. He’s impressively only been taken down 9 times in his last 26 fights and the only person to get him down more than once was Frankie Edgar who landed two.

Entering his 38th professional fight after turning pro all the way back in 2004 a month after his 18th birthday, Aldo is currently 30-7, with 17 wins by KO, one by submission and 12 decisions. However, it’s been almost three years since he finished anybody and his last two wins have both gone the distance. Four of his seven career losses have ended in KOs, but those notably all occurred in championship fights at the hands of Conor McGregor, Max Holloway (twice) and Petr Yan. The only other time he’s ever been submitted was in a 2005 R2 rear-naked choke. He also has two decision losses on his record, with both of those occurring in his last five fights.

This will notably be the 16th five-round fight of Aldo’s career and 13th in the UFC. Prior to joining the UFC he went 3-0 in five round fights, with a pair of second round KOs and a 2010 decision win over Urijah Faber. In his 12 five-round fights with the UFC, Aldo has gone 8-4, but has lost four of the last five, with all four of those losses ending in KOs, including one in round one, two in round three and one in round five. Six of his eight UFC five-round wins have gone the distance, including his last three. The only two times he’s finished an opponent in a five-round fight were a 2012 R1 KO against Chad Mendes and a 2013 R4 TKO against The Korean Zombie. Also notable, it’s now been over five years since he won a five round fight by any method, which came in a 2016 decision against Frankie Edgar. The only time Aldo has been past the third round since then was when he got pounded out on the mat by Petr Yan in a July 2020 R5 TKO loss. Four of Aldo’s last five fights have ended in decisions.

Fight Prediction:

Font will have a 1” height and reach advantage.

There are several similarities between these two fighters as they are both patient strikers with a good jab. They’ve also each gone the distance in four of their last five respective fights and competed at 145 lb earlier in their careers. However, Aldo is the far more experienced fighter, especially when it comes to five round fights. While Aldo is somewhat surprisingly only nine months older than Font, this will be the 38th fight of his career and 16th five round fight. In comparison, this will be Font’s 24th pro fight, but just his third five round fight. Aldo turned pro seven years before Font did and actually won the UFC Featherweight belt eight months before Font made his pro debut. Whether that additional experience proves to be a strategic advantage or simply additional tread worn off the tires remains unclear, but Aldo looked spry in his most recent fight and he actually appears to be picking up momentum since his loss to Petr Yan. We expect this to be a close tactical striking battle that ends in a decision and could see it going either way as we anticipate the decision to be a close one. While we don’t disagree with the odds that Font is slightly more likely to win, Aldo has a solid shot to pull off the upset and he’s notably 6-0 in UFC five-round fights that go the distance. Just keep in mind those all came earlier in his career when he was fighting up at 145 lb. If this does end early, we expect it to come from a Font KO win.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Goes the Distance” at -118.

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DFS Implications:

Font has been a consistent DFS producer with DraftKings scores of 114, 119, 73, 100, 115, 114, 121 and 109 in his last eight wins. The only time he’s scored less than 100 points in a win came in a grappling defensive decision over Ricky Simon, where Font was constantly defending takedowns. He has landed at least one takedown in seven of his 12 UFC fights, but has never landed more than two and is primarily a boxer. Now he’s going up against the elite 91% takedown defense of Jose Aldo, so it’s harder to rely on him landing any takedowns to boost his score. Aldo has also only been knocked down three times in his last 26 fights, all of which came in KO losses, so if Font isn’t able to knock Aldo out, he’s unlikely to pad his decision score with any knockdowns either. That will leave him reliant on striking alone to score well, but he does notably average a respectable 5.58 SSL/min. With that said, Aldo has a solid 61% striking defense and averages just 3.59 SSA/min, so Font is less likely to match his career high in significant strikes landed of 176 that he notched in his last fight. If this fight goes the distance as we expect, Font is more likely to land somewhere in the 115-140 range for striking, which likely won’t be enough on its own to crack winning tournament lineups on DraftKings. So while Font has a solid scoring floor, he’ll either need a finish or to seriously outperform expectations in a decision to be useful in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 58% chance to win, a 28% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in the first round.

Aldo has really struggled to contribute in DFS and his DraftKings scoresheet is unlikely to get anyone excited with totals of 76, 60, 33, 24 and 14 in his last five outings. Even if we look only at his wins, he’s scored just 76, 60, 80, 112 and 64 points in his last five victories. The one usable score in that mess came from a 2018 R1 KO and his most recent win in a five round fight was all the way back in a 2016 decision that scored just 64 points. If we look back further in his career, he scored 127, 64, 61, 79 and 87 DraftKings points in five-round decision wins from 2011 to 2014. Obviously that’s a lifetime ago, but outside of an outlier performance in his 2011 UFC debut where he scored 127 points, he’s averaged just 71 DraftKings points in his other five 5-round decision wins with the organization. He has made improvements to his striking since he started training with the Brazilian Marine Corps boxing program for his last two fights and notably set a career high in significant strikes landed at 114 in his last match (7.60/min). That’s especially notable considering it came in a three round fight and he has 15 five-round matches on his record. If he were able to keep that pace up for five rounds it would be good for 190 significant strikes, giving him some hope of scoring well with a decision win here. So while Aldo clearly has a low floor, even in five round fights, he could still return value in a decision, especially considering his cheaper price tag. If we extend the scores of Aldo’s recent two three-round decision wins (76 & 60) over the course of five rounds, he would have scored 106 and 80 DraftKings points, further supporting the theory that he has a low floor but also a reasonable ceiling, especially considering his price. Although, whether or not he could sustain the pace he set in his last fight over the course of five rounds is a fair question to ask. Despite holding a BJJ black belt, Aldo hasn’t landed a takedown in his last 12 fights and hasn’t landed a knockdown in his last six. So barring a surprise return to grappling, he will be reliant on striking to score well and will need to set a career high in significant strikes landed for the second straight fight to be useful in a decision.

Looking at the last three times Aldo has fought, he was just 13% owned as a -120 favorite priced at $8,600 in his last fight (3 rounds) and just 17% owned as a -150 favorite priced at $8,600 (3 rounds) before that. In his last 5-round fight, he was 29% owned as a +195 underdog priced at just $6,900 against Petr Yan. So the field appears to be waning on him as his ownership has continued to drop over those recent three fights, and we expect him to be somewhat lower owned in this one despite being a big name. That makes him somewhat interesting as a leverage play in tournaments as Font projects to be the most popular fighter on the slate. The odds imply Aldo has a 42% chance to win, a 19% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.

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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