Tip: Hard Refresh this page (Cmd + Shift + R on a Mac, Ctrl + F5 on PC) to assure you're looking at the most up to date version of The Sheet.
Fighter Notes:
Miles Johns
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off his first career loss in a R2 KO, Johns had won all 10 of his pro fights prior—including a split decision in his UFC debut. However, limiting his upside, his last three wins and five of his last six victories have come in decisions. The only exception was a 2018 R2 Guillotine Choke Submission. He has three other early finishes in his 10 career wins—a pair of R2 KO’s and a R3 Arm-Triangle Choke—however, those three finishes all came in his first four pro fights and against opponents with records of 0-0, 1-0 and 7-5. Further capping his upside, none of his 11 fights have ended in R1.
Johns has a wrestling background and actually turned down a wrestling scholarship to focus on MMA. Despite his wrestling experience, he has only one takedown in his two UFC fights. However, he did go 3 for 4 on takedowns in his Contender Series fight just before joining the UFC. He landed 73 significant strikes and a knockdown in that match, putting up a more impressive performance than what we saw in either of his first two UFC fights. Also noteworthy is that he beat now debuting Adrian Yanez in a five round split decision for the vacant LFA Bantamweight Belt.
Kevin Natividad
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Natividad is coming off a July R2 KO win that landed him a shot in the UFC. He had been scheduled to make his UFC debut as a late replacement on September 5th against Brian Kelleher, before Natividad tested positive for COVID. Now cleared to fight, he will get a second chance at making an impression in the UFC with more time to prepare.
In his 10 pro fights, he has five KO’s and a submission win with three R1 victories. However, the records of the three opponents he ended in R1 were 0-0, 0-0 and 8-7. His only pro loss came in 2017 on a 9 second R1 KO. While only three of his fights have made it to a decision, two of those occurred in his last three matches.
Johns will have a 1” height advantage in this fight, but Natividad will have a 4” reach advantage. Natividad is known for getting his lead leg attacked due to his wide stance, so it will be interesting to see if Johns attempts to capitalize on that. It seems unlikely given that in Johns’ last three fights he’s only landed a combined two strikes to the legs of his opponents. We like the underdog Natividad to pull this one out with a KO, most likely in R2, but could easily see it going to a decision.
Dustin Jacoby
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Making his return to the UFC after almost nine years away, Jacoby originally was signed in 2011 at just 23 years old, but was let go after losing his first two fights—one by decision and one by a R3 Guillotine Choke. Since leaving, he’s gone 6-3 in MMA fights with three R1 KO wins, three decision wins, a decision loss, a R2 KO loss, and a R2 submission loss. He stepped away from MMA to try kickboxing for four years from 2015 to 2019 where he also went 6-3, including a win over UFC fighter Karl Roberson.
Since returning to MMA in 2019, Jacoby has won both of his fights by decision, including a high-volume win on the Contender Series this past August.
In the Contender Series fight, he put on an impressive striking display with 117 significant strikes landed against a tough opponent, while only absorbing 30. He also notched a knockdown and was 1 for 1 on takedowns, while defending 10 of his opponents 11 takedown attempts. His striking looked remarkably improved since his 2011-2012 tape and his kickboxing experience was evident. He did look like he punched himself out late in the second round after starting with a torrent pace. Despite the fight ending in a decision he was still awarded a UFC contract.
Nine of his career 12 wins have come early, as have three of his five career losses. While his takedown defense was impressive in his last fight, it may not come into play in this fight as Ledet has a boxing background with only one takedown in six UFC fights.
In Jacoby’s first stint with the UFC he fought at 185 lb, however he’ll be competing at 205 lb this go around. Ledet is a former Heavyweight who dropped down to 205 lb in 2018.
Jacoby acknowledged that he probably wasn’t ready for the UFC at 23 years old and lacked the confidence required. He says he’s in a much better place now and ready to make a run. All the tape we watched supported everything he said. While this doesn’t set up great for him to land an early finish, we think this could be a guy to keep an eye on moving forward. The only concern we saw in his last fight was his cardio late in the fight, but it’s possible he simply needs to pace himself better.
"This one should be fireworks!"
-Dana White on Ledet vs. Jacoby
Justin Ledet
7th UFC Fight (3-3)Previously undefeated in his career before dropping down from Heavyweight to Light Heavyweight after his third UFC fight, Ledet has since lost three straight. In fairness, while he is 0-3 at Light Heavyweight, he’s also gone against three tough opponents in Aleksandar Rakic, Johnny Walker, and Aleksa Camur.
Four of his six UFC fights have now ended in decisions, with his only early victory coming in his second appearance by R1 Rear-Naked Choke Submission. Ledet has only been finished once in 12 pro fights, which came in a 15 second R1 KO against explosive Johnny Walker who was inches away from a DQ if he had landed the illegal kick he went for while Ledet was on the ground. Ledet survived to see decisions against two powerful fighters in Rakic and Camur.
While Ledet won his first six pro fights early, including four in R1, those were mostly against questionable competition and we haven’t seen much explosiveness from him since joining the UFC.
With a boxing background, Ledet seems most comfortable on his feet throwing jabs. He does interestingly have five submission wins on his record and only two wins by KO, but he only has one takedown in the UFC. Despite being a big guy, he’s really more of a jabber than a power puncher.
Ledet is a tough guy to finish and we could see this one ending in another decision. Jacoby looked great in his last fight and is certainly capable of knocking Ledet out, but we think he likely wins this one in a decision.
Jason Witt
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)After seeing his June UFC debut go down in flames with a 48 second R1 KO loss, the 33-year-old Witt will look to get back on track against a fellow 0-1 UFC opponent. In fairness to Witt, he took his debut literally last minute, like the day before the fight.
Witt showed no chin whatsoever in that fight, immediately getting dropped by Takashi Sato. All six of his career losses have come early, with four by KO and two by submission. Prior to the recent loss he had been on a four fight winning streak, but the last three had all come by decision. Seven of his last nine fights have made it to R3, with the only two exceptions coming in R1 and R2 KO losses. He has five decision wins, a R3 submission win and a R3 KO win over that period.
In his 23 pro fights, he has three KO wins and seven submission victories. All seven of the submissions were by Rear-Naked Choke, which also happens to be how Williams lost his last fight.
Cole Williams
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Fourteen months removed from getting submitted in R1 by Rear-Naked Choke in his UFC debut against Claudio Silva, Williams is now 36 years old and in search of his first UFC win. He missed weight badly in that first fight, coming in at 176 lb for a 170 lb bout. He had won nine fights in a row prior to his disastrous debut.
He had been fighting at 170 lb up until he took nearly 2 years off following a 2015 R1 KO win. Upon his return in 2017, he fought a weight class up at 185 lb and landed another R1 KO. Then he dropped to a 175 lb catchweight for a 2018 fight that he won in a decision, before getting the call up to the UFC in 2019. So he hasn’t actually made the 170 lb weight since 2015.
A former collegiate wrestler, five of his last six fights have ended early, notably all five in R1. He had three wins by KO and one by Armbar submission over that period. And 10 of his 13 career fights have ended early, with both of his losses coming by submission. The first was a 2009 R2 Armbar before getting submitted most recently in R1 of his UFC debut. He has four KO wins and four submission victories. Impressively, six of those early wins came in R1.
We actually think Cole Williams could be a sneaky, under-the-radar DFS play with R1 finishing potential. He’ll have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage over a very hittable Jason Witt. He’s in that just below average price range, at the top end of underdogs, that can sometimes go overlooked. We think Williams wins this one early.
UPDATE: Williams again missed weight badly coming in at 175.5 lb. He weighed in at 176 lb for his UFC debut, which was also at 170 lb.
Sean Strickland
11th UFC Fight (7-3)Fighting for the first time in two years following a motorcycle accident, Strickland really messed up his leg in the accident to the point that some doctors told him he shouldn’t ever fight against. He said last week in an interview that his knee/leg “is still pretty fucked up.” He had been scheduled to fight Wellington Turman before Turman pulled out at the end of September due to lingering effects from COVID (or because he’s scared of Strickland if you believe what Strickland says).
This will be Strickland’s first fight back up at 185 lb since 2014. Despite owning a perfect 15-0 record and winning his first two UFC fights at 185 lb, Strickland curiously decided to move down a weight class where he immediately suffered his first career loss. Undeterred by the loss, Strickland stayed at 170 lb and won his next three fights before running into a buzzsaw known as Kamara Usman.
Following a decision loss to Usman, Strickland won a decision against Court McGee before getting finished for the first and only time in his career by way of Spinning Wheel Kick KO against Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos. He did bounce back from the loss with a R2 KO victory in his last fight before getting in the motorcycle accident that has kept him sidelined for the last two years.
Of Strickland’s 20 career wins, he has nine KO’s and four submissions. All four of his submission wins are by Rear-Naked Choke, as are two of Marshman’s last three losses.
In a recent interview, Strickland claimed the pandemic had “no affect on his life whatsoever” and that he “just ignored it.” He also said that he moved back up a weight class so he could fight more as it was really hard and time consuming to make weight at 170 lb and that he had to starve himself to do it. He admits now it was a mistake ever moving down to 170 lb in the first place. He also talked about how he doesn’t want to sit there and point people with jabs and that he would prefer wars. The only DFS red flag in the interview was when he talked about his leg still being messed up.
Jack Marshman
8th UFC Fight (3-4)Fifteen months removed from a R1 Rear-Naked Choke Submission loss to Edmen Shahbazyan, Marshman has now lost three of his last four fights with two of those coming by way of R1 Rear-Naked Choke. Despite being regarded as a brawler, three of his last five fights have ended in decisions—including his last two wins.
His last early win was in 2016—a year when he ended all four of his fights in the first two rounds. He had two KO wins and two by submission with half of those ending in R1 and the other two in R2. That seems to have been the year he peaked however, as he’s lost four of his six fights since.
Things began to go sideways for him starting in a 2017 R2 KO against an always dangerous Thiago Santos. While he did bounce back with a decision win against an unimpressive Ryan Janes, Marshman followed that up by getting submitted in R1 and then losing a decision. He then squeaked out a decision against one-dimensional John Phillips before getting submitted again in R1 of his most recent fight.
It’s possible not a whole lot changed with Marshamn and he simply reached a level of opponent that proved to be too much for him. However, he just seems to look more out of shape and less impressive with his striking as the years go on. In fairness, his last four losses have come to Thiago Santos, Antonio Carlos Jr., Karl Roberson and Edmen Shahbazyan.
He seemed very tentative against John Phillips, circling away from Phillips on the outside of the octagon, while content with counter punching.
Marshamn still carries a reputation as a brawler with 24 of his 32 fights ending early. Of his 23 wins 13 have come by KO and 5 were by submission. Four of his 9 losses came by KO and two were by submission.
We like Strickland to win this fight early either by KO or by Rear-Naked Choke Submission if Marshawn gives up his back. We think the most likely way Strickland fails to score well in DFS would be because Marshawn refuses to engage him and not because Marshman does well himself. However, we won’t rule out an in-fight setback to Strickland’s leg that gives Marshman an undeserved early finish by default.
UPDATE: Marshman missed weight coming in at 187.5 lb for this 185 lb fight.
Adrian Yanez
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Two months removed from a 39 second R1 KO win on the Contender Series, Yanez had been scheduled to fight Aaron Phillips before Phillips withdrew due to injury and Rodriguez stepped in on short notice.
The son of a boxer, 26-year-old Yanez has solid striking ability and has won six of his 14 pro fights by KO. He also has two submission wins with a 2015 R1 Triangle Choke and a 2016 R3 Armbar. His other six fights all ended in decisions with him winning half of them. He’s never been finished in his young pro career.
Yanez comes in on a four fight winning streak, with three of those coming by KO—including two in R1 and one in R2. His last two losses were both by split decision, with his most recent coming against Miles Johns in an LFA title fight in 2018.
Note: Yanez’s volume stats in The Sheet are based off the single Contender Series fight that he won in 39 seconds.
Victor Rodriguez
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Rodriguez had been fighting out of Alaskan warehouse parking lots in makeshift wrestling rings, up until his last fight where they let him fight indoors as he made it into the Alaska Fighting Championship. While he did win that fight with a R2 KO, this was hardly a UFC caliber match. It’s truly amazing that this guy was called up to the UFC and this could be one of the biggest mismatches on the slate.
Rodriguez has just six “pro” fights under his belt, and that’s using the term pro in the loosest possible sense. All six of his fights have ended early and we don’t see that streak ending Saturday. After losing his first two fights by a submission and a K,. he won his last four—all by KO.
Yanez stands out as an exceptional value on FanDuel, where he’s priced as if he was still scheduled to fight Phillips as a -240 favorite opposed to his opening odds of -325 against Rodriguez—he’s since seen his odds go well beyond that. DraftKings was slower to add him to the slate and priced him appropriately at $9,200. We like his upside on both sites, but his FanDuel price is absurdly low. We think Yanez gets an early KO here.
UPDATE: Rodriguez weighed in at just 133 lb for this 135 lb fight. He’s also giving up 2” of height to Yanez.
Alexander Hernandez
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Coming off a KO loss against a violent Drew Dober, Hernandez exploded onto the UFC scene in 2018 with a flukey 42 second R1 KO against really tough veteran Beneil Dariush, who hasn’t lost a fight since including a submission over Drew Dober. Hernandez may have cursed his career by starting the fight with the fake touch of hands kick to the body scumbag move to start the fight against what seems to be a genuinely good perosn in Dariush.
Hernandez followed up his debut with a three round decision win in his next fight. Only landing 39 significant strikes in the decision, Hernandez showed that he’s reliant on finishes to score well in DFS. He did land a UFC career high four takedowns in that fight, but even with that and tacking on a reversal and two advances he still only scored 81 DraftKings points in the decision. He further strengthened this theory in a 43 point decision win over Trinalado two fights later.
In between those two decisions Hernandez found time to get KO’d by Donald Cerrone in R2 of their match. Hernandez actually landed more significant strikes (49) in the R2 loss than in any of his other UFC fights.
With losses in two of his last three fights (easily could have been three straight) for the first time in his career, it will be interesting to see if the test in humility builds or breaks the cocky young Hernandez. He really needs a win here, so it will be interesting to see how he looks early on.
His only three career losses came in a decision against Jamall Emmers, in Hernandez’s third pro fight, a R2 KO against Donald Cerrone in Hernandez’s third UFC fight, and a R2 KO against Drew Dober in Hernandez’s most recent fight. Hernandez will have a 1” height advantage and a 4” reach advantage in this right.
Chris Gruetzemacher
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Making his first trip back into the octagon since April of 2018, Gruetzemacher was supposed to fight in early 2019 before tearing his ACL. Now two and a half years removed since his last fight, it will be interesting to see how much rust he has to shake off.
His last three fights have all ended early, as have 13 of his pro 17 fights. He’s coming off a massive DFS performance where he scored 134 DraftKings points in what went down as a R2 KO. Technically his opponent’s corner threw in the towel in between rounds two and three, giving Gruetzemacher 10 full minutes to rack up 128 significant strikes and still get the R2 KO bonus. Basically the perfect storm for DFS scoring.
He’s now landed over 100 significant strikes twice in his four UFC fights, but has yet to land a knockdown, takedown, advance, reversal or submission attempt—so he’s been entirely reliant on strikes and finishes to score well.
While his last three fights did all end early, he lost two of those— both by Rear-Naked Choke—once in R2 and the other in R3. All three of his career losses have come by submission—the third was a 2009 R1 Guillotine Choke in his second pro fight. He had won 13 of his 14 pro fights prior to the recent pair of losses.
Both of these fighters have wrestling backgrounds, which can often lead to a stand up battle as neither guy wants to test the other on the ground. Gruetzemacher has never been KO’d and all three of his career losses were by submission. While Hernandez has two submission wins on his record, he has no submission attempts yet in the UFC. Hernandez has now been KO’d in two of his last three fights, but Gruetzemacher’s last KO victory was all the way back in 2012. You can only read so much into the past, but it kind of feels like neither of these two will fully take advantage of the other’s weaknesses.
Hernandez opened the week as a big -350 favorite and we’ve just seen the odds get wider from there. Vegas seems to think Hernandez wins this one in a decision and we tend to agree. If that happens it’s unlikely it will score enough to be useful in DFS.
UPDATE: While Gruetzemacher did make weight, he took an incredibly long time to do so and looked pretty drained. This is definitely a red flag and makes Hernandez a little more interesting.
Bobby Green
15th UFC Fight (8-5-1)Fighting for the fourth time this year, Green comes in on a three fight winning streak with his last eight fights and 11 of his last 12 ending in decisions.
The only time he’s been finished early in the last decade came in a R1 KO loss to Dustin Poirier back in 2016. Green has a solid 74% takedown defense and is coming off a dominating victory against another BJJ black belt in Alan Patrick.
With almost all of his fights ending in decisions, Green has only scored above 100 DraftKings points twice. Most recently he dropped a massive 125 point performance in a grudge match against Vannata, where green landed 115 significant strikes, a knockdown, three takedowns, and four advances. Green seems like a fighter driven by emotion and Vannatta was talking a lot of shit. The other time Green topped the DK century mark came in a 101 point performance where he landed 110 significant strikes and added on a takedown, reversal and two advances en route to winning another decision.
He came close to breaking 100 points in his last fight, finishing with 96, but that required a career high in takedowns along with five reversals. It’s certainly possible Green gets there but it seems more likely we see a more moderately scoring decision. It doesn’t make sense for Green to try and take Moises to the ground and Moises is unlikely to engage in any sort of firefight on the feet. Look for a lower volume fight where Moises takes calculated stabs at getting a submission.
Thiago Moises
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Moises had been scheduled to fight Jalin Turner on September 5th before testing positive for COVID. Now recovered, he gets another tough opponent in Bobby Green. Moises is used to fighting tough competition though.
Landing just a single head-scratching significant strike in his R2 submission win over Michael Johnson, Moises had a terrible R1 but then immediately shot a takedown to start R2 and ended it with a heel hook submission when he didn’t land the takedown. If he can start this next fight the way he started R2 of his last fight then he could be interesting, but if he comes out flat in R1 he’s pretty much dead in the water.
Moises has alternated wins and losses over his last five fights, but he’s more or less won the fights he’s supposed to win and lost the ones he's supposed to lose. His two UFC wins came against Kurt Holobaugh (17-7, 0-3 in the UFC) and Michael Johnson (19-16, has now lost 6 of last 8 and 8 of last 11). His two UFC losses came to Beneil Dariush (19-4, 13-4-1 in the UFC) and Damir Ismagulov (19-1, 3-0 in the UFC).
Moises has three R1 wins in his career, but two of those were in his first two pro fights. Since then, he has only one R1 win in 15 fights. That number is important because a R1 finish is likely what Moises will need to score well in DFS, based on his sniping fighting style. He did get four takedowns and advances in his decision win over Holobaugh, however he failed to land any takedowns or advances in his other three UFC fights. Combine that with his tepid 2.68 SSL/min and that’s not a recipe for DFS success.
Moises has never been finished early and Green hasn’t been submitted since 2009. Both of Green’s career submission losses came that year by way of a R1 Rear-Naked Choke and a R1 Toe Hold Submission. Green has also only been KO’d twice in 37 fights—once by Tim Means in 2010 and then most recently by Dustin Poirier in 2016.
While Moises is always a submission threat, we like Green to win a decision here.
Kevin Holland
9th UFC Fight (6-2)Holland stepped into this fight on short notice after Krzysztof Jotko dropped out of a fight against Makhmud Muradov. However, then Muradov also dropped out of the fight just three days before it was scheduled to happen. So now 3-day late replacement Charlie Ontiveros will face 2-week late replacement Kevin Holland.
Holland opened as a -140 favorite against his original opponent, therefore he was priced at $8,200 and $17 respectively on the two DFS sites. However, Holland opened as a massive -675 favorite against Ontiveros but he’s still priced like a -140 favorite. We all know the drill, Holland now presents insane value and will be massively owned because of that. And while Vegas had the fight at +140 to end early prior to the opponent change, it now opened at -385 to end inside the distance.
Having planned on fighting the tough-to-finish 24-6 Muradov, who was on a 13 fight winning streak, Holland seems to have an easier matchup with an 11-6 replacement whose six losses have all come by KO and who’s moving up a weight class and fighting on 3 days notice.
Staying busy in 2020, Holland will be fighting for the fourth time this year and for the third time in the last three months. Just like COVID, Holland is undefeated in 2020, and his only loss in his last seven came in a 2019 R2 Rear-Naked Choke Submission against Brendan Allen. His only other UFC loss came in a 2018 decision against Thiago Santos.
While three of Holland’s last four fights have ended early, three of his first four UFC fights ended in decisions. He’s only averaged 66 DraftKings points in his three UFC decision wins (67, 59 & 71 pts), but he’s averaged an impressive 123 points in his early victories (105, 107, and 156). That average was bolstered by a massive 156 point performance against punching bag John Phillips. Two of those finishes came in R3, but Holland was able to tack on enough other stats to put up useful scores despite the late finishes.
A BJJ blackbelt, Holland has a diverse set of MMA skills. When you pair that with his long 6’3” frame and 81” reach, he is a tough opponent to game plan against. He’s also shown a solid chin and has never been KO’d in his 24 pro fights. Besides the loss to Allen, the only other time he was finished early as a pro came in a 2015 Rear-Naked Choke Submission prior to joining the UFC.
Holland did seem to fade a little in the third round of his last fight, saying after the fight he thought he lost the round 10-8 and the fight should have been a draw. It’s possible the frequency of his fights is catching up with him. While we’re not overly concerned, that will surely be one of the first things brought up by commentators, along with him taking this fight on short notice, should he lose.
Charlie Ontiveros
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Taking this fight on just three days notice, Ontiveros will be moving up to 185 lb for the first time from 170 lb where he’s fought his entire career. Going against a veteran like Kevin Holland, UFC debuts don’t get much tougher.
Ontiveros has an exciting resume with his last six fights ending early and his last three not making it out of R1. He’s coming off back to back R1 KO wins following a 19 month layoff after his violent 2017 R1 KO loss. All six of his losses have come by KO (two in R1, three in R2 & one in R3).
He likes to throw a lot of fancy spinning and axe kicks. He seems a bit stationary in the octagon, and without moving around a ton or keeping his hands up, he seems to rely on his quickness a little bit too much against his opponents.
This fight sets up for a stand up striking match with little to no time spent on the ground. Holland should have all the tools he needs to outland Ontiveros and most likely finish him. Ontiveros looked very hittable on tape.
We like Holland to win by KO in this one. He will undoubtedly be the highest owned fighter on the slate by a wide margin, so while we understand the leverage opportunity this presents, fade him at your own peril.
UPDATE: Ontiveros weighed in at just 182.5 lb for this 185 lb fight.
Greg Hardy
7th UFC Fight (3-2, NC)Making the switch from the NFL to MMA in 2016, Hardy had his first pro fight in 2018 on the Contender Series. He won that fight with a 57 second R1 KO, which he followed up with a 17 second R1 KO on the Contender Series just seven weeks later. Still not deemed ready for the UFC, he took a fight on Xtreme Fight Night a month and a half later and landed his third straight R1 KO—this time in 53 seconds. Following his third straight KO victory, the UFC decided to give him a shot four months later.
In his UFC debut, Hardy saw the second round for the first time in his career—it did not agree with him. He was disqualified in R2 after landing a brutally blatant illegal knee to a grounded opponent. Referee Dan Miragliotta was visibility disgusted and you could hear him immediately react with “Are you fucking kidding me?!” on the broadcast. Whether it was a lack of self control or just complete unawareness of the rules, this should at least give you some reason to pause before clicking Hardy’s name in DFS.
To his credit, Hardy bounced back with another quick R1 KO against a fighter who looked like he didn’t want to be there. Hardy actually looked a little more composed in his second UFC fight. He followed that win up with his 5th R1 KO in six fights, and second in the UFC. Another fight that could be counted with just the second hand on the clock, this one lasted only 45 ticks.
Hardy’s next fight brought him back under the microscope as he was caught using an inhaler in between rounds 2 and 3—which is a clear violation of the rules. Hardy said he asked if that was allowed and given permission, but apparently there was some confusion during that process. Hardy won the fight in a decision but that was later overturned to a NC. He claimed he wanted to go the full 15 minutes in this fight to showcase his skills as a fighter. Not really what you want to hear if you played him in DFS. His score is listed at just 27 points on DraftKings, as they don’t give him credit for the win. But even with the decision bonus he would have scored a useless 57 points—one point less then he scored in his most recent decision win.
Following the NC, Hardy stepped in on short notice just 22 days later to replace Junior Dos Santos, against Alexander Volkov. Hardy appeared to injure his right hand in R1 limiting his striking for the remainder of the fight. This was Hardy’s first true test in competition, and while he didn’t win, he at least didn’t embarrass himself. The fight ended in his second straight decision after his first six pro fights all ended early. He seemed content with the pace he set in the two decisions, opposed to the more aggressive style he demonstrated in his earlier KO victories.
Hardy has never landed above 55 significant strikes in a fight and he has zero takedowns to his name. He’s 100% reliant on landing a R1 KO to score well in fights and his last three fights have all ended in decisions.
Maurice Greene
7th UFC Fight (4-2)Greene made his way into the UFC with a R1 Triangle Choke Submission win on the The Ultimate Fighter, following a five round decision loss against Jeff Hughes in the LFA. Following the submission win, Green avenged his loss to Hughes with a three round decision, now that both fighters were in the UFC. Greene then KO’d a lethargic Albini in R1, which remains his only KO victory in the UFC to date. He followed it up with his only KO loss in the UFC in a quick R1 defeat. Then he was matched up against Alexey Oleynik, and despite surviving a R1 submission attempt, Greene just delayed the inevitable and was eventually submitted in late R2.
Greene bounced back from the pair of losses with a R3 Arm-Triangle Choke Submission win in his most recent fight against a portly Gian Villante who was moving up to Heavyweight for the first time and seemed like he did so simply by eating whatever the fuck he wanted and cutting out cardio workouts. Greene was close to getting finished a couple minutes into R3 after getting dropped from a Villante punch and assaulted on the ground. Somehow Greene survived, as the out of shape Villiante appeared to punch himself out and instead Greene amazingly choked Villante out from his back while Villiante laid on top of him. Even the broadcasters were stumped by the submission. Calling the win flukey is a nice way to put it.
Hardy is the stronger and more durable fighter in this match and barring a flukey submission should have no problem finishing Greene. The only question we have is how motivated is Hardy to finish the fight early?.
While some fighters are clearly driven by putting on a show and hunting for bonuses, Hardy seems driven simply to prove he belongs in the UFC, by showing his improvement as a well rounded fighter. We have him on the record twice saying he wanted fights to go longer—first saying he wanted the Sosoli fight to go 15 minutes, and then just Wednesday claiming he intentionally “prolonged it” in his last fight against De Castro. As long as that remains his goal, he’s hard to rely on for early finishes and has little to no DFS value in fights that make it out of R1.
Normally we don’t have to question the motivation of fighters to win early, but Hardy appears to be a unique case. He did say in an interview this one is “definitely not going to a decision...we’re going to brawl this one out, we’re gonna have some fun” so maybe he’s gotten his fill of decisions. Hardy clearly has the ability to knock Greene out in R1, let’s hope he has the desire. We think Hardy definitely wins the fight with a KO at some point, it’s just a matter of when he chooses to do it. Prepare to be frustrated if he waits until late in the fight to go for the kill.
UPDATE: Hardy was the last fighter to weigh in and originally missed weight coming in at 266.5 lb. However, with the extra allotted hour of time he was able to sneak under the 265 lb limit, coming in at 264.5 lb. It’s hard to say what affect this will have on him, but after inhalergate his gas tank was already in question. This just further cements his R1 KO or bust nature.
Bryce Mitchell
5th UFC Fight (4-0)A grappling specialist, Bryce “Thug Nasty” Mitchell is pretty slick on the ground. He comes in 4-0 in the UFC and 13-0 as a pro. He ended his first eight pro fights early, all with submissions, including seven in R1. Since then, he’s seen four of his last five fights end in decisions, but he did get another R1 submission win in his second most recent.
Mitchell had an eye-popping five submission attempts and 14 advances in his last fight, adding to his scoring potential on both DFS sites.
With his smothering attack, Mitchell has impressively not allowed any of his last three opponents to land over nine significant strikes (5, 2 and 9). However, he hasn’t shown any sort of real volume in his own striking game either, landing only 38, 17, 6 and 40 significant strikes in his four UFC fights.
Only 26 years old, Mitchell seems to be improving with every fight. It’s possible he surprises us with an improved striking game, knowing that everyone will be gameplanning against his grappling. But for now, his striking is not something you can rely on for DFS scoring.
"This should be an unbelievable fight!"
-Dana White on Mitchell vs. Fili
Andre Fili
16th UFC Fight (9-6)After alternating wins and losses over his first nine UFC fights, Fili has now won three of his last four and five of his last seven matches. His last three losses have all been by decision as have 5 of his last 6 wins. The only fight out of his last nine to end early was a 2019 R1 KO win over Shetmon Moraes. However, 15 of his first 19 pro fights didn’t make it to the judges, so the potential for an early finish is there.
He has three submission wins on his record, but all three were back in 2012. He's also been submitted twice—once in 2014 against Max Holloway via a R3 Guillotine Choke and then in 2015 versus Godofredo Pepey by way of R1 Triangle Choke.
Fili brought in grappling specialist Garry Tonon to help him prepare for Mitchell in this fight. Fili should have a considerable striking advantage if he can keep this fight standing up for any amount of time. He’s also fought much tougher competition in the UFC than Mitchell has, having gone against guys like Max Holloway, Yair Rodriguez, Calvin Kattar and Michael Johnson. In comparison, Mitchell’s four UFC wins came against opponents with a combined five UFC wins of their own, and four of those belonged to Rosa. Knowing that the fight will hinge on whether it’s fought on the mat or standing up, let’s dive deeper into the takedowns in Fili’s UFC fights.
Fili’s UFC Takedown Breakdown:
Win vs. Jourdain 0/0 (TD Avg: 0, TD Acc: 0%), Fili 5/6
Loss vs. Yusuff 0/0 (TD Avg: 0, TD Acc: 0%), Fili 3/7
Win vs. Moraes 0/0 (TD Avg: 2.16, TD Acc: 55%), Fili 0/0
Win vs. Jury 0/0 (TD Avg: 0, TD Acc: 0%), Fili 0/0
Loss vs. Johnson 0/3 (TD Avg: 0.51, TD Acc: 45%), Fili 2/4
Win vs. Bermudez 1/11 (TD Avg: 3.89, TD Acc: 40%), Fili 4/12v
Win vs. Lobov 0/2 (TD Avg: 0.39, TD Acc: 25%), Fili 5/6
Loss vs. Kattar 2/3 (TD Avg: 0.47, TD Acc: 37%), Fili 0/2
Win vs. Dias 4/13 (TD Avg: 2.5, TD Acc: 39%), Fili 0/0
Loss vs. Rodriguez 2/2 (TD Avg: 0.90, TD Acc: 29%), Fili 1/2
Win vs. Benitez 0/0 (TD Avg: 0.18, TD Acc: 50%), Fili 1/1
Loss vs. Pepey 0/2 (TD Avg: 0.37, TD Acc: 7%), Fili 0/0
Win vs. Arantes 3/5 (TD Avg: 0.93, TD Acc: 47%), Fili 5/8
Loss vs. Holloway 0/0 (TD Avg: 0.22, TD Acc: 83%), Fili 3/12
Win vs. Larsen 1/2 (TD Avg: 2.49, TD Acc: 33%), Fili 1/1
The first thing you’ll notice is that no one has landed a takedown on Fili in his last five fights, but no one has even attempted one in his last four. Interestingly, Calvin Kattar was the last person to land two takedowns in a fight against Fili, which is funny because Kattar has only landed one takedown in his other seven UFC fights combined. Since fighting Kattar, Fili has successfully defended 15 of the 16 takedowns attempted on him.
If we narrow it down to only look at Fili’s opponents who average above 1 TD/15min (Moraes, Bermudez, Dias, Larsen), you’ll notice all but Moraes, who Fili knocked out in R1, landed at least one takedown. However, only Dias was able to land more than one.
If we look at Mitchell’s takedown accuracy it’s not overly impressive at just 33%. However, there’s reason to think it’s improving. After going 3 for 10 on takedowns in his match on The Ultimate Fighter, he then went 0 for 3 in this next fight. Not great. However, since then he’s gone 1 for 1 and most recently 3 for 3 on takedowns. It’s not a very large sample size, but if you combine the numbers with what we saw on tape, he certainly appears to be improving as he matures. Looking at the accuracy of Fili’s past opponents, you could make a strong case that Mitchell will prove to be Fili’s toughest test to date at staying upright. Fili’s takedown defense also hasn’t been tested in a couple of years so it will be interesting to see how it looks.
Fili has averaged 93 DraftKings points in his last six wins, despite five of them ending in decisions. His lowest scoring decision was 79 points in a fight where he landed 98 significant strikes against Myles Jury, but failed to add any stats in the ground game—neither fighter even attempted a takedown in the match. Fili has scored as high as 102 points in a decision but that required filling up the stat sheet with 55 significant strikes, a knockdown, five takedowns and three advances.
In a matchup where Fili should have a big advantage on the feet it doesn’t make sense for him to want to take it to the ground. So we expect him to lack the takedowns that have propped up his decision scores in the past. We also don’t see Mitchell engaging in a firefight with Fili, so getting there on volume alone is an unlikely proposition. This leaves Fili’s sole path to DFS success as landing an early finish on Mitchell. Obviously a R1 finish would be enough, but a R2 victory might require some help. We think Fili’s chances of making it into the optimal lineup are right around 15-16% based on Vegas odds and what it would take for him to score enough.
Mitchell has also shown that he can score well in a decision, however, he’s also shown a much lower floor in decision wins—only scoring 64 and 47 DraftKings points respectively in his first two UFC fights. The biggest difference between those decisions and his most recent decision all comes down to advances and submission attempts. Mitchell was able to completely control Rosa for the duration of the fight in his last outing and rack up a ridiculous 14 advances and 5 submission attempts along the way. He only combined for three takedowns and one advance in his first two fights.
We think this will be one of the more popular fights on the slate in terms of combined ownership of the fighters, but we see more than one way for it to disappoint in DFS. Both guys are capable of scoring well, but they’re also more than capable of going the distance and scoring under 80 points. For Fili to succeed, he will likely need an early finish. And for Mitchell to score well, he will either need to completely control Fili on the ground and rack up double digit advances again or else he’ll also need an early finish.
With this being Mitchell’s toughest test to date we think it’s more likely this fight ends up being a bust than going off, but we still like Mitchell’s odds of winning it. If we had to break it down, we think there’s roughly a 15% chance that FIli is in the optimal, a 30% chance that Mitchell makes it there, and a 55% chance that neither puts up a usable score. It does help that both of these fighters are reasonably priced and the slate has the potential to be lower scoring, but we’ll say Mitchell most likely wins this one in a decision and is left on the outside looking in of optimal lineups. We don’t hate Fili though and could certainly see it going his way.
Uriah Hall
16th UFC Fight (8-7)Hall comes in on a two fight winning streak, after losing four of his five fights prior to the pair of wins. His last two wins came against Bevein Lewis, who was making his UFC debut, and Antonio Carlos Jr. in a close split decision that actually looked to surprise Hall when he heard he won. None of Hall’s last three wins were very commanding and he looked close to losing all three.
His first four UFC losses all came in decisions, but his last three losses all came by KO (two in R1 & one in R2). Six of his eight UFC wins came by KO, while the other two ended in decisions.
The last two times that Silva was finished early both resulted from leg injuries and now he’s coming off knee surgery following the Cannonier fight.
Here are Hall’s leg strikes landed compared to total strikes landed from his last 5 fights (leg/total):
vs. Carlos 0/41
vs. Lewis 21/42
vs. Costa 5/58
vs. Jotko 5/26
vs. Mousasi 9/12
Hall hasn’t fought in 13 months after his last three fights got canceled due to canceled events or opponents pulling out due to injury and COVID. The only other time Hall was in a five round fight he got KO’d in R1.
Anderson Silva
25th UFC Fight (17-6, NC)At 45 years old, Silva is officially the oldest fighter in the UFC and the guy who refuses to leave the bar even after they turn the lights on. He now has one win in his last eight fights, going back to 2012. Five of his last six fights have ended in decisions with the only exception coming in his last match against Cannonier, where Silva suffered a knee injury in R1.
Silva would have had a second win over that period, but a 2015 decision win over Nick Diaz was overturned to a NC after both fighters failed drug tests—Silva for PED’s and Diaz for marijuana.
An icon in the UFC, Silva won his first 16 UFC fights, including 14 early finishes with seven in R1. Twelve of those came by KO with two by submission. The first fighter to beat Silva in the UFC was Chris Weidman, who did so twice in 2013—both times in R2 KO’s. Those losses marked the end to Silva’s UFC dominance.
After winning the Middleweight belt in 2006, Silva successfully defended it for seven years, over the course of his next 14 fights. He then got caught trying to clown Chris Weirdman who promptly knocked him out—ironically while Silva appeared to be mocking him for his lack of power. In their rematch five months later, Silva horrifically snapped his lower leg in two as Weidman checked a kick. Silva has never regained his earlier success following the injury.
After suffering the pair of losses and apparently recovered from the brutal leg injury, Silva won a decision over Nick Diaz, but it was later overturned to a NC when Silva tested positive for PED’s. Thirteen months later, he lost a close five round decision to Michael Bispeng, which was Silva’s last 5 round fight. Then he took a fight on two days notice against Cormier, after Jon Jones was pulled from the card, which Silva lost in a decision. He was able to bounce back with a decision win over Derek Brunson after that, but followed it up with losses to Adesanya and Cannonier.
Despite now being 45 years old, it seems like Silva simply didn’t want to end his career on an injury following the Cannonier fight. Obviously he would love to go out on a KO victory, but he would likely be more than happy with any win, opposed to risking a reckless KO loss in what has been said to be his final UFC appearance.
Silva is good at slowing down fights and reducing the pace of strikes landed. We’ve seen his average significant strikes landed per minute drop in each of his last three fights (2.87 > 2.07 > 1.66 SS/minute), while his opponents have consistently outstruck him (3.60 > 4.33 > 3.53 SS/minute). These numbers tell a different story than his career averages of 3.04 SSL/minute and 1.98 SSA/minute.
Silva has only been finished in R1 once in his career, which came in his last fight due to a knee injury. This sets up for a low volume, lower scoring main event, but both guys have KO ability so there’s always a chance it ends early. This will be Silva’s first five round fight since his 2016 loss to Bisping and first time back in the octagon since May of 2019.
Silva hasn’t landed a takedown in his last 12 fights, while having just eight landed against him over that period. Similarly, Hall hasn’t landed a takedown in his last eight fights, while having seven landed on him over that time. So it’s unlikely either guy will be looking for takedowns in this fight. We also think it’s unlikely either will be looking for submissions attempts as Silva hasn’t attempted one in his last 12 fights nor Hall in his last seven. So DFS scoring in this fight will likely entirely rely on striking, knockdowns and knockouts.
Silva has only been knocked out three times in his career. As previously discussed, the first time was when he lost the belt to Chris Weidman, then again when he snapped his leg in the Weidman rematch, and most recently when he injured his knee in his last fight. So really he’s been knocked out once and had freak leg injuries twice. The last time Silva knocked anyone out was in 2012 just prior to the first Weidman fight.
Hall, on the other hand, has had four of his last five and seven of his last nine fights end in KO’s. Four of his career nine losses resulted from KO’s and three of those came in his last three losses. That at least gives some reason to think that Silva has one last KO in him, but again it’s been eight years since he knocked anyone out. Hall has never been to a fourth round so it will be interesting to see his gas tank if this fight gets there.
We think this is a very fadeable main event, but you’ll likely want to have at least a little exposure to each guy. It kind of feels like the UFC wants to send Silva out on a good note so he’ll finally retire, we’ll say the Illuminati sway a decision in his favor on this one.