The Sheet

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Fighter Notes:

Fight #14

Daniel Marcos

3rd UFC Fight (2-0)

Marcos’ last three matchups all fell through. He had been scheduled to face Daniel Santos back in November, before Santos dropped out and Victor Hugo stepped in. However, Hugo missed weight and the fight was canceled. A month later, Marcos was booked against Carlos Vera in December, but Marcos dropped out due to visa issues. So this will be the fourth opponent that Marcos has prepared for in the past few months.

Fortunate to walk away from his last fight with a win, Marcos somehow defeated Davey Grant, despite being outstruck 70-48. Grant finished ahead in striking in every single round and somehow all three judges gave Marcos round two, despite Grant outlanding him 26-15, with no takedowns, knockdowns, or control time on either side. It was overall a very underwhelming performance from Marcos and we thought Grant won. Prior to that, Marcos landed a second round knockout win in his UFC debut against Saimon Oliveira on the last Brazil card. Marcos melted Oliveira with a combination of punches and knees to the body, in a much more impressive performance than Marcos’ last one. Just before that, Marcos punched his ticket to the UFC with a 2022 decision win on DWCS, where he destroyed the lead leg of his opponent and looked close to landing a leg kick TKO at multiple points. Marcos hadn’t competed in nearly three years leading up to that win, after spending the rest of his entire career fighting on the Peruvian regional scene.

Now 15-0 as a pro, Marcos has eight wins by KO/TKO and seven decision victories. All eight of his finishes occurred in the first two rounds, with three ending in round one and five in round two. His last eight fights all made it out of the first round, with four going the distance and four ending in second round knockout wins.

Overall, Marcos is a dangerous striker who throws heavy kicks and does a good job of mixing in knees with his striking combinations. He hasn’t shown much in the way of grappling and between his DWCS match and his two UFC fights he only attempted two takedowns, landing one of them. However, he was impressively able to defend 17 of the 19 takedown attempts against him (89.5% defense). Marcos looked good in his UFC debut, but was entirely unimpressive in his last fight. That inconsistency is somewhat concerning and makes it hard to know what we can expect from him moving forward, but he does get a step down in competition here.

Aoriqileng

7th UFC Fight (3-3)

Aoriqileng is coming off a decision win over a one-dimensional grappler in Johnny Munoz Jr., where Munoz landed 4 of his 11 takedown attempts, but Aoriqileng finished ahead in significant strikes 44-7 and in total strikes 120-31. Prior to that, Aoriqileng suffered the first knockout loss of his career when he was finished by Aiemann Zahabi in just 64 seconds. Leading up to that loss, Aoriqileng kept his UFC hopes alive with a close decision win over Jay Perrin, following a R1 TKO win over a terrible Cameron Else. Before those two wins, Aoriqileng lost a high-volume decision in his April 2021 UFC debut against Jeff Molina and then got outwrestled by Cody Durden to lose another decision after that.

Now 25-11 as a pro, Aoriqileng has eight wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and 16 decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, submitted three times, and has seven decision losses. Aoriqileng had mostly been fighting at 135 lb before joining the UFC, but dropped down to 125 lb for his UFC debut and stayed at the weight class for his second UFC fight. However, after starting 0-2 at 125 lb he moved back up to 135 lb, where he’s since gone 3-1 with the organization.

Overall, Aoriqileng is a fearless striker who has no problem walking through the fire to land shots of his own, which often results in him absorbing a lot of damage. He’ll also mix in takedowns, but doesn’t look like much of a submission threat on the mat and is primarily looking for ground and pound. In his six UFC fights, he landed 7 of his 15 takedown attempts (46.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 12 of their 29 attempts (58.6% defense). He averages 5.31 SSL/min and 5.56 SSA/min. Aoriqileng has been training at Fight Ready since 2022 so he has a good team around him, although we’ve yet to see him defeat a decent striker in the UFC.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’7” with a 69” reach and 30 years old.

We expect this to play out as a striking battle, and while Aoriqileng will look for takedowns, Marcos’ 89% takedown defense has been tough to get past, although it hasn’t been tested by any good wrestlers. The biggest issue for Aoriqileng will be his striking defense and he gets hit far too much to win many decisions. He also only has one finish in the last four years and it came against one of the worst fighters on the roster. While Aoriqileng has been able to win decisions in the UFC against terrible opponents, this will be a tougher test for him, even if Marcos was entirely unimpressive in his last outing. We expect Marcos to outland his way to a decision win.

Our favorite bet here is “Daniel Marcos DEC” at +130.

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DFS Implications:

Marcos is a pure striker who relies on landing knockouts to score well. He put up 104 DraftKings in a second round knockout win in his debut, but only totalled 55 points in his recent decision win. He also won a decision on DWCS that would have been good for just 79 DraftKings. He hasn’t shown much of anything in terms of grappling, and we’d be surprised if that changed here. So it’s pretty clear cut what Marcos needs to do to score well. And even if he does land a knockout, he’s expensive enough that he’ll be competing with the other high priced options and he could still get priced out of winning lineups. Working in his favor, Aoriqileng is incredibly hittable and averages 5.56 SSA/min, so if Marcos can find a finish, he does have solid scoring potential. The odds imply Marcos has a 70% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.

Aoriqileng has averaged 94 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, with the last two of those both going the distance. While he only scored 65 points in his first UFC decision victory, he was able to score 93 points most recently with the help of a knockdown and two takedowns. He is pretty well rounded and has the ability to put up big striking totals, wrestle, and find finishes, but this looks like a tougher matchup for him to find a ton of grappling success against the 89% takedown defense of Marcos. All three of Aoriqileng’s UFC wins have come against terrible opponents and while the jury is still sort of out on Marcos, he’s still definitely a step up in competition. However, at Aoriqileng’s really cheap price tag he doesn’t need to put up a huge score to be useful, he just needs to win and not have the fight be a complete bust. So it makes sense to have some exposure and this is still a somewhat volatile matchup between two unproven fighters. The odds imply Aoriqileng has a 30% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #13

Hyder Amil

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Amil was originally scheduled to face Shayilan Nuerdanbieke here, but then Nuerdanbieke dropped out and Melsik Baghdasaryan stepped in. However, then Baghdasaryan also dropped out and Fernie Garcia was announced as the replacement eight days before the event.

Amil will be making his UFC debut following a decision win on DWCS where he spent basically the entire match defending takedowns from Emrah Sonmez, who landed 5 of his 23 attempts, but did very little with them. Amil was the one looking to land damage, which is why he won a unanimous 29-28 decision. Prior to that, Amil landed an early second round knockout with the LFA, although not before he almost got submitted in round one. That came just after a high-volume split-decision win where Amil pushed for an early finish but then slowed down in the later rounds. We saw that same high-paced start in his fight prior to that as well, although that time he landed a second round TKO as both fighters looked exhausted. Amil won another split decision just before that and he’s been alternating finishes and close decision wins over his last six fights.

Now 8-0 as a pro, Amil has four TKO wins, one submission, and three decision victories. All four of his TKO wins ended in the second round, while his lone submission came in the first round of a 2019 match. All three of his decisions occurred in his last three fights, with two of those being split and the other a unanimous 29-28.

Overall, Amil is an uptempo brawler who looks to push a crazy pace that even he can’t keep up with. His fights typically end with everyone completely exhausted, but they’re always entertaining to watch. He’s primarily a striker but will mix in a few takedowns and look for ground and pound and submission on the mat. However, he’s only a BJJ purple belt and has only ever completed one submission. He trains under Gilbert Melendez in San Francisco, which made it pretty awkward when Melendez was calling his fights in the LFA. Amil’s recent low-volume win on DWCS may leave people with the wrong impression if they only look at his stats, but make no mistake, this guy makes for high-volume, action-packed fights where he always leaves it all out there. With that said, his recklessness makes for exciting fights but won’t always produce wins once he starts facing tougher opponents. If he keeps up his current pace, as soon as he faces a dangerous opponent with exceptional cardio, Amil will likely gas himself out and get finished in the later rounds. But until then, sit back and enjoy the show.

Fernie Garcia

4th UFC Fight (0-3)

Garcia stepped into this fight up a weight class on just over a week’s notice and is presumably fighting for his job after starting 0-3 in the UFC. While he lost every round of his last fight against Rinya Nakamura, he was at least able to survive to see the judges against the dangerous finisher. However, Nakamura did land all four of his takedown attempts and finished with nine and a half minutes of control time, while also leading in significant strikes 36-15. That was the second straight fight where Garcia got dominated on the mat, after Brady Hiestand took Garcia down three times on eight attempts with over nine minutes of control time. Just before that, Garcia lost a decision in his 2022 UFC debut to a suspect Journey Newson, who took Garcia down twice on three attempts and outlanded him 57-37 in significant strikes. Garcia originally punched his ticket to the big show with a 2021 R1 KO win on DWCS over a terrible Joshua Weems, which is Garcia’s only fight in his last nine to end early. Prior to going on DWCS, Garcia won four straight decisions against low-level opponents, but at least showed the ability to put up big striking totals.

Now 10-4 as a pro, Garcia has one win by TKO, three submissions, and six decision victories. He’s never been finished, with all four of his losses going the distance. Four of Garcia’s 10 decisions were split, with him winning three of those. Thirteen of his 14 pro fights ended in either the first round (3-0) or went the distance (6-4), with the one exception being a 2018 second round submission win in his fourth pro fight. He started his pro career at 145 lb in 2015, but dropped down to 135 lb in his fourth fight, where he’s stayed since other than one 140 lb Catchweight match in 2019. However, he’ll now be returning to 145 lb for this short notice fight. Garcia hasn’t faced much in terms of competition and only four of his 10 wins came against opponents with winning records, and one of those four was against a 45 year old opponent who took the fight on short notice.

Overall, Garcia is a boxer who generally tends to wear on his opponents more than finishing them quickly. He’s pretty heavy on his lead leg and has looked vulnerable to eating low kicks from his opponents. While he’s just a BJJ purple belt, he will mix in takedowns and has multiple submission wins. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Garcia landed one of his two takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 9 of their 17 attempts (47.1% defense). Prior to joining the UFC, he showed the ability to throw high-volume combinations and put up decent striking totals, but we’ve yet to see that from him at the UFC level and he’s only averaging 1.80 SSL/min and 2.69 SSA/min, as he’s spent a ton of time being controlled on the mat.

Fight Prediction:

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

This looks like Garcia’s final opportunity to prove himself in the UFC and he should have more opportunities to let his hands go for once, as he takes on a high-volume brawler in Amil who has no problem taking one to land one. Garcia has done essentially nothing to impress so far in the UFC, but he’s also coming off two straight terrible stylistic matchups against wrestlers after laying an egg in his debut against Journey Newson. Maybe Garcia’s just terrible everywhere, but at least he’ll get a chance to throw down on the feet here instead of getting dominated on the mat for three rounds once again. Expectations couldn’t be much lower for Garcia, but working in his favor, he’s never been finished and did start his pro career with three wins at 145 lb, before dropping down to 135 lb in 2018. It’s obviously concerning that he stepped into his matchup up a weight class on short notice and it remains to be seen what type of shape he’s in. However, if his cardio somehow holds up, Amil has shown a tendency to push so hard that he gasses himself out late in fights. That at least creates a sliver of hope for Garcia to survive long enough to have a chance at landing a late finish against an exhausted Amil or outlast his way to a high-volume decision win. Both of these two faced a lot of low-level opponents on the regional scene and this is ultimately a volatile matchup between two unproven fighters who are each in search of their first UFC win. Neither of them have ever been finished and the most likely outcome is that this ends in a close, high-volume decision, but it also wouldn’t be shocking to see either of them finish the other in the later rounds given the pace we’re expecting. Amil has shown the ability to mix in some wrestling at times, an area where Garcia has really struggled, which could be the deciding factor in the fight. Because of that, we lean towards Amil winning a decision, but it’s not an overly confident pick, despite Garcia’s 0-3 record and taking this fight up a weight class on short notice.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in R2” at +600.

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DFS Implications:

Amil should largely fly under the radar here following a lackluster decision win on DWCS, as his official stats don’t at all represent his potential. He spent his entire DWCS fight defending takedowns against a relentless wrestler, so naturally his striking stats look terrible. Anyone that goes off those stats alone will be in for a rude awakening when they watch him fight on Saturday, as Amil is a high-volume brawler who’s constantly pressuring his opponents and forcing the action. He actually pushes such a high pace that even he can’t keep up with it and we routinely see both him and his opponent exhausted later in fights. That will inevitably catch up with him at the UFC level, but until then it makes for exciting action and tons of DFS scoring potential on both sides of his matches. Now he’s taking on an 0-3 opponent who stepped in on short notice up a weight class, and this looks like a dream spot for Amil, as long as he doesn’t completely gas himself out and get finished, which is definitely a possible outcome. Anyone that didn’t watch his regional tape will have no idea about his scoring potential, which will keep his ownership lower, leaving us a huge edge in tournaments. The odds imply Amil has a 64% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

Garcia has lost three straight decisions and is on the verge of being cut from the UFC. It’s interesting that he decided to stake his career on a fight that he took up a weight class on short notice, although it’s not like he was having any luck with full camps at 135 lb. In fairness to him, he faced a pair of wrestlers in his last two matches and got dominated on the ground. Now he’ll at least get a more favorable stylistic matchup against a debuting striker, although Amil will mix in some takedowns as well. While Fernie has done nothing to impress us in the UFC, his strong suit has always been his boxing and at least he’ll get an opportunity to show it here. Amil is an all offense fighter and Garcia should have plenty of free shots on him, which keeps him in play despite the unfavorable circumstances surrounding his acceptance of this fight. Amil also tends to push so hard that he gasses out in the back half of fights and if Garcia can be the fresher of the two late, he’ll be in a great position to either land a late finish or win a decision. The fact that he took this fight on eight days notice makes it hard to confidently expect him to win a cardio battle, but who knows, maybe he was in great shape and ready to go. It’s obviously a volatile spot for him, but the upside is there and he’s also never been finished in his career. At his cheap price tag, a high-volume decision win will likely still be enough for him to be useful in DFS and his low ownership greatly adds to his tournament appeal. The odds imply Garcia has a 36% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #12

Zac Pauga

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Pauga is coming off a close/controversial decision loss to Modestas Bukauskas, where Pauga outlanded Bukauskas in every round, landed the only takedown in the fight, and seemed to have the bigger moments in the match. Somehow one of the judges scored every round for Bukauskas, while the other two had it 29-28 for Bukauskas. Prior to that, Pauga earned the dubious honors of becoming the only fighter boring enough to take Jordan Wright to a decision, and Pauga’s last four official wins all went the distance. Pauga was content with pushing Wright up against the cage for most of that match and honestly we felt like the UFC should have cut both guys afterwards just to send a message. That was Pauga’s first fight back down at 205 lb, after going up to Heavyweight for a year when he went on The Ultimate Fighter. That experiment ended with a second round KO loss against a suspect Mohammed Usman in the finale of the show. The punch that knocked Pauga out appeared to have very little behind it and makes you wonder about his chin moving forward. Pauga’s 3rd most recent fight at 205 lb was in October 2021 against Markus Perez—a career 185er who had just been cut by the UFC following three straight losses. Despite moving up to 205 lb for the first and only time in his career, Perez showed up to the fight five pounds overweight. Perez was able to take Pauga down multiple times in the first round and control him, but then slowed down in round two and barely did anything for the rest of the fight, allowing Pauga to come back and win a decision. It was a poor showing from both fighters in a very uneventful match.

Now 6-2 as a pro not counting his two exhibition wins on TUF, Pauga has one TKO win and five decision victories. His lone finish occurred in the first round of his second pro fight against an opponent who also only had one pro fight to his name. Pauga did land another knockout on TUF, along with another decision win, but he also fought a pig farmer and a welder so take those results with a grain of salt. Pauga’s only early loss was his R2 KO against Mohammed Usman, with his one other defeat going the distance. Pauga competed at Heavyweight as an amateur, but dropped down to Light Heavyweight in his 2020 pro debut, where he fought his first five pro fights. He then returned to Heavyweight so he could compete on TUF, but said from the beginning that his plan was always to move back down to Light Heavyweight after the show.

Overall, Pauga hasn’t been very impressive and has struggled even against low-level opponents. We’ve seen him be content with grinding on opponents along the cage and making fights painfully boring, although we saw far less of that in his last fight and he’s at least claimed he wants to be more exciting in recent interviews. He’s somewhat athletic and has a football background, but he’s not any sort of physical freak. He trains with guys like Curtis Blaydes and Devin Clark at Elevation Fight Team in Colorado, which should benefit his cardio some, although he appeared to be slowing down late in his last fight. Despite being 35 years old, he only turned pro in MMA in July 2020 and got a late start to his career. In his three UFC fights, Pauga only landed one of his 11 takedown attempts (9.1% accuracy), while stuffing both of the attempts against him.

Bogdan Guskov

2nd UFC Fight (0-1)

Guskov will be looking to bounce back from a first round submission loss in his recent UFC debut against a striker in Volkan Oezdemir. That was only the second time Oezdemir had ever submitted anybody in 26 pro fights. Guskov landed a couple of shots of his own, but it was overall a terrible showing and Oezdemir tripled him up in striking and also knocked him down and took him down before locking up a submission. Prior to the loss, Guskov landed four straight first round knockout wins and had won 12 of his previous 13 fights. His last two wins both occurred in 30 seconds or less, although keep in mind he was facing a very low level of competition before he joined the UFC. His last two losses both ended in the first round and his last 14 fights all ended early.

Now 14-3 as a pro, Guskov has 12 wins by KO/TKO and two submission victories. Ten of his 12 knockouts came in round one, with the other two split between rounds two and three. His last six finishes all ended in knockouts, while his two submission wins occurred in back-to-back 2018 matches, with one ending in round one and the other early in round two. He’s been finished twice in the first round, once by submission and the other by knockout. He also lost the only decision he’s ever been to, which was in a two-round 2016 fight in his third pro outing. Only once has he seen the third round in his career, with that ending in a 2019 R3 TKO win in the first half of the round.

Overall, Guskov is an offensively minded fighter with a 100% finishing rate who’s far more focussed on offense than defense. He has a tendency to keep his hands low, yet still struggles to defend takedowns. While he has a couple of submission wins on his record and is a BJJ brown belt, he’s typically looking to either knock opponents out or die trying. His striking defense is practically non-existent which leaves him reliant on landing finishes quickly before he absorbs too much damage. He’s from Uzbekistan, but trains at GOR MMA in Moscow. His UFC debut couldn’t have gone much worse, so it will be interesting to see if he’s made any improvements over the last five months.

Fight Prediction:

Guskov will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 76” reach. Guskov is four years younger than the 35-year-old Pauga.

This is a super low-level fight that carries inherent volatility as both guys have shown suspect durability in the past. Pauga seems to be a fighter in search of his identity as he’s come in with dramatically different game plans in each of his UFC fights, although appears to have no problem with grinding out decisions. Meanwhile, Guskov appears content with all of his fights ending early, regardless of who wins. Guskov’s lack of defense leaves him ripe to be finished, but Pauga generally struggles to put anyone away and only has one official finish in his career, which was in his second pro fight. Guskov at least has power, even if he doesn’t offer much else, and we saw Pauga get knocked out by a pillow fisted Mohammed Usman. So if Guskov can land anything clean, he’ll have a good shot at knocking Pauga out. However, Pauga has the ability to grind Guskov out against the fence or potentially take him down, so in a longer fight, more of the minutes will be won by Pauga. While this fight could go a lot of ways, we kind of like Guskov’s chances of landing something clean in the first two rounds and knocking Pauga out, although his finishing props are terrible for being a slight underdog.

Our favorite bet here is “Zac Pauga DEC” at +450.

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DFS Implications:

Pauga is generally not a guy we’ll be looking to target in DFS as he doesn’t land a ton of striking volume, only sporadically mixes in takedowns, rarely finishes anybody, has a suspect chin, and overall is not a very talented fighter. The guy couldn’t even score well in a win over Jordan Wright, which was the first time anyone could ever say that. While he racked up a ton of control time in that 15 minute snoozer, he still only landed 85 total strikes and scored just 74 DraftKings points. Then in Pauga’s recent close decision loss, he only scored 37 points, so still nowhere close to scoring well even if it had gone his way. However, now he’s facing an opponent who spells defense with a “Y” and if Pauga was ever going to score well and/or get a finish, this would be as good a time as any. However, he’ll also be at risk of getting knocked out and the one thing Guskov has going for him is decent power. That leaves Pauga with a non-existent floor and only a theoretical ceiling at best. However, he’ll be low owned and at his reasonable price tag he’ll likely end up in winning lineups with a rare finish. The odds imply Pauga has a 52% chance to win, a 35% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.

Guskov looked pretty awful in his recent UFC debut, but he was also facing a tough veteran in Volkan Oezdemir and will now be getting a massive step down in competition in his second Octagon appearance. While Guskov was facing a ton of terrible competition before joining the UFC, he at least showed consistent finishing ability, which is more than we can say about Pauga in this matchup. Guskov’s kill or be killed style of fighting is generally something we’re looking to target both sides of in DFS, although Pauga may have something to say about that as he has a knack for ruining fights for DFS. Nevertheless, Guskov has decent upside if he can end things early and we saw Pauga get knocked out by an unimposing strike in his UFC debut. However, Guskov’s finishing potential is no secret and he’s a rare underdog with a higher chance of landing a finish than the favorite according to the oddsmakers. We’ve also seen the line move in Guskov’s favor throughout the week, pushing this close to a pick’em late in the week. That leaves Guskov underpriced on DraftKings, which will drive up his ownership. That somewhat lowers his tournament appeal, but if he lands an early finish, he’ll likely end up in winning lineups. The odds imply Guskov has a 48% chance to win, a 38% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #11

Jeremiah Wells

6th UFC Fight (4-1)

Wells was cruising to a wrestling-heavy decision win in his last fight until he got caught in a submission in the third round against Carlston Harris. Wells landed three of his five takedown attempts in the fight and finished with four and a half minutes of control time in each of the first two rounds. Prior to that loss, Wells had won six straight fights and was 4-0 in the UFC. He finished each of his first three UFC opponents in under six minutes, before winning a dicey split decision over Matthew Semelsberger in his last victory. Wells got knocked down early in each of the first two rounds against Semelsberger, but recovered each time and relied on his grappling to grind out a decision on the mat with six takedowns landed and over 11 minutes of control time. Wells exploded onto the UFC scene in 2021 with an early second round knockout win over Warlley Alves in a fight that Wells accepted on short notice. He followed that up with a first round submission win over Blood Diamond, before knocking out a previously very durable Court McGee. Wells also finished his last two opponents on the regional scene and only one of his last seven fights made it to the judges.

Now 12-3-1 as a pro, Wells has five wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and three decision victories. He’s never been finished and both of his losses ended in five-round decisions. Four of his five knockout wins occurred in the first round, while the other came 30 seconds into round two. Conversely, three of his four submission wins occurred in round two, while the most recent came in the final 30 seconds of round one. While his last fight went the distance, his previous five all ended early.

Overall, Wells is a BJJ black belt and an explosive, well-rounded fighter, who’s shown the ability to both knock opponents out and submit them. In his five UFC fights, he landed 10 of his 23 takedown attempts (43.5% accuracy), while opponents failed to get him down on either of their three attempts. He trains at Renzo Gracie Philly with a ton of good UFC grapplers like Sean Brady, Pat Sabatini, Andre Petroski, and Joe Pyfer, who will be headlining this card, so he’s got a good team around him. Wells is more focussed on quality than quantity when it comes to striking and generally doesn’t put up big striking totals, as he only averages 2.52 SSL/min and 1.14 SSA/min. Wells has been more content with relying on his wrestling to grind out decisions in his last two fights, but it will be interesting to see how he responds to the first early loss of his career as he takes on a longtime veteran here who’s been very durable.

Max Griffin

16th UFC Fight (7-8)

Stepping into the final fight of his UFC contract, Griffin will be looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Michael Morales and show the UFC why they need to re-sign him. Griffin’s last four fights all went the distance (2-2), with his two wins coming against aging veterans in Tim Means and Carlos Condit. Prior to those four decisions, Griffin knocked out Song Kenan in the first round after punching Ramiz Brahimaj ear off in round three. Those are Griffin’s only two fights to end early in his last 13, and leading up to those finishes he fought to seven straight decisions (2-5). Griffin’s fights are all remarkably similar. He comes out hot in round one, often landing a knockdown but rarely a knockout, then slows down in the later rounds and ends up relying on the judges to award him a close, and often split decision. Amazingly, 9 of his 16 career decisions have been split (4-5), including his last two (1-1), and five of his last seven (2-3).

Now 19-10 as a pro, Griffin has nine wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and eight decision victories. His two submission wins were all the way back in 2013 and 2014 and both came in the first two rounds. Six of his nine knockouts occurred in round one, while he also has one in round two, another in round three, and one in round four. His only UFC KO/TKO win to come beyond the first round was the bizarre R3 TKO win against Ramiz Brahimaj, whose ear fell off midway through round three to halt the action. Griffin has only been finished once in his career, which came in a third round pitter patter ground and pound TKO in his UFC debut against Colby Covington, where Covington just wore Griffin down on the mat until Griffin stopped fighting back. His other nine losses all ended in decisions. Eleven of Griffin’s 15 UFC fights went the distance (4-7), while four ended in KO/TKOs (3-1).

Overall, Griffin is a longtime UFC veteran who relies mostly on his striking, and specifically his power right hand, but will mix in takedowns and has landed at least one in seven of his last 11 fights. Looking at his entire 15-fight UFC career, he’s landed 19 of his 46 takedown attempts (41.3% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 14 of their 46 attempts (69.6% defense). He’s most dangerous in the first round of fights, and tends to slow down in the later rounds, especially when he’s forced to wrestle. He’s landed eight knockdowns in the UFC, including four in his last five matches. Six of his eight knockdowns came in round one, with the other two occurring in round two earlier in his career. He hasn’t landed a knockdown beyond the first round since 2018. All but one of the fights where he landed a knockdown still ultimately went the distance and despite the big moments in those fights, he still only won half of those decisions (3-3). However, that’s still better than his 1-3 UFC record in fights that go the distance where he’s failed to land a knockdown. Griffin is just 2-5 in UFC fights where he’s been taken down.

Fight Prediction:

Griffin will have a 2” height and reach advantage, while Wells is just a year younger than the 38-year-old Griffin.

We expect Wells to once again come in looking to wrestle, as Griffin is dangerous on the feet, but tends to struggle on the mat. Griffin has never been submitted and only has one KO/TKO loss in his career, so it won’t be easy for Wells to put him away, but he will have a good shot at grinding out a decision win if he can get the fight to the mat. If he can’t, things get a lot more interesting in a striking battle, as Griffin has a dangerous right hand. Even though Wells has never been knocked out, we saw him get dropped twice in his second most recent fight and he does have some durability concerns. Griffin is especially dangerous in the first round, so that’s when Wells will need to be the most careful. Griffin is fighting for his job so you would think we’d get a more inspired performance out of him, although he’s already talked about testing free agency after this fight, so who knows. We won’t be at all shocked if Griffin hands Wells the first knockout loss of his career, but we’re still taking Wells to win a wrestling-heavy decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Jeremiah Wells DEC” at +260.

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DFS Implications:

Wells has averaged 104 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins and scored 105 points even in his last decision victory. He was well on his way to winning another wrestling-heavy decision in his last fight, before he got caught in a submission in the third round and choked unconscious. That came against a dangerous grappler in Carlston Harris, who Wells had no problem controlling on the mat for the entirety of the first two rounds. Now Wells will be facing a striker, so we don’t expect to see him shy away from his grappling here. However, it does look like a tough spot for Wells to find a finish, as Griffin has never been submitted and only has one KO/TKO loss in 29 pro appearances. That leaves Wells as a much better play on DraftKings than FanDuel, as he can still score well in a decision on DraftKings, but will need a finish to be useful on FanDuel. The odds imply Wells has a 57% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.

Griffin has averaged 92 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, but has been reliant on landing first round knockouts to really score well. He’s only landed two of those in 15 UFC appearances, which were good for 108 and 121 DraftKings points respectively. His only other UFC finish was a third round TKO, that scored just 77 DraftKings points. However, he has shown a solid scoring floor in his decision wins, where’s averaged 84 points on DraftKings and scored 84, 85, and 93 points in the last three of those. His striking numbers have been consistent but unspectacular, but he typically mixes in some wrestling to boost his scoring. However, that will be much tougher here as he faces a solid grappler in Wells who has never been taken down in the UFC. We also expect Wells to be looking to take Griffin down, which will limit Griffin’s ability to rack up striking volume and likely leaves him as a KO or bust play against an opponent who’s never been knocked out. Griffin will be fighting for his job in the final fight of his contract, so maybe that will give him a little extra incentive to make a statement, but this still looks like a tough stylistic matchup for him. The odds imply Griffin has a 43% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #10

Devin Clark

17th UFC Fight (8-8)

Continuing to struggle with consistency, Clark has 16 Octagon appearances but has only twice put two wins together and has never won three in a row with the organization. He’s just 2-4 in his last six outings and is coming off a second round submission loss to Kennedy Nzechukwu. Clark emptied his gas tank late in round one looking for a finish along the fence against Nzechukwu, which as Carlos Ulberg can attest, is a terrible strategy against Nzechukwu. That loss came just three months after Clark won a wrestling-heavy decision over Da Woon Jung. Clark’s only other win in his last six fights was a R3 TKO against an overinflated William Knight in a fight that took place at Heavyweight. In between those two wins, Clark got knocked out in the third round by Azamat Murzakanov. Leading up to the win over Knight, Clark got mauled for 15 minutes in a decision loss to Ion Cutelaba after getting submitted in the first round by Anthony Smith. While seven of Clark’s eight UFC wins ended in decisions, seven of his eight UFC losses ended early, with three KO/TKOs and four submissions.

Now 14-8 as a pro, Clark has four wins by TKO, one by submission, and nine decisions. Four of his five early career wins came in his first six pro fights from 2013 to 2016 and he only has one finish in his last matches. Clark has been knocked out three times, submitted four more, and has one decision loss. Six of his eight UFC losses occurred in the first two rounds, although nine of his last 10 fights made it out of round one.

Overall, Clark is a lifelong wrestler who is most effective when he’s holding opponents up against the cage or looking for takedowns. He recently said that this is the final fight on his contract and needs to lean heavily on his wrestling to secure the win. In his 16 UFC fights, Clark landed 28 takedowns on 83 attempts (33.7% accuracy). He’s 0-4 in UFC fights where he failed to land a takedown, and he was finished in all four of those losses. Now Clark is facing a striker who just got dominated on the mat and this looks like a good spot for Clark to get back on track.

Marcin Prachnio

9th UFC Fight (3-5)

Also struggling to string wins together, Prachnio is coming off a third round submission loss to a striker in Vitor Petrino, who took Prachnio down four times on six attempts and finished with over eight and a half minutes of control time. Prior to that loss, Prachnio won a bizarre decision over William Knight, where Knight just stood there for 15 minutes absorbing kicks, with Prachnio finishing ahead 79-8 in striking. It was one of the most uninspired performances of all time from Knight and he was immediately cut afterwards. That came just after Prachnio lost a grappling-heavy decision to Philipe Lins, where he was taken down four times by Lins and controlled for nearly five and a half minutes. Prachnio started off his UFC career with three straight first round knockout losses, before saving his job with a close decision win over Khalil Rountree, followed by his only UFC finish in a second round TKO against a terrible Isaac Villanueva.

Now 16-7 as a pro, Prachnio has 11 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and four decision victories. All but one of his finishes came prior to joining the UFC and we’ve yet to ever see him finish anybody legitimate. Eleven of his 12 finishes came in round one, with the other ending in the opening minute of round two. He’s also been knocked out four times, submitted once, and has two decision defeats. Three of his KO losses also occurred in round one, with the other ending in round three against Aleksandar Rakic in 2014 before they both joined the UFC. His submission loss also occurred in round three.

Overall, Prachnio is a pure striker and has never landed a takedown in the UFC on just four attempts. He doesn’t have crazy power, but likes to throw a high number of kicks, which was clearly evident in his fight against Knight where 63 of the 79 strikes he landed were kicks. Prachnio’s durability is obviously one of his biggest issues and he’s very prone to getting knocked out in the past, although in fairness to him it’s been over three years since his last knockout loss. He’s been taken down 10 times on 22 opponent attempts (54.5% defense). Prachnio has been taken down four times in two of his last three fights and will now face another wrestler here.

Fight Prediction:

Prachnio will have a 3” height advantage, but Clark will have a 1” reach advantage and is two years younger than the 35-year-old Prachnio.

It’s no secret what Clark’s game plan will be and he’s openly talked about how he wants to take Prachnio down and “beat the shit out of him on the mat.” Prachnio got taken down four times in each of his last two losses and we don’t see any reason why Clark shouldn’t be able to get this fight to the ground. The only real question we have is whether or not Clark can find a finish. He only has one submission win and that was all the way back in 2015 in his third pro fight, and the last time he even had an official submission attempt was in his 2016 UFC debut. He’s generally looking for ground and pound and control time, so if he does find a finish, expect it to come via TKO, most likely in the later rounds once he’s worn Prachnio down. Clark only has one finish in 16 UFC appearances and we’re typically looking to bet him to win by decision. However, there are some reasons to think he can end this one early, as this is the final fight on his deal and he’d obviously like a statement performance to help him at the negotiation table. Prachnio also isn’t very durable, doesn't have great cardio, and is terrible on the mat. So if Clark ever were going to find another finish this would be as good a time as any to do it. A decision win is still the most likely outcome for Clark, but we’re definitely taking some stabs here on his late KO props.

Our favorite bet here is “Devin Clark R3 or DEC” at +105.

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DFS Implications:

Clark rarely finishes anybody, with seven of his eight UFC wins ending in decisions, but he did land a third round knockout in his second most recent win, which was good for 107 DraftKings points. However, he generally depends on his wrestling to grind out decision wins, which makes him a much better play on DraftKings compared to FanDuel. In his seven UFC decision victories he averaged 92 DraftKings points, scoring anywhere from 71 to 129 points in those fights. However, his last four decision wins returned scores of 81, 86, 95, and 71, with his really high scoring decisions coming in 2017 and 2018. However, now he gets a step down in competition with his job on the line and we expect to see a more focussed version of him that doesn’t play around on the feet and gets straight to business with his wrestling. Prachnio was taken down four times in each of his last two losses and just got submitted for the first time in his career by an opponent who had never submitted anybody before. Prachnio has also been knocked out three times in the UFC, so we’re typically looking to target his opponents. While Clark only has one early win in 16 UFC appearances, he’ll have a good shot at finding a rare finish here if he can really get his ground and pound going and he looks like a high-floor, high-ceiling play on DraftKings whether he gets a finish or dominates the fight on the ground for 15 minutes. He’s far more reliant on landing a finish on FanDuel however. The odds imply Clark has a 68% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.

Prachnio has put up one usable score in eight UFC appearances, which was when he scored 104 DraftKings points against human punching bag Ike Villanueva, so it should include an asterisk on his DraftKings scoresheet. His other two UFC wins both went the distance and only scored 62 and 72 points on DraftKings. He’s never landed a takedown in the UFC, so relies entirely on his striking to score points. He throws a ton of kicks, which allows him to put up decent striking numbers, but he hasn’t looked like much of a finishing threat and now he’s going against an opponent who will be looking to wrestle him for the entire fight. That will make it impossible for Prachnio to land much striking volume and leaves him entirely reliant on landing a rare finish. Even with his low ownership, we have no interest in playing Prachnio here. The odds imply Prachnio has a 32% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #9

Loma Lookboonmee

8th UFC Fight (5-2)

A year removed from her first UFC fight to end early, Lookboonmee locked up an early second round submission against a one-dimensional striker in Elise Reed, who’s been finished on the mat in all four of her UFC losses. Lookboonmee was able to take Reed down twice on three attempts and then pretty easily completed her first career submission. Prior to that, Lookboonmee’s first six UFC fights all went the distance (4-2). The most recent of those decisions ended in a win against Denise Gomes, where Lookboonmee landed four takedowns and finished with seven minutes of control time. Prior to that win, she lost a wrestling-heavy decision against a really tough Lupita Godinez, after winning decisions against Sam Hughes and Jinh Yu Frey. Lookboonmee’s only other UFC loss came against Angela Hill.

Now 8-3 as a pro, Lookboonmee has one TKO win, one submission win, and six decision victories. Both of her early wins ended in round two. She’s never been knocked out, but she has been submitted once (R1 2018) and has two decision losses. A former Atomweight (105 lb), Lookboonmee only moved up to Strawweight (115 lb) when she joined the UFC in 2019 and she’s been slowly growing into the weight class.

Overall, Lookboonmee is a crisp striker and a former Muay Thai champion and is actually the first Thai fighter to join the UFC. She’s been working on rounding out her game since joining the UFC and she does a good job of using trips to land takedowns. After landing just two takedowns in her first three UFC fights, she’s landed 11 in his last four matches. In her seven UFC fights combined, she landed 13 of her 26 takedown attempts (50% accuracy). At 5’1” Lookboonmee is a little undersized, but she did say that she added 9 lb of weight between her first and second UFC fights as she continued to try and grow into the 115 lb division. Nevertheless, she’ll still be at a height disadvantage against almost all of her opponents.

Bruna Brasil

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Coming off her first UFC win, Brasil won a decision against a debuting Shauna Bannon, who did not have a good showing. While we expected Bannon to find grappling success, it was actually Brasil who landed two takedowns, while Bannon missed on both of her attempts. Prior to that, Brasil got knocked out in the second round of her UFC debut against Denise Gomes. Maybe Octagon jitters played a factor but Brasil never looked comfortable in that match, as Gomes took her down three times and outlanded her 54-15 in significant strikes before finding a ground and pound finish. Leading up to that loss, Brasil punched her ticket to the UFC with a R2 head kick walk off KO on DWCS and had won seven straight fights after starting her pro career just 1-2-1. While Brasil more or less controlled that DWCS match and eventually landed a knockout, she did get taken down three times in the fight, something she has often struggled with.

Now 9-3-1 as a pro, Brasil has three wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and four decision victories. Both of her submission wins came by guillotine in the later rounds. She’s been knocked out in all three of her losses, with the first of those ending in the first round of her 2014 pro debut against UFC fighter Ariane Carnelossi. She then got knocked out in the second round of her fourth pro fight and then again in the second round of her recent UFC debut. Seven of Brasil’s last 10 fights ended early, while she’s won the last four decisions she’s been to, after her first career decision ended in a draw. Despite so many of her pro fights ending early, 11 of her last 12 fights made it to the second round.

Overall, Brasil is a former Brazilian kickboxing champion and relies heavily on her kicks in MMA. She does a good job of mixing up her target and will attack opponents with leg kicks, head kicks, and kicks up the middle. At 5’6” she’s got good size for the 115 lb division, which when combined with her kick-heavy approach can make it tough for less aggressive opponents to find their range against her, often resulting in lower volume fights as she’s a pretty patient striker herself. She’s not entirely helpless when it comes to grappling and will occasionally mix in takedown attempts, but she definitely earns her keep on the feet. She will look for guillotines and armbars or leg locks off her back, but she’s not especially dangerous off her back. Between her DWCS match and her two UFC fights, Brasil landed four of her six takedown attempts (66.7% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 6 of their 13 attempts (53.8% defense).

Fight Prediction:

Brasil will have a 5” height advantage and 4” reach advantage.

While both of these two are good strikers, Lookboonmee is a better wrestler, scrappier, and is also more durable. Brasil will want to keep this fight at kicking range in a clean kickboxing match and we don’t see Lookboonmee allowing that. Look for Lookboonmee to close the distance and make the fight ugly, overwhelming Brasil in close quarters and then taking her down. However, it seems like Lookboonmee’s finishing equity is now being slightly overvalued following the first early win of her career, so this looks like a good spot to get back on her decision line while it’s available at plus money. We like Lookboonmee to use her combination of striking and wrestling to get her hand raised by the judges here.

Our favorite bet here is “Loma Lookboonmee DEC” at +115.

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DFS Implications:

Lookboonmee is coming off her first UFC finish, but the timing of it was terrible, as it came in the opening minute of round two and was only good for 89 DraftKings points. She actually scored more points in each of her previous two decision wins (95 and 91), so she’s shown a solid scoring floor, but we’ve yet to see a ceiling performance out of her. She seems to be improving everytime we see her and she’s made massive improvements to her wrestling in recent years. It seems like just a matter of time until she finally puts up a big score and she has the ability to fill up the stat sheet. This looks like a pretty good spot for her to find wrestling success, and if she can combine that with a better timed finish then she’ll likely put up a career best score. However, if she grinds out another decision win or lands another poorly timed finish, she likely won’t score enough to be useful at her high price tag. Her low ownership adds to her tournament appeal and you definitely want to have some exposure if you’re building a bunch of lineups. The odds imply Lookboonmee has a 72% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.

Brasil is a patient kickboxer who will occasionally mix in takedowns, but is generally reliant on landing a finish to score well. Her recent decision victory was only good for 72 DraftKings points and that was in a fight where she landed two takedowns and never got taken down herself. Now she’ll face more of a wrestling threat in Lookboonmee, which will make it tougher for Brasil to score well without a finish. However, if Lookboonmee is somehow unable to get this fight to the ground then Brasil would have a shot at serving as a value play even in a decision since she’s the cheapest fighter on the card. Brasil will have a major size advantage, which could make it tougher for Lookboonmee to get her down, although that remains to be seen. Brasil’s low ownership also adds to her appeal. The odds imply Brasil has a 14% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #8

Bolaji Oki

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Oki had been set to face Damir Hadzovic here, but Hadzovic dropped out on Tuesday and Cuamba was announced as the replacement.

Making his UFC debut following a first round knockout win on DWCS, Oki pulled off the upset against a celebrated Muay Thai striker and kickboxer in Dylan Salvador. Oki hurt Salvador with a body shot and then pushed him back against the fence and unloaded on him with a lengthy combination until the fight was soon stopped. That was Oki’s eighth straight win after he lost a decision in his 2018 pro debut. Six of his last seven wins ended early, with the last four of those finishes ending in knockouts in the first two rounds. The only time he’s required the judges since 2018 was in a 2022 decision against an opponent who came in with a 13-0 record. Oki followed that up with a pair of first round knockout wins in his last two fights.

Now 8-1 as a pro, Oki has five KO/TKO wins, one submission, and two decision victories. His last three knockouts all ended in round one, while he also has one in round two and another in round three. His lone submission victory was a 2021 first round guillotine. The only loss of his career was a decision in his 2018 pro debut. He has faced some suspect competition in the past and only four wins against opponents with winning records. His second most recent opponent came in 8-13 and his fourth most recent opponent was making his pro debut.

Overall, Oki is a powerful striker who relies mostly on his boxing but can wrestle some when he needs to. He throws nasty body shots and stitches combinations together well. He has fast, heavy hands and has also been really durable. He’s really strong and has shown a solid takedown defense on the regional scene. We have seen him slow down some in the third round, but his fights rarely last that long. He’s from Belgium but has Zimbabwean heritage.

Timothy Cuamba

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Stepping into his UFC debut up a weight class on just a few days’ notice, Cuamba amazingly fought just a week ago on February 2nd, where he landed a second round knockout with the Tuff-N-Uff organization. Cuamba originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS back in August, on the same night at Oki, but after winning a close decision, Cuamba was not awarded a contract. Cuamba started fast in that fight, but slowed down in the later rounds as he absorbed 30 leg kicks and then got taken down and controlled for nearly three minutes in the third round. Prior to that, Cuamba landed a pair of second round TKO wins on the regional scene.

Now 8-1 as a pro, Cuamba has four wins by TKO and four decision victories. The first finish of his career came in round one, but the last three all ended in round two, while his only career loss was a 2021 first round rear-naked choke. Cuamba hasn’t faced much in the way of competition in his career and only two of his opponents came in with more than four pro wins.

Overall, Cuamba is a young fighter who only turned 25 on Thursday. He turned pro in late 2020 and is still early in his career, with just over three years of experience. He has good quickness and throws crisp strikes, although doesn’t appear to have massive power. He’ll also mix in wrestling, although he’s never submitted anybody. He tends to start strong, but sometimes slows down some as fights go on. Cuamba was born and raised in Las Vegas, where he still trains, so he at least didn’t have to travel for this short notice fight and in case you’re wondering, his fight last week was also in Vegas. It will be important to monitor him on the scale as he moves up to 155 lb for the first time in his career.

Fight Prediction:

Oki will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while also being three years older than the 25-year-old Cuamba.

We expect this to play out as a striking battle, even though both of these two will look for occasional takedowns. They each have good speed in their striking, but Oki is far more powerful, which should come as no surprise since he’s an actual 155er and Cuamba normally competes at 145 lb. The deck is stacked against Cuamba here, as he takes on a really dangerous opponent, up a weight class, and on just a few days’ notice. The only reason guys accept fights like that is to get their foot in the door and the UFC already passed on Cuamba once, so he was in no position to turn down the opportunity. We don’t see many paths to victory for Cuamba and the only real question we have is whether Oki knocks him out or wins a decision. Cuamba has pretty good footwork and showed on DWCS that he can be content with evading contact at times, plus he’s never been knocked out before. However, he’s also never faced anyone even close to as dangerous as Oki, and a knockout win for Oki in the first two rounds is the most likely outcome.

Our favorite bet here is “Bolaji Oki ML” at -198.

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DFS Implications:

Oki had been set to face Damir Hadzovic as a -300 fav when DraftKings released pricing, but then Hadzovic dropped out on Tuesday and Cuamba stepped in. Oki is now only a -200 favorite, meaning he’s now a little overpriced on DraftKings, which could slightly lower his ownership from where it would otherwise be. However, he should still be popular, as he takes on a debuting opponent who took the fight up a weight class on four days’ notice. Oki looks really dangerous and throws nasty body shots while often targeting the liver. Six of his last seven wins ended early and his last three knockouts all occurred in the first round. There’s always some additional volatility when you have a fighter making their UFC debut, but Oki is in a great spot to succeed and has a really good shot at landing an early knockout and putting up a big score against an undersized opponent. The odds imply Oki has a 59% chance to win, a 40% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Cuamba couldn’t have been put in a much tougher spot to make his debut, as he accepted this fight up a weight close on four days’ notice and just a week after his last fight. He’s taking on a really dangerous opponent in Oki, who he should be somewhat familiar with considering they shared the same DWCS card in August. It’s hard to see many paths to victory for Cuamba as he’s the smaller and less powerful fighter and Oki has shown a solid takedown defense. While Cuamba has good quickness, so does Oki, and Cuamba will be at a reach disadvantage. That likely leaves Cuamba reliant on landing a hail mary knockout to pull off the upset and it would be shocking to see him win here. However, we’ll have interest in playing him in the future in a more reasonable matchup, so hopefully he does terrible here to keep his ownership lower down the road. The odds imply Cuamba has a 41% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #7

Carlos Prates

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Making his UFC debut following a second round knockout win on DWCS, Prates has won seven straight fights, with the last six of those ending in knockouts, all in under seven minutes. His last three knockout wins before going on DWCS all ended in the first round. He’s competed in the LFA and in One Championship, in addition to various Brazilian promotions, where he’s from and trains. The last time he made it past the midway mark of round two was in a 2019 decision win and he only required the judges in 3 of his 23 pro fights.

Now 17-6 as a pro, Prates has 12 KO/TKO wins, three submissions, and two decision victories. All three of his submission wins were early in his career from 2014 to 2016 and his last nine finishes all ended in knockouts. He has six first round knockouts, five in round two, and one in round three. He’s also been knocked out twice and submitted three times, in addition to one decision loss. One of those knockouts came in the first round of his third pro fight back in 2012 when he was just 18 years old and had only turned pro two months earlier. The other was in the first round of a 2017 match. All three of his submission losses also occurred early in his career, all in the first round of his first nine pro fights from 2013 to 2014. No one has finished him since 2017 and he’s won 10 of his last 11 fights. Prates has competed anywhere from 145 lb to 185 lb in the past, but the majority of his career has been spent at 170 lb.

Overall, Prates is a patient but dangerous Muay Thai striker with baseball bats for legs. He’s also a BJJ black belt but he’s typically looking to keep fights standing and assault his opponents from range. He does a good job of attacking his opponents with heavy body kicks before switching it up and going upstairs once they start lowering their guard. He’s tall and really long and uses his height and reach well, making it tough to close the distance on him. While Prates turned pro all the way back in 2012 and has 23 pro fights under his belt, in addition to tons of Muay Thai and K-1 experience, he’s still only 30 years old and just now entering his prime.

Trevin Giles

13th UFC Fight (7-5)

Looking to bounce back from a quick first round submission loss to Gabriel Bonfim, Giles is just 2-3 in his last five fights, with all three of those losses ending in under seven minutes and both of the wins ending in close decisions. Giles nearly got submitted by Preston Parsons at multiple points in his second most recent fight, but was narrowly able to hang on and win a split decision in front of his home crowd. Parsons took Giles down three times and finished with three official submission attempts, while controlling Giles for over five minutes. Prior to that, Giles took part in one of the worst fights you’ll ever see in a decision win over Louis Cosce, where Giles finished ahead in significant strikes just 25-10 in a painfully uneventful match. The two guys basically stared at each other for the first two rounds before Giles landed two takedowns in round three and Cosce also landed one. That came just after Giles got knocked out in the first round of his Welterweight debut against Michael Morales, after getting knocked out just before that in his final fight at Middleweight by Dricus Du Plessis. Those are the only two times Giles has been knocked out in his career, but he’s also been submitted three times in the UFC, all by guillotine. While 8 of his 12 UFC fights ended early (3-5), his last three wins all went the distance and he hasn’t finished anybody since 2020, with his second most recent finish coming all the way back in 2017.

Now 16-5 as a pro, Giles has six wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and five decision victories. He’s been finished in all five of his losses, with two knockouts and three submissions. Each of his five losses occurred quicker than the last (14:01 > 11:49 > 6:41 > 4:06 > 1:13). After spending almost his entire career at 185 lb, and even taking a fight all the way up at 205 lb in his UFC debut, Giles moved down to 170 lb following a 2021 knockout loss to Dricus Du Plessis.

Overall, Giles is a patient striker who only averages 2.97 SSL/min and 2.09 SSA/min. He likes to keep his hands low, which worked for him at 185 lb, but seems problematic as he faces quicker opponents at 170 lb. He’s a BJJ brown belt and will mix in occasional takedown attempts, but after landing all five of his attempts in his UFC debut, he’s only landed six of his last 15 attempts in his most recent 11 fights. On the other side of things, he’s been taken down by his opponents 12 times on 42 attempts (71.4% defense). It’s been over three years since Giles finished anybody and he’s done nothing to impress us since dropping down to 170 lb.

Fight Prediction:

Prates will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage.

Despite Giles already having 12 UFC fights under his belt and being a year older, Prates actually turned pro almost two years before Giles and has two more pro fights. So experience may be less of a factor here than with your typical debuting fighter facing a UFC veteran. However, even experienced fighters can have some extra nerves when making their UFC debut, so we’re not completely disregarding the additional volatility that comes with making your UFC debut. Although, Prates did just fight in the Apex when he won on DWCS, so the venue itself will be nothing new to him. From a skill perspective, Prates has been a much more impressive striker than Giles, although still needs to show it at the UFC level. Prates normally has to work to get his opponents to drop their hands by attacking the body with leg kicks, but Giles already likes to keep his hands low, which could open up head kick opportunities from the start. It will be interesting to see if Giles looks to wrestle to negate the range and power of Prates, but Giles has only landed six total takedowns in his last 11 fights and Prates is a BJJ black belt, while Giles is just a brown belt who’s been prone to getting guillotined. So even if Giles does look to wrestle, he may struggle to complete takedowns and will be at risk of getting submitted. Prates hasn’t been in a fight that lasted longer than seven minutes since 2019, so his current cardio is somewhat of a mystery, although he hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down in his recent matches and won the last decision he went to, back in 2019. Maybe Giles can prove to be the stronger fighter and just hold him against the cage and try to stall his way to a decision, but we’re struggling to see many paths to victory for Giles and we like Prates’ chances of picking Giles apart in space and knocking him out in the first two rounds.

Our favorite bet here is “Carlos Prates KO” at +105.

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DFS Implications:

Prates is a patient striker who rarely looks to wrestle, which is far from ideal for DFS, but he’s also really dangerous and does a good job of making his shots count. He’s got really long legs that he uses to attack his opponents at all levels, and also has decent hands and is a BJJ black belt. He’s knocked out six straight opponents in the first two rounds and has only required the judges in 3 of his 23 pro fights. Giles has notably been finished in all five of his career losses, including in the first round in each of his 170 lb defeats. That’s encouraging for Prates’ chances of finding a finish here, however, at his high salary there are still ways he lands a finish and gets priced out of the winning lineup. Just look at his recent second round knockout win on DWCS, which only would have scored 93 DraftKings points and 105 points on FanDuel. So he’ll likely need either a first round finish or a late second round finish to crack winning lineups. The odds imply Prates has a 69% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 28% chance it comes in round one.

Giles has failed to top 92 DraftKings points in any of his last 11 fights and scored just 73, 58, and 51 DraftKings points in his last three wins, which all ended in low-volume decisions. He only has one finish since 2017, which was a 2020 R3 TKO over Bevon Lewis that only scored 92 DraftKings points. Giles will occasionally mix in a takedown or two, but only averages 2.97 SSL/min and has very limited upside and relies on landing a rare finish in the first two rounds to really score well. Even at his cheap price tag, it’s hard to get excited about playing him and he’s looked pretty bad since cutting down to 170 lb. It seems like the UFC is content with using him to build up prospects, which they successfully did with Dricus Du Plessis, Michael Morales, and Gabriel Bonfim. Considering Giles has been finished in all five of his career losses, he has a non-existent floor to go along with his low ceiling. The only reason we see to even consider playing Giles is his low ownership and the fact that Prates is making his UFC debut and you never know how he’ll handle the pressure. However, that’s not enough to get us excited. The odds imply Giles has a 31% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #6

Rodolfo Vieira

7th UFC Fight (4-2)

This fight had originally been scheduled to take place in Brazil on November 4th, but Petrosyan got sick and dropped out after the card had already started, with his team claiming he was poisoned.

Prior to that fight cancellation, Vieira secured a second round submission win over Cody Brundage and Vieira has traded wins and loses over his last five fights. He made his UFC debut in 2019 and started out with a pair of submission wins, both in under eight minutes. Then he had the infamous loss to Anthony Hernandez, where Vieira death gassed late in round one and got submitted by Hernandez in round two, which was the first loss of Vieira’s career. We then saw a much more tentative version of him in his next fight, where he was clearly focussed on preserving his cardio against Dustin Stoltzfus. He was successful in doing so and ultimately locked up a submission in the third round. He then faced the elite takedown defense of Chris Curtis and failed to land any of his 20 takedown attempts and saw the judges for the first time in his career, losing a decision. In his last fight, Vieira got dropped by Brundage midway through the first round, but was able to recover and survive the round. Early in round two, Brundage foolishly jumped guillotine unsuccessfully and then got submitted by Vieira shortly thereafter.

Now 9-2 as a pro, Vieira has one win by TKO (R1 2018) and eight by submission. Of those eight submissions, four ended in round one, two came in round two, and two occurred in round three. His last four and five of his six UFC fights made it out of the first round, with two of his last three seeing round three. The only time he’s ever been finished was in the 2021 R2 submission loss to Anthony Hernandez, with his only other loss coming in his lone decision against Chris Curtis in 2022. Vieira turned pro in MMA in 2017 at 205 lb, before dropping down to 185 lb in his third fight, where he’s stayed since.

Overall, Vieira is a celebrated BJJ black belt and a world champion grappler with numerous titles under his belt. He only transitioned to MMA in 2017, and didn’t show many improvements to his striking until after he suffered his first career loss. Gassing out and getting finished in that match changed him as a fighter moving forward, as he stopped emptying his tank in the first round to hunt for immediate takedowns and submissions. He’s made noticeable improvements to both his striking and his energy expenditure since that loss, although it’s made him a far less exciting fighter to watch. In fairness to him, his two losses came against two really tough opponents, as he faced a grappler with a never ending gas tank in Anthony Hernandez and then the impenetrable takedown defense of Chris Curtis. He’s submitted all of the other fighters he’s faced in the UFC and never stopped trying to get Curtis down. In his six UFC fights, Vieira landed 13 of his 50 takedown attempts (26% accuracy), while he defended all three of the takedowns against him. Vieira’s last four opponents were all either grapplers or fighters with really solid takedown defenses, but now he’ll get a one dimensional striker who has struggled to defend takedowns.

Armen Petrosyan

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

After all seven of Petrosyan’s pre-UFC fights ended in knockouts, all four of his UFC matches have gone the distance. He outlanded his way to victory in three of those decisions, but got dominated on the mat by Caio Borralho in the other. The last time he finished anybody was in 2021 when he went on DWCS and landed a late first round knockout. He then made his debut against Gregory Rodrigues, who foolishly opted not to utilize his grappling for most of the match, which ended in a split decision for Petrosyan. That decision by Rodrigues looked even more idiotic after Borralho easily controlled Petrosyan on the ground for basically the entire time in his next match. Since then, Petrosyan faced a pair of strikers, who weren’t equipped to expose Petrosyan’s grappling deficiency.

Now 9-2 as a pro, Petrosyan has six wins by KO/TKO and three decision victories. The only early loss of his career came in a 2021 63 second R1 KO, with his one other defeat coming in a 2022 decision. His last two, and three of his six knockout wins occurred in round one, while he has two more in the second round, and one in round three. His last four early wins all occurred in the first two rounds. Petrosyan fought his last five fights prior to joining the UFC up at 205 lb, but dropped down to 185 lb for his debut, where it appears he’ll stay.

Overall, Petrosyan is a karate black belt and a former Muay Thai world champion. He’s a pure striker who offers absolutely nothing in terms of grappling and he tends to give up his back when trying to return to his feet after getting taken down. Apparently he went to Dagestan prior to going on DWCS to work on his defensive wrestling, so he’s at least trying to improve that gaping hole in his game, but we’ve yet to see any major improvements. Between his four UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he was taken down 12 times on 19 opponent attempts (36.8% defense), while he landed one of the three takedowns he attempted (33.3% accuracy). He got taken down three times on DWCS in less than a round and twice in his UFC debut, despite the fact that Rodrigues didn’t even attempt a takedown until late in round two. He then got taken down four times and controlled for 10 minutes in his one UFC loss and even got taken down three times by AJ Dobson, who isn’t a great grappler by any means. To Petrosyan’s credit, he’s never been submitted before. Looking at his offense, he throws a ton of leg kicks, landing 37, 52, 26, and 39 in his four UFC fights respectively. He also throws good body and head kicks, as he relies heavily on his long legs opposed to his shorter arms (6’3” with a 71” reach).

Fight Prediction:

Petrosyan will have a 3” height advantage, but Vieira will have a 2” reach advantage. Petrosyan is two years younger than the 34-year-old Vieira.

This is about as clear cut of a striker versus grappler battle that you’ll ever see so it’s not a complicated fight to breakdown. If Petrosyan can keep the fight standing and keep Vieira off his back, he wins. However, if Vieira can get this fight to the mat or take Petrosyan’s back on the feet, he’ll likely find his way to a submission, most likely by either rear-naked choke or arm-triangle choke. It’s also not entirely impossible that Vieira could win a grappling heavy decision, but his next one will be his first one. While Vieira has struggled with his takedown accuracy in his recent matches, those were all much tougher opponents to get down and we expect him to get this fight to the mat with relative ease. While Petrosyan has never been submitted before, we expect that to end here. Look for Vieira to get him down early and as soon as Petrosyan gives up his back as he tries to stand up, Vieira will lock up a rear-naked choke and end the fight.

Our favorite bet here is “Rodolfo Vieira SUB” at +187.

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DFS Implications:

Vieira is a world champion grappler with a 100% finishing rate, but his striking defense and cardio are both a little suspect. He’s been much more patient in recent fights to try and manage his energy expenditure, which has resulted in him seeing the second round in four straight matches. After scoring exactly 106 DraftKings points in each of his first two UFC submission wins, he only scored 91 and 84 points respectively in his last two submissions. However, he’s also been facing a series of opponents with good defensive wrestling, which won’t be the case in this next match. So if Vieira decides to get a little more aggressive early on, he should have an easier time getting this fight to the mat against the 36% takedown defense of Petrosyan. And once on the ground, Vieira will have an insanely massive advantage. While Petrosyan has never been submitted, he’s also never faced anyone like Vieira. The closest comparison would be Caio Borralho, who has really struggled to find many finishes, but was still able to dominate Petrosyan on the mat. Vieira is lightyears ahead of Borralho when it comes to locking up submissions and we’d be surprised to see Petrosyan survive the ground if he gets taken down in this fight. When these two were originally scheduled to fight back in November, Vieira opened as a slight dog and was priced at $7,900 on DraftKings, However, the line moved to a pick’em by the time the card started and Vieira ended up being 45% owned as he was slightly underpriced and clearly in a good spot, while Petrosyan was just 22% owned after being slightly overpriced. So 67% of the field got burned by that late cancellation and it’s always possible that some of the field will be more weary about being so heavy on the fight a second time. Although keep in mind, that last card only had 11 fights on it, which resulted in inflated ownership across the board. Nevertheless, we’re still expecting this fight to be highly owned once again, and even with Vieira correctly priced as the favorite now, he should once again be very highly owned in this favorable stylistic matchup. That lowers his tournament appeal somewhat and because he’s so reliant on his grappling there are still lots of ways he fails here. It’s best to treat him as a high-owned submission or bust play. The odds imply Vieira has a 53% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Petrosyan has been consistently unspectacular since joining the UFC, with all four of his UFC fights going the distance (3-1). In those three decision wins, he returned DraftKings scores of 81, 77, and 81. While he’s shown the ability to rack up striking volume, he offers next to nothing when it comes to grappling, which leaves him reliant on landing knockouts to really score well. The last time he finished anybody was in his 2021 DWCS fight and he hasn’t even knocked anybody down since joining the UFC. Now he’s facing a high-level grappler who’s never been knocked out and who will be looking to take Petrosyan down and submit him. That will limit the number of opportunities that Petrosyan gets to look for the knockout blow he needs, but we did see Vieira get knocked down in the first round of his last fight by Cody Brundage. Vieira has also gassed out in the past, so it’s possible Petrosyan can outlast him and find a later finish. However, there’s a good chance the fight doesn’t last long enough to test Vieira’s cardio as Petrosyan has just a 36% takedown defense. That leaves him as a risky KO or bust option in a tough stylistic matchup. The odds imply Petrosyan has a 47% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #5

Michael Johnson

29th UFC Fight (13-15)

Coming off a violent second round knockout loss to Diego Ferreira, Johnson continues to struggle in recent years and hasn’t won two fights in a row since 2018. He’s just 2-6 in his last eight matches, although he has at least gone 2-2 in his last four. He was winning the fight against Ferreira until he got caught in the second round and just before that he won a decision over Marc Diakiese. He also nearly won his third most recent fight but ultimately lost a split decision to Jamie Mullarkey. And just before that, Johnson knocked out a terrible Alan Patrick in the second round, which is Johnson’s only finish since 2016 when he knocked out Dustin Poirier in round one. You have to go all the way back to 2013 to find Johnson’s third most recent early win and 10 of his last 18 fights went the distance, while he was finished six times over that stretch, with three knockouts and three submissions.

Now 21-19 as a pro, Johnson has nine wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and 10 decisions. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted nine more, and has seven decision losses. His last 13 fights have all made it out of the first round, with eight seeing round three, and six going the distance. Johnson has spent most of his career at 155 lb, but moved down to 145 lb in 2018, where he went 2-2 before moving back up to 155 lb in 2019. Since moving back up, he’s gone just 2-5, with three of those fights ending in the second round (1-2) and four going the distance (1-3). Two of his last four and four of his last eight decisions have been split/majority, with him losing three of those four splits. All 11 of his early wins have come in the first two rounds, with eight in round one and three in round two. However, three of his last four finishes came by R2 KO.

Overall, Johnson relies almost entirely on his striking despite the fact that he wrestled in college. He’s only landed 10 takedowns in 27 UFC fights and just one in his last seven matches. However, he does have a solid 83% takedown defense and he’s only been taken down a total of 7 times on 40 opponent attempts in his last 12 fights. However he has been vulnerable to having his rangy limbs attacked by submissions through leg locks and kimuras. Johnson has had such a bizarre career that it’s hard to know what to expect out of him. He finds ways to lose fights he’s supposed to win and win fights he’s supposed to lose, although a lot of that can probably be attributed to his life and preparation outside of the Octagon. He’s said he made a lot of poor choices earlier in his career. He seems a little more focussed on being a professional at this stage, although he also recently became a realtor so fighting isn’t getting his full focus.

Darrius Flowers

2nd UFC Fight (0-1)

After getting submitted in the second round of his recent short notice UFC debut, Flowers will be dropping down to 155 lb for the first time in his career. That recent loss came against Jake Matthews, who arguably should have won via TKO after he dropped Flowers with a kick to the body that was mistakenly deemed a low blow. Flowers was given five minutes to recover, although got submitted not long after. That loss came 11 months after Flowers landed a R1 TKO win on DWCS. We didn’t see much happen in his DWCS fight before Flowers got caught in an inverted triangle and then slammed his opponent to try and get out of it, resulting in a shoulder injury that stopped the fight. Prior to that, Flowers had three fights over a three week stretch in April and May of 2022. He won a three-round decision on April 16th, then landed a second round knockout just six days later, before landing a first round knockout just two weeks after that. Looking further back, Flowers has a 2018 second round knockout loss to former UFC fighter Bobby Voelker, who went 0-4 with the organization back in 2013 and 2014.

Now 12-6-1 as a pro, Flowers has eight wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and three decision victories. All nine of his finishes have come in the first two rounds, with seven ending in round one. He’s been finished in all six of his losses, with one knockout and five submissions. Four of his last five losses ended in the later rounds. Flowers is just 5’9” but has competed as heavy as 195 lb in MMA and 200 lb in boxing. He seemed to struggle with weight management early in his career where he would take fights anywhere from 170 lb to 195 lb. Following a 2019 195 lb Catchweight loss, he had been competing at 185 lb until he dropped down to 170 lb when he went on DWCS, where his UFC debut also was. Now he’s finally making the move down to 155 lb, where it seems like he should have been all along.

Overall, Flowers relies largely on his hands to win fights, but will mix in some takedowns as well. He’s shown suspect cardio in the past, and all but one of his career finishes have come in under six minutes, with the other ending later in round two. He was also carrying more weight in past fights, so perhaps his cardio will look better now that he’s leaned out some, although it’s also possible the weight cut could leave him drained depending on how it went. He’ll sporadically let his hands go in lengthy punching combinations, but overall doesn’t put up big striking totals and looks mostly like an early KO or bust type of fighter. He’s looked very prone to getting submitted on the mat, which is how his last three losses occurred. Flowers said some alarming things at media day that make you wonder if he’s sort of full of shit or completely full of it. He said he’s never cut weight before but it was going super easy and he would have to be an idiot to miss. He blamed his past cardio issues on the “altitude” of Las Vegas, but said he’d be fine now because he had been training out there. He also complained about Michael Johnson blocking him on social media. It will be important to monitor him closely on the scale as he attempts to make 155 lb for the first time.

Fight Prediction:

Johnson will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while Flowers is eight years younger than the 37-year-old Johnson.

This is a tricky one to break down. On one side we have the 37-year-old Johnson who’s coming off a violent knockout loss and habitually loses fights he should win and wins fights he should lose. On the other side of things, we have Darrius Flowers, who consistently gasses out late in fights, is cutting down to 155 lb for the first time in his career, and struggled on the scale Friday, only making weight on his second attempt and requiring additional time to do so. So we have red flags on both sides and neither one of these two can be trusted. Flowers does have age on his side and while he’s been prone to getting submitted, Johnson hasn’t submitted anybody since 2009. While Johnson also only has one knockout win since 2016, Flowers cutting additional weight could leave his chin compromised and he also has a tendency to gas out in the second round. So it’s definitely possible that Johnson could finish him, although we also wouldn’t be surprised to see Johnson simply outland his way to a decision win. And on the other side of things, Flowers’ best shot at winning will be to land an early knockout, which could definitely happen considering Johnson has been knocked out three times since 2017 and is getting up there in age. Long story short, this is a pretty volatile fight where either guy could get knocked out or Johnson could outland his way to a decision. We lean towards Johnson winning in either a decision or a second round knockout, but he’s a tough guy to back and we also won’t be at all shocked if Flowers knocks him out.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in R2” at +350.

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DFS Implications:

Johnson has been an early KO or bust play throughout his career, with the one exception being a 2013 shellacking of Joe Lauzon where Johnson set career highs in both knockdowns and takedowns, landing two of each in the lopsided decision win that was good for 109 DraftKings points. In Johnson’s other seven UFC decision victories, he averaged just 65 DraftKings points, failing to top 76 points in any of those. He’s also only finished one opponent since 2016, which was a completely washed up Alan Patrick who hasn’t won a fight since 2018. Three of Johnson’s last four wins have come in low scoring decisions and his most recent victory was only good for 64 points. We’re treating him as a KO or bust option in a volatile matchup against an opponent cutting down to 155 lb for the first time. The odds imply Johnson has a 56% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.

Flowers will be cutting down to 155 lb for the first time following a second round submission loss in his UFC debut. He’s done nothing to really show he belongs in the UFC up to this point and has been finished six times in 19 pro fights. He has bad cardio and consistently slows down in round two, which typically leaves him reliant on landing a knockout in the first halves of fights to win. He’s always looked undersized and out of shape in the past, so maybe the cut down in weight will help him, although it could also drain him. That’s what makes this such a volatile spot and there’s no way to know how his body will react to the cut. So we have to approach this realizing there’s a wider than normal range of scoring outcomes on both sides. The odds imply Flowers has a 44% chance to win, a 34% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #4

Gregory Rodrigues

8th UFC Fight (5-2)

Rodrigues was recently given one of the easiest matchups he could ask for in Denis Tiuliulin and surprisingly took the path of least resistance for the first time in his life, as he actually looked to use his grappling early on against the one-dimensional striker. We typically see Rodrigues avoid grappling until he’s already tired and/or hurt. Once the fight was on the mat, Tiuliulin had no chance and Rodrigues easily finished him with ground and pound. Maybe getting knocked out by a debuting Brunno Ferreira just before that knocked some sense into him. Rodrigues’ last four and five of his last six fights ended via knockout in the first two rounds (4-1), with three of his last four fights ending in round one. Just before getting knocked out by Brunno Ferreira in the first round, Rodrigues almost got finished again in round one when Chidi Njokuani split Rodrigues open so badly it looked like his face was peeling off. The cut was so horrific that Rodrigues actually looked for takedowns, but was unable to complete either of his two attempts in the first round. The tides began to turn late in the round as Njokuani slowed down and Rodrigues began to put it on him. That momentum carried into round two where Rodrigues landed a takedown and finished Njokuani with ground and pound. Just before that, Rodrigues became the first fighter to ever finish Julian Marquez, and did so in an impressive first round knockout, where Rodrigues landed a ridiculous three knockdowns in less than three and a half minutes of action. That came just after Rodrigues suffered his first UFC loss in a questionable split decision against Armen Petrosyan, where Rodrigues showed a non-existent fight IQ by refusing to grapple in the first half of the fight against a one-dimensional kickboxer who’s helpless on the mat. Rodrigues is also the only fighter to ever knock out a very durable JunYong Park, although Park also almost finished Rodrigues. That came after Rodrigues won a decision over Dusko Todorovic in his 2021 short notice UFC debut.

Now 14-5 as a pro, Rodrigues has nine wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and two decision victories. He has five first round knockouts and four in round two, while he has two first round submission wins and one early in round two. He has only landed one finish beyond the midway point of round two which came at the 8:13 point against JunYong Park. He’s also been knocked out in the first round three times himself, with his other two losses ending in split decisions. One of his three KO losses came in his 2014 pro debut against an opponent who also had zero professional fights, another was on DWCS in 2020 against Jordan Williams, who went 0-3 in the UFC, and his third came against a short notice debuting opponent. So his early losses have all come in surprising spots against not the toughest level of competition. Rodrigues hasn’t submitted anybody since 2018 and hasn’t looked especially sharp on the mat, despite his celebrated jiu-jitsu background. He also hasn't shown a ton of interest in even going to the mat in most of his fights, as he appears to have fallen in love with his striking. His last seven finishes all ended in knockouts. Rodrigues has only seen the third round twice in his last 11 fights, with both of those matches going the distance (1-1). His other nine most recent matches all ended in knockouts in the first two rounds (7-2), with six of those ending in round one (4-2) and three ending in round two (3-0). Rodrigues has won 7 of his last 9 and 13 of his last 16 fights.

Overall, Rodrigues is a BJJ black belt and 8-time National BJJ Champion, but prefers to bang it out on the feet. He has solid power, and is an overall good striker, but he’s also been very hittable, averaging 5.99 SSL/min and 5.67 SSA/min. He hasn’t lived up to his grappling resume so far in the UFC, although did just get a ground and pound finish in his last win. He’ll mix in occasional takedowns and he’s landed at least one takedown in five of his seven UFC fights, although only landed two takedowns across his last four fights. When he has landed takedowns, he hasn’t always done the best job of controlling opponents on the mat. He consistently finds himself getting sucked into brawls, which makes for exciting but dicey fights. Between his seven UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Rodrigues landed 9 of his 18 takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while successfully defending all six of the attempts against him.

Brad Tavares

24th UFC Fight (15-8)

Coming off his first win since 2021, Tavares took a decision over Chris Weidman, who was returning from a gruesome leg break and hadn’t competed in two and a half years. Tavares had Weidman severely compromised from leg kicks, but somehow wasn’t able to put him away and never really pushed for the finish. Prior to that, Tavares got knocked out in the first round by Bruno Silva, after losing a close decision to Dricus Du Plessis. Tavares is just 3-4 in his last seven fights, with his other two wins coming in decisions against Omari Akhmedov and Antonio Carlos Jr., neither of whom are still in the UFC. Prior to those two decision wins, Tavares took all of 2020 off after undergoing ACL surgery following a first round KO loss to Edmen Shahbazyan in 2019 and losing a five-round decision to Israel Adesanya in 2018. The last time Tavares finished anybody was in a 2018 R3 TKO over Krzysztof Jotko, with his second most recent finish coming all the way back in 2011.

Now 20-8 as a pro, Tavares has five wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and 13 decision victories. He’s been knocked out four times and has four decision losses. Six of his seven finishes occurred in his first seven pro fights from 2007 to 2011. Twelve of his last 17 fights have gone the distance, but he’s also been knocked out four times in the first two rounds over that stretch.

Overall, Tavares is a low-volume striker who has decent power but rarely finishes anybody. He only averages 3.38 SSL/min and only landed more than 84 significant strikes once in 23 UFC appearances. He’s also only landed one takedowns in his last nine fights and doesn't add much in terms of offensive grappling, but does have a solid 82% takedown defense. Whenever Tavares fights you can generally expect it to end in either a close decision or an early knockout loss.

Fight Prediction:

Rodrigues will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while also being five years younger than the 36-year-old Tavares.

This fight appears destined to end in either an early knockout or a close decision, which are the two results we typically see from both of these two. While Rodrigues has the grappling credentials, Tavares has a really solid 82% takedown defense and we like his chances of keeping the fight standing. At that point it will come down to who can land the bigger shots and whose chin holds up better. It’s hard to have much confidence in Tavares’ ability to finish anybody, considering he only has one early win since 2011, which was back in 2018, and couldn’t even put a washed up/injured Chris Weidman away. So if this does end early, look for it to come from a Rodrigues knockout in the first two rounds. However, Tavares has only been finished once himself since 2019 and we like this to end in a close decision. We could see it going either way with the judges, and it won’t be surprising if the decision is split, but we slightly lean towards Tavares just based on how hittable Rodrigues has been.

Our favorite bet here is “Brad Tavares DEC” at +550.

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DFS Implications:

Rodrigues has averaged 109 DraftKings points in his five UFC wins, with the last four of those ending early. He has three scores of 109 or more, although only put up 76 points in his lone decision victory. So he’s shown massive upside, but only when he’s able to land a finish. And with three first round knockout losses on his record, his floor is pretty dubious in general, leaving him as a boom or bust fighter with a massively wide range of scoring outcomes. While Tavares has been knocked out four times in the past, he’s only been finished once since 2019 and has a really solid 82% takedown defense, while only averaging 3.03 SSA/min. So it’s certainly not the best matchup for Rodrigues to go off, although Tavares’ chin has failed him at multiple points. While it’s hard to predict whether or not Rodrigues will be able to finish him, we can confidently say that Rodrigues is a KO or bust play. The odds imply Rodrigues has a 68% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Tavares has failed to top 81 DraftKings points in 18 straight fights going back to 2012. He’s a low-volume striker with just two takedowns landed in his last 12 matches, and even in a 2018 third round KO, he still scored just 81 points. He just had a dream matchup against a washed up Chris Weidman, and while Tavares completely destroyed the legs of Weidman, he still couldn’t put him away and scored just 58 points in the disappointing decision victory. Now Tavares will get another matchup with scoring upside against Rodrigues, who likes to brawl and has been knocked out three times in the first round in the past. However, it’s hard to have much confidence in Tavares finishing anybody and he’s nothing more than a hail mary KO or bust play. It’s been 12 years since he scored more than 79 points in a decision win and even at his cheap price tag we don’t see him being useful as a value play on a decision on a slate this large. The odds imply Tavares has a 32% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #3

Robert Bryczek

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Bryczek was originally scheduled to face Albert Duraev here, but Duraev dropped out due to visa issues and Potieria was announced as the replacement on February 2nd, eight days before the event.

Making his UFC debut following five straight first round knockout wins, Bryczek was originally scheduled to debut back in September against Jacob Malkoun, but ended up dropping out. So this is now the third UFC opponent he’s prepared to face. Bryczek’s last five wins all ended in under three minutes, with four of those ending in the opening two minutes and two coming in 56 seconds or less. He lost the last two decisions he went to and his last seven wins all ended by knockouts, including six in round one.

Now 17-5 as a pro, Bryczek has 11 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and five decision wins. His lone submission win occurred in the first round of his 2011 pro debut and his last 11 finishes all ended in knockouts, with nine of those coming in round one, one in round two, and the other in round five. He’s also been knocked out once in the first round himself, submitted once, and has three decision losses. His lone submission loss was in the first round of his second pro fight back in 2012. He’s competed at both 170 lb and 185 lb, but the majority of his career has been spent at 185 lb. He started his career at 185 lb, before dropping down to 170 lb in 2016. He won a pair of decisions in his first two fights at the new weight class, but then went just 2-2 in his next four fights. His lone career knockout loss came in 2021 in his final 170 lb bout, where he was dropped by a jab and then finished with ground and pound. He then returned to 185 lb in 2021 and lost a decision in his first fight back, before going on his current five-fight winning streak.

Overall, Bryczek is a powerful Polish striker who relies on his boxing to put opponents out on the feet. He’s also allegedly a BJJ black belt, but he hasn’t submitted anybody since his 2011 pro debut and we’ve yet to even see him attempt a takedown in any of his recent fights. He’s got fast, powerful hands and good movement, although it does seem like he hangs his chin out at times. He lands a decent amount of volume, largely because there has been zero grappling in any of his recent fights. It’s interesting that the UFC tried to match him up against two wrestlers initially, but now he’ll get a much easier matchup in the fraudulent Ihor Potieria.

Ihor Potieria

5th UFC Fight (1-3)

Cutting down to 185 lb on just eight days’ notice, it’s amazing that Potieria is even still on the UFC roster after going 1-3 with three early losses in his first four UFC fights. He was finished late in the second round of his last fight, although to his credit, he nearly landed a finish of his own early in the second round and had Rodolfo Bellato badly hurt. However, Potieria then predictably gassed out pushing for the finish and Bellato turned the tables on him and finished him with ground and pound. Prior to that, Potieria got knocked out in just 129 seconds by Carlos Ulberg in his last fight, and did nothing in the match to look competitive. That came just after Potieria notched his only UFC win when he finished a half retired Shogun Rua in a teed up first round TKO. It’s hard to give him too much credit for finishing a washed up 41-year-old opponent who had already announced his retirement. Prior to that, Potieria got knocked out in the second round of his UFC debut against Nicolae Negumereanu and once again showed a very limited gas tank. Leading up to the loss in his debut, Potieria had somehow won 15 straight fights, including a R1 KO on DWCS to punch his ticket to the UFC. Bear in mind, almost all of those wins were against a very low level of competition.

Now 19-5 as a pro, Potieria has nine wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and four decision victories. All but one of his finishes occurred in the first round, with the other ending in round two. He’s also been knocked out four times himself and has one decision defeat. He’s spent almost his entire career at 205 lb, but did have one fight at 185 lb in 2021, where he landed his only finish to come beyond the first round in a fight that ended late in round two.

Overall, Potieria is technically a Ukrainian international Master of Sport in combat sambo, but maybe something got lost in translation because he doesn’t appear to have mastered anything if you watch him fight—unless you count gassing out and getting punched in the face. He consistantly dies of exhaustion in round two, which leaves him reliant on finding quick finishes to win fights. Even before he empties his tank, he’s reckless early on in fights and has terrible defense, leaving him entirely reliant on finishing his opponents before he gets finished himself. The only good thing you can say about him is that he’s shown decent power, but that’s not enough to get by at this level. He doesn’t land a ton of striking volume or takedowns, and has looked prone to getting controlled along the fence and taken down himself. Between his four UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he failed to land any of his four takedown attempts, while he got taken down three times on seven opponent attempts (57.1% defense). Assuming Potieria even shows up to weigh-ins, keep a close eye on him as he tries to cut down from 205 lb to 185 lb on short notice.

Fight Prediction:

Potieria will have a 3” height advantage, while both fighters share a 75” reach. Potieria is six years younger than the 33-year-old Bryczek.

It’s hard to imagine a matchup where you wouldn’t want to bet against Ihor Potieria. It’s hard to even call him a fraud anymore because we don’t think anyone actually believes he’s good. He’s just really bad at fighting. He has wretched cardio, a terrible striking defense, poor wrestling, and makes awful decisions inside the Octagon. It’s perplexing as to how he’s even still on the UFC roster after starting out 1-3, but apparently a pulse is all that’s required anymore to keep your job. Even with full camps Potieria was embarrassingly bad and now he’ll be trying to cut 20 more lb on eight days notice to get down to 185 lb for the just the second time in his career. What could go wrong? We’d be somewhat surprised if this fight even happened, but if Potieria does somehow survive the cut and show up on Saturday, we’re fully expecting a violent knockout win for Bryczek in the first two rounds, most likely in the first half of round one.

Our favorite bet here is “Robert Bryczek ML” at -160.

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DFS Implications:

Bryczek has landed five straight first round knockouts, with two of those coming in under a minute, showing huge DFS scoring potential. While he hasn’t looked to wrestle in any of his recent fights, he claims to be a BJJ black belt, which is at least encouraging for his chances on the mat if he ever gets taken down. He gets a dream matchup here in his debut against a terrible Ihor Potieria, who’s been finished in three of his four UFC fights and is now attempting to cut down to 185 lb for just the second time in his career on only eight days’ notice. That looks like a recipe for disaster for Potieria, and just adds to Bryczek’s appeal. In Potieria’s three UFC losses, his opponents averaged 111 DraftKings points, despite two of those finishes ending in the second round. Bryczek should be able to pick Potieria apart on the feet and a knockout in the first two rounds appears inevitable. The odds imply Bryczek has a 59% chance to win, a 51% chance to land a finish, and a 36% chance it comes in round one.

Potieria has been knocked out in all three of his UFC losses and we have no idea how he’s still even on the roster after starting out 1-3. Apparently they’re keeping him around as cannon fodder and he does make for exciting finishes (for his opponents). Now he’s cutting down to 185 lb for just the second time in his career and on just eight days notice, which is a big red flag. To Potieria’s credit, he nearly landed a finish in his last fight against a debuting Rodolfo Bellato, but that really says more about Bellato than Potieria. Any decent fighter will run through Potieria with ease and he’ll never be anything more than a hail mary early finish or bust play who consistently gasses out in round two. At his cheap price tag, if he does land a miracle finish, of course he’ll end up in winning lineups, but if you ask us, his odds of winning are significantly lower than the odds indicate. The odds imply Potieria has a 41% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #2

Dan Ige

16th UFC Fight (9-6)

Ige had been scheduled to fight Lerone Murphy here, but Murphy dropped out and Fili was announced as the replacement three weeks out.

Coming off a decision loss to Bryce Mitchell, Ige continues to struggle against wrestlers. Mitchell took Ige down on 5 of his 15 attempts and controlled him for seven and a half minutes, although Ige did badly damage Mitchell’s eye to the point that the fight easily could have been stopped. Prior to that, Ige won a decision over Nate Landwehr, in a fight where Ige admitted to getting tired in the third round. Ige hurt Landwehr in the closing seconds of round one and then dropped him in the closing seconds of round two, but ran out of time before he could finish him. That came just after Ige landed a second round knockout against Damon Jackson, which is Ige’s only UFC finish to come beyond the first round. Despite Jackson being a grappler and Ige consistently struggling on the mat, Jackson surprisingly only attempted a single failed takedown in the match, although later revealed that he came into that fight with a torn pec. Leading up to the pair of wins, Ige got dominated on the mat by Movsar Evloev, who took Ige down nine times on 16 attempts with nearly seven minutes of control time. Just before that, Ige lost decisions to Josh Emmett and The Korean Zombie, after knocking out Gavin Tucker in just 22 seconds, following a five-round decision loss to Calvin Kattar. While Ige is just 2-4 in his last six fights, all of those losses came against really tough opponents. Nine of Ige’s last 11 fights made it to the judges (4-5), with the other two ending in knockout victories.

Now 17-7 as a pro, Ige has five wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and seven decision victories. All seven of his losses went the distance and he’s never been finished. Six of Ige’s 10 early wins occurred in the first round and three of his four UFC finishes were stopped in the opening 77 seconds of fights, with two ending in under a minute.

Overall, Ige is a durable fighter who’s shown the ability to recover from early adversity. He’s a powerful but patient striker, and only averages 3.76 SSL/min and 3.53 SSA/min. Despite being a BJJ black belt and Judo brown belt, as well as a former college wrestler, he’s struggled with both his takedown accuracy and defense. Between his 15 UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed just 15 of his 56 takedown attempts (26.8% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 26 of their 63 attempts (58.7% defense). Ige only landed two takedowns on 18 attempts in his last eight fights, after landing at least one takedown in eight straight fights prior to that. He lost the last four fights where he got taken down even once and he’s just 1-5 in the last six decisions he’s been to.

Andre Fili

22nd UFC Fight (11-9, NC)

Fili is just eight weeks removed from a first round knock out of Lucas Almeida on the final UFC card of 2023. That’s Fili’s first finish since 2019, when he landed another first round knockout against Sheymon Moraes, and only his second since 2015 he knocked out Gabriel Benitez in the first round of a 2015 fight. Fili’s one other early win in the UFC was an early second round knockout in his 2013 UFC debut. While it’s rare to see him land any finishes, five of his last six losses also went the distance and he’s only been finished once since 2016, which was a 2022 first round knockout loss to Joanderson Brito. Fili’s last 15 fights all ended in either first round knockouts (2-1), decisions (6-5), or a No Contest that was close to being a knockout win. He’s been consistently inconsistent throughout his career, and hasn’t won two fights in a row since 2019, but has also never lost two in a row in his career. He’s gone just 2-8 following his 10 previous wins in the UFC, but 8-0 plus a No Contest following his nine UFC losses. Prior to his win over Almeida, Fili lost a close back-and-forth decision loss to Nathaniel Wood. Fili has a knack for making fights close and four of his last eight decisions were split (3-1). While Fili’s UFC record isn’t impressive, it’s more understandable when you look at some of the guys he’s lost to, including Max Holloway, Yair Rodriguez, Calvin Kattar, Michael Johnson, Sodiq Yusuff, Bryce Mitchell, Joanderson Brito, and Nathaniel Wood. Just before he lost to Wood, Fili won a split decision over Bill Algeo, after getting knocked out by Joanderson Brito in just 41 seconds. Fili was putting on a career performance against Daniel Pineda just before that loss to Brito, but an accidental eye poke stopped the fight in round two and resulted in a No Contest, just as it appeared Fili was going to find a finish.

Now 23-10 as a pro, Fili has 10 wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and 10 decision victories. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted twice, and has five decision defeats. Fili hasn’t submitted anybody since 2012 and his last five finishes all came via KO/TKO. Twelve of his 13 career finishes occurred in the first two rounds, with eight in round one and four in round two. All four of his early wins in the UFC have come by knockout in six minutes or less, with the last three ending in round one.

Overall, Fili is a versatile veteran with both solid wrestling and striking and he’s been a longtime member of Team Alpha Male dating back to 2009 when he turned pro. He can also seamlessly work out of both the orthodox and southpaw stances, making him a tough guy to prepare for. He doesn’t land a ton of striking volume (3.86 SSL/min) and not counting his No Contest, he actually finished behind in significant strikes in six of his last seven fights. In his last 10 fights, Fili landed 10 of his 18 takedown attempts (55.6% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 8 of their 25 attempts (68% defense), with seven of those opponent takedowns coming from Bryce Mitchell, who had 13 attempts in their match. The only other opponent to get Fili down in his last 10 fights was Nathaniel Wood, who landed 1 of his 2 attempts. In fairness, six of Fili’s last 10 opponents didn’t even try to take him down.

Fight Prediction:

Fili will have a 4” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.

This sets up as a competitive fight between two UFC veterans. They both have struggled with consistency in recent years, as Ige is just 2-4 in his last six fights, while Fili is just 2-3, NC in his last six. The fact that Fili accepted the fight on relatively short notice (~3 weeks) right after the holidays is somewhat concerning, especially when you consider he fought just eight weeks ago, where he landed his first finish since 2019. You have to imagine he celebrated that victory and enjoyed the holidays after that, right? All we can do is speculate there, but that at least adds some level of uncertainty to whether or not we’ll see the best version of him on Saturday. Fili has also gone just 2-8 following his 10 previous wins in the UFC and it’s rare to see him win two in a row. And while he did just land a knockout, it came against a lower level opponent and Fili’s finishes have been few and far between. When you combine that with the fact that Ige has never been finished, it appears Fili’s lone realistic path to victory will be to win a decision. While Fili has only been finished once since 2016, we have seen him hurt early in multiple fights and Ige is known for landing occasional first round knockouts. So if it does end early, an Ige first round knockout would be the most likely reason why. However, both of these two have been involved in a lot of close decisions and that’s what we’re expecting to see here. Fili would be wise to look to wrestle, as that’s where Ige has struggled the most. He’ll also have the height and reach advantage, so picking Ige apart from the outside is another viable strategy. However, we like Ige to land the bigger shots that could potentially steal rounds and make it a tougher fight to score. While we could see either guy getting their hand raised, the tiebreaker for us is Fili stepping up on shorter notice and his consistently poor record following wins. So we slightly lean towards Ige winning a close decision, but it’s obviously concerning that Ige has gone just 1-5 in his last six decisions and we’re not overly confident in him.

Our favorite bet here is “Ige/Fili FGTD” at -155.

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DFS Implications:

Ige is a volatile DFS producer who has three UFC finishes in under 77 seconds and another in round two, but has gone the distance in 9 of his last 11 fights, losing five of the last six decisions he’s been to. He’s shown a massive ceiling with the help of the Quick Win Bonus, but only averaged 77 DraftKings points in his five UFC decision wins, failing to top 76 points in the last three of those. Ige has also struggled with both his offensive and defensive wrestling, as he failed to land more than a single takedown in any of his last 12 fights, while three of his last six opponents took him down three or more times. And Ige lost the last four fights where he was taken down even once. He also averages just 3.76 SSL/min, leaving him as a KO or bust option. While Fili has been knocked out three times in the past, one of those was in 2010 due to a knee injury and another was back in 2016 against Yair Rodriguez. Fili’s only early loss in his last 15 fights was a 2022 first round knockout against an explosively powerful Joanderson Brito, making it tough to have a ton of confidence in Ige’s ability to end things early. Working in Ige’s favor, Fili did accept this fight on shorter notice and just competed eight weeks ago, so it’s possible we won’t see the best version of him. The odds imply Ige has a 61% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.

Fili has averaged 91 DraftKings points in his 11 UFC fights, with six of his last eight victories going the distance. He’s coming off his first early win since 2019, but his last three finishes did all notably occur in round one. However, now he’s facing a durable opponent in Ige who’s never been finished in his career and this looks like a tough spot for Fili to land a second straight knockout. The fact that Fili accepted this fight on just over three weeks’ notice and just competed eight weeks ago are both red flags, and he’s also gone just 2-8 following his 10 previous wins in the UFC. While Fili only averaged 71 DraftKings points in his last three decision wins, he had previously shown the ability to score pretty well in decisions when he was able to get his wrestling really going, which is where Ige has been the most vulnerable. When you consider Fili’s cheap price tag, a wrestling-heavy decision win would put him squarely into the value play discussion, which is probably the only way he’s useful in this spot. While Fili has only landed two total takedowns across his last six fights, he’s had three decision wins in the past where he landed four or more takedowns. That at least keeps him in play on DraftKings, although it could be tougher for him to score well on FanDuel unless he becomes the first fighter to ever finish Ige. The odds imply Fili has a 39% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #1

Joe Pyfer

4th UFC Fight (3-0)

Fresh off a second round submission win over Abdul Razak Alhassan, Pyfer has finished all three of his UFC opponents in under a round and a half, after also landing an early second round knockout just before making his UFC debut. The only time Pyfer has ever been in a fight that lasted longer than eight minutes was in his lone decision win, back in 2018 in his second pro appearance. Since then, he’s had six fights end in round one and six end in round two. His two losses over that stretch were a 2019 second round submission against a highly suspect Jhonoven Pati and a 2020 R1 TKO loss to another lower level opponent in Dustin Stoltzfus. In fairness to Pyfer, the loss to Stoltzfus was due to a freak arm injury on DWCS in 2020. Following the injury, Pyfer had a lengthy 14 month recovery process before landing a second round knockout with the CFFC organization against a short notice replacement. That was enough to get him a second shot on DWCS and he capitalized on it with a second round knockout to punch his ticket to the big show. The UFC then built Pyfer up with a pair of glass-chinned opponents in Alen Amedovski and Gerald Meerschaert, both of whom Pyfer easily knocked out in the first round. Then they matched him up against a power puncher in Alhassan, who had spent most of his career at 170 lb before moving up to 185 lb in 2021. Pyfer looked a weight class or two bigger in the fight and used his size advantage to outgrapple Alhassan. After not even attempting a takedown in his first two UFC fights, Pyfer took Alhassan down three times on four attempts and submitted him two minutes into the second round. However, we did see Alhassan land a few good leg kicks in that fight and Pyfer did not wear them very well at all. That would have been an interesting dynamic had the fight run longer, but Pyfer instead responded by slamming Alhassan to the mat and submitting him.

Now 21-2 as a pro, Pyfer has eight wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and one decision victory. He has six first round finishes and five in round two, with four of those second round finishes ending in the first half of the round. Pyfer fought a lot of suspect competition early in his career and only 6 of his 12 wins were against opponents with winning records. Both of Pyfer’s career losses also ended in under a round and a half, with a first round TKO loss and second round submission defeat.

This will be the 3rd five-round fight of Pyfer’s career, but his first in the UFC. And neither of his previous two fights scheduled to go five rounds made it out of round one, with Pyfer finishing both of those low-level opponents who entered with records of 10-12 and 5-5 respectively.

Overall, Pyfer is an athletic specimen who’s still just 27 years old and only turned pro in 2018. He has good power and decent wrestling, but has yet to be really tested. He did show more of his grappling in his last match, where he landed three of his four takedown attempts, after failing to attempt a takedown in either of his first two UFC appearances. He also landed a takedown in each of his DWCS matches and overall has landed five takedowns on six attempts (83.3% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on one of their two attempts (50% defense). You can tell Pyfer has really been working on his grappling, and he’s been taking a bunch of grappling matches when he’s not inside the Octagon. In fact, right after he knocked Gerald Meerschaert out in the cage they ran it back in Fury Pro Grappling and Pyfer won a decision. Pyfer trains with a bunch of UFC grapplers like Sean Brady and Andre Petroski in Philly, so he has good training partners around him and it makes sense he’s improving. The two biggest question marks surrounding Pyfer are his cardio and his durability. Considering he’s only been in one fight that lasted longer than eight minutes, which was back in 2018, all we can do is speculate on his cardio. In terms of his durability, he’s been prone to getting injured, but he’s never actually been knocked out. However, we haven’t really seen his chin tested in the UFC so it’s also hard to really gauge how durable he is. After seeing how he reacted to just a handful of leg kicks in his last fight, we expect opponents to target his legs moving forward. Now he’s facing an opponent in Jack Hermansson who landed double digit leg kicks in his last three and six of his last eight fights.

Jack Hermansson

17th UFC Fight (10-6)

Fourteen months removed from a second round TKO loss to Roman Dolidze, Hermansson has traded wins and losses for eight straight fights. He had been scheduled to face Brendan Allen in June, but ended up getting injured and pulling out. Hermansson won the first round against Dolidze, but then ended up in a really unique and awkward position on the mat in round two as Dolidze appeared to lock up a calf slicer to hold Hermansson face down on the mat while he rained down ground and pound until the fight was stopped. Just before that, Hermansson won a tactical decision over Chris Curtis, who was incredibly frustrated by Hermansson’s refusal to engage in a firefight. Hermansson was able to pick Curtis apart from the outside while he circled away from contact for the majority of the fight, in a fight that notably took place in a larger cage and with Curtis stepping in on short notice. That came just after Hermansson lost a five-round split decision to Curtis’ teammate, Sean Strickland. Hermansson’s second most recent win was all the way back in May 2021, when he outwrestled his way to a three-round decision win over Edmen Shahbazyan. That came after Hermansson lost another five-round decision to Marvin Vettori, who stepped in on short notice. The last time Hermansson finished anybody was in July 2020 when he submitted Kelvin Gastelum in the first round with a heel hook, which is Hermansson’s only finish in his last eight fights.

Now 23-8 as a pro, Hermansson has 11 wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and six decision victories. Ten of his early wins occurred in the first round, one ended in round two, five were stopped in round three, and one came in round four. He has three KO/TKO losses, two more by submission, and three decision defeats. Hermansson’s submission losses occurred earlier in his career, in 2013 and 2016, and his last three early losses all ended by TKO in the first two rounds. Hermansson tends to get into trouble when facing larger, more powerful opponents and his three knockout losses came against Roman Dolidze, Jared Cannonier, and Thiago Santos, all who have spent time up at 205 lb and are known for their power.

This will be the 9th five-round fight of Hermansson’s career and 5th in the UFC. He had four fights scheduled to go five rounds before joining the UFC, but finished all four of those opponents, including three finishes in rounds three and four. In Hermansson’s first UFC main event he won a five-round decision win over Jacare Souza, who was kicking off a four fight skid before retiring. That win thrust Hermansson into a 2019 five-round fight against Jared Cannonier, who knocked Hermansson out 27 seconds into round two. Since then, Hermansson lost a pair of five-round decisions to Sean Strickland and Marvin Vettori. So he’s just 1-3 in UFC five-round fights, losing the last three he’s been in, and all but one of his four UFC five-round fights went the distance.

Overall, Hermansson is a well-rounded fighter who’s starting to get up there in age at 35-years-old. Earlier in his career he was known for finishing opponents with ground and pound and guillotines, but he’s settled into being more of a gatekeeper decision grinder at this point in his career. He’s still looking to get fights to the ground and he’s notably just 2-3 in UFC fights where he’s failed to land at least one takedown. In his 16 UFC fights, Hermansson landed 19 of his 64 takedown attempts (29.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 5 of their 20 attempts (75% defense). None of his last four opponents even tried to take him down, although we did see him get turned into a pretzel on the mat in his last fight. Hermansson has really struggled with his takedown accuracy lately, only landing 8 of his last 37 (21.6% accuracy) attempts over his last seven fights, and only 2 of his last 17 attempts (11.8% accuracy) in his last three matches. He has shown the ability to control the distance on the feet and striking from range, however, the smaller cage at the Apex will make it tougher for Hermansson to evade along the outside of the Octagon. He does a good job of attacking the legs of his opponents, and Hermansson landed 158 total leg strikes in his last eight fights. He said his game plan will be to hit Pyfer without being hit and seemed to acknowledge that Pyfer had decent power and wrestling. That at least makes it sound like he’ll come in with a similar approach to what we saw in his Chris Curtis fight.

Fight Prediction:

Pyfer will have a 1” height advantage, but Hermansson has a 2” reach advantage. Pyferis eight years younger than the 35-year-old Hermansson.

At least early on in the fight, we expect Hermansson to try to pick Pyfer apart from the outside and keep his distance, as he attempts to extend the fight. The smaller cage at the Apex will favor Pyfer and make it tougher for Hermansson to freely evade. That’s probably part of why the UFC booked this fight for the Apex instead of in a larger cage in front of a live crowd, as they are clearly trying to build Pyfer up as quickly as possible. Five of Hermansson’s last seven losses came in the first two rounds, with the two exceptions being a pair of five-round decision losses to decision grinders in Sean Strickland and Marvin Vettori. That bodes well for Pyfer’s chances of landing a finish, but this will get really interesting if it makes it to the later rounds. Pyfer has only been in one career fight that made it past the eight minute mark and his cardio and durability are both unknown. It’s possible that Hermansson could outlast him and just leg kick him to death for five rounds, or even find a late finish if Pyfer completely gasses out. However, it’s also possible that Pyfer’s cardio is fine, he just never needs to show it, and maybe he’ll use this opportunity to show he can still compete in a longer fight. The fact that this is his first UFC five-round fight definitely adds some volatility to the situation and you also have to worry about him absorbing too many leg kicks. So while this could go a few different ways, we think it’s a setup spot for Pyfer to get a knockout in the first two rounds against a big name in the #10 ranked Hermansson, who’s on the back end of his career.

Our favorite bet here is “Joe Pyfer KO” at +140.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.

DFS Implications:

Pyfer has averaged 100 DraftKings points in his three UFC fights and finished all three of those opponents in under a round and a half. The UFC has been spoon feeding him favorable matchups, as they teed him up a pair of easy knockouts against glass chinned opponents in his first two UFC fights and then set him up to find wrestling success in his last fight against an undersized opponent with a 52% takedown defense. To Pyfer’s credit, he capitalized on all three of those spots and seems to be constantly improving at just 27 years old. He offers a dangerous combination of size, power, and wrestling, although we still have questions about his durability and cardio. He’s been prone to getting injured in the past and he’s only been in one fight that made it past the eight minute mark in his career. He also did not look good absorbing leg kicks in his last fight and will now be facing an opponent who landed 158 total leg strikes in his last eight fights. The potential for Pyfer to either gas out or have his base compromised adds some uncertainty to this matchup, but it’s also a pretty good spot for him to find a finish, even if it is a major step up in competition. Hermansson has been finished in five of his last seven losses and doesn’t handle pressure very well when he’s backed up against the cage. He has a history of getting finished early in fights when facing powerful opponents like Roman Dolidze, Jared Cannonier, and Thiago Santos, who all knocked him out in the first two rounds. Even Marvin Vettori nearly knocked Hermansson out in the first round before idiotically going for a submission instead of finishing the job. Hermansson is approaching his 36th birthday and hasn’t competed in 14 months, which are both red flags. The smaller cage at the Apex should also benefit Pyfer, as it will make it easier to cut off angles and track Hermansson down, who does a good job of evading when given more room to work with. However, if Pyfer is unable to get Hermansson out of there early, things could get dicey for him in the later rounds as he goes into uncharted territory. The only time he’s even seen the third round was back in 2018 in his second pro fight, so who knows how he’ll look if this hits the championship rounds. That doesn’t mean he can’t do well, and everyone was saying the same thing about Dricus Du Plessis just a few weeks ago, but we’re mostly playing Pyfer for his early finishing ability and anything he does in a longer fight would just be a bonus. The odds imply Pyfer has a 69% chance to win, a 57% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.

Hermansson has averaged 103 DraftKings points in his 10 UFC wins, but failed to top 97 points in any of his last three victories. It’s been three and a half years since he finished anybody and he’s now 35 years old and coming off a 14 month layoff following a second round TKO loss to Roman Dolidze. Hermansson also lost the last three five-round fights he’s been part of, with decision defeats against Sean Strickland and Marvin Vettori, following a second round knockout loss to Jared Cannonier. Hermansson has historically relied on either getting opponents to the mat or controlling the distance on the feet and winning a tactical striking battle. Both of those strategies may be tougher in this matchup, as Pyfer is a big powerful guy with decent wrestling and the smaller cage at the Apex will make it harder for Hermansson to evade Pyfer. That makes this a tougher spot for Hermansson and the potential for him to get finished early leaves him with a non-existent floor. And if he is able to implement his stick-and-move game plan a ceiling performance is also unlikely, unless Pyfer completely gasses out in the later rounds. However, at Hermansson’s cheap price tag he doesn’t need to put up a huge score to be useful, he likely just needs to win. There’s enough uncertainty surrounding Pyfer’s durability and cardio that it makes sense to have some exposure to the more experienced fighter in Hermansson, but there’s a good chance he gets put away early. The odds imply Hermansson has a 31% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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