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Fight Day Scratches: None
Fighter Notes:
Fight #11
Da-Un Jung
5th UFC Fight (3-0-1)Coming off a surprising grappling-heavy decision win over William Knight, Jung landed eight takedowns against his swollen foe after failing to land a single takedown in any of his first three UFC fights on four attempts. In a reversal of roles, Jung appeared to beat the wrestler in Knight at his own game as Jung finished with over 12 minutes of control time as he landed all but one of his nine takedown attempts. Jung was also able to stuff all three of Knight's attempts and he outlanded Knight 28-17 in significant strikes and 73-38 in total strikes as he battered Knight on the mat for the entire fight. Considering Jung has generally relied on his striking to win fights, it will be interesting to see how much more wrestling he incorporates moving forward after putting on such a one-sided grappling performance.
Jung originally turned pro at Heavyweight in 2015, going 1-2 in his first three fights. However, after getting submitted in the first round by gelatinous journeyman Roque Martinez, Jung decided to drop down to Light Heavyweight. Following the switch, Jung won 12 straight matches, with nine KOs, two submissions and just one decision over that stretch, before fighting Sam Alvey to a somewhat questionable draw and then most recently defeating Knight. So after landing seven straight finishes from 2017 to 2019, Jung has now gone to two straight decisions. Jung generally doesn’t seem to be in a rush and has a patient, methodical fighting style. He’s now 14-2-1 as a pro, with 10 wins by KO, two by submission and two decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but he was submitted once at Heavyweight in this third pro fight.
Kennedy Nzechukwu
5th UFC Fight (3-1)After suffering his only career loss in a late R3 Triangle Choke in his 2019 UFC debut against submission specialist Paul Craig, Kennedy has now won three straight bouts with late knockouts in his last two matches. He put on a true Homer Simpson-esque performance against Carlos Ulberg in the first of those KOs, where he absorbed an insane 146 significant strikes in just eight minutes and 19 seconds of action before finishing the gassed UFC newcomer midway through the second round.
Kennedy then went on to outlast one-dimensional grappler Danilo Marques in his next fight, where we saw Marques control Kennedy’s back for the first half of the fight before Kennedy was finally able to get into open space and force an early R3 TKO stoppage along the fence.
Kennedy has always been a massively durable raw physical specimen with insane strength, but his striking now appears to be getting crisper with every fight and he looked the sharpest he’s ever been as he closed out his last match. He only turned pro five years ago and has just 10 fights to his name, so at 29-years-old he still appears to be improving every time he steps inside the Octagon. He agreed to his last fight on just 12 days notice and still pulled off the win, so it will be interesting to see how he looks with more time to prepare.
Kennedy actually fought his first pro fight at Heavyweight before moving down to Light Heavyweight from that point on. After starting his pro career off with a pair of wins, one by KO and another by decision, he made an appearance on DWCS in just his third pro fight back in 2017. However, despite winning a decision Kennedy was relegated back to the regional scene. He followed up the decision win with a pair of knockouts in the first two rounds over his next couple fights, and was then invited back on DWCS in 2018. That time Kennedy capitalized on the opportunity and landed a R1 KO via head kick, which was enough to earn him a UFC contract.
Coming into the UFC with a perfect 6-0 record, Kennedy then took on Paul Craig in his UFC debut and got submitted in the third round via Triangle Choke. Paul Craig ridiculously went 1 for 16 on his takedown attempts and nearly submitted Kennedy in the first round via Armbar, but overall Kennedy did a good job of defending takedowns and submissions. He was notably deducted a point late in the fight for an eye poke, which may have caused him to push harder late in the fight for a finish, when he was eventually submitted. Kennedy was leading in significant strikes 40-25 and in total strikes 47-31, while Craig was pretty much just looking for takedowns and submissions the whole time.
Kennedy bounced back with a decision win in August 2019 with the help of two point deductions to his opponent, Darko Stosic, for three heavy groin strikes. Two of the judges ruled the fight 28-27, so had Stosic not been deducted two points he would have won 29-28 on those two scorecards. Stosic went 4 for 10 on his takedown attempts and came out ahead 60-50 in significant strikes and 63-50 in total strikes. Stosic notably lost three straight decisions before getting released from the UFC.
Following his first UFC win, we didn’t see Kennedy back inside the Octagon for 19 months until he took on Carlos Ulberg. In an absolutely crazy fight, Ulberg unloaded on Kennedy early on while Kennedy simply covered up and took it. After absorbing everything Ulberg could throw at him, Kennedy eventually started landing his own shots as Ulberg began to gas out. By the second round Ulberg was fighting with his hands by his side and Kennedy made him pay for it as he dropped Ulberg with a right hook to the chin and followed up with a flurry of ground and pound to get the stoppage. Ulberg landed an insane 146 significant strikes in just over eight minutes of action, which was on pace for an unsustainable 263 significant strikes over the course of three rounds. After the slow start Kennedy finished with 82 significant strikes landed of his own, which was on pace for 148 over the course of three rounds.
Kennedy has never been knocked out in his ten pro fights, with his only career loss coming from the third round submission against Paul Craig in his UFC debut. Six of his nine pro wins have come by KO and three have ended in decisions. He’s been taken down 7 times on 38 attempts so far in the UFC, and has done a good job of getting up quickly when he has been taken down.
Fight Prediction:
Kennedy will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.
Neither one of these two fighters have even been knocked out in their careers, but that’s also how they’ve each won the majority of their fights. Kennedy appears more defensively sound as he utilizes a high guard and is willing to simply absorb shots at that point, while Jung tends to keep his hands lower. So it’s easier to see Kennedy knocking Jung out than the other way around, but at least according to the odds this one is slightly more likely to go the distance. If it does end early, we expect it to come from Kennedy landing another late KO, but the most likely scenario is for this to end in a close decision.
Our favorite bet here is Kennedy’s ML at +105 (DraftKings).
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DFS Implications:
After failing to land a takedown in his first three UFC fights, Jung surprisingly landed 8 takedowns on 9 attempts in his last match against wrestler William Knight. Prior to that, Jung had been a KO or bust fighter with a strong history of landing knockouts. However, he’s now been to two straight decisions and after his recent wrestling performance it’s tough to know what to expect out of Jung moving forward. Kennedy notably has a legit 80% takedown defense going back to DWCS and he’s only been taken down 7 times on 38 attempts in the UFC. So if Jung is looking to grapple, he should have his work cut out for him. If this stays on the feet, Kennedy has shown the willingness to use his high guard to shell up and simply absorb punches as he ate a ridiculous 146 significant strikes from Carlos Ulberg in just over eight minutes of action. That’s good for 17.56 SS/min, which sets a near identical pace to the one Max Holloway set in his recent record setting performance against Calvin Kattar (17.8 SSL/min). Obviously Max did it for 25 minutes and Ulberg gassed out after a round, but that at least gives you an idea of how many strikes Kennedy is willing to take. With that said, Jung has been a more patient fighter and only averages 3.95 SSL/min in his career. Jung scored just 79 DraftKings points in his debut when he landed a R3 Guillotine Choke against Khadis Ibragimov, and just 38 points in his draw against Sam Alvey, so assuming he isn’t able to put on smothering grappling performance he likely needs a finish in the earlier rounds to be useful. The odds imply he has a 51% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.
We’ve only seen Kennedy involved in one pure striking battle in his four UFC fights as he was forced to defend a combined 38 takedowns (7 landed) in his other three matches against opponents who were primarily looking to grapple. It will be interesting to see how Jung approaches this match as he focused entirely on striking in his first three UFC fights before spending his entire last fight on top of William Knight on the mat. If Jung does look to grapple once again, then it reduces the chances that Kennedy will score well in a decision, and without any grappling of his own to boost his score, Kennedy likely needs a well timed finish to end up in winning lineups. Even in his recent R3 TKO win he still scored just 57 DraftKings points, but that came in a worst case scenario where he was controlled for a round and a half and then landed an early R3 win with no knockdown. While he’s often been a slow starter, he has the ability to throw high-volume combinations of punches and his past scoring appears to be made up of outlier performances with both ultra low-volume and high-volume outcomes. It’s not impossible for Kennedy to serve as a volume driven value play at his cheaper price tag in a decision, but he more likely needs to be the first person to knock Jung out to be useful in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 49% chance to win, a 29% chance it comes early and a 13% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #10
Marc Diakiese
10th UFC Fight (5-4)This fight had been scheduled for September 4th, but Alves withdrew and it was pushed back two months.
Sixteen months removed from a decision loss to Rafael Fiziev, Diakiese now only has two wins in his last six fights, with his last four all going the distance. His only fight to end early during that six fight stretch came in a R3 Guillotine Choke loss against Dan Hooker. With just one fight since a September 2019 decision win over Lando Vannata, Diakiese has had bad luck with fights getting canceled due to no fault of his own. He’s had three opponents withdraw against him during that 25 month stretch and also had an event canceled due to COVID.
In his loss to Fiziev, Diakiese showed off his toughness as he absorbed a barrage of violent strikes and at least survived to see a decision. He kept the striking close with Fiziev leading 78-68 in significant strikes, but Fiziev also appeared to be the one doing more damage for the majority of the fight. Diakiese went 0 for 4 on his takedown attempts, while Fiziev landed 1 of 2.
A flashy kickboxer, Diakiese likes to throw lots of spinning kicks and 6 of his 14 career wins have come by KO. Five of those knockouts occurred in the first round with the other one occurring in R2. His lone submission victory came in his fourth pro fight in 2014 and half of his career wins have gone the distance (7). He’s never been knocked out and his only early loss came in the 2017 Guillotine Choke against Hooker. He also has three decision losses, which have all occurred in his last six fights. Despite multiple extended layoffs intertwined into his nine fight UFC career, he’s still just 28 years old. He notably landed seven combined takedowns in his last two wins and we’ve sporadically seen him mix in takedowns in bunches, but he has also failed to land any in four of his UFC fights.
While Diakiese offers explosive striking, he still only averages 3.08 SSL/min and has never landed more than 68 significant strikes in a UFC fight despite going to six decisions.
Rafael Alves
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Coming off a decision loss in his recent UFC debut, Alves came out swinging against Damir Ismagulov, knocking him down and attempting to take his back in the opening 10 seconds. Ismagulov quickly recovered, but Alves then immediately attempted a Guillotine Choke, although Ismagulov was able to escape and end up on top and spent the remainder of the round hammering away at Alves on the mat. Ismagulov was then able to control the second round and withstand a late push by Alves to win a unanimous 29-28 decision. While that fight had a few exciting moments, the overall striking totals were underwhelming with Ismagulov leading just 56-30 in significant strikes. He did land a ton of ground strikes to prop up his overall striking numbers where he led 141-36 as he landed two of his three takedown attempts and finished with nearly eight minutes of control time.
Alves had originally been scheduled to make his UFC debut back in February, originally against Mike Trizano and then re-booked against Pat Sabatini, but he missed weight by over 11 pounds trying to cut down to 145 lb and the fight was obviously canceled. Apparently he was dealing with a variety of issues at the time that he’s now worked through. He then moved up to the 155 lb division for his second attempt at making his debut, which it appears is where he’ll stay.
A Muay Thai and BJJ black belt, Alves won five in a row prior to losing his debut, with three straight finishes, including a R2 Guillotine Choke Submission win on DWCS in August 2020. Two of his last three wins have now come by Guillotine Choke, which is notable considering Diakiese’s only career early loss also ended in a Guillotine Choke.
While 23 of his 29 fights have ended early, his last 11 matches have all made it past the first round. He has seven career wins by KO and seven more by submission, with his remaining five ending in decisions. Five of his seven career KO wins notably came in his first seven pro fights, all against opponents fighting for the first time professionally. Only one of those opponents really pursued a professional fighting career afterwards, while the other four combined for one more pro loss. Amazingly, his 6th KO came against a 1-8 opponent, so he really just has a single KO against anyone that actually counts as a professional fighter. With that said, he does possess crisp, powerful striking, but he doesn’t throw a ton of volume and can be painfully patient at times. Nine of his 10 career losses have also come early, including three KOs and six submissions. His first three pro losses all came by R1 submission, but his last six have all been in the later two rounds.
Alves has fought anywhere from 145 lb to 160 lb in the past, and notably won the Titan FC Lightweight (155 lb) Championship just before going on DWCS and dropping down to 145 lb. Even before missing weight in his originally scheduled UFC debut, he had already talked about moving back up to 155 lb, so it seems strange that he even tried to move down to 145 lb in the first place, but that is common for guys coming into the UFC. Prior to the DWCS fight he hadn’t competed at 145 lb since 2014.
Fight Prediction:
Diakiese will have a 2” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.
Both of these guys are flashy, explosive strikers and this sets up as an exciting striking battle. Diakiese does a good job of mixing in takedowns as well, and Alves generally defends takedowns with Guillotine Chokes opposed to actually trying to remain on his feet. After seeing Diakiese take Fiziev’s best shots, the most likely way for Alves to win this fight is with a Guillotine Choke, which may be his favorite move. On the other side of things, Alves has been finished in 9 of his 10 pro losses, but six of those ended in submissions and Diakiese has just one career submission win on his record. Nevertheless, Alves does have three TKO losses on his record, which is how we would expect Diakiese to try and finish this. If Alves is unable to lock up a Guillotine and Diakiese fails at knocking Alves out, then this will likely end in a moderate to low volume decision with spurts of explosive striking, oftentimes thrown one big strike at time. It should be a fun fight, but it’s less likely to be a high-volume fight. We like Diakiese’s chances to get the win here but it definitely could be close.
Our favorite bet here is “Diakiese Wins by KO” at +400.
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DFS Implications:
Diakiese has mostly struggled to put up big DFS scores, but he’s shown potential at times with a 30 second R1 KO back in 2017 that scored 127 DraftKings points, a R2 KO that was good for 97 points, and a decision that still scored 92 points in his second most recent win. While that’s still not quite enough to get excited about at his somewhat higher price tag, he has explosive striking and the ability to finish opponents, while he also generally attempts a handful of takedowns. Now he gets an opponent who’s been finished in 9 of his 10 pro losses so there’s certainly reason to think this could be a spot where Diakiese hits a ceiling performance. However, both guys have struggled to put up big striking totals in the past and it’s still unlikely this fight produces a usable score without a finish. The odds imply Diakiese has a 62% chance to get a finish, a 19% chance it comes early and a 9% chance it comes in R1.
Alves is a low-volume striker who’s reliant on finishing to score well in DFS. His lack of volume also means a later round finish isn’t guaranteed to be enough. Just look at his most recent win, which was a R2 submission on DWCS, which would have scored just 76 DraftKings points. Of further concern, Alves hasn’t finished an opponent in the first round in any of his last 11 fights, with his most recent R1 win coming all the way back in 2014. With that said, his last three wins have all come early, two in R2 and one in R3, and at his cheap price tag he still has the potential to be useful as a value play even without a huge score, but he still likely needs a finish. He notably loves going for Guillotine Chokes, which are not ideal for DFS as they lack the takedown or knockdown you would generally get with a finish. This looks like a tough matchup for Alves as he goes against an opponent who’s only been finished once in his career. However, that loss did notably come by Guillotine Choke and Diakiese averages six takedown attempts per 15 minutes, so Alves should get some opportunities to lock up a Guillotine. The odds imply he has a 36% chance to win, a 23% chance to get a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #9
Cortney Casey
14th UFC Fight (5-8)This fight had been scheduled back in August but Jojua ran into visa issues and it was pushed back three months.
Casey is coming off a low-volume split-decision loss to J.J. Aldrich, where Casey was taken down by Aldrich four times on seven attempts, after Aldrich had previously only landed two total takedowns in her first seven UFC fights. Casey outlanded Aldrich 55-45 in significant strikes and 121-58 in total strikes, but failed to land her only takedown attempt, while getting controlled by Aldrich for nearly six minutes. Two of the judges thought Aldrich's takedowns and control time were enough to outweigh the striking differences and Aldrich got the not in the end. While Aldrich landed 57% of her takedown attempts in that fight, she notably still has just a 41% career takedown accuracy, while Casey has just a 38% career takedown defense.
Prior to her recent decision loss, Casey suffered a R3 submission loss to Gillian Robertson in June 2020, which is the only time Casey has been finished in her last eight losses, with the only other early loss of her career coming in her second pro match back in 2013, also by submission.
This will be Casey’s fourth UFC fight in the 125 lb division (1-2), after she moved up from 115 lb following her 2019 loss to Cynthia Calvillo. Casey did fight her first two pro matches at 125 lb (1-1) prior to joining the UFC, before dropping down to 115 lb in 2014. While Casey only has five total pro fights at 125 lb (2-3), four of those matches notably ended in submissions (2-2).
Now on a two fight losing streak, Casey only has two wins in her last seven outings, with four of those seven fights ending in split-decisions (1-3). While two of her last three fights have ended in submissions (1-1), seven of her most recent nine matches have gone the distance (2-5). She’s now 9-9 as a pro, with three wins by KO, four by submission and two decision victories. She’s never been knocked out but has been submitted twice and has lost seven decisions.
Casey has only attempted one takedown, which she missed, in her last four fights, which is actually a good thing going against a one-dimensional Armbar specialist who is most dangerous off her back. It will be important to monitor Casey closely at weigh-ins as she’s had some dubious weigh-ins in the past.
Update: Casey looked good and had her best weigh-in that we’ve seen in a while, while it was actually her opponent who struggled.
Liana Jojua
4th UFC Fight (1-2)After looking completely lost in a wretched UFC debut at 135 lb, Armbar specialist Jojua dropped down to 125 lb and did what she does best as she landed a R1 Armbar submission over one-dimensional striker Diana Belbita. Then, Jojua most recently took on a debuting Miranda Maverick and lost in R1 TKO due to a doctor stoppage following the first round. It was somewhat surprising at the time to see that fight between two grapplers turn into a high-volume striking battle and Maverick appeared to bust open Jojua's nose from a heavy left elbow with just 30 seconds remaining in the round. Ironically, Maverick said before the fight that she was looking forward to going against another grappler after she had been paired with so many strikers in the past. Although looking back, maybe she meant she finally had someone she could beat on the feet and she was smart enough to not try and take Jojua down. With an insane pace, Maverick landed 49 significant strikes in five minutes of action and looked more powerful than she had in past fights. Jojua was unimpressive on the feet and got pieced up by Maverick for the whole round.
Five of Jojua’s six submission wins have come by Armbar, with the other ending in a Heel Hook. Jojua does have one KO on her record but it came in her second pro fight against an opponent who had never fought before. She’s not a real threat on her feet. Only two of her 12 career fights have made it to the judges, with her winning one of those and losing a split-decision in the other. Her last three and eight of her last nine fights have ended early, and six of her 12 pro fights haven’t made it to the second round.
Jojua knows nothing of the UFC outside of Abu Dhabi, as all three of her fights have taken place on Fight Island and this will be her first fight in the smaller cage at the Apex. She has notably fought as high as 146 lb in the past and only dropped down to 125 lb for the first time in 2020. So while Casey was fighting at 115 lb, Jojua was competing anywhere from 135 lb to 145 lb. With that said, Casey is still taller and longer than Jojua.
Update: Jojua missed weight by 2.5 lb and didn’t look great at weigh-ins.
Fight Prediction:
Casey will have a 3” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.
Casey will have the striking advantage on the feet, but has been susceptible to getting taken down and submitted in the past. However, Jojua is a one-dimensional Armbar specialist, and she hasn’t even attempted a takedown in her last two fights, after landing two of her three attempts in her UFC debut. She’s the most dangerous going for Armbars off her back after getting taken down, and Casey has notably gone just 0 for 1 on takedowns in her last four fights. So if Casey has half a brain she won’t be looking to get this fight to the mat. However, it’s possible we see Jojua get more offensive with looking for takedowns of her own after getting her beak split open as she tried to compete in a striking battle in her last fight, and Casey notably has just a 38% career takedown defense. In the end we expect Casey to win this fight if it remains on the feet, but for Jojua to have a good chance to land a submission if it hits the mat. With Jojua 1-2 in the UFC and Casey 5-8 and trying to avoid a three fight losing streak, we expect both fighters to be desperate for a win as they fight for their jobs. It would be surprising if Jojua didn’t at least look to get the fight to the ground where she has had her most success, but Casey is also capable of landing submissions. In the end, we like Casey to win this fight.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Submission” at +290.
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DFS Implications:
With three R1 finishes and two decision victories in the UFC, Casey has scored decently in her wins with DraftKings scores of 95, 84, 87, 108, and 112. Her 10 UFC fights to make it past the first round all saw a third round, and nine of those ended in decisions. At her high price tag, we expect Casey’s ownership to remain relatively low, in what appears to be one of her more favorable matchups she’s seen in a while. Jojua has looked terrible on the feet and Casey has a chance to rack up a ton of strikes landed and potentially even land a finish. Keep in mind, the threat of Jojua landing an Armbar submission should motivate Casey to keep this fight standing, so she’s unlikely to bolster her score with any grappling, which will make it tougher for her to really score well without a finish. The odds imply she has a 68% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
Jojua looks like a submission or bust play in both real life and DFS and it would be shocking to see her win a striking battle. She’s been outlanded 98-51 in significant strikes so far in her three UFC fights, and has looked incredibly hittable on the feet. Working in her favor, 7 of her 8 career wins have come early, including six in the first round. Armbars get tougher to land later in fights once fighters are no longer dry and beginning to fatigue, so if Jojua can’t get another finish in the first five minutes she’s unlikely to win this fight. The odds imply she has a 32% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #8
Sean Woodson
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Coming off a split-decision win over Youssef Zalal, Woodson was able to successfully defend 15 of Zalal’s 17 takedown attempts, although it’s worth noting that Zalal has just a 29% career takedown accuracy. That number obviously went down after that fight, but even going in Zalal had only landed 12 of his 30 takedowns in the UFC (40%). While Zalal struggled mightily to get the 6’2” Woodson to the mat, he finished slightly ahead in significant strikes 42-40, while Woodson led in total strikes 104-55. Zalal was able to finish with over six minutes of control time, but a lot of that was spent pushing Woodson up against the cage as he struggled to land takedowns. We normally see Woodson put up big striking numbers, but Zalal’s constant takedown pressure combined with his elusiveness really limited Woodson’s ability to land many significant strikes.
Just prior to the recent decision win, Woodson suffered his first career loss in a massive upset where he was a -500 favorite in June 2020. He ended up getting submitted in the third round by late replacement Julian Erosa, who took the fight on just a few days notice. Woodson dropped Erosa early in the third round, but Erosa recovered and turned the tables with a takedown followed by a Brabo Choke submission. Woodson narrowly came out ahead 106-103 in significant strikes and 116-107 in total strikes, while Erosa went 3 for 6 on takedowns in a high-volume brawl.
Prior to the loss, Woodson was 7-0 as a pro and 1-0 in the UFC. He won a decision in his October 2019 UFC debut against a suspect Kyle Bochniak, who entered the fight 2-4 in the UFC and was cut following his fifth loss. Woodson outlanded Bochniak 111-42 in significant strikes and 150-52 in total strikes, while Bochniak amazingly went 1 for 15 on takedown attempts. Looking back one fight further, Woodson punched his ticket to the UFC with a R2 KO on DWCS in 2019 against a dangerous Terrance McKinney who was winning the fight up until the finish.
Woodson is now 8-1, with two wins by KO, one by submission and five decisions. His only career loss came in the submission against Erosa. He has a pair of first round finishes on his record, with a Guillotine Submission and a knockout, but those came in his first two pro fights against opponents who entered with records of 0-3 and 3-4. Also notable in terms of those first two wins is that they took place at 180 and 185 lb. He then dropped down to 155 lb for his third pro fight and then all the way down to 145 lb for his fourth pro bout, where he’s still currently residing. Woodson is insanely lean for the division, potentially to the point of it being a detriment to his power. He had an extensive amateur boxing career and it shows in his fighting style. Woodson’s last seven fights have all made it past the first round, with six of those seeing R3 and five ending in decisions.
Woodson has now been taken down just 6 times on 38 attempts in his three UFC fights (16%), and even if you factor in the two landed on him on DWCS, he still has defended over 80% of the takedowns attempted on him. With a boxing background, most of Woodson’s opponents are looking to get him to the mat where he’s the most vulnerable, and this next fight should be no different.
Collin Anglin
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Fresh off the first KO loss of his career, Anglin drew a tough matchup in his recent UFC debut against fellow newcomer and caged bobcat Melsik Baghdasaryan. Anglin foolishly tried to compete with the dangerous kickboxer on the feet, but did shoot for one takedown in the fight, which he easily landed midway through the first round. However, he was unable to do anything with it and Baghdasaryan quickly returned to his feet. Anglin never appeared to have a chance to win a standup battle and Baghdasaryan finished him midway through the second round with a well placed head kick that sent Anglin tumbling to the mat. Less than four months removed from what was the first time he’s ever been finished, it will be interesting to see how Anglin responds to the loss as he enters his second UFC fight.
Anglin punched his ticket to the UFC with a decision win on DWCS in September 2020 against another one-dimensional striker in Muhammadjon Naimov. Anglin started somewhat slowly in that fight, but turned it on in the second round and never looked back as he dominated the remainder of the fight. With a wrestling background, he showed that he can compete both on the feet and the mat, although he’s not really dominant at either. After getting outlanded in the first round 23-8 in significant strikes, Anglin bounced back to lead in the next two rounds 27-19 and 53-10 to finish ahead 88-52 in significant strikes and 107-73 in total strikes. He also landed three takedowns on four attempts with over four and a half minutes of control time, while stuffing all four of his opponents attempts. Both fighters looked durable in that matchup so it’s not surprising that it went the distance, but Anglin very nearly finished it in the third round at multiple points. Anglin apparently trains out of Denver at altitude and it showed in his conditioning as he turned it on late.
Anglin is now 8-2 as a pro, with five knockouts and three decision wins. Other than his recent KO loss, his only other defeat occurred in a 2018 decision in his second pro fight. He responded from the loss well with seven straight wins. Four of his career KO/TKO wins have come in R2 with the other ending in R1. It should be pointed out that Anglin hasn’t faced the toughest competition, as his pre-UFC opponents entered with records of 1-1, 3-4 (L), 0-0, 4-4, 5-3, 20-11, 1-2, 1-1, and 5-0. Based on the level of opponents he faced prior to joining the UFC, it’s entirely possible that Anglin’s 8-1 pre-UFC record is entirely fraudulent, but the jury is still out on him and he at least has a clear path to victory in this next fight.
Fight Prediction:
Woodson will have a massive 5” height advantage and 7” reach advantage.
Woodson will use his reach advantage to piece Anglin up from the outside if this fight remains on the feet, so it will be essential for Anglin to get the fight to the ground where Woodson has been extremely vulnerable. Anglin is generally just looking for ground and pound on the mat and has never submitted an opponent, which reduces his chances of landing a finish against Woodson, who’s only career loss came by submission. That makes a decision outcome more likely than if Anglin were actually a submission threat. Overall, the results of this match should simply come down to whether or not Woodson can remain upright. Anglin can absolutely pull off the upset if gets the fight to the ground and potentially even land a finish, but we don’t see him outboxing Woodson for three rounds. It’s more likely than not that this one goes the distance, but both guys are somewhat capable of knocking out the other. We’re taking the second biggest underdog on the card in Anglin to get the win here as we expect him to incorporate more wrestling.
Our favorite bet here is Anglin’s ML at +265.
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DFS Implications:
Woodson generally lands a ton of striking volume and was an all star on FanDuel before they took away takedowns defended. However, he’s struggled to score well on DraftKings with just 61 and 82 points in his two decision wins and 55 points in his R3 submission loss. With zero takedowns attempted in his last four fights, he’s reliant on putting up otherworldly striking numbers and/or landing a finish to return DFS value, especially considering his skyhigh price tag. Woodson has only landed one finish in his seven fights since dropping down from Middleweight, and is more of a volume than a power striker. Now we expect him to be defending takedowns once again, which puts a damper on his striking ceiling. That leaves him reliant on landing a finish here to be useful in DFS. The odds imply he has a 74% chance to win, a 27% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1.
Anglin’s wrestling background lends itself well towards DraftsKings scoring and should give him a solid chance to pull off the upset here as Woodson has looked very vulnerable on the ground. His decision win on DWCS in his second most recent fight would have been good for 92 DraftKings points, which would likely be enough for him to serve as a value play here at his cheap price tag. He also has five knockouts among his eight career wins and it’s possible he can finish this fight with ground and pound. With a decent chance to score well with either a finish or in a decision, Anglin looks like a solid low-owned underdog play that you’ll want to be over the field on in a buy-low opportunity. The odds imply he has a 26% chance to win, an 14% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #7
Cynthia Calvillo
11th UFC Fight (6-3-1)Now on a two fight skid, the #5 ranked women’s Flyweight Calvillo has gone just 1-2 since moving up to 125 lb, although those losses notably came against fighters ranked all the way at the top of the division in Katlyn Chookagian and Jessica Andrade, whereas she’ll now take on the 12th ranked Andrea Lee. Calvillo fought her first seven UFC matches at 115 lb, before moving up to 125 lb in 2020 following a draw against Marina Rodriguez where she missed weight by 4.5 lb. She did fight her first pro bout at 125 lb and her second at 120 lb Catchweight, but then dropped down to 115 lb one fight before she joined the UFC.
Her recent late R1 TKO loss to Andrade was the first time Calvillo has been finished in her career. Andrade stalked Calvillo along the outside of the Octagon as she outlanded her 48-27 in striking, while neither fighter attempted a takedown. Andrade finished the fight with a flurry of punches just six seconds before the round ended.
Prior to that, Calvillo lost a decision to Katlyn Chookagian, and Calvillo has now gone just 1-2-1 in her last four fights. Chookagian outlanded Calvillo 69-60 in strikes while missing on her only takedown attempt but defending three of Calvillo’s four attempts. Calvillo allowed Chookagian to control the distance throughout the fight and was never able to implement her grappling game plan.
In her first fight back up at 125 lb, Calvillo won a five-round decision against Jessica Eye. Calvillo landed a career high 113 significant strikes, which isn’t really surprising since that was her first five-round right. That would equate to just 68 significant strikes in a three round fight. She also tacked on four takedowns and nearly eight minutes of control time.
Calvillo had fought to four straight decisions leading up to her recent R1 TKO loss and six of her last eight fights have now gone the distance. While she does have a pair of later round TKO wins on her record, those notably came in her first three pro fights. She also has three career submission wins and four wins by decision to bring her overall pro record to 9-3-1. Outside of the recent R1 TKO loss, her only other career losses were decisions against Katlyn Chookagian and Carla Esparza. Calvillo’s last three early wins have all come by Rear-Naked Choke, with two ending in R1 and one ending in R3.
In three round fights, Calvillo has never landed more than 78 significant strikes and has never absorbed more than 73. She’s only had one takedown attempted against her in her last six fights, which was landed by Katlyn Chookagian in her second most recent match, and the last time we saw anyone attempt more than one takedown on Calvillo was in 2017 when Carla Esparza went 2 for 9 on her attempts.
It will be interesting to see how Calvillo responds to her first career TKO loss, making a quick turnaround just a month and a half after the fact. We expect she’ll look to place more of an emphasis on her grappling.
Andrea Lee
8th UFC Fight (4-3)Finally notching a win after losing three straight close decisions (two split), Lee landed her only finish in the UFC after her first six matches with the organization all went the distance (3-3). In her recent win, she landed a late R2 Triangle Armbar against Muay Thai striker Antonina Shevchenko. The majority of the first round played out on the feet, but Lee was able to get Shevchenko down late in the round and finish the round on top throwing elbows. Lee was able to quickly get the fight back to the mat to start R2 and then actually locked Shevchenko into a Triangle Choke as Shevchenko looked to escape. They remained in that position for several minutes as Lee threw elbows to the head of Shevchenko and adjusted the position to try and finish the submission. It looked like Lee might gas out her legs as the round neared a close, but with just eight seconds remaining she was finally able to grab an arm and force a tap.
Prior to that, Lee lost a unanimous decision to Roxanne Modafferi after losing a pair of split-decisions to Lauren Murphy and Joanne Calderwood. Over that three fight skid, Lee was taken down 8 times on 15 attempts and overall in her UFC career Lee has been grounded 16 times on 38 attempts in seven fights. The only early loss of her entire pro career was a 2016 R3 Rear-Naked Choke prior to joining the UFC and she now owns a 12-5 career record. Seven of those wins have come early, including two KOs and five submissions, although all but one of those finishes notably came earlier in her career against less experienced opponents. She’s never been knocked out, but she has been submitted once, with her other four losses all going the distance.
Lee joined the UFC in 2018 and defeated Veronica Macedo, Ashlee Evans-Smith and Montana De La Rosa in three straight decisions in her first 13 months with the organization before losing three straight decisions after that.
Lee has landed 97 or more significant strikes in three of her seven UFC fights and has landed 13 takedowns since joining the organization. She’s also notably been taken down by her opponents at least once in all of her fights before her last one.
Fight Prediction:
Lee will have a 2” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.
We expect Calvillo to come in with a renewed urgency to grapple after failing to attempt a takedown against Andrade and getting finished for the first time in her career. Lee is the bigger fighter so it will be interesting to see if that gives Calvillo trouble on her takedowns, but Lee hasn’t been great at staying on her feet and owns just a 57% takedown defense. We like Calvillo’s grappling to win her the fight either with a Rear-Naked Choke submission or in a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Calvillo Wins by Submission” at +600.
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DFS Implications:
Calvillo has been a R1 submission or bust play for DFS in three round fights thus far in her career, but she at least has the potential to put on a grappling heavy performance that could still score decently in a decision. Lee has been taken down 16 times on 38 attempts in the UFC and isn’t anything special when it comes to defending takedowns with her 57% defense. After failing to land a takedown in her last two fights and getting finished for the first time in her career most recently, we expect Calvillo to come in looking to grapple more, but it’s worth pointing out that she’s let us down in the past and makes some head scratching decisions at times inside the Octagon. Lee has only been finished once in her career and that was all the way back in 2016, so the most likely scenario is for this fight to end in a lower scoring decision. The odds imply Calvillo has a 56% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.
Lee’s first six UFC fights all went the distance, and up until her recent late R2 submission win she had never scored well in DFS. She does land a solid number of significant strikes as she averages 5.48 SSL/min (2nd highest on the slate). She’s also landed exactly three takedowns in three of her last four fights to further boost her score. So it’s possible she could serve as a value play in an overall lower scoring slate, but while we loved her matchup going into her last fight, this looks like a much tougher one for her to excel in. She did notably score 71 DraftKings points in her last decision loss, so had that fight gone her way she would have notched 101 points in a decision victory. The odds imply she has a 44% chance to win, a 17% chance to get a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #6
Thiago Moises
8th UFC Fight (4-3)Coming off the first early loss of his career, Moises went up against a buzz saw in Islam Makhachev and had no answer for the wrestling of the dominating Dagestani. Makhachev finished Moises with a fourth round Rear-Naked Choke after dominating the early rounds in the fight. Makhachev was in no rush to force a finish, and only attempted one takedown in the first two rounds, which he landed late in R1. However, Moises took the fight to the ground in R2 and Makhachev was able to easily reverse the position and control Moises on the mat for the remainder of the round, almost landing a last second Armbar attempt. Makhachev was able to control the fight from that point on before eventually landing a Rear-Naked Choke submission in the fourth round.
After joining the UFC at just 23 years old, Moises was thrown straight to the wolves in his 2018 UFC debut against Beneil Dariush. While both guys are BJJ black belts, Dariush controlled Moises for essentially the entire fight with 13:32 of control time and four takedowns on eight attempts. Moises failed on both of his takedown attempts, but did finish with four official submission attempts. However, Dariush was able to get out of all of them while winning the striking battle 113-20 and leading in significant strikes 44-8.
Moises bounced back with a decision win in his second UFC fight before losing a decision to 23-1 Damir Ismagulov, who’s currently on an 18 fight winning streak and 4-0 in the UFC, including a similar win over Joel Alvarez. Following a 1-2 start to his UFC career, Moises landed an early second round leg lock submission on Michael Johnson to bring his record back to even. Johnson outlanded Moises 26-1 in strikes in the first round, but Moises immediately shot for a takedown to start the second round and then transitioned to a Heel Hook when it didn’t complete it. So Moises finished the fight behind in significant strikes 27-1 and 0 for 3 on takedowns but still landed a submission win while essentially accumulating no other states in five and half minutes of action.
Since then, Moises won close decisions against Bobby Green and Alexander Hernandez before getting finished by Makhachev. Green more than doubled the striking numbers of Moises, outlanding him 85-42 in significant strikes and 94-43 in total strikes. Both fighters went 2 for 3 on their takedown attempts and Moises narrowly came out ahead 1:51-1:11 in control time. Breaking it down round by round, Green doubled Moises’ strikes landed (26-13, 33-14 & 35-16) and significant strikes landed (26-13, 29-14 & 30-15) in all three rounds. Moises went 1 for 2 on takedowns in the first round, Green went 1 for 2 in the second round and both fighters went 1 for 1 in the third. Green thought he won the fight, and at least looking at the numbers it’s hard to argue, but Moises seemed to have the bigger moments in the fight. Either way, it was a very close fight.
In his most recent win, Moises took on Alexander Hernandez and despite being a +195 underdog and seemingly being at a striking disadvantage, Moises controlled the entire fight in a match that surprisingly played out entirely on the feet. Moises did shoot for one unsuccessful takedown, but looked sharper than ever in his striking as he picked Hernandez apart for three rounds and easily won a decision. The striking totals were close, with Moises coming out ahead 53-50, but he clearly did far more damage and showed just how much his striking has improved over the last few years.
Moises is now 4-3 in the UFC and 15-5 as a pro. Nine of his 15 career wins have come early, with three KOs and six submissions, but 3 of his last 4 wins have come by decision. Up until his recent submission loss, he had never been finished and his four previous career losses all ended in decisions. Only three of his nine early wins came in the first round and two of those came in his first two pro fights. So 17 of his last 18 fights have seen the second round, with the one exception being a R1 KO win on DWCS Brazil in 2018 against an opponent who’s now lost 3 of his last 4 fights.
Joel Alvarez
5th UFC Fight (3-1)At 6’3” Alvarez is a towering Lightweight who is coming off his third straight early win and second first round submission in a row, Alvarez finished the highly submittable Alexander Yakovlev with a R1 Armbar. Yakovlev has notably been submitted in five of his 11 career losses and offers up his neck like he’s serving hors d'oeuvres at a cocktail party. Yakovlev foolishly shot for a takedown early in the fight, but was able to survive Alvarez’s initial Guillotine attempt. However, he was really just delaying the inevitable as Alvarez locked up an Armbar just moments later to finish the fight. Alvarez once again showed how dangerous he is with his defensive submissions and it’s insane that anyone even considers taking this guy down.
In his second most recent fight, Alvarez submitted Joe Duffy with a Guillotine Choke midway through the first round. That marked Duffy’s third straight loss and the second submission defeat of his career. Duffy also foolishly shot for a takedown and Alvarez immediately welcomed him into a Guillotine that quickly forced a tap. It’s almost like Alvarez’s recent opponents didn’t even bother looking up who he was before they fought him as they both shot for early takedowns that led to submissions.
While Alvarez is clearly a submission specialist he did land a R2 ground and pound TKO in his second UFC fight against Danilo Belluardo, who is no longer in the UFC and has lost three of his last four fights. All six of Belluardo’s career losses have also notably all come by KO. So just to recap, Alvarez’s last three wins have come against struggling opponents in Yakovlev (1-4 in his last five), Duffy (0-3 in his last three) and Belluardo (1-3 in his last four).
Alvarez’s only loss in his last 14 fights came in a decision in his UFC debut against 23-1 Damir Ismagulov, who’s currently on an 18 fight winning streak and has never been finished. Alvarez owns an impressive 18-2 pro record with two wins by KO and 16 submissions. He was knocked out in the first round of a 2015 M-1 fight, with his only other career loss coming in the decision in his UFC debut, which is the only time he’s required the judges in 20 pro fights. Alvarez is an expert at submitting opponents off his back and anyone that even attempts a takedown on him should immediately be disqualified for incompetence.
UPDATE: Alvarez missed weight for the second straight time, weighing in early on both misses. After tipping the scales at 159.5 lb for his last fight, he now checked in at 157.5 (1.5 lb over the limit). It’s unclear if he’s intentionally gaming the system or making an honest effort to make weight, but it worked for him last time so maybe he just said screw it.
Fight Prediction:
Alvarez will have a 6” height advantage and 7” reach advantage.
While Alvarez is lethal off his back, we’ve yet to even see him attempt a takedown in his four UFC fights, so as long as Moises doesn’t walk into a trap he should be able to keep this standing. Moises also has much more refined striking compared to Alvarez and should win a striking battle on the feet. There’s a good chance the submission skills of these two end up being a wash and we see Moises point his way to a decision win on the feet, with a slight chance he could even land a knockout.
Our favorite bet here is “Moises Wins by Decision” at +110 (FanDuel).
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DFS Implications:
Moises is allergic to scoring well in DFS with totals of 51 and 60 in his last two decision wins and just 70 DraftKings points in his most recent finish, which in fairness came in a worst case scenario early R2 submission with no stats behind it. He checks in with the second lowest average of significant strikes landed on the slate at 2.49/min and only averages one takedown per 15 minutes, while it would be wise to keep this one standing. So you’re likely relying on him to land a R1 KO to be useful in this spot, barring a lopsided grappling performance which is unlikely. We expect him to make this a striking battle and return another unusably low score in a decision win. The odds imply he has a 69% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in R1.
Alvarez has been an interesting DFS option up until this point, but he’s also been so hyper efficient with his last two finishes that he scored “just” 93 and 97 DraftKings points despite ending both of those fights in the first round. He also “only” scored 97 points in a R2 TKO in his first UFC win. He hasn’t attempted a single takedown in four UFC fights, nor has he landed a knockdown. He’s like the Venus Flytrap of UFC fighters who relies on oblivious opponents stumbling into takedowns so he can engulf them with submissions off his back. All three of his wins have come against struggling opponents and he looked lost in his UFC debut against Damir Ismagulov, who wisely didn’t attempt any takedowns. We expect the field to chase Alvarez’s past performances and this looks like a prime sell-high opportunity. The odds imply he has a 31% chance to win, a 17% chance it comes early and a 7% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #5
Song Yadong
9th UFC Fight (6-1-1)Coming off a solid decision win over oversized Oompa Loompa Casey Kenney, Yadong handedly outlanded Kenney 116-78 in significant strikes as he came out ahead in striking in all three rounds (31-19, 34-28 & 51-31). Kenney also only landed one of his five takedown attempts with just 26 seconds of total control time, but seemed shocked when he heard the decision hadn’t gone his way.
That marked Yadong’s fourth straight fight to go the distance (2-1-1), after he landed finishes in three of his first four UFC fights. Yadong has unsurprisingly had a much harder time getting opponents out of there as he’s faced tougher competition, and none of his last four opponents have ever been knocked out.
Just prior to his recent loss, Yadong suffered his only loss in the UFC and first overall since 2016, in a unanimous 28-29 decision to Kyler Phillips after going 8-0-1 in his previous nine fights. Yadong actually finished ahead in significant strikes 67-59 and in total strikes 89-69, but Phillips landed 3 of his 5 takedown attempts and led in strikes in the first round.
Yadong is now 17-5-1 as a pro, with 9 of his 16 wins ending early, including six KOs and three submissions. The only time Yadong has ever been finished came in a 2016 R2 knockout, which was fought at Featherweight (145 lb) prior to joining the UFC. He has competed at both 135 lb and 145 lb throughout his career, but six of his eight UFC fights have been down at 135 lb. So far in the UFC, he’s 2-0 with a submission and a decision at 145 lb and 4-1-1 at 135 lb with two knockout victories and four decisions (2-1-1).
Yadong made his 2017 short notice UFC debut in his home country of China as the youngest fighter on the roster at just 19 years old. However, you wouldn’t have guessed it from his performance as he submitted Bharat Khandare with a R1 Guillotine Choke. For what it’s worth, that was the third time Khandare has been submitted in just eight pro fights and he’s been choked out in the first round of his last two matches. Yadong knocked Khandare down with a stiff right hand and then locked in a Guillotine as he attempted to get back up.
He followed up the impressive win with a R2 KO of Felipe Arantes, who was coming off a pair of decision losses, but had previously never been knocked out in 28 pro fights. Yadong landed both a takedown and a knockdown in that match and was able to exert heavy top pressure and vicious ground and pound. He finished the fight with just one second remaining in the second round with a sharp elbow out of the clinch. He ended up with over six minutes of control time in the match.
Yadong then took on Vince Morales, who he defeated in a unanimous 30-27 decision. Next, in 2019 Yadong took on an experienced UFC veteran in #13 ranked Alejandro Perez who came into the fight with a 7-2-1 UFC record and having not been finished since 2015. Yadong knocked Perez out in just 124 seconds. Since then he went the distance against Cody Stamann, Marlon Vera, Kyler Phillips and Casey Kenney.
Yadong’s entire life has been dedicated to the pursuit of martial arts. He started intense training at just 9 years old when he left his family to go train with the Shaolin Monks. By the age of 12 he was already winning championships and he went pro at just 16. He’s an excellent striker with very fast hands, but doesn’t offer much in terms of grappling. He managed to go his first four UFC fights without ever being taken down, albeit on just three attempts from his opponents, but as he’s faced tougher competition he’s been taken down 11 times over his last four fights on 25 attempts.
Julio Arce
7th UFC Fight (4-2)After fighting at 145 lb for his first five UFC fights (3-2), Arce dropped back down to 135 lb where he started his pro career off 8-2. Both of those losses notably came against UFC fighter Brian Kelleher before either guy joined the UFC, and Arce made the decision to move up to 145 lb immediately following the consecutive 2015-2016 losses. He won his first seven fights at Featherweight (145 lb), including his first two fights with the UFC, but lost two of his last three in split-decisions and decided to move back down to Bantamweight. He’s now 17-4 as a pro, and has gone 8-2 at Featherweight (145 lb) and 9-2 at Bantamweight (135 lb). Not only are his records similar at the two weight classes, so are his results. He’s gone 4-1 in decisions at Bantamweight and 3-2 in decisions up at Featherweight. He has five career early wins in both weight classes, and the only early loss of his career came down at Bantamweight from a patented Brain Kelleher Guillotine Choke in 2016.
In his recent return to the Bantamweight division, Arce landed a late R2 TKO against Andre Ewell, who had previously only lost by KO/TKO once in his first 24 pro fights. In fairness, it looked like sort of a quick stoppage as the ref quickly stepped in as Arce had Ewell wobbled along the fence. Ewell protested the stoppage saying he was good and a lot of refs would have let the fight go longer, although it’s likely the results would have been the same and Ewell was clearly hurt badly. Arce finished ahead in significant strikes 42-31, and no takedowns were attempted in the fight.
Only two of Arce’s 21 pro fights have ended in the first round and his last 15 fights have made it to round two, with 11 seeing a third round and seven going the distance. Arce’s first five UFC fights all made it to the third round leading up to his recent R2 win in his last fight. Arce has alternated finishes and decisions for 11 straight fights and is coming off a finish for what it’s worth. He has notably lost his last two trips to the judges in split-decisions, but he did win a decision over a tough Dan Ige in his 2018 UFC debut. His last three wins have all come early with a R2 KO, a R3 KO and a R3 submission.
Arce is a former boxer and won the NY Golden Gloves Championship in 2011 before switching over to MMA. He’s also a second degree black belt and has as many career wins by submission (5) as knockout, to go along with seven career decision wins. He owns a solid 93% takedown defense, and the only time he’s ever been taken down came in his UFC debut against Dan Ige, who was only able to get him down once on 13 attempts. Following a November 2019 split-decision loss to a really tough Hakeem Dawodu, Arce didn’t compete for 20 months leading up to his recent R2 KO win.
Fight Prediction:
Yadong will have a 1” height advantage, while Arce will have a 3” reach advantage. Yadong is also notably 9 years younger than the 32-year-old Arce.
We expect to see a tactical striking battle here, although it’s also possible Arce will look for a takedown at some point, although he’s never landed more than one in a fight and generally keeps things standing. Each of these two fighters have only been finished once in their careers and neither guy has ever lost early since joining the UFC, so it would be surprising if this didn’t go the distance. Yadong is lighter on his feet and should have the speed advantage and we like him to outland his way to another decision win.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Goes the Distance” at -158 (FanDuel).
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DFS Implications:
After starting his UFC career off hot with three finishes in the first two rounds in his first four fights, Yadong has now fought to four straight low scoring decisions. While he showed an ability to finish lower level opponents in the UFC, he’s been unable to continue that as he’s climbed the ranks and now steps into another tough matchup against an opponent with good boxing who’s never been knocked out. With zero landed takedowns in his last five matches and generally struggling to put up huge striking totals, Yadong is reliant on a finish to score well. We expect this to be a better real life fight than for DFS purposes and it will be hard for the winner to score well barring an unlikely finish. The odds imply Yadong has a 55% chance to win, an 18% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in R1.
While Arce has landed finishes in his last three wins, those all came in the later rounds and still scored just 88, 90 and 76 DraftKings points respectively. He’s never landed more than one takedown or 74 significant strikes in a fight and now gets an opponent who has only been finished once in 23 pro matches, which was all the way back in 2016 when he was just 18 years old. In Arce’s lone UFC decision win, he scored just 63 DraftKings points and still appears reliant on a finish to return value despite his cheaper price tag. With the line moving in his favor, his DFS price tag going down and coming off a R2 KO win, we should see a slight bump in Arce’s ownership which makes him an even less appealing play for tournaments. We expect the winner of this fight to score around 70-75 DraftKings points in a decision and get left out of winning lineups. The odds imply Arce has a 45% chance to win, a 20% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #4
Miguel Baeza
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Coming off the first loss of his career in a brawling high-volume decision against Santiago Ponzinibbio, Baeza started off the fight well as he more than doubled Ponzinibbio’s number of strikes landed in R1 as Baeza relentlessly attacked Ponzinibbio’s calf. However, Ponzinibbio gritted through the calf kicks and began to turn it on late in R1 and extended his momentum into the later rounds as he forced Baeza to stand and trade with him in a fight that never stopped gaining momentum. It ended with Ponzinibbio ahead in significant strikes 121-104, while he failed to land the only two takedown attempts in the match. Baeza looked incredibly hittable in the match, and seemed a little baffled when Ponzinibbio was able to fight through the calf kicks.
Prior to that loss, Baeza had landed three straight second round finishes in his three UFC fights, with a pair of KOs followed by an Arm-Triangle Choke. He’s only been to three decisions in 11 pro fights, with seven KOs, one submission and two decision victories to go along with his lone decision loss. His finishes have been evenly split across the first two rounds, but three of his R1 victories notably came in his first three pro fights and four of his last five early wins occurred in R2.
Baeza cracked the UFC roster with a decision win on DWCS in 2019, and then made his UFC debut in 2019 against Hector Aldana, who came in 0-2 in the UFC and hasn’t fought since. Baeza outlanded Aldana 35-8 in strikes while tacking on both a knockdown and take down. Baeza attacked Aldana’s leg until he could no longer stand half way into R2, as Baeza knocked Aldana down with a final leg kick and abruptly finished him with ground and pound as Aldana immediately shelled up.
In his second UFC fight, Baeza took on a washed up 39-year-old Matt Brown in May 2020. Brown’s only three wins in his last eight fights came against equally suspect fighters in Diego Sanchez, Ben Saunders and Dhiego Lima. Baeza again attacked the calf early but Brown countered with some solid strikes that wobbled Baeza, who was able to recover and turn the tables on Brown. After both guys nearly finished the other in R1, Baeza knocked out Brown 18 seconds into R2. Baeza finished the fight ahead 37-33 in significant strikes and with a pair of knockdowns.
Baeza’s second most recent fight was against Takashi Sato, who came in 2-1 in the UFC but with those wins coming against a washed up Ben Saunders and a last minute replacement Jason Witt. Sato has notably been finished in all four of his career losses, including submission losses in three of his last six matches. Baeza clearly took note of that as he put his BJJ black belt to use as he landed the first submission of his career with a late second round Arm-Triangle Choke after beating Sato up for the first nine minutes. Baeza finished the fight ahead 40-15 in significant strikes while going one for two on takedowns.
Baeza loves to chop opponents down with a barrage of calf kicks early in fights and then finish them in R2. His strategy appeared to be going to plan in his last match but Ponzinibbio simply toughed it out and turned it into a firefight at close range.
Khaos Williams
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Khaos is coming off a pair of decisions (1-1) after finishing his first two UFC opponents in 30 seconds or less. We most recently saw him go the distance against a tough Matthew Semelsberger, with Khaos finishing ahead in significant strikes 91-64 and in total strikes 114-68, with neither fighter landing any knockdowns or takedowns. Semelsberger notably finished his prior opponent in just 16 seconds and his next opponent in just 15 seconds, just to give you an idea of how explosive he is. Khaos has still bever been finished in his career as he owns a 12-2 pro record with both of his losses coming in decisions. He has six career KOs, including five in R1, and one R1 submission, while his other five victories ended in decisions. All five of his R1 KOs have occurred in two minutes or less with his last three ending in the first 30 seconds. He’s now won 9 of his last 10 fights, with the only loss over that period coming in a low-volume decision against wildman Michel Pereira.
Pereira wanted no part of a striking battle with Khaos and Pereira’s constant feinting, movement and unorthodox fighting style made it tough for Khaos to land many clean shots, while Pereira was able to absorb the shots he did land. The most action we saw in the fight came at the end of the second round where Khaos was able to wobble Pereira with a combination of strikes and then Pereira was able to take Khaos’ back and get under his neck as the round ended. Pereira was then able to take Khaos down again later in the third round. Khaos did a great job of getting back up to his feet on the first takedown, while the second occurred with just 30 seconds remaining in the match and Pereira spent those final seconds in top position to secure the decision. Khaos actually came out ahead 55-44 in significant strikes and 62-56 in total strikes in the close decision, but Pereira landed both of his takedown attempts and had a submission attempt. The decision probably could have gone either way, but all three judges ruled it 29-28 in favor of Pereira.
Prior to the pair of decisions, Khaos first knocked out Alex Morono 27 seconds into his February 2020 UFC debut and then starched Abdul Razak Alhassan just 30 seconds into his second UFC fight. That remains the only time Alhassan has been finished in 15 pro fights, although Alhassan has notably lost three of his last four fights since returning from nearly a two year layoff.
Overall, Khaos is a patient one-dimensional power puncher who either knocks opponents out immediately or fights to decisions. He’s never landed a takedown in the UFC and has only even attempted one, which came in his UFC debut. On the other side of things, he has only been taken down by one of his opponents, although Pereira notably landed both of his attempts, while none of Khaos’ other three opponents actually attempted a takedown. So he’s also yet to successfully defend a takedown. Khaos really didn’t put up much resistance to being taken down by Pereira, but he did do a good job of getting up from the first takedown while Pereira closed out the third round with the second one.
Fight Prediction:
Baeza will have a 2” height advantage, but Williams will have a 3” reach advantage.
This should be a good fight and neither of these two have ever been finished in their careers. If we do get a finish here, it will likely come down to what gives out first, Baeza’s chin or Khaos’ calf. Baeza has looked vulnerable to absorbing head shots, which is a scary thought going against a power puncher like Khaos, while on the other side of things, Khaos looks rock solid up top, but has somewhat skinny calves that may not hold up well to the constant low kicks of Baeza. Seven of Khaos’ 12 career wins have come early, but the only one of those to occur after the first round came in his second pro fight in a R2 KO. In his last 12 fights he’s had very binary results with five first round finishes and seven decisions (5-2). Baeza has similarly seen polarized results in seven of his last eight fights with four second round wins and three decisions (2-1). The only overlap there is that when we don’t see a Khaos R1 win or a Baeza R2 finish, these two fighters generally end up going the distance. A BJJ black belt, Baeza should have the grappling advantage, which is likely why he’s a favorite here. Khaos notably failed to stop either of the two takedowns attempted against him so far in the UFC, while Baeza has landed two of his five attempts. So after losing a striking battle in his last fight, it would make sense for Baeza to look to grapple more here as that appears to be his path of least resistance to getting a win against the dangerous striker in Khaos. With that said, if Khaos can remain upright and keep his calf intact, he has a good chance to win a decision here assuming he doesn’t land another quick R1 KO. So while a Khaos R1 KO and Baeza R2 win are always in play when either of these two fight, we expect this one to end in another close decision and think Khaos has a good shot at outlanding his way to victory.
Our favorite bet here is “Khaos Wins by Decision” at +550.
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DFS Implications:
Baeza has been a consistent DFS producer with DraftKings scores of 94, 108 and 99 in his three UFC wins. Those all notably came in round two wins and he scored just 42 points in his recent decision loss, which still would have been good for just 72 points had the decision gone his way. Baeza is generally a fantasy field favorite and checked in with 40% DraftKings ownership on a 14 fight card in his last match and 53% ownership on a 10 fight card prior to that. So while this looks like a tougher matchup, we expect the field to remain very high on him. That makes him a less appealing play in tournaments in a matchup that feels like a coinflip and has a good chance of going the distance considering neither fighter has ever been finished. It’s highly unlikely that Baeza will return value in a decision win. The odds imply he has a 57% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish and a 15% chance it comes in R1.
Khaos looks like your prototypical R1 KO or bust play for DFS purposes as he lands about an average number of significant strikes and we’ve yet to see him notch a takedown in the UFC on just one attempt. With that said, he’s really good at knocking opponents out in the first round and 7 of his 12 career wins have come early, with six of those ending in R1, five ending in the opening two minutes and his last three finishes all occurring in 30 seconds or less. He’s notably never been finished in 14 pro fights, which also boosts his scoring floor, and now comes with a cheap underdog price tag. With that said, he’ll still have a tough time cracking the optimal lineup without a finish as he scored just 74 DraftKings points in his recent decision win. His last 12 fights have all either ended in first round wins or gone the distance. The odds imply Khaos has a 43% chance to win, a 31% chance to get a finish and a 15% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #3
Felicia Spencer
6th UFC Fight (2-3)Coming off a slow-paced disappointing split-decision loss to Norma Dumont, Spencer has now dropped three of her last four fights, but in fairness the first two of those losses came in decisions against Cris Cyborg and Amanda Nunes. While all three of her career losses ended in decisions, her last four wins have all come early, with her two UFC victories ending in R1. Looking at her entire career, she owns an 8-3 pro record with two KOs, four submissions and two decisions. All four of her submission wins have come by Rear-Naked Choke, with two in R1, one in R2 and one in R4. Both of her career KO wins have also occurred in R1 through “elbows and punches” as she does her best work finishing opponents on the mat either with ground and pound or choking them out if they give up their back.
In her recent fight against Dumont, Spencer curiously didn’t shoot for a single takedown, while Dumont landed one of her three attempts. Prior to that fight Spencer had struggled with her takedown accuracy (10%), but hadn’t been shy about shooting as she landed 2 of 19 attempts in her first four UFC fights. Those numbers are heavily skewed by 0 for 7 and 0 for 8 performances against Nunes and Cyborg respectively. In each of her two R1 UFC wins, Spencer landed one takedown on two attempts, so she has shown the ability to get fights to the mat against mere mortals.
A BJJ and Taekwondo black belt, Spencer is a well rounded fighter who started her pro career at 155 lb before dropping down to 145 lb for her second pro fight. So she has plenty of size for the division and has proven to be extremely durable.
Leah Letson
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)After withdrawing from two fights in 2019, Letson is looking to mount a comeback following a three year layoff while she dealt with medical issues including hyperthyroidism. Letson was able to resume training in March 2021 following the long layoff after originally winning a split-decision on the finale of The Ultimate Fighter Season 28 in her November 2018 UFC debut. That win came against Armbar specialist Julija Stoliarenko, who is now 0-3 in the UFC. Stoliarenko wrapped up a Guillotine Choke in R3 but Letson was able to survive it, which left her in top position where she wasn’t able to do anything and the ref eventually stood them up. Letson led in significant strikes 73-57 and in total strikes 88-66, while missing on her only takedown attempt, but also stuffing all four of Stoliarenko’s attempts. It should be noted that Stoliarenko has now only landed one takedown on eight attempts and owns just a 12.5% takedown accuracy.
Letson has a background in Taekwondo and doesn’t appear to offer much in terms of grappling. She’s 5-1 as a pro, with three wins by KO and two by decision. Her only official carrer loss came by split-decision in her 2014 pro debut, although she did get finished with a knee to the body in R1 of her second fight on TUF in 2018 by Macy Chiasson. In her first fight on TUF, Letson won a decision over Bea Malecki, who recently lost her UFC debut.
Letson notably only has two pro wins against opponents with winning records, as her first four opponents entered with records of 0-0, 0-0, 2-6 and 1-2. Following her extended layoff she apparently has completely changed everything and is now at a new camp with new coaches, so it’s hard to know what exactly to expect out of her after three years away.
Fight Prediction:
Letson will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
Considering Letson’s extended three year layoff, health issues, and new camp/coaches, it remains uncertain how exactly she’ll look coming into this fight. With that said, we’d be somewhat surprised if she looked dramatically better following her time away and expect her to look the same or worse than she did in the past. That’s not encouraging for her chances and we expect Spencer to leave it all out there this time as she has her back against the wall having lost three of her last four fights. If Spencer can get this fight to the ground, which is never a sure thing with her, we like her chances to notch another finish through either ground and pound or a Rear-Naked Choke. However, if it remains on the feet we could see a sloppy striking brawl between a pair of fighters with Taekwondo backgrounds. Either way, we like Spencer to come out victorious, but Letson has a far better shot if she can keep this one standing.
Our favorite bet here is “Spencer ITD” at +225 (DraftKings).
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DFS Implications:
Spencer should come in motivated to get the win after losing three of her last four fights and now going against a step down in competition. Her last four wins have all come early with both of her UFC wins ending on the mat in R1. Her opponent has a Taekwondo background and doesn’t appear to offer much in terms of grappling, so this looks like a good matchup for Spencer to once again dominate on the ground, assuming she can get it there. While she’s struggled to get top-level opponents down (0 for 15 against Nunes and Cyborg), she’s goes 2 for 4 on takedowns in her two UFC wins, which leaves us more optimistic than her 10% career takedown accuracy may indicate in terms of her ability to ground the opposition. This looks like a prime bounce back spot for Spencer and you should be able to get her at somewhat reduced ownership after losing her last two fights. The odds imply she has a 74% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1.
Letson wasn’t overly impressive during her run on The Ultimate Fighter in 2018, but she was aggressive at times, which should aid in this fight producing a decent scorer. Now three years removed from her last fight, coming off a health scare and working with a new camp and coaches, she’s shrouded in uncertainty as she makes her return to the Octagon. That inherently makes this a higher variance spot with a wider range of outcomes, although we’d be surprised if Letson exploded back onto the scene showing any major improvements, but you never know. This looks like a tough spot for Letson as she faces a UFC veteran who’s never been finished early, but Spencer has looked hittable in the past, so if Letson can keep this fight standing she has a slight chance to win a striking battle. The odds imply she has a 26% chance to win, an 11% chance to get a finish and a 5% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #2
Ben Rothwell
17th UFC Fight (9-7)Coming off a win over a short notice replacement fighter making his UFC debut in Chris Barnett, Rothwell has quietly now won three of his last four fights. He nearly submitted Barnett late in the first round with a Rear-Naked Choke after taking him down to the mat, but Barnett was narrowly able to escape to see a second round. However, Rothwell was able to hurt him badly on the feet and force a desperation takedown out of Barnett, at which point Rothwell immediately sprawled and wrapped up his neck with his patented Guillotine Choke to force a tap.
With that finish, seven of Rothwell’s last eight wins have come early, and over that same time frame five of his six losses have ended in decisions. The last time he was finished was by Guillotine Choke in the second round of a 2013 match, while his last three early wins have also all come in the second round, two of which also ended in Guillotine Chokes, while the third was a KO. Rothwell has a solid squeeze and three of his last four finishes have all come by Guillotine Choke, including his most recent.
In his second most recent fight, Rothwell lost a relatively high-volume decision loss to Marcin Tybura after winning his two previous fights. Rothwell turned pro over 20 years ago and has a ridiculous 52 fights on his record. Proving how durable he is, he’s only been knocked out four times in those 52 Heavyweight matches, and not a single time since 2009. While 35 of his 39 career wins have come early, he hasn’t been involved in a fight that ended in R1 since 2015. He has 28 wins by KO, seven by submission and four decisions. In his 13 losses, he’s been knocked out four times, submitted twice and lost seven decisions.
After a five-round decision loss to Junior dos Santos in early 2016, Rothwell took the rest of 2016, all of 2017 and all of 2018 off before returning in March of 2019. Upon his return, he lost a pair of decisions against two durable decision grinders in Blagoy Ivanov and Andrei Arlovski thus extending his losing streak to three. Desperate to win a fight and break his three fight skid, he finally notched a win with a second round KO over human lightning rod Stefan Struve after landing multiple low blows and having a point deducted. Rothwell then defeated Light Heavyweight OSP, who was moving up to Heavyweight for the first time, in a May 2020 decision before losing the decision to Tybura and finishing Barnett.
Now 40 years old, Rothwell is still just 3-4 in his last seven fights but seems determined to close out his career on a high note. He’s landed a takedown in each of his last two wins, which could be exactly what he needs to win this next one early.
Marcos Rogerio de Lima
13th UFC Fight (7-5)De Lima worked his way into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter Brazil in 2014, where despite getting submitted by Antonio Carlos Junior in his third fight on the show, he still got the chance to make his UFC debut just a couple of weeks later. He was competing as a somewhat undersized Heavyweight at the time, and tipped the scales at just 235 lb for his debut, which he won with a lightning fast 20 second R1 KO. He then dropped down to Light Heavyweight for his next six fights, where he went 3-3, before moving back up to Heavyweight in 2018. All six of his fights at Light Heavyweight ended early, including five in R1 and one in R2. All three of those losses ended in submissions, while two of the three wins came by KO.
After his first six UFC fights all ended in the first round, De Lima finally saw R2 for the first time when he was submitted by Ovince St. Preux in 2017 midway through the second round. After missing weight by 4 lb in back to back fights at Light Heavyweight, De Lima moved back up to Heavyweight following the submission loss to OSP. After fighting at 235 lb in his UFC debut, De Lima shot up to 253 lb in his 2018 return to the weight class. For the first time in his UFC career, De Lima made it past the second round and ended up winning a decision. Continuing to alternate between wins and submission losses, De Lima was then submitted two more times in his most recent four fights at Heavyweight, while also landing another knockout and winning a decision most recently.
We saw a lot more grappling out of De Lima in his recent decision win over Maurice Greene, where De Lima spent the entire fight in top position on the mat, with over 14 minutes of control time as he landed three of his four takedowns. Only 19 significant strikes were landed in the fight, with De Lima leading 14-5, but we saw him outland Greene on the mat 166-60 in total strikes. It was surprising that De Lima never really looked for the finish and simply hung out in top position, as Green had notably been finished in three of his previous four fights. Who knows, maybe De Lima bet his own decision line.
Amazingly, despite being a BJJ black belt, De Lima has now alternated wins and submission losses in 11 straight fights. All five of the submission losses over that time have come in the first two rounds, with three in R1 and two in R2. Two of his last three wins have come by decision, but his other five UFC victories have all come in the first round with four KOs and one submission. While he’s gone 3-3 at Light Heavyweight in the UFC, he’s 4-2 at Heavyweight. He’s been slowly bulking up since moving up to Heavyweight 253 lb > 255 lb > 257 lb > 258 lb > 264.5, but he’s now essentially reached the limit. Update: He dialed it back to 259 lb for this one.
De Lima’s UFC wins have come against a series of questionable opponents, five of whom didn’t fight again in the UFC with the other two combining to go 1-3 after losing to De Lima. Two of his last three wins have come in grappling heavy decisions, where he amassed over 22 minutes of combined control time, while landing six of nine takedowns. So for being known as an explosive power puncher, he’s been more content with riding out decisions from top position since moving back up to Heavyweight. Overall, his M.O. appears to be to look for knockouts early in fights before settling into riding out top position on the mat. However, when he gets reversed or taken down himself it almost always ends up with him getting submitted and he’s terrible off his back despite being a black belt.
Looking at his entire career, he owns an 18-7-1 record and has only been to five decisions in 26 pro fights. He has 13 wins by KO, two by submission and three decision victories. He’s only been knocked out once in his career, which was all the way back in 2012, but he’s been submitted five times and lost one decision. That 2012 KO loss was the last time he lost by any method other than submission. Sixteen of his fights have ended in R1 (13-3), five have ended in R2 (2-3) and the other five went the distance (3-1-1). He hasn’t landed a finish beyond the first round since 2010 and when his fights make it past the five minute mark he’s likely either going to get submitted in R2 or fight to a decision. He’s only been past the second round in 2 of his 12 UFC fights and both of those ended in decision wins.
Fight Prediction:
Rothwell will have a 3” height and reach advantage, but De Lima is four years younger than the 40-year-old Rothwell.
After watching De Lima get Maurice Greene down to the mat and rinse and repeat for 15 minutes in his last fight, it’s important to note that Rothwell has only been taken down once on nine attempts in his last 11 fights, which came late in his fight against Heavyweight grappler Marcin Tybura. And in terms of defending De Lima’s knockout power, the last person to knock Rothwell out was Cain Velasquez in the second round of a 2009 match—so he’s been very durable. So this sets up as a tough matchup for De Lima to win in either of his two preferred methods of knocking opponents out early or grinding our grappling heavy decision wins. On the other side of things, Rothwell has been sneaky with his submissions, and despite landing just one since 2016, he’s always a threat to choke out opponents. We could see him either defend a takedown with a Guillotine Choke or take De Lima down and hunt for his neck. We like his chances to land either of those and we’ll say Rothwell wins by submission in the first two rounds here.
Our favorite bet here is “Rothwell R2 Submission” at +1900.
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DFS Implications:
Rothwell is coming off yet another second round win, which is when he’s notched his last three finishes. Despite 7 of his last 8 wins coming early, he hasn’t been one to put up huge DFS numbers for the most part, but he has scored 105 or more DraftKings points in three of his last six victories. He’s also scored just 85 and 92 points in a pair of R1 and R2 submissions as he’ll use his Guillotine Choke to defend takedowns, which is highly effective but lacks the knockdown or takedown you would typically get with a finish. With that said, he’s landed one takedown in each of his last two wins and it would make sense for him to look to get this fight to the ground against the 43% takedown defense of De Lima who’s been submitted in all five of his UFC losses. The odds imply he has a 59% chance to win, a 32% chance to end it early and a 15% chance to finish it in R1.
De Lima has scored at least 95 DraftKings points in four of his last five wins and generally wins fights with either quick knockouts or smothering decisions. While this looks like a tough matchup to achieve either of those, his upside as a cheap underdog is undeniable. Considering his last two wins scored 106 and 108 DraftKings points and he’s priced at just $7,600, we expect De Lima to be a somewhat popular DFS play, which takes away from his tournament appeal to some extent and the line has moved against him. He’s only been to two decisions in his 12 UFC fights and has been submitted in all five of his UFC losses while landing first round finishes in five of his seven UFC wins, so we’re generally looking to target both sides of his fights. With that said, De Lima’s upside looks lower than normal here. The odds imply he has a 41% chance to win, a 26% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #1
Max Holloway
25th UFC Fight (18-6)This fight had originally been scheduled back in July, but Holloway was forced to withdraw citing an injury.
Coming off a spectacular five-round decision win over Calvin Kattar, Holloway shattered the UFC record for the most significant strikes landed in a fight at a ridiculous 445 (17.8 SSL/min), which blew away the previous high of 290, which was previously set by Holloway in a win over Brian Ortega. He landed more significant strikes in the fourth round alone (141) than Kattar landed in the entire match (133). While it looked like the fight was on the verge of being stopped from about the second round on, Kattar was able to do just enough to keep the ref from stopping it, but lost one of the more lopsided decisions in recent memory with the judges scorecards reading 43-50, 43-50 and 42-50 despite no knockdowns or takedowns being landed. Kattar came into that fight talking about how he was the better boxer and Holloway certainly appeared to take that personally as he looked to begin his journey back towards another title shot.
After turning pro at just 18 years old in 2010, Holloway won his first four professional fights before getting signed by the UFC in 2012. In his first UFC fight, the 20-year-old Holloway was matched up against then 23-year-old Dustin Poirier, who was 3-0 in the UFC at the time and 11-1 as a pro. Poirier submitted Holloway with a Triangle Armbar a few minutes into the first round, in what remains the only time Holloway has ever been finished early in his career.
Holloway bounced back from the loss with three straight wins before suffering back-to-back three-round decision losses in 2013 at the hands of Dennis Bermudez and Conor McGregor.
Following the pair of losses, Holloway rattled off 13 straight wins, including a 2016 KO win over Anthony Pettis for the vacant Featherweight Belt. Holloway went on to successfully defend the belt in his next three fights with two KO wins against Jose Aldo followed by KO victory over Brian Ortega.
Holloway landed an insane 290 significant strikes in 20 minutes of action against Ortega (14.5 SS/min), which remained a UFC record until Holloway recently broke it in his last fight. Following the win against Ortega, Holloway attempted to move up a weight class to go after the Interim Lightweight Belt. That marked Holloway’s first UFC fight at Lightweight in what would be a rematch against Dustin Poirier. Clearly the more powerful fighter, Poirier went on to beat Holloway in a decision, claiming the belt for himself.
Holloway then dropped back down to Featherweight where he defended his belt for the fourth and final time, in a 2019 decision win over Frankie Edgar.
Five months after the win, Holloway lost a decision to Alexander Volkanovski, who was able to consistently attack the legs of Holloway, leaving him in a compromised state. Holloway was granted a rematch this past July, where he lost a controversial split decision, in a fight he appeared to have won.
While 10 of Holloway’s 22 career wins have come by KO, his last five fights have all ended in five-round decisions. He tends to wear on his opponents and win the war of attrition, opposed to knocking opponents out with one-punch power. His last four KO wins all came in the third round or later and he only has two R1 wins in his UFC career.
His six career losses have come against Volkanovski (twice), Poirier (twice), Conor McGregor and Dennis Bermudez. Five of those ended in decisions and the only time he’s been finished was in his 5th pro fight/2nd UFC fight from a 2012 R1 Triangle Armbar against Dustin Poirier. Prior to his recent win over Kattar, Holloway had fought in eight straight title fights, yet he’s still just 29 years old.
Yair Rodriguez
11th UFC Fight (8-1, NC)This will be Rodriguez’s first action in 25 months since winning an October 2019 decision over Jeremy Stephens. He had been scheduled to face Zabit Magomedsharipov in August 2020, but ended up withdrawing after suffering an ankle fracture. Then he was forced to wait an additional four months when Holloway withdrew from their July 2021 matchup.
Rodriguez’s last win over Stephens was actually the second time those two had been matched up after their original booking a month earlier, in September 2019, was stopped just 15 seconds in due to an accidental eye poke and ruled a No Contest. The first time they were paired up it was a five-round main event in Mexico City, but the rematch was scheduled to go just three rounds as the co-main event a month later. Rodriguez was able to crumple Stevens to the mat with a body kick early in R2, but was unable to finish the fight with ground and pound and a failed Darce attempt, as Stephens was eventually able to recover. Stephens consistently looked to close the distance in the fight, while Rodriguez unsurprisingly wanted to keep the fight at kicking range. The fight ended with Rodriguez ahead in significant strikes 96-50 and in total strikes 136-99, but he failed on all three of his takedown attempts while Stephens landed 3 of his 4 attempts with five and half minutes of control time.
A black belt in Taekwondo, Rodriguez likes to throw a ton of kicks and spinning attacks and is also dangerous with his elbows. He turned pro just over 10 years ago and currently owns a 13-2 career record, with four wins by KO, three by submission and six decisions. Both of his losses have come by KO, with the first occurring in R1 of his fourth pro fight back in 2012 and the more recent coming in post R2 2017 Doctor Stoppage against Frankie Edgar. His only UFC fight to end in the first round was the No Contest against Stephens due to an eye poke, so all nine of his fights to reach a conclusion have made it out of the first round. Three of his UFC fights have ended in R2 KO/TKOs (2-1), while six have made it to round three, with five of those ending in decisions and the other in a last second R5 KO win.
When Rodriguez steps inside the Octagon Saturday, it will have been 757 days since he last fought. That level of inactivity is generally a big red flag, but we have seen Rodriguez take extended absences in the past and return to win fights, as he took 14 months off following a February 2013 match and returned to land a R1 Armbar win and then took 18 months off following a May 2017 R2 TKO against Frankie Edgar and returned in late 2018 to land a last second R5 KO against The Korean Zombie. With that said, this will be the longest layoff he’s ever had between fights and it’s certainly still of some concern.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’11” and still just 29 years old somehow, but Rodriguez will have a 2” reach advantage.
With the recent brawling boxing match between Holloway and Kattar fresh on everyone’s mind, most people will likely be expecting Holloway to land another astronomical number of significant strikes. However, it’s important to keep in mind that Kattar is a boxer who came into that match averaging 5.66 SSA/min, while Rodriguez is a Taekwondo black belt who averages just 3.13 SSA/min. We expect him to try and keep this fight at kicking range and avoid boxing exchanges with Holloway as much as possible. That should slow down the striking output of Holloway, which in turn will lower the chances that Holloway accumulates enough damage to get a finish. We like Holloway to outland his way to a decision win here in a far more modest striking output compared to the last time we saw him.
Our favorite bet here is “Holloway R4, R5 or by Decision” at -135 (FanDuel).
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DFS Implications:
Max Holloway is coming off a five-round decision victory where he landed 53% more significant strikes (445) than the previous record high number of significant strikes ever landed in a UFC fight (290). That previous record was also set by...Max Holloway. That performance came in a must-win spot, following a pair of close title-fight decision losses to Alexander Volkanovski. While Holloway continues to outdo himself in record setting striking performances, we can fully expect the DFS field to chase those numbers like they just got their hands on Biff’s Sports Almanac. That will drive Holloway’s ownership up through the roof on a smaller slate lacking exciting options at the top. This gives us an incredible leverage opportunity, and while Holloway scored a face-melting 209 DraftKings points in his last fight, he only scored 82 points in his second most recent five round decision win and just 43 and 54 points in his two five round decision losses to Volkanovski. So even if he had won those, he still would have scored just 73 and 84 points respectively. And while Calvin Kattar entered Holloway’s last fight as a boxer who averaged 5.66 SSA/min, Rodriguez is a Taekwondo black belt who relies more on kicking from distance and averages just 3.13 SSA/min. Rodriguez has also never been knocked down and has only been finished once in nine UFC fights, which resulted from a doctor stoppage, further adding to the chances of a lower scoring decision win for Holloway. While Holloway clearly has a solid ceiling anytime he steps inside the Octagon, his floor in a win is lower than most people are accounting for, which combined with his ownership and matchup makes for the perfect time to be under the field on him in tournaments. He’s still a solid low-risk play as a ridiculous -800 favorite, but fading him in tournaments looks like the best way to leapfrog over two-thirds of the field on this smaller slate. The odds imply he has an 85% chance to win, a 35% chance to get a finish and an 11% chance it comes in R1.
Rodriguez checks in as the largest dog on the slate by a wide margin following a 25 month layoff and by all accounts appears to be walking directly into a well-oiled wood chipper. While he has notable wins over The Korean Zombie, Andre Fili and Dan Hooker on his record, this is clearly his toughest test to date and his chances of pulling off the upset are incredibly slim. Holloway has never been knocked out or even knocked down and the only time he’s ever been finished was in a 2012 Triangle Armbar against Dustin Poirier. Rodriguez hasn’t submitted anybody since 2014 and he’ll likely need to be the first person to ever KO Holloway to win this fight as it’s tougher to see him outlanding his way to a decision. He’ll likely look to slow the pace down by keeping his distance and attacking Holloway with kicks, as he knows he can’t defeat Holloway in a boxing match. That’s more of a concern for Holloway’s chances of returning value than Rodriguez’s, as at his dirt cheap price tag, a win of any kind would likely be enough for Rodriguez to be useful in DFS. Nevertheless, we prefer fading this fight than playing Rodriguez and praying for the upset. With that said, the odds imply Rodriguez has a 15% chance to win, an 11% chance to get a finish and a 5% chance it comes in R1.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter @dfs_mma with your winnings so we can see how you did!
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