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Fighter Notes:
Fight #12
Lara Procopio
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Bouncing back from a loss in her 2019 UFC debut, Procopio defeated boxer Molly McCann in a smothering grappling-heavy decision this past February. McCann actually snuck out the significant striking lead 37-36, but Procopio led in total strikes 85-71 and more importantly in takedowns and control time, as she landed 7 of 9 takedowns and amassed nearly 12 minutes of control time. McCann didn’t attempt any takedowns of her own and notched just 50 seconds of control time. Both fighters finished with one official submission attempt, with Procopio finishing out the first round looking for a Rear-Naked Choke and McCann coming close to landing an Armbar in the second round.
That was Procopio’s fourth straight fight to go the distance after three of her first four pro matches ended early—all in the first round. Obviously we have to point out that all of her finishes came against very inexperienced opponents, two of whom had never fought professionally before and another that entered with a 3-2-1 record. Two of those early wins were by Armbar and the other was a TKO.
In her August 2019 UFC debut, Procopio lost a high-volume split-decision in a striking battle against a really tough Karol Rosa. Procopio failed to land any of her five takedown attempts, while Rosa smartly didn’t attempt any. The two fighters both landed an insane number of significant strikes, with Rosa narrowly coming out ahead 171-165 on her way to winning a three round decision. Rosa notably has a 90% takedown defense, so Procopio’s takedown struggles in that match are somewhat understandable.
Following her debut, Procopio was handed a six-month suspension for violating the anti-doping policy, which contributed to her 18 month layoff before her second UFC fight. She also had been scheduled to face Cortney Casey in May 2020, but the event was cancelled due to COVID. Now fighting for the second time in 2021, Procopio appears to be getting her schedule back on track.
A BJJ black belt, Procopio owns a 7-1 pro record, with just the one decision loss. She’s still only 25 years old and very early in her career, but we’ve now seen her compete in both a striking battle and a grappling match, and she’s shown she can be competitive in either. However, she’s definitely the most comfortable on the mat.
Neither of Procopio’s first two UFC opponents finished with any takedown attempts, so her takedown defense remains somewhat of a mystery, but the fact that she’s a BJJ black belt bodes well for her in terms of grappling, but it will surely be tested by O’Neill.
Casey O'Neill
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Coming off a dominating ground and pound performance against Shana Dobson, O'Neill didn’t waste any time attempting to get that fight to the mat early and often as she shot for her first takedown just eight seconds in. However, Dobson was able to successfully defend a takedown attempt for the first time in what was her sixth UFC fight. Although the victory lap would have to be a quick one, as O'Neill was able to get Dobson down on her second attempt, just under a minute into the round. However, O'Neill was unable to really control Dobson on the ground at that point and 15 seconds later it was back up on the feet. Dobson was able to land some heavy shots over the next 60 seconds before O'Neill took her down again just before the midway mark in the round. O'Neill was finally able to control Dobson at that point, but showed some inexperience in how she looked to advance her position, while maintaining control. That allowed Dobson to get back to her feet, but only for a short amount of time before O'Neill returned her to the mat for the third time in the first round. O'Neill attempted a Heel Hook Submission to finish the round but ran out of time.
It was basically rinse and repeat in round two as O’Neill returned Dobson to the mat 20 seconds in and quickly took her back. Shortly thereafter she ended up in full mount as Dobson was looking to scramble away and the rest of the fight was spent with O'Neill raining down ground and pound until the ref eventually stopped the fight with 79 seconds remaining in the round. O'Neill finished the fight ahead 49-16 in significant strikes and 132-27 in total strikes. She went 4 for 6 on her takedown attempts, which hilariously improved Dobson’s career takedown defense from 0% to 14% after she had been taken down on all eight of her previous opponents’ attempts over her first five UFC fights. O’Neill also accrued almost seven and half minutes of control time in a fight that lasted just over eight and a half minutes. O’Neill couldn’t have asked for a better matchup in her UFC debut. She has shown that she generally wants to get fights to the mat as quickly as possible and the UFC gave her an opponent with no ground game, who came in with a 0% takedown defense.
O’Neill’s biggest weakness at this stage in her career appears to be her striking defense. She lacks head movement and also does a poor job of using her hands to protect her face. When you combine that with her aggressive fighting style where she’s generally looking to push forward, it results in her absorbing a decent amount of clean head shots that will eventually catch up with her if she doesn’t make some changes.
O'Neill started her pro career at 115 lb, but moved up to 125 lb in 2020 for her fourth pro fight, where she’s since gone 3-0, after also going 3-0 at 115 lb. With just six pro fights under her belt and still only 23 years old, O'Neill relies heavily on her aggression and athleticism at this stage in her career. She still needs to clean up both her striking and her ground game if she wants to make a run in the Flyweight division, but she has all the physical tools she needs to succeed. She trained at Tiger Muay Thai for a period of time, but moved to Vegas in 2020 when Thailand was essentially shut down for COVID. So she clearly was working on improving her striking.
O'Neill father is a former fighter and the owner of Eternal MMA, which is the Australian promotion O'Neill fought her first four fights under and became the Strawweight Champion of. O'Neill sits on a perfect, albeit limited, 6-0 record with two KO wins, one submission win and three decision wins. We’ve yet to see O’Neill really be challenged on the mat, so going up against a BJJ black belt should easily be her toughest test to date.
Fight Prediction:
O'Neill will have a 2” height advantage, but Procopio will have a 2” reach advantage.
Procopio is the more technical grappler in this match, while O'Neill relies more on strength and aggression to overwhelm her opponents. While O’Neill’s first UFC opponent, Shana Dobson, was a pure brawler with absolutely no ground game, Procopio will prove to be a completely different challenge as she’s a BJJ black belt. O'Neill loves to shoot for early takedowns, which is generally a good strategy when you can dominate opponents on the mat like she has shown she can, but that does mean she’s also a bit predictable. We assume Procopio will be expecting an early takedown, and she has the potential to use that in her favor as she has a pair of first round Armbar Submissions on her record. So one possible outcome is that Procopio lands a first round submission as O’Neill looks for an early takedown. It’s also possible Procopio defends the early takedown and looks to take advantage of O’Neill’s questionable striking defense or looks for a takedown of her own. While O’Neill has been very impressive in top position on the ground, we haven’t seen how she’ll fare on her back at the UFC level and there may be openings for Procopio to look for submissions or at least control her for periods of time. We don’t really see enough power in Procopio’s striking to land a knockout, so if she does get a finish it would likely be by submission, but a decision win is still the most likely way she wins this fight. While it’s possible O’Neill can simply continue to overpower opponents, even when she’s at a disadvantage from a technical standpoint, we expect Procopio to surprise a lot of people and defeat O’Neill—most likely in a decision, but potentially via an early submission.
We wish Procopio’s decision line was wider, but at +100 it’s not very exciting. The same goes for her -175 moneyline which continues to be bet higher. So instead of going with what we consider to be the safest bets, we’ll look to take a few stabs on some longer shots—shocking we know. Our favorite two lines are “Procopio Wins by Submission” at +1200 and “Procopio Wins by R1 Submission” at +2600. On O’Neill’s side of things, we like her R2 KO line at +2000, her ITD line at +430 and her overall KO line at +600. Her +140 moneyline is also interesting, but if this fight goes the distance we think Procopio ends up winning a decision, so it makes more sense betting O’Neill’s ITD line at far wider odds.
DFS Implications:
If Procopio had won the high-volume split-decision in her UFC debut, she would have scored 97 DraftKings points and 119 points on FanDuel, and she still impressively scored 99 FanDuel points in the loss. We then saw a very different fight in her most recent match where she landed close to 12 minutes of control time in a decision win, and scored 110 DraftKings points and 89 points on FanDuel. So unsurprisingly she has scored better in striking battles on FanDuel and better in grappling matches on DraftKings, but most importantly she has proven she can score well even in a decision. Procopio has never been finished in her short eight fight career, and held her own against two experienced strikers in Karol Rosa and Molly McCann in her first two UFC fights, so we have no reason to think she’ll be overwhelmed on her feet in this matchup. While Procopio isn’t the type of fighter that will blow anyone away, she quietly has a well rounded game and has shown she can exert heavy controlling top pressure on the mat. Procopio turned pro four years before O’Neill and will have the experience advantage. While Procopio’s recent win will likely keep her from going low-owned, this looks like a good leverage spot in tournaments as O’Neill projects to be one of the highest owned fighters on the slate. The odds imply Procopio has a 61% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.
As many of our long time readers can attest, we absolutely loved O’Neill coming into her debut. It was a dream matchup and a perfect spot for DFS and betting. Dobson was coming off one of the biggest upsets in UFC history and O’Neill was flying completely under the radar and ended up being just 17% owned on DraftKings. Stylistically she couldn’t have asked for anything more as she went up against the 0% takedown defense of a one-dimensional striker in Shana Dobson. However, now O’Neill steps into a much tougher matchup and will be incredibly popular in DFS following her slate-breaking performance in her last fight, where she dropped an absurd 140 DraftKings points and 133 points on FanDuel. Now priced at just $7,700 and leading the DK slate in fantasy points per fight (FPPF), look for O’Neill to be one of the most popular fighters on the slate in what has all the makings of a trap spot. So there’s a ton of leverage to be gained from fading her in tournaments. O’Neill has been able to mask her deficiencies so far in her career, but that’s been due to the fact that she’s been able to absolutely dominate fights on the ground. She now goes against a BJJ black belt who just got done putting on a smothering grappling performance of her own and we don’t see O’Neill cruising to another dominant ground performance. However, if O’Neill does win this fight, she will likely score well again. So this isn’t a spot we’re looking to completely fade her, just to be under the field. The odds imply she has a 39% chance to win, a 19% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in the first round.
One final note on this fight: While there’s a pretty good chance the winner scores well, there’s also definitely the possibility that neither fighter really dominates the other and we see extended periods of time spent in the clinch along the fence. We don’t see either fighter putting up a big score if this turns into a close back and forth clinch battle.
Fight #11
Joaquim Silva
7th UFC Fight (4-2)Returning from a 22 month layoff, Silva has only fought once since December 2018 and was knocked out in the second round by Nasrat Haqparast in that August 2019 match. His only win in the last four years was a third round knockout of Jared Gordon in 2018, and he’s lost two of his last three fights.
A former member of the Brazilian Air Force, Silva started his career at 170 lb before dropping down to 155 lb when he went on The Ultimate Fighter in 2015. He impressively started his pro career off with seven straight R1 wins and 10 straight total wins. However, since joining the UFC five of his six fights have made it out of the first round, with four seeing the third and three going the distance. His last two fights have both ended with knockouts (1-1), with the only early loss of his career coming in his most recent match. Silva is now 11-2 as a pro with six KO victories, three wins by submission and two decisions.
Despite being a BJJ black belt, Silva has only shot for two takedowns in his six UFC fights, and has landed just one. He’s also failed to land more than 49 significant strikes in five of his six UFC matches with the one exception coming when he landed 95 on Jared Gordon in his most recent win.
Ricky Glenn
7th UFC Fight (3-3)Coming off an even lengthier 31 month layoff, Rick Glenn’s last fight was a decision loss to Kevin Aguilar back in November 2018. Glenn is now moving up a weight class to 155 lb for the first time since his 2016 UFC debut, which he lost in a decision. Glenn is also switching camps from Team Alpha Male to Absolute MMA and Fitness and coming off hip surgery. He moved from California back to Iowa, where he’s originally from, and took a full year to recover from the surgery before he could resume training. Glenn said he had previously been trying to fight through the injury, but realized he needed to get it taken care of.
While his last seven fights all ended in decisions, 17 of his first 21 pro fights ended early. He has 11 wins by KO and four by submission. He’s never been knocked out and both of his early losses have come by submission, including a 2009 R1 Armbar and a 2014 R3 Rear-Naked Choke.
Nothing about Glenn really stands out on tape. He seems to have poor grappling and limited power, along with an awkward fighting style. His one notable career win came in a lopsided beatdown of Gavin Tucker, in Tucker’s second UFC fight. Landing an eye-popping 142 significant strikes in that fight—largely aided by the ref’s interest in seeing Tucker get beaten to death inside the Octagon—Glenn surpassed his combined striking total of his next three fights (14, 48, 74) in that one match. Tucker looked to gas himself out early, allowing Glenn to rain down strikes for extended periods of time with very little resistance.
Glenn had been scheduled to fight Carlton Minus back in December, but tested positive for COVID and was forced to sit on the sidelines for another six months.
Fight Prediction:
Glenn will have a 4” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
Both of these 32-year-old fighters are looking to mount comebacks following extended layoff and they’ve both lost two of their last three fights. Further adding to the uncertainty in this matchup, Glenn is moving up to 155 lb after fighting his entire career other than his 2016 UFC debut at 145 lb. It’s hard to say what we’ll get here, but Glenn has notably never been knocked out and has fought to seven straight decisions dating back to before he joined the UFC. He has been submitted twice in his career, but not since 2014. Silva has three submission wins on his record, but similarly hasn’t submitted anyone since 2014. It’s possible one or both of these two are completely washed and come out looking absolutely terrible, which could aid in the fight ending early, but it’s more likely this one ends in a close decision that could go either way.
We’re not looking for much action here, but the one line we’re considering is the “Fight Goes the Distance” at -168.
DFS Implications:
Silva has scored just 55 and 50 DraftKings points in his two UFC decision wins and looks entirely reliant on a finish to score well. Working against him, Glenn has fought to seven straight decisions and has never been knocked out. The two things working in Silva’s favor are that Glenn is moving up a weight class to 155 lb and has been out of action even longer than Silva has. Glenn does average four missed takedowns per 15 minutes, so Silva is slightly more appealing on FanDuel, but he’ll still need a finish to score well. The odds imply Silva has a 55% chance to win, a 22% chance to get a finish and an 11% chance it comes in the first round.
All six of Glenn’s UFC fights have ended in decisions and he’s failed to score above 61 DraftKings points in five of those. Glenn does have one huge score in a decision win, but that is clearly an extreme outlier and he’s failed to land a takedown, a knockdown or above 74 significant strikes in his other five UFC fights. There doesn’t appear to be much reason to think the winner of this fight will score well, but with both fighters coming off extended layoffs, there’s more uncertainty than normal and one guy could come out looking completely terrible, which could mean we end up seeing a lopsided performance. Outside of that scenario, we expect a lower scoring decision. The odds imply Glenn has a 45% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #10
Josh Parisian
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Coming off a high-volume brawling decision loss in his UFC debut, Parisian’s previous 10 fights had all ended in the first two rounds. It had been nearly four years since he had been in a fight that lasted longer than 10 minutes and he looked visibly exhausted in the second half of that fight. The only other two times in his 17-fight pro career that he had seen the third round were a 2015 decision loss in his second pro match and a 2017 decision win in his sixth pro fight. His other 14 fights have all ended in the first two rounds with him winning 12 of those. He’s been finished twice, initially in a 2017 R2 KO and then most recently from a 2019 R1 Kimura Submission. The loss in his UFC debut snapped a six fight winning streak that included five first round KOs and one second round knockout. He does have two submission wins on his record, both in the second round, but those came in his third and fourth pro fights back in 2015 and 2016. His last nine early wins have all come by KO.
In his November 2020 UFC debut, Parisian took on a shorter 6’0” tall Parker Porter, who was coming off a R1 KO loss to Chris Daukaus in his own UFC debut. Porter looked motivated to notch his first UFC win against Parisian and consistently put the pressure on. We saw a crazy amount of striking volume being thrown, especially for a Heavyweight bout, with over 450 combined significant strikes thrown in the match. Porter outlanded Parisian 126-114 in significant strikes and 164-123 in total strikes. Porter also landed 2 of his 4 takedown attempts and finished with almost four and a half minutes of control time.
While Parisian’s previous August 2020 fight on DWCS ended late in the first round with a ground and pound KO, he was on pace to land 117 significant strikes and absorb 89. That early finish was his second first round KO on the show after he initially landed a Spinning Backfist R1 KO back in 2018. While the 2018 finish didn’t get him a contract, the 2020 encore did. After he didn’t get a contract the first time he went on DWCS, Parisian took a shot with The Ultimate Fighter. However, he didn’t last long as he was knocked out in the second round of what counted as an exhibition match so it doesn’t show up on his pro record. He was then forced to return to the regional scene where he was then submitted in the first round of his next fight and at that point he appeared to be in somewhat of a downward spiral after not getting a contract from his DWCS R1 win. However, he seemed to shake it off and knocked out his next six opponents before triumphantly returning to DWCS and finally getting the contract he was looking for.
Parisian notably had massive 50 lb and 46 lb size advantages in his two most recent wins, something that you won’t see at the UFC level. He throws more kicks and spinning strikes than your typical Heavyweight and claims to have the speed of a Middleweight (don’t they all). Parisian will now get another easier matchup to try and prove he belongs in the UFC.
Roque Martinez
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Martinez made his September 2020 UFC debut in an execution match against Alexander Romanov and was finished for just the second time in the last decade when Romanov landed a second round Arm-Triangle Choke Submission. The only other time Martinez has been finished since 2011 was in a 2018 R1 TKO from a doctor stoppage with two seconds remaining in the round. Martinez’s durability and lack of explosiveness has led to more decisions than your typical Heavyweight as 9 of his 24 pro fights have gone the distance. With that said, 7 of his last 9 fights have ended early. Also notable, his last five wins have all come early, while two of his last three losses went the distance.
All 11 of his career finishes have come in the first two rounds, with eight KOs and three submissions. He’s only been finished four times in his 24-fight pro career, twice by KO and twice by submission, with a 2010 R2 Achilles Lock Submission, a 2011 R4 KO, a 2018 R1 TKO and the 2020 R2 Arm-Triangle Submission in his UFC debut.
Martinez relies on his Homer Simpson-like durability to remain competitive in fights and hasn’t looked very dangerous in terms of his offense. He looks more vulnerable on the ground and the best way to finish him is by taking him down and looking for ground and pound and submissions.
Fight Prediction:
Parisian will have a massive 6” height advantage and 7” reach advantage.
This is a low-level matchup between two sloppy, unimpressive Heavyweights. Parisian would be wise to try and get this fight to the ground and rain down ground and pound or look for a submission, but he notably didn’t attempt any takedowns in either of his DWCS fights or in his recent UFC debut. He’ll have a tougher time finishing Martinez on the feet, but it’s certainly still possible. We expect Martinez will have a tough time overcoming his massive height and reach disadvantages, so it’s possible he’ll get caught with a spinning attack as he looks to close the distance. Neither one of these two fighters have ever landed a finish beyond the second round, and there’s a good chance this ends in the first 10 minutes. With that said, Martinez is so durable he could easily drag this out to a decision. With that said, we expect Parisian to notch his first UFC win, most likely with a finish in the first two rounds, but otherwise in a decision. The only way we see Martinez winning this fight is if Parisian runs out of gas before making it to the finish line, which is definitely possible.
Our favorite bet here is Parisian’s moneyline at -134, but we also like his R1 and R2 Win lines at +550 and +750 respectively. If you think Martinez has a chance to land a finish you can instead go with “Fight Ends in R1” at +250 or “Fight Ends in R2” at +370. You can also consider Parisian’s decision line at +310.
DFS Implications:
Parisian’s recent high-volume UFC debut clearly inflates his striking numbers, but he averages the second most significant strikes landed on the slate at 7.46/minutes and absorbs the most at 7.51/minute. When you combine that with the fact that Martinez averages the fifth most significant strikes absorbed at 4.68/minute, there’s certainly the potential for Parisian to land a ton of volume here. If Parisian does opt to look for takedowns, he won’t face much resistance against the 16% takedown defense of Martinez, who’s been grounded five times on six attempts from his last two opponents. This looks like a good buy-low spot on Parisian in a favorable matchup. The odds imply he has a 56% chance to win, a 32% chance to get a finish and a 15% chance it comes in the first round.
Martinez has yet to give us any indication he can score well in DFS since joining the UFC, and his recent decision loss still would have scored just 71 DraftKings points and 64 FanDuel points had he gotten the nod. While he does have a history of landing finishes with his last five wins all coming early, he hasn’t looked very dangerous at the UFC level and recently lost a decision to another terrible Heavyweight in Don'Tale Mayes. Working in Martinez's favor, Parisian’s last opponent scored 106 DraftKings points and 113 FanDuel points in a decision win, so if Martinez comes out guns blazing he could surprise us. Given his massive 6” height and 7” reach disadvantages that appears an unlikely scenario, but these low-level fights often have a wider range of outcomes so who knows for sure. The odds imply he has a curiously high 44% chance to win, a 26% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #9
Khaos Williams
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Coming off a low-volume decision loss to Michel Pereira, Khaos is looking to bounce back from the first defeat in his last nine fights dating back to 2018. After Khaos landed back-to-back R1 KOs in 30 seconds or less in his first two UFC matches, Pereira wanted no part of a striking battle with him. Pereira’s constant feinting, movement and unorthodox fighting style made it tough for Khaos to land many clean shots and 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 the back and get under the neck of Khaos as the round ended. Pereira was then able to take Khaos down twice 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. That was just the second loss of Khaos’ career, with both of those ending in decisions. For what it’s worth, the last time he lost, he bounced back with an 82 second R1 KO.
Prior to suffering his first career loss, 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 14 pro fights, although Alhassan is notably on a three fight losing streak since returning from nearly a two year layoff.
Five of Khaos’ six career KOs have come in the first round and all of those have occurred in two minutes or less with his last three ending in the first 30 seconds. His lone career submission win also came in the first round, meaning six of his 13 career fights haven’t seen the second round. However, of his seven fights that did make it to round two, six of those went the distance (4-2), so he has had very polarized results. His only finish beyond the first round was a 2017 R2 KO in his second pro fight. So in general, expect either a R1 KO win or for the fight to end in a decision anytime Khaos enters the Octagon.
Matt Semelsberger
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Dropping out of college a semester away from graduating at the end of 2015, former FCS/D1-AA strong safety Matthew Semelsberger chose to pursue MMA instead of finishing school. A year and a half later he went pro in early 2017 and started off his career with back-to-back finishes. Fast forward to 2021 and he's 8-2 as a pro with 8 of his 10 fights ending early.
Looking to keep his momentum going after first beating a terrible Carlton Minus in a high-volume decision in UFC debut last August and then knocking out Jason Witt in just 16 seconds, Semelsberger comes in on a five fight winning streak. Semelsberger notably trains out of a small gym with no other UFC fighters and very limited professional sparring partners.
Six of Semelsberger’s eight pro wins have come early, with five KOs and one submission. His last three finishes have all been by KO in the first two rounds. Both of his pro losses have also come early, with a 2017 R3 Brabo Choke Submission in his third pro fight and then a 2018 R3 KO in his 5th pro match.
Semelsberger started off as a 205 lb amateur before dropping down to 185 lb when he went pro. He then dropped down to 170 lb in 2018, where he’s stayed since. Semelsberger has solid striking and the drive to push the pace in fights, but this will be the first time he’s really faced a truly dangerous striker in his career, so it will be interesting to see how aggressive he remains coming into this fight.
Fight Prediction:
Semelsberger will have a 1” height advantage, but Khaos will have a 2” reach advantage.
This is an exciting matchup between two dangerous strikers. We haven’t really seen Khaos’ chin be tested, so it’s hard to know what to expect out of it, but he’s notably never been finished in his career. Semelsberger’s first two opponents presented no danger on the feet, which allowed him to be as aggressive as he wanted in both of those fights and really open up his striking. Now that he’s going against a killer like Khaos, we’d be surprised if Semelsberger didn’t approach this one somewhat more cautiously. He’s not a great grappler, but it would make some sense to try and get this fight to the mat to neutralize Khaos’ insane striking power. Semelsberger has landed both of the takedowns he’s attempted so far in the UFC and Khaos has been taken down on both of the two attempts from his opponents as well, so that does appear to make sense as a way to attack him. If this fight remains on the feet, these two will essentially be playing Russian Roulette with their chins and we don’t see them both surviving. We like Khaos to land another R1 KO here, but Semelsberger has done nothing but impress us since joining the UFC and could certainly pull off the upset if he plays it smart.
Our favorite bet here is “Khaos R1 Win” at +300. We also like his moneyline at -145.
DFS Implications:
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 attempt a takedown in the UFC. With that said, he is really good at knocking opponents out in the first round. Seven of his 11 career wins have come early and all but one of those have occurred in the first round. We haven’t seen him absorb much damage so it’s hard to access his chin, but he’s never been finished in 13 pro matches, and both of his losses ended in decisions. Khaos’ last matchup was a tough one to land a finish against the psychotic movements of Michel Pereira, but now he gets a more traditional striker in Semelsberger, who looks to be a more willing participant to take part in brawls. That should provide ample opportunity for an early finish unless Semelsberger throws us a curveball here, which is always possible. The odds imply Khaos has a 57% chance to win, a 43% chance to get a finish and a 19% chance it comes in the first round. Considering over half of his career wins have come in R1, those first round odds seem a little low.
Semelsberger has put up back-to-back big DFS scores in his first two UFC fights, but now gets a much tougher matchup after he faced a non-UFC level talent in Carlton Minus in his UFC debut followed by a one-dimensional grappler in Jason Witt. With that said, Semelsberger did his job and dominated both fights so that’s about all you can ask for. He filled up the stat sheet against Minus, finishing with 118 significant strikes, one knockdown, two takedowns and close to three minutes of control time, which was good for 103 DraftKings points and 123 points on FanDuel in the decision win. He followed that up with a don’t blink 16 second KO of Jason Witt that scored 126 DraftKings points and 114 points on FanDuel. Semelsberger leads the slate in significant strikes landed with an average of 7.93/minute, but it’s hard to rack up volume against an opponent as dangerous as Khaos. So it will be interesting to see what Semelsberger’s approach is here, as he could potentially look to simply survive the first round or to grapple more. It seems less likely he’ll just charge into a firefight, but who knows. Pereira seemingly laid out the blueprints for defeating Khaos, which is constant movement, extreme patience and late grappling. It would be somewhat surprising if Semelsberger completely took that approach, but it’s certainly not that unlikely after seeing what Khaos did to his previous two opponents. If he does end up emulating Pereira’s gameplan, it will spell disaster for DFS, as Pereira scored just 87 DraftKings points and only 64 points on FanDuel. For Semelsberger to score well in this fight he’ll either need an early finish or another high-volume decision where he mixes in some grappling. Both of those scenarios seem unlikely considering Khaos has never been finished and absorbs the 8th fewest number of significant strikes on the slate. On top of that, Semelsberger should be a popular play following his recent two big performances, so being under the field in DFS looks like the play here. The odds imply Semelsberger has a 43 % chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #8
Virna Jandiroba
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Looking to bounce back from a decision loss against Mackenzie Dern, Jandiroba has just two losses in 17 pro fights, but both of those have come in her last four matches since she joined the UFC. Her first career loss came in a grappling-heavy decision in her UFC debut against Carla Esparza, who outlanded Jandiroba in significant strikes 25-17 and in total strikes 97-64, while landing 4 of 10 takedown attempts to Jandiroba’s 3 on 9 attempts. Esparza also led in control time 5:27-3:48 on her way to a unanimous decision win.
Jandiroba bounced back from her first career loss with a R2 Rear-Naked Choke Submission win over Mallory Martin in 2019. Martin has notably been submitted in 2 of her last 3 fights now for what it’s worth. Jandiroba followed that up with a R1 Armbar submission victory against Felice Herrig last August, although Herrig was somewhat of a mess as she was coming off knee injury and a two year layoff, had to switch gyms, was missing her new coach at the fight, and entered on a two fight losing streak at 35 years old. With that in mind, Jandiroba’s last three wins have all ended in submissions, including two in R2 and one in R1.
In her recent decision loss to Dern, Jandiroba looked to test her striking more, which did look very much improved, but the bar had been set low. Jandiroba has little power in her jab and relies on big looping shots to try and do real damage. Jandiroba curiously only shot for one takedown in the fight, which she landed, while Dern missed on all five of her attempts. Just keep in mind Dern has a putrid 10% career takedown accuracy, so she could have missed four more before landing one and it would have been par for the course. Dern finished ahead in significant strikes 82-63 and in total strikes 101-80 on her way to a very close, but unanimous 29-28 decision win.
Prior to joining the UFC, Jandiroba won 14 straight fights, with 11 of those coming by submission. She now owns a 16-2 pro record with 13 wins by submission, including eight in the first round, four in round two and just one in the third. Her other three career wins all went the distance. Both of her previously mentioned losses have also gone the distance and she’s never been finished. Jandiroba really excels on the mat when she can exert downward pressure. Her ground game is pretty straightforward—shoot for a double leg takedown, assume top position, try to set up an Arm-Triangle Choke, and adjust to an Armbar or Rear-Naked Choke depending on how her opponent reacts.
Going into this next matchup, it’s notable that Jandiroba’s only two career losses have come against a wrestler in Esparza and a grappler in Dern, so she appears to struggle the most when she goes against opponents who also excel on the mat.
Kanako Murata
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Entering this exciting matchup on an eight fight winning streak with a decision win in her recent UFC debut, Murata is absolutely jacked. She took on UFC veteran Randa Markos in her debut, who has beens struggling lately but is never a tough out. Murata showed power in her hands to go along with her relentless pursuit to get the fight to the ground and she landed her first takedown attempt less than a minute into the first round. After a little over a minute spent on her back, Markos was able to get back to her feet, but Murata never let up with her consistent pressure and returned Markos to the mat shortly thereafter. Murata poured on heavy ground and pound as she blasted Markos with heavy elbows and fists to close out the first round.
Murata looked to keep Markos guessing in round two as she came out striking more and didn’t attempt any takedowns early in the round. However, half way through she finally shot for one, which she landed. She controlled Markos for the rest of the round, although Markos was able to at least get back to her feet with just over 20 seconds remaining, but Murata kept her pinned up against the fence.
Early in the third round, Murata got Markos back down and quickly looked to choke her out, but Markos was able to survive what looked like a very close attempt. Murata was able to control Markos for the rest of the fight, although Markos did land a blatantly illegal upkick with 77 seconds left in the round, but the ref let the fight go on as Murata appeared okay. Markos was notably disqualified in her next fight for again landing an illegal upkick so apparently that’s something to keep in mind with her Markos also attempted a hail mary submission late in the third round but Murata easily defended it and finished the fight in top position. The fight ended with the two dead even in significant strikes at 29-29, but Murata led in total strikes 79-37 and landed 4 of 9 takedowns while Markos didn’t attempt any. Murata also finished with close to nine and a half minutes of control time as she essentially dominated Markos for the entire fight.
Murata is extremely stout and fought several of her earlier fights at Flyweight (125 lb), but has competed exclusively at Strawweight (115 lb) since June 2019. It’s notable to point out that most of her finishes have come when she’s competed heavier, while most of her decision wins have occurred down at Strawweight. Here are all of her results along with weights beginning with the most recent:
2020 Decision Win - 115 lb
2019 Decision Win - 114.9 lb
2019 R1 Submission Win - 116 lb
2019 R2 Submission Win - 125.7 lb
2018 R2 Submission Win - 116.8 lb
2018 R1 Submission Win - 119.1 lb
2017 Decision Win - 121.3 lb
2017 Decision Win - 115.1 lb
2016 R3 Submission LOSS - 126 lb
2016 Decision Win - 115.1 lb
2016 R1 KO Win - 125.7 lb
2016 R3 KO Win 125 lb
2016 Decision Win 116.6 lb
So we listed those out because she has fought at some strange weights so there’s a lot of gray area going on. To simplify things we’ll call anything below 117 lb a Strawweight fight, anything over 125 lb a Flyweight fight and the two in between Catchweight fights. So in her seven Strawweight fights she’s gone 7-0 with five decisions, a R1 Rear-Nakd Choke Submission and a R2 Von Flue Choke. In her two Catchweight fights she went 2-0 with a R1 Anaconda Choke Submission and a decision win. At Flyweight she’s gone 3-1 with a pair of KO wins (R1 & R3), a R2 Von Flue Choke victory and a R3 Rear-Naked Choke loss. So in summary, her only career loss was a 2016 R3 Rear-Naked Choke at Flyweight and only two of her six career finishes occurred in her Strawweight matches, but five of her six decisions came at that weight class.
Murata is a former wrestling champion, which is not at all surprising when you look at her. She owns a 12-1 pro record, with her only loss coming in a 2016 R3 Rear-Naked Choke. Six of her 12 career wins have come early, with a pair of 2016 KOs and four submission wins, which all occurred in 2018 and 2019 in her most recent six fights. Her last two wins have both gone the distance, including a five round split-decision in an Invicta championship match just before joining the UFC. Murata came dangerously close to getting armbarred multiple times in that five round fight, but showed good patience and fight IQ to get out of danger. Prior to that she had notably submitted four straight opponents.
Fight Prediction:
Jandiroba will have a 2” height and reach advantage.
This is a fascinating matchup between a dominant wrestler and a BJJ black belt submission specialist. Jandiroba is most dangerous when she can take her opponents down and work from top position, but that could be a tough position to reach against a dominant wrestler like Murata. We saw Carla Esparza fearlessly shoot for takedowns throughout her fight against Jandiroba as she landed 4 of 10 attempts, showing that an aggressive wrestler can still find success against Jandiroba on the mat. Even though Jandiroba’s striking looked noticeably improved in her last fight, and she’s clearly been working on both her strength training as well as her striking, she’s still not really a threat to win fights standing up. So if Murata can stay off her back, we like her to pull off the upset here, most likely in a decision win.
You can’t not bet the submission lines in a Jandiroba fight, so “Jandiroba Wins by R1 Submission” at +800 “Jandiroba Wins by R2 Submission” at +1200 are clearly live options, but our favorite bet here is Murata’s moneyline at +124. You can also consider “Fight Ends in R1 Submission” at +500 and “Fight Ends in R2 Submission” at +900 considering both of these fighters are most dangerous with submissions, but it seems unlikely Murata will be able to submit Jandiroba. We wish Murata’s decision line was a little wider, but at +200 there’s not quite enough value there to feel great about it, but it’s not terrible
DFS Implications:
Jandiroba has shown a consistently high ceiling when she wins, as she’s landed early submissions in her last three victories. Her two UFC submission wins were good for DK/FD totals of 97/112 and 101/118. However, it’s hard to see her scoring well in a decision, as she averages a terrible 2.39 significant strikes landed per minute. Even a third round finish wouldn’t necessarily be enough to crack the optimal lineups, but it would depend on what else she does in the fight. This initially looked like a good matchup for Jandiroba, as she’s going against a wrestler who should provide plenty of opportunities to look for submissions on the ground. However, it’s important to note that Jandiroba is far more dangerous from top position compared to off her back. That’s not to say she’s helpless off her back, but Esparza was able to land 4 of 10 takedowns against her and lived to talk about it. So for Jandiroba to win this fight, there’s a good chance she’ll need to be the one dishing out the takedowns, which is no easy task against a powerhouse like Murata. Jandiroba will likely have the chance to defend multiple takedowns, which when combined with all of her submission attempts makes her somewhat more valuable on FanDuel. Overall, Jandiroba is always a threat to land submissions, but this looks like a tough matchup for her. The odds imply she has a 56% chance to win, a 27% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in R1.
Murata’s wrestling-heavy fighting style naturally lends itself to scoring better on DraftKings compared to FanDuel. Supporting that theory, she scored 88 DraftKings in her UFC debut, but just 71 points on FanDuel. She didn’t have to defend any takedowns in that fight, so she could do a little better on FanDuel in this next matchup, but she still looks like a much better DraftKings play. Jandiroba projects to be popular, so Murata makes for an interesting leverage play. This isn’t a great matchup by any means, as Jandiroba is one of the more dangerous submission threats in the women’s Strawweight division, but Murata could certainly win a decision here and sneak into winning lineups as a value play if the flashier underdogs fail. It’s also not impossible that she ends up being the first person to ever finish Jandiroba, as Murata offers heavy ground and pound on top of her submission skills. Working against Murata’s chances of scoring well, in Jandiroba’s two career losses (both decisions) her opponents put up DK/FD scores of 89/77 and 71/69, so she’s been a tough opponent to score well against. The odds suggest Murata has a 44% chance to win, a slate-low 13% chance to get a finish and another slate-low 6% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #7
Aleksa Camur
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off the first loss of his young career, Camur won his first five pro fights by KO, all in the first two rounds, but has fought to a pair of decisions in his first two UFC matches. He got his shot in the UFC with a R2 KO win on DWCS in 2019 over a questionable talent in Fabio Cherant, who recently made his own UFC debut and was somehow submitted by Alonzo Menifield just 71 seconds into the fight.
Camur made his January 2020 UFC debut against former Heavyweight Justin Ledet and outlanded his way to an unimpressive decision win, and looked pretty green along the way. Camur finished ahead 80-44 in significant strikes and 88-60 in total strikes, while landing 1 of his 2 takedown attempts.
Most recently, Camur took on William Knight and lost a low-volume grappling-heavy decision. Knight outlanded Camur 38-17 in significant strikes, although Camur narrowly came out ahead in total strikes 59-58. Knight went 4 of 5 on his takedown attempts with over six and half minutes of control time, while Camur went 1 of 4 on his attempts with just under five and a half minutes of control time. Knight was able to simply overpower Camur in the grappling exchanges and Camur really didn’t do anything to impress us once again.
A regular sparring partner of Stipe Miocic, the 25-year-old Camur is still a really raw fighter who likes to throw a lot of spinning kicks and needs to improve all aspects of his game if he wants to last long in the UFC. He looks most dangerous throwing elbows and knees out of the clinch, but hasn’t even sniffed a finish so far in the UFC. He’s also notably never been finished in his career.
Nick Negumereanu
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)After winning his first nine pro fights early, with six KOs and three submissions, Negumereanu lost a decision in his March 2019 UFC debut against a super sketchy Saparbek Safarov, who probably sells fake concert tickets in parking lots and roofies strangers drinks for fun when he’s not fighting. In fairness to Negumereanu, Safarov blatantly grabbed the fence 25 times in that match and probably should have been disqualified after ignoring a dozen warnings and then compounding the violations with an incredibly late and heavy elbow to the face of Negumereanu after the ref called time to address the fence grabs. Safarov just needed an eye poke and a groin shot to fill out his sleazeball Bingo card. Following the weird loss, Negumereanu now hasn’t fought in the last 27 months.
Prior to that loss, Negumereanu was 9-0 with six KOs and three submission wins. However, one thing to keep in mind when looking at Negumereanu’s pre-UFC record is how terrible his opponents were. They entered his fights with records of 1-3, 0-0, 0-1, 2-1, 3-2, 12-41, 7-5, 2-15 and 10-13. With that said, he finished everyone they put in front of him and looks to have heavy ground and pound and okay grappling. He will go for energy consuming suplexes that look awesome, but probably aren’t the best way to try and win longer fights, so it’s possible he gasses out late if this fight makes it to the second half, especially when you consider that he’s coming off an extended layoff.
Fight Prediction:
Camur will have a 1” height advantage but Negumereanu will have a 4” reach advantage.
Overall, Negumereanu remains more or less an unknown at the UFC level, so he could look terrible here or he could surprise us and look good. Both Negumereanu and Camur finished all their pre-UFC opponents early, but both were exclusively fighting very low-level competition, so it’s probably fair to call that a wash. We haven’t been impressed by anything we’ve seen out of either one of them at the UFC level, but Camur has looked to be the more durable of the two. This is definitely a high variance fight with two young guys that have three combined UFC fights worth of experience. Both guys have shown they can finish low-level opponents, but neither has demonstrated the ability to end fights at the UFC level. The fact that Camur is a -250 favorite shows the oddsmaker have confidence in him getting the win here, but the -135 FGTD line also shows they don’t trust either fighter to land a finish. A decision win for Camur does appear to be the most likely outcome after watching tape on each of these two, but there are a lot of ways this fight could go.
Considering all five of Camur’s and all nine of Negumereanu’s pre-UFC fights ended in the first two rounds, it seems reasonable to bet “Fight Ends in R1” at +300 and “Fight Ends in R2” at +500. Three of Negumereanu’s last four wins occurred in the second round, so there also appears to be some value in his R2 Win line at +1400. While Camur winning a decision is the most likely outcome, we don’t see a ton of value in his +130 decision line.
DFS Implications:
Camur checks in as the most expensive fighter on both DFS sites, so after failing to come even remotely close to putting up a usable DFS score in his first two UFC matches, he should go relatively low owned despite being the biggest favorite on the slate. Other than his ownership and odds, the only other reason to like Camur in this spot is that he gets an 0-1 opponent coming off a 27 month layoff. Still just 25 years old and with only seven pro fights under his belt, Camur is at a stage in his career where we theoretically could see major improvement from the last time he fought, but that’s pure speculation. More likely, he’ll look pretty much the same and continue to disappoint. There wasn’t much to be excited about in his first two UFC fights and our expectations are low here. The most likely outcome here is another low scoring decision win for Camur, but this is somewhat of a high variance spot based on all the uncertainty surrounding Negumereanu. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a 29% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in the first round.
Negumereanu is more or less a wildcard on this slate. Because he was controlled for nearly 11 minutes, we weren’t able to learn much about his offense, other than the fact that he did nothing to impress us. However, the decision loss came in a jaded match against an opponent who committed non-stop penalties and could easily have been disqualified, which keeps a cloud of uncertainty over Negumereanu’s performance. It also looked like Negumereanu may have broken an orbital bone in the match, so really nothing went his way. It’s entirely possible his pre-UFC record is 100% fraudulent, as it’s incredibly padded, but we won’t really have an idea of who he is at the UFC level until after this fight. When he was fighting lower level opponents he looked to have decent ground and pound and grappling, which makes him a little more interesting on DraftKings if you want to take a stab here. The odds imply he has a 32% chance to win, a 16% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #6
Dhiego Lima
11th UFC Fight (4-6)Lima’s last two losses have both ended in decisions, but he was finished in his five losses prior to that (2017 R2 Rear-Naked Choke, 2016 R1 KO, 2015 R1 KO, 2015 R1 KO and 2014 R1 KO). And while it has been four years since he’s been finished, his last three fights came against absolute decision machines, in Court McGee, who’s fought to eight straight decisions, Luke Jumeau who’s fought to four straight decisions in his four UFC fights, and Belal Muhammad, who has gone the distance in 9 of his last 10 fights.
Lima is a long 170 pounder who’s most comfortable fighting at distance and struggles with aggressive pressure from his opponents, which doesn’t bode well for this matchup. He booked two fights in 2020, but both of them were canceled. He was originally set to fight Alex Morono in February, but was forced to withdraw due to an injury. Then he was set to face Muhammad in December, before that fight was postponed when Muhammad tested positive for COVID.
After originally joining the UFC in 2014, Lima was released in 2015 following a 1-3 start. All three losses ended in R1 KOs, while his lone win during that time went the distance. He then fought three times outside of the UFC, where he went 2-1, with two decision wins and another R1 KO loss. Lima was able to work his way back into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter, but lost his first two fights back with the organization in a 2017 R2 Rear-Naked Choke Submission and a 2018 decision. The UFC allowed him to stick around despite his consistent struggles, and Lima responded with three straight wins, including a 2018 R1 KO followed by a pair of decisions in 2019.
That 2018 R1 KO victory is Lima’s only finish in his last 14 fights dating back to 2013. It came against Chad Laprise, who was also knocked out in the first round of his previous fight and again back in 2015, so it appears to be an ongoing theme for him. Laprise notably never fought again following the loss to Lima.
Lima does have eight finishes in his 15 pro fights, with four KOs and four submissions, but all four of his submission wins came in his first 5 pro fights and three of his four KO wins occurred in his first nine pro matches. Five of his eight pro losses have also come early, with four KOs and one submission. All four of those KOs came in the first round, while his lone submission loss occurred in round two.
In his second most recent fight, Lima attacked the legs of his opponent, Luke Jumeau, with a painfully patient style. He won a low-volume snoozer, outlanding Jumeau 32-24 in significant strikes, while landing 2 of his 6 takedown attempts.
Lima came in with a similar leg striking game plan in his most recent fight against Belal Muhammad, but Belal was able to absorb the leg strikes and continue pushing forward as he outlanded Lima 129-69 in significant strikes and 136-70 in total strikes. Belal notably went just 1 for 10 on his takedown attempts, but Belal has just a 28% career takedown accuracy, while Lima has a 73% takedown defense. Lima went 0 for 1 on his only takedown attempt.
A patient striker, Lima averages just 3.14 significant strikes landed per minute over the course of his UFC career, which is the fifth fewest on this slate. He lands an average of 1.4 takedowns per 15 minutes, but misses on a little over half of his attempts.
Matt Brown
28th UFC Fight (15-12)Coming off back-to-back losses, the 40-year-old Brown refuses to hang it up despite losing five of his last seven and seven of his last 10 fights. His only two wins in his last seven matches were against fellow washed up fighters Diego Sanchez and Ben Saunders. Brown has amazingly only defeated one fighter under the age of 36 in the last seven years.
He’s coming off a decision loss to 37-year-old Carlos Condit after Brown’s previous seven fights all ended early. Brown still has the power to knock out opponents, but his chin and reflexes appear about shot. Before his recent decision loss, Brown was knocked out in the second round by Miguel Baeza in May 2020. Brown appeared to be leading with his chin as he aggressively hunted for a KO, but he was able to stumble Baeza at one point in the first round. However, his reckless style quickly caught up with him as he got knocked down late in the first before getting put down for good 18 seconds into the second. Intent on closing the distance, Brown consistently looked to land big shots from the outside, while offering heavy right elbows from the clinch. Prior to 2016, Brown had never been knocked out as a pro, but since then he’s been knocked out three times. Brown has notably been submitted 10 times in his career, although only one of those came in the last decade—which was a 2016 Rear-Naked Choke against Demian Maia. In total, 13 of his 18 career losses have come early (3 KOs & 10 Submissions), as have 20 of his 22 career wins (14 KOs & 6 Submissions).
Brown has landed just four takedowns on 13 attempts in his last nine fights. The majority of those attempts interestingly came in his last fight when he went 1 of 6 against Carlos Condit, while Condit landed 2 of 4. Condit led in significant strikes 39-28 and in total strikes 157-37 in that fight, while Brown led in control time 6:06-4:52. Condit went on to win a unanimous 30-27 decision.
Fight Prediction:
Lima will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 75” reach.
This weird matchup between a has-been and a never-was could go a variety of ways, but the most likely outcomes are either a Brown KO win or for the fight to end in a decision. Lima’s generally looking to drag fights out as he circles away from contact with his back against the cage, primarily looking to land leg strikes and jabs to keep his opponents at bay. He struggles trading in close quarters, which has resulted in four career first round KO losses. If Brown can close the distance early, he certainly has the potential to land an early KO against a questionable talent like Lima. However, if Lima can successfully keep his distance, he may be able to point his way to victory from distance. Lima is an unlikely candidate to take advantage of Brown’s suspect chin or vulnerable ground game, but crazy things can happen inside the Octagon and it’s possible he chews up the leg of Brown to the point that he can’t continue. We wish we could bet against both of these fighters and don’t have any confidence in either one of them.
This is a gross spot for betting, but the three lines worth considering are “Brown Wins by KO” at +500, “Brown Wins by R1 KO” at +1100 and “Lima Wins by Decision” at +145.
DFS Implications:
Lima has just one early win in the UFC and scored just 61 and 58 DraftKings points in his last two decision victories. Laughably priced at 9k on DraftKings and $20 on FanDuel, Lima should easily be the lowest owned favorite on both sites and for good reason. Other than his low ownership, the only reason to play any amount of Lima in tournaments is that he’s going against a 40-year-old fighter who has been finished in four of his last seven fights. With that said, three of those losses came against Miguel Baez, Donald Cerrone and Demian Maia. Lima likely needs a first round finish to return value here and he’s finished just one opponent in the last eight years, so that still seems unlikely. He did notably put up one solid score in a decision win all the way back in 2014, but it came on the back of a dominating grappling performance with six takedowns, nearly 10 minutes of control time, and four submission attempts, which he seems unlikely to repeat. The odds imply he has a 62% chance to win, a 27% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in the first round.
Brown is similarly reliant on a finish to score well, but his cheap price tag allows for a much wider range of acceptable outcomes. Only two of his 22 pro wins have come in decisions, and those occurred in 2011 and 2012, so if he does win there’s a great chance it comes early. With that said, Brown has just three wins in the last seven years, while he’s lost 7 of his last 10 fights, so it’s unclear if he even has one last win left in him, even in this step down in competition. The odds imply he has a 38% chance to win, a 19% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it occurs in R1.
Fight #5
Bruno Silva
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut following a 31 month layoff, Silva had originally been scheduled to make his debut against Deron Winn back in June 2019, but SIlva failed a drug test and was suspended for two years after testing positive for steroids. Now almost exactly two years later and fresh off his suspension, the 31-year-old Silva will look to make up for lost time against Wellington Turman.
Silva enters this fight on a four fight winning streak, with all four of those wins coming by KO, including three in the first round. He currently holds a 19-6 pro record and has only been to three decisions in those 25 pro fights. All 16 of his finishes have come by KO, while all five of his early losses have come by submission—well he also has one DQ loss for an illegal upkick back in 2011, but whatever. He’s won all three of the decisions he’s been to, which occurred in 2011, 2015 and 2016. Of his 16 KO wins, 11 have come in the first round, four have come in the second and his most recent one occurred in the fourth round of a five round M-1 fight. Three of his four second round knockouts came very early in his career and 10 of his last 12 KO wins have happened in R1.
He looks incredibly prone to being taken down and is also very vulnerable to being submitted. Here are his five submission losses: 2016 R2 Kimura, 2012 R1 Heel Hook, 2012 R1 Arm-Triangle Choke, 2011 R1 Arm-Triangle Choke, 2010 R1 Rear-Naked Choke. While Silva hasn't fought since November 2018, he’s impressively won 13 of his last 14 fights, although we didn’t find him to be overly impressive on tape. He clearly possesses solid power, but he doesn’t have the quickest hands and tends to throw lots of big lopping shots opposed to straight punches. Now coming off a lengthy steroid suspension, it will be interesting to see how much ring rust he has to knock off.
Wellington Turman
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Looking to bounce back from the first early loss of his 20 fight pro career, Turman was knocked out in the first round by wrestler Andrew Sanchez. Prior to that, all three of his career losses had gone the distance, while 11 of his 16 pro wins have come early, including four KOs and seven submissions. However, three of his last four wins have notably gone the distance. Also, all four of his KOs occurred earlier in his career from 2014-2016.
Following an April 2019 first round submission win, Turman made his July 2019 UFC debut against Karl Roberson. Turman was able to ground Roberson four times on seven attempts and win the control time battle 6:53-5:47, but Roberson outlanded Turman 50-25 in significant strikes and 79-38 in total strikes on his way to winning a split decision.
Turman bounced back with a unanimous 30-27 decision win over Markus Perez in another grappling heavy battle. Turman landed just two takedowns on nine attempts, but stuffed Perez’s only shot. Turman led in control time 6:41-1:21 and the striking was almost dead even, with Perez leading in significant strikes 49-48 and Turman leading in total strikes 59-56.
Following his first UFC win, Turman faced a step up in competition as he squared off against a tough Andrew Sanchez. The two grapplers came out throwing heavy shots and Sanchez handed Turman his first early loss with a late R1 KO that left Turman out cold on the mat. Sanchez outlanded Turman 28-21 in significant strikes and 40-26 in total strikes, while both fighters failed on their lone takedown attempts.
Turman notably withdrew from his last two scheduled fights, as he tested positive for COVID last October when he was scheduled to face Sean Strickland and then withdrew again this past February when he was booked to face Aliaskhab Khizriev.
Six of his seven submission wins have come in the first round, with the one exception occurring in his 2014 pro debut. Four of his submissions have come by Rear-Naked Choke, while the other three were Guillotine Chokes.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’0” tall, but Silva will have a 2” reach advantage.
After starting his UFC career off 1-2, Turman is likely fighting for a new contract here and would be unlikely to get another chance with the organization if he suffers another loss. He should come in with maximum motivation, although there’s always a chance that the pressure of fighting for his job combined with the fact that he was recently knocked out for the first time causes him to come into this fight overly tentative. However, we expect that will just give him even more motivation to wrestle against a one-dimensional grappler like Silva who has a terrible takedown defense. Silva’s path to victory will be to land another early knockout, but we love Turman to come in with a grappling heavy game plan and dominate Silva on the mat. We really like Turman’s chances to land a submission, but wouldn’t be shocked to see him grind out a decision win.
Annoyingly, Turman’s R1 Submission line has been bet down from +1900 to +1100 as this week has gone on, but it’s still worth betting. Although that move does have us favoring his overall +460 submission line more now than before. You can also consider his R2 submission line at +1600. It’s also worth betting Silva’s R1 KO line at +500, “Fight Ends in R1” at +220 and “Fight Doesn’t Go the Distance” at -168.
DFS Implications:
Silva’s history of knockouts should elevate his ownership on a slate that lacks many explosive finishers at the top of the DFS price range. However, he’s littered with red flags as he makes his UFC debut following a 31 month layoff and a 2-year steroid suspension. He’s also terrible at defending takedowns and now goes against a grappler who’s shot for 17 takedowns in his three UFC fights. Silva will shoot for occasional takedowns himself, which boost his DFS scoring potential, but he’s never landed a submission in his career and is purely looking for ground and pound on the mat. He generally lands a decent amount of volume, so a later finish could still be enough for him to be useful in DFS, but we don’t see him scoring well in a decision. We like Turman to pull off the upset here and expect Silva to be over owned by the field, but the odds do imply Silva has a 52% chance to win, a 37% chance to get a finish and a 15% chance it comes in the first round.
Turman has yet to score well in DFS, but this looks like a prime explosion spot. We expect him to come in 100% looking to wrestle against a power puncher in Silva who is terrible at defending takedowns. That style of fight will score much better on DraftKings compared to FanDuel if this fight goes the distance, but we also like his chances to land an early submission and end up in the optimal lineup on both DFS sites. Turman’s 1-2 UFC record, poor DFS scores and recent R1 KO loss should help to keep his ownership relatively low and will likely have the field targeting Silva in this matchup. However, the line move in Turman’s favor will drive his ownership up a little from where it otherwise would have been. Regardless, we love this spot for Turman and think he makes for an especially great DraftKings play. The odds imply he has a 45% chance to win, a 22% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #4
SeungWoo Choi
5th UFC Fight (2-2)After losing his first two UFC fights in really tough matchups, Choi has responded with a pair of decision wins in his most recent two fights. Choi made his 2019 UFC debut with a 7-1 pro record against an undefeated Movsar Evloev, who beat Choi in a grappling-heavy decision. Evloev took Choi down five times on 16 attempts and accrued nearly 12 minutes of control time. Evloev also led in significant strikes 50-26 and 121-94 in total strikes. Choi went 0 for 2 on his own takedown attempts, but he’s primarily just a striker.
Choi got another tough matchup in his second UFC fight, which came against Gavin Tucker. Similar to Evloev, Tucker took Choi down five times on 13 attempts and finished with just over six minutes of control time. Choi did manage to land both of his takedown attempts in that match, but Tucker led in significant strikes 37-23 and 49-42 in total strikes, before finishing the fight with a third round Rear-Naked Choke Submission.
Interestingly, in Choi’s first two UFC fights both Evloev and Tucker were deducted a point for throwing an illegal knee to Choi’s head while he was down. Apparently, the example being set rubbed off on him, as he was docked a point for repeatedly grabbing the fence in the first round of his third fight. Despite all the point deductions, the offender in each of those three matches ended up winning the fight.
In that third UFC fight, Choi notched his first UFC win, which came against Suman Mokhtarian, who came into the match with an 8-1 record but 0-1 in the UFC after losing his debut to a violent Sodiq Yusuff. After Choi got taken down five times in each of his first two UFC fights, he successfully defended the only attempt in his third fight. Choi didn’t attempt any takedowns of his own, but still managed to get nearly seven minutes of control time. He won the lopsided striking battle 95-33 in significant strikes and 158-67 in total strikes. Following that win, Choi didn’t fight at all in 2020, before returning 14 months later.
In his most recent match, Choi took on a durable Youssef Zalal, who accepted the fight on short notice. Choi outlanded Zalal 41-23 in significant strikes and 73-46 in total strikes, while landing 2 of his 3 takedown attempts. Zalal went 3 for 9 on his own attempts and led in control time 4:29-3:39, but Choi won his second straight unanimous decision.
Choi is a solid striker, but doesn’t offer a ton in the grappling department. Prior to joining the UFC, five of his seven wins were by KO, including three in the first round. His other two victories during that period both went the distance and he’s never submitted an opponent, nor has he ever been submitted himself. The only time he’s ever been finished came in a 2017 R1 KO two years before he joined the UFC. All four of his UFC fights have made it to the third round, with three going the distance, and it’s been four years since one of his fights ended in the first round.
Julian Erosa
8th UFC Fight (3-4)Erosa originally joined the UFC in 2015 with a decision win on The Ultimate Fighter, however, after getting knocked out early in the second round of his second UFC fight he was released in 2016.
He went on to win six of his next eight fights on the regional scene, including four KOs and one submission, and then made his way back into the UFC with a R2 KO over Jamall Emmers on DWCS in 2018. However, he lost his first three fights back with the organization including a R1 KO loss to Devonte Smith, a R3 Decision loss to Grant Dawson and a R3 KO loss to Julio Arce. Following the string of losses, he was once again relegated to fighting outside of the UFC, where he landed a R1 submission win in February 2020.
After getting dumped by the organization twice, Erosa pounced on a third opportunity when a short notice spot opened up against Sean Woodson last June. Agreeing to the fight just a few days before the event, Erosa came in as the biggest underdog on the slate. However, he looked determined to finally prove himself and after a rough start, he brought the fight to Woodson for the remainder of the match. After splitting the first two rounds with Woodson, Erosa was able to lock up a Brabo Choke in the third round and submit Woodson.
After landing his first UFC win since his 2015 debut, Erosa then took on Nate Landwehr in his most recent fight. Landwehr notably was very slow to weigh-in for that fight and appeared to go through a tough weight cut, but nevertheless, Erosa made short work of him with a 56 second R1 Flying Knee KO. Landwehr immediately protested the stoppage as he quickly returned to his feet, but it looked like the ref simply saved Landwehr from absorbing more damage on the ground as Erosa was preparing to tee off him. Landwehr was clearly still wobbled when he returned to his feet, but some refs definitely would have let it go on slightly longer.
Erosa has fought at 145-155 lb throughout his career, but has stayed at 145 lb since his 2018 R1 KO loss to Devonte Smith, other than accepting the short notice fight against Woodson at a 150 lb Catchweight. Of his 25 career wins, 22 have come early, with 11 KOs and 11 submissions. Half of his eight career losses have also come early, all four by KO. He’s 3-4 in his fights that have gone the distance, but it’s rare for him to see the judges as 13 of his last 16 fights have ended early.
The UFC has given Erosa one tough challenge after the next, with his last five UFC fights coming against Devonte Smith, Grant Dawson, Julio Arce, Sean Woodson and Nate Landwehr.
Fight Prediction:
Erosa will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 74” reach.
Choi looks like the crisper striker here, but Erosa will have the grappling advantage and is more of a brawler. A Muay Thai Champion, Choi’s modest striking totals may lead some people to believe that he’s unwilling to throw much volume, but in reality, his modest striking numbers have had more to do with the fact that he’s had to defend 39 takedowns so far in his four UFC fights. In his one fight where he only had to defend a single takedown he landed 95 significant strikes and 158 total strikes. However, in his other three UFC fights he only landed 26, 23 and 41 significant strikes while he was busy defending a ridiculous 38 takedown attempts. While Erosa landed 3 of his 6 takedown attempts against Sean Woodson, he didn’t attempt any takedowns in his other four most recent UFC matches. We expect a pace up brawl here as Erosa lands the 5th highest average number of significant strikes on the slate at 5.07/minute and absorbs the third most significant strikes on the slate at 5.72/minute. In Choi’s one fight where he wasn’t defending non-stop takedowns, he averaged 6.33 significant strikes landed per minute.
In addition to offering the sharper striking, Choi has also been the more durable fighter, with just one KO loss in his career to Erosa’s four, although he has also been submitted once. In fairness, Choi has just 12 pro fights, while Erosa has 33, but Erosa has notably been knocked out in three of his last 10 fights. Erosa has proven himself to be a dangerous finisher both on the feet and the mat, but we like Choi to win this one, most likely in a high-volume decision, but potentially with a knockout.
Our favorite bet here is Choi’s moneyline at -150, but you can also consider his KO line at +340 or his decision line +200. We also like betting the “Fight Doesn’t Go the Distance” at +102. The safest bet on Erosa’s side is his ITD line at +320.
DFS Implications:
We’ve been waiting for a striking friendly matchup for Choi for a while now and that patience has finally paid off. Choi’s striking numbers have been kept mostly in check as he’s faced a series of grapplers so far in the UFC and been forced to defend 39 takedowns in his first four UFC fights. While Erosa does sporadically shoot for takedowns, he only averages two attempts and 1.3 landed per 15 minutes and he’s more than happy to stand and brawl with opponents. With Erosa coming off a pair of high-scoring finishes, Choi looks like a great leverage play here with sneaky upside in an ideal matchup. Choi’s above average DFS price tag and lower fantasy scoring average should keep him mostly under the radar and he looks like a great tournament play on both sites. In his one high-volume decision win, Choi scored 103 DraftKings points and 92 points on FanDuel. A large amount of control time and a high number of clinch strikes propped up his DraftKings score in that match, but we would normally expect his style of fighting to score better on FanDuel. We expect Choi to set a new career high in significant strikes landed if this goes the distance, but he also has a great chance to land his first UFC finish. Erosa will likely shoot for a few takedowns if he’s losing the striking battle, which could further boost Choi’s FanDuel scoring. The odds imply he has a 57% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and an 11% chance it comes in the first round.
After winning an average scoring decision in his 2015 UFC debut, Erosa lost his next four UFC fights and appeared to be flatlining coming into the Sean Woodson fight, where he was just 8% owned on DraftKings. However, after landing a third round submission win that scored 104 DraftKings points and 135 points on FanDuel, we saw his ownership double in his next match where he was 15% owned on DraftKings and 24% owned on FanDuel. After breaking that last slate with a 56 second R1 KO win, we expect his ownership to continue shooting up as his stock is at an all time high. Look for Erosa to be one of the most popular underdogs on the card after his pair of monster performances along with his cheap price tag. We do expect a high-volume brawl here, so if Erosa does come out victorious, he’ll likely end up in winning lineups once again, but we like Choi to get the win here. With that said, the odds imply Erosa has a 43% chance to win, a 22% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1. You’ll definitely want some level of exposure, but being under the field looks like the play.
Fight #3
Marlon Vera
17th UFC Fight (10-6)These two originally went at it back in 2016, in what was Grant’s second UFC fight and Vera’s third. Grant had notably been submitted in his fight prior to that match as well as his two fights after, but Vera was unable to make that four in a row. Vera was just 23 years old at the time and that fight also notably took place in Grant’s home country of England, so he did have a few things working in his favor. Working against him, Grant was returning from a knee injury and a two and a half year layoff.
In their first fight, Vera was able to take Grant’s back late in the first round, but Grant was able to survive and reverse the position. Vera also opened up a cut to Grant’s head in the first round but the cutman was able to take care of it. Vera foolishly pulled guard in the second round, and wasn’t able to really do anything off his back. Throughout the fight Vera was battling not just Grant but also the English referee, Marc Goddard, as Vera was repeatedly warned for grabbing the glove of Grant and then deducted a point for what Goaddard perceived to be continued violations. Grant ended up winning a unanimous 30-26 decision following the point deduction, while outlanding Vera 72-23 in significant strikes and 112-28 in total strikes. Both fighters finished with one official takedown, Grant on five attempts and Vera on six. However, Grant accrued over eight and a half minutes of control time while Vera finished with just under a minute and a half.
Since the decision loss to Grant, Vera has gone 9-4 in the UFC and 6-2 in his last eight. Vera has elevated his status in the division where he’s now fighting guys like Song Yadong, Sean O’Malley and Jose Aldo, while Grant has been fighting mostly lower level opponents.
Impressively, Vera’s last eight wins have all come early, while all seven of his career losses have gone the distance. He’s now 16-7-1 as a pro, with six KO wins and eight by submission. Only two of his 16 career wins have ended in decisions. Here are all of his career submission wins: 2019 R2 Rear-Naked Choke, 2018 R2 Rear-Naked Choke, 2017 R1 Armbar, 2015 R2 Triangle Armbar, 2013 R1 Heel Hook, 2013 R1 Rear-Naked Choke, 2013 R2 Triangle Choke, and 2012 R1 Triangle Choke. The reason we’re digging so deep into Vera’s submission wins is that all four of Grant’s career losses have come by submission, with a 2018 R1 Triangle Choke, a 2016 R3 Armbar, a 2013 R2 Rear-Naked Choke and a 2009 R1 Armbar.
Nine of Vera’s 10 UFC wins have come early, with five KOs and four submissions. Three of those finishes have come in the first round, four have occurred in the second and two have ended in round three. Both of his third round UFC finishes ended in knockouts, while three of his four UFC submission wins have come in round two.
Vera’s last win was a weird “TKO” against Sean O’Malley, where O’Malley injured his right leg early in the fight. Late in the first round O’Malley stumbled and Vera jumped on top. He landed several heavy shots and Herb Dean very quickly stopped the fight just before the round ended.
In his recent decision loss to Jose Aldo, Vera led in significant strikes 46-44 and in total strikes 92-60, but Aldo led in control time 4:57-2:51. Both fighters failed to land any takedowns, Aldo on two attempts and Vera on three. Aldo won a close, but unanimous 29-28 decision.
A BJJ black belt, Vera has won 6 of his last 8 fights, with the two losses over that period coming in a close decision against Yadong Song up at 145 lb—Vera normally fights at 135 lb—and his recent decision loss to Jose Aldo.
Davey Grant
8th UFC Fight (4-3)Grant made his way into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter back in 2013, but after getting submitted via Rear-Naked Choke in the second round of his 2013 debut, we didn’t see him step back inside the Octagon for two and a half years until he defeated Marlon Vera in a decision.
Since his 2016 decision win over Vera, Grant has gone 3-2 and comes in on a three fight winning streak. In his next fight after defeating Vera, Grant was submitted in the third round via Armbar before taking all of 2017 off. He returned in 2018 and was submitted again, this time just 59 seconds into the first round from a Triangle Choke, and then once again didn’t fight for over a year, before returning in 2019 to win a decision. He returned in 2020 to land his first UFC knockout against a struggling Martin Day, who was coming off nearly a two year layoff and has now lost all four of his UFC fights. That was the first time Grant had won two consecutive fights since joining the UFC. He kept that momentum going with a more impressive second round knockout of Jonathan Martinez in his most recent fight.
Grant is now 13-4 as a pro, with 11 of his 13 career wins coming early, including three KOs and eight submissions. All eight of his submission wins notably came prior to joining the UFC, as did one of his three KO wins. As we mentioned earlier, but really want to hammer home, all four of Grant’s career losses have ended in submissions. Grant has decent power for the division, as his last two opponents can attest, but still has just three KO wins in his career. Interestingly, while Grant landed knockdowns in each of his last two matches, he was also knocked down himself in both of those fights.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’8” but Vera will have a 1” reach advantage. Vera is notably 7 years younger than the 35-year-old Grant.
Grant comes in on a three fight winning streak, while Vera has lost two of his last three with his only win coming from the flukey O’Malley injury. On top of that, Grant has already defeated Vera once, which came in a lopsided 30-26 unanimous decision. So we absolutely understand the Grant love here, but context is key. Grant’s recent three wins have come against opponents who are currently 0-2, 0-4 and 4-3 in the UFC, while Vera’s last three fights have come against 5-1-1 Song Yadong, 5-1 Sean O’Malley and 11-6 Jose Aldo. Vera was also just 23 years old the first time these two fought. It’s certainly possible that Grant just matches up well with Vera and he grinds out another decision here, but we like Vera’s chances to avenge his earlier loss and submit Grant this time around, most likely in the second round.
Our favorite two bets here are “Vera Wins by Submission” at +600 and “Vera Wins by R2 Submission” at +2000, but we also like the value in “Grant Wins by Decision” at +450.
DFS Implications:
The first time these two fought Grant won a unanimous 30-26 decision and Vera was deducted a point for a glove grab late in the fight. In the decision win, Grant scored 92 DraftKings points and 81 points on FanDuel, while Vera scored just 18 DraftKings points and 32 points on FanDuel.
Vera has been a consistent DFS scorer, but has still scored less than you might expect based on the fact that his last eight wins have all come early. Here are his last eight winning DK/FD scores beginning with the most recent: 98/111, 81/111, 86/95, 105/119, 104/129, 108/126, 92/109, and 83/109. So all of his last eight wins have scored better on FanDuel compared to DraftKings, which makes sense as he generally doesn’t accrue much control time and the majority of his strikes go down as significant. He also attempts a solid number of submissions and has a 70% takedown defense to further bolster his FanDuel score. Grant notably averages three missed takedowns per 15 minutes and went 1 for 5 the first time these two fought. So overall, we prefer Vera on FanDuel, where a finish at any point should return a solid score, while he’ll likely need to end things in the first two rounds to be useful on DraftKings. The odds imply he has a 64% chance to win, a 33% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in the first round.
Now 35 years old, Grant’s stock is at an all-time high as he’s won three straight fights with knockouts in his last two. He’s been a consistent DFS producer in his wins as he’s averaged 95 DraftKings points, with scores of 99, 101, 89 and 92. Those four wins have been good for 116, 126, 74 and 81 FanDuel points with his big scores coming in his recent KOs, but struggling to score well on FanDuel in his decision victories. He’s kept his DraftKings scores alive in decisions with large amounts of control and also landed six takedowns in his most recent decision win. While Grant is less likely to score well on FanDuel, he checks in as the cheapest fighter on that slate, so it’s not impossible he still ends up being useful even with a lower scoring decision simply as a value play. With that said, he still looks like a better DraftKings play. We don’t see Grant finishing Vera even if he does pull off the upset, but Grant could still sneak into winning lineups if he can pull off another decision win. We expect Grant to be a popular DFS play based on the fact that he’s won three straight with back-to-back KO wins, has a previous decision win over Marlon Vera, has seen the line move noticeably in his favor, and is one of the cheapest fighters on the slate. The odds imply he has a 36% chance to win, a 20% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #2
Serghei Spivac
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Spivac is coming off a second round mauling of a debuting Jared Vanderaa. Spivak caught a leg kick early in the first round and drove through it to take Vanderaa down. Spivak controlled Vanderaa on the ground for the remainder of the round in smothering fashion. Idiotically, Vanderaa threw a head kick to start R2 and as soon as it missed, Spivak was able to take the back of Vanderaa, as his momentum swung him around, and Spivak immediately got the fight right back to the ground. He once again controlled Vanderaa on the ground for an entire round, although this time he turned up the intensity late and finished the fight with heavy ground and pound that left Vanderaa’s face a bloody mess.
Prior to that, Spivac won a decision against one-dimensional boxer Carlos Felipe, where Spivac again finished the fight laying down ground and pound, although that one went the distance. Spivac outlanded Felipe 73-44 in significant strikes while going 3 for 7 on takedowns.
Spivac started his UFC career off in 2019, but his debut against Walt Harris only lasted 50 seconds before Spivac got knocked out. He landed just one significant strike in the fight, while absorbing 17. No takedowns were attempted. He bounced back from the loss with a R2 Arm-Triangle Choke Submission win over Tai Tuivasa. He outlanded Tuivasa 23-21 in significant strikes, but more importantly went 6 for 8 on takedowns.
He followed that up with a one-sided decision loss to Marcin Tybura before his decision win over Felipe. The 234 lb Spivac notably seemed to struggle with the size and power of the 246 lb Tybura, who was able to control Spivac on the ground and against the fence. Tybura outlanded Spivac 43-23 in the low-volume match while going 2 for 8 on takedowns. Spivac failed on his only takedown attempt in the fight.
Looking at his entire pro career, Spivac has five knockout wins and six by submission, with just one of his 12 victories requiring the judges, which came in his second most recent fight. His only two losses both came in the UFC, with the previously mentioned KO in his debut and the decision loss to Tybura. Prior to joining the UFC all 11 of his pro fights had ended early.
Spivac is the rare Heavyweight grappler, and does his best work from top position on the mat. We haven’t really seen him excel on the feet, which is notable coming into this next matchup.
Aleksei Oleinik
15th UFC Fight (8-6)Now midway through his 25th year of professional fighting, Oleinik made his pro debut all the way back in November 1996. So just to really drive that home, Oleinik’s pro career is older than three of the fighters on this slate (Procopio, O’Neill and Turman). Oleinik went pro the week after Bill Clinton was reelected and just a couple months after Tupac was shot and Tiger Woods turned pro. The internet is only 5 years older than Aleksei Oleinik’s pro fighting career. This will be Oleinik’s 76th pro fight and it comes right before he turns 44.
Oleinik currently owns a ridiculous 59-15-1 pro record with 54 early wins, including eight KOs and 46 submissions. He has more career submission wins than Francis Ngannou and Stipe Miocic have combined pro fights. Of his 15 career losses, 11 have come early, with nine KOs and two submissions. Only one of his last 11 fights has gone the distance and that came in a seniors match against Fabricio Werdum. He’s been knocked out in four of his last six fights, with three of those coming in the first round and the other occurring 21 seconds into round two against Derrick Lewis. His only two wins in his last six fights were a May 2020 decision win over Werdum and a January 2020 R2 Armbar Submission win over a helpless Maurice Greene. Following the win over Werdum, Oleinik was knocked out in R2 by Derrick Lewis and then most recently finished in 115 seconds by Chris Daukaus.
While he still has the technical skills to submit opponents, the writing is on the wall for Oleinik. He’s just too old and lacks the athleticism at this point to survive on the feet against legitimate competition. This is a young man’s game and it’s impressive that Oleinik has made it as long as he has, but he can no longer hang with top level competitors. Unless he’s willing to accept a major step down in competition, it looks like Oleinik’s UFC days are about done. There’s simply no reason to continue carting him out there to absorb violent head shots and it would clearly be in his best long term interests to call it quits.
Fight Prediction:
Spivac will have a 1” height advantage, but Oleinik will have a 2” reach advantage. Spivac is ridiculously 17 years younger than Oleinik.
The only reason that this fight is even remotely interesting is that all three of Spivac’s UFC wins have ended on the ground—a 2019 R2 Submission, a 2020 decision that finished with ground and pound and a 2021 R2 Ground and pound KO. The UFC likely made this matchup to force Spivac to win a fight on the feet, as the one place you don’t want to be with Aleksei Oleinik is on the mat. The smartest approach for Spivac would be to accept the UFC’s challenge and use this as an opportunity to showcase his standup game and only use his grappling for defensive purposes. The other option is that Spivac decides he wants to prove a point and stubbornly takes Oleinik down and looks to finish him with ground and pound. That seems like an unnecessary risk and if you can’t outbox a 43 year old submission specialist then what are you even doing here? But if he does take that approach it should force the action for one of these two to land a finish. However, if he takes the safer approach and keeps this one standing, it’s not impossible that Oleinik can survive three rounds, but it’s still unlikely considering how quickly we’ve seen him gas out recently. Spivac clearly represents a step down in competition from a boxing standpoint for Oleinik, after he faced Chris Daukaus and Derrick Lewis in his last two fights, but Spivac appears to be entering the prime of his career and is improving with every fight. We expect him to step up to the challenge and land a knockout here, but this does represent a new and different challenge for him.
Our favorite two lines here are “Spivac Wins in R1” at +190 and “Spivac Wins in R2” at +500.
DFS Implications:
Spivac’s three UFC wins have resulted in DK/FD scores of 132/124, 101/82 and 120/130. All three of those wins have included 4+ minutes of control time and 3+ takedowns. His two explosion spots both ended with R2 finishes, while his lower scoring win went the distance. Spivac will be less likely to want to take this fight to the mat, so he could be more reliant on an early finish to score well, but he notably has the best odds on the slate to get a finish. While we’ve yet to see him knock anyone out on the feet in the UFC, this will easily be his best opportunity to do so. If the fight remains on the feet, he’ll score better on FanDuel, but if it does end up on the mat, that will boost his DraftKings scoring. We expect Spivac to be the most popular fighter on the slate, so fading him and hoping Oleinik can at least survive one round is one way to try and get unique, but there’s also a decent chance he puts up a huge score and that strategy blows up in your face. The odds imply he has a 67% chance to win, a slate-leading 54% chance to get a finish and another slate-leading 25% chance it comes in the first round.
Oleinik consistently puts up decent scores when he wins, the problem is he doesn't consistently win anymore. He’s only been able to find success against really lower level fighters or fellow AARP members in recent years, and a win here would be pretty shocking. While theoretically it makes sense that he would have more of a chance against another Heavyweight grappler like Spivac, Oleinik just doesn’t look to have much left in the tank and we expect Spivac to control this fight. With that said, the odds imply Oleinik has a 33% chance to win, a 27% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in the first round. The R1 odds are probably somewhat fair, but everything else seems far too high.
Fight #1
Chan Sung Jung
10th UFC Fight (6-3)Looking to rebound from a five round decision loss against the current top Featherweight contender in Brian Ortega, Jung finally went to the judges for the first time in his UFC career. His second most recent decision was over a decade ago, all the way back in April 2010 prior to joining the UFC in 2011. Ortega outlanded Jung 127-62 in significant strikes and 129-64 in total strikes, while landing 3 of 10 takedowns on his way to a unanimous 50-45 decision win.
Holding black belts in Hapkido, Taekwondo and Judo, Jung landed a pair of R1 KOs over Frankie Edgar and Renato Carneiro leading up to the loss against Ortega. His second most recent loss came in a 2018 R5 buzzer beating KO against Yair Rodriguez with an insane last second no-look, reverse upward-elbow with 1 second to go in the fight. Those two practically fought to the death, which was the only other time Jung has seen a 5th round. Jung led 126-119 in significant strikes and 130-129 in total strikes, while both fighters failed to land a takedown—Jung on five attempts and Rodriguez on four.
Prior to the last second loss, Jung landed another first round KO win, meaning his last three wins have all come by R1 KO. That 2017 R1 KO win against Dennis Bermudez was Jung’s first fight back following nearly a four year layoff from August of 2013 until February of 2017—first dealing with injuries, and then completing his South Korean mandatory military service.
Just before that nearly four year layoff, Jung fought for the Featherweight belt against vintage Jose Aldo in 2013. Aldo knocked Jung out in the fourth round to maintain the belt, while also handing Jung his first UFC loss. Jung had impressively submitted a young Dustin Poirier in the fourth round of a 2012 fight to get that title shot. Jung originally made his UFC debut in 2011 and landed a second round rare Twister Submission. He followed tha up with a R1 KO before submitting Poirier and then competing for the belt.
After originally turning pro in 2007, Jung fought his first 3 pro fights at 154 lb before moving down to 145 lb in 2008. He’s a very patient striker who fearlessly stalks his prey and has no problem walking through fire to land a shot. He’s only won 2 of the 5 decisions he’s been to and both of those occurred in 2008. Since then he’s lost all three of the times he’s been to the judges.
He currently holds a 16-6 pro record, with six KO wins and eight submission victories. Ten of those 14 finishes have come in the first round. Half of his six losses have come by KO, with the other three ending in decisions. Two of his three KO losses came in the championship rounds, with a 2013 R4 KO at the hands of Jose Aldo and a 2018 R5 KO against Yair Rodriguez. He has never been submitted.
Dan Ige
10th UFC Fight (7-2)Living up to his 50k nickname, Ige is fresh off a 22 second R1 KO of Gavin Tucker that earned Ige a Performance of the Night Bonus. Prior to that, Ige went five tough rounds with Calvin Kattar in a losing decision effort. That was the first five round fight of Ige’s career, so it likely went down as somewhat of a learning experience, especially when it came to pacing himself for the championship rounds. Kattar outlanded Ige 105-84 in significant strikes, 107-87 in total strikes and landed his only takedown attempt, while Ige went 0 for 9 on his attempts.
Prior to that loss, Ige had won six straight since losing a decision in his 2018 UFC debut. Four of those six wins went the distance with the other two each ending in the first 77 seconds. The first of those early wins was a 2018 50 second R1 KO in his second UFC fight, which was against Mike Santiago, who’s lost five of his last six fights, including four early, and was cut by the UFC following the loss to Ige, thus finishing his UFC career 0-3. Ige’s second UFC finish was a 2019 R1 Rear-Naked Choke submission against Danny Henry, who’s been submitted in the first round in each of his last two matches. All nine of Ige’s UFC fights have either ended in the first 77 seconds (3-0) or gone the distance (4-2).
Ige has impressively never been finished and has won 7 of his last 8 and 13 of his last 15 fights. He has nine finishes among his 15 total career wins, including four KOs and five submissions. Six of his nine finishes have come in the first round, one has come in the second and two have come in the third. All four of his career KO wins have notably come in the first round. He’s only lost three times in his entire 18 fight pro career, with two decision losses in the UFC and one back in 2015 in his third pro fight before joining the organization. Ige’s a really tough guy to finish (obviously) and while he was dropped 40 seconds into his fight against Barboza, he not only survived the early adversity, he ended up winning a split decision.
Ige has mostly struggled with his takedown accuracy since joining the UFC, however it should be noted that the majority of his opponents have had very strong takedown defenses. Ige’s last fight only lasted 22 seconds and no takedowns were attempted, but in his fight prior to that he went 0 for 9 against the elite 89% takedown defense of Calvin Kattar. Prior to that Ige went 1 for 4 against the solid 78% takedown defense of Edson Barboza, 1 for 2 against another elite 92% defense of Mirsad Bektic, 1 for 4 against another 78% defense in Kevin Aguilar, and all the way back in his UFC debut he went 1 for 13 against another elite 93% defense held by Julio Arce. In between the Arce and Aguilar fights, Ige went 1 for 1 against the lower 53% defense of Mike Santiago, 3 for 7 against the poor 42% defense of Jordan Griffin, and 1 for 1 against the 50% defense of Danny Henry. So in summary, Ige has gone just 4 of 32 (12.5%) on takedowns against opponents with takedown defenses of 78% or greater, but has improved that to 5 for 9 (55.6%) against his three opponents with defenses below 78% (50%, 42% & 53%).
Now he’ll face the still pretty tough, but slightly less elite 75% defense of Chan Sung Jung. The two closest comps are the Barboza and Aguilar fights, both guys who currently own a 78% takedown defense, and each allowed Ige to land just 1 of his 4 takedowns attempts against them on his way to winning a pair of three round decisions. If we extrapolate those numbers across five rounds we could expect Ige to go 2 for 7 on takedowns if we see a similar success rate and this fight goes the distance.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’7” but Jung will have a 1” reach advantage. Ige is notably five years younger than the 34-year-old Jung.
Jung has clearly faced tougher competition in his career, with fights against Dustin Poirier, Jose Aldo, Yair Rodriguez, Frankie Edgar and Brian Ortega, and he looks like the more dangerous fighter in this match, but he’s also been knocked out three times while Ige has never been finished. Jung’s fearless fighting style lends itself more towards finishes, while Ige has generally been a guy who either gets a quick first round finish or stretches fights out to decisions. While six of Ige’s nine UFC fights have gone the distance, Jung is coming off his first decision in nine UFC matches. With that said Ige has three R1 wins since joining the UFC to Jung’s four, so they’re pretty close in that department. Since both fighters have landed the majority of their finishes in the first round, seeing this fight end in the first five minutes is squarely in play, but still not the most likely outcome. Jung appears to have a better chance to land a finish beyond the first round, but his patient fighting style generally doesn’t fare well with the judges. We like Jung’s chances to get an early win here, but if he’s unable to hand Ige his first early loss, then we think Ige outlands his way to a decision win.
Our favorite two bets here are “Jung ITD” at +210 and “Fight Ends in R1 KO” at +500. We also considered Jung’s +105 moneyline, “Ige Wins by Decision” at +250 and FGTD at +102.
DFS Implications:
We’ve only seen Jung fight to one decision in his nine UFC fights, but he has made it to at least the fourth round four times. Two of those ended in KO losses and one ended in a submission win. In his last second 5th round KO loss to Yair Rodriguez, Jung landed 126 significant strikes and went 0 for 5 on takedowns. Had that fight lasted one more second Jung would have scored 83 DraftKings points and 108 points on FanDuel if he had won a decision. Prior to that we saw Jung get knocked out early in the 4th round in an ultra low-volume fight against Jose Aldo. Jung was on pace to land just 25 significant strikes and 62 total strikes in that fight as Aldo was able to take him down five times on six attempts. However, we did see Jung dominate a young Dustin Poirier for just over 16 minutes, just keep in mind it was all the way back in 2012. Jung landed 74 significant strikes, 149 total strikes and went 4 for 4 on takedowns with five minutes of control time, while also stuffing all four of Poirier’s attempts. That was good for 114 DraftKings points and 130 points on FanDuel and was on pace to score significantly more (144 on DK & 168 on FD) if it went the distance. In Jung’s recent decision loss, he would have scored just 55 DraftKings points and 78 points on FanDuel if the decision had gone his way. We’re not expecting a dominating ground performance out of Jung in this fight, so the best comp could be the Yair Rodrigues fight. In Ige’s lone five round fight, he lost a decision to Calvin Kattar in a fight that played out almost entirely on the feet, as Ige went 0 for 9 on takedown attempts while Kattar went 1 for 1. The striking totals were pretty modest for a five round fight, with Kattar leading 105-84 (4.2-3.36 SSL/min). That performance only scored 79 DraftKings points for Kattar, but totaled 116 points on FanDuel. Considering Jung hasn’t landed a takedown in his last six fights, he’ll be similarly reliant on striking, takedowns defended and landing a finish to score well. That will almost guarantee that he’ll score better on FanDuel than on DraftKings if this fight makes it past the first minute, and will make it hard for Jung to return value on DraftKings in a decision. The odds imply Jung has a 47% chance to win, a 26% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it occurs in the first round.
Ige has been a R1 or bust DFS producer, but he’s also only been in one five round fight in the UFC, so we don’t have much to look at in terms of his production over the course of five rounds. He landed just 84 significant strikes in that five round decision loss to Calvin Kattar, and still only would have scored 64 DraftKings points and 70 points on FanDuel had the judges ruled it in his favor. However, that was the first time in his UFC career that Ige had failed to land at least one takedown, so there’s plenty of reason to think he would typically put up a better score. In Ige’s previous four decision wins, he put up DraftKings totals of 75, 58, 85 and 91, which if we extrapolate those numbers over the course of five rounds would be good for scores of 105, 77, 122 and 132 points. The one low score in that group came in a fight where Ige was controlled on the ground for nearly half the match and still won a decision, which is not at all how we expect this next fight to play out. So overall, there’s still a good chance that Ige will score well on both DFS sites if he wins a decision, as long as he can find some success with his grappling. If it does turn into a lower-volume striking battle that never hits the mat, he’ll be just as reliant as Jung for an early finish to score well on DraftKings and would end up scoring better on FanDuel. So overall, Ige is a little safer than Jung on DraftKings, but has a slightly lower floor/ceiling combination on FanDuel where he should defend less takedowns compared to Jung. The odds imply Ige has a 53% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in the first round.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter with your winnings so we can see how you did! @dfs_mma