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Fight Day Scratches:
Fighter Notes:
Fight #10
T.J. Brown
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Brown had been scheduled to face Gabriel Benitez at 145 lb, but Benitez dropped out mid fight week and Rosa stepped in on Wednesday morning. Brown had originally been a +170 underdog against Benitez, but he jumped all the way up to a -275 favorite against Rosa and the fight was notably also moved up to 155 lb.
Coming off his first UFC win which ended in a split-decision against Kai Kamaka, Brown needs a win here to avoid the dreaded 1-3 start to his UFC career. This will be his second camp at Glory MMA with James Krause. He’s also been seeing a sports psychologist, so it will be interesting to see what improvements he has made over the last eight months since he last fought.
In his recent split-decision win over Kamaka, we saw a back-and-forth brawl with each guy coming close to finishing the other. The first round played out mostly on the feet with Brown missing on the only takedown attempt in the first five minutes, but slipping to the mat at one point where he spent a little time on his back. After Brown took an early lead in striking and then had Kamaka hurt in the second round, Kamaka turned the tables as he dropped Brown in the opening minutes of round two. Kamaka went to the mat with Brown at that point, which appeared to give Brown time to recover and look for a kimura attempt. While he wasn’t able to finish it, he was able to use it to return to his feet and closed out the round by landing a takedown, continuing the close fight. Kamaka was able to reverse a takedown early in round three to take top position, but didn’t really do much with it as he lay in Brown’s open guard. He was able to return to his feet midway through the round and take the lead in striking, but another slip by Brown allowed Kamaka to regain top position on the mat. Again, Kamaka didn’t do much with the position as he was mostly looking to keep Brown held down. Brown was again able to return to his feet with about 75 seconds remaining in the fight and the two went straight back to swinging away. It looked like Brown knocked Kamaka down in the final minute as he put Kamaka on his rear, but Brown was not awarded a knockdown so it must have been ruled a slip. Either way, that allowed Brown to take a dominant position on the mat. However, he foolishly gave it up as he went for an ankle lock and allowed Kamaka to take top position. Again, Brown looked for a kimura off his back, but the round ended with Kamaka on top. Despite occurring over three minutes of control time in the third round, Kamaka wasn’t really doing anything with top position, which is likely why two of the three judges awarded Brown the pivotal third round. The judging was all over the place with the always terrible Adalaide Byrd ruling it 30-27 in Kamaka’s favor and the other two judges scoring it 29-28 for Brown. We could have seen the fight going either way as it was definitely a close match. If Kamaka had been more active in top position, that likely would have been enough to get the win. In the end, Brown finished ahead in significant strikes 82-61 and in total strikes 110-85. He also landed 2 of his 4 takedown attempts but had just 36 seconds of control time. Kamaka landed his only takedown attempt and finished with over five and a half minutes of control time as well as notching a knockdown.
Brown came into the UFC in 2020 on a four fight winning streak, with all four of those wins coming early—including three in the first round. Now sitting at 15-8 as a pro, only 4 of his 23 career fights have made it to the judges, with two of those coming in his last two matches. He has four wins by KO, nine by submission, and two decision wins. He’s also been finished early in six of his eight losses, split evenly between knockouts and submissions. Prior to his recent pair of decisions, he had gone 10 straight fights without needing the judges (7-3), with seven of those ending in the first round (5-2). All four of his career KOs occurred in the first round, as have five of his nine submission wins. Three of his other four submission wins were surprisingly notched in the third round. All three of his career KO losses have also come in round one.
A BJJ brown belt, Brown notably fought mostly at 155 lb early in his career before dropping down to 145 lb in 2017. He’s gone 5-2 since making the permanent switch down to Featherweight, with five of those fights ending early (4-1). Overall, Brown has been a finish or get finished type of fighter for the majority of his career, but since switching to Glory MMA both of his fights have ended in decisions.
Charles Rosa
12th UFC Fight (5-6)After accepting this fight on just a few days’ notice, it will be interesting to see how Rosa looks on the scales. Rosa has fought to five straight decisions (2-3) with both of those wins being split and all three losses being unanimous. He’s continued his streak of alternating wins and losses, which now goes back 12 fights since right before joining the UFC. It’s worth noting that he has never lost two fights in a row in his career.
Rosa is coming off a decision loss to Damon Jackson, where Jackson was able to control Rosa for over 10 minutes in the fight as he landed 6 takedowns on 12 attempts. Rosa landed two takedowns of his own on three attempts with 78 seconds of control time. While Jackson led in significant strikes 41-34, Rosa led in total strikes 116-53. Rosa split Jackson open with an elbow early in round three in one of the more leaky cuts we’ve seen in a while. The doctor was brought in but they let the fight continue and Jackson went on to win a unanimous decision.
We’ve seen Rosa get dominated on the mat in his last three losses, with his opponents landing takedown totals of 6, 4, and 3, with control time totals of 10:24, 12:34, and 12:51. In those three fights, he’s been controlled an average of 80% of the time.
Rosa’s last win was a split-decision over Justin Jaynes, where Rosa led in significant strikes 51-44 and in total strikes 114-51. Both guys went 2 for 2 on their takedown attempts and each had two official submission attempts, while Rosa led in control time 3:37-2:53. Jaynes looked to have Rosa hurt late in round three, but foolishly went for a takedown and a submission attempt as opposed to trying to finish things on the feet.
Prior to that win, Rosa suffered a decision loss to Derrick Minner, which was just the fourth time Minner has gone the distance in 39 pro fights, as his previous 13 fights had all ended in the first two rounds. While simply surviving to see a decision against Minner could be viewed as a moral victory, Minner has been finished 11 times himself and Rosa was unable to make it 12. Minner finished the fight ahead in significant strikes with 45-15 and 96-40 in total strikes. He also went 4 for 5 on takedowns with over 12 and half minutes of control time and three official submission attempts, while Rosa missed his only takedown attempt and finished with two official submission attempts.
Looking back a bit further, following an April 2017 R3 KO loss to Shane Burgos, the only time Rosa has been finished in his career, Rosa suffered a career threatening neck injury that kept him sidelined until October 2019 when he made his uncertain return but submitted Manny Bermudez in the first round. Bermudez looked to be controlling the fight convincingly, but the BJJ black belt Rosa was able to land a surprise armbar off his back. Things didn’t go as smoothly in his next fight as he was completely dominated on the ground by Bryce Mitchell for 15 minutes and nearly submitted multiple times. Rosa landed just 5 significant strikes in 15 minutes of “action” in that one.
Rosa bounced back from the demoralizing loss with a split-decision win over Kevin Aguilar in June 2020 in what was a low-volume snoozer that stayed entirely on the feet. Rosa outlanded Aguilar 69-53 in significant strikes, but neither fighter landed a takedown on three combined attempts. That came just before the loss to Minner.
While Rosa’s fight against Aguilar took place at 155 lb, the rest of his UFC matches have been at 145 lb. Half of Rosa’s career submission wins have been by armbar, all in the first round, and he claims this submission as his move.
In his six fights since returning from his neck injury, Rosa has attempted just seven takedowns, landing two in each of his last couple of fights, but failing to notch a takedown in his previous four matches. In contrast, he went 14 for 41 on takedowns in his first five UFC fights, while attempting at least four and landing at least one in every match.
Owning a 14-6 pro record, Rosa has three wins by KO and eight by submission, pairing with his three decision victories. However, 9 of those 11 finishes came in his first nine pro fights against opponents who entered with records of 0-1-1, 4-4, 2-2, 0-1, 6-13, 6-8, 9-5, 8-9, and 4-4. Since then, he’s only landed two finishes in his most recent 11 fights and both of those were submissions of desperation in fights that he was losing. Rosa has never been submitted himself in his 18 pro fights and the only person to ever finish him was Shane Burgos. His other five career losses all ended in decisions.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’9” but Brown will have a 3” reach advantage.
The most exciting thing about this matchup may be whether or not Rosa can continue his 12 fight streak of alternating wins and losses, which says a lot about how boring of a fighter Rosa is. We’ve seen Rosa get absolutely dominated on the mat in his last three losses, while he’s narrowly won split decisions in his last two wins. His last five fights have also all gone the distance, and it will be interesting to see how his cardio looks after taking this fight on three days’ notice if it does make it into the later rounds. Rosa has only finished one opponent in the last seven years and he has only been finished once himself in his entire career, so really, the only reason to think this could end early is the short notice factor of the bout. The two ways we see that playing a factor are either Rosa knows his cardio isn’t there and pushes for an early finish or his cardio fails him late in the fight and Brown is able to capitalize on that. Rosa has just barely been able to notch wins against low level opponents in two of his last five fights and it’s hard to ever pick him to win, despite his pattern of alternating wins and losses, especially with him now coming off a loss. We’re taking Brown to win by decision.
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DFS Implications:
Brown was originally scheduled to face Gabriel Benitez here and checked in as a +170 underdog in that matchup. That’s the way DraftKings has him priced, but not FanDuel who didn’t release pricing until Thursday. Benitez dropped out of the fight Wednesday morning and Rosa stepped in on short notice. Brown’s odds jumped all the way up to -275 in the new matchup, but he gets to hang onto his original dirt cheap $7,100 DraftKings price tag, making him ridiculously underpriced, which will undoubtedly drive his ownership up through the roof.
Brown is coming off an uptempo brawl where he won a split-decision but still scored just 79 DraftKings points. Now he gets a pace-down matchup against Charles Rosa who generally makes for boring decisions, but has notably been dominated on the mat in his last three losses. While those three losses all went the distance, his opponents averaged 80% control time in those fights and finished with DraftKings totals of 88, 111, and 113. When you combine that with the fact that Rosa took this fight on just three days’ notice, we could see him gas out late and for Brown to really take control late in the fight with an increased chance for a finish. However, that’s pure speculation and it’s also possible Rosa’s cardio holds up fine. While Brown’s DFS numbers don’t immediately jump out at you, he was on his way to breaking the slate in his UFC debut against Jordan Griffin, before Griffin landed a guillotine choke to steal the fight just as Brown went for his seventh takedown late in the second round. Brown was on pace to score 156 DraftKings points in that fight, but was consistently careless with his head position on takedowns and eventually paid the price. And prior to his recent pair of decisions, he hadn’t been to the judges in 10 straight fights. So while this doesn’t look like a great matchup for Brown to land a finish, the potential is always there when he fights. The odds imply Brown has a 70% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance to end it in round one.
Rosa comes in as the second cheapest fighter on the slate, which could allow him to serve a value play even with an average scoring decision win on this smaller slate, at least if we mostly see favorites win. While he’s never been one to put up big scores he has managed to notch DraftKings totals of 85, 58, 93, 74, and 95 in his last five wins, showing an unimpressive but still theoretically useful ceiling. He’s also demonstrated a very low floor, showing that by no means does a win guarantee he’ll be useful even at his extremely cheap price tag. Also worth noting, his 93 and 95 point scores came in submission wins, but he failed to top 85 points in his last three decision victories. It is worth pointing out that Brown has been finished in three of his last four losses, but Rosa only has one early win dating back to 2015. The only real reason to consider playing Rosa here is that he’ll serve as a massive leverage play in tournaments against the extremely popular and underpriced Brown. The odds imply he has a 30% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Brian Kelleher
13th UFC Fight (7-5)Kelleher had been scheduled to face Saidyokub Kakhramonov at 135 lb, but he dropped out Wednesday and Kevin Croom stepped in on just a few day’s notice and the fight was moved to 145 lb. Kelleher had been a +135 favorite in the original matchup, but has now seen his line jump to -300 in this new matchup.
Continuing to alternate between wins and losses over his last five fights, Kelleher dropped back down to 135 lb for a recent decision win after fighting his previous four matches up at 145 lb. That last win came against a highly questionable Domingo Pilarte, who’s now officially 0-2 with a No Contest in the UFC. In reality, Pilarte has lost all three of his UFC fights if you look past the fact that a 2020 R1 KO loss was later overturned to a No Contest when his opponent tested positive for THC. Nevertheless, Kelleher was able to control the grappler in Pilarte on the mat for essentially the entire fight, as he finished 3 for 3 on his takedown attempts with nearly 13 minutes of control time. It could have been even more but Kelleher attempted a pair of unsuccessful guillotine chokes in the second round that left him on his back for a brief period of time. Kelleher also finished ahead in significant strikes 28-3 and in total strikes 236-117 as he easily cruised to a unanimous 30-27 decision victory. In his post-fight speech, Kelleher acknowledged that it wasn’t the most exciting fight, but said he needed the W so he had to fight smart. That seems to suggest he’ll look to put on more exciting performances in the future. The lopsided wrestling performance in his favor appeared inspired by Ricky Simon dominating Kelleher on the mat in his previous fight, as Kelleher had never landed more than a single takedown in his previous 11 UFC fights.
Before dropping back down to 135 lb, Kelleher went 2-2 at 145 lb with a R2 KO win, a R1 guillotine choke win, and a pair of decision losses. Those two losses came against really tough wrestlers in Cody Stamann and Ricky Simon, as did Kelleher’s previous three UFC defeats, which were against Montel Jackson, John Lineker, and Marlon Vera. However, he’s found more success at 145 lb where he’s gone 5-3 in the UFC, with two decision wins, two R1 submission victories, and a R3 KO win. While both of his UFC losses at 145 lb went the distance, all three of his losses at 135 lb have come early, including a pair of R1 submissions and a R3 KO.
In his loss to Ricky Simon, Kelleher was taken down 6 times on 9 attempts and trailed in significant strikes 45-19 and in total strikes 72-25. Simon also finished with over eight minutes of control time as he was in complete control the majority of the fight.
Prior to that loss, Kelleher landed a 39 second R1 guillotine choke submission win against last minute replacement Ray Rodriguez back in September 2020. Kelleher was originally booked against Ricky Simon for that fight, but Simon was forced to withdraw and Kevin Natividad stepped in on relatively short notice. Unfortunately, Natividad was also forced to withdraw and Ray Rodriguez, who the UFC brought in as backup, stepped in on the day of the event. Amid the chaos, Rodriguez apparently didn’t get a chance to watch much tape on Kelleher, as he left his neck wide open on a takedown and Kelleher responded with his seventh career win by guillotine choke, the sixth victory of this kind in the first round. He also has three rear-naked choke victories on his record.
He’s so fond of the guillotine that he renamed it the “boomatine”. Along with these submission wins, he has eight career knockouts and five wins by decision to round out his 23-12 pro record. Of his losses, he’s only been knocked out once, submitted six times, and has lost five decisions. Five of his six submission losses have come in the first as have 8 of his 10 submission wins.
Eight of Kelleher’s 12 UFC fights have ended early (5-3), with five of those ending in first round submissions (3-2). He has also knocked out two opponents in the later rounds and was knocked out himself in the third round of a 2018 fight against John Lineker. While all five of his UFC fights resulting in submission wins or losses ended in the first round, all of the knockouts occurred in the later rounds.
Kevin Croom
3rd UFC Fight (0-1, NC)Looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Alex Caceres, Croom will have his work cut out for him after taking this fight on just three days' notice. With that said, he made his UFC debut on short notice and submitted Roosevelt Roberts in just 31 seconds, though the results were later overturned to a No Contest when he tested positive for THC.
In his recent decision loss, Croom tried to keep up an unsustainable pace as he relentlessly looked for takedowns, which unsurprisingly resulted in him gassing out in the third round and going just 1 for 16 on his takedown attempts. Caceres finished ahead 48-16 in significant strikes and 97-26 in total strikes, while matching Croom 1-1 on takedowns, although it took Caceres just one attempt and Croom 16. Croom led in control time 7:32-3:44 which was mostly spent pushing Caceres up against the cage while Croom failed to land takedowns.
Despite taking his debut on just a day’s notice and fighting up a weight class, Croom dropped Roberts with a left hook just seconds into the fight and then locked up a guillotine choke to close things out as Roberts got up. The entire fight lasted just 31 seconds.
After making his debut at 155 lb, he dropped back down to 145 lb, where this next fight will also be. He actually fought Justin Gaethje at a 159 lb Catchweight all the way back in 2011 in Gaethje’s pro debut, which Gaethje won in R1 with a KO by slam. Other than that, Croom has generally fought between 135 lb and 145 lb. Croom also fought notable fighter Darrick Minner in 2018 and defeated him with a R2 KO but when he took on another UFC fighter in Kamuela Kirk, he submitted Croom in the first round. So while this is just his third UFC fight, he has gone up against multiple UFC fighters in the past.
Now 21-13 as a pro, Croom has six wins by KO, 10 by submission, and five decisions. He’s also been knocked out four times, submitted four more, and lost five decisions. Including his UFC debut that was later overturned, 17 of his 35 pro fights have ended in the first round (13-4) and he’s generally looking to push the pace and end fights quickly. Considering he took this fight on just a few days’ notice and gassed out late in his last fight when he did have time to prepare, we expect him to sell out for an early finish so as to not see what his cardio looks like late in the fight. Fortunately for him, Croom trains out of Glory MMA and they’ve already got him one short notice win in the UFC so far.
Fight Prediction:
Croom will have a 5” height advantage and 7” reach advantage.
Kelleher has to be smiling as he practices his guillotine in the mirror right now after seeing Croom helplessly shoot for 16 takedowns in his last fight. However, it’s no secret that Kelleher loves to look for guillotine chokes so you can imagine that James Krause is trying to quickly get Croom up to speed on how to keep his neck safe in the two days they have to prepare for this fight. It will be interesting to see what adjustments Croom makes from his last fight, which hardly went well for him, but with so little time to prepare you have to wonder how he’ll look. We expect he’ll try to grip it and rip it, hoping to land an early finish with another fast-paced start, but you never know. Either way, we see Kelleher either landing a first round guillotine choke as Croom shoots for a takedown or a late round KO after Croom gasses out.
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DFS Implications:
Well, we’re coming into the new year hot as we get not one but two mispriced favorites on DraftKings to kick off the first slate of the year. After Kelleher was installed as a +135 underdog when he was set to face Saidyokub Kakhramonov, he now checks in as a -300 favorite in his new matchup, making him the biggest favorite on the slate. So with his DraftKings price already set at $7,500, he’s massively mispriced and will be owned accordingly at a ridiculous rate. He’s scored at least 91 DraftKings points in all seven of his UFC wins, with DraftKings totals of 126, 115, 93, 106, 91, 112, and 92. On top of that, Croom likes to push the pace which will make it even harder for this fight to fail to produce a useful score for the winner. At their cheap price tags it’s hard to see the winner of this fight not cracking the optimal DraftKings lineup. The odds imply Kelleher has a 72% chance to win, a 34% chance to get a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Croom’s 31 second submission win in his UFC debut was good for 127 DraftKings points and 123 points on FanDuel, however it was expunged from his record after he tested positive for THC. Now, his scoresheet lists DraftKings scores of just 32 and 12 in his two UFC fights. When you combine that with how mispriced Kelleher is, we should see Croom’s ownership come in low despite how popular he ended up being the last time he fought. That makes him a very interesting leverage play in tournaments on a slate where you have to find ways to be unique in order to avoid massive splits. The odds imply Croom has a 28% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #8
Court McGee
19th UFC Fight (9-9)Coming off just his second win in his last seven fights, McGee defeated a 38-year-old Claudio Silva in a May 2021 decision. McGee looked somewhat rejuvenated in the fight and did a good job of controlling the dangerous grappler in SIlva on the mat. The fight ended with McGee ahead in significant strikes 37-21 and in total strikes 110-81. He also landed 3 of his 5 takedown attempts with over eight minutes of control time, while stuffing 9 of Silva’s 10 attempts.
Prior to that win, McGee had lost three straight decisions and five of his previous six. McGee joined the UFC in 2010 and won his first two fights with late round submissions, but has since fought to decisions in 15 of his last 16 fights, including his most recent eight. The one exception over those 16 fights going back 11 years was a 2016 R1 KO loss to Santiago Ponzinibbio, which is the only time McGee has been finished in 29 pro fights. Impressively, he’s never been submitted. While he does have 10 finishes on his record, eight of those came in 2009 or before, prior to joining the UFC, and the other two came in his first two UFC appearances.
In his second most recent decision loss to Carlos Condit, Mcgee got dropped from a right hook just as the first round ended but was able to get back to his feet and continue in the second round. That was the biggest moment in the fight as the rest of it was pretty close, with Condit narrowly coming out ahead in total strikes/significant strikes 88-84, with neither fighter attempting a takedown in what was a pure striking battle. Despite how close the final numbers were, Condit won a unanimous 30-27 decision as he appeared to land more damage with his strikes.
In Mcgee’s previous trip inside the Octagon, he welcomed tough up-and-comer Sean Brady to the UFC in October of 2019. McGee looked overmatched against the younger and undefeated Brady. McGee was, however, able to take it to yet another decision showing his durability and toughness.
McGee started his career off at 185 lb, but dropped down to 170 lb in his sixth UFC fight following a pair of decision losses in 2012. He has a solid 69% takedown defense and has only been taken down 13 times on 43 attempts in his 18 UFC fights. A gritty decision grinder, McGree isn’t really a threat to land finishes and excels when he can outlast his opponents for 15 minutes and win on the scorecards in the later rounds.
Ramiz Brahimaj
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Looking to keep his momentum going after notching his first UFC win, Brahimaj predictably put on a near flawless grappling performance against low-level talent Sasha Palatnikov. After not even attempting a takedown in his UFC debut, Brahimaj went back to his bread butter in the opening seconds of his last fight and easily secured top position on the mat. Palatnikov had no answer for Brahimaj’s smothering grappling and Brahimaj was able to lock up a rear-naked choke with ease. Palatnikov refused to tap and Brahimaj put him to sleep at the midway mark of the first round. The hyper-efficient finish ended with both fighters landing a single significant strike and Brahimaj officially going 2 for 2 on takedowns, both occurring in one continuous sequence early in the match. The fight lasted 153 seconds and Brahimaj finished with 132 seconds of control time.
With that win Brahimaj stretched his streak to seven of alternating wins and losses. A submission savant, all nine of his career wins have come by submission, including eight in the first round and one in round two. On the other side of things, two of his three losses ended in decisions. The only time he’s lost a fight early was in a freak injury in his UFC debut when Max Griffin gruesomely knocked his ear off resulting in an immediate stoppage midway through the third round.
In that debut, the UFC threw Brahimaj straight into the fire as they paired him up against tough longtime UFC veteran Max Griffin, who has never been submitted in his 12 year career. There are a lot of things to worry about going into your UFC debut, but getting your ear knocked off generally isn’t one of them. Oddly enough, Brahimaj didn’t shoot for a single takedown in that fight. Maybe he was overthinking and decided he wanted to prove he also had a standup game, but Griffin’s footwork played a pivotal role as he never provided a stationary target. Prior to getting mutilated midway through the third round, Brahimaj trailed in significant strikes 74-45 and in total strikes 82-46.
Brahimaj had previously been scheduled to make his debut in June 2020, but was forced to withdraw when one of his cornermen tested positive for COVID. A year prior, Brahimaj had been scheduled to go on the Contender Series in 2019, but a week before his match they discovered a tumor behind his eye. After having it successfully removed and going through an extensive recovery process, he endured a 20 month layoff leading up to his UFC debut. When you combine his struggles prior to getting into the UFC with the freak injury he suffered in his debut, Brahimaj has had to deal with far more adversity than your typical fighter early in their UFC career.
Fight Prediction:
McGee will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage. Brahimaj is notably eight years younger than the 37-year-old McGee.
Brahimaj has never won a decision (0-2) and this feels like a spot where if he grinds out a decision win he’ll likely talk about how he wanted to show he could go 15 hard minutes in his victory speech. With that said he’s always game to land an early submission, with all nine of his career wins coming in that fashion, with eight of those occurring in round one. However, he’s now facing an extremely durable opponent who’s never been submitted in 30 pro fights and this looks like a tough spot for Brahimaj to land another finish. While it’s entirely possible that Brahimaj hands McGee his first submission loss, it’s more likely that this ends in a close decision and we’ll give the slight edge to McGee in a striking battle if this does go to the judges.
Our favorite bet here is “Brahimaj Decision No Bet/Finish Only” at -136.
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DFS Implications:
While McGee hasn’t finished an opponent in his last 16 fights, he’s shown a decent floor in decision wins with DraftKings scores of 89, 99, 77, and 91 in his last four victories. However, all four of those wins have been bolstered by at least two takedowns and over seven minutes of control time. There’s no doubt it will be risky to go to the mat against a submission specialist in his upcoming match. That’s not to say he won’t do it, as he controlled another submission specialist in Claudio Silva for over eight minutes in his last fight. However, we wouldn’t be surprised if McGee was content in keeping this next fight standing. Theoretically, that lowers his floor and will make it tougher for him to return value priced as the favorite, but there’s still a chance he can put up a useful score in a decision victory. He’ll also serve as an interesting leverage play tournaments as Brahimaj is generally a field favorite, checking in at 34% owned as a -165 favorite on a 12 fight slate coming off a loss in his last fight and 46% owned as a +130 underdog on a 10 fight card in his previous UFC debut. McGee was notably just 15% owned on a 12 fights card in his last fight as a -120 favorite even after the line flipped and he was mispriced at just $8,000 on DraftKings. So now that the line has moved away from McGee in this matchup he should go overlooked by the field. The odds imply he has a 49% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it occurs in round one.
Brahimaj’s 100% finishing rate when he wins consistently drives up his ownership, which requires us to be selective as to when we choose to play him. We absolutely loved his last matchup, but this is a far tougher spot for him to land his finish. We expect the field to chase his recent results regardless of the matchup, so fading him in tournaments is the play. The line has flipped in his favor which will drive his ownership up even further, but the odds also suggest that this fight is more than likely to end in a decision. We don’t see Brahimaj scoring well without a finish or a completely dominating grappling performance and McGee has never been submitted in 30 pro fights, owning a solid 69% takedown defense. Brahimaj has also never won a fight that lasted longer than eight minutes (0-3). The odds imply Brahimaj has a 51% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #7
Joseph Holmes
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut on a seven fight winning streak with all seven wins ending in the first two rounds, Holmes hasn’t lost a fight since dropping a decision in his 2019 pro debut. Five of those wins have ended in submissions, including three in round two and two in round one. He also has a pair of first round TKOs. His most recent win was two months ago which ended in a first round TKO victory over former DWCS fighter Jhonoven Pati, who was also knocked out by Jamie Pickett on DWCS in 2020 and has now lost three straight. After that win, Holmes said that Dana White told him he needed to see his hands before he could award him a UFC contract. That discussion presumably occurred just after Holmes landed a finish on DWCS in his second most recent fight, but was not given the contract at that time.
We didn’t see much happen prior to the R2 rear-naked choke finish in that DWCS fight, which is likely why he wasn’t immediately awarded a contract. He trailed in significant strikes 18-12 and in total strikes 22-15. He landed 2 takedowns on 5 attempts with two and a half minutes of control time before getting the submission win midway through the second round.
Still just 26 years old, Holmes has all of the physical abilities to be a dangerous UFC fighter, though he is still pretty raw in all facets of his game. Luckily for him he’s with one of the best teams around in Glory MMA, so we should continue to see him evolve both his striking and his grappling. At 6’4” he’s huge for the Middleweight division and does a decent job of maximizing his length via jabs and body kicks. With a background in Jiu-Jitsu, he’s most comfortable on the mat and is constantly looking for rear-naked chokes, using it to capture four of his five submission wins.
Holmes generally fights at 185 lb, but has fought anywhere from 170 lb to 200 lb in the past. He’s yet to face much in terms of competition, so it will be interesting to see how he handles a step up in competition at the UFC level. Whether or not Jamie Pickett represents a UFC level talent is debatable, but this should still be the toughest opponent of Holmes’ career.
Jamie Pickett
4th UFC Fight (1-2)This fight was booked only about three and a half weeks ago after Pickett’s original opponent Caio Borralho withdrew. As a result, they haven’t had a ton of time to prepare for one another.
After losing his first two UFC fights, Pickett is coming off a slow-paced decision win over Laureano Staropoli. The two fighters spent most of the fight pushing each other up against the fence. When they were in open space, Pickett appeared reluctant to let his hands go despite holding a massive 8.5” reach advantage. With that said, both guys were unimpressive and Pickett finished ahead in significant strikes 47-25 and in total strikes 58-43. He also landed both of his takedown attempts while stuffing 8 of Staropoli’s 9 attempts. Staropoli finished ahead in control time with 5:26 to 2:37, but Pickett won a unanimous decision.
Just prior to notching his first UFC win, Pickett suffered his first career KO loss, which came against a terrible, albeit occasionally dangerous, Jordan Wright. Pickett lasted just 64 seconds in that match and appeared to panic once Wright got him in a Thai clinch and started throwing knees. At that point, Pickett instinctually shot for a takedown but left his head exposed, absorbing a series of heavy elbows. While Pickett momentarily recovered, Wright regained the clinch and landed a knee that dropped Pickett and then finished him on the ground as the fight was quickly stopped.
Prior to that KO loss, the only two times Pickett had been finished had both come by submission. Now 12-6 as a pro, he also has three decision losses. 8 of his 12 wins have ended in knockouts, one submission win, and three decision victories.
He lost a decision in his UFC debut against Tafon Nchukwi, who was coming down from Light Heavyweight for the first time and has since moved back up to Light Heavyweight after going 1-1 at Middleweight. Pickett didn’t do much to impress us in that fight, failing to really capitalize on his speed advantage. The two fighters clashed heads at the end of the second round,which appeared to compromise Pickett from that point on as he struggled to shake it off. Midway through the third round, Nchukwi dropped Pickett with a head kick and followed it up with a knee to the body from the Thai clinch. Pickett showed off his heart and durability as he absorbed ground and pound from Nchukwi but was able to survive and lose a lopsided decision (25-30, 26-30, 26-30). The fight ended with Nchukwi ahead 120-40 in significant strikes and 159-40 in total strikes. Nchukwi went 0 for 2 on takedowns, while Pickett went 1 for 4.
If Pickett had not gotten a shot in the UFC it wouldn’t have been for a lack of effort. He attempted to earn a UFC contract on DWCS not once, not twice, but thrice. As is often the case, the third time was the charm. In his first DWCS appearance back in 2017, he was submitted in the first round by former UFC fighter Charles Byrd. In his second time on the show, he lost a three-round decision to dangerous UFC finisher Punahele Soriano in 2019. But on his third try in August 2020, he landed a R2 KO against Jhonoven Pati and finally made it into the UFC. He unleashed an explosive flurry of punches to finish that fight, something that we hadn’t seen in his earlier fights.
Sitting on a 1-2 UFC record, Pickett looks to be fighting for his job here and he’s yet to do anything to impress us since joining the organization. He’s got decent athleticism but is habitually tentative with his striking, unable to offer much in terms of grappling. Four of his last six fights have gone the distance, yet he’s failed to land above 47 significant strikes in any of those—nor in his first two trips on DWCS for that matter.
Fight Prediction:
Holmes will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share an 80” reach. Holmes is notably 7 years younger than the 33-year-old Pickett.
We haven’t been impressed with either one of these two fighters, but Holmes appears to have more potential and is the far superior grappler. Both guys have looked tentative with their striking, but Holmes offers more power when he does land. Pickett has faced tougher competition in his career and has over twice as many pro fights, but it doesn’t necessarily show. We expect to see a lower-volume feeling out process early on with Holmes looking for ways to get this fight to the ground. If he can control Pickett on the mat there’s a good chance he can finish this with a rear-naked choke, but the notion that this fight is an absolute lock to end quickly seems misguided based on how tentative they have both looked on the feet. With that said, we like Holmes’ chances to get this fight to the ground and end it with a submission, likely in the second round. However, we wouldn’t be shocked to see it end in a disappointing low-volume decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Holmes R1 or R2 Win” at +210.
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DFS Implications:
Holmes’ desire to get fights to the mat makes him especially interesting on DraftKings, where grappling scores better, and the fact that all seven of his career wins have come in the first two rounds presents an upside on all DFS platforms. It remains unclear how he’ll fare against higher level competition as he’s yet to face anyone actually decent so far in his career. The fact that he has James Krause in his corner is certainly encouraging, as well as having all the physical attributes needed to finish fights. While his striking still looks pretty raw, he definitely has the power to knock opponents out, yet he’s most dangerous on the mat. If he can get Pickett down and control him, there’s a good chance he can land a submission. However, if he fails to get a finish we don’t see him scoring well unless he puts on an absolutely dominating grappling performance with a massive amount of control time. We don’t really see that happening, so you’re really playing him for his finishing upside. His floor is likely lower than the field realizes if this does go the distance. The odds imply he has a 58% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in the first round.
Just 3-3 in his last six fights and 1-2 in the UFC, Pickett comes into this matchup likely fighting for his roster spot. Maybe he’ll finally let his hands go, but it’s hard to bet on that. He lands a below average number of significant strikes (2.94 SSL/min) and doesn’t have much of a chance to win the grappling exchanges in this fight. Because of that, he’s dependent on landing a knockout to score well and Holmes has notably never been finished. Working in Pickett’s favor, Holmes is making his UFC debut on just a few week’s notice and debuting fighters have historically struggled, winning a little over a third of the time in 2021. So, it’s possible Holmes falls on his face and a desperate Pickett finds a way to land a knockout against a pretty inexperienced opponent. While we’re not even slightly confident that’s how this will play out, at the very least it keeps Pickett in play for tournaments. The odds imply he has a 42% chance to win, a 19% chance to get a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #6
Joanderson Brito
Xth UFC Fight (0-0)Extending his winning streak to 10 with a bizarre technical decision win on DWCS in August 2021, Brito was warned earlier in that fight for extended fingers before stopping the fight in the third round with a bad eye poke. It didn’t appear intentional so instead of getting disqualified he was simply docked a point and the fight went to the score cards. Prior to the unfortunate ending, Brito banked the first two rounds as he controlled his opponent Diego Lopes on the mat for nearly eight minutes. Lopes came close to finishing an Armbar submission in the first round and also had a Guillotine attempt locked in at one point later on as he continued to hunt for submissions off his back. Brito finished ahead in significant strikes 44-20 and in total strikes 59-37, while tacking on three takedowns on four attempts.
Prior to that win, Brito hadn’t competed in over 27 months dating back to a 44 second R1 KO win in the LFA in May 2019. Brito has now fought just once in the last 32 months, but is still just 26 years old. His third most recent fight ended in an early R2 guillotine choke victory against a 19-year-old opponent and just before that he had won a smothering decision in a fight where the most exciting thing to happen was the venue falling apart with padding tumbling off the cage before the fight even started and the canvas bunching up like a store brand Slip ‘N Slide. Looking back one fight further, he finished an opponent with a late second round submission, but was then too exhausted to even stand up or put a shirt on and had to be held up by his corner following the match. So basically, every time this guy fights, some weird shit goes down.
He still has an impressive record of 12-2-1 and has notably gone 11-0-1 in his last 12 fights after starting off his career at 1-2 back in 2013. Twelve of his 15 fights have ended early, with five wins by KO, five by submission, and two decisions. Both of his losses came early with a 2013 R1 submission in his first pro fight and a 2015 R1 KO in his third pro match. While 80% of his fights have ended early, five of his last six have made it past the first round.
He reminds us of Rafael Alves, and similarly has competed at both 145 lb and 155 lb in the past. While his last three fights were all at 145 lb, his three prior to that all took place at 155 lb. He’s jacked for the 145 lb division, and though he’s not very tall at just 5’8”, it still makes you wonder about his cardio and how tough the weight cut must be.
Overall, Brito is a blitzing wild man who throws violent strikes and looks for a good number of takedowns. He’ll look for both guillotine submissions and rear-naked chokes in addition to trying to finish opponents with haymakers. He’s dangerous in a variety of ways, but he lacks much finesse and simply tries to bull rush and overpower his opponents. That may work on the regional scene, but we’re skeptical he’ll find much success in the UFC against higher level opponents.
Bill Algeo
Xth UFC Fight (0-0)Looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Ricardo Ramos, Algeo struggled to remain on his feet in that match as Ramos took him down 8 times out of 13 attempts. With that said, Ramos only finished with 3:26 of control time and one submission attempt as he wasn’t able to keep Algeo down for long. Algeo finished ahead in significant strikes 76-53 and in total strikes 90-57, but in the end Ramos won a unanimous decision.
With that decision loss, Algeo has now gone the distance in five straight fights and has alternated wins and losses in six straight. His last three early wins all notably occurred in the second round as did his last early loss. His last 13 fights have all either ended in round two (3-1) or gone the distance (5-4). Prior to that loss, Algeo won a decision over a dangerous Spike Carlyle. Algeo was able to stay out of danger and wear Carlyle out as he took over in the later rounds.
Algeo made his UFC debut on short notice, just 16 days after fighting previously. He looked good in the first two rounds against veteran Ricardo Lamas and seemed like he was going to cruise to a decision win before Lamas put up a dominating 10-8 third round to steal the decision. A BJJ black belt, Algeo showed solid scrambling ability on the ground in that match, but tired himself out later on.
Algeo is now 14-6 as a pro, with three wins by KO, six by submission, and five decisions. Five of his six submission wins came by rear-naked choke and one by arm-triangle choke. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted twice—once by Shane Burgos and then previously from a R1 Armbar in his second pro fight. Impressively, he’s only been finished once in his last 18 fights and that was nearly seven years ago. After his first two pro fights in 2012 both ended in first round submissions (1-1), 17 of his last 18 fights have made it to round two and the last time we saw one of his fights end in the first five minutes was all the way back in 2014.
In his three UFC fights, Algeo has been taken down 17 times out of 37 attempts, with all three of his opponents attempting 11 or more takedowns. He was also taken down 3 times out of 8 attempts on DWCS and owns just a 55% takedown defense.
Fight Prediction:
Algeo will have a 4” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
We expect Brito to come in looking to test Algeo’s takedown defense, which will likely play a major factor in the outcome of this fight. Algeo is significantly taller and should come in with a similar game plan as he had against Spike Carlyle where he looked to safely keep his distance on the feet and out-scramble him on the mat. Algeo should have the cardio advantage and we see him cautiously approaching the first round as he looks to outlast Brito. Sitting on a 1-2 UFC record, Algeo desperately needs to win this fight to secure his job and we don’t see him taking too many risks to get it done. It’s no secret that Brito likes to come out of the gates aggressively and Algeo should try to use that against him, letting Brito tire himself out. The bigger question will be if Brito can get Algeo down and keep him there or if Algeo can remain elusive on his feet. It would make sense for Brito to find some early success in getting Algeo down, but for Algeo to then take over in the later rounds as Brito begins to tire. We see Algeo outlasting him and winning a close decision as he welcomes the newcomer to the UFC, but if Brito’s cardio holds up it’s possible he grinds out a decision on the mat. While Brito does have explosive striking, Algeo has never been knocked out and if this fight ends early it likely comes by submission. We expect it to go the distance.
Our favorite bet here is “Algeo Wins by Decision” at +320.
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DFS Implications:
Brito is the type of fighter that the field gets excited about playing in DFS based on his physique and past record. However, he has a lot working against him here as he makes his UFC debut against an opponent in Bill Algeo who’s never been knocked out, has three fights of UFC experience, and should be desperate for a win. Brito has the power, aggression, and track record to land a finish anytime he steps inside the Octagon, but his more likely path to scoring well here on DraftKings will be to put on a smothering grappling performance. Algeo has been taken down 17 times on 37 attempts in his three UFC fights as he’s faced double digit attempts from all three of his opponents. With that said, Algeo is also a BJJ black belt and it’s been over seven years since anyone submitted him. While he’s been susceptible to getting taken down, he’s generally done a good job of returning to his feet and/or scrambling to reverse positions on the mat. Brito should face more favorable matchups in the future, but this looks like a spot to fade him while the field chases his theoretical upside before seeing how he looks against an actual UFC opponent. With that said, he has the ability to score well with either a finish or by racking up takedowns and control time, so it’s risky fading him altogether. The odds imply he has a 55% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in the first round.
Algeo leads the slate with 6.37 SSL/min, but it’s important to point out that this number is bolstered by the 147 significant strikes he landed on DWCS back in 2019. If we look only at his three UFC fights, that average drops down to 5.22 SSL/min and with just two takedowns landed in his three UFC fights, it’s hard for him to really score well without a finish. With that in mind, his last five fights have all gone the distance and it’s been nearly three years since he’s finished an opponent. It’s possible he could still serve as a value play at his cheaper price tag depending on what the other underdogs on the slate do, but in his three UFC fights which all went the distance(1-2), he’s scored 54, 85, and 39 DraftKings points. Even if he had won the two decisions that didn’t go his way, he would still be averaging just 79 DraftKings points, which is unlikely to be useful in tournaments even at his lower price. He’s likely reliant on landing a finish to return value and it’s been over six years since anyone finished Brito. Algeo’s best hope is for Brito to gas out and for Algeo to lock up a submission in the back half of the fight, which is certainly possible. The odds imply Algeo has a 45% chance to win, a 21% chance to get a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #5
Viacheslav Borshchev
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut following a R2 KO win on DWCS, Borshchev is a former Russian Kickboxing champion with literally hundreds of kickboxing matches on his resume but just six MMA fights since turning pro in June 2019. In his recent DWCS match, he landed a solid liver kick in the first round that immediately forced his opponent Chris Duncan to look for a takedown to survive. Duncan was able to take advantage of Borshchev’s poor grappling and got him to the mat. He got a little too aggressive looking for ground and pound, giving Borshchev a window to kick him off and return to his feet. Thirty seconds later Duncan was able to pick Borshchev up and slam him back to the mat, but again was unable to keep him there. Early in the second round Borshchev clipped Duncan with a perfectly timed counter left cross to end the fight and send Duncan to another dimension
A kickboxing coach at Team Alpha Male, Borshchev has been working on adding some grappling to his arsenal, though it’s really for defensive purposes as we didn’t see him attempt a takedown in his last four fights. While his takedown defense is still pretty poor, you can tell he’s been working on not accepting positions on the mat and he’s constantly looking for ways to return to his feet. He’s still vulnerable to being controlled by wrestlers, however, and clearly grappling is still his biggest weakness.
Borshchev came dangerously close to getting finished in his second to last fight. He was knocked down and then nearly choked out early on, but was saved by the bell at the end of the first round. With that said, he bounced back to land a late second round KO to win the match and has now notched back-to-back R2 KO/TKOs. He’s now 5-1 as a pro, with his only loss ending in a 2020 split-decision in his third pro MMA fight. Four of his five wins have come by KO/TKO in the first two rounds, while he also has one decision win on his record from his second pro fight. He comes into the UFC having landed three straight KO/TKOs in the opening two rounds.
Overall, Borshchev is rather unimposing when you look at him, but he’s a solid striker who does a great job of ripping the body of his opponent with punches and throwing snappy kicks, often targeting the liver. He’s still pretty green when it comes to grappling and will likely spend most of his time in the UFC defending takedowns as that’s clearly the path to defeating him. He’s yet to face any high-level grapplers in his short MMA career, so it will be interesting to see how helpless he looks on the mat at the next level. He’s likely in for some rough outings where he gets smothered on his back.
Dakota Bush
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Bush is coming off a loss to UFC veteran Austin Hubbard in his short-notice UFC debut, which he made on just a week’s notice. He came out hot and aggressive, likely realizing his cardio wasn’t where it needed to be to remain competitive in the later rounds. However, despite his wrestling background, he failed to attempt a single takedown until the second round when he was already greatly slowing down. Breathing heavily with his mouth wide open early in round two, it appeared that taking the fight on short notice played a role in his lack of conditioning. With that said, he’s lost three of his last four fights that have made it out of the first round and he’s generally been a round one or bust fighter for the majority of his career. It’s worth noting that he’s never been finished by an opponent. Once Bush began to gas out, Hubbard was able to easily control him for periods of time and cruise to a decision win.
Prior to joining the UFC, Bush had finished a pair of opponents in the first round in the LFA and had won four of his last five matches, with all four wins coming early. In fact, none of his last five victories required the judges, with his last decision win occurring in his third pro fight back in 2017. He holds an 8-3 pro record, with two wins by KO, four rear-naked choke submission wins, and a pair of decisions. All three of his losses have gone the distance, while five of his six early wins have ended in the first round. His background is in wrestling and while he’s more dangerous on the mat than the feet, his last win was a R1 KO, which was his first knockout since his 2016 pro debut.
After taking his last two fights on short notice, Bush will finally get a full training camp as this matchup was announced in late October. That should give him ample time to work on his cardio, which appeared to be his biggest issue in his last fight.
Fight Prediction:
Borshchev will have a 1” height advantage, but Bush will have a 4” reach advantage.
Bush will have a massive grappling advantage and should be looking to quickly get this fight to the mat where he excels at finishing opponents with rear-naked chokes. While Bush failed to attempt a takedown in the first round of his last fight, he finished the match with six attempts. He only lacked the cardio to complete more than one in that fight. We expect him to recognize that mistake and shoot early and often in this next match as he faces off against a one-dimensional striker. This is a classic grappler versus striker matchup that will simply hinge on where the fight takes place. While Borshchev has proven to be dangerous in a striking battle, he’s no threat on the ground and has a poor takedown defense. Look for Bush to easily get him to the ground and work towards a rear-naked choke submission and we like him to pull off the upset in the first round. However, if Borshchev can survive to see a second round, it’s possible that Bush will run into cardio issues again and struggle to be effective with his grappling. That would present an opportunity for Borshchev to land a second round knockout. However, we’ll give Bush the benefit of the doubt with his cardio here after taking his last match on short notice. So, Bush by R1 rear-naked choke submission is our pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Bush R1 Submission” at +1500.
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DFS Implications:
Borshchev’s recent early R2 KO win on DWCS would have been good for 97 DraftKings points and 112 points on FanDuel. He’s a high-volume striker with four of his five pro wins coming by KO split across the first two rounds. However, he doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling so at his high price tag it’s very unlikely he can return value without a finish. Working against him, Bush should be looking to get him to the mat and Bush has never been finished in his career. This looks like a poor matchup for Borshchev to excel in and we often see debuting fighters struggle, winning just a little over a third of the time in 2021. This looks like a spot where we’ll likely be more interested in playing him in his next fight if he gets paired up with a striker, but his finishing upside still keeps him in play on this slate with limited options to choose from. Keeping in mind that he needs a finish to be useful in DFS, the odds imply he has a 63% chance to win, a 42% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance that it comes in the first round.
Bush has essentially been a round one or bust fighter throughout his career, with 10 of his 11 fights either ending in the first round (5-0) or going the distance (2-3). The one exception was a 2018 R3 rear-naked choke win with 11 seconds left in the fight. However, priced near the bottom of the pile in DFS at just $7,200, Bush could still be useful with a grappling-heavy decision win. This looks like a favorable matchup for Bush to dominate the grappling exchanges as he faces a one-dimensional kickboxer who’s making his UFC debut and we foresee Bush pulling off the upset, most likely with an early submission win. So naturally, we really like him in DFS, but he’ll likely be in trouble if he doesn’t get this fight to the ground quickly as Borshchev is the superior striker in the match. The odds imply Bush has a 37% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it occurs in round one.
Fight #4
Katlyn Chookagian
14th UFC Fight (9-4)This is a rematch of a 2019 fight that Chookagian won by decision. That fight took place on a PPV card in the larger cage at Madison Square Garden, which worked in Chookagian’s favor as her game plan was focused on utilizing her reach advantage by staying at range and circling away to Maia’s weak side. In that initial matchup, Maia notably missed weight by 1.2 lb and was never able to take advantage of her grappling advantage. The only takedown she landed came in the final minute of the fight as she never officially attempted a takedown in the first two rounds. Chookagian was able to use her length and footwork to outland Maia 73-58 in significant strikes and 109-74 in total strikes, going on to win a unanimous 29-28 decision.
In her most recent fight, Chookagian won a high-volume decision over a really tough Viviane Araujo. Chookagian had a narrow lead in striking in the first round, but Araujo appeared to be landing the more impactful blows. Araujo was then able to take Chookagian down in round two and control her on the mat for a period of time, during which she looked for a mounted guillotine choke followed by an arm-triangle choke. However, she was unable to complete either and Chookagian was able to escape, returning to her feet late in the round. Araujo looked visibly fatigued following the grappling exchange and Chookagian capitalized on that by pulling away in striking from that point on. Chookagian finished ahead in significant strikes with 127-89 and in total strikes 135-129. Araujo landed the only takedown in the match on three attempts and finished with just over three minutes of control time. That was the most significant strikes Chookagian has ever landed in a fight. She hadn’t topped 82 in her previous nine fights.
Prior to defeating Araujo, Chookagian won a decision over Cynthia Calvillo, who was also only able to take Chookagian down once. The pair of decision wins came just after Jessica Andrade landed a bizarre R1 KO victory over Chookagian from a body shot that sent Chookagian retreating across the Octagon and then collapsing just before the first round ended. That was just the second time Chookagian had ever been finished, with the first coming two fights earlier in the third round of a title fight against dominant champion, Valentina Shevchenko.
Outside of those two KO/TKO losses, Chookagian’s other 11 most recent fights all ended in decisions and she hasn’t landed a finish of her own since joining the UFC in 2016. Now holding a 16-4 pro record, only 3 of her 16 career wins have come early, all of which came in her first seven pro fights (2 KOs & 1 Submission). Those finishes came against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-1, and 7-3. Her first two career losses both ended in split decisions, whereas her last two both ended in KO/TKOs.
Chookagian made her 2014 pro debut at 115 lb, but immediately moved up to 125 lb for her second pro match. Then in 2016, despite winning her first six pro fights, she moved up again to 135 lb for her seventh pro bout (one fight before joining the UFC). Chookagian made her 2016 UFC debut at 135 lb and won a decision against Lauren Murphy. Chookagian stayed at 135 lb for her first three UFC fights, where she went 2-1 in three decisions, and then dropped down to 125 lb where she’s fought her last 10 fights, going 7-3 over that stretch.
Jennifer Maia
8th UFC Fight (4-3)Coming off a close decision win over Jessica Eye, Maia appeared fortunate to walk away with a unanimous decision victory after she was slightly outlanded in significant strikes with 100-98 and in total strikes 104-102. Sh was also taken down twice on three attempts and did not attempt any takedowns of her own. Eye had her forehead split wide open with an accidental clash of heads, perhaps all of the blood unfairly swaying the judges in Maia’s favor. Eye also controlled the center of the Octagon for essentially the entire fight, so clearly the judges thought Maia was the one doing more damage as she trailed in every statistical category. In fairness, it was a close fight and Eye wasn’t able to do much of anything with either of her takedowns, but it seemed like the decisions could have gone either way.
A BJJ and Muay Thai black belt, Maia lost a 5-round decision in a title fight against Valentina Shevchenko prior to her recent win over Eye. Maia did better than most against the champ and impressively controlled her at times early in the fight, winning her the second round. With that said, Maia still lost a unanimous 49-46 decision and was outlanded 62-36 in significant strikes and 249-94 in total strikes. Shevchenko also landed 5 takedowns on 6 attempts with 9:34 of control time, while Maia went 1 for 2 with 7:51 of control time. Shevchenko was also notably returning from knee surgery for that match, which could have had something to do with her slower start.
Maia has gone 10-3 in her last 13 fights with the three losses coming in decisions against tough opponents in Valentina Shevchenko, Katlyn Chookagian, and Liz Carmouche. Ten of Maia’s last 11 fights have gone the distance, with the one exception being a 2020 R1 armbar submission win over Joanne Wood to steal her title ticket. Maia does have nine finishes among her 19 career wins, but five of those came at the beginning of her pro career and she only has one finish since 2015. Four of her career finishes ended in KOs, while the other five were submissions. She’s been very durable and has only been finished early twice in 27 pro fights, both of those coming very early in her career in a 2011 R2 armbar and a 2012 R1 KO. She’s had 19 fights since then without being finished.
Despite holding a BJJ black belt, Maia has only landed two total takedowns on just four attempts in her seven UFC fights, so we should all probably stop assuming that she’ll wisely utilize her grappling just because it would make sense in certain matchups. She also lands an average of just 3.8 significant strikes per minute while only absorbing 3.97 per minute. Remarkably, she is coming off of both the most significant strikes she’s landed and absorbed in her last matchup.
Fight Prediction:
Chookagian will have a 5” height advantage and 4” reach advantage.
We’ve already seen this matchup play out once and the only thing that’s really changed since that initial 2019 fight is the size of the Octagon the two women will be fighting in. While the small Octagon could be beneficial for Maia, especially if she looks to grapple, we’re not convinced it will make a major difference. We expect Chookagian to again defeat Maia in a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Chookagian Wins by Decision” at -110.
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DFS Implications:
The only time we’ve ever seen Chookagian score well in DFS was when she dominated Antonina Shevchenko on the mat for three rounds, just after getting finished by her sister Valentina in a title shot. It would be shocking to see Chookagian pull off a similar performance against Maia, who’s a BJJ black belt. While Chookagian set a career high in significant strikes landed in her last fight, she still scored only 82 DraftKings points, showing that she very likely needs a finish here to be useful at her high price tag. With that in mind, Chookagian hasn’t finished an opponent in any of her 13 UFC fights and is nothing more than a decision grinder. Of course, there’s a first for everything and anything can happen in a fight. We’d still be very surprised to see her finish Maia, who hasn’t been finished in her last 19 fights dating back to 2012. Ultimately, the only reason to really consider playing Chookagian is that she’s going to be very low owned in tournaments. Supporting that idea, she was just 10% owned as a -140 favorite, priced at $8,800 on a 12-fight card the last time she fought. The odds imply she has a 62% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it occurs in round one.
Maia lacks the striking and takedown volume to score well in decisions, which leaves her reliant on landing a finish to return value in DFS. With that in mind, she has just one early win in her last 10 fights, which resulted from a R1 armbar she threw up off of her back against Joanne Wood in her only UFC fight to end early. Her three UFC decision wins have returned DraftKings scores of just 70, 75, and 58 and even at her cheaper price tag it’s hard to see her scoring enough in a decision to be useful. If she had won the decision the first time these two had fought, she still would have scored just 66 DraftKings points. The only way we see her putting up a meaningful score without a finish is if she completely changes the way she fights by coming in and executing a grappling heavy game plan. While she may be capable of doing that, she’s proven time and time again that she would rather take part in striking battles. The odds imply she has a 38% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #3
Brandon Royval
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Looking to bounce back from a pair of losses against Flyweight champion Brandon Moreno and #3 ranked Alexandre Pantoja, Royval went from making his UFC debut in May 2020 to battling for a top contender spot in just a 15 month period. In his recent second round submission loss to Pantoja, Royval was controlled by the elite grappler for nearly three minutes in a fight that lasted just 6 minutes and 46 seconds. Pantoja was able to take Royval’s back just 15 seconds into the first round, demonstrating why he’s one of the best Flyweights in the world as he masterfully controlled Royval who was frantically trying to get away the whole time. Royval looked for a heel hook as the two scrambled on the mat, but Pantoja calmly negated his efforts, looking like he was waiting for a bus the entire time. Royval was able to return to his feet late in the round but Pantoja was the one landing the more impactful strikes. A minute into the second round Pantoja was able to take Royval’s back and return him to the mat as he quickly locked in a rear-naked choke, forcing a tap.
Prior to that recent loss, Royval underwent shoulder surgery following a R1 TKO loss to Brandon Moreno. Royval’s shoulder dislocated late in the first round of that fight, rendering him helpless as he got pummeled on the mat. Leading up to the injury, Moreno was able to take Royval’s back for an extended period of time and look for submissions in what looked to be a cross between a twister and a rear-naked choke. The fight lasted a second less than five minutes and Moreno finished with just over three minutes of control time and led in total strikes 53-24 and in takedowns 2-0. Royval did squeak out the lead in significant strikes 17-16 but clearly lost the round.
That recent surgery wasn’t Royval’s first trip under the knife to repair his shoulder as he had two previous shoulder surgeries for this ongoing issue. Hopefully it will be his last, as he made it out of his last fight without reinjuring it, but it is still something to keep in mind.
A BJJ blackbelt, Royval exploded onto the UFC scene in May 2020 and quickly climbed the ranks all the way to the #6 spot in the Flyweight division after just two UFC matches. Both of those fights were early wins over ranked opponents. Royval made his short notice UFC debut on just a week’s notice against longtime veteran Tim Elliot. In a high paced brawl, Royval was able to submit Elliot half way through the second round with an arm-triangle choke. Showing just how high his expectations are of himself, in a post fight interview he lamented the fact that he didn’t perform better in the fight and was visibly upset with himself. Remember, this was a guy making his UFC debut on one week’s notice who just submitted a top 15 Flyweight with eight years of UFC experience.
Royval stepped back into the octagon four months later against an even higher ranked opponent in Kai Kara France. Royval put on an even more impressive performance in an action packed dust up between two top 10 Flyweights. The high-paced scrap lasted just a minute into the second round before Royval hopped on Kara France’s neck for an impressive guillotine choke against an opponent who had previously never been finished inside of the UFC. That marked Royval’s fourth straight win by submission, all coming in the first two rounds.
The pair of impressive submission wins propelled Royval into a matchup against top contender and future champion Brandon Moreno, where Royval unfortunately suffered the shoulder injury late in the first round to put a disappointing finish to his impressive first year with the organization.
Now 12-6 as a pro, 11 of Royval’s 12 wins have come early, with three KO/TKOs and eight submissions. All three of his KO/TKO wins occurred in the first round, as have five of his eight submission victories, the other two ending in the second round. He’s been submitted once, has the one TKO loss against Moreno, and has four decision losses. Prior to his two recent losses, he had won seven of his previous eight fights, with the only loss during that stretch coming in a 5-round decision against Casey Kenney in an LFA title fight. Since losing that 2018 5-round decision to Kenney, Royval hasn’t been past the second round in his last six fights. Remarkably, Royval fought at 135 lb until 2016 when he dropped down to the 125 lb division. Standing 5’9”, he’s tall for the division and generally has the height advantage in his fights.
Rogerio Bontorin
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Coming off his first win in his last three fights, Bontorin won a decision over a tentative Matt Schnell in a fight that took place up at 135 lb. Even fighting up a weight class, Bontorin still missed weight by a pound, tipping the scales at 137 lb for that match. He accepted that fight on somewhat shorter notice, at least by his standards, as he stepped in four week’s out after Alex Perez dropped from the bout. Getting down to 125 lb has been a tough cut for him, but it was somewhat surprising that he couldn’t even hit the 135 lb mark. As he’ll be moving back down to 125 lb for this fight, he’s a guy to keep an eye on during weigh-ins.
In his recent decision win, which occurred just two months after he suffered a KO loss, Bontorin looked huge after weighing in at 137 lb. Schnell continued his newfound cautious approach to fighting and was made to pay for it as he lost a unanimous, albeit close, decision. We only saw one takedown attempted in the fight, which Bontorin landed in the third round. The rest of the fight played out as a methodical striking battle with Bontorin leading in significant strikes 72-65 and Schnell leading in total strikes 113-89. Bontorin also led in control time with 2:18 to nothing.
Prior to that win, Bontorin got knocked out by Kai Kara-France in a crazy comeback, late first round finish. Bontorin took Kara-France down and had his back just 90 seconds into the fight. He spent the next three minutes hunting for a rear-naked choke submission and looked moments away from getting the finish at multiple points. However, with less than 30 seconds left in the round, Kara-France was able to shake Bontorin off and get back into open space. He landed multiple right hands that face-planted Bontorin into the mat in a walk off KO. Then things got weird. As soon as he dropped Bontorin, Kara-France took a victory lap without even waiting for the ref to call the fight. As he circled back around the Octagon to the grounded Bontorin, it looked like Kara-France thought the ref never stopped the action and went in for the kill shot. Herb Dean grabbed Kara-France before he could land anything, but Bontorin saw what was going on and got up off his back and threw his mouthguard at Kara-France in disgust. Kara-France seemed oblivious to what was going on, as he sprinted around the Octagon in celebration, after landing his first UFC KO. That was also the first time Bontorin had ever been knocked out.
Before that fight, Bontorin suffered an ultra low-volume smothering decision loss against Ray Borg, where Borg outlanded Bontorin 35-9 in significant strikes, while completing 10 takedowns on a crazy 19 attempts, amassing over 11 minutes of control time. Prior to the dud against Borg, Bontorin was 2-0 in the UFC and had won his previous four fights, although one of those wins came from a flukey doctor stoppage against Raulian Paiva.
Bontorin originally punched his ticket to the UFC with a second round submission win on DWCS in 2018. He then made his 2019 UFC debut against Magomed Bibulatov and won a split-decision. Bibulatov notably went 0-2 in the UFC before getting cut after the loss to Bontorin. Following the decision win in his debut, Bontorin took on Raulian Paiva in what ended up being a bizarre three minute fight that went down as a R1 TKO for Bontorin on a doctor’s stoppage.
A BJJ black belt, Bontorin is a submission specialist with 11 of his 17 career wins ending in submissions. However, he’s yet to submit anybody at the UFC level and his last submission victory was on DWCS in August 2018. He also has three KO/TKO and three decision wins on his record. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has one decision loss to bring his pro record to 17-3, where two of those three losses notably occurred in his last three fights. While he’s only been to three decisions in his 20 pro fights, all have occurred in his last five fights since joining the UFC.
Bontorin started his pro career at 135 lb in 2013, but dropped down to 125 lb in 2015, before taking a fight all the way up at 145 lb in 2017 and then dropping back down to 135 lb, where he stayed until his 2018 DWCS fight. There, he moved back down to 125 lb where he has fought all but one of his fights since.
Fight Prediction:
Royval will have a 4” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
We’ve never been overly impressed by Bontorin, but he does have a ton of power for the Flyweight division and is a dangerous grappler. However, he also has weight-cut and cardio concerns. Going against an opponent like Royval who never stops moving should undoubtedly put Bontorin’s cardio to the test. The grappling exchanges should be fun to watch in this fight and Royval was notably controlled on the mat in both of his last two fights. However, those were also against two of the top Flyweights in the world in Pantoja and Moreno. Now, he gets a step down in competition for the first time since joining the UFC. We pick Royval to wear Bontorin out and submit him, most likely in the second round.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Submission” at +105.
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DFS Implications:
Royval exploded onto the UFC scene in 2020 with back-to-back R2 submission wins as an underdog going against ranked opponents and quickly became a cult hero as he won betters and DFS players truckloads of money. Those two finishes were good for 91 and 111 DraftKings points, but he’s since been finished in the opening two rounds of each of his last two fights. The pair of losses should cap his ownership in this next fight, and we like this as a bounce back spot, although it’s not a layup by any means as he faces another dangerous grappler. This is notably the first time Royval has been the favorite in any of his UFC fights. Despite being a submission specialist, Royval has surprisingly only shot for two official takedowns so far in the UFC and he doesn’t require traditional takedowns to go for submissions as he’ll jump Guillotine, pull guard or simply grab a limb and go to work. Because of that, DFS platforms fail to account for all of his efforts, which slightly hurts his ceiling, but Royval has the ability to make up for that with other facets of his game. His stats are somewhat deceiving as he only averages 3.44 SSL/min and 2.98 SSA/min, but it’s important to realize that all of his fights include large amounts of control time. The only time we saw him stay in open space for any appreciable amount of time was against Kai Kara France and Royval landed 39 significant strikes in five minutes and 48 seconds (6.72 SSL/min). And even in that fight, over half the match was accounted for with control time. So he’s fully capable of taking part in a high-volume brawl, but he generally brings down his striking totals with time spent grappling. Based on his grappling prowess, Royval is a better play on DraftKings compared to FanDuel the longer this fight goes, but his record of finishes makes him a great play on both sites. The odds imply he has a 60% chance to win, a 41% chance to get a finish and a 21% chance it comes in the first round.
The only time Bontorin has ever scored well in DFS was in his lone early win in the UFC, which resulted from a first round doctor stoppage due to a flukey cut. He scored just 71 and 64 DraftKings points in his two decision wins and even at his cheaper price tag it appears he needs a finish to be useful. Working in Bontorin’s favor, Royval was controlled and finished in the first two rounds of each of his last two fights and Royval hasn’t been past the second round in his last six matches dating back to 2018. Royval is also constantly pushing the pace so you always want to have exposure to both sides of his fights as the winners have always scored well with DraftKings scores of 91, 111, 119, and 99. The odds imply Bontorin has a 40% chance to win, a 23% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Jake Collier
10th UFC Fight (4-5)Looking to shake off a split-decision loss to Carlos Felipe, Collier is coming off a pair of high-volume decisions (1-1), after losing his first fight up at Heavyweight in just 45 seconds against Tom Aspinall back in July 2020. In his recent loss, Collier outlanded Felipe 130-94 in striking. Collier led all three rounds in striking with totals of 42-25, 34-28, and 54-41, but two of the judges still awarded the match to Felipe. No knockdowns were landed in the match and Collier failed to complete his only takedown attempt. Collier did look to be tiring in the back half of the fight, but he was still able to outland Felipe every step of the way. This was Collier’s second straight fight where he landed 123 or more significant strikes. With that loss, Collier continues his streak of alternating wins and losses for 10 straight fights, where 4 of his last 5 matches have gone the distance.
After joining the UFC’s Middleweight (185lb) division in 2014, Collier went 2-2 with a R1 KO loss, a decision win, a R2 KO loss, and a R2 KO win. He then decided to move up to Light Heavyweight (205 lb) where he went 1-1 in a pair of decisions. Following a 2017 decision win, Collier took almost three years off due to a combination of factors including injuries, suspensions, and canceled fights. He finally stepped back inside the octagon in 2020, although he was barely recognizable at 60 lb heavier and competing in the Heavyweight division.
Going against a mauler in Tom Apinall in his Heavyweight debut, Collier’s first fight back didn’t last long. Aspinall disposed of Collier in just 45 seconds with an effortless KO. Honestly, the fight ended so quickly it was hard to take much away other than Collier looked terrible and Aspinall is clearly a problem for the rest of the Heavyweight division.
In his second most recent fight, Collier bounced back from the devastating loss to Aspinall with a decision win over another former Light Heavyweight in Gian Villante. Villante was also fighting in just his second Heavyweight match after losing to an underwhelming Maurice Greene in his first fight up at Heavyweight, so the two were on an even playing field from that perspective. However, Collier weighed in at 264.5 lb for that fight while Villante was just 243 lb. The fight turned into a high-volume scrap with Collier setting a career high in significant strikes, outlanding Villante 123-80. Neither fighter attempted a takedown nor landed a knockdown and we saw just two seconds of combined control time. Prior to that fight, Collier had only landed above 67 significant strikes once in his career, which occured in a 2017 decision where he landed 94.
Collier’s lone early win in the UFC came against Alberto “Uda”, who went 0-2 in his UFC career with two early losses before being shown the door. On the other side of things, Collier has been knocked out in three of his five UFC losses, with two of those coming in the first round and one in the second. Although, it is worth noting that two of those KO losses occurred when he was fighting at Middleweight.
Looking at his entire pro career, Collier now sits on a 12-6 record, with eight of his wins coming early, including five KOs and three submissions. Four of his six losses have also come early, with three KOs and one submission. While he’s only been to six decisions in his 17 pro fights, four of those came in his last five fights and he seems to be settling into the role of a decision grinder up at Heavyweight.
Chase Sherman
11th UFC Fight (3-7)Coming off a pair of decision losses, Sherman has now lost five of his last six UFC fights, with the lone win over that stretch coming against an abysmal Light Heavyweight in Ike Villanueva, who was fighting up a weight class in his UFC debut and is now 1-4 in the UFC with four KO losses. Following the fight, Sherman was suspended for nine months when he tested positive for an illegal estrogen blocker. Sherman’s most recent loss came against a portly Parker Porter in a fight where Sherman entered as a head-scratching -200 favorite. Porter outlanded Sherman 149-117 in significant strikes and 159-121 in total strikes. He was also able to land a single takedown with over two minutes of control time, although he missed on seven other takedown attempts. Both guys looked exhausted late in the fight and Sherman hasn’t won a fight that lasted longer than six minutes since 2017.
That loss brings Sherman’s pro record to 15-8 with 14 wins by KO and with four KO losses. His other five fights all went the distance with him losing four of those decisions. He’s only been out of the first round in 9 of his 23 fights where three of those fights ended in second round knockouts (2-1), one ending in a third round KO loss, and the other five going the distance (1-4). He’s gone 3-6 in his career in fights that have made it past round one and just 1-5 in fights that have made it past round two. All nine of those fights that have made it past the first round occurred in the UFC and while all 13 of his non-UFC fights ended in R1 KOs (12-1), only one of his 10 UFC fights ended in the first round, which occurred in a 2017 loss against Shamil Abdurakhimov. Two of Sherman’s three UFC wins ended in R2 KOs against terrible opponents while his third was a 2017 decision win, the only time in his career where he’s gotten his hand raised in a decision. In his seven UFC losses, Sherman has lost four decisions and has been knocked out three times spread across the first three rounds.
After going 2-5 in the UFC from 2016 to 2018, Sherman was cut following a 2018 R3 KO loss, which marked his third straight defeat. However, after landing three straight R1 KO wins on the regional scene the UFC gave him a second chance in 2020. That’s when he knocked out an undersized Ike Villanueva before dropping decisions in his last two matches.
In his second most recent bout, Sherman lost a decision to Andrei Arlovski. Sherman started out strong before unsurprisingly fading late in a high-volume stand up battle that Arlovski led 105-88 in significant strikes with no other stats to speak of. Sherman has now absorbed 105 or more significant strikes in his last three UFC losses.
Fight Prediction:
Sherman will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 78” reach.
This sets up as a low-level, high-volume Heavyweight fight between two guys who are simply looking to hang onto their jobs. At minimum, Collier appears to be making an effort to improve since moving up to Heavyweight in 2020, while Sherman seems lost in fights without much driving him. Collier has gone the distance in 4 of his last 5 fights and Sherman is coming off of two straight decisions, but neither one of these two has looked like much of a finisher lately. Collier’s next possible early win at Heavyweight will be his first, while Sherman has only been able to put away absolutely terrible opponents. In the end, we don’t expect to see a finish here. While both of these two looked exhausted late in their recent fights, we give Collier the cardio advantage and see him winning a decision here.
Our favorite bet here is “Collier Wins by Decision” at +160.
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DFS Implications:
Collier has set career high totals in significant strikes landed in two straight fights, which is especially notable considering his first six UFC fights took place at Middleweight and Light Heavyweight. However, even after landing 123 and 130 significant strikes in those two decisions, Collier still scored just 80 (W) and 52 (L) DraftKings points respectively and with no grappling stats to boost his scoring it’s hard for him to put up a big DFS total without a finish. He also hasn’t landed a knockdown in his last five fights and Sherman hasn't been knocked down in his last four UFC fights. So while this again sets up for Collier to land a high number of significant strikes, at his higher price tag it’s unlikely he returns value without a finish. The odds imply he has a 54% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish and a 9% chance it comes in the first round.
Sherman is also coming off a career best in significant strikes landed (117), which came in his second straight decision loss. Even with that high striking total, he still scored just 48 DraftKings points, which would have been far from useful even had the decision gone his way. He also has a 75 point score in a decision win earlier in his career, further demonstrating that he needs a finish to return value, even priced as an underdog. While we’ve seen that anything can happen in a fight, especially in a Heavyweight matchup, Sherman has only knocked out one UFC opponent since 2017, which came against a terrible Light Heavyweight in Ike Villanueva, who was fighting up a weight class in his UFC debut. Since then Ike has been knocked out three more times at Light Heavyweight and is now 1-4 in the UFC. Considering Sherman is coming off a pair of losses, you could argue this is a good buy low spot on him, but he appears to be on his way out the door (for the second time) of the UFC. Maybe the field will finally give up on Sherman here, but historically he has been over owned. The odds imply he has a 46% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish and an 11% chance it occurs in the first round.
Fight #1
Giga Chikadze
8th UFC Fight (7-0)Extending his winning streak to nine with a third round TKO win over Edson Barboza, Chikadze has now landed three straight TKOs after his first four UFC fights all went the distance. In his most recent fight, Chikadze won the first two rounds on the judges’ score cards as he outlanded Barboza in significant strikes 17-10 in round one and 22-19 in round two. He did look to be breathing heavily following the second round and his cardio has been suspect in the third round of past fights, but Chikadze clipped Barboza early in round three with a solid right hand just after landing a knee to his body. Barboza attempted to circle the Octagon to buy some time to recover, but Chikadze cut him off and dropped him with punches. Barboza hung onto his ankle for dear life and then Chikadze attempted to wrap up a choke as the two continued to tangle on the mat. However, Chikadze was unable to complete the choke on two official attempts. After the pair of failed submission attempts, Chikadze wisely returned to his feet where he was quickly able to drop an unstable Barboza for a second time and the fight was then immediately stopped. Chikadze finished ahead in significant strikes 60-33 and went 70-33 in total strikes, while landing a pair of knockdowns. He averaged 5.11 SSL/min in that fight after entering with a career average of just 3.55 SSL/min, however, he averaged just 3.9 SSL/min in the first two rounds and his striking total was bolstered by flurries of strikes during the finishing sequence. While he’s shown that he’s willing to be more aggressive once he has an opponent hurt, in general he tends to fight at a slower pace.
Prior to his win over a 35-year-old Barboza, Chikadze finished a 37-year-old Cub Swanson with a liver kick. The fight lasted just 63 seconds and saw just 16 total significant strikes landed with Chikadze leading 12-4. Before that fight, Chikadze landed his first UFC finish against short notice UFC newcomer Jamey Simmons, who is not a UFC level talent.
Chikadze has now landed six knockdowns in his last five fights, with at least one in each of those. However, he only has one takedown in his last six matches and none in his last four. That’s not at all surprising considering his background is in kickboxing, where he went 38-6 with 22 wins by knockout in 44 matches.
Now 14-2 since turning pro in MMA, he does have one one submission win on his record, a first round Armbar Submission in 2018 prior to joining the UFC. He also has nine wins by KO and four decisions, with two of those being split. Eight of his nine knockouts have occurred in the first round, while his most recent came in round three. That was the first time he’s ever finished an opponent beyond the first round. It’s worth pointing out that six of those nine KO wins occurred earlier in his career as part of the “Gladiator Challenge” against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 1-10, 0-13, 0-1, 0-0 and 0-1. His lone submission win was also under that same promotion against an opponent who entered with a mind-bottling 2-31 record. Amazingly, the first time Chikadze ever defeated an MMA opponent with a winning pro record was in his UFC debut when he won a split-decision over Brandon Davis. Chikadze is 5-2 in fights that make it past round one, with five of those going the distance (4-1) and two ending in round three (1-1). His only loss in his 15 fights since losing a decision in his pro debut was a third round submission loss against questionable talent Austin Springer on DWCS in 2018.
This will be Chikadze’s second straight 5-round fight, the only two of his career. Considering his last fight ended early in the third round, we’ve still never seen what his cardio looks like in the championship rounds. However, he’s shown some signs of fatigue in the later rounds of three round fights, especially earlier in his career. In fairness, many of those came against guys looking to grapple and his cardio has looked better in pure striking battles.
Calvin Kattar
10th UFC Fight (6-3)After taking a life-shortening beating from Max Holloway in January 2021, Kattar wisely took the rest of the year off and when he steps inside the Octagon on Saturday it will have been 364 days since he last fought. Holloway shattered the UFC record for the most significant strikes ever landed in a fight with a ridiculous 445 strikes (17.8 SSL/min), which blew away the previous high of 290—which was also set by…Max Holloway. He landed more significant strikes in the fourth round alone (141) than Kattar landed in the entire match (133). While it looked like the fight was on the verge of being stopped from about the second round on, Kattar was able to do just enough to keep the ref from stopping it. Nevertheless, he lost one of the more lopsided decisions in recent memory with the judges scorecards reading 43-50, 43-50 and 42-50 despite no knockdowns or takedowns being landed. Kattar came into that fight talking about how he was the better boxer and Holloway appeared to take that personally. Kattar did demonstrate his toughness just to survive the assault, but a lot of refs would have stopped the fight where Herb Dean decided to let it play out.
Kattar has still never been knocked out in his career and the only time he’s ever been finished was a 2008 R1 Submission in his fourth pro fight. He’s currently 22-5 as a pro, with his other four losses all ending in decisions. Of his 22 wins, he has 11 KOs, two submissions and nine decisions. Ten of his 13 finishes occurred in the first round, although seven of those came in his first seven pro fights. His other three finishes were a 2010 R3 KO, a 2018 R3 KO and a 2020 R2 KO. Thirteen (86.7%) of his last 15 fights going back to 2011 have made it past the first round, with 12 (80%) of those seeing round three and 11 (73.3%) going the distance. His last two fights have both ended in five round decisions (1-1), while the only other five round fight of his career also went the distance in a 2009 victory.
Joining the UFC in 2017, Kattar entered on an eight fight winning streak, with his last six ending in decisions. That streak continued with a decision win over Andre FIli in his UFC debut. He followed up the win with a R3 KO against Shane Burgos before losing a decision in his third UFC fight against Renato Carneiro, who successfully attacked Kattar’s lead leg, ending his 10-fight winning streak. Kattar bounced back with consecutive R1 KO wins over Chris Fishgold and Ricardo Lamas, before losing his sixth UFC fight in a decision against Zabit Magomedsharipov. Again, he bounced back from a loss with a knockout victory, this time in the second round against an overweight Jeremy Stephens. He followed that up with a 5-round decision win over Dan Ige in what was Kattar’s first five round fight in the UFC and the last time he got his hand raised. His most recent loss to Holloway came in his ninth UFC fight, continuing his pattern of notching two wins before a loss since joining the UFC. Speaking of patterns that may or may not mean anything, Kattar has bounced back from all four of his previous career losses with knockout wins.
With strong boxing skills, Kattar is a power puncher who seamlessly stitches together dangerous combinations. With just three takedowns in nine UFC fights and just one in his last eight, we haven’t seen him add much in terms of grappling as he’s essentially a one-dimensional striker just like Chikadze.
Fight Prediction:
Chikadze will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
Look for Chikadze to use feints and footwork to try and keep this fight at kicking range, while Kattar will attempt to close the distance and turn it into a boxing match. Kattar has proven on multiple occasions that he has the ability to go five hard rounds, while Chikadze has never been in a fight that lasted longer than 15 minutes. Neither one of these two has ever been knocked out as a pro or even knocked down since joining the UFC. So at least on paper, there appears to be a good chance for this fight to go the full 25 minutes. With that said, both guys are throwing with violent intentions and if either one lands the perfect strike it will likely be all she wrote. Both of these two have landed the majority of their finishes in the first round, with 90% of Chikadze’s early wins ending in round one and 77% of Kattar’s. Therefore, if it does end early, it would make sense for it to happen in the first five minutes where both guys have historically been the most dangerous. It’s also possible Kattar can outlast Chikadze and finish him in the championship rounds if Chikadze’s cardio fails him. However, we’re leaning that this fight goes the distance and ends in a close decision with Chikadze winning two of the first three rounds and Kattar winning two of the last three. While Kattar is the better boxer, Chikadze is a far superior kicker and still has power in his hands. Chikadze’s ability to strike from distance with his legs will likely cause Kattar some trouble in finding his range and we’ll give Chikadze the advantage to win. However, we expect it to be close and it could simply come down to who has the bigger moments in the fight.
Our favorite bet here is “FGTD” at +180.
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DFS Implications:
Chikadze is a pure kickboxer who specializes in throwing violent kicks and doesn’t offer almost anything in terms of grappling. His one dimensional fighting style generally makes it hard for him to score well in DFS barring an early KO. In his four UFC decision wins, he scored 68, 70, 51 and 68 DraftKings points. If we extend those scores over the course of 25 minutes they would still equate to just 93, 97, 65 and 93 points. Boosting his scoring potential, Chikadze has landed six knockdowns in his last five fights, with at least one in each of those. However, he has just one takedown in his last six fights and none in his last four, making him almost entirely reliant on striking, knockdowns, and finishes to score well. Working against him in two of those categories, Kattar has never been knocked out in 27 pro fights and hasn’t been knocked down in any of his nine UFC fights. Chikadze averages just 3.76 SSL/min and has never totalled more than 65 significant strikes in a fight. If we extend the pace he has set in his six UFC fights to last longer than 63 seconds over the course of 25 minutes, he would have finished with significant striking totals of just 128, 52, 108, 102, 63 and 98. To score 100 DraftKings points on striking alone in a five round decision win, he would need to land 175 significant strikes. Even if he lands one knockdown he would still need to land 150 significant strikes to score 100 DraftKings points without the help of any other stats. While Chikadze is rarely looking for a takedown, Kattar also has an elite 89% takedown defense, so even if Chikadze were looking to surprise him with grappling it’s unlikely he would be successful. Chikadze similarly doesn’t accrue much control time, averaging just 3.94% in his seven UFC fights. That would equate to about 59 seconds in a 25 minute decision, which is only good for 1.8 more points. Overall, the only ways Chikadze can realistically return value are for him to either be the first fighter to ever knock Kattar out or to nearly double his average career striking numbers from 3.76 SSL to 6.8 SSL. With his late round cardio already somewhat in question, the idea that he could nearly double his striking output for 25 full minutes seems unlikely in what would be his first time ever seeing a fourth round. Even if he could be the first person to ever knock Kattar down, he would still need to average 5.8 SSL with one knockdown or 4.8 SSL with two knockdowns, which are both still well above his career average. Notably, Kattar did absorb the most significant strikes in UFC history (445) in his last fight against Max Holloway, who averages 7.38 SSL/min and owns three of the top four spots for the most significant strikes landed in a UFC fight. We expect that the recent record-setting number of strikes absorbed by Kattar will drive up Chikadze’s scoring projections and ownership. Prior to fighting Holloway, Kattar had averaged 5.66 SSA/min, a number that has now ballooned up to 8.16 SSA/min. While a finish is still possible, we expect Chikadze to struggle to return value if this goes the distance. Also, even with a finish there are still plenty of ways for him to get left out of the winning lineup as the most expensive fighter on the DraftKings slate. Proving that, his recent third round KO win scored just 92 DraftKings points. He likely needs to land a knockout in either the first round or late in round two to return value. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a 40% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in the first round.
Similar to Chikadze, Kattar rarely lands any takedowns with just one in his last eight fights. That also leaves him reliant on striking, knockdowns, and finishes to score well in DFS. With that in mind, he has just one knockdown and one early win in his last four fights and now faces an opponent who has never been knocked out in his career, hasn’t been knocked down in seven UFC fights, and who only absorbs an average of 2.69 SSA/min. Chikadze’s kick-heavy karate style approach to fighting doesn't lend itself to high-volume slugfests, so even at his cheap price tag Kattar may need a finish to really score well. It’s still possible he serves as a value play in a decision win, but that could depend on what the other cheap options on the slate do. Kattar was notably 48% owned as a +150 underdog priced at $7,300 on a 10 fight slate against Max Holloway in his last fight, so it will be interesting to see how much the field backs off after such a lopsided loss. With so many mispriced fighters on the slate, Kattar should go lower owned than he otherwise would have. His last win was a 5-round decision victory over Dan Ige where Kattar scored just 79 DraftKings points and was left out of the winning lineup, which further supports the idea that he needs to be the first fighter to ever knock Chikadze out to be useful in DFS. The odds imply Kattar has an 32% chance to win, a 20% chance to get a finish, and a 6% chance it happens in round one.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter @dfs_mma with your winnings so we can see how you did!
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Top UFC PrizePicks Play of the Week:
- Katlyn Chookagian Over 70.5 Significant Strikes
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