The Sheet

Looking to skip the reading and get straight to the best plays and top bets? We're now offering premium DFS and betting content at patreon.com/mmadfs that includes our new DFS Cheat Sheet, with our top DraftKings, FanDuel and PrizePicks plays along with our DraftKings ownership projections, as well as our top early bets and our complete betting chart for every UFC fight.

Fight Day Scratches: Update 12:45 PM EST Cerrone/Lauzon is OFF...AGAIN!

Fighter Notes:

Fight #14

Kyle Daukaus

6th UFC Fight (2-2, NC)

Coming off a submission win over Jamie Pickett in the final second of round one, Daukaus has now unofficially landed back-to-back round one submissions, but the first of those rightfully ended up going down as a No Contest after an accidental head butt led to the finishing sequence against Kevin Holland. Prior to the pair of finishes, Daukaus had fought to three straight decisions (1-2) to start his UFC career. All of those decisions came against fellow grapplers in Brandan Allen, Dustin Stoltzfus, and Phil Hawes. The only one of those fighters that Daukaus was able to defeat was Stoltzfus, who’s now 0-3 in the UFC.

In his recent submission win, Daukaus took Pickett down early in round one, and while Pickett was briefly able to work to his feet at two different points, Daukaus returned him to the ground both times. After controlling Pickett for almost the entire first round, Daukaus slowly locked in a Brabo Choke in the closing seconds and amazingly Pickett tapped with one second left on the clock. Pickett only stepped into that fight on 11 day’s notice, after Julian Marquez dropped out, so he had little time to prepare for the grappling of Daukaus, and specifically his patented Brabo Choke. Daukaus has actually had three of his last four booked opponents drop out, including Dolidze in November 2021, so this is the second time that fight has been booked.

Now 11-2 as a pro, Daukaus has nine wins by submission and two decisions. He’s never been finished, with both of his losses ending in decisions. Four of his submission wins came in the first round, four more ended in round two, and one ended in round three. Six of those finishes have come by Brabo/D’Arce Choke, which has been his go to move.

Overall, Daukaus is a dangerous grappler and a decent striker, but up until his last fight he had struggled to consistently land takedowns and he still only has a 31% career takedown accuracy. Prior to joining the UFC he landed eight submissions in nine fights, with his only decision coming on DWCS, and he’s proven he’s capable of submitting strikers and lower level opponents. Now we just need to see if his submission skills can still be effective against other grapplers and higher level opponents. He’ll face a fellow grappler in this next match, so it should be a good test.

Roman Dolidze

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

Just over a year removed from a boring decision win over Laureano Staropoli, Dolidze has looked significantly worse since moving down from 205 lb to 185 lb for his last two fights. He made his UFC debut at 205 lb in July 2020 and landed a first round knockout against a terrible Khadis Ibragimov. Then he won a grappling-heavy split decision over John Allan, before curiously choosing to move down to 185 lb for the first time in his career despite owning a perfect 8-0 pro record, à la Omar Morales. It couldn’t have helped that he took the fight on short notice, but he looked dreadful in his first match at 185 lb and he was lucky to just lose a decision to Trevin Giles, who has since moved down to 170 lb, as Giles was close to finishing Dolidze.

In his last fight it first needs to be noted that Dolidze’s opponent, Laureano Staropoli, was moving up from 170 lb to 185 lb for the first time in his career, which allowed the larger Dolidze to control him for extended periods of time. The fight played out as a 15 minute snoozer, with Dolidze holding Staropoli in the clinch for the majority of the match. Dolidze finished ahead in significant strikes just 14-9 and in total strikes 52-25. He landed 5 of his 9 takedown attempts with nearly 10 minutes of control time. Staropoli went 4 for 5 on his own takedown attempts but finished with just 50 seconds of control time.

Now 9-1 as a pro, Dolidze has four wins by KO, three by submission, and two decisions. His only career loss came in a decision, and he’s never been knocked out or submitted. After finishing the first seven opponents of his career, Dolidze has now fought to three straight decisions. Five of his last six fights have seen the second round, with four of his last five making it to round three.

Overall, Dolidze has taken the road less traveled and has gotten worse every time he steps inside the Octagon. One explanation for that is Dolidze tested positive for steroids and was suspended for a year just before joining the UFC and his artificially inflated hulk stature has slowly been deflating. His background is in grappling and he loves looking for heel hooks, but he hasn’t landed one since 2017 in his second pro fight. While he looked extremely powerful up at 205 lb, he has appeared depleted and slow at 185 lb. He checks in dead last on the slate in terms of striking volume, averaging an anemic 2.36 SSL/min, but also absorbs the least at 1.40 SSA/min. It will be interesting to see how he looks after a year away, perhaps he’s finally had time to adjust to the lighter weight class or maybe he’ll look even worse.

Fight Prediction:

Daukaus will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 76” reach. Daukaus is four years younger than the 33-year-old Dolidze.

Both of these two come in with grappling backgrounds, but their careers are headed in opposite directions. Daukaus seems to be improving every time he steps inside the Octagon, while Dolidze gets worse every time we see him. It’s hard to know what if any improvements Dolidze has made over the last year since we last saw him, but he’s been content with slowing fights down and trying to grind out decisions lately. Daukaus had looked like a decision grinder in his first few UFC fights, but has recently found success with his submission game. However, his recent finishes should be taken with a grain of salt as he submitted a half unconscious Kevin Holland in a fight that was immediately overturned to a No Contest due to a clash of heads, and then Jamie Pickett, who hasn’t shown much in terms of grappling, took the fight on 11 days notice, and insanely tapped with one second left on the clock. We saw Daukaus struggle to land takedowns 0 for 7) against another powerful wrestler in Phil Hawes, so it will be interesting to see how he fares against Dolidze. Neither of these two have ever been finished in their careers and we like it to end with Daukaus getting his hand raised in a slower paced decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Goes the Distance” at -120.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Daukaus is coming off the first official finish of his UFC career and his first usable DFS score, when he landed a submission in the final second of round one against Jamie Pickett. He couldn’t have asked for much more as Pickett literally tapped with one second remaining on the clock. Overall, Daukaus has struggled with his takedown accuracy, landing just 31% of his attempts so far in the UFC. However, he was able to land three takedowns in the first round in that recent win, matching his previous career high, and now he goes against the 37% takedown defense of Roman Dolidze. Historically, we’ve seen Daukaus struggle at times against other grapplers, but Dolidze has looked worse and worse every time we see him. This seems like a high variance spot where we could potentially see the grappling skills of these two cancel each other out or we could see a back and forth grappling match. Daukaus has yet to score more than 91 DraftKings points without a finish, but his grappling-heavy style theoretically gives him the ability to score well even in a decision. The odds imply he has a 69% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 15% chance it comes in round one.

Dolidze made a name for himself with a first round KO win in his UFC debut at 205 lb that was good for 108 DraftKings points. He followed it up with the first decision win of his career in a grappling heavy affair that still scored 92 points. He then curiously opted to move down to 185 lb for the first time in his career, and hasn’t looked the same since. He’s split a pair of decisions at 185 lb, but has looked slow and not nearly as explosive. He’s relied entirely on his grappling since making the move, and now he’ll face another pure grappler for the first time since joining the UFC. He’s generally been popular amongst the field in DFS, but following his recent struggles and a year away, we could see his ownership come down some. Daukaus has had a solid 86% takedown defense and has never been finished in his career, so this looks like a tough spot for Dolidze to succeed and he’ll likely go overowned. So overall, we don’t have much interest in playing him, but he does offer grappling upside at a cheap price if he’s able to overpower Daukaus and control him on the mat. The odds imply Dolidze has a 31% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance to end it in round one.

---

Fight #13

Phil Hawes

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

This is the third time this fight has been booked. It was originally scheduled to take place in July 2021, but Winn withdrew. Then it was booked for October 2021, but Winn withdrew again. Hopefully the third time’s the charm, but these two have had ample time to prepare for one another.

Hawes is looking to bounce back from his first UFC loss, which came in a R1 KO against UFC newcomer Chris Curtis. Prior to that loss, Hawes had won seven straight fights and was 3-0 in the UFC. He knocked out Jacob Malkoun in his UFC debut, and then won a pair of grappling-heavy decisions over Nassourdine Imavov and Kyle Daukaus.

In his recent loss to Curtis, Hawes was completely controlling the fight as he outlanded Curtis 48-21 in significant strikes, but Curtis caught Hawes with a clean left cross late in the first round that Hawes was never able to recover from. Curtis followed it up with a few more strikes and Hawes crumpled to the mat as the fight was stopped. Hawes was on an unsustainable pace to outland Curtis 162-71 in striking and appeared in complete control of the match leading up to the point where he got caught. With that said, Curtis looked durable and seemed capable of absorbing everything coming his way.

Now 11-3 as a pro, Hawes has seven wins by KO, two by submission, and two decisions. He’s been finished in the first two rounds in all three of his losses, with two KOs and one submission. His last eight fights have all ended in either round one (5-1) or gone the distance (2-0). While the first 11 fights of his career all ended in the first two rounds, he’s now gone the distance in two of his last three. Hawes hasn’t landed a finish beyond the first round since his second pro fight and his last seven early wins have all come in round one.

Overall, Hawes is a powerful striker with a background in wrestling, which he’s relied on more heavily lately. Hawes has yet to be taken down in the UFC or in either of his DWCS appearances, but the only person to try was Kyle Daukaus (31% career takedown accuracy), who went 0 for 7 on his attempts. We’ve seen Hawes get hurt in three straight fights and his chin remains a major liability.

Deron Winn

5th UFC Fight (2-2)

While Winn has struggled mightily to make 185 lb throughout his career, he’s coming off a dominating wrestling performance at 195 lb Catchweight against Antonio Arroyo. Prior to that win, he lost two straight fights—one in a third round submission against Gerald Meerschaert and the other by decision against Darren Stewart. Winn’s only other UFC victory came in a high-volume decision over Eric Spicely in his debut.

In his last fight, Winn landed 12 takedowns on 16 attempts with nine and half minutes of control time on his way to winning a decision. Arroyo led in significant strikes 45-20 and in total strikes 70-64, but had no answer for Winn’s relentless wrestling. Arroyo gassed out in the second round and his cardio has been an issue for him, especially in grappling matches, and Winn went on to win a unanimous 29-28 decision.

Now 7-2 as pro, Winn has four wins by KO and three decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted once and has one decision loss. His last five fights have all seen the third round, with four going the distance and one ending in a late submission loss. Winn has rarely been able to make it down to 185 lb. He started his MMA career at Light Heavyweight (205 lb) and has had several 188-195 lb Catchweight matches. He’s only hit the Middleweight mark twice so far in his career—in his 2019 UFC debut where he won a decision over Eric Spicely and in a 2020 R3 submission loss to Gerald Meerschaert. So it will be important to monitor Winn closely at weigh-ins.

Overall, Winn was an All-American college wrestler and went on to compete internationally in freestyle wrestling before turning pro in MMA in 2017. Winn has no submission wins on his record, and no submission attempts in the UFC, and is good at landing takedowns, but doesn’t really know what to do once he’s on the ground. Leading up to his last fight, Winn was handed a nine-month suspension after he tested positive for amphetamines following his March 2020 submission loss to Gerald Meerschaert. In Winn’s four UFC fights he’s gone 0 for 3, 6 for 15, 1 for 2 and 12 for 16 on his takedown attempts. He’s been far more willing to keep fights standing against other grapplers, so it will be interesting to see his approach in this next fight. He did show the ability to throw down in a fire fight in his UFC debut, but we haven’t seen that sort of striking out of him since.

Fight Prediction:

Hawes will have a 6” height advantage and 7” reach advantage.

With a noticeable size and reach advantage in addition to being the more powerful striker, Hawes should have a major advantage as long as this fight is on the feet. Considering both guys have wrestling backgrounds, it will be interesting to see how the grappling exchanges go, but this looks like an overall tough matchup for Winn. Hawes has shown a suspect chin and it seems like we see him get wobbled every time he fights. Normally he’s able to rely on his wrestling to buy time to recover, but now he’ll be going against a solid wrestler so he may not have that luxury. Winn hasn’t shown any knockout ability at the UFC level, but that doesn't mean he can’t catch Hawes with something clean and get a finish—it just might require a stepstool. With that said, Hawes has looked far more dangerous on the feet, and there’s a decent chance he hands Winn the first KO loss of his career. Hawes has yet to be taken down in the UFC, so it will be interesting to see the level of wrestling success Winn can find against him. If the wrestling skills of these two cancel each other out, we could see them just duke it out on the feet until one of their chins gives out. However, it’s also possible we see a wrestling battle on the mat. There are a lot of ways this one could go, and we don’t really trust either guy completely, which makes it a trickier one to predict. With that said, we still like Hawes’ side of things and expect him to win either by KO or in a potentially close decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in KO” at -105.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

In his three UFC wins, Hawes has scored 95, 96, and 128 DraftKings points and has shown both a solid floor and ceiling. He has the ability to end fights with a single punch or grind out grappling-heavy decisions, which gives him multiple ways to score well. However, he’s far less likely to put on a dominating grappling performance here against the celebrated wrestler in Winn, so we should see Hawes rely more on his striking. While Winn has never been knocked out, we haven’t seen his chin really tested much, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see Hawes finish him on the feet. However, Hawes hasn’t finished an opponent beyond the first round since his second pro fight, and since we can’t really rely on him controlling the grappling exchanges in this fight, he looks somewhat like a R1 KO or bust play. There is always the chance he does better than expected in the wrestling exchanges and/or boosts his DraftKings score with reversals, but it’s hard to rely on that. The odds imply he has a 70% chance to win, a 44% chance to get a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Winn is extremely cheap on both DFS sites and has scored 100 or more DraftKings points in each of his UFC wins. However, this looks like a tough spot for him as he goes against another fighter with a wrestling background. It’s possible that Winn is still able to outgrapple Hawes, but Hawes is significantly bigger, longer and more explosive. Kye Daukaus notably went 0 for 7 against Hawes on takedowns in their fight, and Hawes has yet to be taken down in the UFC. With that said, it’s still possible Winn finds success in landing takedowns and Hawes has also shown a suspect chin if this fight does remain standing. Cutting down to 185 lb seems like a really tough task for Winn, which adds some uncertainty to both his cardio and his chin and overall makes this a higher variance fight. The odds imply Winn has a 30% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #12

Cody Stamann

11th UFC Fight (5-4-1)

Looking to finally right the ship, Stamann has lost three straight fights and is coming off just the second early loss of his career. He’s faced a gauntlet of tough opponents and in his last seven fights he’s had to go up against Aljamain Sterling (L), Song Yadong (D), Brian Kelleher (W), Jimmie Rivera (L), Merab Dvalishvili (L), and Said Nurmagomedov (L). Eight of his 10 UFC fights have gone the distance, with the two exceptions being submission losses to Nurmagomedov and Sterling.

His recent first round submission loss only lasted 47 seconds, so it’s tough to take much away from it. He got clipped with a spinning backfist 10 seconds into the fight and shot for a takedown soon after. However, Said Nurmagomedov spun him around and quickly wrapped up a guillotine and Stamann almost immediately tapped.

Now 19-5-1 as a pro, Stamann has six wins by KO, two by submission, and 11 decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but he’s been submitted twice and has three decision losses. He also fought Song Yadong to a draw, although Stamann arguably won the fight. While Stamann does have eight finishes on his record, all of those came prior to joining the UFC with five coming in his first seven pro fights against less experienced opponents. Stamann’s last KO/TKO win came in a 2017 second round doctor stoppage in his last fight before joining the UFC and he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2016. Other than his recent early loss, the only other time he’s been finished was in a second round kneebar against Aljamain Sterling. Stamann has fought at both 135 lb and 145 lb and it’s no easy weight cut for him to get down to 135 lb. He’s gone 2-1 at 145 lb in the UFC and has actually looked better there, while he’s just 3-3-1 at 135 lb in the UFC.

Overall, Stamann is a former DII college wrestler who’s only struggled against top level guys. He’s just a BJJ blue belt and hasn’t looked like any sort of finisher at the UFC level, although now he will get a teed up matchup for a knockout. Stamann tragically dealt with the loss of his brother just before the Kelleher fight and has gone 1-3 since that traumatic event.

Eddie Wineland

16th UFC Fight (6-9)

Limping into the end of his career with two straight first round KO losses, Wineland has lost four of his last five fights and only has one win since 2016, which came against an opponent who went 0-2 in the UFC. He’s now 37 years old and hasn’t fought in 16 months. It was one thing to get knocked out by Sean O'Malley, but then Wineland got KO’d by John Castaneda, who hadn’t knocked anybody out in his previous seven fights.

In Wineland’s last fight, Castaneda patiently circled the outside of the Octagon and allowed Wineland to pursue him for most of the first round, before turning it on late with a flurry of strikes to force a stoppage with just 16 seconds remaining in the round. Castaneda was able to use his reach advantage to put up a solid striking total despite his somewhat cautious approach, as Wineland stayed in his face with pressure. The fight ended with Castaneda ahead in significant strikes 42-17, while Wineland landed the only takedown attempt in the match, but amassed only 12 seconds of control time with it as he never quite committed in going to the ground.

Now 24-15-1 as a pro, Wineland has 15 wins by KO, four by submission, four decisions, and one unlisted. He’s been knocked out five times, submitted four more, and has six decision losses. It’s been 13 years since one of his fights ended in a submission, which was when Rani Yahya choked him out in the first round of a 2009 fight. His last 19 fights have all ended in either knockouts (7-4) or decisions (3-5).

Overall, Wineland is a one-dimensional power puncher, with 15 of his 24 career wins coming by KO. He originally went pro all the way back in 2003, when he was just 19 years old and this will be his 41st pro fight. His 86% takedown defense makes him a tough guy to get to the ground. He’s only been taken down once in his last 14 fights, and zero times in his last six matches. At this point, any fight could and probably should be Wineland’s last.

Fight Prediction:

Wineland will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage, but Stamann is five years younger than the 37-year-old Wineland.

It seems like the UFC is just trying to get Stamann a win here as they give him a major step down in competition to try and end his three fight skid. It is sort of a weird stylistic matchup, as Wineland has been prone to getting knocked out but has a really solid takedown defense, and Stamann has shown no ability to land knockouts, but relies on his wrestling to win fights. The question everyone seems to be asking, is Wineland so washed that even Stamann can finish him? Only time will tell, but Stamann has given us no indication he can finish UFC level opponents, and he may be less inclined to take risks here as he simply needs a win of any kind. Wineland still theoretically has power in his hands, so Stamann can’t be completely reckless, but it will be interesting to see if Wineland’s takedown defense can still hold up. We’re guessing we see a slower paced affair on the feet and that Stamann is able to at least find some success in getting it to the mat. It wouldn’t be shocking if Stamann got a finish, especially if it came on the ground, but we still like him to win a decision here.

Our favorite bet here is “Stamann DEC” at +100.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Stamann has failed to score above 84 DraftKings points in any of his last nine fights, and his only usable DFS performance came in a wrestling-heavy decision win in his 2017 UFC debut against Terrion Ware—who’s lost six straight fights beginning with the loss to Stamann and is no longer fighting. Stamann landed eight takedowns and nearly seven minutes of control time to go with 124 total strikes and 94 significant strikes as he put up 126 DraftKings points in the victory. Stamann has never finished an opponent in the UFC, but now faces a completely washed up Eddie Wineland, who’s been knocked out in the first round in his last two fights and has dropped four of his last five. However, Wineland owns a solid 86% takedown defense and he’s only been taken down once in his last 14 fights. So at least on paper, this doesn’t set up well for Stamann to put on a dominating grappling performance. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen and Wineland is fading fast and who knows where he’s at physically after 16 months away. Nevertheless, betting on Stamann to either land a finish or be the first person to dominate Wineland on the mat requires a leap of faith that Wineland is so completely washed that he’s no longer able to defend himself to any extent—which in fairness is entirely possible. The odds imply Stamann has an 81% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in the first round.

Wineland has generally put up big DFS scores in his wins, with DraftKings totals of 120, 114, 74 and 105 in his last four victories. However, he’s gone off a cliff in his career and only has one win since 2016. He hasn’t beaten anyone decent in quite some time and now he faces an opponent who’s never been knocked out in his career. It appears Wineland’s only chance of scoring well in DFS will be to land a miracle knockout from the grave to hand Stamann the first KO loss of his career. It will also likely need to come in the first two rounds, as his last third round KO win still scored just 74 DraftKings points. He should be incredibly low owned, which adds some to his appeal in tournaments, but we really have no interest in playing Wineland here and it’s clearly time for him to hang it up. The odds imply he has a 19% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #11

Gloria de Paula

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Finally notching her first UFC win in a close decision over Diana Belbita, De Paula got dominated on the mat by Jinh Yu Frey in a decision loss in her 2021 UFC debut and then was knocked out 60 seconds into her second fight by Cheyanne Vlismas.

In her last fight, De Paula showed a desire to grapple for the first time in the UFC as she landed one takedown on five attempts, after she didn’t even attempt a takedown in her previous three fights. She still wasn’t able to land any of her attempts until the third round when she landed one, but she at least showed an interest in rounding out her game. The fight was razor close with the two ladies trading strikes for the entire fight, and we actually thought Diana Belbita won, but the judges disagreed and awarded De Paula a unanimous 29-28 decision. De Paula finished just ahead in significant strikes 88-87, while Belbita led in total strikes 124-113. De Paula did finish with five and a half minutes of control time, which was mostly spent pushing Belbita up against the fence.

Still just 6-4 as a pro, De Paula has three wins by KO and three by decision. The only time she’s ever been finished came in a 2021 R1 TKO against Cheyanne Vlismas, with her other three losses going the distance. Eight of her last nine fights have made it to the third round after she landed a first round TKO victory in her 2017 pro debut. Both of her pre-UFC losses came against opponents who have since fought in the UFC.

Overall, De Paula is a decent striker, but has looked helpless off her back. She’s the girlfriend and training partner of Mayra Bueno Silva and trains out of Chute Boxe in Brazil alongside fighters like Charles Oliveira and Thomas Almeida, in addition to Bueno Silva. So it’s not surprising she has solid striking and she appears to be working on her grappling but it’s still very limited. She only turned pro back in 2017 and is still just 27 years old, so theoretically she should be improving every time she steps inside the Octagon.

Maria Oliveira

2nd UFC Fight (0-1)

Looking to bounce back from a grappling-heavy decision loss in her UFC debut, Oliveira is just 2-3 in her last five fights, although one of those losses was a R1 TKO against Marina Rodriguez on DWCS Brazil. In her most recent win just before joining the UFC, Oliveira finished her opponent with a knee to the body just 63 seconds into the first round, but that victory should be taken with a massive grain of salt as her opponent was fighting for the first and only time as a pro. In fact, Oliveira’s entire pro record has been padded with trash cans who came in with little to no experience. When she has faced legitimate competition, she’s been dominated and she’s done nothing to prove she’s a UFC level talent. Only two of her 12 pro wins have come against opponents with winning records.

In her last fight, Oliveira was able to keep the striking numbers close on the feet, but got taken down five times on 11 attempts and controlled for nearly seven minutes by Tabatha Ricci. Oliveira never appeared very threatening on the feet and looked helpless on the mat. She actually did finish slightly ahead in significant strikes 66-62, but Ricci led in total strikes 103-90, 5-0 on takedowns, and 6:38-0:01 on control time.

Now 12-5 as a pro, Oliveira has seven wins by KO, one by submission, and four decisions. She’s been knocked out once, submitted twice, and has two decision losses. She’s been finished twice in her last five fights, with both of those losses coming in the first two rounds.

Overall, Oliveira is a one-dimensional striker with a Muay Thai background and is helpless off her back. She doesn’t appear to be ready for the UFC and it’s unclear why they brought her in other than to fill slots. With that said, she spent most of her debut defending takedowns, so maybe she can show us something on the feet here.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’5” but Oliveira will have a 2” reach advantage.

Both of these two are strikers that have struggled off their backs, but De Paula seems to be trying to improve her ground game. If she’s made any actual improvements, this is the perfect matchup to show them, as Oliveira has shown absolutely no ground game. If the fight does remain standing, we like De Paula to win the striking exchanges as well, and it’s tough to see how Oliveira wins this fight unless she suddenly looks dramatically better and De Paula looks significantly worse. De Paula is in a must win spot as she sits on a 1-2 UFC record and she couldn’t have asked for a better matchup. It seems like the UFC is doing everything in their power to keep her around and we like her to win this fight. The only question is whether or not she can get a finish. Recent results would leave you to believe no, but we think there’s a decent chance she can. With that said, it’s still more likely than not that Oliveira survives to see a decision, but either way we’re taking De Paula to win.

Our favorite bet here is “De Paula R3 or Decision” at -150.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

De Paula steps into a favorable matchup in a must win spot and showed in her last fight that she’s trying to incorporate more grappling moving forward. She scored just 85 DraftKings points in her recent decision win, and is now priced as one of the most expensive fighters on the slate, so we should see her come in very low owned. While she hasn’t been overly impressive by any means, this sets up as a great spot for her to hit a ceiling performance. Whether or not she actually does that is a different story, but she has tournament winning upside and a pretty solid floor. The odds imply she has a 69% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

Oliveira has no business being in the UFC. The combined record of the 12 opponents she’s beaten is 8-17, with four of those wins coming against opponents who had never fought professionally before. Seven of those 12 opponents were still searching for their first career win and only two of the 12 had winning records (1-0 and 2-0). We suppose you could look at the fact that she was able to land eight finishes as a positive, but looking past the level of competition she’s been facing is tough to do. When she has attempted to compete against more experienced fighters she’s looked terrible as she was knocked out by Marina Rodriguez in the first round of a DWCS Brazil fight just after she was controlled on the mat and submitted by 5’2” Kanna Asakura. She looked terrible again in her recent UFC debut as she was controlled for most of that match on her back. Maybe she’ll look better stepping into her second UFC fight, but we have zero confidence in her. The odds imply she has a 31% chance to win, a 10% chance to get a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #10

Ricardo Ramos

10th UFC Fight (6-3)

Just 3-3 in his last six fights, Ramos has struggled to maintain any momentum, but his losses have all come against really stiff competition in Said Nurmagomedov, Lerone Murphy, and Zubaira Tukhugov. His last seven fights have all either ended in the first round (1-2) or gone the distance (3-1).

In his last fight, Ramos landed one of his patented spinning elbows clean to the head of Zubaira Tukhugov in the first round, but Tukhugov was able to eat it and keep on going. Both guys landed heavy shots early, but neither was able to close the show. After landing eight takedowns on 13 attempts in his previous fight, Ramos didn’t attempt any against Tukhugov, who went 2 for 7 on his own attempts. The striking was pretty close, but Tukhugov finished ahead there as well as he led in significant strikes 77-68 and in total strikes 78-71. That was the first time Ramos has ever lost a decision in his career.

Now 15-4 as a pro, Ramos has three wins by KO, seven by submission, and five decisions. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted once, and has one decision loss. His fights generally either end in round one or go the distance and all three of his early losses have come in the first round. Seven of his 10 early wins have also occurred in the first round. He fought his first five UFC fights at 135 lb (4-1), before moving up to 145 lb in 2019, where he’s since gone 2-2.

Overall, Ramos is a flashy striker and a dangerous grappler. He loves to counter aggressive opponents with spinning elbows and he’s a BJJ black belt who will sporadically shoot for takedowns in bunches given the right matchup. He’s never landed more than 68 significant strikes in a fight and averages just 3.32 SSL/min.

Danny Chavez

4th UFC Fight (1-1-1)

Likely fighting for his job here, Chavez has just one win in three UFC fights, and was fortunate to escape his last match with a draw. All three of his UFC fights have ended in low-volume decisions and he’s yet to land more than 49 significant strikes in a fight. He was able to tear up the lead leg of T.J. Brown in his debut, and leg strikes are one of his better weapons.

In his last fight, we didn’t see much action early on, as Chavez was content with relying on leg strikes and feints to start the fight. He was able to land a takedown in the first round, but Kai Kamaka immediately returned to his feet. The first round ended with Kamaka ahead 14-9 in significant strikes as the two traded leg kicks. It was much of the same in round two, although we did see slightly more strikes landed. Kamaka also landed a bad eye poke that left Chavez writhing on the mat. It looked like the fight might be stopped, but after an extended pause the action finally resumed. However, moments later Kamaka landed a low knee out of the clinch and the fight was paused again. That time Kamaka was deducted a point before action resumed once again. The point deduction ended up resulting in the draw or else Kamaka would have won the fight.

Now 11-4-1 as a pro, Chavez has three wins by KO and eight decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but has been submitted once in a 2016 5th round guillotine choke and he also has three decision losses. Just prior to joining the UFC, he landed three straight first round knockouts, but hasn’t looked like much of a finishing threat at the UFC level.

Overall, Chavez is a patient counter striker who slows the pace down in his fights. He hasn’t been overly impressive so far in the UFC and has generally fought a little too tentatively. This could be his last opportunity to really show what he’s got, so it will be interesting to see if he opens up a little more.

Fight Prediction:

Ramos will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.

Ramos generally makes for exciting fights, but the opposite is also true of Chavez, so something will have to give here. We’ve seen opponents successfully attack the legs of Ramos in the past, which will probably be Chavez’s approach in this one. However, Ramos has been able to fight through those attacks in the past and still go on to win decisions. We don’t see Chavez winning the grappling exchanges or outlanding his way to victory, so he’ll likely need to knock Ramos out to win this fight. We don’t really see that happening and we like Ramos to win this fight, most likely in a lower volume decision, but with a slight chance for a first round submission.

Our favorite bet here is “Ramos R1 Submission” at +1000.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Ramos is a frustrating guy to try and project as he’s typically a R1 or bust play, but in some fights he’ll attempt double digit takedowns and others he won’t shoot at all. He has only scored more than 98 DraftKings points once in nine UFC fights, which was when he landed a first round submission against the highly submittable Luiz Eduardo Garagorri in 2019, which was good for 106 DraftKings points. Ramos doesn’t land much striking volume as he averages just 3.32 SSL/min and now he goes against a patient counter striker who averages just 3.84 SSA/min and has an 87% takedown defense. So overall this doesn’t set up as a good matchup for Ramos to score well, but you never know when he’ll come in with a grappling heavy gameplan and he is a BJJ black belt. Nevertheless, we’re treating him as a round one finish or bust play in DFS. The odds imply he has a 72% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.

Chavez’s low-volume counter punching fighting style makes it tough for him to score well in DFS without a finish, and no one has ever landed more than 77 significant strikes against Ramos. The three things Chavez has going for him are that Ramos has been finished in the first round in three of his four career losses (including two by KO), Chavez should be desperate and is likely fighting for his job, and Chavez projects to be very low owned in DFS. It’s hard to see Chavez winning the grappling exchanges or really outlanding his way to victory unless it’s entirely by leg strikes, so he likely needs a knockout here to be useful. The odds imply he has a 28% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #9

Court McGee

20th UFC Fight (10-9)

Coming off two straight decision wins against one-dimensional gassers, McGee has fought to nine straight decisions since suffering the only early loss of his career in a 2016 R1 KO against Santiago Ponzinibbio. While McGee has been extremely durable and has looked good in his last two fights, he’s still just 3-5 in his last eight matches.

In his last fight, McGee took on one-dimensional grappler Ramiz Brahimaj, who’s never won a fight that lasted longer than eight minutes. McGee was able to negate the grappling of Brahimaj, which is really all it takes to defeat him. With that said, McGee was impressively able to control Brahimaj for nearly 11 minutes and he landed 5 takedowns on 11 attempts, while Brahimaj went 1 for 3 on his own attempts. McGee finished ahead in significant strikes 54-32 and in total strikes 76-35. McGee also dropped Brahimaj at the end of the first round with a big right hand and overall it was an impressive performance by McGee. Brahimaj looked absolutely exhausted late in the fight, and McGee continued to rely on outlasting his opponents.

Now 21-10 as a pro, McGee has five wins by KO, five by submission, and 11 decisions. He has just one KO loss and has never been submitted, with his other nine losses all going the distance. His last nine and 16 of his last 17 fights have gone the distance, and he hasn’t finished an opponent since 2010 when he landed a third round submission in his second UFC fight. 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.

Overall, McGee is the definition of a gritty decision grinder. He’s extremely durable, has great cardio, and just wears on opponents as fights go on. He’s looked rejuvenated in his last couple of fights, but it’s hard to tell if that’s just because he faced two opponents who are very prone to gassing or if he’s actually made real improvements. Regardless, he should have the cardio advantage in this next match as well.

Jeremiah Wells

3rd UFC Fight (2-0)

Coming off a pair of finishes in his first two UFC fights, we’ve yet to see Wells extended past the six minute mark since joining the UFC. He pulled off a huge upset win in his short notice UFC debut against veteran Warlley Alves with an early R2 KO finish. Following his debut, Wells had been set to face another UFC veteran in Jake Matthews in December 2021, but the fight was canceled the day of the event after Wells’ cornerman tested positive for COVID. A former training partner of Paul Felder, Wells is a BJJ black belt with immense power. However, you do have to wonder about his gas tank later on in fights based on his early energy expenditure. Only five of his 13 pro fights have made it past the second round, with all of those going the distance (2-2-1), including three five-rounders (1-2). Wells looked more tentative early in his career but has been far more offensive in his last few fights.

In his recent win, the BJJ black belt Wells was gifted an inexperienced one-dimensional striker in Blood Diamond. After Wells started the fight by tripping along the outside of the cage in the opening seconds, he immediately engaged in the clinch and began looking for a takedown. After a minute and half he was finally able to secure the takedown and then he spent the remainder of the round looking for a submission until he was eventually able to choke Diamond unconscious in the closing seconds of the round. Diamond landed just a single strike in the lopsided fight.

Now 10-2-1 as a pro, Wells has four wins by KO, four by submission, and two decisions. He’s never been finished and both of his losses ended in five-round decisions. Three of his four KO wins have come in the first round, while the most recent occurred 30 seconds into round two. Three of his four submission wins occurred in round two, while the most recent came in the final 30 seconds of round one. While his last three fights have all ended early, five of his six prior to those went the distance, including three five-round decisions.

Overall, Wells is an explosive and well-rounded fighter, who’s shown the ability to knock opponents out and submit them in his first two UFC fights. What we haven’t seen from him yet is his cardio, but there’s a very good chance we finally get to see that here.

Fight Prediction:

McGee will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.

The UFC is clearly trying to throw Wells into deep waters to see if he can swim later in fights and what better opponent to test him than Court McGee who’s only been finished once in 31 pro fights? Both of these two are well rounded, so it will be interesting to see how the fight plays out. Wells is still the more powerful striker, but McGee has shown the ability to take a punch. If Wells can’t knock McGee out early, he’ll likely begin to fade in the second half of the fight and that’s when McGee should really shine. We’re expecting it to end in a close decision, and it’s an interesting live betting opportunity if Wells wins the first round. If it does go the distance like we expect, there’s a good chance the decision comes down to the second round, so we could definitely see it going either way. We’re not overly confident in the pick, but we’ll say McGee is able to do enough to get his hand raised.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Goes the Distance” at -138.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

McGee hasn’t finished an opponent in his last 17 fights, but he’s shown a solid floor and a decent ceiling at times in decision wins with DraftKings scores of 111, 89, 99, 77, and 91 in his last five victories. He relies on grappling to prop up his scoring, so he’s a better play on DraftKings than FanDuel, and he’s still more of a value play than anything else. It’s possible he can wear Wells out the way he did Brahimaj in his last fight and put up another big score on the mat, but Wells is a BJJ black belt and it’s hard to expect that out of McGee every time out. Wells is also a much more dangerous striker than McGee’s last couple of opponents, so McGee will need to be careful on the feet. Overall, McGree is a fine value play, but we can’t expect him to score over 100 points in a decision every time he fights and he should come back down to earth some here. The odds imply he has a 51% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it occurs in round one.

Wells has landed a pair of quick finishes in his first two UFC fights, but we still don’t know much about his current cardio levels. He’s so explosive that we expect to see him slow down later in fights, but he hasn’t been past the second round since 2019, and that was in a much slower paced match. Wells is going from one of the easiest matchups he could ask for to one of the toughest—at least in terms of getting a finish—so we should temper expectations here despite his explosive start to his UFC career. His recent scoring combined with his cheap price tag should result in him being fairly popular, despite it being common knowledge that McGee is more or less indestructible. That has us less excited about playing Wells in tournaments, but his upside is undeniable, and 8 of his 10 career wins have come early. The odds imply he has a 51% chance to win, a 16% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in the first round.

---

Fight #8

Jasmine Jasudavicius

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Jasudavicius is coming off a decision win in her UFC debut over Kay Hansen, who was fighting up at 125 lb for the first and only time in the UFC. That was Jasudavicius’ fourth straight fight to go the distance and third straight win. Jasudavicius made her way into the UFC with a strong wrestling performance on DWCS as she landed four takedowns on seven attempts with over eight minutes of control time in a decision win.

In Jasudavicius’ recent win, Hansen appeared to struggle with the size of Jasudavicius, as Hansen was only able to land one of her seven takedown attempts with just 83 seconds of control time. On the other side of things, Jasudavicius landed 2 of her 3 attempts with just over six minutes of control time. Jasudavicius also led in significant strikes 50-44 and in total strikes 99-52 as she went on to win a unanimous decision.

Now 7-1 as a pro, Jasudavicius has two wins by KO, one by submission, and four decisions. Her only career loss came in a questionable split decision against Elise Reed in a four-round Cage Fury FC Strawweight Championship fight. Jasudavicius only turned pro three years ago and her one loss took place down at 115 lb, while the rest of her fights have been up at 125 lb, other than one that took place at a 122 lb Catchweight. Her only career submission win was in her 2019 pro debut against an opponent who had never fought professionally before, while her two TKO wins both came by knees in the first round of her third and fourth pro fights. She’s yet to face anyone with much experience and actually has less than half as many pro fights as her next opponent, despite being eight years older.

Overall, Jasudavicius has relied almost entirely on her wrestling up to this point in her career, but it will be interesting to see if she’s made any improvements to her striking as she enters her second UFC fight. She generally looks for ground and pound on the mat, opposed to really hunting for submissions, although she’s never finished anyone with ground and pound. She has a background in freestyle wrestling and is a BJJ purple belt.

Natalia Silva

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Making her UFC debut following a 30 month layoff, Silva submitted six straight opponents following a 2017 decision loss to Marina Rodriguez. She had a rough start to her career in her first year as a pro, where she lost three of her first four fights and then fought to a draw in her sixth fight to take her early record to just 2-3-1. However, she’s now won nine of her last 10 fights, with her only loss since 2016 coming against Rodriguez, who’s now the #3 ranked Women’s Strawweight in the UFC. Despite the long layoff, Silva is still just 25 years old but already has 18 pro fights under her belt after she turned pro two months after her 18th birthday. She’s made improvements to her boxing over the years, as she used to rely mostly on kicks and grappling to get by in fights. She still throws a high number of kicks as well, which can help her to find her range when she faces taller opposition. Silva had been scheduled to make her UFC debut against Victoria Leonardo in January 2021, but ended up withdrawing and sitting on the sidelines for another year and a half after breaking her arm.

In her last fight, Silva was able to land two takedowns in the first round and looked better with her hands than she had in the past. Rounds two and three remained entirely on the feet, with Silva dictating the action with combinations of punches and kicks. She got her opponent down in round four and quickly worked to an armbar finish, which has been her go to move.

Now 12-5-1 as a pro, Silva has three wins by KO, seven by submission, one by DQ, and one by decision. She’s been knocked out once, submitted twice, and has two decision losses. All three of her early losses occurred in her first four pro fights when she was just 18 years old. She got knocked out in the second round of her pro debut, and was then submitted in the first round in her third and fourth pro fights. Her only two losses since 2015 both ended in decisions and she showed her toughness going the distance against a 30-year-old Marina Rodriguez, when Silva was just 20 years old. Her last seven wins have all come by submission, with six armbars and one rear-naked choke. Five of those submissions occurred in round one, one came in round two, and the most recent was in the fourth round of a five-round fight for the Jungle Fight Flyweight Championship. Silva fought some at 115 lb early in her career when she was really young, but has remained at 125 lb since 2018.

Overall, Silva seems to be rounding out her game and is at such a young age that we should be seeing improvements every time she fights, especially when she has two and half years between matches. She’s always thrown a lot of kicks, but also looked good throwing combinations of punches in her last fight. On the mat, she’s primarily looking to lock up armbars, something she’s had a lot of success with. Her takedown accuracy hasn’t been great, which is one of her areas of weakness she needs to work on. It will be interesting to see how she looks after such a long layoff.

Fight Prediction:

Jasudavicius will have a 3” height and reach advantage and is eight years older than the 25-year-old Silva.

While Silva’s last seven wins have all come by submission, her boxing has actually looked improved in addition to an already solid kicking game and she should have the striking advantage in this matchup. She will be at a height disadvantage and Jasudavicius likes to look for knees out of the clinch, but Jasudavicius doesn’t offer much else on the feet. That will leave Jasudavicius reliant on her wrestling to win this fight, which will put her in constant danger of getting armbarred. However, she certainly knows that going in and surely has been training a ton on how not to get armbarred. Jasudavicius has the size and ability to control Silva on the mat for periods of time but she hasn’t looked like any sort of finishing threat. That will likely leave her reliant on winning at least two rounds on the ground to get her hand raised in a decision, which she’s fully capable of doing.

It’s entirely possible we see Silva a little too comfortable in her defensive jiu-jitsu, allowing Jasudavicius to get easy takedowns, and Silva has shown no qualms with pulling guard in the past. So if Silva is unable to land a submission, she’ll likely be losing minutes in the wrestling exchanges, making it tougher for her to win a decision. We expect Jasudavicius to look for takedowns despite Silva’s submission skills, which should increase the chances that we either see Silva land a submission or Jasudavicius grind out a decision win. With that said, based on recent judging and the fact that this card is in Texas, it’s definitely possible that the judges put more weight into the strikes that Silva lands or even her submission attempts from bottom position than Jasudavicius’ control time and takedowns. So there are still ways Silva wins a decision, but Jasudavicius should finish with more takedowns and control time. If the fight ends early, look for it to come from Silva landing another armbar, but if it goes the distance we give the advantage to Jasudavicius. Considering how seldomly UFC newcomers land submissions, we’ll take Jasudavicius by decision in this one.

Our favorite bet here is “Silva Finish ONLY (Decision No Action)” at +150 on DraftKings.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Jasudavicius is coming off a grappling-heavy decision win in her UFC debut, but still scored just 86 DraftKings points as she was content coasting to a victory in the third round and failed to land her only takedown attempt of the final five minutes. While she has the ability to do more to fill up the stat sheet, that performance makes it tougher to get excited about playing her at such a high price tag in this next matchup. With that said, we expect that to be the prevailing opinion, so her ownership should remain low. She’ll now face a UFC newcomer who hasn’t fought in two and a half years and has looked comfortable off her back hunting for armbars. Jasudavicius should also be at a striking disadvantage, giving her almost no choice but to look for takedowns and try to control Silva on the mat and grind out a decision win. That should result in Jasudavicius being a much better play on DraftKings than FanDuel, and even there she’ll need a completely dominating performance to end up in tournament winning lineups. The fact that Silva hasn’t fought in so long makes this a higher variance spot, as it’s tougher to know exactly how she’ll look in this fight after all the time away. The odds imply she has a 67% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in the first round.

Silva makes her UFC debut having landed six straight submission wins, but now hasn’t fought since December 2019. That obviously adds a lot of uncertainty into the mix, but she looked good in her last fight as she demonstrated improved striking before landing yet another submission win. All but one of her 12 career wins have come early, although now she’s facing an opponent who’s never been finished. Working in Silva’s favor, Jasudavicius is a one-dimensional wrestler and should give Silva plenty of opportunities to hunt for submissions off her back. The flipside of that is that Silva will likely have a tougher time taking Jasudavicius down and controlling the grappling exchanges, making it tougher for her to win a decision. While Silva has the ability to win this fight if it remains on the feet, we don’t see Jasudavicius abandoning her wrestling, which will likely leave Silva reliant on landing a finish to get the win. With that said, we’ve seen some creative judging lately that has penalized fighters for inactive control time, so it’s always possible we see Jasudavicius control Silva for the majority of the match and still lose a decision. In that situation Silva would likely still fail to score well, however, and she still likely needs a finish to be useful. The odds imply she has a 33% to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #7

Adrian Yanez

5th UFC Fight (4-0)

Coming off a November 2021 split-decision win over Davey Grant, Yanez has won eight straight fights, including six by knockout, since losing a five-round split decision to Miles Johns in an LFA title fight. After dominating his first two opponents in the UFC, we’ve seen Yanez face some adversity in his last two matches as he’s faced stiffer competition. He lost the first round to Randy Costa in his second most recent fight before Costa gassed out and Yanez finished him in round two. Then more recently, he lost the second round to Davey Grant on all three judges’ scorecards and ended up winning a close split-decision.

In his last fight, all three rounds were close according to the numbers, and Yanez narrowly finished ahead in striking 100-98 in the pure standup battle. Grant looked sharp and came out throwing a ton of kicks along with aggressive hooks. Yanez was the more technical boxer and did a great job of countering Grant with straight shots up the middle. Yanez also did more damage as he busted Grant's face up throughout the match. Grant failed to land the only takedown attempt in the match and Yanez went on to win a split decision. Amazingly, one of the judges, Tony Weeks, scored it 30-27 in favor of Grant, while the other two both scored it for Yanez. That was the first time Yanez had required the judges since 2019, after he knocked out his previous four opponents.

Now 15-3 as a pro, Yanez has nine wins by KO, two by submission, and four decisions. He’s never been finished and all three of his losses have come by decision, with the last two of those being split. Amazingly, his last three and four of his last five trips the judges have ended in split decisions (2-2). Both of those split decision losses came against fighters who are currently in the UFC, in Miles Johns and Domingo Pilarte. Yanez has won 10 out of his last 11 fights and four of his last five wins have come by KO. Both of his submission wins came early in his career, in his first six pro fights, and he hasn’t shown any interest in going to the ground, with zero takedown attempts in his last five fights. He’s also never been taken down in the UFC, on five attempts from his opponents. His first two amateur fights were at 145 lb, before he dropped down to 135 lb in 2013 where he’s pretty much stayed since. He did have one more fight at 145 lb in 2015, which he won by first round submission.

Overall, Yanez is a patient striker with crisp boxing and a solid chin. Still just 28 years old, Yanez looks like a future contender in the 135 lb division. He’s an exceptional counter puncher and an overall solid striker. His striking defense has arguably been his biggest weakness, and he averages 5.52 SSA/min (3rd highest on the slate). He has a BJJ black belt, but it might as well be a souvenir as he almost never feels the need to use it. His late father was a boxer and Yanez seems primarily focused on carrying on in his father’s footsteps by using his striking to win fights. The UFC continues to give Yanez tougher and more durable competition, and Yanez still needs to prove his finishing ability can translate to the next level of competition. He’s also had to deal with a new leadership role at his gym after his former coach, Saul Soliz, passed away from COVID complications soon after his second most recent fight. After already losing his father, Yanez said that Soliz had been that father figure to him, so obviously that’s a really hard thing to go through, especially for a young fighter. He’s taken on more responsibilities at the gym, so it will be interesting to see how that affects his own fighting career.

Tony Kelley

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

Kelley has recently been under fire for comments he made during the Andrea Lee/Viviane Araujo fight as he cornered his girlfriend Lee. Who knows how much of a distraction if any that’s been for him as he trained for this fight, but it’s not ideal. He’s coming off the first early win of his short UFC career, in a second round TKO over Randy Costa, who was coming off a second round TKO to Yanez. Kelley lost a decision in his short notice UFC debut, but bounced back with a decision win in his second UFC fight.

In his last fight, Kelley was somewhat surprisingly the aggressor, which is the first time we’ve seen Costa come into a fight with a more measured approach. In fairness, Costa claimed he was going to pace himself more coming into that fight after he gassed out in each of the two times he had previously seen a second round. However, his fighting style had been entirely geared around blitzing his opponents with strikes early, so it was a little hard to believe him going in. Costa appeared kind of lost after straying from his past identity of being a first round brawler, and that played right into Kelley’s hand who was able to command the fight from the start. After throwing 123 strikes in the first round against Yanez and landing 57, Costa only attempted 37 first round strikes against Kelley, landing just 16. Kelley was able to grind Costa up against the cage and wear on his already limited gas tank. Costa shot for a desperation takedown late in round two, but Kelley was able to shove him to the mat and get on top, where he began to beat him up and land heavy elbows until the fight was eventually stopped in the final minute of round two. The fight ended with Kelley ahead 82-31 in significant strikes and 129-32 in total strikes. Costa has still never been past the second round and has been finished in round two in all three of his career fights to last longer than five minutes.

Now 8-2 as a pro, Kelley has three wins by KO, three by submission, and two decisions. He’s never been finished, with both of his losses going the distance. This first of those was a 2016 five-round split decision loss to Kevin Aguilar who went on to flame out in the UFC, while the other came in Kelley’s short notice UFC debut against Kai Kamaka, who ended up going 1-2-1 in the UFC before being released. Four of Kelley’s last six fights have gone the distance (2-2) and two of those four decisions have been split (1-1). Kelley fought at 145 lb until his second UFC fight, when he dropped down to 135 lb, where he’s now gone 2-0.

Overall, Kelley is a decent grappler and striker, but he’s not really elite at anything. He’s similar to Brandon Davis in many ways, as he’s a durable, gritty fighter and tries to make fights ugly and outwork his opponents. Kelley has yet to land a takedown in the UFC on just one attempt, and got taken down 10 times on 20 attempts in his first two fights, before easily stuffing a desperation attempt from Costa in his last match.

UPDATE: Kelley missed weight by 1.5 lb!

Fight Prediction:

Kelley will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 70” reach. Yanez is seven years younger than the 35-year-old Kelley.

While Yanez is the better boxer in this matchup, Kelley will throw more kicks and make fights ugly out of the clinch. Kelley is the bigger fighter, and will likely try to bully his way to a win. Look for him to be the aggressor out of the gates, and it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see him take an early lead in the fight as Yanez looks to settle in. Yanez will need to quickly figure out how to deal with the kicks of Kelley, or he could find himself in trouble down the stretch. We expect Yanez’s technical boxing advantage to prevail in the later rounds and for this fight to end in a close, likely split, decision, with Yanez getting his hand raised.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Goes the Distance” at +114.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Yanez is a solid striker who averages 6.35 SSL/min (highest on the slate), but has yet to attempt a takedown in the UFC or land more than 100 significant strikes in a fight. That leaves him entirely reliant on landing early knockouts to score well in DFS, and he finished with just 70 DraftKings points in his recent decision win. He’s also been dependent on knockdowns to boost his scoring, with four landed in his first three UFC fights. However, he failed to land one in his last match and Kelley has yet to be knocked down in the UFC. Prior to Yanez’s recent decision win, he had knocked out his first three UFC opponents. He scored 106 and 107 DK points in his R1 and R2 KO wins, but just 81 points in his early third round finish. Now he faces a durable opponent in Tony Kelley who’s never been finished in his career, and fought up at 145 lb until his last two fights. So this doesn't set up as a good spot for Yanez to land the knockout he needs to score well, but he will be fighting in front of his home Texas crowd, so he could have a little extra motivation to really push for a finish—especially after his last decision was split and almost didn’t go his way. Yanez has been extremely popular in DFS, with his ownership checking in at 47%, 43%, 42%, and 46% in his four UFC fights, albeit all on smaller cards than this one. His recent lower scoring decision win along with this larger slate size should reduce his ownership here to some extent, but you can always expect him to be popular any time he fights. The odds imply he has a 72% chance to win, a 40% chance to get a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Kelley has shown he has no problem taking part in a brawl, and we expect this next fight to be an uptempo striking battle. Kelley landed 114 significant strikes in his UFC debut, despite getting taken down five times and controlled for a third of the fight. Most recently, he landed 82 significant strikes in less than two rounds of action before landing a late second round submission and scoring a career best 188 DraftKings points. While the decision didn’t go his way in his debut, Kelley scored 60 points in a loss, which would have been good for 90 DraftKings points had it gone his way. That shows he has a pretty solid floor and at his dirt cheap price tag he could serve as a value play in a high-volume decision win. He’s unlikely to hand Yanez the first early loss of his career, so we’re really just looking at Kelley as a potential value play here. The odds imply he has a 28% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #6

Gregory Rodrigues

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

Looking to bounce back from a split-decision loss to UFC newcomer Armen Petrosyan, Rodrigues has now lost two of the four decisions he’s been to in his career and both of those have been split. That seemingly speaks to his poor decision making as he finds himself getting sucked into brawls opposed to relying more heavily on his grappling. That’s not to say that he can’t win a brawl, and we saw him do just that in his second most recent fight when he became the first fighter to ever knock out Jun Yong Park, but he nearly got knocked out himself in that fight.

In his last fight, Rodrigues took on one dimensional striker in a debuting Armen Petrosyan and showed a non-existent fight IQ by not even attempting a takedown until the final minute of round two. Petrosyan was able to land 39 leg strikes and lapped Rodrigues in total significant strikes landed, but all the big moments in the fight belonged to Rodrigues and it looked like he was on the verge of finishing Petrosyan at multiple points. Petrosyan had looked absolutely helpless on the mat in his earlier fights, so Rodrigues arguably deserved to lose for not capitalizing on that. The fight ended in a split decision win for Petrosyan, who finished ahead 127-61 in significant strikes, while Rodrigues landed two of his three takedowns attempts with 94 seconds of control time, all in the final six minutes of the fight.

Now 11-4 as a pro, Rodrigues has five wins by KO, four by submission, and two decisions. He’s been knocked out in the first round twice, with his other two losses ending in split decisions. One of his two KO losses came in his 2014 pro debut, while the other was on DWCS in 2020 against Jordan Williams, who is now 0-3 in the UFC and moved down a weight class for his last two fights. Despite his recent loss, Rodrigues has still won 10 of his last 12 fights, with eight of those wins coming early. His four submission wins have been split across the first two rounds, but he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2018 and he hasn’t looked especially sharp on the mat. It seems like he loses positions by being too loose with his legs, which is surprising considering his celebrated jiu-jitsu background. He seems to have fallen in love with his striking and his last four finishes have all ended in knockouts, with two of his last three finishes coming in round two. Only two of his last seven fights have required the judges, but those both came in his last three matches since joining the UFC.

Overall, Rodrigues is a BJJ black belt and 8-time National BJJ Champion. He has solid power, and is overall a good striker, but he’s also looked pretty hittable and averages 5.87 SSA/min (2nd most on the slate). He hasn’t lived up to his grappling resume so far in the UFC and it may be time we stop expecting him to. With that said, he’s landed at least two takedowns in each of his three UFC fights and has never been submitted in his career.

Julian Marquez

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

Marquez has had a tough time keeping fights lately so hopefully this one actually happens. He dropped out of a fight against Jordan Wright the day before the event in October 2021, and then withdrew from a scheduled match against Kyle Daukaus this February. He was then booked to face Wellingturn Turman here, but Turman withdrew and Rodrigues was announced as the replacement back in April with plenty of time to prepare. The last time he actually stepped inside the Octagon was April 2021, so it’s been 14 months since he last fought. Despite his inactivity, he’s won two straight and seven of his last eight fights. All three of his UFC wins have come in mid-to-late round submissions, which is especially crazy considering he had never submitted anybody prior to joining the UFC. After knocking out Phil Hawes on DWCS in 2017, Marquez landed a second round guillotine against Darren Stewart in his UFC debut. He then lost a debatable split decision to Alessio Di Chirico in 2018 and suffered a potentially career ending injury when he completely tore his latissimus dorsi muscle. He didn’t return to the Octagon until 2021, when he landed a comeback third-round submission against Maki Pitolo in a fight that Pitolo was up 20-18 on all three judges’ score cards.

In his last fight, Marquez landed a second round submission against Sam Alvey after rocking him on the feet. The first round was actually close in terms of the striking numbers, and both guys had their moments where they appeared to hurt the other, but Marquez took over early in round two. It looked like Marquez might get the fight stopped through ground and pound after Alvey desperately clung onto his waist, but instead he wrapped up Alvey’s neck and quickly choked him unconscious from an unusual standing/crouched rear-naked choke as Alvey sat on the mat. The fight ended with Marquez ahead 61-29 in significant strikes.

Still just 9-2 as a pro, all nine of Marquez’s career wins have come early, with six KOs and three submissions. His last four wins all occurred in the mid-to-later rounds, with three ending in R2 and one in R3. He does have four first round knockouts on his record but those all came earlier in his career and he hasn’t finished an opponent in round one since 2017. He’s never been finished himself, with both of his career losses ending in decisions, with the most recent one coming in a questionable split decision in his only UFC loss. Marquez is extremely durable and looks to be in trouble at times only to survive and flip the script. He trains out of Glory MMA with James Krause, so you know he’s well coached.

Overall, Marquez is a dangerous finisher both with his hands and his chokes, but he’s not a guy that’s going to blow you away with anything he does. He’s just a durable and powerful fighter with an innate finishing ability who will snatch up your neck if you give him the opportunity but can also maul you with his hands. He’s not the most technical striker and has short arms for his size, but he can take one to land one and has shown a solid chin. He’s only a BJJ purple belt, but he’s got a tight squeeze and it’s also easier to choke guys out when they’re already half unconscious.

Fight Prediction:

Rodrigues will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.

Rodrigues has a tendency to get sucked into brawls opposed to executing more strategic game plans that maximize his well rounded skill set. Marquez really isn’t the type of guy you want to get into a brawl with, as he has the power and chokes to end a fight at any moment up until the final horn. He’s also been extremely durable and has never been finished in his career. While Rodrigues looks like the more technical fighter we’ve seen him get knocked out twice and wobbled at multiple other points, and his chin does not appear to be as good as Marquez’s. This feels like a fight where Rodrigues will be winning up until the point he gets finished. While all three of Marquez’s UFC wins have come by submission, typically after he first hurts his opponents on the feet, it would be more surprising to see him submit Rodrigues. With that said, locking in a choke is obviously easier if you have a guy nearly out on his feet, and Marquez’s instincts have been to snatch up necks to finish fights opposed to getting guys out of there with ground and pound. Nevertheless, there’s still a lower chance than normal that Marquez lands a submission as he faces a celebrated jiu-jitsu champion, but we’re not ruling out the possibility that it happens. On paper, it seems like Rodrigues should win this fight, but we like Marquez to turn the tables in the later rounds and catch Rodrigues with a big shot that stumbles him and leads to a finish for Marquez, most likely in round two. If we’re wrong and that doesn’t happen, Rodrigues is the more likely of the two to get his hand raised by the judges, although keep in mind that this fight will be in Texas where we’ve seen some especially bizarre judging in the past.

Our favorite bet here is “Marquez ITD” at +290.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Rodrigues can be a frustrating fighter to bet on and play in DFS as he makes dumb decisions, has a questionable chin, and forgets about his jiu-jitsu background for periods of time. With that said, his fights are rarely boring and he’s typically looking to throw down on the feet and hunt for knockouts. That creates scoring upside for both him and his opponents and Rodrigues averages a healthy 5.28 SSL/min and 5.87 SSA/min, in addition to landing at least two takedowns in all of his UFC fights. We’ve seen Rodrigues get sucked into brawls and Marquez will gladly throw down in a scrap. While Rodrigues looks like the more technical fighter, Marquez has been the more durable, and this fight could simply come down to whose chin holds up the best. This should be a fun scrap to watch and there’s a good chance we see a finish with the winner putting up a solid score. However, if it does go the distance, Rodrigues notably only scored 76 points in his lone UFC decision win and just 37 points in his recent decision loss. So he hasn’t shown the ability to score well without a finish. The odds imply Rodrigues has a 60% chance to win, a 39% chance to get a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.

Marquez finally put up a decent DraftKings score in his most recent finish where he totaled 105 points after only notching 74 and 85 points in his first two UFC late round finishes. The fact that he’s yet to land a takedown in the UFC and only averages 4.20 SSL/min makes it tough for him to put up huge scores, especially when his wins generally come late in fights. However, at his cheaper price tag he doesn’t need to put up a slate-breaking score to end up in tournament winning lineups, and this fight sets up as an uptempo brawl with the potential for Marquez to land more striking volume than he has in the past. While this is certainly a step up in competition for Marquez, it comes in a fantasy friendly matchup and Marquez has a 100% finishing rate in his career wins. We expect these two fighters to test each other’s chins at multiple points in this fight and historically Marquez has been the more durable of the two. We like his chances to land a mid-to-late round finish, but he’s unlikely to really score well if this fight goes the distance. The odds imply Marquez has a 40% chance to win, a 24% chance to get a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #5

Damir Ismagulov

5th UFC Fight (4-0)

Ismagulov had been on the October 30th card, but missed weight by an insane 7.5 lb and the fight was canceled. It’s now been over a year since he last competed, when he won a decision over Rafael Alves. That was Ismagulov’s fourth straight decision win since joining the UFC in 2018 and 18th straight win overall. He’s defeated three straight tough opponents in Joel Alvarez, Thiago Moises, and Rafael Alves. Following a win over Moises, Ismagulov didn’t fight again for 21 months before taking on Alves, and he only has the one fight since August 2019.

In Ismagulov’s last fight, Alves immediately blitzed Ismagulov, knocking him down and attempting to take his back in the opening 10 seconds. Ismagulov quickly recovered, but Alves then immediately attempted a guillotine choke, although Ismagulov was able to escape and end up on top and spent the remainder of the round hammering away at Alvers on the mat. Ismagulov was then able to control the second round and withstand a late push by Alves to win a unanimous 29-28 decision.

Now 23-1 as a pro, Ismagulov has 12 wins by KO, one by submission, and 10 decisions.He’s never been finished and his only career loss came in a 2015 decision in his sixth pro fight. All four of his UFC matches and six of his last seven fights have now gone the distance, with the one exception being a 2018 R1 TKO win resulting from an opponent’s hand injury. Prior to joining the UFC, Ismagulov was notably fighting on the tough M-1 Russian circuit, so he’s accustomed to facing stiff competition.

Overall, Ismagulov is a really tough, well rounded fighter who has no issues grinding out decision wins, but is also fully capable of finishing opponents and it’s just a matter of time before he gets his first early win in the UFC. Despite all four of his UFC fights going the distance, none of his opponents have landed more than 38 significant strikes on him or a single takedown. Ismagulov also doesn’t land a ton of volume himself, with significant striking totals of 56, 71, 64 and 34 in his four UFC fights. He notably went 5 for 11 on takedowns in his UFC debut, so he’s fully capable of utilizing his grappling when the game plan calls for it, but he’s also perfectly fine keeping fights on the feet, as he’s failed to land a takedown in half of his UFC fights.

Guram Kutateladze

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

It’s now been 20 months since Kutateladze won a split-decision in his short notice UFC debut over a previously undefeated Mateusz Gamrot, who has since landed three straight finishes against UFC veterans in Scott Holtzman, Jeremy Stephens, and Diego Ferreira. Kutateladze had two fights booked against Don Madge in 2021 but ended up withdrawing both times as he dealt with multiple injuries and underwent knee surgery. He also had a fight canceled prior to his debut, and he’s now fought just once since November 2019. While his inactivity is somewhat concerning, he’s won nine straight and is a training partner of Khamzat Chimaev, who was in Kutateladze’s corner for his debut. In his last fight before making his debut, Kutateladze knocked out former UFC fighter Felipe Silva in just 44 seconds.

In his win over Gamrot, Kutateladze did a great job of both defending takedowns and not accepting the position off his back when he was taken down. Gamrot is a solid wrestler, but was only able to land 5 of his 16 takedown attempts with only three and a half minutes of total control time. While Gamrot outlanded Kutateladze 52-37 in significant strikes and 69-43 in total strikes, it appeared that Kutateladze was the one doing more damage with his strikes. With that said, Kutateladze was the first to say he thought Gamrot won the fight and the judges had gotten it wrong, which he stated in his post fight interview. It’s hard to argue based on the stat sheet, but both guys looked good in the fight.

Now 12-2 as a pro, Kutateladze has seven wins by KO, one by submission, and four decisions. The only time he’s ever been finished came in a 2015 first round kneebar in his 5th pro fight. His only other loss ended in a decision just before that. Four of his finishes have come in round one, two have ended in round two, and the other two ended in round three. His last three finishes all ended in first round knockouts.

Overall, Kutateladze is a dangerous Muay Thai striker with cast iron shins and solid defensive wrestling. He’s a patient striker, who doesn’t throw a ton of volume, but makes it count when he does land. We haven’t seen any offensive wrestling out of him yet, but he’s looked great off his back in terms of finding ways to return to his feet.

Fight Prediction:

Kutateladze will have a 1” height advantage, but Ismagulov will have a 2” reach advantage.

Both of these two fighters have only fought once since 2019, and their inactivity adds some uncertainty to this fight. We know Ismagulov is a really solid and well rounded fighter, who’s biggest challenge has been the scale so far in the UFC. We haven’t seen enough from Kutateladze at the UFC level to have the best feel on how he stacks up, but he’s looked good so far in what he’s shown. Ismagulov is the more active fighter and has a really solid jab, but Kutateladze looks to land the more impactful shots. It would be surprising to see this fight end early based on how durable they’ve both been for their entire careers, but if it does end early we like it to come from a Kutateladze KO. More likely, we’ll see Ismagulov outland his way to his 5th straight decision win.

Our favorite bet here is “Ismagulov Decision” at +135.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Ismagulov has fought to four straight decisions since joining the UFC and has yet to show any sort of finishing upside since joining the organization. That’s not to say he’s incapable of doing so, as 13 of his 23 career wins have come early, he’s just the type of fighter who appears more concerned with winning than putting on a good show and if a finish happens it happens. He’s shown a wide range of DFS scoring in his decision victories, with DraftKings totals of 93, 71, 56 and 100. He doesn't land much striking volume, as he averages just 3.75 SSL/min, so he relies on grappling to score well, but he’s been sporadic with hsi takedowns. He went 5 for 11 on his attempts in his UFC debut with almost 10 minutes of control time and returned a career best 100 DraftKings points. However, he didn’t attempt a takedown in his next match and scored just 56 DK points. He followed that up by going 0 for 5 on takedowns against Thiago Moises and again struggled to score well with just 71 DraftKings points. He had more grappling success in his most recent fight as he landed two of his three takedown attempts with nearly eight minutes of control time and scored 93 points. So overall, his DK scoring has been entirely reliant on his grappling success. Kutateladze was taken down five times on 16 attempts in his debut, but did a great job of quickly working back to his feet. That creates the potential for Ismagulov to land even more takedowns, but he’s less likely to control Kutateladze on the mat for periods of time. The fact that Kutateladze is so dangerous on the feet, likely will leave Ismagulov looking to grapple more, which is the most likely way Ismagulov scores well here, as Kutateladze has never been knocked out. Ismagulov hasn’t fought in over a year, has just one fight since 2019, and missed weight by 7.5 lb for his last scheduled fight before it was canceled, so overall there are several variables in play that make this a higher variance spot. The odds imply Ismagulov has a 59% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

Kutateladze is a dangerous striker with a history of knockouts who has solid defensive wrestling. He looks like a really tough opponent to go up against, but his slower paced, striking-heavy fighting style doesn’t translate well to DFS production unless he lands an early knockout. He scored just 56 DraftKings points in a split-decision win in his UFC debut and even at his cheaper price tag that’s not even close to enough for him to even enter the value play discussion. He steps into his second straight brutally tough matchup against another opponent on a double digit winning streak who’s never been finished and someone needs to have a word with this guy’s agent. It’s been almost two years since Kutateladze last fought as he dealt with numerous injuries in 2021, and just like Ismagulov, he’s only fought once since 2019. That makes it tougher to know exactly how he’ll look here, but he trains with Khamzat Chimaev, so we’re expecting him to be ready for war. While we have high hopes for Kutateladze in the future, this is definitely not the matchup we were hoping for in his second UFC fight. He looks like a KO or bust play in DFS as he tries to end Ismagulov’s 18 fight winning streak and hand him the first early loss of his career. One thing to note, considering Ismagulov’s disastrous weigh-in for his last fight, it will be important to monitor him on the scale this week, and if he looks terrible again we’ll certainly be more excited about playing Kutateladze. The odds imply Kutateladze has a 41% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #4

Albert Duraev

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Extending his winning streak to 10 with a decision win in his UFC debut, Duraev required the judges for just the third time in his 18-fight pro career. He landed a first round submission win on DWCS just six weeks prior making his debut, but hadn’t fought in three years prior to that. He won the Russian ACB Middleweight Championship belt in 2017 in a striking battle that only ended up on the mat once Duraev hurt his opponent and forced him to look for a takedown, at which point Duraev reversed it and finished the fight with ground and pound. Duraev also previously won the ABC Welterweight title in 2016, as he’s fought at both 170 lb and 185 lb throughout his career. Prior to joining the UFC, Duraev defeated three fighters with UFC experience in Clifford Starks, Sergey Khandozhko, and Xavier Foupa-Pokam.

In his last fight, Duraev surprisingly didn’t even attempt a takedown in the first round. However, after getting dropped in the opening seconds of round two, Duraev remembered he’s a grappler and then began to look to get the fight to the mat. His initial attempts were stuffed, but then his opponent, Roman Kopylov, blatantly grabbed the fence to prevent a takedown and referee Jason Herzog paused the fight to essentially give Duraev the takedown. Duraev quickly transitioned to full mount and went to work with ground and pound, while also looking for submissions periodically. The second round ended just as Duraev locked up a rear-naked choke, and it looked moments away from being stopped. Duraev looked to get the fight back to the ground in round three, but did nothing to set up his shots and failed to land any of his five attempts in round three. He also looked to be fading quickly and his left eye was extremely swollen. Both fighters were battered and exhausted late in the fight, with Kopylov fighting with his hands on his knees, but neither had enough left to finish the other. The fight ended with Duraev ahead in significant strikes 71-42 and in total strikes 152-54. He was only able to land one of his nine takedown attempts and that was when Jason Herzog placed him in the perfect position to finish it following the fence grab. Duraev finished with five and a half minutes of control time and basically all of his production came in the second round on that one takedown. Nevertheless, he went on to win a unanimous decision.

Now 15-3 as a pro, Duraev has three wins by KO, nine by submission, and three decisions. All three of his career losses have come by KO in the first two rounds and only 5 of his 18 pro fights have made it to a third round. Duraev has competed at both 170 lb and 185 lb for periods of time in his career. He’s gone 6-1 at 170 lb and 9-2 at 185 lb. One of Duraev’s three KO losses came against decision grinder Ramazan Emeev, who hasn’t shown the ability to finish a hot meal since joining the UFC.

Overall, Duraev is a Russian grappler who does his best work getting opponents to the ground and beating them up with ground and pound as he hunts for submissions, however, he’s also shown a willingness to keep fights standing and win on the feet. He showed a low fight IQ in his last fight by not looking for any takedowns in the first round and waiting until he got hurt on the feet to finally attempt one. That also put his suspect chin on display as well as his poor takedown accuracy. Duraev trains out of Xtreme Couture and is one of Sean Strickland’s primary sparring partners.

Joaquin Buckley

7th UFC Fight (4-2)

After seeing seven straight fights end in knockouts (5-2), Buckley is coming off his first trip to the judges since 2018 and first decision win since 2017. Buckley got knocked out in the third round of his August 2020 short notice UFC debut against Kevin Holland, but bounced back with the knockout of the year in the second round against Impa Kasanganay just two months later. He then knocked out a fragile Jordan Wright in his next fight, again in the second round. He then got knocked out himself by decision grinder Alessio Di Chirico with a first round head kick, but rebounded with another knockout of his own in the third round of his next fight against Antonio Arroyo.

In his last fight, we saw a lot more wrestling from Buckley than we had in previous fights, as he landed five takedowns on eight attempts in a split-decision win over Abdul Razak Alhassan, after only landing one takedown on 12 attempts in his first five UFC matches. Three of Buckley’s takedowns came in the first round, with the other two coming in round two, and it was actually Alhassan who took Buckley down three times in round three. We’re all accustomed to seeing Alhassan fade after the first round in fights, but it was actually Buckley who wilted down the stretch in this one, as Alhassan finished the fight strong looking for ground and pound from top position as Buckley simply hung on and tried to survive the final round. The fight ended with Buckley narrowly ahead 51-46 in significant strikes. 57-55 in total strikes, and 5-3 in takedowns. Alhassan actually led in control time 3:34-2:05, but the majority of his production came in the third round once Buckley began to fade.

Now 14-4 as a pro, Buckley has 10 wins by KO and four by decision. He’s also been knocked out in three of his four losses, with the other ending in a 2018 decision. Four of his knockouts have come in round one, another four have ended in round two, and two have occurred in round three. However, his last four knockouts have all come in the later rounds with 3 ending in round two. Three of his four first-round knockouts were in his first five pro fights. Buckley fought at 170 lb until 2019 when he moved up to 185 lb. He’s now 6-2 at 185 lb, with seven of those eight fights ending in KOs.

Overall, Buckley is a powerful striker, who recently teamed with internet meme Dale Brown, who’s known for his Detroit Urban Survival Training (DUST) program. While that decision was widely mocked, Buckley actually looked more well rounded than we’ve seen in the past as he found much more success with his takedown attempts. With that said, Buckley wasn’t able to do anything when he did get the fight to the mat, and he still hasn’t proven himself to be any threat on the mat. At just 5’10”, Buckley is short at Middleweight, although he does have a legit 76” reach. It’s hard to fully gauge his takedown defense, as prior to his last fight he had faced just a single takedown attempt in his first five UFC fights, which he had successfully defended. Then he gassed out late in his last fight and got taken down three times on four attempts, which is the driving factor behind his listed 40% takedown defense.

Fight Prediction:

Duraev will have a 1” height advantage, but Buckley will have a 1” reach advantage.

This is sort of an interesting matchup between two finishers who have both been prone to getting knocked out. On the surface, it looks like a straightforward striker versus grappler match, as Duraev is a Russian wrestler and Buckley has historically been a knockout specialist. However, Buckley looked to wrestler more in his last fight, while Duraev only landed one takedown in his recent UFC debut. It’s also probably oversimplifying to identify someone as Russian and automatically assume they’re a good wrestler. Duraev is not a country boy from Dagestan, where the best Russian wrestlers are bred, he’s from the city of Volgograd and is sporting a Benz on his Tapology profile page. Until he proves he can grind out opponents on the mat like his more well known Russian comrades, it’s fair to withhold judgment on him. While Duraev gassed out in the third round of his UFC debut, we should also keep in mind he didn’t have a ton of time to prepare for that fight after fighting on DWCS just six weeks prior. Nevertheless, his late round cardio will be something to monitor and has so far been very unimpressive. The same can be said about his chin and fight IQ, as he waited until he got dropped early in round two of his last fight before attempting his first takedown, despite clearly having a huge grappling advantage in that matchup. Maybe he’ll learn from that mistake here and look to get the fight to the ground earlier, but if he doesn’t he’s at a major risk of getting knocked out by Buckley. Duraev was incredibly active on the ground in the one instance that he was able to get the fight to the mat in his recent win, but that just makes it even more frustrating when he looks to keep fights standing. His poor decision making results in him being a tough guy to trust and increases the range of outcomes when he fights. He’s looked very dangerous on the mat, but seems to fall in love with his striking and hasn’t shown a great takedown accuracy.

Both of these two fighters have been prone to getting knocked out, but we like Buckley’s side of things if the fight remains standing. On the ground, Duraev has shown a major grappling advantage and has a good chance of landing a finish if he can get the fight there. Both guys have also shown cardio concerns, so if this fight makes it to the third round there’s a good chance it goes the distance. The outcome here hinges entirely on whether or not Duraev can get Buckley down, which makes it hard to be confident in a prediction. However, Buckley essentially has one way to win—to land a knockout—so we’ll still side with the grappler in Duraev who has multiple paths to victory, even if they all require him to get the fight to the ground. Just keep in mind we have more confidence in this fight ending early than we do in picking a side.

Our favorite bet here is “Duraev/Buckley Fight Doesn't Start R3” at -110 (FanDuel).

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Duraev was largely unimpressive in his UFC debut, as he showed a low fight IQ, a suspect chin, and a questionable gas tank. However, we also saw a glimpse of his upside when he dominated the second round on the mat and nearly landed a finish. He showed us that he’s not a guy we can trust, but he clearly has a huge DFS scoring ceiling. Despite only landing one takedown in that fight, he still scored 90 points in a decision and landed over 100 total strikes in that round through relentless ground and pound. His fighting style is better suited to the DraftKings scoring system, but his history of finishes keeps him in play on FanDuel, he’s just more reliant on early wins over there. The hope going into this next fight will be that Duraev learns from his last fight that he needs to try and get the fight to the ground earlier, as we saw in his previous DWCS performance where he landed a first round submission that would have been good for 117 DraftKings points and 112 points on FanDuel. If he foolishly looks to keep this fight on the feet there’s a really good chance he’ll get knocked out by Buckley, so overall it’s a higher variance spot where the winner should score well. The odds imply Duraev has a 66% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Buckley’s first five UFC fights ended in knockouts (3-2), but he’s now coming off his first decision win since 2017. He’s generally popular amongst the field due to his knockout ability, and in his last four fights we’ve seen his ownership check in at 34%, 43%, 24%, and 33%. The one dip came on a 14 fight card where Buckley was 9.3K on DraftKings and coming off a loss. He’s only topped 100 DraftKings points in one of his four UFC wins, and scored exactly 80 in each of his last two victories. With that said, he scored 98 and 114 points in his two second round KO wins, and if he pulls off the upset here it likely comes by KO in the opening two rounds. Working in Buckley’s favor, Duraev has been knocked out in all three of his career losses, just keep in mind that stat isn’t exactly a secret and it will just make Buckley even more of a popular underdog play. Buckley needs to remain upright and land a knockout to pull off the upset and the odds imply he has a 34% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #3

Kevin Holland

15th UFC Fight (9-4, NC)

Stepping into just his second UFC fight at 170 lb after moving down from 185 lb, Holland recently notched his first win in his last four fights. After winning five fights in 2020, Holland went 0-2 plus a No Contest in 2021 as he faced much stiffer competition and his non-existent wrestling defense was badly exposed.

In his last fight, Holland knocked out a struggling Alex Oliveira, who’s lost four straight with three of those losses coming in the first six minutes of fights. Holland was able to take an early striking lead, but Oliveira took him down twice on three attempts in the first round and finished the round on his back looking for a choke. Holland bounced back in round two, dropping Oliveira early in the round and then finishing him with ground and pound less than a minute in. That was just the second KO loss of Oliveira’s lengthy career. In a fight that lasted less than six minutes, Holland finished ahead 50-21 in significant strikes and was taken down twice but only controlled for 22 seconds.

Now 22-7 as a pro, Holland has 13 wins by KO, five by submission, and four decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but he has two submission losses and five by decision. He would have three submission losses on his record, but his second most recent fight was ruled a No Contest after an accidental clash of heads with Kyle Daukaus began the finishing sequence that resulted in a submission. Five of Holland’s last six wins have come by KO/TKO, while his last two official losses both ended in five-round decisions. Holland went 5-1 at 170 lb earlier in his career, but had been at 185 lb since 2017. His only loss at 170 lb ended in a decision, while all six of his wins at the weight class have come early, all in the first two rounds.

Overall, Holland is a second degree black belt in Kung Fu and primarily a striker but is technically a BJJ black belt and does have some submission skills. His wrestling is where he really struggles and that’s where his recent opponents continue to attack him. He’s long, powerful and dangerous on the feet, in addition to being very durable. It seems like he’s still in the process of finding his new identity at a new weight class after his defensive wrestling was so exposed in 2021.

Tim Means

25th UFC Fight (14-9, NC)

Coming off his third straight decision win, Means hasn’t fought in nearly a year following a win over Nicolas Dalby. Prior to that win, Means won decisions over Mike Perry and Laureano Staropoli, both of whom missed weight and are no longer in the UFC. Means has won four of his last five fights, with his only loss since 2019 coming in a 2020 R2 guillotine submission loss to Daniel Rodriguez. Six of his last 10 fights have gone the distance, while two ended in first round knockouts (1-1) and two more ended in guillotine submission losses (1-1).

In his win over Dalby, Means was able to get the fight to the ground early in round one following a fast paced start on the feet. Dalby was able to return to his feet with two minutes remaining in the round, and Means failed to land any more takedowns in the fight on three attempts. After winning the first two rounds on the feet, Means looked to get hurt in round three but was able to ride out a 29-28 decision win in the clinch late in the fight. In fairness to him, Means took that fight on short notice after his opponent the week before dropped out.

Now 32-12-1 as a pro, Means has 19 wins by KO, five by submission, and eight decisions. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted five times, and has five decision losses. The only person to knock Means out since 2004 was Niko Price in the first round of a 2019 match and overall he’s been very durable. Means is now 38 years old and hasn’t finished anybody since landing a 2019 R1 guillotine against Thiago Alves, so it’s fair to wonder if we start seeing him slow down soon. That 2019 finish is his only submission win since 2015 and only his second since 2011.

Overall, Means is a longtime UFC veteran who’s shown he can win fights in a variety of ways. He averages 5.06 SSL/min and 0.9 TDL/15 min, and 24 of his 32 pro wins have come early (75%). He’s more of a grinder than a guy that will blow you away in any one area, but he’s well rounded and pretty solid everywhere. He’s landed seven takedowns on 20 attempts (35%) in his last seven fights, landing at least one in all of those matches and three or more in four of his last five matches.

Fight Prediction:

Holland will have a 1” height advantage and 6” reach advantage. He’s also nine years younger than the 38-year-old Means.

This is a good test for Holland at 170 lb, as Means has the ability to test Holland on the mat if he chooses to, but isn’t a dominant wrestler who will just easily control Holland. While Means is a good striker, we give the speed and power advantages to Holland, which should force Means to try and grapple more. Both guys are pretty tall at 170 lb, but Holland will have a sizable 6” reach advantage, which when combined with Holland’s speed and power should make life somewhat difficult for Means on the feet. We don’t see Means knocking Holland out or winning a pure striking battle, so he’ll need to either land a submission or mix in a decent amount of grappling to win a decision and pull off the upset. If this plays out entirely as a striking battle, Holland has a decent chance to land a knockout, but we’d be surprised if Means just stood and traded for the whole fight. He’ll typically look to either get fights to the ground or tie opponents up in the clinch along the fence when things get hairy. We expect this fight to end in either a Holland knockout or a Means decision, but Holland will have the home Texas crowd behind him, so seeing a close decision go his way also wouldn’t be surprising, especially if Means holds him against the cage for periods of time based on recent judging.

Our favorite bet here is “Means Decision” at +460.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Holland has been a consistent DFS producer when he can find a finish, which he’s been able to do in six of his nine UFC wins. In those six finishes, he has averaged 112 DraftKings, although he only scored between 97 and 101 and three of his last four early wins. He had two slate-breaking scores earlier in his career, one resulting from a quick win bonus and the other from a complete dismantling of a helpless John Phillips. It’s fair to consider those outlier performances and look at his other four finishes when it comes to what we can typically expect from Holland. In those fights, he scored 101, 97, 113, and 98 DraftKings points. Holland has only landed four knockdowns in 14 UFC fights, and two of those came against Joaquin Buckley, who was making his short notice UFC debut. He’s also struggled with being controlled by his opponents, which hurts his scoring potential some, and he’s only averaged 3.84 SSL/min in his career. Furthermore, Holland has failed to land a takedown in his last three fights and has just one in his last five matches. In his three UFC decision wins, Holland has averaged 81 DraftKings points and has never scored more than 86. So overall, he’s reliant on landing a finish to return value and now he faces a longtime UFC veteran who’s only been knocked out twice in 45 pro fights. Holland checked in at 35% ownership the last time he fought despite his recent 0-2-NC record coming into that one, and he’ll likely be fairly popular once again. That has us less excited about playing him here, but he will be fighting in front of his home Texas crowd and seems like the type of guy that would feed off the fans. It’s fair to treat him as a KO or bust option, with a good chance he still gets priced out of the winning lineup even with a finish. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Means generally scores pretty well in DFS through a combination of striking, grappling, control time, and finishes, although he totaled just 79 DraftKings in his most recent decision win. However, his two previous decisions were good for 90 and 103 points, and his two wins before that both came early and scored 110 and 111 DK points. Working against him, Holland has never been knocked out or even knocked down in the UFC, and it’s now been a year since the 38-year-old Means last competed. This is still just Holland’s second UFC fight down at 170 lb, and his first lasted less than six minutes, so we still don’t know entirely what to expect from Holland at the new weight class, making this somewhat of a higher variance spot. Means has the potential to land takedowns and control Holland for periods of time, with a slight chance he could land a submission, but we don’t really see him knocking Holland out or winning a pure striking battle. Means will also be stepping into Holland’s backyard for this fight, so seeing a close decision go Holland’s way wouldn’t really be surprising, especially if Means simply presses him against the cage for periods of time. Recent judging has not favored that type of performance, which has us a little lower on Means here. No one has ever landed more than 69 significant strikes against Holland and he only averages 2.38 SSA/min. Means looks like nothing more than a DraftKings specific value play, who will need to mix in a good amount of grappling to both get the win and score decently. On FanDuel, you’re likely relying on a submission win for Means to score well, which based on the prop lines has roughly a 5% chance of happening. The odds imply Means has a 32% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #2

Donald Cerrone

38th UFC Fight (23-13, NC)

This fight had originally been on the May 7th, but it was canceled after the slate started after Cerrone dropped out due to being sick, allegedly from food poisoning. Both fighters successfully made weight for that fight, but will now have to do it again just six weeks later.

Continuing to drag out a flatlined career, the 39-year-old Cerrone is finally playing his only remaining card as he drops back down to 155 lb for what he’s said will be his final two fights. He started his MMA career at 155 lb before initially moving up to 170 lb in 2016. However, after 10 fights at 170 lb (6-4), he dropped back down to 155 lb in 2019 for four fights (2-2), before moving back up to 170 lb in 2020 following a pair of early losses against Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje. He’s since fought four times at 170 lb (0-3, NC) extending his 170 lb record to 6-7-NC, but after failing to notch a win in any of his last six fights he’s decided to take one more stab at 155 lb. The last time Cerrone won a fight was a 2019 five-round decision over Al Iaquinta, who’s lost three straight and four of his last five. In his last six fights, Cerrone has four TKO losses in the first two rounds, with the last three ending in round. He also fought to decisions in two of his last three fights, one of which he lost and another that initially went down as a draw after Niko Price was deducted a point for a pair of eye pokes, although that was later overturned to a No Contest when Price tested positive for THC.

In his last fight, Cerrone got knocked out in the first round by Alex Morono, who took the fight on less than week’s notice and his other four most recent wins have all gone the distance. Morono outlanded Cerrone 35-17 in significant strikes, while both fighters went 0 for 2 on takedowns. Morono was able to land multiple heavy shots before forcing a stoppage along the fence with just 20 seconds remaining in the first round.

Now 36-16 as a pro, Cerrone has 10 wins by KO, 17 by submission, and nine decisions. He’s been knocked out eight times, submitted once, and has seven decision losses. While he’s a BJJ black belt with 17 submission wins on his record, Cerrone has only landed one submission in his last 17 fights, which came in a 2018 first round armbar against Mike Perry. His other 16 most recent fights have all either ended in knockouts (5-6) or gone the distance (1-3, NC)

Cerrone has a background in kickboxing and Muay Thai, but is also a BJJ black belt and has landed more submissions than knockout in his career, although his submission wins have been few and far between in the last decade. He’s a legend in the sport, which can make it awkward when it’s time to show him the door, especially if he refuses to leave. This will be his 55th pro fight if you include his two that were later overturned to No Contests. After starting his career all the way back in 2006, he clearly doesn’t have much left in the tank, but the UFC continues to give him one step down in competition after the next to try and send him out on a win. So far those attempts have all been unsuccessful, but now they’re really pulling out all the stops as they essentially bring someone out of retirement for Cerrone to face.

Joe Lauzon

28th UFC Fight (15-12)

It makes zero sense that Joe Lauzon is fighting again. He couldn’t have asked for a better way to end his career than with what happened in his last fight when he landed a first round TKO win in front of his home Boston crowd, especially after losing all three of his previous fights and looking like a guy that was already late to hang it up. Lauzon hasn’t fought in 32 months since finishing Jonathan Pearce in the first round of an October 2019 fight. Prior to that win, Lauzon got punished on the feet for two rounds by Chris Gruetzemacher to the point that Lauzon’s corner threw in the towel after the second round. That remains Gruetzemacher’s only KO/TKO win since 2012. Looking back one fight further, Lauzon became the only fighter to get knocked out by Clay Guida since 2010 in a 67 second first round finish. And just before that Lauzon lost a three-round decision to Steven Ray. Lauzon’s second most recent win was a 2017 split decision and you have to go back to 2016 to find his second most recent finish.

Lauzon is now 28-15 as a pro, with nine wins by KO, 17 by submission, and two decisions. He’s been knocked out six times, submitted three more, and has lost six decisions. While Lauzon is a BJJ black belt and 20 of his 43 pro fights have ended in submissions (17-3), his last 14 matches have all ended in either TKOs (4-3) or decisions (2-5). He’s fought his entire career at 155 lb. All six of his career KO losses have come in the first two rounds, with two ending in round one and four in round two.

In his last fight, Lauzon was able to hurt a debuting Jonathan Pearce on the feet before taking him down a minute into the first round. At that point he caught him in a really awkward reverse half position, where he was able to pin Pearce's arm behind his hand leaving him defenseless to ground and pound and the fight was quickly stopped. Pearce dropped down to 145 lb following the lopsided loss and has since won three straight, while Lauzon hasn’t fought since.

Overall, Lauzon is another extremely washed up fighter, who has already maxed out his lifetime damage meter. He comes out aggressively throwing strikes in the first round, but has been fading quickly after that initial burst lately. None of his last three fights made it past the 10 minute mark and two of the three ended in 93 seconds or less. While he’s a BJJ black belt with 17 submission wins on his record, he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2012. His last three decisions have all been split/majority.

Fight Prediction:

Cerrone will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage. Lauzon is a year younger than the 39-year-old Cerrone.

We wish this was a retirement match for both guys, as each of these two have looked ready to hang it up for quite some time. Lauzon hasn’t competed in 967 days, but he’s still won a fight more recently than Cerrone, who is winless in his last six. Cerrone has been a slow starter at times, while Lauzon’s last three finishes have all come in under three minutes. Both guys are BJJ black belts, but we expect them to be looking to knock each other out. While Lauzon’s two and half years away add a ton of uncertainty as to how he’ll look, based on his past fights, we would expect him to come out aggressively looking for an early knockout and likely fading if he doesn’t get it. Cerrone has been knocked out in the first round in his last three early losses, hasn’t fought in a year, is now 39 years old, and will now be fighting back down at 155 lb for the first time since 2019. That’s a pretty good recipe for getting knocked out, the only question is how much does Lauzon actually have left in the tank? Our guess is not much but who knows after all of this time away. If he can put together a combo and land a few clean shots he could very well get a first round knockout, but if that doesn't happen then there’s a good chance he’ll gas out and Cerrone will be able to finish him, likely in the second round. There’s also the slight possibility that you put two washed up fighters in the Octagon and neither one has the ability to finish the other and we see a sloppy brawl that goes the distance. With that said, we like this to end by knockout in the first two rounds, and while the first guy to land something really clean should get the win, we’ll actually give the slight edge to Lauzon to knock Cerrone out in round one.

Our favorite bet here is “Lauzon R1 KO” at +1000.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

When this fight was originally booked six weeks ago, Cerrone was priced at $8,800 on DraftKings, while Lauzon was just $7,400. Despite the line only moving slightly for Lauzon, the gap has closed significantly, as Cerrone is now $8,300, while Lauzon is $7,900. It will be interesting to see how/if the field changes their approach following the price changes and after getting burned by the late fight cancellation, but for what it’s worth, both guys were 22% owned last time.

Now 39 years old, Cerrone is winless in his last six outings and appears to have very little left to give. He’s been knocked out in four of those, with his last three early losses coming in the first round. Now he’ll be fighting back down to 155 lb for the first time since 2019, and trying to make weight for the second time in six weeks, which adds some additional uncertainty into the mix. He lost by TKO in the first two rounds in his last two fights at 155 lb. Historically, his wins generally come early, and while his last victory came in a five-round decision, his eight prior to that didn’t require the judges. He’ll now face an opponent who hasn’t fought in 32 months and whose last two losses both came by TKO in the first two rounds against guys who basically never knock anybody out (Chris Gruetzemacher, only KO/TKO win since 2012 & Clay Guida, only KO/TKO since 2010). So if Cerrone was ever going to get one final finish, this would be the time. Cerrone has scored well when he has landed finishes, so while it’s hard to trust him, he has shown a solid ceiling in the past. The odds imply he has a 59% chance to win, a 40% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Lauzon hasn’t fought since October 2019 and had appeared to be retired, but apparently getting to ride off into the sunset with Dusty Britches was enough for Lauzon to saddle up one final time. Lauzon has lost three of his last four fights and looked rough along the way. His only win since 2017 came in a 93 second TKO against a debuting Jonathan Pearce, where Lauzon was basically able to dislocate Pearce’s shoulder and pin it behind his head while he smashed him with ground and pound. That appeared to be sort of a flukey position, but it did at least show that Lauzon had something left to give—at least back in 2019. That fight also took place in front of his home Boston crowd, and had seemed like the perfect finish to end a career on. He must really like this matchup to give it one more go as he couldn’t have asked for a better final fight after losing three straight prior to that. Lauzon only scored 51 DraftKings points in his last decision win and is generally reliant on landing finishes to score well in DFS. While he hasn’t won two fights in a row since 2013-2014, four of his last five wins have come early, with his last three finishes ending in the first three minutes, and he generally scores well when he does win. He has a non-existent floor but a high ceiling, in a high-variance favorable matchup. The odds imply he has a 41% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #1

Calvin Kattar

11th UFC Fight (7-3)

Kattar has now fought to three straight five-round decisions, going 2-1 in those fights, with his lone loss coming against peak Max Holloway. That loss to Holloway came in a historic performance, as Holloway set the record for the most significant strikes ever landed in a fight at 445, blowing past the previous record of 290, also set by Holloway, by more than 50%. Holloway amazingly landed more significant strikes in the fourth round alone (141) than Kattar landed in the entire fight (133). Kattar’s two five-round decision wins in his last three fights came against Dan Ige and then most recently Giga Chikadze. Other than losing to Holloway, the only UFC fighters to defeat Kattar have been Zabit Magomedsharipov and Renato Carneiro, with both of those earlier losses ending in three-round decisions. While four of Kattar’s first five UFC wins ended in knockouts, he’s only knocked out one of his last five opponents, which was an aging Jeremy Stephens in 2020.

In his last fight, Kattar capitalized on an early slip from Chikadze to secure a takedown 90 seconds into the first round. Kattar was able to control Chikadze for the remainder of the round. The second round played out almost entirely on the feet, although Kattar was able to land a late takedown to finish the round strong. Most impressively, Kattar was able to keep Chikadze moving backwards and Kattar stayed in his face with constant pressure, greatly diminishing Chikadze’s ability to effectively utilize his kicking game. The constant pressure and grappling had Chikadze worn out by the third round, although Kattar also looked to be tiring to some extent. Nevertheless, Kattar continued to push forward and did a good job of mixing in elbows from a variety of angles. Chikadze showcased his toughness and heart just to survive for 25 minutes against the constant peppering of strikes coming at him, but Kattar continued to pour it on until the final horn and looked close to getting Chikadze out of there right at the end. The fight ended with Kattar ahead in significant strikes 144-128 and in total strikes 157-129, while he also landed two of his seven takedown attempts with nearly four minutes of control time. His striking output increased every round of the fight and he showed he’s built for five-round fights where he can slowly chip away at his opponents.

Now 23-5 as a pro, Kattar has 11 wins by KO, two by submission, and 10 decisions. He’s never been knocked out in his career and the only time he’s ever been finished was a 2008 first round submission in his fourth pro fight. His other four losses have all gone the distance and he’s won 15 of his last 18 fights. Fourteen of his last 16 fights have made it past the first round, with 13 seeing a third round and 12 going the distance.

With strong boxing skills, Kattar is primarily a striker, but did wrestle in high school and landed two takedowns on seven attempts in his last fight. Just keep in mind, that came against a one-dimensional striker in Giga Chikadze, and Kattar had only landed three takedowns on 10 attempts in his first nine UFC fights, with two of those three takedowns coming all the way back in his UFC debut. He had landed just one takedown on seven attempts in his eight fights prior to taking on Chikadze. Now he’ll go against an opponent with a wrestling background, so it’s less likely we see as many attempts in this match. Kattar does a great job of mixing in elbows with his striking and that was on full display in his last fight. His last knockout also came from elbows against Stephens back in 2020.

This will be the 5th five round fight of Kattar’s career (3-1) and fourth in the UFC (2-1). As we previously mentioned, his last three fights have all ended five-round decisions, while he also won a five-round decision back in 2009, eight years prior to joining the UFC.

Josh Emmett

11th UFC Fight (8-2)

Coming in on a four-fight winning streak, Emmett is now 37 years old and has only fought twice since 2019. Following a R1 KO win over Mirsad Bektic in July 2019, Emmett had two fights canceled—one due to injury and the other COVID. He returned in June 2020 to win a brawling decision over Shange Burgos, but it came at a cost, as Emmett blew out his knee early in the first round, but was still able to gut out three hardfought rounds following the injury. It took Emmett a year and a half to recover from the injury as he dealt with various complications, before returning in December 2021 to win a close decision over Dan Ige in his last fight.

In his last fight, Emmett dropped Ige less than a minute into the first round, however Ige was quickly able to recover and look better from there. All three rounds were close and the live odds had actually grown to -295 in Ige’s favor early in the third round. Ige finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 70-60 and in total strikes 73-62, while also leading in takedowns 1-0, but all three judges ruled it in Emmett’s favor, including a 30-27 scorecard from the always shady Sal D'amato.

Now 17-2 as a pro, Emmett has six wins by KO, two by submission, and nine decisions. He’s only been finished once in his career, which occurred in a 2018 R2 KO against Jeremy Stephens, who’s since gone 0-6 plus a No Contest and is no longer in the UFC. Emmett’s only other career loss was a 2017 split-decision in his third UFC fight. Both of Emmett’s submission wins occurred in the first round of fights earlier in his career (2013 & 2015), prior to joining the UFC. Four of his six knockouts also occurred in the first round, while the other two came in round three. Eight of his last 11 fights have made it to the third round and six of Emmett’s 10 UFC fights have gone the distance (5-1), while the other four ended in knockouts (3-1). Emmett turned pro in 2011 at 145 lb, but moved up to 155 lb in 2014 for his 5th pro fight. He stayed at 155 lb until 2017, when he dropped back down to 145 lb for his 4th UFC fight. After starting his UFC career 2-1 in three decisions at 155 lb, he’s since gone 6-1 at 145 lb, with four of those seven Featherweight fights ending in knockouts.

Overall, Emmett is a powerful striker and also a former college wrestler. He has a nuclear right hand and is currently tied with Jeremy Stephens for the most total knockdowns landed in the Featherweight division at 11. That’s even more impressive when you consider that Emmett only has seven UFC Featherweight fights and Stephens had 18. And he’s second only to Conor McGregor in Featherweight knockdowns landed per 15 minutes at 2.21. Since dropping back down to 145 lb, Emmett has landed at least one knockdown in all seven of his Featherweight fights. Emmett notably brought in Shane Burgos to help him train for this fight.

This will be the 3rd five-round fight of Emmett’s career, but just his second in the UFC. The only time he’s been to the championship rounds was in 2014, in a fight that was stopped 24 seconds into round five and ruled a technical decision in Emmett’s favor. Two years later he stepped into his second scheduled five-round fight and knocked out Christos Giagos in the third round. Emmett’s only fight scheduled to go five-round fight in the UFC was when he got knocked out by Jeremy Stephens, so overall he’s 2-1 in five-round fights in his career, but 0-1 in the UFC.

Fight Prediction:

Kattar will have a 5” height advantage and 2” reach advantage. He’s also three years younger than the 37-year-old Emmett.

This sets up as an exciting striking battle between two heavy handed brawlers. They each have wrestling experience, Kattar through high school and Emmett through college, but they generally both prefer to duke things out on the feet. They have numerous shared opponents to look at, as they both have decision wins over Dan Ige, have both defeated Shane Burgos (Kattar by R3 KO and Emmett by R3 decision), have both fought Jeremy Stepens, who knocked out Emmett in round two but got knocked out by Kattar R2, and they both knocked out Ricardo Lamas in the first round. Comparing their striking output against those four shared opponents, Kattar landed 4.20 SSL/min against Ige, while Emmett landed 4.00/min. Against Burgos, Kattar landed 8.07/min, while Emmett landed 8.47/min. Against Stephens, Kattar landed 7.29/min, while Emmett landed 2.73/min. And against Lamas, Kattar landed 5.37/min, while Emmett landed 2.20/min. So outside of the wild brawl Emmett had against Burgos, Kattar has been the busier striker, and their career numbers support that as well, with Kattar averaging 5.19 SSL/min and Emmett averaging 4.28/min. While Kattar technically has absorbed an average of 7.64 SS/min in his UFC career, that number is heavily skewed by the record setting performance Max Holloway set against him. In Kattar’s other nine UFC fights, he’s averaged 5.55 SSA/min. Both Kattar and Emmett have proven themselves to be durable, with just one combined KO loss between. That was also the only time either one of them has ever been knocked down in the UFC. Emmett relies largely on landing the big kill shots to win fights, as he’s been narrowly outlanded in five of his last six fights, however he still won all but one of those. We rarely see anyone get taken down in any of Emmett’s fights, as he’s only landed one and allowed one in his last six matches. It’s rare to see many takedowns when Kattar fights as well, as he’s also only been taken down once in his last six fights, with three takedowns of his own over that stretch. So it’s possible someone will shoot for a surprise or desperation takedown in this fight, but look for it to stay almost entirely on the feet. We expect Kattar to be the busier fighter, while Emmett will be putting more power behind his punches, looking to end the fight with huge right hands. Both guys are capable of knocking out the other, but we like Kattar to outland his way to another decision win.

Our favorite bet here is “Kattar/Emmett Fight Goes the Distance” at -112.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Kattar filled up the stat sheet in his recent five-round decision win over Giga Chikadze, as he set or matched career high numbers in essentially every statistical category with 144 significant strikes, two takedowns, one knockdown, one reversal, one submission attempt, and nearly four minutes of control time. It’s not surprising that he looked to mix in more grappling against a one-dimensional striker like Chikadze, but it would be more surprising for him to find the same grappling success in this next matchup against a former college wrestler in Emmett, who’s only been taken down once in his seven Featherweight UFC fights. That should leave Kattar more reliant on either landing a knockout or setting another career high in significant strikes landed to return value in DFS at his higher price tag. While Kattar scored 122 DraftKings points and 135 points on FanDuel in his recent decision win, he put up DK/FD totals of just 54/80 and 79/89 in his previous two five-round decisions. The more recent of those came in a loss, but even if he had won, he still would have scored just 84 and 100 DK/FD points. So outside of his recent scoring explosion, Kattar has generally been an early KO or bust play in DFS. With that said, this next fight sets up as a slugfest in front of a rare non-ppv live crowd, and has the potential to turn into a back and forth war. Kattar was able to set a pace of 10.88 SSL/min against Chikadze, who came into that fight averaging just 2.69 SSA/min in his career, and now faces Emmett, who has averaged 4.10 SSA/min. Kattar will need to be cautious of the power coming back his way as he faces one of the hardest hitters in the Featherweight division, but so far he’s been extremely durable and has never been knocked out in his career. Overall, Kattar has shown a wide range of scoring outcomes in both five-round decision and finishes and he’ll be reliant on a volume driven decision or a well timed knockout to end up in tournament winning lineups. His durability and striking volume give him a pretty decent floor, but he generally hasn’t been the guy to put up slate breaking scores and is coming off a career performance. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

Emmett has been a boom or bust fantasy contributor, with DraftKings scores of 104 or more in five of his UFC fights and 71 or fewer in his other five. His scoring success has not been limited to landing finishes as he’s topped 109 DK points in three of his three-round decision wins. He’s also shown a shaky floor at times even when he does land a knockout, as he scored just 64 points in a third round KO in his second most recent finish. Similar to Kattar, his wide range of scoring outcomes makes him a trickier guy to project. He’s also only been in one UFC fight that was scheduled to go five rounds, which is when he was finished for the only time in his career in a R2 KO against Jermey Stephens. So it’s hard to say where his cardio will be if this fight does make it to the championship rounds, but in general he’s not a guy we have cardio concerns with and we often see his striking output increase as fights go on. We expect this to play out as an uptempo brawl, so it’s harder to see Emmett fail to return value at his cheap price tag if he does pull off the upset, but it’s still not entirely impossible. Emmett only averages 4.28 SSL/min, but has amazingly landed 11 knockdowns in his last seven fights to prop up his scoring. Not only has Kattar never been knocked out, he’s never even been knocked down in the UFC, so something will have to give here. The odds imply Emmett has a 32% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.

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!

---

We recently partnered with PrizePicks, who offer a new way to play DFS. Instead of competing against other users, you simply pick the over/under on two or more fighters' stat lines (i.e. fight time or fantasy points scored). Receive up to a $100 deposit bonus when you sign up with our promo code: MMADFS

Top UFC PrizePicks Play of the Week:

• Yanez Over 63.5 SS

For the rest of our top PrizePicks plays check out our DFS Cheat Sheet in our premium DFS content at: patreon.com/mmadfs.