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Fighter Notes:
Fight #13
Muhammad Naimov
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Somehow 2-0 in the UFC, Naimov is coming off back-to-back massive upset wins over Nathaniel Wood and Jamie Mullarkey. Naimov came into his last fight as a +265 underdog, after making his short notice UFC debut up a weight class against Mullarkey as a +350 underdog. Naimov was losing that fight handedly before Mullarkey decided to charge forward with his chin up and his hands down midway through the second round and got caught by a big right hand and then put him away with ground and pound. In that eight minute fight, Naimov got taken down three times, controlled for two and a half minutes, and was outlanded 39-28 in significant strikes. He also landed a low blow to start the second round in that fight. Naimov then returned to 145 lb for his last fight and started fast as he hurt Wood on the feet and then quickly took him down. However, it was a pretty dirty performance overall from Naimov. He landed a knee square to the cup on Wood in the back half of round one and then before the ref could pause the action landed an even harder knee to Wood’s solar plexus to compound the damage. As soon as round two started, Naimov came out and kicked Wood straight in the dick and then again early in round three seemed to land a less impactful low blow on a spinning attack, although that one was not spotted by the ref and didn’t halt the action. Naimov was simply trying to hang on and survive down the stretch, as Wood took him down and was landing heavy ground and pound in the closing seconds of the fight. Naimov illegally grabbed the inside of Wood’s glove during that exchange to prevent Wood from finishing him and the ref even saw it and yelled at him to stop, but never took a point in the fight. We counted six illegal actions from Naimov in the match (three low blows, two fence grabs, and one glove grab), although there may have been more that we missed. Wood had Naimov hurt at three different points in the fight, but couldn’t quite put him away and ultimately Naimov won a 29-28 decision, which easily could have been a 28-28 draw if he had ever been penalized for all of his blatant cheating.
Naimov originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2020, but lost a decision against a terrible Collin Anglin, who has since gone 0-4 with three of those losses coming early. Naimov once again showed his true colors in that fight, landing an illegal knee, a low blow, and grabbing the shorts of Anglin, who still nearly finished an exhausted Naimov in round three. Following that loss, Naimov lost a five-round decision with Titan FC, before landing a first round submission against an opponent who came in with a losing record (5-6-1), also with Titan FC. Naimov then joined the ultra prestigious Tuff-N-Uff organization, where he won a split decision before notching a 34 second R1 KO against a 4-3 opponent. That was enough for the UFC to bring him on board when they needed to fill a spot on short notice.
Now 10-2 as a pro, Naimov has five wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and three decision wins. He’s never been finished, with both of his losses going the distance. However, take his record with a grain of salt as he’s faced a lot of dubious competition in his career. Outside of taking his UFC debut at 155 lb, Naimov’s entire career has been spent at 145 lb.
Overall, Naimov is a wild striker with a Taekwondo background. He completely disregards the rules in all of his fights and between his two UFC wins and his DWCS loss, we counted 10 fouls from him. Amazingly, he wasn’t deducted a point in any of those matches, but it’s just a matter of time until that happens. In those three fights, he landed 4 of his 14 takedown attempts (28.6% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 8 of their 19 attempts (57.9% defense). We’ve seen him badly hurt at multiple points and it’s amazing he’s never been finished. Both his defensive striking and wrestling are poor and he tends to fade in the third round of fights. He does look pretty strong and showed some improvements to his wrestling in his last match, but we’re still pretty low on him and he’s being overvalued based on two very fortunate wins to start his UFC career. He was outlanded in all three of those fights and also taken down multiple times in each of them. He’s yet to land more than 52 significant strikes in a fight and only averages 3.37 SSL/min and 4.66 SSA/min. Naimov has been training in Denver, but opted not to head down to Mexico early. A week before the fight on Saturday, February 17th, he posted that he was on his way to Mexico City.
Erik Silva
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Silva is 14 months removed from a third round submission loss to TJ Brown in his December 2022 UFC debut. Silva immediately got caught on the feet in the opening seconds of that fight and was then on the defensive for most of the match, outside of finding some wrestling success in the first half of the fight. Silva slowed down midway through round two, which isn’t that surprising since his previous six fights all ended in the opening six and a half minutes and he hasn’t gone the distance since 2018. He made a lot of mistakes in the fight and got reversed on the mat twice in the fight. Prior to that loss, Silva had won eight straight fights, with the last six of those wins ending early, including five first round finishes and one early in round two. The most recent of those wins was a 92 second R1 ground and pound TKO on DWCS to punch his ticket to the big show. Four of his last five finishes ended in rear-naked chokes.
Now 9-2 as a pro, Silva has three wins by TKO, four submissions, and two decision victories. Six of his seven finishes ended in round one, with the other coming early in round two. Both of his career losses ended in third round submissions, with one of those coming in his UFC debut and the other in his second pro fight. Silva fought a lot of suspect competition before joining the UFC, so take his record with a grain of salt. Silva turned pro in 2016 at 155 lb, before dropping down to 145 lb in his fourth pro fight.
Overall, Silva is a 4th degree black belt in Kenpo Karate, but is generally looking to take opponents down and finish them on the mat. While he’s only a BJJ blue belt, he’s generally looking to lock up rear-naked chokes on the mat, but will look for ground and pound as well. He makes a much better hammer than a nail and didn’t show the ability to handle adversity well in his UFC debut. He’s also a fast starter who tends to slow down in the back halves of fights and looks very hittable as he keeps his hands low. He was already 35 years old when he came into the UFC and is now less than a month away from his 37th birthday after a 14 month layoff. So he got a late start with the organization and is already too old to make much noise in the organization or show any meaningful growth as a fighter. It looks like Silva had finger surgery in 2023 and wasn’t cleared to return to action until December. While Silva trains at a small gym in Costa Rica, he’s been in Mexico since January and has been training at elevation at Diego Lopes’ gym, Brazilian Warriors, alongside Brandon Moreno and several other fighters.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are listed at 5’9” although we suspect Naimov could be slightly taller than that. Silva is listed as having a 1” reach advantage, while Naimov is seven years younger than the 36-year-old Silva.
Both of these two appear fraudulent and this sets up as a volatile low-level fight that could go a lot of ways. Silva is a fast starter who looks for early takedowns, followed by ground and pound and rear-naked choke attempts. However, he hasn’t won a fight that made it past the 6:33 mark since 2018, when he defeated an opponent making his pro debut. Silva has shown decent finishing ability, but doesn’t handle adversity well and loses positions too easily. He also looks very hittable as he keeps his hands way too low. On the other side of things, Naimov looks like the quicker fighter, but is also super hittable and struggles to defend takedowns—so he’s a defensive liability on multiple fronts. Both of these two tend to slow down late in fights and the elevation could just make that even worse. Silva at least went down to Mexico early, while Naimov relied on training at altitude in Denver to prepare. While Naimov has never been finished and Silva has never been knocked out, we won’t be surprised to see either of these two finish the other, or for them both to gas out and have this end in a sloppy decision. While Silva’s age, layoff, and last performance are all concerning, Naimov shouldn’t be a -600 favorite against anyone at the UFC level. We expect Silva to find some wrestling success and once on the mat look for him to try and find his way to Naimov’s back and threaten a rear-naked choke or simply rain down ground and pound. While we don’t have the most confidence that Silva completes the finish, he has a much better shot than the odds suggest. He’s also shown the ability to still be dangerous early on in round two, but if this fight makes it to the back half, who knows what will happen. One or both of them could gas at that point and be left looking for a way out. It also won’t be at all surprising to see Naimov lose a point, which could bring a draw into play if the fight’s close. Long story short, be ready for anything here, but all the value is on Silva’s side of things. While our confidence levels couldn’t be much lower in either of these two, give us the +425 underdog in Silva to defy the odds and finish Naimov in the first two rounds.
Our favorite bet here is “Erik Silva ML” at +425.
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DFS Implications:
Naimov landed a flukey second round knockout in his short notice UFC debut as a massive +350 underdog, but still only scored 92 points in the process as he spent much of that fight being taken down and controlled. Then he racked up unpunished fouls against Nathaniel Wood in his last match, yet once again pulled off a major upset, this time as a +265 underdog. That last win ended in a decision, but Naimov was still able to score 97 points with the help of four takedowns landed and close to seven minutes of control time. However, Naimov now checks in as a massive -600 favorite and will need a more impressive score if he wants to return value. There’s no question that this is a major step down in competition for Naimov, but he’s also been overachieving so far in the UFC and let us not forget that this is the same man who got his ass kicked by a terrible Collin Anglin on DWCS. We still firmly believe that Naimov is a complete fraud who will be exposed in the very near future. He also completely ignores the rules of MMA and is a lock to be penalized for his infractions eventually. That brings a potential draw or DQ into play and there are so many ways for this guy to lose that you would have to be on a four day blind binger to bet him at his current odds. He could be fighting a comatose paraplegic and we wouldn’t touch him at -600. Yes, Silva also looks bad and this is an inherently volatile fight, but the price on Naimov is flat out insulting. With that said, it’s still a volatile fight where anyone could get finished, so when it comes to DFS you almost have to have at least some level of exposure to both sides as basically anything could happen. The odds imply Naimov has a X% chance to win, a Y% chance to land a finish, and a Z% chance it comes in round one.
Silva is littered with red flags as he makes his second UFC appearance 14 months after being submitted in the third round of his debut. Since then, Silva had finger surgery and has continued to train at a small gym in Costa Rica that appears more geared towards kids than adults. Despite only having one UFC fight under his belt, Silva is a month away from his 37th birthday and likely is who he is at this stage of his career. However, he has been training with Diego Lopes and in Mexico since January, so maybe they showed him a thing or two. While it’s hard to have much confidence in Silva, his last six wins all ended in under a round and a half and his style is at least conducive to scoring well when he does win. There’s a good chance that he’s a complete fraud, but the same can be said about Naimov. That’s what makes this such a volatile fight and there are multiple ways it could end. However, if Silva does win, there’s a good chance it comes in the opening round and a half. And at his cheap price tag, it’s hard to see him getting left out of winning lineups in that scenario. This is more of a bet against Naimov than an endorsement of Silva, but it seems like you want to be over the field here on a cheap, low-owned fighter with a high scoring ceiling. The odds imply Silva has a X% chance to win, a Y% chance to land a finish, and a Z% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
Felipe dos Santos
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Dos Santos will be looking to bounce back from his first career loss after he lost his short notice UFC debut in a decision against the highly ranked Manel Kape. You couldn’t ask for a much tougher spot to make your debut and Dos Santos had also just cut weight two and a half weeks earlier as he prepared to fight on DWCS, before his opponent dropped out due to a botched weight cut. Despite the unfavorable circumstances, Dos Santos made it a competitive fight, even if Kape clearly won. Dos Santos kept the striking close, finishing behind 99-112 in significant strikes, but failed to land any of his five takedown attempts and was stumbled by Kape at multiple points. However, Dos Santos was able to hurt Kape late in the fight and actually won the third round on two of the three scorecards. Ten months prior to that loss, Dos Santos won a crazy high-paced close decision with the LFA, where we saw a ton of striking volume and takedowns landed by both fighters. However, Dos Santos looked like he was doing tackling drills out there with his takedowns and barely had any control time or damage on the mat. Prior to that, he won a split decision on the Brazilian regional scene, where he attempted no takedowns and got controlled for extended periods of time in a fight he easily could have lost.
Now 7-1 as a pro, Dos Santos has two wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and two decision victories. Both of his knockouts came in the first round of his first two pro fights. His next three wins all ended in submissions, and his last two both went the distance. His only loss was the decision in his recent UFC debut.
Overall, Dos Santos is a tall, long, and aggressive striker who trains at Chute Boxe with a room full of killers. He’s still really young at just 23 years old and looks to be making major improvements between every fight. However, his takedown defense remains practically non-existent and his striking defense is to throw more offense. He relies on his toughness more than technique from a defensive perspective, which is a dangerous game to play at the UFC level. However, he’s ultra aggressive and is constantly pushing forward and throwing a barrage of strikes at his opponents, including a high number of spinning attacks that leave his back exposed. He also throws a lot of kicks and has really long legs and good size for the 125 lb division. He’s shown improvements between every fight and he has all of the physical tools required to be successful, he just needs to tighten some things up and improve his wrestling. Regardless, he always makes for fun fights and he has nothing but time to round out his skillset. However, in the short term, he may struggle against good wrestlers and his last three opponents all took him down with ease. One other concern with Dos Santos in this fight is that he, along with all of the other Brazilian fighters on the card, didn’t show up to Mexico especially early to acclimate to the elevation. Maybe they’re hoping the elevation of Sao Paulo (~2,600 ft) will be enough to get them by, but that’s a risky gamble.
Victor Altamirano
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Coming off a wrestling-heavy decision loss to Tim Elliott, Altamirano has gone the distance in five of his last six fights (3-2), with the one exception being a 2022 R1 TKO win over Daniel da Silva, which barely even counts since the guy gets finished by everyone he fights. Elliott was able to take Altamirano down six times on seven attempts with over 11 minutes of control time. Prior to that loss, Altamirano won a unanimous 29-28 decision win over a debuting Vinicius Salvador, after finishing Da Silva. Just before that, he lost a split decision in his February 2022 UFC debut against Carlos Hernandez, after winning a split decision on DWCS against Carlos Candelario. Other than his TKO win over Da Silva, Altamirano’s only other finish in his last 10 fights came in a weird situation in a 2020 second round submission, where he landed an illegal up kick and the ref paused the fight. When the ref reset the position Altamirano immediately wrapped up a triangle choke to land a finish in a fight he had been losing.
Now 12-3 as a pro, Altamirano has two wins by R1 TKO, four submissions, and six decisions. The only time he’s ever been finished was in a 2019 R2 submission, while he also has two decision defeats. Nine of his last 10 fights have seen the second round, with seven of those going the distance.
Overall, Altamirano is a well rounded fighter who holds black belts in both jiu jitsu and Taekwondo, but doesn’t stand out as being especially dangerous anywhere. He often seems a little too comfortable working off his back in a closed guard, which has resulted in a lot of close decisions for him. While he does have four submissions on his record, three of those came in his first four pro fights against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-0, and 1-1 and the last time he submitted anybody was in 2020. He looks to have good cardio and he won the vacant LFA Flyweight belt in a five-round decision just before going on DWCS in 2021. Between his four UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 9 takedowns on 35 attempts (25.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down 14 times on 38 attempts (63.2% defense). Altamirano comes across as being really intelligent and he said he wants to use the elevation to his advantage in this next matchup, while keeping the pace up. He was actually born in Mexico City so this will be a homecoming for him, where he’ll have the crowd behind him, and he said he went down early to acclimate to the elevation. He also talked about how after his last loss to Tim Elliott he went and actually joined Elliott’s team at Next Generation MMA, so now they’re training partners. Maybe we’ll see some of Elliott’s uptempo wrestling incorporated into Altamirano’s gameplan here.
Fight Prediction:
Altamirano will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 70” reach. Altamirano is 10 years older than the 23-year-old Dos Santos.
This is a really interesting matchup with a lot of factors in play. Dos Santos is the more dangerous and aggressive striker who has the potential to overwhelm Altamirano with striking volume, pressure, and takedown attempts. However, Altamirano is the smarter and more experienced fighter, who has better defense and the potential to outgrapple Dos Santos on the mat. Altamirano also prepared for the elevation by coming to Mexico City early, while Dos Santos did not. That raises Altamirano’s chances of winning the back half of the fight if Dos Santos slows out. Altamirano will also have the home crowd behind him, which could influence the judges in any potentially close rounds, and Altamirano is habitually involved in close split decisions. It’s a similar stylistic matchup to the Vinicius Salvador fight, even though Dos Santos looks a lot more talented than Salvador. Altamirano shot for a ridiculous 22 takedowns in that fight and even though he only landed three of those, he still came out victorious. Now Altamirano has been training with Tim Elliott and said he wants to put a pace on Dos Santos and use the elevation to his advantage. That all adds up to Altamirano looking to wrestle a ton to neutralize the striking of Dos Santos and attack him where he’s the weakest. While we don’t expect Altamirano to dominate this fight on the ground, he’ll have a really good shot at doing enough to win one of the first two rounds and then potentially take over in round three if Dos Santos gasses. That’s enough for us to take a shot on him at a solid plus money number, especially with the potential for some home cooking from the judges. We’ll say Altamirano does just enough with his ground game to win by split decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Victor Altamirano ML” at +240.
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DFS Implications:
Dos Santos couldn’t have asked for a tougher spot in his recent UFC debut as he took on Manel Kape on short notice just two weeks after cutting weight for a canceled DWCS fight. He still gave a good account of himself in the fight and exceeded expectations, which is part of why he’s now a big favorite despite being 0-1 in the UFC. While he only scored 40 DraftKings points in the loss, he still showed a ton of theoretical scoring potential as he landed 99 significant strikes and shot for five failed takedown attempts against one of the best Flyweights in the world. He’s an all action fighter who’s always looking to push the pace with non-stop offense and he really has no choice because his defense is terrible. He trains at Chute Boxe with a room full of killers and is still just 23 years old, and we’ve seen improvements from him every time he fights, which is encouraging for his future. However, until he shores up both his striking and takedown defense, he’ll be a hard guy to trust to win. Nevertheless, you can be confident that his fights will be high-paced brawls, which is all we’re asking for in DFS. While Dos Santos hasn’t shown good top control on the mat, he will shoot for a high number of takedowns, which is the perfect recipe to keep the action going while racking up points. Altamirano has been taken down by his last four opponents who tried, giving up multiple takedowns in three of those fights. Altamirano also said he’d be looking to push the pace here, so this is a great spot for whoever wins to score well. One other concern with Dos Santos is that he didn’t give himself extra time to acclimate to the elevation in Mexico City and it’s entirely possible he gasses out late in the fight with the pace we’re expecting to see. Nevertheless, we like playing both sides of this one in DFS. The odds imply Dos Santos has a 72% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Altamirano is coming off a smothering decision loss against Tim Elliott, where he got taken down six times and controlled for 11 minutes, after scoring just 88 DraftKings points in a decision win over Vinicius Salvador. Five of his last six fights went the distance and the only time Altamirano has ever scored well in the UFC was in a R1 TKO over Daniel Da Silva, who literally everybody finishes. Altamirano scored a slate-breaking 134 points in that spot, but just keep in mind who it came against. We did see Altamirano shoot for a ridiculous 22 takedown attempts against Salvador, although he was only able to land three of those. That at least shows tons of potential if he can improve his accuracy and he started training with a relentless wrestler in Tim Elliott for this camp, which is somewhat encouraging on that front. Dos Santos has absolutely terrible defensive wrestling and also bad striking defense, while fighting at a hellacious pace, so this is a great matchup for Altamirano to fill up the stat sheet. However, Dos Santos is also a dangerous striker, so Altamirano will need to be careful not to eat too many clean shots. With that said, Altamirano has never been knocked out and Dos Santos hasn’t knocked anybody out since his second pro fight back in 2019. Altamirano said he wants to push the pace and use the elevation to his advantage. He arrived in Mexico City earlier than Dos Santos to acclimate, while he was also born there and will have the crowd behind him. And as the third cheapest fighter on the card, Altamirano doesn’t need to put up a huge score to be useful, he just needs to win. That leaves him as a really interesting underdog play in a high-upside matchup. And after getting dominated in his last fight and failing to score well in his win before that, Altamirano’s ownership should come in fairly low, which just adds to his tournament appeal. The odds imply Altamirano has a 28% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Denys Bondar
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Bondar was violently knocked out in the closing seconds of his last fight, but the result was inexplicably overturned to a technical decision after they deemed an accidental clash of heads caused the knockout. The clash in question occurred as Carlos Hernandez slammed Bondar to the mat and their heads bumped into each other after Bondar’s head bounced off the mat. Hernandez immediately followed up with numerous heavy elbows, making it a little tougher to see what exactly put Bondar out. It’s extremely rare to see the ref rule a slam like that a clash of heads and Hernandez was robbed of the finish if you ask us. It wasn’t the worst performance from Bondar, but he still lost every round and could have been deducted a point for an illegal kick/knee to the head of a grounded opponent at the end of round two. It was also puzzling as to why Bondar didn’t look to wrestle more, as he was easily able to take Hernandez down twice and in the past the ground is where Bondar has found his most success. Prior to that loss, Bondar hadn’t competed in 16 months after suffering a gruesome arm/elbow injury in the first round of his UFC debut against Malcolm Gordon. The fight wasn’t going great for Bondar from the start, as he got clipped by Gordon in the opening 30 seconds and then after landing a desperation takedown found himself fighting off an armbar attempt that may have begun the damage to his left elbow. As the two scrambled on the mat, Bondar tried to post on that left arm and the elbow just gave out and the fight was immediately stopped. The last time Bondar won a fight was in an August 2020 first round submissions three and a half years ago back in and he’s really struggled with inactivity in recent years. Five of Bondar’s last seven booked fights fell through, as he’s consistently dropped out of matches. However, prior to losing both of his UFC fights, he did finish eight straight opponents on the dubious Ukrainian regional scene.
Showing just how suspect some of Bondar’s pre-UFC fights were, his record varies depending on where you look. We see it listed as 14-4 one place and 19-4 at another. He doesn’t deserve any extra wins so we’ll go with 14-4, but who knows what his actual record is. Of his alleged 14 wins, he has four KO/TKOs and 10 submissions, while he’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has two decision losses. Take his 100% finishing rate with a big grain of salt, as the level of competition he’s been facing has been as dubious as his record. Bondar has bounced between 125 lb and 135 lb throughout his career, but both of his UFC fights have been at 125 lb and it appears that’s where he’ll stay. The last time he won a fight at 125 lb was in 2019.
Overall, Bondar has historically relied on his grappling to win fights, but was more willing to stand and trade in his last match. While that’s somewhat encouraging for his striking development, it was also discouraging for his fight IQ given the wrestling-friendly matchup he had in front of him. He showed the ability to overpower Flyweight opponents prior to joining the UFC, but it remains to be seen if he’ll be able to find the same success against more legitimate competition at the UFC level. Between his two UFC fights, he landed 3 of his 6 takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 3 of their 8 attempts (62.5% defense). He’s yet to win a round, let alone a fight in the UFC and still needs to prove he belongs. He prepared for the elevation of Mexico City by training at elevation in New Mexico with Jackson Wink (5312 elevation).
Ronaldo Rodriguez
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut in front of his home crowd, Rodriguez has won five straight fights on the Mexican regional scene, after losing a 2020 decision on DWCS to a terrible Jerome Rivera, who then went 0-4 in the UFC with three losses within six minutes. Rodriguez’s last win came in a third round doctor stoppage after his 11-11 journeyman opponent injured his leg late in round two and could barely walk in the third round. Prior to that, Rodriguez jumped guillotine in the second round of a close fight to finish things, after winning a pair of decisions just before that. In between those two decision wins and his decision loss on DWCS, he also had a quick first round knockout win, which is the only one of his last nine fights to end in the opening five minutes.
Now 16-2 as a pro, Rodriguez has seven wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and three decision wins. He’s never been finished, with both of his losses ending in close decisions when he was only 18 and 21 years old respectively. Rodriguez has spent almost all of his career at 135 lb, but did drop down to 125 lb when he went on DWCS and had a 130 lb Catchweight fight just before that. Now he’ll be dropping back down to 125 lb for just the second time in his career and the first since he was 21 years old. He notably missed weight for each of his last two 135 lb fights, tipping the scale at 137.6 lb for the first of those and then 139.6 lb most recently. Obviously that’s concerning for his cut down to 125 lb and he’s a guy to keep an eye on during weigh-ins.
Overall, Rodriguez is a pretty well rounded fighter who’s shown a good takedown defense, decent offensive wrestling, and quick striking. However, he’s pretty patient and tends to showboat a little instead of really pushing a pace on his opponents. He doesn’t throw enough straight shots and is overly reliant on big looping punches and flashy spinning kicks. He’s still young at just 24 years old, so he has plenty of time to figure it out, but he needs to tighten things up if he ever wants to make any real noise in the UFC. He’s definitely physically gifted and has been durable as well, but we also wonder how he’ll look after cutting additional weight here. He’s been training at some different places to prepare for his debut and spent some time in Vegas, Thailand, and Brazilian Warriors, which is nearby Mexico City to acclimate to the elevation. He finished his camp training with Daniel Zellhuber and Manuel Torres in Mexico City.
Fight Prediction:
Both of these fighters are 5’6”, but Bondar will have a 4” reach advantage, while also being seven years older than the 24-year-old Rodriguez.
Each of these two competed at 135 lb before dropping down to 125 lb when they joined the UFC, so we don’t see size being a major factor for either of them. Bondar has historically relied on his ground game to win fights, but looked more comfortable on the feet in his last match. That’s good because Rodriguez has a solid takedown defense and decent grappling, so this doesn’t look like a good matchup for Bondar to dominate on the mat. Rodriguez also looks to have the better striking, so it’s no surprise that the line flipped from him being a slight underdog to a slight favorite early in the week. We’ve seen both guys showboat at times instead of focussing on their actual offense, which could slow things down some as they each look to stroll down the catwalk at times. Rodriguez will have the home crowd behind him and if this ends up in a close decision, that could certainly play a factor. He also appears to have more finishing upside in the fight, but we like Rodriguez to outland his way to a decision victory.
Our favorite bet here is “Ronaldo Rodriguez DEC” at +275.
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DFS Implications:
Bondar’s regional record made him look like a DFS goldmine coming into his February 2022 UFC debut and everyone seemed to agree as he entered that fight as a -290 favorite with a -115 ITD line. He was priced at $9,100 and 39% owned on DraftKings in what looked like a very favorable matchup against a fragile Malcolm Gordon. Bondar proceeded to get clipped on the feet 30 seconds into the fight and then have his arm broken in the opening 90 seconds. The fight ended so quickly that it was hard to fairly evaluate him, and then he took 16 months off to recover. He came back in June 2023 and faced Carlos Hernandez, who had struggled with being taken down and was just submitted in his last fight. In a real hold-my-beer type of game plan, Bondar decided to abandon his grappling early on and test Hernandez on the feet. He did finally land a takedown in round two and then another in round three, but at that point it was too little, too late. Bondar finished that fight getting slammed unconscious onto the mat and then pummeled with elbows as Hernandez dribbled his head off the canvas. The ref apparently hates Hernandez and found a way to overturn the knockout due to a “clash of heads” but in reality Bondar was finished in each of his two UFC fights. Regardless, he only scored 42 DraftKings points in that loss and even if a decision had gone his way, he would have been nowhere close to a useful score. Bondar was somehow a slight favorite against Hernandez and also mispriced on DraftKings, so he ended up being 32% owned and burning the field once again. Now Bondar is overpriced in this next fight after the line flipped in favor of Rodriguez, so we should finally see Bondar be lower owned. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like a good matchup for him to score well and he looks like a fraud anyways. The only two things Bondar has going for him are his lower projected ownership and the fact that Rodriguez is cutting back down to 125 lb and could be affected by the cut. The odds imply Bondar has a 49% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Rodriguez doesn’t land enough striking volume or takedowns to get us really excited in DFS and even on the regional scene against a lower level of competition, three of his last six fights went the distance. The guy couldn’t even beat Jerome Rivera, which is obviously a big red flag. In fairness, Rodriguez was only 21 years old at the time and cutting down to 125 lb for the first time, but still…Jerome Rivera?! Nothing we’ve seen from Rodriguez indicates that he can score well in a decision and even at his cheaper price tag it appears he’ll need a finish to be useful. The line flipped in his favor after DraftKings pricing was already released, which should drive his ownership up some and further limits our interest in playing him in tournaments. However, we also don’t entirely trust Bondar’s durability after his arm snapped in his UFC debut and then he was knocked out from a slam in the closing seconds of his last fight, although that was erroneously overturned to a technical decision because the ref was an idiot. Regardless, there’s definitely still a chance that Rodriguez finishes Bondar, but the books have this fight favored to go the distance. The odds imply Rodriguez has a 51% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Fares Ziam
7th UFC Fight (4-2)Coming off two straight decision wins, Ziam has gone the distance in five of his six UFC fights with the one exception being a 2022 first round submission loss to Terrance McKinney. After losing a wrestling-heavy decision in his 2019 UFC debut, Ziam has won the last four decisions he’s been to, but has never finished anybody in the UFC. His most recent win came in a low-volume decision against his physical doppelganger in Jai Herbert. Despite both guys being strikers, they each looked to wrestle, but neither found much success. Herbert went 0 for 6 on his takedown attempts and Ziam went 1 for 5. Prior to that, Ziam put on his most impressive performance to date in a decision win over a previously undefeated Michal Figlak, who was making his UFC debut in front of Ziam’s home Paris crowd. Ziam showed improvements to his wrestling in that fight, as he took Figlak down three times on seven attempts with nearly seven minutes of control time, while Figlak was only able to land 1 of his 5 attempts. Leading up to that win, grappling had been Ziam’s Achilles heel, but apparently after getting submitted by Terrance McKinney in the first round of his previous fight he put in some work improving his ground game. The UFC actually released Ziam following his loss to McKinney, but they were in need of additional French fighters for the Paris card so they brought him right back on. Before the McKinney loss, Ziam won a pair of incredibly close decisions, one of which looked like he lost against Jamie Mullarkey and the other was close to being ruled a draw against Luigi Vendramini.
Now 14-4 as a pro, Ziam has five wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and five decision victories. Three of his four submission wins came in his first four pro fights, with his only other submission occurring in a 2019 R3 guillotine just before he joined the UFC. He also hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2018. He’s never been knocked out himself, but he has been submitted in the first round three times, all by rear-naked choke, and has one decision loss. Two of those three submission losses occurred very early in his career, back in 2016. Ziam started his pro career off at 185 lb, before dropping down to 170 lb for his third pro fight. After two fights at 170 lb, Ziam then lost a 159 lb Catchweight match, before moving down to 155 lb in 2016, where he’s since gone 10-3.
Overall, Ziam is a French kickboxer and a patient counter striker who only averages 2.82 SSL/min and 2.01 SSA/min. He can be painfully tentative with his approach and the only even semi impressive performance he’s put on in the UFC was when he competed in front of his home French crowd in his win over Figlak. After landing just one takedown in his first three UFC fights, Ziam landed four in his last three matches, and has definitely made improvements to his wrestling. We also saw him get taken down 9 times on 29 attempts in his first three UFC fights (69% defense), but he’s only been taken down once on 11 attempts in his last three fights (90.9% defense). Looking at his six-fight UFC career as a whole, he landed 5 of his 21 takedown attempts (23.8% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 10 of their 40 attempts (75% defense). He’s still only 26 years old and has plenty of time to continue to grow as a fighter. He started training at Kill Cliff FC in 2021 and that was definitely beneficial for him, although it looks like he stayed in France for his last two camps. However, he did head to Mexico City in early February to acclimate to the elevation and finished his camp down there.
Claudio Puelles
8th UFC Fight (5-2)Puelles is 15 months removed from a second round TKO loss to Dan Hooker, where Puelles failed to land any of his eight takedown attempts and finished behind in significant strikes 29-5. Prior to that, Puelles landed back-to-back kneebar submissions against Clay Guida and Chris Gruetzemacher, after winning wrestling-heavy decisions over Jordan Leavitt and Marcos Mariano just before that. Puelles also locked up a kneebar in his first UFC win, after getting knocked out in the second round of his 2016 UFC debut. Two of his three UFC submission wins came in the third round, with the other ending in round one.
Now 12-3 as a pro, Puelles has two wins by KO/TKO, seven submissions, and three decision victories. His last four submission wins all ended in kneebars, with two of these ending in round one and two in round three. Both of his UFC losses ended in second round TKOs, while he also had a decision defeat earlier in his career.
Overall, Puelles is a decent grappler and a BJJ and Luta Livre black belt, but he’s basically a one-trick pony who just constantly spams kneebars. He hasn’t shown much in terms of striking, although he has made some minor improvements on the feet over the years after being completely helpless on the feet earlier in his career. In his seven UFC fights, Puelles landed 12 of his 39 takedown attempts (30.8% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 4 of their 10 attempts (60% defense). Despite making his UFC debut all the way back in 2016, Puelles is still just 27 years old, and hasn’t been very active with the UFC as he’s had to deal with some injuries. He didn’t compete at all in 2017, 2020, or 2023. Puelles said he’s competed in Mexico City twice before in his career, so he should be somewhat familiar with the elevation. Puelles also has been preparing for this fight at elevation over at Brazilian Warriors alongside Brandon Moreno. Puelles said he got really heavy in his time off and considered taking a fight at 170 lb to work his way back down to 155 lb, but changed his mind and took this at 155 lb. So he’ll be a guy to keep an eye on during weigh-ins.
Fight Prediction:
Ziam will have a 3” height and reach advantage.
These two have trained together in the past at Kill Cliff FC so they’re already very familiar with one another. With that said, it’s no secret what Puelles’ game plan is coming into every fight and Ziam just needs to avoid the mat if he wants to win here. Ziam does have some long skinny legs for Puelles to try and snatch up and there’s always a chance that Puelles could win a wrestling-heavy decision even without completing a submission, but Ziam’s defensive wrestling seems to have improved and he’s also not the type of fighter to dive into the fire. So we expect a more cautious game plan from him focussed on remaining safe and using his length to pick Puelles apart from distance. The larger cage should play into Ziam’s favor and we like him to win an uneventful low-volume decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Fares Ziam DEC” at +180.
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DFS Implications:
Ziam has averaged just 70 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins, with all of those going the distance. The only time he ever topped 69 points was when he got to compete in front of his home French crowd and looked like a completely different fighter, as he suddenly looked like he knew how to wrestle for the first time. He was able to do a decent job filling up the stat sheet in that win over a debuting Michal Figlak, and scored 96 DraftKings points on the victory. However, he still only landed 60 significant strikes in that fight, which is just one shy of his career high. We can’t imagine he’ll be looking to engage in any grappling in his next matchup, leaving Ziam entirely reliant on landing his first UFC finish if he wants to score well. While Puelles has been finished in each of his two UFC losses, Ziam hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2018 and is an unlikely candidate to end this one early. And even if Ziam does land a finish, he may still struggle to return value if it comes beyond the first round, simply due to a lack of striking volume. At his higher price tag, it’s fair to call him a hail mary R1 KO or bust option and the only thing he has going for him is his lower projected ownership. The odds imply Ziam has a 65% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Puelles is a one-dimensional grappler who relies on landing kneebars to finish fights. While he does have three kneebar finishes in the UFC, he’s still never scored more than 99 DraftKings points in a win and two of his three submission victories occurred in the third round and only returned scores of 84 and 64 points respectively. He also has two wrestling-heavy decision wins in the UFC, but those came against Jordan Leavitt (30% takedown defense) and Marcos Mariano (28% takedown defense). Now he’ll face the 75% takedown defense of Ziam in a tougher matchup. And unlike the three braindead opponents who all tried to take Puelles down and were ultimately submitted, Ziam fights with cowardly intelligence that should help him to remain out of danger. The fact that these two have trained together in the past always adds an interesting dynamic to things and you could argue it will allow Ziam to know what’s coming or that Puelles could know where Ziam’s takedown defense is the most vulnerable. At Puelles’ cheap price tag, he doesn’t need to put up a huge score to be useful, but there are still ways he wins and doesn’t score enough to crack the optimal lineup if we get a slate with multiple underdogs winning. The odds imply Puelles has a 35% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Edgar Chairez
3rd UFC Fight (0-1, NC)This is the third time these two have been matched up. The first ended in a No Contest after review officials deemed the ref prematurely stopped the fight as Chairez locked in a standing guillotine choke. Da Silva’s arm went limp and his body slumped down, so it looked like a fine stoppage, but he then immediately protested and wasn’t out once the ref jumped in to stop it. So it was a tricky spot, but we had no problem with the stoppage at the time. Leading up to the controversial ending, Da Silva was able to take Chairez down once, while Chairez finished ahead 12-4 in significant strikes. We did see a more patient approach from Da Silva than in his previous fights. They were then rebooked to fight again four weeks later but Da Silva dropped out due to a medical issue.
Prior to that No Contest, Chairez lost a decision loss in his short notice UFC debut against a really tough Tatsuro Taira. Chairez attempted multiple guillotines in the fight, but was unable to complete any of them, and he consistently sacrificed position for those submission attempts. That resulted in Chairez getting controlled for nearly 10 minutes in the fight. Leading up to that loss, Chairez landed a pair of submission wins, after losing a decision to Clayton Carpenter on DWCS in 2022. Chairez looked decent on the feet in that DWCS match and won the first round on all three scorecards, but once he got taken down late in round two, he wasn’t able to do anything off his back. He then got taken down twice more in round three, as Carpenter came back to win a decision. Following that defeat, Chairez returned to the Mexican regional scene and locked up a 63 second guillotine against a 37-year-old opponent. He then landed a fourth round submission in a fight that he appeared to be losing up to that point. That ending was crazy as he choked his opponent unconscious with a triangle choke but the ref refused to stop the fight, so he then transitioned to an armbar and his opponent seemed to wake up as he was getting his arm bent backwards, and it still took the ref a while longer before finally stopping things when his opponent finally tapped.
Now 10-5 as a pro, Chairez has four wins by KO/TKO and six submission victories. Seven of his 10 finishes came in round one, two ended in round two, and the most recent occurred in round four—not counting his recent first round submission win that was overturned to a No Contest. While he’s never been knocked out, he’s been submitted twice, and lost all three of the decisions he’s been to.
Overall, Chairez looks somewhat decent and at 5’7” he has good size for the Flyweight division. He’s primarily a striker, but does have some submission skills, although he hasn’t looked great off his back and has struggled to escape that position at times in the past. Between his two UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Chairez didn’t attempt any takedowns, while his opponents got him down on 6 of their 11 attempts (45.4% defense). His biggest issue has been getting taken down and controlled and he needs to improve his defensive wrestling and stop relying on guillotines in those situations.
UPDATE: Chairez Missed Weight by 5 lb!
Daniel da Silva Lacerda
6th UFC Fight (0-4, NC)Still in search of his first UFC win, Da Silva hasn’t made it past the second round in any of his five UFC fights. Leading up to the recent No Contest, Da Silva got finished with ground and pound in the second round by C.J. Vergara, who was narrowly able to survive the first round, with the help of a very long leash from the ref as Vergara sprinted away from Da Silva after getting dropped twice and nearly knocked out. Many refs would have stopped the fight, but Vergara arguably did just enough to prevent Jason Herzog from jumping in. Da Silva predictably gassed out after round one and Vergara finished him with ground and pound in round two. Prior to that, Da Silva had been scheduled to fight Vinicius Salvador in December 2022, but dropped out due to a botched weight cut. Just before that, he got finished with ground and pound in the first round against Victor Altamirano, after dropping Altamirano early in the fight. That came just after Da Silva got submitted in the first round by Francisco Figueiredo, after getting finished with ground and pound in round two of his 2021 UFC debut against Jeff Molina. Da Silva has still never even seen the third round in his career, let alone require the judges.
Now 11-5 as a pro, Da Silva has five wins by KO/TKO and six submissions. He’s been knocked out four times and has one submission loss, not counting his recent R1 submission loss that was overturned to a No Contest. Thirteen of his fights ended in round one (10-3) and three ended in round two (1-2). He’s just 3-5 plus a No Contest in his last nine fights, with all but two of those ending in round one. Da Silva turned pro in 2017 at 135 lb, but quickly moved down to 125 lb.
Overall, Da Silva is a BJJ brown belt and a dangerous grappler, but also likes to throw a decent number of kicks and is a threat to finish fights on the feet as well. All six of his submission wins have come in the first round either by armbar or triangle choke and he’s incredibly active off his back hunting for submissions, while he’s more so looking for ground and pound from top position. His biggest issues are his cardio and durability and he’s clearly an offensively minded fighter who’s sole focus is on finishing fights quickly. He’s looked incredibly fragile so far in the UFC and his defense is essentially non-existent. He’s only landed three of his seven takedown attempts in the UFC (42.9% accuracy), while no one has tried to take him down. This is the first time we can remember a fighter starting 0-4 with the UFC and not being released, so clearly they like his all action style and every time he steps inside the Octagon we get an exciting fight.
UPDATE: Da Silva Missed Weight by 1 lb!
Fight Prediction:
Chairez will have a 1” height and reach advantage.
Da Silva came into the last fight with a more patient approach than what we’ve seen from him in the past, although ultimately still got stuck in a submission late in the first round. However, he did land a takedown pretty easily prior to that, although wasn’t able to do anything with it, and it was Chairez that was looking for submissions off his back. We often see rematches/sequels fail to live up to the original, and a big reason for that is that the element of surprise is mostly gone. While the first fight only lasted a few minutes, these two got to feel the strength and speed of one another and it’s easier to be more defensively sound when you already have a feel for what’s coming at you. You also have to imagine that Da Silva will be more mindful of his head position on takedown attempts after getting caught in a guillotine in the first fight. That all creates the potential for a slower start to this next fight and we like the chances of it making it to round two, while it wouldn’t be completely shocking if it saw the third round. Chairez loves looking for guillotines but maybe he’ll be looking for a more decisive knockout victory after what happened in the last fight. We could see this one going a lot of different ways, but until Da Silva knows improvements to his chin and cardio it’s hard to back him. Give us Chairez to finish him in round two, either by knockout or in another guillotine.
Our favorite bet here is “Chairez/Da Silva Fight to Start R2, Yes” at -105.
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DFS Implications:
Chairez has pretty crisp striking and while he rarely shoots for takedowns, he likes to look for submissions, especially guillotines and armbars. However, those are more defensive submissions that generally are not accompanied by a takedown, so they don’t score as well as your typical finishes, especially on DraftKings where you don’t get points for a submission attempt. Chairez forced a first round stoppage with a guillotine the first time these two fought, but it “only” would have scored 95 DraftKings points and 112 points on FanDuel, had the result not been overturned to a No Contest. At his high price tag, that creates a path for Chairez to land an early finish and still not score enough to be useful, especially on DraftKings and he looks like a better play on FanDuel. There’s also the potential for a slower start here, or for Chairez to get controlled on the mat for periods of time. That could make it tougher for him to score well with a later round finish, unless Da Silva completely gasses out again and the ref allows Chairez to rain down ground and pound for an extended period of time—which in fairness, happens pretty often in Da Silva’s fights. So the scoring ceiling is still there, just keep in mind there are multiple ways Chairez lands a finish and still gets priced out of winning lineups. The odds imply Chairez has an 81% chance to win, a 65% chance to land a finish, and a 40% chance it comes in round one.
Da Silva has never been past the second round and 10 of his 11 wins have come in round one, so he clearly has upside. However, he’s been finished in all of his UFC fights and looks like one of the least defensively sound fighters on the roster. He also doesn’t have any sort of a gas tank and when he can’t find a finish in the first round he consistently fades in round two and gets pounded out on the mat. That generally leaves him as a R1 or bust play with a high theoretical ceiling that he’s yet to show at the UFC level and a non-existent floor. Working in his favor, Chairez has been submitted twice in his career and Da Silva is dangerous on the mat. However, Da Silva landed a takedown in their last fight and wasn’t able to do anything with it, and it was actually Chairez threatening submissions off his back. We saw Da Silva come in with a more patient approach in that last fight and now that these two have felt each other out, perhaps we’ll see an even slower pace here. While we weren’t impressed by what we saw from Da Silva on the mat in the last fight, he throws lightning fast spinning kicks and if he can connect on one, he could easily become the first fighter to ever knock Chairez out. Da Silva is still a long shot to pull off the upset and most likely gets finished again here, but at his cheap price tag, it’s hard to see him getting left out of winning lineups if he does notch his first UFC win. The odds imply Da Silva has a 19% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Mateus Mendonca
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Still in search of his first UFC win, Mendonca is coming off a first round TKO loss to Nate Maness in what was Mendonca’s first career fight down at 125 lb. Mendonca immediately looked to wrestle in the fight, and while he failed to officially land any of his three takedown attempts he did force Maness down to the mat with him by going for a leg lock. However, that proved to be a fatal mistake as he continued to look for a heel hook while Maness rained down ground and pound. Mendonca idiotically never let go and eventually Maness finished him on the mat with strikes. Prior to that, Mendonca suffered his first career loss in decision against a really tough Javid Basharat in Mendonca UFC debut, which took place at 135 lb. Despite the loss, Mendonca put up a good effort and showed he could go 15 hard minutes against legitimate competition. So it was interesting that he decided to drop down to 125 lb for his last fight, after spending his entire career at 135 lb. Leading up to that loss, Mendonca landed a 48 second first round knockout on DWCS In September 2022 to punch his ticket to the UFC, after taking all of 2021 off.
Now 10-2 as a pro, Mendonca has three wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and three decision victories. All seven of his finishes ended in the first round. He’s also been finished once himself in round one and has one decision defeat. Mendonca competed at 135 lb for the first 11 fights of his career, before moving down to 125 lb in 2023.
Overall, Mendonca is a pretty well rounded fighter with a good gym around him, as he trains at Chute Boxe with Charles Oliveira and will also be fighting alongside his teammates Felipe dos Santos and Daniel da Silva Lacerda on this upcoming card. At just 25 years old, he should be improving all the time, but he showed off a really low IQ in his last fight when he refused to let go of a leg lock and got knocked out on the mat. He shoots for a high number of takedowns, with average accuracy, but seems to leave his neck exposed in the process. He’s typically hunting for submissions on the mat, although he’s only completed one in his last nine fights, which was all the way back in 2019. In his two UFC fights, he landed 2 of his 14 takedown attempts (14.3% accuracy), while he got taken down three times on five attempts by his opponents (40% defense). We generally see Mendonca aggressively pushing forward and forcing the action and he likes to throw flying knees to work his way into the clinch along the fence. His first fight at 125 lb ended so quickly that we didn’t get to see how his cardio looks after cutting the additional weight. He also didn’t arrive very early to Mexico City and didn’t give himself a ton of time to acclimate to the elevation, so there are some concerns he could slow down in the later rounds here.
Jesus Aguilar
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off the first knockout win of his career, Aguilar finished the glass-chinned Shannon Ross in just 17 seconds. Just keep in mind Ross has been knocked out in all three of his UFC fights and on DWCS. Prior to that, Aguilar was submitted in the first round of UFC debut. Aguilar tried to go for his patented guillotine early on in the fight against a really tough Tatsuro Taira, but was unable to complete it and then got armbarred late in the round. Looking back one fight further, Aguilar was able to complete a guillotine in the third round on DWCS, and had won eight straight fights coming into the UFC, with six of those wins ending in submissions and five by guillotine. The only time he’s required the judges in his last seven matches came in a 2021 grappling-heavy decision win.
Now 9-2 as a pro, Aguilar has one knockout win, six by submission, and two decision victories. Five of his six submission wins were by guillotine and his last three submission wins all occurred in the later rounds. Both of his losses ended in first round submissions, one in his 2015 pro debut, and the other in his 2023 UFC debut.
Overall, Aguilar looks more or less like a one-trick pony who tries to win every fight by guillotine. He likes to take opponents down and then look for guillotines during the scrambling exchanges as his opponents try to return to their feet. He has just a 62” reach, the shortest of any male fighter in the UFC. His wrestling doesn’t look that great, nor does his striking, and while being good at one thing may be enough on the regional scene to win fights, it’s hard to see Aguilar finding much success against legitimate competition at the UFC level. Between his two UFC fights and his DWCS match, he landed 3 of his 8 takedown attempts (37.5% accuracy), while his opponents landed both of their attempts against him. Aguilar will be fighting in front of his home Mexican crowd and alongside several Entram Gym teammates. They all headed down to Mexico City in January to acclimate to the elevation, so they will be fully adjusted and ready.
Fight Prediction:
Mendonca will have a 2” height advantage and 9” reach advantage, while being two years younger than the 27-year-old Aguilar.
This is sort of a tricky spot, as Mendonca looks like the superior fighter, but he makes a lot of poor decisions and also leaves his neck exposed when shooting for takedowns, and he looks for a lot of those. Despite landing a knockout in his last fight, Aguilar is a one-trick pony who just spams guillotine attempts every chance he gets. Unless one of them changes up their approach here or we see a quick finish, Aguilar should have numerous opportunities to lock in a guillotine. There’s also the potential for Mendonca to slow down late in the fight, as he didn’t give himself much time to acclimate to the elevation and has never seen the second round since he started cutting down to 125 lb. We believe it was a mistake for Mendonca to ever make the move down from 135 lb to 125 lb and we think he gets caught in a guillotine at some point in this match and then may consider moving back up after losing his third straight UFC fight. Aguilar by guillotine is the pick and we think he’ll be live to land it even late in the match.
Our favorite bet here is “Jesus Aguilar SUB” at +350.
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DFS Implications:
Mendonca is coming off the first early loss of his career, which was also his first fight down at 125 lb. He showed zero IQ as he hung onto a leg until he was pounded out on the mat, which is concerning for his decision making moving forward. Now he’ll face a one-dimensional guillotine specialist and while we would think that most fighters would be smart enough to avoid the one thing their opponent is good at, we’re not willing to give Mendonca that benefit of the doubt. He seems to live his neck open on his takedown attempts and so far in the UFC he’s attempted 14 takedowns in less than four rounds of action. That’s a lot of chances for his neck to get snatched up. However, if he can avoid getting submitted, then this could become a decision spot for him to succeed and it’s not like Aguilar is actually good. The fact that Aguilar will go for a guillotine at every opportunity means that he’s also sacrificing positions in the hope of finding a finish. That could allow Mendonca to rack up takedowns and control time, and he might be able to find a finish of his own if he doesn’t get finished himself. That leaves this as a volatile spot where both fighters have a wide range of scoring outcomes. The line has been moving in Aguilar’s favor and when you combine that with Mendonca’s 0-2 UFC record, he should end up being lower owned. That makes him a decent tournament option, just realize there’s a good chance he trips and falls into a guillotine and completely busts once again. The odds imply Mendonca has a 53% chance to win, a 35% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Aguilar is a one-dimensional guillotine specialist with unimpressive striking and wrestling. Yes, he just knocked out Shannon Ross, but get in line. The two previous guys to knock out Ross both lost their next fight and that hasn’t been a good predictive indicator of future success. So it’s best to completely ignore the 126 DraftKings points he scored in that win. He hilariously scored just one point in his previous fight, which also doesn't tell you anything. To get a better idea of his scoring potential, you can look at his DWCS match that ended in a third round guillotine and was good for 89 DraftKings points and 87 points on FanDuel. That’s probably a fair representation of what you can expect to get out of him when he finds a finish, as guillotines are not a great way to score well. Sure he could score a little better with a first round finish, but he’s not a guy that will generally provide a huge ceiling. Now at his cheaper price tag he may not need a huge score to be useful, but just keep in mind there are ways he lands a submission and still gets left out of winning lineups if we get a slate with numerous underdogs winning. It’s also possible that he ends up being a little higher owned than expected after the line moved in his favor and he just put up a slate-breaking score in his last fight. So while we do think he has a good shot at locking up a guillotine here, there are some reasons to pump the breaks a little on him. The odds imply Aguilar has a 47% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Raoni Barcelos
11th UFC Fight (6-4)Coming off a decision loss to Kyler Phillips, Barcelos has dropped two straight and is just 1-4 in his last five. He’s been knocked down in each of his last two fights and just before losing to Phillips he suffered the first knockout loss of his career when Umar Nurmagomedov finished him in the first round. That’s Barcelos’ only fight in his last seven to end early, after he started his UFC career off with three straight late round finishes in 2018 and 2019. It’s been nearly five years since he finished anybody and Barcelos is quickly approaching his 37th birthday. Barcelos’ only win in his last five outings came in a 2022 decision over Trevin Jones, who lost his last four UFC fights. Twelve of Barcelos’ last 13 fights made it out of the first round.
Now 17-5 as a pro, Barcelos has eight wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and seven decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has three decision losses. After starting his career at 145 lb, Barcelos dropped down to 135 lb following his UFC debut, where he’s stayed since.
A BJJ black belt with a wrestling background, Barcelos is a well rounded fighter who has solid striking, wrestling, and submission skills. He tends to wear on his opponents as fights go on and all three of his early wins in the UFC occurred after the nine minute mark. He has an elite 90% takedown defense, and has only been taken down twice in the UFC on 20 opponent attempts. On the other side of things, he landed 15 takedowns of his own on 40 attempts (37.5% accuracy). He both lands and absorbs a good amount of strikes, averaging 5.38 SSL/min and 5.03 SSA/min. It will be interesting to see how much Barcelos has left in the tank and his career has really gone off a cliff in recent years. We saw him gas out in the fight against Timur Valiev, so we’ll see how he handles the elevation of Mexico City.
Cristian Quinonez
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Looking to bounce back from a first round submission loss, Quinonez got dropped early in that fight after he got overly eager looking for a knockout. He then put up basically no resistance to being submitted on the mat and the fight only lasted 145 seconds. Prior to that loss, Quinonez had won five straight fights, with three of those going the distance and two ending in first round TKOs. One of those finishes came in his 2022 UFC debut against Khalid Taha, which was a really quick stoppage. Leading up to that finish, Quinonez won a 2021 decision on DWCS to punch his ticket to the UFC. Just before going on DWCS, he won a five-round decision for the UWC Mexico Bantamweight belt, showing solid cardio as his pace never slowed for the entire 25 minutes.
Now 18-4 as a pro, Quinonez has 10 wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and five decision victories. All 10 of his knockout wins occurred in the first two rounds, with four in round one and six in rounds two. While his last two knockouts both ended in the first round, his six prior to that all came in round two. Two of his three submission wins also occurred in round one, while the only time he’s finished an opponent beyond the second round was in a 2016 third round submission. He’s also been finished in all four of his losses, with two TKOs (R3 2014 & R2 2017) and two submissions (R1 2023 & R3 2018). Fourteen of Quinonez’s last 18 fights have made it out of the first round, but only five of those went the distance, and we’ve seen a lot of late round finishes in his fights.
Overall, Quinonez is a Mexican striker with good movement and footwork. He does a good job of mixing it up and attacking his opponents at multiple different levels through a combination of kicks and punches. He hasn’t shown much in terms of grappling, but his takedown defense has been pretty solid and he defended six of the seven attempts against him in his last three fights (85.7% defense), while also landing his only attempt. Still just 27 years old, Quinonez trains out of Entram Gym so he has a good team around him and should constantly be improving at this stage in his career. He’s also the younger brother of Jose Quinonez, who went 5-4 in the UFC before being released in 2020. Quinonez has been in Mexico City since January, so he’ll be fully acclimated to the elevation. His brother also fought on the last Mexico City card if he’s looking for any guidance and he’ll have the home crowd behind him.
Fight Prediction:
Quinonez will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while also being nine years younger than the 36-year-old Barcelos.
This matchup has more to do with Barcelos than Quinonez. In his prime, Barcelos would run through Quinonez with ease, but clearly Barcelos is well past his prime. We expect Barcelos to be looking to grapple to negate the striking of Quinonez, but he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2018, with his only other submission win coming all the way back in 2014. Cardio is also a potential concern with him and he may look to manage his energy expenditure on the mat and simply control positions, while doing just enough not to get stood up. That’s all assuming Barcelos can even get the fight to the ground. If he can’t, it’s possible we see a closer striking battle, but we’re taking Barcelos to win by decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Barcelos/Quinonez FGTD” at +165.
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DFS Implications:
Barcelos is averaging 99 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, scoring at least 96 points in five of those. He scored 101 and 96 points in his last two decision victories, showing the ability to score well even when he can’t find a finish. The only problem is that he’s 1-4 in his last five fights and turns 37 in May. He’s been slowing down in recent years and only scored 38 DraftKings points in his last decision loss. Maybe the step down in competition is what he needs to bounce back, but his best days are clearly behind him. With both fighters in this matchup coming off a loss, it’s possible we get a more tentative fight, which would be terrible for DFS. With six of Barcelos’ last seven fights going the distance, he still looks like a better play on DraftKings than on FanDuel, as he’ll have a chance to score well in a wrestling-heavy decision, but needs a finish on FanDuel. The experience levels are nowhere close between these two, unfortunately for Barcelos, neither are the ages. Maybe Barcelos can turn back time here, but we’re not holding our breath. The odds imply Barcelos has a 59% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Quinonez has yet to see the second round in the UFC, after landing a TKO in his debut that was good for 98 DraftKings points and then getting submitted most recently. However, he went the distance in three of his previous four fights and only has two finishes in his last six outings. He hasn’t shown anything in terms of offensive grappling, which leaves him reliant on striking and knockouts to score well. Now he’s facing an opponent who has only been knocked out once in his career, although Barcelos is getting up there in age. If Barcelos has deteriorated even further since the last time we saw him, maybe Quinonez will be able to knock him out, but that’s probably the only way Quinonez scores well. The potential for Barcelos to lean on his grappling is concerning for Quinonez’s ability to score well in a decision, so we’re treating him as a KO or bust option. The odds imply Quinonez has a 41% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Manuel Torres
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Torres has finished five straight opponents in the first round and hasn’t even made it to the four minute mark in any of his last nine fights (7-2). His most recent finish came in a violent knockout against a struggling Nikolas Motta in just under two minutes, after Torres previously knocked out a washed up Frank Camacho in his UFC debut just before that. Torres has amazingly only been out of the first round once in his 16 pro fights, which was in a 2018 split decision win. He punched his ticket to the big show with another first round knockout on DWCS, where Torres’ opponent complained of an eye poke early in round one but Herb Dean did not stop the fight and Torres took advantage of that opportunity to unload with a flurry of strikes to force a stoppage. While his last three fights all ended in first round knockout wins, his previous six matches all ended in first round submissions (4-2).
Now 14-2 as a pro, he has seven wins by R1 KO, six by R1 submission, and one decision. Both of his losses ended in first round leg lock submissions—one by kneebar and another by heel hook. His long skinny legs appear prone to that sort of attack, which will be something to consider when he faces grapplers. Take his impressive number of first round finishes with a grain of salt, as he hadn’t been facing the toughest competition on the Mexican regional scene. Torres started his career fighting between 139-146 lb, before moving up to 155 lb in 2018.
Overall, Torres is an ultra aggressive rangy fighter who has dangerous striking as well as the ability to choke opponents out. He doesn’t appear to offer much in terms of submission defense, and we haven’t seen his chin tested enough to really gauge his durability. Considering he’s only been out of the first round once in his career, and that was all the way back in 2018, it’s hard to completely evaluate his cardio. However, even though his debut only lasted three and a half minutes, you could already see Torres starting to breath heavily toward the end and we expect cardio to be a massive issue for him as he begins facing legitimate competition that he can’t quickly put away. Torres failed to land his only takedown attempt in his last three fights, while stuffing all six of the attempts against him. After dropping out of a March 2025 fight during weigh-ins, Torres will obviously be a guy to monitor closely on the scale, assuming he makes it there this time. Torres has been in Mexico City training with Daniel Zellhuber for the last few weeks, so he should at least be acclimated to the elevation.
Chris Duncan
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Duncan has won a pair of slower paced decisions in his first two UFC appearances, after he threw down in a pair of slobberknockers on DWCS (1-1). His most recent wins came against a power puncher in Yanal Ashmoz, who Duncan was able to take down twice on four attempts, but more so just outlanded him on the feet. In fairness to Ashmoz, he broke his wrist in the first round and was left extremely compromised for the remainder of the match. Prior to that, Duncan won a wrestling-heavy decision in his UFC debut against Omar Morales, where Duncan landed 5 of his 14 takedown attempts and finished with six and a half minutes of control time. That fight looked very different from Duncan’s two appearances on DWCS. In his first trip on DWCS, Duncan got knocked out early in round two by Viacheslav Borshchev in October 2021. He then went and won a decision on the England regional scene, before returning to DWCS in August 2022. Duncan nearly got finished for a second time on the show, but was narrowly able to survive and land a knockout of his own. Seven of Duncan’s last 10 fights ended by knockout in the first two rounds, but six of his last seven matches saw round two, and three of his last four went the distance.
Now 11-1 as a pro, Duncan has seven wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and three decision victories. The only loss of his career occurred in his R2 KO loss to Viacheslav Borshchev on DWCS. His lone submission win came via R2 guillotine in his 2018 pro debut, while his last seven finishes all ended in knockouts. Four of those KOs came in round one, two ended in round two, and one occurred in round three. However, his last six all ended in the first two rounds. Duncan moved up to 170 lb for his fight in between his two DWCS appearances and also has a couple of 160 lb Catchweight matches, but the rest of his career has been spent at 155 lb.
Overall, Duncan seems to be evolving from a brawling striker to more of a well-rounded tactician. He trains at American Top Team and has the luxury of working with guys like Grant Dawson and Dustin Poirier on a regular basis, so it makes sense that he’s rounding out his skillset. He’s from Scotland and his last two fights were both in the UK, so this will be the first time he’s gone into enemy territory in the UFC. Between his two DWCS appearances and his two UFC fights, Duncan landed 9 of his 23 takedown attempts (39.1% accuracy), while he successfully defended the one takedown against him. Duncan looked very hittable in his two DWCS fights, but has done a much better job of avoiding damage in his last two matches and neither of those opponents landed more than 47 significant strikes against him. Duncan said he spent seven weeks sleeping in an altitude chamber to prepare for the elevation in Mexico City and also headed down two weeks early.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’10”, but Torres will have a 2” reach advantage.
The field has been absolutely hammering Torres all week and after he could be had at -115 on Monday, he was bet up to -200 on Friday. That seems like utter insanity for a fighter that probably only has one round of cardio and has yet to really be tested in the UFC. If/when Torres can’t get Duncan out of there in the first round, we fully expect him to completely gas out and for Duncan to take over and likely finish him in round two. Torres might not even have a full five minutes of cardio and if Duncan can force him to wrestle we could see Torres gas out midway through round one. Duncan will need to watch his neck on his takedown attempts, as Torres will look for guillotines. Nevertheless, we’re still under the impression that Torres is a fraud and we expect Duncan to bring that to light here and finish Torres either late in round one or more likely in round two. A knockout is clearly the most likely method of victory, but don’t forget that Torres has been very prone to getting submitted in the past.
Our favorite bet here is “Chris Duncan ML” at +165.
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DFS Implications:
Torres has landed five straight first round finishes and scored 105 and 114 DraftKings points respectively in his two UFC wins. He’s seen his moneyline skyrocket from -115 when DraftKings released pricing early in the week, all the way up to -200 by Friday. That leaves him massively underpriced at just $8,300 and he projects to be the most popular fighter on the slate. The fact that he’s never fought anyone decent and likely only has one round of cardio are trivial details that the field can’t be bothered with, and this a dream leverage spot in tournaments. However, you pretty much have to play him in low-risk contests based on his mispricing, ownership, and upside. Torres has only been out of the first round once in 16 pro fights, so it’s generally a safe bet to say whoever wins his fights will score well. If Torres does win, it’s hard to see him getting left out of winning lineups, but he won’t do much to set you apart from the field, so you’ll want to make sure to pair him with some low owned options if you play him in tournaments. The odds imply Torres has a 64% chance to win, a 54% chance to land a finish, and a 36% chance it comes in round one.
Duncan has really dialed back his aggression since joining the UFC and has also been looking to wrestle a lot more. That makes it tougher to use his older performances as a predictive metric for future outcomes. We saw a pair of wild brawls from him on DWCS, but both of his UFC fights have been slow-paced tactical battles where he worked his way to two decision wins with a combination of striking and wrestling. He only scored 76 and 90 DraftKings points respectively in those victories, but now he gets a higher upside matchup against an opponent who has only seen the second round once in his career. Obviously Duncan will be at risk of getting finished early in this fight, but if he can simply survive the opening round, he should be in a great position to take over. In fact, it may not even take a full round before Torres begins to slow down and Duncan is very live for a finish here. He’s also a fantastic leverage play, as Torres projects to be the most popular fighter on the card. And even if Duncan does somehow drag this out to another decision, at his cheaper price tag he may not need to put up a huge score to still end up in winning tournament lineups. The odds imply Duncan has a 36% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Yazmin Jauregui
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Looking to bounce back from her first career loss, Jauregui got knocked out by Denise Gomes just 20 seconds into the first round of her last fight. Prior to that, Jauregui landed a finish of her own in a second round TKO against Istela Nunes. However, Jauregui also got knocked down early in that fight and she’s now been dropped in the opening minute of each of her last two matches. Prior to that win, Jauregui put on an impressive striking performance in her UFC debut as she won a decision over a tough Iasmin Lucindo. A year to the day before making her UFC debut, Jauregui won three fights in a single night as part of the Last Latina Standing tournament with Combate Global. She won two of those matches by first round knockout after winning a one-round decision in the first leg of the tournament.
Now 10-1 as a pro, Jauregui has seven wins by KO/TKO and three decision victories. One of those decisions was just a single round as it was part of a single-day/multi-fight tournament and she’s only seen the third round twice in her career, with both of those fights going the distance. Five of her seven career knockouts have come in round one with the other two ending in round two. The only loss of her career was her recent R1 TKO defeat. Jauregui made her 2018 pro debut at 125 lb, but dropped down to 115 lb for her second fight, where she’s stayed since.
Overall, Jauregui is an uptempo striker, who’s still just 24 years old and turned pro when she was 19. She’s primarily a boxer, but will mix in takedowns at times, although has yet to land any of her three attempts in the UFC so far. She was also able to defend both of the takedown attempts against her in those three UFC fights. She showed no problem going three hard rounds in her debut, despite that being just the second third round she’d ever seen. Her biggest weakness so far has been her striking defense, but if she can clean that up she looks like an interesting young prospect with plenty of time to grow. She’ll be fighting in front of her home crowd here alongside multiple Entram Gym teammates. It looks like all the Entram Gym fighters came out to Mexico City well in advance of the fight to acclimate to the elevation, which could be an advantage for all of them (Jauregui, Chairez, Quinonez, and Aguilar).
Sam Hughes
8th UFC Fight (3-4)Ten months removed from a big upset decision win over a debuting Jaqueline Amorim, Hughes has quietly won three of her last four fights after starting out 0-3 in the UFC. Amorim has never been out of the first round before and after nearly submitting Hughes at multiple points in round one she faded hard in the later rounds, allowing Hughes to take over and ride out a decision win. Prior to that, Hughes lost a decision to Piera Rodriguez, where Hughes got taken down five times but was only controlled for a minute and 56 seconds, as she did a good job of returning to her feet every time she did get taken down. Leading up to that loss, Hughes won two fights in a row against a pair of one-dimensional strikers, with a R3 ground and pound TKO victory over Elise Reed and a majority decision win over Istela Nunes. Similar to Amorim, both of those opponents gassed out and were helpless on the mat. Before those two wins, Hughes had a rough start to her UFC career. She lost via post R1 TKO due to a corner stoppage in her short notice UFC debut against Tecia Torres and then dropped a pair of decisions against Loma Lookboonmee and Luana Pinheiro in her next two fights.
Now 8-5 as a pro, Hughes has two wins by TKO, three submissions, and three decision victories. Three of her five early wins came against opponents who had never fought professionally before in Hughes first three pro fights. Her only KO/TKO loss came in her short notice UFC debut/execution against Tecia Torres, where the fight was stopped after round one when Hughes said she couldn’t see. The only other time Hughes has been finished was in a fourth round submission in an LFA title fight against Vanessa Demopoulos. Hughes’ other three losses all ended in decisions. Hughes turned pro in February 2019, initially fighting at 130 lb, but worked her way down to 115 lb by July 2020.
Overall, Hughes has shown definite improvements since she made her UFC debut, most notably with her wrestling, but also with her confidence and ability to handle adversity. After failing to land a takedown on just three attempts in her first three UFC matches, she landed 7 on 14 attempts in her last four matches and holds a 41.2% career takedown accuracy. On the other side of things, Hughes has been taken down 14 times on 33 opponent attempts (57.6% defense). She only averages 3.79 SSL/min and 4.23 SSA/min and has been outlanded in five of her seven UFC fights. Her best attribute may be her cardio and she tends to outlast most of her opponents, but that will only get you so far in the UFC. It will be interesting to see how her gas tank looks in this next fight, as Hughes has never competed at elevation before in her entire pro MMA career. It also doesn't appear that she went down early or trained at elevation in preparation for this fight.
Fight Prediction:
Hughes will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 64” reach. Hughes is seven years older than the 24-year-old Jauregui.
Jauregui is the superior striker in this matchup, but her ground game has yet to be seen in the UFC. Jauregui was able to defend both of the takedown attempts against her so far in the UFC and showed the ability to both land and defend takedowns earlier in her career on the regional scene, but there are still a lot of questions to be answered with her grappling. Therefore, Hughes’ best chance to pull off the upset will be to try and test her on the mat, although we still don’t have much confidence in Hughes’ ability to win a wrestling-heavy decision here. All three of Hughes’ UFC wins were against one-dimensional fighters who gassed out in the later rounds and Jauregui hasn’t given us any reasons to question her cardio. We’ve seen Hughes get overwhelmed on the feet in the past and Jauregui will have a shot at putting her away with heavy combinations of punches. We also have some concerns with Hughes’ preparation, or lack thereof, for the elevation in this fight. Jauregui will be fighting in front of her home crowd here and promised a knockout win at media day, but take that for what it’s worth. It’s definitely possible that Jauregui can finish Hughes, but as the odds indicate, it’s still more likely that Hughes survives and Jauregui wins by decision, which will be our pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Yazmin Jauregui DEC” at -115.
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DFS Implications:
Jauregui is coming off the first loss of her career in a quick round one knockout, and you never know how fighters will react in those situations. However, prior to that loss Jauregui scored a slate-breaking 129 DraftKings points in a second round TKO win over Istela Nunes that included multiple knockdowns. That came after Jauregui only scored 65 DraftKings points in a decision win in her UFC debut, which shows just how wide her range of scoring outcomes is. While she’s yet to give us any indication that she can score well in a decision, her implied odds of landing a finish are twice as high as her projected ownership and this looks like a good matchup for her to dominate. She relies almost entirely on her striking and has yet to land a takedown in the UFC on three attempts, but she’s always a threat to knock opponents out. As the most expensive fighter on the slate, there are always ways she scores well and still gets priced out of winning lineups, but salary looks pretty loose on this slate, so that’s less of a concern than normal. We’ve consistently seen her come in low-owned and if she does find a finish, there will be a ton of leverage to be gained in tournaments by playing her. The odds imply Jauregui has an 82% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Hughes has averaged 99 DraftKings points in her three UFC wins, despite all of those fights making it to the third round and two going the distance. However, all three of those opponents gassed out and Hughes was able to capitalize on that and find success on the mat. Those were also all very one-dimensional fighters and Hughes has lost all four of her UFC fights against more well rounded opponents. Hughes is facing a step up in competition here, as she travels into enemy territory to fight at elevation for the first time in her career. Hughes generally relies on outlasting opponents to win fights, so it will be interesting to see what effect the elevation has on her gas take as she didn’t appear to take any extra time to acclimate like most of the other fighters on the card did. It would be shocking to see Hughes outstrike Jauregui, which leaves her reliant on finding wrestling success to pull off the massive upset. Jauregui has yet to be taken down in the UFC, so her ground game hasn’t really been tested, but she didn’t look completely helpless on the mat earlier in her career. That makes it tougher to see Hughes pulling off the upset, but the elevation does create the potential for anyone on the card to bust, inserting some level of volatility into every match. Hughes projects to be low owned and as the cheapest fighter on the card she won’t need to put up a huge score to be useful if she can somehow pull off the upset. The odds imply Hughes has an 18% chance to win, a 7% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Raul Rosas Jr.
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Rosas is fresh off a quick 54 second first round TKO win over a terrible Terrence Mitchell, where we finally saw Rosas show a willingness to stand and trade on the feet, opposed to immediately looking to wrestle as he had in his past fights. Given how bad Mitchell is, it makes sense that Rosas would use that opportunity to showcase his striking, especially after gassing out on the mat in his previous fight and suffering his first career loss against Christian Rodriguez. Rosas came out of the gates hot in that defeat and nearly locked up a rear-naked choke in the first round, but didn’t pace himself at all and then gassed out midway through round two. Rodriguez was able to take over at that point and control Rosas on the mat for the remainder of the fight, as he cruised to a unanimous 29-28 decision win. Prior to that, Rosas locked up a first round submission in his UFC debut against a suspect Jay Perrin, who went 0-3 in the UFC before being released. Just before that, Rosas saw the judges for the first time in his career in a decision win on DWCS when he was just 17 years old, becoming the youngest fighter to ever win a contract on the show. He amazingly was still in high school at the time, although he dropped out after getting the contract to pursue fighting full time. Rosas showed he knows how to escape guillotine chokes in that fight, as his opponent was constantly looking to wrap up his neck on takedown attempts.
Still just 8-1 as a pro, Rosas has two wins by R1 TKO, five submissions, and one decision victory. Six of his seven finishes came in the first round, with the other ending just before the midway point of round two. His lone loss ended in a decision. He’s only been in two fights that lasted longer than a round and half, with both of those going the distance (1-1). Only three of his eight wins were against opponents who came in with more than two fights of pro experience, and we’ve yet to see him beat anyone decent.
Overall, Rosas is a relentless wrestler who’s typically looking to immediately get fights to the ground and hunt for submissions, but finally showed a willingness to stand and strike in his last fight. However, he still only averages 1.28 SSL/min and failed to land more than 20 significant strikes in any of his last four fights. He amazingly went the full 15 minutes in his second most recent match and still only landed two TOTAL strikes in the fight. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 8 of his 24 takedown attempts (33.3% accuracy), while he got taken down by his opponents twice on two attempts. He only turned pro in November 2021 and is just 19 years old, but the UFC has been pushing him hard. His first two UFC fights were both on PPV cards, while his last was on the hyped up UFC Noche card, and he’s already being added to the UFC video game. After gassing out in his only UFC fight that saw the second round, it will be interesting to see how his cardio looks at elevation in this match if the fight doesn’t end in the opening round and a half. It does appear that Rosas went down to Mexico early to train with Yair Rodriguez
Ricky Turcios
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Fifteen months removed from a split decision win over Kevin Natividad, Turcios was fortunate to get his hand raised after being taken down seven times, knocked down once, stumbled another time, and controlled for five minutes. However, he never stopped working and the judges valued his activity over the damage and takedowns from Natividad. Turcios did finish ahead 68-41 in significant strikes and 170-61 in total strikes, while always completing three reversals, a submission attempt, and two takedowns of his own with over six minutes of control time. That made it a tricky fight to score and it could have gone either way. Turcios also won a split decision in his UFC debut, which was also the finale of The Ultimate Fighter, against a wrestler in Brady Hiestand who took Turcios down six times on 11 attempts and finished with almost eight minutes of control time. However, just like Turcios’ most recent fight, he never stopped working or pushing the pace, and put up another big striking total, as he outlanded Hiestand 201-82 in total strikes and 100-66 in significant strikes. He also landed two takedowns of his own and once again the judges disagreed on how to score the fight, but once again two of them had it for Turcios. In between those two split decision wins, Turcios lost a low-volume 29-28 decision to Aiemann Zahabi and even in that fight there was only one round where all three judges scored it the same way. Turcios amazingly only connected on 27 of the 235 strikes he threw in that bizarrely uneventful fight, but we put most of the blame on Zahabi there, as he’s a patient counter striker who has a knack for slowing fights down. Turcios originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2017, but after losing a decision to Boston Salmon Turcios returned to the regional scene where he went 2-1 before going on TUF in 2021.
Now 12-3 as a pro, Turcios has three wins by TKO, one submission, and eight decision victories. Three of his four career finishes have come in the later rounds, but he’s only finished one opponent since 2016, which was in a 2020 R2 armbar submission win. The only time he’s been finished was in a 2018 R1 TKO against Mana Martinez, who went 2-2 in the UFC. Turcios’ other two losses both ended in decisions. He’s been to four split decisions in his career, winning all four of those. Thirteen of his 15 pro fights made it out of the first round, with the two exceptions being a 2016 R1 TKO win and a 2018 R1 TKO loss. Other than one trip up to 145 lb in 2020, Turcios has spent his entire career at 135 lb.
Overall, Turcios weaponizes his cardio as he pushes a wild pace, with the goal of outworking his opponents. He’ll throw up lots of loose submissions, but rarely locks anything in. His striking style is similar to his grappling, where he’s constantly working, but not landing many big shots with fight-ending intentions. He fights like he’s in outer space, throwing strikes from all angles, regardless of the position he’s in, whether it’s from his back, on the feet, upside down, or whatever other spot you can put him in. While he’s a decent grappler, his wrestling is bad. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he only landed 4 of his 16 takedown attempts (25% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 13 of their 24 attempts (45.8% defense). Two of those four opponents didn’t even try to take him down, while the other two each landed six or more takedowns against him. Turcios barely even tries to defend takedowns and seems content with striking as opponents look to shoot and then relying on his grappling to escape positions on the mat. That seems like a flawed approach and he’s barely been skating by in his wins. It’s never a good look when Kevin Natividad is taking you down seven times, and he failed to land any takedowns on just one attempt in his previous two UFC fights. The UFC is now matching Turcios up with another wrestler who they’re actively trying to build up, clearly looking to capitalize on Turcios’s non-existent takedown defense. Turcios has been in Mexico City acclimating to the elevation for the past few weeks, which is encouraging for his ability to continue to push a high pace.
Fight Prediction:
Rosas will have a 3” height advantage, but Turcios will have a 4” reach advantage and is 11 years older than the 19-year-old Rosas.
The UFC seems to be testing both of those two fighters’ weaknesses here. Rosas gassed out in his one loss and is now pairing him up against a super uptempo fighter who looks to weaponize his cardio in Turcios. And on the flipside, Turcios has shown no ability to defend takedowns and is now going against a relentless wrestler in Rosas. Turcios has never been submitted in his career and has way more grappling and striking experience than Rosas. He also has a major cardio advantage and if he can simply survive early on he’ll be in a good position to take over in the back half of the fight. Now maybe Rosas has made improvements to his cardio or at least his cardio management, but he’s given us no indication of either and we can only go off of what he’s shown us. And what he’s shown is an unhealthy amount of delusion in his own talent that may limit his ability to learn and grow as a fighter. After gassing out against Christian Rodriguez he once again came out with an ultra aggressive pace in his last fight and unquestionably would have emptied his gas tank once again had he not found a finish. That was on the UFC Noche card and he seemed very excited about celebrating his heritage, so we expect him to be pumped up and looking to put on a show once again now that he’s actually fighting in Mexico. While he has been training down there to acclimate to the elevation, we still have concerns with his cardio and things will get really interesting if he can’t finish Turcios early.
We expect Rosas to land takedowns with ease early on, but we like Turcios’ chances of surviving the ground and forcing a longer fight. Rosas will likely win the first round, so if you’re looking to bet Turcios, live betting him late in round one seems like the move. Just make sure you’re on top of things as other people will likely be looking to do the same thing after round one ends and the best line won’t be around for long. If we don’t get a finish, round two will likely decide who wins a decision, as Turcios’ cardio advantage should put him in a really good position to win round three. We saw Rosas really slow down in the second round against Rodriguez and it won’t be at all surprising if Rosas has some early wrestling success in round two, but then once again slows down as the round progresses, making it tougher to score. Turcios’ fights are already all over the place on the scorecards and when you add the potential for his opponent to gas out you have a recipe for volatility. It’s not impossible that Turcios could finish Rosas in round three if he completely gasses, but a decision is more likely and we expect it to be a close one, with a good chance we see another split. Turcios is 4-0 in split decisions in his career, but the crowd will be behind Rosas and that could be enough to sway the judges. However, we consistently see judges put more value on how rounds end than how they start and even if Rosas wins the first three minutes of round two, if Turcios wins the last two minutes that could be enough to win the fight. That makes this a really tough one to call and it feels closer to a coinflip than the odds indicate. That leaves some value on Turcios’ side of things when it comes to betting, but we just have a feeling that Rosas hangs on to win a slightly controversial split decision based on his wrestling in the first half of the fight.
Our favorite bet here is “Rosas/Turcios FGTD” at +102.
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DFS Implications:
Rosas finally showed a willingness to stand and strike in his last fight, but you have to wonder if that was only because of how terrible his opponent was. We have no doubt that he’s been working on improving his striking, but it’s his wrestling that got him to the big show and that’s still where he’s the most comfortable. However, at 19 years old he’s at an age where we would see drastic improvements/changes between every fight and maybe he is finally comfortable enough on the feet to not immediately look to wrestle. With that said, this is a dream matchup for him to find wrestling success and Turcios was taken down six or more times by each of the two opponents who tried to take him down so far in the UFC. So assuming that Rosas hasn’t completely fallen in love with his striking, he still has a higher floor on DraftKings than FanDuel. Demonstrating that, his decision win on DWCS would have been good for 104 points on DraftKings, but just 55 points on FanDuel. With that said, seven of his eight career wins have come early, and both of his UFC wins ended in the first round, so he’s shown clear upside on both sites. The biggest concern with him is that he completely gassed out in the second round of his one UFC loss, and now he’ll be competing at really high elevation against an uptempo opponent. While Rosas did go down to Mexico early to acclimate, we still have concerns as to whether or not he has three hard rounds in him if he can’t end things early. And while Turcios has terrible defensive wrestling, he is a decent grappler who’s never been submitted. So there’s a good chance that Rosas won’t be able to put him away and will have his cardio tested in a longer fight. Maybe he learned from that loss and will look better late in this fight, but only time will tell and things could get dicey down the stretch. That leaves him as a volatile option in DFS, but nonetheless, this is a great matchup for him to rack up takedowns and he still has a high ceiling. The odds imply Rosas has a 66% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Turcios has fought to three straight close decisions since joining the UFC, winning two of those on split scorecards. However, despite his inability to finish anyone or even win a decisive decision, he still managed to average 117 DraftKings points and 91 points on FanDuel in his two wins. He was able to achieve that through his uptempo pace and ability to throw non-stop strikes from the clinch and during grappling exchanges. Sure he gets taken down a half dozen times by anyone who tries, but he never stops landing strikes and looking for reversals and submissions on the mat. All of those clinch strikes add up, and make him an especially appealing play on DraftKings, where he returned scores of 114 and 120 in his two wins, while he “only” scored 78 and 104 points respectively on FanDuel. Just keep in mind, Turcios also hasn’t been facing the toughest competition and he still narrowly squeaked by in each of his wins. He’ll face a tougher test here than in his last fight, but we’ve also seen Rosas gas out before, and Turcios’ pace is tough to keep with even for guys without cardio concerns. When you then add in the elevation of Mexico City, this becomes a very volatile spot that could play into Turcios’ favor. However, if Rosas doesn’t gas out, it’s much tougher to see Turcios winning based on how bad his defensive wrestling has been. At Turcios’ cheap price tag, it’s hard not to like his upside, even if his floor is uncertain. And if we get another slate like last week where only one underdog wins, Turcios would be a frontrunner for the highest scoring of the losing fighters, as long as he doesn't get finished. However, none of this is a secret and we expect Turcios’ cheap price tag and past scoring success, combined with Rosas suspect cardio, to result in Turcios being a fairly popular underdog play. The odds imply Turcios has a 34% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Daniel Zellhuber
4th UFC Fight (3-1)After relinquishing his undefeated record in his 2022 UFC debut decision loss to Trey Ogden, Zellhuber bounced back with a decision win over UFC veteran Lando Vannata. Zellhuber got robbed of a first round finish there, after he had Vannata badly hurt and covering up on the mat in round one as Zellhuber rained down punches. However, Vannata survived with a long leash from the ref and the later rounds were far less eventful as Zellhuber cruised to a decision win. Zellhuber followed that up with a second round submission win over Christos Giagos in his last fight. Zellhuber did have to weather an early storm from Giagos, who landed some good shots on Zellhuber in the first round. However, Giagos predictably gassed in round two and Zellhuber locked up an anaconda choke after Giagos sloppily shot in. Giagos couldn’t wait to tap and put up zero resistance to the submission attempt, which is par for the course with Giagos as that marked his sixth career submission loss. Zellhuber originally punched his ticket to the UFC with a decision win over Lucas Almeida on DWCS in 2021 and three of his last four fights went the distance, after 9 of his first 11 pro matches ended in early wins on the Mexican regional scene.
Now 14-1 as a pro, Zellhuber has seven wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and four decision victories. Two of his three submission wins occurred in the first round, with the other ending in round two. He has three first round knockouts, three more in round two, and one in round three. He’s never been finished, with his only loss going the distance in his UFC debut.
Overall, Zellhuber is a tall, rangy fighter who’s a solid striker with dangerous kicks and also likes to look for leg locks on the mat. While he typically relies on his striking, he’s also a BJJ black belt who can win fights both on the ground and the feet. He has the ability to put up big striking numbers, while mixing in occasional takedown attempts and also has a solid takedown defense. Between his DWCS appearance and his three UFC fights, he landed one of his three takedown attempts (33.3% accuracy), while he’s only been taken down once on 18 opponent attempts (94.4% defense). He’s still only 24-years-old and should be improving all the time. He trains out of Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, after growing up in Mexico City. However, it sounds like he did come down a little early to re-acclimate to the elevation. As one of the few fighters on the card that actually grew up in Mexico City, Zellhuber should be a crowd favorite.
Francisco Prado
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off his first UFC win, Prado landed a first round TKO against a fraudulent Ottman Azaitar. Prado connected on a spinning elbow and then finished things with ground and pound. Prior to that, Prado lost a decision in his UFC debut against Jamie Mullarkey, which was the first loss of Prado’s young career. Mullarkey came in with a much more cautious game plan than we’re accustomed to seeing from him, where he took Prado down three times and controlled him for a third of the fight, while also finishing ahead 59-28 in the low-volume fight. Prado was at a reach and height disadvantage in that matchup and it showed, as he struggled to find his range in the fight. Prado is still only 21 years old and just turned pro in 2019, but finished all 11 of his opponents on the Argentinian regional scene leading up to the loss in his UFC debut.
Now 12-1 as a pro, Prado has six wins by KO/TKO and six submission victories. Nine of those 12 finishes came in round one, two ended in the first half of round two, and one occurred in the opening two minutes of round three. The only time he’s ever been past the 11:07 mark was in the decision loss in his UFC debut and he hadn’t faced much in the way of competition prior to joining the UFC.
Overall, Prado is a young, aggressive Argentinian finisher, who is often looking to get fights to the ground to look for finishes via submission or ground and pound. However, he’s also capable of throwing down on the feet and is dangerous everywhere. In his two UFC fights, he failed to land any of his five takedown attempts, while his opponents got him down on 3 of their 4 attempts (25% defense). He’s not the tallest or longest fighter, at just 5’10” with only a 69” reach, so he needs to get on the inside to be successful. We saw him struggle against a taller opponent in Jamie Mullarkey (6’0”/74” reach) in his UFC debut, and now he’ll face a 6’1” opponent with a 77” reach in enemy territory. Prado spent some time in Ixtapaluca, Mexico (7380 ft elevation), an hour east of Mexico City, to acclimate to the elevation for this fight. We did notice that he was wearing a knee brace while running a couple of weeks ago, so who knows if he tweaked something during training, as we’ve never seen him wear one in the past.
Fight Prediction:
Zellhuber will have a 3” height advantage and 8” reach advantage, while being three years older than the 21-year-old Prado.
This looks like a really tough stylistic matchup for Prado. He likes to look for takedowns, but has struggled to land any in the UFC and is now going against the 94% takedown defense of Zellhuber. And as a shorter fighter, we saw Prado struggle with the size of Jamie Mullarkey in his UFC debut and will now face an even taller and longer fighter in Zellhuber. That could make it tougher for Prado to find his range once again and the larger Octagon will play into Zellhuber’s favor, who also does a good job of circling out when opponents try to push him back against the cage. Zellhuber also grew up in Mexico City and will have the crowd behind him, which could help to sway the judges in any potentially close rounds. Neither of these two have ever been finished, and we like Zellhuber to fight smart, pick Prado apart from the outside, and outland his way to a decision win.
Our favorite bet here is “Daniel Zellhuber DEC” at +175.
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DFS Implications:
Zellhuber is coming off his first finish in the UFC, but still only scored 85 DraftKings points in the second round submission win, as it didn’t include any takedowns or knockdowns. Zellhuber appears content with keeping fights and standing and only using his BJJ black belt for defensive purposes, as he’s only attempted one takedown in three UFC fights, which he didn’t land. While he averages a decent amount of striking volume (5.26 SSL/min), it’s not enough on its own for him to score well without a well timed finish. You could argue that he’ll push harder for a finish here in front of his home crowd, which he could, but Prado has also never been finished in his career and is dangerous if you stand and trade with him. A much wiser game plan for Zellhuber would be to use his length to stay on the outside and pick Prado apart, but it will be tougher for him to score well in DFS with that strategy. At Zellhuber’s high price tag, he’ll likely need either a first round finish or a late second round knockout to return value. The odds imply Zellhuber has a 71% chance to win, a 38% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Prado is coming off his first UFC win where he impressively scored 117 DraftKings points in a first round TKO win over a fraudulent Ottman Azaitar. That fight predictably ended early as Azaitar suffered his second straight first round knockout loss and still hasn’t been out of round one since 2017. Prior to that, Prado lost a unanimous 30-27 decision in his UFC debut against a taller opponent in amie Mullarkey, where Prado only scored 17 DraftKings points and struggled to find his range as the shorter fighter. That’s a bad sign for Prado in this matchup as he faces another tall, rangy opponent in Zellhuber and it’s hard to see Prado winning a decision in enemy territory or even scoring well if he does. Prado likes to look for takedowns, but has failed to land any of his five attempts in the UFC and is now facing the 94% takedown defense of Zellhuber, so this isn’t a good matchup for Prado to get his ground game going. That appears to leave him reliant on landing a hail mary knockout against an opponent who’s never been finished before. Prado’s recent scoring explosion will bump up his ownership some, despite this being a terrible matchup for him to succeed. That further lowers our interest in playing him and this looks like an easy fade spot. The odds imply Prado has a 29% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Yair Rodriguez
15th UFC Fight (10-3, NC)Rodriguez will be looking to bounce back from a third round ground and pound TKO loss against Alexander Volkanovski, who took Rodriguez down 7 times on 12 attempts with over seven minutes of control time. Prior to getting finished in that title fight, Rodriguez won the meaningless interim title against Josh Emmett, while Volkanovski took a trip up to 155 lb to fight Makhachev. Rodriguez was able to submit Emmett late in the second round, after nearly tripling him up in striking. Before that, Rodriguez notched a R1 TKO against Brian Ortega after Ortega injured his shoulder as Rodriguez tried to secure an armbar. That came after Rodriguez lost a high-volume five-round decision against Max Holloway, where Holloway finished ahead in significant strikes 230-159 and also took Rodriguez down three times and controlled him for nearly seven minutes. Due to a fractured ankle in 2020, Rodriguez took 25 months off leading up to that fight, after hanging on to win a three-round decision over Jeremy Stephens back in 2019. That matchup had originally been scheduled to go five rounds a month earlier as the main event on the last Mexico City card, but it was stopped 15 seconds in due to an accidental eye book and then rebooked. Rodriguez has only required the judges twice since 2016 and prior to his No Contest against Stephens Rodriguez famously landed a last second blind upward elbow knockout of the Korean Zombie in a 2018 main event. That followed a second round doctor stoppage TKO loss to Frankie Edgar and a second round TKO win over B.J. Penn. Rodriguez also has a second round knockout win over Andre Fili on his record and six of Rodriguez’s 14 UFC fights ended in KO/TKOs (4-2), one ended in a submission win, another ended in a No Contest, and six went the distance (5-1). The only decision Rodriguez has ever lost was against Max Holloway following a two year layoff.
Now 19-4 as a pro, Rodriguez has eight wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and six decision victories. Four of his last five finishes were by KO/TKO and he only has one submission win since 2014. He’s also been knocked out in three of his four losses, with his one other defeat coming in a 2021 five-round decision against Max Holloway, following a two year layoff for Rodriguez. Not counting his No Contest that was stopped 15 seconds into R1 due to an eye poke, 12 of Rodriguez’s 13 UFC fights have seen the second round, with eight seeing round three, and six going the distance. His lone first round “finish” came against Ortega due to an injury.
This will be the 9th five-round fight of Rodriguez’s UFC career, although one of those ended in a No Contest 15 seconds into the fight. In his first UFC five-round fight, he won a 2016 split decision over Alex Caceres. In his next, he knocked out BJ Penn in the second round of a 2017 match. His third UFC five-round fight ended in a last second R5 KO win over The Korean Zombie in 2018, just before his No Contest against Jeremy Stephens. His 5th UFC round-fight fight was his decision loss to Holloway, leading up to a R1 TKO win over Ortega, followed by a R2 submission win over Josh Emmett. Then most recently, he got finished by Alexander Volkanovski in a third round TKO. That leaves Rodriguez 5-2 plus a No Contest in UFC five-round fights, but has had a few breaks go his way to get there.
Overall, Rodriguez is a black belt in Taekwondo and likes to throw a ton of kicks and spinning attacks. He’s also shown how creative and dangerous he can be with his elbows or working off of his back. While he’s landed nine takedowns in the UFC, eight of those came in his first five fights with the organization and he’s only landed one takedown in his last nine matches. On the other side of things, he’s been taken down by his opponents 24 times on 59 attempts (59.3% defense). His last five opponents all got him down at least once. Rodriguez was understandably upset when his main event spot was ruined by an eye poke on the last Mexico City card and we expect him to be looking to put on a shot here to make up for that in front of his home crowd.
Brian Ortega
12th UFC Fight (7-3, NC)Ortega is 19 months and multiple surgeries removed from his July 2022 R1 TKO loss to Rodriguez and now hasn’t won a fight since October 2020. He’s just 1-3 in his last four fights and you have to go all the way back to 2018 to find his second most recent win. While things have been rough for Ortega lately, he went undefeated in his first 15 pro fights, including his first seven in the UFC. However, a first round win in his UFC debut was overturned to a No Contest when he tested positive for steroids and he fully admitted to taking them. However, he came back a year later and finished six straight opponents, before suffering his first career loss in a post R4 doctor stoppage against Max Holloway in 2018. Following the loss, Ortega switched camps but didn’t fight again for 22 months after suffering a partially torn ACL during training in November of 2019, before returning in late 2020 to win a high-volume decision over the Korean Zombie. That propelled Ortega into a coaching role on The Ultimate Fighter in 2021 that culminated with a title shot against Alexander Volkanovski later that year. Ortega came dangerously close to submitting Volkanovski, but couldn’t quite complete it and then Volkanovski came back and dominated him for the rest of the fight. That leads us back to Ortega’s loss to Rodriguez in his last fight and Ortega has only fought three times since 2018.
Now 15-3 as a pro, Ortega has three wins by KO/TKO, seven by submissions, and five decision victories. He has two TKO losses on his record and one decision defeat. While his last fight ended in the first round due to an injury, eight of Ortega’s previous nine fights made it to round two, with seven of those seeing round three, but only two going the distance. His last three fights all made it to the championship rounds, with two of those going the distance.
This will be the 8th five-round fight of Ortega’s career and 6th in the UFC. He had two five-round decision wins before joining the UFC. Then in 2017 he stepped into his first UFC five-round fight and submitted Cub Swanson in the second round with a guillotine choke. Two fights later he took on Max Holloway in another five-round fight and lost in a post R4 doctor stoppage TKO. After taking nearly two years off, he bounced back with a five-round decision win over The Korean Zombie, before losing a five-round decision to Volkanovski. Then most recently, he suffered a shoulder injury TKO in the first round of a main event against Yair Rodriguez back in July 2022. So overall, Ortega is 2-3 in UFC five-round fights and 4-3 in his career. Four of those seven fights went the distance (3-1), with another ending just before the final round started.
Overall, Ortega is a BJJ black belt and always a dangerous submission threat who mostly looks to lock in guillotines and triangle chokes. However, while he’s a dangerous submission threat, he’s only landed 9 of his 38 takedown attempts in 11 UFC fights (23.7% accuracy). On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 11 of their 25 attempts (56% defense). However, after only landing one takedown on seven attempts in his first seven UFC fights, he landed 8 on 31 attempts in his last four matches, getting all of those opponents down at least once. He’s also improved his striking in recent years and we’ve seen his striking volume increase as his UFC career has gone on. His biggest issue has simply been staying healthy, but he’s still only 32 years old. This looks like a defining fight for Ortega’s career and if he suffers his third straight loss, or another major injury, he may need to consider hanging it up.
Fight Prediction:
Rodriguez will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while being a year younger than the 32-year-old Ortega.
This is a rematch of a July 2022 main event that ended in an Ortega shoulder injury. That fight didn’t last long enough to take too much away from it, but Rodriguez seemed to be landing the more impactful strikes, which resulted in Ortega looking to grapple. That’s where Ortega suffered the shoulder injury as Rodriguez tried to set up an armbar on the mat. Since that fight, Rodriguez has competed two more times, where he won the interim belt over Josh Emmett before losing in his title shot against Alexander Volkanovski. Meanwhile, Ortega has been on the sidelines undergoing multiple surgeries and hasn’t competed since. That inactivity is concerning, especially when you consider all of the surgeries that Ortega has gone through and it’s hard to know what version of him we’ll see on Saturday. It’s rare to see guys coming off super long layoffs thrust straight into five-round fights and you have to wonder about Ortega’s conditioning after so long away. Rodriguez is the better striker, while Ortega has historically been the better grappler, although Rodriguez will throw up submissions on the mat. Neither guy is a great wrestler and Ortega has never had more than two and a half minutes of control time in a fight. However, he did have two minutes and 24 seconds of control time the last time these two fought, so maybe that will change in this next fight. However, if it doesn’t, look for Rodriguez to win this fight on the back of his striking. When you combine Ortega’s long layoff, multiple surgeries, and lack of control time in previous fights, with the fact that Rodriguez has never been submitted and will have the home crowd behind him, it’s hard to get behind Ortega in this spot. Rodriguez will also be trying to make his case for the next title shot, while attempting to make it up to the fans for the fight that never was on the last Mexico City card. While Ortega isn’t an easy guy to put away, we have seen him take multiple brutal beatings in the past and Rodriguez will have a decent shot at putting him away from an accumulation of damage. We also won’t be shocked if this hits the scorecards, but we’re taking Rodriguez either way and we like his chances of winning by knockout.
Our favorite bet here is “Yair Rodriguez ML” at -145.
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DFS Implications:
This is a rare five-round co-main event without a title on the line.
Rodriguez relies on striking volume and finishes to score well and he only completed one takedown in his last nine fights. He’s only averaged 89 DraftKings points in his 10 UFC wins, but that’s largely because he’s never scored well in a decision. He only averaged 72 DraftKings points in his four UFC three-round decision wins, failing to top 82 in any of those. He also scored just 85 points in a five-round decision win, showing that even with the additional rounds to work with he can still fail to score well in a decision. Working in his favor, four of his last five wins came early and he’s never scored below 100 points in a finish. We’ve also seen Ortega absorb obscene amounts of damage in the past and he averages 6.66 SSA/min. That’s encouraging for Rodriguez’s scoring potential even in a longer fight and Rodriguez should have the home crowd behind him, despite the fact that Ortega also comes from Mexican heritage. And with Ortega coming off a 19 month layoff and multiple surgeries, there are lots of reasons for optimism in Rodriguez’s chances of finishing him or scoring well in a decision for the first time in his career. At his reasonable price tag, Rodriguez doesn’t need to put up a massive score to end up in winning lineups and he looks like a solid play in all contest types. The odds imply Rodriguez has a 57% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Ortega comes into this rematch with a ton of red flags. He hasn’t fought in 19 months, hasn’t won since 2020, and has had multiple surgeries since we last saw him. He makes it sound like all of those surgeries are catching up with him and said he feels like he’s 60 in a recent interview. It sounds like he’s only fighting for the money at this point after going 1-3 in his last four, and despite only being 32 years old, he may not have a ton of time left in the sport based on all the wear and tear on his body. He tends to get hit far more than he lands, averaging 4.19 SSL/min and 6.66 SSA/min in his career. That often leaves him more reliant on his grappling to win fights, but he’s also never finished with more than two and a half minutes of control time in a UFC fight and only once landed more than two takedowns. We also expect the crowd to be behind Rodriguez, and when you add all of that up it’s harder to see Ortega winning a decision unless Rodriguez gasses out. So Ortega appears more reliant on landing a finish to pull off the upset and Rodriguez is a superior striker who’s never been submitted. That leaves no obvious path to victory for Ortega and he could come in with some ring rust to knock off. It’s also really tough to be thrown straight into a five round fight after 19 months away, especially at extreme elevation in Mexico City, and who knows if Ortega even has the gas tank to go five hard rounds in this spot. He’ll likely be overowned based on his name and cheap price tag, which lowers our enthusiasm of playing him. However, with five rounds to work and priced as the underdog, it will be tougher for Ortega to get left out of winning lineups if he does pull off the upset. The odds imply Ortega has a 43% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Brandon Moreno
16th UFC Fight (9-4-2)Moreno had been scheduled to face Amir Albazi here, but Albazi dropped out and Royval was announced as the replacement on January 11th.
The last time we saw Moreno he was losing the Flyweight belt to Alexandre Pantoja via a split decision. Pantoja was predictably able to out wrestle Moreno, as he landed six takedowns with eight and a half minutes of control time. Moreno was able to finish ahead in total strikes 167-161 and in significant strikes 147-129, but Pantoja clearly won at least three rounds and we only scored round two for Moreno. Two of the judges scored it 48-47 for Pantoja and the other should be investigated by the FBI for turning in a 49-46 Moreno scorecard. Prior to that, Moreno fought in the Seven Years' War against Deiveson Figueiredo, with a brief intermission to fight Kai Kara-France for the interim belt in 2022 when Figueiredo was hurt. Moreno finally put a close to the Figueiredo saga with a January 2023 R3 TKO win, following a decision loss, a R3 submission win, and a draw against the former champ. Moreno also finished Kara-France with a third round TKO and Moreno’s last three finishes all occurred in the third round of title fights. Out of Moreno’s last 13 fights, the only time he didn’t make it to a third round was in a 2020 R1 TKO win over Brandon Royval, who dislocated his shoulder in the closing seconds or round, forcing the fight to be stopped. Moreno originally joined the UFC in 2016 and won his first three fights with the organization, but then lost a pair of decisions to Sergio Pettis and Alexandre Pantoja and was subsequently released. However, after landing a R4 TKO win with the LFA in 2019, the UFC bought Moreno back after just one fight away. His first fight back just so happened to be on the last Mexico City card and Moreno fought to a majority draw against Askar Askarov. That was an oddly scored fight, as two of the three judges gave Askarov each of the first two rounds, while one judge scored every round for Moreno. The deciding factor was one judge generously awarding Moreno a 10-8 third round and the other scoring it 10-9. Askarov probably should have won the fight 29-28. Moreno also headlined the second most recent Mexico City card, when he lost a low-volume 2017 five-round decision to Sergio Pettis, despite taking Pettis down four times and controlling him for almost eight minutes.
Now 21-7-2 as a pro, Moreno has five wins by TKO, 11 submissions, and five decision victories. He’s never been finished in an official pro fight, with all seven of his pro losses going the distance. With that said, he was submitted in the second round on The Ultimate Fighter in 2016 by Alexandre Pantoja, but those TUF fights are counted as exhibition matches so it doesn’t show up on his official pro record. While 9 of his 15 UFC fights went the distance, his last four wins all came early, with the last three of those ending in round three. The last time he won a decision was in early 2020, in a three-round fight against Jussier Formiga. Moreno’s last three decisions were all in five-round title fights, with the first of those ending in a draw and then Moreno losing the last two.
This will be the 9th five-round fight of Moreno’s career, and 8th in the UFC. His first five-round fight was a 2017 decision loss to Sergio Pettis. Then he landed a 4th round TKO in a 2019 LFA fight after briefly being cut by the UFC. He then went 2-1-1 in his four five-round matches against Figueiredo, with two going the distance—a loss and a draw—and two ending in third round early wins. Moreno also landed a third round TKO against Kai Kara-France in an interim title fight, and most recently lost the belt in a decision to Pantoja. So Moreno is 3-3-1 in UFC five-round fights, but has yet to win a UFC five-round decision in any of his four trips to the judges (0-3-1).
Overall, Moreno is a well-rounded, durable fighter, with good cardio and tons of heart. He’s a BJJ black belt and his striking has improved throughout his UFC career. He’s still just 30 years old and seemingly still improving as he enters his prime. He’s coming off the highest volume fight of his career, where he landed 147 significant strikes in 25 minutes (5.88 SSL/min), but he still only averages 3.80 SSL/min and 3.40 SSA/min in his career. In his 15 UFC fights, Moreno landed 27 takedowns on 59 attempts (45.85% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 22 of their 63 attempts (65.1% defense). Moreno has been bouncing around between gyms in recent years and after spending most of his early career at Entram Gym, he then moved to Glory just before they got shut down, at which point he switched to Fortis. Then he had been training out in Vegas, but it looks like he actually finished this camp in Mexico at Brazilian Warriors (7,005 ft elevation) to prepare for the 7388 ft elevation of Mexico City.
Brandon Royval
9th UFC Fight (5-3)Royval is just 10 weeks removed from a 50-45 decision loss to Pantoja for the Flyweight belt. Pantoja dominated the fight on the mat, taking Royval down on 8 of his 14 attempts and finishing with close to 16 minutes of control time. While Royval’s defensive wrestling looked terrible in the fight, he showed off his endless gas tank and heart as he was still pushing hard for a finish in round five. Royval also never stopped squirming and throwing up strikes off his back and actually finished ahead in significant strikes 111-95 and in total strikes 281-126. Prior to that loss, Royval had won three straight fights following a 2020 R1 TKO loss to Brandon Moreno and a 2021 R2 submission defeat to Alexandre Pantoja. Royval narrowly avoided extending that losing streak to three in a 2022 split-decision win over Rogerio Bontorin, who took Royval down eight times and controlled him for nearly eight minutes. Royval then submitted Matt Schnell in just 134 seconds, before knocking out Matheus Nicolau in just 129 seconds. Royval also submitted Tim Elliott and Kai Kara-France in his first two UFC fights and four of his five UFC wins ended in under nine minutes, with his last two victories taking less than half a round.
Now 15-7 as a pro, Royval has four wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and two decision victories. All 13 of Royval’s finishes have come in the first two rounds, with 10 ending in round one and three in round two. While his last finish ended via knockout, his previous five early wins all ended in submissions. Royval has one TKO loss, one submission defeat, and five decision losses. His lone TKO loss resulted from a dislocated shoulder against Brandon Moreno, while his one submission defeat came against Alexandre Pantoja. Royval is just 2-5 in fights that made it past the second round, with one of those wins being a 2018 three-round decision over Charles Johnson in the LFA and the other a 2022 three-round split-decision over Rogerio Bontorin. Royval fought at 135 lb until 2016 when he dropped down to 125 lb. Standing 5’9”, he’s tall for the division and generally has the height advantage in his fights.
This will be the 4th five-round fight of Royval’s career, but just his second in the UFC. The first time he was scheduled to go five rounds was in a 2018 interim LFA Flyweight title fight, where Royval lost a decision to Casey Kenney. The belt was vacated when Kenney joined the UFC in 2019, and Royval competed for it again, this time against a journeyman in 29-18 Nate Williams, who Royval submitted in the first round. In his lone UFC five-round fight, Royval lost a 50-45 decision to Pantoja. So he’s 1-2 in five-round fights, with both of those losses ending in decisions.
Overall, Royval is an ultra fast-paced brawler/grappler who’s a BJJ black belt and operates at an insane pace that most opponents can’t keep up with. He’s basically all offense and his defensive wrestling is terrible, as is his striking defense, where he often leaves his hands low. He has no problem hunting for submissions off his back or from unconventional positions and in his eight UFC fights, he surprisingly only attempted three takedowns landing two of those. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down 25 times on 42 attempts (40.5% defense). Despite being known for his submission skills, Royval trains at Factory X Muay Thai, a gym more known for their striking and leg kicks. If Royval ever wants to take the next step in the UFC, he’ll need to make major improvements to his wrestling. He would likely benefit from a change in scenery to get out of his comfort zone, perhaps by going to a place like ATT, but we’d be surprised if ever left his home state of Colorado. However, training at elevation in Colorado is a benefit for a guy that likes to push the pace as much as Royval does, and should help him to deal with the even higher elevation in Mexico City.
Fight Prediction:
Royval will have a 2” height advantage, but Moreno will have a 2” reach advantage. Moreno is actually a year younger than the 31-year-old Royval. Moreno continues to be the king of continuity and this will amazingly be his sixth straight rematch. He famously fought Deiveson Figueiredo four times, with two close decisions (0-1-1), and two early wins in the third round. He also beat Kai Kara-France twice, with a decision and then a third round finish, and lost two decisions to Alexandre Pantoja. Now he’ll get the chance to finish what he started against Royval in 2020, before that fight was abruptly stopped due to injury. Leading up to that stoppage, Moreno dominated on the mat in the first round, landing both of his takedown attempts and controlling Royval for three of the five minutes. Moreno has shown more improvements than Royval since they first fought and we expect him to be able to out wrestle Royval once again if that’s the direction he chooses to go. Royval got dominated on the mat just 10 weeks ago and said he went out and enjoyed the holidays after that loss, so we don’t expect him to have made any major improvements over that short time. Royval relies on finishing opponents to win fights and Moreno just looks too durable and too well rounded for that to happen here. While Royval’s endless gas tank is theoretically useful in a five-round fight at elevation, Moreno fought on the last two Mexico City cards, going the distance in both of those fights, with one of those being a five-round main event. So he should know exactly what to expect in his home country of Mexico and he has been preparing at elevation nearby to acclimate. Moreno didn’t win either of those last two fights in front of his home crowd (0-1-1), but we expect him to be hungry for a win here to make his case for the next title shot. The only question we have is whether Moreno can finish Royval or if he wins a decision.
Moreno’s last four wins all ended early, with the last three of those coming in round three. He’s gone just 0-3-1 in five-round decisions, although Royval is 0-2 in five-round decisions himself. Royval is a tough guy to finish and outside of the freak shoulder injury he suffered against Moreno the first time they fought, the only time he’s been put away was in a submission against the current champ. And even Pantoja couldn’t finish Royval the second time they fought. While Moreno has shown a knack for landing third round finishes, we still think a decision win is more likely for him and that will be our official pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Moreno/Royval FGTD” at +115.
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DFS Implications:
Moreno is coming off a five-round decision loss to Pantoja where he still scored 95 DraftKings points despite not getting his hand raised. His last three wins all ended in third round finishes, which were good for 99, 80, and 97 DraftKings points. He failed to land any takedowns in that lower 80 point score, while landing multiple in each of the other two wins. Moreno averages just 3.80 SSL/min and only one of his last 13 fights ended before round three, which has made it tougher for him to put up big scores in the past. The only time he hit the century mark on DraftKings in his last 12 fights was in a freak injury R1 TKO against Royval the first time they squared off. However, Moreno would have scored 110 DraftKings points the first time he fought Figueiredo if the decision had gone his way and would have scored 125 points against Pantoja had he gotten his hand raised there. Now he’s going against the terrible 40% takedown defense of Royval, who also tends to push the pace in fights, and this looks like one of the best matchups Moreno could ask for when it comes to scoring well. The potential for Moreno to dominate the wrestling exchanges adds to his DraftKings appeal, but you never know what his game plan will be and maybe he’ll look to put on a show in front of his home crowd and strike more. Either way, he’ll have a good shot at filling up the stat sheet and whether he lands another mid-round finish or wins a decision, we’re much more bullish than normal on his upside in this matchup. However, his history of average scoring wins still makes it hard to completely trust him to return value at his higher salary. At the same time, his middling scoring history could keep his ownership lower than your typical main event favorite and Moreno was just 26% owned on DraftKings as the favorite against Pantoja and only 35% owned as the favorite against Kai Kara-France. That adds to Moreno’s tournament appeal if that trend continues and this is a much more favorable spot for him to score well. The odds imply Moreno has a 72% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Royval has averaged 93 DraftKings points in his five UFC wins, although that number is dragged down by a 62 point performance in his lone UFC decision victory. In his other four wins, which all ended in the first two rounds, Royval averaged 101 DraftKings points. While he’s shown solid finishing upside, he’s only landed two takedowns in eight UFC fights and only one in his last seven matches, while also owning just a 40% takedown defense. While he’s a great grappler, he’s a terrible wrestler and that’s where he struggles the most in these matchups at the top of the division. Royal has been taken down multiple times in five of his eight UFC fights and was amazingly taken down eight times in each of his last two decisions. It’s hard to win fights off your back and his striking defense is also pretty terrible. He lost every round of his last fight on the mat and we’ve already seen Moreno out wrestle him once, even if that fight was over three years ago and only lasted five minutes. That makes it tougher to see Royval winning a decision here, especially as he travels into enemy territory, and he’s 0-2 in his previous two five-round decisions. So he probably needs a finish to win and Moreno is insanely durable, while also being a BJJ black belt. Moreno has never been finished in an official pro fight, although he was submitted on TUF by Pantoja back in 2016. However, if Royval does pull off the upset, it’s hard to see him getting left out of winning lineups at his cheap price tag. And it’s worth pointing out that he still managed to score 90 points in his recent five-round decision loss. So if we get another slate like last week where only one underdog wins, Royval could sneak into the winning lineup even in a loss. That’s always an unlikely outcome, but does at least leave him with an additional out. The odds imply Royval has a 28% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
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Yazmin Jauregui OVER 87.5 Pts
