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Fighter Notes:
Fight #13
Maheshate
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Coming off two straight losses, Maheshate recently got knocked out for the first time in his career by a world class kickboxer in Viacheslav Borshchev, who amazingly landed three knockdowns in the fight before finishing things midway through round two. Borshchev outlanded Maheshate 85-32 as he put on a striking clinic in a must win spot to save his job. Prior to that, Maheshate suffered his first UFC loss in a unanimous 30-27 decision against Rafa Garcia, who took Maheshate down six times and controlled him for six minutes. While the fight stayed on the feet in round one, Garcia dominated Maheshate on the mat in the later rounds and exposed his non-existent ground game after getting the side of his head badly split open early in round two. Leading up to that loss, Maheshate had won seven straight, with his most recent win ending in a 74 second R1 knockout in his 2022 UFC debut against Steve Garcia. Maheshate originally punched his ticket to the UFC just before that, with a decision win on DWCS in late 2021. He’s alternated decisions and knockouts for his last seven fights and will now be fighting for his job as he sits on a 1-2 UFC record.
Now 9-3 as a pro, Maheshate has four wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and four decision victories. All four of his knockouts occurred in the first two rounds, with two ending in the opening 74 seconds of round one and two coming in the opening 69 seconds of round two. His lone submission win came in the second round of his second pro fight back in 2019. He’s been knocked out once and has two decision losses. Ten of his 12 pro fights have seen the second round, with six going the distance. Prior to joining the UFC, he hadn’t faced much in terms of competition, as none of his opponents before going on DWCS had winning records. Maheshate fought at 170 lb just before going on DWCS, but the rest of his career has been spent at 155 lb. However, he missed weight by 2.5 lb for his second most recent fight, and a move up to 170 lb for the 24-year-old 6’0” fighter is always possible if he continues to struggle to make 155 lb.
Overall, Maheshate looks to be a pure striker who started out boxing as a young teenager. He claims to have briefly wrestled as well, before transitioning to MMA when he was 17, but he hasn’t shown us any sort of ground game. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he failed to land either of his two takedown attempts, while his opponents got him down on 6 of their 11 attempts (45.5% defense). He’s a fairly patient striker who only averages 2.91 SSL/min but he has shown decent power. Another loss here would likely result in Maheshate being cut, so he’ll need to secure a victory at all costs. After missing weight by 2.5 lb for his second most recent fight, he’ll be a guy to monitor closely on the scale.
Gabriel Benitez
15th UFC Fight (7-7)Fresh off a third round submission loss to Jim Miller, Benitez is just 2-5 in his last seven fights, with those two wins coming against terrible opponents in Charlie Ontiveros and Justin Jaynes. He’s been finished in his last three and four of his last five losses. While the striking totals were even in his last fight, Miller won every round leading up to the late finish. Prior to that loss, Benitez hadn’t fought in a year and a half after knocking out a fragile Charlie Ontiveros in the first round of a 2022 match. Benitez moved back up to 155 lb for that fight, after missing weight by 2 lb for his previous one. He fought at 155 lb earlier in his career, but dropped down to 145 lb in 2014, one fight before going on The Ultimate Fighter Latin America Season 1. Despite losing his second fight on the show, the UFC still awarded him a contract and he fought his first eight UFC fights at 145 lb (5-3), never missing weight over that stretch. He then moved up to 155 lb in 2020 and lost a decision to Omar Morales, before bouncing back with a first round KO win over a suspect Justin Jaynes, who has also spent time down at 145 lb. Following that win, Benitez attempted to drop back down to 145 lb, but missed weight and Jonathan Pearce refused to continue with the match. Benitez then was able to make the 146 lb limit against Billy Quarantillo, but got dominated on the mat and finished in the third round. Staying at 145 lb, he then missed weight again in his next fight in a R1 KO loss to David Onama, before returning to 155 lb.
Now 23-11 as a pro, Benitez has nine wins by KO/TKO, 10 submissions, and four decisions. He’s been knocked out four times, submitted three more, and has four decision losses. Seventeen of his 34 career fights ended in the first round (12-5).
Overall, Benitez is an exciting brawler, but has been struggling to make 145 lb later in his career and is a little undersized at 155 lb. His only two UFC wins at 155 lb came against another undersized fighter in Justin Jaynes, who’s no longer in the UFC after going 1-4 with the organization, and Charlie Ontiveros, who was finished in all three of his UFC fights. As you’ll hear from the broadcast every time Benitez fights, he throws powerful kicks, but is also dangerous with his hands. His biggest issue lately has been his durability, as he’s been knocked out in three of his last five losses. Simply looking at Benitez’s record, it would be easy to mistake him as a grappler, with so many submission wins to his name. However, he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2016 and three of his last four submissions were by guillotine choke, with the other ending in a heel hook. So he’s really only using submission attempts defensively and he’s only landed one takedown in 14 UFC fights on just three attempts. He’ll be 36 soon and it seems like his best days are well behind him.
Fight Prediction:
Maheshate will have a 4” height advantage and is 11 years younger than the 35-year-old Benitez.
Both of these two have been struggling lately, but this looks like a get-right spot for Maheshate. He was simply outclassed on the feet in his last fight and had his non-existent ground game exposed before that. Now he’s facing a fellow striking in Benitez, who found success earlier in his UFC career at 145 lb, but has only shown the ability to beat the lowest level of opponents at 155 lb. While Benitez is a smaller Lightweight, Maheshate is massive for the division and the size difference will be noticeable. Benitez does throw good leg kicks and that’s a potential path to victory for him, but that will also require him not getting knocked out before he can accrue enough damage for it to matter. Three of Benitez’s four knockout losses came in the first round and Maheshate will have a good shot at ending things quickly in a must-win spot as he tries to save his job. Give us Maheshate to win by knockout in under a round and a half.
Our favorite bet here is “Maheshate R1 or R2 KO” at +165.
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DFS Implications:
Maheshate is a pure striker who relies on landing knockouts to score well. He’s never landed a takedown in the UFC or on DWCS and also failed to top 49 significant strikes landed in any of those fights. He only scored 11 DraftKings points in his one UFC decision loss and his decision win on DWCS only would have been good for 52 points. So he’s given us zero indication that he can score even remotely well without a knockout. However, he does have solid power in his striking and now he gets a favorable matchup against an undersized 155 lb opponent who’s gone 2-5 in his last seven fights, with four of those losses ending early. And after losing two straight fights, Maheshate should fly mostly under the radar here at his expensive price tag. That makes him a solid tournament pivot off of the higher owned expensive options and we like his chances of landing the knockout he needs to score well. The odds imply Maheshate has a 66% chance to win, a 44% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.
Benitez averaged 92 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, but most of his UFC success was down at 145 lb. He only has two UFC wins at 155 lb and those were against two of the worst fighters (formerly) on the roster in Charlie Ontiveros and Justin Jaynes. Benitez lost his other five most recent fights and he definitely appears to be on a steep decline as he approaches his 36th birthday. While he does throw solid leg kicks, he’s been very prone to getting finished, with four of his last five losses ending early. That leaves him with a non-existent floor as he takes on a much larger opponent here. Benitez also only scored 68 and 63 DraftKings points respectively in his two UFC decision wins and even at his cheap price tag he likely needs a finish here to be useful. He’s only landed one takedown in 14 UFC fights on just three attempts and the only grappling he offers is looking for an occasional guillotine when opponents try to take him down. He looks like nothing more than a hail mary KO or bust play and any fight could be his last at this point. The odds imply Benitez has a 34% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
Ivana Petrovic
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Petrovic is nine months removed from her first career loss, which ended in a decision in her UFC debut against Luana Carolina. Petrovic was only able to land two of her six takedown attempts in the fight, while getting taken down once herself. She finished behind in significant strikes 41-22 in the low volume affair and was completely unimpressive. Prior to making her debut, Petrovic has been competing under the Ares FC banner in France, where she won the vacant Flyweight belt and then defended it once with a pair of late round submissions in the third and fourth rounds. Her last four fights all made it to round three, after her first three pro fights all ended in under 10 minutes.
Now 6-1 as a pro, Petrovic has three KO/TKO wins, two submissions, and one split decision victory. Her three knockout victories all occurred in her first three pro fights, with two of those opponents fighting for the first and only time as a pro.
Overall, Petrovic is primarily a grappler, although she’s only a BJJ purple belt and claims to have been working on her striking. Her striking defense is probably her biggest weakness and she got dropped multiple times in her last few fights on the regional scene. She will let her hands go at times, but doesn't appear to throw with a ton of power and is typically just looking to work her way into the clinch. She only turned pro in 2021 and is still pretty green, but should be continuing to improve at this stage in her career. She’s been traveling around to different gyms to train, which is generally a good sign, but she still needs to show she belongs in the UFC.
Liang Na
4th UFC Fight (0-3)Getting one last shot to save her job, Na has been finished in the first two rounds in all three of her UFC fights. After competing at 115 lb for the first two of those fights, she moved back up to 125 lb for her last match and faced a decision machine in JJ Aldrich, who had gone 13 fights since her last finish. While Aldrich came into that matchup with a pretty solid 70% takedown defense, Na was able to get her down three times and actually won the first round. However, per usual, Na began to slow down in the second round and Aldrich was eventually able to work her way to top position and pound Na out on the mat with just 11 seconds remaining in the round. That’s still the third longest fight of Na’s 26-fight pro career and only once has she seen the third round. Prior to that, Na got knocked out just 82 seconds into the first round by Silvana Gomez Juarez. That came after Na made her UFC debut in April 2021 and completely gassed out going for a finish in the first round and then got finished herself early in round two with ground and pound from Ariane Carnelossi. Na’s last two fights were both in Singapore, after her debut was in Jacksonville, so all of her UFC fights have been in front of big crowds up until now. Na’s last 13 fights have all ended in the first two rounds, and she lost the last five that have made it past round one. Her only win to come beyond the first round was in an early R2 2016 submission of former UFC fighter Liana Jojua. Prior to joining the UFC, Na had finished five straight opponents in the first round.
Now 19-7 as a pro, Na has seven wins by KO/TKO, 10 submissions, and two DQ victories. Her last five and six of her 10 submission wins have come by R1 armbar, while she also had four rear-naked choke victories earlier in her career. Six of her seven losses also came early, with three knockouts and two submissions. Four of those six early losses occurred in round two, while the other two ended in round one. Only three of her 26 pro fights have made it past the midway mark of round two, two of which ended in late second round submission losses and the other being her lone trip to the judges, which she lost back in 2017. She’s competed anywhere from 115 lb to 135 lb, but most of her career was spent at 125 lb.
Overall, Na is a relentless grappler with a terrible gas tank. She fights like she’s double parked, but did show slightly better cardio in her last fight compared to her UFC debut where she had to be peeled off the mat after round one. In her three UFC fights, she landed 6 of her 10 takedown attempts (60% accuracy), while no one has tried to take her down. She’s a somewhat capable striker as well and will mix in flurries of strikes with her takedowns attempts. Perhaps the cut down to 115 lb was contributing to her terrible cardio and durability, and maybe she’ll show improvements here after having a fight under her belt back up at 125 lb.
Fight Prediction:
Petrovic is listed as having a 3” height and reach advantage, but Na looks taller than they list her.
Each of these two are still in search of their first UFC win and neither of them has done much to impress us. Na is arguably better everywhere except for cardio and she continues to turn into a pumpkin in round two. However, cardio is one of the most important attributes a fighter can have and once that’s gone nothing else matters. This appears to come down to whether or not Na can finish Petrovic in the opening 5-7 minutes before she gasses out once again. However, sometimes we see 0-3 fighters execute head scratching game plans as they know they’re on the brink of being cut. While we don’t expect Na to suddenly reinvent herself, it’s also not impossible that she tries to pace herself more in a desperate attempt at self preservation. We saw her dial things back some in her last fight, and instead of gassing out after five minutes, she made it all the way to the nine minute mark. It will definitely be interesting to see what her game plan is here. Normally she’s constantly pushing the grappling, but she may have a rare striking advantage in this matchup and keeping the fight standing would also help to preserve her cardio. However, she definitely can’t be trusted to make rational decisions and will probably go for a flying helicopter armbar right out of the gate. Ultimately, this is a low-level women’s MMA fight and nothing would really surprise us. Petrovic shouldn’t be a -500 favorite against anybody and Na is at least dangerous enough to warrant a dog shot at crazy odds. We’ve seen Petrovic get dropped multiple times on the regional scene and Na is the quicker fighter. She’ll have a good shot at catching her with something early while she’s still fresh and if she can show improved cardio then she can also win a longer fight. We’ll go out on a limb and say Na pulls off the huge upset and saves her job with a first round finish here.
Our favorite bet here is “Liang Na ML” at +360.
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DFS Implications:
Petrovic is coming off a pathetic performance in her UFC debut where she lost a decision to a one-dimensional striker in Luana Carolina. Even if the decision had gone her way, Petrovic still only would have scored 72 DraftKings points and now she checks in as the second most expensive fighter on the card. That will be enough to keep most of the field off her, despite getting a much more fantasy friendly match up here. Na has been finished in the first two rounds in all three of her UFC fights and has serious cardio concerns. That creates a ton of scoring potential for anyone that faces her, but Na also has a 100% finishing rate in her 19 career wins, at least if we include her two DQ wins. That leaves a wide range of scoring outcomes for Petrovic, who is far from trustworthy. So she only makes sense in tournaments, but her low ownership is appealing on a slate where we’re looking extra hard for ways to get unique, due to James Llontop being massively underpriced. While Petrovic doesn’t look like a good fighter, she is in a good spot and oftentimes that’s what’s more important anyways. She’s generally looking to grapple, and if she can land a handful of takedowns and then finish Na late in round two, she could be looking at a solid score. Whoever wins this fight should score well and we don’t expect either of them to be especially highly owned. The odds imply Petrovic has a 79% chance to win, a 56% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.
Na has been finished in under 10 minutes in all three of her UFC fights and even a decision machine like JJ Aldrich was able to put her away. That just shows that we need to be targeting her fights every time she steps inside the Octagon, regardless of who she’s facing. This should be Na’s final opportunity to save her job and she’s getting a step down in competition against an opponent who’s also still looking for her first UFC win. Petrovic has looked pretty hittable and got dropped multiple times on the regional scene, in addition to getting taken down and controlled by a striker in Luana Carolina in her last fight. That’s all encouraging for Na’s upside here, but the elephant in the room will always be her cardio. However, she paced herself a little better in her last fight after moving back up from 115 lb to 125 lb, so maybe that progress can continue here as she’s had more time to adjust to the higher weight class. She’s still really wild and sloppy, but she’s dangerous enough that she has a shot at finding a finish and we haven’t been at all impressed by what we’ve seen from Petrovic. Na was only 15% owned on DraftKings in her last fight and it appears the field has given up on her. That leaves her as a low-owned, high-upside underdog play, which is about all you can ask for in tournaments. Just keep in mind, there’s still a really good chance she gasses out and gets finished in round two once again. The odds imply Na has a 21% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
James Llontop
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Llontop was originally scheduled to face Lando Vannata here. Then Vannata dropped out and Gabe Green stepped in. However, then Green dropped out and Padilla was announced as the replacement on Monday.
Making his UFC debut following a decision win on DWCS, Llontop comes into the organization on a 12 fight winning streak. He faced Malik Lewis on DWCS, who was making his second appearance on the show after getting knocked out by Trevor Peek in the second round a year earlier. Llontop had Lewis pretty hurt at a couple points, but couldn’t quite get him out of there. Nevertheless, he won every round of the fight and two of the judges even scored it 30-26. Prior to that, Llontop had spent most of his career on the Peruvian regional scene, where he won the Fusion FC 170 lb belt and defended it once before dropping down to 155 lb for his DWCS match. Ten of his last 11 fights made it out of the first round, with eight of those seeing round three, and six going the distance.
Now 14-2 as a pro, Llontop has seven KO/TKO wins, one submission, and six decision victories. His lone submission win came in the second round of his second pro fight back in 2018 and his last six finishes all ended in KO/TKOs. Four of his last five finishes came in the later rounds, with two of his last three occurring in round three. Llontop has competed at both 155 lb and 170 lb, but it appears 155 lb will be his home in the UFC.
Overall, Llontop is the latest Peruvian fighter to join the UFC roster. He loves working out of the clinch, where he does a good job of beating up his opponents and mixing in takedowns. He looks strong in those positions and racks up a good number of total strikes, but not nearly as many significant strikes. While his takedown defense hasn’t been exceptional, he’s done a good job of returning to his feet when he has been taken down. He’s only a BJJ blue belt and rarely looks for submissions on the mat, preferring to rain down ground and pound instead.
UPDATE: Llontop missed weight by 0.5 lb!
Chris Padilla
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Padilla was only officially announced as the replacement on Monday, although he likely found out about the opportunity a few days before that. He’s coming off a second round ground and pound TKO win over former UFC fighter Justin Jaynes, who has actively been disputing the results, claiming that Padilla landed multiple illegal elbows to the back of his head. That came with the relatively unknown Up Next Fighting organization, although Padilla has been a pro for a decade and has also competed in more well known organizations. He had a fight with CES in 2018, where he got submitted in the second round. He also had one fight with Bellator just before that in 2018 where he got submitted in the first round by Gabe Green, who’s spot he’s coincidentally filling on Saturday. Padilla also had a fight with KOTC in 2016, where he lost a decision to former UFC fighter Christian Aguilera, just before winning a split decision in Brave CF. And just before facing Aguilera, Padilla got knocked out in the RFA by Jason Gonzalez, who was then signed by the UFC after that fight, where he went 1-3. So Padilla hasn’t found a ton of success when fighting in more legitimate promotions, but at least he’s taken on a few opponents with UFC experience. He’s only 4-4 in his last eight fights, with six of those matches ending early (4-2) and two going the distance (0-2).
Now 13-6 as a pro, Padilla has seven wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and two decision victories. He’s also been knocked out once (R2 2016), submitted twice, and has three decision losses. Padilla has competed at both 155 lb and 170 lb, but most of his career has been at 155 lb.
Overall, Padilla comes into every fight looking to take opponents down and finish them on the mat. He throws good slicing elbows and will also fish for submissions, although he only has one submission win since 2015. He’s only 5’9”, so he’s not very big for the division and it wouldn’t be that surprising if he tried to cut down to 145 lb at some point. He looked vulnerable to leg kicks in his fight against Jaynes, which is something he needs to work on. However, he trains at a small gym in California and doesn’t appear to have many high-level training partners, which is somewhat concerning for his growth as a fighter. With so little time to prepare for this match, he’ll definitely be a guy to monitor on the scale.
Fight Prediction:
Llontop will have a 3” height advantage, but Padilla will have a 1” reach advantage. Llontop is four years younger than the 28-year-old Padilla.
Padilla is kind of a wildcard, as a lot of his recent tape is hard to find and he’s been pretty inconsistent. However, his aggressive wrestling-heavy approach does make him somewhat dangerous and you don’t want to let him get rolling downhill. While he has been somewhat prone to getting submitted, Llontop hasn’t looked like any sort of submission threat and is only a BJJ blue belt. We expect to see more ground and pound than submission attempts when this fight hits the mat and there should be a lot of time spent either in the clinch or on the ground. Llontop is the bigger fighter and has shown the ability to control opponents even up at 170 lb, so Padilla may have a tougher time bullying him the way he has some of his past opponents. Llontop does a good job of wearing down the opposition in the clinch and then looking for TKO finishes late in fights, so it will be interesting to see how Padilla’s cardio holds up given how little time he had to prepare. However, Padilla was getting ready to fight a month from now, so he should have already been in decent shape. We’d be interested to see how Padilla looks down at 145 lb with a full camp to prepare, but we think Llontop will be too big for him and either outwork his way to a decision or finish Padilla late.
Our favorite bet here is “James Llontop R2 or R3 KO” at +320.
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DFS Implications:
DraftKings was bored with the week off and decided to release pricing eight days before this event, the same day that Gabe Green dropped out of the fight. Unfortunately they weren’t paying attention to Green’s social media and priced Llontop at $8,200, as he was basically a pick’em against Green. After the opponent change, Llontop’s odds shot up to -350 (and keep going up) and if pricing were released today he would come in at $9,300, leaving him $1,100 underpriced. Llontop loves to operate out of the clinch and rack up control time and clinch strikes, which makes him a much better play on DraftKings than FanDuel. When you combine that with his mispricing and the fact that he’s facing a much shorter opponent who stepped in on short notice, you have to lock Llontop into low-risk lineups. The bigger question is what to do with him in tournaments. His recent decision win on DWCS would have been good for 112 DraftKings points and 88 points on FanDuel, but he did land two knockdowns in that fight. If you take those away his scores wouldn’t be nearly as impressive. However, that still shows a solid scoring floor and four of his previous five wins ended in knockouts. Padilla has been put away early in three of his six career losses and now only had a week to prepare, so it looks like a favorable spot for Llontop to score well. That makes it very risky to try and gain leverage on the field by being underweight on Llontop, but it will also be harder to create unique lineups that include him. There is some hope that Padilla can find enough wrestling success to at least limit the scoring of Llontop, even if he can’t pull off the upset. Or if we get a really high scoring slate and Llontop wins an uneventful decision, then we could also see him get left out of the optimal lineup. Either way, you’ll want to be very conscientious of how you build lineups this week due to Llontop’s mispricing and high projected ownership. The odds imply Llontop has a 78% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 28% chance it comes in round one.
Padilla’s aggressive, wrestling-heavy style looks great for DFS, however, the circumstances surrounding his debut here are far from ideal. He’s stepping in on a week’s notice to face a much larger opponent, which has historically been a tough spot to succeed. Llontop is 3” taller than Padilla and was fighting at 170 lb just before going on DWCS. And while Llontop hasn’t shown the best takedown defense, he looks strong out of the clinch and has done a good job of returning to his feet when he has been taken down. Padilla is very reliant on getting fights to the ground and hasn’t looked nearly as dangerous on the feet, so he’ll likely be in real trouble if he can’t get his wrestling going. However, if can find wrestling success, he’ll have a ton of scoring potential and will be a massive leverage play against the underpriced Llontop, who will be incredibly popular. So if you like the idea of winning a bunch of money and also don’t mind setting some on fire, then you have to have some level of exposure to Padilla in tournaments. The most likely outcome is still that Llontop dominates Padilla, but we did go through a stretch in 2023 where short notice debuting underdogs far exceeded expectations, going 8-6 over a 14-fight period. However that’s cooled off since then and the last 14 underdogs since then who were stepping into their respective debuts on less than two weeks’ notice all lost. The odds imply Padilla has a 22% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Ketlen Souza
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Souza is 10 months removed from a quick submission loss in her UFC debut against a dangerous Karine Silva, who appeared to destroy Souza’s knee in an immediate kneebar. However, despite rampant speculation, we’ve seen no evidence to suggest that Souza required surgery and she was posting training pictures very soon after. So it’s hard to know the lasting damage, but that’s not the first time that Souza appeared to injure her left knee. She suffered a bizarre 2020 R1 TKO loss after getting kicked in the same knee, which was actually the last time Souza competed at 115 lb. That was her second straight KO/TKO loss at the time, after she was finished from a third round body shot against Ariane Carnelossi just before that. She then moved up to 125 lb for the first time in 2021 and rattled off five straight wins, with the last three of those going the distance, including two five-round decisions for the vacant SFT and Invicta Flyweight belts. Her last two fights were both with Invicta, who has open scoring, and Souza seemed to coast a little down the stretch in those fights, knowing she was ahead and just needed to survive. The last time Sozua finished anybody was in May 2021, when she knocked out an opponent who came in with an 0-0-1 record and never fought again. Just two weeks prior to that she landed another second round knockout, that time against a 1-0 opponent. After 12 of Souza’s first 13 pro fights ended early, three of her last four have gone the distance.
Now 13-4 as a pro, Souza has eight wins by KO/TKO, one submission (R2 2018), and four decision victories. After the first four finishes of her career ended in the first round, her last five came in the later rounds, with four in round two and one in round five. All four of her career losses came early with two submissions and two KO/TKOs. Three of those four losses ended in the opening two minutes of the first round. One thing to keep in mind with Souza’s record is that she faced a lot of suspect competition and when she has gone up against tougher opponents she’s generally been finished. Souza has fought anywhere from 115 lb to 135 lb. Her last six fights were all at 125/135 lb, but she would consistently show up underweight in those fights and she’s now cutting back down to 115 lb.
Overall, Souza is primarily a striker but will occasionally look for takedowns. Her defensive wrestling and grappling hasn’t been great and her last two opponents were each able to take her down, but she will look for submissions off her back and appears to have been awarded her BJJ black belt leading up to her UFC debut. She likes to throw a lot of kicks and big looping bombs and hasn’t been a super high-volume striker, looking more for big impactful shots. She’s shown good cardio, with two of her last three wins coming in five-round decisions. She still needs to prove she belongs in the UFC and she hasn’t been overly impressive to this point, but she gets a great bounce back matchup here against a very low-level opponent. It will be important to monitor her on the scale as she moves down a weight class.
Marnic Mann
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Mann will be looking to bounce back from a completely lopsided decision loss in her short notice UFC debut against Josefine Knutsson, who was also making her debut. Knutsson outlanded Mann 81-8 in significant strikes and 147-39 in total strikes, while also taking her down three times and controlling her for almost 11 minutes and stuffing both of Mann’s attempts. One judge scored it 30-24 and another had it 30-25. Prior to that loss, Mann won a decision in the LFA against an opponent who hadn’t fought in four years after going 1-5 in her previous six fights, and now hasn’t fought since. Despite that, Mann still got dominated in the first round before her opponent gassed out and lost the later rounds. Just before that, Mann got knocked out in the second round by Bruna Brasil on DWCS with a nasty head kick, in a fight where Mann once again lost the first round. Looking back one fight further, Mann squeaked out a split decision against a 35-year-old fighter who came in with a 1-1 record and dominated Mann at times in the fight.
Now 6-2 as a pro, Mann has three wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and two decision victories. All four of her finishes came in her first four pro fights against low-level opponents and her last two wins both went the distance—also against low-level opponents. The only two times she faced any legitimate competition were in her two losses, and she got dominated in both of those matches.
Overall, Mann is an extremely low-level fighter coming off the unknown Montana regional scene. She’s just five feet tall and relies on her wrestling to win fights. She loves looking for head and arm throws, which may work on the regional scene, but is typically far less successful at the UFC level. Between her DWCS match and her UFC debut, Mann landed 3 of her 10 takedown attempts (30% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on five of their six attempts (16.7% defense). Across those two fights, she was outlanded 121-27 in significant strikes and has given us no indication that she belongs in the UFC. It would be surprising if she ever won a UFC fight and is a candidate to be cut before she even finishes her initial contract.
Fight Prediction:
Souza will have a 3” height advantage, but Mann will have a 1” reach advantage. Souza is three years younger than the 31-year-old Mann.
Mann may be the worst female fighter in the UFC fight now and Souza couldn’t have asked for a better matchup. While Souza has been somewhat prone to being taken down and controlled, she should be able to overpower Mann as the larger fighter. Mann is extremely hittable and Souza throws with bad intentions, so there’s a good chance that Souza can get her out of there with one of her overhand bombs or spinning kicks. It is slightly concerning that we’ve seen Souza coast down the stretch at times when she knows she’s winning, but we like her chances of finding a finish here and we’ll say it comes in a second round knockout.
Our favorite bet here is “Ketlen Souza KO” at +390.
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DFS Implications:
Souza was immediately submitted in her recent debut, so we’ve yet to see what she can do at the UFC level. She’s primarily a striker, but will mix in occasional takedowns and look for submissions at times. However, she’s only ever completed one submission and eight of her nine pro finishes ended by knockout. While she doesn’t throw a ton of volume, she’s looking to do damage when she does let her weapons go and now gets a dream matchup against a terrible opponent in Marnic Mann. However, one thing to note is that Souza is dropping down from 125 lb to 115 lb, and got knocked out in each of her last two fights at 115 lb back in 2019 and 2020. That at least adds some level of volatility to this matchup, but we’re not convinced there’s a fighter on the roster that Mann can beat and this is the best matchup Souza could ask for. Mann is typically looking to wrestle, which has the potential to slow the fight down if she’s successful, which could make it tougher for Souza to return value in a late finish at her expensive price tag. However, Mann’s last opponent scored 110 DraftKings points against her in a decision win and Bruna Brasil would have scored 118 DraftKings points in a second round KO win over Mann on DWCS. That’s all encouraging for Souza’s upside here and after she scored zero points in her debut, she’ll likely go completely overlooked by the field at her expensive price tag. That makes her a great low-owned play with tournament-winning upside. The odds imply Souza has a 75% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Mann is a short, low-level wrestler who has given us no indication that she can be competitive at the UFC level. We’ve seen her struggle at times against other unimpressive opponents and she was also knocked out on DWCS before getting completely dominated in her short notice UFC debut. While her wrestling-heavy style theoretically offers scoring upside on DraftKings, she totaled just 10 DraftKings points in her recent decision loss. One judge scored every round of that fight 10-8 against her and another had two 10-8 rounds for her opponent. It doesn’t get much worse without a finish and we expect Mann’s struggles to continue here. She’s just not a UFC caliber fighter and barring another knee injury for Souza it’s hard to see Mann pulling off the upset. However, if she does somehow win, she’ll very likely end up in the optimal lineup at very low ownership, so it’s hard not to have at least a little exposure if you’re entering more than a handful of lineups. The odds imply Mann has a 25% chance to win, a 9% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Caio Machado
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Machado recently had a seven-fight winning streak snapped in a decision loss in his UFC debut against Michael Parkin. Parkin was able to take Machado down three times on 10 attempts in a largely uneventful fight where no one was ever close to finding a finish. Machado actually finished ahead 76-39 in significant strikes, but Parkin’s wrestling won him the fight. Prior to that, Machado won a lackluster decision on DWCS, where he cruised to a unanimous 30-27 victory, but it came against an opponent who appeared disinterested in actually fighting. Machado was able to land a good amount of striking volume, finishing ahead 121-17 in significant strikes and 156-18 in total strikes, but once again, was never close to landing a finish. He failed to attempt a takedown of his own in that fight, but was able to stuff all seven of the attempts against him. Leading up to that win, Machado had spent his entire career on the Canadian regional scene beating up on a series of low-level opponents and senior citizens. His last two opponents before going on DWCS were a 44-year-old with an 11-7 record and a 54-year-old who came in 11-15 as a pro. Machado actually has two wins over the 54-year-old, showing just how limited the Heavyweight competition is up in Canada.
Now 8-2-1 as a pro, Machado has four TKO wins, two submissions, and two decision victories. Both of his submission wins were by R1 armbar in consecutive fights just before his DWCS match. All four of his TKO victories also ended in the first round and all five of his fights to see the second round ended up going the distance (2-2-1). The first loss of his career came in a five-round decision in his third pro fight, while the second also went the distance in his recent UFC debut. All of his finishes/wins should be taken with a grain of salt based on the low level of competition he had been facing.
Overall, Machado is a low-level but somewhat well-rounded fighter who claims to have black belts in Muay Thai, BJJ, and kickboxing, but hasn’t really impressed us anywhere. He’s tall at 6’4” but not very muscular and has weighed in as light as 230 lb, although tipped the scale at 250 lb for his last fight. He’s Brazilian, but lives and trains in Canada, a country not known for producing many Heavyweights. Machado doesn’t have much in the way of power and has been prone to getting controlled along the cage. His defensive wrestling looked decent on the regional scene and he also stuffed all seven of the takedowns against him on DWCS, but then he got taken down three times in his UFC debut on 10 attempts, leaving him with an 82.4% takedown defense. On the other side of things, he failed to land his only takedown attempt in those two fights. While he has shown the ability to look for armbars, something you don’t see a ton at Heavyweight, that has been the extent of his grappling prowess in his last half dozen fights. However, he did say he’s been training with Karl Williams and Serghei Spivac out in Las Vegas, so maybe his wrestling will look improved.
Don'Tale Mayes
9th UFC Fight (3-4, NC)Also coming off a decision loss, Mayes went into enemy territory in Brazil and was defeated by Rodrigo Nascimento, who came out hot and looked somewhat close to finishing Mayes early on. However, Nascimento slowed down in the back half of the fight and Mayes actually finished ahead 79-70 in significant strikes, while no one landed any of their takedown attempts. Prior to that, Mayes notched his only win since 2021 in a low-volume second round TKO over a 44-year-old Andrei Arlovski. That came after Mayes lost a decision to Augusto Sakai, who was coming off four straight knockout losses and was cut following the boring win. Just before that, Mayes lost a split-decision to a low-level short notice replacement who was making his UFC debut—although the defeat was later overturned to a No Contest when Hamdy Abdelwahab tested positive for PEDs. Hamdy was able to knock Mayes down in the first round, take him down three times, and control him for six and a half minutes while also outlanding him 58-47 in significant strikes. It was a terrible showing by Mayes, who was coming off his first early win in the UFC in a third round TKO victory over another low-level Heavyweight in Josh Parisian. Maye’s only other UFC victory came in a decision against another terrible opponent in Roque Martinez, after has submitted in each of his first two UFC fights. Before being signed to the UFC, Mayes was a regular on DWCS as he made appearances in 2017, 2018 and 2019. After getting knocked out in the third round of his first fight on the show, he notched a pair of knockout victories in his next two appearances.
Now 10-6 as a pro, Mayes has six wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and three decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, submitted twice, has two official decision losses, and one DQ loss. However, he also lost another decision before it was later overturned due to a failed drug test and if you include that, Mayes lost the last three decisions he’s been to. He’s seen the second round in all eight of his UFC fights, with six of those making it to round three, and four going the distance. And looking back even further, only one of Mayes’ last 14 fights ended in round one, which was his last knockout win on DWCS.
Overall, Mayes is a big 6’6” Heavyweight who appears athletically gifted but not very talented when it comes to MMA. He showed improvements to his wrestling against Josh Parisian in 2021, but that probably had more to do with who he was facing than anything else and Parisian is terrible off his back (and on his feet). Between Mayes’ eight UFC fights and his three DWCS appearances, he landed 7 takedowns on 16 attempts (43.8% accuracy), but the vast majority of that success came against Parisian, who Mayes took down six times on eight attempts. Mayes landed just one takedown on eight attempts against the other 10 opponents. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 13 of their 33 attempts (60.6% defense). Mayes only averages 3.60 SSL/min and has never landed more than 79 significant strikes in a UFC fight, although he did land 98 in a late second round knockout win on DWCS in 2018. It’s somewhat surprising that Mayes has even stuck around as long as he has in the UFC, but that just shows how thin the organization is at Heavyweight.
Fight Prediction:
Mayes will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while Machado is three years younger than the 32-year-old Mayes.
This is such a low-level Heavyweight fight that it carries some inherent volatility, but neither of these two have looked very dangerous. They also only have one knockout loss between them, which seemingly lowers the chances of this ending early. Machado does have a couple of submission wins and Mayes has a pair of submission losses, and it’s not impossible that Mayes takes Machado down and then gets armbarred. However, it’s far more likely that this ends in a close/boring decision. The fight is practically lined as a pick’em, which seems more or less fair, and we agree that Machado should be the slight favorite. We’ve seen more output from him and he also has the ability to threaten submissions, so we’ll say Machado wins a close decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Caio Machado ML” at -118.
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DFS Implications:
Machado is coming off a decision loss in his UFC debut and even if he had won he only would have scored 66 DraftKings points. He failed to land his only takedown attempts in that fight and never even attempted a takedown in his previous decision win on DWCS. He has shown the ability to put up decent striking totals, but despite landing 121 significant strikes on DWCS, he still only would have scored 88 DraftKings points and 93 points on FanDuel. So while his striking volume leaves him with a decent scoring floor, he’ll either need a finish or a surprising amount of wrestling success to be useful in tournaments. He hasn’t looked very dangerous with his striking and the only reason he was finishing opponents on the regional scene is because he was facing unbelievably bad/old competition. The combined age of his last two opponents before he went on DWCS was 98 years old, and no, that’s not a joke. So until he proves he can finish opponents at the UFC level, we’re not going to have much confidence in him. Working in his favor, Mayes is terrible. So maybe he can end this early, although Mayes’ last three losses all went the distance, with one of those later being overturned to a No Contest. The most likely outcome here is for the fight to end in a lower scoring decision, but low-level Heavyweight fights always carry a certain amount of volatility. The odds imply Machado has a 52% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Mayes has only topped 91 DraftKings points once in eight UFC appearances, which was when he randomly turned into a wrestler against a terrible Josh Parisian and scored 124 points in a third round TKO. Mayes was able to land six takedowns in that fight, but only has one other takedown in the rest of his UFC career. While we did see Machado get taken down three times in his last fight, he claims to be a BJJ black belt and he has a couple of submission wins on his record. So Mayes will need to be careful if he looks to wrestle and Machado is the rare Heavyweight who will look for armbars off his back. Mayes only scored 67 points in his lone decision win, and even at his cheaper price tag a similar score here won’t be enough for him to be useful. That appears to leave him reliant on landing a finish to score well and Machado has yet to be finished in his career. The odds imply Mayes has a 48% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Michal Figlak
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Figlak is 19 months removed from a decision loss in his UFC debut against Fares Ziam. He had been scheduled to face Chris Duncan in March 2023, but ended up tearing his ACL and was forced to drop out. Figlak lost every round against Ziam and most surprisingly got taken down three times by the French kickboxer, who’s only landed two other takedowns in his six other UFC fights combined. Ziam also outlanded Figlak 60-28 in significant strikes and was close to finishing him. It was a terrible performance from Figlak and he was only able to land one of his own five takedown attempts in the fight. That was the first loss of Figlak’s pro career, after he started out 8-0 as a pro, with his last six wins coming with Cage Warriors. After landing a first round TKO in his 2018 pro debut, his last eight fights all made it to the second round, with six seeing round three, and five going the distance. His last four fights all ended with the judges.
Now 8-1 as a pro, Figlak has four wins by KO/TKO and four decisions. While he landed a first round TKO win in his 2018 pro debut, his last three finishes have all come in rounds two and three. He’s never been finished, with his one loss going the distance. Figlak made his pro debut at 145 lb when he was 21 years old before moving up to 155 lb in his second pro fight, where he’s stayed since.
Overall, Figlak is a Polish fighter who trains in England. He looked like a solid, well-rounded fighter on the regional scene, but then he completely disappointed in his UFC debut and now hasn’t fought in a year and a half and is coming off ACL surgery. Maybe he just had a case of the Octagon jitters or maybe he’s a complete fraud, only time will tell. He showed the ability to rack up striking volume while blending in his wrestling when he was fighting with Cage Warriors, but then he proceeded to get outwrestled by a kickboxer in his UFC debut. While Figlak is aggressive, we’re not sold on his ability to handle adversity and he makes a much better hammer than a nail. After so long away, it will be important to see how Figlak looks on the scale on Friday.
Austin Hubbard
9th UFC Fight (3-5)Hubbard is coming off a second round submission loss to Kurt Holobaugh on the finale of The Ultimate Fighter. Hubbard was able to win the first round on all three scorecards, as he took Holobaugh down twice and controlled him for half the round. However, Holobaugh’s a dangerous grappler and midway through round two he was able to lock in a triangle choke to end the fight. Prior to the loss in the finale, Hubbard won a pair of decisions in the first two rounds on the show, although those first two fights count as exhibition matches and don’t show up on his official pro record. Before going on the show, he won two decisions on the regional scene, after being cut by the UFC following a 2021 decision loss to Vinc Pichel. Just before that, Hubbard won a decision over Dakota Bush, after getting submitted in the first round by Joe Solecki. Hubbard originally joined the UFC in 2019 and his first three fights with the organization all went the distance (1-2), before he secured his only “finish” with the UFC when Max Rohskopf quit after the second round of his debut and was then immediately cut. Hubbard’s second most recent finish was in the fifth round of a 2018 LFA fight and it’s rare to see his fights end early. Hubbard went 3-4 in his first stint with the UFC and his three wins were against two fighters making their UFC debuts and another that came in 0-1 with the organization and then got cut. None of those three fighters are still in the UFC.
Now 15-7 as a pro, Hubbard has five wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and eight decision victories. Four of his seven finishes came in his first four pro fights in 2015 and 2016, with his other three finishes occurring in 2017, 2018, and 2020. He’s never been knocked out himself, but he’s been submitted three times and has four decision losses. Hubbard started his career at 170 lb, but has been at 155 lb since 2017.
Overall, Hubbard is a boring decision grinder who doesn’t stand out anywhere. His best attribute is his durability and he lacks any sort of explosive offense, although he does a decent job of landing leg kicks. He only averages 3.83 SSL/min and 3.37/min and he’s never landed more than 67 significant strikes in a fight or absorbed more than 71. In his eight UFC fights, he landed 10 of his 19 takedown attempts (52.6% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 14 of their 38 attempts (63.2% defense). Hubbard trains at Elevation fight team with a ton of other UFC fighters, but we still don’t expect him to change a ton in his second stint in the UFC.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’10” but Hubbard will have a 1” reach advantage. Figlak is five years younger than the 32-year-old Hubbard.
The jury is still out on Figlak, but he looked terrible in his UFC debut and now hasn’t fought in 19 months and is coming off ACL surgery. However, prior to that loss, he had been undefeated as a pro and looked good in his run with Cage Warriors. So who knows what version of him we’ll get here. On the other side of things, you generally know exactly what you’re going to get out of Austin Hubbard, who’s a boring decision grinder that will attack opponents with a combination of striking and wrestling. He does a good job of landing leg kicks and can beat lower level opponents, but has not had much success when facing tougher competition. So the only question is whether or not Figlak counts as tougher competition. It’s pretty concerning that he was outwrestled by a kickboxer in Ziam in his debut, and that’s a good sign for Hubbard to find wrestling success of his own. Ziam also landed all 13 of the leg kicks he threw against Figlak and Hubbard generally does a good job of landing leg kicks as well. Hubbard has more than twice as many pro fights as Figlak, so he also has the experience advantage. Hubbard also has a baby on the way and will be looking to prove the UFC never should have cut him in the first place, so he could come in with maximum motivation to put on a good performance. Everything considered, we see a lot of reasons to like Hubabrd’s chances, while Figlak has multiple red flags. So it’s kind of surprising that the line has been moving in Figlak’s favor and we’ll take Hubbard to pull off the upset, most likely in a somewhat close decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Austin Hubbard ML” at +150.
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DFS Implications:
Figlak looked like a promising prospect coming into his September 2022 UFC debut, but proceeded to get dominated by Fares Ziam, looking terrible in the process. Then he tore his ACL before he could fight again and now hasn’t competed in 19 months. That leaves a ton of uncertainty surrounding him and he’s going up against a durable Austin Hubbard, who’s never been knocked out. And while Hubbard has been submitted three times, Figlak has zero submission wins as a pro. Hubbard tends to slow fights down and wear on the opposition with a combination of leg kicks and wrestling, which will make it really hard for Figlak to score well without a finish. The odds imply Figlak has a 61% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Hubbard has been extremely consistent with his DraftKings scoring with totals of 96, 93 and 93 across his three UFC wins. Two of those wins went the distance, while the other ended in a post R2 TKO after Max Rohskopf abruptly quit. That’s the only “finish” Hubbard has landed since 2018, just before he originally joined the UFC in 2019. So while he’s shown a solid floor when he wins, we’ve yet to see any sort of ceiling out of him. Now he’s facing an opponent who’s never been finished, so it doesn’t look like a great spot for Hubbard to end things early. However, with Figlak coming off knee surgery and a long layoff, there is enough uncertainty to have some exposure to Hubbard, who’s also relatively cheaply priced. After seeing Figlak get taken down three times by a one-dimensional kickboxer in his UFC debut, we could see Hubbard find a decent amount of wrestling success, making him a better play on DraftKings than FanDuel. The odds imply Hubbard has a 39% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Victor Henry
5th UFC Fight (2-1, NC)Henry’s last fight abruptly ended early in round two following an illegal low blow that left Henry writhing in pain along the Octagon floor. The fight was pretty close up to that point, with two of the three judges scoring the first round for Basharat and one scoring it for Henry. Prior to that, Henry won a split decision over Tony Gravely, where Henry impressively outlanded Gravely 154-75 in significant strikes and 190-90 in total strikes, while stuffing 14 of his 17 takedown attempts and also finishing with two official submission attempts. The judging was all over the place, with one scoring it 30-27 for Henry, another 29-28 for Henry, and the third 29-28 for Gravely. Just before that win, Henry lost a decision to a 40-year-old Raphael Assuncao and Henry’s results have not matched the odds. He won as a +425 underdog against Raoni Barcelos in his UFC debut, before losing as a -400 favorite against Assuncao. He set a crazy pace in his UFC debut against Raoni Barcelos, as he outlanded Barcelos 181-134 in significant strikes and 222-134 in total strikes, while stuffing all but one of Barcelos’ seven takedown attempts on his way to winning a unanimous 30-27 decision. However, after that incredibly impressive performance, Henry came back down to earth in his next fight when he lost a unanimous 30-27 decision against a struggling Raphael Assuncao, who came in on a four fight losing streak. Henry got taken down twice on five attempts by Assuncao, while getting outlanded 60-55 in significant strikes and 78-61 in total strikes. To Henry’s credit, he was able to bounce back with an impressive performance in his subsequent match, and he’s been a bit of a wildcard so far in the UFC. Only one of his last 18 fights ended in the first round, and 11 of those 18 matches went the distance, including his first three UFC fights before his recent No Contest.
Now 23-6 as a pro, Henry has six wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and nine decision victories. His last three finishes all came in the later rounds, with two of those ending in submissions. He’s never been finished in 30 pro fights, with all six of his losses going the distance.
Overall, Henry has fought all over the world since turning pro in 2010. While the majority of his time has been spent in California and Japan, he also has fought in Russia and Dubai. He’s pretty well rounded with his grappling and striking and is a former catch wrestling champion. He tends to wear on his opponents as fights go on opposed to landing huge early finishing shots. He pushes a crazy pace and landed an insane number of strikes in each of his two UFC wins and has the ability to keep up a crazy pace, averaging 8.26 SSL/min and 5.95 SSA/min. In his four UFC fights, Henry was taken down just seven times on 33 opponent attempts (78.8% defense), while he failed to land any of his own three attempts.
Rani Yahya
21st UFC Fight (13-5-1, NC)Nearing his 40th birthday, Yahya is a year removed from a first round knockout loss to Montel Jackson and hasn’t won a fight since 2021. He had been booked against Cody Garbrandt at two different points in 2022, but ended up withdrawing both times due to a potentially career ending neck injury, but was able to eventually resume training and get a new fight booked. His second most recent fight was a November 2021 decision win over Kyung Ho Kang and despite 25 of his 41 pro fights ending early, three of his last five matches went the distance. He only has one finish since 2018, which was a 2021 R2 submission win over Ray Rodriguez, who went 0-2 in the UFC with two submission losses. Prior to that finish, Yahya fought Enrique Barzola to a draw, where Barzola had a 10-8 third round after losing the first two rounds. That came just after Yahya lost a 2019 decision to Ricky Simon. However, leading up to that loss Yahya submitted three straight opponents and 7 of his 13 UFC wins have come by submission, with the other six going the distance. He only needs one more submission win to set the record in the 135 lb division.
Now 28-11-1 plus a No Contest as a pro, Yahya has 21 career submission wins and seven decision victories. He’s been knocked out three times (R2 2007, R1 2009 & R1 2023) and submitted once (R1 2006), but has only been finished once since 2009. His other seven losses all went the distance. Of his seven UFC submission wins, three came in round one, two in round two, and two in round three. Yahya fought as high as 154 lb early in his pro career and started at 145 lb in the UFC, where he went 4-2 in his first six fights with the organization. However, he dropped down to 135 lb in 2014 where he’s since gone 9-3-1 plus a No Contest.
Overall, Yahya is a one-dimensional submission specialist and only uses his striking to set up takedowns. However, he does have a black belt in Muay Thai in addition to being a second degree BJJ black belt. He’s a three time BJJ world champion and Abu Dhabi gold medalist and offers elite grappling skills. He’ll get opponents to the ground anyway he can, whether that’s by traditional takedowns, pulling guard or grabbing an ankle. In his last 10 fights, he landed 18 of his 58 takedown attempts (31% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 8 of their 13 attempts (38.5% defense). However, the only opponent to get him down more than once over that stretch was Ricky Simon, who landed four of his five attempts and also landed a pair of knockdowns as he defeated Yahya in a decision. We rarely see much striking volume in Yahya’s fights, as he only averages 1.59 SSL/min and 1.77 SSA/min and Yahya has never landed more than 59 significant strikes in a fight and has only topped 40 twice. He’s also never absorbed more than 57 significant strikes. Yahya turned pro all the way back in 2002 and it’s fair to wonder how much he has left at this stage in his career.
Fight Prediction:
Henry will have a 1” height and reach advantage, while being three years younger than the 39-year-old Yahya.
This is sort of an awkward matchup. Henry excels at pushing a high pace and outlanding his opponents, while Yahya has made a career out of slowing fights down with his grappling and either submitting opponents or taking them to low-volume decisions. Yahya has only been finished once since 2009, but that lone instance occurred in his last fight after he returned from a neck injury. He turns 40 in September and he could be completely washed at this point—but if he’s not, he could make this fight interesting. We saw a 40-year-old Raphael Assuncao slow the fight down and win every round against Henry and if Yahya can get Henry down things could get interesting. Despite having a 78% takedown defense, Henry has been taken down at least once in all four of his UFC fights, so it’s not a stretch to think Yahya can find some success in getting this to the mat. And while Yahya was just knocked out in the first round, Henry isn’t really a power puncher and instead relies on racking up volume. Seventeen of Henry’s last 18 fights made it out of the first round and it’s been over four years since he knocked anybody out. That’s encouraging for Yahya’s chances of having enough time to try and get his grappling going, but it’s still hard to trust him given his age and neck issues over the last couple of years. However, it’s also hard to trust Henry at his price tag and the last time he was a big favorite against a 40-year-old grappler he lost every round of the fight. So this seems like a more volatile spot than the odds suggest and if Yahya has anything left in the tank, we could see him slow things down and out grapple his way to a decision win or even lock up a submission. However, if his decline has continued over the 12 months since we last saw him, then Henry will have a really good shot at finding his first UFC finish here, or at least outworking his way to a decision. That makes it a tougher spot to predict, but given the wide odds we’re willing to take a small shot on Yahya here and we wouldn’t be shocked to see him outgrapple his way to a low-volume decision win.
Our favorite bet here is “Rani Yahya ML” at +340.
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DFS Implications:
Henry’s last fight was stopped in the second round and ruled a No Contest following a low blow, but prior to that he had gone the distance in each of his first three UFC fights. While he’s yet to finish anybody in the UFC, he was still able to average 110 DraftKings points in his two wins, despite failing to land any knockdowns or takedowns in either of those fights. He just operates at an insane pace and puts up huge striking totals, landing 154 and 181 significant strikes respectively in his two wins. However, he also landed just 55 significant strikes in his loss to a 40-year-old Raphael Assuncao, and struggled to find any rhythm against the low-volume counter striker. In fairness, Assuncao has a knack for making fights ugly. Nevertheless, that at least shows it is possible to slow Henry down, and now he’s facing another old grappler who has never been in a high-volume fight. Yahya averages just 1.77 SSA/min and will look to force grappling exchanges by any means necessary. That will make it really hard for Henry to rack up volume and leaves him reliant on landing a well timed finish to score well. It’s been over four years since he knocked anybody out and Yahya has only been finished once since 2009, although that was in his last fight. Henry relies more on his volume than his power, so it’s hard to trust him here as the most expensive fighter on the card. However, it’s definitely possible that Yahya is so washed up that Henry could accrue multiple knockdowns and a finish, which leaves him with a wide range of scoring outcomes. The odds imply Henry has a 78% chance to win, a 38% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Yahya has averaged 95 DraftKings points in his 13 UFC wins and only once scored below 88 points. Four of his last five wins have come by submission and even in his last decision win he still scored 105 DraftKings points, although just 59 points on FanDuel. That shows he’s entirely reliant on landing a submission to score well on FanDuel, but can still get there in a grappling-heavy decision on DraftKings. However, he’s now 39 years old, hasn’t fought in a year, has been dealing with a neck injury, and got knocked out in the first round of his only fight since 2021. So he comes in with a ton of red flags and is a massive underdog. If he can turn back the clock, this isn’t the worst stylistic matchup for him, as Henry was taken down in all four of his UFC fights and isn’t a big power puncher. However, there’s also the potential for Yahya to look so washed up that he crumples to the mat every time he gets touched. That leaves him with a non-existent scoring floor, but a decent ceiling. And as the cheapest fighter on the card, if he does win, it’s hard to see him getting left out of the winning DraftKings lineup. The odds imply Yahya has a 22% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Uros Medic
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Coming off his second submission loss in his last four fights, Medic got absolutely dominated on the mat in his last fight by an opponent in Myktybek Orolbai who was making his short notice UFC debut on less than a week’s notice. Orolbai took Medic down seven times before submitting him late in round two with a neck crank that wasn’t even under the chin. It was a completely pathetic performance from Medic, but in fairness to him, he had been preparing to face a one-dimensional striker before getting the late opponent change. Prior to that, Medic landed a third round TKO against Matthew Semelsberger in a fight that took place at elevation in Salt Lake City. Medic got dropped in round one but was able to survive the early adversity. He then came back to win the second round, before finishing Semelsberger midway through round three with ground and pound after dropping him with a spinning backfist. It seemed like the elevation took its toll on Semelsberger a lot more than Medic, despite that being the longest fight of Medic’s career. That was also Medic’s first UFC fight at 170 lb, after he went 2-1 at 155 lb with the organization. Medic hadn’t fought in 14 months leading up to that win, after he knocked out Omar Morales in the second round of a May 2022 match. Prior to that, Medic suffered the first loss of his career when he was submitted by Jalin Turner in the first round of a 2021 fight. That came just after Medic knocked out a terrible Aalon Cruz in the opening minutes of his UFC debut after landing another first round knockout on DWCS in 2020.
Now 9-2 as a pro, Medic has still never been to the judges and has only made it to the third round once. However, his last three fights all made it past the eight minute mark, after the first eight fights of his career all ended in under six minutes. He has seven wins by KO/TKO and two submission victories. Six of his finishes came in round one, two ended in round two, and the most recent occurred in round three. Both of his career losses ended in submissions. Medic made his 2016 pro debut at 185 lb, but dropped down to 170 lb for his second fight, where he stayed until 2020 when he went on DWCS and dropped down to 155 lb. He then moved back up to 170 lb in 2023, where it appears he will stay.
Overall, Medic is a one-dimensional striker who fought his entire pre-UFC career on the Alaskan regional scene facing a much lower level of competition. His aggressive approach to fighting generally forces the action, and he averages 5.64 SSL/min and 3.18 SSA/min. Between his five UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he only attempted one takedown, which he landed against Matthew Semelsberger, while his opponents got him down on 8 of their 15 attempts (46.7% defense). Medic has solid power and is aggressive, but isn’t very defensively sound, which generally results in his fights being pretty exciting. He at least left Alaska and is training down in California at Kings MMA, so he theoretically should be improving. However, he’s definitely not the brightest guy and said he spent no time training wrestling before his last fight because he was expecting to face a one-dimensional striker. That just shows that he has no interest in attacking the weaknesses of his opponents and is only interested in striking and looking for knockouts. He claims to have learned his lesson from that experience, but he’s given us no indication that he has any clue what he’s doing on the mat.
Tim Means
29th UFC Fight (14-13, NC)Now 40 years old, Means is coming off his first knockout win since 2018, which came in the third round against a walking corpse in Andre Fialho. Mean was able to knock Fialho down twice and finished ahead 104-51 in significant strikes. Prior to that, Means lost three straight fights, getting submitted in the second round in two of those. However, in his last loss, he did at least win the first round on all three scorecards, outlanding Alex Morono 32-18 in significant strikes in the round. However, as Means landed his second takedown in round two, Morono locked up a guillotine and quickly forced a tap. Prior to that, Means lost a split decision to Max Griffin after getting submitted by Kevin Holland in the second round. Griffin dropped Means in the first round but slowed down some after that. Holland also had Mean badly hurt, but ultimately submitted him instead of knocking him out. Means’ second most recent win was all the way back in 2021, when he won a decision over Nicolas Dalby, following two more decision wins against Mike Perry and Laureano Staropoli. Those wins came after Means was submitted in the second round by Daniel Rodriguez and three of Means’ last four wins ended in second round chokes. The last three decisions Means lost were all split, while four of his five early losses in the UFC came by submission.
Now 33-15-1 as a pro, Means has 20 wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and eight decision victories. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted seven times, and has six decision losses. Means’ last four submission losses all ended in round two, after the first three of his career all came in round one. The only person to knock Means out since 2004 was Niko Price, who did so in the first round of a 2019 match.
Overall, Means is a longtime UFC veteran nearing the end of his career. He tends to wear on his opponents through a combination of striking, wrestling, and cage work, but won’t blow you away anywhere. He averages 5.64 SSL/min and 3.65 SSA/min. In his last 10 fights, Means landed 12 of his 32 takedown attempts (37.5% accuracy), while over that same stretch his opponents got him down on 5 of their 18 attempts (72.2% defense). He’s attempted multiple takedowns in five straight fights and landed at least one takedown in four of those. While Means has only been knocked out once in the last 20 years, he’s been hurt pretty badly at multiple points recently and it’s possible his chin retires before he does. He’s also been very prone to getting submitted and tends to leave his neck out shooting for desperation takedowns once he’s hurt, with four of his last six submission losses coming by guillotine choke and another by Brabo choke. He works as a high school wrestling coach so he’s constantly working on the mats and now he’s facing a one-dimensional striker.
Fight Prediction:
Means will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while Medic is 10 years younger than the 40-year-old Means.
Means is clearly the more well-rounded fighter in this matchup, but he’s also 40 years old and has lost three of his last four fights. While Medic is terrible on the mat, he’s a dangerous striker and will be looking to knock Means out throughout the fight. So the question becomes, how early and often can Means get the fight to the mat or does he stubbornly look to stand and trade with Medic? Means generally does a good job of mixing in his wrestling and cage work, but he’s not a smothering wrestler that will lay on his opponents for the entire fight. That should leave Medic some opportunities to land strikes, although Means has only been knocked out once since 2004. He’s far more prone to getting submitted, but Medic hasn’t submitted anybody since 2018 in his fourth pro fight. Maybe Medic has made improvements to his grappling after getting dominated on the mat in his last fight, but he’ll need to show that in a fight before we believe it. Medic has still never been to a decision in his career, and has only even seen the third round once. Meanwhile, Means is coming off his first early win since 2019 and three of his last four victories came in decisions. Means’ combination of striking and wrestling could give him a leg up if this does go the distance, and both fighters appear capable of finishing the other. So it looks like another volatile spot with multiple possible outcomes, leaving us more interested in the plus money on Means’ side of things. We’ve been low on Medic since his regional days and until he can show an improved ground game that won’t change. Give us Means by decision, but we fully expect to have to sweat out some dicey moments and won’t be surprised if Medic ends up finishing him.
Our favorite bet here is “Tim Means ML” at +250.
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DFS Implications:
Medic got dominated on the mat in his last fight, which came against an opponent who was making his short notice UFC debut. That just shows how one-dimensional Medic is and relies on knocking opponents out to win fights. He’s averaged 107 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, all of which came by knockout, but he’s scored progressively fewer points in each of his victories as his fights have begun running longer. He scored 122 points in a first round knockout win in his UFC debut against a terrible Aalon Cruz, and then with the help of two knockdowns he scored 109 points in a second round knockout against Omar Morales. However, he only scored 90 points in his last knockout win, which came in the third round. He’s also shown a non-existent floor, as he was submitted in each of his losses, scoring a combined eight DraftKings points in the process. Now he’s facing a 40-year-old opponent in Means, who’s been prone to getting submitted, but has only been knocked out once since 2004. We have seen Means hurt at multiple points in recent fights, and the cliff could be coming for him at any point given his age. That leaves Medic with a high ceiling, but an untrustworthy floor, and it looks like he’ll need a well timed finish in the first two rounds to return value at his expensive price tag. The odds imply Medic has a 72% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.
Means has averaged 94 DraftKings points in his 15 UFC wins and has shown the ability to score decently even in decisions through a combination of striking and wrestling, with three of his last five decisions scoring 90 or more points. However, we’ve also seen him score just 58 points in two of his seven decision wins, so he’s shown a wide range of outcomes. He’s coming off his first finish since 2019, which came against the corpse of Andre Fialho, who’s been knocked out in four straight fights. Prior to that, Means lost three straight fights and was submitted in two of those. He’s now 40 years old and it’s fair to wonder how much longer he’ll continue to keep fighting. To his credit, he’s only been knocked out once in the last 20 years, but he’s been hurt at multiple points and just tends to get submitted after being rocked. While Medic is a terrible grappler, he still may be capable of locking up a choke against a half unconscious opponent, so we don’t want to get too hung up on Means’ ability to avoid getting knocked out. Nevertheless, his past record is somewhat encouraging for his chances of surviving on the feet and using a combination of wrestling and striking to pull off the upset. And at his cheap price tag, he likely doesn’t need to put up a huge score to sneak into winning lineups. However, his recent 123 point scoring explosion could drive his ownership up some, which lowers his tournament appeal a little bit. The odds imply Means has a 28% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Jonathan Pearce
8th UFC Fight (5-2)Coming off his first loss since his 2019 UFC debut, Pearce was recently submitted by Joanderson Brito in the second round. Pearce was able to control Brito for most of the fight, before losing focus in the second round and allowing himself to get stuck in a ninja choke. Prior to that, Pearce won a lopsided decision over the ageless Darren Elkins, which was Pearce fifth straight win after he suffered a TKO loss to Joe Lauzon in his 2019 UFC debut, which took place at 155 lb. Following that loss, Pearce took a year off and dropped down to 145 lb. Pearce’s last six fights all made it out of the first round, but four of those ended in second round finishes (3-1). Pearce originally punched his ticket to the UFC with a dominant third round TKO win on DWCS.
Now 14-5 as a pro, Pearce has nine wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and three decision victories. Six of his last seven finishes occurred in round two and only one of his 11 early wins ended in the first round, which was all the way back in 2015 in his third pro fight. He has seven second round finishes and three in round three. He was finished in four of his five losses, with one TKO, and three submissions. He also has one decision defeat.
Overall, Pearce is a giant 145er who relies on getting opponents to the mat and beating them up with ground and pound while also threatening submissions. He tends to wear on his opponents as fights go on and finish them in the later rounds, typically in round two. Between his seven UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Pearce landed 28 of his 52 takedown attempts (53.8% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 10 of their 23 attempts (56.5% defense). Pearce does a good job of weaponizing his pace and he averages 5.60 SSL/min and 3.35 SSA/min, while adding on 5.3 TDA/15 min. He does tend to leave his neck out when looking for takedowns, and we’ve seen him get stuck in choke attempts at multiple points, which is something he needs to work on.
David Onama
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Onama is coming off a second round knockout win over a dangerous Gabriel Santos in an action packed fight. Santos was able to take Onama down twice on four attempts and threaten submissions on the mat, but Onama was able to escape every time and then knock Santos out late in round two. Prior to that, Onama lost a majority to Nate Landwehr, where Onama nearly landed a first round finish but then gassed out as the fight went on. Landwehr could have finished Onama if he pushed for it on the ground but was too busy pandering to the ground to be bothered by such things. Just five weeks prior to that loss, Onama submitted Garrett Armfield, who was making his UFC debut up a weight class on very short notice after Austin Lingo dropped out mid fight week. Armfield made the fight fairly competitive in round one, before getting submitted in the second round. Looking back one fight further, Onama knocked out Gabriel Benitez in the first round, but nearly got knocked out himself after taking a punch to the eye that compromised his vision early in that fight. That came after Onama lost a crazy hardfought decision in his short notice UFC debut up a weight class against a really tough Mason Jones. Following that loss at 155 lb, Onama returned to 145 lb.
Now 11-2 as a pro, Onama has seven wins by KO/TKO and four submissions. Ten of his 11 career wins have come in the first two rounds, with six in round one and four in round two. The only time he’s ever won a fight that made it past the second round was in a 2020 guillotine that ended in the opening minutes of round two. While half of his submission wins occurred in round two, five of his last six knockout victories occurred in round one. He’s never been finished, but he lost both of the decisions he’s been to. One of those losses came in his short notice UFC debut up a weight class.
Overall, Onama is a dangerous finisher with impressive hand speed and power, but appears to have several defensive deficiencies. He gassed out after the first round against Landwehr and cardio management is one concern with him, although he’s now training at elevation with Factory X after Glory MMA got shut down, which could help his gas tank. And in fairness to Onama, he didn’t have much time to prepare in many of his UFC fights. He stepped in on four days’ notice to face Mason Jones, 19 days’ notice to fight Gabriel Benitez, had an opponent change four days out when he faced Garrett Armfield, and had 24 days to prepare for Landwehr. Onama is still only 29 years old and seems like a raw, athletic talent, so he has plenty of time to continue to refine his game. He likes to look for guillotines which could create opportunities for him to find a submission finish in this next fight, but is more known for his knockout ability. In his five UFC fights, he only landed 3 of his 16 takedown attempts (18.8% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 13 of their 24 attempts (45.8% defense). Three of those four opponents who tried to take him down were able to land multiple of their attempts, with the one exception being Garrett Armfield, who was making his short notice UFC debut up a weight class. Onama lost two of the three UFC fights where he was taken down.
UPDATE: Onama missed weight by 2.5 lb!
Fight Prediction:
Pearce will have a 1” height advantage, but Onama will have a 3” reach advantage and is two years younger than the 31-year-old Pearce.
This sets up as one of the best fights on the card, as we get two talented prospects squaring off on the main card. Pearce’s relentless wrestling will test the cardio of Onama, which has been an issue for him at times in the past. However, Pearce has also been finished in four of his five career losses and Onama comes in with a 100% finishing rate. Onama has the power to knock Pearce out and will also look for guillotines, which Pearce has looked vulnerable to. Meanwhile, Onama has never been finished himself in 13 pro fights. We expect Pearce to find wrestling success, it will just be a matter of whether or not he can remain focussed and control Onama on the mat, while also not leaving his neck out to be choked. Both guys are capable of finishing the other, most likely in the later rounds, but if this goes the distance, look for Pearce to get his hand raised. We slightly lean towards Pearce winning a wrestling-heavy decision, but the second and third rounds will be very interesting and a finish from either guy would not be surprising.
Our favorite bet here is “Jonathan Pearce R2 or R3 KO” at +700.
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DFS Implications:
Pearce has impressively averaged 120 DraftKings points in his five UFC wins and broke the slate in each of his three finishes, where he averaged 134 points. He still scored 104 and 96 points respectively in his two decision victories, but he hasn’t shown quite the same upside in fights that have gone the distance. He does a great job of racking up takedowns and ground strikes and he’s landed 23 takedowns in his five UFC victories. He was on pace to put up another big score in his last fight, before he got caught in a submission in the second round. Leaving his neck exposed has been one issue for Pearce, and Onama has been known to snatch up guillotines, in addition to being a very dangerous striker. Onama has a 100% finishing rate in his wins and Pearce has been finished in four of his five career losses, which leaves Pearce with a somewhat uncertain floor. However, Onama has been taken down multiple times in three of his five UFC fights and Pearce still has a very high ceiling driven by his wrestling. Mason Jones was able to take Onama down eight times and scored 127 DraftKings points and 120 points on FanDuel in a decision win. Although in fairness, that was Onama’s short notice UFC debut, which he took up a weight class. Nevertheless, Pearce is huge for the division and that shows the potential wrestling success he could find here. Pearce is a solid play in all contest types, but you’ll definitely want to have some level of exposure to both sides of this one. The odds imply Pearce has a 59% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Onama has averaged 109 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins and all 11 of his pro victories have ended early, with 10 of those finishes coming in the first two rounds. He’s a powerful striker and will also look for opportunistic submissions, with multiple guillotine finishes on his record. Pearce has been prone to leaving his neck exposed when shooting for takedowns and was just choked out in his last fight. While guillotine finishes are far from ideal for DFS, at Onama’s cheap price tag it could still be enough for him to be useful. He also has the power to knock Pearce out and with 100% of Onama’s career wins coming early, it’s generally safe to expect him to score well when he wins. The one downside with him is that he’s typically highly owned due to his clear finishing upside. That will make it tougher to create unique lineups that include him, which is just something to consider when building. Nevertheless, whoever wins this fight should score well and will have a really good shot at ending up in the optimal lineup on both DraftKings and FanDuel. The odds imply Onama has a 41% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Jhonata Diniz
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut following a first round knockout win on DWCS, Diniz only turned pro in May 2022, but has knocked out all six of his opponents in the first round. His most recent win came against Eduardo Neves, who was making his second appearance on DWCS, after getting submitted in the first round by Mick Parkin a year earlier, and then recently got submitted again after getting knocked out by Diniz. Prior to that, Diniz took on an old, fat, balding bum who quit in the match and now has three straight first round losses. Diniz’s third and fifth most recent wins were against opponents fighting for the first and only time as a pro and in between those he took on an undersized 1-0 opponent who dropped down to Light Heavyweight after getting knocked out by Diniz. In his May 2022 pro debut, Diniz took on a 22-23 opponent who came in on a five fight losing streak and then never fought again after getting knocked out by Diniz.
Now 6-0 as a pro, Diniz has six first round knockout wins. However, take his finishes with a grain of salt as he’s exclusively been facing a very low level of competition.
Overall, Diniz is the latest kickboxer to come over to MMA and still has very limited experience outside of striking. He’s just a BJJ blue belt and we’ve yet to see how he looks on the mat, but it’s hard to imagine he’ll look very good on the ground. And considering he’s never been past the first round in an MMA fight, his cardio is also a question mark. While he doesn’t look like a world class striker, he’s a Muay Thai black belt and seems pretty dangerous on the feet. However, his striking defense looks kind of suspect and we expect to see some serious growing pains from Diniz once he begins facing legitimate competition.
Austen Lane
3rd UFC Fight (0-1, NC)Still in search of his first UFC win, Lane recently had his head pounded into the mat by Justin Tafa, who only took 82 seconds to finish Lane in what was their second fight against each other. The reason for that is that their first fight was stopped in just 29 seconds and ruled a No Contest after Lane got knuckles deep in Tafa’s eyeball. Prior to the No Contest in his UFC debut, Lane landed a R1 TKO win on DWCS and had finished six straight opponents. However, he had also been facing some very dubious competition and his wins all failed to impress. He started out his DWCS match by landing one of the most devastating low blows you’ll ever see. Once action resumed, he then proceeded to get taken down and controlled, before he was able to reverse the position and land a ground and pound finish. Prior to that, he technically won by R1 TKO but only because his opponent blew out his knee 99 seconds into the first round. Looking back one fight further, he outlasted a terrible Juan Adams, who took Lane down four times and controlled him for three straight rounds before gassing out and getting finished in the opening minute of round four in a five-round Fury FC “title fight”. Alex Morono was calling the fight and even he didn’t realize the fight was five rounds until mid way through. Lane’s second most recent loss came in a 2020 R1 TKO via ground and pound where he got dominated on the mat, which has been an ongoing problem for him. Lane was also the first fighter to welcome Greg Hardy into MMA, when they both went on DWCS for the first time back in 2018 and Hardy knocked Lane out in just 57 seconds.
Now 12-4 as a pro, Lane has 11 wins by KO/TKO and one by submission. Eight of his knockouts occurred in round one, two ended in round two, and one came in round four. His lone submission win came in a 2021 first round rear-naked choke. All four of his losses ended in first round knockouts and only three of his 17 pro fights made it out of the first round.
Overall, Lane is a tall, rangy, low-level Heavyweight whose background is in football as he got drafted by Jacksonville in 2010 and played defensive end for various NFL teams before retiring from football in 2015. While he’s clearly athletic, both his defensive striking and wrestling have looked absolutely terrible. He’s been incredibly prone to getting taken down and has looked bad on the mat outside of landing an occasional reversal or looking for a kimura. He’s a wild and aggressive striker, which has resulted in him committing fouls in the opening minute in each of his last three fights, with two eye pokes and a low blow. While he’s really tall at 6’6”, he generally shows up 20-25 lb under the Heavyweight limit, which likely contributes to him being controlled on the mat by heavier opponents. It looks like he’s been trying to add some offensive grappling to his game, as he began shooting for takedowns in his last few fights, but he still failed to land a takedown in either of his two UFC fights or his two DWCS matches on just one attempt. However, in recent interviews you can tell he plans on trying to wrestle in this next matchup. Nevertheless, our expectations for Lane remain incredibly low and we don’t see him finding any long term success in the UFC.
Fight Prediction:
Lane will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while Diniz is four years younger than the 36-year-old Lane.
You know the UFC Heavyweight division is thin when Jhonata Diniz vs. Austen Lane is on the main card. Neither of these two have done enough to show they belong in the UFC, but at least Diniz doesn’t die every time someone touches his chin. Both of these two made their way into the UFC by beating up on bums on the regional scene, meaning they’re each entirely unproven. At least with Diniz, he still has the potential to surprise us and be better than expected, while it’s pretty clear that Lane will never be good. There are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the cardio and grappling of Diniz, but he’s at least shown the ability to defend takedowns against very low level opponents. Lane made it sound like he’ll be looking to wrestle her, but it’s not like he’s a good grappler and we’ve only ever seen him take one opponent down, which was on the regional scene. Maybe Lane can actually get the fight to the mat, where Diniz could look like a fish out of water. However, if he doesn’t, we fully expect Lane to get knocked out quickly once again and his chin has looked terrible. Diniz by R1 KO is the pick, but we trust these two about as far as we can throw them.
Our favorite bet here is “Jhonata Diniz R1” at -105.
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DFS Implications:
Diniz is a one-dimensional kickboxer who will be reliant on landing well timed knockouts to score well in DFS. All six of his pro MMA fights have ended in the first round, which leaves his cardio a mystery, but generally if you have to ask it’s not a good sign. He’s at least shown the ability to defend takedowns, but that’s the extent of his grappling from what we’ve seen and he hasn’t faced any legitimate grapplers/opponents. While we’ve yet to see him get taken down, it wouldn’t be surprising if he was helpless off his back, but all we can do is speculate there. He hasn’t even been all that impressive on the feet, but he’s shown decent power and he gets a very favorable matchup here to land a quick knockout. Lane has been insanely fragile and if Diniz connects with anything clean the fight could immediately be over. One concern with Lane is that he’s a habitual fouler and his last three fights were all paused in the opening minute for illegal infractions on his part—two from eye pokes and one low blow. That creates the slight potential for a No Contest anytime he competes and you can’t assume the winner will automatically score well, despite his kill or be killed approach to fighting. However, the chances of a fight being called off are still very low, it’s just one low-percentage way that the fight could bust. The far more likely outcome is that Diniz knocks Lane out cold in the first round and puts up a big score. The odds imply Diniz has a 74% chance to win, a 62% chance to land a finish, and a 47% chance it comes in round one.
Lane is tall, long, and fairly athletic for a Heavyweight, but has done literally nothing to impress us. He’s terrible off his back, wild on his feet, and has shown a very suspect chin. He’s coming off a violent knockout loss and before joining the UFC he had been fighting a low level of competition and was still just barely squeaking by in many of those fights. He made it sound like his plan would be to wrestle here, which makes sense since he’s taking on a one-dimensional kickboxer. The only problem with that is Lane isn’t a good wrestler and almost never takes anyone down. Maybe he’s been working on improving in that area, but at 36 years old we’re not expecting to see any drastic changes to his game. Nevertheless, that is the smart approach here and Diniz is entirely untested on the mat. So Lane at least has the potential to tackle his way into top position and rain down ground and pound. So you pretty much have to have some level of exposure to both sides of this low-level Heavyweight bout if you’re entering more than a handful of lineups. Just realize, Lane’s joke of a chin leaves him with a zero point floor and the most likely outcome is for him to get quickly cadavered. The odds imply Lane has a 26% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Karine Silva
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Still undefeated in the UFC, Silva has finished eight straight opponents in under seven minutes, after losing the only decision she’s ever been to back in 2019. All three of her UFC fights ended in first round submissions, with two of those finishes coming in the final five seconds of the round. The most recent of those finishes came via guillotine with just one second left on the clock against Maryna Moroz, who has now lost three straight fights and appears more focussed on Only Fans than only fighting. Prior to that, Silva locked up a quick kneebar against a debuting Ketlen Souza, who is now dropping down a weight class after the loss. That came after Silva locked up another choke in her UFC 2022 debut against Poliana Botelho, which occurred just five seconds before the end of round one. Just before that, Silva secured her spot on the UFC roster with a second round submission win on DWCS, with another guillotine finish. Six of Silva’s last seven wins have come by submission, with the one exception being a 2020 R1 TKO where she snapped her opponent's arm in an armbar attempt. There was never a tap so it went down as a TKO when the ref eventually stopped the fight due to the injury, but the injury was caused by a submission attempt. Silva’s only other KO/TKO win since 2015 was in the first round of a 2019 fight.
Now 17-4 as a pro, all 17 of her career wins have come in the first two rounds, withnine wins by KO/TKO and eight submissions. Five of her nine KO/TKO wins came in her first six pro fights and the majority of her recent wins have ended in submissions. Seven of her last eight finishes have ended in the first round and her DWCS victory is the only time she’s seen the second round since 2019. She’s been finished in three of her four career losses, with one a R3 KO in her pro debut and two first round submissions. She also lost the only decision she’s ever been to. She’s 0-2 in fights that have made it to the third round, although 19 of her last 20 fights ended in under 10 minutes. The only time she’s been finished since 2014 was in a 2017 R1 kneebar, which she followed up with a decision loss. Silva turned pro in 2013 when she was just 19 years old and fought anywhere from 115 lb to 135 lb early on. She hasn’t competed at 115 lb since 2015, but she has been going back and forth between 135 lb and 125 lb more recently. However, she’s stayed at 125 lb since going on DWCS.
Overall, Silva is an aggressive fighter who’s constantly looking for finishes and will throw up a variety of submission attempts. She’s a BJJ brown belt and a dangerous submission threat from all types of positions, with very flexible hips that allow her to be a threat off her back. Between her DWCS match and her three UFC fights, she landed three of her five takedown attempts (60% accuracy), while she got taken down by her opponents twice on just two attempts. She’s also a pretty dangerous striker, with solid power and likes to throw a lot of kicks up the middle. One area of concern with her is her cardio, and she looked to be slowing down some in round two on DWCS before she finished the fight with a guillotine submission. She’s also never won a fight that lasted longer than two rounds, and has competed at both 125 lb and 135 lb, so it could be a tougher cut for her to make 125 lb.
Ariane Lipski
12th UFC Fight (6-5)Lipski has pulled off three straight upset wins and continues to defy the odds. She entered her last fight as a +160 underdog against Casey O’Neill, but proceeded to win the first round on all three scorecards and then hurt O’Neill badly on the feet early in round two, before finishing her with an armbar. Prior to that, Lipski was a +190 underdog against Melissa Gatto, but went on to win a close split-decision. Lipski did a great job of stuffing all seven of Gatto’s takedown attempts, while also landing her lone attempt. Gatto did finish ahead in significant strikes 85-66 and in total strikes 100-81, while also leading in control time, but clearly the judges thought Lipski was landing the more impactful blows. Just before that, Lipski pulled off an even larger upset, that time as a +280 underdog against JJ Aldrich. Lipski dominated the fight and cruised to a unanimous 30-27 decision. Aldrich looked lost in the match and got outlanded in significant strikes 101-49 by Lipski, who also stuffed all 12 of Aldrich’s takedown attempts, while landing both of her own attempts. Leading up to that decision win, Lipski suffered a 65 second R1 TKO loss to Priscila Cachoeira, after winning a decision over a terrible Mandy Bohm. The Lipski/Cachoeira fight was originally scheduled to take place a week earlier at 125 lb, but Lipski missed weight by 2.5 lb and then wasn’t medically cleared. It was bumped back a week and moved up to 135 lb, while Lipski’s struggles making weight the week before seemingly carried over into the fight. That was the only time in her career that Lipski had competed at 135 lb, while Cachoeira seems to think all of her fights are at 135 lb based on how often she misses the 125 lb limit. Lipski won a decision against a terrible Mandy Bohm just before that loss, after getting finished via second round ground and pound in back-to-back fights in 2020 and 2021.
Now 17-8 as a pro, Lipski has six wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and seven decision victories. While 10 of her 17 career wins have come early, Lipski only has two finishes since 2017 and five of her last seven wins went the distance, with the two exceptions both ending in submissions. She has four TKO losses and four decision defeats. All four of her early losses ended in the first two rounds, and she was finished in her last three losses.
Overall, Lipski is a solid striker and a Muay Thai black belt, who’s also capable of looking for submissions on the mat. She’s a former three-time KSW Flyweight champion, so she’s already been at the top of another legitimate organization. Her biggest issue early in her UFC career was her defensive wrestling and she looked lost everytime she ended up on her back, often getting finished with ground and pound. However, she’s been working with Amanda Nunes for the last few years and the improvements she’s made over that time have completely transformed her grappling game. Looking at her entire 11-fight UFC career, Lipski landed 5 of her 9 takedown attempts (55.6% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 8 of their 39 opponent attempts (79.5% defense). Those numbers are all really solid, but the key is comparing her numbers over her last five matches to earlier in her career. Lipski started training at American Top Team in 2020, where Nunes was also training, but it wasn’t until later in 2021 that the work she was putting in with Nunes really started to show. In her last five fights, she successfully defended all 25 of the takedown attempts against her, after she got taken down 8 times on 14 attempts (42.9% defense) in her first six UFC matches. Nunes opened her own gym, Lioness Studio, and Lipski stuck with her and has been training there alongside Amanda and Nina Nunes, who seem to have turned into some of Lipski’s biggest supporters.
Fight Prediction:
Lipski is listed as having a 1” height advantage, but she looks an inch or two taller than the UFC claims she is.
This is a good test for each of these two ascending fighters. Silva comes in on an eight fight winning streak, while Lipski has won three straight and has been facing tougher competition. Silva will have the grappling advantage, but Lipski has successfully defended the last 25 takedown attempts against her and has made massive improvements to her defensive wrestling since she moved to Florida and started training with Amanda and Nina Nunes, in addition to American Top Team. Both Lipski and Silva are good strikers, but we expect Lipski to have a major cardio advantage if she can force Silva into a longer fight. Lipski won the last four decisions she’s been to and also had a five-round decision win for the KSW Flyweight belt just before joining the UFC. Meanwhile, Silva is 0-2 in fights that saw the third round and lost the only decision she’s ever been to. Silva typically relies on taking opponents down and submitting them early in fights, but Lipski has never been submitted in her career and her takedown defense has been rock-solid lately. So what happens if Silva can’t get Lipski down? It’s been almost five years since Silva was in a fight that made it past the seven minute mark and she was already beginning to slow down early in the second round on DWCS before she locked up a guillotine choke. That leads us to believe that Silva doesn’t have a 15 minute gas tank, although her current cardio is somewhat of a mystery since it hasn’t been tested in so long. Nevertheless, we like Lipski’s chances of keeping the fight standing and outlasting Silva in this matchup. If Silva really gasses out, maybe Lipski can finish her in the later rounds, but it’s harder to finish someone that you don’t want to go to the mat with and we’ll say Lipski wins a decision. With so much of Silva’s win equity tied up in an early finish, this also looks like a good spot to live bet Lipski if you can get a good number.
Our favorite bet here is “Ariane Lipski ML” at +135.
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DFS Implications:
Silva has been on an absolute tear lately, finishing eight straight opponents in under seven minutes. She must be training with Shavkat because she continues to lock up submissions in the closing seconds of rounds. All three of her UFC wins ended in first round submissions, with one of those coming with five seconds on the clock and another with just one second. That’s the best case scenario for DFS, and her unreal timing has allowed her to average 109 DraftKings points in her three UFC wins. All 17 of her career wins ended in the first two rounds, which is great for her upside, but also leaves a lot of questions surrounding her cardio. She’s only seen the third round twice in her career and lost both of those matches, which is definitely a red flag as she begins facing tougher competition. She also only averages 3.37 SSL/min, so it’s tougher to see her scoring well if she ever wins a decision. And even in her second round submission win on DWCS, she only would have scored 81 DraftKings points and 92 points on FanDuel. While she does have decent striking, her last four and six of her last seven finishes ended in submissions, and now she’s facing an opponent who’s never been submitted and who successfully defended the last 25 takedown attempts against her. However, the fact that Lipski hasn’t been taken down in any of her last five fights also means we haven’t seen if she’s made improvements in her grappling off her back. There’s no question that her takedown defense has improved, but she also got finished on the mat via ground and pound each of the last two times she was taken down. So if Silva can get this fight to the ground, she’ll still have a decent shot at finding a finish and Lipski has four TKO losses in her career. That makes it tougher to completely fade Silva here, but it does look like a good leverage spot to be underweight on her as she faces a step up in competition and will surely be highly owned. The odds imply Silva has a 59% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Lipski has averaged 92 DraftKings points in her six UFC victories and is coming off a career best 107 point performance where she submitted Casey O'Neill in the second round. However, her previous three wins all went the distance and she only has one other finish in the UFC. While Lipski was able to score 102 and 99 DraftKings points respectively in her first two UFC decision victories, she was also able to find a lot of success on the mat in those fights and she took on a pair of low-level opponents. She faced a more dangerous grappler in her last decision victory and only scored 66 points as she was forced to come in with a more defensive game plan. She faces another really dangerous grappler here and it would be surprising to see Lipski voluntarily look to engage in exchanges on the mat, which will make it tougher for her to score well without a finish. And when you don’t want to go to the mat with someone, it’s much tougher to put them away. However, it’s definitely possible that Silva completely gasses out late in the fight and Lipski is able to finish her or dominate her to the extent that she still scores somewhat decently in a decision. The odds imply Lipski has a 41% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Ryan Spann
12th UFC Fight (7-4)Looking to bounce back from two straight losses, Spann is coming off a close split decision defeat against Anthony Smith that easily could have gone Spann’s way. Spann nearly got Smith out of there in round two, but couldn’t quite close the show and then slowed down in round three. Prior to that, Spann had six straight fights end in the first round and was submitted in the first round by Nikita Krylov in his second most recent fight. Leading up to those losses, Spann knocked out the corpse of Dominick Reyes in 80 seconds, after locking up a first round guillotine against a braindead Ion Cutelaba. That came after Spann was submitted by Anthony Smith in just under four minutes the first time they fought, following a first round knockout win over a fragile Misha Cirkunov. Spann’s one other loss was a first round knockout against Johnny Walker in a crazy back and forth fight. The second most recent time that Spann made it past the first round was in a 2020 split decision win over Sam Alvey, who Spann nearly submitted in the first round. Spann also went on DWCS twice and neither of those fights lasted longer than 26 seconds (1-1). All of Spann’s UFC wins have all come against struggling opponents.
Here’s a list of who Spann beat in his seven UFC wins, along with some context surrounding them:
Dominick Reyes - No Chin. Lost three straight coming into his defeat to Spann.
Ion Cutelaba - Idiot. Went 1-5-1 from 2020 to 2022. Fought Spann in 2022.
Misha Cirkunov - Fragile. 2-7 in his final nine UFC fights, including four straight losses beginning with the loss to Spann.
Sam Alvey - Old/Terrible. Was in the midst of a historically bad 0-8-1 run.
Devin Clark - Highly submittable. 2-2 in his previous four and went 8-9 in the UFC.
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira - 43-year-old relic. One year/fight away from retirement, lost three of his last four.
Luis Henrique Barbosa de Oliveira - Former HW making desperation move down to LHW for the first time. Came in on a two fight skid and got cut following his third straight loss.
Now 21-9 as a pro, Spann has six wins by KO/TKO, 12 submissions, and three decision victories. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted three more, and has three decision defeats. All nine of his knockout wins and losses ended in the first round, as did 10 of his 12 submission wins and two of his three submission losses. He’s had two fights end in second round submissions (1-1), while the only time we’ve seen a finish in one of his fights beyond the eight minute mark was in a 2015 R3 submission win in his seventh pro fight. Nine of his 12 submission wins have come by guillotine, while he also has three by rear-naked choke. Overall, 21 of his 30 pro fights ended in the opening five minutes (70%). Fourteen of his last 17 fights ended early, with 13 of those ending in round one. Looking just at his UFC career, 7 of his 11 fights ended in round one, one ended in round two, and three went the distance. Spann fought mostly at 185 lb early in his career, but has been at 205 lb since he went on DWCS in 2017.
Overall, Spann is consistently looking to end fights early either through striking or submissions (typically by guillotine). He’s also been prone to getting finished quickly himself, with four of his last five losses ending in under four minutes. In fights that have lasted longer than a round, we’ve seen him slow down late and he barely hung on to win a split decision against a washed up Sam Alvey in 2020. While Spann is an aggressive fighter, he only averages 3.42 SSL/min and 1.3 TDL/15 min. Between his 11 UFC fights and his two DWCS matches, he landed just 6 of his 17 takedown attempts (35.3% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 12 of their 23 attempts (47.8% defense). He only landed one total takedown in his last six fights. Spann often looks rough on the scale and missed weight for his third most recent fight, but you can get in trouble reading too much into how he looks during weigh-ins.
Bogdan Guskov
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Just two and a half months removed from his first UFC win, Guskov landed a first round knockout against a terrible Zac Pauga, who was then immediately cut after going 1-3 in the UFC. Prior to that, Guskov got submitted in the first round of his UFC debut against a striker in Volkan Oezdemir. That was only the second time Oezdemir had ever submitted anybody in 26 pro fights. Guskov landed a couple of shots of his own, but it was overall a terrible showing and Oezdemir tripled him up in striking and also knocked him down and took him down before locking up a submission. Before he joined the UFC, Guskov notched four straight first round knockout wins and had won 12 of his previous 13 fights. His last two wins on the regional scene both occurred in 30 seconds or less, although keep in mind he was facing a very low level of competition before he joined the UFC. His last two losses both ended in the first round and his last 14 fights all ended early.
Now 15-3 as a pro, Guskov has 13 wins by KO/TKO and two submission victories. Eleven of his 13 knockouts came in round one, with the other two split between rounds two and three. His last seven finishes all ended by knockout, while his two submission wins occurred in back-to-back 2018 matches, with one ending in round one and the other early in round two. He’s also been finished twice himself in the first round, once by submission and the other by knockout. He lost the only decision he’s ever been to, which was in a two-round 2016 fight in his third pro outing. Only once has he seen the third round in his career, with that ending in a 2019 R3 TKO win in the first half of the round.
Overall, Guskov is an offensively minded fighter with decent power and a 100% finishing rate who has no regard for defense. He has a tendency to keep his hands low, yet still struggles to defend takedowns. While he has a couple of submission wins on his record and is a BJJ brown belt, he’s typically looking to either knock opponents out or die trying. He’s from Uzbekistan, but trains at GOR MMA in Moscow, a gym that we’re not very high on. He has been in Vegas for the last couple of weeks so he got to train with some legitimate UFC talent, but only for a brief period and we doubt he was going very hard at that point since it was right before his fight. We’re still not sold on Guskov and doubt he sticks around the UFC for long unless Anthony Smith asks for a stunt double.
Fight Prediction:
Spann will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
Both of these two are finishers who rarely make it out of the first round. Spann seems like an average UFC-level talent, who will struggle in tougher matchups but can find success against lower-level opponents. We’re not sold on Guskov and we would definitely describe him as a lower level talent. While both of these two have power in their striking, Spann is a better grappler, has more experience, better defense, and looks to be a little quicker. He also trains at a better gym and should come in focussed on getting a win after losing his last two. They say, “You don’t lose, you learn.” Well Guskov has a lot to learn but is just two and a half months removed from a win and we doubt he’ll have made many improvements since then. He called keeping his hands low his “Secret weapon” after that win. Good luck with that moving forward. We like Spann to finish him in the first round and since he loves to look for guillotines, both a knockout or a submission are in play.
Our favorite bet here is “Ryan Spann R1” at +140.
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DFS Implications:
Spann has been entirely reliant on landing first round finishes to score well in DFS and he totaled just 66 and 63 DraftKings points in his two UFC decision wins. And even if the last split decision had gone his way, he still only would have scored 57 points. He also only scored 79 points in a 2019 second round submission victory and just 92 points in a 2022 first round submission win. However, both of those submission wins came by guillotine against wrestlers who were looking to take him down. That’s basically the worst case scenario for scoring in a finish and now he’ll be facing a striker who almost never looks to wrestle. Nevertheless, Spann loves looking for guillotines and if an opportunistic submission presents itself, he’ll definitely go for it. That presents a way for him to find an early finish and still fail to score enough to return value at his high price tag. He only averages 3.42 SSL/min and has landed just one takedown in his last six fights, so it’s almost impossible for him to score well in longer fights. That leaves his path to usefulness pretty narrow as he needs a non hyper-efficient first round finish. Fortunately for him, six of his last seven fights ended in round one and now he’s getting a major step down in competition against a low-level opponent with no striking or submissions defense. This looks like a great bounce back spot for Spann and he’ll have a really good shot at landing the early finish he needs to score well. The odds imply Spann has a 61% chance to win, a 56% chance to land a finish, and a 39% chance it comes in round one.
Guskov is coming off his first UFC win in a R1 KO against a terrible Zac Pauga, who was then immediately cut after going 1-3 with the organization. Even in the win, Guskov wasn’t especially impressive and continues to show a complete disregard for defense as he consistently keeps his hands low. That resulted in him getting knocked down and submitted in his UFC debut just before that, looking terrible in the process. The field seems to be paying more attention to his record than his tape, and Guskov has been 34-35% owned on DraftKings in each of his two UFC fights. What they’re overlooking is that all of his wins have come against terrible opponents and the one time he faced a step up in competition he got smoked. While this isn’t the worst matchup in the world for Guskov, as Spann rarely looks to wrestle and has been finished in six of his nine career losses, it’s still a big step up from Zac Pauga, who isn’t any sort of finishing threat. Spann is just the opposite and 18 of his 21 career wins came early, with 16 of those ending in round one. That leaves Guskov with a zero point floor. While he’ll have a puncher’s chance of finding a quick finish of his own, we expect him to be overowned relative to the likelihood of that happening. And if he does, finish Spann, his high ownership will make it much tougher to create unique lineups that include him, especially if a mispriced James Llontop is also in the winning lineup. It seems like a pretty clear leverage spot in tournaments. The odds imply Guskov has a 39% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Matheus Nicolau
10th UFC Fight (7-2)Nicolau hasn’t competed in just over a year, since getting knocked out by Brandon Royval in the first round of an April 2023 fight. He had then been scheduled to face Manel Kape in January 2024, but Kape missed weight by 3.5 lb and Nicolau refused to proceed with the flight after the large weight miss. That matchup was then rebooked to headline this card, but Kape dropped out with an injury and Alex Perez was announced as the replacement on April 2nd. The last time Nicolau won a fight was in December 2022 when he knocked out a fragile Matt Schnell in the second round, which is Nicolau’s only knockout win since 2014. For the record, Schnell has now been finished in seven of his eight pro losses with five of those coming via KO/TKO. Nicolau won four straight decisions leading up to that finish and his only other early win in the UFC was a third round submission in his 2015 UFC debut. However, Nicolau was released by the organization following a 2018 R1 KO loss to Dustin Ortiz and did secure another submission win in his first fight back on the regional scene. He then won a decision with Brave CF before the UFC brought him back in 2021 to face Manel Kape for the first time, who Nicolau defeated in a close split decision. Five of Nicolau’s nine UFC fights went the distance, and he’s never lost a decision in his career.
Now 19-3-1 as a pro, Nicolau has five wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and nine decision victories. He was knocked out in the first round in all three of his career losses (2012, 2018 & 2023) and is 9-0-1 with the judges, with the draw coming in his third pro fight back in 2011. Five of his last six UFC wins went the distance, with many of those being close. To his credit, Nicolau has won 12 of his last 14 fights, so despite consistently being involved in several close fights, he knows how to do enough to get his hand raised. Nicolau has fought at both 125 lb and 135 lb in his career. He made his UFC debut at 135 lb where he landed a submission, before dropping down to 125 lb after that. He did move back up to 135 lb for his two fights outside of the UFC in 2019, but dropped back down to 125 lb when he returned and that’s where he’s stayed since.
This will be the 1st five-round fight of Nicolau’s career. So he’s never been in a fight that lasted longer than 15 minutes and still needs to prove he has the cardio to go five hard rounds.
Overall, Nicolau is a painfully patient counter striker who likes to circle the outside of the Octagon and force his opponents to chase him. He consistently underwhelms when it comes to his output and he only averages 3.66 SSL/min and 3.14 SSA/min. In his nine UFC fights, he landed 10 of his 22 takedown attempts (45.5% accuracy), while his opponents only got him down on one of their 15 attempts (93.3% defense). He’s a BJJ black belt and has good hand speed and power at Flyweight, but has also been a little chinny, with all three of his career losses ending in first round knockouts.
Alex Perez
11th UFC Fight (6-4)Perez was announced as the replacement for Kape on April 2nd, leaving him with just three and a half weeks to prepare.
Looking to make up for lost time, Perez is jumping right back into the Octagon just eight weeks after losing a close three-round decision to Muhammad Mokaev, who afterwards said he was sick for the fight. It was a largely uneventful match, with Mokaev finishing ahead 47-30 in significant strikes, 56-47 in total strikes, and 3-0 in takedowns. Perez did a good job stuffing 17 of Mokaev’s 20 takedown attempts, but never really got much offense of his own going. Just making it into the cage was honestly a big accomplishment for Perez, who amazingly had nine of his previous 10 booked fights canceled. After winning a UFC contract with a round one submission on the first season of DWCS back in 2017, Perez locked up another submission in his UFC debut later that year. That finish came in the second round, which is the only one of Perez’s UFC fights that didn’t either end in the first round (3-3) or go the distance (2-1). Following two more wins, he suffered his first UFC loss in a 2018 R1 TKO against former title challenger Joseph Benavidez. Perez bounced back with three straight wins, which propelled him into a title shot against Deiveson Figueiredo in 2020. That fight didn’t last long, as Perez got stuck in a guillotine two minutes into the first round and quickly tapped. Perez then had six straight fights canceled, before taking on Alexandre Pantoja in 2022. Once again, Perez was submitted in under two minutes against another high-level opponent who would go on to become champion. Perez then had three more fights canceled and the most recent of those cancellations took place when Perez dropped out mid-card against Manel Kape in March 2023. The UFC put him in timeout for those shenanigans and he sat on the shelf for a year leading up to his recent loss to Mokaev. The last time Perez won a fight was in June 2020 in a R1 TKO via leg kicks against Jussier Formiga.
Now 24-8 as a pro, Perez has five wins by KO/TKO, seven submissions, and 12 decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, submitted five times (three by guillotine), and has two decision defeats. Five of his six early losses ended in round one, with the other coming early in round two. Similarly, 11 of his 12 early wins also occurred in round one, with the other ending in a second round submission win in his UFC debut. While Perez has lost three straight fights, he’s still won 11 of his last 15 matches, with eight of those fights ending in the first round (5-3), one ending in round two (1-0), and six going the distance (5-1). Two of Perez’s 10 UFC fights were up at 135 lb, both of which he won, with a R2 submission in his 2017 UFC debut and a 2019 decision over Mark De La Rosa. Six of Perez’s last eight fights ended in the first round (3-3), with the other two going the distance.
This will be the 4th five-round fight of Perez’s career, but just his second in the UFC. His first five-round fight was in 2015, where he won a decision for a regional belt, which he lost later that year in a second round submission in his second fight that was scheduled to go five rounds. He also got submitted in the first round of his one UFC main event, which was against Deiveson Figueiredo in 2020.
Overall, Perez has a background in wrestling but is also a decent striker and he throws really heavy leg strikes. Between his 10 UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Perez landed 11 takedowns on 25 attempts (44% accuracy), while his opponents only got him down on 5 of their 29 attempts (82.8% defense). However, the last three opponents who tried to take him down were all successful. While Perez’s wrestling is pretty good, his defensive jiu jitsu has been far less impressive and he’s been really prone to getting submitted. It seems like he panics once opponents lock anything in and tends to quickly tap. We’ve seen Perez struggle on the scale at times in the past, and without a full camp to prepare he’s definitely a guy to keep an eye on during weigh-ins.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’6”, but Nicolau will have a 1” reach advantage and is a year younger than the 32-year-old Perez.
While Perez fought less than two months ago, it was such an uneventful match that it was hard to take much away from it, especially when it comes to his offense. And considering he only has one other fight since 2020 and four of his last five bouts ended in round one, it’s hard to know if he’s still the same guy he used to be and how well his cardio will hold up in a longer fight. Perez is known for having good leg kicks, but he only landed five against Mokaev. He also has a wrestling background, but failed to take down any of his last four opponents and will now be going up against a BJJ black belt with a 93% takedown defense. Nicolau does have a wider stance and we’ve seen him have his lead leg attacked at times in the past, so it would sense for Perez to attack his lower body to slow down his evasive movement. However, it’s also hard to trust a guy that hasn’t won a fight in almost four years and is very prone to getting submitted. On the other side of things, Nicolau has been knocked out in the first round in all three of his career losses, including in his last fight which took place just over a year ago. He’s also never been in a five-round fight, leaving a lot of uncertainty on both sides of this matchup. Nicolau is a slow-paced counter striker who tries to frustrate his opponents into making mistakes by circling away from them on the outside of the Octagon. That has the potential to ruin this fight and it’s rare to see either of these two land much in the way of striking volume or takedowns. Perez has been prone to getting submitted, while Nicolau has been knocked out in the first round in all three of his career losses, so if the fight ends early, those are the two most likely outcomes. However, Perez is a good enough grappler to threaten submissions and Nicolau has enough power to knock Perez out, so we can’t completely eliminate either of those two outcomes either. And because we expect this to play out as a lower volume striking battle, the chances of it ending in a close decision are also increased. That makes it a tough fight to predict, but we lean slightly towards it going the distance. They’ve both done well with the judges in the past, with Perez going 12-2 and Nicolau 9-0-1 in their previous decisions. Maybe Perez can look better here than in his last fight, but he was far too hesitant in that last match, which took place just eight weeks ago, and now had less than a month to prepare for this fight since he was announced as the replacement. With so little time to make adjustments and now cutting weight for the second time in two months, we have to give the slight advantage to Nicolau and the odds seem fair. Nicolau by decision will be our tentative pick, but tread lightly in this volatile spot.
Our favorite bet here is “Nicolau/Perez FGTD” at +142.
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DFS Implications:
Nicolau hasn’t competed in a year, but did go through a full camp when he was prepared to fight Kape back in January, before that fight was canceled when Kape missed weight badly. The last time we saw Nicolau inside the Octagon was when he got knocked out in the first round by Brandon Royval, and all three of Nicolau’s career losses ended in first round knockouts. Eleven of Perez’s 12 early wins also occurred in round one, leaving Nicolau with a shaky scoring floor. And while Nicolau knocked out a fragile Matt Schnell just before losing to Royval, that’s Nicolau’s only finish in the UFC since his 2015 debut. His previous five UFC wins all went the distance and he only topped 77 points in one of those, which was when he randomly landed three knockdowns against Louis Smolka in 2017 and scored 122 DraftKings points. That win came just after Nicolau tested positive for PEDs and was suspended a year. He then got knocked out in the first round of his next fight and was cut by the UFC in 2018, before being brought back in 2021. He rattled off three straight decision wins in his return, but only averaged 69 DraftKings points in those fights and even if we extend his stats in those three-round matches over 25 minutes, he still only would have averaged 94 points. He’s a patient counter striker who loves to evade opponents around the outside of the Octagon and he only averages 3.66 SSL/min, while he’s also landed just two total takedowns in his last four fights. He’s facing a good wrestler in Perez here, who has an 82% takedown defense and averages just 3.14 SSA/min. While Perez has been prone to getting submitted, at Nicolau’s high price tag he could lock up a guillotine and easily still not score enough to be useful. We see lots of ways for Nicolau to fail and expect him to be overowned relative to his chances of ending up in the optimal lineup. That makes this an easy leverage spot to be underweight in tournaments. However, it still makes sense to stack the fight in low-risk contests on DraftKings. The odds imply Nicolau has a 62% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Perez has consistently scored well when he wins and he averaged 107 DraftKings points in his six UFC victories. Even in his two decision wins, he still managed to score 97 and 87 points, but that required him finding a good amount of wrestling success. Now he’s facing the 93% takedown defense of Nicolau, who’s a BJJ black belt and will also threaten submissions. That lowers the chances of Perez landing takedowns and increases the odds of him getting submitted if he tries. Perez only averages 4.12 SSL/min and Nicolau averages just 3.14 SSA/min and loves to ruin fights by circling away from opponents along the outside of the Octagon. However, Nicolau has been knocked out in the first round in all three of his career losses and 11 of Perez’s 12 finishes also ended in round one. That at least leaves him with a high ceiling and at Perez’s cheap price tag he could still end up in winning lineups even in a less eventful decision win. However, it’s now impossible that on a higher scoring slate with multiple underdog winners that Perez could win a 25 minute staring contest and get left out of the optimal. He’s also been very prone to getting submitted early in fights, making it hard to trust his floor. And keep in mind, he fought just eight weeks ago and stepped into this five-round matchup on only three and a half weeks’ notice. That’s not ideal for a fighter who’s struggled at times on the scale and we’re only 13 months removed from Perez dropping out of a fight after the card had already started. While that’s unlikely to happen again, it does make it a little tougher to trust him, not to mention his last win was nearly four years ago. The odds imply Perez has a 38% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
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Top UFC PrizePicks Play of the Week:
Jonathan Pearce OVER 90.5 Pts
