The Sheet

Late Scratches: None

Fighter Notes:

Fight #12

Christos Giagos

6th UFC Fight (3-2)

Giagos was originally booked to fight Joel Alvarez, but Alvarez was forced to withdraw due to visa issues and Soriano was announced as the replacement nine days out.

Giagos recently took a fight on just a few days notice himself and won a grappling-heavy decision against a terrible Carlton Minus in a 160 lb Catchweight match. In a completely one-sided fight, Giagos went 5 for 15 on takedowns while accruing nearly nine minutes of control time. While he clumsily looked for multiple submissions, none of them were close enough to go down as an official attempt. He didn’t add a ton in the striking department, as he only outlanded Minus 31-28 in significant strikes and 76-29 in total strikes. In addition to taking the fight on 72 hours notice, Giagos was coming off a 16 month layoff, so there are multiple excuses for his lagging cardio in the back half of the fight, however that seems to be an ongoing issue for him. It’s hard to call it an impressive performance, but if he can improve his cardio it at least showed the potential for grappling heavy wins in the future.

Giagos originally joined the UFC in 2014 and went 1-2 before getting released. In his 2014 UFC debut, he was matched up against Gilbert Burns, who easily submitted Giagos with a R1 Armbar. Giagos bounced back in his second UFC fight with a first round submission of his own, which was the last time Giagos submitted anybody (six years ago). He followed that up with a decision loss before being let go by the organization.

He went on to fight six times outside of the UFC from 2016-2018, going 4-2. He got knocked out by UFC power puncher Josh Emmett in his first match outside of the organization, but then got a KO of his own in a 2016 fight, which was the last KO he’s landed. His next four fights all ended in decisions, with him winning three of those. For whatever reason, the UFC decided to bring him back at that point, but only on the condition that they get to feed him to Charles Oliveira in his 2018 return. Oliveira unsurprisingly submitted Giagos in the second round. Since that 2018 loss, Giagos has again fought to four straight decisions, again winning three of them. His last six wins have now all gone the distance.

Giagos had been scheduled to fight Alan Patrick in April 2020, but was forced to withdraw from the fight due to an injury, which is why he ended up having a 16 month layoff between his last two fights.

Giagos has been a low volume striker for his entire career, but did land a career best 87 significant strikes in his second most recent fight—his previous high was a pathetic 47. He’s aggressively hunted for takedowns in his last four fights, as he’s gone 18 for 43 (42% accuracy) over that period.

With an 18-8 pro record, Giagos has seven career wins by KO and three by submission, however his only early win in the UFC was a 2015 R1 Submission and his last early win of any kind was a 2016 R1 KO after leaving the UFC. His other eight early victories all occured in 2014 or before and eight of his last nine fights have now ended in decisions.

Sean Soriano

4th UFC Fight (0-3)

Soriano originally joined the UFC in 2014 when he was 24 years old, but was released in 2015 following his third straight loss. Since his dismissal, he’s gone 6-3, with eight of those nine fights ending early. He’s now won three in a row with a pair of first round knockouts bookending a 2020 decision victory. His last four losses have notably all come early, three by submission and one by knockout, however he’s never been finished in the first round in his career.

In his 2014 UFC debut at 145 lb, Soriano was absolutely dominated on the ground by Tatsuya Kawajiri, who went 3-3 in the UFC with just the one early win before being released in 2015. In a fight that lasted just under six minutes, Soriano was taken down three times on 12 attempts and controlled for over four minutes of the action. He also lost the significant striking battle 32-19 and in total strikes 62-23 before getting choked unconscious 50 seconds into the second round.

In his second UFC fight, Soriano took on wrestler Chas Skelly, who had fought just two weeks earlier, but accepted the fight on short notice. Skelly won an ultra low-volume, grapply-heavy decision, where he went 4 for 7 on takedowns and controlled Soriano for 10 of the 15 minutes. Soriano actually led in significant strikes 24-13, but Skelly came out ahead in total strikes 62-34, and attempted a ridiculous seven official submission attempts.

Soriano’s third UFC fight came against another grappler in Charles Rosa. Soriano actually led in significant strikes 69-37 and in total strikes 72-37, but Rosa landed 5 takedowns on 8 attempts, while Soriano landed 3 on 7 attempts. Rosa also led in control time 5:36-3:07. The fight was stopped with just 17 seconds remaining in the third round as Rosa locked up a Brabo Choke—although there was some question as to whether or not Soriano actually tapped and the stoppage looked a little quick in an ambiguous single tap motion.

Soriana has fought the majority of his career at 145 lb, and while he does have a handful of fights at 150 lb Catchweight, he’s only fought at 155 lb three times. All three of those fights ended early, with a 2015 R1 KO win, a 2016 R3 KO loss, and a 2019 R1 KO win. The loss was technically at a 160 lb Catchweight, but Soriano weighed in at 155 lb, while his opponent checked in at 161 lb. Soriano’s last three fights have been at 150 lb, 145 lb and 155 lb (where Soriano weighed just 152 lb).

Soriano is 14-6 as a pro, with 11 of those wins coming early, including seven KOs and four submissions. He’s only been knocked out once in his career, but he’s been submitted four times.

Soriano has decent striking, but has looked extremely vulnerable to being taken down and submitted. While he’s won three straight fights, including two first round knockouts, those have come against struggling opponents. Two of those opponents have lost three of their last four fights, while the other has lost two of his last three. Now fighting up a weight class against another opponent who generally lands lots of takedowns, this sets up for Soriano to be spending a lot of time on his back.

Fight Prediction:

Giagos will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 71” reach.

Giagos has notably fought his entire career at 155 lb, whereas Soriano generally fights at 145 lb. Neither one of these guys has been very impressive and both are UFC retreads. Giagos is a one-dimensional grappler with questionable cardio and no ability to finish fights and Soriano is an undersized striker with a non-existent ground game. Giagos should have no trouble getting Soriano to the ground, the bigger question is whether or not he can actually get a finish—or simply last 15 minutes without running out of gas. If his cardio holds up, we think he grinds out another grappling-heavy decision, but likely fails to capitalize on multiple teed up submission opportunities. However, if he limps into another third round there’s certainly the possibility that Soriano can flip the script and finish him. We don’t think that’s the most likely scenario, but it’s hard to have much confidence in either of these two. Working in Giagos’ favor, he’s only been knocked out once in his career and that came at the hands of Josh Emmett in 2016. Also, Soriano’s cardio hasn’t looked great in the third round either, so we could see both fighters limping to the finish line. We still think Giagos wins a decision here, but this is not a UFC level fight, let alone one that belongs on a PPV card.

The options we’re considering are “Giagos Wins by Decision” at +115, “Giagos Wins by Submission” at +700, “Giagos Wins by R2 Submission” at +2300 and “Soriano Wins by R3 KO” at +3000.

DFS Implications:

Giagos has shown the potential to rack up takedowns in his last few fights, but tends to fade by the third round. We don’t see him putting up a ton of striking volume, so he’ll be almost entirely reliant on grappling stats to score well. That inherently makes him a better play on DraftKings, and his complete inability to finish opponents makes him a much riskier FanDuel option. In his recent grappling-heavy decision win, Giagos failed to capitalize on multiple opportunities to finish the fight with various submissions. Despite dominating the match against a non-UFC level talent, he scored just 93 DraftKings points and 69 points on FanDuel. He did take the fight on just a few days notice and looked to be running out of gas by the end of the third round, which didn’t help his scoring, but his cardio has consistently been an issue. Working in Giagos’ favor, Soriano’s first three UFC opponents put up DK/FD scores of 111/117, 93/87 and 95/134. However, we saw an abnormally high number of submission attempts (7 & 4) in two of those matches, which helped to prop up those FanDuel scores. In a match where Giagos was hunting for submissions throughout the first two rounds, he finished with zero official submission attempts in his last fight. We trust this guy to get a finish about as far as we can throw him, but the odds imply he has a 66% chance to win, a 23% chance to end it early and a 9% chance to win in R1.

Soriano has gone 0-3 in the UFC, so obviously he’s never scored well. He has decent striking but looks like a complete liability in the grappling department and now he gets an opponent who will be looking for takedowns throughout the match. That should make life miserable in his return to the UFC after nearly six years away, but if he can survive the first two rounds there’s a chance Giagos gasses out and Soriano can land a third round finish if he has anything left himself, but we’re not overly optimistic. The UFC hasn’t done him any favors as they’ve matched him up with four straight grapplers in his four UFC fights, but he did show small signs of improvement between each of his previous fights. The odds imply Soriano has a 34% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in R1.

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Fight #11

Tucker Lutz

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Making his UFC debut following a pair of decision wins on DWCS, Lutz comes in on an 11 fight winning streak since losing his pro debut in 2015 by R3 KO. Eight of those 11 wins came early with six KOs and a pair of submissions. Only three of his 12 pro fights have gone the distance, although two of those came in his last two fights and many of his early matches were against questionable opponents. His record looks somewhat padded with his wins coming against opponents who entered with records of 1-1, 3-4, 3-0, 6-7, 12-5, 3-14, 8-11, 6-3, 2-2, 9-4, 5-0.

Lutz made his first appearance on DWCS this past September and won a unanimous 30-27 striking battle decision. He didn’t attempt a takedown in the fight but led in significant strikes 96-47 and total strikes 107-49. He started a little slow in the match but seemed to improve as the fight went on. Early on, he looked very hittable, with his chin high and very little head movement. His opponent seemed to slow down after the first round and Lutz took over. However, the performance was not enough to get him a UFC contract.

Interestingly, they brought him back on the show just two months later to give it another shot. That second fight turned into more of a grappling match, and despite promising Dana White a finish in his next match after his first performance, this one also went the distance. Lutz actually came out behind in both significant strikes 37-34 and total strikes 96-61, but he did lead on takedowns 4-2 and control time 7:51-3:23.

Lutz started his pro career at 145 lb before moving up to 155 lb in 2018. He said after his most recent fight that his future will be 145 lb but he’d been dealing with a nagging chest cartilage injury that he needed to take care of. Now just six months after that interview, it’s unclear if he’s fully gotten past that injury, but the fact that this fight is back down at 145 lb is a good sign.

Kevin Aguilar

6th UFC Fight (2-3)

After fighting almost his entire career at 145 lb, Aguilar moved up to 155 lb for his last fight to try and break a two fight skid. The move proved unsuccessful as he lost a decision to Charles Rosa, and now he’ll move back down to 145 lb.

After 12 of his first 15 pro fights ended early, five of his last six have gone the distance. Prior to joining the UFC he had 11 career finishes, with 10 KOs and one submission win. However, he’s failed to transition his finishing ability to the UFC and his only fight to end early in the last three years was a 2020 R1 KO loss to Zubaira Tukhugov.

Aguilar has just one takedown in his last six fights and also only landed above 58 significant strikes in one of his recent five decisions, which was when he landed 86 in his 2018 UFC debut decision win. Since then, all three of his decisions have been relatively low-volume affairs and three of those stayed entirely on the feet.

Nothing stands out as special with Aguilar, but he might get cut with a loss here so you could argue that his motivation levels should be at an all time high. With that said, we’re not confident he has the ability to put on an impressive performance as he simply looks like a plodding boxer.

Fight Prediction:

Lutz will have a 1” height advantage but Aguilar will have a 1” reach advantage.

Both of these fighters have shown a solid takedown defense and a desire to keep fights standing up, so we expect this to play out on the feet. Lutz’s last two fights have both gone the distance, as have five of Aguilar’s last six matches. Both guys have fought the majority of their careers at 145 lb, but are coming off fights at 155 lb so it will be important to monitor weigh-ins. We expect this one to end in a decision and haven’t been overly impressed by either guy. With that said, we’ve been even less impressed with Aguilar and think Lutz likely gets the nod by outlanding Aguilar in this spot.

The line we’re most interested in here is the “Fight Goes the Distance” at -185, but you can also consider “Lutz Wins by Decision” at +160.

DFS Implications:

Neither one of Lutz’s two decisions on DWCS would have scored very well in DFS with DraftKings totals of 83 and 75 and FanDuel scores of 91 and 84. While he comes in on an impressive 11 fight winning streak that includes eight finishes, much of his earlier record is pretty padded so those finishes should come with a grain of salt. He couldn’t finish either of his opponents on DWCS and never even looked that close, so we don’t have many reasons to think he gets a finish here. It would be very surprising to see him put up a good score in a decision win and we expect this fight to remain on the feet with little to no grappling stats to boost scores. We’re not excited about playing either guy in this fight and expect a low to average scoring decision. The odds imply Lutz has a 52% chance to win, a 19% chance to get a finish and just an 8% chance it comes in R1.

Even less exciting of a play than Lutz is Aguilar who’s only fight in his last six not to go the distance came in a 2020 R1 KO loss. Aguilar is an unimpressive boxer who moved up to 155 lb as a last ditch effort to save his UFC career with no luck in his last fight. He’s done nothing to impress us and this could easily be the last time we see him inside the Octagon after losing three straight coming in. The only narrative that might give you any reason to sprinkle Aguilar into your tournament exposure is that he’s a desperate veteran facing a UFC newcomer, who’s off back-to back decisions on DWCS. Even then it still feels like a stretch and fade looks like the play here. The odds suggest Aguilar has a 48% chance to win, a 19% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in the first round.

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Fight #10

Gina Mazany

7th UFC Fight (2-4)

After fighting her entire pro career at 135 lb, Mazany dropped down to 125 lb for her last match and put up a career performance under the tutelage of James Krause. It definitely helped that she took on a terrible opponent in Rachael Ostovich, who came in having been finished in three of her last four fights and subsequently was released by the UFC. Mazany was able to fill up the stat sheet as she landed seven takedowns on 12 attempts and stuffed Ostovich’s only takedown attempt. Mazany led in control time 6:53-0:11, significant strikes 72-41 and total strikes 106-49. She then finished Ostovich late in the third round with a body kick KO. Mazany’s last three and four of her six UFC fights have now ended early.

Prior to the dominating victory, Mazany lost in a 22 second R1 TKO against Julia Avila back in June 2020. That was her third straight UFC loss, with the most recent two ending in the first two minutes. Earlier that year, she did land a R1 Rear-Naked Choke Submission win on the regional scene after getting cut by the UFC in 2019, which was enough to get her another shot in the UFC.

Mazany also lost her 2017 UFC debut in just 74 seconds meaning that three of her four UFC losses have come in under two minutes. Her one other UFC win came in a decision against a fighter making her UFC debut, who appeared to suffer a shoulder injury at the end of the second round. She also has one decision loss in the UFC.

Mazany originally went pro in 2008 the day after her 20th birthday. However, after fighting once in 2008 and once in 2009, she didn’t fight again until 2013. And then after that 2013 fight, she didn’t fight again until 2016. She’s now fought just 11 times in 12+ years, with seven of those coming since joining the UFC in 2017.

Mazany did win all four of those pre-UFC fights, including three in R1. However, those wins came against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-1, 0-0 and 2-1, so we probably shouldn’t read too much into those victories. So while 7 of her 11 pro fights have ended in R1, the first three finishes among those seem less telling than the three she lost in the UFC.

Prior to her last fight, Mazany switched gyms and moved with her fiance Tim Elliot from Vegas to Missouri to train with James Krause at Glory MMA & Fitness, which definitely seemed to help her.

Priscila Cachoeira

5th UFC Fight (1-3)

Coming off her first UFC win, followed up by one of the most emotional reactions you’ll ever see, Cachoeira lost her first three UFC fights after winning all eight of her fights prior to joining the organization. In those eight pre-UFC fights she had four KO’s and four decision wins.

She was thrown into the fire in her UFC debut getting matched up against Valentina Shevchenko, followed by Molly McCann and Luana Carolina. Shevchenko absolutely dominated her for two rounds, as she elbowed her face through the mat before submitting Cachoeira late in R2. That remains the only time Cachoeira has been finished early in her career.

Cachoeira went on to lose two decisions following the submission loss, before finally getting her first UFC win in her recent KO victory as she knocked out Dobson just 40 seconds into the first round.

Cachoeira absorbed a ton of significant strikes in her first three UFC fights (95, 107, 111). She was also taken down twice in each of her first two UFC fights. Her opponents have also attempted a decent number of submission attempts against her, with her first three opponents all recording at least two official submission attempts.

Nicknamed “Zombie Girl” Cachoeira will gladly push forward with her hands low encouraging high-volume firefights. She trains with Jessica Andrade so her brawling approach shouldn’t come as a surprise. Cachoeira has shown a solid chin and has never been knocked out

Cachoeira also fought some at 135 lb earlier in her career, but has been down at 125 lb since 2017. She notably withdrew from her last fight due to a botched weight cut, so it will be extra important to monitor her at weigh-ins.

UPDATE: Cachoeira needed the curtain to make weight, but still came in on weight.

Fight Prediction:

Cachoeira will have a 1” height advantage, but Mazany will have a 3” reach advantage.

This should be a fun one. Both ladies have lost more than they’ve won in the UFC, but it’s rare that either is in a boring fight. Cachoeira basically has no ground game, as she’s just a pure brawler, so look for Mazany to try and take this fight to the mat. On the other side of things, Manazy has been susceptible to being overwhelmed with blitzes of strikes, which is what Cachoeira does best. There’s a good chance this fight ends with either a Cachoeira TKO win or a Mazany submission victory. Looking at each fighter’s odds to win, it’s kind of surprising that the line is as wide as it is and we think the chances are actually much closer. We like Cachoeira’s chances to pull off the upset and get a TKO stoppage here, but this could definitely go either way.

We like “Cachoeira Wins by KO” at +600, “Cachoeira Wins by R1 KO” at +1200, “Mazany Wins by Submission” at +900 and “Fight Doesn’t Go the Distance” at +165.

DFS Implications:

This is one of the most likely three round fights on the slate to produce a top scorer. While Mazany only has two UFC wins on her record, she scored 138 and 118 DraftKings points in those two victories, and both fights notably made it to the third round, with one going the distance. Helping to boost her DFS scores, Mazany has landed at least two takedowns in her three UFC fights that lasted longer than 109 seconds. Her recent R3 KO explosion spot was good for 138 DraftKings points and 155 points on FanDuel. Her previous decision win scored 118 DraftKings points and 76 points on FanDuel. So you can see her grappling heavy style has a higher floor on DraftKings, but still has the potential to break the slate on FanDuel, where she’s just more reliant on getting a finish. This is a perfect matchup for another explosion spot, as all three of the fighters to defeat Cachoeira landed at least 95 significant strikes and two submission attempts. The odds imply Mazany has a 66% chance to win, a 22% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.

Cachoeira is a one-dimensional brawling striker who’s never landed a takedown in the UFC and has only attempted two—both against Luana Carolina. In her four UFC fights, 98% of her strikes have registered as significant, which when combined with her non-existent grappling makes her a better fit for the FanDuel scoring system—where she will also benefit from takedowns defended. Cachoeira will need a finish to score well on DraftKings, but could theoretically still be useful with a decision win on FanDuel. She’s notably coming off a 40 second R1 KO and Mazany has been knocked out in two minutes or less in two of her last four fights. The odds imply Cachoeira has a 34% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1. Those all seem too low.

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Fight #9

Antonina Shevchenko

6th UFC Fight (3-2)

Coming off a smothering R2 ground and pound TKO stoppage win against Ariane Lipski, Shevchenko is known as a pure Muay Thai striker, but was able to show an improving ground game in that last fight after looking helpless on the mat in her previous bout. In her recent victory, Shevchenko was credited with one takedown on three attempts, although it easily could have been two. She amassed over seven and half minutes of control time in a fight that lasted just nine and a half minutes. She also came out ahead in significant strikes 39-15 and total strikes 94-25 as the fight was stopped late in the second round as she pummeled her downed opponent.

Prior to that win, Shevchenko was coming off a three round decision beatdown loss at the hands of Katlyn Chookagian, which was just Shevchenko’s second career loss. Chookagian dominated Shevchenko on the ground as she went 3 for 3 on takedowns and accrued 10:36 of control time, while recording four official submission attempts. She also led in significant strikes 73-25 and by a much wider margin in total strikes at 200-37.

Four of Shevchenko’s nine career wins have notably come against 0-0, 0-0, 0-1 and 0-1 opponents. So while the older of the two Shevchenko sisters has an 9-2 record, it’s less impressive than it appears on paper. She’s gone 3-2 in the UFC and has alternated wins and losses since joining the organization. Prior to getting dominated in her most recent loss, Shevchenko lost a decision to Roxanne Modafferi in 2019. Her last two wins have both come in second round finishes, one by TKO and another by Rear-Naked Choke Submission. Her only other two career fights to end early were a R2 KO win in her pro debut and another R2 KO win on DWCS in 2018. So all four of her career finishes have come in the second round—three by KO and one by submission—and she’s never been finished herself. Seven of her 11 career fights ended in decisions (5-2).

She originally went pro in 2002 and fought three times between then and 2005. Then she stepped away from MMA for 12 long years until 2017 when she took it back up. She did compete in Muay Thai and K1 during her time away. She started her career at 135 lb, but moved down to 125 lb when she went on DWCS in 2018 and that’s where she stayed.

She only has three takedowns in her five UFC fights, with one in her last match and two in her 2018 UFC debut. With a Muay Thai background, she’s generally regarded as a pure striker, but surprised some people in her last fight with her ground control. Shevchenko has yet to win two fights in a row since joining the UFC, so it will be interesting to see if she can capture her first winning streak here.

Andrea Lee

7th UFC Fight (3-3)

Coming off three straight decision losses, including two split decisions, Lee is desperate for a win on Saturday. She won three straight decisions to start her UFC career, and it’s been almost four years since she was involved in a fight that ended early. Lee had been scheduled to fight Gillian Robertson back in December, but was forced to withdraw due to a broken nose.

Lee joined the UFC in 2018 and defeated Veronica Macedo, Ashlee Evans-Smith and Montana De La Rosa in three straight decisions in her first 13 months with the organization. She then lost a split decision to Joanne Calderwood, in what remains her only UFC fight where she didn’t come out ahead in significant strikes.

She then took on Lauren Murphy in February 2020 in a high paced brawl. Lee finished ahead in significant strikes 104-80, while the two were dead even in total strikes at 107 each. Murphy did land two takedowns on four attempts, while Lee went 0 for 3 on her attempts. Even the broadcast team was talking about how one of the judges was not even watching the fight and there had been several questionable decisions on the card. It definitely looked like Lee won the fight.

Lee has landed 97 or more significant strikes in three of her six UFC fights and has landed 10 takedowns since joining the organization. She’s also notably been taken down by her opponents at least once in all of her fights and 16 times total.

She currently holds an 11-5 pro record, with six of those wins coming early, including two KOs and four submissions, although all of those finishes notably came earlier in her career against less experienced opponents. She’s never been knocked out, but she has been submitted once, which came in a 2016 R3 Rear-Naked Choke.

UPDATE: Lee needed the curtain to make weight, but did hit the mark.

Fight Prediction:

Shevchenko will have a 2” height advantage, but Lee will have a 2” reach advantage.

This is an interesting matchup between two decent strikers. Lee throws more volume, but Shevchenko has been more of a threat to finish fights and has never been finished herself. Lee is a more active grappler in addition to averaging higher striking volume, and we think she outlands her way to a decision victory here. She has to win a decision eventually, right?

Lee’s moneyline at +106 and “Lee Wins by Decision” at +175 are our favorite bets here, but we also like the value in “Shevchenko Wins in R2” at +2000 considering all four of her career finishes have come in the second round.

DFS Implications:

Shevchenko failed to put up usable DFS scores in her first two UFC wins, despite one of those ending in a second round submission. Her lone UFC decision win scored just 79 DraftKings points and 72 points on FanDuel. Her first UFC finish, which came by R2 submission, scored just 84 DraftKings points, but did total 112 points on FanDuel. Her most recent second round win scored 115 DraftKings points and 113 points on FanDuel. Because she’s failed to land a takedown in four of her last six fights and has never landed more than 66 significant strikes in a match, she’s entirely reliant on an early finish to score well—especially when you factor in her top-tier price tag. Lee has only been finished once in her career and that came via submission five years ago. The odds imply Shevchenko has a 53% chance to win this fight, a 12% chance to get a finish and a slate-low 5% chance that it comes in the first round.

All six of Lee’s UFC fights have gone the distance, so despite her high striking volume, it’s not entirely surprising that she’s never scored well. She did notably score 71 DraftKings points in her recent decision loss, so had that fight gone her way she would have notched 101 points in a decision victory. Her three UFC decision wins scored 70, 78 and 88 DraftKings points, so at her cheap price tag she’s at least not too far off from returning value. She’s yet to land a knockdown in the UFC, which has also contributed to her lower scoring. Lee seems like a sneaky candidate to hit her scoring ceiling if she can put it all together, as she’s desperate for a win and averages the second highest number of significant strikes landed on the slate at 5.58/min. She’ll also have extra motivation not to leave the fight close after losing three straight decisions, with two of those being split. Working against her, Shevchenko absorbs the third fewest number of significant strikes on the slate, but keep in mind her last two fights were smothering grappling performances, which will naturally drag that number down. We like Lee’s chances to pull off the upset and potentially even put up a usable score in a decision at her cheap price tag. It’s not the most likely outcome, but there’s likely a better chance than people realize of it happening. The odds imply she has a 47% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in R1.

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Fight #8

Jamie Pickett

2nd UFC Fight (0-1)

Pickett is coming off a decision loss to another opponent with dangerous head kicks in former Heavyweight/Light Heavyweight Tafon Nchukwi. However, Pickett didn’t do much to impress us in that fight, and failed to really capitalize on his speed advantage. The two fighters clashed heads at the end of the second round, which appeared to compromise Pickett from that point on as he struggled to shake it off. Midway through the third round, Nchukwi dropped Pickett with a head kick and followed it up with a knee to the body from the Thai clinch that looked like something Wright would actually be able to pull off. Pickett showed off his heart and durability as he absorbed ground and pound from Nchukwi but was able to survive to see a lopsided decision (25-30, 26-30, 26-30). The fight ended with Nchukwi ahead 120-40 in significant strikes and 159-40 in total strikes. Nchukwi went 0 for 2 on takedowns, while Pickett went 1 for 4.

If Pickett had not gotten a shot in the UFC it would not have been for a lack of effort. He attempted to earn a UFC contract on DWCS not once, not twice, but thrice. And as is often the case, the third time was the charm. In his first DWCS appearance back in 2017, he was submitted by UFC fighter Charles Byrd in R1. In his second time on the show, he lost a three round decision to dangerous UFC finisher Punahele Soriano in 2019. But on his third try this past August, he landed a R2 KO and finally made it into the UFC. He unleashed an explosive flurry of punches to finish that fight, something that we didn’t see in his earlier fights.

All but two of Pickett’s career fights have been at Middleweight (185 lb), but he has fought up a weight class twice. He’s 11-5 as a pro, with 9 of his 11 wins coming early—eight by KO and one by submission. Two of his five losses were by submission, while his other three losses ended in decisions. He’s never been knocked out. While three of his last four fights have ended in decisions, three of his last four wins have been by KO in the first six minutes of fights.

Pickett is a very long fighter with a massive 80” reach. His long arms allow him to jab from what would be most fighter’s kicking range, although that plays right into his next opponent’s favor who’s a one dimensional kicker with no boxing skills.

Jordan Wright

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Coming off a R2 KO loss to Joaquin Buckley, our original assessment of Wright before he made his UFC debut appears to be coming to fruition. His padded record and unimpressive fighting style had us off him in his UFC debut when he landed a flukey first round stoppage, and we doubled down in his most recent fight. In that last match he took on a much shorter Joaquin Buckley, who exposed Wright as the fraud he is. Wright has two moves—spinning head kick and high knees in the Thai clinch. In true Ricky Bobby fashion, Jordan Wright has no idea what to do with his hands—both in striking offense and defense. Buckley dropped Wright at the end of the first round and nearly finished him, but Wright was saved by the bell. However, he was clearly still compromised to start the second round and Buckley quickly finished him just 18 seconds after action resumed. Wright has no chance in either a boxing match or a scrappy brawl and it doesn’t take much to finish him.

He made his UFC debut up at 205 lb this past August against a terrible Ike Villanueva, and it ended with a weird/sudden R1 TKO resulting from a doctor's stoppage just 91 seconds in. Wright landed a spinning head kick to start the fight that glanced off the top of Villanueva’s dome, dropping him for a brief moment. As Villanueva returned to his feet, Wright engaged him in the Thai clinch against the fence and began landing several high knees to the face of Villanueva. He was able to split Villanueva open above the eye with one of those knees, which resulted in the fight being stopped just moments later. The flukey stoppage awarded Wright a R1 TKO in his debut, but was far from impressive.

Prior to joining the UFC, Wright’s only career loss, which was later overturned to a No Contest, came in a 2018 fight on DWCS against Anthony "Fluffy" Hernandez in a R1 40 second KO. After a 19 month layoff and a switch in gyms, Wright bounced back with a R2 KO against an unimpressive Gabriel Checco. It's worth noting, that was the first time any of Wright's pro fights made it out of the first round up until that point.

Wright started his pro career off with nine straight first round wins. However, on closer investigation that impressive winning streak is padded by a sea of inexperienced (or experienced at losing) fighters. Here are the records of those nine opponents starting at the beginning of Wright's career: 0-0, 0-0, 0-5, 0-0, 0-21, 0-10, 0-0, 1-2, 7-3. With an unbelievably bad 1-38 combined record from his first eight opponents it's hard to take much from those early wins, so it makes more sense to look at his record from his ninth win on when trying to gauge how good he actually is. He’s 3-2 over that period with the three wins still coming against pretty terrible competition.

The first true test Wright was given came against Hernandez and it was immediately clear Wright was overmatched as he was viciously KO'd in just 40 seconds. His only other decent opponent was Joaquin Buckley, and once agains Wright was viciously KO’d. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for people to realize that this guy is terrible.

All five of Wright’s career submission wins have come in the first round, as have five of his six career KO victories. He’s never been in a fight that lasted longer than six minutes and is 1-1 in his only two fights that made it past the first round.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 6’2” but Pickett will have a 3” reach advantage.

Wright had a height and reach advantage in each of his first two UFC fights, which played into his game plan to engage opponents with the Thai clinch and try to land high knees. However, now he won’t have either of those advantages so it will be interesting to see how he responds, especially coming off a KO. Our guess would be to try and mix in some grappling and test Pickett on the mat. Neither one of these fighters has impressed us and this represents a step down in competition for each of them, so now the question is how will each guy respond to their first UFC loss.

We often see fighters like Wright, who are coming off KO losses, approach fights more cautiously or look to wrestle more in their subsequent match. We’ve only seen Wright attempt one unsuccessful takedown so far in the UFC, but he does have five first round submission wins on his record and both of Pickett’s early career losses have come by submission, so it would make sense for several reasons if Wright looked to get this fight to the mat early on. While Pickett defended both takedown attempts in his UFC debut, he was taken down five times on six attempts in his three DWCS fights, so that does appear to be a weakness. Getting Pickett down and submitting him is probably Wright’s most likely path to victory as we don’t see him fluking his way into another KO.

If Pickett can stay on his feet we like his chances to overwhelm Wright with punches and finish him early, but he’s also struggled to really capitalize on his advantages and has rarely pushed the pace in the past, so it’s possible he lays an egg in this golden opportunity and takes this one to another decision. With that said, we’ll bet against Wright until the end of time, so give us Pickett in this one, most likely by KO otherwise in a decision.

We expect this fight to either end in the first two rounds or go to a decision. On Pickett’s side we like his moneyline at -110 and decision line at +500. We also like his R1 and R2 KO lines at +500 and +750 respectively. If you want to take a long shot on Wright, check out his R1 submission line at +1300. We also like betting that the “Fight Ends in R1” at +200 and “Fight Ends in R2” at +380.

DFS Implications:

So far, these two fighters have combined for three UFC fights (1-2) and the winner of those fights has ended up in the optimal lineup on both DFS sites three straight times. However, Pickett does not seem overly conducive to DFS production and now Wright is coming off a violent KO loss. So this does have some of the makings for a letdown spot—if Wright is even capable of participating in such a thing.

Pickett lands a below average number of significant strikes and has fought to decisions in three of his last four fights. He generally tacks on a takedown or two, but that’s not enough to make up for his lack of striking volume in fights that go the distance. That leaves him reliant on a finish to put up a decent score, but on the bright side he gets a dream matchup here to land one. Seven of his eight career KO wins have come in the first two rounds, including four in round one. Considering Wright has never been in a fight that lasted longer than six minutes, another early KO certainly looks like the most likely outcome. The odds imply Pickett has a 49% chance to win, a 35% chance to get a finish and a 15% chance it comes in R1.

Wright has no business being in the UFC, but you could easily argue that Pickett doesn’t either. So as much as we would love to say Wright has no chance to ever win another UFC fight, we would need a disclaimer that says, “Against an actual UFC level talent.” Wright has been entirely reliant on head kicks and knees in the clinch to do any damage, although we’ve yet to see his grappling at the UFC level so it’s possible that he could surprise us there. Wright’s stand up game is like an old Nintendo controller that just has two buttons. You can press “A” to throw a head kick or “B” to throw knees in the Thai clinch. There’s nothing else to it and any reasonable striker at the UFC level should have no problem accounting for that and picking him apart. The only ways Wright wins this fight is by mashing buttons and hoping his opponent comes in with no game plan and simply walks blindly into a head kick, or getting the fight to the ground and looking for a submission—which he’s yet to do in the UFC. It’s hard enough to see him surviving long enough to make it to a decision, it’s even hard to see him winning one. The odds imply he has a 51% chance to win, a 31% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1, which just shows you how little respect the oddsmakers have for Pickett.

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Fight #7

Mike Grundy

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

A teammate of Tom Aspinall and Darren Till, Grundy made his 2019 UFC debut on an eight fight winning streak following a 16 month layoff, against a decent but not great opponent in Nad Narimani. The fight played out as a low-volume boxing match, with just one takedown landed between the two grapplers, which Grundy landed on his three attempts, while Narimani missed on his only attempt. In the backend of the second round, Narimani hurt Grundy with a combination of punches, but Grundy was able to recover and drop Narimani with a left hook as he pushed forward. Narimani tried to recover and was able to get up, but Grundy continued to land several strikes on the feet and the ref stopped the fight as Narimani covered up on the fence. It was later revealed that Grundy entered that fight with a slight hamstring tear that prevented him from utilizing a more wrestling heavy approach.

After extending his winning streak to nine, Grundy once again didn’t fight for another 16 months, which is unusual for him as he was far more active prior to joining the UFC, fighting twice in 2014, three times in 2015, four times in 2016 and three times in 2017. However, he did mention the slight hamstring tear which is likely what kept him out in addition to COVID. Anyways, in Grundy’s second UFC fight he was matched up against an extremely tough opponent in undefeated Movsar Evloev. Grundy was able to take Evloev down less than a minute into the fight, but Evloev was able to temporarily escape as Grundy hunted for his neck. However, Grundy quickly returned him to the mat with a perfectly timed double leg, and then quickly had him in what looked like a locked in Brabo Choke. However, Evloev’s iron neck and ability to get out of chokes is unmatched and he Houdini’d his way out of it. Evloev seemed to take over from that point on and cruised to a unanimous decision win. Grundy finished the fight going 6 for 15 on takedowns, showing us clearly who he is when healthy. Evloev dominated the striking, leading in significant strikes 79-20 and total strikes 96-25, while not even needing to shoot for any takedowns of his own despite his wrestling background. Grundy recently mentioned he broke his jaw in that fight, which couldn’t have helped him as the fight went on.

Despite landing a KO in his UFC debut, Grundy is primarily a wrestler. That KO in his debut was actually the first of his career. However, Grundy is extremely dangerous on the mat with eight of his 12 career wins coming by submission, including seven in the first round. His go to move appears to be the D’Arce/Brabo Choke, which he’s finished three opponents with but he also has three Arm-Triangle Chokes, an Americana and a Guillotine Choke. We should note, while eight of his first nine career fights ended early, three of his last five have gone the distance.

Lando Vannata

11th UFC Fight (3-5-2)

Vannata made his short notice UFC debut in 2016 with a perfect 8-0 record that included seven finishes, with six in the first round. He was immediately thrown to the wolves against #3 ranked Tony Ferguson, who was 10-1 in the UFC and on a seven fight winning streak. In a crazy first round, Vannata nearly finished Ferguson with a head kick followed by several ground strikes as Ferguson looked to roll his way around the mat as he recovered and was able to survive. It looked like Vannata was gassed by the second round and Ferguson began to turn it on, but Vannata continued to demonstrate his toughness (and terrible striking defense) as he took shot after shot to his face with his hands down by his side. Instead of actually trying to protect his head with his hands, he relied on head movement to avoid punches, which was not getting the job done. Eventually Ferguson grabbed his neck as Vannata looked to duck a punch and locked in a Brabo Choke to finish the fight.

Vannata bounced back with a quick R1 KO in his second UFC fight, which came against kickboxer John Makdessi. Vannata landed a Spinning Wheel Kick to the chin of Makdessi in a walk off highlight reel KO. However, after his first two UFC fights each ended quickly, seven of his next eight would go the full 15 minutes, with the one exception being a 2019 R1 Kimura submission win. In his seven UFC decisions since that fast start, he’s gone 1-4-2, as he’s really struggled with the judges.

We most recently saw Vannata take on Bobby Green in a rematch of their 2017 fight which ended in a draw. In an action packed fight, Green filled up the box score as he went 3 for 3 on takedowns and led in significant strikes 115-54 and total strikes 136-64, while also landing a knockdown. That was the most significant strikes that anyone has ever landed on Vannata, and also the first time he’s been knocked down in the UFC. None of Vannata’s previous five opponents had landed above 68 significant strikes on him.

Vannata wrestled in college for a year at UT Chattanooga before dropping out to pursue MMA full time. However, despite his wrestling background he’s only landed nine takedowns in his 10 UFC fights and four of those came in his first fight against Bobby Green back in 2017. While all three of his UFC wins have come in fights where his opponents failed to land a takedown, he was taken down seven times in his last two losses and has never won a fight where his opponent landed a takedown. He’s a creative striker who likes to mix in lots of spinning wheel kicks. He both lands and absorbs an above average number of significant strikes, but has shown a solid chin and he’s never been knocked out despite having his chin thoroughly tested at multiple points in his career.

While nine of Vannata’s 11 career wins have come early (4 KOs & 5 Submissions) and eight of those have come in R1, seven of those occurred prior to joining the UFC. Since then, he’s only finished two of his last 10 opponents. He has proven himself to be durable, and has only been finished once in 18 pro fights, which came in the second round of his UFC debut against Tony Ferguson.

Vannata will be dropping down to 145 lb for the first time in his career for this fight, so it will be important to see how he looks at weigh-ins.

Fight Prediction:

Vannata will have a 2” height advantage but Grundy will have a 1” reach advantage.

Despite having five times as many UFC fights as Grundy, Vannata is actually five years younger. Vannata generally makes for exciting fights, as half of his UFC performances have been awarded a bonus. However, that generally hasn’t translated into wins as he’s gone 1-3-1 in those five fights. Two of his three UFC wins have come in the first round, while he’s gone just 1-4-2 with the judges. He should have the advantage as long as this fight remains on the feet, but we don’t expect Grundy to want to stay standing up for long. So this will really come down to how Vannata’s takedown defense holds up and if he can quickly get back to his feet once he is taken down. He’s notably been taken down seven times in his last two losses and controlled for just over eight minutes in those two decisions or about 27% of the total time. We expect Grundy to aggressively look to get this to the mat early and then to quickly look to lock up a submission. If Vannata can defend Grundy’s submission attempts and get back to his feet, we could see this play out similar to Grundy’s last fight, where he slowed down after the first round and had no answer in the stand up game. However, Grundy’s last opponent was far tougher than Vannata, so we think Grundy has a better chance to put on a dominating wrestling performance here.

Just one of Vannata’s nine career finishes has come outside of the first round and only two of Grundy’s nine, so both of these two fighters are more likely than not to go to a decision if they don’t get a finish in the opening five minutes. Each guy has also only been finished once in their respective careers—Grundy by a second round submission in 2015 and Vannata by a second round submission in 2016. We like Grundy’s chances to land a first round submission, but Vannata always has a slim chance to connect on a Spinning Wheel Kick KO. It’s also fairly likely that this one goes the distance. So unless Vannata lands another low percentage Spinning Wheel Kick KO, we like Grundy to win with either a first round submission or in a wrestling heavy decision.

Our favorite bets here are “Grundy Wins by Submission” at +600 (as high as +850 at some books) and “Grundy Wins by R1 Submission” at +1400. We also like Grundy’s moneyline at -114.

DFS Implications:

Based on his grappling heavy approach to fighting, Grundy will naturally score better on DraftKings in a decision, but has also shown the ability to finish opponents with submissions, generally in the first round. If Grundy is unable to finish Vannata in the opening five minutes, there’s a good chance this fight goes the distance, at which point it will be hard for Grundy to return value on FanDuel. He could still score decently on DraftKings if he can find consistent success with his grappling, although it’s worth noting that he appeared to slow down as his last fight went on. Grundy ranks dead last on the slate in significant strikes landed, so if Vannata can stuff his takedowns, that will spell disaster for Grundy’s scoring chances. Vannata has a slightly below average 58% takedown defense, but does have a wrestling background to rely on. We expect Grundy to have some success taking the fight to the mat, the tougher question to answer is whether or not he’ll be able to keep it there and/or land a submission. Vannata has been decent at getting back to his feet, so it’s not the best matchup for an overwhelming control time number, but the sample size is too small on Grundy to really know how good his top pressure is. The odds suggest Grundy has a 53% chance to win, a 21% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.

Vannata has only scored above 75 DraftKings points twice in his 10 UFC fights, but he also has just three wins since joining the organization. While his reckless fighting style makes for exciting fights, that generally doesn’t translate into big DFS scores barring an early finish, and seven of his last eight fights have gone the distance. He did fight to a draw against Bobby Green in 2017 and still scored 75 DK points. So if that decision had gone his way he would have put up a respectable 105 points, but his most recent (and only) UFC decision win scored just 75 DK points. If this fight does go the distance, Vannata will score better on FanDuel through takedowns defended, as Grundy went 6 for 15 on takedowns in his last match, and is essentially a one-dimensional wrestler. It’s harder to see Vannata scoring well on DraftKings without a finish. The odds imply Vannata has a 47% chance to win, a 20% chance to end it early and a 9% chance to land a first round finish.

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Fight #6

Jacare Souza

16th UFC Fight (9-6)

Now 41 years old and coming off three straight losses, Jacare was finished for just the second time in the last 13 years in his recent fight against Kevin Holland. Jacare’s only other early loss since 2008 was a 2017 R2 KO against Robert Whittaker.

In the fight against Holland, Jacare was able to get the fight to the mat nearly immediately as Holland looked to defend with a Triangle Choke off his back. While the attempt was unsuccessful it did create a diversion for Holland to easily get up off his back. Let us repeat that part—Holland easily got up off his back against Jacare. Holland. Easily. Up. Off his back. Words that defy logic in 2021.

Holland then tried to jump Guillotine as Jacare looked for another takedown, and ended up on his back once again. And...that’s when shit got weird. Jacare landed a few shots to his grounded opponent, which Holland respectfully complimented as “Nice” which got a smile out of Jacare. Holland then told Jacare he “Had a dream about this” before launching a right hook off his back that clearly did some damage as Jacare began to cover up. Still on his back, Holland then landed a single hammer fist to Jacare’s temple that had Jacare stumbling backwards, while still on his knees. Holland threw one more right hook from his back as he sat up that folded Jacare backwards against the fence back as Holland returned to his feet and finished the fight with a flurry of punches. It looked like the first two punches had Jacare woozy while the last few simply sealed the deal. The fact that Jacare could be stumbled like that from a downed opponent is certainly concerning for his chin moving forward and Jacare never looked dangerous in that quick 105 second fight.

It had been over a year since we had last seen Jacare fight, with his second most recent match coming in a November 2019 five round decision loss to Jan Blachowicz up at 205 lb—which is the only time Jacare has ever fought at 205 lb. Jacare’s only win in his last five fights came against a washed up Chris Weidman, and he’s now lost 5 of his last 7 matches dating back to early 2017. His previous three losses all went the distance, with the most recent two going five full rounds. Jacare originally joined the UFC in 2013, 10 years after he started his pro MMA career in 2003. He won 7 of his first 8 UFC fights, but has lost five of his last eight since.

It’s rare that opponents even try to take Jacare down, and he’s only been taken down four times in the UFC. All of those came in his last four fights—three times by Jack Hermansson and once by Chris Weidman. However, his takedown defense is slightly below average at 60%.

Andre Muniz

3rd UFC Fight (2-0)

Muniz had been scheduled to fight Andrew Sanchez back in January, but was forced to withdraw due to a minor knee injury. Coming in on a six fight winning streak, Muniz has impressively won 14 of his last 15 fights, with 11 of those wins coming early, including 10 in the first round. Only three of his 24 pro fights have made it to the judges and he won all three decisions. With a 20-4 pro record, he has four wins by KO and 13 submission victories. Of his 17 career finishes, 13 have come in R1, three have ended in R2 and just one occurred in R3. All four of his career losses have notably come by KO, including three in the first round and one in round two. His only loss since 2013 came against 9-0 Azamat Murzakanov.

Muniz made his way into the UFC following his second win on DWCS. He first made an appearance on the show in 2018, but winning a decision wasn’t enough to get him a contract, although he dominated the striking totals in that match, leading in significant strikes 48-19 and total strikes 167-37. He also came out ahead on takedowns 3-2. A year later he came back on the show and that time made it count with a first round submission win.

He then made his UFC debut in November 2019 and won a low-volume grappling heavy decision against Antonio Arroyo. Eleven months later he made his second appearance inside the Octagon and was given a dream stylistic matchup (for a guy that does his best work off his back) in Bartosz Fabinski. The fight went exactly as expected, with Fabinski shooting for an immediate takedown and then Muniz looking for submissions from his dangerous gaurd. While Muniz was unable to finish an initial Guillotine Choke, he quickly transitioned to an Armbar and finished Fabinski midway through the first round.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 6’1” but Muniz will have a 6” reach advantage and is a decade younger than Jacare.

While Jacare comes in on a three fight skid, Muniz has won six in a row. The narrative surrounding this fight seems to be, does Muniz want to go to the ground with Jacare? However, the better question is, does Jacare actually want to go to the ground with Muniz? If he’s smart, the answer should be no, as Jacare should have the striking advantage on the feet and Muniz is essentially a one-dimensional submission specialist. However, when you get two high-level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belts in a cage, it’s always possible they end up in a belt measuring contest. We expect Muniz to try and get this fight to the ground in whatever way he can and would be shocked if it played out entirely on the feet—barring an immediate KO. Jacare looks pretty old and washed at this point in his career, so the idea of Muniz handing him his first submission loss is far from impossible. Jacare hasn’t landed a submission of his own in over four years and only has one in the last six years. When you combine that with the fact that Muniz has never been submitted, having this fight play out on the mat has to look pretty appealing to him. What better way to stake your claim as an elite level submission threat in the UFC than to submit Jacare Souza in your third fight with the organization? It’s also possible Jacare knocks him out trying or guards so heavily against takedowns that he actually leaves his chin exposed for Muniz to test how much it’s recovered since the KO loss to Holland. There are a lot of ways this fight ends early and at this stage in his career, any fight could be Jacare’s last. We’ll continue to bet against old fighters on losing streaks until the end of time, just like we did against Cerrone last week, Swanson the week before, Weidman the week before that, and the list goes on forever. With that said, if Jacare wins, it likely comes by KO in the first half of the fight, but we like Muniz to win this one.

We expect one of these two to get a finish in the first two rounds or for Muniz to win a decision. So our favorite three bets are naturally “Muniz Wins by R1 Submission” at +1200, “Jacare Wins by R1 KO” at +1000 and Muniz’s moneyline at +105. But you can also consider “Muniz Wins by Decision” at +270, “Muniz Wins by R2 Submission” at +2300, “Jacare Wins by R2 KO” at +2300, or Muniz’s R1 & R2 Win lines at +500 and +1000 if you think he possibly knocks Jacare out. There are a lot of possible outcomes here but luckily most of the lines are pretty wide so you can still make it work with the right combination of bets.

DFS Implications:

Jacare generally scores well when he wins, but rarely wins these days. He’s only landed eight takedowns in his last 11 fights and doesn’t land or absorb many strikes. That leaves him entirely reliant on landing a finish to score well. The last time he won a decision was in 2014 and he scored just 70 DraftKings points and 60 points on FanDuel. We do think there’s a good chance this fight ends early, we’re just not confident that it will be Jacare who’s left standing. With that said, the odds imply he has a 53 % chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in R1.

Muniz’s defensive grappling style makes it tougher for him to put up huge DFS scores due to lack of knockdowns and takedowns, but he was the optimal FanDuel MVP in his last fight with the help of a lower scoring seven fight card. His early finishes will generally do slightly better on FanDuel as he can score from takedowns defended and submission attempts, but his grappling heavy decisions will typically score better (but still not great) on DraftKings. That just means he’s in play on both sites but has a higher ceiling and lower floor on FanDuel. This doesn’t set up as a great matchup for Muniz, but we often see these older fighters lose in ways we’re not expecting. So while conventional wisdom might tell us there’s no way Jacare gets submitted, if there was ever a time, this is it. The odds suggest Muniz has a 47% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance to end it in R1.

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Fight #5

Shane Burgos

9th UFC Fight (6-2)

Coming off a crazy brawling decision loss to Josh Emmett, Burgos actually came out slightly ahead in significant strikes 128-127 and total strikes 148-136, but Emmett landed a pair of knockdowns and a takedown to steal the big moments. Emmett amazingly blew his knee out almost immediately in the first round, just 20 seconds into the fight and was impressively still able to put on that type of performance.

Prior to that decision loss, Burgos had won three in a row and 13 of his 14 career fights. His only other career loss was a 2018 R3 KO against Calvin Kattar and we’ve yet to see Burgos really knock off any top level opponents. Three of his six UFC wins have come against struggling opponents who are no longer in the UFC, while two of the other three came against grapplers who struggle on the feet, and the last was against a washed up Cub Swanson. He had a chance to notch a signature win against Calvin Kattar, but came up short and then he lost a decision to Josh Emmett, despite Emmett fighting on a blown out knee. So while we like Burgos and he's a fun fighter to watch, he still needs to prove he can win in the tougher matchups and he’ll get another chance to Saturday.

Burgos is now 13-2 as a pro, with 10 of his wins coming early, including five KOs and five submissions. Those numbers are a little misleading, as four of his five submission wins came in his first five pro fights in 2013 and 2014. He only has one submission win in his last 10 fights, but has four KO victories over that time. Since joining the UFC, half of his eight fights have gone the distance, while he’s landed a pair of third round KOs and a first round submission. His lone early loss also came via R3 KO and his fights are generally wars of attrition that either end late or go the distance.

Burgos is an exciting fighter, but he tends to absorb an unsustainable number of strikes if he wants to make a run at the top of the division. This will be another opportunity for Burgos to prove he’s not just a brawler in a match against another high-level striker.

Edson Barboza

25th UFC Fight (15-9)

Finally snapping his three fight losing streak in his recent decision win over Makwan Amirkhani, Barboza still has just two wins in his last seven fights. In fairness, the five losses over that period came against Khabib Nurmagomedov, Kevin Lee, Justin Gaethje, Paul Felder and Dan Ige. And the losses against Felder and Ige both ended in split decisions.

His recent fight against the submission specialist Amirkhani played out as a game of feints in an ultra low-volume decision, where Barboza led in significant strikes 32-11 and total strikes 34-25. Barboza did land a pair of knockdowns in the staring contest, while Amirkhani went 3 for 6 on takedowns but couldn’t do anything with them (two came right at the end of the first two rounds).

Only one of Barboza’s last 14 fights has ended in the first round and 11 of those 14 have made it to the third round with nine ending in decisions. Five of his last seven wins went the distance and he only has two finishes in the last seven years: 2018 R3 KO vs. Dan Hooker and 2017 R2 KO vs. Beneil Dariush. He’s also only been finished three times in the last seven years: 2019 R1 KO vs. Justin Gaethje, 2018 R5 KO vs. Kevin Lee and 2015 R2 Submission vs. Tony Ferguson. His other four losses over that period all went the distance.

Looking at his entire career, 13 of Barboza’s 21 pro wins have come early, with 12 KOs and one submission, which came in 2009 in his third pro fight. Five of his nine career losses have also come early, with three KOs and two submissions. His submission losses came against Donald Cerrone via Rear-Naked Choke in the first round of a 2014 fight and Tony Ferguson in 2015 with a R2 Brabo Choke.

Barboza fought at 155 lb for his entire pro career until 2020 when he dropped down to 145 lb. Since the switch, he’s gone 1-1 in a pair of decisions after losing four of his last five fights at 155 lb.

UPDATE: Barboza was the second to last fighter to weigh in and needed the curtain to make weight, but still hit the mark. His eyes looked a little heavy at weigh-ins and we;re assuming that’s a tough cut for him to get down to 145 lb after fighting almost his entire career at 155 lb.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’11” with a 75” reach.

This sets up for an exciting brawl between the #9 ranked Burgos against the #13 ranked Barboza. This will just be Barboza’s third fight down at Featherweight (145 lb), after he moved down from Lightweight in 2020. This fight could very well come down to who can outlast the other. Burgos will look to wear out Barboza with his furious striking pace, while Barboza will chip away at Burgos with violent leg strikes. A key for Burgos will be to close the distance and force Barboza to fight in a phonebooth, opposed to the kicking distance he would prefer. Both guys are capable of winning this fight, but it’s generally safer to bet on the younger guy when it comes to an endurance battle, which is Burgos in this case. We expect this one to make it past the first two rounds and end with either a R3 KO or in a decision.

The safest line here is “Over 1.5 Rounds” at -300, but our favorite line is “Fight Ends in R3 KO” at +900. We also really like “Burgos Wins by R3 KO” at +1500. If you think it ends earlier, the best lines are “Burgos Wins by R1 KO” at +1000 and “Fight Ends in R2 KO” at +700.

DFS Implications:

We expect the winner of this fight to score better on FanDuel than DraftKings, as it should play out entirely on the feet with almost all of the strikes going down as significant. The Burgos/Swanson fight is a good example of this, where we saw a high volume stand up brawl that scored just 86 points on DraftKings for the winner but 106 points on FanDuel. There’s also a very real chance it plays out as a better real life fight than a huge DFS producer if it goes the distance. Keep in mind, the odds imply this fight has a 58% chance to end in a decision and both fighters will be somewhat over owned relative to their chances of returning value in DFS.

Barboza recently scored just 66 DraftKings points and 77 points on FanDuel in a decision win, but that came in a staring contest against a submission specialist so it’s a pretty terrible comp for the brawl we expect to see here. In his second most recent win, Barboza scored 109 DraftKings points and 141 points on FanDuel in a R3 KO of Dan Hooker. Had Barboza won a 2020 decision against Dan Ige, he still would have scored just 77 DraftKings points on 89 points on FanDuel. Looking back one fight further, if he had won the split decision against Felder he would have scored just 66 DraftKings points and 68 points on FanDuel. So overall his decision wins (and hypothetical decision wins) don’t generally score well. His third most recent win came in a R2 KO of Beneil Dariush that scored 92 DraftKings points and 111 points on FanDuel. Barbosa is a violent striker, but he’s only landed above 80 significant strikes once in his career, which came in the lopsided win over Dan Hooker where Barboza racked up strikes against a compromised opponent. When you combine that striking ceiling with the fact that Barboza has only landed two takedowns in his last 10 fights, you can see he’s reliant on a finish to score well. The one reason to think that Barboza might have a chance to score well in a decision is that Burgos’ last opponent, Josh Emmett, scored 110 DraftKings points and 126 FanDuel points in a decision win. The odds imply he has a 43% chance to win, but just a 17% chance to get a finish with a 7% chance it comes in R1.

Burgos averages the most significant strikes landed on the slate by a wide margin at 7.31/min., but Barboza generally doesn’t absorb a ton of significant strikes and only one of his 24 UFC opponents has ever landed more than 89 in a fight, which was Kevin Lee who landed 142 on his way to a 5th round KO. That pace would have been good for just 96 over the course of 15 minutes. Barboza is such a violent kicker that he naturally wants to keep fights at kicking range as much as possible, which reduces the amount of time he spends trading in a phone booth, where the most volume is accrued. It’s possible Burgos can walk through the fire and force Barboza to partake in more of a close range boxing match, but it would be foolish to assume that’s a given. It’s far more likely the winner of this fight will only score well with a finish, barring multiple knockdowns in addition to a ridiculous striking total. In terms of the knockdown potential, Barbosa has only been knocked down three times in 24 UFC fights, while Burgos has been knocked down four times in eight UFC matches, including twice in his last fight. The odds imply Burgos has a 57% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance to end it in R1.

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Fight #4

Katlyn Chookagian

13th UFC Fight (8-4)

Chookagian bounced back from just the second KO loss of her career with a low-volume decision win over Cynthia Calvillo in her last match, where Chookagian did a good job of forcing Calvillo into a striking match. Chookagian led in significant strikes/total strikes 69-60, while the grappler Calvillo only landed one of her four takedown attempts, and was amazingly unable to accrue a single second of control time.

The previous R1 TKO loss came against Jessica Andrade in a bizarre ending, as Andrade landed a hook to the body of Chookagian with 13 seconds left in the first round and Chookagian reacted as if she had just been shanked in the gut with a screwdriver as she fled across the Octagon before collapsing with just seconds remaining in the first round. Chookagian has now alternated wins and losses over her last five fights as she serves as the bouncer for title shots in the women’s Flyweight division.

Ten of her last 12 fights have gone the distance, with the two exceptions being a pair of KO losses in 2020 to Valentina Shevchenko in the third round and Jessica Andrade in the first round. Chookagian hasn’t landed a finish of her own since 2016, before joining the UFC. Only 3 of her 15 career wins have come early, which all came in her first seven pro fights (2 KOs & 1 Submission). Those finishes came against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-1 and 7-3.

Chookagian has interestingly been outlanded in significant strikes in three of her eight UFC wins (in addition to all four of her UFC losses). Not only was Chookagian outlanded in significant strikes in those three wins, she was also outlanded in total strikes, takedowns and control time. Despite losing in every statistical category in all three of those matches, she won unanimous decisions in all three fights. Obviously fights are decided round by round and not overall stats, but that still stands out as strange. You could call her lucky, or it could indicate that Chookagian has mastered the art of winning decisions. It’s also possible her scream fighting technique influences the judges to think she lands more than she actually does. If you combine her massive size with her aggressive screaming, maybe she’s fooling the judges into thinking she’s doing more damage to her opponents than she actually is. Whatever the reason is, Chookagian has shown she can still win a decision even when behind in the stats, which fair or unfair, is clearly an advantage.

She made her 2014 pro debut at 115 lb, but immediately moved up to 125 lb for her second pro match. Then in 2016, despite winning her first six pro fights, she moved up again to 135 lb for her seventh pro bout (one fight before joining the UFC). Chookagian made her 2016 UFC debut at 135 lb and won a decision against Lauren Murphy. Chookagian stayed at 135 lb for her first three UFC fights, where she went 2-1 in three decisions, and then dropped down to 125 lb where she’s fought her last nine fights, going 6-3 inthat time.

UPDATE: Chookagian needed the curtain to make weight, but was able to hit.

Viviane Araujo

6th UFC Fight (4-1)

Araujo is coming off a dominating decision win over an undergunned Roxanne Modafferi. Araujo led in significant strikes 86-46, total strikes 100-49 and takedowns 4-0 on four attempts while defending all five of Modafferi’s. Araujo showed just how well rounded of a fighter she is in that match, both on the feet and the mat.

She’s now won two in a row and seven of her last eight fights. Her only UFC loss came against Jessica Eye in a 2019 decision. Araujo has been very consistent in her five UFC matches. She’s landed between 56 and 86 significant strikes in all five, has at least two takedowns in four of the five, and has only been taken down once herself. She’s also never been knocked down or had an official submission attempt against her, indicating that she’s never really been close to getting finished. Her last four fights have all gone the distance, after her first eight pro fights all ended early. Three of her 10 pro wins were by KO and four ended in submissions. She’s been finished early once herself, which came in a 2017 R1 KO in her fourth pro fight. Her only other career loss was in the decision against Eye.

Araujo started her pro career at 115 lb, but jumped all the way up to the Bantamweight division (135 lb) for her 2019 UFC debut, although she only weighed in at 131 lb. Clearly undersized, but unwilling to turn down any opportunity to break into the UFC, Araujo beat the odds as a +230 underdog and landed a R3 KO to win the match. Following the win she dropped down to 125 lb, where she’s stayed since.

A BJJ black belt, Araujo is a crisp striker who’s very light on her feet. In her five UFC fights, Araujo has only been taken down once on 19 attempts and holds an impressive 94% takedown defense. Araujo recently said she wants to use her Jiu-Jitsu more in this match and doesn’t plan on letting the fight go the distance—but fighters say a lot of things leading up to their fights, and unlike Chookagian, Araujo has probably never planned on “letting” a fight go the distance.

Fight Prediction:

Chookagian will have a 5” height advantage, but both fighters share a 68” reach.

Chookagian is big for the 125 lb division after fighting at 135 lb earlier in her career, while Araujo exclusively fought at 115 lb until she joined the UFC. Chookagian just defeated another fighter who moved up from 115 lb to 125 lb in Cynthia Calvillo, who was actually a -235 favorite in that match. Araujo is a really solid fighter, but Chookagian’s size and striking skills give a lot of opponents trouble. Chookagian has been taken down a combined 10 times in her last six fights with at least one in five of those six fights and two or more in three of them. So there’s a good chance Araujo will have a chance to showcase her grappling at some point, but Chookagian has notably never been submitted and claims to have been recently working on improving her wrestling. We expect this fight to go the distance and think the odds are fair in terms of the implied chances for each fighter to get the nod (Chookagian 57% & Araujo 43%). So while Araujo is very live to pull off the upset, Chookagian still has a better chance to win yet another decision here.

There’s clearly value in “Chookagian Wins by Decision” at +105 as the odds imply she has a 57% chance to win and her last eight wins have all gone the distance. If you think Araujo can actually get the finish, it’s worth noting that her last two finishes both came by R3 KO, while five of her first six career finishes came in the first round. The dart throws we like are “Araujo Wins by Submission” at +1400, “Araujo ITD” at +460, “Araujo R1 Win” at +1000 and “Araujo R3 Win” at +2000.

DFS Implications:

Chookagian has yet to land a finish in her 12 UFC fights and we don’t see that changing here. She’s entirely content with pointing her way to victory and has made it clear she has no desire to take any unnecessary risks. She only has one usable DFS performance in her last 10 fights, which came in a dominating performance against Antonina Shevchenko, just one fight after Chookagian got knocked out of her title match against Antonina’s sister, Valentina. So clearly that was driven by revenge rage as Valentina was forced to watch from her sister’s corner. Chookagian quickly took the fight to the mat and nearly submitted Antonina at multiple points in the first round. That was the theme of the match as Chookagian went 3 for 3 on takedowns and accrued ten and a half minutes of control time, while officially attempting four submissions. She led in significant strikes 73-25 and by a much wider margin in total strikes at 200-37. That beatdown was good for 119 DraftKings points and 102 points on FanDuel. Antonina’s biggest weakness is her grappling, so the grappling heavy approach of Chookagian made sense going into that match, but don’t expect a repeat performance here. Chookagian took on a grappler in her last match and went 0 for 1 on takedowns in a pure striking battle, which is closer to what we expect on Saturday. Chookagian’s other six most recent wins scored 58, 66, 68, 55, 58 and 73 DraftKings points, which is the range you should expect her to score in here. The odds imply she has a 57% chance to win, a slate-low 11% chance to get a finish and another slate-low 5% chance to get a R1 win.

Araujo’s consistent striking volume and takedown numbers provide a reliable DFS floor, but have yet to provide a high ceiling. However, now that she’s priced down as the underdog, another score in the 90’s on DraftKings certainly has the potential to be useful. Just keep in mind her best two performances came against a lower level of competition than what she’ll face in the Octagon come Saturday. This will easily be Araujo’s toughest opponent to date, and the only fighters to ever finish Chookagian are current and former champions. Chookagian has lost two decisions in the UFC, however, Jessica Eye only scored 63 DraftKings points and 69 points on FanDuel in her decision win over Chookagian, while Liz Carmouche scored just 79 DraftKings points and 60 points on FanDuel. Even when Valentina Shevchenko knocked out Chookagian in the third round of a 2020 fight, she scored just 86 DraftKings points and 92 points on FanDuel. So the only fighter to ever put up a big score against Chookagian was Jessica Andrade in her flukey last second first round TKO last October, where she scored 132 DraftKings points and 141 points on FanDuel in a best case scenario finish that came with 5 seconds left in the first round. It’s easy to look at Araujo’s last performance where she scored 93 DraftKings points and 116 points on FanDuel and think it’s possible we see that again, but that was against a grappler in Roxanne Modafferi who had no chance of keeping up in the stand up game and went 0 for 5 on takedowns to prop of Araujo’s FanDuel score. Chookagaian has only attempted five takedowns in her last five fights combined so we can likely only expect a single attempt if anything. Chookagaian is also head and shoulders above Modafferi in striking, so don’t expect a one-sided dominating performance. We really like Araujo in general and her name immediately stood out as a value at just $7,400, but this looks like her toughest spot to date to score well, and she’s failed to produce big numbers even in her easier matchups. Even at her cheap price tag, she’ll likely need a finish here to be useful. The odds imply she has a 43% chance to win, but just a 17% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1. This fight is more likely to be a fun one to watch than a major contributor in DFS.

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Fight #3

Matt Schnell

9th UFC Fight (5-3)

Schnell had originally been scheduled to fight Alex Perez, but Perez withdrew and Bontorin stepped in on a little over three week’s notice. Schnell said he wanted to stay on this card, which takes place where he’s currently living in Houston (he’s from Louisiana). Schnell had been booked to fight at 125 lb in the match against Perez, but the fight was moved up to 135 lb with the opponent change. Schnell has gone 1-1 at 135 lb in the past, with a 2016 R1 KO loss to Rob Font in Schnell’s UFC debut and a 2019 R1 Submission win over Louis Smolka.

Coming off an uneventful decision win over Tyson Nam, Schnell took the striking lead early and then seamingly coasted to a split decision win. The fact that one judge saw the fight in Nam’s favor shocked Schnell, but it’s not a great look to be moving backwards along the outside of the Octagon for the entire fight and then coast down the stretch. And if you were relying on a finish in that fight like many of us were, then his painfully patient game plan to circle away from contact and counterpunch for 15 minutes likely left you tilted and annoyed.

Prior to that disappointing decision, Schnell hadn’t been out of the first round in his three previous fights, with a pair of Triangle Choke Submission wins to go along with a KO loss. His first two UFC fights back in 2016 and 2017 also ended in first round KO losses and 15 of his previous 19 fights had ended early. Since losing his first two UFC fights, Schnell has won five of his last six matches with three decision wins to go along with his two first round submission wins.

Schnell took all of 2020 off, as he and his wife had a baby, and he appears to have a newfound approach to fighting. No longer looking for flashy finishes, Schnell has apparently settled into pointing his way to victory and didn’t even attempt a takedown against a pure striker in Tyson Nam in his last match. That initially seemed surprising considering Schell had attempted at least one takedown in five of his seven previous fights and the two exceptions both ended quickly in the first round. However, Nam has notably never been taken down in the UFC and all eight of Schnell’s career submission wins have come from more defensive maneuvers. He has three wins by Armbar, three by Triangle Choke and two by Guillotine Choke. So most of those have resulted from him being taken down and not the other way around.

While Schnell is a submission specialist in terms of getting finishes, he does have two career KO wins. However, those both came prior to joining the UFC and one was against an opponent who now holds a 1-12 “pro” record. While Schnell has decently quick hands, he doesn’t pack much power and is really just a threat to finish opponents off his back. On the flipside, he has a suspect jaw and is prone to getting knocked out as three of his five career losses have come by KO, while he’s also been submitted once. He’s won four of the five decisions he’s been to in his career, including three close split decisions. Schnell’s last nine fights have all either ended in the first round or gone to a decision and all three of his UFC losses have come by R1 KO.

Rogerio Bontorin

5th UFC Fight (2-2)

Stepping in for Alex Perez on less than four week’s notice, Bontorin is coming off back-to-back losses for the first time in his career after winning his first two UFC fights. This is a quick turnaround for him after he was knocked out in his last fight just two months ago.

In that March 6th loss against Kai Kara-France, Bontorin took Kai down and had his back just 90 seconds into the fight. He spent the next three minutes hunting for a Rear-Naked Choke submission and looked moments away from getting the finish at multiple points. However, with less than 30 seconds left in the round, Kai was able to shake Bontorin off and get back into open space. He landed multiple right hands that face planted Bontorin into the mat in a walk off KO. Then things got weird. As soon as he dropped Bontorin, Kai took a victory lap without even waiting for the ref to call the fight. As he circled back around the Octagon to the grounded Bontorin, it looked like maybe Kai thought the ref never stopped the action and went in for the kill shot. Herb Dean grabbed Kai before he could land anything, but Bontorin saw what was going on and got up off his back and threw his mouthguard at Kai in disgust. Kai seemed oblivious to what was going on, as he sprinted around the Octagon like an Amish kid that just tried sugar for the first time, after landing his first KO in his last 10 fights and first one in the UFC. That was also the first time Bontorin had ever been knocked out—and by the most unlikely candidate at that.

Before that fight, Bontorin suffered an ultra low-volume smothering decision loss against Ray Borg, where Borg outlanded Bontorin 35-9 in significant strikes, landed 10 takedowns on a crazy 19 attempts and amassed over 11 minutes of control time. Prior to the dud against Borg, Bontorin was 2-0 in the UFC and had won his previous four fights.

Bontorin originally punched his ticket to the UFC with a second round submission win on DWCS in 2018. He then made his 2019 UFC debut against Magomed Bibulatov and won a split decision. Bibulatov notably went 0-2 in the UFC before getting cut after the loss to Bontorin.

Following the decision win in his debut, Bontorin took on Raulian Paiva and in what ended up being a bizarre three minute fight that went down as a R1 TKO for Bontorin. Two minutes into the fight the ref called time for a cut under the eye of Bontorin, but after a doctor checked him out the fight was resumed. Thirty seconds later, Bontorin landed a destructive knee to the face of Paiva, and thirty seconds after that the ref paused the action for the second time in the opening minutes. The cut to Paiva was deemed serious enough to stop the fight and Bontorin was awarded the victory in a fight that felt like it never even got started. That’s Bontorin’s only finish in the UFC.

A BJJ black belt, Bontorin is a submission specialist with 11 of his 16 career wins ending in submissions. He does have three KO wins on his record, but as previously mentioned, his most recent one was due to a doctor stoppage. He’s a low-volume striker who averages just 2.19 significant strikes landed per minute and he’s actually only landed a combined 104 significant strikes in his last five fights. He was notably taken down 14 times in his first three UFC matches, although 10 of those came at the hands of Ray Borg in his second most recent fight. Bontorin has shot for at least one takedown of his own in all four of his UFC fights as he’s gone 1 for 1, 0 for 2, 2 for 5 and 1 for 3 respectively on takedowns in the UFC (4 for 11 total).

Bontorin started his pro career at 135 lb in 2013, but dropped down to 125 lb in 2015, before taking a fight all the way up at 145 lb in 2017 and then dropping back down to 135 lb, where he stayed until his 2018 DWCS fight where he moved back down to 125 lb and has stayed since. He’s only been to three decisions in his 20 pro fights, two of those were in the UFC at 125 lb and one was at 135 lb in his third pro fight.

UPDATE: Despite this fight taking place up a weight class, Bontorin took nearly an hour longer than everyone else to weigh-in and still missed by 1 lb with the curtain. He didn’t look terrible, but that’s obviously concerning, especially in terms of his cardio later in this fight and for his chin coming off a KO loss.

Fight Prediction:

Schnell will have a 3” height and reach advantage.

This is a boom or bust matchup between two submission specialists. While both guys have gotten the majority of their pro wins through submissions, Bontorin is a more offensive submission threat with the majority of his finishes coming by Rear-Naked Choke. Schnell on the other hand, is more of a defensive submission danger with the majority of his finishes coming off his back. So we would expect Bontorin to be the one looking for takedowns, while Schnell will look to use his speed advantage to outland Bontorin on the feet and attempt Guillotines, Armbars and Triangle Chokes once Bontorin takes the fight to the mat. Bontorin isn’t a completely helpless striker, and should have the power advantage, but most of his strikes are big looping punches and Schnell will land two to three straight punches in the time it takes Bontorin to land one.

Overall, this is kind of a weird stalemate matchup between two underwhelming fighters. Both guys are submission threats but neither has been prone to getting submitted themselves. Both have dubious chins, but neither has many knockouts on their record. Schnell looked extremely cautious in his last fight and indicated that will be his mindset moving forward, while Bontorin will likely also be more cautious coming off a KO loss and on a two fight losing streak. All of those factors seem to indicate that this fight will more likely than not go the distance, but both guys are vulnerable on the feet and dangerous on the ground, so anything is possible. We think the most likely outcome is another Schnell close decision win.

"Fight Ends in R1 Submission" at +600 is somewhat interesting, as is betting the fight goes the distance at -108.

DFS Implications:

Schnell is entirely reliant on landing a first round finish to score well as his three decision wins have scored 64, 60 and 46 DraftKings points. During his media day interview, Schnell was asked, “How big of a deal is it to go and find a way to get a spectacular finish?” And Schnell responded, “I think it would be a mistake for me to put thought into looking for anything spectacular. I think that’s been a mistake in the past I’ve made. When I was younger coming up in the UFC, I just wanted to show everybody how outstanding I was, and I’ve just got to go out there and put in 15 focussed minutes and I’m a motherfricker...I’m not looking for anything spectacular.” So he’s basically saying all the wrong things in terms of us being optimistic about his chances of landing an early finish. The fact that he’s priced up actually makes our lives easier as it clearly defines him as a R1 or bust play. He has zero knockdowns in his eight UFC fights and has only landed one takedown in his last six matches. His best chance for a finish would be for Bontorin to take him down and Schnell to land a submission off his back. Those types of finishes generally don’t score super well, as they lack a knockdown or takedown. The odds imply Schnell has a 59% chance to win, a 27% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance to end things in R1.

Similar to Schnell, Bontorin has only scored well when he’s landed a first round finish, albeit over a smaller sample size. He doesn’t throw much volume, so the only way he can rack up points beyond the first round is with a dominating grappling performance, which is tougher against a defensive submission threat like Schnell. If he did put on such a performance, it would inherently score better on DraftKings than FanDuel, leaving him reliant on a finish to score well on FanDuel. This seems like a fight to fade for the most part, but the odds imply Bontorin has a 41% chance to win, a 23% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.

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Fight #2

Beneil Dariush

20th UFC Fight (14-4-1)

On an impressive six fight winning streak, Dariush absolutely dominated the 3rd degree BJJ black belt, Diego Ferreira, on the ground in a decision win in his last fight. Dariush took Ferreira down five times on 15 attempts and led in control time 7:23-0:58 in a grappling-heavy decision. He also came out ahead 62-54 in significant strikes

Prior to that decision win, Dariush had finished his previous four opponents in the first two rounds. In his second most recent fight, he knocked out Scott Holtzman in the first round. Holtzman had previously never been finished by anybody in 17 pro fights. Prior to finishing Holtzman, Dariush knocked out Drakkar Klose in the second round. Klose had also never been finished early in his 12 pro fights. Dariush also knocked out Camacho in R1 of their 2019 match and impressively finished Drew Dober with a R2 Armbar in 2019.

A BJJ and Muay Thai black belt, Dariush is a well rounded fighter who can dominate fights both standing up and on the mat. He seems supremely confident in his abilities, which has led to finishes in 13 of his 20 pro wins. However, his aggressive fighting style has also gotten him into trouble at times, as all four of his losses have also come early.

After starting his pro career off 7-0, he got knocked out by Ramsey Nijem in R1 of his second UFC fight. Then after bouncing back with five straight wins, he was submitted by Michael Chiesa in R2 of a 2016 fight. He rebounded with a pair of wins, before getting knocked out in 2017 by Edson Barboza in the second round with a violent knee. He then fought Evan Dunham to a draw before getting knocked out again in 2018 by Alexander Hernandez in just 42 seconds.

While 12 of Dariush’s 19 UFC fights have ended in the first two rounds, including eight of his 14 wins and all four of his losses, the last two high-level grapplers he’s faced (Ferreira & Moises) both took him to a decision. Dariush had a similar game plan in each of those fights, to control his grappling counterpart for as much of the fight as possible. Part of that could be attributed to the idea that Dariush likes to beat his opponents at their own game. So when he faces a striker he tends to brawl more, but when he faces a grappler he tries to prove that he can out grapple them. So in his fight against BJJ black belt, Thiago Moises, Dariush controlled Moises for essentially the entire fight with 13:32 of control time and four takedowns on eight attempts. Moises attempted four submissions, but Dariush was able to negate all of them while winning the total striking battle 113-20 and leading in significant strikes 44-8. In his most recent match against another dangerous submission threat in Diego Ferreira, Dariush implemented a similar grappling heavy strategy. Considering that Ferguson is both a dangerous grappler and striker, it will be interesting to see his approach.

UPDATE: Dariush needed the curtain to try and make weight, but still missed by a half pound initially. He took an extra half hour and made weight on his second attempt.

Tony Ferguson

19th UFC Fight (15-3)

Now 37 years old, Ferguson is coming off back-to-back losses for the first time in his career and looked absolutely terrible in his last fight as he was dominated for three straight rounds against Charles Oliveira on the mat. Oliveira cruised to a unanimous 30-26 decision and nearly finished the fight at the end of the first round with a violent armbar that appeared to hyperextend Ferguson’s elbow just as the round came to a close.

Prior to his recent three-round smothering decision loss to Charles Oliveira, Ferguson absorbed a life-shortening beating from Justin Gaethje last May. If you compare photos of Ferguson before he fought Gaethje to ones after, it’s pretty insane. He looks 10 years older. Ferguson has had a great career, but he’s hit the inevitable cliff known as your late 30’s and is now fighting on borrowed time.

Going into his R5 TKO loss to Justin Gaethje, the Jiu-Jitsu black belt Ferguson had won 12 in a row, including nine early finishes. However, none of the most recent eight ended in the first round. Of his 25 pro wins, he has 12 KO’s and 8 submission victories, with nine wins coming in R1. His last win came in June 2019 against Donald Cerrone when the fight was stopped following the end of the second round. Cerrone’s right eye was already considerably swollen, but then Ferguson landed a dirty punch up the middle to Cerrone’s nose, blatantly late after the round ended. Just before the start of the third round, Cerrone mistakenly blew his nose out and his eye immediately swelled up like a balloon, forcing the fight to be called. Ferguson’s fight prior to that was also coincidentally stopped after the second round ended, that time by Pettis’ corner in an absolute brawl as Pettis apparently broke his hand and couldn’t continue.

Ferguson only has five career losses in 30 pro fights. His only submission loss was a 2009 R1 Triangle Choke. His only KO loss came from a R5 referee stoppage in his fight against Justin Gaethje. His first two decision losses came in 2009 and 2012, while his third decision loss came in his most recent fight. Ferguson notably started his career at 170 lb before moving down to 155 lb in 2011, following his UFC debut.

While it’s generally difficult to pinpoint the exact falloff point in fighters’ careers. It’s actually pretty easy with Tony Ferguson—May 9th, 2020. You could argue that Tony Ferguson is actually too tough for his own good, as he legitimately absorbed years worth of damage to his body over the course of just 23 minutes and 39 seconds. Ferguson looked like a wounded animal the way he was moving at the end of that match as he tried to shake off neurological damage like it was water in his ear. No one can question Ferguson’s toughness or durability, but at a certain point he needs someone around him to be looking out for his best interests and long term health—although he’s such a prick everyone around him probably secretly hates him.

Fight Prediction:

Ferguson will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage.

While we love Dariush and think he’s a great fighter, Ferguson’s last six opponents had all either previously competed in title fights or went on to compete for a title in their next match, so he’s clearly been fighting the best guys in the division and you could easily argue that this is somewhat of a step down in competition for him. On the other side of things, Dariush has been scratching and clawing his way to crack the top ten rankings and now finally has, checking in at #9 following his win over Diego Ferreira. So taking on the #5 ranked Lightweight in Tony Ferguson appears to be a step up in competition, even if he’s old and fading. Looking superficially at those situations is why many people will be expecting Ferguson to win this fight.

However, what most people really struggle with is accurately gauging the momentum at which careers fizzle out. Just look at Donald Cerrone last week, who’s moneyline was bet up from -165 early in the week to -200 by the start of the fights, or Cub Swanson the week before who saw a 20 cent line move in his favor, or Chris Weidman the week before who saw the line move 25 cents for him (bad example?). Anyways, the list goes on forever, but the trend is clear—UFC fans love betting on popular names past their prime and are always too late to realize when their careers went off the cliff. There is no V-shaped recovery from aging, it’s all downhill from your mid 30’s. Has an older fighter ever snapped a losing streak? Of course. This is the face punching business and anything can happen in any given moment, but betting on a momentary rebound during a sustained freefall is a long term losing strategy.

So in case it wasn’t clear, we like Dariush to win this fight and for the whispers surrounding the demise of Tony Fergunson’s career to rapidly increase in volume come late Saturday night into Sunday morning. Which just leaves the question, how will Dariush win the fight? In some ways Ferguson is like a much tougher version of Dariush’s last opponent, Diego Ferreira—good striking and extremely dangerous off their backs. We don’t think Dariush will feel like he needs to finish Ferguson to prove himself, as simply winning a decision will be the biggest merit badge on his belt. So we don’t expect him to be completely reckless coming into this fight, as we’ve sometimes seen him in the past. It wouldn’t be surprising if he came in with a similar game plan to his last match where he looked to control Ferguson on his back and focus on avoiding any dangerous situations. Charles Oliveira simply controlled Ferguson on the mat for 15 minutes in his last match and now he’s getting a title shot, why should Dariush feel like he needs to do much more? Dariush worked so hard to crack the top 10, we expect him to come in with a more conservative game plan and show that he can dictate the action for 15 minutes and defeat Ferguson in a decision. With that said, Ferguson has been trying to get under Dariush’s skin, so it’s possible he baits him into a brawl.

Our favorite bet here is “Dariush Wins by Decision” at +150, but you can also consider his moneyline at -165. On the other side of things, all four of Dariush’s career losses have come in the first two rounds (3 KOs & 1 Submission) and five of Ferguson’s last six wins have also come early, including four in the second round and one in the third (2 KOs & 3 Submissions). So “Ferguson Wins in R2” at +1000 and “Ferguson Wins by R2 Submission” at +4200 are both interesting. You could also consider his R1 Win line at +600, but Ferguson hasn’t finished anyone in the first round since 2015 so we’re less interested in that.

DFS Implications:

Dariush has consistently scored well in DFS with 95 or more DraftKings points in six straight fights and 105 or more in four of those. Four of those big scores came on the backs of finishes in the first two rounds, with a pair of grappling heavy decisions bookending the winning streak. The first of those two decisions came in a smothering grappling-heavy win over Thiago Moises, where Dariush scored 106 DraftKings points and 87 points on FanDuel. In his most recent lopsided decision win over Diego Ferreira, Dariush scored 95 DraftKings points and 90 points on FanDuel. If you go back earlier in his career when he defeated Ferreira the first time, Dariush scored 76 DraftKings points and 60 points on FanDuel. Dariush also has another decision win where he scored 64 DraftKings points and a draw where he scored 50—which would have been good for 80 points had the decision gone his way. So overall, Dariush doesn’t generally put up huge scores in decisions, except for on DraftKings when he gets 13+ minutes of control time and then he can still score decently.

While Dariush has proven himself to consistently be a threat to finish fights, opponents don’t come much more durable than Tony Ferguson, who’s only been finished twice in 30 pro fights and only once in the last 12 years—which came in the fifth round. The X-factor here is how quickly Ferguson is fading at this stage in his career, but he still looked incredibly tough to finish in his last fight, even with his offense looking noticeably diminished. It’s possible Dariush’s ego gets the best of him and Ferguson is able to suck him into a stand up brawl, but it’s more likely that Dariush sees the success that Oliveira had controlling Ferguson on the ground and looks to implement a similar gameplan. Oliveira controlled that fight for nearly 12 minutes and scored 91 DraftKings points and 78 points on FanDuel. So Dariush scoring in the 90-95 point range on DraftKings in a grappling-heavy decision win is a very likely outcome here, the question is just what does that mean for DFS? Well, it’s an easy call on FanDuel as that would definitely go down as a bust. On DraftKings, it would generally leave Dariush on the outside looking in of winning lineups, but with all the decisions we’ve seen lately you never know. It would still more likely than not come up short, but it’s not impossible it could still sneak into the last spot of winning lineups depending on how the slate goes. While that thin gray line leaves a level of uncertainty, it does present the very real possibility that despite being very heavily owned on both sides, this fight busts. In general, these are both very popular fighters in DFS—Ferguson was ridiculously 47% owned in his recent three round fight against Oliveira and Dariush was 37% owned in his last match. So when you combine the strong possibility for a Dariush decision win with the fact that this fight should be the most heavily owned three round fight on the slate, fading it has the potential to be a massive leverage opportunity and the key to winning GPPs. The odds imply Dariush has a 60% chance to win, a 21% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance to end it in R1.

Ferguson averages the third highest number of significant strikes landed on the slate at 5.46/min, but hasn’t landed a takedown in his last nine fights. Five of his last six wins have come early, including four of those in the second round, so he’s generally scored well in victory, but has now dropped his last two matches and looks like a different fighter than when he was finishing everybody over his previous 12 fight winning streak. He only scored 85 DraftKings points in his last decision win and only 67 points in his last finish that came beyond the 2nd round (2017 R3 Submission). So he does appear dependent on a finish in the first two rounds to put up a good score. All four of Dariush’s career losses have come in the first nine minutes of fights, making that somewhat more likely of an outcome. However, betting on an older fighter in the middle of a losing streak is not something we’re generally interested in and this is no exception. When you combine that with the fact that Ferguson projects to be one of the highest owned underdogs on the slate, this looks like a great spot to fade him. It’s also worth pointing out that his last two wins both came in best-case-scenario doctor/corner stoppages following the second round. If you’re unfamiliar with how the scoring works, that means the second round ended, but because his opponent couldn’t continue into the third round, a R2 KO was awarded. That allows fighters to rack up stats for 10 full minutes while still getting the R2 bonus. Having two of those in a row is extremely uncommon. The odds suggest Ferguson has a 40% chance to win, a 23% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance to finish it early.

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Fight #1

Charles Oliveira

28th UFC Fight (18-8, NC)

Coming off a one-sided smothering upset of Tony Ferguson in his last outing, Oliveira gets his first UFC title shot in what will be his 28th appearance inside the Octagon. In a stark contrast, he squares off against former Bellator champ Michael Chandler, who has just a single UFC fight under his belt.

The 31-year-old Oliveira enters on an eight fight winning streak, with seven of those wins coming early. Prior to those eight wins he had a bit of a rough patch from 2015-2017 where he went 2-4, with all six fights ending early. It began with a 2015 R1 TKO loss against Max Holloway, followed by a R1 submission win later that year. But then he was submitted by a pair of Guillotine Chokes in 2016, first in the third round against Anthony Pettis and then in the second round against Ricardo Lamas in his next fight. Oliveira again bounced back with a R1 submission of his own, but then was knocked out in the second round by Paul Felder. Oliveira actually moved up from 145 lb to 155 lb following the loss to Pettis, where he lost two of his first three fights at his new weight class to Lamas & Felder.

He then faced a series of somewhat less talented/older opponents and landed four straight submission wins, followed by a pair of KOs—with all six wins coming in the first two rounds. Working his way back up into contention, he then submitted Kevin Lee in the third round to set up the recent match against Ferguson.

Oliveira notably did not have his head coach in his corner for the Ferguson fight after the coach tested positive for COVID leading up to the fight. The fight was booked on just a few week’s notice so in addition to that they didn’t have a ton of time to prepare in the first place. However, you likely wouldn’t have guessed any of that from watching the fight. Oliveira was winning on the feet early on and was able to wrap Ferguson up and slam him to the man less than 90 seconds in. While Ferguson is known for being dangerous off his back, Oliveira was able to control him easily. Oliveira nearly snapped Ferguson’s elbow at the end of the first round, but somehow Ferguson was able to survive, despite his left elbow looking completely hyperextended. It was later revealed that Ferguson somehow did not suffer any significant damage to his elbow.

Less than a minute into the second round, Oliveira caught a Ferguson kick and returned him to the mat. Ferguson was able to land an elbow that split Oliveira open just before he went down, but soon after Ferguson landed an illegal upkick—thankfully Oliveira was able to continue. Ferguson spent the rest of the round stacked up on the ground with Oliveira dominating the fight. A minute into the third round it was more of the same, as Oliveira slammed Ferguson back to the mat with ease and controlled him there for the remainder of the fight as he cruised to a unanimous 30-26 decision.

While Oliveira looked good in the match, Ferguson just looked old. So while all the talk around the fight was about how good Oliveira looked, it appears people are overlooking just how bad/old Ferguson looked. Here are a few quotes from the broadcast team: “I don’t think we can attribute this to Tony Ferguson’s decline” and “How good is this guy! To do that to Toney Ferguson?!”

Oliveira has now gone 9-2 at 155 lb, so switching appears to have benefited him after he initially struggled down at 145 lb. He went 9-6 plus a No Contests at 145 lb in the UFC.

A 3rd degree BJJ black black Oliveira is 30-8 overall as a pro. Eight of his 30 wins have come by KO, 19 have been by submission, while just three went the distance. On the other side of things, 7 of his 8 losses have come early, including four KO’s and three submissions. All four of his KO losses have come in the first two rounds as have two of his three submission losses. Prior to his recent decision win, he had gone 14 straight fights without needing the judges (10-4). Oliveira holds the UFC record for the most submission wins at 14, and is extremely dangerous both on top and off his back.

Looking at his entire UFC career, Oliveira has routinely made short work of second-tier UFC fights, but has mostly struggled against higher ranked competition. Maybe he’s passed that hurdle with wins over Kevin Lee and Tony Ferguson in his last two fights, but at the same time, Lee has lost three of his last four matches and Ferguson looks like a broken man. We should learn a lot about Oliveira come Saturday.

Michael Chandler

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

After making the switch from Bellator, where he was the three-time Lightweight Champion, to the UFC at 34 years old, Chandler waited on the sidelines for a few months until the right opponent came along. After failing to be able to agree to terms with Tony Ferguson, Chandler eventually squared off with #6 ranked Dan Hooker.

There was a bit of a feeling out process early on in that match, as Hooker circled the outside of the Octagon looking for leg kicks when Chandler came within distance. Chandler appeared to be calculating a way in while Hooker didn’t seem to be progressing towards anything. Chandler slowly started working the body of Hooker, which eventually set up a stiff left hand to the chin of Hooker at the end of a combination that dropped him to the mat. Chandler immediately pounced on top of Hooker with aggressive ground and pound. It appeared for a moment he might go for a choke, but quickly decided against it and the ref stopped the fight moments later as Chandler assaulted the side of Hooker’s head with a gatling gun combination of right hands. The fight lasted just two and a half minutes, as Chandler handed Hooker just his second career KO loss with the other resulting from a R3 Edson Barboza body kick.

Prior to the win in his UFC debut, Chandler had been coming off back to back R1 KO victories in Bellator. His last four fights have all ended in the first round, as have six of his last eight matches and 15 of his 27 career fights. He’s won six of his last seven fights and 10 of his last 12. His last two losses both ended in R1 TKOs. We should note that one of those two losses was due to a doctor stoppage because of an ankle injury and the other some people might argue was a little quick for a title fight (when Chandler lost his Bellator belt to Patricio “Pitbull” Freire). His one other career KO loss came in the fourth round of a 2014 bout.

With a 22-5 pro record, 17 of Chandler’s career wins have come early. Ten of those were by KO and seven were by submission. Three of his five losses were by knockout, while the other two went the distance and ended in split decisions (one against Eddie Alvarez in a title fight). Chandler has notably never been submitted.

Chandler was a NCAA Division I All-American wrestler at Mizzou. So while most of his recent wins have been by early KOs, he notably has a wrestling background to rely on. He started off fighting at 165-170 lb as a pro, but has been competing at 155 lb since 2011 when he moved down a weight class following his fifth pro fight.

Fight Prediction:

Oliveira will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.

Despite this just being Chandler’s second UFC fight, it’s the 12th five-round fight of his career. He went 6-5 in Bellator five round fights, with all five of his career losses coming in those matches (3 KOs & 2 Decisions). The six wins consisted of a pair of decisions, a pair of R1 knockouts and a pair of submissions earlier in his career (2013 R2 & 2011 R4). His last two five round wins notably both went the distance. In contrast, this will just be the third scheduled five round fight of Oliveira’s career with the first one ending in a R1 TKO against Max Holloway in 2015 and the other ending in the third round when he submitted Kevin Lee in the third round 14 months ago. So he’s never been to the championship rounds.

Chandler is the more powerful puncher, but Oliveira does a better job of mixing in kicks with his striking. While Chandler has an impressive wrestling background, Oliveira is one of the most dangerous submission threats in the UFC and you cannot sleep on him for a second. He has five wins in the UFC by Guillotine Choke, but is dangerous from any grappling position. If Chandler can use his wrestling from a defensive perspective to keep this fight standing, then he should be able to win a striking battle on the feet as long as he doesn’t get his leg chewed up by the taller/longer Oliveira. We like Chandler to pull off the upset and think there’s a good chance he gets a knockout in the first two rounds. However, if this does make it to the championship rounds, that could also play into Chandler’s favor. He’s seen the fourth round six times in his career with four of those going the full 25 minutes, while Oliveira has never been past the third.

Our favorite bet here is Chandler’s moneyline at +115. We also like his R1 Win line at +500 and to a lesser extent his R2 Win line at +1000. “Fight Ends in R1” at +195 is also worth considering if you think Oliveria might win early. If you really want to take a long shot at something check out “Chandler Wins by R1 Submission” at +2800.

DFS Implications:

Oliveira’s submission victories don’t generally result in huge DFS scores as they aren’t accompanied by knockdowns or a ton of volume. In fact his most recent submission win, which came in just his second career five round fight, only scored 69 DraftKings points, in a near worst case scenario early third round finish. Prior to that, all of his finishes had scored at least 87 points as he had averaged 98 DraftKings points over his previous seven finishes, which all came in the first two rounds (104, 104, 87, 97, 94, 96 and 104). So consistently decent, but never great. At his DFS price tag, there’s no guarantee that would be enough to be useful, but it would all come down to what the other fighters priced around him do. His grappling heavy approach does lend itself to scoring better on DraftKings the longer the fight goes. However, prior to his last fight Oliveira went three straight matches without landing a takedown and has below average striking volume. The odds imply Oliveira has a 56% chance to win this fight, a 45% chance to end it early and a 15% chance to finish it in R1.

Chandler showed he has no problem patiently feeling out his opponents in his last fight, but we’ve also seen him be involved in some brawls going back to his Bellator days. His combination of powerful striking, wrestling and finishes sets him up well to be a solid DFS contributor, especially when he’s priced as an underdog. It’s hard to see Chandler not ending up in winning lineups with a win here unless he somehow middles his way to a low-volume early third round stoppage, which is very unlikely. There’s a good chance he gets a finish, but if it does somehow make it five rounds he should have enough volume to return value. We like Chandler to pull off the upset, making him one of our favorite plays on this slate. The odds suggest he has a 44% chance to win, a 32% chance to end it early and a 12% chance to land another first round finish. Those all seem too low.

Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter with your winnings so we can see how you did! @dfs_mma

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