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Fight Day Scratches: None
Fighter Notes:
Fight #14
Gillian Robertson
11th UFC Fight (6-4)Looking to stop the bleeding after suffering consecutive losses for the first time in her career, Robertson is coming off decision losses against tough opponents in Miranda Maverick and Taila Santos. In the first of those losses, Robertson was dominated on the mat by Taila Santos for essentially three straight rounds. Robertson looked to pull guard into an Armbar submission soon after the fight started, but that just resulted with her spending the entire first round on her back. Then Santos took Robertson down 20 seconds into the second round and Robertson was right back where she finished the first. Robertson continued to hunt for submissions, but Santos simply looked too strong for her. She started the third round off with a Guillotine attempt, but frustratingly ended up on her back yet again on her way to a lopsided decision loss.
Then most recently, Robertson had a slightly less pathetic decision loss to Miranda Maverick, although two of the judges failed to award Robertson any rounds despite the fact that it appeared she won round two. Maverick led in significant strikes 71-27 and in total strikes 131-32 while landing three takedowns on four attempts with nearly five minutes of control time. Robertson did land a pair of takedowns on four attempts with close to three and half minutes of control time and was able to control Maverick on the ground for the majority of the second round, but Maverick finished the round strong and then took over in round three.
After Robertson’s first seven UFC fights all ended early, her last three have now all gone the full 15 minutes. She’s now 9-6 as a pro, with seven of her wins ending in finishes, including six submissions and one KO. Of her six losses, she’s dropped four decisions and has been finished twice, including a 2019 R1 KO against Maycee Barber and a 2018 R1 Armbar against Mayra Bueno Silva. So overall she’s just 2-4 with the judges but 7-2 when fights end early.
Robertson has been successful in the UFC by being a technician with her grappling, but that appeared no match for brute strength in her last couple of fights against solid grapplers. Now she’ll get a more favorable matchup against a one-dimensional striker.
Priscila Cachoeira
6th UFC Fight (2-3)Plagued by fight cancellations throughout her career, Cachoeira has dropped out of three of her last five scheduled fights as she routinely struggles on the scales or with various other issues. Nevertheless, after losing her first three UFC fights, she’s now coming off back-to-back KO/TKO wins, albeit against low-level opponents.
Her most recent win came against Gina Mazany, who was easily able to take Cachoeira down and control her on the mat, but the fight swung in an instant on a very questionable stand up by the referee midway through the second round. After having her dominant position rudely taken away from her by referee Mike Beltran, Mazany looked exhausted on the feet and was unable to return the fight to the mat on several half-hearted attempts. At that point, Cachoeira was able to get her up against the fence and began to tee off on her as the fight was stopped with nine seconds remaining in the second round. For context, Mazany is now 2-3 in her last five fights with all three losses coming by TKO.
Prior to that victory, Cachoeira notched her first UFC win followed up by one of the most emotional reactions you’ll ever see. In that win, Cachoeira knocked out Shana Dobson in just 40 seconds as she came out guns blazing. Leading up to that, 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 KOs and four decision wins. So overall, Cachoeira is now 10-3 with six KOs and four decision wins. She’s been submitted once and also has two decision losses.
She was thrown straight into the fire in her UFC debut getting matched up against Valentina Shevchenko off the bat, 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 her next two fights by decision.
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 and four times in her most recent match. 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, but looks vulnerable on the mat.
Cachoeira fought some at 135 lb earlier in her career, but has been down at 125 lb since 2017. She notably withdrew from her second most recent fight due to a botched weight cut, so it will be extra important to monitor her at weigh-ins.
UPDATE: Cachoeira was very slow to weigh in and missed weight by 3 lb.
Fight Prediction:
Cachoeira will have a 2” height and reach advantage, but Robertson is 7 years younger than the 33-year-old Cachoeira.
This looks like a great get-right fight for Robertson who will have a massive advantage on the mat, assuming she can get it there. If she can’t she’ll be in real trouble as Cachoeira is a brawler on the feet and Robertson is a one-dimensional grappler with no real striking skills. With that said, the fact that Gina Mazany was able to take Cachoeira down 4 times on 9 attempts in less than two rounds of action is pretty encouraging for Robertson’s chances, as Robertson is a far superior grappler to Mazany. With Robertson desperate for a win and Cachoeira helpless on the mat, we love this spot for Robertson to land a submission and there’s a good chance it occurs in the second round.
Our favorite bet here is “Robertson Wins by Submission” at +110.
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DFS Implications:
Robertson has scored at least 92 DraftKings points in all six of her UFC wins, with totals of 94, 92, 110, 106, 97, and 98. After really struggling in her last two matches as she lost back-to-back decisions, we expect her ownership to be extremely low relative to her chances of landing a finish and this looks like an amazing leverage opportunity off of the other high-owned expensive options on the slate in tournaments. This also looks like an ideal matchup for Robertson to smash as she takes on a one-dimensional striker in Cachoeira. Keep in mind, Robertson is a one-dimensional grappler and she’ll be in serious trouble if she can’t get this fight to the mat. She will also notably be the smaller fighter, especially after Cachoeira missed weight. But that’s all baked into why she’ll go so low owned and you can’t have the low-owned tournament winning upside without some risk. We absolutely love Robertson as a high-risk play and the odds imply she has a 76% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish and a 24% chance it comes in the first round.
Cachoeira is a straight brawler who’s never landed a takedown in the UFC and has only attempted two—both against Luana Carolina. Her last two wins have both come by KO/TKO, and if she can somehow keep this fight standing then she’ll have a massive advantage on the feet. When you consider her super cheap price tag, Cachoeira is somewhat interesting, especially as a hedge if you are heavily exposed to Robertson, but we don’t see this fight playing out as a striking battle so you’re still probably relying on Cachoeira to be the second person to ever knock Robertson out for her to score well. Coming off two straight early wins, Cachoeira will also likely be over owned relative to her chances of getting a finish, which lowers her tournament appeal. The odds imply she has a 24% chance to win, a 12% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #13
Randy Costa
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Coming off the longest fight of his career, Costa nearly made it to the round and a half mark for the first time, but didn’t quite get there. He also faced his toughest opponent to date as he went up against a future contender in Adrian Yanez. Costa looked great early on as he jabbed Yanez’s face off and actually won the first round, but Yanez ate everything coming his way and simply outlasted Costa, who tagged Yanez with 57 significant strikes in the first round alone and looked perplexed when Yanez appeared unphased. All six of Costa’s career wins have come by R1 KO, so it’s understandable he would be confused when he finally faced an opponent who simply wouldn’t go down. After getting outstruck 57-33 in the first round, Yanez bounced back in round two as he outlanded Costa 31-12 in the opening minutes before putting him down for good just before the midway mark.
Costa generally doesn’t handle adversity very well and once fights get into the second round he generally fades at the first sign of trouble as he begins looking for a way out. He has never won a fight that lasted longer than 135 seconds, but he’s also only been in two that made it past that mark, both of which ended in the opening minutes of round two.
He came into the UFC in 2019 after knocking out his first four opponents as a pro in 71 seconds or less. However, he then proceeded to lose his UFC debut in an early R2 Rear-Naked Choke Submission. The loss came against oversized Bantamweight Brandon Davis. Prior to that fight, Davis had fought at both Lightweight (155 lb) and more recently Featherweight (145 lb) and after the 135 lb fight, Joe Rogan asked him what he weighed at the moment and Davis smirked and said 160 lb. With that said, Davis is just 2-6 in the UFC (1-4 at 145 lb & 1-2 at 135 lb). Davis was interestingly able to choke Costa out despite having no hooks in as he fell off his back, so Costa appears vulnerable to submissions once he begins to fatigue.
Costa bounced back with a R1 KO win against Boston Salmon in his next fight and didn’t seem too affected by the loss as he came out ready to brawl. However, keep in mind Salmon went 0-2 in the UFC, with both of those fights ending in R1 KOs before being released following the loss to Costa.
Costa then knocked out Journey Newson just 41 seconds into the first round. Costa dropped Newson with a vicious head kick as Newson avoided a punch and the fight was quickly stopped as Costa began to tee off on his fallen opponent. Costa is great at finishing punching combinations with head kicks so that when his opponents duck to avoid a punch they get caught in the face with a kick. Newson is now 0-2 plus a No Contest in the UFC, although the No Contest was originally a 38 second R1 KO win that was overturned when he tested positive for THC.
Two of Costa’s four pre-UFC wins came up at 145 lb, before he dropped down to 135 lb for good when he joined the UFC. He also faced highly dubious competition prior to joining the UFC, who entered his fights with records of 0-4, 0-0, 5-9 and 0-1. Then he faced three straight opponents with losing UFC records before finally getting a legitimate opponent in Yanez. Overall Costa is extremely dangerous in the first round but runs out of gas everytime he sees a second round. He does a great job of maximizing his already long reach with a dangerous jab followed by sneaky head kicks. Now he’ll face a second straight opponent who has never been finished in his career.
Tony Kelley
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off a 14 month layoff following his first UFC win, Kelley dropped down to 135 lb for the first time in his career and won a close low-volume decision over Ali AlQaisi in what was the second UFC fight for each fighter. In that fight, AlQaisi took Kelley down 5 times on 15 attempts with six minutes of control time and led in significant strikes 29-23, while Kelley narrowly led in total strikes 61-58 and finished with four official submission attempts to the one of AlQaisi. Despite trailing on the statsheet, it was Kelley who had the bigger moments in the fight as he had AlQaisi hurt on the feet at multiple points and nearly landed an Armbar submission late in the first round. While it was Kelley who was dropping down to 135 lb for the first time in that fight, it was AlQaisi who appeared to struggle with his weight cut, but did eventually weigh in and hit the mark after an extended delay. AlQaisi was notably cut following what was his second UFC decision loss and has since moved up to 145 lb.
Just prior to that win, Kelley made his short notice UFC debut just two months earlier against a fellow short notice debuting fighter in Kai Kamaka. The two newcomers kicked off that night with a bang as they fought to a high-volume decision with each fighter landing exactly 114 significant strikes. Kelley led in total strikes 185-138, but Kamaka landed all five of his takedown attempts with over five minutes of control time, while Kelley failed on his only attempt. Kamaka went on to win a unanimous 29-28 decision.
After landing finishes in his first four pro fights, four of Kelley’s last five matches have now ended in close decisions, with two of those being split, including a five-round split-decision loss to UFC fighter Kevin Aguilar. He’s now 7-2 as a pro, with two wins by KO, three by submission and two decisions. His two KO wins both came in round one, although those also notably occurred in his first two pro fights. His last three finishes have all ended in submissions. Both of his career losses have gone the distance. Overall Kelley is a decent grappler and striker, but he’s not elite at either.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’9” but Costa will have a 3” reach advantage and is seven years younger than the 34-year-old Kelley.
This sets up as a fast paced brawl for as long as it lasts and we’d be really surprised if it made it past the midway mark of the fight. All six of Costa’s career wins have come by R1 KO in 135 seconds or less, while both of his losses have ended in the second round once he’s emptied the tank. Kelley’s last three finishes have all been by submission, so if can survive the first round there’s a decent chance he submits Costa in round two. Kelley hasn’t been an overly impressive fighter in his two UFC matches, but he did show us in his UFC debut he’s willing to throw down in a brawl. We like Costa’s chances to hand Kelley the first early loss of his career with a first round KO, but if that doesn’t come to fruition look for Kelley to capitalize with a finish of his own in round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Costa R1 KO” at +240.
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DFS Implications:
It likely goes without saying, but you always want to target Costa fights as he’s never been in one that lasted longer than a round and a half. The winners in his four UFC fights have put up DraftKings totals of 106 (L), 127, 119 and 87 (L). His two UFC wins have both come by R1 KO, while his two losses have both ended early in the second round, so naturally his wins have scored better, but he presents both a high floor and massive ceiling for both himself and his opponents. Costa lands a ton of striking volume and leads the slate with 8.64 SSL/min, while also checking in third with 6.86 SSA/min. This guy fights like he’s standing on hot coals and he’s looking to get opponents out of there as quickly as possible. He is notably going against an opponent in Kelley who’s never been finished in nine pro fights, but Kelley has also never faced anyone like Costa and is now coming off a 14 month layoff. We love Costa’s chances to hand Kelley the first KO loss of his career and put up another huge score here. The odds imply he has a 62% chance to win, a 46% chance to land a finish and a 22% chance it comes in the first round.
Kelley showed he has no problem taking part in a brawl in his UFC debut where he both landed and absorbed 114 significant strikes, but the biggest thing he has going for him here is the fact that Costa has yet to prove he can make it past the midway mark in the second round. The only two times Costa has been out of the first round he faded hard early in round two and was easily put away both times by his opponents. So while we still expect Costa to knock Kelley out in the first round, if Kelley can survive the opening five minutes he has a great chance to land a finish of his own in round two. The fact that he’s never been finished in his career and recently dropped down to 135 lb from 145 lb is encouraging for his survival chances, although coming off a 14 month layoff is concerning. Either way, you want to have exposure to both sides of this one. The odds imply Kelley has a 38% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
Ryan Hall
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Looking to bounce back from his first UFC loss and the first time getting knocked out in his career, Hall drew one of the toughest matchups you could ask for in up and coming Featherweight contender Ilia Topuria. Coming in with a cautious but tactically aggressive gameplan, Topuria masterfully stayed out of danger as Hall repeatedly rolled around on the mat looking for leglocks. Topuria found his opportunity to land damage late in round one and made the most of it as he put Hall out with hammer fists on the mat.
Prior to the loss, Hall hadn’t fought in almost exactly two years as he had withdrawn from his previous two bookings and had a third one canceled due to COVID. Hall originally joined the UFC in 2015, but fought just four times from 2015 to 2019 leading up to his two year hiatus. Despite the fact that he went pro all the way back in 2006, Hall has just 10 professional fights to his name. After losing a decision in his 2006 pro debut, he didn’t fight again for six years until November 2012 when he landed a first round TKO. He followed that up with a R1 submission win in 2013, followed by a third round TKO in 2014, and then another first round submission win later that year before getting his shot in the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter in 2015. He won a decision in his debut, but then took almost exactly a year off before returning and winning another decision. He then took over two years off before returning to submit B.J. Penn in the first round with a Heel Hook submission in December 2018, which remains his only early win in the UFC. He then won a July 2019 decision against Darren Elkins in his last victory before finally suffering a loss.
Hall has been bouncing back and forth between the 155 lb and 145 lb divisions since joining the UFC. He made his debut at 155 lb, then dropped to 145 lb, then moved back up to 155 lb where he landed his lone UFC finish, and then dropped back down to 145 lb for his last two fights, where he’ll stay for this next one.
Now 8-2 as a pro, the first loss of Hall’s career came by decision at 155 lb in his first pro fight. He had won eight fights in a row between that and his most recent loss, with two KOs, three submissions and three decisions.
An incredibly unique challenge, Hall is a 3rd degree BJJ blackbelt who will mix in kicks on the feet, but is mostly only dangerous rolling into leg locks, which he’s constantly attempting. That unorthodox approach to fighting results in very little striking volume in his fights. He averages just 2.30 significant strikes landed per minute (3rd fewest on the slate), and absorbs a slate-low 1.2 significant strikes per minute. His rolling leg lock attempts don’t count as takedowns, so he’s only landed one official takedown in his five UFC fights and that came in his 2015 debut.
Darrick Minner
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Also looking to bounce back from a loss, Minner got finished in a R2 TKO against veteran grinder Darren Elkins, who simply outlasted Minner in a high paced grappling match. As he always does, Minner came out aggressively hunting for a submission, but Elkins did a great job of defending everything coming his way and was able to turn the tables in round two as he got on top of an exhausted Minner and put him away with relentless ground and pound. The fight ended with Elkins ahead just 20-19 in significant strikes, but 137-36 in total strikes. Minner landed both of his takedown attempts, while Elkins went 1 for 2. Minner also finished with three official submission attempts and both fighters had two reversals and multiple minutes of control time.
That loss brought Minner’s UFC record to 2-2, with both of his losses ending in the second round. His first win was a 52 second first round Guillotine Choke, while his second ended in a decision. That decision was the only time Minner has been past the second round in his last 15 fights and only the fourth time he’s required the judges in 38 pro matches.
Minner is now 26-12 as pro with 23 of his career wins coming early, including 22 submissions and one KO. All but two of his finishes have occurred in the first round. Only one of his 12 losses made it to the judges, while he has three losses by KO/TKO and eight by submission. Five of those early losses occurred in the first round while six occurred in round two.
Minner fought at 135 lb early in his pro career, but has been up at 145 lb and 155 lb since 2017, and has settled in at 145 lb since 2019. Minner rarely makes for a boring fight and will relentlessly pursue submissions, throwing one Guillotine up after another and transitioning to Armbars in between. It will be interesting to see how he adapts that style to an opponent like Hall.
Fight Prediction:
Hall will have a 3” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, but Minner is five years younger than the 36-year-old Hall.
This sets up as a fascinating chess match between two submission ninjas. Minner takes more of a blitzing approach, while Hall methodically looks to entangle himself with his opponents. That clash of styles makes this a tricky one to predict, but we’ve yet to see Hall ever be outgrappled or submitted, while Minner has eight submission losses on his record. For what it’s worth, Hall specializes in Heel Hooks and Minner has never been submitted by any type of leg lock. It’s hard to imagine Minner completely changing up his style and all of a sudden becoming a patient fighter, but he’s playing with fire if he rushes in on Hall. Half of Hall’s fights have ended in the first round, while the other half made it to the third round, so he’s never finished a fight in round two when Minner has historically been the most vulnerable. If this does end early, there’s a good chance it comes from a first round submission, with Hall likely getting the win.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Submission” at +100.
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DFS Implications:
Hall’s low striking volume and takedown numbers make it really hard for him to score well in DFS. There may not be a fighting style that gets consistently booed as much as Hall’s as he rolls around on the ground and runs from confrontations on the feet. He won his first four UFC fights, but returned DraftKings scores of just 70, 93, 50, and 87 in those. His only semi-decent score (93) resulted from a first round submission and he scored just 70 and 50 DraftKings points in his last two decision wins. This does look like a really favorable matchup for Hall to get a finish as Minner has been finished in 11 of his 12 career losses, including eight submissions, but it will still be tough for Hall to return value at his expensive price tag even with a first round submission win. He’ll need to outscore the other fighters priced around him, which on a slate like this looks like a massive challenge. Because of that, he’ll be incredibly low owned and if he does somehow finish ahead of the other expensive fighters then he’ll be a massive leverage play in tournaments. So his low ownership is really the only reason to consider him in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 64% chance to win, a 38% chance to get a finish and a 22% chance it comes in round one.
Anytime Minner fights you generally want to have exposure to both sides as he’s only been to the judges four times in 38 pro fights, meaning 89% of his fights have ended early. And even in his lone UFC decision win he was still able to score 111 DraftKings points as he dominated the fight on the mat. Working against him, anytime Hall fights you generally want to fade both sides as it’s rare for anyone to score well. So obviously something will have to give here. Hall has never been submitted so this is a really tough spot for Minner to try and get a finish, but there’s always a slight chance he could catch Hall in an awkward position and force a tap. So while it seems unlikely Minner wins, you always need to have at least some Minner exposure whenever he fights simply due to his track record of landing first round finishes. The odds imply he has a 36% chance to win, a 17% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #11
Miranda Maverick
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Maverick is looking to bounce back from a close/questionable decision loss to Maycee Barber. That split-decision came down to how the judges scored the second round as all three judges awarded Maverick the first round and Barber the third. In that second round, Maverick outlanded Barber 15-13 in significant strikes and 28-15 in total strikes, while also landing her only takedown attempt with 81 seconds of control time and stuffing Barber’s lone takedown attempt. The first four minutes of the round seemed close, but Maverick landed a takedown in the final minute and took Barber’s back, which appeared to be enough to win her the round, although two of the judges disagreed. The fight ended with Maverick ahead in significant strikes 47-36 and total strikes 82-38, while landing her only takedown attempt and stuffing 5 of Barber’s 6 attempts. You would think that after losing a close split-decision where she appeared to win the first two rounds, but lose the third, that Maverick’s takeaway would be that you can’t leave close fights up to the judges, so maybe we’ll see her come out a little more aggressive in this next one.
Prior to that close loss, Maverick had been on a five fight winning streak including a pair of wins in her first two UFC fights. In her UFC debut she landed a R1 TKO due to a doctor stoppage and followed it up with a decision win over Gillian Robertson in her second UFC fight.
On her way to winning a unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28) over Robertson, Maverick led in significant strikes 71-27 and in total strikes 131-32 while landing three takedowns on four attempts with nearly five minutes of control time. Robertson did land a pair of takedowns on four attempts with close to three and half minutes of control time and was able to control Maverick on the ground for the majority of the second round, but Maverick finished the round strong and then took over in round three. It did appear that Robertson had won the second round, but again two of the judges disagreed, so Maverick has seen questionable judging go both in her favor and against her, although it wouldn’t have mattered in the Robertson fight as Maverick clearly won rounds one and three.
Prior to the win over Robertson, Maverick was credited with a R1 TKO due to a doctor stoppage following the first round of her UFC debut. The win came against one-dimensional Armbar specialist Liana Jojua and it was somewhat surprising to see the first round play out entirely on the feet, but it made sense that Maverick wanted to keep the fight standing considering she had a huge advantage there against the one-dimensional Armbar specialist. Maverick busted open Jojua's nose from a heavy left elbow with just 30 seconds remaining in the round. Ironically, Maverick said before the fight that she was looking forward to going against another grappler after she had been paired with so many strikers in the past. Although looking back, maybe she meant she finally had someone she could easily beat up on the feet. With an insane pace, Maverick landed 49 significant strikes in five minutes of action and looked more powerful than she had in her previous fights.
Maverick is now 9-3 as a pro, with six of her wins coming early, including five submissions and the one TKO. Her other three career wins all went the distance, as have all three of her career losses. Still just 24 years old, Maverick somehow started her pro career at 115 lb before moving up to 125 lb in her third pro fight. Even at 125 lb she looks big for the division, so it’s sort of amazing she could ever make 115 lb, although she was only 19 at the time. Maverick has a well rounded game as she’s a solid striker and good wrestler, but we wouldn’t say she’s really elite at either right now. With that said, she does appear to be constantly improving, but it will be interesting to see how she fares when she faces another well rounded fighter like her next opponent.
Erin Blanchfield
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Fresh off a dominant decision win in her UFC debut (30-25, 30-25, 30-26), Blanchfield took on a helpless Sarah Alpar and did everything but land a finish in the match. She dominated Alpar everywhere the fight went for three straight rounds and finished ahead in significant strikes 120-41, in total strikes 198-45, in takedowns 3-0 and in control time 9:43-0:00. The fact that she was unable to get a finish in such a lopsided performance isn’t overly encouraging for Blanchfield’s finishing chances moving forward, although she was close at times. It’s also important to keep the context around that one-sided mauling in mind, as Sarah Alpar is now 0-2 in the UFC and has looked nowhere close to being UFC caliber as she has been completely abused in both of those losses.
Blanchfield had been scheduled to make her UFC debut up a weight class against Norma Dumont back in April 2020, but Dumont missed weight so badly that the fight was canceled. That was Blanchfield’s third straight opponent to drop out of a fight, which resulted in a 14 month layoff going into her impressive September 2021 debut.
Seemingly getting better with each fight, the 22-year-old Blanchfield only has eight pro fights to her name, but four of those came against current UFC fighters in Kay Hansen, Tracy Cortez, Victoria Leonardo and then Sarah Alpar. Blanchfield holds a 7-1 pro record with her only loss coming in a split-decision against Tracy Cortez in 2019. Three of Blanchfield’s seven wins have come early with two KOs and one submission and she notably has early wins in two of her last four fights.
A BJJ black belt, Blanchfield is primarily a grappler but appears to slowly be expanding her striking repertoire as she landed a second round KO by head kick in her second most recent fight. Just to be clear, her striking game is still relatively unimpressive and she pays the bills in the clinch, but earlier in her career she would spend entire fights in the clinch whereas recently she’s been more willing to stand and trade.
Showing that she could hold her own at just 19 years old in grappling matches with Kay Hansen and Tracy Cortez is obviously a great sign for Blanchfield’s chances moving forward in the UFC. She nearly submitted Tracy Cortez multiple times, and it appeared she may have won that close match, but two of the judges disagreed.
Fight Prediction:
Blanchfield will have a 1” height and reach advantage.
This sets up as an interesting matchup between two bright young prospects in the women’s Flyweight division. They actually have similar skill sets as both of them have grappling backgrounds and have slowly been improving their striking. Maverick looks more powerful with her hands, but Blanchfield offers dangerous head kicks and they’re both solid on the mat, where Maverick is a BJJ brown belt and Blanchfield is a black belt. Maverick appears to overall be the slightly more powerful of the two so it will be interesting to see how the grappling exchanges go where Blanchfield could be slightly more technical. This sort of feels like a fight that could play out somewhat of a stalemate as these two appear pretty evenly matched, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see it end in a close decision with neither fighter able to really dominate the other. With Maverick’s experience advantage along with what we perceive to be a slight power advantage, we give her the edge to win a decision, but another close split-decision would not at all be surprising and you never know which way those will go.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Split Decision” at +330.
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DFS Implications:
Maverick has scored well in DFS in both of her wins with DraftKings totals of 99 and 110, but she scored just 33 points in her recent decision loss, which still would have been nowhere close to being useful even if the decision had gone her way. So she’s shown that in close fights she will struggle to score well and requires a dominant performance to return value in a decision. This looks like a tough spot for that to happen, as Blanchfield is a tough, albeit relatively unproven opponent, who matches up with Maverick pretty well. Blanchfield also only has one loss on her record, which occurred in a split-decision against UFC fighter Tracy Cortez, so a finish here is unlikely. So even though we give Maverick the slight edge to win this fight in a decision, it’s tougher to see her being useful in DFS tournaments, and it’s also certainly possible that Blanchfeild pulls off the upset after looking great in her last fight. So we’re not overly excited about playing Maverick here. The odds imply Maverick has a 56% chance to win, a 17% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Blanchfield is coming off an absolutely dominant UFC debut, where she put up a massive 126 point DraftKings score against a non-UFC level talent. That score leads this slate in FPPF on DraftKings which will surely have the field chasing the number. However, now she gets a major step up in competition that will pose far greater of a challenge after Blanchfield essentially faced zero resistance in her last fight. So don’t expect to see anywhere close to a repeat performance, even though we do like Blanchfield as a prospect moving forward. With that said, if Blanchfield can assume top position on the mat, she’s shown she can rack up points through control time and ground strikes. So at her discounted price tag it’s not impossible for her to return value in a decision win but it’s far from a given. The odds imply she has a 44% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance to end it in the first round.
Fight #10
Andre Muniz
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Muniz had been scheduled to face Dricus Du Plessis here, but Du Plessis dropped out and Anders stepped in on about a month’s notice after withdrawing from a fight against another grappler in Roman Dolidze in early November when Anders tested positive for COVID.
Achieving the honor of being the first fighter to ever submit Jacare Souza in his last fight, Muniz again demonstrated just how dangerous of a grappler he is when he broke Souza’s arm late in the first round with a grotesque snap that echoed throughout the arena. Muniz was able to take Souza down twice leading up the finish while also getting taken down once himself in a back and forth grappling match.
That win marks Muniz’s third first-round submission victory in his last four fights and the 12th of his career. He also has two second round submission wins along with four career KO victories along with three wins by decision to fill out his 21-4 pro record. All four of his career losses have come by knockout, including three in the first round and one in round two. So overall, 22 of his 25 pro fights have ended early, with 21 of those finishes occurring in the first two rounds and 17 ending in round one.
Muniz notably competed up at 205 lb from 2015 to 2017 where he went 3-1 before dropping back down to 185 lb for his first of two DWCS fights. Now on a seven fight winning streak dating back to his last fight at 205 lb, Muniz has impressively won 15 of his last 16 fights, with 12 of those wins coming early, including 11 in the first round. His only loss since 2013 came against 9-0 Azamat Murzakanov, who had recently been scheduled to make his UFC debut but the fight was scratched.
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 guard. While Muniz was unable to finish an initial Guillotine Choke, he quickly transitioned to an Armbar and finished Fabinski midway through the first round. He followed up that win with his recent victory of Souza, but will now face an opponent who should be more inclined to keep the fight standing.
Eryk Anders
13th UFC Fight (6-5, NC)Rebooked with a new opponent a month after withdrawing from a fight against Roman Dolidze after testing positive for COVID, Anders is dropping back down to 185 lb where three of his last four fights have been, after defeating Darren Stewart up at 205 lb in his last match.
That fight against Stewart was actually a rematch after their previous fight ended late in the first round with a No Contest for an illegal knee landed by Anders as he had Stewart on the ropes. Their first fight took place at 185 lb, while the rematch was at 205 lb. In their initial fight, Stewart entered as a -185 favorite, but after Anders nearly finished him in the first round, Anders entered as a -140 favorite in their second bout.
Both guys came out swinging in their first match, and Stewart actually landed some early shots, but Anders dropped Stewart late in the first round with a stiff left hand and appeared moments away from finishing him with ground and pound. However, Stewart was able to hang on and as he tried to stand up, Anders landed a knee near Stewart’s head while he was still grounded that looked dangerously close to being illegal, but the action continued. Stewart then did manage to return to his feet as Anders laid it on thick, with Stewart simply in survival mode. With 30 seconds left Anders curiously decided to go for a takedown opposed to continuing to punish Stewart on the fence. He didn’t get Stewart all the way down, but put him back down on one knee and then Anders foolishly kneed the downed Stewart in the head and this time Herb Dean did stop the action and the doctor called the fight.
The recent rematch was much slower paced with over 10 and half combined minutes of control time. Anders actually landed almost the exact same number of significant strikes over the course of three rounds in the rematch (44) as he did in less than a round of action in the first fight (43). In the second fight, Stewart was able to land a pair of takedowns on four attempts with over two minutes of control time, while Anders went 0 for 4 on his own takedown attempts with a reversal and over eight minutes of control time. Anders also led in significant strikes 44-33 and in total strikes 112-63. After all three judges ruled the fight 19-19 after two rounds, Anders was able to pull away in the third round and was awarded a 10-8 round by two of the three judges. He was nearly able to finish Stewart late in the fight as he teed off on him along the fence, but Stewart narrowly hung on to survive the round.
That was Anders’ fourth UFC fight up at 205 lb (2-2), while his other eight matches have all been down at 185 lb (4-3, NC). The only early loss of his career was up at 205 lb in a post R3 TKO stoppage against Thiago Santos in a 2018 five-round fight. Now 14-5 as a pro, his other four losses all ended in decisions, with two of those being split. Of his 14 wins, he has eight KOs, one submission and five decisions. Six of those knockouts occurred in the first round with the other two ending in round three. His lone submission win was a quick 33 second 2016 R1 Rear-Naked Choke in his fourth pro fight and despite being a BJJ brown belt, he’s generally just looking for knockouts. With that said, ignoring his No Contest, five of his last six fights have ended in decisions, with the only finish during that stretch coming against one of the worst UFC fighters of all time in Vinicius Moreira, who went 0-4 in the UFC with all four losses taking six minutes or less. So Anders has mostly settled into being a decision machine, but he’s huge at 185 lb and has decent power so there’s always the potential for a knockout when he’s properly motivated, which coming off a slower paced decision and now fighting in front of a crowd he likely will be.
Prior to the recent “No Contest” Anders’ lost a decision to a suspect Krzysztof Jotko back in May 2020. That marked the 5th straight fight Anders didn’t land a takedown after landing 12 in his first five UFC fights. However, Anders got back to some grappling in the one round we saw against Stewart, where Anders landed three takedowns in less than five minutes. Although he then missed on all four of his attempts in the rematch, so he’s now failed to land a takedown in six of his last seven fights and it’s hard to imagine he’ll be looking to take the submission specialist in Muniz to the mat, despite Anders claiming he has confidence in his own Jiu-Jitsu.
Since landing a R1 KO in his 2017 UFC debut, 9 of Anders’ last 10 fights (not counting the recent No Contest) have made it to the third round. The one exception was his R1 KO of Vinicius Moreira, who’s a complete door knob when it comes to getting finished early.
A former Alabama linebacker who had stints in the NFL, CFL and AFL, Anders is massive and getting down to 185 lb has been a tough cut for him, and he actually had to drop out of a November 2020 fight due to weight cutting issues after looking dreadful on the scales. So it will be important to monitor him closely at weigh ins.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’1” but Muniz will have a 3” reach advantage.
Both of these guys are big for the 185 lb division and have each competed up at 205 lb in the past, so the normal size advantages they both generally possess should theoretically cancel each other out. Muniz is incredibly dangerous on the mat, but he’s still a one-dimensional grappler who doesn't offer much on the feet, so the path to defeating him is pretty obvious—keep the fight standing. Anders isn’t helpless when it comes to grappling, but he’ll have a major striking advantage in this fight and should be 100% focussed on keeping it on the feet. Expect Muniz to try and get the fight to the mat by all means necessary, which will require Anders to stay alert and demonstrate a higher fight IQ than what he showed in his No Contest against Darren Stewart. Working in Anders’ favor, Muniz has been knocked out early in all four of his career losses. So if Anders can force him to stand and trade on the feet then he should have a chance to get a finish. However, we saw in Muniz’s UFC debut that he has no problem hanging out on his back patiently waiting for his opponents to come join him, which can really slow down a fight and reduce the number of opportunities to land something clean on the feet. Anders should benefit from his 76% career takedown defense, but Muniz has no problem pulling guard to get fights to the mat, so he doesn't need to land a traditional takedown to force Anders into the danger zone. There’s a good chance this ends in the first round with either a Muniz submission or an Anders KO. We’ll give Muniz the slight advantage, but neither would surprise us.
Our favorite bet here is “Muniz Wins by R1 Submission” at +470.
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DFS Implications:
Muniz is an extremely dangerous submissions specialist who’s only required the judges in 3 of his 25 pro fights. He’s won 15 of his last 16 fights and has landed first round submissions in three of his last four matches going back to a DWCS match. His DFS ceiling is somewhat capped by his hyper-efficiency, as he’s so good at getting opponents out quickly. However, that does keep him in play for the DraftKings quick win bonus. With that said, this looks like a tough matchup for Muniz as he takes on Eryk Anders, who has never been submitted and owns a 76% takedown defense. Although after being the first person to ever submit Jacare Souza in his last fight, Muniz seems up for the task. Muniz has notably been knocked out in all four of his career losses, which lowers his floor, but makes this an overall good fight to target. There’s always the chance that this fight plays out similarly to Muniz’s UFC debut where he lays on the mat waiting for his opponent to join him for periods of time in somewhat of a stalemate, but it’s more likely to end with either an Anders early knockout or a Muniz submission victory. The odds imply he has a 57% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish and a 21% chance it comes in the first round.
Anders’ low striking volume generally makes it tough for him to score well without an early finish as he averages just 3.20 SSL/min. Also working against him, 9 of his last 10 fights (not counting a No Contest) have made it to the third round, with seven of those ending in decisions. However, he was on pace to break the second most recent slate he was on before he stupidly landed an illegal knee that stopped the fight late in round one and resulted in a No Contest. He still finished with 50 DraftKings points in the No Decision, which would have been good for 140+ had he legally finished the fight. So clearly he has a huge ceiling, it’s just rare for him to show it. In his last two decision wins he scored just 81 and 56 points and if this fight does somehow make it to the judges we don’t see him putting up a usable score. Even a late finish has the potential to underwhelm in the scoring department, so you’re really hoping for a knockout in the opening two rounds if you play him. He projects to be a low owned option with tournament winning upside and it’s easy to gain leverage on the field here. The odds imply he has a 43% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #9
Bruno Silva
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Entering this fight on a six fight winning streak with all six wins ending in knockouts, Silva took on a pair of grapplers in his first two UFC fights and passed both tests despite his biggest weakness historically being his submission defense. His most recent win came against Andrew Sanchez, who was able to take Silva down 7 times on 12 attempts in the first two rounds with nearly eight minutes of control time. Sanchez was gassed by the third round and was deducted a point for his third groin strike after landing two earlier in the fight. His half-hearted takedown attempts became telegraphed in the third round and Silva was able to force a stoppage along the fence as he teed off on Sanchez who was simply shelling by the end. Silva finished ahead in significant strikes 70-33 and in total strikes 100-86. Sanchez has historically struggled with his cardio late in fights, so the outcome wasn’t entirely surprising, but Silva was able to demonstrate he has the cardio to land finishes late in fights even after being grappled for 10 minutes.
In his prior UFC debut, Silva knocked out Wellington Turman, who had just been knocked out by Andrew Sanchez in the first round of his previous fight. Turman went 0 for 10 on his relentless takedown attempts, as Silva spent the entire round defending submissions and trying to remain on his feet. Near the end of the round, Silva was able to shake Turman off his back and impressively knock him out as Silva posted up on his knees as Turman lay on the mat with a loose open guard. That win in his debut followed a 31 month layoff, after Silva had originally been scheduled to make his debut against Deron Winn all the way back in June 2019, but failed a drug test and was suspended for two years after testing positive for steroids.
Silva currently holds a 21-6 pro record and has only been to three decisions in 26 pro fights. All 18 of his finishes have come by KO, while all five of his early losses have come by submission—well he also has one DQ loss for an illegal upkick back in 2011, but whatever. He’s won all three of the decisions he’s been to, which occurred in 2011, 2015 and 2016. Of his 18 KO wins, 12 have come in the first round, four have come in the second, one has ended in the third and one occurred in the fourth round of a five round M-1 fight. Three of his four second round knockouts came very early in his career and 11 of his last 14 KO wins have occurred in R1.
While Silva looks incredibly prone to being taken down and is also very vulnerable to being submitted, he’s impressively won 16 of his last 17 fights dating back to 2012, with his only loss during that stretch coming in a 2016 R2 Kimura. We still expect Silva to have major issues with advanced grapplers in the UFC, but his next opponent definitely doesn’t fall into that category.
Jordan Wright
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Wright had been booked to fight Julian Marquez back in October, but Marquez was forced to withdraw due to weight cutting issues and Wright was pulled from the card.
Coming off another improbable win, Wright most recently finished Jamie Pickett in just 64 seconds. Pickett appeared to panic once Wright got him in the clinch and started throwing knees so Pickett instinctually shot for a takedown but left his head exposed and absorbed a series of heavy elbows. Pickett momentarily recovered, but Wright regained the clinch and landed a knee that dropped Pickett and then finished him on the ground as the fight was quickly stopped. Prior to his most recent win he was violently brought back down to earth against Joaquin Buckley, who easily finished Wright early in R2 and nearly ended things late in R1.
The fact that Wright has a winning UFC record three fights in with the organization is comical. He has a highly questionable chin, a suspect striking defense and poor hands. He relies almost entirely on kicking and knees out of the clinch to cause damage and can easily be overwhelmed if forced to stand and trade in a phone booth. While he does have five submission wins on his record, he failed to land his only takedown attempt so far in the UFC and he’s yet to show any sort of grappling game at the UFC level.
Wright made his UFC debut up at 205 lb in August 2020 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 40 second R1 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 (counting the No Contest as a loss) 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 knocked out in just 40 seconds. His only other decent opponent was Joaquin Buckley, and once again Wright was viciously knocked out.
Now 12-1 plus a No Contest in his career, all five of Wright’s submission wins have come in the first round, as have six of his seven 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. Nine of his 14 pro fights have ended in 92 seconds or less and four have ended in under a minute.
Fight Prediction:
Wright will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
We will continue to bet against Wright everytime he steps inside the Octagon until he gives us a reason not to and neither of his two flukey UFC wins have done that. While he’s proven that he can win fights it’s always through bizarre fashion like a doctor stoppage or downward elbows along the fence. Silva on the other hand has been a knockout machine and looks to be teed up to land another early knockout here against the questionable chin and striking defense of Wright. It would be wise of Wright to look to grapple as that is Silva’s biggest weakness, but it’s unclear if Wright actually has the skillset to take advantage of that. It’s always possible he surprises us, but it’s been almost four years since he landed a submission and it seems like his submissions have been more opportunistic for the most part. We’d be surprised if this fight made it out of the first round and shocked if it saw round three. We like Silva to land another R1 KO.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Doesn’t Start R3” at -182.
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DFS Implications:
Silva comes into this fight having knocked out six straight opponents and with KOs in 18 of his 21 career wins. He’s impressively won 16 of his last 17 fights and has 12 career first round knockouts. He scored 102 DraftKings points in a R1 KO in his UFC debut, but just 79 points in his recent third round knockout after he spent the first two rounds on the mat. That 79 point score is irrelevant to his scoring potential here but could keep his ownership from getting completely out of control, although he still projects to be the second highest owned three-round fighter on the slate after O’Malley. This looks like a prime spot for Silva to turnout a ceiling performance and he’s appropriately priced as the second most expensive fighter on the slate. The only downside of Silva in tournaments is that he projects to be highly owned, but you can always look to get contrarian elsewhere and Silva looks like a great play in all contest types. The odds imply he has a 75% chance to win, a 57% chance to land a finish and a 24% chance it comes in the first round.
Wright has laughably scored 108 and 112 DraftKings points in his two UFC wins, while getting knocked out early in the second round of his lone UFC loss. He’s yet to land a takedown in the UFC on just one attempt and looks extremely vulnerable to being knocked out. All 14 of his career fights have ended in six minutes or less and someone always scores well when he’s fighting. So you always want to have exposure to both sides of a Wright fight, but we still much prefer Silva’s side of things here. Considering Silva has been submitted five times but has never been knocked out, it will be interesting to see if Wright looks to grapple more in this one, which would likely be his best shot at winning. With that said, he’s relied entirely on his striking so far since joining the UFC. The odds imply Wright has a 25% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish and an 8% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #8
Tai Tuivasa
10th UFC Fight (6-3)This fight had originally been scheduled for November 20th but it was pushed back due to visa issues. Tuivasa had also previously been scheduled to fight in October but Walt Harris withdrew.
Rumbling into this fight on the heels of three straight first round knockout victories, Tuivasa most recently knocked out Greg Hardy in just 67 seconds on the Poirier vs. McGregor 3 PPV card. Tuivasa started that fight as he often does with several heavy leg strikes. Then, Hardy actually looked to have Tuivasa somewhat hurt but overplayed his hand and mistakenly rushed in and got caught with a clean left hand to the chin. Tuivasa naturally celebrated with a cage top shoey as he continues to be a fan favorite who thrives off of live crowds.
Prior to the win over Hardy, Tuivasa knocked out short notice replacement and UFC newcomer Harry Hunsucker, who was filling in on just a few days notice after Don'tale Mayes dropped out. That finish took just 49 seconds and Hunsucker does not appear to be a UFC level talent. And just before that Tuivasa sent Stefan Struve into retirement with a knockout in the final second of the first round. Just keep in mind, Struve notably lost five of his final six UFC fights.
Impressively, Tuivasa started his pro career off with six straight first round KOs before getting the call up to the UFC and extending that streak to eight in his first two UFC fights. In his 2017 debut, Tuivasa knocked out Rashad Coulter, who came in 0-1 in the UFC and finished 1-3 before getting released in 2018. Coulter has now lost four of his last five fights—all by KO in the first two rounds. Tuivasa then landed another first round finish, this time against Cyril Asker, who went 2-3 in the UFC before getting released in 2018 (all three of his UFC losses were by R1 KO). Tuivasa then made it out of the first round for the first time in his career and won a close, low-volume decision against Arlovski, before getting knocked out in R2 by Junior dos Santos of a 2018 main event. He then lost a decision to a tanky Blagoy Ivanov, before getting manhandled by Sergey Spivak on the ground and submitted in the second round of a 2019 fight. So overall, Tuivasa won his first three UFC fights, lost his next three and then won his most recent three. Five of his six UFC wins have come by R1 KO, while two of his three losses occurred in round two.
Tuivasa has no ground game and it showed in his fight against Sergey Spivak. He was once asked what his favorite grappling move is and responded, “Get up.” To his credit, he is decent at getting up. He has no interest in going to the ground after knocking an opponent down and would much prefer to let them also get up as well.
Now 12-3 as a pro, Tuivasa has 11 wins by R1 KO and just one decision. He also has one decision loss to go along with a pair of second round losses, one by KO and the other by submission.
Augusto Sakai
7th UFC Fight (4-2)Coming off a slow paced R1 KO loss to Jairzinho Rozenstruik in a fight that was scheduled to go five rounds, Sakai landed just three significant strikes before getting finished with a single second remaining in the first round. Sakai spent the entire fight circling away from Rozenstruik and you have to wonder if the ultra cautious approach had something to do with the fact that Sakai was coming off the first early loss of his career in his previous fight.
In what was both the first five round fight of his career and his first UFC main event, Sakai took on longtime veteran Alistair Overeem in his second most recent fight and lost via R5 TKO. That was notably the first time in 18 pro fights that Sakai had ever been finished, just the second loss of his career, and also snapped a six fight winning streak that went back to 2017.
In the fight against Overeem, Sakai actually finished ahead in significant strikes 99-92 and total strikes 120-106, but Overeem went 3 for 3 on takedowns and came out ahead 5:29-2:22 in control time. The fight was close early on, with the two trading on the feet and no takedowns attempted in the first two rounds, with Sakai leading on two of the three judges’ score cards. However, with a minute and a half remaining in the third round, Overeem was able to take Sakai down on his first attempt in the match. Overeem landed heavy ground and pound as he kept Sakai on the mat for the remainder of the round. The first half of the fourth round remained on the feet, but then Overeem landed his second takedown of the fight midway through the round and went to work with violent ground and pound that nearly ended things. Visibly exhausted and beat up, Sakai did everything he could just to remain alive in the fight, but looked helpless off his back and just barely survived the round. Overeem immediately took Sakai back down to the mat to start the fifth round and quickly finished him with ground and pound as Herb Dean stopped the fight just 26 seconds into the last round.
Despite 11 of his 15 career wins coming by KO, Sakai has just two first round finishes in his last 15 fights and just one since joining the UFC. He did start his pro career off with four straight first round knockouts in 2011 and 2012, but those came against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-1, 0-0 and 2-4. Since then, he’s knocked out seven more opponents—two in R1, three in R2 and two in R3. Two of his last three wins have notably ended in three-round decisions and only two of his six UFC fights have ended before the third round. In fairness to him, his two UFC decision wins came against human-tank and heart stab survivor Blagoy Ivanov, who’s never been knocked out in 22 pro fights, and then veteran Andrei Arlovski who’s only been knocked out once in his last 14 fights.
Outside of Sakai’s 11 career KO victories, his other four career wins have all ended in decisions, with two of his last three victories going the distance. Prior to his recent pair of KO losses, Sakai was 15-1-1 with his only career loss ending in a 2017 split-decision. And speaking of split-decisions, Sakai’s last three decisions have all been split, which is notable for betting purposes.
Fight Prediction:
Sakai will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
The current momentum of these two fighters could not be any more different. After starting his career 15-1-1, Sakai has now been knocked out in back-to-back fights and desperately needs a win to stop the bleeding. Meanwhile, Tuivasa bounced back from three straight losses to knock out his last three opponents and is chugging beers out of shoes while he sits atop the Octagon like he’s the king of Las Vegas. It wouldn’t be surprising if that results in Sakai coming in a little stiff and more reserved while Tuivasa starts fast and loose. While 92% of Tuivasa’s career wins have occurred in the first round, just 40% of Sakai’s victories have come in round one. So we expect Tuivasa will once again start by chipping away at the lead leg of his opponent and quickly transition to looking for kill shots. On the other side of things, we expect Sakai to try and control the distance and circle the Octagon with a more patient approach designed to win the fight in the later rounds. Considering all 11 of Tuivasa’s finishes have come in the first round and he’s gone 1-3 in fights that have lasted longer than five minutes, if Sakai can survive round one we like his chances to land a knockout of his own in the later rounds or win a decision. There’s a good chance Tuivasa will start fast and win on the scorecards in the first round, so a decision would likely be close and when you factor in that Sakai’s last three decisions have all been split, the split-decision props are certainly interesting at very long odds. Regardless of whether it comes from a late KO or in a decision, we’re picking Sakai to win this one.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Split Decision” at +800.
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DFS Implications:
Coming off three straight R1 KO wins, Tuivasa’s stock is at an all time high and he should be a popular play at his reasonable price tag. With that in mind, Tuivasa is your typical R1 KO or bust Heavyweight and considering he’s never landed a finish beyond the first round and he scored just 65 points in his lone decision win, it looks like he’ll go over owned relative to his chances of returning value. That makes him a far less appealing tournament play. Tuivasa has never landed a takedown and has no desire to grapple, so it’s really hard to see him suddenly scoring well in a decision as it would require numerous knockdowns or an insane amount of striking volume. Sakai has notably only been knocked down once in his career and absorbs an average of 3.98 SS/min so both of those are unlikely. The odds imply Tuivasa has a 51% chance to win, a 38% chance to land a finish and an 18% chance it comes in the first round.
Sakai checks in slightly cheaper than Tuivasa, but is similarly unlikely to put up a big DFS score without a finish. While Sakai generally lands a decent amount of volume, averaging 5.10 significant strikes landed per minute, he’s only landed one takedown in seven UFC fights and scored just 67 and 52 DraftKings points in his two UFC decision wins. He’s a slower starter than Tuivasa and has just two first round wins in his last 15 fights, which also lowers his scoring potential. However, at his cheaper price tag a finish at any time could still score enough to be useful. Working against Sakai, Tuivasa has only been knocked out once in his career, so it wouldn’t be that surprising if this fight ended in a disappointing decision. After seeing the line move in his favor, Sakai is slightly underpriced on DraftKings, which should bump up in ownership to some extent, although he still projects to go lower owned than Tuivasa by a decent margin and this is another slate where most of the ownership will be pretty spread out once you get past the top guys. The odds imply Sakai has a 49% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish and a 13% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #7
Dominick Cruz
9th UFC Fight (6-2)Coming off a split-decision win over Casey Kenney, Cruz recently notched his first win in the last five years after not fighting in 2017-2019 due to injuries. In that win, Cruz led in significant strikes 89-74 and in total strikes 115-74, while also landing 2 takedowns on 9 attempts to Kenney’s 0 for 2. That was just Cruz’s second three-round fight in the UFC as six of his first eight UFC fights were title fights scheduled to five rounds with five of those going the distance.
After losing the Bantamweight belt to Cody Garbrandt in a five-round decision back in December 2016, Cruz looked to make a comeback in May 2020 in a title fight against Henry Cejudo. After dancing around the Octagon for nearly two rounds, Cruz leaned into a brutal right knee that sent him careening to the mat. Cejudo immediately jumped on top and landed a flurry of punches to the side of Cruz’s head before the ref stopped the action. Cruz disputed the stoppage vehemently, and is still walking around muttering about it to this day. He even went as far as requesting any ref but Keith Peterson for this next fight, which shows just how salty he still is over what seemed like a fair stoppage. Cruz comes across as the old guy on the court that calls non-existent fouls after every shot he misses.
Cruz had tried to fight in both 2017 and 2019, but was forced to withdraw both times due to injury. Prior to getting knocked out for the first time in his career, Cruz fought to three straight five-round decisions in 2016 to defend his Bantamweight belt. He beat T.J. Dillashaw and Urijah Faber in the first two, but was defeated by Garbrandt in the third.
Cruz impressively won 22 of his first 23 pro fights, with his only loss prior to 2016 coming in a 2007 match against Urijah Faber, before either joined the UFC. Faber was able to submit Cruz in the first round with a Guillotine Choke. They went on to run that matchup back twice for the Bantamweight belt and Cruz won both of those, including when he first won the belt in his 2011 UFC debut.
Now 23-3 as a pro, Cruz has seven KOs, one submission wins and 15 decisions. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once and has lost one decision. However, two of those three losses have occurred in his last three fights and now 36 years old you have to wonder about his future. Cruz’s unorthodox movement and fighting style unquestionably make him a tough guy to prepare for, and also seem to result in an above average number of head clashes.
Pedro Munhoz
17th UFC Fight (9-6, NC)Looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Jose Aldo, Munhoz was outlanded by Aldo 114-75 in striking while no takedowns were attempted by either fighter. Aldo easily cruised to a 30-27 unanimous decision and was noticeably larger and more powerful in the fight. Munhoz did notably land 37 leg strikes after landing 40 in his previous match. That was Munhoz’s fourth straight fight to go the distance since he knocked out Cody Garbrandt in the first round of a 2019 fight.
His previous fight ended in a decision win over a really tough Jimmie Rivera, where Munhoz destroyed Rivera’s calf in the first round as he landed 20 leg strikes in the opening five minutes. He finished the fight landing 40 leg strikes and ahead in total strikes 94-65. Rivera shot for five takedowns but only landed one of them.
Munhoz lost a close/questionable five-round decision to Frankie Edgar just before his win over Rivera and five of his last seven fights have gone the distance, with the two exceptions being a pair of back-to-back first round knockout wins against Bryan Caraway and Cody Garbrandt in 2018 and 2019.
Munhoz now owns a 19-6 pro record, with five KO wins and eight submission victories to go along with six decision wins. His last three KOs all came in the first round after the first two both occurred in the second round of his first two pro fights back in 2009. He’s known for his Guillotine Choke, which is how he’s finished his last five and six of his eight career submissions. All six of his losses have come by decision and he’s never been finished. Not counting his 2014 R1 win, which was later overturned due to a failed drug test, Munhoz has five first round wins in the UFC—three by KO and two by Guillotine Choke. Nine of his 10 UFC fights to make it out of the first round have gone the distance, with the one exception being a 2016 R2 Guillotine Choke Submission win.
Munhoz lands a solid amount of striking volume, averaging 5.55 SSL/min (6th highest on the slate), while absorbing 6.02 SS/min (4th highest on the slate). He hasn’t landed a takedown in his last seven fights and owns an 80% takedown defense on top of his dangerous Guillotine defense.
Fight Prediction:
Cruz will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
Munhoz does a good job of beating up his opponents legs, which would be a good way to slow down Cruz’s constant movement. Cruz has fought to decisions in 4 of his last 5 and 8 of his last 10 fights, while Munhoz has gone the distance in four straight, so we’d be surprised if this one ended early. Cruz has lost two of his last three fights, while Munhoz has lost three of his last four, so both guys are also desperate for a win. They each have a very solid 80%+ takedown defense, so this fight will likely remain a striking battle. That’s where Munhoz sets himself apart, on paper at least, as he averages 5.55 SSL/min, while Cruz averages just 3.65 SSL/min. However, Munhoz also absorbs more than twice as many strikes on average compared to Cruz as he averages 6.02 SSA/min, while Cruz averages just 2.42 SSA/min. So in the end this fight simply boils down to how elusive Cruz can be on the feet as Munhoz is more accustomed to being in high-volume brawls, while Cruz focusses on being more of a sniper while trying to avoid taking damage. Cruz’s 3” reach advantage should help him in his pursuit to land shots while avoiding absorbing many coming back his way, so we’ll give him the slight edge to win a decision, but this could be close if Munhoz can slow him down with leg strikes.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Goes the Distance” at -168.
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DFS Implications:
Cruz’s below average striking volume leaves him reliant on landing a finish to score well in DFS in a three-round fight and four of his last five fights have ended in decisions. His only early win in the UFC came in a 2014 R1 KO against an opponent who’s gone 3-7 in his last 10 fights and Munhoz has notably never been finished in his career. Despite his low chances of scoring well, Cruz was still 21% owned the last time he fought, which was also on a 15 fight card where he was identically priced at $8,100 despite the line moving against him and closing as a +115 slight underdog against Casey Kenney. It will be interesting to see if the field again chases Cruz’s name and past scores in five round fights as he’s an unlikely candidate to return value in a three-round fight. The odds imply he has a 50% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Munhoz has generally been a R1 or bust play for DFS purposes, with DraftKings scores of 111, 115, 124 and 103 in his last four finishes (all in R1), but 68, 124 and 77 in his last three decisions. So while he did have one explosion spot in a 2018 decision win, that came on the back of an outlier performance with three knockdowns landed in addition to a ton of striking volume. Cruz has notably only been knocked down three times in his last 16 fights, although those did all occur in his last three matches. Still, once you factor in Cruz’s elusiveness, it seems unlikely Munhoz will score well in a decision, but he does still appear to have more DFS upside than Cruz in this fight based on the fact that six of his nine UFC wins have come early, including five in the first round. With that said, we’re expecting this fight to end in a lower-volume decision with the winner failing to put up a useful score. The odds imply Munhoz has a 50% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish and a 10% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #6
Josh Emmett
10th UFC Fight (7-2)Coming off an extended layoff caused by a knee injury suffered in his last fight, it’s now been a year and a half since Emmett defeated Shane Burgos in a high-volume brawling decision. 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 gut through it.
The knee injury was far from an easy recovery process as Emmett completely tore his ACL, sprained his MCL, and fractured his femur. He then dealt with complications after his patella tendon wasn’t healing properly and was forced to undergo stem cell treatment that required drilling into his back followed by the need to wear a back brace on top of a leg brace. Obviously the older you get the harder these injuries are to recover from and Emmett is now 36.
A former college wrestler, Emmett is a violent striker with explosive hands who has landed 10 knockdowns in his six fights since moving down to 145 lb, with at least one in every fight. He ranks number one all time among Featherweights in average number of knockdowns landed per minute at 2.51, which checks in above Conor Mcgregor who averaged 2.31/min. Emmett originally turned pro in 2011 at 145 lb, but moved up to 155 lb in his 5th fight after starting off 4-0. Stretching his record to a perfect 11-0 following the move up, Emmett even had one fight up at a 165 lb Catchweight. However, after suffering his first career loss in a 2017 split-decision in what was his third UFC fight, Emmett decided to drop back down to 145 lb. Since the switch, he’s gone 5-1 with four of his last five fights ending in knockouts. Of his five UFC wins at 145 lb, he has two decisions and three knockouts, including two in the first round and one in round three.
Owning an impressive 16-2 pro record, Emmett has only been finished once in his career, which occurred in a 2018 R2 KO against Jeremy Stephens. Emmett got dropped by a left hook early in the second round and as he desperately tried to recover Stephens assaulted him with strikes and even threw what looked to be an illegal knee before shortly thereafter finishing Emmett on the mat with a final elbow. Looking closer at the knee in question, Stephens attempted what 100% would have been an illegal knee that was so blatant it would have made Petr Yan blush, but Emmett narrowly ducked under the knee causing it to just miss. However, then the knee swung back down after the miss and caught Emmett on the back of the head, but they let that slide. As DC summed up regarding the knee on the broadcast, “I don’t think it landed…it may have landed a little bit.” Stephens has notably gone 0-5 plus a No Contest since that win. Emmett’s only other career loss was a 2017 split-decision in his third UFC fight.
Of his 16 wins, Emmett has six KOs, two submissions and eight decisions. Both of his submissions occurred in the first round of fights earlier in his career prior to joining the UFC. Four of his six knockouts also occurred in the first round, while the other two came in round three.
Dan Ige
11th UFC Fight (7-3)Six months removed from his second five-round decision loss in his last three fights, Ige most recently lost a grappling heavy decision to The Korean Zombie. Ige finished behind in significant strikes 92-80, in total strikes 154-137, in takedowns 3-0 and in control time 10:10-1:53. It had been a while since we had seen The Zombie utilize his wrestling, as it had been nine years since he even landed a takedown going back to when he submitted Dustin Poirier in 2012.
Just prior to suffering that loss, Ige landed a 22 second one-punch R1 KO of Gavin Tucker. That win reminded us of why Ige earned his 50K nickname after he had previously fought to four straight decisions and we were beginning to wonder if it still applied. Just before that highlight reel KO, Ige went five tough rounds with Calvin Kattar in a losing decision effort. That was the first five round fight of Ige’s career, so it likely went down as somewhat of a learning experience, especially when it came to pacing himself for the championship rounds. Kattar outlanded Ige 105-84 in significant strikes, 107-87 in total strikes and landed his only takedown attempt, while Ige went 0 for 9 on his attempts. Overall, it seemed like Kattar was simply too big and powerful for Ige.
Ige had won six straight fights leading up to the loss against Kattar, after losing a decision in his 2018 UFC debut against another powerful striker in Julio Arce. Four of those six wins went the distance with the other two each ending in the opening 77 seconds of fights. The first of those early wins was a 2018 50 second R1 KO in his second UFC fight against Mike Santiago, who’s now lost five of his last six fights, including four early, and was cut by the UFC following the loss to Ige finishing his UFC career 0-3. Ige’s second UFC finish was a 2019 R1 Rear-Naked Choke submission against Danny Henry, who’s been submitted in the first round in each of his last two matches. All 10 of Ige’s UFC fights have either ended in the first 77 seconds (3-0) or gone the distance (4-3).
Ige has impressively never been finished and has won 7 of his last 9 and 13 of his last 16 fights. He has nine finishes among his 15 total career wins, including four KOs and five submissions. Six of his nine finishes have come in the first round, one has come in the second and two have occurred in the third. However, all four of his career KO wins have notably come in the first round. He’s only lost four times in his 19 fight pro career, with three decision losses in the UFC and one back in 2015 in his third pro fight before joining the organization. Ige has consistently shown his durability and toughness and while he was dropped 40 seconds into his fight against Barboza, he not only survived the early adversity, he ended up winning a split-decision.
Ige has mostly struggled with his takedown accuracy since joining the UFC, however, it should be noted that the majority of his opponents have had very strong takedown defenses. Ige went 0 for 4 on his takedown attempts against The Korean Zombie (77% career takedown defense), while his previous fight only lasted 22 seconds and no takedowns were attempted. Prior to that, Ige went 0 for 9 against the elite 89% takedown defense of Calvin Kattar after going 1 for 4 against the solid 78% takedown defense of Edson Barboza, 1 for 2 against another elite 92% defense of Mirsad Bektic, 1 for 4 against the 78% defense of Kevin Aguilar, and all the way back in his UFC debut he went 1 for 13 against another elite 93% defense held by Julio Arce. In between the Arce and Aguilar fights, Ige went 1 for 1 against the lower 53% defense of Mike Santiago, 3 for 7 against the poor 42% defense of Jordan Griffin, and 1 for 1 against the 50% defense of Danny Henry. So in summary, Ige has gone just 4 of 36 (11%) on takedowns against opponents with takedown defenses of 77% or greater, but has improved that to 5 for 9 (55.6%) against his three opponents with defenses below 77% (50%, 42% & 53%). Now he’ll face the 50% defense of former college wrestler Josh Emmett so we could see Ige fare a little better than he has recently with his takedown accuracy.
Fight Prediction:
Ige will have a 1” height and reach advantage and is six years younger than the 36-year-old Emmett.
Considering Emmett is coming off multiple surgeries and an 18 month layoff, there are plenty of reasons to be concerned about him, but he has looked explosive inside the Octagon and assuming he has made a full recovery he’s a scary guy to bet against. Since dropping down to 145 lb, he’s never been taken down in six fights, and has set a record for the highest average number of knockdowns landed at 2.51/min, beating Conor McGregor’s previous record of 2.31/min. With one more knockdown, Emmett will tie Jermey Stephens for the highest total number of knockdowns landed in the Featherweight division at 11, well above names like Max Holloway (8) and Conor Mcgregor (6). Emmet is currently the #7 seven ranked Featherweight and despite his claims that he refuses to fight anyone ranked behind him moving forward, he’ll now take on the #9 ranked Ige. In fairness, if no one ever fought anyone ranked behind them we literally wouldn’t have any ranked fights to make. We’ve seen Ige struggle with powerful strikers in the past as he lost to Kattar and Arce and narrowly won a split-decision over Barboza, and Emmett clearly falls into that category, although he’s a little shorter than any of those guys. We expect Emmett’s explosive striking to give Ige trouble. That could leave Ige reliant on grappling to try and pull ahead in this fight. However, no one has taken Emmett down since he moved down to 145 lb, although there’s only been a single attempt as his last five opponents haven’t even considered a takedown. Also, Ige has historically struggled with his takedown accuracy (25%), so it’s hard to have much confidence in it. Both of these two guys have shown an explosive ability to finish fights in the first round, but they’ve also each proven themselves to be extremely durable with just one early loss between them in 37 combined pro fights. So barring a perfectly placed howitzer to the chin, a decision is far more likely here. Interesting for betting purposes, Ige’s last two decision wins were both notably split, as was Emmet’s last (and only) decision loss. With that said, we like Emmett’s chances to get the nod here as he outstrikes Ige, but the extended layoff certainly lowers our confidence levels some.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Split Decision” at +400.
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DFS Implications:
Emmett has been a consistent DFS contributor as he’s averaged 100 DraftKings points in his five wins since moving down to 145 lb. His only subpar DFS score in a win during that stretch was a 64 point 2019 R3 KO with very little volume landed. His two decision wins at Feathweight notably scored 110 and 109 DraftKings points, but we shouldn’t take for granted that he will score well in decisions. His most recent win came in a crazy high-volume brawl against Shane Burgos, who averages an insanely high 6.69 SSA/min. On top of landing 127 significant strikes in that fight, he also tacked on a pair of knockdowns and a takedown. Prior to that striking explosion, Emmett had never landed more than 87 significant strikes in a fight and has averaged an unspectacular 4.32 SSL/min over the course of his career. Emmet’s previous decision win was good for 109 DraftKings points, but only because he landed a ridiculous four knockdowns in that fight. Dan Ige only averages 3.41 SSA/min, nearly 50% fewer than Burgos, and has only been knocked down once in his last 11 fights. So while Emmett is exceptional at knocking opponents down, he’s only landed more than one in a fight once in his last five matches and he’s only landed two takedowns in his last seven fights combined. So both of those high scoring decisions appear to be outlier performances and Emmett is far more likely to score under 90 points in a decision here than over 100 again. Factoring in Emmett’s expensive DFS price tag, he looks to be largely reliant on being the first person to ever finish Dan Ige, which he’s certainly capable of doing but it’s still a tall task, especially once you factor in he’s coming off multiple knee surgeries and an 18 month layoff at the age of 36. While both fighters in this matchup have high scoring ceilings, their floors and chances of reaching those ceilings may be lower than the field realizes. The odds imply Emmett has a 60% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish and a 12% chance it comes in the first round.
Ige has been a R1 or bust DFS producer with DraftKings scores of 125, 110 and 132 in his three first round finishes in the UFC, but averaging just 77 points in his four decision wins. He also scored just 47 and 34 points in his recent two five-round decision losses, which still wouldn’t have been close to useful even had he won. Ige has never landed more than 79 significant strikes in a three-round fight and has landed zero takedowns in his last three matches and just four in his last seven bouts. He averages an unimpressive 3.82 SSL/min over the course of his career and has just a 25% takedown accuracy, despite being an accomplished grappler and BJJ black belt. His only knockdown in his last five fights occurred in his R1 KO of Gavin Tucker and Emmett has only been knocked down once in his career, which was in his lone early loss. The main reason for optimism in Ige is that Emmett is 36 years old and trying to come back from a bad knee injury that forced him to take a year and a half off. Other than that, we have no real reason to doubt Emmett’s durability and we don’t see Ige scoring well without a first round finish. The odds imply Ige has a 40% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish and a 7% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #5
Sean O'Malley
8th UFC Fight (6-1)Coming off a record setting performance, O'Malley landed the most significant strikes of all time in a UFC Bantamweight fight (230) against UFC newcomer Kris Moutinho who took the fight on just 11 day’s notice. That striking total is also the fourth highest in any UFC fight ever, checking in just behind Nate Diaz’s 238 landed against Donald Cerrone in a 2011 three round decision and still a ways behind Max Holloway who owns the top two spots with 445 landed against Calvin Kattar and 290 landed against Brian Ortega. Both of Holloway’s records came in five round fights so if we just look at three round fights O'Malley landed the second highest total of all time and the most in the last 10 years.
Moutinho certainly played his part in helping O'Malley to obtain that record as Moutinho pushed forward like a radioactive zombie for the entire fight almost like he was one of those rubber balls attached to a wooden paddle that was O'Malley’s fist. Moutinho finished with 70 landed significant strikes of his own, but that was less than a third of the 230 landed by O'Malley. No takedowns were attempted in the fight. Moutinho was able to absorb everything O’Malley threw at him and continued to push forward to the very end. Herb Dean curiously stopped the fight with just 27 seconds remaining despite Moutinho remaining on his feet and continuing to engage up until the moment Dean stepped in. Sure he had accumulated a ton of damage throughout the fight, but the timing of the stoppage seemed arbitrary as he didn’t get knocked down or even wobbled at that point and they should have let the final 30 seconds play out. O'Malley had originally been scheduled to fight Louis Smolka there, but Smolka was forced to withdraw due to a staph infection.
Just prior to that win, O'Malley landed a third round KO win against Thomas Almeida earlier in 2012. O'Malley was moments away from another first round knockout but opted for style points over securing the victory as he prematurely walked away from Almeida after knocking him down. That frustrating sequence began with an O'Malley head kick midway through the first round. As Almeida struggled to stay on his feet following the kick, O'Malley partially landed a left hand that dropped Almeida to the mat. Instead of going in for the kill shot, O'Malley foolishly walked away as Almeida sat leaned up against the cage. Almeida then quickly returned to his feet and O'Malley nonchalauntly resumed fighting. At that point, anyone that bet “O’Malley Wins by R1 KO” was on full tilt and potentially shopping for a new TV. O'Malley did eventually get the knockout late in the third round, but you have to question his decision making and priorities. Although in his post fight interview he made it pretty clear what those are when he said, “I only have 15 minutes to perform, you know maybe a couple of times a year. When I get in there I gotta be...I gotta do something sweet.” Which is great and all, this is supposed to be entertainment and we all love seeing the big walk off KOs, but once you start forcing that every time you fight, it takes something away from the instances where it happens organically. And obviously if you’re betting on a R1 KO and he opts to prioritize style points over securing the bag that’s insanely frustrating.
In his seven UFC fights, O'Malley has suffered two injuries to the same leg. While it’s somewhat reassuring that he was able to go almost six full rounds in his last two fights, there’s always going to be some level of concern with the potential for reinjury. While reports seem to indicate that the two leg/foot injuries are unrelated (Lisfranc vs. Peroneal Nerve), it’s still concerning for a fighter to repeatedly injure the same body part and even if it’s just a mental thing moving forward for him, we’re not entirely convinced he’ll ever be completely over it. O’Malley originally hurt his right foot in the 2018 Andre Soukhamthath fight, and the doctors told him he had a preexisting fracture, which is also concerning. Then, following the fight he was suspended for six months for testing positive for ostarine. He used the time off to have hip surgery, unrelated to his foot. Then he tested positive again, but reached a settlement after he claimed the positive test was linked to a tainted supplement he had taken. Apparently that is a legitimate issue with many supplements, but you always have to wonder when athletes use the tainted supplement defense.
After returning two years later following the injuries and suspensions, O’Malley knocked out both Jose Quinonez and Eddie Wineland in the first round, in a total of 3 minutes and 56 seconds, and his injury history began to fade into the past. Then he went up against Marlon Vera and suffered an injury to the same leg, although apparently it was a peroneal nerve injury caused by a Vera leg strike. Since then he landed two more KO/TKOs in the third round and his injury checkered past has again begun to fade out of recent memory. Hopefully we can stop talking about it soon, but we’re not quite there yet.
To sum up O’Malley’s injury history, it’s our understanding that O’Malley had some sort of a fracture in his leg going into the Soukhamthath fight before suffering a Lisfranc injury in that match. Then he took two years off (plenty of time to get his body right) and landed two more knockouts, but within five months suffered another injury, or combination of injuries, to the same leg in the Vera fight. Since then he’s had two more fights that ended in knockout wins and prepares to fight for the third time this year.
When healthy, O’Malley looks nearly unstoppable. He’s 14-1 as a pro, with 10 KOs, one submission win and three decisions. Eight of those wins occurred in the first round, one ended in round two and the most recent two came in round three. His only career loss came when he suffered the injury against Vera and he was actually able to finish the fight when he got injured against Soukhamthath to win a decision.
Raulian Paiva
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Coming off a pair of close/questionable decision wins, Paiva recently moved back up to 135 lb for his last fight after missing weight by 3 lb for his previous fight down at 125 lb. Prior to joining the UFC, Paiva had been competing at 135 lb, but he dropped down to 125 lb in 2018 when he went on DWCS Brazil. He won a split-decision over Allan Nascimento on the show, which was still enough to get him into the UFC. He then lost a split-decision to Kai Kara-France in his UFC debut before suffering an unfortunate TKO by doctor stoppage in his second UFC fight due to a cut sustained around his eye early in the first round against Rogerio Bontorin. After starting out 0-2 in the UFC, Paiva finally notched his first UFC win with a R2 KO against a terrible Mark De La Rosa, who’s now lost four straight fights.
He then missed weight, but won a very close decision against Zhalgas Zhumagulov in a fight that easily could have gone the other way. Zhumagulov outlanded Paiva 66-52 in significant strikes, 73-56 in total strikes and 2-0 on takedowns. Paiva did land a violent groin shot midway through the third round (and again as the round ended), so maybe the judges awarded him points for that. It looked like Paiva won the first round, while Zhumagulov won the last two, but the judges didn’t see it that way. Paiva led 21-19 in significant strikes in the first round, while Zhumagulov came out ahead 27-16 and 20-15 in the later two rounds. Zhumagulov also landed a takedown in the first and second rounds.
After getting his UFC record back to even, Paiva withdrew from fights in October 2020 and May 2021 and was actually hospitalized for a botched weight cut in the most recent of those. So after his continued struggles to make 125 lb he opted to move back up to 135 lb for his most recent fight against Kyler Phillips, who came in on a four fight winning streak, 3-0 in the UFC and off an impressive win over Song Yadong.
Phillips knocked Paiva down in the opening minute of the fight, but Paiva quickly recovered and returned to his feet. Phillips was able to hurt Paiva at multiple other points in the round and very nearly got a finish as the round ended but simply ran out of time. Paiva seemed to recover between rounds and started out much better in round two as he landed some good shots on Phillips, who appeared to be tiring but was still able to land a pair of takedowns in the second round. Both guys looked exhausted in the back half of the fight and the second and third rounds were extremely close after Phillips dominated round one. One judge ruled the fight a draw, but the other two did not award Phillips a 10-8 in the first round and all three gave Paiva the latter two rounds. Phillips did more damage, landed the only knockdown in the fight, outlanded Paiva 74-51 in significant strikes, 95-72 in total strikes and 4-2 on takedowns, but still managed to lose the fight through some sort of glitch in The Matrix. That may be more of an indictment to the scoring system in general opposed to the judging, but after fighting four times in the UFC there are arguments to be made that Paiva could be 4-1 or 1-4, which is pretty unusual. The biggest actionable takeaway there is that Paiva’s fights are generally close when it comes to the judges.
Now 21-3 as a pro, Paiva has four wins by KO, three by submission and 14 decisions. While Paiva has one TKO loss on his record, that was more of a technicality as the fight was stopped abruptly midway through the first round from an unlucky gash to his face. The only other time he’s been finished in his career was a 2015 R3 Anaconda Choke Submission in his seventh pro fight. Considering how many close decisions he’s been involved in, it’s sort of amazing that he’s gone 14-1 with the judges. Another curious stat to note, Paiva has been outlanded in striking in three of his last four wins and outlanded in takedowns in his last two. In fact the only two takedowns that Paiva has landed in his five UFC fights both occurred in his last fight.
Fight Prediction:
O'Malley will have a 3” height and reach advantage.
This sets up as another seemingly favorable matchup for O'Malley, who has so far made a lucrative career out of such things. Outside of suffering another injury setback, there’s no reason to think Paiva poses a realistic threat to win this fight as O'Malley does a great job of utilizing his size and quickness to neutralize the opposition. The bigger question will be whether or not O'Malley can be the first person to ever knock Paiva out, who’s only TKO loss came from a doctor stoppage due to a cut above his eye early in a fight. We don’t see Paiva’s voodoo decision magic being enough to steal a decision over the UFC’s wonder child and Paiva only has one finish in the last four years. Paiva was very close to getting finished in the first round of his last fight, so he’s clearly far from invincible even if he’s been very durable throughout his career. The most likely outcome is obviously that O'Malley knocks Paiva out, probably in the first round, but you never know if he’ll moonwalk away from a dropped opponent opposed to jumping on top to finish the job.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in KO” at -120.
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DFS Implications:
O’Malley is coming off a career best performance where he dropped an other-worldly 147 DraftKings points while insanely being 71% owned as a -900 favorite on a 12 fight card priced at $9,500. If you just threw up in your mouth a little it probably means you’re a good DFS tournament player. In his six UFC wins, O’Malley has now put up DraftKings scores of 147, 101, 105, 97, 64 and 102. So up until his recent scoring explosion he had typically scored well but failed to really go off in his first five UFC wins. In general, his fighting style isn’t ideally suited to putting up slate breaking scores as he’s gone six straight fights without landing a takedown and is entirely reliant on striking volume and finishes to score well. He’s also more focused on securing style points than finishes as his go to move is to walk away from opponents after dropping them opposed to going in for the kill. Maybe he’s gotten past that but that’s yet to be determined. O’Malley will easily be the highest owned three-round fighter on the slate, and there’s only one direction you can go coming off a once in a lifetime performance, so going under the field appears to be the move in tournaments but that’s certainly not for the faint of heart. We don’t need O’Malley to lose to get left out of the winning DraftKings lineup, or even to go to a decision. At his high price tag he just needs to be outscored by a couple of the fighters priced around him, which is entirely possible on this slate. Also, if O’Malley is unable to land a knockout, he’s scored 64 and 102 points in his two decision wins, showing both a low floor and a decent ceiling in fights that go the distance. With that said, there’s still a pretty good chance he fails to return value without a finish. The odds imply he has a 74% chance to win, a 41% chance it comes early and a 22% chance to land a first round finish.
Paiva projects to be one of the lowest owned fighters on the slate going against one of the highest owned, so he clearly represents a massive leverage opportunity in tournaments. However, that’s one of the few things he has going for him as this is an incredibly tough spot for him to pull off the upset assuming O’Malley doesn't reinjure his leg/foot. Paiva has also really struggled to score well in decisions with scores of just 71 and 53. He’s only landed two takedowns in five UFC fights, so similar to O’Malley Paiva is reliant on striking volume and finishes to score well. And with that in mind, he doesn't land a ton of volume or many finishes. So even at his cheap price tag you’re relying on a finish here for him to be useful. The odds imply he has a 26% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #4
Cody Garbrandt
12th UFC Fight (7-4)Moving down to 125 lb for the first time in his career following a five-round decision loss to Rob Font, Garbrandt lost four of his last five fights at 135 lb and the weight switch seems like the last card he has left to play. In that last fight, Font finished ahead of Garbrandt in significant strikes 176-63, while tacking on two takedowns on three attempts and stuffing 7 of Garbrandt’s 10 attempts. That was the first time since 2016 that Garbrandt had seen the judges, or even been past the second round, as his previous four fights all ended in knockouts (1-3).
Garbrandt’s only win since 2016 came in a June 2020 R2 KO against a 38-year-old Raphael Assuncao, who came in on a two fight skid and has now lost his last three. Garbrandt was finally able to keep his ego in check and actually use his brain in a fight and he did a good job of beating up the lead leg of Assuncao early in the match. He then caught Assuncao with a right cross with just over a minute left in the second round that dropped Assuncao to a knee, at which point Garbrandt appeared to turn up the intensity. Just a second before the round ended, Assuncao had Garbrandt pushed up against the cage and with a Street Fighter like windup, Garbrandt ducked down and pulled a fireball right hand out from behind his knee that landed perfectly to the chin of Assuncao, face planting him to the mat as the horn sounded. The walk off KO was impressive, but it did notably come in an ultra low-volume fight where Garbrandt narrowly led in significant strikes 19-17 after nine minutes and 59 seconds of action. Neither fighter attempted a takedown and we saw just three seconds of control time, so the low striking volume had nothing to do with any grappling as the fight was a tactical feeling out process on the feet. The majority of the strikes landed were leg kicks with Assuncao leading 11-10 in that category. Garbrandt finished ahead just 9-6 on significant strikes to the body and head.
To find Garbrandt’s second most recent win you have to go all the way back to a 2016 title fight against Dominick Cruz that Garbrandt won in a decision. Garbrandt didn’t hang onto the belt for long, as he lost it in his next fight to a juiced up TJ Dillashaw, who knocked Garbrandt out in the second round. They ran it back nine months later in August 2018 and Dillashaw made even shorter work of Garbrandt, knocking him out late in the first round. Following the pair of KO losses to Dillashaw, Garbrandt took on Pedro Munhoz in March 2019 and again was knocked out in the first round before finally getting a win in his next fight against Assuncao.
Prior to going pro in 2012, Garbrandt had a background in amateur boxing as well as some experience playing football and wrestling in high school. He’ll mix in leg kicks, but he only has four takedowns in his last nine fights and three of those came in his most recent five-round fight. His most valuable attribute is his speed and while he does have solid power it has gotten him into trouble more often than not thinking he can simply overwhelm his opponents with blitzes of strikes. His combination of speed, power and a fragile chin make for low-volume fights with more anticipation than actual time spent trading. In his 11 UFC fights he’s landed an average of just 3.17 significant strikes per minute, while absorbing just 4.14 per minute. He’s never landed more than 68 significant strikes and that came in his five round decision win. Garbrandt has been outlanded by his opponents in five of his last six fights and he’s largely reliant on landing knockouts to secure wins, which is how five of his seven UFC victories have ended.
His overall pro record is now 12-4, with 10 wins by KO and two by decision. He’s been knocked out in three of his four losses, with his lone decision loss occurring in his most recent fight. Nine of his 16 career fights have ended in R1 KOs (7-2), three have ended in R2 KOs (2-1) and one ended in a third round KO (1-0).
Kai Kara-France
8th UFC Fight (5-2)Coming off a crazy R1 KO comeback win against grappler Rogerio Bontorin, Kara-France was taken down by Bontorin who then took Kara-France’s 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 in celebration 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.
Ironically nicknamed "Don't Blink" Kara-France’s first five UFC fights all went the distance. He came into the UFC in 2018 on a five fight winning streak, and proceeded to win three straight decisions. However, at that point he began facing stiffer competition and dropped two of his next three matches against Brandon Moreno and Brandon Royval.
He lost a 2019 decision to now Flyweight champion Brandon Moreno in a standup striking battle with solid, but unexceptional striking volume. He then beat Tyson Nam in a slightly lower volume decision, before taking on Royval most recently, in a chaotic scrap that ended with Royval choking Kara-France out in the opening minute of the second round.
He’s still impressively won 10 of his last 12 fights, but has gone just 2-2 in his last four as he’s alternated wins and losses going back to 2019. Prior to getting submitted by Royval in his second most recent fight, Kara-France hadn’t been finished in his previous 17 fights going back to a 2014 submission. And he hasn’t been knocked out since his third pro fight in 2012.
Kara-France is now 22-9 as a pro, with 10 wins by KO, three by submission and nine decisions. He’s been knocked out twice (in his 2nd and 3rd pro fights), submitted three times and has lost four decisions. Four of his last five wins have come by decision as have three of his last four losses. Kara-France is part of the City Kickboxing team and is a decent striker, but doesn’t offer a ton in terms of power or explosiveness. He doesn’t really offer much in terms of grappling and hasn’t landed a takedown in his last four fights on five attempts.
Fight Prediction:
Garbrandt will have a 4” height advantage, but Kara-France will have a 4” reach advantage.
There’s a lot of mystery surrounding this matchup as it remains to be seen how Garbrandt will look down at 125 lb. If he can maintain his speed and power then he could be dangerous against smaller opponents at the new weight class. However, if the seemingly tough weight cut drains him then it has the potential to impact his speed, power and chin. All of that uncertainty makes this a tricky one to predict as this is a very high-variance spot. Historically, Garbrandt has been a knockout or get knocked out type of fighter, while Kara-France has been a decision machine for the majority of his UFC career. So we also have two very conflicting styles where something will have to give. Considering Kara-France hasn’t been knocked out in his last 29 fights, we’re leaning that this fight ends in a close decision, but it will be interesting to see how Garbrandt’s already questionable chin holds up following the weight cut. As long as he doesn’t look terrible on the scale we’ll give Garbrandt the edge to get the win based on his size and power advantages, but there are multiple ways that Kara-France can pull off the upset, whether it be through a knockout or in a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Goes the Distance” at +122.
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DFS Implications:
Garbrandt is a R1 KO or bust fighter who lacks the striking volume or grappling stats to score well beyond that. He scored just 49 points in his recent five-round decision loss and is now moving down to 125 lb for the first time in his career. His most recent win came in a last second R2 KO that still scored just 88 DraftKings points, further demonstrating he struggles to score well without a first round finish. He also only scored 84 points in a 2016 five-round decision win, despite landing two knockdowns and a takedown. And he has a R3 KO earlier in his career that scored just 91 points, which is the most points he’s ever scored in a fight that made it past the first round. His three R1 KO wins in the UFC scored 130, 109 and 105 points on DraftKings, so he does still have a decent ceiling and he’s shown knockout power throughout his career. It’s tricky to know how he’ll look down at 125 lb, but it has the potential to be either a benefit or a hindrance towards his performance depending on how the weight cut goes. That makes this a high variance spot, which really just adds to Kara-France’s appeal as Garbrandt requires a R1 KO regardless. Garbrandt’s steep price tag should keep his ownership down, so he is somewhat interesting as a leverage play for tournaments, but keep in mind Kara-France hasn’t been knocked out in his last 29 fights. The odds imply Garbrandt has a 57% chance to win, a 35% chance to land a finish and a 16% chance it occurs in the first round.
Kara-France is coming off his highest scoring performance since his UFC debut as he landed a late R1 KO in a fight where he nearly got submitted at multiple points. That finish combined with Garbrandt’s notoriously dubious chin should drive Kara-France’s ownership up some, and in fairness that does make the chances of him landing a knockout appear more likely. Just keep in mind, that is Kara-France’s only knockout in his last 10 fights and he doesn't have a ton of power in his strikes. With that said, if the weight cut does detract from Garbrandt's already questionable chin then there certainly is the potential for Kara-France to land something clean and put him down. So overall this is a high-variance spot with a wide range of outcomes. We’re still leaning that it’s more likely to end in a decision, but 7 of Garbrandt’s last 9 fights have notably ended in knockouts (4-3). In Kara-France’s four UFC decision wins, he’s put up DraftKings scores of 62, 82, 64 and 111, but based on Garbrandt’s low striking output and the threat of a knockout, we’d be surprised to see either fighter score well if this goes the distance. So at his cheaper price tag, there’s still a slight chance Kara-France could serve as a value play with a decision win, but it appears more likely he’ll need a finish. The odds imply he has a 43% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish and an 11% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #3
Santiago Ponzinibbio
14th UFC Fight (10-3)After not fighting at all in 2019 or 2020, Ponzinibbio got knocked out in the first round by Li Jingliang upon his return in January 2021, but bounced back with a hardfought decision win over previously undefeated Miguel Baeza in his most recent fight. Baeza started off the fight well as he more than doubled Ponzinibbio’s number of strikes landed in the first round as Baeza relentlessly attacked Ponzinibbio’s calf. However, Ponzinibbio gritted through the calf kicks and began to turn it on late in round one and extended his momentum into the later rounds as he forced Baeza to stand and trade with him in a fight that never stopped gaining momentum. It ended with Ponzinibbio ahead in significant strikes 121-104, while he failed to land the only two takedowns attempted in the match. Baeza looked incredibly hittable in the fight, and seemed a little baffled when Ponzinibbio was able to survuve the calf kicks.
After winning seven straight fights from 2015 to 2018, Ponzinibbio was set to face Robbie Lawler in 2019, but was forced to withdraw due to a staph infection. Finally after 26 months he was able to return to the Octagon against Li Jingliang, who was filling in for Muslim Salikhov, who withdrew due to ongoing COVID symptoms back in January 2021. Following his two plus year hiatus from the Octagon, Ponzinibbio was rudely welcomed back to the UFC with a first round KO loss. Jingliang took the lead in striking from the opening bell and finished Ponzinibbio with a perfectly placed left hook to the chin that immediately put Ponzinibbio out. The fight ended with Jingliang ahead 21-11 in significant strikes in a fight that was more build up than brawling.
In his previous seven wins, Ponzinibbio had landed four knockouts, including three in the first round. His most recent win was a November 2018 R4 KO over Neil Magny. Ponzinibbio was able to affect the vision of Magny early with stiff jabs and then completely destroy Magny’s base with leg strikes. Towards the end of the fight Magny could barely even stand anymore and the fight was close to being stopped from leg kicks before he knocked Magny out in the fourth round.
Of Ponzinibbio’s 28 career wins, 21 have come early, including 15 KOs and six submissions. He impressively has 14 round one finishes in those 21 early wins. His last submission victory came all the way back in 2012 just before joining the UFC, and he seems far more reliant on knocking opponents out to get finishes at the UFC level.
Since joining the UFC in 2013, Ponzinibbio has lost three of his 13 fights. He lost a decision in his UFC debut against Ryan LaFlare, then lost his fourth UFC fight in 2015 against Lorenz Larkin by way of R2 KO, before getting knocked out in the first round of his second most recent fight. His only other career loss was a 2011 R1 KO prior to joining the UFC. In his 10 UFC wins. he has five KO’s (including four in R1) to go along with five decisions. He’s notably the only person to ever knock out either Court McGee or Gunnar Nelson.
After beating Mike Perry in a 2017 decision, Ponzinibbio had been scheduled to fight Kamaru Usman in 2018, but was forced to withdraw due to a hand injury. Six months later he was matched up against Magny before taking an extended absence due to medical issues. He was essentially forced to sit on the sidelines during the prime of his career for over two years, and he still has high aspirations as tries to make up for lost time.
Geoff Neal
8th UFC Fight (5-2)Neal has not looked like the same fighter since suffering a serious health scare in August 2020. He’s looked far less explosive and more sluggish and has since lost a pair of decisions where he couldn’t come anywhere close to matching the output of his opponents.
His most recent loss came against Neil Magny, who outlanded Neal 55-35 in significant strikes and 89-37 in total strikes. Magny also notably threw 174 significant strikes, while Neal threw just 73. Magny landed 2 takedowns on 10 attempts, while Neal landed 1 of his 2 attempts. Even when Neal was landing shots in that fight, they just weren’t as crisp or powerful as what we saw out of him earlier in his career, even just looking back at his third most recent fight when he became the first person to ever knock out Mike Perry.
Looking at Neal’s second most recent fight, after the December 19th 2020 Chimaev/Edwards fight was canceled Neal/Thompson was promoted to the headliner spot after it had originally been scheduled to go three rounds. That looked like a really tough spot for Neal going in, and as we expected Thompson dominated the fight and pointed his way to victory as he outlanded Neal 171-85 in significant strikes and 191-110 in total strikes.
Prior to that fight, it had been just over a year since Neal knocked out Mike Perry 90 seconds into the first round of a December 2019 fight. Neal had then been scheduled to fight Magny on August 29th 2020 before suffering a life threatening health scare a few weeks before the fight. Neal spent a week in the ICU hooked up to a dialysis machine after suffering severe septic shock and being told his heart almost failed. It’s unclear what caused the condition or what lasting impact it had/has on him.
The 31-year-old Neal had won seven fights in a row prior to the health scare, but has now lost back-to-back fights for the first time in his career. Neal is now 13-4 as a pro, with eight wins by KO, two by submission and three decisions. Two of his decision wins occurred in his first five pro fights and 8 of his last 9 wins have come early, all in the opening two rounds. Of his four losses, he’s been knocked out once and submitted once to go along with his recent two decision losses. That lone KO loss came against Kevin Holland when Neal was fighting up a weight class and he’s never been knocked out at 170 lb. He was also somehow submitted by a terrible Martin Sano in his third pro fight. Neal looked like an extremely dangerous fighter earlier in his career, but it’s unclear if he can ever regain that past form or if those days are behind him.
Neal is essentially a pure striker with explosive hands and he’s only landed three takedowns in his last eight fights and rarely attempts any. He’s also a really tough guy to takedown as he owns an 87% takedown defense. He typically fights at 170 lb, but has fought three pro fights at 185 lb where he’s gone 2-1. Only 7 of his 17 fights made it to the third round, and he’s only been to five decisions. Both of his early career losses notably occurred in the third round and Neal has never landed a finish of his own beyond the second round. We hope Neal finds a way to regain his former explosiveness, but until we see it inside the Octagon it’s hard to know if that will ever happen.
Fight Prediction:
Ponzinibbio will have a 1” height advantage, but Neal will have a 2” reach advantage and is four years younger than the 35-year-old Ponzinibbio.
This sets up as potentially an exciting matchup between two solid strikers, but we still have concerns about how Neal has looked in his last two fights, which could detract from the violence here. Neal is notably 3-4 in his career in fights that have made it past the second round, while Ponzinibbio is 10-1. When you combine that with the fact that Neal has recently looked sluggish and Ponzinibbio appeared to get stronger as the fight went on in his last match, we like Ponzinibbio to control the later rounds and either land a third round knockout or more likely win a decision. So as long as Ponzinibbio can avoid getting clipped with something early from Neal, we like him to win this fight.
Our favorite bet here is “Ponzinibbio R3 or Decision” at +175.
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DFS Implications:
Ponzinibbio has pretty much been a R1 or bust fighter for his entire UFC career. In his last five decision wins, he scored 79, 90, 67, 54, and 57 DraftKings points. His 90 point performance was propped up by a knockdown and three takedowns, but you shouldn’t count on him scoring from grappling as he has just four total takedowns in his 13 UFC fights and Neal owns an elite 87% takedown defense. Four of Ponzinibbio’s 10 UFC wins have come by R1 KO, while five have ended in decisions. He also has a R4 KO that scored 93 points. He’s coming off a career best 121 significant strikes landed after previously failing to top 79 significant strikes in his first 12 UFC fights. Even in that career performance he still scored just 79 DraftKings points in a decision win, so you can’t rely on him returning value purely from striking volume and he needs a finish here to be useful in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 53% chance to win, a 26% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance it comes in the first round.
Neal has finished four of his seven UFC opponents as he’s gone 5-2 with the organization but he’s now coming off a pair of decision losses. All of those finishes occured in the first two rounds with DraftKings scores of 98, 114, 105 and 106. He’s impressively landed five knockdowns in his last four wins, but none in his recent two losses. It’s very concerning how sluggish Neal has looked recently as he has lacked the explosiveness he showed earlier in his career, but if he can ever regain his past form then he’ll have a massive ceiling as eight of his last nine wins have occurred in the first two rounds. Also working in Neal’s favor, three of Ponzinibbio’s four career losses have come by KO, including two in the first round and one in round two. So on paper Neal looks like a great play, especially considering his reasonable price tag, but his last performance was so underwhelming that it’s hard to get excited about him. The odds imply he has a 47% chance to win, a 36% chance to end it early and a 17% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #2
Amanda Nunes
16th UFC Fight (14-1)Dropping back down to 135 lb to defend her Bantamweight belt for the first time since December 2019, Nunes is coming off a pair of successful title defenses up at Featherweight. This matchup against Pena had originally been booked for August, but Nunes tested positive for COVID and was forced to withdraw. Nunes curiously also withdrew from her previous two matchups just to see them get pushed back, so apparently this is just part of her routine now. She absolutely dominated those prior two opponents so the slightly extended layoffs haven’t hurt her any.
She’s coming off a dominating 123 second R1 submission win over Megan Anderson in a deer in headlights type of victory where Anderson didn’t appear to have any business sharing the cage with Nunes. The fight was so one-sided and quick that it’s hard to take away much from it other than the fact that Nunes is so much better than everyone else.
Looking at Nunes now, you would never guess that she had a stretch from 2011 to 2014 where she somehow went 3-3. However, since switching to American Top Team in 2014 Nunes has been unstoppable. She’s won her last 12 fights, including R1 knockouts of Rounda Rousey, Cris Cyborg and Holly Holm. She also choked out Olympic wrestler Sara McMann as well as former champion Miesha Tate in the first round and beat current Flyweight Champion Valentina Shevchenko TWICE. Nunes has also notably defeated Germaine de Randamie twice in her career.
After winning seven fights in a row at Bantamweight (135 lb), including winning the belt and then defending it three straight times, Nunes decided she was bored at 135 lb and decided to take on the Featherweights (145 lb). She made her 2018 Featherweight debut against Cris Cyborg for the Featherweight belt and knocked out the three time Featherweight champ in 51 seconds.
After claiming her second belt, Nunes dropped back to 135 lb to defend her first. She took on a tough Holly Holm, who came in having never been knocked out in her career. Nunes changed that just over four minutes into the fight with a violent head kick.
Since she had already made the effort to cut back down to 135 lb, Nunes decided to make one more appearance before tending to her Featherweight foes. Nunes took on Germaine de Randamie, who she had already defeated once back in 2013. As the judges’ scores would suggest (44-49, 46-49, 45-49), Nunes controlled the fight, but did absorb some shots at times and looked a little reckless/vulnerable with upkicks from a grounded GDR. Nunes impressively landed eight takedowns and racked up over 18 minutes of control time, while also doubling the number of GDR’s significant strikes landed (79-40).
Nunes then moved back up to 145 lb and absolutely dominated Felicia Spencer in a five-round decision. Nunes outlanded Spencer 124-42 in significant strikes and won the takedown battle 6-0, while also defending all seven of Spencer’s attempts and accruing eight minutes of control time. Based on the amount of damage Nunes handed out, the fight easily could have been stopped, but Spencer toughed it out to survive to see the judges. Nunes followed up that win with her recent victory over Anderson before beginning her decent back down to 135 lb.
A BJJ black belt and Judo brown belt, the pure joy and exuberance that Nunes finds in fighting is unmatched. Of her 21 career wins, 17 have come early, with 13 KOs and four submissions. Interestingly, three of her four career losses have also come early, although one of those was a 2008 R1 Armbar in her first pro fight. The other two were a 2011 R2 KO from ground and pound at the hands of Alexis Davis and a 2014 R3 KO against Cat Zingano, which also ended in ground and pound. However, what was once a vulnerability for Nunes in her ground game, has since turned into a strength over the last half decade.
An interesting trend, Nunes’ last 17 fights have all ended in either the first round, the final round or gone the distance. The only three fights of her career to end in an interior round (R2 of a three round fight or R2–R4 of a five round fight) were a trio of second round TKOs from 2009 to 2011 (2-1). Her other 22 pro fights have ended in either the first round (14-1), the final round (1-1) or decisions (4-1).
This will be Nunes’ 10th straight five round fight and she’s won her previous nine. Here are the results beginning with the most recent: R1 SUB, DEC, DEC, R1 KO, R1 KO, R5 KO, DEC, R1 KO, R1 SUB. So three decisions, four KOs and two submissions. Five of those six finishes occurred in the first round.
Considering Nunes hasn’t competed at 135 lb in two years and said she had a tough weight cut the last time she fought there, it will be important to monitor her closely at weigh-ins.
Julianna Pena
9th UFC Fight (6-2)Bouncing between wins and losses over her last five fights, Pena is coming off a R3 Rear-Naked Choke Submission victory over Sara McMann, who was able to control Pena for the majority of the first two rounds as she landed all three of her takedowns with over seven minutes of control time. Had Pena not landed the late third round submission in that fight she might be looking at three losses in her last four fights, but instead she’s looking at a title shot.
Just prior to that win, Pena earned the dubious honor of being the only person to ever get submitted by Muay Thai striker Germaine de Randamie. That was the second time Pena has been submitted in her last four fights, as Valentina Shevchenko submitted her with an Armbar in the second round of a 2017 matchup just before losing to Nunes for the second time and then dropping down to 125 lb to begin her current run. So both of Pena’s last two losses have come by submission, as did her most recent win. Following the loss to Shevchenko, Pena didn’t fight again for two and a half years before returning in July 2019 to defeat Nicco Montano in a decision.
Pena is now 10-4 as a pro with three wins by KO, four by submission and three decisions. Three of her four losses have also come early, with one KO and two submissions. Seven of her first eight fights ended early, including R1 TKOs in her first two UFC fights. Since those two wins, all six of her fights have made it at least to a second round, with five seeing a third round and three going the distance. Pena generally does her best work on the mat looking for ground and pound or trying to lock up a submission.
Fight Prediction:
Nunes will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 69” reach.
Getting a title shot in the women’s Bantamweight division is like being born on February 29th as you only get to celebrate it once every four years with Nunes holding belts in multiple weight classes, so you better make it count. It will be interesting to see how Nunes looks back down at 135 lb after two years away fighting up at 145 lb, but we have confidence she’ll be able to successfully make the cut with no major issues. Nunes is the greatest female MMA fighter of all time and it would be absolutely shocking to see her lose this fight. She should be able to win wherever the fight goes and there’s a great chance she finishes it in the first round. If Pena is able to survive the opening five minutes, then Nunes has shown a pattern of taking fights to the final round and generally to a decision. So while we like Nunes’ chances to end this in round one, if she doesn’t there’s a decent chance it goes the distance. Pena’s only hope will be that the weight cut has a serious negative impact on Nunes’ performance, but that’s a pretty thin angle. We don’t see Pena’s grappling posing a serious threat to Nunes’ title reign, so give us the Lioness here and it’s not close.
Our favorite bet here is “Nunes R1 Win” at +130.
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DFS Implications:
Nunes enters this fight on a 12 fight winning streak and having averaged 123 DraftKings points in her last eight fights against fighters not named Shevchenko—who was able to hold Nunes to scores of just 80 and 69 in their two matches back in 2016 and 2017. Since her second win over Shevchenko, Nunes has put up DraftKings scores of 99, 126, 159, 107, 140 and 118. Her recent less impressive score of “just” 99 points came in a hyper efficient victory over Megan Anderson, who provided zero resistance. That score suffered from a lack of takedowns or knockdowns, which is rare when you land a finish, so we wouldn’t get too hung up on it. With a potent mix of striking and grappling, Nunes has the highest floor and ceiling of any fighter on the slate and rightfully is the most expensive. The odds imply she has an 86% chance to win a 67% chance to land a finish and a 32% chance it comes in round one.
Checking in as the largest underdog on the slate by a wide margin, matchups don’t get any tougher than this for Pena. Nunes hasn’t lost a fight in the last seven years and is the greatest female fighter the sport has ever seen. The only sliver of hope with Pena is that Nunes is moving back down to 135 lb for the first time in two years to defend her Bantamweight belt, which adds a slight level of uncertainty to the equation. If Pena can survive the first round maybe she can slowly wear on Nunes with her grappling with the help of a potential tough weight cut. The odds are slim but that appears to be Pena’s only real hope at pulling off what would be one of the biggest upsets in UFC history as Nunes has been completely dominant for years. The two times Nunes has been knocked out in her career both came from ground and pound, which is right up Pena’s alley, but Nunes has made major strides since those early days and again, we fully expect Nunes to dominate here. Pena is nothing more than a low-owned contrarian lottery ticket in tournaments and a potential salary saving sacrifice piece in low-risk contests. The odds imply she has a 14% chance to win, a 9% chance to get a finish and a 3% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #1
Dustin Poirier
27th UFC Fight (20-5, NC)Following a 2019 third round submission loss to Khabib for the Interim Lightweight belt, Poirier fought just once in 2020 in a wild five round brawl against Dan Hooker that ended in a Poirier decision victory. He followed up that victory with a pair of KO/TKO wins over Conor McGregor in 2021 and will now turn his sights back to the belt.
Poirier was able to badly beat up the lead leg of McGregor in the first fight before finishing him with a flurry of strikes midway through the second round. In the rematch, the two exchanged leg strikes early on before Poirier appeared to pull ahead in the striking just as he shot for a takedown. McGregor opted to go for a Guillotine Choke opposed to selling out to stop the takedown and that resulted in him getting beat up on the mat for the second half of the first round. As Poirier turned to Herb Dean to complain about a glove grab, McGregor returned to his feet with 14 seconds remaining in the round. McGregor landed a left leg kick, followed by a left front kick and then immediately switched back to southpaw. He threw one more punch, but as his weight shifted back to his left leg we saw his lower leg appear to snap. There’s been lots of speculation about when exactly the injury occurred and whether or not McGregor came into the fight with his leg already compromised, so feel free to go down that rabbit hole elsewhere if you feel like it. Long story short, Poirier was winning the fight handedly when McGregor suffered the injury, but it was an unfortunate way for the fight to end.
Poirier originally joined the UFC in January 2011, five months after Oliveira made his debut. After starting his pro career at Lightweight (155 lb), Poirier dropped down to Featherweight (145 lb) for the first time in his UFC debut. He stayed at 145 lb for his first 11 UFC matches, where he went 8-3. He won his first two UFC fights with a pair of decisions, before landing back-to-back submission wins in 2011 and 2012. He was then submitted himself by The Korean Zombie in 2012 before landing another submission win of his own later that year. He then lost a decision to Cub Swanson, but bounced back with three straight wins, including a decision victory followed by his first two UFC KO wins. Then he faced McGregor for the first of their three fights in 2014 and lost by TKO as the fight was stopped in the first two minutes.
Following that loss to McGregor, Poirier moved back up to Lightweight where he’s since gone 12-2 plus a No Contest. Seven of those wins ended in KO/TKOs, four went the distance and one came by submission. Both losses over that stretch also ended early, with a 2016 R1 KO loss to Michael Johnson and a 2019 R3 Submission loss to Khabib. Poirier only has one loss in his last 10 fights, which came at the hands of Khabib.
Poirier is notably a BJJ black belt and 7 of his 28 pro wins have come by submission. However, six of those seven submission wins occurred in 2012 or earlier and his only submission win in his last 20 fights bizzarley ended with a 2017 R3 Body Triangle against Anthony Pettis. With that said, Poirier did have four official submission attempts against Dan Hooker in his third most recent fight. Maybe more relevant for this upcoming fight, Poirier has only been submitted himself twice in 35 pro fights and only once in his last 21 fights, which was against Khabib.
Looking at how his other fights have ended, Poirier has 14 wins by KO and seven more by decision. Four of his last six wins have ended in KO/TKOs, while the other two wins over that stretch ended in five-round decisions. In addition to his two career submission losses, he has two KO losses and two decision defeats. He has notably won the last five decisions he’s been to, with his last decision loss occurring all the way back in 2013. Both of his KO losses occurred in the first round (2014 & 2016), while both of his submission losses came in the later rounds (R4 2012 & R3 2019). Thirteen of Poirier’s 14 career KO/TKO wins have occurred in the opening two rounds, with 10 ending in the first round and three in round two. The one exception was a 2018 R4 TKO over Justin Gaethje.
This will be Poirier’s ninth straight five-round fight and 11th in the UFC (7-3). He lost his first UFC five-round fight in a 2012 R4 D’Arce Choke against the Korean Zombie in what was Poirier’s only five-round fight down at 145 lb. He also lost his first five-round fight up at 155 lb in a 2016 R1 KO against Michael Johnson. Since then, Poirier has gone 7-1 in five round fights, including four KOs (R1, R2x2, R4), two decisions and one third round submission. His last four finishes in five-round matches have all come by KO/TKO, with his last three ending in the opening two rounds.
Charles Oliveira
29th UFC Fight (19-8, NC)Coming off his first title fight in 28 UFC appearances, Oliveira won the Vacant Lightweight Belt that Khabib left behind with a R2 TKO against Michael Chandler and will now look to defend it for the first time. In a close back and forth fight, Chandler tagged Oliveira early, which forced a takedown attempt by Oliveira followed by a Guillotine attempt from Chandler. After escaping from the Guillotine, Oliveira was able to take Chandler’s back and maintain it as Chandler tried to slam him off. However, Chandler was able to explode out of Oliveira’s grasp on the mat and return to his feet. He caught Oliveira with a few heavy strikes that dropped Oliveira to his hands and knees as he desperately looked to grab a leg while Chandler pummeled him from above. Oliveira was able to roll to his back and in the most pivotal decision of the fight Chandler willingly entered his guard opposed to making him stand back up and spent the final minute and a half there as Oliveira simply looked to survive the round, which he was able to do with the help of Chandler refusing to make him stand back up after he was hurt. Oliveira recovered between rounds and dropped Chandler with a left hand just seven seconds into the second round. While Chandler was briefly able to return to his feet, Oliveira dropped him again just moments later and the fight was quickly stopped. A 3rd degree BJJ black belt, Oliveira is known for his submissions skills, however three of his last four finishes have come by KO/TKO.
Since losing to Paul Felder in a 2017 R2 TKO, Oliveira has won nine straight fights. Eight of those nine wins have come early with five submissions and three KOs. Now 31-8 as a pro, Oliveira’s fights generally end in the first two rounds. He’s only been to four decisions (3-1) in 40 pro fights and 24 of his 28 early wins occurred in the first two rounds, with the other four ending in third round submissions. Overall, he has nine wins by KO, 19 by submission and three decisions. He holds the UFC record for the most submission wins as 14, which is three ahead of Demian Maia who’s in second with 11. Seven of Oliveira’s eight career losses have also ended early, with four KOs and three submissions. Three of those KO/TKO losses occurred in the first round, while his most recent was in round two. His three submission losses have been spread out across the first three rounds, meaning that six of his seven early losses have also occurred in rounds one or two. So in total, 35 of his 40 pro fights have ended with a finish, with 30 of those ending in the opening two rounds. Only 10% of his career fights have gone the distance and he also has one No Contest in a 2011 fight that was stopped in the second round for an illegal knee.
Oliveira started his UFC career at 155 lb, but after starting out just 2-2 plus a No Contest he dropped down to 145 lb in 2012. Oliveira then went 7-4 at 145 lb before moving back up to 155 lb in 2016. He lost two of his first three fights back up at 155 lb, but has since won nine straight to bring his overall UFC Lightweight record to 12-4 plus a No Contest.
This will be Oliveira’s fourth UFC five-round fight and he has never been past the third round in his previous three (2015 R1 TKO L, 2020 R3 SUB L, 2021 R2 KO W). So if this somehow makes it to the championship rounds it will be interesting to see how Oliveira’s cardio looks.
Fight Prediction:
Oliveira will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
While Oliveira’s nine fight winning streak has been impressive, he lacks many signature wins during that time, with most of his victories coming against aging or mid-level opponents. On the other end of the spectrum, Poirier has gone through a murderers' row as he’s notched wins over Pettis, Gaethje, Alvarez, Holloway, Hooker and McGregor (twice). So while Oliveira currently holds the belt, he’s likely just keeping it warm as Poirier rightfully enters this fight as the favorite. Oliveira’s standup game has improved in recent years and he’s always extremely dangerous when it comes to grappling, but he seems to lack the sheer grit and toughness that Poirier possesses. We don’t see Oliveira coming out ahead in a striking battle and Poirier is no slouch on the mat as he’s also a BJJ black belt. That makes it tough to see Oliveira winning this fight and we like Poirier to win this one by KO in the first two rounds.
Our favorite bet here is Poirier’s ML at -160.
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DFS Implications:
Poirier has been as consistent as it gets when it comes to DFS production as he’s averaged 109 DraftKings points in his last eight wins with at least 101 points in all eight of those. It certainly doesn’t hurt that this will be his ninth straight fight scheduled to go five rounds, but even in his last three-round decision win he still scored 101 points. His only loss in those 10 fights came against Khabib and he’s left an impressive list of opponents in his wake including Gaethje, Alvarez, Holloway and McGregor. Poirier lands the fifth highest average number of significant strikes on the slate at 5.62/min and has landed one takedown in each of his last four wins to further boost his scoring. It’s hard to see Poirier not scoring well with a win here and we like his chances to land a knockout in the opening two rounds. Poirier is easily one of the best plays on the slate in all contest types and formats. The odds imply he has a 59% chance to win, a 42% chance to get a finish and an 18% chance it comes in the first round.
Oliveira has also been a fairly consistent DFS scorer, although his submission victories don’t generally result in huge scoring totals as they aren’t accompanied by knockdowns or much striking volume. His last three KO wins averaged 106 DraftKings points, while his last three submission victories averaged just 84 points. He’s coming off his highest scoring performance in his last 10 fights, largely due to a pair of knockdowns landed, which matches the number of knockdowns he accounted for in his previous nine fights combined. Oliveira notably scored just 69 points in his most recent submission win, which came in a near worst case scenario early third round finish in a fight he had previously been losing. That’s about the only way we see this next fight failing to produce a piece in winning lineups and at his cheaper price tag Oliveira should still return value if he can pull off the win. It won’t come easy though and he’ll likely be reliant on landing a submission to pull off the upset, which is easier said than done as he goes up against a fellow BJJ black belt. The odds imply Oliveira has a 41% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish and a 13% chance it comes in the first round.
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