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Fighter Notes:
Fight #14
Maryna Moroz
12th UFC Fight (6-5)Currently on a two-fight losing streak, Moroz was submitted in the final second of the first round in her last fight by a really dangerous Karine Silva. Moroz also got knocked down, taken down, and doubled up in striking in that brief fight, which was actually a rematch of a 2014 fight that Moroz won via first round armbar. Prior to that, Moroz lost a decision to Jennifer Maia, who outstruck Moroz 109-80 in significant strikes, while no takedowns were attempted in the match. That loss snapped a three-fight winning streak for Moroz, who submitted Mariya Agapova in the second round of her last win (2022), after winning a pair of decisions against Mayra Bueno Silva and Sabina Mazo in 2020 and 2019 respectively. Eight of Moroz’s 11 UFC fights went the distance (4-4), with the other three ending in submissions (2-1).
Now 11-5 as a pro, Moroz has one win by TKO, six submissions, and four decision victories. Six of her seven finishes occurred in her first six pro fights, with five of her six submission wins ending in armbars. After submitting Joanne Wood in her 2015 UFC debut, Moroz only has one finish in her last 10 fights, which was a 2022 second round submission win over Mariya Agapova, who’s been finished in three of her last four fights. Moroz is coming off the only early loss of her career in a first round submission, with her other four defeats all going the distance. Her first six UFC fights were all down at 115 lb, before she moved up to 125 lb in 2019. After going 3-3 at 115 lb in the UFC, she’s 3-2 at 125 lb.
Overall, Moroz is a Master of Sports in boxing and kickboxing and a former member of the Ukrainian National Boxing Team, so her background is all striking based. However, she was regarded as an armbar specialist coming into the UFC and lived up to the reputation in her 2015 UFC debut when she locked up an armbar against Joanne Wood in just 90 seconds. However, Moroz hasn’t completed an armbar since then. After she only landed one takedown on five attempts in her six UFC fights at 115 lb, she landed five takedowns on 22 attempts in her five fights up at 125 lb, although failed to attempt a takedown in her last two matches. So overall, she’s landed 6 of her 27 takedown attempts in the UFC (22.2% accuracy). She’s 4-0 in UFC fights where she’s landed at least one takedown, but just 2-5 when she hasn’t landed any. The only time she’s won a decision without landing a takedown was a 2016 split decision over Danielle Taylor. On the other side of things, her opponents got her down on 11 of their 20 attempts (45% defense). While only one of her 125 lb opponents even attempted a takedown against her, all five of the 115 lb opponents who tried to take her down were successful. Moroz trains at American Top Team in Florida, so won’t have to travel far for this fight and should have the crowd behind her.
Joanne Wood
17th UFC Fight (8-8)A year removed from a split decision win over Luana Carolina, the 38-year-old Wood snapped a three fight skid after getting submitted in the first round of back-to-back fights against Alexa Grasso and Taila Santos, and losing a questionable split decision against Lauren Murphy. Wood’s second most recent win was over three years ago when she won a decision over Jessica Eye in January 2021, following another first round submission loss, that time to Jennifer Maia, who has amazingly gone the distance in her other 15 most recent fights. Wood was also submitted in the first round by Jessica Andrade in 2016 and Maryna Moroz in 2015, and somehow five of her eight UFC losses ended in first round submissions.
Now 16-8 as a pro, Wood has five wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and 10 decision victories. However, four of her five KO/TKO wins occurred in her first six pro fights from 2012 to 2013, and she’s finished just two opponents in her last 18 fights (2016 R3 TKO & 2018 R1 submission). While she’s never been knocked out, she’s been submitted five times, all in the first round, and has three decision losses. Fifteen of her 16 UFC fights ended in either decisions (6-3) or submissions (1-5), with the one exception being a 2016 R3 TKO against an opponent in the midst of a three fight losing streak. Wood came into the UFC at 115 lb in 2014 following a second round submission loss on The Ultimate Fighter against Rose Namajunas. That fight was counted as an exhibition match so the loss doesn't show up on her official record or else she would have six submission losses. After going 2-1 in her first three UFC fights, Wood decided to move up to 125 lb for a fight, which she won by R3 TKO. She moved back down to 115 lb after the win, but lost two straight to Jessica Andrade and Cynthia Calvillo, and then decided 125 lb was looking a whole lot better and moved back up, where she’s stayed since. She’s now fought her last 10 fights (5-5) at 125 lb, bringing her UFC Flyweight record to 6-5.
Overall, Wood is a high-volume striker and former Muay Thai champion, who is a complete liability when it comes to grappling. She landed over 100 significant strikes in seven of her 10 UFC fights that made it out of the first round and averages 6.93 SSL/min and 4.72 SSA/min. She comes into every fight looking to outland her way to decision wins and has actually never been outlanded in any UFC fight that has gone the distance, even in her three decision losses. In her 16 UFC fights, she landed 18 takedowns on 33 attempts (54.5% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 13 of their 32 attempts (59.4% defense). Wood confirmed in a recent interview that this will be her final fight before retiring, which always go well…
Fight Prediction:
Moroz will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while being six years younger than the 38-year-old wood.
This will be a rematch of a 2015 fight that Moroz won via armbar just 90 seconds into the first round. While Moroz has only landed one more submission win since then, this is a prime opportunity for her to get back on the horse, as Wood gets submitted by anyone that can spell jiu jitsu. And at 38 years old and stepping into her final pro fight, we don’t see her wanting to kick off her retirement with elbow surgery. So if Moroz does lock up an armbar, Wood will likely immediately tap and put up essentially zero resistance. It’s just a matter of Moroz getting the fight to the ground, although Wood has been known to help with that. However, if the fight remains standing, we should see a ton of striking volume, with very little chance of a knockout, which would likely lead to a close decision that could go either way. However, if it does hit the scorecards, we favor Wood based on her volume, and she’s never been outlanded in a decision in her career. So the two most likely outcomes are a Moroz submission or a Wood decision. We’ll say Moroz finds a way to get the fight to the mat, even if it means pulling guard again, and submits Wood once again, most likely with another first round armbar.
Our favorite bet here is “Maryna Moroz SUB” at +350.
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DFS Implications:
Moroz has dropped two straight and is coming off the first early loss of her career, but scored really well in her previous two wins. She put up 111 DraftKings points in a 2020 decision win over Mayra Bueno Silva and then followed it up with a second round submission victory over Mariya Agapova that was good for 108 points. That’s Moroz’s only finish since she submitted Wood in the first round of her 2015 UFC debut, where she scored 95 points after pulling guard and locking up an armbar 90 seconds in. Moroz failed to top 74 points in her other three UFC decision wins, but will now get a second crack at the highly submittable Wood, who’s 38 years old, retiring after the fight, and has been submitted in the first round in five of her eight UFC losses. Few opponents present such a golden opportunity to score well, as Wood also averages 4.72 SSA/min and hasn’t looked like any sort of finishing threat. So Moroz has a shot at not only securing a submission, but also putting up a decent striking total, with little risk of getting finished herself. On top of all that, she projects to be very low owned, and there’s really nothing else you could ask for in this spot. There are obviously still ways for her to fail at her high price tag, but this is a golden opportunity and Moroz is an exceptional tournament play. The odds imply Moroz has a 68% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Wood has averaged a ridiculous 109 DraftKings points in her eight UFC wins, despite six of those ending in decisions. She scored at least 89 DraftKings points in all eight of her wins and over 100 in five of those. She averages 6.93 SSL/min and will also mix in takedowns, which is dangerous for her considering how often she’s been submitted, but does boost her scoring. She consistently puts up huge striking totals and at her cheap price tag it’s hard to see her getting left out of winning tournaments lineups if she pulls off the upset. Her biggest issue is how often she’s been submitted, with five of her eight UFC defeats ending in first round submissions. One of those was against Moroz back in 2015 the first time they fought. That leaves Wood with a non-existent floor, but if she can avoid getting submitted she’ll have a really good shot at outlanding her way to a decision win. We’ve also seen her be really under owned and she came in at just 11% on DraftKings in her last fight, where she scored 105 points in a decision win over Luana Carolina. Whoever wins this fight should score well and both fighters project to be low owned. What else could you ask for to kick off this card? The odds imply Wood has a 32% chance to win, a 7% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #13
Assu Almabayev
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Winner of 14 straight, Almabayev recently locked up a second round submission in his UFC debut against Ode Osbourne in a completely one-sided fight, where Almabayev controlled the action on the mat for most of the match. That’s how most of Almabayev’s matches go and he hasn’t lost a fight since 2017, when he suffered both of his career losses in consecutive fights, with one of those coming against UFC fighter Tagir Ulanbekov. While Almabayev’s last two wins both ended in second round submissions, his previous two victories both went the distance. His last six and 15 of his last 16 fights made it out of the first round, and when he does land finishes they typically come later on in fights.
Now 18-2 as a pro, Almabayev has three wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and six decision wins. Amazingly, his last three and six of his last seven submission wins occurred in round two, while his other three submissions ended in round one. He has one TKO loss and one split-decision defeat, with both of those coming early in his career in his first six pro fights. Six of his last seven finishes have come by submission and he only has one knockout since 2018, which was in the third round of a 2021 fight.
Overall, Almabayev is primarily a grappler and looks to smother his opponents on the mat, while looking to take their backs and lock up rear-naked chokes. He doesn’t land much in the way of striking volume, but did start to get more active with his ground and pound in his last couple of fights. Almabayev’s takedown accuracy has been impressive and once he gets his hands on you, you’re typically going down. And once on the mat, he’s really good at holding positions, making it tough for his opponents to escape. However, that has resulted in a lot of slower paced fights, as he’s so good at controlling opponents. He’s definitely not a big guy at just 5’4”, but that hasn’t been an issue for him. While he only has one UFC fight under his belt, he fought for Brave FC and M-1 previously so at least had been dominating with legitimate organizations. Now he checks in as the biggest favorite on the card for his second Octagon appearance.
CJ Vergara
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Vergara won a decision over Vinicius Salvador in a pure striking battle the last time we saw him, outlanding Salvador 109-89 in total strikes, while no takedowns were landed. Prior to that, Vergara was narrowly able to survive the first round against Daniel Lacerda, with the help of a very long leash from the ref as Vergara sprinted away from his opponent after getting dropped twice and nearly knocked out. Many referees might have stopped the fight, but Vergara arguably did just enough to prevent Jason Herzog from jumping in. Lacerda predictably gassed out after round one and Vergara finished him with ground and pound in round two. That came after Vergara got submitted by Tatsuro Taira, who took Vergara down three times and controlled him for over six minutes, before submitting him late in round two. That’s the only time Vergara has been finished in the UFC, after his first two fights with the organization both ended in close decisions, with a split decision win over Kleydson Rodrigues, following a loss in his UFC debut against Ode Osbourne. Vergara originally earned his spot on the UFC roster with a first round knockout victory on DWCS. Before going on DWCS, Vergara landed four straight late round knockouts, after getting submitted in the first round of a 2018 LFA fight.
Now 12-4-1 as a pro, Vergara has seven wins by KO/TKO and five decision victories. Two of those knockouts came in round one, three ended in round two, and two ended in round three, with five of his last six finishes occurring in the later rounds. Both of his early losses ended in rear-naked chokes (R1 2018 & R2 2022), while he also has two decision defeats on his record. One of those decision losses was a split-decision against UFC fighter Jonathan Martinez (before they joined the UFC) and the other occurred in his UFC debut. He’s often struggled to hit 125 lb and has multiple weight misses on his record, while he’s also competed up at 135 lb some in the past in addition to having multiple Catchweight fights. He missed weight in two of his first three UFC fights and is always a guy to monitor closely at weigh-ins, although he did make weight in each of his last two fights.
Overall, Vergara is a one-dimensional striker who likes to push the pace, but doesn’t offer much in the way of grappling. Between his five UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he was taken down seven times on 27 opponent attempts (74.1% defense), while he failed to attempt even a single takedown of his own. All but one of his UFC opponents got him down at least once. Vergara doesn't look like a very explosive athlete or an especially talented fighter, but he’s got some dog in him and shows up ready to throw down. He’s still never been knocked out, but he has been more prone to getting submitted.
Fight Prediction:
Vergara will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while being two years older than the 30-year-old Almabayev.
This looks like a tough matchup for Vergara based on how his fight against Tatsuro Taira went and he hasn’t shown the ability to hang with high-level grapplers on the mat. Almabayev will unquestionably be looking to take him down, control him, and fish for submissions when the opportunities present themselves. While Vergara’s takedown defense hasn’t been terrible (74%), he’s struggled with being controlled once on the mat and Almabayev looks like he’ll be too much for him to handle. The only question we have is whether Almabayev wins by decision or submission, and we lean towards him locking up a rear-naked choke, most likely in round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Assu Almabayev SUB” at +120.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.
DFS Implications:
Almabayev’s grappling-heavy approach leaves him with a much higher scoring floor on DraftKings than FanDuel, but his finishing upside leaves him with a solid ceiling on both sites. He tends to accrue large amounts of control time, but not land a ton of significant strikes. He also consistently lands takedowns with very good accuracy, but is so good at controlling opponents on the mat that it actually limits his ability to put up huge takedown totals. So there’s really no way for him to return value on FanDuel without a finish and even on DraftKings a wrestling-heavy decision win may not be quite enough to crack the optimal lineup as the most expensive fighter on the card. That’s not to say it can’t happen, but he’ll need to be more active with his ground strikes than we’ve seen him be in the past. He scored 105 DraftKings points and 113 points on FanDuel in his recent second round submission win, and while that’s nothing to sneeze out, we could still easily see him get priced out of winning lineups with a similar score here. However, in smaller DraftKings contests where you don’t have to hit the true optimal, he makes a lot of sense as the biggest favorite on the card with a higher floor and a decent ceiling. The odds imply Almabayev has an 83% chance to win, a 52% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Vergara has only put up one good score in the UFC, which was when he faced Daniel Lacerda, who literally everyone scores well against. Vergara was able to narrowly survive the first round there and come back to land a second round finish that was good for 111 DraftKings points, but he only scored 74 and 83 points respectively in his other two UFC wins, both of which went the distance. He’s also been submitted twice in his career, which is concerning for him in this matchup as he takes on a dangerous grappler. Vergara is the biggest underdog on that card, which means he has the lowest chance of winning, but is also the cheapest fighter. However, it’s hard to look at him as much of a value play in this matchup, considering we expect him to spend most of the fight on his back, with a good chance he gets submitted. Outside of his low salary and ownership, Vergara doesn’t appear to have a ton going for him and he’s a tough guy to back in a terrible stylistic matchup. The odds imply Vergara has a 17% chance to win, a 9% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
Robelis Despaigne
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut with just four pro fights under his belt, Despaigne has knocked out three straight opponents in 12 seconds or less, after nearly making it to the end of the first round in his pro debut, which also ended in a first round knockout win. He got controlled along the fence for most of the fight, showing he had no idea what to do in the clinch. Despaigne’s entire pro career has lasted five minutes and 13 seconds and all but 19 seconds of that was in his pro debut where he got held up against the cage for most of the fight.
Now 4-0 as a pro, all four of Despaigne’s wins have come by first round knockout. Just keep in mind, he’s been fighting the lowest level of competition possible and three of his opponents were fighting for the first and only time, while the other came in with a 1-0 record.
Overall, Despaigne is a Taekwondo 4th degree black belt who won a bronze medal in the 2012 Olympics, representing Cuba in Taekwondo. He didn’t make his pro MMA debut until 10 years later, after he moved to Florida in 2022. Despaigne is already 35 years old and three of his four pro fights took place in the last nine months. So we expect him to be very green when it comes to MMA, despite already being in his mid thirties. However, he’s had such limited cage time that it’s hard to really evaluate him. Clearly he has a ton of power and is dangerous with both his kicks and punches, but he’s shown no grappling or ability to work out of the clinch. We expect opponents at the UFC level to push him up against the cage to try and wear him out and test his cardio, as he’s never been in a fight that lasted longer than five minutes. Taekwondo matches are three rounds, but each round is only two minutes, so even outside of MMA he has no experience in longer fights.
Josh Parisian
7th UFC Fight (2-4)Continuing to struggle, Parisian was submitted via kimura in the first round of his last fight against Martin Buday, who has never finished anybody else in the UFC. We saw a fast start to that fight and Parisian was already looking tired just a couple of minutes in. Buday outlanded him 42-26 in significant strikes and 62-27 in total strikes before taking him down and submitting him late in the round. Prior to that, Parisian lost a decision to a debuting Jamal Pogues back in February 2023, after landing the only UFC finish of his career in a second round ground and pound TKO against a terrible Alan Baudot in June 2022. Parisian had then been scheduled to face Chase Sherman in November 2022, but ended up pulling out of the fight the day of the event due to health concerns. Leading up to his win over Baudot, Parisian got absolutely dominated on the mat against another low-level Heavyweight in a third round TKO against Don'Tale Mayes. We also saw Parisian get beat up on the mat by Parker Porter in a decision loss in his UFC debut, so it’s been an ongoing issue for him. Following the loss in his debut, Parisian won a close split decision against Roque Martinez, who went 0-3 in the UFC before being cut. That sloppy split-decision win could have gone either way, but you don’t need to take our word for it. In his post fight interview, Michael Bisping asked Parisian, “How confident were you that you would get the decision?” Parisian responded, “Uhhhhh…I’ll be honest, I wasn’t super confident. I thought I worked really hard. But I wasn’t sure because of the cage control. Sometimes he had…I think he had me on the wall more. And then when I did have him on the wall he was punching me in the face.” To which Bisping responded, “Yeah he definitely punched you in the face a few times.” Parisian initially tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but despite landing a first round KO he didn’t get a contract. Following that initial appearance on DWCS, Parisian took a shot at The Ultimate Fighter. However, he didn’t last long as he was knocked out in the second round of what counted as an exhibition match so it doesn’t show up on his pro record. He returned to DWCS in 2020 and landed another first round KO, which that time was enough to get him a contract.
Now 15-7 as a pro, Parisian has 11 wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and two decision victories. Eight of his knockouts occurred in round one, while the other three ended in round two. Both of his submission wins came in the second round in his first four pro fights (2015 & 2016) and both of his decision wins were split/majority. He’s been knocked out twice (R2 2017 & R3 2021), submitted twice (R1 2019 & R1 2023), and has three decision losses. Prior to making his 2020 UFC debut, he hadn’t required the judges in 10 straight fights (8-2), with eight of those fights ending in round one and two in round two. However, three of his six UFC fights went the distance.
Overall, Parisian is a large low-level Heavyweight, who gasses out later in fights, throws sloppy punches, and is terrible off his back. He tends to mix in more kicks than most Heavyweights, but by no means is a great kicker. Between his six UFC fights and his two DWCS appearances, he was taken down 14 times on 26 attempts (46.2% defense), while he landed 5 takedowns of his own on 15 attempts (33.3% accuracy). He also averages 4.54 SSL/min and 4.81 SSA/min. Parisian has only been able to beat other terrible Heavyweights, with his two UFC wins coming against Alan Baudot, who lost all four of his UFC fights, and Roque Martinez, who lost all three of his UFC fights. And both of those wins were dicey. There aren’t enough terrible Heavyweights on the UFC roster for Parisian to make it to a third UFC contract, and it’s amazing he even got a second. The UFC now appears content with using Parisian to build up potential prospects, as they’ve run out of winnable fights for him.
Fight Prediction:
Despaigne will have a 3” height advantage and 8” reach advantage, while being a year older than the 34-year-old Parisian.
The UFC loves physical freaks like Despaigne, and while he surely has countless holes in his game, they’re giving him a teed up matchup in Parisian here, and Despaigne is far less likely to have his weaknesses exposed. Parisian tends to keep his hands low and looks ripe to eat a head kick, which is one of Despaigne’s best strikes. Parisian has shown bad cardio in the past and we’d be surprised if Despaigne had much of a gas tank, so if the fight somehow sees a second round it could get very sloppy. However, we expect Despaigne to keep his first round knockout streak intact and Parisian can be easily overwhelmed on the feet and isn’t a good enough grappler for us to confidently expect him to immediately take Despaigne down or control him against the fence, which is clearly the smartest game plan against Despaigne. However, if Parisian is somehow able to execute a stalling tactic on the fence or the mat it would give him some hope of outlasting Despaigne and winning by default in a later TKO or sloppy decision. With that said, we’re taking Despaigne by first round knockout and we trust Parisian about as far as we can throw him.
Our favorite bet here is “Despaigne/Parisian Fight Ends in R2” at +490.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.
DFS Implications:
Despaigne looks like the ultimate boom or bust Heavyweight play. He has practically no MMA experience, but is a 6’7” physical freak who medaled in Taekwondo in the 2012 Olympics. He’s never fought a legitimate opponent, although that arguably won’t change here and Parisian is one of the worst Heavyweights on the UFC roster. With that said, Parisian still has far more experience than Despaigne and could use that to stall long enough in the clinch for Despaigne to gas out. That possibility at least gives one scenario for Despaigne to fail, but his history of landing immediate knockouts also makes him a prime candidate for the Quick Win Bonus on DraftKings. Parisian has been knocked out twice in the past and tends to keep his hands low, which could give Despaigne an early opportunity to land one of his devastating head kicks. We’re still treating Despaigne as a R1 KO or bust option, but that’s definitely the most likely way this fight ends. The odds imply Despaigne has a 74% chance to win, a 67% chance to land a finish, and a 53% chance it comes in round one.
Parisian has put up one usable score in six Octagon appearances, which unsurprisingly came in his lone early win in the UFC when he finished a terrible Alan Baudot with ground and pound in the second round. Parisian’s only other UFC victory ended in a dubious split decision, where he only scored 79 DraftKings points. Parisian has not been impressive in any facet of the game and has a zero point floor here as he takes on a giant knockout artist who’s been running through everyone in the opening seconds of fights on the regional scene. However, if Parisian can somehow get this fight to the ground or even tie Despaigne up in the clinch along the fence, he could stall long enough for Despaigne to gas out, although that will also require Parisian to not gas out himself, leaving him with little margin for error. Despaigne has shown no ability to work out of the clinch and Parisian was able to take three of his last five opponents down, finishing one of them on the mat. While it’s certainly not the most likely outcome, there is a world where Parisian controls Despaigne for the entire fight, outlasts him, and finishes him with light ground and pound. If that unlikely scenario comes to fruition, Parisian would be a massive leverage play in tournaments, so you have to have at least some exposure to both sides of this one, as whoever wins will have a high ceiling and a really good shot at ending up in tournament winning lineups. The odds imply Parisian has a 26% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Michel Pereira
10th UFC Fight (7-2)Pereira recently moved up to 185 lb for the first time in the UFC and landed a quick 66 second knockout against a wrestler in Andre Petroski, who was filling in on short notice. The fight ended so quickly that it’s hard to take much away from it, but no one attempted a takedown and Pereira finished ahead 6-0 in striking, basically dropping Petroski with the first punch he landed and then finishing him with ground and pound. Prior to that, Pereira had been booked to face Stephen Thompson at 170 lb in July 2023, but missed weight by three pounds and Thompson then turned down the fight. That fight had originally been scheduled a month and a half earlier, before being pushed back, and Pereira also had a fight against Sean Brady canceled in March, when Brady dropped out. With all of the fight cancellations, Pereira has only competed once in the last 22 months, after winning a split decision over Santiago Ponzinibbio in May 2022. Pereira’s last four fights at 170 lb all ended in decision wins, after he locked up a late third round submission in 2020 to kick off his current six-fight winning streak. That came after a rocky 1-2 start to his UFC career, where Pereira knocked out a fragile Danny Roberts in the first round of his 2019 UFC debut, but then lost a decision to an undersized debuting Tristan Connelly and then lost via DQ for an illegal knee against Diego Sanchez.
Now 29-11 as a pro, Pereira has 11 wins by KO/TKO, seven submissions, and 11 decision victories. However, he only has one submission win in his last 16 fights going back to 2018. The only time he’s ever been knocked out came in the first round of a 2018 185 lb fight against Dusko Todorovic, before they joined the UFC. Pereira also has one submission loss (R2 2014), eight decision defeats, and one DQ loss. Seven of Pereira’s last eight fights made it to the third round, with five of those going the distance. Pereira spent most of his career at 170 lb, but has three fights at 185 lb, which all ended in knockouts (2-1), along with a 190 lb Catweight match in 2018 and a 205 lb open weight fight in 2019 right after that, which both also ended in knockout wins. Immediately following that open weight fight, Pereira cut back down to 170 lb, where he stayed until his last fight when he returned to 185 lb.
Overall, Pereira came into the UFC as a barbaric wild man, but has since toned down his antics immensely. Sure he’ll still throw in a random back flip into full mount from time to time, but those circus maneuvers have become few and far between opposed to the central focus of his game plan. He does a good job of utilizing movement to avoid taking much damage and throws solid body kicks to maximize his massive frame and keep his opponents at bay. Pereira holds black belts in both BJJ and karate and has impressive speed, knockout power, and submission skills. He was always massive for the 170 lb division, and doesn’t appear undersized at 185 lb, although he will no longer tower over most of his opponents. In his nine UFC fights, Pereira landed 11 of his 20 takedown attempts (55% accuracy), while his opponents were only able to get him down on one of their 18 attempts (94.4% defense). While he failed to attempt any takedowns in his last two fights, he landed at least one in six straight fights before that, with multiple takedowns landed in four of those matches. However, his fight IQ is terrible and he can’t be trusted to make smart decisions inside the Octagon, so you never know when he will utilize his wrestling, even in very favorable matchups like this next one.
Michal Oleksiejczuk
13th UFC Fight (7-4, NC)Oleksiejczuk is coming off a first round TKO win over a dangerous striker in Chidi Njokuani, where both fighters had the other hurt in a back and forth barn burner, but Oleksiejczuk was able to take Njokuani down and finish him with ground and pound in the final minute of the opening round. Prior to that, Oleksiejczuk suffered his first loss since he dropped down to 185 lb in 2022, which occurred in a second round submission against a solid grappler in Caio Borralho, who was able to take Oleksiejczuk down three times and then finish him with a rear-naked choke midway through round two. Leading up to that loss, Oleksiejczuk landed a pair of first round knockouts against Cody Brundage and Sam Alvey, after losing his last 205 lb fight in a decision against Dustin Jacoby. Six of Oleksiejczuk’s seven UFC wins have come by R1 KO, with the one exception being a 2021 split-decision victory over Modestas Bukauskas, who ran away from him for most of the fight. Oleksiejczuk originally came into the UFC in 2017 with a 12-2 record and on a nine fight winning streak. However, after winning his 2017 UFC debut by decision over Khalil Rountree in 2017, Oleksiejczuk tested positive for a banned estrogen blocker and was suspended for a year and the results of the fight were overturned to a No Contest. Upon his return, he landed a pair of first round knockouts, but was then submitted in back-to-back fights by Ovince St. Preux and Jimmy Crute in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Since then, he’s won five of his last seven fights, with his last four wins all coming by first round knockout.
Now 19-6 as a pro, Oleksiejczuk has 14 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and four decision victories. His last nine and 11 of his 14 KO wins ended in round one, with the other three coming in round two. His lone submission win occurred in the second round of a 2016 match. He’s been knocked out once, submitted four times, and has one decision loss. His lone TKO loss came in the first round of a 2014 fight, while two of his four submission defeats also ended in round one, with the other two coming in round two. Nine of his last 11 UFC fights have ended in the first two rounds, with seven of those ending in round one. Oleksiejczuk was always undersized and overweight at 205 lb, so it’s not at all shocking that he finally made the move down to 185 lb in 2022, where he’s since gone 3-1. His 2014 pro debut was also at 185 lb, but the rest of his career was spent at 198-212 lb.
Overall, Oleksiejczuk is a pure striker who’s constantly pressuring his opponents and looking for violent body shots out of the southpaw stance. He’s extremely dangerous with his striking, but has been very prone to getting taken down and submitted. He’s only landed two takedowns in his last 11 fights and really doesn’t add anything in terms of grappling. In his 12 UFC fights, he’s been taken down 16 times on 31 attempts (48.4% defense), although half of those takedowns came against Jimmy Crute, who took him down 8 times on 10 attempts. Despite making his UFC debut all the way back in 2017, Oleksiejczuk is only 29 years old and still has time to improve his grappling if he wants to make a push in the division. Either way, he’s rarely in a boring fight and you always want to tune in when they lock the cage doors behind him.
Fight Prediction:
Pereira will have a 1” height advantage, but Oleksiejczuk will have a 1” reach advantage and is a year younger than the 30-year-old Pereira.
Oleksiejczuk’s fights are generally pretty cut and dry—either he knocks you out in round one or you submit him. While Pereira is a BJJ black belt and should have the skills required to win this fight on the ground, his fight IQ is non-existent and he can’t be trusted to make smart decisions or take the path of least resistance. He faced four straight strikers before moving up to 185 lb, and failed to submit any of them, although did land six takedowns over that stretch. And even though he will mix in takedowns, Pereira is often content with relying largely on his striking. He has good footwork, movement, speed, and power, and likes to put on a show, so it’s now shocking that he likes to showcase his striking, but it would be nice if he showed some level of intelligence inside the cage. This will be another good test of his stubbornness, as Oleksiejczuk is incredibly dangerous on the feet, but helpless off his back. Pereira will have the choice of whether he wants to make this a tough fight or an easy one, and it’s almost impossible to know which one he’ll chose. He should be able to submit Oleksiejczuk if he takes the path of least resistance, but if he keeps it standing we’d be more surprised to see Pereira land a knockout. However, he does have the footwork to hang out on the outside and try to pick Oleksiejczuk apart from distance in the hopes of outlanding his way to a decision win. We’ve seen Pereira successfully execute that gameplan in the past and the large Octagon will play into his favor. Oleksiejczuk’s has a boxing-heavy approach and a plodding style, so he’s not the best at cutting off angles and tracking down opponents who are looking to constantly evade, just look at the Modestas Bukauskas fight. So this doesn’t look like a very good matchup for Oleksiejczuk to land enough knockout and despite the fact that he used to fight at 205 lb and Pereira has mostly competed at 170 lb, Oleksiejczuk will still be the slightly smaller man. We like Pereira to win by either decision or submission, and maybe it’s wishful thinking in his willingness to wrestle, but we’ll say he gets it done by submission in the second or third round.
Our favorite bet here is “Michel Pereira DEC or SUB” at +145.
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DFS Implications:
Pereira has averaged 85 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins and is coming off a first round knockout that was good for 103 points, but he failed to top 91 points in any of his previous five victories, after scoring 102 in another first round knockout in his 2019 UFC debut. So he hasn’t shown a huge ceiling and the two times he scored well were against a glass-chinned Danny Roberts and then a short notice replacement in his last fight. Pereira has all of the physical tools required to be successful, but is lacking between the ears and doesn’t come anywhere close to maximizing his skillset. He just moved up from 170 lb to 185 lb in his last fight, but that match ended so quickly it was hard to evaluate him at the new weight class. We didn’t even get to see him absorb a single strike, so who knows how his durability will hold up at the higher weight class. The one time he’s been knocked out in his career was notably at 185 lb back in 2018 before he joined the UFC, and now he’s facing a power puncher in Oleksiejczuk. That leaves Pereira with an uncertain floor, but this is a great spot for Pereira to find wrestling success and lock up a submission, as Oleksiejczuk offers nothing on the mat and has been submitted four times in his career. It’s just impossible to trust Pereira to execute a smart game plan and it won’t be at all shocking if he never even looks for a takedown. But he could! His lack of intelligence always leaves him as a volatile and often frustrating option in DFS, but this is definitely a high-upside spot for him if he simply looks to wrestle. The odds imply Pereira has a 59% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Oleksiejczuk is an aggressive one-dimensional striker who’s landed first round knockouts in six of his seven UFC wins, showing massive scoring upside for DFS. He averaged an insane 119 DraftKings points in those six knockouts, but scored just 59 points in his lone UFC decision victory. While Oleksiejczuk is always live to knock opponents out early, he hasn’t knocked anybody out beyond the first round since 2015 and tends to slow down later in fights. That seemingly leaves him as an early KO or bust option, but he’s exceptional at getting that job done. However, he’s been very prone to getting taken down and submitted and Pereira is a BJJ black belt with seven submission wins on his record. Also working against Oleksiejczuk, Pereira has good footwork and has shown the ability to evade his opponents and dance around the outside, which will be even easier in the large cage here. Pereira has also only been knocked out once in 42 pro fights, with that one instance coming all the way back in 2018. So while we’re normally leading the charge on the Oleksiejczuk bandwagon, this is a tougher spot for him to succeed. However, if he does land another finish, you’ll almost certainly need him in tournaments at his cheap price tag, so you have to have some level of exposure. The odds imply Oleksiejczuk has a 41% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Ion Cutelaba
16th UFC Fight (6-8-1)This fight was originally set to take place on October 7th, but Lins dropped out mid-card because he didn’t feel well.
Cutelaba finally snapped a three fight skid with a first round knockout over Tanner Boser, who was making the move down from Heavyweight to Light Heavyweight. Prior to that, Cutelaba got knocked out in the second round by Kennedy Nzechukwu after getting submitted in the first round by both Johnny Walker and Ryan Spann. Cutelaba is just 3-6-1 in his last 10 fights and only has one early win in his last eight matches, which was his recent TKO victory over Boser. Cutelaba’s only other win in his last eight fights came in a 2021 decision over Devin Clark, which came right after Cutelaba fought Dustin Jacoby to a draw.
Now 17-9-1 as a pro, Cutelaba has 13 wins by KO/TKO, two submissions (both by Omoplata early in his career), and two decision victories. Fourteen of his 15 finishes occurred in round one, with the one exception being a 2013 TKO that occurred 29 seconds into the second round of his fourth pro fight. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted four more, has one decision defeat, and one DQ loss. Cutelaba has always been a fast starter and 20 of his 28 pro fights ended in the first round (14-5, NC), with three more ending in round two (1-2), and one ending in round three (0-1).
Overall, Cutelaba is dangerous both on the feet and the mat, but tends to slow down later on in fights. He has a background in Greco-Roman Wrestling, Sambo, and Judo, but early in his UFC career he was content with duking it out on the feet, as he only took down two of his first nine UFC opponents, and didn’t even attempts a takedown in five of those fights. However, he’s landed 24 of his 44 takedown attempts in his last six fights, with at least one landed in all of those matches and multiple in four of them. Looking at his entire UFC career, he’s landed 34 of his 58 takedown attempts (58.6% accuracy), while he’s been taken down by his opponents on 7 of 31 attempts (77.4% defense). While Cutelaba is extremely dangerous, he’s only landed one finish in his career beyond the first round. And since joining the UFC, he’s just 2-4-1 in fights that made it past round one. With that said, he still only has one decision loss in his career, although he’s only been to four (2-1-1). This will be his second straight time preparing for Lins, so he’s had plenty of time to figure out new and exciting ways to blow this.
Philipe Lins
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Fresh off a low-volume decision win over Maxim Grishin, Lins has won three straight fights at Light Heavyweight, after losing his first two UFC fights at Heavyweight. Lins spent an extended amount of time pushing Grishin up against the cage in his last win, finishing with eight and half minutes of control time, while only landing one of his three takedown attempts. While that fight took place in June 2023, it had originally been scheduled for October 2022, but Lines dropped out after the slate had already started, which has become a theme for him. Dropping out of fights has been an ongoing problem for Lins and after losing his first two UFC fights at Heavyweight, Lins had six straight fights canceled leading up to his Light Heavyweight debut, where he won a decision over Marcin Prachnio. He then had two more fights canceled, before coming back to knock out a washed up Ovince St. Preux in just 49 seconds, leading up to his decision win over Grishin.
Now 17-5 as a pro, Lins has nine wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and four decision victories. Six of his nine knockout wins ended in round two, two ended in round one, and another ended in round four. All four of his submission wins occurred in round one (2006, 2014, 2014, and 2018) and he only has one early win since 2018. He’s been knocked out in four of his five career losses, with the other ending in a decision. Three of those four KO losses came in round one, with the other ending in round two. While three of his five UFC fights went the distance, 13 of his last 16 fights ended early. Lins started his career at Light Heavyweight, before moving up to Heavyweight in 2018 following two straight knockout losses at Light Heavyweight. He then dropped back down to Light Heavyweight in 2021, after going 0-2 in the UFC at Heavyweight.
Overall, Lins is a BJJ black belt with four first round submission wins on his record, but has only landed one submission since 2014, which came in a 2018 R1 guillotine choke. After not attempting a takedown in his two UFC Heavyweight fights, Lins has gone 5 for 14 on his takedown attempts in his last three fights (35.7% accuracy), while he’s defended all four of the takedowns against him. However, the closest thing to a wrestler he’s faced has been Maxim Grishin, who has a 16% career takedown accuracy and went 0 for 3 on his attempts against Lins. Lins is a patient striker who’s often looking to counter and only averages 3.59 SSL/min. He’s yet to top 64 significant strikes landed in a UFC fight, and has also never absorbed more than 74.
Fight Prediction:
Lins will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while Cutelaba is eight years younger than the 38-year-old Lins.
Cutelaba always makes for a good time, as he comes out of the gates hot looking for first round finishes in all of his fights and then slows down considerably when he’s unable to find one. We’ve yet to see anyone take Lins down in the UFC, but he also hasn’t faced any wrestlers like Cutelaba, so it will be interesting to see how the grappling exchanges go. Lins is a BJJ black belt with four first round submission wins on his record and Cutelaba has been very prone to getting submitted when he finds himself in a bad spot. However, we’ve yet to see Lins even attempt a submission in the UFC, so it’s hard to know how good his grappling actually is. Both guys throw heavy punches and have somewhat suspect durability, which means there’s a good chance this ends early, likely in the opening round and a half. Cutelaba is always live to land a first round knockout, and has shown the ability to occasionally grind out a decision win on the mat, but he’s also a wild man who completely wilts at times and you never know what you’re going to get from him. In his 15-fight UFC career, he’s only won back-to-back fights once, which came in a pair of first round knockouts in 2017 and 2018, and he’s gone just 1-4 following his previous five wins. Both guys have the ability to finish the other in round one, but if the fight makes it to round two then Lins is the more likely of the two to get a second round finish. It’s also possible the fight slows down considerably after five minutes and they limp to a close decision, as Lins has shown he has no problem holding guys up against the cage for extended periods of time. So there are a few ways this could go and it’s a volatile matchup, which leaves us more inclined to take the plus money on Lins, although we don’t trust either of these two.
Our favorite bet here is “Philipe Lins ML” at +110.
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DFS Implications:
Cutelaba is coming off his first win in his last four fights and may have saved his job in the process when he knocked out Tanner Boser in the first round. Prior to that, Cutelaba had been finished in under a round and a half in three straight fights, and he hasn’t required the judges since September 2021. In his six UFC wins, Cutelaba averaged 110 DraftKings points, scoring 107 or more in each of his last five victories. So while he doesn’t win very often, when he does, he almost always scores well. While he’s a physical freak with a ton of finishing and scoring upside, he consistently makes terrible decisions and often gasses out after the first round. However, at times he has shown the cardio to go three full rounds, and he scored a ridiculous 127 DraftKings points in his last decision win. So we can’t completely call him a round one KO or bust option, but 14 of his 17 career wins did occur in the opening five minutes. Ultimately, he has a massively wide range of scoring outcomes and disappoints far more often than not, but if he wins here, he most likely ends up in tournament winning lineups. The odds imply Cutelaba has a 53% chance to win, a 43% chance to land a finish, and a 28% chance it comes in round one.
Lins now holds the unofficial record for the most mid-card dropouts by our count, so proceed with caution anytime he’s on the slate. And the last time he did fight, he won a boring decision, where he only scored 69 DraftKings points as he spent most of the fight pushing Maxim Grishin up against the fence. However, he landed a 49 second first round knockout that was good for 132 DraftKings points just before that, after totalling 92 points in a decision win in his Light Heavyweight UFC debut. Prior to that, he lost his first two UFC matches at Heavyweight. So he’s shown a pretty wide range of scoring outcomes, although he definitely knows how to ruin a fight when he wants to. He’s a patient striker who’s often looking to counter his opponents, and he only averages 3.59 SSL/min. He will look to mix in takedowns, although Cutelaba is a tough guy to take down with a 77% takedown defense. That likely leaves Lins reliant on finishing Cutelaba, which is squarely in play as Cutelaba has been finished in his last six losses and tends to slow down in the second round. The odds imply Lins has a 47% chance to win, a 34% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Kyler Phillips
7th UFC Fight (5-1)Phillips is coming off a decision win over Raoni Barcelos, who was filling in on two and a half weeks’ notice after Said Nurmagomedov dropped out. Phillips outlanded his way to winning the first two rounds, before slowing down and coasting in round three to win a 29-28 decision. That’s something we’ve consistently seen from Phillips in his fights that go the distance, as he comes out with a high pace that he’s unable to sustain for 15 minutes. Prior to that win, Phillips hadn’t competed in 18 months after he was handed a six-month PED suspension after testing positive for Ostarine, a popular drug of choice over at the MMA Lab where Phillips trains. Before that failed drug test, Phillips landed a third round submission against Marcelo Rojo, who went 0-3 in the UFC with three early losses, after losing a close majority decision against former Flyweight Raulian Paiva in what was Paiva’s first UFC fight up at Bantamweight. Phillips nearly finished Paiva in the first round, but then slowed down as the fight went on. To this point in his career, Phillips’ crowning achievement is a close 29-28 decision win over Song Yadong in 2021 just before his loss to Paiva. Yadong actually finished ahead in significant strikes 67-59 and in total strikes 89-69, but Phillips landed three takedowns on five attempts, while Yadong didn’t attempt any. Yadong doubled up Phillips’ striking in the third round, but Phillips won the first two rounds to take the decision. Phillips’ previous two UFC wins were both against opponents who went 0-2 in the UFC before being cut. Phillips originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2017, but despite landing a 46 second R1 KO victory he was not awarded a contract. He then lost a split decision to Victor Henry on the regional scene, before landing a R1 KO win in the LFA leading up to his 2020 UFC debut.
Now 11-2 as a pro, Phillips has five KO/TKO wins, two submissions, and four decision victories. The first five finishes of his career occurred in round one, but both of his finishes in the UFC came in the later rounds. He’s never been finished himself, with both of his pro losses ending in split/majority decisions.
Overall, Phillips is a lifelong martial artist who claims to have started training Jiu Jitsu at the Gracie Academy when he was just three years old. He now trains at the MMA Lab in Arizona with guys like Sean O’Malley and Mario Bautista. Between Phillips’ six UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 15 of his 32 takedown attempts (45.9% accuracy), while his opponents have gotten him down on 7 of their 24 attempts (70.8% defense). He landed at least one takedowns in all six of his UFC fights. Only three of his six UFC opponents tried to take him down, but they all landed multiple of their attempts. Phillips also averages 5.36 SSL/min and generally does a good job of filling up the stat sheet with a well-rounded attack. His one area of weakness has been his cardio, and we’ve seen him slow down later in fights.
Pedro Munhoz
21st UFC Fight (10-8, 2 NC)Coming off a close decision loss to Marlon Vera, Munhoz has gone the distance in seven of his last eight fights, with the one exception being a 2022 No Contest against Sean O’Malley following an eye poke, in a fight that Munhoz was winning on the scorecards. In Between that No Contest and his recent loss, Munhoz impressively won a 30-27 decision over Chris Gutierrez. Leading up to the No Contest, Munhoz went just 1-4 in five straight decisions, with losses against Dominick Cruz, Jose Aldo, Frankie Edgar, and Aljamain Sterling. In fairness to Munhoz, it looked like that fight against Edgar should have gone way. The last time Munhoz finished anybody was in 2019 when he knocked out a fragile Cody Garbrandt in the first round.
Now 20-8 as a pro, Munhoz has five wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and seven decision victories. He’s never been finished and all eight of his career losses went the distance. All but one of Munhoz’s 20 UFC fights (not counting his No Contest against O’Malley) either ended in the first round (5-0) or went the distance (4-8), with the one exception being a 2016 R2 guillotine win.
Overall, Munhoz is a durable but aging vet who throws a ton of leg kicks and has a mean guillotine choke. He relies on his striking to win fights and hasn’t landed a takedown in any of his last 11 matches, but he is a BJJ black belt and a judo brown belt. He’s shown the ability to put up striking volume in the past, as he averages 5.45 SSL/min and 6.14 SSA/min. Close decisions have generally not gone his way and he lost the last two split decisions he’s been to. However, he does train at American Top Team in Florida so maybe he’ll have the crowd behind him here to help if things are close.
Fight Prediction:
Phillips will have a 2” height advantage and 7” reach advantage, while also being nine years younger than the 37-year-old Munhoz.
Neither of these two have ever been finished and we’d be really surprised to see this end early. It’s a tough fight to bet because it feels like the odds are priced for exactly how we expect the fight to play out. Phillips will use his speed and length to win the first round, then continue his success into round two, but slow down towards the end of the round. Then he’ll really slow down in round three and likely coast to a 29-28 decision win, with the chance for one judge to give him round three or another to give Munhoz round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Kyler Phillips DEC” at -115.
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DFS Implications:
Phillips has averaged 88 DraftKings points in his five UFC wins, but failed to hit the century mark in any of those. Both of his UFC finishes occurred in the later rounds against low-level opponents, with him scoring 99 and 98 points in those two victories. His three decision wins were good for 77, 73, and 91 points, and while he does offer a combination of striking and grappling, he consistently slows down later in fights and doesn’t have the ability to push a crazy pace for 15 straight minutes. That caps his scoring upside in longer fights and the last time he finished anybody in round one was in 2019, just before he joined the UFC. He got busted for PEDs before his last fight, which is also a red flag and now he’s facing a durable veteran who’s never been finished. Working in Phillips’ favor, Munhoz averages 6.14 SSA/min and is 37 years old, but we still don’t see Phillips returning value at his high salary without a finish. Munhoz has a really solid 82% takedown defense and a nasty guillotine, which will make it tougher for Phillips to find much wrestling success. And even if Phillips does hand Munhoz the first early loss of his career, he could still easily get priced out of winning tournament lineups given his high price tag. The odds imply Phillips has a 65% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Munhoz has been a R1 finish or bust play in DFS for almost his entire career and failed to top 77 DraftKings points in three of his four decision wins. He’s only won two of his last eight fights, with both of those wins going the distance, where he scored just 72 and 68 points. Munhoz hasn’t landed a takedown in any of his last 11 fights, leaving him entirely reliant on striking and finishes to score well. Now he’s facing a younger, taller, longer opponent in Phillips who’s never been finished and who only averages 3.36 SSA/min. No one has ever landed more than 67 significant strikes on Phillips and even at Munhoz’s cheap price tag he’ll likely need to hand Phillips the first early loss of his career to be useful in DFS. The odds imply Munhoz has a 35% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Mateusz Gamrot
9th UFC Fight (6-2)Gamrot recently won due to a freak knee injury that Rafael Fiziev suffered in the second round of a September main event. Before the fight was abruptly stopped, Gamrot was able to land a takedown against the incredibly stout 90% takedown defense of Fiziev and the striking was basically dead even (19-17 in favor of Fiziev) in a lower volume tactical battle. Prior to that, Gamrot won a split decision over Jalin Turner, in a fight that Gamrot accepted on just over two weeks’ notice. Gamrot was able to land 4 of his 12 takedown attempts, with nearly seven minutes of control time, while Turner finished ahead 40-29 in significant strikes. That came just after Gamrot lost a decision in an insane grappling battle against Beneil Dariush, where Gamrot was only able to land 4 of his 19 takedown attempts and finished with just 127 seconds of control time. Dariush also knocked Gamrot down in the third round, while out striking him in the later rounds. Leading up to that loss, Gamrot won four straight fights, with the most recent of those wins coming in a five-round decision over Arman Tsarukyan. While three of Gamrot’s last four fights went the distance, he finished three straight aging veterans leading up to the Tsarukyan matchup, after losing a controversial split decision in his 2020 UFC debut against Kutateladze.
Now 23-2 as a pro, Gamrot has eight wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and 10 decision victories. All seven of Gamrots KO/TKO wins occurred in the later rounds, with five ending in round two and two in round three. However, three of his five submission wins occurred in the first round, with another ending in round two, and the final coming in the fourth round of a 2018 KSW Lightweight Championship fight. He’s never been finished, with both of his career losses going the distance. Gamrot has spent almost his entire career at 155 lb, but did drop down to 145 lb once in 2018 to secure his second KSW belt. He generally tends to wear on his opponents and 18 of his last 19 fights have made it out of the first round, with 12 of those seeing a third round, and nine going the distance.
Overall, Gamrot is a relentless wrestler, a BJJ black belt, and a decent striker. He’s the former KSW Lightweight and Featherweight Champion who came into the UFC with a perfect 17-0 record and a ton of experience under his belt. In his eight UFC fights, he landed 27 of his 88 takedown attempts (30.7%), landing at least four in five of those eight matches and attempting 12 or more in all four of his UFC fights to make it beyond the second round. On the other side of things, he’s only been taken down by his opponents on one of their 11 attempts (90.9% defense). He’s not a guy who generally puts up big striking totals, as he averages just 2.97 SSL/min and 3.17 SSA/min, but he has talked about how he’s been working on his striking at American Top Team.
Rafael Dos Anjos
35th UFC Fight (21-13)Coming off a five-round wrestling-heavy decision loss to Vicente Luque at 170 lb, the 39-year-old Dos Anjos got taken down by the striker eight times on 11 attempts and controlled for 12 minutes, while only landing two of his own seven attempts. We didn’t see much striking in the fight, with Luque finishing ahead 72-66 in significant strikes. Prior to that, Dos Anjos moved up from 155 lb to 170 lb and was gifted a teed up second round submission win over Bryan Barberena, who may be the worst grappler in the division (world?). That came after Dos Anjos got knocked out in the fifth round of a 155 lb main event against Rafael Fiziev in July 2022. Dos Anjos really struggled with getting Rafael Fiziev to the mat, as he landed just 2 of his 16 attempts. Fiziev notably entered that matchup with an elite 95% takedown defense, so everyone has struggled to get him to the mat in fairness to Dos Anjos. Prior to that loss, Dos Anjos won a pair of five-round decisions over short notice replacements in Renato Moicano and Paul Felder. Dos Anjos lost a pair of decisions at 170 lb in 2019 and 2020 and then dropped down to 155 lb when he faced Felder to try and make one final title push. However, after losing to Fiziev he bailed on those plans and returned to 170 lb for his last two fights. It appeared it would finish out his career at 170 lb, but is not cutting back down to 155 lb. The KO loss to Fiziev is the only time Dos Anjos has been finished in his last 14 fights dating back to 2016. It’s rare to see Dos Anjos involved in a three-round match and 9 of his last 11 fights have been scheduled to go five rounds.
Now 32-15 as a pro, Dos Anjos has five wins by KO/TKO, 11 submissions, and 16 decision victories. He only landed three finishes in his last 15 fights, with all three of those ending in submissions against highly submittable opponents. The last time he knocked anybody out was in 2015. While he’s never been submitted himself, he’s been knocked out four times and has 11 decision losses. All four of his early losses occurred at 155 lb (2022 R5, 2016 R1, 2010 R3 & 2008 R3) and he’s never been finished at 170 lb. After starting his career at 155 lb, Dos Anjos has bounced between 155 lb and 170 lb since 2016. However, the only fights he’s won at 155 lb since 2015 were against short notice replacements.
Overall, Dos Anjos is a 4th degree BJJ black belt who largely relies on his grappling to win fights on the mat. He’s gone 4-2 in his last five fights where he landed a takedown, but lost his last three where he didn’t. Looking at his entire 34 fight UFC career, he’s 15-5 in fights where he’s landed a takedown and 6-8 when he hasn’t. In his last three wins, he landed a combined 15 takedowns on 43 attempts (34.9% accuracy). He only averages 3.52 SSL/min and 3.19 SSA/min, and we generally don’t see huge striking totals in fights, although we’ve seen decent totals in some of his five round decisions. Dos Anjos is now 39 years old and has 47 pro fights under his belt, so who knows how much longer he’ll keep on going before he finally decides to hang it up.
Fight Prediction:
Gamrot will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 70” reach. Gamrot is six years younger than the 39-year-old Dos Anjos.
Dos Anjos is on the tailend of his career and really struggled in his last fight, losing the wrestling exchanges against a striker in Vicente Luque. While that was as 170 lb and now he’ll be competing at 155 lb, we’re actually more concerned for him now that he’s cutting the additional weight at 39 years old. His only recent wins were against Bryan Barberena, who’s completely helpless on the mat, and a couple of short notice replacements in Moicano and Felder. That doesn’t bode well for his chances here and we expect Gamrot to dictate the action and find a ton of wrestling success against the 56% takedown defense of Dos Anjos. While seemingly everyone is on Gamrot by decision, we actually like his chances of finishing Dos Anjos in the later rounds, most likely in round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Mateusz Gamrot ITD” at +300.
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DFS Implications:
Gamrot has averaged 98 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, scoring 97 or more in four of those. While he only scored 84 points in his recent R2 TKO win, that resulted from a freak knee injury so there was no knockdown to help boost his score. And prior to that, he “only” scored 86 points in a three-round decision win, but he took that fight on pretty short notice against a really tough opponent in Jalin Turner. So both of those lower scoring totals are pretty understandable. He’s shown the ability to put up better scores with mid round finishes in the past and his wrestling gives him a massive floor on DraftKings especially. Now he’s facing a 39-year-old opponent with a 56% takedown defense, who’s cutting down from 170 lb to 155 lb and just got outwrestled by a striker. Dos Anjos’ best days appear to be well behind him and he’s also been knocked out four times in his career. While the oddsmakers and most of the public are expecting Gamrot to win by decision, he has decent finishing upside here. And if he can combine wrestling success with a well-timed finish, he could be looking at a career best score. His lower recent scores combined with his high salary and lower finishing odds should keep him from being too highly owned, despite him being the second biggest favorite on the card. When you put all of that together, he looks like a great option in all contest types on DraftKings, and still has solid upside on FanDuel, even if his floor isn’t quite as safe. The odds imply Gamrot has a 79% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Dos Anjos has averaged 105 DraftKings points in his 21 UFC wins, but he’s also been in a million five-round fights, so his scores are naturally inflated. He’s only finished one opponent since 2019, which was Bryan Barberena who is completely helpless on the mat. Dos Anjos’ other two most recent wins both ended in five-round decisions against short notice replacements, and all of his recent victories have come in very favorable spots. Now he’s cutting back down from 170 lb to 155 lb at 39 years old and facing a relentless wrestler, so this looks like a much tougher matchup for Dos Anjos to find success. He’s also only averaged 83 DraftKings points in his eight UFC three-round decision wins and Gamrot has never been finished. Dos Anjos’ cheap price tag and past scoring success will likely result in him being overowned in all contest types and he objectively appears to be a bad play on this slate, despite the salary savings he provides. The odds imply Dos Anjos has a 21% chance to win, an 8% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Maycee Barber
11th UFC Fight (8-2)Coming off the biggest win of her career, Barber finished Amanda Ribas with a second round ground and pound TKO following a wild round and a half of mayhem. While Barber will naturally get all the attention for landing the finish there, it was actually Ribas who was really forcing the action in that fight. Ribas was marching forward, engaging in the clinch where Barber could land elbows, looking for takedowns, and going for kneebars on the mat that resulted in her eating a ton of ground strikes. Obviously it takes two to tango and Barber didn’t shy away from the fire, but if Ribas had been less aggressive it would have been a completely different fight, as she was the one dictating the crazy pace up until the finishing sequence late in round two. It’s also worth noting that Ribas has spent most of her career at 115 lb, but has been bouncing between 115 and 125 lb lately. That was Barber’s first finish since 2019, and she fought to six straight decisions leading up to it (4-2), winning the last four of those. Two of those four wins were split and she could have easily lost both of those. The last time Barber lost a fight was against Alexa Grasso in early 2021, in Barber’s first fight back following knee surgery resulting from an injury she suffered early in a decision loss to Roxanne Modafferi. Barber came into the UFC in 2018 following a third round TKO win on DWCS, and proceeded to land three more TKOs against Hanna Cifers, J.J. Aldrich, and Gillian Robertson, before then suffering the knee injury. Barber’s confidence seemed shot after the injury, but she’s slowly been getting it back every time she steps inside the Octagon.
Now 13-2 as a pro, Barber has six wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and five decision victories. She’s never been finished and both of her losses ended in decisions. Barber’s two submission wins both came in the first round of her first three pro fights. Her last six finishes all came by TKO, with five of those knockouts coming in the later rounds.
Overall, Barber has proven herself to be a dangerous striker and has been rounding out her game with more of an emphasis on wrestling lately, ever since she made the move from Roufusport to Team Alpha Male in 2021. After landing just one takedown in her first four UFC fights combined, Barber has landed seven takedowns on 18 attempts in her last six matches. Between her 10 UFC fights and her DWCS appearance, Barber landed 10 of her 28 takedown attempts (35.7% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 11 of their 20 attempts (45% defense). While she’s shown improvements to her offensive wrestling, her defensive wrestling has still been lacking and her last five opponents all got her down at least once. Barber has talked about moving back down to down to 115 lb and also about moving up to 135 lb to fight Julianna Pena, so she’s been kind of all over the place for someone who claims to be looking for a title shot at 125 lb.
Katlyn Cerminara
17th UFC Fight (11-5)Katlyn Cerminara (formerly Chookagian) is coming off a close decision loss to Manon Fiorot back in October 2022 and now hasn’t competed in a year and a half. In her media day interview, she said during her time away she went through 4-5 rounds of IVF and had two miscarriages, and taking a fight was actually a way to take a break from all of those fertility treatments. She also said she got as heavy as 170 lb during her time away, and considering she missed weight for her last fight, she’ll be someone to keep an eye on during weigh-ins. Prior to losing to Fiorot, Cerminara had won four straight decisions and had shown a knack for squeaking out close fights on the scorecards. Her last win was a 2022 split decision over Amanda Ribas, who was moving up from 115 lb but was still able to take Cerminara down three times and control her for nearly five minutes. All 11 of Cerminara’s UFC wins have gone the distance and the last time she finished an opponent was in 2016, just before she made her UFC debut. Her only two UFC fights to end early were a 2020 R3 TKO loss to Valentina Shevchenko and a 2020 R1 KO loss to Jessica Andrade. Those are also the only times she’s been finished in her career.
Now 18-5 as a pro, Cerminara has two wins by KO, both by knees early in her career (2014 & 2016), one win by submission, also early in her career (2015), and 15 decision wins. She has two KO/TKO losses and three decision defeats, with two of those being split. Of her 23 pro fights, 20 have made it to the third round, with 18 going the distance. While she lost her last decision against a fellow rangy striker, Cerminara won the previous seven decisions she went to. Cerminara fought her first three UFC fights at 135 lb, before dropping down to 125 lb in 2018.
Overall, Cerminara does a good job of utilizing her size and footwork to control the distance in fights and outpoint her way to victory. She’s a BJJ brown belt and has so far shown a good submission defense when she does get taken down, with zero submission losses to her name, but she only has a 54.2% takedown defense, and has been taken down 22 times on 48 attempts in her 16 UFC fights. She’s only landed one takedown of her own in her last six fights and generally relies almost entirely on her striking, where she averages 4.59 SSL/min and 4.41 SSA/min.
Fight Prediction:
Cerminara will have a 4” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while being 10 years older than the 25-year-old Barber.
We’ve seen Barber struggle with distance management at times in the past, which is an area where Cerminara excels, using her long frame to outpoint her opponents from distance. While it may seem like Barber finally figured things out in her last fight, so much of her success was due to Ribas’ reckless approach. This fight will look nothing like that and Cerminara will be much more cautious as she tries to sit on the outside and try to pick Barber apart from the outside. The larger Octagon will play into Cerminara’s favor and while everything she talked about at media day is concerning, she also mentioned that she had a ton of time to prepare for this matchup and likely would not have gone into detail about her personal life if she felt she wasn’t prepared. Of her 16 UFC fights, 14 went the distance (87.5%) and the only opponents to finish her were Jessican Andrade and Valentina Shevchenko, both of whom are far more dangerous than Maycee Barber. So while Barber’s recent TKO win combined with Cerminara’s long layoff and personal issues may make a Barber finish appear somewhat likely on the surface, it would be surprising if this one ended early. And if this does go the distance, as the oddsmakers are expecting it to, do you really feel comfortable laying the chalk on Maycee Barber, who easily could be 2-4 in her last six decisions if two close/questionable split decisions hadn’t gone her way? Or would you rather have the plus money on Cerminara, who has won seven of the last eight decisions she’s been to while facing the top of the division? While a close decision is very possible, if not probable, we have to take Cerminara in this spot, despite all of the outside distractions.
Our favorite bet here is “Katlyn Cerminara DEC” at +260.
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DFS Implications:
Barber has historically been a KO or bust fighter who has relied on TKO stoppages to return useful scores. Her eight UFC wins have been split evenly between TKOs and decisions, where she averaged 104 DraftKings in her four finishes, but just 66 points in her four decisions. She’s never scored more than 79 points in a fight that hit the scorecards and will now face a tough and durable decision machine in Katlyn Cerminara, who will not be looking to engage in a brawl the way Amanda Ribas was. We expect Barber to have a much tougher time finding her range in this matchup, as Cerminara is four inches taller, has a three inch longer reach, and this fight will take place in the larger Octagon, giving Cerminara more room to evade. While Cerminara’s long layoff and personal issues do raise some red flags, and may slightly increase Barber’s finishing chances, it’s not enough for us to get excited about her outlook. Barber fought to six straight decisions before finishing Ribas and we shouldn’t get too hung up on one result. This is probably one of the worst matchups Barber could ask for when it comes to scoring well and we’ll happily wait until she gets a more favorable matchup to play her. At her high price tag, it’s even possible she finishes Cerminara and still doesn't score enough to crack winning lineups, making her an even thinner play. The odds imply Barber has a 65% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
The only time we’ve ever seen Cerminara score well in DFS was when she dominated Antonina Shevchenko on the mat for three rounds and scored 119 DraftKings points in a decision. She averaged just 64 DraftKings points in her other 10 UFC wins, which also all went the distance, failing to score more than 82 points in any of those. Cerminara now hasn’t competed since October 2022 and has been putting her body through a series of fertility treatments since then, and who knows how that will affect her. It’s hard to imagine she’ll suddenly look way better in her return and Barber only averages 2.72 SSA/min. And while Barber has just a 45% takedown defense, Cerminara only landed one takedown in her last six fights. So while we do think Cerminara is very live to win a decision here by pointing her way to a decision from the outside, it would be surprising to see her score well in DFS and even at her cheap price tag she’ll likely need a lot of help to be useful. On a slate this large, with so many live underdogs, it’s hard to see Cerminara getting there unless only 1-2 other underdogs win. The odds imply Cerminara has a 35% chance to win, an 8% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Curtis Blaydes
18th UFC Fight (12-4, NC)Blaydes and Almeida were originally scheduled to headline a November card, but Blaydes was forced to withdraw due to an ankle injury. Now they’ll go at it in a three-round fight instead.
Eleven months removed from a first round knockout loss against Sergei Pavlovich, Blaydes has only fought once in the last 20 months and hasn’t been in a fight that lasted longer than five and a half minutes since 2021. Blaydes idiotically didn’t even attempt a takedown until he was half unconscious against Pavlovich and ultimately paid the price for his foolishness. Nine months prior to that loss, Blaydes won by default against Tom Aspinall, who blew out his knee 15 seconds into the first round. The fight ended so quickly there’s not much to be taken away from it, other than the fact that Blaydes didn’t shoot for an immediate takedown. That came just after Blaydes landed a second round knockout against Chris Daukaus in a fight where Blaydes once again never attempted a takedown. That was the first time Blaydes had failed to attempt a takedown in the UFC after landing 62 of his 115 attempts in his first 14 UFC appearances. The last time Blaydes took anyone down was in a 2021 three-round decision win over Jairzinho Rozenstruik, which came just after Blaydes failed to get Derrick Lewis down and was violently knocked out in round two as he shot for an attempt. The only other fighter to ever defeat Blaydes is Francis Ngannou, who has two KO/TKO wins over him. After seeing how his career started, it’s kind of crazy to see that Blaydes has now only taken down two of his last seven opponents.
Now 17-4 as a pro, Blaydes has 12 wins by TKO and five decision victories. Nine of his last 10 TKO wins occurred in rounds two and three, with the one exception being his R1 TKO win due to injury against Aspinall. Seven of his early wins ended in round two, with two coming in round three. That doesn’t even include a 2017 R2 TKO win that was overturned when Blaydes tested positive for THC. All four of his losses also ended in KO/TKOs, with two ending in R1 and two in R2. If we include the TKO win that was later overturned to a No Contest, amazingly 10 of Blaydes’ 22 pro fights have ended in R2 KO/TKOs (8-2).
Overall, Blaydes comes from a wrestling background and has shown the ability to put up massive takedown numbers. He owns both the Heavyweight record for the most career takedowns landed at 62 and the most takedowns landed in a single Heavyweight fight at 14, which came against Alexander Volkov in 2020. However, since setting that record against Volkov, Blaydes only took down one of his last five opponents and has just a single takedown attempt in his last three fights. He trains at Elevation Fight Team with Justin Gaethje and actually recently said he wants to be more like Gaethje and only use his wrestling to keep fights standing now that he appears more comfortable on the feet. That’s certainly interesting considering Blaydes has gone 8-1 (plus a NC that was really a win) in UFC fights when he landed at least one takedown, but just 4-3 when he failed to land any. He has a solid 53.4% takedown accuracy, landing 62 of his 116 takedown attempts. On the other side of things, only three fighters have ever tried to take Blaydes down—Alexander Volkov (2020), who landed one of his two attempts, Daniel Omielanczuk (2017), who failed to land his only attempt, and Cody East (2016), who landed all three of his attempts. So he’s given up four takedowns on six attempts from his opponents (33% defense). With zero submission attempts, let alone wins, Blaydes is not a submission threat on the mat and is exclusively looking for ground and pound when he takes opponents down. He also has pretty heavy hands on the feet, but doesn’t wear damage especially well and has been prone to having his right eye swell up badly in fights. We haven’t seen Blaydes face any wrestlers lately, so this will be a new test for him.
Jailton Almeida
7th UFC Fight (6-0)Almeida is fresh off a dominant wrestling performance in a five-round decision win over Derrick Lewis, who stepped in on four weeks’ notice after Curtis Blaydes dropped out. Almeida took Lewis down six times on 15 attempts and finished with over 21 minutes of control time and four submission attempts, while also leading in total strikes 120-28. Even if he did slow down late in the fight, Almeida answered the biggest question of whether or not he could still be effective with his wrestling beyond the second round with a resounding yes. That was Almeida’s 15th straight win, but the first decision victory of his career. His previous 14 wins all ended in under eight minutes and he finished four of his first five UFC opponents in the first round. Prior to defeating Lewis, Almeida locked up a first round submission against Jairzinho Rozenstruik, after landing the latest finish of his career in a TKO at the 2:56 mark of round two. However, six of his last eight finishes came via submission with five of those six submissions ending in round one. Whether it’s by submission or ground and pound, all of his recent finishes have occurred on the mat.
Besides his recent decision win, the only other time Almeida’s ever been in a fight that lasted longer than eight minutes was in a 2018 decision loss when he was still fighting all the way down at 185 lb. Almeida remained at 185 lb for two more fights after that in 2018, landing first round finishes in both of those. Then just four months later he moved all the way up to Heavyweight and landed two more first round finishes. He then dropped down to Light Heavyweight in 2019, before going on DWCS in 2021 and submitting a 9-0 Sambo fighter in the second round. Almeida stayed at Light Heavyweight for his UFC debut, finishing a grappler in Danilo Marques with ground and pound midway through round one. Almeida was then scheduled to face another Light Heavyweight in Maxim Grishin, but Grishin withdrew and the UFC couldn’t find a replacement at 205 lb. However, Parker Porter was willing to take the fight at Heavyweight and Almeida agreed to move up a weight class to take on an opponent who was stepping in on short notice. The additional weight didn’t seem to matter much in the fight, as Almeida landed a late first round submission over Porter. Almeida then planned on facing Abdurakhimov, remaining at Heavyweight, but Abdurakhimov dropped out. So instead, a short notice 220 lb Catchweight match was booked against UFC newcomer and career Light Heavyweight, Anton Turkalj. Almeida cruised to another first round submission win and then the fight against Abdurakhimov was put back together. However, once again Abdurakhimov dropped out. Almeida then planned on returning to Light Heavyweight to face Maxim Grishin (again) in November 2022, but Grishin dropped out (again). The UFC then rebooked Almeida back up at Heavyweight in January 2023 against Abdurakhimov, and the third time finally paid off as the fight actually happened. Given the success he was having at Heavyweight, Almeida decided to remain at the weight class as he took on a higher ranked opponent in Rozenstruik, to propel Almeida into the top 10 of the division. At this point he has no reason to resume weight cutting and we’ve seen him go from 203 lb in his UFC debut to 224 lb, 216.5 lb, 232 lb, 231 lb, and most recently 236 lb.
Now 20-2 as a pro, Almeida has seven wins by KO/TKO, 12 submissions, and one decision victory. His only early loss came in a 2017 16 second R1 KO in his fifth pro fight when he was still down at 185 lb, while he also has one decision loss (2018), also at 185 lb. All but one of Almeida’s 20 wins have come in under eight minutes, with 14 ending in round one and five finishing in the opening three minutes of round two.
Overall, Almeida comes into every fight with the same game plan of getting things to the mat as quickly and as violently as possible, where he’ll then aggressively hunt for finishes. He’s a BJJ black belt and an absolute powerhouse, but has yet to be forced into a standup battle in the UFC. Between his six UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Almeida landed 19 of his 34 takedown attempts (55.9% accuracy), while he got taken down once himself on four opponent attempts (75% defense). Almeida hasn’t faced much adversity in any of his UFC fights, but he’ll face a new test here as he faces one of the best wrestlers in the division.
Fight Prediction:
Blaydes will have a 1” height and reach advantage, while being a year older than the 32-year-old Almeida.
This is a fascinating matchup between two of the best Heavyweight wrestlers. While we know Blaydes has really good offensive wrestling, it’s hard to know how good his defensive wrestling is because almost nobody ever tries to take him down. He got taken down by Volkov in the fourth round when Blaydes was completely exhausted, but only two other opponents have even attempted a takedown against him. It is sort of concerning that Cody East was able to land all three of his attempts against Blaydes back in 2016, but that was so long ago it’s hard to put much stock into it. The uncertainty surrounding Blaydes’ takedown defense adds a lot of volatility to this matchup, which will hinge entirely on Blaydes’ takedown defense. We also haven’t seen much of Almeida’s striking, because he’s been able to take everyone down. That also adds a level of uncertainty to this matchup, but we expect Blaydes to have the advantage on the feet. If he can keep it standing, he’ll have a decent shot of knocking Almeida out, but we’re not convinced Blaydes can keep it standing and wrestlers with no jiu jitsu generally struggle off their backs. We like Almeida’s chances of getting Blaydes down and finishing him on the mat in the first two rounds, most likely by submission either late in round one or early in round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Jailton Almeida SUB” at +380.
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DFS Implications:
Blaydes has averaged 111 DraftKings points in his 12 UFC wins and in fights where he’s landed at least one takedown that average has jumped to 122 points. However, from what he’s said and shown in recent fights, he now wants to wrestle less and strike more. That takes away his best attribute when it comes to both fighting and DFS. It sounds like his plan will be to use his wrestling to try and keep this fight standing, but that’s easier said than done. And while he’s shown really good offensive wrestling in the past, his defensive wrestling remains largely a mystery. However, he was taken down by two of three opponents who tried in the UFC, which isn’t a great sign for him. Nevertheless, if he can keep the fight standing, he should have a striking advantage, although Almeida’s stand up game is also somewhat of a mystery as he’s been able to dominate everyone on the mat. That leaves this as a pretty volatile fight with multiple unknowns, but we’d be surprised if Blaydes willingly went to the mat with Almeida, leaving him as a KO or bust option. The odds imply Blaydes has a 49% chance to win, a 31% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Almeida has won 15 straight fights, with 14 of those wins ending early. He’s coming off the first decision win of his career, where he dominated Derrick Lewis on the mat for 25 minutes and scored 135 DraftKings points. Almeida has averaged 120 points in his six UFC wins, scoring 104 or more in all of those and at least 114 in five of them. He’s shown the explosiveness and power to compete at both Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight, but he’s been given no reason to resume weight cutting, as he’s been able to manhandle the big boys up at Heavyweight. He comes into every fight with the same game plan of immediately landing a takedown and hunting for a finish. This should be a tougher test for him as he finally faces a fellow high-level wrestler, although Blaydes is a pure wrestler and hasn’t shown anything when it comes to jiu jitsu. So if Almeida can get him down, Blaydes has the potential to look lost off his back. It’s hard to evaluate Blaydes’ defensive wrestling, as the only opponent to try and take him down since 2017 was Alexander Volkov, which occurred in the fourth round of a main event when Blaydes was exhausted. However, earlier in his career, Blaydes got taken down three times in his second UFC fight and put up very little resistance. Obviously that was a lifetime ago and things change, but that’s at least encouraging for Almeida’s chances of getting this fight to the mat. However, if he can’t get Blaydes down, he’ll be at risk of getting knocked out on the feet, leaving Almeida with a wide range of scoring outcomes. Nevertheless, we like his chances of getting Blaydes down and finishing him. And at his cheap price tag, it’s really hard to see Almeida getting left out of the optimal lineup with another finish. The odds imply Almeida has a 51% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Petr Yan
13th UFC Fight (8-4)A year removed from his third straight decision loss, Yan got dominated by Merab Dvalishvili in a 50-45 five-round decision loss. Dvalishvili attempted a record setting 49 takedowns, landing 11 of them, and pushed a pace no human could hope to keep up with. Prior to that, Yan lost a bogus three-round split decision to Sean O'Malley after losing another split decision to Aljamain Sterling. Yan is now 1-4 in his last five fights, after starting his career off 15-1. After winning the vacant Bantamweight belt against Jose Aldo in July 2020, Yan landed the illegal knee that was heard around the world in a DQ loss to Aljamain Sterling in March 2021. Sterling then dropped out of their rematch seven months later, so Yan fought Cory Sandhagen for the interim title, which Yan won by decision. He then got his rematch against Sterling, which ended in a razor close split decision loss for Yan that ultimately came down to how the judges scored the coin flip first round and that sent Yan’s career into a downward spiral.
Now 16-5 as a pro, Yan has seven wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and eight decision victories. His lone submission win came in a R1 guillotine in his third pro fight back in 2015, while two of his knockout wins ended in round one, one ended in round two, three ended in round three, and the other came in round five. His last three knockouts all occurred in the later rounds. He’s never been finished, but has four decision losses and one by DQ. Three of his four decision defeats were split, while all eight of his decision wins were unanimous. The only time one of Yan’s UFC fights ended in round one was in a TKO win in his 2018 debut. His last 11 fights all made it to round two, with seven of those going the distance.
Overall, Yan has a background in boxing and Taekwondo is a very patient fighter and universally regarded as a slow starter. He’s a calculated striker who wears on his opponents with his crisp, powerful striking and has elite defensive wrestling. In his 12 UFC fights, Yan has only been taken down on 18 of 120 opponent attempts (85% defense). All 12 of Yan’s UFC opponents have tried to take him down, with six of those opponents failing to land any of their attempts and three of them landing just a single takedown. On the other side of things, Yan has landed 23 takedowns of his own on 44 attempts (52.3% accuracy). Yan effectively utilizes a high guard to avoid absorbing many clean shots and has a solid 59% striking defense. He does a great job of catching kicks and mixing in trips to ground his opponents, although he’s only a BJJ blue belt and not much of a submission threat as he’s only looking for ground and pound on the mat. He would generally prefer to keep fights standing unless he has a major wrestling advantage, as we saw in his last fight against Sean O'Malley. His patient approach often results in him trailing in striking early on in fights, and he’s actually been outlanded overall in significant strikes in five of his last eight fights.
Yadong Song
14th UFC Fight (10-2-1)Song is just three months removed from a five-round decision win over Chris Gutierrez, where we saw more wrestling and top control than normal for Song, as he finished with two takedowns and 11 minutes of control time. That’s the same number of takedowns as he landed in his previous nine fights combined. Prior to that decision victory, Song had four straight fights end in KO/TKOs (3-1), but his last three fights all lasted at least four rounds. Before his win over Gutierrez, Song landed an impressive fifth round TKO against Ricky Simon in an April 2023 main event, in a fight that was elevated from three rounds to five on just a week and a half’s notice after the previously scheduled main event fell through. Song did a great job of defending takedowns against a really good wrestler in Simon, who was only able to land 2 of his 9 attempts and finished with just 51 seconds of control time. Song outlanded Simon 105-60 in significant strikes and knocked him down twice in the championship rounds of the match. Following that win, Song had been scheduled to fight Rob Font in August, but ended up withdrawing in late July. Prior to defeating Simon, Song took part in another main event and lost to Cory Sandhagen via post R4 doctor stoppage TKO. Song got cut above his eye in the second round and it just looked like a matter of time until the fight would be stopped. However, the doctor allowed it to proceed until just before the 5th round was ready to begin before finally shutting it down. Song did a good job of stuffing takedowns in the fight, as Sandhagen was only able to land 1 of his 14 attempts, and the fight was actually tied on two of the three scorecards after four rounds. Leading up to that loss, Song had won three straight fights, after suffering his one other UFC loss in a 2021 decision against Kyler Phillips.
Now 21-7-1 as a pro, Song has nine wins by TKO/KO, three submissions, and nine decision victories. The only time Song has ever landed a finish beyond the second round was in his R5 TKO win over Simon, while he has five first round knockouts and three in round two. His last submission win was a first round guillotine in his 2018 UFC debut, with his other two submissions occurring in 2014 and 2016. He has two KO/TKO losses, with one of those coming in his R4 TKO loss to Sandhagen and the other a 2016 R2 knockout when he was just 18 years old, in a match that was fought up at 145 lb, prior to joining the UFC. Song also has four decision defeats and one DQ loss. He has competed at both 135 lb and 145 lb throughout his career, however all but two of his UFC fights have been down at 135 lb.
Overall, Song’s entire life has been dedicated to the pursuit of martial arts. He started intense training at just 9 years old when he left his family to go train with the Shaolin Monks. By the age of 12 he was already winning championships and he went pro at just 15 years old in 2013. Despite having 29 pro fights under his belt, he’s amazingly still just 26 years old. He’s an excellent striker with very fast hands and good power, in addition to a solid takedown defense, but generally isn’t looking to wrestle offensively a whole lot—although maybe he’s still evolving as he landed two takedowns in his last fight. In his 13 UFC fights, he only landed seven takedowns on 12 attempts (58.3% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on just 14 of their 53 attempts (73.6% defense). Song trains at Team Alpha Male, so he has plenty of wrestlers to work with on a daily basis, and he’s never been submitted in an MMA fight. However, he did take part in a grappling match just before fighting Sandhagen and was submitted there, although that also shows he’s at least been trying to work on his grappling. Song averages 4.38 SSL/min and 3.73 SSA/min and has finished ahead in significant strikes in 10 of his 13 UFC fights. He’s won five of the last six decisions he’s been to, with the one loss coming against Kyler Phillips in 2021.
Fight Prediction:
Song will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 67” reach. Song is five years younger than the 31-year-old Yan.
This is a great matchup between two of the best strikers in the division. Obviously Yan has had a rough go of things lately after suffering three straight losses, and also now hasn’t competed in a year. So maybe he comes in with a little ring rust, and he’s already a notoriously slow starter. That’s somewhat concerning considering he only has three rounds to work with, but he’s such a talented fighter he should be able to figure it out. This seems like a very even matchup, as both guys have really solid boxing and a good takedown defense. They’re also both really durable, so it’s tougher to see either of them finishing the other. We’re expecting a close decision that could go either way, and while Song has all the momentum going in his favor, Yan has more experience facing the top of the division and we give him the slight advantage to finally win a close decision. However, this one could be razor close and it’s hard to make a confident pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Petr Yan ML” at -124.
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DFS Implications:
Yan has averaged 107 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, but has never scored well in a three-round decision, as he returned remarkably similar totals of 79, 79, and 78 in his three UFC three-round decision wins. He would have scored 101 points against O’Malley if the decision had gone his way, but only because he landed six takedowns in that fight. We don’t expect him to find the same level of wrestling success here against the 73% takedowns defense of Song, although it’s not impossible that he tacks on a few takedowns. We’re more expecting a slower paced tactical striking battle, where both fighters will struggle to score well without a finish. That’s troublesome in DFS considering how durable they both are. The last time Yan finished anybody within three rounds was in 2019 when he knocked out Song’s coach Urijah Faber, who was already washed up at the time. While Yan’s affordable price tag does lower the bar for the amount of points he needs to score to be useful, we’re still treating him as a KO or bust option in a tough matchup. The odds imply Yan has a 53% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Song has averaged 97 DraftKings points in his 10 UFC wins, but similar to Yan, he’s never scored more than 78 points in a three-round decision win, with totals of 78, 76, and 78 in his previous three UFC three-round decision wins. Song’s last three fights all made it to the championship rounds of five-round fights, so his recent DFS scoring is somewhat inflated. And while he landed two takedowns in his last fight, he only landed four takedowns across his last 10 outings. That leaves him reliant on landing knockouts to score well and now he’s facing an extremely durable Petr Yan, who’s never been finished in his career. Even at Song’s cheaper price tag, we don’t see him scoring enough to be useful in a decision, even if we end up seeing more striking volume than expected. So we’re treating both guys in this matchup as KO or bust options, and we’re expecting this to end in a close decision. The odds imply Song has a 47% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Jack Della Maddalena
7th UFC Fight (6-0)Coming off back-to-back close split decision wins that easily could have gone the other way, Della Maddalena has narrowly kept his 16-fight winning streak intact. The most recent of those wins came against Kevin Holland, who actually finished ahead in striking 127-105. Holland also tried to take Della Maddalena down twice, but failed on both attempts. Prior to that, Della Maddalena defeated a UFC newcomer in Bassil Hafez, who really tested the defensive wrestling of Della Maddalena. That fight was put together on short notice after Della Maddalena’s previous two opponents dropped out on the previous week’s card. Della Maddalena had originally been scheduled to face Sean Brady, but he dropped out and Josiah Harrell stepped in. It looked like that fight would happen on July 8th, as both fighters successfully weighed in, but then Harrell wasn’t medically cleared after weigh-ins and the fight was scrapped. Della Maddalena had made the trip all the way from Australia to Las Vegas and didn’t want to go home empty handed, so he hung around and waited for a new opponent, which the UFC found on the following week’s card. However, that forced Della Maddalena to cut weight twice in a week’s span, which obviously isn’t ideal. Hafez was able to take Della Maddalena down on 3 of his 20 attempts, and finished with nearly seven minutes of control time. However, all three of those takedowns came in the first round and he also wasn’t doing any real damage on the mat, as Della Maddalena finished ahead in significant strikes 83-32 and in total strikes 149-48. Leading up to that win, Della Maddalena had finished each of his first four UFC opponents in under three and a half minutes, following a 2021 decision win on DWCS against Ange Loosa, who trains with Gilbert Burns down at Kill Cliff FC. Before going on DWCS, Della Maddalena had finished nine straight opponents on the Australian regional scene, after getting finished in each of his first two pro fights back in 2016. Della Maddalena was the five-time Eternal MMA Welterweight Champion in Australia.
Now 16-2 as a pro, Della Maddalena has 11 wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and two decision victories. He got knocked out in the third round of his 2016 pro debut, and was then submitted in the first round of his next fight, but hasn’t lost a fight since. Eight of Della Maddalena’s 13 finishes came in round one, with the other five ending in round two, and he’s only seen the third round four times in his career.
Overall, Della Maddalena relies mostly on his crisp boxing to win fights, but he is a BJJ brown belt and also has some Judo experience. He showed in his submission over Brown that he’ll wrap up a neck given the opportunity, but he’s generally looking to knock opponents out. He’s a former Australian rugby player and an all around tough and durable fighter. He averages an impressive 7.20 SSL/min and does a good job of mixing in devastating body shots with his punching combinations. His striking is primarily boxing based, but we have seen him mix in more leg kicks when he faced taller opponents like Randy Brown and Kevin Holland. Between his six UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Della Maddalena landed just one of his five takedown attempts (20% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 5 of their 29 attempts (82.8% defense). The only times we’ve seen him attempt takedowns were against opponents who were aggressively trying to take him down and he failed to attempt a takedown in five of his six UFC fights. All of the decent wrestlers he faced successfully got him down at least once, but Della Maddalena still won all of those fights, and Bassil Hafez is the only opponent to get him down more than once. Now Della Maddalena will face the toughest test of his career against a high-level grappler in Burns.
Gilbert Burns
22nd UFC Fight (15-6)Burns is 10 months removed from a five-round decision loss to Belal Muhammad, in a fight where Burns unfortunately suffered a left shoulder injury early on and was compromised for most of the match. He still toughed it out to make it to the scorecards, but got outlanded 132-81 in striking and failed to land any of his four takedown attempts, as he fought most of the fight with one arm. Afterwards, he was able to rehab the injury with multiple stem cell treatments, opposed to undergoing surgery. He didn’t get cleared to resume training until November, so it was a fairly lengthy recovering process. Just four weeks before that loss, Burns won a decision over Jorge Masvidal on the last Miami UFC card. He took almost no damage in that fight as he easily won every round and was able to take Masvidal down four times and control him for nearly six minutes in the slower paced match. Leading up to the win over Masvidal, Burns submitted Neil Magny in the first round back in January 2023 and started off 2023 with three fights in five months. While Burns is just 3-3 in his last six fights, the other two losses were a 2022 action-packed decision against Khamzat Chimaev and a third round TKO against Kamaru Usman for the Welterweight belt. In between those two losses, Burns won a grappling-heavy decision over Stephen Thompson, and all of his recent wins have come through his grappling.
Now 22-6 as a pro, Burns has six wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and seven decision victories. While he’s never been submitted, he’s been knocked out twice and has three decision losses. Burns only has two submission wins in his last 16 fights, and only one since moving up to 170 lb, which was against Neil Magny, who’s been submitted six times in his career. Burns fought his 2014 UFC debut at 170 lb, where he won a decision, but then dropped down to 155 lb for his next 10 fights. He moved back up to 170 lb in 2019, where he’s stayed since. He's now 8-3 at 170 lb in the UFC, with six decision wins, a R1 KO victory, and a R1 submission win. At 155 lb in the UFC, Burns went 7-3 with four wins by submission, two by KO and one by decision. So while six of his seven wins at 155 lb ended early, six of his eight victories at 170 lb went the distance, as did two of his three losses.
Overall, Burns is a 3rd degree BJJ black belt and a world champion grappler. He’s also an explosive striker but he’s been less of a finishing threat since moving up to 170 lb. In his last 10 fights since moving back up to 170 lb, Burns landed 14 of his 43 takedown attempts (32.6% accuracy). Over that same stretch, he was taken down by his opponents on 4 of 10 attempts (60% defense), with the only two fighters to get him down being Khamzat Chimaev and Demian Maia. Burns is just 1-4 in UFC fights where he failed to land a takedown, with the one win coming against a one-dimensional grappler in an aging Demian Maia. While Burns landed a career best 119 significant strikes against Chimaev, that’s the only time he’s ever landed more than 83 significant strikes in a fight and he only averages 3.36 SSL/min and 3.34 SSA/min.
Fight Prediction:
Della Maddalena will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while being 10 years younger than the 37-year-old Burns.
This is a good test for both fighters, as Della Maddalena gets a step up in competition and Burns tries to bounce back from an injury and prove he’s still got it at 37 years old. There’s no doubt that Burns has a massive grappling advantage and also far more experience, so he just needs to fight smart and not get sucked into a brawl on the feet. Della Maddalena showed plenty of holes in his defensive wrestling when he barely squeaked by against another wrestler in Bassil Hafez, who was making his short notice UFC debut. In fairness to Della Maddalena, he had to cut weight in back-to-back weeks after his previous matchup fell through and that was an unfavorable circumstance for all parties, but that’s still worrisome for his chances of keeping this fight upright as he faces a much more dangerous grappler in Burns. On the other side of things, Burns has his own concerns, as he’s coming off a bad shoulder injury and is nearly 38 years old. He opted not to have surgery, and still needs to show us that he was able to rehab the shoulder back to 100%. However, as long as Burns comes in at full health, he should be able to lean on his grappling to win this fight on the mat. At that point it would just be a matter of whether or not he can lock up a submission, but we lean more towards him grinding out a wrestling-heavy decision win. Burns only has one submission win in his last 10 fights, with seven of those fights going the distance (5-2). And while Burns is from Brazil, he lives and trains in Florida and will have the home crowd behind him, which is always beneficial in the potential of a close decision. So while it won’t be at all shocking to see him lock up a submission, we’re taking him to win by decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Gilbert Burns DEC” at +500.
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DFS Implications:
Della Maddalena’s DFS scores continue to decline as his matchups have grown progressively more difficult. He finished all of his first four UFC opponents in the first round, averaging 114 DraftKings points in those victories, but is now coming off back-to-back razor close split-decision wins that were only good for 72 and 84 points respectively. He showed a lot of holes in his wrestling in his win over Bassil Hafez and now he’ll face a much higher level grappler in Burns. That’s obviously concerning for Della Maddalena’s scoring potential here and we could see Burns completely neutralize Della Maddalena’s offense if he can get him down. While Della Maddalena does have an 82% takedown defense, every wrestler he’s faced in the UFC and on DWCS got him down at least once. And it’s not like Burns is helpless on the feet either, so there’s no easy path to victory for Della Maddalena. However, Burns is 37 years old, coming off a bad shoulder injury, and has been knocked out twice in the past, so Della Maddalena does have some things going for him. And after failing to score well in either of his last two fights, and barely even winning those matches, we should see his ownership dip down a little from the high-levels it had been. Nevertheless, he still looks like a KO or bust option in a bad stylistic matchup. The odds imply Della Maddalena has a 61% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Burns has averaged 94 DraftKings points in his 15 UFC wins, with eight of those wins ending early. However, he’s only finished one opponent since 2020 and looked like less of a finisher since moving up to 170 lb. Four of his last five fights went the distance, with the one exception coming against the highly submittable Neil Magny. And only once in his seven UFC three-round decision wins was Burns able to score more than 84 DraftKings points, which was back in 2018 when he was still competing down at 155 lb. Burns’ last four decision wins returned scores of 83, 84, 54, and 79 points. While it’s not impossible that Burns could still be useful as his cheap price tag with another score in the mid eighties, it is less likely on this large slate with tons of high-upside fighters and talented underdogs. That leaves Burns more reliant on finding a finish to be useful and he notably only has one submission win and one TKO victory in his 10 fights since moving up to 170 lb. The odds imply Burns has a 39% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Kevin Holland
21st UFC Fight (12-7, NC)Holland is looking to bounce back from a close split-decision loss against Jack Della Maddalena, where Holland actually finished ahead in striking 127-105 in the pure standup battle. Holland did attempt two takedowns, but failed to land either of them. Just seven weeks before that loss, Holland landed a first round submission against a washed up Michael Chiesa, who’s lost three straight and looked absolutely terrible in the fight and tapped as soon as Holland locked up a Brabo choke on the mat. Three months prior to that, Holland landed a third round knockout against another old veteran in Santiago Ponzinibbio, who’s lost three of his last four fights. That snapped a two fight skid for Holland, after his corner stopped his previous fight following the fourth round as Holland was struggling to defend himself against Stephen Thompson after breaking his hand earlier in that December 2022 main event. That was the first KO/TKO loss of Holland’s career, however, just prior to that he got submitted in the first round by Khamzat Chimaev. Following the loss to Chimaev, Holland casually announced his retirement from MMA, but his ride into the sunset was brief, as he then accepted his next fight just a few weeks later. Leading up to the pair of losses, Holland notched back-to-back second round finishes, after dropping down to 170 lb for the first time in the UFC. Both of those finishes also came against old veterans in Alex Oliveira, who was in the midst of a five fight skid and got cut following the loss, and Tim Means, who was kicking off a three fight skid. Holland’s move down to 170 lb was prompted by three straight defeats on the mat in 2021, although the last of those was overturned to a No Contest due to an accidental clash of heads against Kyle Daukaus that began the finishing sequence. Regardless of the official outcome, it had become clear that Holland didn’t stand much of a chance against grapplers at 185 lb.
Now 25-10 as a pro, Holland has 14 wins by KO/TKO, seven submissions, and four decision wins. Of his 14 knockout wins, eight came in round one, two ended in round two, and four occurred in round three. He has one TKO loss, three submission defeats, and six decision losses. He would have four submission losses on his record, but a 2021 R1 submission loss to Kyle Daukaus was ruled a No Contest after an accidental clash of heads began the finishing sequence. Holland started at 170 lb when he turned pro in 2014, but would take fights anywhere from 170 lb to 195 lb. He began settling in at 185 lb in 2016, although did drop back down to 170 lb for a decision loss in 2017. However, after starting 8-4 plus a No Contest in the UFC at 185 lb, Holland dropped back down 170 lb in early 2022. He’s since gone 4-3, but one of those losses was at a 180 Catchweight against Chimaev, so Holland is 4-2 in the UFC at 170 lb. While six of his seven fights since dropping down to 170 lb ended early, only two of those ended in round one.
Overall, Holland is a second degree black belt in Kung Fu and primarily a striker, but is also a BJJ black belt and does have some submission skills, even if he’s not a good wrestler. He’s rangy, powerful, and dangerous on the feet, in addition to being very durable. His defensive wrestling has clearly been his biggest weakness in the past, but the UFC has been far more merciful with the matchups they’ve given him at 170 lb compared to 185 lb when it comes to fighting wrestlers. The one exception was when Holland took on Chimaev on short notice and got smoked in 133 seconds. Most of Holland’s UFC losses came on the mat, but his last two defeats were in pure striking battles. While Holland doesn’t look to take fights to the ground very often, he landed 12 takedowns on 31 attempts (38.7% accuracy) between his 20 UFC matches and his DWCS appearance. However, he only landed two takedowns in his last nine fights. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 43 of their 92 attempts (53.2% defense). In Holland’s last 21 fights, the only two opponents to unsuccessfully try to get him down were Joaquin Buckley and Michael Chiesa. Holland is 6-5 in UFC fights where he’s been taken down (not counting the No Contest where he got taken down and submitted), but 6-2 when his opponents fail to get him down. Of those five losses where he gave up at least one takedown, three went the distance and two ended in submissions.
Michael Page
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut a month before his 37th birthday, Page had a lengthy 10 year career with Bellator, but now hasn’t competed in almost a year to the day. He won his last Bellator fight in an abrupt 26 second leg kick TKO, after getting controlled for five rounds in a 2022 split decision loss for the interim Welterweight belt in his second most recent Bellator fight. In between those two MMA matches, he actually fought Mike Perry in Bare Knuckle Boxing and lost an overtime decision. Page’s second most recent win was all the way back in 2021, when he avenged the only early loss of his career in a super low-volume split-decision against Douglas Lima.
Now 21-2 as a pro, Page has 13 wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and five decision victories. The only early loss of his career was a 2019 early second round knockout against Douglas Lima, with his one other defeat coming in a 2022 five-round split decision. Page’s last five fights all either went the distance (2-1) or ended in first round TKOs (2-0).
Overall, Page is a British kickboxer who utilizes a karate stance that often draws comparisons to Raymond Daniels and Stephen Thompson. He keeps his hands low and relies on his quickness and distance management to avoid damage, while typically keeping his distance from his opponents and hanging out in kicking range. He has good size and length for the division at 6’2” with a 79” reach, and uses it well in conjunction with his explosive quickness. That makes him a unique puzzle to crack and he throws a lot of unorthodox techniques, while keeping his hands low, making it tougher to see his shots coming. While he doesn’t land many strikes with his counter striking style, when he does land they’re normally impactful and he clearly has dangerous power. He likes to taunt his opponents, which helps to fill the time during periods of inaction. He also offers practically nothing when it comes to grappling and is content with hanging onto his opponent’s wrists when he gets taken down, in a pure stalling tactic to try and force a standup from the ref. He’s getting up there in age and hasn’t been especially active in recent years, so it will be interesting to see how he looks after a year away from competition.
Fight Prediction:
Holland will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while being five years younger than the 36-year-old Page.
This is an interesting matchup between two strikers who both bring some side antics into the Octagon. Holland likes to talk during fights and to keep things casual, while Page likes to taunt his opponents and showboat a lot. That should make for some unusual exchanges during this fight, but ultimately all of that is just noise. They’re both tall, rangy, athletic fighters who mix in a combination of unorthodox strikes, so they’ll each need to stay on their toes. Holland is much younger and has been the more durable of the two, while also throwing way more volume. He also has a rare grappling advantage in this matchup, but often stubbornly prefers to fight opponents where they’re the strongest. So who knows if Holland will actually look for takedowns, but it would make sense for him to test Page on the mat. It looks like a tough fight for Page to win, as he doesn’t land enough volume to be favored on the scorecards and is unlikely to knock Holland out. Meanwhile, Holland has the ability to finish Page on the mat or the feet, in addition to being the more active fighter and having a better chance with the judges. The larger Octagon will play into Page’s favor, while lowering the chances of a finish, and the oddsmakers are expecting the fight to go the distance more often than not, which is notable since Holland has only been to one decision in his last eight fights. Holland is always live for a finish, but he will have fewer opportunities than normal here just based on the way Page fights. That makes it a trickier spot to predict exactly how the fight ends, but regardless of the method, we like Holland to win and we’ll say he knocks Page out.
Our favorite bet here is “Kevin Holland ML” at -130.
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DFS Implications:
Holland is reliant on landing well timed finishes to really score well in DFS, as he failed to land a takedown in eight of his last nine fights and averages just 4.39 SSL/min. He’s coming off a higher volume split decision loss, but even if he had won, he only would have scored 81 DraftKings points. Now he’s facing a low-volume karate style striker who habitually takes part in low-volume fights and there’s no way Holland lands enough strikes to score well without either a finish or a surprisingly large amount of wrestling-success. Page is also good at stalling on the mat, as he likes to grab his opponent’s wrists and hang on for dear life. While 9 of Holland’s 12 UFC wins came early, he still only averaged 98 DraftKings points in those 12 victories and only hit the century mark four times. He scored “just” 95 DraftKings points in his last finish, which ended in a first round submission, after only scoring 82 points in his previous third round TKO victory, and only 88 points in a round two submission in his third most recent win. The last time he won a decision was in 2020, and he scored 84 points in that fight. So he’s been consistent but unspectacular with his scoring. We’re treating Holland as a R1 or bust option in a bad matchup to score well. It will be interesting to see how popular Holland is, but historically we’ve seen the field be pretty heavy on him. The odds imply Holland has a 53% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Page’s low-volume, no wrestling style of fighting looks like a death sentence for DFS and leaves him entirely reliant on landing knockouts to score even remotely well. His striking totals read like a baseball score and he didn’t even consider looking for a takedown in any of his recent fights. Now he’s facing an extremely durable opponent in Holland who’s never really been knocked out, unless you count his arm injury against Stephen Thompson that forced a post round four TKO stoppage. That makes this a terrible matchup for Page and he’ll need to land a hail mary knockout if he wants to have any chance of scoring well. And even with a later finish, he would still struggle to put up a meaningful score, simply due to his lack of volume. So even at his cheaper price tag, we’re also calling him a R1 KO or bust play in a terrible matchup. The odds imply Page has a 47% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Benoit Saint Denis
7th UFC Fight (5-1)Continuing his meteoric ascension, Saint Denis has finished five straight opponents in the first two rounds, after losing a Bloodsport style decision in his 2021 UFC debut against Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos. That fight should have been stopped by all accounts in the second round as Saint Denis was getting mauled by Zaleski dos Santos, but the referee had other ideas and decided he’d prefer to see someone die that day. It was such a horribly officiated fight that the commission actually pulled the ref from his remaining duties on the card immediately after the match. That’s the only loss of Saint Denis’ career, and it took place at 170 lb. Following the loss, he dropped down to 155 lb and submitted Niklas Stolze 92 seconds into the second round after nearly locking up a choke in the closing seconds of round one. Saint Denis then got to fight in front of his home Paris crowd for the first time in the UFC and looked to put on a show as he knocked out a short notice debuting opponent in Gabriel Miranda 16 seconds into round two and nearly finishing him late in round one. After finishing two low-level opponents, Saint Denis then faced a tougher test in Ismael Bonfim and passed with flying colors as he locked up a submission late in the first round. For the record, all three of Bonfim’s previous career losses also ended in submissions so that has been a weakness for him. Saint Denis followed that up with another impressive performance, as he finished a really tough Thiago Moises in a late R2 TKO. Then most recently, Saint Denis landed a 91 second head kick knockout against Matt Frevola, in front of Frevola’s home New York crowd. Before joining the UFC, Saint Denis had never lost a fight or required the judges, and had only even seen the third round once.
Now 13-1 as a pro, Saint Denis has four wins by KO/TKO and nine submission victories. His last knockout win ended in round one, after his previous three all ended in round two. He has six first round submissions, two in round two, and one in round three. Five of his last eight early wins ended in round two, with the other three ending in round one. He’s never been finished himself, with his only loss coming in a decision in his 2021 UFC debut. Saint Denis has competed anywhere from 145 lb to 185 lb, but was primarily fighting at 165 lb and 170 lb before dropping down to 155 lb after his UFC debut at 170 lb.
This will be the 1st five-round UFC fight of Saint Denis’ career and he’s only ever seen the third round twice in his career, with just one of those making it past the 13 minute mark. So his championship round cardio remains a mystery.
Overall, Saint Denis is an aggressive finisher who has no problem throwing down in a brawl. He throws good slicing elbows and lots of body shots, but arguably does his best work on the mat. He started training in Judo as a kid, where he eventually earned his black belt, and was also in the French Special Forces. In addition to his Judo background, he’s a BJJ brown belt. While he comes from a grappling background, he will also gladly exchange on the feet, where he can be pretty reckless. He tends to leave his chin up high and relies on his insane durability to survive those exchanges. It seems like his striking defense has improved some, but he still averages 5.20 SSA/min. In fairness to him, he’s still only 28 years old and hasn’t even entered his prime yet, so he should be improving all the time. In his six UFC fights, Saint Denis landed 13 takedowns on 36 attempts (36.1% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 4 of 12 attempts (66.7% defense). We’ve seen Saint Denis slow down some in the back half of fights, which is understandable considering his crazy pace. It will be interesting to see if he slows his space any here in his first five-round fight or if he continues to empty the tank with reckless aggression.
Dustin Poirier
30th UFC Fight (21-7, NC)Looking to bounce back from a violent second-round headkick knockout loss against Justin Gaethje, the 35-year-old Poirier hasn’t won a fight since late 2022 and only has one win since July 2021. He’s lost two of his last three fights and is only 4-3 in his last seven. However, he’s also been facing the top of the division and never gets an easy fight. Nevertheless, he didn’t look very good against Gaethje and is clearly on the decline. Prior to losing to Gaethje in July 2023, Poirier locked up a third round submission win over Michael Chandler in November 2022, which is Poirier’s only submission victory since 2017 and just his second since 2012. Chandler was able to take Poirier down three times on seven attempts and finished with five and a half minutes of control time, before slowing down in round three, at which point Poirier was able to reverse him on the mat, take his back, and lock up a rear-naked choke. That came 11 months after Poirier was submitted early in the third round of a December 2021 title fight against Charles Oliveira. Poirier’s only other loss since 2016 was another third round submission with the belt on the line, that time in 2019 against Khabib Nurmagomedov. Leading up to his loss against Oliveira, Poirier notched back-to-back KO/TKO wins against Conor McGregor, after winning a wild five-round decision over Dan Hooker following his loss to Nurmagomedov.
Now 29-8 as a pro, Poirier has 14 wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and seven decision victories. 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. Six of his eight submission wins also occurred in the first two rounds. On the other side of things, he’s been knocked out three times, submitted three more, and has two decision defeats. After starting his pro career at 155 lb, Poirier dropped down to 145 lb for the first time in his 2011 UFC debut. He stayed at 145 lb for his first 11 UFC matches, where he went 8-3, before moving back up to 155 lb following a 2014 R1 TKO loss to McGregor (in the first of their three fights). Since moving back up to 155 lb, Poirier has gone 13-4 plus a No Contest, with the losses coming in a pair of third round submissions against Khabib and Oliveira, a 2016 first round KO against Michael Johnson, and his recent R2 KO loss to Gaethje. Of his 13 UFC wins at 155 lb, seven ended in KO/TKOs, four went the distance and two ended in submissions.
This will be the 13th five-round UFC fight of Poirier’s career (7-5). Four of those seven wins ended in KO/TKOs, two went the distance, and one ended in a submission. He was submitted in the later rounds in three of those five losses, and knocked out in the opening six minutes of the other two. Here are all of his five-round fights:
2023 R2 KO L vs. Justin Gaethje
2021 R3 SUB L vs. Charles Oliveira
2021 R1 TKO W vs. Conor McGregor
2021 R2 KO W vs. Conor McGregor
2020 R5 DEC W vs. Dan Hooker
2019 R3 SUB L vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov
2019 R5 DEC W vs. Max Holloway
2018 R2 TKO W vs. Eddie Alvarez
2018 R4 TKO W vs. Justin Gaethje
2017 R3 SUB W vs. Anthony Pettis
2016 R1 KO L vs. Michael Johnson
2012 R4 SUB L vs. The Korean Zombie
Overall, Poirier is primarily a striker but does have a BJJ black belt and will mix in occasional takedown attempts. He has a career 36% takedown accuracy and 63% defense, and in his last 10 fights he landed 4 of his 23 takedown attempts (17.4% accuracy), while getting taken down by his opponents on 14 of their 34 attempts (58.8% defense). He failed to get any of his last 10 opponents down more than once, while three of the last five opponents who tried to take him down landed multiple of their attempts. Chandler got him down three times, Hooker took him down four times, and Nurmagomedov took him down seven times. While Poirier will look for occasional submissions he’s been more prone to getting submitted himself on the mat lately. He’s generally looking to knock opponents out or outland his way to victory with the judges. He won the last five decisions he’s been to, with his last decision loss occurring all the way back in 2013. He averages 5.49 SSL/min and 4.30 SSA/min, but has been outlanded in significant strikes in six of his last eight fights, with the two exceptions both coming against McGregor. Poirier is never in a boring fight and now steps into another potential banger, but he’s getting up there in age and any fight could be his last, especially considering all the wear and tear on his body. He trains at American Top Team in Florida, which is just a 45 minute drive north of Miami, so he won’t have to travel far for this fight and should have the crowd behind him.
Fight Prediction:
Saint Denis will have a 3” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while also being seven years younger than the 35-year-old Poirier.
This has the potential to be a fight of the year candidate if Poirier can turn back the clock and avoid getting taken down, but both of those are a tough ask. Poirier’s defensive wrestling and grappling have been a consistent problem for him, and now he appears to be slowing down in general and is coming off a knockout loss. Poirier is the more technical striker and looks to have the better cardio, in addition to far more experience, but we expect Saint Denis’ grappling to be the real difference maker and like his chances of submitting Poirier in the first half of the fight. However, if Poirier can survive and take Saint Denis into the championship rounds, he may be able to outlast him and either find a late finish of his own or win a decision. So there are definitely paths to victory for Poirier, but he’s looked progressively worse in each of his last three fights and we legitimately wonder if this will be his swan song, retiring in front of a home away from home crowd following another early loss. We’ll take Saint Denis to win by submission in the first half of the fight, but who wouldn’t like to see a banger for the ages here?
Our favorite bet here is “Benoit Saint Denis R1/2/3” at +100.
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DFS Implications:
Saint Denis has been wreaking havoc since dropping down to 155 lb following a loss in his 170 lb UFC debut. He’s now finished five straight opponents in the opening two rounds, averaging 123 DraftKings points in those victories. He scored 109 or more points in each of his last four wins and 136 or more in two of those. While he is facing a step up in competition here, it’s still a great spot for Saint Denis to put another big score, as Poirier is a fighter on the decline, who’s willing to throw down in a brawl, and has been prone to getting taken down and submitted. So the tougher opponent has more of a theoretical impact on his floor than his ceiling and if Saint Denis wins, he still has massive scoring potential. There’s always the chance for a hyper efficient or poorly timed finish that doesn’t return a huge score, but Saint Denis’ ceiling is massive. We also still have questions surrounding his cardio if this fight makes it into the later rounds, so we’re mostly relying on his early finishing ability to get the job done. One other downside with him in tournaments is that he’s habitually highly owned and projects to be the most popular fighter on the card. So you’ll need to be mindful of how you build tournament lineups that include him if you want to get unique. The odds imply Saint Denis has a 65% chance to win, a 52% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Poirier is coming off a knockout loss and has looked progressively worse in each of his last three fights as he appears to be approaching the tail end of his career. The last time he put up a usable score was in 2021 when he landed back-to-back finishes against Conor McGregor. He followed that up by getting submitted by Charles Oliveira, and then only scored 67 DraftKings points in a 2022 third round submission over Michael Chandler, the lowest score of Poirier’s career in a win. Then he didn’t look very good in his last fight and was knocked out a minute into round two. He’s 35 years old and this will be his 30th UFC fight, which is taking place just 45 minutes south of where he trains at American Top Team. Would it really be that surprising if he got submitted here and then retired on the spot? While Poirier is accustomed to fighting top contenders and champions, opposed to up-and-coming prospects, this is a daunting matchup for Poirier, who has struggled against grapplers. Poirier will be at risk of getting finished anytime this fight hits the mat and it’s possible his chin is somewhat shot at this stage of his career as well. That leaves him with a non-existent floor, but if he can survive the first half of the fight, we could see Saint Denis slow down. Poirier obviously has way more experience and won the last three fights he was part of that made it to the championship rounds. We’re expecting an action-packed fight and if Poirier does pull off the upset, it’s tougher to see him getting left out of winning lineups at his cheap price tag—although he did fail to score well in his last mid-round finish. The odds imply Poirier has a 35% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Sean O'Malley
12th UFC Fight (9-1, NC)Coming off an early second round TKO over Aljamain Sterling, O'Malley recently pulled off the upset as a +200 underdog to win the Bantamweight belt. The stoppage was definitely quick and a lot of refs let that fight go on, and Sterling also left himself exposed as he came lunging in with his eyes closed asking to be knocked out. Sterling also barely looked to wrestle, failing to land either of his two attempts and it was all around a pathetic performance on his part in his final fight before moving up to 145 lb. Prior to that, O'Malley won a controversial split-decision win over Petr Yan, which arguably could have just as easily been scored 30-27 for Yan as 29-28 for O'Malley. Rounds one and three were fairly close, Yan clearly won round two. O'Malley was able to split Yan open with a knee midway through round three, and that visual seemingly swayed the judges. Yan was able to take O'Malley down six times on 13 attempts and control him for nearly six minutes, while O'Malley finished ahead in significant strikes 84-58. That’s the only decision that O'Malley has been to since 2018 and seven of his last nine fights ended by KO/TKO (6-1). The one other exception was a 2022 No Contest against Pedro Munhoz that was stopped for an eye poke. O'Malley went up against a barrage of leg kicks from Munhoz, which put O'Malley’s previously twice injured leg to the test. Literally 100% of Munhoz’s 26 significant strikes landed were leg kicks and O'Malley was able to check and absorb them all without reinjuring his leg. O'Malley appeared primarily focussed on defending the kicks of Munhoz and never got a ton of his own offense going as he lost the first round on two of the three judges’ scorecards, before the fight was stopped midway through round two. Amazingly, the No Contest still propelled O'Malley from fighting unranked opponents just before facing Munhoz to the top Bantamweight contender in his next match, as he leapfrogged the rankings on his way to a title shot.
Now 17-1 as a pro, O'Malley has 12 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and four decision victories. His lone submission win came in the first round of his third pro fight back in 2015, while eight of his knockout wins occurred in round one, two ended in round two, and two came in round three. While six of O’Malley’s nine UFC wins ended in knockouts, most of those were struggling and low-level opponents and he’s also never knocked anybody out that hadn’t previously been knocked out before. O'Malley’s only career loss was a 2020 R1 TKO against Marlon Vera, who shut down O'Malley’s foot with a leg kick that led to the stoppage.
This will be the 2nd five-round fight of O'Malley’s career and he’s never been in a match that lasted longer than 15 minutes, which leaves his championship round cardio a mystery. His only other five round fight was his recent R2 TKO win over Sterling and it’s hard to take much away from that fight.
Overall, O'Malley is an exciting striker who averages the highest number of significant strikes landed on the slate at 7.25/min, while only absorbing 3.51/min. He hasn’t landed a takedown since his UFC debut, and only even attempted one in his last 10 fights. Between his 11 UFC fights and his DWCS appearance he landed 3 of his 7 attempts (42.9% accuracy), with all but one of those attempts coming in his UFC debut. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 12 of their 32 attempts (62.5% defense). While it’s rare to see O'Malley grapple in the UFC, he is a BJJ brown belt and will look for submissions off his back when he gets taken down. However, neither his wrestling or his grappling have impressed us and he’ll have his lunch eaten on the mat if he ever faces Merab Dvalishvili. We also wonder about O'Malley’s durability, which hasn’t been tested much, but looked kind of suspect when it was against Petr Yan. O'Malley has also been injury prone in the past and is just built like a guy that breaks easily.
Marlon Vera
23rd UFC Fight (15-7)Stepping into his first UFC title shot, Vera won a high-volume decision over Pedro Munhoz the same night that O'Malley won the belt over Sterling. For as much is made about Vera being a slow starter, he landed 39 significant strikes in the first round against Munhoz and all three judges scored the round for him. While the fight seemed pretty close for the first two rounds, two of the three judges scored it 30-27 for Vera, while the other judge gave Munhoz round two. Vera finished ahead 141-113 in significant strikes, but was only ahead by five strikes going into round three. Prior to that win, Vera suffered his only loss in his last six fights when he got outwrestled by Cory Sandhagenov in a 2023 five-round decision that was somehow split, but clearly Sandhagen won. Sandhagen landed three takedowns on 12 attempts with seven minutes of control time in the fight, while also leading 128-58 in significant strikes and 187-73 in total strikes and it seemed like Vera was having an off night. That came after Vera knocked out Dominick Cruz in the fourth round of another main event, after winning an action-packed five-round decision over Rob Font just before that. Leading up to his string of main events, Vera knocked out a washed up Frankie Edgar in the third round, after winning a three-round decision over Davey Grant and losing a three-round decision to Jose Aldo. Since finishing O'Malley in the first round back in 2020, Vera has seen the third round in seven straight fights, with five of those going the distance. His two finishes over that stretch were a pair of late round knockouts against washed up opponents in a 37-year-old Dominick Cruz and a 40-year-old Frankie Edgar. Vera has gone 11-3 in his last 14 fights, with those three losses coming in decisions against Cory Sandhagen, Jose Aldo, and Song Yadong.
Now 23-8-1 as a pro, Vera has eight wins by KO/TKO, 10 submissions, and five decision victories. He’s never been finished, with all eight of his career losses going the distance. He’s gone just 4-7 with the judges in the UFC, but won three of the last four decisions he’s been, after going 1-6 in his first seven decisions with the organization. Eleven of his 15 UFC wins have come early, but only three of those finishes occurred in round one, while four ended in round two, three in round three, and one in round four. Three of his last four finishes occurred in rounds three and four. While Vera has more submission wins than knockouts, his last four finishes all came by KO/TKO and he didn’t submit any of his last 10 opponents going back to 2019.
This will be the 4th five-round fight of Vera’s career, with his previous three all occurring in his last four fights. He lost a wrestling-heavy decision to Cory Sandhagen in his last main event, after knocking out Dominick Cruz in the fourth round and winning a five-round decision over Rob Font just before that. Vera’s cardio and durability both looked phenomenal in those fights and he seems to be built for five-rounds.
Overall, Vera is an insanely durable cardio machine who’s generally been content with keeping fights standing lately, despite being a BJJ black belt with 10 submission wins on his record. He didn’t land a takedown in any of his last five fights on just two attempts, and only took two of his last 10 opponents down, landing 4 of his 11 takedown attempts (36.4% accuracy) over his last 10 fights. Over that same stretch, his opponents got him down on 10 of their 37 attempts (73% defense). However, when he has been taken down we’ve seen him controlled for periods of time and he’s not a great wrestler. Despite already having 22 UFC fights under his belt, he only turned 31 in December and should be in his prime. He absorbs more significant strikes than he lands, as he averages 4.37 SSL/min and 5.16 SSA/min. That generally leaves him reliant on damage and finishes to win fights and you can’t ask someone for their opinion on him without hearing about how he’s a slow starter. That’s historically been true and he lost the first round in six of his last seven fights that made it to round two, but he did win the first round in his last fight. And with five rounds to work with, losing the first round is far less impactful than in a three-round match. One annoying thing with Vera is that he doesn’t always go in for the kill after hurting his opponents and likes to showboat at times, which is how Rob Font was able to survive to see the scorecards.
Fight Prediction:
O’Malley will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while being two years younger than Vera.
This will be a rematch of a 2020 fight that went sideways for O’Malley two minutes into the first round when Vera shut down his leg with a kick. O’Malley survived for a little bit on one wheel but once Vera started landing elbows on the mat it was quickly stopped late in round one. It’s hard to take too much away from that fight, and we shouldn’t place too much emphasis on a fight that happened almost four years ago, but it played out as a low-volume tactical kickboxing battle and no one attempted a takedown, while Vera finished ahead in striking 18-10.
Vera has never been finished and he appears virtually invincible, while being universally regarded as a slow starter. However, it seems like the narrative has gone a little too far, where now people are assuming it’s impossible for him to win the first round and his tendency to drop the first round is already being baked into his price tag. Keep in mind, he did win the first round in his last fight, landing two and a half times more significant strikes against Pedro Munhoz in the opening five minutes than O’Malley did (38 vs. 15). O’Malley then only landed 23 significant strikes in round one against Petr Yan and only eight in the opening five minutes against Sterling. So when people talk about O’Malley being a fast starter, they’re going back to his days of fighting bums and we’ve seen three straight slow starts from O’Malley once he began facing legitimate competition. And considering O’Malley has still never seen the championship rounds in his career, we’d be surprised if he looked to push a high pace early on here, knowing that Vera has never been finished and will be ready for five hard rounds.
Neither of these two look for many takedowns, but they’ve both shown weaknesses when it comes to defensive wrestling. So it won’t be surprising if one or both of them look to capitalize on that weakness, but it could also play out as a pure striking battle. O’Malley is obviously the taller, longer fighter, and he has good speed and footwork. The smartest game plan for him would be to rely on those attributes and pick Vera apart from the outside, frustrating him, while refusing to engage in a fire fight. And on the flipside, Vera will want to do just the opposite. He’ll want to weaponize his cardio and showcase his durability by throwing down in an uptempo barnburner with the two guys standing in front of each other exchanging blows. If he can convince O’Malley to take part in that style of fight, then we really like his chances of winning and likely finishing O’Malley in a late round knockout. Even if O’Malley does take the more strategic approach of hanging out on the outside, we could still see Vera land enough leg kicks to slow him down and by the later rounds O’Malley’s mobility could be compromised. Then we could still see Vera land a late finish or even win a decision, so it’s not as simple as, “If O’Malley fights smart he’ll win.” We see more ways for Vera to win this fight than the other way around and the line is kind of surprising. Vera has faced the much tougher strength of schedule, is the one with the championship round experience, is more durable, has better cardio, and is a superior grappler. O’Malley’s just a tall, fast kickboxer, with poor durability and bad wrestling, who’s gotten some good breaks and was spoon fed for most of his UFC career. Ultimately, they’re all just holding the belt for Merab anyways, but we like Vera to pull off the upset here. While it won’t be at all surprising if this ends in a close decision, we’ll say Vera lands a late knockout in a war of attrition.
Our favorite bet here is “Marlon Vera ML” at +230.
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DFS Implications:
O’Malley has averaged 99 DraftKings points in his nine UFC wins, but failed to top 91 points in any of his last three fights since he started facing ranked opponents. And while he averages 7.25 SSL/min, that number drops to 4.62 SSL/min in those last three fights. Pedro Munhoz averages 6.14 SSA/min in his career and O’Malley only landed 3.07 SS/min against him. Compare that to how Vera performed against Munhoz, landing 9.40 SS/min. We also saw O’Malley get taken down six times by Petr Yan, after only getting taken down five times across his first eight UFC appearances. While it’s not surprising that O’Malley’s stats suffered once he began facing legitimate competition, it is concerning. O’Malley was very fortunate to walk away with a three-round decision win over Yan in his second most recent match, but still only scored 65 DraftKings points and 70 points on FanDuel. If we extend his stats in that fight over the course of 25 minutes he still only would have been looking at 88 DraftKings points and 104 points on FanDuel. Then in his last fight, he was only on pace to land 107 significant strikes against Sterling over the course of 25 minutes, which is nowhere close to enough for him to be useful without a finish. Theoretically, Vera is a high-upside opponent who averages 5.16 SSA/min and his last five opponents all landed 92 or more significant strikes against him, with Rob Font landing 271 significant strikes, the third most in UFC history. However, O’Malley only landed 10 strikes in their first first, even if it did only last a round, with O’Malley getting hurt midway through. O’Malley had a more cautious game plan in that match that involved a lot of footwork, kicks, and circling the outside. If you combine that with his non-existent wrestling and high salary, you have an easy path for him to bust here. That’s not to say he’ll definitely come in here with the same game plan he had in that fight, but we’d be surprised if he was willing to stand and trade with Vera in the pocket for extended periods of time. O’Malley has also never been to the championship rounds in his career and was looking pretty tired in the third round against Yan, so we imagine he’ll be looking to manage his cardio and not push too high of an early pace. Vera has never been finished and is known for his cardio, so O’Malley has to be ready to go the full five rounds. We expect O’Malley to be popular in all contest types, which creates a very interesting leverage opportunity in tournaments by fading up. There are multiple ways he busts and even if he does become the first fighter to ever finish Vera or win a higher volume decision than expected, he’ll still need to outscore the other high priced options on the slate. The odds imply O’Malley has a 70% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Vera has averaged 94 DraftKings points in his 15 UFC wins, scoring 81 or more points in each of his last 13 victories. While he only topped 98 points in one of his last eight wins, he’s shown a solid floor and was able to score 129 points in a five-round decision win over Rob Font. He has seven knockdowns in his last five fights, while he’s never been knocked down once himself in 22 UFC appearances. Three of his last four fights were scheduled to go five rounds, with all of those making it to the championship rounds and two going the distance. He’s incredibly durable, with great cardio, and appears built for five-round fights, where his tendency to lose the first round is less impactful. While he hasn’t been looking to wrestle much lately, he’s also a BJJ black belt and has 10 submission wins on his record, so he’s dangerous anywhere a fight can go. Working against him, O’Malley is a tall, rangy fighter with good footwork, who only averages 3.51 SSA/min and will now have the larger cage to help him keep his range and control the distance, if he so chooses. So we could see a slower paced fight with O’Malley dancing along the outside of the Octagon, trying to snipe Vera from distance. That would obviously be bad for DFS, but it remains to be seen if O’Malley can keep that up for five rounds, as he’s never been past the third round in his career and has only even prepared for a single five-round fight. Vera throws good kicks that he used to shut down O’Malley’s leg two minutes into their first fight and even in a slower paced match we should see the damage add up for O’Malley. And at Vera’s cheap price tag, he doesn’t need to put up a huge score to be useful, he likely just needs to win. His insane durability also leaves him with a decent floor even in a loss, which adds to his appeal in small-field and low-risk contests. While we’ve seen Vera be popular in all of his past five-round fights, even when he’s the underdog, O’Malley’s high projected ownership should result in Vera being lower owned than in those past fights. That’s just one more reason to like Vera here and he’s clearly the better DFS play in this matchup. The odds imply Vera has a 30% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
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Top UFC PrizePicks Play of the Week:
Maryna Moroz OVER 77.5 Pts
