Tip: Hard Refresh this page (Cmd + Shift + R on a Mac, Ctrl + F5 on PC) to assure you're looking at the most up to date version of The Sheet.
Fighter Notes:
Said Nurmagomedov
4nd UFC Fight (2-1)Coming off his second career loss and first since 2014, Nurmagomedov had previously won seven in a row. Three of his last four and seven of his last nine fights have now ended in decisions, however, both early finishes during that span came in the form of R1 wins. He won by KO in his second UFC fight in 2019 and had a Guillotine Choke submission victory back in 2017. Notably, all six of his career early finishes came in R1—three by KO and three by submission. It’s worth pointing out that three of those came in his first three fights, two of those were against opponents making their pro debuts who never fought again and the third is currently 11-15.
As you’ll likely hear at the beginning of his UFC fights, Nurmagomedov is unrelated to Khabib Nurmagomedov, but they are both from Dagestan Russia as well as being friends. Although there appear to be several people who claim they’re cousins. Regardless, they train with different teams and have completely different fighting styles. Said throws tons of spinning attacks and flashy kicks opposed to the smothering fighting style of Khabib.
Nurmagomedov had been fighting at 135 lb before joining the UFC, but attempted to move down to 125 lb for his UFC debut. Despite winning his debut in a split decision, he decided to move back up to 135 lb afterwards.
The majority (7 of 13) of Nurmagomedov’s wins have come in decisions, as have both of his career losses. He’s shown he lacks the striking and takedown volume to score well in DFS in a decision, so you’re likely relying on a R1 finish if you play him.
Mark Striegl
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Mark Striegl was originally scheduled to fight Timur Valiev in August, but it got canceled after Striegl tested positive for COVID. Now recovered, Striegl has been cleared to fight.
Making his UFC debut, Striegl is coming off a NC for a low blow, but won four in a row prior. The NC occurred in Striegl’s first title defense of the URCC Featherweight Championship Belt that he still holds. Ending the fight for the low blow seemed pretty extreme as it really didn't look that bad. Striegl was commanding the fight with leg strikes and it seemed like his opponent, who claimed he "couldn't feel his legs" after the low blow, may have just wanted out.
Striegl has only two losses to go with his 18 career wins. After winning his first 12 pro fights, his first loss came in a 2013 R3 Leg Scissor Choke submission. His only other career loss came in a 2015 R3 Rear-Naked Choke submission. In his most recent loss he was getting his lead leg torn up which is notable considering how many leg strikes Nurmagomedov throws.
A submission specialist, 14 of Striegl’s 18 wins have come by submission and eleven of his last 13 wins have come in that fashion. He notably submitted Kai Kara-France in R1 of a 2014 match. You may remember Kara-France recently lost in his UFC debut to Brandon Royval, but he’s at least regarded as a UFC level talent.
Striegl seems like he approaches most fights the same way. He'll start with leg strikes and then attempt to get his opponent to the mat. If his opponent ends up on their back Striegl goes for side control followed by a headlock, looking to get a rare Scarf Hold Armlock submission, which he’s ended numerous fights with. Or if his opponent gives up their back, Striegl will look for the Rear-Naked Choke submission. He also showed a solid standing Guillotine in his 2nd most recent fight, that actually put his opponent to sleep on his feet.
As we mentioned previously, massive favorite Nurmagomedov likely needs a R1 finish to put up a useful DFS score. At his lower price and as more of a takedown threat, Striegl could potentially sneak into optimal lineups with a later finish, especially if the other underdogs priced around him fail. However, it’s still more likely that Nurmagomedov ends up winning this fight in a decision and neither of these two score well.
Maxim Grishin
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Stepping in on short notice and giving up 30 pounds to his last opponent—as he fought up a weight class—Grishin seemingly had the deck stacked against him when he made his UFC debut back in July. He was clearly undersized for a Heavyweight fight at just 223 lb. Tybura took full advantage of the size difference as he pushed and layed on Grishin for 15 agonizing minutes.
Now back down to Light Heavyweight, this almost feels like Grishin’s true UFC debut. He comes in at age 36 with a whopping 40 fights under his belt—including 30 wins with 21 early victories (15 KO’s & 6 submissions). He only has eight losses in his 12 year pro career and half of those came in his first eight fights from 2008-2009. Since 2010 his four losses came via a 2011 R1 Rear-Naked Choke, a 2011 R5 KO, a 2016 R4 KO and then the recent R3 Decision in his UFC debut. So he’s certainly not an easy guy to finish and the only person to do so since 2011 was Magomed Ankalaev, who KO’d Grishin in R4 of their 2016 fight. For the record, Ankalaev is currently 13-1 and 4-1 in the UFC.
Grishin has two 2-round draws in the last two years which both came in the Professional Fighters League Playoffs. Disregarding those for a moment, Grishin won his seven three round fights prior to the recent Tybura loss, with three KO’s (two in R1 & one in R3), one R2 Rear-Naked Choke submission and three decisions. His most recent win was a 2019 R1 KO.
Gadzhimurad Antigulov
6th UFC Fight (2-3)Fighting like a bear on roller skates, Antigulov seemingly developed his fighting style while watching the movie Speed. However, he did look a little more patient in his last fight—at least in the opening seconds—but he was still submitted two minutes into the first round.
Now coming off three straight R1 losses it will be interesting to see how he starts this next fight, now having not won since May of 2017. Interestingly, despite having only seven career losses across 27 fights, this is his second three fight losing streak. His first occurred from 2012-2013 and he broke it with a R1 submission in his next match. His only other career loss came in his pro debut all the way back in 2009.
Antigulov won his first two UFC fights with R1 submissions—a Guillotine Choke in his UFC debut followed up by a Rear-Nakaed Choke. However, then he was knocked out in R1 of his next two fights before the recent R1 submission loss to Paul Craig.
Prior to the trio of recent losses, he had 14 straight wins with 13 early finishes (12 in R1). Amazingly, only two of his last 17 and 5 of his career 27 fights have made it out of R1. He’s only seen R3 once and that came in his lone career decision.
Of note, Antigulov has been so hyper efficient in his wins that even in his two R1 submission victories he didn't break 100 DraftKings points. Now priced near the bottom of all fighters, that may be of less significance as even a lower scoring R1 win would most likely be enough for him to sneak into optimal lineups.
We’re not sure if it’s physically possible for this fight to go the distance as Antigulov would likely either explode or die of exhaustion first. Working under the assumption that this fight ends early, we think it’s one you pretty much have to have a piece of in DFS lineups. Antigulov’s price and potential make him a live dog, despite his three fight losing streak, while Grishin’s durability and finishing upside make him our preferred choice, salary permitting. Either way, it seems unlikely this fight makes it out of the first round.
Jamie Mullarkey
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Mullarkey is coming off a three round decision loss against tough 6-1 (now 9-1) Brad Riddell, in a fight where they were both making their respective UFC debuts. Mullarkey showed he could take a beating in that fight absorbing 91 violent strikes from Riddell.
Mullarkey fought at 145 lb until 2018, when he moved up to the 155 lb division. His only loss since moving up came in his last fight. Prior to the loss, Mullarkey had won four in a row, all by KO, and his last 12 fights had ended early. The only other decision of his career came in his second pro fight in a 2014 win. His last 10 wins have consisted of seven KO’s and three submissions.
Seven of his 15 pro fights have ended in R1 with him winning six of those. The loss came against current champ, Alexander Volkanovski, back in 2016. Mullarkey’s only other time getting KO’d came just after that fight in a 2016 R2 KO at the hands of an unimpressive Luke Catubig. Mullarkey bounced back from the pair of KO losses with four straight KO finishes of his own, punching his ticket to the UFC.
Fares Ziam
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Thirteen months removed from one of the lowest scoring decision losses you’ll ever see, Ziam spent almost his entire UFC debut pushed up against the cage or on his back. He ended up landing just 10 significant strikes while adding nothing else on the scoresheet. To his credit, his opponent didn’t do much either, landing just 21 significant strikes while adding three takedowns.
With a kickboxing background, Ziam had won his five fights prior with four early finishes. Impressively, nine of his 10 career wins came early. Appearing to be a tough fighter to score well against, he’s never been knocked out and sports a 75% takedown defense—albeit based on just the one UFC fight. His long legs and lanky frame seem to make him tough to get down as you can never lift him very far off the ground. He has been submitted twice, which came in a pair of 2016 R1 Rear-Naked Chokes.
With both of these two coming off losses in their UFC debuts, their stats are expectedly subpar. This will likely help to keep their DFS ownership down. In an interesting decision, FanDuel decided to price them both at $15. This is something you don’t see very often and should also further depress Ziam’s ownership, who’s a slight underdog in this match. Mullarkey is likely to shoot for a decent amount of takedowns, yet only posted a 20% takedown accuracy in his last fight—going 3 for 15 against Riddell. Riddell went on to be taken down a combined 11 times in his next two fights, so takedown defense is not his strong point.
Ziam on the other hand, showed a solid takedown defense in his debut, successfully defending 9 of Madge’s 12 takedown attempts. It’s hard to say how good Madge is at takedowns, as all of his documented attempts came against Ziam. So while this isn’t the easiest fight to predict the outcome of, Ziam stands out as a solid FanDuel play, given his presumed lower ownership, and expected points from takedown defense. That doesn’t necessarily mean Mullarkey is a bad play on either site. He’s the cheapest favorite on Fanduel and one of the cheapest favorites on DraftKings. Both guys present value, just keep in mind that Vegas has this as the fourth most likely fight on the slate to end in a decision. We’re leaning Mullarkey to win this one but it could definitely go either way.
Junyong Park
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off his first UFC win in two attempts, Park has now won eight of his last nine fights, with all but two of those nine ending early. However, the two decisions both came in his last four fights and he didn’t demonstrate a great desire to end the fight early in his last match. In fairness, that fight was also against Marc-Andre Barriault who's never been finished early. Once Park seemed confident he had a lead in that fight, he was content with evading action for essentially the entire third round.
Park’s last two losses both came by submission (2019 & 2016), which isn’t Phillips’ forte—although Phillips does have two submission wins to his name. Park has never been knocked out in his 15 pro fights—hopefully that doesn’t give him a false sense of security against Phillips.
While Park didn’t attempt any takedowns in his UFC debut, which ended in a R2 submission loss against Anthony Hernandez, he most recently went 5 for 10 on takedowns against Marc-Andre Barriault. However, he was unable to do anything with any of those takedowns or even keep Barriault down for any real amount of time. So it’s unclear what kind of ground game he has at the UFC level. He does have three submission wins, two by Rear-Naked Choke and one by Anaconda Choke, which all came consecutively between 2016-2017. One of those wins came against another knockout specialist, Ray Cooper III, so it will be interesting to see if Park draws from that game plan.
Going against a one trick pony in power-puncher John Phillips who has a putrid 11% takedown defense, the game plan seems obvious here to anyone paying attention.
John Phillips
6th UFC Fight (1-4)Fresh off a R2 submission bludgeoning at the hands of Chimaev, Phillips has now lost four of his five UFC fights. Three of those losses came by submission with the other ending in a split decision. His only UFC win came in a 17 second R1 KO in 2019. His only two career submission wins both came in 2012, one by Guillotine Choke and the other a Triangle Choke. Content with hunting for knockout blows, Phillips lands an anemic 2.25 SS/min on average and is your prototypical KO or bust fighter. Despite his lengthy 15 year pro MMA career, he’s only been KO’d twice—once in his second pro fight all the way back in 2006 and then in a doctor’s stoppage in 2011. Five of his last six losses have come by submission. It feels like getting this fight right could likely be a key component to winning on Saturday’s DFS slate. So let’s dive a little deeper into Phillips’ UFC career.
John Phillips and Charles Byrd made their UFC debuts against one another in 2018. Phillips came in red hot on a four fight win streak, all by KO, with his last three fights all ending in R1. Byrd entered on a similar three fight win streak that included two submissions and a KO with two R1 finishes. Byrd smartly took the fight to the mat immediately and kept it there for four minutes until he was eventually able to submit Phillips with a Rear-Naked Choke. For what it’s worth, Byrd shares the same takedown accuracy as Park of 50% but has more submission wins.
In Phillips second UFC fight he went up against a much taller and longer 6’3” Kevin Holland. Holland was able to often stay out of Phillips’ striking range while landing his own shots at will. He also showed his elusiveness to dodge Phillips’ blitzes and his toughness when Phillips was able to land heavy strikes. Holland seemed more willing to brawl with Phillips than most, but only someone with Holland’s body type and toughness could take this approach. Phillips looked like he started to gas himself out in the middle of R2 but seemed to find somewhat of a second wind as the round went on. Holland quickly grounded the fight in R3 and eventually ended it with a Rear-Naked Choke submission. Despite Holland’s 36% takedown accuracy he was able to get Phillips down five times in this fight, mostly in R3.
Phillips’ third UFC fight paired him with fellow Welshman, Jack Marshman. Marshman has now had seven UFC fights and has yet to attempt a takedown in any of those. Phillips must have been salivating at the matchup. Alas, Marshamn came in with a defensive game plan—only looking to counter strike—and circled away from Phillips throughout the fight. That turned out to be just enough to squeak out a split decision in a close fight that actually saw Phillips outland Marshman 32-31 in significant strikes while adding a knockdown early in the fight.
Note: Park took a similar approach as Marshamn in the third round of his last fight, and if this turns out to be his approach against Phillips then this fight will be a massive bust.
Now 0-3 in the UFC and coming off a demoralizing split decision loss where his opponent refused to engage him, Phillips was potentially fighting for his UFC life as he squared off against then 8-1 (0-1 in the UFC) Alen Amedovski. A kindred spirit to Phillips, power puncher Amedovski won all eight of his fights prior to joining the UFC by KO, six in R1. Amedovski was coming off a disappointing first career loss in his UFC debut where he was outstruck 43-6 in significant strikes and smothered in control time 9:33 to 0:11. Amedovski attempted zero takedowns in that fight, which is something that would have drawn Phillips to this matchup. In what amounted to John Phillips’ idea of a perfect scrap, both fighters came out swinging and the fight only lasted 17 seconds, with Phillips the one left standing. While there was plenty of footage of Phillips knocking grown men out in his 15 year pro MMA career, this first UFC knockout should serve as an instructional video for all future opponents of what NOT to do when you go up against John Phillips. The one dimensional Phillips is helpless on his back and slow on his feet, but he can definitely throw heavy hands.
We probably don’t need to recap what happened to Phillips in his most recent fight against Khamzat Chimaev, just three months ago, but on the off chance this is your first week watching the UFC or you just woke up from a coma, this is for you. Exploding onto the scene, Chimaev threw one kick to draw Phillips out and then shot under his punches to land a takedown just five seconds into the fight. Then in typical Chimaev fashion, he dragged his prey over to his corner and proceeded to smash him on the ground. A bloodied and battered John Phillips had no answer for the beat down, but did survive the mauling until early in R2 when he finally tapped out. While Amedovski showed exactly what not to do against Phillips, Chimaev followed in the footsteps of Charles Byrd in showing how easy it is to defeat Phillips if you simply take him to the ground.
While it’s true sometimes fighter often do stupid/crazy things, Junyong Park and his team would have to be literally insane to come into this fight with any other gameplan than to immediately try and take Phillips down. Phillips is legit helpless on the ground and has an 11% takedown defense. The only reason for pause here is that Park has demonstrated he’s more comfortable on his feet and he hasn’t shown a formidable ground game on the UFC level yet. If he psychotically chooses to stand up and brawl with Phillips, or is unable to capitalize on Phillips’ 11% takedown defense, then this one could go sideways quickly. Maybe we’re being overly optimistic on rational coaching, but we think Park does take this one to the ground and is able to submit Phillips.
Gillian Robertson
8th UFC Fight (5-2)
While Robertson’s 8-4 pro record won’t blow anyone away, since losing her pro debut her only other three losses have come against mauler Maycee Barber, submission ninja Mayra Bueno SIlva, and #3 ranked Flyweight Cynthia Calvillo. Meanwhile she’s submitted Cortney Casey, Veronica Macedo, Molly McCann, Emily Whitmire, Hannah Cifers and Miki Rogers, while also knocking out Sarah Frota for good measure. Her last eight fights have all ended early with her winning six of those. Despite going pro three years
Robertson is a submission specialist who claims to be working on her stand up game (they all say that, right?). There’s no reason she shouldn’t be able to execute a similar game plan against Botelho as what Calvillo did when she submitted Botelho in R1 of their match. Robertson has consistently scored well in DFS, scoring 102 or more DraftKings points in four of her five UFC wins. Also notable is that her opponents have scored well in her losses, with her last two defeats both coming in R1.
Poliana Botelho
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Botelho is coming off an 18 month layoff, following a decision win over Lauren Mueller. That was Botelho’s first fight back up at 125 lb where she began her pro career, after fighting her first three UFC fights at 115 lb.
Botelho decided to make the weight switch following her 2018 R1 Rear-Naked Choke submission loss to Cynthia Calvillo. That was only Botelho’s second loss in her 10 fight pro career. Her first loss came in a 2014 decision in her third pro fight.
Since joining the UFC, she’s won two decisions, but also has an impressive 33 second R1 KO victory. She landed a violent liver kick in the KO and finished it with a flurry of punches. Her other five career KO victories came in her first six pro fights against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-0, 3-1, 4-1, 5-0. With only 10 fights in seven years, Botelho hasn’t been a very active fighter as a pro and didn’t fight at all in 2016.
In a classic battle between striker and grappler, both of these womens’ most recent losses layout the blueprints for how to defeat them. Barber showed that Robertson can be exposed on her feet and is susceptible to being blitzed with heavy strikes. As a heavy striker herself, Botelho would be wise to come in with an identical game plan. And on the other side, Calvillo exposed Botelho’s ground game, which is exactly how Robertson likes to attack her opponents. What it looks like this fight will come down to is whether or not Robertson can take the fight to the ground before she gets mauled by Botelho.
Working in Botelho’s favor is her 88% takedown defense. Robertson only has a 52% takedown accuracy, so she will need to choose her spots wisely if she wants to survive long enough to get this fight to the mat. We like this fight to end early and think both women have a chance to win it. With that said, we like Robertson to get the fight to the ground and most likely win with a Rear-Naked Choke or Armbar submission. Also worth noting is that Boetelho looks like a better play on FanDuel where she is relatively cheaper and will accrue points for takedown defense.
Mateusz Gamrot
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Gamrot is coming off a successful defense of the KSW Lightweight Champion Belt in a lackluster five round decision win, which took place just a couple of months ago on August 29th. He’s now making his UFC debut and fighting for the third time in just over three months. He comes in with a perfect 17-0 record.
His last four fights have ended in a R5 decision win, a R3 KO win, another R5 decision win, and a R4 submission win. Four of his last seven fights (not counting a NC) ended in decisions. And 8 of his total 17 pro fights ended in decisions. Only two of his 17 wins have come in R1 and those were in 2012 and 2014, early in his career. Gamrot notably didn’t fight at all in 2019.
Gamrot is a technical striker, who at times throws quick combos that leave the door open for interpretive score keeping in terms of both strikes landed and whether they count as significant. He’s coming off a low volume fight where he struggled to get his opponent to the ground, but not for lack of attempts. He’s now had four straight fights scheduled to go five rounds so he may be accustomed to pacing himself. It will be interesting to see if he’s able to up the tempo, now switching to a three round fight.
Guram Kutateladze
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Eleven months removed from a 44 second R1 KO win, Kutateladze is also making his UFC debut, however he’ll be doing it on shorter notice. He was announced as a replacement on October 6th after Mustafaev dropped out.
In his recent 44 second KO, Kutateladze actually looked like he might be in trouble early after taking several clean shots and almost going down before landing his own stiff right to the body and left to the chin of his opponent. That was all it took to knock Silva down and Kutateladze quickly hopped on top to finish him with hammer punches.
Kutateladze has now won eight in a row, including R1 finishes in three of his last four. He also has KO wins in four of his last five fights. He hasn’t fought the toughest competition though so this should be a step up for him. We were not impressed by his striking defense either.
He doesn't appear to be a submission threat and his only career submission win came in his pro debut in 2010. Also notable, his only career submission loss, which is also his most recent loss, came in 2015 via a R1 Kneebar. He’s never been knocked out.
Both of these fighters seem to be lower volume R1 KO or bust DFS plays who are more likely to disappoint than to go off. There’s always an element of the unknown when you pair up two guys both making their UFC debuts, leaving the potential that one (or both) of them are not cut out for the UFC.
If this does turn out to be one of those lopsided double debuts, where it’s immediately clear one guy has no business being there, Gamrot has more experience and has faced seemingly tougher competition. So his fraud risk is likely lower. But we think Gamrot wins this one in a low volume decision barring an early KO.
Thomas Almeida
9th UFC Fight (5-3)A 20-year-old Almeida shot onto the MMA scene winning his first 20 pro fights—amazingly all of those came by the age of 24. Impressively, 19 of the wins came early with 16 KO’s and three submissions, to go with his lone decision in his 2014 UFC debut. After winning all 16 of his pre UFC fights, his skills seemed to translate seamlessly into the UFC as he won his first four fights there—including three KO's (two in R1 and the other early in R2). However, a 2016 R1 KO loss to Cody Garbrandt seemed to send Almeida's career spiraling.
In what was Almeida’s first UFC main event, Garbrandt proved to be too fast for him as he landed several early punches that quickly put Almeida out in the first round. In his next fight, Almeida was able to bounce back with a R2 KO, but then lost a decision against Jimmie Rivera in what ended up being Almeida's only 2017 appearance. The only time we've seen Almeida since the 2017 decision loss was in a 2018 R2 KO loss against Rob Font.
Almeida had been scheduled to fight Marlon Vera in March of 2019 but pulled out in January for medical reasons. Apparently he was dealing with vision issues that required eye surgery.
Seemingly recovered, Almeida was then scheduled to fight Alejandro Perez last week, but Perez pulled out after testing positive for COVID and on October 8th Martinez stepped in on short notice and the fight was pushed back to this week.
Now coming off back to back losses for the first time in his career and loser of 3 of his last 4 fights, Almeida hasn't fought in 33 months. His last win was in 2016, which means he’s now gone the same amount of time without a win as he did to accumulate the first 20 wins of his career. Six of his eight UFC fights have ended in KO's, including 3 in R1. The only two decisions came in his UFC debut and then against decision machine Jimmie Rivera. That would signal that this is a good fight to target for DFS.
Jonathan Martinez
6th UFC Fight (3-2)After starting his UFC career with consecutive decisions, followed by another decision in his fourth UFC fight, Martinez has seemingly flipped the narrative with his last two wins coming by KO—albeit both in R3.
In his recent R3 KO against Frankie Saenz, Martinez showed up overweight at 4.5 lb over the limit. Saenz was reportedly incensed and there was even brief talk about whether or not the fight would go on. After negotiating the penalty/pay structure, the fight did proceed and ended with what appeared to be a much larger Martinez bullying the smaller Saenz for two rounds before putting him away early in the third. It’s possible that it was due to the size or age difference but Martinez looked more powerful than he had in past fights.
Martinez has never been finished early and his only two UFC losses both ended in decisions. His lone loss prior to joining the UFC resulted from a DQ for an illegal knee against Matt Schnell. While he’s never been submitted, he has two submission wins to his name, both coming by Armbar in consecutive fights from 2016-2017. Now moving up to the 145 lb division for the first time in his career, after missing weight badly in his last fight, it will be interesting to see how Martinez looks.
It’s worth noting that five of Martinez’s seven KO wins came in his first five pro fights. In fairness to him, all of those opponents had at least four pro fights of experience unlike most of the fighters we see. Martinez is dangerous with his legs and likes to throw flying knees with KO potential.
The odds have been back and forth this week on Martinez. He opened the week as a dog and then quickly flipped to the favorite. However, by Thursday he was back to being a slight underdog where he’s stayed since. This will be one to watch the odds closely on, as he's still priced as a dog on both DFS sites.
Martinez said in a fight week interview, that it’s an honor to fight Almeida. Hopefully he’s not caught stargazing in this one or he might get left seeing stars.
Almeida has shown in recent years that he’s very hittable and has a dubious chin. On the flipside, Martinez has never been finished early and comes in with all the momentum. It’s possible we see a rejuvenated Almeida but we think it’s more likely that Martinez gets the KO here.
James Krause
13th UFC Fight (8-4)Stepping in on two weeks notice and now 34 years old, ”The” James Krause is going on his 13th UFC fight and 35th pro MMA fight. He owns his own MMA gym and seems to be spending a large chunk of his time coaching these days. He lost his last fight in a controversial split decision against Trevin Giles. In fairness to him, he took the fight on just 24 hours notice and was moving up a weight class. His last three losses have all come in decisions.
The only person to ever KO Krause is Bobby Green, who ironically is known for taking fights to decisions. Although, the finish came from a series of kicks to the groin and midsection area so this may have just been flukey. Krause, a BJJ black belt, has lost by submission twice, but those came in a 2009 R1 Rear-Naked Choke against Donald Cerrone and a 2010 R2 Armbar against Toby Imada. He has not been finished early since the 2013 KO against Green.
Krause has moved around a lot in weight over the years. He started his career at 155 lb. Then moved up to 165 lb and then 170 lb in 2011. Then he went back down to 155 lb, back up to 165 lb, back to 155 lb, and then up to 170 lb in 2012. He was then back at 155 lb in 2013 where he stayed until 2017 when he moved up to 170 lb. But then he dropped back to 155 for one fight in 2018 before moving back to 170 lb. Then, for the first time, he fought his last fight at 185 lb but now he’s back to 170 lb. You catch all that?
His last two wins both came by KO (R2 & R3), but four of his last six and six of last nine fights have ended in decisions. His last submission win came in a 2015 R1 Rear-Naked Choke. In his 35 pro fight career, he has eight wins by KO, 14 by submission and only five by decision—three of those decisions came in his last six fights.
We saw in his 2019 fight against Sergio Moraes that Krause is okay with not rushing to finish fights after knocking down submission specialists. He twice knocked down Moraes in the second round and potentially could have finished the fight had he gone in for some ground and pound. Instead he stepped back and signaled for Moraes to get up. That style of fighting allowed him to rack up 134 DraftkIngs points in a R3 KO despite starting slow in the fight.
Claudio Silva
6th UFC Fight (5-0)38-year-old Silva comes in on a 14 fight win streak that spans all the way back to 2007. His only career loss came in his pro debut by DQ. While dealing with a plethora of injuries, Silva didn’t fight from November of 2014 until May of 2018. He didn’t waste any time upon his return though and won all three of his fights since by submission—two in R1. For what it’s worth, he now hasn’t fought in the last 14 months.
Nine of his 14 career wins have come by submission with five Rear-Naked Chokes and four Armbars. He only has two KO wins with the most recent coming in 2011 and one is officially listed as the rare “TKO by Groin Injury”. Also a BJJ black belt, Silva would much rather be fighting on the mat than standing up.
Krause should definitely have the advantage on the feet in this fight, but Silva’s ground game is lethal. Although as mentioned, Krause is also a BJJ black belt, so it will be interesting to see how the ground game plays out.
While Krause has been a tough guy to submit, Silva would seem to have as good a chance as anybody. We especially like Silva on FanDuel where he’s relatively cheaper and gets points for submission attempts, but he’s a fine play on both sites. If Silva can get the fight to the ground we think he can win this by submission, but if Krause keeps it on the feet he should be able to win it.
Jimmy Crute
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Exciting 24-year-old Jimmy Crute comes in 11-1 as a pro with eight early victories, including seven in R1. The BJJ blackbelt impressively now has two Kimura wins in the UFC, in just four fights. His last three fights have all ended in the first round, and his last five fights have all ended early.
Krute is coming off a flawless R1 submission win, where he landed eight takedowns in just three and a half minutes, before submitting Oleksiejczuk with a Kimura. The performance scored a massive 143 DraftKings points and 154 points on FanDuel.
That stellar outing showed great resilience for Crute who was coming off his first career loss from a R1 Peruvian Necktie against submission specialist Misha Cirkunov. Crute looked like he was on his way to landing another R1 victory in the loss, before getting swept and caught in a very awkward position.
Crute punched his way to the UFC with a R1 KO on the Contender Series back in 2018. He landed an exhausting 65 significant strikes in less than four and a half minutes in that fight—a blistering 14.8 SS/min pace. That would have been good for 122.5 points on DraftKings and 139 points on FanDuel.
Then, in his UFC debut he took on submission specialist Paul Craig. The fight unsurprisingly turned into a grappling match. Crute was able to masterfully defend Craig’s notoriously dangerous triangle attempts and wisely forced Craig to stand up multiple times. For a young fighter making his UFC debut, Crute showed great composure and decision making. While it wasn’t his highest scoring performance from a DFS perspective, Crute was eventually able to finish Craig with a R3 Kimura submission with just nine seconds remaining in the fight. While Crute only landed 17 significant strikes in the technical chess match, he tallied nine advances, two reversals, one takedown, four takedowns defended and four submission attempts to salvage his scoring.
Crute made shorter work of Sam Alvey in his next fight, landing a R1 KO in under three minutes of action. The finish would have come sooner but Crute prematurely walked away from a knocked down Alvey before the ref actually stopped the fight. After a rare mistake for Crute, he did to his credit finish Alvey just moments later.
Crute has shown a diverse skill set, as the UFC has alternated the fighting style of his opponents between grapplers and bangers over his first four fights. Crute gets another striker here in Bukauskas, similar to his last opponent.
Modestas Bukauskas
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Bukauskas comes in fresh off a R1 KO in his UFC debut and on a seven fight win streak that includes five R1 finishes. His only fight to make it to the judges came in his 2015 victory in his pro debut and all 12 fights since have ended early. His only two career losses came consecutively in 2016—both in R1. The first was a Leg Lock submission loss, which was then followed up by a KO. He has eight wins by KO and two submission wins. Both submission wins came by Rear-Naked Choke in back-to-back 2018 fights.
Bukauskas is coming off a semi-questionable R1 KO win in his UFC debut against Andreas Michailidis, back in July. Just before R1 ended Michailidis shot in for a takedown and Bukauskas hit him with several downward elbows that looked close to the back of the head. The round ended and Michailidis was left grabbing the back of his head as the cornermen entered the cage. As the ref checked on him, Michailidis went to lean against the cage not realizing the door to the cage was opened behind him and fell backwards onto the stairs. The ref immediately called the fight.
Bukauskas looked susceptible to being taken down prior to joining the UFC, so it’s probably safe to ignore his listed 100% td defense based on his one round of UFC action. However, his best takedown defense might be the elbows he put on film, that ended Michailidis’ night while attempting a takedown. Bukauskas has now ended each of his last two fights in R1 with KO’s by elbows.
While Crute comes in as one of the biggest favorites on the slate for a R1 win, Bukauskas is dangerous in his own right. It’s highly unlikely this fight goes the distance and you’ll want heavy exposure in your DFS lineups. We like Crute to win this one early, but it is worth noting that Bukauskas has seen the line move in his favor some.
Jessica Andrade
18th UFC Fight (11-6)In her 18th UFC fight, the 29-year-old Andrade will be fighting at 125 lb for the first time in her career. Her last 10 fights were at Strawweight (115 lb), but she did start her career at Bantamweight (135 lb) before moving to Strawweight in 2016 following a 2015 loss to Raquel Pennington. She was 4-3 in the UFC at Bantamweight with all three losses coming early (two R2 submissions & one R2 KO). Her four wins included three decisions and a R1 submission.
Andrade is coming off consecutive losses following a four fight win streak. She most recently lost a split decision to Rose Namajunas following a R1 KO loss to Weili Zhang. Her two wins prior to that loss both ended in KO's, but now five of her last eight fights have ended in decisions. Here’s a breakdown of her 17 UFC fights: 8 decisions (6-2), 5 KO's (3-2), 4 Submissions (2-2).
Katlyn Chookagian
11th UFC Fight (7-3)Coming off a three round decision win over Antonina Shevchenko following a loss to her sister Valentina, Chookagian will have an 8” height advantage and 4” reach advantage in this fight.
A decision machine, 9 of her 10 UFC fights have ended with the judges, with the only exception being the R3 KO loss to Valentina Shevchenko. Chookagian has never scored over 91 DraftKings points and averages only 55 points. Not much of a finisher, 13 of her 17 career fights have ended in decisions. Her only fights to end early were a 2014 R2 KO win over Brigitte Narcise who came in 0-1 and never fought again after, a 2015 R1 Armbar submission over 1-0 Melinda Fabian, and a 2016 R1 KO win over 7-3 Stephanie Bragayrac who never fought again. The only early loss of her career was in the previously mentioned fight against Valentina Shevchenko.
Chookagian is good at circling away as needed and throws solid uppercuts and knees, which will be useful against the shorter opponent. Andrade’s KO’s seemingly have come when she’s able to back her opponents up against the cage, which seems less likely in this one. We think Chookagian wins this one in a decision.
Chan Sung Jung
9th UFC Fight (6-2)Holding black belts in Hapkido, Taekwondo and Judo, The Korean Zombie is coming off back-to-back R1 KO wins over Frankie Edgar and Renato Carneiro. His last loss came in a 2018 R5 KO against Yair Rodriguez with an insane buzzer beating no-look, reverse upward-elbow with 1 second to go in the fight. Those two practically fought to the death in that fight.
The Zombie’s third most recent win was also a R1 KO. His last nine fights have all ended early and he’s headlined his last six fight cards. His only other loss in the UFC came in a R4 KO against Jose Aldo in 2013. That was a year after Zombie beat Dustin Poirier with a R4 Brabo Choke submission.
Zombie didn’t fight from August of 2013 until February of 2017, first dealing with injuries following the Aldo fight, and then completing his South Korean mandatory military service. After the three and a half year layoff he exploded back onto the scene with a R1 KO over Dennis Bermudez.
Zombie has gotten a performance bonus in each of his last 4 fights. Ten of his 16 career wins have come in R1 and his last fight to go to decision was in 2010. He has never been submitted.
Brian Ortega
9th UFC Fight (6-1, NC)Ortega is looking to bounce back from his first career loss in a December 2018 R4 KO against Max Holloway, where Holloway landed an otherworldly 290 significant strikes. Since the beating, Ortega hasn't fought in 22 months after suffering a partially torn ACL during training in November of 2019. He had to pull out of his original matchup against The Zombie in December of 2019 because of the injury. He was, however, able to rehab the knee and avoid surgery, but it forced him into an extended layoff from fighting.
Prior to the Holloway fight, Ortega also KO'd Frankie Edgar in R1. While Ortega’s last seven fights have ended early, only that one ended in R1. Four of those seven fights made it at least until R3.
Seven of his 14 wins have come by submission, which is especially notable since The Zombie has never been submitted. This will be Ortega’s third time headlining in the UFC. He switched camps after his last fight, so it will be interesting to see what changes come with the switch. At the very least he said he no longer has to deal with any drama.
Nevertheless, we like Zombie to win this fight with an early KO. It should be an exciting fight to watch.