The Sheet

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Fighter Notes:

Fight #13

Jaqueline Amorim

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Making her UFC debut with an unblemished record, Amorim has finished all six of her pro opponents in the first round, with five of those fights ending in under two minutes. Her last two fights were five-round LFA title fights but neither made it out of the first round. However, the first of those was against an opponent who came in with just five pro fights to her name (3-1-1), and the most recent was against a 36-year-old Ashley Nichols, who came in 4-3 and has gone just 1-3 in her last four matches. So it’s not like Amorim has been facing actual legitimate competition.

Now 6-0 as a pro, Amorim has one knockout win and five submission victories. All six of those finishes came in round one and she has 10 and half minutes of total cage time in her career.

Overall, Amorim is a BJJ black belt and former IBJJF world champion and No-Gi Pan Championship winner who is always looking to take opponents down and quickly submit them. She looks pretty one-dimensional with her grappling and hasn’t shown much in terms of striking, despite having the one knockout win on her record. She also telegraphs her takedowns from next Tuesday, which has yet to catch up with her, but surely will at the UFC level. Her cardio remains an unknown since all of her fights have ended in round one, but that’s certainly a concern if she can’t lock up an early submission. Ultimately she looks very green when it comes to MMA and she’s yet to face an iota of adversity in her brief MMA career. However, she trains at American Top Team just an hour north of Miami, so this will basically be a home game for her, and she has a good team around her. With so little cage time in her career, there are far more questions than answers with Amorim, but it will be interesting to see how she handles the bright lights while making her UFC debut as the opening act on a PPV card.

Sam Hughes

7th UFC Fight (2-4)

Looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Piera Rodriguez, Hughes got taken down five times in the fight but was only controlled for a minute and 56 seconds and did a good job of returning to her feet when she did get taken down. Prior to that loss, Hughes won two in a row against a pair of one-dimensional strikers, with a R3 ground and pound TKO victory over Elise Reed and a majority decision win over Istela Nunes. Both of those opponents gassed out and were helpless on the mat. Before those two wins, Hughes had a rough start to her UFC career. She lost via post R1 TKO due to a corner stoppage in her short notice UFC debut against Tecia Torres and then dropped a pair of decisions against Loma Lookboonmee and Luana Pinheiro.

Now 7-5 as a pro, Hughes has two wins by KO, three by submission, and two decision victories. Three of her five early wins came against opponents who had never fought professionally before in Hughes first three pro fights. Her only KO/TKO loss came in her short notice UFC debut/execution against Tecia Torres, where the fight was stopped after round one when Hughes said she couldn’t see. The only other time Hughes has been finished was in a fourth round submission in an LFA title fight against Vanessa Demopoulos, while her other three losses all ended in decisions. Hughes turned pro in February 2019, initially fighting at 130 lb, but worked her way down to 115 lb by July 2020.

Overall, Hughes has shown improvements since she made her UFC debut, most notably with her wrestling and her confidence appears to be growing with every fight. After failing to land a takedown on just three attempts in her first three UFC matches, she’s landed six on 13 attempts in her last three matches and holds a 37.5% career takedown accuracy. On the other side of things, Hughes has been taken down 12 times on 23 opponent attempts (47.8% defense). She averages 3.93 SSL/min and 4.88 SSA/min and has been outlanded in five of her six UFC fights. Her best attribute may be her cardio and she tends to outlast most of her opponents, but that will only get you so far in the UFC.

Fight Prediction:

Hughes will have a 2” height advantage, while Amorim will have a 4” reach advantage and is 3 years younger than the 30-year-old Hughes.

The fighter with the grappling advantage has won all six of Hughes’ UFC fights, which isn’t overly encouraging for her chances here as she squares off against a far superior grappler. However, Hughes has talked about how she’s been working on her defensive wrestling, so she’ll have a chance to put that on display here. Amorim is shrouded in uncertainty, as she has yet to face any adversity in her career and both her striking and cardio remain a mystery. It’s rare to see fighters with 100% first round finishes look great in the later rounds, but that’s not to say it’s impossible. Hughes will need to keep this fight standing and weaponize her cardio to pull off the upset, but her 47% takedown defense is definitely concerning. However, the larger cage should benefit her when it comes to evading Amorim’s takedown attempts and if Hughes has made improvements to her defensive wrestling as she claimed, perhaps she can stay upright long enough for Amorim to slow down. Hughes has more striking experience and should hold the advantage on the feet, with the potential to really expose Amorim in that area. Seeing Amorim gas out in the later rounds is very possible and if that happens Hughes could completely take over late in the fight. The most likely outcome is still probably that Amorim gets Hughes down and submits her in round one, but if that doesn’t happen then this fight could go a lot of ways and we’ll be taking a hard look at Hughes live line going into round two.

Our favorite bet here is “Sam Hughes DEC” at +380.

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DFS Implications:

Amorim is 6-0 with six first round finishes, so her upside is undeniable, but her striking and cardio are basically complete mysteries. She’s faced zero adversity so far in her career and completely telegraphs her takedowns from a mile away without setting them up first. While that may work against low-level opponents on the regional scene, she has a lot of work to do to be consistently successful at the UFC level. With that said, she’s a nasty grappler and once she does get opponents down they rarely return to their feet. The best comp for her is probably Gillian Robertson, so it will be interesting to see if she can find the same level of success in the UFC. Because Amorim offers so little in terms of striking but is so efficient on the mat, she may have a tougher time putting up slate-breaking scores as her box scores generally consist of very few strikes, a single takedown, minimal control time, and a single successful submission attempt. While that will still score pretty well, at her high price tag we could easily see her getting outscored by the other expensive options and priced out of winning tournament lineups—at least assuming she doesn’t get another finish in the opening 60 seconds. If/when she’s unable to get fights to the ground, we have low expectations for her on the feet and she appears reliant on her grappling to win fights against legitimate competition. That makes it tougher to trust her, but keep in mind she’s still early in her MMA career and should be improving all the time as she trains at American Top Team. So it’s always possible she surprises us with her striking improvements and the threat of her grappling could open up striking opportunities for her. Ultimately, this is a volatile spot with numerous unknowns and Amorim could look -500 if the fight hits the ground or +500 if it remains standing. The odds imply she has a 69% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Hughes is coming off a decision loss where she only scored 30 DraftKings points, so was nowhere close to putting up a useful score even if the decision had gone her way. However, prior to that she landed a late third round ground and pound TKO and scored 121 DraftKings points, after winning a decision where she scored 92 points. Just keep in mind, both of those wins came against one-dimensional strikers where Hughes had the wrestling advantage, which is how she was able to score well. Now she’s facing an extremely dangerous grappler and she’ll need to keep this fight standing at all costs. That both takes away Hughes’ ability to score points through grappling and will force her to be very careful in the striking exchanges on the feet so she doesn’t walk into a takedown. The only way we see Hughes scoring well here is if Amorim completely gasses out and Hughes finishes her late in the fight. That’s certainly possible considering Amorim has never been past the first round, but it’s still tough to count on. If Hughes does pull off the upset, it’s more likely to come in a lower volume decision where much of her energy is focussed on evading takedown attempts and pointing her way to victory in a lower scoring decision, but this is a volatile spot that could go a lot of ways depending on whether or not Amorim is able to take Hughes down and how Amorim’s cardio holds up if this makes it to the later rounds. The odds imply Hughes has a 31% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #12

Shayilan Nuerdanbieke

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

Coming off the infamous win over Darrick Minner, Nuerdanbieke got his first finish in the UFC under dubious circumstances as the investigation into Minner and Krause appears ongoing. Therefore it’s hard to give Nuerdanbieke much credit for the “finish” and we’re more focussed on what he did in his previous three UFC matches, which all went the distance (2-1).

After losing a decision to Joshua Culibao in his May 2021 UFC debut, Nuerdanbieke bounced back with two straight decision wins and has now won five of his last six fights. His first UFC victory came in a dream matchup against Sean Soriano, who’s completely helpless on the mat and has been incredibly prone to getting submitted in the past. However, while Nuerdanbieke was able to take him down four times and control him for half the fight, he couldn’t put him away. Nuerdanbieke followed that up with another decision victory, this time against TJ Brown, who’s a decent wrestler himself, so the victory was far more impressive. While Brown has been finished in six of his nine career losses, Nuerdanbieke was again unable to put him away.

Now 39-10 as a pro, Nuerdanbieke has 19 wins by KO, 10 submissions, and 10 decision victories. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted six times, and has two decision losses. The majority of his career fights have ended in the first round, but he was fighting a ton of questionable competition prior to joining the UFC, so his record should be taken with a grain of salt. Nuerdanbieke has spent most of his career fighting at 155 lb and has even spent some time up at 170 lb. Only four of his pre-UFC fights were at 145 lb (4-0), but that’s where he’s fought all of his UFC matches.

Overall, Nuerdanbieke relies heavily on his wrestling, but has improved his striking since joining the UFC. However, Nuerdanbieke hasn’t looked especially dangerous, and relies largely on controlling his opponents to win fights. In his four UFC fights, he’s landed 9 of his 28 takedown attempts (32.1% accuracy), with at least two takedowns landed and six or more attempts in all of his fights that lasted longer than 67 seconds. On the other side of things, he’s been taken down three times himself on five attempts from his opponents (40% defense). While his striking looked improved in his last match, he still only averages 2.17 SSL/min and 2.93 SSA/min. Nuerdanbieke said he’s the cousin of Maheshate, who recently knocked out his next opponent, so take that for what it’s worth.

Steve Garcia

5th UFC Fight (2-2)

Continuing to trade wins and losses over his last five fights, Garcia is coming off a first round knockout of Chase Hooper, which is the only time Hooper has been finished in his career. Hooper insanely looked to stand and bang with Garcia, while only casually looking to get it to the ground. That unsurprisingly resulted in him getting mauled as Garcia knocked him down three times in 92 seconds before forcing the quick first round TKO stoppage.Four months prior to that, Garcia suffered the first KO loss of his career against a debuting Maheshate, who knocked Garcia out in just 74 seconds. Following that loss Garcia dropped down to 145 lb, after competing at 155 lb for his first three UFC fights. Prior to that defeat, Garcia landed a second round TKO win against a fragile Charlie Ontiveros, after losing a decision to Luis Pena in his 2020 UFC debut. Garcia’s last five wins have all come by TKO in the first round and a half of fights. Garcia originally tried to make his way into the UFC through DWCS in 2019, but despite landing a first round knockout victory he still wasn’t rewarded with a UFC contract after missing weight by 3.5 lb for the 135 lb fight. After not getting a contract, Garcia then took a fight in the LFA in January 2020 up at 145 lb. Despite moving up to 145 lb, Garcia again missed weight, checking in a pound and a half over the limit. After fighting most of his career at 135 lb, with just a few fights at 145 lb up to that point (2-1), Garcia made his short notice UFC debut against Luis Pena in February 2020 up at Lightweight 155 lb, which was the first time Garcia had ever competed at the weight class. Pena smothered Garcia on the ground for the entire fight, finishing with over 14 minutes of control time on his way to winning a decision. Garcia then took 20 months off before returning to the Octagon in October 2021 when he knocked out Ontiveros.

Now 13-5 as a pro, Garcia has 10 wins by KO and three by decision. Five of those knockouts occurred in the first round, four ended in the first half of round two and one came in round three. However, that lone third round knockout was all the way back in 2013 in his second pro fight and his last eight finishes have all come in under a round and a half. He’s also been knocked out once himself (R1 2022) and submitted another time (R1 2018), with both of the losses ending in under two minutes. The KO came in his recent fight against a debuting fighter and the submission was against a highly suspect Aalon Cruz in 2018. Garcia’s other three pro losses all ended in decisions. While Garcia’s last five wins have all ended in TKOs, it’s easy to poke holes in Garcia’s last four knockout wins, as the last one came against a one-dimensional grappler in Chase Hooper, the one before that was against an incredibly fragile Charlie Ontiveros, the one before that was a arguably a quick/bad stoppage, and just before that he weighed in at 139.5 lb to face a fighter who had largely been competing at 125 lb. Garcia spent most of his pre-UFC career at 135 lb, but missed weight so many times he moved all the way up to 155 lb for his first three UFC fights, before moving down to 145 lb for his last match, where it appears he’ll stay.

Overall, Garcia is an offensively minded brawler who throws punches with ill intentions as he looks to knockout every opponent he faces. His background is in kickboxing and after transitioning to MMA he spent a good chunk of time in Bellator before working his way into the UFC. He has shown he’s capable of taking fights to the mat and finishing opponents with ground and pound, but that’s essentially the extent of his grappling from what we’ve seen. He’s a kill or get killed type of fighter and 12 of his 18 pro fights have ended early, while he’s only been to one decision since 2018. While he did get controlled on the mat for essentially his entire 2020 UFC debut, he’s actually never been taken down in the UFC or on DWCS on nine opponent attempts, while he’s landed four takedowns of his own on seven attempts (57.1% accuracy) over that stretch. Just keep in mind after facing seven attempts on DWCS, Garcia has only faced two takedown attempts in his four UFC appearances, so his defense has not been tested much lately.

Fight Prediction:

Garcia will have a 4” height advantage and 6” reach advantage.

Garcia comes into every fight looking to take his opponent’s head off and we expect no different here. The only question will be whether or not he can knock Nuerdanbieke out before getting taken down. Nuerdanbieke hasn’t looked very dangerous, so even if he can take Garcia down, we’d be surprised if he finished him on that mat. That should give Garcia multiple opportunities to land a knockout, as Nuerdanbieke will likely need to take him down in every round and control him for the duration of the fight. Just keep in mind, Garcia has looked pretty chinny, so it’s not entirely impossible Nuerdanbieke could catch him lunging in and put him out, but it is unlikely. We expect this to end in either a grappling-heavy decision win for Nuerdanbieke or an early knockout victory for Garcia. We’ll say Garcia lands a knockout in the opening round and a half, most likely in round one.

Our favorite bet here is “Steve Garcia R1 KO” at +1100.

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DFS Implications:

Nuerdanbieke’s grappling-heavy fighting style is a much better fit on DraftKings than FanDuel, and he scored 105 and 99 DraftKings points in his two decision UFC wins, but just 78 and 54 points on FanDuel. While he technically landed a first round TKO in his last fight, that resulted from a Minner injury and nothing Nuerdanbieke was doing, so it’s safe to ignore the results. Nuerdanbieke’s previous three UFC fights all went the distance and he hasn’t looked especially dangerous. However, Garcia has been pretty chinny and has three knockout losses on his record, so it’s not impossible Nuerdanbieke finds a finish here. Just keep in mind, Garcia is an aggressive brawler and Nuerdanbieke has been knocked out twice in the first round before, so he has a non-existent scoring floor. He’ll likely be reliant on taking Garcia down and controlling him for three rounds to win another grappling-heavy decision, which can score decently on DraftKings, but not on FanDuel. At his higher price tag, we could still see him get priced out of winning DraftKings lineups even with a dominant grappling-heavy decision win, but that will just depend on what the other high-priced options do. The odds imply Nuerdanbieke has a 62% chance to win, a 42% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Garcia has only been to one decision in his last seven fights and he comes into every fight aggressively looking for an early knockout. That sometimes results in him getting clipped, but always makes for fun fights that generally produce a big score for the winner. He landed a ridiculous three knockdowns in 92 seconds in his recent R1 TKO win over Chase Hooper, after getting knocked down himself twice in the first round of each of his previous two fights. His last five wins have all ended in knockouts and he has massive upside, scoring 133 and 116 DraftKings points in his two UFC wins. He’s yet to be taken down in the UFC, but he did get controlled on the mat for 14 minutes in his UFC debut, which is a weird set of conflicting stats. That tells us that he’s good at defending takedowns, but terrible at returning to his feet when he does end up on the ground. In fairness to him, that fight took place at 155 lb against a much larger opponent and now he’s fighting at 145 lb and will be the one with the size advantage. Nuerdanbieke has been knocked out in the first round twice before, so there’s no reason to think Garcia can’t find a finish here. However, there is also the potential for Garcia to get controlled on the mat for extended periods of time and he looks like a KO or bust option. The odds imply Garcia has a 38% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #11

Ignacio Bahamondes

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

Bahamondes had been scheduled to face Nikolas Motta here, but Motta dropped out and Ogden was announced as the replacement on 11 day's notice.

Fourteen months removed from his second straight third round finish, Bahamondes landed the first submission of his career when he locked up a Brabo choke against Rong Zhu. He also nearly locked up a guillotine attempt earlier in the match and appears to be adding some submission attempts to his already dangerous striking. Prior to that win, Bahamondes landed a highlight reel spinning wheel kick KO against Roosevelt Roberts in the closing seconds of his previous match. That’s the only time Roberts has been knocked out in his career, but it was just the cherry on top for Bahamondes, who landed nearly twice as many significant strikes as Roberts in the fight, while also stuffing all 12 of Roberts’ takedown attempts. Just before the pair of third round finishes, Bahamondes lost a split decision in his UFC debut against longtime UFC veteran John Makdessi, after landing a second round knockout on DWCS in 2020 to punch his ticket to the UFC. Bahamondes has won 9 of his last 11 fights, with the two losses both ending in decisions. His last three wins have all come early, but all in the later rounds.

Now 13-4 as a pro, Bahamondes has nine wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and three decision victories. His last three and four of his last live finishes occurred in the later rounds and his last seven fights have all made it past the first round, with six seeing the third round, and four going the distance. His last two losses both went the distance, while he was submitted twice in the first round earlier in his career, including once by UFC fighter Preston Parsons. Both of his submission losses occurred in his first six pro fights. While all three of his UFC fights have been at 155 lb, his previous two fights had both been up at 170 lb and he has bounced between the two weight classes throughout his career. Both of his submission losses occurred at 170 lb and he’s never been finished at 155 lb.

Overall, Bahamondes is really tall and long for the Lightweight division, standing 6’3” with a 75” reach (the same height as Jalin Turner). He loves to throw a ton of kicks to maximize his length and his last two KO/TKO wins both came by head kick KOs in the later rounds. He’s a dangerous striker and has shown improvements to his grappling from earlier in his career, both in his takedown defense and his submission abilities. With that said, this kid is a striker and we still expect him to struggle when facing legitimate wrestlers. However, he’s still just 25 years old and he’s at a stage in his career where we should be seeing major improvements between every fight. He was born into fighting, as his father owns a martial arts school in Chile, but Bahamondes came to the United States to pursue his UFC dream at just 16 years old. He’s landed 105 or more significant strikes in all three of his UFC fights and he averages a blazing 8.33 SSL/min (most on the slate) and 5.03 SSA/min. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he’s defended all but one of the 21 takedowns attempted on him (95.2% defense), while he failed to land any of his own four attempts, which all came in his UFC debut.

Trey Ogden

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Ogden had been set to fight two weeks ago but his opponent dropped out after Ogden had already made weight. It didn’t take long to find him a new opponent, but he’ll now also have to cut weight twice in two weeks. Helping him some, this fight was moved from 155 lb to a 160 lb Catchweight.

Coming off a major upset decision win where he entered as a +310 underdog, Ogden notched his first UFC victory in a decision over the debuting undefeated prospect in Daniel Zellhuber. Ogden was only able to land one of his nine takedown attempts in the fight, but surprisingly outstruck Zellhuber on the feet. Prior to that, he lost a split decision to Jordan Leavitt in his short notice UFC debut, after submitting three straight opponents in the first two rounds on the regional scene.

Now 16-5 as a pro, Ogden has 11 submission wins and five decision victories. He’s also been submitted three times and has two decision losses. Two of his three submission losses came by R1 guillotine against a suspect Thomas Gifford, who went 0-2 in the UFC. His other submission loss was a 2019 R1 rear-naked choke. No one has ever been knocked out in any of his fights, but we generally see someone get submitted. Five of Ogden’s last seven finishes have come in the later rounds, with four ending in round two. While both of his UFC fights have gone the distance, 9 of his previous 11 fights ended early. Three of his last four losses have come by R1 submission. All 21 of his career fights have ended in either submissions (11-3) or decisions (5-2).

Overall, the 33-year-old Ogden surprised us and showed some improvements to his striking in his last fight as he won a technical striking battle after looking like a one-dimensional grappler prior to that. He had been training with James Krause at Glory MMA & Fitness, but then opened his own gym where he now trains out of. However, this will be his first time in a long time without Krause in his corner. Ogden is a BJJ black belt who consistently looks to get fights to the mat and finish with submissions. In his two UFC fights, he’s landed two of his 13 takedown attempts (15.4% accuracy), while he defended all three of the takedowns against him (100% defense).

Fight Prediction:

Bahamondes will have a 4” height advantage and 3” reach advantage. He’s also eight years younger than the 33-year-old Ogden.

While this matchup has some stylistic similarities to the one that Ogden had been preparing for two weeks ago, it’s a much tougher matchup for Ogden. Bahamondes has a 95% takedown defense and the cardio to go three hard rounds. He’ll also have a considerable size advantage, which will make it tougher for Ogden to find his range and close the distance to look for takedowns. While Ogden has struggled with his takedown accuracy so far in the UFC, landing just two of his 13 takedown attempts, if he can get this fight to the ground he’ll have the grappling advantage. However, Ogden has also been prone to getting submitted himself, so he’ll need to be careful not to leave his neck out when shooting or Bahamondes could wrap up a guillotine. Ogden has never been knocked out in his career, but he also hasn’t faced many strikers like Bahamondes. Roosevelt Roberts had also never been knocked out until he faced Bahamondes and we saw how that ended. Bahamondes has excelled at wearing on opponents as fights go on, and the double weight cut has the potential to affect both Ogden’s chin and cardio, which could leave him more prone to getting knocked out late in this fight. Ogden’s only hope will be to get the fight to the ground and hunt for a submission, but we like Bahamondes to do a good enough job defending takedowns to prevent that. It’s a little tricky to predict how Bahamondes gets the job done, as a knockout, submission, or decision are all in play, but we’ll say he lands a knockout in the later rounds.

Our favorite bet here is “Bahamondes R3 Win” at +900.

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DFS Implications:

Bahamondes is a high-volume striker who averages 8.33 SSL/min (most on the slate) and has a 95% takedown defense. However, he’s yet to land a takedown in the UFC and relies entirely on striking volume and finishes to score well. That makes him a better fit for the FanDuel scoring system compared to on DraftKings, and his recent two third-round finishes were good for 136 and 125 points on FanDuel but “just” 99 and 104 points on DraftKings. He lands enough volume to still put up solid scores even with late finishes, but at his expensive price tag we could still see him get priced out of winning DraftKings lineups with a finish in the later rounds. While Ogden has never been knocked out, he stepped into this fight on short notice and will be cutting weight for the second time in the last two weeks. That has the potential to limit his cardio and/or durability, which adds to Bahamondes’ upside. However, Ogden will also likely be looking to wrestle, which could slow the fight down and make it harder for Bahamondes to put up as big of a striking total if he finds himself getting controlled for periods of time. So there are definitely ways he fails here, but he also has solid upside. The DFS field has been slow to get behind Bahamondes, and in his three UFC fights his DraftKings ownership has checked in at 18%, 18%, and 22%. We expect him to be a little more popular here following his second straight third round finish, but we could see him go overlooked to some extent once again, which obviously adds to his tournament appeal. We don’t see him scoring well in a decision, so he will be reliant on landing a finish to return value. The odds imply he has a 74% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Ogden’s grappling-heavy approach to fighting and history of landing submissions presents scoring upside, but he’s yet to finish anybody at the UFC level and he’s fought to a pair of lower scoring decisions in his last two fights (1-1). In fairness to him, he’s had tougher matchups and was at least able to pull off a huge upset in his last fight, but that success did not translate to DFS production, as he only scored 65 DraftKings points in the decision win. He was never able to get his grappling going and only landed one of his nine takedown attempts in the fight, but at least the effort was there. If he can improve his takedown accuracy here, he’ll have the potential to score well even if he can’t lock up submission. And at his cheap price tag, he doesn’t need to put up a huge score to serve as a value play. However, it’s hard to trust his floor as he has just a 15% takedown accuracy and is taking on an opponent with a 95% takedown defense who has only been taken down once on 21 opponent attempts in his last four fights. Ogden also stepped into this matchup on short notice after his fight two weeks ago was canceled after he already made weight, so he’ll be cutting weight for the second time in a two week span. That’s always hard on the body and makes it tougher to trust Ogden here. He looks like a hail mary submission or bust play, who will likely struggle to get the fight to the mat. The odds imply he has a 26% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #10

Loopy Godinez

7th UFC Fight (3-3)

Godinez will be looking to bounce back from a close decision loss to Angela Hill last August. That fight had originally been scheduled for October, but the UFC needed fights for the San Diego card, which is also Hill’s home town, so they moved it up to August on just 10 days’ notice. While Hill has said in the past that she actually prefers shorter notice fights, that put Godinez in a tough spot as she was recovering from a hip injury she suffered in her previous fight and hadn’t been able to train much. She also said she had to cut a ton of weight following the injury, so overall the timing was terrible for her. That showed in the fight as she was never able to get her wrestling going, only landing one of her three takedown attempts with only 17 seconds of control time. However she did finish ahead in significant strikes 92-85 and in total strikes 98-88, but ultimately lost a 29-28 decision. Prior to that loss, Godinez won a pair of wrestling-heavy decisions, where she absolutely dominated Ariane Carnelossi and Loma Lookboonmee on the mat, landing 13 takedowns between the two fights. Godinez has gone the distance in her last four and eight of her last nine fights, with the one exception being a first round submission win over Silvana Gomez Juarez. She made her UFC debut against Jessica Penne and despite finishing ahead in significant strikes and takedowns, somehow lost a terrible split decision. Godinez bounced back with a first round armbar submission win over Gomez Juarez, before losing another close decision just a week later up a weight class against Luana Carolina.

Now 8-3 as a pro, Godinez has one win by KO, one by submission, and six decision victories. Both of her early wins occurred in the first round, with one coming in her second pro fight and the other in her second UFC fight. All three of her losses have ended in close decisions, with one of those being a questionable split result against Jessica Penne in Godinez’s UFC debut, another coming against Luana Carolina, where Godinez was fighting up a weight class just seven days after submitting Silvana Gomez Juarez, and the third on short notice against Angela Hill in front of Hill’s home crowd. Her recent loss was at a 120 lb Catchweight since it was on short notice and she also lost her other notice fight at 125 lb. However, she’s 3-1 in the UFC at 115 lb and got robbed in the one loss.

Overall, Godinez is a great wrestler, and an underrated boxer. She’s landed 24 takedowns on 53 attempts in her six UFC fights (45.2% accuracy), averaging an insane 10.1 takedown attempts per 15 minutes. On the other side of things, she’s only been taken down on 3 of 16 opponent attempts (81.3% defense), although three of the four opponents to try and take her down landed one of their attempts. Her striking numbers are lower at 2.97 SSL/min and 2.47 SSA/min, but only because she’s found so much wrestling success. The only fighter to force her into a striking battle was Angela Hill and Godinez landed 92 significant strikes (6.13 SSL/min). All of her losses have been very close, while she’s absolutely dominated in all of her wins. Eventually a close decision will go her way.

Cynthia Calvillo

13th UFC Fight (6-5-1)

Stumbling towards the end of the road, the 35-year-old Calvillo has lost four straight fights and is now moving back down to 115 lb in a desperation move to salvage her career. The last time she competed at 115 lb was in 2019 when she fought Marina Rodriguez to a majority draw after missing weight by 4.5 pounds. Calvillo lost the first two rounds on all three scorecards, but dominated the third round to the extent that two of the judges scored it 10-8 for her to force the draw. That was the second time Calvillo had missed weight in her last three fights at 115 lb, so she then moved up to 125 lb where she won a decision in her next fight before losing her next four, including a pair of KO/TKO losses. Her most recent loss came in a lackluster performance against a one-dimensional striker in Nina Nunes, who immediately retired after beating Calvillo.

Now 9-5-1 as a pro, Calvillo has two wins by TKO, three by submission, and four decisions. However, four of her five early wins came in her first five pro fights and her last finish was in 2018. She’s never been submitted but she has two TKO losses, which both occurred in her last three fights. Her other three losses all went the distance.

Overall, Calvillo relies on her grappling to win fights, and isn’t a very good striker. She struggled with the size and strength of her opponents at 125 lb, so it will be interesting to see if she looks better moving back down to 115 lb now. In her 12 UFC fights, Calvillo has landed 19 of her 43 takedown attempts (44.2% accuracy), while her opponents have taken her down on 4 of their 16 attempts (75% defense). The last fighter to take her down was Carla Esparza in 2017, although Calvillo has only faced three attempts since then.

Fight Prediction:

Calvillo will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while Godinez is six years younger than the 35-year-old Calvillo.

Both of these two have wrestling/grappling background, but Godinez is the superior striker and would be wise to lean on that advantage in this match. Calvillo has looked absolutely terrible on the feet over the last few years, while also not doing much with her grappling. They both have solid takedown defenses (81% vs. 75%) so it’s possible their grappling will cancel each other out and keep this primarily a striking battle, which will easily favor Godinez. With that said, they’ll both likely look to mix in some wrestling, so there’s still a decent chance it at least hits the mat once or twice. We like Godinez to outland her way to a decision win and for Calvillo to be cut in the near future.

Our favorite bet here is “Godinez DEC” at -125.

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DFS Implications:

Godinez has averaged 114 DraftKings points in her three UFC wins, despite two of those going the distance. She put up a ridiculous 129 points in her last decision win on the back of eight takedowns with 13 and a half minutes of control time. However, all of those grappling-heavy wins came against strikers and she may be less inclined to rely so heavily on her wrestling here as she takes on a grappler. That lowers her scoring potential significantly and in her recent striking battle against Angela Hill Godinez only scored 44 DraftKings points in a close decision loss. Calvillo also has a solid 75% takedown defense, so even if Godinez does want to force things and continue to wrestle, she may have a tougher time completing takedowns. That has us far less excited about playing Godinez in this spot, but her low projected ownership does raise her tournament appeal. We’re expecting a lower scoring decision win for her that won’t come close to returning value at her expensive price tag, but the wrestling upside is always there if we’re wrong. The odds imply she has a 72% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

Calvillo has been a R1 submission or bust play for DFS in three round fights thus far in her career, but she at least has the potential to put on a grappling heavy performance that could still score decently on DraftKings in a decision. However, this looks like a tough matchup for that to happen as Godinez is a solid wrestler with an 81% takedown defense and also a far better striker than Calvillo. Godinez has also never been finished, making a submission win for Calvillo unlikely. Calvillo has looked absolutely terrible in her last four fights, but all of those took place at 125 lb. She’ll now be dropping back down to 115 lb for the first time since 2019, which adds some uncertainty to the mix. Is the weight going to drain her cardio or take away from her chin, or will she be able to overpower opponents at the lighter weight class? All of these questions remain to be answered, but at 35 years old our expectations for Calvillo are very low. The odds imply she has a 28% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #9

Karl Williams

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Williams is stepping into this matchup on just seven days’ notice after Chris Barnett dropped out and only four weeks after winning a decision in his UFC debut.

Williams dominated his debut on the mat as he landed eight takedowns on 13 attempts, while also tacking on a knockdown. Prior to that, he won another wrestling-heavy decision, that time on DWCS, where Williams impressively moved up to Heavyweight on less than a week’s notice. In that fight, he dominated a former Penn St. D-1 All-American Heavyweight wrestler on the mat for three rounds, landing all three of his takedown attempts with almost 11 minutes of control time. Williams was 30 lb lighter than his opponent in that match as he checked in at 233 lb. After the fight, they asked Williams if he wanted to stay at Heavyweight or drop back down, and he said he could do either but would rather move back down. Despite what he said then, he made his debut at Heavyweight and it appears he’ll stay there for the foreseeable future.

Now 8-1 as a pro, Williams has three wins by KO/TKO and five decision victories. His only career loss came in a 2021 R1 submission in his fourth pro fight. All three of his KO/TKO wins also occurred in round one, with two of those occurring in his first three pro matches. Four of his last five fights have ended in decision wins. Williams made his pro debut at Heavyweight before dropping down to Light Heavyweight for his second fight. He remained at Light Heavyweight until his short notice DWCS appearance. He did miss weight trying to make Light Heavyweight in June 2022, so perhaps it wasn’t the easiest cut to make.

Overall, Williams is still pretty new to MMA, and only turned pro in February 2021. He fought four times in 2021 and four more in 2022, so he’s no stranger to staying active. He largely relies on his dominant wrestling to win fights, but he does have some power in his strikes and throws a dangerous lead left hook. However, it’s rare to see him put up big striking totals. He has the ability to wrestle for three hard rounds, which is rare at Heavyweight, and he puts a pace on his opponents. This will be the second fight he’s taken on a weeks’ notice in his last few matches, so he seems comfortable stepping in with little time to prepare, as his game plan is basically always the same.

Chase Sherman

15th UFC Fight (4-10)

Sherman had been scheduled to face a one-dimensional striker in Chris Barnett but he dropped out and the complete opposite type of fighter in Karl Williams stepped in on a week's notice.

Sherman continues to face opponents with very little time to prepare and back in November he had been scheduled to face Josh Parisian, but he pulled out the day of the fight and Sherman ended up losing a decision to Waldo Cortes-Acosta instead two weeks later. Looking back one fight further he got matched up with Jared Vanderaa on less than two weeks’ notice and landed a third round knockout, which is Sherman’s only win in his last six fights. In his four losses leading up to that victory, Sherman was submitted in the first round of his previous two matches, after losing a pair of decisions just before that. Sherman was actually cut for the second time by the UFC following a submission loss to Jake Collier in early 2022, but they brought him back on when they needed a short notice sacrifice for Alexander Romanov, who submitted Sherman in just 131 seconds. In his first stint with the UFC, Sherman went 2-5 from 2016 to 2018, before being cut in September 2018 following his third straight loss. He then landed three straight first round knockouts outside of the UFC and was brought back in 2020. He defeated an undersized Ike Villanueva in his return, but was then popped for PEDs and suspended for nine months. After returning from suspension, he lost three straight fights, with two decisions and a submission loss, before being briefly cut again after the loss to Collier, going 1-3 in his second stint with the UFC. He’s now 1-2 in his third tour as the UFC’s whipping boy, and it’s only a matter of time before they cut him and re-sign him once again.

Now 16-11 as a pro, Sherman has 15 wins by KO and one by decision (2017). He’s been knocked out four times, submitted twice, and has five decision losses. Sixteen of his 27 fights have ended in the first round (12-4), three ended in round two (2-1), two ended in round three (1-1), and six have gone the distance (1-5). While Sherman was able to find some success outside of the UFC in 2018 and 2019, he’s gone just 2-8 in his last 10 UFC fights.

Overall, Sherman is a low-level Heavyweight and a one-dimensional striker. He’s historically faded after the first round, but did land a third round TKO in his second most recent fight. The only success he’s found in his career is knocking out super low-level opponents, and 13 of his 15 career KO wins have come outside of the UFC. He’s only finished 3 of his 14 UFC opponents: Jared Vanderaa, who went 1-6 in the UFC, Isaac Villanueva, who’s a Light Heavyweight that went 1-5 in the UFC, and Rashad Coulter, who went 1-3 in the UFC. Sherman averages 6.30 SSL/min and 6.85 SSA/min, as he’s generally involved in high-volume brawls. Up until his last fight, Sherman had never even attempted a takedown in the UFC, let alone land one, but he landed one of his two attempts in that recent loss, so perhaps he’s working on his wrestling. His opponents have taken him down 7 times on 21 attempts (66.7% defense) and the last five opponents who tried to take him down all landed at least one of their attempts. He’s looked terrible on the mat and is 0-5 in UFC fights when he’s been taken down. He was quickly finished on the ground in three of the last four matches where he got taken down.

Fight Prediction:

Sherman will have a 1” height advantage but Williams will have a 1” reach advantage.

Sherman has really struggled when it comes to grappling, and has never won a fight after getting taken down (0-5). He had been preparing to face a one-dimensional striker and then a week out that was changed to a dominant wrestler, with basically no time for Sherman to make any training adjustments. That’s about as tough of a change as you could ask for and we don’t see Sherman handling it well. Obviously it’s not an ideal situation for Williams either, but at Heavyweight he doesn’t have to worry about cutting a bunch of weight like your typical short notice replacement. We’ve also already seen Williams recently step into a fight on just a weeks’ notice and easily grind out a decision win, so we’re confident he can do it again in basically a dream matchup. The bigger question is whether or not he’ll be able to find a finish. While a knockout is certainly possible, his style of fighting is more conducive to grinding out grappling-heavy decision wins and with less time to condition himself for a fight, he’s probably even less likely to find a late finish. So give us Williams by decision here.

Our favorite bet here is “Williams DEC” at +130.

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DFS Implications:

Williams is a relentless wrestler who has the ability to put up outlandish takedown numbers in the right matchup. He notched eight takedowns in his recent UFC debut and has put up 20+ takedowns in past regional fights. However, we should probably temper expectations to some extent considering he stepped into this matchup on just a weeks’ notice and also fought only four weeks ago. That has the potential to limit his cardio some and the last time he took a fight on short notice (DWCS) he only landed three takedowns on his way to a decision win that would have been good for 87 DraftKings points but just 52 points on FanDuel. His recent decision win in his debut scored much better as he put up an insane 130 DraftKings points and still 103 points on FanDuel. He was our favorite play on that slate as we expected him to fly under the radar following a lackluster win on DWCS and he paid off in spades as he was just 21% owned on DraftKings. However, after breaking that slate he’ll be more popular here, lowering his tournament appeal to some extent. With that said, this is still a great matchup for him to find a ton of wrestling success, and if his cardio holds up on short notice, he should put up another big score. The odds imply he has a 77% chance to win, a 38% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.

Sherman was sitting as a -225 favorite against Chris Barnett when DraftKings curiously released pricing earlier than normal, but then saw a drastic opponent change that swung him to a +310 underdog. However, his $8,800 DraftKings price tag was already locked in so instead of being priced at $6,700 where he would be if pricing were released with the current matchup, he’s $2,100 overpriced. That will drastically reduce his ownership as only psychopaths, family members, and profitable DFS players will be looking to play him. Obviously that creates a ton of leverage if he’s somehow able to pull off the upset, but stylistically this matchup couldn’t be any worse for him. Sherman is 0-5 in UFC fights where he’s conceded even a single takedown and he offers nothing in terms of grappling. His only hope will be to either land an early hail mary KO or that Williams gasses out after taking this fight on short notice and Sherman can finish him later in the fight. Both of those are remotely possible, but neither is likely. It makes sense to have some level of exposure to Shewrman based on his low ownership, but this is a nightmare matchup for him and we fully expect him to get dominated on the mat. He’s only won a single decision in his career, which scored just 75 DraftKings points. That means he’ll need to hand Williams the first early loss of his career, and at Sherman’s high price tag there are still ways he lands a knockout and gets priced out of winning lineups, especially if he gets controlled for a period of time leading up to the finish. The odds imply Sherman has a 23% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #8

Joe Pyfer

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Pyfer has knocked out three straight low-level opponents, including one of the worst UFC fighters in recent memory in Alen Amedovski in Pyfer’s recent UFC debut. Prior to that, he landed a second round TKO win in his second appearance on DWCS. Pyfer originally went on the show in August 2020 but suffered a dislocated elbow as he got slammed by Dustin Stoltzfus late in the first round. Following the injury, he had a lengthy 14 month recovery process before landing a second round knockout in the CFFC. That was enough to get him a second shot on DWCS and he capitalized on it with a finish to punch his ticket to the big show.

Now 10-2 as a pro, Pyfer has seven wins by KO, one by submission, and one decision. He has one TKO loss and one by submission (2019 R2 guillotine). His last 10 fights have all ended in the first two rounds, with four of his last six ending in round two. All nine of his early wins and both of his losses have come in under eight minutes and the only time he’s seen the third round was in his lone decision win in his second pro fight. Only 5 of his 10 wins have come against opponents with winning records, and even the opponents with winning records have been very low-level. The best example of that is Austin Trotman, who came into his 2021 fight against Pyfer with an undefeated 3-0 record, but two of those wins came against the infamous record padder Jay Ellis (16-108 as a pro). Pyfer’s submission loss came against a terrible Jhonoven Pati, who has never landed any other submissions in his career and has lost three of his last four fights since.

Overall, Pyfer is a young, green fighter who has good power and some ability to wrestle, but doesn’t appear ready to face legitimate competition at this stage in his career. While he can land takedowns, he hasn’t looked especially dangerous on the mat. He will look for submissions, but hasn’t completed one since 2019 in his fourth pro fight. In fairness to him, he’s still just 26 years old and he should be improving between every fight. He trains with Sean Brady in Philly, so he does have good training partners around him. Between his UFC debut and his two DWCS appearances, he landed both of his takedown attempts, while getting taken down himself once on two opponent attempts. While Pyfer has the physicality to beat low-level opponents, we expect some serious growing pains when he faces legitimate competition.

Gerald Meerschaert

18th UFC Fight (10-7)

Coming off another submission win, Meerschaert has quietly submitted four of his last five opponents after getting knocked out early in the first round of back-to-back 2020 fights. Meerschaert went through a tough stretch from 2018 to 2020 where he went just 2-5, with three first round losses. However, after getting knocked out in 74 seconds by Ian Heinisch and then in 17 seconds by Khamzat Chimaev, Meerschaert submitted three straight opponents in 2021. He then lost a decision to Krzysztof Jotko, which is Meerschaert’s only trip to the judges in his last eight matches, but bounced back with a submission win over a dangerous Bruno Silva in his last fight.

Now 35-15 as a pro, Meerschaert has six wins by KO/TKO, 27 submissions, and amazingly just two decision victories in his 50 pro fights. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted eight more, and has four decision losses. His last seven wins have all come by submission, with six of those ending in the later rounds, including four in round three. He’s lost his last four fights that have gone the distance and hasn’t won a decision since 2013. However, he’s only been to three decisions since 2014 and two of those were split. Meerschaert fought at 170 lb early in his pro career, but transitioned to 185 lb in 2013-2014, where he’s essentially stayed since, although he did venture up to 205 lb once in 2016.

While Meerschaert is a BJJ black belt and a great grappler, he has a suspect chin and two of his last three losses ended in knockouts in 74 seconds or less. Six of his UFC fights ended in the first round (3-3), four ended in round two (3-1), four more ended in round three (4-0) and three went the distance (0-3). So while he lands a lot of late finishes, he struggles with the judges. He’s landed 20 takedowns on 53 attempts in his 17 UFC fights (37.7% accuracy), averaging 2.2 takedowns per 15 minutes. Only once in his last 10 fights has he taken an opponent down more than once, but he’ll gladly go to the ground by any means necessary, even if it means working off his back, as he has just a 29% takedown defense.

Fight Prediction:

Pyfer will have a 1” height advantage, but Meerschaert will have a 2” reach advantage. Pyfer is nine years younger than the 35-year-old Meerschaert.

This is a massive step up in competition for Pyfer, who hasn’t faced any legitimate competition in his entire career. While we’re not calling Meerschaert a world beater, he’s an experienced UFC veteran and a very dangerous grappler. If/when this fight hits the mat, Pyfer will be at great risk of getting submitted. Even if he’s able to rely on his physicality to get out of danger early, it’s only a matter of time before Meerschaert locks something up if he gets enough opportunities. That means Pyfer will need to knock him out before that happens, which is always possible considering Meerschaert has been knocked out three times in the UFC. However, while Pyfer will have a puncher’s chance to find a finish, we like Meerschaert to eventually lock up a submission in the later rounds and pull off the upset.

Our favorite bet here is “Meerschaert R2 or R3 SUB” at +650.

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DFS Implications:

Pyfer got the easiest matchup anyone could ever ask for in his recent UFC debut, and did what he was supposed to do by landing a first round knockout, which was good for 106 DraftKings points. He’s still a young, raw physical talent who has a lot of improvements to make before he’s ready to face legitimate competition. While he’ll mix in takedowns, he hasn’t been the most active fighter on the mat and will now face a far superior grappler. While Pyfer’s power keeps him in play for a knockout, and Meerschaert has been knocked out three times in the UFC, we haven’t been overly impressed with what we’ve seen from Pyfer so far. While his last seven wins have all come early, he’s exclusively been facing low-level opponents. The field will likely overlook that last detail, and we expect Pyfer to again be popular here after checking in at 44% owned in his UFC debut. While it’s not the most comfortable fade, this looks like a good spot to gain leverage on the field by being under on Pyfer. The odds imply he has a 63% chance to win, a 51% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.

Meerschaert has 10 wins in the UFC, with all of those ending early, including nine by submission. However, seven of his last eight finishes have come in the later rounds, with his last two ending in round three. And because he has only landed more than one takedown once in his last 10 fights and averages just 3.11 SSL/min, he often struggles to put up really big scores. His last two submission wins only returned DraftKings scores of 85 and 62 and he also scored just 77 points in a 2019 third round submission victory, leaving him more reliant on landing a finish in the first two rounds to really score well. While his cheaper price tag does widen the range of acceptable scoring outcomes for him, he failed to crack the winning lineup on either DraftKings or FanDuel in either of his last two finishes. While we do like his chances of pulling off the upset with another submission victory here, if he doesn’t get it until the third round, there’s a very real chance he doesn’t score enough to be useful. However, if he can lock something up in the first two rounds then he’ll likely find himself in winning tournament lineups. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #7

Luana Pinheiro

3rd UFC Fight (2-0)

Seventeen months removed from a decision win over Sam Hughes, Pinheiro only had one fight booked in 2022 and it got canceled when Jessica Penne dropped out. Following a 2020 R1 KO win on DWCS, Pinheiro took on Randa Markos in her 2021 UFC debut and was awarded the victory by DQ after Randa Markos threw an illegal upkick that left Pinheiro dazed on her back for an extended period of time. She was clearly winning the fight up to that point, so she had no reason to look for a way out, but it did seem like an overreaction to the illegal strike. Regardless, Pinheiro was putting on a Judo clinic prior to the unfortunate ending, as she landed five takedowns on six attempts in just over four minutes of action. She followed up that DQ win with a somewhat uninspired decision victory over Sam Hughes in November 2021. Pinheiro came out more tentatively than in past fights, and while she had a decent start to the match, she slowed down some in the back half and coasted to a decision in the third round.

Now 10-1 as a pro, Pinheiro has two wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, two decision victories, and one DQ win. The only loss of her career came in a 2017 split decision in her third pro fight. She’s won eight straight since that loss, with seven of those eight wins in the first round. All 11 of her pro fights have either ended in the first round (8-0) or gone the distance (2-1).

Overall, Pinheiro is a Judo black belt who loves to look for hip throws to get opponents to the mat. She’s very aggressive with both her striking and her grappling, but didn’t face much in terms of competition prior to joining the UFC, and hasn’t finished anybody in her two UFC fights. Her boyfriend is the very tentative Matheus Nicolau, which is somewhat concerning in terms of Pinheiro dialing back her aggression at some point, if she starts taking his advice. Between her two UFC fights and her DWCS appearance, she’s landed 7 of her 9 takedown attempts (77.8% accuracy), while none of those three opponents tried to take her down. After a year and a half away, it will be interesting to see what improvements the 29-year-old Pinheiro has made and how much ring rust she has to knock off.

Michelle Waterson-Gomez

13th UFC Fight (6-6)

Coming off a second round submission loss to Amanda Lemos, Waterson-Gomez has dropped her last two and four of her last five. She easily could be on a five fight skid, but she won a close/questionable 2020 five-round split decision over Angela Hill. Waterson-Gomez hasn’t been very active lately, and prior to her one fight in 2022, she only fought once in 2021, which was a five-round decision loss to Marina Rodriguez. While her last fight ended early, she had fought to eight straight decisions before that, and you have to go all the way back to a 2017 second round submission loss to Rose Namajunas to find her second most recent fight to end early. The last time ​​Waterson-Gomez finished anybody was in 2016 when she landed a first round submission against a terrible Paige VanZant. Her only other UFC finish came just before that in her UFC debut against another suspect opponent in Angela Magana, who went 0-3 in the UFC and has since retired after losing six straight fights.

Now 18-10 as a pro, Waterson-Gomez has three wins by KO, nine by submission, and six decisions. She’s been knocked out once (2009), submitted four times, and has five decision losses. Three of her four submission losses came by guillotine, while she also has a rear-naked choke defeat. Her last four early losses all came in the later rounds, with three in round two and one in round three, and three of her last seven decisions have been split (2-1). Waterson-Gomez is a former Invicta Atomweight champion. She started her career fighting at Strawweight and Flyweight, but dropped down to Atomweight in 2012, before moving back up to Strawweight when she joined the UFC in 2015.

Overall, Waterson-Gomez is a black belt in karate and a BJJ brown belt and throws lots of kicks to try and keep her opponents at bay, but still averages 4.09 SSA/min. While she attempts a decent number of takedowns, she’s never landed more than three in a fight, hasn’t landed more than one in a match since 2019, and only has a 33% career takedown accuracy. She’s landed just four takedowns on 34 attempts in her last five fights and got submitted with a guillotine on her last takedown attempt. Her official UFC stats include two of her fights from Invicta and Strikeforce, but if we remove those and just look at her 12 UFC fights, she’s landed 16 of her 54 takedown attempts (29.6% accuracy), while her opponents have taken her down on 8 of 25 attempts (68% defense). While Waterson-Gomez is a decently well-rounded fighter, she’s not overly impressive anywhere, and her limitations are evident every time she faces a step up in competition. While she’s competed against several tough opponents in her career, she’s basically lost every one of those fights and has only notched wins against lower and mid level competition. Looking back at her UFC losses, they’ve come against Rose Namajunas, Tecia Torres, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Carla Esparza, Marina Rodriguez, and Amanda Lemos. Despite being 37 years old and going just 1-4 in her last five fights. Waterson-Gomez said she just signed a new contract and claims it’s an eight fight deal.

Fight Prediction:

Waterson-Gomez will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 62” reach. Pinheiro is eight years younger than the 37-year-old Waterson-Gomez.

This will be a step up in competition for Pinheiro and a step down for Waterson-Gomez, as we’ll see if the experience of Waterson-Gomez can outlast the explosiveness of Pinheiro. Waterson-Gomez is accustomed to going five rounds, while Pinheiro starts slowing down after one. That will leave Pinheiro more reliant on starting strong and potentially finding a finish. Working in her favor, Waterson-Gomez has been finished in 5 of her 10 career losses, including four by submission, and is now 37 years old. So if Pinheiro can get this fight to the ground early, she’s got a decent shot at locking up a submission win. However, if Waterson-Gomez can survive the opening round and a half, we expect her to take over in the back half of the fight, resulting in a close, potentially split decision. Waterson-Gomez has had a knack for squeaking out those close split decisions in the past (3-1), leaving Pinheiro more reliant on finding the early finish if she wants to keep her winning streak alive. While there’s a decent chance Pinheiro does submit Waterson-Gomez in the opening minutes of this match, her 17 month layoff, limited UFC experience, and the step up in competition is concerning enough for us to lean towards the underdog in Waterson-Gomez here. Give us Waterson-Gomez in a close decision, but it makes sense to wait to bet her until after the first round.

Our favorite bet here is “Pinheiro R1 SUB” at +1800.

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DFS Implications:

Pinheiro is an explosive fighter with 8 of her 10 career wins coming in the first round, but all three of her fights to make it out of the first round have ultimately gone the distance. While her grappling helps to boost her scoring, she only scored 79 DraftKings points in her last decision win. Her biggest detriment appears to be her cardio, and all of that explosiveness comes at a cost later on in fights, as she slowed down in the back half of her last match. Not only does that leave her more reliant on landing an early finish to score well, it also creates the potential for her to try and pace herself as we’ve seen from multiple explosive fighters with cardio concerns in the past. That game plan often backfires and just ruins scoring potential in fights, but we have no way of knowing what her approach will be. What we do know is that all of her finishes have come against questionable competition, she’s yet to finish anybody at the UFC level, she hasn’t competed in 17 months, she’s facing a step up in competition, and she was 55% owned on DraftKings in her last fight. Those are all red flags, and we’re treating her as a boom or bust option who has a high ceiling but needs a finish in the opening round to find it. The odds imply she has a 59% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

Waterson-Gomez fought to eight straight decisions leading up to her recent second round submission loss, only averaging 78 DraftKings points in her trio of three-round decision wins. She was able to score 100 points in her last decision victory, but that was in a five-round fight. She hasn’t finished anybody since her first two UFC fights where she landed a pair of submissions against low-level opponents, and is now 37 years old. While we like her chances to squeak out a close decision win here if she can survive the opening round, she’s still unlikely to score well in that scenario. Even at her cheaper price tag, she will have a tougher time cracking tournament winning lineups without a finish, unless we get a slate where only 2-3 dogs win. The only compelling reason to play her is that she projects to be very low owned, but that’s not enough to get us very excited about her. The odds imply she has a 41% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #6

Kelvin Gastelum

21st UFC Fight (11-8, NC)

Struggling just to make it to a fight, Gastelum’s last three scheduled fights have all been canceled, with him dropping out of the last two due to injury. The last time he actually competed was in August 2021 when he lost a five-round to Jared Cannonier. Just before that he lost a five-round decision to Robert Whittaker and Gastelum’s only win in his last six fights came in a wrestling-heavy 2021 three-round decision against Ian Heinisch, where Gastelum was able to land a career best six takedowns with nearly seven minutes of control time. Gastelum amazingly landed as many takedowns in that fight (6) as he had in his previous 12 fights combined. Prior to that win, Gastelum was submitted in the first round by Jack Hermansson after losing a three-round split decision to Darren Till and a five round decision to Israel Adesanya.

Now 16-8 as a pro, Gastelum has six wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and six decision wins. His last two wins both went the distance and he hasn’t finished anybody since knocking out a half retired Michael Bisping in 2017. While 10 of his 16 career wins have come early, Gastelum has settled into being more of a decision fighter as six of his last seven fights have gone the distance. While he’s never been knocked out, he’s been submitted twice and has six decision losses. Gastelum has fought at both 170 lb and 185 lb in the UFC, but decided in 2016 he likes food more than winning and moved up to 185 lb and never looked back.

Overall, Gastelum relies mostly on his striking but is a black belt in 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu and has a high school and college wrestling background. He’s landed 19 of his 59 takedown attempts (32.2% accuracy) in his 20 UFC fights, but has only landed more than one takedown in one of his last 12 matches. He also doesn’t put up big striking totals, averaging just 3.53 SSL/min and 3.24 SSA/min. He hasn’t landed more than 91 significant strikes in any of his last 11 fights, despite three of those matches going five rounds. He’s still just 31 years old, but he definitely feels much older and it’s unclear how much he has left.

Chris Curtis

6th UFC Fight (4-1)

Fresh off a second round knockout win over Joaquin Buckley, Curtis has won 9 of last 10 fights with his lone loss ending in a low-volume decision against Jack Hermansson in a fight Curtis took on short notice. Prior to that, Curtis had won eight straight fights, with his second most recent loss coming back in 2019. Three of his four UFC wins have come by knockout, with his lone decision victory coming against grappling ace Rodolfo Vieira in a fight where Curtis was primarily focussed on stuffing takedowns, which he did so masterfully as Vieira failed to land any of his 20 attempts. Curtis loves to stay busy and after landing a first round knockout against Phil Hawes in his UFC debut in November 2021, he hopped back inside the Octagon a month later and knocked out Brendan Allen. He then won the decision over Rodolfo Vieira in June 2022, a month before he lost to Hermansson. He originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but despite landing a third round KO he was not awarded a contract. Curtis actually lost the first round to Buckley and was outstruck 50-36 in the fight, after losing a decision just before that. He also lost the first round to Vieira and was losing to Phil Hawes until he wasn’t. So Curtis often starts slow but excels later in fights and lands a lot of late knockouts.

Now 30-9 as a pro, the 35-year-old Curtis has 17 wins by KO, one by submission, and 12 decisions. Eight of his last 10 wins have come by knockout, with six of those occurring in the later rounds. He’s only been knocked out once himself (R2 2019), submitted once (R3 2011), and has seven decision losses. In fairness to him, that lone KO loss came in a night where he fought twice in the PFL playoffs. While he’s landed two first round knockouts in his last seven fights, those are the only two of his fights out of his last 21 to end in round one, and he’s generally looking to put guys away in the later rounds. While he’s been fighting exclusively at 185 lb in the UFC, where this next fight will also be, Curtis has bounced around weight classes in the past and spent much of his career down at 170 lb. He’s also fought as high as 205 lb. His last fight before joining the UFC was at 170 lb but he seems content with staying at 185 lb.

Overall, Curtis is primarily a boxer and relies on his hands to win fights. While he has yet to attempt a takedown in the UFC and doesn’t offer much of anything in terms of offensive grappling, his takedown defense has been perfect, stuffing all 32 of the attempts against him so far in four UFC fights. He does tend to get hit a lot, as he averages 5.82 SSL/min and 6.39 SSA/min, but he’s built like a tank and has looked extremely durable. He’s been in several five round fights in the past and conditioning isn’t really a concern for him, which allows him to jump into so many short notice matchups.

Fight Prediction:

Curtis will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while Gastelum is four years younger than the 35-year-old Curtis.

This sets up as a fun striking battle where Gastelum will likely try to mix in some takedowns, but is unlikely to find much success against the impenetrable takedown defense of Curtis. Both guys are extremely durable, with just one knockout loss between them in 63 combined pro fights. The fight seems destined to go the distance and end in a close decision, although we’re not completely eliminating the possibility that Curtis can hand Gastelum the first knockout loss of his career late in the match. However, it’s pretty unlikely and we expect this to come down to who can land more strikes. Curtis is the more active striker, but also gets hit more, so it’s not as simple as saying he’s the more active striker and will win. With that said, it’s really hard to get behind Gastelum who has just one win since 2018 and just doesn’t have a ton of output. So we’ll still side with Curtis here to get his hand raised, but as the odds suggest, this one could be close to a coin flip and a split decision would not be at all surprising.

Our favorite bet here is “FGTD” at -186.

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DFS Implications:

Gastelum generally has the potential to boost his scoring with wrestling as we saw against Ian Heinisch in his last win when Gastelum landed a career high six takedowns on 14 attempts and scored 95 DraftKings points in a three round decision win. However, Curtis’ takedown defense has been next level as he’s defended all 32 of the attempts against him and currently holds the all time UFC record for takedown defense at 100%, eking out Kamaru Usman’s 97.3%. That will leave Gastelum reliant on landing a finish to score well, and he only scored 63 DraftKings points in his last decision win without a takedown landed. Curtis is ridiculously durable even though he gets hit a lot and has only been knocked out once in 39 pro fights. The last time Gastelum finished anybody was in 2017 when he took on a half retired Michael Bisping, and we don’t see Gastelum finding the finish he needs to score well here. The odds imply he has a 53% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

Curtis has landed knockouts in three of his four UFC wins and eight of his last 10 wins ended in knockouts, which is obviously encouraging for his upside. However, Gastelum has been very durable and has never been knocked out in his career. Gastelum also only averages 3.24 SSA/min and may be looking for takedowns, both of which could limit Curtis’ ability to put up a really big striking total. In his lone UFC decision win, Curtis only scored 78 DraftKings points and even at his cheaper price tag that won’t be enough to be useful in tournaments. That seemingly leaves him reliant on handing Gastelum the first KO loss of his career, which is tough to count on. We’re expecting this to be a better real life fight than for DFS purposes and the winner likely fails to put up a big score in a close decision win. We’re treating Curtis as nothing more than a KO or bust option in a bad matchup. The odds imply he has a 47% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #5

Raul Rosas Jr.

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Fresh off a first round submission win in his UFC debut, Rosas Jr. had no trouble slicing through a suspect Jay Perrin, who’s now 0-3 in the UFC. Prior to that, Rosas Jr. went to the judges for the only time in his career in a decision win on DWCS when he was just 17 years old, becoming the youngest fighter to ever win a contract on the show. He amazingly was still in high school at the time, although he dropped out after getting the contract to pursue fighting full time. Rosas Jr. showed he knows how to escape guillotine chokes in that fight, as his opponent was constantly looking to wrap up his neck on takedown attempts.

Still just 7-0 as a pro, Rosas has one win by TKO, five submissions, and one decision victory. Five of his six finishes came in the first round, with the other ending just before the midway point of round two. So he’s only been in one fight that lasted longer than a round and half. Only two of his seven opponents came in with more than two fights of pro experience, and he’s yet to face anyone with a UFC win under their belt.

Overall, Rosas is a relentless wrestler who looks to get fights to the ground early and often. He hasn’t shown much in terms of striking, but he also hasn’t needed to because he’s dominated everyone on the mat. Between his UFC debut and his DWCS appearance, he landed five takedowns on eight attempts (62.5% accuracy), while he also got taken down on the only attempt from his two opponents. He only turned pro in November 2021 and is only 18 years old. He made his debut on a PPV card and will be on another one in this next matchup and he’s already being added to the UFC video game. So clearly they have high hopes for him.

Christian Rodriguez

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

After losing a hardfought decision in his short notice debut up a weight class at 145 lb against Jonathan Pearce, Rodriguez dropped back down to 135 lb and had the favor returned as he took on a debuting opponent in Joshua Weems, who was also stepping in on short notice. Rodriguez submitted Weems late in the first round with an Anaconda choke and his last two wins have now both come by first round submission. Rodriguez originally tried to crack the UFC through DWCS, but wasn’t awarded a contract following an October 2021 decision win over Tracy Cortez’s older brother, Reyes Cortez Jr. Following the DWCS victory, Rodriguez returned to the regional scene for one fight, but after landing a first round submission win the UFC brought him on when they needed someone to fill a slot on short notice.

Now 8-1 as a pro, Rodriguez has three wins by TKO, four submissions, and one decision victory. He has five first round finishes, although three of those occurred in his first three pro fights. He also has a second round submission win and a third round TKO. Three of his last four finishes have come by submission. He’s never been finished and his only career loss came by decision in his short notice UFC debut. Rodriguez has fought anywhere between 135 lb and 150 lb in his career. He’s 4-0 at 135 lb, 2-0 at 140 lb Catchweight, 1-1 at 145 lb, and 1-0 at 150 lb Catchweight.

Overall, Rodriguez is a young, well-rounded fighter who doesn’t really stand out as being exceptional at anything, but is pretty good everywhere. He does a good job of just touching up his opponents, without loading up on his strikes and he’s also a BJJ purple belt. His one weakness has been his takedown defense and between his two UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he’s been taken down 10 times on 23 opponent attempts (56.5% defense), while conceding at least two takedowns in each of those fights. However, his submission defense has looked solid so far and he was at least able to survive three rounds against Jonathan Pearce, despite taking that fight on short notice up a weight class. That’s more than most fighters can say, as 11 of Pearce’s 14 career wins have come early. Rodriguez has also landed two of his four takedowns attempts (50% accuracy), and likes to look for chokes in the grappling exchanges. That’s a blessing and a curse, as it gives him a chance to end fights early, but he looks for a lot of guillotine attempts when opponents try to take him down, opposed to focusing on remaining upright. So while that keeps him in play to lock up submissions, he’s often losing minutes when the attempts are unsuccessful. He’s still just 25 years old and only has nine pro fights, so he should be improving every time he steps inside the Octagon.

Fight Prediction:

Rosas Jr. will have a 2” height advantage, while Rodriguez will have a 4” reach advantage. Rodriguez is seven years older than the 18-year-old Rosas Jr.

While Rodriguez is the superior striker in this matchup, he doesn’t appear to have one-punch knockout power. When you combine that with his poor takedown defense, he’ll likely be reliant on locking up a hail mary guillotine to pull off the upset. While that’s always possible and he came close to locking one up in his UFC debut against Jonathan Pearce, it’s not a reliable method to win many fights at the UFC level. Furthermore, Rosas Jr. showed the ability to escape guillotine attempts in his DWCS match and seems aware enough to avoid getting submitted. He’s also set such lofty goals for himself that he may be less likely to tap and you may have to put him out to get him out of there. On the flipside, Rosas Jr. is also a dangerous submission threat, but Rodriguez’s submission defenses have looked solid and survived 15 minutes against a larger and more dangerous Jonathan Pearce. That leads us to believe that Rosas Jr. will be able to take Rodriguez down but is less likely to submit him and we like Rosas Jr. to grind out a decision win on the mat, likely with some dicey moments on both sides when it comes to submission attempts.

Our favorite bet here is “Raul Rosas Jr. DEC” at +240.

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DFS Implications:

Rosas Jr.’s wrestling-heavy approach to fighting has a safer floor on DraftKings compared to FanDuel and his decision win on DWCS would have been good for 104 points on DraftKings, but just 55 points on FanDuel. With that said, six of his seven career wins have come early, including a first round submission in his recent UFC debut, so he clearly has the ability to score well on both sites. However, he’s facing a durable opponent in Christian Rodriguez who’s never been finished in his career and who went the distance with a larger, more dangerous opponent in his short notice UFC debut against Jonathan Pearce. That makes it tougher to count on Rosas Jr. finding the finish he needs here to score well on FanDuel, but he could still put up a solid DraftKings score in a grappling-heavy decision win, which is what we’re expecting to happen. The odds imply Rosas Jr. has a 70% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.

Rodriguez was put into one of the least favorable spots you could ask for in his UFC short notice UFC debut up a weight class against a dangerous grappler, but then had the script flipped in his next match when he took on a low-level opponent who stepped into his own debut on short notice and missed weight. Simply surviving in his UFC debut was impressive and then he landed the finish we expected out of him in his next match. However, now he’ll be tested against another wrestler and we expect this match to more closely resemble Rodriguez’s debut. He’s struggled with his takedown defense, as he was taken down multiple times in both of his UFC fights and in his DWCS appearance. He’s got a pretty solid guillotine, but he relies on it a little too much, which generally results in him ending up in bottom position on the mat. It will be tough to win many decisions that way and most opponents at the UFC level will be savvy enough to escape his submission attempts. Because he’s coming off a first round submission win and is now priced incredibly cheap going against an 18-year-old kid, we expect him to be a popular underdog. That lowers his tournament appeal and even if he does lock up a guillotine, it likely wouldn’t result in a huge score, so there’s still a chance he could be left out of tournament winning lineups with so many other live underdogs on this card. The odds imply he has a 30% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #4

Kevin Holland

18th UFC Fight (10-6, NC)

Looking to bounce back from a pair of early losses, Holland’s corner stopped his last fight after the fourth round as Holland was struggling to defend himself against Stephen Thompson after breaking his hand earlier in the match. That’s the first time Holland has ever lost by KO/TKO. However, just prior to that he got submitted in the first round by Khamzat Chimaev, after which Holland casually announced his retirement from MMA. His ride into the sunset was brief, as he then accepted his last fight just a few weeks after that loss. 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. The move in weight was prompted by three straight defeats on the mat in 2021, although the last of those was overturned to a No Contest. Regardless of the official outcome, it had become clear that Holland didn’t stand much of a chance against high-level grapplers at 185 lb.

Now 23-9 as a pro, Holland has 13 wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and four decision wins. Of his 13 knockout wins, eight came in round one, two ended in round two, and three occurred in round three. He has one TKO loss, and has been submitted three times, to go along with five decision defeats. 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’s last four wins all ended in the first two rounds, while three of his last four losses made it to the championship rounds in five-round decisions. 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 with a No Contest in the UFC at 185 lb, Holland dropped back down 170 lb in early 2022, where he’s since gone 2-2.

Overall, Holland is a second degree black belt in Kung Fu and primarily a striker but is technically also a BJJ black belt and does have some submission abilities. He is rangy, powerful, and dangerous on the feet, in addition to being very durable, but his wrestling is where he really struggles and that’s been exposed at multiple points over the last couple of years. Most of Holland’s UFC losses have come on the mat and Stephen Thompson is the only fighter to defeat him in a striking battle, and Holland broke his hand early in that fight. While he doesn’t look to take fights to the mat very often, Holland has landed 12 takedowns on 29 attempts (41.4% accuracy) between his 17 UFC matches and his DWCS appearance. However, he failed to land a takedown in five straight fights leading up to his last match and refused to remain on the ground when he did land takedowns in his last fight. After getting paid handsomely in the Chimaev fight, Holland has seemed less focussed on his MMA career as he’s branched off into podcasting and self promotion. Maybe the pair of losses will refocus him, but that remains to be seen.

Santiago Ponzinibbio

17th UFC Fight (11-5)

Ponzinibbio narrowly avoided a three fight losing streak when he landed a third round TKO win in a fight he was losing against short notice replacement Alex Morono. Prior to that, Ponzinibbio lost two straight split decisions and was just 1-3 in his previous four fights since returning from an extended 26 month layoff. Ponzinibbio won seven straight fights from 2015 to 2018, but then dealt with a bad staph infection that kept him out for over two years. After not fighting at all in 2019 or 2020, Ponzinibbio got knocked out in the first round by Li Jingliang upon his return in January 2021. He bounced back with a hardfought decision win over Miguel Baeza, but then lost close decisions to Geoff Neal and Michel Pereira.

Now 29-6 as a pro, Ponzinibbio has 16 wins by KO, six by submission, and seven decisions. He’s been knocked out in three of his six career losses, but he’s never been submitted. Of his 22 early wins, he impressively has 14 first round finishes. His last submission victory came all the way back in 2012 just before joining the UFC, and he seems entirely reliant on knocking opponents out to get finishes at the UFC level.

Overall, Ponzinibbio is typically looking to turn fights into brawls, especially since returning from his extended layoff, and his highest three striking totals all occurred in his last four fights. He’s only landed six takedowns in 16 UFC appearances and three of those came against Mike Perry in 2017, so he doesn’t add much in terms of grappling. Looking at his defensive grappling, he has only been taken down once in his last nine fights, but has also only faced three takedown attempts over that stretch. Looking at his entire UFC career, he’s been taken down 11 times on 28 attempts and owns a 60% takedown defense. At 36 years old and just 2-3 in his last five fights, it’s fair to wonder exactly how much he has left in the tank, but you can’t question his heart.

Fight Prediction:

Holland will have a 3” height advantage and 8” reach advantage. He’s also six years younger than the 36-year-old Ponzinibbio.

This sets up as a fun striking battle between two fighters who rarely land many takedowns. Holland is taller, longer, younger, more durable, and more powerful, but did break his hand just four months ago and is a complete headcase with questionable motivation to win fights these days. If Holland shows up healthy and focussed, he should have no problem winning this fight and likely gets it done early. However, if he dicks around again he’s shown he’s fully capable of being his own worst enemy. Outside of his last fight, he generally excels against other strikers, and we expect him to actually try to win this fight, which we know is asking a lot from him. Ponzinibbio seems to be declining at this stage in his career and nearly got finished by a far less dangerous Alex Morono in his last match. We like Holland’s chances of knocking him out here.

Our favorite bet here is “Holland KO” at +210.

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DFS Implications:

Holland generally relies on his striking to win fights and he’s only landed two takedowns in his last six fights. He also generally doesn’t land a ton of striking volume, only averaging 4.06 SSL/min in his career, and has only twice topped 79 significant strikes landed in his 17 UFC fights. That leaves him reliant on well timed finishes to score well in DFS, and to his credit, his last four wins all occurred in the opening two rounds. However, he only averaged 95 DraftKings points in those three finishes and at his high price tag he could land an early knockout and still get priced out of winning tournament lineups. He’s also typically very popular, at least when he’s not facing Khamzat Chimaev. In his two three-round matches prior to the Chimaev fight, Holland’s DraftKings ownership came in at 35% and 41% in similar situations to what we have on this slate. Despite losing his last two matches, we expect Holland to again be popular here, which lowers his tournament appeal. Only once in his career has he topped 101 DraftKings points in fights that have made it out of the first round and that was against a terrible John Phillips back in 2018. We’re treating Holland as an overowned R1 KO or bust option who even with a R1 knockout still isn’t guaranteed a spot in winning lineups. Overall, this looks like a much better real life fight than for DFS purposes. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a 35% chance to land a finish, and a 17% chance it comes in round one.

Ponzinibbio is basically a worse version of Kevin Holland when it comes to DFS, as he relies almost entirely on striking and early knockouts to score well. Four of his 11 UFC wins have come by R1 KO, and he’s averaged 111 DraftKings points in those fights. However, the most recent of those was back in 2017 and he’s now 36 years old. His only two UFC finishes to come beyond the first round were his recent R3 TKO that scored 81 DraftKings points and a 2018 R4 KO against Neil Magny, that was good for 93 points. In his five UFC decision victories, Ponzinibbio has averaged just 69 DraftKings points, with only one score above 79, which was when he totaled 90 points against Mike Perry in 2017 with the help of three knockdowns. While Holland is technically coming off a KO/TKO loss, that resulted from his corner throwing in the towel after the fourth round because Holland broke his hand. Despite that injury, Holland is insanely durable and has never been knocked down in 17 UFC fights. While Ponzinibbio’s cheap price tag theoretically keeps him in play even without a huge score, this is one of the tougher matchups he could ask for in terms of finding the finish he needs to really score well. At 36 years old and seemingly declining with every fight, we don’t have much interest in playing him. The odds imply he has a 32% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #3

Adrian Yanez

6th UFC Fight (5-0)

Coming off a first round knockout win over Tony Kelley, Yanez remains undefeated in the UFC and has won nine straight fights dating back to a 2018 LFA five-round split decision loss to Miles Johns. Seven of those nine victories ended in knockouts, with the other two ending in split decisions. Interestingly, his last three and four of his last five decisions have been split. The most recent of those came against Davey Grant just before Yanez knocked out Kelley, after Yanez started his UFC career with three more knockouts. After dominating his first two opponents in the UFC, Yanez did face some adversity in his next two matches as he lost the first round to Randy Costa before Costa gassed out and got finished by Yanez in round two. Then Yanez lost the second round to Davey Grant in his next fight but ended up winning a close split-decision.

Now 16-3 as a pro, Yanez has 10 wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and four decision victories. Five of his knockout wins ended in R1, three came in R2, and two occurred in R3, but two of his last three knockout wins came in the later rounds. His submission victories came in round one and three. He’s never been finished and all three of his losses have come by decision, with the last two of those being split. Both of his submission wins came early in his career, in his first six pro fights. His first two amateur fights were at 145 lb, before he dropped down to 135 lb in 2013 where he’s pretty much stayed since. He did have one more fight at 145 lb in 2015, which he won by first round submission.

Overall, Yanez is a patient but active striker (6.62 SSL/mim) with crisp boxing and a solid chin. He does a good job of countering, but his striking defense has arguably been his biggest weakness, and he averages 5.49 SSA/min (3rd highest on the slate). He has a BJJ black belt, but it might as well be a souvenir as he almost never feels the need to use it. His late father was a boxer and Yanez seems primarily focused on carrying on in his father’s footsteps by using his striking to win fights. He hasn’t shown any interest in going to the ground, with zero takedown attempts in his five UFC fights or his DWCS appearance. He’s also never been taken down in any of those fights, on six opponent attempts. This will be the toughest test of Yanez’s career and it will be interesting to see how he fares against the step up in competition.

Rob Font

15th UFC Fight (9-5)

Looking to bounce back from a pair of five-round decision losses, Font has gone the distance in three straight and six of his last seven fights. His most recent loss came against Marlon Vera, who knocked Font down three times, while Font outlanded him 271-159 in significant strikes. Those 271 significant strikes were the third most ever landed in a UFC match. Just before that, Font got knocked down twice by Jose Aldo in another five-round decision loss, where he outlanded Aldo 149-86 in significant strikes. Prior to the pair of losses, Font won four straight fights, but his only finish since 2018 came against a washed up Marlon Moraes.

Now 19-6 as a pro, Font has eight KO victories, four submissions, and seven decision wins. Eleven of his 12 early wins have occurred in the first two rounds, with eight in round one and three in round two. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted once (R1 2017), with his other five losses all going the distance. Font started his pro career in 2011 at 155 lb, before dropping down to 145 lb in 2012 in his third pro fight. He didn’t move down to 135 lb until his UFC debut in 2014. He never had a problem with the cut over his next 13 UFC fights, before missing weight by 2.5 lb for his last match.

Overall, Font has a really solid jab that he does a great job working behind. He landed a combined 596 significant strikes in his recent three five-round decisions (1-2), averaging a blistering 7.95 SSL/min in those 15 rounds of action, while absorbing 308, 4.11 SSA/min in those fights. He’s only been outlanded twice in 14 UFC fights and in his career he averages 6.38 SSL/min and 3.95 SSA/min. He’ll also mix in takedowns, with at least one landed in each of his last five fights to make it out of the first round. In his 14 UFC fights, he’s landed 12 of his 32 takedown attempts (37.5% accuracy), while his opponents have gotten him down on 18 of their 40 attempts (55% defense). Now 35 years old, Font hasn’t been wearing damage very well lately and nearly got finished in each of his last two fights, so it will be interesting to see how he looks here after nearly a year away.

Fight Prediction:

Font will have a 1” height and reach advantage, while Yanez is six years younger than the 35-year-old Font.

We’ve seen Yanez struggle at times against other wiry strikers in Davey Grant and Randy Costa, but he was still able to win both of those fights. Font’s jab could give Yanez some trouble closing the distance and will likely leave him trailing in strikes. That will leave Yanez reliant on damage to win the fight, which is something he’s generally excelled at, as he’s knocked down five of his last six opponents. Font has been knocked down five times in his last two matches and was inches away from getting finished in those matches, so at 35 years old we could be seeing a deterioration of his chin despite the fact that he’s never been knocked out. He’s also been submitted before, and while Yanez has shown zero interest in grappling, he is a BJJ black belt and could always lock up a choke if Font shoots for a desperation takedown after getting hurt. It would be surprising to see Font find a finish, leaving him reliant on outlanding his way to a decision win behind his jab. There’s a very real chance that happens if he can avoid taking too many big shots, and if this does go the distance we like Font’s chances of pulling off the upset in a close decision. However, we also need to consider that Font took a life-shortening beating in his last fight and now hasn’t competed in nearly a year. So instead of expecting to see a 2020 version of Font, we should account for the potential that he shows up as a diminished version of his past self. That makes it tougher to count on him surviving three rounds against a young and hungry opponent, and we’ll say Yanez gets him out of there early, most likely through an accumulation of damage with a late round knockout.

Our favorite bet here is “Adrian Yanez R2 or R3 KO” at +430.

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DFS Implications:

Yanez is a solid striker who averages 6.62 SSL/min (2nd most on the slate), but has yet to attempt a takedown in the UFC or land more than 100 significant strikes in a fight. That leaves him entirely reliant on landing early knockouts to score well in DFS, and he finished with just 70 DraftKings points in his lone UFC decision win. He also scored just 81 points in a third round TKO win back in 2021, despite notching a pair of knockdowns in that fight, showing that he can fail even with a late round finish. Also working against Yanez, this will be the toughest test of his career and Font has never been knocked out. However, the 35-year-old Font has absorbed a ton of damage in his last two fights, nearly getting finished in both of them, and now hasn’t competed in a year. So despite never being knocked out, we’re not overly confident in Font’s chin moving forward. Yanez was surprisingly only 26% owned on DraftKings in his last fight, but was 42-47% owned in all four of his fights prior to that, and is now coming off a career performance where he scored 114 DraftKings points. At his reasonable price tag, that should result in him being pretty popular, thus lowering his tournament appeal some. However, we’re expecting a high-volume scrap here, making it an uncomfortable spot to fade. The odds imply Yanez has a 62% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 17% chance it comes in round one.

Font has been a consistent DFS producer who’s averaged 108 DraftKings points in his nine UFC wins, with all but one of those victories scoring at least 100 points. He even scored 114 DraftKings points in his recent five-round decision loss, after totaling 77 points in another five-round loss just before that. The only time he’s failed to score well in a win was a 2019 three-round decision victory over Ricky Simon where he was defending takedowns the whole time and scored just 73 points. Font has shown he can score well even without a finish through sheer volume and occasional takedowns and this looks like another good spot for him to put up a big striking total, as Yanez averages 5.49 SSA/min (3rd most on the slate). He’s scored 114 or more DraftKings points in three of his last four fights, but it’s important to keep in mind that Font’s last three fights all went five rounds, so his stats are inflated as he steps into his first three-round fight since 2020. His past scoring success paired with his cheap price tag will drive up his ownership, despite all of the red flags surrounding him. He hasn’t won a fight in nearly two years, took an insane amount of damage in his last fight, is now 35 years old, and hasn’t fought in almost a year. He’s also taking on an opponent who’s never been finished in his career and has never been taken down in the UFC. That lowers Font’s scoring potential and likely leaves him reliant on putting up a huge striking total to serve as a value play in a decision win. The odds imply Font has a 38% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #2

Gilbert Burns

20th UFC Fight (14-5)

Fresh off an impressive first-round submission win over Neil Magny, Burns barely broke a sweat in that one-sided performance after going to war with Khamzat Chimaev in a three-round decision loss just before that. While Burns has lost two of his last four fights, he’s 8-2 in his last 10 with the one other loss over that stretch coming against Kamaru Usman in an early 2021 R2 TKO. In between the two losses to Usman and Chimaev, Burns won a grappling-heavy decision over Stephen Thompson. Prior to the loss to Usman, Burns had won six straight fights after getting knocked out by Dan Hooker in the first round of a 2018 155 lb match. Since moving up from 155 lb to 170 lb in 2018, five of Burn’s last eight fights have gone the distance, with the three exceptions being a 2021 R3 TKO loss to Usman, a 2020 R1 TKO win over an aging Demian Maia, and his recent first round submission win over Neil Magny.

Now 21-5 as a pro, Burns has six wins by KO/TKO, nine by submission, and six 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 14 fights, and only one since moving up to 170 lb. 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 7-2 at 170 lb in the UFC, with five 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 came early, five of his seven victories at 170 lb have gone the distance.

Overall, Burns is a 3rd degree BJJ black belt and a very well rounded fighter. While he’s a dangerous grappler and a powerful puncher who’s coming off a first round submission win, he’s been less of a finishing threat since moving up to 170 lb. In his last eight fights since moving back up to 170 lb, Burns has landed 10 of his 33 takedown attempts (30.3% accuracy), which is below his overall 35% career takedown accuracy. Over that same stretch, he’s only been 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. 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 3.42 SSL/min and 3.17 SSA/min.

Jorge Masvidal

22nd UFC Fight (12-9)

Coming in on a three fight skid, the 38-year-old Masvidal hasn’t won a fight since 2019 and is just 3-5 in his last eight matches. He’s only competed once a year since that 2019 post R3 doctor stoppage TKO win over Nate Diaz, which came right after his five second R1 KO win over Ben Askren. Following the win over Diaz, Masvidal stepped into a short notice title fight against Kamaru Usman in 2020 and lost a unanimous decision, losing every single round. They ran it back a year later and Usman knocked Masvidal out early in the second round. Following the pair of losses to Usman, Masvidal got smothered on the mat for five rounds by Colby Covington in his last fight, which took place 13 months ago.

Now 35-16 as a pro, Masvidal has 16 wins by KO, two submissions, and 17 decision victories. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted two more times, and has 12 decision losses. His last five wins have all come by KO, while 11 of his last 12 losses have gone the distance. Masvidal started his career at 155 lb before moving up to 170 lb in 2015 where he’s stayed since. He went 5-2 at 155 lb in his first seven UFC fights before going 7-7 since moving up to 170 lb.

Overall, Masvidal relies on his striking to win fights and has only landed two takedowns on five attempts in his last 10 matches (40% accuracy). Over that same stretch, he’s been taken down on 18 of 50 opponents attempts (64% defense), although 13 of those 18 takedowns conceded came from elite wrestlers in Usman and Covington. Looking at his entire career, he has a solid 74% takedown defense. He’s just 1-5 in his last six fights where he’s been taken down more than once, so the blueprint has been laid on how to beat him. He only averages 4.11 SSL/min and has only topped 83 significant strikes landed in 2 of his 21 UFC fights. He’ll be fighting in front of his home Miami crowd, so we expect him to leave it all out there, but that also comes with some added pressure.

Fight Prediction:

Masvidal will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while Burns is two years younger than the 38-year-old Masvidal.

It’s hard to fully gauge where Masvidal is at in this stage of his career based on how infrequently he’s been fighting, his age, and who he’s been going up against. He’s also floated the idea that this could be his last fight if he loses, which is never a good sign. Burns will obviously have a massive grappling advantage, but it’s important to differentiate wrestling from grappling in this situation. While Masvidal really struggled with the wrestling of of Usman and Covington, Burns is not nearly as good of a wrestler as either of those two and has just a 30% takedown accuracy since moving up to 170 lb, while Usman and Covington both have a 45% takedown accuracy. Yes, Burns was able to take Magny (56% takedown defense) down and submit him with ease in his last match, but Magny has been very prone to getting submitted throughout his career (six submission losses), while Masvidal hasn’t been submitted since 2009. That fight was also in front of Burns’ home Brazilian crowd. We expect Burns to have a tougher time consistently getting Masvidal down and controlling him, which could turn this into a closer striking battle. We still like Burns’ chances of winning through a combination of striking and grappling, but this could look much closer than the odds suggest if Masvidal hasn’t completely gone off a cliff in his career. While both guys live in South Florida, we’re expecting the crowd to favor Masvidal, who touts himself as the king of Miami. That has the potential to help sway a judge or two in a close decision. So while our pick is Burns by decision, if Masvidal can keep it mostly standing this could get greasy.

Our favorite bet here is “Over 2.5 Rounds” at +110.

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DFS Implications:

Burns has averaged 94 DraftKings points in his 14 UFC wins and has only once scored above 84 points in a three-round decision, which was in 2018 when he was still fighting down at 155 lb. Even if the decision had gone his way in the crazy 2022 brawl against Chimaev, Burns still only would have scored 82 DraftKings points. He hasn’t scored more than 106 DraftKings points since 2019, and while his last two finishes both came in the first round, they only returned scores of 103 and 106 points. That makes it tougher for him to return value as the most expensive fighter on the slate and he’ll likely need to both dominate this fight on the ground AND land a well timed finish to crack tournament winning lineups. While he locked up a late first round submission in his last fight, he still only scored 103 points and Masvidal hasn’t been submitted since 2009. Burns has also looked like less of a finishing threat since moving up to 170 lb in 2019, and five of his last eight fights have gone the distance. There should be a ton of recency bias driving up Burns’ ownership, as he’s coming off a first round submission win and Masvidal was taken down and controlled for extended periods of time in his recent three losses. However, while Burns is a 3rd degree BJJ black belt, he’s nowhere near as good a wrestler as Usman or Covington, and Masvidal has a solid 74% career takedown defense. That makes this a great fade spot in tournaments and Burns will need things to go perfectly for him to end up in winning tournament lineups. The odds imply he has a 79% chance to win, a 44% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Masvidal’s last five victories all ended in KO/TKOs, and he generally scores well when he wins. However, he hasn’t won a fight since 2019 and is now 38 years old. Working in his favor, Burns has been knocked out twice before and Masvidal will be fighting in front of his home Miami crowd. Although in fairness Burns is also a resident of south Florida. Masvidal has averaged 102 DraftKings points in his 12 UFC victories and still managed to average 89 DraftKings points in his five decision wins. However, it’s important to point out that he hasn’t won a decision since 2016 and four of his five UFC decision victories came when he was still fighting down at 155 lb and mixing in more takedowns. We’d be very surprised to see him look to take Burns to the mat, which will make it tougher for him to score well without a knockout. However, as the cheapest fighter on the slate, it is still possible for him to serve as a value play in a decision win. The odds imply he has a 21% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #1

Israel Adesanya

15th UFC Fight (12-2)

Looking to bounce back from the first early loss of his MMA career, Adesanya was 179 seconds away from winning a decision over Alex Pereira when the fight was stopped midway through the fifth round. Prior to that Adesanya had won three straight five-round decisions after losing a five-round decision in the only other loss of his MMA career, when he tried to move up a weight class and capture the Light Heavyweight belt against Jan Blachowicz in March 2021. Adesanya originally won the Interim Middleweight belt against Kelvin Gastelum in a 2019 decision, and then became the undisputed champion when he knocked out Robert Whittaker in the second round of his next match. He followed that up with a painfully slow paced decision win over Yoel Romero, before knocking out Paulo Costa in the second round of his next fight. Bored at 185 lb, he then tried to become the double champ when he took on Jan, but came up short in a decision loss. Following the first defeat of his MMA career, he dropped back down to 185 lb and won decisions over Marvin Vettori, Robert Whittaker, and Jared Cannonier, leading up to his recent R5 TKO defeat.

Now 23-2 as a pro, Adesanya has 15 wins by KO and eight decision victories. His only two losses came in his recent R5 TKO and a 2021 five-round decision against Jan Blachowicz at Light Heavyweight. All 15 of Adesanya’s knockouts occurred in the first two rounds, with seven coming in round one and eight ending in round two. His last two, and three out of his four UFC knockouts came in the second round. Nine of his other 10 UFC fights went the distance, including seven five rounders, with the one exception being his recent TKO loss. His last 10 and 13 of his 14 UFC fights made it out of the first round, with the one exception being a 2018 R1 TKO over Derek Brunson in the closing seconds of round one. His last five and 8 of his last 12 fights made it to the fifth round.

This will be Adesanya’s 10th straight title fight and 11th five-round fight since joining the UFC in 2018. Six of those previous nine title fights went the distance, while two ended in second round knockout wins and one ended in a 5th round TKO loss. He also fought to a five-round decision victory against Brad Tavares in 2018, in his one other UFC five-round fight. Prior to joining the UFC, Adesanya had two fights scheduled to go five rounds, but he knocked out both opponents in the first round.

Overall, Adesanya is a calculated counter striker with a celebrated kickboxing career prior to transitioning to MMA. While he’s not a guy that’s generally looking to instigate grappling, he’s great at defending takedowns (78% career defense) and returning to his feet when he does get taken down. Considering he’s one of the best strikers on the planet, his opponents are generally looking to get him to the ground, but they have only been able to land 19 takedowns on 86 attempts against him in his 14 UFC fights (77.9% defense). On the other side of things, Adesanya has only attempted seven takedowns in the UFC. Four of those attempts came in his recent loss to Pereira, while the other three occurred in his first three UFC fights. The only takedown he ever landed came against Pereira. Adesanya also only averages 3.93 SSL/min and 2.80 SSA/min, so it’s rare to see huge striking numbers in his matches. After landing 10 knockdowns in his first seven UFC fights, Adesanya has only notched two in his last seven matches.

Alex Pereira

5th UFC Fight (4-0)

Pereira has somehow continued to find ways to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat every time he faces Adesanya, whether it be in their two kickboxing matches back in 2016 and 2017 or his recent fifth round TKO win. Pereira was losing all three of those fights but managed to land knockouts in the final round in two of those matches and steal a close decision in the other. The UFC fast tracked him to the top with a series of cherry picked non-wrestlers, and it’s no secret that Pereira is terrible on the mat. He amazingly got a UFC title shot despite having just seven pro MMA fights to his name and he only made his UFC debut 53 weeks before winning the belt. Pereira only had one MMA fight in the five and a half years prior to making his UFC debut, which came in a November 2020 violent R1 KO win in the LFA. His first three MMA fights were back in 2015 and 2016 and he returned to kickboxing after that, winning the Glory Kickboxing Light Heavyweight Belt in a January 2021 split-decision and then losing the title in a rematch via decision in September 2021. That loss prompted him to return to MMA and his next fight was his 2021 UFC debut.

Now 7-1 as a pro in MMA, Pereira has six wins by KO and one decision victory. Three of those knockouts came in round one, two ended in round two, and the other was in round five. His only career loss ended in a third round submission in his 2015 pro debut. After competing at 209 lb in his last two kickboxing matches, Pereira dropped back down to 185 lb for his UFC debut, where all of his MMA fights have been, and he’s absolutely massive for the division. He cuts a ton of weight and there has been talk about him potentially moving up a weight class in the not so distant future.

This will be just the 2nd five-round fight of Pereira’s career, and he’s only even seen the third round three times (2-1), with just two of those making it past the 13 minute mark. He looked to be slowing down a lot in the fourth round of his last fight, but was able to dig deep and find a second wind in round five.

Overall, Pereira is a very dangerous kickboxer, but doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling—although he has been working with Glover Teixeira to try and improve that faucet of his game. In his four UFC fights, he’s been taken down five times on 19 opponent attempts (73.7% defense), while he landed his lone takedown, which came against Adesanya. While his MMA experience is still very limited, he has 40 kickboxing fights to his name (33-7) including knockouts over Israel Adesanya (2017) and Dustin Jacoby (2014), along with another decision win over Adesanya in 2016. Pereira has also been knocked out twice himself in kickboxing matches. He has a dangerous left hook and throws violent kicks and knees to maximize his massive frame. Despite forcing a stoppage in the fifth round of his last fight, his cardio remains a concern and he was slowing down prior to the finish. He’s already 35 years old and the massive amount of weight he cuts will only get more difficult with every passing year.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 6’4”, but Adesanya will have a 1” reach advantage and is two years younger than the 35-year-old Pereira.

Because this fight is happening so closely to the Usman/Edwards rematch it’s only natural that people will draw comparisons to the two, especially considering both former champions were ahead before getting finished via KO/TKO in the 5th round of the previous fights. However, outside of the superficial similarities, the context of these two matchups are vastly different and we don’t want to let the results of the last Usman/Edwards fight have any impact on our prediction here.

In their last fight, Adesanya rocked Pereira in the closing seconds of round one and then controlled him on the mat for almost the entire third round. Adesanya also outlanded him in rounds two and four and clearly had the better cardio. The only round where Pereira led in significant strikes was round five, where an unfortunate misstep from Adesanya left him vulnerable to being backed up against the fence, where he ultimately got finished in what many would argue was a quick stoppage. Other than being big and powerful, Pereira really wasn’t very impressive in the fight and was down 39-37 on all three scorecards before he pulled off the late finish. And even the one round he won was extremely close, while the three he lost were not. So it’s not at all surprising that he comes in as the underdog once again, as he looks like a KO or bust fighter who will have a really tough time winning a decision. To Pereira’s credit, he has found ways to win despite his limited skill set and never quit in that last fight, but how many times can he rely on landing a knockout in the final round? You do have to wonder about where Adesanya is mentally after losing to Pereira twice in kickboxing and then another time in MMA, but he’s two years younger than the 35-year-old Pereira and we don’t see him being done just yet. While Pereira is the bigger, more powerful fighter, Adesanya has the advantage in speed, experience, fight IQ, grappling, cardio, and technique. And while it may sound crazy to say considering Pereira has finished Adesanya twice before, we believe Adesanya to be the more durable of the two.

Adesanya landed the first takedown of his UFC career in that last fight against Pereira and it would make sense for him to mix in more wrestling here as Pereira is helpless on the ground. The only question is whether or not Adesanya had enough time to actually improve his wrestling in the four and a half months since they last fought. Of course the UFC has put out videos of Adesanya doing wrestling drills, but whether or not he’s made actual improvements remains to be seen. It’s not the craziest idea to think that Adesanya could lock up a rear-naked choke on the mat if he can get Pereira down and at the very least grappling would help to drain Pereira’s cardio and neutralize his explosive power. We expect grappling to be a part of Adesanya’s gameplan, which makes it tougher to predict how Adesanya wins this fight, assuming he doesn’t get knocked out again. Pereira’s suspect chin and terrible grappling create two clear paths for Adesanya to finish him, however, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing Adesanya grind out decision wins, and he was 179 seconds away from doing that the last time these two squared off. After getting finished in that last fight, we could see him fight even more cautiously, making it tougher to count on him finding a finish. He struggled the most when he was static with his back against the cage, so look for more evasive movement out of him, which also lowers the chances of this ending early. While Pereira always has a puncher's chance and hasn’t impressed us defensively, we’ll say Adesanya wins a lower volume decision to recapture the belt and likely force another trendy UFC trilogy match.

Our favorite bet here is “Pereira KO or Adesanya DEC” at -200 (DraftKings).

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DFS Implications:

Adesanya has averaged just 88 DraftKings points in his previous eight wins in five-round UFC fights. In the two of those that ended early, he scored 102 and 106 DraftKings points in a pair of second round knockouts. However, in the six that went the distance he only averaged 82 DraftKings points, failing to top 86 points in five of those. The one time he scored well in a decision was when he landed an insane four knockdowns against Kelvin Gastelum and totaled 117 DraftKings points. However, we did see him land the first takedown of his UFC career in his last fight against Pereira, and Adesanya was on pace to score just under 96 DraftKings points had he survived for three more minutes. While that’s still not great, it does show some room for growth if he looks to grapple more here. His reasonable DraftKings price tag also creates the possibility for him to crack winning tournament lineups even without putting up a really big score. Because Adesanya has failed to top 86 DraftKings points in his last five fights and just lost to Pereira, we should see his ownership come in significantly lower than your typical five-round favorite. That certainly adds to his tournament appeal and even in his last three matches he was just 33%, 30%, and 38% owned. Just keep in mind, his most likely path to victory is still a lower volume decision that struggles to really score well. The odds imply he has a 57% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

Pereira has only averaged 94 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins, despite three of those ending in knockouts. He scored just 92 points in his recent R5 TKO win over Adesanya, after totaling 87 and 110 points in his previous two UFC knockouts. While he took Adesanya down once in that last fight, Pereira doesn’t really add anything in terms of grappling and relies entirely on striking and knockouts to score well. We don’t expect Adesanya to just stand there and trade with Pereira and their last match didn’t include a ton of striking volume. The potential for Pereira to get taken down and controlled further limits his scoring potential, but his cheaper price tag does widen his range of acceptable scoring outcomes. However, he was 179 seconds away from losing a decision in their last fight and he looks reliant on landing another knockout to win this rematch. The fact that he won the last fight and has two kickboxing victories over Adesanya should raise Pereira’s ownership, which lowers our interest in playing him. Despite being priced even cheaper the last time they fought while landing a late knockout, Pereira failed to crack tournament winning lineups on either DraftKings or FanDuel, showing that even with a win here he may not score enough to be useful. The odds imply Pereira has a 43% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

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