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Fighter Notes:
Fight #13
Ricky Simon
13th UFC Fight (8-4)Simon is coming off two straight losses after winning five in a row before that. In fairness to him, both of those defeats came in incredibly tough matchups, as he was knocked out in the fifth round by Song Yadong and then lost a decision to Mario Bautista most recently. Simon was only able to land 2 of his 13 takedown attempts against Bautista and got outlanded 112-45 in significant strikes, losing every round of the fight after coming in as a -200 favorite. Prior to that, Simon suffered his only other loss since 2019 when he got finished by Song Yadong in the final round of a main event. Simon was never able to get his offense going in the fight as Song was able to effectively neutralize his wrestling, while also leading the dance on the feet. That fight got elevated from three rounds to five on about a week and a half’s notice, so the circumstances surrounding it were a little unusual. Leading up to those losses, Simon had been on a roll, with his last win coming in an upset victory over the previously undefeated Jack Shore, who Simon submitted in the second round after hurting Shore on the feet. That came after Simon knocked out an aging Raphael Assuncao, who entered that matchup on a three fight skid and recently retired after losing five of his last six fights. That’s Simon’s only knockout win since 2018, just before he joined the UFC. Simon impressively started his UFC career off with wins over Merab Dvalishvili, Montel Jackson, and Rani Yahya. He was able to catch Dvalishvili and Jackson early on in their careers and was losing to Dvalishvili until he landed a submission as time expired in the fight, but those wins both aged quite well. After five of Simon’s first six UFC fights went the full 15 minutes, four of his last six ended early. His last three finishes all ended in the second round.
Now 20-5 as a pro, Simon has six wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and 10 decision victories. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted once, and has two decision losses. Eleven of Simon’s 12 UFC fights made it to the second round, with eight making it to round three, and six going the distance (4-2). All four of his UFC finishes occurred after the seven minute mark, with three in round two and one as the third round ended. Simon has spent the vast majority of his career at 135 lb, but has also gone 4-0 at 145 lb. However, only one of those 145 lb fights was in the UFC, which was when he defeated Brian Kelleher, who has also gone back and forth between 135 lb and 145 lb.
Overall, Simon is a BJJ black belt and a relentless wrestler who averages 11.9 takedown attempts per 15 minutes. Between his 12 UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Simon landed 61 takedowns on 131 attempts (46.6% accuracy), while getting taken down by his opponents 10 times on 43 attempts (76.7% defense). The only time he failed to land at least two takedowns in a fight was when he got knocked out by Urijah Faber 46 seconds into the first round of a 2019 match. After getting taken down eight times in his first two UFC fights against Dvalishvili and Jackson, Simon has only been taken down once on 18 opponent attempts in his last 10 fights and not at all in his last seven matches. After facing a pair of ranked opponents in his last two fights, Simon will not get a step down in competition against a fighter coming off his UFC debut.
Vinicius Oliveira
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Fresh off a highlight reel finish in his UFC debut, Oliveira landed a murderous flying knee knockout with just 19 seconds remaining in the third round. That finish came against an opponent in Benardo Sopaj who was making his short notice UFC debut on less than a week’s notice. Sopaj was able to take Oliveira down three times on four attempts and finished with four and a half minutes of control time. Sopaj looked very close to finding a finish on the mat in round two, but Oliveira was narrowly able to survive and reverse the position on the mat. At that point, Sopaj gassed out and Oliveira took over, before eventually finding a finish. Prior to that, Oliveira punched his ticket to the UFC with a first round knockout win on DWCS and Oliveira’s last six fights all ended early, while he only required the judges twice in 23 pro fights. Oliveira won the UAE Warriors Bantamweight belt in 2021 and then defended it once, but was then knocked out in his second attempted title defense in a back and forth fight where Oliveira almost got knocked out in round one, almost knocked his opponent out in round two, and then started taunting his opponent in round three just before he actually did get knocked out. Oliveira then bounced back with a first round knockout win before going on DWCS. Oliveira has a 2018 R2 TKO loss to Cristian Quinonez on his record. That was a back and forth brawl where Quinonez landed an illegal knee early on but the fight quickly resumed. It was concerning that a striker in Quinonez was able to take Oliveira down and we also saw Oliveira looking tired, before the fight was stopped early in R2 due to a questionable doctor stoppage.
Now 20-3 as a pro, Oliveira has 16 wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and two decision wins. Fourteen of his finishes ended in round one, with three coming in round two, and one in round three. Sixteen of his 18 finishes ended in a round and a half or less. He’s also been knocked out in all three of his losses and has only seen the third round four times in his career. Oliveira had one fight at 125 lb in 2019, but the rest of his career has been at 135 lb.
Overall, Oliveira is an aggressive finisher who fights with his hands low as he’s far more concerned with offense than defense. He can get a little (okay a lot) wild with his striking, which leaves him open to be countered, but when he connects he does a lot of damage. He’ll also mix in takedowns and occasional submission attempts, although he’s only a BJJ purple belt. His defensive wrestling has been poor and he’s been prone to getting taken down throughout his career. He tends to showboat a lot, which has gotten him into trouble at times, but he’s not lacking in confidence. It’s hard to see Oliveira being involved in too many boring matches moving forward and he’s still only 28 years old, despite already having 23 fights under his belt.
Fight Prediction:
Oliveira will have a 3” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while being three years younger than the 31-year-old Simon.
This is a massive step up in competition for Oliveira and a big step down in competition for Simon. It’s kind of surprising that the UFC doesn’t want to build Oliveira up after his recent highlight reel knockout, but instead they’re looking to test his biggest weakness, which is his defensive wrestling. Meanwhile, it’s a great stylistic matchup for Simon, who excels in matchups where he can chain wrestle and beat opponents up on the mat. While Oliveira is a dangerous striker and is always capable of landing a knockout, we expect Simon to rely on his experience to time his shots well and avoid taking too much damage. This is a great spot for Simon to rack up takedowns and control time, while looking for a finish on the mat. While all three of Oliveira’s pro wins came by knockout, Simon only has one KO/TKO win in 12 UFC fights, but has three submission victories with the organization and is a BJJ black belt. He’s also great at grinding out decisions on the mat, so while we do like him to use his wrestling to win the fight, it’s trickier to determine the exact method that he wins by. However, all eight of his UFC wins made it out of the first round, as did three of his four losses. So look for this fight to make it to the later rounds, with Simon either finding a late finish or winning a wrestling-heavy decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Ricky Simon Win & Over 1.5 Rounds” at +110.
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DFS Implications:
Simon has been a DFS scoring machine when he wins, averaging 103 DraftKings points in his eight UFC victories and scoring 98 or more points in each of his last six wins. However, after winning five straight fights from 2020 to 2022, he’s now lost two straight after the UFC started matching him up against much tougher ranked opponents in Song Yadong and Mario Bautista. Now they’re giving him a much more favorable matchup against an opponent who has just one UFC fight and struggles when it comes to defensive wrestling. While Oliveira is a dangerous finisher and Simon has been knocked out twice in his career, that’s only a concern for his scoring floor and Oliveira has just a 20% implied chance of knocking Simon out. In tournaments, we’re far more focussed on Simon’s scoring ceiling, which is massive in this spot. We’ve seen Simon put up huge takedown totals in the past and return slate-breaking scores on both DraftKings and FanDuel. We’re expecting that type of performance from him here and he has a very real chance of being the highest scorer on the slate if he can rack up takedowns and then find a well timed finish. And even in a decision win, Simon can still put up a big score on both sites if he can put up a big takedown total. It’s also a good buy-low spot on Simon after dropping two straight, although the more savvy portion of the field will still be on him, so don’t expect him to be too low-owned, just not quite as high as he should be in this very favorable stylistic matchup. The odds imply Simon has a 68% chance to win, a 38% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Oliveira is an exciting brawler who’s always looking to put on a show and find a finish. He fights with his hands low with very little regard for his defense and is far more focussed on landing bombs on his opponents. While that makes for a lot of highlight reel knockouts, it also results in him swinging recklessly and leaving himself open to be countered. That’s great for DFS, as it means someone should score well in his fights and he’s only been two two decisions in 23 pro appearances. He’ll also mix in takedowns at times, further adding to his scoring potential, but his defensive wrestling has been pretty bad. That’s a massive red flag for him as he faces one of the better wrestlers in the division here with Simon. We expect Oliveira to get taken down early and often, which will leave him reliant on landing a knockout with limited opportunities. Simon has been knocked out twice in the past, but he’s accustomed to facing much tougher opposition and this will be a really tough spot for Oliveira to pull off the upset. And because Oliveira is coming off a highlight reel knockout that returned 99 DraftKings points, we’ll likely see a portion of the field chase those results, further lowering Oliveira’s tournament appeal. However, if he does land the knockout that he needs to win, it’s harder to see him getting left out of tournament winning lineups at his cheap price tag. The odds imply Oliveira has a 32% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
Rei Tsuruya
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Tsuruya recently won the Road to UFC Flyweight tournament, with the finals taking place in February, not on a UFC card. In the first round of that tournament, Tsuruya took on an Indonesian kickboxer and completely dominated the fight on the mat, with three takedowns landed on four attempts and five and a half minutes of control time, before locking up a submission in round two. Then in the semi-finals, Tsuruya continued to rely on his wrestling as he went to the judges for the first time in his career and won a decision. He landed 8 takedowns on 15 attempts with eight and a half minutes of control time, but did slow down in the back half of the fight and got knocked down late in the third round in the final minute of the fight. In the finals, Tsuruya once again used his wrestling to secure a win, as he got the fight to the mat and finished with three official submission attempts and almost three minutes of control time, before finishing the fight with ground and pound with just one second left in the first round. Honestly, Mark Smith stopped the fight pretty quickly and most refs let the round finish there. Prior to going on Road to UFC, Tsuruya won the Pancrase FLyweight belt in 2022, although wasn’t facing the toughest competition on the regional scene for the most part.
Now 9-0 as a pro, Tsuruya has four KO/TKO wins, four submissions, and one decision victory. His eight finishes were split evenly across the first two rounds, but only one of his finishes came beyond a round and a half.
Overall, Tsuruya is a Japanese wrestler who has trained with his countryman Tatsuro Taira some in the past. Tsuruya was a junior Olympic wrestler and similar to Taira he relies on his wrestling and grappling to win fights. They claim he started wrestling at three years old, so he’s been doing it his entire life. He has kind of an awkward upright karate style stance with his legs spread wide apart and his chin high up in the air. We definitely don’t love that and he’s looked pretty hittable in the striking exchanges. He also slowed down a little the one time he made it to the third round, so there are some questions surrounding his cardio. However, he looks really dangerous on the mat and pushes a crazy grappling pace as he looks for all sorts of submissions and unique ways to torque on his opponents’ body parts. Whether or not that can translate to sustained success in the UFC remains to be seen, but he’s only 22 years old and has plenty of time to continue to evolve.
Carlos Hernandez
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Continuing to trade wins and losses since he joined the UFC, Hernandez is coming off a second round TKO loss to Tatsuro Taira, in a fight that Taira finished ahead 33-2 in significant strikes and 44-2 in total strikes. A failed takedown attempt from Hernandez resulted in him ending up in bottom position on the mat for an extended period of time in round one, but Taira never actually attempted a takedown in the fight. Prior to that, Hernandez was robbed of a finish as he landed a knockout slam against Denys Bondar in the final second of the fight, but it was then ruled an accidental clash of heads and the match ultimately ended in a technical decision victory for Hernandez instead. Just before that, Hernandez suffered the first early loss of his career when he got submitted in the first round by a dangerous Allan Nascimento. Hernandez never got much offense of his own going in that fight as he got taken down less than a minute in and controlled for the remainder before being forced to tap midway through the round as Nascimento locked in a rear-naked choke. Leading up to that loss, Hernandez won eight straight fights, including split decision wins on both DWCS and in UFC debut.
Now 9-3 as a pro, Hernandez has four submission wins and five decision victories. Three of those submissions came in round one, with the other ending in round two, although the last time he submitted anybody was in early 2020, two years before he joined the UFC. Hernandez’s last four wins all ended in decisions. He lost a decision in his 2017 pro debut, while he’s also been submitted once and has one TKO defeat.
Overall, Hernandez has good movement and footwork and is generally looking to push the pace, but doesn’t have much power in his striking and isn’t much of a threat to knock anybody out. While his takedown accuracy isn’t great, he’s somewhat dangerous on the mat and does a decent job of controlling opponents once there. He’s been prone to getting taken down himself, but he’s generally been pretty good at scrambling back to his feet, at least when he’s not facing elite grapplers. Between his four UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he only landed 4 of his 26 takedown attempts (15.4% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 10 of their 29 attempts (65.5% defense). He’s shown the ability to put up decent striking totals and despite the fact that he’s mostly be facing grapplers, he still averages 4.95 SSL/min and 4.54 SSA/min. The UFC isn’t doing Hernandez any favors with the matchmaking and they’re putting him up against another grappler here.
Fight Prediction:
Hernandez will have a 2” height advantage, but Tsuruya will have a 1” reach advantage and is eight years younger than the 30-year-old Hernandez.
Hernandez’s biggest weakness has been his defensive wrestling and the UFC continues to throw one grappler after the next at him in a merciless attempt to watch him struggle. While Hernandez was able to get past less dangerous grapplers, he’s struggled against higher level opposition. While it remains to be seen just how good Tsuruya is, he looks like a handful on the ground. Hernandez will likely need to keep the fight standing if he wants to pull off the massive upset, which has generally been a problem for him. He’s been taken down by everyone who’s tried and even some opponents who didn’t (Taira). And while Hernandez should have the striking in this matchup, he lacks the power to really capitalize on Tsuruya’s suspect striking defense. So it looks like a great matchup for Tsuruya to find wrestling success, while he’s at little risk of being finished. The one way it could go sideways for Tsuruya is if he gasses late in the fight, and the one time he saw the third round in his career he was definitely looking a bit winded. He pushes such a high pace and goes for so many submissions that he definitely burns through a lot of energy and now he’ll be making his UFC debut in front of a huge crowd and an adrenaline dump is certainly possible. And if you want to get a little crazy, when you combine his ferocious grappling attack with the potential for him to gas out, there are more paths to normal for a draw in this fight. Tsuruya could win a 10-8 first round and lose each of the later rounds, or he could win each of the first two rounds and then completely gas out and lose a 10-8 third round. You also always have the potential for a point deduction and we saw him warned for illegal strikes to the back of the head in one of his Road to UFC matches. Draws are still always the longest shot on the board, but this is as good a spot as any to see one.
With all that craziness out of the way, Tsuruya should have plenty of opportunities to hunt for a finish on the ground in the first two rounds, and if he’s unable to find one, he likely just needs to survive round three to still win a decision. It certainly won’t be shocking to see this go the distance, and Hernandez is the toughest opponent that Tsuruya has ever faced. With that said, Tsuruya attempts so many submissions and is so aggressive on the mat that he’ll have a good shot at ending things early, most likely by submission in the first two rounds. Unfortunately the books see it the same way and the lines on his finishing props are all pretty terrible. We’ll say that Tsuruya starts strong and nearly finishes Hernandez in round one, but the fight makes it to round two and slowly shifts in Hernandez’s favor the longer it lasts, ultimately ending in a close decision that comes down to how the judges score round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Tsuruya/Hernandez FGTD” at +170.
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DFS Implications:
Tsuruya is a high-paced Japanese wrestler who looks for all sorts of unorthodox and rare submissions. He’ll look for twisters, scarf hold armlocks, neck cranks from unusual angles, and all sorts of other unique finishing attempts. While he was able to make those work on the regional scene against a lower level of competition, you do have to wonder if he’ll be able to find the same success at the UFC level. With that said, he’s got pretty slick wrestling and never stops working. However, that pace does come at a cost and the one time he saw the third round he started slowing down. He’s also pretty green on the feet and has a really wide karate style stance where he stands straight up and leaves his lead leg and chin both exposed. He’s looked pretty hittable because of that and appears entirely reliant on his grappling to win fights. So if he ever runs into an opponent that he can’t take down, he’ll likely be in some trouble. With all of those negatives out of the way, he has a ton of upside through his ground game and in his three Road to UFC fights he would have averaged 111 DraftKings points and 116 points on FanDuel. Even in the decision win where he slowed down some late, he still would have scored 106 DraftKings points, although only 87 points on FanDuel. His grappling-heavy style is naturally a better fit for the DraftKings scoring system, but his finishing upside leaves him with a solid ceiling on both sites. Also working in his favor, Hernandez has been taken down by everyone who’s tried and this looks like a great spot for Tsuruya to put up a big takedown total and/or find a finish. The odds imply Tsuruya has a 79% chance to win, a 52% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Hernandez only averaged 80 DraftKings points in his two UFC wins, but did get robbed of a late third round knockout in the more recent of those that pulled 15 points off his scoring total. So he has shown some scoring potential and he averages 4.95 SSL/min and 1.1 TDL/15 min. However, he’s been facing nothing but grapplers in the UFC and gets another tough test here against a young undefeated Japanese wrestler. That leaves Hernandez with an uncertain scoring floor, as eight of Tsuruya’s nine pro wins ended in the opening two rounds. However, Tsuruya is still largely unproven and pushes such a high pace that he could gas himself out or struggle to perform in his debut in front of such a large crowd. That at least leaves Hernandez with some upside if he can simply survive early on and then take over later in the fight. However, outside of a Tsuruya collapse, it looks like a tough stylistic matchup for Hernandez to win or score well, as he’ll be on the defensive so much and has struggled to defend takedowns in the past. That leaves us only really interested in playing Hernandez as a contrarian tournament option. The odds imply Hernandez has a 21% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Martin Buday
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Buday recently had a 12-fight winning streak snapped in a second round TKO loss to former Dagestan national volleyball team member Shamil Gaziev. It was a pathetic showing from Buday, who finished behind 49-8 in significant strikes and failed to land either of his two takedown attempts. Prior to that, Buday locked up a first round kimura submission win over a terrible Josh Parisian. That was Buday’s first finish in the UFC, after his previous three victories all ended in decisions. The most recent of those decision victories came against a cardiovascularly challenged Jake Collier, after Buday won a questionable split-decision over Lukasz Brzeski, where Buday got outlanded 118-66 in significant strikes with no takedowns, knockdows, or appreciable control time accrued by either guy. Clearly the judges thought Buday was doing more damage, as he got considerably outlanded in every round. Prior to that, he won a third round technical decision over Chris Barnett in his UFC debut, where the fight was stopped in round three following an illegal shot from Buday, but it went to the scorecards and ended in a technical decision, opposed to being a DQ win for Barnett. Just before that, Buday punched his ticket to the UFC with a first round TKO win on DWCS in 2021.
Now 13-2 as a pro, Buday has seven wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and four decision victories. Six of his finishes ended in round one with the other three occurring in round two, although six of his last eight fights made it out of the first round. He’s coming off the first early loss of his career in a second round TKO, with his one other defeat going the distance in his second pro fight back in 2017 against a stud Heavyweight grappler in Juan Espino. Buday has only seen the third round four times in his career, with all of those fights ending with the judges.
Overall, Buday is primarily a striker but is also a BJJ brown belt and actually started off training in Jiu-Jitsu before transitioning to MMA. We saw some of that in a September 2019 submission win where he landed two takedowns and finished his opponent early in round two with a kimura and then he landed another takedown followed by a kimura finish in his 2023 win over Parisian. However his takedown attempts have been very sporadic and between his five UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he only attempted four takedowns, landing just one of them. Over that same stretch, his opponents only tried to take him down once, which he was able to stuff. While he isn’t an overly impressive striker, he finds ways to win and does a good job of landing damage out of the clinch, where he likes to throw heavy knees. He’s a big Heavyweight who has to cut down to make 265 lb and he relies on his size to help him win ugly fights. Buday doesn’t look like any sort of threat to make a real run in the UFC, but he should be able to find success against other low level Heavyweights.
Andrei Arlovski
41st UFC Fight (22-17, NC)Now 45 years old, Arlovski has dropped three straight fights and it’s hard to imagine him continuing to fight for much longer. His most recent loss came in a decision against Waldo Cortes-Acosta, who appeared more concerned with pelvic thrusts than pushing the pace and Arlovski actually finished ahead 58-49 in significant strikes in the low-volume fight. No takedowns were attempted on either side and neither fighter finished with even a single second of control time. Prior to that, Arlovski was finished in the first two rounds in back-to-back fights. The most recent of those early losses was against a really low-level opponent in Don'Tale Mayes, who only has one other finish in the UFC. That second round knockout against an opponent who has struggled to finish anybody in the UFC seems to be an indicator that Arlovski may have finally gone off the cliff. Just before that, he was submitted in the first round by Marcos Rogerio de Lima, after getting dropped early on in that match. Prior to those losses, Arlovski had actually won four straight close decisions against low-level Heavyweights with minimal finishing abilities. The decisions seemed to get progressively closer as time went on, to the point that even if it looked like he lost the judges would give it to him. The last two of those were split, showing just how close they were. While four of his last five losses ended early, his last 10 victories all went the distance.
Now 34-23 as a pro, Arlovski has 17 wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and 14 decision victories. He’s also been knocked out 12 times, submitted three more, and has eight decision defeats. Arlovski originally joined the UFC in 2000, but left the organization in 2008, before returning in 2014. He won his first four fights back in 2014 and 2015, including a pair of first round knockouts, but has since gone 9-13 plus a No Contest that was originally a decision loss.
Overall, Arlovski is a well seasoned vet (very, very well seasoned) who has made it to the judges in 15 of his last 19 fights, with the four exceptions being early losses to Don'Tale Mayes, Marcos Rogerio de Lima, Tom Aspinall, and Jairzinho Rozenstruik. He has a way of drawing lower level opponents into slower paced matches that allow him to rely more on his experience than his athleticism. He hasn’t looked like any sort of finishing threat lately, while his durability appears to be fading. He doesn't offer much in the way of grappling and hasn’t landed a takedown in any of his last 14 fights, as he’s relied on pointing his way to victory in low-volume striking battles. Despite his lack of wrestling, he averages just 3.78 SSL/min and 3.20 SSA/min.
Fight Prediction:
Buday will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 77” reach. Buday is 13 years younger than the 45-year-old Arlovski and weighed in 20 lb heavier.
We’re honestly surprised that Arlovski is still competing and any fight could be his last. It’s been over two years since he last got his hand raised and his last two victories both ended in split decisions. Buday hasn’t been impressive by any means, but he is decently well rounded and should be able to win this fight anywhere it goes. If he wants to take Arlovski down and submit him he shouldn’t face a ton of resistance, but he could also just keep it standing and outland his way to victory or beat up Arlovski out of the clinch. Buday has been somewhat inconsistent with his approach, so it’s hard to know what his exact game plan will be or how hard he’ll push for the finish. That makes it a trickier fight to bet, but if he does finish Arlovski, it will likely end in the first two rounds and we lean towards him getting it done in round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Martin Buday R1/2” at +240.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.
DFS Implications:
Buday is coming off his first UFC loss and the first early loss of his entire career. His last two fights each ended in under six minutes, after his first three UFC bouts all went to the judges. Just before suffering his recent R2 TKO loss to Shamil Gaziev, Buday submitted a terrible Josh Parisian in the first round and scored 119 DraftKings points in the process. Buday’s previous three UFC victories all ended in decisions, where he averaged 77 DraftKings points. He scored decently in two of those (82 & 91 points), but only scored 57 points in the other. So he’s shown some scoring potential even in fights where he can’t find a finish, but not enough to return value at his expensive price tag in this matchup. While he’s a BJJ brown belt who likes to go for kimuras, he’s only landed one takedown between his five UFC fights and his DWCS appearance. And even though he lands a decent amount of striking volume (5.17 SSL/min) it’s not enough for him to really score well on its own. Arlovski also has a knack for slowing fights down, as he only averages 3.20 SSA/min, so even with a later finish Buday could get priced out winning lineups. That makes it really tough to trust him, but he is facing a 45-year-old opponent on a three-fight losing streak who’s been finished in the first two rounds in four of his last five losses. Buday has also seen his DraftKings ownership continue to shrink in each of his five UFC fights (36% > 30% > 27% > 23% > 21%), which adds to his tournament appeal, as he once again projects to be lower owned here. The odds imply Buday has a 69% chance to win, a 31% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Arlovski has averaged just 67 DraftKings points in his last 10 wins, with all of those victories ending in decisions. He failed to top 74 points in the last six of those and hasn’t finished anybody since 2015. In addition to his non-existent scoring ceiling, he’s lost three straight fights and was finished in the first two rounds in two of those. He’s now 45 years old and should be just about ready to hang it up at any minute. Even at his cheap price, it’s hard to have any interest in playing him and he would need to not only win but also have most of the other dogs lose to be useful in tournaments. The odds imply Arlovski has a 31% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Gillian Robertson
17th UFC Fight (9-7)Coming off a rare TKO win, Robertson finished Polyana Viana in a second round ground and pound TKO in front of her home Canadian crowd. Robertson was able to take Viana down on both of her takedown attempts and finished with six minutes of control time, while also looking for multiple submissions on the mat before eventually finishing the fight midway through round two with strikes. Prior to that, Robertson lost a decision to a fellow grappler in Tabatha Ricci, who outclassed Robertson both on the feet and the mat, finishing ahead 100-76 in significant strikes and 3-1 on takedowns. That loss came just two months after Robertson secured a second round submission win over Piera Rodriguez. Robertson dropped down from 125 lb to 115 lb for the first time in the UFC for that fight and looked great at the new weight class. She had fought at 115 lb early in her pro career and was always undersized at 125 lb, and the move had seemed inevitable for a while. Robertson took Rodriguez down twice in the fight and controlled her for over six minutes before locking up an armbar in the final minute of round two. That was Robertson’s second straight submission win, after she locked up a rear-naked choke against Mariya Agapova in her previous fight. Robertson is just 4-4 in her last eight fights, with all four of those wins ending in the first two rounds and all four of those losses going the distance. Her only decision win in her last 19 fights came in 2020 against Poliana Botelho.
Now 13-8 as a pro, Robertson has two wins by R2 TKO (2019 & 2024), nine submissions, and two decision victories. She’s been knocked out once (R1 2019), submitted once (R1 2018), and has six decision defeats. Her two pre-UFC decision losses came against fighters who are now in the UFC, in Hannah Goldy in Robertson’s 2016 pro debut and Cynthia Calvillo in 2016. The loss against Goldy came at 115 lb and the loss to Calvillo was at a 120 lb Catchweight. Robertson fought mostly at 115 lb before joining the UFC, but she moved up to 125 lb when she went on The Ultimate Fighter in 2017 and stayed there until 2023 when she dropped back down to 115 lb.
Overall, Robertson is a solid grappler, but doesn’t offer much in terms of striking and can be overpowered on the mat by stronger opponents. She’s shown the ability to make the most of her one-dimensional grappling skillset and has generally capitalized when put in favorable matchups, but has struggled when facing fellow grapplers or opponents with good defensive wrestling who can keep the fight standing. When she faced the solid takedown defense of JJ Aldrich she lost a decision. She also lost decisions to fellow grapplers in Tabatha Ricci, Miranda Maverick, Taila Santos, and Cynthia Calvillo, while she also got armbarred by Mayra Bueno Silva. In her 16 UFC fights, Robertson landed 26 takedowns on 60 attempts (43.3% accuracy), landing at least one takedown in 14 of those fights and two or more in nine of them, but never more than three in a single fight. She lost both of the fights where she failed to land a takedown. On the other side of things, she’s been taken down by her opponents on 9 of their 16 attempts (43.8% defense) and is 0-3 in UFC fights where she trailed in takedowns. Robertson recently said she’s been dealing with a hip injury for the last year that may eventually require surgery but claimed it doesn’t impact her during fights.
Michelle Waterson-Gomez
15th UFC Fight (6-8)Waterson-Gomez has lost four straight and six of her last seven fights. She was finished in the second round in two of her last three losses, and suffered a brutal beating from Marina Rodriguez in her last match that ended in a second round ground and pound TKO. Rodriguez finished ahead 70-13 in significant strikes and 90-16 in total strikes, while also taking Waterson-Gomez down once and defending five of Waterson-Gomez’s six attempts.Prior to that, Waterson-Gomez lost a close/questionable split decision to Luana Pinheiro, despite finishing ahead in striking and takedowns. Waterson-Gomez was able to stuff all five of Pinheiro’s takedown attempts in that match, while landing one of her own two attempts, and also outlanded her 61-44 in significant strikes and 70-48 in total strikes. While that close decision didn’t go her way, we thought she stole a split decision from Angela Hill in 2020, which evens things out. That win over Hill is Waterson-Gomez’s only victory since 2019 and the last time she finished anybody was in 2016. Before losing to Pinheiro, Waterson-Gomez was submitted in the second round by Amanda Lemos, and she was also submitted in the second round by Rose Namajunas back in 2017 and in the third round of a 2014 fight just before making her UFC debut.
Now 18-12 as a pro, Waterson-Gomez has three wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and six decision victories. She has two KO/TKO losses, four submission defeats, and has six decision losses. Three of her four submission losses came by guillotine, while she also has a rear-naked choke defeat. Her last five early losses all came in the later rounds, with four in round two and one in round three. 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 karate black belt and a BJJ brown belt and throws lots of kicks to try and keep her opponents at bay. While she attempts a decent number of takedowns (4.4 TDA/15 min), she’s never landed more than three in a fight, and hasn’t landed more than one in a match since 2019. She landed just six takedowns on 42 attempts in her last seven fights. Her official UFC stats include two of her fights from Invicta and Strikeforce, but if we remove those and just look at her 14 UFC fights, she landed 18 of her 62 takedown attempts (29% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 9 of 31 attempts (70.97% 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 came against Rose Namajunas, Tecia Torres, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Carla Esparza, Marina Rodriguez (twice), Amanda Lemos, and Luana Pinheiro. Despite being 38 years old and going just 1-6 in her last five fights, Waterson-Gomez said she just signed a new contract before her loss to Pinheiro and claimed it was an eight fight deal, which was surprising to hear given her age and recent record.
Fight Prediction:
Robertson will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while also being nine years younger than the 38-year-old Waterson-Gomez.
This fight isn’t overly complicated. Waterson-Gomez wins if she can keep the fight standing and loses if it ends up on the mat. Her 70% takedown defense is encouraging for her chances of remaining upright, however, most of her opponents who have tried to take her down have been successful. She’s mostly been facing strikers recently, so the two fights that everyone will use to gauge her defensive wrestling will be her losses to Luana Pinheiro and Carla Esparza. Pinheiro went 0 for 5 on her attempts, but is a notorious gasser and didn’t attempt a takedown until the later rounds. Meanwhile, Esparza landed her only attempt in the first round against Waterson-Gomez, but then failed to secure any of her nine half-hearted attempts in the later rounds. It really seemed like Esparza was using takedown attempts to set up her striking in that match, opposed to the other way around. Waterson-Gomez has been finished six times in her career, with four submission defeats, so if Robertson can get the fight to the ground she’ll have a great shot at finishing things early, most likely with another submission win. Our expectation is that Robertson will be losing the fight on the feet but eventually get it to the mat and submit Waterson-Gomez in the second round.
Our favorite bet here is “Gillian Robertson ITD” at +180.
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DFS Implications:
Robertson has averaged 102 DraftKings points in her 10 UFC wins, scoring at least 92 points in all of those and finishing all but one of those fights early. Her last four wins all ended in the first two rounds, with the last three of those stoppages occurring in round two. She’s shown a really solid scoring floor when she wins, but she did lose the last four decisions she went to and doesn’t offer much on the feet when she’s unable to get fights to the ground. That results in her fights looking pretty ugly at times, but she’s dominant on the ground when she can get there. That leaves her as a more volatile tournament option where you’re counting on her ending things early, but working in her favor, Waterson-Gomez has been finished six times in the past, with four of those losses coming by submission. Waterson-Gomez has shown a pretty decent 70% takedown defense, but she’s also been facing a lot of strikers recently and is now 38 years old and just 1-6 in her last seven outings. So it’s not a complete layup for Robertson, but we like her chances of getting things to the ground and finishing Waterson-Gomez. The odds imply Robertson has a 63% chance to win, a 31% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Waterson-Gomez has gone the distance in 9 of her last 11 fights and hasn’t finished anybody since 2016. She averaged just 78 DraftKings points in her three UFC three-round decision wins, failing to top 83 points in any of those. She’s also lost her last four and six of her last seven fights, so not only does she rarely score well when she wins, she almost never wins. That makes it tough to get excited about playing her and now she’s facing a dangerous grappler who will be looking to take her down and finish her on the mat. While Waterson-Gomez will have a striking advantage in this matchup, we don’t see her finishing Robertson, and it would be surprising to see her voluntarily go to the mat with Robertson. It will also be tough for Waterson-Gomez to put up a big striking total and she only averages 3.56 SSL/min, while Robertson averages just 3.12 SSA/min. That leaves Waterson-Gomez as a low floor, low ceiling play who will likely need almost all of the other dogs on the slate to lose to have any chance at sneaking into the optimal lineup. The odds imply Waterson-Gomez has a 37% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Payton Talbott
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Talbott is coming off a breakout performance over a fellow bright, young prospect in Cameron Saaiman. Talbott just ran through Saaiman with ease in a flawless performance, as he nearly finished him in round one, before eventually putting him away 21 seconds into round two. Talbott finished ahead 79-31 in significant strikes and 83-33 in total strikes, while he also stuffed all three of Saaiman’s takedown attempts. Before that, Talbott locked up a third round submission win in his UFC debut against Nick Aguirre. However, we did see him face some early adversity in that fight, as he got taken down early and controlled for the entire first round, with Aguirre fishing for a rear-naked choke after taking Talbott’s back. However, Talbott calmly fought off the submission and outlasted Aguirre, before locking up a rear-naked choke of his own early in round three. Aguirre only landed two of his 10 takedowns in the low-volume, wrestling-heavy fight, while Talbott finished ahead 28-5 in significant strikes. Prior to locking up what was the first submission win of his career, Talbott made his first trip to the judges when he won a decision on DWCS. That came against Tracy Cortez’s older brother, Reyes Cortez Jr., who has now lost two decisions on the show. Cortez actually won the first round on all three scorecards, before Talbott took over in the later rounds and finished the fight ahead 145-76 in significant strikes and 163-78 in total strikes, while successfully defending all but one of Cortez’s 17 takedown attempts. Leading up to that decision win, Talbott landed five straight KO/TKO wins on the California regional scene.
Now 8-0 as a pro, Talbott has six KO/TKO wins, one submission, and one decision victory. All seven of his finishes came in the later rounds, with four in round two and three in round three, with all but one of his fights making it past the midway mark of round two.
Overall, Talbott is an offensively minded striker who likes to push a crazy striking pace. While he did wrestle in high school and also secured a submission win in his UFC debut, his wrestling is still his biggest area of weakness. His defensive striking is also a work in progress and he’s historically relied more on his reflexes, durability, and athleticism than his technique on the feet, as he keeps his hands low and his chin up. However, he’s been able to big brother the opposition and tends to melt his opponents with pressure. He’ll also mix in knees well and we were extremely impressed by what we saw out of him in his last fight. Standing 5’10” with a 70” reach, he’s got good size at 135 lb and has also shown good cardio. He trains at a small gym, the Reno Academy of Combat, and doesn’t appear to have any UFC-level training partners, which is concerning for his growth in his areas of weakness, but if he can look this good coming out of that gym, just imagine how he would look with a real team around him. He’s got all the physical tools required to be successful in the UFC, and we expect the organization to really push him, while also protecting him along the way from terrible stylistic matchups (i.e really good wrestlers).
Yanis Ghemmouri
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Ghemmouri suffered a somewhat controversial third round TKO loss to William Gomis in his recent UFC debut. The fight ended after Ghemmouri thought he absorbed a low-blow and tried to stop the fight himself, but the ref disagreed and told him to fight on. As soon as Ghemmouri declined, the ref called it. It didn’t really change too much, as Gomis won the first two rounds on all three scorecards in the low-volume fight. Gomis finished ahead 52-28 in significant strikes. He never attempted a takedown of his own, but stuffed all four of Ghemmouri’s attempts. That matchup was put together on very short notice after some midweek fight shuffling, as Ghemmouri was originally set to face Caolan Loughran at 135 lb, but was seemingly struggling to make the weight and then Gomis has his opponent drop out at 145 lb and Ghemmouri filled that slot. Ghemmouri then tried to cut down to 135 lb again for a fight against Vinicius Oliveira in March, but ultimately dropped out. He’ll once again be trying to make 135 lb here, so hopefully the third time's the charm. Prior to the loss in his UFC debut, Ghemmouri had won nine straight fights, with the last two of those wins both ending in second round KO/TKOs, after his previous two wins both ended in split decisions. His last few fights were all with Brave CF, after he started out on the French regional scene.
Now 12-2 as a pro, Ghemmouri has three wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and five decision victories. The only time he’s been finished was a 2015 R1 submission in his fourth pro fight, while he’s coming off his first decision defeat. He’s faced a lot of questionable competition and only one of his first eight wins came against an opponent with a winning record. Ghemmouri has fought at both 135 lb and 145 lb in the past, but his last two fights were at 145 lb, after he had a 139 lb Catchweight match before that. The last time he made 135 lb was in 2021 and he has multiple Catchweight fights and at least one weight miss on his record.
Overall, Ghemmouri is a former French K-1 champion and has a background in Muay Thai and kickboxing. While he will mix in occasional takedowns and has four submission wins on his record, he hasn’t looked very dangerous on the mat and is often content with simply laying on his opponents. He’s very stationary and throws a lot of leg kicks but is not a very busy striker. He’s generally looking to land one shot at a time, and his fights are generally lower volume. He trains with UFC fighter Fares Ziam, and it definitely shows, as they both have very patient styles. He’s also cornered Ziam for UFC fights in the past. It will be important to monitor Ghemmouri closely at weigh-ins as he tries to cut back down to 135 lb here.
Fight Prediction:
Talbott will have a 1” height and reach advantage, while he’s also four years younger than the 29-year-old Ghemmouri.
Talbott comes in as one of the biggest favorites in UFC history (-2000), which tells you how little respect the betting markets are giving Ghemmouri. And in fairness, Ghemmouri has shown us nothing to indicate he deserves any respect in this matchup, while Talbott looked unstoppable in his last fight against a more talented opponent. Despite coming from a striking background, Ghemmouri will look to mix in takedowns, but hasn’t been especially impressive on the mat. And even though Ghemmouri is coming down a weight class, he’s actually the smaller fighter, so we don’t see him bullying his way to a win on the ground. We’ve seen Ghemmouri hurt at multiple points in the past and cutting the additional weight could further impact his durability. So for us, it’s not a matter of if Talbott finishes Ghemmouri, it’s just a question of when. Talbott has yet to get anyone out of there in the first round, but nearly changed that in his last fight he seems to have resolved his prior history of starting slow. So we won’t be at all surprised to see Talbott land his first career finish in the opening round here and we’d be surprised if this got past round two. Give us Talbott by knockout in the first two rounds.
Our favorite bet here is “Payton Talbott KO” at -135.
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DFS Implications:
Talbott is a high-volume, offensively minded striker who absolutely melted Cameron Saaiman with pressure in his last fight. Despite the finish coming at the worst possible time in the opening seconds of round two, Talbott still scored 113 DraftKings points and 134 points on FanDuel. That shows just how insane his scoring potential is, at least when he’s facing a fellow striker. Talbott only scored 68 DraftKings points in a third round submission win in his UFC debut, where he struggled with being controlled and showed some of the holes in his ground game. Talbott is far from a finished product and comes from a tiny gym in Reno with no high-level training partners, so he’s still very green and doesn’t have the best system around him to help him grow as a fighter. However, he’s big, durable, and athletic, and seems to have the “it” factor that the UFC is looking for. That means they will get behind him and look to protect him with more favorable stylistic matchups as he continues to shore up some of his holes. Ghemmouri isn’t the best matchup for Talbott to put up a huge striking total, as he generally wants to slow fights down and will also mix in takedowns. However, he’s a French kickboxer and not an actual wrestler, so we’re not overly concerned and generally Talbott is the one dictating the action. The bigger factor is Talbott’s sky-high DraftKings salary, where they priced him at $9,800, a number we rarely see. That opens the possibility for him to get priced out of the optimal lineup even with a big score, although a lot of that will depend on how the rest of the slate goes and how much value is available. It will be harder to leave salary on the table in lineups that don’t include Talbott, which is something to consider when building. Ultimately, Talbott has a massive scoring floor and ceiling combination and his pricing adds an interesting dynamic to the slate. The odds imply Talbott has a 91% chance to win, a 59% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.
Ghemmouri is in yet another tough spot to succeed as he’s dropping down a weight class and finds himself as one of the biggest betting underdogs in UFC history. He had to deal with a late weight class and opponent change in his recent UFC debut and never looked good in that fight before suffering a weird TKO loss in the third round. It seems like he struggles some to make 135 lb, which is concerning for his durability in this matchup against a really dangerous striker. He also doesn’t land much in the way of striking volume and while he’ll look for takedowns, his ground game has been unimpressive. The only reason to consider playing Ghemmouri is his low ownership and he would be a crazy leverage play if something weird happens and he flukishly wins. We fully expect him to get finished and he’ll need a Mike Jackson-like miracle to pull off the stunning upset. The odds imply Ghemmouri has a 9% chance to win, a 6% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Charles Jourdain
14th UFC Fight (6-6-1)Jourdain is five months removed from a split-decision loss to Sean Woodson, in a fight that took place in front of Jourdain’s home Canadian crowd and ended with some confusion as it was hard to hear the decision over the crowd and everyone initially thought they gave it to Jourdain until Cormier cleared things up. Jourdain struggled to find his range against the really tall Woodson and we actually saw him look to wrestle, but he failed to land any of his four takedown attempts, while Woodson finished ahead in significant strikes 80-60. Prior to that, Jourdain locked up a first round submission win over Ricardo Ramos, where Jourdain relentlessly looked for guillotine attempts after Ramos decided he wanted to wrestle. While Jourdain’s initial attempts were thwarted, he stuck with it and eventually forced Ramos to tap three minutes into the fight. Leading up to that submission win, Jourdain fought to three straight decisions, losing the first two against Shane Burgos and Nathaniel Wood, before bouncing back with a win over Kron Gracie, who hadn’t competed in almost four years. Jourdain’s last eight fights all ended in either decisions (2-3) or submissions (2-1). The last time he knocked anybody out was in 2021 when he landed a third round finish against Marcelo Rojo, who was making his UFC debut and ended up getting finished in all three of his UFC fights before getting cut. Jourdain’s only other UFC knockout win was against Doo Ho Choi in the second round of a 2019 fight. Choi is 0-3-1 in his last four fights and hasn’t won since 2016. Jourdain’s one other finish in the UFC was another first round guillotine against an opponent who came in looking to wrestle, that time against Lando Vannata in 2022. Jourdain has gone just 2-5-1 in eight UFC decisions.
Now 15-7-1 as a pro, Jourdain has eight wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and two decision victories. Only five of his 13 career finishes occurred in the first round and he’s generally a guy that puts opponents away later on in fights—except for when he locks up an early submission. His last three submission wins all ended in first round guillotines, while his last three and six of his last seven knockouts occurred in the later rounds. He’s never been knocked out himself, but he has been submitted once and is just 2-6-1 in nine career decisions. Eleven of his 13 UFC fights made it to the second round, 10 made it to round three, and eight ended with the judges, with four of those decisions being split (0-3-1).
Overall, Jourdain is a really solid kickboxer and has been extremely durable, but his defensive wrestling has been his Achilles heel—despite being a BJJ black belt. He’s 1-5 in UFC fights where he’s been taken down more than once, but 5-1-1 when he allows one or fewer takedowns. In his 13 UFC fights, he only landed one of his 10 takedown attempts (10% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 24 of their 47 attempts (48.9% defense). While Kron Gracie was not credited with a takedown against Jourdain’s, he did successfully pull guard at multiple points, and Jourdain’s other eight most recent opponents all got him down at least once. However, when Jourdain can keep fights standing, he generally puts on a show as he averages 5.56 SSL/min and 4.31 SSA/min, landing 80 or more significant strikes in six of his last seven fights to make it out of the first round, and 106 or more in three of those. His last two finishes were both by guillotine, which could serve as a slight deterrent for future fighters who are considering taking him down. In a recent interview, Jourdain said he asked for this fight after Gomis dropped out against Silva in May and that he wants to fight Silva in the center of the Octagon and knock him out after an initial feeling out process.
Jean Silva
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Silva had been scheduled to fight William Gomis on May 4th but Gomis dropped out during weigh-ins and the fight was canceled.
Silva was recently gifted Westin Wilson in his UFC debut and did what anybody in the UFC would do as he knocked Wilson out in round one. Prior to that, Silva went on DWCS and notched his first career decision win against a 21-year-old opponent. Silva has now won nine straight fights, with eight of those ending in the first round. However, he had also been facing a lot of dubious competition on the Brazilian regional scene so take his finishing streak with a grain of salt. His last win before going on DWCS was against a 9-9 opponent, after he defeated an opponent who only had four pro fights. Silva has also been fighting in a bunch of random promotions, including one that used a bizarre cage/ring hybrid with alternating sections of ropes and cage.
Now 12-2 as a pro, Silva has nine wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and one decision win. NIne of his 11 finishes ended in round one, with the other two coming in round two. He’s never been finished himself, with both of his losses going the distance in his first five pro fights. Silva competed some down at 135 lb early in his career before moving up to 145 lb in 2017.
Overall, Silva is an aggressive weirdo who’s somewhat well rounded and powerful, although doesn’t really stand out as being exceptional anywhere. He loves looking for guillotines, but doesn’t appear to be a great wrestler or grappler and relies on sheer aggression in the striking exchanges. Between his UFC debut and his DWCS appearance, he landed 2 of his 4 takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while defending all four of the attempts against him. He described himself as “the most aggressive fighter in the world” and he appears more focussed on living up to that self-imposed title opposed to actually refining his skill set. He will unload on his opponents with a barrage of strikes, but seems kind of sloppy with his approach. He trains with the Fighting Nerds team, which is the new trendy Brazilian team to be part of. Silva was given a teed up matchup in his debut, but will now get the toughest test of his career.
UPDATE: Silva missed weight by 1.5 lb!
Fight Prediction:
Jourdain will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 69” reach.
Jourdain has been inconsistent throughout his career when it comes to winning, but he makes for fun fights when paired up against fellow strikers and Silva typically isn’t looking to grapple a ton. While we could see Silva mix in a couple of takedown attempts, we’re largely expecting a striking battle and this should be a fun fight. Silva will be trying to take Jourdain’s head off, especially early on when he’s fresh. However, Jourdain has never been knocked out and is accustomed to longer wars, while eight of Silva’s last nine fights ended in round one. So look for Jourdain to try and take Silva into deep waters and test his chin in a longer war. It seems pretty obvious that Silva is on all the steroids he can get his hands on, but all that muscle comes at a cost and we like Jourdain’s chances of surviving early and putting a pace on Silva after the first round that he can’t keep up with. While Silva has never been finished, he’s also never fought any high-level competition and we like Jourdain’s chances of melting him late and knocking him out in the third round.
Our favorite bet here is “Charles Jourdain R2/3 KO” at +1200.
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DFS Implications:
Jourdain has averaged 101 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, consistently scoring 92-93 points in each of his last four victories, with two of those ending in decisions and the other two in first round guillotines. While he hasn’t put up any huge scores lately, he did score 117 and 118 points respectively in a pair of late round knockouts earlier in his UFC career and the potential for an explosion is always there. Both of those slate-breaking scores came in brawls against fellow strikers, while all of his recent opponents have been looking to take him down and attack his poor defensive wrestling. He gets a more favorable matchup here against an aggressive, unproven opponent who likes to push forward and throw wild strikes. While Silva will mix in occasional takedowns, we’ve never seen him land more than one in a fight going back to all the regional tape we could find. Silva has also only been past the first round once in his last nine outings and is just 1-2 in the three decisions he’s been to in his career. So he’s generally been reliant on landing quick finishes and Jourdain is accustomed to throwing down in longer wars. That creates the potential for Silva to gas out in a longer, higher paced fight, which would be a dream scenario for Jourdain to rack up striking volume and then land a late finish. While there’s no guarantee that’s how things play out, it leaves Jourdain with tournament winning upside and the potential to be the highest scoring fighter. Despite his style being perfectly tailored to the FanDuel scoring system, he’s guaranteed to go overlooked at MVP over there and don’t be surprised if he wins someone 10K this week. The odds imply Jourdain has a 52% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Silva is coming off a perfectly timed, late first round TKO win over one of the worst fighters on the UFC roster in Westin Wilson that was good for 115 DraftKings points and 133 points on FanDuel. That was his ninth straight win, with eight of those ending in round one, but he’s also been facing a lot of dubious competition. Now he’ll face a much tougher test in Jourdain, who’s never been knocked out and pushes a high pace. That should test the cardio of Silva, who’s only been out of the first round once since 2018. There are still a ton of question marks surrounding Silva and we learned nothing from his UFC debut. He’s never faced any high-level competition and this will be the first real test of his career. Despite that, the betting market is chasing his past results and we’ve seen the line move in Silva’s favor since it opened. When you combine that with his big score in his last fight, you can expect him to be high owned, even though Jourdain has never been knocked out and Silva’s decision win on DWCS only would have been good for 70 DraftKings points and 78 points on FanDuel. That lower’s Silva’s tournament appeal, although we are expecting an uptempo matchup and Jourdain has also been very prone to being taken down. The odds imply Silva has a 48% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Andre Fili
23rd UFC Fight (11-10, NC)Four months removed from a first round knockout loss to Dan Ige, Fili has been consistently inconsistent throughout his career and is just 2-9 following a win in the UFC. However, he’s great at bouncing back from losses and has never dropped two in a row, going 8-0 plus a dominant No Contest following his UFC losses. He looked moments away from finding a finish in that No Contest against Danuel Pineda, before an accidental eye poke ended the fight. Fili stepped into his recent loss to Ige on shorter notice, after Ige’s original opponent dropped out. That proved to be a costly decision as Ige caught Fili with a huge right end midway through round one that immediately stopped the fight. Just eight weeks before that, Fili landed a first round knockout of his own against a dangerous striker in Lucas Almeida. That’s Fili’s only finish since 2019, when he landed another first round knockout against Sheymon Moraes, and only his second since 2015 when he knocked out Gabriel Benitez in the first round. Fili’s one other early win in the UFC was an early second round knockout in his 2013 UFC debut. While it’s rare to see him land any finishes, five of his last seven losses also went the distance and he’s only been finished twice since 2016, with a 2022 first round knockout loss to Joanderson Brito and his recent first round knockout loss to Ige. However, he did get finished in each of his first three UFC losses, including a 2014 third round submission loss to Max Holloway, a 2015 first round submission defeat to Godofredo Castro, and a 2016 second round knockout against Yair Rodriguez. Since that loss to Rodriguez, Fili’s last 15 fights (not counting his NC) all ended in either first round knockouts (2-2) or decisions (6-5). Prior to his win over Almeida, Fili lost a close back-and-forth decision loss to Nathaniel Wood and Fili has a knack for making fights close, as four of his last eight decisions were split (3-1).
Now 23-11 as a pro, Fili has 10 wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and 10 decision victories. He’s been knocked out four times, submitted twice, and has five decision defeats. Fili hasn’t submitted anybody since 2012 and his last five finishes all came via KO/TKO. Twelve of his 13 career finishes occurred in the first two rounds, with eight in round one and four in round two. All four of his early wins in the UFC have come by knockout in six minutes or less, with the last three ending in round one.
Overall, Fili is a versatile veteran with both solid wrestling and striking and he’s been a longtime member of Team Alpha Male dating back to 2009 when he turned pro. He can also seamlessly work out of both the orthodox and southpaw stances, making him a tough guy to prepare for. He doesn’t land a ton of striking volume (3.85 SSL/min) and not counting his No Contest, he actually finished behind in significant strikes in seven of his last eight fights. In his last 10 fights, Fili landed 10 of his 18 takedown attempts (55.6% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 8 of their 25 attempts (68% defense), with seven of those opponent takedowns coming from Bryce Mitchell, who had 13 attempts in their match. The only other opponent to get Fili down in his last 10 fights was Nathaniel Wood, who landed 1 of his 2 attempts. In fairness, six of Fili’s last 10 opponents didn’t even try to take him down. He hasn’t been looking to wrestle a ton lately and failed to land a takedown in his last three and five of his last seven fights, while landing just one takedown in each of those other two matches. Despite joining the UFC all the way back in 2013, Fili just turned 34 on Tuesday.
Cub Swanson
24th UFC Fight (14-9)Swanson absolutely stole a decision from Hakeem Dawodu in his last fight or else he would be on a two-fight losing streak and 1-3 in his last four. Dawodu finished ahead 95-77 in significant strikes and 129-107 in total strikes, while also leading 3:10-1:25 in control time and reversing Swanson on the mat in the final seconds after Swanson landed the only takedown in the fight. Even Swanson said he thought he lost the fight and had already congratulated Dawodu and his team on the win before they read the scorecards. That fight was at 145 lb, where Swanson has spent almost his entire career, but he did try dropping down to 135 lb in his second most recent fight, where he proceeded to get finished in a leg kick TKO in the second round by Jonathan Martinez. The fight nearly got stopped late in round one, but Swanson was narrowly able to survive, only to get beat up some more in round two before the fight was eventually stopped late in that round. Prior to that, Swanson landed a first round TKO win against a fellow aging veteran in Darren Elkins, after suffering a R1 TKO loss to Giga Chikadze, following a R2 knockout win over Daniel Pineda. Leading up to those four knockouts, Swanson tore his ACL and meniscus in a 2019 grappling match, which kept him out of action for 14 months following a 2019 decision win over Kron Gracie. While four of his five fights since returning from that knee injury ended in KO/TKOs, his previous 12 all ended in either decisions (6-2) or submissions (0-4). Swanson won four of his last six fights, but he’s just 4-6 in his last 10 and was finished in seven of his nine UFC losses. His last two early losses both ended in TKOs, but his previous five all ended by submission.
Now 29-13 as a pro, Swanson has 13 wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and 12 decision victories. He has three KO/TKO losses, seven submission defeats, and three decision losses. While two of his last three wins ended in knockouts, those are his only two finishes since 2013. Despite being a BJJ black belt, Swanson hasn’t submitted anybody since 2009 and struggles with getting submitted himself.
Overall, Swanson is a 40-year-old aging veteran who’s struggled with consistency in recent years. He’s generally looking to keep things mostly standing and in his last 10 fights he only landed three takedowns on six attempts, while his opponents only got him down twice on 18 attempts. Looking at his entire UFC career, he has a 52% takedown accuracy and a 61% defense. After only getting knocked out once in his first 38 pro fights, Swanson now has two TKO losses in his last four matches, and it’s fair to question his durability at this stage in his career. Swanson will turn 41 in November and you have to imagine his days in the UFC are numbered.
Fight Prediction:
Fili will have a 3” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while also being six years younger than the 40-year-old Swanson.
It’s somewhat surprising that these two have never fought before as they’ve both been in the UFC forever. Fili has 22 fights with the organization, while Swanson has 23. They’ve each struggled with consistency in recent years, but Fili seems to have a lot more left in the tank and Swanson looks to be on the way out. The last time Swanson legitimately won a fight was in 2021 and he should be 1-3 in his last four if the judges didn’t botch the decision in his last fight. While Fili’s recent knockout loss to Ige will be fresh on everyone’s mind and he also got immediately knocked out against Brito in 2022, both of those guys hit way harder than Swanson, who amazingly only has two finishes since 2013. We would be shocked to see Swanson finish Fili here and the only real questions we have are whether or not Fili can finish Swanson and how close the decision will be if it gets there. Fili hasn’t been much of a finisher, but you never know how the durability will hold up for fighters in the forties. Each of Swanson’s last two losses came via TKO in the first two rounds, although one was from a body kick and the other a leg kick. It’s certainly possible that Fili can get him out of there and the oddsmakers actually have this fight slightly favored to end early. However, we still think it’s more likely that Fili wins a decision. His tendency to make decisions close and Swanson’s apparent favoritism from the judges are slightly concerning for Fili if this does hit the scorecards, but we still like him to win nonetheless.
Our favorite bet here is “Andre Fili DEC” at +230.
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DFS Implications:
Fili has averaged 91 DraftKings points in his 11 UFC fights, with six of his last eight victories going the distance. While his last win did end in a first round knockout that was good for 109 DraftKings points, that’s his only finish since 2019. Fili only averaged 71 DraftKings points in his last three decision wins, although previously showed the ability to score pretty well in decisions when he’s able to get his wrestling going. However, it’s been four years since he landed more than a single takedown in a fight and we can’t rely on him suddenly putting on his singlet here, although it’s still in the realm of possibility following a knockout loss. Working in Fili’s favor, Swanson is 40 years old and was finished in the first two rounds in each of his last two losses, while the oddsmakers are actually slightly favoring this fight to end early. That leaves Fili with decent scoring upside, but we still think it’s more likely that he wins an average scoring decision. With that said, Fili has historically never been very highly owned and now he’s coming off a knockout loss that will likely scare people away. That adds to his tournament appeal and at his mid range salary he may not need to put up slate-breaking score to slide into winning lineups. The odds imply Fili has a 66% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
Swanson was gifted a decision win in his last fight and even he was surprised it went his way, which he made clear in his victory speech when he straight up said he thought he lost. He only scored 74 DraftKings points in that victory, but has averaged 94 DraftKings points in his 14 UFC wins. However, he’s now 40 years old and it’s silly to look at what he was doing over a decade ago when projecting his potential here. We’ve seen his durability begin to fade in recent years and each of his last two losses ended in TKOs, after he only had one KO/TKO loss in his first 38 pro fights. He also hasn’t landed more than 77 significant strikes in a fight since 2019 or landed more than one takedown in a match since 2017. Meanwhile, no one has landed more than 84 significant strikes against Fili since 2018 and the only fighter to get him down more than once since 2017 was Bryce Mitchell. That appears to leave Swanson reliant on a finish to score well and Fili is 8-0 plus a No Contest coming off a loss in his UFC career. It’s not impossible that Swanson could serve as a value play in an average scoring decision if very few other underdogs win, but he’ll need a lot of help and is more reliant on a finish. The odds imply Swanson has a 34% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Joe Pyfer
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Looking to bounce back from his first UFC loss, Pyfer is four months removed from a five-round decision loss to Jack Hermansson. Pyfer won the first two rounds on all three scorecards, although easily could have lost round two, and then lost the last three rounds. It was a vet lesson from Hermansson, who simply outclassed Pyfer in the match with better footwork, movement, quickness, timing, cardio, defense, leg kicks, jabs, and then wrestling to close out the match. Pyfer has historically relied on his power and physicality to overwhelm opponents, but he struggled to find Hermansson for most of the match and then looked mentally broken deep in the fight as Hermansson was able to back him up against the cage and really dictate the action. It was a good reminder that there are levels to this game and Pyfer is still pretty green. Hermansson finished ahead 121-92 in significant strikes and 188-95 in total strikes, while also landing one of his two takedown attempts with three minutes of control time and stuffing all six of Pyfer’s attempts.
Prior to that loss, Pyfer had only seen the third round once in his career and had never been to the championship rounds, so it was a good learning experience for him. In his second most recent fight, he locked up a second round submission against Abdul Razak Alhassan, who had spent most of his career at 170 lb before moving up to 185 lb in 2021. After not even attempting a takedown in his first two UFC fights, Pyfer took Alhassan down three times on four attempts before finishing him on the mat two minutes into the second round. However, we did see Alhassan land a few good leg kicks in that fight and Pyfer did not wear them very well at all. That would have been an interesting dynamic had the fight run longer, but Pyfer instead responded by slamming Alhassan to the mat and submitting him. That came after Pyfer landed a pair of first round knockouts in his first two UFC fights against two very chinny opponents. Pyfer originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2020, but suffered a freak army injury against Dustin Stoltzfus that resulted in a R1 TKO loss. Following the injury, Pyfer had a lengthy 14 month recovery process before landing a second round knockout with the CFFC organization against a short notice replacement. That was enough to get him a second shot on DWCS and he capitalized on it with a second round knockout to punch his ticket to the big show.
Now 12-3 as a pro, Pyfer has eight wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and one decision victory. He has six first round finishes and five in round two, with four of those second round finishes ending in the first half of the round. Pyfer fought a lot of suspect competition early in his career, so take some of his early results with a grain of salt. Pyfer was finished in six minutes or less in two of his pro losses, with his R1 TKO loss on DWCS and a 2019 R2 submission against a suspect Jhonoven Pati. His one other loss ended in a five-round decision.
Overall, Pyfer is an athletic specimen who’s still just 27 years old and only turned pro in 2018. He has really good power and decent wrestling, but is still a work in progress when it comes to technique, skill, and knowledge. We’ve seen him get his leg beat up in two straight fights and that’s one area he needs to improve in immediately. After failing to attempt a takedown in either of his first two UFC appearances, he landed three of his 10 attempts in his last two fights and also landed a takedown in each of his DWCS matches. So between those six fights he landed five takedowns on 12 attempts (41.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on two of their four attempts (50% defense). To Pyfer’s credit, he’s been working on his grappling, and he’s taken several grappling matches outside of the Octagon. In fact, right after he knocked Gerald Meerschaert out in the cage they ran it back in Fury Pro Grappling and Pyfer won a decision. Pyfer trains with a bunch of UFC grapplers like Sean Brady and Andre Petroski in Philly, so he has good training partners around him and should be continuing to improve on the mat. With that said, he looked pretty helpless off his back in the fifth round against Hermansson. You learn more from your losses than your wins and Pyfer got five rounds of lessons in his last match, so we’re interested to see what improvements he’s made.
Marc-Andre Barriault
13th UFC Fight (5-6, NC)Barriault is coming off a high-volume split decision loss to Chris Curtis, who outlanded Barriault 140-122 in significant strikes in front of Barriault’s home Canadian crown. No one ever considered a takedown in the pure striking battle and there was also no control time accrued by either fighter. The fight actually started pretty slow as Barriault was reluctant to engage, but things heated up in the back half as the striking picked up. Two of the judges scored every round for Curtis, while the other gave Barriault rounds two and three, despite finishing behind in striking in each of those. Prior to that, Barriault won a hardfought unanimous 30-27 decision over Eryk Anders that seemed closer watching it than the score cards let on. For example, striking was dead even in round two, but Anders landed a takedown with a minute of control time. Nevertheless it was a solid showing by Barriault and once again he was fighting in front of his home crowd. Three months before his win over Anders, Barriault finished a washed up Julian Marquez in a high-volume second round TKO. Barriault kept up a pace that Marquez couldn’t maintain and midway through round two Marquez just shelled up along the cage until the ref finally stopped the fight following a plethora of punches. Barriault finished ahead 109-82 in significant strikes in a fight that lasted just over nine minutes. Prior to that, Barriault was the one who got outpaced when he suffered the only submission loss of his career in the third round against a relentless grappler in Anthony Hernandez. That came just after Barriault completed the first submission win of his career when he locked up a first round guillotine against Jordan Wright. And just before that, Barriault got knocked out for the first time, when Chidi Njokuani finished him in just 16 seconds.
Now 16-7 as a pro, Barriault has 10 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and five decision victories. Five of his seven losses went the distance, with the other two ending in a first round knockout and a third round submission, both in 2022. While 6 of his 12 UFC fights ended early, only two of those stoppages occurred in round one (1-1). He has two second round TKO wins in the UFC, although one of those was later overturned when he failed a drug test, and one third round TKO victory. He tends to wear on his opponents as fights go on so it makes sense that the majority of his finishes have occurred in the later rounds. Barriault has basically spent his entire career at 185 lb, but did have a 205 lb match just before making his 2019 UFC debut.
Overall, Barriault typically relies on his striking volume and cardio to win fights and isn’t known for having immense power, nor does he offer much in the way of grappling. He enjoys making fights ugly and working out of the clinch, but he still averages 6.19 SSL/min and 5.67 SSA/min. In his 12 UFC fights, he only landed two of his eight takedown attempts (25% accuracy) and he’s gone eight straight fights without landing a takedown and didn’t even attempt one in any of his last seven matches. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 21 of their 64 attempts (67.2% defense), with five of his opponents getting him down multiple times. All seven of the opponents who attempted two or more takedowns got Barriault down.
Fight Prediction:
Pyfer will have a 1” height and reach advantage, while also being seven years younger than the 34-year-old Barriault.
The UFC knows what they’re doing when it comes to matchmaking. If you’re marketable and they like you, then they’ll protect you. And if you’re not, then they’ll test you. Joe Pyfer is one of their pet projects who they desperately want to build up. So after seeing him get his leg chewed up in two straight fights, they’re not giving him a heavy leg kicker to see if he’s fixed that hole, they’ve giving him a boxer who’s known more for his pace than his power. Barriault failed to land more than a single leg kick in five of his last six fights ,with the one exception being his last outing where he landed 12 light leg kicks against a fellow boxer in Chris Curtis. We’ve also seen Barriault struggle when it comes to defensive wrestling and he’s been quickly knocked out before. That leaves Pyfer with multiple paths to victory, while minimizing the risk coming back at him. Pyfer has the power to knock Barriault out, the wrestling to take him down, and the submission skills to finish him on the mat. While he’s not elite in any of those areas and is still clearly a work in progress overall, this is a good bounce back matchup for him. He’s been looking to wrestle a little more in his last couple of fights and it would make a ton of sense for him to lean on his ground game here. However, he’s also not the more tactical fighter and he loves to just bite down on his mouth piece and swing for the fences. The larger cage could make it tougher for him to track Barriault down and we saw Pyfer struggle to find his range in his last match. That likely lowers the chances a little of him knocking Barriault out, although we definitely can’t rule it out either. Barriault was submitted in his second most recent loss, although that was against a far superior grappler to Pyfer. Nevertheless, a submission is in play. And while Pyfer’s last 10 wins all ended early, it wouldn’t be entirely shocking to see him pace himself a little more and out wrestle his way to a decision win. So this is a tougher one to narrow down how exactly it ends, but we do like Pyfer to bounce back from his recent loss and he’ll have a good shot at finishing Barriault in the first two rounds.
Our favorite bet here is “Joe Pyfer SUB” at +550.
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DFS Implications:
Pyfer averaged 100 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, finishing all three of those opponents in under a round and a half. However, after a series of teed up matchups, he faced a big step up in competition in his last fight and was outclassed by Jack Hermansson in a five-round decision loss, where Pyfer only scored 39 DraftKings points. That just shows how reliant on finishes he is and even with five rounds to work with he was nowhere close to scoring well even if the decision had gone his way. He gets an easier matchup here, although Barriault has been pretty durable and has only been knocked out once in his career and submitted one other time. However, Barriault’s defensive wrestling hasn’t been great and Pyfer shot for 10 takedowns across his last two fights, landing three of those. That creates the potential for Pyfer to score well beyond a first round finish, although we’d still be surprised to see him dominate the fight on the mat for three rounds and put up a big score in a wrestling-heavy decision. He also only averages 3.66 SSL/min and despite landing three takedowns in his second round submission win over Alhassan, he still only scored 97 DraftKings points there. And even in his two first round knockout wins, Pyfer only returned DraftKings scores of 106 and 96 points respectively, failing to land a knockdown or takedown in the second of those. So at his high price tag, even if he does end things in the opening five minutes, we could still see him get priced out of winning tournament lineups at his high salary. With that said, this is a high upside matchup as Barriault averages 5.67 SSA/min and has been prone to getting taken down. The odds imply Pyfer has a 72% chance to win, a 44% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.
Barriault had a slow start to his UFC career, as he kicked it off with three straight decisions and then when he finally won a fight the finish was overturned to a No Contest when he failed a drug test. However, since then he’s gone 5-3 and averaged 103 DraftKings points in those victories, with three of them ending early. He scored 120 or more DraftKings points in two of those finishes, which both came in the later rounds where he melted his opponents with pace and volume. However, in his two UFC decision wins, he only returned DraftKings totals of 81 and 80 points and he’s yet to show the ability to really score well with the judges. That’s in large part due to the fact that he doesn't add much of anything in terms of grappling and relies almost entirely on his striking. Now he’s facing a powerful opponent who only averages 3.58 SSA/min and will also mix in wrestling. That will make it tough for Barriault to rack up striking volume unless Pyfer completely gasses out and Barriault can put it on him late in the fight. While we did see Pyfer slow down in his last fight, he still showed the ability to go five rounds and we’d be surprised to see him completely gas out here. That lowers our interest in Barriault, but at his cheap salary he’ll still be in the value play discussion even in an average scoring decision win. The odds imply Barriault has a 28% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Ian Machado Garry
8th UFC Fight (7-0)Coming off a low-volume split decision win over Geoff Neal, Garry remains undefeated in the UFC. He outlanded Neal 67-46 in significant strikes and 80-57 in total strikes, while no takedowns were attempted in the fight. However, Neal was comfortable hanging out in the clinch as he pushed Garry up against the cage for periods of time and finished with close to four minutes of control time. Prior to that, Garry won a decision over Neil Magny who stepped into that matchup on just a week and a half’s notice after Geoff Neal dropped out. Garry dominated the fight, finishing ahead 91-27 in significant strikes and 111-51 in total strikes, including landing all 43 of the leg kicks he threw, which left Magny seriously compromised. Garry also landed both of his takedown attempts and controlled Magny for two and a half minutes, although was unable to put Magny away, despite coming close towards the end of the fight. Just before that, Garry handed Daniel Rodriguez his first KO loss in the opening round of a May 2023 match, after landing a late knockout in the final minute of round three against Kenan Song. However, Garry nearly suffered the first loss of his career when he got dropped in the first round of that fight, but was able to recover in the clinch after Song failed to put him away. Prior to those two finishes, Garry won back-to-back decisions over Gabe Green and Darian Weeks, after landing a first round knockout in his 2021 UFC debut against Jordan Williams. Garry nearly got Gabe Green out of there in the third round after knocking him down, but Green was able to survive to lose a unanimous 30-27 decision. On the regional scene, Garry went 7-0 with Cage Warriors and won the vacant Welterweight title in a 25 minute decision in June 2021 just before joining the UFC. Five of Garry’s last six fights made it to the third round, with four of those going the distance.
Now 14-0 as a pro, Garry has seven wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and six decision victories. After going the distance in his 2019 pro debut, Garry landed five straight finishes in the first two rounds before winning the Cage Warriors Welterweight title in a five-round decision. His last six finishes all ended in KO/TKOs, and his only submission victory occurred in the first round of his third pro fight. He has three first round knockouts, three more in round two, and one in round three.
Overall, Garry is still just 26 years old and seems to be continuing to improve at this stage in his career. He joined Kill Cliff FC leading up to his UFC debut, but was then set to face a teammate in Vicente Luque, so Garry went to England to train at Team Renegade, before they kicked him out mid camp. Garry then moved his camp to Chute Boxe in Brazil, where he’s been training since. At 6’3”, he has good size for the division and is a very accurate striker with good footwork, while also being a judo black belt. In his seven UFC fights, he only attempted four takedowns, landing three of those (75% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on four of their 13 attempts (69.2% defense). He generally lands a good amount of striking volume, while also being a tough guy to hit, as he averages 6.27 SSL/min and 3.49 SSA/min. Born in Ireland, Garry has been hyping himself up as the next Conor McGregor, saying he’ll be a world champion in the next couple of years. While it’s painful to listen to him talk, the UFC seems on board with building him up, and six of his seven UFC fights have been on PPV cards, with his other being on an ABC card. Now he’ll be on another PPV card here as he faces a tough test.
Michael Page
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Page is fresh off a low-volume decision win over Kevin Holland in his March UFC debut. Page outlanded Holland 41-29 in significant strikes, while Holland took Page down twice and finished ahead 64-59 in total strikes. All three judges scored the fight 29-28 for Page. Since then, Page celebrated his 37th birthday and he joined the UFC late in his career following a lengthy 10 year career with Bellator. He won his last Bellator fight in an abrupt 26 second leg kick TKO, after getting controlled for five rounds in a 2022 split decision loss for the interim Welterweight belt in his second most recent Bellator fight. In between those two MMA matches, he actually fought Mike Perry in Bare Knuckle Boxing and lost an overtime decision. Page’s third most recent win was all the way back in 2021, when he avenged the only early loss of his career in a super low-volume split-decision against Douglas Lima.
Now 22-2 as a pro, Page has 13 wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and six decision victories. The only early loss of his career was a 2019 early second round knockout against Douglas Lima, with his one other defeat coming in a 2022 five-round split decision. Page’s last six fights all either went the distance (3-1) or ended in first round TKOs (2-0).
Overall, Page is a British kickboxer who utilizes a karate stance that often draws comparisons to Raymond Daniels and Stephen Thompson. He keeps his hands low and relies on his quickness and distance management to avoid damage, while typically hanging out in kicking range. He has good size and length for the division at 6’3” with a 79” reach, and uses it well in conjunction with his explosive quickness. That makes him a unique puzzle to crack and he throws a lot of unorthodox techniques, making it tougher to see his shots coming. While he doesn’t land much volume with his counter striking style, when he does land, they’re normally impactful and he has decent power. He likes to taunt his opponents, which helps to fill the void during periods of inaction. He also offers practically nothing when it comes to grappling and is content with hanging onto his opponent’s wrists when he gets taken down, in a pure stalling tactic to try and force a standup from the ref.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’3”, but Page will have a 5” reach advantage. Garry is 11 years younger than the 37-year-old Page
Both of these two like to play a similar game of hanging out at range and using their length and quickness to pick opponents apart from the outside, while also avoiding damage. Garry lands much more striking volume, but that will be tougher to continue in this matchup, as Page rarely gets touched. Garry is a Judo black belt and would be wise to try and grapple in this matchup, but he said he wants to fight Page where he’s the strongest on the feet. Smart. Page’s fights are always lower volume, which leaves decisions dependent on far fewer exchanges, thus raising the importance of every interaction and increasing volatility. Page’s five inch reach advantage could also play a big factor, although Garry will look to overcome that with his arsenal of kicks. If this goes the distance, as it’s expected to, the winner will likely be determined by a very thin margin and it won’t be at all surprising to see it end in a split decision. We always want to be holding the wider ticket in situations that we expect to be that close, so give us Page to win a split decision and beat Garry at his own game of avoiding damage from the outside.
Our favorite bet here is “Michael Page DEC” at +290.
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DFS Implications:
Garry has averaged 90 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, scoring 106 or more points in each of his three finishes. However, he’s shown a wider range of scoring in his decision wins, returning totals of 60, 85, 95, and 62 DraftKings points. He scored a career-worst 60 points in his recent win over Geoff Neal, which isn’t at all encouraging as he now faces the lowest volume striker on the roster in Page. Even though Garry is very reasonably priced, he’s still entirely reliant on landing a finish here to score well and even a later round finish may not be enough. Page does a great job of slowing things down, staying at range, and avoiding damage, while Garry has only landed three takedowns in seven UFC fights and openly said he wants to stand and strike with Page. Of course that could always change, but Garry has given us no indication that we can expect much wrestling from him either with his words or his past actions. The most likely outcome in this matchup is for it to end in a low-volume decision where no one scores even remotely well, but Page has been knocked out once before and both fighters project to be lower owned. The odds imply Garry has a 57% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Page’s low-volume, no wrestling style of fighting looks like a death sentence for DFS and leaves him entirely reliant on landing knockouts to score even remotely well. Confirming that, the decision win in his recent UFC debut was only good for 53 DraftKings points and even at his cheaper price tag that’s nowhere close to being useful. Now he’s facing an undefeated opponent who also likes to stay at range and avoid damage. That makes this a really tough matchup for Page in DFS and he looks like nothing more than a hail mary KO or bust option. And even with a later finish, he would still struggle to put up a meaningful score, simply due to his lack of volume. The odds imply Page has a 43% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Mayra Bueno Silva
11th UFC Fight (5-3-1, NC)Bueno Silva is coming off a five-round decision loss to Raquel Pennington for the vacant Bantamweight belt that Nunes left behind. Bueno Silva was able to find some grappling success in the fight, but couldn’t complete any of her three official submission attempts and ended up getting severely outworked by Pennington, who finished ahead 134-69 in significant strikes and 265-96 in total strikes. Pennington failed to listen to her coaches and continuously put herself in dangerous grappling positions with Bueno Silva, but ultimately it didn’t matter. Bueno Silva won the first round, but lost the last four rounds on all three scorecards. Prior to that, Bueno Silva submitted Holly Holm early in the second round of a July 2023 main event. Unfortunately for her, the results were overturned to a No Contest after Bueno Silva tested positive for trace amounts of Ritalin acid due to the ADHD medication she has a prescription for. However, she had not been granted a therapeutic-use exemption going into that fight, which ultimately cost her the win on her record and resulted in a short suspension. The UFC appeared understanding of what was basically a clerical error and they gave her a title shot anyways. Bueno Silva competed at 125 until 2022 when she moved up to 135 lb and proceeded to win three straight fights leading up to her No Contest against Holm. After winning a decision over Wu Yanan, Bueno Silva submitted Stephanie Egger and Lina Lansberg, in addition to Holm.
Now 10-3-1 plus a No Contest as a pro, Bueno Silva has one win by TKO, seven submissions, and two decision victories. She also had the second round submission win over Holm that now shows up as a No Contest on her record. The submission win over Lansberg in her previous fight also ended in round two, after the first six submission wins of her career all ended in round one, with five of those coming by armbar. Her lone TKO win also came in the first round, all the way back in 2016 in her second pro fight. All three of her career losses went the distance and she’s never been finished. Bueno Silva bounced between 125 lb and 135 lb early in her career, but her first five UFC fights were all at 125, before she moved up to 135 lb in 2022.
Overall, Bueno Silva is a powerful striker and dangerous submission threat, but has historically been content with keeping fights standing. Between her 10 UFC fights and her DWCS appearance, she only attempted 13 takedowns, landing five of those (38.5% accuracy), with all of those coming in her last few fights. So maybe she’s working on improving her wrestling, however, she’s historically used her grappling more for defensive purposes, snatching up arms and necks whenever anyone is foolish enough to try and take her down. Her opponents got her down on 12 of their 38 attempts (68.4% defense), but we’re always surprised that people want to take her down based on how dangerous she is off her back, with five first round armbar wins on her record. She’s also extremely durable, which makes her a really tough opponent to put away. She used to train at Chute Boxe Diego Lima with Charles Oliveira and countless other high-level fighters, but moved to American Top Team in 2022 and is now training with Kayla Harrison. One area where Bueno Silva has struggled is with being controlled, which was evident in each of her last two fights.
Macy Chiasson
11th UFC Fight (7-3)Fresh off an impressive first round submission win over a one-dimensional striker in Pannie Kianzad, Chiasson has traded wins and losses for five straight bouts, with each of her last two losses ending early. Prior to her recent win, Chiasson had to scheduled fights canceled and hadn’t competed in 18 months following a September 2022 R3 TKO loss against Irene Aldana. That loss ended with a rare upkick body shot to put Chiasson out, in a fight that was tied up after two rounds. Chiasson took Aldana down three times in the fight, but was only able to control her for three and a half minutes and nearly got armbarred in the first round. That fight took place at a 140 lb Catchweight, after Chiasson’s previous two fights were both at 145 lb. In the most recent of those Featherweight matches, Chiasson won a split decision over Norma Dumont, that should not have been split. Chiasson landed six takedowns with seven and a half minutes of control time, while finishing ahead on total strikes 131-96. Just before that, Chiasson suffered the first early loss of her career in a R2 submission against Raquel Pennington in a fight that Chiasson accepted on short notice and came in at 148.5 lb, missing the limit by 2.5 lb. Prior to that, Chiasson won a pair of decisions at 135 lb, over an aging and now retired Marion Reneau and a terrible Shanna Young, after losing a decision to Lina Lansber. Chiasson made her way into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter in 2018 after having just two pro fights leading up to that. She submitted Pannie Kianzad in the second round of the TUF finale in 2018, which was at 145 lb, and then landed a pair of TKOs in her next two fights.
Now 9-3 as a pro, Chiasson has two wins by TKO, three submissions, and four decision victories. She also has one TKO loss, one submission defeat, and one decision loss. Two of her early wins came in round one, two ended in round two, and the other ended in round three. Ten of her 12 career fights made it to the second round, with seven seeing round three, and five going the distance. Chiasson fought at 145 lb until her second UFC fight when she dropped down to 135 lb for a five fight stretch (4-1) before moving back up. She then returned to 135 lb for her last fight now that the UFC got rid of the 145 lb division.
Overall, Chiasson is still a pretty raw fighter who relies on her size and strength to win fights. After failing to land a takedown in her first four UFC fights, she’s landed 16 in her last six matches, and her takedown accuracy is really improving, as is her grappling. She has only topped 51 significant strikes in one of her 10 UFC fights and averages just 3.53 SSL/min and 2.53 SSA/min. We’ve seen Chiasson miss weight at 145 lb, so obviously she’ll be someone to keep an eye on during weigh-ins.
Fight Prediction:
Chiasson will have a 5” height advantage and 6” reach advantage. This is an interesting matchup because Chiasson has been so reliant on her wrestling lately and Bueno Silva is very dangerous on the mat looking for chokes or armbars off her back. So it will be interesting to see how willing Chiasson is to go to the ground, although we did just see Raquel Pennington survive numerous grappling exchanges with Bueno Silva, which could boost Chiasson’s confidence. Chiasson opened as an underdog but was actually bet up to a favorite early in the week, before we saw a little push back and the line settled as a straight pick’em as of Friday. Bueno Silva looks pretty live for a submission here, but if she can’t lock something in she could be in trouble as she averages 3.84 SSL/min and 4.86 SSA/min and tends to absorb more damage than she lands. When you combine that with her tendency of being controlled, it makes sense why she’s just 2-3-1 with the judges in her career. So this seems like a pretty binary fight where Bueno Silva either lands a submission or loses a decision. We’ll say she bounces back with a submission win.
Our favorite bet here is “Mayra Bueno Silva R1 SUB” at +700.
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DFS Implications:
Bueno Silva is a dangerous threat on the mat, with all but one of her UFC wins ending via submission, but she rarely puts up really big DraftKings scores. Only once has she topped 95 DraftKings points, which was when she submitted Lina Lansberg late in the second round in 2023 and scored 109 DraftKings points. While Bueno Silva took Lansberg down three times and notched three takedowns against Pennington in her last match, those are the only takedowns she landed in the UFC and is often content with using her grappling for defensive purposes. Maybe that’s changing as she’s looked to wrestle more recently, but she historically hasn’t added a ton in terms of takedown numbers. She also doesn't land a ton of striking volume, as she averages just 3.84 SSL/min, and most of her submission wins have come by armbar after her opponents have taken her down. So it makes sense why she’s struggled to put up big scores and now she’s massively overpriced on DraftKings where she’s $8,800 but was bet down to a pick’em. That will make it easy for her to get priced out of winning tournament lineups even if she does complete a submission, but will also keep her ownership way down. That makes her somewhat of an interesting contrarian play, as everyone will be hammering the value side in Chiasson. The odds imply Bueno Silva has a 50% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Chiasson has averaged 103 DraftKings points in her seven UFC wins, scoring at least 102 points in all but one of those. She started off her UFC career with three straight finishes, but her next three wins all went the distance, leading up to her recent first round submission win over Pannie Kianzad. That was her first finish since 2019 and she’s been more reliant on her wrestling to score well in recent years. While she’s shown the ability to rack up takedowns, control time, and ground strikes, it will be very risky to try and take Bueno Silva down, who has a history of locking up armbars off her back. Bueno Silva has also been very durable and has never been finished in her career. However, we have seen Bueno Silva absorb large striking totals and get controlled for periods of time, so maybe Chiasson will just push her up against the fence and try to win the fight with clinch strikes. That style of fight could still allow her to score well on DraftKings, but she’ll have a tougher time scoring well on FanDuel. With that said, Chiasson is massively underpriced on both sites, which lowers the amount of points she needs to score to end up in winning lineups. Just keep in mind, that mispricing will result in her being extremely popular, making it tougher to create unique lineups that include her. The odds imply Chiasson has a 50% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Roman Dolidze
10th UFC Fight (6-3)This matchup has changed so many times we hesitate to even write it up. It started out as Jamahal Hill against Khalil Rountree, but then Rountree failed a drug test and was replaced by Carlos Ulberg. However, Hill then suffered a knee injury and was replaced by Anthony Smith just over two weeks out. Then Ulberg dropped out and Roman Dolidze stepped in on just over a week’s notice. So ultimately, both of the original fighters from this matchup dropped out and then one of the replacements even dropped out.
Dolidze had previously been preparing to face Anothony Hernandez on June first, but Hernandez pulled out in late April. It was then announced that would fight Michel Pereira on June 8th, but that never ended up happening and Dolidze stepped into this spot instead. So Dolidze has been preparing to fight since March, he’s just had multiple opponent changes. However, it’s important to note that each of those prior bookings were at 185 lb, while Dolidze will now be moving up to 205 lb for this short notice matchup against Smith. Dolidze has lost two straight and is coming off a five-round decision loss to an up-and-coming Nassourdine Imavov, who nearly finished Dolidze in the first round. That followed a three-round decision loss to Marvin Vettori in a pure striking battle. All three of Dolidze’s UFC losses went the distance, while four of his six wins with the organization ended in KO/TKOs, and the other two ended in grappling-heavy decision wins. Prior to his recent pair of decision losses, Dolidze had knocked out three straight opponents in the first two rounds, after fighting to three more decisions before that. His most notable UFC win was a 2022 second round TKO against Jack Hermansson in a fight that Dolidze accepted on short notice.
Now 12-3 as a pro, Dolidze has seven wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and two decision victories. All three of his submission wins came in 81 seconds or less in his first three pro fights and his last seven finishes all ended in knockouts, with four in round one, two in round two, and one in round three. His first three UFC knockout wins all ended in round one, while the most recent occurred in round two. He’s never been finished himself, with all three of his career losses going the distance. Dolidze competed at 205 lb until 2021, when he dropped down to 185 lb following a 2-0 start to his UFC career. Despite losing his first fight at 185 lb, he remained at the weight class up until now, where he’ll be returning to 205 lb. Dolidze is 7-0 in his career at 205 lb.
Overall, Dolidze is a powerful striker with a grappling background who can finish fights both on the feet and the mat. He loves looking for heel hooks, but hasn’t officially completed one since 2017 in his second pro match. However, he used a leg lock to completely shred Phil Hawes’ knee in 2022, even if that ultimately went down as a knockout. Dolidze only averages 2.62 SSL/min and 3.36 SSA/min and has never landed more than 71 significant strikes in a fight. In his nine UFC fights, he landed 9 of his 22 takedown attempts (40.9% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 8 of their 12 attempts (33.3% defense). All five of the opponents who tried to take him down were successful. Dolidze lives in Batumi, Georgia, but comes to the US to train at Xtreme Couture for his camps. Dolidze will turn 36 in mid July and has been busted for steroids in the past. It will be important to monitor him closely on the scale as he moves back up to 205 lb on short notice here.
Anthony Smith
23rd UFC Fight (13-9)Smith is just eight weeks removed from a first round submission win over the previously undefeated Vitor Petrino, who idiotically put himself in a guillotine that ended the fight just two minutes in. Following that win, Smith had actually been helping Jamahal Hill to prepare for Carlos Ulberg, so when Hill got injured it was a natural fit for Smith to slide into that matchup, although then the opponent changed again and Smith went from preparing to face a pure striker to taking on a more well rounded grappler in Dolidze. Five months prior to beating Petrino, Smith was knocked out in the third round by Khalil Rountree. Smith stepped into that matchup against Rountree on just over two weeks’ notice and later said he had been out of the gym for months up until he accepted that fight, in what was clearly a poor decision. That followed a close split decision win over Ryan Spann, who nearly finished Smith in the second round. Just before that, Smith lost a 30-27 decision to Johnny Walker, who outlanded Smith 92-38 in significant strikes. Looking back one fight further, Smith suffered a second round TKO against Magomed Ankalaev, where Smith broke his leg in the first round and had no chance to win after that. After having surgery on the leg following the loss, Smith then had to deal with a blood clot that took months to get past. Smith also had knee surgery leading up to that fight, and he’s been dealing with numerous injuries and medical issues over the last couple of years, in addition to the loss of his mother. Before his losses to Walker and Ankalaev, Smith had actually landed three straight first round finishes, after looking dead in the water following a pair of brutal beatings put on him by Aleksandar Rakic and Glover Teixeira.
Now 38-19 as a pro, Smith has 20 wins by KO/TKO, 15 submissions, and three decision victories. While he has more knockouts than submission wins on his record, five of his last six finishes have come by submission, with the one exception being a 2021 post R1 TKO doctor stoppage win over Jimmy Crute due to a leg kick. Eleven of Smith’s last 12 wins ended early, and he’s gone just 1-4 in the last five decisions he’s been to, with just one decision win since 2016. He’s been knocked out 11 times, submitted four more, and has four decision losses. The last time anybody submitted him was in 2013. Smith fought at 185 lb until 2018 when he got knocked out by Thiago Santos in the second round and then moved up to 205 lb, where he’s since gone 9-6. Eight of those nine wins came early, with six in round one, one in round three, and another in round four. Three of his six losses at Light Heavyweight went the distance, with the other three ending in late round knockouts.
Overall, Smith is a BJJ black belt and has proven he’s dangerous on the ground from just about any position. Despite all of his submission finishes, in his 15 UFC Light Heavyweight fights Smith only landed five takedowns on 20 attempts (25% accuracy), and failed to take any of those 15 opponents down more than once. Over that same stretch, his opponents took him down 11 times on 23 attempts (52.2% defense). He’s a well-rounded fighter, and has been pretty durable for most of his career, but he doesn’t seem to be wearing damage as well lately as he quickly approaches his 36th birthday. He only averages 3.23 SSL/min and has never landed more than 91 significant strikes in a fight. So while he’s a dangerous striker and grappler, he lacks both striking and takedown volume, which helps to explain why he’s struggled to win many decisions. He’s also very prone to getting his lead leg chewed up, although he says he’s been trying to work on that and we saw more of a Muay Thai stance from him in his last few fights, where he didn’t put much weight on his lead leg to try and protect it. We’ve written Smith off for dead multiple times in the past, but he seemingly has more lives than a cat and basks in his ability to prove the naysayers wrong. We’ll see if he can get some momentum going here or if his recent win was just a fluke in his inevitable downward trajectory as he enters his late thirties.
Fight Prediction:
Smith will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters have a 76” reach and are 35 years old and turning 36 in July.
Both of these two are fast starters who tend to slow down as fights go on, which could be intensified by the fact that they both stepped in on short notice. Smith at least had a little over two weeks to prepare and is competing at his normal weight class, while Dolidze had just over a week and is moving back up to 205 lb with almost no time to adjust to the higher weight class. With that said, he fought at 205 lb for the first half of his career, although it was during that stretch that he tested positive for steroids. Who knows, maybe he’s back on the juice here and his sporadic performances leave him with a Bruce Banner/Hulk like dichotomy that results in us never knowing which version is going to show up. He’s looked absolutely terrible and timid at times, while serving as a completely destructive force at others. Smith is similarly volatile and has looked like a complete punching bag in half of his fights and a savvy jiu jitsu veteran in others. Smith has a good job, decent kicks, and a solid grappling game, but isn’t a very good wrestler and has worn damage terribly in recent years. Neither of these two land much striking volume, with Smith averaging 3.23 SSL/min and Dolidze just 2.62 SSL/min. They both struggle to win rounds on the scorecards late in fights, which will make it harder for either of them to pull away down the stretch if this fight runs long. It’s been 11 years since Smith was last submitted and Dolidze has never been finished, so if this does end early a Dolidze knockout appears to be the most likely method for that to occur. However, Smith has been a hard guy to put away early at 205 lb, even if we’ve seen him hurt at multiple points. And considering that Dolidze’s finishes generally come early and now he’s moving up a weight class on short notice, we kind of like this fight to run long. There’s definitely a world where Dolidze shows up juiced to the gills and leaves a chalk outline in his wake, but we’ll say this ends in a close split decision with Smith landing more strikes, but Dolidze finding more wrestling success. At that point you may as well flip a coin given the current state of judging and in those situations we want to be holding the ticket with the wider odds. So queue up the clown makeup meme, we’re going to let Smith hurt us one last time and pick him to win by split decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Anthony Smith DEC” at +400.
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DFS Implications:
Dolidze has averaged 99 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, with four of those ending in knockouts in the first two rounds. Even in his two decision victories, he still averaged 89 DraftKings points through his grappling. He’s never been finished in his career, which adds to his scoring floor, however, he’s also never topped 92 DraftKings points in a fight that made it out of the first round. So he’s been reliant on first round knockouts to really go off and while Smith has been finished an eye-popping 15 times in his 57 pro fights, he hasn’t been finished in round one since his 2013 UFC debut. That was also the last time anybody submitted Smith, although it did notably come by kneebar and Dolidze loves a good leg lock. In addition to his grappling, Dolidze has a ton of power and Smith hasn’t been wearing damage very well lately. If this does end early, it’s probably because the Hulk version of Dolidze showed up instead of Bruce Banner. Dolidze is moving back up to 205 lb for this short notice fight that he accepted on just over a week’s notice and he’s 7-0 at Light Heavyweight in his career, although it’s been three and a half years since he competed at the weight class. Between the weight move and the short notice nature of this matchup, it’s a pretty volatile spot. While both of these two are dangerous grapplers, Smith only has a 49% takedown defense, which opens the possibility for Dolidze to win a wrestling-heavy decision and still score decently on DraftKings even without a finish. However, he’s far more reliant on ending things early to score well on FanDuel. The odds imply Dolidze has a 56% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Smith has averaged 92 DraftKings points in his 13 UFC wins, with 11 of those ending early. However, he’s generally struggled to score well in fights that made it out of the first round and if we remove his six first round finishes, his average drops to just 77 points. He only has two decision wins in 22 UFC appearances and scored just 73 and 72 points respectively in those two wins. At Smith’s cheaper price tag, he may not need a huge score to end up in winning lineups, but it does appear he’ll need a finish to be useful, as he only averages 3.23 SSL/min and hasn’t landed more than a single takedown in any of his last 20 fights. He hasn’t been wearing damage well lately and Dolidze is extremely powerful and has a history of landing early knockouts, which leaves Smith with a very shaky floor. Dolidze has also never been finished and is a good grappler, which will make it tougher for Smith to find the finish he needs to score well. However, Dolidze is moving up a weight class and only had about a week to prepare, while Smith had just over two weeks to get ready. That at least makes it a more volatile matchup and we can’t completely eliminate the potential for Smith to end things early, but it does appear unlikely. The odds imply Smith has a 44% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Diego Lopes
5th UFC Fight (3-1)This fight was put together on short notice and announced as the co-main event just 16 days out, after Conor McGregor dropped out of the original main event and Hill dropped out of the original co-main.
Continuing to make short work of everyone they put in front of him, Lopes has finished three straight opponents in 98 seconds or less. His most recent win came just 77 days ago on UFC 300 in a first round TKO against Sodiq Yusuff. Lopes dropped Yusuff with an uppercut in the opening minute of the fight and then just swarmed him with a barrage of strikes until the ref pulled him off. It was arguably a quick stoppage but things likely wouldn’t have changed even if the ref had let it go on a little bit longer. Lopes originally burst onto the UFC scene in May 2023 when he made his debut on short notice against the undefeated Movsar Evloev. While Lopes wasn’t able to pull off the upset as a massive +600 underdog, he gave a good account of himself as he finished with four official submission attempts and looked close to finding a finish at multiple points. He then took on Gavin Tucker and locked up an impressive first round armbar after Tucker foolishly looked to take Lopes down. For context, Tucker was coming off a two and a half year layoff following a 22 second R1 KO loss to Dan Ige and hasn’t won a fight since 2020. Nevertheless, it was a slick submission by Lopes. Next, Lopes took on a high level grappler in Pat Sabatini and knocked him out in just 90 seconds. Sabatini has looked kind of chinny at times in the past, so the results weren’t entirely shocking, but it was another impressive first round finish nonetheless. Lopes originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2021 against a really dangerous Joanderson Brito, and looked close to locking up a submission there as well, but ultimately lost a technical decision following a third round eye poke that he sustained. That forced him to return to the regional scene, where he then compounded the misstep when he lost a five-round split decision, before bouncing back with a pair of late-round KO/TKO victories that resulted in the UFC giving him a shot.
Now 24-6 as a pro, Lopes has 10 wins by KO/TKO, 12 submissions, and two decision victories. He has a pair of second round KO/TKO losses (2014 & 2018), and four decision defeats. While his last three fights all ended in round one, his previous six all made it to the second round, with five of those seeing round three, and three ending in decisions. His last seven wins all came early, while his last three losses all went the distance.
Overall, Lopes is a Brazilian grappler and BJJ black belt who loves looking for submissions off his back, and has also looked very dangerous on the feet recently. At 5’11” he’s got good size for the 145 lb division, but doesn’t fight especially long. He has a dangerous lead left hook and throws nasty uppercuts, while also mixing in leg kicks. He generally doesn’t land a ton of volume and only averages 3.22 SSL/min, but makes his strikes count when he does land. He trains at Lobo Gym and is Alexa Grasso’s jiu jitsu coach, so clearly he’s a respected grappler. Between his DWCS appearance and his four UFC fights, Lopes got taken down by his opponents 8 times on 14 attempts (42.9% defense), while failing to land his only attempt in those fights. Because Lopes is so content with playing jiu jitsu off his back, it makes it tougher for him to win decisions and explains why he’s only 2-4 in fights that have gone the distance. He fights to finish, not to win on the scorecards.
Brian Ortega
13th UFC Fight (8-3, NC)Ortega’s last fight against Yair Rodriguez couldn’t have started out much worse for him, as he rolled his ankle during introductions and then got dropped a minute into the fight. However, he was able to buy time to recover on his back on the mat and Rodriguez appeared to punch himself out going for the finish in a fight that took place at a really high elevation in Mexico City. That allowed Ortega to turn the tables in round two as he controlled Rodriguez on the mat. Ortega took Rodriguez down again early in round three and submitted him shortly thereafter. That win came 19 months after those two squared off for the first time back in July 2022. That fight abruptly ended in the first round due to an Ortega shoulder injury that resulted in multiple surgeries and a 19 month layoff. That followed a September 2021 five-round title fight decision loss to Alexander Volkanovski, where Ortega suffered a life-shortening amount of damage. Other than his recent victory over Rodriguez, Ortega’s only other win since 2018 was a 2020 five-round decision win over The Korean Zombie, who was clearly on the decline. While Ortega is just 2-3 in his last five fights, he went undefeated in his first 15 pro matches, including his first seven in the UFC. However, a first round win in his UFC debut was overturned to a No Contest when he tested positive for steroids and he fully admitted to taking them. However, he came back a year later and finished six straight opponents, before suffering his first career loss in a post R4 doctor stoppage against Max Holloway in 2018. Following the loss, Ortega switched camps but didn’t fight again for 22 months after suffering a partially torn ACL during training in November of 2019. He’s struggled with inactivity since that loss to Holloway, fighting just four times in the last five and a half years. Ortega’s last five fights were all scheduled to go five rounds and this will be his first three-round fight since 2018.
Now 16-3 as a pro, Ortega has three wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and five decision victories. He has two TKO losses on his record and one decision defeat. While 10 of Ortega’s 12 UFC fights ended early, 9 of his last 11 matches made it to the second round, with the two exceptions being a 2018 R1 KO win over Frankie Edgar and a 2022 R1 TKO loss due to injury. Seven of his eight UFC wins ended early, with five of those finishes coming in round three. Four of his last five fights made it to the third round, with three of those going into the championship rounds, and two ending in five-round decisions.
Overall, Ortega is a BJJ black belt and dangerous submission threat who mostly looks to lock in guillotines and triangle chokes. However, he’s only landed 12 of his 44 takedown attempts in 11 UFC fights (27.3% accuracy). On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 11 of their 26 attempts (57.7% defense). However, after only landing one takedown on seven attempts in his first seven UFC fights, he landed 11 on 37 attempts in his last five matches, getting all of those opponents down at least once. He’s also improved his striking in recent years and we’ve seen his striking volume increase as his UFC career has gone on. His biggest issue has simply been staying healthy, but he’s still only 33 years old. In a recent interview, he said that he’s planning on moving up to 155 lb after this fight and he actually already had a 155 lb fight lineup at the Sphere in September, that could still happen depending on how this fight goes. He also said the main reason he accepted this fight on such short notice is that he wants to donate 100K of his purse to some church in LA. He also said there’s no time to game plan on short notice and this is basically a two week weight cut and then a fight. This will be Ortega’s quickest turnaround since 2018, so it will be important to monitor him closely on the scale, especially since he took this on short notice and was already talking about moving up a weight class.
Fight Prediction:
Lopes will have a 3” height and reach advantage, while also being four years younger than the 33-year-old Ortega.
This is an interesting matchup, as both guys are really solid grapplers, but also decent strikers. Lopes has looked like more of a knockout threat, but Ortega has far more UFC experience and this will be a big step up in competition for Lopes. While Lopes is a really dangerous submission threat, he rarely lands any takedowns and tends to spend time being controlled on the mat while he looks for finishes. It’s sort of the same deal on the feet, as he doesn’t land a ton of striking volume, but looks to knock opponents out with the shots he does land. His style of fighting is fun to watch and often results in finishes, but doesn’t score as well with the judges. That presents an opportunity for Ortega to control him on the mat for periods of time and win a decision. Both guys are skilled enough on the ground that we’d be surprised to see either of them get submitted, despite the fact that they’re both such dangerous grapplers. So we either see this ending in a knockout or a decision and we don’t really think Ortega knocks Lopes out. Therefore, if it does end early, it’s most likely because Lopes knocks Ortega out. And if it goes the distance, we like Ortega’s chances of getting his hand raised. The oddsmakers are expecting it to end early close to two-thirds of the time and it kind of seems like the UFC is just using Ortega’s name to build up Lopes, before Ortega moves up to 155 lb anyways. So we’ll give Lopes the benefit of the doubt and say he lands another knockout here, but it also won’t be at all surprising to see him spend too much time on his back and lose a decision if he can’t find a finish. Also keep in mind, the short notice nature of this matchup definitely adds to the volatility.
UPDATE: At the start of weigh-ins they announced this fight had been moved from 145 lb to 155 lb
Our favorite bet here is “Diego Lopes KO” at +275.
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DFS Implications:
Lopes is in the midst of a meteoric rise in the Featherweight division. He’s only a year removed from suffering one of the more impressive losses you could ask for in his short notice UFC debut against Movsar Evloev, and is now facing the #3 ranked Featherweight in Brian Ortega. Lopes finished each of his last three opponents in 98 seconds or less and has looked really dangerous on the feet, in addition to being a really slick BJJ black belt. However, his series of quick finishes have also disguised his lack of striking volume and takedowns, and he’s also been prone to being controlled on the mat. That generally leaves him reliant on landing well timed finishes to score well in DFS and he’s just 2-4 with the judges in his career. While he came close to locking up multiple submissions against Evloev, he still only scored 23 DraftKings points in that decision loss. He followed that up with a first round submission win that only returned 90 points—the bare minimum in a first round finish. While Lopes did put up a big total of 122 points in his most recent win, that required two knockdowns and a flurry of strikes, which is not something you can generally rely on. He’s facing a step up in competition here against a fellow high-level grappler, lowering the chances of a submission win and leaving Lopes more reliant on landing another knockout. While Ortega has shown the ability to absorb an obscene amount of damage in the past, he averages 6.54 SSA/min (most on the slate) and has said he plans on moving up to 155 lb after this short notice matchup. That makes this a high-upside, volatile matchup for Lopes. The odds imply Lopes has a 57% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
Ortega has a long history of landing late finishes that don’t score very well. Seven of his eight UFC wins ended early, but he’s only averaged 86 DraftKings and that number is bolstered by a five-round decision win over The Korean Zombie that was good for 118 points. If we remove that, his average drops to just 81 points and amazingly, he scored 85 or fewer DraftKings points in six of his seven early wins. The one exception was a 2018 first round knockout against Frankie Edgar that scored 110 points. That was the last time Ortega knocked anybody out and now he’s facing a fellow high-level grappler who has never been submitted. That lowers Ortega’s chances of landing a finish and leaves him more reliant on winning a wrestling-heavy decision to score well on DraftKings. That’s certainly possible here, as we’ve seen him look for more takedowns recently and Lopes has just a 42% takedown defense and a tendency to get controlled for periods of time while he looks for submissions of his back. However, that leaves us less interested in Ortega on FanDuel, where that style of fight won’t score as well. Ortega has said he plans on moving up to 155 lb for the first time after this and that he only took this fight so that he could donate 100K of his purse to his church, and he appears resigned to the fact that he won’t be getting another title shot at 145 lb any time soon. That makes you wonder about his focus and motivation coming into this short notice matchup, which is concerning as he takes on a red hot prospect in Lopes. The odds imply Ortega has a 43% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Alex Pereira
9th UFC Fight (7-1)This fight was put together on short notice and announced as the new UFC 303 main event just 16 days out, after Conor McGregor dropped out of the original main event.
Pereira is just 77 days removed from a first round knockout win over Jamahal Hill, who was coming off a ruptured achilles that forced him to vacate the Light Heavyweight belt after winning it against Pereira’s teammate, Glover Teixeira in January 2023. In the finishing sequence against Hill, Pereira waved Herb Dean off after absorbing a low blow and then dropped Hill with a massive left hand and finished him with ground and pound. Prior to that, Pereira won the Light Heavyweight belt that Hill vacated against Jiri Prochazka in a November 2023 R2 TKO when these two originally squared off. That came after Pereira won a split decision in his Light Heavyweight debut over Jan Blachowicz, who’s the closest thing Pereira has faced to a grappler in the UFC. The UFC has done a masterful job of masking Pereira’s non-existent ground game, as they matched him up with three straight strikers in his first three UFC fights, and even Andreas Michailidis and Bruno Silva each took him down twice. Then Sean Strickland refused to even attempt a takedown, in typical Strickland fashion. Pereira then amazingly got his first UFC title shot just 53 weeks after making his UFC debut, with just seven MMA fights under his belt. And even more amazingly, he won that fight in a comeback 5th round TKO against Adesanya who was up three rounds to one in the fight. That was the first time those two squared off in MMA, but Pereira had two kickboxing wins over Adesanya previously (2016 DEC & 2017 R3 KO). Five months after Pereira won the UFC Middleweight belt against Adesanya, they ran it back and Adesanya enacted his revenge in a second round knockout win.
Pereira then moved up to 205 lb and won a close/questionable split-decision over a 40-year-old Jan Blachowicz, who was able to take Pereira down in each of the three rounds. That fight took place at elevation in Salt Lake City, which appeared to take its toll on Blachowicz’s cardio especially, as he set a high wrestling pace. That’s probably what won Pereira the fight, as Blachowicz’s body language was terrible in the later rounds. After dominating the first round and nearly finding a submission, the later rounds were both fairly close and that was enough for two of the three judges to score the fight for Pereira. That close decision win in his first MMA fight at 205 lb propelled Pereira into a title shot against Jiri Prochazka, who hadn’t competed in 17 months after winning the belt in a fifth round submission against Glover Teixeira. Following that win, Prochazka suffered a really bad shoulder injury, which resulted in him vacating the belt and sitting on the sideline for a year and a half. Jamahal Hill then won the vacant belt against Glover Teixeira, but then Hill suffered an achilles injury and also vacated the belt, leaving it up for grabs between Pereira and Prochazka. Pereira did a good job of landing leg kicks against Prochazka, in a slower paced fight where each fighter only landed 11 significant strikes in the first round. Prochazka isn’t known for his wrestling, but he was able to take Pereira down in the first round and control him for nearly half the round. However, as he shot for another takedown in round two, Pereira was able to land a series of elbows that resulted in Prochazka falling backwards and the fight immediately being stopped, before you could even tell how badly Prochazka was actually hurt. He quickly returned to his feet and seemed okay to continue, and even the broadcast team who is paid to hype Pereira up called it a quick stoppage. Looking back to before Pereira joined the UFC, he only had one MMA fight in the five and a half years prior to making his UFC debut, which was 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, just two months before making his UFC debut. So he’s only been consistently competing in MMA since 2020.
Now 10-2 as a pro in MMA, Pereira has eight wins by KO/TKO and two decision victories. Four of those knockouts came in round one, three ended in round two, and the other was in round five. He was also finished in both of his losses, with a 2023 second round knockout loss in his rematch against Adesanya, and a third round submission in his 2015 pro MMA debut. After competing at 209 lb in his last two kickboxing matches, Pereira dropped back down to 185 lb for his UFC debut, where his first nine MMA fights all took place. However, he then moved back up to 205 lb in 2023 and is now 3-0 at Light Heavyweight.
This will be the 5th five-round fight of Pereira’s career. The first two were both against Adesanya, with Pereira landing a comeback 5th round TKO in the first and then getting knocked out in round two when they ran it back. Then in his first 205 lb title fight, Pereira won in a second round TKO and followed that up with a first round knockout of Jamahal Hill most recently. Pereira lost three of the first four rounds in his first title fight against Adesanya and then also lost the first round in their rematch, as well as the first round against Prochazka. So he hasn’t been faring very well on the scorecards in any of his five-round matches, winning just one of the six scored rounds. However, all four of those fights ended in knockouts, with him winning three of them.
Overall, Pereira is a dangerous kickboxer, but has yet to show anything in terms of grappling—despite the fact that Glover Teixeira just awarded him his black belt following yet another win with zero grappling. That at least shows that he’s been working on his grappling, but he’s yet to show any of those improvements inside the cage in the rare instances he’s been tested on the mat. In his eight UFC fights, he’s been taken down 9 times on 30 opponent attempts (70% defense), while he landed his lone takedown attempt, which came against Adesanya. While his MMA experience is still pretty 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. While his cardio was a major concern early in his career, he seems to have improved in that area. His chin has also been kind of suspect, but maybe not having to cut the additional 20 lb down to 185 lb will help him to be more durable and we’ve yet to see him get finished at 205 lb.
Jiri Prochazka
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Prochazka is making the exact same quick turnaround as Pereira, as they each fought on the UFC 300 card back in April. While Pereira closed out the main card with a knockout, Prochazka opened it in the same fashion as he finished Aleksandar Rakic in a second round TKO. However, it wasn't nearly as clean a performance from Prochazka and he was getting leg kicked to death in the first round, which left his base severely compromised just minutes into the fight. However, he was able to tough it out and then finally began pressuring Rakic to take away the kicks and turned the fight into a brawl, where he was able to overwhelm Rakic with punches and knees, and then finish him with ground and pound midway through round two. That followed Prochazka’s loss to Pereira in November 2023, where he once again had his lead leg badly beaten up early on in the fight, a concerning trend for him. That loss came 17 months after Prochazka won the Light Heavyweight belt in June 2022 against Pereira’s teammate, Glover Teixeira, in a stunning fifth round submission. Teixeira was just 28 seconds away from successfully defending the belt for the first time, after winning three of the first four rounds. The two fighters were scheduled to run it back in December 2022, but Prochazka suffered a really bad shoulder injury and was forced to pull out. He also admirably vacated the belt, as to not hold up the division during his time away. Or if you’re into conspiracies, he pissed hotter than the sun and the injury was all a cover up. Prior to submitting Teixeira, Prochazka landed a pair of second round knockouts in his first two UFC fights against Volkan Oezdemir and Dominick Reyes. Before he joined the UFC, Prochazka had won 10 straight fights with Rizin, where he was the Light Heavyweight champ.
Now 30-4-1 as a pro, Prochazka has 26 KO/TKO wins, three submissions, and one decision victory, with the vast majority of his finishes coming in round one. However, all four of his UFC finishes occurred in later round finishes, with three ending in round two and one in round five. He was finished in all four of his pro losses, with three knockouts and one submission. However, three of those four losses occurred early in his career in 2012, 2013, and 2015 and he’s only lost one fight since 2015, which was his second round TKO loss to Pereira. Prochazka has only been to two decisions in his 35 pro fights, a 2014 draw and a 2016 two-round decision win.
This will be the 4th five-round fight of Prochazka’s career. His first ended in a 2021 second round knockout win over Dominick Reyes. The second ended in a 2022 fifth round submission victory against Glover Teixeira, and the third was his 2023 second round TKO loss to Alex Pereira.
Overall, Prochazka has a wild fighting style filled with unusual movements and strikes from odd angles. He keeps his hands low, which makes it hard to see where his punches are coming from, but also makes him very hittable and he averages 5.43 SSA/min and has just a 41% striking defense. He relies mostly on his striking, but did land a surprise submission against Glover Teixeira and then smartly looked to wrestle a little more against Alex Pereira in their first fight. After only attempting one takedown in his first three UFC fights, Prochazka attempted three in just nine minutes against Pereira, landing one of those, and then also took Aleksandar Rakic down once in his last match. Looking at his five UFC fights as a whole, Prochazka landed 3 of his 5 takedown attempts (60% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 6 of their 19 attempts (68.4% defense). He’s tall and long and uses his reach well to strike from distance, and he has to be one of the tougher guys to prepare for when it comes to pure striking.
Fight Prediction:
Pereira will have a 1” height advantage, but Prochazka will have a 1” reach advantage. Prochazka is five years younger than the 36-year-old Pereira, who turns 37 a week after this fight.
While this fight was put together on just a couple of weeks’ notice, these two fought each other just seven months ago and were already planning on running it back in August. So they’re already very familiar with one another, it’s just a matter of what type of shape they’re in. While Pereira was able to beat up Prochazka’s lead leg in their first matchup, Prochazka was able to take Pereira down, which won him the first round in that fight. So they’ve each shown the ability to quickly capitalize on each other’s weaknesses. They’ve also each shown the ability to hurt the other and Pereira looked to be in some trouble on the feet in their first fight before he turned the tables with the help of a quick stoppage. Pereira has looked a little better in each of his three Light Heavyweight fights as he settles into the weight class, but it’s important to keep in mind that his last two wins were also against opponents coming off serious injuries and extended layoffs. Pereira is also about to turn 37 and could start slowing down at any point, something even he referenced recently. Ultimately, this is a volatile matchup that could come down to who lands the first kill shot. We know they both have the power to finish the other and that Prochazka tends to get hit way more, but will also have the wrestling advantage, even if he isn’t a great wrestler. They’ve each been finished in 100% of their losses and rarely require the scorecards, so it’s fair to expect another stoppage in this rematch. Pereira has never submitted anybody, while Prochazka only has one submission win since 2014, and a knockout is far more likely than a submission. All five of Prochazka’s UFC fights made it out of the first round, but four of those ended in round two. Similarly, six of Pereira’s eight UFC fights made it out of the first round, with three being stopped in round two. Another early-to-mid round finish here would make a lot of sense, and we don’t anticipate this making it past round three. As the odds indicate, it seems close to a coinflip and the short notice nature just adds to the volatility. In a pure striking battle, we would give the slight advantage to Pereira, but when you factor in the potential for Prochazka to wrestle and his plus money price tag, he looks a little more appealing and he’ll be our pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Jiri Prochazka KO” at +240.
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DFS Implications:
Pereira has averaged 93 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, with five of those ending in knockouts. If we remove his two three-round decision wins, that average climbs to 99 points, but he’s still never scored more than 98 points in a fight that made it out of round one. His second round TKO win over Prochazka in their first matchup was good for 98 points, while his fifth round knockout win over Adesanya only scored 92 points. He also landed an early second round knockout in his UFC debut that only scored 87 points. So Pereira has consistently underwhelmed in DFS with later finishes and has been reliant on ending things in the opening five minutes to really score well on DraftKings. Despite being consistently popular on DraftKings with his ownership checking in between 34-42% in each of his last four fights, he’s only been in the DraftKings winning lineup twice in eight Octagon appearances, and the same can be said on FanDuel. And it’s not like he’s been prohibitively priced, as his DraftKings salary didn’t top $8,400 in any of his last six fights. While he’s an elite striker who averages 5.10 SSL/min, he offers nothing in terms of wrestling. That leaves him reliant on landing well timed knockouts to score well and even then we’ve seen him often left out of winning tournament lineups on higher scoring slates. Working in his favor, Prochazka averages 5.43 SSA/min and has just a 41% string defense, while Pereira is once again reasonably priced. Just keep in mind, Pereira has consistently been owned well above the rate he ends up in winning tournament lineups, and now you can tack on the inherent bias that comes with him having already finished Prochazka once. The odds imply Pereira has a 59% chance to win, a 42% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.
Prochazka has averaged 110 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins, scoring 104 or more in each of his last three victories, and at least 119 in two of those. He pushes a high/reckless pace, as he averages 5.75 SSL/min and 5.43 SSA/min. We’ve also seen him mix in a little more wrestling lately, as he took each of his last two opponents down once, after only landing one takedown in his first three UFC fights combined. He was able to take Pereira down once the first time they fought and controlled him on the mat for almost a half a round. That’s encouraging for his chances of finding wrestling success here and he also had Pereira hurt on the feet in that first fight. Furthermore, Prochazka was coming off a 17 month layoff following a devastating shoulder injury the last time they competed, which is a tough hurdle to overcome. While the circumstances aren’t ideal for this fight either, as it was put together on a couple weeks’ notice, at least both fighters are having to deal with the same situation. That does make this a more volatile matchup, as it’s hard to know what type of shape they’re each in and how prepared they’ll be. However, you don’t have to get ready if you stay ready and it’s hard to imagine anyone staying more ready than Prochazka, who appears to do nothing but train. While it’s very possible that he still gets knocked out by Pereira once again, it’s harder to see Prochazka winning this fight and getting left out of the optimal lineup at his cheaper price tag. He offers tons of upside, even if his floor is uncertain. However, that also has resulted in him being very popular, with his DraftKings ownership checking in between 34-52% in each of his last three fights. And despite being the underdog the first time he fought Pereira, Prochazka was still the higher owned fighter (46% vs. 37%) at similar pricing to what we have here. We may see that come down slightly after that loss, but we expect both guys to be popular in this matchup. The odds imply Prochazka has a 41% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
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Payton Talbott OVER 53.5 SS
