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Fighter Notes:
Fight #11
Josefine Knutsson
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Knutsson is coming off a dominant decision win in her UFC debut against Marnic Mann, where she was able to basically do whatever she wanted in the fight. She took Mann down three times on four attempts, while controlling her for nearly 11 minutes. She also stuffed both of Mann’s attempts and finished ahead 81-8 in significant strikes and 147-39 in total strikes. One judge handed in a rare 30-24 scorecard, while another had it 30-25 for Knutsson, and the third 30-27. That win came just three and a half weeks after Knutsson won a decision on DWCS, where she again won every round of the fight, although didn’t fill up the stat sheet nearly as much. Knutsson had then been scheduled to face a really tough Iasmin Lucindo in her debut, but Lucindo dropped out and Marnic Mann was announced as the replacement nine days out. Knutsson’s last five wins all went the distance and the only knock on her has been her general inability to get opponents out of there early.
Now 7-0 as a pro, Knutsson has one TKO win and six decision victories. Her only finish came in the second round of her second pro fight back in September 2021.
Overall, Knutsson is a really solid striker and a former K-1 and Muay champion before she turned pro in MMA in 2021. She’s still only 28 years old and trains at Allstars in Sweden with several other UFC fighters. While her background is in striking, she’ll also mix in takedowns and has a pretty solid takedown defense. Between her UFC debut, her DWCS match, and her Road to UFC fight, Knutsson landed 8 of her 11 takedown attempts (72.7% accuracy), while her opponents failed to land any of their four takedown attempts. Knutsson throws snappy head kicks and good combinations and looks like an interesting young prospect in the Strawweight division. One thing to note is that she has a really short reach at just 60”, but her kicking game should help her to overcome that. After getting a teed up matchup in her debut, Knutsson will face a much stiffer test here.
Julia Polastri
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making her UFC debut following a second round submission win on DWCS, Polastri is on the short list of fighters to go on DWCS twice and earn a contract in her second appearance. She originally went on the show back in 2021 when she was just 23 years old. She took that fight up a weight class at 125 lb against a giant wrestler in Jasmine Jasudavicius and got taken down four times and controlled for eight minutes, but was leading the dance on the feet and clawed back into the match after dropping a 10-8 first round on the mat. Nevertheless, she ultimately lost a close decision, before dropping back down to 115 lb and returning to the regional scene. She bounced back with a decision win and followed it up with a third round TKO victory and a first round submission win. That was enough to get her another shot on DWCS in 2023 and she capitalized on the opportunity with a late second round submission win. Leading up to the finish, we saw a high-volume brawl in round one, before Polastri landed an emphatic takedown in round two and then worked her way to a rear-naked choke.
Now 12-3 as a pro, Polastri has four wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and five decision victories. While she has more knockouts than submissions, three of her last four finishes came by submission. She’s never been finished herself, with all three of her losses going the distance. Two of her three pro losses came in her first four pro fights when she was just 19 and 20 years old respectively. She’s won 10 of her last 11 fights with the one loss coming up a weight class at 125 lb. She actually started her career in 2017 at 105 lb when she was just 19, before moving up to 115 lb in 2018. She also once competed at 125 lb, which was her loss in her first trip on DWCS.
Overall, Polastri is an aggressive striker who has also improved her grappling over the years, as all three of her submission wins occurred in her last six fights. She fights with a borderline reckless amount of confidence, and will sometimes keep her hands low as she approaches her opponents. She rarely takes a backwards step and is constantly pressuring her opponents with a barrage of punches, kicks, and elbows, while also mixing in occasional takedown attempts. Her one weakness has been her defensive wrestling, but she appears to be making improvements in that area and was only really exposed when she was fighting up a weight class against a much larger wrestler. Polastri looks like an exciting addition to the UFC Strawweight division and we’re looking forward to seeing what she can do.
Fight Prediction:
Knutsson will have a 1” height advantage, but Polastri will have a 3” reach advantage.
This sets up as an action-packed banger between two of the better Strawweights that most people have never heard of. This matchup was originally scheduled for March but Knutsson dropped out, before it was later rescheduled three months down the road. So these two have had plenty of time to prepare for one another. While each of these ladies come from striking backgrounds, they will also both look to mix in takedowns. Knutsson has looked like the better wrestler, but Polastri has been more of a submission threat. They’re both powerful, aggressive strikers, but neither of them have ever been finished. This is one of those matchups where we’re excited to see it play out, but it’s a shame that one of them will have to suffer a loss so early in their UFC career. The single most likely outcome is that Knutsson squeaks out a decision win, but this looks like her toughest test to date and we won’t be at all surprised if Polastri pulls off the upset. While the odds say differently, if the fight does end early, we believe that Polastri is the more likely of the two to land a finish. And when you combine that with what we’re expecting to be a closer decision if it doesn’t end early, we’re willing to take a shot on Polastri at her plus money odds.
Our favorite bet here is “Julia Polastri ML” at +165.
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DFS Implications:
Knutsson absolutely dominated a terrible Marnic Mann for three rounds in her recent UFC debut, where she scored 110 DraftKings points in a decision win that was so lopsided that one judge scored it 10-8 for Knutsson in every single round. While that shows how solid and well-rounded Knutsson is, that was also a once in a lifetime opportunity against one of the worst fighters on the roster who was making her debut on short notice. It would be a mistake to project those results onto future matchups and Knutsson will face a much, MUCH tougher matchup here. Also concerning for Knutsson’s scoring outlook is that her previous decision win on DWCS only would have been good for 71 DraftKings points and 58 points on FanDuel. With that said, Polastri fights very aggressively, is constantly pushing forward, and has been prone to getting taken down at times in the past. So even if this is a more challenging matchup, we’re still expecting a high pace that’s conducive to DFS production. Nevertheless, it will still be more difficult for Knutsson to return value at her expensive salary without a finish. And with that in mind, Knutsson only has one early win in her career, while Polastri has never been finished. The odds imply Knutsson has a 61% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Polastri is an exciting fighter who’s always looking to push the pace and throw down in a scrap. She’ll also mix in occasional takedowns and has looked like more of a submission threat lately, leaving her with multiple ways to score well. Her only loss in her last 11 fights was when she took a DWCS fight up a weight class in 2021 against a much larger Jasmine Jasudavicius, and nearly came back to force a draw in that fight after losing a 10-8 first round on the mat. While we love what Polastri brings to the table, she gets a really tough matchup here in her UFC debut against an undefeated opponent who has both a solid striking and takedown defense. That lowers the chances of Polastri finding a finish or putting up a monster striking total, but either of those are still possible. And at her cheap price tag, even a decent score in a decision win could be enough for her to be useful. There will definitely be more favorable matchups for her in the future, but we’re still willing to take a shot on here. The odds imply Polastri has a 39% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Melquizael Costa
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Costa is coming off a second round knockout loss to Steve Garcia, in a fight where Costa was able to control Garcia along the fence for essentially the entire first round. However, he then got reversed on a takedown attempt in round two and found himself on his back getting brutalized with ground and pound until the fight was stopped. That fight took place at 155 lb, but only because they had been scheduled to fight at 145 lb a week earlier and Garcia dropped out due to weight cutting issues. Prior to that, Costa secured his only UFC victory in a lopsided decision over a one-dimensional striker in Austin Lingo. Costa outlanded Lingo 100-39 in significant strikes and also landed 3 of his 8 takedown attempts as he dominated the fight from start to finish and did a good job of keeping the fight at kicking range where he could dictate the action. That fight took place at 145 lb, after Costa got submitted in the second round of his short notice UFC debut against Thiago Moises at 155 lb. Leading up to that loss, Costa landed a third round TKO win in the LFA (at 155 lb), following a first round TKO win on the Brazilian regional scene. Seven of Costa’s last eight fights made it out of the first round, but only three of those required the judges.
Now 20-7 as a pro, Costa has seven wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and seven decision victories. He has two TKO losses and has also been submitted twice. His other three defeats all went the distance. He fought all the way down at 135 lb early in his career, and has gone back and forth between 145 lb and 155 lb since 2017. However, it seems like his plan is to compete at 145 lb moving forward.
Overall, Costa is a patient fighter who throws a ton of kicks and does his best work when he can control the distance and keep his opponents at kicking range. He trains out of Chute Boxe in Brazil and is a BJJ brown belt and Muay Thai black belt. Costa’s takedown defense has looked poor, which has gotten him into trouble at multiple points in the past and in his three UFC fights his opponents got him down on 4 of their 7 attempts (42.9% defense), while he landed 5 of his own 18 attempts (27.8% accuracy). So anytime he faces a grappler/wrestler, there’s reason to be concerned, but he does better against strikers when he can be the one mixing in takedowns with his striking. He’s facing a wrestler here.
Shayilan Nuerdanbieke
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Also coming off a second round knockout loss to Steve Garcia, Nuerdanbieke now hasn’t competed in 14 months. In that last loss, he started strong and knocked Garcia down in the first round. However, while you can count on Garcia’s chin being consistently dubious, you can never count him out of a fight and he survived the early knockdown and came back to finish Nuerdanbieke in round two. That snapped a three-fight winning streak for Nuerdanbieke, although some of that success is overshadowed by the investigation surrounding the Darrick Minner fight in Nuerdanbieke’s only “finish” in the UFC. It’s hard to give Nuerdanbieke too much credit in that win as Minner appeared to come in with an injury. Prior to that, Nuerdanbieke won a pair of wrestling-heavy decisions over TJ Brown and Sean Soriano, after losing a decision in his 2021 UFC debut to Joshua Culibao.
Now 39-11 as a pro, Nuerdanbieke has 19 wins by KO, 10 submissions, and 10 decision victories. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted six more, and has two decision losses. While the majority of his pre-UFC fights ended in the first round, he was going up against a ton of questionable competition so his record should be taken with a grain of salt. Nuerdanbieke spent most of his early career fighting at 155 lb and has even some time up at 170 lb, while only four of his pre-UFC fights were at 145 lb (4-0). However, all of his UFC fights have been at 145 lb.
Overall, Nuerdanbieke is a wrestler, but has improved his striking since joining the UFC and nearly landed a knockout in his last match. With that said, he still relies heavily on taking opponents down and controlling them to win decisions. In his five UFC fights, he landed 10 of his 33 takedown attempts (33.3% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on three of their five attempts (40% defense). While his striking looked improved in his last two matches, he still only averages 2.28 SSL/min and 2.94 SSA/min. Despite already having 50 pro fights to his name, Nuerdanbieke is still only 30 years old and should be continuing to improve as he trains down at Kill Cliff FC.
Fight Prediction:
Costa will have a 2” height and reach advantage, while also being three years younger than the 30-year-old Nuerdanbieke.
Costa is decent almost everywhere, but one area he’s struggled in has been his defensive wrestling. We saw him get taken down multiple times in numerous fights on the regional scene and then Thiago Moises took him down four times in Costa’s UFC debut. Since then, he faced a pair of strikers who didn’t even attempt a takedown against him, so we didn’t see his poor 42% takedown defense exposed in either of those fights. However, he’ll face a wrestler here in Nuerdanbieke who will be looking to get the fight to the ground. Costa has shown decent scrambling at times, but that could just lead to an even bigger takedown total for Nuerdanbieke if he’s able to chain wrestle. Both fighters have been finished at numerous points in their careers, and either of them is capable of finishing the other. However, we lean towards Nuerdanbieke winning a wrestling-heavy decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Shayilan Nuerdanbieke DEC” at +360.
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DFS Implications:
Costa is likely fighting for his job here as he sits on a 1-2 UFC record. He was finished in both of his UFC losses, while his lone win went the distance. While he was still able to score 92 DraftKings points in that decision victory, keep in mind it came against a low-level, one-dimensional striker in Austin Lingo. Costa showed the ability to fill up the stat sheet in that fight, as he landed three takedowns and 100 significant strikes. However, he still hasn’t shown the ability to really score well without a finish, and has yet to finish anybody in the UFC. He’s also struggled with his takedown defense (42%) and is facing a wrestler here, which will likely cap his striking output. While we’re only interested in playing Costa for his finishing upside, Nuerdanbieke has been finished nine times in 50 pro fights and is coming off a knockout loss, which is encouraging for Costa’s chances of ending this early. The odds imply Costa has a 63% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Nuerdanbieke’s grappling-heavy fighting style is a much better fit on DraftKings than FanDuel, and he scored 105 and 99 DraftKings points respectively in his two decision UFC wins, but just 78 and 54 points on FanDuel. While he technically landed a first round TKO in his last win, that resulted from a sketchy Darrick Minner injury and nothing that Nuerdanbieke was actually doing, so it’s safe to ignore the results. He then knocked Stebe Garcia down in the first round of his last fight, but couldn’t get him out of there and then ultimately got knocked out himself in round two. Nevertheless, he is looking a little more dangerous with his striking, which could open up more opportunities for him to wrestle if opponents have to respect his power on the feet. That leaves him with more ways to score well and Costa is also coming off a second round knockout loss to Steve Garcia and has been finished four times in his career. At Nuerdanbieke’s cheap price tag, a win of any kind would give him a good shot at ending up in tournament winning lineups and this is a favorable matchup for him to find wrestling success against the 42% takedown defense of Costa. The odds imply Nuerdanbieke has a 37% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Jeka Saragih
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Saragih is coming off a massive upset win over Lucas Alexander where he entered as a +400 underdog. The fight only lasted 91 seconds, as Saragih dropped Alexander with a perfect right hand as Alexander was returning to his feet and then finished him with some ground and pound for good measure. That was just another reminder that anything can happen in a fight, especially when you have two heavy-handed combatants. While that fight took place at 145 lb, Saragih had previously been competing at 155 lb. He was clearly undersized for that division and got smothered on the mat and finished with ground and pound in the second round of his UFC debut against a terrible Anshul Jubli to determine the Road to UFC winner. Jubli took him down twice and controlled him for seven minutes in a fight that didn’t even make it to the nine minute mark. Prior to that loss, Saragih landed three straight knockouts of his own and he’s won 14 of his last 16 fights.
Now 14-3 as a pro, Saragih has nine wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and one decision victory. Of his 13 finishes, eight came in round one, three ended in round two, and two occurred in round three. He’s been finished in all three of his career losses, with one TKO and two submissions. One of those defeats was in the first round of his 2016 pro debut, while the last two occurred in the later rounds.
Overall, Saragih is a stalky, powerful striker who rarely requires the judges. He’s the first Indonesian UFC fighter, after spending the rest of his career with the One Pride organization in Indonesia, where he held the Lightweight belt from 2017 to 2020. In addition to his dangerous striking, he’s shown the ability to grapple offensively at times, but appears to prefer knockouts to submissions. In his last four fights, he landed all four of his takedown attempts, while his opponents got him down on two of their six attempts (66.7% defense).
Westin Wilson
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Continuing his quest towards total brain failure, Wilson is five months removed from his second first round knockout loss in the last 11 months and third in his last six fights. He looked completely helpless in his recent loss to Jean Silva, as he absorbed one big shot after the next before the fight was mercifully stopped late in round one. Silva seemed content with playing with his food or else it likely would have been stopped sooner, while Wilson failed to land any of his three takedown attempts. Prior to that, Wilson made his debut against another dangerous Brazilian finisher in Joanderson Brito and was violently knocked out as he desperately hung onto a kneebar midway through the first round. When later asked about what he learned from his debut, Wilson responded that by having a shot at the kneebar that he realized he belonged and could hang with these guys. And when he was then more recently asked what he learned from his loss to Silva, he said he learned some days it’s just not your day. So clearly he learned nothing from either of those losses and is still delusional enough to think he belongs in the UFC. Wilson is on the short list of fighters who have lost via Gogoplata and simply being allowed to remain on the UFC roster seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. He was given an opportunity in the UFC simply because of his connection with Stephen Thompson, and Wilson had been fighting a bunch of low-level opponents before joining the big show. His last 13 fights all ended in the first round (9-4) and he’s only been to two decisions in 25 pro bouts. Just before making his UFC debut, he landed three straight first round submission wins, after getting folded like a cheap lawn chair in the first round of a July 2022 match.
Now 16-9 as a pro, Wilson has five wins by KO/TKO and 11 submission victories. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted four more, and lost both of the decisions he went to (2015 & 2019). Six of his seven early losses ended in round one, with the other ending in round two. Twenty of his last 21 fights ended early and 20 of his 25 pro fights ended in the first round, with three more ending in round two. The last time he won a fight that made it out of the first round was in 2017 and he’s never won a match that made it past the 6:04 mark. Wilson has fought anywhere from 135 lb to 175 lb, but most of his fights have been around 145 lb.
Overall, Wilson is an ultra low-level fighter with an alarmingly poor striking defense, but he is a BJJ brown belt and has shown some ability to look for submissions. He trains with Stephen Thompson so his striking should theoretically be improving, but he also has a full-time job in the software field and fighting is basically a hobby for him. Similar to Thompson, Wilson has a karate style stance, but still relies entirely on his grappling. However, between his two UFC fights he failed to land any of his three takedown attempts, while his opponents landed both of their attempts. Wilson has talked about how he would actually trade his software services with fighting promotions to get himself on cards, which sounds like a death wish. He’s already 35 years old and is who he is at this stage in his career. He does have good size for the 145 lb weight class as he stands 6’1”, but that probably speaks more to how scrawny he is than anything else. We’d be surprised if the UFC (or his family) even let him fight out his contract and any fight could be Wilson’s last.
Fight Prediction:
Wilson will have a 5” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while Saragih is six years younger than the 35-year-old Wilson.
As crazy as it sounds, this is somewhat of a winnable fight for Wilson, the only problem is that he has an 8” wide off button sitting atop his shoulders. He’ll need to get the fight to the ground before his chin gets touched, otherwise he’ll forget even how to grapple. He has the worst striking defense of any fighter on the roster (world?), male or female. It’s kind of surprising that the UFC is even still allowing him to fight based on how bad the visuals were in his first two Octagon appearances. Saragih has heavy hands and if he can connect on anything clean the fight will likely be over in an instant. However, Saragih did look terrible on the ground in his UFC debut, just keep in mind that was up at 155 lb and against an opponent whose chin wasn’t made out of paper mache. Wilson’s entries are terrible, but he is somewhat dangerous on the ground. So look for him to either get knocked out immediately or luck his way into a quick submission attempt on the mat. An early Saragih knockout win is far more likely and will be our pick, but either way this fight is unlikely to make it past the first round and has no shot at seeing round three.
Our favorite bet here is “Jeka Saragih R2 KO” at +950.
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DFS Implications:
Saragih is an aggressive finisher who has only required the judges once in 17 pro fights. He hunts for big knockouts, but his shorter stature can make it tougher for him to connect on a lot of those kill shots. Nevertheless, he throws enough volume to give him numerous opportunities to land one, which is often all he needs to end a fight. We saw that in his recent win, where he became the first fighter to ever knock out a dangerous striker in Lucas Alexander and scored 107 DraftKings points in the process. However, we also saw Saragih get dominated on the mat in his previous fight against a low-level opponent and only score seven points, so he’s shown a wide range of scoring outcomes. He gets a very high upside matchup here against an opponent who has no clue how to defend himself on the feet, but Wilson will be looking to take Saragih down and submit him. That makes it hard to entirely trust Saragih and even if he gets controlled for the first round and comes back and lands a second round knockout, he would have a harder time scoring enough to return value at his expensive salary. So we’re treating him as a R1 KO or bust play in a very favorable spot to achieve that. It’s also possible he knocks Wilson out in the first round and still gets priced out of winning lineups, as he’ll need to outscore the fighters priced around him. Regardless, he has both multi-knockdown and Quick Win Bonus potential in this extremely high-upside matchup. The odds imply Saragih has a 75% chance to win, a 64% chance to land a finish, and a 49% chance it comes in round one.
Wilson is probably the worst fighter on the UFC roster and has yet to even survive a round with the organization. He was violently knocked out in his UFC debut and then beaten up like a training dummy in his last loss until the ref finally called it off. He has no clue how to defend himself on the feet and relies entirely on his grappling. We’ve yet to see him even land a takedown in the UFC, but this is one of the more favorable matchups he could ask for to get his grappling going as he faces a smaller striker who got dominated on the mat in his one UFC loss. While we’re still predicting that Wilson will once again get quickly and violently knocked out, at least stylistically, this is a more favorable spot for him than either of his previous two matchups. If he does somehow pull off the hail mary submission, or even a win of any kind, he would almost certainly end up in winning lineups at his cheap price tag. Just be prepared for him to score little to no points if you play him. The odds imply Wilson has a 25% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Gabriella Fernandes
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Coming off her second straight smothering decision loss, Fernandes has looked helpless off her back so far in the UFC as she went up against a pair of wrestlers who both controlled her for double digit minutes. The most recent of those losses came against a low-level wrestler in Tereza Bleda, who took Fernandes down three times and controlled her for nearly 11 minutes. Fernandes looked clueless on how to even begin to return to her feet and every time she got taken down the round was essentially over. The same was true in her UFC debut just before that, when she faced another tall wrestler in Jasmine Jasudavicius and got taken down four times and controlled for 11 and a half minutes. Prior to joining the UFC, Fernandes landed a second round submission win for the LFA interim Flyweight belt. That was her seventh straight win at the time, with four of those victories ending in mid-to-late round finishes, including three in round two. In her last win before joining the UFC, Fernandes picked her opponent apart on the feet for a round and a half, then landed a knockdown midway through round two and then jumped guillotine to finish the fight. Just prior to that she landed a second round TKO from body shots. The only first round finish of her career came in her 2018 pro debut when she landed a R1 TKO against a talented Iasmin Lucindo, who has since joined the UFC.
Now 8-3 as a pro, Fernandes has three wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and three decision wins. She’s never been finished with all three of her losses going the distance. Fernandes started her career at 115 lb before taking a fight all the way up at 135 lb in 2019. She then dropped down to 125 lb, where she’s pretty much stayed since other than a quick trip back up to 135 lb in 2021. She’s 4-2 at 125 lb, with three of those wins coming early, all in the second round.
Overall, Fernandes is a solid striker who’s competed in taekwondo, jiu jitsu, and surfing. She teaches both boxing and surfing on the side and is a good athlete with solid power. She mixes in her kicks and boxing well and also has some submission skills on the mat, but her defensive wrestling is next-level bad. She has no clue on how to return to her feet after getting taken down and she only has a 61% takedown defense. That makes it really tough for her to ever win a fight against anyone with decent grappling. The UFC hasn’t been doing her any favors, as they paired her up with a 5’7” wrestler in her debut and then a 5’9” wrestler in her last match. Fernandes will finally get a more favorable matchup here as she desperately searches for her first UFC win.
Carli Judice
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making her UFC debut, Judice is coming off a super high-volume split-decision loss on DWCS against a one-dimensional striker in Ernesta Kareckaite, who outlanded Judice 184-168 in significant strikes and 208-180 in total strikes. Kareckaite also landed a takedown on two attempts, while Judice failed to land any of her four attempts. Judice looked to slow down a little in the back half of the fight, but in fairness they were pushing a crazy pace. One of the judges actually scored the fight for Judice, but it seemed clear that Kareckaite won. Prior to that, Judice started her career with three straight first round KO/TKO wins against a series of low-level opponents.
Now 3-1 as a pro, all three of Judice’s wins came by first round KO/TKO. Just keep in mind, those wins came against opponents who entered with records of 1-8, 1-3, and 3-3 and none of them have won a fight since losing to Judice. The only time she faced an opponent with a winning record was in her last fight, where she lost a decision against a one-dimensional striker. Judice’s first two pro fights were at 130 lb Catchweight, and her third was at 135 lb. While she did compete at 125 lb as an amateur, she’s 0-1 at 125 lb as a pro.
Overall, Judice is an aggressive brawler who only turned pro in MMA in October 2022. Her background is in softball and not combat sports and she only started training MMA in 2020. She trains at Headkicks MMA in Louisiana under Aaron Phillips, who’s been cut twice from the UFC and went 0-4 with the organization, as he was routinely dominated on the mat. Judice has yet to show any sort of grappling skills in an MMA fight, but did compete in a Louisiana grappling tournament back in 2022, where she was the blue belt division. Just keep in mind, it looked like she was competing against a very shallow field of soccer moms and we put almost importance on those results. If you go back and watch her amateur fights, there’s a little bit of tape of her on the mat and she doesn’t appear to have a clue of what to do down there. She also has no defense on the feet and is entirely focussed on striking output. She throws a lot of naked kicks and has gotten by on pure aggression up to this point. She’s still incredibly green and we expect her to struggle in the UFC, but she should make for entertaining backyard brawls.
Fight Prediction:
Judice will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while being five years younger than the 30-year-old Fernandes.
The UFC is finally taking mercy on Fernandes and giving her a fellow striker to compete against. It’s clear that Fernandes can’t be competitive against anyone who knows how to wrestle, but Judice has given us no indication that she knows how to wrestle, outside of four failed takedown attempts on DWCS and a meaningless regional grappling tournament win back in 2022. Her inability to get Ernesta Kareckaite down is not encouraging for her chances of taking Fernandes down and we see Fernandes as being the superior striker. Judice relies on sheer volume and aggression, which leaves her open to being countered. Fernandes has good power and is somewhat of an opportunistic submission threat, which makes her live for a finish here. However, it’s still more likely that this ends in a high-volume decision. The line has been moving in Judice’s favor throughout the week, but this looks like a dream matchup for Fernandes to finally showcase her striking. It’s still a somewhat volatile matchup, as Judice has such limited experience, while Fernandes has looked helpless when she ends up on her back. That makes it tougher to take an aggressive stand, but we like Fernandes to win either with a late finish or in a high-volume decision where she’s the one landing the bigger shots.
Our favorite bet here is “Gabriella Fernandes Win & Over 1.5 Rounds” at +120.
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DFS Implications:
Fernandes got mauled on the mat in each of her two UFC fights, but had won seven straight fights leading up to that, with four of her last six wins ending in late round finishes. When you combine her high salary in this next fight with the line moving against her, in addition to the pathetic performances in her last two matches, it should come as no surprise that she’ll be pretty low owned here, despite this being an absolute dream matchup for her. She’s facing a high-volume brawler who has shown no ability to wrestle and you really couldn’t ask for a better bounce back spot for Fernandes. Nevertheless, there’s still a fair amount of uncertainty, as Fernandes could slip and fall and struggle to return to her feet if the past is any indicator. Or Fernandes could win a fairly high-volume decision but still not score quite enough to crack tournament winning lineups. It’s also possible she could lock up a defensive submission as Judice tries to take her down, which likely wouldn’t score especially well depending on the timing. However, in Judice’s loss on DWCS, her opponent landed 184 significant strikes against her and would have scored 115 DraftKings points and 136 points on FanDuel. That’s very encouraging for both Fernandes’ floor and ceiling, and if she can land a finish in a high volume fight she could go nuclear in this spot. On a slate where we’re desperate to find decent low-owned options, Fernandes clearly stands out as the best option and it’s not even remotely close. The odds imply Fernandes has a 59% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Judice is the type of fighter we love in DFS, purely due to the fact that she couldn’t care less about defense and pushes a crazy pace. She absorbed an absurd 136 HEAD strikes on DWCS and 184 total significant strikes and was still letting her hands go late in that fight. She also attempted four takedowns, although failed to land any of them. While she’s given us no indication that she actually knows how to wrestle, Fernandes has looked absolutely terrible off her back. That at least gives Judice another theoretical way to score well. While we haven’t been impressed by Judice’s actual skills, her pace is what DFS dreams are made of and you’ll want to have exposure to both sides of all of her fights. At her cheap price tag, it’s hard to see her failing to return a useful score if she wins, even if we’re not actually expecting her to win. She scored 75 DraftKings points and 101 FanDuel points in a LOSS on DWCS and if we get a slate where not many dogs win she could remain in play even in a high-volume decision loss. However, that would require a lot of things to go right and you definitely don’t want to be counting on that. Regardless, Judice is a low-level, high-volume fighter who will do everything in her power to make sure the winner of this fight scores well. The odds imply Judice has a 41% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Nate Maness
7th UFC Fight (4-2)Coming off a first round TKO win, Maness landed a ground and pound finish against Mateus Mendonca, who idiotically never let go of a leg lock until he was unconscious. Prior to that, Maness was submitted in the first round by Tagir Ulanbekov, in what was Maness’ first career fight down at 125 lb. Maness actually made his UFC debut all the way up at 145 lb in August 2020, and had previously fought as heavy as 155 lb. Following a decision win in his debut, Maness landed a second round submission in a 140 lb Catchweight fight against Luke Sanders. He continued to cut weight as he then landed a second round KO win against Tony Gravely at 135 lb, to stretch his UFC record to 3-0. Maness stayed at 135 lb for his next fight when he got smothered on the mat for three rounds by Umar Nurmagomedov. Despite owning a 3-1 UFC record, Maness then curiously decided to cut down to 125 lb for his next fight and got submitted in just 131 seconds. However, he bounced back with a first round TKO win in his last match.
Now 15-3 as a pro, Maness has six wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and six decision victories. His nine finishes were split pretty evenly across the first two rounds, with five in round one and four in round two—he’s never finished an opponent beyond the second round. He’s been knocked out once (R3 2019), submitted once (R1 2022), and has one decision loss (2022). While seven of his last nine fights ended early, all but three of those matches made it out of the first round, with three ending in round two and another in round three. He’s fought anywhere from 125 lb to 155 lb in the past, but most of his career was spent at 135 lb, until he moved down to 125 lb in 2022.
Overall, Maness is an offensively minded brawler who has good size and length for the 135 lb division, let alone at 125 lb. However, he’s looked pretty hittable, so it will be interesting to see how his chin holds up after cutting the additional weight to get down to 125 lb. IUt hasn’t really been tested yet, as each of his first two 125 lb fights ended on the mat in the first round. While his 40% striking defense hasn’t been great, his 78% takedown defense has been pretty solid. In his six UFC fights, Maness’ opponents got him down on just 7 of their 32 attempts, while he landed three of his own four attempts. Maness has yet to land more than 33 significant strikes in a UFC fight and only averages 2.33 SSL/min, but that has more to do with the fact that he’s faced a series of grapplers and has struggled with being controlled throughout his UFC career. Considering this will just be the third time that Maness has ever competed at 125 lb, we’ll still want to pay attention to him on the scale.
Jimmy Flick
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Fresh off his first win since 2020, Flick salvaged his career in a comeback second round submission win over fellow scrub Malcolm Gordon, who was dominating Flick up to that point in the fight. Gordon was so embarrassed over the loss he retired on the spot. The fight ended with Gordon ahead 37-3 in significant strikes and 74-7 in total strikes, while he also controlled Flick on the mat for over four minutes in a fight that lasted just under six and a half minutes. Prior to that, Flick was finished with ground and pound in the opening six minutes and change of each of his previous two fights, looking absolutely dreadful in both of those matches. The most recent of those losses came 63 seconds into the second round against Alessandro Costa, who destroyed Flick’s lead leg without much trouble. The previous loss was to decision grinder Charles Johnson, who’s struggled against wrestlers and has gone the distance in all seven of his other UFC fights. Prior to those two losses in 2023, Flick “retired” following a first round flying triangle submission win in his 2020 UFC debut against Cody Durden. Even in that fight, Flick was losing badly before throwing up the hail mary submission. Flick’s last five losses all ended in KO/TKOs, with four of those coming in the later rounds, including three in round two. On the other side of things, his last 14 wins all ended in submissions, with three of his last five victories ending in round one. Flick punched his ticket to the UFC with a third round submission win on DWCS just two months before his win over Durden.
Now 16-8 as a pro, Flick has 15 wins by submission and two decision victories. Both of his decision wins came in his first three pro fights. Of his 15 total submissions, eight came in round one, four ended in round two, and three occurred in round three. He has six KO/TKO losses and one decision defeat. Five of his six KO/TKO losses ended in the later rounds, with four ending in round two and another in round three. Flick fought primarily at 135 lb until 2020 when he dropped down to 125 lb.
Overall, Flick is a one-dimensional jiu-jitsu specialist who is a complete liability when it comes to striking. While he’s somewhat dangerous on the mat, he’s incredibly hittable in the striking exchanges and his history of getting knocked out confirms that. His last 15 fights all ended in either submission wins (10) or KO/TKO losses (5) and Flick is the definition of a kill or get killed fighter. Between his DWCS appearance and his four UFC fights, Flick landed 4 of his 15 takedown attempts (26.7% accuracy), while his opponents landed all three of their attempts against him. The last time he won a fight without landing a submission was in 2011 and the last time he lost a fight without getting knocked out was in 2016.
Fight Prediction:
Maness will have a 3” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while also being a year younger than the 33-year-old Flick.
Flick’s fights are some of the most binary around. He either gets knocked out or wins by submission. Only one of his last 10 fights made it past the second round and seven of his last eight matches ended in under six and a half minutes. His last two fights both ended in the opening 90 seconds of round two, after his first two UFC fights each ended in round one. So unless something changes here, there are basically four exact possible outcomes in his fights. He either gets knocked out in round one, gets knocked out in round two, lands a submission in round one, or lands a submission in round two. It’s not exactly rocket science trying to break down his fights. He’s a massive +400 underdog here, so the books are not respecting his submission skills whatsoever, which is very fair against the 78% takedown defense of Maness. While it’s certainly not impossible that Flick can throw up another hail mary submission, we like Maness to patiently pick him apart and then knock him out in round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Nate Maness R2” at +430.
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DFS Implications:
Maness has averaged 99 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins, scoring 100 or more in the last three of those. He’s coming off a career-best 119 point performance against a dunce in Mateus Mendonca who hung onto Maness’ leg for four minutes while Maness landed 103 strikes before eventually knocking him out. Not to say that Jimmy Flick is any smarter than Mateus Mendonca, but it was a team effort to get Maness there in his last outing. Prior to that, Maness had never topped 104 points and he’s a lower volume striker (2.33 SSL/min) who rarely lands any takedowns. In reality though, past stats don’t really matter as much when you’re fighting Jimmy Flick. You’re either going to get submitted or punch him until the ref pulls you off, with the latter being the far more likely of the two. In Flick’s two UFC losses, which both ended by knockout in under a round and a half, his opponents returned DraftKings totals of 108 and 114 points. He generally ends up on his back eating ground and pound as he desperately looks for submissions, which is a good way to rack up points and encouraging for Maness’ upside. The only question is whether or not Maness will get priced out of winning lineups in a finish, as he’ll have all of the other high priced options to compete with. A lot of that will simply come down to the timing of the finish and how long the ref lets Maness pound away. Those are both volatile variables, but you’ll want to have a healthy amount of exposure to Maness here and he also makes sense in low-risk lineups as a massive favorite with a -300 ITD line. The odds imply Maness has an 81% chance to win, a 67% chance to land a finish, and a 43% chance it comes in round one.
Flick’s last 15 fights all ended in either submission wins (10) or KO/TKO losses (5) and targeting his fights has been a profitable endeavor. All four of his UFC fights ended in under six and a half minutes and he averaged 86 points in his two wins, while his opponents averaged 111 points in his two losses. Even in his two victories, he was losing until he wasn’t, and if Westin Wilson wasn’t on this card, we’d say that Jimmy Flick is the most fragile, untrustworthy fighter on the slate. He’s a complete liability in the striking exchanges and relies entirely on locking up submissions to win fights. Working against him, Maness has a solid 78% takedown defense and has only been submitted once in his career. However, it’s not like Maness is a high-level opponent or anything and it’s certainly not impossible that Flick can catch him in something, but it is unlikely. Flick generally isn’t going to put up huge scores when he wins, but as the second cheapest fighter on the card even a decent score will likely be enough. Regardless, treat him as a lottery ticket submission or bust play. The odds imply Flick has a 19% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Josh Quinlan
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Quinlan is just four months removed from a third round TKO loss to a debuting one-dimensional striker Danny Barlow, who outlanded Quinlan 96-39 in striking. Quinlan idiotically only attempted a single takedown attempt in the fight, which he failed to land. Barlow later revealed that he broke his arm in the first round of the fight, yet still had no problem running laps around Quinlan on the feet. Prior to that early loss, Quinlan suffered the first defeat of his career in a decision against the 6’5” Trey Waters, who was making his short notice UFC debut. Quinlan understandably had trouble finding his range in the fight, but did have some moments in the match. He actually looked to wrestle more there, but was only able to land one of his eight takedown attempts and Waters outastruck him 106-50. That came after Quinlan landed a first round knockout in his own UFC debut against a glass-jawed Jason Witt, which followed a 47 second R1 TKO win for Quinlan on DWCS in September 2021 against an opponent who had accepted the fight on just three day’s notice. However, the result was overturned to a No Contest and Quinlan was suspended for 9 months after he tested positive for steroids.
Still just 6-2 as a pro (plus a NC), Quinlan has four wins by KO/TKO and two submissions. Three of those finishes ended in round one, one came in round two, and two occurred in round three. He also had another R1 KO win that was overturned to a No Contest. He lost the only decision he’s ever been and is coming off the first early loss of his career in a R3 TKO. He hasn’t fought much in the way of competition and his first three wins came against opponents with one combined pro fight. Two of his last four opponents stepped in on short notice, and his last two opponents were both making their respective UFC debuts.
Overall, Quinlan throws a decent amount of kicks, which makes sense considering his background is in soccer and not martial arts. He’s looked fairly explosive at times in the past, but was far less impressive in each of his last two fights and perhaps his prior explosiveness was aided by his documented steroid use. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Quinlan only landed one of his nine takedown attempts (11.1% accuracy), with all but one of those attempts coming against Trey Waters. On the other side of things, Quinlan’s opponents got him down on two of their five attempts (60% defense) and both of his UFC opponents who tried to take him down were successful. He’s actually a BJJ black belt and has a couple of rear-naked chokes on his record, even if he’s been more reliant on his striking lately. Quinlan was born and raised in Kauai, Hawaii, but trains out of Las Vegas. Sitting on a 1-2 UFC record, Quinlan is likely fighting for his job here.
Adam Fugitt
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Also coming in with a 1-2 UFC record, Fugitt is a year removed from a second round submission loss to Mike Malott, who was able to take Fugitt down twice on two attempts leading up to a guillotine finish. Fugitt was never able to get anything going in the fight and finished behind 19-9 in significant strikes and never attempted a takedown of his own. Prior to that, Fugitt secured his only UFC win in a late first round TKO against a young debuting prospect in Yusaku Kinoshita, who’s now 0-2 in the UFC with a pair of first round TKO losses. Fugitt leaned on his wrestling in that matchup as he landed four of his seven takedowns with nearly three minutes of control time. That came after Fugitt got knocked out in the third round of his short notice UFC debut against an undefeated Michael Morales. Despite losing, Fugitt outperformed expectations as he held his own for two rounds before succumbing to the late finish. Prior to that, Fugitt had finished four straight opponents before joining the UFC, with three of those finishes coming in the later rounds. Fugitt’s last 10 fights all ended early (7-3) and the last time he required the judges was in a 2017 loss.
Now 9-4 as a pro, Fugitt has five wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and one decision victory. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted once, and has one decision loss. Most of Fugitt’s career has been spent at 170 lb, but he has competed at 185 lb a couple times as well.
Overall, Fugitt is a former high school wrestler who started training jiu-jitsu and then MMA in his early 20’s. He also has Muay Thai experience and is willing to stand and trade at times, but typically relies on his wrestling to win fights. In his three UFC fights, he landed 5 of his 15 takedown attempts (33% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on two of their four attempts (50% defense). Despite only having 13 pro fights under his belt, he’s already 35 years old after getting a late start to his career. At 6’1” he’s got decent size for the division and a long 77” reach. Leading up to this fight, he started training at Fight Ready in Arizona and has been working with Kelvin Gastelum a lot, who he says has been a great teammate to prepare with.
Fight Prediction:
Fugitt will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage, while Quinlan is four years younger than the 35-year-old Fugitt.
This looks like a pink slip fight between two low-level fighters on the cusp of being cut. Quinlan seems to get worse every time we see him, while Fugitt has turned out inconsistent performances. Both guys have been extremely hittable, with Quinlan averaging 6.91 SSA/min and Fugitt 5.13 SSA/min. They’ve each also struggled to defend takedowns, so we’re not expecting to see a ton of defense in this matchup. With their jobs likely on the line, it will be interesting to see if one or both of them fight a little more tentatively or if they leave it all out there in what could be their final UFC opportunity. Fugitt has shown a more well-rounded skill set and his ability to mix in wrestling could very well win him this fight. He mixes in elbows well with his ground and pound, which is how he finished Yusaku Kinoshita. Quinlan has been taken down by everyone who’s tried in the UFC, and we like Fugitt’s chances of getting this fight to the mat and saving his job with a finish on the mat, most likely via ground and pound.
Our favorite bet here is “Adam Fugitt ML” at +105.
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DFS Implications:
Quinlan legitimately looks worse every time we see him, which sort of makes sense for a guy who came into the UFC off of a steroid suspension. He landed a first round knockout in his UFC debut in a layup spot against a glass-chinned Jason Witt, scoring 101 DraftKings points in the process. Quinlan then lost a decision to Trey Waters, who was making his short notice UFC debut. Quinlan at least tried to wrestle in that fight, but only landed one of his eight takedown attempts and finished behind 104-50 in significant strikes, while only scoring 27 DraftKings points in the decision loss. Most recently, Quinlan suffered the first early loss of his career against another debuting opponent and one-dimensional striker who broke his arm in the first round but still landed a TKO finish in round three and outlanded Quinlan 95-39 in significant strikes. Quinlan idiotically abandoned his wrestling and only shot for one failed takedown attempt, despite getting lapped on the feet. So not only has Quinlan looked bad, he’s also shown a low fight IQ and there’s really nothing good we can say about him other than he showed decent power early in his career, before he got busted for steroids. The only thing he really has going for him here is that Fugitt has been finished in each of his last three losses and hasn’t looked very defensively sound. Nevertheless, Quinlan is dead to us after his last performance and we expect him to lose here and then get cut. The odds imply Quinlan has a 53% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
Fugitt’s wrestling-heavy approach to fighting adds to his DFS appeal, especially on DraftKings. His last 10 fights all ended early (7-3), and he hasn’t required the judges since 2017. While he’s been finished in two of his three UFC fights, both of those losses were against really dangerous opponents and one was in Fugitt’s short notice UFC debut. He scored 126 DraftKings points in his lone UFC victory, which ended in a first round ground and pound TKO. So he has tons of upside, even if his floor is uncertain. Quinlan has looked terrible in each of his last two fights and has been taken down by everyone who’s tried in the UFC. Quinlan also averages 6.91 SSA/min and is just four months removed from his first early loss in a R3 TKO. That’s all encouraging for Fugitt’s chances of pulling off the slight upset and returning a big score. Even in a decision he could still be useful, but his last seven victories all ended early. The odds imply Fugitt has a 47% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Asu Almabayev
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Winner of 15 straight, Almabayev is just three months removed from a smothering 30-27 decision win over CJ Vergara, who Almabayev took down nine times on 14 attempts and controlled for nine and a half minutes. That came after Almabayev locked up a second round submission in his UFC debut against Ode Osbourne in a completely one-sided fight, where Almabayev controlled the action on the mat for most of the match. That’s how most of Almabayev’s matches go and he hasn’t lost a fight since 2017, when he suffered both of his career losses in consecutive matches, with one of those coming against Tagir Ulanbekov.
Now 19-2 as a pro, Almabayev has three wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and seven decision wins. Amazingly, his last three and six of his last seven submission wins occurred in round two, while his other three submissions ended in round one. He has one TKO loss and one split-decision defeat, with both of those coming early in his career in his first six pro fights. Six of his last seven finishes have come by submission and he only has one knockout since 2018, which was in the third round of a 2021 fight. While 13 of Almabayev’s 21 pro fights ended early, his last seven and 16 of his last 17 fights made it out of the first round. When he does land finishes they typically come later on in fights.
Overall, Almabayev is primarily a grappler and looks to smother his opponents on the mat, while looking to take their backs and lock up rear-naked chokes. Between his two UFC fights, he landed 11 of his 19 takedown attempts (57.9% accuracy), while no one attempted to get him down. He doesn’t land much in the way of striking volume (3.02 SSL/min), but did start to get more active with his ground and pound in his last couple of fights. Almabayev’s takedown accuracy has been impressive and once he gets his hands on you, you’re typically going down. And once on the mat, he’s really good at holding positions, making it tough for his opponents to escape. However, that has resulted in a lot of slower paced fights. He’s definitely not a big guy at just 5’4”, but that hasn’t been an issue for him. While he only has two UFC fights under his belt, he fought for Brave FC and M-1 previously so at least had been dominating with legitimate organizations. Now he checks in as the biggest favorite on the card for his third Octagon appearance.
Jose Johnson
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off a third round submission win over Chad Anheliger, Johnson has curiously made the decision to drop down from 135 lb to 125 lb for the first time as a pro—although he had competed at 125 lb some early in his amateur career. It’s surprising he can even make 125 lb given he’s 6’0” tall, but we’ll see if he can pull it off on Friday. In his last fight, Johnson got taken down four times on eight attempts by Anheliger, who’s primarily a striker. However, Johnson was the one staying busy with his striking and finished ahead 63-26 in significant strikes and 141-47 in total strikes, which allowed him to win each of the first two rounds, before finding a late finish just 11 seconds before the final horn. Prior to that, Johnson got dunked on in his short notice UFC debut, when Da'Mon Blackshear finished him in the first round with a rare twister submission. In fairness to Johnson, he stepped into that fight on five days’ notice and was going against a really dangerous grappler, an area where Johnson has been the weakest. So Johnson was set up to fail in that spot and the results were entirely unsurprising. Johnson had previously been set to make his UFC debut against Garrett Armfield on February 25th before he withdrew due to a medical issue. That was actually the second straight time that Johnson had been booked to make his debut before withdrawing, and he had also been set to face Vince Morales back in November 2022, but dropped out there as well. Almost exactly a year before losing his recent debut, Johnson won a decision on DWCS, despite getting taken down six times and controlled for over eight minutes in the fight. That was actually his second appearance on the show and he originally went on back in 2020, but got dominated on the mat for three rounds by Ronnie Lawrence, who took Johnson down 12 times on 17 attempts. Johnson then returned to the regional scene and won a decision of his own, before getting knocked out in just 32 seconds by Mana Martinez. Johnson bounced back from the loss with a second round submission win over a wrestler in Mo Miller, who also fought on DWCS back in 2021. Johnson then landed a 12 second first round knockout leading up to his decision win on DWCS.
Now 16-8 as a pro, Johnson has eight wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and five decision wins. All eight of his knockouts occurred in round one, while two of his submission wins ended in round two and the other round three. He’s been knocked out once (R1 2021), submitted four times (all in R1), and has three decision losses. Twenty one of his 24 pro fights either ended in the first round (8-5) or went the distance (5-3), with the other three ending in late round submission wins. Johnson also had a ridiculously extensive amateur career where he went 68-12. Johnson has fought at 145 lb and even 155 lb, but most of his career has been spent at 135 lb, despite him being really tall for the division at 6’0”. Now he’s moving down to 125 lb…
Overall, Johnson is a tall, rangy striker who struggles immensely with being taken down. He’s very dangerous on the feet, especially in the first round, but time after time we see him struggle when it comes to defensive wrestling. Between his two UFC fights and his two DWCS appearances, his opponents got him down 24 times on 38 attempts (36.8% defense), while Johnson landed two of his own four attempts (50% accuracy). When he’s not getting taken down, Johnson throws dangerous strikes from range and slicing elbows and knees out of the clinch. He’s talked about making improvements to his wrestling and jiu-jitsu, and to his credit he submitted a wrestler a few fights back. However, he still struggles with being taken down and we expect opponents to continue to attack him in that area. He’ll face a really tough wrestling test here in his first fight at 125 lb. Johnson is obviously a guy to monitor closely on the scale as he prepares to move down a weight class.
Fight Prediction:
Johnson will have a 8” height advantage and 6” reach advantage.
Despite being significantly taller, this is a nightmare matchup for Johnson, who’s defensive wrestling has been terrible. Almabayev is a really good wrestler and dominates almost everyone he faces on the mat. So it’s hard to see Johnson winning this fight, outside of landing a hail mary knockout as Almabayev shoots in. The bigger question we have is whether or not Almabayev finishes Johnson. It’s rare to see Almabayev knock anybody out and he’s generally looking to either submit opponents or grind out wrestling-heavy decision wins. Johnson has been submitted four times in his career, so if it does end early, that’s the most likely method of how Almabayev gets it done. While it also wouldn’t be shocking if Almabayev just won another decision on the mat, we do like his chances of submitting Johnson and we’ll say he finishes things in round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Asu Almabayev SUB” at +100.
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DFS Implications:
Almabayev’s grappling-heavy approach leaves him with a much higher scoring floor on DraftKings than FanDuel, but his finishing upside leaves him with a solid ceiling on both sites. He also has the ability to land enough takedowns to still score pretty well even without a finish, as we saw in his last decision win where he landed nine takedowns and scored 118 DraftKings points and 100 points on FanDuel. Just before that, he locked up a second round submission in his UFC debut that was good for 105 DraftKings points and 113 points on FanDuel. He gets a dream matchup here against an opponent in Jose Johnson who has some of the worst defensive wrestling around and is now cutting down from 135 lb to 125 lb for the first time as a pro. Everyone puts up big takedown totals against Johnson, who has also been submitted four times, and this looks like an absolute smash spot for Almabayev. Even without a finish, we expect Almabayev to put up a big score through his wrestling, but we like his chances of submitting Johnson. Unfortunately we’re not alone on this line of thinking and Almabayev is the biggest favorite on the card and should be very popular. Lock him into low-risk lineups because of that. The odds imply Almabayev has an 82% chance to win, a 52% chance to land a finish, and a 25% chance it comes in round one.
Johnson is a tall, rangy striker who struggles to defend takedowns, but has decent finishing ability on the feet. For some reason he decided to move down to 125 lb, despite winning his last fight at 135 lb. That cut could negatively impact his cardio and/or durability and is a big red flag. He also gets an absolutely terrible stylistic matchup for his Flyweight debut against a smothering wrestler. While Johnson was able to score 109 DraftKings points in his recent third round submission win, we don’t have much interest in chasing that score here and he appears reliant on landing a hail mary finish if he wants to pull off the upset as the biggest underdog on the card. The odds imply Johnson has an 18% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Garrett Armfield
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Fresh off a close decision win over Brad Katona, Armfield outlanded Katona 105-64 in significant strikes, but got taken down four times and controlled for four and a half minutes. Prior to that, Armfield knocked out a fragile one-dimensional grappler in Toshiomi Kazama in the first round. It was one-way traffic for the entire fight, as Armfield tripled Kazma up in striking (45-15), while also stuffing both of his takedown attempts. Leading up to that win, Armfield hadn’t competed in 13 months following a second round submission loss in his short notice UFC debut against David Onama, which Armfield took up a weight class. Armfield had been booked twice after that, but both matchups fell through. Despite taking his debut on short notice and up a weight class against a tough opponent, Armfield was competitive early on, before Onama took over in round two and submitted Armfield midway through the round. Two months prior to that, Armfield won the Fighting Alliance Championship Bantamweight belt in a quick 33 second first round knockout, after winning a smothering decision on the mat where he controlled his opponent for essentially the entire fight.
Now 10-3 as a pro, Armfield has six wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and two decision victories. Seven of his eight finishes occurred in the first round, with the other coming early in round two. While he’s never been knocked out, he’s been submitted twice and has one decision loss. His last two losses both ended in second round submissions. His one decision loss came against fighter Ronnie Lawrence in 2019, in what was just Armfield’s third pro fight. Other than his 145 lb UFC debut, Armfield has spent his entire career at 135 lb.
Overall, Armfield is a young well-rounded fighter who wrestled at Missouri State University and is still just 27 years old. He had been training at Kill Cliff FC, but leading up to his second UFC fight he decided to move back home to Missouri and is now at Trey Ogden’s gym, Marathon MMA. Armfield has looked durable and no one has ever knocked him out, but has been more prone to getting submitted. He rarely requires the judges, with eight of his last 10 fights ending early. In his three UFC fights, Armfield failed to land any of his three takedown attempts, while his opponents got him down on 6 of their 17 attempts (64.7% defense).
Brady Hiestand
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Fourteen months removed from his first UFC finish, Hiestand landed a late third round comeback TKO win against Batgerel Danaa in the final minute of a fight he was losing on all the scorecards. One judge even scored the second round 10-8 for Danaa, after he dropped Hiestand in the opening seconds of the round. However, Hiestand did finish the fight ahead in significant strikes 45-41 and also took Danaa down three times on seven attempts. Danaa completely gassed out late in the fight, which opened up the finish for Hiestand who finished him with unimposing ground and pound on the mat. Since that win, Hiestand dropped out of two booked fights following a staph infection and then knee surgery, resulting in the long layoff. Hiestand made his way into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter in 2021, but lost a split decision in the finale against Ricky Turcios. Following the loss to Turcios, Hiestand had knee surgery to repair a complete tear to his ACL that he claimed he had fought through on TUF, which resulted in a 15 month layoff. Hiestand then bounced back from the loss with a decision win over Fernie Garcia in his next fight. However, it didn’t come without adversity as Garcia sat Hiestand down in the opening seconds of the fight, although Hiestand immediately bounced back up and shot for a takedown.
Now 7-2 as a pro, Hiestand has three wins by TKO, two submissions, and two decision victories. Four of his five finishes occurred in the first round, with the other ending in round three. His only early loss came in a 2019 R3 TKO against Chad Anheliger, who has since joined the UFC, while Hiestand also has one decision loss. Hiestand’s five pre-UFC wins amazingly came against opponents with a combined 0-24 record so take those early results with a grain of salt. Hiestand made his 2018 pro debut at 155 lb and landed a submission win, but dropped all the way down to 135 lb for his next two fights. Since then, he’s had two fights at 145 lb, both of which he won in the first round, and four more at 135 lb (2-2).
Overall, Hiestand is a BJJ brown belt and a black belt in karate, who is a training partner of Michael Chiesa and Julianna Pena and it shows in his grappling-heavy approach to fighting. In his three UFC fights, he landed 12 of his 26 takedown attempts (46.2% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 4 of their 7 attempts (42.9% defense). Hiestand doesn't offer a ton on the feet and only averages just 2.93 SSL/min and 3.65 SSA/min. His striking defense has been dubious and he gets dropped in every fight. At 25 years old, he’s still pretty green overall but is at an age where he should be improving between every fight.
Fight Prediction:
Hiestand will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while also being two years younger than the 27-year-old Armfield.
Both of these two have wrestling backgrounds, but Armfield is the superior striker and the more well rounded fighter. That will leave Hiestand reliant on outwrestling his way to a win if he wants to pull off the upset. Armfield’s takedown defense has been somewhat average at 64%, but he has a good stance for defending takedowns and his wrestling background should come in handy in this matchup. We don’t see Hiestand being able to dominate him on the mat and Armfield will win the striking exchanges, thus winning the fight. The main question we have is whether or not Armfield can get Hiestand out of there early and we could see that going either way. Hiestand’s striking defense has been pretty poor and basically everyone he fights drops him, but he’s only been knocked out once. Hiestand is often able to buy time to recover with his wrestling after being hurt in fights and we’ll say he hangs on to lose a decision to Armfield, but a knockout win for Armfield will also not be surprising.
Our favorite bet here is “Garrett Armfield DEC” at +200.
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DFS Implications:
Armfield is coming off a close decision win over a durable Brad Katona that was good for 77 DraftKings points. Armfield was able to land 105 significant strikes there, but has yet to secure a takedown in the UFC, which leaves him more reliant on landing finishes to really score well. He was notably able to score 119 DraftKings points in a first round knockout over a one-dimensional grappler in Toshiomi Kazama in his second most recent win, but that was also one of the easier matchups you could ask for. Armfield’s only UFC loss came in his short notice UFC debut, which he took up a weight class against a tough David Onama and got submitted in the second round. Armfield will be going up against a pretty one-dimensional wrestler here, which is encouraging for his chances of landing a knockout if he can keep the fight standing, but also opens up the potential for him to get controlled for periods of time, solidifying our stance that he’ll have a tough time returning value in a decision. Therefore, we’re treating Armfield as a KO or bust option. The odds imply Armfield has a 63% chance to win, a 31% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Hiestand’s grappling heavy approach is better suited to the DraftKings scoring system as he has the potential to rack up ground strikes and control time, however, if he puts up a huge takedown total or lands a finish he’ll be useful on both sites. Had the split decision gone his way in his UFC debut, he would have scored 108 points on DraftKings and 96 FanDuel points, however, he only scored 77 DraftKings points and 54 points on FanDuel in a decision win in his next fight and doesn't land much in the way of striking volume, as he averages just 2.93 SSL/min. While he was able to secure his first UFC finish in his last match, he was 39 seconds away from losing a decision before Batgerel Danaa completely gassed out and essentially quit. Hiestand was able to score 96 DraftKings points in that late third round finish, but take the result with a grain of salt. Armfield has a wrestling background and a 64% takedown defense, but did get taken down multiple times in each of his UFC fights to make it out of the first round. So it’s not a great matchup for Hiestand, but it’s also not the worst. At his cheap price tag, he can serve as a value play on DraftKings even without a huge score, but he’ll be more reliant on landing a finish on FanDuel. The odds imply Hiestand has a 37% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Timmy Cuamba
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Cuamba is coming off a split decision loss in his UFC debut, which he stepped into on just a few days’ notice, up a weight class, and just a week after he previously fought. He faced a dangerous striker in Bolaji Oki there and smartly looked to wrestle, but was only able to land one of his six takedown attempts and finished behind 60-33 in significant strikes in the low-volume fight. A week before that loss, Cuamba landed a second round TKO win with the Tuff-N-Uff organization. Cuamba originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in August 2023, but after winning a close decision, Cuamba was not awarded a contract. Cuamba started fast in that fight, but slowed down in the later rounds as he absorbed 30 leg kicks and then got taken down and controlled for nearly three minutes in the third round. Prior to that, Cuamba landed a pair of second round TKO wins and his last three finishes all ended in R2 TKOs.
Now 8-2 as a pro, Cuamba has four wins by TKO and four decision victories. The first finish of his career came in round one, but the last three all ended in round two. The only time he’s ever been finished was in a 2021 first round rear-naked choke, with his one other loss going the distance in his recent short notice UFC debut.
Overall, Cuamba is a young 25-year-old fighter who only turned pro in late 2020 and is still early in his career. He has good quickness and side-to-side movement, while he throws crisp strikes. However, he doesn’t appear to have a ton of power behind his strikes. He’ll also mix in wrestling, although he’s never submitted anybody and is generally only looking for ground and pound on the mat. Cuamba was born and raised in Las Vegas and trains with Dewey Cooper, so he won’t have to travel anywhere for this Apex matchup.
Lucas Almeida
4th UFC Fight (0-0)Almeida has been finished in under seven minutes in two straight fights and is now likely fighting for his job as he sits on a 1-2 UFC record. He was also dangerously close to getting finished in his lone win, where he was knocked down in the first round by Michael Trizano, but was able to survive and come back to land a TKO of his own. He then got dominated on the mat by Pat Sabatini in his next fight, where he was submitted in the second round. Almeida was then knocked out in the first round of his last fight by Andre Fili, who only has one other knockout win in his other 16 most recent fights. Prior to making his debut, Almeida landed a first round submission on the Brazilian regional scene just three weeks after suffering his first career loss in a decision against Daniel Zellhuber on DWCS. Almeida hadn’t competed in 23 months leading up to that DWCS fight, but he showed no signs of ring rust as he came out ultra aggressively and landed 52 significant strikes in the first round alone. However, we did see his pace slow in the later rounds, where he landed a combined 44 significant strikes.
Now 14-3 as a pro, Almeida has a 100% finishing rate with nine wins by KO/TKO and five submissions. He has eight first round wins, three in round two, two in round three, and another in round five. He also has one first round TKO loss, a second round submission defeat, and he dropped the only decision he’s ever been to. While 16 of his 17 pro fights ended early, five of his last seven matches made it out of the first round. Almeida has fought anywhere from 145 lb to 170 lb in the past, but since 2017 he had mostly been fighting at 155 lb until he dropped back down to 145 lb for his UFC debut, where he previously hadn’t competed since 2016. He’s pretty tall and probably cuts a lot of weight.
Overall, Almeida is an aggressive finisher who throws all of his strikes with fight-ending intentions. He holds black belts in kickboxing, Muay Thai, and BJJ, but relies mostly on his striking to win fights. He rarely looks to land any takedowns, although did lock up a first round guillotine in his second most recent win. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Almeida didn’t attempt any takedowns, while his opponents took him down on three of their five attempts (40% defense). He also got put on his back at multiple points in a 2019 Jungle Fight match, although still went on to land a violent third round knockout via flying knee. Nevertheless, his poor defensive wrestling has been a real problem for him, as has his suspect durability.
Fight Prediction:
Almeida will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 71” reach. Cuamba is eight years younger than the 33-year-old Almeida.
While Cuamba hasn’t shown a ton of knockout power, he has good striking and will also look to wrestle. He’s also pretty defensively sound and has never been knocked out. So he’s basically the exact opposite of Almeida, who never looks to wrestle, gets taken down easily, and hasn’t looked at all durable. We expect Cuamba to be looking to take Almeida down and nothing Almeida has shown on tape would lead us to believe that he’ll be able to keep the fight standing. Once he can assume top position on the ground, look for Cuamba to go to work with ground and pound, as he hasn’t shown any sort of submission game. While it’s not impossible that Almeida can survive three rounds of that, we like Cuamba’s chances of wearing him out and finishing him with ground and pound in round two.
Our favorite bet here is “Timmy Cuamba KO” at +220.
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DFS Implications:
Cuamba couldn’t have been put in a much tougher spot to make his recent UFC debut, as he accepted the fight up a weight close on four days’ notice and just a week after he last competed. He took on a really dangerous opponent, and while he wasn’t able to get his hand raised, he at least took it to a close decision. And while Cuamba only landed one takedown in the fight, he attempted six, which is encouraging for his upside moving forward. He’s not a very high-volume striker, averaging just 2.53 SSL/min and doesn’t appear to possess a ton of power. However, he can get opponents down and finish them with ground and pound and this is a favorable matchup to execute that strategy against the 40% takedown defense of Almeida. We’ve also seen Almeida get dropped in the first round in two of his last three fights and even if Cuamba doesn’t have lethal power, it could still be enough to put Almeida down. That leaves Cuamba with multiple ways to score well, however, if he can’t get his wrestling going or find a finish then he’ll have almost no shot at returning value in a 15 minute pure striking battle, even if Almeida does look to push the pace. The odds imply Cuamba has a 64% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Almeida is an aggressive brawler with heavy hands and a 100% finishing rate. He nearly got knocked out in the first round of his UFC debut, but narrowly hung on and bounced back with a late knockout of his own that was good for 103 DraftKings points with the help of a pair of knockdowns. He then got absolutely dominated on the mat in his next fight and suffered the first early loss of his career. That showed a gaping hole in his defensive wrestling that all future opponents should look to attack. However, Andre Fili then proceeded to tell the analytics department to hold his beer as he went out and starched Almeida on the feet, without even considering a takedown. So we’ve now seen Almeida get finished on the mat and the feet in his last two fights and he appears to be a defensive liability wherever the fight goes. That leaves him with a zero point floor, but his 100% finishing rate and aggressive fighting still does naturally come with some decent upside. While Cuamba has never been knocked out, he has been submitted once and Almeida is a BJJ black belt. So maybe Almeida can lock something upm on the mat during the wrestling exchanges or catch Cuamba on the feet and become the first fighter to ever knock him out. At his cheap price tag, Almeida doesn’t need to put up a massive score to end up in the optimal lineup and it’s worth having some exposure due to his finishing upside—even if this does look like a tough matchup for him to end things early. The odds imply Almeida has a 36% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Douglas Silva de Andrade
13th UFC Fight (7-5)Silva de Andrade is 13 months removed from a somewhat controversial decision win over Cody Stamann, where Silva de Andrade landed an illegal upkick in the first round after Stamann took him down. The ref paused the action, but then took away the position on the mat that Stamann had worked hard to obtain. Silva de Andrade ended up winning the first two rounds, while Stamann won round three, and taking away that position may have changed the outcome of what was a close fight. Stamann notably knocked Silva de Andrade down in round three and looked close to finding a finish. Silva de Andrade’s second most recent fight was almost two years ago, when he lost a low-volume decision to Said Nurmagomedov, after finishing each of his previous two opponents in the first two rounds. Silva de Andrade nearly got finished himself in the more recent of those two finishes, but was able to survive after getting knocked down in the first round and then amazingly landed three knockdowns of his own in round two before submitting Sergey Morozov midway through the round. Just before that, Silva de Andrade landed a first round knockout against a terrible Gaetano Pirrello, who was finished in the first two rounds in both of his UFC fights before being cut. That’s the only one of Silva de Andrade’s 12 UFC fights to end in the first round, with eight of his UFC matches seeing the third round and seven going the distance. While Silva de Andrade is only 7-5 in the UFC, his losses all came against really tough opponents in Said Nurmagomedov, Lerone Murphy, Petr Yan, Marlon Vera, Rob Font, and Zubaira Tukhugov. Prior to joining the UFC, Silva de Andrade had a perfect 22-0 pro record with 19 early wins.
Now 29-5 (plus a NC) as a pro, Silva de Andrade has 20 wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and seven decision victories. He has one TKO loss, which came in a 2018 post round two corner stoppage against Petr Yan, but he’s never truly been knocked out. His only other early loss ended in a 2017 R2 guillotine at the hands of Rob Font. His remaining three defeats all went the distance. Silva de Andrade started his career at 145 lb and remained there for his debut. However, after suffering his first pro loss in a decision against Zubaira Tukhugov in his debut, Silva de Andrade moved down to 135 lb. He went 3-2 in his next five fights at 135 lb, but moved back up to 145 lb in 2019 to split a pair of decisions. He then returned to 135 lb, where he’s stayed since. So all three of his UFC fights at 145 lb went the distance (1-2), while five of his nine fights at 135 lb ended early (3-2). He won three of the four decisions he’s been to at 135 lb in the UFC and is overall 4-3 with the judges in the organization.
Overall, Silva de Andrade is a compact but dangerous fighter who looks like a bag of rocks and hits like one too—although he’s only knocked out one opponent since 2016. He relies primarily on his striking but will occasionally land a takedown. In his 12 UFC fights, Silva de Andrade landed 6 of his 13 takedown attempts (46.2% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 14 of their 48 attempts (70.8% defense). He’s just 3-5 in UFC fights where he’s been taken down even once, but 4-0 when he has not surrendered a takedown. He’s typically not a guy that will put up huge striking totals, averaging just 3.66 SSL/min in his career, and he landed 39 or fewer significant strikes in 8 of his 12 UFC fights. He’s also never absorbed more than 76 significant strikes in a fight, so we generally see him involved in lower volume affairs. He’s accustomed to facing a high level of competition, but at 38 years old and coming off a long layoff, you do have to start wondering when he’ll begin to slow down.
Miles Johns
9th UFC Fight (5-2, NC)Johns is less than three months removed from a low-volume unanimous 30-27 decision win over Cody Gibson, where Johns finished ahead just 25-18 in significant strikes and 2-1 in takedowns landed. Johns notably slowed down in the third round, but in fairness to him, he stepped into that fight on just 15 days’ notice after Davey Grant dropped out. Prior to that, Johns won a decision over Dan Argueta, but the results were later overturned to a No Contest and Johns was suspended for four and a half months after he failed a drug test. That fight seemed much closer than the scorecards indicated, and Johns only finished ahead 43-33 in significant strikes, while both fighters finished with two takedowns and around four minutes of control time apiece. Johns was in trouble in the first round after Argueta took his back, but was able to escape the position. Prior to that, Johns won another low-volume decision over Vince Morales, where Morales actually finished ahead 39-38 in significant strikes. After only attempting 10 takedowns in his first five UFC fights combined, Johns shot for 12 in that last match, although only completed one of them. Johns had been training at Fortis in Texas but switched to Glory MMA for that fight to be closer to home, just before Glory shut down. He was then forced to switch gyms once again and is now training with Trey Ogden at Marathon MMA. Since leaving Fortis, all three of Johns’ fights ended in low-volume decisions, after his previous four fights all ended in round two and three (2-2). Both of his UFC finishes ended in third round knockouts, while he was also submitted in the third round by John Castaneda and knocked out in round two by Mario Bautista.
Now 14-2 (plus a NC) as a pro, Johns has four wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and eight decision victories. Both of his losses ended early, with a second round flying knee KO and a third round submission. Johns is 8-0 in fights that have gone the distance (or 9-0 if you count his decision that was later overturned to a No Contest). He notably won a 5-round split decision over Adrian Yanez for the LFA belt back in 2018. All 17 of Johns’ pro fights made it to the second round, with 13 seeing round three and nine going the distance.
Overall, Johns has a wrestling background and actually turned down a wrestling scholarship to focus on MMA. Despite his wrestling experience, he only landed one takedown on 10 attempts in his first five UFC fights combined, after landing three takedowns on four attempts in a 2019 DWCS decision win. However, since moving back to Missouri we’ve seen him look to use his wrestling more and in his last three fights he landed 5 of his 26 takedown attempts. Looking at his career as a whole, Johns landed 9 of his 40 takedown attempts (22.5% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on just 4 of their 27 attempts (85.2% defense). Johns also doesn’t land a ton of striking volume, averaging just 3.28 SSL/min and 2.55 SSA/min, and only once in the UFC did he top 48 significant strikes landed, which was when he landed 80 against Anderson dos Santos in 2021. At the same time, no one has ever landed more than 58 against him, and all of his fights are lower volume affairs. He also has cardio concerns that leave him more vulnerable in the later rounds and it’s amazing he’s never lost a decision. He does throw with bad intentions and does damage when he lands, but most of his UFC wins have come against struggling opponents.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’7”, but Silva de Andrade will have a 2” reach advantage, while Johns is eight years younger than the 38-year-old Silva de Andrade.
Neither of these two tend to land much in the way of striking volume (3.66 vs. 3.28 SSL/min) and they both have good takedown defenses (70% and 85%). While, we tend to see slower paced affairs from both of them, this fight was elevated to the co-main event on Thursday after Ikram Aliskerov was pulled from the card, and it will be interesting to see if that motivates them to try and put on more of a show, as they’re thrust into the spotlight. That may not end up being a factor, but it’s somewhat of an interesting narrative to consider. Otherwise, look for this to play out as a low-volume striking battle, with Johns mixing in some takedown attempts. They’ve both been pretty durable and Johns has amazingly never lost a decision in his career, despite his lack of output and cardio concerns. All 17 of Johns’ pro fights made it to the second round and only one of Silva de Andrade’s UFC fights ended in round one, so if do get a finish, it will likely come late. We won’t be surprised to see Johns land a late knockout and Silva de Andrade is getting up there in age, but a Johns decision win is still the most likely outcome. After opening the week as a slight -105 underdog, Johns was bet up to -140 favorite by Friday.
Our favorite bet here is “Miles Johns R3 or DEC” at +120.
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DFS Implications:
Silva de Andrade has averaged 82 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, failing to top 89 points in five of those. He’s never scored more than 75 points in a decision and only scored 89 points in a 2016 R3 TKO win. He averages just 3.66 SSL/min and only landed six total takedowns in 12 UFC fights. So he’s entirely reliant on landing finishes in the first two rounds to score well, something he’s only down twice in the UFC. He’s also coming off a 13 month layoff and is now 38 years old, while the line has moved considerably in Johns’ favor. Making matters worse, Johns only averages 2.55 SSA/min and has an 85% takedown defense, while he’s also only been knocked out once in his career. So there’s not much working in Silva de Andrade’s favor, except for he should be lower owned following the line move. The odds imply Silva de Andrade has a 44% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Johns has averaged just 71 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, failing to top 87 points in any of those and only scoring 74, 67, 55, and 64 points respectively in his four decision victories. His two UFC finishes both ended in round three and only returned totals of 87 and 81 points. While he has a wrestling background, he’s only landed nine takedowns in his last nine fights and also averages just 3.28 SSL/min. Only once has he topped 48 significant strikes landed in a UFC fight, which was when he put up a career best 80 in a 2021 R3 knockout win. He has bad cardio and consistently slows down late in fights, and will need a finish in the first two rounds to score well. The window becomes narrower when you realize that all 17 of his pro fights made it out of the first round and Silva de Andrade has only been knocked out once in 35 pro appearances. That makes it hard to get excited about playing Johns, despite the fact that he’s now underpriced on DraftKings after the line moved significantly in his favor. At his reasonable price tag, he doesn’t need a slate-breaking performance to end up in winning lineups, however, it does appear he’ll need a finish. The odds imply Johns has a 56% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Tatsuro Taira
6th UFC Fight (5-0)Six months removed from his first UFC KO/TKO win, Taira dropped Carlos Hernandez early in the second round and then finished him with ground and pound opposed to looking for his usual submission on the mat. He also controlled Hernandez on the ground for most of the first round, although never shot for an official takedown. Amazingly, Taira finished ahead 33-2 in significant strikes and 44-2 in total strikes. Prior to that, Taira won a decision over Edgar Chairez, who was making his short notice UFC debut and consistently looked for guillotine attempts throughout the fight. Taira was able to take Chairez down on two of his three attempts and finished with nearly 10 minutes of control time, while also outlanding him 61-25 in significant strikes and 121-26 in total strikes. Leading up to that decision win, Taira landed a pair of submissions after winning a grappling-heavy decision over Carlos Candelario in his UFC debut. Before joining the UFC, Taira won all 10 of his career fights on the Japanese regional scene after turning pro when he was just 18 years old.
Now 15-0 as a pro, Taira has four TKO wins, seven submissions, and four decision victories. One of those decision victories came in a two-round fight that actually took place down at 115 lb, which is something you rarely see in men’s professional MMA. So only three times in his career has Taira been involved in fights that lasted longer than 10 minutes and all seven of his career submission wins ended in the first two rounds, with six ending in round one. Two of his four TKO wins also came in round one, with the other two ending in the opening minute round two.
This will be the 2nd five-round fight of Taira’s career and first in the UFC. The one time he was previously scheduled to go five rounds he submitted his opponent in the first round of a 2021 match.
Overall, Taira is a young but dangerous Japanese grappler who typically relies on his ground game but also isn’t entirely helpless on the feet. He throws crisp leg strikes and showed off his hands some in his last fight. In his five UFC fights, he landed 7 of his 17 takedown attempts (41.2% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 2 of their 7 attempts (71.4% defense). He’s still just 24 years old and we should see continued improvements from him every time he steps inside the Octagon. The Flyweight division is desperate for new title contenders and with a win here over the #5 ranked Perez, Taira could abruptly enter the conversation.
Alex Perez
12th UFC Fight (7-4)Perez is just seven weeks removed from a second round knockout win over a chinny Matheus Nicolau. Perez entered that fight as a +150 underdog, but one the first round on all three scorecards and then finished Nicolau midway through round two in a lower volume striking battle where no takedowns were attempted on either side. That’s Perez’s only win since 2020 and he stepped into that matchup on just three and a half weeks’ notice after Manel Kape dropped out. And just eight weeks before that win, Perez lost a close three-round decision to Muhammad Mokaev, who afterwards said he was sick for the fight. It was a largely uneventful match, with Mokaev finishing ahead 47-30 in significant strikes, 56-47 in total strikes, and 3-0 in takedowns. Perez did a good job stuffing 17 of Mokaev’s 20 takedown attempts, but never really got much offense of his own going. Just making it into the cage was honestly a big accomplishment for Perez, who amazingly had nine of his previous 10 booked fights canceled. Perez was submitted in the first round in each of his previous two fights, but in fairness, those losses were against the current Flyweight champ in Alexandre Pantoja, and the former champ in Deiveson Figueiredo. And while Perez is just 1-3 in his last four fights, he won six of his first seven Octagon appearances, with the one exception being a first round TKO loss to another perennial contender in Joseph Benavidez back in 2018. Only three of Perez’s 11 UFC fights required the scorecards (2-1), with the other eight all ending in under a round and a half (5-3), including six in round one.
Now 25-8 as a pro, Perez has six wins by KO/TKO, seven submissions, and 12 decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, submitted five times (three by guillotine), and has two decision defeats. Five of his six early losses ended in round one, with the other coming early in round two. Similarly, 11 of his 13 early wins also occurred in round one, with the other two ending in the first half of round two. Perez has competed at both 125 lb and 135 lb in his career. While most of his UFC fights have been at 125 lb, he did have two fights up at 135 lb, both of which he won, with a R2 submission in his 2017 UFC debut and a 2019 decision.
This will be the 5th five-round fight of Perez’s career, but just his third in the UFC. His first five-round fight was in 2015, where he won a decision for a regional belt, which he lost later that year in a second round submission in his second fight that was scheduled to go five rounds. In his first UFC main event, he got submitted in the first round by Deiveson Figueiredo in 2020, before landing a second round knockout in his most recent headlining opportunity.
Overall, Perez has a background in wrestling but is also a decent striker and he throws really heavy leg strikes. Between his 11 UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Perez landed 11 takedowns on 25 attempts (44% accuracy), while his opponents only got him down on 5 of their 29 attempts (82.8% defense). However, the last three opponents who tried to take him down were all successful. While Perez’s wrestling is pretty good, his defensive jiu jitsu has been far less impressive and he’s been really prone to getting submitted. It seems like he panics once opponents lock anything in and tends to quickly tap. We’ve seen Perez struggle on the scale at times in the past, and considering that this will be his third weight cut in the last three and a half months, he’s definitely a guy to keep an eye on during weigh-ins.
Fight Prediction:
Taira will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage, while also being eight years younger than the 32-year-old Perez.
This is a huge opportunity and a big step up in competition for Taira, who had faced opponents making their UFC debuts in two of his last three fights and will now be facing a top ranked opponent. Stylistically, it seems to set up well for Taira to find a submission finish, as that’s his bread and butter and Perez has been submitted five times in his career. However, we did see Taira more willing to look for a TKO finish in his last win and this will be Perez’s third weight cut in the last three and a half months. For a guy who has struggled on the scale at times, that has to be concerning for his durability and potentially his cardio as well. However, Taira barely ever gets past the second round and has never been in a fight that lasted longer than 15 minutes, so we also don’t know what his cardio will look like in a longer fight. Perez is the more experienced striker and if his chin and 82% takedown defense both hold up, then he’ll be in a good position to win a striking battle. However, Taira does a good job of working his way into grappling exchanges and we still think the most obvious answer is the right one and that Taira wins this by submission in the first two rounds.
Our favorite bet here is “Taira/Perez Under 2.5 Rounds” at +114.
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DFS Implications:
Taira has averaged 102 DraftKings points in his five UFC victories, with two of his wins going the distance and three ending in the first two rounds. He scored 97 or more points in all five of those fights and has shown a solid scoring floor through his grappling, regardless of whether or not he finds a finish. However, he’s yet to show a massive ceiling and failed to top 107 points in any of those victories. His grappling-heavy approach generally leaves him with a safer floor on DraftKings than FanDuel and his most recent decision win was good for 99 points on DraftKings, but just 74 points on FanDuel. However, that’s far less of a concern in a five-round fight. At his midrange price tag, he doesn't need to put up a massive score to end up in winning lineups, he likely just needs to win. However, that’s not exactly a hot take and he’ll be very popular in all contest types. The odds imply Taira has a 64% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Perez generally scores well when he wins and averaged 105 DraftKings points in his seven UFC victories. Even in his two three-round decision wins, he still managed to score 97 and 87 points respectively, but that required him finding a good amount of wrestling success. He only scored 91 points in his recent second round knockout win, where we didn’t see any wrestling or a ton of striking volume. Now he’s facing an undefeated grappler and this will be another tough spot for Perez to get much of his own offensive wrestling going. And if he ends up getting controlled for periods of time, it will be hard for him to put up a big striking total as well. That likely caps his scoring ceiling to some extent unless he lands a first round finish, but at his cheap price tag he doesn’t need a huge score to return value. While Perez has faced the best Flyweights in the world, this will be a big step up in competition for Taira, who’s also never seen the championship rounds. That creates some level of uncertainty with how Taira will fare, which could play into Perez’s favor. However, Perez has also been very prone to getting submitted, which is how five of his eight career losses ended. That leaves him with a zero point floor against a dangerous grappler in Taira and at least on paper this looks like a tough stylistic matchup for Perez. With that said, he does have a pretty solid 82% takedown defense and was able to survive three rounds against Mokaev, albeit in a losing effort where he only scored 22 DraftKings points. If we get a slate with multiple high scoring underdogs, then it’s possible Perez could win and still get left out of the optimal, but 37 of the last 45 male five-round winning underdogs ended up in the winning DraftKings lineup, so only 18% of them have been left out. The odds imply Perez has a 36% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
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Douglas Silva de Andrade UNDER 71.5 Pts
