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Fighter Notes:
Zhalgas Zhumagulov
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)This fight was originally scheduled for November 28th before it got canceled and rebooked for this slate.
Zhumagulov is coming off a close decision loss in his July UFC debut against Raulian Paiva. He opened slowly in the loss but seemed to improve as the fight went on. He actually outlanded Paiva 73-56 in significant strikes and landed 2 of 11 takedown attempts, while Paiva had no attempts. It seemed like the decision likely should have gone Zhumagulov’s way but all three judges ruled it 29-28 for Paiva. Zhumagulov still would have scored just 69 DraftKings points even if he had won the decision.
Prior to that loss, he had won four straight decisions. While seven of his 13 wins have come early (6 KOs & 1 Submission), his last early win was a R2 KO in 2017. Six of his seven early finishes came in his first six fights against highly suspect opponents. The records of the opponents he finished in those first six wins were: 0-0, 0-1, 0-0, 0-0, 2-0, and 3-0. Those opponents have combined to go 1-5 since getting finished by Zhumagulov and two of them never even fought again, retiring 0-1.
Three of his four career losses have ended in decisions. The only time he’s ever been finished was a 2015 R2 KO. He has never been submitted. We shouldn’t have to worry about his cardio late in fights, as four of his last five fights before joining the UFC were five round decisions.
Amir Albazi
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Albazi has been a submission ninja, ending five of his last seven fights with submission wins. Three of those came in the first round. Now 13-1 a pro and 1-0 in the UFC, it’s interesting that he opened as an underdog in this match. Of his 13 wins, 12 have come early with four KOs and eight submissions. His only career loss came in a 2019 decision.
His impressive win in his short notice UFC debut did come against Malcolm Gordon, who has looked absolutely dreadful in his first two UFC “fights”. Gordon followed up the submission loss with an immediate KO loss to Su Mudaerji.
Albazi started his pro career off at 135 lb, but moved down to 125 lb in 2017, where he stayed until his short notice UFC debut which was fought back up at 135 lb. He’ll now move back down to 125 lb, so it will be interesting to see how different, if at all, he looks from his last fight.
He has only been to the third round twice, and both of those ended in decisions (1-1). We know Zhumagulov can go five full rounds, so it will be interesting to see if Albazi’s cardio holds up later in the fight—if it makes it that long.
Fight Prediction:
Albazi will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
The fact that Albazi is an underdog was the first thing to jump off the page on this slate and Albazi has seen the line move in his favor some, so we’re not the only ones who think it looks off. The biggest question here is if Albazi can be the first person to ever submit Zhumagulov. The oddsmakers have notably set his submission line at +510 (15%), despite the fact that 62% of his wins have been by submission. They appear to be daring the public to bet that line. This feels like a spot where you don’t want to fall victim to one of the classic blunders and go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line (That’s #2 after not getting involved in a land war in Asia right?). So while the +510 Albazi Submission line feels too good to pass up, it feels like a trap. We think this one likely ends in a disappointing decision, with Zhumagulov starting slow but turning it on late.
DFS Implications:
When this was originally scheduled back in November, both fighters were the same price on DraftKings but Zhumagulov was $18 and Albazi $15 on FanDuel—instead of $16 and $14 like they are now.
Albazi immediately stands out as an exceptional value on both DFS sites, but especially on FanDuel where he’s just $14 and can score from submission attempts and takedowns defended—remember Zhumagulov went 2 for 11 on takedowns in his last fight. Unfortunately, when you combine Albazi’s obvious perceived value with the fact that he leads the slate in DraftKings fantasy points per fight, you have to think he’ll be one of the most highly owned underdogs. When you look at it that way, and also realize that he’s fighting an opponent who’s never been submitted and only knocked out once in 17 pro fights (in 2015), this feels like a trap. We think his value and ownership still keep him squarely in play for low-risk contests, but it feels like you want to be under the field on him in tournaments.
Zhumagulov looks like a decision machine who’s generally a wet blanket in terms of fantasy production for both himself and his opponent. Seven of his eight career fights that ended early (7-1) came in his first seven pro fights in 2015 or before. Only one of his last 10 fights has not gone to decision and that was a 2017 R2 KO victory. He appears to fight very cautiously, with his primary goal being to squeak out decisions. We don’t see much upside in playing him in DFS, and it looks fading this fight in tournaments is the smart play.
Movsar Evloev
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Evloev had been scheduled to fight on December 5th against Nate Landwehr but was forced to withdraw when he tested positive for COVID. Now seemingly fully recovered, he steps into this fight on short notice after Mike Grundy dropped out of this fight. Evloev was announced as the short notice replacement on January 10th. This fight had originally been scheduled to take place at 145 lb, but got moved up to 150 lb catchweight.
Continuing his perfect 13-0 pro record with his third straight decision win in the UFC, Evloev went 10-0 on the tough M-1 Russian scene before joining the UFC.
In his most recent fight, Evloev squared off against wrestler Mike Grundy and narrowly escaped some dangerous submission attempts. After going 9 for 27 on takedowns in his first two UFC fights, Evloev didn’t attempt a single one against Grundy. That can likely be explained by the fact that Grundy clearly wanted the fight on the ground and Evloev obviously had the advantage on the feet. Evloev is a smart fighter and seems fully capable of adapting his approach to attack his opponent’s weaknesses.
While he’s not a power puncher, he tends to wear on his opponents. He does have three knockouts on his record, with one in each of the first, second and fifth rounds. He also has four submission wins, including one in R1, two in R2 and one in R3.
While all three of Evloev’s UFC fights have ended in decisions, he ended seven of his ten prior matches early—three with KO’s and four by submission. All four of those submissions were by Rear-Naked Choke.
Nik Lentz
24th UFC Fight (14-8, NC)The journeyman Nik Lentz has 44 pro fights to his name, including 23 in the UFC. He’s only been finished five times in his lengthy career—three times by KO and twice by submission. And he’s only been finished twice in the last nine years, both times by Charles Oliveira. It would have been three times, but the first time they met back in 2011, Oliveira’s submission win was later overturned to a No Contest for an illegal knee. When Lentz goes to sleep he definitely has nightmares about Oliveira beating him up.
Lentz has the majority of his UFC fights at 155 lb, but has gone 4-3 at 145 lb. However, he’s lost his last two fights at 145 lb (2020 and 2015). After losing to Charles Oliveira at 145 lb in 2015, Lentz immediately moved back up to 155 lb for his next eight fights, where he went 5-3. Charles Oliveira chased him down in that division as well, getting another win in 2019. It seems like Lentz is constantly ducking our of weight classes to avoid Oliveira. After his second loss to Oliveira, Lentz quickly dropped back down to 145 lb. In his only fight back down at 145 lb, Lentz lost a decision to Arnold Allen last January.
Lentz was a state champion high school wrestler in Minnesota, which earned him a wrestling scholarship to the university of Minnesota. He’s averaged an impressive 3.41 takedowns per 15 minutes in the UFC, but has just a 33% accuracy rate, so he also averages about seven failed takedowns per 15 minutes. In his last fight Lentz went 0 for 9 on takedowns. Prior to that he went 2 for 4 on Charles Oliveira and a whopping 5 for 19 against Scott Holtzman.
Fight Prediction:
Lentz will have a 1” height advantage, but Evloev will have a notable 4” reach advantage.
Evloev is such a beast it’s really hard to see him losing here, even on short notice. The real question is if he can get his first finish in the UFC. Lentz has been a tough guy to put away for anyone not named Oliveira. The oddsmakers think we get another decision here, with this being the second most likely fight on the card at -240 (66%) to end with the judges. We agree that’s the most likely scenario.
DFS Implications:
After three straight middling DFS performances, we could see Evloev being underowned yet again (he was only 10% owned on DraftKings in his last fight as a-194 favorite at $9,100/$18). We’ve yet to see a ceiling performance from him, but it’s just a matter of time. Evloev lands an above average 4.44 significant strikes per minute and tacks on a legit 3 takedowns per 15 minutes. Lentz has just a 45% takedown defense. On the other side of the takedown equation, Lentz averages 3.46 takedowns per 15 minutes on 10.33 attempts. That seems to present a strong opportunity for Evloev (68% takedown defense) to pad his FanDuel score with takedowns defended. Lentz has landed just 7 of his last 32 takedown attempts, over the course of his last three fights.
While three of Lentz’s last four wins have come early, 14 of his 19 career early wins came prior to joining the UFC. Lentz normally props up his DFS scores in wins with takedowns and/or finishes and if he does somehow pull off the upset here, he would likely end up in optimal lineups. In wins, his last 5 DraftKings scores are 97, 130, 91, 132, and 74. However, his blow up performances have come in favorable matchups, which this is not.
Khalil Rountree Jr.
10th UFC Fight (4-4, NC)After getting knocked out in R1 of his September 2019 match against Ion Cutelaba, Rountree now hasn’t fought in 16 months. He had been scheduled to fight Sam Alvey last March, but the event got canceled due to COVID. Still just 30 years old, hopefully Rountree used the time off to grow a new chin.
Roundtree has pretty much spent his entire UFC career trading wins and losses. He would be 4-5, but his loss to Michal Oleksiejczuk was overturned to a No Contest when Oleksiejczuk tested positive for a banned substance.
Six of Roundtree’s nine UFC fights have ended in the first round with him winning half of those. He started his UFC career off with back to back losses—a decision to Andrew Sanchez followed by a R1 Rear-Naked Choke Submission to Tyson Pedro. He bounced back from the pair of losses with a pair of R1 KOs over Daniel Jolly and Paul Craig. Then he lost a decision to Oleksiejczuk, which was later overturned to a No Contest. Once again, he bounced back from a loss with another R1 KO over Gokhan Saki. Then he took on Johnny Walker in Walker’s debut and got planked with an elbow to end the fight, less than two minutes into the first round.
And, once again, Rountree bounced back with an impressive performance—this time a three round decision win over Eryk Anders, which probably should have been stopped but wasn’t. Rountree landed an unheard of four knockdowns in the second round, but Anders continued to get up and the ref never stopped it. It was an absolutely dominating one-sided fight that scored 104 DraftKings points even with no takedowns and a moderate amount of striking volume. Unsurprisingly, Roundtree followed up the great performance with another dud in an early R1 KO loss, this time at the hands of Ion Cutelaba.
Five of his eight pro wins have come by KO, all in the first round. His other three wins were by decision. Three of his four losses also came early—two by KO and one by submission.
Rountree is a violent striker with terrible striking defense and no chin. When his opponents fail to attack his weaknesses, he’s fully capable of making them pay for it. However, when someone lands a clean shot on him he looks like someone that just slipped on ice. In fairness to him, his two KO losses came against psychotic power strikers Johnny Walker and Ion Cutelaba. Now Rountree gets what looks to be the softest matchup of his career.
Marcin Prachnio
4th UFC Fight (0-3)Saturday’s version of Vinicius Moreira, Prachnio comes into this fight 0-3 in the UFC with all three of his losses coming by R1 KO. Prior to joining the UFC, he was 13-2, with 10 KOs and a submission win of his own, but really that just makes you wonder what level of competition he was facing if he could go 15 fights with only one KO loss and then get immediately knocked out every time he steps inside the Octagon in the UFC.
Win or lose, this is almost certainly Prachnio’s final UFC fight, and getting knocked out one final time essentially feels like a technicality. He didn’t fight at all in 2019, as he battled injuries, before returning from a 23 month layoff just to get knocked out in 137 seconds.
Fight Prediction:
Prachnio will have a 2” height advantage, but Rountree will have a 2” reach advantage.
If there was ever a time for a simultaneous double knockout finish this is it. These guys go down faster than a cheap hooker with somewhere to be. Coming in with the highest R1 finishing chances on the slate at -115 (50%), Rountree couldn’t ask for a better spot. We think he likely gets it done, but he didn notably struggle to make weight, even requiring extra time before finally hitting the mark. For a guy with a 50% chance of landing a R1 finish, he has more red flags than most.
DFS Implications:
Rountree has been the quintessential boom or bust DFS fighter as he swings back and forth between pathetic losses and impressive wins. He couldn’t ask for a better spot here, and that’s no secret. This is seriously some tough chalk to fade if you decide to go that route, which we don’t really recommend. We would more or less be playing any warm body here against Prachnio, so it’s hard to fade a guy like Rountree with legit knockout power.
Prachnio has no business in the UFC and everyone knows it. Even his home country of Polland has been publicly trolling him for years. Honestly, it’s hard not to feel bad for the guy. But dragging things out can’t help. So just like a Band-Aid Marcin, go in there get your head ripped off and retire from the UFC to do something less painful for yourself and everyone watching. With that said, if you’re looking for the most disgusting, low-owned, ultra high-risk tournament leverage play, he’s your guy.
Sara McMann
12th UFC Fight (6-5)An olympic silver medalist in wrestling, the jacked 40-year-old McMann is coming off a decision win almost exactly one year ago. Prior to that win, McMann didn’t fight at all in 2019 and then most recently had a June 2020 fight canceled when her opponent withdrew. So she’s only fought once in almost three years, since her February 2018 R2 Triangle-Choke Submission loss to fellow distinguished fighter Marion Reneau.
Four of her last five fights have ended with submissions: 2018 R2 Triangle Choke Loss, 2017 R2 Arm-Triangle Choke Loss, 2017 R1 Arm-Triangle Win, 2016 R2 Arm-Triangle Win.
Of her 12 pro wins, she has five by submission, six by decision and one KO all the way back in 2013. Of her five pro losses, four came early, with one KO and three submissions. Her only KO loss came against Ronda Rousey back in 2014. So it seems fair to say, her fights almost always end with either submissions or decisions.
Julianna Pena
8th UFC Fight (5-2)Pena now holds the proud honor of being the first and only person to ever get submitted by Muay Thai striker Germaine de Randamie in her 12 year career—who left Pena unconscious at the end of their recent fight. Both of Pena’s last two losses have now come by submission, while her last three wins have all been in decisions.
Seven of her first eight fights ended early, including R1 KOs in her first two UFC fights. Since those two wins, all five of her fights have made it at least to a second round, and four of the five have made it to a third.
Prior to her October submission loss, Pena held an impressive 5-1 UFC record, with her only loss coming to Valentina Shevchenko. How quickly appearances can change, having now lost two of her last three. Pena has not been a very active fighter in her UFC career, and has just three fights in the last four and a half years.
All of Pena’s wins have come by taking her opponents down and laying on heavy ground and pound. Pena’s only career KO loss came in 2012 in the second round against audible assaultant Sarah Moras. While Pena does have three career submission wins, they all came in her first four pro fights, prior to joining the UFC.
Fight Prediction:
Both women are 5’6” but Pena will have a 3” reach advantage.
We think this fight could play out similar to Wednesday’s main event with McMann getting Pena down to the ground and controlling her for the duration of the fight. We think it most likely ends in a McMann decision win +160 (37%) but a submission win (16%) is also a remote possibility.
DFS Implications:
McMann averages a slate leading 4.51 takedowns per 15 minutes. She’s scored at least 88 DraftKings points in four of her last five wins, with totals of 89, 105, 88, 70, and 95. Coming off a fight where she notched 13 and a half minutes of control time, McMann looks to be a major beneficiary of the new DraftKings scoring. While we often worry about the reaction speed of older fighters, strength seems like the last thing to go (i.e. old man/woman strength). As a pure wrestler, we think age is less of a factor here than it would normally be. This looks like a prime spot for McMann going against the 28% takedown defense of Pena. If McMann can’t submit Pena, then she will almost certainly end up being a DraftKings specific play where she can stack up points on control time and ground strikes. She likely needs a submission win to score well on FanDuel.
Normally Pena has been the one looking for takedowns, landing 14 over her seven UFC fights, so it will be interesting to see her approach going against an opponent who only wants to fight on the ground. It’s hard to see many paths to victory for Pena. The only times she’s scored well in DFS, she has scored REALLY well. But those two performances came in 2013 and 2015 through heavy ground and pound. The idea that she would be able to dominate this fight on the ground seems far less likely. We don’t like this spot for Pena on either site, and she seems like nothing more than a low-owned contrarian tournament play that you sprinkle into a couple lineups if you’re making a ton.
Brad Tavares
19th UFC Fight (12-6)Long time UFC veteran Brad Tavares joined the organization back in 2010. He’s now coming off back to back losses at the hands of Shahbazyan and Adesanya. Since getting knocked out by Shahbazyan in November 2019, Tavares hasn’t fought in 14 months. His last win came nearly three years ago, in April 2018.
Still just 33 years old, but coming off an extended layoff, it’s tough to expect much out of Tavares come Saturday. Historically, he’s been a low volume striker who’s never scored well in DFS. Of his 17 pro wins, 10 have ended in decisions. While he does have five KO wins and two by submission, six of those came in his first seven pro fights. He only has one early win since 2011, which was a 2018 R3 KO that still scored just 81 DraftKings points. Tavares has been knocked out three times, but has never been submitted. His other three losses all ended in decisions.
Antonio Carlos Junior
13th UFC Fight (7-4, NC)A submission specialist coming off back to back decision losses, Antonio is also coming off an extended layoff, having last fought in September 2019. And just like Tavares, Antonio’s last win was all the way back in April 2018—and it came against a washed up Tim Boetsch.
Since that win, Antonio has had five fights booked just to get canceled, while fighting just twice. Three of those cancelations were due to him pulling out for injury. This match against Tavares had originally been scheduled for March of last year, but Tavares pulled out due to injury.
Eight of Antonio’s 10 career wins have come early, all by KO. He’s only been finished once in four losses, which was a 2016 R3 KO. Antonio originally joined the UFC in 2014 in what was just his fourth pro fight, working his way up through The Ultimate Fighter Brazil.
Fight Prediction:
Carlos Junior will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.
This is a weird fight between two guys who appear to be at tough spots in their careers. Both are coming off extended layoffs and consecutive losses. We get a submission specialist going against a guy who has never been submitted. This is the opposite of an exciting matchup. If Tavares’ takedown defense can hold up, then maybe he inches out a low-volume decision. Otherwise we give the edge to “Shoeface” and who knows maybe he gets the submission.
DFS Implications:
Tavares joined the UFC before DFS existed, and DFS exists in spite of Brad Tavares being in the UFC. Not only has Tavares never scored well, he’s insultingly high priced on both sites. At least let us fade him at a minimum price so someone else will feel compelled to play him. We’ve already wasted too much time talking about him.
Antonio Carlos Junior has unfortunately been battling injuries for the last few years but finally seems able to step back inside the Octagon. Four of his last five wins have come by Rear-Naked Choke Submission—including the last two in R1—but now he gets a long time veteran who has never been submitted. His last three wins all came against very beatable opponents, so this does look like a tougher matchup for a ceiling performance. In this fight, the oddsmakers have set his submission win line at +385 (19%) which isn’t great, but we’ve seen the odds continue to creep in his favor. He opened as a +130 dog but now his line is just +105. At $7,500 on DraftKings and $11 on FanDuel, he seems like a solid value play purely based on price, odds and past performance. In his last six wins he’s put up DraftKings scores of 111, 110, 93, 74, 129, and 101. All of his big scores have come by submission, which could be tough here, but at his price even an average scoring win could be enough.
Arman Tsarukyan
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Originally scheduled to face a pure power striker in Nasrat Haqparast, Tsarukyan gets a last minute opponent swap to Frevola after both Haqparast and Azaitar were removed from this card.
Tsarukyan is a solid striker, but generally isn’t in a rush to push the action. He’s very elusive and does a great job of circling the Octagon and avoiding taking unnecessary damage from his opponents. He seamlessly mixes in head kicks with punching combinations.
His last three fights have all ended in decisions, with him winning the last two. And his last eight fights have all made it to the third round, with six of them ending in decisions. Now 15-2 as a pro, he does have 10 early wins, including seven in R1, but eight of his 10 finishes came in his first nine pro fights. Five of those wins were by KO and five were by submission. The only time he’s ever been finished was a 2015 R1 KO in his second pro fight.
UPDATE: Tsarukyan was incredibly slow to weigh in and when he finally did so, he came in 3 lb over the limit. He requested additional time to try and hit weight, and was able to only miss by 1 lb on his second attempt.
Matt Frevola
5th UFC Fight (2-1-1)Frevola has been close to fighting three different times over the last nine months only to see each one fall apart. He was initially scheduled to face Roosevelt Roberts last April, but the event was canceled due to COVID. Then he was booked to fight Frank Camacho in June, but was forced to withdraw when one of his cornermen tested positive for COVID. Then the Roberts fight was rebooked for September, but Frevola fractured his foot leading up to the fight and was forced to withdraw again. He was almost forced to miss a 4th straight fight here if Tsarukyan hadn’t also lost his opponent. He seems seriously snakebitten. Frevola now hasn’t stepped inside the Octagon since October 2019 despite preparing for three different fights in the meantime.
After getting knocked out for the first time in his career just a minute into his 2018 UFC debut, Frevola’s last three fights have all ended in decisions. The KO loss came against Marco Polo Reyes who seemed lost in his last five UFC fights, going 1-4 with all five ending in KOs. The UFC finally cut him in 2019. The win over Frevola was Reyes’ only victory since 2016 over that five fight period. In fairness to Frevola, 7 of Reyes’ 9 pro wins were by KO.
Following the loss, Frevola fought Lando Vannata to a draw in 2018 (how is that guy involved in so many draws?). AFter that, Frevola won tough decisions over Jalin Turner and Luis Pena. There was some controversy over the Pena decision, but while the striking was close, Frevola was able to land four takedowns on seven attempts to Pena’s one. Frevola also landed four takedowns on 13 attempts against Turner.
Fight Prediction:
Tsarukyan will have a 2” height advantage and a 1” reach advantage.
Tsarukyan had been preparing to face high-volume power puncher Haqparast who had landed just one takedown in his six UFC fights and zero in his last five. So you would have to think that Tsarukyan has been focusing on a striking battle and not defending takedowns. While Frevola is content brawling with opponents he also averages 3.3 takedowns per 15 minutes. We haven’t seen Tsarukyan push the pace much since joining the UFC, as he’s been content with picking opponents apart while avoiding taking much damage. He’s absorbed the second lowest average of significant strikes on this slate, and the lowest for anyone that has fought more than one round of action. Despite missing weight, Tsarukyan looked shredded at face offs.
Following the match-up mash up, Tsarukyan opened as a -650 favorite. Somehow that has been bet up to -820 as of Friday night, and apparently no one thinks Frevola has a chance. That line seems way too wide to us, but maybe we’re missing something. We see value in Frevola’s ML at +610 and Frevola Wins by Decision at +765. Tsarukyan still likely wins this by decision, but those lines seem way too wide.
DFS Implications:
Tsarukyan was only 13% owned on DraftKings the last time he fought when he was priced at $8,700. He had opened as a-190 favorite but was bet up to -226 by the day of the event. After another average scoring decision win and priced $200 higher, we weren’t expecting Tsarukyan to be very high owned when he was set to face Haqparast. However, after going from a -300 favorite in that fight to a -820 in this matchup, we assume his ownership will see a decent increase.
Still just 24 years old, Tsarukyan does look like a fighter on the rise and seems to be getting better with every trip inside the Octagon. While his fighting style doesn’t generally lend itself to scoring well in DFS, surely at some point he will put up a decent score. The oddsmakers have set his ITD line at +170 (35%) and his R1 win line at +400 (19%), both of which seem high to us. It seems like he’ll have a tough time hitting value in DFS without an early finish here.
Similar to his opponent Tsarukyan, Frevola has yet to really score well in DFS and would also likely need an early finish to do so. Now the biggest underdog on the slate by a wide margin, we think his ownership should be very low. This makes him an interesting tournament leverage play in a spot where we think he has a better chance than the odds suggest. He also averages 3.3 takedowns per 15 minutes, which should help to boost his score. It’s still going to be tough for him to have a big day without a finish, but at his price, a decent score could still potentially be in play.
Amanda Ribas
5th UFC Fight (4-0)After moving up to 125 lb for just one fight to quickly bounce Paige VanZant from the UFC with a R1 Armbar, Ribas is moving back down to her normal 115 lb weight class. She is now 10-1 as a pro and 4-0 in the UFC. She’s no joke, despite the fact that she always seems to be laughing psychotically outside of the Octagon.
Seven of her 10 pro wins have come early, three by KO and four by submission. Two of those submission wins came in the UFC—a R2 Rear-Naked Choke in her 2019 UFC debut and the recent R1 Armbar last July. Her other two wins both ended in decisions, but she was still able to score a respectable 105 DraftKings points in one of those—largely on the back of 173 total strikes and over seven minutes of control time.
A BJJ and Judo black belt, Ribas’ only career loss came in a 2015 R1 KO against Polyana Viana prior to joining the UFC.
Marina Rodriguez
6th UFC Fight (2-1-2)Rodriguez landed her shot in the UFC with a R1 KO on DWCS in 2018, but since then has gone to five straight decisions. Somehow, two of those ended in draws. With a 12-1-2 pro record, Rodriguez has never been finished early and her first career loss came by split decision in her last fight against Carla Esparza. While half of her 12 pro wins ended in decisions, she does have five KOs and a submission win. However, five of those six finishes came in her first six fights against less experienced opponents who entered with records of: 2-0, 0-2, 2-0, 4-3, and 4-5.
Rodriguez is a solid striker who is much more comfortable on her feet. She’s landed just two takedowns in her last six fights, but has outlanded her opponents in significant strikes in five of those six matches. She notably has been taken down eight times in her last two fights, something Ribas is sure to attack early in this match.
Fight Prediction:
Rodriguez will have a 3” height advantage, but Ribas will have a 1” reach advantage.
This should be a high-level fight between two violent women. We expect Ribas to look to get it to ground early and often, where she should have a huge advantage. Rodriguez will desperately want to keep the fight standing up, where she has a striking advantage. We think Ribas likely wins this one in a decision, but she’s fully capable of handing Rodriguez the first early loss of her career by submission.
DFS Implications:
Ribas has six takedowns across her four UFC fights, with at least one in every fight. She lands an above average 4.71 significant strikes per minute and tacks on 2.28 takedowns per 15 minutes. She still hasn’t shown a high enough ceiling to be a lock at her high price, but she’s been a reliable scorer who looks to be a beneficiary of the new DraftKings scoring system. So Ribas is more playable now than she was last year, but her DFS ceiling is still in question at her high price tag. It will be interesting to see how the field treats her.
Rodriguez has faced a series of tough opponents and they’re only getting tougher. If we ever have a chance to play her in a favorable matchup we should jump on it, but this aint it. Her low ownership, cheap price, and high-volume violent striking keep her in play as a low-owned tournament play, but that’s about it. She does throw violent sharp elbows from the bottom, so Ribas will need to be careful if she wants to avoid getting split open.
Makhmud Muradov
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Muradov is now coming off an extended 13 month layoff after he had four straight fights canceled in 2020—twice when his opponents withdrew, once when he withdrew, and once for a canceled COVID event.
On an impressive 13 fight winning streak, Muradov is coming off a magical R3 KO over Trevor Smith, where Muradov transformed Smith’s mouthguard into a frisbee to end the show. For context, the 38-year-old Trevor Smith was on a two fight losing streak coming in, but hadn’t been finished since 2014. That victory for Muradov followed up a decision win in his UFC debut against Alessio Di Chirico.
Nine of Muradov’s last 11 fights have ended early—all by KO. He does have three submission wins on his record but they all came in 2016 or before. He has an impressive 30 pro fights on his record, with only six losses. And four of those losses came in his first eight pro fights—including all three of his submission losses. He most recent two losses were a 2014 decision and a 2016 KO by Clavicle Injury, which was the only time he’s been KO’d.
Andrew Sanchez
9th UFC Fight (5-3)Coming off his first early win in the UFC, Sanchez’s previous four UFC wins had all come in decisions. Notably, all seven of Sanchez’s pre-UFC wins came early, with two submissions and five KOs. He beat Khalil Rountree in a smothering decision in his UFC debut, where he notched 12 minutes of control time in the 15 minute fight. He followed that up with another decision win over Trevor Smith (the guy Muradov just knocked out). Then he was knocked out in the third round in back to back fights against Anthony Smith and Ryan Janes.
He bounced back from the pair of losses with another pair of decision wins, this time over Markus Perez and Marc-Andre Barriault. Then he had a tough matchup against Marvin Vettori, but showed his durability as he fought to a decision loss. And most recently, Sanchez landed a R1 KO over Wellington Turner, who had previously never been finished.
Sanchez has a wrestling background and was a two-time national champion in college. He averages 2.16 takedowns per 15 minutes and it would make sense for him to look to take this fight to the ground.
He notably survived three rounds in the Octagon with several powerful strikers in the past, including Dustin Jacoby, Phil Hawes (Exhibition match), Khalil Rountree, and Marvin Vettori to name a few.
Fight Prediction:
Muradov will have a 1” height and reach advantage.
This should be a good fight. Despite coming off an extended layoff we like Muradov’s chances to win with either a late KO or by decision. However, if Sanchez can get this fight to the ground, we think he has a chance to control the action and potentially win a decision of his own.
DFS Implications:
Muradov had a lot of buzz around him after his 2019 highlight reel KO. It will be interesting to see what effect the extended layoff has on his ownership, if any. With both of his UFC fights making it to the third round, he failed to put up huge scores in either—notching totals of 53 and 97 points on DraftKings. Sanchez is a tough guy to finish so this definitely isn’t an easy matchup, but Muradov is reasonably priced on both DFS sites relative to his upside. This sets up for Muradov to land a decent amount of striking volume, as Sanchez has absorbed the highest average of significant strikes on the slate, while Muradov has landed the eighth most. Muradov has also defended all three takedowns attempted on him, while Sanchez averages 2.16 takedowns per 15 minutes with just a 32% accuracy rate—meaning he averages over 4.5 failed takedown attempts per 15 minutes. That adds to Muradov’s appeal on FanDuel, where he can score on takedowns defended.
Sanchez has scored over 100 points on DraftKings in just two of his eight UFC fights—his first and his last—but he has mixed in some semi-reasonable scores in between. He comes in averaging a respectable 4.57 significant strikes landed per minute (8th best on the slate) and 2.16 takedowns per 15 minutes (10th best on the slate). He looks like a decent underdog play on both sites, but especially on DraftKings based on the new scoring if he can control this fight on the ground. If he wins this fight, we think there’s a great chance he ends up in the optimal DraftKings lineup, with somewhat less of a chance on FanDuel.
Joanne Calderwood
12th UFC Fight (6-5)Calderwood is likely still on tilt after throwing away her title shot in an attempt to stay active when she opted to accept a fight with Jennifer Maia, in an everything to lose, nothing to gain nightmare scenario. She now needs to reprove herself if she wants to work her way back into title contention. In fairness to her, she was stuck in limbo waiting on Shevchenko. They had originally been scheduled to fight back in June, but Shevchenko pulled out due to injury. Not knowing when Shevchenko would finally be healthy enough to fight, Calderwood accepted the Maia fight, which took place two months after that original fight with Shevchenko had been scheduled to happen. She had already been waiting for an extended period of time, with her previous fight happening all the way back in September 2019. It was really just an unfortunate lose lose situation.
Calderwood came into the UFC in 2014 fighting in the Strawweight division (115 lb). However, after going 2-1 in her first three fights she decided to move up to Flyweight (125 lb) for a fight, which she won. She moved back down to 115 lb after the win, but lost two straight to Jessica Andrade and Cynthia Calvillo, and then decided 125 lb was looking a lot better and moved back up. She’s fought her last five fights now at 125 lb where this will be.
Three of Calderwood’s five UFC losses have now come by submission, with a 2015 R1 Armbar, a 2016 R1 Guillotine Choke and then the 2020 R1 Armbar. Her other two UFC losses both came in decisions. Prior to joining the UFC in 2014, she had a perfect 8-0 record with four KO wins and four by decision. Her six UFC wins have consisted of four decisions, one R3 KO and one R1 Triangle Choke Submission. The one KO win she has in the UFC came against Valerie Letourneau who got dropped by the organization in 2016 after three straight losses, including the one to Calderwood. The one submission win came against Kalindra Faria, who has also lost her last three fights and half of her eight career losses have come by submission. So it seems like Calderwood has really only been able to finish lower level competitors. On Saturday, she’ll square off with Jessica Eye, who’s only been finished twice in 24 pro fights.
Jessica Eye
14th UFC Fight (5-7, NC)Coming off a five round decision loss to Cynthia Calvillo, nine of Eye’s last 10 fights have ended in decisions, with the only exception coming in a R2 KO against Valentina Shevchenko. That was just the second time Eye has been finished, the other time was a 2011 R2 Rear-Naked Choke Submission in Eye’s fourth pro fight.
Eye had a rough start to her UFC career, going 1-5 and a “No Contest” in her first seven UFC fights. After losing four straight from 2015 to 2016, she did bounce back with three straight decision wins in 2018, but has since lost two of her last three fights.
In 13 UFC fights, she’s only landed more than 81 significant strikes in a fight one time, which came in her 2019 decision win over Viviane Araujo, where she outlanded Araujo 98-56. Eye also hasn’t landed a takedown in her last four fights, as she’s gone 0 for 4. Eye’s last two wins did notably come against Viviane Araujo and Katlyn Chookagian and her only two losses in her last six fights were against Valentina Shevchenko and Cynthia Calvillo.
Fight Prediction:
Both women are 5’6” but Eye will have a 1” reach advantage.
In a matchup between the #6 ranked Eye and the #7 ranked Calderwood, this will be an important fight to determine the women’s Flyweight rankings as they jockey for position. Both women are 34 years old, coming off losses, and have lost two of their last three fights. The winner will breathe life back into their career, while the loser risks drifting into the abyss with consecutive losses as well as dropping three of their last four. Eye has already taken a shot at the champ and come up short, while Calderwood had her shot cruelly ripped away from her. In a fight that seems destined to end in a decision, you never know if such a narrative could creep into the minds of the judges, but maybe that’s a stretch. In a factual based argument, Calderwood lands far more strikes and takedowns between the two women. And Eye seems highly unlikely to submit Calderwood, which has been her one vulnerability throughout her career. We like Calderwood to win a decision here and think her decision line at +125 is a good play.
DFS Implications:
This seems like a decent buy-low opportunity with Calderwood, but it’s not a great matchup. She’s coming off a bad loss, and has now dropped two of her last three fights with a decision win in between. While she hasn’t topped 96 DraftKings points in her last seven fights, she put up massive back to back 139 and 138 point performances in 2015 and 2016. She’s also topped 100 significant strikes four times in 11 UFC fights and has added on at least two takedowns in each of those matches. Her average of 6.17 significant strikes landed per minute ranks #2 overall on the slate and she tacks on a respectable 1.9 takedowns per 15 minutes. Keep in mind that while Eye is coming off a loss to Calvillo, where she absorbed 113 significant strikes and was taken down four times, that occurred over the course of five rounds. She’s now been taken down eight times in her last three fights combined. Calderwood looks like a solid play on both sites, but really stands out as an exceptional value on FanDuel, where she’s just $15.
Curiously priced the same as Calderwood on FanDuel, despite opening as a slight underdog, Eye should go incredibly low owned over there especially. Why would anyone ever play a lower upside dog, when the favorite can be had for the same price, right? Even knowing her ownership will be at the bottom of the barrel on FanDuel, it’s nearly impossible to get excited about Eye, who’s failed to put up a decent score in her last 10 fights and is unlikely to capitalize on Calderwood’s apparent submission weakness. On DraftKings, Eye hasn’t scored above 72 points in any of her last 10 fights. Eye seems like DFS quicksand. She has enough power that opponents are forced to respect her standup game, which seems to keep the striking volume down in her fights, however, she isn’t so powerful that she’s actually a legitimate threat to knock opponents out. She also lacks the striking volume or ground game to score well in decisions.
Dan Hooker
16th UFC Fight (10-5)Hooker has only been knocked out once in his 29 pro fight career, which came at the hands of Edson Barboza in 2018 from a R3 punch to the body. While he has been submitted twice, both times by Rear-Naked Choke in the second round, those came in 2010 and 2012 prior to joining the UFC. In his last 16 fights, his only early loss was the KO to Barboza.
Of his 20 career wins, 17 have come early, with 10 KOs and 7 submissions. His last three fights have all ended in decisions, however, with the last two going five full rounds.
Hooker is notably the only person to finish Gilbert Burns early. He did so in 2018 with a R1 KO. He also notably beat Paul Felder in a February 2020 decision. While his last three fights all ended in decisions, his six prior to that all ended early.
He started a little slow in the UFC. After joining in 2014, he alternated wins and losses over his first six fights to grind out a 3-3 early UFC record. Since then he’s gone 7-2. Six of his 15 UFC fights have ended in decisions with him winning just two of those. Eight of his 10 UFC wins have come early (6 KOs & 2 Submissions), including five in the first round. Both of his UFC submission wins have come by Guillotine Choke, which speaks to his defensive wrestling ability.
Michael Chandler
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making the switch from three-time Bellator Lightweight Champion to UFC newcomer at 34 years old, Chandler has been waiting on the sidelines for a few months for the right fight to get made with a top ranked opponent. After failing to be able to agree to terms with Tony Ferguson, now Chandler will square off with #6 ranked Dan Hooker.
Despite this being Chandler’s UFC debut, he’s already been through one trip to fight island and all the protocols and preparations that go along with making weight when he was the alternate for the Khabib/Gaethje main event.
Chandler is coming off back to back R1 KO victories and four of his last five fights have ended in the first round, with him winning three of those. Looking a little further back, he’s won 9 of his last 11 fights, but both losses over that period came by R1 TKO. It’s noteworthy that one of those TKO losses was due to a doctor stoppage because of an ankle injury. With a 21-5 pro record, 16 of his wins have come early. Nine of those were by KO and seven were by submission. Three of his five losses were by knockout, while the other two were by decision.
Chandler was a NCAA Division I All-American wrestler at Mizzou. So while most of his recent wins have been by early KOs, he notably has a wrestling background to rely on.
Fight Prediction:
Hooker will have a noticeable 4” height and reach advantage.
With just the one KO loss in his career—caused by a body shot from Edson Barboza—and no submission losses in the last eight years (two prior to that), Hooker is an absolute gladiator. He’s also won 7 of his last 9 fights, with five early finishes over that period, so he’s not a guy you want to overlook. Chandler seems to already have his eyes on a title fight, but he doesn’t appear to be completely overlooking Hooker either. This is a tough one to predict the outcome of, but we’re leaning Chandler wins it, likely in a hard fought decision.
DFS Implications:
Chandler lands an average number of significant strikes, but can also boost his scores from takedowns and wrestling. In addition to that, 76% of his wins have come early, and he clearly wants to make a big first impression in the UFC. We think he’ll be hunting for a R1 finish, but he seems experienced enough not to completely sell out to get it. Hooker has never been finished in the first round and his only KO loss came when Edson Barboza sledge hammered his body for 12 minutes. Chandler looks like a much better play on DraftKings than FanDuel, where he’s relatively cheaper and would likely score better on the ground if it goes there. Chandler seems unlikely to score great in a decision, but his wrestling could potentially keep it somewhat decent. Because of his relatively cheaper DraftKings price, an average scoring win could still be enough to be useful, depending on what the fighters priced around and below him do. That seems far less likely on FanDuel.
Hooker makes for a more interesting play on FanDuel, where he has the potential to score from takedowns defended. After fighting in five round fights his last two times out, his box scores on the DFS sites are inflated as to what we should expect in this three round fight. Casual clickers may overlook that his floor in a three round fight is much lower than it appears at first glance. This is likely to drive up his ownership to some extent. If his past DraftKings scores are any indication, he’ll likely need a finish in the first two rounds to score well. You can get a rough idea of the likelihood that happens in the eyes of the oddsmakers by looking at his current R1 win line of +400 (19%) and his R2 win line of +600 (13%). If Hooker ends up winning a decision, he could potentially still score decently on FanDuel if he racks of a ton of takedowns defended, but it would likely mean this is a fight to fade on DraftKings.
Conor McGregor
13th UFC Fight (10-2)A year after knocking Cerrone out in the first 40 seconds at the 170 lb weight class, McGregor now drops back down to 155 lb to take Poirier on for the second time. Their first matchup was at 145 lb back in 2014 and McGregor knocked Poirier out in 106 seconds. Eight of McGregor’s 10 UFC wins have come by KO, with five of those coming in the first round. Two of those happened in under 60 seconds.
Both of McGregor’s UFC losses were by submission, with a R2 Rear-Naked Choke against Nate Diaz and a R4 Neck Crank against Khabib. McGregor also was submitted twice prior to joining the UFC with a 2008 R1 Kneebar and a 2010 R1 Arm-Triangle Choke.
Prior to his recent R1 win over Cerrone, McGregor had the toughest four fight stretch of his career. It started with a 2016 R2 Rear-Naked Choke loss to Nate Diaz. He did avenge the loss in his next fight, but it came in a five round decision, which is the only time McGregor has been to the fifth round. He did get a R2 KO win over Eddie Alvarez in his next match, but followed that up with a R4 Neck Crank submission loss to Khabib, which ended with the infamous post fight maylay.
McGregor joined the UFC in 2013 in the Featherweight divisions (145 lb), where he started his UFC career off going 7-0. He jumped all the way up to 170 lb for his eight fight against Nate Diaz, which resulted in his first UFC loss. The rematch that McGregor won was also at 170 lb. Then he dropped down to 155 lb for the first time in his win over Alvarez and stayed there for the Khabib fight. He most recently fought back up at 170 lb in the win over Cerrone. Now he’ll be dropping back down to 155 lb where he went 1-1 in 2016 and 2018 with his boxing match against Mayweather happening in 2017.
McGregor has only been to two decisions in his 26 pro fight career and he won them both. The first was against Max Holloway in a 2013 three round fight and the second was against Nate Diaz in their five round match.
Dustin Poirier
24th UFC Fight (18-5)Coming off a five round decision brawl against Dan Hooker last June, Poirier has won 6 of his last seven fights, with the only loss coming to Khabib. His last two wins have both come by decision, but he did have three early finishes prior to those.
Here are his five UFC losses:
2019 R3 Rear-Naked Choke vs. Khabib
2016 R1 KO vs. Michael Johnson
2014 R1 KO vs. Mcgregor
2013 R3 Decision vs. Cub Swanson
2012 R4 Brabo Choke vs. Korean Zombie
Poirier is a solid fighter, but he’s not on the same level as McGregor or Khabib. He’s the John Stockton to their Michael Jordan. Of his 26 career wins, 19 have come early, 12 by KO and 7 by submission. Of his six career losses, four have come early, with two KOs and two submissions. His last three losses have all come early as you can see above.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters stand 5’9” but McGregor will have a 2” reach advantage.
It’s hard to see McGregor losing this fight and considering 19 of his 22 wins have come by KO with his only submission victory happening back in 2012, the McGregor wins by KO line at -180 seems pretty decent. McGregor has only made it past the second round three times in his 26 pro fights, so his R1 KO line at +188 looks really solid and his R2 KO line at +400 is in play as well. Since joining the UFC, five of his KOs have come in the first round and three have come in the second. Both of Poirier’s career KO losses have come in round one.
Looking at the various KO lines a little deeper, if you bet $100 on the anytime KO at -180 you would stand to make $55 profit. And of course, if you bet $100 on the R1 KO line at +188 you would make $188 profit and if you bet $100 on the R2 KO line at +400 you would make $400 (those ones are obvious and don’t require math). Now if you split that $100 into two $50 bets across the R1 and R2 KO lines you would return a net $44 profit on a R1 KO and a net $150 profit on a R2 KO. Obviously you would lose the ability to win on a R3 or later KO that you would get with the overall KO bet.
Another option would be to split your allocation evenly across the KO line at -180 and the R1 KO line at -188. That way if the R1 KO happens both bets hit and you net a profit of $121 on your $100 investment and if the KO happens later in the fight you only lose $23 instead of the full $100.
So just to summarize all that:
KO - $100 Bet = $55 profit
R1 KO - $100 = $188 profit
R2 KO - $100 = $400 profit
R1 KO/R2 KO - $100 (split) = $44 profit on R1 KO or $150 profit on R2 KO
R1 KO/KO - $100 (split) = $121 profit or $23 loss with later KO
After looking at all that, we think the R1 KO line is the best bet at +188, as that’s how we think this fight ends. Just some thoughts, we don’t claim to be experts in UFC betting (yet), as we specialize in DFS, but we do like to dabble.
If Poirier somehow pulled off the upset, which we don’t think he will, his best chance might be to end it with a submission. You can get his submission line at +1125, but again we don’t recommend it.
DFS Implications:
This looks like a main event that you’ll want maximum exposure to—although that will likely be the common conception so fading it in a few lineups is the ultimate high risk play.
McGregor has gone 8-2 in his last 10 fights. Beginning with the most recent, in those eight wins he’s scored 133, 116, 135, 127, 104, 107, 104, and 120 DraftKings points. That’s good for an average of 118.25 points, with a floor of 104 and 135 point ceiling. He’s landed at least one knockdown in each of those wins and has an insane three knockdowns in two of his last three fights. It’s hard to see McGregor losing this fight, and it’s even harder to see him not scoring well in a win. Priced as just the 4th most expensive fighter on DraftKings and the 3rd most expensive on FanDuel, locking McGregor into either all or almost all of your lineups, depending on how many you make, looks like the play here.
Like with every main event, but specifically PPV cards, the media hype train will be trying to convince you that the underdog, Poirier in this case, has a chance to win this fight. That’s their job. Your job is to drown out the noise and not fall in love with Poirier’s dirt cheap DraftKings price tag. Yes, IF he wins he’s an immortal lock to be the optimal, and yes his odds imply he has a 27% chance of that happening. But we think this is an instance where the implied odds are deceiving, and his actual chances of winning are much lower. If throwing in a few hedging Poirier lineups will lower your blood pressure while watching the card, then by all means make a couple, but it seems like he will be owned at a greater rate than his ACTUAL chances of winning. One would think his path to victory would be to try and wrestle with McGregor.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter with your winnings so we can see how you did! @dfs_mma