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Fighter Notes:
Fight #13
Jamall Emmers
6th UFC Fight (2-3)Continuing to trade wins and losses over his last six fights, Emmers is coming off a controversial split-decision loss to Jack Jenkins. The striking numbers were actually almost dead even in the fights, with Jenkins finishing slightly ahead, and both fighters landed one takedown. However, Emmers had two reversals and over four minutes of control time and most people thought he won. Prior to that loss, Emmers won a decision over an undefeated debuting fighter in Khusein Askhabov. Askhabov hadn’t competed in almost three years leading up to that fight, which showed in his cardio as he slowed down considerably in the back half of the fight. Emmers also slowed down in the third round and hadn’t competed in 18 months after injuring his knee in an August 2021 first round heel hook submission loss to Pat Sabatini. That loss came a year after Emmers notched his first UFC win, which came in a decision over short notice replacement Vince Cachero who was fighting up a weight class. Five months prior to that win, Emmers lost a close split decision in his March 2020 UFC debut against Giga Chikadze. Emmers had been scheduled to fight Chas Skelly following the win over Cachero, but just before he was set to walk out for the match he was forced to withdraw due to back spasms that he was suffering backstage. Emmers originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but got knocked out in the second round by a southpaw in Julian Erosa and was forced to return to the regional scene and work his way back up. Emmers also has a 2016 R5 TKO loss to Thiago Moises on his record (at 155 lb), as well as a 2017 decision victory over Cory Sandhagen, and a 2013 decision win over Alexander Hernandez.
Now 19-7 as a pro, Emmers has seven wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and nine decision victories. Of his 10 finishes, four came in round one, three ended in round two, and three came in round three. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted two more times, and has three decision losses. All three of those decision losses were split. Three of his four early losses occurred in the later rounds, with two ending in round two.
Overall, Emmers is a well-rounded fighter with a wrestling background. While he’s pretty decent everywhere, he isn’t really exceptional anywhere. Between his five UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 9 of his 22 takedown attempts (40.9% accuracy), while defending 10 of the 11 attempts against him (90.9% defense). Despite four of his five UFC fights going the distance, the only time Emmers has topped 62 significant strikes landed was when he landed 103 against Vince Cachero, who was making his UFC debut on short notice up a weight class and finished 0-2 in the UFC. We wonder about Emmers’ fight IQ at times, as he’s often content with engaging opponents where they’re the strongest, as we saw him willing to strike against Chikadze and willing to play around on the mat against Sabatini. That resulted in him losing both of those fights, while failing to use his well-roundedness to attack his opponents’ weaknesses.
Dennis Buzukja
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Fighting in front of his home crowd, Buzukja will be looking to bounce back from a decision loss in his recent short notice UFC debut against Sean Woodson. Buzukja got outclassed everywhere in that fight, as Woodson outlanded him 71-42 in significant strikes and 163-46 in total strikes, while also finishing ahead 4-0 in takedowns and 5:52-2:30 in control time. That’s pretty embarrassing for Buzukja considering Woodson is a one-dimensional boxer and Buzukja trains with a bunch of solid wrestlers. It wasn’t easy for Buzukja to make it to the UFC, as he went on DWCS twice and didn’t get a contract either time. He originally went on the show in 2020 and lost a decision to Melsik Baghdasaryan. Buzukja then returned to the regional scene and won three straight fights before they brought him back on DWCS in 2022. Buzukja won a low-volume decision that time around, but it wasn’t enough to get him a contract and he once again returned to the regional scene and won three more fights before finally getting the call up from the UFC. Just keep in mind, Buzukja had been facing a lot of really low-level opponents on the regional scene and his last win came against a fighter who has gone 2-4-1 in his last seven fights. And just before that, Buzukja beat a guy who came in on a four fight losing streak. Those are the only two opponents he’s finished in his last six fights and he’s never put away anyone decent.
Now 11-3 as a pro, Buzukja has four KO/TKO wins, one submission, and six decision victories. All five of his finishes ended in under seven minutes, with four of those coming in round one. He’s never been finished himself, with all three of his losses going the distance. Buzukja started his career at 155 lb before dropping down to 145 lb in his third pro fight.
Overall, Buzukja is a young 26-year-old fighter who trains at Serra-Longo Fight Team in New York with Aljamain Sterling, Merab Dvalishvili, Nazim Sadykhov, and Matt Frevola. While Buzukja has shown some improvements over the last few years and is decently well rounded, he hasn’t stood out anywhere and he’s struggled whenever facing non-terrible competition. To his credit, he has at least been durable. He was unimpressive in each of his two DWCS matches, but didn’t look as bad the second time around. He then looked better in his last two fights, but that’s likely because he was facing much worse competition.
He’s a karate brown belt and will also mix in some wrestling. Between his two DWCS appearances and his recent UFC debut, he landed 3 of his 10 takedown attempts (30% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 5 of their 19 attempts (73.7% defense). Buzukja missed weight by half a pound for his last fight, so he’ll be a guy to monitor on the scale. In fairness, he took that fight on four days’ notice.
Fight Prediction:
Emmers will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while Buzukja is eight years younger than the 34-year-old Emmers.
Emmers has Buzukja outclassed everywhere, but has a tendency to make fights closer than they need to be. That’s slightly concerning since this fight will take place in Buzukja’s backyard, but Emmers would have to pull a real stunt to blow this. Buzukja has done nothing to show that he belongs in the UFC and has only found success against low-level opponents. To his credit, he has at least been durable, and Emmers has yet to finish anyone in the UFC. Emmers should be able to lean on his wrestling to grind out a decision win, although he’s often been reluctant to fully utilize that aspect of his game. So a decision could be closer than it needs to be, but Emmers by decision will be our pick nevertheless.
Our favorite bet here is “Jamall Emmers DEC” at -105.
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DFS Implications:
Emmers has averaged 91 DraftKings points in his two UFC wins, with both of those fights going the distance. He only scored 72 points in his most recent victory, after putting up 109 DraftKings points in his previous decision win. Just keep in mind, that came against a very suspect Vince Cachero, who was making his short notice UFC debut up a weight class and finished 0-2 with the organization. That high-scoring win was all the way back in August 2020, so it’s been a while since Emmers was relevant in DFS. The last time Emmers finished anybody was in a 2020 LFA fight just before he made his UFC debut and has yet to show any finishing ability at the UFC level. While Emmers arguably should have won the decision in his last fight, he still only would have scored 79 DraftKings points even if it had gone his way. Now he’s facing a step down in competition, but Buzukja has never been finished in his career and Emmers will be traveling into enemy territory. While Emmers will be the superior wrestler in this matchup, he’s been reluctant to fully utilize that element of his game and often makes fights closer than they need to be. As the second most expensive fighter on the card, it’s hard to see him returning value very often in this spot and he’ll need everything to go right for him to end up in tournament winning lineups. The one thing he has going for him is that he’ll be lower owned, but that’s not enough to get us very excited about playing him. The odds imply Emmers has a 68% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Buzukja hasn’t done much to impress us and he failed to secure a contract in two appearances on DWCS, both of which went the distance (1-1). He also looked terrible in a decision loss in his recent short notice UFC debut and has only found success in his career beating up on low-level opponents on the regional scene. Now he’s facing a tough opponent in Emmers, who has a 90% takedown defense and hasn‘t been knocked out since 2018. In Buzukja’s decision win on DWCS, he only would have scored 77 DraftKings points and 67 points on FanDuel, despite landing a knockdown in the fight. So even at his cheap price tag, he likely needs a finish here to be useful. While he will have the home crowd behind him, Buzukja looks like nothing more than a hail mary KO or bust play in a tough matchup. The odds imply Buzukja has a 32% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #12
Joshua Van
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Van is coming off an impressive decision win in his recent short notice UFC debut against Zhalgas Zhumagulov, where he outlanded Zhumagulov 120-103 in significant strikes and stuffed four of his five takedown attempts. Van showed off improved defensive wrestling in that fight, in addition to his crisp striking. That was the first time Van had ever been past the second round, after his first eight pro fights all ended early (7-1) with Fury FC. He won the Fury FC Flyweight belt in the last of those fights with a second round submission.
Now 8-1 as a pro, Van has five wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and one decision victory. All seven of his finishes came in the first two rounds, with two in round one, and five in round two, and his last three finishes all occurred in the second round. He was also submitted in the second round in his lone pro loss, which occurred in 2021 in his third pro fight. He faced a lot of questionable competition before joining the UFC, with only two of his opponents coming in with more than two pro wins.
Overall, Van is a 22-year-old Burmese kickboxer who says he only started training a few years ago, and only turned pro in October 2021. That shows in his wrestling, which is a work in progress, but he’s already made a lot of improvements to his takedown defense from what we could see in his UFC debut. In fairness, that was against Zhalgas Zhumagulov, who has just a 19% career takedown accuracy. Van has shown some ability to look for submissions when the opportunities present themselves, but he generally relies on his striking. Van barely cuts any weight and would often come in well under the limit on the regional scene. He said in a recent interview that he only had to cut 3 lb for his last fight and that he can eat whatever he wants and have no problem making weight. He’s a teammate of Daniel Pineda, who will be in his corner for this fight and in true Pineda fashion, Van is calling for a R1 KO win.
Kevin Borjas
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Fresh off a decision win on DWCS, Borjas came out victorious despite getting taken down five times and controlled for eight minutes. While he struggled on the mat, he was able to lead the striking exchanges on the feet, finishing ahead 87-43 in significant strikes, and did way more damage.
Now 9-1 as a pro, Borjas has eight KO/TKO wins and one decision victory. He has five first round finishes, two in round two, and one in round four. His only career loss was a 2019 R2 submission. While 5 of his 10 career fights ended in round one, his last three and four of his last five fights made it to the second round. A lot of his wins came against opponents with little to no experience and he only has four wins against opponents with winning records. Borjas has competed at both 125 lb and 135 lb, and his lone loss actually took place at a 139 lb Catchweight. However, his last four fights have all been at 125 lb, where he’ll stay for his UFC debut.
Overall, Borjas is a pure striker who relies mostly on his boxing to win fights. He’s spent his entire career on the smaller Peruvian regional scene, so he comes into the UFC as a bit of an unknown. He doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling and looks pretty lost on the mat, but he throws with bad intentions on the feet and has heavy hands for the Flyweight division. He got taken down by his opponent 5 times on 12 attempts on DWCS (58% defense). He will mix in knees as well, but he’s mostly looking to knock opponents out with his hands. He fights fearlessly and has no problem throwing down in a brawl, so he should make for exciting fights when paired up against another striker, which is exactly what he’ll get in his UFC debut. He’s also still only 25 years old and should constantly be improving, although it’s only been three months since he won on DWCS.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’5”, but Borjas will have a 3” reach advantage and is three years older than Van.
This sets up as an exciting striking battle that the UFC has tried to put together more than once. These two had originally been scheduled to face one another on DWCS in August before Van got signed straight to the UFC in late June and Borjas was forced to find a new opponent. So clearly the UFC sees something they like and we totally get it. Both of these two are high-paced strikers with no real grappling and they should put on an exciting show. Van looks like the more technical striker, while Borjas has more power. And while neither one of them offers much on the mat, Van does have the advantage in that department as well. Van fights at his natural weight, while Borjas has competed up at 135 lb in the past, so Borjas could have the size advantage, even if they are the same height. Van called his shot saying he’s going to knock Borjas out in the first round, but if he gets overly aggressive looking for the finish he could definitely walk onto something and be the one that gets knocked out. They’re both so unproven that it’s hard to know just how durable they are and how they’ll hold up on a massive PPV card at Madison Square Garden, but neither one of them has ever been knocked out. Van at least has one UFC fight under his belt and looked good there as he pulled off the upset, so it’s understandable why he’s the favorite. However, we’re expecting a high-paced striking battle and both fighters appear capable of finishing the other. The line seems a little wide considering how green both guys are and the power that Borjas possesses, so we don’t mind taking a dog shot on Borjas here. However, if things get hairy for Van he always has the option to look for a takedown, which provides him with somewhat of a safety net and an additional tool to help him win a decision. The oddsmakers are expecting this one to end early more often than not and it won’t be that surprising if they’re right. However, we like it to end in a close decision, and we slightly lean towards Van getting his hand raised.
Our favorite bet here is “Van/Borjas FGTD” at +125.
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DFS Implications:
Van impressively pulled off the upset in his recent short notice UFC debut against Zhalgas Zhumagulov, while landing 120 significant strikes, but still only scored 80 DraftKings points and 92 points on FanDuel in the decision win. While he has the ability to put up big striking totals he doesn’t offer much in the way of grappling. That leaves him reliant on either landing a finish or putting up an astronomical striking total to return value at his high price tag here. And while we are expecting a high-paced brawl, Borjas has never been knocked out and will be throwing bombs at Van. That means Van will have to be careful not to eat too many shots and he can’t be completely reckless. Neither guy has ever been knocked out, which makes it tougher to confidently predict a finish and only 29% of Flyweight fights have ended in knockouts over the last couple of years. The winner of this fight will have a solid scoring floor based on pure striking volume alone, but we don’t see Van being useful without a finish. The odds imply Van has a 66% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Borjas had a 100% finishing rate when he was fighting on the Peruvian regional scene, but finally saw the judges for the first time in his recent win on DWCS. He showed a gaping hole in his grappling in that match, as he got taken down five times and controlled for eight minutes. However, he was able to do enough with his striking to still pull off the upset. That win only would have scored 79 DraftKings points and 72 points on FanDuel, but in fairness, he did get controlled for half the fight. In space on the feet, he showed the ability to quickly rack up a big striking total and also has solid power in his hands. While we expect him to struggle against grapplers in the UFC, they’ve given him a great matchup here against a fellow striker. We just saw Zhalgas Zhumagulov land 103 significant strikes against Van, which is encouraging for Borjas’s potential. These two should skip right over any grappling formalities and go straight to face punching, which leaves the winner with a solid volume driven scoring floor. While the ceiling is more uncertain, that’s less significant for Borjas compared to Van, given his cheap price tag. Borjas also looks to have the superior power and has the potential to knock Van out. Borjas won’t get many matchups this favorable in the UFC against opponents with grappling as poor as Van’s, so this may be one of the few times that Borjas is actually playable. This isn’t a guy you want to be late on, and we’ll likely be looking to fade him in the future when he faces anyone that can grapple. And that’s not to say he will win this fight, but he definitely can, so he’s a decent value play in DFS. The odds imply Borjas has a 34% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
John Castaneda
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Coming off his first decision win in the UFC, Castaneda defeated UFC newcomer Muin Gafurov with a combination of striking and wrestling, landing three takedowns and a knockdown in the fight. Prior to that, Castaneda suffered a second round knockout loss to Daniel Santos, after nearly finishing Santos at multiple points in the first round. That came just after Castaneda landed a third round submission over Miles Johns after knocking out a washed up Eddie Wineland in the first round a year earlier. Looking back one fight further, Castaneda lost a decision in his July 2020 UFC debut against a really tough Nathaniel Wood. Castaneda also notably finished Marcelo Rojo and Gustavo Lopez earlier in his career. Castaneda won a decision on DWCS back in 2017, but it wasn’t enough to get him into the UFC and he had to return to the regional scene before finally getting the call up in 2020.
Now 20-6 as a pro, Castaneda has eight wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and six decisions. He’s been knocked out twice and has four decision defeats. Castaneda made his 2012 pro debut at 155 lb, before dropping down to 135 lb shortly thereafter. He’s also competed at 145 lb some, but most of his career has taken place at 135 lb.
Overall, Castaneda is a well rounded fighter with a wrestling background. Between his five UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 8 takedowns on 21 attempts (38.1% accuracy), while his opponents got him down six times on 21 attempts (71.4% defense). He’s used his wrestling sporadically, and after landing two of his seven attempts on DWCS, he failed to land a takedown on just two attempts over his first three UFC fights, before landing three takedowns in each of his last two matches. So the ability is there, but he’s also been content with keeping fights standing at times. Leading up to his last fight he said he spent a decent amount of time training in Thailand, where he claimed to have improved his grappling more than anything else. He also said he had been trying to juggle another full-time job outside of the UFC leading up to that camp, but he finally gave it up to focus entirely on fighting.
Kyung Ho Kang
13th UFC Fight (8-3, NC)Kang recently locked up a first round submission against Cristian Quinonez, after fighting to four straight decisions (3-1) before that. Kang nearly knocked Quinonez out before ultimately submitting him midway through the first round in a club and sub. That win came a year after Kang won a decision over Batgerel Danaa, after losing a decision to Rani Yahya, which is Kang’s only defeat in his last six outings. Leading up to that loss, Kang took all of 2020 off following a pair of split decision wins in 2019. Amazingly four of Kang’s last six decisions were split (3-1). Kang’s last 17 fights all either went the distance (4-4, NC) or ended in submissions (8-0), and no one has been knocked out in one of his matches since a 2011 R1 TKO win. Kang’s 2013 UFC debut ended in a split decision loss to Alex Caceres, but it was overturned to a No Contest when Caceres tested positive for THC or else Kang would have another split decision on his UFC record. Kang didn’t fight at all in 2015-2017 as he performed his mandatory South Korean military service.
Now 19-9 as a pro, Kang has two wins by R1 TKO, 12 submissions, and five decision victories. Six of his submission wins ended in round one, three came in round two, and two ended in round three, but his last three submissions all came in round one. He’s been knocked out once (R1 2008), submitted once (R1 2011), has one DQ loss (R1 2010), and has six decision losses. All 12 of Kang’s UFC fights either ended in submissions (4-0) or decisions (4-3, NC) and most of those submission wins came against pretty questionable opponents. Kang has decent size for the division and started his pro career at 154 lb in 2007, but has been at 135 lb since 2011.
Overall, Kang offers a solid combination of striking and grappling that makes him a tough opponent to deal with. While he historically relied more on his grappling to win fights, he only landed one takedown on just three attempts in his last three matches combined and has been more comfortable keeping fights standing. Prior to those three matches, he had landed at least one takedown in five straight fights. Looking at his entire 12 fight UFC career, he landed 20 of his 35 takedown attempts (57.1% accuracy), while his opponents got him down nine times on 30 attempts (70% defense). While his defense looks pretty solid on paper, five of the last six opponents who tried to take him down were successful. While Kang only averages 3.09 SSL/min, he landed a career best 100 significant strikes in his last decision and has looked good on the feet recently.
Fight Prediction:
Kang will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while Castaneda is five years younger than the 36-year-old Kang.
This is a compelling matchup between two talented and well-rounded fighters. They both come from grappling backgrounds and good takedown defenses, so we could see this turn into more of a striking battle. It’s been 12 years since one of Kang’s fights ended in a knockout, but both guys are dangerous strikers and we nearly saw Kang land a knockout in his last fight, before finishing things with a submission instead. Kang has a good jab, which when combined with his size advantage could give Castaneda trouble finding his range, while also allowing Kang to pull ahead in the striking total. This fight got moved from 135 lb to a 138 lb Catchweight mid fight week, and while it wasn’t said who requested the additional weight allowance, we’d be shocked if it wasn’t Castaneda, as he’s struggled with his weight at multiple points in the past and this isn’t the first time he’s done this. Castaneda’s second most recent fight also got moved from 135 lb to 140 lb mid fight week and then Castaneda went on to gas out in the second round and get finished by Daniel Santos. After that fight, he said in an interview that he had been dealing with an illness leading up to the fight that forced him to be on antibiotics, which is why he asked for the Catchweight. So we’re beginning to see a pattern with Castaneda requesting Catchweights mid fight week and even before he joined the UFC he had multiple weight misses and Catchweight fights. After he gassed out in his last Catchweight match, we have some concerns with his cardio in this fight. That could increase the chances of Kang landing a late finish, although to Castaneda’s credit, he’s never been submitted. We also like Kang’s chances if this hits the scorecards and we see multiple paths to victory for him. And while Castaneda has been dangerous, Kang hasn’t been finished since 2011 and has been extremely durable. So we’re taking the underdog in Kang here and we’ll say he wins by decision, although a finish would not be shocking.
Our favorite bet here is “Kang’s ML” at +116.
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DFS Implications:
Castaneda has averaged 95 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, although only scored 85 and 83 points respectively in his last two victories. The one time he really scored well was in a 2021 R1 KO over the corpse of Eddie Wineland. He followed that up with a third round submission win over Miles Johns that was only good for 83 points, while his recent decision victory scored 85 points on DraftKings. In between those two wins, he got finished in the second round by Daniel Santos after Castaneda nearly finished Santos at multiple points in round one in what was looking like it was going to be a slate-breaking score. Even in the second round TKO loss, Castaneda scored 54 DraftKings points. While that’s encouraging for his scoring potential, the fact that he gassed out in round two is concerning, especially when you realize that he requested that fight be moved from 135 lb to 140 lb Catchweight mid fight week and now it appears he did the same thing for this next fight, which was moved from 135 lb to 138 lb Catchweight just a few days ago. He blamed the last weight struggles on antibiotics, but we’ve seen no mention of what’s going on here. That leaves some uncertainty surrounding him as he takes on a tough opponent in Kyung Ho Kang, who hasn’t been finished since 2011. Castaneda’s ML has also moved from -165 to -135 since Monday, which is another red flag and an indicator that something could be going on with him. That leaves him as a volatile option with a wide range of potential scoring outcomes. While he has shown a solid ceiling, he’s never hit it against a decent opponent and this looks like a really tough matchup for him. The best thing he has going for him is that he’ll be low-owned, but we’d be careful here. The odds imply Castaneda has a 55% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Kang has averaged 97 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, with four of those ending in submissions and four going the distance. His last three submissions all ended in the first round, including in his recent win that lasted just 145 seconds. However, his three wins prior to that all went the distance, and his second most recent submission victory was all the way back in 2019. Most of Kang’s finishes have come against a lower level of competition and Castaneda has never been submitted and has a wrestling background. That could make it tougher for Kang to find a finish here, unless Castaneda gasses out, which is certainly possible with all of the uncertainty surrounding the Catchweight request. Kang failed to land any takedowns in his last decision win, and despite setting a career high in significant strikes landed (100), he only scored 70 DraftKings points in the win. He landed three takedowns and a large amount of control time in each of his two decision wins before that, scoring 93 and 100 DraftKings points respectively, but in his one other decision victory where he failed to land a takedown he only scored 57 points. Considering Castaneda has a wrestling background and a 70% takedown defense, it could be harder for Kang to do enough on the mat to really score well in a decision here. While Castaneda did get taken down in three of his five UFC fights and in his DWCS appearance, he wasn’t controlled for any appreciable amount of time in any of those matches. At Kang’s cheaper price tag, he may not need to put up a huge score to end up in winning lineups, but there are certainly ways he wins and still gets left out in a decision victory. So he’ll be more reliant on landing a finish to put up a big score. Considering Kang hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2011 and Castaneda has never been submitted, at least on paper it doesn't look like the best spot for Kang to land a finish. However, if Castaneda gasses out then anything’s possible. Kang opened the week as a+135 underdog, but the line has been moving in his favor and is now +110 as of Friday evening, leaving him massively underpriced at just $7,400 on Draftkings. The odds imply Kang has a 45% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Jared Gordon
14th UFC Fight (7-5, NC)Fighting in his home city of New York for the first time in the UFC, Gordon was born in Manhattan and grew up in Queens. And in a twisted fairytale story he went from shooting heroin in the subway under Madison Square Garden, to taking part in a major PPV in the Garden. Gordon is coming off an unfortunate No Contest resulting from a clash of heads against Bobby Green. Following the clash, Green knocked Gordon out, adding insult to injury. Gordon then stepped into a short notice matchup against Jim Miller just six weeks later, but he got pulled from the card after publicly saying he was concussed in the Green fight. Prior to the No Contest, Gordon lost a controversial decision to Paddy Pimblett that most people thought he won. Gordon’s only win in his last four fights came in a 2022 decision against an aging Leonardo Santos, which came just after he got submitted in the third round by Grant Dawson. Prior to suffering the only submission loss of his career to Dawson, Gordon won three straight decisions and his last six wins all went the distance, after he landed a second round knockout in his 2017 UFC debut. While all of his recent wins have come with the judges, four of his five UFC losses ended early, including three knockouts.
Now 19-6 as a pro, Gordon has six wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and 11 decisions. All but one of his early wins occurred prior to joining the UFC, and he doesn’t look like much of a threat to finish fights at the UFC level. He’s been knocked out four times, submitted once, and has one decision defeat. Gordon has competed anywhere between 145 lb and 155 lb in his career, but all of his UFC fights have taken place at either 149-150 lb Catchweight (3-0) or 155 lb (4-5). His debut was against a 145 lb opponent, although Gordon weighed in at 149 lb and the fight ended up technically being a Catchweight match. Gordon consistently struggled when he tried to make 145 lb, and it appears he’s finally stopped trying as his last few fights have all been at 155 lb. Gordon is just 4-5 with a No Contest at 155 lb in the UFC.
Overall, Gordon is decently well rounded but really excels when he can get fights to the mat and go to town with his ground and pound. He generally relies on making fights dirty and using his experience to grind out decision wins as he simply wears on his opponents, whether it be on the mat or the cage. While he’s a BJJ brown belt, he only has one submission win in his last 25 fights, which was in 2016 before he joined the UFC. Gordon made the switch in teams from Roufusport to Kill Cliff FC in 2019 following his knockout loss to Charles Oliveira and has since gone 4-2 plus a No Contest. In his 13 UFC fights, Gordon landed 20 takedowns on 50 attempts (40% accuracy), while getting taken down by his opponents 15 times on 40 attempts (62.5% defense). He’s 1-3 plus a NC when he’s failed to land a takedown, but 6-2 when he’s landed at least one. The only UFC fight he won without landing a takedown was against an aging high-level BJJ black belt in Leonardo Santos and Gordon wisely never tried to take him down.
Mark Madsen
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Now 39 years old and a year removed from the first loss of his career, Madsen got submitted in the third round by Grant Dawson the last time we saw him. Madesen got dominated from start to finish in that match, as Dawson took him down twice, knocked him down once, and controlled him for nine and half of the 12 minutes before locking up a rear-naked choke. Dawson also finished ahead in significant strikes 33-15 and in total strikes 73-50. Prior to that loss, Madsen won three straight decisions, with the last two of those being incredibly close, after landing a first round TKO in his 2019 UFC debut against a highly suspect Danilo Belluardo. That’s the only time Madsen finished anybody in the UFC, with his previous finish coming just before his UFC debut against an opponent fighting for the first and only time as a pro. The other four finishes of Madsen’s career came in his first four pro fights, with two of those occurring back in 2013 and 2014 when he was fighting at 168 lb. Those four finishes came against opponents who entered with records of 0-1, 0-0, 1-0, and 9-8. So we’ve yet to see Madsen finish anyone decent.
Now 12-1 as a pro, Madsen has three KO/TKOs, three submissions, and six decision wins. All six of his finishes occurred in the first round, while six of his seven fights to see round two ended in decision wins, with the other being his one career loss, which ended in a third round submission. His last four fights all made it to the third round, with three going the distance. Madsen started off competing at 170 lb until he joined the UFC and dropped down to 155 lb. He had previously wrestled at 163-165 lb.
Overall, Madesen has tons of wrestling experience, including an Olympic silver medal in Greco-Roman Wrestling, but he switched to MMA late in his career. While he did have a pair of pro MMA fights back in 2013 and 2014, he didn’t really fully commit to MMA until after the 2016 Olympics and his third pro MMA fight was just in 2018. Madsen did show some improvements to his striking and cardio during his time in Arizona, but he’s still not great in either of those areas. In his five UFC fights, Madsen landed 12 of his 18 takedowns attempts (66.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 3 of their 8 attempts (62.5% defense). Madsen relocated from Denmark to Arizona to train full time at Fight Ready for his last few fights, but he recently said that the heat in Arizona was causing problems for his wife’s MS, which caused them to move back to Denmark after his last loss. So he’ll have a new team for this one and he said that he spent a few weeks training with Firas Zahabi, who will be in his corner for this upcoming match.
Fight Prediction:
Gordon will have a 1” height advantage, but Madsen will have a 4” reach advantage. Gordon is four years younger than the 39-year-old Madsen.
This is the rare matchup between the two guys with the most depressing life stories who insist on talking about their struggles in every interview they’ve ever done. Name a place and Gordon will tell you about how he shot heroin there, while Madsen can’t finish a sentence without bringing up his wife’s MS and how hard his life is. Anyways…both of these two are generally looking to get fights to the ground and neither of them are exception strikers. However, Gordon has the advantage there, in addition to having much better cardio. It will be interesting to see if Gordon looks for any takedowns or if he’s content with keeping it standing. The same can be said for Madsen to some extent, although we’d be more surprised if he didn’t look for any takedowns. With that said, he does have a new team around him and Firas Zahabi is typically preaching patience. So we could see Madsen patiently work behind his jab to try and preserve his cardio, although it’s hard to know what exactly his approach will be. We don’t think Madeson has the gas tank to wrestle for 15 minutes and he’s not dangerous enough to get Gordon out of there unless he lands the perfect shot. So he’ll need to slow the pace down and try to win a low-volume decision to pull off the upset. We’d be surprised if Gordon lets that happen, as he’s typically looking to push the pace and wear opponents down. This is a good matchup for him to execute that strategy and even if he’s not landing takedowns we could see him just pushing Madsen up against the cage and wearing on him with clinch strikes. It’s not impossible that Gordon could find a late finish if Madsen completely gasses out, but Gordon’s last six wins all went the distance and another decision victory is the most likely outcome, especially in front of his home crowd, which could help to sway the judges if the fight is close. Gordon by decision is the pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Jared Gordon DEC” at +137.
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DFS Implications:
Gordon has averaged 106 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, despite the last six of those ending in decisions. He only failed to score 95 or more points in one of those victories, and has shown a really solid floor whenever he wins. However, he’s also been prone to getting finished and five of his six career losses came early. So while he’s shown a solid floor when he wins, that’s not the case when he loses and he scored seven or fewer DraftKings points in three of his five UFC losses. His lack of finishing ability leaves him reliant on filling up the stat sheet to score well and he’s a DraftKings specific play who props up his scoring with large amounts of control time and ground/clinch strikes. His last three wins averaged 90 DraftKings points, but just 76 points on FanDuel. This looks like a tougher matchup for him to find the ground domination he needs to really put up a big score as he faces a former Olympic wrestler who should be harder to take down. Maybe Gordon can just hold him up against the fence and rack up total strikes, the way he did against Leonardo Santos, but at his high price tag it will be tougher for him to crack the optimal lineup that way and he likely needs a finish. We have seen Madsen gas out in the third round and he just got finished in the third round of his last fight, so it’s not impossible that Gordon can force his first stoppage since his 2017 UFC debut, especially with the home crowd behind him. And at his low ownership, Gordon is somewhat of an interesting DraftKings specific tournament play. The odds imply Gordon has a 66% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Madsen is 39 years old and will have a new team around him for this fight, which adds some volatility to the mix. In recent fights, he’s settled into grinding out close, slower paced, lower scoring decisions after a hot start to his UFC career that included a first round TKO win that scored 106 DraftKings points, followed by an eight takedown performance that scored 91 points in a decision win. Since then, he scored just 71 and 74 DraftKings points in his last two slower paced decision wins, landing a combined three takedowns in those fights. He then suffered his first career loss in his last match when he got submitted in the third round by Grant Dawson. Madsen had delusions of winning a UFC title before that, but you have to imagine that reality came at him hard following the loss. He seemingly packed in his dream as he moved back to Denmark and is no longer training at Fight Ready, a gym he had sold as being the place he needed to be to get him to the top. Any fight could be Madsen’s last at this stage in his career, so it’s hard to know where his head’s at. Gordon has pretty good wrestling so it’s hard to see Madsen just dominating him on the mat, not that Madsen even has the cardio to do that for 15 minutes. That likely leaves Madsen reliant on landing a hail mary knockout and he hasn’t looked very dangerous. The odds imply Madsen has a 34% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Nazim Sadykhov
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Fresh off a second round submission win over Terrance McKinney, Sadykhov has won nine straight fights since getting submitted in the first round of his 2018 pro debut. Eight of those nine wins ended early, and interestingly, five of his last six finishes came in the later rounds, with four in round three. Sadykhov looked to be in trouble early against McKinney, as he got taken down early and quickly had his back taken. McKinney controlled Sadykhov for over four minutes in the first round. McKinney unsuccessfully tried to get the fight back to the mat in round two, but Sadykhov was able to end up on top and then quickly locked up a rear-naked choke of his own to end the fight. Prior to that recent victory, Sadykhov was very fortunate to come away with a R3 TKO win in his UFC debut against Evan Elder. Sadykhov lost the first two rounds on all three score cards but then the fight was stopped by the doctor in R3 due to a cut above Elder’s eye. Elder finished the fight ahead in striking and also knocked Sadykhov down in the first round, while each fighter landed a takedown. Just before making his UFC debut, he landed a third round knockout on DWCS and four of his last five finishes ended in KO/TKOs.
Now 9-1 as a pro, Sadykhov has six wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and one decision victory. Three of his finishes came in round one, one ended in round two, and the other four ending in round three. The only loss of his career was a first round submission in his 2018 pro debut. Sadykhov didn’t face much in the way of competition before he joined the UFC, and his first six pro opponents had six combined pro wins between them.
Overall, Sadykhov looks decently well rounded, but also not overly impressive. He’s got some power in his striking and decent wrestling, but he’s not the quickest and he looked a step behind in a lot of the striking exchanges in his fight against Evan Elder. Sadykhov’s takedown defense has been fairly solid, and between his DWCS fight and his two UFC fights he was taken down by his opponents on 5 of their 20 attempts (75% defense). However, he’s struggled with being controlled at times, especially along the cage. He only attempted one takedown of his own in his last three fights, which he landed against Evan Elder, but wasn’t able to control him for any appreciable amount of time and only finished that fight with 19 seconds of total control time. Sadykhov said he started training karate as a kid before moving onto Combat Sambo, Judo, and kickboxing. He has a shorter 69” reach, so it will be interesting to see how he fairs against higher level strikers who can stay on the outside. Sadykhov will have the crowd behind him as he trains at Longo And Weidman MMA with guys like Aljamain Sterling, Merab Dvalishvili, Matt Frevola, and Dennis Buzukja. Sadykhov said Frevola was his main training partner for this fight.
Viacheslav Borshchev
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Borshchev recently saved his job with a second round TKO win over a fellow one-dimensional striker in Maheshate. Borshchev put on a striking clinic in that match, outlanding Maheshate 85-32 in significant strikes, while tacking on three knockdowns, in a fight that lasted just over a round and a half. Prior to that win, Borshchev got dominated on the mat in back-to-back decision losses to Mike Davis and Marc Diakiese, where he got taken down 20 total times and controlled for over 20 minutes. Leading up to those losses, Borshchev knocked out four straight opponents in the first two rounds, including a second round finish on DWCS against Chris Duncan followed by a first round knockout in his January 2022 UFC debut against Dakota Bush.
Now 7-3 as a pro, Borshchev has six wins by KO/TKO and one decision victory. Three of those knockouts came in round one, with the other three ending in round two. His line decision win was in his second pro fight and his last five victories all ended in knockouts. He’s never been finished, with all three of his losses going the distance.
Overall, Borshchev is a one-dimensional striker and former Russian Kickboxing champion with literally hundreds of kickboxing matches on his resume. He’s still relatively new to MMA, as he only turned pro in 2019 and his wrestling—or lack thereof—is clearly a massive weakness. He’s a kickboxing coach at Team Alpha Male, and claims he’s been working on improving his defensive grappling, but that work hasn’t translated to the Octagon as he’s been taken down 24 times on 37 attempts (35.1% defense) between his four UFC fights and his DWCS match. He’s never attempted a takedown of his own and offers nothing in terms of offensive grappling. While Borshchev’s appearance is somewhat unimposing, he’s a really dangerous striker who does a great job of ripping shots to the body of his opponents, frequently targeting the liver. He’s an absolute problem when he can keep fights standing, but he’s helpless when he can’t.
Fight Prediction:
Borshchev will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 69” reach. Sadykhov is two years younger than the 31-year-old Borshchev.
Sadykhov claims he doesn’t need to rush the wrestling in this matchup, despite acknowledging that as a glaring hole in Borshchev’s game. We’ll see if he’s just saying that to keep Borshchev guessing or if he’s actually that stupid. If this fight remains standing, Borshchev will absolutely torch Sadykhov. Considering that Sadykhov trains with several high level wrestlers and will have Aljamain Sterling in his corner for this matchup, we’d be pretty surprised if he didn’t look to focus his gameplan around his wrestling. With that, he only attempted one takedown in his last three fights, which he landed but wasn’t able to do anything with. However, he was able to land some takedowns on the regional scene back in 2020 and 2021, so it’s not like he can’t wrestle. He also just submitted Terrance McKinney on the mat, although that was just the second submission win of his career and it occurred after McKinney’s first round expiration date. So it’s somewhat hard to gauge how good Sadykhov’s wrestling and submission skills actually are right now, but they don’t need to be great to find success against Borshchev. In fairness to Borshchev, he’s never been finished on the mat, he just really struggles with being taken down and controlled. With that said, he also hasn’t faced any dangerous submission threats as two guys to dominate him on the mat were Mike Davis and Marc Diakiese, both of whom only have one career submission win. So it’s certainly possible that Sadykhov could lock up a submission, but the more likely path to victory for him will be to grind out a wrestling-heavy decision. Borshchev, on the other hand, is pretty much always a KO or bust fighter and will need to hand Sadykhov the first knockout loss of his career in the time the fight remains standing. The oddsmakers are giving Borshchev around a 30% chance of landing a knockout, which seems fair. Sadykhov would have to be really dumb or really bad at wrestling to lose this fight, so we’ll tentatively pick him to win, but we really haven’t been very impressed by him to this point and this is just a bet against the terrible takedown defense of Borshchev.
Our favorite bet here is “Nazim Sadykhov SUB or DEC” at +150.
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DFS Implications:
Sadykhov finished each of his first two UFC opponents, but only returned DraftKings scores of 82 and 78 points respectively in those wins. Most of his finishes have come later on in fights and he only landed one takedown in his last three matches. That lack of grappling combined with his lower striking volume has limited his scoring potential to this point. We’ve never been especially impressed by him, but he does train with several high level wrestlers like Aljamain Sterling and Merab Dvalishvili and now he’s getting a gift wrapped matchup to find wrestling success. While it does require somewhat of a leap of faith to assume he’ll actually come in with a smart, wrestling-heavy game plan, once Borshchev starts touching him up on the feet you have to imagine he’ll have no choice but to try and take him down. Borshchev got taken down 20 times and controlled for over 20 minutes in his two UFC losses and his wrestling deficiency presents massive scoring upside for his opponents, especially on DraftKings. While it’s been a while since Sadykhov landed more than a single takedown in a fight, he did have a R3 submission win in 2021 where he landed five of his six takedown attempts, albeit against an opponent with just two pro fights. That at least shows he has the ability to execute a wrestling-heavy gameplan, which is really all we need to see from Borshchev’s opponents. This fight will be a pass/fail IQ test for Sadykhov and if he takes the obvious path of least resistance then he’ll have a good shot at dominating this fight on the ground and putting up a big score even in a decision win. Mike Davis scored 123 DraftKings points and 101 points on FanDuel in a decision win over Borshchev, while Marc Diakiese scored 119 DraftKings and 96 points on FanDuel. However, if Sadykhov stubbornly tries to keep this fight standing, he’ll likely get knocked out, which leaves him with a wide range of potential scoring outcomes. The odds imply Sadykhov has a 53% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Borshchev is a one-dimensional kickboxer who has landed knockouts in the first two rounds in six of his seven pro wins. He scored 112 DraftKings points in a R1 KO win in his UFC debut and then put up a massive 134 points in a R2 knockout most recently. So when he can keep fights standing, he’s an absolute monster. However, he may have the worst ground game in the UFC and owns a putrid 35% takedown defense. Mike Davis and Marc Diakiese combined to take him down a ridiculous 20 times with over 20 minutes of total control time. That leaves Borshchev at the mercy of the UFC matchmakers when it comes to his success with the organization. They clearly wanted to keep him around, as they threw him a bone with a one-dimensional striker in Maheshate as Borshchev fought for his job in his last fight. While Sadykhov isn’t a clearcut grappler or striker, he trains with a lot of high-level wrestlers and has shown okay grappling at times. That muddies the water some as we don’t know for sure what Sadykhov’s game plan will be. If he’s smart, he’ll grapple and Borshchev’s opportunities on the feet will be very limited. However, if Sadykhov comes in trying to put on a show on the feet for his home New York crowd then he’ll get lit up by Borshchev and likely knocked out. That’s obviously what you’re hoping for if you play Borshchev and it’s certainly possible. However, it’s more likely that Sadykhov will get this fight to the mat and neutralize the threat of Borshchev. That leaves Borshchev as a KO or bust option who will need his opponent to fight an idiotic game plan. Nevertheless, if that happens and Borshchev does win, it’s harder to see him getting left out of winning lineups at his cheap price tag. The odds imply Borshchev has a 47% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Mateusz Rebecki
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Rebecki had been booked to face Nurullo Aliev here, but got injured and Roberts was announced as the replacement on Monday night. Coming off a dominant second round TKO win over a previously very durable Loik Radzhabov, Rebecki extended his winning streak to 15. That was the first time Radzhabov had ever been finished in his career. Rebecki did a great job of chopping Radzhabov down with leg kicks and also landed his only takedown in the fight along with two knockdowns. Prior to that, Rebecki won a lopsided decision in his UFC debut against Nick Fiore, who was also fighting for the first time with the organization. Rebecki took Fiore down three times and controlled him for eight and a half minutes while more than doubling him up in striking. The only knock on his performance was that he couldn’t find a finish. Leading up to that win, Rebecki punched his ticket to the UFC with a first round submission win on DWCS. Rebecki was the longtime FEN Lightweight champion in Poland and after winning the vacant FEN Lightbelt belt back in 2018, he successfully defended it seven straight times before going on DWCS. While the most recent of those defenses ended in a five-round decision victory, he landed nine straight finishes before that and 11 of his last 13 wins ended early, with nine KO/TKOs and two submissions. Five of those finishes ended in round one, two ended in round two, three occurred in round three, and one was stopped in round four. So he’s shown the ability to get opponents out of there early and also the cardio to finish them later on in fights. However, his last six early wins were all stopped in the first two rounds. Now 18-1 as a pro, Rebecki has nine wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and three decision victories. His only loss occurred in a 2014 R2 knockout in his fourth pro fight. Five of his six submission wins occurred in his first seven pro fights, with three heel hooks and two armbars, and he’s only completed one submission since 2017. Nine of his last 10 early wins ended in KO/TKOs. Overall, Rebecki is a powerful Polish wrestler with a BJJ background. He aggressively pushes forward looking to land both takedowns and heavy strikes. His stocky build can make it harder for him to find his striking range against taller/longer opponents, but his threat of wrestling allows him to feint takedowns while landing heavy shots. He also does a great job of landing leg kicks, as we saw in his last fight. He’s a serious problem in the clinch and has an impressive 66% takedown accuracy. Between his two UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 6 of his 9 takedown attempts, while his opponents got him down on 1 of their 3 attempts. His biggest obstacle appears to be his size, but he’s shown the ability to walk through strikes to get his hands on his opponents and overall he’s very well rounded and dangerous.
Roosevelt Roberts
9th UFC Fight (4-3, NC)Making his return to the UFC, Roberts was announced as the short notice replacement here on Monday night and had essentially no time to prepare. Roberts originally joined the UFC in 2018 following a second round submission win on DWCS. He started out 4-1 in the UFC, with two submission wins and three fights that went the distance (2-1). However, things then began to go sideways for him, as he got submitted by Jim Miller in the first round, which is understandable. What’s less forgivable is that he then got dropped and immediately submitted by a terrible short notice debuter in Kevin Croom in just 31 seconds. While that loss was overturned to a No Contest when Croom tested positive for THC, we all know what happened. Roberts then got knocked out by Ignacio Bahamondes in the third round of his last UFC fight in 2021 before being cut from the organization. Returning to the regional scene, Roberts bounced back with a quick first round knockout victory followed by a decision win in May 2022. That’s Roberts’ last official pro fight, but he went on The Ultimate Fighter in early 2023, where he landed another quick knockout in his first fight, before losing a close, boring decision to Austin Hubbard in his second match. Hubbard was able to get Roberts to the mat in that fight to grind out the decision victory. Now 12-3 as a pro, Roberts has four KO/TKO wins, five submissions, and three decision victories. He’s officially been knocked out once, submitted once, and has one decision loss, although he had another submission defeat overturned to a No Contest. Overall, Roberts is a tall, lanky, low-level Lightweight who looks to attack his opponents with a combination of striking and submission attempts. He’s a BJJ brown belt and likes to look for guillotine chokes, but the last time he completed one was in his 2018 UFC debut. In his eight UFC fights, Roberts landed just 8 of his 27 takedown attempts (29.6% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 7 of their 17 attempts (58.8% defense). The last three opponents who tried to take him down were all successful, with the last two of those landing multiple takedowns. Roberts has never been a very high-volume striker and only averages 3.14 SSL/min. He’s never landed more than 55 significant strikes in a fight. Dana White publicly said he was disappointed with Roberts’ last performance on TUF, so it’s interesting that they still brought him back.
Fight Prediction:
Roberts will have a massive 7” height and reach advantage. While the size difference between these two will be comical, so will the skill gap. Rebecki is better everywhere and should be able to find a finish without too much trouble. Roberts has long skinny legs that Rebecki can beat up on the feet, and an unimpressive 58% takedown defense that Rebecki should easily be able to get past. Roberts’ only hope will be to land a hail mary knockout or guillotine and we would be utterly shocked if Rebecki succumbed to either one of those. While this is going to look like a bowling ball battling a beanstalk, we expect Rebecki to take Roberts down and finish him on the mat in the first two rounds. While it’s possible he submits him, a ground and pound TKO finish is more likely based on Rebecki’s track record.
Our favorite bet here is “Mateusz Rebecki KO” at +162.
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DFS Implications:
Rebecki’s aggressive, wrestling-heavy approach to fighting looks tailor-made for DFS production. He’s won 15 straight fights, with 11 of his last 13 wins coming early. While his UFC debut ended in a decision win, he was still able to score 104 DraftKings points in the grappling-heavy victory. He followed that up with a dominant second round TKO win that was good for 122 DraftKings points in his last fight and his confidence just appears to be growing as he gets comfortable inside of the Octagon. Now he’s facing a UFC retread who stepped in on less than a week’s notice and this looks like another great smash spot for Rebecki. Roberts has an unimposing 58% takedown defense and is often content with simply looking for guillotines. It would be shocking to see Roberts complete a guillotine against Rebecki, so that will likely just make it even easier for Rebecki to get this fight to the ground. We expect Rebecki to fill up the stat sheet on his way to finding a finish and his wrestling-heavy approach leaves him with a higher floor on DraftKings compared to FanDuel. As the most expensive fighter on the card, there are always ways that Rebecki gets priced out of the optimal lineup with an efficient finish or a slower paced decision, but he has both a massive scoring floor and and ceiling and is deserving of his salary. He’s the largest favorite on the card by a very wide margin and should be locked into low-risk contests in addition to being a great tournament option. The odds imply Rebecki has an 81% chance to win, a 57% chance to land a finish, and a 30% chance it comes in round one.
Roberts averaged 83 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins, with two of those ending in submissions and two going the distance. He only scored 50 points in his last decision win, but put up 86 points in his previous decision victory. Both of his submission wins came up just shy of the century mark, so he hasn’t shown a massive ceiling, but at least has scored decently at times. Unfortunately for him, he’s stepping in on extremely short notice into an incredibly tough matchup and he’ll need to land a hail mary finish here to be useful. While crazy things happen all the time, Roberts looks outgunned everywhere and it would be shocking to see him pull off the upset. Taking this fight was just a way for him to get back inside the Octagon and looks like he’s being sacrificed to the MMA gods in this spot. His chances of winning a decision are even lower than his chances of landing a finish, so if he does win, it will likely come early, and as the cheapest fighter on the card it would be tougher for him to get left out if winning lineups in that unlikely scenario. The odds imply Roberts has a 19% chance to win, an 12% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Loopy Godinez
10th UFC Fight (6-3)Fresh off a dominant second round submission win over a one-dimensional striker in Elise Reed, Godinez put on an absolute clinic as she landed all five of her takedown attempts with six and a half minutes of control time and a ridiculous six official submission attempts in a fight that only lasted eight and a half minutes. She also finished ahead 21-3 in significant strikes and tacked on a knockdown, before locking up a rear-naked choke in the back half of round two. Prior to that, Godinez had fought to six straight decisions, defeating Emily Ducote and Cynthia Calvillo in the last two of those, after losing a decision to Angela Hill, where Godinez was coming off a hip injury. Godinez also lost a questionable split decision in her UFC debut against Jessica Penne, which looked like more or less of a robbery. She bounced back with a first round submission win over Silvana Gomez Juarez, but then foolishly took a fight up a weight class just a week later and lost a short notice decision to Luana Carolina. She then won a pair of wrestling-heavy decisions over a pair of strikers, leading up to her loss to Hill. Ten of her last 12 fights ended with the judges.
Now 11-3 as a pro, Godinez has one TKO win, two submission victories, and eight decision victories. Two of her early wins occurred in the first round, with the other ending in round two. All three of her losses ended in close decisions, with one of those being a questionable split result against Jessica Penne in Godinez’s UFC debut, another coming against Luana Carolina, where Godinez was fighting up a weight class just seven days after submitting Silvana Gomez Juarez, and the third on short notice against Angela Hill in front of Hill’s home crowd, where Godinez was coming off an injury. Her last loss was at a 120 lb Catchweight, since it was on short notice, and the loss before that was at 125 lb, also on short notice. So she’s only once been defeated at 115 lb.
Overall, Godinez is a really solid wrestler, and a good boxer. She’s landed 30 takedowns on 63 attempts in her seven UFC fights (47.6% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 4 of their 23 attempts (82.6% defense). She has a high fight IQ and does a good job of relying on her wrestling against strikers and striking against grapplers. The one exception that people seem to still hold against her was her fight against Angela Hill, where she didn’t wrestle. However, that can be explained by the fact that she came into that match with a hip injury that really limited her in that short notice fight. She’s shown the ability to put up big striking totals when she’s not wrestling, and she landed 132 significant strikes against Emily Ducote. Godinez is facing a grappler here, so you can expect her to rely on her striking, and she actually said recently that she thought she could knock Ricci out.
Tabatha Ricci
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Ricci has won four straight fights since getting finished via TKO in the second round of her short notice UFC debut against the highly ranked Manon Fiorot, where Ricci was fighting up a weight class. Her most recent win came against a fellow grappler in Gillian Robertson, where Ricci finished ahead in significant strikes 100-76 and in takedowns 3-1. Prior to that, Ricci landed her only early win in the UFC, when she submitted a fellow grappler in Jessica Penne with a second round armbar. Ricci was able to take Penne down four times and control her for over five minutes in a fight that didn’t even make it to the midway mark of round two. Ricci also outlanded her in significant strikes 36-6 and in total strikes 81-19. Before that, Ricci won a decision over another grappler in Polyana Viana, where Ricci landed five takedowns. Ricci also landed five takedowns against a terrible Maria Oliveira just before that and has landed at least three takedowns in each of her last four wins. Ricci originally turned pro in MMA in 2013 at just 18 years old. However, she then went and fought in a Japanese hybrid Judo league called SEIZA for a while before returning to MMA in 2020. Upon her return, she joined the LFA and defeated a series of very low level opponents before joining the UFC.
Now 9-1 as a pro, Ricci has one win by TKO (R2 2021), three armbar submissions, and five decision wins. Her only career loss was the R2 TKO in her UFC debut. Her four finishes were split across the first two rounds, but her last six fights and eight of her last nine matches have made it to round two.
Overall, Ricci is heavily reliant on her grappling to win fights, but has shown some improvements in the striking department. She’s a BJJ and Judo black belt and a training partner of Mackenzie Dern, so unsurprisingly she has a solid ground game and looks most dangerous with her armbar submissions. She’s shown she has no problem going to the ground with other dangerous grapplers, and even seems to relish the opportunities to see how she stacks up in those matchups. She can explode for flurries of strikes, but doesn’t have a ton of power in her striking, so really isn’t much of a knockout threat. She typically wins fights by either grinding out grappling-heavy decisions or locking up armbars. In her five UFC fights, she landed 17 of her 35 takedown attempts (48.6% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on two of their six attempts (66.7% defense). She landed a career best 100 significant strikes in her last fight, but keep in mind that was against a one-dimensional grappler in Robertson.
Fight Prediction:
Godinez will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 61” reach.
Both of these two are solid grapplers, but Godinez has a major striking advantage, and we fully expect her to lean heavily on that. Ricci has faced three straight grapplers, so she hasn’t been exposed on the feet recently. However, she’ll be in trouble in this matchup if she can’t get the fight to the mat, and Godinez has a solid 82% takedown defense. We saw Ricci get overwhelmed with strikes in her UFC debut, albeit up a weight class, and it’s not impossible that Godinez could finish her on the feet. However, it’s much more likely that Godinez simply outlands her way to a lopsided decision victory, and that will be our pick here.
Our favorite bet here is “Loopy Godinez ML” at -165.
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DFS Implications:
Godinez has averaged 104 DraftKings points in her six UFC wins, despite five of those going the distance. While she only scored 88, 66, and 86 points in three of those decision victories, she scored 128 and 129 points in the other two in a pair of dominant grappling performances against one-dimensional strikers. She also scored 127 points in a first round submission against another one-dimensional striker and it’s very easy to recognize her blow up spots, yet the field is still blind to it. Godinez was just 24% owned on DraftKings in her most recent scoring explosion, after being just 14% owned in the previous one. She’s been just as owned in good matchups as in bad matchups somehow. She gets a tough matchup here against a fellow grappler and this is not a spot where we’re expecting to see a wrestling explosion from her. Instead, we expect her to keep the fight standing where she’ll have a major advantage. That will leave her reliant on landing a rare knockout to really score well and even when Godinez landed a career best 132 significant strikes against Emily Ducote, she still only scored 88 DraftKings points. There’s also the potential for Ricci to get Godinez down, which would just further limit her upside. So let the field chase Godinez’s recent 128 point performance and we’ll gladly sit this one out and wait for her to get another striker before we get back on board. The odds imply Godinez has a 59% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Ricci has impressively won four straight fights, averaging 101 DraftKings points in those wins, despite three of them going the distance. The first of those wins came against an ultra low-level striker who Ricci was easily able to control on the mat, while the last three wins were all against grapplers. Ricci has no problem going to the mat with fellow grapplers, but hasn’t faced anyone as well rounded as Godinez. All three of the grapplers that Ricci just defeated have sub 50% takedown defenses and Ricci was able to dictate where those fights took place, landing three or more takedowns in each of those matches. However, Godinez has a really solid 82% takedown defense, and we expect she’ll be the one who decides how this fight will go. Godinez has shown a high fight IQ and is typically looking to grapple against strikers and strike against grapplers, so look for her to keep this fight standing and expose Ricci’s subpar striking. That makes it tougher to get excited about playing Ricci here and she’ll surely be over owned by the boxscore watchers. We generally like Ricci, but we’re expecting this to be a learning lesson for her as she gets outclassed in a striking battle. The odds imply Ricci has a 41% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Steve Erceg
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Erceg had been preparing to fight the #9 ranked Flyweight in Matt Schnell here, but Schnell dropped out and Costa was announced as the replacement 15 days out.
Erceg is coming off a decision win in his recent short notice UFC debut that he took on just eight days’ notice, where he defeated David Dvorak, who entered that matchup as the #10 ranked Flyweight in the world. It wasn’t the most exciting fight, but Erceg was able to drop Dvorak with a head kick in round two, but failed to put him away as he tried to finish things with a guillotine. Erceg has now won nine straight fights, with six of those ending early. Born and raised in Australia he had been fighting for the Eternal MMA promotion, where he won the Flyweight belt over a highly suspect Shannon Ross back in 2020. Erceg then took a short notice fight up a weight class in his next match, winning a grappling-heavy decision at 135 lb. He then dropped back down to 125 lb and defended the Flyweight belt against Paul Loga, who he had already knocked out once before, and landed a first round submission. The promotion then opted not to put the belt on the line in Erceg’s next fight, and when asked why, Erceg said he thought it was because his opponent wasn’t from Australia and he didn’t think the promotion would want to pay to fly him in for future title fights if he won, which sounds super legit. Erceg also has a decision win over Seung Guk Choi, who lost in the finals of Road to the UFC recently and is back on the show for season two.
Now 10-1 as a pro, Erceg has one win by KO (R1 2019), six submissions, and three decision wins. Four of his submissions ended in round one, while another occurred in round two, and the last in round three. His last four finishes all occurred in the first round. The only loss of his career came in a 2017 decision in his second pro fight. Erceg has competed at 135 lb a few times, but most of his career has been spent at 125 lb.
Overall, Erceg is an Australian BJJ black belt who has really good size for the Flyweight division. Over half of his career wins have ended in submissions and he’s typically looking to grapple. He landed three of his four takedown attempts in his recent UFC debut, while he also got taken down once by Dvorak on three attempts. While Erceg only has one knockout win on his record, he nearly got another one in his recent debut, but instead looked for the club and sub unsuccessfully. Erceg doesn't land a ton of striking volume and also looks kind of hittable, so overall he hasn’t really blown us away. However, he’s still only 28 years old and has plenty of time to refine his game.
Alessandro Costa
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Costa stepped into this matchup on just over two weeks’ notice after Matt Schnell dropped out, and he’ll be fighting alongside his teammates Diego Lopes and Loopy Godinez.
Costa is coming off a second round ground and pound TKO win over a terrible Jimmy Flick, where Costa destroyed Flick’s legs with calf kicks until he could no longer stand. At that point, Costa went to the mat with him and finished him with a series of heavy elbows. Prior to that win, Costa got knocked out in the third round of his UFC debut against a really tough Amir Albazi after stepping into that fight on three and a half weeks’ notice. Costa was never able to get much going in the match as he finished with just 17 significant strikes landed and zero takedown attempts, while getting knocked down twice, taken down once, and controlled for nearly six minutes before getting finished midway through round three. Leading up to that loss, Costa had won seven straight fights, including a July 2022 lackluster split-decision win on DWCS that wasn’t enough to get him a UFC contract. He then returned to the Lux Fight League, where he had been the three-time Flyweight champ leading up to his DWCS match, and proceeded to land a 12 second knockout win that was enough for the UFC to give him a shot. Four of Costa’s last five wins ended in knockouts, as did his last loss, and he’s only been to one decision in the last three years.
Now 13-3 as a pro, Costa has four wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and three decision victories. Eight of his 10 finishes occurred in the first round, with another coming in round two, and third in round three. The first six wins of his career all ended in first round submissions, but his last four finishes all ended in knockouts and he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2019. He’s also been knocked out twice himself (R2 2016 & R3 2022), with his one other loss ending in a 2018 split decision.
Overall, Costa is a patient striker who has decent power for the Flyweight division. While he was able to land 65 significant strikes against Flick in just over six minutes of action, that’s more strikes than Costa was able to land in his UFC debut and DWCS fight combined. At just 5’4” he’s pretty small, which can make it tougher for him to find his range at times against taller/longer opponents. Costa trains with Alexa Grasso, Irene Aldana, Diego Lopes, and Loopy Godinez at Lobo Gym in Mexico, so he has a solid team around him. He’s also a BJJ black belt who has shown the ability to quickly lock up submissions when fights hit the mat and loves to look for armbars, which is how he completed five of his six submission wins. However, we also saw him get easily reversed on the mat in his DWCS match and controlled for periods of time on his back in his UFC debuts, so it’s hard to know just how effective his grappling will be at the UFC level moving forward. He didn’t even attempt a takedown in either of his UFC fights or his DWCS appearance, but was able to defend 11 of the 12 attempts against him (91.7% defense). He also showed a solid takedown defense on the regional scene prior to going on DWCS, as well as the ability to land sporadic takedown attempts of his own.
Fight Prediction:
Erceg will have a 4” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
It’s always tough to step in on short notice, so Costa comes in with an obvious disadvantage right off the bat. However, he did have two teammates fighting on this card and he’s always training with his close friend Lopes, which should have helped Costa to stay in good form. It will be interesting to see how Costa handles his massive size disadvantage, which will be the other major obstacle he has to overcome. He’s been prone to getting dropped at times, so he’ll have to be careful as he enters the pocket against the much taller Erceg. It does look like Costa has the defensive wrestling/grappling to keep the fight mostly standing, and we’d be surprised if he looked to take Erceg down. Both guys are also BJJ black belts, and neither of them have ever been submitted, so even if this does hit the mat, we’re less likely to see a submission unless someone is already seriously hurt first. However, Costa has been knocked out twice in the past, so there’s a chance Erceg could catch him with something and finish him that way. Costa also has decet power himself, and Erceg’s striking defense has not been all that impressive. Neither of these two land a ton of striking volume though, which increases the chances of it going the distance. Neither guy has been overly impressive, so we don’t have a strong take here, but we’ll say it ends in either a late knockout win for Erceg or a close decision. If Costa can continue to land leg kicks while not leaving his chin exposed in the process, he’ll have a decent shot at pulling off the upset, but forced to choose we see more ways for Erceg to win and he’ll be the pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Erceg KO” at +500.
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DFS Implications:
Erceg pulled off a pretty big upset in his recent short notice UFC debut, but only scored 70 DraftKings points in that decision win. He’s generally looking to grapple, which adds to his DraftKings appeal, although now he’s facing the solid 91% takedown defense of Costa, who is also a BJJ black belt. That lowers the chances of Erceg finding a submission here and will leave him more reliant on landing just the second knockout of his career. And based on the odds, there’s only about a 17% chance of that happening. Erceg doesn’t land nearly enough striking volume to score well in a decision unless he’s able to dominate the fight on the mat. And since we don’t see that happening here, Erceg looks like a KO or bust option. Working in his favor, Costa did step into this matchup on short notice and has been knocked out twice in the past, but the most likely outcome is still for this to end in a low scoring decision. The odds imply Erceg has a 64% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Costa is stepping into this fight on short notice, which is always a red flag, but he had been helping Diego Lopes prepare for his fight here, which is helpful. Costa is coming off his first UFC win, where he landed a second round TKO against a terrible Jimmy Flick and scored 108 DraftKings points in the process. Just keep in mind, that was a dream matchup and Costa’s patient striking and general lack of takedowns is typically not something we’ll be chasing in DFS. However, he has decent power and good armbar submissions, and four of his last five wins ended in knockouts. However, he’s facing a much larger opponent in Erceg here, who’s never been finished and had a full camp to prepare. We don’t see Costa scoring well if this goes the distance, and his decision win on DWCS only would have been good for 60 DraftKings points and 59 points on FanDuel. Even at this cheap price tag, that would likely require all but one of the other underdogs on the slate to lose for Costa to be useful. That leaves him reliant on becoming the first fighter to ever finish Erceg to score well. The odds imply Costa has a 36% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Pat Sabatini
7th UFC Fight (5-1)Sabatini is coming off an absolutely dominant performance against a one-dimensional striker in Lucas Almeida. Sabatini took Almeida down 10 seconds into round one and beat him up from top position for the remainder of the round, nearly finishing him with ground and pound. He went fight back to work in round two, landing another immediate takedown, before finishing him with an arm-triangle choke. Prior to that, Sabatini suffered his first UFC loss in a 69 second R1 TKO against Damon Jackson. Jackson wobbled Sabatini with a kick up the middle in the opening minute and then shoved him to the mat as Sabatini looked for a desperation takedown, before finishing him with ground and pound. Leading up to that loss, Sabatini had won six straight and was 4-0 in the UFC. His only other loss in his last 12 fights was due to a freak arm injury in 2020 that resulted in another R1 TKO, which is the only other time Sabatini has been finished. Three of Sabatini’s five UFC wins went the distance, with the other two ending in submissions.
Now 18-4 as a pro, Sabatini has two wins by KO/TKO, 11 submissions, and six decision victories. All 13 of those finishes occurred in the first two rounds and all of his fights to last longer than 10 minutes went the distance. Six of Sabatini’s 11 submission wins came in the first round, but five of his last seven ended in round two. He has two R1 TKO losses on his record, although one of those was due to a freak arm injury. His other two losses both went the distance, with a 2015 decision in his third pro fight and a 2018 split decision against Jose Mariscal.
Overall, Sabatini is a Daniel Gracie BJJ black belt and former D1 wrestler. In his six UFC fights, he landed 14 takedowns on 31 attempts (45.2% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on four of their seven attempts (42.9% defense). In his first few UFC fights, he was largely content with controlling his opponents opposed to aggressively pushing for finishes. However, we saw him get much more aggressive in his last match and he had also been a prolific finisher prior to joining the organization. Sabatini spends so much time on the mat, that we rarely see many significant strikes landed in his fights and he only averages 1.95 SSL/min and 1.35 SSA/min. He’s yet to absorb more than 19 significant strikes in a UFC fight or land more than 36.
Diego Lopes
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Lopes recently notched his first UFC victory in an impressive first round armbar against Gavin Tucker, who foolishly looked to take Lopes down only to immediately find himself in a submission attempt that ended the fight after a brief struggle. Prior to that, Lopes lost a decision in his short notice UFC debut against the undefeated Movsar Evloev, although Lopes gave a good account of himself as he finished with four official submission attempts and looked close to pulling off the massive upset at multiple points. Lopes originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2021 against a really dangerous Joanderson Brito, and looked close to locking up a submission there as well, but ultimately lost a technical decision following a third round eye poke that he sustained. That forced him to return to the regional scene, where he then compounded the misstep when he lost a five-round split decision, before bouncing back with a pair of late-round KO/TKO victories that resulted in the UFC giving him a shot.
Now 22-6 as a pro, Lopes has eight wins by KO/TKO, 12 submissions, and two decision victories. He has a pair of second round KO/TKO losses (2014 & 2018), and four decision defeats. While his last fight ended in round one, his previous six all made it to the second round, with five of those seeing round three, and three ending in decisions. His last five wins all came early, while his last three losses all ended in decisions.
Overall, Lopes is a Brazilian grappler and BJJ black belt who loves looking for submissions off his back, but has also shown a willingness to stand and trade. At 5’11” he’s got good size for the 145 lb division, but doesn’t fight especially long and only has a 72” reach. He’s a patient striker on the feet, but has a decent lead left hook that he used to finish his last two knockout wins just before he joined the UFC. He trains at Lobo Gym and is Alexa Grasso’s jiu jitsu coach, so clearly he’s a respected grappler. Between his DWCS appearance and his two UFC fights, Lopes got taken down by his opponents 8 times on 12 attempts (33.3% defense), while failing to attempt any takedowns of his own. Because Lopes is so content with playing jiu jitsu off his back, it makes it tougher for him to win decisions and explains why he’s only 2-4 in fights that have gone the distance.
Fight Prediction:
Lopes will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while being four years younger than the 32-year-old Sabatini.
This is an interesting matchup between two dangerous grapplers. We expect Lopes to have no problem keeping the fight standing and he looks like the more dangerous of the two on the feet, in addition to being the larger fighter. That will leave it up to Sabatini to engage in the grappling, and despite how dangerous Lopes is off his back, we still expect Sabatini to test him there. We’ve seen Sabatini get hurt on the feet at multiple points in his career, so this fight will be risky anywhere it goes for him and it’s not as if he can remain out of danger simply by keeping it standing. But if he does go that route, there’s a good chance Lopes will knock him out. On the mat, things will be much more interesting between these two black belts and neither one of them has ever been submitted. Sabatini should be winning minutes in top control, while Lopes will be looking to throw up submissions off his back. While judges are awarding less and less value for top control, we still generally see the guy on top come out ahead when fights hit the scorecards. We’d be somewhat surprised if either one of these two submitted the other, which likely means this fight will either end in a Lopes knockout win or a Sabatini decision victory. We’ll give the edge to Sabatini to win a decision, but this is a really tough matchup for him and we won’t be that surprised if Lopes finishes him.
Our favorite bet here is “Pat Sabatini DEC” at +275.
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DFS Implications:
Sabatini has averaged 100 DraftKings points in his five UFC wins, scoring progressively more points in each of those victories. He’s coming off a career best performance where he scored 115 points in a dominant second round submission win over Lucas Almeida. However, just before that win, Sabatini suffered his line UFC loss in a 69 second R1 TKO against a grappler in Damon Jackson, which just serves as a reminder that Sabatini has shown a somewhat dubious chin at times. Three of Sabatini’s first four UFC wins came in grappling-heavy decisions, and he generally has a much higher scoring floor on DraftKings through his wrestling. He’s a BJJ black belt and a former D1 wrestler, who does a good job of getting opponents down and beating them on the mat. However, now he’s going against another dangerous grappler and this is a much tougher matchup than Sabatini’s last one. He’ll need to be very mindful of positions on the mat, which will make it tougher for him to get too comfortable landing ground and pound or looking for submissions of his own. He’ll also be outgunned on the feet, where he’ll be at risk of getting knocked out. While all of that leaves him with a shaky floor, we saw Movsar Evloev score 119.5 DraftKings points against Lopes, who can be a little too content with looking for submissions off his back. So Sabatini still has a good shot at scoring well, especially on DraftKings, he just has a wider range of scoring outcomes. The odds imply Sabatini has a 52% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Lopes is a BJJ black belt, a dangerous submission threat, and a decent striker. However, he doesn’t land a ton of striking volume or put up big takedown numbers, leaving him reliant on landing well times finishes to score well. Despite losing his short notice UFC debut to the undefeated Movsar Evloev, he exceeded expectations in the fight and came close to finishing it at multiple points. He kept that momentum going in his last fight when he submitted Gavin Tucker in the first round, but Lopes notably scored the bare minimum 90 DraftKings points in the first round win as he landed zero strikes, takedowns, or knockdowns in the match. That shows just how poorly suited his style of fighting is for DFS, especially on DraftKings where you don’t get any points for submission attempts. He’s actually a better play on FanDuel where control time doesn’t matter, but submission attempts do. With all that said, he’s capable of both knocking opponents out or submitting them and at his cheaper price tag he doesn’t need to put up a huge score to end up in winning lineups. However, he has the potential to get controlled for extended periods of time on the mat in this matchup, which lowers his chances of winning a decision or scoring well even if he does. The odds imply Lopes has a 48% chance to win, a 35% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Benoit Saint Denis
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Continuing to put on one impressive performance after the next, Saint Denis has finished four straight opponents in the first two rounds after losing a Bloodsport style decision in his 2021 UFC debut against Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos. That fight should have been stopped by all accounts in the second round as Saint Denis was getting mauled by Zaleski dos Santos, but the referee had other ideas and decided he’d prefer to see someone die that day. It was such a horribly officiated fight that the commission actually pulled the ref from his remaining duties on the card immediately after the match. That’s the only loss of Saint Denis’ career, and it took place at 170 lb. Following the loss, he dropped down to 155 lb and submitted Niklas Stolze 92 seconds into the second round after nearly locking up a choke in the closing seconds of round one. Saint Denis then got to fight in front of his home Paris crowd for the first time in the UFC and looked to put on a show as he knocked out a short notice debuting opponent in Gabriel Miranda 16 seconds into round two and nearly finishing him late in round one. After finishing two low-level opponents, Saint Denis then faced a tougher test in Ismael Bonfim and passed with flying colors as he locked up a submission late in the first round. For the record, all three of Bonfim’s previous career losses also ended in submissions so that has been a weakness for him. Saint Denis most recently put on his most impressive performance to date as he finished a really tough Thiago Moises in a late R2 TKO. Prior to joining the UFC, Saint Denis had never lost a fight or required the judges, and had only even seen the third round once.
Now 12-1 as a pro, Saint Denis has three wins by TKO and nine submission victories. All three of his TKO wins ended in round two, while he has six first round submissions, two in round two, and one in round three. Five of his last seven early wins ended in round two, with the other two ending in round one. He’s never been finished himself, with his only loss coming in a decision in his 2021 UFC debut. Saint Denis has competed anywhere from 145 lb to 185 lb, but was primarily fighting at 165 lb and 170 lb before dropping down to 155 lb after his UFC debut at 170 lb.
Overall, Saint Denis is an aggressive finisher who has no problem throwing down in a brawl and he throws good slicing elbows and lots of body shots. He started training in Judo as a kid, where he eventually earned his black belt, and was also in the French Special Forces. In addition to his Judo background, he’s a BJJ brown belt. While he’s primarily a grappler, he will exchange on the feet in a very reckless manner. He leaves his chin up high and relies on his insane durability to survive those exchanges, as he has just a 44% striking defense and averages 5.27 SSA/min. We saw more of a crazy brawling pace in both of his fights that took place in front of his home French crowd, and he won both of those with second round ground and pound TKOs. However, in both of his wins in the US, he looked like more of a technical grappler and he won both of those fights by submission. So he definitely turns it up to 11 when he’s got the home crowd behind him and fights a little differently. In his five UFC fights, Saint Denis landed 13 takedowns on 36 attempts (36.1% accuracy), while his opponents only got him down on 2 of 10 attempts (80% defense). We’ve seen Saint Denis slow down some in the back half of fights and it’s also concerning just how active he’s been lately. He fought Bonfim in July, then Moises just two months later in September, and now he’s fighting again just two months after that. So this will be his third fight in just over four months and we’ve seen that type of activity catch up with fighters, especially when they’re in one wild fight after the next. And while Saint Denis’ last four fights were all either at the Apex or in his home country of France, now he’ll be traveling into enemy territory for the first time in the UFC.
Matt Frevola
10th UFC Fight (5-3-1)Frevola has been going full scorched earth since he got knocked out in just seven seconds by Terrance McKinney in 2021. Since then, he landed three straight knockouts against Genaro Valdez, Ottman Azaitar, and Drew Dober. While Valdez is a low-level fighter and Azaitar looks like a fraud who was coming off a 26 month layoff, it’s hard to poke many holes in the win over Dober, who is notoriously durable and dangerous. Looking back to the start of Frevola’s UFC career, he got knocked out in the first round of his 2018 debut by a terrible Marco Polo Reyes, who was coming off a KO loss and then proceeded to get knocked out three more times immediately after finishing Frevola in just 60 seconds. Frevola then fought to four straight decisions (2-1-1), including a win over Jalin Turner that aged quite well, and a loss to Arman Tsarukyan on a day’s notice that no one should hold against him. All nine of Frevola’s UFC fights ended in either first round knockouts (3-2) or went the distance (2-1-1).
Now 11-3-1 as a pro, Frevola has four wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and four decision victories. He’s also been knocked out twice himself and has one decision loss. Six of his seven early wins ended in round one, with the one exception being a 2017 R2 submission victory on DWCS. Both of his early losses ended in 60 seconds or less. The only time he’s ever lost a decision was against a world class talent in Arman Tsarukyan, in a fight that was put together on one day’s notice after both of their opponents dropped out during weigh-ins.
Overall, Frevola is pretty well-rounded as he wrestled when he was younger and is a BJJ brown belt, but he often falls in love with his striking. Between his nine UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 12 takedowns on 33 attempts (36.4% accuracy), although hasn’t landed any takedowns on just three attempts in his last five fights. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 12 of their 21 attempts (42.9% defense), which doesn’t look very good on paper until you realize 10 of those takedowns were by Arman Tsarukyan. In Frevola’s other nine most recent fights he was only taken down twice on nine attempts (77.8% defense). And Frevola did show pretty good scrambling ability early on in that fight against Tsarukyan, even if the overall numbers looked terrible for him. While Frevola only averages 3.72 SSL/min and 3.56 SSA/min in his career, those numbers have jumped to 10.60 SSL/min and 4.40 SSA/min in his last four matches.
Fight Prediction:
Saint Denis will have a 2” height and reach advantage, while also being six years younger than the 33-year-old Frevola.
This sets up as one of the most exciting matchups on the card, between two all action fighters. Frevola hasn’t been past the first round in any of his last four fights, while Saint Denis’ last four all ended in the opening two rounds. Saint Denis has historically been the more durable of the two, but also gets hit a lot more (5.27 SSA/min vs. 3.56 SSA/min) and you can’t rely on your chin holding up forever. Saint Denis has also been fighting every two months going back to July, which is a concerningly high level of activating. He’ll also be fighting in Frevola’s backyard here, so he’ll no longer be the one with the home crowd behind him. We’ve also seen Saint Denis slow down late in fights and he’s just 1-1 in fights that made it past the second round, with that one win coming in a third round submission in his second pro fight. Despite all of that, the oddsmakers installed him as a decently sized favorite.
Saint Denis is generally looking to get fights to the ground, with at least one takedown landed in all of his UFC fights. While Frevola’s 42% takedown defense may paint him as an easy target to get down, the only fighter to get him down more than once was Arman Tsarukyan and Frevola has shown a 77.8% takedown defense in his other nine most recent fights. So we’re not convinced that Saint Denis will be able to just have his way with Frevola on the mat and neither of these two have ever been submitted. Frevola did get quickly knocked out in two of his three UFC losses, but Saint Denis doesn't really have one-punch knockout power and relies on either wearing opponents down or submitting them. So if anyone’s going to land a quick knockout, it’s more likely to be Frevola. It’s possible that we see such a high pace that both guys are worn out after round two, but Frevola has shown the ability to grind out decisions in the past and a longer fight looks to benefit him. To sum all that up, we’d be surprised to see anyone get submitted, we think Frevola is the more likely of the two to land an early knockout, he’ll have the advantage if this fight makes it to the third round, he’ll have the home crowd behind him, and he’s a sizeable underdog. It’s possible we’re just undervaluing the unquantifiable heart and toughness of Saint Denis—it wouldn’t be the first time—but we’re taking Frevola in this one and think he wins by either knockout or decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Matt Frevola ML” at +195.
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DFS Implications:
Saint Denis has been breaking one slate after the next, as he’s averaged 126 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins. He’s been especially destructive when fighting in front of his home French crowd, where he put up face-melting scores of 149 and 136 in a pair of second round TKOs. His other two wins both ended in submissions at the Apex, where he scored 115 and 105 points respectively. His scoring production has annoyingly been directly correlated with his DraftKings ownership and the higher owned he’s been, the more points he’s scored. He came in at 54% owned in his most recent win where he put up a ridiculous 149 points. Saint Denis’ ultra-aggressive, grappling-heavy style and 100% finishing rate are the perfect recipe for DFS production, but there are still some concerns surrounding him. The biggest of those is his poor 44% striking defense and he averages 5.27 SSA/min. His late round cardio has also looked somewhat suspect, and he’s been fighting every two months since July, which is bound to eventually catch up with him. He’s also traveling into enemy territory for this matchup, after having his home crowd behind him for two of his last three fights. He’s also taking on an opponent who has landed three straight first round knockouts, which is concerning for Saint Denis’ scoring floor. Saint Denis also projects to be very popular once again, which lowers his tournament appeal some. However, he’s shown such a massive ceiling that you’ve been drawing stone dead if you faded him, and we basically have no choice but to target his fights. However, if he ever does lose again, there will be tons of leverage to be gained in tournaments by being under the field on him. The odds imply Saint Denis has a 66% chance to win, a 54% chance to land a finish, and a 32% chance it comes in round one.
Frevola is coming off three straight first round knockout wins and has averaged 108 DraftKings points in his five UFC victories. All nine of his fights with the organization ended in either first round knockouts (3-2) or decisions (2-1-1). While he wasn’t able to put up huge scores in those two decision wins, he did return totals of 75 and 85 DraftKings points, which at least shows some potential. And given his cheap price tag and the pace-up matchup he has in front of him, he’ll have a good shot at cracking tournament winning lineups even in a decision win here. However, considering he just finished Drew Dober in the first round, we’re definitely not ruling out the possibility that Fevola extends his finishing streak to four here. Saint Denis has been extremely hittable and eventually that’s going to catch up with him. Frevola will have the home crowd behind him and a couple of teammates on the card fighting alongside him. And while Frevola hasn’t been looking to wrestle much lately, he is a decent grappler. So overall he has a lot going for him here and he looks like a solid underdog play. The odds imply Frevola has a 34% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Mackenzie Dern
12th UFC Fight (8-3)Coming off a dominant five-round decision win over Angela Hill, Dern landed a career best 126 significant strikes and three takedowns, while also tacking on a knockdown. Dern seemed to channel all of the personal drama she had going on with her divorce and unleashed it on Hill and she fought like a woman possessed for the entire 25 minutes. Prior to that, Dern lost a five-round majority decision loss to Yan Xiaonan, and Dern’s last four fights all went the distance (2-2), with three of those being five-round main events. Just before losing to Yan, Dern won a three-round split decision over Tecia Torres, which Torres arguably won. That came just after Dern lost a five-round decision to Marina Rodriguez. While Dern submitted four of her first seven opponents in the UFC, all in the first round, the last time she finished anybody was in early 2021 when she submitted Nina Nunes late in the first round.
Now 13-3 as a pro, Dern has seven wins by submission and six decision victories. Six of her seven submission wins came in the first round, and her only pro fight to make it past the first round and not end in a decision was a 2017 third round armbar victory. She’s never been finished, with all three of her losses going the distance. All of her UFC fights have ended in either first round submissions (4-0) or decisions (4-3), with three of those decisions being split (2-1).
Overall, Dern is a high level BJJ black belt and former ADCC world champion, but has also improved her striking over the course of her UFC career and looked more dangerous than ever on the feet in her last fight. In her 11 UFC fights, she landed just 8 of her 53 takedown attempts (15.1% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on three of their five attempts (40% defense). While she’s historically struggled with her takedown accuracy and relied on unorthodox approaches to engaging in grappling exchanges, she has made improvement to her wrestling and seven of her eight takedowns landed occurred in her last five fights, after she only landed one takedown in her first six UFC appearances. She had never landed more than one takedown in a fight until her second most recent match, where she landed two, and then set a new career high with three in her last fight. She also has no problem pulling guard to get fights to the mat and is extremely dangerous off her back. Dern hasn’t won two fights in a row since 2020-2021, but she’ll have the opportunity to start a winning streak here.
Jessica Andrade
26th UFC Fight (15-10)Desperate for a win, Andrade has been finished in under seven minutes in three straight fights. She’s been incredibly active lately and this will be her 5th fight this year. She started the year strong, with a dominant decision win over Lauren Murphy, where Andrade set the record for the most significant strikes ever landed by a female fighter at 231. Andrade then stepped in on short notice in a main event against Erin Blanchfield and got submitted in the second round. Both of those fights were at 125 lb, but Andrade then dropped down to 115 lb and got knocked out in the first round by decision grinder Yan Xiaonan. Remaining at 115 lb, Andrade then got submitted by Tatiana Suarez in the second round of her last fight. Seven of Andrade’s last eight fights ended in the first two rounds (3-4), with the one exception being her decision win over Murphy.
Now 24-12 as a pro, Andrade has nine wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and seven decision victories. All 17 of her early wins ended in the first two rounds, with five of her knockouts and six of her submissions ending in round one. Her last three and five of her last six early wins ended in the first round. Nine of her 12 career losses also ended in the first two rounds, with five TKOs and four submissions, while she also has three decision defeats. Her last three submission losses all occurred in the second round. Andrade has won three of the last four decisions she’s been to, with the one loss being split against Rose Namajunas in 2020.
Andrade originally joined the UFC in 2013 and fought her first seven fights at 135 lb (4-3), before dropping all the way down to 115 lb in 2016. After going 7-1 in first eight fights at 115 lb and winning the Strawweight belt against Rose Namajunas in 2019, Andrade immediately relinquished the belt to Zhang Weili and then lost a decision to Namajunas. After suffering back-to-back losses for the first time in her career, Andrade moved up to 125 lb for the first time in 2020 and knocked out Katlyn Chookagian in the first round. That was enough to propel Andrade into a title fight against Valentina Shevchenko, but Andrade got dominated and finished on the mat in the second round. Andrade bounced back with a first round TKO win over Cynthia Calvillo and then dropped back down to 115 lb for one fight when she submitted Amanda Lemos in the first round of a five-round fight. However, Andrade immediately returned to 125 lb for her next two matches, where she won a decision over Lauren Murphy and then got submitted in the second round by Erin Blanchfield. That prompted her to return to 115 lb, where she got knocked out in the first round by Yan Xiaonan and then submitted in the second round by Tatiana Suarez. She’ll stay at 115 lb for this next fight. To recap, Andrade has gone 4-3 (57% Win Percentage) at 135 lb in the UFC, 3-2 (60% Win Percentage) at 125 lb, and 8-5 (62% Win Percentage) at 115 lb.
Overall, Andrade is an aggressive striker who constantly pushes forward looking to land fight ending shots and slam her opponents unconscious. She’s willing to take one (or 5) to land one (or 10), which has gotten her into trouble at times. She tends to keep her chin up as she lunges forward, which resulted in her getting knocked out in her second most recent fight. She struggles the most with longer opponents who have good footwork and can counter her from distance while avoiding the shots coming from Andrande. She averages 6.68 SSL/min and 5.34 SSA/min. Andrade is also a BJJ black belt and has a 70% career takedown defense. In her 18 fights since dropping down from 135 lb, she’s only been taken down on 13 of 46 opponent attempts (71.7% defense). Over that same 18 fight stretch, Andrade landed 26 takedowns of her own on 50 attempts (52% accuracy). However, she’s only landed one takedown in her last seven fights, and we’d be surprised to see her look for any takedowns in this next matchup.
Fight Prediction:
Dern will have a 3” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while being two years younger than the 32-year-old Andrade.
While Andrade has lost three straight, Dern is coming off arguably the most impressive win of her career, despite the fact it went the distance. So all of the momentum is in Dern’s favor, but that’s clearly accounted for in the betting lines and you can never count Andrade out. Concerning for Andrade, she lost the last three fights where she was taken down even once, getting finished in the first two rounds in all of those. In fairness to her, those losses came against elite competition in Tatiana Suarez, Erin Blanchfield, and Valentina Shevchenko, but Dern is also an elite grappler. Dern also showed more power in her striking in her last match and Andrade was recently knocked out by a decision grinder in Yan Xiaonan. So it’s not inconceivable to think that Dern could land the first knockout of her career, especially if Andrade is entirely focussed on defending takedowns and landing her own punches. However, Andrade is still clearly the superior striker and should be able to easily outland Dern if she can keep the fight standing. Barring an unlikely knockout win for Dern, the results of this fight will hinge on Dern’s ability to get it to the mat. While Dern’s 15% career takedown accuracy going against the 70% takedown defense of Andrade isn’t overly encouraging for Dern’s chances, she was able to land multiple takedowns in each of her last two matches, albeit in a pair of five-round fights. All four of Andrade’s submission losses have come from some form of choke, while most of Dern’s submissions end in armbars or kneebars. Andrade has shorter arms and is a BJJ black belt, so we’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and say she can avoid getting submitted here. Dern has never been finished, which could give her more time to look for a submission, although she’s only landed one finish in her career beyond round one. So more likely, Dern’s durability just increases Andrade’s chances of winning a decision instead of finding a finish. And considering Andrade has lost three straight and will have to respect the grappling threat of Dern, we could see a somewhat more cautious approach from her that increases the chances of this going the distance. While Dern is always live to land a finish, it’s been two and a half years since she ended a fight early and we actually like Andrade to outland her way to a decision win here, despite the fact that 7 of her last 8 fights ended early.
Our favorite bet here is “Jessica Andrade DEC” at +420.
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DFS Implications:
Dern has averaged 96 DraftKings points in her eight UFC wins, and is coming off a career performance where she scored 153 points in a five-round decision win over Angela Hill, where Dern set career highs in significant strikes (126), total strikes (247), takedowns (3), and control time (13:12), while also tacking on a knockdown. It seemed like Dern unleashed all of the pent up aggression from her divorce on Hill that night, and fought like a woman possessed. Whether or not she can carry that over into future fights remains to be seen. That’s the only time Dern has ever scored more than 75 DraftKings points in a decision win, but also the only time she’s ever won a five-round decision. Her last four fights all went the distance, with three of those being five-round matches, which obviously inflates Dern’s recent scoring and will drive up her ownership. Prior to that win, she had been entirely reliant on securing first round submissions to score well, averaging 103 DraftKings points in her four UFC first round submission wins, but just 67 points in her four three-round decision wins. While Andrade does make for pace-up fights and has also been prone to getting finished, it’s still unlikely that Dern will return value without a finish. And even with a finish, she could easily get outscored by the other expensive options. While Dern set career marks across the board in her last fight, if that had ended after three rounds, she still “only” would have scored 98 DraftKings points and 83 points on FanDuel. And only once in her career has Dern finished anybody beyond the first round, which was back in 2017. With all the momentum going in Dern’s favor, this could be a good sell-high time on her. The odds imply Dern has a 64% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Andrade has averaged a ridiculous 115 DraftKings points in her 15 UFC wins and has shown the ability to score well with or without a finish. She’s actually averaged more points (119) in her seven three-round UFC decision wins, compared to her eight early victories (113). She scored 99 or more DraftKings points in 12 of her last 13 wins, with the one exception being a hyper-efficient first round submission victory over Amanda Lemos that was “only” good for 92 points. She has the ability to go completely nuclear, as she scored 131 or more points in four of her last eight wins and holds the record for the most strikes ever landed in a women’s UFC fight, which she set in a three-round decision over Lauren Murphy this past January. That one-sided beatdown was good for 131 DraftKings points and 165 points on FanDuel. However, since then, Andrade got finished in the first two rounds in three straight fights, with two of those ending in second round submissions. Now she’s facing another very dangerous grappler in Dern, leaving Andrade with a very shaky floor. Nevertheless, this looks like a good buy low spot on Andrade, as Dern has just a 15% career takedown accuracy and Andrade has a solid 70% takedown defense. And with Dern coming off a career performance and Andrade coming off three straight losses, Dern will be popular in DFS, while Andrade will go largely overlooked. Dern is aggressive on the feet, but isn’t a very technical striker and has never knocked anybody out and Andrade should be able to outclass her on the feet. If Andrade can keep the fight standing, she should be able to outland her way to victory and score pretty well even in a decision win. And at her cheap price tag, she doesn’t need to put up a huge score to end up in winning lineups. The odds imply Andrade has a 36% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Tom Aspinall
8th UFC Fight (6-1)Aspinall stepped into this matchup on two and a half weeks’ notice after the Jones/Stipe fight got canceled.
Fresh off a quick 73 second R1 TKO win over Marcin Tybura, Aspinall was the headliner on London cards in each of his last three fights. Unfortunately, he suffered a knee injury 15 seconds into his second most recent fight, which resulted in a disappointing R1 TKO win for Curtis Blaydes in July 2022, as Aspinall suffered his only UFC loss. Aspinall spent the next year working his way back to action after having surgery to repair a torn MCL and meniscus, in addition to a damaged ACL. Aspinall did later say his knee had been bothering him some since before he joined the UFC, so it wasn’t a completely new injury. Just before losing to Blaydes, Aspinall submitted Alexander Volkov in the first round of his first career five round fight. Aspinall has won 9 of his last 10 fights and has still never been past the second round in his career, with 13 of his 16 pro fights ending in round one. He notably faced some really soft competition in his first few UFC fights, landing first round knockouts against Jake Collier and Alan Baudot, before submitting an aging Andrei Arlovski early in the second round. He then faced a step up in competition when he knocked out Serghei Spivac in the first round, leading up to his win over Volkov. Three of Aspinall’s last four fights were against wrestlers and the closest thing to a power puncher he’s faced in the UFC was Volkov, who isn’t known for his one punch power.
Now 13-3 as a pro, Aspinall has 10 wins by KO/TKO and three submissions. He’s never been to a decision or even seen the third round. Twelve of his 13 wins came in round one, with his other ending 69 seconds into round two. While his last loss officially went down as a R1 TKO, each of his previous two losses occurred in the second round. The first of those was a 2015 heel hook in his fourth pro fight, and the other from a 2016 DQ for a downward elbow. After turning pro in 2014, Aspinall would likely have more MMA fights on his record, but he tried his hand at boxing in 2017. He later returned to MMA in 2019.
This will be the fourth five-round fight of Aspinall’s career, but none of his previous three even made it to the four minute mark, with his last two each ending in 73 seconds or less. He submitted Volkov in three minutes and 45 seconds, before suffering a knee injury in a loss that lasted just 15 seconds. Then most recently, he landed a knockout in just 73 seconds, so we still don’t know what his cardio will look like in a longer fight. However, it’s never mattered in the past how long his fights have been scheduled to go as he’s never been in one that lasted longer than nine minutes.
Overall, Aspinall is most well known for his knockout ability, but he’s also a BJJ black belt who can always fall back on his grappling when he needs it. In his seven UFC fights, he landed all four of his takedown attempts, while also defending both of the two takedowns against him. Ten of his 13 career wins came in 95 seconds or less and all 13 ended in the opening seven minutes of fights, so we’ve yet to see his cardio tested, but he’s obviously in better shape than your typical Heavyweight. At his massive size, his unique combination of speed, power, and grappling make him extremely difficult to deal with. We expected him to get a title shot in the near future, but it came even earlier and more abruptly than we thought as he was thrust into this Interim title fight on short notice. It will be important to monitor him closely on the scale given how little time he had to prepare for this one.
Sergei Pavlovich
8th UFC Fight (6-1)Pavlovich was originally the backup fighter for the Jones/Stipe matchup, before that fight got scrapped. So he had been preparing for this date already.
Pavlovich is seven months removed from a R1 TKO win over a wrestler in Curtis Blaydes, who idiotically tried to duke it out on the feet instead of leaning on his wrestling. Blaydes finally attempted a desperation takedown after he was already hurt, but it was too late at that point and Pavlovich was easily able to defend it and then finish Blaydes with punches. Prior to that, Pavlovich knocked out Tai Tuivasa in just 54 seconds and Derrick Lewis in just 55 seconds. Pavlovich has knocked out six straight opponents in the first round after suffering a first round TKO loss of his own in his 2018 UFC debut against Alistair Overeem, who took Pavlovich down and finished him with ground and pound. Pavlovich bounced back from the loss to Overeem by knocking out a pair of low-level Heavyweights in Marcelo Golm and Maurice Greene in 2019, both of whom have since been cut by the UFC. Following the win over Greene, Pavlovich underwent knee surgery and didn’t fight in 2020 or 2021. He finally returned in 2022 to knockout a struggling 40-year-old Shamil Abdurakhimov, leading up to Pavlovich’s win over Lewis a few months later. The last time Pavlovich saw the second round was in a 2017 five-round decision win for the AMC Fight Nights Global Heavyweight belt. Pavlovich defended that belt once in a R1 KO win before joining the UFC in 2018.
Now 18-1 as a pro, Pavlovich has 15 first round knockout wins and three decision victories. His only career loss came in a R1 TKO in his 2018 UFC debut against Alistair Overeem, who was able to take Pavlovich down and pound him out on the mat late in the first round.
This will be the 4th five-round fight of Pavlovich’s career, but just his second in the UFC. His first five-round fight was in 2017 for the AMC Heavyweight belt against a smaller opponent who has gone back and forth between Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight. Pavlovich won an uneventful, low-volume striking battle. He then defended the belt in a first round knockout in his only other five-round fight against an opponent who’s gone 3-3 in his last six matches. Pavlovich’s lone UFC five-round fight was his recent R1 TKO win over Curtis Blaydes. So it’s been over six years since Pavlovich has seen the second round.
Overall, Pavlovich is a traditional Heavyweight boxer and his most dangerous weapon is his right hand. He did wrestle growing up and then transitioned to combat sambo, but he hasn’t even attempted a takedown in his last six fights, after going 0 for 2 in his debut. He also looked pretty helpless off his back against Overeem. Pavlovich has only faced four takedown attempts against him in the UFC, and only two in his last six fights. He was able to stuff those last two attempts, but got taken down on one of Overeem’s two attempts in his debut and was never able to return to his feet afterwards. We haven’t seen Pavlovich face any real adversity since the loss in his UFC debut, as he’s been able to make short work of his last six opponents. That makes it tougher to fully evaluate his entire game, he clearly has devastating power and fast hands. We expected Blaydes to really test the defensive wrestling of Pavlovich, but he waited until he was half knocked out to even attempt a takedown, which was foolish to say the least. Now Pavlovich will face another Heavyweight who has the ability to grapple when he wants to.
Fight Prediction:
Aspinall will have a 2” height advantage, but Pavlovich will have a 6” reach advantage.
This is an exciting matchup between two of the most dangerous Heavyweights on the roster. Aspinall is the more well rounded of the two, as he’s a submission threat on the mat, while both guys have dangerous knockout power. Aspinall is lighter on his feet and moves around the Octagon better, and the larger cage in this matchup should be more of a benefit for him. However, he also stepped into this fight on just two and a half weeks’ notice and it remains to be seen what type of shape he’s in. If you look at his social media, it appears he was training hard before he got the call, but being in the gym and being in a fight camp are two very different things. Obviously he had less time to prepare for Pavlovich specifically, although the same can be said on Pavlovich’s side of things. However, both Jones and Stipe will look to wrestle, so Pavlovich was likely working on his defensive wrestling as he prepared to be the backup in that fight. Both Pavlovich and Aspinall have been so dominant offensively that we haven’t seen either of their chins tested much in the UFC, nor their cardio. We also haven’t seen Pavlovich have to defend many takedowns, but he did get finished on the mat the one time he was taken down. So there are several question marks on both sides here. While either guy is capable of knocking out the other, it would make sense for Aspinall to try and get the fight to the ground to negate the power of Pavlovich. Aspinall already has two submission wins in the UFC, in addition to a ground and pound finish. He took down the last three strikers he faced, showing that he will look to grapple more in the right matchups. That’s encouraging for him here and we do expect Aspinall to come in with a smart game plan. The main concern is just how little time had to prepare, which does leave this as a more volatile matchup. There’s obviously a solid chance that Pavlovich clips him early on and lands yet another first round knockout, but we like Aspinall’s chances of getting this fight to the ground and finishing Pavlovich on the mat in under a round and a half, most likely in round one. Both a submission or a ground and pound finish are in play, making it tougher to pick the exact method, but give us Aspinall in this one.
Our favorite bet here is “Aspinall/Pavlovich Fight to Start R2, No” at -110.
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DFS Implications:
Aspinall has averaged 109 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, scoring 103 or more points in all five of his first round finishes and 95 points in his lone second round finish. He offers a unique combination of size, power, speed, and grappling that makes him extremely dangerous and leaves him with the ability to finish fights both on the feet and the mat. He also has a high fight IQ and knows when to lean on his grappling and when to keep fights standing. In his last six fights, he faced three strikers and three grapplers. He never looked for a takedown against any of the grapplers, but took down all three of the strikers, finishing all three of them on the mat and securing submissions in the last two of those wins. Now he’ll face an extremely dangerous striker here and you have to imagine that Aspinall will be looking to get the fight to the ground. That creates the potential for him to finish the fight with an efficient submission that could fail to put up a huge score, although at his reasonable price tag he would still have a good shot at cracking tournament winning lineups. The fact that Aspinall stepped into this matchup on just two and a half weeks’ notice adds some uncertainty to the mix, although it looked like he had been staying in the gym even before he got the call. Nevertheless, when you combine the short notice nature of this matchup with the devastating knockout power of Pavlovich, this is obviously a volatile matchup and both guys have the potential to score 0 or 100+ points, with the winner likely ending up in the optimal. The odds imply Aspinall has a 51% chance to win, a 46% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.
Pavlovich has averaged 119 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, scoring 107 or more in all of those and 131 or more in two of his last three. It’s been over six years since he made it to the second round and he comes into every fight with destructive intentions. Four of his six UFC wins came in under half a round, with three ending in 66 seconds or less. He hasn’t shown anything in terms of grappling, although he did wrestle when he was younger and he is Russian. The one time he got taken down in the UFC was in his debut, where he was quickly finished with ground and pound on the mat. That’s concerning for his floor here, as Aspinall has shown a tendency to try and take down strikers. If this fight defies the odds and makes it out of the first round, the cardio remains a mystery for both fighters and Pavlovich has never finished anybody beyond the first round. Pavlovich’s devastating power and finishing ability has resulted in him consistently being popular in DFS, with his DraftKings ownership checking in between 35% and 45% in each of his last four matches. With Aspinall also projecting to be very popular, this will overall be the highest owned fight on the slate. While it’s hard to see many paths to it busting outside of a fight cancellation, if that does somehow happen then it would take around 85-90% of the field down with it. Ultimately, Pavlovich is a low floor, high upside play with a very reasonable salary that will make it tougher for him to get left out of the optimal lineup if he wins. However, there’s a chance that Pavlovich could get controlled on the mat for the first round and then come back to land an early second round knockout. He would have a tougher time scoring well in that scenario, so there are at least some ways we could see him busting in a win, and we’re typically treating him as a R1 KO or bust option. The odds imply Pavlovich has a 49% chance to win, a 43% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Alex Pereira
7th UFC Fight (5-1)Pereira is coming off a close/questionable split-decision win over a 40-year-old Jan Blachowicz, who was able to take Pereira down in each of the three rounds. That fight took place at elevation in Salt Lake City, which appeared to take its toll on Blachowicz’s cardio especially, as he set a high wrestling pace. That’s probably what won Pereira the fight, as Blachowicz’s body language was terrible in the later rounds. After dominating the first round and nearly finding a submission, the later rounds were both fairly close and that was enough for two of the three judges to score the fight for Pereira. That was Pereira’s first MMA fight at 205 lb, after he moved up from 185 lb following a violent R2 KO loss to Adesanya just three months earlier as the two traded the Middleweight belt back and forth. However, Pereira did compete at Light Heavyweight in kickboxing. That loss to Adesanya was the first time Pereira has been knocked out in an MMA fight, although he had been knocked out in kickboxing matches in the past. The UFC fast tracked Pereira to the top with a series of cherry picked non-wrestlers, and it’s no secret that Pereira is terrible on the mat. He amazingly got his first UFC title shot just 53 weeks after making his UFC debut, with just seven MMA fights under his belt, and even more amazingly won it in a comeback 5th round TKO against Adesanya in their first MMA fight, after losing three of the first four rounds in that match. Pereira only had one MMA fight in the five and a half years prior to making his UFC debut, which came in a November 2020 violent R1 KO win in the LFA. His first three MMA fights were back in 2015 and 2016 and he returned to kickboxing after that, winning the Glory Kickboxing Light Heavyweight Belt in a January 2021 split-decision and then losing the title in a rematch via decision in September 2021, just two months before making his UFC debut.
Now 8-2 as a pro in MMA, Pereira has six wins by KO/TKO and two decision victories. Three of those knockouts came in round one, two ended in round two, and the other was in round five. He’s been knocked out once in the second round, and submitted once in the third round. After competing at 209 lb in his last two kickboxing matches, Pereira dropped back down to 185 lb for his UFC debut, where his first nine MMA fights all took place. However, he then moved back up to 205 lb for his last fight and is now being thrust into a title shot at the new weight class.
This will be the 3rd five-round fight of Pereira’s career. The first two were both against Adesanya, with Pereira landing a comeback 5th round TKO in the first and then getting knocked out in round two when they ran it back. Pereira lost three of the first four rounds in the first fight and then also lost the first round in the second fight, so he hasn’t been faring very well on the scorecards in these matches.
Overall, Pereira is a very dangerous kickboxer, but has yet to show anything in terms of grappling—although he has been working with Glover Teixeira to try and improve that faucet of his game. In his six UFC fights, he’s been taken down eight times on 27 opponent attempts (70.4% defense), while he landed his lone takedown attempt, which came against Adesanya. While his MMA experience is still very limited, he has 40 kickboxing fights to his name (33-7) including knockouts over Israel Adesanya (2017) and Dustin Jacoby (2014), along with another decision win over Adesanya in 2016. Pereira has also been knocked out twice himself in kickboxing matches. He has a dangerous left hook and throws violent kicks and knees to maximize his massive frame. While his cardio was a major concern early in his career, he has improved in that area and was the fresher fighter in the back half of his last match. Pereira’s last two kickboxing matches at Light Heavyweight both went the distance, as did his only MMA fight at the weight class. His chin is likely a little bit better without cutting the additional 20 pounds, but his power seems far less devastating against the larger opponents. That’s the perfect recipe for longer fights.
Jiri Prochazka
4th UFC Fight (3-0)When the cage doors lock on Saturday it will have been 17 months to the day since Prochazka last competed, when he won the Light Heavyweight belt against Glover Teixeira in a stunning fifth round submission. Teixeira was just 28 seconds away from successfully defending the belt for the first time, after winning three of the first four rounds. The two fighters were scheduled to run it back in December 2022, but Prochazka suffered a really bad shoulder injury and was forced to pull out. He also admirably vacated the belt as to not hold up the division during his time away. Prior to submitting Teixeira, Prochazka landed a pair of second round knockouts in his first two UFC fights against Volkan Oezdemir and Dominick Reyes. Before he joined the UFC, Prochazka had won 10 straight fights with Rizin, where he was the Light Heavyweight champ.
Now 29-3-1 as a pro, Prochazka has 25 KO/TKO wins, three submissions, and one decision victory, with the vast majority of his finishes coming in round one. However, all three of his UFC finishes occurred in later round finishes. All three of his pro losses ended in the first round, with two knockouts and one submission. However, those three losses occurred in 2012, 2013, and 2015 and it’s been nearly eight years since Prochazka last lost a fight. He’s only been to two decisions in his 33 pro fights, a 2014 draw and a 2016 two-round decision win.
This will be the 3rd five-round fight of Prochazka’s career. His first ended in a 2021 R2 KO over Dominick Reyes and the other ended in a R5 submission against Glover Teixeira.
Overall, Prochazka has a wild fighting style filled with unusual movements and strikes from odd angles. He keeps his hands low, which makes it hard to see where his punches are coming from, but also makes him very hittable and he has just a 40% striking defense. He relies almost entirely on his striking and in his three UFC fights he only attempted one takedown, which he completed. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 6 of their 19 attempts (68.4% defense). He’s tall and long and uses his reach well to strike from distance, and he has to be one of the tougher guys to prepare for when it comes to pure striking. After a year and a half away, it will be important to monitor Prochazka closely on the scale.
Fight Prediction:
Pereira will have a 1” height advantage, while Prochazka will have a 1” reach advantage and is five years younger than the 36-year-old Pereira.
There are a lot of similarities between these two. They’re both strikers who won UFC belts in comeback fifth round finishes after being thrust into title fights very early in their respective UFC careers. Neither one of them successfully defended the belt, although Prochazka never even had a chance to. They both have a ton of power, but are lacking when it comes to defense, and they’ve each been knocked out themselves. They’ve both been prone to getting taken down, but rarely shoot for any takedown of their own. Prochazka is an unorthodox wild man, while Pereira is the much more technical and patient striker. While Prochazka is a career Light Heavyweight, Pereira only has one fight at the weight class. That favors Prochazka, who has made a career out of knocking out 205ers, while Pereira has never knocked anyone out at the weight class and still needs to prove his power can be as effective against larger opponents. Pereira does train with Glover Teixeira, who was the last person to fight Prochazka, which seems somewhat helpful when it comes to preparations. But how do you even prepare for a fighter like Prochazka? We expect Pereira to find success landing strikes on Prochazka, but Pereira has a tendency to forget about his defense once he starts stitching together combinations and Prochazka is far too explosively dangerous for him to get away with that. We like Prochazka’s chances of surviving the early attack of Pereira and then landing a devastating kill shot that knocks Pereira out cold. Give us Prochazka by second round knockout.
Our favorite bet here is “Jiri Prochazka KO” at +200.
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DFS Implications:
Pereira has only averaged 89 DraftKings points in his five UFC wins, despite three of those ending in knockouts. He scored just 92 points in a R5 TKO win over Adesanya, after totaling 110 and 87 points in his previous two UFC knockouts. Pereira doesn’t really add anything in terms of grappling and relies entirely on striking and knockouts to score well. While he was known for his devastating power at 185 lb, we’ve yet to see him finish anybody at Light Heavyweight, between his two kickboxing matches and his one MMA appearance at the new weight class. Pereira wasn’t very impressive in his recent Light Heavyweight debut and only won because Jan Blachowicz gassed himself out wrestling at elevation. Pereira got controlled at multiple points in that fight and nearly submitted in the first round, indicating that he’ll likely struggle against grapplers at 205 lb. Luckily for him, Prochazka is not a grappler. Prochazka also averages 5.40 SSA/min, has just a 40% striking defense, and has been knocked out twice in the first round in the past, albeit back in 2012 and 2015. That’s encouraging for Pereira’s chances of racking up striking volume and he should have opportunities to show whether or not his knockout power can translate to the higher weight class. However, Prochazka is extremely dangerous and throws all sorts of unorthodox strikes that are hard to see coming. Pereira had been pretty chinny at 185 lb, and while the move up in weight could help with that, he’ll be at risk of getting knocked out at any moment in this fight. That leaves him with a very shaky floor, and we’ve yet to see him top 92 DraftKings points in a fight that made it out of the first round. The odds imply Pereira has a 53% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Prochazka has averaged 112 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, scoring progressively more points in each of those (123 > 119 > 93). All three of those victories ended in later round knockouts, with two ending in round two and one in round five. However, prior to joining the UFC, the vast majority of his wins ended in first round knockouts. Now he’s coming off shoulder surgery and a year and a half layoff, so it remains to be seen what kind of form he’s in and he may have some ring rust to knock off. He’s only attempted one takedown in his three UFC fights and is almost entirely reliant on striking volume (5.77 SSL/min) and finishes to score well. That generally hasn’t been a problem for him, as 29 of his 33 pro fights ended in the first two rounds. His striking defense has been pretty terrible, which isn’t ideal for him as he squares off against a world champion kickboxer in Pereira, but Prochazka hasn’t lost a fight since 2015, despite his suspect defense. Prochazka’s raw explosiveness gives him the ability to finish a fight at any moment and Pereira has looked pretty chinny in the past. So as long as Prochazka’s durability can hold up, he’ll have a good shot at finishing Pereira at some point in this match. At Prochazka’s cheap price tag, it’s tougher to see him getting left out of winning lineups if he pulls off the upset. The odds imply Prochazka has a 47% chance to win, a 35% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
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Tom Aspinall UNDER 5 Min
