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Fighter Notes:
Fight #14
Jordan Leavitt
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Coming off a 22 second R1 KO by Slam in his recent UFC debut against a completely washed up Matt Wiman, Leavitt is now 8-0 as a pro with six finishes, including four in the first round and two in the second. A former high school wrestler, his previous five finishes had all come by submission and he’s a one-dimensional grappler without any real striking ability. Leavitt fought his first four pro fights at 145 lb, before moving up to 155 lb in February 2020 where he’s fought his most recent four.
Leavitt got his shot in the UFC with a R1 Arm-Triangle Submission win on DWCS back in August 2020. In a fight that lasted four minutes and 15 seconds, we didn’t see many strikes being thrown as Leavitt finished ahead just 4-2 in significant strikes and 23-4 in total strikes. He only needed one takedown attempt to get his opponent, Luke Flores, down to the mat, which came just 16 seconds into the fight. Similar to his UFC debut, Leavitt went for a big slam in the first minute of that fight, but it didn’t have the same effect. Leavitt patiently advanced his position for the next several minutes as he worked towards a submission, which he eventually landed with 45 seconds left on the clock.
Four of his five finishes have notably come against very inexperienced opponents who entered with records of: 1-0, 1-0, 0-0 and 3-0. None of those opponents have fought again since losing to Leavitt.
Claudio Puelles
4th UFC Fight (2-1)After making his 2016 UFC debut at just 20 years old, Puelles has fought just three times in the last four and a half years and is now coming off a 21 month layoff.
Puelles made his way into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter Latin America and lost his 2016 debut to Martin Bravo, who was also making his UFC debut and has since lost three straight fights. Bravo knocked out Puelles in the second round, while outlanding him 56-29 in significant strikes and 64-29 in total strikes. Puelles looked pretty hittable and Bravo was on pace to land 121 significant strikes if the fight had gone the distance. Puelles went 1 for 6 on takedowns in the match, and was only able to notch 34 seconds of control time. He was anything but impressive and ended up going down from a liver shot early in the second round and the fight was quickly stopped moments later.
Following the 2016 loss, Puelles didn’t fight again for 18 months before taking on Felipe Silva, who came in 1-1 in the UFC, was cut following the fight, and has now lost three straight matches outside of the UFC. Puelles defeated Silva with a R3 Kneebar submission to notch his first UFC win, however, Silva was absolutely dominating the fight up to that point, as he led in significant strikes 70-16, total strikes 103-16 and control time 2:52-1:28. Silva also went 1 for 1 on takedowns, while Puelles ended up 2 for 7. Puelles didn’t want any part of a striking battle and even pulled guard a couple of times to try and get the fight to the mat. Silva nearly finished Puelles late in the second round, but Puelles was saved by the bell. Less than a minute into R3, Silva dropped Puelles with a stiff right hand and the fight looked moments away from being stopped, as Silva continued to obliterate Puelles. However, Puelles shot for a desperation takedown and despite failing on the attempt, he was able to go for a hail mary Kneebar as Silva appeared to let his guard down for just a second—likely due to how easily he was controlling the fight. Puelles was able to force a tap from Silva in one of the crazier comebacks in recent memory. While it goes down as a finish for Puelles, that was about as lucky as he could get in a fight that he had no business winning.
In his most recent bout, Puelles took on Marcos Mariano, who entered 0-1 in the UFC and was also cut immediately afterwards. Puelles won a smothering decision, with a bizarrely low 22-2 significant striking total, but leading 101-5 in total strikes. Puelles landed 4 of 6 takedowns and amassed a ridiculous 13 and a half minutes of control time against an opponent who managed to do literally nothing for 15 minutes. Easily one of the worst performances of all time, it’s not surprising Mariano was cut following the absentee showing. Mariano finished his UFC career 0-2 with just shy of four rounds of total Octagon time, and landed an absurdly low 5 combined significant strikes and 9 total strikes with no other stats to show for himself. Truly one of the more puzzling “careers” anyone could have.
Puelles’ three UFC opponents combined to go 2-7 in the UFC (1-3, 1-2 & 0-2) and none of them ever won another UFC fight after taking on Puelles. The only UFC win for any of those three opponents other than Bravo defeating Puelles, was Silva defeating Shane Campbell, who went 1-4 in his UFC career. Puelles is not a UFC level talent and is simply a one-dimensional grappler, who’s only ever threatened to finish anyone at the UFC level with Kneebar submissions. He should be 1-2 and his lone deserved win came against a terrible fighter who put up less resistance than a wet paper bag.
Fight Prediction:
Puelles will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
Normally when we have two grapplers squaring off we talk about how that can often result in a surprising stand up battle, but neither one of these guys likes to strike even a little bit, so we expect this fight to quickly make its way to the mat. Both of these two have faced incredibly soft competition throughout their careers, so it’s hard to have a ton of confidence in either one of them, but Leavitt has at least looked good against terrible competition, while Puelles has struggled mightily against anyone with a pulse. The only way Puelles wins this fight is if he lands another flukey Kneebar Submission and we don’t see that happening. Look for Leavitt to immediately shoot for a takedown, try to pick Puelles up and slam him and then control this match for as long as it lasts until he gets another early finish against a non-UFC level talent, most likely late in the first round. Puelles will be looking to grab a leg to go for a Kneebar, but Leavitt should be wise to it and stay out of danger. The only way Leavitt gets a KO is with another slam, which seemed flukey in his last fight, but he notably has attempted it in each of his last two matches, so it does appear to be something he’s actively going for. With that said, it’s far more likely that he lands a submission in the first two rounds here.
The safest bet here is Leavitt’s moneyline, but at -215 it’s tough to get excited about that. Our favorite bet is his R1 Submission line at +370, but you should also consider his R2 Submission line at +750. If you think there’s a chance he gets another unlikely KO by Slam, you can hedge a little with his R1 KO line at +1500 or simply bet his R1 and R2 win lines at +270 and +600 respectively. The last bet worth considering is that the “Fight Ends in a Submission” at +105, which is the closest thing to Puelles exposure that we want here.
DFS Implications:
Coming off a 120 point performance in his UFC debut, Leavitt leads the DraftKings slate in FPPF, which generally is followed by a bump up in ownership. He’s also tied for the second highest chances of landing a finish on the slate at 42%, which also directly correlates with higher ownership. While we expect him to be popular based on those factors, the size of the card should keep his ownership somewhat under control. Leavitt is matched up with an absolutely terrible opponent, and while he’s not necessarily geared to capitalize on Puelles’ biggest weakness—striking defense—we still expect Leavitt to be able to dominate him on the ground. However, Puelles is a grappler himself, so it’s possible he can at least survive being finished early, but we’re not betting on that—in fact we’re betting against it. Leavitt’s grappling heavy fighting style is geared to score better on DraftKings the longer the fight goes, as he rarely lands any significant strikes, but does rack up control time. Therefore he’s even more reliant on landing a first round finish on FanDuel. The odds imply he has a 66% chance to win, a 42% chance to get a finish and a 17% chance it comes in the first round.
Puelles is the type of fighter you get really excited about—with the idea that you get to bet on him to lose. He has absolutely no business being in the UFC and we can’t imagine he sticks around much longer, although his fraudulent 2-1 record may have bought him a little time. Similar to Leavitt, Puelles is a one-dimensional grappler, except his grappling is far less impressive. The only way we see him winning this fight is with a flukey Kneebar Submission, which is unlikely to happen. Forced to choose, we’d rather fade this fight and hope Leavitt is outscored by the other high-priced fighters than play Puelles as a contrarian option. With that said, the odds imply he has a 36% chance to win, a 17% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1. Those all seem far too high.
Fight #13
Sean Woodson
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Looking to bounce back from his first career loss in a massive upset where he was a -500 favorite in June of 2020, Woodson was submitted in the third round of his last fight by Julian Erosa, who took the fight on just a few days notice. Woodson dropped Erosa early in the third round, but Erosa recovered and turned the tables with a takedown followed by a Brabo Choke submission. Woodson narrowly came out ahead 106-103 in significant strikes and 116-107 in total strikes, while Erosa went 3 for 6 on takedowns in a high-volume brawl. Woodson had been scheduled to face Jonathan Pearce back in November but withdrew for undisclosed reasons, so now it’s been nearly a year since he last fought.
Prior to the loss, Woodson was 7-0 as a pro and 1-0 in the UFC. He won a decision in his October 2019 UFC debut against a suspect Kyle Bochniak, who entered the fight 2-4 in the UFC and was cut following his fifth loss. Woodson outlanded Bochniak 111-42 in significant strikes and 150-52 in total strikes, while Bochniak amazingly went 1 for 15 on takedown attempts.
Looking back one fight further, Woodson punched his ticket to the UFC with a R2 KO on DWCS in 2019, which is his only finish since his second pro fight, as four of his last five wins have gone the distance. He does have a pair of first round finishes on his record, with a Guillotine Submission and a knockout, but those came in his first two pro fights against opponents who entered with records of 0-3 and 3-4. Also notable in terms of those first two fights is that they took place at 180 and 185 lb. He then dropped down to 155 lb for his third pro fight and then all the way down to 145 lb for his fourth pro bout, where he’s currently fighting. His most recent match actually took place at 150 lb Catchweight, after Erosa accepted it on just a few days notice, but his DWCS appearance and his UFC debut both took place at 145 lb, where this next fight will be. Woodson is insanely lean for the division, potentially to the point of it being a detriment to his power. He had an extensive amateur boxing career and it shows in his fighting style.
Youssef Zalal
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Coming off a pair of losses after winning his first three UFC fights, Zalal took his last fight on just a week’s notice as he filled in against a tough opponent in Seung Woo Choi. Zalal went 3 for 9 on takedowns in the fight, while Choi went 2 for 3, while outlanding Zalal 41-23 in significant strikes and 73-46 in total strikes. Choi went on to win a unanimous decision in the low-volume match.
Prior to that, Zalal took on an absolute stud in Ilia Topuria, who was making his UFC debut. Topuria came in with a perfect 8-0 record with seven first round finishes and one second round win. So Zalal was notably the only person to ever go the distance with Topuria and only the second person to make it past the first round. Topuria then won his next fight in the first round also, showing that it wasn’t just a pre-UFC fluke that he was finishing everybody. Zalal showed next-level toughness surviving 15 minutes locked in the cage with Topuria and they probably checked to see if he floats to know if he’s a witch after the fight based on how long Zalal survived some of those chokes. Zalal actually came out ahead 17-13 in significant strikes and 40-30 in total strikes, but Topuria went 5 for 9 on takedowns with five official submission attempts and over eight minutes of control time in the grappling heavy decision win.
Before those two losses, Zalal was on a four fight winning streak, with three UFC decision wins over lower level fighters following a Flying Knee R1 KO in the LFA that got him into the UFC. Seven of Zalal’s last eight fights have gone the distance, with the one exception being that 2019 R1 Flying Knee KO. He’s now 10-4 as a pro and has never been finished. Somewhat surprising if you’ve watched his UFC career, 7 of his 10 career wins have actually come early, with two KOs and five submissions. However, six of those came in his first six pro fights against far less experienced opponents.
Zalal has seven official submission attempts in his five UFC fights, so he’s consistently looking to try and get a finish, but he needs to improve his strength and technique to actually land some of those. He’s not really a threat to knock opponents out with his hands, but has a dangerous Flying Knee that he likes to throw. His elusive fighting style allows him to evade opponents at will, which has made it tough for the opposition to land many strikes on him. That should make it hard for Woodson to hit his average striking numbers.
Fight Prediction:
Woodson will have a 4” height advantage and massive 6” reach advantage.
This fight appears destined to end in a decision, but if it were to end early, a Zalal submission win would probably be the most likely outcome. Woodson showed he’s vulnerable on the ground in his last fight and Zalal has averaged 1.4 submission attempts per 15 minutes so far in the UFC. While most of his attempts have been pretty sloppy, that at least shows the potential is there. It’s harder to imagine either guy knocking the other out and there’s zero chance Woodson lands a submission of his own. Woodson should be able to outland his way to a decision win as long as he can stay on his feet, however, while he does have a 77% takedown defense, that’s mostly based on a terrible 1 for 15 performance by Bochnial in Woodson’s UFC debut. Woodson has notably been taken down six times in his three UFC fights—so there’s a good chance Zalal gets it to the ground at least once. So while it’s possible that Zalal is able to grapple his way to a submission or a decision win, we’re still leaning towards Woodson getting the nod from the judges.
The best bet by far here is that the fight ends in a decision at -186. However, it’s also worth hedging with a little “Zalal Wins by Submission” at +1000 and/or “Zalal Wins by R3 Submission” at +4600 if you really want to take a stab at something.
DFS Implications:
Woodson generally lands a ton of striking volume, checking in with the third highest average on the slate with 6.4 significant strikes landed per minute. However, he’s a pure boxer and hasn’t even attempted a takedown in his last three fights, which leaves him reliant on a finish to really put up a big score and return value at his price. He’s also facing a fighter in Zalal who’s never been finished and absorbs an average of just 1.56 significant strikes per minute, which is the third fewest on the slate. So overall it looks like a terrible matchup for Woodson to pay off in DFS. With that said, he has a better chance to return value on FanDuel where he should score from takedowns defended as Zalal averages four missed takedowns per 15 minutes and will likely be looking to take this fight to the mat. In Woodson’s UFC debut decision win, he scored just 82 DraftKings points but a ridiculous 129 points on FanDuel with the help of an insane 14 takedowns defended. Obviously that number is ridiculous, but if we bring it down to Zalal’s average of four, that score still would have been good for 99 FanDuel points. So while he’s still unlikely to put up a big score, he’s still a much better FanDuel play compared to DraftKings. The odds imply he has a 63% chance to win, a 24% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
Zalal came close to scoring well in two of his three decision wins with DraftKings scores of 95, 69 and 88 in his three victories. Those wins were good for 103, 73 and 85 points on FanDuel. His high number of submission attempts has helped him to score decently on FanDuel, where his grappling heavy fighting style would typically score worse. Woodson’s high-volume striking and non-existent grappling is actually the perfect recipe for Zalal to turn out an above average performance, and he has the potential to be useful as a value play if he can pull off the win, even in a decision if most of the other dogs on the slate fail. So at his cheap price tag he’s still worth considering on both sides. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 13% chance to get a finish and just a 6% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #12
Manon Fiorot
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Fiorot was originally a -165 favorite when she was scheduled to face Maryna Moroz, who dropped out mid fight week. Fiorot is now a -500 favorite against the undersized replacement in Tabatha Ricci.
Coming off an extremely impressive UFC debut, Fiorot has now won six straight fights since losing her 2018 pro debut up at 138 lb. Since dropping down to 125 lb, she’s gone 6-0 with five knockouts and finished her last four opponents. Her last three knockouts have all come in the first two rounds, with one in the first and two in the second.
Fiorot’s karate fighting style makes her a tough opponent to deal with as she does a masterful job of controlling distance. She also utilizes a destructive check right hook as she backs out of striking range against her opponents. She offers explosive combinations of punches reminiscent of vintage Vitor Belfort. Fiorot has a bright future and we see her as a serious contender in the women’s Flyweight division before long.
The only knock on Fiorot is that she hasn’t faced many opponents with very much experience. Here are the records of her opponents coming into her fights: 0-1 (L), 3-7, 4-1, 5-3, 2-2, 6-1 and 8-2. However, it should be noted that she had a pretty legit amateur career as she made her way through the 2017 IMMAF World Championships, which she won.
Tabatha Ricci
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Stepping in on short notice after Maryna Moroz dropped out in the middle of the week, Ricci made her pro debut 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 took on Kelsey Arnesen, who was fighting for the first time as a pro. Ricci won a grappling heavy decision, but was never close to finishing the fight.
Next, Ricci took on 36-year-old Vanessa Marie Grimes, who came in with a 1-5 pro record with four early losses. The fight lasted just 67 seconds before Ricci won via Armbar Submission, which was the second first round Armbar win of her young career.
This past April, Ricci took on another terrible opponent in Shawna Lee Ormsby, who entered with a 2-3 pro record. Ricci nearly landed another R1 Armbar Submission, but couldn’t quite finish it. Then late in the second round, Ricci landed her first career TKO as she forced a stoppage as she rained down ground and pound. However, the stoppage was pretty weak and most refs would have let the fight go on.
A training partner of Mackenzie Dern (cliché line of the week), Ricci has a solid ground game and looks most dangerous with her Armbar Submissions. She can explode for flurries of strikes, but doesn’t have a ton of power so really isn’t much of a knockout threat. It’s crazy to think, but Ricci’s best opponent in her last three fights was the girl who had never fought professionally before in Kelsey Arnesen. While Ricci looked good in all three of her recent wins, the low level of competition she faced can be deceiving for talent evaluation. With that said, Ricci has a black belt in Judo and BJJ, and could be an interesting prospect in the 115 lb division in the future, but it’s really too early to tell. Either way, the deck is stacked against her moving up to 125 lb for her short notice UFC debut and this matchup couldn’t be any tougher for her.
Fight Prediction:
Fiorot will have a massive 5” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, and Ricci is notably moving up from 115 lb to 125 lb for this short notice fight.
Fiorot is the far more powerful and creative striker in this matchup and should convincingly win the stand-up battle. Ricci’s best chance will be to put Fiorot on her back to try and control the fight and/or look for an Armbar Submission. However, that could be challenging considering the size advantage Fiorot has. We like Fiorot to stuff Ricci’s takedown attempts and punish her with a variety of strikes on the feet. Look for Fiorot to hand Ricci the first loss of her career, most likely with a second round KO.
Fiorot’s moneyline is unfortunately no longer bettable and the books lack the balls to drop any props.
DFS Implications:
Fiorot is a high-volume striker, who averages the fifth most significant strikes landed on the slate at 5.5/min, albeit in a limited sample size. She should have the chance to defend multiple takedowns, which will further boost her FanDuel score. In addition to that, she comes in on a six fight winning streak, having knocked out her last four opponents, with the last three ending in the first two rounds. While her next opponent has never been finished, Ricci is making her short notice UFC debut up a weight class and Fiorot will have a massive size advantage. We love Fiorot’s chances to get a mid round knockout and she is clearly the biggest value play on both sites after the mid week opponent change, as her odds went from -165 to -500, while her DFS prices remained the same. We all know the drill in mispriced instances like this—ownership skyrockets—which is annoying because we loved Fiorot in her previous matchup at a third of the ownership. Lock Fiorot into your cash lineups and a good portion of your tournament lineups as well. The odds imply she has a 79% chance to win, a 54% chance to get a finish and a 29% chance it comes in R1.
Ricci’s grappling heavy fighting style will naturally score better on DraftKings than FanDuel, as she generally accrues a large amount of control time and ground strikes. However, this spot is as tough as it gets for her as she goes against an absolute buzzsaw in her UFC debut. The main reason to play her is for leverage in tournaments, as Fiorot will be the most popular play on the slate, while Ricci will likely be the lowest owned fighter on the card. There’s a miniscule chance Ricci gets Fiorot down and submits her with an Armbar, so it makes sense to position yourself to benefit from such an outlier performance—which isn’t hard when you look at her single digit projected ownership. The odds imply Ricci has a 21% chance to win, and her ownership is projected to be just a third of that. The odds also suggest she has an 11% chance to get a finish and a 5% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #11
Mason Jones
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Coming into his January 2020debut, Jones called on Dana White and Sean Selby to "Find the biggest, deadliest lightweight monster you can find - because I'm a lightweight guy - and I'll go out there and dismantle him.” The UFC obliged, and while Jones didn’t get the results he was looking for, the rest of us all came out winners.
In that debut, Jones threw down in an absolute war against Mike Davis. So while he suffered his first career loss, Jones has nothing to hang his head about after leaving it all out there. The fight ended in a close decision, despite Jones leading in significant strikes 117-108 and total strikes 132-111. Davis did land three takedowns on nine attempts, while Jones went just one of four in the match, but Davis wasn’t really able to do a whole lot with any of those takedowns as Jones consistently got back up to his feet. Judging by their faces after the match, Davis clearly did more damage, and the fight was so close you couldn’t really argue with the decision whichever way it would have gone.
Prior to the recent loss, Jones landed back to back first round KO victories on Cage Warriors, where he won both the vacant 155 lb and 170 lb belts, bringing his record to a perfect 10-0 at the time. Both of those wins came against submission specialists, so he has no issue taking on pure grapplers and quickly finishing them. In his most recent win, Jones moved up to 170 lb and landed a pair of knockdowns in the first round before finishing his opponent with ground and pound late in the first round. In his second most recent win he knocked his opponent down with a knee to the body, also late in the first round, and again finished with ground and pound.
A BJJ black belt, Jones also holds black belts in kickboxing and Judo, so he clearly has a well rounded game. Other than his one title fight at 170 lb, all of Jones’ career fights have been at 155 lb. Of his 10 career wins, seven have come early, with four KOs and three submissions. Four of his finishes have come in the first round, one in the second, and two in the third. All three of his submission wins came in his first four pro fights, and he appears to have settled more into looking for KOs as of recently.
Alan Patrick
9th UFC Fight (5-3)Looking like a one-dimensional grappler late in his career, Patrick is coming off back-to-back losses and has only fought three times since September 2016 as he’s battled injuries throughout his career. He’s gone 1-2 in those three fights with his one win coming back in 2018 against Damir Hadzovic, who’s completely helpless on the mat. Patrick hasn’t landed a finish since his 2013 UFC debut where he won with a first round TKO against a terrible Garett Whiteley, who went 0-3 in the UFC before retiring in 2014.
Despite being a pure grappler and BJJ black belt, Patrick has only two submission wins on his record and both of those came in his first three pro fights back in 2008. He has four KOs to his name, but none since his 2013 UFC debut. His last four wins all ended in decisions, while two of his three UFC losses have come by KO—both in the later two rounds. He’s now 15-3 as a pro, with nine of his wins ending in decisions. Two of his three losses have come by KO, while one went the distance.
Following a 2016 decision win, Patrick took 17 months off before returning in a 2018 decision win. Then, following an October 2018 R3 KO loss, he took off 23 months before returning for his most recent decision loss. At 37 years old, you have to start wondering if the next fight could be his last.
Patrick has notably gone 1 for 17 (6%) on takedowns in his last three losses, but has gone 19 for 30 (63%) in his last three wins.
Fight Prediction:
Patrick will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 74” reach. Jones is notably 11 years younger than the 37-year-old Patrick.
Patrick doesn’t look like he has much left in the tank and we expect Jones to dominate him in this fight. Patrick is nearly eight years removed from his last early win and Jones has never been finished, so we don’t see Patrick finishing this one early and it’s hard to imagine him winning a decision. So we have total confidence in Jones winning this fight, it’s just a matter of when. He’s knocked out the last two grapplers he’s faced in the first round, but Patrick has never been finished before the second. We still like Jones’ chances to land a R1 KO, but a later finish wouldn’t be surprising as he may simply wear down Patrick before ending things later. Either way, we like Jones to win this one with a knockout and get his UFC record back to even.
The best bet here is probably “Jones Wins by KO” at +125, but there’s not a ton of value in the line. You can also consider his R1 KO line at +350 or his R1 win line at +300 since he does have three submissions on his record. His R2 and R3 win lines at +500 and +750 are also interesting, or you can take a moon shot on his round three submission line at +5000.
DFS Implications:
Jones is a solid striker, with black belts in BJJ, kickboxing and Judo, who seems eager to prove himself on the biggest stage. He’ll mix in occasional takedowns to add to his DFS upside. With 70% of Jones’ wins coming early and two of Patrick’s three career losses ending in knockouts, we expect Jones to get a finish here. Priced as the most expensive fighter on both sites, he’ll still need to be a top two scorer on the slate to end up in winning tournament lineups, but there’s a great chance he achieves that if he can land an early finish. Patrick averages six missed takedowns per 15 minutes, which adds to Jones’ FanDuel scoring upside through takedowns defended, so he makes for an especially good play over there. With just the lone loss on his DFS score sheet it will be interesting to see where his ownership ends up, but he’s currently projected to be less owned than Jordan Leavitt at the top of the food chain. The odds imply Jones has a 72% chance to win, a 41% chance to get a finish and a 17% chance it comes in R1.
Patrick looks near done in the UFC and we don’t have much interest in playing him in DFS. While he’s scored well in his last three decision wins, those have all come in absolutely dominating grappling performances and we don’t see him replicating that here. With that said, those scores at least give you some reason to have a small amount of exposure in case we’re wrong, just keep in mind two of those fights were in 2016 and the other was in 2018 against one of the more pathetic defensive grapplers in the UFC. Patrick’s grappling heavy style clearly makes him much more likely to score well on DraftKings in a win, and he’ll need a finish on FanDuel to put up a decent score. The odds imply he has a 28% chance to win, a 12% chance to get a finish and a slate-low 5% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #10
Makwan Amirkhani
10th UFC Fight (6-3)Amirkhani had been scheduled to face Nate Landwehr in this spot, but Landwehr withdrew due to an injury and Kirk stepped in on short notice.
Amirkhani is coming off an ultra low-volume decision loss against Edson Barboza, where Barboza led in significant strikes 32-11 and total strikes 34-25. Barboza landed a pair of knockdowns, while Amirkhani went 3 for 6 on takedowns, but couldn’t do anything with them, as two came right at the end of the first two rounds.
Prior to the decision loss, Amirkhani finished Danny Henry in the first round with an Anaconda submission. Not much else happened in that fight, as Henry led in strikes 6-2, but Amirkhani hyper efficiently finished the fight with his only submission attempt on his lone takedown. Henry came into that fight following a loss and a 16 month layoff, and looked like the oldest 32-year-old you’ve ever seen.
Looking back one fight further, Amirkhani was knocked out by Shane Burgos in the third round after failing to land an early submission attempt. Prior to that fight he landed another Anaconda submission, that time in the second round of a 2019 match against Chris Fishgold. Amirkhani had fought to three straight ultra low-volume decisions before the win over Fishgold, after winning his first two UFC fights in 2015 with a pair of first round finishes. One of those was by Rear-Naked Choke, following an eight second Flying Knee KO in his UFC debut—which remains Amirkhani’s only KO to date.
All three of Amirkhani’s UFC losses have come against studs in Edson Barboza, Shane Burgos and Arnold Allen, and all three made it to the third round, with two ending in decisions. The only person to ever land more than 32 significant strikes on him is Shane Burgos who more than tripled that, landing 105. Amirkhani has similarly never landed above 32 significant strikes in a UFC fight, and that was back in 2016.
Amirkhani has landed at least one takedown in his last eight UFC fights and at least three in five of those. He claims to have improved his boxing, but so far he’s been a one-dimensional grappling submission specialist in his UFC career. His speciality is the Anaconda Choke, which is how he finished his last two wins.
He’s currently 16-5 as a pro, with 11 wins by submission and one by KO. He’s also been finished twice himself, but only once in the last 10 years, which was the R3 KO against Burgos. His only other early career loss was a 2011 Triangle Choke in his third pro fight.
At his media day interview, Amirkhani talked about how he completely changed his preparation for this fight and focused much more on getting stronger and overall preparing more professionally. So he seems to think we’ll see an all new and improved version of him. He also talked about potentially fighting again two weeks from now, so he may not be entirely focussed on his current opponent.
Kamuela Kirk
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Announced as the late replacement for Nate Landwehr on May 26th, Kirk fought just three weeks ago and suffered a cut on the side/top of his eye, but presumably that is fully healed.
Kirk went up against UFC fighter Billy Quarantillo on DWCS in July 2019 and actually started off the fight great as he controlled Quarantillo on the ground for nearly the entire first round. Kirk looked to be slowing down as the second round started, which in fairness it had been three and a half years since he’d been past the first after he finished his previous three opponents in under five minutes, including Kevin Croom, who’s now in the UFC. Of note, Kirk has never won a fight that has made it past the second round (0-4). Anyways back to the DWCS fight. In a tale of two rounds, Kirk had nothing to offer in the second round as Quarantillo had his way with him. Kirk narrowly survived the round, but when the third round started Quarantillo sprinted across the Octagon to resume where he had left off. Kirk clearly had nothing left and Quarantillo was able to land several heavy knees and punches before Herb Dean stopped the fight. Needless to say, Kirk was not awarded a UFC contract and was forced to return to the LFA.
In his next fight he took on Bruno Souza, who came into the fight 6-1 and on a six fight winning streak. Souza is a Karate style fighter who gave Kirk trouble closing the distance. After starting off with a grappling heavy game plan against Quarantillo, Kirk kept this one almost entirely on the feet and ended up paying for it as he lost a split decision in a fight where he should have had a major advantage on the ground. Kirk said he wanted to keep the fight standing up and to box his way to victory—maybe that had something to do with the fact that he gassed out midway through his previous fight after exclusively grappling early.
Following the pair of losses, Kirk took on Guilherme Santos, who had coincidentally also just lost to Bruno Souza just after Kirk did. Santos came in with an 8-3 record but having lost three of his last six fights and missed weight by a pound and a half for this match. Kirk was able to dominate Santos on the feet and finish him late in the first round with a flurry of strikes without attempting a single takedown.
Most recently, Kirk took on Daniel Swain, who came in with a 20-10 pro record but having lost two of his last four fights and fresh off a first round KO loss on DWCS against T.J. Laramie. This fight took place at 155 lb, opposed to 145 lb, where they both normally fight as it was booked on short notice. Kirk dominated the striking throughout the fight, but Swain came close to landing a couple of Armbar Submission attempts. Following the second round, the 30-year-old Swain said he “couldn’t do this anymore” and appeared to retire on the spot and the fight was stopped. Maybe losing on DWCS and then getting beat up for two rounds just destroyed his motivation to keep fighting.
While Kirk has a Jiu-Jitsu black belt to fall back on when fights go to the mat, he’s appeared to have fallen in love with his striking in recent years as he wasn’t really looking for any takedowns in his last three fights. He does have six first round submission wins on his record, but four of those came in his first six pro fights and he only has two submissions in his last nine matches. He also has five TKOs on his record, with three coming in the first round and two occurring in round two. He’s lost all three of the decisions he’s ever been to, but the only time he’s ever been finished came in his DWCS fight against Billy Quarantillo, when he completely gassed out. His cardio has looked improved since then, although he also hasn’t been in any wrestling heavy matches since, which is what really appeared to wear him out.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’10” but Kirk will have a 3” reach advantage.
As short notice replacement fighters go, Kirk is no easy out. He has a well rounded game, which unfortunately for him he didn’t really get to fully showcase in his 2019 DWCS fight as he gassed out wrestling in the first round. Considering Amirkhani will be looking to grapple early and often, it’s certainly possible that happens again, but Kirk has looked better in his last few fights and seems to be improving his striking. Still just 27 years old, he appears to be a fighter on the rise and it’s not surprising the UFC gave him the call up. Kirk should actually have the striking advantage in this fight and if he can keep it standing up we could easily see him pointing his way to a decision. It’s also not as though he’s helpless on the ground as he has a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu. Obviously Amirkhani has been going up against much tougher competition, but he’s really only excelled against lower level UFC fighters for what it’s worth. Amirkhani is incredibly dangerous on the ground, and if he can get Kirk down there’s a good chance he lands a submission, but if Kirk can keep it standing we think he can pull off the upset here. Amirkhani notably has just a 37% takedown accuracy, while Kirk has looked pretty good at stuffing takedowns.
The three bets we like here are “Amirkhani Wins by R1 Submission” at +410, Kirk’s moneyline at +220 and “Kirk Wins by KO” at +750.
DFS Implications:
Despite both of them coming in the first two rounds, Amirkhani’s last two wins scored just 97 and 86 points on DraftKings and 112 and 91 points on FanDuel. Earlier in his career Amirkhani had a grappling heavy decision win that managed to score 100 DraftKings points, but that was only good for 63 FanDuel points. He lands a decent number of takedowns at 3.4 per 15 minutes, but that’s typically not enough to make up for his flatlined 1.42 average significant strikes landed per minute. Even with 10 minutes of control time in his one high scoring DraftKings decision, he still needed three reversals to keep his score above 90 points. His finishes have all been so hyper-efficient that only one of them scored above 97 DK points and that was only due to the quick win bonus in an eight second Flying Knee KO in Amirkhani’s 2015 UFC debut. So he really doesn’t have many paths to returning value as the second most expensive fighter on both DFS sites. Also, five of Amirkhani’s last seven fights have made it to the third round, with the two exceptions being his last two wins, making it tougher for anyone to score well in his fights. The odds imply he has a 63% chance to win, a 41% chance to get a finish and a 17% chance it comes in R1.
Kirk looks like an interesting prospect moving forward, but this is a terrible matchup for him to score well in DFS, especially on DraftKings. If Amirkhani shoots for a ton of takedowns, which he’s done sporadically like when he went 3 for 19 against Shane Burgos, then it’s possible Kirk could still return value in a decision on FanDuel as a dirt cheap option. He’s more reliant on landing a finish on DraftKings, as it’s rare for anyone to land many takedowns or strikes on Amirkhani—only one fighter has ever taken him down and only one fighter has ever landed above 32 significant strikes. The last two fighters to defeat Amirkhani in a decision scored just 66 and 76 points on DraftKings and 77 and 86 points on FanDuel. So even at his bottom of the barrel price tag, Kirk likely needs a finish on DraftKings to put up a decent score. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish and a 7% chance he gets it done in the first round.
Fight #9
Muslim Salikhov
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Salikhov enters this match on a four fight winning streak and having impressively won 15 of his last 16 fights, with the one exception being a R2 submission loss in his 2017 UFC debut. The only other loss of his career was a 2012 R1 Rear-Naked Choke Submission, and he’s never been knocked out.
Coming off a split decision win over Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos in his most recent fight, Salikhov was in a little bit of trouble at the end of the first round after he was wobbled by a Dos Santos right cross. Dos Santos was laying on heavy ground and pound as the round ended, but Salikhov was saved by the bell. That appeared to be the biggest moment in the fight, but apparently not all the judges saw it that way as one of the judges ruled the match 30-27 in favor of Salikhov, while the other two had it split 28-29 and 29-28. Not a whole lot else happened in the fight and Dos Santos came out ahead in strikes 46-40, while both fighters failed to land a takedown—Dos Santos on four attempts and Salikhov on three. It probably should have gone in Dos Santos’ favor, but it was a close low-volume fight so it’s hard to be too upset with any of the judges other than the one that ruled it 30-27 for Salikhov.
Prior to that, Salikhov defeated Laureano Staropoli in another lower-volume decision that included more spinning kicks than a drunken game of Foosball. Salikhov came out ahead in significant strikes 63-42,and total strikes 64-48. He landed three takedowns on five attempts, while Staropoli missed all three of his attempts. Salikhov had back-to-back knockouts leading up to that pair of decision wins. In the first round of a 2019 fight, Salikhov violently knocked out a 38-year-old Nordine Taleb, who had lost two of his previous three fights early and then never fought again. Just prior to that Salikhov knocked out a debuting Ricky Rainey in the second round of a 2018 match. Rainey got knocked out again in his next fight before being released by the UFC. So both of Salikhov’s UFC KO wins notably came against struggling opponents. Also, both knockouts came late in their respective rounds, but we still didn’t see many strikes landed leading up to the finishes.
Salikhov’s most dangerous weapon is his lightning fast spinning kick. He doesn’t throw much volume, but when he does strike, he makes it count. He hasn’t landed more than 63 significant strikes in a UFC fight and hasn’t ever absorbed more than 46. He also doesn’t really offer anything in the grappling department, as he only has three takedowns in five UFC fights and those all came in one match.
Since turning pro in 2011, Salikhov owns a 17-2 record with 12 KOs, two submissions and three decision wins. Impressively, 13 of his 14 finishes have come in the first round, with the one exception being the 2018 R2 KO against Rainey. Both of his submission losses also came in the first two rounds and all three of his fights to make it to the third round ended in decision wins.
Francisco Trinaldo
23rd UFC Fight (16-6)Coming in on a three fight winning streak at 42 years old, Trinaldo is the old guy at the gym that can still somehow post up everybody on the court using his old man strength. He’s coming off a third round KO of a debuting Jai Herbert, who was on a six fight winning streak that included five finishes. Trinaldo notably missed weight by four pounds for that fight, which is surprising as he had never missed weight in his UFC career before. Trinaldo went for a standing Guillotine less than two minutes into the fight that looked like it had a chance, but he was unable to finish it. Herbert dropped Trinaldo to start the second round, but Trinaldo quickly recovered to some extent. He did begin to slow down in that round as Herbert began heating up in the fight. However, Trinaldo quickly put a halt to that momentum as he landed a lethal left hand to Herbert’s forehead 85 seconds into the third round that dropped him like a falling tree. It should have been a beautiful walk off KO, but Herb Dean nonsensically refused to stop the fight and Trinaldo stood over Herbert decomposing body with his left hand cocked waiting for Herb Dean to stop the action, almost asking, “Are you really going to make me punch this cadaver any more?” Instead Herb Dean forced Trinaldo to throw a few more unnecessary strikes to an opponent who was clearly not among the living any longer. The mistake left Dan Hardy and Paul Felder screaming at Dean to stop the fight, which eventually led to the infamous Dan Hardy/Herb Dean confrontation.
Prior to that highlight reel knockout, Trinaldo had fought to three straight low-volume decisions, winning the most recent two, with the one loss coming against Alexander Hernandez in a low-volume fight that was dead even in terms of the stats.
Trinaldo’s last 11 fights have all made it out of the first round, with nine of those making it to round three, and seven going the distance. He’s impressively gone 12-3 in his last 15 fights and 4-1 in his last five. So despite his advanced age, he has still found ways to consistently get it done.
With a 26-7 pro record, Trinaldo has five submission wins and three submission losses. However, he hasn’t submitted anybody in over eight years, going all the way back to his fourth UFC match. And his only submission loss since 2013 came in the second round of a 2017 fight against Kevin Lee. Twelve of his last 17 fights have gone the distance, with the exceptions being a 2015 R1 KO win, a 2016 R3 KO win, a 2017 R2 Submission loss, a 2018 R2 KO win and his recent 2020 R3 KO win. He’s amazingly never been knocked out in 33 pro fights.
Fight Prediction:
Salikhov will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 70” reach. Salikhov is also six years younger than the 42-year-old Trinaldo.
We expect a low-volume fight that most likely ends in a decision, but there’s a slight chance it ends early. If it does end early, we’re expecting another late finish for Trinaldo with an ever so slight chance he gets a first round submission. Salikhov offers the flashier striking, but Trinaldo is just so damn tough. It’s still far more likely to end in a decision though, and we actually think Trinaldo could pull off the upset. Salikhov doesn’t land enough volume to run away with the scoring, so if Trinaldo can come up with a few big moments, we think he can get it done as long as he avoids getting his head knocked off or his liver kicked in from one of Salikhov’s spinning kicks.
We like betting Trianldo’s moneyline at +205 and think there are some dart throws that are worth looking into on his side of things. Check out his R1 submission line at +3000, his R2 and R3 KO lines at +2000 and +2600 and his R2 and R3 win lines at +1400 and +1800. Considering both guys have never been knocked out but have each been submitted at least twice, it’s also worth considering “Fight Ends in Submission” at +800, despite that seeming like an unlikely scenario.
DFS Implications:
Salikhov’s low-volume striking, general lack of grappling and high DFS price tag make him a R1 KO or bust DFS play, who’s very unlikely to be useful if this fight makes it past the first round. His recent two decision wins scored a putrid 46 and 71 DraftKings points, and his previous R2 KO still scored just 91 DraftKings points. Even with a R1 KO, he’s still unlikely to lead the slate in scoring unless he gets a finish in the first 60 seconds on DraftKings, as his best case scenario late first round KO against Taleb still scored just 104 DraftKings points. The main reason to have some exposure to Salikhov here is that he projects to be low owned. He also has a violent spinning kick, a stiff right hand and is going up against a 42-year-old that eventually has to start showing his age. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a 31% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1.
It’s rare for a Trinaldo fight to produce a high DFS scorer, but if anyone is even going to put up a semi-usable score, it’s generally going to be him. With that said, Trinaldo hasn’t topped 98 DraftKings points in his last 10 fights and still scored just 89 DK points in his recent third round KO victory—although that was good for 102 points on FanDuel. Prior to that, he exuded a pair of 52 and 50 point decision wins, after scoring just 11 points in a decision loss before that. He did score 98 DK points twice in his last 10 outings—once in a 2018 R2 KO and previously in a 2016 rare high-volume decision where he nearly doubled his previous career high in significant strikes as he totaled 117 against Yancy Medeiros. That is clearly an outlier performance, as he hasn’t landed more than 66 significant strikes in his other 21 UFC fights. Even at his cheap price tag, Trinaldo will need a finish here to be useful and there’s no guarantee a third round win would even be enough, especially on DraftKings, although it likely still would be. The odds imply he has a 32% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #8
Tanner Boser
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Looking to rebound from a decision loss against Andrei Arlovski, Boser’s last 20 fights have all either gone the distance (13) or ended in knockout wins for Boser (7). Four of those knockouts have notably come in the second round, while two have come in the first and one occurred in the fourth. The only time he's ever been finished in his 27 career fights came six seconds into the first round of a 2015 fight, back in his seventh pro match. His other six career losses all went the distance. Of his 19 career wins, 10 have come by KO. While he does have a pair of submissions on his record, those came in his second and fifth pro fights back in 2013 and 2014 respectively.
In his recent decision loss, Boser actually doubled the striking output of Arlovski 68-34, and neither fighter attempted any takedowns, landed any knockdowns or amassed any control time. However, the judges still awarded Arlovski a unanimous 29-28 decision win in a fight that looked closer than the stats would lead you to believe.
Prior to that, Boser was coming off consecutive KO victories, with a R1 win against Philipe Lins followed by a R2 knockout against Raphael Pessoa. Boser’s first two UFC fights both went the distance (1-1), after he joined the UFC in 2019. No one has landed a takedown in Boser’s five UFC fights, although only two have been attempted—one by Ciryl Gane and one by Raphael Pessoa. We’ve also only seen one knockdown, which occurred when Boser knocked out Philipe Lins. None of Boser’s opponents have landed more than 65 significant strikes and Boser has only landed above 68 significant strikes once, which came in his UFC debut when he landed 93.
As an undersized Heavyweight, Boser relies on his speed to best his typically larger and slower opponents. Now he faces a former Light Heavyweight, so it will be interesting to see if that strategy still works.
Ilir Latifi
14th UFC Fight (7-6)A former Light Heavyweight (205 lb) who just moved up to Heavyweight for the first time in his last fight, 37-year-old Latifi is coming off three straight losses and a 16 month layoff. He’s been forced to withdraw from three fights since 2018 due to injury, so there’s also some additional reason for concern that he’ll even make it inside the Octagon. Latifi enters this fight with a 14-8 pro record with half of his career losses coming by knockout. Ten of his 14 wins have also come early, with six KOs and four submissions. Since joining the UFC, Latifi has three first round KO wins, two first round submission wins, and two decision wins. Both of those submission wins came by Guillotine Choke. He’s been knocked out three times, with the last two coming in the second round after the first one occured in R1. He’s also lost three decisions, including the last two he’s been to.
Latifi is coming off a low-volume, grappling-heavy close decision loss to Derrick Lewis where he was outlanded by Lewis just 20-5 in significant strikes, but led in total strikes 62-27 and control time 8:48-0:41, while also landing three takedowns on seven attempts. Latifi didn’t do much with his takedowns, so clearly the judges didn’t put much stock into them as they unanimously awarded Lewis the decisions 29-28, despite the fact that he landed just 20 significant strikes. In fairness, Lewis definitely did more damage with the strikes he did land and finished the fight strong with a hard push for a finish. Latifi thought he won the fight, and it’s hard to argue based on the amount of control time and takedowns, but he needed to do more than just push Lewis up against the cage and lay on him on the mat if he wanted to assure a win. The fact that Latifi was able to move up to Heavyweight and still throw a behemoth like Lewis around while absorbing several destructive blows was impressive in its own right, especially after he had been knocked out four times down at Light Heavyweight. Latifi notably weighed in at 246.5 lb for that fight, so it will be interesting to see what he checks in at on Friday.
Prior to his recent loss to Lewis, Latifi was knocked out by Volkan Oezdemir in his final fight at 205 lb. Latifi landed an early takedown, but Oezdemir was able to get right back up and control the fight from that point on, outlanding Latifi 64-18 in significant strikes and 92-20 in total strikes, while tacking on a pair of knockdowns on his way to a late second round KO. Latifi ended up going 1 for 5 on takedowns in the match.
Before his loss to Oezdemir, Latifi lost a low-volume decision to Corey Anderson, where both fighters went 0 for 4 on takedowns, but Anderson led in significant strikes 40-33 and total strikes 45-34.
A former Swedish National Greci-Roman wrestling champion, Latifi’s only finish in the last five and a half years resulted from a 2018 R1 Guillotine Choke against Ovince St. Preux. Latifi nearly knocked out OSP, but instead finished him with a standing Guillotine Choke. His only other two wins over that seven fight stretch were a pair of low-volume decisions in 2016 and 2017. Prior to those seven fights, Latifi had a five fight stretch from 2014 to 2016 where all of his fights ended in the first round, with him winning four of them. And the one loss over that time came against current Light Heavyweight champ Jan Blachowicz. Latifi made his UFC debut in 2013 and lost his first fight in a decision before going on that five fight stretch of fights that ended in 182 seconds or less.
Fight Prediction:
Boser will have a 4” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
While Boser’s takedown defense officially sits at 100%, keep in mind he’s only had to defend two takedown attempts in his five UFC fights. The fact that he’s never been taken down in the UFC also means we haven’t gotten to see how he’ll do off his back. This fight will likely hinge on whether or not Latifi is able to get Boser to the ground. Latifi doesn’t appear to be as much of a KO threat at this point in his career, and Boser has been extremely durable so it’s unlikely Latifi gets a knockout here. His most likely path to victory will be a grappling heavy decision win, but we expect Boser’s speed, mobility and size to make that difficult. So more likely we expect a Boser KO or decision win here. Coming off a loss and going against a grappling threat, we expect Boser to start off a little more cautiously and try to pick Latifi apart from the outside while staying out of the clinch. That will reduce the chances of a first round knockout. If he’s able to wear Latifi down, he could land a second round KO, but if not we expect Boser to point his way to a decision win.
We don’t love this fight from a betting perspective but there are a few spots we’re looking to take some small stabs at. On Boser’s side, we like his decision line at +180 and his R2 KO line at +800. For Latifi, we like his R1 win line at +950 and his R1 submission line at +3300.
DFS Implications:
Despite his above average striking volume, Boser remains an early KO or bust Heavyweight with no grappling to boost his scoring. He makes for a better play on FanDuel where he’ll prop up his score with takedowns defended and significant strikes are more heavily valued. He can’t return value in a decision on either site though, so you’re still relying on a finish. Latifi looked fairly durable in his last fight as he absorbed a few heavy shots from Derrick Lewis and kept on going, but he has been knocked out four times in the past. The odds imply Boser has a 64% chance to win, a 30% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in the first round.
Latifi sets up as a better DraftKings play based on his grappling heavy fighting style. In his recent move up to Heavyweight, he amassed nearly nine minutes of control time and 62 total strikes, but just five significant strikes. He’s entirely reliant on a finish to score well on FanDuel, while he has the potential to put up a semi-usable score on DraftKings in a grappling heavy decision. Now 37 years old, on a three fight skid, coming off a 16 month layoff, and going against an opponent who hasn’t been finished in his last 20 fights, he’s littered with red flags so it’s hard to get too excited about him. WIth that said, his cheap price tag keeps him in play with a wider range of scores so you’ll want a little bit of exposure. The odds imply he has a 36% chance to win, a 19% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in the first round.
Fight #7
Montana De La Rosa
8th UFC Fight (4-2-1)Now 1-2-1 in her last four fights, De La Rosa is likely desperate for a win here. All four of those recent matches ended in decisions, and all six of her UFC fights since her UFC debut—which she won by R1 Armbar Submission—have made it out of the first round. Only three of De La Rosa’s 18 career fights have ended in the first round, and all three ended in submissions, with De La Rosa winning two of those. Her first R1 win came in her third pro fight via Armbar Submission. Her lone R1 loss came via Rear-Naked Choke in a 2016 LFA fight against submission ninja Mackenzie Dern. And her most recent R1 win came in her 2017 UFC debut. With a wrestling background, eight of De La Rosa’s 11 career wins have come by submission, while she’s never won a fight by knockout. Other than the loss to Dern, the only other time she’s ever been finished was a third round KO against Cynthia Calvillo in a 2017 LFA fight. She rattled off four straight submission wins following the loss, including three in her first three UFC fights.
In her last fight she took on a tough Mayra Bueno Silva and fought to a draw, but to some extent was lucky to get that. Bueno Silva was deducted a point in the first round for a blatant fence grab, which is what caused the draw. Bueno Silva led the fight in significant strikes 52-30 and total strikes 111-107, while De La Rosa went 3 for 12 on takedowns and amassed over nine minutes of control time. De La Rosa’s nose issues popped up again in that fight, which seems like a typical occurrence for her at this point, but that appears to be more of an annoyance than an actual hindrance.
In her previous fight, De La Rosa took on an incredibly tough Viviane Araujo in what was her best striking performance to date, where she actually outlanded Viviane Araujo 85-82 in significant strikes (5.67 SSL/min.), but lost a unanimous decision. The decision was entirely fair, as Araujo clearly did more damage as she busted up the nose of De La Rosa and seriously compromised her lead leg with 13 heavy leg strikes. De La Rosa has such long legs that she looks more vulnerable to leg strikes than most, based on her wider stance.
Despite her 5’7” height, De La Rosa actually fought at 115 lb early in her career and only moved up to 125 lb when she went on The Ultimate Fighter in 2017. De La Rosa doesn’t land a ton of volume, but has notably landed 12 takedowns in her last five fights, despite losing three of those matches.
Ariane Lipski
6th UFC Fight (2-3)Coming off a one-sided KO loss to Antonina Shevchenko, Lipski was surprisingly taken down and abused on the mat by the Muay Thai striker. Shevchenko led in significant strikes 39-15, total strikes 94-25 and landed one official takedown (could have been two) on three attempts, while stuffing all three of Lipski’s takedown attempts. Shevchenko also led in control time 7:39-0:28 before finishing the fight late in the second round by TKO with ground and pound. Shevchenko was notably dominated on the ground in each of her fights before and after that match, so it’s not like she has a good ground game.
Prior to the early loss, Lipski had won back-to-back fights with a quick R1 Kneebar submission over Luana Carolina and a decision win over a questionable Isabela de Padua. Lipski lost a pair of decisions in her first two UFC fights against tough opponents, getting Joanne Calderwood in her debut, followed up by Molly McCann. She bounced back with a decision win of her own in her third UFC match, and then got her UFC record back to .500 with the Kneebar submission win.
Prior to joining the UFC, Lipski had won nine straight fights with seven early finishes—including five in R1. Five of those seven wins came by KO and two by submission. She also had a pair of R2 KOs during that time. Just keep in mind she was facing a far lower level of competition back then. Also notable, three of her six career losses came in her first five pro fights.
Lipski has only landed one takedown in her five UFC fights and none in her last four. However, she’s been taken down six times herself on 11 tries from her opponents, who have all been strikers. So it will be interesting to see what an actual wrestler like De La Rosa can do with her.
Fight Prediction:
De La Rosa will have a 1” height and reach advantage.
After watching Antonina Shevchenko dominate Lipski on the ground in her last match, De La Rosa has to be loving this matchup. While De La Rosa has struggled against tougher opponents, she has generally made the most of her easier matchups with submissions in three of her four UFC wins. This looks like a great get right spot for her and we expect her to put on a dominating wrestling performance and end the fight with a submission.
“De La Rosa ITD” at +270 and/or “De La Rosa Wins by Submission” at +360 are the best all encompassing bets, but our favorite long shot is “De La Rosa Wins by R3 Submission” at +1800. Her R1 and R2 submission lines at +900 and +1500 are also really solid. While she’s never landed a knockout in her career, a finish by ground and pound is certainly possible, so mixing in her round win props with her submission props makes some sense. If you think the fight ends with ground and pound, you can also consider her R2 and R3 KO lines at +4200 and +5000 as extreme long shots, but we’d prefer to have overlap exposure with the submissions and round props to maximize our profits in what will most likely be a submission win.
DFS Implications:
In her last six fights, De La Rosa has gone just 12 for 42 on takedowns, including 5 for 12, 1 for 3, 1 for 6 and 3 for 12 performances in her last four matches. While her accuracy hasn’t been great, the opportunity for a takedown explosion has certainly been there. It should also be noted that her last four opponents have takedown defenses of 57%, 66%, 94% and 73%, while Lipski’s takedown defense is just 45%, despite having not faced any good grapplers. De La Rosa’s grappling heavy fighting style naturally makes her a better fit for the DraftKings scoring system the longer the fight goes, but if she gets a finish she should be a solid play on both sites. In Lipski’s three losses her opponents have put up DK/FD scores of 90/87, 85/97, and 115/113. The first two of those ended in decisions, while the third was the most recent round two TKO. Lipski absorbs an average of 4.45 significant strikes per minute (5th most on the slate) and has just a 45% takedown defense. Lipski has been taken down six times on 11 attempts in her five UFC fights, and the crazy thing is that she has yet to even face a grappler, as all her fights have come against strikers. The fact that Lipski was dominated on the ground in her last fight against a Muay Thai specialist in Antonina Shevchenko should have De La Rosa salivating. This is an excellent buy-low spot in DFS for De La Rosa, as the majority of the field will scoff at her ridiculously high price tag. She projects to be the lowest owned favorite on the slate, despite being tied for the third best odds to get a win. The odds imply she has a 69% chance to win, a 23% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
This is an incredibly tough spot for Lipski, who got absolutely dominated on the ground in her last fight by an opponent with essentially no grappling experience. Now she goes against an established wrestler who will look to build on that last performance. Lipski will be reliant on keeping this fight standing up, which will be a challenge for her considering she has just a 45% takedown defense. Her only other hope will be to land a hail mary submission, but the odds of that happening are unlikely. The odds imply she has a 31% chance to win, an 11% chance to get a finish and a slate-low 5% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #6
Tom Breese
9th UFC Fight (5-3)For what it’s worth, Breese has now alternated wins and losses over his last six fights and is coming off a loss. His last four fights have all ended in the first seven minutes, and five of his eight UFC matches haven’t made it past the first round. However, the majority of his five UFC wins have come against highly suspect opponents.
He made his 2015 UFC debut against Luiz Jorge Dutra Jr., who went 0-2 with the organization before being cut after the loss to Breese and has gone 2-3 since then while losing his last three fights. Next, Breese defeated Cathal Pendred, who went 4-2 in the UFC and was also cut following the loss to Breese. In his third UFC match Breese defeated Keita Nakamura, who went 4-4 in the UFC before being released in 2019. Then Breese beat 40-year-old journeyman Daniel Kelly who was on a two fight losing streak coming in and retired following his third straight loss. Breese’s most recent win came against dilapidated trashcan K.B. Bhullar, who’s apparently allergic to fighting and was recently cut after going 0-2 in the UFC.
Breese began his pro career with nine straight early wins, including six in R1, and then a 10th win that ended in a decision. Sean Strickland ended that 10 fight winning streak when he handed Breese a 2016 decision loss. Breese didn’t fight for almost two years following the loss before moving up to 185 lb and bouncing back with a R1 KO in 2018 against Kelly. Then we saw another 21 month layoff before he suffered another loss, this time in a R1 KO against Brendan Allen. Breese bounced back with a R1 KO against a terrible opponent in Bhullar before getting submitted in the second round of his most recent fight against Omari Akhmedov. Breese’s only two wins in the last five years came against a washed up 40-year-old on the verge of retirement and a Pokemon collecting sewage fire who had no business in the UFC and took the fight on short notice.
Breese is now 12-3 in his pro career and has only been to a decision twice. Eleven of his 12 pro wins have come early with five KOs and six submissions. While half of his career wins have come by submission, he hasn’t landed one since 2014 and all six of his submission wins came in his first seven pro fights. His last four finishes have all been by KO. Two of his three losses have also come early, with a 2020 R1 KO and a 2021 R2 Submission. He has notably never landed a takedown in his eight UFC fights on seven attempts and lands a below average number of significant strikes, having only topped 32 once, which was when he landed 62 against Sean Strickland in a decision loss. He’s also only absorbed more than 25 significant strikes once, which came when Strickland landed 73 on him. He averages 3.34 significant strikes landed per minute and 2.81 absorbed.
Antonio Arroyo
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Coming off a pair of decision losses in his first two UFC fights, Arroyo comes into this match desperate for a win. He originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but ended up winning a decision and not getting a contract. He returned to the show 11 months later and landed a second round submission that did earn him a spot on the roster.
Arroyo made his November 2019 UFC debut on a five fight winning streak against dangerous submission specialist and arm snapper Andre Muniz, and spent most of the fight trying to avoid being submitted in a low-volume grappling heavy decision loss. The fact that he was simply able to avoid being submitted by Muniz is promising for Arroyo’s submission defense, although he has been submitted twice earlier in his career. Arroyo looked exhausted in the second half of the fight, so his cardio is of some concern.
After having three straight fights fall through in 2020, Arroyo finally made it back inside the Octagon 13 months after his debut and took on bowling ball wrestler Deron Winn in a 195 lb Catchweight fight. In a Groundhog Day type performance, Winn took Arroyo down 12 times on 16 attempts and amassed nine and a half minutes of control time, while Arroyo led in significant strikes 45-20 and total strikes 70-64. Again, Arroyo looked exhausted in the second half of the fight and Winn won a unanimous 29-28 decision to send Arroyo to 0-2 in the UFC.
After spending the first six rounds of his UFC career defending submissions and takedowns, Arroyo has to be psyched about going against an opponent who’s yet to land a takedown in the UFC. Arroyo has decent striking, but he’s yet to have a chance to really show it.
Arroyo has never been knocked out, but has been submitted twice, including a 2015 R1 Guillotine Choke and a 2017 R1 Rear-Naked Choke. As we mentioned earlier, he was able to survive the submission attempts of the dangerous grappler Andre Muniz in his UFC debut, so he doesn’t appear overly prone to being submitted at this stage in his career. On the other side of things, Arroyo has four career wins by submission, including three by Arm-Triangle Choke and one by Rear-Naked Choke. He also has four career KO wins, and only one of his nine pro victories has gone the distance, while two of his four career losses have ended in decisions.
Arroyo’s first nine pro fights all ended in R1, with him winning seven of those (4 KO’s & 3 Submissions). His two losses over that period both were by R1 submission. Keep in mind, those seven wins did come against a much lower level of competition, who entered with records of 0-1, 0-0, 4-5, 0-0, 11-2, 2-4, and 1-1. Three of Arroyo’s last four fights have now ended in decisions.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’3” with a 73” reach.
We’ve yet to see Arroyo be involved in a striking battle in the UFC, so we don’t really know how he’ll fare in such a thing at this level, which makes this a high variance matchup. Neither of these two have any wins over impressive opponents on their records and both have lost two of their last three fights. We expect this to play out as a striking battle, although it wouldn’t be surprising if Breese tried to take Arroyo down after seeing how much success his last two opponents had. Just keep in mind Breese is 0 for 7 on takedowns in the UFC. Breese seems a bit overrated if you consider who he’s actually beaten, so the odds look a little wider than they should be. With that said, betting on Arroyo is essentially taking what’s behind mystery door number two, and we don’t really know what we’re going to get from him. Breese likely wins this fight, but we wouldn’t be shocked at all if Arroyo surprises people on the feet and pulls off the upset.
This is a tricky spot for betting. You need to start by deciding if you think Breese’s streak of fights ending early continues or if Arroyo continues to limp his way to decisions. If you think this ends early, we like betting “Fight Ends in R1” at +175, “Fight Ends in R2” at +350, “Arroyo Wins by R1 KO” at +2000, “Arroyo Wins in R1” at +850 and “Arroyo Wins in R2” at +1200. However, if you think it goes the distance then obviously getting that at +128 is the way to go. With so much uncertainty, this isn’t a spot we’re looking to be heavy on, but we’re taking a few stabs on Arroyo’s long odds and the fight ending in the first two rounds.
DFS Implications:
Breese has been a R1 KO or bust play in DFS so far in his UFC career and he won’t return value in a decision. Things get murkier with a R2 or R3 finish, but he’s less likely than most to put up a big score based on his low striking volume and the fact that he’s yet to land a takedown in the UFC. While Breese’s last four fights have all ended early, his two wins over that period both came against absolutely dreadful opponents and Arroyo has been a tough guy to put away. This isn’t a spot we’re looking to have much exposure to Breese in, but it’s worth pointing out that he was curiously low owned in his last fight at just 16% on DraftKings, as a -145 favorite, priced at $8,700, on a similar 14 fight card and coming off a R1 KO win. In his fight prior to that, he was just 13% owned as a -220 favorite against K.B. Bhullar, so apparently the field just hates this guy despite his history of first round finishes and you can likely get him at low ownership. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a 42% chance to get a finish and an 18% chance it comes in the first round.
Arroyo’s low striking volume and patient fighting style make it hard for him to score well outside of an early finish, but his cheap price tag keeps him in play as a value option if he can land a mid to late round victory. We don’t see him scoring well in a decision, so he’ll still need a finish of some kind to be useful. Only one of Arroyo’s nine career wins has made it to the judges and Breese hasn’t been in a fight that lasted longer than seven minutes since 2016, so there’s certainly reason to think the winner of this fight will score well. The odds imply Arroyo has a 32% chance to win, an 18% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance to end it in R1.
Fight #5
Dusko Todorovic
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Todorovic had been scheduled to face Maki Pitolo, however Pitolo withdrew due to injury and Rodrigues was announced as the replacement on May 24th, just three days after he last fought and with 12 days to prepare for the event. However, coincidentally these two had been matched up a few years ago but the fight was canceled.
Coming off his first career loss, Dusko was knocked out in the first round by undefeated power puncher Punahele Soriano. Dusko came in with his normal hands down striking defense as he continued to rely on precise head movement to avoid the sledgehammers coming his way. That’s especially risky against a knockout specialist like Soriano that throws everything he has into every punch and the Southpaw Soriano was able to land a clean left hand 97 seconds into the first round. Up until that point Dusko had been able to evade bombs like a ballerina in a minefield, but that’s when the momentum began to change.
After seeming to recover to some extent, Soriano landed another violent left hand with just over a minute and a half remaining in the round that put Dusko on his ass against the cage. Showing his toughness, he bounced back to his feet for a second but immediately fell backwards back to the mat. Initiating a defensive guard off his back as he tried to recover, and even went for a submission but Soriano was able to escape and force him back to his feet. Soriano continued to throw dynamite left hands and knocked the mouthpiece of Dusko out, which momentarily looked like it might save Dusko, as the mouthpiece became lodged in the side of the cage, which caused Herb Dean to call timeout. While Dean was unable to retrieve the mouthpiece, Dusko foolishly went and dug it out himself instead of milking the timeout to recover, which proved to be a fatal mistake.
The action resumed with just 30 seconds remaining in the round and Soriano landed one more face shattering left hand that pushed Dusko up against the cage and then one more to drop him. Even then, Dusko was looking to grab a leg of Soriano to stay alive in the fight, but Dean stopped the action with 12 seconds remaining in the round. Overall, Soriano did a great job of maximizing his reach and extending his punches so that he could still land even as Dusko tried to lean back to evade the blows. While Dusko landed a decent number of strikes himself, Soriano was the one inflicting the most damage and it proved to be a bad matchup for Dusko, who generally relies on being the one to win the damage battle.
Prior to that loss, Dusko was 10-0 as a pro with 9 of his 10 wins ending early, including six KOs and three submissions. In his October 2020 UFC debut, Dusko finished Dequan Townsend in the second round with ground and pound that resulted in a TKO stoppage. While Townsend entered that fight 0-3 in the UFC, he had previously only been knocked out once and submitted once in 32 pro fights, so he had been a tough guy to finish.
The only time Dusko has required the judges was in his August 2019 DWCS decision win over Teddy Ash. In that high-volume decision, he landed 213 total strikes, 102 significant strikes and 9:41 of control time. He notably did go 0 for 14 on takedowns in that fight while he racked up control time against the cage.
Prior to that win, Dusko had eight straight early victories, including six in R1 and two in R2. He notably knocked out Michel Pereira in his previous fight before going on DWCS, which is the only time Pereira has ever been knocked out in 36 pro fights.
Todorovic’s hands down striking defense is dependent on exceptional footwork and elusive head and body movement to avoid taking damage. He does also have a solid chin, which could be why he feels comfortable leaving it exposed so often. This tactic seems to help draw opponents in and increase the pace of his fights, but it’s clearly playing with fire, just look at how his last fight went. Todorovic throws a high amount of volume with heavy strikes and is an exciting fighter to watch. He lands the second most significant strikes on the slate at 7.45/min. We expect him to bounce back from his first career loss with a win against an easier opponent, but it will be interesting to see if he changes his approach any following the KO loss.
We’ve only seen Dusko have to defend one takedown so far in his last three fights, so his 100% takedown defense should be taken with a grain of salt, and he’ll now be facing an opponent with a background in BJJ.
Gregory Rodrigues
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his short notice UFC debut just two weeks after landing a first round KO to win the vacant Middleweight LFA belt, Rodrigues’ last four fights have all ended in KOs (3-1), with three ending in the first round and the other just barely making it into round two. Ten of his 12 career fights and eight of his last nine have ended early, including seven in the first round. All 10 of those finishes occured in the first six minutes and 12 seconds of fights. Two of his three career losses have come by R1 KO, with the third ending in a decision. Eight of his nine career wins have also come early, split between four KOs and four submissions. However his last three finishes all ended in knockouts.
Rodrigues enters the UFC on a two fight winning streak and having only lost one of his last nine fights dating back to 2015, which is likely why the betting market appears to like him. With that said, he’s been facing pretty weak competition.
This will be his third fight in less than three months, after he fought in both March and April. Rodrigues was knocked out in under two and half minutes by an undersized Jordan Williams on DWCS last September. He then fought twice in the LFA this Spring.
This past March, Rodrigues took on another undersized opponent in 5’8” Al Matavao, who was also coming off a KO loss on DWCS when he was violently put to sleep by Tafon Nchukwi one week before Rodrigues was knocked out on the show. Matavao is an Alaskan fighter who came into his fight against Rodrigues with an 8-3 pro record, with all three of the losses occuring in the second round. To make the size discrepancy even more noticeable in this LFA fight, the 6’3” Rodrigues missed weight by a pound and a half. So already holding a massive 7” height advantage and silly 8.5” reach advantage, Rodrigues also had a couple of pounds on Matavao. The two fighters didn’t even look like they belonged in the same weight class and Rodrigues was able to take Matavao down multiple times in the first round, but wasn’t able to do anything with any of them. Early in the second round, Rodrigues dropped Matavao with a left hook, although Matavao was able to hang out momentarily as he grabbed a leg of Rodrigues, which allowed him to get back up to his feet. Clearly still very compromised, Matavao tried to circle away from contact but was tracked down and finished soon after with a right hand to the chin.
In his most recent fight, Rodrigues took on someone his own size in 6’4” Josh Fremd in a five round LFA fight for the vacant Middleweight title. The fight took place on May 21st, just 15 days before this upcoming June 5th card. Fremd entered the match with a 7-1 pro record and was coming off three straight first round KO wins. His most recent came against a very suspect, Bruno Oliveira, who was knocked out in the first round by Carlos Ulberg in his previous fight. Anyways, Rodrigues made short work of the unimpressive Fremd as he stumbled him just over a minute in and then finished him a minute later with a pair of straight punches that dropped Fremd.
Rodrigues is a BJJ black belt and an 8-time National BJJ World Champion. He has decent power, but lacks true explosiveness in his striking and sometimes telegraphs his punches. He also looks pretty hittable, he just hasn’t fought much in the way of competition, so his striking defense has yet to be fully exposed. With a BJJ background, he’s theoretically a threat on the mat, but hasn’t submitted anybody in over three years.
Fight Prediction:
Rodrigues will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
Dusko flies dangerously close to the sun with his hands down striking defense, and was made to pay for it in his last match, but that’s no reason to think he can’t bounce back here. The bigger question is, how will suffering the first loss of his career affect his ultra aggressive approach? It’s not as if he was ever knocked unconscious in that fight and he clearly wanted the match to continue, so we’d be surprised to see a shellshocked Dusko coming into this next match. However, we often see fighters come in at least somewhat more cautiously following a KO loss. With that said, we’re still betting that he continues his aggressive fighting style and looks to land an early knockout here to right the ship. He should have a major speed advantage as long as his head’s in the right spot—literally and figuratively. We like Dusko to finish this one with a KO victory in the first two rounds and get back on track.
The safest bet here is Dusko’s moneyline, which has interestingly been bet down to -136. We also like his R1 win line at +320 and his R2 win line at +500. You can consider his ITD line at +105, but all nine of his career finishes have come in the first two rounds and Rodrigues has only ever been involved in two fights that made it past the 6:12 mark and both of those went the distance.
DFS Implications:
In a prime bounce back spot, Dusko averages the second highest number of significant strikes landed on the slate at 7.45/min. He also gets an opponent making their short notice UFC debut, who’s been knocked out in the first round in two of his three career losses. Coming off a R1 KO loss of his own and with the line moving against him, we expect Dusko’s ownership to be somewhat lower than it otherwise would be, which is exactly what we’re looking for in high-risk contests. There’s always some level of concern with fighters coming off a KO loss that they’ll approach their next fight more conservatively, but Dusko doesn’t seem like the type of fighter to play it safe. His entire hands down fighting style is based around absolute confidence and spacial awareness, and it’s hard to see him completely changing everything after one loss. He’s only been past the second round once in 11 career fights, and we expect another early knockout here. Dusko easily has the speed advantage, and just needs to avoid getting caught with too many clean shots or having his back taken and he should notch his 7th career KO victory here. The odds imply he has a 55% chance to win, a 41% chance to get a finish and a 19% chance it comes in R1.
Rodrigues has notably knocked out his opponents in his last three wins, but he’s been fighting exclusively bad competition and will now face the toughest opponent of his career. Rodrigues was knocked out by undersized UFC newcomer Jordan Williams in less than half a round on DWCS, and we’ll take Dusko over Williams any day. Working in Rodrigues’ favor, Dusko relies on head movement to evade punches, which leaves him more vulnerable to being caught with clean shots. He also went 0 for 14 on takedown attempts on DWCS in 2019, but has since gone 1 for 2 in his last two fights. Either way, that at least creates the possibility for a bunch of takedowns defended on FanDuel for Rodrigues. We expect the winner of this fight to end up in winning lineups, but firmly believe it will be Dusko left standing. With that said, the odds imply Rodrigues has a 45% chance to win, a 29% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #4
Miguel Baeza
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Coming off three straight second round wins in his three UFC fights, Baeza is now 10-0 as a pro with eight of those wins coming early, including four in R1 and four in R2. Seven of his finishes have come by KO, but he did win his last fight by submission. Three of his four R1 KOs came in his first three pro fights, and since then six of his seven fights have made it to the second round. His only two career fights to make it to the third round both went the distance.
Following a decision win on DWCS in 2019, Baeza made his UFC debut in 2019 against Hector Aldana, who came in 0-2 in the UFC and hasn’t fought since. Baeza outlanded Aldana 35-8 in strikes while tacking on both a knockdown and take down. Baeza attacked Aldana’s leg until he could no longer stand half way into R2, as Baeza knocked Aldana down with a final leg kick and abruptly finished him with ground and pound as Aldana immediately shelled up.
In his second UFC fight, Baeza took on a washed up 39-year-old Matt Brown in May 2020. Brown’s only two wins in his last seven fights came against equally decrepit fighters in Diego Sanchez and Ben Saunders. Baeza again attacked the calf but Brown countered with some solid strikes that wobbled Baeza, who was able to recover and turn the tables on Brown. After both guys nearly finished the other in R1, Baeza KO’d Brown 18 seconds into R2. Baeza finished the fight ahead 37-33 in significant strikes and with a pair of knockdowns.
Baeza’s most recent fight was against Takashi Sato, who came in 2-1 in the UFC but with those wins coming against a washed up Ben Saunders and a last minute replacement Jason Witt. Sato has notably been finished four times in 20 pro fights including submission losses in three of his last six matches. Baeza clearly took note of that as he put his BJJ black belt to use as he landed the first submission of his career with a late second round Arm-Triangle Choke after beating Sato up for the first nine minutes. Baeza finished the fight ahead 40-15 in significant strikes while going one for two on takedowns.
Baeza is somewhat of a patient striker, but also really lets it go at times, which balances out to above average striking volume. He’s landed five knockdowns in his last four fights and two takedowns in his last three matches. We’ve yet to see him truly be tested against top level competition, but so far he’s convincingly defeated every opponent he’s faced.
Santiago Ponzinibbio
13th UFC Fight (9-3)After winning seven straight fights from 2015 to 2018, Ponzinibbio was set to face Robbie Lawler in 2019, but was forced to withdraw due to a staph infection. Finally after 26 months he was able to return to the Octagon against Jingliang Li, who was filling in for Muslim Salikhov, who withdrew due to ongoing COVID symptoms back in January 2021. Following his two plus year hiatus from the Octagon, Ponzinibbio was rudely welcomed back to the UFC with a first round KO loss. Li took the lead in striking from the opening bell and finished Ponzinibbio with a perfectly placed left hook to the chin that immediately put Ponzinibbio out. The fight ended with Li ahead 21-11 in significant strikes in a fight that was more build up than brawling.
In his previous seven wins, Ponzinibbio had landed four knockouts, including three in the first round. His most recent win was a November 2018 R4 KO over Neil Magny. Ponzinibbio was able to affect the vision of Magny early with stiff jabs and then completely destroy Magny’s base with leg strikes. Towards the end of the fight Magny could barely even stand anymore and the fight was close to being stopped from leg kicks before he knocked Magny out in the fourth round.
Of Ponzinibbio’s 27 career wins, 21 have come early, including 15 KOs and six submissions. He impressively has 14 R1 finishes in those 21 early wins. His last submission win came all the way back in 2012 just before joining the UFC, and he seems more reliant on knocking opponents out to get finishes at the UFC level.
Since joining the UFC in 2013, Ponzinibbio has lost three of his 12 fights. He lost a decision in his UFC debut against Ryan LaFlare, then lost his fourth UFC fight in 2015 against Lorenz Larkin by way of R2 KO, before most recently getting knocked out in the first round. His only other career loss was a 2011 R1 KO prior to joining the UFC. In his nine UFC wins he has five KO’s (including four in R1) to go along with four decisions. He’s notably the only person to ever knock out either Court McGee or Gunnar Nelson.
After beating Mike Perry in a 2017 decision, Ponzinibbio had been scheduled to fight Kamaru Usman in 2018, but was forced to withdraw due to a hand injury. Six months later he was matched up against Magny before taking an extended absence due to medical issues. He was essentially forced to sit on the sidelines during the prime of his career for over two years, so he surely has a sense of urgency to get things back on track. It will be interesting to see how he rebounds from being knocked out in the first round of his last fight. In his previous two career KO losses he bounced back with a R3 KO win and a R1 KO victory for what it’s worth. However, now 34 years old, the question is whether or not he’s still the same fighter he used to be.
Fight Prediction:
Baeza will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
The biggest question mark here is the trajectory of Ponzinibbio’s career. We didn’t see enough of him in his last fight to truly get a sense of where he’s at following the lengthy absence. While 34 isn’t “old” he has 31 pro fights under his belt and spent over two years away from fighting, so it’s unclear how much tread he has left on the tires. Baeza clearly has all the momentum coming into this fight, so it will be on Ponzinibbio to change that. If he can regain his past form then he’s definitely capable of winning here, but if his time off and medical issues left him in a compromised state, then this could be another easy KO for Baeza. We expect a polarized outcome where Ponzinibbio either looks terrible and gets knocked out early or looks great and knocks Baeza out early. The most likely outcome is for another Baeza early KO win, but we’re not ruling out either possibility.
With so much uncertainty surrounding Ponzinibbio, we like betting that the “Fight Ends in a R1 KO” at +240 or “Fight Ends in a R2 KO” at +450. However we also like“Baeza Wins in R2” at +650 and “Ponzinibbio Wins by R1 KO” at +800. If you think lightning strikes twice, consider “Baeza Wins by R2 Submission” at +4200.
DFS Implications:
Baeza has been a consistent DFS producer with DraftKings scores of 99, 108 and 94 in his three UFC fights and FanDuel scores of 114, 121 and 110. Those three consecutive round two wins will surely drive up his ownership, and he’s projected to be one of the highest owned fighters on the slate, which makes sense when you combine his consistent scoring with his reasonable price tag on both DFS sites. Despite being the favorite, FanDuel curiously priced him the same as Ponzinibbio, which always means he’ll be far heavier owned than the equally priced underdog. DraftKings, on the other hand, priced Ponzinibbio $400 cheaper, so he’s more of a value play over there, while being an even more contrarian option on FanDuel. Either way, Baeza is too cheap on both sites when you consider his upside and the field will be all over that. Baeza’s last fight took place on a 10 fight slate, but he was still the highest owned fighter on the card (including both main event fighters) at 53% owned on DraftKings when he was priced at $8,700 as a -185 favorite. So while the clear leverage play for tournaments is to fade Baeza to some extent, if he gets another finish he'll almost certainly end up in winning lineups. The odds imply he has a 52% chance to win, a 39% chance to get a finish and a 16% chance it comes in R1.
Ponzinibbio has more or less been a R1 or bust fighter for his entire UFC career. In his last four decision wins, he scored 90, 67, 54, and 57 DraftKings points. His 90 point performance was propped up by a knockdown and three takedowns, but you shouldn’t count on him scoring from grappling as he has just four total takedowns in his 12 UFC fights. Four of his nine UFC wins have come by R1 KO, while another four have ended in decisions. He also had a R4 KO in his most recent win. He hasn’t landed a second or third round finish in nearly a decade and has been producing bipolar results since then. He’s also never landed more than 78 significant strikes in a three round fight, so you can’t rely on him scoring well purely from volume. Ponzinibbio makes for an interesting leverage play, although we still expect him to be somewhat owned on DraftKings. The odds imply he has a 48% chance to win, a 22% chance to get a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #3
Roman Dolidze
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Dolidze came into the UFC in July 2020 with a perfect 6-0 record with six finishes, but also off a 19 month layoff. Fighting at 205 lb, he took on a clueless Khadis Ibragimov, who has now gone 0-4 in the UFC. Towards the end of a low-volume first round, Dolidze finished Ibragimov with an attempted head kick that landed a knee to the chin of Ibragimov.
He then took on John Allan, who was coming off a suspension and year and a half layoff. Allan had previously been submitted four times in his career, so it looked like a good spot for the grappler Dolidze to make that five. Dolidze quickly took the fight to the mat in the opening minute. He confidently asked his corner if he “should submit him” but failed to land a Heel Hook submission despite looking somewhat close. Allan was able to return to his feet with just over half the round remaining. Dolidze was able to keep the majority of the first two rounds on the ground, as well as the final 90 seconds of the third round. He ended up winning a decision as he went three for five on takedowns, finishing with three official submission attempts and 7:16 of control time. He also led in significant strikes 51-29 and total strikes 118-48. Hilariously, one judge (Chris Lee of course) ruled it 29-28 in favor of Allan, while the other two judges ruled it 30-27 and 29-28 in favor of Dolidze.
After fighting his entire career at Light Heavyweight (205 lb), Dolidze then dropped down to Middleweight (185 lb) for the first time, despite owning a perfect 8-0 record as a pro and going 2-0 in his first two UFC fights. His first fight down at Middleweight came on short notice as Dolidze filled in with just a week and a half to prepare against Trevin Giles. Dolidze looked to be at a speed disadvantage down at Middleweight and also looked to be slowing down by the third round in terms of his cardio. Giles stunned Dolidze with a right cross in the third round, but went for a choke on the ground opposed to finishing the fight with strikes. Dolidze was really only a threat with Heel Hook and Kneebar submissions in the fight and overall we thought he looked better up at 205 lb. Maybe he’ll improve in his second fight down at 185 lb with more time for his body to adjust, but if not, it would appear that he got bad advice on the weight cut.
While Dolidze’s first seven career fights all ended early—including five in the first round—only one of his last five fights ended in the first round and three of his last four have made it to round three, with the last two going the distance. He’s beginning to look like a one-dimensional Heel Hook specialist and hasn’t actually finished a fight with one of those in over four years dating back to his second pro match.
Dolidze has a background in grappling, and his first three pro wins all ended in first round submissions, with two Heel Hooks and one Rear-Naked Choke. He tried to end his last two fights with multiple Heel Hook attempts, but was unsuccessful on all attempts. He is a patient, low-volume striker, who’s landed just 51 and 32 significant strikes in his last two fights, which both went the full 15 minutes.
Laureano Staropoli
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Now moving up to 185 lb after missing weight by 3.5 lb for his last 170 lb fight, Staropoli is coming off back-to-back decision losses after winning a pair of decisions to start his UFC career. His recent two losses came against tougher opponents in Tim Means and Muslim Salikhov, after his two UFC wins came against struggling opposition in Hector Aldana, who went 0-3 in the UFC and Thiago Alves, who has lost four of his last five fights.
Prior to joining the UFC, Staropoli was 7-1 as a pro and had never been to the judges, as five of his fights had ended in the first round and the other two ended in round 2. However, those wins came against very inexperienced opposition, who entered with records of 1-0, 0-0, 0-0, 1-0, 1-1, 1-0 and 6-5.
He’s now 9-3 as a pro with five wins by KO, two by submission and two by decision. He’s only been finished in one of his three career losses, which came in the first round of his third pro fight back in 2013 via knockout. Following that loss, he moved up to 185 lb for a three fight stretch in 2015, where he landed a pair of first round knockouts and a second round Kimura submission win. He then moved back down to 170 lb in 2016 and notched two more knockout wins before being called up to the UFC in 2018. He extended his winning streak to seven with a pair of decision wins before suffering his recent two decision losses.
Staropoli is a pure striker who throws all sorts of spinning techniques to keep his opponents guessing. He lands an above average number of significant strikes at 4.4/min, but not enough to really put up crazy striking totals. He’s only landed one takedown of his own in the UFC on five attempts, but he’s been taken down six times on 14 attempts in his last three fights.
Fight Prediction:
Dolidze will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.
Six months ago Dolidze competed at 205 lb, while Staropoli’s last fight was at 170 lb—although Staropoli missed weight by 3.5 lb. So it will be interesting to see how they each look meeting in the middle at 185 lb. Staropoli will definitely have the speed advantage, but the real question will be whether or not there is a noticeable size and power advantage for Dolidze after recently fighting 35 lb heavier than where Staropoli has fought most of his career. As previously mentioned, Staropoli has fought at 185 lb three times before joining the UFC and won all of those in the first two rounds, but those fights occured in 2015 and the opponents came in with records of 0-0, 1-0 and 1-1 (same opponent in two of those).
Staropoli is a much more advanced striker compared to Dolidze, but Dolidze is easily the superior grappler. So the second determining factor in how this fight plays out will be whether or not Dolidze can get it to the ground. Staropoli’s takedown defense is slightly below average at 57%, and he’s been taken down five times in his last two fights, but has never been submitted and generally does a good job of quickly getting back to his feet. Dolidze has yet to do much other than look for Heel Hook submissions on the mat, so he hasn’t proven to be that well rounded of a grappler anyways. So really the most compelling reason to think Dolidze wins here is that he recently moved down a weight class, while Staropoli is moving up a weight class for the first time in the UFC. It will be essential to see how they look at weigh-ins and faceoffs, but the weight switches make the outcome here a little less predictable. We like Staropoli’s chances to outstrike his way to victory here and think Dolidze would be better served to move back up to 205 lb as he’s not quick enough for the 185 lb division.
With a lot of uncertainty following the weight class switches this is a spot we’re looking to tread lightly on, however we kind of like Staropoli’s moneyline at +120 as a safer option. The longer shots we’re interested in are “Staropoli Wins by KO” at +550, “Staropoli Wins by R1 KO” at +1200, “Staropoli Wins by R2 KO” at +2100, “Dolidze Wins by Submission” at +800 and “Dolidze Wins by R1 Submission” at +2000.
DFS Implications:
Dolidze was incredibly over owned at 45% on DraftKings for his last fight, but that was also on a nine fight card following multiple cancelations. It will be interesting to see how much the decision loss gets people off him. He’s looked progressively worse in each of his three UFC fights and his scores match align with that. He still theoretically has knockout power, but he looked less dangerous after dropping down to 185 lb and has become more reliant on hunting for Heel Hook submissions to finish fights. His grappling heavy decision win in his second most recent fight scored 92 DraftKings points, but just 69 points on FanDuel, showing that it’s not impossible for him to score decently in a decision on DraftKings, but he definitely needs a finish on FanDuel to return value. Staropoli has never been submitted, but has been knocked out once. With that said, Staropoli showed he can survive heavy blows in his fight against Muslim Salikhov. We don’t love this spot for Dolidze and prefer playing the other side of this one, but the odds imply Dolidze has a 56% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance to end it in R1.
Staropoli looks to be the superior striker here, which means if he can overcome any potential size and power disadvantage from moving up a weight class, while also remaining on his feet and avoiding Heel Hook submission, we like him to win the striking battle. He has yet to put up a usable DFS score after fighting to four straight decisions and losing the last two, so we expect him to be low owned on both sites. Going against an opponent in Dolidze who’s never been finished and has only absorbed a total of 60 significant strikes across nearly seven rounds of Octagon time, this is a tough matchup to score well on paper for Staropoli, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It does, however, mean that he’ll need a finish to be useful in DFS. The odds imply he has a 44% chance to win, an 18% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #2
Marcin Tybura
14th UFC Fight (8-5)Coming off a banner 2020 year, Tybura notched four straight wins since being knocked out by Augusto Sakai 59 seconds in the first round of a 2019 fight. Tybura most recently won a R2 TKO stoppage against Greg Hardy after convincingly winning three straight decisions. Hardy was controlling the fight in the first round and landed several heavy shots on Tybura, who was able to survive to see the second round and simply outlast Hardy. Tybura took Hardy down with just over a minute and a half left in the second round and Hardy essentially gave up at that point, as he simply shelled up and allowed Tybura to rain down ground and pound until the ref eventually stopped the fight with 29 seconds remaining in the round.
Tybura hasn’t been much of a finisher leading up to his most recent win, as his previous five victories had all gone the distance, with his second most recent finish coming in the third round of a 2017 match (11 fights ago). However, his last three losses have all notably ended in knockouts, so it is worth questioning his chin.
In his second most recent fight, Tybura landed a career high number of significant strikes (94) in a three round high-volume Heavyweight brawl against Ben Rothwell. The fight went the distance, but ended with Tybura taking Rothwell down and punishing him with ground and pound on the mat—similar to how he finished Hardy in his last fight. While Tybura wasn’t able to put Rothwell away, he did finish with 155 total strikes landed through the ground assault.
Tybura’s previous two wins came in grappling heavy matches. The most recent was against an undersized Maxim Grishin, who was moving up from Light Heavyweight in his UFC debut. Tybura was able to take him down three times on seven attempts and control him for nearly nine and a half minutes of the fight, which ended in an ultra low-volume decision. Prior to that, Tybura took on another tough grappler in Serghei Spivac and was able to execute a similar game plan as he took Spivac down twice on eight attempts and controlled him for nearly eight and a half minutes of time. Those grappling heavy game plans came following a quick KO loss to Augusto Sakai in 2019, which was the second straight KO loss for Tybura in 2019.
Tybura has an average stand up game but is most dangerous when he can take an opponent down and land ground and pound. His only R1 KO since 2013 came from a leg injury and all three of his UFC early wins have come in rounds two (2) and three (1). Of his 13 UFC fights, the only one to end in the first round was when he got knocked out by Augusto Sakai in 2019.
Like most fighters, Tybura was more of a finisher prior to joining the UFC. While 14 of his 21 career wins have come early, five of his eight UFC wins have ended in decisions. His other 11 career finishes all came prior to joining the UFC. Eight of his early wins have ended in knockouts, but he also has six submissions on his record, with all six coming in the first round. However, all of those submission wins came in 2014 or prior. Four of his six career losses have also come early, all by KO. After losing four of five fights from 2017 to 2019, Tybura has now won four straight and got himself back into the Heavyweight discussion as he’s now ranked #11. At 35 years old, he doesn’t have any time to take a step back, so another win here will be essential if he wants to keep climbing the ladder before it’s too late. He’s still two and a half years younger than Walt Harris.
Walt Harris
16th UFC Fight (6-8, NC)Now 37 years old and turning 38 on June 10th, Harris is coming off a pair of second round KO losses. He most recently lost via an early R2 TKO stoppage resulting from an Alexander Volkov body kick that bent Harris in two as Volkov laid on a flurry of punches. Five months prior to that Harris was knocked out in the second round by Alistair Overeem in what was Harris’ first five round fight in the UFC. Harris actually dropped Overeem with a combination of punches just 67 seconds into the first round and nearly got a finish, but Overeem was able to survive, return to his feet and then take Harris down—who appeared to be already running out of gas midway through the first round. Overeem spent essentially the second half of the round on top of Harris on the mat as Harris sucked wind and absorbed punishment. Both fighters started off the second round patiently, but 90 seconds in, Overeem landed a combination of strikes that dropped Harris as Overeem got back on top. The ref gave Harris a long leash to recover, but Harris laid face down as Overeem punished him from above for the next 90 seconds before the fight was eventually stopped.
Harris looked to be in better shape for his most recent fight compared to his fight prior and weighed in 10 lb lighter at 254 lb against Volkov, after tipping the scales at 264.5 lb against Overeem. If Harris weighs in above 258 lb for this next fight that should definitely go down as a red flag for his cardio. UPDATE: Harris weighed in at 264 lb!
Harris has been taken down five times in the UFC, but never more than once in a fight. However, he’s notably lost all five of the fights where he’s been taken down and now goes up against a Heavyweight in Tybura who has landed seven combined takedowns in his last four fights. Harris has only faced three takedown attempts in his last 10 fights and was taken down on two of those, so his 72% takedown defense should be taken with a grain of salt as it’s primarily based off of his early UFC career.
Harris had landed R1 KO wins in his two fights prior to his recent pair of KO losses. Impressively, all 13 of his career wins have come by KO, with 11 of those coming in R1. Although he would have had a decision win in 2018 if it hadn’t been overturned to a NC.
Harris was originally signed by the UFC in 2013, but after losing his first two fights he was released for a brief period of time. After landing a R1 KO in Titan FC, he was re-signed to the UFC the same year, but lost his first fight back. He finally got his first UFC win in his fourth attempt, but then lost a decision in his next fight. At that point he was on the rocks with the UFC going 1-4 in his first five fights, but he managed to tighten it up and get back-to-back KO wins to bring his record to 3-4 before getting submitted in R1 by Fabricio Werdum and then unfortunately losing in R1 by DQ for an illegal kick in his next match.
At 3-6 in the UFC, Harris continued to try and dig himself out of a hole with his record. He did so with a R2 KO following the pair of losses. He followed that up with a decision win over Andrei Arlovski, but that was later overturned to a NC due to a failed drug test on Harris’ part. He tested positive for SARM, but it was later decided that he wasn’t intentionally doping and it was caused by a tainted supplement, so he only got a 4 month suspension. Following the suspension, Harris landed back to back R1 KO’s to bring his record to .500 for the first time in his UFC career. However, he couldn’t quite get over the hump as he lost his next two fights by R2 KO.
Nine of Harris’ last ten fights have ended early—all in the first two rounds—with the only exception being the decision win that was later overturned to a NC. He does have three decision losses on his record, which came in 2011, 2013 and 2016, but all 13 of his career wins have ended in KOs, including 11 in R1 and two in R2. Typically his fights don’t last long, and 14 of his 23 career fights have ended in R1.
Fight Prediction:
Harris will have a 2” height advantage, but Tybura will have a 1” reach advantage.
If Harris wins this fight, it will be from an early KO. However, as long as Tybura can make it past the first round, he should be able to wear Harris down and either finish him with ground and pound or point his way to a decision. Harris has offered nothing in terms of recovering from tough spots in his last two fights, so if Tybura can get him down he very likely finishes him with ground and pound as Harris shells up.
Our favorite safe bet is Tybura’s moneyline at -172, but we prefer the long shots here. “Tybura Wins in R2” at +750 and “Tybura Wins by R2 KO” at +1000 are our favorites, but we also really like “Harris Wins by R1 KO” at +650 on the other side of things. Betting the fight ends in R1 at +190 or in R2 at +370 is also a decent way to go.
DFS Implications:
Tybura’s last six wins have scored 100, 90, 81, 87, 94 and 91 points on DraftKings and 112, 82, 52, 61, 75 and 69 points on FanDuel. So while his recent R2 KO win scored well on both sites, his previous five decision wins all scored terribly on FanDuel. His DraftKings scores in those decisions have been propped up by control time and ground strikes so they score decently, but still not great for his price. It’s clear he needs a finish on FanDuel to be useful, while there’s a chance he could still get there on DraftKings in a decision. Working in his favor, Harris’ last four and six of his last seven losses have all come in the first two rounds. If Tybura can get Harris down, there’s a good chance he can wear him out and finish him with ground and pound. However, it’s worth noting that Tybura only has one knockdown in 13 UFC fights and that occurred in his second appearance with the organization back in 2016. He also has just one early win in his last 10 fights. His previous two finishes came in his first three UFC fights in the second and third rounds, where he scored 94 and 87 DraftKings points and 110 and 102 points on FanDuel. The 110 point FanDuel score was notably propped up by eight takedowns defended, which you shouldn’t expect to see here. Also keep in mind his recent career high DFS scores came in an ideal late R2 finish with just 29 seconds remaining in the round. So while this does look like a good spot for Tybura to potentially get a finish, he’s still unlikely to lead the slate in scoring. The odds imply Tybura has a 61% chance to win, a 31% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance to end the fight in R1.
Harris has put up slate-breaking DraftKings scores of 127 and 132 in his last two wins and scored 92, 110 and 93 points in his three wins prior to that. Those five victories were good for 114, 122, 104, 125 and 106 points on FanDuel. Tybura has gone 7 for 22 on takedowns in his last four fights (32%), so Harris has the potential to bolster his FanDuel score with takedowns defended here if he can stay on his feet. Competing less than a week before his 38th birthday, there’s definitely concern surrounding Harris’ age and the fact that he hasn’t won a fight in nearly two years, but he actually looked to be in better shape in his almost recent fight compared to his one prior. Considering that Harris has never won a fight that made it past the second round, it makes sense to consider his implied chances for a R1 finish (14%) and a R2 finish (8%) when determining your exposure. However, the odds also imply he has a 39% chance to win, so the oddsmakers are giving him way more of a chance than we are to win the fight beyond the second round. Keep in mind, all 13 of Harris’ career wins have come by KO (11 in R1 & 2 in R2), so if he wins this fight it most likely comes in the first two rounds. At his price, that would essentially make him a lock for the optimal lineup on both DFS sites.
Fight #1
Jairzinho Rozenstruik
8th UFC Fight (5-2)Coming off a 25 minute staring contest, Rozenstruik averaged an anemic 1.68 significant strikes per minute as he was outlanded 102-42 by Ciryl Gane, who easily won a unanimous 50-45 decision. Rozenstruik refused to take many risks in the match, even when it was clear that he needed a finish late in the agonizingly painful to watch snoozer.
Prior to having his controller unplugged for 25 minutes, Rozenstruik’s previous seven fights all ended in knockouts, with him winning six of those. Only one of those seven fights made it past the second round and four ended in the first. Rozenstruik had most recently knocked out a washed up Junior dos Santos in the second round of an August 2020 match. Before that, he suffered his first career loss in a 20 second R1 KO at the hands of current Heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou in May 2020. Rozenstruik came into that fight with a perfect 10-0 record, but Ngannou quickly put an end to that, along with his consciousness, in a don’t blink KO victory.
Rozenstruik originally made his UFC debut in February 2019 with a perfect 6-0 record with five first round knockouts. In his debut, he took on Junior Albini, who was able to take Rozenstruik down twice on six attempts before Rozenstruik knocked him out less than a minute into the second round. Albini notably went 1-4 in the UFC before being released in 2019 following his fourth straight loss.
Next, Rozenstruik took on Allen Crowder, who technically went 1-2 in the UFC, but his one win came when Greg Hardy was disqualified for an illegal knee. Crowder notably hasn’t fought in two years since that loss. Rozenstruik knocked Crowder out in just nine seconds, before following that up with a 29 second KO of Andrei Arlovski, which was far more impressive. The trio of quick KOs to start off his UFC career was enough to get Rozenstruik a main event spot against Alistair Overeem in December 2019.
In that fight against Overeem, Rozenstruik was forced to go longer than six minutes for just the second time in his career and saw the championship rounds for the first time. Overeem was able to get Rozenstruik down in the first round and hold him there through the end of the round to take the early lead in the fight. Overeem immediately looked to re-engage the clinch in the second round as he pushed Rozenstruik up against the cage for the opening minutes of round two and the ref eventually broke them up. Rozenstruik was able to land a few shots late in the round but so was Overeem. Late in round three Overeem was able to get Rozenstruik down again, continuing his dominance in the control time department. Rozenstruik was able to successfully defend eight of Overeem’s 10 takedown attempts, but Overeem made the two he landed count. Rozenstruik was able to land some decent combinations in round four, but Overeem was able to absorb them all with his patented high guard defense. After Overeem appeared to win the first three rounds, Rozenstruik began to pick it up late as Overeem looked fatigued. However, still likely behind 48-47 if the fight went the distance, Rozenstruik landed a lip splitting last second KO with four seconds remaining in the final round to steal the fight. Rozenstruik did come out ahead 89-74 in significant strikes in the fight, but Overeem’s takedowns and control time appeared to win him the first three rounds.
Since stealing the victory in the closing seconds of a low-volume match in his first UFC five round fight, Rozenstruik has gone 1-2 in the previously discussed matchups against Ngannou, Dos Santos and Gane. Looking at Rozenstruik’s five UFC wins, his last three have all come against older fighters (40, 39 and 36 years old), while his first two UFC wins came against a pair of terrible opponents who went 1-4 and 1-2 in the UFC. Rozenstruik has essentially landed two big punches in the UFC to build his name—the one that knocked out Arlovski and the highlight reel finish of Overeem. In his two UFC five round fights he landed a combined 131 significant strikes over just four seconds shy of 10 rounds, which is good for just 2.62 significant strikes landed per minute. He absorbed a combined 176 significant strikes in those same two matches, which comes out to 3.52 significant strikes absorbed per minute.
Rozenstruik currently sits on an 11-2 pro record, with 10 wins by KO and just one decision. The only time he’s ever been finished was against Francis Ngannou, while he suffered his first decision loss in his most recent match against Gane. He said in his media day interview that he needs to be the one pushing forward more. No shit.
Augusto Sakai
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Coming off R5 KO against Alistair Overeem, Sakai had previously never been finished in 17 pro fights. That recent loss also snapped a six fight winning streak that went back to 2017, and was just Sakai’s second loss of his career.
In the fight against Overeem, Sakai actually finished ahead in significant strikes 99-92 and total strikes 120-106, but Overeem went 3 for 3 on takedowns and came out ahead 5:29-2:22 in control time. The fight was close early on, with the two trading on the feet and no takedowns attempted in the first two rounds, and with Sakai taking the lead in strikes. However, with a minute and a half remaining in the third round, Overeem was able to take Sakai down on his first attempt in the match. Overeem landed heavy ground and pound as he kept Sakai on the mat for the remainder of the round. The first half of the fourth round remained on the feet, but then Overeem landed his second takedown of the fight midway through the round and went to work with violent ground and pound that nearly ended the fight. Visibly exhausted and beat up, Sakai did everything he could just to remain alive in the fight, but looked helpless off his back and just barely survived the round. Overeem immediately took Sakai back down to the mat to start the fifth round and quickly finished him with ground and pound as Herb Dean stopped the fight just 26 seconds into the last round. It’s impossible to separate the late round cardio of Sakai in that fight from the impact the wrestling and ground and pound of Overeem had on him, but Sakai was clearly slowing down in the second half of the fight.
Despite 11 of his 15 career wins coming by KO, Sakai has just two first round wins in his last 14 fights and just one since joining the UFC. He did start his pro career off with four straight first round KOs in 2011 and 2012, but those came against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-1, 0-0 and 2-4. Since then, he’s knocked out seven more opponents—two in R1, three in R2 and two in R3. Two of his last three wins have notably ended in three round decisions and only one of his five UFC fights has ended before the third round. In fairness to him, his two UFC decision wins came against human-tank and heart stab survivor Blagoy Ivanov, who’s never been KO’d in 22 pro fights, and veteran Andrei Arlovski who’s only been knocked out once in his last 13 fights, which was against Rozenstruik.
Sakai is a pure striker, who has just one takedown in his last six fights and has only attempted two during that time. He lands a high amount of volume, especially for a Heavyweight, averaging 5.32 significant strikes landed per minute while absorbing 4.02. Compare that to Rozenstruik, who has averaged just 3.14 significant strikes landed per minute in his seven UFC fights.
Fight Prediction:
Rozenstruik will have a 1” height and reach advantage.
We expect this to play out entirely on the feet in a low-volume high-stakes striking match. We expect Sakai to throw more strikes, and therefore has a better chance to win a decision if this goes the distance, but for Rozenstruik to have the power advantage, and therefore the better chance to get a finish. Both guys are extremely tough, and have each only been finished once in their respective careers—Rozenstruik in the first round by Ngannou and Sakai in the fifth round of his last fight by Overeem. It will be interesting to see if Rozenstruik comes in with more of a sense of urgency following the complete dud in his last outing, you would have to think he would, but he never turned it on last time despite clearly being behind so who knows what’s going on in his head. There’s a good chance Rozenstruik catches Sakai with something clean to the chin coming in and lands a KO, but a later round KO may be the most likely scenario. It’s also possible Sakai is able to conservatively point his way to a decision win, but that seems far less likely. We expect a slow start to this fight and for a relatively low-volume outcome, with Rozenstruik most likely winning by KO.
We don’t love any of the lines here, but it’s worth taking a shot on Rozenstruik’s R4 and R5 KO lines at +1900 and +3000 respectively. You can also consider his R1 and R2 KO lines at +380 and +700 or his overall KO line at +125. Sakai’s decision line at +420 is somewhat interesting on the other side.
DFS Implications:
Rozenstruik’s low-volume, no takedown fighting style makes him dependent on a R1 or late R2 knockout to score well in DFS. In his fight against Overeem that lasted just under 25 minutes, Rozenstruik came out ahead in significant strikes 89-74, which combined with the 5th round knockout was good for just 90 points on DraftKings. He was able to do a little better on FanDuel, where he scored 114 points propped up by eight takedowns defended, but we don’t expect Sakai to be shooting for takedowns here. When determining your Rozenstruik exposure it makes sense to consider his implied chances for a R1 finish of 15% combined with his R2 chances of 11%. He’ll absolutely be owned well above the sum of those in DFS, meaning that being under the field is the right move here.
Sakai checks in slightly cheaper than Rozenstruik on both DFS sites, but is similarly unlikely to put up a big DFS score without a finish in the first two rounds. Cyril Gane landed more significant strikes against Rozenstruik than anybody else has in the UFC at 102 and still scored just 94 DraftKings points and 93 points on FanDuel, even with two takedowns—and we don’t expect Sakai to land any takedowns here. Rozenstruik has only been finished once in his career, which came against Francis Ngannou, so it’s not like he’s an easy guy to get out of there. So while Sakai does generally land a decent amount of volume, averaging 5.32 significant strikes landed per minute so far in the UFC, the tough matchup and lack of grappling still leaves him dependent on an early finish to score well. His implied chances for landing a first round finish are just 10%, while his chances for a win in the second round come in at just 8%. Just like Rozenstruik, Sakai will also be over owned relative to his chances of scoring well, meaning this is a good main event to fade or at least go much lighter on than the field.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter with your winnings so we can see how you did! @dfs_mma