The Sheet

Impa Kasanganay

Just six weeks removed from his August 29th UFC debut, which resulted in a R3 decision win over Maki Pitolo, Kasanganay is undefeated in his eight pro fights. He landed 85 significant strikes but was uncharacteristically 0 for 1 on takedowns in that match. Looking to quickly add to his experience, this will be his third fight in two months after also fighting on August 11th in another decision win on the Contender Series. Kasanganay landed 94 significant strikes and went 3 for 3 on takedowns in that fight. Kasanganay has now won four straight decisions.

In an earlier appearance on the Contender Series, which was a year prior in August of 2019, Kasanganay landed 72 significant strikes and went 2 for 2 on takedowns.

Six of his total eight pro fights have ended in decisions, with his only two early finishes coming against 0-0 and 1-1 opponents. One of those submissions came when his opponent, 0-0 John Lewis, appeared to randomly dislocate his shoulder and couldn't continue. Entirely possible he just realized he was over his head and fighting wasn’t for him (he never fought again). Hey, we all make mistakes.

Kasanganay is still a very raw, athletic talent who only started his MMA training in 2017 and just went pro in 2019. Take it for what it’s worth, but he did end all three of his amateur fights with R1 KO’s and can throw bombs. However, he’s typically more of a methodical fighter who likes to grapple and then mix in power strikes. One of his biggest flaws is he seems to lack the killer instinct to finish opponents when he has them on the proverbial ropes. If he can correct that through coaching and experience, then he has the potential to be a seriously dangerous finisher.

Joaquin Buckley

Fighting for what will be the third time in just over 2 months, Buckley was offered a short notice sacrificial UFC debut against Kevin Holland on August 8th, just a week after Buckley fought on July 31st, and jumped at the opportunity. It appears to have paid off, as while he did expectedly get KO’d by a much taller/longer/experienced Holland, he had two months to recover for a trip to Fight Island and a less lopsided match. Assuming that he didn’t leave the Holland fight with an injury that we are unaware of, his high frequency of fights shouldn’t be a factor in this next one.

Buckley’s last three and 9 of his 13 career fights have now ended with KO’s. He won seven of those, with four coming in R1—although two of the R1 KO’s were in his first two pro appearances against 1-4 and 1-0 opponents.

Prior to the Holland fight, Buckley won his two previous matches both by KO, one in R1 and the other in R2. However, his three fights prior to those all ended in decisions.

Buckley is a power puncher who looks to overwhelm opponents with flurries of punches. He started his career at 170 lb before moving up to 185 lb in 2019. This will be his fourth fight at 185 lb, where he’s 2-1 with all three fights ending in KO’s.

This fight could easily play out similar to Kasanganay’s last fight against Pitolo, where it ends up being a better real life fight than for DFS purposes. Kasanganay has shown more of a chin than Buckley, so if it does end early look for him to be the one still standing. Either way, we think Kasanganay wins this one.

Rodrigo Nascimento

Undefeated Nascimento looks to continue his reign of terror with eight early wins in his eight pro fights. Coming off a R2 Rear-Naked Choke submission win in his UFC debut, only two of Nascimento’s eight fights have made it out of R1 and both of those were then wrapped up in R2.

He’s known for his ground game and has six wins by submission, but he does have two KO wins on his record—albeit in his first three fights and against 0-0 and 1-0 opponents. He’s shown a diverse range of submission skills and is dangerous from just about any grounded position.

We are obligated to note that his first five opponents had little to no experience with records of: 0-0, 1-0, 1-0, 0-0, 1-4. So more focus should be placed on his most recent three opponents who were: 4-1, 7-0, 7-3. Either way, the results were the same.

Chris Daukaus

Coming off his UFC debut, where he landed a slate-breaking late R1 KO that scored a massive 128.5 DraftKings points over an out-of-shape Parker Porter, Daukaus unshockingly leads the slate on FPPF (fantasy points per fight) on DraftKings. It’s rare to see the slate leader in FPPF also be one of the three cheapest fighters on the slate. This value proposition will surely drive up his ownership beyond his R1 win line—although it’s fair to argue a R2 KO could also be usable at his price as long as he tacks on a decent amount of strikes and a knockdown.

A member of the Philly P.D. it’s unclear just how much time Daukaus devotes to MMA, but he is coming off back to back R1 KO’s. This brings his KO total to eight in his 12 pro fights. His brother Kyle is also in the UFC and actually made his debut 7 weeks earlier in a loss to Brendan Allen.

Daukaus’ only fight to make it to the judges was a 2016 R3 decision win. All three of his career losses came before the bell, most recently a R2 KO in 2019. His other two losses came earlier in his career with a 2014 R1 KO and a 2015 R2 Keylock submission, in his 2nd and 4th fights respectively. He’s won 7 of his 8 fights since the pair of early losses. His last three and five of his last six wins have been R1 KO’s (the sixth was a R2 KO).

The game theory play here is clearly to go with Nascimento and hope we see another extremely high owned dog in Daukaus. There’s no way 50% owned dogs win in back to back weeks right? Nascimento will be looking to take the fight to the ground, and Daukaus appears to be much more comfortable on his feet, at least from what we’ve seen. You’ll also want to pay attention to weigh-ins as Daukaus was 241 lb for his last match while Nascimento was 255 lb. The weight disadvantage didn’t bother Daukaus any in his last go around, but Parker also didn’t seem to be carrying around “useful” weight. A larger Nascimento could aid in his ability to get Daukaus down and keep him there. It’s hard to entirely fade Daukaus’ price/ceiling combination but we think Nascimento get’s this one done on the ground and wins with a late R1/early R2 submission. It’s hard to see the winner of this fight not ending up in optimal lineups, but anything’s possible.

UPDATE: Daukaus weighed in at only 227 pounds while Nascimento tipped the scales at 265 lb. This reconfirms our belief that Nascimento will control this fight on the ground.

Tom Breese

Breese impressively began his pro career with nine straight early finish wins, including six in R1, and then a 10th win that ended in a decision. His 8th pro fight marked his UFC debut, which began with two consecutive R1 KO victories, but then saw his next two matches end in decisions, with him losing the most recent one. After almost two years away following the loss, he was able to bounce back with a R1 KO in 2018, but then we saw another 21 month layoff before his most recent loss.

Now hoping to bounce back from a February 2020 R1 KO loss against a highly skilled opponent in Brendan Allen, Breese has only fought twice since June of 2016. He didn’t fight in 2017 after dropping out of a fight the day of for personal reasons and then suffering a knee injury a month later. He also didn’t fight in 2019 after having four fights scheduled just to be canceled. He has a history of canceling fights for various medical/personal issues, so that’s always something to keep an eye on.

Breese moved up from 170 lb to 185 lb beginning with his 2018 win against then 40-year-old Daniel Kelley, who came in on a 2 fight skid. Honestly, that fight looked like a mismatch intended to get Breese’s career back on track. In the back half of R1, Breese punched Kelley in the face. Kelley immediately covered his eye and looked like he might protest an eye poke. However, the ref said fight on, so Kelley retreated, while taking a few more punches and then quickly crumpled to the ground with the ref immediately stopping the fight.

Breese is now 11-2 in his career with all but two of his fights ending early. However, having lost two of his last three, he could really use a win here. While his last six fights have all ended in KO’s or decisions, six of his first seven fights ended in submission wins. Four of those came by Rear-Naked Choke and the other two were Triangle Chokes.

KB Bhullar

Curiously making his UFC debut a month before he was scheduled to go on the Contender Series, Bhullar comes in with a perfect 8-0 record that includes six early finishes, all in R1. Four of those came by KO with the other two via submission. On the limited available tape we could find, Bhullar looks like a very patient fighter.

Bhullar notably is coming off March knee surgery after tearing his Meniscus during training in early 2020. It’s now been just over a year since he last fought, when he won the Unified MMA Middleweight Championship in a 5 round decision.

Bhullar took 5 years off from competing, from July 2013 until December of 2018. He did say that he continued to train during that time, but that’s quite a layoff.

This is a tough one to predict but it feels closer than what the Vegas line is telling us. Both of these guys have a history of finishing fights early but they also only have one early loss between them. We could definitely see Bhullar pulling off the early finish here, but the same could be said about Breese. Given their respective prices we prefer Bhullar in DFS, but Breese has impressively scored 112 DraftKings points or more in three of his four UFC wins.

Youssef Zalal

Zalal comes in on a four fight win streak with all three of his UFC fights ending in decisions. This will be Zalal’s fourth UFC fight this year. Both of his career losses, which came consecutively just prior to his current winning streak, also ended in decisions. He did start his career off with six straight early finish victories, but those were also against less experienced opponents who were more prone to falling for “The Moroccan Devil’s” tricks.

Zalal doesn’t pack much power in his hands, but he keeps a mean flying knee in his back pocket—which he did score a R1 KO with in 2019 (one of only two career KO’s). His other five early finishes all came by submission but he still seems a little sloppy with his technique.

His elusive fighting style allows him to evade opponents at will, which is slightly concerning in terms of pushing the pace of this fight for DFS scoring. He does typically bolster his scores with takedowns and advances but his striking volume is average at best.

He did acknowledge after his last fight that he’s aware the UFC wants finishes and his goal is still to finish opponents, but at the same time it feels like Zalal is having too much fun in the octagon to actually want to finish a fight early. It’s possible he just hasn’t been challenged enough and things could change with a tougher opponent, which it appears he’ll have in this match. Zalal was originally scheduled to fight Seung Woo Choi before Choi dropped out and Topuria stepped in on short notice.

"His original opponent withdrew because of injury and because of that we’re actually going to get a better matchup out of it." - DW

Ilia Topuria

Topuria, a BJJ black belt, is making his UFC debut on short notice with a perfect 8-0 record and with all eight wins coming early—7 in R1 and 1 in R2. His last win came by KO, but his previous seven were all by submission. Unlike Zalal, Topuria is a clinician with his submissions.

While four of his wins did come against opponents in their first pro fights, the other four wins were against ones who came in with records of: 3-5, 8-1, 7-1, and 6-2 (in order of earliest to the most recent). So he’s finished three opponents in R1 who had winning records and eight fights or more of experience. And remember, this kid is only 23 years old (in fairness Zalal is only 24).

Overall, this guy is a takedown and submission machine, but also showed in his last fight that he has KO power when needed. None of Topuria’s fights have made it past the 7:50 mark and 7 of the 8 lasted 3:42 or less. So his model-breaking double digit takedown average is clearly inflated and needs to be taken in context. In the five fights we charted, our count was that he landed 2/2, 5/5, 0/1, 2/2 and 3/3 on takedowns. The 5 for 5 performance was in the one fight that made it to R2, which makes sense. So without even accounting for striking, reversals or advances in those fights, you’re looking at DraftKings scores of 100, 95, 90, 100, 105 points. Not bad for $7,600.

One thing to note with Topuria is that he’s such a mechanic that he actually has the potential to submit his opponent without landing a single strike. That’s typically not the case, but it has happened. We counted 0, 2, 6, 25 and 40 significant strikes landed respectively for Topuria in the five fights we charted.

Worth noting, Zalal will have a 3” height advantage in this fight. Also, Topuria has fought at both 135 lb and 145 lb in the past but his last two fights have been at 145 lb, where this fight will be.

It certainly appears that the DFS scoring ceiling in this fight belongs to Topuria, but how often do we see impressive prospects flop in their UFC debuts? Both of these two are likely facing their toughest opponent to date, and it should make for an exciting matchup. We’ll say Topuria gets it done and finishes this one early but don’t sleep on Zalal or his ability to churn out decisions.

Tom Aspinall

Aspinall will look to keep his momentum going, after making quick work of an inflated Jake Collier in a 45 second KO victory coming in Aspinall’s UFC debut. This marks Aspinall’s fourth straight R1 KO win and 8th of his career, all in just 10 pro fights. His only other two fights both ended with R2 losses—one a DQ for an Illegal elbow and the other a heel hook submission.

Aspinall, a BJJ blackbelt, notably trains with Darren Till and is a sparring partner with Tyson Fury. He switched from MMA to Boxing in 2017, hence the 2.5 year layoff between MMA fights, but ultimately came back in 2019.

Aspinall was 44% owned on DraftKings in his UFC debut, despite being priced at $8,800 and having a blank DK scoresheet. We expect that number to go up after showing his power on the biggest stage.

Alan Baudot

After picking on undersized, inexperienced fighters on the East Asia fight circuit for years, Baudot attempted to pick on someone his own size for the first time in 2017 and was abruptly shown the floor. The face-planting loss came in a 26 second R1 KO against current UFC fighter Dalcha Lungiambula.

Baudot then retreated back to Japan to rebuild his confidence against then 0-2 (now 0-5), 5'10", normally 170 lb Yuto Nakajima. This fight was a criminal mismatch and the only thing it was missing was carnival music or silent film captions. Regardless, it gave Baudot the confidence to attempt another fight against someone his own size in 6’3”, 36-year-old Todd Stoute. That didn’t appear to go Baudot’s way either, as he was submitted in R3 via Rear-Naked Choke, however the results were overturned when Stoute tested positive for THC. For reasons unknown, the fight went down as a win on Baudot’s record instead of a NC.

Prior to that head scratcher, all eight of Baudot’s fights ended in KO’s, including six in R1. Baudot won seven of those eight fights, but again, check the tape—he looked like a man among boys.

In a karmic reversal of roles, Baudot will now be the undersized man in Saturday’s match going against 6’5” professional face smasher, Tom Aspinall. Whereas Aspinall is a legit Heavyweight who normally weighs in between 245-255 lb, Baudot fought 3 of his last 4 fights at 205 lb—with the lone exception a 2018 match at 220 lb. Baudot’s last fight at Heavyweight came in 2016.

Baudot’s UFC debut should be a quick one—look for Aspinall to knock him out early.

UPDATE: Baudot surprisingly weighed in at 254 lb, which is actually 2 lb heavier than Aspinall at 252 lb. Baudot did have a year and a half to bulk up since his last fight, but regardless, we stand by everything we said previously. Remember Jake Collier was also moving up from 205 lb to Heavyweight in Aspinall’s last fight and he ended up weighing 264 lb compared to Aspinall at 248 lb. We all saw how that worked out

Dricus Du Plessis

Making his short notice UFC debut on just two weeks notice, Du Plessis is coming off a December 2019 R1 submission win that marked his 14th early finish in as many wins to go along with seven R1 victories. Both of his career losses also came early. This guy is theoretically unaware that there even are judges. His first loss came in a 2014 R3 submission, early in his career. His only other loss in his 16 pro fight career came in a 2018 rematch for the KSW Welterweight Championship belt. Du Plessis was able to bounce back from an early assault against Roberto Soldic in their first title match to land a R2 KO and take the belt, but Soldic proved to be too explosive in the 2018 rematch that resulted in a R3 KO loss for Du Plessis.

Du Plessis has fought at both 170 lb and 185 lb throughout his career. This fight is at 185 lb, which actually probably helps him given that he only had a couple weeks to make weight. Six of his 16 pro fights have ended in KO’s (5-1) while 10 have ended with submissions (9-1). Five of those submissions were Guillotine Chokes (including his one submission loss) and the other five were all Rear-Naked Chokes.

Du Plessis has shown a lot of confidence in himself and claims that he’ll be able to finish Perez despite the fact that no one ever has.

"Perez has an awkward and sporadic style that has earned him the Portegeuse nickname Maluko, which means crazy in English. Also, that’s exactly how I expect this fight to turn out." - DW

Markus Perez

Having alternated wins and losses throughout his five fight UFC career, Perez is coming off his third decision loss in the UFC. While all of his UFC losses have come by decision, both of his wins have come by submission. He finished his second UFC fight in R1 with a Rear-Naked Choke and then came back in his fourth UFC fight with a R2 Anaconda Choke against Anthony Hernandez—who had previously never lost a fight by submission.

Perez originally entered the UFC having won all 10 of his previous pro fights, including three KO’s and four submissions. He was able to end five of those in R1, including a R1 Arm-Triangle submission over Ian Heinisch in Perez’ last fight prior to joining the UFC.

Perez primarily looks to end his opponents with submissions and notably all three of the fighters who defeated him had never been submitted in their careers.

He was originally scheduled to fight Eric Spicely back on 8/1/20 but Spicely withdrew due to weight cutting issues last minute. He was then scheduled to fight Rodolfo Vieira on 10/10 but Vieira withdrew and that’s when Du Plessis stepped in.

This one feels like another coinflip and we’d be lying if we said we knew who was going to win, but forced to choose we would lean Perez. It sets up for a great fight with high scoring potential. Both guys absorb more strikes than they land, which is unusual, and both like to go for submissions. Neither guy lands significant strikes with a ton of volume so they’ll be reliant on either the ground game or an early finish to score well.

Ben Rothwell

At 38 years old, Rothwell is getting a little dusty, having been a pro since 2001. He is coming off consecutive wins after losing three straight, but the last time one of his fights ended in R1 was 2015. Including that one, only 3 of his 14 UFC fights have ended in R1—although he did win all three of those. Four of his last five fights have now ended in decisions.

After a five round decision loss to Junior dos Santos in early 2016, Rothwell took the rest of 2016, all of 2017 and all of 2018 off before returning in March of 2019.

Upon returning in 2019, he lost his next two fights, extending his losing streak to three. He then went up against 11 ft tall Stefan Struve in what you would have to imagine was desperation mode to win a fight, being three and a half years removed from his last win.

Late in R1 of that fight, Rothwell landed a brutal nut shot that kept Struve down for an extended period of time, even bringing the doctor out and having some discussion of ending the fight. In fairness to Rothwell, Struve’s balls hang at the same height as a normal man’s chin. Nevertheless, the fight eventually continued only to see Rothwell land a near identical blow in R2 that left the entire crowd wincing and Rothwell cursing at himself. At that point, the ref deducted a mercy point and again Struve looked on the brink of not being able to continue. With some coaxing from Dan Miragliotta and several more minutes of rest, Struve finally agreed to continue the fight only to get blitzed by a desperate Rothwell and KO’d a minute later. You have to feel for Struve and it’s hard to think the low blows didn’t play a factor in the KO. That was Rothwell’s only time scoring above 93 DraftKings points since 2014 over his last 7 fights.

If we remove the compromised Struve score from the record, Rothwell’s last six DraftKings scores are: 63, 35, 35, 39, 88, 93.

He does have two submission wins and one submission loss in the UFC, all coming by Guillotine choke. Those submission wins are the 88 and 93 point performances. He has a total of 4 KO wins in the UFC and one KO loss, which came in his 2009 UFC debut. He also has four decision losses and two decision wins in the UFC.

Marcin Tybura

Tybura is coming off two low scoring decision wins following two KO losses (R1 & R2). His last four wins have now all come by decision, while his last three losses were all KO’s. He’s a low floor, low ceiling fighter who has no business in DFS lineups.

Now at 34 years old, he likely needed the two wins just to remain in the UFC, after losing four of his previous five fights. Since joining the UFC in 2016, the earliest Tybura has won a fight was in R2 and he only did that once. Eight of his 11 UFC fights have made it at least until R3.

Breaking down his UFC fights further, six of them have ended in decisions (4-2), 5 by KO (2-3). None have ended with submissions. He does have six submission wins as a pro but they call came prior to joining the UFC including three in his first four pro fights from 2011-2012.

While Tybura’s record shows no reason to use him in DFS, you could argue that despite his smothering fighting style, his recent history of KO losses presents a ceiling for his opponents. Whether or not Rothwell is capable of taking advantage of that ceiling is debatable, but at least he’s not moving up a weight class like Tybura’s last opponent Grishin. We think this will be a slow fight with a lot of time spent pushed up against the cage. We’re leaning Rothwell by decision but seeing him finish Tybura in the later half of the fight is entirely possible.

Edson Barboza

Entering on a three fight skid and having lost 5 of his last 6 fights, 34-year-old Barboza is desperate for a win in this situation. His last two fights both ended in decisions, but the three prior to that were all KO’s. This is only his second fight at 145 lb after fighting at 155 lb for his entire pro MMA career. Barboza’s record reads like a who’s who of the Lightweight division:

Here are his last six fights beginning with the most recent:

R3 DEC L to Dan Ige (Ige 1/4 on TD's, Barboza 0/0)
R3 DEC L to Paul Felder (Felder 0/2 on TD's, Barboza 1/3)
R1 KO L to Justin Gathje (Gaethje 0/0 on TD's, Barboza 0/0)
R3 KO W over Dan Hooker (Hooker 0/1 on TD's, Barboza 0/1)
R5 KO loss to Kevin Lee (Lee 4/9 on TD's, Barboza 0/1)
R3 Dec L to Khabib Nurmagomedov (Nurmagomedov 4 TD’s, Barboza 0)

He’s also fought Dariush, Pettis, Ferguson, Johnson, Green, Cerrone etc.

Barboza’s last win came against Dan Hooker in a 2018 R3 KO. His win prior to that was a 2017 R2 KO against Beneil Dariush. However, his four wins prior to the pair of KO’s all came in decisions. He’s been submitted twice in his career—once by Donald Cerrone via Rear-Naked Choke in 2014 and the other by Tony Ferguson in 2015 by Brabo Choke. Barboza has one submission win to his name—an Anaconda Choke (Amirkhani’s speciality) all the way back in 2009, in his third pro fight.

Makwan Amirkhani

Amirkhani bounced back from a November 2019 R3 KO loss against Shane Burgos with a July 2020 R1 Submission win over Danny Henry. A submission specialist, Amirkhani is a dangerous man on the ground. One misstep from his opponents typically results in a trip to see the sandman. He came close to submitting Burgos early in that fight, but Burgos survived and then Amirkhani looked to gas out and Burgos put on a striking clinic. His only UFC loss prior to the Burgos fight came against 11-1 (now 16-1) Arnold Allen. Neither Allen nor Burgos have ever been submitted in their careers.

Amirkhani’s last two wins have both come by Anaconda Choke submissions (R1 & R2) and 11 of his 16 pro wins have are by submission. He only has one KO win to his name, which came in 2015, 8 seconds into his UFC debut on a flying knee. However, he typically just uses the flying knee to close the distance on opponents and work for takedowns.

Amirkhani is a quintessential submission or bust DFS play as his striking volume is dead last on the slate. He’ll need to get the fight to the ground to complete a submission and notably has a 36% takedown accuracy. That was greatly impacted by his 3 of 19 takedown performance against Burgos, and if you remove that fight from his stats he has a better-but-still-not-great 50% takedown accuracy over his other seven UFC fights. Here’s his takedown breakdown:

Takedowns in Amirkhani UFC Fights:

Henry: 0/0, Amirkhani 1/1
Burgos: 0/0, Amirkhani 3/19
Fishgold: 0/0, Amirkhani 1/2
Knight: 0/1, Amirkhani 3/5
Allen: 3/6, Amirkhani 4/12
Wilkinson: 0/0, Amirkhani 4/7
Fullen: 0/0, Amirkhani 1/1
Ogle: 0/0, Amirkhani 0/0

This entire fight boils down to one thing—Barboza’s takedown defense. Amirkhani shoots for a ton of takedowns, landing 3.45/15 min., despite his meager 36% takedown accuracy. Barboza on the other hand has an 80% takedown defense. If Barboza’s takedown defense can hold up, then this is the perfect combination for him scoring well on FanDuel. Amirkhani only lands 1.55 SS/min. and really for the most part just uses his striking to close the distance so he can grapple and go for takedowns. Barboza, on the other hand, is a pure striker who has little interest in spending much time on the mat.

We’re leaning towards Barboza’s takedown defense to hold up and for his striking to prove to be too much for Amirkhani to handle in what ends with a late KO. However, if Amirkhani is able to take Barboza down we think he finishes him with another submission.

Note: If you’re playing on both DFS sites it makes sense to have the majority of your Barboza exposure on FanDuel due to the takedown defense scoring. Amirkhani on the other hand, is a fine play on both sites.

Cory Sandhagen

Coming off an 88 second Rear-Naked Choke submission loss against Aljamain Sterling back in June, #4 ranked Sandhagen will look to bounce back and climb the ranks against #1 contender Marlon Moraes.

Sandhagen had won seven fights in a row prior to the recent loss, including five early finishes, with three in R1. His last two wins, however, both came by decision. His most recent decision win came against 38-year-old Raphael Assuncao who notably was coming off a R1 Submission loss against Marlon Moraes.

With a 12-2 pro record, Sandhagen’s only other career loss came in a three round decision against Jamall Emmers, a year prior to Sandhagen joining the UFC. Eight of Sandhagen’s 14 career fights have ended early with four KO wins, three submission victories, and the one submission loss. Four of his six UFC fights have now ended early.

Sandhagen has a 5" height advantage and 3" reach advantage in this fight. He typically fought at 145 lb early in his career until his 2nd UFC fight when he made a permanent switch to 135 lb, despite winning his UFC debut.

Marlon Moraes

Moraes is coming off a close decision win over Jose Aldo back in December of 2019. His prior fight was a loss against Henry Cejudo in 2019 (for the vacant title). He’s now 18-2 in his last 20 fights. The other loss over that period came against Raphael Assuncao in Moraes' UFC debut in 2017. Note, Moraes avenged the loss with a R1 submission victory in a 2019 rematch against Assuncao.

You have to go all the way back to 2011 for Moraes’ 3rd and 4th most recent losses, which came by way of a R1 Arm-Triangle submission and a R2 Rear-Naked Choke submission.

Four of his last five fights ended early, including three R1 wins and the R3 KO loss to Cejudo. Moraes notably KO'd Aljamain Sterling in R1 of their 2017 fight.

Eight of his last 11 fights have ended early, with the only three decisions in those fights coming against Jose Alda, John Dodson and Raphael Assuncao. 32-year-old Moraes has been a pro since 2007 whereas 28-year-old Sandhagen didn’t turn pro until 2015.

This is a close fight that could go either way. The higher ranked Moraes is coming into this fight as a slight dog despite coming off a win against Aldo and with Sandhagen coming off a quick loss. Sandhagen’s height and reach advantage could prove to be challenging for Moraes’ who hasn’t fought anyone taller than 5’7” in his last seven fights. He also hasn’t fought anyone taller than 5’8” since his 2014 match against 5’10” Cody Bollinger which nevertheless resulted in a R2 Guillotine submission win for Moraes. It’s worth noting that Bellinger only has a 67” reach (matching Moraes’) whereas Sandhagen has a 70” reach.

We’ve been leaning Moraes in this one since it was announced, but could certainly see it going the other way. This seems like one where you’ll want exposure to both sides and look to take hard stands elsewhere.

Not the most exciting way to wrap-up the fight summaries, but good luck this week it should be a good one!