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Fighter Notes:
Fight #11
Rayanne Amanda
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Amanda will be making her UFC debut at 115 lb, after winning the Invicta Atomweight belt down at 105 lb in a five-round decision over the 38-year-old Jillian DeCoursey in her last match. That was Amanda’s second straight decision win down at 105 lb, but she competed up at 125 lb in her third most recent fight, which ended in a first round armbar submission win. Just before that, she went on DWCS at 115 lb and lost a hardfought, but unanimous 30-27 decision to Denise Gomes. Leading up to that loss, Amanda finished four straight opponents, with three first round armbars and a second round TKO, but those wins should be taken with a grain of salt as the four opponents entered with a combined 0-7 record. Nevertheless, Amanda has won 7 of her last 8 fights.
Now 14-6 as a pro, Amanda has two TKO wins, eight submissions, and four decision victories. Both of her TKO wins ended in round two, while all eight of her submissions occurred in round one, with the last seven of those ending in armbars. Just keep in mind, most of her wins have come against a low level of competition. On the other side of things, she has one TKO loss, one submission defeat, and four decision losses. Her TKO loss came from a 2019 post R1 doctor stoppage after Amanda had her jaw broken by Isabela de Padua, who later went 0-1 in the UFC. While Amanda has gone 4-4 in the eight decisions she’s been to, she won three of her last four trips to the judges.
Overall, Amanda is a BJJ black belt, but is content with keeping fights standing for the most part. She will mix in takedowns when opportunities present themselves, but she’s in no rush to get fights to the ground and hasn’t been overly impressive with her grappling. However, she’s shown a decent takedown defense and does have eight submission wins on her resume. She seems decent everywhere, but doesn’t stand out anywhere. She was durable enough to go three rounds with a heavy-handed brawler in Denise Gomes, but it is somewhat concerning that Amanda’s last couple of fights have been down at 105 lb. She’s just 5’2” and not overly muscular, so we could see her struggle with the size of some of the opponents she’ll see in the UFC. However, that’s less of a concern in her upcoming debut as her opponent is only 5’1”.
Talita Alencar
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Less than three months removed from a draw on DWCS, Alencar narrowly kept her short but undefeated record intact. She won the first two rounds of that fight, but then completely gassed out and was lucky not to have been finished in round three, which resulted in a 10-8 round that forced the draw. Alencar shot for one desperation takedown after the next late in the fight and finished with a ridiculous 24 takedown attempts, but only landed four of those. She got outlanded 87-35 in significant strikes and 136-66 in total strikes and it’s surprising the UFC gave her a contract after that collapse. Prior to that draw, Alencar won a grappling-heavy decision in the LFA against a terrible 2-2 Kelsey Arnesen, who has a loss against an equally bad Marnic Mann on her record. Before Alencar joined the LFA, she submitted her first three opponents as a pro with Titan FC.
Now 4-0-1 as a pro, Alencar has three submission wins and one decision victory. Two of her submissions ended in round one, with the other coming in round three against a very short notice replacement. Just keep in mind those were all very inexperienced fighters who entered with records of 0-1, 1-1, and 1-1, with one of them stepping on on very short notice. So we’ve yet to see Alencar finish anybody decent.
Overall, Alencar is a BJJ black belt who comes from a celebrated grappling background and is a former six-time jiu-jitsu world champion. However, she’s very one-dimensional and doesn't offer much outside of grappling. She’s a bad striker with terrible striking defense, has bad cardio, and isn’t a very good wrestler. She’s basically a worse version of Jaqueline Amorim and only turned pro in MMA in July 2021. She’s alarmingly cocky for how flawed she is, which makes you wonder if she’s even putting the right work in to round out her game. While she is a pretty dangerous grappler on the mat, it seems like she could have used a few more years to improve her striking and wrestling before being brought into the UFC. However, she’s already 33 years old so she didn’t really have the time to do that and is seemingly being brought into the organization before she’s actually ready. She should be able to find some success against one-dimensional strikers with poor takedown defense, but she’ll be in for a rude awakening whenever she faces any decently well-rounded fighters.
Fight Prediction:
Amanda will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while also being five years younger than the 33-year-old Alencar.
While Amanda is five years younger than Alencar, she turned pro six years earlier and has 20 fights under her belt, to just five for Alencar. It shows on the tape and Alencar is greener than grass when it comes to MMA. Yes, she’s a decent grappler when she can get opponents down, but her wrestling is bad, her cardio is worse, and her striking is laughable. She’s a tiny one-dimensional grappler who’s facing a fellow BJJ black belt and this is not a great matchup for Alencar to succeed. Amanda isn’t great herself, but she’s much more well-rounded and will hold advantages in striking, cardio, and wrestling. Amanda just needs to stay off her back, while also keeping Alencar off it and she should have no problem winning the fight. With that said, when you have a one-dimensional specialist like Alencar, they have the ability to look -1000 when they can execute their game plan and +1000 when they can't, which does add a little volatility to the matchup. The UFC will probably feel bad for Alencar after she loses here and throw her a bone with someone like Elise Reed in her next fight. Depending on how badly Alencar gasses, we could see her get finished late, but we lean towards Amanda winning by decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Rayanne Amanda R3 or DEC” at +135.
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DFS Implications:
Amanda has gone the distance in three of her last four fights and hasn’t looked like any sort of potent finisher, and doesn’t stand out as being exceptional anywhere. However, she looks somewhat decent everywhere and is a BJJ black belt with a grappling background. She also showed the durability to go three rounds with a bruiser like Denise Gomes, and the cardio to go five rounds in her last fight. It is somewhat concerning that her last two fights were down at 105 lb, but she’s competed as high as 125 lb in the past and most of her career has been at 115 lb. She’s only 5’2” so she’s not very tall, but her opponent in this fight is only 5’1”, so that’s less significant. Amanda looks like a decent enough grappler to avoid getting submitted and a good enough wrestler to keep the fight mostly standing. That should allow her to have her way with Alencar on the feet, although Amanda hasn’t been much of a knockout threat in the past. However, Alencar death gassed in her last fight and if that happens again then Amanda could be in a great position to dominate down the stretch and potentially get Alencar out of there late in the fight. It’s also possible that we see some scrambles on the mat or that Alencar pulls guard and Amanda ends up in top position, both of which could benefit Amanda on DraftKings. At her reasonable price tag, she has a shot at putting up a usable DraftKings score even in a decision, but she appears to need a finish to be useful on FanDuel. The odds imply Amanda has a 57% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Alencar is a former six-time jiu jitsu world champion, which is basically a fancy way of saying she’s a one-dimensional grappler with no striking and bad cardio. She completely gassed out in the back half of her recent DWCS draw and was fortunate to even survive to make it to the judges. That fight took place less than three months ago so she hasn’t had a ton of time to make any drastic changes, so we’d be surprised if she looked much better here. She’s also already 33 years old, and only turned pro in MMA two years ago, so she got a late start in the sport after a lengthy grappling career. The UFC is a tough place to learn on the job and we expect to see serious growing pains from Alencar as she begins facing legitimate competition for the first time in her MMA career. While her grappling-heavy style does offer a ton of upside when she can successfully execute it, she lacks the wrestling to effectively get fights to the mat against anyone with a decent defense. So she’ll be a matchup specific play left to the mercy of the matchmakers and we’ll only want to play her against one-dimensional strikers. She’s facing a fellow black belt here, so this doesn’t look like the time we want to be on her. With that said, Amanda is also making her UFC debut and her last two fights were down at 105 lb, so it’s not impossible that Alencar could overpower her and win the grappling exchanges, but it does appear less likely. The odds imply Alencar has a 43% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Tatsuro Taira
5th UFC Fight (4-0)Still undefeated as a pro, Taira is coming off a decision win over Edgar Chairez, who was making his short notice UFC debut and consistently looked for guillotine attempts throughout the fight. Taira was able to take Chairez down on two of his three attempts and finished with nearly 10 minutes of control time, while also outlanding him 61-25 in significant strikes and 121-26 in total strikes. Prior to that, Taira landed a pair of submissions, after winning a grappling-heavy decision over Carlos Candelario in his UFC debut. Following that win, Taira locked up a second round submission against CJ Vergara, and then a first round submission against a debuting Jesus Santos Aguilar. Before joining the UFC, Taira won all 10 of his career fights on the Japanese regional scene after turning pro when he was just 18 years old.
Now 14-0 as a pro, Taira has three TKO wins, seven submissions, and four decision victories. One of those decision victories came in a two-round fight that actually took place down at 115 lb, which is something you rarely see in men’s professional MMA. So only three times in his career has Taira been involved in fights that lasted longer than 10 minutes and all seven of his career submission wins ended in the first two rounds, with six ending in round one. Two of his three TKO wins also came in round one, with the other ending 19 seconds into round two.
Overall, Taira relies mostly on his grappling but isn’t entirely helpless on the feet and throws crisp leg strikes. He’s still just 23 years old and we should see improvements every time he steps inside the Octagon. We’re especially interested to see how he grows as a striker, which is clearly his biggest weakness at the moment. Regardless, he’s a very solid grappler and until he faces an opponent with elite defensive wrestling, we should see Taira find success on the mat. In his four UFC fights, he landed 7 of his 17 takedown attempts (41.2% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 2 of their 5 attempts (60% defense).
Carlos Hernandez
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Hernandez was recently robbed of a finish as he landed a knockout slam against Denys Bondar in the final second of the fight, but it was then ruled an accidental clash of heads and the match ended in a technical decision victory for Hernandez instead. Prior to that win, Hernandez suffered the first early loss of his career when he got submitted in the first round by a dangerous Allan Nascimento. Hernandez never got much offense of his own going in that fight as he got taken down less than a minute in and controlled for the remainder before being forced to tap midway through the round as Nascimento locked in a rear-naked choke. Leading up to that loss, Hernandez won eight straight fights, including split decision wins on both DWCS and in UFC debut.
Now 9-2 as a pro, Hernandez has four submission wins and five decision victories. Three of those submissions came in round one, with the other ending in round two, although the last time he submitted anybody was in early 2020, two years before he joined the UFC. Hernandez’s last four wins all ended in decisions. The only early loss of his career ended in a first round submission, with his one other defeat ending in a decision in his 2017 pro debut.
Overall, Hernandez has good movement and footwork and is generally looking to push the pace, but doesn’t have much power in his striking and isn’t a threat to knock anybody out. While his takedown accuracy isn’t great, he’s somewhat dangerous on the mat and does a decent job of controlling opponents once there. He’s been prone to getting taken down himself, but he’s generally been good at quickly scrambling back to his feet. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he only landed 4 of his 24 takedown attempts (16.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 10 of their 29 attempts (65.5% defense). He generally lands a good amount of striking volume, averaging 5.51 SSL/min and 4.41 SSA/min.
Fight Prediction:
Hernandez will have a 1” height advantage, but Taira will have a 3” reach advantage. Hernandez is seven years older than the 23-year-old Taira.
The UFC has carefully selected favorable matchups for Taira as they continue to build him up and this spot is no different. Similar to all of Taira’s past opponents, Hernandez has an unexceptional takedown defense and no power in his hands. So Taira will be at no risk of getting knocked out and should be able to land takedowns and get the fight to the mat where he needs it. Hernandez does have a decent get up game, but that will just result in an inflated takedown total for Taira, assuming he doesn’t lock up a quick submission, which is also in play. We don’t see any real path to victory for Hernandez and this fight will end in either a Taira submission or a grappling-heavy decision. We slightly lean towards Taira winning by decision, but we saw Allan Nascimento submit Hernandez pretty easily after backpacking him and locking up a rear-naked choke, and it wouldn’t be that surprising if the same thing happened here. Either way, Taira is rightfully a massive favorite and should win easily.
Our favorite bet here is “Tatsuro Taira DEC” at +200.
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DFS Implications:
Taira has averaged 102 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins, with two of his wins going the distance and two ending in submissions. He scored 99 and 97 points respectively in his two decision wins and 103 and 107 points in his submission victories. So he’s shown a slightly higher ceiling when he can get opponents out of there early, but a really solid floor even when his fights do make it to the judges. His grappling-heavy approach is a much better fit for the DraftKings scoring system and his most recent decision win was good for 99 points on DraftKings, but just 74 points on FanDuel. That leaves him reliant on either landing a finish or putting up a huge takedown total to score well on FanDuel. As the second most expensive fighter on the card, there are still lots of ways for him to get priced out of the winning lineup on either site, and we’ve yet to see him put up a truly massive score. However, there’s reason to think that this could be the time, as Hernandez has been prone to getting taken down, but has done a good job of quickly returning to his feet when he does. That’s the perfect recipe for Taira to land a ton of takedowns if he doesn’t lock up an early submission and we really like this matchup for Taira in DFS. The odds imply Taira has an 82% chance to win, a 50% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.
Hernandez has only averaged 80 DraftKings points in his two UFC wins, but did get robbed of a late third round knockout in his last match that pulled 15 points off his scoring total. So he has shown some scoring potential and he averages a legit 5.51 SSL/min and 1.2 TDL/15 min. However, he couldn’t ask for a much worse matchup at this stage in his career and he’s facing a relentless grappler who will be looking to take him down, control him, and try to submit him. That will make it really tough for Hernandez to make much of a dent in the stat sheet and leaves him reliant on landing a hail mary finish to score well. We’d be shocked to see that happen, as Hernandez doesn’t have much power in his striking and is the far worse grappler in this matchup. Even at his low ownership, we don’t have any interest in playing Hernandez here. The odds imply Hernandez has an 18% chance to win, an 8% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Luana Santos
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Four months removed from the first KO/TKO finish of her career, Santos landed a first round finish in her UFC debut against former TUF winner Juliana Miller. While both Miller and Santos are grapplers, that turned into a sloppy striking battle with the two wailing on each other until the ref stopped the fight on the feet in the back half of the round. Prior to that, Santos notched a pair of wins in the LFA with a decision victory followed by a first round guillotine, after losing a split decision in her 2022 LFA debut. Before she joined the LFA, Santos’ first three pro fights were on the Brazilian regional scene and she only turned pro in July 2021. While Santo’s last two fights both ended in the first round, her four prior to that all made it to round three, with all but one of those going the distance.
Now 6-1 as a pro, Santos has one TKO win, three submissions, and two decision victories. Two of those submissions occurred in round one, while the other came in round three. Her only loss was a 2022 split decision. Santos has yet to face any decent competition and all of her opponents came into her fights with very limited experience. Santos’ first three pro fights were at 135 lb, before she dropped down to 125 lb for her next four. However, she’ll be returning to 135 lb for this upcoming match.
Overall, Santos is a Judo black belt who started training Judo when she was eight years old and it shows in her fighting style as she’s primarily a grappler and loves looking for Judo throws. She’s just a BJJ blue belt, but she loves to look for Americana submissions out of the scarf hold position, similar to Montserrat Conejo. Santos hasn’t looked very dangerous off her back and her striking is still a work in progress, but she does appear to be making some improvements on that front. She’s still very early in career at just 23 years old and she left her home country of Brazil in May 2023 to move to Sacramento, California to train at Team Alpha Male. We expect to see her game evolve every time she steps inside the Octagon, but she’s still pretty green at this stage in her career.
Stephanie Egger
7th UFC Fight (3-3)Looking to bounce back from her second R1 submission loss in her last three fights, Egger shit the bed as a -350 favorite against a debuting Irina Alekseeva, who missed weight by 4 lb for the fight. Egger was getting overwhelmed on the feet from the reckless pressure of Alekseeva, which forced Egger to look to grapple, where she was immediately kneebarred. Prior to that loss, Egger took a fight up a weight class at 145 lb on just 10 days’ notice and landed a submission of her own in the closing seconds of round two against a debuting Ailin Perez. That came just after Egger got armbarred in the first by Mayra Bueno Silva, in a controversial stoppage where no one but Silva saw/felt the tap and Silva let go before the ref stopped the fight. Egger tried to play it off like she didn’t tap, but eventually it was determined she did after they polled the judges in an unusual turn of events. Egger landed two more finishes before that loss, with a first round submission win over Jessica-Rose Clark, who went 2-5 in her last seven fights before being cut, and a second round ground and pound TKO win over Shanna Young, who went 1-3 in the UFC before being cut. The only time Egger’s been past the second round in the UFC was in her 2020 UFC debut, where she lost a wrestling-heavy decision to Tracy Cortez. All six of Egger’s UFC fights have been decided on the mat, with all three of her wins coming against low-level opponents.
Now 8-4 as a pro, Egger has three wins by TKO, four submissions, and one decision victory. All seven of her finishes have occurred in the first two rounds, with five ending in round one. She’s been submitted twice in the first round and has lost two of the three decisions she’s been to. Egger started her career at 145 lb, before dropping down to 135 lb in 2016. Her last win was back up at 145 lb given the short notice nature of the fight, but she returned to 135 lb for her recent loss, and she’s been submitted in the first round in each of her last two fights at 135 lb. Following her last loss, Egger had apparently been prepared to attempt a move down to 125 lb for the first time in her career, as she was booked to face Montana De La Rosa in October. However, Egger dropped out of that matchup after posting that she re-injured her knee and will now remain at 135 lb.
Overall Egger is a Judo black belt and is most comfortable getting opponents down and trying to finish them on the mat opposed to standing and trading on the feet. She’s landed 8 takedowns on 20 attempts (40% accuracy) in her six UFC fights and all three of her wins/finishes occurred on the ground. On the other side of things, her opponents got her down on 5 of their 10 attempts (50% defense). Egger only averages 1.93 SSL/min and 2.08 SSA/min and has yet to land more than 29 significant strikes in a UFC fight or absorb more than 22. She’s already 35 years old and likely is who she is at this stage in her career, so we’re not expecting to see many improvements to her striking. That leaves her as a one-dimensional grappler who can dominate lower-level opponents on the mat, but she tends to struggle when facing other skilled grapplers.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’6”, but Egger will have a 1” reach advantage, while Santos is 12 years younger than the 35-year-old Egger.
Here we have two Judo black belts on opposite ends of their careers. Santos is just 23 years old and earlier this year she moved from Brazil to California to train at Team Alpha Male and try to improve as a fighter. On the other side of things, Egger is 35 years old and continues to train at a smaller gym in Switzerland with far less access to UFC-level training partners and coaches. Egger also recently considered a move down to 125 lb in October, but dropped out of the fight in late September after posting that she re-injured her knee. Both the injury and the fact that she was considering moving down to 125 lb for the first time at 35 years old are red flags for Egger, and we have no way of knowing if her knee is fully healthy. So we have the potential for Egger to look a little worse than in past fights and for Santos to look a little better.
Egger does have the experience advantage and has been training Judo since well before Santos was even born. And while Egger has been prone to tapping from armbars and kneebars, Santos has never finished anybody by either of those methods. Santos was also taken down twice and controlled for several minutes in her lone career loss, and overall we give Egger the advantage on the ground. However, it’s always hard to know how things will shake out on the mat when you have two grapplers and they’re both theoretically capable of submitting the other. While Santos is not a great striker, she still probably holds the advantage over Egger on the feet and if we get a grappling stalemate then Egger could be in trouble. We’ve also seen Egger struggle against other grapplers in the UFC, which makes it hard to trust her in matchups like this. With that said, Santos isn’t nearly as talented of a wrestler as Tracy Cortez or as dangerous of a grappler as Mayra Bueno Silva, so it’s really just Egger’s recent loss to Irina Alekseeva that’s especially alarming and you could argue she just got caught in a bad position, although she looked slow to react to the submission attempt of Alekseeva.
Ultimately, there are some red flags for the aging Egger, and this fight was put together on just a few weeks’ notice, leaving some uncertainty with how prepared either one of them will be. However, in addition to her experience advantage Egger has a UFC win at 145 lb, while Santos will be moving up from 125 lb. And in a fight that we expect to be decided by the grappling exchanges, that’s a decent indicator that Egger could be the more powerful of the two. The smaller cage at the Apex should also benefit her, as she needs to track Santos down and get her to the mat. When you add in that she can be had at plus money it’s hard not to like the Egger side of things. We’re clearly not the only ones that feel this way and the line has been moving in her favor since it was released. Egger will have a shot at locking up a submission, and 7 of her 8 career wins have come early, but we kind of like her to grind out a rare grappling-heavy decision victory. However, you can get much better odds on her submission line than her decision prop, so this one gets a little trickier to bet.
Our favorite bet here is “Stephanie Egger SUB” at +550.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.
DFS Implications:
Santos is fresh off the first KO/TKO win of her career, which came in her recent UFC debut against Juliana Miller, who for some reason was dead set on making it look like a late night Wendy’s brawl. That’s not normally how Santos’ fights go at all and the pace was entirely dictated by Miller. So take the 116 DraftKings points that Santos scored in the win with a grain of salt, and it’s probably not a score you want to chase. That fight lasted less than four minutes and by our count she landed about twice as many significant strikes as her previous four rounds of action combined. She’s a Judo black belt who looks for a lot of Judo throws to get fights to the mat, but now she’s facing a fellow high-level Judoka who has far more experience. Santos is also moving up from 125 lb to 135 lb for this match, which isn’t a great sign, and the fight was put together on just a few weeks’ notice so who knows what type of shape either fighter will be in. Egger had agreed to move down and fight at 125 lb for the first time in her career back in October, but pulled out in late September saying that she re-i injured her knee. So perhaps the size difference in this matchup won’t be as pronounced if Egger thought she could make that cut. And we have no idea the extent of Egger’s injury or how much it limited her training, but that uncertainty can only play into Santos’ favor. Egger has also been submitted in the first round in two of her last three fights and doesn’t offer much in the way of striking, so the scoring upside is there for Santos. However, Egger will be looking to take Santos down and control her, which leaves Santos with an uncertain floor that could limit her ability to get her own offense going if Egger is successful. The odds imply Santos has a 57% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Egger has averaged 108 DraftKings points in her three UFC wins, all of which ended in the first two rounds. However, she scored just 21 points in a decision loss in her debut, and was then submitted in the first round in each of her last two losses. So she’s been very boom or bust and has generally struggled against fellow grapplers. All of her UFC wins came in great matchups against low-level opponents and while the book is still out on how good Santos is, she is a Judo black belt. However, she’s also just 23 years old and still very green in MMA, so Egger will have a major experience advantage. Egger has also spent her career fighting at 135 lb and sometimes 145 lb, while Santos’ last four fights have all been at 125 lb. While they’re listed at the same height, Egger is used to dealing with larger opponents. Although for what it’s worth, Egger had been preparing to drop down to 125 lb for the first time back in October, before she re-injured her knee and was forced to drop out. She’s also now 35 years old and getting up there in age, so there are a lot of moving parts to look at in this matchup, which was put together on just a few weeks’ notice. That leaves things pretty volatile for both fighters, but Egger’s grappling and finishing upside always gives her a solid scoring ceiling, especially on DraftKings. The line has been moving in her favor since it opened, leaving her unpriced on DraftKings, who released pricing on Monday. That should drive her ownership up some and she was already 38% owned in each of her last two losses. The field has only really been on her when she loses and she was just 27% and 16% owned in her last two wins. Take that as you will. At her cheap price tag, she has a wider range of acceptable scoring outcomes, but she’s yet to show she can score well in a decision. She definitely needs a finish to be useful on FanDuel, but a grappling-heavy decision should be enough on DraftKings. The odds imply Egger has a 43% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Melquizael Costa
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)This fight had originally been scheduled to take place at 145 lb on last week’s card, but Garcia fell ill during weight cutting and dropped out just before weigh-ins. So the UFC pushed it back a week and moved it up to 155 lb.
Coming off his first UFC victory, Costa won a lopsided decision over a one-dimensional striker in Austin Lingo. Costa outlanded Lingo 100-39 in significant strikes and also landed 3 of his 8 takedown attempts as he dominated the fight from start to finish and did a good job of keeping the fight at kicking range where he could dictate the action. That fight took place at 145 lb, after Costa got submitted in the second round of his short notice UFC debut against Thiago Moises at 155 lb. Prior to that loss, Costa landed a third round TKO win in the LFA, following a first round TKO win on the Brazilian regional scene. Six of Costa’s last seven fights made it out of the first round, but only three of those made it to the judges.
Now 20-6 as a pro, Costa has seven wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and seven decision victories. He has one TKO loss resulting from a 2017 post R1 doctor stoppage and has also been submitted twice (R3 2018 & R2 2023). His other three defeats all went the distance. He fought all the way down at 135 lb early in his career, and has gone back and forth between 145 lb and 155 lb since 2017. However, after making his UFC debut at 155 lb, he dropped down to 145 lb for his last fight and that appears to be where he’ll stay.
Overall, Costa is a patient fighter who throws a ton of kicks and does his best work when he can control the distance and keep his opponents at kicking range. He trains out of Chute Boxe in Brazil and is a BJJ brown belt and Muay Thai black belt. Costa’s takedown defense has looked poor, which has gotten him into trouble at multiple points in the past and in his two UFC fights his opponents got him down on 4 of their 7 attempts (42.9% defense), while he landed 3 of his own 8 attempts (37.5% accuracy). So anytime he faces a grappler/wrestler, there’s reason to be concerned, but he does better against strikers when he can be the one mixing in takedowns with his striking.
Steve Garcia
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Coming off another back-and-forth banger, Steve got dropped 45 seconds into the first round of his last fight by Shayilan Nuerdanbieke, but was able to survive off his back and recover. He then flipped the script late in the round as he rocked Nuerdanbieke and then closed the show in the opening minute of round two with a combination of body shots. Steve had then been booked to face Sean Woodson in August, but hurt his back in training and was forced to withdraw. Prior to defeating Nuerdanbieke, Steve dropped down from 155 lb to 145 lb for the first time in the UFC and knocked out Chase Hooper in just 92 seconds, landing three knockdowns in the brief fight, which is the only time Hooper has been finished in his career. Four months prior to that, Steve suffered the first KO loss of his career against a debuting Maheshate, who knocked Steve out in just 74 seconds. Prior to that defeat, Steve landed a second round TKO win against a fragile Charlie Ontiveros, after losing a decision to Luis Pena in his 2020 UFC debut. Steve’s last six wins all ended in knockouts in the first round and a half of fights. Steve originally tried to make his way into the UFC through DWCS in 2019, but despite landing a first round knockout victory he still wasn’t rewarded with a UFC contract after missing weight by 3.5 lb for the 135 lb fight. After not getting a contract, Steve then took a fight in the LFA in January 2020 against Jose Mariscal up at 145 lb and landed another TKO, albeit in a quick/bad stoppage. Despite moving up to 145 lb, Steve again missed weight, checking in a pound and a half over the limit. After fighting most of his career at 135 lb, with just a few fights at 145 lb up to that point, Steve made his short notice UFC debut against Luis Pena in February 2020 up at Lightweight 155 lb, which was the first time Steve had ever competed at the weight class. Pena smothered Steve on the ground for the entire fight, finishing with over 14 minutes of control time on his way to winning a decision. Steve then took 20 months off before returning to the Octagon in October 2021 when he knocked out Ontiveros.
Now 14-5 as a pro, Steve has 11 wins by KO/TKO and three decisions. Five of those knockouts occurred in the first round, five ended in the first half of round two and one came in round three. However, that lone third round knockout was all the way back in 2013 in his second pro fight and his last nine finishes all occurred in under a round and a half. He’s also been knocked out once himself (R1 2022) and submitted another time (R1 2018), with both of the losses ending in under two minutes. The KO came in his last 155 lb fight against a debuting fighter and the submission was against a highly suspect Aalon Cruz in 2018. Steve’s other three pro losses all ended in decisions. While Steve It’s easy to poke holes in a lot of Steve’s knockout wins, as the last two came against grapplers, the one before that was against an incredibly fragile Charlie Ontiveros, the one before that was a arguably a quick/bad stoppage, and just before that he weighed in at 139.5 lb to face a fighter who had largely been competing at 125 lb. Steve spent most of his pre-UFC career at 135 lb, but missed weight so many times he moved all the way up to 155 lb for his first three UFC fights, before moving down to 145 lb in 2022, where it appears he’ll stay.
Overall, Steve is an offensively minded brawler who throws punches with ill intentions as he looks to knockout every opponent he faces. His background is in kickboxing and after transitioning to MMA he spent a good chunk of time in Bellator before working his way into the UFC. He has shown he’s capable of taking fights to the mat and finishing opponents with ground and pound, but that’s essentially the extent of his grappling from what we’ve seen. He’s a kill or get killed type of fighter and 13 of his 19 pro fights ended early, while he’s only been to one decision since 2018. While he did get controlled on the mat for essentially his entire 2020 UFC debut, he’s only been taken down once in the UFC on 11 attempts from his opponents (90.9% defense). On the other side of things, he landed 4 of his own 7 takedown attempts (57.1% accuracy). While he’s good at knocking opponents out, he’s also been incredibly prone to getting knocked down himself and in his last four fights, Steve landed four knockdowns, while his opponents knocked him down five times. So his fights are always dicey, but there’s rarely a dull moment. After dropping out just before weigh-ins last week, it will be important to monitor Steve on the scale this week.
Fight Prediction:
Steve will have a 2” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while Costa is four years younger than the 31-year-old Steve.
There are three certainties in life—death, taxes, and every Steve fight being a complete banger. He fights like he just downed a fifth of Fireball and it’s socially acceptable to miss weddings and funerals when he’s on TV. It’s amazing he’s only been knocked out once in his career considering he’s been knocked down five times in his last four matches, but you can’t question his heart and he’ll throw down until he’s unconscious—sometimes longer. He’s coming off knockout wins against a pair of grapplers, but now he’ll face more of a striker, although Costa does also have some grappling skills as well. Steve will also look for occasional takedowns when he needs to, but has never submitted anybody and is typically just looking for ground and pound on the mat. Costa has been prone to getting taken down, so that could provide a lifeline for Steve if/when he gets rocked on the feet. Costa relies more on his kicking game than his boxing, so the smaller cage at the Apex will be a hindrance to him as he tries to control the distance and keep Steve at range. But it’s hard to keep a bull at bay and Steve will come lunging in with reckless abandonment as he throws haymakers to try and close the distance. While Costa will look for submissions, we’re expecting someone to get knocked out here. Steve’s biggest weakness has been his chin, but a lot of Costa’s kick-heavy attack is to the body of opponents. And if Steve can close the distance and turn this into a boxing match he should have the advantage. He also has the better takedown defense of the two, so he should be able to dictate the wrestling exchanges, if there are any. He’s always at risk of getting knocked down/out, but we’re taking Steve to pull off the upset win by knockout in the opening round and a half.
Our favorite bet here is “Costa/Garcia Fight Ends in KO” at -120.
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DFS Implications:
Costa is coming off his first UFC win, where he scored 92 DraftKings points in a decision victory over Austin Lingo. He showed the ability to fill up the stat sheet to provide a decent scoring floor, although he doesn’t wrestle enough to really score well without a finish. We’ve also seen him struggle with being taken down in the past, which can limit his output at times. With that said, three of his last four wins ended early and now he’s facing an opponent who gets dropped more than dial-up. We’re always looking to target both sides of a Steve Garcia fight, as his last four fights all ended in knockouts, with nine combined knockdowns in those matches. Costa has seven knockout wins on his resume, in addition to six by submission, and he has finishing upside, even if we haven’t seen it yet at the UFC level. This is a volatile, uptempo matchup where either guy could finish the other, leaving them both with a wide range of scoring outcomes. Whoever wins should score well, making it a good fight to target. The odds imply Costa has a 69% chance to win, a 48% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.
Steve rarely requires the judges and seven of his last eight fights ended in knockouts (6-1). All seven of those finishes ended in under a round and a half and it’s all action when Steve’s inside the Octagon. He averaged 114 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, while his opponent scored 113 points in his last loss. So the winner in his fights typically scores really well and ends up in winning DFS lineups. His last win came in basically the worst case scenario, where he got controlled for most of the first round and then landed a knockout 36 seconds into round two, and he still scored 94 DraftKings points and ended up in the winning lineup on both DraftKings and FanDuel. Prior to that, he scored 133 and 116 DraftKings points respectively in his first two UFC victories. And at his cheap price tag, even a poorly timed finish should be enough for him to still end up in the optimal lineup. However, he’s also been very prone to getting dropped, which leaves him with a shaky floor. So he’s not a guy you can rely on in low-risk contests, but he’s an excellent tournament play. The odds imply Steve has a 31% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
HyunSung Park
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Park had an uncharacteristically slow start in his recent UFC debut, which was also the finals for the Road to UFC tournament. However, he woke up in the back half of the fight and eventually secured a submission in the back half of the third round against an opponent who had previously never been finished. That’s the only time Park had been past the second round in his career. Prior to that, he landed a pair of first round finishes in the opening two rounds of the tournaments, one via ground and pound and the other by rear-naked choke. Park was notably knocked down in each of his last two fights, but came back to finish both of those opponents.
Now 8-0 as a pro, Park has three wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and one decision victory. His lone trip to the judges came in a two-round fight in his 2018 pro debut and he finished his last seven opponents, with four of those fights ending in round one, two being stopped in round two, and one ending in round three. Four of his seven finishes ended in rear-naked chokes and appears to be his go-to move. Just keep in mind, he hasn’t faced much in the way of competition and none of Park’s first four opponents came in with winning records.
Overall, Park is a young, well-rounded fighter who’s shown solid finishing upside, but also has a few holes in his game. The biggest of those has been his striking defense and he’s been dropped in each of his last two fights. However, he wasn’t very hurt either time and quickly recovered, eventually finishing each of those opponents by rear-naked choke. At 5’7”, he’s got decent height for the Flyweight division, but he’s still a little scrawny and hasn’t really filled out yet, despite being 28 years old. In his last three fights, he landed 3 of his 10 takedown attempts (30% accuracy), while defending all three of the attempts against him. Park has yet to face anyone decent in his career, and the UFC appears content with bringing him up slowly as they feed him one of those worst opponents they could find in this next matchup.
Shannon Ross
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Ross has had a historically bad start to his UFC career, and is coming off a 17 second violent first round knockout loss to a guillotine specialist in Jesus Santos Aguilar, who had previously never knocked anybody out in his career. Ross got put out cold in that July loss and took quite some time to return to his feet. Prior to that, Ross got knocked out in just 59 seconds in his UFC debut against a really tough Kleydson Rodrigues, after getting knocked out in the second round on DWCS. Ross has now been knocked down a ridiculous five times in his last 10 minutes and 38 seconds of action. Three of those knockdowns occurred in his DWCS match against Vinicius Salvador, who’s since gone 0-2 in the UFC. Following that DWCS loss, Ross discovered that he had competed with a ruptured appendix and blood poisoning, which the UFC thought was so cool they gave him a contract despite the loss. Just before going on DWCS, Ross won a decision against a 6-3 opponent who has now lost four straight fights and appears to be retired. Just before that, Ross was submitted in the first round by Steve Erceg and Ross has been finished in four of his last five fights. The last time he finished anybody was in early 2019, when he knocked out an opponent who’s been finished in four of his last eight fights.
Now 12-7 as a pro, Ross has six wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and five decision victories. He has three first round finishes, two in round two, and two more in round three. Four of his last five finishes occurred in the later rounds. He’s been knocked out four times, submitted once, and has three decision losses. Four of his five early losses ended in round one, with the other coming in round two. Ross fought a lot of dubious competition on the regional scene, so take his wins with a grain of salt.
Overall, Ross is a wet paper bag of a fighter who gets knocked down by a stiff breeze and falls apart faster than single ply toilet paper. His aggressive style doesn’t help him any on that front, but looking past his glaring durability concerns, he has shown the ability to mix in wrestling with his striking. However, he’s just a BJJ purple belt and failed to land his only takedown attempt in his last three fights. He’s from Sydney, Australia, where he got embarrassed in front of his home crowd for his UFC debut, and then looked even worse in his last fight. He’s given us no indication that he belongs in the UFC and his lack of durability is absolutely stunning. Leading up to his last fight, he said he finally quit his full time job as a mechanic to focus entirely on fighting, but the results were somehow worse than before. If there was ever a guy that needed to be told not to quit their day job, it was Ross, yet unfortunately no one conveyed that message to him. We feel bad even piling on here, but for his own safety, Ross should stop fighting immediately.
Fight Prediction:
Park will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 66” reach. Park is six years younger than the 34-year-old Ross.
If you’ve watched Ross’ last few fights, it’s basically impossible to think he could ever win a fight at the UFC level and simply surviving a fight is a long shot. Everytime he gets touched he goes down and he’s yet to even last a minute in either of his two UFC matches. His most recent loss is especially alarming as he was violently knocked out in the opening seconds of the fight against a short armed opponent who had never knocked anybody else out in his career. Maybe Ross was dealing with another secret medical condition at the time like nochin-pneumonia or something, but otherwise he’s just the most fragile fighter on the face of the earth. We’d like to say he survives long enough to get submitted in this next match, but even that requires a huge leap of faith. It seems a little too obvious, but we can’t ignore his three straight knockout losses and we’ll say another quick knockout is the most likely way this match ends. But if Ross does somehow not get immediately cadavered, then look for him to get submitted. Either way, we’ll say Park finishes him in the first round.
Our favorite bet here is “Park/Ross Fight to Start R2, No” at -112.
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DFS Implications:
Park only scored 73 DraftKings points in his recent third round submission win in his UFC debut and wasn’t particularly impressive in the fight. He’s been knocked down in each of his last two matches, only averages 3.51 SSL/min, and failed to land more than a single takedown in any of his last three matches. His striking defense has looked somewhat suspect and he’s kind of scrawny. If that doesn’t get you excited about playing him as the most expensive fighter on the card, maybe this next part will. He’s facing an opponent in Shannon Ross who’s been knocked out in under a minute in both of his UFC fights and who has been knocked down five times in his last three fights, which lasted a combined 10 minutes and 38 seconds. Ross was also submitted in the first round two fights before going on DWCS. It’s hard to think of anyone on the UFC roster that we’d rather play fighters against than Ross and he looks like JP Buys with worse wrestling. So regardless of who Ross fights, you’ll want to play them, and on this slate that’s HyunSung Park. It also doesn’t hurt that Park has finished seven straight opponents. The odds imply Park has an 83% chance to win, a 69% chance to land a finish, and a 40% chance it comes in round one.
Ross has yet to survive the opening minute in a UFC fight, scoring a combined one point in his two UFC matches. It’s surprising the UFC didn’t cut him following his second straight quick knockout loss and it seems recklessly negligent on their part to even allow him to continue competing. He got put out cold in his last fight by a t-rex armed, pillow-fisted guillotine specialist, who previously had zero KO/TKO wins on his record. Ross’ inability to take a punch is alarming and makes it nearly impossible to play him in DFS. The only two things he has going for him are his low ownership and the fact that Park also has a suspect striking defense and has been prone to getting dropped. However, Ross hasn’t finished anybody since 2019 and he’s the dart throw of all dart throws who only true masochists will consider playing. The odds imply Ross has a 17% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Kevin Jousset
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Three months removed from a first round submission win in his UFC debut, Jousset defeated a fellow debuting fighter in Kiefer Crosbie. In addition to facing a fellow newcomer, Jousset also got to fight alongside several of his City Kickboxing teammates and didn’t have to travel far from New Zealand to Australia for that card. Crosbie started strong and finished the fight ahead in striking, but slowed as the round went on and Jousset was able to take his back and lock up a choke with 11 seconds left on the clock. Prior to that, Jousset landed a third round ground and pound TKO win for the Hex Fight Series 170 lb belt, just after he won the 185 lb belt with the same promotion. While becoming double champ is always impressive, the fights themselves weren’t the most exciting performances. He won the 185 lb belt in a five-round split decision against a 40-year-old opponent who hadn’t fought in four years and also hasn't fought since. Then he took on Kitt Campbell, who was just 2-3 in his previous five fights and landed a lot of good shots on Jousset, before getting finished with ground and pound midway through the fight. While Jousset’s last two wins both came early, he had fought to four straight decisions before that, with three of those being split.
Now 9-2 as a pro, Jousset has four wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and four decision victories. His first three knockout wins all ended in round one, with two of those coming in his first two pro fights, while his most recent TKO victory ended in round three. He also has one R2 TKO loss and one decision defeat.
Overall, Jousset was born in France but trains at City Kickboxing in New Zealand. He’s decently well-rounded but doesn’t really stand out as exceptional anywhere—other than being really tall. He’s a Judo black belt, but only has one submission win on his record and got outgrappled by Jack Della Maddalena early in his career. He throws a lot of kicks and does a decent job of utilizing his size, but he’s not the most explosive striker and has often been content with grinding out decisions. He landed his only takedown attempt in his recent UFC debut, and generally lands a takedown or two in most of his fights, but we haven’t seen him put up any bi takedown totals.
Song Kenan
9th UFC Fight (5-3)Coming off his first victory since early 2020, Kenan won a close decision over Rolando Bedoya, despite finishing behind in significant strikes 112-75. Kenan landed a knockdown in the third round and showed improved cardio in the fight, as he lost the first round but won each of the later rounds to get his hand raised. Prior to that, Kenan got knocked out in back-to-back fights, with a two year layoff between those losses. The most recent of those defeats came in the third round against Ian Garry, although Kenan did notably drop Garry in round one and nearly handed him his first career loss. Two years prior to that, Kenan got knocked out in the first round by Max Griffin. A year before that, Kenan landed a first round knockout of his own against Callan Potter, who came in 1-1 in the UFC and then never fought again after the loss to Kenan. In fact, all five of Kenan’s UFC wins came against struggling opponents. Kenan made his UFC debut in 2017 and landed a first round knockout against Bobby Nash, who had been knocked out in each of his previous two UFC fights as well and was cut following his third straight knockout loss. Kenan then landed a second round knockout against a debuting Hector Aldana, who finished 0-3 in the UFC with two KO losses. After losing a decision to Alex Morono in his next match, Kenan won a decision over Derrick Krantz, who came in 0-1 in the UFC and was cut following the loss. Callan Potter, who went 1-2 in the UFC, is the only opponent that Kenan has beaten who ever won a UFC fight, and Kenan’s last win was against an 0-1 Bedoya. Prior to joining the UFC, Kenan notably fought Brad Riddell and Israel Adesanya earlier in his career, but both guys knocked him out.
Now 20-7 as a pro, Kenan has nine wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and three decision victories. He’s been knocked out four times himself, with his other three losses going the distance. The first early loss of his career actually came against Israel Adesanya in a R1 KO with the WFC organization. His second KO loss came in the second round of a 2017 fight against Brad Riddell, his third KO loss was in the first round against Max Griffin, and his fourth was in the third round against Ian Garry. So all of his early losses have come against really tough competition.
Overall, Kenan is primarily a striker, despite having eight submission wins on his record. He’s only attempted three takedowns in eight UFC appearances, landing two of them, with all of those attempts coming in his fight against Garry. On the other side of things, his opponents took him down six times on 16 attempts (62.5% defense). While Kenan had shown bad cardio in the past, and lost three of the first five decisions he went to in his career, he looked much better late in his last fight and it seems like he’s made some real improvements since he started training at Kill Cliff FC. He still gets hit more than he lands, as he averages 4.40 SSL/min and 5.86 SSA/min, and has been outlanded in five of his eight UFC fights. His last two opponents both landed 112 or more significant strikes against him. That generally leaves Kenan reliant on landing the bigger shots to win fights, and to his credit he has three knockdowns in his last four outings.
Fight Prediction:
Jousset will have a 2” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while also being three years younger than the 33-year-old Kenan.
Both of these two are coming off wins against opponents who have yet to taste victory in the UFC. They each have good size, but Jousset is the larger man and will have a decent reach advantage. He also throws a decent amount of kicks and when Kenan does close the distance, Jousset may be looking to grapple, which could make things tougher on Kenan. However, Jousset hasn’t been overly impressive and has looked pretty hittable and Kenan has good power. So Kenan is definitely live to land a knockout, but if he can’t end things early then we think Jousset will likely be able to do just enough to win a close decision. Jousset is still unproven in the UFC and his recent win came against a low-level opponent who also had no UFC experience. Jousset keeps his chin high up in the air and his left hand low and Kenan’s improved cardio should leave him with more opportunities to land a knockout than in past fights. We’ll take a shot on the underdog here and say Kenan knocks Jousset out.
Our favorite bet here is “Song Kenan KO” at +400.
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DFS Implications:
Jousset is coming off a first round submission win in his UFC debut that was good for 110 DraftKings points, but that had more to do with who he was fighting than who Jousset is. He was facing an undersized, one-dimensional, debuting brawler who had no clue how to defend submissions. That was the first time Jousset had ever submitted anybody and four of his previous five fights went the distance on the regional scene, with three of those decisions being split. Jousset is typically a slower paced fighter who didn’t show a ton of scoring upside on his regional tape. He does have good size and the ability to grapple, but we won’t want to be chasing his last score, which the field will likely be doing given his reasonable price tag and the fact that Kenan has been knocked out four times in the past. Jousset has looked pretty hittable and Kenan has good power, leaving Jousset with a shaky floor due to the potential for him to get knocked out. And while Jousset is a Judo black belt and can grapple, we’ve never seen him fill up the stat sheet with his grappling, so he’ll still need a finish here to score well. The odds imply Jousset has a 59% chance to win, a 34% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Kenan is a KO or bust fighter who’s five UFC wins came against opponents with one combined UFC win. He averaged 93 DraftKings points in those five wins, but only scored 73 and 60 points respectively in his two decision victories. He very rarely looks to grapple, and failed to attempt a takedown in seven of his eight UFC fights. Working in his favor, Jousset has looked pretty hittable and Kenan looked improved in his last match. Kenan has also landed three knockdowns in his last four fights and nearly finished Ian Garry in his second most recent bout. So he’s got a decent shot at landing the knockout he needs to score well, and if he accomplishes that it’s hard to see him getting left out of winning lineups at his cheap price tag. He’s especially appealing on this smaller slate as one of the few lower owned plays with a real shot of scoring well. The odds imply Kenan has a 41% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
JunYong Park
10th UFC Fight (7-2)Coming in on a four fight winning streak, Park has submitted each of his last three opponents and his stock is at an all-time high. His most recent win came in a second round submission against a fraudulent Russian wrestler in Albert Duraev, after Park landed a first round submission against a one-dimensional Russian striker just before that. Looking back one fight further, Park submitted a terrible Joseph Holmes in the second round, after narrowly winning a split decision over Eryk Anders. Park’s only loss in his last eight fights came in a 2021 second round knockout against Gregory Rodrigues, in a fight where Park nearly landed a finish of his own. Park’s one other UFC loss was a second round submission in his 2019 UFC debut against a really tough Anthony Hernandez. Park bounced back with three straight decision wins after that, leading up to his loss against Rodrigues. Prior to joining the UFC, Park had won seven straight fights following a 2016 second round submission loss to Shavkat Rakhmonov, and Park has gone 14-2 in his last 16 matches.
Now 17-5 as a pro, Park has five wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and six decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, submitted twice, and has two decision losses. All three of his early losses ended in the second round. Eight of his nine UFC fights have seen the second round, but only four made it to round three, with all of those going the distance. Park fought at 170 lb early in his career, but has been exclusively competing at 185 lb since 2018.
Overall, Park is a well-rounded and smart fighter who’s typically looking to attack his opponents’ weaknesses, meaning he’ll rely more on his grappling against strikers and more on his striking against grapplers. He seems slightly undersized at 185 lb, which makes sense considering he used to fight at 170 lb. He’s got a good jab that he’ll patiently work behind, but he will push for finishes when he has opponents hurt. In his nine UFC fights, Park landed 14 takedowns on 28 attempts (50% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 13 of their 43 attempts (69.8% defense). However, 21 of those 30 failed attempts came from Eryk Anders and prior to that Park had just a 47.1% defense. While Park is on a nice little run, he’s capitalized on a lot of favorable matchups and will now face a much more dangerous grappler.
Andre Muniz
8th UFC Fight (5-2)Muniz is currently on the first losing streak of his career, as he’s been finished in two straight fights. The most recent of those losses ended in a second round ground and pound TKO against Paul Craig, who was dropping down from 205 lb to 185 lb for the first time. Both fighters landed each of their two takedown attempts in the match. Prior to that, Muniz suffered the first submission loss of his career when he got finished late in the third round by Brendan Allen, in a fight Muniz was losing anyways. That loss snapped a nine fight winning streak that dated back to 2016, with all nine of those wins ending in either first round submissions (6) or decisions (3). Muniz made his UFC debut in 2019 and won a decision over Antonio Arroyo, before rattling off three straight first round armbar submission wins. Two of those were against UFC veterans who had never been submitted before in Jacare Souza and Eryk Anders. Following the string of quick wins, Muniz won a decision over Uriah Hall, leading up to his recent two losses. Muniz originally made his way into the UFC through DWCS, but it took him two tries after he failed to secure a contract with a 2018 decision win in his first appearance on the show. He righted that wrong with a first round submission win when he went back on the show.
Now 23-6 as a pro, Muniz has four wins by KO/TKO, 15 submissions, and four decision victories. Fifteen of Muniz’s 19 finishes came in round one, three ended in round two, and one occurred in round three. Fourteen of his last 15 early wins ended in the first round, with the one exception being a 2015 second round arm-triangle choke. All six of his losses also ended early, with five KO/TKOs and one submission. Three of those five KO/TKO losses occurred very early on in his career from 2011 to 2013 and another was in a 2016 Light Heavyweight fight against an undefeated Azamat Murzakanov, who’s since joined the UFC. So Muniz is coming off his first knockout loss since 2016. Most of Muniz’s career has been spent at 185 lb, but he did have a stretch from 2015 to 2017 where he moved up to 205 lb.
Overall, Muniz is an extremely dangerous but one-dimensional grappler. Between his seven UFC fights and two DWCS appearances, he landed 16 of his 40 takedown attempts (40% accuracy), while getting taken down by his opponents on 9 of their 14 attempts (35.7% defense). He only averages 2.17 SSL/min and 2.03 SSA/min, although we did see a little more striking in his last two fights than in previous matches. Muniz has had two of the tougher matchups he could ask for in his last two fights, as he squared off against other high-level grapplers, which likely has him being a little undervalued at the moment.
Fight Prediction:
Muniz will have a 3” height advantage and 5” reach advantage, while being one year older than the 32-year-old Park.
Park is clearly the more well rounded fighter in this matchup and will hold the advantage on the feet, leaving Muniz reliant on getting the fight to the ground. Park has a high fight IQ and we’d be surprised if he voluntarily went to the mat with Muniz, so it will be on Muniz to get him down. The size advantage of Muniz may be beneficial in the grappling exchanges and after facing two larger opponents (6’2” and 6’3”) in his recent two losses, now he’ll go against a smaller fighter in the 5’10” Park. And while Park is listed as having a 69% takedown defense, that number is inflated by the fact that Eryk Anders went just 3 for 24 on his takedown attempts against him. Five of the six UFC opponents who tried to take Park down were successful, with the one exception being a striker in Marc-Andre Barriault, who failed on his two attempts. That’s encouraging for Muniz’s chances of getting the fight to the mat where he needs it and Park has been submitted in two of his five career losses—both times in the second round. While Park is a solid fighter and does a great job of making the most of his matchups, we like Muniz to get back on track here and submit Park in the first two rounds.
Our favorite bet here is “Andre Muniz R1 or R2 Win” at +330.
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DFS Implications:
Park has been killing it lately, with three straight submission wins that all scored 102 or more DraftKings points, and he’s averaged 100 points across his seven UFC wins. However, he’s been reliant on his grappling to score well and only scored 79 and 77 DraftKings points respectively in his last two decision wins, where he wasn’t able to dominate fights for their entirety on the mat. And after capitalizing on some very favorable recent matchups, now he’ll face a major step up in competition. We’ve seen Park get submitted in the past when facing dangerous grapplers like Anthony Hernandez and Shavkat Rakhmonov, leaving him with a non-existent scoring floor in this spot as he squares off against an incredibly dangerous BJJ black belt in Muniz. Park’s high fight IQ has generally allowed him to game plan around his opponents’ weaknesses, and in this fight that will clearly be to keep the fight standing. That seemingly leaves Park reliant on landing his first knockout in the UFC to score well, and his last KO victory was in 2018, just before he joined the UFC. Working in Park’s favor, Muniz has been finished in all six of his pro losses, with five ending in knockouts. The odds imply Park has a 59% chance to win, a 40% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
Muniz has averaged 96 DraftKings points in his five UFC wins, with three of those ending in first round submissions and two going the distance. He scored 92 points in his most recent decision victory, showing decent scoring potential on DraftKings through his grappling even when he’s unable to find a finish. However, he only averages 2.17 SSL/min and is entirely reliant on ending fights early to score well on FanDuel. Park has been submitted twice in the past, and while this isn’t the easiest matchup for Muniz, it is a step down in competition and there’s reason to think that he can lock up a submission and get back on track here. At his cheap price tag and with the line moving in his favor, he should be fairly popular, which somewhat lowers his tournament appeal. However, if he locks up a submission it’s hard to see him getting left out of winning lineups and he’s a solid underdog play. The odds imply Muniz has a 41% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Tim Elliott
20th UFC Fight (8-11)Elliott stepped into this fight on Monday after Allan Nascimento dropped out, which resulted in the fight being moved from 125 lb to 135 lb given the short notice.
Coming off a third round submission loss to Muhammad Mokaev, Elliott found some success early in that fight, while being his normal dirty self and landing multiple illegal knees. In one of the worst scored rounds of all time, two of the three judges scored the second round for Elliott, despite the fact that he got taken down and controlled for all but four seconds of the round, nearly got knocked out from a slam, and finished behind 60-33 in striking. So had it not been for Mokaev locking up an arm triangle in the third round, Elliott would have pulled off the robbery in decision after he also won round one. Prior to that loss, Elliott had gone the distance in five straight fights, winning the last two and four of those five. The most recent of those wins came in a wrestling-heavy victory over Victor Altamirano, who has struggled with being controlled on his back at multiple points in his career. Elliott was able to land six takedowns with over 11 minutes of control time in the win. Prior to that, Elliott hadn’t competed in 16 months following a decision win over Tagir Ulanbekov, as Elliott dealt with a smorgasbord of personal problems. His wife left him for his best friend, his gym got shut down by the UFC, his former coach is being investigated by the FBI, his previous coach committed suicide, and all of the metal screws in Elliott’s surgically repaired knee fell out so the doctors had to go in and replace all the metal hardware with plastic. And after recovering from all that, he tore his meniscus and had to fly down to Mexico to get stem cell treatment to help him recover. Now he’s training at a small gym in Texas, which means he’s separated from his daughter for the first time and only gets to see her occasionally. While Elliott is just 8-11 in the UFC, most of his losses were against top-level guys like Matheus Nicolau, Brandon Royval, Askar Askarov, Deiveson Figueiredo, Demetrious Johnson, and Joseph Benavidez. Elliott showed complete contempt for the rules in his second most recent win when he defeated Tagir Ulanbekov, but landed an illegal knee or two, blatantly grabbed Ulanbekov’s glove to hold him in place, headbutted him to open up a cut, and flirting with multiple eye pokes. He was one groin strike away from completing his dirty Bingo card. The way Elliott has been fighting, he looks like a DQ waiting to happen.
Now 19-13-1 as a pro, Elliott has three wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and 10 decision victories. All three of his knockouts came early in his career from 2009 to 2011 and he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2017, with his only other submission win since 2012 coming in 2015 in between his first and second stints with the UFC. He’s only been knocked out once himself, which came in the first round of his third pro fight back in 2009. However, he’s been submitted six times and also has six decision defeats. His last 23 fights all ended in either decisions (9-6) or submissions (3-5). Seven of his eight UFC wins went the distance, with his only early win in the UFC coming in a 2017 R2 anaconda choke against a terrible Mark De La Rosa.
Overall, Elliott is a former high school state champion wrestler and his fighting style can only be described as kinetic grapple tweaking with serious meth head vibes. His unusual style makes him a tough opponent to prepare for, but he relies on his wrestling to win fights. We’ve seen Elliott slow down at times in the back half of fights when he pushes the pace too hard early, but that’s certainly not always the case. In his last 10 fights, Elliott landed 25 of his 72 takedown attempts (34.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 9 of their 29 attempts (70% defense). Prior to his recent loss, Elliott had attempted seven or more takedowns in seven straight fights, with double digit attempts in four of those. However, he went against a fellow grappler in his last match and spent most of the fight being controlled, which only allowed him to attempt a single takedown, which he landed.
Sumudaerji
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Sumudaerji had been scheduled to fight Allan Nascimento here, but Nascimento dropped out and Elliott stepped in on Monday.
Sumudaerji is 17 months removed from a wild fight against Matt Schnell that ultimately ended in a second round submission loss for Sumudaerji after he appeared moments away from landing a knockout. You have to go all the way back to January 2021 to find Sumudaerji’s second most recent fight and he’s been very inactive over the last few years as he’s dealt with knee injuries. He actually had been scheduled to fight Tim Elliott back in June 2021, but that’s when he originally injured his knee and was forced to withdraw. Prior to his loss to Schnell, Sumudaerji had won three straight fights, with two decisions and a quick first round knockout of Malcolm Gordon. However, all of those wins came against a very low level of competition. Just before those wins, Sumudaerji made his UFC debut in 2018 and got submitted in the second round by Louis Smolka, which was Sumudaerji’s second straight second-round submission at the time.
Now 16-5 as a pro, Sumudaerji has 13 KO/TKO victories, one submission wins, and two decision victories. Ten of his 13 knockouts have come in the first round with the other three ending in round two. His lone submission win came in the third round of a 2016 match. While 14 of his 16 wins ended early, he’s only finished one opponent since he joined the UFC in 2018. All five of his pro losses ended in submissions, with the last four of those ending in round two, after the first ended in round one. He fought his first two UFC fights at 135 lb, but then moved down to 125 lb for his next two. This next fight had been scheduled to take place at 125 lb before Elliott stepped in on short notice and it was moved to 135 lb.
Overall, Sumudaerji is incredibly tall for the division and there’s no way he’s only 5’8” as they list him. He uses his length well and is able to pick opponents apart from distance. He’s very light on his feet and is a quick and dangerous striker who also mixes in a decent amount of kicks. Sumudaerji offers very little in terms of grappling and he’s only attempted one takedown in his five UFC fights, which he landed. On the other side of things, his opponents have gotten him down on 4 of their 12 attempts (66.7% defense). Sumudaerji has spent time training at several good gyms like American Top Team and most recently Team Alpha Male, and is still only 27 years old, so he should be improving all the time.
Fight Prediction:
According to the UFC stats, Sumudaerji will have a 1” height advantage and 6” reach advantage, but he looks taller than he’s listed. He’s also nine years younger than the 36-year-old Elliott.
This is a classic striker versus grappler matchup, although if you listen to Elliott’s media day interview he started talking crazy about how he wants to strike in this fight as opposed to relying on his wrestling. It’s hard to imagine anyone is actually that stupid but we’ll find out on Saturday. Even if Elliott isn’t full of shit, as soon as he starts getting pieced up on the feet we expect his wrestling instincts to kick in. Considering that Elliott hasn’t been knocked out since 2009 and Sumudaerji has been submitted in all five of his losses, this clearly favors Elliott from a stylistic perspective. However, he stepped in on just a few days’ notice, is 36 years old, and is talking about how he wants to show off his striking. That makes it tougher to trust Elliott, but Sumudaerji also has some red flags as he’s only fought once in nearly the last three years, which was a year and a half ago, as he’s dealt with knee injuries. So it’s a volatile fight on both sides. While Sumudaerji has been submitted in all five of his losses and Elliot is a wrestler with six submission wins to his name, Elliott hasn’t submitted anybody since 2017 and has been largely content with grinding out decisions on the mat. So even if Elliott does make the right choice and rely on his wrestling, it’s tougher to say whether he’ll find his first submission win in the last six years or simply grind out another decision, and both are in play. While Elliott’s about as trustworthy as he looks, we’re still picking him to win, and we slightly lean towards it ending in a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Tim Elliott ML” at -130.
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DFS Implications:
Elliott has impressively averaged 116 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, despite seven of those going the distance. His wrestling-heavy style is a much better fit for the DraftKings scoring system, and he’ll have a tougher time scoring well on FanDuel without a rare finish. However, if he was ever going to get another submission win, this might be the spot considering that Sumudaerji has been submitted in all five of his pro losses and is a one-dimensional striker. However, it’s concerning that Elliott stepped into this matchup on just a few days’ notice and it remains to be seen what type of shape he’s in. We’ve seen him gas at times in the past and now he’s fighting without a training camp. He’s also saying all the wrong things about how he wants to stand and strike opposed to taking the path of least resistance. Maybe he’s just posturing to keep Sumudaerji guessing, but if he decides to actually abandon his wrestling this could go sideways for him in a hurry. It’s hard to really trust Elliott, but if he does win a grappling-heavy decision or lock up a submission then he should score well, leaving him with a high ceiling, but an uncertain floor. The odds imply Elliott has a 55% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Sumudaerji is underpriced on DraftKings as they released pricing when he was a +205 underdog scheduled to face Allan Nascimento. However, then Nascimento dropped out and Elliott stepped in. Sumudaerji has now been bet all the way down to +110, which will drive up his ownership, especially in smaller contests. Sumudaerji has only fought once in the last 35 months as he’s dealt with a knee injury that forced him to the sidelines. And while he mostly looked good in that one fight and was close to landing a knockout, he couldn’t close the show and Matt Schnell came back to submit him. Sumudaerji scored 49 points in the loss and would have broken the slate if he had finished things in the second round after having Schnell hurt, and also scored 129 DraftKings points in a first round knockout of Malcolm Gordon back in 2020. So his upside is undeniable, but his lack of grappling and history of getting submitted is concerning. He also scored just 50 points in his last decision win, after totaling 81 DraftKings points in his first decision victory. He’s been reliant on landing knockouts to score well and the only fighter he’s knocked out since 2018 was a very fragile Malcolm Gordon. Also concerning for Sumudaerji, Elliott has only been knocked out once in his career, which was all the way back in 2009. And if Elliott does use his wrestling like he should, it will be really hard for Sumudaerji to score well in a decision. Therefore, we’re treating Sumudaerji as a KO or bust option. The fact that Elliott stepped in short notice is somewhat encouraging for Sumudaerji’s ability to finish him. The odds imply Sumudaerji has a 45% chance to win, a 31% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Nasrat Haqparast
12th UFC Fight (7-4)Haqparast is fresh off an ultra high-volume decision win over short notice newcomer Landon Quinones, where Haqparast landed a career best 171 significant strikes, while also absorbing 148. The two guys just stood in front of each other and traded for the entire match, with no takedowns to break up the action. That’s Haqparast’s second straight decision win and sixth decision he’s been to in a row. A year before that win, he won a decision win over John Makdessi, despite finishing behind 73-64 in significant strikes in a much lower volume fight. Leading up to his last two wins, Haqparast lost a pair of decisions to Bobby Green and Dan Hooker, after starting off 5-2 in the UFC. Only two of his 11 UFC fights ended early, which were a 2020 R1 KO loss to Drew Dober and a 2019 R2 KO win over Joaquim Silva. It’s been over four years since Haqparast finished anybody, with his second most recent early win coming all the way back in 2017.
Now 15-5 as a pro, Haqparast has nine wins by KO/TKO and five decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once (in his 2012 pro debut), and has three decision defeats. While he’s spent most of his UFC career fighting to decisions, all nine of Haqparast’s pre-UFC fights ended early (8-1 only losing his first pro fight). Haqparast has spent the majority of his pro career in the 155 lb division, but he did move up to 170 lb for a three fight period in 2014 and 2015. He went 3-0 at 170 lb before moving back down to 155 lb in 2016.
Overall, Haqparast is a one-dimensional striker who’s failed to land a takedown in 9 of his last 10 fights, but did land two in the third round of his second most recent match. He’s known for his boxing, but got absolutely owned on the feet by Bobby Green in his last loss. He averages 5.73 SSL/min and 5.26 SSA/min and two of his last three opponents landed 148 or more significant strikes against him. While it looks like he throws with decent power, he hasn’t been much of a knockout threat so his punches apparently don’t do all that much damage. We’ve seen him get his lead leg chewed up, which is one area he needs to work on.
Jamie Mullarkey
10th UFC Fight (5-4)Coming off a close decision win over an aging John Makdessi, Mullarkey’s last three wins all went the distance, while his last two losses both ended in second round knockouts. We’ve seen him dial back his aggression in recent fights, and he hasn’t been very impressive ever since Jalin Turner knocked him out and ended Mullarkey’s finishing streak. Mullarkey’s 12 wins prior to losing to Turner all ended early, but his three since all went the distance. Leading up to his recent win over Makdessi, Mullarkey embarrassingly got knocked out as a -500 favorite against Muhammad Naimov, who was making his UFC debut on less than a week’s notice and up a weight class. In fairness to him, Mullarkey was doing good in the fight until he recklessly leaned into a clean shot in the second round that put him down. Just before that, Mullarkey won a slower paced decision over a debuting Francisco Prado, after winning a close split decision over Michael Johnson.
Now 17-6 as a pro, Mullarkey has 10 wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and four decision victories. Five of those knockouts ended in round one, three came in round two, and two ended in round three. However, three of his last four finishes ended in round two. He’s also been knocked out four times himself and has two decision losses. One of those KO losses notably came against Alexander Volkanovski before they joined the UFC. While Mullarkey has three submission wins on his resume, his last six finishes all ended in knockouts, with his three submission wins all occurring early in his career in 2014 and 2015. Mullarkey competed at 145 lb until 2018, when he moved up to 155 lb.
Overall, Mullarkey is a well-rounded fighter and a BJJ black belt but has fallen in love with his striking and hasn’t submitted anybody since 2015. In his nine UFC fights, Mullarkey landed 16 takedowns on 47 attempts (34% accuracy), while getting taken down by his opponents on 3 of their 13 opponent attempts (76.9% defense). While he previously had shown the ability to take a beating and keep on going, his chin has been looking a little more suspect in recent years, and he’s taken a lot of damage in his career. With that said, he’s still just 29 years old so it’s hard to call him washed up. He averages 4.46 SSL/min and 4.41 SSA/min, while he’s never landed more than 96 significant strikes in a UFC fight or absorbed more than 91.
Fight Prediction:
Mullarkey will have a 2” height and reach advantage.
This fight has the potential to go a few different ways and all of those will depend on Jamie Mullarkey. Haqparast will want to to turn it into a high-volume boxing match, which will leave Mullarkey with the choice to engage, evade, or wrestle. If he chooses to engage with Haqparast, we should get an exciting striking battle where someone could get knocked out, but we more likely see the score cards in a close decision. If Mullarkey chooses to evade, like he has in some of his recent fights, this will turn into a boring low-volume striking battle that is far more likely to go the distance and also end in a close decision. However, if Mullarkey is smart and chooses to wrestle, the fight will still likely go the distance, but he’ll be able to pretty easily secure the victory based on what we saw from Haqparast in his wrestling-heavy decision to Dan Hooker. Now Mullarkey isn’t exactly the brightest guy, so do we expect him to come in with a wrestling-heavy gameplan? Probably not, but at least the potential is there. And if you average out his chances of winning across those three potential scenarios, the number you reach is higher than his implied odds. So give us Mullarkey to win in a close decision, but he’ll almost certainly make us sweat for every second of the fight.
Our favorite bet here is “Jamie Mullarkey DEC” at +400.
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DFS Implications:
Haqparast is entirely reliant on striking and finishes to score well in DFS and he’s only landed three takedowns in 11 UFC appearances. He averaged 84 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, with six of those going the distance. While he was able to score 99 DraftKings points in his last decision win, that required him landing a career best 171 significant strikes against a short notice newcomer who just stood in front of him the entire fight. Haqparast failed to top 78 points in any of his previous three decision wins and at his expensive price tag it’s entirely fair to call him a KO or bust option. It’s been over four years since he landed his lone UFC knockout, with his second most recent knockout coming all the way back in 2017, just before he made his UFC debut. So while Mullarkey has looked kind of chinny lately, Haqparast isn’t the most likely candidate to capitalize on that. And while Mullarkey was content with throwing down in a brawl earlier in his career, he’s been more conservative lately and we’d be surprised to see him just stand in front of Haqparast for the entire fight. The odds imply Haqparast has a 62% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Mullarkey has relied on landing finishes to score well, and his last three wins all ended in lower scoring decisions, where he returned DraftKings totals of just 65, 81, and 69. However, his previous two UFC victories both ended in knockouts, where he put up scores of 109 and 128. And while his scoring ceiling has deteriorated lately, his last two losses both ended in knockouts. So it’s becoming progressively harder to get excited about playing him and not only do we have to worry about his suspect chin, we also don’t know if he’ll actually show up and want to throw down. And while Mullarkey also has some wrestling upside, he has still never shown the ability to score well in a decision and is reluctant to really lean on his grappling. So it’s probably best to treat him as a volatile KO or bust option, although at his cheap price tag it is definitely possible he could serve as a value play in a decision win. The odds imply Mullarkey has a 38% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Khalil Rountree Jr.
15th UFC Fight (8-5, NC)Rountree had been scheduled to face Azamat Murzakanov on last week’s card, but Murzakanov dropped out and Smith stepped in on short notice as the fight was also pushed back a week.
Rountree is coming off a quick first round starching of Chris Daukaus, who was moving down to Light Heavyweight for the first time in his career following three straight knockout losses. That’s Rountree’s only first round finish since 2018 and his previous two knockout wins both ended in round two. Ten months before knocking out Daukaus, Rountree won a dubious split-decision over Dustin Jacoby, where Rountree finished behind 85-120 in significant strikes in a pure striking battle. Prior to that, Rountree landed a pair of second round TKO wins against Karl Roberson, who was moving up from 185 lb and has been finished in four straight fights, and Modestas Bukauskas, who’s terrible. Leading up to his current four-fight winning streak, Rountree lost a decision to Marcin Prachnio, after taking all of 2020 off following a 2019 R1 TKO loss to Ion Cutelaba.
Now 12-5 as a pro, Rountree has eight wins by KO/TKO and four decision win victories. Six of his eight finishes came in the first round with the other two ending in round two. He’s also been knocked out twice himself and submitted once, with all three of those early losses ending in round one. His other two losses both went the distance. While he’s fought exclusively at 205 in the UFC, he competed down at 185 lb some earlier in his career.
Overall, Rountree is a violent striker who’s shown a questionable chin and suspect cardio at times in the past, which is why so many of his fights have ended in the first round. In his 14 UFC fights, he failed to land his only takedown attempt, while his opponents got him down on 14 of their 32 attempts (56.3% defense). Despite not offering much in the way of grappling and not having the best takedown defense, he’s only been submitted once in his career, which was all the way back in 2016. Rountree relies entirely on his striking, and mostly on his power to win fights, and seven of his last nine wins ended in knockouts. He only averages 3.73 SSL/min and 4.16 SSA/min, but landed a career best 85 significant strikes in his second most recent fight.
Anthony Smith
21st UFC Fight (12-8)The only fighter that Anthony Smith has defeated in the last two and a half years is Ryan Spann, but he did so twice over that stretch. They originally squared off in September 2021 and Smith won via first round submission. Smith then went on to lose in a second round TKO against Magomed Ankalaev, where Smith broke his leg in the first round and basically had no chance to win after that. After having surgery on the leg following the fight, Smith then had to deal with a blood clot that took months to get past. Smith also had knee surgery between his win over Spann and loss to Ankalaev, and he’s been dealing with numerous injuries and medical issues over the last couple of years, in addition to the loss of his Mother. Following the loss to Ankalaev, Smith dropped a decision to Johnny Walker, before running it back against Ryan Spann most recently, in the rematch that literally no one was asking for. Smith won the first round in that fight, but was then nearly finished in round two, as his eye ballooned up. After the corner was able to reduce the swelling and the fight continued into a really close round three that resulted in a split decision win for Smith. While Smith’s last two fights both went the distance, his previous four all ended in the first two rounds.
Now 37-18 as a pro, Smith has 20 wins by KO/TKO, 14 submissions, and three decision victories. He’s been knocked out 10 times, submitted four more, and has four decision losses. Ten of his last 11 wins ended early, and he’s gone just 1-4 in the last five decisions he’s been to, but is coming off his first decision win since 2016. Smith fought at 185 lb until 2018 when he got knocked out by Thiago Santos in the second round and then moved up to 205 lb, where he’s since gone 8-5. Seven of those eight wins came early, with five in round one, one in round three, and another in round four. Four of those wins ended in submissions, and three came by knockout, but four of his last five finishes were by submission, with the one exception being a flukey doctor stoppage. The only two times he’s been finished at 205 lb were a 2020 R5 TKO loss to Glover Teixeira and a 2022 R2 TKO loss to Magomed Ankalaev where Smith broke his leg. The other three losses ended in decisions against Jon Jones, Aleksandar Rakic, and Johnny Walker.
Overall, Smith is a BJJ black belt and has proven he’s dangerous on the ground from just about any position. While he has more knockouts than submissions on his record, four of his last five finishes have come by submission. Despite all of his submission finishes, in his 13 UFC Light Heavyweight fights Smith has only landed five takedowns on 18 attempts (27.8% accuracy), and failed to take any of those 13 opponents down more than once. Over that same stretch, his opponents took him down 10 times on 21 attempts (52.4% defense). He’s a well-rounded fighter, and has also been durable enough not to get finished very often lately, but he is getting up there in age and hasn’t looked great in his last few fights. He only averages 3.16 SSL/min and has never landed more than 91 significant strikes in a fight. So while he’s a dangerous striker and grappler, he lacks both striking and takedown volume, which helps to explain why he’s struggled to win many decisions. He’s also very prone to getting his lead leg chewed up, although he says he’s been trying to work on that and we saw more of a Muay Thai stance from him in his last fight where he didn’t put much weight on his lead leg to try and protect it. While Smith is still dangerous early on in fights, especially with his grappling, he’s not wearing damage very well lately and all of the wars he’s been in appear to be catching up with him. Smith trains at Factory X with Dustin Jacoby, who fought Rountree not too long ago, so the team will be very familiar with him.
Fight Prediction:
Smith will have a 3” height advantage, but both fighters share a 76” reach. Rountree is two years younger than the 35-year-old Smith.
It’s concerning that Smith stepped into this matchup on just over two weeks’ notice, and he’s already looked bad in all of his last three fights. We don’t know what type of shape he’ll be in and on top of that he hasn’t finished anybody beyond the first round in four and a half years. And while Smith narrowly won the last decision he went to, he lost the previous four. So it’s tough to trust him in a longer fight and finishing the fight in the first round, most likely by submission, appears to be his best path to victory. However, Rountree doesn’t have the best gas tank himself, and typically relies on landing early knockouts to win fights. While Smith takes a lot of damage and hasn’t been wearing it especially well lately, he’s been somewhat tough to put away lately. His only early loss in his last seven fights was when he broke his leg against Magomed Ankalaev, but he’s been dangerously close to getting finished in each of his last two fights. The concern for Rountree is that he won’t want to go to the ground with Smith, so even if he knocks him down it could be tough to put him away. We could easily see a scenario where Rountree has Smith badly hurt at multiple points, but then just stands over him kicking his legs until the ref finally stands the fight up. It wouldn’t be at all shocking for a situation like that to end in a Rountree decision win. Both guys are also capable of knocking the other out, and Smith has a shot at locking up an early submission. So there are multiple ways this fight could go and the books are heavily favoring a Rountree knockout win, but we’ll take the path less traveled and say Rountree wins by decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Rountree DEC or Smith SUB” at +240.
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DFS Implications:
Rountree has averaged 101 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, with six of those ending in knockouts in the first two rounds. While he was able to score 104 DraftKings points in the first decision win of his career, that’s only because he landed a ridiculous four knockouts in the fight. He only scored 65 points in his most recent decision victory and it’s safe to say he’s reliant on landing knockouts to score well. And while Rountree has shown a solid floor in his finishes, he failed to top 107 DraftKings points in any of his last five knockout victories. So at his expensive price tag, it’s possible he could land a knockout and still get priced out of winning lineups. He offers nothing in terms of grappling and failed to land his only takedown attempt in his 14-fight UFC career, while also averaging just 3.73 SSL/min. And while Smith has been knocked out an alarming 10 times in his career, the only time he’s been finished in his last seven fights was when he broke his leg against Magomed Ankalaev. However, Smith did take this fight on short notice, is 35 years old, and has looked bad in his last few outings, so there are several factors working in Rountree’s favor. Nevertheless, he’s an early KO or bust play who will likely be pretty highly owned as he’s won four straight fights, with three of those ending in knockouts. The odds imply Rountree has a 67% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 32% chance it comes in round one.
Smith has averaged 91 DraftKings points in his 12 UFC wins, with 10 of those ending early. He’s generally struggled to score well in fights that made it out of the first round and if we remove his four first round finishes, his average drops to just 80 points. He only scored 73 and 72 DraftKings points respectively in his two UFC decision victories and his lack of striking volume (3.16 SSL/min) and takedowns (0.5 TDL/15 min) makes it tougher for him to score well in longer fights. While he’s coming off a split decision win, he hasn’t looked good in any of his last three fights and appears to be nearing the end of his lengthy career at 35 years old. Now he’s stepping in on short notice to face a power puncher, leaving Smith with a non-existent floor and a shaky ceiling if this makes it out of the first round. He’ll likely need a first round finish to really score well, although at his cheaper price tag he could potentially still serve as a value play with a later finish. He becomes less likely to end up in winning lineups with a decision victory, unless we get a slate where only one or two underdogs win. The odds imply Smith has a 33% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Yadong Song
13th UFC Fight (9-2-1)Song is coming off an impressive fifth round TKO win over Ricky Simon in an April main event, in a fight that was elevated from three rounds to five on just a week and a half’s notice after the previously scheduled main event fell through. Song did a great job of defending takedowns against a really good wrestler in Simon, who was only able to land 2 of his 9 attempts and finished with just 51 seconds of control time. Song outlanded Simon 105-60 in significant strikes and knocked him down twice in the championship rounds of the match. Following that win, Song had been scheduled to fight Rob Font in August, but ended up withdrawing in late July. Prior to defeating Simon, Song took part in another main event and lost to Cory Sandhagen via post R4 doctor stoppage TKO. Song got cut above his eye in the second round and it just looked like a matter of time until the fight would be stopped. However, the doctor allowed it to proceed until just before the 5th round was ready to begin before finally shutting it down. Song did a good job of stuffing takedowns in the fight, as Sandhagen was only able to land 1 of his 14 attempts, and the fight was actually tied on two of the three scorecards after four rounds. Leading up to that loss, Song had won three straight fights, after suffering his one other UFC loss in a 2021 decision against Kyler Phillips. While Song’s last four fights all ended in KO/TKOs, he had fought to four straight close decisions (2-1-1) before that, with two of those being split.
Now 20-7-1 as a pro, Song has nine wins by TKO/KO, three submissions, and eight decision victories. The only time Song has ever landed a finish beyond the second round was in his recent R5 TKO stoppage, while he has five first round knockouts and three in round two. His last submission win was a first round guillotine in his 2018 UFC debut, with his other two submissions occurring in 2014 and 2016. He has two KO/TKO losses, with one of those coming in his R4 TKO loss to Sandhagen and the other a 2016 R2 knockout when he was just 18 years old, in a match that was fought up at 145 lb, prior to joining the UFC. Song also has four decision defeats and one DQ loss. He has competed at both 135 lb and 145 lb throughout his career, however all but two of his UFC fights have been down at 135 lb.
This will be the third straight and third overall five-round fight of Song’s career. He lost his first five-round fight in a post R4 TKO to Cory Sandhagen, before bouncing back with a R5 TKO against Ricky Simon in his second. So both of his five round fights made it to the championship rounds, but neither of them went the distance.
Overall, Song’s entire life has been dedicated to the pursuit of martial arts. He started intense training at just 9 years old when he left his family to go train with the Shaolin Monks. By the age of 12 he was already winning championships and he went pro at just 15 years old in 2013. Despite having 29 pro fights under his belt, he’s amazingly still just 26 years old. He’s an excellent striker with very fast hands and good power, in addition to a solid takedown defense, but doesn’t offer much in terms of offensive grappling. In his 12 UFC fights, he only landed five takedowns on nine attempts (55.6% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on just 14 of their 51 attempts (72.5% defense). However, the last six opponents who tried to take him down all landed at least one of their attempts, with four of them landing two or more. Song trains at Team Alpha Male, so he has plenty of wrestlers to work with on a daily basis, and he’s never been submitted in an MMA fight. However, he did take part in a grappling match just before fighting Sandhagen and was submitted there, although that also shows he’s at least been trying to work on his grappling. Song averages 4.61 SSL/min and 3.77 SSA/min and he finished ahead in significant strikes in 10 of his 12 UFC fights.
Chris Gutierrez
12th UFC Fight (8-2-1)Gutierrez is eight weeks removed from a dominant three-round decision win over Alatengheili, where Gutierrez finished ahead in significant strikes 110-38 and won every round on every scorecard. That matchup got put together on short notice after both Gutierrez and Alatengheili had their original opponents drop out. Prior to that win, Gutierrez lost a decision to longtime UFC veteran and fellow calf kicker Pedro Munhoz, which is Gutierrez’s only defeat in his last 10 fights. Leading up to that loss, Gutierrez landed a walk off flying knee R1 KO against the corpse of Frankie Edgar, after knocking out Batgerel Danaa in the second round just before that. Looking back to the start of his UFC career, Gutierrez got submitted in the second round of his 2018 UFC debut by a really tough Raoni Barcelos. However, Gutierrez responded with two straight decision wins, followed by a rare leg kick TKO in the second round of a 2020 fight against Vince Morales, who has been prone to getting his legs destroyed. Gutierrez then fought Cody Durden to a draw, before winning two more decisions leading up to his knockout wins over Danaa and Edgar. Seven of Gutierrez’s last 10 fights went the distance (5-1-1) and his only UFC match to end in the first round was when he knocked out a half retired Frankie Edgar.
Now 20-5-2 as a pro, Gutierrez has nine wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and 10 decision victories. Seven of his nine KO/TKO wins occurred in the later rounds, and he tends to wear on his opponents as fights go on, largely by chipping away at their legs. He’s never been knocked out, but has been submitted once to go along with four decision losses and two draws.
This will be the 4th five-round fight of Gutierrez’s career, but first in the UFC. He won all three of his pre-UFC five-round matches, with a 2014 R1 TKO, a 2015 post R3 TKO, and a 2015 decision. So he has seen the championship rounds once in his career and showed the cardio to win a five-round decision.
Overall, Gutierrez is a one-dimensional striker who’s known for his violent leg kicks, but will also mix in knees and spinning elbows/backfists. Despite being a BJJ brown belt, he doesn’t offer much in terms of grappling and in his 11 UFC fights he only landed three takedowns on eight attempts (37.5% accuracy). However, his takedown defense has been pretty solid and he’s only given up 11 takedowns on 39 opponent attempts (71.2% defense). He has really good footwork and movement that make him a tough guy to hit and he averages 5.04 SSL/min and just 2.73 SSA/min. Larger cages will generally benefit him, but this next fight will take place in the smaller cage at the Apex. Gutierrez trains at elevation with Factory X and his cardio has looked solid, so we don’t foresee him having any trouble going an additional two rounds if he needs to.
Fight Prediction:
Gutierrez will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 67” reach. Gutierrez is six years older than the 32-year-old Song.
Gutierrez is one of the best leg kickers in the game and his level of success in this fight will be directly tied to his ability to beat up the legs of Song. So it’s worth spending some extra time breaking down the leg kicking stat in this match. In his 11 UFC fights, Gutierrez has landed 313 of the 411 leg kicks he’s thrown (76.16% accuracy), attempting 3.08 LK/min and landing 2.35 LK/min. The only fight he landed fewer than 17 leg kicks was his 121 second R1 KO win over the corpse of Frankie Edgar in 2022, which is also his only UFC fight to end in the opening round. And in Song’s 12 UFC fights, his opponents landed 74 of the 98 leg kicks they threw (75.51% accuracy), but only attempted 0.69 LK/min and landed 0.52 LK/min. Only three fighters landed double digit leg kicks against Song. Cory Sandhagen landed all 15 of his leg kick attempts and defeated Song in a post R4 TKO win. Casey Kenney landed 13 of his 19 leg kick attempts and Song won a split decision. And finally, Marlon Vera landed 22 of his 26 his attempts and Song won a close 29-28 decision. Based on their career numbers, we can reasonably expect Gutierrez to land around 75% of his leg kick attempts in this fight and he’s averaged 3.08 attempts per minute. At that point the question becomes, if Gutierrez is landing 2-3 leg kicks per minute, how long can Song’s legs hold up? The other big question is whether or not Song can line up a big counter right hand if Gutierrez gets predictable with his leg kicks.
Song is the more powerful boxer and we saw Gutierrez get dropped by an aging Pedro Munhoz in his second most recent fight, but that’s the only time Gutierrez has been knocked down in the UFC and he’s never been knocked out in his career. As Gutierrez chips away at Song’s base, we’ll likely see the power of Song’s punches diminish to some extent. And considering he’s only landed one finish beyond the second round in his career, albeit in his last fight, if Song wants to end this one early he may need to get it done in the first two rounds. And if the fight does hit the scorecards, Gutierrez averages more significant strikes landed per minute than Song (5.04 vs. 4.61) and fewer absorbed (2.73 vs 3.77). That bodes well for Gutierrez’s chances of finishing ahead in striking. We’ve also seen underdogs find a ton of success in 135 lb five-round fights, as they’ve gone 7-5 in the last 12 of those, with 10 of those fights making it to the championship rounds. So if Gutierrez can stay out of danger early and really get his leg kicks going, he’ll be in a great position to pull off the upset. He could potentially get another leg kick TKO with 25 minutes to accrue damage, but Song is really tough and it won’t be at all easy to get him out of there. So Gutierrez’s more likely path to victory would be in a close decision where he compromises Song’s legs but can’t quite put him away.
However, we saw Gutierrez look bad in his loss to Munjoz after getting dropped early on in that fight and if Song can hurt him early on in this one then we could see Gutierrez begin to wilt under the pressure of Song or get knocked out for the first time in his career. So this fight has the potential to go a few different ways. While we believe Song is overall the superior fighter and the more powerful of the two, leg kicks are the ultimate equalizer and there are only so many you can take before your legs become seriously compromised. When you combine that with the fact that Gutierrez has never been knocked out, along with his big plus money price tag, we like his chances of leg kicking his way to an upset victory with either a late TKO or a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Chris Gutierrez ML” at +310.
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DFS Implications:
Song has averaged 96 DraftKings points in his nine UFC wins, with six of those victories ending early and three of them in three-round decisions. He averaged 105 points in his six finishes, scoring 103 or more in five of those, but only once topping 106. So we’ve seen a tight scoring cluster between 104 and 106 DraftKings points in the majority of his early wins, which makes sense considering that all but one of them occurred in the first two rounds, he rarely lands any takedowns, and he only averages 4.61 SSL/min. His finishes generally come via knockout in moderately paced striking battles and often look pretty similar. He’s got heavy hands, good pressure, and a solid takedown defense, which allows him to dictate the pace in most of his matches. We’ve seen him defeat a variety of opponents, but now he’ll face a new challenge against one of the most dangerous leg kickers in the division. That adds an element of uncertainty to this matchup as you never know when Song’s legs could just shut down depending on the amount of damage he’s taking. Gutierrez has also never been knocked out, so this isn’t a great matchup for Song to find the finish he has typically needed to score well. Song has only landed five takedowns in his entire 12-fight UFC career and doesn’t land enough striking volume to really score well on that alone, even over the course of five rounds. That leaves him reliant on either landing a knockout or multiple knockdowns in a decision win to return value at his expensive price tag. And even if he does become the first fighter to ever knock Gutierrez out, there’s still a decent chance he gets priced out of the optimal lineup depending on what the other expensive fighters do. So we don’t love this spot for Song, but he should still have a solid floor if he wins and a decent ceiling if he lands a knockout. The odds imply Song has a 74% chance to win, a 42% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Gutierrez has only averaged 83 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins and only topped 75 points in three of those, which uncoincidentally happen to be his only three finishes in the UFC. However, he’s also never had five-rounds to work with and if you extend the numbers in his most recent decision win over the course of five rounds he would have scored 105 DraftKings points and 130 points on FanDuel. He’s never landed more than a single takedown in a UFC fight and failed to secure any over his last five fights, but he averages enough striking volume to still score decently in a decision here. He also comes into every fight with the ability to cripple his opponents through a non-stop barrage of leg kicks, which is especially in play now that he has an extra two rounds to work with. Song has never been very good at defending leg kicks and 75% of his opponents’ leg kick attempts landed. That’s encouraging for Gutierrez’s chances of compromising Song’s base and using that to take over the longer the fight goes. While Gutierrez has never been knocked out, Song can crack and Gutierrez will need to be careful of what’s coming back his way throughout the match, but especially early on when Song’s the freshest and won’t have a compromised base. The knockout threat of Song leaves Gutierrez’s scoring floor a bit shaky, but he should be able to score decently through pure striking volume in a longer match and at his cheap price tag he doesn’t need to put up a huge score to end up in winning lineups. He’s even cheap enough that if he loses a decision but we get one of those rare slates where only one underdog wins, Gutierrez could still find his way into winning lineups. That leaves him as a solid value option who just needs to avoid suffering the first knockout loss of his career to be in play. The odds imply Gutierrez has a 26% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.
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Tatsuro Taira OVER 2 TDs
