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Fighter Notes:
Fight #11
Jamey-Lyn Horth
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making her UFC debut following a 16 month layoff, Horth won the vacant LFA Flyweight belt in her last match in December 2021. She suffered a knee injury early in that fight from a kneebar attempt, but was able to fight through the pain and finish it with a submission of her own in the third round. A year later, she had then been scheduled to defend the belt against former UFC fighter Sabina Mazo in December 2022, but Mazo got injured and dropped out.
Now 5-0 as a pro with a 100% finishing rate, Horth has three wins by KO/TKO and two submission victories. All five of those finishes occurred in the second and third round of fights, with her last three finishes all coming in round three. Two of her last three wins have come by rear-naked choke. Her last two wins both came in title fights that were scheduled to go five rounds. All of her pro and amateur fights have been at 125 lb, but now she’ll be moving up to 135 lb for her UFC debut.
Overall, Horth is a Canadian fighter who has struggled to find opponents to fight outside of the UFC. She also said she doesn’t have many female training partners at home, so has to travel when she wants to train with other women. While Horth hasn’t fought much in the way of competition as a pro, she does have two amateur decision wins over Lupita Godinez back in 2016 and 2017, although Godinez was only 23 years old at the time. Horth has good size at 125 lb, but is somewhat lumbering and doesn’t appear especially crisp with her attacks. She doesn’t really stand out anywhere and we’ve seen her get dropped on the feet and nearly submitted on the mat. She has shown the ability to outlast lower level opponents and put them away later in fights, but that may not translate to the UFC as she begins facing tougher competition. She has long legs that theoretically should help her to strike from distance, but she’s looked pretty hittable and once she faces a legitimate striker she’ll be in a lot of trouble. But until then, she may be able to get by on her size and physicality—at least at 125 lb. It remains to be seen if that advantage will be negated by moving up to 135 lb, and she made it sound like she planned on dropping back down to 125 lb after this fight, but would be open to competing at both weight classes given the right matchup.
Hailey Cowan
1st UFC Fight (0-0)This will be the third time Cowan has been scheduled to make her UFC debut in the last two months, with both of those previous two fights getting canceled late into fight week. She was originally scheduled to fight Ailin Perez on February 25th but Cowan withdrew during weigh-ins, citing an illness (allegedly unrelated to weight cutting). Then she was scheduled to face Tamires Vidal on March 25th, but Vidal withdrew Thursday night, just two days before the fight, also blaming a medical issue. So this will be the third time Cowan has started cutting weight, although we’ve yet to see her on the scale.
Her last win came in a close August 2022 split-decision victory on DWCS, which occurred just two weeks before she married her head coach. She’s won seven of her last eight fights since getting submitted in her pro debut against a terrible Victoria Leonardo, who was also making her pro debut. Cowan easily could be 2-2 or even 1-3 in her last four fights if a couple of split decisions hadn’t gone her way. She landed an elbow in the first round of her last fight that split her opponent open, but then got controlled on the mat for the entire second round in addition to the second half of round three. Her second most recent win came against a 37-year-old 2-0 opponent who put up no resistance and allowed Cowan to control her for the entire fight and then submit her midway through the second round. Just before that, Cowan was submitted by a 36-year-old 1-2 opponent, after winning another split decision in a fight we thought she lost.
Now 7-2 as a pro, Cowan has two wins by KO/TKO, two by submission, and three decision victories. Her last three finishes all occurred in the second round, after she landed a first round TKO in her first career win. Only three of her seven wins have come against opponents with winning records, with two of those going the distance. She’s been submitted in under six minutes in both of her losses against opponents who came in with a combined 1-2 pro record. Cowan started her career at 125 lb, but moved up to 135 lb after dropping out of a 2019 fight due to a botched weight cut. She’s since gone 3-1 at 135 lb, with two of those wins ending in split decisions. Her last seven fights have all made it to the second round, but four of those ended in round two (3-1), while the other three went the distance.
Overall, Cowan is a former gymnast who transitioned to MMA after college. So while she’s athletic, she’s still very green in MMA. It’s hard to point to anything she does really well. Her striking, takedown, and submission defense have all been unimpressive, as has her offense in all of those categories. She does a decent job of throwing elbows and holding opponents up against the cage, but other than that has been largely unimpressive. She’s spent some time training with UFC fighters like Lauren Murphy, Miranda Maverick, and Andrea Lee, so perhaps we’ll see some improvements from Cowan, but she’s already 31 years old so she’s not especially young. We expect her to struggle against legitimate competition, but she may be able to rely on her physicality to overpower other low-level fighters.
UPDATE: Cowan missed weight by 1.5 lb!
Fight Prediction:
Cowan will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 67” reach. Cowan is two years younger than the 33-year-old Horth.
Both of these two debuting fighters rely on their physicality to win fights, so it’s notable that Horth is taking this fight up a weight class at 135 lb after exclusively competing at 125 lb prior to this. Cowan also spent some time at 125 lb earlier in her career, but her last four matches have all been at 135 lb after she dropped out of a 2019 fight following a failed weight cut trying to cut down to 125 lb. So we expect Cowan to have the strength advantage as the true Bantamweight in this fight. Horth is also coming off a knee injury, hasn’t fought in 16 months, and has half an many pro fights at Cowan. The one unknown on Cowans’ side of things is how much of an impact (if any) cutting weight three times in two months will play. If that affects her cardio we could see her fade late in the fight and it could also impact her durability. Cowan has also looked bad off her back and has been prone to getting submitted, so it’s hard to trust her. However, while neither of these two have impressed us, we expect Cowan to find success holding Horth up against the cage, where she’ll look to land elbows out of the clinch. That creates the potential for her to cut Horth open and force a longshot doctor’s stoppage if the cut is in a bad spot, which we almost saw happen in her DWCS match after she sliced her opponent open over the eye. With that said, it’s far more likely that Cowan grinds out a decision win along the cage in a boring fight if she pulls off the win. However, her weight miss is concerning and makes it hard to trust her in this fight. With uncertainty on both sides, this feels close to a coinflip if it goes the distance, but if it ends early look for it to come from a Horth finish. Because of that, we’ll give her the edge to get the win, but we like this to end in a split decision if it goes the distance, and at that point you might as well flip a coin when you’re talking about what one random judge will do.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Split Decision” at +450.
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DFS Implications:
Horth has finished all five of her pro opponents, but hasn’t been facing much in the way of competition or looked especially impressive. Now she’s moving up a weight class for her debut, so the size advantage that she typically relies on is gone. Cowan loves to hold fighters up against the cage, which doesn’t bode well for Horth’s scoring potential if she can’t find a finish. While Cowan has been submitted in both of her pro losses and Horth has submitted two of her last three opponents, Horth’s grappling game leaves a lot to be desired and she’s more of an opportunistic submission threat when gassed opponents give up their back. Ultimately this is a low-level bout between two debuting fighters, which adds some uncertainty, but we don’t see Horth scoring well without a finish. The odds imply she has a 58% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Cowan’s clinch-heavy style of fighting is better suited to the DraftKings scoring system, but she doesn’t look like a very exciting play on either site. Three of her last four victories have gone the distance and her recent split-decision win on DWCS would have only scored 61 DraftKings points and 42 points on FanDuel. She doesn’t land enough striking volume or takedowns to score well without a finish, and doesn’t look like much of a finisher. However, she will throw slicing elbows that cut her last opponent open and go for occasional submissions, so it’s not impossible for her to find a finish here against a fellow low-level opponent. And at her cheaper price tag, if she completely dominates this fight in the clinch for 15 minutes we could still see her serve as a value play on DraftKings, but she’ll need a finish to be useful on FanDuel. Her weight miss is concerning and makes us even less excited about playing her. The odds imply she has a 42% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Journey Newson
6th UFC Fight (1-3, NC)Newson had been set to face Brian Kelleher, but Kelleher dropped out mid fight week and McGhee was announced as the replacement on Wednesday afternoon. Newson had opened the week as a +145 underdog against Kelleher, but had been bet down to +110 by the time Kelleher dropped out. Now he’s a -190 favorite against the newcomer in McGhee.
Continuing to trade wins and losses for his entire UFC career, Newson has gone the distance in his last two fights and is coming off a smothering decision loss to Sergey Morozov, who took Newson down six times and controlled him for seven minutes. Morozov also outlanded Newson 30-26 in significant strikes in the low-volume fight. Prior to that, Newson notched his first official UFC win, in a decision victory over UFC newcomer Fernie Garcia, who’s now 0-2 with the organization. We say “official” because Newson had a 2020 38 second round one KO victory over Domingo Pilarte overturned to a No Contest when Newson tested positive for THC. Newson then got knocked out in 41 seconds by Randy Costa in his next fight, and also lost a decision to Ricardo Ramos in his UFC debut just before the No Contest. Leading up to his debut, he landed two more knockouts, and his last seven matches have all ended in either knockouts (3-1) or decisions (1-2). Three of those four knockouts came in 80 seconds or less.
Now 10-4 as a pro, Newson has three wins by KO, three submissions, and four decision victories. He’s been knocked out twice, both times in the first round, and has one decision loss. He’s a BJJ black belt, but he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2017 and all three of his submission wins came in his first six pro fights.
Overall, Newson is a decently well rounded fighter as he started off training Taekwondo as a kid before transitioning to jiu-jitsu when he got a little older. He also has a couple of boxing matches on his record and his father was a boxer. Newson has somewhat heavy hands, but he’s short and generally fighting at a high disadvantage. He’s looked very vulnerable to head kicks, which is definitely something he needs to work on. He also doesn’t throw much volume and only averages 2.76 SSL/min and 2.42 SSA/min. In his five UFC fights, Newson has landed just two takedowns on six attempts (33.3% accuracy), while his opponents have gotten him down on 9 of their 16 attempts (43.8% defense). Only two of his five opponents tried to take him down, but both of them landed 3+ takedowns against him.
Marcus McGhee
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut on extremely short notice, the 32-year-old McGhee was announced as the replacement just three days before this fight. He only turned pro in 2020, but has a 100% finishing rate and has never required the scorecards. He knocked out his last two opponents in the later rounds, and two of his last three fights have been in the LFA.
Now 6-1 as a pro, all six of McGhee’s wins have come by KO/TKO, with two in round one, three in round two, and one in round three. His only loss came in a 2022 R1 submission in the LFA. He’s never been in a fight that lasted longer than 11 minutes, with six of his fights ending in the first two rounds. Most of his career has been spent at 135 lb, but he did have one fight at 145 lb and another at 140 lb Catchweight, where his UFC debut will also be.
Overall, McGhee is an aggressive brawler with no grappling game to speak of. He’s a sparring partner of Sean O’Malley at The MMA Lab in Arizona and also trains with Mario Bautista and Kyler Phillips (suspended for Ostarine), in addition to O’Malley (previously suspended for Ostarine). McGhee has shown the ability to stitch together lengthy boxing combinations, but is still very green overall and looks like a complete liability on the mat, who’s at risk of getting submitted anytime he hits the ground against a decent grappler. However, he’s done a decent job of defending takedowns and is dangerous on the feet, and he looks like a fun fighter to watch.
Fight Prediction:
McGhee will have a 3” height and reach advantage and is two years younger than the 34-year-old Newson.
Newson is a BJJ black belt and will have the grappling advantage in this fight, but has yet to impress with his grappling and has also been somewhat reluctant to use it. So it’s hard to count on him coming in with a grappling-heavy game plan, but it would be a smart approach. We expect McGhee to come out firing as his best shot at winning will be to land an early knockout, and Newson has been knocked out twice in the first round in the past. Neither of these two had much time to prepare for the other, and it will be interesting to see how McGhee’s cardio holds up if this fight makes it to the later rounds after stepping in midweek. Newson’s defensive wrestling just got exposed in his last fight and he said he’s been working on his wrestling and cagework since then, which would be useful here if he implements it offensively. While we rarely see short notice replacement debuting fighters win against opponents with UFC experience, when they do win it typically comes in a first round knockout, which is McGhee’s most likely path to victory. However, if McGhee can’t get Newson out of there early, look for Newson to get his hand raised in a win. Predicting how that will happen is trickier though, as he’s shown the ability to knock opponents out, the matchup is primed for a submission win, and his lower activity makes a decision more likely. We’ll say he fights a smarter/safer game plan and grinds out a decision victory, but it could go a lot of ways.
Our favorite bet here is “Newson SUB or DEC” at +165.
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DFS Implications:
Newson opened the week as a +145 underdog against Brian Kelleher when DraftKings released pricing, but then Kelleher dropped out on Wednesday and McGhee was announced as the short notice replacement. If pricing were released today, Newson would be $9,000 on DraftKings, but instead he’s massively mispriced at just $7,200. That will drive his DraftKings ownership way up from where it would otherwise be and make it much more difficult to create unique lineups that include him unless you leave a ton of salary on the table or play 4+ dogs. He’s priced correctly on FanDuel, where they didn’t release pricing until Thursday, so it’s a whole different game over there. Newson has yet to officially put up a usable score in DFS, but did have a first round KO win that would have scored 128 DraftKings points before it was later overturned to a No Contest when he tested positive for THC. He also nearly locked up a guillotine choke in his UFC debut. So he has shown theoretical scoring upside, it just hasn’t translated to his statsheet quite yet. Newson is a BJJ black belt, although you wouldn’t guess it by watching him fight. However, now he’ll face a one-dimensional striker who had essentially no time to prepare and if Newson was ever going to use his grappling more this would be the time. Newson only scored 65 DraftKings points in his lone UFC decision win, which was also the only fight where he landed a takedown in the UFC. So while his cheap price tag makes it much easier for him to crack winning lineups even without a huge score, there are still ways he fails in a decision win. Fading him in tournaments will provide a ton of leverage, but is obviously risky. The odds imply he has a 61% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
McGhee is an aggressive brawler who’s landed knockouts in all six of his pro wins, but has no grappling skills and was submitted in his lone pro loss. His style of fighting is conducive to DFS production on both sides, as he lands a ton of volume and is constantly pushing forward looking for a finish. He’s done a decent job of defending takedowns, but once on the mat he looks to be in constant peril of being submitted and has to be guided by his coaches out of dangerous positions. You have to wonder about his cardio after taking this fight on just three day’s notice, leaving him more reliant on landing a finish in the first half of the fight. Working in his favor, Newson has been knocked out twice in the first round and isn’t an overly impressive fighter. With that said, this is the type of fight that shows there are levels to this game and it remains to be seen if McGhee’s aggressive style can translate to success in the UFC. If he does win, McGhee will be a great leverage play on the popular Newson and will be extremely likely to end up in tournament winning lineups. The odds imply he has a 39% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Stephanie Egger
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Egger’s is coming off a second round submission win over Ailin Perez in a fight that Egger impressively took up a weight class on just 10 days’ notice. Egger’s last four fights have ended early (3-1), with the last three ending in submissions (2-1). The only time she’s been past the second round in the UFC was in her 2020 UFC debut, where she lost a decision to Tracy Cortez. She rebounded from that loss with a R2 TKO win over a suspect Shanna Young, before landing a first round armbar against Jessica-Rose Clark in her next fight. She then got submitted herself in a R1 armbar against Mayra Bueno Silva, leading up to her recent win over Perez. Egger played with fire as she took armbar specialist Mayra Bueno Silva down 30 seconds into the first round of that loss, and ultimately paid the price.
Now 8-3 as a pro, Egger has three wins by KO, four by submission, and one decision. All seven of her finishes have occurred in the first two rounds, with five ending in round one. She’s also been submitted once in the first round and has lost two of the three decisions she’s been to.
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 five UFC fights and all three of her wins/finishes occurred on the ground. She’s yet to land more than 29 significant strikes in a UFC fight or absorb more than 22, and only averages 1.80 SSL/min and 1.72 SSA/min.
Irina Alekseeva
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making her UFC debut following an 18 month layoff, the 32-year-old Russian Alekseeva has just five pro fights to her name, with all five of those taking place in Russia. Her last two and three of her last four fights have gone the distance. All five of her pro fights have either ended in the first round (2-0) or gone the distance (2-1).
Now 4-1 as a pro, Alekseeva has one win by TKO, one by submission, and two decision victories. Her lone TKO win came in the first round of her 2019 pro debut against an opponent who had never fought professionally before and finished her career 0-2. Alekseeva’s only submission win also occurred in the first round, in an armbar against a 5-5 opponent who came in on a four fight losing streak and then never fought again after suffering her fifth straight loss. Alekseeva’s first decision win occurred against an opponent who came in 0-2 and is now 1-3-1, while her most recent decision win was in her lone Bellator fight against an opponent who has now gone 2-4 in her last six fights. So all of her wins have come against a lower level of competition. Alekseeva missed weight by 4 lb for that Bellator fight, as she tried to make 125 lb for the second time in her career. Her first three pro fights were actually all the way up at 145 lb, before she dropped all the way down to 125 lb in 2019, skipping over 135 lb, and then suffering her first career defeat. She’ll now be moving to 135 lb for the first time in her career as she makes her UFC debut.
Overall, Alekseeva is a three-time sambo world champion and is often looking to get fights to the mat, but is also content with standing and trading for periods of time. She’s decent on the ground, but won’t blow you away with anything she’s doing and she only has the one submission win. She started out in Judo as a kid, before adding striking to her arsenal. While she fights sort of mean and is willing to take chances, she’s kind of a lethargic striker who lacks movement and absorbs a ton of leg strikes as she’s just there to be hit and doesn’t really move in and out of space well. Perhaps the weight cut down to 125 lb was taking its toll on her and it will be interesting to see how she looks at a new weight class after a year and a half away.
UPDATE: Alekseeva missed weight by 4 lb!
Fight Prediction:
Alekseeva will have a 2” height advantage, while Egger will have a 2” reach advantage.
Both of these two are judokas, so it will be interesting to see how the grappling exchanges go, but Egger is the more experienced of the two and we expect she’ll have a considerable advantage in those exchanges. However, we have seen her succumb to an armbar submission in the past and it’s always possible she falls into another one of those here. While Egger isn’t known for her striking, Alekseeva has looked very hittable should this fight stay standing. When you pair two grapplers up against one another, you never know if that will result in it turning into more of a striking battle, but Egger showed no hesitation in looking to take Tracy Cortez and Mayra Bueno Silva down, although she ultimately lost both of those fights. All of Egger’s UFC wins have come against lower level opponents and she still needs to prove her grappling can hold up against tougher competition. However, it remains to be seen if Alekseeva qualifies as tougher competition. The fact that Alekseeva missed weight by 4 lb adds some additional uncertainty here, but it certainly didn’t appear that she cared or tried very hard to make the mark as she weighed in very early and then basically celebrated the miss on the scale. Maybe that’s part of her game plan, or maybe she’s just an idiot, who knows, but this is the second straight time she’s missed by 4 lb, although last time it was at 125 lb. We’ll take Egger here and tentatively say she finds another second round finish on the mat, but we don’t want to be too heavily invested here.
Our favorite bet here is “FDGTD” at -108.
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DFS Implications:
Egger has averaged 108 DraftKings points in her three UFC wins, all of which occurred in the first two rounds. However, she scored just 21 points in a decision loss in her debut, and hasn’t shown the ability to score well without a finish. All of her early wins came in great matchups, while both of her UFC losses were in tough matchups. There’s so much uncertainty surrounding Alekseeva that it’s hard to know how exactly to to describe this matchup, but it looks tougher than any of Egger’s past wins. Alekseeva did miss weight by 4 lb, but didn’t appear to care or be hurting from the miss, so it’s hard to know how much it will negatively impact her. She also notably missed weight by 4 lb for her last fight, which was down at 125 lb, and still went on to win a decision. So maybe she’s just trying to game the system. The extra weight could make it tougher for Egger to take her down, or it could drain on Alekseeva’s cardio, we’ll find out tomorrow. If Egger can’t get this fight to the ground and find a finish, we don’t see her scoring well as she only averages 1.80 SSL/min and has never landed more than two takedowns in a fight. So this looks like a boom or bust spot and even if she does get a finish she could get priced out of winning lineups at her expensive price tag. The odds imply she has a 74% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
Alekseeva is a somewhat aggressive fighter who will attack opponents with a combination of striking and grappling. However, she’s there to be hit on the feet and lacks movement, as she’s way too content with simply eating shots, especially leg kicks. She’s typically looking to take opponents down and has a background in judo and sambo, but will now be facing a superior grappler so may have to either rely more on her striking or a hail mary armbar off her back. This will be the first time Alekseeva has ever fought at 135 lb and she missed weight by 4 lb, both of which add some uncertainty here. We expect Egger will get her to the mat, which will likely leave Alekseeva reliant on throwing up an armbar to pull off the upset. However, if the fights stays standing more than expected, Egger isn’t a world class striker and is just 1-2 in decisions, so it’s not impossible Alekseeva could win a striking battle, although neither fighter has shown the volume to score well in a pure striking decision. So we’re treating Alekseeva as a submission or bust option in a really tough matchup. The odds imply she has a 26% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Charles Johnson
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Johnson has wasted no time in between fights and this will already be the third time he’s fought this year and the 5th since making his UFC debut in July 2022. Johnson got smothered on the mat for three rounds by Muhammad Mokaev in his debut, but to credit, he was at least able to avoid getting submitted by the dangerous grappler and Johnson has shown at multiple points in his career the ability to survive against dangerous grapplers, as he also went the distance against Brandon Royval in a 2018 decision loss. Following the loss to Royval, Johnson won four straight matches leading up to joining the UFC, with the last three of those wins coming in LFA Flyweight title fights. He then bounced back from the loss in his debut with a split decision win over Zhalgas Zhumagulov, before finishing Jimmy Flick with ground and pound in the first round of his next match. Most recently, he fought to another split decision, this time in a loss to Ode Osbourne in a fight that Johnson took on short notice and had to travel around the world with a sinus infection to show up for, as he had been at Tiger Muay Thai in Thailand when he got the offer. All of those factors took a toll on Johnson’s normally elite cardio and he gassed out in the third round of the fight, which ultimately cost him the match.
Now 13-4 as a pro, Johnson has six wins by KO/TKO, three by submission, and four decisions. Three of his knockouts came in round one, two ended in round two, and one occurred in round five. Two of his three submission victories ended in round two, with the other ending in round one. He’s never been finished, with all four of his losses ending in decisions. Eight of his last nine fights made it out of the first round, with six of those seeing the third round, and two seeing the fifth round of LFA title fights. Five of those nine fights went the distance, but four of his last six wins came early, with his last three finishes all coming by TKO.
Overall, Johnson is an uptempo striker with decent defensive grappling, but not a ton in terms of offensive wrestling. While we’ve seen him get taken down without too much trouble at times, he generally does a good job of quickly returning to his feet and defending submissions. He doesn’t appear to have a ton of power, but tends to wear on his opponents, with three of his last four finishes coming beyond the first round. In his four UFC fights, Johnson has only landed one takedown on seven attempts (14.3% accuracy), while his opponents have gotten him down on 17 of their 43 attempts (60.5% defense). Just keep in mind, 12 of those takedowns conceded came in his UFC debut, and since then he’s only been taken down on 5 of 17 attempts (70.6% defense).
Cody Durden
7th UFC Fight (3-2-1)Coming off a pair of wins, Durden has now gone 3-1 in his last four fights, after starting off 0-1-1 in the UFC. Both of his UFC losses have come by first round submission, while two of his three wins ended in wrestling-heavy decisions. His lone early win with the organization came in a R1 TKO against a fragile J.P. Buys, who’s 0-3 in the UFC with two TKO losses. Durden made his UFC debut against Chris Gutierrez in August 2020 and fought to a draw following a strong start in the first round. Then he got dunked on midway through the opening five minutes of his next fight with a flying triangle landed by a debuting Jimmy Flick. Durden bounced back from the pantsing with a grappling-heavy decision win over Aoriqileng, before getting submitted again in the first round by another UFC newcomer, this time in Muhammad Mokaev who locked up a guillotine choke 58 seconds into the fight after catching Durden with a flying knee. However, Durden then knocked out Buys before winning a wrestling-heavy decision over Carlos Mota, who was making his UFC debut on short notice.
Now 14-4-1 as a pro, Durden has six wins by KO, five more by submission, and three decision victories. While he’s never been knocked out, he’s been submitted in three of his four losses, while he also has one decision defeat. All three of his submission losses ended in the first two rounds, with his last two coming in round one. Only six of his 19 pro fights have seen a third round, but three of his six UFC fights have gone the distance. Nine of Durden’s 11 finishes occurred in the first round, while he also has one in each of the later rounds. His UFC debut took place at 135 lb before Durden dropped down to 125 lb, where he’s stayed since. He mostly competed at 135 lb before he joined the UFC, losing his only pre-UFC 125 lb fight in a 2017 decision, leaving him just 3-3 at 125 lb in his career, with three of those fights going the distance (2-1) and three ending in round one (1-2).
Overall, Durden is a former state champion high school wrestler who relies heavily on his wrestling, but did show the ability to find a finish with his striking alone against Buys. He’s been prone to getting submitted and hasn’t shown the ability to escape chokes once they’re locked in. In his six UFC fights, he’s landed 14 takedowns on 34 attempts (41.2% accuracy), while getting taken down twice himself on seven opponent attempts (71.4% defense). Durden generally does his best work early in fights and tends to slow down the longer they go. He doesn’t land much striking volume, averaging just 3.13 SSL/min, and has only topped 36 significant strikes landed in one of his six UFC fights, which was when he landed 60 against Aoriqileng.
Fight Prediction:
Johnson will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.
This is a classic striker versus grappler matchup, where Durden will be looking to get the fight to the mat, while Johnson will be trying to keep it standing. Johnson has been taken down numerous times in the UFC, but most of those were in his UFC debut against grappling phenom Muhammad Mokaev, and Johnson’s defensive wrestling is underrated. He also generally does a good job of returning to his feet when he does get taken down. Durden consistently slows down late in fights, while Johnson is generally known for his cardio, but did fade down the stretch in his last match after taking the fight on short notice and flying across the world from Thailand to Vegas with a sinus infection. We expect his cardio to look much better here, and we’re willing to give him a pass in that last fight given the circumstances. We fully expect Johnson to have a major cardio advantage in this matchup, and he’s also the better striker, and the more durable of the two. Durden’s only realistic path to victory will be to grind out another wrestling-heavy decision on the ground, and we expect him to struggle to hold Johnson down the way he did Mota in his last match. Even in that last fight, where Durden was able to control most of the match on the mat, he still slowed down late and lost the last round, showing that he really needs to win both of the first two rounds to secure decision victories. Johnson actually also fought Mota, and finished him in the 5th round just before joining the UFC. Interestingly, three of Johnson’s last four decisions have been split (2-1), so he has been in a lot of close fights. These two guys have been going back and forth on Twitter for like a year and nearly got matched up previously, so there appears to be some built up animosity coming into this match. Perhaps that will drive them to push a little harder for a finish, which could also result in Durden gassing faster. Johnson is capable of finishing Durden, both on the feet or the mat, but it’s still more likely that he outworks his way to a decision win, especially when you consider Durden has never been knocked out.
Our favorite bet here is Johnson’s ML at -140.
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DFS Implications:
Johnson has only put up one useful DFS score in his four UFC appearances, which is when he finished Jimmy Flick with ground and pound in the first round and scored 114 DraftKings points. He only scored 83 points in his lone decision victory, and just 34 points in his recent decision loss, which still only would have been good for 64 points had the split decision gone his way. He’s only landed one takedown on seven attempts in his four UFC fights, and relies almost entirely on his striking to win fights, and finishes to score well. Now he’ll face a wrestler who’s never been knocked out, but has been prone to getting submitted. Johnson does have three submission wins on his record, but is generally looking to wear opponents down and finish them with strikes. It will be hard for Johnson to put up a big striking total as Durden will be looking to slow the fight down with his wrestling, so Johnson appears entirely reliant on landing a finish to score well. While he’s more likely to win by decision than finish and not score especially well, the fact that the line has been moving against him all week and he’s coming off a loss should both keep his ownership lower, which adds to his tournament appeal. The odds imply Johnson has a 56% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Durden has averaged 97 DraftKings points and 89 points on FanDuel in his three UFC wins and his wrestling-heavy approach is better suited to the DraftKings scoring system when he’s unable to find a finish. While his two decision wins scored 86 and 93 points on DraftKings, they only returned totals of 54 and 86 on FanDuel. Now he’ll face an opponent who’s never been finished and Durden’s most likely path to victory will be to grind out a decision on the mat. While Johnson has been taken down 17 times in four UFC fights, 12 of those came in his debut against Muhammad Mokaev and he’s only been taken down five times in his last three matches, while doing a good job of getting back up when he does get taken down. While his solid getup game could provide the opportunity for Durden to chain takedowns together, that will also wear on Durden’s already limited gas tank and make it tougher for him to go three hard rounds. So don’t be surprised if Durden starts fast and then dramatically slows down as the fight progresses. Durden’s cheap price tag keeps him in play even if he doesn't put up a huge score, but the line movement in his favor combined with his two fight winning streak and Johnson’s recent loss will drive up his ownership despite facing a step up in competition. That greatly lowers his tournament appeal on a smaller slate where finding ways to reduce dupes will be paramount. The odds imply he has a 44% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Jake Collier
13th UFC Fight (5-7)Coming off a R2 TKO loss to Chris Barnett, Collier has now dropped two straight and three of his last four. He’s also just 2-4 since moving up to Heavyweight, with his two wins coming against terrible opponents in Gian Villante and Chase Sherman. In fairness to him, two of his four Heavyweight losses came in split decisions that many would argue he won. He also nearly finished Chris Barnett in the first round of that last fight, but instead gassed out going for the finish and finished himself in round two. That was a crazy fight and after getting burned by his aggressiveness we could see a more tentative version of him in his next fight. Prior to that defeat, the only time Collier had been finished at Heavyweight was against Tom Aspinall in Collier’s Heavyweight debut following a three year layoff. Three of his next four fights after that went the distance, with a win over Gian Villante and a pair of split decision losses to Carlos Felipe and Andre Arlovski. He also submitted Chase Sherman in the first round of a January 2022 fight, but has yet to knock anybody out at Heavyweight. The last time he knocked anybody other at any weight class was all the way back in 2016.
Now 13-8 as a pro, Collier has five wins by KO, four by submission, and four decisions, He’s been knocked out four times, submitted once, and has three decision defeats. Collier is now 2-4 since moving up to Heavyweight in 2020, after he made a brief stop at Light Heavyweight where he went 1-1 in 2017. Prior to that, Collier had spent his career down at 185 lb, where he went 2-2 in his first four UFC fights. While 14 of Collier’s 21 pro fights have ended early, five of his last eight have gone the distance since he moved up from 185 lb.
Overall, Collier’s best asset is his volume, but he has started looking for more takedowns lately. After failing to land a takedown on just one attempt in his first three fights up at Heavyweight, he’s landed four on six attempts in his last three matches. Four of his seven UFC losses have come by knockout, although two of those were down at 185 lb and another was against Tom Aspinall in Collier’s first fight at Heavyweight, which came following a nearly three year layoff. Collier has only finished 2 of his 12 UFC opponents and hasn’t looked especially dangerous overall, but if he continues to mix in more grappling he could end up being more of a finishing threat on the mat than the feet as so many lower level Heavyweights struggle on the ground.
Martin Buday
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Entering this matchup on a 10 fight winning streak, Buday is coming off a questionable split-decision win where he got outlanded 118-66 in significant strikes with no takedowns, knockdows, or appreciable control time accrued by either guy. Clearly the judges thought Buday was doing more damage, as he got considerably outlanded in every round. Prior to that, he won a third round technical decision win over Chris Barnett in his UFC debut. While both of his UFC fights have gone the distance, he landed eight straight finishes just prior to joining the organization. Five of those finishes ended in round one, with the other three ending in round two. He punched his ticket to the UFC with a first round TKO win on DWCS in 2021.
Now 11-1 as a pro, Buday has seven wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and three decision victories. His only career loss occurred in his second pro fight in a 2017 decision against a stud Heavyweight grappler in Juan Espino. Buday has only seen the third round three times. Overall, Buday is primarily a striker but is also a BJJ brown belt and actually started off training in Jiu-Jitsu before transitioning to MMA. We saw some of that in a September 2019 submission win where he landed two takedowns and finished his opponent early in round two with a kimura. While Buday loves to grind opponents up against the fence and go to town with knees, his takedown attempts have been sporadic, but he does have the ability to grapple when he chooses to. While he isn’t an overly impressive striker, he finds ways to win and does a good job of landing damage out of the clinch, where he likes to throw heavy knees. He’s a big Heavyweight who has to cut down to make 265 lb and he relies on his size to help him win ugly fights. Buday doesn’t look like any sort of threat to make a real run in the UFC, but he should be able to find success against other low level Heavyweights.
Fight Prediction:
Buday will have a 1” height advantage, but Collier will have a 1” reach advantage.
Buday is coming off a split decision win that he arguably should have lost, while Collier lost a pair of split decisions in fights he arguably should have won in his last two trips to the scorecards. So the judges seem to look highly on one of these two, and it’s not Collier. Buday is the larger guy, but both of these juggernauts push the Heavyweight limit and the structural integrity of the Octagon will surely be tested on Saturday. Collier is the higher volume striker, but Buday inflicts more damage with his shots and also does a better job of controlling opponents against the cage and beating them up. He also looks to have better cardio than Collier and all of those factors should help him in the eyes of the judges if this fight goes the distance. We’ve seen Collier lose decisions even when finishing ahead in strikes, which wouldn’t be surprising to see again here. Collier has also been knocked out four times in his career and submitted another time, so we’re certainly not ruling out a finish for Buday, who seems due for a finish in the near future. If Collier comes in more tentatively, and we expect he will, then a finish may be harder to come by, but we like Buday to win this fight regardless of how he gets it done. We’ll say Buday wins a decision, but we won’t be at all shocked to see him get Collier out of there in the first two rounds.
Our favorite bet here is Buday’s ML at -110.
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DFS Implications:
Collier lands a good amount of striking volume, averaging 5.75 SSL/min, and has begun mixing in more takedowns recently. However, he only has one early win since 2016, and is now facing a massive opponent who has never been finished. Collier pushed hard for a first round finish in his last fight, but when he was unable to get it he gassed out and ended up getting finished himself. That’s not the first time we’ve seen him slow down in a fight, which isn’t shocking considering he added 80 lb to a Middleweight frame. While he lands enough volume to have a somewhat decent scoring floor in decision wins, he still only put up 80 and 86 DraftKings points in his last two decision victories. Priced as the favorite, that appears to leave him reliant on handing Buday the first early loss of his career to crack tournament winning lineups, although he’ll have a better chance on FanDuel than DraftKings. The odds imply he has a 47% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Buday has won 10 straight fights, with eight of those ending early, but both of his UFC matches have ended in decisions, where he only scored 57 and 91 DraftKings points. We normally see large amounts of control time and clinch strikes from him, which makes him a better play on DraftKings than FanDuel, although we surprisingly didn’t see any of that in his last match and his scoring suffered. While he hasn’t done a ton to impress us, this looks like a favorable matchup for him to score well as he takes on a former Middleweight in Jake Collier, who averages 4.82 SSA/min (4th most on the slate) and has been finished in five of his eight pro losses. The most recent of those early losses came against Chris Barnett, who Buday easily defeated in his UFC debut (for the MMA mathers). Considering Buday landed eight straight finishes just before joining the UFC, it would make sense for him to eventually finish an opponent on the UFC level and this could be a good spot to do it. However, after Collier just gassed out and got finished in his last fight, it’s possible he comes in more tentatively and ruins this match for everybody, although that remains to be seen. Buday is priced as a slight underdog in DFS, but the line has moved in his favor, which should make him a little more popular. However, after scoring just 57 DraftKings points in his last fight, we don’t expect his ownership to get out of control. He’ll either need a finish or a ton of control time and striking to score well, both of which are very possible. The odds imply he has a 53% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Josh Quinlan
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Quinlan had been scheduled to fight Ange Loosa here, but Loosa pulled out and Waters was announced as the replacement a week out.
Quinlan is still undefeated and is coming off a round one murder of Jason Witt in his UFC debut. That fight had originally been scheduled to take place in Vegas, but Quinlan’s piss was still cloudy with steroid residue and the Las Vegas commision wouldn’t clear him to fight the day before the match. So it then got pushed back a week to a California card with a different commission, and moved up to a 180 lb Catchweight. Prior to that, Quinlan landed a 47 second R1 TKO on DWCS in September 2021 against an opponent who had accepted the fight on just three day’s notice. However, the result was overturned to a No Contest and Quinlan was suspended for 9 months after he tested positive for steroids.
Still just 6-0 as a pro plus a NC, Quinlan has four wins by KO/TKO and two by submission. He’s yet to require the judges in his career, but has seen the third round twice. Keep in mind, he hasn’t fought much in the way of competition and his first three wins came against opponents with one combined pro fight.
Overall, Quinlan throws a decent amount of kicks, which makes sense considering his background is in soccer and not martial arts. He’s pretty explosive and has good power, and loads up with everything he throws. He’s rarely looking to land takedowns but does have the ability to reverse positions on the mat and is actually listed as a BJJ black belt, which is somewhat surprising considering he didn’t start training in MMA until he was 19. Quinlan was born and raised in Kauai, Hawaii, but trains out of Las Vegas. We’ve only seen 129 seconds of Quinlan since he returned from the steroid suspension, and that was against a terrible Jason Witt who retired after his own funeral there. So it’s hard to really gauge where Quinlan is at right now. It will be interesting to see how Quinlan looks here.
Trey Waters
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Waters is just two weeks removed from a second round knockout win to capture the Vacant LFA Welterweight belt, after getting submitted in the first round on DWCS last September by Gabriel Bonfim. Waters was getting massively outstruck in his recent win before he landed a clean punch in the second round to close the show. His second most recent win was also in the LFA, and he spent the entire fight being controlled along the cage until the ref refused to allow the fight to finish that way and immediately broke up the position multiple times until Waters was finally able to land a knee as his opponent shot in just before losing a decision. We have never seen anyone break up a fight as quickly or as often as that ref and he should be in prison for the way he officiated the match.
Now 7-1 as a pro, Waters has three wins by KO/TKO, three by submission, and one decision victory. His six finishes have been evenly spread out across the three rounds, with two in round one, two in round two, and two in round three. Two of his three submission wins have come by guillotine, and that looks to largely be the extent of his grappling. However, his two first round finishes occurred in his first two pro fights and his last four finishes have all occurred in the later rounds. His lone loss was the first round submission on DWCS.
Overall, Waters is a gigantic Welterweight at 6’5” but his height is really the only impressive thing about him. He doesn’t throw much volume, rarely if ever attempts any takedowns, gets easily controlled along the fence, and has been taken down in three straight fights. He’s losing fights until he’s not and will have a tough time winning many decisions. Imagine a much worse version of Phil Rowe and you’ll get Trey Waters. The only thing that has allowed him to win fights is randomly landing kill shots after getting dominated early in matches. That goes back to his size as he can quickly throw up a knee to the head of an opponent or strike from range and force the opposition to come lunging in. We don’t see Waters having much success at the UFC level, but a flukey KO win or two against low-level opponents is certainly possible.
Fight Prediction:
Waters will have a 5” height and reach advantage.
This is a gross low-level fight between two guys who don’t really deserve to be on the UFC roster, although that bar gets increasingly lower with each passing week. They’re both lower volume strikers who rarely look for takedowns and rely on landing finishes to win fights. They’ve only been to one combined decision between them, but neither of them has many pro fights either. Quinlan has looked better than Waters, but his steroid suspension leading up to his recent UFC debut adds some uncertainty regarding his current form. Neither guy has ever been knocked out, but they both look hittable and neither guy appears to have a granite chin. Quinlan will have to get past the length of Waters and avoid the knees coming at him, but if he can control the distance he’ll have a good shot at putting Waters away. Waters took this fight on seven day’s notice and also fought just two weeks ago, which are both major red flags for him as he makes his UFC debut. So while his last four finishes have all come in the later rounds, it’s hard to know how his cardio will look later on in this fight. That makes it tougher to pick him to win and we’ll take Quinlan to get his hand raised, but we don’t have a ton of confidence in him. It’s also hard to say how he gets it done. Knockout is the most obvious option, but he does have just as many submission wins as knockouts on his record, and Waters has never been knocked out but has been submitted. However, it also won’t be shocking if we see Waters’ length give Quinlan some trouble closing the distance and results in a lower volume decision, so ultimately this is a trickier spot to predict the exact method that the fight ends in.
Our favorite bet here is Quinlan’s ML at -165.
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DFS Implications:
Quinlan is coming off a R1 KO win over a fragile Jason Witt in his UFC debut where he scored 101 DraftKings points. He’s undefeated with a 100% finishing rate, but only has seven pro fights and hasn’t faced any legitimate competition. He also got suspended for steroids just before making his UFC debut, which adds to the uncertainty surrounding him. However, now he’ll face a short notice replacement who’s making his UFC debut on a week’s notice and just fought two weeks ago, which is all a boost for Quinlan’s scoring potential. With that said, Quinlan doesn’t land a ton of striking volume and rarely looks for takedowns, which leaves him dependent on landing a finish to score well, and even a later round finish may not score especially well. So ultimately he’s a boom or bust fighter who projects to be pretty popular. The odds imply he has a 62% chance to win, a 47% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.
Waters is a giant at 6’5” but doesn’t land much striking volume or takedowns and looks entirely reliant on landing finishes to score well. He’s struggled with being controlled along the cage, got submitted almost immediately on the made in his DWCS loss, and is generally losing fights until he isn’t. Now he’s stepping into his UFC debut on a week’s notice and just fought two weeks ago, which are both major red flags. He looks like a hail mary KO or bust option and Quinlan has never lost a fight, let alone been finished. So while Waters has a puncher’s chance, it’s hard to get overly excited about him. The odds imply he has a 38% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Marcos Rogerio de Lima
16th UFC Fight (9-6)Coming off his first submission win since 2016, De Lima recently finished Andrei Arlovski in the first round with a rear-naked choke after knocking him down with a flurry of punches. De Lima has now won three of his last four fights, with the one loss coming in a close low-volume decision against human tank Blagoy Ivanov. De Lima’s last two and three of his last four wins have come in the first round, and his last 14 wins have all ended in either first round finishes (11) or decisions (3). Just before the loss to Ivanov, De Lima knocked out a previously very durable Ben Rothwell in just 32 seconds after controlling Maurice Greene for 15 minutes on the mat in a decision win. While De Lima’s last loss came in a decision, his other five UFC defeats all ended in submissions in the first two rounds.
De Lima worked his way into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter Brazil in 2014, where despite getting submitted by Antonio Carlos Junior in his third fight on the show, he still got the chance to make his UFC debut just a couple of weeks later. He was competing as a somewhat undersized Heavyweight at the time, and tipped the scales at just 235 lb for his debut, which he won with a lightning fast 20 second R1 KO. He then dropped down to Light Heavyweight for his next six fights, where he went 3-3, before moving back up to Heavyweight in 2018 after he missed weight by four pounds in back-to-back fights trying to make Light Heavyweight. All six of his fights at Light Heavyweight ended early, including five in round one and one in round two. After fighting at 235 lb in his UFC debut at Heavyweight, De Lima shot up to 253 lb in his 2018 return to the weight class and has recently been as heavy as 264.5 lb. In his eight fights since returning to Heavyweight (5-3), De Lima has fought to three decisions (2-1), has landed two first round knockouts, one first round submission win, and has been submitted twice (both times in under 1.5 rounds).
Now 20-8-1 as a pro, De Lima has 14 wins by KO, three by submission, and three decisions. Despite being a BJJ black belt De Lima has been submitted in five of his eight pro losses and looks helpless off his back. He’s also been knocked out once (2012) and has two decision defeats. He’s won two of the last three decisions and prior to losing the decision to Ivanov, he hadn’t lost a fight that had gone the distance since 2011. Most of De Lima’s UFC wins have come against very questionable competition, most of whom never fought again in the UFC.
Overall, De Lima’s fight strategy appears to be to look for knockouts early in fights before settling into riding out top position on the mat. However, when he gets reversed or taken down himself it almost always ends up with him getting submitted and he’s terrible off his back. He’s a fast starter with bad cardio and tires out late in fights. He hasn’t finished anybody beyond the first round since 2010, but he’s also never been finished past the midway mark of round two and all 29 of his pro fights have either ended in under a round and a half (17-6) or gone the distance (3-2-1). We generally see him bounce between wins and losses and he hasn't lost two fights in a row since 2012, but has also only won two in a row once since 2014.
Waldo Cortes-Acosta
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Cortes-Acosta has won decisions in each of his first two UFC fights, but has had a ridiculously easy strength of schedule as he defeated Jared Vanderaa and Chase Sherman in those two matches. Those wins came just three weeks apart and Cortes-Acosta wasted no time getting back inside the Octagon after defeating Vanderaa in his October 2022 UFC debut. Chase Sherman had been scheduled to face Josh Parisian two weeks before that fight against Cortes-Acosta, but Parisian dropped out the day of the event and left Sherman in search of a new opponent. The UFC then matched him up with Cortes-Acosta, so it was a short notice fight for both guys. Prior to the pair of UFC decision wins, Cortes-Acosta had knocked out three straight opponents, including a R1 TKO win on DWCS after he won the vacant LFA Heavyweight belt just before that with a third round TKO. Cortes-Acosta is a former minor league baseball player, but was cut following a fight and embraced the result as he opted to become a professional fighter. While he turned pro in MMA in 2018 and landed a knockout in his first fight, he was more focussed on boxing around that time, and went 4-3 in boxing matches from 2018 to 2021. He then returned his focus to MMA in the Summer of 2021 and rattled off eight straight wins over the next 21 months.
Now 9-0 as a pro, Cortes-Acosta has four wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and four decision victories. Despite five of his nine fights ending early, only two of those five finishes occurred in round one, and one of those was a submission in his second pro fight. Two of his KO/TKO wins came in round two, and one occurred in round three.
Overall, Cortes-Acosta is a one-dimensional striker whose background is in baseball, not martial arts. He then transitioned to boxing before really going all in on MMA in 2021. While he has one submission win on his record, he hasn’t shown anything in terms of grappling and has struggled at times with getting taken down. However, while he got taken down three times in an LFA title fight just before going on DWCS, he did a pretty good job of returning to his feet each time and still had the cardio to land a third round knockout. With that said, he still looks vulnerable to being taken down and that may ultimately be his Achilles heel once he faces any legitimate competition at the UFC level with the ability to wrestle. We also saw him get his legs chewed up in each of his first two UFC fights, and right now he’s basically just a boxer with good cardio, volume, and power.
Fight Prediction:
Cortes-Acosta will have a 3” height and reach advantage, while also being six years younger than the 37-year-old De Lima.
On paper this looks like a good matchup for De Lima, who throws heavy leg kicks, can smother opponents on the mat, and is very dangerous (in the first round). However, his terrible cardio is a massive red flag and the primary reason that he never finishes anybody beyond round one. It’s been 13 years since De Lima landed a finish in the later rounds and if Blagoy Ivanov wasn’t completely allergic to ending fights early, he likely would have put De Lima away in his second most recent fight. That lack of cardio leaves De Lima reliant on either finishing opponents in the opening five minutes or grinding out decisions on the mat, which he was able to do against a terrible Maurice Greene but those cases have been few and far between. His terrible cardio also makes it tougher to rely on him landing takedowns in the later rounds and Cortes-Acosta’s high pace and decent get up game won’t help anything. So while it’s not impossible De Lima wins a smothering decision considering Cortes-Acosta’s takedown defense has been fairly suspect, we expect De Lima to have diminishing success in his takedown attempts the longer this fight goes. Perhaps he can do enough in the opening round and a half to still make a decision close if the fight goes the full 15 minutes, but that remains to be seen. Cortes-Acosta has never lost a fight, let alone been finished, and most of De Lima’s finishes have come against aging and/or low-level opponents. So while his aggressiveness always gives him a shot at getting opponents out of there quickly, we’d be surprised to see it happen here. All of that leads us to believe that Cortes-Acosta will weather the early storm from De Lima and take over in the later rounds. While De Lima has been far more prone to getting submitted than knocked out, Cortes-Acosta doesn't pose much of a submission threat, but will land a ton of volume and has solid cardio. So as De Lima begins to fade, look for Cortes-Acosta to put it on him in the later rounds and likely hand him just the second knockout loss of his career, or worst case scenario outland his way to a decision win if De Lima is able to survive. Give us Cortes-Acosta by R2 knockout.
Our favorite bet here is “Waldo Cortes-Acosta R2 or R3 KO” at +850.
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DFS Implications:
De Lima has averaged 110 DraftKings points in his nine UFC wins and has been submitted in five of his six UFC losses, so we’re generally looking to target his fights as whoever wins usually scores well. De Lima aggressively hunts for first round knockouts, but will also occasionally look to grind opponents out on the mat for 15 minutes. Both of those tend to score well, especially on DraftKings, but he’s more dependent on landing finishes on FanDuel. However, he has terrible cardio, hasn’t landed a finish beyond the first round since 2010, and is now 37 years old. Most of his success has come against aging and/or low-level opponents and now he’s facing an undefeated prospect with good cardio and volume. However, Cortes-Acosta is also a one-dimensional striker who’s been prone to getting taken down, so if De Lima’s cardio holds up, which would be shocking, he could grind out a wrestling-heavy decision win. It’s much more likely that his cardio will not hold up and he’ll be reliant on landing a first round finish to win this fight. The odds imply he has a 62% chance to win, a 42% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Cortes-Acosta is a one-dimensional striker with no real grappling skills who relies on striking and knockouts to score well. While he didn’t land a ton of striking volume in his UFC debut (73 SS), he stepped back inside the Octagon just three weeks later and doubled that total, landing 147 significant strikes against Chase Sherman. That fight could have been stopped in the second round as Cortes-Acosta unloaded on Sherman, but the ref let it go on and Sherman was ultimately able to narrowly survive. While Cortes-Acosta didn’t get the finish, he did score 90 DraftKings points and 108 points on FanDuel in the decision win. Had the fight been stopped, he would have put up a massive score. Now he’ll face an opponent with much worse cardio, who has less of a chance surviving that type of striking barrage. That gives Cortes-Acosta a solid scoring ceiling here and he just needs to survive the first round and stay off his back to have a great shot at putting up a big striking total and/or landing a mid to late round finish. The odds imply he has a 38% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Julian Erosa
13th UFC Fight (6-6)Erosa just got knocked out in December by Alex Caceres, who previously hadn’t knocked anybody out since 2010, so obviously that’s not a great look. Prior to that loss, Erosa had won three straight fights, with a pair of decision wins over Hakeem Dawodu and Steven Peterson, and a third round submission victory over Charles Jourdain. Dawodu notably missed weight for the first time in his career, by 3.5 lb no less, and never really showed up to the fight. Based on the weight miss and his performance, there’s a decent chance Dawodu was injured coming into that fight and he looked nothing like his normal self. Just before that, Peterson also missed weight by 3 lb. Erosa’s only other loss in his last eight fights came against Seung Woo Choi in another first round knockout, and Erosa has been knocked out in his last three losses. While two of his last three fights went the distance, seven of his last nine ended early (4-3). Erosa originally made his way into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter in 2015, but after starting 1-1 he was released in 2016. He then worked his way back into the organization through DWCS in 2018, but lost three straight fights and was released in 2019. However, after winning one fight on the regional scene, the UFC brought Erosa back to fight Sean Woodson on short notice and Erosa landed a third round submission win and has now gone 5-2 in his third stint with the UFC.
Now 28-10 as a pro, Erosa has 11 wins by KO, 12 by submission, and five decisions. He’s been knocked out six times and has four decision losses. Four of his KO losses occurred in round one, while one ended in round two and the other round three. On the flipside, he only has one KO win since 2018 and three of his last four finishes ended in submissions, with two of those coming in the third round of Catchweight fights he took on short notice. Erosa is basically the 150 lb Catchweight king, as he’s gone 5-0 in his career in Catchweight fights, with all five wins coming early, and would be the perfect candidate for a 150 lb division as he’s competed extensively at both 145 lb and 155 lb. In his 12 UFC fights, he’s gone 3-5 at 145 lb, 2-0 at 150 lb, and 1-1 at 155 lb.
Overall, Erosa is a fearless brawler who also possesses dangerous submission skills, but has shown a suspect chin at times. He’s been especially prone to getting knocked out at 145 lb, where this fight will be, and the weight cut down to 145 lb can’t be getting any easier as the 6’1” Erosa approaches his mid 30s. He averages 6.19 SSL/min (2nd most on the slate) and 6.27 SSA/min (most on the slate). He’s landed two or more takedowns in his last four fights to make it out of the first round, while none of his last seven opponents have taken him down. In his seven fights since returning to the UFC in 2020, Erosa has landed 10 takedowns on 22 attempts (45.5% accuracy), while stuffing both of the attempts against him.
Fernando Padilla
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his long awaited UFC debut following a two year layoff, Padilla actually got signed by the UFC in 2021 and was scheduled to face Sean Soriano that October, but visa issues forced him to withdraw and wait on the sidelines for another year and a half. He’s still just 26 years old and said he worked on improving over the time away, so it will be interesting to see what adjustments he’s made. He’s won his last two fights, but is just 4-3 in his last seven. After 9 of his first 11 pro fights ended in the first round, his last seven all made it to round two, with four of those going the distance (1-3) and three ending in late round finishes (3-0).
Now 14-4 as a pro, Padilla has four wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and two decision victories. While he has twice as many submissions as knockouts, four of his last six finishes have come by KO/TKO and it seems like he’s grown more comfortable with his striking over time. His last two finishes were both by R2 TKO and he hasn't submitted anybody since 2018. He’s never been finished in his career, with all four of his losses going the distance. Two of those losses came against fighters who went on to join the UFC in Dan Ige and Spike Carlyle, and he also has a submission win over Darrick Minner on his record, so he’s faced some pretty decent competition. He made his pro debut at 135 lb in 2015, but then immediately moved up to 145 lb and has even fought at 155 lb a few times, where he went 3-0 with three finishes. His last two matches were at 145 lb after he took on Spike Carlyle at a 150 lb Catchweight just before that.
Overall, Padilla is an aggressive fighter who marches forward on the feet and is dangerous off his back. He’s from Mexico but trains at Team Oyama with several past and current UFC fighters, including Ricky Simon. He’s a 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu brown belt and has very flexible hips that allow him to get creative with his grappling, although we rarely see him attempt any takedowns and he mostly uses his grappling defensively. He throws good knees and elbows out of the clinch and has good size for the 145 lb division at 6’1” with a 76” reach. His aggressiveness does leave him there to be hit, but his chin has held up thus far in his career and he looks like an entertaining fighter to watch with plenty of years ahead of him to continue cleaning some things up.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’1” but Padilla will have a 2” reach advantage and is seven years younger than the 33-year-old Erosa.
This sets up as a fun fight between two tall Feathweights who have no problem throwing down in a brawl. They actually trained together once in the past, but it sounded like they didn’t do any heavy sparring or anything like that, but there is some familiarity. They’re both pretty well rounded and will threaten submissions on the mat, but Erosa is the more likely of the two to attempt any takedowns, while Padilla has been completely content with keeping fights standing lately. It seems like they would both prefer to duke it out on the feet for the most part and we’re expecting a high-paced striking battle. Padilla has been the more durable of the two, but he’s also much younger and hasn’t been tested as much as Erosa. They’re both pretty hittable and we should see each of their chins tested. The fact that Padilla hasn’t fought in nearly two years and will be making his UFC debut adds a lot of uncertainty, and it’s possible the moment will be too big for him. That adds some additional uncertainty to the mix, but if shows at 100% he’s got a good chance to finish Erosa, who sometimes looks great in fights and other times looks pretty terrible. Both guys have a wide range of outcomes and the brawling nature of this match just makes it even tougher to predict. Erosa has done a good job of bouncing back from KO losses in the past, going 4-1 following his last five KO losses, with all four of those wins coming early and the lone loss going the distance. Padilla has been very durable, but has gone just 1-3 in his last four decisions. Erosa has the ability to outland him on the feet and control him on the mat. While either of these two could finish the other, we kind of like Erosa to win a close decision, in what will likely be a fight that looks like it has no business going the distance.
Our favorite bet here is “Erosa R3 or DEC” at +250.
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DFS Implications:
Erosa has averaged 105 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, with 97 or more points in his last five victories. He’s an aggressive brawler, who averages 6.19 SSL/min (3rd most on the slate) and 6.27 SSA/min (most on the slate), and he’s also landed at least two takedowns in his last four fights that have made it out of the first round, so he generally does a good job of filling up the stat sheet. Now he’ll face an aggressive UFC newcomer who hasn’t competed in two years, and this looks like a pace-up matchup. Erosa is fairly highly priced at $8,800 on DraftKings and the line has been moving sharply against him throughout the week. When you combine that with the fact that he’s coming off a KO loss to Alex Caceres, who almost never knocks anybody out, we should see Erosa’s ownership remain in check. That adds to his tournament appeal on a smaller slate where it will be essential to find any way possible to reduce dupes. The two main concerns here are that Erosa has been chinny, while Padilla has never been finished. So Erosa is far from a safe play, but if he can avoid getting knocked out he’s shown the ability to score well even in decisions and if he can find a finish he has slate-breaking potential in what we expect to be a high-volume brawl. The odds imply he has a 57% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.
Padilla is somewhat of a wildcard as he makes his UFC debut following a two year layoff, but he’s shown himself to be an aggressive striker and a dangerous submission threat. He appears to have fallen more in love with his striking in recent years and hasn’t looked for any takedowns in his recent fights, but he will use his grappling if you put him on his back. He lands a decent amount of striking volume and gets a very favorable matchup to put up a big striking total, as Erosa averages the most significant strikes absorbed on the slate at 6.27/min. Erosa has also been knocked out in 6 of his 10 pro losses, so there are lots of ways for Padilla to score well here. Padilla is also priced at just $7,400 on DraftKings and the line has moved in his favor throughout the week, pushing this close to a pick‘em. That cheap price tag makes it even more likely for him to end up in tournament winning lineups if he pulls off the upset, but will also drive his ownership up some. The odds imply he has a 43% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Rodolfo Vieira
6th UFC Fight (3-2)This matchup had originally been scheduled back in November, but Vieira dropped out and the fight was scrapped. Now it’s being put back together five months later, so these two have had ample time to prepare for one another.
After starting his career off with seven straight finishes, Vieira has now lost two of his last three matches and is coming off his first ever trip to the judges in a decision loss to Chris Curtis. Vieira attempted 20 takedowns in that fight, failing to land any of them, but did show the ability to go three rounds after nearly dying of exhaustion in the second round against Anthony Hernandez in a 2021 submission defeat. After completely gassing out and suffering his first career loss against Hernandez, Vieira came into his next fight much more tentatively and didn’t even attempt a takedown against Dustin Stoltzfus until the second round. After proving to himself that he wouldn’t turn into a pumpkin after the first round ended, Vieira eventually got the fight to the ground in each of the later rounds and then locked up a rear-naked choke in round three. Despite landing the finish, Vieira looked like a different fighter out there as he appeared very nervous about his energy expenditure. He was then scheduled to take on Wellington Turman in January 2022 but ended up withdrawing due to medical concerns, before returning to action against Chris Curtis in June. He’s now dropped out of two of his last three booked fights, which is somewhat concerning.
Now 8-2 as a pro, Vieira has one win by TKO and seven by submission. Five of those finishes came in round one, one ended in round two, and two occurred in round three. The only time he’s ever been finished was in the 2021 R2 submission loss to Anthony Hernandez, with his only other loss coming in his lone decision. Vieira turned pro in MMA in 2017 at 205 lb, before dropping down to 185 lb in his third fight, where he’s stayed since.
Overall, Vieira is a celebrated BJJ black belt and a world champion grappler with numerous titles under his belt. He only transitioned to MMA in 2017, and didn’t show any improvements to his striking until after he suffered his first career loss. Gassing out and getting finished in that match changed him as a fighter moving forward, as he stopped emptying his tank in the first round to hunt for immediate takedowns and submissions. However, he’s actually shown major improvements to both his striking and his energy expenditure in his last two matches, although it’s made him a far less exciting fighter to watch. In fairness to him, his two losses came against two really tough opponents, as he faced a grappler with a never ending gas tank in Anthony Hernandez and then the impenetrable takedown defense of Chris Curtis. He’s submitted all of the other fighters he’s faced in the UFC and at least never stopped trying to get Curtis down. In his five UFC fights, Vieira has landed 12 of his 43 takedown attempts (27.9% accuracy), while he defended all three of the takedowns against him. He’ll get a step down in competition here, so it will be interesting to see how aggressively he comes out.
Cody Brundage
5th UFC Fight (2-2)After the original booking with Vieira fell through in November, Brundage took on a dangerous Michal Oleksiejczuk in December and got knocked out in the first round. His last three fights have now all ended in the first round (2-1), after he lost a wrestling-heavy decision to Nick Maximov in his UFC debut. Brundage narrowly bounced back from the loss in his debut with a fortunate first round submission win over Dalcha Lungiambula, who was absolutely mauling Brundage before getting caught in a hail-mary guillotine. Brundage then landed a first round knockout against Tresean Gore, who for what it’s worth claimed to have a brutal weight cut leading up to the fight.
Now 8-3 as a pro, Brundage has four wins by KO, three submissions, and one decision victory. Five of his seven finishes occurred in the first round, while he also has one in round two and another in round three. He’s also been knocked out twice, both times in the first round, but has never been submitted, with his one other loss coming in a decision in his short notice UFC debut. One of his KO losses came on DWCS in 2020 against William Knight. That fight took place at 205 lb and Brundage has fought anywhere from 185 lb to 205 lb throughout his career, but his last five fights have all been at 185 lb and he claims he could even make 170 lb if he really needed to.
Overall, Brundage is a former college wrestler, but is still pretty raw on the feet. He sometimes gets caught admiring his own handywork after he lands a shot, and doesn’t appear to have the highest fight IQ. However, he’s still relatively early in his career with just 11 pro fights to his name and he only turned pro in 2019. Brundage trains at elevation out of Factory X and is married to former UFC fighter Amanda Bobby Brundage who went 2-4 with the organization before being released. Between his four UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Brundage has landed six takedowns on 13 attempts (46.2% accuracy), while he’s been taken down by his opponents five times on 16 attempts (68.8% defense).
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’0” but Vieira will have a 1” reach advantage, while Brundage is five years younger than the 33-year-old Vieira.
Brundage generally wastes no time looking to wrestle early on in fights, but he’d be foolish to try and take Vieira down early in this one. We expect Brundage to try and test the cardio of Vieira, while keeping the fight standing, at least in the opening round. However, that plan has the potential to backfire, as we expect Vieira to be looking to take Brundage down early and often. Following his infamous collapse against Anthony Hernandez, Vieira didn’t attempt a single takedown in the first round of his next fight as he focussed on preserving his energy. However, he then shot for seven takedowns in the opening round of his last match. While he failed to land any of them, the effort was there and he appeared more confident in his ability to mix in grappling and not once again gas out. While Brundage is a decent wrestler, he looked terrible off his back in his last fight and doesn’t react well once he’s been hurt. He’s never been submitted in his career, but he’s also never faced anyone like Rodolfo Vieira and there’s a really good chance that Vieira hands him his first submission defeat. It’s certainly not impossible that Brundage can land a finish of his own, but we’re taking Vieira by first round submission.
Our favorite bet here is “Vieira R2 or R3 SUB” at +370.
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DFS Implications:
Vieira is a world champion grappler but has now lost two of his last three matches and only scored 84 DraftKings in his last win, after starting his UFC career off with a pair of early submission victories that were both good for 106 points. He hasn’t finished anybody in the first round in three years and dropped out of two of his last three scheduled fights. While none of that is overly encouraging, he’s still a world champion grappler and now gets a step down in competition. His last two losses both came in really tough stylistic matchups, and when he did finally look to grapple in his last win, he was able to lock up a submission without too much trouble. While Brundage is a wrestler and has never been submitted, he hasn’t looked good off his back unless you count snatching up a guillotine against Dalcha Lungiambula, which we don’t. If Vieira can get this fight to the ground or even take Brundage’s back on the feet, he’ll be in a great position to finish him. Brundage has also looked kind of chinny, and it’s not impossible he gets caught focussing exclusively on defending takedowns and gets hurt with a punch. While we would still expect Vieira to try and finish a compromised Brundage with a submission, it’s not entirely impossible he could knock him out. While Vieira’s cardio and striking have both looked improved, it’s still hard to rely on either of them and he’s a boom or bust play who has never won a decision in his career and has failed to score well even with a third round finish. The odds imply he has a 66% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.
Brundage has also been a boom or bust option, with DraftKings scores of 19 and 21 in his two UFC losses, but 115 and 98 in his two wins. He’s fortunate not to be 1-3 in the UFC, after he landed a hail mary submission against Dalcha Lungiambula, in a fight where Brundage looked to be moments away from getting finished. His wrestling heavy fighting style generally raises his floor on DraftKing, but this is probably the last matchup where he will want to be looking for takedowns. That should leave him more reliant on his striking and landing a finish to score well, and to Vieira’s credit, he’s never been knocked out–even if he has looked pretty hittable. Brundage trains at elevation and has the cardio to easily outlast Vieira in an uptempo matchup, but the grappling threat of Vieira makes it dangerous to come at him too aggressively. Because of that, we could see Brundage taking a more conservative approach early on, as he tries to wait until the later rounds to really put it on Vieira. That approach could cap Brundage’s scoring ceiling, although at his cheap price tag there are still lots of ways for him to serve as a value play if he pulls off the upset. Ultimately this is a high variance fight that’s unlikely to make it to the judges, and both guys are capable of finishing the other, but we’re less excited about Brundage’s chances. The odds imply he has a 34% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Caio Borralho
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Coming off his third straight decision win, Borralho has yet to lose in the UFC, but has also yet to really impress. To his credit, he knows how to win and comes into this matchup on a 12 fight winning streak. He hasn’t lost a fight since suffering a 2015 decision defeat in his second pro match. He had to go on DWCS twice to secure a UFC contract. After not getting a contract in a decision win at 185 lb, he returned to the show three weeks later at 205 lb and landed a first round knockout to secure a spot on the roster, which is his only finish in his last seven fights. After throwing an illegal knee in his UFC debut against a fellow debuting fighter, he was fortunate to win a technical decision opposed to suffering a DQ loss. He then got one of the easiest matchups a grappler could ask for in Armen Petrosyan, but was unable to submit the one-dimensional kickboxer and instead justice controlled him for the entire fight on the ground. Most recently he took on a tougher Makhmud Muradov, and really didn’t do much in the fight. Borralho finished ahead just 19-14 in significant strikes and 5:32-4:44 in control time, while Muradov led 76-57 in total strikes and 2-1 in takedowns.
Now 13-1 as a pro, Borralho has four wins by KO, three by submission, and six decisions. His only career loss came in a 2015 decision in his second pro fight. All four of his knockouts have ended in the first round, as have two of his three submission wins. His only finish beyond the first round was a 2016 third round rear-naked choke. While 7 of his 13 career wins have come early, six of his last seven victories have ended in decisions, with the one exception being a first round KO win on DWCS in a fight up at 205 lb against an unimpressive opponent in Jesse Murray who has been finished in the first two rounds in all five of his losses. Borralho started his career at 170 lb in 2014 before moving up to 185 lb in 2018. His only career fight at 205 lb came in his last fight before joining the UFC, before returning to 185 lb for all of his UFC matches.
Overall, Borralho is a well rounded fighter who is a Judo brown belt and a BJJ black belt and has spent extensive time training with Demian Maia, so you know he can handle himself on the mat. With that said, he generally pushes a slower pace, and tends to coast down the stretch in fights. He seems clueless in terms of what the UFC and fans are looking for out of fighters, and hypes himself up way too much after boring decision wins. His karate style paired with his grappling makes for lower significant striking totals in his fights, and he only averages 2.36 SSL/min and 1.60 SSA/min. Between his three UFC fights and two DWCS matches, he’s landed 9 of his 12 takedown attempts (75% accuracy), while his opponents have gotten him down on three of their six attempts (50% defense). While he appears to have all of the physical tools required to be a problem in the division, especially for opponents who can’t grapple, only three of his seven finishes came against opponents with winning records and he looks like a guy who will need to be humbled once or twice before he fully reaches his potential.
Michal Oleksiejczuk
11th UFC Fight (6-3, NC)Fresh off his second straight first round knockout win, Oleksiejczuk has been perfect since dropping down to 185 lb. After suffering a decision loss to Dustin Jacoby at 205 lb in March 2022, Oleksiejczuk finally moved back down to 185 lb, where he had fought his pro debut, and knocked out a washed up, but previously durable, Sam Alvey. He followed that up with a ground and pound knockout of Cody Brundage in his last match, and his power has clearly made the trip down to Middleweight with him. Five of his six UFC wins have come by R1 KO, with the one exception being a 2021 split-decision victory over Modestas Bukauskas, who ran away from him for most of the fight. Oleksiejczuk originally came into the UFC in 2017 with a 12-2 record and on a nine fight winning streak. However, after winning his 2017 UFC debut by decision over Khalil Rountree in 2017, Oleksiejczuk tested positive for a banned estrogen blocker and was suspended for a year, while the results of the fight were overturned to a No Contest. Upon his return, he landed a pair of first round knockouts, but was then submitted in back-to-back fights by Ovince St. Preux and Jimmy Crute in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Since then, he’s won four of his last five fights, with the one loss going the distance and his last three wins ending in first round knockouts.
Now 18-5 as a pro, Oleksiejczuk has 13 wins by KO, one by submission, and four decisions. His last eight and 10 of his 13 KO wins ended in round one, with the other three coming in round two. His lone submission win occurred in the second round of a 2016 match. He’s been knocked out once, submitted three times, and has one decision loss. His lone TKO loss came in the first round of a 2014 fight, while two of his three submission defeats also ended in round one, with the other coming in the first half of round two. Seven of his last nine UFC fights have ended in under a round and a half, with six of those taking less than four minutes. He was always undersized and overweight at 205 lb, so it’s not at all shocking that he’s made the move down to 185 lb for his last two matches, where it appears he’ll stay.
Overall, Oleksiejczuk is a pure striker who’s constantly pressuring his opponents and looking for violent body shots out of the southpaw stance. He’s extremely dangerous with his striking, but has been prone to getting taken down and submitted. Although in fairness, no one has ever finished him at 185 lb. He’s only landed one takedown in his last nine fights and really doesn’t add anything in terms of grappling. In his 10 UFC fights, he’s been taken down 13 times on 23 attempts (43.5% defense), although the majority of those came against Jimmy Crute, who took him down 8 times on 10 attempts.
Fight Prediction:
Borralho will have a 1” height advantage (despite what the UFC stats say) and a 1” reach advantage.
This is a clash of styles between one of the most exciting fighters on the roster and one of the least exciting. Borralho loves to just sit back and control his opponents on the mat for extended periods of time, while Oleksiejczuk comes out throwing punches like he’s double parked. It’s definitely a terrible stylistic matchup for Oleksiejczuk, who has struggled on the mat and has a poor 43% takedown defense, but he’s so dangerous with his hands that he only needs to land one punch to put Borralho down. That makes this a more volatile spot than the odds suggest, but as long as Borralho can avoid getting knocked out in the first round, he’ll likely grind out another boring decision on the mat, with a chance he can lock up a submission if he shows more urgency to actually try and finish a fight. Borralho by decision is the pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Borralho DEC or SUB” at -165.
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DFS Implications:
Borralho has all of the physical tools required to put up big DFS scores as he’s a big powerful guy with good grappling, however he has no sense of urgency when it comes to looking for a finish and he’s been content with just controlling opponents on the mat for extended periods of time and grinding out decisions. That has resulted in him scoring just 75, 80, and 77 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, with all of those fights going the distance. While he’s won 12 straight matches, six of his last seven victories have gone the distance and he’s given us no indication that he even cares about putting on exciting fights or getting anyone out of there. If he starts being busier on the ground, he could put up a big DraftKings even without a finish, but until he shows us more it’s hard to rely on him doing more. As the most expensive fighter on the slate, he’ll not only need a finish here to end up in tournament winning lineups, he’ll also need to outscore all of the other high priced options, so simply landing a takedown and locking up a rear-naked choke may not be enough. While this is a very favorable matchup for Borralho to find grappling success and land a submission, backing Borralho to score well is an agonizing exercise in futility, so prepare to be disappointed. The odds imply he has a 75% chance to win, a 50% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.
Oleksiejczuk is an aggressive one-dimensional striker who’s landed first round knockouts in five of his six UFC wins. He averaged an insane 119 DraftKings points in those five knockouts, but scored just 59 points in his lone UFC decision victory. He recently moved down from 205 lb to 185 lb for his last two fights, and since finished both of his opponents in the first round. Therefore, we have limited data to work with when it comes to his durability, wrestling defense, and cardio at the new weight class. That adds some additional uncertainty to an already volatile fighter. While Oleksiejczuk is always live to knock opponents out early, he hasn’t knocked anybody out after the first round since 2015 and tends to slow down later in fights. Also working against him, Borralho has never been finished in his career. So overall, Oleksiejczuk looks like a R1 KO or bust option in a tough matchup against an opponent who will be looking to take him down and control him. The odds imply he has a 25% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Ricky Simon
11th UFC Fight (8-2)This fight had originally been scheduled to go three-rounds on last week’s card, but got moved into the main event slot here after the Renato Moicano versus Arman Tsarukyan main event fell through when Moicano dropped out. So both of these two only had about a week and a half to prepare for the additional two rounds.
Winner of five straight, Simon is coming off an upset victory over a previously undefeated Jack Shore, where Simon locked up a second round arm-triangle choke just after hurting Shore on the feet. Simon was also able to take Shore down twice and control him for four minutes, while outlanding him in the match. Prior to that, Simon knocked out an aging Raphael Assuncao, who entered that matchup on a three fight skid and recently retired after losing five of his last six fights. That’s Simon’s only knockout win since 2018, just before he joined the UFC. Simon impressively started his UFC career with wins over Merab Dvalishvili, Montel Jackson, and Rani Yahya. He was able to catch Dvalishvili and Jackson early in their careers and was losing to Dvalishvili until he landed a submission as time expired in the fight, but those wins both aged quite well. After five of Simon’s first six UFC fights made it to the third round, with four of those going the distance, he finished three of his last four opponents, all in round two.
Now 20-3 as a pro, Simon has six wins by KO/TKO, four by submission, and 10 decisions. He’s been knocked out once (R1 by Urijah Faber in 2019), submitted once (R2 by Anderson dos Santos in 2016), and has one decision loss (Rob Font 2019). Nine of Simon’s 10 UFC fights have seen the second round, with six making it to round three, and five going the distance (4-1). All four of his finishes in the UFC have come after the seven minute mark, with three in round two and one as the third round ended. Simon has spent the vast majority of his career at 135 lb, but has also gone 4-0 at 145 lb, although only one of those fights was in the UFC, which was when he defeated Brian Kelleher, who has gone back and forth between 135 lb and 145 lb.
This will be the 4th five-round fight of Simon’s career, but first in the UFC. The first fight of his career scheduled to go five rounds was against Anderson dos Santos in 2016 for the vacant Titan FC Bantamweight belt and Simon got submitted in the second round. His next five-round fight was in 2017 for the vacant LFA Bantamweight belt and Simon won a decision, which is the only time he’s been to the championship rounds. He then defended the belt in his next match but landed a 59 second R1 knockout to literally punch his ticket to the UFC.
Overall, Simon is a BJJ black belt and a relentless wrestler who averages 12.7 takedown attempts per 15 minutes. Between his 10 UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Simon had landed 57 takedowns on 109 attempts (52.3% accuracy), while getting taken down by his opponents 10 times on 40 attempts (75% defense). He landed at least two takedowns in all of those fights except his R1 KO loss to Urijah Faber. After getting taken down eight times in his first two UFC fights against Dvalishvili and Jackson, he’s only been taken down once on 15 attempts in his last eight fights and not at all in his last five matches. And after getting outlanded by four of his first five UFC opponents, Simon has finished ahead in striking in five straight matches.
Yadong Song
12th UFC Fight (8-2-1)Looking to bounce back from a post R4 doctor stoppage TKO against Cory Sandhagen, 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. Prior to that loss, Song had won three straight, and he’s gone 10-2-1 in his last 13 fights, with his only other UFC loss coming in a 2021 decision against Kyler Phillips. While his last three fights have all ended in KO/TKOs, Song had fought to four straight decisions (2-1-1) before that.
Now 19-7-1 as a pro, Song has eight wins by KO, three by submission, and eight decisions. The only time Song has ever been finished came in a 2016 R2 knockout when he was just 18 years old, in a match that was fought up at Featherweight (145 lb) prior to joining the UFC. 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. So far in the UFC, he’s 2-0 with a submission and a decision at 145 lb and 6-1-1 at 135 lb with four knockout victories and four decisions (2-1-1).
This will be the 2nd five-round fight of Song’s career, with the first being his recent R4 TKO loss to Cory Sandhagen. Song has still never been in a fight that lasted longer than 20 minutes and lost the 3rd and 4th rounds in that last fight after winning rounds one and two. With that said, he didn’t show any cardio issues and seems equipped to go five rounds.
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. Despite turning pro all the way back in 2013, he’s still just 25 years old. He’s an excellent striker with very fast hands and good power, but doesn’t offer much in terms of grappling. In his 11 UFC fights, he’s only landed five takedowns on nine attempts (55.6% accuracy), while his opponents have gotten him down on 12 of their 42 attempts (71.4% defense). The last five opponents who tried to take him down all landed at least one of their attempts, with three 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 recently take part in a grappling match just before fighting Sandhagen and was submitted in that, although that also shows he’s at least been trying to work on his grappling.
Fight Prediction:
Song will have a 2” height advantage, but Simon will have a 2” reach advantage.
This sets up as a striker versus grappler match and while Song is 6-0 in UFC fights where his opponents have failed to take him down, he’s just 2-2-1 when giving up even a single takedown. While he has a pretty good 71% takedown defense, the last five opponents who tried to take him down all landed at least one of their attempts. Simon is relentless with his attempts, although he’s yet to show at the UFC level that he can keep up that high wrestling pace for 25 minutes and this fight was moved from three rounds to five just a week and a half ago. That creates some concern with his cardio in the later rounds and also the potential for him to try and space himself more than he would in a three-round fight. However, at least Simon has been in one 25 minute fight in the past, while Song has never been past the fourth round. Late round cardio will be a question for both guys, but Simon relies more on putting a pace on his opponents to win fights, while Song is more of a tactical striker, so it will be tougher for Simon to execute his game plan with compromised cardio. Perhaps the pace Simon sets can wear Song out before it affects Simon’s own gas tank, but that remains to be seen. Whoever wins the cardio battle should be in a great position to take over in the later rounds and likely win the fight if we don’t see an early finish. In addition to being the superior striker, Song is really durable and has also never been submitted, which will leave Simon more reliant on winning at least three rounds on the mat and surviving to see the judges. Song’s coach, Urijah Faber, was able to knock Simon out in 2019, and it’s certainly possible Song is able to clip Simon with something and put him away early. However, if that doesn't happen, and we don’t really think it will, then we expect this to go the distance and end in a close decision with Simon pacing himself enough to last five rounds and doing enough with his wrestling to get his hand raised with the judges.
Our favorite bet here is “FGTD” at +140.
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DFS Implications:
Simon has been a DFS scoring machine, averaging 103 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, despite four of those fights going the distance. He also would have scored 121 DraftKings points in another decision on DWCS back in 2017. His last six wins have all returned scores of 98 or more and he’s shown both a solid floor and ceiling. Now he’s stepping into his first five-round fight in the UFC, so he’ll have even more time to rack up stats with his wrestling-heavy approach. However, it’s important to remember that this matchup had originally been scheduled to go three rounds on last week’s card before being upgraded to the main event here with just a week and a half to prepare for the additional two rounds. That introduces potential cardio concerns for both guys, but especially for Simon who relies on setting a high pace with his wrestling. That leaves us with three likely scenarios and two of them could negatively impact his scoring potential. Either his cardio will hold up fine and he’ll push his normal pace for five rounds, which seems unlikely with so little time to prepare, or he’ll try to keep his normal pace and gas out in the later rounds, or he’ll pace himself for a longer fight by slowing things down early. We’re guessing it will be a combination of the latter two scenarios, with him attempting to pace himself but likely still slowing down in the championship rounds. We still expect him to score well if he wins, but it’s unlikely he’ll be able to keep his normal three-round pace for 25 minutes and put up an other-worldy score. And if he does slow the pace down some, a poorly timed mid round finish could struggle to really score well. With that said, at his midrange price tag he’s still more likely than not to end up in tournament winning lineups with a win here. The odds imply Simon has a 53% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Song has averaged 95 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, but only 77 points in his three decision victories. He’s only been in one five-round fight, which was his recent post R4 TKO loss due to a doctor stoppage for a cut above his eye. He only scored 50 DraftKings points and 44 points on FanDuel in the loss and even if the fight hadn’t been stopped and he had gone on to win a decision, he was only on pace to score 92.5 DraftKings points and 75 points on FanDuel. Part of that slower pace can be attributed to the fact that he was forced to defend 14 takedown attempts in the fight, successfully defending 13 of those. Now he’ll face another opponent who will be looking to take him down, and we expect Simon to have more success than Sandhagen did in getting this fight to the ground. Supporting that notion, Sandhagen entered that matchup with just a 33% takedown accuracy while Simon is coming in with a 52% accuracy. Song only averages 4.55 SSL/min and has only landed two takedowns in his last eight fights. That will leave Song reliant on landing a finish to really score well, although at his cheap price tag we could still see him serve as a value play in a decision win. There are also ways he gets controlled early and then fails to score well with a finish in the middle rounds, and this overall isn’t a great matchup for him. However, the fact that it was elevated from three rounds to five on just a week and a half’s notice does add some uncertainty to the mix when it comes to both fighters’ cardio. The line moved in Song’s favor early in the week, which should drive his ownership up some, which also reduces his tournament appeal, especially on another small slate where it will be more of a challenge to create unique lineups. The odds imply Song has a 47% chance to win, a 34% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
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