The Sheet

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Fighter Notes:

Fight #12

Claudio Ribeiro

2nd UFC Fight (0-1)

Ribeiro is looking to bounce back from a R2 KO loss in his January UFC debut against Abdul Razak Alhassan, where Ribeiro landed a lot of leg kicks but struggled with being pressed up against the cage and got controlled for three minutes in a fight that lasted just five and a half minutes. Prior to that loss, Ribeiro had knocked out six straight opponents with five of those ending in round one, including a 25 second R1 KO win on DWCS. Just keep in mind, he fought a lot of dubious competition before joining the UFC.

Now 10-3 as a pro, all 10 of Ribeiro’s wins have come by knockout, with eight ending in round one, one coming in round two, and the other ending in round five. His only knockout loss came in his recent UFC debut, while his lone submission loss came in the first round of his 2017 pro debut. His one other defeat was a 2018 decision, which is the only time he’s ever required the judges. Ribeiro fought at 170 until 2019 when he moved up to 185 lb following an uninspiring decision loss. He interestingly only weighed 181.5 lb on DWCS and 183 lb for his UFC debut, so he seems a little undersized at 185 lb.

Overall, Ribeiro is a one-dimensional striker who started his training in boxing before moving to Muay Thai and allegedly jiu-jitsu. He hasn’t shown anything in terms of offensive grappling and has no interest in going to the mat. His takedown defense and ability to get back up are decent, but don’t expect him to look for any takedowns of his own. He can be a little wild with his striking, but when he connects he does damage. He’ll also mix in a lot of leg kicks, but often throws them blindly without setting them up first, which will catch up with him eventually when someone times one on him. He successfully defended both of the takedowns attempted on him in his UFC debut, but he did get controlled along the cage for over half the fight.

Joseph Holmes

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Fighting for his job, Holmes is now 1-2 in the UFC after getting submitted in the second round by Jun Yong Park in his last fight. Just before that he landed a submission of his own against a terrible Alen Amedovski just 64 seconds into the first round. He also lost a decision in his UFC debut against Jamie Pickett after winning seven straight fights before joining the organization.

Now 8-3 as a pro, Holmes has two wins by TKO and six submissions. Both of his TKO wins occurred in round one as did three of his submission victories. His other three submission wins occurred midway through the second round. Holmes generally fights at 185 lb, but has fought anywhere from 170 lb to 200 lb in the past. While he’s never been knocked out, he’s been submitted once and has lost both of the decisions he’s been to.

Overall, Holmes remains a work in progress who needs to improve both his wrestling and striking. It can’t help that he was forced to leave Glory MMA and find a new coach and gym after everything that went down there, and this will be his first UFC fight without Krause in his corner. He’s now at WAR Training Center, a smaller gym in Tomball, Texas. Still just 27 years old, he appears to have all of the physical tools to be a dangerous UFC fighter and at 6’4” and he’s got good size for the Middleweight division. However, he’s still very raw in all facets of his game. With a background in Jiu-Jitsu, he’s most comfortable on the mat looking for rear-naked chokes, but he’s struggled to get the fight there and showed in his last fight that he can’t hang with anyone decent on the ground as he got submitted by Jun Yong Park. His cardio is also a concern as we’ve seen him fade later in fights. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed three of his eight takedown attempts (37.5% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on four of their nine attempts (55.6% defense). We haven’t seen much striking volume in any of his fights and he only averages 3.10 SSL/min and 2.73 SSA/min, with no one landing more than 51 significant strikes in any of his matches.

UPDATE: Holmes missed weight by 3 lb!

Fight Prediction:

Holmes will have a 3” height and reach advantage.

Holmes will have the size and grappling advantages in this matchup and is also likely fighting for his job at 1-2 in the UFC. Ribeiro is the more explosive striker, so Holmes would be wise to rely more on his jiu jitsu, and six of his eight career wins have come by submission. He’s by no means a great grappler, but he may not need to be here. He should be able to use his size to control Ribeiro and wear him down until an opportunity to take his back presents itself. It’s always possible Ribeiro draws the inexperienced Holmes into a firefight, which wouldn’t be the smartest move for Holmes, but either guy is capable of knocking out the other. This fight has the potential to go either way, and we were leaning towards Holmes pulling off the upset with a second round submission win, but his large weight miss now has us backpedaling and makes it more likely that Ribeiro knocks him out early.

Our favorite bet here is “Holmes SUB” at +400.

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DFS Implications:

Ribeiro is a one-dimensional striker who offers nothing in terms of grappling and relies on landing knockouts to win fights, with eight of his 10 career wins coming ending in R1 KOs and the other two ending in the later rounds. We’ve seen him struggle with getting controlled along the fence, and now he’ll be the smaller man going against an opponent that likes to grapple, so it won’t be surprising to see that again here. However, both of these fighters are pretty low-level and neither can be trusted to execute a smart gameplan. It’s entirely possible Ribeiro can draw Holmes into a firefight and finish him on the feet and if he can keep this a striking battle he’ll have a good shot at landing another knockout and putting up a big score. This is a volatile matchup, but the winner has a good shot at putting up a big score and it’s the second most likely fight on the card to end early according to the odds. We just need to avoid Holmes controlling Ribeiro along the fence for the entire first round and then Ribeiro knocking Holmes out early in round two (AKA the Phil Rowe special). The odds imply he has a 61% chance to win, a 51% chance to land a finish, and a 28% chance it comes in round one.

Holmes is coming off the first early loss of his career where he got submitted by Jun Yong Park, but he’s still never been knocked out. He’s sitting at 1-2 in the UFC and is likely fighting for his job here. He just switched gyms, as he had been training at Glory MMA and this will be his first UFC fight without James Krause in his corner. He’ll be the bigger fighter in this match and if he has any clue, he’ll be looking to wrestle and utilize his size and grappling against the one-dimensional striker in Ribeiro, who just got controlled for over half of his UFC debut by Abdul Razak Alhassan. While we trust Holmes about as far as we can throw him, it’s do or die for him in a great stylistic matchup. At his cheap price tag, even a dominant decision win could be enough for him to be useful, but he has all of the tools required to finish this fight either on the feet or the mat. After getting dominated by Park in his last fight, we should be able to get Holmes at lower ownership, which also adds to his tournament appeal. The odds imply he has a 39% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #11

Ikram Aliskerov

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Making his UFC debut on a five fight winning streak following a first round submission win on DWCS, Aliskerov’s only career loss came in a R1 KO against Khamzat Chimaev in 2019. Three of his last four wins came by kimura and he nearly locked up another one in the other fight, which ultimately went the distance. Seven of his last eight fights have gone the distance, but only three of those ended in the first round.

Now 13-1 as a pro, Aliskerov has four wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and four decision victories. Two of those knockouts came in round one with the other two ending in round three. Three of his submission wins ended in the first round, one came in round two, and the other ended in round three. Four of his last five finishes came in the later rounds, with three of those ending in round three.

Overall, Aliskerov is a Dagestani four time Combat Sambo World Champion who has spent time training with Khabib and looks to be the next hot grappling prospect from Dagestan. While all of his recent wins have come through his grappling, he has shown the ability to strike when he needs to, but it’s definitely his grappling that got him to the UFC and he’s not a guy that will put up big striking totals. He does a good job of avoiding damage (except for in the Chimaev fight) and looks kind of like Makhachev lite. We still need to see how he fares against top level talent in the UFC, but he’s definitely a guy to keep an eye on moving forward and we expect him to make a run in the division.

Phil Hawes

7th UFC Fight (4-2)

Miraculously coming back just six months after appearing to suffer a devastating knee injury from a Roman Dolidze kneebar, Hawes apparently avoided serious injury because he was back training in Thailand with no knee brace just two months later. That fight was somehow not stopped after the submission, and not only did Hawes get his knee damaged, he also got knocked out shortly after. So one of the rare times where you get to see someone submitted and knocked out in the same fight. That was Hawes’ second first round KO loss in his last three fights, as he also got finished by a debuting Chris Curtis in November 2021. In between those two losses, Hawes absolutely dominated Deron Winn and landed an impressive second round TKO win. That remains Hawes’ only early win since he knocked out Jacob Malkoun in just 18 seconds in his 2020 UFC debut. Hawes followed that up with a pair of wrestling-heavy decision wins over Nassourdine Imavov and Kyle Daukaus, leading up to the loss to Curtis.

Now 12-4 as a pro, Hawes has eight wins by KO, two by submission, and two decisions. He’s been finished in the first two rounds in all four of his losses, with three KOs and one submission. Nine of his last 10 fights either ended in round one (5-2) or went the distance (2-0), although his most recent win ended in round two.

Overall, Hawes is a powerful striker with a D1 wrestling background. Between his two DWCS appearances and his six UFC fights, Hawes has landed 9 of his 25 takedown attempts (36% accuracy), while he defended all seven of the takedowns against him (100% defense). All seven of those attempts were from Kyle Daukaus (25% career takedown accuracy). He averages a respectable 5.46 SSL/min and 3.49 SSA/min and was able to land 118 significant strikes against Deron Winn in less than two rounds of action and 48 significant strikes against Chris Curtis in less than one round. However, we’ve seen Hawes get hurt at multiple points in the past and his chin and late round cardio remain his biggest liabilities. Working in his favor, he’s from New Jersey so he’ll be fighting in front of his home crowd, which could help him on the scorecards if this ends in a close decision.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 6’0” tall but Hawes will have a 1” reach advantage. Aliskerov is four years younger than the 34-year-old Hawes.

Both of these two have wrestling backgrounds and have shown impenetrable takedown defenses, but we rarely see anyone even try to take them down. They’ve both been knocked out in the past, although that’s been a bigger issue for Hawes, who’s looked pretty chinny at multiple points and has three KO/TKO losses on his record to the one of Aliskerov. Hawes has officially been submitted once, but was essentially submitted a second time in his last fight, although Dolidze released the submission after hearing Hawes’ knee pop and the ref let the fight play on until Hawes was eventually knocked out. The ultimate question in this fight will be whether or not Hawes’ 100% takedown defense can hold up against a Combat Sambo World Champion. If it can, Hawes will have a solid chance to pull off the upset with either a knockout or in a decision. However, if Aliskerov can get this fight to the mat, he should be able to dominate on the ground, with a good chance of locking up a submission, or worst case grind out a wrestling-heavy decision win. Hawes has never faced anyone like Aliskerov so it’s hard to know just how good his takedown defense really is. And even if it does hold up early on, Hawes has a tendency to slow down later in fights, while Aliskerov has shown the ability to go three hard rounds and oftentimes finish opponents in the final five minutes. That will likely leave Hawes dependent on either landing a knockout in the first 10 minutes or winning both of the first two rounds and surviving the third to win a close decision. While either of those are possible, it’s asking a lot for Hawes to avoid getting taken down for the first 10 minutes of the fight and once Aliskerov gets him down it will be tough for Hawes to win that round. That likely leaves Hawes as an early KO or bust option and we’ll say Aliskerov is able to get him down and finish him. While Hawes has been chinny and Aliskerov will throw dangerous knees, we’ll say Aliskerov wins by submission, most likely with another kimura.

Our favorite bet here is “Aliskerov SUB” at +320.

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DFS Implications:

Aliskerov is the latest Dagestani Combat Sambo Champion to hit the UFC and his grappling heavy style will tend to score better on DraftKings than FanDuel the longer fights go, whereas he’ll be more reliant on landing early finishes on FanDuel. He generally does a good job of landing takedowns and racking up control time and ground strikes, but won’t put up huge significant striking totals. Six of his last seven wins have come early, so he has done a good job of getting opponents out of there, typically on the mat, and lately he’s been finishing everyone with his nasty kimura. However, now he’s going against a former D1 college wrestler with a 100% takedown defense and solid power in his hands, so this will be a true test for Aliskerov in his UFC debut. A win here would likely fastrack Aliskerov towards the rankings, while a loss could force the UFC to give him an easy opponent next to build him back up. While Aliskerov has the ability to dominate fights on the mat, he’ll either need a finish or a huge takedown total to return value at his expensive price tag. He’s fully capable of achieving either of those, but it won’t be surprising if he fails to crack tournament winning lineups in a decision win or potentially even with a late finish if we see a slower start. The odds imply he has a 64% chance to win, a 47% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.

Hawes has been a boom or bust DFS scoring machine, averaging 114 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins, but just 16 points in his two losses, which both ended in first round knockouts. While he was able to score 95 and 96 DraftKings points in his two decision wins, those both relied on him controlling the wrestling exchanges, something we’d be very surprised to see here. That will likely leave him reliant on landing a knockout to score well and we have seen Aliskerov knocked out once before (by Chimaev). The tricky thing for Hawes will be that he’ll constantly have to worry about getting taken down, which will make it tougher for him to freely let his hands go. So don’t be surprised if we see a more tactical approach from him, which would be detrimental to his DFS production. Hawes has historically been highly owned in most of his UFC fights, and this will be the cheapest he’s ever been. So despite the bad matchup, look for him to be popular once again. That lowers his tournament appeal some, but if he does land a knockout, it’s hard to see him getting left out of tournament winning lineups. The odds imply he has a 36% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #10

Parker Porter

7th UFC Fight (3-3)

Looking to bounce back from a pair of first round losses, Porter just got knocked out in 66 seconds by Justin Tafa only three months ago. Prior to that, he got submitted in the first round by Jailton Almeida, after winning three straight decisions against low level opponents in Alan Baudot, Chase Sherman, and Josh Parisian. Leading up to that winning streak, Porter got knocked out in the first round in the first round of his short notice UFC debut against Chris Daukaus and all three of his UFC losses have come in round one, while all three of his UFC wins went the distance. Porter is now 38 years old and was once knocked out by Jon Jones a lifetime ago back in 2008.

Now 12-8 as a pro, Porter has five wins by KO/TKO, three by submission, and four decisions. His last two and three of his five knockout wins occurred in the third round, with the other two ending in round one, but the last time he finished anybody was in 2019, just before joining the UFC. It’s been 12 years since he finished an opponent in the first round. All three of his submission wins occurred in the first two rounds, with the last two ending in round two. All eight of his losses have come early, with four KO/TKOs, three submissions, and one DQ. Seven of his eight early losses occurred in round one, with the one exception being a 2011 R3 submission defeat.

Overall, Porter is a Heavyweight journeyman who throws a good amount of volume and mixes in grappling, but lacks serious knockout power or overly impressive submission skills. After only one of his first 15 pro fights went the distance, Porter has now been to the judges in three of his last five fights and has yet to finish an opponent at the UFC level. He likes going for kimura and keylock submissions, but hasn’t landed one since 2019, with his second most recent submission win occurring in 2015. His only two KO/TKO wins since 2011 both came in the third round. He relies on his volume and grappling to outland his way to decision wins and normally sets a high pace for such a big guy, averaging 6.49 SSL/min and 6.33 SSA/min. In his six UFC fights, he’s landed 5 of his 20 takedown attempts (25% accuracy), while his opponents have gotten him down one time on two attempts (50% defense). This will be the final fight on Porter’s contract, so he’s fighting for his job.

Braxton Smith

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Making his UFC debut following five straight first round knockout wins over just a 10 month stretch from May 2022 to March 2023, Smith has never been in a fight that lasted longer than 128 seconds. He got knocked out in the first round by Chase Sherman in his 2014 pro debut and then didn’t fight again for over eight years before returning in 2022. In a recent interview, he said his Mom is the one who got him into fighting, and after she passed away his drive to keep on fighting just wasn’t there so he stepped from the sport and went and signed with an arena football team in Vermont in 2017. He got back into fighting in 2022 and his last four fights have been on the Texas regional scene with the relatively unknown Peak Fighting organization.

Now 5-1 as a pro, Smith has five first round knockout wins and one first round knockout loss. Four of his five wins came in under two minutes, with two ending in the first 49 seconds of round one.

Overall, Smith is a stocky, powerful striker, but is still very early in his career. While he technically turned pro all the way back in 2014, he completely stepped away from fighting for eight years after that only got back into it a year ago. So he’s still super green and even said he was self trained up until his last fight. He hasn’t shown any sort of grappling game to this point and has never had his cardio tested, but he did say he played running back in his football days and claims to have been able to run a 4.4 forty. Based on his body type we’d be surprised if he had the cardio to go three rounds, but you never know.

Fight Prediction:

Porter will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while Smith is five years younger than the 38-year-old Porter.

This matchup will test experience against power, as Porter turned pro over 15 years ago, while Smith essentially has just a year of experience. We fully expect Smith to come out looking to take Porter’s head off, so it will be interesting to see if Porter comes in looking to rely on his grappling. All eight of Porter’s career losses have come early, with seven of those ending in round one, and if the fight stays standing he most likely gets knocked out early again here. However, if Porter can simply survive the opening minutes of the match, we expect to see Smith gas out and Porter take over. That’s far from a certainty since we’ve never seen Smith extended in a fight, but we’d be surprised if he looked nearly as explosive after the first round and could very well completely go off a cliff. If Porter can get the fight to the mat, he’ll have a great shot at locking up a submission or ground and pounding his way to a late finish or a decision win. While the single most likely outcome here is probably for Smith to knock Porter out in round one, Porter likely wins in all other scenarios, so he’s still our pick. We’ll say he finds a finish on the mat in the later rounds, but it also wouldn’t be shocking to see him grind out another decision win.

Our favorite bet here is “Braxton Smith R1 KO” at +340.

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DFS Implications:

In his three UFC wins, which all ended in decisions, Porter put up DraftKings scores of 77, 101, and 106. He’s shown the ability to land a ton of striking volume, while also mixing in some grappling to further boost his scoring. However, he’s yet to show any finishing ability inside of the UFC Octagon and also hasn’t landed a finish in the first round of any fight since 2011. Now he’ll be fighting for his job against an inexperienced newcomer who will be looking to knock Porter’s head off with every punch. That makes this an incredibly volatile fight, as Porter could get immediately finished, or Smith could gas out trying and Porter could maul him in the later rounds. Because Smith has never been in a fight that lasted longer than 128 seconds, there’s no history of him gassing out later in fights, but he certainly fits the profile for that. With the line moving in Smith’s favor and Porter coming off back-to-back first round losses, Porter should come in low owned and will make for a great tournament play, who just needs to remain conscious for the opening five minutes to have a great chance of scoring well. The odds imply he has a 59% chance to win, a 49% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.

Smith looks like your prototypical R1 KO or bust Heavyweight who has a massively wide range of scoring outcomes. All six of his pro fights have ended in first round knockouts, with him winning the last five of those. He’s making his debut against a 38-year-old opponent who has eight early losses, with seven of those ending in round one, and who just got knocked out three months ago. So at least on paper this sets up perfectly for Smith to come in and land another first round knockout, which at his cheap price tag would almost guarantee him a spot in winning tournament lineups on both sites. However, Smith is incredibly green and Porter is a 15 year MMA veteran, so there are a ton of ways this goes sideways for Smith. He could gas out, get clipped, get taken down, get outpointed, or just get pushed up against the cage. His cardio is a mystery since he’s never been past the midway point of round one, but we’d be surprised if he looked even remotely as dangerous in round two as he looks in round one. So if Smith can’t get Porter out of there early, look for the veteran in Porter to take over in the later rounds and win the fight. That leaves Smith as a popular R1 KO or bust option who’s facing a step up in competition for his UFC debut in front of a live crowd on a big PPV card. The odds imply he has a 41% chance to win, a 34% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #9

Marina Rodriguez

11th UFC Fight (6-2-2)

Looking to bounce back from the first early loss of her career, Rodriguez got finished by Amanda Lemos in an early third round TKO in a November main event. Leading up to that loss, Rodriguez won four straight fights, with the last three of those going the distance, although that last decision win was split and probably should have gone the other way. Rodriguez curiously fought to two majority draws in her first four UFC fights, with both of those coming against grapplers. Her other two fights over that four fight stretch both ended in decision wins, before she lost a split decision to Carla Esparza in 2020, and then rattled off four straight wins leading up to her recent loss. Eight of her 10 UFC fights have gone the distance, with four of those decisions being split/majority (1-1-2). Her only early win in the UFC was a second round TKO over Amanda Ribas, while her only early loss was her recent R3 TKO against Lemos. Three of her last four fights were scheduled to go five rounds (2-1) and this will be just her second three-round fight since 2021.

Now 16-2-2 as a pro, Rodriguez has six wins by TKO, one submission, and nine decision victories. While she does have seven finishes on her record, five of those came in her first six fights against less experienced opponents and she only has one early win since 2018. She has one TKO loss and one decision defeat, but has been involved in a lot of close decisions.

Overall, Rodriguez is a very solid Muay Thai striker, but she doesn’t offer anything in terms of offensive grappling and she’s only landed one takedown on five attempts in 10 UFC fights and hasn’t even attempted any in her last seven matches. She did also land her only takedown attempt on DWCS Brazil, which factors into her 33.3% career takedown accuracy. On the flipside, she’s been taken down 16 times on 46 attempts by her opponents (65.2% defense), with all 10 of her UFC opponents attempting at least one takedown against her, and eight of them finding success. She’s been taken down at least once in seven straight fights. She averages 4.80 SSL/min and 3.05 SSA/min, but she generally doesn’t put up huge striking totals. Instead, she relies more on calculated power to pick her opponents apart and uses her length well to control the distance.

Virna Jandiroba

8th UFC Fight (4-3)

A year removed from a decision win over Angela Hill, Jandiroba has traded wins and losses over her last five fights, but both of her losses over that stretch came in decisions against fellow BJJ black belts in Amanda Ribas and Mackenzie Dern with elite grappling. Her only other career loss came in a decision in her UFC debut against another tough wrestler in Carla Esparza. While her last win went the distance, Jandiroba’s previous three decisions wins all ended in the first two rounds, with a pair of submissions, and a TKO via arm injury from another submission.

Now 18-3 as a pro, Jandiroba has one win by KO/TKO (Post R2 2021), 13 submissions, and four decision victories. Her lone TKO win would have gone down as a submission, but her opponent never tapped to the armbar that broke her arm and eventually forced the stoppage. Eight of her submission wins ended in the first round, four came in round two, and one occurred in round three. Jandiroba has never been finished, with all three of her losses going the distance.

Jandiroba came into the UFC in 2019 as a scrawny one-dimensional grappler, but has added a lot of muscle and improved her striking in recent years. She’s still not a great striker by any means, but she’s no longer entirely helpless on the feet. As a high-level BJJ black belt, her strength is still clearly her grappling, but she can at least set up her takedowns with striking now. Prior to joining the UFC, Jandiroba won 14 straight fights, with 11 of those coming by submission. Her last 12 finishes have all come in the first two rounds and she’s the most dangerous in round one. In her seven UFC fights, she’s landed 12 of her 31 takedown attempts (38.7% accuracy), while her opponents have gotten her down on 6 of their 23 attempts (73.9% defense). She only averages 2.45 SSL/min and 3.19 SSA/min and has never landed more than 63 significant strikes in a fight or absorbed more than 88.

Fight Prediction:

Rodriguez will have a 3” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.

This is a classic striker versus grappler matchup and we’ve yet to see Jandiroba ever lose to a pure striker. While Rodriguez has never been submitted in her career, Jandiroba will have a massive advantage on the mat and even if she can’t lock up a submission, we could see her grind out another decision win on the ground. While Rodriguez is a dangerous striker, she’s only landed one finish since 2018 and Jandiroba has never been finished, so it’s unlikely we see Rodriguez knock her out. Considering Rodriguez has been taken down in seven straight fights, it’s hard to be confident in her abilities to keep this one standing. Because of that, we like Jandiroba to win the fight on the mat, and either lock up a submission in the first two rounds or grind out a decision victory.

Our favorite bet here is Jandiroba’s ML at +115.

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DFS Implications:

Rodriguez is a dangerous Muay Thai striker but doesn’t offer anything in terms of offensive grappling and has only landed one takedown in 10 UFC fights and none in her last seven. That leaves her more reliant on landing finishes to score well and 8 of her 10 UFC fights have gone the distance. She only scored 61 DraftKings points and 63 points on FanDuel in her last three-round decision victory and the only time she’s topped 89 DraftKings points was in a 2019 high-volume decision win against a low-level opponent, where Rodriguez was able to fill up the stat sheet. Now she’ll face a high-level grappler who will be looking to take her down and the only way Rodriguez will score well is with a finish. And even in her lone early win in the UFC, Rodriguez only scored 88 DraftKings points after getting controlled for most of the first round, which could happen again here. Jandiroba has never been finished in her career and Rodriguez only has one early win in her 10 UFC fights, so it’s highly unlikely that Rodriguez is able to find the well-timed knockout she needs to score well. The only thing she has going for her is that she’ll be very low owned, so if she does put up a big score, she’ll offer tournament winning upside and greatly help to reduce dupes. The odds imply she has a 56% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

Jandiroba has “only” averaged 91 DraftKings points in her four UFC wins, despite three of those ending early. She’s coming off her first UFC decision victory where she scored just 79 points. In her three finishes, she returned DraftKings totals of 86, 101, and 97 and generally lacks the striking volume (2.45 SSL/min) or takedown numbers (2.3 TDL/15 min) to put up huge scores. However, she is a very dangerous submission threat and will also offer some wrestling upside on DraftKings, so she still looks like a decent value play here at her cheap price tag. Working against her, Rodriguez has never been submitted, lowering the chances that Jandiroba finds a finish here. The odds imply she has a 44% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #8

Khaos Williams

7th UFC Fight (4-2)

A year removed from a split decision loss to Randy Brown, Williams started out blazing hot in the UFC with a pair of highlight reel 30 second R1 KO wins over UFC veterans in Alex Morono and Abdul Razak Alhassan. However, he’s now seen the third round in four straight fights, with three of those going the distance (1-2). Leading up to his recent loss, he was able to land a third round knockout against Miguel Baeza in 2021, but that’s Williams’ only finish since 2020. After fighting three times in 2020 and twice in 2021, he only fought once in 2022 so he hasn’t been especially active lately.

Now 13-3 as a pro, Williams has seven wins by KO, one by submission, and five decisions. He’s never been finished and all three of his losses went the distance. Six of his eight finishes have come in the first round, one ended early in round two, and the most recent came a minute into round three.

Overall, Williams is a patient one-dimensional power puncher who generally either knocks opponents out immediately or fights to decisions, although he did land his first late round finish in his second most recent match. In his six UFC fights, he failed to land either of his two takedown attempts, while his opponents have gotten him down on two of their eight attempts (75% defense), with Michel Pereira being the only fighter to ground him. Williams averages 5.00 SSL/min and 4.12 SSA/min, but has never landed more than 91 significant strikes in a fight or absorbed more than 93.

Rolando Bedoya

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Bedoya will be making his UFC debut following a 14 month layoff and has only competed twice since 2019. He’s won 10 straight fights, with six of those ending early. However, his last six fights have all seen the second round, with four making it to round three, and three going the distance.

Now 13-1 as a pro, Bedoya has three wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and seven decision wins. The only loss of his career came in a 2015 decision in his fourth pro fight. Bedoya competed at 155 lb until 2017 when he moved up to 170 lb, where he’s stayed since. The first half of his career was spent facing opponents with little to no pro experience, who came in with a combined 2-3 pro record.

Overall, Bedoya is an aggressive fighter who marches forward and has shown a willingness to stand there and trade with opponents. So it should come as no surprise that he trains at Chute Boxe, despite being from Peru. He’s got kind of plodding style and lacks much movement, which results in him being super hittable. He may have been able to get away with that on the Peruvian regional scene, but it will get him into trouble in the UFC when he goes against anyone with decent power. However, he’s still just 26 years old and should be showing improvement between every fight, especially after a long layoff, so maybe he’s worked on his movement and striking defense. He’ll mix in takedowns with decent accuracy and top control in just about all of his fights and also has a solid takedown defense. It will be interesting to see what improvements he’s made over the last 14 months since we last saw him, but he gets a really tough test here in his debut.

Fight Prediction:

Williams will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage. He’s also three years older than the 26-year-old Bedoya.

It seems like the UFC knows exactly what they’re doing here as they just gave Williams a new contract and immediately thrust him onto a PPV card and put him in a get right spot against a newcomer who lacks head movement and is there to be hit. This screams Williams early knockout and after facing six straight tough opponents with UFC experience, this will be the first newcomer that Williams has gone up against. Bedoya is pretty well rounded and could eventually amount to something if he improves his striking defense, head movement, and footwork, but we fully expect him to get knocked out here and it will likely come in the first round and end up on a highlight reel.

Our favorite bet here is “Williams KO” at -120.

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DFS Implications:

Williams is a one-dimensional striker with insane power, but no grappling to boost his DFS scoring. His first two UFC wins came by KO in 30 seconds or less and scored 129 and 127 DraftKings points respectively, but he’s failed to top 78 points in his last four fights, and only hit that number in a R3 KO over Miguel Baeza. His lone decision win in the UFC was only good for 74 points. So he’s been a R1 KO or bust option and at his expensive price tag, even with a first round knockout we could see him get priced out of winning tournament lineups on a higher scoring slate. However, this does look like a great matchup for him to find the first round finish he needs to score well and if he can get it done in the opening 60 seconds again, like he did in his first two UFC fights, he would be locked into the optimal lineup. The odds imply he has a 72% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.

Bedoya looks like the type of fighter who will score well when he does win, but will always be at risk of getting knocked out when facing power punchers. That makes this one of the worst matchups he could ask for as he makes his UFC debut against one of the hardest hitters around. Bedoya will have the grappling advantage if he can get this fight to the mat before losing consciousness, but Williams has also shown the ability to get back up when he does get taken down and has a solid 75% takedown defense. That will make it really tough for Bedoya to simply control this fight on the ground and we fully expect him to get knocked out early. He looks like a fighter we’ll be more interested in playing in the future once he gets a more favorable matchup against a less dangerous opponent. The odds imply he has a 28% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #7

Kennedy Nzechukwu

9th UFC Fight (5-3)

Nzechukwu is coming off a pair of late round TKO wins, with a second round TKO over Ion Cutelaba following a third round TKO over Karl Roberson. Prior to the pair of wins, he lost two in a row, with a split decision against Nicolae Negumereanu after getting knocked out for the first time in his career by Da Un Jung in the first round of his previous fight. Nzechukwu landed two more late round knockouts just before that, and his last four wins have all come by knockout in rounds two and three. Nine of Nzechukwu’s last 11 fights have ended early, but seven of his last eight have made it to the later rounds.

Now 11-3 as a pro, Nzechukwu has eight wins by KO/TKO and three decision victories. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has one decision loss. Four of his eight KO wins occurred in the second round, two ended in round one, and two ended in round three. All of his knockout victories in the UFC occurred in the later rounds and that appears to be when he’s the most dangerous after he’s worn his opponents’ hands down with his face. Seven of his eight UFC fights have seen the second round, with five going to round three, and two ending in decisions. Nzechukwu actually made his pro debut at Heavyweight in 2016 before dropping down to Light Heavyweight in 2017.

Overall, Nzechukwu is a big, durable fighter, but he’s still pretty raw and often overly cautious. He struggles to let his hands go early in fights and is consistently a slow starter. He’s not super explosive with his striking, but he’s so big and powerful that it doesn’t matter. He’s huge for the division at 6’5” with an 83” reach and has a solid takedown defense and the ability to simply get up when he does get taken down. Between his two DWCS appearances and his eight UFC fights, Nzechukwu has only been taken down on 12 of 61 opponent attempts (80.3% defense), while he’s landed five of his own nine attempts (55.6% accuracy). All five of his successful takedowns came against an undersized kickboxer in Karl Roberson and Nzechukwu only attempted two takedowns in the other nine fights.

Devin Clark

16th UFC Fight (8-7)

Just three months removed from a decision win over Da Woon Jung, Clark is jumping right back into the Octagon. Despite his recent win, he’s still just 2-3 in his last five fights, with his only other win coming in a R3 TKO against an overinflated William Knight. In between those two wins, Clark got knocked out in the third round by Azamat Murzakanov. Leading up to the win over Knight, which actually took place at Heavyweight, Clark got mauled for 15 minutes in a decision loss to Ion Cutelaba after getting submitted in the first round by Anthony Smith. While seven of Clark’s eight UFC wins ended in decisions, six of his seven UFC losses ended early, with three KO/TKOs and three submissions.

Now 14-7 as a pro, Clark has four wins by KO, one by submission, and nine decisions. Three of his five early career wins came in his first three pro fights from 2013 to 2015 against opponents who entered with records of 1-0, 1-0 and 0-0. His fourth finish came in his 6th pro fight by way of "Hand Injury" and his only finish since 2016 was the 2022 third round TKO win over Knight. Clark has been knocked out three times, submitted three more, and has one decision loss. Five of his seven UFC losses have occurred in the first two rounds, although his last two defeats both made it to the third round, with one going the distance. The only one of his last seven fights not to see the third round was his 2020 R1 submission loss to Anthony Smith.

Overall, Clark is a lifelong wrestler who is generally content with holding opponents up against the cage for extended periods of time, while looking for takedowns. However, in his second most recent fight he uncharacteristically didn’t even attempt a takedown, so he may be trying to show a little more striking at times. With that said, he got knocked out in that fight and then most recently went 3 for 11 on his takedown attempts with five minutes of control time, so perhaps he just needed a reminder that he’s a one-dimensional wrestler who’s prone to getting finished when he gets outside of his comfort zone. In his 15 UFC fights, he landed 27 takedowns on 79 attempts (34.2% accuracy). He’s 0-4 in UFC fights where he failed to land a takedown, and he was finished in all four of those losses.

Fight Prediction:

Nzechukwu will have a 5” height advantage and 8” reach advantage. He’s also three years younger than the 33-year-old Clark.

We expect Clark to try and execute his normal game plan of pushing opponents up against the fence and making fights ugly. We’ve seen Nzechukwu get controlled for extended periods of time at multiple points in the past, so there’s no reason to think Clark won’t find similar success. The bigger question will be whether or not Nzechukwu can make the most of his limited opportunities late in the fight and land something clean on Clark to put him away. That feels closer to a coinflip and means this fight could go either way, but we’ll give the slight edge to Clark and if he can avoid getting knocked out he should be able to grind out a boring decision win along the cage.

Our favorite bet here is “Clark DEC” at +300.

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DFS Implications:

Nzechukwu only scored 50 DraftKings points in his lone UFC decision victory, but his last four wins have all come early, although all in the later round. While he only scored 57 points in a third round TKO over Danilo Marques after getting controlled for the first two rounds, Nzechukwu was able to return DraftKings totals of 92, 106, and 113 in his other three most recent wins. So he’s not incapable of scoring decently, but he does have a tendency to start slow and finish strong, which is why all four of his UFC finishes have come in the later rounds. He also struggles with being controlled for periods of time and has only landed a takedown in one of his eight UFC fights. That makes it tougher for him to fill up the stat sheet and leaves him reliant on well timed finishes to score well. At his expensive price tag, he could very easily get left out of tournament winning lineups with another late finish here, so he’ll need things to break just right to be useful. Working in his favor, he projects to go lower owned, which adds to his tournament appeal. The odds imply he has a 62% chance to win, a 40% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Clark rarely finishes anybody, with seven of his eight UFC wins ending in decisions, but he did land a third round knockout in his second most recent win, which was good for 107 DraftKings points. However, he generally depends on his wrestling to grind out decision wins, which makes him a much better play on DraftKings compared to FanDuel. In his seven UFC decision victories he averaged 92 DraftKings points, scoring anywhere from 71 to 129 points in those fights. However, his last four decision wins returned scores of 81, 86, 95, and 71, with his really high scoring decisions coming in 2017 and 2018. Now he’s facing a massive opponent with an 80% takedown defense, so it will be tougher for him to land a ton of takedowns and put up a huge score in a decision. However, he’s still squarely in the value play discussion on DraftKings at his cheap price tag, but will need a finish to score well on FanDuel or to really go off on DraftKings. The odds imply he has a 38% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #6

Drew Dober

21st UFC Fight (12-7, NC)

Coming off three straight knockout wins, Dober has only required the judges in one of his last nine fights, which was when he lost a 2021 decision to Brad Riddell after getting taken down five times. His only other two losses in his last 12 fights came in a pair of submissions against Islam Makhachev and Beneil Dariush. Dober’s last six wins have all come by knockout and it’s not as if he’s been facing easy competition, so his string of finishes has been quite impressive. While his last loss went the distance, his four previous losses all ended in submissions, which has been his one weakness. Despite rarely seeing the judges, five of Dober’s last six fights have made it out of the first round, with three of those seeing round three.

Now 26-11 as a pro, Dober has 13 wins by KO/TKO, six by submission, and seven decisions. He’s been knocked out once (R1 2011), submitted four times, and has six decision losses. Sixteen of his 19 early wins have come in the first two rounds, although he did land a third round knockout in his second most recent fight. His only other two third round finishes were all the way back in 2010 and 2012. Four of his five early losses also occurred in the first two rounds, with the one exception being a R3 arm-triangle submission loss to Islam Makhachev.

Overall, Dober is a powerful and durable brawler who generally comes out ahead in firefights, but often struggles against grapplers. While Dober has six submission wins on his record and wrestled some in high school, he’s definitely not a grappler. His background is primarily in Muay Thai and Taekwondo, where he’s a black belt, although he is also a BJJ brown belt for what it’s worth. He’s got a fire hydrant for a head and the best way to attack him is with submissions. In his last six fights, Dober has been taken down 14 times on 27 opponent attempts and has just a 55% career takedown defense.

Matt Frevola

9th UFC Fight (4-3-1)

It seems like Matt Frevola got hit so hard by Terrance McKinney that he now believes he is Terrance McKinney. Looking back to the start of his UFC career, Frevola got knocked out in the first round of his 2018 debut by a terrible Marco Polo Reyes, who was coming off a KO loss and then proceeded to get knocked out three more times immediately after finishing Frevola in just 60 seconds. Frevola then fought to four straight decisions, including a win over Jalin Turner that aged quite well, before getting immediately knocked out by McKinney. Since that loss, Frevola has landed back-to-back first round knockouts and looked completely content with throwing down in brawls. The first of those two wins came in a wild brawling three minutes of action where he amazingly landed four knockdowns on his way to a first round knockout victory against a debuting low-level fighter in Genaro Valdez. He then took on a more dangerous Ottman Azaitar, who came in 13-0 with 12 finishes. Azaitar was coming off a two year layoff and never looked right in the fight and Frevola was able to faceplant him midway through the first round.

Now 10-3-1 as a pro, Frevola has three wins by KO/TKO, three by submission, and four decisions. He’s also been knocked out twice himself and has one decision loss. Five of his six early wins have come in round one, with the other ending in round two. Both of his early losses ended in 60 seconds or less and 13 of his 14 pro fights have either ended in the first round or gone the distance. The only time he’s ever lost a decision was against a world class talent in Arman Tsarukyan, in a fight that was put together on one day‘s notice after both of their opponents dropped out at weigh-ins.

Overall, Frevola is pretty well-rounded as he wrestled when he was younger and is a BJJ brown belt, but he often falls in love with his striking. In his eight UFC fights, he’s landed 12 takedowns on 32 attempts (37.5% accuracy), although hasn’t landed any takedowns on just two attempts in his last four fights. While he only averages 3.46 SSL/min and 3.49 SSA/min in his career, he’s recently shown that he’s fully capable of throwing down in brawls. It will be interesting to see what his approach will be in this next matchup against a dangerous power puncher who has struggled on the mat.

Fight Prediction:

Frevola will have a 1” height and reach advantage and is two years younger than Dober.

Frevola will essentially be fighting in his backyard for this one as he’s from Long Island and won’t be traveling far from home for this fight. Whether that crowd support coerces him to take part in a brawl or helps him win a close decision remains to be seen, but it should be there. His last fight was in Madison Square Garden and while he landed a first round knockout win, he failed to even attempt a takedown against a dangerous one-dimensional striker. Perhaps he’ll come in with a different approach here and he did say he wants to make it an MMA fight, but actions speak louder than words. If he wants to go chin for chin with Drew Dober, the only thing we expect he’ll get out of it is a good story after he wakes up. Dober looks like he could take a bazooka to the face and keep on fighting, while Frevola has been immediately starched in two of his three UFC losses. Even if Frevola does look to wrestle, his last submission win was in 2017 on DWCS and he hasn’t looked like an especially dangerous grappler. That leaves his lone path to victory as squeaking out a close decision through a combination of striking and grappling, and the home crowd may be the best thing he has going for him in that scenario. However, we fully expect Dober to knock Frevola out, it’s just a matter of when. If Frevola comes out as aggressively as he did in his last two fights, then look for Dober to finish him in round one. However, if he approaches this fight more cautiously, he could delay the inevitable until the later rounds. We’ll take Dober by KO in the first two rounds.

Our favorite bet here is “Dober ITD” at -125.

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DFS Implications:

Dober has averaged 98 DraftKings points in his 12 UFC victories, with nine of those wins coming early. He’s shown a decent floor in his three decisions wins, averaging 89 DraftKings points, but has never scored more than 92 points without a finish. While his first five early wins in the UFC all ended in round one, three of his last four came in the later rounds, and he only returned DraftKings totals of 94, 80, and 96 in those three late round knockouts. So while he does a great job of getting opponents out of there, he’s only really scored well in DFS in his first round finishes. Working in his favor, Frevola has been knocked out in 60 seconds or less in two of his three UFC losses, so this does look like a high upside spot for Dober. However, if this fight makes it past the first round, Dober will have a tougher time returning value at his high price tag unless he can land multiple knockdowns—something he’s yet to do in 20 UFC fights. However, Dober’s granite chin and consistent scoring floor make him a great low-risk option. The odds imply Dober has a 66% chance to win, a 49% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.

Frevola is coming off a pair of first round knockout wins that returned DraftKings scores of 105 and an other-worldly 158, after he failed to top 85 points in any of his first six UFC fights. His last three and four of his eight UFC fights have ended in the first round, while his other four went the distance. So he’s been a boom or bust fighter and has looked more aggressive in his last couple of matches since getting knocked out in seven seconds by Terrance McKinney in 2021. However, now he’ll get an incredibly tough test in Drew Dober and Frevola will have a much tougher time of out brawling his way to another early knockout as Dober has a fire hydrant for a head. That will likely leave Frevola reliant on executing a smarter wrestling-heavy gameplan, since Dober’s one weakness is his defensive wrestling. Whether or not Frevola will have the discipline to go that route in front of his home crowd is a different story, and he notably opted not to wrestle in his last fight in a similar stylistic matchup. The more likely outcome is that Frevola comes in looking to bang and Dober knocks him out, so it’s hard to get very excited about playing Freevola here, despite his recent success. The odds imply he has a 34% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #5

Charles Jourdain

11th UFC Fight (4-5-1)

Trying to shake the first losing streak of his professional career, Jourdain lost a pair of decisions against Nathaniel Wood and Shane Burgos in his last two outings. His defensive grappling continues to be his Achilles heel as he’s 0-5 in UFC fights where he’s been taken down more than once, but 4-0-1 when he allows one or fewer takedowns. Prior to the pair of losses, Jourdain notched consecutive wins for the first time since joining the UFC when he landed a first round submission over Lando Vannata, after winning a decision over Andre Ewell just before that. Leading up to the pair of wins, Jourdain suffered the only early loss of his career in a third round submission against Julian Erosa.

Now 13-6-1 as a pro, Jourdain has eight wins by KO/TKO, four by submission, and one decision. Only four of his 12 career finishes have come in the first round and he’s generally a guy that puts people away later in fights. He has four second round wins, three in round three, and one in round five. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted once and is just 1-5-1 in seven career decisions. Nine of his 10 UFC fights have seen the second round, eight made it to round three, and six ended with the judges, with three of those decisions being split.

Overall, Jourdain is a really solid kickboxer and has been extremely durable, but has dreadful defensive wrestling and he’s a little too reliant on defending takedowns with chokes. Despite being a BJJ black belt, he’s only landed one takedown in the UFC and struggles off his back. He will look for opportunistic submissions, but has only completed one in his last 11 fights. In his 10 UFC matches, he’s only landed one takedown on six attempts (16.7% accuracy), while his opponents have gotten him down on 21 of their 41 attempts (48.8% defense). His last six opponents have all gotten him down at least once, and eight of the nine fighters to try and take him down were successful. When he can keep fights standing, he makes for very exciting matches and is always down to thrown down in a brawl. He averages 5.84 SSL/min and 4.56 SSA/min and has landed at least 85 significant strikes in his last five fights to make it out of the first round, with 106 or more in three of those. He claimed he’s going to fight smarter here to avoid jumping into takedowns, but that remains to be seen.

Kron Gracie

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Returning to the Octagon after three and a half years away, Gracie moved from California to Montana in his time away and opened a new jiu-jitsu academy/gym. After submitting his first five MMA opponents, Gracie curiously duked it out on the feet against Cub Swanson in his last match in October 2019 and ultimately lost a decision. Gracie did finally attempt two takedowns in the third round, but he was already slowing down at that point and failed to land either of them. That was only his second fight in the UFC, after he submitted Alex Caceres in the first round earlier in 2019 in his UFC debut.

Now 5-1 as a pro, all five of Gracie’s wins have come by submission in the first two rounds, while he lost a unanimous 30-27 decision in his one loss.

Overall, Gracie’s name precedes him as he comes from a long line of world class grapplers, and he had a successful grappling career before transitioning to MMA. However, we don’t really know where he’s at either mentally or physically at this stage in his life and he looks like a complete wildcard who’s been roughing it for the last few years. He could come in and look like one of the best grapplers on the planet or he could look like a guy that rolled off the couch and hasn’t taken a punch in years.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’9” but Gracie will have a 1” reach advantage, while Jourdain is seven years younger than the 34-year-old Gracie.

This is a classic grappler versus striker matchup where Jourdain will need to keep the fight standing at all costs, while Gracie’s clear path to victory will be to get it to the mat to hunt for a submission. We have no clue what kind of shape Gracie is in after three and a half years away, but he appeared pretty disinterested at media day. At his best, he would slice through Jourdain with ease and cruise to a first round submission win, but we’d be shocked if he showed up at his best. We have concerns with both his cardio and his ability to take a punch after so long away, so he’ll likely need to land a submission early on to have a chance. Look for him to wear down if the fight makes it to the back half, where Jourdain will begin teeing off on him and likely land a late knockout if the fight makes it that long. Jourdain talked about trying to fight smarter coming into this one, so we could see him dial back his aggressive approach some, at least early on when Gracie is the freshest. Ultimately we do think Gracie is live for a submission early on, but if he cant get Jourdain down we expect Jourdain to land a late finish from an accumulation of damage, most likely in the third round. The results will likely hinge on what kind of shape Gracie is in, and we’d be lying if we said we knew the answer to that. Based on how bad Jourdain’s defensive wrestling has been and how dangerous Gracie is on the mat, we feel obligated to take Gracie by round one submission, but we don’t trust this guy whatsoever.

Our favorite bet here is “Gracie R1 Win” at +450.

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DFS Implications:

Jourdain has averaged 105 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins, with three of those victories coming early, and two scoring 117 or more. However, he failed to top 92 points in any of his last five fights and his biggest weakness has been his defensive wrestling. Now he’s going against a world class grappler, albeit one that hasn’t fought in three and a half years and comes in surrounded in uncertainty. That leaves this as a boom or bust spot for Jourdain, as he’ll have a massive advantage on the feet, but will likely get submitted if the fight hits the mat. We saw Gracie slow down late in his last fight and absorb a ton of strikes, although he was able to survive to lose a unanimous 30-27 decision against Cub Swanson. So it’s not a given that Jourdain will find a finish if he can avoid getting submitted, but he’ll certainly have a good shot. He’s exclusively a high-risk play in this volatile matchup and we could see this fight go a lot of ways. The odds imply he has a 63% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish, and a 22% chance it comes in round one.

Gracie is a world class grappler, but was determined to show he could stand and strike in his last fight (three and a half years ago) and ultimately paid for that decision as he lost every round in the fight. While a rational fighter would resort to their grappling background after an outcome like that in this excellent stylistic matchup, who knows what Gracie is thinking and he looks like a complete loose cannon. He has the skills required to get this fight to the ground and lock up an early submission, but the same could have been said in his last match. We’re inclined to believe he’ll look to grapple, but the fact that he comes in as an underdog shows you what the oddsmakers think of him. Ultimately, he’s a submission or bust headcase with solid upside but an uncertain floor. He has the potential to look -500 or +500 and he’s the ultimate wildcard on this slate. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #4

Movsar Evloev

7th UFC Fight (6-0)

This spot on the card has been a game of musical chairs. Originally Bryce Mitchell had been scheduled to face Jonathan Pearce, but then Pearce dropped out and Evleov stepped in on 21 days notice. However, Mitchell then dropped out and Lopes was announced as the replacement on Tuesday of fight week. That’s actually the second straight time a booked fight between Evloev and Mitchell has fallen through, as they had also been scheduled to fight back in November, but Evloev withdrew due to injury. Evloev also withdrew from a scheduled fight against Ilia Topuria in early 2022 and has struggled with fight cancellations throughout his career, which has resulted in him only fighting once in the last 23 months.

It’s been 11 months since Evloev won a wrestling-heavy decision over Dan Ige, where Evloev landed nine takedowns on 16 attempts and controlled Ige for nearly seven minutes. That was Evloev’s second straight fight where he put up a huge takedown number, as he also landed takedowns against Hakeem Dawodu in his second most recent fight. Prior to those wins, Evloev defeated a series of grapplers, where he landed far fewer takedowns, and has shown he will adjust his approach based on his opponent.

Now 16-0 as a pro, Evloev has three wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and nine decision victories. All six of Evloev’s UFC wins have gone the distance, and he’s still searching for his first finish with the organization. Prior to joining the UFC, 7 of his 10 wins had come early, although he only has two career first round finishes and his other five early wins occurred in the later rounds. Evloev fought mostly at 135 lb before joining the UFC, but did have a few fights at 140 lb and 145 lb as well. Unlike many fighters who try to move down a weight class after joining the UFC, Evloev moved up to 145 lb and never looked back.

Overall, Evloev is a really solid Russian wrestler and a pretty good striker as well. He’s shown an uncanny ability to survive locked in chokes against multiple opponents and is a Master of Sport in Greco-Roman wrestling. In his six UFC fights, Evloev has landed 29 of his 58 takedown attempts (50% accuracy), while his opponents have gotten him down on 8 of their 28 attempts (71.4% defense). The biggest knock on him is that he doesn’t really push for finishes and seems content with grinding out decisions. However, he’s been facing a lot of stiff competition and now he gets a UFC newcomer who took the fight on just a few days’ notice.

Diego Lopes

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Making his UFC debut with just a few days to prepare, Lopes is stepping into one of the toughest spots you could ask for in your debut as he takes on the undefeated Movsar Evloev. Lopes originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2021, and looked close to locking up a submission, but ultimately lost a technical decision to Joanderson Brito following a third round eye poke that he sustained and was forced to return to the regional scene. He then compounded the misstep when he lost a five-round split decision, but bounced back with a pair of KO/TKO victories. Despite his two fight skid in 2021, Lopes has won 9 of his last 11 fights, with seven of those wins coming early.

Now 20-5 as a pro, Lopes has seven wins by KO/TKO, 11 submissions, and two decision victories. He has a pair of TKO losses in the second round, and three decision defeats, but has only been finished once since 2014. Seven of his last eight fights made it out of the first round, with six of those seeing a third round, and four ending in decisions. His last four wins came early, while his last two losses went the distance.

Overall, Lopes is a Brazilian grappler and BJJ black belt, who’s comfortable looking for submissions off his back, but has also shown a willingness to stand and trade. At 5’11” he’s got good size for the 145 lb division, but doesn’t fight especially long and only has a 72” reach. He’s a patient striker on the feet, but has a decent lead left hook and knocked out his last two opponents, while failing to land a takedown in either of those fights. As short notice replacements go, Lopes looks decent, but he may have a tougher time showing that in this matchup.

Fight Prediction:

Lopes will have a 4” height advantage, but both fighters share a 72” reach.

This looks like a near impossible situation for Lopes to find success and even though he’s proven himself to be a dangerous submission threat, Evloev has looked immune to being submitted. It will be interesting to see if Evloev looks for fewer takedowns than in his past two fights when he was taking on strikers, as historically he has adapted his game plan well based on his opponent and has looked to wrestle less against grapplers. Evloev hasn’t finished anybody since 2018, before he joined the UFC. but this could be his best shot at finding a finish since he joined the organization considering how little time Lopes had to prepare. With that said, Lopes’ grappling skills make it unlikely he’ll get submitted, leaving Evloev more reliant on landing a knockout if he wants to end this one early and he’s never knocked anybody out at 145 lb. So give us Evloev by decision here.

Our favorite bet here is “FGTD” at +128.

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DFS Implications:

Evloev is coming off back-to-back slate-breaking performances where he scored 130 and 138 DraftKings points and 115 and 109 points on FanDuel in a pair of wrestling-heavy decision wins. After only landing 11 total takedowns in his first four UFC fights, he landed nine in each of his last two matches, as he went up against a pair of strikers. Now he’ll face another grappler, so it will be interesting to see if he looks to wrestle quite as much or if he’s more content relying on his striking. He hasn’t finished anybody since 2018, prior to joining the UFC, so he’s been reliant on dominant wrestling performances to score well and failed to top 92 DraftKings points in his three UFC fights where he failed to land five or more takedowns, all of which were against grapplers. His three high scoring decision wins all came against strikers, giving us a strong indication of when we should or shouldn’t play him heavily. With that said, this is a short notice fight and perhaps Evloev won’t give Lopes the same respect he’s given to previous grapplers with more time to prepare, but that remains to be seen. As the largest favorite on the slate who scored a combined 268 DraftKings points in his last two decision wins, we expect Evloev to be the most popular three-round fighter on the card. So if he does fail to really score well, he’ll take a large chunk of the field out of tournament contention, creating an interesting leverage opportunity. With that said, he’s got a solid floor and a massive ceiling if he continues to wrestle as much as he has in his last two matches, so it’s a risky fade in tournaments. The odds imply he has an 86% chance to win, a 49% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.

Lopes is a BJJ black belt, a dangerous submission threat, and an okay striker. However, he doesn’t land a ton of striking volume or generally put up big takedown numbers, leaving him reliant on landing finishes to score well. Now he’s stepping into a near impossible spot in his short notice UFC debut against an undefeated veteran who’s shown an uncanny ability to escape locked in submissions. Evloev is a smart fighter who won’t take unnecessary risks, which will make it tough for Lopes to find the finish he needs to win this fight. Lopes looks like nothing more than a hail mary submission or bust play in one of the toughest matchups he could ask for on just a few days’ notice. The odds imply he has a 14% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #3

Jessica Andrade

24th UFC Fight (15-8)

Andrade is moving back down to 115 lb following a second round submission loss to Erin Blanchfield in a fight that Andrade accepted on just a week’s notice. Just four weeks before that loss, Andrade torched Lauren Murphy for 15 straight minutes . It’s amazing that Murphy was even able to survive to see the judge and that the fight was never stopped by either the ref or Murphy’s corner. Andrade landed 231 significant strikes on Murphy, the sixth most anyone has ever landed in a UFC fight, male or female, the second most ever landed in a three-round fight, and the most any female fighter has ever landed. Andrade’s previous five wins had all come early and that’s just the second time she’s required the judges in her last 10 fights. Prior to the win over Murphy, Andrade landed a pair of first round finishes with a standing arm-triangle choke against Amanda Lemos and a TKO against Cynthia Calvillo. Andrade has only lost to the toughest of competition since dropping down from 135 lb, with her last five losses coming against Erin Blanchfield, Valentina Shevchenko, Rose Namajunas, Zhang Weili, and Joanna Jedrzejczyk.

Andrade originally joined the UFC in 2013 and fought her first seven fights at 135 lb (4-3), before dropping all the way down to 115 lb in 2016. After going 7-1 in first eight fights at 115 lb and winning the Strawweight belt against Rose Namajunas in 2019, Andrade immediately relinquished the belt to Zhang Weili and then lost a decision to Namajunas. After suffering back-to-back losses for the first time in her career, Andrade moved up to 125 lb for the first time in 2020 and knocked out Katlyn Chookagian in the first round. That was enough to propel Andrade into a title fight against Valentina Shevchenko, but Andrade got dominated in the fight and finished on the mat in the second round. Andrade bounced back with a first round TKO win over Cynthia Calvillo and then dropped back down to 115 lb for one fight when she submitted Amanda Lemos in the first round of a five-round fight. However, Andrade immediately returned to 125 lb for her next two matches, where she won a decision over Lauren Murphy and then got submitted in the second round by Erin Blanchfield. To recap, Andrade has gone 4-3 (57% Win Percentage) at 135 lb in the UFC, 3-2 (60% Win Percentage) at 125 lb, and 8-3 (73% Win Percentage) at 115 lb.

Now 24-10 as a pro, Andrade has nine wins by KO, eight submissions, and seven decision victories. All 17 of her early wins have ended in the first two rounds, with five of her knockouts and six of her submissions ending in round one, and her other four knockouts and two submission wins ended in round two. Her last three and five of her last six early wins ended in the opening five minutes. Seven of her 10 career losses also ended in the first two rounds, with four TKOs and three submissions, while she also has three decision defeats. Two of her three submission losses came in 2015 when she was still fighting at 135 lb, with her other coming in her recent short notice loss to Erin Blanchfield. Two of her TKO defeats occurred early in her career in 2012 and 2013, while the other two were in title fights against Zhang Weili and Valentina Shevchenko. Three of those TKOs came in round two, while the other ended in round one. Andrade has won three of the last four decisions she’s been to, with the one loss being split.

Overall, Andrade is an aggressive striker who constantly pushes forward looking to land fight ending shots and slam her opponents unconscious. She’s willing to take one (or 5) to land one (or 10), which has gotten her into trouble at times, but only when facing elite competition. She struggles the most with longer opponents who have good footwork and can counter her from distance, while avoiding the shots coming from Andrande. She averages 6.84 SSL/min (most on the slate) and 5.34 SSA/min. Andrade is also a BJJ black belt and has a 73% career takedown defense and in her 16 fights since dropping down from 135 lb, we’ve actually seen that number rise a little as she’s only been taken down on 10 of 43 opponent attempts (76.7% defense). Over that same 16 fight stretch, Andrade has landed 26 takedowns of her own on 50 attempts (52% accuracy). However, she’s only landed one takedown in her last five fights and has only been taken down once in her last four matches.

Yan Xiaonan

10th UFC Fight (7-2)

Yan is coming off a five-round majority decision win over Mackenzie Dern and her last two fights both ended in split/majority decisions. Prior to her recent win, Yan suffered the first decision loss of her career in a somewhat controversial split decision against Marina Rodriguez, after getting finished with ground and pound in the second round by Carla Esparza just before that. The TKO loss to Esparza remains Yan’s only UFC fight to end early, with her other eight UFC matches all going to the judges (7-1).

Now 16-3 as a pro, Yan has seven wins by KO/TKO and nine decision victories. She has one TKO loss (R2 2021), one by submission (R1 2010), and one decision defeat. After 8 of her first 10 pro fights ended early, including seven in the first round, all nine of her UFC fights have seen round two, with eight going the distance.

Overall, Yan relies mostly on her striking to win fights, but will mix in occasional takedowns. In her nine UFC fights, she’s landed 8 of her 12 takedown attempts (66.7% accuracy), while her opponents have gotten her down on 10 of their 34 attempts (70.6% defense). Five of the six opponents who tried to take her down were successful, with four of them landing multiple takedowns. While Yan doesn’t have a ton of power, she’s a solid striker and will mix in spinning backfists to try and land finishes. She averages a respectable 5.45 SSL/min and 3.53 SSA/min and landed 93 or more significant strikes in five of her seven UFC wins.

Fight Prediction:

Yan will have a 4” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.

This sets up as a fun striking battle, but Andrade will also have the grappling advantage should she choose to use it. Both of these women have the ability to put up big striking numbers and we’ve also seen Yan get dominated on the mat, which is where she was finished in both of her early losses. Five of Andrade’s eleven 115 lb UFC fights went the distance (3-2), while the other six ended in the first two rounds (5-1), including four in round one (3-1). The only time she’s been finished at 115 lb was in her 2019 R1 TKO loss to Zhang Weili, while she’s landed a pair of first round submissions, a R1 TKO, and two R2 TKOs at the weight class. While Andrade’s last early win ended in a submission, her four prior to that all came via knockout. So while her grappling advantage keeps a submission in play, she’s only submitted one opponent since 2016 and is generally looking to knock opponents out in the opening two rounds. Yan is tough and has never been finished on the feet, so it will be interesting to see if Andrade can put her away or if this ends in a high-volume decision. Either way, we like Andrade to get the win.

Our favorite bet here is “Jessica Andrade R1 or R2 KO” at +490.

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DFS Implications:

Andrade has averaged a ridiculous 115 DraftKings points in her 15 UFC wins and has shown the ability to score well with or without a finish. She’s actually averaged more points (119) in her seven three-round UFC decision wins, compared to her eight early victories, where she averaged 113 DraftKings points. She scored 99 or more DraftKings points in 12 of her last 13 wins, with the one exception being a hyper-efficient first round submission victory that was only good for 92 points. She has the ability to go completely nuclear, as she scored 131 or more points in four of her last eight wins and holds the record for the most strikes ever landed in a women’s UFC fight, which she just set in a three-round decision over Lauren Murphy this past January. That one-sided beatdown was good for 131 DraftKings points and 165 points on FanDuel. Andrade followed that impressive win up with a submission loss to Erin Blanchfield in a five-round fight that Andrade accepted on a week’s notice and is now dropping back down to 115 lb where she’s gone 8-3 in the UFC. We’re not overly concerned about either of those factors. While it could be tougher for Andrade to find a finish in this next fight, she’s shown in the past that can actually benefit her when it comes to DFS scoring. The only times Andrade has really struggled in the past is when taking on championship level fighters, especially when they can grapple. While Yan is a worthy opponent, she’s not a world champion and we expect Andrade to get back on track here and put up another big score, regardless of whether or not she finds a finish. The odds imply she has a 63% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.

Yan is primarily a striker, but will mix in occasional takedowns to boost her scoring some. All seven of her UFC wins have gone the distance, where she averaged 82 DraftKings points and only once topped 90. The last time she finished anybody was in 2016, before she joined the UFC. The only time she ever scored well was when she landed a career best five takedowns against Karolina Kowalkiewicz, while also landing a high number of strikes. Her other two most recent three-round decision wins scored just 72 and 78 points, which even at her cheaper price tag likely wouldn’t be enough for her to be useful. However, she does get a pace up matchup here and for Yan to pull off the upset it will likely require her to either put up a huge striking total or land a finish. So if she does win, we would expect her to score decently and have a good chance to serve as a value play, especially on FanDuel. However, this is a really tough matchup and we don’t like her chances of winning. The odds imply she has a 37% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #2

Gilbert Burns

21st UFC Fight (15-5)

Four weeks removed from a decision win over Jorge Masvidal on the last PPV card, Burns is hopping right back into action after initially demanding his next fight be for the belt. He took almost no damage in that last fight as he easily won every round and was able to take Masvidal down four times and control him for nearly six minutes in the slower paced match. He also used to fight at 155 lb and rarely needs the extra pound allowance to hit 170 lb on the scale, so the weight cut may not be that big of a deal for him. With that said, cutting weight and fighting twice in a four week space is still a lot to bite off, not to mention the UFC decided to make this fight five rounds despite putting it together on just over two weeks’ notice. Prior to the win over Masvidal, Burns submitted Neil Magny in the first round back in January and Burns is setting up to have a very active year. He’s 9-2 in his last 11 fights, with the only losses coming in a 2021 R3 TKO in a title fight against Kamaru Usman and a 2022 close decision in an absolute war against Khamzat Chimaev. In between the losses to Usman and Chimaev, Burns won a grappling-heavy decision over Stephen Thompson, and all of his recent wins have come through his grappling. He’s just 1-3 in UFC fights where he failed to land a takedown, with the only win coming against a one-dimensional grappler in an aging Demian Maia.

Now 22-5 as a pro, Burns has six wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and seven decision victories. While he’s never been submitted, he’s been knocked out twice and has three decision losses. Burns only has two submission wins in his last 15 fights, and only one since moving up to 170 lb. Burns fought his 2014 UFC debut at 170 lb, where he won a decision, but then dropped down to 155 lb for his next 10 fights. He moved back up to 170 lb in 2019, where he’s stayed since. He's now 8-2 at 170 lb in the UFC, with six decision wins, a R1 KO victory, and a R1 submission win. At 155 lb in the UFC, Burns went 7-3 with four wins by submission, two by KO and one by decision. So while six of his seven wins at 155 lb ended early, six of his eight victories at 170 lb went the distance.

This will be the 3rd five-round fight of Burns’ career. The first was in 2020 and Burns won a decision over Tyron Woodley. That propelled Burns into a title shot, where he got knocked out by Kamaru Usman in the third round of his next fight. So Burns has only seen the championship rounds once in his career, but he won every single round in that fight.

Overall, Burns is a 3rd degree BJJ black belt and a world champion grappler. He’s also an explosive striker but he’s been less of a finishing threat since moving up to 170 lb. In his last nine fights since moving back up to 170 lb, Burns has landed 14 of his 39 takedown attempts (35.9% accuracy). Over that same stretch, he’s been taken down by his opponents on 4 of 10 attempts (60% defense), with the only two fighters to get him down being Khamzat Chimaev and Demian Maia. While Burns landed a career best 119 significant strikes against Chimaev, that’s the only time he’s ever landed more than 83 significant strikes in a fight and he only averages 3.38 SSL/min and 3.13 SSA/min.

Belal Muhammad

18th UFC Fight (13-3, NC)

Coming off the most impressive win of his career, Muhammad landed a late second round standing TKO against Sean Brady at UFC 280 in Abu Dhabi last October. Muhammad had the luxury of training with Khabib leading up to that fight, as well as having him in his corner, something he won’t have access to here. Muhammad never even attempted a takedown in the fight, which is rare for him. Prior to that win on the feet, he had gone 1-2 plus No Contest in UFC fights where he failed to land a takedown, with the lone win coming against Demian Maia (just like Burns). Muhammad’s only other finish since 2016 was a 2019 R3 submission over a one-dimensional striker in Takashi Sato and the vast majority of his UFC fights have gone the distance.

Now 22-3 as a pro, Muhammad has five wins by TKO, one by submission, and 16 decisions. The only time he’s ever finished an opponent in the first round was a R1 TKO in his 2012 pro debut. He’s also been knocked out once and has two decision losses. Since joining the UFC in 2016, Muhammad has fought to 12 decisions and his last 14 fights have all seen the second round.

This will be the 4th five-round fight of Muhammad’s career and 3rd in the UFC. His first five-round fight came with Titan FC in 2016 and Muhammad landed a R4 ground and pound TKO. His first UFC five-round was against Leon Edwards and the match was unfortunately stopped early in round two for an accidental eye poke and ruled a No Contest. His most recent five-round fight ended in a low-volume decision win over Vicente Luque.

Overall, Muhammad has spent the vast majority of his UFC career grinding out decision wins through a combination of striking and grappling, but showed much more of a willingness to throw down on the feet in his last match. He’s historically relied on outworking his opponents and had never looked like any sort of a finishing threat before putting Sean Brady away. It remains to be seen if that was an aberration or if Muhammad will show more of a finishing ability moving forward, but he’ll get to show us here. In his 17 UFC fights, Muhammad has landed 34 takedowns on 97 attempts (35.1% accuracy), while his opponents have only been able to get him down three times on 41 attempts (92.7% defense). No one has ever gotten him down more than once in a fight and he’s only been taken down once in his last seven fights.

Fight Prediction:

Muhammad will have a 1” height and reach advantage and is two years younger than Burns.

Muhammad originally asked for a Catchweight here but apparently changed his mind and it will take place at 170 lb. Burns is the more explosive fighter and the superior grappler in this matchup, while Muhammad has better cardio and defensive wrestling (92% takedown defense). Burns isn’t completely unfamiliar with making quick turnarounds and back in 2019 he won an August decision and then defeated Gunnar Nelson just seven weeks later. He also fought three times in less than two months very early in his career. However, circumstances are always changing and he’s now 36 years old, so we’ll see how his body reacts to a four week turnaround going into a five-round fight. Muhammad is known for his cardio, but just got done fasting for Ramadan and took this fight on two and a half weeks’ notice. So we also don’t know exactly what time of shape he’s in and if he can’t rely on his cardio, what can he rely on in his matchup? It will be interesting to see if Muhammad is willing to try and take Burns down, and whether or not Burns is able to get Muhammad down. We’d be shocked if Burns didn’t look to grapple, but Muhammad has been incredibly tough to get down. The UFC has apparently already said the winner of this fight will be next in line for the title shot, but we still expect them both to be trying to put on a good performance to prove they deserve it. So if it stays standing, we could see a fun striking battle as long as Muhammad comes in aggressively as he did for his last fight. However, looking back one fight further, Muhammad spent most of the fight circling away from contact against Vicente Luque, so you never know what his game plan will be. Muhammad’s best shot at winning will be to rely on his cardio, push the pace, and hope Burns slows down late in the fight. However, as long as Burns can avoid gassing out, we like him to win. Burns has the ability to finish Muhammad both on the feet or the mat, but considering how durable and tough to takedown Muhammad has been, we’ll say this goes the distance and Burns wins a close decision.

Our favorite bet here is “FGTD” at -116.

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DFS Implications:

Burns has averaged 94 DraftKings points in his 15 UFC wins and in his one UFC fight to go longer than three rounds he scored 102 points in a 2020 five-round decision win over Tyron Woodley. Eight of Burns’ 15 UFC wins came early, but six of those finishes occurred when he was fighting down at 155 lb and he’s only landed two finishes in his last nine fights since moving up to 170 lb. Now he’s facing a really durable opponent in Belal Muhammad who has an elite 92% takedown defense, so this will be another tough spot for Burns to find a finish. With that said, this fight was put together on just over two weeks’ notice and Burns will be fighting for the second time in four weeks, which adds a lot of uncertainty and makes this a more volatile fight. The biggest concern with that will be Burns’ cardio, but if it holds up he should have a solid scoring floor and ceiling. At his affordable price tag, Burns doesn’t need to put up a massive score to end up in tournament winning lineups, but it’s not a complete given that he’ll be in the optimal with a win. He’ll likely have a tougher time landing takedowns, leaving him more reliant on putting up a big striking total or landing a finish to score well. The odds imply he has a 55% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

Muhammad has been on a run lately, both in real life and in DFS. After failing to top 95 DraftKings points in 13 of his first 14 UFC fights, Muhammad has now scored 102, 108, and 132 points in his last three matches. He just landed his first KO/TKO finish since 2016 and looked far more aggressive and dangerous than ever before. However, he also had a full camp to prepare for that one and the luxury of having Khabib in his corner, neither of which will be the case here. Muhammad is known for his cardio, but with just over two weeks to prepare for this match, it’s hard to know what type of shape he’s in. He could come out and look 100% or we could see him look to pace himself more. The fact that he originally asked for this fight to take place at a Catchweight, opposed to 170 lb, isn’t a great sign, but who knows. It’s not like Burns had a full camp to prepare either, so if Muhammad’s cardio holds up and Burns’ doesn’t, Muhammad could be in a great spot to take over late in the fight and either find a late finish or outland his way to a decision. While Muhammad didn’t even attempt a takedown in his last fight, that’s only the second time in his career he’s won a UFC fight without landing a takedown. It would be somewhat surprising if he tried to take Burns down considering Burns is a world champion grappler, which leaves Muhammad more reliant on striking and/or landing a finish to score well. While it’s possible we see some cardio management from one or both guys in this matchup considering how little time they had to prepare, they’re both trying to make a case for the next title shot and should each be looking for a statement win. So we’re more inclined to believe that we see an exciting fight opposed to a boring one, which should result in the winner scoring pretty well. The odds imply Muhammad has a 45% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #1

Henry Cejudo

13th UFC Fight (10-2)

Cejudo is coming out of retirement and hasn’t competed in three years after finishing Dominick Cruz in a late R2 TKO back in May 2020. Cruz immediately disputed the stoppage as he was just starting to try and return to his feet as the fight was stopped. That was only Cejudo’s third UFC fight at 135 lb, as the majority of his career took place at 125 lb. However, the cut down to 125 lb appeared to be a tough one for Cejudo and if you look back to the start of his UFC career, he dropped out of four of his five scheduled fights and missed weight in the other before finally making his December 2014 UFC debut up at 135 lb. He had been scheduled to make his debut four months earlier at 125 lb, but dropped out due to weight cutting issues. However, after winning a decision in his debut at 135 lb, he was able to successfully get down to 125 for his next fight with the help of the resources provided by the UFC. His next nine fights were all at 125 lb (7-2) and he never once missed weight.

He won three straight decisions at 125 lb to propel himself into a title shot against Demetrious Johnson in 2016, but Johnson knocked him out in the first round. Cejudo then coached The Ultimate Fighter against Joseph Benavidez, before losing a three-round split decision to Benavidez. Cejudo then landed his first finish in the UFC in a second round TKO to bounce back from the pair of losses, before winning a decision over Sergio Pettis. That was enough for the UFC to give him a rematch against Demetrious Johnson in 2018 for the Flyweight belt, and Cejudo was able to squeak out a split decision. Cejudo was in trouble early in that fight after Johnson relentlessly beat up his legs and kicked him in the peroneal nerve early on and momentarily shut off Cejudo’s lower leg/foot, but Cejudo was able to buy enough time to recover and Johnson wasn’t able to capitalize. That was the last time we would see Demetrious Johnson in the UFC as he was then traded to One Championship for Ben Askren in a surprising turn of events.

Next, Cejudo took on T.J. Dillashaw, the 135 lb champion who was dropping down to 125 lb for the first and only time in his career. The cut appeared to do a number on Dillashaw, who got knocked out in 32 seconds and was then suspended for two years when he tested positive for EPO. Dillashaw returned two and a half years later and narrowly won a split decision, before gettinging finished by Aljamain Sterling and then claiming he was retiring due to a shoulder injury. Cejudo then decided to move up to 135 lb, where he took on Marlon Moraes for the vacant Bantamweight belt that Dillashaw had left behind when he got suspended. Moraes was also able to find success attacking Cejudo’s lead leg and looked to have him in some trouble early on. However Moraes did Moraes things and then gassed out and Cejudo was able to finish him late in round three. Moraes bounced back in his next fight with a split decision win over Jose Aldo, who was dropping down to 135 lb for the first time, but has since been knocked out six straight times, so Cejudo’s win over him didn’t age well. Cejudo then defended the belt once against Dominick Cruz, who was coming off a three and a half year layoff, before abruptly retiring immediately after that fight.

Now 16-2 as a pro, Cejudo has eight wins by TKO and eight decision victories. Five of those finishes came in round one, two ended in round two, and one occurred in round three. However, four of those five first round TKOs came in his first four pro fights and three of his last four early wins came in rounds two and three, with the one exception coming against a compromised T.J. Dillashaw. He’s also been knocked out once in the first round and has one decision defeat. Interestingly, three of his last four decisions have been split (2-1).

This will be the 6th five-round fight of Cejudo’s career. The first was a 2016 R1 TKO loss to Demetrious Johnson. The second was a 2018 split-decision win in a rematch against Demetrious Johnson, who then left the UFC following the loss. The third was a 2019 R1 TKO over T.J. Dillashaw, who was fighting at 125 lb for the first time, and then got suspended for PEDs, before returning to go 1-1 and then retiring. The fourth was a R3 TKO against Marlon Moraes, who has since gone 1-6 with six KO losses. And the fifth was a R2 TKO against Dominick Cruz, who was coming off a three and a half year layoff and has since gone 2-1. So while all of those are big names, it’s not the most impressive resume when taken in context. Only once has Cejudo seen the championship rounds, and that ended in a low-volume split decision win over Johnson. While Cejudo won both the Flyweight and Bantamweight belts, he only defended each of them once and the Bantamweight belt was vacant when he won it.

Overall, Cejudo’s name is rarely brought up without mentioning that he was a 2008 Olympic gold medalist in freestyle wrestling. In his 12 UFC appearances, his opponents were only able to take him down once on 15 attempts (93.3% defense), with Demetrious Johnson being the only fighter to ever complete a takedown against him. On the other side of things, Cejudo has only landed 21 takedowns on 62 attempts (33.9% accuracy). And if we just look at his three UFC fights at 135 lb, he only laned 2 of his 11 attempts (18.2% accuracy). The only time he ever landed more than three takedowns in a fight was in his second UFC match, when he landed six. He landed two or fewer in 8 of his last 10 fights. He also doesn’t land much in the way of striking volume, as he only averages 3.92 SSL/min and 2.77 SSA/min. He’s never landed more than 90 significant strikes in a fight or absorbed more than 81. After adapting more of a karate stance midway through his UFC career, Cejudo began getting his lead leg chewed up more often, most notably by Demetrious Johnson. We then saw Cejudo tighten up his stance a little, but Marlon Moraes was still able to successfully attack his legs in Cejudo’s second most recent fight. So Cejudo still appears pretty vulnerable to leg kicks

Aljamain Sterling

18th UFC Fight (14-3)

Sterling continues to be involved in controversial title fights, as he comes off a second round TKO win over T.J. Dillashaw, who entered the matchup with a secretly wrecked shoulder that immediately popped back out in the fight. That left Dillashaw fighting with one hand and helpless in the grappling exchanges. Prior to that, Sterling won a close split decision over Petr Yan in their rematch, after Sterling originally “won” the Bantamweight belt via disqualification when Yan landed the infamous curb stomp style illegal knee after having Sterling on the ropes. Following the DQ win, Sterling opted to undergo neck surgery to repair nerve damage that had been bothering him for years. The recovery process from the surgery forced a 13 month gap between the two title fights. Prior to the pair of title fights against Yan, Sterling landed the only first round victory of his 17 fight UFC career when he submitted Cory Sandhagen in just 88 seconds via rear-naked choke. The only other time one of Sterling’s UFC fights ended in the first round was in 2017 when Marlon Moraes knocked him out in just 67 seconds. His other 15 UFC matches have all seen the second round, with 12 making it to round three, and nine going the distance. Three of those nine decisions were split (1-2). Sterling has won eight straight fights since getting knocked out by Moraes in 2017, including notable wins over tough wrestlers in Brett Johns and Cody Stamann, in addition to Jimmie Rivera, Pedro Munhoz, Cory Sandhagen, Petr Yan and an injured T.J. Dillashaw.

Johns is a really tough wrestler and entered that matchup 15-0, but Sterling won a lopsided unanimous 30-27 decision. Stamann, another tough wrestler, came into their fight on a 10 fight winning streak and 3-0 in the UFC, but Sterling submitted him in the second round. Rivera had won 21 of his previous 22 fights at the time and despite going 0 for 7 on takedowns against Rivera’s elite 92% takedown defense, Sterling easily cruised to another unanimous 30-27 decision. Munhoz’s stock was at an all time high when he faced Sterling after he had just landed back-to-back first round knockouts against Cody Garbrandt and Bryan Caraway and defeated Brett Johns in a decision. While Sterling failed to land any of his seven takedown attempts against the really solid 80% takedown defense of Munhoz, he impressively outlanded Munhoz 174-105 in significant strikes in a high-paced brawling three-round decision, which Sterling won unanimously 30-27.

Now 22-3 as a pro, Sterling has three wins by TKO (R2 2022, R1 2011 & R3 2014), eight by submission, and 10 decision victories. Six of his eight submission wins occurred in 2015 or earlier and he only has two submissions in his last 13 fights (R1 2020 & R2 2018). Three of his career submission wins ended in round one, three came in round two, and the other two occurred in round three. The only time Sterling has been finished in 25 pro fights was when Marlon Moraes knocked him out cold with a perfect knee to his chin as Sterling shot in for a reckless takedown a minute into their 2017 match. His other two career losses were a pair of split decisions against Bryan Caraway and Raphael Assuncao in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

This will be the 8th five-round fight of Sterling’s career and fourth in the UFC. Just prior to joining the UFC in 2014, Sterling had four straight fights scheduled to go five rounds, however, only one of those made it past the third round, which was a 2011 decision win in his 5th fight the year he turned pro. He landed three straight submissions spread across the first three rounds in his next three five-round fights leading up to his UFC debut. His first two UFC five-round fights were against Petr Yan and Sterling slowed down late in both of those. Sterling lost round three and was losing round four prior to the illegal knee the first time they fought, and lost both rounds four and five in the rematch. His most recent five–round fight ended in a second round TKO victory, so we didn’t get to see him in the championship rounds. So overall, Sterling has yet to win a championship round in the UFC, but did squeak out wins in both of the fights that made it there.

Overall, Sterling is a former NCAA DIII college wrestler, a BJJ black belt, and overall a very dangerous grappler. In his 17 UFC fights, he’s landed 29 of his 119 takedown attempts (24.4% accuracy), while his opponents have gotten him down on 20 of their 34 attempts (41.2% defense). The last 10 attempts against him were all successful, although five of his last six opponents didn’t even try to take him down. He’s still 5-1 in fights where he’s been taken down, with the one loss coming in a 2016 split decision. Prior to landing five of his eight attempts in his last fight against an injured T.J. Dillashaw, Sterling had amazingly only landed three of his 54 attempts (5.6% accuracy) in his previous five matches, but still won all of those fights. Now he faces a former Olympic gold medalist with an elite 93% takedown defense who’s only been taken down once in his career, so Sterling will likely continue to struggle with his takedown accuracy. Sterling’s striking numbers are actually more impressive than his grappling stats, as he’s averaged 4.70 SSL/min and just 2.18 SSA/min. He’s finished ahead in significant strikes in 15 of his 17 UFC fights, while he only trailed by one and four significant strikes respectively in his other two matches. He’s got good range and movement and will mix in kicks while also utilizing his lengthy reach. He’s also landed double digit leg strikes in 6 of his last 12 fights.

Fight Prediction:

Sterling will have a 3” height advantage and 7” reach advantage. He’s also three years younger than the 36-year-old Cejudo.

Sterling is the bigger, longer, younger, and more active fighter in this matchup. He’s also the current champion and will basically be fighting in his backyard on this Newark card. While Cejudo is the more credentialed wrestler, Sterling is the superior grappler. So if the fight does hit the mat, Cejudo will be at a far greater risk of getting finished than Sterling. That could result in Cejudo being less inclined to look for takedowns, but he still has an elite 93% takedown defense that should allow him to keep the fight standing if he so chooses. That creates the potential for this to turn into a kickboxing match, and Sterling will have a substantial height and reach advantage, in addition to being the higher volume striker. Cejudo has been very prone to getting his lead leg beat up and we expect Sterling to attack that, while also trying to control the range to utilize his reach advantage. Sterling doesn’t have knockout power, but he is fully capable of outlanding his way to decision wins, as we saw against Pedro Munhoz and Jimmie Rivera in 2019. So while he’s always a threat to land submissions on the mat, we like Sterling to win a decision in more of a striking battle than most people are expecting.

Our favorite bet here is “Aljamain Sterling DEC” at +240.

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DFS Implications:

Cejudo is now 36 years old and coming out of retirement following a three year layoff. His last three wins came in very favorable spots, as he defeated T.J. Dillashaw, who was killing himself to move down to 125 lb for the first and only time, Marlon Moraes, who’s been knocked out in seven of his last eight fights, and Dominick Cruz, who was coming off a three and a half year layoff. Most of his career was spent at 125 lb before he moved up to 135 lb for his last two fights, and at just 5’4” he’s small for the Bantamweight division. While it’s apparently illegal to mention his name without bringing up his 2008 Olympic gold medal in wrestling, he’s only landed 21 takedowns in 12 UFC fights and only two in his last three matches. So while he’s a world class wrestler (or at least was), he’s not the type of fighter to put up huge takedown totals, but does have an elite 93% takedown defense. He also doesn’t put up big striking totals, as he averages just 3.92 SSL/min and 2.77 SSA/min. While he’s averaged 93 DraftKings points in his 10 UFC wins, he typically relies on landing TKO finishes in the first two rounds to score well. The only time he ever topped 86 DraftKings points in a decision was in 2015 when he landed a career best six takedowns and scored 109 points. With that said, five of his six UFC decision wins have come in three-round fights, and he’ll have an additional two rounds to work with here. However, the one time he did go five rounds, he still only scored 80 DraftKings points in a five-round split decision win over Demetrious Johnson, which is the only time he’s been to the championship rounds in his career. He also scored “just” 93 points in a late R3 TKO win over Marlon Moraes in his second most recent fight, which was all the way back in 2019. Aljamain Sterling has only been finished once in his career and has the grappling skills to make Cejudo seriously question whether or not he actually wants to take this fight to the ground. Even at his relatively cheap price tag, there are lots of ways for Cejudo to fail here, and we expect him to be overowned relative to his chances of cracking tournament winning lineups. The odds imply he has a 51% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

Sterling is coming off a career best performance, where he scored 152 DraftKings points against an injured opponent in T.J. Dillashaw, who screwed over anyone that backed him to cash one last payday. Dillashaw came into the fight to die with a recurring dislocated shoulder injury and Sterling easily dominated him until the fight was eventually stopped in round two. While that showed how important it is to have two working arms in a fight, it’s not a fair representation of what we can expect from Sterling in a typical fight. Prior to that, he had averaged 95 DraftKings points in his first 13 UFC victories and had never topped 112 points, while he only scored 86 points in a five-round decision win over Petr Yan in his second most recent fight. Sterling has struggled with his takedown accuracy, only landing 8 of his last 62 attempts, and will now be facing the elite 93% takedown defense of former 2008 Olympic freestyle wrestling gold medalist™ Henry Cejudo. That will make it tougher for Sterling to boost his scoring with takedowns and leave him more reliant on striking and/or landing a finish to score well. He has shown the ability to put up big striking totals, but his cardio in the championship rounds hasn’t looked great, which limits his scoring ceiling to some extent. We’re looking at him as more of a potential value play, who could score enough to be useful at his reasonable price tag, but is unlikely to hit a real ceiling performance unless Cejudo has completely gone off a cliff, which is always possible. The odds imply he has a 49% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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