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Fighter Notes:
Fight #12
Malcolm Gordon
7th UFC Fight (2-4)Coming off two early losses, Gordon was most recently finished in just 61 seconds by a Jake Hadley body shot, after getting submitted in the third round by Muhammad Mokaev. Gordon showed decent grappling in the loss to Mokaev, but still lost each of the first two rounds before ultimately getting caught in an armbar in the final minute of the fight. Leading up to those two losses Gordon was awarded his only early win in the UFC when a debuting Denys Bondar suffered an arm injury early in the first round. Just before that, Gordon notched his only other UFC win in a decision victory over a fraudulent Francisco Figueiredo. That came after Gordon was finished in the first round in each of his first two UFC fights, in a first round submission against Amir Albazi, followed by a 44 second knockout against Sumudaerji. Twelve of Gordon’s last 13 fights ended early (7-5), with 10 of those ending in round one.
Now 14-7 as a pro, Gordon has five wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and three decision victories. All seven of his career losses ended early, with five knockouts and two submissions. Six of his seven losses ended in the first two rounds, with four of his last five defeats ending in round one. He’s only been to the third round four times in his career, although two of those were in his last four fights. Gordon has fought a few times at 135 lb, but the rest of his career has been spent at 125 lb.
Overall, Gordon is a BJJ black belt who’s typically a finish or get finished type of fighter, and he’s only been to one decision since 2015. He’s shown decent grappling, but a very suspect chin. While he’s been submitted twice in the UFC, both of those losses came against really high-level grapplers. In his six UFC fights, Gordon landed 4 takedowns on 13 attempts (30.8% accuracy), while he was taken down by his opponents on 10 of their 11 attempts (9.1% defense). He only averages 1.93 SSL/min and 2.26 SSA/min and we haven’t seen a ton of striking in any of his fights. Gordon missed weight by 3.5 lb for his last match, so keep an eye on him during weigh-ins.
UPDATE: Gordon missed weight by 1.5 lb!
Jimmy Flick
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Stepping into the final fight of his contract, Flick was finished with ground and pound in the opening six minutes and change of each of his last two fights, looking absolutely dreadful in both of those matches. The most recent of those losses came 63 seconds into the second round against Alessandro Costa, who’s now 1-2 in the UFC and destroyed Flick’s lead leg without much trouble. The previous loss was to Charles Johnson, who’s currently 2-4 in the UFC and has consistently struggled against wrestlers. Prior to those two losses in 2023, Flick “retired” following a first round flying triangle submission win in his 2020 UFC debut against Cody Durden. Even in that fight, Flick was losing badly before throwing up the hail mary submission. Flick’s last five losses all ended in KO/TKOs, with four of those coming in the later rounds, including three in round two. On the other side of things, his last 13 wins all ended in submissions, with three of his last four victories ending in round one. Flick punched his ticket to the UFC with a third round submission win on DWCS just two months before his win over Durden.
Now 16-7 as a pro, Flick has 14 wins by submission and two decision victories. Both of his decision wins came in his first three pro fights. Of his 14 total submissions, eight came in round one, three ended in round two, and three occurred in round three. He has six KO/TKO losses and one decision defeat. Five of his six KO/TKO losses ended in the later rounds, with four ending in round two and another in round three. Flick fought primarily at 135 lb until 2020 when he dropped down to 125 lb.
Overall, Flick is a one-dimensional jiu-jitsu specialist who is a complete liability when it comes to striking. While he’s dangerous on the mat—or at least used to be—he’s very hittable in the striking exchanges and his history of getting knocked out confirms that. His last 14 fights all ended in either submission wins (9) or KO/TKO losses (5) and Flick is the definition of a kill or get killed fighter. Between his DWCS appearance and his three UFC fights, Flick landed 3 of his 11 takedown attempts (27.3% accuracy), while his opponents landed both of their attempts against him. The last time he won a fight without landing a submission was 2011 and the last time he lost a fight without getting knocked out was 2016.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’7” and 33 years old, but Gordon will have a 3” reach advantage.
This is a doppelganger matchup between two fragile grapplers who are both coming off a pair of early losses. Neither of them can take a punch (or a leg kick, body shot, stiff breeze, etc.), but that may be less of a concern here considering neither of them is much of a threat on the feet either. Flick at least has never been submitted, while Gordon has already tapped twice in his six-fight UFC career, albeit against elite competition both times. Whether or not Flick has anything left after retiring in 2020 and then unretiring in2023 is a very fair question to ask, and Gordon has seen a suspiciously large line move in his favor this week. Normally we see Flick either land a submission or get knocked out in all of his fights, but both of these guys are black belts and a submission won’t be automatic for Flick. And at the same time, Gordon almost never knocks anybody out, with his only KO/TKO victory since 2017 coming from a freak arm injury. Maybe that doesn’t matter and these two are so fragile that one of them will find a finish by default, but the last time Gordon was desperate for a win was when we saw him grind out a rare decision against a quasi grappler in Francisco Figueiredo. It wouldn’t be shocking to see a similar result here.
If we’re talking about 2020 Jimmy Flick, Gordon probably gets submitted here, but Flick has looked unbelievably bad since coming back from retirement and this is the final fight on his deal. If anyone on the roster was ever going to try and pull a Darrick Minner and profit from an undisclosed preexisting injury, it would probably be Jimmy “The Brick” Flick on the final fight of his deal, which would line up with the massive line move in Gordon’s favor if you want to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole. But it’s dangerous to speculate and there could be a lot of reasons for that line move. Regardless, we’re not convinced that 2024 Flick is nearly as dangerous as 2020 Flick, so we’re not counting on him completing his one path to victory, which is to lock up a submission. We’d also be surprised to see Gordon submit Flick, which leaves the two most likely outcomes here being a Gordon TKO or decision win. If there’s anything shady going on, then this probably ends in a Gordon R1 TKO win with Flick quickly covering up on the mat. However, if Flick actually shows up in shape and doesn’t quit midway through the fight, then a Gordon decision win would make a lot of sense. And if Flick can really turn back the clock, maybe he does throw up a triangle and catch Gordon in a submission. That all makes this a volatile spot, which leaves us inclined to simply take the longer odds of a Gordon decision and hope Flick shows up healthy and with a will to fight considering his job is on the line. Tread lightly though, this fight could go sideways in the blink of an eye.
Our favorite bet here is “Malcolm Gordon DEC” at +550.
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DFS Implications:
Gordon is a fragile grappler who has only topped 80 DraftKings points once in six UFC fights, which was when he notched 102 DraftKings points in a first round TKO win due to an opponent’s arm injury. He also has one decision win in the UFC that was good for 80 points, while he was finished in all four of his UFC losses and all three of his defeats before joining the organization. That leaves him with a non-existent floor every time he steps inside the Octagon, and it’s impossible to trust him. He is a BJJ black belt, but so is Jimmy Flick and Flick has never been submitted. We’re typically salivating over the thought of playing fighters against Flick due to how easy it’s been to knock him out. However, Gordon may be one of the least likely fighters on the roster to actually capitalize on that. He only has one KO/TKO win since 2017, which was due to a freak army injury that his opponent suffered in 2022. That makes this a trickier spot to figure out, although Gordon has seen an absolutely massive line move in his favor, as he opened the week at -135 and was bet all the way up to -225 late in the week. Whether there’s something nefarious going on like a pre-existing Flick injury or just a bunch of action on Gordon from people that watched Flick’s last two fights remains to be seen, but that’s definitely some eyebrow raising line movement. Gordon was able to survive on the mat for 14 and a half minutes against Muhammad Mokaev, before finally getting armbarred with 34 seconds remaining on the clock, which is somewhat encouraging for his chances of surviving against Flick. However, this fight looks like the epitome of volatility and could go a lot of ways. That leaves us with no choice but to have exposure to both sides, while also realizing that it’s possible for Gordon to win a decision and still not score well. Gordon has been 8% or less owned on DraftKings in each of his last three fights, but the matchup mispricing following the line move here should drive that number way up. It will be interesting to see just how much the field trusts him in this favorable matchup. The odds imply Gordon has a 66% chance to win, a 51% chance to land a finish, and a 29% chance it comes in round one.
Flick’s last 14 fights all ended in either submission wins (9) or KO/TKO losses (5) and targeting his fights has been a profitable endeavor. He’s been finished in under a round and a half in each of his last two fights, with those two opponents scoring 114 and 108 DraftKings points respectively. His only UFC win was in his 2020 debut when he submitted Cody Durden with a flying triangle in the first round and scored 93 points. The last time Flick required the judges was in 2016 and the last time he won a decision was in 2011. He has zero knockout wins on his record, leaving him far less likely to capitalize on Gordon’s lack of durability. That appears to leave him as a submission or bust play going against a fellow BJJ black belt. It’s been over three years since Flick submitted anybody and he actually retired for two years following that win in his debut. He’s looked terrible since returning in 2023 and said he took a full year off from training or even exercising after he retired. The UFC hilariously paired up the two least durable fighters on the roster in this hyper volatile matchup so just be prepared for anything to happen in this clown show of a fight. With both fighters affordably priced, the winner will have a really good shot at ending up in tournament winning lineups and the books are expecting this one to end early 75% of the time. The odds imply Flick has a 34% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Jasmine Jasudavicius
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Jasudavicius will be once again fighting in front of her home Canadian crowd as she looks to bounce back from a decision loss to Tracy Cortez, who’s known for her wrestling but had no problem winning that fight entirely on the feet, even breaking Jasudavicius’ orbital in the process. Cortez won every round of the fight, finishing ahead 103-77 in significant strikes, Jasudavicius was only able to land 2 of her 10 takedown attempts. Just before that, Jasudavicius pulled off a big upset win in a decision over Miranda Maverick on the last UFC Canada card, after winning another decision leading up to that. Jasudavicius also won a decision in her 2022 UFC debut against a struggling and undersized Kay Hansen, before losing a decision to Natalia Silva. Jasudavicius’ last eight fights all went the distance, with her winning five of those. Jasudavicius made her way into the UFC with a strong wrestling performance on DWCS in 2021, as she landed four takedowns on seven attempts with over eight minutes of control time in a decision win.
Now 9-3 as a pro, Jasudavicius has two wins by R1 TKO, one submission, and six decision victories. She’s never been finished and all three of her losses went the distance, with one of those coming in a questionable split decision against a one-dimensional striker in Elise Reed in a 2020 four-round CFFC Strawweight Championship fight before they both joined the UFC. Jasudavicius only turned pro in 2019 and was very late coming into MMA as she’s already 34 years old. Her loss to Reed came at 115 lb, while almost all of her other fights have been at 125 lb, with the one exception being a 2020 122 lb Catchweight match. Her only career submission win was in her 2019 pro debut against an opponent who had never fought professionally before, while her two TKO wins both came by knees in the first round of her third and fourth pro fights.
Overall, Jasudavicius relies almost entirely on her wrestling to grind out decision wins and is pretty one-dimensional, but is aggressive enough to try and throw down on the feet at times, despite her limited striking ability. She generally looks for ground and pound on the mat, opposed to really hunting for submissions, although she’s never actually finished anyone with ground strikes. While she didn’t get into MMA until later on in her life, she does have a freestyle wrestling background and is a BJJ purple belt. Between her five UFC fights and her DWCS appearance, Jasudavicius landed 13 of her 35 takedown attempts (37.1% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on just 3 of their 15 attempts (80% defense). She only averages 3.54 SSL/min and 4.41 SSA/min and has never landed more than 77 significant strikes in a fight. The best performance of her career came on the last Canada card and now she comes in a massive favorite in a great matchup to find wrestling success.
Priscila Cachoeira
10th UFC Fight (4-5)Coming off a third round submission loss to Miranda Maverick, Cachoeira continues to struggle anytime she faces an opponent who can grapple. Maverick took Cachoeira down three times and controlled her for nine minutes, before finishing her midway through the third round. Maverick also notably stepped into that matchup on short notice, but that didn’t help Cachoeira any. It feels like Cachoeira fights more than she does, but that’s probably because she misses weight so often that a lot of her booked fights don’t end up happening. Three of her last four booked opponents got canceled and amazingly she has eight canceled fights in the UFC. After starting out 0-3 with the organization, Cachoeira has quietly won four of her last six fights, but she’s been very matchup dependent and three of her four wins were against struggling opponents who are no longer in the UFC, while the other was a first round knockout of Ariane Lipski in a fight that only lasted 65 seconds and took place at 135 lb instead of 125 lb.
Now 12-5 as a pro, Cachoeira has seven wins by KO/TKO and five decisions. She’s never been knocked out but has been submitted three times and has two decision losses. All seven of her knockout wins occurred in the first two rounds, with four ending in round one. Two of her three submission losses ended in the later rounds, with the other being stopped in the final second of round one. Cachoeira has competed at both 125 lb and 135 lb, but most of her career has been spent at 125 lb and she only has one UFC fight at 135 lb.
Overall, Cachoeira is a pure brawler who always shows up ready to throw down. She looks to protect her hands with her face as she averages 7.13 SSA/min (most on the slate), while also averaging 4.12 SSL/min. She’s been outlanded by her opponents in six of her nine UFC fights, losing five of those matches and arguably losing the sixth as well. In her three UFC fights to go the distance, her opponents landed 170, 107, and 111 significant strikes against her. She’s also a complete liability on the mat and is terrible off her back. She’s been taken down 12 times on 35 attempts (65.7% defense) in her nine UFC fights, while landing just one takedown of her own on three attempts (33.3% accuracy). Cachoeira has also struggled with weight cuts throughout her career, and she’s always one to keep an eye on during weigh-ins.
UPDATE: Cachoeira informed the Jasudavicius team either late Thursday or early Friday that she was having trouble cutting down to 125 lb and the fight was moved from 125 lb to 135 lb!
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’7” but Jasudavicius will have a 3” reach advantage.
Cachoeira matchups are about as simple to break down as it gets. Wrestler bad, striker good. She’s facing a wrestler here so it’s not looking great for her. The fact that she bullied her way into making this a 135 lb match should benefit her however, as she really struggles to cut down to 125 lb and now won’t have to. The last time Cachoeira fought at 135 lb she landed a knockout in just 65 seconds, and she’s always live to land bombs on the feet for as long as fights remain standing. Who knows if Cachoeira even tried to make 125 lb or if she was just gaming the system here, but as long as she goes unpunished for pulling this type of stunt she has no reason not to continue doing it. While her weight shenanigans do seemingly raise her chances some, this is still a bad matchup for her and she’ll need to keep the fight standing at all costs. Jasudavicius hasn't had the best takedown accuracy at 37%, but she is fully capable of getting Cachoeira down and beating on her for 15 minutes. The bigger question is whether or not she’ll find a finish, as that’s where Jasudavicius has really struggled. We lean towards no, but she won’t get many more favorable matchups than this one to end things early. Jasudavicius by decision is the pick, but it won’t be shocking to see either of these two land a TKO.
Our favorite bet here is “Priscila Cachoeira R1 KO” at +1400.
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DFS Implications:
Jasudavicius is a one-dimensional wrestler who has fought to eight straight decisions and is typically a DraftKings specific play who needs to completely dominate fights on the mat to score well. She averaged 92 DraftKings points in her three UFC wins, with two scores in the mid 80s and one 105 point total. Her two lower scoring wins were against fellow grapplers, while her one legit score was against a one-dimensional striker. Now she gets the matchup that all grapplers dream about in Priscila Cachoeira. If Jasudavicius was ever going to find a finish on the mat, this would be the time. And even if she doesn’t, this is a perfect spot for her to dominate with her wrestling. The only concern is that Cachoeira is a well known cheater and in addition to fence grabs and eye gouges, she’s now calling what weight class she wants to fight at just before weigh-ins begin. Not having to cut an additional 7.5 lb will clearly be a benefit for Cachoeira, although how much that will help her remains to be seen. That at least adds some additional volatility to this matchup and could make it a little tougher for Jasudavicius to land takedowns. However, that’s more of a concern for her floor and she still has a high ceiling in this dream matchup. Just keep in mind, as the most expensive fighter on the card, she’ll need to put up a career score to avoid getting priced out of winning lineups. And to score well on FanDuel, she’ll need a rare finish. The odds imply Jasudavicius has a 77% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Cachoeira’s brawling style is great for DFS as she’s constantly forcing the action, getting punched in the face, and looking to land knockouts. She’s also terrible off her back, which provides another avenue for opponents to score well against her. She absorbs far more strikes than she lands (4.12 SSL/min vs. 7.13 SSA/min), and doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling, which leaves her entirely reliant on striking and landing knockouts to score well. She returned DraftKings scores of 108, 87, and 128 in her three UFC knockout wins, but just 77 points in her lone decision victory. However, as the cheapest fighter on the card she could still potentially serve as a value play in a high-volume decision win, but she’ll be reliant on landing another knockout to really score well. This is definitely a tough matchup for her to succeed as she squares off against a grappler who will be looking to take her down. Somehow just before weigh-ins Cachoeira bullied her way into making this fight take place at 135 lb instead of 125 lb, which is definitely more of a benefit for her than Jasudavicius. That somewhat adds to Cachoeira’s appeal, but she’ll still need to keep the fight standing to win, something she’s really struggled to do against grapplers in the past. The odds imply Cachoeira has a 23% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Yohan Lainesse
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Stepping into the final fight of his UFC contract, Lainesse is 11 months removed from a first round submission loss to Mike Malott. That’s Lainesse’ second early defeat in three UFC appearances and he was also knocked out by Gabe Green in the second round of his 2022 UFC debut. In between those two losses, he won an uneventful/questionable split decision over Darian Weeks, who went 0-3 in the UFC before being cut following that loss to Lainesse. That fight was painful to watch and Weeks actually finished ahead 44-23 in significant strikes, 49-24 in total strikes, and 1-0 in takedowns. So Lainesse’s only UFC win came in one of the worst winning performances you’ll ever see and he arguably lost. His unwillingness to push the pace in that fight was likely due to the fact that he completely gassed out in the second round of his UFC debut, but the only thing that he was ever good at was aggressively hunting for knockouts, knowing that he would gas out when unsuccessful. If you take that away, he has nothing.
Now 9-2 as a pro, Lainesse has six wins by KO/TKO and three decision victories. Five of those knockout wins occurred in round one, with the other ending in the first half of round two. Just keep in mind, four of his five first round knockouts were in his first five pro fights. He was finished in both of his losses, with a 2023 first round submission and a 2022 second round TKO. While Lainesse doesn’t have any submission wins on his record, he will look to lock up guillotine chokes, but has a 0% success rate. Most of his career has been spent at 170 lb, but he competed up at 185 lb once and another time at a 180 lb Catchweight. He said he used to get up to 215 lb and weighed close to 250 lb when he was younger, but now walks around at 195 lb and has been trying to improve his diet and cardio.
Overall, Lainesse is a powerful striker who seems to be in the process of reinventing himself at the UFC level, which is always a dangerous game to play. He came into the UFC as an aggressive brawler with a 7-8 minute gas tank, who would also occasionally mix in takedowns. Now he’s training at Tristar and they appear to be trying to slow him down and pace his cardio for three rounds. While Lainesse was never a good fighter, at least he used to be exciting and had a chance of landing knockouts. Now he’s bad and boring thanks to the world-renowned geniuses over at Tristar who pride themselves in passivity. Lainesse also somehow runs his own gym called Academie Connexion and must be the best grifter in the world to get people to pay him for advice. In a recent interview he said he just started doing conditioning for the first time and claimed everything has changed in his preparation for this fight when it comes to his team, his coach, and his training partners. However, he had been training at Tristar before and is still training there, so we’re not really sure what he’s talking about. Hopefully he loses here, gets cut, and we never have to waste time deciphering his bullshit again.
Sam Patterson
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Looking to bounce back from a violent KO loss in his UFC debut, the 6’3” Patterson has decided to move up from 155 lb to 170 lb for the first time in his career. He had been scheduled to take another fight at 155 lb in September against Nasrat Haqparast, but ended up withdrawing in August, posting, “I was looking forward to getting back in the cage and testing myself against a high level opponent, but I’m not in good health. Let alone healthy enough to fight.” It’s only been five months since that happened and it’s unclear when he decided to move up a weight class, but his matchup against Lainesse was announced on November 2nd, so we know he made the decision sometime between dropping out of the Haqparast fight on August 8th and taking this new matchup at the start of November. So best case he had five months to acclimate his body to 170 lb for the first time and worst case he had two and a half months. Either way it seems like kind of a short amount of time for a lifelong Lightweight. Prior to getting knocked out in his debut, Patterson hadn’t lost a fight since 2017, in his second pro bout. He went 9-0-1 in between those two losses, with eight of those wins ending early. His last three wins all ended in the second round, with two submissions and one TKO. He had been competing with the Brave CF organization, before going on DWCS in 2022 and punching his ticket to the UFC with a second round submission. He has a R1 KO win over former UFC fighter Felipe Silva, but the washed up Silva went 1-2 in the UFC and has now been knocked out in the first round in three straight fights and has been finished in 5 of his last 6 matches. Patterson’s last two opponents before going on DWCS had both lost three of their last four fights, so overall Patterson hasn’t been facing the toughest of competition.
Now 10-2-1 as a pro, Patterson has four wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and one decision victory. All four of his knockout wins occurred in the first two rounds, with three ending in round one. Four of his five submission wins were by guillotine, while he also has one rear-naked choke. Only one of his submission wins ended in round one, while three came in round two, and one in round three. Both of his career losses ended in first round knockouts.
Overall, Patterson is a young 27-year-old English fighter who fights out of a smaller gym (Team Crossface) with no other UFC fighters. He said he wants to prove he can be successful with just that team, so he hasn’t done any cross training with more experienced training partners or anyone with UFC experience—smart. The UFC loves physical freaks and Patterson fits the bill at 6’3”, although now that he’s moving up from 155 lb to 170 lb he won’t stand out quite as much. He does a decent job of utilizing his size and reach, but is pretty hittable and is definitely still a work in progress. He’s a BJJ brown belt, who loves looking for guillotine chokes and does a good job of using his long skinny arms to get under opponents’ necks, especially later on in fights. He doesn’t appear to have the best chin and we’ve seen him wobbled at multiple points in his career, in addition to getting knocked out twice. He’s talked about how much work he puts into his cardio, allowing him to outlast his opponents, although we’ll see how he carries the additional weight at 170 lb. He said that he wasn’t able to perform at his best on DWCS because the pressure of the moment got to him, and he followed that up with a knockout loss in his debut in front of his home London crowd, so who knows where his head’s at now. We’re very interested to see how he looks on the scale as he prepares to make his Welterweight debut and following his recent health issues.
Fight Prediction:
Patterson will have a 2” height and reach advantage, while also being four years younger than the 31-year-old Lainesse.
This is one of those matchups where we wish we could bet against both guys, as they each come in littered with red flags. Lainesse has been absolutely terrible in the UFC and seems to be regressing every time he steps foot inside the Octagon. He’s also fighting for his job and claims to have changed up everything around him, which we know isn’t entirely true because he’s still at the same gym. Meanwhile, Patterson got turned into a baby giraffe in his recent UFC debut, then dealt with some mysterious health issues, and is now moving up to 170 lb for the first time in his career without a ton of time to adjust. He’s consistently shown a dubious chin and is now facing the largest opponent of his career, who’s only redeeming attribute is his power. Conversely, Patterson prides himself on his cardio and Lainesse has the gas tank of a leaky moped. So both of these two have the ability to self-destruct at any moment, and the most likely results of that would be either a Lainesse knockout win in the first two rounds or a Patterson submission victory in the back half of the fight. It also wouldn’t be shocking to see them both fight incredibly tentatively, as Lainesse trains at the spay-and-neuter clinic that they call Tristar, while Patterson is coming off a scary knockout loss. So an ultra low-volume decision is also in play. With Lainesse claiming he completely changed his preparations and Patterson moving up a weight class following a really bad knockout and health issues, this is a very volatile matchup. However, Patterson seems to have the most red flags on his side of things, so we slightly lean towards Lainesse knocking him out, although the books agree there and Lainesse’s KO line looks basically unbettable. So we’ll end up throwing a couple of longshot darts here and then be left complaining when the chalk Lainesse KO line hits. Sometimes that’s just how it has to be.
Our favorite bet here is “Lainesse/Patterson FGTD” at +370.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.
DFS Implications:
Lainesse came into the UFC as an aggressive brawler, looking to end fights with every punch he threw. However, after gassing out and getting finished in the second round of his debut, he retreated into his shell in his next fight as we saw a complete snoozer with him circling the outside of the Octagon for 15 minutes and only landing 23 total significant strikes, while also failing to land either of his two takedown attempts. We then saw another slow start in his last fight, before he was submitted late in the first round, and now he’ll be fighting for his spot on the roster. He’s yet to even make a dent in DFS scoring, as he only scored 40 DraftKings points in his one UFC win. However, he still has knockout upside if he can ever get out of his own way. Patterson was knocked out in the first round in each of his two career losses and has also been wobbled at multiple other points. He’s also moving up from 155 lb to 170 lb for the first time in his career, and it remains to be seen if that will help or hurt his durability. That adds enough volatility to this matchup that you essentially have no choice but to have some exposure to Lainesse, even if he’s one of the worst fighters on the roster. He has a very low floor both in a decision win or if he ends up getting submitted, but if he can land something clean early on, he’ll have a decent shot at knocking Patterson out and scoring well. The odds imply Lainesse has a 57% chance to win, a 47% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.
Patterson was violently knocked out just 75 seconds into the first round of his UFC debut at 155 lb last March and scored just a single point on DraftKings in the process. He was then booked to fight Nasrat Haqparast at 155 lb in September, but dropped out due to health issues in August. At the start of November, it was announced that Patetrson would be moving up to 170 lb to fight Lainesse here. At 6’3”, Patterson certainly has the height to compete at 170 lb, but whether or not he properly bulked up over the last few months is the concern. He’s been chinny throughout his career, and perhaps cutting less weight will help with that, but he’ll also be absorbing much bigger shots at 170 lb. So the concerns of him getting knocked out again as he faces a power puncher are warranted. However, if Patterson can avoid getting knocked out, he’ll have a decent shot at locking up a submission. Lainesse has both bad grappling and cardio and Patterson has a history of submitting opponents via guillotine in the later rounds. While that’s not a recipe for a scoring explosion, at Patterson’s cheaper price tag he doesn’t need to put up a massive score to be useful. However, there’s also a chance that both of these fighters come in overly tentative and the whole fight busts, despite what the odds may lead you to believe. Ultimately, this is a volatile matchup and Patterson is a low floor, average ceiling play. The odds imply Patterson has a 43% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Gillian Robertson
16th UFC Fight (9-6)Robertson will be looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Tabatha Ricci, who outclassed Robertson both on the feet and the mat, finishing ahead 100-76 in significant strikes and 3-1 on takedowns. That loss came just two months after Robertson landed a second round submission win over Piera Rodriguez. Robertson dropped down from 125 lb to 115 lb for the first time in the UFC for that fight and looked great at the new weight class. She had fought at 115 lb early in her pro career and was always undersized at 125 lb, and the move had seemed inevitable for a while. Robertson took Rodriguez down twice in the fight and controlled her for over six minutes before locking up an armbar in the final minute of round two. That was Robertson’s second straight submission win, after she locked up a rear-naked choke against Mariya Agapova in her previous fight. Robertson is just 3-4 in her last seven fights, with all three of those wins ending in submissions in the first two rounds and all four of the losses going the distance. Her only decision win in her last 18 fights came in 2020 against Poliana Botelho.
Now 12-8 as a pro, Robertson has one win by TKO (R2 2019), nine submissions, and two decision victories. She’s been knocked out once (R1 2019), submitted once (R1 2018), and has six decision defeats. Her two pre-UFC decision losses also came against fighters who are now in the UFC, in Hannah Goldy in Robertson’s 2016 pro debut and Cynthia Calvillo in 2016. The loss against Goldy came at 115 lb and the loss to Calvillo was at a 120 lb Catchweight. Robertson fought mostly at 115 lb before joining the UFC, but she moved up to 125 lb when she went on The Ultimate Fighter in 2017 and stayed there until 2023 when she dropped back down to 115 lb.
Overall, Robertson is a solid grappler, but doesn’t offer much of anything in terms of striking and can be overpowered on the mat by stronger opponents. She’s shown the ability to make the most of her one-dimensional grappling skillset and has generally capitalized when put in favorable matchups, but has struggled when facing fellow grapplers or opponents with good defensive wrestling who can keep the fight standing. When she faced the solid takedown defense of JJ Aldrich she lost a decision. She also lost decisions to fellow grapplers in Tabatha Ricci, Miranda Maverick, Taila Santos, and Cynthia Calvillo, while she also got armbarred by Mayra Bueno Silva. In her 15 UFC fights, Robertson landed 24 takedowns on 58 attempts (41.4% accuracy), landing at least one takedown in 13 of those fights and two or more in eight of them, but never more than three in a single fight. She lost both of the fights where she failed to land a takedown. On the other side of things, she’s been taken down by her opponents on 9 of their 16 attempts (43.8% defense) and is 0-3 in UFC fights where she trailed in takedowns.
Polyana Viana
10th UFC Fight (4-5)Coming off a second round submission loss to Iasmin Lucindo, Viana only has one win in the last three years, which was a quick 47 second R1 KO over Jinh Yu Frey in 2022. That victory was sandwiched between her recent loss to Lucindo and a 2022 decision defeat against Tabatha Ricci. Viana landed a pair of first round armbars just before the loss to Ricci, but keep in mind those were both against really low level opponents in Mallory Martin and Emily Whitemire. Viana also landed a first round submission in her 2018 UFC debut against a fellow debuting opponent who then never fought again. So all four of Viana’s UFC wins ended in the first round, while she lost all three of the UFC decisions she’s been to and was also submitted twice in the opening two rounds.
Now 13-6 as a pro, Viana has five KO/TKO wins and eight submission victories. Twelve of her 13 finishes came in round one, with the one exception being a 2014 second round submission victory in her second pro fight. She notably knocked out Amanda Ribas back in 2015 before they joined the UFC. Six of her eight submission wins ended in armbars, while she also has two rear-naked chokes on her record. She’s also been submitted twice herself, but she’s never been knocked out. She lost all four of the decisions she’s been to and she’s never won a fight that lasted longer than seven minutes. Viana came into the UFC with a 9-1 record, but has since gone 4-5 as opponents have begun figuring her out. Viana has fought almost her entire career at 115 lb, but did move up to 125 lb for one fight in 2019, where she was submitted by Veronica Hardy.
Overall, Viana is a semi-dangerous grappler who loves working off her back. She’s a BJJ brown belt and allegedly a former jiu-jitsu world champion, as well as a 21-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu champion. She also won the Jungle Fight Strawweight belt back in 2015. However, she was extremely unimpressive in her last fight and she seems more focussed on social media than fighting these days. She actually finished narrowly ahead in striking in all three of her UFC decision losses, but her biggest strength is also her biggest weakness as she’s so comfortable off her back that she spends large amounts of time losing minutes there. She almost always finishes way behind in control time and her style of fighting simply isn’t conducive to winning on the scorecards. She’s only landed 4 of her 12 takedown attempts (33.3% accuracy) in her nine UFC fights, while her opponents got her down on 9 of their 16 attempts (43.8% defense).
Fight Prediction:
Both of these fighters are 5’5”, but Viana will have a 4” reach advantage.
This is sort of an interesting matchup, as each of these two have struggled against other grapplers, but found a lot of success against opponents who struggle on the mat. They each rely on finishes to win fights, as Viana has a 100% finishing rate in her 13 career wins and went 0-4 with the judges. Meanwhile, Robertson has an 83% finishing rate in her 12 victories and has gone just 2-6 with the judges. Viana has been submitted twice herself in the past, while Robertson’s only submission loss was a 2018 first round armbar against Mayra Bueno Silva, who will now be competing for the 135 lb belt—two weight classes above where Robertson is now fighting. Regardless, they’ll both be looking for finishes on the ground and they’ve each been finished there in the past. Viana is the better striker, so Robertson will have no choice but to take the fight to the ground, and she’s made it clear that’s always her game plan regardless of the opponent. Viana only has a 43% takedown defense and shouldn’t put up a ton of resistance to being taken down. However, once on the mat, she will aggressively look for armbars and that’s where Robertson will need to be careful, especially in the first round. Completing an armbar will be tougher for Viana after the opening five minutes and that’s when Robertson should begin to take over, controlling Viana on the mat and hunting for a finish of her own. While Robertson said she wants a ground and pound TKO finish, she basically says that before every fight and she always ends up looking for a submission instead. Things could be dicey in round one, but we like Robertson’s chances of submitting Viana in the second round or at the very least grinding out a wrestling-heavy decision win. Robertson will have the home crowd behind her and this looks like a good bounce back spot as long as she can avoid getting armbarred in the first round, which we believe she can.
Our favorite bet here is “Robertson/Viana Fight Ends in SUB” at +105.
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DFS Implications:
Robertson has averaged 102 DraftKings points in her nine UFC wins, scoring at least 92 points in all of those. Her last two wins ended in a pair of second round submissions that were good for 106 and 96 DraftKings points respectively, while she scored 117 points in her last first round submission win. While 8 of her 9 UFC wins ended early 7 of her last 8 finishes came in the later rounds. She’s shown a solid scoring floor, but the ceiling hasn’t always been there even when she ends things early. That’s somewhat concerning at her higher price tag and she failed to top 98 DraftKings points in half of her eight UFC finishes. There’s also a chance that she could get submitted early in this match, so we can’t fully trust her scoring floor. That leaves her as a volatile tournament option, but if she does win, she’s shown a 92 point scoring floor on DraftKings and is unlikely to completely bust. However, her style of fighting will tend to score better on DraftKings than FanDuel and she’s more reliant on landing a finish on FanDuel. The odds imply Gillian Robertson has a 72% chance to win, a 45% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Viana is a very binary fighter who typically relies on finishing opponents in the first round (12 of her 13 wins). She’s 0-4 with the judges and has also been finished twice herself, leaving her with a very shaky scoring floor. She’s generally hunting for armbars off her back, but did land a knockout in her last win. All four of her UFC wins have come in the first round, where she’s averaged 110 DraftKings points. In her three UFC decision losses, she averaged 35 DraftKings points and has given us no indication that she can score well in a decision if she ever wins one. The oddsmakers aren’t giving Viana much of a chance to land the first round finish that she’s historically needed to win fights and you can find her first round submission prop as high as +1900 (5% implied chance). Considering Viana has been right around 25% owned in each of her last three fights, she looks like an objectively bad play when you compare the numbers. So we’re treating her as an overowned R1 submission or bust option. The odds imply Viana has a 28% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Serhiy Sidey
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Sidey will be making his UFC debut following a first round TKO win on DWCS and in a rare twist, he’ll be running it back with the guy he just finished. The reason for that immediate rematch was an overly quick stoppage from the ref after Sidey dropped Ramon Taveras midway through the first round and then pounced on him with ground and pound. However, before Sidey could really finish the job, the ref jumped in prematurely. The UFC didn’t want to penalize Sidey for the ref’s error, so they gave him a contract and gave Taveras a second opportunity on the show five weeks later. That was Sidey’s sixth straight win, with five of those coming early. His one decision over that stretch was in a 2022 five-round Battlefield Fight League title match, where he held the belt from 2021 to 2023, before vacating it when he joined the UFC.
Now 10-1 as a pro, Sidey has seven KO/TKO wins, one submission (R1 2021), and two decision victories. Three of his knockouts occurred in round one, two ended in round two, one was stopped in round three, and the other occurred in round four. His last three wins all ended in TKOs in the first two rounds. He’s never been finished, with the one loss of his career coming in a 2020 decision. He hasn’t fought much in the way of competition and his first four opponents came in with one combined win, so take his record with a grain of salt. Despite only having 11 pro fights under his belt, Sidey already has two rematches under his belt and both times he was able to knock out his opponents when they ran it back, with both of the rematches ending quicker then the first fights.
Overall, Sidey is a young 27-year-old Canadian prospect who was actually born in the Ukraine, but moved to Canada when he was six and has spent the last 21 years calling that home. Despite his young age, he’s a striking coach at the Burlington Training Centre. If you go back and watch his last half dozen fights, you can see clear improvement along the way, which is encouraging for his potential moving forward. He’s well rounded with good striking and decent wrestling, although hasn’t shown a ton when it comes to submission grappling. We’ve seen him put multiple guys down with body shots, and he also has the ability to work out of the clinch and chain wrestle. He’ll be making his debut in front of his home crowd, and while he says he loves that and thrives in those situations, we still need to see how he’ll handle the pressure.
Ramon Taveras
1st UFC Fight (0-0)A month after losing to Sidey on DWCS, Taveras went back on the show and landed a quick 29 second TKO of his own to punch his ticket to the UFC. He’s won five of his last six fights and none of his last five fights made it past the midway mark of round two, but prior to his two DWCS appearances he had been fighting on the dubious Jacksonville regional scene against some highly suspect competition. His last opponent before going on DWCS came in with a 5-5 record, and the one before that was 30-41-2 and is now on a 15 fight losing streak. Taveras does have a win over former UFC fighter Martin Day, but get in line. Day had just been cut by the UFC after going 0-4 with the promotion.
Now 9-2 as a pro, Taveras has five KO/TKO wins, three submissions, and one decision victory. Two of his four submission wins occurred in his first four pro fights and the other was a guillotine against Martin Day. Both of Taveras’ two pro losses ended by R1 knockout and he’s only required the judges once in his career, which was back in 2021. Eight of his last nine fights ended in under a round and a half, with seven of those being stopped in round one.
Overall, Taveras looks like a one-dimensional boxer, despite having a few submission wins on his record. He didn’t even attempt a takedown in any of his last five fights, and he appears entirely focussed on trying to knock his opponents out. He’s very aggressive and looks like a kill or be killed type of fighter, so it’s no surprise the UFC likes him, as he makes for action-packed fights. He has good power and quickness, but his lack of defense and grappling will surely be his downfall in the UFC. He’s been training at Bulldog Boxing in Jacksonville since he was 15 and says if it wasn’t for them he’d be dead or in jail by now. Taveras missed weight by 0.3 lb for his first DWCS fight, so he’ll be a guy to monitor on the scale.
UPDATE: Taveras missed weight by 3.75 lb!
Fight Prediction:
Sidey will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while also being three years younger than Taveras.
Sidey is an actual well-rounded fighter who will have the home crowd behind him, while Taveras is a backyard brawler who just wants to go punch for punch with his opponents until someone falls down. Sidey is taller, longer, and more durable, in addition to having the wrestling advantage, and also has a solid gas tank. He likely just needs to avoid suffering the first knockout loss of his career to win the fight. The smartest approach for Sidey would be to lean on his wrestling to neutralize the knockout threat of Taveras, but he’s also already finished Taveras once on the feet so maybe he’ll look for a more emphatic finish with the crowd egging him on. We’d be surprised if anyone locked up a submission here, and while Taveras will always have a puncher’s chance of landing a knockout, Sidey is the superior fighter and should win the fight with either a knockout or in a decision. We lean towards another early knockout win for Sidey.
Our favorite bet here is “Sidey/Taveras Under 1.5 Rounds” at -105.
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DFS Implications:
Sidey comes into the UFC on a six-fight winning streak and with 80% of his pro wins ending early. He just finished Taveras on DWCS and even if the stoppage was a little quick, he still dropped him and was in prime position to put him away. Sidey also has a decent ground game if he gets in trouble on the feet here, and he’s also never been knocked out. His wrestling gives him an additional way to score well, but he landed three straight TKOs in the first two rounds and both of Taveras’ career losses ended in first round knockouts. Neither of these two have faced much in the way of competition, which does leave some uncertainty on both sides, but Sidey is the rightful favorite and has multiple paths to victory. He’ll also have the home crowd behind him and as long as he can avoid getting knocked out he should win, with a good chance he finishes Taveras once again. The odds imply Sidey has a 61% chance to win, a 43% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Taveras’ aggressive fighting style is perfect for DFS and his last five matches all ended in under a round and a half, with four of those being stopped in round one. He’s been fighting a low level of competition, which makes it tougher to truly evaluate how dangerous he actually is, but he seems to have decent power and fairly crisp boxing. However, he hasn’t shown much depth to his game and seems to be looking to brawl and hunt for knockouts in all of his recent fights. He’ll always have somewhat of a chance to land a knockout just based on how he fights, but we need to see how he fairs against UFC level talent before we have a better feel for what that chance is. We won’t be at all surprised if he never wins a UFC fight and gets cut after going 0-4, but maybe the UFC will be merciful with the matchmaking and bring Victor Rodriguez back to fight him. We’re treating Taveras as a hail mary KO or bust option in a bad matchup, but we don’t hate sprinkling him in if you’re building a high number of tournament lineups and hoping he lands something clean. If he does pull off the upset, it will almost certainly be by KO and it will be hard to see him getting left out of winning lineups at his cheap price tag. The odds imply Taveras has a 39% chance to win, a 29% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Charles Jourdain
13th UFC Fight (6-5-1)Fresh off a first round submission win over Ricardo Ramos, Jourdain relentlessly looked for guillotine attempts after Ramos decided he wanted to wrestle. While Jourdain’s initial attempts were thwarted, he stuck with it and eventually forced Ramos to tap three minutes into the fight. Prior to that submission win, Jourdain fought to three straight decisions, losing the first two against Shane Burgos and Nathaniel Wood, before bouncing back with a win over Kron Gracie, who hadn’t competed in almost four years. Jourdain’s last seven fights all ended in either decisions (2-2) or submissions (2-1). The last time he knocked anybody out was in 2021 when he landed a third round finish against Marcelo Rojo, who was making his UFC debut and ended up getting finished in all three of his UFC fights before getting cut. Jourdain’s only other UFC knockout win was against Doo Ho Choi in the second round of a 2019 fight. Choi is 0-3-1 in his last four fights and hasn’t won since 2016. Jourdain’s one other finish in the UFC was another first round guillotine against an opponent who came in looking to wrestle, that time against Lando Vannata in 2022. Jourdain has gone just 2-4-1 with the judges in his UFC career, with his only other UFC loss ending in a 2021 third round submission against Julian Erosa, which is the only time Jourdain has been finished in his career.
Now 15-6-1 as a pro, Jourdain has eight wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and two decision victories. Only five of his 13 career finishes occurred in the first round and he’s generally a guy that puts opponents away later on in fights, except for when he locks up an early submission. His last three submission wins all ended in first round guillotines, while his last three and six of his last seven knockouts occurred in the later rounds. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted once and is just 2-5-1 in eight career decisions. Ten of his 12 UFC fights made it to the second round, nine made it to round three, and seven ended with the judges, with three of those decisions being split (0-2-1).
Overall, Jourdain is a really solid kickboxer and has been extremely durable, but his defensive wrestling has been his Achilles heel—despite being a BJJ black belt. He’s 1-5 in UFC fights where he’s been taken down more than once, but 5-0-1 when he allows one or fewer takedowns. In his 12 UFC fights, he only landed one of his own six takedown attempts (16.7% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 23 of their 44 attempts (47.7% defense). While Kron Gracie was not credited with a takedown attempt in Jourdain’s last fight, he did successfully pull guard at multiple points, and Jourdain’s other seven most recent opponents all got him down at least once. However, when Jourdain can keep fights standing, he puts on an absolute show as he averages 5.71 SSL/min and 4.21 SSA/min, landing 80 or more significant strikes in his last six fights to make it out of the first round, and 106 or more in three of those. His last two finishes were both by guillotine, which could serve as a slight deterrent for future fighters who are considering taking him down, especially if grappling is not their strong suit, as is the case in this next matchup.
Sean Woodson
7th UFC Fight (4-1-1)Woodson is coming off a decision win over Dennis Buzukja, who was making his short notice UFC debut on just four days’ notice. Woodson had originally been scheduled to face Steve Garcia, but Garcia dropped out and Jesse Butler was announced as the replacement. However, Butler then wasn’t medically cleared and Mairon Santos was announced to replace him. Then Santos ran into visa issues and Dennis Buzukja was announced as Woodson’s fourth opponent in the weeks leading up to the fight. We saw Woodson wrestle offensively for the first time in his career in that fight, as he took Buzukja down four times on five attempts after failing to attempt a single takedown in his first five UFC fights. A year before that win, Woodson was fortunate to escape his previous fight with a draw. Woodson got dropped twice in the first round of that match, but was bailed out by an illegal knee thrown by Luis Saldana that gave Woodson some time to recover and cost Saldana a point. Both guys slowed down in the later rounds in a fight that took place at elevation in Salt Lake City, and it got sloppy down the stretch. Woodson said he doesn't even remember the 2nd and 3rd rounds after getting hurt badly early on and also said he was dealing with a bunch of personal things at the time that affected his performance. Prior to that, Woodson won two in a row after suffering his first career loss in a 2020 R3 submission against Julian Erosa, who took the fight on short notice. Woodson bounced back with a split-decision win over Youssef Zalal, before landing his only UFC finish in a late R1 TKO against a terrible Collin Anglin, who was finished in both of his UFC fights before being cut. Woodson originally punched his ticket to the UFC with a R2 KO win on DWCS in 2019 against Terrance McKinney who was winning the fight up until Woodson landed a flying knee to knock him out. Woodson then won a decision in his October 2019 UFC debut against a suspect Kyle Bochniak, who entered the fight 2-4 in the UFC and was cut following his fifth loss.
Now 10-1-1 as a pro, Woodson has three wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and six decision victories. His only career loss was a 2020 third round submission against Julian Erosa. After landing back-to-back first round finishes against low-level opponents in his first two pro fights, Woodson has seen the second round in 9 of his last 10 matches, with eight of those making it to round three and seven going the distance. Woodson’s first two MMA fights were at 180 lb and 185 lb respectively, before he dropped down to 155 lb for his third pro match and then all the way down to 145 lb after that.
Overall, Woodson is a good boxer, who’s insanely long for the 145 lb division. He had an extensive amateur boxing career and it shows in his fighting style. Most of his opponents are looking to get him to the mat, but he has a really solid 83% takedown defense and has only been taken down 9 times on 53 attempts between his six UFC fights and his DWCS appearance. He landed four of his own five attempts (80% accuracy), with all of those attempts coming in his last fight. He doesn’t load up on his punches, but just consistently chips away at his opponents, averaging 5.41 SSL/min and 4.00 SSA/min. Now 31 years old, you have to imagine that cut down to 145 lb isn’t getting any easier for Woodson, and it’s possible that played a factor in him getting dropped twice in his second most recent fight after not getting knocked down in any of his previous five matches. Woodson said in a recent interview that this will be his first time fighting out of the country and he knows this will be a striking battle as neither guy wants to go to the ground. This will also be the first fight on his new contract, which should take some of the pressure off of going into enemy territory.
Fight Prediction:
Woodson will have a 5” height advantage and 9” reach advantage. Jourdain is three years younger than the 31-year-old Woodson.
This sets up as a fun striking battle, although the fact that Woodson showed some offensive grappling for the first time in his last fight does create the potential for him to mix in some takedowns here, despite what he said about wanting to keep the fight standing. Jourdain has a clear weakness in his defensive wrestling and Woodson would be foolish not to test that at some point in the match. However, Woodson’s lone career loss did end in a submission and Jourdain’s last two finishes both ended in guillotines after his opponents took him down, so maybe that will motivate Woodson to keep it standing where he’s the most comfortable anyways. Jourdain has only landed one takedown in his entire 12-fight UFC career and Woodson has a really solid 83% takedown defense, so we don’t see Jourdain being the one to initiate any wrestling exchanges unless he gets completely rocked on the feet. Neither of these two have ever been knocked out, although Woodson was nearly knocked out in his second most recent fight, where he got dropped twice in the first round. Also, Woodson has had a really soft strength of schedule, so we’re not getting too hung up on the fact that he’s never been knocked out. Jourdain is by far the most dangerous striker he’s ever faced and will also have the home crowd behind him. While it’s been almost three years since Jourdain knocked anybody out, he’s capable of putting a pace on Woodson and knocking him out late in the fight through an accumulation of damage. Give us Jourdain by late third round TKO.
Our favorite bet here is “Charles Jourdain R2 or R3 KO” at +600.
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DFS Implications:
Jourdain has averaged 101 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, consistently scoring 92-93 points in each of his last four wins, with two of those ending in decisions and the other two in first round guillotine submission wins. While he hasn’t put up any huge scores lately, he did score 117 and 118 points respectively in a pair of late round knockouts earlier in his UFC career. Both of those slate-breaking scores came in brawls against fellow strikers, while all of his recent opponents have been looking to take him down and attack his poor defensive wrestling. So it should come as no surprise that he’s struggled to score well in that style of matchup. Now he’ll face another pure striker in Woodson, so this matchup offers more upside for Jourdain in what we expect to be a high-volume striking battle. With that said, after Woodson didn’t even attempt a takedown in his first five UFC fights, he landed four of his five attempts in his last match, so maybe he’s working on adding some wrestling into his game. Woodson did say that he’s anticipating a striking battle and he wants to keep it standing, but that’s what anyone would say if they were coming in looking to surprise their opponent with wrestling. So we can’t assume he’s telling the truth, but it’s still more encouraging than if he said he was going to come in looking to wrestle. While Woodson has never been knocked out, he got dropped twice in the first round of his second most recent fight and was seconds away from getting finished before an illegal knee gave him time to recover. That was against a much lower level opponent in Luis Saldana, and gives us reason to believe that Jourdain can hand Woodson the first KO loss of his career. Jourdain will have his home Canadian crowd behind him, while Woodson is fighting outside of the US for the first time in his career. Both of those factors also favor Jourdain and he’s a high floor, high ceiling play with slate-breaking upside even in a late finish. The odds imply Jourdain has a 64% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Woodson has averaged 93 DraftKings points in his four UFC wins, scoring 107 or more in each of his last two victories, after only returning totals of 61 and 82 in his first two wins. Those first two wins both went the distance, but Woodson was unable to score well as he spent the majority of those fights defending takedowns. His most recent win also went the distance, but that time it was Woodson who was looking to wrestle for the first time in his career, as he landed four takedowns and scored 107 DraftKings points. Just keep in mind, that came against a low-level debuting opponent who was stepping in on just four days’ notice. Woodson nearly got knocked out in the first round of his second most recent fight, but was bailed out by an illegal knee that paused the action and gave him time to recover. Woodson was also submitted by Julian Erosa in 2020, so his floor is a little uncertain. His only UFC finish came against a terrible Collin Anglin, who was put away early in each of his two UFC fights before being cut. Woodson landed an ideally timed late first round finish against Anglin, scoring a career best 122 DraftKings points. You have to go all the way back to 2019 to find Woodson’s second most recent finish, when he outlasted Terrance McKinney on DWCS and landed a second round knockout. And as we’ve since learned, if you can make it to the second round with McKinney, you’re practically guaranteed to finish him. The only other two early wins of Woodson’s career were in his first two pro fights when he was still fighting up at 185 lb. Now he’s facing the toughest test of his career against an opponent who’s never been knocked out, which likely leaves Woodson reliant on either finding a bunch of wrestling success or winning an ultra high-volume decision to score well, both of which are possible. The odds imply Woodson has a 36% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Brad Katona
6th UFC Fight (3-2)Katona recently became the first two-time winner of The Ultimate Fighter in a surprisingly high-volume decision win over Cody Gibson. A UFC retread, Katona came into that matchup averaging just 3.33 SSL/min and 2.98 SSA/min, but then landed 160 significant strikes against Gibson (10.67 SSL/min), while absorbing 164 (10.93 SSA/min). Neither fighter landed a takedown, Katona on two attempts and Gibson on one. Katona’s SBG Ireland corner told him he won the first round (he did not), but he came back to win each of the later two rounds on all three scorecards. Katona landed more significant strikes in that decision win than his previous three UFC decisions combined. He also won two more decisions on TUF to secure his spot in the finals, in addition to winning three straight decisions before going on the show. And in his first stint with the UFC in 2018 and 2019, all four of his fights also went the distance (2-2). His only official finish since 2017 was a 2021 R3 guillotine choke in his first fight after being cut by the UFC in 2019. However, he did also submit Bryce Mitchell in the third round of a 2018 TUF fight in his first trip on the show, although that goes down as an exhibition match and doesn’t show up on his official pro record. The last time one of his fights didn’t make it to the third round was in a 2015 first round submission win in his second pro outing. The only two fighters to ever beat Katona were Hunter Azure and Merab Dvalishvili in wrestling-heavy decisions. While Katona has gone 9-2 with the judges in his career, we’ve also seen him involved in numerous close decisions and he easily could have lost in the semi-finals of TUF to Timur Valiev.
Now 13-2 as a pro, Katona has one knockout win, three submissions, and nine decision victories. His lone knockout came in the first round of his 2014 pro debut and two of his three submission wins occurred in his first five pro fights. He only has one official finish since 2017, although did submit Bryce Mitchell in a 2018 fight that went down as an exhibition match on DWCS. Katona has fought anywhere from 135 lb to 155 lb in the past, but most of his career has been spent at 135 lb. He did compete at 145 lb in his first time on TUF, but dropped down to 135 lb in his second UFC fight in 2018, and that’s where he’s stayed since.
Overall, Katona is a cringey decision grinder with a background in karate, who will also mix in wrestling. Historically, he’s excelled at slowing fights down and controlling opponents for periods of time, however we saw him take part in an action backed striking battle in his last fight, so maybe he’s evolving (or maybe that was a one-time opponent specific anomaly). He holds black belts in both karate and BJJ, but isn’t much of a finishing threat, outside of occasionally locking up a late submission. He’s decently well rounded, but doesn’t really stand out anywhere. While he was born in Canada, he trains at SBG Ireland with Conor McGregor, which created a lot of friction on TUF after he was selected to be on Chandler’s team. He later switched teams to reunite with his SBG coaches after McGregor’s first six fighters all lost. That just created even more bad blood between Katona and the members of Team Chandler, especially with his roommate on the show…Cody Gibson. That may have been a driving factor in why we saw a more eventful fight between those two in the finals, and it will be interesting to see if Katona comes in with the same energy for his next fight or reverts back to his slower pace. In his five UFC fights, Katona landed 5 of his 24 takedown attempts (20.8% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 9 of their 18 attempts (50% defense).
Garrett Armfield
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Coming off his first UFC win, Armfield knocked out a fragile one-dimensional grappler in Toshiomi Kazama in the first round. It was one-way traffic for the entire fight, as Armfield tripled Kazma up in striking (45-15), while also stuffing both of his takedown attempts. Leading up to that win, Armfield hadn’t competed in 13 months following a second round submission loss in his short notice UFC debut against David Onama, which Armfield took up a weight class. Armfield had been booked twice after that, but both matchups fell through. Despite taking his debut on short notice and up a weight class against a tough opponent, Armfield was competitive early on, before Onama took over in round two and submitted Armfield midway through the round. Two months prior to that, Armfield won the Fighting Alliance Championship Bantamweight belt in a quick 33 second first round knockout, after winning a smothering decision on the mat where he controlled his opponent for essentially the entire fight.
Now 9-3 as a pro, Armfield has six wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and one decision victory. Seven of his eight finishes occurred in the first round, with the other coming early in round two. While he’s never been knocked out, he’s been submitted twice and has one decision loss. His last two losses both ended in second round submissions. His one decision loss came against UFC fighter Ronnie Lawrence in a 2019 decision, in what was just Armfield’s third pro fight. Other than his 145 lb UFC debut, Armfield has spent his entire career at 135 lb.
Overall, Armfield is a young well-rounded fighter who wrestled in college at Missouri State University and is still just 27 years old. He had been training at Kill Cliff FC, but leading up to his second UFC fight he decided to move back home to Missouri and is now at Trey Ogden’s gym, Marathon MMA, which is definitely a major step down from Kill Cliff FC. Armfield’s looked durable and no one has ever knocked him out, but has been more prone to getting submitted. He rarely requires the judges, with eight of his last nine fights ending early. In his two UFC fights, Armfield failed to land either of his two attempts, while his opponents got him down on two of their eight attempts (75% defense).
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’6”, but Armfield will have a 6” reach advantage and is five years younger than the 32-year-old Katona.
Both of these two are fairly well rounded and have the ability to wrestle and strike, but Armfield is more of a finisher, while Katona is a lifelong decision grinder. We saw katona finally open up some in his last match, but he was still never a threat to finish that fight and only has one early win since 2017. However, he’s also never been finished, so he’s been durable. On the other side of things, Armfield has only been to one decision since 2019 and very rarely requires the judges. However, all of his finishes were also against a very low level of competition and he lost both of the fights where he faced legitimate opponents. Katona has a knack for winning close decisions and the only decision win of Armfield’s career was split. The most likely outcome here is that Katona wins another close decision, although Armfield has been submitted twice and it’s not impossible that Katona could find his neck late in the fight if Armfield begins to slow down. With that said, we like this to end in a close decision and we lean towards Katona getting his hand raised once again.
Our favorite bet here is “Katona/Armfield FGTD” at -156.
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DFS Implications:
Katona is a decision grinder who’s gone the distance in 9 of his last 10 fights (7-2), not even counting his two decision wins on TUF. All five of his previous UFC fights ended with the judges (3-2), with Katona averaging 84 DraftKings points in his three wins. He scored a career best 97 points in his recent high-volume decision win and 93 points in his UFC debut, but only 63 points in his other victory. We’ve yet to see a really ceiling performance from him and even his floor hasn’t been that impressive. While Katona is a BJJ black belt, he only has one finish since 2017, which was a 2021 R3 guillotine. Even though Armfield has been submitted twice in the past, it’s really hard to trust Katona to ever end a fight early. He does offer wrestling upside, but Armfield has a wrestling background and a 75% takedown defense in the UFC so far. At Katona’s expensive price tag, he’ll either need a finish or a dominant wrestling-heavy decision win to score well and we’d be surprised to see either of those. The odds imply Katona has a 64% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Armfield couldn’t have asked for a much tougher spot in his UFC debut, which he took on short notice up a weight class against David Onama, and predictably lost the fight. However, he was then rewarded with one of the easiest matchups he could ask for in his last fight, where he landed a perfectly timed late first round knockout against a one-dimensional grappler and scored 119 DraftKings points. So we’ve seen the two extremes for Armfield, but we’ve yet to see him in a close, competitive fight in the UFC, at least until now. Katona is a master of making fights close and competitive and extending them for 15 minutes, which should leave Armfield with a decent scoring floor, but a lower chance of hitting another real ceiling performance. Katona has never been finished in his career and has the ability to slow things down with his grappling if they get hairy. However, if Armfield can force him into a fire fight then it’s not impossible he could finish him or at least serve as a value play in a higher volume decision win. Neither of those are the most likely outcome by any means, but it makes sense to have some level of exposure to Armfield based on his price. The odds imply Armfield has a 36% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Movsar Evloev
8th UFC Fight (7-0)Evloev is coming off a sketchy decision win over Diego Lopes, who was making his short notice UFC debut and still caught Evloev in multiple close submission attempts. However, Evloev was able to escape all of Lopes’ attempts, while still filling up the stat sheet. Evloev had been scheduled to face Bryce Mitchell there, but he dropped out and that matchup was scrapped for the second time in the last 14 months. Evloev also had a fight against Ilia Topuria fall through in early 2022 and fight cancellations have plagued him throughout his UFC career, which has resulted in him only fighting twice since the middle of 2021. Eleven months before defeating Lopes Evloev won another wrestling-heavy decision over Dan Ige, where Evloev landed nine takedowns on 16 attempts and controlled Ige for nearly seven minutes. Evloev also put up a huge takedown total just before that in a 2021 decision win over Hakeem Dawodu. 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 17-0 as a pro, Evloev has three wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and 10 decision victories. All seven of Evloev’s UFC wins went 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 seven UFC fights, Evloev landed 33 of his 65 takedown attempts (50.8% accuracy), while his opponents got 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, with his last finish occurring just before he joined the UFC, all the way back in July 2018.
Arnold Allen
12th UFC Fight (10-1)Allen finally tasted defeat for the first time with the UFC in his recent five-round decision loss to Max Holloway, who outlanded Allen 144-76 in significant strikes. Prior to that, Allen started his pro career off 19-1 and won his first 10 UFC fights. His last win ended abruptly in the second round when Calvin Kattar suffered a freak knee injury that had nothing to do with anything Allen did in the fight. However, Allen was looking good prior to the injury and won the first round on all three scorecards, finishing ahead 28-14 in significant strikes, with no takedowns attempted on either side. However, it’s hard to take too much away from the match after it ended so abruptly. Prior to that, Allen landed his first UFC KO/TKO win against Dan Hooker, who was dropping down a weight class in a failed experiment. Prior to the pair of TKO victories, Allen had won four straight decisions, with the last of those coming against a dangerous Sodiq Yusuff. Allen does have two submission wins in the UFC, both by guillotine, but those came in 2015 and 2018 and six of his 10 UFC victories went the distance. His second most recent loss was all the way back in a 2014 decision with Cage Warriors.
Now 19-2 as a pro, Allen has seven wins by knockout, four submissions, and eight decision victories. However, six of those early wins came in his first seven pro fights. He’s never been finished, with both of his losses going the distance.
Overall, Allen is a crisp striker, with fast hand speed and good footwork. While his last two wins both ended in TKOs, he’s generally not bonus hunting or looking for highlight reel finishes and has said in the past that he’s purely focused on winning fights. He’ll mix in occasional takedowns, but he’s only landed three in his last eight fights, so they’ve been somewhat sporadic and he only averages 1.1 TDL/15 min despite having a 50% takedown accuracy. He’s also shown a solid 76% takedown defense and his last seven opponents combined to go 0 for 15 on their attempts against him. He has been taken down 12 times on 51 opponent attempts in the UFC, but all of those takedowns surrendered occurred in his first four UFC fights. He also owns a solid 61% striking defense, and Max Holloway is the only fighter to ever land more than 49 significant strikes against him. He’s also never been finished and is overall very defensively sound. He has been training with Tristar since 2015, but lives in England and also has another own gym over there.
Fight Prediction:
Allen will have a 1” height advantage, but Evloev will have a 2” reach advantage.
This is a really intriguing matchup between two of the top Featherweights. While they’re each decently well rounded, Evloev will be far more reliant on his wrestling, while Allen will rely on his striking. Whoever can dictate where the fight takes place should come out victorious, which leaves the outcome reliant on Allen’s 76% takedown defense. That’s where things get a little tricky, as we haven’t seen Allen face any wrestlers lately. None of his last three opponents even tried to take him down, but the last time anyone successfully got him to the mat was all the way back in 2018. Whether that’s a product of his matchups remains to be seen, but his footwork and strength make him a tough guy to track down and get a hold of. The larger cage on this card should also benefit Allen, who covers a lot of distance during his fights. If Allen can control the distance and tough Evloev up from the outside, he’ll have a really good shot of outlanding his way to a decision win, with a slight chance he could knock him out. However, we don’t really see this fight ending early and we’re expecting a close decision where Evloev at least finds some wrestling success, but not nearly as much as he has had in his last few fights. Allen has been affiliated with the Canadian gym Tristar for nearly a decade, so we expect the crowd to be behind him, which could be beneficial if this ends up being as close as we’re expecting. Give us Allen by split decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Arnold Allen DEC” at +330.
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DFS Implications:
Evloev is coming off three straight slate-breaking performances where he scored 120, 130, and 138 DraftKings points respectively in one wrestling-heavy decision after the next. He hasn’t finished anybody since 2018, prior to joining the UFC, so he’s been reliant on dominating opponents on the mat to score well, but that hasn’t been a problem for him lately. However, he’s also had some pretty favorable matchups when it comes to finding wrestling success and now he’ll face a big step up in competition in Arnold Allen, who has a 76% takedown defense and hasn’t been taken down since 2018. Allen generally does a good job of slowing fights down and is very defensively sound, which is terrible for DFS. Allen had also won 12 straight fights leading up to his recent loss to Max Holloway, so it’s rare to even see him lose. However, Allen has also been facing a series of strikers so this will be a new challenge and maybe Evloev’s wrestling can prove to be too much for him. It’s hard to know exactly how much success Evloev will have landing takedowns, but there’s no question that this is his toughest test in the UFC and it would not be at all surprising to see him struggle. At the very least, he has a much wider range of potential scoring outcomes, and we’re curious to see how much the field chases his past success. Looking at the risk versus reward, we still like playing him in low-risk contests where you have far more to lose than to gain by fading him, but we’re less excited about him in tournaments if he’s going to be popular once again. The odds imply Evloev has a 63% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Allen is coming off his first UFC loss after starting out 10-0 with the organization. In fairness to him, that loss came in a five-round decision against Max Holloway and Allen was even able to slow Holloway down to some extent. Allen is a very defensively sound fighter and has only once topped 82 DraftKings points, which was in his lone UFC first round finish in a 2022 R1 TKO over Dan Hooker who was making an ill advised trip back down to 145 lb. Allen scored 110 DraftKings points in that win, but then only scored 82 points in an early R2 freak injury TKO win over Calvin Kattar just after that. Those are Allen’s only KO/TKO wins in his last 13 fights dating back to a 2014 R1 TKO win with Cage Warriors. Allen’s first eight UFC fights all made it to the third round, with six of those ending in low scoring decision wins and two in low scoring third round submission victories. He only averaged 68 DraftKings points over that eight fight stretch, failing to put up even a single usable score. Now he’s facing a relentless wrestler in Evloev and it’s hard to see Allen scoring well here without a finish. Even at his cheap price tag, he’s still unlikely to even score enough to serve as a value play in a decision win, at least if history is any indicator. The odds imply Allen has a 37% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Chris Curtis
8th UFC Fight (4-2, NC)Curtis fought on the last Canada card but his fight was unceremoniously stopped midway through the second round and ruled a No Contest following an accidental clause of heads that caused a nasty cut just above Curtis’ right eye. Curtis was losing the fight up to that point as Nassourdine Imavov won the first round on all three scorecards, after becoming the first fighter to ever take Curtis down. Imavov also lapped Curtis in striking, finishing ahead 57-26 in significant strikes. So unless he would have mounted a late comeback the No Contest actually saved Curtis from suffering his second straight loss and third in his last four outings. Prior to that No Contest, Curtis lost a close, somewhat controversial decision to Kelvin Gastelum where a second round clash of heads helped Gastelum to secure the win. Unlike in his more recent fight, the clash of heads against Gastelum did not result in a cut or the fight being paused, but it definitely still played a factor. Just before that, Curtis landed a second round knockout against Joaquin Buckley, after losing a decision to Jack Hermansson. Curtis won eight straight fights leading up to the Hermansson loss, including a 3-0 start with the UFC. After landing a first round knockout against Phil Hawes in his November 2021 UFC debut, Curtis hopped right back inside the Octagon a month later and knocked out Brendan Allen in round two. He then won a decision over Rodolfo Vieira in June 2022, a month before his loss to Hermansson. He originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but despite landing a third round knockout he was not awarded a contract. Curtis is generally a slow starter and lost the first round in each of his last five fights, but tends to finish strong, as he won the third round in all three of his UFC fights that made it that far. So round two has been the deciding factor in all three of his UFC decisions (1-2). Also interesting, Curtis is 3-0 when fighting in Las Vegas, which is where he lives so he doesn’t have to travel. However, he’s gone just 1-2 plus a No Contest in the UFC when fighting outside of Las Vegas, with his lone win coming in his UFC debut at Madison Square Garden against a glass chinned Phil Hawes. Curtis’ decision losses to Hermansson and Gastelum were in London and Miami respectively, while his recent No Contest was in Vancouver.
Now 30-10 plus a No Contest as a pro, the 36-year-old Curtis has 17 wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and 12 decision victories. Eight of his last 10 wins were by knockout, with six of those occurring in the later rounds. He’s only been knocked out once himself (R2 2019) and also submitted once (R3 2011), with his other eight losses going the distance. In fairness to him, that lone KO loss came in a night where he fought twice in the PFL playoffs. While he’s landed two first round knockouts in his last eight fights, those are his only two fights of his last 24 to end in round one, and he’s generally putting guys away in the later rounds. His last six matches all made it to round two, with three of those going the distance. While he’s been fighting exclusively at 185 lb in the UFC, where this next fight will also be, Curtis has bounced around weight classes in the past and spent much of his career down at 170 lb. He’s also fought as high as 205 lb. His last fight before joining the UFC was at 170 lb but he seems content with staying at 185 lb, although another loss here could cause him to consider a move back down to 170 lb.
Overall, Curtis is primarily a boxer and relies mostly on his hands to win fights. While he has yet to attempt a takedown in the UFC and doesn’t offer much of anything in terms of offensive grappling, his takedown defense has been really solid—at least up until his last fight. In his first six UFC fights, he stuffed all 35 of the attempts against him, but he was then taken down three times on four attempts in his last match. So as a whole, his opponents got him down on just 3 of their 39 attempts (92.3% defense). He hasn’t attempted any takedowns of his own so far in the UFC. While he lands a good amount of striking volume, he also tends to get hit a lot, as he averages 5.36 SSL/min and 6.30 SSA/min. However, he’s built like a tank and has looked extremely durable, with his one vulnerability being headbutts. He’s been in several five round fights in the past and conditioning isn’t really a concern for him, which when combined with cutting less weight at 185 lb has allowed him to jump into several short notice matchups. Curtis’ primary training partner, Sean Strickland, will be headlining this event, which is the first time they’ve shared a UFC card with one another.
Marc-Andre Barriault
12th UFC Fight (5-5, NC)Fighting in front of his home Canadian crowd for the second straight time, Barriault is coming off a hardfought unanimous 30-27 decision win over Eryk Anders that seemed closer watching it than the score cards let on. For example, striking was dead even in round two, but Anders landed a takedown with a minute of control time. Nevertheless it was a solid showing by Barriault and the judges in Canada seemingly sided with the hometown guy on any close rounds. Regardless, we thought Barriault did enough in rounds one and three to win even if Anders had gotten round two. Three months before his win over Anders, Barriault finished a really durable Julian Marquez in a high-volume second round TKO. Barriault kept up a pace that Marquez couldn’t maintain and midway through round two Marquez just shelled up along the cage until the ref finally stopped the fight following a plethora of punches. Barriault finished ahead 109-82 in significant strikes in a fight that lasted just over nine minutes. Prior to that, Barriault was the one who got outpaced when he suffered the only submission loss of his career in the third round against Anthony Hernandez. That came just after Barriault completed the first submission win of his career when he locked up a first round guillotine against Jordan Wright. And just before that, Barriault got knocked out for the first time, when Chidi Njokuani finished him in just 16 seconds. Barriault started his UFC career off in 2019 with three straight decision losses, but six of his last eight fights ended early (3-2, NC) and he also won the last two decisions he’s been to.
Now 16-6 as a pro, Barriault has 10 wins by KO/TKO, one by submission, and four decisions. Four of his six losses went the distance, with the other two ending in a first round knockout and a third round submission, both in 2022. While 6 of his 11 UFC fights ended early, only two of those stoppages occurred in round one (1-1). He has two second round UFC TKO wins, although one of those was later overturned when he failed a drug test, and one third round TKO victory. He tends to wear on his opponents as fights go on so it makes sense that the majority of his finishes have occurred in the later rounds. Barriault has basically spent his entire career at 185 lb, but did have a 205 lb match just before making his 2019 UFC debut.
Overall, Barriault typically relies on his striking volume and cardio to win fights and isn’t known for having immense power, nor does he offer much in the way of grappling. He enjoys making fights ugly and working out of the clinch, but he still averages 5.95 SSL/min and 5.22 SSA/min. In his 11 UFC fights, he only landed two of his eight takedown attempts (25% accuracy) and he’s gone seven straight fights without landing a takedown and didn’t even attempt any in his last six matches. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 21 of their 64 attempts (67.2% defense), with five of his opponents getting him down multiple times. Now he’ll face a fellow one-dimensional striker, so don’t expect to see any grappling in this upcoming fight.
Fight Prediction:
Barriault will have a 3” height advantage, but Curtis will have a 1” reach advantage. Barriault is three years younger than the 36-year-old Curtis.
Barriault is a true Middleweight, while Curtis spent a lot of time fighting down at Welterweight before he joined the UFC and is a little undersized for the division. Considering his early UFC success and ability to step into fights on short notice, it made sense for Curtis to continue fighting at 185 lb, but he finally faced some push back in his loss to Jack Hermansson and now only has one win in his last four outings. So perhaps Curtis will consider cutting back down to 170 lb in the near future if he can’t get back on track here. Two of Curtis’ four UFC wins were against grapplers who couldn’t get him down and the other two were against opponents with weak chins and a history of getting knocked out. Barriault doesn’t fall into either one of those categories. Curtis has lost the first round in five straight fights and is a habitually slow starter who relies on taking over in the later rounds as he wears down his opponents. The only problem with that strategy here is that Barriault (AKA the “Power Bar”) has also built a career off of wearing down opponents and taking over in the later rounds. That could make life difficult for Curtis if he again finds himself trying to dig out of a hole after the first round. Both fighters are very durable, and they’ve each only been knocked out once in their respective careers. And neither of them offers much of anything when it comes to grappling, so we’re fully expecting a pure striking battle. It would also be surprising to see either man tire out, so this sets up as a three-round banger from start to finish. Barriault will have the home crowd behind him and we saw in his last fight in Canada that the judges were siding with Canadian fighters on any close rounds. When you combine that with Curtis’ tendency to drop the first round in all of his fights, it’s hard not to like Barriault at plus money. We’re expecting a close, hardfought fight, with both guys landing clean shots, but for it to ultimately go the distance. Give us Barriault in a close decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Marc-Andre Barriault DEC” at +425.
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DFS Implications:
Curtis landed knockouts in three of his four UFC wins and eight of his last 10 victories. Those three UFC finishes were good for 95, 106, and 109 DraftKings points, while he only scored 78 points in his lone UFC decision victory. While his last fight ended in a No Contest, he was well on his way to losing before an accidental clash of heads halted the action. Had that ended in a loss, Curtis would be just 1-3 in his last four fights, so things have not been going great for him lately after his 3-0 fairytale start to his UFC career. Curtis has never even attempted a takedown in the UFC, and while this does setup as an uptempo striking battle, it will still be tough for him to score well from striking alone if this goes the distance. That leaves him reliant on handing Barriault just the second knockout loss of his career to return value and the books are expecting this one to go the distance more often than not. The odds imply Curtis has a 64% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Barriault had a slow start to his UFC career, as he kicked it off with three straight decisions and then when he finally won a fight the finish was overturned to a No Contest when he failed a drug test. However, since then he’s gone 5-2 and averaged 103 DraftKings points in those victories, with three of them ending early. He scored 120 or more DraftKings points in two of those finishes, which were both late round finishes where he melted his opponents with pace and volume. However, in his two UFC decision wins, he only returned DraftKings totals of 81 and 80 points and he’s yet to show the ability to really score well with the judges. That’s in large part due to the fact that he doesn't add much of anything in terms of grappling and relies almost entirely on his striking, just like Chris Curtis. This does set up as an uptempo striking battle and Curtis averages 6.30 SSA/min, which aligns nicely with Barriault’s 5.95 SSL/min. So it’s possible Barriault could still serve as a value play at his cheap price tag in a high-volume decision win, but he’ll need a finish to really go off and Curtis has been extremely durable throughout his career, with just one knockout loss in 41 pro fights. Ultimately, this looks like a better real life fight than for DFS, but we definitely prefer Barriault at his cheaper price to Curtis. The odds imply Barriault has a 36% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Mike Malott
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Coming in on a six-fighting winning streak, Malott has finished all three of his UFC opponents in under a round and a half and hasn’t been past the 6:06 mark since 2015. While his most recent win ended 66 seconds into round two with a guillotine choke against Adam Fugitt, Malott’s previous five wins all ended in the first round. Four of his last five wins ended in submissions, with the one exception being a knockout in his 2022 UFC debut against a grappler in Mickey Gall. In his most recent finish, Malott dropped Fugitt a minute into round two and then immediately looked to close the show with a guillotine opposed to even considering looking for ground and pound. Just before that, Malott submitted his fellow Canadian countryman Yohan Lainesse late in the first round of a slower paced fight where Malott finished ahead just 9-1 in significant strikes before landing a takedown and working his way to an arm-triangle finish in the final minute of the round. Ten months prior to that, Malott landed a violent first round knockout in his UFC debut against Mickey Gall. Malott got taken down once in the fight, but immediately returned to his feet before face planting Gall with a left hook later in the round. Looking back one fight further, Malott landed a 39 second first round submission win on DWCS in October 2021.
Now 10-1-1 as a pro, Malott has four KO/TKO wins and six submission victories, with nine of those finishes ending in the first round and the other coming 66 seconds into round two. His lone career loss also came in the first round, in a 2014 knockout against UFC fighter Hakeem Dawodu. The only time he’s been in a fight that lasted longer than six and a half minutes was in a 2015 draw. Malott turned pro in 2011 when he was just 19 years old and started out at 145 lb. He went back and forth between 145 lb and 155 lb early on in his career, but as he continued to grow into his frame making that weight became more and more of a challenge and following his 2015 draw he never tried to make 145 lb again. He took a year and a half off after that fight before returning in 2017 at 155 lb and landing a 36 second knockout. He then took nearly two years off and focussed more on his grappling, where he earned a BJJ black belt and had ADCC aspirations. He said his passion to fight in MMA just wasn’t there anymore at the time, but he took a position as a striking coach at Team Alpha Male so he was still involved in the sport and cornered several fighters. He also said during his time away that his passion for fighting returned and he finally began competing in MMA again in 2020, although at that point he had added a good amount of muscle and moved up to 170 lb, where he’s stayed since. Although he has competed in grappling matches up at 185 lb.
Overall, Malott is a dangerous striker and an opportunistic submission threat who will be fighting in front of his home Ontario crowd. His last fight was also in Canada, although on the other side of the country in Vancouver. Malott was born in Ontario, where this next fight will take place. We saw the Canadian fighters all amped up on that Vancouver card, as they pulled off the clean sweep on the night. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed all three of his takedown attempts, while also getting taken down on each of the two attempts from his opponents. Malott has shown us at multiple points that he loves to hurt opponents on the feet and then immediately go for submissions to close things out, so consider him the king of the club-n-sub. However, he has also shown some wrestling ability, so that’s not his only way to find a submission. Despite his connection with Team Alpha Male, Malott has been mostly training in Canada recently to remain closer to family. Considering Malott has only been past the 6:06 mark once in his career, which was all the way back in 2015 and ended in a draw, his cardio remains a mystery and it will be interesting to see how he looks in the later rounds if he ever gets there, especially against a cardio machine like Magny.
Neil Magny
32nd UFC Fight (21-10)Magny will be looking to bounce back from a lopsided decision loss to Ian Garry, in a fight that Magny stepped into on a week and a half’s notice after Geoff Neal dropped out. Garry destroyed Magny’s lead leg and it’s amazing that Magny even survived to see the judges. Garry finished ahead 91-27 in significant strikes and also landed both of his takedown attempts. Just eight weeks before that, Magny won a low-volume split-decision over Phil Rowe. Magny has traded wins and losses over his last six outings, and his last 11 fights all either went the distance (6-2) or ended via submission (1-2). His last two decision wins were both split and if those had both gone the other way then Magny would be looking at a 1-5 record in his last six outings. He only finished one of his last 12 opponents, which was a 2022 third round submission against Daniel Rodriguez, with his second most recent early win coming all the way back in 2018. Magny was submitted in two of his last three losses, which has been an issue for him throughout his career. In fairness to him, those last two submissions were against really good grapplers in Gilbert Burns and Shavkat Rakhmonov.
Now 28-11 as a pro, Magny has seven wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and 17 decision victories. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted six times, and has three decision losses. Four of his six submission defeats occurred in the first round, with the other two ending in round two. One of his two knockout losses also ended in round one, with the other ending in round four. Despite all of those early losses, Magny has only been finished twice since 2018 and has impressively gone 17-3 in his 20 career decisions.
Overall, Magny wears on his opponents with a combination of striking and grappling as he weaponizes his cardio and often comes out ahead in the later rounds. While he generally doesn’t put up huge significant striking totals, averaging just 3.45 SSL/min, he tacks on 2.2 TDL/15 min to help grind on his opponents’ gas tanks. Magny typically doesn’t get hit a ton either, averaging just 2.40 SSA/min in his career, but his biggest weakness has been his defensive grappling and his 55% takedown defense isn’t anything to write home about, as his last three opponents all got him down at least once. Four of his last six losses came against solid grapplers in Gilbert Burns, Shavkat Rakhmonov, Michael Chiesa, and Rafael Dos Anjos, with three of those ending in submissions. He also got knocked out by Santiago Ponzinibbio in the fourth round of a 2018 fight and most of his losses end early. Now 36 years old, this will be Magny’s 32nd UFC fight and 11th year in the organization, so he’s been around for a while and we could see him begin to slow down. It seems like the UFC often likes to use him as a measuring stick for up-and-coming prospects these days, which they’re doing again here.
Fight Prediction:
Magny will have a 2” height advantage and 7” reach advantage, while Malott is four years younger than the 36-year-old Magny.
This will be a big step up in competition for Malott, who has yet to really be tested in the UFC. Magny is known for his cardio, while Malott has only ever been in one fight that made it past the 6:06 mark and has unknown cardio. On paper, it sets up well for Malott to land another submission, as Magny has been submitted six times in the past and has just a 55% career takedown defense. However, Malott has been fighting a bunch of low-level opponents and we still need to see how he stacks up against more experienced opponents. While Magny will have both the cardio and experience advantage, that won’t mean much if he can’t extend the fight. Malott is explosive, at least early on, and is a threat to finish fights both on the feet and the mat. Magny’s best hope of winning will be to tie him up against the fence and drain on his gas tank for as long as possible, which is definitely a possible outcome here. However, the ref may be quicker to break them up in front of Malott’s home crowd if Magny doesn’t stay active. Malott will also have the potential to take Magny down from those clinch positions, where he’ll then be able to threaten submissions on the ground. So overall it’s a dangerous fight for Magny and he’ll need to be on top of his game to avoid getting finished early. To Magny’s credit he’s historically done a good job of bouncing back from losses and only once in his 39-fight career has he ever lost two in a row, although he is getting up there in age. This kind of feels like a trap spot for Malott, but it’s also hard to get behind Magny. Despite 11 of Malott’s 12 pro fights ending in under a round and a half, the odds still favor the over, another potential trap indicator for Malott. And if the fight does run long, you have to like Magny at his long odds when you consider Malott has never won a fight that lasted longer than six minutes and six seconds. So while another Malott early submission win is definitely in play, we kind of lean towards Magny weathering the early storm and outlasting Malott to a close, likely split decision win.
Our favorite bet here is “Neil Magny Win and Over 1.5 Rounds” at +450.
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DFS Implications:
Malott has averaged 107 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, with two of those fights ending in the first round and the other a minute into round two. While the timing of his last finish was far from ideal as it came early in round two, he still scored 105 DraftKings points, but only because he was able to land a knockdown, two takedowns, and a reversal. You obviously can’t rely on him completing that rare trifecta every time, although he has shown a well-rounded skill set and will now be facing an opponent who has struggled when it comes to defensive grappling. The biggest question mark with Malott is his cardio, as he’s only seen the second round twice in his career and only once made it past the 6:06 mark. He’s now facing a cardio machine in Magny, which could spell trouble for Malott if he can’t end things early. However, he’ll be fighting in front of his home Ontario crowd and we expect Malott to come in and aggressively push for a finish. At his high price tag, a finish alone doesn’t guarantee him a spot in winning lineups and he’ll still need to outscore the other high priced fighters on the slate. His high projected ownership greatly lowers his tournament appeal on this smaller slate and it will be harder to create unique lineups that include him. Despite his decent score in his recent second round submission win, we’re still treating him as an overowned R1 finish or bust play and despite 11 of his 12 pro fights ending in under a round and a half, the books are still slightly favoring the over here. The odds imply Malott has a 76% chance to win, a 58% chance to land a finish, and a 30% chance it comes in round one.
Magny has only landed one finish since 2018, which was a 2022 third round submission win over Daniel Rodriguez that was good for 110 DraftKings points. His other six most recent victories all went the distance, with Magny averaging 79 DraftKings points in those decision wins. He’s shown a wide range of scoring outcomes with the judges, with his last six decisions returning DraftKings totals of 66, 75, 72, 100, 63, and 99. You can see he failed to top 75 points in any of his last three decision wins and it’s been three and a half years since he scored well in a fight that went the distance. He’s now 36 years old, just went through a divorce, and is trying to juggle fighting, being a father, tuning out Ian Garry, and managing real estate investments. While we’re not saying he’s washed, he does have a lot going on, is getting up there in age, and has looked bad in all of his last three fights. Working in his favor however, Malott has unknown cardio and very little experience in longer fights, while Magny excels in both of those areas. So if Magny can extend this fight and take Malott into the third round, it’s very possible he can take over down the stretch and squeak out a close decision win in enemy territory if Malott gasses out. However, that’s probably his only path to victory and he may still not score well unless he really fills up the stat sheet late in the match. The best thing he has going for him in tournaments is that he’ll be a low-owned leverage play on Malott, who projects to be very popular. The odds imply Magny has a 24% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Mayra Bueno Silva
10th UFC Fight (5-2-1, NC)Bueno Silva recently submitted Holly Holm early in the second round of a July main event, but the results were overturned to a No Contest after Bueno Silva tested positive for trace amounts of Ritalin acid due to the ADHD medication she has a prescription for. However, she had not been granted a therapeutic-use exemption going into that fight, which ultimately cost her the win on her record and resulted in a short suspension. However, the UFC was understanding of what was basically a clerical error and they gave her a title shot anyways. Bueno Silva has yet to lose a fight since she moved up to 135 lb in 2022, after going 2-2-1 at 125 lb in her first five UFC fights. Just before finishing Holm, Bueno Silva secured two more submission wins against Lina Lansberg and Stephanie Egger, after winning a decision over Wu Yanan in Bueno Silva’s first UFC fight up at 135 lb. Bueno Silva’s two UFC wins at 125 lb also ended in submissions and she only has one non-submission win since 2017.
Now 10-2-1 plus a No Contest as a pro, Bueno Silva has one win by TKO, seven submissions, and two decision victories. She also has the recent second round submission win that now shows up as a No Contest on her record. The submission win over Lansberg in her previous fight also ended in round two, after the first six submission wins of her career all ended in round one, with five of those ending in armbars. Her lone TKO win also came in the first round, all the way back in 2016 in her second pro fight. Both of her career losses went the distance and she’s never been finished. Bueno Silva bounced between 125 lb and 135 lb early in her career, but her first five UFC fights were all at 125, before she moved up to 135 lb in 2022.
This will just be the 2nd five-round fight of Bueno Silva’s career and the first didn’t even make it to the six minute mark before she submitted Holly Holm in the opening minute of round two with a standing front choke. So we’ve never seen what her cardio looks like in the championship rounds.
Overall, Bueno Silva is a powerful striker and dangerous submission threat, but has historically been content with keeping fights standing. Between her nine UFC fights and her DWCS appearance, she only attempted four takedowns, landing two of those, both against a 40-year-old Lina Lansberg in her second most recent fight. Maybe she’s working on improving her wrestling, however, she’s historically used her grappling for defensive purposes, snatching up arms and necks whenever anyone is foolish enough to try and take her down. Her opponents got her down on 11 of their 35 attempts (68.6% defense), but we’re always surprised that people want to take her down based on how dangerous she is off her back, with five first round armbar wins on her record. She’s also extremely durable, which makes her a really tough opponent to put away. She used to train at Chute Boxe Diego Lima with Charles Oliveira and countless other high-level fighters, but moved to American Top Team in 2022 and is now training with Kayla Harrison. One area where Bueno Silva has struggled is with being controlled and even in her last fight we saw Holly Holm control her along the fence for three minutes and five seconds in a fight that only made it to the 5:38 mark. Now Bueno Silva will face an opponent who’s known for her ability to hold opponents up against the fence.
Raquel Pennington
18th UFC Fight (12-5)Coming in on a five-fight winning streak, Pennington is a year removed from a split-decision win over Ketlen Vieira. Pennington had then been scheduled to face Irene Aldana in May, but Aldana was then rebooked in a title fight against Amanda Nunes after Julianna Pena dropped out. Pennington would serve as the backup in that matchup, just a week after having a baby with her partner Tecia Torres. Then with Bueno Silva getting suspended it’s understandable why Pennington has been sitting on the sideline waiting for her title shot. Eight of Pennington’s last nine wins went the distance and her only finish since 2015 was in a 2021 second round submission over Macy Chiasson, who took the fight on short notice. Pennington followed that finish up with a decision victory over Aspen Ladd, leading up to her victory over Vieira. Pennington landed a career high in significant strikes against Ladd, as she finished ahead 114-65 and 136-102 in total strikes.
Now 15-8 as a pro, Pennington’s only career KO/TKO win came in the second round of her 2012 pro debut. Since then, she has four submission wins and 10 decision victories. All four of those submissions came in the first two rounds of fights, with three of them occurring early in her career from 2012 to 2015. The only time she’s ever been knocked out was in the fifth round of a 2018 title fight against Amanda Nunes and the only time she’s been submitted was in the second round of a 2012 fight against Cat Zingano. Pennington’s other six losses all went the distance. Her last 14 fights all made it to the second round and only 2 of her 23 pro matches ended in the opening five minutes. Her five UFC losses all come against top level opponents in Holly Holm (twice), Germaine de Randamie, Amanda Nunes, and Jessica Andrade. Four of those losses went the distance, with two of those decisions being split. Looking at her entire pro career, 5 of her 16 decisions were split (3-2), with her winning the last three of those.
This will be the 2nd five-round fight of Pennington’s career. The first was back in 2018 and Pennington lost via R5 TKO against Amanda Nunes.
Overall, Pennington is a longtime UFC veteran who joined the organization all the way back in 2013. She historically has not been the most exciting fighter, with extended periods of time spent holding her opponents up against the fence as she works out of the clinch. However, despite now being 35-years old, she’s recently made improvements to her striking and appears more comfortable in space. After only averaging 3.66 SSL/min over her first 15 UFC fights, we’ve seen that number surge all the way up to 6.50 SSL/min in her last two matches. In her 17 UFC fights, Pennington landed 15 of her 55 takedown attempts (27.3% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on 19 of their 52 attempts (63.5% defense). Pennington failed to land more than a single takedown in any of her last 10 fights, despite multiple attempts in seven of those matches. She failed to land any of her three attempts over her last three outings and she’s only a BJJ purple belt and only has one submission win since 2014. Pennington trains at elevation in Colorado, which could be beneficial for her cardio in this five round fight.
Fight Prediction:
Pennington will have a 1” height and reach advantage, while Bueno Silva is three years younger than the 35-year-old Pennington.
While this matchup will draw more ire than excitement from fans, it does have sneaky shootout potential based on what we’ve seen from Pennington in her last two outings. It also has the potential for Pennington to spend extended periods of time pushing Bueno Silva up against the cage if she resorts back to that style of fighting, which would make some sense given the matchup. Bueno Silva has struggled with being controlled at multiple points in the past and Pennington has plenty of experience holding girls up against the fence. That would be an easy way for Pennington to win minutes if she can stay busy during those exchanges, but would also make for a very boring fight. After her last fight, Pennington talked about how she had become more confident with her striking and the results backed that up. Bueno Silva has been very hittable throughout her career, averaging 4.71 SSA/min, which should open up opportunities for Pennington in space. And considering how dangerous of a grappler Bueno Silva is, Pennington could find herself in trouble if she spends too much time in the clinch. If anyone’s going to find a finish, it’s going to be Bueno Silva, most likely via submission. However, Pennington hasn’t been submitted since 2012 and is very live to win a decision here. While Pennington generally mixes in a few takedown attempts, that would be a terrible idea for her here and you would hope that her 10+ years of UFC experience would be enough for her to realize that. And with Bueno Silva rarely looking to wrestle, this food should play out primarily on the feet. We like Pennington to outland Bueno Silva, while also finishing ahead in control time, but Bueno Silva could end up landing the bigger shots. It remains to be seen if Bueno Silva even has five good rounds in here, as she’s never been past the third round in her career. And Pennington has only seen the championship rounds once in her career, which was in 2018 when she suffered the lone TKO loss of her career midway through round five. However, Pennington does train at elevation, which is a good sign for her potentially outlasting Bueno Silva. We’re expecting a close decision that forces the judges to weigh striking volume and control time versus damage and it seems like this one has split written all over it. We lean towards Pennington squeaking it out, but won’t be at all shocked if she finishes ahead in control time and striking and still has two of the three judges score it for Bueno Silva.
Our favorite bet here is “Bueno Silva/Pennington FGTD” at -105.
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DFS Implications:
Bueno Silva is a dangerous submission threat, with all but one of her UFC wins ending via submission, but she rarely puts up really big DraftKings scores. Only once has she topped 95 DraftKings points, which was when she submitted LinaLansberg late in the second round of her second most recent fight. Bueno Silva landed two takedowns in that win, which are the only takedowns she’s landed in her last 10 fights. Her submission wins have generally come from defensive positions, which is why they rarely score especially well, as they’re not accompanied by any takedowns or control time. And while Bueno Silva has decent power in her striking, the only knockout win of her career was all the way back in 2016, in her second pro fight. While she’s generally content with throwing down on the feet, she gets hit more than she lands, as she averages 4.16 SSL/min and 4.71 SSA/min. When you combine that with her lack of wrestling, it’s no surprise that she’s gone just 1-2-1 in her four UFC decisions. She tends to get controlled for periods of time, and also sometimes lets her ego get the best of her, both of which have limited her ability to put up big striking totals. She’s also never been in a fight that lasted longer than three rounds, so her championship round cardio remains a mystery. We’re generally banking on her landing a submission when we play her, but Pennington has only been submitted once in her career and that was all the way back in 2012. So it doesn’t look like an obvious spot for Bueno Silva to end things early and we can hardly trust her to win a decision or score especially well even if she does. As the most expensive five-round fighter on the card, she’s also the most likely to get priced out in a win. However, her salary is still fairly reasonable and with a well timed finish or a high-volume decision win she’s still totally in play to crack the winning lineup. She looks like a slightly better play on FanDuel than DraftKings based on her style of fighting. The odds imply Bueno Silva has a 61% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Pennington has been in the UFC for over a decade and hasn’t scored more than 95 DraftKings points since 2015. Eight of her last nine wins went the distance and in her 12 UFC wins she’s only averaged 83 DraftKings points. The only two times she ever scored well were in a pair of submission wins all the way back in 2014 and 2015. Since then, her last nine wins returned DraftKings totals of 64, 77, 78, 71, 95, 75, 93, 83, and 69. She’s also only been in one five-round fight in her career, which was when she got finished by Amanda Nunes in the fifth round of a 2018 match. She’s coming off a year layoff and is best known for her clinch work along the fence and no one has ever once asked when the next Raquel Pennington fight is unless they’re planning a vacation and looking for a good week to miss. However, she actually stitched together two more eventful performances in her last two wins and she’s been more willing to stand and trade lately. After only averaging 3.66 SSL/min in her first 15 UFC fights, she averaged 6.50 SSL/min in her last two matches. And now she’s facing an opponent who averages 4.71 SSA/min, so this is actually a good spot for Pennington to put up a big striking total. Bueno Silva has also struggled with being controlled, and if Pennington gets in trouble in space she can always work out of the clinch along the fence, which would benefit her on DraftKings but not on FanDuel. However, she would be wise to avoid any takedown attempts, as Bueno Silva has very dangerous grappling. That is somewhat concerning for Pennington’s scoring potential, as her ceiling will be capped if she doesn't land any takedowns and her floor will be in danger if she does. Nevertheless, with five rounds to work she should have ample opportunity to land strikes and accrue control time along the fence. And at her cheap price tag, she doesn’t need to put up a huge score to end up in winning lineups. In addition to the matchup being favorable, Pennington will also be the lowest owned of the five-round fighters, which is especially useful on this smaller slate. The odds imply Pennington has a 39% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Sean Strickland
21st UFC Fight (15-5)Making his first title defense, Strickland recently pulled off a stunning upset over Israel Adesanya as a +500 underdog. The biggest moment of the fight came in the first round when Strickland dropped Adesanya, who was able to survive and bounce back to win round two. However all three judges scored a close round three for Strickland and then he pulled away in rounds four and five as Adesanya just never looked like himself. All three judges scored it 49-46 for Strickland. Just two months before that, Strickland landed a second round TKO win over Abusupiyan Magomedov in a July 1st main event. Magomedov gassed out hard in the second round and was just there to be hit/finished. That is Strickland’s only finish in his last eight fights, with his second most recent early win coming all the way back in 2020 against Brendan Allen, also in a second round TKO. Strickland’s only other finish since 2016 was a 2018 R2 KO win over Nordine Taleb, who got finished in three of his last four UFC fights before hanging it up in 2019. Prior to finishing Magomedov, Strickland stepped in on short notice for another main event spot and won a decision over Nassourdine Imavov. That snapped a two-fight skid after Strickland lost a five-round split decision against Jared Cannonier following a first round knockout against Alex Pereira. Leading up to the pair of losses, Strickland had won six straight fights, with the last two of those victories ending in five-round decisions against Uriah Hall and Jack Hermansson.
Now 28-5 as a pro, Strickland has 11 wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and 13 decision victories. He has three decision losses, while both of his early losses ended in first round knockouts. The first of those knockout losses came in 2018 against Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos in a 170 lb fight, while the other was in 2022 against Alex Pereira at 185 lb. Those are the only two times in Strickland’s last 19 matches that we’ve seen his fights end in the first round. Thirteen of his last 19 fights went the distance, while all four of his early wins over that stretch came in rounds two and three. Strickland won seven of the last eight decisions he’s been to, with the one loss being split. His only other decision loss since 2015 was against Kamaru Usman in 2017. Strickland joined the UFC in 2014 at 185 lb, but after starting out 2-0 he moved down to 170 lb for a three year stretch from 2015 to 2018 where he went 5-3. Following a 2018 R2 TKO win at 170 lb, Strickland was forced into a 2-year layoff following a motorcycle accident and a career-threatening knee injury. Upon his return, he moved back up to 185 lb where he has since gone 8-2, extending his UFC 185 lb record to 10-2.
This will be Strickland’s 7th five-round fight in the UFC. Five of his previous six ended in decisions (4-1), with the one exception being his R2 TKO win over Abusupiyan Magomedov. His lone five-round loss was a split decision against Jared Cannonier. Strickland also had five fights scheduled to go five rounds before he joined the UFC, all of which he won, with three first round knockouts and two decisions.
Overall, Strickland generally likes to steadily pressure his opponents as he inches forward while pumping out his jab. He’s been largely content with outpointing his way to victory and only really pushes for a finish when unmistakable opportunities clearly present themselves. He’s far more concerned with securing victories than looking for finishes, but he also demonstrated against Alex Pereira that he would rather lose a striking battle than win a wrestling match. In his 10 fights since returning to 185 lb, Strickland landed seven takedowns on nine attempts (77.8% accuracy), while defending 11 of the 12 attempts against him (91.7% defense). Four of those seven takedowns landed and six of those nine attempts were against Uriah Hall and he’s only landed/attempted three total takedowns in his other nine most recent fights, failing to land more than one in any of those matches. Strickland is 15-1 in the UFC when he’s led in striking and 0-4 when he’s trailed, and his success stems almost entirely from his ability to outland his opponents.
Dricus Du Plessis
7th UFC Fight (6-0)Du Plessis is coming off an impressive second round TKO win over the perennial top Middleweight contender in Robert Whittaker. Du Plessis split Whittaker open in the first round and then finished him in round two with a barrage of punches. Du Plessis has now won eight straight fights, going back to before he joined the UFC, finishing seven of those opponents. Just before finishing Whittaker, Du Plessis notched a R2 TKO win over Derek Brunson. The corner of Brunson threw in the towel right as the round ended as Brunson was eating heavy ground and pound shots off his back. Prior to that, Du Plessis landed a third round submission against Darren Till, after seeing the judges for the first time in his career in a decision victory over Brad Tavares. That decision came after Du Plessis knocked out Markus Perez and Trevin Giles in his first two UFC fights. In addition to his current eight-fight winning streak, Du Plessis has won 16 of his last 17 matches, with his one loss over that stretch coming in a 2018 R3 knockout against Roberto Soldic in a KSW 170 lb title fight. While Du Plessis has only been to the judges once in 22 pro fights, his last five matches all made it to the second round, with two of his last four seeing the third round and another making it to the final second of round two.
Now 20-2 as a pro, Du Plessis has nine wins by KO/TKO, 10 submissions, and won the only decision he’s ever been to. All nine of his knockout wins occurred in the first two rounds, with four in round one and five in round two. His submission wins have been more spread out, with four in round one, three in round two, and three more in round three. The only time he’s ever been knocked out was against Roberto Soldic in the third round of 2018 KSW 170 lb Championship fight. That was a rematch after Du Plessis knocked out Soldic just six months earlier in the second round when those two first fought for the KSW Welterweight belt. The only other loss of Du Plessis’ career was a 2014 third round submission, which took place at 185 lb. Du Plessis has moved between 170 lb and 185 lb throughout his career, but has exclusively fought at 185 lb since suffering the 2018 KO loss to Soldic at 170 lb.
This will be the 8th five-round fight of Du Plessis’ career, but first in the UFC. He went 5-2 in his previous seven five-round fights, with five of those seven fights (3-2) being for titles with the KSW and EFC organizations. Four of Du Plessis’ five-round fights were at 170 lb (3-1) and three were at 185 lb (2-1). His last two 185 lb five-round fights both ended in first round submission wins. While he’s had seven fights scheduled to go five rounds, all of those ended within 15 minutes and he’s never seen the championship rounds. Here are the results of Du Plessis’ seven five-round fights:
2019 R1 SUB Win at 185 lb
2018 R3 KO Loss in a 170 lb KSW Title Fight
2018 R2 KO Win in a 170 lb KSW Title Fight
2017 R1 SUB Win in a 185 lb EFC Title Fight
2017 R1 KO Win at 170 lb
2016 R3 SUB Win in a 170 lb EFC Title Fight
2014 R3 SUB Loss in a 185 lb EFC Title Fight
Overall, Du Plessis is an explosive fighter with the ability to finish fights at any moment. He’s a powerful striker and a decent grappler who trained judo as a kid and loves to look for guillotines. He made his title aspirations clear from the start of his UFC career and he always looks for finishes, with 95% of his fights ending early. Earlier in his UFC career, Du Plessis had been dealing with breathing issues through his nose, which may have impacted his cardio, or at the very least resulted in terrible visuals as he would breath heavily through his mouth. He finally got his nose fixed before his fight against Whittaker and the visuals were much better in the second round, although who knows how he would have looked if the fight had lasted longer than a round and a half. He operates at a really high pace, averaging 6.95 SSL/min and 3.79 SSA/min, which does test both his own cardio and that of his opponents, but it’s rarely Du Plessis who breaks first. He also landed 10 takedowns on 20 attempts (50% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on three of their five attempts (40% defense).
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’1” with a 76” reach, but Du Plessis is two years younger than the 32-year-old Strickland.
This is an interesting matchup between a dangerous finisher in Du Plessis, who has had his cardio questioned in the past against, against a durable decision grinder in Strickland, who seemingly never gets tired. Du Plessis has never been past the third round in his career and has only even been to a single three-round decision. Sixteen of his 22 pro fights ended in under 10 minutes and both of his career losses ended in third round finishes. So a longer fight would certainly appear to favor Strickland, and five of his last seven fights ended in five-round decisions, with him winning four of those and losing a split decision that easily could have gone his way in the other. Since we’ve never seen Du Plessis in the championship rounds, we can only speculate on what his cardio would look like, but it’s a good bet to say that’s when Strickland will hold the largest advantage. Early on, things could get very dicey, and Du Plessis is the more dangerous of the two and definitely has the power to put Strickland away if he can land something clean on him. However, that’s been easier said than done for most of Strickland’s opponents and even a world-class striker like Adesanya struggled mightily to get anything going. Du Plessis will need to make the fight uglier and can’t allow Strickland to control the pace and range, while jabbing him from the outside. Du Plessis is definitely equipped to do just that and we won’t be surprised to see him finish Strickland in the first half of the fight. However, if Strickland can simply survive the first two and a half rounds, he should be in a good position to take over down the stretch and win a close decision, or possibly even find a late knockout if Du Plessis completely gasses. So we see three plausible outcomes and it’s just about which one comes to fruition on Saturday. It most likely ends in either a Du Plessis KO win in the first three rounds or a Strickland decision victory and the larger cage should benefit Strickland when it comes to controlling the distance. However, we slightly lean towards Du Plessis knocking Strickland out.
Our favorite bet here is “Dricus Du Plessis KO” at +250.
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DFS Implications:
Strickland has been in six UFC fights that were scheduled to go five rounds, with five of those going the distance (4-1) and one ending in a second round TKO win. He averaged 113 DraftKings points in those four decision wins and also scored 68 points in a split-decision loss to Jared Cannonier that would have been good for 98 points had the decision gone his way. In his lone finish in a five-round fight, he scored 113 points in R2 TKO victory against an opponent who completely gassed out. So despite his lack of offensive wrestling, Strickland has shown the ability to score well through striking volume alone, as he averages 5.82 SSL/min. And while he hasn’t always put up huge scores in five-round decision wins, he has shown both a solid floor and ceiling and now he gets an uptempo matchup. Strickland has shown the ability to easily go five rounds at multiple points in his career, while Du Plessis has never once been past the third round. So the potential for Du Plessis to slow down in a longer fight is certainly there, which is a boost for Strickland’s scoring potential. And as the cheapest favorite on the slate, Strickland has a higher chance of ending up in winning lineups even if he doesn’t put up a massive score, so there are less ways for him to get left out of winning lineups in a victory. The odds imply Strickland has a 54% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Du Plessis is undefeated in the UFC and has finished five of his six opponents. He averaged 115 DraftKings points in those five early wins, while scoring 80 points in his lone decision victory—which is the only time he’s been to the judges as a pro. He scored 108 or more DraftKings points in all of his finishes, despite the last four of them coming in rounds two and three. His uptempo striking (6.95 SSL/min) combined with his grappling (2.7 TDL/15 min) has allowed him to score really even with finishes in the later rounds. And now he’s priced at just $8,000 on DraftKings, which just widens his range of useful scoring outcomes. The one concern with him is his cardio, as he’s never been past the third round in his career, while Strickland is known for his neverending gas tank. While it remains to be seen how Du Plessis will look if this makes it to the championship rounds, our expectation is that Strickland would begin to take over at that point. That seemingly leaves Du Plessis more reliant on finding a finish in the first three rounds to pull off the upset, which has rarely been a problem for him in the past. While Strickland is pretty durable and is also tough to hit, he has been knocked out twice before, which is encouraging for Du Plessis’ chances here. The odds imply Du Plessis has a 46% chance to win, a 35% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
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