The Sheet

Looking to skip the reading and get straight to the best plays and top bets? We're now offering premium DFS and betting content at patreon.com/mmadfs that includes our new DFS Cheat Sheet, with our top DraftKings, FanDuel and PrizePicks plays along with our DraftKings ownership projections, as well as our top early bets and our complete betting chart for every UFC fight.

Fight Day Scratches: None

Fighter Notes:

Fight #12

Jinh Yu Frey

5th UFC Fight (0-0)

After starting off 0-2 in the UFC, Frey has now won two straight decisions to keep her job following a rocky start. She’s coming off a win over Ashley Yoder, and defeated Gloria de Paula just before that. After getting submitted in the third round of her UFC debut by Kay Hansen, Frey lost a striking battle against Loma Lookboonmee in her second UFC appearance.

In her last fight, Frey did a great job of keeping the fight standing as she defended all eight of Yoder’s takedown attempts. While the striking numbers were very close, with Yoder actually finishing ahead in significant strikes 91-88 and in total strikes 96-89, Frey was the one landing the bigger shots for most of the fight.

Now 11-6 as a pro, Frey has one win by KO, two by submission, and eight decisions. She’s been knocked out twice, submitted once, and has three decision defeats. Her last eight wins have all gone the distance, while her last eight fights have all made it to the third round, with seven of those going the distance—including three five-round decision wins with Invicta. Her only fight to end early since 2017 was in her 2020 UFC debut in a third-round submission loss to Kay Hansen. She hasn’t landed a finish of her own since 2014, and all three of her early wins occurred in her first four pro fights. After fighting her entire pre-UFC career at 105 lb, Frey was forced to move up to 115 lb when she joined the UFC in June 2020, so it makes sense that she required an adjustment period as she grew into the new weight class.

Overall, Frey has shown improvements in each of her fights, and has won matches both on the feet and the mat in her last two outings. She has a masters degree and tends to fight smart, attacking her opponents’ weaknesses and avoiding their strengths. That was evident when she came in with a grappling heavy game plan against one-dimensional striker Gloria de Paula, followed by a pure striking game plan against one-dimensional grappler Ashley Yoder. Now she’ll go against another grappler, so we would expect Frey to try and keep this fight standing as she did in her last match. Frey has a solid 90% takedown defense and has only been taken down twice on 20 attempts in the UFC, with both of those takedowns coming in her UFC debut.

Vanessa Demopoulos

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Coming off her first UFC victory in a round one submission, Demopoulos landed an armbar against Silvana Gomez Juarez after losing a decision to J.J. Aldrich in her UFC debut, which took place up a weight class. Demopoulos originally attempted to punch her ticket to the UFC through DWCS in August 2020, but lost a smothering decision to Cory McKenna and was forced to return to the LFA. After going 1-1 in her next two LFA fights, the UFC decided to give her a shot. Demopoulos is just 2-3 in her last five fights, but her last three wins have notably all come early.

In her last fight, Demopoulos went up against a one-dimensional striker in Silvana Gomez Juarez and nearly got knocked out in the first round. Gomez Juarez put everything she had into a looping right hand that connected cleanly to the face of Demopoulos 70 seconds into the first round. It looked like she was moments away from notching a first round knockout, however, as Gomez Juarez went in to finish the job with ground and pound, Demopoulos was able to throw up her guard and hang on for dear life. Demopoulos slowly worked her way to an armbar attempt and Gomez Juarez was unable to do anything to stop it. Gomez Juarez instantly tapped as soon as Demopoulos rolled her over, before her arm ever even got straightened out. The fight ended midway through the first round with Gomez Juarez ahead in striking 10-4.

Now 7-4 as a pro, Demopoulos has four wins by submission, two by decision, and one KO. All four of her career losses have ended in decisions, with three of those four defeats coming in her last five fights, as she’s really struggled when facing tougher opponents.

Overall, Demopoulos is a BJJ brown belt and relies mostly on her grappling. While she doesn’t mind mixing it up on the feet, she’s a sloppy striker and tends to be very hittable. She has failed to land any of her seven takedown attempts in her two UFC matches and her DWCS fight. In fairness to her, she took her debut up a weight class against J.J. Aldrich, who has a solid 75% takedown defense. Nevertheless, Demopoulos hasn’t shown the ability to get opponents down, which isn’t ideal for someone that relies on their grappling.

Fight Prediction:

Frey will have a 1” height advantage and 6” reach advantage, but Demopoulos is four years younger than the 37-year-old Frey.

Demopoulos looks like a submission or bust fighter who lacks the ability to win many striking battles against UFC level talent and has yet to show she can take opponents down with much success. She was only able to land a submission in her last fight after getting dropped on the feet and she was incredibly fortunate not to get knocked out. Now she’ll go up against the 90% takedown defense of Jinh Yu Frey, and Demopoulos will likely need something similar to happen if she wants to have a chance to land another submission here. Frey is the more technical striker and we like her to outland her way to a decision win.

Our favorite bet here is “Frey Decision” at +110.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Frey has given us no indication she can score well in DFS, with DraftKings totals of just 65 and 72 in her two recent decision wins. She hasn’t finished anybody since 2014 in her fourth pro fight and now she faces Vanessa Demopoulos, who’s never been finished in her career. Hilariously checking in as the third most expensive fighter on the slate, Frey may need a Mike Jackson like miracle to end up in tournament winning lineups, but she does have a decent scoring floor. We don’t expect her to be looking to grapple against a submission threat in Demopoulos, which will make it even tougher for Frey to score well. Working in her favor, Demopoulos has looked very hittable, averaging 4.63 SSA/min. However, Frey only averages 2.86 SSL/min so it’s hard to see her landing enough volume to really score well without a finish. The best thing Frey has going for her is that she’ll be incredibly low owned and if she does somehow put up a big score she’ll offer tournament winning upside. Just keep in mind, it’s hard to see her doing that without landing an early finish. The odds imply she has a 68% chance to win, a 25% chance to get a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one. Her finishing odds seem way too high if you ask us.

Demopoulos’ aggressive fighting style lends itself well towards uptempo high scoring fights, although she would prefer to hunt for submissions on the mat then trade strikes on the feet and she’s yet to land a takedown in either of her two UFC fights or in her DWCS match. She’s coming off a very fortunate first round submission win after nearly getting knocked out, which nevertheless should drive up her ownership. That came in a dream spot against Silvana Gomez Juarez, who has looked incredibly prone to getting submitted. Now Demopoulos will face a tougher test when it comes to landing a finish, as she goes against the 90% takedown defense of decision grinder Jinh Yu Frey. This looks like the time to sell on Demopoulos, and we should let the rest of the field chase her recent results. With that said, if she is able to land another submission, she would most likely end up in winning lineups at her cheap price tag. The odds imply she has a 32% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in the first round.

---

Fight #11

Mario Bautista

6th UFC Fight (3-2)

Bautista recently bounced back from a 2021 R2 KO loss to Trevin Jones with a February 2022 decision win over Jay Perrin, who was making his debut on less than a week’s notice. Prior to getting knocked out for the first time in his career by Jones, Bautista landed a second round KO of his own against Miles Johns, who had also previously never been knocked out.

In his last fight, Bautista welcomed Jay Perrin to the UFC and completely commanded the action from start to finish. While Perrin came in looking to grapple, it was Bautista who ended up landing four takedowns on six attempts, while Perrin was only able to land two of his five attempts. Prior to that fight, Bautista had just one takedown in his first four UFC fights. Bautista continued to throw a lot of flying knees in the fight, which he used to knock out Miles Johns back in 2020. Bautista finished ahead in control time 6:30-1:45, while also leading in significant strikes 72-42 and in total strikes 112-57. After taking the fight on just five day’s notice, Perrin faded down the stretch and Bautista cruised to a unanimous decision, winning every round of the fight.

Now 9-2 as a pro, Bautista has three wins by KO, three by submission, and three decisions. Both of his losses have come early, with a second round KO against Trevin Jones in his second most recent fight and a first round armbar submission loss to Cory Sandhagen in Bautista’s UFC debut. Seven of his last eight fights have seen a second round, with four of those matches ending in round two (3-1), and three going the distance (3-0).

Overall, Bautista is primarily a striker and does a good job of using all his weapons as he mixes in punches, kicks, knees, and elbows. We hadn’t seen him mix in much grappling prior to his last fight, as he had only landed one takedown on three attempts in his first four UFC fights, but he did land three submissions earlier in his career and then landed four takedowns on six attempts in his last match. On the other side of things, he’s been taken down 5 times on 15 attempts (33.3%) in his five UFC fights.

Brian Kelleher

15th UFC Fight (8-6)

Kelleher will be making the move back down to 135 lb for this fight, after his last two and six of his last seven fights have been at 145 lb. This matchup was only announced a few weeks ago, but it’s unclear how long Kelleher has been preparing to move back down. He’s only fought at 135 lb once since 2018, which ended in a 2021 smothering three-round decision over Domingo Pilarte. Kelleher went 3-3 in his other six most recent fights, which all took place at 145 lb. All of his UFC losses have come against really tough opponents in Umar Nurmagomedov, Ricky Simon, Cody Stamann, Montel Jackson, John Lineker, Marlon Vera. You can also see that all of his recent losses have come against high-level wrestlers. Against lower level opponents, Kelleher has fared well and has been able to find success both on the feet and the mat. His last two victories both ended in grappling-heavy decisions.

In his last fight, Kelleher took on undefeated prospect Umar Nurmagomedov and entered the match as a massive +600 underdog. After taking an early striking lead, Nurmagomedov looked to get the fight to the ground. While Kelleher was able to defend the initial attempts, Nurmagomedov continued to look to grapple and was able to get Kelleher down to one knee and take his back midway through the round. That was all it took for Nurmagomedov to take his back and quickly lock in a rear-naked choke and force a tap. The fight ended with Nurmagomedov ahead in significant strikes 18-1 and in total strikes 21-1, and Kelleher was never able to get anything going.

Now 24-13 as a pro, Kelleher has eight wins by KO, 10 by submission, and six decisions. The only time he’s ever been knocked out came in the third round of a 2018 match against a heavy-handed John Lineker, who’s won 12 of his last 14 fights with his only losses since 2014 coming against top-level Bantamweight contenders in T.J. Dillashaw and Cory Sandhagen. While it’s rare to see Kelleher get knocked out, he’s been submitted seven times in his career despite being a BJJ brown belt. He also has five decision losses. Eight of his 10 submission wins and six of his seven submission losses have occurred in the first round, while he’s also landed one submission in each of the later rounds, and has been submitted once in round two as well. His last six and 7 of his 10 submission victories have ended in guillotines, which he’s nicknamed the Boomatine since it’s basically his go to move. He also had three wins by rear-naked choke earlier in his career.

While only 5 of his 14 UFC fights have required the judges, four of those decisions occurred in his last six matches. Just keep in mind, prior to moving up to 145 lb in 2020, he had only seen the judges once in his first seven UFC fights, which all took place at 135 lb. However, his more recent 135 lb fight went the distance. Overall, six of his eight 135 lb UFC matches ended early, four by first round submission (2-2), and two by third round knockout (1-1), and he’s been finished in all three of his losses at 135 lb. Half of his UFC fights at 145 lb have gone the distance (1-2), while two ended in first round submissions (1-1), and one resulted in a second round knockout win. Looking at the entirety of his UFC career, five of his 14 fights have gone the distance (3-2), three ended in knockouts (2-1), and six finished in submissions (3-3).

Overall, Kelleher is a 35-year-old mid-level UFC vet, who’s never going to contend for a title, but he’s a company man who stays active and is willing to fight at multiple weight classes and on short notice. He fought four times in 2020, twice in 2021, and this will already be his third fight in 2020. He’s shown improved wrestling since getting dominated on the mat by Ricky Simon in early 2021, but he’s still been prone to getting submitted throughout his career. While Kelleher failed to land more than a single takedown in any of his first 11 UFC fights, going just 6 for 24 (25%) on his attempts in those 11 fights, he’s now landed a combined nine takedowns on 11 attempts (81.8%) in his last two wins. In addition to his improved wrestling, he also has a dangerous left hook, which is what he used to knock out Hunter Azure in his last KO win, which came back in May 2020 in Kelleher’s first UFC fight up at 145 lb.

Fight Prediction:

Bautista will have a 3” height and reach advantage and is seven years younger than the 35-year-old Kelleher.

This is an interesting matchup between two mid-level veterans who have each won two of their last three fights, but have also both been finished in their most recent loss. They’ve each found more success with their grappling as of recently, but Kelleher has been the more impressive wrestler with over 19 minutes of combined control time in his last two fights, while Bautista still relies mostly on his striking. Bautista has done a good job of returning to his feet when he has been taken down, so it will be interesting to see if Kelleher is able to take him down and control him on the mat. Bautista is the taller of the two and loves to throw a ton of flying knees, which will be easier to land against a shorter opponent. Bautista’s only UFC finish came in a flying knee against Miles Johns, who’s 1” taller than Kelleher. As the rangier fighter, Bautista should be able to pick Kelleher apart from the outside if he can successfully control the distance, but he’ll need to watch out for Kelleher’s counter hooks coming back his way. As the shorter fighter, Kelleher will need to try and close the distance to find success, but he’ll have to watch out for flying knees on his way in. We expect Kelleher to try and get this fight to the ground, as Bautista should be the one landing more striking volume on the feet. While both of these two are capable of landing knockouts, the grappling exchanges are more likely to determine the winner. While 46% of Kelleher’s pro fights have ended in submissions (10-7), he’s primarily just looking to lock up guillotines, and we don’t expect Bautista to be shooting for many takedowns to give him that opportunity. Kelleher has only been losing to high-level wrestlers lately, so we’ll see if that trend continues here. There’s a chance we see a knockout in the second or third round if either Bautista can land a flying knee or Kelleher can land a counter left hook, but it’s more likely we see this go the distance and end in a close decision. Look for Bautista to finish ahead in striking, but Kelleher to be the more effective wrestler. We’ll say Kelleher is able to do enough on the mat to squeak out a decision, but this should be a close fight that could go either way.

Our favorite bet here is “Kelleher R3 or DEC” at +340.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Bautista is coming off the best DFS score of his career in a dream spot against a short notice replacement making his UFC debut on just five day’s notice. He scored 104 DraftKings points in a decision win and actually showed some grappling for essentially the first time in the UFC as he landed four takedowns after previously only landing one in his first four UFC fights combined. Prior to that, he had scored 87 DraftKings points in a 2020 second round TKO win and 93 points in a 2019 decision victory. So overall he’s shown a pretty decent floor, but not a great ceiling. He now faces an opponent in Kelleher who’s only been knocked out once in his career and looks to be a superior wrestler. At Bautista’s expensive price tag, it will be hard for him to return value without either a finish in the first round or late in round two. The odds imply he has a 60% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.

Kelleher consistently scores well when he wins, as he’s averaged 105 DraftKings points in his eight UFC victories, with at least 91 in all of those. His last two wins both came in grappling-heavy decisions, and if that trend continues he has a safer floor on DraftKings. However, five of his eight UFC victories have come early and he has a solid ceiling on all platforms. His most recent two and six of his last seven fights have been at 145 lb, but he’ll now be moving back down to 135 lb, where he’s gone 5-3 in the UFC. We’ve seen him dominate several low-level opponents, and struggle against high-level wrestlers, whereas now he’ll face a mid-level striker in one of the more even matchups he’s had in a while. Bautista has done a pretty good job of defending takedowns and getting up when he has been taken down, and has a 66% takedown defense, while only being controlled for 12% of his time in the UFC. That could make it tougher for Kelleher to put up another big score through grappling and likely leaves him more reliant on landing a finish. At his cheap price tag, he still definitely has the potential to serve as a value play even in a decision, but this isn’t the best matchup for him. The odds imply he has a 40% chance to win, a 24% chance to get a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #10

JP Buys

3rd UFC Fight (0-2)

Desperate for a win, Buys has faced a really tough start to his UFC career as he went up against Bruno Silva and Montel Jackson in his first two UFC fights. In addition to starting 0-2 in the UFC, Buy’s wife just left him and his entire world is in disarray. He needs nothing more right now than to notch his first UFC win here. Buys has amazingly been knocked down SEVEN TIMES in his first two UFC fights—three times by Bruno Silva in a R2 KO defeat and then four times by Montel Jackson in a decision loss. It took Buys two tries on DWCS to crack the UFC roster, but he’s still just 26 years old and has plenty of room for growth.

In his last fight, Buys took on a much larger and more powerful Montel Jackson. Buys was able to land a takedown early in round one and take the back of Jackson, but he wasn’t able to find his way to a finish and Jackson pretty much controlled the remainder of the fight. Buys did look close to locking up a guillotine later in round one, but Jackson escaped without too much trouble. Jackson amazingly landed four knockdowns in addition to four takedowns with over 10 minutes of control time. He also finished ahead in significant strikes 25-8 and in total strikes 91-39.

Now 9-4 as a pro, Buys has three wins by KO, five by submission, and one by DQ. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted once, and has one decision loss, which came in his last fight and is the only time he’s been to the judges in his career. Buys has gone back and forth between 125 lb and 135 lb throughout his career, going 4-3 at 125 lb, and 5-1 at 135 lb. Both of his DWCS matches as well as his UFC debut were at 125 lb, but he did try moving up to 135 lb for his last fight. Clearly undersized in that match, he’ll now drop back down to 125 lb. He has said in the past that cutting down to 125 lb takes a lot out of him, which is something to keep in mind as he returns to the lower weight class.

Overall, Buys is a solid wrestler and a BJJ brown belt and quickly looks to get fights to the mat. He’s done a good job of controlling opponents and finding finishes in the past, but we’ve yet to see that at the UFC level. He’s been incredibly prone to getting knocked down on the feet, and overall isn’t a very good striker. He should be desperate for a win here, as few fighters are able to earn a second contract after starting off 0-3 in the UFC.

Cody Durden

5th UFC Fight (1-2-1)

Durden is coming off a 58 second R1 submission loss to UFC newcomer Muhammad Mokaev. Prior to that, he notched his first UFC win in a grappling-heavy decision over Aoriqileng, after getting submitted by Jimmy Flick in the first round of a 2020 match and fighting to a draw against Chris Gutierrez in his 2020 UFC debut.

His last fight ended so quickly that it’s hard to take much away from it. Durden got caught with a flying knee early on and Mokaev then immediately locked up a guillotine choke to force a tap. Durden landed just a single significant strike in the fight and continues to look prone to being submitted.

Now 12-4-1 as a pro, Durden has five wins by KO, five more by submission, and two decisions. He’s been submitted in three of his four losses, including in the first round in two of his last three fights, while he also has one decision loss. Only five of his 17 fights have seen a third round. Eight of Durden’s 10 finishes occurred in the first round, while he also has one in each of the later rounds. His UFC debut took place at 135 lb before Durden dropped down to 125 lb for his last three fights. He mostly competed at 135 lb before he joined the UFC, but had also fought at 125 lb some.

Overall, Durden is a former state champion high school wrestler who relies heavily on his wrestling and isn’t a great striker. In his lone UFC win, he landed 5 takedowns on 10 attempts. He’s been prone to getting submitted and hasn’t shown the ability to escape chokes once they’re locked in. He’s faced two grapplers so far in the UFC and was submitted in the first round both times.

Fight Prediction:

Durden will have a 2” height advantage, but both fighters share a 67” reach. Buys is five years younger than the 31-year-old Durden.

These two wrestlers have similar fighting styles, which makes this an interesting matchup. We say it everytime, but sometimes when you pair two grapplers against one another it turns into more of a striking battle than expected because neither wants to go against the strength of the other. However, we don’t really see that happening here as Buys has looked terrible on the feet and has been more than willing to wrestle against other grapplers. Buys is absolutely desperate for a win here and Durden has looked very vulnerable to being submitted. We like Buys’ chances to land an early submission, most likely in the first round. With that said, this could be a close match that could go either way, and we don’t have complete confidence in the guy who’s been knocked down seven times in his last 4.5 rounds of action.

Our favorite bet here is “Under 2.5 Rounds” at +120.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Buys is still in search of his first UFC win and got completely mauled in each of his first two UFC fights. However, those were both against really tough opponents and now he’ll face someone more on his level. Despite the dreadful results, he’s shown theoretical scoring upside through grappling and submissions and if you give this guy enough tries he’s eventually going to finish somebody. Durden is the perfect opponent to see that happen against, as he’s been submitted in the first round in two of his last three fights, and was also submitted in the second round earlier in his career. It will be interesting to see where Buys’ ownership ends up following his recent losses, as he failed to top 17 DraftKings points in either of those. This looks like a good buy-low time on him in a must win fight. Whoever wins this fight should score well and both guys are priced very reasonably. The odds imply Buys has a 52% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

Durden has just one win in four UFC fights and is coming off a 58 second R1 submission loss, which is the second time he’s been submitted in the first round in his last three outings. So clearly he has a very shaky floor, but he was also able to land five takedowns on 10 attempts in his lone UFC win, where he scored 93 points in a grappling-heavy decision. He has the potential to hit a ceiling performance here if he can pull off the upset as Buys has been dominated in his last two losses, with his opponents putting up other-worldy DraftKings scores of 131 and 132. Buys has been finished in three of his four career losses and has already been knocked down an insane seven times in his four and a half rounds of UFC action. While Durden has really struggled against other grapplers, he looks like a low floor high ceiling play with a cheap price tag. So if he does win, there’s a really good chance he ends up in tournament winning lineups and Vegas has this fight as being close to a coin flip. The odds imply he has a 48% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #9

Sergey Morozov

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Likely fighting for his job here, Morozov has started off just 1-2 in the UFC, but both of those losses came against really tough opponents in Umar Nurmagomedov and Douglas Silva de Andrade. Each of those defeats ended in a second round submission, while Morozov won a grappling-heavy decision over Khalid Taha in between. Morozov showed his commitment to wrestling in that victory, as he landed 6 takedowns on 16 attempts with over eight and a half minutes of control time.

In his last fight, Morozov started strong, landing a knockdown 90 seconds into the first round. However, Silva de Andrade was able to survive off his back while Morozov looked to end it with ground and pound. Morozov was able to split Silva de Andrade open, but couldn’t get him out of there and Silva de Andrade was able to return to his feet with a little under two minutes remaining in the round. Morozov finished the round with another takedown as he completely commanded the first five minutes of the fight. Silva de Andrade wasn’t ready to concede the defeat and came out firing in round two, dropping Morozov less than a minute in. Morozov looked to grapple to buy time to recover, but Silva de Andrade was able to return to space. An accidental eye poke from Morozov momentarily paused the action, but as soon as the fight resumed Silva de Andrade dropped Morozov another time. Morozov again desperately looked to grapple with no success, but Silva de Andrade continued to batter him, before shoving him to the mat, taking his back, and choking him unconscious. The fight was non-stop action and finished with Silva de Andrade ahead in knockdowns 3-1 and in significant strikes 37-32, while Morozov led in total strikes 62-57 and in takedowns 1-0. That’s the second time in his last three fights that Morozov has been choked unconscious in the second round via rear-naked choke. Morozov appeared to fall in love with his striking a little bit too much in that fight after landing the early knockdown, and he didn’t attempt a takedown in the second round until he was already rocked.

Now 17-5 as a pro, Morozov has eight wins by KO, three by submission, and six decisions. He’s been finished in four of his five losses, once by KO and three times by submission. The only decision loss of his career was back in 2016 and he’s gotten his hand raised in six of his seven trips to the judges. All three of his submission losses were by rear-naked choke in the later rounds, with two coming in round two and another in round three. The first of those was against undefeated Movsar Evloev, the next was against undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov, and the most recent was against a tough 28-4 Douglas Silva de Andrade. His lone KO loss came in 2016 against Josh Rettinghouse, and Morozov later avenged the loss in an M-1 five-round decision in a Bantamweight title fight just before joining the UFC. All three of Morozov’s submission wins occurred in round one, but they also all took place in his first six pro fights and he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2015. Seven of his eight KO/TKO wins came in the first two rounds, with three in round one and four in round two. The other occurred in the fourth round of another 2019 M-1 title fight.

Overall, Morozov is a well rounded fighter but he relies heavily on his grappling and struggles when he goes against a superior grappler. He tends to wear on his opponents and 9 of his last 11 fights have made it past the first round, with six seeing a third round, and four going the distance. While he’s generally trying to get fights to the mat, he hasn’t landed a submission since 2015 and is generally looking to knock opponents out or grind out grappling-heavy decisions. Of his last 10 wins, six have gone the distance, while four ended in KO/TKOs. With his last three losses all coming by rear-naked choke, that seems to be an area of weakness for him. He’s been training at American Top Team for his last couple of fights, and outside of the second round in his last fight, he’s looked great in those matches.

Raulian Paiva

7th UFC Fight (3-3)

Looking to bounce back from a first round TKO loss to Sean O'Malley, Paiva easily could be 1-5 or 1-4-1 in the UFC had he not won a pair of close/questionable decisions leading up to his recent loss. Amazingly, three of Paiva’s last four and four of his last six decisions have been split/majority, yet all of those went his way.

In his last fight, Paiva served as the latest sacrifice for Sean O'Malley, who made short work of the Brazilian with a late first round knockout. Paiva was clearly outgunned in the matchup as O'Malley forced a stoppage along the fence as he teed off on Paiva. O'Malley finished ahead 39-11 in significant strikes, while Paiva failed to come close to landing either of his takedown attempts.

Now 21-4 as a pro, Paiva has four wins by KO, three by submission, and 14 decisions. He has two losses by first round TKO, one by third round submission, and amazingly has only lost one of the 15 decisions he’s been to. Paiva had been fighting at 135 lb until he went on DWCS Brazil in 2018 and dropped down to 125 lb when he won a split decision over Allan Nascimento. Paiva stayed at 125 lb for his first four UFC fights, however after missing weight by 3 lb against Zhalgas Zhumagulov in 2020 and then being hospitalized following a botched weight cut in 2021, he opted to move back up to 135 lb in 2021, where he’s since gone 1-1 in his last two fights.

Overall, Paiva hasn’t done anything to really impress us and he’s basically a low-level decision grinder. He has one legitimate win in six UFC appearances, which came against Mark “Bumblebee” De La Rosa, who’s lost four straight fights. While Paiva isn’t a completely terrible fighter and is somewhat well rounded, he’s just not a guy that stands out anywhere. He relies mostly on his striking to win fights, and has only landed two takedowns in six UFC fights, which both came against Kyler Phillips. While Paiva technically has a 75% takedown defense, that number is heavily bolstered by Allan Nascimento (20% career takedown accuracy) going 1 for 10 on his takedown attempts against Paiva, Kai Kara-France (21% career takedown accuracy) going 2 for 7 on his takedown attempts, and Zhalgas Zhumagulov (18% career takedown accuracy) going 2 for 11. In his first UFC fight up at 135 lb, Paiva got taken down four times on nine attempts by Kyler Phillips (50% career takedown accuracy). Paiva was also taken down twice on five attempts in less than three minutes by Rogerio Bontorin (60% career takedown accuracy) before that fight was stopped by the doctor. Paiva has been outlanded in significant strikes in three straight fights and has never landed more takedowns than his opponent, yet somehow he almost never loses a decision. He’s been knocked down in both of his 135 lb UFC matches and has been outlanded 113-62 in significant strikes in those two fights combined. He trains at Team Alpha Male, which is known for their guillotine, however, Paiva has never finished an opponent with a guillotine.

Fight Prediction:

Paiva will have a 2” height and reach advantage and is seven years younger than the 33-year-old Morozov.

Morozov is likely fighting for his job here as he steps into his fourth UFC fight, and we’d be shocked if he didn’t rely heavily on his wrestling to try and lock up a new contract, especially after getting rocked on the feet at multiple points in his last fight after starting off so strongly. With that said, Paiva hasn’t been much of a finisher with only one early win since 2017, so we’re also not overly concerned about Morozov getting finished in the striking exchanges. While Morozov has looked prone to getting choked out, Paiva hasn’t looked like much of a grappler and hasn’t submitted anybody since 2017. Morozov looked great in the first round of his last fight before getting caught on the feet (multiple times) in round two, and also put on an impressive wrestling performance in his previous fight. We like him to outgrapple his way to a decision win here, although it wouldn’t be shocking if he knocked Paiva out.

Our favorite bet here is Morozov’s ML at -140.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Morozov is a former M-1 Bantamweight Champion, and has looked really good at times so far in the UFC, but has also been choked unconscious twice in his three UFC fights. In between those trips to the abyss, he won a wrestling-heavy decision that was good for 105 DraftKings points but just 86 points on FanDuel. He looked well on his way to landing a finish in his last fight before the tide quickly turned and he ended up getting finished himself. Because he’s been vulnerable to getting choked out and clipped on the feet, he’s a tougher guy to trust, but he also offers major wrestling upside and the ability to land knockouts. He’s likely fighting for his job here, so we expect a more calculated and safer wrestling-heavy gameplan, which should score much better on DraftKings than FanDuel if he’s unable to land a finish. The odds imply Morozov has a 59% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

Paiva has only topped 71 DraftKings points once in six UFC appearances, and has only finished one opponent since 2017, which was Mark “Bumblebee” De La Rosa, who’s lost four straight fights. Paiva has failed to land more than 67 significant strikes in any of his six UFC matches and also didn’t land any takedowns in five of those fights. Even at his cheaper price tag, he appears reliant on landing a finish to be useful in DFS and he hasn’t looked very dangerous in the UFC. The only two things he has going for him are that he projects to be low owned and in Morozov’s two losses, his opponents scored 112 and 120 DraftKings points. Just keep in mind that both of those opponents were significantly better than Paiva. The odds imply Paiva has a 41% chance to win, a 22% chance to get a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in the first round.

---

Fight #8

TJ Brown

5th UFC Fight (2-2)

After starting 1-2 in the UFC, Brown likely saved his job in his recent grappling-heavy win over Charles Rosa, who took the fight on just a few day’s notice. Brown lost his first two UFC fights, although he was way ahead of Jordan Griffin in his debut before he got submitted in the second round. Then he struggled against Danny Chavez in a decision loss, before winning a close/questionable split decision over Kai Kamaka leading up to his recent decision win over Charles Rosa. Kamaka was nearly able to knock Brown out and probably should have won the decision, but a panel of terrible judges gave it to Brown in a close/fun fight. After starting 0-2 in the UFC, Brown moved his camp to Glory MMA and FItness with James Krause and hasn’t lost a fight since. Prior to joining the UFC, Brown finished four straight opponents and had nine straight fights end early.

In his last fight, Brown did a great job of mixing in his striking and grappling, as he was able to land six of his eight takedowns against Charles Rosa, while also leading in significant strikes 58-46 and in total strikes 88-71. Brown also finished with over seven and a half minutes of control time, three submissions, and two reversals, as he completely filled up the stat sheet. Brown had been scheduled to face Gabriel Benitez at 145 lb in that fight, but Benitez dropped out mid fight week and Rosa stepped in on Wednesday morning and the fight was moved up to 155 lb.

Now 16-8 as a pro, Brown has four wins by KO, nine by submission, and three decisions. He’s also been knocked out three times, submitted three more, and has two decision losses. While he’s only been to five decisions in 24 pro fights, his last three matches have all gone the distance, and his last five all made it to the second round, with four seeing round three. Brown fought mostly at 155 lb early in his career before dropping down to 145 lb in 2017.

Brown was recently awarded his BJJ black belt and over half of his career wins have come by submission. He loves looking for arm-triangle chokes, with six of his nine submissions ending in that method. He’s been a finish or get finished type of fighter for the majority of his career, however, he’s now fought to three straight decisions. He grew up training with Bryce Mitchell and relies largely on his wrestling, but is also a somewhat dangerous striker. He’s an offensively minded fighter and has been prone to getting submitted in addition to not having the best chin, which typically makes him a tougher guy to fully trust.

Shayilan Nuerdanbieke

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Coming off his first UFC win in a dream matchup, Nuerdanbieke won a wrestling-heavy decision over a one-dimensional striker in Sean Soriano. Prior to that, Nuerdanbieke lost a decision to Josh Culibao in a fight where Nuerdanbieke relentlessly shot for takedowns, but was only able to land 2 of his 14 attempts.

In his last fight, Nuerdanbieke got the best matchup he could ask for against Sean Soriano, who is helpless on the mat and came in having been submitted in three of his previous four UFC fights. Nuerdanbieke found more wrestling success as the fight went on, but was never able to lock up an official submission attempt. After losing the first round, Nuerdanbieke won both of the later rounds on the ground to win a unanimous 29-28 decision. While Soriano finished ahead in significant strikes 35-17, Nuerdanbieke led in total strikes 111-49, while landing four of his eight takedown attempts, with two reversals and nearly seven and a half minutes of control time.

Now 37-10 as a pro, Nuerdanbieke has 18 wins by KO, 10 by submission, and nine decisions. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted six times, and has two decision losses. The majority of his fights have ended in the first round, but he was fighting a ton of questionable competition prior to joining the UFC, so his record should be taken with a grain of salt. Nuerdanbieke has spent most of his career fighting at Lightweight and has even spent some time up at Welterweight. Only four of his pre-UFC fights were at 145 lb (4-0), but that’s where he’s fought all of his UFC matches.

Overall, Nuerdanbieke looks like a low-level one-dimensional wrestler. His commitment to grappling is admirable, but his takedown accuracy looked terrible in his UFC debut and he hasn’t looked like any sort of finishing threat at the UFC level. His striking is also lacking and he hasn’t shown us the ability to do much more than grind out decisions on the mat in his first two UFC fights.

Fight Prediction:

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

This sets up a good matchup for Brown to finally land his first finish in the UFC. Nuerdanbieke has been finished in 8 of his 10 pro losses and hasn’t looked dangerous in terms of landing his own finishes, despite all of the early wins prior to joining the UFC. So while Brown has been prone to getting finished himself, he should be at less of a risk here. Both guys have the ability to wrestle, but Brown looks much better on the feet and should be able to pick Nuerdanbieke apart as long as this fight remains standing. The wrestling exchanges should be more competitive, which could result in Brown looking for less takedowns than normal, but if Nuerdanbieke continues to spam takedowns then Brown may end up on the mat one way or another. Nuerdanbieke has been very prone to getting submitted, with 60% of his career losses ending in submissions, while over half of Brown’s career wins have also come by submission. So it would make sense to see Brown land a submission win here, although we also wouldn’t be surprised if he knocked Nuerdanbieke out. Either way, we like Brown to win and most likely get a finish.

Our favorite bet here is “Brown ITD” at +240.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Brown is coming off a career DFS performance where he scored 113 DraftKings points in a wrestling-heavy decision win. He’s still in search of his first finish in the UFC, although 13 of his 16 career wins have come early. This looks like a good spot to finally get an early stoppage, as he faces an opponent in Nuerdanbieke who’s been finished in 80% of his pro losses. Brown has shown the ability to score well even without a finish when he can find success on the mat, although it’s possible he’s more inclined to keep this one standing where he should hold a bigger advantage against the one-dimensional wrestler in Nuerdanbieke. Even so, he has the potential to score through grappling, striking, and a finish. Brown’s ownership should remain under control due to his high price tag, as the majority of the field will look to play Umar Nurmagomedov, Shavkat Rakhmonov, and Arman Tsarukyan in that price range. That makes Brown a great tournament pivot in this favorable matchup. The odds imply he has a 66% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance to end it in round one.

Nuerdanbieke’s grappling-heavy approach lends itself well to the DraftKings scoring system, but he’s struggled with his takedown accuracy, landing just 6 of his 22 takedown attempts (27%) in his first two UFC fights. Working in his favor, Brown has just a 36% takedown defense. While we really like Brown to win this fight, if Nuerdanbieke is able to pull off the upset, it likely means he either landed a finish or controlled Brown on the mat for 2+ rounds. Both of those should score well and Brown has been prone to getting finished. This looks like a fight where whoever wins should score well and Nuerdanbieke was able to total 99 DraftKings points in his recent decision win. The odds imply Nuerdanbieke has a 34% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #7

Carlos Ulberg

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

We’ve seen two very different versions of Carlos Ulberg so far in the UFC. In his UFC debut, he completely emptied his gas tank looking for an early finish against Kennedy Nzechukwu, landing an insane 83 significant strikes in the first round and another 63 in round two, before gassing out and getting finished midway through the second round. In just a round and a half of action he landed an insane 146 significant strikes (17.56/min). Then in response to that cardio collapse, he methodically landed just 66 significant strikes in his recent decision win (4.40/min). Reducing his striking output by roughly 75% seems like an overcorrection, but it just shows we really don’t know what to expect out of this guy.

In his last fight, we saw Ulberg take a much more measured approach than in his UFC debut. He also mixed in a little wrestling just to change things up, as he landed both of his takedown attempts. Ulberg looked comfortable sniping from the outside and seemed far more focussed on not gassing out than actually looking for a finish. It was enough to win a unanimous decision, but not enough to avoid the boos of the crowd. The fight ended with Ulberg ahead in significant strikes 66-13 and in total strikes 71-13.

Still just 4-1 as a pro, Ulberg has two wins by KO and two by decision. The only loss of his career came in a R2 KO in his UFC debut. Both of his KO wins came in the first two rounds of his first three pro fights.

Ulberg has a kickboxing background and is a member of the City Kickboxing team. He made his way into the UFC with a R1 KO win on DWCS in 2020 just 122 seconds into the match. While Ulberg is still a very raw talent in terms of overall mixed martial arts, his striking ability and power are impressive. While he doesn’t add much in the grappling department, he did land two takedowns in his last fight, showing at least some growth in that area. Nevertheless, he’s still primarily a one-dimensional kickboxer who earns his keep on the feet.

Tafon Nchukwi

5th UFC Fight (2-2)

Coming off the first KO loss of his short career, Nchukwi had fought to three straight decisions prior to the recent third round KO loss. He landed 116 or more significant strikes in both of his UFC decision wins, and also tacked on three takedowns and nearly five minutes of control time against Mike Rodriguez. The last time Nchukwi finished an opponent was when he took on an undersized Al Matavao on DWCS in 2020 and landed a violent head kick KO in the second round.

In his last fight, Nchukwi did a good job of staying out of danger in the first two rounds against a dangerous Azamat Murzakanov, who was making his UFC debut with a perfect 10-0 record that included eight first round finishes. However, early in round three Murzakanov caught Nchukwi with a perfect flying knee to finish the fight. In a slower paced match, Nchukwi finished ahead 43-28 in significant strikes and 50-28 in total strikes, while stuffing four of Murzakanov’s five takedown attempts and quickly returning to his feet the one time he was taken down. It seemed like Nchukwi was well on his way to winning a decision prior to getting knocked out.

Still just 6-2 as a pro, Nchukwi has four wins by KO and two by decision. The only time he’s ever been finished was in his recent R3 KO loss, with his only other defeat occurring in a 2021 decision against Jun Yong Park. All four of his KO wins occurred in his first four pro fights, all in a round and a half or less. After moving down to 185 lb for his first two UFC fights, Nchukwi moved back up to 205 lb in his third fight and won a lopsided 30-27 decision over Mike Rodriguez. He’s since opted to stay at 205 lb, which looks like a wise move.

Overall, Nchukwi has a background in Muay Thai, where he went 13-1, and he also won a kickboxing world championship before transitioning to MMA. He’s still just 27 years old and should theoretically still be improving between every fight at such a young stage in his MMA career. He has good power and throws dangerous head kicks and we’ve seen him land a good amount of volume at times.

Fight Prediction:

Ulberg will have a 4” height advantage, but both fighters share a 77” reach.

We’ve seen Nchukwi shoot for takedowns against opponents with poor grappling, so it would make sense for him to look to grapple more against a one-dimensional striker in Ulberg. Both of these two kickboxers have shown the ability to land huge amounts of striking volume, but they’ve also each been incredibly patient at other times. That makes it tougher to know exactly what we can expect here, but it should play out mostly as a kickboxing match, with Nchukwi looking to make it ugly out of the clinch and Ulberg being more comfortable out in open space. Both guys have clear knockout power, but we actually like them both to respect the striking of the other enough that this fight likely goes the distance. We think the difference maker will be Nchukwi’s clinch work and grappling and like him to win a close, potentially split, decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Points” at +155 (FanDuel).

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Ulberg was on pace to break the slate in his UFC debut before he gassed out against Kennedy Nzechukwu. He landed an insane 146 significant strikes (17.56 SSL/min) in just over a round and a half before getting knocked out midway through round two. In reaction to his cardio failing him, we only saw him land 66 significant strikes in his recent decision win (4.40/min), showing that it’s hard to know what to expect out of him. Considering he lost when he threw a ton of volume and won when he dialed it way back, we’d be surprised to see him revert back to his ultra high-volume form, but the potential for flurries of strikes is clearly there. He’s still very young in his MMA career, with just five pro fights on his record. That just adds to the volatility in his performances, and leaves him as a boom or bust fantasy commodity. While he did land two takedowns in his last fight, he’s still essentially a one-dimensional kickboxer and will now be going against an opponent with a similar background. Unless he gets drawn into a firefight, Ulberg is reliant on landing a knockout to score well. After opening as a small favorite, the line has flipped over the course of the week, and Ulberg is now a slight dog. While he’s been a popular play in his last two fights, his recent performance combined with the line move should reduce his ownership to some extent. The odds now imply he has a 47% chance to win, a 31% chance to land a finish, and a 15% chance it comes in round one.

Nchukwi has shown the ability to score well even in decisions through a combination of striking volume, takedowns, and control time, but was on his way to winning a very low-scoring, low-volume decision in his last fight before getting knocked out in the third round. In his two UFC decision wins, he put up solid DraftKings scores of 106 and 101, landing 116 or more significant strikes in each of those. However, both Nchukwi and Ulberg were extremely patient in their most recent fights and if that continues neither guy will score well without an early knockout. This fight has a wide range of outcomes due to the uncertain pace these two will set, but we’re expecting a somewhat slower paced kickboxing match with Nchukwi looking to make things ugly out of the clinch at times and potentially looking for a few takedowns. After seeing the line flip in his favor, Nchukwi is mispriced at just $7,900 on DraftKings. That will surely drive his ownership up some, which lowers our interest in him in tournaments. However, the mispricing makes him a solid low-risk play. The odds imply he has a 53% chance to win, a 31% chance to get a finish, and a 15% chance to end it in round one.

---

Fight #6

Chris Curtis

3rd UFC Fight (2-0)

Curtis is coming off back-to-back short notice knockouts against tough opponents in his first two UFC fights, and has quickly made a name for himself. First he knocked out Phil Hawes in the first round of his November 2021 UFC debut and then he finished Brendan Allen just four weeks later in the second round. Curtis has now won seven straight fights, with six of those ending in knockouts. He originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but despite landing a third round KO he was not awarded a contract. He was forced to return to the regional scene and then fought some in the PFL before finally getting the call from the UFC.

Curtis stepped into his last fight on short notice and knocked out Brendan Allen in the second round. Allen appeared to underestimate Curtis as he came in expecting that he’d be able to do whatever he wanted in the fight. Allen was lulled into a striking battle and paid dearly for it in the second round as Curtis connected with a clean right cross that severely wobbled Allen. At that point, Allen tried to use the clinch to buy time to recover, but Curtis finished the job along the fence. Allen did attempt three takedowns, but despite slamming Curtis to the mat in the opening 30 seconds, Allen was unable to secure any of those attempts as Curtis immediately returned to his feet. The fight ended with Curtis ahead 61-43 in significant strikes and 64-44 in total strikes, while Allen officially went 0 for 3 on his takedown attempts.

Now 28-8 as a pro, the 34-year-old Curtis has 16 wins by KO, one by submission, and 11 decisions. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has six decision losses. 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 has spent much of his career down at 170 lb, but has also fought as high as 205 lb. His last fight before joining the UFC was at 170 lb.

Overall, Curtis is primarily a boxer and doesn’t seem to really push the pace. Only two of his last 19 fights have ended in R1 and 13 of those have made it to the third round, with eight going the distance. However, both of his UFC fights have ended in the first seven minutes. He’s been in several five round fights, so conditioning isn’t really a concern. He’s looked really durable and both of his first two UFC opponents clearly underestimated him. Now he’ll face a high-level grappler, so we should get to see his defensive grappling tested more than it ever has been.

Rodolfo Vieira

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

Vieira had been scheduled to face Wellington Turman this past January but ended up withdrawing due to medical concerns. After suffering his first career loss in one of the more improbable upsets of 2021 when he was submitted by Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez, Vieira bounced back with a R3 rear-naked choke win over Dustin Stoltzfus in his last fight. Despite landing the recent finish, Vieira looked somewhat like a shell of himself as he appeared ultra tentative in the fight, undoubtedly terrified he would gas out again after emptying his gas tank in the opening minutes against Hernandez.

Vieira generally starts his fights off by immediately shooting for a takedown, but surprisingly he opted not to shoot for a single takedown in the first round against Stoltzfus. That resulted in a slow-paced standup battle as Vieira looked to stretch a three minute gas tank over the course of a 15 minute fight. He finally attempted a takedown 15 seconds into the second round, and it almost looked like his team challenged him to spend the first five minutes on the feet before reverting to grappling in round two. The problem with that strategy is that his grappling was slightly less explosive by the second round and Stoltzfus was able to return to his feet and get back to open space. He only shot for one more takedown in the round, which he failed to land. Similar to round two, Vieira started the third round with another successful takedown. But again, Stoltzfus was able to return to his feet. However, Vieira immediately took him back down and as Stoltzfus returned to his feet Vieira took his back and submitted him with a rear-naked choke as Stoltzfus fell backwards toward the mat.

Now 8-1 as a pro, Vieira has one win by KO and seven by submission. His lone loss came in a second round submission. Vieira has only been past the second round twice in his career. The first of those came in 2017 when he was still competing at 205 lb in his second pro MMA match. That fight nearly went the distance before he landed a third round submission with 13 seconds left against an opponent who entered with a 2-3 record and hasn’t fought since. Vieira dropped down to 185 lb following that fight and has only been past the second round once since, which came in his most recent fight where he refused to initiate any grappling for the first five minutes.

While Vieira is an exceptional grappler and may give the appearance that he should be a dangerous striker, he’s quite useless on the feet and has even said he’s terrified of competing in MMA matches. Also worth considering when looking at his early UFC record, he went against terrible competition in his first two UFC fights. He first defeated Oskar Piechota in his debut, who’s been finished early in his last four UFC fights. More recently, he submitted Saparbek Safarov, who’s been finished early in three of his last four UFC fights. Vieira appears terrified of both striking and gassing out in fights, both of which are justified because he’s terrible at striking and has no cardio. After he proved to himself and his team he could stretch his cardio to see a third round in his last fight, it will be interesting to see if he returns to a more aggressive game plan or if he sticks with the strategy of refusing to grapple for the first five minutes to prevent quickly gassing out.

Fight Prediction:

Vieira will have a 2” height advantage, but Curtis will have a 2” reach advantage.

This is about as straight forward of a striker versus grappler matchup as there is. The biggest question is how aggressive will Vieira be early on after he refused to grapple in the first round of his last fight. While he could afford to keep his last fight on the feet against another grappler in Dustin Stoltzfus, refusing to grapple early in this next fight could easily result in Vieira getting knocked out in round one. Because of that, we expect him to come in more aggressively and look to grapple more from the start. If that plays out as expected, then the result of this fight will simply come down to how Curtis’ takedown and submission defenses hold up, which both looked pretty solid in his last fight. Nevertheless, we still like Vieira’s chances of finding his way to Curtis’ back and submitting him in the first round. However, if Curtis can connect with even a couple clean punches he should be able to knock Vieira out. Both guys have a clear path to victory, and the only thing that would surprise us here would be if this fight goes the distance.

Our favorite bet here is “Vieira R1 Submission” at +430.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Curtis is coming off back-to-back massive upset wins where he scored 106 and 109 DraftKings points and is due for some regression in the near future. He’s a one-dimensional boxer who has historically relied on his durability and power to knock opponents out late. With that said, his last two wins both came in under seven minutes and now he faces a one-dimensional fragile grappler. So it won’t take much for Curtis to land another knockout, but we don’t see him landing much striking volume, as Vieira doesn’t look durable enough to absorb it. So either Vieira will take Curtis down early and control him with a good chance of landing a submission, or Curtis will land an early knockout. If Vieira is able to control Curtis but not finish him, which seems unlikely, then Curtis could be looking at a low scoring second round finish without much volume behind it. So overall Curtis looks like a R1 KO or bust play. The odds imply he has a 55% chance to win, a 47% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.

Vieira is such a wildcard that it’s hard to know what to do with him. He’s described himself as the most scared person to fight in the UFC, yet is built like a truck and looks to be a weight class above most of the guys he fights. He’s a world champion grappler, yet also has one of the worst gas tanks you’ve ever seen. Up until his most recent fight he would come into every match looking for an immediate takedown and submission, but now he’s shell shocked from gassing out and didn’t even shoot for a takedown in the first round of his last match. As a complete head case, we have no clue what Vieira intends to do moving forward and expecting a logical approach from him is misguided. He’s fully capable of immediately shooting for a takedown and submitting Curtis in the opening minutes, but if he comes in with the same game plan that he did in his last fight, then he won’t even look for a takedown until round two. We’d be surprised if that was the case against a more dangerous striker like Curtis, but you never know. We expect Vieira to be the most popular underdog on the slate at his cheap price tag, which takes away from his tournament appeal, but he has undeniable upside. With that said, his recent third round finish scored just 84 DraftKings points, so if this fight somehow makes it past the second round it could bust. The odds imply he has a 45% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it occurs in round one.

---

Fight #5

Umar Nurmagomedov

3rd UFC Fight (2-0)

Extending his undefeated record to 14-0 with a first round submission win over Brian Kelleher, Nurmagomedov has now submitted his last three and four of his last five opponents. It’s not like the UFC has been feeding him trash cans either, as he faced Sergey Morozov in his UFC debut, who was coming off back-to-back M-1 title fight wins, and then UFC veteran Brian Kelleher most recently.

In his recent win over Kelleher, Nurmagomedov entered the match as a prohibitive -900 favorite. After taking an early striking lead, Nurmagomedov looked to get the fight to the ground. While Kelleher was able to defend the initial attempts, Nurmagomedov continued to look to grapple and was able to get Kelleher down to one knee and take his back midway through the round. That was all it took for Nurmagomedov to take his back and quickly lock in a rear-naked choke and force a tap. The fight ended with Nurmagomedov ahead in significant strikes 18-1 and in total strikes 21-1, in a near flawless performance.

Of his 14 wins, he’s only landed one KO/TKO, but he has seven submissions, and six decision wins. His lone TKO victory came in the second round of his third pro fight back in 2017. All seven of his submission wins have also occurred in the first two rounds, with four ending in round one and three in round two.

Overall, Nurmagomedov has some of the slickest kicks you’ll ever see and throws up question mark kicks like he’s whipping you with a wet towel. A cousin of Khabib, the 26-year-old has really solid grappling in addition to his striking and has landed six takedowns on 16 attempts in less than 12 minutes of total Octagon time in his two UFC fights. He’s typically looking to finish fights with rear-naked chokes, which is how he locked up his last six submission victories.

Nate Maness

4th UFC Fight (3-0)

Somehow 3-0 in the UFC, Maness has been involved in one close fight after the next, and just as easily could be 0-3 as 3-0. Maness made his short notice UFC debut up at 145 lb against Johnny Munoz in August 2020 and did a great job of staying upright as Munoz went just 2 for 16 on his takedown attempts. He also absorbed multiple low blows that cost Munoz a point. Most of the fight was spent with Munoz pushing Maness up against the cage and Maness didn’t do much to earn the victory. Maness then planned to drop back down to 135 lb against Luke Sanders, but the fight was moved to 140 lb Catchweight. Sanders looked to have Maness wobbled at multiple points as he landed heavy punches, but Maness was landing some clean shots of his own and eventually dropped Sanders in the second round and then submitted him soon after. Maness finally moved back down to 135 lb for his most recent match.

In his last fight, Maness came back from the dead to surprisingly become the first fighter to ever knock out Tony Gravely. Maness did a good job of defending the takedown attempts of Gravely and forced it into a striking battle, but that almost backfired as Gravely violently dropped Maness in the closing seconds of round one with a perfectly placed right hook. The fight easily could have been stopped at that point as Maness was in real rough shape, but Keith Peterson allowed it to continue. As Gravely pushed a little too hard to finish the job in round two, Maness was able to drop him with a clean right hand and forced the stoppage with ground and pound. The fight ended with Gravely ahead in significant strikes 36-31, while Maness led in total strikes 64-44. Both fighters landed a takedown, Maness on his lone attempt and Gravely on six shots.

Now 14-1 as a pro, Maness has five wins by KO, three by submission, and six decisions. The only time he’s ever lost a fight was in a 2019 R3 KO, two fights before he joined the UFC. His eight finishes have been split evenly across the first two rounds, and he’s never finished an opponent beyond the second round. While he’s only been to one decision in his last six fights, eight of his last nine fights have made it past the first round, with four of his last eight ending in round two. He’s fought anywhere from 135 lb to 155 lb in the past, but most of his career has been spent down at 135 lb.

Overall, Maness is an offensively minded brawler who has good size and length for the division, but has looked pretty hittable. While his striking defense hasn’t been great, his takedown defense has been really solid as he’s successfully defended 20 of the 23 attempts against him so far in the UFC. While Maness has been able to rely on his striking and takedown defense to get him this far, Maness has been severely overachieving and we expect regression to kick in beginning with this next fight.

Fight Prediction:

Maness will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage.

While Maness has pulled off back-to-back upset wins and is undefeated in the UFC, this is where his winning streak comes to an end. Nurmagomedov has absolutely dominated his first two UFC opponents both on the feet and the mat, while Maness has scraped by in each of his victories, getting his jaw broken in the first round of his last fight. To Maness’ credit, he’s shown crisp striking and a solid takedown defense, but Nurmagomedov is levels ahead of him. Maness has looked very hittable on the feet, and Nurmagomedov has a lightning fast head kick. With that in mind, it’s surprising that Nurmagomedov only has one TKO win in his career, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him get his second here with one of his patented question mark quicks. However, he still seems to prefer to finish fights with rear-naked chokes, so even if he hurts Maness on the feet it’s still more likely he looks to close the show with another choke. We like Nurmagomedov to put Maness away in the second half of round two either by a head kick KO or a rear-naked choke.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Doesn’t Start R3” at -120.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Nurmagomedov has scored 105 and 112 DraftKings points in his two UFC fights, both of which ended by submission in the first two rounds. While he’s not a guy that will typically put up big striking totals, he throws violent kicks and is a solid wrestler with the ability to chain takedowns together. Demonstrating that, he landed five takedowns in his UFC debut on his way to landing a second round submission. Working against him in this next matchup, Maness has only been taken down three times on 23 attempts so far in the UFC, so up until this point opponents have struggled to get him to the mat. If that takedown defense holds up, Nurmagomedov will be even more reliant on his kicking game, increasing the chances we see him land a knockout. With that said, we’d be surprised if Nurmagomedov wasn’t able to find at least some grappling success. As the most expensive fighter on the slate, Nurmagomedov will need to not only win and score well, he’ll also need to outscore the fighters priced around him, and that’s where the potential for him to get left out of tournament winning lineups comes in. While Nurmagomedov has scored well in both of his UFC wins, he’s yet to put up a slate-breaking score that can really set him apart from the crowd. While Maness’ solid takedown defense is the one concern we have with Nurmagomedov putting up a ceiling performance, we still love him in this spot and expect him to win wherever the fight goes. The odds imply he has an 87% chance to win, a 54% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.

Maness has finished two straight opponents in the second round, despite entering both of those matchups as the underdog. Now he steps into the toughest fight of his career, and we fully expect his recent success to abruptly come to an end. We’re still not buying that his guy is actually good. He’s looked incredibly hittable, which is clear by his 45% striking defense and the fact that Toney Gravely broke his jaw in the first round of his last fight. He was nearly knocked out in each of his last two fights after getting controlled for nearly 10 minutes in his debut. While his takedown defense has been solid, he has several holes in his game and there’s a really good chance we see those exposed in this matchup. Maness looks like nothing more than a contrarian hail mary KO play in DFS, but if he does land a miracle punch he’ll be an exceptional leverage play against one of the popular fighters on the slate in Nurmagomedov. The odds imply Maness has a 13% chance to win, a 7% chance to get a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #4

Thiago Moises

9th UFC Fight (4-4)

Coming off the first KO loss of his career, following his first submission loss, Moises had a three fight winning streak derailed by Islam Makhachev in a July 2021 fourth round submission, and was then knocked out by Joel Alvarez in the first round of his last fight. Moises’ UFC losses have all come against really tough opponents, as he was thrown straight to the wolves in his UFC debut at just 23 years old when he faced Beneil Dariush. While both guys are BJJ black belts, Dariush controlled Moises for essentially the entire fight with 13:32 of control time and four takedowns on eight attempts. After bouncing back with a decision win, Moises then lost a decision to an undefeated Damir Ismagulov. He rebounded with a submission win over Micahel Johnson, followed by a pair of decision wins against Bobby Green and Alexander Hernandez.

In his last fight, Moises took on a much taller Joel Alvarez, who had a 6” height advantage and a 7” reach advantage. Alvarez also missed weight by 1.5 lb and looked to be a weight class above Moises. That was Alvarez’s second straight fight where he missed weight and he sort of seemed to be gaming the system to some extent. In addition to the size difference, Alvarez showed improved striking in the fight, and while Moises was able to land a few good shots, Alvarez was simply able to bully him for most of the fight and land numerous heavy elbows along the fence to force a stoppage three minutes in. Alvarez finished ahead 44-11 in striking with neither fighter attempting a takedown.

Now 15-6 as a pro, Moises has three wins by KO, six by submission, and six decisions. He’s been knocked out once, submitted another time, and has four decision losses. Prior to his recent R1 KO loss, he saw the second round in all of his first seven UFC fights, with six of those making it to the third round and five going the distance. He’s only landed one finish in the UFC, which was an early second round submission over Michael Johnson. Moises second most recent finish came in a first round TKO on DWCS Brazil in 2018. He finished his first two pro opponents in the first round back in 2012, but 17 of his last 19 fights have made it past round one.

Overall, Moises is a dangerous grappler and an underrated striker. He’s constantly faced a really high level of competition, which helps to explain his 4-4 UFC record. He’s shown that despite his grappling background, he’s content with keeping fights standing. He’s also shown improved striking in his last few fights. After landing six takedowns on 17 attempts in his first five UFC fights, he’s landed just one takedown on only three attempts in his last match, and has overall landed 7 takedowns on 20 attempts in the UFC (35%). On the other side of things, Moises has been taken down 11 times on 28 attempts (39.3%) in the UFC. Moises trains at American Top Team and has been working a lot with Grant Dawson in preparation for this fight, in addition to guys like Mateusz Gamrot who he shares this card with.

Christos Giagos

11th UFC Fight (5-5)

Coming off a quick R1 KO loss to Arman Tsarukyan, Giagos has had one of the most polarized strength of schedules we’ve ever seen. He made his debut in 2014 against Gilbert Burns and got submitted in the first round. Then he landed a first round submission of his own against Jorge Antonio Cezario de Oliveira, who came in 0-1 in the UFC and was cut following the loss to Giagos. Then he lost a decision to Chris Wade, who was 2-0 in the UFC, and Giagos was cut following the loss. After going 4-2 in his next six fights outside of the UFC, they brought him back to take on Charles Oliveira in 2018, and Giagos got submitted in the second round. To make up for that, the UFC next gave him Mizuto Hirota, who was 1-4-1 in the UFC and got cut following a decision loss to Giagos. Then he was given a one-dimensional striker in Damir Hadzovic, who was 3-2 in the UFC, but has since fallen to 4-4. Again, Giagos won a decision. Giagos was then matched up with Drakkar Klose, who came in 4-1 in the UFC and defeated Giagos in a decision. After that Giagos accepted a fight on short notice against a terrible Carlton Minus, who entered 0-1 in the UFC and was cut following a decision loss to Giagos, and Sean Soriano, who was 0-3 in the UFC, took the fight up a weight class on short notice, and got submitted in the second round by Giagos and was cut following one more UFC loss. Overall, the current combined UFC record of the five opponents Giagos has beaten is 5-18-1, with four of those wins belonging to Damir Hadzovic. The other four opponents insanely have a combined UFC record of just 1-14-1.

In his last fight, Giagos got knocked out by Arman Tsarukyan 129 seconds into the first round. Giagos landed just a single significant strike in the fight, while Tsarukyan landed 22, so it’s hard to take much away from Giagos’ side of things, but clearly Tsarukyan is a problem for the division. With that said, Giaogs was able to reverse an early Tsarukyan takedown attempt and end up in top position, but he wasn’t able to do anything with the position and Tsarukyan quickly returned to his feet. Soon after, Tsarukyan dropped Giagos with a clean left hook and then finished the fight with ground and pound.

Now 19-9 as a pro, Giagos has seven wins by KO, four by submission, and eight decisions. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted four times, and has three decision losses. Prior to getting knocked out in the first round of his last fight, he had seen the second round in ten straight matches, with eight of those going the distance. The only time he’s finished anybody since 2016 was in a 2021 R2 submission win over a one-dimensional striker in Sean Soriano. Most of his finishes came very early in his career, and he’s settled into being a grappling-heavy decision grinder.

Overall, Giagos is a low-volume striker and relies heavily on his wrestling to win fights. He’s landed 22 takedowns on 53 attempts (41.5%) in his 10 UFC fights, but he’s 0-4 in UFC fights where he’s failed to land a takedown and has never won a UFC fight where he didn’t finish ahead in takedowns. Giagos recently moved from the west coast to Florida leading up to his last fight, and he now trains at Sanford MMA. One of his new training partners is Michael Johnson, who previously got submitted by Giagos’ opponent in this next fight, Thiago Moises.

Fight Prediction:

Giagos will have a 1” height and reach advantage, while Moises is five years younger than the 32-year-old Giagos.

Up until this point, Giagos has been a one-dimensional wrestler with bad cardio and a suspect chin. On the other side of things, Moises has shown a well rounded game with improved striking and always dangerous grappling, although he’s failed to land a takedown in two of his last three and four of his last six fights. Moises is the better striker and grappler, but he’s never been a guy to land a ton of takedowns. While Moises has been finished in each of his last two fights, those were both against really tough opponents and Giagos is clearly a major step down in competition. While Giagos’ questionable chin, cardio, and submission defense have resulted in him getting finished in six of his nine career losses, Moises only has one early win in his eight UFC fights, so it’s tougher to rely on him to put Giagos away early. With that said, we still like Moises' chances of getting a finish. Our prediction is that Moises hurts Giagos on the feet, which then forces Giagos to shoot for a desperation takedown and Moises locks up a guillotine against his dazed opponent to end the fight in a second round submission.

Our favorite bet here is “Moises Submission” at +260.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Moises has really struggled to score well in DFS, with DraftKings totals of 51 and 60 in his last two decision wins and just 70 points in his lone UFC finish, where he likely holds the record for least amount of stats ever recorded in a second round finish. He landed just a single strike in that fight, with no takedowns, knockdowns, reversals, and not even a second of control time. You’d think it was some sort of statkeeper error if you didn’t know better. It’s honestly somewhat impressive that he was even able to pull that off. He averages the third fewest number of significant strikes landed on the slate at just 2.52/min and has only landed three total takedowns in his last six fights. He’s also only landed one finish in eight UFC fights, so it’s not surprising that he projects to go low owned at his expensive price tag. Based on his lack of output and price, he likely needs either a first round finish or a career best grappling performance to be relevant in DFS and the best thing he has going for him is that he’ll be a low owned pivot off of the three popular high priced plays. This will be an easier matchup for Moises against an opponent who’s been prone to getting finished, so if he was ever going to put up a solid performance, this would likely be the spot. The odds imply he has a 68% chance to win, a 37% chance to get a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.

Giagos has shown the ability to rack up takedowns when he wins, and has impressively averaged 98 DraftKings points in his five UFC victories, despite the fact that three of those went the distance. He’s never won a fight where he didn’t land a takedown, and relies heavily on his wrestling. That makes this a tricky spot for him as he faces a dangerous submission threat in Moises, who can lock up a submission from pretty much any position. It will be interesting to see what Giagos’ game plan is because of that, but he’s looked like a liability on the feet in his past fights. He theoretically has the ability to score well if he sticks to his takedown-heavy approach and can avoid getting submitted, but he’s only been able to defeat terrible competition in the past and we’re giving him almost no shot of winning this fight. The odds imply he has a 32% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #3

Alan Baudot

4th UFC Fight (0-2, NC)

Baudot has lost all three of his UFC fights, although the second of those was later overturned to a No Contest when Rodrigo Nascimento tested positive for Ritalin. However, Nascimento has since been given a Therapeutic Use Exemption from USADA and is hoping to have the win reversed back to a round two KO. So who knows how the UFC views that loss now or in the future, but in reality Baudot has lost all three of his UFC fights. He was sacrificed to the MMA gods in his UFC debut against Tom Aspinall and lost in a 95 second R1 TKO, prior to the R2 TKO loss against Nascimento. He then most recently saw the judges for the first time in his career in a loss to Parker Porter.

In that last fight, Porter was able to push Baudot up against the cage for over half of the first round, before finally landing a takedown just as the round ended. Porter continued to look to grappler and male the fight ugly in round two, and while he was unable to land any of his four second round takedown attempts, he wore Baudot out making him defend all the wrestling. By the middle of round two Baudot looked fairly exhausted and Porter finished the round ahead in striking. Porter landed a takedown just past the midway mark of round three and controlled Baudot for the final two minutes of the fight as he unsuccessfully looked for a submission. That final sequence looked to be what won Porter the fight in a close back and forth affair. The slower paced fight ended with Baudot ahead in significant strikes 55-43, while Porter led in total strikes 82-61. Porter landed two of his eight takedown attempts and finished with just over six and half minutes of control time.

Now 8-3 with a No Contest that was also a loss, Baudot officially has seven wins by KO, and one by DQ. He’s been knocked out twice and has one decision loss. While Baudot’s official record shows that he’s 2-3 plus a No Contest in his last five fights, it’s actually far worse than it appears once you dig a little deeper. In addition to his recent TKO loss being overturned, his last win was by DQ in 2019. That was originally a third round submission loss, but his opponent tested positive for THC and instead of overturning it to a No Contest, the promotion gave Baudot a win by DQ instead for unknown reasons. So in reality, he’s lost four straight fights and five of his last six, with four of the five losses coming early. His last win was in 2018 and it came against a 5’10” opponent, who has fought as light as 170 lb and who entered the match against Baudot 0-2 as a pro, and is now 0-5 with all five losses coming in under seven minutes. Baudot has bounced between Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight throughout his career, but has exclusively fought at Heavyweight in the UFC. However, his last fight before joining the UFC was at Light Heavyweight. Baudot has only seen the third round three times in his career, and lost the last two of those. Seven of his 12 fights have ended in R1 KOs (6-1), two have ended in R2 KOs (1-1 including the No Contest), one finished in a R3 submission loss that was later overturned, one ended in a 2015 R5 TKO win, and his most recent ended in a decision loss.

Overall, Baudot is a fraudulent fighter who built his record fighting undersized and inexperienced fighters in East Asia. The one time he took on a UFC level talent (prior to joining the UFC) was when he faced Dalcha Lungiambula at Light Heavyweight in 2017 and Baudot was face-planted in just 26 seconds. Baudot unsurprisingly has decent speed at Heavyweight, considering he used to fight at Light Heavyweight, but he lacks power, durability, cardio, wrestling, fight IQ, technique, and heart. They’re pairing him up against another highly unimpressive Heavyweight in this next fight, and we expect the loser will be cut.

Josh Parisian

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Looking to keep his UFC dreams alive, Parisian got absolutely dominated on the mat against another low-level Heavyweight in his recent third round TKO loss to Don'Tale Mayes. We also saw Parisian get beat up on the mat by Parker Porter in a decision loss in his UFC debut, so it’s been an ongoing issue for him. His lone UFC win came in a split-decision against Roque Martinez, who went 0-3 in the UFC before being cut. That sloppy split-decision win was close and seemed like it could have gone either way, but you don’t need to take our word for it. In his post fight interview, Michael Bisping asked Parisian, “How confident were you that you would get the decision?” Parisian responded, “Uhhhhh…I’ll be honest, I wasn’t super confident. I thought I worked really hard. But I wasn’t sure because of the cage control. Sometimes he had…I think he had me on the wall more. And then when I did have him on the wall he was punching me in the face.” To which Bisping responded, “Yeah he definitely punched you in the face a few times.”

Parisian initially tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but despite landing a first round KO he didn’t get a contract. Following that initial appearance on DWCS, Parisian took a shot at The Ultimate Fighter. However, he didn’t last long as he was knocked out in the second round of what counted as an exhibition match so it doesn’t show up on his pro record. He returned to DWCS in 2020 and landed another first round KO, which that time was enough to get him a contract.

In his last fight, Parisian got taken down a minute into the first round by Don'Tale Mayes, who had previously only landed one takedown in his first three UFC fights AND his three DWCS fights combined. While Parisian was able to return to his feet, Mayes returned him to the mat soon after and quickly found himself in a crucifix position landing elbows. Parisian was able to survive, but mounted no offense of his own in the round. After a brief striking exchange, Mayes returned the fight to the mat early in round two. Parisian was again able to return to his feet, but as Parisian looked for a takedown of his own, Mayes was able to push him back to the mat and end up in top position. That’s where the two remained for the final two minutes of the round. Mayes once again returned the fight to the mat 30 seconds into round three. Once again Parisian was able to get back up and once again Mayes took him down. Mayes again found himself in a crucifix position and hammered away with elbows until Herb Dean eventually stopped the fight. The fight ended with Mayes ahead 25-10 in significant strikes and 117-24 in total strikes, while he landed six of his eight takedown attempts with over eleven and a half minutes of control time.

Now 14-5 as a pro, Parisian has 10 wins by KO, two by submission, and two decisions. Eight of his knockouts have come in round one, while the other two ended in round two. Both of his submission wins came in the second round in his first four pro fights (2015 & 2016). Both of his career decision wins have been split/majority. He’s been knocked out twice (R2 2017 & R3 2021), submitted once (R1 2019), and has two decision losses (2015 & 2020). Prior to making his 2020 UFC debut, he hadn’t required the judges in 10 straight fights (8-2), with eight of those fights ending in round one and two in round two.

Overall, Parisian is a large low-level Heavyweight, who gasses out later in fights, throws sloppy punches, and is terrible off his back. He will mix in more kicks than most Heavyweights, but by no means is a great kicker. He’s been taken down 8 times on 12 attempts (66.7%) in his three UFC fights, while landing one takedown of his own on nine attempts (11.1%). Fortunately for him, he’ll now face an opponent who hasn’t even attempted a takedown in the UFC.

Fight Prediction:

Parisian will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 79” reach. Parisian is also two years younger than the 34-year-old Baudot.

These two are likely fighting for their jobs here and so far they’ve both been completely unimpressive in the UFC, as they have one combined win in six UFC fights, which ended in a split-decision. Parisian has looked to be the more durable of the two, while Baudot should have the speed advantage. Both guys have been dreadful off their back, so it will be interesting to see if either looks for takedowns to capitalize on that. Parisian has shown he’s at least willing to try and land takedowns, but has only landed one on nine attempts, while Baudot has yet to attempt one. They’ve each relied on early knockouts to win fights throughout their respective careers, but if we don’t see a knockout in the first 10 minutes we could see both guys gas out. While it’s impossible to feel confident in either one of these two, Parisian at least has the potential to mix in some grappling and looks to be the more likely of the two to land a knockout. While it won’t be at all shocking if she ends in a sloppy decision, we like Parisian’s chances to win, and think he has a decent chance to land a knockout in the first two rounds. And with that in mind seven of his last KO victories occurred in the first round.

Our favorite bet here is “Parisian R1 or R2 KO” at +480.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Baudot has yet to top 28 DraftKings points in any of his three UFC fights. He scored just 24 points in his recent decision loss, as he struggled with being controlled for periods of time. He did show one glimpse of scoring potential in the first round of his second most recent fight, where he landed 50 significant strikes over five minutes against Rodrigo Nascimento and appeared close to getting a finish. Outside of that, he’s really struggled to get anything going and has actually gone just 1-5 in his last six fights if you look past two failed drug tests for his opponents that overturned losses for Baudot. The things Baudot has going for him are that he’s shown he can land a decent amount of volume at times, he’s facing a terrible opponent, and he should be somewhat low owned. With that said, we have seen the line move some in his favor, which could boost his ownership a little. Parisian has looked terrible on the mat, but Baudot hasn’t attempted a takedown in any of his three UFC fights, so he’s an unlikely candidate to take advantage of that weakness. The fact that this is a low-level Heavyweight fight makes this a higher variance spot with a wide range of outcomes, so you basically have no choice but to have some exposure to both sides. The odds imply Baudot has a 53% chance to win, a 36% chance to get a finish, and a 17% chance it comes in round one.

Parisian has also yet to demonstrate any sort of DFS ceiling and scored just 79 DraftKings points in his lone UFC win, which ended in a split-decision. He also scored just 48 points in a high-volume decision loss in his UFC debut. Now he’s coming off a demoralizing third round TKO loss where he spent essentially the entire fight on his back and appears fully aware that this could be the last time he ever steps foot in the Octagon. He couldn’t ask for a much better opponent, both in real life and in DFS, and Baudot was finished in under seven minutes in each of his first two UFC matches. Parisian would be wise to try and put Baudot on his back, as he’s a one-dimensional striker with no grappling skills. However, Parisian has really struggled to land takedowns, going just one for nine on his attempts in his last three fights. Parisian did notably land six straight knockouts, including five in the first round just before making his UFC debut, so while he hasn’t been able to finish an opponent yet in the UFC, he does have a history of ending fights early. This fight could go a lot of ways, with an early knockout or a disappointing decision both on the table. The odds imply Parisian has a 47% chance to win, a 24% chance to get a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in the first round.

---

Fight #2

Shavkat Rakhmonov

4th UFC Fight (3-0)

Still holding a perfect 15-0 record with a 100% finishing rate, Rakhmonov is coming off a first round KO winn over Carlston Harris and has only even seen the third round once in his career. He landed submissions against Alex Oliveira and Michel Prazeres in his first two UFC fights, and has shown he can finish fights both on the feet and the mat. He’s notably the only fighter to ever finish Prazeres in his 30 pro fights. Although keep in mind Oliveira took the fight on short notice and Prazeres was 39 years old and coming off a two and a half year layoff due to a PED suspension and has since been suspended for another four years for yet another PED suspension, effectively ending his career.

In his last fight, we saw Rakhmonov patiently pressure Carlston Harris as he looked for his 15th straight finish. Harris did a good job of defending takedowns early on and quickly returning to his feet when he did eventually get taken down. However, Rakhmonov landed a huge spinning kick to drop Harris late in round one and then quickly finished him on the mat with ground and pound. The numbers were actually pretty close, with Rakhmonov leading 13-10 in significant strikes and 16-15 in total strikes, with one takedown on three attempts and one knockdown.

Of his 15 wins, eight have come by KO and seven have ended in submissions. While three of his submissions have occurred in round one, four of his last five have ended in round two. Six of his eight knockouts have come in the first round, while he also has one in round two and another in round three. The only time he’s been to the third round in his career was in a 2018 KZMMAF Welterweight title fight. His last four fights prior to joining the UFC were all title fights in the KZMMAF and M-1 organizations. Since going to the third round for the first time in his career, his last six fights have all ended in under a round and a half.

Overall, Rakhmonov is dangerous anywhere a fight can go and is very well rounded. Despite all of his early wins, Rakhmonov is somewhat of a patient, calculated fighter who’s less likely to land a ton of volume (2.94 SSL/min), but instead makes it count when he does land. At 6’1” and with a massive 77” reach, he has good size for the division but will now be going against one of the taller/longer Welterweights in Magny.

Neil Magny

27th UFC Fight (19-7)

Coming off a close split-decision win over Max Griffin, Magny has fought to six straight decisions since getting knocked out in the fourth round of a 2018 match against Santiago Ponzinibbio. He took all of 2019 off following that early loss, before returning in 2020 and winning five of his last six fights since. His only loss since 2018 came in a five round wrestling-heavy decision against Michael Chiesa in January 2021.

In his last fight, Magny got dropped by Max Griffin midway through round one and clearly lost the round as he was also nearly doubled up in striking. Magny did much better in round two, in what was a close round, but Griffin once again finished ahead in striking, while also stuffing all four of Magny’s takedown attempts. However, Magny took over in round three as Griffin looked to be running out of has, and two of the three judges thought he did enough in round two to win the fight. Griffin finished ahead in significant strikes 67-54, while Magny led in total strikes 104-75/ Magny was only able to land 1 of his 9 takedown attempts but did finish with four and a half minutes of control time.

Now 26-8 as a pro, Magny has seven wins by KO, three by submission, and 16 decisions. He’s only submitted one opponent since 2011, which came in the third round of a 2015 fight. He’s also only knocked out two opponents since 2015 and hasn’t looked like much of a finishing threat. He’s been finished in six of his eight pro losses, with two KOs and four submissions. Three of his four submission defeats occurred in the first round, with the other ending in round two. One of his two KO losses also occurred in the first five minutes, with the other ending in round four. Despite all the early losses, Magny has only been finished once since 2017, which was the fourth round KO defeat against Ponzinibbio in 2018. Magny has just one early win since 2016, which was a 2018 R1 KO against Craig White, who went 0-2 in the UFC and has now lost five straight. Magny’s last seven fights have all made it to the third round, with two of those going into the championship rounds, and his last six going the distance (5-1). Magny has impressively gone 16-2 in his 18 career decisions.

Overall, Magny wears on his opponents as he weaponizes his cardio to win fights in the later rounds. All but one of his early losses have occurred in the first round, so generally when he gets finished it doesn’t take long to happen. He’s been more prone to getting submitted than knocked out, which is noteworthy going against a finisher who’s capable of doing either.

Fight Prediction:

Magny will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, but Rakhmonov is seven years younger than the 34-year-old Magny.

Magny has been accustomed to taking on UFC veterans, but we haven’t seen him face any up and coming prospects like Rakhmonov recently. While all of Rakhmonov’s fights have ended early, Magny typically drags his opponents into deep waters and tests their cardio. The contrast in results would make the fight interesting if it somehow reached the third round, but we like Rakhmonov’s chances to land his 16th straight finish here, as he looks more dangerous than Magny both on the feet and the mat. Magny has been more prone to getting submitted than knocked out in his career, although two of his last three early losses have come by KO. Nevertheless, we like Rakhmonov to land a submission win, most likely in the second round, although a knockout victory in the first two rounds also won’t be at all surprising.

Our favorite bet here is “Rakhmonov ITD” at -135.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

Rakhmonov remains undefeated with a 100% finishing rate, and has looked dominant since joining the UFC in 2020. He’s only been past the second round once in his 15 fight career, and is dangerous anywhere fights go. The only thing capping Rakhmonov’s scoring ceiling in DFS is his somewhat patient fighting style, but he doesn’t have many wasted movements, so he’s not a guy we really worry about gassing if he doesn’t land an early finish. He scored “just” 98 DraftKings points in his lone second round finish in the UFC, so he may be reliant on getting Magny out of there in round one to really return value at his expensive price tag. Working in Rakhmonov’s favor, Magny has been finished in the first round in four of his eight career losses, and has also been finished twice more in the later rounds. One downside for Rakhmonov in tournaments is that he projects to be very highly owned. While we like his chances to get a finish and put up a big score, so does the rest of the field, so you have to think about the ways he can win and still get left out of the optimal lineup. The odds imply he has a 77% chance to win, a 53% chance to get a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.

Magny has averaged 83 DraftKings points in his 12 three-round UFC decision wins, with scores ranging from 63 to 100. While he’s shown the ability to put up decent scores even without a finish through a combination of striking and grappling, he still failed to top 75 points in three of his last four decision wins. Now he steps into a matchup against a very dangerous and well-rounded opponent, so this will be a tough spot for Magny to grapple his way to a high scoring decision win. We also don’t see Magny landing a finish, and if he is somehow able to pull off the upset, it likely comes in a lower scoring decision. At his incredibly cheap price tag, there’s always a slight chance that he could still serve as a value play if we only see a couple of underdogs on the slate win, and would also make for a solid leverage play against the popular Rakhmonov. With that said, Magny’s path to ending up in winning lineups is incredibly narrow and will require a lot to go right for him. Therefore it’s pretty tough to get excited about playing him. The odds imply Magny has a 23% chance to win, a 9% chance to get a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.

---

Fight #1

Arman Tsarukyan

7th UFC Fight (5-1)

Coming off his fifth straight win and second knockout in a row, Tsarukyan has seemingly put it all together after his first four UFC fights all went the distance. He’s still just 25 years old and appears to be improving every time he steps inside the Octagon. The only time he’s lost in his last 18 fights was in a decision in his UFC debut against a top contender in Islam Makhachev. Just prior to his recent win, Tsarukyan landed a first round TKO over Christos Giagos and showed he is dangerous on the feet as well as the mat. Prior to that knockout, Tsarukyan put on a dominating grappling performance against Matt Frevola, where Tsarukyan landed 10 takedowns on 12 attempts with nearly eight and a half minutes of control time.

In his last fight, Tsarukyan showed the wrestling skills and awareness to safely work out of the dangerous guard of Joel Alvarez. Almost the entire first round was spent in that position, with Alvarez completely neutralized off his back. Tsarukyan landed a heavy elbow late in the round to split Alvarez wide open on the bridge of his nose. There was some speculation that the fight would be stopped, but it was allowed to continue and Tsarukyan immediately landed another takedown to start round two. At that point it was just a matter of time before the fight was stopped, as Tsarukyan hammered away at a helpless Alvarez, who was blinded by his own blood and unable to defend himself. The ref finally called it just under two minutes into round two. In a near flawless performance, Tsarukyan finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 36-7 and in total strikes 93-27, while landing both of his takedown attempts with over six minutes of control time in a fight that lasted less than seven minutes.

Now 18-2 as a pro, Tsarukyan has seven wins by KO, five by submission, and six decisions. The only time he’s been finished came in a 30 second R1 KO in his second pro fight when he was just 19 years old. He rattled off 12 straight wins after that, leading up to the decision loss in his debut against Makhachev. He followed that up with three decision wins followed by a pair of early TKOs in his last two fights. While his first eight career finishes all came in under six and a half minutes, including seven in round one, 10 of his last 11 fights have seen the second round, with nine making it to round three and seven going the distance. His last four finishes have all come by KO/TKO, with one in round one, another in round two, and two in round three. He hasn’t submitted anybody since 2017, two years prior to joining the UFC.

Overall, Tsarukyan is quickly transforming from a bright prospect to an up-and-coming contender as he climbs the Lightweight rankings, now checking in at the #11 spot. He’s a great wrestler and a solid striker, as well as being a smart fighter who generally avoids putting himself in dangerous situations. We’ve seen some slower paced fights occur when he faced tougher competition early in his UFC career, but he’s really been pushing the pace in his last three fights and seems to be continuing to get more comfortable exerting his dominance in the Octagon. Tsarukyan has landed 16 takedowns on 43 attempts (37.2%) in his six UFC fights, while he’s only been taken down himself four times on 19 attempts (21.1%), and all four of those came against Islam Makhachev in Tsarukyan’s UFC debut. Since then, he’s defended all 10 of the attempts against him in his last five fights.

This will be the first five-round fight of Tsarukyan’s career, so he’s never been in a fight that lasted longer than 15 minutes. His cardio in the championship rounds remains a mystery but will be something to watch if this fight makes it that far. Tsarukyan normally trains out of Russia and also American Top Team, but has stayed in Vegas since his last fight with everything going on in Russia right now. He said he’s been training at a handful of different places, including Xtreme Couture, Syndicate MMA, and some smaller boxing gyms.

Mateusz Gamrot

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

Coming off a second round TKO win over the previously #12 ranked Diego Ferreira, Gamrot has finished three straight UFC veterans since losing a close split decision in his 2020 UFC debut. All three of those finishes occurred in the first two rounds, and prior to taking out Ferreira, Garmot landed a 65 second submission win against Jeremy Stephens after he knocked out Scott Holtzman early in round two.

In his last fight, Gamrot was able to out wrestle and out scramble Diego Ferreira, as he landed all three of his takedown attempts in the first round and then one of his four attempts in round two. The fight ended in disappointing fashion as Gamrot landed a knee to the ribs of Ferreira in round two that appeared to cause an injury as Ferreira immediately asked that the fight be stopped. While Gamrot landed four takedowns in the fight, he was only able to control Ferreira for 65 seconds and we saw some high paced scrambles on the mat. Things were close on the feet, with Ferreira finishing ahead 36-25 in significant strikes and 37-31 in total strikes. Ferreira did not attempt any takedowns of his own in the fight.

Now 20-1 as a pro, Gamrot has seven wins by KO, five by submission, and eight decisions. The only loss of his career came in a close/questionable split decision in his debut against Guram Kutateladze, in a fight that even Kutateladze said Gamrot won. All seven of Gamrots KO/TKO wins have occurred in the later rounds, with five ending in round two and two in round three. However, three of his five submission wins have come in the first round, with another ending in round two, and the final coming in the fourth round of a 2018 KSW Lightweight Championship fight. A BJJ black belt, Gamrot won both the Lightweight and Featherweight KSW belts in back-to-back 2018 fights. He generally tends to wear on his opponents and 14 of his last 15 fights have made it out of the first round, with nine of those seeing a third round, and six going the distance.

Overall, Gamrot is a relentless wrestler and a decent striker. He’s the former KSW Lightweight and Featherweight Champion who came into the UFC with a perfect 17-0 record and a ton of experience under his belt. He’s gone 12 for 30 (40%) on his takedown attempts so far in his four UFC fights and is constantly looking to get his opponents to the mat. He’s only faced two takedown attempts coming back his way so far in the UFC, but he was able to stuff both of those. Gamrot trains at American Top Team, where Tsarukyan has also trained in the past.

This will be the 5th five-round fight of Gamrot’s career, but his first in the UFC. His previous four were all with the KSW organization. The first of those was in 2018 and ended in a fourth round submission win for the KSW Lightweight belt. He then dropped down to 145 lb for the first and only time in his career later in 2018 and claimed a second KSW belt in a five-round decision win. Next he returned to 155 lb in 2020 for another five rounder, and defeated his longtime nemesis with a third round TKO by doctor stoppage. He defended the Lightweight belt once more in a 2020 five-round decision in his last fight before joining the UFC. So overall, Gamrot’s last four fights prior to joining the UFC were all scheduled to go five rounds. He won all four in the third round or later, with three going into the championship rounds and two going the distance.

Fight Prediction:

Gamrot will have a 3” height advantage, but Tsarukyan will have a 2” reach advantage and is six years younger than the 31-year-old Gamrot.

This is a great matchup between the #11 ranked Lightweight in Tsarukyan and the #12 ranked Gamrot. While both guys have trained at American Top Team in the past, where Gamrot trained for this fight as well, according to Tsarukyan they never actually trained together. While Tsarukyan normally trains out of Russia and also spent time at American Top Team for his last fight, he stayed on the west coast for this camp following his last fight, mostly in Las Vegas at Syndicate MMA. His change in preparation adds some level of uncertainty to the mix, but it’s hard to quantify the impact it will have. Gamrot has relied heavily on his wrestling to win fights, but now he’ll now face an opponent in Tsarukyan who hasn’t been taken down in his last five matches, so it will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Tsarukyan is the more powerful of the two, but Gamrot is the more experienced and was in four straight five-round fights prior to joining the UFC, while this will be the first five-round fight of Tsarukyan’s career. We expect Gamrot to have better cardio if this makes it to the championship rounds, but we don’t actually know for sure what Tsarukyan will look like in a fight that lasts longer than 15 minutes because he’s never seen a 4th round. The only time either one of them has ever been finished was in Tsarukyan’s second pro fight when he was just 19 years old, so they’ve both been very durable. When you combine that with the fact that they’re both high level wrestlers, it would make sense for this fight to make it to the later rounds, with a good chance it goes the distance. If it does end early, it will most likely be from a Tsarukyan TKO in rounds two or three, although a Gamrot submission is also somewhat possible. With that said, we’re leaning that it ends in a close decision, with Tsarukyan winning the early rounds and Gamrot winning the later ones. Tsarukyan has overall been the more impressive and powerful fighter of these two in his recent wins, so if we’re straight up picking sides we’ll give him the edge to win this fight. However, there’s a pretty good chance Gamrot is able to rely on his experience and cardio to squeak out a close decision victory or even a finish in the later rounds if Tsarukyan gasses out and the line in this fight feels too wide.

Our favorite bet here is “Gamrot Decision” at +550.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.

DFS Implications:

After failing to really score well in the first two wins of his UFC career, Tsarukyan has exploded for DraftKings scores of 117, 110, and 126 points in his last three fights. Still just 25 years old, he’s appeared to improve every time he steps inside the Octagon, which is a scary thought considering how good he’s looked. He looks like a serious problem for everyone in the division and has been the one fighter to really hang with Islam Makhachev for an entire fight. The only real question we really have with him is what his cardio will look like in the championship rounds, as he steps into the first five-round fight of his career. He will be facing a fellow wrestler in Gamrot, who has yet to be taken down in the UFC, so it will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Sometimes when two wrestlers square off we see it play out as a striking battle with neither looking to test the strength of the other on the mat, but we’d be surprised if this one remained entirely standing. Nevertheless, the potential for a grappling stalemate does add some uncertainty in DFS, as both of these two have relied on wrestling to score well in the past. Tsarukyan looks like the more powerful fighter and has recently been training at a couple of different west coast boxing gyms, perhaps in preparation for a striking battle. Just keep in mind Gamrot has never been knocked out and Tsarukyan will have a tough time returning value in DFS without either a finish or a good amount of grappling success. While we still expect the winner of this fight to score well more times than not, Tsarukyan winning a striking-heavy decision is one potential way the fight fails. A close, slower paced fight followed by an early second or third round knockout for Tsarukyan is also unlikely to really score well, leaving Tsarukyan reliant on either a well timed finish or a good amount of wrestling success to end up in tournament winning lineups. He faces stiff competition at the top end of the DFS pricing spectrum this week, so he’ll need to hit another ceiling performance to end up in tournament winning lineups. While those are the potential ways he fails, he also offers the highest scoring ceiling on the slate if he’s able to have his way with Gamrot on the mat, so overall he has a wide range of potential scoring outcomes. The odds imply he has a 72% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.

Gamrot has been a solid DFS contributor so far in his three UFC wins, with DraftKings scores of 103, 97, and 108. Now he steps into the toughest matchup he’s faced since joining the UFC, which makes it difficult to rely on him finding the same wrestling success he’s had in the past. Gamrot has landed 12 takedowns on 30 attempts in just under 31 minutes of total Octagon time, but the only fighter to ever get Tsarukyan down was Islam Makhachev in Tsarukyan’s UFC debut, and he’s a very powerful wrestler with a great takedown defense. The most likely way Gamrot wins this fight is by outlasting Tsarukyan and relying on his experience and cardio to take over in the championship rounds. Keep in mind this will be the first five-round fight of Tsarukyan’s career, while Gamrot had four straight five-round fights just before joining the UFC. Gamrot is also training at American Top Team, where Tsarukyan had his camp for his last fight, while Tsarukyan is training on the west coast for the first time. So from a preparation and strategy standpoint, things favor Gamrot. However, if Tsarukyan shows the ability to go five hard rounds, Gamrot will have a tougher time pulling off the upset. At his cheap price tag and on a smaller slate, it’s harder to see Gamrot pulling off the upset and still getting left out of winning lineups, but it’s still not impossible if this turns into more of a striking battle than expected. Both guys are such high-level wrestlers that a grappling stalemate turned standup battle remains in the realm of possible outcomes, and neither one of them has been a high-volume striker in the past. With that said, the chances that this plays out entirely on the feet are low, and we expect to see some crazy scrambles on the mat. The odds imply Gamrot has a 28% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter @dfs_mma with your winnings so we can see how you did!

---

We recently partnered with PrizePicks, who offer a new way to play DFS. Instead of competing against other users, you simply pick the over/under on two or more fighters' stat lines (i.e. fight time or fantasy points scored). Receive up to a $100 deposit bonus when you sign up with our promo code: MMADFS

Top UFC PrizePicks Play of the Week:

• Brown Over 87.5 Pts

For the rest of our top PrizePicks plays check out our DFS Cheat Sheet in our premium DFS content at: patreon.com/mmadfs.