The Sheet

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Fighter Notes:

Fight #13

Charalampos Grigoriou

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Making his UFC debut following a quick 60 second knockout on DWCS, Grigoriou’s last five fights all ended in KO/TKOs, with him winning the last four of those. Just before going on DWCS, he landed a fifth round leg kick TKO against an unimpressive 6-5 opponent on the Massachusetts regional scene. Prior to that, Grigoriou had been competing with the CCFC organization, with his last loss coming in a 2021 R3 standing TKO against UFC fighter Christian Rodriguez, who dominated the fight from start to finish. Grigoriou lost a decision just before that and is only 4-2 in his last six fights.

Now 8-3 as a pro, Grigoriou has six KO/TKO wins, and two decision victories. Four of his finishes ended in round one, another came in round two, with the final one occurring in round five. He has one R3 TKO loss and two decision defeats. While Grigoriou did face Christian Rodriguez on the regional scene, most of his other opponents were pretty low level and only four of his eight career wins came against opponents with winning records (2-1, 3-0, 6-5, 8-3). Grigoriou started his career at 145 lb, before dropping down to 135 lb in his third pro fight.

Overall, Grigoriou is a striker from Cyprus who trains at Serra-Longo in New York. He’s a karate black belt and also has kickboxing experience, but is only a BJJ purple belt. He will mix in takedowns, but hasn't looked like any sort of submission threat on the mat. Grigoriou has decent power and mixes in leg kicks well, but sometimes slows down later in fights. He’s also fairly hittable and Christian Rodriguez put on a striking clinic against him. We still need to see Grigoriou face some decent competition before we can really judge how much progress he’s made since that loss to Rodriguez, and if he hasn’t made substantial improvements he’ll be in real trouble when he goes up against legitimate competition in the UFC.

Chad Anheliger

4th UFC Fight (1-2)

Fighting for his job as he steps into his fourth UFC fight following two straight losses, Anheliger is coming off a late third round submission defeat against Jose Johnson, in a fight that Anheliger lost the first two rounds on all three scorecards leading up to the finish. Anheliger also lost every round of his previous loss in a unanimous 30-27 decision defeat against Alatengheili. And even in his R3 TKO win in his UFC debut against a terrible Jesse Strader, Anheliger still managed to lose the first round, while two of the three judges gave him round two. So overall, Anheliger has lost six of the seven complete scored rounds he’s been part of in the UFC. And all three of his UFC fights made it to the third round, but only one went the distance. Anheliger got hurt early in his fight against Alatengheili, but was able to survive to avoid the first knockout loss of his career and instead lose a unanimous 30-27 decision. Following that fight, Anheliger spent some time recovering from a shoulder injury, opened up his own gym, and was awarded his BJJ black belt. While Anheliger has lost his last two fights, he had won 10 straight before that, with three of his last four wins ending in third round TKOs. In between the last two of those, he won a split decision over Muin Gafurov on DWCS in 2021. Anheliger started off his pro career back in 2010 and went just 2-5 in his first seven fights, with all five losses ending in submissions. Following the string of submission losses, Anheliger switched camps and took nearly two years off to improve his grappling, before returning to competing and kicking off his 10 fight winning streak. During that stretch, he won titles as both Flyweight and Bantamweight with the Rise Fighting Championship organization.

Now 12-7 as a pro, Anheliger has seven wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and two decision victories. Six of his seven losses ended via submission, with five of those coming in his first seven pro fights. He also has one decision defeat. His last six fights all made it to the third round, but only two of those required the judges. Anheliger has spent most of his career at 135 lb, but did drop down to 125 lb once in 2018 to win his second belt, and also has a couple of 130 lb Catchweight fights.

Overall, Anheliger is a 37-year-old striker who’s biggest weakness is his defensive grappling/wrestling. However, that has been an area he’s worked on through his pro career, and he did recently get his BJJ black belt. While his takedown defense has improved since earlier in his career, he’s still been taken down 12 times on 23 attempts in his last four fights (47.8% defense). On the other side of things, he landed four of his 11 takedown attempts (36.4% accuracy), with all four of those takedowns coming in his last fight. He seems kind of undersized at 135 lb, which makes sense considering he’s shown he can make 125 lb. Anheliger has yet to prove he can beat legitimate UFC-level competition, but now he’ll have a chance to save his job against an unproven opponent who’s making his UFC debut.

Fight Prediction:

Grigoriou will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while being six years younger than the 37-year-old Anheliger.

Neither of these two strikers have been especially impressive, but Grigoriou is at least young enough that he still has time to grow, while Anheliger is already in his late thirties and likely is who he is at this point. Both guys will mix in some wrestling, but neither of them appear to be especially dangerous on the mat and Anheliger has been prone to getting taken down and submitted. Grigoriou is the taller, longer, younger fighter, and also seems to throw with a little more power and mixes in more leg kicks, His defensive wrestling is better than Anheliger’s and overall he seems to have slight advantages across the board—except when it comes to experience and perhaps cardio. We have seen Grigoriou slow down at times late in fights and Anheliger has a knack for landing third round finishes, so it wouldn’t be shocking to see Anheliger snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with a late knockout win after losing the early rounds. Anheliger has yet to show the ability to win a decision in the UFC and has lost five straight rounds on the scorecards. While Grigoriou is only 2-2 in four career decisions, we still give him the advantage if this goes the distance. With one guy on his way into the UFC and the other potentially on his way out, this is ultimately a volatile low-level fight that could go a few different ways, but we’ll say it ends in either an Anheliger R3 TKO win or more likely a Grigoriou decision victory. Neither of these two can be trusted so proceed with caution on this one.

Our favorite bet here is “Grigoriou/Anheliger Fight to Start R3? Yes” at -130.

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DFS Implications:

Grigoriou hasn’t blown us away with anything he’s been doing on the regional scene and the one time he faced a legitimate opponent he got absolutely smoked. While he will mix in wrestling, he hasn’t shown any sort of submission game, and is typically looking for control and ground and pound on the mat. So he doesn’t appear equipped to hand Anheliger the seventh submission loss of his career. And while Grigoriou has landed four straight KO/TKO wins, those were all against pretty suspect competition and Anheliger has never been knocked out in his career. While Anheliger only has a 47% takedown defense and has been put on his back by four straight opponents, we don’t see Grigoriou finding enough wrestling success to score well in a decision and he looks like a KO or bust option. And at his high price tag, he could find a finish and still get priced out of winning lineups if he can’t outscore the other expensive options. The odds imply Grigoriou has a 59% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.

Anheliger scored 99 DraftKings points in a R3 TKO win in his UFC debut, but that came against an absolutely terrible opponent and it was bolstered by two knockdowns or it would have failed to make a meaningful mark. Since then, he lost two straight fights and didn’t win a round on any of the scorecards in either of those matches. He just suffered the sixth submission loss of his career and hasn’t done much to prove he belongs in the UFC. This will be his last shot and another loss here would spell the end for him, so we do expect him to come in motivated to get the win. However, we assume he was motivated to win in each of his last two fights as well and those both went terribly. So it’s hard to trust him, but he is facing a UFC newcomer, which adds a certain level of volatility. Anheliger has a knack for landing third round finishes and if Grigoriou gasses out or suffers an adrenaline dump maybe he can find another late finish here. At Anheliger’s cheap price tag, he doesn’t need to put up a huge score to be useful, but he only scored 19 points in his one decision loss and has given us little indication that he can score well in a decision. The odds imply Anheliger has a 41% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #12

Thiago Moises

12th UFC Fight (6-5)

Moises had been scheduled to face Brad Riddell here, but Riddell dropped out and Ramirez was announced as the replacement two weeks out.

Looking to bounce back from a late second round TKO loss against Benoit Saint Denis, Moises’ last five fights all ended early (2-3), after five of his first six UFC fights went the distance (3-2). Saint Denis was able to overwhelm Moises with pressure, which is an area where Moises has struggled in his career. Saint Denis took Moises down five times and controlled him for over half the fight, while also outlanding him 101-24 in significant strikes in a fight that lasted just under 10 minutes and took place in front of Saint Denis’ home French crowd. Prior to that, Moises locked up a pair of submission wins in two advantageous matchups. In the most recent of those, he took on a short notice debuting opponent in Melquizael Costa, who was fighting up a weight class, and secured a late second round rear-naked choke. That came after Moises completed another rear-naked choke against the highly submittable Christos Giagos in the first round. Neither of those two put up much resistance and Moises was easily able to get them each out of there. However, leading up to those two wins Moises was finished himself in back-to-back fights in much, much tougher spots. The first of those losses came in a fourth round submission against Islam Makhachev, which Moises followed up with a first round TKO loss to a gigantic Joel Alvarez. Prior to those losses, Moises won three straight fights with a pair of decisions over Alexander Hernandez and Bobby Green, after submitting Michael Johnson in the second round. Moises’ other two UFC losses came in decisions against two more really tough opponents in Damir Ismagulov and Beneil Dariush.

Now 17-7 as a pro, Moises has three wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and six decision victories. All three of his knockout wins came before he joined the UFC, with two ending in round one and one in round five. Five of his last six submission wins ended in round two, while he also has two first round submission victories and another in round three. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted once, and has four decision losses. After his first seven UFC fights all saw the second round, with six making it to round three and five going the distance, Moises’ last four fights all ended in the first two rounds, with two of those being stopped in round one. However, 19 of his last 22 fights made it out of round one. Moises has gone 4-1 as a favorite in the UFC, but just 2-4 as an underdog.

Overall, Moises is a dangerous BJJ black belt and an underrated striker, who’s shown improvements on the feet since joining the UFC. Despite his grappling background, he’s been content with keeping fights standing at times, which was most evident against Alexander Hernandez, who Moises only tried to take down on one unsuccessful attempt. However, we did see Moises look to grapple more in his last few fights. Between his 11 UFC fights and DWCS Brazil appearance, Moises landed 13 of his 32 takedown attempts (40.6% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 16 of their 37 attempts (56.8% defense). Moises trains at American Top Team with a ton of other high-level UFC fighters and his main training partner is Grant Dawson, so he gets plenty of good wrestling work in. He’s faced a ton of really high-level opponents, and has only struggled when facing top-level guys. Every time he gets a step down in competition, he shows there are levels to the game and now he’ll face the worst opponent he’s seen in his entire UFC career.

Mitch Ramirez

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Making his short notice UFC debut, Ramirez is three months removed from a first round TKO against a super green opponent who missed weight trying to cut down to 155 lb for the first time. That was a sloppy slugfest that got stopped way too early in a standing TKO. That came after Ramirez got knocked out in the second round of a DWCS fight against Carlos Prates last August, which looks like the only time Ramirez has fought anyone decent. Leading up to that loss, he landed a third round leg kick TKO in a low-level fight that took place at Myrtle Beach against a 38-year-old journeyman who was coming off two losses and hadn’t competed in two and a half years.

Now 8-1 as a pro, Ramirez has five KO/TKO wins, two submissions, and one decision victory. Six of his seven finishes ended in round one, with the other coming a minute into round three. He also got knocked out early in the second round of his lone loss and only one of his career fights required the judges. Ramirez has bounced between 155 lb and 170 lb throughout his career. He made his 2019 pro debut at 170 lb, but then dropped to 155 lb for his next three fights before moving back up in 2021. His DWCS fight was at 170 lb, but after that loss he cut back down to 155 lb for his last match, where he’ll stay for his short notice UFC debut.

Overall, Ramirez is one of these guys that the UFC seemingly brought in more for his backstory than his fighting merits. He’s a former heroin addict and highschool dropout who spent 40 months in prison at a young age after robbing a drug dealer and then found MMA during a prison fight. He’s also the boyfriend of Cynthia Calvillo and trains at Syndicate in Las Vegas, so he had some connections to the UFC and was in the right place at the right time to step into a short notice fight. Ramirez is often looking to wrestle, although he didn’t land more than one takedown in any of his recent fights, and isn’t especially impressive on the mat. He can be a little wild with his striking and doesn’t look very impressive or crisp on the feet either. He’s pretty stout and strong, but overall still very green. As MMA bases go, heroin addict isn’t at the top of the list. While Ramirez was able to get by on pure athleticism on the regional scene against a series of low-level opponents, we expect him to really struggle at the UFC level.

Fight Prediction:

Ramirez will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage. Moises is actually three years younger than the 31-year-old Ramirez.

This is a massive mismatch in talent and Moises has been facing some of the best guys in the world, while Ramirez has been facing a really low-level of competition. The one time Ramirez went up against a decent opponent he got knocked out in the second round and we expect Moises to be able to do whatever he wants in this fight. Ramirez is often looking to wrestle, but that would be ill-advised against a dangerous grappler like Moises. And even on the feet, Moises is a much more technical striker than Ramirez, although hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2018 and isn’t a big power puncher. We like Moises to finish Ramirez within two rounds and we’ll say he gets it done in a second round submission, most likely by rear-naked choke.

Our favorite bet here is “Thiago Moises SUB” at +150.

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DFS Implications:

Moises has only averaged 83 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, but did score 113 and 102 points respectively in his last two victories, which both ended by submission in the first two rounds. We’ve seen enough of Moises to realize that he’ll struggle when facing the top of the division but cut through lower level opponents. He’s 4-1 in the UFC as a favorite, with the one loss coming against a really tough Joel Alvarez. Moises has really only had three favorable matchups in the UFC and those were the three times he hit the century mark on DraftKings. So his scoring has been very predictable and he’s a guy you want to fade in tough matchups and play in teed up matchups like this one. The field has historically been reluctant to play Moises, especially when he has a good matchup, and he was only 13-14% owned on DraftKings in each of his last two wins, while he was 19% owned in each of his last two losses. Regardless, he’s consistently been low owned, although on a slate like this with so few appealing options at the top of the salary range, we could see him garner a little more ownership. Nevertheless, he looks like a solid play with lots of finishing upside. However, his most likely path to victory will be a somewhat efficient submission win, so he’s unlikely to put up a slate-breaking score and he can still get priced out of winning lineups even with a finish if some of the other expensive options really go off. The odds imply Moises has a 74% chance to win, a 51% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.

Ramirez is a low-level talent who’s filling in on short notice in a really tough matchup. He has no credible wins on his record and was knocked out the one time he faced a decent opponent. He hasn’t impressed us anywhere and we don’t expect him to go far in the UFC. While he offers some wrestling ability, this is a terrible matchup for him to use it, as Moises is a high-level black belt and will likely submit Ramirez if this fight hits the ground. Ramirez has okay power, but also hasn’t been very impressive on the feet and we really don’t see any even semi-likely paths to victory for him. We have no interest in playing him and fully expect him to get submitted in under two rounds. The odds imply Ramirez has a 26% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #11

Cory McKenna

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

McKenna was forced to take all of 2023 off as she dealt with health issues and now hasn’t competed in 15 months after winning a wrestling-heavy decision over Cheyanne Vlismas. McKenna only landed two takedowns in that win, but finished with nearly 10 minutes of control time. Prior to that, McKenna secured her first early win since 2019, when she submitted a low level opponent in Miranda Granger. Just keep in mind, we’ve seen Granger go to sleep faster than a narcoleptic sloth in the past and she was immediately cut following her third straight loss. Prior to that second round submission win, McKenna had fought to three straight decisions, including a concerning split-decision loss to one-dimensional striker in Elise Reed, which took place in front of McKenna’s home English crowd. Leading up to the loss, McKenna won a decision in her UFC debut over Kay Hansen after defeating Vanessa Demopoulos in another decision on DWCS in 2020. After winning the decision over Kay Hansen in her November 2020 UFC debut, McKenna didn’t compete in 2021 as she dealt with health concerns and an ankle injury, before returning in March 2022 to lose a decision. So her health issues have been an ongoing concern throughout her UFC career and the last time she was coming off a long health related layoff, she had a rough showing in her return.

Now 8-2 as a pro, McKenna has two wins by TKO, two submissions, and four decisions. She’s never been finished, with both of her losses going the distance. Both of her TKO wins occurred in round one, while each of her submission victories came in round two. Impressively, McKenna has never faced an opponent with a losing record in her career.

Overall, McKenna is still young and green at just 24 years old. She has T-Rex arms with just a 58” reach and stands only 5’3”. She’s essentially a one-dimensional grappler, but at her young age she should be improving between every fight. Training both for MMA and powerlifting since she was a young teenager, McKenna is the first female Welsh fighter in the UFC, but she now trains out of Team Alpha Male with Maycee Barber and Xiaonan Yan, so at least she has some other professional fighters around her. Between her four UFC fights and her DWCS appearance, McKenna landed 9 takedowns on 16 attempts (56.3% accuracy), while her opponents got her down on two of their seven attempts (71.4 defense).

Jaqueline Amorim

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Coming off her first UFC win, Amorim dominated Montserrat Conejo Ruiz in a third round TKO. Amorim only landed one of her three takedown attempts, but finished with four submission attempts, two reversals, eight minutes of control time, and led in significant strikes 86-6 and in total strikes 141-20. While that came in a dream matchup, it was still a good response after Amorim suffered the first loss of her career in a decision defeat in her UFC debut against Sam Hughes. Amorim was close to locking up a submission at multiple points in the first round of that fight, but then gassed out in the later rounds and had nothing left to offer as Hughes cruised to a unanimous 29-28 decision win. Prior to that, Amorim had never seen the second round, as she had finished all six of her pro opponents in round one, with five of those fights ending in under two minutes. Her last two regional fights were five-round LFA title fights but neither made it out of the first round, so the extra rounds didn’t matter. However, the first of those was against an opponent who came in with just five pro fights to her name (3-1-1), and the most recent was against a 36-year-old Ashley Nichols, who came in 4-3 and has gone just 3-3 in her last six matches. So it’s not like Amorim had been facing actual legitimate competition before joining the UFC.

Now 7-1 as a pro, Amorim has two KO/TKO wins and five submission victories. Six of those finishes came in round one, with the other ending in round three. Her one loss came in a decision in her UFC debut.

Overall, Amorim is a BJJ black belt and former IBJJF world champion and No-Gi Pan Championship winner who is always looking to take opponents down and quickly submit them. She looks pretty one-dimensional with her grappling and hasn’t shown much in terms of striking, despite having a couple of KO/TKO wins on her record. She’s shown a tendency to telegraph her takedowns at times, which caught up with her in the later rounds of her UFC debut. Her cardio went off a cliff after five minutes in that fight when she finally saw the second round for the first time, although that was also her UFC debut so she could have been dealing with an adrenaline dump as well. She went into the later rounds in her last fight and still managed to land a late finish, which is encouraging for her gas tank moving forward. Amorim is still very green when it comes to MMA and we saw her wilt in the face of adversity in her debut, before dominating a low-level opponent in her last fight. So she’s shown she makes a much better hammer than a nail. She trains at American Top Team, so she does have a good team around her and should be working on fixing her past mistakes and she’s still only 28 years old. Between her two UFC fights, she landed 3 of her 13 takedown attempts (23.1% accuracy). While her opponents got her down on both of their attempts (0% defense). Ultimately, the jury is still out on her, but this will be a good test as she faces a fellow grappler.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’3”, but Amorim will amazingly have a 10” reach advantage and is four years older than the 24-year-old McKenna.

McKenna has faced three straight strikers, after winning a pair of close decisions against two low-level grapplers on DWCS and in her UFC debut. Her extended layoff is somewhat concerning and the worst performance of her career came immediately following her last long layoff. So who knows which version we’ll get of McKenna here, but the field appears confident it will be the best version, as her moneyline has gone from -115 to -185 since Monday. It’s hard for us to share that same level of confidence, not that Amorim has given us any reason to be overly confident in her either. We view this as a volatile matchup between two grapplers that could go a lot of ways. Oftentimes when you pair up two grapplers you get more of a striking battle than expected, although we do think these two will test each other on the mat. McKenna is more of a wrestler, while Amorim is more of a submission grappler, which theoretically makes Amorim more live for a finish and McKenna more so for a decision. However, Amorim also has a massive reach advantage and if we do get periods of striking, that could be a serious advantage for her, at least if she can show some improvements to her striking. Amorim has also shown some slick sweeps on the mat and will throw up all sorts of submissions, which will make things interesting if this hits the scorecards, which we’re expecting it will. We still give McKenna a slight advantage to get her hand raised with the judges, but the decision odds for the two of them are insane, as they imply McKenna is five times more likely to win a decision. So McKenna by decision is the official pick, but we’ll be taking a flier on Amorim’s decision prop at very favorable odds in a volatile fight that could go either way.

Our favorite bet here is “Jaqueline Amorim DEC” at +550.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.

DFS Implications:

McKenna has averaged 90 DraftKings points in her three UFC wins, with two decisions that were good for 82 and 83 points respectively and a second round submission in a great matchup that was good for 105 points. McKenna hasn’t been overly impressive outside of that one early stoppage, but has shown decent wrestling. She’s still only 24 years old, but has already had to take a full calendar year off due to health concerns at two different points in her brief UFC career. Her lone loss came in a dream matchup against Elise Reed following her last layoff, and it remains to be seen if she’ll come in with similar rust here. Her last three fights were all against strikers, where she held a major advantage on the mat. However, now she’ll face a fellow grappler and it’s harder to know how the exchanges will go on the mat. Sure, Amorim fell apart in the later rounds of her UFC debut, but she showed far more of a gas tank in her last fight. Ultimately, this is a volatile matchup that could go a lot of different ways, so it makes sense to have some exposure to both sides, especially considering neither of them are expensive. McKenna has shown a somewhat decent floor in her decision wins, but only really scored well in her one UFC finish. So she can definitely still bust in tournaments in a win, and her ownership will be driven up by the massive line move in her favor. That seems to make her a better play in smaller contests, but we won’t be at all surprised if she does enough on the mat to sneak into tournament winning lineups either. The odds imply McKenna has a 62% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

Amorim collapsed after the first round in her UFC debut, where she lost a decision to Sam Hughes, but nearly looked up a submission at multiple points in round one and at least showed some potential upside. She then bounced back with a massive 120 point performance in her last fight, with a round three TKO against a terrible Montserrat Conejo Ruiz. That makes it tough to really evaluate her, as we’ve only seen the best and the worst from her so far in the UFC. She’ll get a good test here as she takes on a wrestler in McKenna, and we’d be lying if we said we knew exactly how this would play out. McKenna has never been finished in her career, and her arms may not even be long enough to armbar, so it’s not a great spot for Amorim to go off once again. Amorim will have a 10” reach advantage, so it would make sense to try and use that to jab McKenna from the outside, at least for as long as this fight stays standing. If they do end up on the mat, Amorim has the potential to rack up submission attempts and reversals, but it would be more surprising to see her put up a big takedown total. At her reasonable price tag, she doesn’t need to put up a huge score to sneak into winning lineups, but there’s still a decent chance we get somewhat of a grappling stalemate and this fight ends up busting. It’s not a spot we’ll be looking to take a hard stand on, but we should learn a lot about each of these two by the time it’s over. The odds imply Amorim has a 38% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #10

Josh Culibao

7th UFC Fight (3-2-1)

Culibao is coming off a lopsided 30-26 decision loss to Lerone Murphy, who took Culibao down three times and controlled him for half the fight, while also knocking him down once on a grazing kick that didn’t even really appear to land. That’s Culibao’s only loss since his February 2020 short notice UFC debut against Jalin Turner, which Culibao took up a weight class and got knocked out in the second round. He then fought Charles Jourdain to a draw, before rattling off three straight victories. The first two of those came in decisions against Nuerdanbieke Shayilan and Seung Woo Choi, before he locked up a second round submission against a one-dimensional kickboxer in Melsik Baghdasaryan. That’s the only time Culibao didn’t make it to the judges in his last five fights and the last time he knocked anybody out was in a 2019 R1 TKO just before he joined the UFC.

Now 11-2-1 as a pro, Culibao has five wins by TKO, one submission, and five decision victories. Three of his five TKO wins occurred in the first round, although two of those came in his first three pro fights. His other two TKOs came in the championship rounds of 2016 and 2018 fights. The only time he’s been finished was in a second round TKO in his UFC debut, which took place up a weight class on short notice. His one other loss went the distance. Interestingly, five of his seven decisions have been split on the scorecards (4-0-1).

Overall, Culibao is more or less of a one-dimensional striker, but did land his first career submission in his last win. Nevertheless, he’s gone 0 for 13 on his takedown attempts in the UFC, while his opponents got him down on 6 of their 22 attempts (72.7% defense). Culibao has shown improvements to his striking over the course of his UFC career and looked more dangerous in his last couple of fights. He’s still only 29 years old and should be improving all the time, however, he still isn’t landing a ton of striking volume, as he only averages 2.68 SSL and 3.29 SSA/min. No one has landed more than 59 significant strikes in any of his six UFC fights. And it’s not as if Culibao has been facing a ton of wrestlers to drive his striking numbers down, as five of his six opponents have been strikers.

Danny Silva

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Silva is making his UFC debut following one of the craziest fights in DWCS history, where he outlanded his opponents 204-197 in significant strikes in a unanimous 30-27 decision win. Silva also tacked on two takedowns but wasn’t really looking for much control with them. It was such a crazy fight that Dana gave both guys contracts. While Silva landed a first round TKO just before going on DWCS, four of his last five fights have gone the distance, after he started off his pro career with four straight late round knockouts.

Now 8-1 as a pro, Silva has five TKO wins and three decision victories. Only one of his finishes occurred in the first round, while he has two in each of the later rounds. The only loss of his career was a majority decision in 2022, which easily could have gone down as a draw following a potential 10-8 round three for Silva.

Overall, Silva is an ultra uptempo striker with a boxing-heavy approach. He pushes a crazy pace and never stops pressuring his opponents. He throws nasty body shots, elbows, leg kicks, flying knees, and anything else you can imagine. He’ll also mix in occasional takedown attempts, but wrestling is not his strong suit and his takedown defense hasn’t been great. He trains with Cub Swanson, so he’s got a good teacher to help him continue to grow and he’s still only 27 years old. While his defense is to throw more offense, he looks durable and does a decent job of not eating too many clean power shots, as he keeps his opponents on their back foot. Everytime this guy fights it’s exciting and he’ll immediately be a fan favorite in the UFC.

UPDATE: Silva missed weight by 2.5 lb and looked rough on the scale!

Fight Prediction:

Silva will have a 1” height advantage, while Culibao will have a 3” reach advantage.

This sets up as an exciting striking battle, where we expect Silva to be the one constantly pushing forward and swinging, while Culibao will be more calculated and looking to counter. They’ve both been durable, so there’s a good chance it goes the distance, and the odds agree with the over 2.5 rounds heavily favored. Silva has shown the ability to push a crazy pace, but we’ve never seen Culibao involved in a high-volume fight, so it will be interesting to see who can dictate the tempo. If Silva can force Culibao into a brawl, and there’s a good chance he can, we like his chances to take over the longer the fight goes, as we’ve seen Culibao slow down late in fights. That makes Silva very live for either a late knockout or a high-volume decision win. However, if Culibao can control the range and slow things down, he’ll be in a good position to win rounds and get his hand raised at the end. The smaller cage at the Apex should benefit Silva, who would fight in a phone booth if they let him. They both throw with enough power that a knockout win for either of them is possible and this looks like a pretty volatile spot, but we like Silva’s chances of outlanding his way to a decision win.

UPDATE: After seeing Silva on the scale we like Culibao’s chances of landing a finish a little more and think a knockout or a club and sub are both in play.

Our favorite bet here is “Danny Silva DEC” at +350.

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DFS Implications:

Culibao has yet to put up a usable DFS score in six Octagon appearances, and despite landing a second round submission in his last win, he only scored 77 DraftKings points. Just before that, he notched a pair of knockdowns in an exciting decision victory, but somehow only scored 76 points. His one other decision win was good for just 58 points on DraftKings, so he’s given us no indication that he can score well either in decisions or later round finishes as he doesn't land much volume, nor has he ever taken anyone down.However, he’s had a really tough strength of schedule in the UFC and this is easily the most favorable matchup he’s been in. We’d be surprised if he didn’t set a new high in significant strikes landed here, but he’s never landed a takedown in the UFC and it will still be tough for him to return value without a finish at his high salary. He hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2019 and only has one career submission win, which are both concerning for his upside, but that will also keep his ownership in check. We’ll be looking to have exposure to both sides of every Danny Silva fight from now until eternity, and if Culibao was ever going to score well, this would be the spot. The odds imply Culibao has a 62% chance to win, a 24% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.

Silva looks like a DFS goldmine and his recent decision win on DWCS would have been good for 135 DraftKings points and 166 points on FanDuel. That’s absolute insanity for a three round fight, but keep in mind it came against a very willing dance partner. Silva finished ahead 204-197 in significant strikes, so he was also absorbing a ton of damage. That’s not the most sustainable way to fight, but it does make for massive DFS scores. The only issue is that Culibao is an ultra low-volume striker who only averages 2.68 SSL/min and 3.29 SSA/min. As the old expression goes, it takes two to tango, and Culibao is more of a slow dancer. No one has ever landed more than 59 significant strikes in any of Culibao’s six UFC fights, and there’s a chance he can control the distance, slow things down, and ruin this fight for everyone. However, with this taking place in the smaller Octagon at the Apex, Silva will have a better chance to back Culibao up against the cage and force him to exchange in a high volume brawl. Silva has looked somewhat vulnerable to being taken down, but Culibao has gone 0 for 13 on his takedown attempts in the UFC and is a less likely candidate to exploit that potential weakness. If Silva can land half as many strikes in this fight as he did in his last one, he should be able to score well even without a finish and he looks like a great high-floor, high-ceiling underdog. The odds imply Silva has a 38% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #9

Jafel Filho

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Coming off his first UFC win, Filho locked up a round one submission against UFC newcomer Daniel Baraz, who’s now been submitted three times in his career. Filho was getting touched up early in that match and got dropped early in the fight, before landing a takedown and easily finding a submission, as Baraz put up zero resistance on the mat. Prior to that, Filho was submitted in the third round of his UFC debut against a really tough Muhammad Mokaev. However, Filho nearly pulled off the massive upset with a kneebar attempt that very few people on the planet wouldn’t have tapped to. Filho got taken down four times in the fight and controlled for over eight minutes, while never attempting a takedown of his own and getting outstruck just 16-9 in significant strikes. Leading up to that loss, Filho secured his spot in the UFC with a third round TKO win on DWCS in another low-volume fight, where Filho trailed 29-34 in significant strikes. That was Filho’s fifth straight early win at the time and he hasn’t required the judges since 2014 with his last 11 fights all ending early (9-2).

Now 15-3 as a pro, Filho has five wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and one decision victory. That lone decision win came in his second pro fight, and his last 13 wins all ended early. While he’s never been knocked out, he’s been submitted twice, with both of those early losses ending in the third round. He also has one decision defeat, which was back in 2014, and he’s just 1-3 in his last four fights that lasted longer than two rounds. Filho had two fights at 135 lb right before going on DWCS, and has had a couple of 130 lb Catchweight matches, but the rest of his career has been spent at 125 lb.

Overall, Filho is a kill or be killed type of fighter, with far more finishes than your typical Flyweight, and he appears strong for the weight class. He’s typically looking to lock up submissions, but three of his last six wins did come by TKO. He has decent power in his hands, but he’ll swing wildly with his chin in the air. He also doesn’t land a ton of striking volume and only averages 2.00 SSL/min and 2.31 SSA/min. Between his two UFC fights and his DWCS match, he landed three of his 11 takedown attempts (27.3% accuracy), while getting taken down by his opponents on 4 of their 9 attempts (55.6% defense). He’s a former Shooto champion and trains at Nova Uniao, so he’s got a good team around him.

Ode Osbourne

9th UFC Fight (4-4)

Continuing to struggle with consistency, Osbourne is coming off a second round submission loss against a really tough wrestler in Asu Almabaev, who was making his UFC debut. Osbourne has essentially traded wins and losses since 2019 when he punched his ticket to the UFC with a first round submission win on DWCS. Then he got submitted in the first round of his UFC debut against Brian Kelleher, with both of those fights taking place at 135 lb. Osbourne then planned on dropping down to 125 lb to fight Jerome Rivera, but ended up dropping out. He was then booked against Denys Bondar two and a half weeks later at a 140 lb Catchweight, but Bondar dropped in and then Rivera stepped back in on short notice, with the fight being moved up to 145 lb. After all the shuffling, Osbourne landed a 26 second knockout against the extremely fragile Rivera, and then resumed his move down to 125 lb, where he’s stayed since outside of one 130 lb Catchweight match in 2023. The UFC next booked him in a much tougher test against Amir Albazi, but Albazi dropped out and Osbourne was given an equally tough test a few weeks later in Mael Kape, who knocked Osbourne out late in the first round. Osbourne then got an easier matchup in a debuting CJ Vergara, where Osbourne squeaked out a decision win, despite trailing in striking and only landing one of his seven takedown attempts. Osbourne then faced an even easier opponent in Zarrukh Adashev, who was fighting for his job at 1-2 in the UFC and proceeded to get knocked out by Osbourne in just 61 seconds and then never fought again. That’s the only time Osbourne has won two fights in a row in the UFC. Osbourne then got knocked out himself in the first round of his next fight against a 38-year-old Tyson Nam, who was coming off knee surgery and a 19 month layoff, and has now just 1-3 in his last four outings. Osbourne again narrowly bounced back with a close split decision win over Charles Johnson, where again Osbourne finished behind in striking. Johnson notably took that fight on short notice and had to fly across the world from Thailand with a sinus infection just before it. That brings us back to his most recent submission loss and if one more judge had scored the third round for Johnson, Osbourne would be on a three fight losing streak. While Osbourne’s last fight ended in round two, his previous 16 all either ended in round one (8-4) or went the distance (3-1). He won the last three decisions he went to, but all of those were close and two of them were split. He’s still never lost two fights in a row in his career and all three of his career decision wins came immediately following a loss.

Now 12-6 as a pro, Osbourne has five wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and three decision victories. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted three more times, and has one decision loss. His last five losses all ended in under nine minutes, while his lone decision loss occurred back in 2016 in his first trip to the judges. Both of Osbourne’s early wins in the UFC came against very low-level opponents and only two of his seven pre-UFC finishes came against opponents with winning records. Up until he moved down to 125 lb for his last six fights (3-3), Osbourne had competed at 135 lb (6-3) and 145 lb (3-0), and he only has one career finish at 125 lb.

Overall, Osbourne hasn’t been at all impressive lately, with his only early wins in the UFC coming against terrible opponents in Jerome Rivera and Zarrukh Adashev. Osbourne has looked a little less explosive since dropping down to 125 lb, but still has decent power and hand speed, at least early on in fights. Only one of his nine career finishes came beyond the first round and that was 70 seconds into the second round of his 2015 pro debut. While Osbourne also has a background in wrestling, he hasn’t relied on it a ton in the UFC and between his eight UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he only landed 5 of his 18 takedown attempts (27.8% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 5 of their 16 attempts (68.8% defense). Everyone who tried to take him down landed at least one of their attempts and he’s been submitted three times in his career. So his ground game has been far from impressive despite the fact he wrestled in both high-school and college. He did recently talk about how he just hadn’t been putting the work into his wrestling and never had a wrestling coach in the past, but he finally changed that for this camp. He also said he was working with a bunch of high-school wrestlers, so who knows the level of training he’s actually getting on the mats. He hasn’t been very durable and part of that can be attributed to the fact that he keeps his chin high and his hands low. Going into his last fight, he also said he just started running for the first time in his career. It’s kind of like, great you’re finally working on improving your cardio and wrestling, but why weren’t you doing that before? Another interesting comment that he recently made was that he had the worst weight cut of his life in his last fight and always struggles to cut weight on the road. He blamed that on not having his nutrition team and the UFC PI at his disposal when traveling, but said he’s undefeated when fighting at home in Las Vegas. Obviously we fact checked that and he is indeed 3-0 in the UFC at the Apex, with both of his knockout wins coming there, and he also landed a first round submission at the Apex in his DWCS match. He did lose his UFC debut in Las Vegas, although that was at T-Mobile arena. And he is just 1-3 on the road, with that one win coming in a decision over CJ Vergara at Madison Square Garden. Whether it’s the weight cut or the fact that he’s had easier matchups at the Apex and tougher matchups on the road, Osbourne has been far more successful when fighting at the Apex, in Las Vegas where he lives and trains at Syndicate MMA.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’7”, but Osbourne will have a 5” reach advantage, while Filho is two years younger than the 32-year-old Osbourne.

Osbourne is 4-0 at the Apex, if you include his DWCS fight, and has never lost two fights in a row in his career. Both of those streaks will be tested here as he takes on a dangerous finisher who should be looking to take him down and submit him. Both guys look pretty hittable and they also each have multiple submission losses on their records, leaving lots of ways for this fight to end early. Neither one of them are trustworthy and it looks like a volatile matchup that could go either way. Betting on the under seems like a safer option than picking a side, but safety is overrated. We didn’t like what we saw on the feet from Filho in his last fight and if he can’t get this match to the ground then Osbourne will be very live to land a knockout in the first round before he begins slowing down. However, Filho does appear to be the superior grappler, even if Osbourne has a wrestling background and four submission wins on his record. So if Filho can turn this into a grappling battle, he’ll have a good shot at locking up a submission. Filho has also shown the ability to finish opponents later in fights, while Osbourne hasn’t finished anybody beyond round one since his 2015 pro debut, and even that finish came just 70 seconds into round two. Strangely enough, despite slowing down as fights go on, Osbourne has still won the last three decisions he’s been to, However, they were all close, with two of them being split. While we’re not expecting this to go the distance, if it does, Osbourne could be live to get his hand raised just based on how bad the visuals have been from Filho during striking exchanges. We don’t have the most confident read on how this one ends, but another Filho submission victory is the most likely outcome according to the betting odds and that’s the direction we lean as well, he just needs to avoid getting finished himself in the first round.

Our favorite bet here is “Jafel Filho R1 SUB” at +500.

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DFS Implications:

Filho’s last 11 fights all ended early, with him winning nine of those. He nearly submitted Muhammad Mokaev in his UFC debut, and then did complete a first round submission in his last fight that was good for 105 DraftKings points. Now he’s facing an opponent who’s been submitted three times in the past, including in his last fight, and Filho will have a good shot at locking up another submission here. However, he’s also been prone to getting finished himself and was getting dominated on the feet early in his last fight. That leaves him with an uncertain floor and Osbourne has a history of finishing guys in round one. Filho also doesn’t land much in the way of striking volume, as he only averages 2.00 SSL/min, failing to top 29 significant strikes landed in any of his last three fights. His third round submission win on DWCS only would have been good for 82 DraftKings points and 96 points on FanDuel and if he had completed the late submission against Mokaev, he still only would have scored around 65 points on both sites. Now that Filho is more expensively priced, a late finish is unlikely to score enough for him to return value, leaving him reliant on landing a well timed finish in the first two rounds. The odds imply Filho has a 59% chance to win, a 42% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Osbourne has been a R1 or bust fighter throughout his career, but 10 of his last 13 fights ended in the opening five minutes. However, he only has two finishes in eight UFC appearances and those came against absolutely terrible opponents in Jerome Rivera and Zarrukh Adashev, who combined to go 1-7 in the UFC with five early losses. Osbourne finished each of them in 61 seconds or less, scoring 127 and 103 DraftKings points respectively. However, in his two decision wins, Osbourne scored just 70 and 69 DraftKings points, and both of those decisions were really close. Even at his cheaper price tag, he’s unlikely to score enough to be useful without a finish, and he’s also been finished himself in five of his six career losses. That leaves him as a volatile option with a wide range of scoring outcomes. While Filho has never been knocked out, he was getting destroyed on the feet in his last fight before getting it to the ground, and Osbourne will have a shot to knock him out early. The odds imply Osbourne has a 41% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #8

Josiane Nunes

4th UFC Fight (3-0)

Nunes is 14 months removed from a close decision win over a terrible Zarah Fairn, who went 0-4 in the UFC. Fairn won the first round on all three scorecards but Nunes won each of the later rounds to get her hand raised. Fairn actually finished ahead 117-102 in significant strikes and no takedowns were attempted in the fight. Eleven months before that, Nunes won another decision against another terrible opponent in Ramona Pascual, who went 0-3 in the UFC. Nunes landed two knockdowns in that fight and looked close to finding a finish, but couldn’t close the show. Pascual was able to land three takedowns, but did nothing with them. Looking back one fight further, Nunes’ lone UFC finish came in a late first round knockout against another super low-level opponent in Bea Malecki, who’s 2-1 in the UFC, but never fought again following that loss.

Now 10-1 as a pro, Nunes has seven wins by KO/TKO and three decision victories. Three of her finishes ended in round one, while four ended in round two. Her only career loss came in her second pro fight, in a 2013 decision against a really tough opponent in Taila Santos. However, outside of facing Santos early in her career, Nunes has exclusively fought a very low level of competition, so all of her wins need to be taken in context. Despite being just 5’2”, Nunes has fought as high as 154 lb in the past. She made her UFC debut at 135 lb, but then moved up to 145 lb for her last two fights, but will now be cutting back down to 135 lb.

Overall, Nunes is a pure striker who doesn't offer much of anything when it comes to grappling. Her best submission defense is the fact that she doesn’t have a neck to choke. Her takedown defense looked unimpressive on the regional scene, but no takedowns were attempted in her UFC debut or her last UFC fight. However, she was taken down three times on 10 Ramona Pascual attempts. Nunes typically puts up huge striking numbers, as she averages 7.22 SSL/min and 5.85 SSA/min.

Chelsea Chandler

3rd UFC Fight (1-1)

Chandler recently had a five fight winning streak snapped in a decision loss to a really tough/big Norma Dumont, in a fight that took place at 145 lb. Dumont had Chandler hurt and literally sprinting away from her early in the fight, but Chandler was able to hang on and survive to see the scorecards. Prior to that loss at 145 lb, Chandler landed a first round ground and pound TKO in her UFC debut against Julija Stoliarenko in a 140 lb Catchweight fight. Stoliarenko cut all the way down to 125 lb after that loss, while Chandler’s last two fights before joining the UFC were both at 145 lb, after her first three pro fights took place at 135 lb.

Now 5-2 as a pro, Chandler has two wins by TKO, one submission, and two decision victories. All three of her finishes ended in the first two rounds, with her last two finishes ending in round one. She’s never been finished but has two decision losses.

Overall, Chandler is a brawling bully who will throw down on the feet but also looks to take opponents down and finish them on the mat, typically with ground and pound. She’s still really green, but has spent time training at Tiger Muay Thai as well as the Nick Diaz Academy, and Cesar Gracie Jiu Jitsu, and she fights out of Stockton, California. She’s only a BJJ purple belt, but uses her strength well in the grappling exchanges. She’s kind of lumbering with her striking and can get pretty reckless on the feet, but has heavy hands and can do damage when she lands, while also throwing a good amount of volume. She’ll also drop thudding elbows and punches on the mat and looks to inflict damage with every strike she throws. She’s only landed one of her three takedown attempts so far in the UFC (33.3% accuracy), but hasn’t had the best matchups for wrestling success. On the other side of things, her opponents got her down on 4 of their six attempts (33.3% defense). Chandler said that she weighs around 165 lb on fight night, so she’s cutting a good amount of weight to get down to 135 lb and she’ll be someone to monitor closely on the scale.

UPDATE: Chandler missed weight by 1 lb.

Fight Prediction:

Chandler will have a 6” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while being three years older than the 30-year-old Nunes.

This should be a really fun fight between two brawlers who always show up ready to throw down. Nunes is tiny, but packs a big punch, however offers nothing on the mat. That’s where Chandler should be able to use her size advantage to control the fight and will have a really good shot at finishing Nunes on the mat, assuming she can take her down. We saw a terrible Ramona Pascual land three takedowns against Nunes, so we have no reason to think Chandler won’t be able to find some wrestling success, and it seems like a good buy-low spot on Chandler following her recent loss to Norma Dumont. Nunes has yet to lose in the UFC, but also faced three of the worse opponents on the roster and she probably would have looked even worse than Chandler against Dumont. The fact that both women are cutting down from 145 lb to 135 lb adds some volatility to the matchup, as that has the potential to negatively impact both their cardio and durability. We’re more concerned with Chandler than Nunes in that regard, simply due to the size difference. However, that theoretically increases the chances of a knockout on both sides. We’re still taking Chandler to finish Nunes on the mat, most likely with ground and pound in the first two rounds, but this one has the potential to go multiple ways.

Our favorite bet here is “Nunes/Chandler Fight Ends in KO” at +130.

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DFS Implications:

Nunes’ brawling fighting style lends itself well towards DFS production, but she doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling. That leaves her reliant on striking, knockdowns, and knockouts to score well. She landed 102 significant strikes in her last decision win, but still only scored 75 DraftKings points. That’s actually exactly what she would have scored in her previous decision win, had she not landed two knockdowns that allowed her to still score 95 points without a finish. Prior to those two decision victories, she put up a slate-breaking 121 points in a first round knockout in her UFC debut, but keep in mind she’s been competing against the lowest level of competition possible. Nevertheless, her aggressive, uptempo style is great for DFS and at her reasonable price tag she could still potentially sneak into winning lineups in a super high-volume decision win. While Chandler has never been knocked out, we saw her get hurt by Dumont in the opening minute of her last fight and both ladies will now be cutting an additional 10 lb that could negatively impact their durability. That raises the chances of a knockout and adds to this fight’s DFS appeal. The odds imply Nunes has a 57% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.

Chandler’s aggressive fighting style is also a great fit for DFS as she’s looking to brawl on the feet and take opponents down and finish them on the mat. We saw that play out in her UFC debut where she landed a first round ground and pound TKO and scored 111 points on DraftKings. However, she faced a much tougher opponent in her last fight and only scored 28 points in a decision loss. However, Chandler gets a far more favorable matchup here against a tiny one-dimensional striker in Nunes, and this sets up well for Chandler to find success on the mat, with a good chance for her to find a finish. And at her cheaper price tag, even a decision win will have a really good shot at scoring enough for her to be useful. The only concern with Chandler is that she’s cutting down to 135 lb for the first time since 2019, and it’s hard to know how the weight cut will impact her. So there is the potential for her to look way worse than expected and maybe even get knocked out, so you want to have exposure to both sides of this one. The odds imply Chandler has a 43% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #7

Mike Davis

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

When they lock the Octagon doors on Saturday it will have been 532 days since Davis last competed, 1,151 days since his second most recent fight, and 1,617 days since his third most recent match. The last time we saw him in action was in an October 2022 wrestling-heavy decision win over a one-dimensional striker in Viacheslav Borshchev, who stepped in on two and a half weeks’ notice after Uros Medic dropped out. Davis landed nine takedowns with eight minutes of control time as he smartly relied on his wrestling in the fight. Prior to that, Davis won another decision in January 2021 in a crazy back and forth brawl against a debuting Mason Jones. Fifteen months prior to that, Davis absolutely dominated a terrible Thomas Gifford in an October 2019 R3 KO win after getting submitted by Gilbert Burns in the second round of his April 2019 UFC debut. Davis originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but lost a high-volume decision to Sodiq Yusuff and was forced to return to the regional scene. Following the loss to Yusuff, Davis knocked out an opponent who was on a five fight losing streak and then never fought again and then submitted an opponent who was kicking off a seven fight losing streak. Regardless, that was enough for the UFC to bring Davis on board.

Now 10-2 as a pro, Davis has seven wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and two decision victories. He’s never been knocked out, but has one submission loss and one decision defeat. Of his eight early wins, four came in round one, one ended in round two, and three finished in round three. Six of his last seven fights made it to the second round, with five making it to round three, and three going the distance. All of his finishes have come against lower level competition and he’s faced a lot of suspect opponents in his career. Davis bounced between 145 lb and 155 lb early in his career, and his decision loss to Sodiq Yusuff on DWCS was at 145 lb, but all four of his UFC fights have been at 155 lb.

Overall, Davis is an exciting striker and also has a background in wrestling. Between his four UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Davis landed 14 of his 26 takedown attempts (53.8% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 4 of their 13 attempts (69.2% defense). He typically makes for exciting fights and has no problem throwing down in a brawl as he averages 5.83 SSL/min and 6.20 SSA/min. However, we did see him really lean on his wrestling in his last fight in a perfect opportunity to dominate on the mat against a one-dimensional striker. Davis stands heavy on his lead league and we’ve seen opponents aggressively attack that, which is something he needs to improve on.

Natan Levy

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

Levy has also struggled with inactivity lately, as his last three booked fights all fell through. Levy dropped out of his last matchup, after Pete Rodriguez hilariously tried to cut down to 155 lb on two different attempts, but predictably never came close to hitting the mark. The last time Levy competed was in a December 2022 decision win over a low-level brawler in Genaro Valdez, who had previously never required the judges in 11 pro fights and is now 0-3 in the UFC. Levy took Valdez down six times and controlled him for almost five minutes in a low-volume fight. Prior to that, Levy won another decision over Mike Breeden, where Levy again came in with a grappling-heavy gameplan as he landed nine takedowns on 16 attempts, but only finished with 3:39 in control time. Levy slowed late in the match as Breeden put it on him in the third round, but was able to hang on to win a decision. Breeden actually finished ahead in significant strikes 104-92 and in total strikes 115-99, while also landing three takedowns of his own on four attempts. Looking back one fighter further, Levy lost a wrestling-heavy decision in his UFC debut against Rafa Garcia, who took Levy down seven times and controlled him for five and a half minutes, while Levy landed three takedowns with just 48 seconds of control time. After landing a pair of first round submission wins in his first two pro fights back in 2018, Levy has gone the distance in six of his last seven matches, with the one exception being a third round submission win on DWCS in November 2020. So he’s seen the third round in seven straight fights and even in his finish on DWCS he appeared content with resting from top position at times.

Now 8-1 as a pro, Levy has three submission wins and five decision victories. Two of those submissions came in the first round of his first two pro fights against opponents who entered with records of 0-0 and 2-1 and overall he hasn’t faced much in terms of competition. He’s never been finished, with his one career loss ending in a decision in his UFC debut. Levy started his career at 145 lb, before competing in a 160 lb Catchweight match when he went on DWCS in 2020 and then settling in at 155 lb for all of his UFC fights.

Overall, Levy is a Karate and Kung Fu black belt, who throws good kicks and is often looking to wrestle. Between his three UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, Levy landed 20 of his 35 takedown attempts (57.1% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 10 of their 17 attempts (41.2% defense). Levy has decent speed but has yet to show the ability to knock opponents out and has struggled with maintaining top control in the UFC. While he’s somewhat well rounded, he hasn’t really stood out anywhere and we’ve seen him fade later in fights. While he’s never been finished, he was nearly knocked out on the feet in a 2020 LFA fight but was narrowly able to survive and use his grappling to buy time to recover, which allowed him to go on to win a decision. This will be a major step up in competition for Levy, so it will be interesting to see how he looks following a long layoff.

UPDATE: Levy missed weight by 0.5 lb and looked rough on the scale!

Fight Prediction:

Davis will have a 3” height advantage and 1” reach advantage, while being a year younger than the 32-year-old Levy.

Neither of these two have competed since late 2022, which adds some inherent volatility as you never know how fighters will look after extended layoffs. However, looking past that, Davis appears to be better everywhere. He’s got better striking, wrestling, cardio, power, durability, speed, and size. That could explain why his ML has gone from -250 to -500 this week, assuming Levy isn’t dealing with an injury. Levy has shown a knack for slowing fights down and using his wrestling to win low-volume decisions, but all of his wins have come against a much lower level of competition. Davis will have a shot at knocking Levy out, but as the odds indicate it’s still more likely he wins a decision. If Davis does find a finish, it would make some sense for it to come late in the fight, as we’ve seen Levy slow down in the third round and Davis has multiple late knockouts on his record.

UPDATE: After seeing Levy on the scale we like Davis’ chances of landing a knockout a lot more now.

Our favorite bet here is “Mike Davis KO” at +230.

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DFS Implications:

Davis has averaged 116 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, despite all of those making it to the third round and the last two going the distance. However, he’s also had extremely favorable matchups to score well in all of his wins. His one UFC finish was against a terrible Thomas Gifford, who went 0-2 in the UFC and was nearly beaten to death by Davis as both the ref and his corner had no desire to stop the fight. That allowed Davis to put up 134 DraftKings points in a Bloodsport style win. Then Davis took part in a wild action-packed brawl against a willing combatant in Mason Jones, where Davis scored 90 DraftKings points in a high-volume decision win. Most recently, Davis faced possibly the worst wrestler in the UFC when he took on Viacheslav Borshchev, which allowed Davis to land nine takedowns and score 123 points. Now he’ll face a slower paced opponent in Levy, which should leave Davis reliant on either a knockout or another wrestling-heavy decision to score well. Levy’s never been knocked out and Davis hasn’t finished anybody since 2019, so it’s hard to count on a knockout, but it’s certainly possible. In terms of Davis’ wrestling upside, he’s shown the ability to rack up takedowns and Levy has just a 41% takedown defense, but Levy is still a much better wrestler than Borshchev, which should go without saying because everyone is. Nevertheless, we did see Levy get taken down seven times in his UFC debut, which is the only time he’s gone up against a decent wrestler in the past, so maybe Davis can again rack up takedowns. While that won’t be automatic, Davis does have multiple ways to score well, even if his floor is a little more uncertain in this potentially pace-down matchup. We expect Davis to be popular, so there’s definitely some merit in looking for ways he fails in large-field tournaments, but it’s hard not to like his floor/ceiling combination in smaller contests. The odds imply Davis has a 79% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.

Levy is coming off back-to-back wrestling-heavy decision wins, where he landed 15 total takedowns against a pair of low-level strikers and scored 96 and 120 DraftKings points respectively. However, the one time he faced a wrestler in the UFC was in his UFC debut, where Levy was the one getting taken down seven times and he only scored 37 points in the decision loss. Levy is now getting a massive step up in competition and comes in as a huge underdog. He’s far less likely to put on a dominant wrestling performance against Mike Davis, who has a background in wrestling and a somewhat decent 69% takedown defense. However, both Levy and Davis are coming off extended layoffs, so maybe one or both of them will come in with some ring rust and look worse than usual. That at least adds enough volatility that it makes sense to have some exposure to both sides, but the massive line move in Davis’ favor is a really bad sign for Levy. And if Levy can’t get his wrestling going, he hasn’t shown the ability to land enough striking volume to score well in a decision. The odds imply Levy has a 21% chance to win, a 7% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #6

Gerald Meerschaert

20th UFC Fight (10-9)

Meerschaert has now dropped two straight and is just 1-3 in his last four fights. He lost a split decision to a fellow grappler in Andre Petroski in his last outing, after getting knocked out in the first round by Joe Pyfer, in a fight where Meerschaert foolishly never attempted to grapple. Meerschaert’s only win since 2021 was a 2022 third round submission over the highly submittable Bruno Silva, who looked terrible throughout the fight and was actually outstruck by Meerschaert and dropped on the feet in round three, before getting finished with a guillotine on the mat. Just before that, Meerschaert lost a decision to Krzysztof Jotko, who has always been a tough guy to take down. However, leading up to that loss to Jotko, Meerschaert did lock up three straight submission wins, after getting quickly knocked out in the first round of back-to-back fights. Only two of Meerschaert’s last 10 fights required the judges (0-2), while he was knocked out three times in the first round over that stretch and secured five submissions. In fact, his last seven wins all came by submission, with his last non-submission win coming in 2017 in a second round knockout. Meerschaert lost the last five decisions he’s been to, and the last time he got his hand raised by the judges was in 2013, three years before he joined the UFC. So all 10 of his UFC wins ended early, with nine of those ending in submissions. He submitted each of his first two UFC opponents in the first round, but six of his last seven submissions ended in the later rounds with two in round two and four in round three.

Now 35-17 as a pro, Meerschaert has six wins by KO/TKO, 27 submissions, and amazingly just two decision victories in his 52 pro fights. He’s been knocked out four times, submitted eight more, and has five decision losses. The first seven losses of his career all ended in first round submissions, including one to the notorious Jay Ellis, who’s currently sporting an impressive 16-109 record. However, Meerschaert has only been submitted once since 2013, which came in the first round of a 2018 fight against Jack Hermansson. Three of Meerschaert’s four knockout losses also ended in round one, with the other occurring early in round two. So 11 of his 12 early losses ended in the first round. Meerschaert fought at 170 lb early in his pro career, but transitioned to 185 lb in 2013-2014, where he’s essentially stayed since, although he did venture up to 205 lb once in 2016.

While Meerschaert is a BJJ black belt and a solid grappler, he has a suspect chin and three of his last five losses ended in quick knockouts. Seven of his UFC fights ended in the first round (3-4), four ended in round two (3-1), four more ended in round three (4-0) and four went the distance (0-4). So we’ve consistently seen him struggle early on in fights and with the judges, but he finds ways to land late finishes and has only once been finished in the later rounds himself. He only landed 21 takedowns on 56 attempts in his 18 UFC fights (37.5% accuracy) and only once in his last 12 fights did he taken an opponent down more than once, but he’ll gladly go to the ground by any means necessary, even if it means working off his back, as he has just a 34% takedown defense. After his loss to Pyfer, Meerschaert moved his family down to Florida and he’s training full time at Kill Cliff FC now, opposed to just going down there for his camps. Meerschaert has only come into 4 of his 19 UFC fights as the favorite, and only twice in his last 17 matches, but won all four of those fights.

Bryan Barberena

19th UFC Fight (9-9)

Continuing his quest towards Heavyweight glory, Barberena has decided that cutting weight is for the faint of heart and has opted to remain at 185 lb, despite getting spanked in his recent UFC Middleweight debut. Barberena actually started at 155 lb in the UFC back in 2014, before moving up to 170 lb in 2016, where he remained until 2023. He was submitted in the first two rounds in each of his last two fights at 170 lb by high-level grapplers in Gunnar Nelson and Rafael dos Anjos, and was then dominated on the mat in a decision loss against a striker in Makhmud Muradov in his first UFC fight at 185 lb. Muradov took Barberena down on 13 of his 16 attempts and also knocked him down twice, but was unable to put him away and ultimately won a unanimous 30-27 decision. Muradov has only landed three total takedowns in his other six UFC fights combined. Prior to his current three-fight losing streak, Barberena landed his only finish since 2018 in a R2 TKO against a washed up Robbie Lawler. That came after Barberena won a pair of really close decisions against a debuting Darian Weeks and another washed up vet in Matt Brown.

Now 18-11 as a pro, Barberena has 11 wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and five decision victories. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted three times, and has six decision losses. Four of Barberena’s five early losses ended in the later rounds, with one in round two and three in round three. Fifteen of his 18 UFC fights have seen the second round, with 12 making it to round three and nine going the distance. Barberena’s first three UFC knockouts came against opponents in their final professional fight, and the other was against a 40-year-old Robbie Lawler.

Overall, Barberena is a brawler who hasn’t landed a takedown in any of his last 15 fights. He’s put up big striking totals at times, but has been inconsistent for most of his career when it comes to stringing wins together. He averages a healthy 5.53 SSL/min and 4.74 SSA/min and generally makes for higher paced fights. However, Barberena has really struggled with being taken down, and in his 18 UFC fights he was taken down 59 times on 117 opponent attempts (49.6% defense). The last fighter who tried to get Barberena down and didn’t at least one of their attempts was Warlley Alves all the way back in 2016, and six of Barberena’s last eight opponents have gotten him down four or more times.

Fight Prediction:

Meerschaert will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage, while Barberena is two years younger than the 36-year-old Meerschaert.

Barberena has struggled to stay upright against anyone that’s willing to wrestle, and the only question here is how stupid will Meerschaert’s approach be. He can make this fight really easy, kind of easy, or not easy at all depending on if he comes in with a single digit, double digit, or triple digit IQ game plan. Meerschaert has been stubbornly reluctant to rely on his wrestling at times and it seems like he’s constantly trying to prove he has decent striking in his fights, in spite of his suspect chin. Barberena isn’t the biggest power puncher, or even the biggest Middleweight, and he should be fighting at 170 lb. But he will let his hands go and if Meerschaert just stands in front of him for 15 minutes anything could happen. While we don’t trust Meerschaert to fight smart and immediately look to wrestle, he honestly might be able to win a pure striking battle here against an overweight Barberena if he really wanted to. That’s obviously the stupidest possible way to approach this fight and we do expect him to wrestle at some point, but it won’t be surprising if he opts to keep the fight standing early on. These two have the combined IQ of a Ring Pop, but eventually Meerschaert should find his way to a submission, even if it’s by accident. Give us Meerschaert in another late round submission after making this fight way closer than it needs to be early on.

Our favorite bet here is “Gerald Meerschaert R2 or R3 SUB” at +330.

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DFS Implications:

Meerschaert has 10 wins in the UFC, with all of those ending early, including nine by submission. However, seven of his last eight finishes have come in the later rounds, with his last two victories ending in round three. And because he only landed more than one takedown once in his last 12 fights and averages just 3.30 SSL/min, he often struggles to really score well, even when he does land a finish. His last two submission wins only returned DraftKings scores of 85 and 62 and he also scored just 77 points in a 2019 third round submission victory, leaving him more reliant on landing a finish in the first two rounds to put up a useful score. Working in his favor, Barberena has some of the worst wrestling in the UFC and should be fighting at 170 lb and not 185 lb. If Meerschaert decides he wants to, he should be able to dominate this fight on the ground, although he doesn’t have the best wrestling himself and is more of a pure grappler who looks for opportunistic submissions. He likes to try and hurt opponents on the feet and then go for submissions, which is a dangerous game to play when you have a glass chin. Meerschaert has amazingly only been a favorite in 4 of his 19 UFC fights and only twice in his last 17 matches. To his credit, he did win all four of those fights early, but only averaged 89 points in the process, with DraftKings totals of 62, 102, 92, and 98. At his high price tag here, he’ll likely need to do better than that to end up in winning tournament lineups and there are lots of ways he submits Barberena and still fails to score enough to be useful. We’re treating Meerschaert as an early submission or bust option. The odds imply Meerschaert has a 68% chance to win, a 46% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.

Barberena’s terrible defensive wrestling continues to get exposed by one opponent after the next and he just got taken down 13 times by a striker. As if being terrible on the mat at 170 lb wasn’t bad enough, Barberena has now decided he doesn’t really want to cut weight and moved up to 185 lb for his last fight. So now he’s facing even larger opponents who can take him down even more easily. We’re not really sure what Barberena is doing at this stage in his career, other than trying to pay the mortgage on his farm. He looked terrible in all of his last three fights and seems to be in worse shape every time we see him. The only two things he has going for him here are that Meerschaert is an idiot with a glass chin, who will likely keep this fight standing for far longer than he should. That will at least give Barberena some opportunities to find the button. However, he’s not really a power puncher and relies more on volume, so it’s unclear if he even packs enough punch to get the fragile Meerschaert out of there. And if he does start to land on Meerschaert, you have to imagine at that point Meerschaert would consider wrestling. It’s really hard to have much confidence in either of these two and this is the ultimate “Hold my beer” fight. Barberena hasn’t landed a takedown in any of his last 15 fights and only has one finish since 2018, so he’s generally been entirely reliant on striking volume to score well and Meerschaert only averages 3.50 SSA/min. So even if Barberena wins a decision, it’s unlikely to really score well. At his cheap price tag he would still have a shot at serving as a value play, but he’ll need a knockout to really score well. The odds imply Barberena has a 32% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #5

Macy Chiasson

10th UFC Fight (6-3)

Chiasson’s last two scheduled fights were both canceled and she now hasn’t competed in 18 months following a September 2022 R3 TKO loss against Irene Aldana. That loss ended with a rare upkick body shot to put Chiasson out, in a fight that was tied up after two rounds. Chiasson took Aldana down three times in the fight, but was only able to control her for three and a half minutes and nearly got armbarred in the first round. That fight took place at a 140 lb Catchweight, after Chiasson’s previous two fights were both at 145 lb. In the most recent of those Featherweight matches, Chiasson won a split decision over Norma Dumont, that should not have been split. Chiasson landed six takedowns with seven and a half minutes of control time, while finishing ahead on total strikes 131-96. Just before that, Chiasson suffered the first early loss of her career in a R2 submission against Raquel Pennington in a fight that Chiasson accepted on short notice and came in at 148.5 lb, missing the limit by 2.5 lb. Prior to that, Chiasson won a pair of decisions at 135 lb, over an aging and now retired Marion Reneau and a terrible Shanna Young. Chiasson made her way into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter in 2018 after having just two pro fights prior to that. She actually submitted Pannie Kianzad in the second round of the TUF finale, which was at 145 lb.

Now 8-3 as a pro, Chiasson has two wins by TKO, two submissions, and four decision victories. She also has one TKO loss, one submission defeat, and one decision loss. One of her early wins came in round one, two ended in round two, and the other ended in round three. Ten of her 11 career fights made it to the second round, with seven seeing round three, and five going the distance. Chiasson fought at 145 lb until her second UFC fight when she dropped down to 135 lb for a five fight stretch (4-1) before moving back up. Now she’ll be moving back down to 135 lb and the last time she made that mark was in 2021.

Overall, Chiasson is still a pretty raw fighter who relies on her size and strength to win fights. After failing to land a takedown in her first four UFC fights, she’s landed 14 in her last five matches, and her takedown accuracy is really improving. She has only topped 51 significant strikes in one of her nine UFC fights and averages just 3.64 SSL/min and 2.61 SSA/min. We’ve seen Chiasson miss weight at 145 lb, so obviously she’ll be someone to keep an eye on during weigh-ins as she tries to make 135 lb for the first time since 2021.

Pannie Kianzad

10th UFC Fight (5-4)

Looking to bounce back from a wrestling-heavy decision loss to Ketlen Vieira, Kianzad has dropped two of her last three fights, with her only win in the last few years coming in a close decision against a 40-year-old Lina Lansberg. Most recently, Vieira was able to take Kianzad down on all three of her attempts and control her for nearly 11 minutes in a very slow paced fight. Five of Kianzad’s last six opponents were able to get her down, with the one exception being Lansberg, who did land a knockdown but no takedowns. Kianzad hasn’t been especially active lately, with just one fight in 2022 and one in 2023. Since getting submitted by Macy Chiasson in 2018 on The Ultimate Fighter finale, Kianzad has fought to nine straight decisions. The first of those came outside of the UFC following her loss on TUF, but then they brought her back in 2019. She’s since gone 5-3 in eight decisions.

Now 16-7 as a pro, Kianzad has three wins by TKO and 13 decision victories. Her three finishes all occurred in her first six pro fights from 2012 to 2014 against two debuting opponents and another that was just 1-1. Kianzad also has one TKO loss on her record (R2 2015), to go along with two submission defeats (R1 2017 & R2 2018), and four decision losses.

Overall, Kianzad is the definition of a decision grinder and the only time she hasn’t required the judges in her last 13 fights was when she got submitted by Macy CHiasson in 2018. Kianzad lands a decent amount of striking volume (4.87 SSL/min), but only landed 3 of her 10 takedown attempts (30% accuracy) in her nine UFC fights. On the other side of things, her opponents got her down on 8 of their 28 attempts (71.4% defense), but five of her last six opponents got her down at least once.

Fight Prediction:

Chiasson will have a 4” height advantage and 6” reach advantage.

This will be a rematch of the 2018 145 lb TUF finale that Chiasson won by second round submission. That’s the last time one of Kianzad’s fights ended early and she hasn’t landed a finish of her own since 2014. So the only thing we’re really considering here is whether Chiasson finishes her again or this goes the distance. Chiasson hasn’t finished anybody since 2019 and hasn’t looked very dangerous lately, so it’s far more likely we see this go the distance. We give Chiasson the wrestling advantage and she’s also much larger than Kianzad, which should help her when it comes to getting her down and holding her there. It’s not impossible that Chiasson could lock up another submission on the ground, but we like her to win a decision.

Our favorite bet here is “Macy Chiasson DEC” at +100.

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DFS Implications:

Chiasson has averaged 102 DraftKings points in her six UFC wins, with at least 102 points in five of those, but only topped 75 points in one of her last four fights and has now lost two of her last three. In fairness, her last three fights were all against really tough opponents, but we have seen her scores fall off after a hot start to her career. And after finishing her first three UFC opponents, her last three wins all went the distance. However, she was still able to score 106 and 108 points in two of those decisions, but just 75 points in the other. That’s the only time she’s failed to reach 102 points in a victory and her wrestling-heavy approach is a good fit for the DraftKings scoring system. After failing to land a takedown in any of her first four UFC fights, she’s now landed 14 across her last five matches and nine in her last two fights. While her last decision win was good for 106 DraftKings points, it only scored 75 points on FanDuel, where she’s far more reliant on landing a finish. If Chiasson can dominate this fight on the mat, she’ll have a shot at ending up in the DraftKings winning lineup even without a finish, but at her high price tag she’ll still need to outscore the other expensive options. The odds imply Chiasson has a 68% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.

Kianzad has failed to top 81 DraftKings points in any of her five UFC wins, which all ended in decisions. She hasn’t finished an opponent since her sixth pro fight back in 2014, which ended in a third round TKO. Now she’s facing a much larger opponent who’s already submitted her once and we just saw Kianzad get outwrestled in her last fight. So it’s hard to get excited about her outlook here and it seems like at best you’re hoping for her to serve as a value play in a decision win if she can keep the fight standing and outland her way to victory. Chiasson is a giant and will have a 6” reach advantage, so it will be tough for Kianzad to close the distance and ultimately we’re only really considering her in low-risk contests to make the rest of our lineup work. The odds imply Kianzad has a 32% chance to win, a 6% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #4

Isaac Dulgarian

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Coming off a flawless first round finish in his recent UFC debut, Dulgarian has yet to lose a fight in his career or even require a second round. He faced a tough opponent in his recent debut when he took on a 7-1 Francis Marshall who had shown a pretty solid ground game in his previous fights. Dulgarian took Marshall down on his first attempt 30 seconds into the fight and then never gave up the position before finishing Marshall with ground and pound late in round one. That win came 18 months after Dulgarian won the vacant FAC Featherweight belt in a violent 73 second ground and pound finish that left a cadaver in his wake. That appeared to secure both a Full Send sponsorship deal from the Nelk Boys and a UFC contract. However, after months of waiting to finalize the details, Dulgarian said the Nelk Boys ghosted him and never gave him anything. In late 2022, the whole James Krause debacle went down and Glory MMA was shut down, which is where Dulgarian had been training. While nothing came from the Nelk Boy promises, Dulgarian was finally scheduled to make his UFC debut in January 2023 against Daniel Argueta, but Dulgarian ended up withdrawing after he tore his LCL a couple of weeks before the fight. He was then told to take eight weeks off, which he did, but then two weeks after he got back in the gym he said he heard it pop again and had to take eight more weeks off, forcing an even longer layoff. During his time between fights, he bought an RV and moved gyms to Factory X, where he said he can park right outside the gym.

Now 6-0 as a pro, Dulgarian has finished all six of his opponents in the first round, with four KO/TKOs and two submissions. Just keep in mind, before he joined the UFC he had been facing a low level of competition on the Missouri regional scene and only one of his first five opponents came in with a winning record—which was a 39-year-old TeeJay Britton. Dulgarian has fought his entire career at 145 lb, but isn’t the biggest 145er. He doesn’t cut a lot of weight and said he could make 135 if he had to.

Overall, Dulgarian is a former college wrestler who aggressively looks to get fights to the mat and hunt for finishes. He has heavy ground and pound, with really nice short slicing elbows, and will also look to lock up chokes. All of Dulgarian’s pro fights have looked pretty much the same. He immediately lands a takedown and then quickly works his way to a finish, while facing zero adversity. However, his cardio and stand up game both remain a mystery as all of his fights have ended so quickly on the mat. However, he has been training with a lot of solid strikers at elevation at Factory X in Denver, after leaving Glory MMA, which is encouraging for both his cardio and growth on the feet. One of his main training partners is Youssef Zalal, who’s known for his never-ending gas tank. Nevertheless, until he’s forced to stand and trade we won’t know how good his striking is and until he gets extended in a fight there’s no way to evaluate his gas tank. He only turned pro in March 2021 and is just 27 years old, so he’s still pretty early in his career. But he comes from a credentialed wrestling background. Dulgarian said he’s about to have his first kid and needs the money here to support his family, so look for him to not only do everything within his power to secure the win, but also hunt for a bonus.

Christian Rodriguez

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

Rodriguez is coming off three straight wins, but missed weight in each of his last two victories and is now moving up from 135 lb to 145 lb. He missed by a ridiculous 4 lb in his recent decision win over the previously undefeated Cameron Saaiman, after missing by 1.5 lb in another decision win over Raul Rosas Jr., who had also been undefeated. The striking numbers were close against Saaiman, but Rodriguez pulled ahead in the wrestling, as he landed three of his six takedown attempts, with three minutes of control time, two submission attempts, and one reversal, while also stuffing all five of Saaiman’s attempts. Prior to that, Rodriguez was able to endure the initial blitz of Rosas in round one and then take over in the later rounds as Rosas slowed down. Rosas only landed 3 of his 16 takedown attempts in the fight, while Rodriguez landed his only attempt. That came after Rodriguez landed a first round submission against a low-level debuting opponent in Joshua Weems, who was stepping in on short notice. Rodriguez’s lone UFC loss occurred just before that in his own short notice UFC debut up a weight class against a really tough/huge wrestler in Jonathan Pearce. While Rodriguez lost a decision in that fight, he gave a good account of himself and nearly locked up a submission at multiple points. Rodriguez originally tried to crack the UFC through DWCS, but wasn’t awarded a contract following an October 2021 decision win over Tracy Cortez’s older brother, Reyes Cortez Jr. Following the DWCS victory, Rodriguez returned to the regional scene for one fight where he landed a first round submission, at which point the UFC brought him on when they needed someone to fill a slot on short notice.

Now 10-1 as a pro, Rodriguez has three wins by TKO, four submissions, and three decision victories. He has five first round finishes, although three of those occurred in his first three pro fights. He also has a second round submission win and a third round TKO. Three of his last four finishes have come by submission and all three of his TKO victories occurred in his first five pro fights. He’s never been finished himself and his only career loss came by decision in his short notice UFC debut up a weight class. Rodriguez has fought anywhere between 135 lb and 150 lb in his career. He’s 6-0 at 135 lb, 2-0 at 140 lb Catchweight, 1-1 at 145 lb, and 1-0 at 150 lb Catchweight.

Overall, Rodriguez is a young, well-rounded fighter who doesn’t stand out as being exceptional anywhere, but is really solid everywhere. He does a good job of just touching up his opponents, without loading up on his strikes and he’s also a BJJ purple belt. While he has a 70% takedown defense, he’s given up 13 takedowns on 44 attempts between his four UFC fights and his DWCS appearance. The only one of those opponents who failed to get him down was a striker in Cameron Saaiman, and the other four opponents all landed multiple takedowns. On the other side of things, he landed 6 of his own 11 attempts (54.5% accuracy). However, while his wrestling is a work in his progress, his grappling has looked pretty solid, both defensively and offensively. He likes to look for chokes in the grappling exchanges and has also done a good job of protecting his own neck. He’s only 26 years old and has just 11 pro fights, so he’s still very early in his career and he’s shown improvements every time he steps inside the Octagon. It will be interesting to see how he looks at 145 lb with a full camp to prepare and we also want to see how he looks on the scale.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’7” with a 71” reach, while Dulgarian is a year older than the 26-year-old Rodriguez.

This is a great test for both fighters. Rodriguez has already faced three grapplers in the UFC and gave a good showing of himself in all of those matches, winning two of them and losing a decision in the other. However, both of those wins were down at 135 lb, while the one loss was at 145 lb in his short notice UFC debut. While he had lots of good moments in that loss, he was also taken down six times and controlled for 11 minutes. That’s somewhat concerning as he returns to 145 lb here and takes on another really dangerous wrestler. However, no one is confusing the smaller 5’7” Dulgarian, who admitted he could make 135 lb, with the massive 6’0” Jonathan Pearce, who has competed numerous times at 155 lb in the past. Dulgarian and Rodriguez are listed as being the same height and if they are actually the same size then maybe Rodriguez moving up a weight class isn’t that big of an issue. However, that does add some volatility to the matchup. The other two big unknowns are Dulgarian’s cardio and striking, as no one has been able to keep the fight standing against him or take him into the second round. With uncertainty on both sides this becomes a trickier fight to try and predict. Rodriguez is the more proven fighter when it comes to striking, cardio, and durability, while Dulgarian will have the wrestling advantage and has been the far more potent finisher. We’ve seen Rodriguez get taken down by almost everyone he’s fought, but he’s never been finished.. If he can force Dulgarian into a longer right then things could potentially get interesting—or we could just find out that Dulgarian has great cardio. That uncertainty makes it impossible to be overly confident in either guy, but instead of trying to guess on the things we don’t know, we’ll focus on the things we do know. Dulgarian looks like the superior wrestler and Rodriguez has struggled with being taken down. Also, fighters moving up a weight class have won less often than the odds indicate they should. So we’ll tentatively take Dulgarian to win, but there’s a really good chance that Rodriguez can become the first fighter to take him to the later rounds and it won’t be surprising if this goes the distance.

Our favorite bet here is “Dulgarian/Rodriguez FGTD” at +112.

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DFS Implications:

Dulgarian is coming off an impressive R1 ground and pound TKO win in his recent UFC debut against a tough Francis Marshall, which was good for 122 DraftKings points and 127 points on FanDuel. While the win was essentially flawless, it didn’t answer many of the questions we have about Dulgarian, such as how good his striking is and what kind of cardio he has. All six of his career wins ended on the mat in the first round and the same can be said about his amateur career. So we really have nothing to look at to gauge his gas tank, but he does train at elevation and doesn’t cut much weight. Those are both encouraging signs but still don’t give us an answer. We know Dulgarian is a really good wrestler, but similar to Bo Nickal, we need to see him tested in tough matchups before we crown him. However, from what he has shown, his DFS scoring ceiling is massive and even in a longer fight he would score well if he doesn’t gas out. Rodriguez is a tough test for Dulgarian, but will be moving up a weight class to face Dulgarian at 145 lb, which tends to favor the fighter who isn’t changing weight. Rodriguez has also been taken down multiple times in three of his four UFC fights and on DWCS, which is encouraging for Dulgarian’s chances of getting this fight to the ground, where he’s extremely dangerous. Considering Rodriguez has never been finished and Dulgarian has never seen the second round, or even been forced to stand and strike, this is ultimately a volatile matchup where Dulgarian has a high ceiling, but an uncertain floor. After breaking the last slate he was on we expect him to be popular at his reasonable price tag, so if he does fail, there will be a lot of leverage to be gained in any lineups that fade him. However, if he wins he’ll likely end up in winning tournament lineups, making this a pivotal spot to get right. The odds imply Dulgarian has a 64% chance to win, a 37% chance to land a finish, and a 20% chance it comes in round one.

Rodriguez has won three straight fights at 135 lb, after losing a decision in his short notice UFC debut at 145 lb. However, after missing weight in each of his last two matches, including by 4 lb in his last fight, now he’ll be moving up to 145 lb once again. His last two wins both went the distance, where he returned scores of 91 and 71 points respectively, while his previous win ended in a first round submission that was good for 96 points against a terrible short notice debuting opponent. While he’s yet to really score well, in his two decently scoring victories the key was that he won the grappling exchanges. His other victory came when he outlasted Raul Rosas Jr., but weathering a storm is a tougher way to score well unless you land a finish, and he only put up 71 DraftKings points in that decision win. It’s possible we see something similar here if Dulgarian can’t find a finish and similarly gasses out, but we still have no idea how good his cardio is. However, we do know that Dulgarian comes from a celebrated wrestling background and it would be surprising to see Rodriguez out wrestle him unless Dulgarian does gas out. Rodriguez does have decent submission skills and likes to look for chokes, so it’s possible he can lock something up during the grappling exchanges, but Dulgarian looks pretty aware of his head position on his takedown attempts. Outside of his submissions, Rodriguez hasn’t looked like much of a finisher and with the potential to get controlled for periods of time here his upside appears capped. His most likely path to victory will be to win a war of attrition and simply outlast Dulgarian to a decision, similar to what we saw against Rosas. While it’s possible he could score enough to be useful in that scenario at his cheaper price tag, he could also easily still get left out if multiple other underdogs win. The odds imply Rodriguez has a 36% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #3

Kennedy Nzechukwu

11th UFC Fight (6-4)

Nzechukwu will be looking to bounce back from a quick 82 second R1 TKO loss to Dustin Jacoby, in what some may argue was a quick stoppage by the ref. Jacoby spilled Nzechukwu onto the mat with a right hand and then Nzechukwu covered up as Jacoby looked for ground and pound and the fight was almost immediately stopped. We’ve seen Nzechukwu start slow in the past, absorb damage early, and then come back to finish opponents late, but that fight showed one of the flaws with that tendency. Prior to that loss, Nzechukwu had finished three straight opponents in the later rounds, with a second round submission win over Devin Clark, a second round TKO over Ion Cutelaba, and a third round TKO against Karl Roberson. Nzechukwu has only been to one decision in his last eight fights, which ended in a 2022 split decision against Nicolae Negumereanu. That followed another first round knockout loss, following two more late round knockouts, and Nzechukwu’s last five wins all ended in rounds two and three, with four of those ending in knockouts and one via guillotine. While 8 of his 10 UFC fights ended early, only two of those fights were stopped in round one, which were both KO/TKO losses. The last time Nzechukwu won a decision was in 2019.

Now 12-4 as a pro, Nzechukwu has eight wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and three decision victories. Two of his eight KO wins occurred in the first round (both in 2018), four ended in round two, and two ended in round three. All of his UFC knockout victories occurred in the later rounds and that appears to be when he’s the most dangerous after he’s worn his opponent’s hands down with his face. On the other side of things, he’s been knocked out twice, submitted once, and has one decision loss. Nzechukwu made his pro debut at Heavyweight in 2016 before dropping down to Light Heavyweight in 2017, where he’s stayed since.

Overall, Nzechukwu is a big, durable fighter, who came into the UFC in 2019 incredibly green, but with all the physical tools needed to be successful, standing 6’5” with an 83” reach. He’s freakishly strong and while he was often overly cautious early on in his career, he’s shown improvements to his aggression and output in recent fights. He’s also improved his grappling, as he continues to round out his skillset. He’s still somewhat of a slow starter, which is why all of his finishes come in the later rounds, but he’s made that strategy work for him as he really puts it on his opponents in the later rounds once they start to slow down. Between his two DWCS appearances and his 10 UFC fights, Nzechukwu has only been taken down on 13 of 65 opponent attempts (80% defense), while he’s landed 5 of his own 10 attempts (50% accuracy). All five of his successful takedowns came against an undersized kickboxer in Karl Roberson and Nzechukwu only attempted three unsuccessful takedowns in his other nine UFC fights.

Ovince Saint Preux

27th UFC Fight (14-12)

Now 40 years old, Saint Preux is coming off a six month suspension for a failed drug test, allegedly for a tainted supplement. That resulted in his August booking against Ion Cutelaba to be canceled and Saint Preux now hasn’t competed in 13 months after getting knocked out by Philipe Lins in just 49 seconds in February 2023. That’s notably Lins’ only finish in six UFC appearances and he made it look easy. Saint Preux has been knocked out in three of his last four fights, with his lone win over that stretch coming in a split decision against a washed up Shogun Rua in May 2022. Prior to that, Saint Preux had experimented with moving up to Heavyweight, only to lose a 2020 split decision to Ben Rothwell and then get knocked out in the second round of a 2021 match against a struggling Tanner Boser. In between those two Heavyweight bouts, Saint Preux knocked out Alonzo Menifield in the second round of a 2020 match and then got knocked out in the second round himself by Jamahal Hill.

Now 26-17 as a pro, Saint Preux has 12 wins by KO/TKO, eight submissions, and just six decision victories. He’s been knocked out five times, submitted three more, and has nine decision defeats. Eleven of Saint Preux’s last 14 fights have ended early (6-5), while he’s lost four of the last five decisions he’s been to. Despite only going to three decisions in his last 14 fights, he had seen the second round in eight straight fights leading up to his recent R1 KO loss and Saint Preux is generally regarded as a slow starter.

Overall, Saint Preux has historically shown the ability to both strike and grapple and looks for so many Von Flue chokes that they started calling it the OSP choke. However, the last time he completed one of those was in 2019 and he’s now 40 years old, coming off a PED suspension, and has been knocked out by three of his last four opponents. Any fight could be his last and when we saw he was scheduled to fight in front of his home Tennessee crowd in Nashville last August we assumed it would be his retirement fight, until he got suspended and dropped out. Saint Preux only landed one takedown in his last six fights and has been sporadic with his attempts. He doesn’t throw much volume and hasn’t topped 62 significant strikes landed in any of his last 14 fights, which helps to explain why he’s gone just 6-9 with the judges in his career.

Fight Prediction:

Nzechukwu will have a 2” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while also being nine years younger than the 40-year-old Saint Preux.

Saint Preux looks done at this stage in his career and Nzechukwu is in a teed up spot to find a finish. They’re both historically slow starters, so it will be interesting to see if Nzechukwu can dial things up early on or if he once again waits until the later rounds to finish things. While Saint Preux has been submitted three times in the past and Nzechukwu’s last finish was also by submission, all of Saint Preux’s submissions defeats were against more experienced grapplers and a knockout is the much more likely way this fight ends, although a club and sub is always possible. Depending on just how washed up Saint Preux is, Nzechukwu could get him out of there in the opening round, but the last time he finished anybody in under five minutes was in 2018 on DWCS. So a later finish still appears more likely and we’ll take Nzechukwu by second round knockout.

Our favorite bet here is “Kennedy Nzechukwu KO” at -170.

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DFS Implications:

Nzechukwu’s last five wins all ended in late round finishes and he averaged 87 DraftKings points in his six UFC victories. The first of those wins ended in his lone UFC decision win, which was only good for 50 points. He also has an early third round TKO win over Danilo Marques, where Nzechukwu only scored 57 points after getting controlled for basically the entire first two rounds. However, in his other four UFC victories, Nzechukwu has averaged 104 DraftKings points, scoring at least 105 in three of those. So he has shown some upside, even if his floor can’t be trusted. He’s a physical freak at 6’5” with an 83” reach, but he tends to start slow and can be overly reliant on his durability at times. While that has gotten him into trouble against tougher opponents in the past, he’s also shown the ability to weather an early storm and then bounce back with a finish in the later rounds, so you can never count him out in a fight. Now he’ll get a teed up matchup for a finish as he takes on a 40-year-old opponent who’s coming off a PED suspension and has been knocked out in three of his last four fights. Saint Preux looked lost in his last fight as he was blitzed by Philipe Lins and put away in under a minute, which is the only time Lins has finished anybody in six UFC appearances. That was 13 months ago and it’s hard to imagine that Saint Preux will suddenly turn back the clock at this stage in his career. We’d be surprised if Nzechukwu didn’t get him out of there early, it’s just a question of when the finish occurs and whether or not it will score enough for Nzechukwu to return value as the most expensive fighter on the card. If Nzechukwu’s tendency to start slow continues, it will be harder for him to put up a huge score and secure a spot in the optimal with a late round finish. However, it’s not as if we have a star-studded cast at the top of the DFS food chain this week and Nzechukwu is the biggest favorite on the card by a wide margin. It may not take much to get Saint Preux out of there and if Nzechukwu was ever going to find a first round finish this is as good a spot as any. The odds imply Nzechukwu has an 84% chance to win, a 68% chance to land a finish, and a 38% chance it comes in round one.

Saint Preux is 40 years old, hasn’t fought in 13 months, is coming off a PED suspension, and looked terrible in his last four fights, with three of those ending in knockout losses in the first two rounds. He didn’t even survive the opening minute in his last fight against Philipe Lins, who has failed to finish anyone else in his other five UFC appearances. While 11 of Saint Preux’s 14 UFC wins ended early, he only averaged 87 points in his 14 wins and hasn’t topped 95 points since 2015. He scored just 55 points in a split decision win over a washed up Shogun Rua in his lone win over his last four fights. His second most recent win was all the way back in 2020 and it’s hard to have any level of confidence in Saint Preux at this late stage of his career. Any fight could be his last and now he’s facing a young, durable, powerful opponent with a solid 80% takedown defense. Saint Preux has only landed one takedown in his last six fights, so it’s hard to count on him finding much grappling success and he’s historically been a slow starter. While he is the cheapest fighter on the card, we still don’t have much interest in playing him and we fully expect him to get knocked out here and likely retire. The odds imply Saint Preux has a 16% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #2

Bryan Battle

7th UFC Fight (5-1)

Coming off yet another second round submission win, Battle locked up a rear-naked choke late in the second round against AJ Fletcher. That’s Battle’s third official second round submission win in his last six victories and he also had another second round submission over Andre Petroski on The Ultimate Fighter, that doesn’t count towards his official pro record. Fletcher failed to land either of his two takedown attempts against Battle, while Battle landed one of his own two attempts and then made the most of it as he found a finish on the mat. Prior to the win over Fletcher, Battle landed a 14 second round one knockout in front of his home Charlotte crowd against Gabe Green, who came into the fight like Battle just ran over his dog. Green charged forward with reckless abandonment right out of the gate and was immediately made to pay for it as Battle caught him with a right hand to the chin to put him out. Leading up to that quick win, Battle suffered his first UFC loss when he got smothered on the mat for three rounds by Rinat Fakhretdinov. Battle landed just three significant strikes in the fight, as he got taken down seven times and controlled for over 14 minutes. Just before that loss, Battle landed a 44 second first round knockout against Takashi Sato after dropping down from 185 lb to 170 lb for the first time in his career. Battle’s first two UFC wins both came against opponents from The Ultimate Fighter, in Gilbert Urbina, who was filling in for Tresean Gore on short notice, and then Tresean Gore after he recovered from a knee injury. Battle submitted Urbina in the second round, and then won a decision over Gore.

Now 10-2 as a pro, Battle has three wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and two decision victories. Four of his five submission wins came in round two, not even counting his R2 submission victory against Andre Petroski on TUF that technically counts as an exhibition match and doesn’t show up on his pro record. He also had a first round submission win early in his career. Two of his three knockout wins ended in the opening 44 seconds of UFC fights, while he also has a late second round knockout win on his record. Battle has also been submitted once himself and has one decision loss. His submission loss came via armbar 51 seconds into his second pro fight, and he’s gone 9-1 since then, not even counting his two wins on TUF.

Overall, Battle is an uptempo fighter who throws a lot of kicks and knees out of the clinch, and has started looking more dangerous with his hands recently. In his six UFC fights, he landed 3 of his 12 takedown attempts (25% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 11 of their 20 attempts (45% defense). Three of the four UFC opponents who tried to take him down landed at least two of their attempts. While his defensive wrestling hasn’t been great, he’s shown the ability to find finishes both on the feet and the mat and will look for a variety of chokes in the grappling exchanges. Battle lands a good amount of striking volume, although his career numbers (4.52 SSL/min & 3.73 SSA/min) are dragged down by his decision loss to Fakhretdinov where he only landed three significant strikes in 15 minutes. In his other five UFC fights, Battle averaged 6.50 SSL/min and 4.12 SSA/min. Ultimately, Battle isn’t a guy that will wow you in any one area, but he’s dangerous everywhere and seems to have sneaky power and submission skills.

Ange Loosa

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

Loosa has now won back-to-back decisions, after losing a decision in his short notice UFC debut against Mounir Lazzez and also losing a decision to Jack Della Maddalena on DWCS in 2021. In between those two losses, Loosa won a decision on the Louisiana regional scene just two weeks before making his UFC debut. In total, Loosa’s last seven fights all went the distance (4-3) and the last time one of his matches ended early was all the way back in a 2016 R1 TKO win via “Exhaustion.” While all of Loosa’s recent fights went the distance, his first six fights all ended in first round finishes. In his last win, Loosa looked close to finding a finish at times in the first two rounds as he poured in on Rhys McKee with a combination of wrestling and striking. However, McKee survived the onslaught and then nearly finished Loosa in the final minute of the fight, but simply ran out of time as an exhausted Loosa hung on to get his hand raised. Just over a year before that, Loosa secured his first UFC victory in a high-volume decision over AJ Fletcher. Fletcher had Loosa badly hurt late in round two and nearly finished him, but instead gassed out pushing for the finish, in a fight that took place at elevation in Salt Lake City. Loosa then nearly finished an exhausted Fletcher in round three with extensive ground and pound, but with a long leash from the ref the fight somehow managed to go the distance.

Now 10-3 as a pro, Loosa has five wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and four decision victories. He’s never been finished, with all three of his losses going the distance. All of those losses occurred in his last seven fights. Loosa’s training partners have said he’s calmed down some after being kind of wild earlier in his career, and his record backs that up.

Overall, Loosa is a well rounded fighter who has both the ability to strike and wrestle. He trains out of Kill Cliff FC and has spent extensive time working with Kamaru Usman, in addition to Gilbert Burns and numerous other high-level UFC fighters. While Loosa has power in his strikes, he misses a lot and has just a 46% striking accuracy. And while he’s durable, he absorbs a ton of strikes, averaging 6.88 SSA/min. It seems like he relies too much on his power and durability, which results in him getting outstruck and makes it tougher for him to win fights unless he dominates the wrestling exchanges or finishes his opponents. Between his DWCS appearance and his three UFC fights, he landed 9 of his 20 takedown attempts (45% accuracy), while defending all nine of the attempts against him (100% defense). While he was able to land six takedowns against McKee and two against Fletcher, Loosa only landed one of his six attempts in his losses to Lazzez and Della Maddalena. That’s somewhat concerning for his ability to find wrestling success against tougher competition, and we’ve also seen him slow down in the back half of fights. However, he’s still only 29 years and has plenty of time to continue to evolve.

Fight Prediction:

Battle will have a 3” height and reach advantage.

It’s easy to look at Loosa’s recent win over McKee and Battle’s loss to Fakhretdinov and think that Loosa should be able to find a good amount of wrestling success here, but it’s important to keep in mind that McKee has just a 33% takedown defense and has been dominated on the mat by everyone he’s faced. Outside of the loss to Fakhretdinov, Battle has held his own against wrestlers and is always a submission threat during grappling exchanges. He’s also taller and longer than Loosa, who’s already struggled with his striking accuracy and may have a tougher time finding his range here. Battle also should have the cardio advantage and we’ve seen Loosa slow down late in fights. Loosa doesn’t look like any sort of submission threat and Battle has never been knocked out, nor has Loosa knocked anybody out since 2016. So it seems like Loosa’s only realistic path to victory is a wrestling-heavy decision, which would give Battle a lot of opportunities to look for a submission. Loosa was also badly hurt on the feet by AJ Fletcher and then once again looked to be in trouble down the stretch against McKee, so there are multiple ways for Battle to finish him. Given that Loosa has gone to seven straight decisions and has never been finished, it certainly won’t be shocking if this one hits the scorecards as well. However, we like Battle’s chances of becoming the first fighter to ever finish Loosa and we’ll say he gets it done in the second round once again.

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

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DFS Implications:

Battle continues to put up solid DFS scores and has averaged 108 DraftKings points in his five UFC wins, with four scores of 97 or more. It certainly doesn’t hurt that two of five UFC wins have ended in the opening minute and garnered the Quick Win Bonus, but even in his lone decision victory he still scored 87 points. He’s yet to land more than a single takedown in a UFC fight, but his combination of striking and grappling makes him dangerous anywhere a fight can go. While he only averages 4.52 SSL/min, that number is brought down by his one UFC loss, where he got smothered on the mat for three rounds and only landed three total significant strikes. In his five UFC wins, he averaged 6.50 SSL/min and now he’s facing Ange Loosa, who averages 6.88 SSA/min. So as long as Battle can avoid being controlled for extended periods of time, he should be able to put up a solid striking total. And while Loosa has never been finished, each of his last two opponents nearly got him out of there. Loosa also tends to slow down later in finds, increasing the potential for Battle to land a late finish. While late finishes don’t always score enough to be useful, especially on DraftKings, Battle lands enough volume that he’ll still have a good shot at returning value. However, there is the potential for Battle to lock up a defensive submission as Loosa shoots in, which wouldn’t be ideal. So there are still some ways he finishes Loosa and fails to put up a huge score. Nevertheless, he looks like a high-floor, high-ceiling play in an uptempo matchup. The odds imply Battle has a 62% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.

Loosa has put up back-to-back huge scores, despite the fact that he hasn’t finished anyone since 2016. He offers a combination of wrestling and high-paced striking (6.32 SSL/min & 6.88 SSA/min) that’s perfect for DFS. His most recent decision win was good for 115 DraftKings points, after he scored 124 points before that. Just keep in mind, the most recent of those wins was against Rhys McKee, who’s 0-3 in the UFC and has been dominated on the mat by everyone he’s face in the UFC, while the previous win was against AJ Fletcher, who’s 1-3 in the UFC and has also struggled on his back and with his cardio. Despite each of the two opponents struggling to find wins in the UFC, they both almost knocked Loosa out in the later rounds. So while Loosa has never actually been finished in his career, he has had some close calls and we still don’t fully trust his floor. Nevertheless, he’s shown massive scoring upside in his decision wins when he can get his wrestling going and Battle only has a 45% takedown defense. So if Loosa does pull off the upset, it likely means he found a good amount of wrestling success that should score well. Despite his wrestling-heavy style, he lands enough significant strikes and takedowns to score well on FanDuel as well, and he averaged 120 DraftKings points and 112 points on FanDuel in his two UFC wins. Just keep in mind, this is a tougher matchup than he had in either of those wins and the field will surely chase his past scoring success. The odds imply Loosa has a 38% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #1

Tai Tuivasa

15th UFC Fight (8-6)

This fight was originally booked a month earlier on the UFC 298 card, but then got pushed back and turned into a main event. The reason for the change was that Tuivasa tore his meniscus during training in late December, which required surgery and about a six week recovery time.

Coming off three straight early losses, Tuivasa was recently submitted by Alexander Volkov in the second round of a September 2023 matchup, which is Volkov’s only submission win since 2016, before he joined the UFC. Tuivasa was able to beat up Volkov’s lead leg in that fight, but was also eating multiple combinations from Volkov. Tuivasa kind of got tripped to the mat in round two when Volkov caught a kick, which they didn’t count as a takedown, and was then finished on the ground. Prior to that, Tuivasa got knocked out in just 54 seconds by Sergei Pavlovich, following a third round knockout defeat against Ciryl Gane. Leading up to those losses, Tuivasa had landed five straight knockouts of his own, all in under seven minutes. Just before losing to Gane, Tuivasa knocked out Derrick Lewis in the second round, after finishing a series of struggling opponents in Augusto Sakai, Greg Hardy, Harry Hunsucker, and Stefan Struve. Prior to that winning streak, Tuivasa had gone on another three-fight skid, with a second round knockout loss to Junior dos Santos, a decision loss to a wrestler in Blagoy Ivanov, and a second round submission loss to another wrestler in Sergey Spivak.

Now 14-6 as a pro, Tuivasa has one decision win and 13 knockout victories, with 11 of those finishes ending in round one and two in the first half of round two. Tuivasa has been knocked out three times, has two submission losses, and one decision defeat. He’s just 1-5 in his career in fights that have made it past the seven minute mark, losing the last five of those. The only time he won a fight that made it past the seven minute mark was in 2018, when he secured his lone career decision victory against Andrei Arlovski.

This will be the 5th five-round fight of Tuivasa's career, and his third in the UFC. His first two fights scheduled to go five rounds were in 2016 just before he made his UFC debut and he knocked out both of those opponents in the first round. In his first UFC five-round fight, he got knocked out midway through round two by Junior dos Santos in 2018, and in his second he was knocked out late in round three by Ciryl Gane. Tuivasa has never been in a fight that lasted longer than 15 minutes and only one of his last nine fights even made it to the third round.

Overall, Tuivasa is a one-dimensional striker with no ground game. He throws heavy leg kicks and has no problem taking part in a brawl. He averages 3.98 SSL/min and 4.98 SSA/min and has never landed a takedown in the UFC on just three attempts. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 10 of their 22 attempts (54.5% defense). Tuivasa is notably the only fighter to ever knock Ciryl Gane down, who after their fight said Tuivasa is the hardest hitter he’s ever faced. And keep in mind, Gane was coming off a loss to Francis Ngannou. The last time Tuivasa went on a three-fight skid he bounced back with a first round knockout win over Stefan Struve, we’ll see how he responds here.

Marcin Tybura

19th UFC Fight (11-7)

Tybura was knocked out in just 73 seconds in his last fight, when he went into enemy territory and headlined a card against Tom Aspinall. Prior to that loss, Tybura had won two straight and seven of his previous eight fights, with the one loss coming in a 2021 three-round decision against Alexander Volkov. Tybura’s last three fights before losing to Aspinall all ended in three-round decisions, with him winning the last two of those against fellow wrestlers in Alexander Romanov and Blagoy Ivanov. Tybura has a trend of going distance against other wrestlers, while his fights against strikers generally end with someone getting knocked out. Leading up to his loss against Volkov, Tybura landed back-to-back ground and pound finishes against two one-dimensional strikers in Walt Harris and Greg Hardy.

Now 24-8 as a pro, Tybura has nine wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and nine decision wins. All of his recent finishes have come by TKO and his six submission wins all occurred earlier in his career from 2011 to 2014. He’s also been knocked out five times himself and has three decision losses. Ten of his 18 UFC fights went the distance (7-3) with the other eight ending in KO/TKOs (4-4). Five of those eight finishes came in rounds two and three, with the three exceptions being a 2023 R1 TKO loss to Tom Aspinall, a 2021 R1 TKO win over Walt Harris, and a 2019 R1 KO loss to Augusto Sakai.

This will be the 8th five-round fight of Tybura’s career, and third in the UFC. His five fights scheduled to go five-rounds before he joined the UFC all took place from 2013 to 2015, with Tybura notching three first round submissions and a first round knockout, while also getting knocked out once himself in the third round. His first UFC five-round fight ended in a 2017 decision loss to Fabricio Werdum, with his most recent ending in a R1 TKO against Tom Aspinall.

Overall, Tybura is a Heavyweight grappler and BJJ black belt. In his 18 UFC fights, he landed 20 takedowns on 59 attempts (33.9% accuracy), while his opponents only got him down on 7 of their 34 attempts (79.4% defense). Tybura lacks the striking ability to be competitive on the feet with anyone in the top of the Heavyweight division, but can hang against lower level strikers. With that said, he’s typically reliant on taking opponents down and beating them up with ground and pound to win fights and landed at least one takedown in 9 of his last 10 UFC wins. He lost four of the last five fights where he failed to land a takedown. Tybura went through a four fight stretch in 2018 to 2019 where he got knocked out three times, and is now coming off another knockout loss, so his durability has been a concern for him in the past.

Fight Prediction:

Tybura will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while Tuivasa is eight years younger than the 38-year-old Tybura.

This is a pretty clear cut striker versus grappler battle where the winner will be determined by where the fight takes place. If Tybura can take Tuivasa down, he should be able to control him on the mat and work his way to a finish, most likely via ground and pound. However, if Tuivasa can keep the fight standing, then he should be able to knock Tybura out in the opening round and a half. Both outcomes are squarely in play, but it’s easier to take someone down than land a clean knockout on the feet, and even Derrick Lewis was able to take Tuivasa down twice. Tuivasa has been fortunate not to face any wrestlers lately, but he did lose to the last two he fought back in 2019. While it’s certainly possible that Tybura gets knocked out before he can get the fight to the ground, this is a favorable stylistic matchup for him to get his wrestling going and we like him to finish Tuivasa on the mat within three rounds.

Our favorite bet here is “Marcin Tybura ML” at +115.

Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets and to be notified throughout the week when and where these lines are available.

DFS Implications:

Tuivasa is your stereotypical KO or bust Heavyweight who relies on knocking opponents out early to win fights. Only one of his 14 pro wins came beyond the seven minute mark and has averaged 104 DraftKings points in his eight UFC victories. He only scored 65 points in his lone decision victory, but hasn’t required the judges in any of his last nine fights. Eleven of his 13 career knockouts came in round one, with the other two occurring in the opening two minutes of round two. In those two second round finishes, he “only” scored 96 and 99 DraftKings points respectively, which could still be enough at his mid-range price tag, but won’t guarantee him a spot in the optimal. To really score well, he’ll need either a well-timed first round knockout or a second round finish with multiple knockdowns. Tybura is now 38 years old and has been knocked out five times in the past, including in the first round of his last fight, so Tuivasa is definitely live for a finish. However, Tybura will also be looking to wrestle, which will limit Tuivasa’s opportunities to land a knockout blow. Tuivasa really struggles off his back and may not get back up if he gets taken down. That leaves him as a risky, one-dimensional DFS play. The odds imply Tuivasa has a 51% chance to win, a 46% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.

Tybura’s DFS scoring has come back down to Earth lately as he’s faced stiffer competition. After landing a pair of ground and pound TKOs in 2020 and 2021 that were good for 100 and 112 DraftKings points respectively, he failed to top 64 DraftKings points in any of his last four fights, with three of those going the distance (2-1) and the other ending in a quick knockout loss, just 73 seconds into the first round of his recent main event against Tom Aspinall. That was the fifth knockout loss of Tybura’s career, and now he’ll be going up against another power puncher in Tuivasa. Therefore, his scoring floor is non-existent, but he’s shown decent upside when facing one-dimensional strikers. Tuivasa has just a 54% takedown defense, is terrible off his back, struggles against wrestlers, got taken down twice by Derrick Lewis, and was even submitted by a striker in Alexander Volkov in his last fight. Tuivasa is also coming off a knee injury that slowed him down in the beginning of the year. So it’s hard not to like Tybura’s chances in this one, he just needs to get the fight to the mat before Tuivasa knocks him out. And while Tybura doesn’t always put up the biggest scores, if the ref doesn’t come in with a quick trigger finger, we could see Tybura rack up a good amount of ground and pound leading up to a stoppage. He’s also affordably priced, which leaves him with a lower threshold to end up in the optimal. The odds imply Tybura has a 49% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.

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