Tip: Hard Refresh this page (Cmd + Shift + R on a Mac, Ctrl + F5 on PC) to assure you're looking at the most up to date version of The Sheet.
Looking to skip the reading and get straight to the best plays and top bets? We're now offering premium DFS and betting content at patreon.com/mmadfs that includes our new DFS Cheat Sheet, with our top DraftKings, FanDuel and PrizePicks plays along with our DraftKings ownership projections, as well as our top early bets and our complete betting chart for every UFC fight.
Fight Day Scratches: None
Fighter Notes:
Fight #14
Ode Osbourne
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Coming off yet another fight to end in R1, this time in a KO loss, Osbourne now hasn’t seen the second round in eight straight fights. He most recently went up against a desperate Manel Kape and got knocked out with a flying knee late in R1. Up until that point the fight was even in striking. That was the first time in Osbourne’s career that he’s ever been knocked out.
Osbourne has now alternated wins and losses in four straight fights, with his last two matches ending in knockouts after the previous three ended in submissions. His first three UFC fights all took place at different weight classes, as he debuted at 135 lb, before moving up to 145 lb against a short notice opponent in his second bout, and then he dropped all the way down to 125 lb most recently. Apparently he wasn’t cutting much weight at 135 lb, where he made his UFC debut, and he came in under the limit when he fought at 145 lb, so it makes sense to give weight cutting a shot if he can comfortably get down to 125 lb, but the fact that he cut down to 125 lb for the first time and then also got knocked out for the first time is somewhat concerning.
In his last win, which took place at 145 lb when Jerome Rivera stepped in on short notice, Osbourne knocked Rivera down with a laser left hand and finished him with a machine gun-like flurry of ground strikes just 26 seconds into the fight. In fairness, Rivera has lost four straight with three finishes. That was Osbourne’s second UFC fight after he took 13 months off following a submission loss in his debut.
His January 2020 UFC debut at 135 lb ended in a Guillotine Submission loss to Brian Kelleher, just a couple of minutes into the fight. Kelleher now has seven wins by Guillotine Choke on his record, so it’s sort of his thing. For what it’s worth, Ode looked pretty explosive in the limited action prior to getting submitted.
Prior to that loss, Ode got his shot in the UFC by landing a R1 Armbar Submission victory on DWCS back in 2019. We mentioned his last eight fights have ended in R1 (5-3), but to dive deeper, three of those wins came by submission off his back, while two ended in knockouts. Two of the three losses also ended in submissions, with a Guillotine and a Kneebar.
Looking at his entire career, eight of his nine pro wins have come early, with four KOs and four submissions. Three of his four losses have also come early, all in R1, with two submissions and then the recent KO. The only two decisions he’s been to came in consecutive 2016 fights (1-1)
CJ Vergara
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Punching his ticket to the UFC with a weird 41 second R1 KO win on DWCS less than two months ago, Vergara has now won five straight fights with all of those wins coming by KO. He finished his DWCS opponent with a knee to the liver, which seemed sort of more flukey than impressive the way it went down, but he got the quick finish nevertheless.
Just prior to that victory, Vergara won the Fury FC Flyweight Championship against Jacob Silva, who nontably lost twice on DWCS against Jeff Molina and J.P. Buys. Vergara looked to be in trouble early in that fight after getting knocked down by Silva in the first round, but showed his resilience as he bounced back with a R3 TKO. The fight played out as an up-tempo brawl with both guys leaving it all out there.
Vergara is now 9-2-1 as a pro, with six wins by KO, and three decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted once, which came in a 2018 R1 Rear-Naked Choke, and he’s lost one decision. While he hasn’t been to a decision since he fought to a 2016 draw, five of his first six pro fights went the distance. Following the 2016 draw, he took all of 2017 off and appeared to return in 2018 with more of a sense of urgency as he hasn’t been to the judges since. His only decision loss notably came against UFC fighter Jonathan Martinez in 2015 split-decision.
Overall, Vergara looks to be a one-dimensional striker who likes to push the pace, but doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling.
UPDATE: Vergara was the last fighter to weigh in (not counting main event backup Luque) and missed weight by 1.4 lb.
Fight Prediction:
Osbourne will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.
This sets up as an exciting fight to kick off the card between two guys that both haven’t been to a decision since 2016. Osbourne looks like the superior striker and grappler, but he’s also lost two of his last three fights, albeit against far stiffer competition, while Vergara has won five straight. That’s about the only argument we can make for Vergara here, and we like Osbourne to get another quick win. He’s fully capable of getting it done on the mat or the feet, but we’ll say he lands a knockout.
Our favorite bet here is “Ode Osbourne R1 KO” at +1000.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
Osbourne is exactly the type of fighter you want when considering fights to target. Win or lose, he hasn’t been past the first round in his last eight fights (5-3) and he can finish opponents through both striking and grappling. Eight of his nine career wins have come early, as have three of his four losses. After facing a tough Manel Kape in his last match, now he gets a major step down in competition against UFC newcomer CJ Vergara who notably missed weight. This looks like a prime bounce back spot for Osbourne and he’s underpriced in DFS after seeing the line move in his favor. The odds imply he has a 62% chance to win, a 35% chance to get a finish and a 15% chance it comes in R1.
Vergara is making his UFC debut, which always adds some volatility into the mix, but he is notably coming off five straight KO wins against lower level opponents. He hasn’t been to a decision since 2016 and has no problem throwing down in a high-paced brawl. While this looks like a tough matchup, Osbourne has been finished in the first round in two of his last three fights, so it makes sense to have some exposure to both sides of this one. The odds imply Vergara has a 38% chance to win, a 23% chance it comes early and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #13
Melsik Baghdasaryan
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Baghdasaryan had been scheduled to face T.J. Laramie here, but Laramie dropped out and Souza stepped in on a week’s notice.
Coming off an impressive R2 KO win in his recent UFC debut, Baghdasaryan finished another UFC newcomer in wrestler Collin Anglin with a violent head kick midway through the second round. Anglin was able to take Baghdasaryan down once in the first round, but Baghdasaryan was quickly able to return to his feet and control the fight from that point on. He finished ahead in significant strikes 44-25 in the impressive introduction to the UFC. That was just the second time Baghdasaryan had been in a fight that lasted longer than 86 seconds, with the first coming in a DWCS decision in his second most recent fight.
Baghdasaryan won that DWCS decision in September 2020, and was still awarded a UFC contract (obviously) based on his explosive potential. Baghdasaryan had finished his previous four opponents in a combined 62 seconds with ridiculous fight times of 14, 32, 9 and 7 seconds. So unsurprisingly he came into his DWCS fight looking for another quick finish. His opponent, Dennis Buzukja, came in with a 5-1 pro record having never been finished and was able to absorb a ton of violent shots to force Baghdasaryan into the second round for the first time in his career. He predictably began to slow down at that point after landing 44 significant strikes in round one with a crazy 73% accuracy rate. After appearing to gas and then lose the second round, Baghdasaryan bounced back in the third round and regained his striking lead, however, he did almost get Armbarred at one point and his grappling definitely looks like a liability. Baghdasaryan finished ahead in significant strikes 102-57 and in total strikes 110-71. He missed on both of his takedown attempts but was able to defend six of Buzukja’s eight attempts.
A southpaw kickboxer, Baghdasaryan is now 6-1 in his MMA career and on a six fight winning streak. He’s regularly trained with Ronda Rousey and Edmen Shahbazyan, who shares this card with him. The only loss of his career came in a 2014 R1 Armbar Submission in his first pro fight. Following the loss he said fuck grappling and switched to boxing and kickboxing from 2015 to 2018. However, following a 2018 kickboxing decision loss in a KJP Championship fight, Baghdasaryan decided to return to MMA in 2019 and proceeded to rattle off four straight lightning fast first round finishes over a six month span before being invited onto DWCS a year later.
Bruno Souza
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Entering his UFC debut on short notice and on a potentially fraudulent 10 fight winning streak, six of Souza’s last seven fights/wins have ended in either decisions (5) or DQ’s (1). Three of those decisions were split, and Souza has made a habit out of barely winning. The only fight to end early during that stretch was a 2020 R2 TKO win.
Souza is a karate style fighter who doesn’t appear to offer much in terms of grappling and will keep his hands dangerously low a lot of the time. Nothing stands out as exceptional with him and he doesn’t look like much of a threat to finish fights early.
Still just 25 years old, Souza is now 10-1 as a pro, with his only career loss coming in a decision in his 2016 pro debut. He has one TKO win (R2 2020) and a pair of submission wins in his second and fourth pro fights to go along with six decision wins and one win by DQ. He really just looks like a decision grinder, and he’s notably never been finished, which will surely be tested in his upcoming debut.
UPDATE: Souza was slow to weigh in and missed weight by 2.4 lb.
Fight Prediction:
Souza will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 70” reach.
Baghdasaryan is lethal with his striking and Souza’s hands down approach to fighting is a recipe for disaster when it comes to his chances of maintaining consciousness for the duration of this fight. We expect Baghdasaryan to knock Souza out early as long as he can get his hands on him, and Souza’s only hope will be to evade contact and wait for Baghdasaryan to punch himself out. That seems like a long shot and we’ll say Baghdasaryan knocks him out in R1.
Our favorite bet here is “Baghdasaryan R1 KO” at +360.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
While Baghdasaryan is a one-dimensional kickboxer, he is so dangerous on the feet that it makes up for his lack of grappling and cardio. He’s won six straight fights, with five KOs, including four in 32 seconds or less. His recent R2 KO win was just the second time he’s been out of the first round in seven pro fights and now he gets an opponent making his short notice UFC debut, who doesn’t appear to offer anything in terms of grappling and keeps his hands way too low. This all seems to be setting up perfectly for Baghdasaryan to land another early KO and he looks like a great DFS play. Just keep in mind he’s prone to gassing later in fights and needs an early finish to be useful. The odds imply he has a 74% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish and a 17% chance it comes in R1.
Souza has done nothing to impress us and is now wandering into a murder spot on short notice for his first UFC fight. Sure he’s won 10 straight, but he’s been grinding out close decisions and this will easily be his toughest test to date. With no grappling, low-volume striking and only one finish in his last seven fights, he doesn’t appear to offer any DFS upside . We don’t have any interest in playing him, but he will be low owned for what it’s worth. The odds imply he has a 26% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish and a 5% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #12
Dustin Jacoby
7th UFC Fight (3-2-1)Jacoby stepped into this fight just on Monday after Aleksa Camur dropped out.
Coming off a R1 KO win over Darren Stewart, Jacoby handed Stewart the first KO/TKO loss of his career. That’s somewhat notable considering Jacoby will now face another opponent who’s never been knocked out. Despite getting taken down twice early in the fight against Stewart, Jacoby quickly returned to his feet and proceeded to outland Stewart 37-18 in significant strikes before finishing him midway through the round with heavy strikes along the fence.
Just prior to that, Jacoby fought to a somewhat disappointing draw against Ion Cutelaba, Jacoby showed off his toughness just to survive the opening round as Cutelaba took him down 8 times on 11 attempts in the first five minutes, while landing heavy elbows in what appeared to be a 10-8 round. Jacoby bounced back and led in striking for the remainder of the match while stuffing seven of Cutelaba’s next eight takedown attempts in the later two rounds. The fight ended in a split-decision draw with Jacoby ahead in significant strikes 84-71, but Cutelaba leading in total strikes 111-100 and in takedowns 9-1 on a ridiculous 19 attempts compared to just three attempts by Jacoby. It’s worth pointing out that Jacoby accepted that fight on less than two week’s notice, so simply fighting three really tough rounds and finishing the match as the fresher fighter deserves some praise. It’s also notable that he had no cardio issues taking the fight on short notice as he prepares for another short notice fight here. Keep in mind he used to fight down at 185 lb and routinely weighs in under the 205 lb limit. So he may not even really be cutting weight.
In Jacoby’s third most recent fight, Grishin missed weight badly, tipping the scales at 210.5 lb for the 205 lb match, and looking massive on fight day. That already looked like a tough matchup for Jacoby to land a finish, so adding to the size difference likely didn’t help any. Grishin started hot, landing two knockdowns in the first round, but Jacoby bounced back and appeared to win the second round. The third round was close, but all three judges gave it to Jacoby and he went on to win a unanimous decision, despite being knocked down twice in the first five minutes. Grishin appeared shocked by the results, but he should have done more in the last two rounds if he wanted to secure a victory. Grishin did come out slightly ahead in significant strikes 66-57, but Jacoby destroyed his calf throughout the fight. Grishin’s size appeared to give Jacoby a lot of trouble, but going into this next fight Jacoby will have the height and reach advantage.
Jacoby originally joined the UFC in 2011 at just 23 years old, but was let go after losing his first two fights—one in a decision and the other by a R3 Guillotine Choke. Following his departure, he went 6-3 in MMA fights with three R1 KO wins, three decision victories, one decision loss, a R2 KO loss, and a R2 submission loss. He also stepped away from MMA entirely to try kickboxing for a four year period from 2015 to 2019, where he also went 6-3—including a win over UFC fighter Karl Roberson.
Upon returning to MMA in 2019, Jacoby won a pair of decisions, including a high-volume win on DWCS in August 2020. In that fight, he put on an impressive striking display with 117 significant strikes landed while only absorbing 30. He also notched a knockdown and went 1 for 1 on takedowns, while impressively defending 10 of his opponents 11 takedown attempts. His striking looked remarkably improved since his 2011-2012 tape and his kickboxing experience was evident. Of some concern, he did look like he punched himself out late in the second round after starting the fight at an unsustainable pace. Despite the DWCS fight ending in a decision, Jacoby was still awarded a UFC contract.
After nearly nine years away from the organization, Jacoby made the most of his second opportunity in the UFC and knocked out Justin Ledet midway through the first round of his first fight back. Jacoby was able to knock Ledet down with a series of leg kicks and then land several heavy ground strikes before smartly stepping back, forcing Ledet to attempt to return to his feet, and then finishing him with one final strike just as he got back up.
Eleven of Jacoby’s 15 career wins have come early, with 10 KOs and one submission. Ten of those 11 finishes notably occurred in the first round, with the one exception being a 2011 R2 TKO due to a doctor stoppage. Three of his five career losses have also come early, with a 2012 R3 Guillotine Choke, a 2014 R2 KO and a 2015 R2 Rear-Naked Choke.
In Jacoby’s first stint with the UFC he fought at 185 lb, however, he’s since moved up to 205 lb in his return to MMA. Jacoby acknowledged that he probably wasn’t ready for the UFC at 23 years old and lacked the confidence required. He says he’s in a much better place now and is ready to make a run. He’s gone 5-0-1 in his last six fights, although four of those did end in decisions. His last two pro MMA losses both came in the second round of Bellator fights back in 2014 and 2015 and he looks to be a fighter on the rise in the prime of his career.
John Allan
3rd UFC Fight (0-1, NC)Allan had been scheduled to face Aleksa Camur as a +115 underdog, before Camur dropped out and Jacoby stepped in, at which point Allan shot up to a +300 underdog against the short notice replacement.
Allan is coming off a grappling-heavy decision loss to Roman Dolidze, where Dolidze landed three of his five takedown attempts with over seven minutes of control time and three official submission attempts. Dolidze also outlanded Allan 51-29 in significant strikes and 118-48 in total strikes.
We’ve seen Allan struggle with grapplers and he was notably submitted by one of the worst UFC fighters of all time in Vinicius Moreira, who went 0-4 in the UFC with all four losses coming in six minutes or less. Allan is now 13-6 as a pro, with four submission losses and two decision defeats. Twelve of his 13 wins have come early with nine KOs and three submissions.
After winning a decision in his July 2019 UFC debut against Mike Rodriguez, Allan had the result overturned to a No Contest and was hit with a year long suspension when he tested positive for tamoxifen – a prohibited estrogen blocker used to treat gynecomastia, which Allan said he’d been using since he was a teenager. During his suspension Allan had gynecomastia surgery so he no longer needs to take the banned medicine. Allan was understandably upset about the suspension since he felt he had done nothing wrong.
Fight Prediction:
Jacoby will have a 2” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
Allan has now fought just once in the last 28 months and did nothing to impress us in that fight. He looks outgunned on the feet against Jacoby so it would make sense for Allan to look to get the fight to the ground. The last time he faced a pure striker was when he took on Mike Rodriguez in his UFC debut and he landed 4 of his 6 takedown attempts with three official submission attempts. However, Rodriguez is infamously terrible against grapplers, and Jacoby should put up far more resistance. We like Jacoby to outclass Allan on the feet and there’s a great chance he hands him his first KO loss, likely in the first round. However, there’s a decent chance that if Allan is able to survive round one he can make it to a decision, but we still don’t see him getting his hand raised. So give us Jacoby by R1 KO or decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Jacoby R1 KO” at +310.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
Jacoby is a quintessential R1 or bust DFS play, which generally makes it easy to determine your correct exposure levels by looking at the odds. He’s scored 106 and 119 DraftKings points when he gets a R1 KO and just 45, 55, 12 and 11 points when he doesn’t. He’s a pure kickboxer with just one takedown in six UFC fights and he’s entirely reliant on striking, knockdowns and finishes to score well. That makes it tougher for him to lead the slate in scoring and he’s notably the most expensive fighter on DraftKings. The odds imply he has a 76% chance to win, a 50% chance to end it early and a 19% chance to win in the first round. Considering 91% of his finishes have occurred in R1, it’s somewhat surprising that there is such a gap between his R1 and ITD lines, and we think his true chances to land a R1 KO lay somewhere in between.
Because Jacoby stepped in on Monday after DraftKings pricing was already released, Allan is massively overpriced and would be just $6,600 had his pricing been released
Fight #11
Chris Barnett
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Looking to bounce back from a R2 submission loss to Ben Rothwell in his recent UFC debut, Barnett was outlanded 60-33 by Rothwell in significant strikes and taken down once. Barnett really struggled with the size and length of the 6’4” Rothwell, who took Barnett down in R1 and nearly submitted him at that point. Barnett was able to escape to see the end of the round, but he was really just delaying the inevitable as Rothwell ended up submitting him midway through R2 with a Guillotine Choke after Barnett shot for a desperation takedown after getting hurt on the feet.
A former Super Heavyweight and current life of the party, Chris “Huggy Bear” Barnett has fought as high as 340 lb despite being just 5’9”. He cut 75 lb to get down to Heavyweight in 2016 and won a decision in his next fight. However, he then lost by KO/TKO in three straight matches, although one of those was from a doctor stoppage due to a cut above his eye. Since the string of losses, Barnett won six in a row leading up to the loss in his UFC debut, with four KOs, including three in the first round, to go along with a pair of decisions. He also competed in two kickboxing matches in 2019, where he went 1-1, as well as a grappling match against Yoel Romero, where Barnett was submitted in under four minutes.
He now holds a 21-7 pro record, with his first 27 fights all ending in either KOs or decisions leading up to his submission loss in his UFC debut. Of his 21 wins, 16 have come by knockout, including eight in R1, with five going the distance. He has three KO losses, three by decision and one submission.
With a Taekwondo background, Barnett likes to mix in spinning attacks and throws a high number of kicks in general for such a big guy, as he’ll often mix a lead leg kick into his combinations. Unlike many Taekwondo fighters, Barnett will still mix in an occasional takedown, where he’ll try to drag his opponents down using his weight to hang on them while looking for trips. He’s not hunting for submissions on the ground, however, and is purely looking for ground and pound. Two of his last five fights went the distance in close, low-volume staring contests.
Gian Villante
18th UFC Fight (7-10)Villante just announced that this will be his final UFC fight and he appears to have already mentally checked out as he ballooned up from 243 lb in his last fight to 260.6 lb for this one. Keep in mind he’s still just two fights removed from fighting down at Light Heavyweight, where he spent almost his entire career. Since moving up to Heavyweight, he’s been submitted by a terrible Maurice Green and lost a decision against former Middleweight and questionable talent Jake Collier. Overall, Villante has looked terrible at Heavyweight and he really should have retired a couple of years ago.
Interesting from a betting perspective, he’s gone the distance in five of his last seven fights and four of those decisions were split.
While 12 of his 17 pro wins have come early (10 by KO & two by submission), 8 of those 12 early wins came prior to joining the UFC in 2013. He’s been knocked out five times, submitted once and has lost seven decisions.
Villante’s last early victory was a 2016 R2 KO against a terrible Saparbek Safarov who’s been finished early in three of his four UFC fights. Villante’s only performance that really stands out on paper is his R3 KO of Corey Anderson back in 2015. His only R1 finish in the UFC came in 2015 against a 43-year-old Anthony Perosh who had been knocked out six times prior, including five in R1. Now 36 years old and with one foot out the door, it will be interesting to see how much of an effort Villiante puts out, knowing that this will be his last fight and he presumably would prefer not to start his retirement rehabbing an injury.
Villante was massively outlanded by Jake Collier in his last fight, as Collier led 123-80 in significant strikes, so it will be interesting to see if Villante makes this next one any more competitive.
In his fight prior to that, Villante knocked Maurice Greene down in the third round and looked extremely close to finishing the fight. However, Greene was somehow able to survive on his back and it looked like Villante more or less punched himself out. Then with a very unusual variation of an Arm-Triangle Choke, Greene appeared to smother Villante as he pulled Villant’s face into his chest and somehow got Villante to tap.
Fight Prediction:
Villante will have a 6” height advantage and 1” reach advantage.
Villante seems like he’s been going through the motions for a while, and it’s somewhat surprising that it even took him this long to announce his retirement. He will notably be fighting in front of his home NY crowd, so maybe they can at least draw some sort of an effort out of him, but we’ll believe it when we see it. He’s looked rough since moving up to Heavyweight and really let himself go coming into this fight. While neither one of these two fighters have looked especially dangerous lately, it’s possible they simply gas out late in this fight and force a stoppage. However, we expect it to end in a sloppy decision, with Villante getting some of the home cooking to make the decision close. It’s basically a coin flip as to who gets the nod as both of these two are way too gross to comfortably bet on. Forced to choose, we’ll give the slight edge to Villiante based on his height advantage and experience, but don’t be surprised if Barnett wins.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Split-Decision” at +550.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
Barnett is your typical KO or bust Heavyweight, even if he does occasionally land a takedown. He doesn’t land a ton of strikes and he’ll need a finish to return value. He’s never landed a submission in his career, so it seems safe to say that won’t happen. So you’re just banking on an early KO if you play Barnett and Villiante has only been knocked out once in the last four years, which came from a body shot. It is possible that Villiante is already completely checked out after announcing this will be his last fight, and if things get hairy it’s entirely possible he simply quits to avoid taking further damage. That’s probably your best hope if you play Barnett. Villante notably ballooned all the way up to 260.6 lb, after fighting at 243 lb most recently, so he appears to already be in full on party mode. The odds currently imply he has a 45% chance to win, a 29% chance to get a finish and an 11% chance it comes in R1.
Villante hasn’t scored above 63 DraftKings points since 2016 but does get a favorable matchup here against a suspect talent. The line has notably flipped in Villante’s favor, so he’s now underpriced on DraftKings, which will surely drive his ownership up some. Given his lackluster recent history, it’s hard to get excited about him, but who knows, maybe he’ll try to end his career with a bang. We don’t really see it happening, but you never know. It’s been five years since he last finished an opponent and that came down at Light Heavyweight before he let himself go. We expect to see a half-hearted Heavyweight sparring match that ends in a low-volume close decision and provides no DFS value. The odds imply Villiante has a 55% chance to win, a 26% chance to get a finish and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #10
Ian Garry
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Garry is making his UFC debut after going 7-0 with Cage Warriors and most recently winning the CW Vacant Welterweight Title in a 25 minute decision in June 2021. He suffered a minor knee injury leading up to that fight and then 10 days before the match his team abandoned him for unknown reasons, but he was still able to get the win regardless. A day after the fight, the UFC reached out to sign him and Garry joined Sanford MMA with Henri Hooft to prepare for his debut.
His previous five wins all ended in the first two rounds after he won a three-round decision in his 2019 pro debut. He has four wins by KO, one by submission and two decisions. While he doesn’t have a ton of power in his hands, we’ve seen him finish fights with flying knees and head kicks and he knocked out former UFC fighter Rostem Akman with a R2 head kick in his second most recent fight.
Garry looks to have decent grappling and isn’t shy about getting fights to the mat. While he may not have the most powerful punches in the division, he’s got fast hands and snaps his jab out with good effectiveness. He also has good footwork and movement, although sometimes he’s so hard to hit that he slows down the pace of fights, like we saw in his last match, where he was able to avoid taking much damage as he circled along the outside of the Octagon while his opponent pushed forward.
Still just 23 years old, Garry looks like a bright up and coming prospect out of Dublin, Ireland and it will be interesting to see how much he has improved during his short time at Sanford MMA.
Jordan Williams
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Now 0-2 in the UFC with the first of those losses coming at 185 lb and the most recent occurring down at 170 lb, Williams looked dreadful after dropping down a weight class, but will stay there nevertheless. He took on an unimpressive submission specialist in Mickey Gall in that recent match and got rocked less than 30 seconds in with a right hand out of the clinch. Gall continued to win the striking exchanges and forced Williams to shoot for an ill advised takedown, at which point Gall used a Guillotine attempt to reverse the position as he rolled Williams into a mounted Guillotine and then immediately took Williams’ back as he looked to escape. Gall quickly locked up a Rear-Naked Choke at that point and Williams quickly tapped.
Williams was always undersized in the 185 lb division, but because he’s a Type 1 diabetic he had said he couldn’t cut weight to compete at 170 lb. So he had been fighting at his natural weight in the low 180’s and actually knocked out Gregory Rodrigues on DWCS in 2020 at that weight class. However, he then took a beating in his UFC debut against Nassourdine Imavov and afterwards said he’s been undergoing some sort of new stem cell treatment that has helped his condition and allowed him to make the weight cut he previously didn’t think was possible. Despite physically being able to make the cut, he seemed to lose his power while gaining no speed down at 170 lb.
He did notably also fight at 170 lb to start his career from 2014-2016, however after getting knocked out in the first round by Dwight Grant in 2016 he took nearly two years off and returned in 2018 at Middleweight (185 lb) where he had been fighting undersized up until his most recent match. When he was originally fighting at Welterweight, he went 5-2 to start his career with six of those fights ending early, including five in the first round. Keep in mind that was when he was just getting started and the records of his opponents coming in were 2-4, 4-3, 4-1 (L), 0-1, 3-7, 13-6 and 5-1 (L). So four of those five wins came against opponents with losing records, meaning it’s hard to take too much away from that stretch other than the fact he was knocked out twice in the first round. In fairness, both of those were against fighters who went on to join the UFC in Dwight Grant and Rodrigo Vargas.
Williams’ UFC debut against Nassourdine Imavov didn’t go at all as he had planned and ultimately ended in a sloppy decision loss. Imavov landed an inadvertent headbutt and a vicious knee to the groin in the first round of that fight, which appeared to slow Williams down from the very beginning. There was also another clash of heads in the third round that Williams took the worst of. Every time Williams shot for a takedown in that fight, Imavov looked for a Guillotine Choke Submission and looked close to completing it at times. Imavov finished ahead in significant strikes 68-30 and in total strikes 81-62. He landed just one of eight takedowns while Williams failed to land any of his three attempts. Both guys were absolutely exhausted late in the fight. You can’t question Williams’ heart and he reportedly suffered a broken nose and orbital in his debut along with a “cracked” vertebrae.
Williams is now 9-5 as a pro with eight of his nine wins coming early, including seven KOs and one submission. Five of those finishes occurred in the first round, one ended in the second and two came in round three. Three of his five career losses have also come early, all in the first round, with two KOs and one submission. His other two career losses both ended in decisions, with both occurring in his last four fights. He’s now just 1-3 in his last four matches and desperately needs a win if he wants to remain in the UFC much longer.
Fight Prediction:
Garry will have a 2” height advantage, but Williams will have a 1” reach advantage.
Williams looked absolutely terrible in his last fight after dropping back down to 170 lb, but it remains to be seen if he can look any better in his second fight at the weight class. Call us skeptical and we’ll believe it when we see it. Now he faces a much tougher opponent in UFC newcomer Ian Garry and this looks like a really tough spot for Williams to get a win. With that said, we see guys struggle all the time as they fight for the first time with the organization, so when you combine Williams’ medical condition on one side with a young debuting fighter on the other, this does look like somewhat of a high-variance spot. Nevertheless, Garry has looked impressive for his entire career and we like him to win this fight. The bigger question will be whether or not he can get a finish. Based on how bad Williams looked in his last fight and Garry’s history of landing finishes, a finish certainly appears likely, but we wouldn’t be shocked to see him win a convincing decision either. Regardless, Garry looks like a safe bet to get the victory.
Our favorite bet here is “Garry Wins by Submission or Decision” at +200.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
Garry’s mix of grappling, striking and finishes bode well for his potential DFS ceiling, but we notably saw him take a more conservative approach in his last fight as he fought to a 25 minute decision. In fairness, he didn’t even have a team with him for that match and was essentially flying solo, but he did show us how he could win while failing to put up a big DFS score, as he spent a lot of that fight landing punches from the outside while circling away from contact. However, he landed five straight finishes in the first two rounds leading up to that fight and has proven he can end fights in a variety of ways. We still want to see how that transitions to the UFC before betting the farm on him, but he looks to have a solid DFS ceiling with a decent, albeit uncertain floor. The odds imply he has a 75% chance to win, a 54% chance to land a finish and a 28% chance it comes in R1.
It’s impossible to trust Williams even a little after seeing how terrible he looked in his last fight and the only argument for playing him in DFS is that he’s going against an opponent making his UFC debut and will be low owned. That still looks pretty thin after seeing the run Garry went on in Cage Warriors, and this looks like a rough matchup for Williams despite the fact that he’s the one with more experience. His up-tempo fighting style does lend itself towards DFS production, but we’re looking at that more as a plus for Garry than Williams. Maybe he’ll look better at 170 lb in his second fight down at that weight class, but in the words of George W, fool me once shame on you...you’re not gonna fool me a second time. The odds imply Williams has a 25% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #9
Nassourdine Imavov
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Coming off an impressive R2 TKO win over Ian Heinisch, Imavov was able to defend all three of Heinisch’s takedown attempts and slowly dismantle him on the feet as he outlanded Heinisch 39-24 in significant strikes before finishing him midway through R2. That win came after Imavov went 1-1 in a pair of decisions in his first two UFC fights.
Imavov’s UFC debut against Jordan Williams ended in a sloppy/dirty decision. Imavov landed an inadvertent headbutt and a vicious knee to the groin in the first round of that fight, which looked to slow Williams down from the start. There was also another clash of heads in the third round, which Williams definitely took the worst of. Every time Williams shot for a takedown in that fight, Imavov looked for a Guillotine Choke Submission and looked close to completing it at times.
After winning six straight fights from 2017 to 2020, Imavov lost a grappling heavy decision to Phil Hawes in his second most recent fight, where Hawes spent the majority of the match pushing Imavov up against the cage and trying to take him down. That was a little surprising after Hawes knocked out Jacob Malkoun 18 seconds into his October UFC debut, but it just shows the level of respect Hawes had for the power of Imavov. Hawes was clearly compromised late in the match as Imavov had him on wobbly legs and nearly finished him.
The only time Imavov has ever been finished was in a 2016 R1 Guillotine Choke in his pro debut. He’s also lost a pair of decisions. Outside of those three losses, he’s won his other 10 pro fights, with four KOs, four submissions and a pair of decisions. He’s now won seven of his last eight fights.
Imavov notably fought most of his career at 170 lb before moving up to Middleweight (185 lb) when he joined the UFC. Imavov is a powerful striker and while he’s generally not looking to grapple, he was born in Dagestan, Russia before moving to France, and he has as many submission wins as KOs.
Edmen Shahbazyan
7th UFC Fight (4-2)After winning his first 11 pro fights, Shahbazyan has now dropped two straight as he’s faced increasingly tougher competition. His first career loss came in an August 2020 R3 TKO against Derek Brunson and he followed that up with a decision loss to Jack Hermansson most recently. Prior to those two fights, he had only been past the first round once in his career, which came in his UFC debut when he won a split-decision over Darren Stewart.
With little experience in longer fights, Shahbazyan looked exhausted later in the second round against Brunson, who very nearly finished the fight just before the close of R2 with violent ground and pound, but Herb Dean allowed Shahbazyan to continue. The doctor checked him out between rounds, but also allowed the fight to continue. Clearly Shahbazyan was done and Brunson finished him just 26 seconds into the third round as he dragged him back to the mat and began unleashing punches while Shahbazyan failed to fight back.
We again saw Shahbazyan struggle against a grappler in his most recent fight when he faced Hermansson. While the first round played out entirely on the feet, Hermansson was able to take it to the mat in rounds two and three as he landed three of his four takedown attempts in the later rounds, with over seven minutes of control time. Hermansson nearly got a late finish, but simply ran out of time.
Shahbazyan is extremely dangerous early on in fights, but fades mightily later on. There’s no denying the power he possesses in his hands, but there’s more to MMA than just throwing heavy punches. Shahbazyan will need to improve his grappling and cardio if he wants to make a run in the Middleweight division or perhaps even just to remain in the UFC.
He’s now 11-2 as a pro with 10 first round wins, including nine KOs and one submission—which came when Jack Marshman volunteered his back and neck to avoid taking any more ground and pound. Shahbazyan has been finished once by R3 TKO and lost one decision.
Note: Shahbazyan’s takedown numbers are completely skewed by a weird 8 for 21 performance in his UFC debut that ended in a decision win against Darren Stewart. Shahbazyan has only attempted one takedown in his last five fights.
Fight Prediction:
Imavov will have a 1” height and reach advantage.
After forcing Shahbazyan to face a pair of grapplers in his last two fights, the UFC is now mercifully pairing him up with a striker more to his liking. With that said, Imavov is no joke and has never been knocked out in his career. We should see these two test each other’s chins, although because we’ve seen each of them struggle against grappler’s, it’s possible one of them will look to capitalize on the grappling weakness of the other. Shahbazyan does his best work in the first round, so if he wins, look for it to come in a R1 KO. With that said, Imavov is so tough, we like his chances to wear Shahbazyan out and finish him with a mid to late round KO.
Our favorite bet here is “Imavov R3 KO” at +1700.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
Imavov has so far been a low-volume striker who only occasionally lands any takedowns. Even in his recent R2 KO victory, he still scored just 94 DraftKings points as he failed to notch a knockdown with the finish. It will be interesting to see if he tries to mix in any more grappling going against Shahbazyan, who has struggled mightily on the ground in his last two fights. It certainly wouldn’t be surprising, but we also can’t count on it. The potential for more grappling does boost his theoretical DraftKings ceiling and we’re expecting an action packed fight here with a good chance it ends early, so Imavov remains in play for tournaments and looks to be an interesting leverage play off the popular underdog in Shahbazyan. Just keep in mind, we definitely don’t see Imavov returning value in a decision. The odds imply he has a 51% chance to win, a 31% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1.
Shahbazyan is a R1 KO or bust fighter with cardio concerns later in fights and no ground game to speak of. He is really dangerous on the feet early on in fights and defends takedowns with sharp elbows, so you need to treat him like a snapping turtle, but he’s still a turtle. Once you get him on his back he’s no longer a threat. We expect Shahbazyan to be one of the most popular three-round underdogs on the slate, which lowers his appeal in tournaments, but he looks like a value play for low-risk contests. The odds imply he has a 49% chance to win, a 27% chance to get a finish and a 12% chance to end it in R1. Considering 91% of his career wins have come in R1, we think his R1 and ML odds should be slightly closer to one another.
Fight #8
Phil Hawes
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Hawes had been scheduled to face Deron Winn on October 9th, but Winn dropped out the day before the fight and Curtis stepped in on short notice. However, Hawes declined to accept the late opponent change and the fight was pushed back a month.
Coming off a pair of decision wins after previously never making it past the second round in his first 11 pro fights, Hawes has relied on his wrestling to win his last two fights. Despite Hawes’ conditioning being somewhat of a question coming into his recent fight against Daukaus, he was still able to control the action down the stretch as he finished the match with a smothering third round where we saw him control Daukaus for the final four and a half minutes. Hawes finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 66-28 and in total strikes 157-52. He also landed 2 of his 4 takedown attempts with over five and a half minutes of control time, while Daukaus went 0 for 7 on his attempts with a little over four minutes of control time. Daukaus had a moment in the second round where he hurt Hawes on the feet, but other than that he struggled to get much going and the judges scores reflected that as he lost a unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26 and 29-27).
In his second most recent fight, Hawes spent the majority of the match pushing Nassourdine Imavov up against the cage and trying to take him down. He finished going 4 for 7 on his takedown attempts with over 11 minutes of control time and led in total strikes 101-87, while Imavov led in significant strikes 57-31. One judge notably ruled the fight a draw as Hawes was clearly compromised late in the match as Imavov had him on wobbly legs and nearly finished him.
In Hawes’ October 2020 UFC debut, he knocked out Jacob Malkoun just 18 seconds into the first round, and he’s shown he has a ton of power with 7 of his 11 career wins coming by KO (4 in R1 & 3 in R2). With a wrestling background, he also has two submission wins on his record, both in the first round. Prior to his recent pair of decision wins, Hawes had finished five straight opponents in the first round, with four KOs and one submission and is now on a seven fight winning streak. His last loss came against UFC fighter Julian Marquez in a R2 KO on DWCS in 2017. Hawes’ only other career loss was a 2016 R2 Guillotine Choke just before his loss to Marquez.
Chris Curtis
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Curtis originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2018, but despite landing a third round KO he was not awarded a contract. He finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 84-62 in a methodical striking match that played out entirely on the feet.
Curtis was forced to return to the regional scene and then fought some in the PFL before finally getting the call from the UFC to take a fight on short notice a month ago. While that fight didn’t end up happening, the matchup stayed in place and both guys were given a month to prepare.
Curtis originally turned pro in 2009 and is now 34 years old. He sits on a 26-8 pro record, with 14 wins by KO, one by submission and 11 decisions. In 34 pro fights, he’s only been knocked out once, submitted once and has lost six decisions. He’s primarily a boxer and doesn’t seem to really push the pace. Only one of his last 17 fights has ended in R1 and 13 of those have made it to the third round with eight going the distance. He’s been in several five round fights, so conditioning isn’t really a concern.
While he’s making his UFC debut at 185 lb, his last fight was at 170 lb, and the one before that was at 205 lb. Much of his career has been spent at 170 lb, but he’s had six fights at 185 lb (5-1). Four of those notably ended in decisions.
Fight Prediction:
Hawes will have a 2” height and reach advantage.
While Curtis remains more or less of an unknown at the UFC level, this should be a step down in competition for Hawes, who’s coming off a pair of grappling heavy decision wins. With that said, Curtis has only been finished twice in 34 pro fights, so maybe he can at least survive to see a decision. Curtis looks like a one-dimensional power puncher without any grappling to rely on, so it would make sense for Hawes to continue to look to wrestle and take this fight to the mat. There’s a good chance he can find a finish once he gets there and don’t forget Hawes’ first nine career wins all came in the first two rounds. We expect Hawes to either land a KO or grind out another grappling-heavy decision, with the prior being the more likely outcome.
Our favorite bet here is “Hawes Wins by Decision” at +250.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
In his three UFC fights, Hawes has put up DK/FD totals of 95/98, 96/63, and 128/116. He’s shown the ability to both end fights with a single punch or grind out grappling-heavy decisions, which makes it more challenging to predict how his fights will go. He’s now facing a one-dimensional power puncher, so it would make sense for him to again look to utilize his wrestling to secure the win here. With that said, he claims he wants to be the champion and churning out grappling heavy decisions against UFC newcomers is hardly the way to achieve that, so maybe he’ll try to show us something. He always runs the risk of getting caught if he looks to keep this fight standing, but he does have solid knockout power. Overall, he has a solid floor and ceiling combination, but he’ll need to really put up a big score at his price to crack the optimal lineup. With so many high-upside, high-priced plays on this slate, it’s tough to say who the top scorers will be, but Hawes certainly has a chance to be one of them. The odds imply he has a 72% chance to win, a 44% chance to get a finish and a 20% chance it comes in R1.
Curtis is a one-dimensional striker who only has one R1 win in his last 17 fights so he’s generally going to struggle to really score well. With that said, at just $6,800 on DraftKings a late finish could still allow him to potentially serve as a value play. His R3 KO win on DWCS back in 2018 would have been good for 89 DraftKings points and 112 points on FanDuel. This looks like a really tough spot for him to excel as he goes against a more well-rounded fighter in Hawes who has the ability to control Curtis on the mat, but we have seen Hawes struggle late in fights and get clipped at times. It’s not impossible Curtis can land something clean and pull off the upset, but it’s certainly not likely. The odds imply he has a 28% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #7
Bobby Green
17th UFC Fight (8-7-1)Looking to bounce back from a pair of close decision losses, Green was defeated by two tough opponents in Thiago Moises and Rafael Fiziev. Despite losing on the scorecards, Green actually outlanded both of those guys, as he led Fiziev in significant strikes 143-104 and Moises 85-42.
His fight against Fiziev was an absolute brawl, as the two stood and traded from close range for basically the entire match, but especially in the second half. Green landed 66 significant strikes in R3 alone, compared to Fiziev’s 43. Despite the crazy striking output, one judge still gave Fiziev that round, while the other two rightfully awarded it to Green. Amazingly, Green outlanded the high-level striker Fiziev in all three rounds. That decision loss to Fiziev marked Green’s 10th straight decision (4-5-1).
Looking back one fight further, despite outlanding Thiago Moises 85-42 in significant strikes, and matching him on takedowns with two, Green lost a unanimous 28-29 decision and seemed genuinely shocked.
Green is 27-12-1 as a pro with nine KOs and eight submission victories to go along with 10 decisions. He’s been knocked out twice and submitted two more times in his career, while losing eight decisions. However, Green’s last ten fights and 13 of his last 14 have all gone the distance. So while several of Green’s fights ended with finishes earlier in his career, he’s turned into an absolute decision machine over the last decade. The only time he’s been finished since 2010 came in a R1 KO loss to Dustin Poirier back in 2016. And on the other side of things, the last time Bobby finished anybody was in 2013 when he knocked out James Krause in the first round. His hands-by-his-side fighting style provides a unique look for opponents and makes him a tough guy to know how to attack.
Al Iaquinta
15th UFC Fight (9-5)Coming off a 25 month layoff, Iaquinta has lost three of his last four fights, with all four of those matches going the distance, including three five rounders. He was severely outlanded by Dan Hooker in his last outing, as Hooker led 98-37 in significant strikes and 104-38 in total strikes. Iaquinta went 0 for 3 on takedowns in that fight, while Hooker also missed on his only attempt.
Now 34 years old and coming off an extended layoff, it will be interesting to see if Iaquinta has anything left. He’s currently 14-6-1 as a pro, with seven wins by KO, one by submission and six decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted three times to go along with three decisions. He’s a BJJ purple belt and has a background in wrestling.
Apparently his long layoff was due to an injury that required surgery and he wasn’t sure if he would ever return to MMA. He’ll now get to fight in front of his New York home crowd, so maybe that played a factor in his decision to finally come back or perhaps this is simply his ideal retirement fight. It’s hard to know what we can expect from Iaquinta in this fight.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’10” but Green will have a 1” reach advantage.
With Al Iaquinta coming off four straight decisions and Green coming off 10, it would be really surprising if this one ended early. With that said, the fact that Al Iaquinta hasn’t fought in two years and didn’t look good in his last fight adds a slight possibility that Green could get a finish, but it’s still highly unlikely. We like Green to win a decision here.
Our favorite bet here is Green’s ML at -174.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
With almost all of his fights ending in decisions, Green has only scored above 98 DraftKings points once in his last 10 fights. He did put up an impressive 111 point DraftKings total against Vannata in a wild brawling decision in August 2020, and still scored 98 and 95 DraftKings points in two of his other three most recent three decision wins, but he also scored just 77 points against Clay Guida. Had the last two decision losses gone Green’s way, he would have scored 83 and 87 points. So he does have a decent floor, but it’s rare for him to show much of a ceiling. The odds imply he has a 62% chance to win, a 11% chance to get a finish and a 5% chance it comes in R1.
Al Iaquinta has scored well with finishes in the past, but has only totaled just 75 and 52 DraftKings points in his last two decision wins and one of those went five rounds. While he has a wrestling background, he hasn’t landed a takedown in his last six fights and doesn’t land much volume. That leaves him reliant on finishing Green to score well, and the only person to accomplish that feat in the last 11 years was Dustin Poirier, so good luck. The odds imply Al Iaquinta has a 38% chance to win, a 17% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #6
Alex Pereira
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Looking to cross over to MMA from kickboxing, Pereira makes his UFC debut with just four pro MMA fights on his record and just one since 2016. He does have 40 kickboxing fights to his name (33-7) including noteworthy knockouts over UFC fighters Israel Adesanya (2017) and Dustin Jacoby (2014), along with another decision win over Adesanya, but he’s also been knocked out twice himself in kickboxing matches, so we wouldn’t base your MMA predictions on what happened five years ago in a different sport. Although he did also defeat Anderson Silva in a game of backgammon once, so maybe we should go ahead and crown this guy.
We’ve seen countless kickboxers cross over to MMA and struggle with both grappling and cardio as they go from fighting three minute rounds to five. Pereira was no different and when he made his pro MMA debut back in 2015, grappling and cardio both appeared to be his Achilles' heel, as he was taken down with relative ease at multiple points and eventually submitted in the third round by his portly opponent. He was able to bounce back with a R1 KO win, but only after the ref stood the fight back up after he was again taken down. After that, he landed another knockout in his third UFC fight, this time in the second round, before returning to kickboxing for four years.
His only MMA fight since 2016 occurred in the LFA in November 2020 and Pereira landed another R1 KO with a violent left hook that left his opponent unconscious for several minutes. Since then, he competed in two more kickboxing bouts, winning the Glory Kickboxing Light Heavyweight Belt in a January split-decision and then losing the title in a rematch via decision this past September. After competing at 209 lb just two months ago, now he’ll be dropping back down to 185 lb for his UFC debut, where all four of his previous MMA fights have been.
Overall, Pereira is an aggressive boxer with a dangerous left hook, but seems to throw everything he has in every punch so we worry about his cardio later in fights. His non-existent grappling is also a major concern and he generally looks like a one-dimensional power puncher.
Andreas Michailidis
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Michailidis is coming off a decision win over a terrible K.B. Bhullar, who performed so poorly that he was immediately cut following what was just his second UFC fight/loss. The final striking numbers made the match appear closer than it actually was, with Michailidis finishing ahead in significant strikes just 73-70 and in total strikes 75-71. He also landed his only takedown attempt, which occurred late in R1, and finished with two minutes of control time. Michailidis was clearly the only one doing any damage with his striking in the match, as Bhullar fought scared the entire time and never took any risks. The judges agreed, as two of them scored it 30-27, despite Bhullar actually finishing the third round ahead in significant strikes 37-19. Michailidis looked for a Rear-Naked Choke to close out the first round but simply ran out of time.
That was actually Michailidis’ first UFC fight at his normal 185 lb weight class after he made his debut up at 205 lb. Michailidis was slightly ahead in significant strikes (28-18) in his July 2020 debut, but shot for a takedown at the end of the first round and got finished by heavy downward elbows in a slightly bizarre R1 TKO stoppage as/after the round ended. His opponent, Modestas Bukauskas, landed several elbows that looked just barely legal to the side/back of Michailidis’ head. As the horn sounded, Michailidis lay next to the door of the cage hunched over, grasping the back of his head. The cornermen entered and the ref told Michailidis he had to get up so Michailidis began to sit up, but went to lean against what he thought was the cage. Instead he leaned against an open door and fell backwards, and the ref immediately stopped the fight. It appeared that he would have had a chance to push off the cage and stand up, had the door not been open—but he also didn’t look entirely there so who knows. He probably didn’t have much left at that point anyways. Bukauskas went on to lose his next three UFC fights (all at 205 lb) and was recently cut by the UFC.
Prior to the loss, Michailidis fought a catchweight fight at 195 lb against journeyman Arymarcel Santos (41-37 pro record), who had lost two of his last three and nine of his previous 15 fights and hasn’t fought since. That match was fought in a boxing ring and Santos provided essentially zero resistance as he was taken down to the mat and easily finished with ground and pound. It seems unfair to even classify that as a pro fight.
Looking back one fight further, which was the second most recent time that Michailidis competed at 185 lb, he took on former UFC fighter Marcel Fortuna (1-2 in the UFC), who had lost two in a row and hasn’t fought since. Michailidis landed a spinning back kick to drop Fortuna in R1 and finished the fight with ground and pound. That spinning back kick appears to be Michailidis’ most dangerous/favorite weapon. Prior to that match, Michailidis hadn’t fought in 16 months, going back to when he defeated 6-5 Tomas Bolo. We could keep going, but you probably get the idea—Michailidis has been fighting consistently poor competition and is still just 4-2 in his last six fights. So we’ll talk about his finishes next, but just keep in mind the level of competition he’s faced.
Six of his last eight fights have notably ended in R1, with Michailidis winning five of those. Only two of his 17 career fights have gone the distance, with him winning both of those decisions, in 2016 and then in his most recent fight. His other 11 wins have all come early, with seven KOs and four submissions. All four of his career losses have come by KO, although part of that could be due to the fact that he generally doesn’t appear to have the gas tank to even make it 15 minutes.
Prior to getting finished in his UFC debut, Michailidis’ most recent loss came in the third round of a 2017 fight. Michailidis looked absolutely exhausted late in the second round and was literally falling over just trying to throw punches by the third. His opponent was easily able to capitalize on this, even with the most feeble half-hearted ground and pound you’ve ever seen. Michailidis curled up face down on the mat, putting up no resistance, until the ref eventually stopped the fight. His other two KO losses both occurred in R2.
While he does have four submission wins on his record, all four came in his first six pro fights and he hasn’t landed one since 2014. Two of those four came by Kimura—strangely against the same opponent in 2011. The third was a 2011 Rear-Naked Choke and the fourth, which is simply listed as “Side Choke” on his record, was back in 2014 against an opponent who’s been submitted 10 times in his career—including his last three fights. Michailidis does sloppily shoot for a decent number of takedowns, but is generally just looking for ground and pound, in the rare event that he’s actually successful in getting the fight to the mat. With that said, he did take K.B. Bhullar’s back late in the first round of his last fight, but was never especially close to finishing things.
Fight Prediction:
Pereira will have a 4” height and reach advantage.
This is sort of an interesting matchup to break down as both guys have serious cardio concerns and are most dangerous early in fights. Pereira is a much more refined boxer, while Michailidis is more wild with his striking. In the end though, we think this fight just comes down to whether or not Michailidis can get it to the ground. Whether he looks for ground and pound or submissions once he gets it there is far less important, as he can effectively neutralize Pereira’s attack by putting him on his back, and simply forcing him to defend takedowns could wear him out—although that goes both ways and we could be looking at a quaalude match late if it gets there. In 40 kickboxing matches and four MMA fights, Pereira has never finished an opponent beyond the nine minute mark and the same can be said about Michailidis. So if this fight does end early, look for it to come in the first two rounds and most likely in R1. While Pereira is the more likely of these two to land a knockout on the feet, his takedown defense and grappling have looked so poor that we actually like Michailidis to get this fight to the ground where he should have a good opportunity to finish it on the mat. We’re going with the hold-your-nose play in Michailidis here.
Our favorite bet here is Michailidis’ ITD at +500.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
Pereira is a pure kickboxer with just four MMA fights to his name and only one in the last five and half years, which occurred nearly a year ago in November 2020. He has no grappling, questionable cardio and is now making his UFC debut as a -275 favorite. What could go wrong? Working in his favor, he’s going against a questionable talent in Michailidis, who also has no cardio and isn’t a great grappler, but will look for takedowns. This looks like a matchup where if we don’t get a finish in the first round and a half we could end up watching these two drag their jaws across the canvas, but there’s always a chance one or both has improved their cardio. Pereira has a very dangerous left hook that he murdered his last opponent with, and appears to be a R1 or bust power puncher. While all four of Michailidis’ career losses have come by TKO, the most recent was sort of a freak occurrence where he absorbed a bunch of elbows to the side/back of the head as the round ended and then tried to lean against the side of the Octagon after the cage door opened and fell backwards. His only other TKO loss in the last seven years came from exhaustion in the third round of a 2017 fight. So he’s done nothing to lead us to believe he has a dubious chin and his losses should be taken in context. This looks like a prime spot for Pereira to fail, but he clearly has the ability to knock people out and there’s also a chance that he wins the battle of who has the least terrible cardio. We’re not overly excited about playing him, but he certainly has upside. The odds imply he has a 69% chance to win, a 47% chance to get a finish and a 24% chance it comes in R1.
Michailidis has done nothing impressive so far in his two UFC fights, but this is the perfect time for him to finally notch a big win against a one-dimensional kickboxer, with very little MMA experience, who’s making his UFC debut. It would be idiotic for Michailidis to not look for an immediate takedown, and he’s shot for a takedown in the first round in each of his previous two fights, but he also doesn’t appear to be the brightest guy. Pereira struggles to defend takedowns and defend himself on the mat, and assuming Michailidis watched any of his past fights, that’s no secret. Whether or not Michailidis can actually land a finish once he gets there is a fair question to ask, but he does have four submission victories earlier in his career and can always opt for ground and pound. As long as he comes in with a grappling heavy game plan it’s always possible he can even serve as a value play in a decision on DraftKings based on his cheap price tag. He projects to go very low owned and he makes for an intriguing tournament play. The odds imply he has a 31% chance to win, a 16% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #5
Justin Gaethje
9th UFC Fight (5-3)After a little over a year away from the Octagon, Gaethje is looking to bounce back from a R2 submission loss in a title fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov. While Gaethje was able to narrowly outland Khabib 29-26 in striking, he had no chance of competing on the mat. Gaethje was able to remain on his feet for the opening minutes of the fight and land several heavy leg kicks that were clearly doing damage, but Khabib was able to get the fight to the ground late in the first round and nearly submitted Gaethje with an Armbar attempt just as the round ended. Gaethje continued to attack Khabib’s legs in round two and the damage was clearly adding up, but Khabib was able to get the fight back to the mat just over a minute in and actually pulled Gaethje into a Triangle Choke and quickly put him to sleep. That marked the third time Gaethje has lost in his career, with all three losses ending early. However, that was the first time Gaethje has ever been submitted.
Prior to that loss, Gaethje had been on a four fight winning streak, with all four wins coming by KO, including three in R1. However, it’s worth pointing out that those wins came against a series of struggling and aging fighters. The first came in a 97 second R1 KO over James Vick, who’s lost five straight and is non longer in the UFC. Next he took on Edson Barboza, in Barboza’s second to last fight up at 155 lb before he dropped down to 145 lb. Barboza had lost two of his previous three fights, got knocked out by Gaethje in R1 and then lost a pair of decisions after. He’s now just 3-6 in his last nine fights. After that, Gaethje landed his third straight R1 KO, this time against a 36-year-old Donald Cerrone, who hasn’t won a fight in his last six trips inside the Octagon. Gaethje’s most recent win was a R5 TKO against another 36-year-old in Tony Ferguson, who’s now lost three straight and is clearly washed. So amazingly those four fighters have combined to go 2-12 following their losses to Gaethje, with Barboza being the only one to win a fight since.
Just before starting that winning streak. Gaethje got knocked out in back-to-back wars against Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier. Alvarez handed Gaethje his first career loss as he finished him with a knee to the face with 61 seconds left in the final round of a three round fight where both guys looked exhausted. Gaethje then got knocked out by Dustin Poirier in the fourth round of his next fight, which was another high volume brawl.
Both fights were absolute wars and Gaethje later said that he learned from the experiences he couldn’t absorb that much consistent damage moving forward. It shows in his stats if you look at his average significant strikes absorbed. In his first three UFC fights he absorbed an average of 10.52 SS/min. However, in his last five fights he’s cut that number in half, down to 5.25 SS/min.
Gaethje is a great leg striker who often looks to chop his opponents down early before attacking up top with heavy punches. He has a wrestling background and was a two-time state champion high school wrestler and a D1 NCAA All-American at University of Northern Colorado. However, he’s only attempted one takedown in the UFC, which occurred in his second fight, and has no interest in taking fights to the ground.
Prior to his recent submission loss, Gaethje had been involved in 11 straight fights that ended in KOs (9-2), including his first seven UFC fights. Looking at his entire career, he’s now 22-3 with 19 wins by KO, one by submission and two decision victories. The only two decisions he’s been to came in 2012 and 2014, and 20 of his last 21 fights have ended early. His lone submission win was all the way back in 2012 via R2 Rear-Naked Choke. Nine of his 19 KO wins have occurred in R1, six in R2, three in R3 and one in R5. All three of his losses have come in the UFC with a R3 KO, a R4 KO and a R2 submission. With his two KO losses coming late in R3 and early in R4, the only way to knock him out appears to be through a war of attrition.
After successfully defending 8 of the 10 takedowns attempted against him in his first three fights, only Khabib (2 for 3) has attempted a takedown against him in his last five matches. While Gaethje has an above average 69% takedown defense, he looked helpless off of his back against Khabib, although in fairness most people do. Still, if Gaethje finds himself on his back in this next fight he could be in real trouble.
Seven of Gaethje’s eight UFC fights, including his debut, have been five round fights. The one exception was when he took on Eddie Alvarez in his second UFC fight and got knocked out with just a minute left in the third round. Gaethje landed 8.72 SS/min in that three round fight, while he has averaged 7.18 SS/min in his seven 5-round UFC fights.
Overall, Gaethje is a high-volume brawler who looks to go to war every time he steps inside the Octagon. He averages the most significant strikes landed on the slate at 7.46/min and the second highest absorbed at 7.99/min respectively.
Michael Chandler
3rd UFC Fight (1-1)Also looking to bounce back from a second-round title fight loss, Chandler was stopped with a R2 TKO by the new Lightweight champ in Charles Oliveira. Chandler was able to survive having his back taken early in R1, but showed a low fight IQ as he first tried to slam Oliveira off his back and then willingly entered Oliveira’s guard opposed to forcing him to his feet after he had him hurt. Following the missteps in R1, Oliveira dropped Chandler with a left hand just seven seconds into the second round, and while Chandler was briefly able to return to his feet, Oliveira dropped him again just moments later and the fight was stopped with Oliveira winning the vacant Lightweight belt that Khabib had left behind.
Looking back at what led up to that pivotal point in his career, Chandler made the switch from Bellator, where he was the three-time Lightweight Champion, to the UFC at 34 years old. He then waited on the sidelines for a few months until the right opponent came along. After failing to agree to terms with Tony Ferguson, Chandler eventually squared off with #6 ranked Dan Hooker.
There was an initial feeling out process early on in that match, as Hooker circled the outside of the Octagon looking for leg strikes when Chandler came within distance. Chandler appeared to be calculating a way in while Hooker didn’t seem to be progressing towards anything. Chandler slowly started working the body of Hooker, which eventually set up a stiff left hand to the chin of Hooker at the end of a combination that dropped him to the mat. Chandler immediately pounced on top of Hooker with aggressive ground and pound. It appeared for a moment he might go for a choke, but quickly decided against it and the ref stopped the fight moments later as Chandler went to town with ground and pound. The fight lasted just two and a half minutes, as Chandler handed Hooker just his second career KO loss with the other resulting from a R3 Edson Barboza body kick.
Prior to the win in his UFC debut, Chandler landed back-to-back R1 KOs in Bellator and his last five fights have all failed to make it to the six minute mark, with all five ending in KOs (3-2). He’s now 22-6 as a pro, with 10 wins by KO, seven by submission and five decisions. However, five of his seven submissions occurred in 2013 or before and he only has one since 2015. So he’s primarily been looking to knock opponents out later in his career. His last four losses have all come by KO, with the recent early R2 KO preceded by 2019 and 2017 R1 KO losses. He was also knocked out in the fourth round of a 2014 match. His other two career losses both ended in five-round decisions, in back-to-back fights in 2013 and 2014. While Chandler has 17 career finishes, only one of those came later than the second round, which was a 2011 R4 Rear-Naked Choke submission over Eddie Alvarez, who avenged the loss two years later with a five-round split-decision win over Chandler in 2013. Alvarez also notably knocked Gaethje out in 2017. Thirteen of Chandler’s 17 career finishes have occurred in the first round, three have ended in R2 and one finished in R4.
Chandler was a D1 NCAA All-American wrestler at Mizzou. So while most of his recent wins have been by early KOs, he notably has a wrestling background to rely on. He started off fighting at 165-170 lb as a pro, but has been competing at 155 lb since 2011 when he moved down a weight class following his fifth pro fight.
Fight Prediction:
Gaethje will have a 3” height advantage, but Chandler will have a 1” reach advantage.
Chandler has looked somewhat vulnerable to leg strikes, which is concerning going against a guy like Gaethje who loves to light up the legs of his opponents. It will be interesting to see if Chandler mixes in any wrestling, after seeing how easily Gaethje was finished on the mat by Khabib in his last fight. Considering how poorly Chandler fared strategically in his last fight, our expectations are low for him when it comes to making smart decisions, but in-fight decisions are different from pre-fight gameplans to a large extent, so it’s possible his team will incorporate more grappling coming in. With that said, Gaethje has a solid 69% takedown defense and is also far more durable than Chandler. We like Gaethje to win by KO early in this fight.
Our favorite bet here is “Gaethje KO” at +100.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
Gaethje has consistently scored well in DFS with DraftKings scores of 97, 116, 110, 103 and 112 in his five UFC wins. He’s also had the luxury of consistently fighting in five round fights, as seven of his eight UFC fights have been scheduled to go five rounds. With that said, he’s only actually made it to the championship rounds in two of those fights, one of which he got knocked out 33 seconds into the fourth round of and the other he won by R5 TKO in his most recent win against Tony Ferguson, where he still scored just 97 DraftKings points, which is a career low for him in a win. Had that fight ended in a decision following the third round, Gaethje would have scored just 63 DraftKings points. So while he hasn’t been to any decisions in the UFC, that indicates he likely wouldn’t score well if he were to win one here. That leaves you reliant on a finish for him to return value in DFS—something that hasn’t been an issue for him with 20 of his 22 career wins coming early, and now he gets an opponent who’s been knocked out in his last four losses. The odds imply Gaethje has a 66% chance to win, a 47% chance to get a finish and a 21% chance it comes in R1.
Chandler is a powerful striker with a history of early KOs and a background in wrestling. He’s shown he has no problem patiently feeling out his opponents, but we’ve also seen him involved in some brawls going back to his Bellator days. His combination of powerful striking, wrestling and finishes sets him up well to be a solid DFS contributor, especially when he’s priced as an underdog. It’s hard to see Chandler not ending up in winning lineups with a victory here unless he wins a low-volume decision, which is unlikely. If he does win this fight, there’s a good chance it comes early as Chandler’s last five fights have ended in six minutes or less with four ending in R1. However, this looks like a really tough matchup for Chandler and Gaethje has been a tough guy to knock out early, which is when Chandler generally lands all of his finishes. Chandler also projects to be a popular underdog play in DFS, which makes him less appealing for tournaments. The odds imply he has a 34% chance to win, a 21% chance to end it early and a 10% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #4
Shane Burgos
10th UFC Fight (6-3)After suffering back-to-back losses for the first time in his career, Burgos has now gone just 3-3 in his last six fights and comes in desperate for a win. All three of his career losses have occurred in that recent stretch, and all of them came against tough veteran strikers in Edson Barboza, Josh Emmett and Calvin Kattar. Barboza and Kattar were both able to knock Burgos out in the third round, while Emmett knocked him down twice in R3 but ultimately ended up winning a decision. Eight of Burgos’ nine UFC fights, including his last four, have made it to the third round, but four of those notably ended in R3 knockouts (2-2). Burgos is an incredibly tough brawler, who can be too tough for his own good at times, as it appeared his central nervous system essentially shut down in his last fight before his will to keep fighting did.
In that high-paced brawl against Barboza, Burgos trailed in striking 98-80, while neither fighter attempted a takedown. The fight ended in bizarre fashion with a super delayed knockdown after Barboza landed a heavy right hand. Burgos’ brain appeared to reset with Windows ‘98 type speed as he took the shot and then stood there for a few seconds before backpedaling into the cage and collapsing. It was a full five seconds from the time Barboza landed the punch to the time Burgos hit the mat in a sight we’ve never seen before. Barboza notably split his own shin open in that fight from all of his violent kicks in the first two rounds.
In his second most recent fight, Burgos lost a crazy brawling decision to Josh Emmett. The striking was near even, with Burgos slightly ahead in significant strikes 128-127 and total strikes 148-136, but Emmett landed a pair of knockdowns and a takedown to steal the big moments. Emmett amazingly blew his knee out almost immediately in the first round, just 20 seconds into the fight and was impressively still able to put on that type of performance.
Prior to that decision loss, Burgos had won three in a row and 13 of his first 14 career fights. His only other career loss was a 2018 R3 KO against Calvin Kattar.
Burgos is now 13-3 as a pro, with 10 of his wins coming early, including five KOs and five submissions. Those numbers are a bit misleading, as four of his five submission wins came in his first five pro fights in 2013 and 2014. He only has one submission win in his last 11 fights, but has four KO victories over that time. Since joining the UFC, four of his nine fights have gone the distance, while he’s landed a pair of third round KO wins and a first round submission, in what was his only UFC fight not to see the third round.
Burgos is an exciting fighter, but he tends to absorb an unsustainable number of strikes that catches up with him late in fights. He has a rock-solid 89% takedown defense and has only been taken down 6 times on 56 attempts in his nine UFC fights. Burgos averages a crazy 7.29 SSL/min (2nd highest on the slate) and 6.11 SSA/min (3rd highest on the slate).
He has notably fared much better in the UFC when he fights in front of his home New York crowd, where he’s gone 5-0 with three finishes, compared to just 1-3 outside of NY. Born in the Bronx and a lifetime New Yorker who trains out of NY based Tiger Schulmann, the last two times Burgos fought at Madison Square Garden he landed finishes against Amirkhani (R3 KO) and Holobaugh (R1 Armbar). He also has a decision win over Godofredo Castro in Long Island, NY at Nassau Coliseum, a R3 KO over Charles Rosa in Buffalo, NY, and another decision win his UFC debut, which took place in Albany, NY. It’s worth pointing out that Quarantillo was born in upstate New York, but he trains out of Florida and we still expect the crowd to be more behind the Bronx native in Burgos.
Billy Quarantillo
6th UFC Fight (4-1)Coming off a convincing win over a tough Gabriel Benitez, the BJJ black belt Quarantillo was able to control Benitez on the mat as he beat him up and looked for chokes. He outlanded Benitez 100-57 in significant strikes and 179-67 in total strikes, while landing three of his seven takedown attempts with nearly nine minutes of control time before getting a R3 TKO stoppage as he continued to pummel Benitez as he controlled his back.
Just prior to that win, Quarantillo lost a high-volume decision to Gavin Tucker, who filled up the stat sheet as he led in significant strikes 106-84 and landed 7 takedowns on 13 attempts with over five minutes of control time. Quarantillo actually led in total strikes 136-123 but went 0 for 3 on takedowns and seemed to get worn out from all the body shots and takedowns of Tucker.
Quarantillo had won eight in a row prior to that loss, with five KOs, a submission victory and a pair of decision wins. His last seven fights have all made it out of the first round with five of his last six making it to round three.
Quarantillo won his December 2019 UFC debut against a terrible Jacob Kilburn with a second round Triangle Choke Submission before defeating Spike Carlyle in a hard fought decision. He followed that up with a R3 KO of Kyle Nelson in his third most recent match. He very nearly finished Nelson at the end of R2, but simply ran out of time. Quarantillo then face-planted Nelson with his first punch 7 seconds into R3.
Now 16-3 as a pro, his two losses prior to his decision loss to Tucker occurred in a 2013 decision (in his third pro fight) and a 2016 R1 KO against Michel Quinones. Twelve of Quarantillo’s 16 career wins have come early, with seven KO’s and five submissions. He has alternated finishes and decisions over his last five fights and is now coming off a finish for what it’s worth, but we wouldn’t put much stock into that.
Quarantillo has shown the ability to wear on his opponents as fights go on before finishing them late. Only one of his last ten finishes occurred in R1 and that was back in 2017. He started his career fighting between 150-160 lb and has gone back and forth between Lightweight and Featherweight, but has essentially stayed at 145 lb since 2019, one fight before he went on DWCS. The only exception was when he fought Spike Carlyle at a 150 lb Catchweight.
A high-volume, up-tempo fighter, Quarantillo averages the fourth highest number of significant strikes landed on the slate at 7.08 per minute. He also absorbs the 11th most at 4.33 per minute, so in general his fights are high paced brawls. He’s landed eight takedowns in his five UFC fights, and at least one in all four of his UFC wins.
Fight Prediction:
Burgos will have a 1” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.
Both of these two are grinding brawlers who wear down their opponents and generally look for late finishes. Eight of Burgos’ nine UFC fights have made it to the third round, but only half of those went the distance with the other four ending in late KOs (2-2). Similarly, five of Quarantillo’s last six fights have seen the third round—going back to his 2019 DWCS match—but three of those ended in R3 KOs (3-0). We expect that trend to most likely continue and would be surprised to see this end before the third round. We like Burgos to bounce back with a late KO or decision win as long as he can remain on his feet, which considering his 89% takedown defense is likely to be the case.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in R3 KO” at +1000.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
While Burgos hasn’t landed a takedown in his last six fights, he averages the third most significant strikes landed on the slate at 7.29/min to drive his DFS scoring. Outside of a three knockdown performance back in 2017, he still struggles to really score well in decisions, with DraftKings totals of 86, 116, and 80 in his three decision wins. His three finishes have been good for 115, 97 and 90 points, although those lower scores are slightly misleading as one came in a quick R1 submission with no stats behind it and the other was against Charles Rosa who no one scores well against. The 115 point performance is probably a better indicator of what you could expect with a late finish in this next fight as long as Burgos can prevent getting taken down. His 89% takedown defense gives us reason to think he can, and he’s only been grounded six times on 56 opponent attempts. Burgos looks like an interesting leverage play for tournaments as Quarantillo projects to be the most popular three-round underdog on the slate. The odds imply Burgos has a 64% chance to win, a 29% chance to get a finish and an 11% chance it comes in R1.
Quarantillo was notably 41% and 50% owned on DraftKings in his last two fights and once again projects to be incredibly popular. With three of his four UFC wins scoring 109 or more DraftKings points and two breaking the slate with scores of 131 and 141, it’s easy to see why Quarantillo has become such a DFS fan favorite, especially considering his generally low price tag. His combination of grappling and up-tempo striking are what DFS dreams are made from, but he’s stepping into another tough matchup and we saw him struggle against Gavin Tucker when he wasn’t able to land a takedown. Now he goes against the 89% takedown defense of Burgos, and Quarantillo may once again struggle to get this fight to the mat where he’s done his best work. It’s tougher to see Quarantillo win a pure striking battle against an aggressive boxer like Burgos, but that’s not to say it’s impossible. This sets up for Quarantillo to land a ton of significant strikes as he averages 7.08 SSL/min (4th most on the slate), while Burgos averages 6.11 SSA/min (3rd highest on the slate). So if Quarantillo can avoid taking too much damage coming back his way, it’s possible he outlands his way to a late finish or a high-volume decision, both of which would likely score well enough to be useful at his cheap price tag. So while we expect Burgos to win this fight, if Quarantillo does win, he likely ends up in winning lineups regardless of whether or not he gets a finish. In Burgos’ three UFC losses, his opponents have put up DK/FD scores of 94/121 (R3 KO), 110/126 (DEC) and 90/113 (R3 KO). Just keep in mind, Quarantillo projects to be incredibly popular, which makes him a less appealing DFS play in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 36% chance to win, a 17% chance it comes early and a 7% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #3
Marlon Vera
18th UFC Fight (11-6)Continuing his streak of alternating wins and losses over his last five fights, Vera has fought to decisions in three of his last four fights with the one exception being the peroneal nerve injury win over Sean O’Malley.
In his recent win over Davey Grant, Vera actually looked to lose the first round as Grant outlanded him 41-30 in striking, but Vera bounced back in the later rounds to finish the fight ahead in significant strikes 105-83 and in total strikes 112-95, while also leading in takedowns 2-1 and in control time 5:15-1:54. That decision victory avenged an earlier decision loss to Grant back in 2016, in what was Vera’s third UFC fight.
Impressively, eight of Vera’s last nine wins have all come early (5 KOs & 3 Submissions), while all seven of his career losses have gone the distance. He’s now 17-7-1 as a pro, with six KO wins and eight submissions to go along with three decision victories. Two of his last three KO wins notably occurred in the first round, as have three of Edgar’s last four losses.
Nine of Vera’s 11 UFC wins have ended early, with five KOs and four submissions. Three of those finishes have come in the first round, four have occurred in the second and two have ended in round three. Both of his third round UFC finishes ended in knockouts, while three of his four UFC submission wins have come in round two.
Vera’s last finish was a weird “TKO” against Sean O’Malley, where O’Malley injured his right leg early in the fight. Late in the first round O’Malley stumbled and Vera jumped on top. He landed several heavy shots and Herb Dean very quickly stopped the fight just before the round ended.
Following the win over O’Malley, Vera suffered a decision loss to Jose Aldo. Vera led in significant strikes 46-44 and in total strikes 92-60, but Aldo led in control time 4:57-2:51. Both fighters failed to land any takedowns, Aldo on two attempts and Vera on three. Aldo won a close, but unanimous 29-28 decision.
A BJJ black belt, Vera has won 7 of his last 9 fights, with the two losses over that period coming in a close decision against Yadong Song up at 145 lb—Vera normally fights at 135 lb—and his recent decision loss to Jose Aldo.
Frankie Edgar
29th UFC Fight (18-9-1)Coming off a violent R1 KO loss to Cory Sandhagen, Edgar has now lost three of his last four fights with the only win over that stretch coming in a questionable split-decision against Pedro Munhoz that Edgar appeared to lose. His only other win in his last six fights was a 2018 decision win over another aging fighter in Cub Swanson. While Edgar was extremely durable for the first 28 fights of his career, with zero early losses during that time, he’s now been knocked out in the first round three times in his last six fights and seems like it’s about time for him to hang it up. His last fight made it just 28 seconds before Sandhagen cadavered him with a flying knee that left Edgar unconscious for an extended period of time.
Now entering his 29th UFC fight and 15th year in the organization, Edgar owns the record for the most amount of time spent inside the UFC Octagon (just another way of saying he’s old). He’s coming off just his second career fight down at 135 lb, after starting his MMA career off in 2005 at 155 lb, where he stayed until 2013 when dropped down to 145 lb following back to back decision losses to Benson Henderson. Edgar was 6-0 prior to joining the UFC and then went 9-3-1 to start his UFC career at 155 lb. He went 8-5 at 145 lb, before making the drop down to 135 lb following another pair of losses in 2019, where he’s since gone 1-1.
In his fight against Munhoz, Edgar spent essentially the entire 25 minutes circling away from Munhoz, carefully choosing his spots to throw three punch combos. He did officially land two takedowns, but didn’t do anything with them. Despite being outlanded 166-135 in significant strikes and spending the entire fight retreating, the judges awarded Edgar the split decision victory.
Edgar’s nine UFC losses have notably come against some tough competition in Cory Sandhagen, The Korean Zombie, Max Holloway, Brian Ortega, Jose Aldo (Twice), Benson Henderson (Twice) and Gray Maynard. In his last nine fights, he’s gone just 4-5 and has only won two of his last six—both by decision. His only early win since 2015 came in a 2017 R2 TKO by doctor stoppage against Yair Rodriguez.
Fight Prediction:
Vera will have a 2” height and reach advantage and is 12 years younger than the 40-year-old Edgar.
Edgar’s chin has vanished and he looks about washed at this point in his career. We have zero confidence in him going into any fight now or in the future and expect Vera to win this one either by KO or in a decision. While Vera isn’t a huge power puncher, he’s done a good job of getting opponents out of there early and Edgar has been knocked out in the first round in three of his last six fights. It will be interesting to see if Edgar comes into this fight more cautiously after his recent departure from consciousness, but give us Vera in this spot regardless.
Our favorite bet here is “Vera ITD” at +200.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
Vera has been a consistent DFS scorer, but has still scored less than you might expect based on the fact that eight of his last nine wins have come early. Here are his last nine winning DraftKings scores beginning with the most recent: 98, 98, 81, 86, 105, 104, 108, 92, and 83. So while he’s shown a solid floor, we’ve yet to see a huge ceiling out of him. He’s coming off a career high in both significant strikes and takedowns landed, but still scored just 98 points in the decision win. So at his high price tag, it’s hard to see Vera crack winning lineups without a finish, and even then he’ll need everything to go just right. Vera does project to go low owned, which makes him somewhat of an interesting tournament play going against a fighter in Edgar who’s been knocked out in the first round in three of his last four losses. The odds imply he has a 57% chance to win, a 30% chance to get a finish and a 13% chance it comes in the first round.
Edgar scored just 95 DraftKings points in his last win, and we say “just” because that was in a five round decision. The last time he won a three round fight was in a 2018 decision and he scored just 55 DraftKings points. So for the 40-year-old Edgar to be relevant in DFS, he’ll likely need to be the first person to ever finish Marlon Vera inside the Octagon. We don’t see that happening and have no interest in playing Edgar here. The odds imply he has a 43% chance to win, a 13% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #2
Rose Namajunas
12th UFC Fight (8-3)Running back their previous title fight that lasted just 78 seconds, Namajunas is now the one defending the belt and after entering their first matchup as a +170 underdog, this second match up opened the week as a straight pick ‘em. We’ve since seen the line move slightly in Weili’s favor, and Namajunas will once again enter as an underdog.
Their first fight ended so quickly that it’s hard to take a ton away from it, but a few things did stand out. Namajunas has much better footwork and movement than Weili and Weili appeared to acknowledge that as she attempted to attack Namajunas’ legs early to combat that. Weili landed seven strikes in the match and six of those were leg strikes. We’ve seen Namajunas get her legs attacked in the past to effectively slow down her movement, and that appeared to be Weili’s game plan coming in. Namajunas also appeared to have the speed advantage and Weili never even saw the head kick coming that dropped her just 74 seconds into the fight. Weili seemed a little flatfooted in the fight, never really pushing forward or moving much and was just standing and watching Namajunas bounce around.
This will interestingly be the third straight time Namajunas has faced the same opponent in consecutive fights. After winning the Strawweight belt against Joanna Jedrzejczyk in a November 2017 R1 KO, Namajunas then defended the belt in a five round decision against Jedrzejczyk in April 2018. Following the pair of wins over Jedrzejczyk, Namajunas lost the belt to Andrade, before defeating Andrade in a three round decision in her next fight. Although that notably came after Andrade had already lost the belt to Weili. Then Namajunas most recently won the belt back from Weili and will now be fighting in her third rematch in her last six fights. So she notably won the first two of those rematches in a pair of decisions. Namajunas has also faced Tecia Torres twice in her career and after losing a 2013 decision to Torres in Namajunas’ third pro fight, she avenged the loss with a 2016 decision win over Torres. So overall this is actually the fourth rematch of Namajunas’ career and she won decisions in all of the previous three.
After starting her MMA career 2-2 in 2013-2014, Namajunas has gone 8-2 in her last 10 fights while winning the Strawweight belt twice over that span, successfully defending it once and losing it in her second title defense from an unfortunate slam onto her head against Jessica Andrade. Namajunas’ only other loss in her last 10 fights was a 2016 split-decision against Karolina Kowalkiewicz, who was undefeated at the time, but has since fallen off a cliff and lost 7 of her last 9 fights. In her eight UFC wins, Namajunas has three submission wins, three decision victories and two R1 KO wins. All of those submissions ended in Rear-Naked Chokes. She also landed a pair of submissions prior to joining the UFC and of her 10 career wins, five have come by submission, two have ended in KOs and just three have gone the distance. She was also submitted herself in her 2014 UFC debut against Carlsa Esparza with a R3 Rear-Naked Choke. The only other time she’s been finished was the KO by slam against Andrade and her remaining two career losses ended in decisions to bring her overall career record to 10-4.
Namajunas is very quick with great movement and footwork. She trains in Colorado with Trevor Wittman and Valentina Shevchenko. She’s a Taekwondo and Karate black belt and a BJJ brown belt. Larger cages would seem to benefit her style as she likes to float away from contact in open space as she controls the distance. This next fight will notably take place in a larger cage at Madison Square Garden.
This will be her seventh five-round fight in the UFC. Her first came in her 2014 UFC debut against Carla Esparza. It didn’t go well, as Namajunas was submitted by Carla Esparza in the third round via Rear-Naked Choke. Two fights later Namajunas took on Paige VanZant in another five rounder, and this time came out victorious with a Rear-Naked Choke submission win of her own, this one occurring in the fifth round. Two years after that Namajunas got her first title shot against Joanna Jedrzejczyk and won the belt with a first round KO. She then defended the belt in a rematch that went the full 25 minutes. After beating the former champ in back-to-back title fights, Namajunas was knocked out by Jessica Andrade via R2 slam in her second most recent five rounder, before landing a R1 KO most recently. So she’s 4-2 in her six 5-round UFC fights with both losses coming early (R3 Submission & R2 KO). Two of her four five-round wins made it to the fifth round, with just one of her six 5-round fights going the distance.
Zhang Weili
7th UFC Fight (5-1)Coming off the first early loss of her career, Weili had won 21 fights in a row leading up to her recent 78 second R1 KO defeat against Namajunas. However, only the last five of those wins occurred in the UFC. Her last seven fights have alternated between going the distance and ending in the first round and we generally see very bipolar results whenever she steps inside the Octagon. It’s been over four years since she landed a finish beyond the four minute mark and despite having 17 early wins on her record, she’s never finished an opponent later than the second round. She has 10 career wins by KO and seven by submission, with 11 first round finishes and six ending in R2. She also has four decision wins to her name, with three of those occurring in her last six fights since she joined the UFC. Prior to getting knocked out by Namajunas, Weili’s only career loss was a decision in her 2013 pro debut.
We have no reason to think Weili is generally prone to getting finished, and her second most recent fight may go down as one of the top Women’s MMA fights of all time. In a striking bonanza, Weili defeated former champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk in a close five-round split-decision. Despite losing, Jedrzejczyk actually finished ahead in significant strikes 186-165 and successfully defended seven of Weili’s eight attempted takedowns. However, the numbers fail to tell the whole story, and Jedrzejczyk’s grotesquely ballooning forehead could not have gone unnoticed with the judges. Google it. Regardless of the outcome, it was a great fight that likely could have gone either way depending on scoring biases. That was Weili’s first title defense.
Weili originally won the Strawweight belt just prior to that against Jessica Andrade, in what was Weili’s first five round UFC fight and just the second of her career. As she often does, Andrade decided she wanted to brawl and Weili happily obliged, as she landed a barrage of elbows, knees and punches to the face of her shorter Brazilian opponent. The fight, which took place in Weili’s home country of China, lasted just 42 seconds, marking one of the shortest title reigns in UFC history and the second fastest finish in UFC Women’s Strawweight history. For a fighter that relies on overpowering her opponents with blitzes of strikes, Andrade certainly got a taste of her medicine in that one.
Weili started off fighting at 132 lb before dropping down to 115 lb in her fourth pro fight. She notably did face some dubious competition prior to joining the UFC, who entered with records of: 0-0, 0-0, 1-0, 2-1, 3-2, 3-4, 4-3-1, 18-9, 4-1, 13-10-1, 3-1, 4-4, 4-0, 12-9, 2-0, 8-1, and 7-8.
She made her 2018 UFC debut against Danielle Taylor, who came into the match 2-2 in the UFC and was released after Weili defeated her in a unanimous 29-28 decision. Next Weili faced Jessica Aguilar, who was 1-2 in the UFC at the time, but has now lost 5 of her last 6 fights, including losing to Danielle Taylor outside of the UFC in what amounted to a consultation match. Aguilar’s nickname is “JAG” which seems generous, and Weili submitted her in the first round via Armbar. Following the pair of wins over inferior competition, Weili was given her first real test in Tecia Torres, who was coming off a pair of losses against Andrade and Jedrzejczyk. Weili defeated Torres in a low volume unanimous decision, but it was enough to get her a title shot. So in terms of legitimate competition, Weili has decision wins over Torres and Jedrzejczyk and a quick R1 TKO against Andrade, which is still a relatively small sample size.
Weili is the most dangerous in the opening 10 minutes of fights as all 17 of her career finishes (10 KOs & 7 Subs) have come in the first two rounds. Interestingly, all of her early wins have come in China or other parts of East Asia, while all three of her wins in the US have ended in decisions. Her recent KO loss took place in Jacksonville, Florida, which is the first time any of her US fights have ended early.
Fight Prediction:
Namajunas will have a 1” height advantage and 2” reach advantage.
Namajunas’ elite footwork and head movement combined with her reach advantage will frequently leave Weili swinging at air. However, Weili appears to be the more powerful striker, and if she does land something clean she’s a serious threat to end this early. With that said, both of these women have been durable for most of their careers, with just one KO loss each. Despite their first matchup ending so quickly, we like this one to go the distance. We expect a close five-round decision, but for Namajunas to get her hand raised.
Our favorite bet here is “Namajunas Wins by Decision” at +380.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
When these two initially fought less than seven months ago, Weili was a -200 favorite, priced at $9,000 on DraftKings and she was 41% owned. Namajunas was a +170 underdog, priced at $7,200 and was 35% owned.
In her six UFC five-round fights, Namajunas has put up DraftKings scores of 102, 33 (L), 79, 107, 142 and 17 (L). Her one explosion spot came in a fifth round submission against a terrible Paige VanZant, where Namajunas put on a dominating grappling performance with eight takedowns, nearly 17 minutes of control time, four submission attempts and 104 total strikes. She also put up solid scores in her R1 KO wins over Jedrzejczyk and Weili, but failed to score well in her only five round fight to go the distance (79 DK points). While her affordable DraftKings price tag could keep her in play even without putting up a huge score, that 79 point performance is certainly of some concern, especially in a larger Octagon where finishes are less likely. That doesn’t mean Namajunas can’t score well in a decision, but it will likely have to come in a high-volume brawl as Weili has never been taken down in the UFC. And with that in mind, Namajunas has only landed more than 82 significant strikes once in her career, which is when she landed 105 against Joanna Jedrzejczyk in the 79 point scoring five-round decision win. Working in Namajunas’ favor, Weili absorbs 4.42 SS/min (9th highest on the slate). So while there are clearly ways for this fight to fail if it goes the distance, 7 of Namajunas’ 10 career wins have come early, and she just showed she’s capable of finishing Weili. The odds imply she has a 48% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish and a 9% chance it comes in R1.
Unsurprisingly, Weili has been a consistent DFS producer in her two UFC first round finishes, with DraftKings scores of 137 and 121. In her two three-round decisions she scored 90 and 68 points on DraftKings, while she put up 104 points in her lone five-round decision. She has landed at least one takedown in four of her six UFC fights, but has never landed more than two, so she can slightly boost her score with grappling and Namajunas has just a 50% career takedown defense. While she’s made a name for herself with her powerful striking, Weili has the grappling skills to submit opponents as well, with 7 of her 17 career finishes coming by submission. Based on her fantasy friendly fighting style and affordable price tag, it’s harder to see Weili getting left out of winning lineups with a decision win compared to Namajunas, but Namajunas is elusive enough on her feet that it’s still possible. The odds imply Weili has a 52% chance to win, a 24% chance to get a finish and an 8% chance it comes in R1.
Fight #1
Kamaru Usman
15th UFC Fight (14-0)Usman extended his winning streak to 18 as he baptized “Street Jesus” with an immaculate connection that left Masvidal speaking to the holy ghost. That was the first time Masvidal has been knocked out in the UFC and just the second KO/TKO loss of his career, with the first coming in a 2008 R2 TKO. Usman was also able to land both of his takedown attempts with nearly two minutes of control time in a fight that lasted just six minutes.
This next fight will be a rematch of a December 2019 barn burner, where Usman famously broke the face of Covington and won via R5 TKO. Rounds one, two and four were extremely close, with significant striking totals of 39-34, 41-40 and 36-35 all in favor of Covington. However, Usman was far ahead in Rounds three and five, where he led 29-8 and 37-19 in significant strikes, while landing a pair of knockdowns in the latter. Usman also clearly did far more damage as he broke Covington’s jaw midway through the fight and left him a bloodied battered mess by the end of the bout. Despite both men having wrestling backgrounds, no takedowns were attempted and they were content with settling things on the feet. Going into the fifth round, one judge had it 3-1 in favor of Usman, another had it 3-1 in favor of Covington and the third scored it 2-2. Whoever gave Covington all three close rounds was clearly being generous. Regardless, because Usman was so far ahead in R5 when the fight was stopped with just 50 seconds remaining, there shouldn’t be much debate that Usman would have won the decision after landing two knockdowns in R5. With that said, going into the 5th round Covington still had a chance. It seems like Usman simply possesses the ability to dig deeper than anyone else in the division, and when he’s faced with adversity he has an extra gear he can go to that allows him to pull away. The fight ended with Usman ahead 175-143 in strikes with two knockdowns and 11 seconds of control time.
Since that fight, Covington has fought just once in nearly two years, while he makes most of his noise outside of the Octagon. On the other side of things Usman has defended the belt three more times, against Jordge Masvidal twice and another time against Gilbert Burns. Usman was scheduled to fight Burns in July 2020, but Burns tested positive for COVID shortly before the fight and Masvidal stepped in on short notice.
After defeating Masvidal for the first time in a grappling/clinch heavy decision, Usman then rebooked the Burns fight for February and knocked him out in the third round. Burns actually gave Usman problems early on and rocked him just 30 seconds into the fight, but Usman quickly recovered and took over from that point on as he battered Burns with his powerful jab and dropped him in both rounds two and three before finishing the fight just 34 seconds into the third round. Next, he gave Masvidal a rematch and knocked him out in the second round with the previously mentioned highlight reel KO that punctuated Usman’s improved striking.
This will be Usman’s eighth straight five round fight and sixth consecutive title fight. After 8 of his first 10 UFC fights ended in decisions, three of his last four wins have come by KO. His striking has looked improved and he’s set a trend for knocking out opponents in rivalries that burn the hottest. Of his five UFC fights to end early, four ended in knockouts (R1, R2, R3 & R5), while his 2015 UFC debut ended in a second round submission.
Looking at his entire career, Usman is now 19-1 as a pro with his only career loss coming in his second pro fight back in 2013 from a R1 Rear-Naked Choke. Ten of his 19 career wins have come early, with nine KOs and one submission. Usman is an elite wrestler and he’s also a BJJ black belt.
Colby Covington
14th UFC Fight (11-2)Since his December 2019 face breaking loss to Usman, Covington has fought just once, which was when he took on a washed up 38-year-old Tyron Woodley in September 2020, who has lost four in a row not counting losses to Nickelodeon stars. The fight ended in a R5 TKO by verbal forfeit as Woodley clearly had no desire/ability left to fight. Even in an emotionally driven matchup against Colby Covington, Woodley showed zero motivation to win. He seemingly tried to get the doctor to stop the fight in the third round for an eye graze, before eventually quitting through a verbal tap for an alleged rib injury in the 5th round. It wasn’t an overly impressive performance from Covington and he showed us no signs of improvement since his previous fight against Usman. Covington finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 78-34 and in total strikes 232-67 in a boring match that was spent largely out of the clinch. He landed three of his eight takedowns attempts with 12 minutes of control time, while Woodley landed his only attempt.
Covington’s second most recent win was in August 2019 against another aging fighter in the midst of a four fight losing streak in 37-year-old Robbie Lawler. Like everyone does, Covington was able to land a ton of significant strikes against Lawler, as he outlanded him 179-78 in a five round decision. Covington also landed 10 of his 18 takedown attempts with nearly nine minutes of control time. For context, that was the third time in his last five matches that Lawler has absorbed 150 or more significant strikes in a fight and he’s essentially a punching back at this point in his career. He most recently absorbed 150 significant strikes from an out of shape Nick Diaz in less than 10 minutes of action (13.98 SSL/min).
That decision win over Lawler was Covington’s fifth straight decision win at the time, and Covington’s only finish in the last five years is when Tyron Woodley quit in the fifth round of their recent fight. He did land a few finishes early in his UFC career, beginning with a R1 TKO in his 2014 UFC debut against Anying Wang who finished his pro MMA career with an impressively terrible 2-4 record. Covington then submitted Wagner Silva Gomes, who went 0-2 in the UFC with two submission losses. Following a decision win in his third UFC fight, Covington then was submitted in the first round by Warlley Alves in 2015. After that he landed a submission win of his own with a 2016 R3 Rear-Naked Choke against Jonathan Meunier, who finished his UFC career just 1-1. Covington then got a tougher test in Max Griffin and was able to land a R3 TKO, which is the last time we saw Covington actually finish anybody—and just to be clear, no, we’re not counting Woodley as a finish.
Looking at his entire pro career, Covington is now 16-2, with four TKOs, four submissions and eight decision wins. He’s been knocked out once and submitted another time in his two losses. His last nine fights have made it to the third round and his last four have seen a fifth round.
A former college wrestler, Covington doesn’t possess one punch KO power, but he excels at putting non-stop pressure on his opponents and mixing in wrestling. He’s landed at least one takedown in 11 of his 13 UFC fights, with the two exceptions coming against Usman and Demian Maia. Covington notably switched teams before his last fight from American Top Team to MMA Masters in May 2020 after ATT got tired of dealing with his bullshit.
Fight Prediction:
Usman will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage.
There’s been some chatter about how Usman’s last three wins came against former Lightweights, but that seems like a flawed or at least incomplete argument. Usman’s last opponent, Jorge Masvidal, hasn’t competed at Lightweight since 2015, with his last 13 fights all occurring up at Welterweight. He’s essentially the same exact size as Covington, except Covington has a shorter reach. And Usman’s other recent opponent, Gilbert Burns, was four fights and nearly two years removed from fighting at 155 lb. So this isn’t like last week where we’re talking about opponents who just moved up a weight class. And for the record, if we look at Covington’s side of things, possibly his most notable win came against Rafael dos Santos, who you guessed it, is a former/current Lightweight who’s bounced between 155 lb and 170 lb. Covington’s other three most recent wins have all come against aging fighters in Demian Maia, Robbie Lawler, and Tyron Woodley, so if anyone should be having their opponents questioned, it’s obviously Covington.
Here are Covington’s opponents in his last five wins beginning with the most recent, along with their age when he faced them:
Tyron Woodley (38, entered on a two fight losing streak, has lost four straight and is out of the UFC)
Robbie Lawler (37, entered on a two fight losing streak, has lost 4 of last 5)
Rafael dos Anjos (33, has lost 4 of last 6)
Demian Maia (40, has lost 5 of last 8)
Dong Hyun Kim (35, retired after the fight)
Even against that aging list of UFC vets, the only finish Covington has landed in his last seven fights dating back to 2016 was when Tyron Woodley quit in the fifth round of their last fight, as Woodley verbally tapped complaining of a rib injury. We don’t see Covington knocking Usman out, and Usman has bever been taken down in the UFC, so good luck landing a submission. That means Covington’s sole path to victory is really just outlanding his way to a five-round decision win. While their first fight was close going into the final round, Usman has shown improved striking over the last two years, while Covington has been chirping on the sidelines with no signs of improvement.
We like Usman to knock Covington out again and think there’s a good chance it comes earlier this time, likely in rounds two or three. With that said, seeing another late finish or an Usman decision win wouldn’t be surprising.
If you had bet $100 on Usman’s closing moneyline in all 14 of his UFC fights you would have won a total of $1,982.34 and turned a $582.34 profit. If you bet $100 against him every time you would be down $1400. This is actually a two-part point. First, there’s not that much to be gained by betting huge favorites as you would have just a 42% profit after six years (and that’s going 14-0). And second, don’t bet against Usman. We are huge proponents of value based betting, but why would you bet against a guy that never loses? And yea, he’ll probably lose a fight eventually, but how many times are you willing to take +250 against him in the hopes of timing that one loss? It seems like many of the same people that bet Burns at +225 against Usman are simply doubling down on Covington, at which point they’re already in for 2 units to try and net 1.5 here (if you get Covington at +250). So if you’ve already bet against Usman once in the past, you’re still not even doubling your money as a reward for your incredible foresight into predicting when one of the most dominant champions of our time finally suffers his first UFC loss. And that’s why Burns at +225 was a bad bet and so is Covington at +260. And again we are not recommending that you bet Usman at -350, that’s also a bad bet due to a lack of value. Either gamble on props or sit this one out. And since we don’t sit any fights out, we’re going with Usman wins by KO at +155.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
The last time these two fought we saw a high-volume brawl with no takedowns attempted and Usman finished Covington in the final minute of the 5th round. Usman landed two knockdowns (both in R5) and led in striking 175-143. Usman landed 7.24 SS/min, while Covington landed 5.92/min. Usman scored 130 DraftKings points and 154 points on FanDuel in the win. Had he not gotten the TKO stoppage but continued his same striking pace for the final minute, he would have scored 123 DraftKings points and 153 points on FanDuel. Covington scored 57 DraftKings points and 86 points on FanDuel, but had he extended the same striking pace and won a decision, he would have scored 89 DraftKings points and 109 FanDuel points.
We’ve seen Usman’s approach to fighting shift in the last couple of years from being extremely grappling heavy with massive amounts of control time and total strikes to being far more willing to stand and trade on the feet. If we look at his last six fights, he’s had three grappling heavy, 5-round decision victories in his 3rd, 5th and 6th most recent fights where he averaged 17:46 of control time, 275 total strikes. 122 significant strikes, six takedowns and zero knockdowns. In those three fights he averaged a ridiculous 173 DraftKings points (156, 168 & 195). His other three wins in his last six fights have all ended in knockouts, in his most recent two matches (R2 & R3) and his fourth most recent (R5) fight. In those three finishes, he averaged just 79 seconds of control time, 100 total strikes, 93 significant strikes, 0.7 takedowns and 1.7 knockdowns. In those three finishes, he averaged “just” 113 DraftKings points (104, 104 & 130). In fairness to him, the pair of 104 point scores came in early R2 and early R3 finishes, which are essentially the worst case scenario for a five round fight in terms of DFS scoring. He still ended up in the optimal DraftKings lineup in the first of those lower scoring knockouts, largely because it was a lower scoring 10-fight slate, but was left out of the optimal lineup in his most recent R2 KO win over Masvidal on a slate similar to this next one, with multiple 5-round fights on a 13-fight card. So that shows he’s not a complete lock to crack the optimal with a win, but he’s only failed to reach 104 or more DraftKings points in one of his last 10 fights, which occurred against high level grappler Demian Maia, who is really tough to score well against. Based on how Usman and Covington fought the first time, we expect this next fight to again play out as a striking battle, so it appears highly unlikely that he’ll put up one of his other-worldy, grappling-heavy DraftKings scores of 156-195 points. With that said, we expect him to again score somewhere in the 104-130 point range with either a knockout or a high-volume decision win. So Usman looks like one of the best plays on the slate, and the only way we see him not cracking the optimal is with another unfortunately timed finish at the beginning of an interior round. The chances of that happening three straight times are unlikely, so look for him to score better than he has in his last two fights. The odds imply he has a 74% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish and a 13% chance it comes in R1.
Covington has consistently put up huge DraftKings scores, but it’s important to realize that those have come on the back of big wrestling performances, with tons of takedowns, control time and total strikes. Usman has notably never been taken down in the UFC, although only four opponents have even tried (0 for 20), and Covington is included on the list of people that didn’t attempt any takedowns when they first fought. So while Covington has averaged 128.25 DraftKings points in his last eight wins, without the grappling to boost his scoring you can expect that number to plummet here even if he does somehow win. The last time these two fought it was a crazy stand up battle, but Covington still projected to score just 89 DraftKings points had he survived the final minute and won a decision. We expect a portion of the DFS field to be enamoured with his DK scoresheet and overlook how improbable it would be for him to put up another grappling based moonshot performance here. If he does win, which is highly unlikely, it would most likely end in a high-volume decision where he scores 90-100 DraftKings points. Now at his price, that would likely still be enough to crack winning lineups, but the chances of him leading the slate in scoring are exponentially smaller. The odds imply he has a 26% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish and a 4% chance it comes in R1.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter @dfs_mma with your winnings so we can see how you did!
We recently partnered with PrizePicks, who offer a new way to play DFS. Instead of competing against other users, you simply pick the over/under on two or more fighters' stat lines (i.e. fight time or fantasy points scored). Receive up to a $100 deposit bonus when you sign up with our promo code: MMADFS
Top UFC PrizePicks Play of the Week:
- Kamaru Usman Over 110.5 Fantasy Pts
For the rest of our top PrizePicks plays check out our DFS Cheat Sheet in our premium DFS content at patreon.com/mmadfs.
