The Sheet

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Fight Day Scratches: None

Fighter Notes:

Fight #13

Youssef Zalal

7th UFC Fight (3-3)

Zalal had been set to face Cristian Quinonez here, but Quinonez was forced to withdraw due to visa issues and Blackshear was announced as the replacement 10 days before the event.

Moving down to 135 lb for the first time since his amateur days, Zalal has lost three straight decisions to tough opponents in Sean Woodson, Seung Woo Choi, and Ilia Topuria, after winning three decisions against easier opponents in his first three UFC fights. The last time one of his fights ended early was in a 2019 R1 KO win back when he was still fighting in the LFA. Showing how durable he is, Zalal remains the only fighter to ever go the distance with Ilia Topuria—or even make it past the eight minute mark.

In his last fight, Zalal really struggled to land takedowns against an incredibly rangy opponent in Sean Woodson, as Zalal only landed 2 of his 17 attempts. Zalal finished slightly ahead in significant strikes 42-40, while Woodson led in total strikes 104-55. Zalal was able to finish with over six minutes of control time, but a lot of that was spent pushing Woodson up against the cage as he struggled to land takedowns. The fight was largely uneventful and ended in a split decision win for Woodson.

Now 10-5 as a pro, Zalal has two wins by KO, five by submission, and three decisions. He’s never been finished, with all five of his losses going the distance. Six of his seven early wins came in his first six pro fights, and he hasn’t looked like any sort of finishing threat at the UFC level.

Overall, Zalal’s elusive fighting style allows him to evade opponents at will, which has made it tough for anyone to land many strikes on him and he averages just 2.51 SSL/min and 1.74 SSA/min. He’s also been very durable and has great cardio, although we’ll see if the drop in weight affects either or both of those. In his six UFC fights, he’s landed 14 takedowns on 47 attempts (29.8%) and has seven official submission attempts. So the effort has been there to try and outgrapple his opponents, but the effectiveness has not been. It will be important to monitor Zalal closely at weigh-ins as he drops down to 135 lb for the first time following a 14 month layoff.

Da'Mon Blackshear

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Stepping into his short notice UFC debut on just 10 day’s notice, Blackshear comes in on a four fight winning streak, with three of those victories ending in submissions. Two of his last three losses have come against fighters currently in the UFC, in Pat Sabatini and Kris Moutinho, and he also has a submission win over former UFC fighter Aalon Cruz. While Blackshear lost to Sabatini in a four round decision, simply going 20 minutes with a dangerous submission threat like Sabatini is still somewhat of a moral victory.

In his last fight, Blackshear did a good job of coming out ahead in the grappling exchanges and looking for submissions throughout a series of scrambles on the mat. Most of the fight was spent with the two jockeying for position on the ground and we didn’t see a ton of striking before Blackshear eventually locked up a rear-naked choke in the third round to get the win.

Now 12-4 as a pro, Blackshear has one win by TKO, eight submissions, and three decision victories. The lone TKO win of his career came in the second round of a 2018 fight, while he has one first round submission win, four in round two, two in round three, and one in round four. He’s never been finished, with all four of his losses going the distance. Fifteen of his 16 career fights have made it to the second round, with 10 making it to round three, and seven going the distance. Blackshear has fought at both 135 lb and 145 lb, with five of his earlier career fights up at 145 lb. However, he hasn’t fought at 145 lb since losing a 2018 decision to Pat Sabatini.

Overall, Blackshear relies heavily on his grappling but isn’t helpless on the feet. He also scrambles really well on the mat and does a good job of transitioning positions. He’s been very durable to this stage in his career, but we also haven’t seen him land or absorb a ton of strikes. Most of his fights end up playing out as grappling battles, with five of his last six wins ending in submissions.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’10” with a 72” reach and in their mid 20s.

With Zalal moving down a weight class following a 14 month layoff and Blackshear making his short-notice UFC debut on just 10 day’s notice, this fight is full of uncertainties. Zalal desperately needs a win to snap a three fight skid and taking on a short notice debuter is generally the perfect spot to achieve that. However, Blackshear looks tough and we don’t know how Zalal will look at the new weight class, so this certainly isn’t a gimme for him. Both guys can grapple and we expect to see some crazy scrambles on the mat, but neither one of them has ever been finished and we’d be very surprised to see this end early. Zalal generally does a good job of slowing down fights and evading contact on the feet, and Blackshear isn’t a high volume striker either, so it would make sense if we saw a lower volume grappling match. While we could see it going either way, we’ll give the benefit of the doubt to the UFC veteran in Zalal to win a decision, but this should be a close fight.

Our favorite bet here is “FGTD” at -190.

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DFS Implications:

Zalal has yet to top 95 DraftKings points in any of his six UFC fights, with scores of 95, 69, and 88 in his three wins. He hasn’t looked like any sort of finishing threat and now faces an opponent who's never been finished. With Zalal moving down to 135 lb for the first time as a pro following a 14 month layoff, this is a higher variance spot with a wider range of outcomes. Blackshear is primarily a grappler and Zalal is also typically looking to get fights to the ground, so it will be interesting to see if Zalal opts to test Blackshear’s strength on the mat or if he tries to keep this standing and pick him apart from the outside. The latter would really struggle to score even remotely well, but a high-paced grappling match has the potential for the winner to score decently on DraftKings. It’s much harder to see this fight succeeding on FanDuel, where the winner will likely need a finish to return value. The odds imply Zalal has a 52% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

Blackshear is stepping into his UFC debut on just 10 day’s notice, which is never the spot you want to be in. However, the fact that Zalal hasn’t fought in so long and is moving down a weight class for the first time as a pro gives some reason for optimism in Blackshear’s chances here. His grappling-heavy style is much better suited to the DraftKings scoring system, and his fights are generally filled with wild scrambles on the mat. While five of his last six wins have come by submission, Zalal showed just how impossible he is to submit when he survived the relentless attacks of Ilia Topuria back in 2020. So unless the weight cut really destroys Zalal here, we’d be really surprised to see Blackshear get a finish. That will leave him reliant on a dominant grappling performance to score well on DraftKings and we don’t see him putting up a useful score on FanDuel. The odds imply he has a 48% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #12

Josh Quinlan

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

This fight had been scheduled on last week’s card, but Quinlan’s piss was just cloudy with steroid residue and the Las Vegas commision wouldn’t clear him to fight—we’ll see what California has to say about it this week. Both fighters had already made weight before the fight got canceled Friday night, and now they’ll have to do so again just a week later. However, the fight was moved up from 170 lb to a 180 lb Catchweight, so the cut shouldn’t be nearly as bad for them.

Quinlan is making his UFC debut following a 9-month steroid suspension, which came just after he landed a 47 second R1 TKO win on DWCS in September 2021. That win was overturned to a No Contest following the failed drug test. Quinlan was born and raised in Kauai, Hawaii, but trains out of Las Vegas. His background is actually in soccer opposed to a combat sport, and he didn’t start training MMA until he was 19 years old.

In his last fight, Quinlan landed a huge right hand 30 seconds into the first round that seriously dazed his opponent, who had accepted the fight on just three day’s notice. Then Quinlan immediately went to work with a flurry of punches and elbows to force the 47 second R1 stoppage. He finished ahead 13-2 in significant strikes in the quick fight.

Still just 5-0 as a pro after his 6th win was overturned to a No Contest, Quinlan has three wins by KO, two by submission, and has yet to require the judges. One thing to keep in mind is the level of competition he’s been facing, as his opponents entered his fights with records of 0-0, 1-0, 0-0, 6-3, 3-1, and 5-1. Not counting his recent R1 KO against a short notice replacement that was overturned to a No Contest, his fights have been getting longer as he’s faced stiffer competition. Quinlan finished his first two opponents in the first round, his third opponent in round two, and his next two opponents in round three.

Overall, Quinlan throws a ton of kicks, which makes sense considering his background is in soccer and not martial arts. He’s pretty explosive and has good power, and loads up with everything he throws. He’s rarely looking to land takedowns but does have the ability to reverse positions on the mat and is actually listed as a BJJ black belt, which is somewhat surprising considering his late start in MMA. Considering Quinlan is coming off a steroid suspension, it will be important to monitor him closely at weigh-ins.

Jason Witt

6th UFC Fight (2-3)

Continuing to alternate wins and KO losses over his last six fights, Witt is looking to bounce back from a second round TKO loss to Phil Rowe. Witt has still never lost two consecutive fights in his career, and has landed submission wins following six of his previous seven defeats. He made his short notice UFC debut in 2020 on just over a day’s notice against Takashi Sato and got knocked out in 48 seconds. However, he bounced back with a second round submission win over Cole Williams. Next, Witt got knocked out in 16 seconds by Matthew Semelsberger, before rebounding with a wild decision win over Bryan Barberena, leading up to his loss to Rowe.

In his last fight, Witt landed his first takedown attempt a minute into the fight. Rowe was able to return to his feet 30 seconds later, but Witt immediately returned him to the mat. Witt basically just layed on Rowe for the rest of the round before Rowe again returned to his feet towards the end. Witt immediately looked to return the fight to the mat in round two, landing two more takedowns, but Rowe was once again able to return to his feet and landed a combination of punches to put Witt away without much resistance. Each fighter only landed eight significant strikes in the fight, while Witt led in total strikes 25-8. Witt also landed 4 of his 7 takedown attempts with 5:11 of control time.

Now 19-8 as a pro, Witt has three wins by KO, eight by submission, seven decisions, and one DQ win. Six of his eight submission wins have occurred in round one, with one more in each of the later rounds. Seven of those submissions were by rear-naked choke, while his last submission win ended in an arm-triangle. He’s been finished in all eight of his losses, with six KOs and two submissions. Seven of those eight losses occurred in the first two rounds, with three in round one and four in round two.

Overall, Witt is a chinny wrestler who’s too thick to make 155 lb, but too short to really compete at 170 lb. Nevertheless, he’s spent the vast majority of his career trying to make the most of things at 170 lb with intermittent success. He trains out of Glory MMA & Fitness and is actually teammates with Dallas Jennings who fought Josh Quinlan in March 2021. Witt has landed 14 takedowns on 29 attempts (48.3%) in his five UFC fights, with at least two takedowns landed in each of his fights to last longer than 48 seconds.

Fight Prediction:

Quinlan will have a 2” height and reach advantage, in addition to being six years younger than the 35-year-old Witt.

This fight has a ton of factors in play. On one side, we have a guy with very little pro experience making his UFC debut following a steroid suspension and on the other we have a veteran wrestler with a suspect chin. We don’t know how Quinlan will look off the juice or how he’ll handle the pressure of stepping inside the Octagon for the first time. However, we know exactly what we get with Witt, as he’ll spam takedowns and casually look for submissions while remaining focused on controlling his opponents on the mat. Things are always dicey for Witt on the feet as his chin is terrible and now he’ll face an opponent with explosive striking. Quinlan is listed as a BJJ black belt, which could make it tougher for Witt to find a submission here, but Quinlan hasn’t been overly impressive on the ground from what we’ve seen. While the obvious result is for Quinlan to knock Witt out with the first clean punch he lands, it wouldn’t be shocking to see Witt get this fight to the ground and either grind out a decision win or potentially even lock up a submission. Forced to choose, we’ll still say Quinlan knocks him out, but this one could be closer than the odds suggest (or Witt could get knocked out in 15 seconds). Cutting weight twice a week apart adds some additional concern for Witt’s chin, but the fact that the fight was moved up to 180 lb should help him with that. Witt also weighed in five pounds heavier than Quinlan, which could help him in the wrestling exchanges.

Our favorite bet here is “Witt DEC ONLY (Finish = No Action)” at -120.

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DFS Implications:

Quinlan comes into the UFC undefeated (5-0) and with a 100% finishing rate, but he’s a wild card with all of the uncertainty surrounding him. He’s making his UFC debut with very limited pro experience, he’s coming off a steroid suspension, and he’s facing a UFC veteran who will be looking to wrestle. There’s a strong chance that Quinlan lands a knockout in this fight, but he also has the potential to get taken down and ground out on the mat. So he has a massively wide range of scoring outcomes and we generally see fighters struggle in their UFC debuts. We’re always looking to target both sides of a Jason Witt fight, but that burned us last time when Phil Rowe landed a second round knockout, but only after getting controlled for a round and a half. Because of that, he only scored 83 points on DraftKings and 92 points on FanDuel. That presents a clear path to how this fight fails, and could leave Quinlan more reliant on landing a first round knockout to really score well, as a later round knockout would likely mean he got controlled for the earlier portion of the fight. Quinlan is allegedly a BJJ black belt, which theoretically lowers his chances of getting submitted, but he hasn’t blown us away with his grappling to this point. The odds imply he has a 70% chance to win, a 48% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.

Witt has continued to alternate wins and KO losses and has yet to lose two fights in a row in his career. In his two UFC wins, he put up DraftKings scores of 108 and 105 and FanDuel totals of 106 and 104. So he’s been a solid contributor on both sites, but he’s also incredibly chinny and has been knocked out in all three of his UFC losses, including twice in the opening minute. And looking at his entire pro career, all eight of his losses have come early, while he’s 7-0 in decisions. Habitually priced as the underdog, Witt is always in play in tournaments, you just have to hope he can somehow survive on the feet long enough to get fights to the mat. He’s proven he can score well even without a finish and in his five UFC fights he’s landed 14 takedowns on 29 attempts (48.3%). The odds imply Witt has a 30% chance to win, a 13% chance to get a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #11

Ode Osbourne

6th UFC Fight (3-2)

Fresh off a 61 second R1 KO win, Osbourne has only seen the second round once in his last 10 fights, which came in a decision victory in his second most recent match. He made his debut in 2020 against Brian Kelleher at 135 lb and got submitted in the first round, before moving up to 145 lb for a short notice matchup against a terrible Jerome Rivera, who Osbourne knocked out in 26 seconds. Osbourne then dropped all the way down to 125 lb and got knocked out by Manel Kape with a flying knee late in round one, before bouncing back with his recent pair of victories.

Osbourne’s last fight ended so quickly that it’s hard to take much away from it that we didn’t know already. Osbourne clipped Zarrukh Adashev with a counter check right hook in the opening minute of the first round and then quickly finished him with ground and pound on the mat. Striking was dead even at 7-7 and no takedowns were attempted.

Now 11-4 as a pro, Osbourne has five wins by KO, four by submission, and two decisions. He’s been knocked out once, submitted twice, and has one decision loss. Nine of his last 10 and 11 of his last 14 fights have ended in the first round, with the others going the distance. His last three losses have all come in round one, while his lone decision loss occurred back in 2016 in his first trip to the judges. Both of Osbourne’s early wins in the UFC came against low-level talents and only two of his seven pre-UFC finishes came against opponents with winning records. Up until he moved down to 125 lb for his last three fights (2-1), Osbourne had competed at 135 lb (6-3) and 145 lb (3-0) for his entire career.

Overall, Osbourne is an explosive striker with a background in wrestling. After failing to attempt a takedown in his first three UFC fights, he went 1 for 7 in his second most recent match after switching camps to Syndicate MMA, so it will be interesting to see if he incorporates more wrestling moving forward, although his last fight ended so quickly that no takedowns were attempted. His late-round cardio remains a concern and he hasn’t landed a finish beyond the first round since his 2015 pro debut when he submitted an opponent 70 seconds into round two.

Tyson Nam

6th UFC Fight (2-3)

Coming off a 19 month layoff, the 38-year-old Nam is coming off ACL surgery and hasn’t fought since his January 2021 decision loss to Matt Schnell. He had been scheduled to face Tagir Ulanbekov this June, but Ulanbekov ended up withdrawing, forcing Nam back to the shelf. While his recent decision loss came at 125 lb, Nam’s previous two fights were both up at 135 lb, where he knocked out Jerome Rivera in round two and Zarrukh Adashev in round one—coincidentally the same two opponents that Osbourne has knocked out in his UFC career. Prior to moving up to 135 lb for that two fight stretch, Nam lost a pair of decisions at 125 lb to Kai Kara-France and Sergio Pettis in his first two UFC fights. So overall, Nam is 0-3 in the UFC in three decisions at 125 lb, and 2-0 at 135 lb with a pair of knockouts.

In his last fight, Nam was forced to chase Matt Schnell around the Octagon in a frustratingly slow-paced tactical striking battle. Schnell took the striking lead early and was content with outlanding his way to a split-decision win, opposed to pushing for a finish. The fight ended with Schnell ahead 85-58 in striking, with no takedown attempts, knockdowns, or control time in the fight.

Now 20-12-1 as a pro, Nam has 12 wins by KO, one by submission, and seven decisions. He’s been knocked out in the first round three times in his career, although those all occurred a long time ago (2006, 2008 & 2013) and up at 135 lb. The most recent of those notably came against Marlon Moraes in 2013. Nam’s other nine losses have all gone the distance. Nam has bounced back and forth between 125 lb and 135 lb throughout his career, but has found more success at 135 lb lately. His last five fights at 125 lb all ended in decisions (1-4).

Overall, Nam is a pure striker, and we’ve yet to see a takedown landed by anyone in any of his five UFC fights. However, only one of his five UFC opponents even attempted a takedown on him, which was another striker in Kai Kara-France who went 0 for 4. Nam also went 0 for 4 on his takedown attempts in that fight, while not attempting any takedowns in his other four UFC matches. Nam doesn’t throw much volume, averaging just 3.64 SSL/min and he’s only finished ahead in striking in one of his five UFC matches.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’7” but Osbourne will have a 5” reach advantage and is eight years younger than the 38-year-old Nam.

There are a lot of red flags surrounding Nam here. He’s 38 years old, hasn’t fought in 19 months, is coming off ACL surgery, is 0-3 at 125 lb in the UFC, and has lost four of the last five decisions he’s been to. He’s facing a much younger, faster, and stronger opponent, who lands more volume, will have a sizable reach advantage, and is a much better grappler. So overall, it’s really hard to find many reasons to like Nam here, and the only argument we can come up with is that he hasn’t been finished since 2013 and should have the better cardio. However, he doesn’t throw enough volume or grapple at all to really capitalize on that, and Nam looks reliant on landing a knockout to pull off the upset. We like Osbourne to win this fight and the only question we have is whether he knocks Nam out in the first round or wins a decision. We’re leaning towards the latter, but if Nam looks bad following knee surgery or starts slow due to ring rust, he could definitely get knocked out in round one here.

Our favorite bet here is “Osbourne R1 KO” at +470.

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DFS Implications:

Osbourne has been a R1 finish or bust fighter throughout his career, but 9 of his last 10 fights have ended in the first five minutes. He’s an explosive striker and also has a background in wrestling, but struggles with his cardio later in fights in the rare occasions that they make it past round one. While Nam has been knocked out in the first round three times in the past, those all came much earlier in his career. With that said, he’s now 38 years old and coming off a 19 month layoff after having ACL surgery, so there’s certainly the potential that he’s no longer the same fighter he used to be. That adds to Osbourne’s appeal and despite all of Osbourne’s first round finishes, the field has generally been pretty lukewarm on him, as he was just 19% owned the last time we saw him. We expect to see that number rise as he’s coming off a first round KO win, but he still projects to be fairly low owned. Just keep in mind, he only scored 69 DraftKings points in his lone UFC decision win, and hasn’t finished anybody beyond the first round since his 2015 pro debut, where he landed an early second round submission win. The odds imply Osbourne has a 69% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish, and a 19% chance it comes in round one.

Nam has fought at 125 lb three times in the UFC, with all three of those fights ending in decision losses. He failed to top 23 DraftKings points in any of those, and even at his cheap price tag he’s very unlikely to be useful in DFS unless he lands a knockout. While he does have two KO UFC wins, those both occurred up at 135 lb against very low level opponents. He’s now 38 years old and coming off knee surgery and a 19 month layoff, and going up against a dangerous opponent who’s only been knocked out once in his career. So it’s tough to get very excited about Nam here and he looks like nothing more than a hail mary KO or bust option. The odds imply Nam has a 31% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #10

Gabriel Benitez

13th UFC Fight (6-6)

Moving back up to 155 lb after missing weight by 2 lb for his last fight, Benitez has lost his last two and four of his last five matches. He fought at 155 lb earlier in his career, but dropped down to 145 lb in 2014, one fight before going on The Ultimate Fighter Latin America Season 1. Despite losing his second fight on the show, the UFC still awarded him a contract and he fought his first eight UFC fights at 145 lb (5-3), never missing weight over that stretch. He then moved up to 155 lb in 2020 and lost a decision to Omar Morales, before bouncing back with a first round KO win over a suspect Justin Jaynes, who has also spent time down at 145 lb. Following that win, Benitez attempted to drop back down to 145 lb, but missed weight and Jonathan Pearce refused to continue with the match. Benitez then was able to make the 146 lb limit against Billy Quarantillo, but got dominated on the mat and finished in the third round. Staying at 145 lb, he then missed weight again in his last fight in his R1 KO loss to David Onama. While Benitez has been finished in four of his six UFC losses, those were all down at 145 lb, opposed to 155 lb where this next fight will be.

In his last fight, both guys came out of the gates firing, but Benitez landed a punch to the eye of Onama that looked to have Onama in some real trouble. As Benitez continued to lay it on him, Onama was able to buy some time by looking for a takedown. While he wasn’t able to land it, it gave him just enough time to slow down the attack of Benitez and reset. After that, Benitez began to wilt under the pressure of Onama and in the final minute of the first round Onama was able to back Benitez up against the fence and violently face plant him with a flurry of strikes. The fast-paced four and a half minutes of fighting ended with Benitez ahead 46-36 in striking, but Onama getting the highlight reel KO.

Now 22-10 as a pro, Benitez has eight wins by KO, 10 by submission, and four decisions. He’s been knocked out four times, submitted twice, and has four decision losses. Sixteen of his 32 career fights have ended in the first round (11-5). Simply looking at Benitez’s record it would be easy to mistake him as a grappler, with so many submission wins to his name. However, he hasn’t submitted anybody since 2016 and three of his last four submissions were by guillotine choke, with the other ending in a heel hook. So he’s really only using submission attempts defensively and he’s never landed a takedown in 12 UFC fights, on just a single attempt.

Overall, Benitez is an exciting brawler, but has been struggling to make 145 lb later in his career and is a little undersized at 155 lb. His only UFC win at 155 lb came against another undersized fighter in Justin Jaynes, who’s no longer in the UFC after going 1-4 with the organization. As you’ll hear from the broadcast every time Benitez fights, he throws powerful kicks, but is also dangerous with his hands. His biggest issue lately has been his durability, as he’s been knocked out in three of his last four losses. In fairness to him, his losses have come against tough opponents and now he’ll be facing a step down in competition.

Charlie Ontiveros

3rd UFC Fight (0-2)

Still in search of his first UFC win, Ontiveros has battled a scary neck injury that he sustained in the R1 TKO loss to Kevin Holland in his October 2020 UFC debut. He took a year off before returning to action, but then struggled again on the mat as he got finished by Steve Garcia through ground and pound in the second round of his last fight. It’s now been 10 months since that loss and 22 months since he originally suffered the injury. In a recent interview, Ontiveros said the neck injury was still bothering him in his last fight and he also had PTSD following the loss to Holland, to the extent that he didn't even want to fight anymore. Ontiveros was also fined and suspended for six months when he tested positive for “DHCMT M3 metabolites” following the loss to Holland. Prior to joining the UFC, Ontiveros landed a pair of first round knockouts, each in under two minutes.

In his last fight, Ontiveros clipped Garcia with an axe kick in the opening seconds of the match that had Garcia momentarily wobbled, but he appeared to quickly recover. However, not long after he got dropped for the second time in the opening 30 seconds of the fight, this time with a clean left hand from Ontiveros. That left Garcia desperately looking to grab a leg and look for a takedown to buy time to recover. He was able to land the takedown against the one-dimensional striker in Ontiveros, and while Ontiveros briefly returned to his feet, Garcia dumped him again and eventually started landing heavy elbows that split Ontiveros open. The two fighters traded shots to start round two, but Garcia again took him to the mat and assaulted him with ground and pound until the fight was eventually stopped, as Ontiveros looked helpless off his back. While Ontiveros was amazingly able to land multiple knockdowns in the fight, Garcia finished ahead in significant strikes 34-7 and in total strikes 70-15, while landing three of his five takedown attempts with nearly six minutes of control time.

Now 11-8 as a pro, Ontiveros has four wins by KO, two by submission, four decisions, and one DQ win. All eight of his losses have come by knockout, with three in round one, four in round two, and one in round three. His last eight fights have all ended in under eight minutes, with five of those ending in round one (3-2), and three ending in round two (1-2). Ontiveros spent his entire pre-UFC career fighting at 170 lb, but made his short notice UFC debut up at 185 lb. Instead of dropping back down to his normal 170 lb weight class following that fight, Ontiveros jumped all the way down to 155 lb for his last fight, and that’s where he’s staying for this next one. It’s unclear why he’s yet to try his normal 170 lb weight class in the UFC, and he’s running out of time to do so.

Overall, Ontiveros is a pure taekwondo and karate style striker who hasn’t shown any sort of ground game. He’s all offense with no defense and lacks any sort of durability. He loves to throw flashy axe kicks and spinning attacks, which makes him a tough guy to prepare for on the feet, but he’s an absolute liability on the ground. With a kill or get killed mentality, Ontiveros makes for exciting fights and has yet to find an opponent who’s willing to stand and trade with him in the UFC.

Fight Prediction:

Ontiveros will have a 6” height advantage and 7” reach advantage, while being three years younger than the 34-year-old Benitez.

This should be an absolute banger for as long as it lasts, with both guys historically only looking to finish opponents on the feet. While it would make all the sense in the world for Benitez to look for a takedown based on how terrible Ontiveros has looked on the mat, Benitez’s next takedown will also be his first in the UFC, and he only has a single attempt in 12 UFC fights. He seems to pride himself on outworking his opponents, not outthinking them, so we’d be surprised if he suddenly turned into a grappler here. While everyone gives Ontiveros a lot of shit for how fragile he is, the guy can strike. He’s landed just nine significant strikes in his two UFC fights, yet has two official knockdowns and was arguably robbed of at least one more. Ontiveros will also have a massive height and reach advantage, and if Benitez simply stands in front of him and tries to outstrike Ontiveros, he’s likely going to get clipped with something he never sees coming. While the whole world appears to be on Benitez by R1 murder, which is certainly a very possible outcome, we like Ontiveros’ chances of being the one that lands the first round knockout here.

Our favorite bet here is Ontiveros’ ML at +280.

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DFS Implications:

Benitez is a pure striker who relies on landing finishes to score well in DFS. His two later round finishes scored just 96 (R2 SUB) and 57 (R3 SUB) DraftKings points, and at his high price tag he may need the finish to come in the first round to return value, or at the very least in the first two rounds. He’s never landed a takedown in the UFC, on just one attempt, and averages a good but unexceptional 4.60 SSL/min. While this is a good spot for him to land a finish against a fragile opponent, Benitez has spent most of his UFC career down at 145 lb, while Ontiveros fought his entire pre-UFC career at 170 lb, and Ontiveros will have a huge size advantage. While Benitez unquestionably has a huge ceiling, he’s lost four of his last five fights and isn’t nearly as safe of a play as your typical -350 favorite. This looks like a boom or bust spot for him and we wouldn’t be surprised to see either guy get knocked out early. If it somehow goes the distance, Benitez has only averaged 66 DraftKings points in his two UFC decision wins, and can’t score well without a finish. The odds imply Benitez has a 74% chance to win, a slate-leading 61% chance to land a finish, and a 31% chance it comes in round one.

Ontiveros’ stock is at an all time low after he was finished on the mat in each of his first two UFC fights and has had to deal with an ongoing neck injury. He’s looked about as durable as a wet paper bag, but it’s important to note that he’s looked good on the feet and it’s only been on the mat where he’s looked helpless. Now he’ll face an opponent who’s never landed a takedown in 12 UFC fights on just one attempt. Unless Benitez comes in with a radically different game plan, Ontiveros should have plenty of opportunities to land axe kicks, spinning attacks, and whatever other crazy taekwondo attacks he feels like throwing. Benitez is also moving up from 145 lb, while Ontiveros was previously a life long 170 pounder and actually took his debut all the way up at 185 lb. He’ll have a massive size and reach advantage, which should make it tougher for Benitez to close the distance and more likely that he walks into one of Ontiveros’ strikes. Ontiveros hasn’t been past the eight minute mark in any of his last eight fights, and as the cheapest fighter on the card, it’s hard to see him failing to return value with a finish. This is the ultimate boom or bust spot, as Ontiveros’ scoring range is literally 0–120+. After laying an egg in his first two UFC outings, his ownership is sure to be low, and Ontiveros is the ultimate high-risk tournament play. The odds imply he has a 26% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #9

Cynthia Calvillo

12th UFC Fight (6-4-1)

This fight had been booked on July 9th, but Nunes got sick after weigh-ins and ended up dropping out the day of the fight.

After moving up to 125 lb in 2020 following a 4.5 lb weight miss in her last fight at 115 lb, Calvillo won a five-round decision over Jessica Eye. However, she’s since dropped three straight fights, each ending worse than the last. The downfall began with a decision loss to Katlyn Chookagian, and was then followed by a R1 TKO loss to Jessica Andrade. Both of those losses are pretty understandable and she was clearly fighting over her head. However, she then took on Andrea Lee in her last fight and simply quit after the second round, which is tougher to accept.

In that recent defeat, Lee pulled ahead early in striking and never allowed Calvillo to get going with her grappling. While Calvillo did land one takedown on three attempts in the fight, she only finished with 39 total seconds of control time. Calvillo’s offensive striking looked terrible and her striking defense looked even worse. The fight was not at all competitive and Lee finished ahead 84-47 in significant strikes—it seemed wider watching it. Just as the third round was about to begin, Calvillo’s corner announced she would not be continuing in the match.

Now 9-4-1 as a pro, Calvillo has two wins by KO, three by submission, and four decisions. Her only two early losses occurred in her recent two TKOs, and she’s never been submitted. Her other two losses both went the distance. Calvillo fought her first seven UFC fights at 115 lb, before moving up to 125 lb in 2020 following a draw against Marina Rodriguez where she missed weight by 4.5 lb. She did fight her first pro bout at 125 lb and her second at 120 lb Catchweight, but then dropped down to 115 lb one fight before she joined the UFC. Calvillo hasn't finished an opponent since 2018, when she submitted Poliana Botelho.

Overall, Calvillo relies on her grappling to win fights, but has landed just two takedowns on seven attempts in her last three matches. She’s yet to prove she can hang in the 125 lb division, and if she doesn’t turn things around soon she may be looking for a new job. However, working in her favor, she’ll now face an opponent moving up from 115 lb.

Nina Nunes

9th UFC Fight (4-4)

Nunes will be making her 125 lb UFC debut against another former 115 pounder, which should make the transition a little easier. She had fought at 125 lb prior to dropping down to 115 lb in her UFC debut, so the weight class isn’t completely foreign to her. She had talked about making the move leading up to her last fast after having a baby, but gave 115 lb one more shot. That didn’t end well as she got submitted by Mackenzie Dern late in the first round, which likely made the decision easier to move up. After winning four straight fights in 2017 and 2018, Nunes lost a decision in June 2019 to the #2 ranked Strawweight in Tatiana Suarez and has only fought once since as she understandably shifted her focus to expanding her family.

In her last fight, Dern was able to get Nunes down without too much trouble early in the first round on just two attempts, despite Dern entering with a 5% takedown accuracy and Nunes entering with a 77% takedown defense. Dern then had nearly four minutes to advance her position and hunt for a submission and she patiently used nearly all of it before tactfully finishing the fight with an armbar just seconds before the round ended. Nunes never got anything going in the fight, and Dern finished ahead in significant strikes 12-4 and in total strikes 31-5.

Now 10-7 as a pro, Nunes has four wins by KO, two by submission, and four decisions. She’s never been knocked out, but has been submitted twice and has five decision losses. Prior to her recent submission loss, she had fought to four straight decisions and hadn’t been finished since her fourth pro fight back in 2011.

Overall, Nunes is a 3rd degree black belt in Taekwondo, but just a BJJ purple belt. She much prefers to fight on her feet, but does have a couple of submission wins on her record. While she doesn’t have real knockout power, she has landed 92 or more significant strikes in three of her eight UFC fights, including 143 landed on Angela Hill in a 2017 decision win. While Nunes has a 76% takedown defense, she’s been taken down at least once in each of her last four fights, and was taken down four times and controlled for over eight minutes in her second most recent fight. Just keep in mind that was against the #2 ranked Strawweight in Tatiana Suarez who has a 62% career takedown accuracy.

Fight Prediction:

Nunes will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 64” reach. Calvillo is two years younger than the 36-year-old Nunes.

This is a matchup between two fighters both struggling to get a win. Nunes has only lost two fights in a row, but her last win was all the way back in 2018 and she’s now 36 years old. Calvillo has been much more active, but has lost three straight. Calvillo has really struggled to get her grappling going since moving up to 125 lb, but she’s also been facing a series of tough opponents. This is a step down in competition for both ladies, so it will be interesting to see how they each look. Calvillo should be trying to get the fight to the ground, and her grappling success will likely determine who wins. Neither one of these two have impressed us lately and we could see this one going either way, but if Nunes can keep the fight standing we like her to outland her way to a decision win. If Calvillo can find success with her grappling then she has a chance to land a submission or ride out a decision on the mat. We’ll say Nunes wins a decision, but it’s far from a comfortable pick.

Our favorite bet here is Nune’s ML at +160.

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DFS Implications:

Calvillo has been a R1 submission or bust play for DFS in three round fights thus far in her career, but she at least has the potential to put on a grappling heavy performance that could still score decently in a decision. Nunes is coming up from 115 lb and has only fought once since 2019, which ended in a first round submission, so there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding her current form. While Calvillo has looked terrible in her last three fights, she has been facing really tough opponents, so perhaps this step down in competition is exactly what she needs to get back on track. She looks like a better play on DraftKings than FanDuel due to her grappling. The odds imply Calvillo has a 63% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.

Nunes’ first seven UFC fights all made it to the third round with six going the distance. The one finish over that stretch was a 2017 third round submission win that scored a career best 93 DraftKings. Now she’s coming off her first early loss in the UFC, in a first round submission to Mackenzie Dern. Nunes averaged 71 DraftKings points in her three decision victories, but with only two takedowns landed in her career and none in her last five fights, she relies entirely on striking to score well. That requires her to put up massive striking totals to be useful and now she’ll be facing an opponent who’s looking to grappling. Nunes likely needs a finish to end up in tournament winning lineups, but if we only see 2-3 total dogs on the slate win then there’s a chance she can sneak into winning tournament lineups even in a decision. The odds imply she has a 37% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #8

Martin Buday

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Coming off a third round technical decision win over Chris Barnett in his recent UFC debut, Buday is on a nine fight winning streak that includes eight straight finishes prior to his recent technical decision. Five of those finishes ended in round one, with the other three ending in round two. He punched his ticket to the UFC with a first round KO win on DWCS in his second most recent fight. In that match, Buday absorbed some early damage but went to work with his knees along the fence as he destroyed the quad of his opponent before finally landing a knee up high to get the fight stopped in the closing seconds of round one. Looking back one fight further, Buday was way behind in striking in a June 2021 pre-UFC match, but landed an unimposing punch late in round two that appeared to bother the eye of his opponent and then Buday followed up and put him down. Overall it was a highly unimpressive win, but showed once again anything can happen in a Heavyweight fight.

In his last fight, Buday landed an inadvertent but illegal elbow that was deemed to land to the back of the head of Barnett early in the third round that forced the fight to be stopped and it went to the scorecards. Barnett told his corner he broke his rib after the second round and seemed to be looking for a way out. Then, Buday landed a knee to Barnett’s damaged ribs a minute into the third round and Barnett immediately went down, which led to Buday landing the illegal elbow as he tried to put Barnett away.

Now 10-1 as a pro, Buday has seven KOs, one submission, and two decision wins. His only career loss occurred in his second pro fight in a 2017 decision against a stud Heavyweight grappler in Juan Espino. Buday has only seen the third round twice in his career and lost the only decision he’s ever been to.

Overall, Buday is a BJJ brown belt and actually started off training in Jiu-Jitsu before transitioning to MMA. We saw some of that in a September 2019 submission win where he landed two takedowns and finished his opponent early in round two with a kimura. While Buday loves to grind opponents up against the fence and go to town with knees, his takedown attempts have been sporadic, but he does have the ability to grapple when he chooses to. While he isn’t an overly impressive striker, he finds ways to win and does a good job of landing damage out of the clinch, where he likes to throw heavy knees. He’s a big Heavyweight who has to cut down to make 265 lb and he relies on his size to help him win ugly fights. Buday doesn’t look like any sort of threat to make a real run in the UFC, but he should be able to find success against other low level Heavyweights.

Lukasz Brzeski

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

After landing a controversial third round submission win over a short notice replacement on DWCS in September 2021, Brzeski was suspended for nine months after testing positive for clomiphene, a hormone medication used to treat infertility in women. Despite being caught cheating, the UFC didn’t cut ties with Brzeski, and he’ll actually be the second DWCS fighter coming off a PED suspension making his debut on this slate. Prior to going on DWCS, Brzeski landed a May 2020 R2 TKO and has now only fought once in the last 27 months. His two fights before that both went the distance (1-0-1), after he landed three straight second round finishes in 2018.

We called that submission victory controversial because the referee thought Brzeski’s opponent, Dylan Potter, tapped, when in reality he was trying to fight the hands of Brzeski. It didn’t really matter in terms of the outcome of the fight, as Brzeski was clearly in control, but it is interesting to wonder if Brzeski would have been awarded a contract if the fight had lasted another 69 seconds and gone to a decision. Potter notably took that fight on short notice and has now lost three of his last four matches. He’s also a guy that has competed at Light Heavyweight and even Middleweight in the past and is clearly undersized at Heavyweight. Brzeski weighed in at 234.5 lb for that fight, so he’s also not the biggest of Heavyweights. Neither guy was that impressive in the match and Brzeski looked gassed in the second half of the fight. Brzeski found his most success on the mat, as he landed two takedowns on three attempts with nearly eight minutes of control time. Brzeski also finished ahead 80-43 in significant strikes and 166-48 in total strikes, while finishing with two official submission attempts.

Now 8-1-1 as a pro, Brzeski has five wins by KO, two by submission, and one decision, in addition to his recent third round submission win that was later overturned to a No Contest. His only career loss came in a 2014 24 second R1 TKO in his fourth pro fight. The first three early wins of his career all came in round one, but his last three have all ended in round two, not counting the third round finish that was overturned to a No Contest. His last seven fights have all made it out of the first round, with three of his last four making it to round three.

Overall, Brzeski is from Poland and has trained with Jan Blakovich, but is a leaner Heavyweight and doesn’t have much in terms of one punch knockout power at the weight class. He also looks to grapple more than your typical Heavyweight and is often looking for finishes on the mat. He throws decent calf kicks and a good amount of volume, but also tends to slow down later in fights and doesn’t appear to have great cardio.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 6’4” but Brzeski will have a 1” reach advantage.

This isn’t your typical Heavyweight matchup as both fighters have the ability to grapple, but one (Buday) is almost 30 pounds heavier than the other, based on where they each weighed in for their last fights. It will be interesting to see the difference on the scale this week (UPDATE: 266 lb vs. 236.5 lb), but it could be tough for Brzeski to come out ahead in the grappling exchanges if he’s giving up that much mass. While neither of these two have really impressed us, the winner of the fight will likely be determined by who comes out ahead in the clinch and grappling exchanges. Brzeski’s best chance to win will likely be to put Buday on his back and look for ground and pound. However, we’ve yet to see Buday forced to wrestle defensively and he does have a grappling background and is a BJJ brown belt, so there’s always a chance he could surprise us and hold his own there. With that said, most Heavyweights really struggle off their backs and we’d be surprised if Buday was much different. The fact that both of these two can grapple adds some uncertainty to the mix, and creates the potential for either of them to get the other in a bad spot on the mat and finish the fight, but we like the larger man in Buday to win here by controlling Brzeski along the fence and wearing on his gas tank with knees out of the clinch until he can eventually finish him, most likely in the second round.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Round 2” at +380.

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DFS Implications:

Buday has yet to really do anything to impress us, but he’s a massive Heavyweight who will tie guys up in the clinch and assault them with heavy knees. He’s also a BJJ brown belt, so even if this does turn into a grappling match he should be able to hold his own. He’s taking on a smaller Heavyweight who’s making his UFC debut following a 9-month PED suspension, which adds some uncertainty into the mix, but this looks like a favorable spot for Buday to rack up control time and clinch strikes. Eight of Buday’s 10 career wins have come early, with five in round one and three in round two, so he’s generally done a good job of getting opponents out of there even if he isn’t the most exciting fighter to watch. With that said, we’re still not sold on him being a legitimate talent, but that may not matter here as he takes on another lower level Heavyweight. Both guys in this match have the ability to grapple some, and putting a Heavyweight on their back is a great way to rack up a ton of points and oftentimes find a finish. That creates a wide range of potential scoring outcomes, but Buday should have a considerable size advantage and we like his chances in the grappling/clinch exchanges. The odds imply Buday has a 70% chance to win, a 39% chance to land a finish, and a 23% chance it comes in round one.

Brzeski is coming off a nine months PED suspension after he landed a questionable third round submission win on DWCS in September 2021. His opponent never actually tapped, but the ref thought he did, although Brzeski was dominating the fight anyways, albeit against an undersized short notice replacement. That win would have scored 118 DraftKings points and 120 points on FanDuel, and Brzeski’s grappling-heavy approach to fighting looks favorable for his scoring potential. With that said, he’s a leaner Heavyweight and may struggle to control larger opponents in the UFC and also has cardio concerns. His first fight with the organization will be a good test of that as he faces a much thicker opponent in Martin Buday, who also has a grappling background himself. While this looks like a tough matchup for Brzeski, and we don’t really know how he’ll look following the PED suspension, he does have a high theoretical ceiling if he can put Buday on his back and go to work on the ground. At his cheap price tag, this is a high-risk, high-reward spot in DFS. The odds imply he has a 30% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #7

Loopy Godinez

6th UFC Fight (3-2)

This matchup had been booked for October 15th but then it got moved to this card on just 10 day’s notice, probably because they were so short on fights at the time before the Quinlan/Witt and Lipski/Cachoeira fights were both added to it. Also, Hill lives in San Diego and loves short notice fights, so she likely pushed for it. Because of the short notice nature, it was moved from 115 lb to a 120 lb Catchweight.

Godinez is coming off a pair of wrestling-heavy decision wins and has gone the distance in seven of her last eight fights, with the one exception being a R1 submission win over Silvana Gomez Juarez. She made her UFC debut against Jessica Penne and despite finishing ahead in significant strikes and takedowns, somehow lost a split decision. Godinez bounced back with a first round armbar submission win over Gomez Juarez, before losing another close decision a week later up a weight class to Luana Carolina. She again bounced back, with dominant decision wins over Loma Lookboonmee and Ariane Carnelossi in her last two outings.

In her last fight, Godinez was able to absolutely dominate Ariane Carnelossi on the mat for the entire fight. Godinez landed all eight of her takedown attempts in the fight, with 13:26 of control time, while leading 46-9 in significant strikes and 130-23 in total strikes.

Now 8-2 as a pro, Godinez has one win by KO, one by submission, and six decisions. Both of her early wins occurred in the first round, with one coming in her second pro fight and the other in her second UFC fight. Both of her losses have ended in close decisions, with one of those being a questionable split result against Jessica Penne in Godinez’s UFC debut, and the other against Luana Carolina, where Godinez was fighting up a weight class just seven days after submitting Silvana Gomez Juarez.

Overall, Godinez is a great wrestler, but also has solid boxing. She’s landed 23 takedowns on 50 attempts in her five UFC fights, averaging an insane 11.7 takedown attempts per 15 minutes with a 46% success rate. Her striking numbers are low at 2.23 SSL/min and 1.73 SSA/min, as no one has forced her into a striking battle so far in the UFC. Both of her UFC losses came in close/questionable decisions, and she easily could be 4-1 or 5-0 with the organization. Amazingly, three of Godinez’s five UFC fights occurred over a six week stretch in October and November 2021, and this will be her sixth UFC fight in the last 16 months.

Angela Hill

21st UFC Fight (8-12)

Looking to snap a three-fight skid, Hill has dropped five of her last six fights, with the one exception being a 2021 decision win over Ashley Yoder. Her last three losses have all come against tough opponents in Virna Jandiroba, Amanda Lemos, and Tecia Torres. Hill lives and trains in San Diego, so she should have the home crowd behind her.

In her last fight, Hill took on a dangerous grappler in Virna Jandiroba, who went for an early heel hook, but Hill was able to escape. Jandiroba was then able to get Hill down midway through round two and control her for nearly two minutes before losing the position as she went for an unsuccessful armbar attempt. Jandiroba returned Hill to the mat less than a minute into the third round and was able to control Hill for the remainder of the fight to win a unanimous 30-27 decision. The fight ended with Jandiroba landing three of her eight takedown attempts with seven minutes of control time. She led in total strikes 92-44, while Hill led in significant strikes 21-14.

Now 13-12 as a pro, Hill has five wins by KO/TKO and eight decision victories. Three of her five knockouts occurred in her first six pro fights, with two of those coming in Invicta. Her only two early wins in her last 19 fights came in a 2019 R3 TKO victory via doctor stoppage and a 2020 R2 TKO against a helpless Hannah Cifers. Since that January 2020 finish of Cifers, Hill has gone to seven straight decisions (2-5). She has never been knocked out, but she’s been submitted in the first round twice (2015 & 2019) and has 10 decision losses. She’s been to five split decisions in her career, losing the last four of those and has never won a split decision in the UFC. Sixteen of her 20 UFC fights have gone the distance.

Overall, Hill has always been a decent striker, although she’s not much of a finishing threat and relies more on volume. To her credit, she’s been improving her grappling in recent years. In her first 16 UFC fights, Hill landed just six takedowns, while in her last four fights she’s landed five. She has a 76% career takedown defense and just looking at her last 10 fights, she’s been taken down 10 times on 48 attempts (79.2% defense). No one has ever taken her down more than three times in any of her 20 UFC fights. When she’s not having to defend takedowns, Hill lands a good amount of striking volume, averaging 5.34 SSL/min in her career.

Fight Prediction:

Hill will have a 1” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while Godinez is nine years younger than the 37-year-old Hill.

This sets up as a really tough spot for Hill to succeed, as Godinez has a massive wrestling advantage and is also a good striker. We expect Godinez to continue to rely on her wrestling here, and while Hill has a solid 76% takedown defense, she’s still been taken down at least once by six of her last seven opponents. The only fighter to fail to take Hill down over that stretch was a striker in Amanda Lemos. While Hill has been submitted twice in her career, she showed a solid submission defense in her last fight as she went three rounds with a very dangerous submission specialist in Virna Jandiroba. So while it’s not impossible for Godinez to submit her, it does appear pretty unlikely. We like Godinez to win another wrestling-heavy decision and it will be interesting to see if Hill flirts with retirement if she gets dominated on the ground.

Our favorite bet here is “Godinez DEC” at -150.

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DFS Implications:

Godinez put up a slate-breaking 129 point DraftKings score in her recent dominant wrestling-heavy decision win over Ariane Carnelossi. Godinez landed all eight of her takedown attempts and controlled almost the entire fight on the mat, but just keep in mind that Carnelossi entered that matchup with just a 25% career takedown defense, and now Godinez will go up against the 76% defense of Hill, who has only been taken down 10 times in her last 10 fights combined. While we still expect Godinez to find wrestling success and to win this fight on the mat, it’s unlikely we’ll see quite as impressive of a performance as she showed in her last outing. It’s also important to note that this matchup had been scheduled for October, before the UFC switched it to this slate on just 10 day’s notice, which is why it’s taking place at a 120 lb Catchweight instead of 115 lb. Who do you think requested the extra weight allowance? It definitely wasn’t Hill, who has made a career out of taking short notice fights at 115 lb and has never once missed weight or fought at a Catchweight. So it’s fair to question if Godinez is even in the optimal condition to wrestle hard for 15 minutes, and she may need to pace herself more here than she did in her last fight. Hill has also never been taken down more than three times in any of her 20 UFC fights, despite the fact that opponents are typically looking to wrestle with her. So while Godinez has a really solid floor, another slate-breaking ceiling performance appears less likely here. At her high price tag, she’ll need to put up another huge ceiling performance to end up in tournament winning lineups, but her reliable floor makes her a solid low-risk play. The odds imply she has a 74% chance to win, a 20% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

It’s always hard to get excited about playing Hill in DFS as she’s only scored above 86 DraftKings points once in her last 19 fights and has lost three straight and five of her last six matches. She’s averaged just 73 DraftKings points in her last five decision wins and has only landed two finishes in her last 19 fights (2019 & 2020). So while there’s a slight chance she could as a value play in a decision win, we expect her to be defending takedowns for most of this fight, which lowers her striking ceiling. That likely leaves her reliant on landing a finish to score well, and in addition to Hill rarely getting anybody out of there, Godinez has never been finished. The short notice nature of this fight in addition to fighting in front of her home San Diego crowd could help Hill a little, but we’re still not very interested in playing her in DFS. The odds imply she has a 26% chance to win, a 9% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #6

Bruno Silva

5th UFC Fight (3-1)

Coming off his first loss since 2016, Silva recently had his seven fight winning streak snapped by Alex Pereira in a March 2022 decision. Silva is notably the only fighter to make it to the judges against Pereira, showing off just how durable he is. Prior to that loss, Silva had knocked out seven straight fighters, including his first three UFC opponents. He made his debut against a grappler in Wellington Turman and after fighting off takedowns for the entire first round, Silva was able to shake Turman off his back and impressively knock him out as Silva posted up on his knees as Turman lay on the mat with a loose open guard. That win in his debut followed a 31 month layoff, after Silva had originally been scheduled to make his debut against Deron Winn all the way back in June 2019, but failed a drug test and was suspended for two years after testing positive for steroids. Following the win over Turman, Silva faced another grappler/wrestler in Andrew Sanchez and after getting controlled for the first two rounds he knocked Sanchez out in round three. Next, Silva finally faced more of a striker in a glass-jawed Jordan Wright and easily knocked him out in the first round, before taking on Pereira most recently.

In his last fight, Silva smartly looked to wrestle some himself as he went against a one-dimensional kickboxer in Pereira. While Silva didn’t find a ton of grappling success, he was able to land two takedowns on eight attempts, while Pereira led the dance in striking. Pereira was able to hurt Silva late in the fight but couldn’t put him away and the fight ended in a unanimous 30-27 decision win for Pereira, who finished ahead in significant strikes 108-59 and in total strikes 165-72.

Now 22-7 as a pro, Silva has 19 wins by KO and three decisions. He’s never been knocked out, but he has been submitted five times, has one DQ loss on his record, and he’s coming off the first decision defeat of his career. Silva has impressively gone 17-2 in his last 19 fights dating back to 2012. Just three of those 19 fights went the distance, while 15 ended in KO wins, including 12 in the first round.

Historically, grappling has been Silva’s one vulnerability, but he hasn’t been submitted since 2016, and only has one submission loss since 2012. For what it’s worth, he was hilariously awarded his BJJ black belt immediately after his comeback KO win over Sanchez where Silva was dominated on the mat for two rounds. So perhaps his grappling and submission defense have improved. Silva has a 68% takedown defense and has been taken down 7 times on 22 attempts in his four UFC fights, but hasn’t had to defend a takedown in his last two matches. Wellington Turman went 0 for 10 on his attempts, while Andrew Sanchez landed 7 of his 12 attempts.

Gerald Meerschaert

17th UFC Fight (9-7)

Looking to bounce back from a decision loss to Krzysztof Jotko, Meerschaert saw the judges for the first time since 2019, after his previous six fights all ended early (4-2). He had submitted three straight opponents going into that recent loss, after getting knocked out in the first round of back-to-back 2020 matches.

In his last fight, Meerschaert went against the tough takedown defense of Krzysztof Jotko and unsurprisingly struggled to get the fight to the mat, landing just one of his four takedown attempts. Jotko actually landed four takedowns of his own in the fight, while outlanding Meerschaert 65-37 in significant strikes and 129-46 in total strikes.

Now 34-15 as a pro, Meerschaert has six wins by KO, 26 by submission, and amazingly just two decision victories in his 49 pro fights. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted eight times, and has four decision losses. His last six wins have all come by submission, with five of those ending in the later rounds, including three in round three. Meerschaert fought at 170 lb early in his pro career, but transitioned to 185 lb in 2013-2014, where he’s essentially stayed since, although he did venture up to 205 lb once in 2016.

While Meerschaert is a great grappler, he has a suspect chin and two of his last three losses ended in knockouts in 74 seconds or less. Six of his UFC fights have ended in the first round (3-3), four have ended in round two (3-1), three have ended in round three (3-0) and three have gone the distance (0-3). So he actually finds more success in the later rounds, but never wins with the judges. He’s only landed 19 takedowns on 47 attempts in his 16 UFC fights, averaging 2.3 takedowns per 15 minutes with a 40% accuracy. He’s only landed more than a single takedown once in his last nine fights, so he hasn’t been the most active wrestler even if he is a dangerous submission threat.

Fight Prediction:

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

This is your classic grappler versus striker matchup where Silva will be looking to land a knockout before Meerschaert can find a submission. Silva’s submission defense has held up better than Meerschaert’s chin lately, and it’s definitely more likely that Silva wins this one by knockout, but you can never count ol’ Meerschaert completely out. The tricky thing for Meerschaert is that most of his recent submission wins have occurred in the later rounds, meaning he’ll need to survive a round or two of violent head punches first. That’s a tall task when Bruno Silva is swinging hams at your face, so Silva by early KO is the pick here. With that said, there’s more value on Meerschaert’s side of things than on Silva’s when it comes to betting.

Our favorite bet here is “Meerschaert SUB” at +600.

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DFS Implications:

Silva has looked like a R1 KO or bust option so far in his four UFC fights, with DraftKings scores of 102 and 109 in his pair of first round knockouts, but just 79 points in a third round KO win, and only 42 in his recent decision loss. He’s yet to hit a true ceiling performance and notably didn’t notch a knockdown in his first R1 KO win that still scored 102 points. Meerschaert’s last two KO losses took 17 and 74 seconds, and if Silva can land something clean early, he’s a prime candidate for the Quick Win Bonus on DraftKings. Working against him, Meerschaert should be looking to grapple, which has the potential to slow down the fight, and reduce the number of knockout opportunities Silva has. No one has ever landed more than 65 significant strikes on Meerschaert, so Silva will likely struggle to return value the longer this fight goes. Despite coming off a decision loss, everyone knows what the deal is here, and Silva projects to be very popular in DFS. The odds imply Silva has a 72% chance to win, a 55% chance to land a finish, and a 32% chance it comes in round one.

All nine of Meerschaert’s UFC victories have come early, and he typically scores well when he wins, averaging 95 DraftKings points in those fights. However, he’s averaged just 78 DraftKings points in his three third-round submission wins, showing that he needs a finish in the first two rounds to really score well. That’s not entirely surprising, considering he only averages 3.04 SSL/min and has landed “just” 19 takedowns on 47 attempts in his 16 UFC fights. So his scoring is far more tied to his finishing bonuses than his stats, but this does setup as a decent spot for him to land a submission as he faces a Bruno Silva, who’s been submitted in five of his seven pro losses. Just keep in mind, Silva’s last submission loss was back in 2016, and he was actually awarded his BJJ black belt following his second UFC win. That’s not to say he’s a great grappler, but he may be improving. Meerschaert’s suspect chin leaves him with a zero point floor against a power puncher like Silva, making Meerschaert exclusively a high-risk play. The odds imply he has a 28% chance to win, an 18% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #5

Ariane Lipski

8th UFC Fight (3-4)

This fight had been scheduled at 125 lb on last week’s card but Lipski missed weight by 2.5 lb and then wasn’t medically cleared. It was bumped back a week and moved up to 135 lb.

After getting finished with ground and pound on the mat in back-to-back fights against Antonina Shevchenko and Montana De La Rosa in 2020 and 2021, Lipski bounced back with a dominant decision win over a terrible Mandy Bohm in her last fight. Lipski had been scheduled to face JJ Aldrich in March, but ended up withdrawing due to a shoulder injury and it’s now been almost 11 months since she last fought. After her first three UFC fights all went the distance, she landed her only early win with the organization in a first round kneebar submission against Luana Carolina leading up to her pair of second round TKO losses.

In Lipski’s last fight, Mandy Bohm attempted to take her down in the opening minute, only to have it reversed, with Lipski ending up in top position. At that point, Bohm clung on with a body triangle, praying for the ref to stand the fight up. However, as Lipski postured up to land strikes Bohm was able to kick her off and return to her feet. Maybe she should have stayed on her back though, because things weren’t going her way on the feet either. Things only got worse as the fight went on, with Lipski landing a pair of knockdowns in the later rounds and finishing ahead in significant strikes 87-36 and in total strikes 116-47. She also led in control time 4:26-0:26, despite failing to land her only takedown attempt, with Bohm going 0 for 4 on her takedown attempts.

Now 14-7 as a pro, Lipski has six wins by KO, three by submission, and five decisions. She has three TKO losses and four decision defeats. Seven of her last eight fights have made it out of the first round, with five of those going the distance.

Overall, Lipski is a decent striker with okay submission skills, and she has said she’s been working on her wrestling since switching camps to American Top Team following her loss to Shevchenko. She’s a BJJ purple belt and her last three early wins all ended in first round submissions. However, she’s only landed one takedown on five attempts in the UFC, which came in her UFC debut. On the other side of things, Lipski has been taken down 8 times on 18 attempts (55.6% defense) in her seven UFC fights.

Priscila Cachoeira

8th UFC Fight (3-4)

Coming off a questionable decision win over Ji Yeon Kim, Cachoeira has now won three of her last four fights after starting off 0-3 in the UFC. In fairness to her, she was thrown straight into the fire in her UFC debut when she was matched up against Valentina Shevchenko. Shevchenko absolutely dominated her for two rounds, elbowing her face through the mat before submitting Cachoeira late in the second round. Cachoeira followed that up with decision losses to Molly McCann and Luana Carolina, before landing a pair of knockouts against low-level opponents in Shana Dobson and Gina Mazany. She then got submitted at the end of round one by Gillian Robertson, leading up to her recent decision win.

In her last fight, Cachoeira threw down in a high-volume striking battle, but was massively outlanded by Ji Yeon Kim 170-102 in significant strikes. Cachoeira appeared to be the one doing more damage and the judges valued that over volume in the end. Towards the end of the fight, Cachoeira was landing nothing but heavy elbows and finished strong. Cachoeira also landed the only takedown attempt in the fight and won a unanimous 29-28 decision.

Now 11-4 as a pro, Cachoeira has six wins by KO and five decisions. She’s never been knocked out but has been submitted twice, and has two decision losses. All six of her KO wins have come in the first two rounds, as have her two submission losses. Cachoeira fought some at 135 lb earlier in her career, but has been down at 125 lb since 2017.

Overall, Cachoeira is a straight brawler who just wants to throw down and see who’s chin holds up. Her striking defense is non-existent and she averages 7.91 SSA/min (most on the slate). She’s been outlanded by her opponents in five of her seven UFC fights and finished three strikes ahead in the other two. In her three UFC fights to go the distance, her opponents landed 170, 107, and 111 significant strikes. She’s also a complete liability on the mat and is terrible off her back. She’s been taken down 9 times on 26 attempts (65.4% defense) in her seven UFC fights, while landing just one takedown of her own on three attempts (33.3% accuracy). Cachoeira has struggled with weight cuts throughout her career, and while it was Lipski who missed weight last week, cutting weight twice in back-to-back weeks is always a challenge and we’ll need to keep an eye on Cachoeira as well, although that’s less of a concern since the fight was moved up to 135 lb.

Fight Prediction:

Cachoeira will have a 1” height advantage, but Lipski will have a 2” reach advantage and is five years younger than the 33-year-old Cachoeira.

This sets up as an action packed brawl between a pair of Brazilian strikers. While they’ve each only landed one takedown in their respective UFC careers, if this fight does hit the mat Lipski is the superior grappler, but they’ve both struggled mightily off their backs. Lipski is the more calculated striker, while Cachoeira has more power and just wants to brawl. If things stay standing we could see Lipski land more volume but Cachoeira has a better chance to land a knockout. While Lipski has three TKO losses on her record, the last two of those have come from ground and pound opposed to getting starched on the feet. So it’s still more likely than not that we see a wild firefight that goes the distance. You never know how judges will score Cachoeira’s fights, as she typically gets outstruck, but is often the one inflicting more damage. That makes it much tougher to know who will get their hand raised in a decision, but we think this one is closer than the odds suggest as long as Cachoeira can stay off her back. WHile it’s definitely not a comfortable pick, we'll take the dog in Cachoeira here.

Our favorite bet here is “Cachoeira KO” at +550.

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DFS Implications:

Lipski has averaged 99 DraftKings points in her three UFC wins, despite two of those going the distance. Those scores were bolstered by three knockdowns in those two decisions, in addition to large amounts of control time and ground strikes. Cachoeira has only been knocked down once in her UFC career, and Lipski may have a tougher time scoring well if this fight never hits the mat. Working in her favor, Cachoeira averages 7.91 SSA/min (most on the slate), so this is a great spot for Lipski to land a ton of strikes, but she’ll need to be cautious of the power coming back her way. While Cachoeira is terrible off her back, Lipski hasn’t landed a takedown in her last six fights, so she may have a tougher time putting her there. However, if she can land a takedown, this is a great opportunity to dominate on the ground. Pure striking volume should provide Lipski a decent scoring floor and the potential to dominate on the ground creates a high ceiling. We like her to set a career mark in striking if this fight goes the distance, but her DraftKings price tag notably rose by $300 from where she was priced last week raising the bar for what we need out of her to be useful in tournaments. That leaves her more reliant on either landing a finish or completely dominating this fight on the ground to end up in tournament winning lineups. The odds imply Lipski has a 64% chance to win, a 29% chance to get a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.

Cachoeira’s brawling fight-style is great for DFS as she’s constantly forcing the action, getting punched in the face, and looking for knockouts. She’s also terrible off her back, which provides another avenue for opponents to score well against her. She absorbs far more strikes than she lands on average (4.46 SSL/min vs. 7.91 SSA/min), and doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling, which leaves her largely reliant on landing knockouts to score well. She returned DraftKings scores of 87 and 128 in her two UFC knockout wins, but just 77 points in her recent high-volume decision victory. Her DraftKings price actually came down $300 since last week increasing the chances that she can still serve as a value play in a decision win, but it would still likely require the majority of the other underdogs on the card to fail. The odds imply Cachoeira has a 36% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in the first round.

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Fight #4

Azamat Murzakanov

2nd UFC Fight (1-0)

Murzakanov is fresh off a R3 KO win over Tafon Nchukwi in his recent UFC debut win, which was actually the first finish the undefeated fighter has ever landed beyond round one, and just the third time he’s been in a fight that made it to the second round. That was also the first time Nchukwi had ever been finished, although he was then also knocked out 75 seconds into the first round of his next fight. Prior to that win, Murzakanov punched his ticket to the UFC with a first round KO win on DWCS in August 2021, which was his only other fight since 2019. Murzakanov had originally been scheduled to make his UFC debut all the way back in 2017 but withdrew from the fight citing an injury and was then hit with a 2-year USADA doping suspension. Prior to that, Murzakanov landed a 2016 R1 KO against UFC fighter Andre Muniz, who has since dropped down to 185 lb.

In his last fight, Murzakanov didn’t throw much volume, but put a lot behind the shots he did throw. He slowed down a ton in round two and looked to be gassed by the end of the round. Betters took note and after opening the fight as an underdog, Nchukwi was a large favorite on the live odds to start the third round. However, Murzakanov had enough energy left to land a perfectly placed flying knee in the opening minute of round three that put Nchukwi down with no follow up necessary. The fight ended with Nchukwi ahead 43-28 in significant strikes and 50-28 in total strikes, while stuffing four of Murzakanov’s five takedown attempts and quickly returning to his feet the one time he was taken down. Overall, Murzakanov bailed himself out late, but it wasn’t at all an impressive performance and Nchukwi appeared on his way to pulling off the upset before Murzakanov landed the flying knee.

Now 11-0 as a pro, Murzakanov has eight KOs, one submission, and two decisions. Eight of his nine finishes have come in round one, while his most recent occurred in the opening minute of round three. Both of his decision wins came in two-round rights, although his most recent two-round decision is incorrectly listed as being a three-round fight on multiple different MMA stat sites. So his recent early R3 KO win was the longest fight of his career, which makes sense if you saw how tired he looked at the end of round two.

Overall, Murzakanov is a Master of Sport in Hand to Hand Combat and a former SWAT team member. He’s listed as being just 33 years old, but his physique and hairline tell a different story. Regardless, he’s a dangerous human, but slows down considerably after the first round of fights and his cardio is an issue. He also doesn’t throw much volume and has averaged just 2.69 SSL/min in his last two fights, while absorbing 3.42/min. He landed one takedown on six attempts in those two fights, and didn’t have to defend any takedowns. Now he’ll face a wrestler in Devin Clark who will be looking to take him down and wear on his limited gas tank, leaving Murzakanov even more reliant on landing a first round finish.

Devin Clark

14th UFC Fight (7-6)

Coming off his first early win in the UFC, which occurred in his first ever trip up to Heavyweight, Clark finished William Knight in the third round. He’ll now move back down to Light Heavyweight where he lost his two previous fights in a lopsided decision loss to Ion Cutelaba and a R1 submission defeat against Anthony Smith.

In his last fight, Clark weighed in at just 223 lb, while Knight tipped the scales at 251 lb. Clark shot for an early takedown and Knight defended it with a lazy but prolonged guillotine attempt that he refused to let go. However, when he finally did release it he landed a jumping knee followed by a flurry of punches. Clark again looked to take Knight down at that point, but was unable to complete it as he pushed Knight up against the cage before the round came to an end. Clark was finally able to land his first takedown of the fight midway through round two and control Knight on the mat until the final 10 seconds of the round. The third round started slow before Clark landed a takedown that he wasn’t able to do anything with. While Knight was able to return to his feet following the takedown, Clark kept him pinned up against the cage before disengaging and landing a huge right elbow followed by a left hook that buckled the knees of Knight. Clark then followed up with a combination of punches to drop Knight and continued to tee off on him until the fight was quickly stopped. The fight ended with Clark ahead 34-21 in significant strikes and 125-39 in total strikes, while he landed two of his five takedown attempts and a knockdown, with 5:46 in control time.

Now 13-6 as a pro, Clark has four wins by KO, one by submission, and eight decisions. He’s been knocked out twice (both in R1), submitted three times, and has one decision loss. Five of his six UFC losses have occurred in the first two rounds. On the other side of things, three of his five early career wins came in his first three pro fights from 2013 to 2015 against opponents who entered with records of 1-0, 1-0 and 0-0. His fourth finish came in his 6th pro fight by way of "Hand Injury" and he hadn’t finished anybody since 2016 leading up to his recent third round TKO win over Knight.

Overall, Clark is a lifelong wrestler who is adamant about fighting his style of fight, which is to grind out decisions by controlling opponents up against the cage using his tree trunk upper legs. When his game plan fails, it normally does so in dramatic fashion as he’s been finished in five of his six UFC losses. He averages just 3.08 SSL/min and 2.54 SSA/min. In his 13 UFC fights, he’s landed 24 takedowns on 68 attempts (35.3%). He’s never won a UFC fight where he failed to land a takedown, going 20 for 54 on his attempts in his seven UFC wins.

Fight Prediction:

Clark will have a 2” height advantage and 4” reach advantage.

These two fighters are on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of how long their wins take. Clark hasn’t won a match that ended before the third round in his entire 13-fight UFC career, while all 11 of Murzakanov’s wins have come in under 11 minutes, with eight ending in round one. And at the same time, five of Clark’s six UFC losses have occurred in the first two rounds. So it seems obvious that Murzakanov’s best shot at winning will be to find an early finish, while Clark will rely on wearing Murzakanov out and either looking for a late finish or more likely grinding out a decision win. While Murzakanov is always live to land a round one knockout and Clark has been prone to getting finished early, we like Clark to grind Murzakanov up against the cage, wear on his suspect gas tank and take this fight into the later rounds. If Murzakanov completely gasses out, Clark could be looking at a teed up finish late in the fight, but we like him to win a decision here.

Our favorite bet here is “Clark R3 or DEC” at +240.

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DFS Implications:

Murzakanov landed a third round KO win in his recent UFC debut, but it was an uninspiring performance, he slowed way down in the second round, and he scored just 72 DraftKings points with very little striking volume behind it. He really showed his limitations in that matchup as a low output, bad cardio, R1 KO or bust fighter. While he’s still undefeated with an 11-0 pro record that includes nine finishes and eight in the first round, he was on his way to losing a decision before he landed a hail mary flying knee to secure the win. While he will look to mix in wrestling at times, he now faces a wrestler in Devin Clark who has only been taken down more than once by Ion Cutelaba. Working in Murzakanov’s favor, Clark has been finished in five of his six UFC losses, although he hasn’t been knocked out since 2018. Murzakanov isn’t active enough to score well in fights that make it past the second round, and has never finished anybody in round two. The odds imply he has a 57% chance to win, a 41% chance to land a finish, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.

Clark is coming off the first early win of his 13-fight UFC career, and his best DraftKings score since 2018. In his five UFC decision wins, Clark averaged 94 DraftKings points, and while he hasn’t always scored well in decisions, he has shown a huge wrestling-based ceiling with scores ranging from 71 to 129. With that said, he averaged just 84 DraftKings points in his last three decision wins and his more impressive performances were back in 2017 and 2018 against opponents with poor grappling. We haven’t seen Murzakanov have to defend any takedowns in his last two fights, but he is Russian and has looked to wrestle offensively in the past. It will be interesting to see how the grappling exchanges go in this matchup, but Murzakanov’s defensive grappling is probably the biggest unknown going in. If it holds up, Clark will struggle to score well without a finish, but if it doesn’t, Clark has the potential to score well even in a decision. The biggest thing Clark has going for him is Murzakanov’s poor cardio, which should allow Clark to find more success as the fight goes on as long as he can survive the first five minutes. Clark’s wrestling-heavy style is much better suited to the DraftKings scoring system, and he’s far more reliant on a finish to score well on FanDuel. The odds imply Clark has a 43% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #3

Yazmin Jauregui

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Making her UFC debut exactly one year after she last competed, the undefeated Jauregui won three fights in a single night as part of the Last Latina Standing tournament with Combate Global. She won two of those matches by first round knockout after winning a one-round decision in the first leg of the tournament. So overall she still went less than three full rounds in the night, but it was impressive nonetheless. That’s the only event she’s competed in since November 2020, when she won via R1 TKO due to a justified doctor stoppage following the end of round one. Jauregui has only been past the second round once in her career, which came in a 2019 decision win. She had been scheduled to face Istela Nunes here, but Nunes withdrew and Lucindo was announced as the replacement on July 14th with a month to prepare. Jauregui trains out of Entram Gym in Tijuana, Mexico, which is just an hour south of San Diego. So this is as close to a home crowd as she could get without the fight being in Mexico.

In her last fight, Jauregui showed off her crisp boxing, but did briefly get taken down once in the match. However, after returning to her feet she controlled the remainder of the fight before dropping her opponent with a combination of punches late in the first round and the fight was immediately stopped.

Now 8-0 as a pro, Jauregui has six wins by KO/TKO and two decision victories. One of those decisions was just a single round as it was part of a single-day/multi-fight tournament the last Jauregui competed. So she’s still only been in one fight that lasted longer than 10 minutes. Five of her six career knockouts have come in round one with the other coming in a doctor stoppage following the second round. The first three knockouts of her career came against two opponents making their pro debut and a third who entered 0-1. So only three of her finishes have come against opponents with any amount of pro experience. Jauregui made her 2018 pro debut at 125 lb, but dropped down to 115 lb for her second pro fight, where she’s stayed since.

Overall, Jauregui is an uptempo Mexican striker, who’s still just 23 years old and turned pro when she was 19. She’s primarily a boxer and loves to throw lengthy combinations together to try and overwhelm her opponents. She’s shown a decent takedown defense and the ability to get back up when she does get taken down, and will also look for takedowns of her own at times, although more so earlier in her career. We’ve seen her get easily reversed on the mat and overall her striking is what she relies on to win fights. She without question has the striking ability to immediately compete in the UFC’s women’s Strawweight division, but it remains to be seen if her grappling can hold up.

Iasmin Lucindo

1st UFC Fight (0-0)

Also stepping into her UFC debut, Lucindo had less time to prepare for this matchup as she’s filling in for Istela Nunes on about a month’s notice. That’s especially notable because she hasn’t competed down at 115 lb since 2020, with three of her last four fights taking place at 125 lb and the other all the way up at 143 lb. Only two of her 17 pro fights have taken place at 115 lb, although she won both of those with late round TKOs. Lucindo is just 20 years old, but already has 17 pro fights under her belt after somehow turning pro when she was just 15 in 2017. Only one of her first seven opponents actually had a win on their record, and she’s mostly gone up against a very low level of competition, although she does have a win over Sarah Froto, who briefly fought in the UFC, but went 0-2 with the organization. Only three of Lucindo’s 14 wins have come against fighters with winning records, so it’s tougher to know how she’ll do against more legitimate competition. With that said, she’s won seven straight fights and has consistently dominated opponents on the mat.

In her last fight, Lucindo went up against a Judo black belt but still dominated in the grappling exchanges as she landed an early takedown in round one and then controlled her opponent for the entire first round, while hunting for submissions and mixing in ground and pound. Lucindo then landed multiple takedowns in round two and again controlled her opponent on the mat for the entire round. The first half of round three remained on the feet, before Lucindo landed another takedown and finished the round in top position landing ground strikes.

Now 13-4 as a pro, Lucindo has eight wins by KO, two submissions, and three decision wins. All three of those decision wins occurred in her last six fights and her last four early wins have all come by TKO. Three of her early career wins came in round one, five ended in round two, and two were stopped in round three. However, three of her last five early wins didn’t make it out of the first round. The only time she’s ever been knocked out was in the first round of a 2018 match in her fifth pro fight. She’s also been submitted twice, once in 2018 and then again in 2019. Just keep in mind, all of those early losses occurred when she was just 16-17 years old. Her only other loss was a 2017 split decision that occurred when she was just 15.

Overall, Lucindo has looked really impressive getting opponents to the mat and beating them up on the ground, but hasn’t faced much recent resistance in the tape we watched. That leaves a lot of uncertainty surrounding her stand up game and durability. At such a young age she has plenty of time to grow as a fighter and we should see her continue to improve between each match. It will be important to monitor her closely at weigh-ins as she drops down a weight class for this fight. UPDATE: She did not look great weighing in, but did make weight.

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’3” with a 64” reach, but Jauregui is three years older than the 20-year-old Lucindo.

This is a really interesting matchup between two exciting prospects that have both shown a lot of promise. Jauregui has looked great on the feet, stitching together lengthy combinations of punches and consistently knocking opponents out, which is less common in the women’s Strawweight division. On the other side of things, Lucindo has been mauling opponents on the mat and does a great job of getting opponents down and exerting heavy top pressure. The outcome of the fight should hinge on whether or not Lucindo is able to get it to the mat, and she’ll be in some trouble if she can’t. While two fighters making their debuts against one another already comes with a good deal of uncertainty, the fact that Lucindo is dropping down a weight class just adds another variable into the mix. It’s possible that will give her a size advantage that aids in her grappling-heavy attack, but it’s also possible the weight cut drains her and she ends up looking worse than she has recently. If she can successfully cut the weight, we like her chances of getting the fight to the ground and pulling off the upset, with a good chance of landing a finish. Just keep in mind, if she can’t get the fight to the ground she’ll likely get pieced up on the feet and potentially finished herself.

Our favorite bet here is Lucindo’s ML at +186.

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

DFS Implications:

Jauregui is a high-volume Mexican boxer with a 75% finish rate that includes five first round knockouts and one in round two. She overwhelms opponents with lengthy combinations of punches and has the ability to put up huge striking totals. We also saw her mix in more takedowns earlier in her career, but she doesn't look like a great grappler. It’s been exactly a year since she last fought as she prepares to make her UFC debut at just 23 years old in front of a live crowd, so there are multiple variables in play here. Jauregui had been scheduled to face a pure striker in Istela Nunes, but Nunes dropped out and the 20-year-old grappler in Iasmin Lucindo stepped in to replace her on a month’s notice. Lucindo is also dropping down from 125 lb to 115 lb where this fight will be and where Jauregui has fought her last seven fights. So overall, there’s a lot going on here, which really just increases the potential range of outcomes. If Jauregui can keep the fight standing, she should have a striking advantage and potentially can even land enough volume to put up a decent score in decision victory, while also having a good shot at landing a knockout. However, if she finds herself on her back she’ll be in real trouble with a good chance of getting finished. So Jauregui certainly isn’t a safe play by any stretch of the imagination, but she does have a high ceiling at pretty low ownership, which is perfect for tournaments. The odds imply Jauregui has a 64% chance to win, a 27% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.

Lucindo is just 20 years old and making her UFC debut on 30 day’s notice, which is a tough spot to be in, but she already has 17 pro fights under her belt somehow. Only two of those have been at 115 lb, but she won both of those and will now be moving back down to the weight class after mostly fighting at 125 lb. Her second most recent fight was actually all the way up at 143 lb less than a year ago, so she’s shown the ability to compete against larger opponents. That obviously makes you wonder how tough the weight cut will be on her, and adds a good amount of uncertainty to an already uncertain situation. Nevertheless, if she can effectively handle the weight cut, her grappling-heavy style of fighting is perfectly suited for DFS as she’s always looking to take opponents down and finish them on the mat—typically with ground and pound but she will also look for submissions. It’s hard to see her winning a pure striking battle here, but she so rarely spends much time on the feet it’s hard to even fully evaluate her stand up game. If she wins, it likely means she got the fight to the ground and either controlled her opponent for the majority of the match or found a finish. At her cheap price tag, either of those should secure her a spot in the winning DraftKings lineup. A control-heavy decision win wouldn’t score nearly as well on FanDuel, making her more reliant on either a finish or landing a high number of takedowns to score well there. With that said, she has excelled at both of those and 10 of her 13 wins have come early. Just keep in mind, she hasn’t really faced much in terms of competition, with only three of her 14 wins coming against opponents with winning records. The odds imply Lucindo has a 36% chance to win, a 15% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #2

David Onama

4th UFC Fight (2-1)

After losing a hardfought decision up a weight class in his short notice UFC debut against Mason Jones, Onama moved back down to 145 lb and bounced back from his first career loss with a pair of early wins in his last two fights. The first of those came in a R1 KO against Gabriel Benitez, who has also split time between 145 lb and 155 lb and missed weight by 2 lb for that 145 lb fight, while the most recent was in a second round submission against a debuting Garrett Armfield, who took the fight on very short notice and normally fights at 135 lb. So Onama has fought a variety of differently sized opponents in his first three UFC fights, but will now finally face a true Featherweight in this next matchup. His win over Armfield took place just five weeks ago, and Onama is filling in after Zubaira Tukhugov dropped out of this fight. Onama was announced as the replacement on July 20th with about three and a half weeks to prepare.

In his last fight, we saw more grappling out of Onama than we had in the past, as he landed two takedowns on six attempts after failing to land a takedown in either of his first two UFC fights on three combined attempts. While much of that last fight was spent on the mat, Onama still finished ahead in significant strikes 29-21 and in total strikes 46-29. He also led in control time 2:35-1:52. After a back and forth first round, Onama took Armfield down in round two and worked his way to an arm-triangle finish midway through the round.

Now 10-1 as a pro, Onama has six wins by KO and four by submission. The only loss of his career came in his lone trip to the judges, which occurred up at 155 lb against Mason Jones in Onama’s short notice UFC debut. Nine of his 10 career wins have come in the first two rounds, with six in round one and three in round two. While half of his submission wins have occurred in round two, his last five knockout victories have all come in round one.

Overall, Onama is a dangerous fighter who trains out of Glory MMA & Fitness with James Krause. He has impressive hand speed and power, and when he senses a finish he has the ability to turn it up to a gear few fighters possess. He also showed improved grappling in his last fight. He’s still just 28 years old and only turned pro in 2019, so he should still be improving between every fight and he has all of the physical abilities to be a real problem in the division.

Nate Landwehr

5th UFC Fight (2-2)

Alternating wins and losses over his last five fights, Landwehr is coming off a surprising October 2021 third round submission win over Ludovit Klein, which was the first submission victory of Landwehr’s career. Landwehr was a massive +300 underdog in that fight, but he was fighting for his job and came in with a much more disciplined approach compared to his previous fights. Prior to that win, Landwehr got knocked out by Herbert Burns in the first round of his 2020 UFC debut, but bounced back with a brawling, bloody decision win over Darren Elkins in his next fight. Then Landwehr was again knocked out in the first round, just 56 seconds into a February 2021 match against Julian Erosa, to bring his UFC record to 1-2 as he fought for his job in his recent win over Klein. Following that victory, Landwehr had been scheduled to face Lerone Murphy in March and then Zubaira Tukhugov last week, but both of those opponents dropped out and Landwehr was instead booked against Onama on this card.

In his last fight, Landwehr did a good job of pressuring Ludovit Klein, while not getting nearly as reckless as he normally does. Landwehr did a good job of keeping his right hand up and circling away from Klein’s powerful left head kick. After failing to even attempt a takedown in his first three UFC fights, Landwehr also tied Klein up on the fence and took him down once on two attempts, while finishing with 3:46 in control time. Landwehr looked to lock up an Anaconda choke in the second round, but Klein was able to escape. However, Landwehr attempted the same submission again in round three when Klein was more fatigued, and that time was able to force a tap to secure the first submission win of his career. Landwehr finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 71-42 and in total strikes 103-44 as Klein faded in the back half of the match and Landwehr took over.

Now 15-4 as a pro, Landwehr has eight wins by KO, one by submission, and six decisions. He’s been knocked out twice (both in the first round), submitted once (R2 2015), and has one decision loss (2013). Landwehr’s last four and seven of his nine career finishes have come in the later rounds, with five in round two and two in round three. He hasn’t finished anybody in round one since 2016.

Overall, Landwehr started his UFC career as a reckless brawler who had shown no interest in grappling up until his last match when his job was on the line. Now that he’s secured a second UFC contract, it will be interesting to see if he continues with the much more disciplined approach we saw out of him in his last fight, or if he reverts back to his more reckless style. We expect him to be a little more willing to brawl after securing his job, while still hanging on to some of the defensive adjustments that he recently made.

Fight Prediction:

Onama will have a 2” height and reach advantage and is six years younger than the 34-year-old Landwehr.

This has the potential to turn into a wild brawl, although Onama also showed an improved grappling game in his last match, as did Landwehr. Onama has the faster and more powerful hands, and is rightfully a large favorite. We’ve seen Landwehr get knocked out in the first round in both of his UFC losses, and Onama has a 100% finishing rate, with his last five KO wins all coming in round one. So on paper at least, this looks like a good spot for Onama to get Landwehr out of there quickly. However, if Landwehr comes out like he did in his last fight with a more defensively sound approach, we could see him extend this fight into the later rounds. Either way, we like Onama to finish him and would be surprised if this made it to the third round.

Our favorite bet here is “Fight Doesn’t Start R3” at -135.

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DFS Implications:

Onama is coming off a pair of finishes in the first two rounds that were good for 100 and 115 DraftKings points. After failing to land a takedown in his first two UFC fights, Onama landed two on six attempts in his recent second round submission win. Still just 28 years old, Onama is still young in his career and we should continue to see him improve and add weapons to his arsenal. He has all of the physical tools required to make a run in the division, he just needs to continue to refine some of his techniques and improve his striking and grappling defenses. With a 100% finishing rate and undefeated at 145 lb, he has a huge ceiling every time he steps inside the Octagon, but that’s not exactly a hot take. He was 48% owned on DraftKings in his last fight and 45% owned just before that. He checks in with a very reasonable price tag here and we once again expect him to be one of the most popular fighters on the card. That leaves us looking for ways he fails in tournaments, but lock him into low-risk lineups. If he continues to mix in grappling as he did in his last fight, he becomes an even tougher guy to fade, but the potential for a poorly timed finish early in the second or third round is always there, albeit less likely. While it’s not impossible he scores well and still gets priced out of the winning lineup, it is tougher at his mid 8K price tag. He’s never been finished in his career, but also lost the only decision he’s ever been to, where he scored just 43 DraftKings points. So if he’s unable to finish Landwehr, he’s unlikely to return value in a decision unless he grapples far more than expected. And with that in mind, Landwehr has a solid 87% takedown defense, which lowers the chances we see that happen. So overall, Onama appears reliant on landing a finish, but there’s a really good chance we see that happen and he ends up in winning lineups. While fading Onama is one way to get unique in tournaments on this card, it’s incredibly risky, and this looks like another potential eruption spot for him. The odds imply Onama has a 74% chance to win, a 49% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.

Landwehr generally makes for exciting fights and his opponents have scored well in his losses (both R1 KOs), but he’s yet to put up any huge scores himself. He’s shown a solid floor, with DraftKings scores of 92 and 84 points in his two UFC wins, but both of those victories made it to the third round with one going the distance. His last four and seven of his nine career finishes have come in the later rounds, and he hasn’t put anyone away in round one since 2016. Now he’ll face a dangerous opponent, who’s never been finished and has never even lost a fight at 145 lb. At his cheaper price tag, it’s still possible that Landwehr can serve as a value play in a decision win even without putting up a really big score, but there are also ways he pulls off another big upset and still gets left out of winning lineups. With that said, working in his favor here is that both guys in this fight land and absorb a high number of significant strikes, so the chances for it to bust are lower. Should Landwehr win, he would be a massive leverage play against the ever-popular Onama, but this looks like a really tough spot for him. The odds imply Landwehr has a 26% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.

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Fight #1

Marlon Vera

20th UFC Fight (13-6)

Coming off a high-volume five-round decision win over Rob Font, three of Vera’s last four fights have gone the distance, with the one exception being a third round KO win over an aging Frankie Edgar. Vera’s only losses in his last 11 fights came in a pair of 2020 three-round close 29-28 decisions to Jose Aldo and Song Yadong.

In his last fight, Vera started a little slow as he often does, with Rob Font outlanding him 57-26 in significant strikes in the first round. The striking totals were similar in round two, with Font leading 51-27 in significant strikes, but Vera began to find the mark late in the round with a heavy body kick and then a big left hook in the final thirty seconds that dropped Font. The fight looked close to being stopped, but Font was able to cling on to Vera’s ankle and survive until the round ended. Font was able to recover and continued to outpace Vera in strikes, but Vera did a great job of keeping his guard high and blocking the shots. And again, late in the round Vera dropped Font, this time with a big jump knee to Font’s chin. Font was again able to narrowly survive the round, but the damage was adding up. Midway through round four, Vera dropped Font again, this time with a side kick to the face. However, Vera indecisively just stood above Font at that point casually kicking his legs, opposed to going to the mat to look for a finish or forcing Font to return to his feet. That gave Font a minute to recover before the referee eventually stood him up. Font was in rough shape by the end of round four, to the extent that his corner asked him if he wanted to keep going. To Font’s credit, he continued to push forward and throw strikes, but nothing he threw appeared to phase Vera, who landed another big kick late in the round that hurt Font badly. Font circled away from Vera to survive the closing seconds, as Vera seemed disinterested in actually looking for a finish as he showboated his way to a decision victory in the first five-round fight of his career. Font led in striking in every round, and finished ahead in significant strikes 271-159 and in total strikes 273-167. He also landed 1 of his 2 two takedown attempts, but finished with just 18 seconds of control time, while Vera didn’t attempt a takedown in the match. However, while Font’s face was beaten into oblivion, Vera looked like he hadn’t even sustained any damage. All three judges ruled the first round for Font and the final three for Vera, while two of the three judges also gave Vera round two, as he cruised to a unanimous decision win.

Now 19-7-1 as a pro, Vera has seven wins by KO, eight by submission, and four decisions. He’s never been finished, with all seven of his career losses going the distance. He’s gone just 3-6 in UFC decisions, but notably won the last two he’s been to after going 1-6 in his first seven with the organization. Ten of his 13 UFC wins have come early. Of those 10 finishes, four ended in submissions, with one coming in round one and three occurring in round two. His other six UFC finishes came by KO/TKO, with two ending in round one, one in round two, and three in round three. So overall, he has a history of submitting opponents in round two or knocking them out in round three. Seven of his last eight fights have seen the second round, with six going to round three, and four finishing with the judges. His only fight over that stretch to end in round one was when Sean O’Malley got injured against him in 2020. While Vera’s finishes have been split pretty evenly between submissions and KOs if you look at his entire career, his last three and four of his last five early wins have come by KO/TKO.

Overall, Vera is a BJJ black belt and a well rounded fighter who’s been extremely durable. He’s historically been a slow starter and he’s lost the first round on the judges’ score cards in his last five fights that saw a second round. That helps to explain why so many of his fights end in either late finishes or decision losses, as he’s accustomed to fighting from behind. However, with five rounds to work with, losing the first round is less impactful, and his style may actually be more favorable for five-round fights compared to three. Vera also absorbs more significant strikes than he lands, as he’s averaged 4.33 SSL/min and 4.99 SSA/min in his career. That leaves him reliant on damage over volume, as he showed in his last match. Vera has a 42% career takedown accuracy, but has never landed more than two takedowns in a fight and only averages 1.7 attempts per 15 minutes—or 2.83 attempts per 25 minutes to put that in context of this upcoming five-round fight. He hasn’t attempted any takedowns in his last two fights, and has failed to land a takedown in four of his last five matches. On the other side of things, he has a 68% takedown defense, and in his last 10 fights he’s been taken down 8 times on 23 attempts. However, his last three opponents were each able to get him down at least once. Looking at his entire 19-fight UFC career, Vera has been taken down 17 times, while landing 11 takedowns of his own.

This will be the 2nd five-round fight of Vera’s career, and he’s coming off a decision win in his first. His cardio and durability both looked great for the entire 25 minutes in his last fight, so we’re not concerned with how he’ll hold up in the later rounds.

Dominick Cruz

10th UFC Fight (7-2)

Following a three and a half year hiatus where Cruz didn’t compete in 2017, 2018, or 2019 after losing the Bantamweight belt to Cody Garbrandt in a five-round decision back in December 2016, Cruz finally made his return against Henry Cejudo in May 2020 and lost via R2 TKO just seconds before the round ended. Cruz bounced back with a split-decision win over Casey Kenney in March 2021, before gaining some momentum with another victory, in a decision win over Pedro Munhoz in his last outing.

In Cruz’s last fight, he got dropped by Pedro Munhoz midway through the first round and then nearly dropped a second time just moments later, but Cruz was able to grab Munhoz’s leg on his way down and buy time to recover on the mat. Once he returned to his feet, Cruz looked to be fine, and after a rocky start Cruz bounced back in the later rounds to finish ahead of Munhoz 103-74 in significant strikes and 105-79 in total strikes in the fight, although he was only able to land one of his nine takedown attempts. All three judges ruled it 29-28 in Cruz’s favor.

Now 24-3 as a pro, Cruz has seven wins by KO, one by submission, and 16 decisions. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has one decision loss. Cruz looks to outpoint his way to victory, with 5 of his last 6 and 9 of his last 11 fights going the distance. His only finish since 2010 came in a 2014 R1 KO against Takeya Mizugaki, who has gone 3-7 in his last 10 fights going back to that loss.

Overall, Cruz’s unorthodox movement and fighting style make him a tough guy to prepare for, and also seem to result in an above average number of head clashes. He trains out of San Diego, so Cruz will be fighting in front of his home crowd in this upcoming matchup. Cruz averages just 2.56 SSA/min and in his lengthy career, chalked full of five-round decisions, only one fighter has ever landed more than 74 significant strikes on Cruz, which was TJ Dillashaw, who landed 109 in a 2016 title fight that Cruz won. Cruz also averages just 3.82 SSL/min and has never landed more than 117 significant strikes in a fight, only topping 90 in three of his last 17 fights. Cruz is a tough guy to take down and no one has ever gotten him down more than once in a UFC fight. While his official stats include his WEC days, we’re focussed on his nine UFC appearances, where Cruz has been taken down 6 times on 37 attempts (83.8% defense). On the other side of things, he’s landed 26 takedowns on 81 attempts (32.1% accuracy) in his nine UFC fights. While his takedown accuracy has been poor, he’s attempted seven or more takedowns in seven of his nine UFC fights.

This will be the 11th five-round fight of Cruz’s career and 7th in the UFC. After getting submitted by Urijah Faber in the first round of the first five-round fight of his career, which took place up at 145 lb in the WEC, Cruz moved down to 135 lb and won his next seven five-round fights, with the first three of those coming in the WEC before Cruz made his UFC debut in 2011. However, Cruz has now lost the last two five-round fights he’s been part of, and his last win in a five-round fight was all the way back in 2016. This will also be the first time that Cruz has been in a five-round fight that wasn’t for a belt.

Here are the results from Cruz’s previous 10 five-round fights:

2020 R2 TKO Loss vs. Henry Cejudo (UFC Bantamweight Title Fight)
2016 DEC Loss vs. Cody Garbrandt (UFC Bantamweight Title Fight)
2016 DEC Win vs. Urijah Faber (UFC Bantamweight Title Fight)
2016 S-DEC Win vs. TJ Dillashaw (UFC Bantamweight Title Fight)
2011 DEC Win vs. Demetrious Johnson (UFC Bantamweight Title Fight)
2011 DEC Win vs. Urijah Faber (UFC Bantamweight Title Fight)
2010 DEC Win vs. Scott Jorgensen (WEC Bantamweight Title Fight)
2010 S-DEC Win vs. Joseph Benavidez (WEC Bantamweight Title Fight)
2010 R2 TKO Win vs. Brian Bowles (WEC Bantamweight Title Fight)
2007 R1 SUB Loss vs. Urijah Faber (WEC Featherweight Title Fight)

Fight Prediction:

Both fighters are 5’8” but Vera will have a 2” reach advantage and is eight years younger than the 37-year-old Cruz.

This seems like a pretty straightforward matchup. On one side we have the aging veteran in Cruz who has made a career out of evading contact and outlanding his way to five-round decision wins. On the other we have Vera, who is extremely durable and has never been finished, but generally relies on out damaging or finishing his opponents to win fights, as he typically absorbs more strikes than he lands and finishes behind in takedowns. With that said, after losing six of the first seven UFC decisions he went to, Vera has now gotten his hand raised in his last two trips to the judges. Just keep in mind, Font was all offense and no defense in Vera’s last fight, as Vera was able to land 56% of the significant strikes he threw. Cruz has a 71% career striking defense and should essentially come in with the exact opposite game plan. Nevertheless, we saw Cruz get hurt by Pedro Munhoz early in his last fight, and at 37 years old it’s getting tougher to trust him. Vera is dangerous in so many different ways that he’s likely to catch Cruz at some point in this fight, whether it be from a punch, kick, knee, or submission attempt. Cruz hasn’t been past the third round since 2016, but has historically excelled in five-round fights. Vera showed the ability to go five rounds in his last fight, and both fighters appear prepared to go 25 hard minutes if they need to. If this goes the distance, Vera will rely on inflicting more damage to get his hand raised, as he’ll likely finish behind in striking and takedowns. Cruz’s only real path to victory will be to fight smart and outland his way to a decision win while not allowing Vera to have too many show-stealing moments. Vera has a good chance of finishing Cruz, but if he’s unable to do so, then look for this to end in a close decision that could go either way. Don’t forget Cruz trains out of San Diego, where this fight will take place, so the potential for some home-cooking with the scorecards is always there. We’re still picking Vera to win based on his ability to land a finish, but this likely gets greasy if it goes to the scorecards.

Our favorite bet here is “Vera ITD” at +275.

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DFS Implications:

Vera is coming off a career best 129 point performance in the only five-round fight he’s ever been part of, which he won in a five-round decision over Rob Font, who notably missed weight by 2.5 lb. After landing six total knockdowns in his first 18 UFC fights combined, Vera knocked Rob Font down three times in that last match. Vera also landed 159 significant strikes in that fight (6.36 SSL/min), after averaging 4.08 SSL/min in his first 18 UFC fights. So while it was a very impressive outing from Vera, it was also obviously an outlier performance. Cruz has made a career out of avoiding damage, averaging just 2.56 SSA/min, and having only been finished once since 2007, but is notably 37 years old now. Cruz also has an 83% takedown defense and no one has ever gotten him down more than once in a fight. So while this doesn’t set up as a great matchup for Vera to put up a big striking total, we have seen Cruz get dropped in three of his last four fights, and at his age you never know when that cliff will show up. Ten of Vera’s 13 UFC wins have come early, and he’s proven himself to be a dangerous finisher. However, in those 10 UFC finishes, he’s only averaged 93 DraftKings points and has failed to top 98 points in his last four early wins. While Vera’s DFS price tag is reasonable, there are still several ways he wins this fight with either a mid round finish or in a lower volume decision and fails to crack winning lineups. He showed the ability to put up a huge score in his last fight, but expect the field to chase those results. The odds imply Vera has a 66% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.

Cruz has spent the majority of his UFC career competing in five round matches, with six of his nine UFC appearances scheduled to go five-rounds (4-2). However, his last two fights were both three rounders, and he hasn’t seen a fourth round since 2016, as he got knocked out in the second round of his only five-round fight since 2016 when he took on Henry Cejudo in 2020. Now 37 years old, that leaves some uncertainty with how Cruz will look in the later rounds and how his chin will hold up against a much younger fighter in Vera. However, if Cruz can avoid getting finished and taking too much damage, he has the potential to grind out a decision win through striking volume and takedowns. Cruz has averaged 111 DraftKings points in his four UFC fight-round decision wins, scoring at least 97 points in each of those. While he’s less likely to put up a massive score, at his cheaper price tag he would likely do enough to end up in winning lineups if he can pull off the upset. He’s unlikely to put up a huge striking total, but he’s attempted at least seven takedowns in all of his UFC fights that made it past the second round. While Vera has an adequate 68% takedown defense and a dangerous submission game, he’s also been taken down at least once in each of his last three fights. However, if Cruz is unable to land any takedowns, he may struggle to return a usable score as he only averages 3.82 SSL/min. One final note, Cruz trains out of San Diego where this fight will be taking place. The odds imply Cruz has a 34% chance to win, a 9% chance to land a finish, and a 3% chance it comes in round one.

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