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Fight Day Scratches:
Fighter Notes:
Fight #12
Muhammad Mokaev
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut with a perfect 6-0 record, Mokaev only turned pro in 2020, but had a lengthy 23-0 undefeated amateur career from 2015 to 2020 and was regarded by many as the best amateur in the world. After winning both of his amateur fights in early 2020, including the IMMAF Bantamweight Championship, he won his first four pro fights that year as well. He then won two fights in 2021 and had a third match ruled a No Contest for an accidental groin strike. Mokaev competed at both 125 lb and 135 lb as an amateur, but his first four pro fights were all at 135 lb. He then dropped down to 125 lb in 2021. However, his last two fights have both taken place at a 130 lb Catchweight, while he’ll now be making his debut at 125 lb. His only previous pro fight at 125 lb ended in a decision for what it’s worth.
A Dagestan, Russian refugee who relocated to England in 2012, Mokaev will be opening the card for his debut in front of his home crowd. He has a wrestling background, which is evident to anyone that has watched him fight. He’s extremely fluid with his transitions and is relentless with his takedown attempts. He’ll seamlessly chain takedowns together and can reverse positions quicker than a greased python. He’s certainly not helpless on the feet either, but his wrestling is what got him to the UFC.
Still just 21 years old, Mokaev has two wins by KO, two by submission, and two decisions. Four of his last five wins ended early, with three of those ending in under seven minutes. He’s talked about how he wants to become the youngest UFC champion of all time, which is understandable considering he has never tasted defeat, but also a lofty goal heading into your UFC debut. With that said, he looked great on tape and hasn’t given us much reason to doubt him. His first test will come against another wrestler.
Cody Durden
4th UFC Fight (1–1-1)Coming off his first UFC win, Durden won a grappling-heavy decision over Aoriqileng. Durden landed 5 of his 10 takedown attempts with over five and a half minutes of control time, while Aoriqileng narrowly led in significant strikes 65-60. Total strikes were practically even as well, with Durden leading 80-78.
Prior to that, Durden suffered his first UFC loss. He started off well in the fight against submission ninja Jimmy Flick, but then got dunked on with a flying triangle choke midway through the first round. Durden landed both of his takedown attempts and quickly pulled ahead in striking early in the fight as he outlanded Flick 21-6. We also saw Durden notch 81 seconds of control time and take Flick’s back early in the match, but he was unable to put him away on the mat and Flick returned to his feet and turned the tables to land a finish of his own.
That was Durden’s first loss in his last nine fights, although he fought to a draw just prior to that in his UFC debut against Chris Gutierrez. Before joining the UFC, Durden had landed seven straight finishes, alternating between TKOs and submissions, with five of those finishes coming in the first round. Looking at his entire career, Durden is now 12-3-1 with 10 of his wins coming early, including five KOs and five submissions. While he’s never been knocked out, he has been submitted twice. Eight of Durden’s 10 finishes occurred in the first round, while he also has one in each of the later rounds.
A former two time wrestling state champ, Durden dominated the first round in his UFC debut, but after taking the fight on short notice and absorbing a heavy low blow, he faded later in the fight. Considering he had previously only been to the third round three times in 13 fights, it’s fair to question his cardio. That debut took place at 135 lb before Durden dropped down to 125 lb for his last two fights. He mostly competed at 135 lb before he joined the UFC, but had fought lighter at times.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’7” but Mokaev will have a 3” reach advantage.
Sitting on a 1-1-1 UFC record and not exactly doing the UFC PR department any favors, Durden could very well be fighting for his job. He’s looked decent at times, but hasn’t been all that impressive. Now he goes against a very young, but very highly rated prospect making his UFC debut, who will unquestionably test Durden’s defensive wrestling. Mokaev has been far more impressive on tape, and considering Durden has been submitted in two of his three pro losses, another submission win here for Mokaev appears likely. There’s always the chance that the lights are too bright for the young prospect, and this couldn’t be a much bigger spot for Mokaev to be making his debut, but he seems like the type of guy that will be able to handle the pressure and we like Mokaev to win by submission.
Our favorite bet here is “Mokaev Wins by Submission” at +220.
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DFS Implications:
Mokaev’s relentless wrestling is perfectly suited for the DraftKings scoring system, while his ability to land a high number of takedowns also keeps him in play on FanDuel. Four of his last five wins have come early, so the finishing upside is there as well. There’s always some uncertainty when fighters are making their debut, especially at such a young age of just 21 years old, not to mention opening the card in front of a live home crowd, but we still like Mokaev’s chances to put on an impressive performance. It’s definitely not the easiest matchup as Durden also has a wrestling background, but Mokaev has been more impressive and Durden has been submitted in two of his three pro losses. It still makes for a higher variance spot, but we like Mokaev to land a submission and put up a big score. The odds imply he has a 76% chance to win, a 46% chance to land a finish, and a 24% chance it comes in round one.
Durden is coming off his first UFC win and he scored 93 points in a grappling-heavy decision, but this looks like a really tough spot for him despite the fact that he’s taking on a UFC newcomer. The only time Durden has faced a grappler so far in the UFC he got posterized in the first round with a flying triangle choke submission, which definitely isn’t what you want on your resume when it comes to defensive grappling. Working in his favor, Durden has a history of finishes, with 10 of his 12 career wins coming early, and his grappling-heavy approach can also allow him to score well in decision wins. At his cheap price tag, there’s a good chance he’ll end up in winning lineups if he’s able to pull off the upset, just keep in mind he’s a very sizable underdog for a reason. The odds imply he has a 24% chance to win, a 12% chance to land a finish and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #11
Cory McKenna
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)McKenna hasn’t competed in the last 16 months since her November 2020 UFC debut due to an ankle injury she suffered in the match followed by some mysterious health issues, as she put it. McKenna won a close/questionable decision over Kay Hansen in that fight, where Hansen finished ahead in significant strikes 67-57, in takedowns 2-0 and in control time 5:22-3:05. However, McKenna held a major lead in total strikes 156-87 as she constantly threw strikes even when Hansen had her back. Whether or not those far less impactful strikes should count for much is debatable. Despite trailing in pretty much every statistical category the judges unanimously awarded McKenna a 29-28 decision win.
That was McKenna’s second straight decision victory, with the other coming against Vanessa Demopoulos on DWCS in August 2020. McKenna was able to control Demopoulos for over 11 minutes in that fight, despite the fact that McKenna only landed one takedown on her only attempt. A defensive submission specialist, Demopoulos was more than happy to look for submissions off her back, which contributed to the huge control time total. McKenna finished ahead in significant strikes 47-24 and in total strikes 87-30, while stuffing both of Demopoulos’ takedown attempts.
Prior to the pair of decisions, McKenna finished two straight opponents in the first round and a half of fights with the Cage Warriors organization, where she competed for the first five pro fights of her career. She now holds a 6-1 pro record, with her one loss coming in a 2018 split-decision. She has two wins by TKO, one by submission, and three decisions. All three of her finishes came in the first half of fights, with two ending on the mat and one resulting from a corner stoppage following the first round.
Training both for MMA and powerlifting since she was a young teenager, McKenna is the first female Welsh fighter in the UFC, but she now trains out of Team Alpha Male with Maycee Barber and Xiaonan Yan. Obviously she’ll still have the home English crowd behind her for this upcoming event.
Elise Reed
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Hoping to bounce back from a nightmare UFC debut, Reed took that fight up a weight class and on just three weeks’ notice against veteran Sijara Eubanks, who was coming down from 135 lb for that fight. So you could argue that they were two weight classes apart. Eubanks immediately took the fight to the mat in the opening 15 seconds and worked her way towards a first round finish once she got there. The one-dimensional striker in Reed never stood a chance in the ambush, and Eubanks manhandled her on the mat for nearly four minutes before finishing the fight with ground and pound late in round one. Reed finished with just a single significant strike landed in the beatdown. Reed will now be moving back down to 115 lb for her second UFC fight.
Reed actually made her 2019 pro debut at Atomweight (105 lb), before moving up to 115 lb in 2020. She landed a first round TKO in that pro debut, and followed it up with a pair of four-round decision wins. She arguably lost the first of those decisions after getting taken down four times by Jasmine Jasudavicius, who recently won a decision over Kay Hansen in her UFC debut. Nevertheless, following the pair of decision wins, Reed landed a round two TKO win in her last fight before joining the UFC, but nearly got submitted in that match.
With a Taekwondo background, Reed is a pure striker who relies more on volume than power. She has good movement and quickness, but doesn’t add anything in the grappling department. To her credit, she’s at least active off her back, as she’s constantly throwing strikes and trying to reverse the position, she’s just not a threat to land submissions. Still just 4-1 in her young career, for context, Reed turned pro a month after Gunnar Nelson last fought and the day before Sergei Pavlovich last competed.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’3” but Reed will have a 5” reach advantage.
Despite the 16 month layoff since she last competed, McKenna is still just 22 years old. After facing two straight grapplers, McKenna will now go up against a one-dimensional striker, so she should look more dominant in the grappling exchanges then she did in either of those past fights. Reed has okay striking, but she has not looked good on the mat and even in some of her pre-UFC wins she was getting dominated on the ground before coming back to win those fights. Reed likes to throw a lot of kicks and will also have the reach advantage, so we expect her to be looking to keep this fight at distance and avoid the clinch of McKenna. That will likely have her circling the outside of the cage to avoid getting pressed up against the fence. That has the potential to slow down the action in this match if she’s just looking to evade and land counter strikes, but if McKenna can cut off the Octagon and get her hands on Reed then she should be able to get the fight to the ground where she’ll have a commanding advantage. We don’t see Reed knocking McKenna out on the feet, so unless she gets her in some awkward position on the mat and finishes her with ground and pound, Reed’s best hope will be to keep things standing and outland her way to a decision victory. While it’s certainly possible that’s how things play out, it’s still more likely that McKenna will be able to get the fight to the ground at some point. That’s when things will get interesting, as to whether or not McKenna can hold Reed down and hunt for a finish. Prior to joining the UFC, Reed had done a decent job of not accepting bottom position on the mat, so now that she’s moving back down to 115 lb, it should be harder for opponents to keep her pinned down like she was in her debut. With that said, if McKenna can take Reed down and keep her there, she’s got a decent chance of getting a finish in the first two rounds. However, if Reed can keep the fight standing and control the distance, she should be able to outland her way to a decision victory. We could see it going either way, and still give the edge to McKenna based on her grappling advantage, but it feels closer than the odds suggest.
Our favorite bet here is “Reed Wins by Decision” at +330.
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DFS Implications:
McKenna scored 83 points in a decision win in her UFC debut. Her previous decision win on DWCS would have similarly been good for 82 DraftKings points, so she’s been consistently average. It’s now been a year and a half since she last competed, so it will be interesting to see how much ring rust she has to knock off. At her high price tag, she’ll either need a finish or a completely dominating decision victory on the mat to return value. Another performance like her last two won’t be good enough for her to be useful. Working in McKenna’s favor, her last two opponents were both grapplers, just like her, and she wasn’t able to set herself apart. Now she faces a one-dimensional striker, so we could see more lopsided exchanges on the mat if McKenna can get it there. She’ll also be incredibly low owned, despite being a -275 favorite, which makes her an interesting leverage play in tournaments. The odds imply she has a 69% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Reed has shown she can land a decent amount of volume in space, but has struggled with being controlled for periods of time in the clinch and on the mat. Her Taekwondo fighting style involves tons of movement and kicks so if she can keep things standing she’s got a solid chance to outland her way to a decision win. A knockout is far less likely, and she doesn’t offer anything in terms of grappling, so we don’t see her landing a submission either. It’s possible she could land enough strikes to potentially serve as a value play, but it will be tough for her to really score well without some sort of flukey finish and McKenna will be looking to grapple opposed to taking part in a firefight. The main things Reed has going for her are that she’ll be incredibly low owned, is moving back down to her normal weight class for her second UFC fight, and is going against an opponent who hasn’t fought in a year and a half. Normally we would be all over a trifecta like that, but we’re still not entirely sold on Reed’s upside even if she does pull off the upset. However, it still makes sense to have a little exposure as she’ll be a massive leverage play if she can find a way to score well. The odds imply she has a 31% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 4% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Timur Valiev
4th UFC Fight (2-0, NC)After getting knocked out in his UFC debut, Valiev was extremely fortunate to have the results overturned to a No Contest when his short notice opponent, Trevin Jones, tested positive for THC. Since then, Valiev has won two straight decisions. The overturned KO loss was the first time Valiev has ever been finished, and he responded by coming in with a grappling heavy approach to his next fight when he took on a struggling Martin Day. Valiev landed four of his takedown attempts with over 12 minutes of control time as he came in with a cautious game plan to get things back on track. He also outlanded Day 55-8 in significant strikes and 115-24 in total strikes on his way to an extremely lopsided unanimous decision win (30-25, 30-25, 30-26). For context, Day finished his UFC career 0-4.
Valiev followed up that win with a victory in his last fight against a much tougher opponent in Raoni Barcelos. The fight started slowly, especially on Barcelos’ side of things, but heated up in round two. Barcelos finally woke up late in the second round, as he landed back-to-back knockdowns and nearly had Valiev out of there. Strangely, Barcelos just laid on him for the final 30 seconds after badly hurting him and didn’t even try to get a finish. Valiev seemed to recover in between rounds and outlanded his way in the third round to a decision win. He finished the fight ahead in significant strikes 77-69, while Barcelos led in total strikes 81-77. Barcelos failed to attempt a takedown for the first time in his UFC career, while Valiev missed on all six of his attempts. One judge ruled the fight a draw, while the other two awarded Valiev a 29-28 decision. Barcelos then went on to lose to a UFC newcomer in his next fight, so he appears to be in a rut lately.
A BJJ brown belt, Valiev is now 18-2 not counting his KO loss that was later overturned to a No Contest. He has five wins by KO, two by submission, and 11 decisions. Both of his official losses went the distance, but he was knocked out in the second round of his UFC debut, and nearly knocked out in the second round of his last fight. Prior to getting finished in his debut, Valiev was putting on a striking clinic and nearly got a finish of his own in round one. Then he showcased his wrestling in his next match, so he’s shown a well rounded game overall. Eight of his last 11 fights have gone the distance, with 10 of those 11 making it out of the first round and nine seeing round three. His only two finishes during that 11 fight stretch were a 2019 R1 KO and a 2017 R3 submission.
Valiev has fought at both 135 lb and 145 lb earlier in his career, but the majority of his fights have been at 135 lb, including his last two fights prior to joining the UFC. However, his first two UFC fights came against short notice replacements and he fought his debut at 140 lb Catchweight and then his next fight at 145 lb, before finally moving back down to 135 lb most recently.
Neither of Valiev’s last two opponents attempted a takedown against him, but Trevin Jones was able to land one of his two attempts on Valiev. So we don’t have much to go off of when it comes to his takedown defense.
Jack Shore
5th UFC Fight (4-0)Shore had originally been booked to face Umar Nurmagomedov here, but Nurmagomedov was replaced by Valiev back in December.
Coming off his second straight decision win, Shore landed a career low two takedowns in the match, but in fairness to him, he apparently tore his bicep two weeks before the fight and was also dealing with a broken thumb. He also had two opponents drop out so he had every opportunity to bow out, but demonstrated his toughness to fight through the injuries as he took on a short notice replacement in Liudvik Sholinian, who was coming off a loss on The Ultimate Fighter and making his UFC debut. Despite the injuries, Shore nearly finished the fight with an arm-triangle choke in the first round, but understandably was unable to complete it with a torn bicep. He was mostly content with keeping the fight standing from that point on and only landed one more takedown in the fight. Clearly up after two rounds, he sort of coasted down the stretch opposed to hunting for the late finish that we’re used to seeing out of him. He still outlanded Sholinian 43-10 in strikes in the third round, but he never really pushed for a finish. When it was all said and done, Shore led in significant strikes 92-19 and in total strikes 104-33, while landing 2 of his 8 takedowns with four and a half minutes of control time. He also stuffed all four of Sholinian’s takedown attempts, which is notable as Sholinian was a member of the Ukrainian National Wrestling team.
Shore’s four UFC opponents have entered with UFC records of 0-1, 0-2, 2-1, and 0-0. While he was able to dominate his three opponents who had never won a UFC fight, the 2-1 Azure was able to keep the fight close and their match ended in a split-decision in Shore’s second most recent fight. Azure actually outlanded Shore 45-36 in significant strikes and 78-57 in total strikes, but Shore landed 6 of his 13 takedown attempts, while Azure missed on all six of his attempts. Shore also led in control time 5:17-4:02.
Prior to the pair of decision wins, Shore submitted three straight opponents after knocking out the two prior to that. He now holds a perfect 15-0 pro record, he has four wins by KO, eight by submission, and three decisions. Despite 12 of his 15 wins ending early, his last six matches have all made it out of the first round, with five seeing round three, but only two of those going the distance.
After turning pro in 2016, Shore fought at 145 lb until 2017 when he moved down to the 135 lb division where he’s stayed since. A sparring partner of Brett Johns, Shore is a strong wrestler, and he’s defended all 10 of the takedowns attempted against him so far in the UFC. He’ll now face a big step up in competition and we should learn a lot about Shore in this fight.
Fight Prediction:
Shore will have a 2” height advantage and 4” reach advantage.
This is an intriguing matchup between two up and coming Bantamweights. Valiev is the superior striker, so Shore will need to rely on his wrestling to win this fight. We’ve hardly seen Valiev’s takedown defense tested, so it remains more or less of a mystery. He is from Dagestan and trains with several experienced wrestlers, so we’d be surprised if it was terrible though. If Valiev can keep the fight standing, he should be able to outland his way to victory, but that’s a big if going against a relentless wrestler like Shore. We expect Shore to at least find some success getting this fight to the mat, but Valiev’s defensive wrestling remains more or less a mystery at the UFC level, so it’s hard to say what will happen once the fight does hit the ground. Shore has been especially dangerous later in fights, with his last four finishes coming in the later rounds, including three of those in round three. We could see him wear Valiev down as the fight goes on and then potentially choke him out in round three. With that said, this is a high variance spot and it’s also entirely possible Valiev simply outlands his way to victory if he can mostly keep the fight standing. This should be a fun fight to watch and it could go a couple of different ways, but give us Shore by R3 submission.
Our favorite bet here is “Shore ITD” at +450.
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DFS Implications:
Valiev steps into another tough matchup after defeating Barcelos in a lower volume decision in his last fight. That decision win scored just 62 DraftKings points after Valiev previously scored 104 points in a smothering decision victory against a highly suspect Martin Day. It’s really hard to see Valiev putting on a dominant grappling performance like that here, which would appear to leave him reliant on landing a finish to return value. Not only has Shore never been finished, he’s never even lost a fight. Shore has also seen the line move in his favor pushing this fight to a near pick ‘em. That should keep Valiev’s ownership way down in tournaments, which may be the best thing he has going for him. He’ll be an interesting leverage play off of the popular underdog in Shore. The odds imply Valiev has a 52% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Shore’s grappling-heavy approach to fighting consistently scores well in DFS with DraftKings totals of 87, 93, 109, and 102 in his four UFC wins, although he’s coming off a career worst performance where he scored just 87 points in a decision win. He uncharacteristically landed just two takedowns in that fight after landing 13 in his first three UFC matches. It was later revealed that he was fighting through a torn bicep and a broken thumb in the match, which helps to explain his struggles. Now back to full health from all accounts, he should put on a more inspired performance in front of his home English crowd, but he will be facing the toughest opponent of his career. That lowers his floor as he comes in as an underdog, but he still has a solid ceiling. We haven’t really seen any of Valiev’s defensive wrestling at the UFC level, as his last two opponents didn’t attempt any takedowns after Trevin Jones landed one of his two attempts in Valiev’s debut. Valiev showed he’s a decent offensive wrestler in his second UFC fight, but we should learn a lot about his defense in this one. However, the uncertainty coming in makes this a high variance spot for Shore. He’ll be incredibly popular as he’s mispriced on DraftKings following the line move, which makes him a must play in low-risk contests but a less exciting tournament play. However, if he puts on another dominating grappling performance he’ll almost certainly end up in winning tournament lineups. The odds imply he has a 48% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Nikita Krylov
15th UFC Fight (8-6)Continuing to alternate wins and losses over his last six fights, Krylov is 13 months removed from a decision loss to Magomed Ankalaev. While Krylov has only been to three decisions in 35 pro fights, those all came in his last three matches and we haven’t seen one of his fights end early since he submitted OSP in 2019.
In his recent decision loss to Ankalaev, Krylov started off strong and won the first round, but then lost the last two for a unanimous 29-28 decision defeat. Krylov became the only fighter to take Ankalaev down since his UFC debut against Paul Craig, but was still only able to do so once on six attempts. After getting taken down once in the first round, Ankalaev bounced back with three takedowns of his own and nearly six minutes of control time in the later two rounds as he methodically secured the victory. Krylov actually finished the slow paced slog ahead in significant strikes 47-43, but Ankalaev led in total strikes 89-58, while also leading in takedowns 3-1 and in control time 5:59-1:44.
Amazingly, Krylov’s first 17 pro fights all ended in the first round, with him winning 15 of those. His first fight to last longer than four and a half minutes came in his 2013 UFC debut, which he lost in a third round TKO. He bounced back with a 2014 25 second R1 KO against Walt Harris, but then was submitted in 89 seconds by OSP. He appeared to get things back on track at that point, rattling off five straight wins in the first two rounds, including three in round one. However, following a 2016 first round submission loss, he parted ways with the organization.
He went 4-0 after leaving the UFC, with four finishes split across the first two rounds. The UFC then brought him back in 2018 to face Jan Blachowicz, who submitted Krylov in the second round. Krylov then got his revenge on OSP, submitting him in the second round of his next fight. He next lost a split-decision to Glover Teixeira, before winning a decision over Johnny Walker, leading up to his recent decision loss to Ankalaev.
Now 27-8 as a pro, Krylov has 11 wins by KO, 15 by submission, and just one decision victory. He’s been knocked out once, submitted five times, and has two decision losses. His last six fights have all made it out of the first round, after 25 of his first 29 pro fights ended in round one. His last three early losses all ended in submissions, as did his last early win. He’s a black belt in Kyokushin Karate and a Ukrainian Master of Sports in Army hand-to-hand combat and Submission Fighting.
Paul Craig
13th UFC Fight (7-4-1)After a shaky 3-4 start to his UFC career, Craig has been on a roll with three straight wins and no losses in his last five matches (4-0-1). Craig now hasn’t lost a fight since 2019 and has still only gone to one decision in his career, which ended in a 2019 draw against Mauricio Rua. Craig has only even seen the third round four times in 20 pro fights and now owns a 15-4-1 pro record. He has three wins by KO and 12 by submission. He’s also been knocked out three times and has one submission loss. Thirteen of his fights have ended in the first round (10-3), three have ended in round two (3-0), and three more have ended in round three (2-1). Five of his last six fights have ended in under nine minutes with four of those finishing in the first round. The only person to ever submit Craig is Jimmy Crute, who did so with nine seconds left in the third round. All three of Craig’s KO losses occurred in the first round, while all three of his fights that ended in round three, finished in the final 40 seconds. So we’ve seen some dramatic finishes in his fights, including a last second submission win over Magomed Ankalaev.
While Craig is generally a one-dimensional submission threat, his last two wins both actually ended in TKOs. The most recent of those was really due to the referee failing to stop the fight when he should have after Craig dislocated the elbow of Jamahal Hill with an armbar. Hill refused to tap, and the referee failed to recognize the injury resulting in a delayed stoppage that was eventually ruled a TKO instead of a submission, which is what caused the injury. Craig pulled guard to get the fight to the mat and immediately looked to lock up Hill’s arm as he worked towards the armbar submission that eventually caused the injury. The fight only remained on the feet for a minute, which is the main reason why Craig finished ahead 23-1 in significant strikes and 43-3 in total strikes.
Just prior to that, Craig landed his first KO/TKO win in the UFC, which came via ground and pound against a 38-year-old Mauricio Rua in a rematch of their previous fight that ended in a draw. Craig was able to take the back of a face down Rua and opted to finish the fight with ground and pound opposed to attempting a rear-naked choke like he normally would.
A BJJ black belt, Craig is extremely dangerous off his back and loves to throw up armbars and triangle chokes. He’s never landed more than 51 significant strikes in a fight, and has only topped 31 once. Similarly, he has never absorbed more than 59 significant strikes in a match and only more than 25 twice. We’ve seen fewer than 50 combined significant strikes landed in 9 of his 12 UFC fights.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’3” but Krylov will have a 1” reach advantage and is five years younger than the 34-year-old Craig.
Despite being just 29 years old, Krylov seems to already be slowing down in his career, while the 34-year-old Craig appears to be surging. In fairness, Krylov has been facing significantly tougher competition, as his last three losses came against the former Light Heavyweight champ, the current Light Heavyweight champ, and potentially the future Light Heavyweight champ. Meanwhile, Craig’s last four wins came against one of the worst Light Heavyweights ever in Vinicius Moreira, one of the easier guys to finish in Gadzhimurad Antigulov, a 38-year-old Mauricio Rua, and a one-dimensional striker in Jamahal Hill. Other than Hill, the only impressive opponent Craig has ever defeated was Magomed Ankalaev, and that came in a last second hail mary submission in a fight Craig was losing badly. Nevertheless, Craig is always dangerous with his submissions, so you can never count him out in a fight. Considering five of Krylov’s eight career losses have come by submission, he appears vulnerable to Craig’s submission-heavy style of fighting. Krylov will have the advantage on the feet, but Craig is crafty at getting fights to the ground. This should be an interesting matchup and we expect Krylov to lead the dance for the most part, but we like Craig’s chances of throwing up a submission off his back to steal the victory.
Our favorite bet here is “Craig Wins by Submission” at +450.
Check out our premium betting content on patreon.com/mmadfs for all of our other top bets.
DFS Implications:
Krylov has scored 97 or more DraftKings points in all eight of his UFC wins and 105 or more in seven of those. His grappling heavy approach lends itself more towards the DraftKings scoring system, but his history of landing finishes makes him a solid play on both sites. Craig has only been to one decision in his career, and generally has a finish or get finished mentality to fighting. He’s also comfortable fighting off his back, which could allow Krylov to put up a big control time number. Of Krylov’s 27 career wins, 26 have come early, as have all four of Craig’s losses. There’s a really good chance this fight doesn’t make it to the judges and the winner should score well in that scenario. Even if it does go the distance, Krylov has the potential to score well in a grappling-heavy decision win. The odds imply he has a 63% chance to win, a 42% chance it comes early, and a 21% chance it comes in round one.
All 15 of Craig’s career wins as well as his four losses have come early, but his reliance on defensive grappling would theoretically make it tougher for him to score well with the judges if he does ever make it to a decision. That style of fighting isn’t really conducive to DFS production in general, as he’s not getting control time during those grappling exchanges when he’s on his back. That’s part of why he scored just 69 DraftKings points in both of his third round submission wins. With that said, his other five UFC wins all came in the first two rounds and returned scores of 103, 118, 91, 119, and 96. So as long as he can get a finish in the first 10 minutes, he still has the ability to put up a big score. And if he can be more offensive with his grappling, then a third round finish could still score better than it has in the past for him. And at his cheap price tag, there are more ways for him to end up in winning lineups. The odds imply he has a 37% chance to win, a 22% chance it comes early, and a 10% chance it occurs in round one.
Fight #8
Sergei Pavlovich
4th UFC Fight (2-1)Finally making his return following a two and a half year layoff, Pavlovich has been on the shelf for an extended period of time after undergoing knee surgery. Still just 29 years old, Pavlovich owns an impressive 14-1 pro record, with 11 of his wins coming by KO and just three going the distance. His only career loss came in his 2018 UFC debut against Alistair Overeem, who was able to take Pavlovich down and pound him out on the mat late in the first round. Overeem led in significant strikes 22-13 in the fight.
Pavlovich bounced back with a 2019 66 second R1 KO win in his second UFC fight over Marcelo Golm, who finished 1-3 in the UFC. Pavlovich led in significant strikes 17-5 in the quick outing and dropped Golm with a combination of punches along the fence to close the show.
In his last win, Pavlovich took on Maurice Greene, who’s now 4-4 in the UFC but came into that fight 3-0. Pavlovich appeared to drop Greene three times in the fight, but was only credited with one. However, call them what you want, the third time Greene hit the mat was when the fight got stopped as Pavlovich continued to dish out punishment.
Pavlovich is a traditional Heavyweight boxer and his most dangerous weapon is his right hand. All 11 of his finishes have come by R1 KO, as did his one career loss. All three of his other fights ended in decision wins (2016, 2016 & 2017). He hasn’t made it past the first round in any of his last four fights dating back to a pre-UFC 2017 five-round decision win. He did wrestle growing up and then transitioned to combat sambo, but he hasn’t attempted a takedown in his last two fights, after going 0 for 2 in his debut. He also looked pretty helpless off his back against Overeem.
Shamil Abdurakhimov
10th UFC Fight (5-4)Coming off his second straight round two KO loss, Abdurakhimov actually hasn’t won a fight in even longer than Pavlovich, who hasn’t competed since October 2019. The 40-year-old Abdurakhimov last tasted victory in a second round KO win against Marcin Tybura in April 2019, and his last three fights have all ended in round two knockouts (1-2).
In his only fight since 2019, Abdurakhimov took on a surging Chris Daukaus and was never really competitive in the match. The fight started off a little slower than Daukaus’ previous three bouts, but Daukaus dropped Abdurakhimov late in the first round with a perfect left hook and nearly finished the fight with ground and pound but simply ran out of time, as the ref gave Abdurakhimov a long leash. Daukaus dropped Abdurakhimov again just over a minute into round two and again the ref gave Abdurakhimov every opportunity to stay in the fight even after it looked like it could have been a walk off KO. So after a momentary pause from Daukaus, he jumped on top and finished the fight with elbows as he landed his fifth straight knockout victory. Daukaus finished ahead 38-23 in striking with a pair of knockdowns.
Abdurakhimov hadn’t fought in just over two years leading up to that match, as he had five bookings fall through. In his second most recent fight, Abdurakhimov took on Curtis Blaydes in September 2019, who finished Abdurakhimov midway through the second round with ground and pound after landing all five of his takedown attempts. Blaydes finished ahead in significant strikes 25-3 and in total strikes 46-3 in what was basically a shutout.
Just prior to that, Abdurakhimov knocked out Marcin Tybura in April 2019 in a fight between two Heavyweights with grappling ability that played out entirely on the feet. Abdurakhimov is from Dagestan so you know he can at least wrestle a little. He actually started off as a freestyle wrestler and is a Master of Sport in Wysha Sana and an International Master of Sports in Kickboxing. Still, he’s only landed seven takedowns on 29 attempts (24% accuracy) in nine UFC fights and none in his last three matches. Four of his seven takedowns came in a 2016 R4 KO loss to Derrick Lewis and he’s only landed two in his five fights since. We also saw him get dominated on the mat against Blaydes, so he doesn’t offer much off his back. He has averaged 1.1 takedowns landed and 4.8 attempted per 15 minutes over the course of his career, but those attempts have come sporadically.
Five of Abdurakhimov’s last six fights have ended in KOs (2-3), with the one exception coming in a 2018 decision against the ageless Andrei Arlovski, who basically always fights to decisions. All four of Abdurakhimov’s UFC losses have come by KO, while he was also submitted once prior to joining the UFC. His only decision loss came in 2009 against Thiago Santos before either guy joined the UFC. Seven of his nine and all but one of his last eight UFC fights have made it out of the first round. Three of his five UFC wins have come by decision, while he also has a round one KO win over a terrible Chase Sherman and a round two KO win over Marcin Tybura, who’s been knocked out in four of his seven career losses. Those two knockouts are the only ones Abdurakhimov has landed since 2011 and his only other finish during that time came in a 2012 submission victory.
Of Abdurakhimov’s 20 pro wins, nine have come by KO, four have ended in submissions, and seven went the distance. He’s been knocked out four times, submitted once and has lost one decision. So he’s impressively won seven of the eight decisions he’s been to in his career, despite the fact that he’s a slow paced striker who only averages 2.53 SSL/min and 2.69 SSA/min.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’3” but Pavlovich will have an 8” reach advantage and is 11 years younger than the 40-year-old Abdurakhimov.
Neither one of these two have won a fight since 2019, with just one combined fight since then, so there’s even more uncertainty surrounding this matchup than your typical Heavyweight fight. Pavlovich has been the more impressive fighter, but he’s been away for so long battling injuries that it’s hard to know what to expect out of him in his return. If he can come in without missing a step then he’s clearly the favorite to land a knockout in the first round, but you never want to assume that will be the case following an extended layoff. While Abdurakhimov did nothing to impress us in his last two fights, he went up against a pair of tough opponents in Chris Daukaus and Curtis Blaydes, while both of Pavlovich’s wins have come against non UFC level talents. Abdurakhimov’s age is also concerning, so both fighters have red flags, and this fight will likely come down to who lands the first big shot. We could see it going either way, but Pavlovich is definitely the more likely of the two to get the knockout. It will be interesting to see if Abdurakhimov looks to grapple any, however, as that has the potential to be the equalizer. His takedown attempts have been inefficient and sporadic, but Pavlovich’s lone career loss came via ground and pound after getting taken down.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Round 2 KO” at +500.
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DFS Implications:
Pavlovich has been the definition of a round one KO or bust fighter throughout his career, with all 12 of his fights ending in round one knockouts (11-1) and the other three going the distance (3-0). He’s coming off a two and a half year layoff, which is always a red flag, but he’s also facing a 40-year-old fighter, which is a red flag for his opponent. So maybe those end up canceling each other out, who knows. While Pavlovich hasn’t fought since October 2019, his last two fights both ended in round one KO wins, albeit against low-level opponents, and he scored 109 and 107 DraftKings points in those wins. Outside of landing multiple knockdowns or getting the Quick Win bonus, that gives you an idea of his scoring ceiling. While he’s averaged a respectable 6.55 SSL/min, we wouldn’t expect him to score well in a decision, so you’re relying on a finish if you play him. The odds imply he has a 74% chance to win, a 62% chance to get a finish, and a slate-leading 37% chance it comes in round one.
Abdurakhimov is a low-volume striker who averages just 2.53 SSL/min and only occasionally mixes in grappling. He appears reliant on landing a finish to score well in DFS, and three of his five UFC wins have gone the distance. With that said, two of his last three wins came early, where he returned DraftKings scores of 94 and 102. He’s failed to top 66 DraftKings points in any of his three decision wins and even at his cheaper price tag is unlikely to serve as a value play without a finish. While Abdurakhimov is now 40 years old and hasn’t won a fight since 2019, his opponent is coming off a two and a half year layoff and this is even more of a high variance spot than your typical Heavyweight fight. So it seems fair to say that anything could happen, and at his cheap price tag and lower ownership, Abdurakhimov is a clear leverage play in tournaments with decent upside. The odds imply he has a 26% chance to win, a 16% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Mike Grundy
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Looking to bounce back from a pair of decision losses to keep his spot in the UFC, Grundy understandably lost to an undefeated Movsar Evloev in July 2020, and then most recently lost to Lando Vannata, in Vannata’s first fight down at 145 lb. Grundy struggled mightily to get that fight to the ground, and finished with just three takedowns on 20 attempts. Vannata finished ahead in significant strikes 80-32 and in total strikes 83-34, while also landing his only takedown attempt. Grundy did a poor job of disguising his attempts behind strikes and seemed content with throwing one punch at a time when he did strike. His telegraphed takedown attempts were easily defended throughout the match, and it appeared clear that Vannata had done enough to win the decision, although the fight took place in Houston, so naturally one judge ruled it 30-27 in Grundy’s favor, while another had it 30-27 for Vannata. The deciding judge scored it 29-28 for Vannata in the bizarre decision.
A teammate of Tom Aspinall and Darren Till, Grundy made his 2019 UFC debut on an eight fight winning streak following a 16 month layoff, against a decent but not great opponent in Nad Narimani. The fight played out as a low-volume boxing match, with just one takedown landed between the two grapplers, which Grundy landed on his three attempts, while Narimani missed on his only attempt. In the backend of the second round, Narimani hurt Grundy with a combination of punches, but Grundy was able to recover and drop Narimani with a left hook as he pushed forward. Narimani tried to recover and was able to get up, but Grundy continued to land several strikes on the feet and the ref stopped the fight as Narimani covered up along the fence. It was later stated that Grundy entered that fight with a slight hamstring tear that prevented him from utilizing a more wrestling heavy approach.
After extending his winning streak to nine, Grundy once again didn’t fight for another 16 months, presumably due at least in part to the hamstring tear. When he did finally return to the Octagon, Grundy was matched up against an extremely tough opponent in undefeated Movsar Evloev. Grundy was able to take Evloev down less than a minute into the fight, but Evloev was able to temporarily escape as Grundy hunted for his neck. However, Grundy quickly returned him to the mat with a perfectly timed double leg, and then quickly had him in what looked like a locked in brabo choke. However, Evloev’s iron neck and ability to get out of chokes is unmatched and he Houdini’d his way out of it. Evloev seemed to take over from that point on and cruised to a unanimous decision win. Grundy finished the fight going 6 for 15 on his takedown attempts, while Evloev dominated the striking, leading in significant strikes 79-20 and total strikes 96-25, while not even needing to shoot for any takedowns of his own despite his wrestling background. Grundy recently mentioned he broke his jaw in that fight, which couldn’t have helped him as the fight went on, although he apparently cites an injury after every fight, so maybe he’s just full of excuses.
Grundy has now landed 10 takedowns on 38 attempts since joining the UFC and owns a poor 26% takedown accuracy. Despite landing a KO in his debut, Grundy is primarily a wrestler and his striking isn’t anything special, but he has okay power. Prior to switching to MMA, he was a freestyle wrestler and represented England in multiple international events. That KO in his debut was the first of his career, but he does have eight submission wins, including seven in the first round. His go to move is the brabo choke, which he’s finished three opponents with, but he also has three arm-triangle chokes. Now 12-3 as a pro, he also has three wins by decision. The only time he’s ever been finished came by submission in the second round of his fourth pro fight back in 2015. He also has two decision losses on his record.
Makwan Amirkhani
12th UFC Fight (6-5)Coming off three straight losses and having won just one of his last five fights, Amirkhani is desperate for a victory here. While three of those losses came against really tough opponents in Shane Burgos, Edson Barboza, and Lerone Murphy, Amirkhani also lost a decision to short notice replacement and UFC newcomer Kamuela Kirk, who isn’t terrible, but those are the fights your supposed to win as the veteran. Amirkhani’s most recent loss resulted from an early round two KO against a tough Lerone Murphy. Amirkhani was able to take Murphy down 45 seconds into the first round and while Murphy briefly returned to his feet midway through the round, Amirkhani never released his grasp and continued to drag Murphy down to the mat over and over again. However, Murphy’s activity at least prevented Amirkhani from looking for submissions. Amirkhani officially finished the round landing 5 of his 6 takedown attempts with over four minutes of control time. He shot for another takedown early in round two, but Murphy caught him with a perfectly timed knee as he shot in and knocked him out.
Prior to the defeat against Murphy, Amirkhani lost a low-volume decision to a debuting Kamuela Kirk, who took the fight on short notice. Amirkhani trailed in significant strikes 28-20 and in total strikes 100-25, but he was able to land five takedowns on nine attempts with just under seven minutes of control time. However, it was his opponent, Kamuela Kirk, who finished the fight with three official submission attempts. That’s surprising considering Amirkhani is essentially a one-dimensional submission threat, but Kirk is a solid grappler in his own right.
Looking back one fight further, Amirkhani was defeated in an ultra low-volume decision against Edson Barboza, where Barboza led in significant strikes 32-11 and in total strikes 34-25. Barboza landed a pair of knockdowns, while Amirkhani went 3 for 6 on takedowns, but couldn’t do anything with them and two came right at the end of the first two rounds.
Amirkhani’s only win in his last five fights came in a first round submission against an aging Danny Henry. Not much else happened in that fight, as Henry led in strikes 6-2, but Amirkhani efficiently finished the fight with his only submission attempt on his lone takedown. Henry came into that fight following a loss and a 16 month layoff, and looked like the oldest 32-year-old you’ve ever seen. He hasn’t fought since. Just before that victory, Amirkhani was knocked out by Shane Burgos in the third round after failing to land an early submission attempt.
Amirkhani has landed at least one takedown in his last 10 UFC fights and at least three in seven of those. He claims to have improved his boxing, but so far he’s been nothing more than a one-dimensional grappler in his UFC career. His speciality is the anaconda choke, which is how he finished his last two wins.
He’s currently 16-7 as a pro, with 11 wins by submission and one by KO, which came from a highlight reel flying knee eight second knockout in his 2015 UFC debut. He’s also been finished three times himself, as he’s been knocked out twice in his last five fights and was submitted once earlier in his career. He also has four decision losses. He’s lost the last two and three of the last four decisions he’s gone to.
Amirkhani trains out of SBG Ireland, which appears to be a sinking ship right now, as it’s the home of other struggling fighters like Johnny Walker, Conor McGregor, John Phillips, and Gunnar Nelson, as well as faux fighters such as Dillon Danis.
Fight Prediction:
Amirkhani will have a 3” height advantage, but both fighters share a 72” reach.
This matchup was originally booked back in March of 2020, but was canceled due to COVID, so this will be the second time these two have prepared for one another. Grundy will now have the advantage of fighting in front of his home English crowd. While both of these two have wrestling backgrounds, Grundy had a lengthier and more celebrated wrestling career. Amirkhani is primarily known for his submission skills, but in fairness has averaged more takedowns landed than Grundy and also has a 43% takedown accuracy compared to Grundy’s 26%. While Grundy isn’t an exceptional striker by any means, he still offers a lot more on the feet than Amirkhani, who averages a pathetic 1.37 SSL/min. So if the fight remains standing Grundy should be able to do enough to win a decision. Things get more interesting on the mat, where both guys represent a submission threat and each has been submitted once in their respective careers. It’s hard to say how the grappling exchanges will play out, as we’ve yet to see anyone really try to wrestle with Grundy since he joined the UFC. Grundy looks to have the more powerful frame, while Amirkhani is lankier, but Amirkhani is pretty slick with his submissions, so you can’t count him out on the ground. Overall we’ll give the advantage in this one to the home favorite in Grundy as Amirkhani doesn’t offer much on the feet outside of an occasional flying knee, but this could be a close fight. We’ll say Grundy wins a decision here if it goes the distance, but there’s still a decent chance we see it end in a submission.
Our favorite bet here is “Fight Ends in Submission” at +240.
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DFS Implications:
Grundy naturally scored well in the R2 KO win in his UFC debut, where he totalled 101 DraftKings points, but failed to come close to returning a usable score in his recent two decision losses—even if they had gone his way. He’s really struggled with his takedown accuracy, landing just 10 of his 38 attempts (26%) since joining the UFC. Now he’ll face a one-dimensional grappler, so it will be interesting to see if Grundy continues to spam takedowns or if he’s more comfortable relying on his striking advantage here. Both guys in this matchup have just one knockout win on their records, so we expect to see this fight either end in a submission or more likely go the distance. Since both guys have wrestling backgrounds, it would be surprising to one of them just completely dominate the other on the mat, which lowers each of their ceilings to some extent. There also won’t be enough striking volume to score well in that department, so Grundy is more reliant than normal on landing a finish to return value. In Amirkhani’s 11 fight UFC career, the only opponent to take him down has been Arnold Allen, who landed 3 of his 6 attempts, but scored just 76 points on DraftKings and 62 points on FanDuel in a split-decision win. And only one of Amirkhani’s 11 opponents has landed more than 32 significant strikes on him, so overall he’s a tough guy to score well against unless you finish him early. Four of Grundy’s last six fights have gone the distance, and while he landed the only knockout of his career in his 2019 UFC debut, he hasn’t submitted anybody since the third round of a 2017 fight, prior to joining the UFC. It’s more likely he wins a lower scoring decision here. The odds imply he has a 62% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Amirkhani was on pace to put up a slate-breaking score in his recent R2 KO loss to Lerone Murphy. He landed five takedowns with over four minutes of control time in the first round, but then shot into a knee that knocked him out cold 14 seconds into round two. It’s rare we see Amirkhani set that type of scoring pace, and just keep in mind it came against a one-dimensional striker. Amirkhani started off hot in the UFC, as he averaged 108 DraftKings points in his first three wins, largely with the help of the Quick Win bonus in his debut, but he averaged just 80 DraftKings points in his last three wins. That number gets dragged down by a 57 point decision, but he still scored just 97 and 86 points in his last two finishes. He averages an anemic 1.37 SSL/min, and is entirely dependent on grappling stats and finishes to score well, but at his lower underdog price he makes for a more interesting play as he doesn’t need to put up a massive score to sneak into the winning lineups. With that said, this looks like a tougher matchup for him to exert any grappling dominance and he appears reliant landing a finish to win. The odds imply he has a 38% chance to win, a 16% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Ilia Topuria
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Stepping into this fight up a weight class on 30 days’ notice, Topuria had been scheduled to face Movsar Evloev and then Charles Jourdain back in January, but Evloev dropped out and then Topuria was also forced to withdraw due to weight cutting issues. So maybe the move up to 155 lb will do him some good, at least in terms of actually making it to the fight. This will be the first time Topuria has competed up at 155 lb, and while all three of his previous UFC fights have been at 145 lb, he competed down at 135 lb earlier in his career. However, still just 25 years old, he’s grown into his frame since those early days and he hasn’t made 135 lb since 2018 when he was 21 years old.
Exploding onto the scene in late 2020, Topuria is now 3-0 in the UFC and has become one of the most intriguing young prospects in the entire organization. The UFC has been trying to test this kid every step of the way and he’s passed every obstacle thrown at him. They first tested his gas tank against a cardio machine in Youssef Zalal. Despite accepting the fight on just eight days’ notice, Topuria went three full rounds for the first time in his career. While he was fading hard late in the third round and hardly able to catch his breath in the post fight interview, he still showed he can go 15 minutes after he had previously never been in a fight that lasted longer than eight minutes. Topuria was incredibly close to finishing Zalal at multiple points, but Zalal showed a witch-like ability to avoid being choked out.
Next, the UFC forced Topuria to rely on his striking as they paired him up with a submission specialist in Damon Jackson. Topuria happily accepted the challenge and didn’t shoot for a single takedown the fight as he showcased his striking, knocking Jackson out midway through the first round.
Most recently, the UFC tested Topuria’s fight IQ as they matched him up with the puzzle that is Ryan Hall, who entered the bout on an eight fight winning streak. Topuria showed off his smarts as he carefully attacked Hall and then when the opportunity presented itself finished Hall with ground and pound late in round one. That was the first time Hall had ever been finished and Topuria did a great job of remaining offensive while staying out of danger as Hall consistently looked to entangle himself with the legs of Topuria.
A BJJ black belt and still just 25 years old, Topuria owns a perfect 11-0 pro record, with three wins by KO, seven by submission, and one decision. Nine of his wins have come in the first round, with his one other finish coming early in round two of a 2016 match. Interestingly, his last three finishes have all come by KO, after the first seven of his career all ended in submissions. He’s only been in one fight that lasted longer than eight minutes, which came against the aforementioned Zalal, and considering that was in his UFC debut which he took on 8 days’ notice we still don’t know what his cardio will look like later in fights where he has had more time to prepare. Nevertheless, his cardio appears to be the only potential weakness in his game. Now Topuria will face a one-dimensional striker, where he’ll hold a massive grappling advantage.
Jai Herbert
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Herbert had been scheduled to fight Mike Davis here, but Davis dropped out and Topuria was announced as the replacement on February 17th.
Fresh off his first UFC win, Herbert bounced back from a pair of early losses in his first two UFC fights with a first round TKO win over Khama Worthy in his most recent match. After an initial feeling out process, Herbert turned it on midway through the round. He dropped Worthy with a combination of strikes and then forced a stoppage on the mat as he continued to tee off on him. The fight ended with Herbert ahead 24-11 in significant strikes as Worthy never really got anything going.
Prior to that win, Herbert suffered a smothering second round submission loss to veteran Renato Moicano, where Herbert was no match for the relentless grappling of the BJJ black belt. The fight ended with Moicano ahead in significant strikes 26-7 and in total strikes 61-18, while he landed 5 of his 7 takedown attempts with over seven and a half minutes of control time in a fight that lasted just nine and a half minutes. Herbert was briefly able to return to his feet late in round one and showed glimpses of his striking advantage, but he was unable to get the finish in his very limited opportunities. By the second round, he lacked the energy and skills to get off the mat and Moicano easily wore him down as he worked his way to the submission finish.
Looking back one fight further, Herbert was thrown straight to the wolves in his July 2020 UFC debut as he went up against longtime veteran Francisco Trinaldo. To make matters more difficult, Trinaldo showed up 4 lb overweight for the fight and didn’t even appear to try and hit the 156 lb mark as he prepared to move up to 170 lb for his next fight. Herbert’s kinetic pace and reach advantage gave Trinaldo some trouble early on, as Herbert throws his jab out like he’s poking you with a broomstick from across the Octagon. He also follows up that prodding jab with a lightning fast right cross. However, Trinaldo was able to close the distance and get Herbert down to the mat a minute in. As Herbert looked to return to his feet, Trinaldo attempted a standing Guillotine Submission, but Herbert was able to escape danger and return to his feet. However, Trinaldo was able to keep Herbert pinned up against the cage and returned him to the mat a minute later. While he was able to work his way back to his feet, essentially the entire first round was spent either in the clinch or on the mat, which is definitely not where Herbert wants to be.
Herbert started the second round fresh and dropped Trinaldo with a cattle prod right hand just six seconds in, which was notably just the third time Trianldo had been knocked down in 22 UFC fights up until that point. However Trianaldo was able to recover as he bear-hugged Herbert and then was forced to give up his back as Herbert looked for a Rear-Naked Choke. Trinaldo was able to use the time on the mat to recover and eventually return to his feet, but Herbert dominated the round.
Early in the third round, Trinaldo caught Herbert with a left hand to the dome that dropped Herbert with a delayed cartoon-like reaction. Trinaldo stood above the fallen Herbert with his fist cocked waiting for Herb Dean to call the fight but Dean bizarrely forced Trianaldo to land a few more unnecessary shots while Dan Hardy understandably lost his shit in the commentary booth. Up until that point, Herbert looked great in the fight and just happened to get caught with a clean left hand—it happens. While we didn’t see a huge number of strikes landed, Trinaldo led 30-21 in significant strikes and both fighters landed just 37 total strikes. However, that can largely be attributed to the fact that we saw over six and half minutes of combined control time in a fight that lasted 11 and a half minutes. Herbert is most comfortable in open space, so he’ll just need to figure out how to stay out of the clinch moving forward so he can fully utilize his reach and explosive striking ability.
Herbert started his amateur career at 170 lb before dropping down to 155 lb in 2014 just before going pro, where he's stayed since. He has only been to one decision in his 14 pro fights, which came in a 2018 win. His other 10 wins have all come early, with nine KOs and one submission. Only one of his 10 finishes has occurred after the second round, with his first five early wins ending in round two and four of his last five finishes coming in round one. Prior to his pair of early losses in his first two UFC fights, Herbert’s only other career loss came in a 2016 R1 KO against Rhys McKee, who went 0-2 in the UFC before heading back to Cage Warriors. However, McKee has notably been fighting up at 170 lb opposed to 155 lb where Herbert competes.
Overall, Herbert is a solid striker with fast hands, but is extremely vulnerable on the mat. He’s also been prone to getting knocked out at times so he’s generally a finish or get finished type of fighter. A training partner of Leon Edwards at Team Renegade in the UK, Herbert recently decided to begin doing his fight camps at Syndicate MMA in Las Vegas.
Fight Prediction:
Herbert will have a 6” height advantage and 8” reach advantage.
It’s a shame that Mike Davis dropped out of his matchup against Herbert, as that would have been an absolute banger on the feet. This new matchup should be far more one-sided as we fully expect Topuria to get this fight to the ground and do whatever he wants to Herbert on the mat. The only concern for Topuria is that he’s moving upa weight class, but even with his size advantage, Herbert will struggle to keep the fight standing, as he has just a 30% career takedown defense. Even if Topuria comes in looking to prove a point by keeping this fight standing early on, which we don’t expect him to, he’s a solid striker and can also remain competitive in a striking battle. It would make no sense for him to go that route, but fighters make strange decisions all the time and we can’t just assume rational game planning. Goating Topuria into a striking battle is the only way Herbert can win this fight, but it’s unlikely we see that happen. We expect Topuria to finish Herbert in the first round, and while Topuria’s last three wins have all come by KO, we’re expecting him to finish this one with a submission.
Our favorite bet here is “Under 1.5 Rounds” at -137.
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DFS Implications:
Topuria checks in as the second most expensive fighter on the slate, with the best odds to land a finish. He’ll have a massive grappling advantage in this matchup and he’s a smart fighter who should fully take advantage of that. He’s scored 100 and 112 DraftKings points in his last two fights, which both ended in R1 KOs, so there’s certainly a real chance he could get a first round finish and still get outscored by enough of the other high priced fighters to keep him out of the optimal lineup. We’ve seen him be extremely efficient with his finishes in the past, and at his high price tag, efficiency is not always a good thing when it comes to DFS scoring. If he immediately takes Herbert down and quickly submits him, that could very well fail to break 100 DraftKings points if it doesn’t come in the first 60 seconds. And while Topuria has nine first round finishes on his record, none of those have come in the first 60 seconds, although four have come in under two minutes. However, if Herbert can at least mount some resistance and make Topuria work for a finish, we could see Topuria put up a massive score. So he has one of the highest floors on the slate and the potential for a ceiling performance depending on how the fight goes. He’ll also be incredibly popular, which makes him a little less exciting in tournaments. The odds imply he has an 82% chance to win, a 63% chance to land a finish, and a 35% chance it comes in round one.
Herbert is going from a dream matchup in his last fight, which he took full advantage of as he scored 110 DraftKings points in a first round TKO, into a nightmare matchup here. It would be pretty shocking to see him pull off the upset in this fight, and while he’ll have a major height and reach advantage, we don’t expect this fight to remain on the feet for long. So his window to land a knockout will likely be a small one and he’s facing an undefeated opponent. However, if he does win, he’ll essentially be a lock to end up in winning lineups. The odds imply he has just an 18% chance to win, a 13% chance to get a finish and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Molly McCann
8th UFC Fight (4-3)McCann bounced back from a pair of grappling-heavy decision losses with a high-volume decision win in her most recent fight. She’s now gone the distance in six straight matches since getting submitted by Gillian Robertson in her 2018 UFC debut. That’s the only time McCann has ever been finished in her career, with her other three losses all ending in decisions. Now 11-4 as a pro, seven of her wins have come by decision, but she does have four KOs on her record. All of those came prior to joining the UFC, with three of those occurring in her first five pro fights. She’s landed just one since 2016, and it came in the second round of her last fight before joining the UFC. Her last 10 fights have all made it out of the first round, with eight going the distance.
In her recent decision win, McCann narrowly outlanded Ji Yeon Kim 127-122 in significant strikes, while tacking on two takedowns on three attempts. Both of those numbers were career highs for McCann in terms of both significant strikes landed and absorbed, however, she’s landed 107 or more significant strikes in all four of her UFC wins so she constantly puts up big striking totals in her victories. Kim was able to lead in striking in the first round, while also holding McCann against the fence for a good period of time, but McCann really picked up the pace in the later round as she landed 106 of her 221 significant strikes thrown in the later two rounds. McCann went on to win a unanimous 29-28 decision in the high-paced brawl. After the fight she claimed she had a torn LCL and PCL as well as a broken knuckle for what it’s worth.
Prior to that win, McCann was forced to grapple more than she would like in a pair of decision losses to Lara Procopio and Taila Santos. Procopio took McCann down seven times on nine attempts and finished with nearly 12 minutes of control time. Before that, Santos took McCann down five times on seven attempts with nearly eight minutes of control time.
McCann has averaged 2.75 takedowns landed of her own in her four UFC wins, but didn’t land any in her three UFC losses. So she doesn’t mind mixing in a little wrestling, but only if she’s the one on top. She’s most effective when she’s being the aggressor in both striking and grappling and she led in takedowns 11-1 in her four UFC wins and trailed 0-14 in her three losses. She has just a 34% takedown defense, and she really struggles whenever she faces talented grapplers, but has yet to be defeated by a pure striker in the UFC. McCann averages 5.67 SSL/min and will now have the home crowd behind her on this London card. Get ready for her to feed off the crowd and come in looking to put on a show.
Luana Carolina
5th UFC Fight (3-1)Coming off a pair of upset decision wins, Carolina entered both matches as an underdog but still found a way to win each fight. Her most recent win came against Loopy Godinez, who took the fight on short notice up a weight class just a week after winning a fight down at 115 lb. Godinez spent most of the fight unsuccessfully hunting for takedowns against her much larger opponent, and she only landed 2 of her 15 attempts with over seven and a half minutes of control time, largely spent along the fence. Carolina finished ahead in significant strikes 53-23 and in total strikes 86-45 in the slow-paced snoozer.
Prior to that, she won a low-volume split-decision over Poliana Botelho. After losing the first round, Carolina was able to bounce back in the later rounds to win a grappling-heavy fight with over 10 minutes of combined control time. Botelho finished ahead in significant strikes 34-25 and landed one of her four takedown attempts, but Carolina led in total strikes 100-87 and finished with five and half minutes of control time, despite never attempting a takedown. Carolina was coming off a knee injury followed by an extended layoff going into that fight and she missed weight by 2.5 lb.
While Carolina has competed at 125 lb for her entire UFC career, her three fights prior to joining the organization were up at 135 lb and she’s huge for the division. She’s listed at 5’6” everywhere, but that appears incorrect.
The only time Carolina has been finished in her career occurred in her third most recent fight, when she was finished early in the first round with a violent kneebar that left her grimacing in pain. She suffered a partial tear to her left ACL from the finish, but was able to avoid surgery. She’s also dealt with a spine injury in the past.
Now 8-2 as a pro, Carolina has two wins by TKO, one by submission, and five decisions. However, all three of the finishes occurred in her first four pro fights against opponents who entered with records of 0-0, 0-0, and 2-1. She has been submitted once and also has one decision loss. Five of her last six fights have gone the distance and she won all five of those decisions. The only decision loss of her career came in 2015 pro debut and the judges were split. She’s now quietly won eight of her last nine fights, with the one one loss coming in a weird/flukey kneebar submission. Just keep in mind her last two decisions have been close and she’s been scraping by in a lot of these fights.
While it’s been a while since we’ve seen her take part in a brawl, Carolina won a high-volume striking battle in her 2019 UFC debut in a fight against Priscila Cachoeira. Carolina led in significant strikes 111-69 and total strikes 126-69 and also attempted three guillotine chokes and stuffed both of Cachoeira’s takedown attempts. Carolina showed the ability to land heavy head kicks in the match, but spent much of the fight circling away from action and waiting for Cachoeira to walk into kicking range. So she isn’t really the type to charge head first into a firefight.
Carolina owns a really solid 88% takedown defense and has only been taken down three times on 26 attempts in her last five fights dating back to DWCS. She hasn’t attempted a takedown of her own since joining the UFC, after failing on her only attempt on DWCS. With a Muay Thai background, Carolina relies on her striking, but will occasionally look for an opportunistic submission attempt. Her best attribute is her size, but she throws decent kicks.
Fight Prediction:
Carolina will allegedly have just a 2” height advantage and 7” reach advantage.
The UFC lists Carolina as being 5’6” and we’re definitely calling bullshit on that. They also list her past opponent, Poliana Botelho, as being 5’8” and Carolina was clearly taller than her. Cachoeira is listed at 5’7” and Carolina was taller than her as well. Carolina also towered over 5’2” Loppy Godinez in her last fight. This is all just a long way of saying, Carolina’s height advantage will be larger than it appears on paper.
This should be a fun striking battle with the home favorite in McCann being the aggressor. Carolina will have a major height and reach advantage, and will likely be looking to capitalize on that by remaining at kicking distance. McCann will be amped up and ready to brawl in front of her home country of England, so if Carolina circles away from contact, content with counter striking the way she did against Cachoeira, we could see McCann get frustrated and potentially charge into a head kick. With that said, we expect McCann to do a better job of cutting off the Octagon than Cachoeira did. All four of McCann’s UFC wins have included at least two takedowns, so it will be interesting to see if she can crack the 88% takedown defense of Carolina, or if this fight will remain entirely on the feet. We’d be very surprised if Carolina looked to take McCann down, as it would be her first takedown attempt since joining the UFC. We expect this to end in a close high-volume decision with McCann being the far more charismatic fighter with the crowd behind her, which will likely help her with the London judges to win a decision.
Our favorite bet here is “McCann Wins by Decision” at +120.
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DFS Implications:
McCann has been a consistent but largely unspectacular DFS producer with DraftKings totals of 93, 109, 85, and 91 in her four UFC wins. She’s a high-volume striker who has also landed at least two takedowns in all four of her victories, but now she’s going against the 88% takedown defense of Luana Carolina. McCann’s scores are far less impressive if you remove the takedowns, although that would theoretically give her more time to rack up a huge striking total. Just keep in mind, the most significant strikes Carolina has absorbed in a UFC fight was 69, which came against brawler Priscila Cachoeira. Carolina was content with circling away from contact and counter striking for most of that match. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean Carolina will come in with the same defensively sound counter punching approach here, and things could always go differently if the live crowd draws Carolina into standing and trading in a phone booth. If that happens we could see a massive striking total for each lady, but it’s impossible to know how aggressive Carolina will be coming into the fight. It will be much tougher for McCann to put up a useful volume driven score in a decision win if Carolina is circling away from her for the entire fight and blasting her with kicks from the outside, especially if McCann is unable to boost her score with takedowns. To score 100 points on DraftKings in a decision through striking alone, she would need to land 175 significant strikes and her current career high is 127. With the home crowd cheering her on, it would make total sense for her to set a ridiculous striking pace, but 175 is still a lot to ask for. She sets up as a better play on FanDuel though, where significant strikes are more heavily weighted and she’ll only need to land 133 to score 100 points in a decision over there. McCann still has a solid floor on both sites, but for a fighter who’s very unlikely to get a finish, her path to ending up in tournament winning lineups is somewhat narrow. The odds imply she has a 56% chance to win, a 14% chance to get a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
While Carolina’s last two fights have been slow paced grappling matches, those wrestling exchanges were entirely initiated by her opponents, who combined to go 3 for 19 on their takedown attempts, while Carolina didn’t attempt a takedown in either match. Carolina scored 102 DraftKings points in a decision win her 2019 UFC debut against Priscila Cachoeira, who everyone scores well against, but only totalled 59 and 65 DraftKings points in her last two decision wins. We fully expect this fight to more closely resemble the Cachoeira matchup, but keep in mind Carolina propped up her score in that match with a knockdown, two reversals, two and a half minutes of control time, and three submission attempts. If we remove those additional stats and just leave her striking, she would have scored 77 points on DraftKings and 87 points on FanDuel in the decision win. Those numbers give you an idea of her floor in a decision win here, and it’s certainly possible she can again tack on some additional stats. McCann will come in amped up, constantly moving forward, and looking to put on a show. So this is a great uptempo spot for Carolina to set a new career high in strikes landed. However, it will also be a tough matchup as she battles not just McCann but also the London crowd who will obviously be backing the English native in this one. Nevertheless, if Carolina can rise to the task and outland her way to victory, she makes for an interesting underdog play with a solid floor and decent ceiling. The odds imply she has a 44% chance to win, a 15% chance to get a finish and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Gunnar Nelson
14th UFC Fight (8-5)Nelson had been scheduled to face Claudio Silva here, but Silva dropped out and Sato stepped in on 12 days' notice.
It will have been 903 days since Nelson last competed when steps inside of the Octagon on Saturday, and during that time he never so much as had a fight scheduled until now. In addition to dealing with the pandemic and the training limitations associated with it in Iceland, Nelson suffered two rib injuries during training, one of which came in a friendly wrestling match against “The Mountain” from Game of Thrones, who weighs 350 lb, whereas Nelson said he weighed 185 lb at the time.
In addition to the long layoff, Nelson has lost his last two fights and three of his last four. His only win since 2017 came in a 2018 second round rear-naked choke against Alex Oliveira. Nelson made his UFC debut in 2012 and won his first four fights, with three ending in submissions. He then lost a split decision to Rick Story, before bouncing back with another submission win, but then lost a decision to Demian Maia. He again bounced back, this time with a pair of second round submission wins, leading up to his recent 1-3 stretch. In fairness to him, those three recent losses came against tougher opponents in Santiago Ponzinibbio, Leon Edwards, and Gilbert Burns.
Nelson is a black belt in Goju-ryu karate and a 2nd degree BJJ black belt. He was a karate champion as a teenager and then later a 2009 Pan Am Gold Medalist in jiu-jitsu. His karate stance and grappling-heavy approach generally results in very little striking volume in his fights, and only one of his 13 UFC opponents landed more than 47 significant strikes against him and he only averages 3.33 SSA/min. Similarly, Nelson has never landed more than 53 significant strikes in a UFC fight and averages just 1.71 SSL/min.
Owning a 17-5-1 pro record, Nelson has four wins by KO, 12 submissions, and just one decision victory. The only time he’s ever been finished came in a first round KO against Santiago Ponzinibbio in 2017, while he’s gone just 1-4-1 in decisions. All four of his KO/TKO wins occurred in his first six pro fights from 2007-2008, and his last 11 finishes have all come by submission. Seven of his eight UFC wins have come by submission, with three of those coming in round one and four ending in round two. The only decision win of his career came in his second UFC fight back in 2013 and he’s lost the last four decisions he’s been to. He’s never finished an opponent beyond the second round.
Takashi Sato
5th UFC Fight (2-2)Sixteen months removed from a round two submission loss to Miguel Baeza, Sato became the first fighter to get submitted by Baeza. That was the second time Sato has been submitted in his last three fights and third time in his last six matches. In addition to being the only fighter to ever get submitted by Miguel Baeza, Sato is also the only person that Belal Muhammad has finished in his 10 UFC wins, which is also the only time Muhammad has ever submitted an opponent in his entire pro career. Those submissions occurred in rounds two, three, and four. His only other career loss ended in a 2015 R1 KO and he’s been finished in all four of his pro losses. Holding a 15-4 pro record, he has 11 wins by KO, two by submission, and two more decisions. His last seven victories all ended in knockouts, with five of those ending in round one and two in round two.
In his recent loss to Baeza, Sato was outlanded in significant strikes 40-15 leading up to the late second round submission and Baeza was clearly controlling the action. Sato really didn’t have any answers in the fight and Baeza made the win look easy. Since then, Baeza has dropped two straight fights for context.
Sato’s two UFC wins came against a washed up Ben Saunders and a last minute replacement in Jason Witt, so it’s hard to feel good about either of those. Now he’s stepping in on short notice to face the toughest stylistic matchup of his career, so it’s hard to feel good about his chances.
Fight Prediction:
Nelson will have a 1” height advantage, but Sato will have a 1” reach advantage.
Nelson’s last six and 11 of his last 12 wins have all come by submission, while Sato’s last two losses both ended in submissions against opponents who had never submitted anybody in their respective careers. To make matters tougher on Sato, he took this fight on less than two weeks’ notice, so he’s had very little time to prepare for the unique fighting style of Nelson, who competes out of a karate stance, but is constantly looking to grapple. Sato also hasn’t fought in a year and a half, although if we’re pointing out red flags, Nelson hasn’t competed in two and a half years and has also lost three of his last four fights. Nevertheless, this is a step down in competition for Nelson in a dream matchup against a one dimensional striker. Both guys have the potential to look rusty after extended layoffs, although Nelson has been away for nearly twice as long. Sato’s best hope will be that Nelson starts slow and Sato lands something clean to knock him out. Once the fight hits the mat, Nelson will have a massive advantage and will likely close the show quickly. While Sato has a small puncher’s chance, we expect Nelson to get this fight to the ground and submit Sato in the first two rounds.
Our favorite bet here is “Nelson R1 or R2 Submission” at +135.
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DFS Implications:
While Nelson’s last six and seven of his eight UFC wins have come by submission, he rarely puts up big scores in fights that make it past the first round. He has averaged 107 DraftKings points in his three first round submission wins (108, 109 & 105), but just 91 points in his four second round submissions victories (95, 85, 102 & 83). His lone decision victory scored just 68 points and he has shown no ability to score well without a finish. He’s near the bottom on the slate in terms of striking volume at 1.71 SSL/min and has never landed more than three takedowns in a fight, a number he has only reached in one of his 13 UFC fights. As the third most expensive fighter on the slate, it will be challenging for him to end up in winning lineups even with a finish and the most likely scenario is he lands a submission but gets priced out of the optimal lineup. It’s been so long since he last fought, it will be interesting to see where his ownership ends up, but the majority of the field will likely opt to go with the more exciting fighters priced above him, so we could see him end up being somewhat lower owned relative to the other expensive options. The odds imply he has a 79% chance to win, a 52% chance to land a finish, and a 26% chance it comes in round one.
Both of Sato’s UFC wins have ended in knockouts, while both of his losses came by submission. We expect that trend to continue here, and his most likely path to victory will be to land something clean and knock out Nelson, who’s coming off a two and a half year layoff. The only time Nelson has been finished in his career came in a 2017 R1 KO, so it’s certainly possible. However, Sato will likely have limited opportunities to get it done as Nelson’s karate style stance and grappling-heavy fighting style does not result in many strikes being landed in his fights. That leaves Sato reliant on a hail mary knockout to win this fight after accepting the match on short notice. The odds imply he has a 21% chance to win, a 13% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Paddy Pimblett
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Coming off a first round KO win in his recent UFC debut, Pimblett’s introduction to the UFC didn’t come without any adversity. He absorbed several big punches from Luigi Vendramini early in the fight as Pimblett kept his chin high and his hands low. He also got taken down a minute into the fight, but was able to return to his feet relatively quickly. Pimblett found his timing late in the round, and once he smelled blood, he really turned it on late and landed a knockout in the final minute of the round. The fight ended with Pimblett ahead in significant strikes 47-25 and in total strikes 47-30. However, he failed on both of his takedown attempts and was taken down on Vendramini’s only attempt.
Pimblett has now finished three straight opponents in the first round since suffering a five-round decision loss back in 2018, and his last four wins have all ended in six minutes or less. He does have two losses in his last six fights, but both of those notably occurred in five-round decisions in Cage Warriors championship fights. The first was against UFC fighter Nad Narimani down at 145 lb. Following that 2017 loss, Pimblett moved up to 155 lb, where he won his first fight in a 2018 second round armbar submission, but then lost a 2018 five-round decision to Soren Bak for the vacant Cage Warriors Lightweight belt. Since then, Pimblett has finished three straight opponents in the first round, and he’s now 4-1 since moving up to 155 lb, with all four wins coming early and the one loss going the distance.
Pimblett actually started his career all the way down at 135 lb back in 2012 when he was just 17 years old. After going 6-1 at 135 lb, he moved up to 145 lb in 2014 in his eighth pro fight. He then went 7-1 in his next eight fights at 145 lb, before moving up to 155 lb in 2018 when he was 23 years old, where he’s since gone 4-1. Pimblett turned pro so young that it makes sense he would continue to move up in weight as he grew into his frame.
Now 17-3 as a pro, Pimblett has six wins by KO, seven by submission, and four decisions. He’s won 13 of his last 15 fights since suffering the only early loss of his career in a 2013 first round submission against a suspect Cameron Else. Pimblett’s other two losses both ended in five-round decisions. Two of Pimblett’s four decision wins occurred back in 2013 and 2014 and 10 of his last 12 wins have come early. All 13 of his finishes have come in a round and a half or less, with 10 ending in round one. In his last nine fights going back to 2016, the only time Pimblett has won a fight that made it past the midway mark of round two was in a close/questionable five-round decision over Julian Erosa in 2016. Had the judges not ruled that one in his favor, he’d be 0-3 in five-round decisions and 1-3 in Cage Warriors title fights, as he landed a first round KO to win the belt just before facing Erosa. So overall, he’s coming into fights looking for a quick finish without much regard for his striking defense and tends to tire out late.
Kazula Vargas
4th UFC Fight (1-2)Finally notching his first UFC victory in his most recent fight, Vargas won a decision as a +200 underdog over a debuting Rong Zhu in April 2021, after starting off 0-2 with the organization. Vargas outlanded Rong Zhu in significant strikes 96-42 and 111-49 in total strikes. Rong Zhu landed three of his four takedown attempts, while Vargas went 0 for 1, but Vargas nearly submitted Rongzhu early in the second round with a guillotine choke. Vargas was mostly just looking to land one strike at a time in the fight and didn’t stitch too many combinations together. Nevertheless, he was still able to put up big striking totals in the first and third rounds, while the majority of the second round was spent on the mat.
Prior to that win, Vargas was disqualified for landing a blatantly illegal knee to the head of a grounded Brok Weaver back in February 2020. Prior to the illegal knee, Vargas had been controlling Weaver on the ground and was dominating in total strikes 50-6 and in significant strikes 15-5, while also landing one of his two takedown attempts with over three minutes of control time.
Vargas’ UFC debut was a disappointing one, as he was controlled by Alex Da Silva for 12 minutes of action on his way to a smothering, low-volume decision defeat. Vargas actually came out ahead 20-17 in significant strikes, but Da Silva led 88-59 in total strikes and dominated in control time 12:01-0:18, while landing three of his four takedown attempts and stuffing Vargas’ only attempt.
Now 12-4 as a pro, Vargas has seven wins by KO, three by submission, and two decisions. Two of his three submission wins have come by guillotine and he’s only landed one KO since 2016, which is the only finish we’ve seen in his last six fights unless you count the DQ. Four of his last six matches have gone the distance. He’s never been knocked out, but has been submitted once in the first round of a 2013 fight, has two decision losses, and one loss by DQ. Two of his three UFC fights have gone the distance, while the other ended in a DQ. Vargas notably started his pro career at 170 lb, but has stayed at 155 lb since 2017.
Fight Prediction:
Pimblett will have a 2” height and reach advantage and is 9 years younger than the 36-year-old Vargas.
While Pimblett’s striking defense is pretty suspect, he’s still never been knocked out and Vargas is an unlikely candidate to be the first one to do so. Most of Vargas’ finishes came early in his career and he doesn’t have great hand speed, nor does he stitch many combinations together. While Vargas has never been knocked out, we haven’t really seen his chin tested since joining the UFC and there’s no reason to think it’s exceptional. Pimblett’s reckless striking will likely provide opportunities for a finish from either guy, as he continues to be okay taking one to land one. Pimblett would also likely be able to find success on the mat and Vargas has just a 25% career takedown defense. So seeing a submission finish appears just as likely as a knockout and Vargas’ only early career loss ended in a first round submission. If Pimblett fails to get a finish in the first half of the fight, he’ll likely slow down in the back end, making a late finish unlikely. With the home crowd behind him, we expect Pimblett to come in amped up looking for a highlight reel finish, which will likely both increase his chances to end this fight in round one and gas himself out late. While Pimblett has a lot of holes in his game, this doesn’t look like the matchup where they are likely to get exposed and we like him to get a finish in the first eight minutes.
Our favorite bet here is “Pimblett R1 or R2” at +100.
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DFS Implications:
Pimblett’s uptempo reckless striking combined with his solid grappling ability and history of early finishes is the perfect combination to produce huge DFS scores. Add to the mix that he’ll be fighting in front of his home English crowd and this looks like the perfect recipe for him to come out looking to put on a show. While Vargas has only been finished once in his career, which came in a 2013 submission, he hasn’t really been tested much in the UFC and is now 36 years old. We’re not overly concerned about it and a more important stat to look at is Vargas’ 25% career takedown defense. So if Pimblett does opt to take this fight to the ground, the most resistance he’ll face will likely be from a potential guillotine attempt by Vargas. As long as Pimblett can keep his neck out of danger, he should be able to win the grappling exchanges on the mat, and is also the more active striker on the feet. As the most expensive fighter on the slate, Pimblett will likely need to be a top 2-3 scorer to end up in winning tournament lineups, but he’s got a great chance of achieving that. The odds imply he has a 81% chance to win, a 57% chance to land a finish, and a 33% chance it comes in round one.
Vargas has yet to score well in DFS, with his recent decision win scoring 79 DraftKings points after he lost his first two UFC fights. While 10 of his 12 career wins have come early, he’s only finished one opponent since 2016 and that came prior to joining the UFC. He’s also now 36 years old and has only fought once a year since 2017, so he hasn’t been very active. He has decent power and used to fight at 170 lb, before dropping down to 155 lb, but his hand speed is lacking and he doesn’t offer much in terms of grappling outside of going for guillotine chokes. This looks like a really tough spot for him as he steps into enemy territory, and he’ll likely need to land a finish to return value. Working in his favor, Pimblett’s striking defense is terrible, this should be an uptempo fight, and Vargas will be a massive leverage play at low ownership going against a very popular Pimblett. So while it appears highly unlikely he pulls off the upset, if he does, he offers tournament winning upside. The odds imply he has a 19% chance to win, a 14% chance to land a finish, and a 6% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Dan Hooker
19th UFC Fight (11-7)After losing three of his last four fights at 155 lb, Hooker has opted to move back down to 145 lb where he started his UFC career off 3-3. All three of his UFC wins at 145 lb ended in the first two rounds, while all three of his losses went the distance. His last 145 lb fight was all the way back in November 2016, so it will be interesting to see how he looks back down there after competing at 155 lb for the last five and a half years.
In his last fight, Hooker was submitted by Islam Makhachev in just 145 seconds. The fight only stayed on the feet for the first 37 seconds before Makhachev landed his first takedown attempt and only six combined significant strikes were landed, with Hooker leading 4-2. Once the fight was on the mat, Makhachev masterfully worked his way to a kimura and forced a tap midway through the round in a hyper-efficient finish.
Hooker’s only win in his last four fights came against Nasrat Haqparast in his second most recent match, where Hooker won a wrestling heavy decision just a month prior to his loss against Makhachev. He landed three of his seven takedown attempts with over seven minutes of control time. He also led in significant strikes 73-27 and in total strikes 177-35, while stuffing Nasrat Haqparast’s only takedown attempt. The first round stayed entirely on the feet before Hooker looked to grapple in rounds two and three.
Just prior to that win, Hooker suffered just the second KO loss of his career, as he welcomed Michael Chandler into the UFC and got knocked out midway through the first round. Chandler landed 17 significant strikes, while Hooker landed just 8 in a slow paced first round before the abrupt finish.
The only other time Hooker has been knocked out in 32 pro fights came at the hands of Edson Barboza in the third round of a 2018 match from an accumulation of strikes more than anything else. He’s also been submitted three times, although two of those occurred in 2010 and 2012 prior to joining the UFC, while the other was against Makhachev in his most recent fight. His other six losses all ended in decisions. Of his 21 wins, 10 ended in KOs, seven in submissions, and just four by decision. However, his last three wins have all gone the distance and he hasn’t finished anybody since knocking James Vick out in the first round of a 2019 fight.
Arnold Allen
9th UFC Fight (8-0)Another English fighter competing in front of the home crowd, Allen enters this matchup on a 10 fight winning streak and hasn’t lost a fight since a 2014 decision loss prior to joining the UFC. That’s the only time he’s ever lost in 18 pro matches, and he now sits atop an impressive 17-1 pro record. His last four and six of his last seven fights have gone the distance, and his only two finishes in the UFC both ended in third round guillotine chokes (2015 & 2018). While he has nine career finishes, with five KOs and four submissions, six of those nine early wins came in his first seven pro fights. Ten of his last 11 fights have made it to the third round, with eight of those going the distance.
Allen is coming off a decision win over a tough Sodiq Yusuff, which is the only loss of Yusuff’s UFC career and snapped a six fight winning streak. Yusuff looked to pressure Allen early in the fight, but Allen was able to take Yusuff down twice and drop him with a left hand in the first round. Yusuff quickly recovered after getting hurt, but that clearly won Allen the first round. Allen then connected with a left head kick in round two and again had Yusuff hurt, but Yusuff was again able to quickly recover. Yusuff won the third round as he outlanded Allen 16-2 in significant strikes and 31-2 in total strikes in the round, but Allen had the big moments in the first two rounds to win a unanimous 29-28 decision despite Yusuff leading in striking in all three rounds and finishing the fight ahead in significant strikes 47-21 and in total strikes 79-26. Allen landed two of his five takedown attempts, and led in control time 5:09-2:33, while Yusuff failed to land his only takedown attempt.
Allen is a crisp striker, with fast hand speed and good footwork, but he’s an unlikely candidate to land many finishes. He’s not bonus hunting or looking for highlight reel finishes, he’s purely focused on winning fights (according to him). He’ll mix in occasional takedowns, but he’s only landed three in his last five fights, so they’ve been somewhat sporadic. He’s shown a solid 76% takedown defense and his last four opponents have combined to go 0 for 15 on their attempts against him. He also owns a solid 66% striking defense, and none of his eight UFC opponents have landed more than 49 significant strikes on him, with six landing below 35. He’s also never been knocked down in the UFC and is overall very defensively sound.
Fight Prediction:
Hooker will have a 4” height advantage and 5” reach advantage.
It’s interesting that Hooker opted to drop back down to 145 lb at this stage in his career and it looks like a last ditch desperation move after dropping three of his last four fights. The main two concerns with Hooker moving back down to 145 lb are that the weight cut could affect his chin and he will more often be at a speed disadvantage against lighter opponents. While Allen is a less likely candidate to truly test the chin of Hooker, he does have very fast hands and will certainly test Hooker’s quickness. It’s also possible that the cut will affect Hooker’s cardio, but that remains to be seen. We expect Hooker to struggle with the quickness of Allen, and this looks like a tough first test for Hooker to reintroduce himself to the 145 lb division. We like Allen to get the win, most likely by decision, but there’s a chance the weight cut will affect Hooker to the point that Allen is able to finish him.
Our favorite bet here is Allen’s ML at -110.
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DFS Implications:
Dropping down to 145 lb for the first time since 2016, there’s a higher level of uncertainty surrounding this fight than there otherwise would be. Hooker went 3-3 at 145 lb from 2014 to 2016 before moving up to 155 lb for his last 12 UFC fights. Hooker generally scores well in DFS when he wins, as he’s averaged 100 DraftKings points in his 11 UFC wins. His three wins down at 145 lb to start his career were good for 93, 96, and 106 DraftKings points and those all ended in the first two rounds. However, Hooker is now facing an opponent on a 10 fight winning streak who no one has ever scored well against. So even if we weren’t concerned about the weight cut, which we are, this would still be a tough spot for Hooker to score well in. It will be interesting to see how much of a name recognition bump Hooker gets when it comes to ownership at his reasonable price tag, although the field was low on him in his last two matches after he was 42% owned against Michael Chandler just 13 months ago. While this is a higher variance spot due to Hooker moving down a weight class, we don’t have a ton of interest in playing him here and he’ll likely need to be the first fighter to ever finish Arnold Allen to score well. The odds imply he has a 48% chance to win, a 23% chance to land a finish, and a 10% chance it comes in round one.
Allen has never been one to score well in DFS, as he’s averaged just 68 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins and has never topped 82 points. Even with a knockdown and two takedowns in his last fight, he still scored just 69 points in a decision win. Six of his eight UFC wins have gone the distance, but even in his two finishes, which both came by R3 guillotine choke, he still scored just 59 and 65 points. So even at his cheap price tag, he appears reliant on landing a finish in the first two rounds to return value, something he hasn’t done since 2014. Working in his favor, he’ll be fighting in front of his home England crowd and we don’t know how Hooker’s chin and cardio will hold up following the weight cut down to 145 lb. While it wouldn’t be surprising to see a little extra motivation from Allen, he’s still looking to record his first usable DFS score, which makes it tougher to play him. The odds imply he has a 52% chance to win, a 19% chance to land a finish, and a 9% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Tom Aspinall
5th UFC Fight (4-0)Fighting in front of his home English crowd, Aspinall has finished seven straight opponents in seven minutes or less, with six of those ending in the first half of round one. For comparison, Alexander Volkov’s recent three-round decision win lasted longer than Aspinall’s last seven fights combined.
Aspinall’s last win came against Heavyweight wrestler Sergey Spivak, who was unable to take Aspinall down on either of his two takedown attempts and failed to land a single strike in the match. Credit to Spivak, he accepted the death sentence on short notice after Sergei Pavlovich dropped out. Aspinall dropped Spivak with a short right elbow out of the clinch as the fight approached the midway mark of the first round and then finished him with ground and pound. Aspinall finished ahead 16-0 in striking in the flawless victory.
Just prior to that recent victory, Aspinall passed the gatekeeper test when he finished Andrei Arlovski a minute into the second round. The only other fighters to finish Arlovski in his last 16 fights are Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Francis Ngannou. Although, while they both knocked Arlovski out, Aspinall handed Arlovski just his second submission loss in his 55 pro fight career. In that fight, Aspinall threw 60 significant strikes in round one (10.80/min), but just six in round two (5.22/min), before finishing the fight with a submission. While that’s a small sample to draw conclusions from, the pace of his striking output was cut in half between the first and second rounds and he did appear to be slowing down a little. On the other side of things in that match, Arlovski threw 42 significant strikes in round one (8.40/min), but then upped his pace as he threw 13 in round two (11.30/min). So prior to Aspinall landing a takedown and submitting Arlovski early in round two, Arlovski was arguably catching up in the fight.
A BJJ black belt, Aspinall is known for his knockout ability but always has his grappling to fall back on when he needs it. With that said, he rarely needs to fall back on it, as nine of his 11 career wins have come by KO, while just two have ended in submissions. Rounding out his 11-2 pro record, he has a 2016 R2 DQ loss for an illegal downward elbow and a 2015 R2 submission loss from a heel hook. He’s never been in a fight that lasted longer than nine minutes and 10 of his 11 victories have ended in the first round, with nine of his wins coming in 95 seconds or less. The only time he’s seen the second round since 2016 was when he submitted Arlovski 69 seconds into round two of his second most recent fight. After turning pro in 2014, Aspinall would likely have more MMA fights on his record, but he tried his hand at boxing in 2017, before returning to MMA in 2019.
Aspinall has stated that he doesn’t want to work his way up too quickly through the rankings as he’s not ready for the top guys yet, but he continues to destroy everyone they put in front of him and unless you're Sean O’Malley that generally results in you quickly finding yourself facing top ranked opponents. Aspinall said after his last fight that he just wanted to slowly climb the ranks and, “If I’m 13, give me 12.” Well the UFC tried to grant his wish when they gave the #11 ranked Aspinall the #10 ranked Shamil Abdurakhimov, however, we then saw an opponent change and Aspinall was instead booked against the #6 ranked Heavyweight in Volkov. So like it or not, he’s quickly climbing up the ranks to face the top guys.
Alexander Volkov
12th UFC Fight (8-3)Coming off a three-round decision win over Marcin Tybura, Volkov has now gone the distance in his last two and four of his last six fights, with two of those six going five full rounds. The other two fights during that stretch both ended in second round TKO wins. The first of those was a 2020 victory against a 37-year-old Walt Harris, who now has three straight TKO losses in the first two rounds, and the second was against a 40-year-old Alistair Overeem in his final UFC fight. Overeem went 4-4 in his final eight UFC fights, with all four losses ending in knockouts.
In his recent decision win over Tybura, Volkov continued to show off an improved takedown defense as he stuffed all 16 of Tybura’s takedown attempts. The defensive grappling of Volkov appeared to tire out both guys in the fight and we saw labored efforts all around in the second half. Nevertheless, Volkov unsurprisingly finished ahead in significant strikes 75-58 and in total strikes 89-73 after forcing Tybura to compete in a standup battle. Tybura’s multitude of takedown attempts clearly slowed the fight down, but that’s now the second straight uneventful decision that Volkov has been part of.
In his second most recent fight, Volkov lost a five-round decision to Ciryl Gane. He never looked comfortable against Gane, who outlanded Volkov 135-115 in significant strikes and 139-115 in total strikes. Volkov was able to defend all four of Gane’s takedown attempts, but Gane notably has just a 22% takedown accuracy.
Volkov is now 34-9 as a pro, with 22 knockouts, three submission victories and nine decisions. He’s been finished in four of his nine career losses, with a pair of KOs (R1 2013 & R3 2018) and two submissions (R1 2009 & R1 2010). However, he’s only been finished once in his last 20 fights, which came in a late R3 hail mary KO against Derrick Lewis in 2018. All 11 of Volkov’s UFC fights have made it out of the first round, with nine seeing the third round, and six ending in decisions, including a pair of five-rounders. All of his UFC finishes have come by KO in rounds 2-4, with two in round two, one in round three, and one in round four.
This will be the 10th five-round fight of Volkov’s career and 6th in the UFC, and here’s how they’ve gone:
UFC:
2021 R5 DEC L vs. Ciryl Gane
2021 R2 KO W vs. Alistair Overeem
2020 R5 DEC L vs. Curtis Blaydes
2018 R4 KO W vs. Fabrício Werdum
2017 R3 KO W vs. Stefan Struve
Pre-UFC:
2016 R1 KO W vs. Attila Vegh
2016 R3 SUB W vs. Denis Smoldarev
2013 R1 KO L vs. Vitaly Minakov
2012 R5 DEC W vs. Richard Hale
Overall, he’s 6-3 in five-round fights in his career, and 3-2 in the UFC. His last two losses in five-round fights both came by decision, while his last five wins in five-round matches all ended early. The last time he won a five-round decision was in the first five-round fight of his career, back in 2012.
Despite being a BJJ brown belt and having three submission wins on his record (R1 2010, R2 2014 & R3 2016), Volkov is essentially a one-dimensional striker who has very little interest in going to the mat. He’s landed just one takedown in his last six fights and just seven in his 11 UFC matches, with most of those coming early in his career. After getting taken down 14 times by Curtis Blaydes in 2020, Volkov bulked up from 247 lb to 265 lb to try to improve his wrestling base and hasn’t weighed in less than 263 lb in his last four fights. Earlier in his career he had checked in as low as 220 lb, but spent his first seven UFC fights between 245-251 lb. Since tacking on the additional weight, Volkov has impressively defended all 22 of the takedowns attempted against him in his last four fights, after getting taken down 14 times on 25 attempts by Curtis Blaydes and a total of 19 times on 54 attempts from his first seven UFC opponents combined. If we remove the Blaydes outlier performance, Volkov has only been taken down 5 times on 51 attempts (9.8%) from his other 10 UFC opponents.
Fight Prediction:
Volkov will have a 2” height and reach advantage.
A training partner of Darren Till and teammate to Mike Grundy, who he shares the card with, Aspinall will be surrounded by friendly faces as he headlines a card for the first time in his UFC career, in his home country of England no less. In his 13 pro fights, Aspinall has totalled 34 minutes and 22 seconds of cage time. On the other side of things, Volkov has 43 pro fights under his belt and his last two alone combined for 40 minutes—longer than Aspinall’s entire career. So when it comes to experience you can see how lopsided this matchup is. A big question mark for Aspinall is cardio. Not only will this be the first five-round fight of Aspinall’s career, he’s never even seen the third round, and his longest career victory lasted just six minutes and nine seconds. He’s gone just 1-2 in fights that have made it out of round one, with both of his career losses ending in round two (2015 & 2016). While Aspinall’s average UFC fight time is just two minutes and 45 seconds, Volkov’s is 15 minutes and 15 seconds. So things will get very interesting if this fight makes it to the midway mark of round two. Aspinall is quicker, more powerful, and has better grappling than Volkov, so the way Volkov wins this fight is by outlasting him and taking over in the later rounds. If this fight goes the distance, it will represent 42.1% of Tom Aspinall’s career in terms of cage time, which is crazy considering he turned pro back in 2014. It’s hard to see that happening unless he makes a concerted effort to slow the pace down to a crawl in an effort to show he can hang around in longer fights. Fighting in front of his home crowd and likely looking to put on a show, that scenario appears unlikely and we expect Aspinall to look for another early finish. This will easily be his toughest test to date, but he already passed the Arlovski test, which is promising for his chances of finishing another durable opponent in Volkov. With that said, things will get dicey for him if he doesn’t get a finish in the first round and a half, and we would expect Volkov to begin finding more success at that point. It’s far from a comfortable prediction, but we’ll say Aspinall gets another early finish here, but this is an interesting live betting opportunity if the fight makes it out of the first round and for sure after round two depending on the odds.
Our favorite bet here is “Aspinall R1, R2, or R3 Win” at +240.
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DFS Implications:
Aspinall continues to finish one opponent after the next early in fights, but this will clearly be his toughest test to date. Volkov has only been finished once in his last 20 fights since 2013, which came in a very late third-round hail mary KO against Derrick Lewis in 2018. Aspinall has never won a fight that lasted longer than six minutes and nine seconds and all 11 of Volkov’s UFC fights have lasted longer than that, with nine of them making it to the third round. So there’s legitimate concern that Aspinall will be unable to put Volkov away early and then begin to fade after the first round. Keep in mind, Aspinall said himself after his last fight that he wasn’t ready for guys at the top of the division and now he’s facing the #6 ranked Volkov. With all that said, Aspinall should have all the advantages early in this fight and still has a great chance to land a finish in the first 7-8 minutes. He’s 11-0 in fights that end in the first round and a half, and he offers explosive knockout power in addition to dangerous grappling as he’s a BJJ black belt. Really his only concerns are his cardio and lack of experience. So we’d be shocked to see him come out and methodically dismantle Volkov for five rounds, but not all surprised if he landed another quick finish. So overall we’re playing Aspinall for his ability to get a finish in the first two rounds. The odds imply he has a 53% chance to win, a 36% chance to land a finish, and a 15% chance it comes in round one.
Despite landing knockouts in half of his eight UFC wins, Volkov has generally struggled to really score well in DFS. His four KO victories have returned DraftKings totals of 102, 88, 92 and 123, while his four decision wins have been good for just 66, 64, 80 and 69 points. All 11 of his UFC fights have made it out of the first round, with two of his finishes coming in round two and the others ending in rounds three and four. He’s only landed one takedown in his last six fights, and doesn’t generally doesn’t land enough striking volume to make up for that. With all that said, at his cheaper price tag he doesn’t need to put up a monster score to end up in winning lineups and if he’s able to survive the first two rounds there’s a good chance Aspinall will begin to fade and Volkov can take over. So his most likely paths to victory are either a late knockout or a decision. With several high upside underdogs on the slate, Volkov definitely isn’t a lock to end up in winning lineups simply by pulling off the upset, but there’s still a good chance he would get there. He’ll also carry far less ownership than Aspinall, so he makes for an interesting leverage play in tournaments. The odds imply he has a 47% chance to win, a 23% chance to get a finish, and a 7% chance it comes in round one.
Good luck to everyone this week, we hope you win big! Tag us on Twitter @dfs_mma with your winnings so we can see how you did!
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