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Fighter Notes:
Fight #11
Xiao Long
1st UFC Fight (0-0)This fight was originally scheduled in December, but was then postponed to February. However, then Xiao withdrew and it was pushed back to June.
Xiao originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2021, but lost a unanimous 30-27 decision to Cristian Quinonez, who is now 1-2 in the UFC and has been submitted in two straight fights. Xiao then returned to the Chinese regional scene and submitted a 2-3 opponent who came in on a three-fight losing streak. Xiao then won a decision in a rematch against a 9-6 opponent who he had previously submitted in 2020. Xiao then took 14 months off before entering the Road to UFC tournament. In his first fight in the tournament, Xiao won a close/questionable split decision, where he almost got kneebarred in the first round, took a lot of damage in round two, and then nearly got guillotined in round three. However, he did finish ahead 44-24 in significant strikes and 94-36 in total strikes, while he also landed both of his takedown attempts and finished with six and a half minutes of control time. His opponent landed 4 of his own 17 takedown attempts but was far more focussed on submissions than positions and ultimately the judges didn’t reward him for those finishing efforts. In the next round of the tournament, Xiao lost the first round on the mat, but his opponent gassed out late in the fight and Xiao was able to take over down the stretch and win a majority decision, where one of the judges actually scored the fight a draw, giving Xiao a 10-8 third round but scoring each of the first two rounds for his opponent.
Now 26-7 as a pro, Xiao has four wins by KO/TKO, nine submissions, and 13 decision victories. While half of his career wins ended early, his last three victories all went the distance and he hasn’t finished anybody since 2021. Also keep in mind, his last two finishes were against opponents who entered with records of 2-3 and 0-0, and he’s been facing very dubious competition throughout his career. On the other side of things, he’s been knocked out three times and has four decision losses. However, he hasn’t been finished since 2017. Xiao has competed anywhere from 132 lb to 155 lb, but most of his career has been at 135 lb, where he’s remained since 2019.
Overall, Xiao seems like a Jack of all trades, master of none type of fighter. Between his two Road to UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he landed 2 of his 8 takedown attempts (25% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 8 of their 37 attempts (78.4% defense). All three of those opponents got him down at least once, with the last two each landing three or more takedowns on 17+ attempts apiece. Xiao has also shown the ability to land a decent amount of striking volume, averaging 5.13 SSL/min in those three matches, but hasn’t looked like a huge knockout threat. While he’s never been submitted, we did see him get stuck in multiple submission attempts in the first round of the Road to UFC tournament, although to his credit he eventually escaped all of them. Despite only being 26 years old, he already has 33 pro fights under his belt, which is probably most telling of the level of competition he’s been facing. He’s decent enough everywhere that he can win fights against low-level one-dimensional opponents, but we expect him to struggle whenever he faces a step up in competition.
ChangHo Lee
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Lee landed a pair of ground and pound finishes in the first two rounds of the Road to UFC tournament to punch his ticket to the finals. The first of those came in a one-sided affair where he immediately took his opponent down and methodically finished him on the mat with a barrage of punches and elbows. His next fight went very differently, as he was the one getting taken down and controlled for the first two rounds, before his opponent gassed out and Lee was able to get him down and force a stoppage through ground and pound. Lee lost each of the first two rounds and was 85 seconds away from losing a decision before he snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Lee got taken down six times on eight attempts and controlled for seven minutes in the first two rounds of that fight. Lee landed four takedowns of his own on 13 attempts, but found his success late in the fight. Before going on Road to UFC, Lee landed another ground and pound finish in the second round against a 1-0 opponent, after suffering the only loss of his career in a 2022 decision in his lone fight with the Brave CF organization. Prior to that, he had spent almost his entire career facing a low level of competition on the South Korean regional scene, outside of taking one fight with One Championship in 2019.
Now 9-1 as a pro, Lee has five wins by TKO, one submission, and three decision victories. His lone submission win was in the second round of his second pro fight back in 2017 and his last five finishes all ended in TKOs. He’s never been finished himself, with his one loss going the distance. Lee started his career at 125 lb, where he fought his first four fights, before moving up to 135 lb in 2019. He also dropped back down to 125 lb for one fight in 2022, where he suffered his only career loss in a wrestling-heavy decision, where he struggled both to land takedowns and defend them.
Overall, Lee is a South Korean grappler who relies heavily on getting opponents down and beating them up with ground and pound. While he’s looked good from top position, we’ve seen him get overpowered in clinch exchanges and end up on his back at multiple points and he’s looked much worse from bottom position. His defensive wrestling has been a major area of weakness, and it’s not entirely surprising that he often gets overpowered in the clinch, considering he used to compete at 125 lb. Lee is the type of fighter who can look really good when he’s winning or really bad when he’s losing, without much inbetween. He does have good cardio and he mixes in trips well to help get opponents down. He says he wants to be known as the Korean Khabib, but first he’ll need to learn how to defend a takedown. In his two Road to UFC fights, he got taken down 6 times on 8 attempts (25% defense), while landing 5 of his own 14 attempts (35.7% accuracy).
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 5’8”, but Xiao will have a 1” reach advantage and is four years younger than the 30-year-old Lee.
Neither of these two have really blown us away, as Xiao is decently well rounded but unexceptional everywhere, while Lee has only really looked good when he can assume top position on the mat. Lee’s poor defensive wrestling will likely be his downfall, and he also hasn’t shown a ton on the feet. However, when he can land takedowns, he has good ground and pound, meaning he is dangerous when he can successfully execute his gameplan. While Xiao has shown a 78% takedown defense, he was also taken down three or more times in each of his last two fights—he’s just faced a crazy high number of takedown attempts from his opponents. While they’re listed as being the same height, Xiao looks like the thicker and bigger of the two and previously competed up at 155 lb, while Lee used to fight at 125 lb. That’s concerning for Lee’s ability to come out ahead in the clinch and we expect Xiao to be the stronger fighter. That will likely be his key to victory, as whoever can control the wrestling exchanges should win this fight. The oddsmakers are expecting Xiao to win a close decision and we agree that is the most likely outcome here, although we are willing to take some shots on Lee KO props at wide odds.
Our favorite bet here is “ChangHo Lee KO” at +500.
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DFS Implications:
Xiao’s last three fights all went the distance, as did his DWCS match back in 2021, and he hasn’t looked like much of a finisher. However, he generally lands a decent amount of striking volume, as he averages 5.13 SSL/min, and will also mix in his wrestling. However, he hasn’t been overly impressive anywhere and both of his decisions in the first two rounds of the Road to UFC tournament were split, while he lost a unanimous 30-27 decision to Cristian Quinonez on DWCS in 2021. We’re not excited about his long term outlook in the UFC, but he does have a decent matchup in front of him to find wrestling and striking success. Lee fought down at 125 lb as recently as 2022, while Xiao has competed as heavy as 155 lb in the past and looks to be the stronger of the two. That’s especially notable because Lee has relied on taking opponents down and finishing them with ground and pound to win most of his fights. We’ve seen Lee get outwrestled at times in the past and also get reversed as he looks for takedowns. That makes Xiao a more interesting play on Draftkings, where he could rack up takedowns, control time, and reversals, while he looks more reliant on landing a finish to score well on FanDuel. Supporting that notion, in Xiao’s first Road to UFC fight, we saw more of a back and forth grappling battle and he would have scored 89 DraftKings points, but just 58 points on FanDuel in the decision win. While he hasn’t shown the ability to put up a really big score in a decision, at his reasonable price tag he would at least have a shot at serving as a value play on DraftKings even in a decision win. The odds imply Xiao has a 49% chance to win, a 17% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Lee has shown far more upside than Xiao, but has also shown some clear holes in his game. He finished each of his two Road to UFC opponents with ground and pound and would have returned DK/FD totals of 120/127 and 105/98 in those finishes. However, after he quickly dismantled his first opponent in the tournament, he was losing handedly in his second fight, until his opponent gassed out in round three and Lee was able to find a late finish. He was 85 seconds away from being knocked out of the tournament and showed some clear defensive wrestling deficiencies in that fight. And that’s not the first time we’ve seen him struggle with being taken down, as he also got outwrestled in a 2022 decision loss at 125 lb. Lee really hasn’t been tested much in his career either, with most of his wins coming against opponents with very little experience. That makes him a very tough guy to trust, but when he can successfully execute his wrestling-heavy ground and pound game plan then he does offer tons of scoring potential. Xiao has shown a decent 78% takedown defense on paper, but did get taken down three or more times in each of his last two fights. We have concerns that Xiao will be too strong for Lee to easily get down and control, but if that turns out to be untrue then Lee could potentially put up a big score. The odds imply Lee has a 51% chance to win, a 21% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #10
Magomed Gadzhiyasulov
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Gadzhiyasulov is making his UFC debut following a unanimous 30-27 decision win over a low-level opponent on DWCS. Gadzhiyasulov finished ahead 73-24 in significant strikes and then leaned on his wrestling in the back half of the match, as he landed six of his seven takedown attempts with six minutes of control time. However, he also gassed out late in the fight and it was really just desperation wrestling to ride out the decision win. That was his second straight decision win where he was visibly tired in the final round, after he defeated a struggling 38-year-old opponent just before that. Those are the only two opponents he’s ever faced with more than two pro wins and his first six career victories all ended in the first round against a group of bus drivers with a 3-8 combined record. He also had another win removed from his record because the opponent was so bad the fight was ruled ineligible to count as an official pro match. That tells you everything you need to know about the level of competition he’s been facing.
Now 8-0 as a pro, Gadzhiyasulov has five wins by KO/TKO, one submission, and two decision victories. All of his finishes ended in under three minutes against opponents they basically pulled off the street.
Overall, Gadzhiyasulov was born in Dagestan but trains in Bahrain and calls himself a striker, even though he’s typically looking to get fights to the mat, although hasn’t shown much of a submission game. He has a kickboxing and Combat Sambo background and claims to be a K-1 world champion. He throws decent kicks, but has unimpressive boxing and not a ton of power. His striking defense isn’t great and his cardio is bad, and he seems like the type of fighter that will wilt under pressure when he’s finally tested. We joke about terrible fighters being cab drivers, but this guy is actually a former cab driver according to his UFC bio. He looks like a total fraud and we expect to see him exposed in the very near future.
Brendson Ribeiro
2nd UFC Fight (0-1)Ribeiro will be looking to bounce back from a first round knockout loss in his UFC debut against Chinese powerhouse Zhang Mingyang. Ribeiro was looking good early in that match and landed numerous big shots, but then got caught with a heavy combination of punches that put him out. No takedowns were attempted in the match. Prior to that, Ribeiro had landed three straight first round knockouts of his own, with the most recent of those coming on DWCS, where he pulled off the upset as a massive +380 underdog in a back and forth brawl. Just before that, Ribeiro won the Shooto Brazil Light Heavyweight belt with a ground and pound first round TKO finish and his last six fights all ended in first round knockouts (3-3). His last nine fights all ended in the first two rounds and the last time he made it to round three was in a 2018 majority decision loss, when Ribeiro was just 21 years old. Ribeiro has a first round submission win over former UFC fighter Antonio Arroyo on his record, although that was all the way back in 2015.
Now 15-6 as a pro, Ribeiron has nine knockouts and six submission wins. His last six and eight of his nine knockouts occurred in the first round, while his last two submission wins both ended in round two. He also has three first round submissions and one in round three. He’s been knocked out in the first round three times himself, with all of those KO losses occurring in his last six fights. He also has two submission defeats, which occurred in consecutive 2016 fights in the first two rounds. He’s only been to one decision in his career, which he lost by split decision in 2018. That was a controversial fight where it looked like his opponent tapped in round one after Ribeiro locked up a triangle, so Ribeiro let go and stood up thinking he won. His opponent didn’t argue, but the ref did and told them to keep fighting. Ribeiro competed at 185 lb early in career, but has been at 205 lb since 2018. Both of his submission losses occurred while he was still fighting down at 185 lb.
Overall, Ribeiro is a Brazilian fighter who’s decently well rounded. He’s a BJJ brown belt and loves to try and sneak his wiry arms under the necks of his opponents to lock up chokes. He also has no problem throwing down on the feet and has a really long 81” reach. However, he doesn’t always maximize his length and throws a lot of wild looping punches. Ribeiro has a decent amount of experience and has competed in some big organizations like M-1, Future FC, and Shooto Brazil in the past, although he only had one fight with each of those. He tends to be a submission over position type fighter and we’ve seen him get reversed far too easily on the mat, and he’s often content with looking for guillotines during grappling exchanges. While he is dangerous throwing up submissions of his back, that can also result in him eating unnecessary ground and pound. Ribeiro has shown dubious cardio in the past and completely gassed out in the one decision he’s been to.
Fight Prediction:
Ribeiro will have a 1” height advantage and 6” reach advantage, while also being three years younger than the 30-year-old Gadzhiyasulov.
This is a low-level matchup between two fighters with dubious gas tanks. While being a few years younger, Ribeiro has far more experience, but has relied on finishing opponents to win fights. Only one of his last 20 bouts made it to the third round, which was a 2018 split decision loss where he gassed out. Meanwhile, Gadzhiyasulov is coming off a pair of decision wins, and while he was visibly fatigued in the third round in each of those matches, he was still able to hang on and get his hand raised by the judges each time. Ribeiro is more dangerous both on the feet and the mat than Gadzhiyasulov, but only fights for finishes and has no regard for holding positions to win on the scorecards. It’s tough to make a living that way, but Gadzhiyasulov looks like a total fraud and even an average talent like Ribeiro will have a really good shot at getting him out of there. Things will get incredibly sloppy if this makes it to the third round, but we like Ribeiro to pull off the upset as one of the biggest underdogs on the card and finish Gadzhiyasulov in the first two rounds. Both a knockout or a submission are in play and we can definitely see Ribeiro locking up a guillotine as Gadzhiyasulov shoots for a desperation takedown.
Our favorite bet here is “Brendson Ribeiro ML” at +275.
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DFS Implications:
Gadzhiyasulov’s stats on DWCS and the regional scene are encouraging for his DFS scoring potential, but it’s important to keep in mind that he was exclusively facing a very low level of competition. He’s shown the ability to rack up takedowns and land a fair amount of ground and pound, but we don’t trust his durability, cardio, or striking defense. We get serious fraud vibes from watching his tape and looking at his strength of schedule. Now he’s facing a somewhat dangerous finisher who has also been known to get finished himself or gas out and get taken down and controlled. That leaves Gadzhiyasulov with a very wide range of scoring outcomes, but it’s impossible to trust him. So we’re only looking to play him in tournaments, and even there, we’re far more excited about playing the underdog in Ribeiro. However, if Gadzhiyasulov does win, then he’ll likely put up a big score. The odds imply Gadzhiyasulov has a 74% chance to win, a 61% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Ribeiro has a 100% finishing rate and has only made it to the judges once in 22 pro fights. His last six fights all ended in first round knockouts (3-3) and none of his last nine fights (6-3) made it past the second round. He’s got an incredibly long 81” reach, but gets a little wild with his striking. He’s also a submission threat and loves looking for guillotines, while he’ll throw up triangles and armbars off his back. That leaves him with a variety of ways to finish opponents and tons of DFS scoring upside. He’s facing an undefeated but also untested opponent with cardio concerns and this is a great opportunity for Ribeiro to pull off another major upset, just as he did on DWCS. At his dirt cheap salary, Ribeiro doesn’t need to put up a huge score to crack winning lineups and even a hyper efficient guillotine finish would likely be enough for him to be useful. Given the long odds and the fact that Ribeiro is coming off a first round knockout loss in his UFC debut, we should be able to get him at lower ownership, which just further adds to his tournament appeal. The odds imply Ribeiro has a 26% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #9
Muin Gafurov
3rd UFC Fight (0-2)Gafurov is coming off a predictable first round submission loss to Said Nurmagomedov, who locked up a guillotine as Gafurov sloppily shot for an early takedown. The fight lasted just 73 seconds, with Nurmagomedov finishing ahead 5-1 in striking before locking up the choke as Gafurov shot for his first takedown attempt. Prior to that, Gafurov lost a decision in his short notice UFC debut against John Castaneda. Despite taking that fight on short notice, Gafurov pushed a pretty crazy pace, as he threw the kitchen sink at Castaneda. However, that pace caught up with him in round three as he finally slowed down, and he was also deducted a point in the second round for leading with his head. Following that loss, Gafurov had been scheduled to fight Taylor Lapilus on September second, but ended up dropping out. Prior to making his UFC debut, Gafurov knocked out two opponents in the later rounds, after losing a split decision to Chad Anheliger on DWCS in 2021. Gafurov also notably lost a 2019 decision to John Lineker in Lineker’s first fight after leaving the UFC. Gafurov bounced back with a decision win of his own, the first of his career, leading up to his loss on DWCS.
Now 18-6 as a pro, Gafurov has 10 wins by KO/TKO, seven submissions, and one decision victory. He’s coming off the first early loss of his career in a first round submission, and is just 1-5 with the judges. He’s fought at both 135 lb and 145 lb and went the distance against a dangerous John Lineker at 145 lb. However, his last five fights have all been at 135 lb and it appears that’s where he’ll stay for the foreseeable future.
Overall, Gafurov is an aggressive wrestler from Tajikistan, but has also proven himself to be a dangerous striker. He pushes a frantic pace, which can result in him gassing out late in fights. Between his DWCS match and two UFC fights, he landed 5 of his 19 takedown attempts (26.3% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 3 of their 8 attempts (62.5% defense). Gafurov also notably got knocked down in both his DWCS match and his UFC debut, and he seems entirely focussed on offense, with little regard for defense. We have serious concerns with his recklessness, cardio management, and fight IQ, in addition to his disregard for defense. He puts everything he has into his shots and is far too wild to find much sustained success against anyone that actually knows what they’re doing inside the Octagon.
Kyung Ho Kang
14th UFC Fight (8-4, NC)Looking to bounce back from a lackluster performance, Kang dropped a unanimous 30-27 decision to John Castaneda last November. Castaneda finished ahead 111-88 in significant strikes and also took Kand down three times on eight attempts, while Kang never attempted a takedown of his own. Prior to that, Kang locked up a first round submission against Cristian Quinonez, which is the only one of Kang’s last six fights to end early. Kang nearly knocked Quinonez out before ultimately submitting him midway through the first round in a club and sub. That win came a year after Kang won a decision over Batgerel Danaa, after losing a decision to Rani Yahya, who took Kand down three times on eight attempts and controlled him for 10 and a half minutes. Leading up to that loss, Kang took all of 2020 off following a pair of split decision wins and another first round submission win in 2019. Kang’s last 18 fights all either went the distance (4-5, NC) or ended in submissions (8-0), and no one has been knocked out in one of his matches since a 2011 R1 TKO win. Kang didn’t fight at all in 2015-2017 as he performed his mandatory South Korean military service.
Now 19-10 as a pro, Kang has two wins by R1 TKO, 12 submissions, and five decision victories. Six of his submission wins ended in round one, three came in round two, and two ended in round three, but his last three submissions all came in round one. He’s been knocked out once (R1 2008), submitted once (R1 2011), has one DQ loss (R1 2010), and has seven decision defeats. All 13 of Kang’s UFC fights either ended in submissions (4-0) or decisions (4-4, NC) and most of those submission wins came against pretty questionable opponents. Kang has decent size for the division and started his pro career at 154 lb in 2007, but has been at 135 lb since 2011.
Overall, Kang offers a solid combination of striking and grappling that makes him a tough opponent to deal with. While he has historically relied more on his grappling to win fights, he’s only landed one takedown on just three attempts in his last four matches combined and has been more comfortable keeping fights standing. Prior to those four fights, he had landed at least one takedown in five straight fights. Looking at his entire 13 fight UFC career, he landed 20 of his 35 takedown attempts (57.1% accuracy), while his opponents got him down 12 times on 38 attempts (68.4% defense). While his defense looks decent on paper, six of the last seven opponents who tried to take him down were successful. While Kang only averages 3.35 SSL/min in his career, that number has risen to 6.48 SSL/min in his last three fights and we’ve seen far more striking volume from him recently.
Fight Prediction:
Kang will have a 2” height advantage and 5” reach advantage, while Gafurov is nine years younger than the 36-year-old Kang.
Both of these two are coming off forgettable losses, but Gafurov has yet to win a fight in the UFC, while Kang has eight UFC wins in 11 years with the organization. They’re each pretty well rounded, but Kang is the much more measured fighter, while Gafurov just empties his gas tank in frantic exchanges. That has resulted in all but one of Gafurov’s pro wins ending early, but he’s also gone just 1-5 with the judges. Meanwhile, Kang hasn’t been finished since 2011, but has been in a lot of close decisions. Gafurov puts himself in a lot of bad positions, which resulted in him getting submitted in the first round of his last fight. If he doesn’t change up his approach he could find a similar fate here, as Kang has 12 submission wins on his record and that’s typically how he’s looking to finish opponents. We could also see Kang using his experience to outlast Gafurov, and simply allow Gafurov to gas himself with all of his high-energy attacks. It’s still possible that Kang gets taken down and controlled for long enough that he loses a decision, which is probably Gafurov’s most likely path to victory. We’d be surprised to see Gafurov finish Kang, and if this fight ends early it will likely be from an early Kang submission win. We see more ways for Kang to win than Gafurov, so obviously we like Kang at plus money. A submission win is definitely in play, but we’ll say Kang outlasts Gafurov and pulls off the upset in a close decision win.
Our favorite bet here is “Kyung Ho Kang ML” at +145.
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DFS Implications:
Gafurov’s high pace and constant pursuit of takedowns will always keep him in the DFS discussion, but he’s extremely reckless and we just saw that result in him being submitted in his last fight. He does a terrible job of managing his gas tank and is way too eager to hit a home run with every punch he throws. He also telegraphs his takedowns and leaves his neck exposed on his entries, so he’s a complete defensive liability. His wrestling-heavy style lends itself more to the DraftKings scoring system, however, 17 of his 18 career wins have come early, which presents theoretical upside on both sites. However, Kang has been very durable and hasn’t been finished since 2011, so this looks like a tough matchup for Gafurov to find a finish. That makes Gafurov more appealing on DraftKings where a wrestling-heavy decision win would likely score better compared to FanDuel. While we are predicting Gafurov to lose, his high pace is reason enough to have some level of exposure to him and Kang didn’t look great in his last outing either. The odds imply Gafurov has a 59% chance to win, a 26% chance to land a finish, and a 13% chance it comes in round one.
Kang has averaged 97 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, with four of those ending in submissions and four going the distance. His last three submissions all ended in the first round, including in his last that lasted just 145 seconds. However, his three wins prior to that all went the distance, and his second most recent submission victory was all the way back in 2019. Five of his last six fights went the distance, and while Gafurov was submitted in the first round of his last fight, that’s the only time he’s ever been finished. Kang averaged 80 DraftKings points in his four decision wins and has shown a wide range of scoring outcomes in fights that go the distance. In his two decision wins where he was able to land multiple takedowns and control his opponents he scored 93 and 100 DraftKings respectively. However, in his two decision wins where he failed to land a takedown, he scored just 70 and 57 points. Now he’s facing a wrestler and Kang has notably only landed one takedown on just three attempts in his last four matches. That’s somewhat concerning for his upside if he can’t find a finish, although Gafurov’s high pace should help with DFS production. And at Kang’s cheaper price tag, he may not need to put up a huge score to be useful, but there are also definitely ways he wins an average scoring decision and gets left out of the optimal. The odds imply Kang has a 41% chance to win, a 16% chance to land a finish, and an 8% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #8
Rinat Fakhretdinov
5th UFC Fight (3-0-1)Coming off a rare draw, Fakhretdinov nearly finished Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos in the opening seconds of the fight, but Dos Santos was narrowly able to hang on and survive. Fakhretdinov strangely decided not to lean on his wrestling for the first time in his career, but still won the first two rounds. However, Dos Santos put him down with a body kick in round three and then nearly finished him, but Fakhretdinov survived on the mat to see the judges, who awarded Dos Santos a 10-8 third round but didn’t give Fakhretdinov a 10-8 first round, which resulted in the draw. Prior to that, Fakhretdinov locked up a quick 55 second first round submission win over Kevin Lee. Fakhretdinov dropped Lee 30 seconds into the fight with a clean right hand and then as Lee desperately looked to grab a leg to buy time to recover, Fakhretdinov locked up a guillotine and put him to sleep. That came after Fakhretdinov won back-to-back smothering decisions in his first two UFC fights, where he dominated Bryan Battle and Andreas Michailidis on the mat, landing 12 combined takedowns with over 27 minutes of total control time. Leading up to his recent draw, Fakhretdinov had won 20 straight fights dating back to 2013, when he suffered his only career loss in a decision in his second pro match.
Now 21-1-1 as a pro, Fakhretdinov has 11 wins by KO/TKO, six submissions, and four decision victories. His lone loss came in a 2013 two-round decision in his second pro fight. All 17 of his finishes have come in the first two rounds, including 13 in round one and 4 in round two. Six of his last nine finishes have come by KO/TKO, while his last five submission wins all ended in guillotines. Fakhretdinov started his career at 185 lb before dropping down to 170 lb when he joined the UFC. He also had one 170 lb fight in 2018 that he won by R1 TKO, but the vast majority of his career was spent at 185 lb.
Overall, Fakhretdinov is a relentless Russian wrestler who typically dominates opponents on the mat. However, he showed in his last two fights that he’s also dangerous on the feet and has solid power in his hands. He’s only been to the third round five times in 23 pro fights, but four of his last six fights went the distance. He’s primarily looking for control and ground and pound on the mat, but will lock up a guillotine when the opportunity presents itself, which is how he finished five of his six submission wins. In his four UFC fights, he landed 13 of his 28 takedown attempts (46.4% accuracy), while successfully defending all four of the attempts against him (100% defense). In a recent interview, he said he learned from his last fight that he's not just there to entertain the crowd and that he needs to stick to his game plan and listen to his coaches to get the victory. He said you can expect to see the old version of Rinat on Saturday.
Nicolas Dalby
13th UFC Fight (7-3-1, NC)Coming off his first UFC finish, Dalby outlasted Gabriel Bonfim in a high-paced scrap and then forced a ground and pound stoppage late in round two after Bonfim gassed out. However, Dalby did get taken down three times in the fight, controlled for over four minutes, outlanded 30-16 in the opening five minutes, and lost the first round on all the scorecards. Dalby has now won four straight, after he won three consecutive decisions over a trio of washed up veterans (Muslim Salikhov, Warlley Alves, and Claudio Silva) with cardio concerns just leading up to that finish. Dalby was able to outlast and outpoint his way to victory in all of those fights. Prior to those three wins, Dalby lost a decision to Tim Means, after winning a close/questionable decision over Daniel Rodriguez. The only other time Dalby didn’t make it to the judges in his last eight fights was when he got finished in the first round of a 2020 match against Jesse Ronson, but the results were later overturned to a No Contest when Ronson failed a drug test. After starting 13-0 as a pro, Dalby originally joined the UFC back in 2015 and won a decision in his debut. However, after going 1-2-1 with four decisions in his first four UFC fights, Dalby was released by the organization. The UFC then re-signed him in late 2019 and Dalby won his first fight back in a low-volume decision over Alex Oliveira leading up to his fight against Ronson.
Now 23-4-1 as a pro, Dalby has seven wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and 12 decision wins. He’s never technically been finished, with all four of his official losses going the distance, although in reality he was submitted in the first round by Jesse Ronson in 2020 before the results were later overturned to a No Contest when Ronson failed a drug test. While 11 of Dalby’s 23 career wins have come early, all but one of those finishes occurred outside of the UFC. Eighteen of his last 19 fights made it out of the first round, with the one exception being the Ronson No Contest—if that even counts. Sixteen of those 19 fights made it to the third round, with 12 going the distance. Not counting the No Contest, all but one of his UFC fights have ended with the judges.
Overall, Dalby is a karate style fighter who has not shown much finishing ability at the UFC level, with six of his seven UFC wins ending in decisions. He’s a green belt in Ashihara karate and a BJJ brown belt. He only averages 4.03 SSL/min and 3.43 SSA/min, but we have seen his output increase substantially in his last three fights, where he averaged 6.52 SSL/min. Prior to those three matches, he had only once landed more than 57 significant strikes in a UFC fight. Defensive wrestling continues to be an issue for him and basically everyone who tries to take him down is successful. In his 12 UFC fights, his opponents got him down 18 times on 45 attempts (60% defense) and his last five opponents all got him down at least once, with three of those opponents landing multiple takedowns. And when he does get taken down, he’s struggled with being controlled on the mat. On the other side of things, Dalby has landed 12 takedowns of his own on 39 attempts (30.8% accuracy). However, after landing eight combined takedowns in his first two UFC matches, he’s only landed a total of four takedowns in his last 10 fights with the organization. Dalby is 39 years old and turns 40 in November, so he’s definitely getting up there in age, although hasn’t shown many signs of decline just yet.
Fight Prediction:
Fakhretdinov will have a 1” height advantage, but both fighters share a 74” reach. Fakhretdinov is seven years younger than the 39-year-old Dalby.
This one looks pretty straightforward. Fakhretdinov is a relentless wrestler who has publicly stated he needs to fight smarter and rely more on his wrestling, while Dalby has been a durable decision machine who’s struggled with being taken down and controlled, but has never been officially finished. We expect Fakhretdinov to fight smarter after blowing it in his last match and he should be able to land takedowns with ease. Unlike Dalby’s last several opponents, Fakhretdinov has the gas tank to go three hard rounds. The only real question we have is whether or not Fakhretdinov can find a finish, but the most likely answer is no. While he is capable of locking up a guillotine or landing a TKO finish, we’ll still take Fakhretdinov by decision in this spot.
Our favorite bet here is “Rinat Fakhretdinov DEC” at +105.
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DFS Implications:
Fakhretdinov averaged a ridiculous 123 DraftKings points in his three UFC wins, scoring exactly 130 points in each of his last two victories. However, he got away from his wrestling in his last fight and ultimately that cost him the win and resulted in a draw. Had the decision gone his way, he would have scored 97 points and he also nearly landed a knockout in the opening minute of the fight, so he has shown scoring potential outside of his wrestling as well. However, he recently said he’ll fight smarter moving forward and it sounds like he plans to get back to his wrestling here in a great matchup to rack up takedowns. His wrestling-heavy style is a better fit for the DraftKings scoring system, and in his two decision wins, he averaged 123 DraftKings points, but only 89 points on FanDuel. That leaves him reliant on either landing a finish or an absurd number of takedowns to really score well on FanDuel. Dalby has never been officially finished, but is prone to being taken down and controlled. That leaves us far more excited about playing Fakhretdinov on DraftKings than FanDuel. The only downside with Fakhretdinov is that he projects to be very popular, which will make it harder to create unique tournament lineups that include him. The odds imply Fakhretdinov has a 75% chance to win, a 30% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Dalby is coming off his first finish in the UFC, after his previous six wins with the organization all went the distance. He averaged just 77 DraftKings points in those six decision wins, although was able to score 90 or more points in each of his last two decisions. He then scored a career best 106 points in his recent finish, just keep in mind he was losing the fight until Bonfim gassed out. Dalby has been very prone to getting taken down and controlled and now gets a nightmare matchup against a Russian wrestler. So barring another miracle finish, we don’t see Dalby winning or scoring well and even at his cheap price tag we don’t have much interest in playing him. The odds imply Dalby has a 25% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #7
Muhammad Naimov
4th UFC Fight (3-0)Naimov was originally scheduled to fight Melsik Baghdasaryan here, but he dropped out and Lima was announced as the replacement on Monday.
Naimov’s last fight ended abruptly in a freak Erik Silva leg injury—or more likely prior undisclosed injury based on the wild line movement leading up to the fight. Naimov opened the week as a -275 favorite, but climbed to a -600 favorite by Saturday, so feel free to speculate. In the opening seconds of the fight, Silva took a bad step and went to grab his knee after Naimov threw a spinning head kick. The fight was stopped shortly thereafter and the medical team examined Silva’s knee. Naimov finished ahead 1-0 in significant strikes. Prior to that, Naimov pulled off a pair of huge upsets in his first two UFC appearances. The first of those came in his short notice UFC debut up a weight class against Mullarkey as a +350 underdog. Naimov was losing that fight handedly before Mullarkey decided to charge forward with his chin up and his hands down midway through the second round and got caught by a big right hand and then put him away with ground and pound. In that eight minute fight, Naimov got taken down three times, controlled for two and a half minutes, and was outlanded 39-28 in significant strikes. He also landed a low blow to start the second round in that fight. Naimov then returned to 145 lb for his next fight to take on a former 135 lb fighter in Nathaniel Wood. Naimov entered as a +265 underdog, but started fast as he hurt Wood on the feet and then quickly took him down. However, it was a pretty dirty performance overall from Naimov. He landed a knee square to the cup on Wood in the back half of round one and then before the ref could pause the action landed an even harder knee to Wood’s solar plexus to compound the damage. As soon as round two started, Naimov came out and kicked Wood straight in the dick and then again early in round three seemed to land a less impactful low blow on a spinning attack—although that one was not spotted by the ref and didn’t halt the action. Naimov was simply trying to hang on and survive down the stretch, as Wood took him down and was landing heavy ground and pound in the closing seconds of the fight. Naimov illegally grabbed the inside of Wood’s glove during that exchange to prevent Wood from finishing him and the ref even saw it and yelled at him to stop, but never took a point in the fight. We counted six illegal actions from Naimov in the match (three low blows, two fence grabs, and one glove grab), although there may have been more that we missed. Wood had Naimov hurt at three different points in the fight, but couldn’t quite put him away and ultimately Naimov won a 29-28 decision, which easily could have been a 28-28 draw if he had ever been penalized for all of his blatant cheating.
Naimov originally tried to crack the UFC roster through DWCS in 2020, but lost a decision against a terrible Collin Anglin, who has since gone 0-4 with three of those losses coming early. Naimov once again showed his true colors in that fight, landing an illegal knee, a low blow, and grabbing the shorts of Anglin, who still nearly finished an exhausted Naimov in round three. Following that loss, Naimov lost a five-round decision with Titan FC, before landing a first round submission against an opponent who came in with a losing record (5-6-1), also with Titan FC. Naimov then joined the ultra prestigious Tuff-N-Uff organization, where he won a split decision before notching a 34 second R1 KO against a 4-3 opponent. That was enough for the UFC to bring him on board when they needed to fill a spot on short notice.
Now 11-2 as a pro, Naimov has six wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and three decision wins. He’s never been finished, with both of his losses going the distance. However, take his record with a grain of salt as he’s faced a lot of dubious competition in his career. Outside of taking his UFC debut at 155 lb, Naimov’s entire career has been spent at 145 lb.
Overall, Naimov is a wild striker with a Taekwondo background. He completely disregards the rules in all of his fights and between his three UFC wins and his DWCS loss, we counted 10 fouls from him. Amazingly, he wasn’t deducted a point in any of those matches, but it’s just a matter of time until that happens. In those four fights, he landed 5 of his 15 takedown attempts (33.3% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 8 of their 19 attempts (57.9% defense). We’ve seen him badly hurt at multiple points and it’s amazing he’s never been finished. Both his defensive striking and wrestling are poor and he tends to fade in the third round of fights. He does look pretty strong and showed some improvements to his wrestling in his fight against Wood, but we’re still pretty low on him and he’s being overvalued based on three very fortunate wins to start his UFC career. Not counting his recent win that ended in 44 seconds, he was outlanded in all three of those other fights and also taken down multiple times in each of them. He’s yet to land more than 52 significant strikes in a fight and only averages 3.33 SSL/min and 4.57 SSA/min. It’s just a matter of time before Naimov’s luck runs out and he’s been wildly overachieving since joining the UFC.
Felipe Lima
1st UFC Fight (0-0)Making his UFC debut up a weight class on just five days’ notice, Lima is 11 months removed from an impressive five-round decision win for the Oktagon MMA 135 lb belt. That was his second straight regional title fight win, after he took home the FCR 135 lb belt in a quick first round knockout in his second most recent fight. He had an extended 20 month layoff in between those two victories, partially caused by a broken orbital. He also had knee surgery in September 2023 after his last win and has only competed once in the last 31 months as he’s battled multiple injuries. Four of his last five fights went the distance and he’s won 12 straight bouts after getting submitted in the second round of his 2015 pro debut when he was just 17 years old.
Now 12-1 as a pro, Lima has four wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and six decision victories. After his first two career wins both ended by first round submission, his last 10 fights all either went the distance or ended in KO/TKO wins. Three of those knockouts ended in round one, with the other coming in round three. His only loss ended in a submission. Lima fought as low as 125 lb early in his career when he was still a teenager, but has been at 135 lb since 2018 and even had a couple of 141 lb Catchweight matches.
Overall, Lima is an exciting 26-year-old prospect who looks like an absolute animal in the cage. He’s dangerous anywhere a fight can go. He’s fast, strong, athletic, and durable. He pushes a high pace and he trains at a good gym at Allstars in Sweden and has been working with Chimaev and numerous other talented UFC fighters. He loves throwing flying knees and does a good job of connecting on them, which is how he landed his last finish. The only knock on him has been his level of inactivity in recent years, but it seems like he’s getting good work in at the gym and looks to be in great shape. He’s definitely a guy to keep an eye on moving forward and he’s going to be a real problem at 135 lb, after he drops back down following this next fight. We can see him immediately making a push towards the rankings and he could even be a future title challenger. Obviously it’s always tough stepping into a fight on short notice and up a weight class, so we’ll want to monitor him closely on the scale.
Fight Prediction:
Naimov will have a 3” height advantage and 2” reach advantage, while also being three years older than the 26-year-old Lima.
There is zero doubt in our mind that Lima is a superior fighter in all aspects of the game compared to Naimov. However, making your UFC debut up a weight class on short notice is a very tough position to overcome. So the question isn’t who is more talented, it’s how Lima will look up a weight class with only a few days to prepare. And honestly, that’s a tough one to answer. Even if we haven’t been impressed by Naimov, he’s looked pretty strong and even made his UFC debut all the way up at 155 lb. Lima is a 135 lb fighter and he could get simply overpowered at times, even if he is the more skilled fighter. However, that’s far from a certainty and Nathaniel Wood is a former 135 lb fighter who had plenty of success against Naimov, even if he ultimately lost the fight. We really like Lima as a prospect and if anyone can overcome all of the factors working against him, it’s this guy. So maybe the lack of preparation time and size will prove to be insurmountable, but we’re willing to pay to find out. Lima will be our pick and we think he has the potential to win this fight by knockout, submission, or simply by outworking his way to a decision, with the latter being the most likely.
Our favorite bet here is “Felipe Lima ML” at -110.
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DFS Implications:
Naimov has hilariously averaged 103 DraftKings points in his three UFC fights/wins, in a start to his career that can only be described as very Magoo-ish. He was getting his ass kicked in his debut before Jamie Mullarkey went full kamikaze. Then Naimov committed 35 unpenalized fouls against Nathaniel Wood and was still nearly finished in the closing seconds. He followed that up by being gifted a win in a freak injury where he literally didn’t have to do anything to win the fight. Let’s not forget that this is the same guy who lost a decision to Collin Anglin on DWCS. Naimov has been running hotter than the sun, but his days are numbered and we’ll keep shorting him until we finally start seeing some returns. Yes, he’s in a very favorable situation/narrative as he takes on a short notice debuting opponent who’s moving up a weight class, but Lima is not your ordinary fill-in. Lima is incredibly talented and we expect Naimov to have a tough time in this matchup wherever the fight goes. We’ve seen Naimov’s DraftKings ownership go from 6% in his UFC debut, to 22% in his next fight, to 38% most recently. After scoring 121 points in that last match and now facing a short notice newcomer, we expect him to be somewhat popular once again at his reasonable price tag. The odds imply Naimov has a 49% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Lima is a bright young prospect who’s being put in an incredibly difficult position. He’s making his UFC debut up a weight class on five days’ notice following an 11 month layoff. However, if anyone can make it work, it’s this kid. He’s a really talented striker and also has good grappling/wrestling, while he pushes a high pace. He won the Oktagon MMA 135 lb belt in a five-round decision in his last match and looks to be in great shape as he’s been training with Chimaev at Allstars. He’s shown the ability to completely fill up the stat sheet, and while that could be tougher against a larger opponent, Naimov only has a 57% takedown defense and averages 4.57 SSA/min. And because Lima took this up a weight class, at least he won’t have to cut as much weight, which should help him in a longer fight. At his reasonable salary, even a decision win could be enough for him to end up winning lineups. The odds imply Lima has a 51% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #6
Nasrat Haqparast
13th UFC Fight (8-4)Coming off a rare knockout win, Haqparast finished a broken Jamie Mullarkey in the first round. That’s only Haqparast’s second early win in the UFC and he had fought to six straight decisions leading up to it, winning four of those. In his second most recent fight, he won an ultra high-volume decision over a short notice newcomer in Landon Quinones, where Haqparast landed a career best 171 significant strikes, while also absorbing 148. The two guys just stood in front of each other and traded for the entire match, with no takedowns to break up the action. That followed a decision victory over another striker in John Makdessi, after Haqparast got lapped by Bobby Green in a high-volume 2022 decision. That was Haqparast’s second straight loss at the time, after he got taken down three times by Dan Hooker and controlled for half the fight just before that. Only three of Haqparast’s 12 UFC fights ended early, which were a 2019 R2 KO win over Joaquim Silva, a 2020 R1 KO loss to Drew Dober, and his recent 2023 R1 TKO win over Jamie Mullarkey.
Now 16-5 as a pro, Haqparast has 10 wins by KO/TKO and six decision victories. He’s been knocked out once (R1 2020), submitted once (in his 2012 pro debut), and has three decision defeats. While 75% of his UFC fights ended with the judges, all nine of Haqparast’s pre-UFC fights ended early (8-1 only losing his first pro fight). Haqparast has spent the majority of his pro career in the 155 lb division, but he did move up to 170 lb for a three fight period in 2014 and 2015. He went 3-0 at 170 lb before moving back down to 155 lb in 2016.
Overall, Haqparast is a one-dimensional striker who failed to land a takedown in 10 of his last 11 fights. In his 12 UFC fights, he landed just 3 of his 15 takedown attempts (20% accuracy), while his opponents got him down on 7 of their 33 attempts (78.8% defense). His takedown defense hasn’t been tested much since Hooker took him down three times, and in Haqparast’s last four fights he only faced a single attempt. Haqparast is known for his boxing, but got absolutely owned on the feet by Bobby Green in his last loss. He averages 5.78 SSL/min and 5.25 SSA/min and we’ve seen some huge striking totals from both him and his opponents in several of his fights. While it looks like he throws with decent power, he’s mostly struggled to convert those visuals into finishes at the UFC level. We’ve also seen him get his lead leg chewed up, which is an area he needs to work on.
Jared Gordon
15th UFC Fight (8-5, NC)Gordon is coming off just his second win in his last five fights and his first finish since his 2017 UFC debut. That recent win came in a first round knockout against a 39-year-old Mark Madsen who then retired following his second straight early loss. Prior to that, Gordon was involved in an unfortunate No Contest resulting from a clash of heads against Bobby Green. Following the clash, Green knocked Gordon out, adding insult to injury. Gordon then stepped into a short notice matchup against Jim Miller just six weeks later, but he got pulled from the card after publicly saying he was concussed in the Green fight. Leading up to the No Contest, Gordon lost a controversial decision to Paddy Pimblett that most people thought he won. That followed a 2022 decision win over an aging Leonardo Santos, which came just after Gordon was submitted in the third round by Grant Dawson. Prior to suffering the only submission loss of his career to Dawson, Gordon won three straight decisions and six of his last seven wins went the distance, after he landed a second round knockout in his 2017 UFC debut. While most of his recent wins have come with the judges, four of his five UFC losses ended early, including three knockouts.
Now 20-6 as a pro, Gordon has seven wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and 11 decisions. All but two of his early wins occurred prior to joining the UFC, and he generally doesn’t look like much of a threat to finish fights at the UFC level. He’s been knocked out four times, submitted once, and has one decision defeat. Gordon has competed anywhere between 145 lb and 155 lb in his career, but all of his UFC fights have taken place at either 149-150 lb Catchweight (3-0) or 155 lb (5-5). His debut was against a 145 lb opponent, although Gordon weighed in at 149 lb and the fight ended up technically being a Catchweight match. Gordon consistently struggled/failed whenever he tried to make 145 lb, and finally stopped trying in 2021.
Overall, Gordon is decently well rounded but really excels when he can get fights to the mat and go to town with his ground and pound. He generally relies on making fights dirty and using his experience to grind out decision wins as he simply wears on his opponents, whether it be on the mat or the cage. While he’s a BJJ brown belt, he only has one submission win in his last 26 fights, which was in 2016 before he joined the UFC. Gordon made the switch in teams from Roufusport to Kill Cliff FC in 2019 following his knockout loss to Charles Oliveira and has since gone 5-2 plus a No Contest. In his 14 UFC fights, Gordon landed 20 takedowns on 50 attempts (40% accuracy), while getting taken down by his opponents 15 times on 40 attempts (62.5% defense). He’s 2-3 plus a NC when he’s failed to land a takedown, but 6-2 when he’s landed at least one.
Fight Prediction:
Haqparast will have a 1” height advantage and 4” reach advantage, while also being seven years younger than the 35-year-old Gordon.
While Gordon has gotten away from his wrestling lately, five of his last six opponents were grapplers and the other was the Bobby Green fight that was stopped in the first round for a clash of heads. So Gordon really hasn’t had any good opportunities to lean on his wrestling recently. Now he’ll finally face a striker here. It’s been just the opposite for Haqparast, as he’s been facing a series of strikers recently, and no one has been looking to take him down since his loss to Hooker on the mat. So recency bias will have people forgetting about Gordon’s solid ground game and Haqparast’s struggles off his back. With that said, Haqparast does have a pretty decent 78% takedown defense that Gordon will need to get past, so we can’t automatically assume he’ll be able to take Haqparast down with ease. However, if he does get Haqparast down, then we really like his chances of keeping him there and beating him up with ground and pound. We don’t see Gordon finishing him however, and a wrestling-heavy decision is far and away his most likely path to victory. If Gordon can’t get the fight to the mat, or at least hold Haqparast up against the cage, then he’ll be in a lot more trouble as Haqparast is the superior striker and holds a big advantage when it comes to speed and durability. While Gordon hasn’t been knocked out since 2019, his chin has been shaky in his career, with four knockout losses on his record. However, Haqparast generally hasn’t been much of a knockout threat outside of his recent win over a washed up Jamie Mullarkey. Therefore, we’re expecting this fight to go the distance and the winner will be determined by Gordon’s ability to implement his wrestling. We’ll side with the grappler here at solid plus money. Give us Gordon to win a wrestling-heavy decision and then probably get arrested on the mic in Saudi Arabia after he goes into excruciating depth about his past drug use.
Our favorite bet here is “Jared Gordon DEC” at +320.
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DFS Implications:
Haqparast is entirely reliant on striking and finishes to score well in DFS and he’s only landed three takedowns in 12 UFC appearances. He averaged 88 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, with six of those going the distance. He’s coming off a career performance, where he knocked out a completely shot Jamie Mullarkey in the first round and scored 117 DraftKings points. Just keep in mind Mullarkey has been knocked out in three of his last four fights and has completely lost the ability to take a punch. You have to go all the way back to 2019 to find Haqparast’s only other early win in the UFC, where he still only scored 88 DraftKings points in a second round knockout win. While Haqparast has shown the ability to put up huge striking totals at times, those require a willing dance partner and Gordon isn’t it. Gordon only averages 3.40 SSA/min and likes to make fights dirty out of the clinch or on the mat, which should severely limit Haqparast’s ability to rack up strikes and likely leaves him reliant on landing a first round knockout to return value at his expensive price tag. Working in his favor, Gordon has been knocked out four times in the past, but not since 2019. The odds imply Haqparast has a 68% chance to win, a 28% chance to land a finish, and a 14% chance it comes in round one.
Gordon has averaged 108 DraftKings points in his eight UFC wins, despite six of those going the distance. He scored 95 or more points in all but one of those victories, and has shown a really solid DraftKings floor whenever he wins. However, he’s also been prone to getting finished and five of his six career losses came early, which makes it tougher to trust his scoring floor. Gordon’s effectiveness stems from his ability to rack up strikes from the clinch and on the mat, which is great for DraftKings, but leaves him reliant on landing a rare finish on FanDuel. Despite the fact that he’s coming off a knockout win, we will continue to treat him as a DraftKings specific play. While Haqparast has a solid 78% takedown defense, when he has been taken down he’s looked bad on the mat and he was taken down three times in two of his four UFC losses. The most recent of those was against Dan Hooker, who’s more known for his striking and hasn’t landed a takedown in any of his other five most recent fights. That’s encouraging for Gordon’s chances of getting this fight to the ground, and at his cheap price tag, he doesn't need to put up a huge score to end up in tournament winning lineups. The odds imply Gordon has a 32% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #5
Johnny Walker
14th UFC Fight (7-5-1)Walker is five months removed from a second round knockout loss to Magomed Ankalaev, who finished ahead 39-24 in significant strikes, while no takedowns were attempted in the fight. Interestingly, two of the three judges actually scored the first round for Walker. That was actually the second straight time those two had fought, after the first ended in a No Contest due to an illegal knee from Ankalaev in the first round. Prior to that No Contest, Walker won three straight matches, after going just 1-4 in his previous five fights. Walker’s last win ended in a rare decision against a struggling Anthony Smith. Walker notably landed 51 leg strikes over the course of 15 minutes in that victory. Before that, Walker knocked out Paul Craig in the first round, after locking up a first round submission against Ion Cutelaba. Leading up to those three wins, Walker got knocked out in the first round by Jamahal Hill, after losing a 25 minute staring contest to Thiago Santos.
Now 21-8 as a pro, Walker has 16 wins by KO/TKO, three submissions, and two decision victories. He’s also been knocked out five times himself, submitted once (R2 2015), and two decision defeats. His six early losses were split evenly across the first two rounds, although two of his last four defeats went the distance. While his last fight ended in a second round KO loss, his previous 12 UFC fights were all either stopped in the first round (6-2, NC) or went the distance (1-2).
Overall, Walker is a physical freak at 6’6” with an 82” reach and immense power. He’s dialed back some of his wild ways in recent years and seems to be focussed on improving his technique and mixing in more leg kicks lately. And while he showed serious cardio concerns earlier in his career, he’s also made noticeable improvements in that area. He doesn’t look to grapple much and between his 13 UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he only attempted three takedowns, although he did complete all of those. On the other side of things, his opponents got him down on 9 of their 21 attempts (57.1% defense). The last three and six of his seven UFC opponents who tried to take him down were successful, so defensive wrestling has been a weakness for him. While Walker is a BJJ brown belt and was able to submit a braindead Ion Cutelaba, that’s Walker’s only submission win in his last 18 fights and he generally relies on his striking.
Volkan Oezdemir
14th UFC Fight (7-6)Oezdemir is coming off just the second submission win of his career and the first since 2012. The finish came against a debuting Bogdan Guskov, who landed a couple of shots of his own, but it was overall a terrible showing and Oezdemir tripled him up in striking and also knocked him down and took him down before locking up a submission. Prior to that win, Oezdemir lost a wrestling-heavy decision to Nikita Krylov, who took Oezdemir down seven times on 20 attempts and controlled him for over nine minutes. That was Oezdemir’s third straight fight to go the distance, after he won a decision over Paul Craig and lost another to Magomed Ankalaev. The last time Oezdemir was finished was in a 2020 R2 KO loss to a debuting Jiri Prochazka. It’s been almost five years since Oezdemir knocked anybody out and his only KO/TKO win in his last 10 fights came in the second round of a 2019 fight against Ilir Latifi. Oezdemir is just 2-3 in his last five outings and has really struggled to string wins together in recent years.
Now 19-7 as a pro, Oezdemir has 12 wins by KO/TKO, two submissions, and five decision victories. Eleven of his 12 knockout wins occurred in the first round with the other ending in round two. Both of his submission victories also ended in round one. He’s been knocked out twice, submitted two more times, and has three decision losses. He was nearly submitted a third time by Daniel Cormier in a 2018 title fight, but Oezdemir was saved by the bell at the end of round one and later got finished with ground and pound in round two instead. Three of those four early losses came in the second round, with the other ending in round three. Three of the eight decisions he’s been to have been split (2-1).
Overall, Oezdemir is a powerful striker who throws violent leg kicks. His background is in kickboxing and he doesn’t offer a ton in terms of offensive grappling, with just five takedowns landed in his 13-fight UFC career. However, he does have a solid 80% takedown defense and has only been taken down 13 times on 65 attempts by his opponents. However, in Oezdemir’s second most recent fight, Nikita Krylov took him down seven times on 20 attempts with over nine minutes of control time. Oezdemir averages 4.59 SSL/min and 3.92 SSA/min, and has never landed more than 82 significant strikes in a UFC fight, which was in his 2017 UFC debut. Similarly, he’s never absorbed more than 76 significant strikes in a UFC fight, which also occurred in his debut.
Fight Prediction:
Walker will have a 4” height advantage and 7” reach advantage, while also being two years younger than the 34-year-old Oezdemir.
This seems like kind of a binary matchup. Either we see one of them catch the other with a big knockout shot or it ends in a low-volume decision. We lean towards the latter but both are in play. Oezdemir generally lands more striking volume than Walker (4.59 vs. 3.81 SSL/min) and also has a better striking defense (55% vs. 44%). While neither of them looks to wrestle much, Oezdemir also holds a slight advantage in takedowns landed at 0.57 TDL/min compared to 0.46 for Walker. Oezdemir also has the better takedown defense (80% vs. 57%). However, Walker is taller, longer, younger, and more athletic, although hasn’t been as durable and has been knocked out five times in the past, while Oezdemir has only been knocked out twice. The larger Octagon in Saudi Arabia increases the chances of the fight going the distance, but we agree with the odds that it’s basically a coinflip as to who wins and whether it ends in a knockout or a decision. That makes it a tricky spot to correctly predict, but forced to choose we’ll tentatively say that Oezdemir wins by split decision.
Our favorite bet here is “Walker/Oezdemir FGTD” at +168.
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DFS Implications:
Walker has averaged 108 DraftKings points in his seven UFC wins, which should come as no surprise considering six of those ended in the first round. However, he only scored 74 DraftKings points in his lone decision victory. He averages just 3.81 SSL/min and between his 13 UFC fights and his DWCS appearance, he only attempted three takedowns, completing all of those. Oezdemir has a solid 80% takedown defense, so even if Walker tries to surprise him with some wrestling here, his chances of being successful are low. So even at his reasonable price tag, Walker still appears to be nothing more than a R1 KO or bust option who in the past has consistently been owned above his chances of landing the first round finish he needs to score well. He once again projects to be owned well above his chances of landing a first round finish, which leaves him as an objectively bad play in tournaments. The odds imply Walker has a 50% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and a 16% chance it comes in round one.
Oezdemir has been a boom or bust DFS commodity, averaging 122 DraftKings points in his four UFC finishes, but just 72 points in his three decision victories. Thirteen of his 14 pro finishes ended in round one, with the other ending in round two, and just like Walker he has typically relied on early finishes to score well. He does land a little more striking volume than Walker (4.59 vs. 3.81 SSL/min) and has also now landed a takedown in three straight fights. When you combine those factors with Walker’s tendency to get knocked out, we have more interest in playing Oezdemir than Walker in this matchup. However, Oezdemir will still need a finish to be useful and a decision win won’t cut it in tournaments. The odds imply Oezdemir has a 50% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and an 18% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #4
Shara Magomedov
2nd UFC Fight (1-0)Magomedov was originally set to face Ihor Potieria here, but then Potieria dropped out and Joilton Lutterbach was announced as the replacement a month out. However, Lutterbach then failed a drug test and was pulled just three days before the event and replaced by Antonio Trocoli.
Magomedov is coming off a high-volume unanimous 30-27 decision win in his UFC debut against Bruno Silva, while Magomedov was taken down three times and controlled for close to seven minutes but still outlanded Silva 113-65 in significant strikes and 222-107 in total strikes. Magomedov never stopped landing damage, even when he was on his back and the judges rewarded him for that. Prior to making his debut, Magomedov landed a first round knockout in just eight seconds, which came just eight days after a decision win. While his first eight pro fights all ended in the first two rounds, three of his last four fights made it to the third round, with two of those going the distance.
Now 12-0 as a pro, Magomedov has 10 wins by KO/TKO and two decision victories. Seven of his knockouts ended in round one, two occurred in round two, and one ended in round three. He has a kickboxing win over Blood Diamond back in 2019, but hasn’t faced the highest level of competition in his MMA career.
Overall, Magomedov is a one-eyed, one-dimensional striker who relies heavily on his violent arsenal of kicks. While he’s from Dagestan, he hasn’t shown any sort of wrestling ability and prefers to keep fights standing. He started out training boxing as a child and went on to become a Master of Sports in Thai Boxing and kickboxing, as well as an International Master of Sports in Burmese boxing. He’s got kind of a hybrid karate style, where he’s very light on his feet and throws explosive kicks while doing a good job of controlling the distance and staying at kicking range where he’s the most effective. Despite his kick-heavy approach, he puts up big striking totals as he pushes a solid pace and is constantly forcing the action. He’s got good power and looks very destructive with his striking. However, his defensive wrestling may be his kryptonite and even a one dimensional striker like Bruno Silva was able to take him down three times on seven attempts and control him for nearly half the fight.
Antonio Trocoli
1st UFC Fight (0-0)This will be the fourth time that Trocoli has been booked to make his UFC debut. The first was in late 2022 against Ovince Saint Preux, but Trocoli withdrew. The second was just a month ago in May 2024 against Oumar Sy, but Trocoli withdrew once again. Then he was booked to face Ikram Aliskerov on last week’s card, but the night before weigh-ins Aliskerov was pulled from the card to face Robert Whittaker in this week’s main event. So a lot has been made of Ikram Aliskerov having to pause his weight cut for a week, but Trocoli is arguably in an even worse position as he didn’t know when his next fight would be and is also moving down from 200 lb to 185 lb. Trocoli hasn’t competed since November 2021, when he locked up a first round submission in a 200 lb Catchweight match against an out of shape opponent in a fight that took place in a gym that has since shut down. That opponent was coming off a two and a half year layoff and then never competed again. Trocoli’s second most recent fight was all the way back in 2019 at 205 lb on DWCS, where Trocoli secured another first round submission, but then tested positive for steroids and was suspended and his UFC contract was revoked. That came after Trocoli won a pair of decisions in his first two pro fights up at 205 lb. Leading up to those wins, he had dropped three straight fights, with two decision losses at 170 lb, followed by a post second round TKO loss at 185 lb. His last 170 lb fight was against Dhiego Lima, who was able to out wrestle his way to victory.
Now 12-3 as a pro, Trocoli has three KO/TKO wins, five submissions, and four decision victories, along with another submission win that was overturned to a No Contest. Including that overturned win, he only has two finishes since 2015, which both ended in first round submissions. On the other side of things, he has one TKO loss and two decision defeats.
Overall, Trocoli is really tall and long at 6’5” and filled out some once he got on the juice, but hasn’t been especially impressive anywhere. While he did submit his last two opponents and is a BJJ black belt, his defensive wrestling has been poor and he tends to get controlled for periods of time. His striking has also been underwhelming as has his level of inactivity, as he’s coming off a two and a half year layoff and only has one fight in the last half decade. That leaves some uncertainty surrounding his current form, but he’s given us no indication that he can find much success in the UFC. He hasn’t made 185 lb since 2017, with his last four fights all taking place between 200 and 205 lb, so he’ll be a guy to monitor on the scale as he makes his short notice UFC debut.
Fight Prediction:
Trocoli will have a 3” height advantage and 9” reach advantage, while Magomedov is three years younger than the 33-year-old Trocoli.
Trocoli has never done anything to impress us and will now be flying around the world with no time to prepare as he makes his second weight cut in as many weeks, while moving down a weight class from where he last competed over two and a half years ago. He has been preparing to face a world-class grappler last week, but will now be facing a dangerous striker instead. Simply making it to the fight will be a huge challenge and it’s hard to even imagine the logistics of cutting weight on a plane. While this is theoretically a good stylistic matchup for Trocoli since he’s a BJJ black belt and Magomedov is a one-dimensional striker, we’re not sold on his grappling—or any other part of his game. The last time he competed at 185 lb was in 2017, when he suffered the only KO/TKO loss of his career and Magomedov will do very bad things to him on the feet. Trocoli’s only path to victory will be through his grappling and barring a hail mary submission, we expect him to lose this fight and likely get knocked out.
Our favorite bet here is “Shara Magomedov Win & Over 1.5 Rounds” at +150.
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DFS Implications:
Magomedov had been a -225 favorite against Joilton Lutterbach when DraftKings released pricing, but is now a -650 favorite against the short notice replacement in Antonio Trocoli. While Magomedov is now the biggest favorite on the card by a wide margin, he’s only the fifth most expensive fighter on DraftKings and only the sixth most expensive fighter on FanDuel, despite the geniuses at FanDuel waiting until after the opponent change to release pricing. When people tell you they don’t care about something, ask them if they really don’t care or if they FanDuel don’t care, because FanDuel has taken complacency to a whole new level. Anyways, the mispricing on both sites will drive Magomedov’s ownership way up, which lowers his tournament appeal on this small slate, but makes him a key piece in low-risk lineups. He has the ability to put up huge striking totals, but offers nothing in terms of wrestling, which leaves him more reliant on knockouts and/or insane striking totals to score well. He landed 113 significant strikes and 222 total strikes in his last fight, scoring 97 DraftKings points and 88 points on FanDuel in the process. That came against a striker who was still able to take him down three times. Now Magomedov will face more of a grappler, which could cap his striking to some extent and leave him even more reliant on a knockout. However, there’s a really high chance that he does knock Trocoli out and if he puts up a big striking total leading up to a finish then he could be looking at a massive score. The odds imply Magomedov has an 81% chance to win, a 62% chance to land a finish, and a 36% chance it comes in round one.
Trocoli couldn’t have asked for a tougher circumstance surrounding his UFC debut. He was in the middle of cutting weight last Thursday when he was told his fight at the Apex in Las Vegas with Ikram Aliskerov was off. Then six days later on Wednesday he’s announced as the replacement to fight Shara Magomedov in Saudi Arabia, which is on the other side of the world and takes 20+ hours to get to, in addition to being 10 hours ahead so you lose half a day on the way out from the time change. So we don’t know exactly where or when he got the call, but it was likely late Tuesday or early Wednesday and he couldn’t have had any time to prepare. He went from facing a high-level grappler to a dangerous striker and he probably worked on his gameplan on a cocktail napkin on the plane. While he is a BJJ black belt and should have the grappling advantage, he’s never been very impressive outside of his size and got busted for steroids after his 2019 DWCS win. He’s only competed once since then, and hasn’t made 185 lb since 2017, when he suffered a post R2 TKO loss. Simply making weight would be surprising and it’s impossible to have any confidence in Trocoli, but a hail mary submission win isn’t impossible. If he somehow pulls off the miracle upset, he would be an insane leverage play, but it would be entirely shocking. The odds imply Trocoli has a 19% chance to win, an 11% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #3
Kelvin Gastelum
23rd UFC Fight (12-9, NC)This fight was originally set to take place at 170 lb, but Gastelum’s fat ass decided to pull a Costa and mid fight week said that not only could he not make 170 lb, he couldn’t even make a 180 lb Catchweight and the fight was moved to 185 lb.
Gastelum moved down from 185 lb to 170 lb for his last fight and proceeded to get owned on the mat by Sean Brady, who took Gastelum down five times on five attempts and controlled him for nine minutes before locking up a submission a couple minutes into the third round. It was complete and utter domination and Gastelum had no answers on the mat. Prior to that, Gastelum won a 185 lb action-packed decision over Chris Curtis, which is Gastelum’s only win in his last four fights and just his second in his last eight outings. Leading up to that win, Gastelum didn’t fight at all in 2022 after losing a pair of five-round decisions to Jared Cannonier and Robert Whittaker in 2021. Gastelum’s only other win since 2018 was a 2021 decision over Ian Heinisch, who went 1-4 in his final five UFC fights. Seven of Gastelum’s last nine fights went the distance, with the two exceptions being a 2020 R1 submission loss to Jack Hermansson and his recent R3 submission loss to Sean Brady. The last time Gastelum finished anybody was when he knocked out a half retired Michael Bisping in 2017.
Now 18-9 as a pro, Gastelum has six wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and seven decision victories. All of his submission wins occurred early in his career from 2009 to 2014, while his last three knockout wins occurred back in 2015 to 2017. While Gastelum has never been knocked out, he’s been submitted three times and has six decision losses. Gastelum has fought at both 170 lb and 185 lb in the UFC, but had been competing at 185 lb since 2016, until he dropped back down to 170 lb for his last fight. He was preparing to fight at 170 lb for the second straight time before his mid-week weight shenanigans.
Overall, Gastelum relies mostly on his striking but is a black belt in 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu and has a high school and college wrestling background. In his last 10 fights, Gastelum landed 10 of his 44 takedown attempts (22.7% accuracy), but only once landed more than a single takedown in any of those fights. On the other side of things, his last 10 opponents got him down on 12 of their 30 attempts (60% defense). Gastelum rarely puts up big striking totals and averages just 3.55 SSL/min and 3.23 SSA/min. He’s somehow still only 32 years old, but he’s been around forever and joined the UFC in early 2013. He’s always a guy you want to monitor closely on the scale.
Daniel Rodriguez
11th UFC Fight (7-3)Rodriguez said at media day he currently weighed 179 lb and he would actually have to put weight on to get up to 185 lb. You could tell he was very unhappy with the entire situation, but did at least get a percentage of Gastelum’s purse. It’s been 13 months since Rodriguez last competed, when he suffered the first knockout loss of his career in the first round against Ian Garry, who outlanded Rodriguez 23-7 in strikes. That came after Rodriguez suffered the first submission loss of his career in the third round of a November 2022 match against Neil Magny. Rodriguez started out 7-1 in the UFC before losing to Magny, with his only loss in his first eight UFC fights coming in a close/controversial decision against Nicolas Dalby. Just eight weeks before his loss to Magny, Rodriguez won a questionable split-decision over an undersized Li Jingliang, who had been preparing to fight Tony Ferguson at 170 lb, while Rodriguez was getting ready to face Kevin Holland at 180 lb. However, after Chimaev missed weight by 7.5 lb the entire main card turned into a game of musical chairs and Rodriguez got matched up with Li Jingliang instead. It’s surprising that matchup was even allowed to happen after Rodriguez weighed in at 179 lb and Jingliang at just 170.5 lb. Prior to that win, Rodriguez was out for 13 months following a decision win over a struggling Kevin Lee. The layoff was caused by Rodriguez having three hand surgeries on his power left hand and honestly he’s never looked like the same fighter since that series of surgeries.
Now 17-4 as a pro, Rodriguez has eight wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and five decision victories. Three of his knockouts occurred in the first round, four ended in round two, and one came in round three. While his last two submission wins occurred in the later two rounds, the first two of his career came in round one. He’s been knocked out once, submitted once, and has two decision losses. All three of his early wins in the UFC came in short notice matchups.
Overall, Rodriguez is a high-volume striker, who averages 7.30 SSL/min and 5.28 SSA/min. However, since he came back from multiple hand surgeries we’ve seen that drop to 5.11 SSL/min and 5.02 SSA/min and he’s now 37 years old and almost two years removed from his last win. He was finished in each of his last two losses, while he barely scraped by in a pair of close decisions in each of his last two wins. It’s rare to see Rodriguez shoot for a takedown and even more rare for him to land one, as he’s only completed one of his five attempts in 10 UFC fights. However, he did land four of his five takedown attempts on DWCS in 2019, which factors into his 50% takedown accuracy. On the other side of things, Rodriguez has been taken down 12 times on 33 opponent attempts (63.6% defense) and his last three opponents who tried all got him down at least once. It will be interesting to see how he looks on the scale after he was forced to actually put on weight leading up to weigh-ins.
Fight Prediction:
Rodriguez will have a 4” height advantage and 3” reach advantage, while Gastelum is five years younger than the 37-year-old Rodriguez.
Rodriguez had a fast start to his UFC career and a lot of favorable matchups early on. That made for a lot of fun, high-paced brawls, where he typically came out ahead. However, as the matchups grew tougher and his body began to break down in his mid thirties, his performances began to suffer. It’s been a few years since he actually looked good in a fight and ever since he went through multiple hand surgeries after the Kevin Lee fight he just hasn’t looked like the same guy of old. Say what you will about Gastelum, it’s all justified, but he’s still a good striker who can also mix in occasional wrestling. Gastelum has also never been knocked out and pulled a power move mid fight week by dictating that they would now be competing at 185 lb. That makes the weight cut significantly easier for Gastelum, which should benefit both his cardio and durability. And on the flipside, it forced Rodriguez to start eating cheeseburgers to put on weight and get up to 185 lb. That could slow Rodriguez down a little in the fight, which isn’t ideal for a fighter who relies on striking volume. Gastelum does a better job of avoiding damage compared to Rodriguez and will also have the wrestling advantage. We think that will be enough for him to win a close decision here, assuming he doesn’t trip and fall into a guillotine as he tries to take Rodriguez down. Gastelum by decision will be the pick.
Our favorite bet here is “Kelvin Gastelum DEC” at +110.
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DFS Implications:
Gastelum has averaged 88 DraftKings points in his 12 UFC wins and has generally relied on landing finishes to score well. The only time he scored more than 82 points in a decision win was when he landed a career best six takedowns against Ian Heinisch 2021 and scored 95 points. His other two most recent decision wins were only good for 67 and 63 points respectively and he doesn’t even win very often. He’s lost three of his last four and six of his last eight fights. Now he was unable to make 170 lb and pulled a Costa mid fight week as he forced the UFC to move the match up to 185 lb. We’ll say what impact that has on the fight, but it likely adds to the volatility of the matchup. With that said, Gastelum hasn’t finished anybody since 2017 and if he can’t finish Rodriguez then he will need to absolutely dominate this fight on the mat if he wants to have any chance at returning value at his expensive salary. Working in his favor, Rodriguez was taken down nine times in his last four fights and isn’t a great wrestler. Rodriguez also averages 5.28 SSA/min (most on the slate), so it is a high upside matchup if Gastelum actually shows up. The odds imply Gastelum has a 65% chance to win, a 25% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Rodriguez exploded onto the UFC scene in 2020 with three straight wins that all scored 100 or more DraftKings points. However, after averaging 105 DraftKings points in his first five UFC wins, he only averaged 77 in his last two victories and is now coming off back-back early losses and a long layoff at 37 years old. He hasn’t looked like the same fighter in his last few outings after undergoing multiple hand surgeries in 2021-2022 and it’s important to keep in mind that all of his early career success came against a lower level of competition. Gastelum has never been knocked out and only averages 3.23 SSA/min, while he’ll also mix in some wrestling at times to slow the pace down. That will make it tougher for Rodriguez to really score well here and he’s also historically been very highly owned, with his DraftKings ownership checking in between 30-45% in each of his last three fights. So he’s basically just a high-owned value play, which isn’t very appealing in tournaments, but is more useful in low-risk or small-field contests. The odds imply Rodriguez has a 35% chance to win, a 10% chance to land a finish, and a 5% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #2
Sergei Pavlovich
9th UFC Fight (6-2)Finally tasting defeat for the first time since 2018, Pavlovich was knocked out by Tom Aspinall in just 69 seconds with the interim Heavyweight belt on the line. Per usual with Pavlovich, the fight ended almost immediately, with Aspinall landing a combination of punches to quickly close the show, as he finished ahead 10-1 in strikes, while never considering a takedown. Aspinall was notably stepping in on short notice, while Pavlovich was originally the backup for the Jones/Stipe matchup, before that fight got scrapped. So he had at least been preparing to some extent. That loss came seven months after Pavlovich landed a first round knockout of his own against a wrestler in Curtis Blaydes, who idiotically tried to duke it out on the feet instead of leaning on his wrestling. Blaydes finally attempted a desperation takedown after he was already hurt, but it was too late at that point and Pavlovich was easily able to defend it and then finish Blaydes with punches. Prior to that, Pavlovich knocked out Tai Tuivasa in just 54 seconds and Derrick Lewis in just 55 seconds. All eight of Pavlovich’s UFC fights ended in first round knockouts (6-2). After getting finished with ground and pound in his 2018 UFC debut against Alistair Overeem, Pavlovich rattled off six straight wins leading up to his recent loss. The last time Pavlovich saw the second round was in a 2017 five-round decision win for the AMC Fight Nights Global Heavyweight belt. Pavlovich defended that belt once in a R1 KO win before joining the UFC in 2018.
Now 18-2 as a pro, Pavlovich has 15 first round knockout wins and three decision victories. Both of his career losses also ended in first round knockouts. So 85% of his career fights have ended by first round knockout.
Overall, Pavlovich is a traditional Heavyweight boxer and his most dangerous weapon is his right hand, which he throws with deadly speed, power, and precision. He did wrestle growing up and then transitioned to Combat Sambo, but he hasn’t attempted a single takedown in his last seven fights, after going 0 for 2 in his debut. He also looked pretty helpless off his back against Overeem. Pavlovich has only faced four takedown attempts against him in the UFC, and only two in his last seven fights. He was able to stuff those last two attempts, but got taken down on one of Overeem’s two attempts in his debut and was never able to return to his feet afterwards. While we haven’t seen Pavlovich’s grappling tested much, that does appear to be a weakness for him.
Alexander Volkov
16th UFC Fight (11-4)Quietly on a three-fight winning streak, Volkov is coming off his first submission win since 2016. That recent victory ended in a second round Ezekiel choke against Tai Tuivasa, after Volkov found himself in top position on the mat following a Tuivasa slip. Volkov was leading the dance in striking, finishing ahead 93-28 in significant strikes and 107-30 in total strikes, while also knocking Tuivasa down once in the first round. Tuivasa was doing a good job of beating up Volkov’s lead leg, but that’s essentially the only success he was finding. Prior to that, Volkov landed a pair of first round TKO wins over Alexander Romanov and Jairzinho Rozenstruik, after getting submitted in the first round by Tom Aspinall. While all of Volkov’ recent fights ended quickly, his first 11 UFC fights all saw the second round, with nine making it to round three, and six going the distance.
Now 37-10 as a pro, Volkov has 24 wins by KO/TKO, four submissions, and nine decision victories. While he’s coming off a submission win, his other six UFC finishes all ended by KO/TKO. On the other side of things, he’s only been knocked out twice himself in 47 pro appearances, while he has three submission losses, and has five decision losses. He’s only been knocked out once since 2013, which was in the final seconds of a 2018 match against Derrick Lewis. Volkov has gone 4-2 in UFC decisions, winning all four of the three-round decisions he’s been to with the organization, but losing both of the five-round decisions.
Overall, Volkov is primarily a striker who generally has very little interest in going to the mat, despite being a BJJ brown belt. So while we did just see him follow Tuivasa to the ground and eventually submit him, let’s not get lost in recency bias and suddenly pretend he’s a great grappler. He hasn’t landed a takedown in any of his last eight fights and has completed just seven total in 16 UFC appearances, with five of those coming in his first four UFC fights. 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, which improved his takedown defense considerably as he stopped all 22 of the takedowns attempted against him in his next four fights, after getting taken down 19 times on 54 attempts in his first seven UFC matches. However, after struggling with his cardio against Marcin Tybura in 2021 he then cut back down to 253 lb for his fight against Aspinall and got taken down twice and submitted in less than a round. He then added on a little more mass and has been weighing in between 256-263 lb in his last three fights. In general, it seems like the higher his weight is, the better his takedown defense has been, but the worse his cardio has looked. But as long as he’s not showing up at 247 lb to face a 270 lb wrestler, he’s probably fine. And considering that Pavlovich has never landed a takedown in the UFC, he probably has less to worry about, although it would be funny to suddenly see Pavlovich turn into a wrestler after his recent knockout loss. Volkov averages 5.10 SSL/min and just 3.00 SSA/min, and he’s a massive human being, who stands 6’7”. He has solid durability and will attack his opponents with a combination of kicks and punches that makes him tough to deal with on the feet. Two of his last three losses occurred on the mat and he’s 8-2 in the UFC when he hasn’t been taken down.
Fight Prediction:
Volkov is listed as having a 4” height advantage, while Pavlovich will have a 4” reach advantage and is three years younger than the 35-year-old Volkov.
These two are friends and have trained together at multiple points, as they’re both from Moscow. That always adds an interesting dynamic to fights, but not always a predictable one. Sometimes we’ll see former training partners go straight to what they know will work, because they’re already very familiar with the other’s strengths and weaknesses. Other times we’ll see slower paced sparring matches, where they each show a ton of respect for the other. However, we’ve also seen all out wars where both fighters come in with a certain level of comfortability and willingness to lay it all out on the line to put on a fight of the night. If one guy knows they were able to take the other down with ease and control them in the training room then we could also see more grappling than expected. So ultimately the familiarity between these two could certainly play a factor, but good luck determining what that factor is ahead of time. Neither guy typically looks for many takedowns, but they’ve each been so bad off their backs that it wouldn’t be shocking for either of them to try and wrestle more than usual. And if they can secure top position, the fight could quickly be stopped. On the feet, Volkov throws a wider variety of strikes, but Pavlovich is quicker and more powerful with his hands. Volkov has looked like the more durable of the two and also has more experience in longer UFC fights. Pavlovich has been in 25 minute matches in the past, but not since 2017 and his current cardio remains a mystery. However, his last fight to make it past the first round did end in a five-round decision victory and he had plenty of energy down the stretch as he closed out the match with a takedown in the final 30 seconds. We still slightly favor Volkov in a longer fight, but Pavlovich did win all three of the decisions he went to earlier in his career. The larger cage should also play into Volkov’s favor, as it leaves him with more room to evade and use his kicks to stay out of punching range, which also increases the chances of a longer fight.
So this definitely isn’t your typical Pavlovich matchup that you can confidently predict will end in a first round knockout, but that still is the most likely outcome according to the odds. Volkov has a tendency to let his hands drop and that’s a dangerous game to play against someone as lethal as Pavlovich. Ultimately, the only thing we’re certain of in this matchup is complete and total uncertainty, but gun to our head we’ll say that Pavlovich is able to land something clean early on and find another knockout win. However, this matchup has trap written all over it and it’s not a spot we want to be heavily invested in.
Our favorite bet here is “Sergei Pavlovich R1 KO” at +150.
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DFS Implications:
Pavlovich has averaged 119 DraftKings points in his six UFC wins, scoring 107 or more in all of those and 131 or more in two of his last three victories. He hasn’t seen the second round since 2017 and he comes into every fight with destructive intentions. Four of his six UFC wins came in under half a round, with three ending in 66 seconds or less. He hasn’t shown anything in terms of grappling in the UFC, although he did wrestle when he was younger and he is Russian. The one time he got taken down in the UFC was in his debut, where he was quickly finished with ground and pound on the mat. Pavlovich has never finished anybody beyond the first round, but did show the ability to go five rounds when he was still on the regional scene. His devastating power and finishing ability has resulted in him consistently being popular in DFS, with his DraftKings ownership checking in between 35% and 50% in each of his last five matches. Despite scoring zero points in his last fight, we still expect him to be very popular here, but his recent loss demonstrates just how wide his range of outcomes is. So there’s a lot of leverage to be gained in tournaments if he busts and it will be harder to create unique tournament lineups that include him. Pavlovich and Volkov are also friends and have trained together at multiple points, which adds an interesting but unpredictable dynamic to the mix. We believe that just adds to the volatility of this fight. Ultimately, Pavlovich is a popular low floor, high upside play who likely needs a first round knockout to return value, and he’s facing an opponent who’s only been knocked out twice in 47 pro fights. The odds imply Pavlovich has a 68% chance to win, a 53% chance to land a finish, and a 36% chance it comes in round one.
Volkov has averaged 92 DraftKings points in his 11 UFC wins and is coming off a career-best 125 point performance in a second round submission win over Tai Tuivasa, where Volkov completely filled up the stat sheet before landing a well timed finish just before the close of the second round. That’s only the second time that Volkov has topped 102 DraftKings points in his 16-fight UFC career. While he averages a decent amount of striking volume (5.10 SSL/min), he failed to land a takedown in any of his last eight fights, which has generally made it hard for him to really score well without a well timed finish. In his four three-round decision wins, he only averaged 70 DraftKings points and even at his cheap price tag he’s unlikely to score enough to be useful without a finish. However, at the same time, he doesn't need to put up a slate-breaking score to crack winning lineups so even a finish in the later rounds should be enough. The odds imply Volkov has a 32% chance to win, a 22% chance to land a finish, and an 11% chance it comes in round one.
Fight #1
Robert Whittaker
22nd UFC Fight (16-5)Fresh off a three-round decision win over Paulo Costa, Whittaker had been preparing to fight Khamzat Chimaev here. However, on June 13th, just nine days before the event, it was announced that Chimaev was out and later that day Aliskerov was announced as the replacement. In his recent win over Costa, Whittaker was able to outland his way to victory, finishing ahead 95-67 in a pure striking battle. However, while Whittaker controlled most of the fight, he did get hurt badly at the end of the first round, although was able to recover between rounds and win each of the later rounds. Prior to that win, Whittaker suffered a R2 TKO loss against the now champion Dricus Du Plessis. That followed a three-round decision win over Marvin Vettori in September 2022, after Whittaker lost a five-round decision to Israel Adesanya for the belt earlier that year. Whittaker’s only other loss in his last 17 fights was a 2019 R2 knockout against Adesanya the first time those two squared off. The last time Whittaker finished anybody was in 2017, when he landed a second round knockout against Jacare Souza.
Now 25-7 as a pro, Whittaker has nine wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and 11 decision victories. Thirteen of his 14 early wins occurred in the first two rounds, with the one exception being a 2013 R3 TKO. He’s been knocked out three times, submitted once, and has three decision losses. His lone submission loss occurred in round one all the way back in 2011, while his knockout losses were in 2014, 2019, and 2023. The last two of those ended in round two after the first occurred in round one. Whittaker fought at 170 lb to start his career, where he went 3-2 in his first five UFC fights before moving up to 185 lb in 2014. Since moving up to Middleweight, Whittaker has gone 13-3.
This will be the 9th five-round fight of Whittaker’s career and 8th in the UFC. In his lone five-round fight before he joined the UFC, he lost a decision all the way back in 2012. In his first UFC five-round fight, Whittaker knocked out Derek Brunson in the first round in 2016. He then won a five-round decision over Yoel Romero 2017 to win the interim Middleweight belt. They ran it back in Whittaker’s next fight, but Romero missed weight so the belt wasn’t on the line and Whittaker went on to win a split decision, despite getting knocked down twice and taken down three times. Whittaker then lost the belt in his first title defense in a 2019 R2 KO loss to Adesanya. Whittaker bounced back with a pair of decisions in his next two main event spots against a washed up Darren Till and an overweight Kelvin Gastelum, before losing a five-round decision in a 2022 rematch against Adesanya in Whittaker’s last five-round fight. So in summary, Whittaker went the distance in five of his last six five-round fights, with the one exception being a 2019 R2 KO loss to Adesanya.
Here are all of Whittaker’s five-round fights:
2022 R5 DEC L vs. Adesanya
2021 R5 DEC W vs. Gastelum
2021 R5 DEC W vs. Till
2019 R2 KO L vs. Adesanya
2018 R5 DEC W vs. Romero
2017 R5 DEC W vs. Romero
2016 R1 KO W vs. Brunson
- - -
2012 R5 DEC L vs. Juarez (Prec UFC)
Overall, Whittaker is a very well-rounded fighter who is good everywhere. His only three losses at 185 lb came against the former champ in Adesanya (twice) and the new champ in Du Plessis. While he hasn’t knocked anybody out since 2017, he throws dangerous head kicks that are hard to see coming. Whittaker has a really solid 82% takedown defense and has only been taken down 12 times on 70 attempts in his 21 UFC fights. He’s also been tough to hold down when he has been taken down. However, it’s worth pointing out that he hasn’t faced a ton of grapplers. Seven of his last eight opponents were strikers, with the one exception being a braindead Marvin Vettori who only attempted one failed takedown against Whittaker. You really have to go back to 2017-2018 to find the other examples of Whittaker facing a grappler, when he defeated Yoel Romero twice after knocking Jacare Souza out. And in those three fights, Whittaker was taken down eight times. It’s also worth pointing out that Romero has zero career submission wins and the only real submission threat that Whittaker has faced in the last decade was a 37-year-old Jacare Souza. Whittaker has shown improvements to his offensive wrestling in recent years, but his submission grappling has rarely been tested.
Ikram Aliskerov
3rd UFC Fight (2-0)Aliskerov had been preparing to face a short notice debuting opponent in Antonio Trocoli on last week’s card, but took this opponent change the day before weigh-ins. And before Trocoli stepped in, Aliskerov had been booked to face Andre Muniz, so he’s dealt with numerous opponent changes. Aliskerov has knocked out both of his UFC opponents in under half a round, after locking up a first round kimura on DWCS. Those three finishes ended in 127, 130, and 129 seconds respectively. The most recent of those finishes came against Warlley Alves, who was moving up from 170 lb to 185 lb, took the fight on short notice, and has now lost four straight fights. Prior to that, Aliskerov won his UFC debut against Phil Hawes, who has been knocked out in the first round in his last three and four of his last five fights. Aliskerov has won seven straight fights since suffering the only loss of his career in a 2019 R1 KO against Khamzat Chimaev. While Aliskerov’s last two finishes both ended in knockouts, his previous three finishes all came via kimura. Nine of his last 10 fights ended early, with the one exception being a 2022 wrestling-heavy decision win over Nah-Shon Burrell.
Now 15-1 as a pro, Aliskerov has six wins by KO/TKO, five submissions, and four decision victories. Four of those knockouts ended in round one with the other two occurring in round three. Three of his submission wins ended in the first round, one came in round two, and the other ended in round three. His only career loss also ended in a first round knockout.
This will be the 1st five-round fight of Aliskerov’s career and he’s never been in a fight that lasted longer than 15 minutes.
Overall, Aliskerov isn’t just a good grappler, he’s a great grappler and a Dagestani four time Combat Sambo World Champion who has spent time training with Khabib. Amazingly, he’s yet to even attempt a takedown in the UFC and seems to be looking to prove a point that his striking is world class as well. However, his last three finishes before joining the UFC all came via kimura, and he relied heavily on his grappling in all of those fights. He’s incredibly dangerous wherever fights go and by the time he finally uses his grappling, opponents may have forgotten that’s where he’s the strongest. He does a good job of avoiding damage (except for in the Chimaev fight), and is similar to Islam Makhachev in a lot of ways. We still need to see how he fares against top level talent in the UFC, but he’s definitely a guy to keep an eye on moving forward and we expect him to make a run for the title and potentially find himself in a rematch with Chimaev for the belt in the next year or two.
Fight Prediction:
Both fighters are 6’0” but Aliskerov will have a 3” reach advantage.
Ikram Aliskerov, or as we like to call him the Dagestani Archangel of Death, will finally have a legitimate reason to unveil his wings in this top-shelf matchup against the perennial top Middleweight contender in Whittaker. Despite being a world class grappler, Aliskerov didn’t even need to attempt a takedown in either of his first two UFC fights, but we expect that to change here. This is obviously a massive step up in competition for Aliskerov and we don’t expect him to try and win another pure striking battle. While Whittaker has a solid 82% takedown defense, he’s been facing almost exclusively strikers since 2018. The only grappler he’s faced since 2018 was a rock-chewing Marvin Vettori, who only attempted a single takedown in their fight. Yoel Romero took Whittaker down seven times across 10 rounds of action, after Souza also took Whittaker down once. Whittaker’s wrestling has improved over the years, so we won’t put too much stock into fights that took place seven years ago, but he really hasn’t been tested a whole lot since. Since his wins over Romero, only three of Whittaker’s last eight opponents tried to take him down. Du Plessis landed his only attempt, Vettori failed on his only attempt, and Gastelum landed 1 of his 5 attempts. So despite Whittaker’s good defensive wrestling, there’s no reason to think that Aliskerov won’t be able to get him down at some point. And considering how few submission threats Whittaker has faced, we don’t really know just how good his submission defense is. However, we have a pretty good idea of how good Aliskerov’s grappling is and we also know that most people are completely undervaluing it.
We like Aliskerov’s chances of not only pulling off the upset in this short notice matchup, but also finishing Whittaker. We’ll even take it a step further and say that Aliskerov locks up a kimura in the first two rounds. Then after the fight Whittaker will talk about how he didn’t realize how good of a grappler Aliskerov is because he knocked out his first two UFC opponents. Following that, the broadcast team will debate whether or not Aliskerov should immediately get a title shot or if he should fight Strickland or Chimaev next. Strickland will then turn down the fight and we’ll get an Aliskerov/Chimaev rematch to headline a card in the Middle East in late 2024.
Our favorite bet here is “Ikram Aliskerov SUB” at +800.
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DFS Implications:
Whittaker has been in seven UFC five-round fights, winning five of them. The last four of those victories all went the distance, as did the last loss, which was his 2022 defeat against Adesanya and the most recent time Whittaker was scheduled to go five rounds. The last time Whittaker won a five-round fight was in a 2021 decision over Kelvin Gastelum, who is 2-6 in his last eight fights. Whittaker was able to score 122 DraftKings points against Gastelum, but only averaged 79 DraftKings points in his previous three five-round decision wins. The only time Whittaker finished an opponent in a five-round fight was in 2016 when he knocked out Derek Brunson in the first round. And even if we include his three-round fights, Whittaker hasn’t finished anybody since 2017 when he knocked out a 37-year-old Jacare Souza. Eight of Whittaker’s last 10 fights went the distance, with the two exceptions being a pair of second round knockout losses. And only once in his last 10 fights did Whittaker surpass 88 DraftKings points, which was his outlier performance against Gastelum. So he’s rarely been relevant in DFS, although typically is lower owned because of that. The odds imply Whittaker has a 59% chance to win, a 33% chance to land a finish, and a 12% chance it comes in round one.
Aliskerov knocked out each of his two UFC opponents just before the midway point of round one, returning DraftKings totals of 110 and 108 points respectively. He never even attempted a takedown in either of those fights, despite being a world class grappler and four time Combat Sambo World Champion. However, prior to joining the UFC we had grown accustomed to seeing him dominate opponents on the mat, and his last three finishes on the regional scene all ended by kimura. That included a first round submission win on DWCS in 2022 that would have been good for 98 DraftKings points and 115 points on FanDuel. Nine of his last 10 fights ended early and the one exception was a 2022 wrestling-heavy decision victory. So he’s shown a really solid floor and a decent ceiling as well. He had been preparing to fight on last week’s card as a massive favorite, before this opportunity was presented the day before last week’s weigh-ins. That does add some level of uncertainty to the mix, as he had already been cutting weight and preparing to peak for his fight. Now he had to push everything back a week and go from fighting a short notice debuting opponent to a perennial top Middleweight contender. Calling that a step up in competition is an understatement, but if anyone is up for the task, it’s the Dagestani Archangel of Death. Whittaker’s 82% takedown defense is somewhat of a concern, but he also hasn’t been fighting any grapplers and we don’t want to get too hung up on it. We also don’t know how Aliskerov’s cardio will hold up in a five-round fight, considering he’s never been past the third round and had essentially no time to prepare for the additional rounds here. Nevertheless, Aliskerov has the ability to knock Whittaker out, submit him, or out wrestle his way to a decision win. And at his underdog price tag, a win of any kind will likely be enough for Aliskerov to end up in the optimal lineup. The odds imply Aliskerov has a 41% chance to win, a 32% chance to land a finish, and a 12% 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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Top UFC PrizePicks Play of the Week:
Nicolas Dalby UNDER 45.5 SS
