UFC 301: Pantoja vs. Erceg (5/4/24)

Note: Please read the full analysis, that is much more important than who I pick to win. The confidence relates to my pick to win, not the path to victory. Picks are NOT bets. Matchup breakdowns are written by Brett unless otherwise noted, and all DraftKings analysis is written by Brett. Both Technical Timand Luke Lampe will also contribute to matchup breakdowns.

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MAIN CARD

Alexandre Pantoja vs. Steve Erceg

Fight Odds: Pantoja -183, Erceg +157

Odds to Finish: -150

DraftKings Salaries: Pantoja 8.8k, Erceg 7.4k

Weight Class: 125

We are heading down to Rio de Janeiro this weekend for a stacked Brazilian PPV slate that features the flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja facing off with a steaming contender in Steve Erceg.

It was not even one year ago when Erceg made his debut in the UFC against David Dvorak as a sizable underdog, and quite frankly, I was not very high on his talents at that point. But Erceg comfortably pulled off the upset, and has since rattled off two more victories against Alessandro Costa and Matt Schnell, which has catapulted him into title contention.

To be fair though, Erceg is skipping the line. He’s currently ranked ninth in the division, but there weren’t many other options to face Pantoja in April. Sometimes, all you need is the opportunity.

And while Pantoja is obviously the more experienced fighter, and the more well-rounded fighter, who will be competing in front of his home country, I don’t consider this a completely one-sided matchup.

Despite my initial concerns about Erceg, I have actually been pretty impressed with what he’s displayed inside the Octagon.

I originally thought that he was destined to be dependent on his grappling, which I think he’s since proven was a poor assumption. Erceg has shown a competent boxing game, where he’s able to work behind a jab, with power and technique to boot, and that will at least keep him live on the feet for extended periods.

He’s coming off a brutal KO victory against Matt Schnell which partially showcases his power, though hurting Schnell is not a difficult task and I will still be hesitant to overrate his skills moving forward based on that one outcome alone.

Still, Erceg is landing 4.57 sig. strikes per minute, while absorbing 3.64 per minute with a 55 percent defensive rate. He keeps his head a little too upright and still for my liking, and he can be hit (and potentially hurt in the future) because of it, but he seems tough and durable as well.

As far as his grappling, Erceg is a solid submission grappler and a black belt in jiu-jitsu. He’s landed 1.69 takedowns per 15 minutes and is pretty strong at taking the back.

I really liked what he showed defensively against Costa as well, who dove on a fair few submission attempts. Erceg was able to scramble very nicely into advantageous positions, which gives me a decent bit of confidence that he won’t get stuck in some dumb submission and not know how to fight out of it.

Pantoja will be a far tougher test as a back-take specialist, but at least Erceg has some competency on the mat which may allow him to survive for an extended period of time.

Pantoja is coming off a one-sided victory over Brandon Royval in which Pantoja displayed a high-volume wrestling game that led to nearly 16 minutes of control. Prior to that, he had a Fight of the Year contender with Brandon Moreno that reaffirmed his ability to go to war for a full five rounds.

In totality, Pantoja is a high-volume muay-thai striker with an elite back-taking game, and he’s difficult to outclass in any single area.

He lands 4.32 sig. strikes per minute, while absorbing 3.90 per minute with a 50 percent defensive rate. He’s made some mistakes in the past, including a notable one against Figueiredo in which Pantoja allowed himself to brawl and got himself knocked down late in the round.

He’s also never been an elite power threat. Pantoja has four knockdowns within the UFC but in 14 appearances, that is not an elite rate. Figueiredo is the only person who has knocked him down, but he often wears damage pretty visibly.

Pantoja’s biggest strength is on the mat, where he’s a black belt in jiu-jitsu and an elite back-taker. I wouldn’t label him an elite submission grappler from any other position, nor is he an elite wrestler, but he is super dangerous with his ability to take the back, and he’s quite efficient at controlling from there and/or finding the RNC.

It’s been great to see him wrestle more proactively too in recent fights, as he landed eight takedowns against Royval and six against Moreno. Attempting more than 10 takedowns in 25 minutes will give him a very legit secondary path to victory, to go along with his volume striking.

As far as this matchup, I don’t think Erceg has a clear path to victory in any area, but I also don’t think Pantoja has the clearest paths either.

Sure, Pantoja can land 10 takedowns, take the back a bunch of times and choke Erceg out, but I’m not sure how likely that is.

Erceg has given up a couple of takedowns in the UFC, but it’s with such a small sample that I’m hesitant to say he’s a bad defensive wrestler. Nor is Pantoja an elite wrestler.

We can still project a few takedowns landed for Pantoja over 25 minutes and with that, he’ll definitely have potential to take the back. But we’ve already seen Erceg escape from back control against Costa, and he should be somewhat prepared for that position.

It’s quite possible Erceg will be just fine to survive there and extend the fight, or perhaps he will be able to hold Pantoja off of him more than we expect.

On the feet, I think Erceg has more power, but he’s likely to get hit far more often than he has in any fight in his career, and that’s tricky. Without seeing Erceg truly go to war for five rounds, it’s very difficult to project him to win that style of fight.

But in a vacuum, Erceg can land some big punches. He could maybe hurt Pantoja. He can land some leg kicks. He can probably compete in rounds with pure volume.

However, in front of a Brazilian crowd, I still favor Pantoja. His volume is more consistent and he’s probably faster and more versatile. Pantoja is probably also better defensively, and it wouldn’t be too shocking to see him hurt Erceg along the way.

If Erceg had a legit path to victory on the ground, I would give him a much better shot to win because I actually like what he can do as a wrestler. I mean, he can theoretically take Pantoja down here.

But what is that going to achieve? I’m doubtful Erceg can do much to hold Pantoja down, and I doubt he can threaten for a sub. So it feels like one of Erceg’s best weapons is neutralized.

Because of that, and the totality of each fighter’s game, I’ll favor Pantoja over the distance.

I do think it’s somewhat possible that this does turn into a war though. Pantoja has more grappling upside but it’s possible that gets neutralized. If that’s the case, Erceg might be able to take all the damage Pantoja can dish out for several rounds, and fire back. And it could turn into a real fun brawl.

I’d still favor Pantoja to come out ahead over the long run, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see it play out closer than the public expects.

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On DraftKings, Pantoja is priced at 8.8k and he’ll be a key piece of the puzzle this week given that number.

There are several high-end options this week, but of course they are more expensive. Pantoja carries five rounds of potential in this main event, and he’s just come off two wins that scored 143 and 143. Yes, both scored 143.

It’s weird because prior to that, Pantoja had won by 1st and 2nd round submission and not topped 100 points. He hasn’t always been a high-volume wrestler, nor a quick early finisher. And striking volume isn’t the best way to score over five rounds.

So historically, I wouldn’t say Pantoja has been an elite fantasy target. But coming off fights where he’s averaged seven takedowns, that type of output would put him firmly into the elite tier.

Simply based on his price, and his recent willingness to grapple, I think we have to consider the potential for elite upside. Even if Erceg can defend the back and survive, if Pantoja is going to attempt another 10-15 takedowns, I want a ton of exposure to him.

He’s only +160 to win ITD, but as we’ve seen recently, he doesn’t need to win ITD to reach a ceiling and it honestly may be better that he wins by decision.

Even in a slower performance, and one that doesn’t yield a ton of grappling points, Pantoja would project for a very nice floor and ceiling at 8.8k. Scoring 100 points may not be a lock for the optimal at 8.8k, but it would probably get him very close.

I do expect Pantoja to be chalk on this slate based on that price and his recent form, but he seems like a semi-obvious option and I’ll likely aim to have moderate exposure to him at least this weekend.

Erceg at 7.4k is certainly in consideration as well, and especially so for floor purposes.

He’ll project to have the best floor below the mid-range in a fight that’s -155 to go over 3.5 rounds. He can wrestle some and he can throw at a high rate, so as long as he’s not being held down, Erceg will score some points.

Whether or not he has real win equity is a tougher question, which impacts tournaments more. Last week, I was pretty confident Perez could compete in a similar spot to this, and I thought he was a great target at the price.

I do not think Erceg is as likely to win, and therefore, he is not as exciting to me. But there aren’t many great underdogs, and he’s actually been bet down to +157 to win, so in theory, the spot is ok.

And the pace of the matchup should still be pretty strong. Even in a loss, there’s a small possibility that Erceg could compete for the optimal if the dogs priced below him are getting blown out of the water.

I don’t think that should be a major factor for you when making lineups, but ultimately, Erceg just rates out as a solid secondary target. You’re going to want to prioritize other finishing options, or other grapplers below the mid-range in theory, but Erceg is actually +250 to win ITD which is strong.

For 7.4k, it’s not a major risk to mix Erceg in around the field percentage, or perhaps a little more. It’s a tough matchup to fully nail down given the lack of data, but there are enough positive elements to Erceg for me to play him moderately at this price discount.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Pantoja by Decision (Confidence=Medium-Low)

Jonathan Martinez vs. Jose Aldo

Fight Odds: Martinez -140, Aldo +121

Odds to Finish: +170

DraftKings Salaries: Martinez 8.3k, Aldo 7.9k

Weight Class: 135

A legend of the sport, Jose Aldo will return to the UFC for one last hoorah on Saturday as he faces another striker in Jonathan Martinez.

Supposedly, Aldo has been focusing on his boxing and feels good after nearly two years on the shelf, and he’s ready to make another run. Idk. He’s already gone through his HOF ceremony, and he says he wants to do a big boxing match soon.

At 37 years old, I don’t have much faith that he’ll stick around for long, and it’s hard to be confident in his form.

But this isn’t the worst landing spot against Martinez, who should give Aldo the fight he wants.

Martinez has always been sort of a mediocre kickboxer, but he’s recently broken through with a couple of devastating leg-kick knockouts over Cub Swanson and Adrian Yanez. 

And credit where credit is due, there’s a reason why I’ve said leg kicks are one of the best weapons you can have in this sport. Martinez has potentially used them to take an average kickboxing game into a dangerous one. He deserves tremendous credit for that.

Otherwise though, he’s still somewhat mediocre. He lands 4.64 sig. strikes per minute, while absorbing 3.76 per minute with a 58 percent defensive rate. His power is fine, but nothing special. His durability is fine, but he’s been knocked down a few times.

I generally just consider Martinez a fighter who can compete in rounds, but doesn’t have a ton of finishing prowess, and sort of lacks some of those athletic/power X factors that could take him to the next level. He also doesn’t wrestle.

Jose Aldo should, at the very least, be able to compete with this type of game.

He shouldn’t have to worry about takedowns coming from Martinez, even though his TDD has always been elite. He shouldn’t have to worry about incredible volume or power. Just mostly standard kickboxing with some dangerous leg kicks mixed in.

But, I can’t say I particularly trust Aldo’s form or production either. Aldo won’t wrestle, so he’s already limited in that sense. He throws a lower volume than Martinez historically, landing only 3.57 sig. strikes per minute, while absorbing 3.74 per minute with a 60 percent defensive rate.

Honestly, I think Martinez probably just throws kicks at a higher volume, from a longer distance, and that should set him up to have a slight numbers advantage.

Can either side change the momentum with a KD suddenly? Yes, but odds are suggesting the fight lasts a while, and neither is a major one-punch threat historically.

I could also see Aldo getting such a major home crowd backing that it feels like he’s winning or the fight is super close, even if he’s losing. Then judges get involved.

So to me, the fight is pretty basic, and simple. We’re very likely getting multiple rounds of mildly paced kickboxing. Martinez may try to destroy Aldo’s legs. Aldo will jab his way into the pocket and box, and throw some leg kicks himself.

I think I have to lean with Martinez just based on volume and recent form, but I don’t think he will have the easiest time hurting Aldo’s legs, and I could easily see rounds being competitive or swinging due to a one big shot.

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On DraftKings, this fight is going to rate out extremely poorly with a -260 line to last Over 2.5 rounds.

With the fight being projected to go the distance at a high rate, and no real wrestling equity from either side, we’re just getting slow paced striking with the hope of a KO. It’s going to leave the winner in major bust risk without an early finish.

Martinez is priced at 8.3k and has the better ITD line at +275, but it’s still not strong. Doesn’t even matter if he’s cleanly winning, volume is not going to be enough. His last decision scored 64 points.

Aldo is priced at 7.9k with an ITD line of +450, but he’s even more risky than Martinez. His last two decisions scored 76 and 60.

Despite the big names, I doubt either side will be very popular. It’s just really hard to make a clear case for the upside, and I think that puts both into semi-contrarian status.

In that, I do have some interest. Martinez obviously has proven KD ability due to leg kicks. I don’t think he’ll damage Aldo’s badly enough, but you never know. It’s hard to project. There’s some KD/KO upside just on that alone.

Aldo has also been knocked down a few times and given his age and form, there could be some durability wear. It’s only narrative based but because of these things, I wouldn’t mind using a bit of Martinez if he does project to be contrarian.

Aldo is similar, in that he’s still an experienced kickboxer, and Martinez has been dropped by multiple opponents. Andre Soukhamthath and Davey Grant to be exact, neither of whom are big names or talented opponents.

I don’t think Aldo will land a whole lot, but he has some KD equity. He’s won with body shots before too. You never know. If he projects to be contrarian, a sprinkle in tournaments is fine.

Fun fight here but just not one that rates out well from a fantasy perspective. Though if you’re looking for a place to be contrarian in the mid-range, there is some merit to being slightly overweight on one or both sides.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Martinez by Decision (Confidence=Medium-Low)

Anthony Smith vs. Vitor Petrino

Fight Odds: Petrino -600, Smith +432

Odds to Finish: -210

DraftKings Salaries: Petrino 9.4k, Smith 6.8k

Weight Class: 205

*Matchup analysis written by Technical Tim

I originally wasn’t very high on Vitor Petrino when I first watched him fight. 

However, he has grown on me and I successfully bet him in his last couple of matchups. He’s booked as a big favorite against the veteran Anthony Smith this weekend.

Petrino is 11-0 professionally and knocked out his Contender Series opponent to book his ticket to the UFC. He then won his UFC debut against Anton Turkalj. He landed seven takedowns in that fight but surrendered five as well. He then submitted Marcin Prachnio in round three after landing four takedowns in that matchup. 

He then knocked out Modestas Bukauskas after consolidating some top position earlier in the fight. In his most recent fight, he kind of beat up Tyson Pedro and landed three takedowns in that fight as well.

Petrino is a good athlete and a big, strong kid.  He is clearly dangerous early and can knock people dead. He generally wins fights by early knockout. I think he can hurt people at this level. 

Petrino also will try to land takedowns, and I do think he can take down average UFC fighters, and ride out top position and threaten with submissions. He is currently landing 3.86 takedowns per 15 minutes which is very good.

Petrino is just very green though. He doesn’t always throw a ton of strikes and I worry about his volume at times. I have also seen him hit and hurt before. I have also seen him taken down and get his back taken. So this guy isn’t perfect, and I don’t want to make him seem invincible.

Petrino just seems SO physical and tough, and I think that will carry him at these early stages of his UFC career. Petrino is also young at 26 years old and athletic, so I do think he can make improvements. Overall he is a pretty interesting prospect, especially at LHW which doesn’t have a ton of depth or talent.

For now, I consider Petrino dangerous and knock out capable early, but he probably will have low volume over the course of 15 minutes. He can also land takedowns at this level and his cardio does seem decent too. I think he is a guy to at least keep an eye on as he does have some upside.

Petrino will be taking on Anthony Smith. Smith is kind of a weird fighter. He is not the best round winner and his metrics are poor. However, he is a tough guy and has finishing capability on the feet and on the mat.

I still don’t think he is very good though, and never have. He also seems to be declining and can’t take a punch like he used to.

Smith is an okay striker. He lands 3.21 significant strikes per minute and absorbs 4.47 in return. He defends strikes at 46 percent. He has bad metrics, but I do think he is a little more skilled and dangerous on the feet than his metrics indicate. 

A lot of his strikes absorbed have been on the mat. Smith is moderately dangerous and an 8-limb threat. So he is capable of hurting opponents. I still don’t fully trust Smith on the feet though, especially if his opponents are defensively sound.

Smith is actually a pretty dangerous submission grappler. He sneakily performs pretty well in BJJ tournaments, and he hasn’t been submitted in MMA for a long time. He is a tough guy to finish on the mat, and he is good at getting the back and locking up submissions. Three of his last five wins have actually come by submission.

The issue is that Smith is a terrible positional wrestler. He defends takedowns at 48 percent and can be controlled for entire rounds on the mat. Alexandar Rakic obtained more than 12 minutes of control in a 15-minute fight against Smith which is just awful. So Smith getting outwrestled is always on the table.

As far as this matchup goes, Petrino has pretty clear wrestling and physicality advantages. I definitely think Petrino can land takedowns, ride out top position, and land some ground and pound on Smith. He may just beat Smith up on the mat honestly. So Petrino is surely the rightful favorite and should win this fight if he just sticks to wrestling.

On the feet, I definitely think Petrino can knock Smith dead. However, I actually do think Smith could have some success with volume. Petrino sometimes does not throw enough and Smith does have stretches of volume occasionally. So if Smith just doesn’t get hurt, I do think the striking could be competitive.

Still though, Petrino has all the wrestling upside, and is the more physical and younger athlete. Smith has also just never been great and seems to be declining. So everything here points to a Petrino win. My guess is Smith has to find a random finish to win this fight and that is a tough thing to predict as Petrino generally seems durable.

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On DraftKings, Petrino is one of many high-end targets, priced at 9.4k, and he will rate out very well on paper.

He’s got a safe moneyline at -600, with grappling equity, and a -155 ITD line. Like others in this range, he’ll project very well and could be played moderately in all formats.

I do have some issues with Petrino though. I’ve never been a huge fan of his talent, mostly because I question his defense. I also tend not to gravitate toward front-loaded fighters, though Petrino is coming off a solid decision win.

In his last fight against Pedro, Petrino was in a similar position to this, and barely did anything until late in the fight. He landed 10 strikes in round one, and 10 strikes in round two. He only attempted one takedown in the first 10 minutes, which came in round two.

That just makes me extremely nervous for a guy who is already boom or bust. If you’re going to be boom or bust, at least fight in a way where I can count on booms in wins. Now, I think there’s legitimate cause for concern that he simply won’t chase a finish early, which limits his entire fantasy potential.

Petrino will still have finishing equity though. It’s reasonable to think he could fight more aggressively here, at home in Brazil. A KO is in play. Takedowns and GnP is in play.

I’ve never liked Smith and never thought he was great, so in that sense it’s not a bad matchup. Conversely, Smith is very experienced and capable in all areas, so I don’t think it’s an easy matchup either.

There was a time not that long ago when Smith fought a young killer prospect in Jim Crute and destroyed his leg, resulting in a first-round finish. Smith used to be this guy who would get beaten up for a whole fight and come back to win.

It’s not a description you’d want, because he’s beatable, but he’s also historically a tough guy who will fight back as much as he can.

All this to say, Petrino still feels extremely boom or bust and I’m not particularly confident that he’ll boom. I still think he’s a solid fantasy target for pure upside, but he’s not my favorite option in this range and I think it would be fine to pay down a bit as well.

Smith at 6.8k is probably my favorite pure punt, though I don’t expect I’ll end up in the 6k range often.

I just have to point out that Petrino was knocked down on DWCS, and he was taken down five times by Anton Turkalj. I am still very skeptical of Petrino defensively, and I’m nervous he’ll break sometime soon.

Smith doesn’t have the best game, but there’s some KO equity here, and some grappling equity. He’s a big dog and only +600 to win ITD, so I would only label him a pure punt, but he’s at least a punt with an opponent who makes defensive errors. I don’t mind a small sprinkle given that and the leverage you’ll get.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Petrino by TKO, RD 2 (Confidence=Medium)

Michel Pereira vs. Ihor Potieria

Fight Odds: Pereira -671, Potieria +471

Odds to Finish: -500

DraftKings Salaries: Pereira 9.6k, Potieria 6.6k

Weight Class: 185

Coming off back-to-back first-round stoppages, Michel Pereira will get another opportunity to smash in front of his home crowd this weekend, as he’ll take on Ihor Potieria.

Pereira was once considered a meme in this sport – a laughable fighter with closeted upside due to his poor fight IQ. He would sprint across the cage to display flying maneuvers, he would attempt backflips in the middle of the fight for no reason whatsoever, and this style completely taxed his gas tank to the point of failure.

Fortunately, he seems to have his head screwed onto his shoulders a little tighter, and it’s allowed his game to flourish, where he’s been able to achieve seven consecutive victories inside the Octagon.

Pereira is best as a distance manager, where he can kick, evade, and explode into strikes when necessary. He lands 5.15 sig. strikes per minute, while absorbing 3.71 per minute at a 58 percent defensive rate.

We’ve seen him go the distance several times now, including a solid performance against Santiago Ponzinibbio in which Pereira landed 110 significant strikes. We’ve also seen more finishing upside as of late, as he demolished Andre Petroski in 66 seconds, and most recently submitted Michal Oleksiejczuk with a standing RNC in the same amount of time.

Pereira is proving to be a pretty well-rounded fighter overall. He’s not a super dynamic wrestler but he averages 1.55 takedowns per 15 minutes and has defended at 94 percent. He’s a black belt in jiu-jitsu and capable on the mat.

And his ability to limit his opponent’s attack on the feet has been key. In totality, it’s a style that should continue to lead to success in rounds.

Looking at this matchup against Potieria, there aren’t many places where Potieria rates out better, and it feels like Pereira has him covered just about everywhere.

Potieria is a basic striker with some knockout power, but without early damage, he is not likely to sustain much success at this level.

With that said, Potieria has managed to land four knockdowns in his last six fights, and he even hurt his last opponent very late in the fight, which was a surprise considering his previous cardio issues.

Still, his wins have not come against quality competition, and I would argue his defense, cardio, and grappling are all pretty clear weaknesses.

Potieria is currently landing 5.19 sig. strikes per minute, while absorbing 5.01 per minute with a 51 percent defensive rate. He’s been TKOd in all three of his UFC losses, with all three losses ending in round one or round two.

He’s also defending takedowns at 57 percent, and looks poor on the bottom. It looks pretty clear that he will continue to struggle against quality grapplers and has potential to get finished on the mat.

All in all, Potieria has some mild early KO upside, but he’s very unlikely to succeed at a per-round level, and he looks quite breakable defensively, both on the feet and on the mat.

Against Pereira, I have a hard time projecting Potieria for much success in any area.

Standing, Pereira is far better. He fights at a longer distance than Potieria and is not likely to put himself in much danger with his evasive style.

While it’s possible Potieria could chase Pereira down and hurt him, Pereira has only been KOd once in 41 pro fights, so his durability has held up very well. I think it’s far more likely that Pereira hurts Potieria early, or damages him enough with kicks to slow him down.

By round two, it seems pretty likely that Pereira can start to unload on Potieria and find a finish. He may also be able to wrestle at any time, and control Potieria on the mat.

While Pereira tends to slow down halfway through fights due to his explosive nature, I do not trust Potieria’s cardio to hold up longer, and Pereira can at least fight through fatigue.

It really makes me believe that Potieria’s best chance to win is to hurt Pereira badly early, but that’s an outcome I’d throw into the randomness/variance category rather than anything projectable.

There are tougher matchups for Pereira in the division and I’ll be less confident in him there, but Potieria is a bottom-level fighter in this division and I think the most likely outcome is Pereira styling on him and finding another early stoppage.

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On DraftKings, Pereira is the most expensive fighter on the board at 9.6k, and that’s going to make him a little bit difficult to roster.

It’s interesting because we’re coming off a week in which the two most expensive fighters were barely played, yet both ended up on the optimal lineup. Now on a 14-fight slate, I doubt the public will be able to get up to Pereira at a very high rate.

There aren’t a lot of cheap, obvious underdogs this week, so finding a big salary discount won’t be easy. And despite Pereira coming off two quick finishes, neither has scored well enough on DraftKings because he just missed the quick win bonus – so his 65-second victories have only scored 95 and 103.

But he’ll still project as an awesome upside target, though he’s still relatively dependent on the finish. Pereira is -260 to win ITD in this matchup which is very strong, and my matchup analysis leads me to believe his finishing opportunity is legit.

If I do have the salary available to pay up for Pereira, I will strongly consider it. Of course there are nice constructions which allow you to pay down for your first fighter, so I wouldn’t call Pereira a must. But I’d argue Pereira has some of the best RD1/RD2 finishing equity on this slate, and that’s the outcome I am expecting.

So at 9.6k, Pereira feels like a strong target to me. An early KO still won’t guarantee an optimal score but I think he has more fantasy upside than he’s shown in his past two wins. I certainly want some exposure to him this week, and if it looks like the public will prefer cheaper options, I would not mind ending up overweight on Pereira.

All in all, Pereira is one of my favorite high-end tournament targets, though I acknowledge he has some boom/bust elements to his game.

Potieria at 6.6k is just a pure punt option, and he does have some knockout upside. I just don’t think it’s a super realistic outcome and with a limited portfolio, I won’t be targeting Potieria.

He is only +450 to win ITD and has a very low floor, with no real grappling equity. I expect him to lose at a high rate.

Unless you have a large portfolio and want a dart throw sprinkle, I wouldn’t spend too much time investing in Potieria this weekend.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Pereira by TKO, RD 2 (Confidence=High)

Paul Craig vs. Caio Borralho

Fight Odds: Borralho -700, Craig +487

Odds to Finish: -175

DraftKings Salaries: Borralho 9.5k, Craig 6.7k

Weight Class: 185

*Matchup analysis written by Technical Tim

Looking to win his first six UFC fights, Caio Borralho will have to pass the Paul Craig test this weekend.

I actually like Borralho as a fighter. I think he is a solid and well-rounded fighter who is likely a future top 10 middleweight, and could potentially make a run in this division.

On the feet, Borralho takes a Lyoto Machida point striking type of approach. He really looks like a silhouette of Machida out there as he uses that karate stance, and blitzes in and out of range. Borralho lands 2.73 significant strikes per minute and absorbs 1.98 in return.

Although Borralho can hold his own on the feet, I still don’t think he is potent offensively and he has limited volume upside. He is more so good at limiting engagements and not getting hit.

I do consider Borralho a skilled grappler and a good back taker. I believe he has a judo base, and I consider his grappling a consistent path to victory at this level. He lands 2.16 takedowns per 15 minutes which is solid. He has consistently taken down his competition, taken the back, and held body triangles. I think he is a good grappler.

Borralho is simply a solid, well-rounded fighter. He is skilled on the feet and good defensively. He is a good grappler and has good cardio. He has a solid process to win rounds at this level.

Borralho will be taking on Paul Craig. Paul Craig is one of the great representations of never knowing what is going to happen in this sport. This guy literally lost 14 minutes and 58 seconds of a fight to Magomed Ankalev, and then won the fight with a last second random triangle choke from the bottom. No joke.

Craig is best as a submission grappler and he has shown time and time again that he can get random guard submissions. It is still not a path to victory that I like to count on or bet on. However, it is definitely a path to victory that I respect for Craig. He has just shown that he can do it consistently, and even against good competition.

The issue with Craig is that he is not the best minute winner. He is almost always losing fights up until he obtains his submission. So it is just easy to imagine him losing fights, and it’s why he’s easy to pick against in general.

As a striker, Craig only lands 2.42 significant strikes per minute and absorbs 2.86 in return. He defends strikes at 45 percent. I just don’t think he is very skilled as a striker and he doesn’t possess a ton of power. He also has been knocked out four times in the UFC. 

I don’t think his chin is awful. However, it is still definitely a concern and I imagine he will be knocked out a few times before his career is over.

I do think Craig’s striking has improved a bit though, compared to his early run in the UFC. He is willing to get a bit more aggressive and pressure or panic his opponents. I still don’t trust him to beat any skilled strikers on the feet.

I actually do think Craig is an underrated wrestler offensively. He is known for getting submissions off his back and he is there often because he only defends takedowns at 37 percent. However, Craig actually lands 1.76 takedowns per 15 minutes and can surprise opponents with well-timed takedowns. He actually took down Magomed Anklaev twice which goes to show that he is capable. Craig is capable of taking the back as well.

Like most Paul Craig fights, I think he is submission or bust in this matchup. I will truly never count Craig out of a fight. He has beaten top five level fighters with random finishes, including the former LHW champion Jamahal Hill. So theoretically he could win this fight and any fight really.

However, Borralho is just such a fundamentally sound fighter. He is a BJJ black belt and has never been submitted in his professional career. He should be able to land takedowns whenever he wants in this matchup and ride out top position. He can likely advance position and threaten with ground and pound or a submission himself. He is just such a better round-winning grappler than Craig is.

Furthermore, Borralho is the better round-winning striker as well, especially defensively. Borralho isn’t super powerful, but I do think he can blitz in and hurt Craig.

Overall, Borralho is just the better round winning fighter and is surely the rightful favorite in this matchup. Craig has surprised many people many times. However, more often than not, I think Borralho is too smart and risk adverse to get submitted here. So my guess is Borralho avoids getting submitted and runs away with this fight. 

—

On DraftKings, Borralho is one of many heavy favorites, and he’s priced highly for it at 9.5k.

He is going to rate out very well in the sense that he is safe to win, he has grappling equity, and he’s lined at -140 to win ITD. For these basic reasons alone, he’ll be projected very well and can be played moderately in any format.

He’s not my favorite option though, and I consider him much more of a safe option than a fighter who I am confident will smash his way into the optimal lineup.

I just think Craig is more vulnerable as a striker than a grappler, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him extend this fight. Borralho doesn’t land a ton of strikes on the ground, and he’s only been mediocre as far as finishing ability, so I am a bit worried about his pure ceiling when compared to others in this range.

He’s scored more than 100 points once, which was 107 against Oleksiejczuk in a round two sub. I would probably bet against 107 being optimal on this slate at this price.

I still think it’s very likely Borralho scores well, and he could definitely exceed 100 in a win. Grappling semi-domination with some finishing upside will give him a good result. But unless it comes with ground-and-pound or several takedowns with an early finish, I just see a little more downside and I worry he won’t easily stand out in a range full of finishers.

I’m unsure what the public will think, but my guess is Borrahlo won’t be extremely chalky just based on price. There are plenty of good options so you don’t have to pay up this far if you don’t want to, and obviously salary will restrict many constructions. I wouldn’t say he’ll be contrarian but if you do like him, it’s a bonus that he may be under owned compared to his metrics.

I like Borralho and I consider him one of the safest options on this slate, but at 9.5k I don’t fully love him.

Craig at 6.7k doesn’t really interest me. If I want to take a shot on a big dog, it won’t be Craig.

Excluding the fact that he’s a +500 underdog, Craig just doesn’t produce a lot of points. So even in a kickboxing fight, I don’t know what real upside he has unless he scores a random KO.

Maybe he has slight grappling equity but I doubt he can control Borralho or take him down often. He is +650 to win ITD and Borralho is excellent at limiting his opponent’s attacks.

I get the idea of a small percentage of Craig for the pricing/ownership aspect but with a limited portfolio I’m leaning more toward passing altogether.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Borralho by Decision (Confidence=High)

UNDERCARD

Jack Shore vs. Joanderson Brito

Fight Odds: Brito -163, Shore +141

Odds to Finish: -175

DraftKings Salaries: Brito 8.5k, Shore 7.7k

Weight Class: 145

*Matchup analysis written by Technical Tim

We have a classic round winner vs finisher matchup when Jack Shore takes on Joanderson Brito this weekend.

I am a fan of Jack Shore’s game and bet him big against Nohelin Hernandez in his UFC debut. His bread and butter is his grappling. He reminds me of his training partner Brett Johns. He tenaciously shoots for takedowns and looks to get the back and the RNC. He is a skilled grappler from a wrestling and submission point of view.

Shore lands 3.42 takedowns per 15 minutes and relentlessly pursues them. Some of Shore’s wins have come from weak competition though, so Shore was clearly able to pad his stats. However, I consider Shore a very solid wrestler who can absolutely wreck weak grapplers.

He also looked great against a good fighter in Timur Valiev and had some grappling success in that fight. So I think he can have some mild success against decent grapplers too.

Shore also seems to be a pretty good defensive grappler. He defends takedowns at 79 percent and generally works up well the few times that I have seen him taken down. His getup after being taken down by Timur Valiev was really impressive. Valiev did have some takedown success though.

Shore is also an underrated striker. I don’t think he is great on the feet but he is competent. His numbers are skewed in the UFC because many of his strikes have been on the mat, so I won’t even go into them. However, he seems to be a competent boxer with decently sharp hands. He also has good low kicks as well.

He never really makes poor decisions on the feet. Again, I don’t think he is up to par with some of the good strikers at bantamweight, but I do think he can compete just fine against plenty of guys.

Shore showed that in his fight against Timur Valiev as well. Shore was outlanded at distance 67-54. However, Valiev generally just landed body and low kicks. Shore outlanded Valiev to the head 46-23 and knocked Valiev down twice. It was a fine performance by Shore and showed that he is a decent striker.

Shore was hurt badly and finished by Simon though in his lone professional loss. It wasn’t a great look as Simon hurt him and then finished him on the mat. Shore seemed to struggle with the physicality and power a bit which does give me some pause as Shore may be a guy who can get bullied a bit.

Shore will be taking on Joanderson Brito. I think a decent comparison for Brito is Deiveson Figuereido. He is your typical Brazilian, who is aggressive and will come forward. Before his UFC debut, Brito had a decent regional run where he generally finished people with powerful strikes or by power submissions. He is pretty dangerous and capable of big moments. He has finished all four of his UFC opponents as well, so he is clearly a dangerous guy.

On the feet, Brito is not super skilled but he is explosive and fast twitched. He generally moves forward with pressure and kind of just wings bombs. He will also mix in some decent leg kicks as well. The pressure is the main ingredient of Brito’s striking game. He is just constantly moving forward.

I don’t totally trust him as a technical striker or round winner. However, I do think that he is capable of having big moments or maybe keeping rounds competitive because of his aggression.

Brito also likes to mix in takedowns. He lands 3.40 takedowns per 15 minutes. However, a lot of his grappling success has come against poor wrestlers. I don’t think he is all that great as an offensive wrestler.

Brito defends takedowns at 50 percent and has been controlled in fights before. I thought he did a decent job defending takedowns against Pearce honestly. However, Algeo controlled him and I do think he can lose fights via takedowns and control. He has a really dangerous guillotine choke though and he caught Pearce with it in his last fight.

As far as this matchup goes, I really do think Shore is a better round winner here. If Shore just stays conscious, I think he can win rounds on the feet, land takedowns, and consolidate top position as well. He may even be able to advance position, as I consider Shore a dangerous and skilled submission grappler. 

So Shore is definitely live here. I really just think he will generally be winning the minutes in this matchup so I am going to pick him for the upset.

The issue is Brito is extremely dangerous and has shown several times that he can finish UFC level competition. I do think Brito can just be aggressive and hurt Shore in this matchup. Brito is obviously live for the knockout and may just be too much for Shore to handle early.

Brito may also be able to land a guillotine if Shore is reckless on takedown attempts. I honestly am leaning against that though as Shore is a BJJ black belt and will be a tough cat to submit unless he is hurt.

Look, Shore may get finished, but I generally pick round winners over finishers in matchups. So I think the line value is on Shore.

—

On DraftKings, this is definitely a fight of interest in what could have a binary dynamic, with the winner projecting to exceed value at their respective price.

Brito is tagged at 8.5k and he’ll be the more boom or bust side of the two. He has mild wrestling equity, but I would not expect offensive production alone to be enough for him to exceed value.

His best shot will be to find an early finish, which I don’t think is extremely likely, but possible. Brito is a dangerous fighter early, and we’ve seen Shore hurt before. I think Brito has some KO or SUB equity and he rates out very well at -105 to win ITD.

His box score looks nice as well, with four consecutive wins and three of those wins exceeding 105+ fantasy points. Given the mid-range price, Brito is a pretty decent tournament option for his finishing upside.

However, he’s also not a fighter I’m dying to target, and I haven’t been super high on him in the past. I just don’t rate early finishing ability as highly as the public does, so this is not the typical spot where I get excited.

I do think he’s worthy of consideration but I will use him more as a secondary target rather than a primary one, and I wouldn’t mind coming in underweight personally.

Shore at 7.7k is my preferred option given his wrestling and grappling upside. He has submission equity and he’s also scored 105 points in a decision before.

I do think a win for Shore most likely comes with a few takedowns, and ground control. Because of that, I consider his floor and ceiling in a win to be pretty strong.

I am a bit nervous about him too though, because Brito tends to have strong starts. I could see Brito actually landing takedowns early here, and limiting the points Shore puts up. Brito has done this multiple times and then completely fallen off after round one, so there is potential for Shore to start slow and take over as the fight progresses.

Ultimately, his grappling upside is worth targeting to some degree. He is only +380 to win ITD though and may not dominate from start to finish, so I’m just a bit worried he won’t completely smash, in what could be a close decision.

I’m still willing to target Shore as a solid secondary target, on a slate with weak underdogs, but I wouldn’t say I have the utmost confidence in what the result will be.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Shore by Decision (Confidence=Low)

Karolina Kowalkiewicz vs. Iasmin Lucindo

Fight Odds: Lucindo -400, Kowalkiewicz +311

Odds to Finish: +150

DraftKings Salaries: Lucindo 9.2k, Kowalkiewicz 7k

Weight Class: 115

*Matchup analysis written by Luke Lampe

Karolina Kowalkiewicz is entering her 10th year on the active roster at the not so ripe age of 38 years old. However, she’s shown a bit of a late career resurgence, now riding a 4-fight win streak – she’s 9-7 in the UFC and 16-7 as a pro. Iasmin Lucindo on the other hand is one of the younger females on the roster at just 22 years old and has some real promise as a prospect – she’s 2-1 in the UFC and 15-5 as a pro.

The striking component:

Karolina is an aggressive, high-output striker who lands 5.92 sig. strikes per minute with a 43% accuracy.  

She’s been primarily boxing based throughout her career, but we have seen her mix in kicks more in recent years, coupled with a good clinch game.   In her nine UFC wins, she’s outpaced all of her opponents with the exception of Juarez by a few strikes.     

The issue with Karolina is that despite her output, she’s struggled defensively, eating 5.55 sig. strikes per minute with a 59% defensive rate. Conversely to her wins, she’s been outpaced in six of her losses (Penne fight had little distance time) – a couple of them by slim margins though by girls with better output or more technical strikers.    

It does need to be noted that Karolina has fought a great strength of competition though. To illustrate her L’s, she lost to two former champions, the current flyweight champion, two former title challengers, and then other top 15 girls.   

So, she’s had to fight some tough girls in her run and in 2024, I think it’s fair to say that Karolina isn’t a top girl, but that’s not to say she can’t still compete with or beat a healthy chunk of the division on the feet.

Overall, she’s strong offensively, but still struggles defensively although I have seen some maturation in recent fights in terms of moving better in and out of the pocket.

Lucindo comes from a kickboxing background but prior to her UFC debut, we hadn’t really seen much of her stand up.   

In the bit we did, she barely threw strikes and largely only threw in single shots.  But in her debut against Jauregui, she looked like a completely different fighter.   

Lucindo ultimately got out landed but competed and made a very good account of herself in the outing. Jauregui is one of the more talented female prospects right now (in my opinion) and she gave her an honest scrap on short notice.   

Assuming what we saw in that fight being transparent to her going forward, she is going to outwork many girls she fights and has some serious pop in her hands.   

She wasn’t super high volume against Walker, but she picked her apart cleanly and lumped her up. She also hurt Viana standing in the last outing.

What I still don’t like is that her defense in the pocket isn’t great, and can be a bit sporadic with her shot selection, but she’s got really fast hands and her strikes make an impact on opponents.

Overall, for a girl who’s only 22, the sky’s the limit from a striking perspective if she can refine her process and tighten things up a bit more.

How it plays out: I don’t have much hesitation with the volume of Lucindo in this spot because Karolina fights on the feet are always wars, just based on her style. I think the advantages for Lucindo come in speed, power and blitzes. But Karolina is probably the more technical girl of the two who has shown more consistent volume patterns throughout her career. 

Where I’m having some trouble overall in analyzing the stand up is determining what range the fight is going to be fought in. Both girls tend to do best as front foot based strikers, so it may come down to who can lead the dance – although we have seen Karolina out struck from the outside before but against more technical parties than Lucindo. I see merit to both girls on paper, but I do side with Lucindo because despite Karolina showing her toughness throughout her career, the striking can really start to snowball for her when she starts getting lumped up in fights, and Lucindo does have the pop in her punches to potentially do that here.

The wrestling/grappling component:

Karolina is a striker by nature so she hasn’t had an overt amount of wrestling success in her run, and that is reflected in her numbers as well – 0.36 TDs per 15 minutes at 26%. 

However, she was able to get to the back of Herrig despite not landing a conventional TD and actually secured her 1st submission victory there in nearly a decade.  She was able to land some TDs on Juarez and win the first round that way as well. 

Additionally, she was fine on top of Demopoulos after she pulled guard and was able to gain dominant positions early on Belbita after getting thrown.

Defensively, she stuffs at 74% which is good but when girls have grounded her in the aggregate, she’s struggled.    

Gadelha took her down, got her back and subbed her fairly quickly – Waterson got a handful of TDs and some top time – Yan took her down five times and got five minutes of control. Against Penne, Karolina actually took Penne down, but Penne was able to work up to a body lock, land a trip, work into dominant position and finish with an armbar.    

The fight IQ was probably the most alarming thing for Karolina there.   So.. she has dropped rounds on her back before but her control against rate per TD actually isn’t terrible.

Overall, it does appear that Karolina’s ground game has been a point of progression since moving to American Top Team in the last few years, but I still have my concerns if she’s grounded by more capable ground fighters.    

Lucindo is a BJJ purple belt with the bulk of her career success coming on the ground pre-UFC.    

I don’t think she’s anything super special as a wrestler but she’s physical for 115 lbs and is strong from body lock positions, and able to get girls down from there.

When on top, she’s shown to be pretty strong in terms of being able to pass and maintain top/dominant positions.   She’s snagged up a few armbars back regionally, but I’d say her ground and pound is probably a better component of her ground game.

I do partially attribute some of her success to fighting incompetent grapplers though – the last girl she fought regionally was a Judo black belt, but we also know that Judo players tend to not be great when put on their backs – that girl was also trash in general. 

She does have a W over UFC alum Sarah Frota, but it was a fight I was unable to view – Tapology has it listed as UD win while Sherdog has it as a SD win – kind of interesting.  

We then saw very little grappling in her debut as Jauregui was able to stuff both of Lucindo’s TDAs.  She landed four on Walker but they came towards the end of rounds – she did end the 2nd in mount.

Most recently, Viana was able to get her down from a body lock and rack up some control but wasn’t able to do anything with the position, forcing a ref stand-up. But Lucindo then turned the tides in the 2nd round, getting Viana down from the body lock to where she ended up passing guard and finishing via arm triangle. 

I’ve always thought that Viana’s BJJ is a bit overrated, but she is a black belt who had only been submitted once prior, so it’s a good feather in the cap of Lucindo at the end of the day.   

Overall, I like largely what I’ve seen from Lucindo as she’s shown strong process from top positions, but it’s still a bit concerning that the Viana fight is the only time that I’ve seen her on the bottom and she didn’t conventionally work up to the feet.

How it plays out: The ground is interesting here, especially with some of the recent evolutions from Karolina. However, the positions that Karolina has gotten into in recent years haven’t really come from conventional TDs – Herrig failed TDAs, Juarez slipped and she popped out the back after being taken down by Belbita. So, I still don’t think her entry level wrestling has gotten all that better to be honest. I ultimately have some concerns with both girls should they be grounded based on historics. But I lean more to the Lucindo side because I think she’s physically stronger than Karolina, probably more likely to attempt TDs and has the better top game of the two.

Fun booking as we’ve seen a little late career resurgence from Karolina and Lucindo is one of the more touted female prospects right now. Lucindo’s obviously far less “proven” than Karolina but Karolina’s run’s also been interesting. Like her only real quality win was against Rose back in 2016 but all of her losses have been forgivable outside of Penne. So benchmarking the fight is kind of difficult because I don’t put Lucindo on par with most of the girls who have beaten Karolina (in current form at least), but I also think she’s better than the majority of girls Karolina has beaten. But I do come out on the Lucindo side because I think the general power, optics, physicality, youth, finishing and wrestling upside all favor Lucindo.

—

On DraftKings, Lucindo is another high-profile target this week and priced up to 9.2k.

But like many in this range, I do have some concerns. Most notably in that Lucindo hasn’t been a super dominant grappler within the UFC and I think that’s her best chance to produce a score that can compete within this range.

In two UFC wins, Lucindo has scored 94 and 73, with the former coming in a second round submission. I would probably want 110 points from my fighter in this range, on a slate like this, so Lucindo would need to show upside that she hasn’t achieved yet.

I do think it’s possible, as Karolina fights at a high pace, but has defensive lapses. I’m not particularly concerned about Lucindo hurting her, because unless it happens in round one and it leads to a KO, I’m just not sure striking alone will be enough. The grappling is really my focus here, where Karolina has been submitted a couple of times.

Lucindo is +135 to win ITD which is fine, but I’m just not sure how much I trust it. I’m not sure how much the public will trust it either.

My guess is with bigger names and better finishing metrics throughout, Lucindo may actually not be super popular. There are multiple fighters priced above and below her who should draw more attention.

Frankly, it’s hard to be decisive within this range. I don’t want to rule out Lucindo, as she does have grappling upside and will carry a lower ownership than average. I also don’t want to target her aggressively because I fear for an extended fight.

I’ll probably use Lucindo as a secondary target this week and she’ll fit in more nicely with lineups where I cannot pay up further. 

Kowalkiewicz at 7k will rate out as the best floor play below Erceg, which is where she gets the majority of her viability.

The 6k range feels entirely boom or bust, though the heavy underdog lines do bleed into the 7k range. KK is only +311 to win, with a +1600 ITD line and not much grappling equity. Because of that, you can just avoid her if you like.

However, I feel she has one of the more winnable matchups in this bottom tier, if I had to choose some. Lucindo isn’t fully proven, and KK can at least strike at a very high volume.

At 7k, it’s possible KK could lose and score 40 points, which could possibly even put her in contention for the optimal on this slate. We may not get many dog wins given the heavy favorite lines, so I do have some extra intrigue with floor based options.

I would still only consider Kowalkiewicz a secondary option at best, and not necessarily one I am prioritizing. But she’s in cash game consideration in a fight that’s projected to go the distance at -180, and has some value in floor scenarios where the bulk of other dogs also lose.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Lucindo by Decision (Confidence=Medium-Low)

Elves Brener vs. Myktybek Orolbai

Fight Odds: Orolbai -255, Brener +211

Odds to Finish: -110

DraftKings Salaries: Orolbai 9k, Brener 7.2k

Weight Class: 155

I’m still flying high from Myktybek Orolbai’s UFC debut when he shut out Uros Medic, up a weight class, on short notice, submitting him in the second round.

Now he’ll drop down from 170 to 155 pounds to face Elves Brener, who has been on a remarkable run himself.

Brener came into the UFC as a BJJ player, with 11 of his now 16 wins coming by submission. However, it’s been his boxing and toughness that’s been a stand out in this promotion, and it’s led to three pretty crazy wins in a row.

In his UFC debut, Brener was a massive underdog against Zubaira Tukhugov, and somehow edged out a close decision with boxing. Then he fought Guram Kutateladze, who beat him up badly for two rounds, but allowed Brener to mount a comeback late that led to a TKO upset.

Most recently, he knocked Kruschewsky out cold in the first round.

We’ve gotten to the point that it’s legitimately scary to fade Brener. He will throw hard and has power in his hands. He apparently has incredible cardio. His base grappling is decent and he’s hard to put away.

At the same time, a loss for Brener feels due. His wrestling is not great, and so his offensive path to victory on the ground hasn’t been consistent. He was taken down by Kutateladze and held against the cage by Tukhugov, and I’m skeptical that his defense will continue to hold up.

On the feet, he’s absorbing more than 5.0 sig. strikes per minute, and he was badly, badly hurt by Kutateladze. A knockout loss feels very possible soon.

I am so biased toward Orolbai at this point, but like, our sample with him isn’t that great, so I’m not sure we should feel so comfortable with who he is.

Orolbai is now 12-1-1 as a pro with six wins by KO and five by submission. He’s a strong wrestle-boxer and he looks pretty competent in all areas.

His grappling is definitely his strongest skill though. Tied in with his athleticism, Orolbai is physically strong, and he just showed against Medic he can push a decent pace, with control and finishing aspects in his game.

Striking is where I would guess he is weakest, but we haven’t seen much of it in the UFC. He looks like he can throw some straight punches well, and he carries decent power.

I doubt he’s an extremely high volume striker though, and would probably be more dependent on bursts, or using it to eventually get into wrestling exchanges. I haven’t seen him hit a lot, but he got hit pretty cleanly by Medic early on. At least he took it, and that was up a weight class, but I wouldn’t want him to get hit a lot obviously.

My guess is that he can take Brener down and control him, and just be the bigger, more physically strong party in the clinch. Brener may be skilled enough as a submission grappler to threaten mildly, or survive and force extended exchanges.

His first-level takedown defense hasn’t been that bad so far either. He can possibly just defend takedowns outright and force a boxing match. I doubt it though. It’s hard not to be bullish on Orolbai.

Standing, Brener would definitely be live and I think I would favor him outright just due to what he’s shown in the UFC. Decent pacing, decent power, decent cardio and durability.

Orolbai is probably just as good as him technically, and he probably has as much power. He can probably hurt Brener in an exchange just like Brener can hurt him. I feel less confident in Orolbai going to war though, so I’m unsure how he would hold up over a longer period.

Ultimately, there are shaky parts of Brener’s game, despite his results, and I’m not dying to bet against Orolbai right now. I’ll take Orolbai to mostly control Brener, limit boxing exchanges, and maybe take him out late.

—

On DraftKings, Orolbai is 9k, so he isn’t cheap. He just scored 123 points in a second-round finish, and obviously that score is enticing.

The downside is that the matchup may not be ideal. Medic is weak on the mat, and Brener has shown some survivability. We also may be getting blinded by a lack of sample here, and Orolbai may not fight exactly the same as he did in his debut. There’s more variance in his expected performance because of that.

The upside is that for now, it sure looks like Orolbai is a big, strong wrestler who will continue to wrestle. And we’ve seen fighters smash with wrestling in just about every way possible.

Orolbai is +200 to win ITD which isn’t great for the price. He could potentially still contend for the optimal with a wrestling based decision. And he has some KD equity, some SUB equity. Moving down in weight class might really help him too.

I think we have to be open to the possibility that he’ll just smash again. In a win, his floor and ceiling combination seem quite strong, so ultimately he’s going to rate out well for me.

There are many good fighters in this range, so Orolbai doesn’t need to be an outright priority. But he’s cheaper than many others too, and I think he’ll fit nicely into a lot of lineups as the first or second in.

Brener at 7.2k won’t find his way onto many of my lineups, but I’d be lying if I said I was comfortable about it.

He’s won three out of three fights in the UFC and scored 106, 102, and 60. A win for Brener could reasonably be a mid-round KO.

But, he’s +211 to win, and +300 to win ITD. He likely does not have a wrestling or physicality advantage here. 

His floor will be extremely low as he could be held down for long periods of time. Even on the feet, I doubt he lands much volume. His upside is pretty closely tied to an early KO in my opinion, and I don’t know how much I want to bet on that outcome.

The answer is not much, but at 7.2k, I don’t think it’s crazy to consider him a secondary option. He probably won’t be chalk, but I assume his box score will draw some attention at this price.

In a large portfolio I’d mix him in on the low end, but I’ll aim to be underweight and relatively light with a more limited portfolio.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Orolbai by Decision (Confidence=Medium)

Jean Silva vs. William Gomis

Fight Odds: Silva -118, Gomis +103

Odds to Finish: +115

DraftKings Salaries: Silva 8.6k, Gomis 7.6k

Weight Class: 145

*Matchup analysis written by Technical Tim

After winning his first three UFC fights, we will see if William Gomis can get his fourth straight win in enemy territory this weekend against Brazilian Jean Silva.

Gomis is a French fighter. He kind of reminds me of a poor man’s version of Aljamain Sterling. I have a soft spot for him because he cashed for me in his UFC debut and in his most recent fight against Yanis Ghemmouri.

Like Aljamain, Gomis likes to use an evasive awkward kicking game to just outpoint his opponents. It isn’t the prettiest thing in the world, but he is generally winning the striking exchanges on the scorecards. 

He lands 2.62 significant strikes per minute and absorbs a very low 1.49 per minute , with a 75 percent striking defense. He isn’t landing a ton of strikes but he minimizes engagements very well, mixes in his kicks decently and never gets hit too clean. I want to point out he absorbed ZERO head strikes in 12 minutes of fighting against Ghemmouri which is something I haven’t seen anyone point out this week.

I don’t think Gomis’ striking is great, but he is fast and it is adequate and effective. I do think he will get exposed against someone who is skilled or who can make him uncomfortable though.

Gomis also likes to clinch up and occasionally wrestle. He landed three takedowns in his first UFC fight. He gets a lot of standing back takes where he either tries to put hooks in or just hold position. He can also occasionally mix in a double leg. 

He can hold position somewhat well and I consider his overall grappling game competent. I have also seen him scramble up well when taken down. Gomis is also just a good athlete. He is fast and can fight hard for 15 minutes.

Gomis will be taking on Jean Silva. Silva booked his ticket to the UFC by winning on the Contender Series in a striking based decision. He outlanded his opponent 87-71 in significant strikes and landed the heavier shots in the matchup. He then knocked out the very awful Westin Wilson in round one in his UFC debut.

Silva is mostly a power striker. I consider him to have good hands and he has some power in the pocket. I definitely think he can knock out fighters at this level. I like his aggression at times too and he can use it to make opponents uncomfortable.

However, I really question this guy’s quality of competition. Silva has not beaten a single quality fighter. I am also not sure he is great defensively as a striker either. He looks susceptible to kicks. He also doesn’t look to wrestle offensively so he is limited to striking as a path to victory.

Furthermore, there is not a ton of tape on Silva regionally. However, I found his most recent loss where he was easily outwrestled and mounted for entire rounds. The bout took place in 2018 so perhaps he has improved. However, we haven’t seen much of his defensive grappling and have never seen it against any good grapplers. My guess is that he will probably get exposed on the mat.

I honestly think there is value on Gomis here. On the feet, Gomis has a five-inch height advantage and is surely the better kicker in this matchup. I also just think he is better defensively, and I think he will be winning the exchanges on the feet and frustrate Silva by making Silva miss often.

Silva is dangerous though so perhaps he can land something big or make Gomis uncomfortable by pressuring. Still though, Gomis is just really hard to hit, and I honestly favor Gomis standing even though I will be nervous when they are striking. Silva will have the crowd on his side though which may help him.

Gomis may look to grapple too, and I honestly think he could dominate portions of this fight with wrestling. Gomis has a good clinch takedown and Silva was susceptible to that often on the regional scene. Just seeing Silva get mounted on the regionals is a really bad look.

Look, there is a lack of data on Silva and he does have the crowd on his side. So it is hard to be bulletproof confident in this matchup.

However, I think Gomis is generally an underrated fighter and a good neutralizer who is CLEARLY UFC level. I am not even sure Silva can land any takedowns or all that many strikes in this matchup and my guess is Gomis can land kicks and maybe a lot of takedowns. I think Gomis should be favored here as he is the better defensive fighter in both areas.

—-

On DraftKings, this is actually a difficult situation because Gomis is already projecting as a value at 7.6k.

He’s now been bet up to a near pick’em, and on a slate that’s barren from dog potential, Gomis is a stand out for win equity. However, he’s been a pretty awful fantasy scorer.

In three wins, Gomis has scored 69, 42 (!!!) and 80. Averaging sub-65 points in wins is just pathetic.

And in general, that’s just not enough. Even on this type of slate, 65 points is not enough at 7.6k most likely. Unless there are 0 or 1 other dogs who win only, Gomis has a real shot to win, look fine doing so, and miss out on the optimal by 40 points.

Conversely, if there was a slate where that type of score could be more valuable than usual, it might be this one. Nearly every fighter priced below Gomis would be considered a legitimate upset if they won.

And at least Gomis does have wrestling equity. He has partially scored poor recently because he hasn’t wrestled. Now, he’s fighting an opponent in Silva who excels on the feet and is arguably weak on the mat. It gives some more credence to upside in this matchup than what we’ve seen in the past.

I think I’m going to target Gomis moderately because of it. Despite a poor +440 ITD line, we are desperate for wins and salary relief, and I think Gomis can provide both. Especially in smaller fields, I like Gomis a good amount.

The larger the field, the more it is worth taking chances on random guys below the mid-range, especially if Gomis projects to popular. I’m unsure if he will be because I think most will come to the conclusion that his upside sucks, but the win equity is hard to avoid.

All in all, you don’t need to take a major stand here if you don’t want to, but I do think Gomis has the best chance to win of nearly anyone below the mid-range, which is backed by his odds, and that’s worth investing in to some degree.

Silva at 8.6k will be closer to a fade for me than anything else.

I do think he has some early finishing equity in his style, but I’m really not dying to bet on that outcome against an opponent who is absorbing less than 1.5 strikes per minute, at 75 percent, and coming off a fight in which he allowed ZERO head strikes in 15 minutes.

The matchup itself makes Silva extremely boom or bust, with no floor whatsoever. Even if he wins in a striking based decision, Silva is very likely to bust completely due to lack of offensive production.

The only positive is that he could be leverage, despite coming off a 115-point score. I would love if that box score draws public attention this week because it’s a total trap, as Silva just fought Wilson who is the probably the worst guy in the division.

He’s also +185 to win ITD, so he rates out fine. I don’t think it’s a true, correct line, but it shows some finishing upside. If you want to mix him in as a secondary target for early finishing upside, I can respect that.

But with a limited portfolio, I won’t have much or any myself, as there are just so many other fighters I would prioritize for pacing/grappling/finishing above the mid-range.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Gomis by Decision (Confidence=Low)

Joaquim Silva vs. Drakkar Klose

Fight Odds: Klose -174, Silva +149

Odds to Finish: -145

DraftKings Salaries: Klose 8.7k, Silva 7.5k

Weight Class: 155

*Matchup analysis written by Luke Lampe

Joaquim Silva hasn’t been the most active guy since joining the UFC back in 2015 but we did get two fights out of him last year and he’s coming off a win over Clay Guida back in December – he’s 6-4 in the promotion and 13-4 as a pro. Drakkar Klose also hasn’t been the most active guy in recent years, having dealt with a handful of injuries, but he’s currently riding a 3-fight win streak – he’s 8-2 in the UFC and 14-2-1 as a pro.

The striking component:

Silva’s an interesting fighter as he’s a base grappler but a guy who prefers to stand and strike. He likes to fight more within the mid-range in a thai boxing based style.  

He’s got some nasty knees up the middle and in tight, and really excels with hooks to the body and the head. However, outside of his barnburner fight with Jared Gordon back in 2018, he’s shown generally tepid components, only landing 3.61 sig. strikes per minute at a 41% accuracy.  

Silva’s a guy who likes to pick up on reads of his opponents to really time his entries when he’s going to commit and go.  

In playing that type of game it’s been to his benefit and detriment. Seven of his 13 pro wins have come via KO and some vicious KOs at that – he even hurt Tsarukyan bad, being the 1st guy to really show any durability chinks in his armor – it goes to show how hard Silva hits.  

But conversely, because of his more tepid style, he’s never really significantly outpacing people and we have seen him KO’d in his last three losses, so he’s not an invincible fighter by any stretch. He was hurt in the Gordon/Guida fights as well, which are two guys who aren’t known to hurt a fly historically, so he’s a bit fragile at this point.

Overall, Silva has a style that I’m not the biggest fan of because he doesn’t separate himself in his fights, leaving him largely moment/power dependent. Two of his pro wins on the cards were splits and the Guida fight was 1-1 going into the 3rd, which kind of hammers home that point.  

Klose is an aggressive striker but not the most technical guy in the world per say.   

He’ll largely just bull in but ironically, it’s by and large worked really well for him throughout his career.  He lands at a decent clip of 4.33 sig. strikes per minute at 55%, kicks legs well, has some pop and nasty clinch knees.   

However, he’s gotten into some wars with his striking defense not being a great attribute, and he utilizes little head movement or feints. He’s specifically susceptible while coming in, and absorbs 3.40 sig. strikes per minute with a 52% defensive rate.   

But Klose has also proven to be generally very durable (outside of Dariush), and proven over the course of his career that he’s a great optics winner.   

For example, in three of his fights, he’s only edged his opponents by five sig. strikes but has won decisions in all three. Against Green, he had a very negative strike ratio (getting almost 2x’d on strikes) and still won the fight on the cards.   

Overall, unless opponents can KO Klose or just be non-committal with him, he’s going to be difficult to deal with on the feet because he’s got solid cardio, has good optics and can push for a full 15 minutes.

How it plays out: There are pros and cons to both guys here. The pros for Silva are his shots in tight because Klose is available in the pocket, so him hurting Klose with counter hooks or step-in knees is on the table. But Klose does project to be the primary minute winner as his pacing is more consistent, he’s better in the clinch and has better forward pressure. Additionally, we’ve seen Silva chinned more than once now so despite some of the concerns I have for Klose in tight, I think Klose is absolutely capable of hurting Silva as well – I mean Haqparast and Gordon are guys who haven’t been known for their conventional power throughout the course of their careers.

The wrestling/grappling component:

Silva is a base grappler and BJJ black belt w/ the infamous nickname of “NetoBJJ”.  

But as noted above, he likes to strike so we’ve seen very little of his offensive wrestling so far within the UFC, only landing 0.45 TDs/15 minutes at 60%.  

I do think some of that has had to do with the guys he fought and the general matchups he’s tasked with, but nonetheless, Silva is not a fighter you can trust to wrestle at all really.  

However, guys have tried to wrestle him and have had varying degrees of success as he stuffs at 64%.  

Madadi took some minutes off him, landing five TDs, Gordon took earlier minutes off him, landing three TDs (although Silva nearly subbed him at the end of the 2nd). We obviously saw Tsarukyan grind away on Silva for the better part of that fight, finishing him on the floor and Guida most recently took the 2nd from him with wrestling.  

In fairness, all four are good wrestlers and Silva did hold up well with the TDs of Pichel.  

Ironically, despite his nickname, he hasn’t submitted anyone in a decade which I find somewhat funny, but he is a capable grappler, he’s just been grinded against the fence a bit to the point where hasn’t been able to create a ton of space to get going on his BJJ. He will attack front chokes though.

Overall, Silva’s opponents need to mind their Ps and Qs, but the floor has ultimately been more of a weak point in the UFC for him.  

Klose defends TDs statistically well at 68% but he’s been put in some precarious grappling positions in multiple fights – to his credit, he’s gotten out of all of them, but they still need to be noted.   

Bobby Green mounted him twice, Giagos mounted him, took his back and threatened chokes, and Dariush had his back for nearly the entire first round of their fight.   

So there are really two ways to look at it: 1) He’s been put in compromising positions or 2) He’s defended, got out of all of those positions against solid grapplers and won two of those fights.   

It’s a combination of both for me because if you’re a fighter with those consistent mistakes, they will always catch up to you at some point. However, if Klose can last 4+ minutes with a guy like Dariush (elite Black Belt) on his back, he’s got my respect in terms of submission defense.   

He also reversed position against Solecki early in their fight and ended up slamming him on his head to win – the general consensus was that Klose was going to be in bigger trouble if he was grounded and he did fine in the positions.

Offensively, Klose will mix in the TD as well, landing 1.78 TDs per 15 minutes at 30%. 

He hasn’t been a super strong force on top outside of the Diakiese fight but his primary work comes in the clinch. It’s just important to note that he will mix it up and he has won rounds with his wrestling in the past.   

Overall, the ground’s been up and down with Klose.   

How it plays out: The ground’s interesting as I do think Silva has the capabilities to take Klose down and does project to be the better submission grappler, but he just doesn’t really wrestle and tends to get tired in wrestling intensive fights anyway. I’d probably be more concerned with entry guillotines or front chokes. Conversely, we’ve seen Silva get grinded on before and Klose does have the capabilities to land multiple TDs here and get some ground minutes.

Fun fight between two guys in their mid-30s who are starting to enter the back half of their careers. I ultimately come away on the Klose side for three primary reasons. He’s just more consistent to produce offense in both realms, he is a better round winner and has the better cardio. With that being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Silva was able to take a round in this fight or hurt Klose either, so my confidence interval isn’t super high at the same time. But Klose via Decision is the pick.

—

On DraftKings, this could be somewhat of a sneaky fight, with names that I don’t expect will draw a ton of attention.

Drakkar Klose is priced at 8.7k, and it’s a little bit difficult to justify him given the mammoth of high-end options priced directly above. He’s been a fine DK scorer but not necessarily an elite one throughout his career.

And in this matchup, it’s hard to know exactly what to expect. He’ll have some grappling equity, and some KO equity, but projecting a dominant performance is tough. Klose is only +150 to win ITD.

With that said, Joaquim Silva has been knocked out in 37 seconds by Ricky Glenn, who’s one of the worst athletes in the division and someone not known for his power. He’s also been hurt before and after that.

I’m not saying I feel very confident in Klose winning by KO, but that outcome is viable and could be an interesting contrarian angle at this price. He won’t rate out extremely well and he’s a bit too expensive for my liking, but I will have mild interest in Klose as a semi-contrarian target and/or pivot away from some of the bigger names nearby.

Silva at 7.5k is similar-ish though I don’t like him as much. Klose is a durable guy but Silva has some finishing equity within his style.

The bigger argument is just that Silva is cheap and is only +149 to win. He has legitimate win equity given the ML odds compared to most in this range, excluding Gomis. He’s also +280 to win ITD and will rate out fine for upside purposes generally. For that price, targeting Silva as a secondary option makes sense.

I really don’t love him though. He doesn’t typically wrestle and isn’t a strong minutes winner. I consider him relatively boom or bust for that reason.

There are a handful of other dogs I would prefer to target ahead of Silva just based on skill and matchup, but again for the price, I can understand mixing him in for rating alone.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Klose by Decision (Confidence=Medium-Low)

Mauricio Ruffy vs. Jamie Mullarkey

Fight Odds: Ruffy -213, Mullarkey +180

Odds to Finish: -250

DraftKings Salaries: Ruffy 8.4k, Mullarkey 7.8k

Weight Class: 155

*Matchup analysis written by Luke Lampe

Mauricio Ruffy is a Contender Series alum slated to make his debut after earning his contract back in October as a decent sized underdog – he’s 9-1 as a pro. Jamie Mullarkey’s entering his 6th year on the active roster to where he’s had a very up and down run, although has fought a respectable level of competition – he’s 5-5 in the UFC and 17-7 as a pro.

The striking component:

Ruffy comes from a striking background and in MMA, he fights in a more hybrid kickboxing/karate-esque type of style. He likes to operate in the mid-range or from the outside primarily, where he’ll fight with his hands down and look to be a sniper.

As a result, he’s a pretty low output fighter where it’s a lot of singular strikes – low kick, spinning back kick, jab, step back right hand, etc. To his credit, he’s had success in that style and has the nickname of “One Shot” as a guy with all nine of his pro wins coming via KO.

His strikes do definitely make an impact but he’s not really flatlining guys like his nickname would suggest – he’s also by and large fought a horrible level of competition.

But in his hands down based style, it got him caught in his only pro loss to Sousa back in 2019 where he got cocky and paid for it – he also hurt Sousa badly early in that fight though. However, he got dropped in one of his following fights as well despite recovering quickly.

His Contender Series performance was kind of meh. It was a low volume fight where both guys just traded kicks with not many meaningful moments. But the calf kick from Ruffy paid dividends down to the stretch which set up his boxing more to eventually find the finish with GNP – it was a bit weird though that his opponent Magomedaliev kind of gassed out halfway through the fight in what was fought at a really slow pace.

Not a bad win on paper for Ruffy but Magomedaliev is at the bottom of the Dagestani contingent and that was in totality just an underwhelming performance from him as someone who’s watched him fight in the past.

Overall, he’s a relatively technical guy who does have power but has his own defensive issues, and doesn’t project to be a minute winner at the UFC level given his style – he’s the type that’s going to be reliant on KO’s or edging close decisions in all likelihood.

Mullarkey isn’t the most athletic guy in the world but has shown to be a respectable kickboxer where he lands 4.46 sig. strikes per minute at 46%. 

However, he was 2x’d at distance against both Riddell and Ziam in his first two UFC bouts – kickboxers by trade and he struggled to get inside striking wise.  But he did hurt Riddell on a few occasions – conversely, he was hurt multiple times himself.     

He landed a nice left hook on Worthy which put him down quickly – had a slower start against Smith getting hurt early but rallied nicely and put him away – got some good shots off on Turner but the size/pressure/volume ultimately broke Mullarkey. He had a great fight with Johnson where both guys hurt each other, despite Mullarkey out landing Johnson 96 to 66 on the numbers, I do feel Johnson won the 1st and 3rd rounds as did many others but it was a competitive scrap. 

He picked apart Prado – he was winning the fight against Naimov but got clipped in the 2nd round – landed the better shots on Makdessi to a decision win – most recently, he was put down early Haqparast. In the aggregate, he’s finished 10 of his 17 pro wins via strikes.     

I more so have issues with his defense as he’s only defended 54% of shots coming back his way, and can be susceptible to kicks himself.

Outside of that, the chin of Mullarkey has been his primary drawback as he’s been hurt in the large majority of his UFC fights.   

In his defense, he hasn’t gone out in every scenario and has actually won some of those fights as the guy isn’t a quitter – his brain just shuts down sometimes lol.

Overall, Mullarkey is a respectable striker in my eyes regardless of what people say. He just hasn’t had an easy run of opponents since entering the UFC and has been pitted against good/dangerous/longer strikers which does contextualize some of his struggles. With all that being said though, it’s hard to really trust Mullarkey at this point because he could be winning a fight and then just die.

How it plays out: From a pure technical and volume striking perspective, there’s no overt reason why Mullarkey couldn’t compete if not win on the feet here. I mean the guy went toe to toe with Michael Johnson standing – there’s a lot of negative things you can say about Michael Johnson but the guy’s a pretty damn good boxer. Could Ruffy KO Mullarkey? Absolutely. Would it be surprising? No. That’s the obvious upside to him but it’s hard to anticipate that he’s going to run away with minutes in the fight considering that’s not really his MO. Additionally, I don’t know why Mullarkey couldn’t hurt Ruffy considering he’s been dropped twice regionally and Mullarkey’s hurt multiple guys in the UFC. Ultimately, there’s a lot of variance on the feet.

The wrestling/grappling component:

There’s very little to say here with Ruffy as I think I’ve only seen him attempt one TD in which he picked up some bum and slammed him, but let him back up.

As noted, he finished via GNP on DWCS, but Magomedaliev just keeled over from exhaustion and a failed TDA to which Ruffy just mounted him with ease and pounded him out – but it wasn’t any real meaningful offensive sequence for Ruffy to take much from.

Defensively, he has been good though as the majority of his opponents have shot on him, but he’s shown a good ability to dig underhooks, shuck down single legs and sprawl.

Once again, he hasn’t really fought any good wrestlers though – even Magomedaliev is more of a striker than wrestler to where he only shot three times, and when he was gassed out in the back half of the fight, so it didn’t tell much.

I’m unsure of Ruffy’s BJJ credentials and have never seen him on the bottom flattened, so that part of his game is a question mark at this point – he does train with the Fighting Nerds in Caio Borralho though, so he does have a good crop of ground guys to work with.

Overall, until we get a sample, the ground game of Ruffy is by and large a question mark.

Mullarkey is a BJJ black belt and has shown some offensive wrestling prowess both on the regionals and in the UFC.   He lands 2.42 TDs per 15 minutes but at only 34% accuracy.    

However, he’s out controlling his opponents at a 4:1 ratio – only 25% of his fight time has been spent grappling though. But that number can be a tad misleading because Mullarkey has struggled with ground control per TD at the same time.    

I’ve seen him get either swept or lose dominant positions in both the Riddell and Ziam fights, but he has shown he can sweep from bottom as well.     

Defensively, he stuffs at 76% and has proven very difficult to control – hasn’t conceded more than 3 minutes in any UFC fight.  

In total, his willingness to wrestle has aided him in winning some minutes historically to where the ground has been more of a positive for Mullarkey. But despite his black belt status, he only has two pro wins via submission and hasn’t shown much upside there in the UFC.

How it plays out: Given the large ground question on Ruffy, it’s kind of impossible to conventionally analyze this part of the fight. So, we’re largely left with just looking at upside, and with what we have, you’d have to give that to Mullarkey. He’s shown he can win fights with wrestling where Ruffy hasn’t and he’s been difficult to do anything meaningful against on the ground himself. With that being said, Mullarkey isn’t a great wrestler by any means, but I’d assume we’ll see that TDD of Ruffy get tested again should Mullarkey not die early. Also maybe get some questions answered on the bottom/get up game of Ruffy.

This one’s a bit of a dumpster fire for all the reasons mentioned. As noted, it’s hard to have a ton of faith in Mullarkey right now but in theory and on paper, he’s got multiple PTVs and the debutant in Ruffy hasn’t proven much to me – coupled with the fact that I’m not in love with his general style. The market loves Ruffy this week so take that for what you will but in watching the large bulk of his career, he just seems like another lowerish-level Brazilian regional fighter coming in with a narrowed style. It also needs to be noted that Ruffy was down two rounds on two judges’ scorecards on DWCS so if he didn’t get that late finish, he would have actually lost a split decision and probably isn’t here right now. I’ll go out on a ledge and take Mullarkey for the upset.

—

On DraftKings, I expect Mauricio Ruffy to draw a lot of attention this week at 8.4k given his knockout potential.

He is currently -140 to win ITD, and has never been to decision, fighting an opponent in Mullarkey who has been hurt badly in recent fights.

It seems pretty plausible that Ruffy can score a knockout. At 8.4k, that would give him a decent chance to contend for the optimal.

I hate these spots honestly because Ruffy is going to be so boom or bust. He doesn’t throw a ton of volume, and he just landed 70 strikes in three rounds. He won’t really wrestle. He’s very dependent on an early knockout to reach a ceiling.

Plus, there’s a very good chance that Ruffy is being overrated to some degree. His opponent on DWCS was good but otherwise, his competition has been mediocre at best. I don’t really see a ton of upside to his game.

Ruffy doesn’t really rate out as a great prospect for me in any area. Sure, there’s some KO ability but he won’t run away with rounds, his wrestling is questionable and he’s already been KOd too. Relying on him to win by KO at chalk feels questionable.

But I can acknowledge the upside. KOs are difficult to cap. Based on his current metrics, he’s a great upside target and I do expect he’ll be chalky in this mid-range. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to match the field but I wouldn’t say you’re wrong for investing moderately in Ruffy in this spot.

Mullarkey at 7.8k will mostly rate out as a leverage target, and potentially a good one.

He is very experienced and has fought better competition than Ruffy. He can fight for three rounds and land moderate volume. He can wrestle. It’s not impossible for him to hurt Ruffy.

I really don’t feel like relying on Mullarkey at this stage either, given his recent form. He’s only +390 to win ITD.

Targeting some other mid-range options, or paying down feels like the preferable strategy in a vacuum, and I expect that’s what the field will do.

However.. again.. If we’re speaking about leverage.. Ruffy is probably chalk and I really doubt Mullarkey gets much attention. 

That combination of experience, wrestling, and cardio is certainly enough to give him a path to win. And Ruffy doesn’t seem to have elite durability. I still don’t rateMullarkey’s upside as elite, and that makes me nervous, but I do think this is one of the most intriguing leverage positions on the slate and I will mix him in when I am looking for a spot to be different.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Ruffy by TKO, RD 1 (Confidence=Low)

Dione Barbosa vs. Ernesta Kareckaite

Fight Odds: Barbosa -235, Kareckaite +197

Odds to Finish: +140

DraftKings Salaries: Barbosa 8.9k, Kareckaite 7.3k

Weight Class: 125

Next up will be a pair of newcomers as Dione Barbosa and Ernesta Kareckaite take center stage, with both coming off a pair of impressive performances on DWCS.

Barbosa is 6-2 professionally at age 31, and she looks to be a pretty intriguing prospect in this flyweight division.

She is a Brazilian Olympian in Judo, and holds a black belt in that capacity as well as one in BJJ. Three of her wins have come by submission, and the other three have come by decision, but I primarily consider her strength to be on the ground.

At her best, Barbosa can use a fairly athletic frame to shoot takedowns, get on top of her opponents, and control them. I don’t consider her submission grappling to be elite, but she’s capable from both top and bottom.

On the feet, Barbosa is a work-in-progress, but her athletic build and aggression gives her some hope. I’ve more had concerns with her defense in the past than her offense, and she’s been knocked down in multiple fights.

But Barbosa can strike competently at times, and just by being the better athlete she can have bursts of success. I expect that she’ll still need to work a ground game to have success at the UFC level, but that feels likely given her pedigree.

I should also note that her level of competition has been great compared to what we typically see on the regionals. Her losses have come to Josiane Nunes and Jena Bishop, who are two good fighters. Nunes is in the UFC and Bishop is undefeated and in PFL. She also has a win over Karine Silva in 2019.

I think Barbosa rates out as the type who should be able to dominate the lower tier of the division just due to her athletic and offensive prowess. Many won’t be able to stop her takedowns, and won’t match up well physically.

But Barbosa can be hit, and she can even be taken down and held down at times, so I think she probably will get in trouble defensively, eventually. Bishop had her mounted for a period of time.

I’m still hopeful that Barbosa will continue to improve and that her base level of skills are strong enough to compete against the majority of the division.

Kareckaite is 5-0-1 professionally, fighting out of Lithuania at age 25 with a couple of knockouts on her record.

She was a swimmer as a youth and looks to be a strong athlete as well, but I don’t think she has any legitimate pedigree as far as martial arts go.

Kareckaite excels on the feet, and I think the combination of her athleticism, volume and cardio will give her a chance to win rounds in this division.

She is freaking huge too – Kareckaite is 5’9” and she’ll be a few inches taller than Barbosa, with a five-inch reach edge as well. This type of build and athletic base will provide some level of threat.

Kareckaite mostly fought poor competition on the regionals prior to her DWCS fight, and her results were mediocre. She fought a Judo girl twice by the name of Laetitia Blott, and escaped with one draw and one split decision win.

Blott would take her down a bunch of times but Kareckaite was able to neutralize some of it, and she scrambled to take Blott’s back on a few different occasions.

On DWCS, Kareckaite and her opponent just came out swinging for three rounds, and the totals were pretty nuts. Kareckaite landed 180 significant strikes and absorbed 168 in return.

That type of performance further suggests to me that Kareckaite has legit cardio and pacing. The majority of her fights go the distance, and with that kind of volume (and background in a sport like swimming), I think cardio may be one of her best attributes.

The rest of her game I am unsure about. I wouldn’t say Kareckaite is an elite striker technically, and she’s now only defending strikes at 42 percent.

I think her range and aggression give her a legit floor in striking exchanges, but I’m not convinced she’ll run away with rounds easily.

Nor is her power incredible. She has a couple of KO wins on her resume but those came very early in her career against weak competition. At least one came on the ground too.

Kareckaite’s grappling is somewhat of a question mark for me as well. Her first-level takedown defense, in combination with her athletic build, has been OK. But ultimately she has been taken down several times and I feel a good wrestler would be able to get on top of her.

I’ve seen Kareckaite transition to the back several times, which tells me she has a decent understanding of submission grappling. Her lengthy limbs help her in this regard. But I don’t see an incredible threat in any position and I feel like at best, her submission grappling will only be good enough to neutralize opponents.

The matchup itself should be a good one and I think Barbosa has a reasonable chance to climb into the rankings eventually, so I’m really curious to see how she performs.

However, I still want to see her win a fight like this before I buy into her upside fully. Kareckaite being taller and longer than Barbosa does present some challenges, and the fact that she can land strikes at a super high volume presents a threat to Barbosa as well.

Considering I’ve seen Barbosa dropped multiple times, it’s possible Kareckaite would have a moderate edge standing if the fight plays out there. Perhaps not in a single exchange, as Barbosa can throw back well enough. The fight would still probably be competitive to a degree.

But over 15 minutes, I doubt Barbosa can keep up that same kind of pace, and I feel like Kareckaite will be the sharper, more damaging striker. I trust her durability more as of now.

Barbosa should be the better grappler though and she may have a significant advantage on the mat. If she can consistently get top position, Barbosa should win this fight cleanly.

I am not certain she will get there though. The length and physicality of Kareckaite may be enough to neutralize Barbosa early, who is typically used to having physical advantages in her matchups.

Still, a high-level judo game is likely enough to get Kareckaite on the canvas eventually, and Barbosa has solid standard wrestling to back it up. I would project her for multiple takedowns in this fight and that could just be enough to win outright, or even find a submission.

I’m just a little nervous because Kareckaite hasn’t been fully dominated on the mat, so if she simply survives there, and scrambles up, it could mean more striking exchanges which could ultimately favor her. The length and physicality aspect makes me a bit nervous for Barbosa as well.

I’ll still lean with the grappler here in Barbosa and I’ll take the wide angle view that she appears to be a pretty decent prospect.

—

On DraftKings, Barbosa is priced at 8.9k which is a little too expensive for my liking.

It’s unfortunate because I may have wanted to target her more in this spot, in her UFC debut, on a big card where the public may not know who she is. We can still target her to a degree, but a price of 8.9k means Barbosa will need to smash to compete for the optimal lineup.

She’s now priced in a range with -400 and -500 favorites, some of whom are destined to find finishes. So not only will Barbosa need to win cleanly, but she’ll likely need ground domination and a finish to exceed value and stand out in this range.

Barbosa is only +175 to win ITD in a fight that’s -170 to go the distance, which is mildly concerning. It seems fair though, as Barbosa has not proven to be an elite finishing threat, while Kareckaite’s weaknesses may not be extreme either.

For that reason, I don’t think we need to prioritize Barbosa. Obviously Pantoja will get a ton of love in this range, as will Orolbai, as will some of the 9k range. It’s possible that Barbosa just gets squeezed by default and becomes contrarian.

If that’s the case, I still have interest. I mean, look, you should be trying to identify and target fighters with grappling advantages on every card. Grapplers have the best floors and the best ceilings.

Combine that with low ownership and you potentially have elite tournament spots.

I am not certain how much ground domination upside Barbosa has, which is probably why she’ll fall into that contrarian category anyways. If it was more obvious, she’d rate out better and probably end up more chalky.

I still think a victory for her comes with a moderate pace, takedowns, potentially lots of control, and maybe a finish. She did just win in round one on DWCS. There’s clearly upside in her game, I’m just less certain about the matchup.

So at 8.9k, in a semi-contrarian spot, I do like Barbosa some. I’ll obviously be spreading out in this range and probably prioritizing some other fighters. But Barbosa’s style I’d like exposure to long term and I’m willing to pull the trigger as a secondary target here.

Kareckaite at 7.3k is viable to a degree. It’s hard for me to be extremely excited by her, given the tough matchup, and I wouldn’t consider her floor to be strong.

But if she wins, it probably comes from striking exchanges, and I think she has sneaky KO upside as well. She is only +650 to win ITD though, and she won’t rate out well with no grappling equity.

I mostly see her being overlooked publicly as well. There are many other big names on the card, and other fighters in this range should draw more attention.

You’re mostly playing into variance here by rostering Kareckaite, hoping that because we have small samples, the line may potentially just be wrong. Mixing her in as a low-end secondary target isn’t the worst idea in the world.

I just can’t prioritize her outright given the matchup, but some of Kareckaite’s skills are respectable and she at least has one viable path to victory.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Barbosa by Decision (Confidence=Medium)

Ismael Bonfim vs. Vinc Pichel

Fight Odds: Bonfim -510, Pichel +379

Odds to Finish: -135

DraftKings Salaries: Bonfim 9.3k, Pichel 6.9k

Weight Class: 155

*Matchup analysis written by Technical Tim

Ismael Bonfim is officially one of my boys for coming through for me in his UFC debut against Terrance McKinney. Unfortunately, he followed that up with a dominant loss to Benoit Saint Denis last July.

Bonfim is Brazilian and is 19-4 professionally. He won an impressive dominant decision on the Contender Series against a decent Russian opponent to earn his contract. His last four wins were against opponents who were a combined 63-10-1 and he didn’t drop a round against them so he has done pretty well on the regional scene.

I like what I have seen from Bonfim. He had decent experience in LFA and comes from a boxing background. You can definitely see the boxing skills in his game. He has pretty good volume.

He is really good defensively and doesn’t really get hit often. He also rolls with shots well. I like his counters a lot. He also will work the body and can fight with a good pace for 15 minutes. He can win fights on the feet in the UFC.

I have seen Bonfim grapple a bit and he seems like a decent submission grappler and a competent grappler overall. He looks to have solid TDD too. I have seen him controlled here and there but not too often and he overall just has good TDD. He also works hard to get back to his feet.

Bonfim was submitted in his most recent matchup against Benoit Saint Denis though. However, he defended 5 of 7 takedowns against Saint Denis and I actually liked a lot of what he did defensively. BSD simply caught Bonfim with a really slick back take, and I don’t give Bonfim too much crap for that performance.

Bonfim also just seems very durable. He is hard to hit and he has never been knocked out in his career. I have never even seen him hurt before.

Bonfim will be taking on Vinc Pichel. I don’t mind Pichel. He is a tough dude who is kind of decent everywhere and has good cardio, but he isn’t particularly good or great at anything. Still though, competency, toughness, and cardio go a long way. 

Pichel is a decent striker. He lands 3.56 significant strikes per minute and only absorbs 2.50 in return. I don’t totally trust his volume as he has only landed over 60 significant strikes in a fight twice. However, he is pretty decent. 

He uses a fleet of foot style to move in and out of range. He has good low kicks and a good jab. I thought his striking actually looked quite sharp against Austin Hubbard. It was a good performance by Pichel.

Pichel is a decent grappler. He actually lands 3.00 takedowns per 15 minutes and lands them at 54 percent. So it is good that he attempts a lot of takedowns as it increases his chances of winning clear rounds. He can hold position and what not against guys with poor ground games. However, I don’t totally trust his top game against guys with good get ups.

Pichel only defends takedowns at 23 percent, but the majority of those takedowns came against Gillespie and Rustam, who are great wrestlers, so I think his metrics are a bit skewed. I don’t totally love his TDD, but I don’t think it is as bad as his metrics indicate. 

I do think Pichel can at least compete with Bonfim. He can probably strike competitively at times and maybe threaten with a few takedowns here and there. I doubt Pichel does much with the takedowns though.

Pichel is aging though. He is now 41 years old, and I did think he looked a bit declined in his most recent matchup against Mark Madsen.

I think Bonfim seems like the sharper striker and I think he hits a little harder than Pichel. Bonfim is also more youthful as well. So I do favor Bonfim, and my guess is he wins a competitive striking fight where he is just a little too much for Pichel. The Brazilian crowd will also be on Bonfim’s side.

This line does seem a little too wide though just because Pichel is a fairly well-rounded fighter who isn’t in over his head anywhere.

—

On DraftKings, Bonfim is a huge favorite at -510 and priced up to 9.3k, which will make him difficult to stand out amongst an elite top tier.

The more I look into this slate, the less comfortable I am with these top-tier fighters. Ismael Bonfim at 9.3k? Yuck.

I think he’s a quality fighter but he doesn’t rate out as an elite finisher or super-producer of offense. Pichel isn’t the easiest matchup and Bonfim is only +110 to win ITD.

He’ll be extremely boom or bust I believe because of this, and over 15 minutes, I just don’t see him scoring enough with volume or grappling to stand out.

I definitely prefer other fighters in this range ahead of Bonfim and consider him closer to the bottom end of the tier. I’m guessing the public will view it similarly, and they may be scared to target him anyways based on his last loss.

If Bonfim ends up being contrarian then of course he has merit, but in a vacuum I don’t see Bonfim winning by early KO at a very high rate, and I’m unsure if he has much grappling domination equity either.

Pichel at 6.9k is viable in the sense that he’s experienced, well-rounded, and rates out fairly well with Bonfim.

The downside is really that Bonfim won’t press a pace, and is probably one of the more defensively sound fighters on the card. So I don’t project Pichel to land a lot of strikes himself, and his grappling equity is questionable. He’s only +525 to win ITD so he just won’t rate out well.

This is just a punt tier though, so in that sense, Pichel has merit. I think he has more win equity than Potieria and Craig, and I would target him ahead of those fighters. But I’m still not in love with his upside, even in a win.

This is a tricky slate with not a lot of dog win equity, so we may need to punt on occasion. Pichel is worth a small sprinkle in large fields for that purpose but my fantasy expectations for him aren’t super high.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Bonfim by Decision (Confidence=Medium)

Alessandro Costa vs. Kevin Borjas

Fight Odds: Costa -129, Borjas +112

Odds to Finish: -140

DraftKings Salaries: Costa 8.2k, Borjas 8k

Weight Class: 125

*Matchup analysis written by Luke Lampe

Alessandro Costa is a Contender Series alum who despite winning his fight, gave a relatively underwhelming performance and didn’t earn a contract. But he got the call back to take a short notice debut spot back in 2022. Despite going 1-2 to start his UFC run, he’s drawn two top flyweights in Amir Albazi and Steve Erceg – he’s 13-4 as a pro. Kevin Borjas is a Contender Series alum who had the unfortunate draw of Joshua Van in his debut, who’s a surging prospect as well – he’s 0-1 in the UFC and 9-2 as a pro.

The striking component:

Costa’s a shorter compact Brazilian who tends to fight more in bursts. So you can’t traditionally expect a consistent pace from him but when he goes, he really commits to his shots between hooks, power straight rights and leg kicks.  

He only has four pro wins via KO, but he’s hurt opponents in other fights as well – he compromised Flick early with just one kick to illustrate the intent that he throws with, and he briefly hurt Erceg last time out.   

But it’s within that bursting type of nature, he’s not a guy to overtly separate himself on minutes as well unless he’s entirely in the driver’s seat.

Conversely, he’s not traditionally getting outvolumed either – he still took the 1st round from Albazi while striking, granted not much happened. However, he got hurt significantly twice in that fight and I have seen him hurt regionally as well.  

He also generally hasn’t faced extensive volume back his way given his style.  

But Erceg did land 74 significant strikes on him so that did break up that mold up a bit – Costa got hurt in that fight as well.

Overall, he’s respectable on the feet but not someone you can really trust in striking fights that go an extended duration – at least at the UFC level. His style is weird enough to where it can keep him competitive with good guys but then he can also fight competitively with guys below his level.

I’m unsure of Borjas’ official background but he definitely serves as more of a striker.

Our overall sample on him still isn’t vast, but in what we have, he’s an aggressive guy who works at a pretty high rate. His boxing can be technical as he’ll string together combinations nicely, has super fast hands and digs the body as well.

Although, there are definite reckless points with him inside pocket exchanges too, which has left him susceptible. But he’s generally shown to be tough outside of eating a head kick back regionally.

That toughness was on display in his last outing against Van where he got off to a great start and hurt Van at multiple points, but the constant forward pressure, volume and body work of Van got to him over the course of the fight, where he ultimately dropped the latter two rounds.

But he still landed 75 significant strikes and the loss isn’t bad hindsight considering the prospect Van is right now.

Outside of the volume of Borjas, he’s shown power as well with 8/9 pro wins coming via strikes – he has two cut stoppages and two knee finishes mixed in there as well which shows the diversity in his game.

Overall, I’d still like to see a bit more of Borjas but he’s not going to be an easy out on the feet at 125 unless opponents can put him down or keep a very high pace.

How it plays out: The stand up should be a lot of fun here. Given Borjas’ general style, it’s presumably going to force Costa to fight at a higher rate because if he doesn’t, he’s going to get out worked in all likelihood. Despite Borjas getting beat with body work last time out, I think that’s a positive component of striking success for him here against Costa who tends to have a higher shelling guard. But I also think leg kicks and high kicks are more of a pro for Costa. Both guys have explosive capabilities and have been hurt before, but are also generally tough guys so that adds another layer of variance in the striking. I still lean more to Borjas on the feet simply because his work rate has been more consistent fight to fight and he will be the longer guy here.

The wrestling/grappling component:

Costa is a BJJ black belt with 6/13 pro wins coming via submission. However, he hasn’t been a particularly active wrestler in recent years which still makes his top game somewhat questionable. 

He also got swept on DWCS after hurting his opponent from half guard which I didn’t like to see.  

He didn’t have much to offer Albazi once Albazi got on top of him in his debut – granted Albazi’s a top 10 guy now. With that being said though, his general TDD doesn’t appear to be bad although he hasn’t fought a ton of wrestling in volume either.  

I just don’t like his ability to get controlled in the times he’s been put on his back in certain cases.  

We did see more wrestling both for and against in the last fight with Erceg though, where both guys didn’t accrue much general top control – Costa also lost position the one time he got on top of Erceg but also got out of mount in the fight as well – he got stuck on the cage in the back half of the fight though.

But he’s been generally stronger from top positions back regionally when he does get guys down.

Overall, he appears to be a capable ground fighter, but I’ve seen a bit all over the board to where my assessment of his capabilities is still shaky.   

Given our limited sample, there isn’t much to say with Borjas on the ground from an offensive perspective.

As a base striker, he doesn’t wrestle much but did get all three of his TDAs stuffed in the most recent outing against Van. In the few times I’ve seen him top, it’s from hurting guys or just kind of falling into positions.

He is aggressive with GNP but isn’t a guy to prioritize control which has allowed opponents to work out in those instances. Borjas also has no pro wins via submission although he did have a brief back take attempt late against Van but lost the position.

Defensively, he’s had some struggles.

He was submitted in 2/4 amateur losses and his lone regional pro loss also came via submission.

In the defense of Borjas, the sub was more of a result of him getting kicked in the head, not knowing where he was and getting his back taken shortly after.

But he gave up five TDs on the Contender Series along with eight minutes of control, as he really struggled to create space at multiple points in that fight. He did score a few reversals and ultimately took that fight on damage, outstriking his opponent 87 to 43.

Van most recently also took him down a couple times, but Van went submission over position.

Overall, he’s a purple belt in luta livre apparently so he’s not incapable, but based on what we have, the floor projects to be where Borjas will have his biggest struggles at the UFC level.

How it plays out: Despite some defensive struggles on the Costa side at times, he projects to have most of the ground upside here. We’ve seen him wrestle a bit more, have more top based success and he’s 6-0 to the submission in comparison to Borjas who’s 0-1 to the submission – makes sense given that Costa is a black belt vs the luta livre purple belt of Borjas. Once again though, Costa isn’t a guy you can really trust to dive on legs necessarily. However, given the striking pace of Borjas, I do think we’ll see Costa look to maximize more ground equity in this particular spot (if he’s intelligent) because he is the better ground fighter.

The matchmakers picked a solid “curtain jerker” here as this fight projects to be a fun one. I lean to the Costa side because I think the ground gap is perceivably larger than the gap on the feet despite me favoring Borjas standing. Costa may just want to bang here though, which is something to take into consideration to where I can definitely understand people picking or favoring Borjas at the same time. Costa will be my pick though.

—

On DraftKings, this is a really tough one to open the card, but I will say it’s one of my favorites outright from an entertainment standpoint.

Borjas really brings the pace, but he lacks defense, which should make for some fun exchanges. Costa has the grappling skills to test him in theory, but has shown breakable elements as well which ties into Borjas’ style.

Because of that, I do think there’s a possibility that this matchup is somewhat binary in that Costa could dominate on the mat, and Borjas could dominate on the feet. However, it’s not purely that simple and I don’t want to get carried away by the narrative.

Still, Costa has some intrigue at 8.2k in this matchup given Borjas’ ground struggles. I really am not a huge fan of Costa but Borjas has been taken down seven times in his last two fights, and he doesn’t really have defensive wrestling skills.

So it makes me believe that if Costa wins, ground success will be key. At 8.2k, he could theoretically exceed value or even compete for the optimal because of it. He’s only +220 to win ITD so he doesn’t project amazingly well, but he is the favorite in this matchup probably will be the higher owned party.

Borjas carries more risk in that he’s doubtful to grapple, and I am not expecting incredible volume. Even if Borjas is having success standing, without damage, I’m not sure he’ll run away with things.

The damage aspect really intrigues me though as Costa doesn’t feel like a great nail. He may struggle with the pacing of Borjas, get hurt, and get TKOd. I don’t think Borjas will be super popular at 8k, so his KO equity feels sneaky, although he does have a better ITD line at +195.

It’s really a tough matchup to feel confident about. As the preliminary opener, I’m afraid to overinvest here in a boom or bust spot. I’m also not even sure which side I want to prioritize.

At the same time, Ruffy and Brito should draw a lot of attention nearby, as will Shore and potentially Gomis below. I’m really not convinced the public will be excited to invest in this spot, and a potential contrarian angle would excite me.

I guess I have to label Costa as the safer and preferred target given the grappling equity. He has a better chance to be optimal based on his fighting style, and I consider him a strong secondary target in this range.

I also like Borjas though and think he’s more sneaky, and would probably aim to roster him at a near similar rate to Costa. My hope is that the fight projects to be low owned in total and I can come in a bit overweight, hoping for high pacing and a finish on either side.

Brett’s Fight Prediction: Costa by Decision (Confidence=Low)