Last week’s UFC Freedom 250 card was a total nightmare. The only lock figured to be Ilia Topuria, and he was among the precious few upsets. You absolutely had to be on the opposite side of that fight, and then you had to mostly go favorites. It was a rough slate, but luckily our MMA DFS picks have largely been on point beyond that forgettable slate.
🥊New to MMA DFS? Slate Overview
- Best value play: Ion Cutelaba. Pretty cheap with KO upside.
- Best GPP pivot: Michael Aswell Jr. Our top projecting fighter and big -420 favorite.
- Top stud: Levan Chokheli. Expensive, big -395 favorite, and top 5 projection.
- Safest fighter: Bia Mesquita. Huge -600 favorite and highest win rate (83%) per our tool.
- Biggest Upset risk: Manel Kape. Lost the first match against Hiroguchi and fight has tight odds.
Best MMA DFS Picks for UFC Fight Night 277
- Levan Chokheli ($9.1k)
- Bia Mesquita ($9.6k)
- Kyoji Horiguchi ($7.6k)
Chokheli has the top projection at other sites and he’s cheaper than other studs on this slate. Our tool doesn’t have him coming in with the highest projection, but he’s a big -395 betting favorite and he’s still finding his way into our top-5 for projections. He also has -175 odds to win this fight early by KO. If he can live up to that, he is going to be a smash at this salary compared to the other pricey fighters.
Bia is just such a lock on this slate. She is a dominant fighter and is 2-0 in the UFC so far with two finishes to her name. She’s a -600 favorite to win and she has the highest win rate. Whether she dominates with takedowns or control for three rounds or wins early, she’s going to get us a nice score and she’s a really safe pick.
The last piece of this week’s MMA Core is Horiguchi. He’s three years older than his opponent and loses five inches in reach, but he’s the superior grappler and wrestler. He has to be aggressive and successful with his takedown offense to win, but a couple of takedowns with some control time and five rounds – not to mention the savings – should have him in a lot of the top lineups.
🥊New to MMA DFS? Core plays are the guys you put in most or all of your lineups. They have strong matchups, are usually favored to win, and score takedowns/rack up strikes/and or have a clear path to an early finish. The goal with an MMA Core isn’t to save you cash. It’s to get you three high upside wins that leave enough room to build out the rest of your lineup.
- 🟢 SAFE Mesquita and Chokheli. Massive favorites with top projections and clear path to finishes.
- 🟡 BOOM/BUST Horiguchi. Not favored to win, but could fight up to 5 rounds, is cheap, and can get takedowns.
Sneaky MMA DFS GPP Pivots for UFC Vegas 119
🥊New to DFS? GPP stands for Guaranteed Prize Pool — the big tournaments. To win tournaments, your lineup has to be different from everyone else’s. A “GPP pivot” is a player who will be lower-owned than his/her upside deserves, giving you a tournament edge if he performs well.
- Michael Aswell Jr. ($9.4k)
- Andre Lima ($9.7k)
Aswell and Lima are both really expensive, but they’re also huge betting favorites. I want to touch on Aswell more than anything, because he’s potentially an elite GPP pivot off of some of the top options – even my core play spends – since he is currently coming in with the top projection per our MMA DFS lineup tool.
The tool is in beta, but it’s very interesting to note the difference in projection for him compared to other industry tools. Aswell has an 81% win rate, he has a nasty 105-point fantasy projection (9 ahead of anyone else), and elsewhere he’s not projected to be very owned. That could change, but right now he looks like a potential body we can use to exploit the field.
The Texas Kid is light on experience, but he has six knockouts across 11 wins and he gritted out a Decision versus Luke Riley last time out. On Saturday he’s a big favorite to dispatch Gaston Bolanos, who has not impressed with a middling 8-5 record (4 finish defeats). I think Aswell ends this one early.
Lima also looks great, as he ranks third in terms of projection per our tool. He’s another big betting favorite, and he sports an 81% win rate. Nothing is guaranteed (and he’s crazy pricey), but the undefeated Brazilian has finished 60% of his opponents and gets Kevin Borjas, a guy who has three finish losses in just 15 career fights. His form is also terrible, as he’s lost 4 of 5. This looks to be another opportunity to cash in on a stud that the field isn’t getting to a ton.
If you need more help with your basic strategy, check out our MMA DFS guide.
MMA DFS Strategy for UFC Fight Night: Kape vs. Horiguchi
I think this is definitely a fight card where we can stack the main event. I think Kape should win, but both he and Horiguchi can rack up points across five rounds. Even if Horiguchi loses, though, I think he’s one of the better value picks of the slate.
The studs are aplenty on this slate. I think that gives us a lot of pay-ups to consider, but it also gives us some compelling upset spots. Guys like Raposo, Tanzilovi, and Amil are all worth being a little over-weight on so we can get to studs, but also take shots on some upsets.
Going into Saturday, I’d start with he core, with Horiguchi being my main value. If I had to add a second punt, I’d roll with the explosive Cutelaba, and then rotate the aforementioned underdogs, depending on salary room left over.
Beyond that, I’d also test out our MMA DFS lineup tool. It combines projections and sims to produce 1,000 lineups, while showcasing salary, projection, win rate, finish rate, and more.
Overall, the trick will be which two studs you pay up for. I don’t think it’s very reasonable to stack more than two, unless you take a shot at a massive dog and it pays off. I don’t see someone like Mullins winning, though, so that approach really isn’t for me at a high level. One or two lineups? Sure, but not across a lot of MMA DraftKings lineups.
🥊Not Sure Where to Start?
If you’re newer to MMA DFS and feeling overwhelmed, here’s how to approach it:
- Know what contest you’re entering before you pick a single player. Cash games (50/50s, head-to-head) pay out the top half of the field. Your goal is a safe, reliable lineup. GPP tournaments pay out the top 15-20%, with most of the prize pool at the very top. Your goal there is ceiling. These two goals require completely different lineups.
- Narratives can be a thing. Guys fighting for a title shot. Fighters battling in front of their home crowd. UFC debuts. The list goes on. Know what goes into each bout and what is on the line for every fighter before you click their name.
- Know fighter styles. MMA DFS is very nuanced. What style fighters use, how often they get finishes, how their defense is – all of this plays into their salary, projection, value, and odds of winning. Make sure you know the fighting styles and path to production for both fighters before making your pick.
- Understand floor vs. ceiling before you decide who to play. Floor is the minimum you can reasonably expect from a player. Ceiling is the maximum upside if everything goes right. In cash games, you want floor — guys who almost certainly hit their value. In tournaments, you want ceiling — guys who can go nuclear.
- 5 round fight. The main event offers a little more upside, depending on the fighter. In theory, the more rounds you fight, the more points you can accrue. But don’t forget about fighter styles and how they generate points. For instance, if your fighter doesn’t get takedowns, he better get a lot of strikes or land a finish at some point.
- Upset special. Upsets happen in MMA (a lot). Not every upset is worth targeting, though. Try to put a good amount of logic/reasoning behind big swings. Ie, what is the path for this underdog to win, and how likely is it? Just as importantly, if they don’t win, how likely are they to get upset, or can they accrue points in a Decision loss?
- Who to target: Lastly, make sure you prioritize fighters who can get takedowns, rack up strikes, secure control time, end fights quickly, and grind out wins. All of those things matter and if you can combine some of them, even better. If your pick can only get you one of those things, you might want to keep looking. If they can’t get you any of those things, your decision is made a lot easier.
Playing DFS since the days of DraftStreet, Kevin knows the ins and outs of DFS, specifically for NFL and NBA. He’s also been helping people win in fantasy football leagues for 15+ years and is one of many experts featured at FantasyPros.
Want more winning DFS plays like this? Get our daily core plays, leverage spots, and strategy sent straight to your inbox.
Leave a Reply