UFC Fight Night 277 brings us to Macau, China, where Song Yadong and Deiveson Figueiredo will face off in the main event. There are a lot of unknowns on this card, but some big names like Zhang Mingyang, Alonzo Menifield, Sergei Pavlovich, and Jake Matthews generate plenty of buzz.
Looking for winning MMA DFS picks to use at DraftKings? In this breakdown, we’ll attack the best UFC Fight Night 277 DFS picks, leverage spots, and lineup-building strategies to help you build smarter MMA DFS lineups for Saturday night. Let’s build.
🥊New to MMA DFS? Slate Overview
- Best value play: Jaqueline Amorim. This slate is bad for value!
- Best GPP pivot: Jake Matthews. Decent projectio, big favorite, and low-owned.
- Top stud: Zhang Mingyang. Top projection and solid -258 favorite.
- Safest fighter: Sergei Pavlovich. Big -625 betting favorite.
- Biggest Upset risk: Jingnan Xiong. Facing Angela Hill, who is impossible to finish.
Best MMA DFS Picks for UFC FN 277
- Sergei Pavlovich ($9.4k)
- Zhang Mingyang (8.9k)
- Deiveson Figueiredo ($6.9k)
🥊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.
Let’s start with Fig, who is definitely past his prime at age 38. It’s still cool to see him in a main event, of course, and he’s still an extremely versatile fighter who in theory offers KO upside. He’s run into some monsters lately and has not escaped cleanly, getting TKO’d by Cory Sandhagen and going just 1-3 overall in his previous four bouts.
But he’s also dirt cheap, has a path to an upset (kind of), and can get us five rounds of work. My best guess is the heavily favored Song punishes him to a Decision loss, but maybe Fig can get us enough points if he can at least go the distance. This is the rare situation where I’m very comfortable pairing the guys in the final fight of the night.
While I will be getting to Song a lot (with and without Fig), he’s not locked into my core. Part of that is because I want Fig for value and will be hoping he knocks him out somehow, but also because he is more expensive than the other two dudes and doesn’t project as well.
Pavlovich is probably the top pick of the slate. Sometimes expensive MMA DFS picks can bust, but I don’t see that happening here. He’s not cheap, but he’s a huge favorite to win and he carries -277 odds to win by knockout. He’s eight years older than Tallison Teixeira and heavyweight bouts admittedly can go the opposite way we expect, but I think he schools him.
Mingyang owns the top projection this week and he’s even cheaper than both of the studs I just mentioned. He’s fighting in his own backyard and will face an aging and increasingly beatable Alonzo Menifield.
Mingyang definitely disappointed in his last fight, but he’s a -258 favorite to win and should be able to bounce-back in this spot. He’s 11 years younger than Alonzo, inflicts a ton of damage, and is a KO machine. Menifield can take a beating, but he did get KO’d last time out and he’s been rocked four times in his career now – with three of them coming in his last five bouts.
- 🟢 SAFE Pavlovich. Massive favorite and great bet to get a finish.
- 🟡 BOOM/BUST Fig and Mingyang. Slight fear for Alonzo’s finishing ability and Fig is a big dog.
Sneaky MMA DFS GPP Pivots for UFC Macau
🥊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.
- Aori Aoriqileng ($6.9k)
- Jake Matthews ($9.2k)
Aoriqileng is a price play on a slate where the value sucks, but there could be more to it than that. Is he the better fighter in this match? No, but Cody Haddon hasn’t fought in two years and lacks the experience his opponent does.
On top of that, Aoriqieleng gets to fight in front of his home crowd. He also looked pretty dangerous with a 21 second KO in his last fight. It’s not safe at all, but for GPPs I think we can aim high.
Jake Matthews is very interesting in MMA DFS tournaments because he’s coming in at a similar price to other popular studs. Guys like Pavlovich, Song, and Mingyang all look better, but they will also be more owned because of it.
One viable MMA DFS strategy is to fade one of those guys and pivot to Matthews. Perhaps they lose and you can leverage further by picking across from them, or you could just bet on Matthews producing a better score. Matthews is a big betting favorite and he’s seven years younger than Carlston Harris, who has gotten knocked out in his last two fights.
If you need more help with your basic strategy, check out our MMA DFS guide.
🥊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.
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