This weekend’s UFC Fight Night in Saudi Arabia has some very intriguing fights, as they always do when the UFC visits that part of the world. We originally had 13 fights on the card and we have lost 2 so far. For DFS purposes that makes it much tougher as it consolidates ownership to the same plays and gives us less options to pick from overall. We have a few guys who rarely fight on the card, guys making their debut, and Izzy who dominated the middleweight division for almost half a decade and now we get to see if he is on the downside to finish his career or not. It starts early, 9am est, so we get to enjoy our Saturday nights after making some money during the day.
Without further delay, let’s get going on our Saturday morning UFC 311 slate sleuthing. In this article I will be identifying some of my favorite plays on the slate and will split them up into different categories. Let’s crush this event together!
TOP PLAYS
These plays are the higher owned fighters on the slate that I believe have a good chance to meet or exceed their value. These plays should be great to use for your low risk contests such as double-ups, 50/50’s, and small-field single entry contests. They should also make a nice core to build around for your multiple-entry contests.
Terrance McKinney | $9200 | -500 | 48%
I get that it’s tough to pay this much for someone who’s notoriously a wild card and either looks amazing or gets destroyed without anything in between, McKinney is a huge favorite, the fight is the heavily weighed to finish ITD, and he averages over 4.5 sig strikes per minute and 3 takedowns per fight. He’s like a Spartan, he will be victorious or comes back on his shield.
Sergei Pavlovich | $9100 | -325 | 45%
Sergei has come back to earth after his unreal run of KO’ing everyone, and gets a very technical striker in Bigo Boy to try and rebound. He is chalk, and if he wins it should be by KO and early before he wears down due to his pace. He averages almost 6 significant strikes per minute and neither guy wrestle. In his wins he averages 119 DK points which would make him optimal.
Mike Davis | $8400 | -140 | 33%
Davis should have the advantage on the feet and grappling. He averages almost double the significant strikes as Ziam, averages almost a takedown per round and in his last 4 fights he has won and averaged 104 points which is a very good score for his salary.
GPP PIVOTS
These plays are the fighters that I think have potential to give you leverage over the field in your large-field tournaments and mass multiple-entry contests. They are best used as pivots from similarly priced, more heavily owned fighters. If they win, you then have leverage over the field.
Muhammad Naimov | $9000 | -285 | 28%
This is an ownership pivot off of Pavlovich. He is coming off a loss, but his three fights before ended with him getting a TKO twice and in his decision win he had 4 takedowns and score over 90 in a decision. Ofli won’t be the aggressor, and if he ends up trying Naimov should just wrestle him down and finish it on the mat. A finish in the first two rounds gives him a good chance to be optimal.
Jasmine Jasudavicius | $8900 | -235 | 34%
I was hoping she would be a little less owned, but Jazz should be the one pushing the pace against MBS who is dropping a weight class and will need to rely on her submissions to get a win. I expect Jasmine to be aggressive but smart with her wrestling and with a handful of takedowns with somewhere in the 125+ strike output (she does have one crazy fight with 300+ but that was a fluke). This is expected to go the distance which is always tough for DFS because you want finishes, but she has more paths to victory than MBS.
Hamdy Abdelwahab | $8000 | -110 | 30%
This is a fairly low level heavyweight fight, but I think Hamdy has a very high ceiling for DFS with his Olympic wrestling background. Pogues is not very good, and yes we’ve only seen Hamdy once in the UFC but he has what seems like heavier hands and a better wrestling pedigree. He scored 99 in his one UFC win, and at 8000 if he gets there again he will be optimal on this card.
LIVE DOGS
Due to the salary based nature of DraftKings daily fantasy, you will need an underdog or two in your lineup. Below you will find my favorite underdog plays on the slate along with the contest types that I prefer them for. These fighters are supposed to lose based on the betting odds, but have a better chance of providing value in my opinion than their salary suggests.
Nassourdine Imavov | $7600 | +135 | 41%
This is more of an indictment on Izzy not being the guy everyone is accustomed to seeing. Imavov should take DDP’s game plan to heart and look to grapple Izzy any chance he gets. He gets 5 rounds, and any decision win with some control and takedowns gets him 10x.
Vinicius Oliveira | $7500 | +145 | 29%
The Flying Knee king himself, he is scrappy as hell and very aggressive averaging almost 6 significant strikes per minute. He has above average takedown defense, has good scramble ability to get up if he’s taken down, and is fighting someone who will need to look at a submission to win. He averages 86 in his two wins, which is over 11x and would make him optimal more times than not in a win.
Jairzinho Rozenstruik | $7100 | +275 | 17%
Yes I have his opponent up top here, but in the case Bigi Boy pulls off the win, it should score him enough to be on the optimal lineup as there aren’t many dogs who look like they can win this week. His only losses are to the upper echelon of the division, so look for him to counter strike and keep Pavlovich at bay like Volkov did.
FADES
One of the most important parts of multiple-entry lineup construction is reducing the number of “bad” lineups that you enter. To achieve this you will want to remove some fighters from consideration, or at least come in significantly under the field on those fighters. Below you will find the fighters that I will be fading from my lineups.
Shamil Gaziev | $9300 | -330 | 33%
I don’t think either Shamil or Thomas are very good, but when you look at their metrics and they’re basically the same guy- I don’t see how you pay 9300 for Gaziev this week. If he can’t take Petersen down, his low output on the feet means he could very well score in the 60’s with a win which doesn’t come close to paying off his salary.
Shara Magomedov | $8800 | -175 | 23%
I like Shara a lot, he’s fun to watch fight, but MVP is so unorthodox and makes for anyone fighting him to not score well in DFS so far. He was too fast for Holland on the feet, and even was faster than Ian Garry who had to resort to wrestling to beat him. I don’t expect either guy to score well unless there’s a KO, and I’m going to side with MVP is faster and gets in and out too quickly for a high output of strikes for either guy.
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