We are sitting at 13 fights again which is great for DFS. UFC 314 headlined by Volk vs Lopes for the Featherweight Championship, co-mained by Paddy the Baddy against Michael Chandlers, and we are in for a treat with an awesome PPV card all around, even after losing one of the best fights on the card due to Geoff Neal getting hurt. We have some fun fights, a title contender eliminator between the #1 and #3 women’s strawweight contenders, and 11 ranked fighters overall for this loaded PPV event. Silva damn near missed weight, but no fights are cancelled for now so let’s pray we get through another night without any last minute fuckery.
Without further delay, let’s get going on our Saturday morning UFC Fight Night Mexico 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.
Chase Hooper | $9600 | -900 | 34%
16 years younger, elite grappler who has developed his striking the last couple years. Chase has a 5 inch height advantage, 3 inch reach advantage, averaging 2 more significant strikes per minute than Jim, and Miller is under 50% takedown defense against someone who can outgrapple him with ease if he cannot win standing on and trading on the feet. Coming in with 4 straight wins, 3 in a row by submission, and averaging over 115 DK points in his last 4 fights. Big time upside here with the ability to get Miller to the mat and end it round 1.
Nikita Krylov | $8800 | -180 | 27%
Krylov has not fought in awhile, but is on a 3 fight win streak with wins by all 3 fashions, a KO of Gustaffson, decision over Oezdemir, and a sub over Spann. He has fought the best of the best over the last few years, averages 2.3 takedowns per fight and this will be his path to beat Reyes. Look for something similar to the Oezdemir fight where he got 7 takedowns and scored 120 in a win with the control time. Reyes “is back” because he beat Jacoby and then beat Anthony Smith who literally went in there to get hit in the face because his friend died. Krylov with an early finish.
Diego Lopes| $8000 | +124 | 39%
Diego opened as a +130 dog and the line is now moving his way. He is pure excitement when he fights, looking to murder you on the feet and is one of the slickest grapplers in the division with his BJJ submissions. He has won 5 fights in a row, and is the epitome of if you stay active and are entertaining good things will come your way. This kind of stinks because I think we are at the end of the Volk era, and he was an amazing champ, but Lopes is just so much more powerful, and I think we see him send volk to sleep for the 3rd fight in a row. Everyone talks about his gas tank not being there, but nobody is talking about how Volk has no won a fight in almost 2 years.
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.
Marco Tulio | $9200 | -365 | 38%
Chute Boxing’s Marco Tulio will be looking to keep the fight standing where he has a big advantage with his power over Gore who will be looking to get the fight to the mat. This is a fight featuring guys with opposite game plans, so it will come down to who can execute and we have seen Gore be mediocre, and Tulio just has the power to catch him at any point and end it. Gore has bad significant strike defense as it is, so if he cannot secure any takedowns Tuloi is going to piece him up on the feet en route to a TKO or decision win with a ton of strikes.
Paddy Pimblett | $8700 | -150 | 45%
Paddy is on a 5 fight win streak, coming off a slick ass submission of King Greene, while Chandler has mostly been inactive waiting on McGregor and just got demolished by Oliveira. Paddy is 8 years younger, taller, 2 inch reach advantage, higher output on the feet and is an elite grappler. I think Chandler will get finished here, as long as Paddy doesn’t get caught with his chin out. He is super slick with submissions and I think he is live to KO Chandler also.
Virna Jandiroba | $8300 | -145 | 25%
She is not going to stand and trade with Yan, and will look to overpower her with the wrestling/grappling where Yan has shown issues overcoming. She is a low output fighter, but will look to get another submission win en route to her chance at the belt for her next fight if she wins. It probably will be a boring fight if we are being honest, but she is coming in at decently low ownership in the range due to Pimblett and Diego soaking it up.
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.
Diego Lopes | $8000 | +124 | 39%
Same write up as above.
Patricio Freire | $7500 | +170 | 17%
This fight should be fun, Yair always is in entertaining fights and Pitbull may be making his UFC debut but he is very experienced being a double champ as his previous organization. He will have a big size disadvantage, but nothing new for Patricio there and expect him to close the distance and look to beat up Yair in the pocket. If he has any issues exchanging on the feet, he will move to wrestle as Yair has shown that he can be taken down and controlled his last few fights. Wrestling upside at low ownership? Sign me up.
Bryce Mitchell | $7100 | +165 | 15%
Everybody, and I mean everybody, is on Jean Silva. The fighting nerds are on an incredible run, he is the craziest of them and asked for this fight and has been talking shit non stop since getting it. Mitchell is an idiot who got himself in trouble on his podcast, but the dude is a pretty damn good MMA fighter. His losses are to Topuria and then Emmett caught him with a power right that made him go to the shadow realm and become a meme. He will be looking to drag Silva to the mat, and if he can do that I think we see him find a submission and derail the hype train of Silva.
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.
Julian Erosa | $9300 | -270 | 24%
This is a matchup where if Erosa was like 8300 he would be in play. At 9300 it just is simply too much salary for someone who is fighting a wrestle heavy opponent like Elkins who will look to grind out and slow down the fight with control. This would be dog or pass for me.
Sumudaerji | 8900 | -160 | 15%
This fight just seems like the winner is going to score like 70 points. That is fine if you use Raposo who is priced where that pays off, Sumudaerju is going to need to score 90+ which he has done one time in his UFC career and it was 5 years ago. Tough to pay up for someone who does not have the same upside as the guys he is priced around.
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