Back to The Apex we go for UFC Vegas 114. The main event this time around isn’t really moving the needle for me personally, but I could see how some fans are pumped up for it. We have rising prospect Kevin Vallejos fighting aging veteran Josh Emmett. The event kicks off at 5pm est on Paramount Plus, and some fights bounce over to CBS again as well. Hopefully the ones that do deliver on excitement.
Once we look down the card my interest starts to perk up again. We have exciting young prospects everywhere on this card including Jose Delgado, Oumar Sy, Freaky Rahiki, and a handful more. The veteran fights are even interesting matchups that should provide some entertainment. Let’s take a look at some of the important DFS matchups.
THE MAIN EVENT
Kevin Vallejos ($9600 | -550 | 41%) vs. Josh Emmett ($6600 | +400 | 21%)
Last week I wrote this section expecting the most exciting main event of the year. We didn’t get that at all unfortunately. Instead we got 5 rounds of dominant grappling with little action. I was on Charles, so at the very least, at least it went the direction I was expecting. It didn’t play out anything like I expected though, never did I think Charles was going to get takedowns that easily. Let’s take a look at a main event that likely doesn’t include wrestling.
UFC Vegas 114 is giving us Kevin Vallejos and an opportunity for him to style on an old man in Josh Emmett. That old man still has some power though I am sure, and he has also proven that he has the ability to take a full five round beating. In fact, in his last two fights that went longer than a few seconds, he went five rounds with Lerone Murphy and Ilia Topuria. Both of them are far better fighters than Kevin Vallejos in my humble opinion.
With Josh’s ability to take a long beating, the stack play for cash is pretty obvious in my opinion. If you want to not stack it, I would suggest just punting with Josh Emmett, does he win? Probably not, but he should have the safer floor and does have a chance to win the fight. This is probably a step down in competition for him.
I am going to suggest doing something similar with single entry tournaments. The reason I suggest playing Josh over Vallejos in these types of contests is because there is a world where Vallejos doesn’t score that well, even in a win. Josh will be optimal if he wins 100%. All of that based on the salary of Kevin vs. the salary for Emmett. $9600 requires a fast stoppage, tons of wrestling, or the output of ten men for the juice to be worth the squeeze.
Based on the same thing as the single entry write up above, probably best to go over on Josh and under on Vallejos for the multiple entry tournaments as well. You will still want exposure to both, but going under on Kevin gives you a bit of grace for when he scores a 95 point decision win. Going over a touch on Josh (nothing crazy, maybe 5-10% over) gives you insurance against any type of win from him and throws you into a good position. In the interest of full disclosure, our Event Simulator went under on both, basically predicting this fight to miss the optimal lineup.
MOST IMPORTANT FIGHT
Vitor Petrino ($9000 | -225 | 26%) vs. Steven Asplund ($7200 | +190 | 28%)
Normally this spot highlights a fight in the 60% area of total ownership, and two fighters priced near the direct middle of the slate. That includes last week with the Gregory Rodrigues fight. This slate however is 14 fights, which evens out the ownership, and is only coming in just over 50% total ownership.
For cash games I would go in with the concept of dog or pass. Asplund is the most popular dog on the entire slate, and that popularity will likely transfer over to cash games. If he wins this fight, you will almost surely need him to stay in the hunt with the field. If Petrino wins and you don’t have him, no big deal, you can make that score up from numerous other fighters around his price point.
Single entry tournaments, which by the way are my favorite type of DFS contest you might consider basing your choice on the field size of the tournament. In smaller field contests, my absolute favorite, I would again roll dog or pass – you don’t want to be too different unless you are near positive in the outcome with these contests so you stay in the hunt for min cash wins. The larger the tournament is, the more interesting moving to Petrino becomes in my opinion.
Huge multiple entry tournaments opens the door for some more creative decision making. Petrino is coming back on some sims as a leverage opportunity, but our Event Simulator is suggesting being under to both of these fighters. I am not sure if that is the right call, but if this ends up a slow paced stinker you will gain a massive advantage over the field not having as much ownership tied up into this one.
LOOKING FOR LEVERAGE
$9000+ Range: Jose Delgado ($9300 | -450 | 26%)
The 14 fight slate evens out ownership in the salary ranges, but I have to say, I am still shocked that Delgado is expected to be this low owned. Our Event Simulator is churning him out in 40% of lineups and has identified him as a massive leverage opportunity. I do believe that he gets a finish against his opponent, Andre Fili. Even if he doesn’t however, Fili should provide plenty of activity to ensure that we get huge strike numbers from Delgado again so I like this play in every way personally.
$8000-$8900 Range: Hecher Sosa ($8900 | -235 | 21%)
In the 8k range the highlighted play is going to be Hecher Sosa. I feel a bit dirty here writing this up as it's in direct conflict with the official lock of the week, but nevertheless our Event Simulator has Sosa being optimal at almost twice the rate of his ownership, so here he is. He has the potential for a knockout finish, and despite many being concerned about the ground game of Lacerda giving Sosa an issue, I think we may see takedowns and ground control time as well. Last week we rolled with the artificial intelligence in this slot, and if not for two nut shots, it would have been a fantastic call. This week we submit to the algorithms and hope for the best.
Under $8K Range: Bolaji Oki ($6800 | +230 | 19%)
Oki is fighting an official debut, Manoel Sousa, and is near the very bottom of the slate for pricing. This fight should be fairly high paced and I would expect the winner to score well. The biggest question mark is the gas tank of Oki, because Sousa is very likely to push that to the limits. At this salary, if Oki can pull out the win he should be optimal by default, but the odds are favoring a second or third round finish in this fight which would elevate what is already an optimal score.
FINAL THOUGHT
Send Your Wins!
Last week we had a member, OhdisOfTheEast, win 135k and while it was his biggest win, it wasn’t his only big win since joining We Want Picks. The tools are tooling. We are looking to start featuring more of our member wins, so please make sure to send your winning tickets to Angelo if you don’t mind them being featured publicly.
Congrats to Ohdis on the big win! Good luck to all with your DFS contests this week!
