The UFC hits the road with UFC 298, live from Anaheim at 6:00 p.m. ET on Saturday. The main event features undefeated featherweight Ilia Topuria in his bid to dethrone the best fighter in the division’s history, Alexander Volkanovski.
With just 11 other fights, building unique lineups will be critical for GPPs this week, so we’ll go over all the options as we look for the best plays on the card.
We have built out a full player-projection model using the FantasyLabs Tools and Player Models to help put together some winning DFS lineups in UFC. You can use our optimizer to build optimal lineups using these projections.
The model, created by our own Sean Koerner, is based on 10,000 simulations of all the fights. He then pulled the DraftKings score from each bout to create floor, median, and ceiling projections for every fighter. Here is how he defined each projection:
- Floor: Fighter has an 80% chance of going over this score, 20% chance of going under
- Median: Fighter has a 50% chance of going over this score, 50% chance of going under
- Ceiling: Fighter has a 20% chance of going over this score, 80% chance of going under
These should give us a better sense of which fighters we should target based on the game type – maximizing ceiling in GPPs, for example. We’ve also added ownership projections by yours truly to help find leverage spots for GPPs.
You can check out the projections for every fighter on Saturday’s card in our UFC Models.
Main Event
Alexander Volkaovski ($8,200) vs. Ilia Topuria ($8,000)
This is one of my most anticipated main events in quite some time, with the near-identical price tags offering a hint as to why.
Alexander Volkanovski is the promotion’s longest-reigning champion and nearly unarguably the best featherweight of all time. He’s undefeated at his home weight class, with his only career losses coming during his attempts to challenge for the lightweight title. While neither was successful, there’s certainly an argument that he deserved the victory in a close loss to Islam Makhachev the first time around.
He’s also 35 — over the magical number where no men’s champion has won or retained a title at 155 pounds or below. He’s also only a few months removed from a bad knockout loss to Makhachev, which is never a great thing for a fighter’s reflexes or chins.
Volkanovski also faces the stiffest test of his featherweight reign in Topuria. The unbeaten Georgian has passed every UFC test with flying colors, picking up four stoppages in six UFC fights and losing just one round. He’s shown off excellent striking against grapplers and wrestled strikers, with no clear weakness in his game.
This is an excellent fight from a DFS perspective, with both fighters having well above-average output levels in both striking and grappling. We’re projecting this fight to combine for around 170 DraftKings points, and that’s after I manually adjusted both fighters down slightly.
That makes it a no-brainer stack for cash games, as it’s both too close to call and likely to produce a solid score for the loser as well as the winner. Given the small fight card, I’m also very interested in stacking this fight for tournaments — or entering my cash lineup in smaller field contests.
If forced to pick, I’m siding with the slight underdog Topuria. His skill set and athleticism are somewhat reminiscent of Volkanovski’s, plus he has the advantage of youth and considerably less wear and tear. That’s a lean and not a firm pick, though, so mix and match both fighters across your tournament portfolio.
The Easy Chalk
Rinya Nakamura ($9,600)
Japan’s answer to Bo Nickal is knocking on the door of a record-setting moneyline, with odds as high as -1400 across the industry. Like Nickal, he’s a highly decorated wrestler, winning the under-23 world championship in 2017 before transitioning to MMA.
He’s also an elite athlete, with massive power in his hands and an ability to load up on punches, knowing that his opponents can’t take him down. That’s a lethal combination, and he has four knockdowns in four UFC-affiliated fights (counting the Road to the UFC tournament).
While he’s “only” -175 to finish Carlos Vera ($6,600) on Saturday, it might not matter for DFS. A decision likely means plenty of takedowns and control time, making him extremely likely to pay off his salary. He’ll be heavily owned, but I have a hard time leaving him out of any lineups, regardless of contest type.
The Upside Play
Merab Dvalishvili ($8,600)
Merab “The Machine” Dvalishvili is another fighter known for his wrestling. He averages a ridiculous 6.55 takedowns per 15 minutes in the UFC, which is likely a record among fighters with a reasonable sample size, though that stat isn’t among those in the official UFC record book.
What makes him more “upside” than “safe bet” this week is his opponent. That would be former Olympic gold medalist Henry Cejudo ($7,600), who’s not an easy man to take down. It’s happened just five times in 12 UFC fights — and four of those were in his last fight.
That was against Dvalishvili’s teammate Aljamain Sterling, who potentially laid out the blueprint for beating Cejudo. Personally, I’d make Dvalishvili the better pure takedown artist than Aljo, which is a promising sign.
As is the fact that Cejudo is 37, with the loss to Sterling his only bout in the last four years. All of which justifies Dvalishvili’s roughly two-to-one moneyline. However, there’s a scenario where The Georgian picks up the win but not many takedowns, leading to a disappointing DFS score.
Equally likely is Dvalishvili taking Cejudo down, “Triple C” popping right back up — and the process repeats itself. That would give the favorite a massive DFS score, making him a strong consideration for your lineups.
The Value Plays
Andrea Lee ($7,300)
Andrea Lee checks all the boxes for a cash game salary saver. Her fight against Miranda Maverick ($8,900) is tied for the longest odds to end inside the distance on the card at +200. She’s an underdog, but the line has shifted slightly her way since DraftKings released salaries. Finally, she has a reasonably strong work rate, averaging nearly five significant strikes per minute.
All of this makes her worthy of a spot in your cash lineup, especially if you are trying to get up to the more expensive options on the slate. She’s not incredibly likely to win — I’d argue her moneyline is inflated — but that’s not why we’re playing her. She’s unlikely to get finished early by Maverick, which could be enough to separate her from the other heavy underdogs.
That’s admittedly not a ringing endorsement, and I have zero interest in her for GPPs. Still, we have to save salary somewhere (especially when rostering Nakamura), making her a necessary evil.
The Contrarian Choice
Roman Kopylov ($7,400)
For GPPs, my favorite play among the cheaper fighters is Roman Kopylov. He has similar moneyline odds as Lee, but in a fight that’s far more likely (-235) to end inside the distance.
I’m also not sure why his chances of winning are so low in the market. Both he and Anthony Hernandez ($8,800) started their UFC careers with a pair of bad losses. However, they’ve each won their last four straight, putting them on a collision course for an official UFC ranking.
They’ve collectively finished seven of those eight wins, with Hernandez doing so on the ground with submissions and ground and pound. Kopylov does his best work on the feet, where he’s picked up four consecutive knockout victories.
The only decision win for Hernandez came over an opponent (Josh Fremd) who Kopylov put away fairly easily, another data point for the underdog. I dove into the stylistic matchup in my breakdown of this fight earlier in the week for my expanded thoughts on Kopylov’s chances.
For DFS, the important takeaway is that a win from Kopylov likely means a violent finish, which we like. I’ll have a heavy dose of him in GPPs and might roster him over Lee in cash games as well.
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The Swing Fight
Zhang Mingyang ($8,400) vs. Brendson Ribeiro ($7,800)
Speaking of record-setting betting lines, this light heavyweight bout is as likely to end inside the distance (-1100) as any fight I can recall. Both men picked up violent first-round knockouts to earn their spot in the UFC while exhibiting little in the way of defense.
For Zhang, that was in a non-tournament bout on the Road to UFC competition. He was the night’s heaviest underdog but picked up a quick finish after absorbing some early damage. Riberio has a similar story, where he defied +380 odds to beat the previously undefeated Bruno Lopes in the Contender Series.
Ribeiro is massive for the division — or any division — with an 81-inch reach. Despite that, he’s extremely hittable, as he carries his hands low and wide while throwing fastballs from the hip.
Zhang can overcome that reach with straight punches, as he did in his RUFC bout. However, he also showcased a willingness to stand in the pocket and trade, which isn’t ideal against a heavy hitter like Riberor. That also explains the three knockout losses on his record.
I don’t feel exceptionally strongly about either fighter, though I’d lean slightly towards the slightly favored Zhang. However, I’m also confident the winner of this one also wins somebody a GPP, so I’ll want heavy exposure on both sides.
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