UFC 299 is live from Miami this Saturday, with a main event featuring budding star Sean O’Malley making his first bantamweight title defense against the only man to beat him, Marlon Vera.
It’s a stacked card from top to bottom, including a five-round co-main event between Dustin Poirier and Benoit St. Denis. Contests lock at 6:00 p.m. ET for the 14-fight 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
Sean O’Malley ($9,200) vs. Marlon Vera ($7,000)
Crossover star “Suga” Sean O’Malley is set to make his first title defense at UFC 299 against Marlon “Chito” Vera. Chito is (officially) the only fighter to hold a win over O’Mally in the latter’s professional career, with a TKO victory back in 2020.
O’Malley appeared to be injured during that fight, though there’s a healthy debate about whether that injury was preexisting or caused by Chito’s leg kicks. That partially explains why O’Malley is such a heavy favorite despite the results from their first meeting.
On the other hand, there’s some doubt about O’Malley’s recent performances. He has a no contest over Pedro Munhoz ($7,100) — facing Kyler Phillips ($9,100) at UFC 299) due to an eye poke in the second round — but two of three judges had Munhoz winning the first. The champ followed that up with a split decision over (Petr Yan ($8,300) vs. Song Yadong ($7,900) at 299) that’s widely considered a bad judging.
Then there’s his title win against Aljamain Sterling. While O’Malley won with a knockout, Sterling had made a quick turnaround and was publicly unhappy with fighting against so quickly. The point is that there are question marks surrounding all of O’Malley’s high-level fights.
Both fighters have high striking outputs and little interest in grappling, in a fight that’s -150 to hit the judges. That makes it a perfect stacking fight for cash games, as both fighters have solid floors.
I’m leaning heavily toward “Chito” for GPPs, though. Besides the salary savings, prior winners tend to win rematches at a higher clip than the line implies. Additionally, Vera typically builds as fights go on, while we’ve never seen O’Malley fight into the championship rounds. He should come in at fairly low ownership as well.
Co-Main Event
Benoit St. Denis ($8,900) vs. Dustin Poirier ($7,300)
While it’s not a title fight, the co-main event between Dustin Poirier and Benoit St. Denis is a five-round matchup, and thus needs discussing.
As is the theme with many of the fights on the card, this matchup pits an older former champion (Poirier) against a fast-rising prospect. Poirier was the interim champion at lightweight and has fought most of the division’s best fighters, with wins over Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler.
More concerning, though, is his recent loss. He rematched Justin Gaethje at UFC 291, suffering a head-kick knockout in the second round. While Poirier has had ample time to recover (seven months), a 35-year-old lightweight taking that kind of damage isn’t typically a great sign.
This is especially true against St. Denis, who’s finished his last five fights in impressive fashion. Undefeated in the UFC at lightweight, the Frenchman appears to be on a fast track to a title.
This fight is -450 to end inside the distance, so I don’t have much interest in stacking it. However, the line has also moved significantly to St. Denis throughout the week, making him a strong play. He’s a near-perfect fighter for DFS, with finishes in each of his wins and an average of 4.55 takedowns per 15 minutes.
I have some fringe interest in Poirier as a contrarian GPP option, but St. Denis has an excellent combination of value and ceiling in the matchup.
The Easy Chalk
Mateusz Gamrot ($9,400)
Mateusz Gamrot is the safest play at the top of the salary scale. “Gamer” has at least four takedowns in every fight of his lasting more than two rounds, and he’s never been finished in the Octagon. An elite grappler, he averages more than four takedowns per 15 minutes and has repeatedly grounded other elite grapplers like Beneil Dariush and Arman Tsarukyan.
While Rafael dos Anjos ($6,800) is also known for his wrestling, he’s now 39 years old and was just dominated on the mat by the usually striking-focused Vicente Luque. There’s no reason to think Gamrot won’t take a similar tactic here, with a huge edge in athleticism against the aging former champion.
Gamrot’s weakness has been his chin, with four knockdowns suffered in eight UFC appearances. He’s never been finished in those fights, which is a testament to his recovery, but it’s a dangerous game to play, except maybe against dos Anjos, who’s scored one knockdown in the last decade.
Gamrot isn’t a huge upside play, thanks to his somewhat limited finishing potential here. However, he can cover some of that with takedown volume, especially if the crafty veteran can get back to his feet like he did against Luque.
Gamrot is an excellent cash game play and an interesting GPP option if you are betting on some of the other high-priced options to disappoint.
The Upside Play
Robelis Despaigne ($9,300)
The polar opposite of the high-safety and limited-upside — Gamrot is UFC newcomer Robelis Despaigne. Despaigne is an Olympic bronze medalist in Taekwondo, making his UFC debut at age 35 with just over five minutes of professional fight time on his 4-0 record.
Perhaps the scariest UFC prospect since Brock Lesnar, Despaigne is massive, standing 6’7″ with a UFC-record 87 inch reach. Three of his four wins have been in under 12 seconds, proving that he puts that size to good use.
However, he’s not a sure thing. First, we haven’t the slightest clue if he can grapple. Additionally, his four prior opponents had combined for one other pro fight when he faced them and seemed to have been hand-picked as good matchups for “The Big Boy.”
Not that his UFC 299 opponent Josh Parisian ($6,900) is much different. Parisian is just 2-4 in the UFC, with his wins coming against bottom-tier opposition. I laid out the case for how Parisian can win in my betting preview, but the likeliest outcome is a quick Robelis finish.
He’s around -160 to finish this one in the first round, so the upside is clearly there.
The Value Play
Michael Page ($7,700)
Michael “Venum” Page is making his UFC debut after signing from Bellator, where he was one of the most well-known and exciting fighters on the roster.
He’s been given a perfect stylistic matchup against Kevin Holland ($8,500) for his debut. Page is a lethal striker with relatively limited ground skills. Holland can grapple, but he usually chooses to put on fun fights rather than try to win at any cost.
I went more in-depth on the stylistic matchup in my breakdown of the fight, but I expect MVP to pull off the slight upset. Even if you don’t, he’s an underdog with line movement in his favor and a fight fairly likely to go to a decision. That makes him a strong floor play, and he’s underpriced relative to his odds, thanks to all the close fights on the card.
He’s a better option for cash games than GPPs, as he would need a quick finish of the durable Holland to challenge for the optimal.
The Contrarian Choice
Gilbert Burns ($7,600)
Burns leads all three-round fighters under $8,000 in median projection at UFC 299. Like many of the fights on the card, Burns is an established title contender taking on a fast-rising prospect, in this case, Jack Della Maddelena ($8,600).
Unlike the other instances of that situation, Maddalena’s path to the top has been less than dominant. He’s coming off of consecutive split decision wins, and has shown holes in his grappling against upper-level competition.
Which is a problem against Burns, one of the best submission grapplers in the sport. Even if he’s not able to pull off the victory, Burns should be able to snag a few takedowns and some control time here, giving him a solid floor.
More importantly, he has massive upside. One takedown might be enough to finish the Australian — which would certainly secure Burns’ spot in the optimal lineup.
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The Swing Fight
Curtis Blaydes ($8,200) vs. Jailton Almeida ($8,000)
The other heavyweight fight on the UFC 299 card is a doozy. It features perennial top contender Curtis Blaydes taking on the fast-rising Jailton Almeida for what could be a shot at (one of) the UFC heavyweight title(s).
In contrast to Maddalena, Almeida’s rise to the top of the division has been extremely dominant. As a UFC heavyweight he has three finishes (two in the first round) and a five round decision against Derrick Lewis that produced 135 DraftKings points. He’s topped 104 DraftKings points in all six of his UFC bouts, with an absurd 119.5 average.
However, Blaydes is a former junior college wrestler and by far the toughest grappling test Almeida has had to face in the UFC. Almeida should have a big edge if and when this fight hits the mat, but getting it there is no small feat. Additionally, Blaydes is, at the very least, the more proven striker.
It’s a big test for Almeida, which is reflected in the close lines for this one. Still, I’m fairly confident in the Brazilian, as is Sean Zerillo — which we discussed on the latest edition of our UFC Betting Preview:
That analysis all holds up well for DFS — especially at Almeida’s price point — so I’ll be fairly heavy on him this week. Still, with -225 odds to end inside the distance I’ll want to hedge with some Blaydes lineups as well.
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