The UFC is heading to England, with both of their British champions defending their belts on Saturday night. Leon Edwards is putting his welterweight title on the line against Belal Muhammad, while Tom ASpinall is defending the interim heavyweight strap opposite Curtis Blaydes.
The 14-fight card locks at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time.
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
Leon Edwards ($8,800) vs. Belal Muhammad ($7,400)
Both title fights on the UFC 304 card are rematches with questionable endings. This one, at least, gave us a full round of action to work with. Welterweight champion Leon Edwards met Belal Muhammad — who took the fight on short notice — back in 2021. Edwards fairly easily won the first round, before poking Muhammad in the eye (twice) leading to a no contest.
He’s gone on to bigger and better things since, taking the title from longtime champion Kamaru Usman and defending it twice. Muhammad is on a ten-fight unbeaten streak of his own, though, and the deserving challenger.
This fight is +150 to end inside the distance, so we have a fairly decent chance of getting 25 minutes from both fighters. That’s the biggest appeal for DFS, as neither fighter is an especially strong per-minute scorer. Muhammad has some takedown upside, but Edwards is difficult to bring down. Edwards is a low-volume “sniper” on the feet, who probably needs a finish to pay off his salary.
For that reason, it’s a solid fight to stack in cash games but not a GPP priority. There’s higher ceiling options at both fighter’s price range, but they have strong floors.
Co-Main Event
Tom Aspinall ($9,400) vs. Curtis Blaydes ($6,900)
The interim heavyweight championship fight — also a rematch — is a totally different story. We have a very heavy favorite in Aspinall, with the under 1.5 rounds heavily juiced.
Aspinall is a slight favorite to win insider the first round, as he’s done in six of his seven UFC wins. He’s an elite athlete by heavyweight standards, with excellent boxing and a far more developed submission game than we typically see in the division.
Blaydes is one of the divisions best wrestlers, but could wrestle his way into trouble against the submission game of Aspinall. “Razor” is typically the quicker athlete at heavyweight, but won’t have that advantage against his English opponent.
If Blaydes has any chance here, it’s by using takedowns to control the fight on the ground while dodging submissions. That would easily be enough to justify his small price tag, so he’s worth considering for GPPs.
For cash games, I’m trusting the market and riding with Aspinall by himself. I’m obviously interested in the favorite for GPPs as well, but I want to go over the field on Blaydes. That shouldn’t be hard at his likely ownership.
The Easy Chalk
Sam Patterson ($9,300)
As of Friday afternoon, three fighters are tied for the best moneyline odds on the slate at -410. One of those is Aspinall, and the cheapest of the bunch is Patterson, who’s seen considerable line movement in his direction this week.
Patterson was gifted a fairly favorable matchup against Kiefer Crosbie ($6,900) in front of Patterson’s home crowd. Crosbie was submitted in the first round of his UFC debut, while Patterson has six submission wins on his 11-2 record.
The rangy Patterson is 6’3″ tall with a 6’8″ reach, and utilizes his long limbs to ensnare opponents on the ground. He struggles with striking defense, but shouldn’t have too much trouble turning this into a grappling match.
The combination of his stoppage equity and line movement make him my preferred high-end option (along with Aspinall) over Nathaniel Wood ($9,500), who’s far more likely to win by a decision and not live up to his price tag.
The Upside Play
Muhammad Mokaev ($8,400)
The most important non title fight in terms of rankings is the flyweight bout between Mokaev and Manel Kape ($7,800). It’s exceedingly likely that the winner gets the next shot at the 125lbs title, and either man would be a deserving contender.
This is a fairly straightforward striker vs grappler match, with Mokaev playing the role of grappler. He has an extensive amateur wrestling career, and is averaging a ridiculous 5.75 takedowns per 15 minutes in the UFC.
Kape has rare power for a flyweight — he’s also one of the division’s largest fighters — with five knockdowns in his last four UFC appearances. While he’s not a bad grappler himself, he’s pretty clearly a cut below Mokaev on the mat.
The deciding factor for me is how Kape usually scores his knockdowns. Namely, through counter striking. He needs an opponent willing to pursue him with strikes, but isn’t getting one with Mokaev. That’s why I’m betting on the favorite, and also loading up for DFS.
Mokaev has also seen plenty of line movement his direction this week, with a -142 price tag on DraftKings when salaries were released but -160 or so lines now. That makes him a solid value option, with sky high takedown-based upside.
The Value Play
Alice Ardelean ($7,300)
The opening bout of the UFC 304 card features what should be a lower-level regional fight, but is somehow taking place under the UFC banner. Alice Ardelean is a 9-5 can crusher, who has gone 5-0 against low level competition since getting stopped by Weili Zhang in 2016.
She’s taking on Shauna Bannon ($8,900) an Irishwoman that the UFC would really like to be better — and more exciting — than she is. “Mama B” comes from a traditional martial arts background, and lost a unanimous decision in her UFC debut.
Ardelean could easily steal a decision here with a takedown or two, as Bruna Brasil did against Bannon last year. Even if she doesn’t, this is one of a few fights favored to see the judges, so she should get 15 minutes to put up points.
The upside is extremely low on Ardelean, but as a +140 or so underdog she’s fairly underpriced. It’s a cash game only consideration for me, but we need to save salary somewhere.
The Contrarian Choice
Giga Chikadze ($7,200)
From a GPP standpoint, I greatly prefer Chikadze in a similar price range to Ardelean. He’s a heavier underdog — which makes sense as a 35 year old featherweight coming back from a torn groin — but has considerably more upside.
An elite kickboxer before transitioning to MMA “Ninja” has scored six knockdowns in nine UFC bouts, with an opponent who just might play into his strengths. That would be Arnold Allen ($9,000) who’s a better all around fighter, but has a tendency to get sucked into brawls.
If Allen uses his strength and grappling here he should easily control Chikadze, but I’m not entirely confident he’ll do that. Chickadze is also always live for a knockout, which would easily pay his salary even if it comes late.
He’s my preferred budget option for GPPs.
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The Swing Fight
Christian Leroy Duncan ($8,300) vs. Gregory Rodrigues ($7,900)
One of the most interesting fights on the card is the short-notice booking between British former basketball player Christian Leroy Duncan and elite Brazilian grappler Gregory “Robocop” Rodrigues.
Under normal circumstances, I’d expect Rodrigues to be favored in the matchup. However, he’s the one stepping in on (somewhat) short notice. He also has a fatal flaw with his lack of a chin — suffering some bad knockout losses throughout his career.
Duncan is well positioned to exploit that, as a twitchy fighter with elite length for the division. Despite being the shorter fighter “CLD” has four inches of reach, and has finished eight of ten pro wins via knockout.
Rodrigues has a tendency to brawl, as I noted in my betting preview of this fight. However, he has big power in his own right and could find the button on Duncan as well.
Either way, the likeliest outcomes involve a CLD knockout or a dominant performance on the ground for Rodrigues. I’m leaning pretty heavily towards Rodrigues personally, but both fighters should be strongly considered for GPPs.
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