The UFC continues their international tour in Paris, for an 11-fight card. The event features plenty of local talent, with a main event between two-time UFC heavyweight title challenger Ciryl Gane and surging contender Serghei Spivac.
The action begins at 12 p.m. ET on Saturday, so have your lineups ready to go early.
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
Ciryl Gane ($8,700) vs. Serghei Spivac ($7,500)
Gane had two cracks at the UFC heavyweight title (while holding the interim belt) in his last three fights. He first fell to Francis N’Gannou, before finishing Tai Tuivasa and earning the chance to welcome Jon Jones to the heavyweight division.
Both of those losses saw the former kickboxer thoroughly out-grappled, with N’Gannou landing four takedowns and Jones picking up a quick submission win. This makes this feel like a bad matchup on paper against Spivac, a heavyweight primarily known for his grappling.
On the other hand, none of us were expecting N’Gannou to wrestle — certainly not Gane — and being out-wrestled by Jon Jones could happen to anyone. Spivac is clearly a step back for Gane, and he’s also had plenty of time to work on takedown defense and get-ups.
The big cage and his reach edge help here, too, as Gane should be able to stay at range and out of wrestling danger for much of the fight. He’s a deserving favorite here, with plenty of knockout upside. I’ll be loading up on the former interim champion in GPPs while stacking both in cash games — on an 11-fight slate.
There’s no reason to get cute.
The Easy Chalk
William Gomis ($8,400)
Normally an $8,400 fighter wouldn’t fit the bill in this section. However, plenty of matchup shuffling this week has led to Gomis as a roughly -200 favorite while priced like a -140 favorite.
That’s because his original opponent Lucas Almeida was forced off the card. Instead, he’s taking on Yanis Ghemmouri ($6,900). Ghemmouri is a UFC newcomer who was originally on this card at bantamweight but is stepping up to featherweight on short notice against Gomis.
That level of value should make Gomis the most popular player on the slate in all contest types. However, I’m wary of playing him in GPPs. The combination of his popularity and limited finishing upside (+330 to win inside the distance) makes him a far better cash game option.
The Value Play
Kleydson Rodrigues ($7,000)
Rodrigues is a classic floor play, with his fight at -165 to make it all 15 minutes. After missing weight in his first two UFC appearances, he’s moving up to bantamweight to take on Farid Basharat ($9,200), who’s a solid technical striker but lacks finishing power.
That should give Rodrigues plenty of time to rack up points, as he’s a high-volume striker with a significant strikes per minute rate of six. He also has some sneaky grappling upside, picking up two takedowns and two reversals in his UFC debut.
Those reversals could be crucial to his fantasy score here, as Basharat is a solid wrestler, but Rodrigues has an edge in the jiu-jitsu department. I like Rodrigues as a high-upside underdog, but at worst, he’s a very solid floor play.
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The Contrarian Choice
Rhys McKee ($7,400)
This is the second UFC stint for McKee, who drew the unenviable task of fighting Khamzat Chimaev in his UFC debut. Since then, he’s picked up three straight knockouts in the Cage Warriors promotion, becoming their welterweight champion along the way.
This time around, he has a much better matchup with Ange Loosa ($8,800), a 1-1 UFC fighter who also has a loss on the Contender Series. It’s a much better stylistic matchup for McKee, who has struggled with grapplers in the past. While Loosa can wrestle a bit, the large cage and reach advantage for McKee lowers that risk.
Loosa also has a negative striking differential in his UFC/DWCS career, a bad sign against a fighter like McKee with 10 knockouts in 13 professional wins. The combination of striking volume and finishing upside means he should pay off his modest salary with a win here.
I discussed McKee as my favorite underdog on the card on our latest UFC Betting Preview Podcast:
The Swing Fight
Volkan Oezdemir ($8,600) vs. Bogdan Guskov ($7,600)
Outside of the five-round main event, this light-heavyweight clash has the best odds to end inside the distance of any fight on the card at -500. 12-fight UFC veteran Oezdemir is taking on the newcomer Guskov after his original opponent Azamat Murzakanov withdrew from the card.
Guskov looks like the real deal, though. He has a 14-2 record, with all of his wins coming inside the distance, including four consecutive first-round knockouts. It’s hard to find tape on the Russian, but his record sends a strong signal about his fighting style.
With Oezdemir having lost three of his last four — and the only win coming against a disengaged Paul Craig — it wouldn’t be a shock to see the newcomer dominate here. On the other hand, we could find out that Guskov is nowhere near UFC level yet.
This is what makes this a perfect swing fight — either scenario is almost equally plausible. I tend to lean to the underdog in scenarios like that — as almost any win should make it in the optimal lineup. The same can’t be said for Oezdemir, who needs a higher score to help you take down a tournament.
Still, there’s a reasonable chance that Oezdemir starches the newcomer immediately, so I’ll be mixing him in some of my lineups as well.
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