UFC

UFC Seattle DFS Breakdown: Model, Preview, Picks for Cejudo vs. Song, More Saturday Fights

The UFC has had to shuffle fights frequently for UFC Seattle, but the final tally seems to be a 12-fight card going down at 6:00 p.m. ET. The headliner is former two-division champion Henry Cejudo taking on fast-rising prospect Song Yadong in a five-round fight.

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.

You can check out the projections for every fighter on Saturday’s card in our UFC Models.

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Main Event

Song Yadong ($8,900) vs. Henry Cejudo ($7,300)

Since returning to the UFC following a few years of “retirement,” Henry Cejudo has gone 0-2. However, he went 0-2 against former champion Aljamain Sterling and current champion Merab Dvalishvili. Not only were those much tougher matchups than he has this week, but they were also both huge stylistic challenges for Cejudo.

Both Sterling and Dvalishvili are elite grapplers, while Cejudo is a former Olympic wrestling gold medalist. Song Yadong is a powerful striker who has lost fights in the past due to being outgrappled.

Song is also more than a decade younger and still working his way into his prime. He has the power to end this fight at any point, while Cejudo needs to win minutes over a five-round contest.

That makes this an excellent DFS fight, as we’re likely to either get a Yadong knockout or plenty of takedowns from Cejudo—if not both. I’ll certainly be stacking this in cash games and including at least one fighter in my GPP lineups. This could be a sneaky GPP stack as well, on a 12-fight card where staying unique is somewhat important.

The Easy Chalk

Mansur Abdul-Malik ($9,700)

We’ve seen massive line movement towards Mansur Abdul-Malik this week for his fight against Nick Klein ($6,500). Abdul-Malik came into the week as around a -500 favorite, but his odds have swelled all the way to -1200.

He’s now a slight favorite to pick up a win in the first round—as he’s done in six of his seven professional fights. The lone exception was a second-round knockout in his appearance on the Contender Series that would’ve still scored well for DFS purposes.

The only real drawback for Abdul-Malik is his price tag, but it’s fairly easy to find enough value to afford him. I want as much of him as possible in all contest types.

The Upside Plays

Anthony Hernandez ($9,000)

The co-main event between Hernandez and Brendan Allen ($7,200) is a fun one. It’s a rematch of an LFA title fight from 2018 that saw Hernandez win a five-round decision.

Since then, both men have been on impressive runs in the UFC, with Hernandez winning six straight and Allen having a seven-fight win streak snapped by Nassourdine Imavov in his last fight.

Both men are grapplers, but Hernandez stands out for DFS thanks to his impressive cardio and work rate. In his last fight, he attempted 29 takedowns and landed 10—a ridiculous mark for a heavier weight class fighter.

That was over five rounds, and he has just three to work with here. Still, that’s plenty of time for Hernandez to pile up takedowns, especially if Allen’s cardio fails him later in the fight. Hernandez’s upside is just as strong as the fighters priced above him, with the highest ceiling projection of any three-round fighter.

The Value Play

Ricky Simon ($7,100)

Simon checks all the boxes this week, particularly for cash games. His fight with Jahvid Basharat ($9,100) has the best odds to go the full three rounds—and the line has moved significantly towards Simon.

After opening around +240, Simon’s moneyline has dropped to +180. That means he’s about $500 too cheap based on his odds. The fact that this fight is highly likely to see the judges also gives him a high floor, since even in a loss he likely has 15 minutes to work with.

If all that weren’t enough, Simon averages a bit over five takedowns per 15 minutes in his UFC career. While he might have a somewhat hard time landing those against Basharat—who is also a solid grappler—he should still be able to pick up a few along the way.

The Contrarian Choice

Julius Walker ($7,500)

It’s hard to find much tape on Julius Walker, who’s making his UFC debut against Alonzo Menifield ($8,700) at UFC Seattle.

Walker is 6-0 as a pro, though, with all six wins coming via finish. He’s also fought a UFC veteran (Bevon Lewis) and a former TUF contestant (Myron Dennis) in his last two fights. He finished both of them in the first round.

That’s a pretty solid resume for a debutant, even if he’s getting thrown to the wolves a bit against a 14-fight UFC veteran in Menifield. Menifield is 8-5-1 in the promotion overall but is 37 years old and was knocked out in both of his 2024 fights.

That’s not a great sign for an aging fighter, and Walker seems to have some solid finishing skills, particularly on the ground. It might not be enough against Menifield, but a quick finish wouldn’t shock me either, so I’ll have some exposure to “Juice Box” in GPPs.

Both Sean Zerillo and I talked about our interest in Walker on this week’s UFC Betting Preview Podcast:

Be sure to check out all the pick’ems Sleeper has to offer with Sleeper promo code LABS1.

The Swing Fights

Ibo Aslan ($8,500) vs. Ion Cutelaba ($7,800)

This is another light heavyweight pairing between two aggressive finishers, with odds better than -400 that we see a stoppage at some point.

That makes it a fairly obvious Swing Fight candidate. Ibo Aslan has picked up knockouts in all 14 of his pro wins, including two in the UFC and one on the Contender Series. Cutelaba has finished four of his seven UFC wins, primarily with ground and pound.

If Aslan can stop takedowns, he should pick up a fairly easy finish on the feet. If he can’t, Cutelaba has a massive edge on the ground. I’m not entirely confident in which of those scenarios will play out, but either way, the winner should walk away with a big DFS score.

I prefer the favored Aslan slightly, especially considering the line has moved his way this week. Still, I’ll have a decent chunk of Cutelaba in my GPP portfolio as well.

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The UFC has had to shuffle fights frequently for UFC Seattle, but the final tally seems to be a 12-fight card going down at 6:00 p.m. ET. The headliner is former two-division champion Henry Cejudo taking on fast-rising prospect Song Yadong in a five-round fight.

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.

You can check out the projections for every fighter on Saturday’s card in our UFC Models.

Become an All-Access Member Today

Lineup builder and optimizer

Real-time DFS models & projections

Data-driven analysis & tutorials,
Become a PRO Member
 

Main Event

Song Yadong ($8,900) vs. Henry Cejudo ($7,300)

Since returning to the UFC following a few years of “retirement,” Henry Cejudo has gone 0-2. However, he went 0-2 against former champion Aljamain Sterling and current champion Merab Dvalishvili. Not only were those much tougher matchups than he has this week, but they were also both huge stylistic challenges for Cejudo.

Both Sterling and Dvalishvili are elite grapplers, while Cejudo is a former Olympic wrestling gold medalist. Song Yadong is a powerful striker who has lost fights in the past due to being outgrappled.

Song is also more than a decade younger and still working his way into his prime. He has the power to end this fight at any point, while Cejudo needs to win minutes over a five-round contest.

That makes this an excellent DFS fight, as we’re likely to either get a Yadong knockout or plenty of takedowns from Cejudo—if not both. I’ll certainly be stacking this in cash games and including at least one fighter in my GPP lineups. This could be a sneaky GPP stack as well, on a 12-fight card where staying unique is somewhat important.

The Easy Chalk

Mansur Abdul-Malik ($9,700)

We’ve seen massive line movement towards Mansur Abdul-Malik this week for his fight against Nick Klein ($6,500). Abdul-Malik came into the week as around a -500 favorite, but his odds have swelled all the way to -1200.

He’s now a slight favorite to pick up a win in the first round—as he’s done in six of his seven professional fights. The lone exception was a second-round knockout in his appearance on the Contender Series that would’ve still scored well for DFS purposes.

The only real drawback for Abdul-Malik is his price tag, but it’s fairly easy to find enough value to afford him. I want as much of him as possible in all contest types.

The Upside Plays

Anthony Hernandez ($9,000)

The co-main event between Hernandez and Brendan Allen ($7,200) is a fun one. It’s a rematch of an LFA title fight from 2018 that saw Hernandez win a five-round decision.

Since then, both men have been on impressive runs in the UFC, with Hernandez winning six straight and Allen having a seven-fight win streak snapped by Nassourdine Imavov in his last fight.

Both men are grapplers, but Hernandez stands out for DFS thanks to his impressive cardio and work rate. In his last fight, he attempted 29 takedowns and landed 10—a ridiculous mark for a heavier weight class fighter.

That was over five rounds, and he has just three to work with here. Still, that’s plenty of time for Hernandez to pile up takedowns, especially if Allen’s cardio fails him later in the fight. Hernandez’s upside is just as strong as the fighters priced above him, with the highest ceiling projection of any three-round fighter.

The Value Play

Ricky Simon ($7,100)

Simon checks all the boxes this week, particularly for cash games. His fight with Jahvid Basharat ($9,100) has the best odds to go the full three rounds—and the line has moved significantly towards Simon.

After opening around +240, Simon’s moneyline has dropped to +180. That means he’s about $500 too cheap based on his odds. The fact that this fight is highly likely to see the judges also gives him a high floor, since even in a loss he likely has 15 minutes to work with.

If all that weren’t enough, Simon averages a bit over five takedowns per 15 minutes in his UFC career. While he might have a somewhat hard time landing those against Basharat—who is also a solid grappler—he should still be able to pick up a few along the way.

The Contrarian Choice

Julius Walker ($7,500)

It’s hard to find much tape on Julius Walker, who’s making his UFC debut against Alonzo Menifield ($8,700) at UFC Seattle.

Walker is 6-0 as a pro, though, with all six wins coming via finish. He’s also fought a UFC veteran (Bevon Lewis) and a former TUF contestant (Myron Dennis) in his last two fights. He finished both of them in the first round.

That’s a pretty solid resume for a debutant, even if he’s getting thrown to the wolves a bit against a 14-fight UFC veteran in Menifield. Menifield is 8-5-1 in the promotion overall but is 37 years old and was knocked out in both of his 2024 fights.

That’s not a great sign for an aging fighter, and Walker seems to have some solid finishing skills, particularly on the ground. It might not be enough against Menifield, but a quick finish wouldn’t shock me either, so I’ll have some exposure to “Juice Box” in GPPs.

Both Sean Zerillo and I talked about our interest in Walker on this week’s UFC Betting Preview Podcast:

Be sure to check out all the pick’ems Sleeper has to offer with Sleeper promo code LABS1.

The Swing Fights

Ibo Aslan ($8,500) vs. Ion Cutelaba ($7,800)

This is another light heavyweight pairing between two aggressive finishers, with odds better than -400 that we see a stoppage at some point.

That makes it a fairly obvious Swing Fight candidate. Ibo Aslan has picked up knockouts in all 14 of his pro wins, including two in the UFC and one on the Contender Series. Cutelaba has finished four of his seven UFC wins, primarily with ground and pound.

If Aslan can stop takedowns, he should pick up a fairly easy finish on the feet. If he can’t, Cutelaba has a massive edge on the ground. I’m not entirely confident in which of those scenarios will play out, but either way, the winner should walk away with a big DFS score.

I prefer the favored Aslan slightly, especially considering the line has moved his way this week. Still, I’ll have a decent chunk of Cutelaba in my GPP portfolio as well.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

UFC Vegas 71 DFS Breakdown: Model, Preview, Picks for Blaydes vs. Pavlovich, More Saturday Fights UFC 289 DFS Breakdown: Model, Preview, Picks for Nunes vs. Aldana, More Saturday Fights UFC Vegas 75 DFS Breakdown: Model, Preview, Picks for Vettori vs. Cannonier, More Saturday Fights UFC 303 DFS Breakdown: Model, Preview, Picks for Pereira vs. Prochazka, More Saturday Fights

About the Author

Billy Ward writes NFL, MLB, and UFC DFS content for FantasyLabs. He has a degree in mathematical economics and a statistics minor. Ward's data-focused education allows him to take an analytical approach to betting and fantasy sports. Prior to joining Action and FantasyLabs in 2021, he contributed as a freelancer starting in 2018. He is also a former Professional MMA fighter.