We have a lower-wattage UFC event on Saturday with UFC Vegas. Still, the DFS contests are running just the same, and there just might be some bigger edges with less well-known fighters on the card.
Headlined by top-five women’s strawweight contenders Virna Jandiroba and Amanda Lemos, the 12-fight card starts at 5:00 p.m. E.T. on Saturday.
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
Virna Jandiroba ($8,500) vs. Amanda Lemos ($7,700)
Amanda Lemos rebounded from her one-sided loss against Weile Zhang for the strawweight title with a win over Mackenzie Dern in February, leaving the door open for one last title run for the 37-year-old. First, she’ll have to get through Jandiroba, whose three-fight winning streak earned her a top-five divisional ranking.
This is an interesting fight from a DFS perspective. Both women have a clear path to upside but fairly low floors. Lemos is one of the more prolific finishers in the lighter weight classes, with five stoppages in eight UFC wins. Jandiroba is a high-level grappler who averages more than two takedowns per 15 minutes.
That makes her a tough matchup with Lemos, who was taken down six times by Zhang and struggled with the grappling from Dern. While Lemos actually took Dern down twice, Dern scored reversals in both instances and finished with six minutes of control time.
However, Lemos’ power could be a problem for Jandiroba, especially early. Lemos has three first-round finishes, and a few knockdowns in fights that she didn’t win inside the distance. Jandiroba has yet to be knocked down in the UFC, but she’s 36 and beginning to accumulate damage in her career.
Thus, I’ll be stacking both in cash games while accepting that I’ll probably get a poor score from the loser. In GPPs, I’ll have one or the other in the vast majority of my lineups. At -180, it’s one of the fights likeliest to end with a finish, plus we get an additional two rounds if it doesn’t.
I’m leaning pretty heavily towards Jandiroba here, as her wrestling should allow her to survive the early part of the fight where Lemos is dangerous before taking over.
The Easy Chalk
Miranda Maverick ($9,200)
This slate has just two fighters with -200 or better moneyline odds, making it hard to feel super confident about the expensive fighters. On most slates, we wouldn’t consider paying $9,200 for Maverick — but she might just offer the best combination of safety and upside.
Let’s start with the safety. Maverick has won four of her last five and is still improving at age 27. Her opponent is Dione Barbosa ($7,000), who’s just 1-0 in the UFC and five years her senior. More importantly, Barbosa had just around two weeks to prepare for this fight as she filled in for Tracy Cortez (who fought in last week’s main event.)
It’s also a tough stylistic matchup for Barbosa. Maverick is an excellent wrestler, averaging 2.5 takedowns per 15 minutes. She recently received her black belt in jiu-jitsu as well, after finishing second in the brown belt division at the 2023 IBJJF world championships.
Barbosa is a high-level grappler in her own right, with black belts in BJJ and Judo. However, she’ll likely struggle to take Maverick down.
The crucial factor in this fight is whether Maverick will lean on takedowns — which Barbosa would likely accept — or keep it standing. The former would lead to a high score for Maverick (assuming she avoids submissions), while the latter would be somewhat disappointing.
Still, she’s a solid bet for a win and 15 minutes of work, which could be enough on a slate where big scores are hard to come by. Cody Gibson ($9,300) is the other heavy favorite on the slate, though his lack of finishing and grappling makes his ceiling even lower than Maverick’s at a higher price.
The Upside Play
Steve Garcia ($8,600)
The glaring exception to the lack of upside on this slate is Steve Garcia. He’s been on a tear lately, with three straight knockout victories. In those fights, he’s landed a total of five knockdowns. Including his bout on the Contender series, all five of his promotional victories have been knockouts inside of two rounds.
He has a favorable matchup with Seungwoo Choi ($7,600). Choi has been knocked down five times in his last three fights, dating back about two years. While he actually came back to win one of the three, that’s a lot of damage in a short period.
I’m surprised Garcia isn’t a heavier favorite than his -148 moneyline price, as Choi doesn’t offer much in the way of grappling that would threaten Garcia. Of course, Garcia’s style provides plenty of opportunities for counterstrikes, so there’s a decent amount of variance inherent in this bout.
I trust the power and chin of Garcia to come through here, so I’ll be utilizing him in all contest types. Limiting exposure to GPPs is probably the wiser option, but his upside relative to the price is too good for me to ignore in any contest.
The Value Play
Thomas Petersen ($7,400)
Petersen disappointed in his UFC debut, losing a somewhat close and fairly boring decision to Jamall Pogues. He flashed plenty of upside before that, though, picking up three takedowns and a second-round submission in his Contender Series bout.
Petersen was a two-time state champion wrestler in high school and also picked up a junior college national championship. That’s the type of fighter we like to target for DFS — especially in this matchup.
He’s taking on Mohammad Usman ($8,800), whose four UFC fights to date have mostly played out on the feet. Usman has yet to face a takedown attempt from any of his opponents, which should certainly change this time around.
Usman also lacks finishing upside, with his only stoppage victory coming against a fighter in Zac Pauga, who immediately returned to light heavyweight following that bout. Since then, Usman is 2-1 in three straight lackluster decisions.
The lack of stopping power means the bear case for Petersen is 15 minutes of work, while the upside involved a solid performance with a decent amount of takedowns, top control, or both. I expect Petersen to perform better with the UFC debut jitters out of the way and get this one done, but he won’t kill your lineups even if he doesn’t.
The Contrarian Choice
Hyder Amil ($7,100)
Hyder Amil is taking on Jeong Yeong Lee ($9,100) in a bout between two impressive prospects with much to prove at the UFC level.
Amil is 1-0 in the UFC (9-0 overall) with a second-round knockout — over a fighter who’s 0-4 in the UFC and took the fight on short notice. Lee is officially 2-0 in the UFC, with two decisions and one split. That split decision came in the finale of the Road to the UFC tournament, though, against a fellow fighter with no UFC experience.
Like Amil, Lee has excelled against lesser regional competition, with an 11-1 overall record. That he needed a split decision — and gave up five takedowns — in his Road to the UFC championship fight isn’t a great sign, though.
Amil is just a +165 or so underdog, which reflects the uncertainty between these two fighters. Typically, that would equate to a DraftKings salary in the mid to upper $7,000 range, but he’s just $7,100 here. That makes him a solid play, especially if his fairly low ownership projection comes through.
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The Swing Fight
Cody Durden ($8,300) vs. Bruno Silva ($7,900)
One of many super close fights on this card is the main card meeting between flyweights Bruno Silva and Cody Durden. Both fighters are excellent DFS fighters — for very different reasons.
For the slight favorite Durden, that reason is takedowns. Prior to his loss to elite grappler Tagir Ulanbekov, he had picked up 19 takedowns in three fights. Overall, he’s averaging just under five per 15 minutes, one of the highest rates in the UFC.
On the other side, Silva is on a three-fight winning streak, all finishes. He scored a total of five knockdowns in those three bouts, topping 92 DraftKings in all three contests.
At the price points for both fighters, either of their typical wins would be more than enough to put them in the optimal lineup. Silva has gotten most of the love in the betting markets, moving to around -105 after opening as a more definitive underdog.
That means he’s likely to be the more popular fighter, but he’s also my slightly preferred option. Outside of Ulanbekov — who finished Durden on the ground — he’s never been taken down by any other opponent. He matches up well with the wrestling of Durden while saving $400 in salary. Still, I’ll be close to even between the two flyweights this week.
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