UFC Vegas 33 DFS picks

Welcome to my DFS breakdown for UFC Vegas 33. The UFC is back at the Apex facility in Las Vegas this weekend for a 13-fight card headlined by a middleweight tilt between Sean Strickland and Uriah Hall. I won’t lie, this isn’t the best offering the UFC has ever put out, but 13 fights always make for a fun DFS slate. 

With 13 fights on tap for this weekend, ownership tends to be more spread out across the 26-person player pool, just due to the high number of opinions we have. Prior to getting into the plays for this slate, I’ll mention that a major key to this slate is Niklas Stolze, who is currently -200 in the betting markets, but just $7K on DraftKings due to a late notice replacement. He figures to be the most popular option on the slate by far, and every decision we make on this slate must revolve around the game theory surrounding Stolze. If you’re interested in DFS and betting takes for every fight on this card, you can check out my The Undisputed MMA Show with Jon Kelly and me.

In this weekly article, I will outline three fighters who present strong floors and ceilings for your DraftKings lineups. 

High tier: Nicco Montano ($9,100)

Yet again, I’m targeting a women’s flyweight as my high-priced option on DraftKings. Montano is a significant discount from the absolute top of the DK pricing this weekend, which starts at an extremely high $9,600. Montano has fought just twice since winning The Ultimate Fighter in 2017, and is coming off a two-year layoff, but she’s an elite fighter and has a very favorable matchup this week against Wu Yanan. Montano is primarily a grappler, who lands over 2 takedowns per 15 minutes, and Yanan has just a 66% takedown defense and we’ve seen her controlled by grapplers far inferior to Montano. While the under 2.5 rounds is nearly +200 in this spot, signaling that a finish is unlikely, I think Montano dominates for either the entirety of the fight on the ground, or gets a finish. Yanan just isn’t on the same level as Montano, and I think people have forgotten just how good Montano is because of her layoff. 

Mid-tier: Ronnie Lawrence ($8,700)

Speaking of takedowns with Montano, at $8.7K this weekend we’ve found my favorite takedown artist of the weekend in Lawrence. Although I don’t think he is quite in the same elite tier as Merab Dvalishvili and Ricky Simon, who are both elite takedown artists at bantamweight, Lawrence is very aggressive in pursuing takedowns. He has landed 20 takedowns through his contender series fight and UFC debut and gets a matchup against Trevin Jones this weekend where he is favored. Jones is a powerful counter striker but is susceptible to being put on the back foot and Lawrence should be spamming takedowns for the entirety of this fight. With the current DK meta, there isn’t a better points/minute projected fighter for this slate. 

Low tier: Rani Yahya ($7,700)

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, most of the DraftKings slate this weekend hinges on how to approach Niklas Stolze, who is a -200 favorite and just $7K on DraftKings. Here is how I am approaching the situation: In cash games he is an absolute lock, but in any sort of tournament format I will be looking to get underweight on the field’s ownership. Stolze is of course a great play on paper, you don’t need me to tell you that, but his upside doesn’t appear to be massive, and the fight is favored to go the distance against Jared Gooden. So if you’re fading Stolze, you have to find another underdog to target this week, and for me that man is Yahya. Like most fighters you’ll see in this article, Yahya is primarily a grappler who lands over 2.75 takedowns per 15 minutes, but instead of being a wrestler only, Yahya is a submission ace who has won via submission in his last four victories. That gives Yahya a solid floor in terms of his core prior to a finish, but also loads of upside in terms of bonus points for early finishes. Yahya won’t rack up many strikes and has historically struggled with his cardio when fights are extended, but he carries just as much upside as anybody in the $7K range.