UFC Columbus DFS Picks

Welcome to my DFS breakdown for UFC Columbus: Blaydes vs. Daukaus. After an awesome card last weekend in London, the UFC is on the road again this week in Columbus for what will be their final card in a stretch of eight consecutive events without a week off. 

We currently have 13 fights scheduled for Saturday night’s event. In the main event, heavyweight contenders Curtis Blaydes and Chris Daukaus face off in what figures to be a title eliminator of some sort, with the winner remaining solid in the top five of the division and the loser falling down toward No. 10 in the rankings. This a card that features a good amount of action fights but not a ton of name value. This is an interesting week because it’s a lot more balanced of a slate than we’ve been used to recently. Some recent cards have had a high number of big betting favorites, but this week has a few big favorites, but a lot of closely lined fights. I’ll be in the FTNDaily Discord leading up to Saturday’s slate to discuss last-minute changes and additional general slate strategy. 

High Tier: Aliaskhab Khizriev, $9,300

It’s not often I consider somebody at $9,300 to be underpriced, but that seems to be the case this weekend with Khizriev, who is a whopping -1000 favorite in his matchup against fellow UFC newcomer Denis Tiuliulin. Khizriev has outstanding odds to finish inside the first round and as we know from his contender series performance, he is a very willing grappler who looks to pass his opponent’s guard quickly and hunt finishes early on in fights. While Khizriev may not carry the same upside with one takedown and a first-round finish as Curtis Blaydes does in a five-round main event, I do expect there to be somewhat of an rostership discount and I like pairing the two studs together this week if you can make it fit. 

Mid-Tier: Matt Brown, $8,200

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the mid-tier pricing range for a UFC slate is really ugly. With so many pick ‘em fights on this card, it’s hard to feel too strongly about anybody being a strong favorite to win in the 8K-8.5K price range this week, so I’m personally just resorting to hunting upside. One place to find upside is in the Matt Brown/Bryan Barberena fight, which features two aging veterans who have questionable durability. This is a matchup where I’ll have exposure to both sides, but I do have a slight lean towards Brown. Despite being 41 and clearly past his prime, “The Immortal” still carries lots of knockout upside, as evidenced by his most recent win over Dhiego Lima. Additionally, although I don’t expect Brown to wrestle much offensively, it’s worth noting that Barberena has been taken down 17 times over his last three fights, so there are multiple ways that Brown can get there for us. 

Low Tier: Sara McMann, $7,300

The theme of this week’s fight card seems to be fighters who have historically been underwhelming and let me down before but are in really strong spots to succeed this weekend. McMann has lost me tons of money in the past, but as advantage players we have to have a short memory and look forward, not backward. Looking toward this weekend, McMann is probably my favorite play on the slate, and I think she makes for a great leverage option against her opponent Karol Rosa, who figures to be highly rostered. McMann is a former Olympic wrestler and has landed nearly 4.5 takedowns per 15 minutes inside the UFC. Of course, it has to be noted that she is 41 years old and has historically blown big leads in fights before, but all we care about in terms of DFS for a fighter at $7.3K is their potential upside in a victory. While I can’t pick McMann to win this fight an overwhelming amount of the time, I think there are arguments to be made for her being close to a coinflip in this matchup and racking up a ton of takedowns and control time in a victory.