UFC London DFS Picks

Welcome to my DFS breakdown for UFC London: Aspinall vs, Volkov. The UFC is in the midst of a stretch of events on eight straight weekends and that continues this weekend with a really fun fight-night card scheduled for early Saturday afternoon across the pond in London. 

We currently have 12 fights scheduled for Saturday night’s event, which is my personal favorite slate size. With 24 fighters in the player pool, we can expect ownership to be spread a decent amount while the player pool isn’t so big that outlier performances have a massive chance to break the slate. In the main event, heavyweight prospect Tom Aspinall will face his toughest test yet in his first main event against perennial contender Alexander Volkov. The rest of the card is littered with European prospects who are massive favorites this weekend and make for fun DFS options including Muhammad Mokaev, Ilia Topuria, and Paddy Pimblett. 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: Muhammad Mokaev, $9,100

Mokaev makes his UFC debut this weekend at just 21 years old with a professional record of 6-0 and an amateur record of 23-0. Stylistically, Mokaev profiles as the exact type of fighter we love to target in DFS: a high-volume wrestler. Mokaev utilizes primarily a single-leg takedown which I expect him to land with success in this matchup against Cody Durden. Durden is a solid wrestler in his own right, but I simply think he’s outclassed in this spot. While Mokaev is a fantastic grappler with a tendency to take his opponent’s backs, I wouldn’t be surprised if this fight goes the distance and Mokaev lands upward of six takedowns. There are a ton of great options in the $9K range this week and I’m likely to get exposure to most of them, but Mokaev is probably my favorite play on the slate due to the fact that he may have the lowest ownership of the bunch. 

Mid-Tier: Mike Grundy, $8,500

The middle tier of pricing this weekend is extremely tough in my opinion. This is a slate where there are a ton of massive betting favorites which typically leads to expensive fighters that I want to pay up for and a lack of cheaper options to save salary. That leaves the midrange as a place where I’m finding myself needing to select fighters from in my lineups. While nobody stands out as a particularly great play, I do think Grundy makes for an interesting study. Grundy is an English wrestler who doesn’t have a very well-developed NBA game, but he has landed nearly four takedowns per 15 minutes inside the UFC and figures to have a cardio and durability advantage against Makwan Amirkhani.

Low Tier: Jack Shore, $7,600

Shore has easily become the objective best underdog play on Saturday’s slate. Of course, he projects for a solid amount of rostership, but it’s hard to deny how good a spot this is for the Welch grappler. Shore is a perfect 4-0 inside the UFC with an average of 97.9 DK points. Despite not having faced a great level of competition, Shore is receiving a lot of love in the betting markets this week as he’s dropped to an even-money underdog against Timur Valiev. This is certainly the toughest test of Shore’s career to date, but it’s likely a coinflip outcome and he’s somebody who’s proven to be a solid DK scorer in all his wins.