UFC Vegas 41 DFS Picks

Welcome to my DFS breakdown for UFC Vegas 41: Vettori vs. Costa! The UFC is back in action at their apex facility this weekend with a 14-fight card headlined by a catchweight bout between Marvin Vettori and Paulo Costa. After some lackluster main events of late, it’s refreshing to get two former title challengers at the top of the bill this weekend. With more fights than normal, we have to change our process a little bit when it comes to game theory. With more fighters in the player pool it all but guarantees that the winning lineup will require six fighters who not only won their fights but did so with a ceiling score. This should force us to focus more on ceiling and potential ownership leverage plays as opposed to normal win equity like we might focus on for an eight-fight slate where six ceiling scores are less likely to occur. I’ll be in the FTNDaily Discord leading up to Saturday’s slate to discuss last-minute changes and additional general slate strategy!

If you’re interested in DFS and betting takes for every fight on this card, you can check out 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: Grant Dawson $9300

This is a tough section of the player pool to write about because the second-biggest favorite on the card in Mason Jones currently is not listed on DraftKings. However, Grant Dawson is the best play on the slate this weekend in my opinion and is priced accordingly at $9300. I mentioned at the top of this article how leveraging ownership is important on weeks with 14 fights and more options that can reach ceiling scores, but the upper-priced fighters are where I don’t like to get too fancy and instead opt to just “play the best plays.” Dawson is a massive favorite this weekend over Ricky Glenn and historically has been a great DFS scorer, averaging 98.8 points across his undefeated UFC run spanning five fights. Dawson has a great combination of floor and ceiling in this matchup, as his floor comes from being a massive favorite who lands 3.44 takedowns per 15 minutes and is a high-output wrestler, which we know always scores well. His ceiling comes from potential finishing upside. While Dawson is not currently favored to win inside the distance, he has finished three of his five UFC wins, and I think he has a better chance of a late finish after racking up a bunch of cumulative points in this spot than the market indicates. 

Mid-tier: Marvin Vettori $8600

As previously mentioned in the Vettori writeup, sometimes in DFS we simply need to play the best plays and worry about differentiating and separating from the field elsewhere. After Dawson, Vettori is easily the best pt/$ option on this slate, as he has a five-round floor against Paulo Costa and is just $8600 despite being a nearly 2/1 favorite at this point. Vettori has been a great DK contributor in the past, with his last three wins all scoring over 125 points. That’s thanks in large part to the well-rounded game of Vettori, where we’ve seen him rack up loads of points both through striking and grappling. This matchup against Costa certainly won’t be a walk in the park for Vettori, and he may have to walk through fire early in the fight, but he has much better cardio than Costa and should pull away down the stretch of this fight. I think Vettori finds a finish late in this fight and is the definition of “good chalk.”

Low-tier: Hunting Upside…

The first two fighters I’ve written about in this article are projected to be fairly popular options, so I want to use the lower-tiered fighters in order to differentiate from the field this weekend. However, I can’t seem to find any underdogs that I think make for fantastic individual plays. But, if we use what we know from larger slates we can concur that we likely need a ceiling score from all six lineup spots. Because of that, I’ll be using the lower-tiered fighters this weekend to take fliers on underdogs who, while I’m not sure have a ton of win equity, should score well if they are able to pull off the upset. Let’s examine our options…

Dwight Grant: He’s fighting a 43-year-old and has four career wins by knockout in round one, but this should be a slow-paced fight for DFS purposes without an early finish. 
Paulo Costa: Clearly projects as the best option in this range, but I prefer Vettori. This is a fight where you want nearly 100% exposure between the two competitors, though. 
Daniel da Silva: Figures to be pretty popular but for good reason. Ten of his 11 career wins have come inside the first round. He’s a strong play, but I would make sure he isn’t your underdog of choice if you’re pairing chalky fighters at the more expensive lineup spots. 
Khama Worthy: His opponent is historically not very durable and a poor grappler. The main issue is that Worthy is one of the least durable guys on the roster himself and unlikely to implement a grappling game plan. 
Jamie Pickett: I actually have been talked into Pickett a bit by Jon Kelly this week. He’s a decently sized underdog but theoretically has wrestling upside and figures to be one of the five least owned fighters on the slate. 
Ike Villanueva: Fifteen of his 18 career wins have come by knockout. I think he’s fighting an uphill battle against Nicolae Negumereaunu this weekend, but if he pulls off the upset it’s likely by early knockout and that would 100% be optimal at $7100.