UFC Vegas 47 DFS Picks

Welcome to my DFS breakdown for UFC Fight Night: Strickland vs Hermansson. The UFC had a rare week off last week, but this week marks the first of about eight consecutive weeks with UFC cards. 

We currently have 13 fights scheduled for Saturday night’s event at the Apex. In the main event, Sean Strickland will look to make his middleweight winning streak six against Jack Hermansson, who is coming off a big win last May. This appears to be a solid card for DFS purposes with a few solid options especially in the expensive and mid-tier price ranges. 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: Denys Bondar, $9,100

Bondar is making his UFC debut this weekend following a few fight cancellations and will be taking on Malcolm Gordon, who is coming off a win against Fransisco Figueiredo last time out. Despite Gordon winning his last fight, he is an uber-fragile fighter who struggles when facing adversity. Bondar is primarily a grappler and a guy who’s always hunting a finish, which he’s done successfully in all 14 of his professional wins. I expect Bondar to win exchanges on the feet and also have an advantage on the ground in this fight, leading to a finish. This is also a week where I’m not excited about the other expensive options on the board: Jailton Almeida ($9.4k) and Rakhmonov ($9k) are much bigger favorites than they deserve in my opinion, and while Brendan Allen ($9.3k) and Julian Erosa ($9.2k) likely coast in their matchups, I’m not sure a finish will materialize.

Mid-tier: Phil Rowe, $8,400; Jason Witt, $7,800

I believe this is the first time I’ve listed a fight as a target for DFS as opposed to just a fighter, but Phil Rowe vs. Jason Witt this weekend is a matchup that I think will truly produce DFS gold. This is a tough matchup to call in terms of who will get the upper-hand and employ their game plan: will Rowe keep the fight standing and land a knockout or will Witt land multiple takedowns each round? Regardless of the answer, I think the winner will almost surely end in the optimal lineup this weekend and I am going to have a combined 100% exposure to these two fighters. I slightly lean towards Rowe getting the job done, but he is $600 more expensive on DFS. I’ll be overweight to both sides here and know that even if half of my lineups take an L, the other half will have an optimal fighter in it. 

Low tier: Multiple Options

I mentioned earlier in this article how three are some big favorites in this matchup that I’m not too confident in, which means there are a lot of underdogs that have caught my eye. Here are a few of them: 

Jack Hermansson ($7.4K): Hermansson is my favorite underdog of the week. He is primarily a wrestler and in a five-round main event that I think he’s pretty live to pull off an upset win. 

Nick Maximov ($7.6K): Maximov is facing a tough matchup in Puna Soriano this weekend but is very dedicated to trying and wrestle. Should he pull off the upset, Maximov likely lands at least 5 takedowns. 

Carlston Harris ($7.2K): Harris is way too good a fighter to be this big of an underdog, even against a solid prospect in Shavkat Rakhmonov. 

Danilo Marques ($6.8K): If you want to get really crazy this weekend, I think there are worse plays than the biggest underdog in the slate who figures to see almost zero ownership. Marques is a capable grappler and despite his opponent also being a grappler, I wouldn’t be surprised if Marques looks a lot more live than his betting odds indicate.