UFC Vegas 48 DFS Picks

Welcome to my DFS breakdown for UFC Vegas 48: Hill vs. Walker. The UFC is in the midst of a stretch of events on eight straight weekends and that continues this weekend with a fight night headlined by the light heavyweights.

We currently have 12 fights scheduled for Saturday night’s event at the Apex in Las Vegas. After the original main event of Fiziev vs. Dos Anjos this week fell through, Jamahal Hill and Johnny Walker have stepped up as short notice replacements in a five-round bout. While this slate is lacking in quality from a pure entertainment perspective, 12 fight cards are my favorite size for DFS slates. I’ll be in the FTNDaily Discord leading up to Saturday’s slate to discuss last-minute changes and additional general slate strategy.

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

High tier: Jonathan Pearce, $9,300 

Pearce is the clear top option on the slate this week. He’s nearly a -400 favorite against UFC newcomer Christian Rodriguez. While Rodriguez enters the fight undefeated as a pro and has some long-term upside, this is a tough matchup against Pearce. Pearce fights at an extremely high pace, which is DFS gold. Not only does “JSP” average nearly seven strikes landed per minute in the UFC, he has also added a ton of wrestling to his game recently. Over his last two fights, Pearce has landed 11 takedowns in about 19 minutes of cage time. That sort of wrestling volume has led JSP to DK scores of 134 and 123 in his last two wins. I expect another ceiling performance this time out. 

Mid-tier: Joaquin Buckley, $8,300

Buckley has brought excitement to the cage in every single one of his UFC bouts since his debut in 2020 as he’s 3-2 with every fight ending via knockout. I expect that trend to continue this weekend as he takes on fellow KO-artist Abdul Razak Alhassan. Buckley is clearly the better technical fighter in this matchup as he has legitimate striking and grappling skills, whereas Alhassan is mostly just a power puncher who is 0-3 in the UFC when fights leave the first round and has only won via knockout in round one. This is definitely a matchup that I expect to be violent, and the betting market agrees as the fight is as high as -350 to not go to the distance. I’ll have exposure to both sides in this matchup but definitely lean toward Buckley to get the job done. 

Low tier: Jim Miller, $7,700

This week appears to be a tough one for underdogs as there are a lot of low-quality fighters toward the bottom of the DK pricing. When that becomes the case on a slate, the first thing I look toward is potential upside for underdogs. While I struggle to project anybody under 8K as a winner on this slate, there are some options who could hit massive DFS scores if able to pull off an upset. At the top of that list lies Jim Miller, who is a small underdog to Nikolas Motta this weekend. Not only do I think Miller has a better chance to win this fight than the betting odds indicate, but we know that Miller carries a ton of upside when he’s able to get wins inside the UFC. While Miller is just 5-5 over his last 10 UFC matchups, all five of his wins have come inside the distance, and more specifically inside the first six minutes of the fight. If Miller wins this weekend, he’s likely to surpass 100 DK points at 7.7K, which would be a lock for the optimal lineup. I’ll have a bunch of Miller, especially if he’s going under-rostered.