UFC Vegas 49 DFS Picks

Welcome to my DFS breakdown for UFC Vegas 49: Makhachev vs. Green. 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 a short notice catchweight bout at 160 pounds. 

We currently have 11 fights scheduled for Saturday night’s event at the Apex in Las Vegas. After Beneil Dariush was forced to pull out of his main event spot this weekend against Islam Makhachev, Bobby Green is stepping up to save the card on just 10 days’ notice. Green last fought exactly two weeks prior to Saturday at UFC 272 when he defeated Nasrat Haqparast but faces a much stiffer test this weekend against a man who many peg as a future champion at 155 pounds. 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: Ramiz Brahimaj, $9,300

Before we get into Brahimaj, It’s impossible to talk about this weekend’s slate without mentioning Islam Makhachev. Makhachev is the biggest favorite on the card by far and easily projects as the strongest play on the slate in terms of raw points. He clearly makes for a stone-lock in cash game formats and makes sense to play a lot of in all formats. That said, with just 22 fighters in the player pool for this weekend and Makhachev so clearly projecting above everybody else, it’s possible that we see historic ownership on the Dagestani wrestler, potentially as high as 70% in large-field tournaments. While I’ll have plenty of Makhachev myself, he is not fail-proof and it’s very possible we see teams win without him. When pivoting off Makhachev, my favorite place to look is Brahimaj. Although I’m not very high on Brahimaj as a prospect, he is an uber-aggressive grappler and faces Michael Gilmore, who was taken down four times in his UFC debut. Brahimaj is currently a favorite to win this fight inside the distance and of his nine career wins, eight of them have come by first-round finish. The only way that somebody will match Makhachev’s score this weekend is to secure a first-round finish and I believe Brahimaj has a better chance to do that on this slate than anybody else. 

Mid/Low Tier: Two fights to target

Gregory Rodrigues ($8,500) vs. Armen Petrosyan ($7,700)
Fares Ziam ($8,400) vs. Terrance McKinney ($7,800)

Something I’ve been doing on some of these shorter slates recently has been to just target fights that I think the winner will score extremely well for DFS purposes. While there aren’t a ton of individual plays that stand out to me on this slate, there are two specific fights that I will have nearly 100% exposure to. 

The first one is Rodrigues vs. Petrosyan. Rodrigues is 2-0 inside the UFC and carries knockout power in his hands, but also has landed five takedowns through two fights and carries a ton of grappling upside. He should see a lot of success grappling against Armen Petrosyan, who is primarily a kickboxer and was taken down three times in just one round on the Contender Series. While Rodrigues is very live to get a finish on the ground, if he’s unable to secure one, I expect Petrosyan to use his getups as a way to gas out his opponent and then land a knockout blow of his own, similar to what he did against Kaloyan Kolev on Contender Series last October. Whether it’s Rodrigues with a grappling-heavy score or Petrosyan with a knockout, the winner of this fight ends in the optimal lineup more times than not. 

The second fight to target this week is Ziam vs. McKinney. While the first fight I wrote up is a clash of MMA styles, this is a clash of MMA strategy. McKinney is a very fast starter who prioritizes finishing his opponents early. Of his 11 pro wins, McKinney has finished all of them, with 10 of those finishes coming inside round one, including his UFC debut when he knocked out Matt Frevole in just seven seconds. McKinney is obviously very live yet again to get an early finish this weekend against Fares Ziam. However, if McKinney is unable to get that early victory, Ziam is a far superior technical striker in this matchup and will likely be facing a gassed-out opponent who went for broke early in the fight. If that’s the case, I expect Ziam to take over down the stretch of this fight and find a finish in his own right.