UFC Vegas 50 DFS Picks

Welcome to my DFS breakdown for UFC Vegas 50: Ankalaev vs. Santos. 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 Saturday afternoon at the UFC Apex Facility in Las Vegas. 

We currently have 14 fights scheduled for Saturday night’s event, which creates some unique strategies in DFS contests. With 28 fighters in the player pool, we can expect rostership to be more spread out than normal and winning scores that may require six ceiling performances from fighters. That should mean we’re prioritizing playing our favorite plays as opposed to leveraging too much ownership, in addition to targeting fighters with high upside, as always. In the main event, Magomed Ankalaev is a massive favorite to continue his climb towards a light-heavyweight title shot as he takes on former title challenger Thiago Santos. 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: Alex Pereira, $8,900

Magomed Ankalaev projects as the best play on Saturday’s 14-fight slate and will likely be the highest-rostered fighter by a large margin, but I am liking the idea of paying down a little bit in the high tier of DK pricing. My favorite option to do that this weekend is Pereira, a former kickboxer who is newer to MMA but is coming off a knockout victory in his UFC debut last year. Pereira is still pretty flawed as a fighter and somebody that I’m not bullish on long-term, especially against grapplers, but he faces Bruno Silva this weekend who is likely to try and stand with the man they call “Poatan” or “Stone Hand.” Pereira figures to have a massive standup advantage in this fight should Silva not shoot takedowns. Pereira has legitimate first-minute KO upside on this slate and I’m picking him to win by knockout in round one and put up 100-plus points on DK. 

Mid-Tier: Damon Jackson, $7,800

Recommending Pereira as a primary play in the high-tier this weekend bucks the normal trend of this article, which usually highlights grapplers, but we’ll get back to basics in the mid-range with a wrestler in Jackson. He has decent standup but has always been primarily a grappler, racking up six takedowns in his last matchup. He takes on Kamuela Kirk this weekend who figures to have a standup advantage in this matchup but has extremely poor takedown defense and cardio. Jackson is very reliable to shoot takedowns against Kirk and I expect Kirk to attempt submissions off his back, which will allow Jackson to both land takedowns and rack up control time. At $7800 Jackson has legitimate five-takedown upside in a decision win alongside some finishing potential on the mat. 

Low Tier: Terrance McKinney, $7,200

If McKinney’s name looks familiar in this article, it’s probably because he fought just a few weeks ago and I wrote about how he’s a fighter who will always bring tons of DFS upside for both himself and his opponents. McKinney has a wrestling background and was impressive against Fares Ziam, winning by first-round submission two weeks ago, but he also possesses the ability to finish his fights on the feet. McKinney faces the toughest test of his career this weekend in Drew Dober, but Dober has a poor 55% takedown defense in the UFC and I expect McKinney to land takedowns early and have a chance to finish the fight. There are of course concerns with McKinney’s cardio and striking defense should this fight get extended, but he has all the upside in the world and is uber-cheap despite being a live underdog this weekend.