UFC Fight Night DFS Picks (6/18)

Welcome to my DFS breakdown for UFC Fight Night: Calvin Kattar vs. Josh Emmett. Below you’ll find a breakdown of my highest-rostered exposures, giving context to why they project so well.Look for final cheat sheet exposures late Friday or early Saturday.

A note on this slate before I get into this week’s plays: Looking at my projections, I don’t see quite as many high-upside dogs as there have been in the last couple weeks. It’s still cage fighting so anything can happen, but I think there’s a bigger chance than usual that the winning lineup contains a fighter who scores in the 80s. This happens sometimes on cards where not many underdogs win and/or put up lower scores and end up being optimal simply by winning. I think it makes sense to keep this in mind when building lineups for Saturday.

Calvin Kattar

Great durability, great volume, great cardio. I like Kattar to pile up big SS numbers this week en route to a late finish. Emmett is mostly KO dependent, as I don’t think he can keep up with Kattar’s volume nor successfully wrestle him for any sustained period of time.

Gregory Rodrigues

His opponent, Julian Marquez, has needed some timely finishes to get wins since returning from a lengthy layoff due to back surgery. Maybe he just has insane heart and a knack for finding the finish, but more likely he has lost some of the speed and explosiveness he once had. I think at this point Rodrigues is the more talented and powerful striker who should also be able to ground Marques relatively easily. My worry would be Rodrigues gassing and Marquez finding yet another late finish.

Kevin Holland

Holland has always been a problem for guys who can’t grapple him, and now he is at a more natural weight class at 170. Tim Means is a veteran who always brings it, but he is getting up there in age and giving up a ton of reach and power to Holland. I think Holland takes him out inside the first two rounds.

Phillip Hawes/Deron Winn

Hawes is a powerhouse who routinely finishes fights inside the first round. He takes on Deron Winn, who is extremely undersized for the division but is a bulldog wrestler who trains with Khabib Nurmagomedov and the Dagestani squad day in and day out. Hawes was a JUCO wrestling champion and is no slouch, but if Winn can survive the early explosive onslaught, he could potentially turn this into a grimy 15-minute wrestling match that looks much closer to a coin flip fight than the odds currently suggest.

Gloria de Paula

My under-the-radar play this, week currently only projecting for about 15% rostership. She takes on Maria Oliveira, who might be the least talented fighter on the UFC roster and once quit mid-round on Contender Series. I think she has big advantages everywhere and could wrack up some serious control time if she looks to wrestle as much as she did in her most recent fight. 

Tony Kelley

The market really overcorrected here after Kelley’s off-color comments while cornering his girlfriend Andrea Lee. Kelley and Adrian Yanez actually compare pretty well statistically, and their respective records and level of competition aren’t way off either. I make Yanez closer to a -160 favorite than -285 where he is currently.

I also like Jeremiah Wells and Joe Lauzon as two boom-or-bust fighters with a decent amount of potential to end their fights in Round 1.

I’ll be posting my final exposures to the FTN website once finalized and will be around in Discord to answer questions as well.