Welcome to my DFS breakdown for UFC Fight Island 5, which takes place this Saturday on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi. The main event is between top 5 ranked Cory Sandhagen and former title challenger Marlon Moraes. This card only has 13 fights and is extremely enticing from a Draftkings point of view. If you want DFS and betting takes for every fight on this card, you can check out my video breakdown with Jon Kelly.
In this weekly article, I will outline three fighters who present strong floors and ceilings for your DraftKings lineups This slate currently has 13 fights, so hopefully, ownership will be fairly spread out and we can simply play our favorite plays without having to worry about getting too cute. I will outline a high-priced fighter, mid-tier fighter and a salary-saving option so you can differentiate and hit some lower ownership plays to climb up the leaderboards.
Tom Aspinall ($9,400)
Aspinall is coming off a first-minute knockout of Jake Collier in his UFC debut and is looking to add to his impressive 8-2 record on Saturday night. Aspinall is an English prospect with an educated ground game and lots of power with decent speed in his hands. There are a lot of question marks about Aspinall regarding his defense and cardio given we haven’t seen him in a third-round yet, but we’re targeting him in this spot in the hopes that the fight doesn’t even see a second round. Aspinall faces UFC newcomer Alan Baudot who looks dreadful on his regional tape. Baudot is athletic and carries some power at 205 pounds but is moving up to heavyweight where his defensive shortcomings are sure to bite him. I expect Aspinall to win this fight over 85% of the time, as do the sportsbooks considering he’s lined as a near -600 favorite. With that safety of a win also comes the upside of a finish, which is currently lined as -250 for Aspinall. He should cruise to a 100+ point performance on this slate and is the absolute highest ceiling play out there for both Cash Games and GPPs.
Other options: Tagir Ulanbekov, Tom Breese
Cory Sandhagen ($8,200)
Sandhagen makes up one half of UFC Fight Island 5’s main event, and I like him a ton in the midrange for DFS. Sandhagen is a volume-based striker who lands just under seven strikes per minute and has 3 finishes in his 6 UFC fights. Sandhagen is coming off a devastating first-round loss to Aljamain Sterling his last time out but matches up extremely well against his opponent on Saturday. Moraes is a power kicker who likes to fight while moving forward and only has a few rounds of cardio at the most. Sandhagen is extremely durable and will push a pace that is very difficult for Moraes to keep up with. Sandhagen fights out of Denver at altitude and should have no problem going a hard 25 minutes here. While the first round or two should be competitive with Moraes’ power potentially playing a factor, rounds 3-5 should be all Sandhagen. I think we can safely project upwards of 120 strikes over five rounds in a decision, but Sandhagen is also live for a late finish in the event that Moraes wilts to the pressure. He has one of the highest floors on the slate given the five-round nature of the fight, and I plan on being well over the field in terms of GPP ownership.
Other options: Edson Barboza, Omar Morales, Marlon Moraes (Need 100% main event ownership, I’m currently planning on a 80/20 Sandhagen/Moraes split).
Ilia Topuria ($7,600)
Topuria makes his UFC debut this Saturday, and I’ve found a few reasons to be pretty excited about this 23-year-old prospect out of Spain. Topuria is undefeated with an 8-0 record and all his wins by finish: seven via submission and one knockout. Topuria is a very aggressive grappler who we can expect to shoot takedowns early and often before pursuing submissions from top control. His standup is fairly basic, but he throws bombs with pretty much as much power as possible because he isn’t scared of getting taken down. His opponent, Youssef Zalal, is 3-0 in the UFC, and I think belongs in the promotion but is somebody we should be looking to fade at current market prices. Zalal is a good striker and is best when moving laterally but has a tendency to back up and put himself in tough grappling situations. Topuria has only been to the second round once in his career, so his cardio is a complete unknown and could make him a sub-or-bust fighter only capable of winning in the first round, but that’s a pretty likely win condition for here. A first-round finish at 7.6K would be massive for Topuria.
Other options: Makwan Amirkhani, Joaquin Buckley, KB Bhullar, Chris Daukaus
