MMA DFS Expert Survey: UFC 313 - Pereira vs. Ankalaev

by Justin Bailey (Jbails26) Last Updated 2025-03-08 21:37:55 Premium Content Part of the product MMA Premium

Our panel of experts is here to give you their MMA DFS advice for this week’s contests by answering a handful of questions to help you make crucial lineup-building decisions. Want to know Billy Ward’s favorite value play? Or h3budda’s top fighter for tournaments? Find out below!

MMA DFS Picks: DraftKings Expert Survey for UFC 313 – Pereira vs. Ankalaev

Editor’s Note: Due to illnesses, the Castenada/Gutierrez fight and the Blaydes/Kuniev fight have both been cancelled.

Who is your favorite fighter to spend up for in cash games?

h3budda: Pereira
Moneyball16: Leal
Bward586: Leal
LiamPicksFights: Ruffy

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What are your thoughts about stacking the 5-round fight in cash games?

h3budda: There are not a lot of pure values to justify fading the main event in cash. You are locking in a fight that is +105 to go over 3.5 rounds for a floor. The constant striking will be important to keeping a good floor. If there is grappling from Ankalaev, the floor falls off a cliff. I expect this fight to be a simple stack and move on.

Moneyball16: Maybe it’s a hot take, but I don’t think Pereira is a great cash play. Normally, a roughly 50/50 5-rounder would be a guaranteed stack, but I think you can get away with only Ankalaev in this one. You can pick up more likely wins in your lineup by passing on Pereira. This fight has mediocre odds to go the full 5 rounds, and Ankalaev has been very hard to score against per minute in his long career. Pereira himself, despite fighting and winning in a lot of 5-round fights, has failed to put up a true monster score in his career as well.

Bward586: I agree in principle with Moneyball16 that Pereira isn’t a great cash play by usual standards. However, the setup of this slate makes a stack hard to avoid. There are only 10 fights, and the fighters around Pereira in salary are all equally high-variance options that probably need a quick finish to pay off their price tag. At least with Pereira, a disappointing fight probably still sees the championship rounds, where his solid striking output gives him a reasonable floor in a long fight.

LiamPicksFights: If this fight plays out with kickboxing at distance for 25 minutes, the stack will look sharp in hindsight, but I see the winner of this fight putting up a big score and the loser putting up insignificant points. If Pereira wins, he probably chins his opponent and could do it early. If Ankalaev wins, he probably chins the champion or dominates him on the ground, both of which would limit Pereira’s scoring upside.