MMA DFS Expert Survey: UFC Fight Night - Perez vs. Taira
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 Squirrelpatrol’s favorite value play? Or h3budda’s top fighter for tournaments? Find out below!
MMA DFS Picks: DraftKings Expert Survey for UFC Fight Night – Perez vs. Taira
How are you assessing the upside of grappling-heavy fighters against those with better finishing equity at the top of the price range?
eys819: Almabayev has both grappling upside and finishing equity, so he is clearly the top upside option for me. I prefer Maness pretty easily over Saragih, and that is where I will take my stand. I will be significantly underweight on Saragih to go overweight on Almabayev and Knuttson and then filter the remainder of my exposure into the upper-mid range.
Moneyball16: I would rank Almabayev as the best, as he has a strong combination of finishing odds and takedown upside. I would put Saragih in the same tier because he gives you a little salary savings and has the best first-round win odds on the slate at -117. I think there is some step down to Maness, who still has great win equity and a solid shot at an early win, but he has little takedown upside.
h3budda: This card could easily come down to the grappling (or lack there of) upside from Almabayev, Knutsson, Taira, Nuerdanbieke, and Hiestand. These are all upside plays that can easily get you to 100+ in a dominant decision. The higher the pricing on the slate, the more difficult it will be paying for Jeka because he will have a narrow window to score. The grappling far outweighs the pure strikers on this slate.
squirrelpatrol: I think the pOwn% will gravitate to fighters like Maness and Saragih, who have excellent ITD lines, but I’ll likely aim to get different by playing more of the mid-range fighters who can score well in a decision win. The finish-dependent fighters could have an extremely low floor if they fail, and if they do, it will wipe out a huge portion of the DFS lineups.
Bward586: For cash games, it’s a fairly easy decision to rely on the grapplers. They have considerably higher floors since they could still put up a reasonable score in a loss, while they still have the potential to find a finish of their own. It’s a bit trickier for GPPs, as a first-minute finish from Maness or Saragih would obviously put them in the optimal lineup. I’m viewing those on a case-by-case basis. With that said, I have far more confidence in Maness than Saragih, so most of my lineups will be Maness and one of the grappling-heavy fighters.
What are your thoughts about stacking the 5-round fight in cash games?
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About the Author
Robert Brown (aka Epignosis) was having lunch at a sports bar. A football game was on. He remarked to his wife that if he could have a second life, he’d like to be someone who enjoyed watching sports. That enjoyment began when he signed up for a fantasy football league that needed one more player. Since then, he has enjoyed playing NFL, NBA, and (especially) MLB DFS. When not teaching American literature, editing content for RotoGrinders (which he has done since 2019), or making lineups, Epignosis is rocking out or jazzing it up on one of several possible instruments.