MMA DFS Numbers Game: The Best Fantasy Fighters Since 2019

Antonio looks at historical MMA DFS stats and data from UFC fights since 2019 to identify the best daily fantasy UFC fighters over the past 18 months.

This has definitely been a weird year thanks to the COVID pandemic that caught us by surprise and paralyzed the sports world for a while. Even with that, we're about to reach the midway point of 2020 and the UFC has kept putting on events during the last six months. Since January, when Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone kicked off the year with UFC 246 we have seen 14 UFC events (either Fight Nights or numbered cards) completed. That means there have been 157 fights this year as of Jun. 17.

As most fighters take some time between their bouts, it wouldn't make much sense to only analyze the fights and performances to take place in that span of six months. That's why I have looked back at the start of 2019. Instead of just 14 events, we're now looking at 56 since Jan. 19 of last year. Much better.

In this article, I will explore some fantasy stats from all of those fights to try and come up with some names that have made the most of their chances and excelled in fantasy fights. Consider all of them great bets in future DFS contents, whenever their names pop up on upcoming cards! Don't forget to check out all of our MMA Content here at RotoBaller, and give me a follow on Twitter @chapulana!

UFC Most Successful Fighters

Up to 619 fighters appear in my dataset when looking at events to take place from the start of 2019 to this day. Of them, 436 have fought at least four times in this span of 18 months. Only five of them have won all of their fights:

• Gilbert Burns: 5-0 (443.5 DKFP combined)
• Glover Teixeira: 4-0 (418.5)
• Charles Oliveira: 4-0 (381.5)
• Israel Adesanya: 4-0 (351.0)
• Dan Ige: 4-0 (337.8)

Any of those five fighters are as surefire as they come. The case of Charles Oliveira is the most incredible of all. While going 4-0 he has only spent 25 minutes inside the octagon, finishing all of his fights before they went the distance. His longest fight (vs. Kevin Lee) finished 28 seconds into the third round. He has two KOs and two submission finishes in those four.

Israel Adesanya, the current Middleweight champion, defeated Anderson Silva before getting the belt in his next bout (April 2019) and is the only current champion to go 4-0 in the past 18 months, defending the gold successfully three consecutive times.

UFC Highest Fantasy Scorers (Total FP)

When looking at raw, counting stats, all fighters to have racked up at least 350 fantasy points (DraftKings system) have fought at least three times in the past 18 months. Even with that, it is remarkable how Merab Dvalishvili and Amanda Nunes reached that mark in just three fights compared to others like Gilbert Burns, who needed all of five matches to get there.

While Angela Hill has fought up to seven times since 2019, she's one of the highest scorers even losing three of those seven fights, which makes her a good bet in any contest no matter her chances of getting away with the W.

Amanda Nunes joins Israel Adesanya as the only champs to make the cut here. Perennial favorites with huge counting stats. No need to say more.

UFC Highest Fantasy Scorers (FP Per Fight)

While total fantasy points are good (the more, the better!) you might be more interested in actual fantasy points per fight. Here are the only fighters to average at least 80 DKFP per fight while appearing in at least four of them since the start of 2019.

Once more, Israel Adesanya kills it. Other names to re-appear in the column and named in sections above are those of Teixeira, Oliveira, Burns, Ige, and Luque. While having five fights to his name and even with one ending in a loss, Luque's 96.8 DKFP per fight ranking second are rather impressive, but they couldn't top Teixeira's 104.63.

Teixeira is the only fighter with 4+ fights since 2019 to get an average of over 100 fantasy points per fight. Even dropping the cutoff to just three fights (the smaller the sample, the higher the chances for outliers to appear), Teixeira's average would still rank as the 11th-best average among those fighters with 3+ bouts in the span.

UFC Best Strikers

This hasn't been the best three-fight string of Max Holloway's career, that's for sure. The former champ lost the belt to Dustin Poirier, regained it versus Frankie Edgar, and then dropped it once more last December to Alexander Volkanovski. Even with that 1-2 record, Holloway has been a menace inside the octagon, racking up the most fantasy points on DraftKings contest via Significant Strikes by a mile.

Holloway's 74 DKSS points per fight (DK awards 0.5 DKFP per SS) are almost 20 points over second-best Molly McCann, the same difference between McCann and 20th-best Marvin Vettori (fighters with at least 3 fights).

The very own McCann has been a beast, not only on pure striking but all-around, as her 111.52 DKFP per fight speak of. She is still far from being considered a contender for Valentina Shevchenko's Flyweight belt, but if she can keep it up who knows where the vet can end.

UFC Best Grapplers

When it comes to takedowns, no one has done it better than Merab Dvalishvili during the past year and a half. The Georgian, in his three fights, has averaged an astonishing 50 fantasy points by the way of takedowns (valued at 5 fantasy points on DraftKings), which is to say 10 landed per contest. The next-best fighter at it, Ray Borg, has been just half as productive as Merab.

As with Holloway and his striking prowess, Merab's distance to Borg is the same as that between Borg and 44th-best Blagoy Ivanov, this last one with a paltry 7.5 DKTD per fight.

Merab has dominated going 3-0 in this span, same as Amanda Nunes. Both fighters total DKFP per fight rank first- and second-best in that ranking, which comes to show how important grappling and the ground game are in fantasy contests.

UFC Best Finishers

DraftKings awards 90, 70, 45, 40, and 30 extra fantasy points for finishing the fight early (from first-round knockout to just winning the fight at all). That is why makes sense to find all-win fighters leading the way and among fighters with more than 60 DKFC per fight (extra points) on average.

The most important takeaway from this leaderboard, though, can be extracted from the "minus" column at the right side of the table. That column (mDKFP/F) represents the fantasy points those fighters would have averaged without accounting for their extra points bonuses. As you can see, all of those numbers are fairly low compared to the real fantasy points they got in their contests.

Which this means is that fighters as explosive as Francis Ngannou, if not able to finish the fight early with a knockout (or submission in other fighters' cases) are probably going to let you down. Ngannou is a true boom/bust play, as his putrid 10.17 mDKFP/F represent. Yes, it is true that his three wins came via early KO, but without that, he's a way risky DFS gamble.

Other fighters, like Jorge Masvidal and Justin Gaethje, also won all of their bouts before reaching the final horn but they at least showed something more than one-kick/punch/submission prowess in them, making them a bit better bets in the contests they are part of.

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