RADIO
After the much-expected comeback of MMA this past Saturday in the shape of UFC 249 and a great night of fights that saw Tony Ferguson surrender to Justin Gaethje and Henry Cejudo retire (are we sure?) at the top of the hill, we're back at it only four days later with another event. The UFC will make the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena (Jacksonville, FL) its home for the second time in less than a week to host UFC on ESPN 9.
While this card doesn't feature the firepower of the last one, it still bears some weight in the title picture and future fights to come. Light Heavyweights contenders Anthony Smith and Glover Teixeira lead the event, Karl Roberson and Marvin Vettori had scheduled their fight for earlier this year but had to postpone it due to COVID, and we'll also get to watch former champion Andrei Arlovski fight again (no picks for this one, just enjoy a living legend inside the octagon once more!).
In this article, I will be providing you with my daily fantasy MMA lineup picks for DraftKings for UFC Fight Night on 05/13/20. You can check out our FanDuel MMA DFS picks as well. Give me a follow on Twitter @chapulana. Good luck.
Light Heavyweight - MMA DFS Lineup Picks
Anthony Smith, $9,000 - vs Glover Teixeira
There are a lot of differences between Teixeira and Smith that are easy to spot: Smith came back from defeat against Jon Jones by defeating Alexander Gustafsson in his last fight via submission. Glover is on a three-fight win streak where he's won all three before the third round, two of which he's won by way of submission. Smith has never fought in a title fight, Teixeira did all the way back in 2014 and lost, coincidentally, against Jon Jones; Smith has disputed two five-round fights in his last two appearances, Glover hasn't since 2017.
I could keep on going, but this is a main event in which both contestants carry way different backgrounds to the octagon. I feel like going with Smith is the right move here. If you check the fight log of both men you'd probably think of giving the edge to Teixeira because of his late dominant streak but keep in mind Smith's loss to Jones was as close as it got and other than that he's 4-0 in his other four most-recent bouts.
Teixeira's experience (he was part of UFC 146 back in 2012) might help him against Smith, but Glover's heyday seems to be past him. While he averaged an impossible great 118.4 DKFP per fight in his first two years as a pro, that number has dropped to 93.2 DKFP in his last three fights (even with all being wins, remember).
While Smith's average is lower (76.9 DKFP in his last five bouts) he's only dropped one highly contested fight to mighty Bones Jones and counts his wins by early-stoppages (he's earned submission or TKO wins in all of his fights from 2017 on.
Heavyweight - MMA DFS Lineup Picks
Ovince Saint Preux, $8,700 - vs Ben Rothwell
The first time Rothwell stepped inside the octagon he went on to lose against Cain Velasquez via TKO in just one round and change. Times have changed--a lot--as that happened all the way back in 2009! After a three-year UFC-hiatus and ten years after that fight against Cain, Rothwell came back in 2019 to fight three times and go away with a 1-2 record in which he could only defeat Stefan Struve in his last bout--a TKO at the end of the second round.
Ovince's fight log since his first appearance in UFC 159 is rather impressive: his name has been called to the octagon a blistering 20 times since 2013 but if we split his bouts into two halves his record has gotten worst from the first 10 (7-3, finishing with a loss to Jon Jones for the LHW belt in 2016) to the last 10 (5-5). Although present-day Saint Preux is far from his peak version, he's still a dangerous fighter that honors his weight class in that he rarely goes the distance--opposite to Rothwell.
Betting on this contest is a hard exercise. Both fighters are low-scoring men (Saint Preux averages 58.5 DKFP per fight and Rothwell 59.7) but Ovince benefits for a higher per-minute average and the fact that he tends to end fights soon also works in his favor. It all comes down to this, though: if you think we're about to see three rounds of MMA action you can go with Rothwell--he lands 24-plus strikes per round to Saint Preux's 13--but if you trust youth, power, and early stoppages, then Ovince is your man; and I'd put my money on the latter.
Middleweight - MMA DFS Lineup Picks
Drew Dober, $8,300 - vs Alexander Hernandez
Do you want patience, or do you want fireworks? That's the proposition here, with Hernandez profiling as the marathon man and Dober as the early show-stopper. Dober has been around for quite some time and only four times has he gone the distance in his 13 UFC fights--three of them wins. Hernandez, on the other hand, has fought four times spanning from 2018 to mid-2019 and in two of his last three he has seen the clock expire--while getting a couple of wins, making for a 100% win-rate in long affairs.
The main difference between Dober and Hernandez comes down to volume and style. Hernandez has a higher average of takedowns per round (0.51 to Dober's 0.22) while Dober is a high-volume hitter who averages 31.09 significant-strikes per round compared to Hernandez's 15.35. Dober also beats Hernandez in knockdown average (0.33 per round to 0.13) and at the end of the day all of those numbers favor Dober in fantasy contests.
Just a quick look at his performance over the years in DraftKings slates makes the decision easy to go with Dober here: the vet has gone on to average fewer than 7.5 minutes of fighting time per bout but he's made the most of those with averages of 87 DKFP per fight (11.6 DKFP per minute) while Hernandez pales in comparison with 63.6 DKFP per bout and 6.5 DKFP per minute inside the octagon.
For those of you still unconvinced, let me refresh your minds by letting you know that Dober knocked his last two opponents out in 70 and 67 seconds and that the last of them (Nasrat Haqparast) suffered that faith just four months ago. Let's watch Dober keep riding the winning wave.
Bantamweight - MMA DFS Lineup Picks
Ray Borg, $7,600 - vs Ricky Simon
The one and only time Borg fought for a belt--against Demetrious Johnson back in 2017--he lost to Mighty Mouse when DJ pulled off a submission out of thin air. Borg left the spotlight for almost two full years, came back in 2019, lost to Casey Kenney in a unanimous decision, and is now on a two-win streak that included Gabriel Silva and Rogerio Bontorin as his victims on two full-time combats.
Ricky Simon, while way less experienced (3-2 compared to Borg's 7-4 overall UFC record), is pretty much the same type of long-run fighter. Simon has gone the distance in four of his five bouts, and the only time he did not he was knocked unconscious by Urijah Faber in 46 seconds. He couldn't come back to the winning column in his last fight, in which he unanimously lost to Rob Font in December 2019.
While Simon makes the most of his strikes, Borg is a more rounded fighter able to go for and land some takedowns more often than not. In fact, he's become better at it with time and his best performances on that side of fighting have come in his last three fights when he barely attempted strikes at all even in 15-minute contests.
It'd be very reasonable to expect a full-time fight here, and Simon edges Borg in DKFP per minute (5.7 to 4.6). Even with that, Borg tends to score higher points at the end of the day and come out with the win. Forget about any high fight-finishing bonus, though, as the most probable outcome here is a decision after the three rounds are completed and you have spent a good 10-plus minutes watching these two hug themselves with their backs long-stuck to the mat.
Middleweight - MMA DFS Lineup Picks
Marvin Vettori, $8,900 - vs Karl Roberson
I know I'm getting old because of this pick. Vettori is far from boring--he's attempted an average of 132 head strikes per fight in his last five bouts--but he can't for the love of God get himself an early-stoppage win (nor loss, for that matter). In the five fights he's taken part of since 2017 he's gone the distance every single time logging the full 75 minutes of cage-time, finishing with a 3-1-1 record overall and losing only to current-champion Israel Adesanya.
Roberson, same as Vettori, enters this contest on a two-fight win streak that saw him beat Roman Kopylov and Wellington Turman in 2019 after losing his other bout of the year to Glover Teixeira (by submission in the first round, ugh). It is hard to find anything Roberson excels at, with both his striking and takedown skills pretty much average among the field. That's why his fantasy appeal is rather nil with an average score of just 71.2 DKFP in his last three fights.
Vettori's last three wins weren't incredibly higher on the DraftKings score leaderboards (average 82 DKFP) but they were enough to edge Roberson's outcomes. Same as with Borg vs. Simon, I'd bet on a long fight taking place between these two with Vettori ultimately getting the win after a decision. He's better than Roberson at everything from striking to grappling, his averages beat Roberson's in every category, and he also lands blows on higher percentages.
