RADIO
We'll be back in the UFC Apex Center in Las Vegas for a couple of events before we go on a small, two-week vacation to close June and open July before we change venues (but not places) to enter the T-Mobile Arena on July 10 to watch UFC 264 unfold. But let's not get too ahead of ourselves and enjoy what we have on the plate right now, which is no little thing. Sure, there will be no belts on the line, and there won't be monsters like Israel Adesanya and the freshest UFC champ Brandon Moreno around, but that doesn't mean this event is going to be an upsetting one.
The Korean Zombie and Dan Ige will be the men closing the curtain on Saturday. Zombie is a former title-contender as he faced mighty Jose Aldo back in 2013 and came back four years later to fight inside Octagons once more. Ige has not reached those heights yet but he's getting there showing remarkable durability fighting almost three times per year without fail. Veteran Oleinik and Spivak will bring the heavy stuff to the table while there will be a ton of weight classes represented this weekend in the Vegas event.
In this article, I will be providing you with my fantasy MMA value picks for UFC Vegas 29: The Korean Zombie vs. Ige on 06/19/21. You can check out our DraftKings/FanDuel MMA DFS overall-lineup picks as well, in which we take all fighters into consideration. These DFS value picks, though, are focused on lower-priced fighters on both FanDuel and DraftKings pools of fighters. Give me a follow on Twitter @chapulana. Good luck!
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DraftKings MMA Featherweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Chan Sung Jung, $8200 - vs. Dan Ige
As ridiculous as it sounds, even more for a professional athlete competing in any discipline, Korean Zombie was forced out of the UFC circuit for a couple of years in order to complete mandatory military service for his home South Korean country. That left Zombie out of the Octagon from August 2013 to February 2017 (actually, he seemingly completed his two years in the mid-2014 to mid-2016 span).
Zombie closed his first tenure fighting for the chip and dropping that chance to Jose Aldo, still unstoppable those days. Zombie is 3-2 since 2017 and 1-1 since 2019, carrying an L from his last bout against Brian Ortega, which took place last October. Dan Ige, on the other hand, has been absolutely insane and hasn't known how to stop fighting for three consecutive years almost without a blemish in his resume.
Ige has fought nine times and will be stepping into the Octagon for the 10th time since Jan. 2018 this weekend. He boasts a 7-2 record, 7-1 in the last eight, and won his last bout last March in just 22 (!) seconds of fighting time. Although he lost one prior to that, he was able to rack up six consecutive wins after losing in his UFC debut. Korean Zombie is a goddam spectacle in and of himself and a KO-or-get-KO'd fighter, but Ige has been so strong that I have to side with him on this one.
DraftKings MMA Heavyweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Sergey Spivak, $9200 - vs. Aleksei Oleinik
It might be a little bit of a stretch but we are definitely close to being able to say Oleinik could be Spivak's father, folks. The former is fighting at a freakish 43 years of age compared to the latter's 26. When Oleinik first stepped into a UFC Octagon in 2014, his opponent this weekend was barely 17 years old and had yet to debut as a pro.
This is quite a contrasting battle on that front, but when it comes to these two fighting styles, the truth is that they have very similar profiles. Obviously, Oleinik's age has taken a toll on him and he's just not going for takedowns as adeptly as he was in his early days, but that's always been one of his calling cards with five submission-wins in his UFC career.
Spivak, on the other hand, is hitting his absolute peak on results, strikes, and takedown terms. He's gone for 19 TDs in his last four fights landing 12 of them (63%), he's won by all three outcomes (one KO, one sub, and one decision), is 3-2 in the UFC, and currently on a two-win streak. Oleinik, who has dropped his last two by getting KO'd in under 5:21 minutes at most, comes with so many doubts and a bit washed up as to see him snatching the W here. Bank on the new generation.
DraftKings MMA Featherweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Julian Erosa, $7600 - vs. Seung Woo Choi
Not the brightest of fights, but at least things are trending upwards for these two. Julian Erosa is the most experience of the pair with six fights in his log spanning back to 2016. He got knocked out in three of his first four fights, also losing the other one to start his UFC career 0-4. In a probable win-or-go-home fifth outing, Erosa finally got it right a year ago and got his first W (via sub) to put on his second consecutive victory last February via KO. Mate doesn't know how to go the distance.
Choi, on the other hand, has been inside the Octagon for 43:17 of a possible total of 45 minutes of fighting time. Only a loss via submission sandwiched by his most recent and his debut fights saw him finish a bout early. He started 0-2, but in a similar way to Erosa he finally won his first fight his last time out, which happened all the way back in Dec. 2019.
While both men have got wins of late, the truth is that Choi's extended absence could go against him and favor a much more active Erosa. It took the latter just 56 seconds in his last fight to get the W via KO, and when he won via sub in his second-to-last bout he did it landing 3-of-6 TDs before subbing his foe. Gotta go with Erosa if only for the most recent set of results.
DraftKings MMA Bantamweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Davey Grant, $7100 - vs. Marlon Vera
If you want to bet on a fight getting called before we reach the final buzzer, then this is absolutely the one. Vera and Grant have fought a combined 22 times in the UFC, and 13 of those fights have ended early either in win or loss for them. In fact, if we look at the most recent fights by these two (those happening from 2018 on) then we find just four decisions in 13 fights for a 70% early-finish rate. That's bonkers for a couple of bantams.
While Marlon Vera has shown some takedown prowess throughout his career, the truth is that he's not landed his attempts on a consistent basis. Grant, on the other hand, has pulled them off 11 of 21 times for a 52% success rate. He's also gone for 14 of them in the past three fights while keeping up his striking volume, knocking out cold his last two foes.
Vera is the veteran of these two with a massive 16-fight resume starting all the way back in 2014, but he's alternated Ws and Ls since his last fight in 2019 with a W-L-W-L streak losing his last one to a washed Aldo. Grant has won three in a row with two KOs on top of that. Everything points to Grant's direction, and while Vera could bring the surprise-win, odds are Davey gets his fourth victory in a row.
DraftKings MMA Welterweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Dhiego Lima, $9000 - vs. Matt Brown
When Matty Brown fought for the first time I hadn't even been born. No, that's a joke, but Brown has been around since Sep. 2008! He's fought inside the Octagon 25 times and counting, and he will be doing so once more this Saturday. Lima, his opponent this weekend, is also far from a freshman. His fight log pales in comparison to Brown's, of course, but the first of his eight UFC fights happened back in 2014, more than six years ago.
Dhiego Lima started 1-2 leading up to a three-year break that ended in 2018. Since then, he has flipped the script with a 3-2 run in which he sandwiched three consecutive victories with two losses, the last one taking place last February against Belal Muhammad. Three decisions in a row adorn his most recent resume entries, two in favor and one (the latest) against.
Brown is clearly past his heyday with a 2-5 record since the start of 2016. Those two wins took place in 2017 and Dec. 2019, both via KO, but he then proceeded to get KO'd himself by Miguel Baeza and dropped a decision to Carlos Condit last January. The volume is low, the takedowns aren't coming his way like in the good old times, and Lima has looked much better of late. Eu sonho em Brasileiro.
