The UFC is in China this weekend for UFC Shanghai, part of a weekend of fights that starts with the semi-finals of the Road to the UFC tournament on Friday morning.
The 12-fight card has a special 3:00 a.m. ET start time, so you’ll want to have your lineups and entries sorted out on Friday.
We have built out a full player-projection model using the FantasyLabs Tools and Player Models to help put together some winning DFS lineups in UFC. You can use our optimizer to build optimal lineups using these projections.
The model, created by our own Sean Koerner, is based on 10,000 simulations of all the fights. He then pulled the DraftKings score from each bout to create floor, median, and ceiling projections for every fighter. Here is how he defined each projection:
- Floor: Fighter has an 80% chance of going over this score, 20% chance of going under
- Median: Fighter has a 50% chance of going over this score, 50% chance of going under
- Ceiling: Fighter has a 20% chance of going over this score, 80% chance of going under
These should give us a better sense of which fighters we should target based on the game type – maximizing ceiling in GPPs, for example.
You can check out the projections for every fighter on Saturday’s card in our UFC Models.
Main Event
Zhang Mingyang ($9,400) vs. Johnny Walker ($6,800)
The UFC’s intentions in making this fight are pretty clear. “The Mountain Tiger” Zhang Mingyang is a bright Chinese prospect and has a chance to grow the reach of the UFC into the Chinese market. He’s picked up three straight knockouts to start his UFC run.
They’ve matched him with Johnny Walker, a talented but fragile Brazilian light heavyweight best known for being knocked out in increasingly silly ways. He’s lost each of his last two fights by KO, but his suspect chin dates way back to his days on the regional circuit.
While this is something of a step up in competition for Zhang, Walker is likely to strike it out with him on the feet while being unable to absorb any significant blows. As such, it couldn’t be a better matchup for the favorite.
This fight is -4000 to end inside the distance, with Zhang as high as -280 to pick up a knockout. The floor for Walker is almost nothing, so I’m certainly not interested in stacking this one. I’ll have some light Walker exposure in GPPs because he is the more well-rounded fighter, but Zhang should be the priority.
Co-Main Event
Aljamain Sterling ($9,000) vs. Brian Ortega ($7,200)
We have a rare non-title co-main event also slated for five rounds this weekend, so it’s worth discussing fully — especially since it’s the far better DFS stack. Unlike the main event, the co-main is lined as a slight favorite to go all 25 minutes, giving both featherweight competitors a solid floor.
This is also an ideal matchup for Sterling, at least from a DFS perspective. He’s one of the best grapplers in the UFC, implementing a wrestling-heavy plan in the bulk of his fights. Ortega is a jiu-jitsu specialist who likes to attempt submissions off his back and is often willing to accept takedowns.
Ortega is also likely to do enough from his back to force the fight back to the feet, giving Sterling plenty of opportunities to rack up multiple takedowns in a round. On the feet Ortega is probably the better fighter, but he also absorbs a lot of strikes, giving more upside to Sterling.
However, the underdog should be active enough in the striking to post a solid score in a decision loss, with some submission-based upside if he can pull off the win. It’s a must-stack for cash games, while Sterling is probably my favorite GPP play on the slate.
Especially after news broke that Ortega allegedly fainted during his weight cut and came in seven lbs over the limit. That would likely be enough to cancel the fight in a jurisdiction with a stronger athletic commission, but as of now it’s still on. With Ortega looking terrible on the scales, my belief in Sterling is only stronger.
The Easy Chalk
Michel Pereira ($9,200)
The 2023 move to middleweight by Michel Pereira initially looked like the right call, with “Demolidor” going 3-0 in his first three fights in the division, the longest of which lasted 66 seconds. Then he ran into “Fluffy” Hernandez and has now lost two in a row.
This week he’s getting a massive step down in competition against UFC castoff Kyle Daukaus ($7,000), who was cut from the promotion after consecutive knockout losses in 2022. He’s getting another shot as a short-notice replacement, but as around a +220 underdog.
Pereira has massive speed and power advantages over Daukaus, who has a long and awkward build. The more explosive Pereira should be able to find the suspect chin of Daukaus early and often, as he did during his solid run at 185 lbs when he first made the leap.
Daukaus is a dangerous submission grappler, but it’s hard to see him being able to get this one to the mat, making Pereira a fairly safe pick. He’s roughly even money to pick up a finish, solid odds relative to his price tag.
The Upside Plays
Sergei Pavlovich ($8,900)
Sergei Pavlovich is meeting Waldo “Salsa Boy” Cortes-Acosta in the lone heavyweight fight at UFC Shanghai. Pavlovich is a former heavyweight title challenger who had picked up six straight first-round knockouts before meeting the same fate at the hands of Tom Aspinall in 2023 and is now looking to earn another shot.
The fight with Aspinall was a last-minute replacement for the original heavyweight title fight on the card, so I’m willing to look past that one on his record. However, since then, Pavlovich has been more timid, with two straight decisions in his following fights. He went 1-1 in those two bouts, mixing in some grappling for the first time in the UFC in his most recent win.
That grappling could be the source of his upside against “Salsa Boy,” a former minor league pitcher in the Reds organization on a five-fight winning streak of his own. Outside of his strange fight against Cuban taekwondo practitioner Robelis Despaigne, Cortes-Acosta hasn’t landed a single takedown in the UFC, while being grounded six times himself.
Pavlovich was invited to the Russian Olympic trials in Greco-Roman wrestling, giving him an obvious edge there. Plus, he’s the bigger and more powerful of the two fighters, with a six-inch reach edge. He’s always live for a knockout, but the potential of takedowns makes the upside path even stronger.
Updated on 12/5/25
The Value Plays
Austin Hubbard ($7,100)
We need to find a way to save salary somewhere, and with the fighters cheaper than him all in fights very likely to end quickly, Hubbard is the top choice almost by default, at least for cash games.
“Bang” has seen the judges’ scorecards in eight of his 11 UFC fights (plus twice more on the Ultimate Fighter), with his only losses inside the distance coming via submission. He’s taking on Rongzhu ($9,100), a former Road to the UFC winner with good power but limited grappling.
Hubbard should be able to mix in some takedowns here, giving him a reasonably high floor even if he can’t pull off the upset. He’s landed seven takedowns in his four fights since returning to the promotion, so it’s clearly in the game plan.
He’s a fairly low-upside option, as even his wins haven’t yielded many fantasy points, but the floor is high. Plus, the line has moved his way this week, making him fairly underpriced for his +210 betting odds.
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The Contrarian Choice
Suyoung You ($8,300)
One fighter who has seen the line move against him is South Korea’s Suyoung “Yoo Jitsu” Yu, in his fight against Xiao Long ($7,900).
It’s a fairly straightforward striker vs. grappler match, with Xiao in the role of the striker. You has landed 19 takedowns in his four fights between the UFC proper and the Road to the UFC tournament, while Xiao has been taken down at least once in every fight.
Crucially, You has 71% significant strike defense in his time with the promotion, and his only career loss via strikes was on the ground. That makes him a fairly difficult matchup for an opponent who relies on big shots to get the job done.
The line movement against You makes him appear to be a poor value on paper, which should limit his ownership in GPPs. With his takedown-based upside, I want to be well over the field in case he turns in another 4+ takedown outing.
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The Swing Fight
Sumudaerji ($8,500) vs. Kevin Borjas ($7,700)
There’s not a clear swing fight on this card outside of perhaps the main event , as the other fights with long odds to end inside the distance also feature a heavy favorite. I’m interested in the flyweight crash between Sumudaerji and Kevin Borjas, though, as it’s an exciting striker-vs-striker matchup that could lead to fireworks.
While we ultimately settled on different conclusions, both Sean Zerillo and I cited the lack of takedown threat as a key factor for both fighters in this matchup on our latest UFC Betting podcast. Both fighters have struggled when forced to defend takedowns but have shown good speed and power on their feet.
They’ve also both been knocked down in the UFC, as well as scored knockdowns of their own, so there’s a good chance that a striking match ends in somebody hitting the canvas. While I’m personally on the Borjas side, it’s an extremely close fight that I want exposure to on both sides.
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Pictured: Zhang Mingyang
Photo Credit: Imagn Images
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