One of the best cards of the year is upon us this weekend, with two fighters attempting to claim titles in new weight classes. First, long-reigning strawweight champion Zhang Weili moves up to flyweight to challenge Valentina Shevchenko, followed by men’s #1 pound-for-pound fighter Islam Makhachev attempting to earn a second title.
The 14-fight card locks at 6:00 p.m. ET on Saturday.
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
Islam Makhachev ($9,200) vs. Jack Della Maddalena ($7,000)
The UFC 322 main event features the former lightweight champion Islam Makhachev attempting to do what his mentor Khabib Nurmagomedov never did, by moving up a weight class for a second belt. Circumstances are much different for Makhachev than they were for Khabib, though. Makhachev gets to take on a fresh welterweight champion making his first title defense, while Nurmagomedov’s prime coincided with a dominant 170-pound champion in Kamaru Usman.
Before Jack Della Maddalena’s title win over Belal Muhammad, this would’ve appeared to be an easy win for Makhachev. JDM is a striker who had previously been taken down by lesser opposition and was an underdog against Muhammad. His performance in that fight — denying six of nine takedown attempts and quickly getting back to his feet for the other three — make this a much more intriguing matchup.
Makhachev is still the deserving favorite here, and his preferred style of takedowns will arguably be more effective. Makhachev is comfortable shooting for takedowns from a distance and doesn’t need to be within striking range to do so. However, his one flaw is his chin. Makhachev’s only career loss was via knockout, and he was dropped by featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski in their first meeting.
With Maddalena two weight classes bigger than Volkanovski and much younger, he’s live for a knockout upset if he can continue to deny takedowns. Makhachev is the better on-paper play, but when factoring in ownership, I prefer the Australian for tournaments.
For cash games, any combination makes sense here. If you have a strong feeling on either side, playing them alone is probably fine. A stack is also in play, though the co-main event is a much stronger stacking option, and double-stacking multiple title fights is usually not ideal.
Co-Main Event
Valentina Shevchenko ($8,200) vs. Zhang Weili ($8,000)
As mentioned above, the women’s flyweight title matchup is a much better stacking option. Both women average more than two takedowns per 15 minutes, and the slight underdog Zhang also averages over five significant strikes per minute — and the fight is -250 to go all 25 minutes.
That, of course, limits the upside for both women, but at their price tags, a decision win likely qualifies for the optimal lineup. Shevchenko is the more likely grappler here since she’ll have a considerable size advantage over the 115-pound champion, while Zhang has more output on the feet. Either way, the winner should finish with a reasonably strong score.
I’m more confident in Shevchenko than the field. She’s only about a year older than the challenger, and both women have relied heavily on their physical attributes (size and strength) during their extensive title runs. That’s tougher to rely on against a larger opponent, which gives an edge to the natural 125-pound fighter.
I’ll have a bit of Zhang in tournaments as well, but this is a fight where you’ll probably want one or the other in all of your lineups.
The Easy Chalk
Baisangur Susurkaev ($9,800)
With his salary considerably higher than any other fighter on the field, I’m not sure exactly how popular Baisangur “Jimmy” Susurkaev will be this week. However, he’s easily the safest play on the slate, with his moneyline odds swelling past -1000 for his fight against Eric McConico ($6,400).
Susurkaev made a splash this August by earning his UFC contract with a first-round knockout on a Tuesday night Contender Series event, then making his debut just four days later and picking up a second-round submission. That reminded fans of Khamzat Chimaev’s ten-day turnaround during the pandemic, but Susurkaev one-upped his training partner by doing it in the same week.
Susurkaev is what would happen if you prompted AI to build a fighter with “Khamzat Chimaev but a striker.” He has a similar relaxed stance and demeanor, but rather than darting in for takedowns, he delivers massive strikes on the feet. He’ll have a huge athleticism and power edge over McConico, who has been knocked out in all three of his professional losses.
The real question is whether Susurkaev gets things done quickly enough to crack the optimal lineup. Him getting there will rely on either a quick win bonus, the other $9,000+ fighters struggling, or a cheap underdog coming through and opening up salary. There’s a reasonable chance of all those things, but I especially like pairing Susurkaev with Maddalena, since a JDM upset increases the odds that a 100-point Susurkaev win makes it into the optimal.
The Upside Play
Kyle Daukaus ($9,300)
There are a few different ways we could go with this section, and some fighters I didn’t get to that certainly qualify include Matheus Camilo ($8,700) and Benoit Saint-Denis ($8,800). However, I’m much more confident in the upside of Daukaus, as he takes on 37-year-old Gerald Meerschaert ($6,900).
“GM3” is 0-3 in his last three, with a submission loss (following a knockdown), a decision, and a knockout. That decision was against fellow veteran Brad Tavares, who hasn’t finished a fight since 2018, so don’t give Meerschaert too much credit for making it to the final bell.
Counting his time away from the UFC, Daukaus has won five straight with four finishes, an even mix of knockouts and submissions. He’s more known for his grappling, but the easier path against the submission specialist Meerschaert is to hurt him with strikes.
Crucially, the BJJ black belt Daukaus has enough grappling ability and athleticism to avoid submissions from Meerschaert. Stopping Meerschaert’s submissions is effectively as good as winning — the last time he won a fight by any other method was 2017.
As with Susurkaev, the question isn’t whether Daukaus is likely to put up a good score, but whether or not that score makes the optimal. You probably can’t afford both, and Susurkaev is safer, but the $500 savings make Daukaus an easier option to fit with a similar upside.
Special guest John Lanfranca laid out the case for Daukaus by knockout when he joined me on this week’s UFC Betting Preview:
Updated on 12/15/25
The Value Play
Malcolm Wellmaker ($8,400)
We’ve got the rare last-minute fight switch that creates a drastically underpriced fighter this week, with the beneficiary being Malcolm Wellmaker. He would’ve made sense as the easy chalk of upside play as well, but he’s clearly a strong value.
Wellmaker was a slight favorite against a tough prospect, Cody Haddon — until an injury to Haddon forced the UFC to scramble for a new opponent. That opponent is Ethyn Ewing ($6,800). Ewing just fought last weekend, ironically beating the same fighter (Billy Brand) that Haddon knocked out on the Contender Series last year.
Either way, the explosive Wellmaker is now a -500 or so favorite with a -150 price tag. His last three wins (including the Contender Series) have all been knockouts, with both UFC performances coming in at over 100 DraftKings points. That’s firmly on the table here again, and he’s a heavy priority for me in most, if not all, of my lineups.
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The Contrarian Choice
Bo Nickal ($9,100)
Bo Nickal is likely to be one of the least-owned fighters on the slate, which would’ve been absolutely insane to imagine just a few fights ago. However, the UFC’s former hottest prospect has two straight duds — one a lackluster win in which he didn’t even attempt a takedown, the other an upset loss.
The fear here is that the matchup with Rodolfo Viera ($7,100) resembles the one Nickal had against Paul Craig, where Nickal scored around 50 DraftKings points. Viera is effectively a rich man’s version of Craig, in that he’s a dangerous submission grappler who probably can’t take Nickal down but is enough of a submission threat to deter Nickal from taking things to the mat.
The likeliest outcome here is probably a lackluster striking match between two grapplers. However, what if Nickal has improved enough to either trust his grappling or actually do damage on the feet? Remember, he’s still just three years into his MMA career and is an elite athlete.
I’m not banking on that outcome, but it’s likelier than the field is suggesting, so I’ll have a few Nickal lineups sprinkled in this weekend.
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The Swing Fight
Benoit Saint-Denis ($8,800) vs. Beneil Dariush ($7,400)
The UFC 322 card is packed with fights that have reasonably close betting lines while being favored ot end inside the distance. The non-title fight I’ll have the most two-way exposure to, though, is the lightweight bout between Benoit Saint-Denis and Beneil Dariush.
At -245 odds it has the second-best chance to end inside the distance of any fight on the card. More importantly, the likely win condition for both men would produce a ton of fantasy value.
Saint-Denis is an aggressive, powerful fighter known for gassing out if he doesn’t get a quick finish. Dariush has been dropped in the first round of his last three fights, with two of those turning into finishes and the other a comeback win.
On the other side, Dariush is an elite grappler, and Saint-Denis has a pair of second-round losses against a fighter who took him down (Renato Moicano) and a fighter who was able to scramble back to his feet (Dustin Poirier).
With the more expensive Frenchman likely to get a first-round bonus if he wins, and the cheaper Dariush likely to get either a second-round finish or plenty of takedowns, the winner of this one is a near lock to be in the optimal lineup, so I’ll have close to 100% exposure to this fight. I prefer Dariush for salary reasons, but I don’t want to take a heavy stand either way.
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Pictured: Islam Makhachev
Photo Credit: Imagn Images
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