The UFC is at the O2 in London this week, with a featherweight number one contender fight between undefeated fighters Movsar Evloev and Lerone Murphy. We’ve got our usual assortment of local fighters as heavy favorites, making it an interesting week for DFS strategy.
With this card running in primetime in London, it’s got a special start time of 1:00 p.m. ET. Make sure to get your lineups set early for the 14-fight card.
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
Movsar Evloev ($8,900) vs. Lerone Murphy ($7,300)
I seem to be on a bit of an island in thinking the underdog wins this one, as I’ve been on Lerone Murphy to pull off the upset all week. Both he and Movsar Evloev are undefeated featherweights who have been promised a title shot with a win here, so the stakes are massive in this main event.
The big reason for backing Murphy is that he’s done exceptionally well in similar matchups before. His last fight was against Aaron Pico, a decorated wrestler who took Murphy down twice in the first round but couldn’t keep him there. Evloev is a pure grappler who will almost certainly land takedowns on Murphy, but doing enough with them to win rounds is far from a given.
From a DFS perspective, that means Evloev could easily put up big numbers in a loss if he piles up takedowns. More importantly, any win for Murphy should get him into the optimal lineup at his cheap price point.
With several attractive, high-priced fighters on this slate, Murphy is extremely valuable for GPPs. There is even a scenario where he does enough in a loss to sneak into the optimal lineup if the other chalk hits. For that reason, I’ll have way more of him, but I’ll mix in some Evloev as well.
In cash games, this is an extremely easy stack. Evloev has never finished a UFC fight, so Murphy’s floor is massive relative to his price, while the favorite should score plenty of points whether he wins or loses.
The Easy Chalk
Iwo Baraniewski ($9,500)
The three most expensive fighters on this slate are all extremely difficult to choose from, since they each have moneyline odds of -600 or better in fights that are also heavily favored to end inside the distance. I don’t have an especially strong opinion about who the best option is, but it’s impossible to roster all three.
With that said, the best first-round stoppage odds belong to Iwo Baraniewski at -185. Since we almost certainly need a Round 1 win from the fighters in this range, that makes him the strongest option. He’s also the cheapest of the three, as he welcomes Austen Lane ($6,700) to the light-heavyweight division.
The former NFL player is 1-4 in his last five, with first- or second-round stoppages in all four losses. While he’s theoretically fighting a smaller opponent now, Baraniewski is a big, powerful light-heavyweight who is also a skilled grappler, so I don’t expect the new weight class to be any different for Lane.
Plus, with Baraniewski somewhat likely to mix in a takedown or two, his upside is theoretically a bit higher than the other heavy favorites, both of whom are likely to settle things with their striking.
The Upside Play
Mario Pinto ($9,700)
Mario Pinto is probably my least favorite of the expensive options, but just barely. He’s an undefeated heavyweight prospect who has finished both of his UFC wins—including a second-round stoppage of Austen Lane. He’s getting a great matchup in Felipe Franco ($6,500), who lost in the third round on the Contender Series at light-heavyweight and is taking this fight on short notice.
The only reason I’m lower on Pinto than the rest of the group is that he’s more reliant on a quick stoppage than the other two. As expected from a heavyweight, he’s not an especially voluminous striker; he landed just 13 significant strikes in his second-round finish of Lane. The other two fighters at $9,500+ are both more active on their feet and slightly cheaper, so they have a better path to victory.
Which isn’t to say I won’t be playing Pinto, just that he’ll be a lower priority than Baraniewski or our next option.
Mantas Kondratavicius ($9,600)
Mantas Kondratavicius needed just over a minute to punch his ticket to the UFC, picking up a big knockout on the Contender Series. I was worried about his grappling ability, but he’s shown a commitment to improving that area and even took a professional grappling match between his DWCS appearance and UFC debut.
More importantly, he’s getting an extremely soft debut matchup. He’s facing Antonio Trocoli ($6,600), who is 0-3 in the UFC with three straight first-round losses. Trocoli earned his way to the UFC with a 2019 win on the Contender Series but then faced a long suspension for steroids and came back a weight class smaller than he was before testing positive.
On top of that, he’s also a professional poker player who seems to care way more about his career on the felt than in the Octagon. He’s pretty clearly being brought in to make Kondratavicius look good, and the favorite is -135 to pick up a first-round stoppage.
Updated on 3/20/26
The Value Play
Shem Rock ($7,900)
There are not any truly obvious value plays on this slate outside of Murphy, given how likely most of the cheap fighters are to lose inside the distance. However, Rock is reasonably priced and has seen some solid line movement this week, with many books now listing him as a favorite against Abdul-Karrem Al-Sewady ($8,300).
I’m not entirely sure what to make of this fight, since Al-Sewady hasn’t competed in over two years. I was somewhat high on him as a prospect entering the promotion, but he’s now 0-1 in the UFC. The fact that injuries have kept him out of competition for so long is concerning and is likely a big part of why Rock has caught so much line movement.
On the other side, Rock was something of a letdown in his own UFC debut, losing a lackluster 30-27 decision. However, he’s now on home turf in England rather than being forced to travel to Qatar, and he hopefully has the debut jitters out of the way. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to find the salary to get to him in cash games, but he’s an excellent choice if you can get there.
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The Contrarian Choice
Louie Sutherland ($7,200)
My favorite cash game punt is “The Vanilla Gorilla,” Louie Sutherland, who—aside from needing a more unique nickname—has a lot going for him coming into this fight.
Sutherland lost his UFC debut, but he took it on short notice against Valter Walker and became the fourth straight victim of “The Clean Monster” and his trademark heel hook. I’m willing to look past that, due to both the short-notice nature of the fight and the fact that Walker is piling up heel-hook victories against everyone.
He gets a shot at redemption here against Brando Pericic ($9,000), who is technically 1-0 in the UFC after his planned DWCS bout was moved to the UFC without a change of opponent. Pericic looked good in that fight, but it didn’t really tell us much about his abilities. More importantly, if that bout had stayed on the Contender Series, we’d have a much closer line for this fight.
The Swing Fight
Michael Page ($8,600) vs. Sam Patterson ($7,600)
There aren’t really any great “swing fight” options this time around, as the only somewhat close fights on the card are likely to go to a decision or feature one fighter who clearly has all of the DFS upside. However, the welterweight matchup between former training partners Michael Page and Sam Patterson has a case for fighters on both sides.
Page is a flashy striker with an unorthodox style who is fairly weak to grappling. Patterson is one of the only welterweights who can match Page’s height and reach—the other being Ian Garry, who beat Page—and is also a solid grappler with two UFC submission wins. However, he’s a bit chinny and was knocked out in his UFC debut.
Both men are weak where the other is strong, so that binary nature could lead to a big score for either if they can dictate where the fight takes place. Of course, it could also lead to a standoff, especially with the pair reportedly being friends. I won’t be all-in on this fight by any stretch, but I will have a little bit of both sides.
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Pictured: Lerone Murphy
Photo Credit: Imagn
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