UFC Paris DFS Breakdown: Model, Preview, Picks for Parnasse vs. Hooker, More Saturday Fights

The UFC heads to the Accord Arena in Paris this week for an afternoon fight card featuring plenty of local talent. That includes the main event, where French fighter Salahdine Parnasse takes on Dan Hooker.

The 14-fight card starts at noon ET, so have your lineups in early, and be on the lookout for any potential overlay as we get close to lock.

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 the UFC. You can use our optimizer to build optimal lineups using these projections.

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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 tournaments, for example.

You can check out the projections for every fighter on Saturday’s card in our UFC Models.

Main Event

Salahdine Parnasse ($9,500) vs. Dan Hooker ($6,700)

Salahdine Parnasse might be the UFC’s best direct signing in some time. After appearing on the first MVP on Netflix card in May, the Frenchman inked a deal to come over to the UFC and, prior to that, was a two-division champion in KSW who challenged for a third title and lost a competitive decision. Still just 28, he’s firmly in his prime and has a long resume of beating UFC-level competition.

In fact, while still fighting in his native France, he defeated current UFC fighters William Gomis and Morgan Charriere ($7,300), who also fight this weekend. He also beat UFC fighters Robert Ruchala and Marcin Held in KSW, holding a 23-2 overall record. One of those losses was a fluky knockout that he avenged two fights later, and the other was a close decision two fights above his usual weight class.

All of this is to say the sky is the limit for Parnasse, and he gets a fairly friendly UFC debut against Dan Hooker. “Hangman” is a 24-fight UFC veteran who has settled in as a lightweight gatekeeper who separates ranked fighters from the rest of the field. Hooker is tough but a step behind the top contenders in terms of skill, especially at 36 years old. He’s been finished in consecutive fights against Arman Tsarukyan and Benoit St. Denis, with his two previous wins coming via split decision.

Hooker’s hittable nature and limited offensive wrestling make this a perfect matchup for Parnasse to show off his striking, with the most probable outcome being a Parnasse finish after accumulating damage over a round or two. Parnasse is a -625 favorite with -300 stoppage odds, making him a no-brainer top play.

For cash games, I’m not necessarily against rostering Hooker, as he typically sticks around long enough to at least contribute some points even in his losses. However, there are other solid value plays on the slate, so I prefer trying to find the salary for higher-upside budget options.

The Easy Chalk

Kurtis Campbell ($9,300)

There’s a reasonable argument that the best play on the slate is not Parnasse but Kurtis Campbell, who comes in as a -410 favorite against the returning Trevor Peek ($6,900). It will be two days short of a two-year layoff for Peek when he returns to action this weekend, and he’s gone 1-3 over his last four fights with the promotion.

More importantly, the stylistic matchup here gives Campbell absurd upside. Peek is a pure striker with almost no grappling defense, and he’s been taken down at least four times in five of his six UFC or DWCS fights. He has the physical strength to “just stand up” like Derrick Lewis, but featherweights have the cardio to take him right back down again, unlike the heavyweights Lewis is facing.

Campbell has landed four takedowns in less than seven minutes of cage time in the UFC but is coming off a knockout loss in March. While Campbell isn’t a bad striker, the obvious path to victory here is to grapple early and often, which he’s probably more likely to do while coming off his first career loss.

A quick stoppage from Campbell is more likely than Peek actually denying takedowns, so Campbell is an excellent bet for a strong score one way or the other. I’ll have him in as many lineups as I can find the salary for.

The Upside Plays

Losene Keita ($9,200)

The third potential top play on the slate is Losene Keita, who I expect will have considerably lower ownership than Campbell and Parnasse. Keita is effectively last year’s version of Parnasse – a big-name signing from outside of the promotion who brought a lot of hype into the UFC. It’s been a bit of a letdown so far, with Keita missing weight and having his first attempted fight cancelled, then losing a lackluster split decision to fellow UFC-Paris fighter Nathaniel Wood ($9,200) in his second booking.

The UFC seems like they’re giving him a step back here, as he takes on Muhammad Naimov ($7,000) as a significant favorite. Naimov is 2-2 over his last four, with both losses coming inside the distance, and is fairly hittable with a 44% significant strike defense rate. Most of Naimov’s UFC wins have been fairly close decisions, while he’s been beaten badly in his losses.

Keita is very unlikely to have any interest in grappling here, so his upside is entirely predicated on a knockout, but he’s a slight favorite to get one. If it comes early enough, or with enough total striking volume, he could easily keep pace with the fighters priced a few hundred dollars above him. While he’s not as safe as they are, the raw upside is similar, and the ownership will be considerably lower, making him a strong tournament pivot.

The Value Play

Fabia Sintes ($7,800)

I was on Sintes early in the week when he was a +130 or so underdog. That proved prescient, as his line has dropped all the way to -102, making him a pretty clear value play in a fight that is just +110 to go the full 15 minutes.

Sintes is taking on fellow UFC rookie Michael Aljarouj ($8,400) in flyweight action. Aljarouj comes into the promotion under suspicious circumstances, with his last fight officially a no contest but originally ruled as a decision loss. Apparently, the French promotion he was fighting for found an illegal blow from his opponent from earlier in the fight and ruled the bout a no contest despite it going the full 15 minutes. That’s weird in general, but especially fishy when it took a win away from his Brazilian opponent.

Plus, Aljarouj being local could be why he’s getting this opportunity rather than his skills. He’s officially 13-3 against what seems to be largely hand-picked opponents, with his last win coming against a 38-year-old who is 1-4 since 2020. Being French doesn’t mean you aren’t UFC-caliber, of course; it just means that you don’t have to be to get this opportunity.

On the other side, Sintes has won seven straight, including consecutive finishes in five-round title fights. I don’t recognize any of the names on his record, but he seems to be fighting opponents still in their prime with solid records. That gives him a leg up in this matchup.

At the end of the day, the important thing is that he’s $200-$300 underpriced based on his current lines, which may continue to move his way.

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The Contrarian Choice

Pavel Andrusca ($7,000)

I’m going with another debuting UFC fighter as my contrarian option, this time the undefeated Pavel Andrusca. He takes on the previously discussed Nate Wood in a late addition to the UFC Paris card, with the undefeated Andrusca coming up from his usual 135-pound weight class to face Wood.

The good news for Andrusca is that Wood is a former bantamweight himself and probably the smallest featherweight on the UFC roster. Wood has also never finished an opponent at 145 pounds, as he typically lacks the pure power and strength to find knockouts or submissions. On the flip side, he won’t be significantly undersized against Andrusca, but this fight is still likely to go the distance.

Andrusca is an exciting undefeated prospect with seven finishes in his eight wins. He was also a two-time medalist at the European wrestling championships, which gives him some takedown-based upside on top of a potential knockout, giving him a big score.

At worst, he likely goes the full 15 minutes with Wood, giving him a solid floor. At best, he piles up takedowns or finds a knockout against the veteran. Either of those is an excellent outcome relative to his price tag, making him an excellent play for tournaments and cash games alike.

The Swing Fight

Matthew Duclos ($8,200) vs. Luis Felipe Dias ($8,000)

We have one of the more obvious swing fights in recent memory this weekend. Not only is the fight between Matthew Duclos and Luis Felips Dias the most tightly lined on the slate, but it also has -500 stoppage odds, which are the best on the slate outside of the main event.

It’s hard to get a read on Dias, who came into his Contender Series fight last year with some obvious skills but a two-year layoff since his previous fight and questionable competition along the way. The BJJ black belt and coach to some high-level UFC fighters picked up a quick submission there and then added a knockout victory in his UFC debut proper. However, both of those fights were also against lower-level competition by UFC standards.

Duclos is a French fighter making his debut with a 10-3 record. He lost via knockout to Marco Tulio on the Contender Series in 2024 but has picked up four straight victories since then. Like Dias, those opponents were of questionable skill, at least outside of Ilian Bouafia, a former DWCS winner who was undefeated prior to facing Duclos. However, Bouafia was getting the better of that brief fight before suffering a freak leg injury on a kick, so even that doesn’t tell us much.

I’m slightly more optimistic about Dias but not especially confident either way. I’ll be close to 100% total exposure to this fight, with somewhere around two-thirds of that on the Brazilian.

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Pictured: Salahdine Parnasse
Photo Credit: Imagn Images