UFC

UFC 312 DFS Breakdown: Model, Preview, Picks for Du Plessis vs. Strickland, More Saturday Fights

By Billy Ward @Psychoward586
Feb 8, 2025

We’ve got two titles on the line at UFC 312, with the main event for the middleweight belt and the co-main for the strawweight championship. That means two five-rounders, which is an important consideration for DFS.

With a late cancellation on Thursday, we’re down to 12 fights on the card, which starts at 6 p.m. ET and goes down in Sydney, Australia.

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

Dricus Du Plessis ($8,600) vs. Sean Strickland ($7,600)

The main event at UFC 312 is a rematch between current champion Dricus Du Plessis and the man he won the title from, Sean Strickland. The first meeting was an ultra-close split decision in which both men clearly won two rounds, with a heavily disputed third round going to DDP on two of three scorecards.

It was also a highly productive DFS fight. Du Plessis scored 119 points with the win, on the strength of six takedowns over five rounds. Strickland had his usual high-volume striking output, with his 173 significant strikes seeing him score just over 70 points on DraftKings.

The likeliest outcome here is another similar performance, with Strickland landing plenty of strikes and Du Plessis mixing in takedowns. On what’s now just a 12-fight card, there’s certainly an argument for stacking this fight even in GPPs, as they combined for over 190 points the first time around.

At worst, you’ll want at least one of the two in all of your tournament lineups, as it would be incredibly unlikely for the winner to not make the optimal lineup. Obviously, you’re also stacking this one in cash games, since both men have fairly strong floors as well.

Co-Main Event

Tatiana Suarez ($8,200) vs. Zhang Weili ($8,000)

The co-main event is a bit more intriguing from a DFS standpoint, since it’s a fresh matchup between arguably the best 115 lbs fighter of all time in Zhang Weili and an undefeated fighter in Tatiana Suarez who’s been dubbed a future champion for nearly a decade at this point.

Zhang is typically an excellent DFS option, since she brings the trifecta of a high significant strike rate, plenty of takedowns, and solid finishing ability. She’s topped 100 DraftKings points thrice in her four-fight win streak and hit 91 in the other. She even scored 81 in a split decision loss to Rose Namajunas.

However, she’s probably not landing any takedowns against Suarez. The challenger was an Olympic wrestling hopeful before thyroid cancer derailed her bid, who then transitioned to MMA after recovering. She’s been plagued with injuries, fighting just twice since 2019—but has been absolutely dominant when she makes it to the cage.

I did a full preview of this fight from a betting standpoint, but that mostly applies to DFS as well. Suarez will get her takedowns, Weili will get the better of the striking, and what happens on the mat after the takedowns decides the fight.

Either way, that gives both women a solid floor, making this a cash game stack. However, I don’t really see a path to both hitting the optimal, unlike the main event. Weili likely needs a finish, while Suarez finding the optimal means either a finish or tons of takedowns, with either scenario suppressing the losing fighter’s score.

I’m leaning towards the current champion but want exposure to both fighters.

The Easy Chalk

Quillan Salkilld ($9,600)

Normally I don’t list the slate’s most expensive fighter as the “Easy Chalk,” but I’ve had no problem getting up to Salkild in my builds so far this week.

He’s also a cut above the rest of the expensive fighters. He opened the week as a -575 favorite but has moved to -675 as of Friday morning, with -165 odds to pick up a finish over Anshul Jubli ($6,600). The other fighters in his price range are far less likely to pick up finishes.

Salkild is a 7-1 DWCS winner who picked up nine takedowns in his decision win on the show. He’s finished five of his seven pro wins and hasn’t lost since his UFC debut. While Jubli has a matching 7-1 record, he was knocked out in his 2023 UFC debut and got taken down four times in his Road to the UFC semi-final matchup.

That gives Salkild the ideal “takedown plus finishing” upside profile, and he’s a very safe bet to win the fight. I’ll be prioritizing getting up to him.

The Upside Plays

Kody Steele ($9,100)

My other favorite higher-priced fighter is Steele, who’s also making his UFC debut following an impressive performance on the Contender Series. Steele is best known as an elite-level submission grappler who later transitioned into MMA, where he’s gone 7-0 with five finishes.

Steele wasn’t able to secure a takedown on the Contender Series, which might be scaring some of the field away from him. However, that matchup was against a former D-1 wrestler—and Steele knocked him out in the second round.

Steele attempting to repeat that against Rongzhu ($7,100) would probably not go well, as the Chinese fighter has 14 knockouts in 24 pro wins and is a dangerous striker. However, Rongzhu was taken down six times in his last two Road to the UFC fights — and knocked out by Chris Padilla in his UFC debut.

This is a perfect matchup for Steele to showcase his grappling ability, which could lead to a big score via an early submission or piling up takedowns. There’s a slight risk that he tries to strike, which keeps him out of my cash game pool, but I love him for GPPs.

Sean Zerillo and I both are on Steele this week, which we discussed on our UFC Betting Preview Podcast:

The Value Play

Tom Nolan ($7,900)

We haven’t had any underdogs flip to being favored outright this week, but Nolan is fairly close. I bet him at +125 on Monday, and he’s now even money at DraftKings and as low as -106 at some books. He’s got a favorable matchup against Viacheslav Borshchev ($8,300) on home turf this weekend, so the line movement makes sense.

Nolan is massive for the lightweight division at 6’3″ and also holds a four-inch reach edge over “Slava Claus.” That should give him the edge in what should mostly be a striking matchup, as neither man has landed a takedown in the UFC.

Borshchev tends to get into wild exchanges, with a high rate of both strikes landed and absorbed. However, his durability is starting to fail him, as he’s been dropped in two of his last three fights. Nolan is eight years younger, though he’s also been knocked down multiple times in the UFC.

Still, I’ll trust the younger, bigger fighter to control the distance here in what should be a fairly close fight. We don’t need a ton from Nolan at his price point, but a win should mean either plenty of volume or a knockout, making him a strong option.

The Contrarian Choice

Colby Thicknesse ($6,900)

Colby Thicknesse is another local fighter getting his shot at UFC 312, this time on short notice after his countryman Cody Haddon was forced to withdraw from the bout. Thicknesse is a training partner of former featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski—and is fighting the brother of current champion Ilia Topuria.

My main argument here is that Aleksandre Topuria ($9,500) is being overvalued by the market because of his last name. He’s just 5-1 as a pro fighter and has only fought one fighter with a winning record. Thicknesse is 7-0, the HEX fight series lightweight champ, and has beaten four fighters with winning records in Australia’s tough regional circuit.

If we were evaluating just based on resumes, Thicknesse would be the favorite here. Instead, he’s one of the cheapest fighters on the card. I’m not confident he’ll get the win, but at low ownership and a tiny salary, he’s worth taking some swings on.

Be sure to check out all the pick’ems Sleeper has to offer with Sleeper promo code LABS1.

The Swing Fights

Tallison Teixeira ($8,400) vs. Justin Tafa ($7,800)

It wouldn’t be a UFC PPV without a sloppy heavyweight fight needlessly positioned on the main card. This time around, it’s Australian former kickboxer Justin Tafa meeting Tallison Teixeira in the latter’s UFC debut.

Teixeira impressed on the Contender Series with a first-round knockout win and also holds a BJJ black belt and some minor grappling wins in his pre-MMA combat sports career. Tafa is a big dude who hits hard—which at heavyweight is sometimes enough.

All seven of Tafa’s MMA wins have been first-round knockouts, so if he wins, he probably gives you a great score. If he doesn’t finish Teixeira early, he probably gets stopped himself. That makes this a solid “play one of these guys” fight. When weighing ownership against their chances of winning, they’re pretty close to equal plays.

With a late cancellation on Thursday, we’re down to 12 fights on the card, which starts at 6 p.m. ET and goes down in Sydney, Australia.

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.