We head to Montreal this weekend for UFC 315, which features a pair of title fights. First, longtime women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko defends her title against Manon Fiorot, and then in the main event, Belal Muhammad makes his first title defense against Jack Della Maddalena.
Lineups lock at 6:30 p.m. ET for the 12-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
Belal Muhammad ($8,700) vs. Jack Della Maddalena ($7,500)
While it’s hard to say he’s undeserving of a title shot given his 7-0 record in the UFC, it does seem like Jack Della Maddalena got a bit lucky with this booking. Belal Muhammad was lined up to defend the title against Shavkhat Rakhmonov, but a Muhammad injury scrapped that fight. Then, against replacement opponent Ian Garry, Rakhmonov was injured, leading to JDM getting the call-up.
Which isn’t to say Maddalena has no shot here, but the betting lines — and by extension DFS salaries — make sense. Muhammad is a dominant wrestler on an 11-fight winning streak, with little if any close calls during that span.
Della Maddalena is a knockout artist who has been on the verge of defeat many times, including split decision wins in two of his last three and a come-from-behind knockout when down two rounds to none against Gilbert Burns in his last fight.
It’s also the first five-round fight of Maddalena’s career, though to his credit he’s been solid in the late stages of fights. He hasn’t been solid against grapplers, though, surrendering seven takedowns to Burns before pulling off the knockout.
Muhammad is a better wrestler than Burns, and if he uses his takedowns, it will be hard for the underdog to put up much fantasy production. For that reason, I’m likely fading JDM in cash games with two title fights, though I’ll have some exposure to him in GPPs. Muhammad is a near must for cash games.
Co-Main Event
Manon Fiorot ($8,500) vs. Valentina Shevchenko ($7,700)
While both title fights are favored to go the full 25 minutes, this one appears to be the better DFS pairing in terms of a stacking option.
Both Fiorot and Shevchenko are former high-level kickboxers and elite athletes who’ve been able to use their physical tools to also find success on the ground. Fiorot is a perfect 7-0 in the UFC, while Shevchenko is undefeated at flyweight outside of her title trilogy with Alexa Grasso ($7,400), and she won the series there to reclaim her belt.
The champion is an underdog here due to concerns of her abilities slipping, but she’s only two years older than the challenger in this matchup. While they feature similar skill sets, Shevchenko is a bit more polished, particularly with her grappling.
Both women have multiple paths to putting up points, though, making this a perfect cash game stack. For GPPs, I feel much better about the value proposition on Shevchenko, who opened around +130 but now has odds as low as +105.
There’s a real chance she could close as a favorite come fight time, which makes her clearly underpriced, with better upside thanks to her more active grappling. That makes her hard to fade in GPPs.
The Easy Chalk
Benoit Saint-Denis ($9,700)
We nearly got the dream scenario for DFS, in which a fighter gets a short-notice replacement after salaries are released, making them clearly underpriced. Instead, news of Joel Alvarez withdrawing and Kyle Prepolec ($6,500) stepping in broke just early enough for DraftKings to price this one appropriately — but still end with Saint-Denis trailing only Muhammad in Pts/Sal projection.
While full betting markets are still unavailable, BSD is a -1000 favorite in a fight that’s -175 to go under 1.5 rounds. That tells you what the market thinks of his new opponent, who went 0-2 in the UFC in 2019 before heading back to the regional circuit.
It is worth pointing out that Prepolec was previously booked for a fight in Montreal on Friday, so he’s not coming into this one unprepared. Of course, there’s a massive difference between his regional opponent and Saint-Denis, who is 5-3 in the UFC with five finishes.
There’s a case to be made for fading Saint-Denis here, as Prepolec has never been knocked out and his last submission loss was all the way back in 2013. Saint-Denis could win a dominant decision but not pay off his massive salary, and he’ll also likely be massively owned.
For that reason, I’m more interested in the Frenchman in cash games than tournaments, and I’ll likely be underweight the field in the latter.
The Upside Play
Navajo Stirling ($9,100)
City Kickboxing product Navajo Stirling was one of my favorite fighters on last year’s Contender Series, where I picked the massive light heavyweight to win in the second or third round against a very aggressive fellow striker.
Which is exactly what he did, then followed it up with a dominant but less exciting dismantling of Tuco Tokkos in his proper UFC debut. This time, he’s matched up with Ivan Erslan ($7,100) in a matchup reminiscent of Stirling’s DWCS bout.
Erslan’s last eight wins have been first-round knockouts, and he’s lost three straight that have made it past that point. With Stirling a composed counter-striker, that’s a recipe for disaster for Erslan. While it’s not as exciting as a first-round stoppage, a knockout in any round probably gets the job done at Stirling’s price point.
He’s a bit risky because his lack of grappling upside means he needs a finish to pay this off, but that’s a worthwhile risk in GPPs. I wouldn’t be surprised if he outscored Saint-Denis at a lower salary and less ownership, which makes him an excellent leverage play.
Updated on 5/13/25
The Value Plays
Charles Radtke ($7,300)
“Chuck Buffalo” is the scary kind of value play, since his fight against Mike Malott ($8,900) has some of the worst odds to go the distance on the slate.
The good news is the market has heavily swung towards Radtke, who is priced for the +185 underdog he was on Monday but is now at +140. Which makes sense, because Malott’s best moments in the Octagon have been with his grappling, and Radtke is a BJJ black belt with 100% takedown defense in the UFC.
That means this could easily turn into a kickboxing match between two fighters who like to swing for the fences but are defensively questionable. Both suffered knockout losses in 2024, and that’s the only method by which Malott has ever lost.
That’s the kind of fight where you’d expect both fighters to have similar salaries, but the steep discount on Radtke makes him far more interesting. He’s too scary for cash games, but he’s a great GPP option.
Brad Katona ($7,600)
The other kind of value play this week is represented by Brad Katona. Outside of the championship fights, just three bouts on the card are favored to hit the judges. Of those three, just one has seen significant line movement to the underdog: Katona’s bout against Bekzat Almakhan ($8,600).
I don’t especially want to roster Katona, even in cash games. However, it’s hard to ignore the market trends. Especially considering Katona has never been finished in his pro career. There’s a first time for everything, of course, but it doesn’t seem especially likely this time around.
Almakhan is tougher to get a read on. He made his UFC debut on somewhat short notice against top contender Umar Nurmagomedov and shocked the then-undefeated Nurmagomedov with a first-round knockdown. He was fairly noncompetitive after that, but Katona is a massive step down in competition.
Regardless, Katona scores fairly well on a per-minute basis and should have 15 of them to work with. That gives him a rock-solid cash game floor, though I’m more interested in Almakhan for GPPs.
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The Contrarian Choice
Jasmine Jasudavicius ($9,200)
While Canadian favorite Jasmine Jasudavicius isn’t going to be especially low-owned in the absolute sense, she seems to be the odd fighter out among the three heavy favorites on the slate.
That makes her an interesting GPP option, since she has massive takedown upside and some sneaky stoppage ability in a fight that’s roughly 50/50 to end inside the distance.
She’s fighting Jessica Andrade ($7,000), a dangerous striker who has had her issues with grapplers in the past, especially at flyweight. The former strawweight champion has shuffled between the two divisions in the UFC but has lost her last two bouts at 125 lbs while winning her last two at 115.
In case it wasn’t clear, this is a 125 lbs (flyweight) matchup, Jasudavicius’ weight class, where she’s won four in a row. She’s landed 12 takedowns across those four fights, with two submission victories. Given how well her strengths line up with Andrade’s weaknesses, she’s a very interesting pivot from the chalkier men at the top of the salary range.
The Swing Fight
Ion Cutelaba ($8,200) vs. Modestas Bukauskas ($8,000)
For the second week in a row, the likeliest fight to end in a finish is also the $8,200/$8,000 fight, making it an obvious “swing fight” option.
Typically, the winning fighter of the $8,200/$8,000 fight has a high shot of ending up in the optimal, since even the favorite is fairly cheap. That goes double here, since we’re very likely to see a finish.
Both fighters have finishes in more than half of their UFC victories and have been finished in the bulk of their losses. Cutelaba is the more aggressive of the pair but typically tires out if he can’t find an early stoppage.
That gives the slight favorite more upside in theory, as he’s likelier to get a first-round victory. However, any stoppage from either man should get the job done.
I truly have no lean on this one, so I’ll be mixing them evenly in my lineups. I doubt I’ll have a GPP roster without one or the other, though.
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Pictured: Belal Muhammad
Photo Credit: Imagn Images
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