UFC 328 DFS Breakdown: Model, Preview, Picks for Chimaev vs. Strickland, More Saturday Fights

We’ve got the best card on paper of the year so far this weekend, with title fights in the flyweight and middleweight divisions. Khamzat Chimaev and Josh Van make their first title defenses against Sean Strickland and Tatsuro Taira in a pair of fights that are both intriguing in their own way.

It’s back to the standard 5:00 p.m. ET start time this week, with a 13-fight card from the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

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

Khamzat Chimaev ($9,500) vs. Sean Strickland ($6,700)

One of the most anticipated fights on the calendar goes down this weekend, with former champion Sean Strickland meeting current champion Khamzxat Chimaev after weeks of intense buildup. Chimaev is fresh off his title win, where he set the all-time record for DFS points scored, while Strickland is coming off an upset victory over Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez.

While Chimaev is a totally different animal in terms of athleticism and skill, that win against Hernandez gives me some optimism for Strickland. He was able to keep the fight standing and pile up more than 11 strikes in less than 2.5 rounds, eventually putting Hernandez away in the third.

Chimaev has been dominant with his grappling since joining the promotion in 2020, going 9-0 with six finishes and averaging more than five takedowns per 15 minutes. That’s the ideal style for DFS, as repeated takedowns score better than anything else.

The likeliest outcome here is that Chimaev’s physicality and wrestling are enough to run through Strickland early. However, Strickland has never really been out-grappled at middleweight and has much more trustworthy cardio than Chimaev. I believe he has a real chance to weather the storm and then pile up strikes in an extended fight.

Plus, rostering Strickland in GPPs over Chimaev allows you to fit two of the other huge favorites and gain massive leverage over what’s likely the most popular fighter. That makes the underdog the better tournament play, though I’ll be siding with the field and sticking with Chimaev in cash games.

Co-Main Event

Tatsuro Taira ($8,700) vs. Josh Van ($7,500)

The UFC 328 co-main event was initially booked at UFC 327, before what was apparently a minor injury for Van pushed the fight back about a month. I’m not sure if that delay is the reason the current champion Josh Van is a moderate underdog here in a fight I see as very close.

This is the first UFC title fight between two fighters born in the 2000s, and features two fighters with remarkably similar resumes. Both lost once on their rise to the top of the flyweight division, and both got their first shot at the UFC title in their tenth bout with the promotion.

Both are fairly well rounded, though this is something of a striker-vs-grappler matchup. Tatsuro Taira is the grappler, averaging more takedowns per 15 minutes (3.12) than significant strikes per minute (2.94). However, he’s continued to improve his striking, with two knockdowns in his last five fights.

Van is the current all-time record holder for significant strikes landed per minute at just under nine, while also averaging just under a takedown per 15 minutes. Crucially, he’s also a solid defensive grappler, with 81% takedown defense and an ability to pop right back up when he is grounded.

That means both men should score extremely well on a per-minute basis, making this a pretty obvious cash game stack since it’s favored to go over 3.5 rounds. For GPPs, my “either guy as an underdog” betting stance also applies here. I’ll have more Van, since his cheaper salary goes a long way on a tight salary slate.

The Easy Chalk

Ateba Gautier ($9,800)

There’s a pair of middleweight squash matches on the UFC 328 prelim card. The more noteworthy of the two is between Ateba Gautier and Ozzy Diaz ($6,400), with Gautier listed as around a -1100 favorite. Gautier is one of the sport’s scariest prospects in a long time, with absurd physical tools and a developing skill set.

He’s 5-0 between the UFC and the Contender Series, with four knockout wins – and he landed a pair of knockdowns in his recent decision victory. He’s being given at least one more showcase fight, as Diaz is 1-1 in the promotion with a KO loss and a previous knockout loss on the Contender Series.

Diaz is -160 to win the fight in the first round, by far the best odds on the slate. With his price tag, a first-round knockout might not actually be enough to make the optimal, depending on how many big scores we get from some of the grapplers on the card, but there’s a very low chance Gautier posts a disappointing score.

The Upside Play

Baisangur Susurkaev ($9,600)

The other middleweight squash match features Chimaev’s protege Baisangur Susurkaev taking on Djorden Santos ($6,600). Susurkaev is “only” a -700 or so favorite, with +225 odds to win in the first round.

Susurkaev is much more of a striking-first fighter than his fellow Chechnyan in the main event. However, he’s landed a pair of takedowns in each of his first two UFC wins. In theory at least, that gives him a bit more raw upside than Gautier, since Susurakev could pick up a few takedowns and still get a somewhat early finish.

That’s a pretty tight needle to thread, but with a slight salary discount and probably considerably less ownership, there’s an argument he’s the better GPP play than Gautier. Playing them both together means fading Chimaev, which is also an option, especially if you’re taking a stance on Strickland in GPPs like me.

Susrakev has the lowest projections of the three $9,500+ fighters but not by a ton, and he’s a pretty safe bet to be the least popular of the three in terms of ownership. For that reason, I’ll be heavily exposed to him in GPPs.

The Value Plays

Waldo Cortes-Acosta ($7,600)

It’s a strange world we’re living in that the fight likeliest to go to a decision is the card’s only heavyweight bout. Such is the case on Saturday, where “Salsa Boy” meets Alexander Volkov ($8,600) in the featured bout directly before the title fights.

Volkov has gone to three straight decisions, while Cortes-Acosta has finished his last three contests, making this a fight that, on paper, gives the underdog a high floor. Cortes-Acosta has also seen considerable line movement his way this week, opening at +154 but getting bet all the way down to +120 on Friday.

He’s also a slight favorite in the “finish only” moneyline market, which means sportsbooks view him as more likely to finish this fight than be finished. With his high-volume (5.54 SS per minute) striking approach, it’s hard to see him totally failing in a 15-minute fight, and we desperately need the savings for cash games.

I’m not all that confident Cortes-Acosta gets the win, but he doesn’t necessarily need to in order to help your lineups for cash games. If he is able to pull off a fourth straight victory, he’d almost certainly make the optimal lineup at his salary, making him an excellent option for all contest types.

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

The Contrarian Choice

Roman Kopylov ($7,300)

I broke down the fight between Kopylov and Marco Tulio ($8,900) in an Action Network betting preview, but those takeaways are also applicable to DFS. The cliff notes version is that Tulio is the more dangerous athlete, while Roman Kopylov is the better technical fighter.

Kopylov will be in plenty of danger in Round 1, when the hard-swinging Tulio is fresh. However, the veteran Russian has never been knocked out, despite fights against powerful middleweights like Paulo Costa and Gregory Rodrigues. If he’s able to avoid the knockout again, he should be able to pull away from Tulio as this fight progresses.

With Kopylov priced at $7,300, he doesn’t need a massive score in order to make the optimal lineup, so any win is probably enough. In some ways, that makes this a solid “swing fight” candidate as well, though we have much better options in that department. Given Kopylov’s historical durability, I’m not willing to spend $8,900 on Tulio here.

The Swing Fights

Grant Dawson ($8,300) vs. Matesuz Rebecki ($7,900)

There are a few fights on this card that fit a similar dynamic, where one fighter is an aggressive striker and the other is a grappling specialist with a weak chin. That leads to a scenario where there’s massive upside on both sides of the equation, and the lightweight fight between Mateusz Rebecki and Grant Dawson fits that bill.

Dawson has won six of his last eight, scoring at least 90 DraftKings points in all six wins (and going over 100 in five of them) in large part thanks to his grappling. He’s either finished the fight or scored at least three takedowns every time out. In the two fights he lost, Dawson was badly knocked out within half of a round.

Rebecki is a brawler whose last three fights have all won performance bonuses, even though he’s lost two of the three. While he has just one UFC knockout victory, he’s landed knockdowns in two other fights and generally swings for the fences from the first bell.

What makes this fight compelling is that Rebecki is no slouch in the grappling department, as a former Polish ADCC champion and European BJJ medalist. The other fights that fit this dynamic either have a less powerful striker (William Gomis ($7,200) against Pat Sabatini ($9,200)) or a less trustworthy defensive grappler (Joaquin Buckley ($7,800) against Sean Brady ($8,200)).

This one truly has massive upside from both fighters and reasonable price tags – which is important given the salary structure of the slate. I’d be pretty surprised if the winner didn’t end up in the optimal lineup.

Interested in more action? Check out Polymarket and use our Polymarket invite code.

Pictured: Khamzat Chimaev
Photo Credit: Imagn