UFC 329 DFS Breakdown: Model, Preview, Picks for McGregor vs. Holloway, More Saturday Fights

It’s the return of the Mac! After a 5-year (and one-day) layoff, Conor McGregor makes his Octagon return against Max Holloway, whom he defeated when both were up-and-coming prospects back in 2013. Of course, a lot has changed since then, with Holloway now a moderate favorite for the rematch.

We’ve got a supersized 14-fight card for International Fight Week in Vegas, with the standard 5:00 p.m. ET start time.

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 tournaments, for example.

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

Main Event

Max Holloway ($9,000) vs. Conor McGregor ($7,200)

On paper, there’s a theoretically clear path for Conor McGregor in this fight. They’re fighting up at welterweight, where the “enhanced” McGregor will certainly have a size and power edge, and he’s historically been one of the most dangerous one-shot power punchers in the sport.

However, he’s also got a lot to overcome. We last saw him compete more than 5 years ago, where he suffered a nasty leg break against Dustin Poirier. He’s 37 years old and has won just 1 fight since 2016, coming against a completely washed fighter in Donald Cerrone, who never won a fight after that point.

Max Holloway is still at least near the top of his game, trading wins and losses across his last 4 fights. Those bouts came exclusively against current or former UFC lightweight champions, including his epic knockout over Justin Gaethje, who is now the lightweight champion of the world. He’s also stylistically a nightmare for McGregor, with 58% significant strike defense, great footwork, and seemingly endless cardio.

“Notorious” might look scary for a few minutes in the early goings of this one, but I’d be shocked if he were able to get Holloway out of there — at which point Holloway should take over. I’ll have near 100% exposure to “Blessed” in this one and have very little interest in stacking McGregor in cash games since there are better budget options.

The Easy Chalk

Gable Steveson ($9,900)

The most hyped prospect since Bo Nickal makes his UFC debut on Saturday, a fellow NCAA wrestling standout by the name of Gable Steveson. When your parents name you “Gable,” wrestling is always going to be in your future, with Steveson rising to the occasion with two NCAA titles and an Olympic gold medal.

While he dabbled in professional wrestling and had a short stint in the Buffalo Bills training camp, Steveson has now committed to MMA full-time. Like Nickal before him, he’s coming in with limited experience (just a 3-0 pro record, all first-round finishes) and is on the small side for his division. Unlike Nickal, he is competing in by far the thinnest division in the sport.

Nowhere other than heavyweight would Elisha Ellison ($6,300) be a UFC fighter, as “Snack Panther” is a 5-2 pro with a “man on the street” build who was finished in under 2 minutes in his UFC debut and is clearly being set up to get smashed by Steveson.

Steveson has moneyline odds as high as -4000 as of Friday, which would make him the heaviest favorite in UFC history, with a commensurate $9,900 price tag. He probably needs both a takedown and the quick-win bonus to hit the optimal lineup at that price, but neither of those is especially unlikely. He’s an excellent option for all contest types if you can find the salary.

The Upside Plays

Alessandro Costa ($9,100)

Alessandro Costa is taking on Cody Durden ($7,100), who saved his job in his last performance by stepping up on short notice and beating Jafel Filho to snap a four-fight losing streak, which resulted in “Custom Made” signing a contract extension with the UFC.

Now he’s opening the UFC 329 proceedings against Costa, who is going off at around a -250 favorite. Costa is 4-3 in the UFC, including 3 wins in his last 4, with each of his victories coming by way of knockout.

This is a relatively binary fight between the wrestler Durden and the striker Costa, with the added wrinkle that Costa is a dangerous submission grappler who trains under Diego Lopes in Mexico. Durden probably loses fairly quickly if this fight stays on the feet but could easily wrestle himself into trouble if it hits the mat.

With all of the more exciting, expensive options on the slate, there’s a good chance we get pretty low ownership on Costa, which makes him an appealing tournament target at a reasonable price tag. He’s not the safest pick, as he tends to fade later in fights, so Durden pinning him with wrestling early might gas him out, but the upside is there.

Lone’er Kavanagh ($8,800)

I wrote extensively about the fight between Brandon Royval and Lone’er Kavanagh in my Action Network betting preview, with many of those takeaways applicable to DFS.

The summary is that I have serious questions about Royval’s durability at this point in his career, as he’s coming off a knockout loss and was also knocked down in his previous fight. On the flip side, I’m extremely high on Kavanagh, who is rounding into a complete fighter after passing a tough 5-round test against former champion Brandon Moreno in his last fight.

I view Kavanagh as a fairly safe bet to get a win here, though there are plenty of scenarios where that win is somewhat disappointing from a DFS perspective. However, at a reasonable salary and low ownership, the reward would be massive if he can pick up a finish, which I think is the likeliest outcome here.

I don’t hate Kavanagh for cash games, though I think there are better options, but he’s an excellent tournament play.

The Value Play

Kai Kamaka III ($6,900)

There are just 3 fights on the UFC 329 card favored to go all 15 minutes (not counting Royval-Kavanagh, which is effectively a pick ’em), one of which is the featherweight bout between Kai Kamaka and Luke Riley ($9,300). Coupled with some considerable line movement for the underdog Kamaka and his very cheap price tag, he’s a fairly obvious floor play.

This is the second UFC stint for Kamaka, who returned in April and picked up the win after going 1-2-1 in his original run. He’s been finished just twice as a pro, once via ground-and-pound and another due to a freak arm injury, with his last 4 losses all coming via split decision.

Riley is yet to even attempt a takedown in the UFC and is pretty much an exclusive striker, while Kamaka is tough defensively (56% significant strike defense) and durable, so the likeliest outcome is a back-and-forth striking affair that goes all 15 minutes. If anything, there’s some takedown upside from the Hawaiian, who has landed 7 in 5 UFC fights.

That makes him an elite (price-considered) floor/ceiling option who crucially frees up salary for Steveson and other expensive options. He’s a cash-game lock, whom I’ll also have a ton of for tournaments.

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The Contrarian Choice

Cesar Almeida ($7,300)

One of the most popular fighters on the slate is sure to be Damian Pinas ($8,900), a 9-1 prospect who needed less than half a round to knock out his opponent on both the Contender Series and in his UFC debut. However, it’s a hard matchup for Pinas this time, as the pure striker takes on a former elite kickboxer in Almeida.

Almeida had a trilogy of kickboxing matches against Alex Pereira before converting to MMA, going 1-2 but seeing the final bell on every occasion. With Pinas finishing fast in all of his previous fights, we’ve never seen if he can stay up for a full 15-minute contest. Pinas does have a considerable athleticism edge, as well as a 5.5-inch reach advantage over Almeida – as I always tell people, that’s more than enough, but Pinas is the less technical striker here.

The likeliest outcome is probably Almeida getting knocked out early, as the 38-year-old’s best days are behind him. Still, he’s never been knocked out in MMA, or in any of the kickboxing bouts listed on Tapology, so Pinas would be the first if he’s able to do so.

Any win from Almeida is probably good enough for the optimal lineup, and with the field likely to jump on Pinas as one of the more popular fighters on the slate, an Almeida upset would potentially be a massive leverage spot for tournaments.

The Swing Fights

Terrance McKinney ($8,400) vs. King Green ($7,800)

In one of the more obvious “Swing Fight” options in recent memory — or at least since the last McKinney fight — we have Terrance “T-Wrecks” McKinney taking on King “Bobby” Green.

McKinney is the walking embodiment of a swing-fight option, with an 8-5 UFC record without ever seeing a third round. In fact, only 2 of his fights in the promotion have made it out of the first round, and he lost both of those fights in the first half of Round 2.

McKinney seems to have made peace with this, fighting with reckless abandon for two to three minutes before completely gassing out. King Green is a 30-fight UFC veteran who has gone to decision about half of the time in his run but will almost certainly be willing to chase a fight-of-the-night bonus for an extra $100K rather than try to fight “smart” in this case.

This fight is close on the moneyline, with Green roughly +110 depending on the book. However, it’s -285 to end in the first round, so with reasonable salaries on DraftKings, a Round 1 winner almost certainly makes the optimal lineup. I’ll have 100% exposure to this fight in tournaments, with a near-even mix between both men.

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Pictured: Conor McGregor
Photo Credit: Imagn