UFC 333 DFS Breakdown: Model, Preview, Picks for Volkanovski and Yan Title Defenses, More Saturday Fights

The UFC makes one of their semi-annual trips to Canada this weekend, with their usual offering of Canadian fighters in every bout. The headliner is rising Canadian fighter Mike Malott taking on veteran Joaquin Buckley in welterweight action.

The 13-card slate locks at the usual 5:00 p.m. ET. Let’s get into the DFS angles.

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.

---

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

Alexander Volkanovski ($8,200) vs. Mosvar Evloev ($8,000)

Alexander Volkanovski is arguably the greatest featherweight in UFC history. He’s tied with Jose Aldo for the most title wins in the division’s history at eight, has a win over a prime Aldo from 2019, and has a chance to surpass him with a ninth title win this weekend. He faces what might be the toughest test in the division outside of his loss to Ilia Topuria, as he takes on the undefeated Movsar Evloev.

Evloev is 20-0 as a pro with ten of those coming in the UFC. The Russian is also six years younger and brings a relentless grappling pace unlike anything Volkanovski has faced (at least at 145 lbs) in the past. Working in Volkanovski’s favor is his striking ability and power, with Evloev going to a decision in all ten of those UFC wins – albeit against fairly durable opponents.

Also to Volkanovski’s benefit are the skills he developed in his brief move up to lightweight, where he challenged stylistically similar grappler Islam Makhachev for the title. In the first of those matchups – the second came on extremely short notice and isn’t especially relevant – Volk defended five of nine takedowns and was held down for less than a minute on two of the successful Makhachev takedowns. He also dropped the much larger man and landed 164 total strikes.

Those abilities make this a uniquely interesting matchup for DFS. The champion is much better at escaping from takedowns than preventing them, but that only provides more takedown opportunities for Evloev, who averages nearly four per 15 minutes. On the Volkanovski side, his high striking output makes him an excellent DFS option in his own right.

I will almost certainly be stacking this one in cash games, and a tournament stack isn’t off the table either. With two title fights on the card featuring four great DFS options, managing those matchups will be the key to the slate. We’ll talk more about that strategy in the co-main event section. My lean here is for the younger man to end the second title reign of Volkanovski, but I will have close to even exposure to both fighters.

Co-Main Event

Petr Yan ($8,800) vs. Merab Dvalishvili ($7,400)

Petr Yan and Merab Dvalishvili meet for the third time at UFC 333, with each man winning one of the prior bookings. Their first fight was dominated by Dvalishvili, with the second largely dominated by Yan. Both of those fights were five-rounders, and both produced more than 200 total DraftKings points thanks to the massive output of both men.

Dvalishvili is the underdog here, but he’s also one of the greatest DFS fighters of all time thanks to his absurdly persistent pursuit of takedowns. He averages 5.97 takedowns landed per 15 minutes despite just a 35% success rate, meaning he attempts over 17 every 15 minutes of cage time. His elite cardio and durability mean he can maintain that pace even over 25 minutes, which is how we get scores like the 219.5 he put up against Cory Sandhagen in his last successful title defense.

Yan is no slouch in the grappling department, landing five takedowns to Dvalishvili’s two in their last fight, but he is also the better striker. He punished Dvalishvili with strikes anytime the Georgian attempted to grapple, finishing with 139 significant strikes landed. This isn’t to say that Dvalishvili relies only on takedowns to score, as he topped 90 points on DraftKings in that fight with just two takedowns.

This fight is priced at a much wider spread than we would expect based on the relatively narrow (and narrowing) betting odds, which makes Dvalishvili the better value on paper. However, the four title fighters all project among the top seven fighters in total points, with the other three all priced at $9,000 or above.

Picking a winner here is somewhat difficult, but with the pricing as it is, Dvalishvili could easily make the optimal in a loss, while Yan could fail to in a win. That makes the underdog the better tournament option. I’ll also be stacking this one in tournaments while trying to get ahead of the field with my other two spots and/or hoping to pass people who fade one of the four.

The Easy Chalk

Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev ($9,400)

Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev is one of a crop of 2025 Contender Series fighters who came into the promotion with lofty records and have largely been fed weaker opponents as they climb the ladder in the UFC. He’s 3-0 in the UFC with only one of those fights lasting more than 33 seconds and none seeing a second round. His opponents, though, are a combined 5-13 in the promotion.

That makes the bout with Nikita Krylov ($6,800) a significant step up on paper. “The Miner” is a solid promotional veteran with a 12-10 UFC record across two stints with the company. However, he’s also firmly on the downside of his career. While still just 34, he has more than 40 pro fights and has been knocked out in three of his last four bouts.

Plus, he’s at a significant grappling deficit against Yakhyaev, who has five submissions in his ten-fight pro career. This is a clear attempt by the UFC to get Yakhyaev a win against a bigger name before he faces ranked opponents, without really posing much of a threat to the young prospect. “The Hunter” is -160 to win the fight in the first round, could very easily pick up another quick-win bonus, and is somewhat easy to afford thanks to all the value in the title fights. There’s no reason to fade him other than possibly ownership.

The Upside Plays

Azamat Murzakanov ($9,000)

There’s a similar, but riskier, dynamic at play as Azamat Murzakanov meets Dominick Reyes ($7,200) in another bout at 205 lbs, immediately following Krylov-Yakhyaev. Reyes is a former title challenger but is now 36 years old, with his last four losses all coming via knockout. He’s more of a threat offensively than Krylov – whom he knocked out in 2025 – but has a similarly questionable chin as he takes on a powerful puncher in Murzakanov.

“The Professional” is older than Reyes at 37 but has considerably fewer “miles on the odometer.” His first professional loss came earlier this year to Paulo Costa, and he was 6-0 in the UFC with five knockouts prior to that. He also doesn’t have the extensive injury history of Reyes (that we know of). Assuming he’s recovered in the 6+ months since that loss, he should be the fresher fighter.

The risk is more in Murzakanov’s cardio. He faded heavily before being finished in the third by Costa and dropped the third round in his lone decision win despite scoring a knockdown earlier in the fight. If Reyes can stay safe early, he’s likely to take over down the stretch.

At +175 odds for a first-round finish, Murzakanov trails only Yakhyaev, and he’s -130 to get a finish at any point. His upside is effectively the same as Yakhyaev’s, just with a much lower floor. That makes him a strong tournament pivot, though I’d find the extra salary to get to Yakhyaev in cash games.

The Value Play

Jacob Malkoun ($7,300)

I wrote about why I’m on Malkoun in my Luck Ratings piece earlier this week at Action Network, where I detailed why Malkoun was undervalued by the market. That proved prescient, with Malkoun moving from about +160 odds at open to +136 at the time of writing. With this fight also featuring the best odds to go the distance of all the non-title bouts, he’s a pretty obvious value play.

He’s facing Abubakar Vagaev ($8,900) in a fight that could look more like a wrestling match, with both men averaging more than four takedowns per 15 minutes. Neither has finished a fight – outside of a fluke KO where Malkoun’s opponent knocked himself out on a takedown attempt – in any of their last ten fights, so we’re highly likely to go all 15 minutes. That gives Malkoun a solid floor, with his upside coming from takedowns and a potential win bonus.

Vagaev is coming off a controversial win in his UFC debut and is moving up to middleweight, both factors that suggest he is or was overvalued. While we don’t really need the savings from Malkoun in cash, he’s a clear option for tournaments or cash builds fading one of the title fighters.

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

The Contrarian Choice

Noah Gugnon ($7,500)

With ownership heavily condensing around the title fighters, Malkoun, and Yakhyaev, we don’t have to look very far for contrarian plays at UFC 333. One of the mid-range fighters I’m interested in is Noah Gugnon, who is making his sophomore UFC appearance against Kody Steele ($8,700).

Steele is an elite grappler who transitioned to MMA late after a successful grappling career. The 8-1 Steele has run into a problem that many athletically gifted grapplers have: he’s fallen in love with striking. At his best, that athleticism carries Steele to some exciting knockout wins. At worst, he ends up losing striking matches against opponents he could probably take down.

We’ve seen both in his UFC/DWCS tenure, but the latter would be a huge mistake against Gugnon. The Frenchman has scary power with all ten of his pro wins inside the distance and is the superior technical striker. What makes me especially interested in him, though, is his own grappling ability. Gugnon has a judo background and will prioritize getting top position over rolling for fancy submissions. That could allow him to beat Steele even on the ground.

I view this fight as close to a pick ’em, making Gugnon an excellent value at his current price as well as a sneaky upside play. With 14 fights to choose from, we don’t need to get especially contrarian, but Gugnon at sub-20% or so would be a nice leverage piece if he can pull off the victory.

The Swing Fight

Aaron Pico ($8,300) vs. Losene Keita ($7,900)

It speaks to how competitive this card is that only two fights – the previously discussed Murzakanov and Yakhyaev light heavyweight bouts – are more than -220 to end inside the distance. There’s a handful of fights right around that -200 range, including the featherweight contest between Aaron Pico and Losene Keita.

Both men have similar stories and vastly different styles. Each signed with the UFC with a ton of hype in 2025, before dropping their debuts in disappointing fashion. Each of them bounced back with a win in their second appearance, which came in April for Pico and just last month for Keita.

Keita is stepping in on somewhat short notice to replace Arnold Allen, but the timing works out well. He was fresh off his last camp when he got the call and absorbed almost no damage (four significant strikes) in his last bout. I’m not especially worried about cardio for the slight underdog, as he should still be in solid shape.

What I am worried about is the grappling of Pico, once an elite high school prospect who gave up on his Olympic dreams to pursue MMA. Long considered one of the best fighters outside of the UFC, the former Bellator standout made the leap following Bellator’s absorption into the PFL. So far, he’s landed eight takedowns in less than four total rounds of UFC action.

Keita is the better striker, a lightning-fast knockout artist who was a two-division champion in Oktagon FC before his UFC tenure. His only career losses came via a somewhat fluky foot injury and a split decision against Nathaniel Wood in which he defended the only takedown attempt he faced. For Pico, four of his five career losses are via knockout.

We haven’t really seen Keita’s grappling tested at a high level, though, so Pico has a clear path. That path involves a ton of upside via grappling, while a Keita win probably involves a knockout and/or a ton of striking volume. That gives both men solid upside for their price and makes them great tournament plays.

Another fight where I’ll have exposure on both sides is Daniel Santos ($8,600) vs. Bolaji Oki ($7,600), which has identical -220 stoppage odds and a somewhat similar dynamic, with Santos having the grappling upside.

Pictured: Alexander Volkanovski
Photo Credit: Imagn Images