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

The UFC heads to Oklahoma, with a headliner featuring two former champions in Dricus Du Plessis and Kamaru Usman. Both men have wins over the current middleweight king, Sean Strickland, making this a potentially important bout for the title picture.

It’s a 12-fight card (thanks to some late additions) with the usual 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

Dricus Du Plessis ($9,000) vs. Kamaru Usman ($7,200)

Describing this as a champion-vs.-champion matchup, as I did in the intro, was a bit misleading. Kamaru Usman is 39 and hasn’t held a UFC title since 2021 and was a champion at welterweight. Now, he’s hoping to make a late-career title run at middleweight, a journey that begins against former 185-lb champion Dricus Du Plessis, who dropped the belt in his last fight.

It’s interesting that both have wins over current champion Sean Strickland, with Usman defeating him at welterweight nearly a decade ago, while Du Plessis beat him to win the title in 2024 and in a 2025 rematch. That makes a future title fight a fairly easy sell, even though it would be relatively undeserved for Usman at 185.

Du Plessis is the rightful favorite as the younger and larger man, as there are reasonable questions about Usman’s durability at this point in his career. Normally I use “durability” as a euphemism for ability to absorb damage, but in this case, the bigger concern is Usman’s injuries, as he’s had well-publicized issues with both knees in his long athletic career.

However, I actually like the underdog here. Usman was dominant in a win over Joaquin Buckley (a former middleweight) in his last fight, picking up 4 takedowns at nearly 13 minutes of control time over 5 rounds. DDP was dominated by a grappler, Khamzat Chimaev, in his last fight, getting taken down a dozen times and controlled for over 20 minutes. Chimaev is much bigger and younger than Usman, but they fought to a majority decision in Usman’s most recent fight before Buckley.

I’m not sure how long Usman will be able to keep up the grappling against Du Plessis, but at his price point, even a couple of successful rounds would be enough to pay off for DFS. He’s also not drawing dead in the striking, as he’s arguably more technical, though less dangerous from a power standpoint.

It’s Usman or nothing in tournaments for me, though I’ll be stacking this one for cash games.

The Easy Chalk

Alden Coria ($9,800)

Much like Gable Steveson last week, we have a massively priced favorite who is a near lock to win the fight, with the only question being how quickly he gets it done. This week it’s Alden Coria, who is 2-0 in the UFC with 9 finishes in 12 pro wins overall.

He’s taking on Stewart Nicoll ($6,400), who is somewhat surprisingly being given a 4th UFC bout after starting his promotional career 0-3, with 2 of the 3 losses coming inside the distance. He was also taken down 3 times and absorbed over 100 significant strikes in his decision loss, so all 3 fights led to a big score for his opponent.

My guess is that the large gap in salary between Coria and everyone else will lead to fairly low ownership on him, which makes him an interesting tournament choice. In lineups where I’m spending down elsewhere – which might end up being most of them – I’ll be using Coria as a “pay up to be contrarian” option.

For cash games, it’s always nice to lock in a -1000 or so favorite. I wouldn’t make major sacrifices elsewhere to jam him in, but he’s a solid option if you can afford it.

The Upside Plays

Fatima Kline ($9,300)

There are plenty of fights with solid odds to end inside the distance this weekend, which makes it somewhat counterintuitive to list Fatima Kline as an upside play. She’s a heavy (-450 or so) favorite in the only fight on the card favored to go to a decision – but that just might work out in her favor.

Kline is 3-1 in the UFC after losing her short-notice debut up a weight class. She was one of the sport’s hottest prospects before getting her call-up as a decorated BJJ athlete who is also a primary training partner of UFC flyweight Erin Blanchfield. She’s since picked up 2 knockouts in her 3 UFC wins but reminded us of her grappling roots in her last fight, when she landed 4 takedowns on Angela Hill in a unanimous decision victory.

Now she’s facing Tabatha Ricci ($6,900), who steps in for Amanda Ribas on short notice. That’s a stylistically similar matchup for Kline, with both Ribas and Ricci being smaller, less athletic grapplers with excellent submission games but limited wrestling. My thesis here is that Ricci uses her grappling to scramble back to her feet but can’t actually stop takedowns from Kline, giving “Archangel” an opportunity to pile up plenty of takedown points. Ricci was taken down 6 times by Virna Jandiroba in her last fight.

Plus, Kline has some underrated finishing upside, as Sean Zerillo pointed out in her latest UFC Betting preview. With the field likely chasing fighters with better stoppage odds, Kline is likely to go slightly overlooked here, but she might have the highest raw ceiling of any fighter on the slate.

Chase Hooper ($9,200)

The more obvious upside play is Chase “The Dream” Hooper, who takes on Mitch Ramirez ($7,000) as a heavy favorite in a fight that’s roughly -300 to end inside the distance. Collectively, Hooper (twice) and Ramirez (thrice) have been knocked out in 5 consecutive UFC fights, counting Ramirez’s failed bid on the Contender Series.

The difference is that those represent all 3 of Ramirez’s promotional appearances, while Hooper is 8-5 in the promotion overall. He’s also one of the sport’s best grapplers when he’s able to remain conscious, and his 4 previous fights included 3 submission victories and a decision win with 8 takedowns. Effectively, we have a matchup between two terrible defensive fighters, but only one of them has ever provided any offense.

That makes Hooper a clear upside play, though he’s obviously not without risk given his questionable chin. I prefer to keep him in tournaments for that reason, as Kline is a much safer pick with similar upside for only $100 more.

The Value Play

Austin Bashi ($7,900)

With nearly every fight on the card favored to end early, it’s hard to find any obvious value plays outside of Usman in the main event. While he’s not all that cheap, my favorite sub-$8,000 fighter is Austin Bashi, who was a legendary regional prospect in my native Michigan before getting the call to the UFC.

Bashi won IBJJF nogi worlds as a 21-year-old brown belt, was a two-time state champion wrestler in high school, and came into the UFC with a 13-0 record. For some reason, he was given a date with the prospect killer himself, Christian Rodriguez, in his debut. Bashi lost a competitive decision to the veteran, then bounced back with a first-round win.

Now he’s facing Jose Delgado ($8,300), who comes in with a 3-1 UFC record. However, his most recent win was a split decision in which he was taken down 4 times by Andre Fili, who is far less of a grappler than Bashi. That’s a bad sign for Delgado, who has been taken down multiple times in 3 of 4 UFC fights.

Bashi also has much better top control than the other opponents Delgado has faced, so I’m not banking on a huge takedown number, but a win with a few takedowns and 7 or 8 minutes of control time would still score extremely well, especially relative to Bashi’s price tag. The former bantamweight seems to have grown into his featherweight frame as well, with his size being a concern previously.

He’s a great choice for all contest types.

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The Contrarian Choice

Anna Melisano ($6,800)

Anna “Bandana” Melisano gets a weird call-up to the UFC after being eliminated in the first round on the latest season of The Ultimate Fighter, which is still airing. However, prior to that, she was 6-1 as a pro and was the first pick among the women on the season. That’s a fairly good indication of how the coaches viewed her abilities coming in.

I’m typically willing to look past bad (or good) TUF results, since the format of the reality show is entirely different than a typical fight. Fighters are away from their home and team and don’t know when they’re expected to fight until a few days beforehand, at which point they still have to make weight and figure out a game plan for their opponent.

With that said, the show did highlight Melisano’s grappling weakness, as the former boxer and Muay Thai fighter was submitted in the first round. Watching her regional tape, I was extremely impressed with her striking, though, with strong footwork, fast hands, and solid power for the division. While she’s fighting up a weight class against Dione Barbosa ($9,400), she still has a 3.5-inch reach edge, which could be crucial in the larger cage.

Barbosa will be the better grappler here, but if Melisano can maintain range with her jab and movement, she could outstrike “The Witch” here. At her price point, any win – and even a competitive loss with plenty of volume – would get her in the optimal lineup, making her one of my favorite tournament salary savers.

The Swing Fights

Damien Anderson ($8,500) vs. Ezra Elliott ($7,700)

The UFC added what is effectively the first Contender Series bout of the year to the UFC OKC card, as promotional newcomers Damien Anderson and Ezra Elliott meet in the first fight of the night. Both men come in with undefeated pro records, with Elliott at 7-0 and Anderson at 5-0.

However, Anderson has an extensive grappling background as a member of Craig Jones’ “B Team,” where he’s now one of the coaches. He competed in (among others) Who’s Number One and Combat Jiu-Jitsu Worlds, where he knocked out an opponent with an open-handed strike. (Combat Jiu-Jitsu is a hybrid sport that uses grappling rules but allows open-hand strikes once both fighters are grounded.) He’s also shown solid striking since transitioning to MMA, albeit against regional competition.

Elliott is no slouch on the ground himself. Training out of the MMA Lab in Arizona, 5 of his 7 pro wins have been via submission. He’s fought lesser competition than Anderson but has finished all 7 of them in the first round. His $7,700 price tag is also very cheap, considering he’s just +114 on DraftKings.

Ultimately, this is a high-variance fight between two grapplers in which no outcome would be especially surprising. I like Anderson for tournaments since he’s “overpriced” relative to his moneyline odds, but I’ll have plenty of both, with Elliott a solid cash-game option on paper as well.

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Pictured: Dricus Du Plessis
Photo Credit: Imagn