Beloved in and out of Brazil, former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira returns home to take on Matuesz Gamrot in the main event of UFC Rio. Every fight on the card features at least one Brazilian competitor, as is the custom when the UFC heads to the home of jiu-jitsu.
The 13-fight card starts at 4:00 p.m. ET, with the main card officially at 8:00 p.m.
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
Mateusz Gamrot ($8,400) vs. Charles Oliveira ($7,800)
Charles Oliveira is a perfect 5-0 in UFC fights that take place in Brazil, which is a testament both to his abilities and the typical matchmaking for Brazilian fighters on home turf. However, he comes into this weekend as a slight underdog, taking on the UFC’s #8-ranked lightweight Mateusz Gamrot.
Part of that is due to the stylistic difficulty Gamrot poses for Oliveira. Gamrot was a decorated international-level freestyle wrestler before transitioning to submission grappling, where he won the European ADCC championships in both 2014 and 2019. Oliveira has three losses since 2017, two of those came against superior wrestlers who were able to take him down while avoiding his submission threat.
The other loss was his most recent fight, where Ilia Topuria knocked him out in half of a round to foli his attempt to reclaim the lightweight title. That was the fifth knockout loss of Oliveira’s 47-fight career, and he’s suffered plenty of knockdowns in fights he went on to win as well.
Gamrot isn’t nearly the technical striker that Topuria is, though, and has landed just one knockdown in the UFC. Oliveira’s superpower is his submission game generally — and guard specifically — but he’s also a dangerous striker with the classic Brazilian Muay Thai style. He’s technically superior to Gamrot on the feet, though his durability may be waning after a long career.
While a quick win for either man wouldn’t be entirely surprising, the likeliest outcome is both put up a solid score. Gamrot should pick up takedowns, while Oliveira will land strikes while threatening submissions and reversals. That makes this a pretty clear cash game stack.
For GPPs, it’s hard to see a scenario where the winner doesn’t put up a big score relative to their prices. As always in main events, a win either means a stoppage or an additional ten minutes to work, so we should see solid numbers.
The Easy Chalk
Joel Alvarez ($9,500)
The betting market has been all over Alvarez this week, pushing him from a -425 favorite on Monday all the way up to -550 by Friday for his fight against Vicente Luque ($6,700).
It’s the welterweight debut for Alvarez, who was formerly the UFC’s tallest lightweight. He’s 7-2 in the UFC, with all seven of his wins coming inside the distance, but two of those also including weight misses that influenced his move up to 170 pounds. Luque isn’t an especially big welterweight, though, and if you asked casual observers which fighter was coming up from a smaller class, most would get the answer wrong.
More importantly for our purposes, Luque has also been finished three times in his last fight, including a submission, a bad knockout, and a strange fight where he seemed to quit more than get finished with strikes on the ground. That might have something to do with the cerebral hemorrhage he suffered in that bad knockout loss.
Alvarez is an extremely potent striker, making him a tough matchup for anyone with concerns about their durability. He probably needs a first-round finish at his salary, but his +125 odds of getting one are by far the best on the slate, making him a strong option in all contest types.
The Upside Plays
Bea Mesquita ($9,600)
Beatriz “Bea” Mesquite is one of the most decorated grapplers of all time. She’s already an IBJJF hall of famer at just 34 years old, with a record ten gold medals at IBJJF world championship events in the gi, and also won the 2017 ADCC grappling championship, while finishing second in the open weight division in 2022.
While this whole section could be filled with her grappling accomplishments, she’s also 5-0 as an MMA fighter. She won the LFA bantamweight title in June with a ground and pound victory. We’ve seen other high-level grapplers struggle in the transition to MMA, but Mesquita is in a strong position to at least begin her UFC career on a high note.
Most of that is due to her matchup with Irina Alekseeva ($6,600). Presumptuously nicknamed “Russian Ronda,” Alekseeva is also a grappler, with a 1-2 UFC record. Her only win in the promotion is via submission, and she’s certainly not submitting Mesquita. She’s also 35, so it’s unlikely we’ve seen major improvements since her last fight.
As with Alvarez, Mesquite probably needs a first-round win to have a shot at the optimal lineup. While it’s not quite as likely for her as it is for Alvarez, the +225 odds are the next best on the slate. She also brings more takedown upside, giving her another (narrow) path to a big score. With submission wins not producing as much scoring as knockouts, her median outcome is a bit below Alvarez’s, but her ceiling could be just as high under the right circumstances.
Updated on 12/5/25
The Value Plays
Jhonata Diniz ($7,900)
I’m listing two different value plays here, as we don’t have any fighters who hit both of the usual criteria, but we have strong examples of each. Those criteria are solid line movement for an underdog and a fight very likely to go the distance. Diniz is an example of the former, priced as the +110 or so underdog early in the week, but now a -130 or so favorite.
Diniz is a former kickboxing champion who’s taking on Mario Pinto ($8,300) in what should be primarily a striking match. I touched on this fight in my Luck Ratings, suggesting it as an early bet since I expected the line to continue to adjust towards the Brazilian.
Which it clearly has, though for DFS reasons I almost wish it hadn’t — the heavy line movement will lead to more ownership on Diniz. He’s also not without risk, as this is a fight between two powerful heavyweights, so either man getting knocked out quickly wouldn’t be a shock. Pinto might also be able to grapple here, though we haven’t seen him use it so far in the UFC.
That makes this my preferred GPP salary saver, though I’m not entirely opposed to using him in cash games. Sean Zerillo and I both considered him our best bet for the week, as we discussed in our latest UFC Betting Preview:
Karolina Kowalkiewicz ($6,800)
The value play who provides a much safer floor, by virtue of a likely 15-minute decision, is Karolina Kowalkiewicz. A veteran of 18 UFC fights dating back to 2025, I had written Kowalkiewicz off as washed before she ripped a four-fight winning streak in 2022 and 2023, leading to some much tougher matchups and her ensuing two-fight skid.
She’s a huge underdog to Julia Polastri ($9,400), but at +260 odds the fight is the least likely on the card to see the judges. Polastri is also just 1-2 in the UFC, with her only win coming via split decision. The Polish underdog probably has a better shot at pulling off the upset than the market implies.
Plus, she averages over five significant strikes per minute, so a 15-minute loss would still provide a very strong score at her price tag. That makes her a fine cash game floor play, with some sneaky GPP upside.
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The Contrarian Choice
Michael Aswell ($8,600)
Aswell is on one of the few fights on the card favored to go to a decision, where he’s a -150 favorite or so against Lucas Almeida ($7,600). That fact combined with his price tag should keep the field from rostering him heavily, believing that they’ll need a finish for him to pay it off.
However, that might not be the case with “The Texas Kid.” Aswell is 0-2 between the UFC and Contender Series, dropping a split decision in the latter but getting a short-notice call to the promotion anyway. In those two fights, he’s landed a combined 273 significant strikes. That allowed him to score 47 DraftKings points in a fight he lost, and his Contender Series performance would’ve topped 60.
Aswell is still just 25 and continuing to get better. Plus, he took his UFC debut on short notice but still had the cardio for a big striking output. I noted in my breakdown of his Contender Series fight that he struggles against grapplers, but Almeida hasn’t landed a single takedown in five UFC bouts.
All of which makes this an ideal spot for Aswell to pick up his first UFC win, which, coupled with his striking output, should lead to a solid score at minimum and, at best, an appearance in the optimal lineup.
Saturday Update: Aswell has now moved to a -250 or so favorite, after pictures surfaced of Almeida with a badly swollen hand at weigh ins. Aswell is now one of the best values on the slate, though he certainly won’t be a contrarian option anymore.
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The Swing Fight
Lucas Rocha ($8,500) vs. Stewart Nicoll ($7,700)
The most obvious swing fight candidate is the heavyweight tilt between Pinto and Diniz, but my interest there is more one-sided. Another interesting spot is the flyweight fight between Lucas Rocha and Stuart Nicoll, which has -200 odds that are much longer than the divisional average.
Rocha picked up a knockout on the Contender Series but dropped his UFC debut to fellow UFC Rio competitor Clayton Carpenter, getting taken down twice in two rounds before being submitted. Nicoll dropped his UFC debut to Jesus Aguilar, landing a takedown on him but diving right into a guillotine in the process.
This is a fairly classic striker-vs-grappler matchup, with Rocha serving as the striker. While Nicoll has never been knocked out as a pro — his UFC debut was his first loss — I noted in my breakdown of that fight that his striking was fairly awkward, and he needed to get things to the canvas. On the flip side, Rocha has surrendered seven takedowns across seven minutes and 30 seconds of UFC/DWCS cage time, which is a good sign for Nicoll’s style.
Either way, the likely win condition for either man should produce a big DFS score. The line has shifted to Nicoll, which makes him the better value, while Rocha is a contrarian GPP option.
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Pictured: Joel Alvarez
Photo Credit: Imagn Images
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