The UFC heads back to the Apex for a 12-fight card headlined by a makeshift main event between Tatsuro Taira and HyunSung Park.
We’re back to the standard 6:00 p.m. ET start time, with the main card officially at 10:00 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
Tatsuro Taira ($9,200) vs. HyunSung Park ($7,000)
Tatsuro Taira was originally slated to take on fellow top-ten flyweight Amir Albazi in this weekend’s main event. Albazi was forced out of the contest with an injury, with HyunSung Park stepping in instead. While Park was booked for a fight in two weeks, he was taking on a striker in a three-round fight and now gets a completely different stylistic matchup and two additional rounds.
Which explains why the undefeated Park comes in as a heavy underdog. He’s finished all five of his UFC-affiliated bouts—including his fights on the “Road to the UFC” tournament—but has had some scary moments along the way. He was dropped in two consecutive fights but was able to wrestle his way to safety and eventual submissions.
He’ll want to keep things standing against Taira, an exciting and creative grappler with submissions in two of his six UFC wins, as well as a TKO due to forcing an injury with his grappling. Taira’s striking is still a work in progress, but his takedown ability should be strong enough to get this one to the ground.
Which gives Taira massive upside, as Park will probably be able to scramble back to his feet initially, giving Taira more takedown opportunities. Park can score with his high-volume striking while the fight stays on the feet, but how much of this fight is on the feet is an open question.
With the fight roughly a coin flip to hit the championship round—and a dearth of comfortable value plays — this is probably a reasonably safe stack in cash games. For GPPs, Taira is the clear A side here considering the short-notice nature for Park, but I’ll have some light exposure to Park as a leverage option.
The Easy Chalk
Rodolfo Viera ($8,900)
All of the top fighters on this slate are reasonably strong options. The fighters from $8,900 and up are all either favored to end their fight inside the distance or bring tremendous takedown upside — or in the case of Rodolfo Viera, both.
Viera is a legendary jiu-jitsu practitioner who has successfully transitioned to MMA. He has high-level takedown skills and has managed to take down all but one of his opponents in the UFC, picking up submissions in all five wins for the promotion.
Which makes him a difficult matchup for Tresean Gore ($7,300). “Mr. Vicious” is a better athlete than he is a fighter, with both of his UFC wins coming via guillotine. That’s not going to work against the far more skilled grappler in Viera, making it hard to see a path to victory for Gore.
Viera’s striking is still a bit lacking, so Gore has a puncher’s chance, but that’s about it. With the salary discount on Viera relative to the other top options, he makes it much easier to build around than the other fighters despite a similar ceiling. That makes him the top option for cash games and tighter builds, though that comes with correspondingly high ownership.
The Upside Plays
Austin Bashi ($9,600)
The other last-minute fight booking on this weekend’s card involves West Bloomfield, Michigan, product Austin Bashi. The 23-year-old Bashi came into the UFC at 12-0, including a submission win on the Contender Series, and was regarded as one of the sport’s top prospects.
That momentum was halted in a split-decision loss to Christian Rodriguez in his UFC debut, but the future is still bright for Vashi. Rodriguez has now handed four prospects their first career loss in the UFC, and it was a huge step up for Bashi.
Now, the BJJ black belt gets a step back down against John Yannis ($6,600), who agreed to this fight on Tuesday. Yannis is a bantamweight who’s stepping up a weight class for the fight against Bashi and brings a 9-3 record into the contest.
Yannis does have a win over UFC veteran Nick Aguirre, so he has some high-level experience. Still, stepping up a weight class on a few days notice against an elite grappler like Bashi is a big ask, and Bashi is a -700 or so favorite.
Bashi landed 10 takedowns en route to a second-round submission win on the Contender Series, a performance that would’ve produced a massive DFS score. The hope is for a similar performance from Bashi here, which would justify his slate-high price tag.
Mateusz Rebecki ($9,000)
Rebecki is another fighter who brings upside with his grappling, averaging just under four takedowns per 15 minutes in the UFC. Unlike Bashi and Viera, he also carries heavy power, with four knockdowns landed in his five UFC bouts.
Rebecki tends to brawl on his feet before looking for big takedowns, hoping to send his opponent to the canvas one way or the other. That’s an excellent style for DFS, as the two highest-scoring events are knockdowns and takedowns.
He’s about a -220 favorite against his American Top Team teammate Chris Duncan ($7,200), who has a similar style but without the explosive power and Rebecki. Duncan has relied on submissions from his back in his two recent wins, a risky gameplan against a three-time European grappling champion.
While Rebecki is unlikely to push for double-digit takedowns like Taira or Bashi, he could make up for it with a quick finish or the addition of a knockdown. That gives him nearly the same ceiling at a cheaper price tag, making him a solid tournament play.
Updated on 12/5/25
The Value Plays
Nora Cornolle ($7,600)
There aren’t a lot of high-upside cheap fighters on the slate, but there’s a couple who check the cash game floor play boxes. Both women’s fights on the slate are lined to go to a decision, with the bantamweight bout between Cornolle and Karol Rosa ($8,600) offering the best odds to go all 15 minutes.
The expectation is that we get a somewhat cautious kickboxing match between Rosa and Cornolle. Rosa averages about one takedown per 15 minutes in the UFC but hasn’t landed multiple takedowns in any of her last five fights. Cornolle is a former kickboxer who won a silver medal at the world championships in 2022 before transitioning to MMA.
Which is why I’m somewhat surprised to see Cornolle as an underdog, since she’s the more talented striker. She’s also the better finisher, with two stoppages in three UFC wins—two more than Rosa has in her 11-fight UFC career.
At worst Cornolle is a solid floor play based on 15 minutes to work with. She has some sneaky finishing upside as well, but any win at her price tag probably gets her into the optimal lineup.
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The Contrarian Choice
Rinya Nakamura ($9,300)
While I’ve extolled the takedown upside of plenty of fighters on the slate, on paper none of them can compete with Nakamura. Nakamura won the Under 23 world championship in freestyle wrestling and was considered a serious contender in the 2020 Olympics. When those Olympics were delayed due to the COVID pandemic, Nakamura instead switched to MMA.
An elite overall athlete, Nakamura picked up striking quickly and picked up a knockout in 33 seconds in his UFC debut with two knockdowns. He may have learned the wrong lesson from his striking success, suffering his first loss in January in a fight where he attempted just one takedown.
Look for him to get back to his roots against Nathan Fletcher ($6,900), a solid submission grappler who was taken down six times in his last fight. Fletcher’s willingness to accept takedowns should make it easy for Nakamura — assuming he focuses on his wrestling.
That uncertainty likely makes Nakamura the odd man out from an ownership standpoint among the top fighters, making him an excellent GPP leverage play
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The Swing Fight
Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos ($8,800) vs. Neil Magny ($7,400)
There aren’t too many close fights on this slate. There’s not even an $8,200/$8,000 matchup, so there’s no obvious swing fight.
One fight that does provide some sneaky upside is the welterweight matchup between Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos and Neil Magny. Both fighters are longtime UFC vets at the tail end of their careers. dos Santos is 38, and Magny turns 38 on Sunday.
They say the last thing to go for fighters is their power, which has held true for these men. Their last five combined fights have ended via knockout, with both fighters ending up on both sides of the equation.
That makes it hard to trust the chins of both fighters, creating a high-variance spot where either one could pick up a quick knockout. Most of the field will be ignoring this fight since the market has it lined up to hit the judges, but I think the actual odds of a stoppage are fairly high.
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Pictured: Rodolfo Vieira
Photo Credit: Imagn Images
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