UFC Winnipeg DFS Breakdown: Model, Preview, Picks for Burns vs. Malott, More Saturday Fights

After a wild weekend at UFC 327, the UFC keeps the road show going with a trip to Canada. As expected, the card is filled with plenty of Canadian fighters, including main event welterweight Mike Malott, who challenges Gilbert Burns to close the card.

We have a 5:00 p.m. ET. start time this week, with the entire 12-fight card airing on Paramount+.

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

Mike Malott ($9,300) vs. Gilbert Burns ($6,900)

This is a fairly standard “get the new guy over” fight, as Canada’s favorite son Mike Malott takes on the veteran Gilbert Burns, who is 39 years old and comes into this fight with four consecutive losses. Those losses all came against top-10 welterweights, but it’s clear that the best days for “Durinho” are in the rearview mirror.

I personally didn’t spend a ton of time breaking down this fight, though I’ve noticed the line has shifted pretty significantly toward Burns throughout the week. That’s in line with the read from Sean Zerillo on our latest UFC Betting Preview, who considers Burns a live dog thanks to his cardio edge. If he can survive the first round or two, Burns could take over from Malott, who has struggled late in three-round fights and has five rounds ahead of him on Saturday.

That makes both men great DFS plays relative to their price point. A Malott win likely comes with an early finish, while a Burns win of any kind would almost guarantee a spot in the optimal at his price point. If you’re confident in Malott, you can probably pass on stacking this one in cash (since Burns’ floor is almost nothing), but stacking it is probably the safer bet.

For GPPs, I don’t see this as a fight where both fighters will score a ton together, but I want one or the other in most or all of my lineups.

The Easy Chalk

Marcio Barbosa ($9,400)

There are not any massive favorites on this weekend’s card, with the best moneyline odds belonging to Brazil’s Marcio Barbosa. He’s about a -500 favorite as he takes on Dennis Buzukja ($6,800) in one of the few fights on the card without a Canadian representative.

Crucially, Barbosa is also even money to win this fight in the very first round, which he’s done in 16 of his 17 professional wins. That includes his appearance on the Contender Series, where he landed over eight significant strikes per minute and picked up two knockdowns in less than a round of work.

The likeliest outcome this time is a similar result against the tough but athletically limited Buzukja. This isn’t even really a significant step up in competition for Barbosa, who has competed against UFC-level opposition in the past. His one-round-or-bust style will likely catch up to him against tougher competition, but Buzukja isn’t it.

Barbosa is both the safest and the highest-ceiling option on the slate, and I’m planting my flag with 100% exposure to him since it’s not especially difficult to find the salary.

The Upside Play

Jamie Siraj ($9,100)

Jamie Siraj is effectively a poor man’s version of Barbosa on this slate. He’s also a heavy favorite against John Yannis ($7,100), although with odds around -260 instead of -500. He’s also making his UFC debut as a direct signing at 31, almost certainly because he’s Canadian and they want to get home-grown talent on the card.

Yannis is returning to the UFC for the second time after stepping in on short notice against Austin Bashi in his debut and getting finished by the superstar prospect. Siraj doesn’t have nearly the pedigree as Bashi but is still clearly the A side of this fight.

The real appeal to Siraj is the considerable projected ownership discount between him and Barbosa, who will be massively popular. Pairing them together, or even fading Barbosa in favor of Siraj, is a solid contrarian option this weekend. The likelier outcome is Barbosa scoring better, but the higher-EV play might be Siraj on a 12-fight slate where being unique is important.

The Value Plays

John Castanada ($8,000)

Castanada is priced as a slight underdog but has been bet all the way down to -130 for his fight against Mark Vologdin ($8,200), making him an obvious value at his price.

Vologdin was the rare Contender Series fighter to get signed off a loss, thanks to his fight-of-the-year-candidate bout against Adrian Martinelli on the 2025 season. He’s a unique fighter, standing just 5’3″ with a Kyokushin Karate background.

The problem with that is he needs to get close to opponents to land since his reach is so limited, but he’s not an especially capable grappler. He was taken down three times and controlled for just under four minutes by Martinelli on the Contender Series.

Castanada has taken down his last five opponents (and won via club-and-sub in the fight preceding that) and will almost certainly look to grapple here. If Vologdin can continue to get up, that only raises the ceiling for the veteran, since he’ll have opportunities for more takedowns. With this fight slightly favored to go the distance, that gives him a massive floor and ceiling relative to his salary.

Kyler Phillips ($7,500)

The outlook for Phillips is similar to that of Malott, in that we expect him to find early success before (potentially) tiring down the stretch. However, he’s fairly unlikely to be finished by Charles Jourdain ($8,700), a fighter who lives and dies by the guillotine choke.

The guillotine is a fairly easy-to-defend option, and Phillips is a long-time BJJ black belt who began training at age 3. He’s also the better wrestler of the pair and will get to decide if this fight goes to the ground or stays standing.

On the feet, he has far more power (until he tires out) than Jourdain, giving him most of the finishing upside in this fight. Similar to Castenada, he has a solid ceiling thanks to takedowns and a strong floor with the fight likely to go the distance, all at an even cheaper price.

Phillips has also caught plenty of steam in the market, opening the week around +140 and with odds of +120 on Friday, so he checks all of the necessary boxes.

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The Contrarian Choice

Jai Herbert ($7,400)

I might be the only one on Herbert this week as he takes on the Canadian debutante Mando Nallo ($8,800), who put on a show at the Contender Series last fall. The problem is that Nallo was 36 when he appeared on the Contender Series and is unlikely to have much (if any) development moving forward.

Herbert is a below-average UFC lightweight, with a 3-5-1 record in the promotion. However, he’s also a unique opponent who stands 6’1″ with a 77″ reach. That could be especially problematic for Nallo. The Canadian’s game is built on using his reach (75 inches) and height to pick apart opponents from the outside with jabs and teeps. However, that won’t be there against Herbert, one of the few fighters in the division with a longer reach.

Herbert is also a smooth striker, and I view this fight as being a matchup between two very similar opponents. I wouldn’t be shocked if Nallo’s dynamic striking was enough to win, but I make this fight much closer to 50/50 than the current odds/prices, which makes Herbert a strong play at low ownership.

The Swing Fights

Robert Frey ($8,300) vs. Julien LeBlanc ($7,900)

Robert Valentin Frey picked up a pair of first-round finishes in the house on season 32 of The Ultimate Fighter. Since then, he’s been a considerable letdown, getting finished in the first round of the TUF championship and then losing two more fights since then. However, one of those was a close split decision, and the other was a knockout loss to Ateba Gautier, who knocks out everybody.

As such, it’s hard to know what to make of him. He seems to have all of the physical tools needed for success but struggles to put them together. It’s even tougher to get a read on LeBlanc, who is making his UFC debut at age 34 with just 12 pro fights across a career spanning more than 12 years.

LeBlanc has almost twice as many canceled fights as matches that have gone through, but there’s very little tape of him in action. The range of outcomes on him is wide enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to see either man dominate.

More importantly for DFS, this fight has the best odds to end inside the distance outside of the five-round main event and the one-sided action in Barbosa–Buzukja. This doesn’t quite rise to the level of “one or the other in every lineup,” but it is one of the few fights where I’m interested in both sides.

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Pictured: Kyler Phillips
Photo Credit: Imagn