RADIO
Third and last UFC Vegas event this month after having three such nights in a row. We have had a little bit of everything through those weeks, and it's now time to enjoy a couple of top-tier Bantamweights going at it to cap Saturday night. The UFC has already booked Footprint Center in Phoenix, AZ, for May 7 which will be the first numbered show in less than a month, and then we'll be back at the APEX for another three-week run of joints before moving aboard to Singapore for UFC 275.
Rob Font and Marlon Vera will face each other for the first time in their long careers trying to get closer to an ultimate (and at least today elusive for them) title fight down the road as both are going to be soon on the wrong side of 30. Cerrone was expected to fight but won't do this weekend moving his appearance to May 7. Justin Tafa should be going against Jake Collier, but the former withdrew and Andrei Arlovski stepped up to the plate on semi-short notice. Tons of storylines involving this one, so let's go break it down into pieces!
In this article, I will be providing you with my fantasy MMA lineup picks for UFC Vegas 53: Font vs. Vera on 04/30/22. Give me a follow on Twitter @chapulana. Good luck!
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DraftKings MMA Bantamweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Marlon Vera, $7900 - vs. Rob Font
Font started "late" at 27 years of age when Dana first called his name for a UFC bout all the way back in UFC 175 (May 2014) but has not stopped doing it since then barring a stoppage from that debut to Jan. 2016. There are 12 UFC bouts on his resume, three of them taking place in the last year and a half with a 2-1 record--problem is, that loss came his last time out against washed-but-reborn (?) Jose Aldo via decision on Dec. 2021. Now, let me make something very clear here: if Font losses this weekend but can apply so much damage on Vera as he did on Aldo, then he's a bona fide pick for your DFS lineups. Even dropping that one Font scored 79.5 DKFP, it's been five in a row for him with at least that fantasy score, and there aren't many fighters able to throw 10+ SSA per minute landing 54%+ of them, let alone getting takedowns at a rather nice pace (6-of-13 in his last five).
Vera is the younger (29) of these two, though he's the most experienced one with 18 trips to the Octagon spanning the same time as Font's career. Although Vera has fought 11 times since the start of 2018 compared to Font's 7 bouts, the former has an 8-3 record to the latter's 5-2 which is better on a win-percentage basis. The fighting profile is rather similar to that of Font, and the results are pretty much the same. Vera has fallen below a 59-DKFP score just once in his last 10 fights averaging 87 DKFP per fight in that span. The SSA per minute are a hair below Font's mark, but the landing rates are way above Font's (58% in Vera's last five to Font's 54%). Low volume TD attempts, but with high success. Interestingly enough, both men dropped one to Aldo recently while Vera has five Ws by KO or submission since 2019 compared to Font's one KO-win. Both of these two are safe plays, and you could even stack them without much concern. I'm picking Vera for the W, though.
DraftKings MMA Heavyweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Andrei Arlovski, $8400 vs. Jake Collier
I always find it funny to look at Arlovski's two-career-long resume. He fought 14 times before taking a 6-year UFC break, then came back and put on 23-and-going more fights on top of those from his first stint. Just ridiculous. Arlovski has been quite active--and efficient--of late no matter his 40+ years of age. He's done it two times in 2020, three in 2021, and already fought once this calendar year. The record? A fantastic 5-1 with three victories in a row entering the Octagon next Saturday. No takedowns, of course, but his striking has been solid as hell with three straight fights in which he's attempted 133, 172, and 222 SSA landing 48% of them and a lone loss via submission that shouldn't be in the cards this weekend against a no-TD-threat fighter like Jake Collier.
Collier, by the way, also has a quite weird UFC fight log. HE was out of the circuit for almost three years (late 2017 to mid-2020) and since coming back he's been inside the Octagon three times with middling results (1-2, one bout per year including 2022). Collier has never put two wins together in the UFC, though he'll have another shot at it this weekend as he won his last fight last January via first-round submission on an efficient 1-for-1 takedown performance. That's his only career sub, though. Collier got KO'd in just 45 seconds three fights ago (Jul. 2020), though Arlovski is not much of a knockout threat these days. One could think these two have flaws that their opponents won't be able to exploit come Saturday. But I'd bet on Arlovski outstriking (and potentially rocking Collier) more than Collier submitting Arlovski or edging him at striking.
DraftKings MMA Featherweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Andre Fili, $9300 - vs. Joanderson Brito
Vet vs. Fresh. This card carries some heavy nostalgia with it as a lot of veterans will be doing it inside the APEX come Saturday, including Fili. 18th time inside the octagon for him next weekend, and the chance to put together the Holy Trinity of results as he's coming off a loss followed by a draw in his last fight. Will he get the W to make it the 1-1-1 outcome? We'll see. Fili can do a little bit of everything and although he's yet to get a W via submission, the truth is that he's quite active on the takedowns front while landing tons of those attempts (9-of-14 in his last four fights). He's also launched an average of 9.4 SSA per minute in that span, though he barely landed those strikes (34%).
Brito, on the absolute opposite side of the spectrum, only just debuted last January in the UFC against Bill Algeo... having to eat an L back then. Don't let that fool you, though. Brito was a 12-2 pro-MMA fighter before that loss and was carrying a 10-fight winning streak into it. That's bonkers, and even better is the fact that barring that late loss Brito had not lost a fight since Dec. 2015! Brito's volume might be a bit below Fili's with similar landing rates. The Brazilian landed 2 of the 4 TDs he went for against Algeo and has as many career KOs as submissions (five of each) in his fight log. Fili has been too shaky of late as to confidently bet on him. Give me the UFC sophomore Brito.
DraftKings MMA Lightweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Jared Gordon, $7500 - vs. Grant Dawson
First legit fight between two absolute geniuses we cover today. Dawson has yet to lose a fight (5-0-1) in the UFC while Gordon has a 4-1 record since 2019 with ridiculous numbers all across the board. Starting with the former, Dawson has fought six times (twice per year) since debuting in 2019 and he's won a couple via submission, a couple via decision, and most recently earned his first KO under the UFC banner. Not bad. That said, the last time we saw him (Oct. 2021) he stunk a bit fighting his way to a draw in which he just went 24-of-31 in SS and 3-of-11 in takedowns, both marks his UFC lows in fights not finishing early.
Gordon, on the other hand, has three losses on his resume but has also won three in a row, all of them in the past two years. Not a real bulldozer, he only won via KO in his debut back in Jun. 2017, though Gordon's approach is more based on efficiency than brute force or sheer misfired volume. It's been three fights in a row for Gordon landing 59%+ of the SSA he's launched though, again, on a low 6.4 SSA/min average. The takedowns are sublime (6-of-15 in both success rates and volume) though even then he will have it tough to edge Dawson on that front (Dawson is a career 17-of-54 fighter on takedowns launching 9 TD/fight). Both of these two can very well carry a 65+ DKFP floor with upside to get past the 100 mark, and I'd go with Dawson as the most probable fighter to see that coming his way on Saturday.
DraftKings MMA Middleweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Krzysztof Jotko, $8800 - vs. Gerald Meerschaert
There is this curious thing that the older a fighter gets, the more he fights. Never fails. Meerschaert went inside the Octagon more times (9) in the past three years at ages 32-34 than he did in his first three seasons of UFC fights (just four). And hey, if we're honest it's really worked for him. Meerschaert is 3-0 with three consecutive submission victories in 2021, one every four months... and this weekend mark exactly four more months since his last one. Just saying, folks. Forget about any sort of volume on striking and even takedowns and think about Merrschaert as a sub-or-get-cooked fighter (in fact, he got rocked twice in his prior two fights not even lasting 1:15 minutes in any of them).
Jotko has seen more steadily good and less outlier-ish results of late while boasting a 4-1 record from Apr. 2019 on. All of those five bouts went the distance, giving Jotko the chance to rack up points on mere striking volume and landed takedowns. The numbers aren't gaudy, mind you, but he's averaging 7.9 SSA/min in that span while landing a relatively good 43% of those attempts. The takedowns don't come in bunches (just 6 successful ones in that five-fight span) but he's at least trying like a madman (18 attempts). Meerschaert is so dependent on finishing his opponents these days that he's just not worth the fantasy gamble. If you want to put any of these two in your DFS lineup, make it Jotko. That said, know he's not going to give you a bounty with a projected outcome of around 60 DKFP on most cases.
