RADIO
Welcome to the last UFC weekend of May and the second-to-last before we come back to our beloved numbered UFC nights come Jun. 11. For now, we'll stay in Las Vegas as we already did last weekend and as we'll do two weeks from now. Embrace Saturday night because it'll be a couple of no-show weeks after that while the next Vegas Night arrives.
After watching two very large men doing it last Saturday in Blachowicz and Rakic, it's time to go down the weight scale to enjoy two women doing it on Vegas 55: Holly Holm and Ketlen Vieira. Sadly, there will be no Ben Rothwell vs. Alex Gustafsson after the former got canned by the UFC in March. Ugh. Even then, we're talking about a former UFC champ in Holm and a main/prelim card full of interesting fights involving ladies and gentlemen trying to climb up the contender lists in their respective divisions in order to have a shot at the belts they want to snatch later this year or early next one. Let's break some fights down!
In this article, I will be providing you with my fantasy MMA lineup picks for UFC Vegas 55: Holm vs. Vieira on 05/21/22. Give me a follow on Twitter @chapulana. Good luck!
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DraftKings MMA Women's Bantamweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Ketlen Vieira, $7100 - vs. Holly Holm
It feels like Holm got Ronda Rousey's belt ages ago... and that's absolutely true. Holm pulled off the feat against Rowdy Rousey all the way back in Nov. 2015 and she hasn't done much since then. Holm is 4-5 with four more title fights baked into that nine-fight run, of which she's won none. The most recent one came in Jul. 2019 against Amanda Nunes and Holm didn't even last a full round, getting KO'd on her way to a defeat. Holm bounced back with two wins in his most recent fights, though those two took place no later than 2020 and it's been more than a year and a half since we last saw Holm inside an Octagon.
Vieira, while never fighting for the title, has done everything to put herself in a good position to get a shot at it sooner rather than later. Yes, she's just 2-2 since the start of 2019, but she's a UFC 6-2 fighter coming off a five-round victory via decision last November against a fantastic opponent in Miesha Tate. Viera will fight this weekend having the edge on both the striking and grappling fronts over Holm. The former attempts way more strikes per minute, lands them at reasonably high rates (of course Holm's are higher but the volume is way lower), and the same goes for taking opponents down in terms of the times Vieira chases and succeed with her TDs. This one should end in victory for the uncrowned Bantam over the (still can't believe it) 40-year-old Holm.
DraftKings MMA Welterweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Michel Pereira, $8200 vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio
Very interesting fight, this one. Santi is fighting for the 15th time in his UFC career. His extraordinary 7-0 run from Dec. 2015 to Nov. 2018 ended recently when he came back from an extended period off the Octagon (from that last win to Jan. 2021) as he dropped one to Li Jingliang. Ponzinibbio has only won once in his last three bouts, all of them taking place in the 2021 calendar year. Perhaps the best news about Ponzinibbio is that even while staying out for more than two years he came back and put up similar numbers to those from his early days in terms of striking volume and landing rates (12+ SSA per minute, 42% landed).
Pereira got a fantastic debut (two-minute KO win), then lost one via decision and got disqualified in his third fight, but he hasn't looked back at all after that stringing four wins in a row since Sep. 2020 up to this year's month of January when he defeated Andre Fialho. Pereira is still young but his performances are always sublime no matter the stats you look at. He can easily go for 10+ SSA per minute any day, has only one fight in which he landed fewer than 55% of the SSA he threw and has pulled off a takedown in all of his last six fights (he's 8-of-11 in the last four bouts, all from 2020 on). Ponzi looked phenomenal until he didn't, and Pereira seems to be going in the opposite direction. Give me Michel on Saturday.
DraftKings MMA Middleweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Dusko Todorovic, $7500 - vs. Chidi Njokuani
Fight of Fliers right here. No hate poured over these two, but you should know very well what you're getting into if you decide to roster any of them this weekend. Todorovic's four-fight stint in the UFC is currently reading 2-2 in terms of overall results, and 3-1 in terms fo fights ended with an early KO (two wins, one loss) and fights going the distance (a loss). Njokuani has done it only once, last February, and also finished his opponent with an early, staggering, mindblowing, 16-second KO to kick his career off.
That's pretty much what you're getting here. Todorovic has attempted 7 TDs landing two of them, and his striking volume is nice for almost 12 SSA per minute of which he lands wildly diverging hits (he's been everywhere from 31% to 63%). Njokuani... I mean, he's done it for 16 freaking seconds so there is not a lot to get from that. He went 11-for-11 in that fight and on a per-minute basis would have thrown 41+ (!!!) SSA per minute, but that's just a walking, small-sample lie. I wouldn't advise getting shares of any of these two because 1) the bounty could be glorious but 2) you could very well end with a huge zero in your DKFP weekend tally. Advantage Todorovic, though.
DraftKings MMA Middleweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Park Jun-Yong, $9000 - vs. Eryk Anders
Park came to the UFC universe relatively recently in 2019 and has only three fights under Dana's promo banner. That said, and although he struggled mightily in his debut, he rebounded fiercely to win his next (and last) two fights. Perhaps the problem is that those two outings came at least one and a half years ago (with the first one, in fact, still happening in 2019). That's not cool, but the numbers Park put up back then were absolutely insane. He got takedowns tallies of 5-of-10 and 4-for-4 in those Ws. He landed 87 of 208 SSA--and in his lost fight (via submission) he also landed 55% of 148 SSA in almost 10 minutes of fighting time. Park can definitely do it, but the sample isn't that large to really trust his ways--not to mention the potential rust.
Anders, on the other hand, has been around since mid-2017 and is much more active having 13 UFC fights and three in the 2021 calendar year. The problem with Anders, though, is that he's been mediocre at this MMA thing... Anders has yet to put more than two victories together, and he hasn't done so since June-October 2019. His last four fights have yielded a measly 1-2-1 record, and although he showed KO-prowess early in his career he hasn't KO'd a foe since June of 2019. The striking volume is ground-level low more often than not, and it's not that he's marvelous at taking people down (3-of-13 from 2020 on). Having lost by submission (in 3:13 minutes) his last time out doesn't bode very well for Anders with a nice grappler and takedown artist in front of him this Saturday. I'd go with Park this weekend.
DraftKings MMA Women's Strawweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Tabatha Ricci, $xxxx - vs. Polyana Viana
This fight has me excited because it comes with huge interest and potential, but at the same time, it could all turn into a dud of an affair. Viana has fought six times in the UFC already while Ricci has done so just twice--between June and October of 2021. Ricci, the younger (26 years old) of the contestants here got rocked with a second-round KO in her debut but still was good to attempt 90 SSA over eight minutes, good for an average of 11.3 SSA/min. Bad news, she landed just 19% of those. Her second outing was much better though, as Ricci raised that percentage to a nice 46% on 135 total SSA (9 per minute) while, most importantly, going 5-of-11 on takedowns. That last thing is what makes this fight an appealing one if Ricci can keep that grappling up.
Viana should be good to neutralize Ricci's takedowns, and even more, she comes with a ridiculous submission-prowess having only won fights with that method in the UFC. She's 3-3 but all victories came via first-round submission without ever landing more than one takedown (in fact, she's won her two most-recent fights via submission without even landing one single takedown herself). The striking is low on volume, so that's a no-no if you planned on getting points from that front. There is a high risk baked into rostering Viana because she looks like the submission version of a boom/bust KO-or-nothing HW fighter. I'd err on the safe end and go with Ricci for fantasy purposes, though Viana needs so little to get that Sub wins that she's probably the one getting the W here. Not risking my biscuit, tho.
