RADIO
The revenge was completed, Nunes got her belt back, and everything is now back to normalcy. Pretty much the times we live in these days. Anyway. The UFC is leaving the numbered-event beat for a while and entering another minor-event run of bookings starting this weekend--where else--in Las Vegas, NV, by getting back into the promo's APEX. At least, we all dream to watch as many fireworks this next Saturday as we did a few days ago with four of the five fights in the main part of the card ending early (three KOs, one submission). We can only hope, folks, we can only hope.
It is not that the card this weekend doesn't come packed enough as to promise that outcome, mind you. The lineup is top-heavy with four men into (or very near) the top-10 fighters of their respective divisions and looking at getting that tasty shot at the gold. A couple of women's fights are also booked for the weekend with very serious contenders involved in them, and there is also a certain (almost) NFL player involved in Saturday's night main card! So it's about time to get down to the picks.
In this article, I will be providing you with my fantasy MMA lineup picks for UFC Vegas 59: Santos vs. Hill on 08/06/22. Give me a follow on Twitter @chapulana. Good luck!
DraftKings MMA Light Heavyweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Jamahal Hill, $9000 - vs. Thiago Santos
Wasn't it for Santos' outcomes of late, this would have been the proverbial kill-or-get-killed type of (light) heavyweight fight. Not long ago, three years at most, Hill had yet to debut in the UFC but Santos had already been doing it more than six years... and all he knew to do back in 2019 and before was KO folks around the nation. That has changed this side of that year, though, with Santos losing his fight for the title against Jon Jones back in July of 2019 and never truly recovering from that loss. He's 1-4 since that bout (included) with his lone win coming on a full-time decision victory over Johnny Walker (coincidentally the worst fighter he's faced of late by a mile).
Hill, on the other hand, is a 3-1 KO fighter. In other words, all of those fights ended in 2:55 minutes or fewer with three KOs going to the W column and only one sitting on the L. I don't think it merits losing any time addressing these two gentlemen. Santos kinda went for some takedowns in his early days but he's now clearly past that. Hill doesn't even know what takedown means. It's striking, striking, striking, for these two. And there is a clear no. 1 at that if you have to pick one. Hill is a 92nd-percentile DKFP fighter in his short-but-fruitful UFC tenure and that's on par with the likes that have easily beaten Santos lately (Magomed Ankalaev, Aleksandar Rakic, Glover Teixeira, Jon Jones) so this should just be another step (read: W) in Hill's path toward that coveted title fight.
DraftKings MMA Welterweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Vicente Luque, $8500 - vs. Geoff Neal
It's a little sad to look at these two and their fight logs and find the same pattern repeated all over the place: won a bunch of fights, then lost the crucial one. Luque has streaks of four, six, and four wins followed by a single loss in his 17-bout UFC tenure (he's coming off one of those losses, by the way). Neal won his first five fights only to then lose two in a row and only bounce back in his latest bout against Santi Ponzinibbio last December bringing his record to a 6-2. Just when both Luque and Neal felt on the verge of getting a shot at a title fight, they always flopped for one reason or another.
Neal and Luque both rank in the 93rd+ percentile in terms of their career-average DKFP per fight. That's phenomenal, and that's also reasonable considering they have won tons of fights and also finished foes early often. Luque has gotten his last four wins via submission (x2) and KO (x2), while Neal has two decisions and two KOs in that same span. The two lost via decision every time they did. Although Luque can submit foes he never chases takedowns, mind you, so it's more about the other fighter falling into a dangerous position than Luque really chasing that outcome. Both men have been on the low in terms of striking volume/landing rates but Luque has the slight edge and is on a much more impressive run of late. Give me the favorite getting back to the winning track and leaving Neal looking at a 1-3 record when all is said and done by Sunday's AM.
DraftKings MMA Heavyweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Sergey Spivak, $8800 - vs. Augusto Sakai
Strictly looking at the most recent fights from these two, well, I don't think there should be too much of a doubt about who you and every other living soul out there should side with. Sakai has strung three losses in a row in the past 26 months and all of those came via KO. The last time this man got his fist raised to the sky was all the way back in May 2020 when he defeated... Blagoy Ivanov (?) in 15 minutes of fighting time. Yikes.
Spivak, while not incredibly great himself, at least is 4-1 in his most recent fighting span and since July 2020. Now, that said, the competition he's faced has been all around the place. He's gone on to face Jared Vanderaa (34th percentile in DKFP) and Tom Aspinall (95th), so that's quite the range. Aspinall handed Spivac his lone loss in the full five-fight span, though that was the most-probable outcome back then and in fact, it only took 2:30 minutes to know the outcome. Sakai is a subpar fighter and Spivac has better numbers on both volume-striking and grappling. The floor is ground-level for Sakai while Spivac should at least come at some 50-to-65 baseline with upside to double that score if he gets the W and can inflict a KO on his opponent--which he did his last time out rocking Greg Hardy in 2:16 last March.
DraftKings MMA Women's Flyweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Priscila Cachoeira, $7800 - vs. Ariane Lipski
I get the idea of arriving in a new promo and trying to instantly become the respected honcho with a couple of sound victories. That's cool on paper and would make for the perfect debut. Only, you know, the competition is ferocious in the world of MMA, let alone the whole UFC conglomerate. So that's why Lipski and Cachoeira both tried their luck against Molly McCann in a span of three months and both lost, and why they also did so against Joanne Wood and Valentina Shevchenko respectively for a couple of 0-2 debuts.
Each of these two has won three fights since their losing efforts to kick their UFC careers off, but the competition they've been fighting against has been mediocre at best. Other than Ji Yeon Kim, none of Lipski nor Cachoeira has defeated a 75th-percentile fighter (Cachoeira is coming off a decision victory against Kim). Lipski also won her last fight last September, but it was against a poor Mandy Bohm (25th). Cachoeira enters the Octagon less rusty this weekend and has shown a bit more of late than her opponent. She also won via KO in Feb. 2020 and May of 2021 while only losing once (via submission) since the former victory. Lipski has been KO'd twice in the late-2020 to mid-2021 span, which doesn't bode well for her this weekend. Losers' bout, but give me Priscila Cachoeira on this one.
