The UFC is back in Boston for the first time since 2019 when Chris Weidman headlined the card. Weidman, a former champion, broke his leg in his last fight back in 2021 and he makes his long awaited return tonight. We also have two title fights, O’Malley vs Sterling and Weili vs Lemos. With 12 fights on the card tonight we believe we have found good leverage on the field in GPPs. First, let’s go over the cash strategy.
In cash games tonight it’s pretty obvious you need at least one fighter from each of the title fights. If you prefer to stack a fight in cash games, we would stack O’Malley and Sterling because we do not think Lemos has enough upside in a loss. Other fighters who are projected to be higher owned are Petroski, Rodrigues, Karine Silva and Ian Garry. We also believe Cody Gibson has a safer floor in cash games for value. Blackshear should be another guy people may flock towards because of recency bias as he just put on a dominant performance a week ago. We personally have Bautista winning that fight, however blackshear could probably score some points in grappling exchanges before there is a submission. Hubbard and Vera are two fighters you could use in that mid range pricing that we believe should get the job done tonight.
In GPPs, its a great night to get creative in the mid range and value price range. We believe the studs are pretty straight forward. Rodrigues, Weili, Bautista, Sterling and Petroski are the fighters we would get exposure to. Rodrigues has been talking about implementing his judo and grappling back into his fights rather than going for the knockout blow like he has in his last 3 fights. Tiuliulin has decent takedown defense but Rodrigues should be able to get him down after a few attempts. If he gets the fight to the ground early it could be over relatively quickly, thus giving him good upside even at his price. That being said, Rodrigues does not have the greatest of chins and Tiuliulin can hit hard so one route you could take in gpps if you wanted to go against a projected 37% owned fighter is play Tiuliulin and hope for a knockout early on. We believe the champions, Weili and Sterling, both retain their titles and should be optimal on this slate. Sterling has wrestling upside that he displayed against Cejudo and he gets 5 rounds to work on the ground. Weili in our minds gets a finish early on in her fight. She will need to avoid the power of Lemos and to do that she probably will take this fight to the ground as well. Weili by submission is the prediction there. Bautista has been on a tear with 3 first round subs in a row. He gets an opponent here on very late notice who had to cut weight twice in 2 weeks. We do not think Garry, Natalia Silva or Tavares are must plays in gpps.
In the Mid range we like getting exposure to Petroski, Vera, Hubbard and Karine Silva. Petroski has much more power on the feet than his opponent and he will also have a speed advantage. He is also very good on the ground and could hold his opponent down for long periods of time. His cardio has improved since coming off the ultimate fighter and we believe he gets the job done here tonight. He has two routes he can take to finish this fight but we are leaning towards a tko. Vera has a tough opponent in front of him tonight but we believe he can get the job done with a lot of volume on the feet. If he can keep this fight at range and land some clean shots he could even get himself a knockout in this fight. Most people are expecting a decision but we could be looking at a low owned knockout win here. Hubbard does not have a huge ceiling but we think he wins by scoring some takedowns and holding his opponent down. He does not have a lot of power on the feet so if you’re playing Hubbard you want this fight on the ground. He is not our favorite play but is viable if you land on him. Karine Silva has lost to Moroz once before in her career by armbar and she’s looking to get her revenge tonight. We believe she does just that and dominates her opponent in this one. At her price point, we love getting Karine Silva in our lineups tonight. Karine is a finisher with much more upside than a lot of the fighters priced higher than her on this slate.
For value we are targeting Gibson, O’Malley, Lee, Tiuliulin and Magny. Gibson and Lee would be our two preferred options. Gibson has fought good names outside of the ufc in his recent fights prior to the ultimate fighter. John Dodson and Ray Borg were most notable. Gibson and his opponent have been talking a lot of trash to each other on the show so we could see a grudge match here. Gibson in our eyes is the more aggressive fighter with a well rounded skillset. It is now or never for him as he is 35 years old so we believe he leaves it all out there tonight and chases a finish. We believe he will be the guy bringing the fight to Brad, landing good volume and potentially landing takedowns. Lee has lost two straight fights by decision. Barber and Araujo were able to make her hesitate before throwing her attacks. In recent interviews she has been talking about how she wants to come out aggressive and put on a performance she is proud of. Lee has takedown upside but she can also finish a fight on the feet with some big kicks and good combinations. It seems as though people are staying away from this fight because of the chance it goes to decision but we believe if Lee were to win this fight it would be by finish. We like taking our chances on one of the bigger underdogs on the slate that we believe is being overlooked. O’Malley, Tiuliulin and Magny all have upside in wins but they would be our secondary options as we lean towards them losing. We should mention Weidman because of his takedown and wrestling upside but his injury was so traumatic in that cage I personally can’t see him being the same guy in there. O’Malley has 5 rounds to work and could knock out Sterling if he lands clean on the feet. Tiuliulin same situation, he might get out wrestled but on the feet he can knockout his opponent. Magny will need to rely on his wrestling heavily in this fight, he does not have much of a chance on the feet against Garry.
In conclusion, our favorite spend up options are Rodrigues, Weili, Bautista, Sterling and Petroski. In the mid tier, we believe the best options are Petroski, Vera and Karine Silva. For value, our preferred plays are Gibson and Lee and the secondary options in GPPs are O’Malley, Tiuliulin and Magny.