When it comes to UFC, my knowledge is severely limited. I'm a squeamish human, so the sport and I had very few interactions prior to this past weekend.
Therefore, if I were to tell you whom you should use in daily fantasy UFC, it would be your obligation to laugh in my face and call me mean names. I mean, really dig in. I would deserve it.
I'm not going to do that, mostly because -- in addition to being squeamish -- I'm petrified of confrontation. Please leave my fragile sensibilities alone.
But I can copy and paste data so that you can scan it over, interpret the numbers, and parlay that into solid decision-making for your own DFS lineups.
That's what we've got below. It's a full rundown of each of the fighters on the card for Wednesday, May 13th, sorted by their FanDuel salaries. The fighter stats (when available) come via UFCStats.com, where you can search for any fighter and see each fight they've completed throughout their UFC careers. You can see recent fights, what they did within those fights, height, weight, reach, and anything else you can think of that you would need to fill out a lineup.
The individual fighter stats included are the ones that either help you score points on FanDuel or prevent the opponent from scoring points. "SubAp15" is submission attempts per 15 minutes, "TDp15" is takedown attempts per 15 minutes, and "SSLPM" is significant strikes landed per minute. "TDD%" and "oTDD%" refer to that fighter's and their opponent's takedown defense percentage, which doesn't directly lead to FanDuel points but can help illustrate what type of fighter each person is.
It's important to note that the takedowns and submissions are on a different scale than significant strikes, and the scoring on FanDuel is wildly different, as well. To account for that, I've added a FanDuel points per minute (FD PPM) column that rounds everything up and calculates how many points they average without accounting for wins, losses, or length of match. It's important to keep those latter points in mind because so much of FanDuel scoring revolves around the result, but this can help us identify fighters who may provide some lift while the fight is in progress.
Finally -- and most importantly -- we have betting odds via UFC odds. The "Win Odds" column is the moneyline minus the vig. The KO/Sub% is the odds that fighter wins by submission or knockout, as outlined in the double chance section of the betting odds. Odds are as of Monday morning, and the match between Marvin Vettori ($17) and Karl Roberson ($14) did not have double chance odds as of that time. (UPDATE: Marvin Vettori's match with Karl Roberson has been cancelled, and both fighters should be omitted from your lineups.)
For an example here, Sijara Eubanks ($20) is the most expensive fighter on the slate, and it's likely because she has 75.9% odds to win the fight. However, her knockout/submission odds are only 29.4%, which ranks ninth on the slate. That would certainly alter the way you view her, especially if you're considering her for your MVP slot and the 1.5x multiplier.
It's worth noting that for Philipe Lins ($16) and Ike Villanueva ($15), this is their first official UFC fight, so there's no data to run with. For Hunter Azure ($18) and Omar Morales ($16), the sample is just one fight, meaning the data we do have is going to be a bit fluky. But here's the rundown of the card for this Wednesday.
| Fighter | Opponent | Salary | Win Odds | KO/SubOdds | SubAp15 | TDp15 | oTDD% | TDD% | SSLPM | FD PPM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sijara Eubanks | Sarah Moras | $20 | 75.9% | 29.4% | 0.0 | 2.00 | 37% | 63% | 4.77 | 1.09 |
| Anthony Smith | Glover Teixeira | $19 | 63.0% | 56.5% | 0.8 | 0.41 | 60% | 51% | 3.06 | 0.61 |
| Hunter Azure | Brian Kelleher | $18 | 60.9% | 25.0% | 2.5 | 2.00 | 84% | 75% | 4.00 | 1.87 |
| Ricky Simon | Ray Borg | $17 | 63.0% | 22.7% | 0.2 | 6.53 | 50% | 71% | 2.96 | 2.86 |
| Marvin Vettori | Karl Roberson | $17 | 62.1% | -- | 0.6 | 1.43 | 53% | 80% | 4.05 | 1.02 |
| Drew Dober | Alexander Hernandez | $17 | 51.9% | 33.3% | 0.1 | 0.95 | 57% | 62% | 4.51 | 0.68 |
| Ovince Saint Preux | Ben Rothwell | $17 | 57.4% | 38.5% | 0.6 | 1.34 | 69% | 65% | 2.59 | 0.89 |
| Chase Sherman | Ike Villanueva | $16 | 55.8% | 44.4% | 0.0 | 0.00 | -- | 77% | 5.81 | 0.35 |
| Omar Morales | Gabriel Benitez | $16 | 59.0% | 31.3% | 0.0 | 0.71 | 56% | 100% | 3.60 | 0.50 |
| Philipe Lins | Andrei Arlovski | $16 | 59.0% | 42.6% | -- | -- | 79% | -- | -- | -- |
| Thiago Moises | Michael Johnson | $16 | 48.5% | 23.8% | 1.5 | 1.22 | 78% | 68% | 2.96 | 1.17 |
| Michael Johnson | Thiago Moises | $15 | 51.5% | 20.8% | 0.1 | 0.52 | 68% | 78% | 4.22 | 0.49 |
| Ike Villanueva | Chase Sherman | $15 | 44.2% | 34.5% | -- | -- | 77% | -- | -- | -- |
| Alexander Hernandez | Drew Dober | $15 | 48.1% | 22.7% | 0.0 | 1.52 | 62% | 57% | 3.07 | 0.79 |
| Glover Teixeira | Anthony Smith | $15 | 37.0% | 26.3% | 1.0 | 2.00 | 51% | 60% | 3.41 | 1.34 |
| Karl Roberson | Marvin Vettori | $14 | 37.9% | -- | 0.8 | 1.07 | 80% | 53% | 3.16 | 0.88 |
| Gabriel Benitez | Omar Morales | $14 | 41.0% | 20.0% | 1.5 | 0.21 | 100% | 56% | 4.32 | 0.84 |
| Andrei Arlovski | Philipe Lins | $14 | 41.0% | 24.4% | 0.3 | 0.52 | -- | 79% | 3.55 | 0.52 |
| Ben Rothwell | Ovince Saint Preux | $14 | 42.6% | 33.3% | 0.3 | 0.66 | 65% | 69% | 3.34 | 0.56 |
| Ray Borg | Ricky Simon | $13 | 37.0% | 15.4% | 1.1 | 4.26 | 71% | 50% | 1.36 | 2.15 |
| Brian Kelleher | Hunter Azure | $13 | 39.1% | 24.4% | 0.9 | 1.47 | 75% | 84% | 4.87 | 1.18 |
| Sarah Moras | Sijara Eubanks | $11 | 24.1% | 12.5% | 1.1 | 0.91 | 37% | 37% | 2.04 | 0.85 |
If you've got an in-depth knowledge of UFC, you'll still want to lean heavily on that when making your decisions, and numberFire's Austin Swaim will have a helper later this week to outline his view of the card from a DFS perspective. But this data can at least give you a baseline from which to start as you're filling out your lineups.