Saturday's UFC daily fantasy slate is a wild one, to say the least.
One of the keys to identifying fighters with big upside is pinpointing fighters who can win quickly. You get 100 points for a first-round win, 75 for a win in the second, and 50 for a win in the third. A win by decision is still worth 20 points, but those edges are huge.
That makes it noteworthy, then, that the three fighters with the highest salaries on the slate don't have great odds to win early.
Based on the double-chance odds at FanDuel Sportsbook, Andre Fili ($21), Merab Dvalishvli ($20), and Marvin Vettori ($19) all have less than a 30% chance to win by submission or knockout. Three other fighters have odds in excess of 50%.
As a result, we have to ask whether the top-end fighters are truly worth prioritizing. Digging into the data will be a key for that, and some of that data is listed below.
Each of the fighters on the slate are sorted below by their FanDuel salary. The individual stats are via UFCStats.com and represent various scoring categories on FanDuel. "SubAp15" is submission attempts per 15 minutes, "TDp15" is takedowns landed per 15 minutes, and "SSLPM" is significant strikes landed per minute. "FDPPM" combines all three categories together and shows the number of FanDuel points that fighter has earned per minute from those categories alone.
The other individual stat is TDD% -- takedown defense percentage -- for both the fighter and their opponent. You also earn points on FanDuel for a successful takedown defense, and this shows the rate at which each fighter and their opponent successfully fend off takedown attempts.
Also listed are the betting odds as of mid-day Thursday, which will be a key, as referenced above. The win odds are moneyline bets with the vig removed so that the numbers add up to 100%. This should help illustrate why the conundrum around the highest-salaried fighters is so prominent.
From a sample size perspective, this will be the first UFC fight for Anthony Ivy ($16), Christian Aguilera ($14), and Zarrukh Adashev ($12), so they have no individual stats. It's just the second fight for Julia Avila ($19) and Darrick Minner ($14), giving them a one-fight sample, and Tyson Nam ($15) and Charles Jourdain ($13) have just a two-fight sample in the table.
| Fighter | Opponent | Salary | Win% | KO/Sub% | SubAp15 | TDp15 | oTDD% | TDD% | SSLPM | FDPPM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andre Fili | Charles Jourdain | $21 | 67.4% | 23.8% | 0.2 | 2.49 | 0% | 69% | 4.00 | 1.30 |
| Merab Dvalishvli | Ray Borg | $20 | 79.8% | 19.6% | 0.0 | 7.80 | 46% | 80% | 3.84 | 3.35 |
| Marvin Vettori | Karl Roberson | $19 | 68.8% | 25.6% | 0.6 | 1.43 | 53% | 80% | 4.05 | 1.02 |
| Julia Avila | Gina Mazany | $19 | 83.5% | 60.0% | 0.0 | 0.00 | 20% | 50% | 3.27 | 0.20 |
| Jordan Griffin | Darrick Minner | $19 | 61.2% | 52.4% | 2.5 | 0.35 | 33% | 35% | 2.87 | 1.15 |
| Kevin Aguilar | Charles Rosa | $18 | 63.1% | 22.7% | 0.0 | 0.24 | 40% | 86% | 3.73 | 0.32 |
| Jessica Eye | Cynthia Calvillo | $18 | 48.8% | 17.2% | 0.7 | 0.46 | 69% | 59% | 3.79 | 0.64 |
| Mariya Agapova | Hannah Cifers | $17 | -- | -- | 0.0 | 0.00 | 66% | 42% | 2.60 | 0.16 |
| Cynthia Calvillo | Jessica Eye | $16 | 51.2% | 24.4% | 1.6 | 1.83 | 59% | 69% | 4.12 | 1.51 |
| Anthony Ivy | Christian Aguilera | $16 | 64.2% | 51.2% | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| Jordan Espinosa | Mark de la Rosa | $16 | 60.6% | 16.9% | 0.4 | 0.85 | 42% | 83% | 4.25 | 0.73 |
| Tyson Nam | Zarrukh Adashev | $15 | 51.2% | -- | 0.0 | 0.00 | -- | 100% | 3.00 | 0.18 |
| Mark de la Rosa | Jordan Espinosa | $15 | 39.4% | 24.4% | 0.2 | 0.66 | 83% | 42% | 3.28 | 0.53 |
| Charles Rosa | Kevin Aguilar | $14 | 36.9% | 22.7% | 1.0 | 2.35 | 86% | 40% | 3.21 | 1.47 |
| Darrick Minner | Jordan Griffin | $14 | 38.8% | 28.6% | 3.3 | 1.65 | 35% | 33% | 2.30 | 1.90 |
| Christian Aguilera | Anthony Ivy | $14 | 35.8% | 27.8% | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| Ray Borg | Merab Dvalishvli | $13 | 20.2% | 14.3% | 1.0 | 3.89 | 80% | 46% | 1.52 | 1.98 |
| Charles Jourdain | Andre Fili | $13 | 32.6% | 25.6% | 0.0 | 0.00 | 69% | 0% | 4.85 | 0.29 |
| Karl Roberson | Marvin Vettori | $12 | 31.2% | 18.5% | 0.8 | 1.07 | 80% | 53% | 3.16 | 0.88 |
| Hannah Cifers | Mariya Agapova | $12 | -- | -- | 0.3 | 0.31 | 42% | 66% | 4.71 | 0.51 |
| Zarrukh Adashev | Tyson Nam | $12 | 48.8% | -- | -- | -- | 100% | -- | -- | -- |
| Gina Mazany | Julia Avila | $10 | 16.5% | 9.5% | 0.0 | 3.18 | 50% | 20% | 2.72 | 1.44 |
Seeing the data can at least provide somewhat of a glimpse at why those top three fighters have the salaries that they do. Winning early isn't everything in DFS, especially if you have good win odds and rack up a bunch of points along the way. But weighing that versus finding fighters who can win early will be the main decision point in diagnosing the slate.