RADIO
Five weeks into 2022 and only three events gone by the time Sunday morning hits, we'd have already watched a bunch of belts put on the line with such high-stake fights as those involving champs Ngannou and (now) Figueiredo back on Jan. 22, and the upcoming reigning GOAT middleweight Israel Adesanya. Truth be told, we can't complain that much even though we had to wait a couple of weeks from calendar-page-flipping to the first event of the year. We're going to have fireworks coming our way from last week to mid-March, so there's that.
Kicking things off, what about Saturday's main card--and hell, the event as a freaking whole! Saying 271 is loaded is probably falling short of a proper description, folks. Adesanya and Whittaker alone make for a spectacle just by themselves, and the tension will be dense with these two doing it for the second time. Uh, oh. But hey, peep down the card and found quite a bunch of rather worth-watching bouts down there involving the likes of Derrick Lewis, Derek Brunson, and... LLAA--Living Legend Andrei Arlovski, that is--doing it for the 97th time in his career (more or less). Yessir!
In this article, I will be providing you with my fantasy MMA lineup picks for UFC 271: Adesanya vs. Whittaker 2 on 02/12/22. Give me a follow on Twitter @chapulana. Good luck!
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DraftKings MMA Middleweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Israel Adesanya (C), $9200 - vs. Robert Whittaker
Not gonna lie: betting against Adesanya doesn't scream intelligence, folks. Just to recap, Israel has been involved in six title champs in the past three years. One of them ended in L, only that one happened to take place in a non-MW division, which was reasonable. That is the only time Adesanya has lost a UFC fight since he joined in Feb. 2018. Seriously. He has dominated. He has KO'd four foes and won five bouts via decision. He just can't be stopped, full stop. Oh, and he's already dropped Whittaker once. Uh, oh.
Speaking of Whittaker, he's been great and he's pretty much been unbeatable as much as Adesanya except, well, when he faced Israel back in Oct. 2019. That one was ugly, ending at the 3:33 mark in the second round with a sound KO. That said, Whittaker had already been champ defeating Yoel Romero in 2017 while he's now won three straight, all of them coming in the past 15 months. He's not done it since defeating Gastelum back in April 2021, but that's not that concerning. What is, though, is the fact that he's not landing tons of shots nor KO'ing people anymore. None of these two go for takedowns, Adesanya has a little bit higher landing rate on SSA, and, I mean, he's undefeatable and already has W over Whitt. Not buying whatever Rob has to say.
DraftKings MMA Heavyweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Tai Tuivasa, $7400 - vs. Derrick Lewis
First chance at the belt, ate the L. Second chance at the belt, ate the L. At which point will we be canceling Lewis as a contender, then? I dunno, but I know for sure that Lewis is a goddam threat in the HW division whether he is in possession of the gold or not. Did Lewis lose to Gane back in August? Yes, you bet he did. But he has won five of his last six except that one, three of them via KO inside the first two rounds including a first-round KO his last time out in December. Fade Lewis at your own peril, folks.
And that's not to say Tai Tuivasa can't handle Lewis another L this weekend, mind you. Tai has been astonishingly great of late himself. I'm not even joking, brothers. Tai has won four in a row, all fights since Oct. 2020, three of them through the last calendar year, and all of them via first- or second-round KO. Jesus Christ. If there is a man that can defeat Lewis and close the curtains on the former title contender, that surely is Toddler Tai. No takedowns here. Not a lot of hits either because they just don't need them. Lewis has not shown a massive dropdown or anything, but Tai has been so ridiculously fantastic recently that I have to side with the dog. Give me Tai for the weekend.
DraftKings MMA Middleweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Derek Brunson, $7600 - vs. Jared Cannonier
Old-time greats, these two? I mean, we're talking about folks who did it for the first time under the UFC banner as early as UFC 155 when Brunson fought Chris Leben all the way back in Dec. 2012. Between that point and his second loss to a certain Robert Whittaker, Brunson won seven of eight fights in a four-year span. Of course, Whittaker stopped him in 4:07 and Brunson is 7-4 including that one since then. Now, that might look bad, but the truth is that Brunson has won out since the start of 2019 and is boasting an ongoing 5-0 record that includes a couple of early finishes (one KO, one sub). That includes a 3-0 in the past two years and a 2-0 in 2021 alone against good foes in Till and Holland. No joke.
Cannonier, contrary to Brunson, had the opposite path: four losses in his first five UFC fights starting in 2015, then the bounceback. Jared is 4-1 in the past three years and a half (Nov. 2018), but he's also 1-1 since Oct. 2020 having defeated Kelvin Gastelum but dropping one to no. 1 contender Whittaker back in Oct. 2020. See, Brunson has the edge on everything. As simple as that. Brunson actively seeks to take his opponents down and achieves it, having gone 19-of-45 at TDs since the start of 2019, including a career-high 6-of-12 against Kevin Holland less than a year ago. He throws more volume of SSA than Cannonier, and lands strikes in the 60-to-70 percent clip. And that run of wins... Ah, no way I'm not rooting nor betting for Brunson come Saturday.
DraftKings MMA Bantamweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Kyler Phillips, $9400 - vs. Marcelo Rojo
Fight of artists, this one. Kyler Phillips have the edge when it comes to experience... inside the Octagon, that is, as he's just 26 years of age and a four-time fighter under the UFC banner, but is facing 33-yo Marcelo Rojo this weekend. Rojo, of course, is 0-1 but just in the UFC. As far as pro-MMA fighting goes, Phillips has only competed 11 times to Rojo's 23 outings--quite the difference. Phillips, though, started his UFC tenure with a bunch of bangs going 3-0 after dropping his last fight to Raulian Paiva last July. The truth is, though, Kyler has been fantastic on all fronts landing 2+ takedowns while also attempting 2+ in all of his four fights (total tally 11-of-20), and he's thrown 10+ SS per minute in his young career. landing 43% or more of his total strikes attempted to date.
Rojo, who got KO his lone time inside an Octagon last March (third-rounder KO defeat), was good to throw 204 SSA landing 74 of them--most probably, well, not enough. He also put up a 1-of-2 takedown rate, which was good-not-great. That said, Rojo is a veteran and knows the business better than Phillips, we gotta assume. Rojo has won 14 of his 16 victories early, with 8 KOs and 6 Subs. Not bad by any means, is what I'm saying. The problem for Rojo, though? He's been subbed himself six times already in his career. Peep at those success rates of Phillips on the TD front (50%, 100%, 60%, and lastly 44%) and you'll see why I see signs pointing Phillips' direction this weekend. I have Kyler bouncing back to the W column to put up the 4-1 in his UFC scorecard.
DraftKings MMA Lightweight - UFC DFS Lineup Picks
Bobby Green, $8400 - vs. Nasrat Haqparast
It's been a wild ride of late for Bobby Green. The record is sitting at a kinda-even 5-4 since the start of 2018, but that's a long period of time. Shortening it to just the past two calendar years, Green is a much better 4-2 with a KO victory baked into that record--taking place his last time out in Nov. 2021 when he dropped Al Iaquinta in just 2:25 minutes of fighting time. Green is 35, but age hasn't stopped him from racking up a huge volume of shots taken and takedowns attempted. And even on that high volume, he's still good to sustain pretty tasty success rates on both fronts.
Haqparast has been more up than down, yet he's fought seven times in the past three-years-and-change with a 5-2 record going his way. He's 2-2 since the start of 2020, and 1-1 in 2021. It's all about balance for Nasrat, it seems, as he's got those even records and also one KO-for and one KO-against since 2019. Anyway, the thing with Haqparast is that while his last two Ws showed a very good version of the youngster, the last definitely did not (54-of-90 on SSA, 0-for-1 on takedowns). Haqparast was coming off back-to-back 215+ SSA/99+ SSL fights but put up a dud against Hooker last September. He can surely rebound, and it's not that Green is the freshest/winningest guy out there, but the concerns are reasonable. I'm going with the younger guy tho, as prior to that loss and excluding the 1:10 KO-against he suffered in Jan. 2020 (he just had no time to do crap, basically) he had looked mighty impressive.
