Fight Study (2/5/22)
The UFC’s middleweight division will become the focus of the MMA world when the division’s 7th ranked contender, Sean Strickland, takes the octagon with the division’s 6th ranked contender, Jack Hermansson, from the Apex Facility on Saturday in Las Vegas. Both men are coming off of wins, but Strickland has put together the longer win streak and he will be the significant favorite as well as the more expensive DFS play. He is available for lineups for $8,800 on DraftKings and $21 on Fanduel. Hermansson can be rostered for $7,400 and $15 respectively. As the Main Event, this bout is scheduled for 5 rounds of fight action, however, current odds make it a slight -135 favorite to conclude before reaching the final bell.
Strickland has a career record of 24-3 with 10 wins by KO/TKO, 4 wins by submission, and 10 wins by decision. He is on a 5-fight win streak, and he has 2 wins by KO/TKO as well as 3 wins by decision during that streak. His last defeat came nearly 4 years ago, and he is looking to make it 6 in a row on Saturday. Since joining the UFC in 2014, Strickland has only lost to Santiago Ponzinibbio, Kamaru Usman (current welterweight champ), and Elizeu dos Santos. He will need to defeat an elite contender in Hermansson if he wants to continue his path toward a title fight in the middleweight division.
Hermansson boasts a professional record of 22-6 with 11 wins by KO/TKO, 6 wins by submission, and 5 wins by decision. In his last fight, he defeated Edmen Shahbazyan by unanimous decision in May of last year. He will have a 1.5-inch advantage in reach but will stand equal to Strickland in height on Saturday. He will need to assert every edge possible if he is going to pull off the upset on Saturday. Since joining the UFC, Hermansson has only played the role of underdog twice. In those fights, he is 1-1, with a win over Jacare Souza in 2019 and a loss to Marvin Vettori in 2020.
Despite the significant gap in the betting odds between these two fighters, I believe these two fighters are very close in ability. They are both excellent strikers with solid grappling, and they are separated by one spot in the contender rankings. Hermansson has faced more elite fighters in the middleweight division, however, and his experience against these fighters will aid his cause on Saturday. Meanwhile, Strickland will fight in just his 4th middleweight fight since moving down to welterweight in 2015. This fight figures to be a much tighter contest than the odds indicate.
Ultimately, I will pick Strickland to win this fight, but for DFS purposes I like Hermansson’s potential at a lower price. On DraftKings, both fighters are priced less in respect to the field than on Fanduel making their value on DraftKings better. Hermansson has the better fantasy average on that platform, but Strickland has the slightly better average on Fanduel – once again highlighting how close this matchup appears to be. This fight figures to feature a good deal of striking and scoring over the five-round fight should be good. I would give this fight a fair amount of exposure in multi-entry contests, but I wouldn’t overdo it. Hermansson figures to have a bit more value and I am leaning toward giving him a majority of the exposure between these two fighters.
That’s all for this edition of Fight Study. Good luck with your lineups! For more advice on DFS contests for MMA, click HERE.
