The UFC is back with another exciting pay-per-view card, this one live from London as the 2024 Olympics take place across the English Channel. Tonight’s card will get underway very late this evening, giving us plenty of time to enjoy the Olympics before changing the channel. Without further ado, let’s dive into our top UFC DFS picks for UFC 304: Edwards vs. Muhammad 2.
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UFC 304 DFS Picks: Expert Plays & Predictions for Edwards vs. Muhammad 2
Fight Preview: Curtis Blaydes & Tom Aspinall
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Let’s talk about the co-main event, which is another rematch between Tom Aspinall and Curtis Blaydes. We saw these two fight nearly two years ago with Blaydes winning after Aspinall blew his knee out, but I’m picking him to win this one. I believe the most likely outcome is that Aspinall knocks Blaydes out in the first or second round.
Aspinall is currently the best heavyweight we have in the UFC, but the issue is the betting line is absurd. Before their last fight, Aspinall was a very slight favorite with the line close to a pick’em. Now he’s a -420 moneyline favorite.
Since these fighters’ last bout, it was a long layoff for Aspinall due to injury followed by wins over Marcin Tybura and Sergei Pavlovich. In contrast, since beating Aspinall, Blaydes lost to Sergei Pavlovich before bouncing back with a win over Jailton Almeida at UFC 299 in March.
I don’t think the stock of these two fighters has changed all that significantly since their first fight, so, while I do favor Aspinall to win, I think this fight should be closer to be like Aspinall somewhere between -150 and -180. But I am picking Aspen to win, I’m going to have more exposure to him in DFS — he’s actually currently the most rostered fighter I have, with him featuring in nearly half of my lineups.
With that said, I am a little bit overweight to Curtis Blaydes as well. He is only projected for about 20% ownership, so I love this fight for DFS purposes. I’m going to bet Curtis Blaydes on the moneyline at +320 as well just because I think the line is too wide.
There is one real unanswered question with Tom Aspinall, and that is the state of his cardio. Most of his fights in the UFC have ended very very early — if you look through his career history, he has only had one fight get outside of the first round, and he looked completely gassed in the second round against Andre Arlovski. I do think Blaydes probably wins the fight if it gets past the first round into the later stages of the second round.
Fight Preview: Molly McCann vs. Bruna Brasil
Let’s turn to the early card for another fighter that I’m overweight on relative to the field. There are a few fights early on the card where I like high-price fighters, and one of them is Molly McCann in a bout against Bruna Brasil. McCann is one of my top UFC DFS picks today.
Keep in mind this card is taking place in England, and I do think that the UFC is trying to market the local Fighters by giving a lot of them very easy wins, namely Molly McCann
against Bruna Brasil. We’ve seen what the UFC does with McCann in England — they give her very favorable matchups in the hopes that she wins impressively and builds up her fan base.
When they give McCann more difficult matchups, she generally doesn’t look very good. We saw her get destroyed by Erin Blanchfield, and, honestly, she probably should have been able to beat Julija Stoliarenko, but she looked pretty crappy in that fight.
But the last time McCann fought in England, she put on great performances, scoring knockout wins over Hannah Goldy and Luana Carolina, including one of the best highlight knockouts you’ve ever seen from a women’s MMA fighter, and I think we could see something similar in this matchup.
The fight against Carolina points to a tendency for McCann to keep hunting for a finish deep into the fight when she is in her home country, so I believe
she’ll be looking to take Brasil’s head off from the get-go.
Considering McCann has advantages everywhere, both with a lot more strike output and better wrestling, she could win this fight however
she wants. I do think she ultimately ends up getting a decision.
Importantly, she is not all that popular: we only have Molly McCann projected for 19% ownership. There are some pay up options I like getting to to differentiate some of my lineups and Molly McCann is one of them. I currently have her in 38% of my lineups, which is way overweight to the field that’s only rostering her in the teens right now.
UFC DFS Picks: Full Card Breakdown
