Saturday, fight night gets cooking with UFC MMA once again. Looking past raw FPTS and simple favorite/underdog status, there are several useful tournament signals in this slate. The biggest theme is that projection rank and tournament-separation rank diverge meaningfully in a few spots, which is exactly where I’d focus discussion for a sharp DFS community.
1. Steveson isn’t merely the top projection — his gap is the story
Gable Steveson is 106.9 projected at 18.5% RST, but his simulation profile is much stronger than that surface number suggests:
| Fighter | FPTS | RST% | P95 | P99 | Solver-Adjusted Ceiling Projection (SACP) | MME Sep Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gable Steveson | 106.9 | 18.5% | 197.0 | 226.5 | 223.8 | 1 |
| Ryan Gandra | 97.6 | 17.9% | 181.0 | 206.1 | 205.2 | 2 |
| Arman Tsarukyan | 96.9 | 19.6% | 172.5 | 198.1 | 195.2 | 4 |
| Joshua Van | 96.0 | 24.2% | 166.2 | 190.1 | 187.5 | 8 |
Steveson has the slate’s highest projection, but more importantly his advantage expands rather than contracts as we move toward P95/P99.
His P99 is roughly 29 points higher than his median, and the solver gives him both #1 SACP and #1 MME Separation.
Sharp-community tidbit: Steveson doesn’t profile like ordinary expensive chalk where you’re paying for median safety. You’re paying for the slate’s most extreme simulated outcome. That’s a much harder archetype to fade purely because he’s popular.
2. Ryan Gandra may be the most interesting combination of ceiling + ownership
This is one of my favorite less-obvious results.
Gandra is only the #3 raw projection, but becomes:
#2 SACP → #2 Tail Leverage → #2 MME Separation
at just 17.9% RST.
His simulated distribution:
117 P50 → 167 P90 → 181 P95 → 206 P99
That is an unusually large right-tail expansion.
Even more interesting, his modeled 91.7% finish equity helps explain why the distribution becomes so explosive.
The DFS field may see a 97.6 projection at $21. The solver sees someone capable of challenging Steveson’s tournament-winning outcomes without carrying Steveson’s salary.
Edge: Gandra is much closer to Steveson in slate-winning ceiling than their surface projections imply.
3. Edmen Shahbazyan is the biggest upward mover
This one jumps off the solver.
Edmen Shahbazyan
Raw projection: 84.6 — 12th on slate-ish range
RST: 16.3%
P95: 151.2
P99: 172.5
XVO: 81.3
SACP: 171.1 — #6
Tail Leverage: #5
MME Separation: #5
He’s priced at only $15.
This is precisely the type of fighter who can disappear in projection-sorted player pools but become extremely important once you’re ranking probability-weighted ceiling access against ownership and salary.
He also has 73.7% modeled finish equity.
Sharp tidbit: Shahbazyan’s projection rank substantially understates his tournament rank. He’s arguably the clearest right-tail riser on the slate.
4. Joshua Van has the opposite phenomenon
Van looks fantastic on the surface:
96 projection / $18 / 24.2% RST
And he’s still a strong play: #4 SACP.
But ownership changes the tournament interpretation.
He falls to:
#8 Tail Leverage
#8 MME Separation
That’s significant because fighters such as Shahbazyan (#5), Baraniewski (#6) and Joo Sang Yoo (#7) leapfrog him once separation is incorporated.
This isn’t saying Van has a bad ceiling.
It’s saying the field is already purchasing more of that ceiling.
For SE/small-field he remains structurally attractive. For larger-field MME, the solver provides several cleaner ways to attack similar upside at reduced ownership.
5. Iwo Baraniewski is quietly one of the slate’s cleanest salary/ownership pieces
Iwo isn’t spectacular in any obvious category:
93.9 projection
$17 salary
16.6% RST
143 P95
163 P99
But he ranks:
#6 Tail Leverage
#6 MME Separation
And his 78.9 XVO is excellent.
That’s the type of fighter who can be more valuable to lineup construction than his raw ranking suggests.
He’s not being asked to beat Steveson’s 220-point extreme outcome. He’s giving you relatively inexpensive access to a strong distribution while avoiding the ownership tax on comparable fighters.
That makes him particularly interesting as a secondary piece around expensive ceiling anchors.
6. Casey O’Neill is another subtle riser
O’Neill projects only 88.7, yet reaches:
P90 131.8 / P95 142.9 / P99 161.9
and finishes #7 SACP.
At $16 and 17.9% RST, she’s not some 3%-owned lottery ticket. The interesting feature is that the solver sees more ceiling than the raw projection communicates.
She belongs in the same general discussion as Shahbazyan and Iwo: fighters whose DFS value improves as we move from median analysis toward tournament distributions.
7. The Tuivasa result is bizarre — but instructive
Tai Tuivasa has only:
26.1 projection
$8 salary
2.4% ownership
His actual ceiling remains weak relative to the favorites:
P95 46.2
P99 54.6
Yet his ownership is so microscopic that he rises to #13 Tail Leverage despite being #23 SACP.
That’s an important distinction.
Low ownership can create leverage without creating sufficient ceiling.
I’d describe Tuivasa as mathematically leveraged but not intrinsically high-ceiling. That’s different from Shahbazyan/Gandra, where leverage and actual right-tail production coexist.
That distinction is valuable for MME players who sometimes overvalue “2% owned.”
8. The slate appears to have three tournament archetypes
Rather than simply publishing a Top 10, I’d frame the slate this way:
Raw ceiling monsters: Steveson → Gandra → Tsarukyan. These are the fighters most capable of creating scores that become difficult to overcome.
Right-tail risers: Shahbazyan → Baraniewski → O’Neill. Their tournament usefulness is greater than their median/raw projection ranking suggests.
Good plays whose ownership absorbs some edge: Van is the clearest example. Excellent projection and ceiling, but the 24.2% RST is the slate’s highest, causing his separation ranking to fall substantially.
The single most interesting numerical relationship to me is Gandra vs. Van. They’re separated by only 1.6 projected points, but Gandra carries lower RST and reaches approximately 206 at P99 versus 190 for Van. Consequently Gandra ranks #2 in MME Separation versus #8 for Van.
That is exactly the type of difference that doesn’t show up when a sharp player simply sorts the sheet by projection.
And Shahbazyan is probably the best talking-point play: an $15 fighter with an 84.6 surface projection who transforms into #6 SACP, #5 Tail Leverage and #5 MME Separation. That’s the kind of solver finding I would want the DFS community to understand rather than simply handing them a list of “best plays.”
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