UFC 310 DFS Picks & Lineups: Pantoja vs. Asakura Cheat Sheet, 12/7

UFC 310: Pantoja vs. Asakura takes place this Saturday live from The T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas Nevada.  The card kicks off with the Early Prelims at 6:00PM EST on ESPN+, followed by the Prelims at 8:00PM EST on ESPN2/FX/+, and finally the Main Card at 10:00PM on ESPN+ PPV.

The Main Event features the Flyweight Champion, Alexandre Pantoja taking on former Rizin Bantamweight Champion Kai Asakura in a fight that should be the front runner for the fight of the night. The Co-Main event is between two undefeated fighters as Ian Garry takes on Shavkat Rakhmonov.

Check out all the latest UFC 310 DFS picks and lineups, plus matchup breakdowns for the entire fight card below and as always feel free to reach out to me in Discord or on X/Twitter at @MikeIannoneDFS. 

Now let's look at the UFC 310 cheat sheet and some plays for Saturday's event. Good luck with your UFC 310 DFS picks and lineups!

UFC 310 DFS Picks & Lineups: Pantoja vs. Asakura Cheat Sheet

Main Event UFC DFS Picks

A great main event to end the year, even if it is an unexpected one. Pantoja has fought everyone there is to fight in the Flyweight division, so the UFC is giving him Kai Asakura who comes over from Rizin making his debut. Pantoja is going to need to wrestle as Kai has a ton of power, but the biggest question here is how Kai will look on the scales. Kai was the 135lb champ in Rizin and hasn't fought at 125lbs in years, so if he is able to make weight, he should be the much bigger fighter. Pantoja's path to victory is getting the fight on the ground as Asakura has shown in multiple fights he struggles with his ground game. I think Pantoja gets the fight down and gets the sub, but Kai is live for a knockout, especially early on. I'm going to be playing Pantoja in about 70% of my lineups and Kai in 20%.

Expensive UFC DFS Picks

Hooper likely wins this fight and wins it in dominant fashion. Hooper's best chance for a high score on DK is a late second or first round finish, and unlike a lot of BJJ blackbelts, he loves to rain down strikes when he gets his opponent down on the ground so he can score huge. Guida is notoriously durable but at his age the chin can go at any time.

This should be a close fight, but Shavkat has five rounds to work with. Both of these fighters are undefeated, but Shavkat has more to offer in terms of skillset. If this fight gets to the ground, he's probably the one getting it there and that could be the difference. I expect a close fight with the winner landing around 150 significant strikes so in a decision a 90pt floor is what I'm expecting. 

Mitchell has arguably the lowest fight iq on the roster, but he is talented to the point where he was lined as a favorite vs. Ilia Topuria when they were coming up the ranks. Gracie is about as one dimensional as it gets, and if Bryce does the smart thing and just keeps it a striking battle he wins easily, similar to what we saw between Bo Nickal and Paul Craig. I don't think Bryce is going to keep it standing though and wouldn't be surprised to see either of these fighters get a submission as Bryce looks to take some chances and make a statement.

Both of these fighters have questionable durability, but Smith's is worse. Reyes is the longer fighter and his jab should be there all night for him. If he can't get the finish, he probably doesn't score well enough to get on the optimal lineup since he doesn't wrestle, and he probably won't eclipse 90 significant strikes.

This is such a tough pick to make since Kennedy is one of the least talented fighters on the card, but he is taking on a fighter who has been KO'd twice by fighters who don't have much power. This is Kennedy's second fight at heavyweight so hopefully he is getting used to the size. At his best he can land 50+ significant strikes in a round, at his worst he loses to an over the hill OSP. He likely wins, he probably scores well, but he has no business being lined -550.

Mid-Range UFC DFS Picks

I'm considering $8900 the mid-range this week only because we have multiple fighters in the $9400+ range. Evolev is going to be hunting for a finish after being deemed a boring fighter, and Sterling has been chinny at times. At his best he should be able to secure takedowns, but Sterling is a crafty grappler himself, so it'll be interesting to see the scrambles. He has a high ceiling, but this should be a close fight.

This is the fight of the night that no one is getting excited for. Both of these guys like to just trade punches and see who survives, and at both of their salaries the winner probably gets on the optimal lineup. Landwehr is more well-rounded, but less technical so if this does stay at range and is purely kickboxing, he may struggle, and I actually expect him too early on. If he gets into Round 2 this fight is his for the taking and he should dominate it the later, it goes.

Chiesa is probably going to get some love because of line value so it is hard to skip over him. He is a great hammer, but he normally folds up when he faces adversity. He isn't someone I have a lot of faith in, but if he wins, he is going to wrestle and almost exclusively wrestle for position and never throw strikes. If it stays standing, he is in trouble but in a decision win I wouldn't be surprised to see 5+ takedowns and 10 minutes of control time.

This is another fight that should be exciting. Durden is going to try to wrestle (he even said he was winning by second round submission on a podcast, so we know for a fact he is looking for it) so Van needs to keep this fight upright. Van is one of the few fighters who can land 50+ significant strikes in a round and not gas out. He probably losses the first round but the later the fight goes we have seen that Van can keep up a pace.

Both of these guys are talented strikers, but I personally line this fight closer to 50/50 so I don't want to pay $8700 for the favorite. Battle has recently shown he can wrestle a little bit so if he can keep that up it'll help his upside, but Randy Brown is his first real test towards the top 20 in the UFC.

Themba is another fighter taking a huge step up in competition. Luque looked AWFUL in his last outing against Buckley, and he was supposed to be a -600 favorite getting Nick Diaz in his return to the octagon, so the UFC was looking to get him a win. Instead, he gets an up-and-coming fighter like Gorimbo who is only getting better fight to fight and is going to be the quicker striker and more powerful grappler. Luque is two fights removed from a main event win against RDA, so he still has the ability in him somewhere.

I don't want to leave out someone from this fight but I absolutely hate it from a DraftKings perspective. I think Weidman is good enough to land his jab and land a few takedowns or clinch up against the cage but he doesn't do enough to score great on DraftKings and he isn't finishing Anders. I actually think if someone in this fight is getting a finish it'll be Anders, but it'll likely come late when Weidman is tired so even in that case, I don't think he scores great.

Pay-Down UFC DFS Picks

The former champ is making a run up the 145 lb. division, but he has a tough test in front of him with a powerful wrestler like Evloev. If Sterling can get on Evloev's back he probably stays there the entire round, but it'll be a tough task for him to do. He has as high of upside as any underdog on the card and he should come in at a reasonable ownership of around 20% so combining those two things he becomes one of my favorite dogs.

Luque has been in there with former champions and got the best of them so at his best he wins this fight, but this could be a passing of the torch fight. At his odds and price, he is going to be higher owned than Sterling, but I think both of them have around the same odds to win.

Garry has a higher floor than Sterling and Luque so if you are playing cash games prioritize him since this fight probably gets 3+ rounds and could go 5. He is one dimensional and we haven't seen anyone be able to dominate Shavkat on the feet so it should be closely contested. At 7k any win probably scores him enough to hit the optimal lineup, he just doesn't win at as high of a rate as the other two above him.

This should be a good fight, but we have seen Brown's chin cracked recently and we haven't seen Battle struggle when in striking battles. Battle can throw a ton of volume so Brown needs to be ready to bite down on the mouthpiece and return fire, but without any wrestling upside, a decision win may not even score 80+.

Smith is a dog and is going to keep marching forward the entire fight if Reyes can't KO him so this could be a war. The later the fight goes Smith should be able to catch up to Reyes but early on Reyes is going to be too slick and quick for him.

We've seen this fight before, and it should be pretty similar. Gane won the first time they matched up and scored only 85pts in a five-round fight. Unless Volkov is dusting off his wrestling shoes I expect this fight to be a low scoring, low volume fight.

Brzeski was just KO'd by Mick Parkin and Waldo Cortes-Acosta, so it doesn't get much lower than that. I don't see him winning this fight but if Kennedy comes out sluggish maybe he can out volume him.

Gracie is always going to be live for a submission but that is really all he does. If Mitchell wants to keep it standing the fight won't be close, and Kron isn't a good wrestler so he'll be looking to pull guard, and we have seen in MMA that these other BJJ guys are good enough that when they get top control and can throw strikes, they can survive on the ground.

UFC DFS Optimizer: Sample UFC 310 Lineup

MMA DFS Strategy: Live Dogs

• Asakura, Garry, Choi, Luque, Sterling

Pantoja vs. Asakura UFC 310 Picks & Stats