This article is part of our UFC Picks series.
To celebrate the legalization of mixed martial arts in the state of New York, the UFC took a "go big or go home" mentality for the promotion's debut at the Madison Square Garden. Three title fights are featured on the pay-per-view portion of the card, with Conor McGregor, arguably the UFC's biggest star, wrapping up the event by attempting to earn his second championship belt. Check out how the RotoWire MMA Staff sees the eight biggest fights playing out Saturday night.Note: The welterweight bout between Kelvin Gastelum and Donald Cerrone has been removed from the card after Gastelum failed to make weight.
If you're looking for a fantasy-specific breakdown of these fights on DraftKings, click here for Jon Litterine's UFC 205 preview.
MATCHUP | WEIGHT CLASS | JON | EVAN | JAKE | RICHARD |
Eddie Alvarez (+135) vs. Conor McGregor (-155) | Lightweight | McGregor | McGregor | ||
Tyron Woodley (+165) vs. Stephen Thompson (-190) | Welterweight | ||||
Joanna Jedrzejczyk (-400) vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz (+325) | Strawweight | Jedrzejczyk | Jedrzejczyk | Jedrzejczyk | Jedrzejczyk |
Chris Weidman (-170) vs. Yoel Romero (+150) | Middleweight | Romero | |||
Miesha Tate (-185) vs. Raquel Pennington (+160) | Bantamweight | ||||
Frankie Edgar (-350) vs. Jeremy Stephens (+290) | Featherweight | Edgar | Edgar | Edgar | Edgar |
Khabib Nurmagomedov (-290) vs. Michael Johnson (+210) | Lightweight | Khabib | Khabib | Khabib | Khabib |
RECORD | 3-4 | 3-4 | 5-2 | 4-3 | |
OVERALL (since UFC 200) | 24-17 | 20-21 | 25-16 | 8-4 |
THE PLAYERS
Jon Litterine: RotoWire lead MMA beat writer and scribe for our weekly DrafKings preview. Lead analyst on the RotoWire MMA Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @JonLitterine.
Evan Dahl: Pens our bi-weekly MMA Barometer column. Follow him on Twitter at @RealEvanDahl.
Jake Letarski: MMA and NCAA Hoops Senior Editor. Sirius XM contributor. Host of the RotoWire MMA Podcast, RotoWire Fantasy Football Podcast and RotoWire DFS Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @JakeSki52.
Richard Mann: New to the RotoWire MMA staff, Richard is a stats-based analyst that has appeared on ESPN MMA via Fightmetric. He handles event recaps in our Fight Stat Wrap column, and maintains his own, data-driven MMA blog at StrikescoreMMA.com. Follow him on Twitter at @RichardAMann
Strongly disagree with any of our picks? Let us know in the comments!