This article is part of our UFC Picks series.
From top to bottom, Saturday's UFC 211 in Dallas stacks up to be the finest card of 2017 on paper. Two title fights are on the line in the heavyweight and women's strawweight divisions, while the remaining bouts feature title eliminator and top contender matchups. The RotoWire MMA staff is back together again to pick a card where any of the top bouts could take home Fight of the Night honors.Note: A flyweight bout between Henry Cejudo and Sergio Pettis had been scheduled to kick off the pay-per-view card, but was cancelled after Cejudo withdrew due to a hand injury. A middleweight bout between Krzysztof Jotko and David Branch will take their place on the main card, though our staff will still pick the prelim finale between Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier.
Edit: With the Alvarez/Poirier bout getting ruled a no-contest, pick records for UFC 211 will be based on the final four fights of the main card.
If you're looking for a fantasy-specific breakdown of these fights on DraftKings, click here for Jon Litterine's UFC 211 preview.
MATCHUP | WEIGHT CLASS | JON | EVAN | JAKE |
Stipe Miocic (-120) vs. Junior dos Santos (+100) | Heavyweight | Miocic | Miocic | |
Johanna Jedrzejczyk (-155) vs. Jessica Andrade (+135) | Women's Strawweight | Jedrzejczyk | Jedrzejczyk | |
Demian Maia (+105) vs. Jorge Masvidal (-125) | Welterweight | Maia | ||
Frankie Edgar (-120) vs. Yair Rodriguez (+100) | Featherweight | Edgar | Edgar | Edgar |
Dustin Poirier (-130) vs. Eddie Alvarez (+110) | Lightweight | Poirier | Alvarez | Alvarez |
RECORD | 2-2 | 3-1 | 3-1 | |
OVERALL (since UFC 200) | 39-30 | 37-32 | 42-27 |
MATCHUP | WEIGHT CLASS | RICHARD | CHRIS | JASON |
Stipe Miocic (-120) vs. Junior dos Santos (+100) | Heavyweight | Miocic | Miocic | |
Johanna Jedrzejczyk (-155) vs. Jessica Andrade (+135) | Women's Strawweight | Jedrzejczyk | Jedrzejczyk | |
Demian Maia (+105) vs. Jorge Masvidal (-125) | Welterweight | Maia | Maia | |
Frankie Edgar (-120) vs. Yair Rodriguez (+100) | Featherweight | Edgar | Edgar | |
Dustin Poirier (-130) vs. Eddie Alvarez (+110) | Lightweight | Poirier | Poirier | Poirier |
RECORD | 4-0 | 2-2 | 2-2 | |
OVERALL (since UFC 200) | 27-13 | 5-4 | 5-4 |
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/contributor on the RotoWire MMA Podcast, RotoWire Fantasy Football Podcast and RotoWire DFS Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @JakeSki52.
Richard Mann: 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.
Chris Olson: Contributor at RotoWire for DFS Baseball, as well as MMA fight recaps. Follow him on Twitter at @RealChrisOlson.
Jason Rubin: Host of TYT Sports on YouTube and writer of our Handicapping The NBA column on RotoWire. Follow him on Twitter at @jasonrubin91.
Disagree with these picks? Let your opinion be heard in the comments!