Diehard UFC fans in North America either better set their alarms or pull an all-nighter on Saturday, because UFC Shenzhen (aka UFC Fight Night: Andrade vs Zhang) will be starting at an odd time. The event, being broadcast from China, starts at 3:00 am Saturday morning on the east coast (if you need your beauty sleep, the main card kicks off at 6:00 am Eastern, so the main event will probably start around 7:30-8:00).
The UFC is making a big effort to crack the lucrative Chinese market, even going so far as opening a state-of-the-art, world’s largest MMA training and development center in Shanghai. And their cake could get iced this Saturday if China’s Weili Zhang is able to capture UFC gold, which would make her the first Asian champ in UFC history. Surely that would be a big boost to their globalization efforts.
So, are we taking Zhang on our DraftKings team? Read on.
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Weili Zhang – $7,500
Indeed we are taking Magnum here. At $7,500 she’s very good value, and has a decent shot at beating Andrade. In addition to her homecourt advantage, she’ll have the size advantage on the champ. Zhang is an excellent striker, and Andrade gets hit almost as much as she dishes it out. While it would still be a bit of an upset if Zhang grabs the belt here, it’s a good play at this price.
Derrick Krantz – $8,000
Another good value pick here with Derrick “D-Rock” Krantz. He’s probably the underdog due to dropping his UFC debut, but that was to top talent Vicente Luque. His opponent this Saturday, Kenan Song, is no Luque. We also like Krantz on the betting end of things, which you can read about right here.
Khadis Ibragimov – $9,300
Khadis Ibragimov is costly here, especially for a debuting UFC fighter, but he should be worth it. He already has high-level experience in his native Russia, including being a champion in M-1 (as pictured above). His exceptional takedown and ground game should be too much for the also debuting Da Un Jung. Read more about Ibragimov right here.
Damir Ismagulov – $9,000
Another expensive pick, but we’re counting on Ismagulov to be able to take down his opponent, Thiago Moises, at will and grind out a win. We’re also recommending betting on him, as you can read here.
Anthony Hernandez – $8,800
Don’t let the “Fluffy” nickname fool you – Anthony Hernandez isn’t one to be played with. He has six finishes (two KOs, four submissions) in his young career (7-1 thus far) and promises that his first career loss, in his octagon debut this past February, has served as a wake up call. He should be too much for the debuting Jun Yong Park.
Mark De La Rosa – $7,100
Running out of money here, so we’ll take a flyer on Mark De La Rosa. In our eyes his fight with Kai Kara-France should be a fairly close one, making MDLR at $7,100 a good value buy.
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New users ALSO get a FREE shot at ONE MILLION DOLLARS with your first deposit! Just enter promo code SGP!
