TRENDING NFL news, updates Rays take 3-2 ALCS lead NFL Winners and Losers WNBA Finals Game 2 preview AP Top 25 Story by Story by UFC 333 Early Picks, Luck Ratings, Predictions for Saturday, October 24 Jasmin Frank-Imagn Images. Pictured: Alexander Volkov Billy Ward Mon, October 19, 2026 at 3:45 PM UTC · 4 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Luck Ratings/Early Week Picks column is back for UFC 333 following the conclusion of the Contender Series. I will once again be looking to get ahead of the market on some undervalued fighters early in the week as we prepare for UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi.
The stacked card features title fights in the featherweight and men's bantamweight divisions to conclude the 14-bout offering, with a special early start time of 10:00 am ET on Paramount+.
One of the first "aha!" moments I had in gambling (generally, not just MMA) was starting to think about why markets might be wrong rather than just trying to predict what I think will happen.
At its core, a betting line is a market where we can "buy" or "sell" events. These markets are usually efficient, with the "price" eventually reflecting the true odds of the event.
While this is less true in MMA — where there are far more information asymmetries than in major markets like the NFL or NBA — it's still broadly (and increasingly) the case. Therefore, to beat the markets over the long term, we need to find the spots where they're wrong.
That's the point of this piece. Inspired by our NFL "Luck Rankings," I'll look into spots where variance has favored one fighter more than another, making the line inefficient. The biggest input will be split and/or controversial decisions, with short-notice fights, later overruled fights, fluke injuries, and out-of-weight-class fights also considered.
The focus will be on fights that are reasonably likely to see the scorecards or where one fighter holds most of the finishing upside.
UFC 333 odds as of Monday and via DraftKings except where otherwise noted. Bet on the UFC with our DraftKings promo code .
If not for a split decision against Ciryl Gane that almost certainly should've gone the other way , Alexander Volkov would've fought for a heavyweight title by now. Which also likely means that Tom Aspinall doesn't lose years from his career due to the now-infamous Gane eyepoke, completely changing the landscape of the heavyweight division. We might not even be faced with the prospect of a Josh Hokit title run! Alas, that's not the world we live in.
Instead, Volkov is 6-1 across his last seven and once again fighting down the rankings, as he takes on fellow Russian Rizvan Kuniev. Kuniev is 2-1 in the UFC with his sole loss also a somewhat-controversial split decision, but has faced generally weaker competition than the championship-level fighters Volkov has been paired with.
This line has shifted to Volkov slightly already, and will likely continue to do so given the huge chunk of Tapology predictions on Drago. Let's get in front of any further movement and get our bets down now.
Early posting books opened this fight with Vagaev as a nearly -300 favorite, as the Chechen fighter makes his second UFC appearance against the veteran Jacob Malkoun. The market has quickly corrected to list this as a more competitive showing — but there's still some juice left to be squeezed.
Malkoun is 4-1 in his last five UFC appearances, with his only loss a Disqualification for shots to the back of the head against Cody Brundage. Malkoun was on the verge of a TKO victory in that fight with plenty of legal shots, so it was a bad break that the referee called him for the rarely-enforced back of the head strikes, and an ever worse break that it was ruled a DQ loss as opposed to a No Contest.
Vagaev is 1-0 in the UFC with a very close 29-28 decision over Saygid Izagakhmaev. A majority of fans actually scored that for Izagakhmaev , and at best it was an extremely close fight against an opponent who is now 0-2 in the UFC after previously losing to a 41-year-old Nicolas Dalby. On top of that, Vagaev hasn't finished a fight since 2017, with his last two bouts to end inside the distance being knockout losses.
The other factor is that this fight is at middleweight, where Malkoun has consistently competed. Vagaev is stepping up from welterweight, less than three months removed from his last fight. That's not much time to pack on extra muscle, so I don't love the move from the Russian.
Most importantly, FanDuel is a bit behind the rest of the market in terms of correcting this line, and they'll almost certainly drop Malkoun to less than +150 in the near future, so it's important to get on this bet now.
Source: Sports
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