The sporting season we've been waiting all summer for is finally upon us. Not the NFL; it's the Contender Series, where 100 or so UFC hopefuls will battle in hopes of earning a UFC contract.
Week 1 wasn't my best work from a betting perspective, but it's a long season, and we still have nine weeks to go. This week, we have some more competitive matchups on paper, with three of the underdogs priced at less than +200 odds.
Check out the latest Dana White's Contender Series Week 2 odds with my picks and predictions for each bout on the Tuesday, August 11, fight card.
DWCS Season 10 Episode 2 of Contender Series streams tonight on Paramount+ at 7 p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT) from the UFC Apex facility in Las Vegas.
As with all DWCS events, some of the winners – and even some of the losers – could earn an official UFC contract tonight. In fact, the Contender Series has become the UFC's primary feeder system for new talent.
UFC CEO Dana White will be cageside tonight. The UFC boss will determine which fighters have earned a contract with their performances, which also count as official MMA bouts on the fighters' records.
As a reminder, some sportsbooks can be slow to open Contender Series odds and betting markets, though nearly every major sportsbook eventually does post them. And don't forget that you can track your Contender Series bets, and see mine, in the Action App.
Dana White's Contender Series 10 odds as of Tuesday afternoon and via DraftKings. Bet on DWCS Week 2 with our DraftKings promo code.
Dana White's Contender Series Week 1 Odds & Best Bets
Featherweight: Roman Puga (-180) vs. Taner Trembley (+150)
Fighter walkouts: Approx. 7:15 p.m. ET
Tuesday night's opener is the only bout on the card without a returning DWCS competitor, as a pair of featherweights meet in a relatively closely lined matchup.
The underdog Taner Trembley is a bit old for a prospect at 31, but comes into the fight with a pristine 7-0 pro record after going 4-0 as an amateur, finishing all 11 bouts. He was a two-time state champion wrestler in high school who went on to compete at the D2 level before transitioning to MMA in 2022.
Trembley's style is about what you would expect from his background, as a boxer/wrestler who likes to punch his way into the clinch and look for takedowns. He does frequently throw a cheeky lead hook kick at range, but that serves more to confuse his opponents than actually hurt them.
I was impressed by his striking work inside the clinch, using both tight punches and knees to great effect prior to (or instead of) landing takedowns. His last win, which came against a 6-1 opponent at a 160lbs catchweight, was a TKO primarily caused by clinch knees, though he seems to lack true one-shot power, failing to actually drop his opponent despite landing a huge volume of strikes. Of course, that was up a weight class, but he has just one featherweight knockout on his record.
If and when he lands takedowns, Trembley is very active from top position, hunting dominant control while consistently landing damage. He will give up position in order to hunt guillotine chokes — with two of his last three wins via that method — which isn't a great sign against higher-level opposition, but he has the technique and the brute strength to make those work on occasion. Overall, he's a scrappy, aggressive wrestler with limited, but developing, striking skills.
His opponent, Roman Puga, is almost the polar-opposite from an archetype standpoint. Puga has nearly as many pro boxing fights (five) as MMA fights (six), but also has a solid BJJ base. HE won his pro debut via triangle choke, and hit a flying armbar in a grappling match as well.
The tape on Puga showed one of the sharpest jabs I'd seen from an MMA fighter in a long time, and he's an aggressive striker when moving forward with extended combinations. What he can't really do is wrestle, but he relies on his offensive submission game to serve as a deterrent to allow him to work his boxing. He's certainly the cleaner striker in this matchup, and I rate his athleticism as slightly better than Trembley's as well.
I have my concerns about Puga's level of competition, though. His last MMA opponent was 1-1 heading into the fight and was beating Puga before Puga took over in the second round, and none of his boxing opponents had winning records. Trembley is more battle-tested, with a handful of fights against solid competition under the LFA banner.
The fight ultimately comes down to who is able to move forward, as neither man is especially comfortable fighting off the back foot. At the current odds, I trust the more battle-tested Trembley to be able to press the action.
However, Puga could prove too dynamic for him early, making this another situation where I prefer to wait for a live bet on the underdog. If Trembley can wear Puga down early, I'm happy to pay a worse price following Round 1. I'm even happier to get a better price if he can eat Puga's best shots early and make this a scrappier fight in the second and third rounds, where he should be able to take over.
Prediction: Trembley via Decision
Billy's Bet: Trembley Live
Light Heavyweight: Mahamed Aly (-310) vs. Alik Lorenz (+250)
Fighter walkouts: Approx. 7:45 p.m. ET
Both Mahamed Aly (no relation) and Alik Lorenz appeared on the Contender Series in 2025, with both being knocked out in 30 seconds or less.
On the positive side, their opponents (Iwo Baraniewski and Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev, respectively) are now both 3-0 in the UFC with three more first-round finishes, so there's not much shame in those results.
Aly is clearly the A-side here, with tantalizing tools I wrote about prior to his appearance last season. He's a multiple-time BJJ world champion in both gi and no gi competition, with solid wrestling (at least by BJJ standards) and power on the feet — as evidenced by his four knockout wins in MMA. The last part has proven to be a problem, though, as he's fallen in love with his striking to the detriment of his grappling base.
As a much better athlete than the low-level competition he's mostly faced in MMA — with apologies to Jared Gooden, who fought in the UFC at welterweight and faced Aly two weight classes higher — he's able to make that striking work. As we saw against Baraniewski, though, there are levels to this striking game, and Aly's isn't all that high.
Fortunately for him, neither is Alik Lorenz's. A software engineer by trade, Lorenz is a below-average athlete by UFC/DWCS standards, with his best attribute being his size. He's been able to swarm low-level competition with his 77.5" reach, but has been quickly knocked out both times he's fought anyone near UFC level — which includes fellow DWCS loser Darion Abbey, who knocked out Lorenz in 33 seconds.
The two men to quickly knock out Lorenz were also his only opponents listed with longer reach than Lorenz (though many of his early opponents don't have that figure available), which speaks to my point about his best skill being "tall." Aly's reach isn't listed on Tapology, but other sites have it within a half inch of Lorenz's in either direction.
This should be a fairly easy win for the more skillful and athletically gifted Brazilian, but his questionable decision-making makes laying more than three-to-one untenable. Instead, I'll be looking for Aly by submission. He uses his grappling relatively infrequently, but it's a solid price in case he decides to take the path of least resistance this time.
Prediction: Mahamed Aly by whatever he wants
Billy's Bets: Aly Sub +180 (FanDuel)
Lightweight: Cristian Perez (-225) vs. Logan Paxton (+185)
Fighter walkouts: Approx. 8:15 p.m. ET
Mexico's Cristian Perez is another returning fighter to the Contender Series, though unlike Aly and Lorenz, he had a very competitive fight last season with Manoel Sousa, taking him down three times and racking up nearly eight minutes of control time in the first two rounds before gassing out in the third.
That loss has also aged well, with Sousa now 2-0 in the UFC with his opponents going just two for 11 on takedowns.
As with many of this week's fighters, Perez has competed just once since his prior DWCS bout, quickly finishing an opponent with a losing record in a regional fight. As such, my initial breakdown of his skills remains fairly relevant, especially since his fight against Sousa played out roughly as I expected, with Perez holding a grappling edge.
However, this is a completely different fight against Logan "Warverine" Paxton, a former North Dakota State wrestler with a 10-1 pro MMA record. Much like the opening bout of the card, this is a fight pitting a good striker with some BJJ ability against a scrappy wrestler with more heart than skills or athleticism.
The difference here is that Perez is the more proven of the pair, having fought consistently better competition. His only loss before the Contender Series was his third fight in a one-night tournament at the tender age of 22, and he's both more experienced as a pro and younger than Paxton by four years.
Paxton's best path to victory here is likely via wall and stall, as he's noticeably slower at range and also a less complete grappler on the mat. To his credit, he doesn't seem like the type to even consider that as an option, which leaves him with a puncher's chance at best.
I also don't see a considerable cardio edge for the underdog, which rules out live bets, leaving me with a straightforward moneyline bet on the favorite. The best odds are -225 via DraftKings
Prediction: Cristian Perez via Submission
Billy's Bet: Cristian Perez -225 (DraftKings)
Middleweight: Douglas Rodrigues (-410) vs. Trent Miller (+320)
Fighter walkouts: Approx. 8:45 p.m. ET
The penultimate fight of the night fits both of this week's themes, as it features a returning fighter in Trent Miller, who was knocked out in the first round by a now-successful UFC fighter. He is also a big, scrappy grinder, taking on a more dynamic and athletic opponent in Douglas Rodrigues.
Rodrigues is 6-1 with a five-fight winning streak, most recently beating the 7-1 Gabriel Santos via second-round knockout. Outside of getting stuck with his back on the fence for some stretches of that fight, he was extremely impressive, using his length, speed, and striking skills to great effect.
Offensively, he reminds me of a (very) poor man's Anderson Silva, throwing flash strikes on top of a foundation of sound technical boxing. He also frequently fights with his hands down, daring his opponents to open up so he can execute counters. "Blade" is less impressive defensively, as he occasionally overextends and leaves himself open to counters and lacks the borderline magical ability to narrowly avoid strikes that Silva had, which will either limit his ceiling or necessitate a more traditional guard (or both) should he rise through the UFC ranks.
Miller appeared on the same episode as Lorenz last season and was quickly finished by Ryan Gandra, who is now 2-0 in the UFC with two more knockout victories. As I noted last year, he has just one win with an opponent more than a fight above .500, and needed a split decision to get there.
His lone post-DWCS appearance was a second-round win over a 3-3 opponent who was beating him through a large chunk of the fight and dropped him early. Miller has a wrestling edge on paper here, but I don't have much faith in his ability to safely close the distance and utilize it against Rodrigues.
His aggressive forward pressure also sets up Rodrigues' counter-striking perfectly, making this a tough style for Miller to overcome. Miller is fairly durable, as even his first-round knockout loss to Gandra took 32 significant strikes (Gandra finished his next two opponents with 24 combined strikes), so I'm unwilling to bet on Rodrigues to get this done early.
However, the damage should add up over time, especially with Miller getting dropped in his last regional fight, so I'm comfortable betting on Rodrigues to get this done inside the distance at -260 or by knockout at -160, with my official pick being the latter at FanDuel.
Prediction: Rodrigues via knockout
Billy's Bet: Rodrigues via KO -160 (FanDuel)
Welterweight: Namo Fazil (-180) vs. Kaik Brito (+150)
Fighter walkouts: Approx. 9:15 p.m. ET
While Contender Series cards don't officially have "main events" according to the UFC, this one sure seems to. We have an exciting welterweight matchup between Namo Fazil, who recently fought and won on the MVP card on Netflix, taking on Kaik Brito, a two-division Oktagon MMA champion who lost a majority decision to Oban Elliott on the Contender Series in 2023.
Stylistically, Brito has some similarities to Rodrigues, as a somewhat patient counter-striker. He's less accurate (note his 38% accuracy against Elliott) but swings bigger, and also loves flashy spinning techniques, particularly spinning backfists. He threw about a half dozen of them in his title win in Oktagon in February, eventually finishing his opponent with a big one in the third round.
I was impressed by his cardio given how taxing big swings like that are, although he manages that gas tank with effective wrestling followed by next-to-nothing offensively on the ground. He's a fighter who very much switches from "MMA Mode" to "Grappling Mode" once he gets his opponents down, though his grappling transitions are fairly slick.
Fazil also showed solid cardio, at least through six minutes, in his win over Jake Babian on the MVP card earlier this year. One of the best fights of the event, Fazil survived an early blitz from Babian, who rushed him with strikes initially then landed a takedown and was beating Fazil on the ground before "Son of Saladin" surged back late in the round. Early in Round 2, Fazil took over on the feet and then showed his well-rounded skill set by countering a sloppy takedown from the exhausted Babian with an Anaconda choke.
I do worry about Fazil's cardio in extended fights against more patient fighters, though. He's massive for welterweight, and his 2-1 career record in decisions is a bit misleading. Both wins came at middleweight — where he cut less weight — with the loss coming at welterweight, where he currently competes.
Brito is also the sharper overall striker, especially in exchanges, with Fazil throwing somewhat sloppy hooks and uppercuts against the surging Babian in that fight.
I view this fight as fairly binary, with the massive Fazil having a shot at overwhelming his smaller opponent with strength and intensity early, but Brito likely to win more minutes and have bigger moments down the stretch.
In theory, that would make this a fine live betting spot, but I'm not sure we'll have an opportunity at playable lines, so I'm happy to grab the underdog at +150 via FanDuel — though I wouldn't fault anyone who wants to wait for a mid-fight bet, especially if the line continues to move towards Brito. I'm also taking a small stab at Brito's decision line at +700 via DraftKings.
Prediction: Brito via Decision
Billy's Bet: Brito +150 — FanDuel (0.8u) | Brito Decision +700 — DraftKings (0.2u)
