UFC 333 Fan Parlay: the crowd's five picks pay 10.59x

Sixty-four of the 80 people who have picked Alexander Volkov vs Rizvan Kuniev on our pick'em board took Volkov. That is 80 percent of the room. The sportsbooks, with their margin stripped out, give him 52 percent. No bout on UFC 333 has a wider gap between the people voting and the people setting prices, and it is a three-round heavyweight fight in the middle of the main card, not one of the two title fights above it.

The title fights have their own story. The fans back both champions. 172 of 275 took Alexander Volkanovski over Movsar Evloev, and 95 of 149 took Petr Yan over Merab Dvalishvili. The books have the featherweight title at 50.4 percent for Volkanovski, which is about as close to a coin flip as a five-round main event gets, and Yan at 58 percent.

The Fan Parlay is built from those picks, not mine. For every bout we take the side the fans back by a clear majority, rank the bouts from most united to least, and stack them at the consensus line until the ticket reaches 10x. Then it stops. Nobody swaps a leg for one they like better.

It is a record of what the fans think, priced by the books. It is not betting advice, and it is for readers 18 and over.

The ticket

Five legs made it, and together they pay 10.59x, or +959 in American odds. A $100 ticket would return $1,059 if every leg lands. The books, multiplying their own numbers, give all five about a 7.5 percent chance. Odds are the consensus line as of Friday morning, October 23.

The order is the order the fans set. A thin sample is pulled toward 50-50 before it is ranked, which is why Yan, with the second-biggest vote count on the card, still lands last: 64 percent of a big room is less united than 73 percent of a small one.

Those five bouts drew 352 votes, and 258 of them are on the side that made the ticket. The first four legs take it to 6.44x. The next pick in the fans' order was Nurullo Aliev, 35 of 50, at -104, and he would have taken the ticket to about 12.6x, past the 12.5x ceiling. So he was skipped, and Yan's -155 finished it at 10.59x.

Volkov is where the fans and the books are furthest apart

Photo: Sexto Round / CC BY 3.0

Volkov (40-11) is No. 2 at heavyweight and has won his last two on the scorecards: a split decision over Jailton Almeida at UFC 321 in October 2025 and a unanimous one over Waldo Cortes Acosta at UFC 328 in May. Before that he lost a split decision to Ciryl Gane. Kuniev (15-3-1) is No. 7 and has won two straight of his own, a unanimous decision over the same Almeida in February and a third-round knockout of Tyrell Fortune in July. His last loss was a split decision to Curtis Blaydes in June 2025.

So both men beat Almeida this past year, and Kuniev did it more convincingly. That may be part of why the market has been moving his way. The first consensus line we recorded, on October 14, had Volkov at -130 and Kuniev at +110. It is -120 against -101 now, which is a near pick'em. The fans went the other direction, hard. Twenty-eight points separate the fan share from the books' number on the same side, and it is the leg that nearly doubles the price of the ticket, at 1.83x on its own.

If you were looking for the one bout that decides whether this slip is a story on Sunday, it is this one, fourth from the top of the main card.

The strongest leg barely moves the price

Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev (10-0) is the fans' most united pick on the card, 48 of 55, and it is not hard to see why. His last three fights all ended in the first round: a submission of Rafael Cerqueira in 33 seconds in November 2025, a submission of Brendson Ribeiro at 2:52 in April, and a knockout of Julius Walker eight seconds in, in June.

Nikita Krylov (31-12) is No. 15 at light heavyweight and was knocked out by Robert Whittaker in the third round at UFC 329 in July. The line has gone from -450 on October 14 to -548 now, and the books' 81 percent sits a few points under the fans' 87. At -548 it adds only 1.18x to the ticket. It is the safest-looking leg and the least important one to the price.

The rest of the slip

Abus Magomedov (29-7-1) is No. 12 at middleweight, and 32 of 42 fans back him over the unranked Cam Rowston (15-3). That is 76 percent against the books' 53, a 23-point gap. The record does not make Rowston an easy out. He has won three straight, two by knockout (Andre Petroski in the first round in September 2025, Cody Brundage in the second at UFC 325 in January) and the last by unanimous decision over Robert Bryczek in May. Magomedov was submitted by Joe Pyfer at UFC 320 a year ago, then submitted Michal Oleksiejczuk in 3:25 in June. This is the one leg where the market has moved toward the fans: Magomedov opened at -115 and is -125.

Abubakar Vagaev (25-4) against Jacob Malkoun (10-3) runs the other way. The fans are 19 of 26 on Vagaev, but the books have been drifting toward Malkoun all week, from -185 when the line opened on October 17 to -154 now. Vagaev's last fight was a unanimous decision over Saygid Izagakhmaev in July, after two five-round decisions in ACA. Malkoun has won three straight, the last two on the cards this year against Torrez Finney and Gerald Meerschaert. A 73 percent fan lean against a 58 percent price, on a line that keeps shortening.

Yan is the last leg and the quietest market on the card. He took the bantamweight title from Dvalishvili by unanimous decision at UFC 323 in December 2025, and the trilogy line has not moved since we first recorded it on August 16: -157 against +130 then, -155 against +129 now. The fans' 64 percent is six points above the books' 58, the smallest gap on the ticket.

Where the fans part ways with the books

The ticket stopped at 10.59x, so several bouts with a fan majority never made it on. Four of them are majorities for the underdog:

• Aliev, 35 of 50 (70 percent), at -104 against Grant Dawson. The books give him 49. Aliev is 12-0 with three straight unanimous decisions, over Joe Solecki, Shem Rock and Mike Davis. Dawson (24-3-1) submitted Mateusz Rębecki at UFC 328 in May after being knocked out by Manuel Torres in December.
• Losene Keita, 23 of 39 (59 percent), at +119 against Aaron Pico. The books give him 44, and the line has moved from a -110 pick'em to -143 for Pico, who beat Patricio Pitbull by unanimous decision at UFC 327 in April.
• Bolaji Oki, 9 of 15, at -101 against Daniel Santos. Books 48.
• Ramazan Temirov, 41 of 73 (56 percent), at -107 against Lone'er Kavanagh. Books 49.

Volkanovski is off the ticket only because it was already full. His 62.5 percent fan share against a 50.4 percent price is a 12-point gap on a bout the market cannot separate.

Three bouts go the other way, with the books surer than the fans: Asaf Chopurov is at 82 percent with the books and 60 with the fans (15 of 25), Azamat Murzakanov at 65 against 56 (28 of 50), and Iasmin Lucindo at 75 against 57 (8 of 14).

Where the fans split

Kody Steele vs Noah Gugnon is a dead heat, 8 votes each, so it has no fan side at all. Steele is the -155 favorite. Behind it, three early prelims carry 16 votes or fewer, and Kavanagh vs Temirov, at 32 to 41, is the closest of the bouts with a real sample. One vote moves the tie, and a handful can flip the thin ones.

The math

• Combined price: 10.59x (+959)
• The books' chance that all five land: about 7.5 percent
• The same five legs at the fans' own shares: about 24.8 percent
• Fan picks behind the five legs: 258 of the 352 votes cast on those bouts

Five bouts on one card are not five independent coin flips. Results on the same night tend to move together, so treat both percentages as estimates rather than hard numbers.

The ticket keeps moving with the votes until the first bell at 10 a.m. ET on Saturday, then freezes and settles on the event page leg by leg. The main card follows at 2 p.m. ET. If you think the room is too sure about Volkov, the fix is simple: make your own picks. Fan picks, not betting advice, 18+.