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UFC Vegas 121 · Prelims · Women's strawweight
Jauregui vs Demopoulos: the cheapest way to own two years off
Kalshi has Vanessa Demopoulos at 14¢ and has not moved her a full cent in 44 hours. The case for the cheap side is not that she wins. It is that the favourite is coming back from a reconstructed knee, and that this market has overpaid for her twice already.
ExclusiveTuna Lead writer, UFC, MMA and boxing · See profile
Our position
Demopoulos at 14¢, with a sell order at 20¢.
- Entry
- 14¢
- Sell order
- 20¢
- If it fills
- +27.2%
- Most it can lose
- $99.90
- Scheduled
- 3 rounds
- Card
- Prelims
The short version
- Kalshi has Demopoulos at 14¢ and Jauregui at 87¢, read Mon, Sep 21, 2026
- Jauregui has not fought in 2 years and 12 days, after a torn anterior cruciate ligament and surgery
- Both of Jauregui’s UFC losses came when she was priced at −400 or shorter, and both were first-round finishes
- Demopoulos has never been knocked out in nineteen professional fights; her only finish loss is one armbar
- The cheap side holds 16,572 in open interest against 2,452 on the favourite, and has not moved a full cent in 44 hours
Our plan on this fight
$100.00 on YES Vanessa Demopoulos at 14¢. Sized so the contracts and the entry fee both fit inside the stake, that is 673 contracts for $99.90 all in, and $99.90 is the most the position can lose. A sell order rests at 20¢. If it fills, the position is closed and that is the whole trade. If it never trades there, the position rides to settlement and takes whatever that brings. The rule is written down before the bell so it cannot be rewritten afterwards.
Live Kalshi quote for the Demopoulos contract loads here.
What 20¢ is actually worth after both fees
The contract moves 42.9 per cent. The trade nets 27.2 per cent.
The gap between those two numbers is the point. At a 14¢ entry Kalshi’s fee is about six per cent of what you put in, and it is charged again on the way out. A cheap contract is not a cheap position. Held to settlement instead, a winning ticket returns $573.10 on $99.90 at risk, and a losing one returns nothing at all. Both outcomes are on the ledger either way.
This position is on the ledger as 2026-09-26-26sep26demjau-demopoulos-exclusive-tuna and is graded after the fight whichever way it goes. Open the ledger
Desk positions on this game
Graded on Kalshi settlement-
YES Demopoulos at 14¢, sell order at 20¢. Posted Sep 21, 2026, 4:30 PM PT.
Loss −$99.90 on a $100 stake, fees in. Graded Sep 29, 2:43 PM PT, after Kalshi settled.
Every position was posted before the first bell. Each is graded on Kalshi's own trade history, fees included. A tail is a second desk writer taking the same contract after the first plan went up; it grades on its own entry. All desk records
The trade is not that Demopoulos wins
Start with what the cheap side is actually worth, because the honest version of this is not flattering. Vanessa Demopoulos is 11-8-0, she turns 38 four days before the fight, she has lost three in a row, and she has not fought since June of last year. At roughly +575 she is at the longest price of her career. Her three wins as an underdog came at +200, +300 and +320, and all three were decisions. Nothing in that record says she beats a heavy favourite.
So do not buy the ticket because you think she wins. Buy it because the expensive side has a specific, dateable problem, and this is the only instrument on the board that pays when that problem shows up.
Two years, and a reconstructed knee
Yazmin Jauregui last competed on 14 September 2024. That is 2 years and 12 days away from the cage. The reason is not a mystery and it is not a rumour: two Mexican outlets reported this summer that she tore her anterior cruciate ligament after that fight and needed surgery, and a booking against Dione Barbosa in March of last year was scrapped. She has said the recovery was complicated and that she is ready now. She may well be. Fighters come back from that operation and win.
The question is not whether she recovers. It is whether a market that prices her at 87¢ has taken anything off for it. 87¢ is an 87 per cent chance. That is the number you would put on a healthy, active favourite. It leaves almost no room for a cold first round, for a knee she does not yet trust in a scramble, or for the ordinary fact that timing is the first thing to go and the last thing to come back.
This market has overpaid for her twice
Jauregui has been the favourite in all five of her UFC fights and has gone three and two. Both losses came when she was priced at −400 or shorter, and both were first-round finishes.
In July 2023 Denise Gomes, a +310 underdog, knocked her out in twenty seconds. In September 2024 Ketlen Souza dropped her with a left hook and choked her unconscious in just over three minutes. She has never lost a decision and she has never seen the third round in a losing fight. When this fighter loses, she loses quickly, and the market has not been early to it either time.
The mechanism is visible in her own numbers. She lands 6.64 significant strikes a minute, which is high-end output at 115 pounds, and she absorbs 5.25 of them with a striking defence of 55 per cent. That is a net of about one and a third strikes a minute in her favour. She wins firefights by landing more, not by being hit less, and a fighter who wins that way needs her reactions to be sharp. Reactions are exactly what two years off takes.
Why the cheap side is 14¢ and not 6¢
Demopoulos is durable in the one way that matters to a cheap ticket. In nineteen professional fights she has never been knocked out. Her only finish loss in that whole career is a single armbar. Seven of her eight losses went to the cards.
That is the shape of a contract that can drift up rather than go to zero in the first ninety seconds. Jauregui’s two paths to a quick win are the two things Demopoulos has historically not given anyone: she does not get stopped on the feet, and she has been submitted once. If this fight reaches the third round with Demopoulos upright, the price on her moves whether or not she is winning it.
Her own grappling reputation deserves a correction, because the page would be dishonest without it. She is called a submission fighter and four of her eleven wins are submissions, but the last one was in January 2022. Her two most recent grappling exchanges went badly: Jaqueline Amorim armbarred her, and Talita Alencar took her down inside ninety seconds in all three rounds. Jauregui, for her part, has conceded no takedowns at all in the UFC and has attempted none herself. If Demopoulos is going to trouble her, it will not be by wrestling.
What the board is telling you
This is the part that is hard to see without the raw data, and it is the reason the exit is realistic. Since the market opened on 20 September, the cheap side has traded 17,103 contracts against 2,975 on the favourite. It holds 16,572 in open interest against 2,452. Roughly six times as much money is sitting on the underdog as on the favourite.
And the price has not moved. Across 44 hourly candles the cheap side has traded in a band between 14¢ and 15¢ and nowhere else. Buyers keep arriving and the quote keeps absorbing them, which means there is a real book here rather than a thin one that gaps on the first trade. That is what a resting sell order at 20¢ needs in order to be worth writing down.
One honest limit on all of this. Kalshi listed two markets on this bout and nothing else. There is no method market, no round market and no distance market, so there is no way to express a more specific view than the winner. UFC 331 carried twenty-seven legs across five series. This card carries two.
What would make this wrong
The straightforward way to lose is that Jauregui is fine. She is ten years younger, four inches longer in reach, and the better fighter on every sheet that does not have a date on it. If the knee holds and the timing is there, she outlands Demopoulos from range for fifteen minutes and the cheap side never trades above 16¢ at any point. That outcome is not unlikely. It is the single most likely outcome on the board.
The second way is subtler and it is the one that actually costs money here. Demopoulos gets taken down early, as she was in all three rounds against Alencar, and the fight becomes a quiet decision nobody re-prices. In that version she survives, the ticket never reaches 20¢, and the position rides to a settlement it loses. Surviving is not the same as threatening, and only one of the two moves a price.
The most this can cost is $99.90, which is the whole position. It is written down here before the fight so that it can be checked afterwards against what actually happened. A miss stays on the ledger at the same size a win would.
Tale of the tape
| Yazmin Jauregui | Vanessa Demopoulos | |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 11-2-0 | 11-8-0 |
| In the UFC | 3-2 | 5-5 |
| Age | 27 | 37 (She turns 38 on Sep 22, four days before the fight.) |
| Height | 5 ft 3 in | 5 ft 2 in |
| Reach | 64 in | 59 in |
| Stance | Orthodox | Orthodox |
| Camp | Entram Gym, Tijuana | Not published. Her gym has changed more than once and we could not verify where she is training for this fight. |
| Fights out of | Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico | Ohio. Sources split between Cleveland and Columbus, so we are not naming a city. |
| How the wins come | 7 wins by knockout or technical knockout, 4 by decision | 1 win by technical knockout, 4 by submission, 6 by decision |
| How the losses come | One knockout, one submission. Both in round one. | One submission, seven decisions. She has never been knocked out in nineteen professional fights. |
Career rates in the UFC
| Rate | Jauregui | Demopoulos |
|---|---|---|
| Significant strikes landed a minute | 6.64 | Not published |
| Striking accuracy | 39 per cent | Not published |
| Significant strikes absorbed a minute | 5.25 | Not published |
| Striking defence | 55 per cent | Not published |
| Takedowns landed per 15 minutes | 0.0 | Not published |
| Takedown defence | 100 per cent | Not published |
| Average fight time | 8:30 | Not published |
| Total time in the octagon | 42:28 | 2:05:53 |
Why one column is empty. Per-minute striking and takedown rates are not on this page. Three aggregators publish three different sets for her and we could not reach a primary source to settle it. One of the three lists a reach that is impossible at her height, which tells you what its stat block is worth. A wrong rate is worse than a missing one.
UFCStats figures, read through two independent mirrors that agree to the digit. We checked them against each other: 282 significant strikes over 42:28 of cage time is 6.64 a minute, and 282 of 715 is 39.4 per cent, so the numbers close on themselves.
Recent form
Yazmin Jauregui
Last out 2 years and 12 days · A torn anterior cruciate ligament and surgery after the Souza loss, reported by two Mexican outlets in July and August 2026. A March 2025 booking against Dione Barbosa was cancelled. She has said the recovery was complicated and that she is now fully prepared.
- LKetlen SouzaTechnical submission, rear-naked choke, R1 3:02UFC 306Dropped by a left hook, choked out on the follow-up. Her only time on the mat in the UFC.
- WSam HughesDecision, unanimous, R3 5:00UFC Fight Night, Mexico City94 significant strikes landed, her career high. Hughes, a grappler, attempted no takedowns across three rounds.
- LDenise GomesTechnical knockout, punches, R1 0:20UFC 290The fastest finish in UFC strawweight history at the time. Gomes was a +310 underdog.
- WIstela NunesTechnical knockout, punches, R2 4:06UFC on ESPN 42Two knockdowns. She threw 86 significant strikes in round one alone.
- WIasmin LucindoDecision, unanimous, R3 5:00UFC on ESPN 41UFC debut. Stuffed takedown attempts in rounds one and two and reset to range.
Vanessa Demopoulos
Last out 15 months and 12 days · The longest gap of her UFC career. This is her first fight of 2026 and a return to strawweight after taking her last one at flyweight.
- LJamey-Lyn HorthDecision, unanimous, R3 5:00UFC on ESPN 69Taken on short notice at flyweight, giving up height and reach. She replaced Tereza Bleda.
- LTalita AlencarDecision, unanimous, R3 5:00UFC on ESPN 65Taken down inside ninety seconds in all three rounds and held there.
- LJaqueline AmorimSubmission, armbar, R1 3:28UFC Fight Night 242Her only finish loss in nineteen fights.
- WEmily DucoteDecision, split, R3 5:00UFC Fight Night 241Won at about +320 as an underdog, and fought with a right arm injured days beforehand.
- WKanako MurataDecision, unanimous, R3 5:00UFC Fight Night 229Won at about +300 as an underdog.
Quick answers
What price is Vanessa Demopoulos on Kalshi?
She was 14 cents to buy and 13 cents to sell when this page was written on Mon, Sep 21, 2026, which is an implied chance of about 14 per cent. The two winner markets are the only markets Kalshi listed on this bout.
Why is Yazmin Jauregui such a heavy favourite?
She is 11-2 with seven knockouts, ten years younger, and lands 6.64 significant strikes a minute, which is high-end output at strawweight. Demopoulos is 11-8-0 and has lost three in a row. The sportsbook consensus was about -900 on Jauregui when this was written.
How long has Jauregui been out of the cage?
Two years and twelve days. She last fought on 14 September 2024 and, according to two Mexican outlets, tore her anterior cruciate ligament afterwards and needed surgery. A March 2025 booking was cancelled.
Has Demopoulos ever been knocked out?
No. In nineteen professional fights her only finish loss is one armbar, in September 2024. Seven of her eight losses were decisions.
What is the plan on this page and how is it graded?
A $100.00 stake on Demopoulos at 14 cents, with a sell order at 20 cents. If the order fills the position closes for a net of $27.16 after both Kalshi fees. If it never trades there the position is held to settlement. Either way it is graded after the fight and stays on the public ledger.
When is the fight and where can I watch it?
Saturday 26 September 2026 at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas, on the preliminary card of UFC Vegas 121, headlined by Raul Rosas Jr. against Raoni Barcelos. Prelims open at 5pm Eastern and the main card follows at 8pm Eastern.
Sources and method
- Contract prices, traded range, volume and open interest. Kalshi, KXUFCFIGHT series, hourly candlesticks and the live quote, read Sep 21 2026
- Records, fight histories, methods and times. Sherdog and Wikipedia, cross-checked against each other
- Jauregui's career rates. Two independent UFCStats mirrors that agree to the digit, checked for internal consistency
- Underdog prices on past fights. BetMMA.tips fighter profile, with a second reading from Doc's Sports where the two differed
- The torn ligament and the layoff. El Imparcial, Jul 24 2026, and Siempre en la Noticia, Aug 9 2026
- Card, venue and start times. Wikipedia, FIGHTMAG and Yahoo Sports
- Sportsbook consensus. mma.es, Sep 21 2026
MMAOddsBreaker's opening-odds table prints the two prices against the wrong names on this bout. Three independent checks caught it. The direction here follows Yahoo Sports and BestFightOdds, which both have Jauregui as the favourite.
Three rounds is not stated outright by any source we could read. Both Kalshi and the sportsbooks price the round total at over/under 2.5, which only exists on a three-round fight, and this is not the main event. We are calling it three rounds on that basis.
Contract prices move. The figures quoted in the copy were read on Mon, Sep 21, 2026 and are not updated; the quote inside the plan card is live. We are not affiliated with the UFC or with Kalshi, and nothing here is a recommendation to trade.