Chase Hooper -1100 vs Clay Guida +650\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nFade the old fighter. Another price that is crazy, but Hooper should roll here. Guida is\u00a0 42 years old and has looked awful in his last couple fights, and he just can\u2019t wrestle like\u00a0he used to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know if he really can wrestle well anymore has he had 2 takedowns\u00a0 against Joaquim Silva (one of which he walked into a choke and ended up on his back),\u00a0but he got taken down twice as well, and against Rafa Garcia he had 0 takedowns and\u00a0got hit 141 times on the feet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Hooper has looked great since moving up weight divisions\u00a0 as his power has improved, and he always has his submission game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
For what it\u2019s\u00a0worth, Hooper submitted Guida Hooper quickly in a grappling match in 2022 so Hooper\u00a0 shouldn\u2019t be worried about this fight going to the ground. Guida\u2019s striking is low-level,\u00a0and Hooper has great cardio so I\u2019m struggling to see any path to victory for Guida.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Could he land one big shot to get the KO? His last KO win was 7 years ago, and the\u00a0 only other one I can find is in 2008. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Hooper\u2019s striking has gotten so much better\u00a0 recently, and he showed it in his last fight as he dropped Borshchev early in round one,\u00a0and ground and pounded him for the rest of the round, then got the takedown to start round 2 and wrapped up the submission win in dominant fashion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
So if Guida is not\u00a0 winning the striking battle, and his wrestling won\u2019t work as it hasn\u2019t in his last 2 fights, I don\u2019t see how the 42 year old gets it done<\/strong>. It\u2019s a big number, but it may feel\u00a0undervalued after the fight is over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nMax Griffin -135 vs Michael Chiesa +115\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nFade The Old Fighter Theory. Chiesa looked all but done after losing 3 straight and\u00a0 looking awful against Holland, but he got a gift by getting a fight against Tony Ferguson who he easily submitted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a sign of things to come though. He\u2019ll need\u00a0 to get Griffin on the ground and try and get a submission because I really think Griffin is\u00a0going to be much better on the feet with the striking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Griffin isn\u2019t a great striker, but he just beat Jeremiah Wells and had some good moments on the feet, and his takedown defense just needs to hold up for a round, and Chiesa\u2019s gas tank will drain quick.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Chiesa is a full time announcer, I don\u2019t think he has much left in the tank. Griffin is the pick<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nJosh Van -162 vs Cody Durden +136<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nI\u2019m not a big Josh Van as I think he\u2019s overrated, and even though he beat Chairez in his last fight, he looked bad to start the fight. His lead leg got chewed up, and he got <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
bloodied in round 1, but he showed great toughness in round 2 by landing a ton of\u00a0 strikes, and getting a big takedown and pulling away when Chairez gassed. It\u2019s his lack of striking defense that gives him trouble, but is Cody Durden the guy to exploit that?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
He could, but he swings wild, and he leaves himself open as well, and if this is a brawl, I\u00a0like Van to have more power and accuracy, but you\u2019ll be nervous when Durden lands\u00a0shots on Van. Van is the pick, but I won\u2019t be betting<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Eryk Anders -120 vs Chris Weidman +100\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nI think you\u2019re crazy if you bet this fight. Weidman is coming off a win against Bruno\u00a0 Silva where we poked him in the eyes multiple times, and he\u2019s sustained so much damage to his body, I don\u2019t think he has much upside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
However, Anders has horrible\u00a0 striking defense, questionable cardio, and his only recent wins are against guys cut from\u00a0 the UFC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Anders should be more athletic, but he\u2019s just not that good. I would lean him\u00a0to win as I just can\u2019t believe Chris Weidman is going to win another fight at age 40<\/strong>.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nAnders is the play as I think he can land more strikes, and win more clinch situations on\u00a0 the feet, but it will be sweaty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Eryk Anders -142 vs Chris Weidman +120 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nIf Weidman is allowed to eye poke the shit out of Anders like he was allowed to do against Silva in his last fight, he has a chance to win this fight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
However, Silva has proven to be a bum UFC fighter,and while Anders isn\u2019t great, he\u2019s going to be able to wrestle with Weidman, and I just don\u2019t believe Weidman still has enough left to win two straight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
His body is beat up, he doesn\u2019t have a lot of power left, and Anders lack of striking defense isn\u2019t going to be as much of a liability here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Anders should have the slightly better strikes, and the better ground game. If you bet on Anders, have thick skin because he\u2019ll have moments in the fight where he\u2019ll look terrible, but he\u2019ll have enough good moments to get the win<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nBryan Battle -205 vs Randy Brown +170<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nI\u2019m surprised Battle is this big of a favorite so I\u2019ll take Brown at +170. I\u2019ve made a lot of\u00a0money betting on Bryan Battle since he came to the UFC, and his evolution has been fun to watch, but his striking defense has not improved, and it\u2019s bad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
He leaves his\u00a0 hands apart and I see the jabs and front kicks of Brown landing over and over again.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Brown can get lazy in his fights, and he can get taken down and held down, but he showed good resilience last fight when Zaleski took him down and held him for a couple of minutes before Brown reversed it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Battle probably has a little bit more dog in him, but\u00a0the length of the jabs and kicks from Brown I think will damage up Battle over 3 rounds.\u00a0Brown is a good underdog<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nMovsar Evloev -278 vs Aljamain Sterling +225\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nThis fight is probably Dana White\u2019s worst nightmare as both guys are grapplers, and\u00a0 Sterling in particular can have long periods of time where he takes an opponent down, holds them there, and does nothing with it, but trying to do that against Evloev isn\u2019t\u00a0going to be easy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Sometimes we see these grappler vs grappler fights turn into striking\u00a0on the feet, and Evloev is going to have the massive striking advantage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a huge\u00a0 price, but Evloev can fend off what Sterling does well on offense, and I\u2019m not sure\u00a0 Sterling can avoid Evloev\u2019s striking and submission attempts. It\u2019s a steep price, but I think Evloev wins<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Themba Gorimbo -175 vs Vicente Luque +145\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nGorimbo is on a nice 4 fight win streak, but the opponents have been awful, and I\u2019m not laying this price on him against a veteran like Luque. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Gorimbo isn\u2019t a great striker so Luque won\u2019t be worried about that, but Gorimbo likes to wrestle, and take guys down.\u00a0His cardio is solid, but he doesn\u2019t really know how to work submissions, and he\u2019s not\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
great at control position so I think Luque will actually be able to wrestle Gorimbo and\u00a0 have success there. He\u2019s fought 5-round fights before so I would hope his cardio would\u00a0be ok here, but I do worry that he\u2019s low volume on the feet, and isn\u2019t doing much\u00a0damage with his strikes these days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a risky underdog to take, but Gorimbo has\u00a0 holes in his game, I certainly won\u2019t lay -175 on him so Luque is the pick<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nDominick Reyes -340 vs Anthony Smith +270<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nFade the old fighter. We\u2019ll be fading Anthony Smith for sure as we\u2019ve had a lot of\u00a0success fading the old fighters, and 36 year old Anthony Smith looked really old in his\u00a0 last fight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
He\u2019s 2-5 in his last 7 fights with his wins being a close split decision win, and\u00a0 then a submission win over Vitor Petrino who has no submission defense, and even\u00a0 then Smith was losing til he wrapped up the sub. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Smith is low volume, he doesn\u2019t have\u00a0 much power, and his movement is really slow these days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
In his last fight we was out of\u00a0breath before the end of the first round, and his strength is supposed to be wrestling,\u00a0but Dolidze (who took the fight on short notice) controlled Anthony Smith on the ground\u00a0 for most of the second round Reyes returned after a year and a half, and got an\u00a0impressive first round KO against Dustin Jacoby who I think would beat Anthony Smith\u00a0so this is an easy pick for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Reyes\u2019s strikes are way faster than Smith\u2019s, and the\u00a0 worry with Reyes is his chin, but Smith hasn\u2019t shown power in a while as his last KO win is in 2018. It\u2019s a curious fight for Smith to take right before the end of the year, and he\u2019s\u00a0a full time commentator, this feels like him getting paychecks for the last year or so to fill\u00a0 fights for the UFC, but I don\u2019t see any upside for him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
All Reyes has to do is not get finished early<\/strong>, and he should win the striking battle on the feet comfortably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nNate Landwehr -142 vs Dooho Choi +120\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nThis fight should be a brawl as both guys get into firefights, but I trust Landwehr in these fights. Choi gets hit quite a bit, and even though he\u2019s coming off a KO win against\u00a0Algeo, Choi was eating big shots, and he got taken down and controlled in the first\u00a0 round, and Landwehr can strike and wrestle for all 3 rounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Landwehr used to be way\u00a0too wreckless, but he fights now with more controlled aggression and he\u2019s been much\u00a0 better at not putting himself into bad positions, and if Choi does land some good strikes,\u00a0 Landwehr can wrestle and control Choi on the ground. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
I would expect both guys to\u00a0 throw strikes early, and for Landwehr to have success with how hittable Choi is. This is\u00a0a pretty fair price, Landwehr should win a fun and wild fight<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nBryce Mitchell -625 vs Kron Gracie +400\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nI can\u2019t believe we have another Kron Gracie fight in the UFC. He can\u2019t strike, he\u2019s a\u00a0 grappler and submission fighter, but I don\u2019t think his wrestling is that good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Mitchell is all\u00a0 wrestling, and all he has to do is not let Gracie get some weird armbar or choke when\u00a0 they\u2019re on the ground, and he should dominate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Gracie wants it to be on the ground,\u00a0and Mitchell should waste no time getting it there. Mitchell can be a bonehead during\u00a0the fights so he could give Gracie an opening, but we haven\u2019t seen him do anything\u00a0 special in his last 2 fights (both losses) so the pick will be Mitchell, but the price will keep me from betting this<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nCiryl Gane -310 vs Alexander Volkov +250\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nThe speed of Gane on the feet is just too much for Volkov as we saw in their first fight a\u00a0 few years ago, and I believe Gane has gotten better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Gane had the embarrassing loss to Jon Jones, and he\u2019s said he just didn\u2019t show up that night, and that might have been\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
a big moment for his career. In his next fight we saw his improved wrestling by him stuffing the takedowns from Spivac, and instead of point fighting, he poured it on Spivac\u00a0 and got the impressive finish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
He\u2019s said that this training has been insane as they\u2019ve\u00a0 brought in 6\u20197\u201d kickboxers to train with, and they\u2019re training him that he has to be even\u00a0 more aggressive and that he needs to finish instead of decision in the rematch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Volkov is on a nice run winning 4 in row, but I don\u2019t think he has the upside to get the better of\u00a0Gane. His game plan last fight was brilliant against Pavlovich as he just stayed away\u00a0 from the big power, and struck from distance, but Pavlovich is much slower and he can\u2019t\u00a0 close the distance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Volkov isn\u2019t a wrestler so Gane shouldn\u2019t have to worry about that threat, and Gane has a great chin as he\u2019s never been knocked out so Volkov is either\u00a0 going to have to land one crazy strike to get Gane out of there, or somehow be quicker on the feet and that doesn\u2019t look like that will happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Listening to Gane talk about his training, and his mindset after the Jon Jones fight leads me to believe we might see a\u00a0new and more fierce fighter<\/strong> than we\u2019ve seen in the past, and that\u2019s bad news for Volkov\u00a0 who is 36, has a lot of mileage on him, and has lost to Aspinall and Gane, the 2 best\u00a0fighters he\u2019s faced in the last few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nShavkat Rakhmonov -380 vs Ian Garry +300\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nI\u2019ve been making money betting on Garry, but I think this is where it comes to an end.\u00a0Shavkat is too good in the grappling and submission game as he\u2019s 18-0 with all finishes,\u00a0and 5 submissions in 6 UFC fights and a KO in the other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
His striking is good enough\u00a0 that opponents have to be cautious with it, and as soon as they start to worry about\u00a0 striking, he shoots in and gets control of them, and then it\u2019s over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Garry hasn\u2019t been\u00a0 super impressive in his last couple fights as he\u2019s been point fighting, and trying to strike\u00a0 from distance, and clinch isn\u2019t going to work here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Garry is going to have to get really\u00a0 aggressive and go for some big strikes early, or somehow stuff Shavkat\u2019s wrestling, but\u00a0 that\u2019s not his game. It\u2019s a brutal matchup for him, I give him little chance of winning.\u00a0Shavkat is a great parlay piece<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nUFC 310 Main Event: Alexandre Pantoja vs Kai Asakura<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n
I honestly don\u2019t know what to make of this fight. There\u2019s nobody left in the division for\u00a0 Pantoja to fight so they bring in Asakura from RIZIN, and there\u2019s a chance that Pantoja\u00a0 schools this guy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Asakura last fought Juan Archuleta, who is a relic from Bellator, and\u00a0before that he beat Yuki Motoya who\u2019s 35 and who hasn\u2019t beaten anyone that\u2019s\u00a0 Championship caliber, and before that he lost. So this guy is going to come in and beat\u00a0 Pantoja? <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
My worry is that Pantoja has lot of wear and tear on his body, he\u2019s 34 and he\u00a0didn\u2019t look that great against Steve Erceg. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Asakura has good striking, but if Pantoja\u00a0 gets him down, and gets comfortable on the ground, he can grind out rounds, and\u00a0 possibly get the submission. Pantoja has showed a little bit of cardio issues in his last\u00a0couple fights, but it hasn\u2019t cost him in those so I can\u2019t assume it will cost him here.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Maybe Asakura gets his striking going early, and can tire out Pantoja, but that\u2019s a big leap to make. I won\u2019t bet on it because I\u2019m still a bit confused by this fight, but don\u2019t be\u00a0surprised if Pantaja rolls him<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n**************************************************<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\nLooking for more free sports picks and sports betting tips?<\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n\n\nMake sure to bookmark all the above!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wagertalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wagertalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wagertalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wagertalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wagertalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wagertalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32664,"href":"https:\/\/www.wagertalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32662\/revisions\/32664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wagertalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wagertalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wagertalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wagertalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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