Play it up to -145 then lower to 4%

Torrez Finney -450 v Cam Rowston (Tuesday 7:30 PM ET)

Finney fought on CS last season, and he won easily, but didn’t get the contract as Dana told him he needed some more work and experience before he’s UFC ready, and I agreed completely.  Finney is a tank, he has insane power, and when he gets his hands wrapped around his opponents they get picked up and slammed.  Seriously, I haven’t seen many guys pick guys up this easy in MMA.  Think Daniel Cormier in his prime.  His striking defense has been really bad so that needs to be fixed, and his striking offense isn’t great, but he does have power.  Finney had a fight a couple months ago, and he murdered a guy with his striking so that shows me he’s been working hard on improving.  Roston is nothing special, he’s tall and has a huge reach advantage, but he’s fought awful competition, and he hasn’t fought in almost two years.  In his last fight he looked slow, and he didn't show much power, and that's the way to beat Finney is to strike and test his chin, but I didn't see anything from Rowston to make me think he can scare Finney.  The combined record of the opponents Rowston has beaten is 12-27, while the two guys that beat him were Jacob Malkoun in his debut, and Malkoun is in the UFC now, and then he got knocked out in the first round to a 4-0 fighter.  He’s sloppy, and has no upside.  Finney should overwhelm this guy and get the KO or Sub on the ground.

Caio Borralho -200 v Jared Cannonier

I’ve been on board the Borralho train since I first cashed on him on Contender Series, and it’s been a cash cow every since as he is 6-0 in the UFC and I think he makes it 7-0.  Cannonier is 40 years old, and is coming off of getting finished in the 4th by Imavov, and I don’t think he’ll be able to keep this fight on the feet, which is where it will need to be for Cannonier to have a chance.  Borralho is the mastermind behind the Fighting Nerds gym who have had immense success recently, and they are brilliant with coming up with a game plan and making sure their fighters implement it.  The game plan for Borralho is pretty obvious and that’s to strike for a bit to set up the double leg take down where Caio excels.  Once he shoots clean and gets his opponent on the ground, he’s so strong and skilled at getting the hooks in and dominating.  Cannonier will be his biggest test, but he’s got the age, athleticism and ground game advantages which will prove to be too much over 5 rounds.  Cannonier seems to be slowing down at age 40 as his last KO was in 2022 to the glass chin of Derek Brunson, and then he barely got a split decision win over Sean Strickland when Strickland took the fight on a couple days notice and wasn't in fight shape.  He then beat Vettori in a fight that was a clinch match the entire time, and then in his last fight he started off strong against Imavov, but slowed down in the later rounds until the ref stopped the fight because Cannonier was taking too much damage.  That's alarming because Imavov isn't known for his cardio or his power as he only has 6 KO wins in 20 pro fights.  

The other thing about this fight is that Cannonier hasn't fought grapplers like Borralho.  I had to go back to 2017 to find the last grappler that Cannonier faced, and it was Glover Teixeira who easily took him down 3 times and had 10:38 of control time and he landed 113 strikes to Cannonier's 40.  The control time would have been way more, but the ref inexplicably stood them up in the second round.  So if Cannonier got easily taken down when he was in his early 30's, I don't see him being great at it at 40 years old when he hasn't had to train for it.  In fact, he's been taken down 24 times in the UFC with a 61% takedown defense, that that ain't gonna cut it against Caio.