Best Sports Picks Carlos Felipe vs Jake Collier Deiveson Figueredo vs Brandon Moreno Dhiego Lima Drew Dober vs Brad Riddell Eryk Anders vs Darren Stewart Faras Ziam vs Luigi Vendramini Israel Adesanya vs Marvin Vettori Jamahal Hill vs Paul Craig marlon vera Movsar Evloev Nate Diaz vs Leon Edwards Pannie Kianzad vs Alexis Davis UFC 263 UFC Betting ufc betting predictions UFC Picks ufc predictions

Monday MMA Mashup – June 14

June 15, 2021
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UFC 263 took place this past Saturday night in front of a live crowd in Glendale, Arizona.

The event was a major success for the company as they crowned their first Mexican born world champion ever when Brandon Moreno submitted Deiveson Figueredo with a rear naked choke halfway through the third round.

Not many of us saw this coming especially by way of submission but the weight cut certainly affected the performance of the former Flyweight champ. You have to give all the credit in the world, though, to Brandon “The Assassin Baby” Moreno who was once cut from the UFC and is now the undisputed champion of the world at 125 pounds.

What an incredible story and it appears that this couldn’t have happened to a better person.

The Assassin Baby is not a baby anymore. He may still collect action figures and legos but he is a dad and now, a world champion.

Congrats to Latin America and congrats to the country of Mexico. One of many UFC world champions to come!

We didn’t predict that one accurately. I actually thought Brandon Moreno was going to be the one tapping out for a (+900) payday but Figgy looked as flat as a Jon Jones picogam pressed pancake.

It wasn’t our night but Israel Adesanya came through for us!
Yes, Marvin had improved quite a great deal but if he couldn’t consistently get the world champ to the mat and keep him there for extended periods of time, then he was in for a long night.

Even Jan Blachowicz had some trouble getting Izzy down and keeping him there so I didn’t think a man with 20 pounds less muscle was going to be able to do it. From there, it was just levels.

Izzy is a couple of levels better than the entire UFC Middleweight Division on the feet in the striking realm and he proved that once again on Saturday night at UFC 263. We had said that if Robert Whittaker couldn’t do it, then Marv was likely to fall short as well.

That was a nice win for us to end the night. Main events are always a little harder to hit than the rest but many times you have a fairly heavy favorite because the most dominant fighters fight in main events.

For a while, we were looking towards the underdog simply because the favorite’s betting odds were too expensive.

Over the past year or so, we switched it up and started playing a lot more method of victory props and have had the most success with them on the pay per views.

This week, we hit Eryk Anders to win by decision for a (+225) payday and, of course, the main event was a win as well and a pretty (+160) payout.

We did have three losses on the night, 3 in a row, actually after beginning the night 3-0 and 4-0 for the weekend after Yaroslav Amosov cruised to a unanimous decision victory and becoming the new Bellator Welterweight World Champion by defeating the reeling Douglas Lima.

We managed to come out ahead, though, and that’s what matters.

BetOnline.AG has the betting lines out for this week’s Fight Night event from Las Vegas. The show will be headlined by The Korean Zombie Chan Sung Jung and 50k Dan Ige fighting out of Xtreme Couture in Southwest Las Vegas.

Let’s recap our betting weekend in mixed martial arts and also take a look ahead and note any leans or possible plays we have ready for this coming Saturday night’s Fight Night in Sin City.

UFC 263 Betting Recap

Proper Passes

Let’s chat for a second about our passes from this past Saturday night because I feel like they were the reason we came out ahead with more than a 20% return on our investment at UFC 263.

Just like the old saying goes, you have to know when to hold em and know when to fold em.
The latter is the more important of the two in most gambling situations of skill. In a game of Texas Hold Em Poker, professionals only play about 25% of their hands and a percentage of that is them bluffing.
So, only 15-20% of the time do they have a valuable hand worth playing. You could say the same about a UFC event but I don’t mind playing 30-40% of the hands we are dealt. If our numbers sucked then maybe we should rethink things but the point is it is imperative to know when to pass a fight if we want to make double digits back on our money over long periods of time.

We will work our way up the card from the first fight of the night, a low level heavyweight matchup. Final last words, yea…

Low level heavyweights have a great deal of parody in the outcomes of their fights and so do low level women’s fights. I already looked ahead at this week’s card and we have our fair share of both scenarios so finding value will be more difficult than it was last week.

Carlos Felipe vs Jake Collier

First look at this one and any way you cut it, this is a low level heavyweight matchup and that is already a strike against possibly playing some of the odds in this matchup. I like what I have seen for the most part from Carlos Felipe in his run fighting inside the Octagon although I don’t think has quite lived up to the hype that has been put on him by some fans and the online sportsbooks as well.

Carlos came into this fight against a far more experienced Jake Collier as the (-145) favorite which was a decent price but the only people who took advantage of this one made the play right before the fight as late money came in hard on Jake Collier.

The betting line opened at (-200) for Carlos and people could see that it was off so they figured why not take a shot on the dog here? I get it and those people can tell themselves this was a good bet because they had a (+150) or so underdog who took the fight to a split decision.

Hey, I get it. Whatever you need to tell yourself to feel better about it but a loss is a loss and you put your money on a natural career long middleweight who had the ultimate quarantine cookie crush gaining what looks like more than 50 pounds and all in his gut.

You put your money on a guy who, coming off of a win, hasn’t won 2 consecutive fights in 7 years! Carlos was too expensive because having the fight go to a split decision is not what you’re looking for when paying a price of (-200) or even (-150) betting odds.

And Jake was a sucker bet, plain and simple. Any time we see a split decision and the underdog wasn’t more than a 2 to 1 play, we have to be happy with passing on it.

Faras Ziam vs Luigi Vendramini

I missed this fight but I read the cliffs notes and even though it was a matchup of two young prospects, there wasn’t a ton of action from either side. Both men knew how big of a stage this was and fought conservatively.

Maybe a play on the over 2.5 rounds was a possibility here but this one wasn’t a split decision but a majority decision still so it felt good to stay away. The betting odds were very close as well and not many bettors and fans knew what to expect from either competitor.

The two didn’t throw or land much and there was only one takedown landed between both fighters. 39 significant strikes for Faras to 34 from Luigi. This was a very close fight and some late money came in on the Italian blooded Argentine but again, stupid money.

If you want action on every fight, then you better have some deep pockets.

Eventually, you’re going to run out of money. If you want to play 0.1 units or something very small on the fights like this that could go either way, then be my guest but this fight turned out to be another proper pass.

Steven Pederson vs Chase Hooper

The infamous Chase Hooper fought a very solid black belt and couldn’t submit him. Predicting this fight was not easy. Hooper actually got Steven down to the mat 3 times on 8 attempts and landed 98 of the 132 strikes he threw.

That is pretty freaking good for a crackhead thin Jiu Jitsu guy! Pederson has always been kind of a punching bag in his mixed martial arts career but he is a gamer and most importantly, a more complete fighter than Chase at this point in their respective careers.

Steven won a unanimous decision over Chase even though he got hit about 75% of the time and was taken down 3 times. This fight was all over the place and with the betting odds virtually 50/50, we made another proper pass.

Terrance McKinney vs Matt Frevola

We knew Terrance McKinney was taking this fight on extremely short notice and that he was pretty much a first round or bust kind of fighter. Matt Frevola has been in there with tall long athletic fighters inside the Octagon before and performed well.

I don’t want to say this was a perfectly proper pass because a shot on Terrance McKinney to win by first round stoppage was not a bad flyer. Of course, we are saying this with our 20/20 hindsight but that is his thing and it was pretty much his only chance here against the strong wrestler.

Matt Frevola was prepared to take this one into deep waters and drown his opponent in the final minutes.

Terrance has 4 consecutive victories but his last 6 wins and his previous 9 of 10 have all been by first round stoppage. He had one third round stoppage on there with a heel hook win but for the most part, he has been knocking people out before they even break a sweat.

Heck, it only took him 7 seconds to put away Frevola but considering how consistent he has been with first round finishes, a play there at betting odds of (+750) wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

So, smart pass not to play the favorite here, of course, but we did miss an opportunity on the dog, Terrance McKinney. Watch out for this guy in his next fight!

Joanna Calderwood vs Lauren Murphy

This wasn’t a low level women’s MMA fight but these two are about as close to evenly matched as any two women in the Flyweight Division.

Okay, as closely as they were matched, the first round was even closer. I don’t see how anyone could score it decisively for either lady but there is no 10-10 option in professional mixed martial arts so they had no choice.

Lauren Murphy won the second round very clearly and then Jojo took the third very clearly.

This entire fight came down to just a few exchanges the two women had in the first round. There was strong clinch fighting and clean Muay Thai from both ladies.

As a fan, I loved the fight and as a bettor, I did as well because we stayed away, far far away.

So, plenty of proper passes from several coin flips fights. Of our 4 proper passes, all went to a decision and 3 of them were either split or majority calls from the judges.

Now, let’s look at the betting plays we did make and break down both our wins and our losses.

Proper Plays

Pannie Kianzad vs Alexis Davis

This was played out a lot closer than I had anticipated but our girl was able to get the victory here. I thought she could keep it standing, be the faster, sharper fighter and win a unanimous decision.

Pannie did but I have to admit, I was pretty surprised to hear this one was unanimous and 30-27 on a couple of the judges’ scorecards. Kianzad got her nose busted up as Alexis was prepared to make this one a dog fight and she did.

However, Pannie persevered and in the third round, maintained her speed and out landed her 37 year old opponent.

I chickened out on taking Kianzad to win by decision but it wasn’t even plus money at (-125) for most of fight week and even (-152) at some books by fight time! To get a fighter to win on the moneyline at (-190) and the books have her at (-152) to simply get the nod by decision, it appears we were doing something right.

The fight, though, was closer than I had projected but Pannie still did enough to win and most people would have been shocked to see Alexis’s hand raised at the end of that one. Great fight, though, ladies!

Movsar Evloev vs Hakeem Dawodu

You know, Hakeem Dawodu did match up well with Movsar but Evloev’s betting odds stayed in the playable range of (-220) for a long time and we really missed a great opportunity to invest and cash in here.

Movsar was as dominant as ever and even though he did get clipped in the third round, he kept his wits and secured a takedown and thus the win on the judges’ scorecards.

We did have him and Leon Edwards on a few parlays but they are multi event and we are just waiting on Petr Yan to get his illegal kneeness revenge on Aljamain Sterling in their upcoming rematch.

If Petr can get the victory there then we will win a couple of different parlays to add to our bankroll.

Taking Pannie at (-190) and not Movsar at (-220) seems kind of silly, especially in retrospect but we still invested in two fighters and both fighters won unanimous decisions over their respective opponents.

Eryk Anders vs Darren Stewart

This one paid off nicely but I sure didn’t like how the first round went. Stewart and Anders fought just a few months ago and Eryk looked better than ever physically as well as technically. He dropped Stewart early in the first round and as he was going in for the kill, he pulled a Petr and threw and landed an illegal knee to the head of a grounded opponent.

Why, bro?

I’m sure Eryk and Petr have asked themselves this very question a million times already. What was strange, though, was that Eryk didn’t get the loss on his record like Petr and, of course, he didn’t lose a world title because he didn’t have one but he would have retained if that had been the case.

Since they scored the first fight a no contest, a rematch was set and both men were more than happy to compete on a pay per view card like UFC 263. Darren Stewart, though, the smaller of the two men, requested that this fight be fought at light heavyweight, and for a while there, his strategy appeared to be genius.

Stewart had a massive quickness advantage against the at times, lumbering Eryk Ya Boi Anders. Eryk hung tough, though, and even after being taken down and controlled in the first round, he came back to win rounds two and three decisively.

I thought his moneyline was a little too pricey at (-152) and the online sportsbooks were heavily undervaluing the decision prop for either fighter. Darren Stewart is a durable guy and Anders doesn’t present much of a submission threat.

Yes, the first fight ended early but I think the books had some recency bias there and we were in a perfect position to capitalize. Anders isn’t much of an action fighter. For the longest time, he would just hold his opponents up against the cage shamelessly for the entire round if the referee would let him.

Hey, who am I to tell a grown man how to make money.

Let’s not focus on what should be because the s-word is a bad word. I like the V in value.

It is the same V in victory and I will spare you the rest of the improvisational motivational speech. Anders by decision, a unanimous one, for a (+225) payday!

Drew Dober vs Brad Riddell

Okay, full disclosure, guys. When I touched on this fight on last week’s Monday MMA Mashup, I misread the betting lines and thought Drew Dober was the underdog in this fight so I said, this one will be close and I slightly favor Drew here so we should look at playing him as the underdog.

Turns out, he was the favorite the whole time at around (-140). Drew almost got the finish early on but Brad hung in there like the warrior he is and ended up having a very dominant 3rd round which led to a unanimous decision victory.

If I would have read the betting line correctly, I would have probably gone with the underdog in this very close fight but I can’t say that I saw the multiple takedowns coming from Riddell and the mistake was already made.

Jamahal Hill vs Paul Craig

Wow, this one didn’t turn out at all like I thought it would. We took out a flyer on Jamahal Hill to win this one by decision against the previously chinny but much more technical nowadays, Paul Craig.

I thought we had a decent shot at our (+375) to hit but I misjudged the fight IQ of said Jamahal Hill. The guy went to the ground willingly with Paul Craig. I guess we could have seen that coming because these are exactly the types of mistakes undefeated fighters make.

Hill was overconfident in his abilities to stay out of submissions on the mat with Paul Craig and even after escaping one strong overhook by the Scot, Hill went back into his guard even deeper and from there, the armbar came and pop goes the humerus.

We all thought Hill’s arm was broken in half because Craig quickly and possibly mercifully switched to a triangle choke and Jamahal’s arm was flopping and bouncing inside of the choke. Ugh, I will never get that out of my head.

That was gnarly!

Nate Diaz vs Leon Edwards

Man, Nate almost pulled it off at literally the last minute!!

Less pointing and laughing and more killer instinct would have been nice but it wouldn’t have helped our betting play that had more or less already been lost. It didn’t take me long to see exactly where we made our mistake and while it is nice to learn quickly from a screw up, it sucks to lose!

Nate Diaz wasn’t the only one who had a chance to finish that fight. Leon Edwards pulled back when there were multiple opportunities to finish the fight. We had him to get the win by finish while the proper play was certainly a (+165) Leon decision win.

We took a smaller payout to chase a finish. I just thought Nate doesn’t have the durability that he used to and I still stand by that. Where we screwed up, though, was focusing on the physical attributes and skills of both fighters.

We ignored the mental and Leon doesn’t have killer instinct. He just doesn’t. You aren’t as technically superior and usually physically superior fighter win this often and not get many finishes along the way.

He now has rattled off 9 wins in a row and the Belal Muhammad fight would have likely been 10 but how many finishes along the way? 2. He had a submission against a guy no longer with the company and a TKO of another fighter no longer with the UFC.

All the others were decisions and I simply didn’t take into account his passive nature. I thought, wow, Masvidal was all over Diaz and got the stoppage win and in a 5 round fight, I think Leon CAN do the same.

Well, I was right. He could have but it isn’t his nature and betting against someone’s style, personality, and fighting nature at its core is just a silly silly thing to do. We screwed up here.

Deiveson Figueredo vs Brandon Moreno

The Assassin Baby is the new world champ at 125 pounds. I won’t say too much here. Everyone was on the champ here and I thought we had some nice spots for him to win by stoppage.

The man simply cuts too much weight and unless he gets an immediate rematch, I think it will be a wise move for him to head north to Bantamweight. The division is stacked but he isn’t helping his cause continually missing weight or having flat performances because he is trying to fight in a weight class below.

I still think Figgy is a better fighter but he certainly wasn’t on Saturday night. Congrats to Brandon Moreno and the entire country of Mexico on their first ever UFC world champion.

Israel Adesanya vs Marvin Vettori

I explained myself in the opener and it was certainly nice to get this win on the back end. A main event victory is always a great way to end the night.

Marvin had never been finished before and Adesanya is more of a timing and accuracy puncher than pure power so he would need to land the perfect shot to knock out that block headed son of a rifle.

Vettori fought hard but in the end, he was outmatched just like the rest of the 185 pound division. It will be interesting to see how Robert Whittaker does in a rematch. His game plan in fight #1 was horrible.

He knew he was facing a massive reach disadvantage so he chose to charge forward in a straight line and throw with his eyes closed. Welp, that didn’t work against a world class kickboxer.

Marv, though, did do better than Rob as he took the first round with a takedown and some control and had Izzy backers biting their fingernails. After that, though, it was smooth sailing for the champion who used his reach and jab to poke away at the slower Marvin Vettori and claim the throne.

Mexico got their first UFC world champion but unfortunately for Italy, they are going to have to wait a little while longer.

  • Betting night: 4-3 but one win is tied to a parlay that hasn’t paid yet.
  • 3-3 officially with a profit of 1.43 units for 1 unit bettors on each play.

That was good enough for a 24% return on your investment and if we include the main event win from Bellator, we were 4-3 and that brought up our weekly return on investment number to 34%.

I feel good about that.

Let’s look ahead to next week but I will be honest, there isn’t much value to be found at this moment, at least not by me.

UFC Fight Night Las Vegas Betting Preview

Marlon Vera: -220

This is an early lean and good timing as well. Chito opened as a more than (-300) favorite and the Dangerous Davey Grant has brought that line down to a playable number.

Davey is very slick in there and this appears to be the best version of the Brit we have ever seen but he is still 35 years old and a Bantamweight which makes him closer to 40.

Chito is also the best we have ever seen him and I think he will outclass Grant in there.

How, though?

I don’t know but where the betting line is right now, I like the investment at (-220) into a fighter who is a level or two above his opponent.

Dhiego Lima: -170

I don’t normally bet on Dhiego Lima and when I do, I usually lose. Seriously, this guy has some talents but the UFC never really gives him favorable matchups. He has trouble with grapplers not so much because of his takedown defense but more so from him shutting down offensively because he is fighting a wrestler.

Please Note:
Dhiego won’t have to worry about such against The Immortal Matt Brown. I love Matt as most all UFC fans do but I believe his career has taken a turn and he won’t be able to compete at the UFC level for any longer.

Matt just turned 40 in January and he hasn’t defeated a natural legit UFC Welterweight in over 6 years! I don’t think he is going to do it this week but he certainly CAN. Dhiego is, of course, going to give Matt the fight he wants on the feet so there is a chance.

How durable is Dhiego, though?

Well, Li Jingliang, Tim Means, and Eddie Gordon have all put him out in the first round. That isn’t a good look but he has changed his style since then and fights much more conservatively.

  • I think that style will help him against Matt Brown but Dhiego can’t let Mr. Elbows get on the inside.
  • Lima is very very effective with his calf kicks and I think that will be the story of the fight.

Hurt Matt Brown there and don’t make this fight about his will. Make it about a damaged nerve that shuts down the function of his lower leg.

That’s Dhiego’s best path to victory, in my opinion.

That is all for today, folks. If you read this much in anticipation of some picks for this week, I apologize but the card is nothing more than a hot mess right now so we have our work cut out for us this week but like always, we will do our best.

In Conclusion

Hey, it was a good weekend for us. We finally came out ahead on a Bellator card. We only bet one fight but our final words were to bet it hard and if you saw the fight, you understand how dominant of a victory it was for the new Ukrainian champion and us.

I really hate myself still for the loss in the Leon Edwards vs Nate Diaz fight.

I thought I knew more about Rocky than I actually did. He doesn’t fight that often and I have only covered a few of his matchups.

The guy has zero killer instinct.
You are going to have to fall over like a tree to be TKO’ed by the guy because I swear his first thought after hurting his opponent is “Okay, he’s as dangerous as ever now so I need to be careful…Okay, I think I won the round now so I will back off…”

Ugh, I don’t want to hate on it because that is him. It isn’t his fault he fought like he normally does. We lost because we failed to identify and properly scout his natural personality and tendencies.

The main event felt nice and it was great to steal a method of victory play on a mid level fighter like Eryk Anders. Let’s keep the numbers up this week!

PLACE YOUR BETS NOW!

https://www.thesportsgeek.com/blog/monday-mma-mashup-june-14/

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