Aleksa Camur vs Nicolae Negumereanu Best Sports Picks Bruno Silva vs Wellington Turman Casey O’Neill vs Lara Procopio Dan Ige vs Chan Sung Jung Khaos Williams vs Matt Semelsberger Marlon Chito Vera vs Davey Grant MMA monday mma mashup Roque Martinez vs Josh Parisian Serghei Spivac vs Aleksei Oliynyk Seung Woo Choi vs Julian Erosa UFC Betting ufc betting predictions UFC Picks ufc predictions Virna Jandiroba vs Kanako Murata

Monday MMA Mashup – UFC June 21

June 22, 2021
financialfreedomllc20

Hey guys, we are coming off of a surprisingly good weekend. At first glance about this time last week, I was pretty stumped but preparation breeds confidence and we put in the work for a good payday.

The main event didn’t go our way and I was about 85% sure it wouldn’t the second I saw how much bigger the Korean Zombie was than his opponent, our pick, Dan Ige.

I am not making excuses but the size difference between the two martial artists was something I think all of us underestimated.

I knew ufc.com and ufcstats.com were tripping about the height. They had Dan Ige as 5’7”, the same height as Chan Sung Jung and nahhhh, the Korean had what looked like 3 inches on his opponent. His legs were just as large and the upper body as well.

Sometimes, you see a larger framed fighter but at least the other guy has the muscles but Dan Ige looked like he was a full weight class below the Zombie on Saturday night. That was cool, though. I don’t like to end the night with a loss because it is going to be a week nearly before I can get a W.

They say fighters are only as good as their last fight and we can say the same about ourselves as handicappers. For our confidence’s sake, let’s focus on the fact that we won the event and returned 50% of bettors’ investment had they wagered one unit per play.

Casey O’Neill got us off to a rocking start as we took her as the underdog to surprise a lot of people and get the win over a tough out in Lara Procopio. I will be the first to admit that it wasn’t looking good for us early on as Lara was able to take down the larger, more athletic O’Neill.

We dropped the first round but Casey’s pace was something I don’t think Lara liked very much. Nobody really mentioned it. They were just so impressed with the Jiu Jitsu of the 23 year old world traveling Scot.

Lara has decent technique and is a very gritty woman but it doesn’t appear that she is a gym rat who is looking for every single edge she can get in a fight. I think she is a BJJ girl who doesn’t mind scrapping but most of her training is probably based on her skills.

That is cool and all but outside of endurance work, that is what held back the Diaz brothers from possibly becoming world champions. They focused on technique and their technique was and is effective but how explosive did they get?

Not only does the endurance work lower the amount of fast twitch muscle fibers in your body, but it also makes you tired and you are less likely to do the plyos, power, speed, coordination drills.

I’m not saying Nick and Nate are lazy at all. It is just their choice to focus on endurance a lot more than anything else. Conor McGregor focused on speed and his endurance was trash. He adjusted, though, and I don’t think Nick or Nate ever has.

Procopio is a tough cookie but her lack of frame size and athleticism was exploited by O’Neill on Saturday night. I wasn’t expecting the purple belt, O’Neill, to submit the Brazilian black belt but she did and I think a big part of that was her wearing on her opponent with a drowning pace to the fight.

Please Note:
Her outstanding performance did not go unnoticed and resulted in her being promoted to brown belt at 10th Planet Las Vegas yesterday by Casey Halstead.

We won our next 3 fights getting us to 4-0 and in a position for an undefeated night and a 90% return on readers’ investment but I was just wrong about the main event. I thought Ige could get inside of The Zombie’s looping punches and use his speed advantage.

But it just didn’t work out for us.

When it comes to grind out fight tape and make a prediction, I will remember the loss, why we made a bad decision, and, of course, how we improve upon that with our current picks for this week’s Fight Night event from Vegas.

For now:
We have to be happy with a performance like that because I made the call on O’Neill and also Virna Jandiroba early in the week and had to listen to and read seemingly every single other prediction go in the direction of their opponents.

I can’t help but second guess at times. Confidence and decisiveness are imperative in this game but so is being able to admit you can be wrong and don’t know everything. It is a gnarly balance but we passed the test last week, thank goodness.

Chito Vera and Seung Woo Choi also took home the W for us.

I was on Chito since the line was released and a bunch of boneheads immediately poured in the cash on Davey Grant and if you remember, in my Fighter Focus blog last week, we told ‘em that it was dumb money coming in on Grant and that it was a trap set by the sportsbooks.

Proving the latter won’t be so easy but one look at the face of Davey Grant post fight told us all we needed to know about how stupid the money was that moved the betting line from (-325) to (-190).

Seung Woo Choi really impressed me in his last fight with Yousuff Zalal. I noticed a level up from the South Korean star who was immediately thrown to the wolves early in his UFC career. People lost confidence in the guy or maybe they never gained it but it was mainly because he was losing to tough fighters who matched up well against him.

We took him as an underdog against Zalal and again this past week against Juicy J Julian Erosa. He is more skilled than Juicy J and Erosa, like Davey Grant, was coming off of two consecutive knockout wins.

Overvalued. It’s easy to say it now but we said it last week too. You have to be on the lookout at all times, remaining vigilant as we used to say in the Air Force because the Hilton has some really good breakfast.

Anyway, I digress. I just couldn’t pretend that we had it rough.

Sometimes, when we look at a betting line, we have to ask ourselves “What if?”. What if this fighter had not got caught cold early in the first round and KO’ed in their previous bout? And more specifically, where would the betting line be if the fight had a completely different result.

Recency bias is a real thing and I still fall victim to it from time to time but we are getting better at recognizing it and blabbering on like we are now is cementing it into our brain at the beginning of an important week.

We have a heavyweight fight, possibly a #1 contender’s match between Alexander Volvov and Cyril Gane, two men who are without a doubt, absolute units.

6’7” Alex Volkov out of Russia is not a beanpole, folks. We were on him to bully the bully in the Alistair Overeem fight and Alex looked better than ever. He will have considerably more experience than his opponent on Saturday night, the 6’5” Cyril Gane from France.

The Russian has as many losses as the Frenchman does wins. I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing but we know both fighters well and there is plenty of fight tape in which to use as a main reference tool in building our prediction.

33-8 is the professional mixed martial arts record of Alexander Volkov and the phenom, Cyril Gane, is just 8-0 in his young MMA career. If you guys didn’t know, MMA was illegal in France for a very long time.

It was only last October that the sport became legal in the country. It isn’t that the French don’t like martial arts. They are responsible for producing some of the most technical martial artists in history.

They aren’t exactly known to be dogs but hey, you can’t be the best at everything.

Cyril Gane is a specimen, though, and I think a clash with current UFC Heavyweight World Champion and training partner Francis Ngannou is imminent.

That is going to be yuge but first, Gane is going to have to deal with undoubtedly the toughest test of his young career against Volkov. I am incredibly excited for this matchup as you can tell so let’s finish up our review of last week and look ahead to this coming Saturday’s Fight Night event from the desert.

BetOnline.AG has the betting odds we will use today but on Mondays, only the moneylines and maybe an over/under or two have been released so many times, it is better to wait a couple of days to see all of our options.

UFC Fight Night Las Vegas Betting Recap – Proper Passes

I started doing this last week and it is just as important to know when to pass as it is when to play a fight. That sounds like the same thing but you get what I’m saying.

If there is a (+175) underdog and he or she dominates the entire 15 minutes of a fight and we passed on it, then this would not be a proper pass. We missed an opportunity and we have to make note of that also so that the likelihood of us missing the next opportunity decreases even if it is only a little bit.

I will gladly take as small of steps towards more success in this game as I need to if it means we are continually moving forward. Small incremental improvements are the basis of almost all success, really, and if people are telling you different and offering get rich quick schemes then just realize the scheme is for them to get rich quickly, not you.

Roque Martinez vs Josh Parisian

I say this was a proper pass but honestly, taking either fighter to win this one by decision seemed like a solid play. I know people who got Parisian to win by decision, which he did, somehow, for (+300)!

Hey, money is money and you only need to win 25% of the time to break even with these odds so one out of three has you sitting pretty and with the fight a virtual coin flip going into Bruce Buffer reading off the judges’ decision, you had to feel pretty solid.

If you’re going to pay me out at 3 to 1, then let’s get to flippin’. I have nickels, dimes, pennies, quarters, half dollars, silver dollars, whatever you need. Let’s play.

This one could have ended inside the distance, though, with Roque Martinez with his hand raised. There were multiple instances where he would be ripping short shots and or elbows on the inside and it appeared that Josh Parisian had no answer for this.

So, what ended up happening? Roque clinched with him. Every time he would have his opponent’s head continuously popping up in the air, he thought “Oh, that was fun but I’m TIRED”. Let’s hug it out for a minute.

Both men fought hard but neither man should be fighting inside of the Octagon. I hope Roque learns from this and continues to strike when he has his opponents hurt and especially when they have no answer for what he is doing.

For Parisian, he’s alright and a tough guy but we don’t need to focus on these two any longer. Cyril Gane and Alexander Volkov are fighting this Saturday night! Over 160 inches of wingspan on display.

Khaos Williams vs Matt Semelsberger

Khaos looked really good here so one could argue that he was worth the investment at (-170) but he got hit about as hard and as clean as he could have from a power puncher who just slept his previous opponent.

This happened several times and Khaos didn’t even flinch. It was a dominant win and Semelsberger didn’t really put himself out there like Khaos did. Matt was cool with sitting back and waiting and waiting.

Yes, he got off some good ones that landed perfectly but life isn’t perfect and rarely so fights ever play out that way.

The guy who misses 4 and lands 2 is going to win on the judges’ scorecards over the fighter who throws 2 and lands 1.

That is what we saw here and a big part of it was the speed of Williams which we were well aware of going into the fight.

Aleksa Camur vs Nicolae Negumereanu

I don’t ever want to write that name again. We might have to, though, because he came out firing against the ridiculously overrated Aleksa Camur. I remember them hyping this kid and we saw his debut and eh.

Okay, that was just his debut so wait until his next fight.

Okay, I got nothing.

I think he sucks but he is a good athlete and still very young so we keep waiting on the level up and it just hasn’t happened for young Aleksa.

He put it on Nicolae in the first round with very snappy punches and quick footwork.

It faded fast, though, and without his quickness advantage, Aleksa was a sitting ducky for Nico. He marched down Camur for the next 10 minutes and won a clear decision.

I guess this isn’t the most proper pass ever. A fade on Camur should have been the play from day 1 but man, the UFC is TRYING to get this guy a win but he has failed once again.

Bruno Silva vs Wellington Turman

What was this fight?

I kind of zoned out in the beginning but I knew Wellington was winning until he wasn’t. Bruno reversed him in a scramble and ended up on top. He threw about 7 ground strikes from his opponent’s guard and Well was wishing upon a star by punch number 5.

You don’t see folks get knocked out from the guard like that very much at this level of MMA but Bruno Silva is a big dude and Wellington needs to learn to get his head up off the mat and into the cage where there is some give.

When his head is flat like that and he gets hit, it is like getting hit three times. You take the punch but it becomes twice as powerful because your head has nowhere to go on the recoil. Then, the back of your head which has the most soft tissue and your brain stem take another blow from the mat as your head bounces like a basketball. I still think of Brock Lesnar and Randy Couture. Brock just kept hammer fisting and eventually he was literally dribbling his opponent’s head off the mat before the referee jumped in and stopped that one.

Bruno did it with bigger slower punches but they were very accurate and precise.

I feel like this one was a good pass because we had one guy dominating the fight before the other reversed him and got the quick stoppage.

Serghei Spivac vs Aleksei Oliynyk

Serghei Spivac almost lost this fight to a 43 year old man, twice! Or was it three times?!

At the end of rounds one and two, the old man had The Polar Bear trapped and exactly where he wanted him in a patented submission on the bottom but Serghei was saved by the bell both times!

A bet on Oli would have lost and a play on Serghei, even though it would have paid, was not smart because the guy didn’t look good and was almost finished 2 out of 3 times, and only the bell saved him.

It wasn’t like Serghei fought out of all of his opponent’s submission attempts.

Failures

Dan Ige vs Chan Sung Jung

This turned out to be a failure for a lot of people and I am not too mad about it. Dan Ige closed at (-150). We were on him at (+110) so we were ahead of the line movement which gave us some more value but in the end, it was fool’s gold because The Korean Zombie looked like he just matched up very well with Dan Ige and would win most of the time against the Hawaiian.

I did manage to get off a live bet at even money for The Korean Zombie. His size was just too much for Dan Ige who looks like he could fight at 135. Dan has the center of gravity and big legs so he can normally push guys back but the Zombie is just as large in the lower half and he held his ground well.

You can’t win them all but I am still breaking this one down in my head.

Wins

Casey O’Neill vs Lara Procopio

We already spoke at length about this fight. I thought we had a good read on both fighters and there was a clear size and athleticism advantage going the way of the underdog, Casey O’Neill.

What I didn’t account for but still played out perfectly was the cardio edge for the Scot.

She always puts a pace on her opponents and you can kind of tell that Procopio isn’t the type to get herself into peak condition.

She usually gets by if she is fighting at her pace but it’s easy to feel decent in the first few minutes of that partner run, that is until your body switches over energy systems and if you have put in the work to get that excellent cardio base, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Virna Jandiroba vs Kanako Murata

Virna…came through for us big!

We said this one would come down to size and it did but also the Jiu Jitsu of the Brazilian is on another level. Wow! When she pulled guard, I almost ripped what was left of my hair out.

If you didn’t see the fight, Jandiroba is much bigger and she establishes her jab and straight right pretty quickly in the striking exchanges. I didn’t know too much about the striking of the Japanese star but Virna looked better than ever which was a nice treat for us because I wasn’t accounting for her to have leveled up her striking game.

Eventually, Kanako got her up against the fence but there was no real threat of a takedown it didn’t look like and all of a sudden, Virna jumps guard with her head up against the fence. You always see cornermen coach their fighters to get their opponent’s head pushed into the side of the Octagon because where the pumpkin goes, the patch follows.

My first coach Jamie Ridgeway used to say that and probably still does. If your head is forced or held one way, your body isn’t going to go the opposite way so it would be impossible for Virna to pivot for a submission.

Well:
This is why always and never are bad words because Virna constantly threw up sub attempts until an armbar stuck. She even went belly down on it which is usually enough to get the tap but Kanako stuck it out.

She got back to her feet but you could see that her arm was dangling quite awkwardly and in between rounds, the doctor had a look and that was a wrap. I’m not sure if there was a break or simply a dislocation like we saw last week when Paul Craig armbar/triangled young Jamahal Hill.

Either way, a dominant win for Virna and team SportsGeek on a moderately priced favorite at just (-140)!

Seung Woo Choi vs Julian Erosa

We spoke about this one for a moment as well. I just liked the technical ability of the South Korean star over Juicy J’s hands down, lengthy style.

I shouldn’t talk because I am Julian’s size and build and I keep my lead hand low for several reasons, one being it burns my shoulder to keep it up, haha. Julian does rely just like I do on his length and reaction time to move his head because getting your hand up from your hip in time isn’t always your best option.

I have always had a good eye and see 99% of everything coming. Julian may be the same way but he was standing very bladed and awkward when Choi cracked him with the left hook that quickly led to the end of the fight.

Choi had his number all night, though, which turned out to be just a few minutes. I didn’t think it would be so quick but Choi was also moderately priced like Virna at (-140) which I thought presented excellent value.

This was another pick that many other experts had going the other way but we chose technique over awkwardness as the two matched up similarly in size.

They never got into the clinch but I liked Choi there as well because he is more muscled.

This guy has really come into his own and we have picked him to win twice in a row. I don’t know if we will get another favorable line on him next time but who knows, they may give him a top 15 opponent and we get another shot to play Seung Woo Choi as an underdog.

Marlon Chito Vera vs Davey Grant

We nailed this one too.

Like the Casey O’Neill fight, we lost the first round, though. Davey came out with a great game plan against Marlon to throw a lot of strikes and also to mix it up with him.

Chito spends a lot of the first round downloading information from his opponent and letting them gas themselves out a bit before he comes out in round two a new man. I remember thinking right before the fight that I should have told you guys to wait until after the first round to bet Vera.

He almost always loses the first round and he wins most of his fights by dominating the second and the third. The books know this but they don’t have a choice but to move the live betting line when a fight is 1-0.

I didn’t notice where the line was after round one but I assume it was pretty close to even money and Chito may have even been the dog heading into the second round. Vera poured it on in the clinch which was very smart because Day is solid from distance but struggles striking from his back foot.

He likes to step into his punches more than generate power from rotation. I am the same way so I get it. When someone is able to put me on the back foot, I am a different fighter as well. I didn’t think Martin Day’s face would end up looking the way it did but Vera utilizes all 8 limbs effectively. That’s for sure.

Looks more like a post Muay Thai fight photo to me. Congrats to both warriors for putting on a great show!

UFC Fight Night Las Vegas Betting Preview

We will keep this pretty short because from the looks of the betting card over at BetOnline.AG, this week is going to be another difficult one. There were some lines that jumped out to me but that is what they are designed to do.

Believe me, I want to make the call right now on some of these underdogs like Daniel Pineda at (+190), Nicholas Dalby at (+130), and Jai Herbert at (+200)!

The latter is definitely worth a look.

Jai Herbert is a very high level prospect who has some very very good hands. I know Moicano usually beats fighters ranked below him and loses to the top guys but Herbert matches up very well with him.

Moicano will be behooved to get this one to the mat but I don’t know if he will. He has a bad habit of standing directly in front of power punchers and letting them put him to sleep. The Korean Zombie is the first fighter to come to mind.

Most recently, we bet on Renato to be the more well rounded fighter and take out the striking specialist, Rafael Fisiev. Well, Moicano got slept in that one, again!

It was Jai Herbert who got put away by the old man but overall brick spit-house, Francisco Trinaldo. That came as a big surprise to some. I stayed away but knew a lot of people that were on Herbert in that fight.

UFC debuts are what they are, though, and I certainly expect a well rested and hopefully less stressed Jai Herbert to put on a better performance in his second ever fight inside the UFC Octagon.

The books are expecting Renato to be able to secure the takedown early and then do what he did to Damir Hadzovic and Cub Swanson, make his way to the back for the rear naked choke finish.

I can see that happening because we don’t know that much about the takedown defense of the Brit. Moicano has been knocked out three times inside the Octagon and Herbert has finished 8 of his 10 pro MMA wins by KO or TKO.

They haven’t been UFC opponents and the strength of schedule for the two men is night and day. Moicano has been in there with world champions and Jai, well, he got knocked out by Francisco Trinaldo.

Moicano is so hot and cold, it is hard to get behind him at (-250) against a power puncher with a 6 inch reach advantage. Maybe when the submission prop comes out, we can jump on it to cover ourselves but there is no doubt that Jai Herbert is a live dog at 2 to 1 right now against Renato Moicano.

Who else?

Timur Valiev is (+200) against Raoni Barcelos. Guys, I know who Raoni is and that he was a national wrestling team member so he isn’t your average Brazilian when it comes to the takedown and takedown defense game.

But man, Timur Valiev at (+200)?

That is a little wide, in my opinion, and by a little, I mean a lot. Anytime you are getting a fighter whose name ends in “V” as an underdog, it is at the very least worth a look. Is this another case of the fool’s gold stupid money that bet on Davey Grant when he was up at (+270)?

Are the books trying to pull the same stuff this week?

They, of course, don’t know the outcome of the fight or I wouldn’t have a job but they do know a lot and we should ALWAYS remember that.

We are in the business of proving them wrong:
Our ego naturally is going to go with the path of least resistance. Your body and brain will always choose that unless you are David Goggins and have retrained and reprogrammed your brain for years to do otherwise.

We aren’t David Goggins so it is a lot easier for us to believe that the sportsbooks know nothing in order for us to feel like we know something. Well, they do know their stuff and last week was a trap. They baited and hooked the Davey Grant bettors beautifully.

Timur Valiev isn’t Davey Grant, though. He is one of the top prospects in the UFC’s Featherweight Division. I knew Timur from way back when my teammate at the time at Syndicate MMA, Adam Acquaviva, replaced another teammate on a day’s notice to fight Timur Valiev on national television.

It was a struggle for Adam, who has a ton of skill and heart, but on a day’s notice against a future UFC contender, he fell short. It was a clinic from Timur but Adam showed enough heart that night to last a lifetime.

Valiev lost his first UFC fight after coming in pretty hyped up. Trevin Jones caught him, though, when Valiev was being a little too reckless in an exchange after dominating the beginning of the fight and almost finishing it himself.

Timur came back strong, though, and got a win over Martin Day back in February but honestly, he didn’t look great but against another power puncher in his first fight back after getting knocked out, he did well.

I am aware of Raoni Barcelos and I look to bet this guy whenever possible but the line is keeping me away. The Brazilian hasn’t been very active but will carry a 7 year unbeaten streak into the Octagon on Saturday night.

I can’t make a pick just yet but Timur is certainly worth a few bucks at (+200). If he can defend the takedown from Barcelos then this one is 50/50, in my opinion, and Russians generally defend takedowns. Just sayin…

In Conclusion

That’s about it from this card, guys. We will be back shortly with some UFC betting predictions for you guys. After such a successful and nearly flawless night on Saturday, it would be easy for me to let my ego rattle off a bunch of picks for you guys.

We aren’t ready yet, though.

There are certainly some betting lines that look promising, especially the underdogs but we made note of and swerved the trick the sportsbooks pulled last week so I certainly don’t want to let them fool us with the same trick this week.

The main event this week is one of the biggest ever and yes, pun definitely intended there.

Please Note:
Cyril Gane has my lean but getting Alex Volkov at (+150) is something I am considering. I don’t think it is smart to invest too much into main events so don’t put everything on the Russian.

One line that hasn’t come out yet but I am envisioning for this play is Cyril Gane by decision. He won’t have his normal reach advantage in this fight but he is very defensively sound and a lot of Volkov’s fights make it to the judges’ scorecards.

PLACE YOUR BETS NOW!

https://www.thesportsgeek.com/blog/monday-mma-mashup-ufc-june-21/

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