FULL UFC Vegas 79
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Title
Description
Large slate of bets, but the total unit count is only at 15.7, on the higher end of the last few cards but not by much.
I need 3 fighters to win, and I am guaranteed a profit on the event. If Malkoun, Argueta, and Usman cash the top 2 lines of my PRP, everything else can lose and I will win 1u.
Malkoun – has many advantages in this fight. His relentless pace and grinding will wear Brundage down, who has fallen victim to a limited gas tank in the past. The gap here could be big, and if Malkoun finishes him early we shouldn’t be too surprised. I cap a better than 12% chance that finish comes late after a beating.
Argueta – Argueta might be a dark horse prospect in this division. He is a great athlete and has some strong wrestling, he is well built to give good guys problems. Miles Johns is better than he gets credit for, he is solid and well rounded, but we should see Argueta at a different level physically and with a wide advantage in wrestling. Should be enough to get at least 2 rounds in the small cage.
Usman – Classic clash of momentums, one fighter on a win streak on his way up, and an old vet on his way down and out. But styles make fights, and Collier is scrappy. He has been around for awhile, but at his new found weight class, he has used his physicality to win fights. Collier looks better on the scale than he has recently, but Usman is built like a true heavyweight. I expect Mohammed Usman to be the better athlete, stronger and the fighter with more tools to end the fight.
Rest of the PRP
Adding in some faves I am less confident in, or that have some red flags.
Fialho more dangerous and polished, same for Battle tbh. Battle is green but so is Fletcher.
Rodriguez won last time, but she is on a real skid. Hard to trust her too much.
Vidal has good instincts to finish and she has some decent pro level experience. Not enough known about her, or her opponent, to have too much confidence here.
Adding in my dogs to make it juicy.
The Dogs
Ramos has shown a far great willingness to mix it up, he has 13 takedowns in his last 5 fights! And in Charles’ last 2 losses, he gave up 7 takedowns. Also – I think I give Ramos the striking advantage! Ramos has fought some of the best in the division, and Charles has only beat marginal UFC competition. Jourdain’s pace could give him Ramos problems, but all considered, I like Ramos at these prices. Regardless, I think we see a close fight, so betting O 1.5 in a small parlay, and juicing my pick with Ramos by DEC and an even juicer flier on a split…..
Ige has some real clean boxing, and has been in there with some of the best. The obvious question will be if he can stop Bryce from taking him down. I want to believe Ige has the grappling to at least get up, but we just can not say for sure. Ige has fallen victim to a heavy grappling approach in the past. And Bryce will be relentless in that small cage. Our last memory of Bryce is him tapping in the 2nd to Topuria, so it can be easy to forget just how good his grappling can be. He is effective against high level competition. With all that said, Bryce is still very much an unknown at this level of competition, I like placing a small flier on Ige here.
I initially leaned Fiziev, then I thought avoid would be for the best, but now I have crossed all the way over to Gamrot! This is a classic striker vs grappler matchup, and maybe after all that indecisiveness I should just stay away. But the reason I changed my mind, was that I figured it was more likely Gamrot can grind out 3 rounds than it is that Fiziev can hurt him on the feet enough to do the same. Gamrot has been hit before, and the threat is obvious, but with the line up where it is, I like Gamrots game. Extra juice on the DEC.