Best Bets for UFC 219: Weekly Wagering Deep Dive
UFC 219 is set to take place this Saturday night (Dec. 30) at Las Vegas, Nevada, and let us just say that it doesn’t scream”caliber” like preceding end-of-year UFC cards.
The UFC stacks its card of the year in the top to bottom. In 2017, we get a main event between Cris Cyborg and Holly Holm. While it has the potential to become a great fight, it doesn’t necessarily scream”buy this pay-per-view!”
Additionally, this is an extremely hard card to wager on as there aren’t lots of fights which it is possible to find a strong read on. Many of the favorites, like Cyborg and Khabib Nurmagomedov, deserve to become overwhelming favorites, yet could also easily get merked with their competitions. Danger lurks.
That said, we need to make a few plays. So let’s do the best we can to find a few golden underdogs, a few worthy props, along with a lucrative parlay. Additionally checking out my Best Bets for UFC Futures from a week, where I suggested a couple of’puppies (Carla Esparza and Neil Magny) who still hold some value.
Golden Underdogs
Middleweight: Marvin Vettori (-222) vs. Omari Akhmedov (+187)
At first glance, this moneyline at BetOnline seems perfectly acceptable, but if you take a closer look at this preliminary matchup, it is possible to get some solid reasons to select the puppy in Omari”The Wolverine” Akhmedov (17-4).
Even though Marvin Vettori (12-3) is a bigger fighter that loves to throw down, averaging 3.13 significant strikes landed per minute, he doesn’t have enough power to take Akhmedov out through (T)KO, therefore this fight might wind up being a grappling event. While Akhmedov has revealed previously that he has some power in his own hands (seven wins by knockout and two”Battle of the Night” bonuses at the UFC), where he really shines is in the wrestling department. The Dagestani grappler could easily wind up controlling the fight if the bulk is spent at the clinch or around the mat.
The kryptonite I see for Akhmedov is his gasoline tank. Can he hit a cardio wall just like he did in successive knockout losses to Sergio Moraes and Elizeu Zaleski? In both of these declines, Akhmedov started strong but faded badly in the later rounds.
He followed those declines with two hard-working decision wins over Kyle Noke and Abdul Razak Alhassan, the latter an upset at UFC Fight Night 109. Right now I’m leaning towards”The Wolverine’s” hard hands and wrestling acumen for another possibly profitable upset.
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