MMA betting tips: UFC 259
2pts double Israel Adesanya and Aleksandar Rakic to win at 11/8 (Betfred)
1pt Petr Yan to win by KO/TKO or Submission at 23/10 (bet365)
3pts double Sean Brady and Amanda Lemos to win at 6/5 (BetVictor)
1pt Joseph Benavidez to win by Decision at 3/1 (Paddy Power)
Main card
By Kieran Cobley
UFC 259 is set to take things up a notch for the promotion, with a stacked main card that sees not one, not two, but three title fights.
In the main event, middleweight champion Israel Adesanya steps up to light heavyweight to challenge Jan Blachowicz for his title.
In the co-man event, double champ Amanda Nunes will look to retain her featherweight title in a clash with Megan Anderson and in the bantamweight division, Petr Yan will look to defend his title for the first time in a long-awaited fight with Aljamain Sterling.
The main card also sees former light heavyweight title contender Thiago Santos taking on Aleksandar Rakic and a lightweight fight between Drew Dober and Islam Makhachev.
Adesanya can prove class above
ADESANYA is a once in a generation talent. Following a hugely successful kickboxing career, the New Zealander transitioned to MMA with ease, and is 20-0 in his pro career, with 15 of those wins coming via KO/TKO.
I see the middleweight champion extending that unbeaten run to 21-0 against Blachowicz for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, Adesanya’s movement is a puzzle that no fighter has truly been able to master. The undefeated champion has made getting in and out of range look easy in just about every fight he has contested thanks to his quick feet and rhythm.
Secondly, Adesanya’s leg kicks are not to be trifled with. In his last fight, Adesanya simply decimated Paulo Costa’s calves with perfectly-aimed kicks, slowing the Brazilian down and then catching him with a shot that knocked him out. Blachowicz will already be giving up a speed advantage to The Last Stylebender and if his ability to simply get around the cage is diminished by leg kicks, he will be in serious trouble.
Thirdly, the most obvious way to beat Adesanya would be to take him down, but he has extremely good takedown defence, with a takedown defence rate of 86% against top-level wrestlers that include Derek Brunson and Kevlin Gastelum. This shows a game plan of taking Adesnaya down is not as simple as it seems.
Personally, I firmly believe Adesanya will win by KO because of those reasons but it is safer to back him outright in a double given we do not know what his cardio and power will be like at 205lbs.
Rakic to unpick vulnerable Santos
In the second leg of my double, I have backed RAKIC to beat Santos.
Rakic has impressed massively since joining the UFC and his straight punches and powerful kicks should be the ticket to victory against Santos.
Santos' wild kicks and looping haymakers can leave him open to being countered by quicker straight punches.
You also have to factor in that Santos has had issues with his knees in the past, and some well-aimed leg kicks from Rakic will cause him problems.
At 4/6, Rakic is a bit shorter than I’d like, but pairing him with 4/9 chance Adesanya is a good way of beefing up the return.
Value on offer with explosive Yan
Yan is yet to defend his bantamweight title, and it tells you just how tough a test he faces when the bookmakers have both men priced up at 9/10.
I do think Yan will overcome this test, though.
The Russian has explosive power in his strikes and his dominant style of wrestling will make it difficult for Sterling to mount any submission offence.
Sterling’s best hope of winning this fight is to keep Yan at range on the outside, but the problem with this is that Yan has shown in past fights that he can get himself into his own striking range with ease.
If that is the case here, his powerful striking should knock Sterling out, or at least drop him and allow for Yan to mount some submission attacks.
At 23/10, Yan to win by KO/TKO is great value, especially given the Russian has eight finishes already on his record, showing he has the ability to finish fights.
Preliminaries
By Will Dean
With UFC 259 being touted as one of the most star-studded cards in recent years, it was only right that the preliminary action contained some of the sport’s most talented prospects. Few fighters are more deserving of the opportunity than the undefeated SEAN BRADY, who takes on Jake Matthews.
With a professional record of 13 wins without defeat, Brady has barely put a foot wrong inside the Octagon. The UFC have clearly marked him as a talented individual, having previously attempted to book him against Belal Muhammad (one half of next week’s main event) last year.
Double up on Brady and Lemos
Brady is not too dissimilar in style to Matthews, as both have good striking and grappling. Despite this, Brady is just head and shoulders above his opponent and will fight at a higher tempo that few can match. Brady is also the better wrestler of the two, and Matthews has been neutralised on his back a few times in his UFC career.
This fight really feels like a crafted opportunity for Brady, as Matthews has failed to live up to the expectations that the UFC had for him as the future face of Australian MMA. Time and time again The Celtic Kid was been gifted favourable matchups, only to put on uninspiring performances that went the distance. It seems apparent that the UFC are looking to cash out of their investment in Matthews and instead put their stock into his American opponent.
Considering Brady is also much more likely to find a finish in this fight, I think he comfortably outperforms his 1/2 price tag, wins this fight dominantly and enters the Welterweight top 15 by the end of the week.
Another similarly priced prospect on the preliminaries is AMANDA LEMOS, who looks to claim her third successive win in the UFC. The Brazilian also faces an opponent with similar characteristics to herself, but an advantage in both striking and physicality should comfortably see her declared the winner.
Lemos could potentially be one of the most underrated strikers in the Women’s Strawweight division, with terrifying speed and impressive power that has earned her five knockout victories. To go alongside this, she is an opportunistic submission threat and has also scored two tap-out wins.
Livinha Souza, Lemos’ opponent, is a talented grappler in her own right. Having gone the distance in all three of her UFC bouts so far, she has proven herself to be a difficult opponent to finish. Though Souza got her hand raised in two of these fights, both were razor thin and could certainly have gone either way, largely due to a lack of resilience and drive from The Brazilian Gangster.
Lemos is the much more likely fighter to find a finish in this bout, but I also expect her to be able to win rounds with relative ease with her eye-catching striking. She should be the fighter moving forward and landing more offense, but she also has the ability to keep herself safe from danger in the grappling. The public money has been firmly backing Lemos so far this week, and I am inclined to side with them.
Veteran Benavidez too big to ignore
At 36 years of age, JOSEPH BENAVIDEZ finds himself at a crossroad in his career. Having been in the UFC’s rankings for over a decade, he suffered back-to-back losses in title fights against Deiveson Figueiredo last year, most likely putting an end to his lifelong quest to win UFC gold. With questions of retirement looming large, many thought that would be the last time we saw Benavidez compete in the Octagon.
Time is a great healer though, and the Team Alpha Male fighter has spoken candidly about his urge to compete being the sole driving force behind his decision to continue fighting. The UFC certainly obliged, matching him against the number three ranked Flyweight on the verge of a title shot, Askar Askarov.
Whilst context would have you believe that the chips are stacked against Benavidez here, I actually think this is a great stylistic matchup for him. In my opinion, Benavidez has some of the best scrambling ability we have ever seen in the UFC. He is difficult to take down, but it seems almost impossible to hold him down. Against an opponent that is predominantly a grappler, that will be huge.
If Benavidez is able to keep this fight on the feet, then I think he is the far more likely competitor to get his hand raised. Askarov does not seem completely comfortable in open space and has relied on his grappling to limit the amount of striking he has to do. He will still be able to close the distance and threaten a takedown on Benavidez, but the judges will acknowledge that the American is dictating where the fight takes place. To add to that, Benavidez should get the better of his opponent whenever strikes are thrown.
As we often see in MMA, there is a lot to be said for veteran experience. Whilst Askarov has 14 professional bouts to his name, Benavidez has 28 wins. To make his record look even more impressive, Joe B has lost exclusively to UFC champions in all but one occasion. The only knock on Benavidez historically is his lack of finishing ability, with the majority of his wins coming by decision.
I think the betting line for this fight has put too much stock into the circumstances of Benavidez’s career, expecting this to be a ‘passing of the torch’ scenario. I think the outcome will look much different, and that the wrong fighter is priced up as the favourite. I expect Benavidez to give the famous ‘veteran lesson’ here, winning a dominant decision on the feet. At a 3/1 price tag, that seems like serious value to me.
Posted at 1200 GMT on 03/03/21
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