UFC 262 - Betting Guide

Last Card Recap

Holy hell did Phil Hawes ever vastly improve from his previous outings. Our boy Kyle Daukaus did exactly what we expected. The problem was he only did these things for about 30 seconds throughout the 15 minutes. I'll own this one. When you have such an athletic beast like Hawes, there's usually a point in their careers where their cardio and skill set takes a big jump forward. We have to be especially cognizant when it's a wrestler that we are analyzing. It's a shame some of our other plays never got off the ground due to the fights being cancelled on fight day. Let's take a look at this card.

All odds are mean odds provided bywww.bestfightodds.com

My picks in bold

Before we even look at making some plays on this one, I think the best advice I can give you is to maybe pump the brakes for this card. The reason being is we are in Houston. If you think the judging has been bad recently in Vegas, well get ready to have a new found appreciation for them. The commission here is atrocious. Just for frame of reference, the last time a card was hosted here, we had 4 split decisions, a no contest, and an absolute robbery in the main event (Reyes vs Jones). And this is par for the course for every event. We also have about 10 fights close to even money which normally is an analyst/bettors dream. The problem here is if any of these fights go to the judges, we are basically at the craps table just rolling dice. There is nothing worse than laying some serious chalk, finding a fantastic value play, seeing your hours of research play out in the cage, and then hearing Bruce Buffer start announcing the split decision routine on route to a robbery. This card has unbelievable potential to do just that and we have to recognize that a chip saved is a chip gained.

But if you are the type of bettor who just wants to spice up the card with some very loose gambling then this card is fantastic. Let's check the odds.

Main Card

Charles Oliveira (-131) vs. Michael Chandler (+101)

Tony Ferguson (+132) vs. Beneil Dariush (-158)

Katlyn Chookagian (-136) vs. Viviane Araújo (+113)

Shane Burgos (-153) vs. Edson Barboza (+127)

Matt Schnell (-163) vs. Rogério Bontorin (+135)

Dariush opened at like +105 and honestly that was the time to pounce. Maybe you did already cause the line has moved significantly to what we see today. Bontorin missed weight so who knows if it will help or hinder him. Shane Burgos has a style that is poised to give Barboza problems (forward pressure always stifles Barboza's kicking game) but with the durability of both fighters, we are probably gonna bring the judges into it for that fight (see above). You'll notice I picked one underdog in Araujo there but Chookagian has a knack for making every fight she's in extremely close. We could see something similar to last week with Hawes rapid improvement as Araujo is aslo an athletic beast. With Chookagian at a crossroads, and Araujo rising through the ranks, we could see a passing of the guard. I dig into this one a bit deeper here. Again, very high likelihood for decision.

Prelim and Early Prelims

Ronaldo Souza (-125) vs. André Muniz (+115)

Lando Vannata (-105) vs. Mike Grundy (-105)

Andrea Lee (+102) vs. Antonina Shevchenko (-112)

Jordan Wright (+103) vs. Jamie Pickett (-107)

Gina Mazany (-200) vs. Priscila Cachoeira (+185)

Kevin Aguilar (+102) vs. Tucker Lutz (-112)

Christos Giagos (-192) vs. Sean Soriano (+177)

All of these are pretty close to call and if it weren't for being in Houston, there would be value galore. Souza is 41 years old and we've seen that he can't hang with the top dogs any more. The question is can he hang with the unranked, middle of the pack dogs. Muniz is insanely athletic and I have the smallest of leans that he will grind Souza down (who has some cardio issues even at the best of times).

Lando Vannata is dropping to featherweight so there's a ton of unknowns there. But I think Grundy is durable enough to avoid getting one-shot finished and use his wrestling to control the majority of the fight.

Andrea Lee was born in Texas so she's going to have the home cage advantage for this one. However, she actually fought in Houston the last time the UFC was there and suffered an absolute robbery. Seriously, every media outlet scored the fight in her favor and it almost seemed like the judges were just trying to make it look like they were impartial by not awarding the home town girl a win. Even still, she has a decent enough wrestling attack that she can rely on to exploit Shevchenko's glaring weakness. If she stays on the feet too long however, she loses.

I feel pretty confident that Mazany will get it done but unfortunately so does the bookies so easy pass. Lutz also has a favorible style match up going into this one but Aguilar has faced way stiffer competition.

My Plays

This is going to be one of the very few times I'm going to pass on making any pre fight bets. I think a good strategy will be to see if the judges got their heads on straight during some of the early fights first. If they do, I'd feel better about betting those picks or even jumping on the live betting.

If I was forced to advise a play/strategy I think betting Lee, Grundy, Araujo, and Lutz has a very great shot at having at least 2 come in for positive return, with a good chance that 3 hit for decent profit.

Enjoy the fights tonight folks!