First, sorry for the lack of posts. True to my nature, although I wasn’t posting my predictions and results, I was still making numerous bets on UFC and beyond. The betting has stretched into the NFL and NBA respectively. The roll currently sits at $300.00. Of all the sports I have action on, I feel the most comfortable in the world of Mixed Martial Arts. It seems to me that there are fewer variables. I know I know, there are fluky punches just like fluky touchdowns, but this sport makes sense to me.
Let’s recap some of the bets I made, what I was thinking, and what happened. Here we go:
UFC 90
I only saw one intriguing bet on this card. For the most part, I avoid super heavy favorites as I find there way too much risk. The match-up I keyed on was Fabricio Verdum vs. Junior Dos Santos. Verdum had last beaten up on Brandon Vera, but I saw that he was coming in much heavier than normal. Dos Santos was an unknown to me, but I read about his camp training with Noguiera and Anderson Silva. That’s a crew that will have you ready. Add to this that Dos Santos was a +450 dog, I had to make a play and did. Dos Santos proved me right with a huge knockout in the first round.
WEC 36
This card will be known for Urijah Faber getting KO’ed by Mike Brown, but I saw a much more attractive bet on the undercard. Rani Yahya vs. Yoshiro Maeda. Yahya is a sub expert who I last saw taking Chase Beebe to a 5 round decision. This is not to be ignored and as I thought, Yahya subbed Maeda in the first.
UFC 91
I had a series of bets in this one. I’ll start with the last and most shocking. I bet that the Randy Couture Brock Lesnar fight would go past the halfway mark of round 3. I was incorrect as you may now know. Couture got caught with a giant punch just behind his ear in the second round and went down like a sack of potatoes. This is that fluky shot I was talking about. Now this is not to say that I thought Couture would win, but I was pretty certain that this fight would go deeper as Lesnar would be much more patient and Randy is Randy and just wouldn’t give up unless KO’ed. Unfortunately for me and Randy, he was just that.
Kenny Florian vs. Joe Stephenson was a very easy fight to call. Florian is just way too smart, too well trained, and gives it his all. Easy decision for my betting purposes and he proved me right with a submission in the first.
The next two picks for me were straight up submission specialist calls: Dustin Hazelett and Demian Maia. Both excel on the ground and both won via submission in the first. Hazelett by a crazy arm bar out of an omoplata. The kid is sick. Maia via rear naked. Can’t be stopped. With these two, I don’t think it matters who they face. It wouldn’t have to be a very elite level fighter or some crazy odds against to consider not betting on them.
I’ll be sure to post up the predictions on the next event UFC: Fight for the Troops before December 10, 2008.
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