How about merging all present and up coming MMA events thread in one thread instead.

Up coming events:

People forget that Vitor is 30+ years old, he doesn't posses the same speed and the same athelisism that he once had as a 20 year old. People think he's going to bullrush Johnson and just finish him like that, it's not that simple.

These are my reasons for betting on Johnson at the current odds:

1. He is young and very athletic, if the fight goes past round 1, I see the edge going to Johnson.
2. He's shown willingness to follow a good gameplan, he stood up with Brennerman and Kos and took it to the ground against Hardy. There's no "I'm going to beat Vitor at his best game" type of mentality with this guy from what I've seen.
3. He is more diverse in the striking department than Vitor and if the fight is fought on the outside, Anthony has a longer reach and along with leg kicks and jabs will control the fight.
4. From what I've seen, his chin isn't made of glass, so even if he gets tagged a few times, he won't fold over completely.

On the Aldo matter, I've only watched one Mendez fight so I'm not sure how good this guys wrestling is and if he's going to be able to win a unam decision against Aldo(only way I see him beating Aldo). I think Aldo showed good brawl and sprawl game against Kenny Florian, along with good TDD. I know Florian isn't primarily a wrestler, but still he was the taller, stronger fighter that night and had trouble taking Aldo down. Who knows, maybe this is going to be the same as the BJ Penn vs Edgar fight. I'm sitting this one out though, I haven't seen Aldo getting controlled by any fighter yet to warrant betting on Mendes by unan decision, and I don't think Mendes standup is good enough to do the same thing Edgar did to BJ penn.

Good thread, it will make it a lot easier to follow along.

I agree with your second point and i feel it is the most important. AJ seems indifferent (just like Fitch) how he wins, just that he does it. This will play nicely into this fight since he NEEDS to wrestle to win it.

Btw, do any of you guys who bet mma/boxing use simulators or models for it or do you just go by feel and try to predict line movements?
I know basketball, baseball etc is frequently simulated, but is boxing/mma?

I just try to analyze the fight as best I can based on the two fighters' respective style matchup and how I think the fight will play out.

I use kelly criterion based soley on the info caught_clean posts from tomas rios twitter.

I'm up 5,000 units

Thinking of putting around 0.5 units on Mike Massenzio over Palhares, seems Palhares biggest strength is his grappling, I'm not sure he can do it to a bigger/stronger guy like Massenzio who has decent wrestling background.
Thoughts?

Also maybe some value in betting on Jardine and Lorenz vs Lawal. They only need to win more than 20% to warrant +EV. At least Jardine has a puncher chances if it stays on the ground.

He's beat decent competetition and his most recent 4 fight losing streak in ufc is to good names, Rampage, Thiago silva, Bader and Hamill. I just saw a fight with Rockhold, he holds his hands closer to the body than head so Jardine could possibly catch him?

Same thing with Lorenz vs Lawal, I think Lorenz may have the better stand up credentials and Lawal is primarily a wrestler and if he decides to stand with Lorenz, he may get TKO/KO? Also Lorenz is kind of a meatball formed shape guy so he may be difficult to takedown?

I don't know what do u guys think?

Thats actually a good idea, discussions in the thread often go past the date of the event, like right now i've been checking the 141 and 142 threads etc.

On swift's picks I disagree about AJ/Belfort, I think people are writing Belfort off too soon and overestimating AJ because of how much bigger than his WW opponents he was. It's harder to execute a gameplan without the huge size advantage of fighting welterweights, and I don't know if his wrestling is good enough to get and keep Belfort down, and if it stays standing I see Belfort finishing him.

On Massenzio I agree it's worth a partial unit odds play - the most likely outcome is he gets submitted, but I can definitely see him ending up on top and winning a decision or catching and TKOing Palhares, or Palhares could do something ******ed and get himself DQ'd (it's more of a factor for him than any other fighter really)

Overall I don't feel like Palhares should be a +400 fav against any decent wrestler at MW really and Massenzio will edge is out often enough for it to be a decent underdog play.

I also don't mind Jardine, he has a legit punchers chance and 5 rounds to connect and will be big for a MW with a lot to prove since this will be his first and only chance at a title ever if he loses plus it's his only real chance of ever getting back in the UFC if he has a good run at MW in strikeforce

I'm thinking half a unit on Jardine and half a unit on Massenzio, and if 1/2 hit even half the time it's profitable at current odds

Can anyone make a compelling case as to why Maia has a good chance against Bisping? Maia's standup is getting better but he can't outpoint bisping, doesn't have the power to KO him and I think bisping's TDD is good enough to keep the fight standing. It just seems like a really likely 30-27 bisping or r3 TKO for bisping to me and i'm struggling to see any reason not to bet it, some people have told me they like maia but no one has been able to form a coherent argument as to why. Already have bets on Sonnen and Rashad and im thinking of betting Bisping too and potentially parlaying the three of them for maybe even a full unit as well, it just feels like if there's any card that's easy to pick coming up without one fighter being ridiculous fav in all the fights it's the fox card.

Also OP should be edited to include Rockhold vs Jardine odds imo since they're out and the event is this weekend

Agree on Massenzio.

Feel free to add odds on other events, I just copied from the other thread the two ufc events. I would do it so people could check easier just the first page but I can't edit my first post.

The Maia Bisping fight, like you, I don't think Maia is going to outpoint Bisping, he may win the 1st round standup like he did versus Munez, but Bisping is too much of a work horse and Maia hasn't got the kind of cardio to stand up 3 rounds without his technique/power declining, which we saw vs Munoz. I also don't see Maia submitting Bisping since Bisping has very good defensive grappling unless he gets caught in some sort of crazy kneebar/ankle lock type of submission.

I see Bisping winning either unam decision or 2nd round,3 round tko.

I wouldn't parlay those 3 fights, I think the other two fights are much closer than people think, the davis rashad and sonnen munoz fight.
Like Sonnen should win on paper since he has already beat the munoz type of fighter in Okami and Marquedt, but if Munoz can stuff Sonnen's takedowns, Munoz has the advantage on the feet.
Rashad Davis fight, I mean on paper here as well, Rashad should win, he has the better standup skills by far and has good wrestling to back it up and I think Davis might be overhyped, but then again, Davis is a physical specimen, u seen his weigh ins the way he flexes his muscles and his upper body width is huge. I don't know, I'm thinking, he just may be able to squick out a unam decision if he constantly presses rashad to the cage and takes him down.
Personally, I'm staying away from Munoz/Sonnen and Davis/Rashad fight, I just see too much uncertaintity and not too much value on either guy to make a +EV decision.

Johnson is actually the underdog, so if it's anything, more people are overestimating Vitor than people overestimating Johnson.

The reason I pick Johnson is mainly bc of 3 reasons, he has more ways to win and has better cardio and because he follows gameplans. I don't like betting on first round TKO/KO's(which is basically how vitor wins 90% of the time he wins in this fight) unless its Brock vs elite striker or slugwars with one or two guys having a glass chin, wanderlei Leben for example. I just think Johnson is going to keep his distance and whenever Vitor rushes him he's going to close the distance into a clinch and either try takedown or press up against the cage.

edit:
Been browsing some and another good underdog might be Jordan Mein over Woodley. Every predictor is picking woodley to win, but due to the good odds on Mein and he has very good power in his hands, it might be +EV to bet on Jordan Mein.

I like this idea, but maybe with the amount of MMA, make each thread quarterly? Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun etc...

Looking forward to Strikeforce Saturday, and UFC 142 next Saturday.

I feel like in a 5-rounder Jardine has to be minor value against Rockhold, sure he should lose because Rockhold is better at most things but he'll be a big MW with a puncher's chance in what he knows is the fight of his life, +440 is tempting for a partial-unit play.

I'm actually down lifetime on Strikeforce events (about even on Bellator, and up a bit on UFC) so I should probably stay away from the event but I might place a small bet or two.

Is Amagov as good as they say? Lawler's a stop up in competition, but it's not like Lawler is going to be holding titles any time soon, thoughts anyone who's actually seen Amagov fight?

Rashad's down to -137 on sportbet I don't have funds there but that's tempting to deposit given i've already got a unit and a half on rashad at -150 on Pinnacle. Does anyone bet there/is the site reliable etc?

I've heard Amagov is a dangerous striker, personally haven't watched any of his fights, but listening to some predictitions on youtube. I've put 0.5 units on each of the underdogs, I feel Woodley,Rockland and Lawal should win majority of the time, but each one of them is facing from very good to decent strikers so I think they're +EV bets.

I just registered at pinnacle, heard they are reliable and they indeed have very good odds. I mean, when I compared nordicbet and pinnacle, pinnacle had 5.5 on a fight and nordicbet 4.2 or smth on it. Also their support was ultra fast when I sent them a message, only took about 5 mins for them to respond.

I made a very coherent argument for Maia in one of the other threads. He's a far better grappler than Bisping. He has a strong positional top game. Bisping has mediocre takedown defense. He defends himself well on the ground but I think there's a decent chance Maia can do what he's done in his last few fights and positionally grapple his way to a decision.

I don't agree with betting Massenzio. Palhares is going to annihilate him almost certainly. He showed tons of power in his strikes against Miller plus he's got that vicious leglock game. Massenzio does not have the greatest chin + he doesn't have the type of punching power that severely punishes diving for leglock attempts.

I'm not sure if i feel Bisping has solid tdd, or mediocre tdd.
You obviously feel it's the latter just_mo, could you convince me as to why? Maybe point me to some fights i can rewatch?

I feel Maias wrestling and clinch has improved. He already had some good judotrips/throws.
If he can get Bisping down frequently i think he can win this for sure.

As of right now I'm leaning towards Bisping being able to keep this standing, but I'm far from sure on that.

Mayhem was able to get him down relatively easily in the first round. Kang had him down a couple times too IIRC. These aren't exactly dynamic wrestlers. Maia may not be Chael Sonnen, but he did toss Chael Sonnen around and has shown an ability to outgrapple mid-tier grapplers before (Santiago, Miranda, Grove, etc.)

Yeah I haven't actually bet Massenzio yet I just feel he's very live considering the +405ish line. So far I only have a unit and change on Vitor, and I might keep it that way for 142, and potentially even add another unit since he's down to -117 now. If I do bet Massenzio it'll only be a 1/5th to 1/10th of a unit play. Will decide after the weighins I guess.

Just placed a couple more bets for 142

Now have

3.5 units on Vitor Belfort at average of about -125
0.2 units on Terry Etim at +235
0.1 units on Mike Massenzio at +405
0.1 units on Erick Silva at -470 (lolsizing)

Might add a bit more on parlays or Etim but otherwise i'm probably done with betting the card. The only significant bet is Belfort, I really don't think it's the best betting card so just put a few units on the one guy I actually like (Etim is probably the second best bet i'd say, and Silva is the only lock of the big favourites so lol 10 bucks for the sweat)

Liking rumble aswell. Vitor looking old and slow lately, he used to man handle dudes back in the day now he will be the one getting steamrolled. Aslong as rumble fights smart and takes it to the ground if/when it starts to go bad on the feet.

Vitor's down to -105 now

Guess I need to put another couple units on to get my average price a bit better since I still liked him even at -130 etc

Was going to bet Bisping too but holding off for now i'll wait and see where the line settles and decide.

Added 3.5 units on Vitor for 7 total now at -113ish average (sigh that I didnt wait to get it all on now)

Biggest bet of the year so far. Don't let me down Vitor... first 30 seconds are going to set the pace for the fight. Punches in bunches gogogo

Also added half a unit on Etim at +235 and another unit on Rashad.

etims good but barboza has crisper striking, think im staying away from that matchup, no money to be made from -265 and etim losses 80% of the time.

Also vitor is gonna smash rumble, rumbles 1st fight at middleweight, lets not forget, this guy was never really a title contender at welterweight, he had trouble with welterweights and Vitor is at the upper echelon of fighters in the middleweight division, sure rumble has ko power but speed is key and at -115 vitor is the best bet of the night.

-104 now, and I thought he was value at -140. At -104 the value is insane, hence 7 of the 8 units I have on this card are on Vitor. Either going to make a bunch or lose a bunch, we'll find out soon enough I guess. Vitor/Rumble is the true main event here for me since i'm not an Aldo fan. it always surprises me that Aldo has more fans than Cruz and Edgar when every Cruz and Edgar fight is amazing at the lighter weight classes, people don't like fighters who win exciting decisions I guess? To be fair I haven't seen some of Aldo's WEC fights though.

I think Etim wins about 1 in 3 times or so, very slight value at +235. Barboza should be favourite, but not by quite that much. Remember, he had a close fight with Njokuani who it turns out isn't as good as we thought and he arguably lost the Pearson fight.

I feel like the most likely outcome is a close 29-28 UD or SD and while that favours Barboza since he has the home crowd, I have to go for the underdog if I think it's going to be a close decision most of the time.

Over/under on percent of the time that Palhares does something immensely stupid mid-fight? He's at 3 from 8 so far in his UFC career...

Njokuani is a VERY good if you do what Barboza did against him though and engage him almost solely on the feet.

The reason Aldo is arguably more popular than Edgar and Cruz is pretty obvious...he's more of a finisher, has a more exciting fighting style. I personally think Cruz is pretty exciting but many disagree it seems. But I'm not sure why you think that he's more popular? They are all fairly anonymous with the casual fan base for sure.

Agree with this one, even though I think Barboza wins a majority of the time, this is a dnb.

On Johnson having trouble with welterweights, I cannot say anything about his past fights, but in his 4-5 last fights, he's looked pretty good, even in the koscheck fight, he looked really good.