Fitch +110 is a great bet. If he hadn't lost by fluke KO he'd be -200 or more. He's still the favorite stylistically and obviously the more experienced fighter.

I like Rony, Brandao, Cane and Trinaldo there at those odds. Madadi too to a lesser degree.

Luiz Cane odds quickly getting better, he's all the way down to -125 on 5dimes. Anyone have any insight as to why, and any guesses on where its likely to settle?
Analysis be damned, I'm putting two units on him at that price, prolly add more if it continues to get better.

Cane has lost 3 out of his last 4 fights by TKO.

Camozzi by TKO in the 2nd round IMO.

Madadi-Camozzi-Brandao parlay FTW

he could be number 1.

if i had to pick one guy currently in the league who i thought could be wearing the belt by this time next year, it wouldnt be condit, diaz, or story it would be silva or maia - as we dont yet know how deep their talent goes (at ww).

i just got a lil cane today at -135.

good chance one of these guys is gettin a pink slip after this, and i doubt it'll be cane at home.

i mean, not the bet of the year, but at this price i think it's safe enough to bet against can camozzi.

fwiw i rewatched cane vs nedkov today, and cane's boxing wasnt exactly great, or exactly not sorta sloppy, but i felt he was winning the round before he got ktfo, and nedkov is undefeated.

It's not a fluke when you tear your MCL and take a fight with a freaking beast of a man named Johnny Hedricks. Fitch is about to get Dan Hardy'd.

Added some bets today, in addition to the 5u I have on Maia and 5u on Nog and 0.5u on Prado, got 3.5u on Brandao and 3.5u on Rony Jason, 2.5u on Cane and 1u on Trinaldo

Madadi odds weren't as good as i hoped, so haven't bet that yet, might do it later but i've heard a few people picking Marcello due to the matchup etc so idk if I will or not.

For you Cane and Maia fanciers, thought it's worth pointing out that the fan fight predictions on Tapology (79% Maia, 74% Cane) are a lot more skewed towards them than the odds are. Doesn't mean betting them is wrong, but it's worth asking who is putting the money down on their opponents considering casualfan is likely not.

I've been a bit busy with writing my piece for the website I write for, but wanted to chime in on a couple of things Re: Camozzi vs. Cane. This was one of the fights I thought I'd be heavy on but the line seems a little closer than I was anticipating.

Firstly, Cane's striking defense is pretty terrible. He gets tagged with power shots far too often. He carries his hands low frequently. His head movement is non-existent and in my opinion he doesn't use feints or jabs often enough. Cane leaves himself open to counter-punching way too often, which is why solid technical strikers like Cyrille Diabate and Diet Nog were able to knock him out.

Secondly, Cane wasn't the largest of Light Heavyweights, but he wasn't tiny either. He wasn't overly soft in the middle or anything like that, but I'm not convinced that it's going to be easy for him to make this cut. His cardio has never been one of his assets, so it's hard to imagine it gets better after cutting 20 more pounds.

Thirdly, Camozzi is a fairly large Middleweight. He'll still be 2-inches taller than Cane, although I believe Cane has the reach advantage. Camozzi will also likely be the stronger and more physical fighter in the cage. Camozzi isn't a lights out striker, but he can turn this fight into a grind, and muscle against Cane which will likely sap Cane's cardio and give him bigger openings in rounds two and three if he gets it there.

Basically, in my opinion if Camozzi can survive the first round onslaught from Cane, he gets the late stoppage fairly often. With that said, I was hoping he'd be a bigger underdog.

Feel like Cane will decision him a lot. Camozzi was losing the Catone fight until the doctor stoppage from memory. Might need to see more of Cane's early fights I guess but for some reason I remember him as being average and Camozzi as being awful and surely Cane won't want to be embarrassed in his home country on two cards. Not as confident in this pick as in Maia, Nog and Brandao, but he should def win over half the time imo especially if it goes to a close decision with the home crowd judging advantage. I learned my lesson on the first brazil card, don't bet against brazilians in fights that should be flips in brazil imo

Leebert - which site do you write for? Wouldn't mind reading some of your columns.

Can I take a second to mention all of the reg posters in this thread are awesome? Spending a week in the politics thread has made me realise just how high-content and awesome most of the posts in this thread are.

Ended up on combinations of Tibau, Brandao, Silva and Maia, with parlays of Nog/Bezerra sprinkled in there.

Cheers, thread is good.

Concerning Brandao people, he's the melvin guillard at featherweight, really athletic and talented but has terrible cardio and has a suspect chin so be sure to check out his opponent and how deep they go. Most of his losses are 2nd/3rd losses which bears witness to what is most likely lacking cardio and chin.

Bellator odds are out now so I can write all my bets up. I haven't bet Prado yet because I think I'll be able to get better odds tomorrow. I'll price it up at whatever I can get then. I also haven't bet Tibau and won't be betting him as I don't like the bet at these odds for the reasons Swoop has posted. Including it for consistency though.

2-star plays

Erick Silva v Jon Fitch: 2u @ 1.881 (BEST BET)

1-star plays

Wagner Prado v Phil Davis: 1u @ ???
Gleison Tibau v Francisco Trinaldo: 1u @ 1.69
Akop Stepanyan v Wagnney Fabiano: 1u @ 2.5

Hurts to have so few bets really but what can you do?

My only plays so far are on E.Silva and Maia. If the lines get better I'll be on Big Nog and Glover too.

I have a little on Maia too just because I was able to get on at 1.82. I could arb it for profit but I'll just hold it.

On the same side of all of it except I have Trinaldo instead of Tibau. If the Tibau who fought Nurmagomedov fights the Trinaldo who fought Heleno, then Trinaldo will take it easily with aggression and TDD. If it's the Trinaldo who lost to Bodao from TUF, then he'll lose, but he was fighting 2 weight classes above where he was supposed to. He should be better at LW and if he is, Tibau's in trouble imo.

I agree, and that's why he lost his last fight.

His opponent did get finished by Siler in the first round though (Diego finished Siler in r1 on their season of TUF but that isnt too relevant) so i'm not sure he'll be able to weather the storm that Diego will bring in r1, and if it goes to the judges scorecards and either r2 or r3 is remotely competitive, Brandao is likely to get the decision if he wins the first.

I think Brandao will blitz him in r1 and get it done though, or if he doesn't he'll pace himself and win two rounds.

still deciding whether to bet Erick Silva over Fitch, I really want him to win but not sure if he can stay off his back for long enough. ChrisV's 2 star plays have done well though, so leaning towards tailing it now, but probably not for more than a unit if I do.

Swoop, I think you're underestimating how good Nurmagomedov is. He's a badass. I don't think Tibau was bad at all in that fight, he was just fighting a high level guy.

It's hard because we don't know just how good Erick Silva is. He shows great promise but that doesn't matter if Fitch grinds out a decision. I don't see Fitch getting TKO/KO'd though since he got KO'd last time and it's rarely you see good people get KO'd/TKO'd 2 times in a row since they will be more vary next fight, unless their chin is shot and/or they are brawlers(Liddell, Wanderlai etc). I mean the guys Fitch has defeated may or may not be close to Silvas class. He showed some good sprawl vs Brennerman, but Fitch is on a whole other level and hes a lot better than Brennerman in the standup.

I bet on Nurmagomedov I know he's good. I don't think Nurmagomedov or Tibau was impressive in that fight, it was a bad fight and Nurmagomedov's aggression won him the decision and that was about it.

I heard Trinaldo was the best guy in the house and just undersized prior to the season - he didn't perform that well and I figured hype trail derailed, but I haven't been as impressed by a performance as I was by his performance against Heleno - his TDD was impeccable and his striking looks very good - and that was STILL above his natural weight class - this will be the first time we see him fight a guy close to his size (granted Tibau is a big LW, but he will also be a big LW given he was recently an undersized MW)

I'm not saying he's a lock, but I think he is at least a flip, and given I got +140 or so on him, very happy with it.

Bottom line is if Silva connects hard on Fitch's chin in the first round or keep it standing for 3+ minutes, Fitch is going to struggle. Erick Silva's striking is better than anyone that Fitch has beaten's striking except for *maybe* Alves (we don't know). If Fitch can land a TD in the first minute of the first two rounds, he's probably going to win.

Out of all of the fights on the card, bets aside, I want to see Erick Silva win more than anyone else so that a) we don't have to see Fitch fighting on the Main Card anymore and b) so that we have a good exciting new challenger for GSP after he's done with Condit and if he faces Anderson too at a catchweight assuming he beats Condit, the Hendricks/Kampmann winner can face E Silva for the next shot at WW or if not we get E. Silva vs Rory Mac assuming he beats Penn for the next shot after Hendricks/Kampmann winner.

For what it's worth, I think Erick Silva and Rory Mac are both more likely to beat GSP than either Hendricks or Kampmann, although Rory may not fight him.

@Swoop - The site I write for is called the Camel Clutch Blog. I won't shill the url, since I'm pretty sure that's against the site rules. But a Google search should lead you there if you're interested. It's not a major MMA hub, judging by the name you can tell it's a bit more of a wrestling based blog. But the operator of the blog and myself try to put quite a bit of MMA coverage on the site.

My write up should be there early tomorrow morning, but here's a couple of my undercard thoughts from there. Keep in mind, a lot of it is fluff as it's more for casual fans than hardcore fans and people who bet on it.

Marcello-Madadi: Both these guys have pretty poor striking and Madadi had a bit of a slow start in his last bout. I think that was a bit more Octagon jitters than anything. His wrestling is way better than Marcello's and is probably the only one that can get the fight to the ground, since Marcello likely isn't good enough to. As long as he doesn't fall asleep in Marcello's guard, he should take it. Really like Madadi up to -200, maybe even a bit more.

Cane-Camozzi: I like Camozzi for reasons I already posted, but after rewatching his fight against Nick Catone, I could be wrong on this one. I expected him to be a bigger underdog, so I won't be touching this one. Instead I'll root to be wrong, and have you guys ship a bet on Cane.

Moraes-Forte: Might be the worst fight in the history of the UFC? Both of these guys have pretty terrible striking, but at least Moraes is an extremely talented grappler. Forte is decent on the ground, but Moraes is light years ahead of him. Moraes up to -275 is probably good.

Brandao-Gambino: I was torn on this one and even after writing my piece, I'm not convinced where the true line for this fight is. Gambino is definitely better than he showed in the fight against Siler, but Brandao has something to prove. If he paces himself a bit better, I think he should probably win. The true line is probably somewhere right around where it is now. -175 maybe for Brandao?

Tibau-Trinaldo: I'll be watching the weigh-ins for this one. Trinaldo showed good takedown defense competing as a blown up Lightweight fighting at 185. But my concern is that it's been so long since he cut the weight that it affects him negatively. That and Tibau is absolutely massive and a stronger wrestler than Heleno. I like Tibau but it's close and won't touch it, unless it looks like Trinaldo battles the scale, then I might like a fair sized play on Tibau.

Bezerra-Sicilia: Basically, Sicilia throws wild punches that you can see coming from a mile away. Jason is a decent counter striker and he's patient enough to wait for Sicilia to make a mistake. Add to that, he's way better on the ground and he's got a couple ways to win. However, he did get rocked in his preliminary fight to get into the TUF Brazil house by a smaller fighter, so I don't trust his chin and Sicilia's only skill is that he hits hard. I like Jason up to -300, but not much more.

Probably post a bit more thoughts on the Main Card later. Even though I don't have a lot of bets planned for it. Leaning Maia, Prado, Fitch, Teixeira, Herman, Silva.

Although I might throw some degen money on Bonnar if he can crawl above +950