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No better time for a fight fiesta than on Cinco de Mayo.
Learning from the mistakes of its past two cards on the channel (namely, don't try to fill an hour with a single fight when one of the combatants has a metric ton of first round knockouts and don't fill your free card with grapplers whose number of recent finishes can be counted on one hand), Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has put together a solid plethora of entertaining scraps for its third trip to the FOX network.
Lightweight contenders Jim Miller and Nate Diaz will collide in the UFC on Fox 3 five-round main event at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, N.J., while Johny Hendricks will look to add a bleached-blonde scalp to his growing collection when he faces Josh Koscheck in the co-featured fight of the night.
In addition, grappling master Rousimar Palhares and striking whiz Alan Belcher will look to take the next step toward the elite of the Middleweight division in other exciting televised main card mixed martial arts (MMA) action.
And where there's free entertainment, there's scratch to be made on the side.
Join us after the break for an in-depth look at the odds behind UFC on Fox 3: Diaz vs. Miller" as we examine the betting lines for the upcoming MMA match ups this weekend in the "Garden State:"
UFC on FOX 3 Odds For The Under Card:
Nick Denis (-275) vs. Roland Delorme (+215)
Danny Castillo (-130) vs. John Cholish (EVEN)
Karlos Vemola (-120) vs. Mike Massenzio (-110)
John Dodson (-500) vs. Timothy Elliott (+350)
John Lineker (-325) vs. Louis Gaudinot (+250)
John Hathaway (-230) vs. Pascal Krauss (+180)
Dennis Bermudez (-185) vs. Pablo Garza (+150)
Tony Ferguson (-270) vs. Michael Johnson (+210)
Thoughts: Nothing really jumps out to me as a bargain, but Bermudez strikes me as worth a bet at -185.
The Fredson Paixao and Yves Jabouin stoppages led to a serious overvaluation of Garza. He put down Paixao before we had a chance to see much of either’s skills, and Jabouin was in the process of turning Garza’s thighs into gelatin before getting submitted. Garza just had nothing to offer Dustin Poirier and is only a handful of fights removed from getting guillotined by Tiequan Zhang, a man whose massive shortcomings have gotten more and more apparent as time goes by. Bermudez has the wrestling and the chin to dictate where the fight goes and shrug off the majority of what Garza throws at him.
Go straight-up or parlay with Bermudez.
I’m trying to see another bet to accompany this, but the card is loaded with hard ones to call. I’m tempted to recommend putting Lineker in a parlay, but after Maxi’s pathetic flop of a debut, I’m not certain that’s a good idea. While I picked Cholish, I think Castillo is being slightly undervalued, and putting some on him wouldn’t be a bad idea.
UFC on FOX 3 Odds For The Main Card:
Pat Barry (-200) vs. Lavar Johnson (+160)
Rousimar Palhares (-285) vs. Alan Belcher (+225)
Johny Hendricks (-130) vs. Josh Koscheck (EVEN)
Jim Miller (-230) vs. Nate Diaz (+180)
Thoughts: So much potential for highlight fodder. Let’s look closer.
Let me say this flat out: do not bet on any fights involving Pat Barry. Just don’t. The guy has huge power and is a hell of a lot faster than he lets on, but the man excels at losing fights he should win easily. While Johnson packs more power than anyone save perhaps Shane Carwin in the entire UFC, Barry should be able to pick him to pieces. Johnson is flat-footed and plodding, which makes him a perfect target for Barry’s bone-crushing leg kicks, and his cardio is fairly unproven.
But really, if I had to pick one guy in the UFC to run headfirst into one of Johnson’s uppercuts after dominating every second of the fight, it’d be Barry. Leave this be.
I have Palhares pegged as champion material. His ground game is the best in the division, his ground-and-pound is becoming terrifying, and his striking is always improving. That said, the guy’s fight IQ is just too bad for me to recommend betting on him against someone who, unlike Mike Massenzio, can end the fight after a single mistake on Rousimar’s part. I do think he’s going to tear Belcher in half, but just leave this one alone.
Considering how poor Koscheck has looked in his last two fights (what with losing most of a round on the feet to Matt Hughes and barely throwing a punch against Mike Pierce), even odds strike me as somewhat generous. Still, Hendricks has struggled in the past with aggressive wrestlers, having lost to Rick Story and eked out a decision over Pierce.
I’d still recommend putting Johny in a parlay, however, as I’m not convinced that the Georges St. Pierre beating didn’t erase Koscheck’s aggression.
Look, I can’t pick a Diaz fight objectively. I know that, you know that, so let’s just leave this fight alone. All I’ll say is that unless Diaz gets somewhere around +250, his poor track record against people with the wrestling prowess of Miller makes him not really worth a bet.
UFC on FOX 3 Best Bets:
- Parlay: Dennis Bermudez and Johny Hendricks -- Bet $45 to make $77.65
- Single Bet: Danny Castillo -- Bet $60 to make $46.15
- Parlay: Danny Castillo and Johny Hendricks -- Bet $30 to make $63.91
Leg-shreddin’ black belts, headhunting welterweights, and two monster hitters. Life is good, Maniacs.
See you then!
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