I’ve got 3 Premium Betting tips for UFC Fight Night 58, which includes one great value underdog bet. My underdog pick for this event goes against popular opinion, but I do feel very confident that it will win because I don’t believe that other handicappers have looked at the bigger picture…
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MMA Betting forum and let me know what you think of my betting tips for this event…
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DARREN ELKINS vs HACRAN DIAS
Darren Elkins is a part of a dieing breed of Mixed Martial Artists who rely on winning fights by being really good at one thing. Unfortunately for Elkins, MMA has evolved to a point where you need to be reasonably good at everything in order to compete at the highest level.
Darren Elkins has a wrestling base, but he isn’t even a good wrestler. His weak wrestling is compounded by the fact that he has only successfully completed 25% of all takedown attempts in a total of 11 UFC fights. One of the reasons why he finds it so difficult to take people down, is the fact that he has become so predictable. He never tries to setup his takedowns with strikes or feints, he just shoots in on people and this makes it easy for his opponents to time him and get out of the way.
Darren’s inability to evolve with the sport has seen him turn into a one dimensional fighter who isn’t even that good at the one thing that he’s supposed to be good at. His striking is very basic and his wrestling control is so strong that he doesn’t bother to use BJJ or go for submissions.
Hacran Dias is better than Darren Elkins in every single aspect of MMA [yes, even wrestling] and I expect him to put in a dominant performance and win this fight comfortably. In his last two fights he fought Nik Lentz and Ricardo Lamas who are both more talented wrestlers than Elkins and he managed to stuff the majority of their take downs. In fact, Dias has some of the best take down defence in the UFC’s Featherweight division, having successfully defended 79% of all takedowns. This should come as no surprise because Dias is a direct training partner of Jose Aldo and Renan Barao.
Hacran Dias is really good at securing underhooks and circling out of harms way. He’s also a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt and he’s got great scrambles and transitions. I believe that Dias can actually out wrestle Elkins in this fight, although it’s more likely that we will see Dias looking to keep this fight standing.
The odds on Dias to win offer us incredible value and I’m taking full advantage of it by placing a large 20 unit bet.
I also recommend betting on this fight to last longer than 2.5 rounds, because even though Dias has huge advantages over Darren Elkins, Elkins is tough as nails and Dias does’t normally finish fights. Both Darren Elkins and Hacran Dias have fought to a decision in their last 3 fights.
OUR FIRST BETTING TIP: 20.00 Units [10% of your bankroll] on Hacran Dias to win at odds of 1.52 | -192 | 13/25
OUR SECOND BETTING TIP: 10.00 Units [5% of your bankroll] on this fight to last longer than 2.5 rounds at odds of 1.42 | -238 | 21/50
The best odds on Hacran Dias to win can be found at: [adrotate group=”85″]
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ANTONIO CARLOS JUNIOR “SAPATO” vs PATRICK CUMMINS
Patrick Cummins has been hyped up as a wrestling phenom since he signed with the UFC, but I have a feeling that his acquisition was more down to the fact that they needed someone marketable to fight Daniel Cormier on short notice, rather than signing him because he was a legitimately good fighter. I’m really not convinced that Cummins has made the transition from a high level wrestler, to a high level Mixed Martial Artist and I’m also not convinced that he’s going to be able to get that much better at the age of 34.
If you go back and watch his fights before the UFC, you will be extremely underwhelmed, because he didn’t look good at all. Furthermore, if you go back and watch his last two fights against Roger Narvaez and Kyle Kingsbury, you’ll notice that he has a lot of weaknesses in his game that Sapato should be able to exploit.
On the surface, it appears that Cummins is a high level grappler who can dominate people with his control, but he’s only ever dominated low level grapplers. You can’t deny that his takedowns have looked good in his last two fights, but he’s been fighting guys who have no takedown defence. I don’t think he’s going to find it that easy to take Sapato down, because the Brazilian fights in a low stance and bends his knees which will make it easy for him to secure underhooks when Cummins shoots in. Sapato also has pretty good takedown defence and whilst he may not have fought a wrestler of Patrick’s calibre, he does have a strong grappling base and he’s good in the clinch.
Patrick Cummins appeared to have pretty good control in his last couple of fights, but he also repeatedly gave his opponents opportunities to scramble back to their feet. Kyle Kingsbury had absolutely nothing for Cummins on the ground and yet he was given opportunities to stand back up multiple times. Sapato is strong, young and aggressive and he holds a Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He has high level submissions, transitions and sweeps and Cummins shows all the signs of a strong wrestler who is tactically naive when it comes to the submission aspect of grappling. Sapato is very active from all areas on the ground and I believe there’s a very good chance that he can lock in a submission or gain dominant positions that will put Cummins in all kinds of trouble. If Narvaez and Kingsbury were able to get back to their feet, Sapato should have no problem…
Sapato has been training at Nova Uniao for the last 7 months and he’s been showing big improvements in each of his fights. Most Nova Uniao fighters have high level striking, but they also possess superb take down defence that doesn’t usually cause them to fight more tentatively against wrestlers. Sapato is Junior Dos Santos’ primary training partner and I believe he will have learnt a range of new techniques in the last 7 months which is going to cause Cummins all kinds of problems.
Sapato has improved his striking since appearing on the Ultimate Fighter Brazil and I believe that he is a significantly better striker than Cummins. Sapato is aggressive and accurate and Cummins really doesn’t like to get hit. Sapato is also a lot faster and he should be able to use his range to back Cummins up, which will make it more difficult for Cummins to shoot in for takedowns.
At 24 years old, Sapato is 10 years younger than Cummins, which gives him a huge advantage in this fight. Did you know that the younger fighter wins, on average, 71% of the time when there is a 10 year age gap in a fight? This is mainly down to the fact that younger fighters tend to be faster, stronger and more athletic. They also have much higher levels of testosterone and they don’t have as many lingering injuries from years of hard competition.
Patrick Cummins may be new to MMA, but he isn’t new to physical competition and he has shown all the signs of an athlete who is on the decline. If you go back and watch his last few fights, you’ll notice that his movement is laboured, he’s very slow and he also tends to fade when opponents apply pressure. You will also notice that he frequently takes breaks in fights and this often occurs when he gives his opponents opportunies to scramble back to their feet. It’s almost like he lets them up, so he can catch his breath. This tactic has worked in his last few fights because his opponents have been so scared of getting taken down, they haven’t applied any pressure which has enabled him to recharge his batteries. Sapato fights at a high pace and he’s very aggressive. There won’t be no breaks in this fight and I seriously doubt that Cummins will be able to match Sapato’s pace for 15 minutes.
Patrick Cummins may be the favourite in this fight, but his path to victory is very limited. Sapato has much better striking, better cardio, better submissions, better BJJ, he’s better in the clinch and he’s 10 years younger. I’m only going to bet 5 units on Sapato due to the risk of Patrick’s lay and pray, but with home advantage on his side, I feel like he’s a great value bet at these odds.
OUR BETTING TIP: 5 Units [2.5% of your bankroll] on Antonio Carlos Junior to win at odds of 2.60 | +160 | 8/5
The best odds on Antonio Carlos Junior to win can be found at: [adrotate group=”85″]
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