UFC Fight Night 133 Betting Tips, Picks and Predictions

July is the busiest month of the year for MMA and this weekend is no exception with three major MMA events taking place. On Friday night we have Bellator 202, then on Saturday night, we have Bellator 203 and UFC Fight Night 133. This weekend is also extra busy from a betting perspective because this is the first time in a long time where we can bet on Bellator Prelim fights as well as the main card.

Before jumping into the fights this weekend, I want to take some time to reflect on our results from last weekend. If you’ve been a member of the community for a long time, you will know that big PPVs tend to be our Kryptonite. I briefly spoke about it last week, but for some unknown reason, there tends to be much more variance on the big UFC events. I am looking forward to getting back to our bread and butter this weekend with a low profile Fight Night card.

Last weekend started out good for prefight betting, but losses on UFC 226 undone all our hard work on Friday night. We ended up making close to an 8 unit profit in Live Betting and around a 3.75 unit loss on prefight bets across the entire weekend.

The over 1.5 round bets once again proved to be hugely profitable for us as we went 3-0 on those kinds of bets. Unfortunately, my fight picks let us down.

The first losing bet was Brad Tavares against Israel Adesanya after Brad put in a truly strange performance. At the highest level of the sport, you cannot expect to take your opponent down with single shot takedown attempts. You have to chain takedowns together if you want to get a fight to the ground. Below is a video which explains what I am talking about:

In Adesanya’s last two fights against Rob Wilkinson and Marvin Vettori, we have seen him struggle to keep a fight standing when his opponents chained takedown attempts together. Brad Tavares is by far the strongest wrestler he has ever faced, but Brad waited until the 4th round before he chained his takedowns together.

When Brad did finally chain his takedowns together, he put Adesanya on his back first time. If he had done this in the 1st or 2nd round of he might have caused Adesanya to think twice about letting his hands go for fear of being taken down, and he may have also tested Adesanya’s cardio by making him work on the ground. Instead, Brad chose to engage in a Kickboxing match with a World Class Kickboxer and only tried to take the fight to the ground when he was already down 3 rounds. It was shockingly bad fight IQ from an athlete that usually fights very smart.

Our second loss of the weekend was on Jamie Moyle. I am particularly frustrated by this loss because I would have passed on her at the opening odds. It was only when her odds improved to 1.50 | -200 | 1/2 that I saw value.

I had banked on Whitmire demonstrating the same poor fight IQ and tendency to quit that had seen her go 2-2 in her Pro career. Unfortunately, the complete opposite happened. Whitmire came in, fought smart and stuck to an excellent gameplan. She put in a rock-solid performance and beat Moyle easily. I have to take this loss on the chin.

Our third loss of the weekend was one that I didn’t see coming as Drakkar Klose dominated Lando Vannata and looked outstanding. I bet on Vannata to win this fight because I saw a huge hole in Klose’s skillset that I felt Vannata would be able to exploit. If you go back and watch any of Klose’s past fights, you’ll see that he does a great job of applying pressure, but when he gets into a position where he can either tie his opponent up or let his hands go, he hesitates and does nothing. This gives his opponent an opportunity to land a shot or circle out of danger. Unfortunately for us Klose completely eradicated this weakness from his game. He looked terrific on Saturday night. This was a great example of a fighter who is learning from their mistakes, tightening up their weaknesses and improving. I’ll happily take this loss on the chin because Klose looked incredible. I am looking forward to seeing what improvements he makes in his next fight.

Our fourth and final loss of the weekend was on Gokhan Saki. This was another frustrating loss because I was going to pass on Saki at the opening odds. Unfortunately, just like with Jamie Moyle, his odds then improved to a point where I could not pass up the opportunity to bet him. When we locked in our bet on Saki we were getting 1.77 | -130 | 77/100 odds. I felt that this was a very good bet at those odds because we were getting an opportunity to bet on a high-level Kickboxer against a Journeyman MMA striker at almost even money. Unfortunately, the gamble didn’t pay off, and Saki got flatlined within a couple of minutes.

Overall the opening weekend of July turned out to be good for Live Betting, but frustrating for Prefight betting. I just want you to know that I am working my ass off to get us back on track and back in profit for the month!

Alejandro Perez vs Eddie Wineland Betting Tip and Prediction

Before I started to research this fight, I felt like there was a pretty good chance I would bet on Alejandro Perez. That soon changed when I began to watch footage on both guys.

I’m not exactly sure why Perez is the favorite in this matchup. I believe the odds should be much closer to evens. I’m not saying I feel super confident that Wineland will win, but at worst this is a 50 / 50 fight, and the current implied probability on Eddie’s odds is 40%. Win or lose, that’s a pretty good margin over the bookie and the kind of bet that will ensure we are profitable long term if we keep cherry picking our spots.

This is one of those bets that I love and hate at the same time. I love it because I strongly feel like Wineland should win, which is great because we’re able to bet him at underdog odds, but I also hate it because he’s inconsistent and at times very passive. I can’t promise you that Wineland is going to come in and fight for our money. It’s very possible that he’ll just follow Perez around the Octagon and get outpointed. At this point, you may be wondering why I’d consider betting on a flakey fighter, and the answer to that question is simple; Perez is flakey too. If you go back and watch his fight against Iuri Alcantara, you’ll see exactly what I mean. He did nothing for 15 minutes and only managed to win that fight because Alcantara remarkably managed to do even less. If you check out his fight against Soukhamthath, it’s a similar story. Perez ate big counters everytime he moved forward on the attack. He only started to gain success when Soukhamthath began to slow down in the second round. This is understandable because the fight was contested at high altitude. Perez has lived and trained in Mexico City, so he is more than used to competing in this kind of climate.

Eddie Wineland is not the same guy he used to be before he broke his jaw [twice], but he has the skills to beat a guy like Perez. Wineland likes to stay all the way in, or all the way out of his opponent’s range and does a good job of using head movement and elusive footwork to evade strikes.

Perez, on the other hand, has a much more traditional style but likes to fight on the outside and counter strike. This is a flawed style for three reasons:

1. Perez isn’t very good at landing strikes while moving backward.
2. Perez doesn’t have the power or volume to back his opponent’s up.
3. Perez struggles to put his stamp on rounds.

Wineland will almost certainly control the center of the Octagon for the entirety of the fight, which already makes him a decent bet at underdog odds because regardless of which scoring criteria is being used, we know that judges love to score fights in favor of the guy moving forward and controlling the center of the Octagon.

The main reason why I believe Wineland is a good bet is because of two weaknesses I have seen in Perez. Even though they are two separate weaknesses, they are kind of linked together and a result of his inability to control the center of the Octagon.

The first weakness is that it is very easy to back Perez up and get him circling on the outside. But when you apply a lot of pressure to him, he tends to get trapped like a Rabbit in the Headlights with his back against the cage and feet planted. Similar to how we see Neil Magny get stuck in bad positions. In this situation, he tends to eat bombs, and Wineland has historically been very good at dealing significant damage when trapping opponents in this position.

The second weakness is closely linked to the first…

In a desperate attempt to try and get his opponent to respect his hands and get his back off the cage, we will often see Perez bum rush his opponent in a straight line, uncorking a 3-4 punch combo. He does this to try and alleviate the pressure being put on him and to try and create some time and space for himself. The problem is, he eats big shots when he runs forward with his chin up high and exposed. Go back and watch his fight against Soukhamthath where you’ll see Perez get dropped 3 times by a jab because he kept having to rush forward in a straight line to try and back Soukhamthath up.

I believe that this is a big key to victory for Wineland because Wineland does a great job of moving back out of his opponent’s range when they come forward and then planting his feet and uncorking a huge counter. Go check out the Frankie Saenz fight for an example of what I am talking about.

This dynamic between both guys creates the perfect storm for a KO win for Wineland. On one hand you have Perez who will rush forward in a straight line with his chin up high and exposed to try and stop his opponent from pressuring him and then on the other hand you have a guy like Wineland who likes to apply enough pressure so that his opponent will fire back at him, so that he can then slip just far enough out of their range to land a huge counter.

So there you have it, those are the reasons why I believe Wineland is a good bet to beat Perez this weekend at UFC Fight Night 133. I just have to remind you that this entire breakdown needs to have an asterisk next to it, because like I said at the beginning of the tip, both these guys are very inconsistent. If they both show up and fight to their full potential, what I just described is how I expect the fight to play out. If Wineland shows up and Perez doesn’t, I expect Wineland to win easily, but there’s also the possibility that Wineland doesn’t show up and puts in a passive, flakey performance and ultimately ends up losing a close, awkward decision. Those are the three possible outcomes, and right now it’s impossible to try and predict which one will play out. However, 66% of the possible scenarios would result in us winning our bet. This isn’t bad when the guy we’re betting on has an implied probability of 40%.

Fingers crossed Wineland comes through for us so that we can put a dent in last week’s losses.

Reasons for betting on Eddie Wineland

Alexander Volkanovski vs Darren Elkins Betting Tip and Prediction

Earlier this week Scott47 posted in the Forum that he thought Darren Elkins was a good bet. At first I was quick to dismiss Elkins’ chances of beating Volkanovski, but after completing my research, I completely agree with Scott. Win or lose Elkins is a great value bet.

This is not the first time that I have bet against Volkanovski. I actually bet on Jeremy Kennedy to beat him in his last fight. Kennedy ended up getting dominated, and I took more heat for that losing bet than almost any other that I can remember. I received a bunch of hate mail from people calling me a clueless idiot. A good number of people also canceled their subscriptions after this loss, and I can’t blame them, Kennedy’s performance was terrible. The loss was, in all honesty, confusing because Kennedy looked a shadow of himself. A few days after the fight he posted on Instagram that he didn’t show up mentally:

Maybe I will regret betting against Volkanovski for a second time, but I strongly feel that Elkins is a good bet here, mainly because he is a decent sized underdog.

If you go back and watch Volkanovski’s previous fights in the UFC, you’ll see that he makes a lot of mistakes when it comes to his wrestling. These mistakes will potentially get him into a lot of trouble against an experienced grappler like Elkins, so let me talk you through some of the weaknesses that I am seeing…

Firstly Volkanovski telegraphs all of his takedown attempts. You can see them coming from a mile away. Elkins doesn’t have the best takedown defense, but he trains at Team Alpha Male with a bunch of guys with the exact same frame as Volkanovski. He is training at one of the best gyms in the world to prepare for Volkanovski’s predictable style of wrestling. Elkins trains with much better guys than Volkanovski every single day.

Secondly, Volkanovski is a single shot wrestler. He does not chain his takedowns together. This hasn’t cost him up until this point in his career because he has only ever faced strikers or low-level grapplers. On the rare occasions that he does chain stuff together the transitions are slow and Elkins should be able to read them.

Thirdly Volkanovski does not focus on winning the underhook war. This is something that could cost him bigtime against Elkins because Elkins loves to use underhooks to obtain control of his opponent’s back. This was the key to victory when Elkins fought Bektic. If you go back and watch the second round of that fight onwards, you’ll see that every time Bektic stopped fighting for underhooks he enabled Elkins to move to a dominant position. Bektic is lightyears ahead of Volkanovski when it comes to grappling so I firmly believe Elkins’ ability to win the underhook battle against almost all his past opponents will be enough to cause Volkanovski big problems in this fight.

Finally, Volkanovski doesn’t have very strong top control. This is likely because he’s undersized for the division at just 5 ft 6 and also because he lacks the technical ability to prevent his opponents from scrambling back to their feet. If you go back and watch one of his recent fights against Shane Young you’ll see that Young was able to pop back to his feet very quickly everytime he got taken down. Bektic was able to hold Elkins down for large periods of time because he kept moving from half guard, to side control and threatening to mount. This, in turn, forced Elkins to react and battle for each position. Every time Elkins moved to try and get back to his feet, Bektic would try to advance his position, which means that Elkins had to focus on stopping this attempt to advance as opposed to trying to get back to his feet. Volkanovski does not do this. He rarely looks to improve position when on the ground which will give Elkins much more opportunities to create a scramble that he can then use to get back to his feet.

I believe Elkins is a solid bet because in all of Volkanovski’s past fights in the UFC he has been allowed to dictate every grappling exchange. He has forced his opponent’s to react to what he is doing which means that he has been able to pace himself and conserve energy. Elkins is entirely different in that he will make Volkanovski have to fight tooth and nail for every position.

I could literally write a 10,000 word report on all of the mistakes Volkanovski makes and how Elkins is well equipped to punish him for them, but the report would be very boring, and I still have a few fights to research!

At this point, I just want to let you know that this bet is a calculated gamble. If you scroll to the bottom of this betting tip, you’ll see that I am only giving Elkins a 40% chance of winning. That means I respect Volkanovski’s chances of winning. In fact, if the odds were closer to even I would prefer to bet Volkanovski. However, Elkins is currently a big underdog with an implied probability of around 28%. That gives us a good margin over the bookies. Win or lose I believe he’s a good bet, and the risk is definitely worth the reward. Please don’t place this bet if you are worried about losing. Please don’t send me hate mail if Elkins gets beat. Volkanovski is a blue collar beast and there’s a good chance he grinds out another win. You have been warned.

I firmly believe that Elkins has the skills required to win this fight, but it won’t be easy.

Reasons for betting on Darren Elkins