UFC Fight Night 134 Betting Tips, Picks and Predictions

Bad judging defined last week’s results in both prefight and Live Betting, so let’s take a look into the current state of MMA judging and figure out where we go from here.

Our prefight bet on Eddie Wineland looked to be in good shape as he dropped Alejandro Perez in round 1 and did an excellent job in rounds 2 and 3 of controlling the center of the Octagon. Rounds 2 and 3 were very close, and I personally have no problem with you scoring that fight for Perez, but I do have a massive problem with the circumstances surrounding the scoring of this fight. Let me explain…

Earlier on in the night, we locked in a large 5 unit Live bet on Justin Scoggins to beat Said Nurmagomedov. Scoggins clearly outstruck Nurmagomedov from the outside in round 1, dropped him in round 2 and kept the third round competitive aside for giving up a takedown and a couple of minutes of top control. You will rarely see all 17 media outlets unanimously agree that a fighter won a fight, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Scoggins beat Nurmadomedov. All 17 media outlets scored that fight for Scoggins:

This is significant because the scoring in that fight completely contradicted the scoring in the fight between Wineland and Perez. The only thing that Nurmagomedov did to score points was control the center of the Octagon. Therefore the judges must have scored the fight in favor of Nurmagomedov’s Octagon control. Yet Wineland controlled the center of the Octagon for the entirety of the 2nd and 3rd rounds and somehow managed to lose both of those rounds. This should not be possible. Wineland was far more competitive in the striking exchanges than Nurmagomedov was.

If consistent scoring criteria was being used you had to either score those fights for Scoggins and Perez or Nurmagomedov and Wineland. You can’t mix it up. It was savage bad luck that we were on the wrong end of both of those judging calamities. I personally scored both those fights for Wineland and Scoggins, and almost everybody agreed. Out of the 15 media outlets that posted their scores for the Wineland vs. Perez fight, 13 of the 15 had Wineland winning:

Those two losses put a big dent in our profits from last month, but that was not the end of the bad judging. There were numerous other examples of weird scorecards from that night.

The first was a confusing 29-28 majority scorecard in favor of Alexander Volkanovski vs. Darren Elkins. The new judging criteria was supposed to be in use at UFC Fight Night 133, which meant that judges were supposed to be more liberal with 10-8 scorecards when a fighter wins a round by a wide margin. In round 1 Volkanovski dropped Elkins 3 times and almost finished him with a guillotine submission. The first round was closer to a 10-7 for Volk than it was a 10-9. Shockingly the judges unanimously scored that round 10-9, which actually put Volkanovski at risk of losing a decision. This crazy scorecard meant that if Elkins could have found a way to win round 3, he would have won the fight 29-28. Based on Darren’s past performances this outcome was absolutely a possibility. Luckily Volkanovski put his stamp on the fight by winning round 3, but this was another clear example of how bad judging can screw people very bad.

The 10-9 scorecard in round 1 between Volkanovski and Elkins became even more baffling when the scorecards were read out for the fight between Cat Zingano and Marion Reneau. In one of those rounds, the judges gave Zingano a 10-8 which was complete madness because all she did was lay and pray. This was another classic example of how we are currently suffering from a major lack of consistency in MMA judging. How the hell can you give Zingano a 10-8 round and not score that first round 10-8 for Volkanovski?

The scoring in the fight between Dennis Bermudez and Rick Glenn was also completely contradictory. I want to make it clear right now that I personally have no problem with you scoring that fight for Glenn under the new scoring criteria. However, I will once again say that this is another example of how we currently have no consistency. Dennis Bermudez took Glenn down multiple times across the 3 round fight and had prolonged periods of top control. Nurmagomedov only managed to take Scoggins down once in round 3. How the hell do you score those fights for Nurmagomedov and Glenn? If you’re being consistent with judging criteria you have to either score those fights for Scoggins and Glenn in favor of effective striking and damage. Or you score them for Nurmagomedov and Bermudez in favor of Octagon Control and Grappling. You CANNOT score them for Nurmagomedov and Glenn. It is COMPLETELY contradictory.

Over the last few years, bad judging has cost me tens of thousands of dollars. It’s nothing new, but with the current state of ambiguous judging criteria, it is starting to get out of hand. Across prefight and Live Betting Tips we were down 13 units on Saturday night. Had the judges scored those fights in favor of Wineland and Scoggins we would have have been 2.2 units in profit. That is a massive swing and a big deficit that we now have to recover from. It’s not fair.

It has become clear now that we cannot trust the announcement at the beginning of the UFC broadcast to tell us whether the referees and judges are using the old or new rules. Sometimes they use the new rules when they should be using the old. Sometimes they use the old rules when they should be using the new and sometimes they seem to change their criteria from fight to fight. This rabbit hole of ambiguity appears to go even deeper when you try to make sense of what is currently happening. pjj171086 shared an article in the Chat Room this week that featured an interview with John McCarthy on the current state of MMA judging. Click here to check it out.

In the article Big John says that all MMA judges should use the new scoring criteria, even if the Commission governing the event has not yet adopted the new unified rules. This is total madness.

As BarneyDog once said; This is a total shambles. It would be like 50% of the cars on the road following one Highway code and 50% of the other cars following a completely different set of rules.

Hopefully, the confusion gets sorted out soon or else I fear it will continue to cost us money. Unfortunately, I feel like nothing will be done about these problems until some of the UFC’s big stars start to get impacted by it.

In the meantime, we have to just keep grinding and keep making good decisions. As long as we keep making good decisions, we will continue to make money. We might experience a little more variance along the way, but in the end, not even bad judging can stop us.

Corey Anderson vs Glover Teixeira Betting Tip and Prediction

Glover Teixeira is a huge name in the UFC, and I feel like the bookies have capped this fight based on his legacy as opposed to where both guys are at in their careers right now. A quote from Conor McGregor perfectly sums up how I feel about this matchup:

In the jungle, one king gets old, he starts getting sloppy, he starts stagnating, then a young gorilla comes up and kills him and takes everything he owns.

Corey Anderson has a lot of weaknesses, but he’s also a former NCAA Division 3 wrestler, and he is improving from fight to fight. Glover has badly struggled whenever he has fought a wrestler in the past. His fight against Patrick Cummins from 3 years ago clearly shows that he has poor takedown defense. Glover is now 38 years old, so there’s a good chance that his takedown defense has got even worse since then.

If Patrick Cummins would have shown up with the cardio to spam takedowns for 15 minutes, it’s very possible that he would have beaten Glover. Instead, he gassed out after the first round and turned into a panic wrestler.

One of Corey Anderson’s strengths is that he never gets tired. He has excellent cardio for a Light Heavyweight. He has the cardio to spam takedowns and make Glover work for 15 minutes, and that’s just one of the reasons why I believe he’s a good bet at underdog odds.

Glover has looked bad for a long time now which is no surprise. That fight against Patrick Cummins took place almost 3 years ago, and since then he has suffered a life-altering KO at the hands of Anthony Johnson, he’s been involved in a 25-minute war against Alexander Gustafsson, and he was rocked multiple times against Jared Cannonier. Glover is now 38 years old and starting to show signs that Father time is catching up with him.

If you go back and watch Glover’s last few fights, you’ll see that he is extremely slow. It’s almost like he’s fighting underwater. He’s still extremely tough and gritty, but his body is letting him down. In contrast, Corey Anderson is 28 years old and continuously making improvements.

My one issue with Anderson is that he is chinny and frequently gets hurt with strikes. This is an issue against a guy like Glover, but I don’t feel like it’s a deal breaker because Anderson is a decent sized underdog. There’s definite value here. On the flip side we also have to take into account that Corey is a big, strong, athletic fighter and Glover’s chin is definitely not what it used to be. He has taken an enormous amount of damage through his career, and I do think it’s possible Anderson could hurt him with strikes.

Anderson will be in trouble if Glover can find a way to keep this fight standing, but based on Glover’s performance against Patrick Cummins I strongly believe that Anderson can turn this into a wrestling match and grind out Glover for 3 rounds. I also don’t believe that Glover can match the pace that Anderson will set. If you go back and watch Glover’s fight against Phil Davis from back in 2014, you will see that he did a great job of shutting Phil’s wrestling down in round 1, but as the fight wore on it became much easier for Davis to take him down and control him on the ground. Glover was in his prime back then, so it should be much easier for Anderson to break him down in 2018.

Based on past performances I believe Anderson has a great shot of winning this fight and at 38 years old it’s only a matter of time before Glover shows up and looks completely shot. There are already clear signs that he is on a steep decline, and Anderson has a golden opportunity to build a name off him at UFC Fight Night Hamburg.

Reasons for betting on Corey Anderson

Khalid Taha vs Nad Narimani Betting Tip and Prediction

Earlier this week we won our big underdog bet on Philipe Lins to beat Alex Nicholson at PFL 4. Last month we hit another big underdog when we bet on Sean O’Connell to beat Ronny Markes at PFL 2. These two fights were examples of how we are currently seeing a lot more mistakes made by Bookies when setting the odds on fights. I believe that this fight between Khalid Taha and Nad Narimani is another example of this. At worst this match up is 50 / 50, and yet Taha is a big underdog.

Bookies never set the odds on a fight blind. They ALWAYS put at least a little bit of thought into their capping. What I’ve noticed in recent weeks is that there is always a narrative behind the inaccurate odds. I can generally see how they came to make their decision on where to set the odds and by the same token, I can also see the mistakes they are making.

Take the fight between Ronny Markes and Sean O’Connell as our first example. If you would have gone back and watched a couple of O’Connell’s fights you would have seen that his takedown defense is terrible. On the ground, he’s also super low level. Then, if you watched a few of Ronny’s fights, you’d see that he was a strong wrestler. Naturally, you’d assume that this was an easy fight for Markes. However; if you took the time to go back and watch specific fights like Sean O’Connell vs. Steve Bosse, you’d see that O’Connell is extremely tough and the kind of guy that you practically have to kill in order to beat. He also carries KO power in every strike. In contrast, if you go back and watch the fights that Markes has lost, you’ll see that he frequently quits when he gets put into bad positions. On the surface, the narrative was that O’Connell was a poor wrestler who would get taken down and dominated on the ground, but in reality, O’Connell was able to weather an early storm and use his “never quit” attitude to score a KO win in the second round.

The narrative behind the Bookies capping Nicholson as a big favorite was just as clear to see. Philipe Lins was going into the contest on a 2 fight losing streak, while Alex Nicholson was an ex UFC fighter who had gone 5-1 since being cut from the promotion. Again though, if you had taken the time to watch some fights of both guys you’d see that the two fights that Lins lost were very competitive and one of those losses was against Vadim Nemkov. Nemkov is one of the best Light Heavyweight prospects in Russia.

We’ve also seen a lot of mistakes recently with bookies incorrectly capping the overs / unders on fights. We have made big profits this year by capitalizing on these kinds of mistakes.

So what is the narrative behind Taha being a huge underdog?

In my opinion, the odds for this fight are set as an overreaction to Nad Narimani’s win against Paddy Pimblett. Paddy is a big star on the regional MMA circuit in the UK and last year he was being prematurely branded as the next Conor McGregor. This was ludicrous because you’d only have to spend 5 minutes watching footage to see that he is not even UFC level yet. Paddy was a big favorite against Narimani when they fought for the Cage Warriors Featherweight title last year, and Narimani caused a huge upset by beating Paddy. Now, on the back of that win, the bookies think that Narimani is better than he is…

It’s not very often that I am impressed by a fighter when they lose, but Khalid Taha looked impressive in his loss against Takafumi Otsuka in Rizin. There is nothing that Narimani brings to the table that Taha has not dealt with before.

If this fight stays standing Taha should win easily. His technique is razor sharp and a pleasure to watch. He also carries a lot of power in his strikes. Narimani has a bad habit of lunging forward into his opponent’s range with his chin up high and exposed, and I’ve see Taha punish past opponent’s by landing fight-ending strikes when they’ve made similar mistakes.

On the ground, this fight is far more competitive, and while I cannot be entirely sure that Narimani has an advantage in this area, I’m going to give him the nod because he’s been training at Team Alpha Male for the last year. Narimani is a decent grappler, but he also makes a lot of mistakes on the ground. In the Paddy Pimblett fight, he repeatedly gave up position and gave Paddy a lot of time and space to scramble back to his feet. Taha is primarily a striker, but he has solid takedown defense and powerful hips. I also like how he tries to explode back to his feet as soon as he gets taken down. As a golden rule in MMA, you have to try and spring back to your feet before your shoulders can be flattened out on the canvass and Taha always works to pop back up instantly.

Taha is of Arabic descent, but he has a distinct Dagestani style of fighting. This is most likely because his gym in Dortmund is full of bearded Chechen warriors. Just like the rest of the Dagestani’s in the UFC, Taha has crisp striking, good takedown defense and he’s no picnic on the ground either.

At this point in their careers, both Narimani and Taha are unknown entities. What we do know is that from a technical perspective Taha looks much better. He also has excellent cardio and home advantage on his side. At worst this fight is 50 / 50 based on what I have seen. Taha at big underdog odds feels like a great bet.

Reasons for betting on Khalid Taha

Marcin Tybura vs Stefan Struve Betting Tip and Prediction

The majority of Heavyweight fights end in round 1, and I’m guessing that’s the reason why the Bookies have capped the over / under on this matchup at 1.5 rounds. This is a naive way to approach this game because every once in a while two Heavyweight styles will come up against one another which are tailor-made for a snoozefest.

Neither Marcin Tybura nor Stefan Struve are particularly dangerous fighters. They both lack finishing power standing up, and they’re also not that dangerous on the ground. Tybura tends to favor position over submission and Struve is far too slow and cumbersome to catch anyone of Tybura’s level in a submission.

I love the over 1.5 rounds bet on this fight because I expect these guys to spend a lot of time hugging it out for position against the cage.

In open striking exchanges, I’m not too worried about Struve winning by KO because he often struggles to let his hands go and Tybura has a granite chin. On the flipside, I’m not too worried about Tybura winning by KO because he doesn’t have much power in his hands. All his KO wins have come from headkicks, and it will not be easy for Tybura to land a head kick on Struve’s 6 ft 8-inch frame.

I also like the over on this fight because 5 of Struve’s last 6 fights have gone past 1.5 rounds and 7 of Tybura’s last 8 fights have also gone past 1.5 rounds.

Obviously, anything can happen in MMA and betting the over on a Heavyweight fight carries a little more risk than other weight classes. But it’s important to remember that this is a game of numbers. Our win rate on these kinds of bets is extremely high, and we’ve made a lot of money off these bets in 2018. Hopefully, we can add to that number by banking another profit on Sunday night.

Reasons for betting on the over 1.5 rounds