Free Betting Tips for UFC Fight Night 89 – MacDonald vs Thompson

UFC Fight Night 89 is a good event for betting because it takes place in Canada and features several Canadian fighters who hold significant advantages over their opponents. This gives us a good opportunity to make money because home advantage is huge in Canada. This is backed up by the fact that Canadian fighters win around 65% of the time when they fight Non-Canadians in UFC events that take place in Canada.

You can read one of my betting tips for UFC Fight Night 89 in this article and the rest can be viewed by my VIP Members… Click here to check them out. My VIP members also gain instant access to my Prop Bets and highly lucrative Live Betting Tips.

UFC Fight Night 89 is taking place in Canada which means that we can use our knowledge of home advantage and bad judging to make big money in Live Betting. Bookies rarely factor home town judging into their decision making when balancing the odds in Live Betting, which gives us an opportunity to profit from their mistakes. We tend to do very well in Live Betting on regional UFC events and I’m expecting to bank another solid profit from our Live Betting Tips for UFC Fight Night 89.

Be sure to join us in our live betting tips chatroom during UFC Fight Night 89 to take advantage of our highly lucrative Live Betting Tips.

We will be using Paddy Power and Unibet to make money on the Early Prelims, before switching over to Bet365 for the Main Card and Main Prelims.

Stephen Thompson takes on Rory MacDonald in the main event of UFC Fight Night 89 and we recommend betting on Stephen Thompson to win…

Stephen Thompson should beat Rory MacDonald if he can keep this fight standing, because he has significantly better striking. MacDonald’s striking skills are simply nowhere near the level of Thompson’s, who has a 5th degree Black Belt in Kempo Karate and an undefeated Pro Kick Boxing record of 57-0. This fight will basically come down to whether or not Thompson can keep it standing, so I’ll be focusing on his takedown defence and grappling in this prediction.

Thompson is known for being a striker, but he is a lot more well rounded than most people think. This is backed up by the fact that he has a Black Belt in Japanese Jiu Jitsu, a Purple Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and a solid defensive wrestling base with really good takedown defence. These skills aren’t enough to give him an advantage over MacDonald on the ground, but they will help him to defend against Rory’s attacks and find ways to scramble back to his feet if he does get taken down.

Stephen Thompson has shown excellent takedown defence throughout his career, which is backed up by the fact that he has defended 81% of takedowns in his 8 UFC fights. Most fighters that come from a pure striking background take a long time to develop strong takedown defence, but Thompson was able to develop excellent takedown defence very quickly, because his fighting stance is setup in a way that makes it easy for him to defend against takedowns.

There are several reasons why Thompson’s fighting stance helps him to defend against takedowns. The first is the sideways stance that he fights with. Thompson fights with a sideways stance and creates a wide gap between both legs with his lead leg sticking out at all times. He uses his lead leg from the sideways stance to measure range and act as a defensive mechanism. His wide base makes it very difficult for his opponent’s to shoot in on him with a double leg takedown because the gap between both legs is too wide for them to get in deep on him. Thompson offers up his lead leg freely when defending takedowns, because his balance is so good that he knows he can give up a single leg takedown attempt on his lead leg whilst using his balance to move backwards and end up with his back against the cage. From there he can use the cage and his wide base to stuff the takedown attempt and eventually circle out of danger.

Thompson also fights with his hands very low. This enables him to quickly secure underhooks when his opponent’s shoot in on him. Holding your hands low in a striking stance means that your hands are already at the correct height to move into an underhook position when your opponent shoots in on you.

Thompson’s ability to control the range and read his opponent’s movement is another reason why his takedown defence is so good. This is because he can identify when someone is about to shoot in on him very early, which helps him to react quickly and start to move away from danger or begin defending against a takedown attempt before his opponent has even got near him. This means that he hardly ever gets caught flat footed and taken down in the middle of the Octagon.

Thompson’s wide base, sideways stance, low hands and ability to read his opponent’s movements are just some of the reasons why he is so difficult to takedown. His high level takedown defence has also been aided by the fact that he has trained with World Class MMA wrestlers like George St-Pierre and Chris Weidman.

Rory MacDonald is a better grappler than Stephen Thompson, but he’s not a persistent grappler and that’s a very important detail to take into consideration when trying to predict the outcome of this fight. If you go back and watch any of Rory’s fights, you’ll see that he likes to shoot in on people, but he’ll quickly abandon a takedown attempt if they start to stuff it. You will very rarely see Rory MacDonald shoot in on his opponent, drive them into the cage and battle relentlessly to complete a takedown. We saw this happen in Rory’s last fight against Robbie Lawler. Plenty of fighters have been able to take Robbie Lawler down or control him against the cage in the past, but MacDonald stopped trying to use his grappling advantage after Lawler stuffed his first couple of takedown attempts. This is a big indicator that we should bet on Stephen Thompson to win this fight, because MacDonald is not going to be able to shoot in on Thompson and take him down easily. In order for Rory MacDonald to take Thompson down, he is going to have to grind on him against the cage and this isn’t the type of grappling that Rory ever uses.

Stephen Thompson’s excellent takedown defence and Rory MacDonald’s reluctance to grind on his opponents means that there is a very good chance that the majority of this fight will stay standing. If that happens, I expect Thompson to win easily because MacDonald is a lot slower and has poor striking defence. Rory MacDonald fights with his hands low and he doesn’t use much head movement. These weaknesses make him extremely vulnerable against a fast and accurate striker like Stephen Thompson.

Another big factor to take into consideration is that Rory MacDonald hasn’t fought in around a year and he’s coming back from a devastating loss against Robbie Lawler. Rory took an incredible amount of damage in his fight against Lawler and in recent interviews he doesn’t sound like he’s motivated by winning a UFC title anymore. This is actually the last fight on MacDonald’s UFC contract and he appears to be more focused on money and contract negotiations than advancing his career in the UFC. I don’t blame Rory for having this mindset, but it’s never a good sign when fighters are focusing more on money and contract negotiations than winning titles and becoming a better fighter. Rory gets asked about his UFC contract in all of his interviews and his mind doesn’t appear to be totally focused on fighting anymore. This is quite common amongst fighters who spend many years working towards a title shot, only to suffer a devastating loss when they finally get there. It’s impossible to tell how badly MacDonald will be effected by his contract situation and loss to Lawler, but there’s no denying that all the momentum is with Stephen Thompson right now.

My biggest issue with Rory MacDonald is his stubbornness and poor fight IQ. He basically lost the fight against Robbie Lawler because he chose to stand in front of him and Box. MacDonald is a well rounded fighter, but he repeatedly chooses to stand in front of his opponent’s and try to outstrike them, even when it is clear that it is not his easiest path to victory. His reluctance to switch up his gameplan cost him against Lawler and I predict that it will also cost him against Stephen Thompson. If he stands in front of Thompson and tries to outstrike him, he’s going to lose.

My only concern with betting on Stephen Thompson is the fact that Rory MacDonald is the most popular active Canadian fighter in the UFC and this fight is taking place in Canada. This means that the crowd will be behind Rory and the judges will also be more likely to score rounds in his favour. Home advantage is very significant in Canada, which is backed up by the fact that Canadian fighters win around 65% of the time when they’re fighting non Canadians in UFC fights taking place in Canada. If this fight was taking place anywhere else in the world, I’d bet more than 2 units on Stephen Thompson to win, but the additional risk involved in betting against a popular home country fighter means that we need to go smaller on Thompson than we normally would.