UFC 220 Betting Tips, Picks and Predictions

We’ve been grinding out solid profits over the last few weeks on our prefight bets, and as always, we’ve been absolutely crushing it in Live Betting. In the last 6 weeks, our Elite Members have made close to 50 units of profit. This is an insane set of results that I look forward growing into an even bigger amount of money, as we continue on a busy stretch of MMA that features a UFC event every single weekend for the next 7 consecutive weeks.

In my live commentary during UFC Fight Night 124 I talked at length about how I am implementing a new strategy in 2018 that I am hopeful will result in a massive improvement in our prefight betting results. Over the last couple of weeks, this strategy has helped us go 3-1 on bets, and I am confident that it will enable us to bank another profit from our prefight bets for UFC 220.

Gleison Tibau vs Islam Makhachev Betting Tip and Prediction

I wasn’t planning on betting on this fight until I saw the enormous size difference between Islam Makhachev and Gleison Tibau. Makhachev towered over Tibau, and they looked about two weight classes apart.

Tibau’s only chance of causing an upset in this fight was to use his high level grappling to shut down the takedowns of Makhachev, but the huge size difference is going to make it extremely difficult for Tibau to do that. Gleison Tibau built a career off being just good enough at everything to make his opponent’s look mediocre, but it’s going to be tough to neutralize a young, hungry, Dagestani fighter who trains at American Kickboxing Academy with the likes of Khabib Nurmagomedov and Josh Thomson.

Gleison Tibau has the skills to keep all aspects of this fight competitive, but it’s unlikely that he will be able to do this because he will likely be a shadow of himself at UFC 220. Afterall, this is his first fight in over two years after incurring a USADA suspension for using a banned substance. The substance that Tibau got caught using was EPO. EPO is not your average PED that could find it’s way into a tainted supplement. EPO is a high-level PED commonly used by Professional Cyclists to improve their cardio. We can’t be sure, but it’s very likely that Tibau’s cardio will look significantly worse now that USADA is making it much more difficult for fighters to use performance-enhancing drugs. Tibau appears to have aged since his last fight, which is a sign that the inability to use performance-enhancing drugs has taken a significant toll on his physiology. We have also seen a similar visual decline in fellow Brazilians Junior Dos Santos and Jose Aldo, who saw their career’s take a nosedive when USADA started to regulate the sport.

If Gleison Tibau showed up and performed to his full potential, this fight would be close, but the chances of that happening after a two-year layoff and with USADA breathing down his neck is extremely unlikely. The massive size advantage for Makhachev was the final piece of information that I needed to pull the trigger. I believe that Makhachev is a very solid bet at the current odds.

Reasons for betting on Islam Makhachev

Francimar Barroso vs Gian Villante Betting Tip and Prediction

Last week at UFC Fight Night 124 I gave a huge speech in my live betting commentary about how from now on I would only be betting on bad mofo’s who always show up and put in a consistent performance. At first glance it may appear that I am breaking that rule by recommending a bet on Gian Villante, but I disagree. Gian Villante is consistent. He is consistently bad. He also has consistently terrible cardio, bad fight IQ, and consistently bad striking defense.

Gian Villante does not fit the mould of the type of fighter I would typically like to bet on, but at least we know exactly what to expect from him. Villante is bad, and I’m ok with that, because I strongly believe that Francimar Barroso is worse.

Gian Villante has a lot of weaknesses, but he also has several attributes that make him a difficult opponent for Francimar Barroso. The first attribute is that he is almost impossible to take down. Even when Villante is gassed out of his mind and can barely throw a punch, he’s still practically impossible to take down. That is going to cause Barroso big problems because Barroso does not like to strike. All of Barroso’s past wins have come when he has been able to take his opponent’s down and control them on the ground, and it’s extremely unlikely he’ll be able to get Villante down.

Villante is also extremely tough and scrappy. He doesn’t mind eating a shot to give a shot, and he’s got a surprisingly good chin. Barroso does not like to exchange and he doesn’t like to get hit which means he is going to panic when he feels Villante’s power. This brings me onto my next point…

Gian Villante hits extremely hard and we’ve seen Barroso turtle up and quit in the past when he gets hurt. Barroso does not like to exchange punches and Villante is a wild brawler who hits like a truck.

Villante is never a safe bet because he has a habit of gassing out and beating himself, but I don’t see anything that Barroso can do to him in this matchup to outscore him on the judge’s scorecards. There’s also a very strong chance that Villante wins this fight by KO. At almost even money I believe Villante is an excellent bet.

Reasons for betting on Gian Villante

Daniel Cormier vs Volkan Oezdemir Betting Tip and Prediction

At this stage in his UFC career, we don’t know that much about Volkan Oezdemir. His last two fights ended quickly, and while he didn’t look good in his UFC debut against Ovince St-Preux, we can’t be too harsh on him because he did take that fight on very short notice. To learn more about him, we need to go further back in his career and watch some of his fights before he came to the UFC. This should help us assess his chances of beating Daniel Cormier:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t6DfTXN2uk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edyyTWcaMFE

After watching those fights, there’s just no way that I can get away from betting on Daniel Cormier this weekend. Oezdemir has shown me nothing in his past fights that make me think he has a realistic chance of beating Daniel Cormier. Sure he does hit hard, but almost everybody in the UFC’s Light Heavyweight division hits hard. Cormier is 19-1, and he’s only ever been KO’d one time against Jon Jones in a fight that no longer even counts on his record because Jones was caught doping. This is extremely impressive when you take into consideration the fact that Cormier has fought heavy hitters such as Anderson Silva, Alexander Gustafsson, Dan Henderson, Roy Nelson, Soa Palelei, Frank Mir, Antonio Bigfoot Silva and Anthony Johnson twice.

Anything can happen in MMA, so I am not going to sit here and try and convince you that Volkan can’t KO Cormier, I’m just saying that based on historical information it is extremely unlikely. It’s far more likely that Cormier closes the distance, drives Volkan against the cage and goes to work with his dirty Boxing.

The only reason why I didn’t pull the trigger on Cormier earlier in the week was that he’s getting old now and his weight cuts are becoming very difficult. I needed to see how he looked at the weigh-ins before I could feel comfortable betting on him. Fortunately for us, he looked great on the scales, and this appears to be the easiest weight cut that he has had in a long time.

The odds on Cormier aren’t great, but we’re getting a 31% return on our money which is pretty good when you take into consideration the fact that Cormier is extremely tough, has an iron chin and Volkan only has one way to win.

Reasons for betting on Daniel Cormier