UFC 243 Betting Tips, Picks and Predictions

I always like to give you a forecast at the beginning of each new month in these betting tip articles so that you know what to expect in the upcoming weeks.

You might remember at the beginning of last month I said that September would be a particularly difficult month for prefight betting because every card was stacked full of debutants, inconsistent fighters, and low-level athletes.

I usually like being right about stuff, because when I am right about something, it means we make money. Unfortunately, last month was not the case. I was dead right about September being a terrible month for betting, and it delivered in a big way!

September turned out to be only our 2nd losing month on prefight bets of the year. We are now 7-2 on months with our only two losing months being July and September. It’s not often you’ll hear me say this after making a loss, but I think we did great last month. It was just one of those months where I feel like no matter what I would have done I would have made a loss. If things had played out slightly differently, it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

Throughout September we dodged so many bullets. I came super close to betting Mairbek Taisumov, Andrea Lee, Zak Cummings, Cole Smith, Jack Hermansson, Khalil Rountree and Michał Oleksiejczuk and all those guys ended up losing. September could have been a bloodbath, but in the end, we stayed disciplined, worked our asses off, and only ended up taking a small loss of around 3.78 units.

In a month like September, where my two most confident bets in Marvin Vettori and Jeremy Stephens were voided under weird circumstances, I take a small victory in only making a loss of around 3.78 units. This might sound strange, but I am kind of proud that I only took a small loss after everything that happened. It actually feels like we made a profit. September could quite easily have been a -10 unit month, but our discipline and sniper approach significantly reduced our losses.

We now look ahead to October in what I hope will be a month where we can get back on track and put money in the bank. 2019 has been a great year for us so far, and I am hoping that we can end the year with a big winning run.

I have taken a look at all the fights coming up in October, and it looks to be a hell of a lot better than September. Hopefully, we can kick things off with a profit at UFC 243.

I’m also glad to report that Live Betting went pretty good last weekend. Nothing major happened, but we did pick up two wins to go 2-0 on Saturday night. We ended September with a decent overall profit of around 5 units.

Israel Adesanya vs Robert Whittaker Betting Tip and Prediction

My process for researching a fight card is always the same. I scan through all the fights and prioritize researching the ones where I believe the best opportunities may be. This enables me to lock in bets before the odds decline too much.

Before I begin researching a fight, I usually have an idea of how a fight will play out based on my hazy memories. These memories are almost always wrong, which is why research is so important. When you’re watching a fight live, you don’t take in what is ACTUALLY happening. You really can learn a lot from watching fights months later in the cold light of day.

Often when I begin to research a fight, I’ll completely change my mind on how I think it will play out. I often feel less confident, or research will confirm how I initially felt. Rarely do I feel more confident after research that my initial lean will win, but that’s what happened after I researched Israel Adesanya vs. Robert Whittaker.

Israel Adesanya as an underdog to Robert Whittaker immediately jumped out at me as a potential bet because on the most basic of levels Adesanya is incredible and has a lot of X-Factors in his favor. For example:

Adesanya is making big improvements from fight to fight, he’s huge, and he also will have learned a lot from going 5 hard rounds with Kelvin Gastelum. On top of that he’s fighting a guy in Robert Whittaker who is returning to action after a long 18 month layoff. Whittaker has also been battling health issues and injuries during that time. We also can’t ignore the fact that he suffered life-changing damage in his last fight against Yoel Romero. Some fighters are never the same again after enduring that kind of damage.

We also can’t ignore the fact that Adesanya fights predominantly Southpaw, which is always a difficult challenge for an Orthodox stance fighter like Whittaker to deal with.

Adesanya will also have a massive 7-inch reach advantage over Whittaker.

All these X-Factors make Adesanya an enticing bet, but I didn’t expect to love a bet on him as much as I did when I started watching footage of both guys.

If you go back and watch the Adesanya vs. Gastelum fight in the cold light of day you’ll see that Adesanya’s striking defense is Elite. For the vast majority of that fight, Gastelum couldn’t get near him. Adesanya is so elusive and extremely hard to hit.

Whittaker’s style of striking should be a lot easier to deal with than Gastelum’s. Afterall, Gastelum is an aggressive Southpaw with cardio for days, a granite chin, fast hands, excellent Boxing, and the ability to pressure his opponents, get inside and land fight-ending strikes.

Whittaker’s style of Boxing is so much more basic than Gastelum’s. He is significantly slower and can’t pressure his opponents without taking a lot of damage. He also throws the same lead jab to right hook combo over and over. He’s very predictable. He also fights out of the Orthodox stance and doesn’t mix things up. He should be an easy puzzle to solve for an Elite striker like Adesanya.

If this fight stays standing, I do see Adesanya outclassing Whittaker. Maybe Whittaker lands a flash KO, but we saw in the Gastelum fight that Adesanya has a decent chin and he’s very tough. We’ve seen Whittaker rocked, dropped, wobbled or knocked out multiple times throughout his career, so it’s much more likely Whittaker is the guy eating the kill shot.

In my opinion, there is not much point in talking about this fight from a grappling perspective. Neither guy has the offensive wrestling to take the other down and control them on the ground. This is almost certainly going to be a stand-up fight.

In terms of cardio, both guys can fight at a high pace for 25 minutes, although it is worth noting that Adesanya gets better as the fight progresses as he starts to find his range, while Whittaker gets more predictable and easier to hit.

At roughly even odds I think Adesanya is a great bet here. Obviously, Whittaker is very dangerous and has the power and skills to knock out anyone in the division, but ultimately that’s why they call it gambling. Adesanya’s size advantage, skill advantage, and all the issues that Whittaker has dealt with outside of the cage are enough for me to back Adesanya here at the current odds.

The odds on Adesanya are currently very generous and give us a lot of value. I recommend that you lock in this bet ASAP because there’s a good chance that the odds will decline significantly in the run-up to the fight.

Reasons for betting on Israel Adesanya