UFC Fight Night 142 Betting Tips, Picks and Predictions

This is one of the busiest weeks of the year for MMA with over 50 fights taking place in the UFC, Bellator, and KSW on Friday and Saturday. The handicappers who set the odds on these fights are human like us, and so they struggle to accurately research this many fights in such a short space of time. This is why we always tend to see mistakes in the odds at this time of year. The massive increase in the number of fights is also probably one of the reasons why I tend to perform well at this time of the year. Handicappers and betting sites can’t keep up with how many fights they have to research.

Jake Matthews vs Tony Martin Betting Tip and Prediction

I’m just finishing up my second full day of research for this weekend’s upcoming events, and I think I’ve stumbled across the first mistake that the betting sites have made. There’s just no way that Tony Martin should be an underdog to Jake Matthews.

Jake Matthews and Tony Martin were two fighters who came into the UFC with a lot of hype behind them, but since then their careers have been a rollercoaster. Both Matthews and Martin started strong in the promotion, but they soon fell on hard times and started putting in inconsistent performances. Since then Martin has gone on to improve significantly, while Matthews is still hindered by inconsistency.

Tony Martin should be able to win this fight wherever it takes place. If it stays standing, he should be able to use his powerful counters to catch Matthews as he comes in. Matthews appears to have regressed quite a bit with his striking in recent years. Part of this may be due to the decline in cardio we’ve seen from him since USADA came into effect, but it could also be due to a lack of confidence. We’ve seen Matthews frequently rocked or dropped in his UFC career which may have put doubt in his mind when he enters striking exchanges. Martin is the opposite and seems to be making significant improvements from fight to fight. He’s bursting with confidence at the moment.

Neither Martin nor Matthews are comfortable striking, so I’m hoping that we see this fight go to the ground where Martin will have a considerable advantage. Matthews may be the stronger wrestler, but Martin is lightyears ahead of him when it comes to grappling technique and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I do believe that Matthews can take Martin down, but Martin is so confident in his ground game that he doesn’t even try to defend takedowns. Instead, he immediately works for a submission attempt that he can turn into a reversal. This creative style of defending takedowns has seen him get the better of high-level grapplers like Ryan LaFlare, Keita Nakamura and Fabricio Camoes on the ground.

Jake Matthews is still very green in all areas. He lacks confidence in his striking and on the ground he makes a lot of positional mistakes. Martin, on the other hand, is making massive improvements from fight to fight and is developing into a complete Mixed Martial Arts fighter.

Jake Matthews has seen his career regress, and it’s worrying that at such a young age his improvements seem to have plateaued. I think this is a matchup between two guys heading in opposite directions with Martin improving and Matthews looking average every time we see him. Matthews does show up and deliver one excellent performance every 3 or 4 fights, but that just highlights how inconsistent he is. Martin, on the other hand, has performed consistently well over the last two years.

I believe Tony Martin is a great bet to beat Jake Matthews because he has excellent cardio, he’s high on confidence, he’s a better striker, a significantly better grappler and he’s really tough. Jake Matthews has home advantage on his side and the odd Unicorn performance that he pulls out of the bag once in a while, but aside from that he doesn’t bring too many risk factors to the table that could cause our bet on Martin to lose.

At underdog odds, I think Tony Martin is one of the best value prefight bets of the year.

Reasons for betting on Tony Martin