UFC on FOX 26 Betting Tips, Picks and Predictions

In the UK, we have a saying:

“Never work with People or Animals.”

Inconsistent performances over the last few weeks from Hisaki Kato, Barb Honchak, and Jason Knight have prevented us from building on the solid profit that we earned in November. Losing bets like these are a reminder of why it’s so tough working in an industry where you have to rely on other people to show up and perform. It’s a stressful position to be in when the consistency of others determines your success as an individual. People are, by nature, unreliable. And we have learned this the hard way this month.

Kato, Honchak, and Knight were all solid bets based on prefight information, but no one could have predicted that each of them would have ended up underperforming to such a drastic degree.

It was tough to watch Barb Honchak abandon her strong wrestling that had helped her achieve so much success throughout her career. Instead, she decided to kickbox with Lauren Murphy and didn’t shoot for a single takedown in the entire 15-minute matchup. This resulted in the fight being much closer than it needed to be and she lost a razor close split decision. Then last weekend I was blown away by what we saw from Jason Knight. In the past, he has looked strong, aggressive and confident, but against Gabriel Benitez, at UFC Fight Night 123 he looked weak, lost and insecure. This was especially difficult to watch since Benitez was easily taken down and controlled on the ground in his last fight against Enrique Barzola, a grappler who is nowhere near the level of Jason Knight. Out of all the losses we have suffered this month, Hisaki Kato was the most difficult to digest as he chose to abandon his aggressive, pressure-based style of fighting in favor of walking around the Bellator cage doing absolutely nothing.

In situations like this, it is important to remember that fighters are human; they are not robots. I am also human, and we all have bad days and make mistakes.

We have killed it in Live Betting this year, but I am sure that there have been times where you have been frustrated with me for making bad decisions. I promise you that I have never intentionally made a bad betting decision, but tiredness, stress, pressure, and fatigue has an impact on my performance just like it affects fighter performances. For this reason, I try not to be too judgemental or get too frustrated when fighters do not show up and perform to their full potential. Afterall, we are all human, and we can’t always be at our best.

Our solid betting results over the last 4 years are a reminder to all of us that our results will go up and down, but if we keep making good decisions, we will consistently make money over time.

I am optimistic that we can get things back on track and end December with a profit because the next two UFC events look incredible for betting. I see multiple solid opportunities for making money on UFC on FOX 26 and I also see solid opportunities on UFC 219, which takes place in a couple of weeks.

I am also confident that we will break our target of earning 100 units of profit this year in Live Betting. Right now we are incredibly close to reaching this target having already earned almost 95 units of profit this year. I am extremely confident that we will break through the +100 unit profit target over the next couple of weeks.

Mike Perry vs Santiago Ponzinibbio Betting Tip and Prediction

Mike Perry vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio is one of those strange matchups where the UFC are putting one of their top young prospects in extreme danger of having their career derailed. It almost feels like the UFC self-sabotages their ability to develop new stars by throwing their young prospects to the Wolves before they are ready to take on these challenges.

We saw the same thing happen when they fast-tracked Paige VanZant into a matchup against Rose Namajunas, and a similar beatdown occurred when they prematurely matched up Yair Rodriguez with Frankie Edgar. Now, at the end of 2017, they are matching up a young, hungry, exciting fighter with star quality in Mike Perry, against a nightmare stylistic opponent who is most likely going to run through him and pump the brakes on the Perry vs. Darren Till fight that everyone wants to see. It makes no sense and seems counterproductive for the UFC to put these matchups together. Either they are intentionally trying to slow down Perry’s progression to the top, or they have no idea how good Santiago Ponzinibbio is. I find the latter hard to believe.

Santiago Ponzinibbio has flown under the radar for the majority of his MMA career, but he is an absolute monster. He trains out of one of the best MMA gyms in the world in American Top Team and his impressive pro record of 25-3 is an accurate reflection of the fact that he has zero holes in his overall skill set.

Mike Perry is a walking, talking highlight reel, but in between the moments of impressive knockouts, he looks slow and predictable. This isn’t a criticism; this is more of an observation and something that I would expect from a young, 26-year-old fighter who is still learning and improving at a rapid rate.

Ponzinibbio and Perry are similar style fighters. They both like to be the aggressor, they’re both strikers, and they both like to trade in the pocket, but Ponzibinnio is several levels above Perry in every single aspect of MMA.

If you go back and watch any of Perry’s fights, you’ll notice that he is very slow and he wings punches while leaving his chin up high and exposed. These weaknesses can be observed in all of Perry’s past fights including his dominant performance over Jake Ellenberger. In contrast, if you go and watch any of Ponzinibbio’s fights you’ll see that he is hard to hit, extremely fast and lands strikes with laser-guided accuracy. If both these guys get into exchanges, Perry is the fighter who will come off worse. Speed kills in MMA and Ponzinibbio will not be hanging around in Boxing range for one of Perry’s slow, telegraphed counters to land.

Mike Perry has a bright future in this sport, but he still has a lot of improving to do before he can compete with a striker on Ponzinibbio’s level. Ponzinibbio is simply faster and more skilled than Perry in every single aspect of MMA. He also has cardio for days, an iron chin and he’s incredibly tough.

Perry has looked a little chinny throughout his career, having been dropped multiple times in the UFC and flatlined a couple of times in his short career as a Boxer. I just tried to find video clips of these knockouts for you to see, but sadly they have been removed from Youtube. My point is… Perry’s chin is questionable and so is his cardio. Now he’s fighting a guy in Ponzinibbio who can push a crazy pace for 15 minutes and has the chin to stand and exchange with Perry for the entire duration of the fight.

I think Ponzinibbio puts on an absolute clinic in this fight, dominates Perry and sends another young prospect back to the drawing board. The UFC needs to start being smarter with their matchmaking. This is a terrible fight for Mike Perry.

Reasons for betting on Santiago Ponzinibbio

Josh Emmett vs Ricardo Lamas Betting Tip and Prediction

Before reading my Betting Tip for the fight between Josh Emmett and Ricardo Lamas, I recommend that you watch the video below to see how Josh Emmett looked at today’s weigh-ins:

As you can see, Emmett’s torso is a strange shape, and his face looked sucked in and dehydrated. He also appears to be low in confidence and low in energy.

Earlier this week I capped Lamas as having a 70% chance of winning this fight if Josh Emmett showed up and performed to his full potential. That was unlikely given the fact that Emmett is taking this fight on just 3 week’s notice, but Team Alpha Male fighters have been improving so much lately that I didn’t want to risk putting our money in a situation where I only perceived us to have a marginal advantage over the bookies. The odds on Lamas to win have been floating around 1.40 | -250 | 2/5 all week, which meant that the implied probability on Lamas to win was 71%. This meant that there was no value on Lamas at these odds because I capped him to win around 70% of the time.

After seeing Josh Emmett at today’s weigh-ins, I now believe Lamas has much closer to an 80% chance of winning, which means that we now have a sufficient enough margin of value to place a bet on him. Emmett ended up missing weight by 2 pounds, and he looked terrible.

Over the last 2 years since USADA have stopped fighters from being able to use IVs to rehydrate after weigh-ins, we have seen countless fighters show up and underperform. Before USADA we would rarely see fighters below Light Heavyweight gas out and now it feels like cardio is a factor in every fight. Based on what we saw today it is pretty clear that Josh Emmett had a terrible weight cut and based on what we’ve learned over the last 2 years we know that this will most likely have a massive, adverse effect on his performance against Lamas.

Ricardo Lamas isn’t the kind of guy who is particularly great in any area, but he is extremely tough, and he fights at a high pace. He will be in Emmett’s face from the very first second of this fight and Emmett has historically suffered from bad cardio. The bad weight cut will not help this and I believe he will struggle to keep up with the pace that Lamas sets.

I give a slight advantage to Lamas wherever this fight takes place. If it stays standing Lamas is a little more technical than Emmett and if it goes to the ground Lamas has a high-level ground game, with strong wrestling to go with it.

It’s very possible that this fight will be competitive early on, but I don’t see Emmett being able to win the second or third rounds when Lamas starts to crank up the pressure. Lamas is a decent bet at the current odds.

Reasons for betting on Ricardo Lamas