UFC on ESPN 4 Betting Tips, Picks and Predictions

Last weekend’s solid profits on Bellator and the UFC eradicated our losses from June and set us up for a big winning month in July.

We also banked a profit in Live Betting that could have been a lot bigger had the judges scored the fight between Karl Roberson and Wellington Turman in favor of Turman.

We now turn our attention to UFC on ESPN 4, a card with a lot of competitive fights and therefore many opportunities to try and find strong positions for us to put our money.

We’ve done great in July so far. Lets hope we can keep it going!

Alex Caceres vs Steven Peterson Betting Tip and Prediction

You’ll often hear me say that fight research is a constant process of foraging for new information in the run-up to an event that can help us to make better betting decisions and in the fight week interviews that were published recently from both Alex Caceres and Steven Peterson, they both said things that now make me feel a lot more confident that Peterson is going to win this fight.

If this fight stays standing, I do expect it to be competitive. Peterson has a granite chin, and a relentless style of fighting that sees him constantly pressuring his opponents and coming forward. This is a difficult style for many of his past opponents to deal with who don’t have the Boxing to back him up. Unfortunately, his striking defense is very poor, so he often takes a lot of damage while implementing his pressure heavy style of fighting. It is, however, worth noting that he’s training at an excellent gym at Fortis MMA. Recently we have seen a lot of Fortis MMA fighters make huge improvements in a short space of time and Peterson is one of the most senior guys on their team. In an interview published yesterday, Peterson said that he had been working a lot on his striking defense and that he would be a lot more elusive on Saturday night. This is exactly what we needed to hear to feel more confident in him:

Alex Caceres is primarily a striker; whos entire striking skillset is centered around his kicks. For this reason, he doesn’t pose as much of a risk standing to many of Peterson’s recent opponents who were much better Boxers than Caceres. Peterson’s relentless pressure and poor striking defense leaves him very susceptible to being picked apart by a technical Boxer, but Caceres’ Boxing isn’t great, so it’s very possible that even in a stand up fight Peterson could win.

On the ground is where Peterson will have a significant advantage. Alex Caceres has poor takedown defense and a very low-level ground game. He’s also very weak off his back and struggles to work his way back to his feet when he does get taken down. Peterson isn’t a super strong wrestler or grappler, but he has decent takedowns and a reasonably heavy top game. If he comes into this fight with a heavy grappling gameplan, he should be able to win easily.

Caceres is one of those guys that shows flashes of excellent takedown defense, but he’s also one of those guys that frequently makes rookie mistakes and gives up weak takedowns. Caceres has never had good fight IQ, but this week I was shocked to see him say in an interview that he wants to win this fight by submission:

Wanting to win the fight by submission would suggest that Caceres is willing to go to the ground with Peterson and this would be a big mistake because Peterson has a significant advantage on the ground. For Caceres to win this fight, he needs to treat the ground like Lava and focus on keeping the fight standing. Based on this interview from yesterday, it appears that Caceres has other plans.

Caceres’ poor fight IQ has cost him in the past, and it looks like it may cost him again on Saturday night.

Steven Peterson is never going to be a safe bet because of the amount of damage he takes in fights, but we do know that he has decent cardio, a granite chin and he always shows up and brings it 100%. We also know that this fight will be competitive if it stays standing and Peterson should dominate if it goes to the ground. For these reasons, I believe Peterson is a decent bet at underdog odds.

Reasons for betting on Steven Peterson