UFC 175 and TUF 19 Finale Predictions Summary

Here is who I think should win the fights over the weekend:

UFC 175

• Chris Weidman over Lyoto Machida
• Ronda Rousey over Alexis Davis
• Matt Mitrione over Stefan Struve
• Uriah Hall over Thiago Santos
• Marcus Brimage over Russell Doane
• Urijah Faber over Alex Caceres
• Ildemar Alcantara over Kenny Robertson
• Chris Camozzi over Bruno Santos
• George Roop over Rob Font
• Guilherme Vasconcelos over Luke Zachrich
• Kevin Casey over Bubba Bush

TUF 19 FINALE

• Frankie Edgar over B.J. Penn
• Corey Anderson over Matt Van Buren
• Dhiego Lima over Eddie Gordon
• Derrick Lewis over Guto Inocente
• Justin Scoggins over Dustin Ortiz
• Kevin Lee over Jesse Ronson
• Leandro Issa over Jumabieke Tuerxun
• Adriano Martins over Juan Manuel Puig Carreon
• Dan Spohn over Patrick Walsh
• Alexis Dufresne over Sarah Moras
• Robert Drysdale over Keith Berish

YEAR TO DATE

Last Events: 14-7 (66.7%)

Year to Date: 159-82 (66.0%)

 

DEGENERATE GAMBLER’S CORNER

Last Events: -$3.60

Current Bankroll: $81.66

Total Investment: $197.67

Total Return: $31.66

Return on Investment: 16.0%

Of the four underdogs I bet on last week, only Nate Marquardt came through with a victory. That broke what was a six-event winning streak for my degenerate gambling on the UFC. Of course, nobody should expect to win every time.

For this weekend I have…

Chris Weidman -185: $5.55 to win $3.00 – I’ve developed an aversion to betting on favorites, but I think Weidman is such a phenomenal talent that I can’t resist betting on him here. I suspect that we’ll look back and see this as a bargain, even knowing how good Lyoto Machida is as a challenger.

Matt Mitrione +160: $3.00 to win $4.80 – I think Mitrione has a decisive advantage standing and Stefan Struve has a decisive advantage on the ground. But I don’t trust Struve’s ability to get the fight to the ground, or have the willingness to try. I was also fortunate to get a bet down on Mitrione at the best price available to this point.

Thiago Santos +350: $3.00 to win $10.50 – By no means do I believe that Thiago Santos is going to have a long and successful UFC career; there are far too many holes in his game. But in what figures to be a striking match against a similarly flawed opponent in Uriah Hall, I can’t pass on a price as good as this.

Alex Caceres +750: $1.00 to win $7.50 – As much as I think the line here is a bit ridiculous, I don’t actually have that much faith in the ability of “Bruce Leeroy” to upset Urijah Faber. That’s why I placed a smaller bet here. I fully expect to lose this one but you never know.

My “leans” for this weekend include Bruno Santos, Kevin Casey, B.J. Penn (he’s +400 after all), Matt Van Buren, and Keith Berish. (Robert Drysdale might be amazing at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but +800?) Ultimately, I don’t have the guts to bet on any one of them. I was hoping to get a good price on Kevin Lee, who I think is a great prospect, but -210 just isn’t good enough. The same goes for Justin Scoggins, who I think is a potential champion in the flyweight division, but is listed at -330 to beat Dustin Ortiz.

Mandatory disclaimer: I am NOT a betting professional and I do NOT recommend you follow my plays in any serious way. I’m doing this for fun and as an experiment, not a livelihood. If you make any bets, you do so at your own risk.

Best of luck and enjoy the fights!

UFC 168 Stats Review

For this feature I’m bringing back Fight Score, an estimate of how well each fighter performed based on their accumulated Fight Metric statistics. Fight Score should be considered more of a ballpark estimate than a precise measurement. Here’s how the UFC 168 participants stack up:

Rank	Fighter	Fight Score
1	Travis Browne	+47.00
	I was really hoping Browne’s fight against Josh Barnett would serve as an opportunity to learn more about Browne. Can Browne consistently defend takedowns against a quality wrestler? How does his striking hold up if he can’t win by quick knockout? Obviously I can’t fault Browne for knocking Barnett out the same way he knocked out Gabriel Gonzaga; I just would have liked to see development in Browne’s game.
2	Dustin Poirier	+15.51
	In one round, Poirier landed 44 significant strikes and a knockdown against a fat Diego Brandao. The moment Brandao started looking tired, Poirier unloaded with striking combinations and finished the fight. Poirier is a second-tier featherweight, a fighter who will struggle against top contenders but look great against mid-tier competition. He made a fan out of me in this fight.
3	Jim Miller	+13.51
	Before Miller beat Fabricio Camoes, I told my friends that Camoes had great Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu but Miller was likely the better striker and wrestler. What we saw was Miller absorb 11 significant strikes and get put on his back before winning by armbar from the guard – so pretty much the exact opposite of what I said. I really wanted Miller to have a great performance here but losing the striking portion of the fight to Camoes is a really bad sign.
4	Uriah Hall	+13.40
	In this fight Uriah Hall was who he always has been. He’s a striker who moves backwards and avoids strikes by dropping his hands and lifting his chin. What Hall did well in this fight was constant circling, taking advantage of his long reach. Hall has real talent that makes him a dangerous opponent for a lot of fighters, but he’s still very flawed.
5	Chris Weidman	+13.21
	I was rooting for Weidman to defeat Anderson Silva, but I wanted to see a proper closure to the fight. I wanted Weidman to win in such a way that proved he was the better man. We didn’t get that with Silva’s leg snapping like a twig on Weidman’s knee. Instead we got a serious injury for a legend of the sport, and that’s nothing to celebrate. With that said, I’ll argue that Weidman is the better fighter right now any day of the week. In about 12.5 combined minutes of fighting, Weidman was up 36-22 in significant strikes, 2-0 in knockdowns, 2-0 in takedowns, and 3-0 in submission attempts against Silva. He’s the real deal.
6	Ronda Rousey	+11.72
	Well now we’ve seen what happens when an opponent forces Ronda Rousey to fight beyond the first round… just continued dominance on the part of Rousey. She had six takedowns, three guard passes, and three submission attempts in this fight, for a total of 12 grappling advances in 11 minutes. She was also the better overall striker, out-pointing Miesha Tate 40-24 in significant strikes. Sure, there were fleeting moments of vulnerability, but this fight was 99% Rousey.
7	Michael Johnson	+10.41
	Johnson’s historic weaknesses have been his conditioning and his ground game. Neither of them were tested by Gleison Tibau, who inexplicably decided to engage in a striking battle against Johnson. To Johnson’s credit he successfully defended two takedown attempts from Tibau and that’s no small feat – Tibau is the best wrestler in the division. Credit where it’s due: Johnson needed to sprawl and brawl to beat Tibau and he did it beautifully.
8	Robbie Peralta	+6.86
	34-32 in significant strikes, 2-1 in takedowns, 2-2 in guard passes… and 1-0 in knockouts. That’s Robbie Peralta in a nutshell. It’s not good enough for him to merely match his opponent until he lands the knockout blow, because there will be fights where Peralta doesn’t get the finish that way. When that happens he’s likely to lose as he did to Akira Corassani.
9	William Macario	+6.80
	No big deal, just 133 significant strikes landed in 15 minutes. Not to mention three takedowns as well. It was funny seeing the highlights of this fight when it was over… Bobby Voelker’s face was clean for the first half of the highlights, then out of nowhere it was bloody for the second half. I could nitpick Macario’s absorbing 61 significant strikes, but it’s hard to hold that against him when he lands 133.
10	John Howard	+2.53
	Howard had a tougher time landing takedowns than I expected. He needed 15 attempts to take Siyar Bahadurzada down three times. Still, those takedowns were very important in what was otherwise an even fight. By the way, Joe Rogan has Howard exactly backwards. Howard is a good offensive grappler with flawed striking, not the other way around.
11	Dennis Siver	+1.83
	The way I saw it, either Siver would sprawl and brawl and beat Manny Gamburyan, or get taken down and lose. What I didn’t think Siver would do is take Gamburyan down twice, effectively sealing the first and third rounds. He also only absorbed 14 significant strikes in 15 minutes, minimizing the risk of a knockout loss. Good stuff from Siver.
12	Manny Gamburyan	-1.83
	Gamburyan is such a limited offensive fighter that he really needs his takedown game working. His 29:3 takedown ratio coming into this fight was very important. If it’s Gamburyan who’s getting taken down then he’s in big trouble, because his striking just isn’t good enough to win UFC fights on a consistent basis.
13	Siyar Bahadurzada	-2.53
	I was actually impressed by Bahadurzada’s takedown defense but his overall grappling still needs serious improvement. John Howard passed his guard six times, achieving dominant position and putting Bahadurzada exactly where he doesn’t want to be. It’s a cliche but one-dimensional fighters just don’t work in the UFC anymore.
14	Bobby Voelker	-6.80
	OK, I know Voelker gets hit a lot but this is ridiculous. No fighter should absorb 133 significant strikes in a three-round fight unless his opponent is Cain Velasquez.
15	Estevan Payan	-6.86
	Payan’s strength as a fighter is striking volume, but he wasn’t really able to distinguish himself in that area against Robbie Peralta. I’m just not sure Payan is cut out for the UFC.
16	Gleison Tibau	-10.41
	In case either Tibau or his coaches thought striking against Michael Johnson was a good idea, he was out-pointed 22-12 before being knocked out. Tibau is a wrestler/grappler. The more he strikes the worse he is.
17	Miesha Tate	-11.72
	I’m not the world’s biggest Tate fan, but I’ll give her this: she trained her armbar defense very hard. She made it genuinely difficult for Ronda Rousey to finish her that way. Even so, she was clearly outclassed in all areas.
18	Anderson Silva	-13.21
	I’m not a doctor but my gut reaction is that it would be best for Silva to hang up the gloves. At 38 years old it’s hard to imagine Silva coming all the way back from such a devastating broken leg to compete at a high level. He’s also been knocked down in consecutive fights and that’s a troubling trend as well. Silva is a legend and all-time great; retiring off two losses wouldn’t change that.
19	Chris Leben	-13.40
	It’s official: Leben is DONE. He looked awful at the weigh ins before putting on a very sloppy performance against Uriah Hall. Even at his best Leben was all grit and toughness and that’s completely gone now. I don’t need to see him lurching to land strikes anymore.
20	Fabricio Camoes	-13.51
	Camoes actually looked good standing up but then got armbarred by Jim Miller. Miller’s ground game is very good so it’s not something to be ashamed of, but since submissions are supposed to be Camoes’ strength, I can’t imagine what he’s supposed to do to win at a high level.
21	Diego Brandao	-15.51
	I don’t know exactly why Brandao was so out of shape. Maybe he was injured and needed the fight money. Whatever the case may be, Brandao’s normal seven-minute gas tank was reduced to about two minutes in this one. He just got pummeled by Dustin Poirier.
22	Josh Barnett	-47.00
	I’m not sure what conclusion to draw from Barnett’s loss, other than that it’s a bad idea to shoot a double-leg takedown against Travis Browne.

UFC 168 Predictions Summary

 

Note that my personal pick is Dennis Siver to beat Manny Gamburyan. The betting public is a lot more confident in Siver than FPR is in Gamburyan and I don’t think it’s a great matchup for Manny.

You can also safely ignore the percentages for Rousey-Tate. My model is not well equipped to handle a statistical outlier like Rousey.

DEGENERATE GAMBLER’S CORNER

Last time I cautioned that I could easily lose all of my bets… and I did. That has brought my bankroll to $49.88 which puts me down a whopping 12 cents overall.

Starting Bankroll: $50.00

Last Time: -$5.91

Current Bankroll: $49.88

Here’s what I have for UFC 168:

Chris Leben +250: $7.47 to win $18.68

Chris Weidman +135: $5.74 to win $7.75

Manny Gamburyan +220: $2.36 to win $5.19

I am also placing a bet on Ronda Rousey by submission -350: $7.00 to win $2.00 since I think that’s the result well above 80 percent of the time.

Best of luck and enjoy the fights!

UFC 168 Prediction: Anderson Silva vs. Chris Weidman

Up now at JasonSomerville.com, I break down tomorrow’s main event and explain why Chris Weidman’s UFC 162 victory over Anderson Silva was not a fluke.

The Dominant Wrestling of Chris Weidman

Up on JasonSomerville.com, I illustrate how good Chris Weidman’s wrestling is in comparison to the rest of the UFC middleweight division. Find out why Weidman is in a class of his own when it comes to landing takedowns.

FPR Update – 10/29

Fighter Performance Ratings on this blog have been updated for all UFC fighters. They can be accessed via the links on the sidebar.

Here are some quick notes from the update:

–Cain Velasquez goes down to +17.35 because he was a little less dominant than normal against Junior Dos Santos. Velasquez still has easily the highest FPR in the UFC. Between that performance by Velasquez and Jon Jones‘ struggles against Alexander Gustafsson, there aren’t too many people calling for Jones to challenge for the heavyweight title these days. That is as it should be.

–Lyoto Machida checks in at middleweight as the second-best fighter in the division according to FPR. Machida trails only Chris Weidman and is well ahead of Anderson Silva. The obvious match to make if Weidman beats Silva again is to have him face Machida… assuming Machida can defeat Vitor Belfort or whoever else he’s matched up against next.

-If Jimi Manuwa keeps up his current pace over 60 minutes he’ll have an FPR of +5.46, which would rank 7th at light-heavyweight ahead of Mauricio Rua and behind Ryan Bader. The reason Manuwa’s FPR isn’t that good yet (+1.07) is because I’ve designed FPR to make a fighter “prove it.” In other words, prove you’re that good on a consistent basis. I think the jury is still out on Manuwa as a potential top 10 fighter at 205 pounds.

-Here is the FPR of every fighter from TUF 15 who is still in the UFC:

• Myles Jury +2.70
• Al Iaquinta +0.27
• Daron Cruickshank +0.27
• James Vick -1.98
• Jon Tuck -2.03
• James Krause -2.09
• Jeremy Larsen -2.52
• Joe Proctor -2.93

So far it looks like Jury, Iaquinta, and Cruickshank are the mainstays from that season. James Vick could easily join them as he’s only fought in the UFC for one minute so far. I still think Jury has the highest upside of the group.

UFC 162 Preview: The Case For Chris Weidman

Anderson Silva is 16-0 in the UFC and widely considered the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world. He’s been the UFC middleweight champion for so long that it’s hard to imagine what things would be like if he lost. However, despite Silva’s dominance, not only do I think Weidman has a good chance of winning in Saturday night’s main event, I’m picking him to win.

To find out why, head over to JasonSomerville.com, where I break down the case for Chris Weidman defeating Anderson Silva in what would be a historic upset. See you there!

UFC on FOX 2 Preview: Demian Maia vs. Chris Weidman

While most of the attention for Saturday evening’s UFC on Fox event has been focused on Evans-Davis and Sonnen-Bisping, and rightly so, the third fight on the card is definitely one to watch as well, for a few reasons. No, Demian Maia is not on the verge of a title shot, like Rashad Evans and Chael Sonnen are, but his fight against Chris Weidman is very intriguing. Not only is it intriguing from a stylistic standpoint, it will be a great opportunity to show that a fighter doesn’t need very many fights or time in professional MMA to be capable of fighting at a high level.

At this point, we know what Demian Maia brings to the table. He has world-class Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but while he was very successful in submitting UFC opponents early in his career, recently he has been unable to find ways to submit opponents. Still, when fights go to the ground, Maia at least controls the action. Maia also has developed a very adequate striking game, and has the ability to take his opponents down. If he didn’t have world-class grappling, he wouldn’t be a UFC-level fighter, but because he has such a good ground game, his striking and judo are good enough to complement it, and make for a fighter well-rounded enough to compete at a very high level.

The question is: can Chris Weidman, at 7-0 and in his third year of professional fighting, beat such a tough, experienced opponent? To date, Weidman has been hailed as a terrific prospect, both from a scouting perspective by Leland Roling of Bloody Elbow, and from a statistical perspective from myself. Weidman is the perfect example of a fighter who has been “ahead of the curve,” meaning that he won fights against tough opponents at an earlier point in his career than most fighters are capable of. Weidman made his UFC debut at 4-0, and since has defeated Alessio Sakara by clear decision, Jesse Bongfeldt by first-round submission, and Tom Lawlor by first-round submission. These are very impressive wins for such an inexperienced fighter.

The thing about Weidman is that he’s already shown a very impressive submission game. His win over Lawlor was by D’Arce choke, not a move that grappling novices pull off in the UFC all the time. Combine the submission abilities with great wrestling, as Weidman has, and what you get is a fighter who represents a very imposing test for any opponent in the middleweight division.

That’s why this fight is so intriguing. I’d take Weidman in a ground battle with almost any UFC middleweight, since if Weidman is on the ground, he’s almost certainly operating out of top position. But this is Demian Maia we’re talking about, a legitimately world-class Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter. He’s not just a step up from Tom Lawlor on the ground, he’s 20 steps up. At the same time, if Weidman is the one landing takedowns, it would be a real challenge for even Maia to win a battle on the ground; position is, after all, the most important thing.

Oddly, Maia’s best chance to win this fight might actually be to stand and strike with Chris Weidman. I don’t think striking will ever come naturally to Maia, but he’s shown success in it, and it’s probably the one part of Weidman’s game that’s below average in the UFC so far (although, with Weidman’s talent, I won’t dismiss the possibility that he could improve his striking in a heartbeat). For grappling enthusiasts, a striking match would undoubtedly be an enormous disappointment, but in the UFC, fighters compete to win, and if Maia decides he can’t get into a good enough position to play the ground game with Weidman, he may just try his hand at trying to out-strike him.

SILVA PREDICTION: CHRIS WEIDMAN (65.61) OVER DEMIAN MAIA (63.56)

But what if Weidman takes him down? Can Demian Maia, good as he is, submit an extremely tough grappler like Weidman from bottom position? Can Maia sweep Weidman and work from top position? Or will Weidman’s wrestling ability translate into a ground game that thwarts even Maia? I agree with SILVA: this will be a very close contest that could go either way. Here’s one thing I’m confident about – Chris Weidman may be just 7-0, but he’s ready for this kind of test, and whether he wins or loses, his name is one you should keep in mind when you think of fighters who may be future champions in the UFC.

Thoughts About UFC 139

Now that I’ve had time to settle down, I’d like to produce a more formal post talking about what happened at UFC 139, and what it means for the participants on the card.

I’m thrilled to no end that the fight between Dan Henderson and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua is getting praise as one of the best MMA fights of all time. When you’re watching in the arena, things sometimes seem much more exciting or amazing than they actually are. That wasn’t the case for this fight – it was really one of the best MMA fights ever, and it seemed that way both in the arena and on TV.

Watching live, I thought that either the judges would give the fight to Henderson, or it would be a draw. My personal scoring was draw because I thought the fifth round was clearly 10-8 in favor of Rua, but I wasn’t surprised at all when Henderson was announced as the winner. At the time, I was in no mood to be irritated, as I was just thrilled to have seen such a great fight. Looking back, I do believe that Rua was ripped off, as he clearly won the fourth round, and clearly won the fifth round in my opinion. I wonder if the judges are averse to scoring fights as a draw, because that was a pretty darn dominant round on Rua’s part.

Wanderlei Silva and Cung Le put on a great fight as well, and let me say that I’m officially out of the business of telling fighters they should retire. I did it with Tito Ortiz, and he responded with a first-round submission of Ryan Bader. Now, I’ve done it with Wanderlei Silva, and the result was an extremely exciting fight, and a great second-round TKO win for Silva. That’s not to say that I think the future is bright for either Ortiz or Silva – both fighters are still well past their prime – but I will say that just because a fighter is past his prime and struggling doesn’t mean that fighter has nothing left.

Urijah Faber made my preview for his fight with Brian Bowles look really stupid. He was more aggressive, more active, and really fought for the finish. Bowles is very tough, and kept fighting at a point that some fighters would have quit, but Faber was just the better man on Saturday night. I’ll have another post written about SILVA’s predictions later, as I feel I need to talk about SILVA going 0-5 on the UFC 139 main card, but for now, I’ll just say that I was wrong about Faber and that he earned his rubber match against Dominick Cruz.

Other thoughts:

• Martin Kampmann said after his fight against Rick Story that he thought the judges might “screw him over” again, and while I sided with Kampmann against Diego Sanchez in his last fight, I actually thought Story won this one. Story seemed to land more strikes in at least two of the rounds.
• SILVA was way off on Kyle Kingsbury. Perhaps Kingsbury just hasn’t been tested on the ground before (I haven’t seen all of Kingsbury’s fights), but when Bonnar took him down, he very much resembled a fish out of water. As for Bonnar, it’s an interesting dichotomy… when Bonnar fights exciting, he’s most likely going to lose, but when he fights to win, he isn’t nearly as fun to watch.
• Ryan Bader still has a ton of power, and despite his loss to Tito Ortiz, is still a force to be reckoned with at 205 pounds.
• Chris Weidman showed why he’s considered such a great prospect, taking out Tom Lawlor in short order. Watching in the arena, I was worried that the referee stepped in a bit late. I’ve often thought that the worst position for a referee to be in is to not know whether or not a fighter has been choked out. In those positions, referees should be very active in communicating with the fighter being choked, both verbally and physically, to ensure that they stop the fight exactly when it should be stopped.

SILVA Predictions for UFC 139

Preliminary Fights on Facebook

• 155 lbs: Danny Castillo (46.48) over Shamar Bailey (36.27)
• 170 lbs: Seth Baczynski (38.83) over Matt Brown (32.53)
• 135 lbs: Miguel Torres (63.36) over Nick Pace (23.61)
• 155 lbs: Rafael dos Anjos (52.46) over Gleison Tibau (51.09)
• 185 lbs: Chris Weidman (60.65) over Tom Lawlor (45.05)

Preliminary Fights on Spike TV

• 135 lbs: Michael McDonald (63.62) over Alex Soto (31.70)
• 205 lbs: Ryan Bader (64.07) over Jason Brilz (55.15)

Main Card Fights on PPV

• 205 lbs: Kyle Kingsbury (70.63) over Stephan Bonnar (37.62)
• 170 lbs: Rick Story (75.61) over Martin Kampmann (59.71)
• 135 lbs: Brian Bowles (78.59) over Urijah Faber (47.21)
• 185 lbs: Cung Le (62.70) over Wanderlei Silva (50.10)
• 205 lbs: Mauricio “Shogun” Rua (77.07) over Dan Henderson (74.28)

 

Summary

This is probably as good as it gets for a pay-per-view card without a title fight. Rua vs. Henderson is a fight that’s been long anticipated by fight fans, and should be a very entertaining main event. There’s talent throughout the main card, great fighters like Ryan Bader and Michael McDonald on Spike TV, and then on top of that, you’re giving me Miguel Torres, Chris Weidman, and Rafael dos Anjos vs. Gleison Tibau on the Facebook prelims? This is a fantastic fight card.

The big underdog pick of the card

Either the betting public is severely overrating Urijah Faber, or SILVA is really off the mark, because SILVA favors Brian Bowles to beat Faber by a 31-point margin, but Faber is about a 5-2 favorite to win on the betting lines. After looking at Faber’s recent fight history, and his stats on Fight Metric, I feel pretty good about the Bowles pick, but it’s not like I’ve been doing wonderful on my underdog picks. The other underdog pick of the card is Rafael dos Anjos, who is a slight underdog to Gleison Tibau.