UFC 216 Main Card Betting Predictions & Picks
When: October 7th, 2017 Where: T-Mobile Arena. Paradise, Nevada TV: PPV Live Stream: UFC Fight PassTony Ferguson vs. Kevin Lee
UFC 216 Odds: Ferguson -220 / Lee +180 It’s a matchup between Americans for the UFC interim lightweight belt – that title is officially held by Conor McGregor, but he’s not likely to fight in MMA this year after the Floyd Mayweather Jr. boxing match. Presumably, the winner here would get a title shot at McGregor in 2018. Ferguson is a -220 favorite. Ferguson (22-3) had been linked to a fight with No. 1 lightweight contender Khabib Nurmagomedov (24-0) and the two were scheduled to fight in March, but it fell through when Nurmagomedov was hospitalized during his weight cut. Ferguson is on a nine-fight win streak but hasn’t fought in almost a year. Not much of know of Lee (16-2), “The Motown Phenom.” Despite a five-fight win streak, Lee hasn’t presented enough evidence on the elite level to confidently believe that he’s a top challenger yet. If Lee wins, he’ll join 11 fighters who have won a UFC belt at the age of 25. That includes names like Penn, Ortiz, St-Pierre, Rousey, Shamrock, Holloway and Cruz.Demetrious Johnson vs. Ray Borg
UFC 216 Odds: Johnson -1130 / Borg +765 “Mighty Mouse” Johnson, the No. 1 pound-for-pound MMA fighter in the world and maybe the best ever, puts his flyweight title on the line in a fight against Borg that was originally to be staged at UFC 215 last month in Edmonton. However, Borg was forced to withdraw from the fight a couple of days before. Borg had been battling an illness that week and was deemed unfit to fight by UFC doctors. His illness was unrelated to his weight cut. As a result, the Amanda Nunes vs. Valentina Shevchenko women’s bantamweight title fight was the main event of UFC 215. Johnson is a huge -1130 favorite with Borg at +765. Back in the spring, Johnson successfully defended the flyweight title for the 10th time, which tied Anderson Silva’s record for any division. The UFC wanted to book Johnson vs. TJ Dillashaw for the potential record-breaking 11th defense, but Johnson campaigned for Borg to be his next opponent. If Johnson wins here, there will likely be calls once more for him to tackle the 135-pounders. “I don’t want to do this for another 10 years,” Johnson said. “I’ll continue to train, but the competing aspect of it, I’ll probably give myself another five or six years, maybe even seven. We’ll see what happens.”