History will be made on Saturday night at UFC Fight Night 138, otherwise known as UFC Fight Night: Volkan vs. Smith. While the UFC has hosted many events across Canada, the event will mark the promotion’s first visit to New Brunswick. The main card starts at 10 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1. Volkan comes in as the UFC odds favorite but is going to be a close one.
The event takes place at the new SMG Moncton, an 8,500-capacity facility in the city of 72,000. The UFC has hosted past events in the Canadian cities of Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Saskatoon, and Quebec City.
UFC Fight Night 138 Odds & Prediction
“I’ve already got the following, I’ve already got the name; now I just need to show up in the cage and remind people how dangerous I am.” – @FollowTheMenace has big plans in store for #UFCMonctonhttps://t.co/KqFnqMa2L8
— UFC News (@UFCNews) 24 de octubre de 2018
- When: October 27, 2018
- Where: Avenir Centre, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada
- TV: UFC Network
- Live Stream: UFC Fight Pass
Anthony Smith (30-13) vs Volkan Oezdemir (15-2)
Oezdemir is a -180 favorite for this light heavyweight bout with Smith at +150. Oezdemir and Smith have a penchant for putting an end to their opponents rather quickly. Oezdemir demolished Jimi Manuwa and Misha Cirkunov in less than a minute before running into the light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier and being stopped in the second round.Cormier took Oezdemir out with a second-round TKO that stemmed from a takedown, which turned into an onslaught of ground-and-pound that the challenger had no defense for. The stoppage came at the 2-minute mark of the second round as Oezdemir had his five-fight winning streak snapped.
While it has taken far longer than anticipated for Oezdemir to make his second appearance of the year, he has made the most of his time. He spent the duration of the last nine months in the United States, traveling to different gyms to get specialized instruction on various individual disciplines.
“It (the layoff) has been really annoying, but I’m here now,” he admits. “At the end of the day, I’ve had three different training camps in a row, so I’ve been training really hard throughout the year. It’s almost like I have been fighting all the time because it has been training camp after training camp. I’ve definitely learned a lot and I am in better shape than ever and I can’t wait to be back in the Octagon.”
Oezdemir has earned 12 of his 15 career victories by stoppage. He has earned his past two UFC victories by first-round knockout in a total fight time of one minute and 10 seconds. Oezdemir is one of four modern-era fighters to earn back-to-back knockouts in less than one minute each. Mike Swick, Caio Magalhaes, and Ilir Latifi also accomplished the feat.
While Oezdemir hasn’t competed in the Octagon since the loss to Cormier in January, Saturday’s bout will mark the fourth fight of 2018 for Smith. He is coming off devastating knockouts of former champions Rashad Evans and Shogun Rua. Smith’s momentum is something that has propelled him into what might be the best run of his career.
“I promise you that I’m going to demolish Volkan,” Smith said. “It’s not even going to be close. I’m telling you: It’s going to be a dominant performance, and what you guys are going to read is that Volkan didn’t even deserve to be at the top, and he just had a quick rise, and no one really knew how good he was, and now we really know that he’s not that good.”
Smith’s two-fight UFC winning streak in light heavyweight competition is tied for the third longest active streak in the division behind Jan Blachowicz (four) and Dominick Reyes (four). Smith has earned 27 of his 30 career victories by stoppage. That includes five of his six UFC wins. Conversely, he’s suffered 12 of his 13 career losses by stoppage.
Michael Johnson (18-13) vs Artem Lobov (13-14)
Johnson is a huge -610 favorite in this featherweight bout with Lobov at +455. Zubaira Tukhugov was scheduled to face Lobov in this event. However, Tukhugov was removed from the fight due to his role in the UFC 229 post-fight melee. Tukhugov is one of Khabib Nurmagomedov’s teammates and Chechen countrymen. In the aftermath, Tukhugov went on social media and, according to a translation by journalist Karim Zidan, said he slapped McGregor in the brawl – just the way he promised he would.
Lobov has lost two straight, most recently a unanimous decision to Andre Fili in October 2017. “The Greatest of All-Time” had been scheduled to face Alex Caceres at UFC 223 in April, but that fight was pulled due to Lobov’s involvement in the bus attack before UFC 223.
Lobov is 5-6-1 in his past 12 career fight dating back to May 2014. Lobov has fought to a decision in all six of his UFC appearances. Lobov has suffered 11 of his 14 career losses by decision. That includes all four of his UFC defeats.
Johnson broke a three-fight losing streak in August when he beat Fili via split decision. Johnson is 2-5 in his past seven fights dating back to August 2015. Johnson’s nine knockdowns landed in UFC lightweight competition are tied with Edson Barboza for second most in divisional history behind Melvin Guillard (13).
Expert Picks
Best play is to parlay the two favorites together to win.
Rest of the Main Card
- Misha Cirkunov vs Patrick Cummins
- Andre Soukhamthath vs Jonathan Martinez
- Gian Villante vs Ed Herman
- Alex Garcia vs Court McGee
Preliminary Card
- Nordine Taleb vs Sean Strickland
- Thibault Gouti vs Nasrat Haqparast
- Calvin Kattar vs Chris Fishgold
- Sarah Moras vs Talita Bernardo
- Te’Jovan Edwards vs Don Madge
- Arjan Bhullar vs Marcelo Golm
- Stevie Ray vs Jessin Ayari
