Hugh Citron is the first oddsmaker to post lines on MMA fights in Las Vegas. He contributes to The Linemakers on Sporting News for key UFC events.
UFC 199, this Saturday from Los Angeles, features two title fights and a great card from top to bottom. In the main event, middleweight champion Luke Rockhold defends his title against late replacement Michael “The Count” Bisping. And in the co-feature, Dominick Cruz defends his bantamweight title against veteran Urijah Faber. Bisping gets in as a late replacement for former champion Chris Weidman, who pulled out of the fight on May 17.
Rockhold, who has looked brilliant in his last few fights, is a prohibitive -1100 favorite with the challenger Bisping getting as much as +700 in some spots. Rockhold has been on a tear recently and after starting his career 1-1 he has only one loss since a first-round KO defeat to Vitor Belfort as he got caught with a beautiful spinning heel kick and was finished with punches.
Other than that off night, Rockhold has looked almost unbeatable. Submission wins over top middleweights Lyoto Machida and Tim Boetsch got him a title shot with Weidman and he didn’t disappoint, finishing him in the fifth round. Rockhold also holds a win against Saturday’s opponent Bisping, finishing him in the second round in November of 2014.
As I’ve said many times in the past, betting heavy favorites is never the way to go in MMA as there are just too many ways to win and lose a fight. So let's try and make a case for the underdog Bisping in here.
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“The Count” does have solid credentials and did jump at this opportunity he may never have gotten. At age 37, he is certainly near the end of his career. Bisping the Season 3 winner of "The Ultimate Fighter" has won three in a row, the last a unanimous decision over the legend Anderson Silva. To be fair, Silva is now a shell of the fighter he was maybe five years ago but he is still a big name to put on your resume. Decision wins over Thales Leites and CB Dollaway were the other two wins in his current streak.
Pick: When at his best, Bisping is a pretty solid striker and looking for any holes in Rockhold’s game (which there aren’t many). He can get caught with the occasional big shot or kick as with the loss to Belfort. It’s certainly a reach, but let's take a shot Michael Bisping to pull off a huge upset over Luke Rockhold and become the new UFC middleweight champion. Remember big upsets are hard to see coming most of the time.
The co feature should be a real interesting fight as Dominick Cruz defends his bantamweight title against the California kid Urijah Faber. Cruz is a -675 favorite, which seems way too high for my liking with Faber, the former face of the WEC organization, getting a very generous +450 in most spots.
Cruz, who is a very talented all around fighter with a very difficult style to match up with, will surely be ready for this fight against the only fighter to pin a loss on him. Faber, back in March of 2007, did choke out Cruz in the WEC but that is so long ago it’s useless for handicapping purposes. Cruz in January won the title in a close split decision win over T.J. Dillashaw. He's had many gaps in his fight career and has had many injuries along the way. Cruz was out 2011 til 2014 with a serious knee injury and than had another year layoff before the Dillashaw fight.
Faber has won three of his last four with the only loss coming to top lightweight or featherweight Frankie Edgar and that fight did go the distance. Urijah now 37 has to look at this as his last chance for a title will bring everything he has to this big title fight. At his best Urijah just like Cruz is good in all phases of the game and this fight shapes up a lot closer than the odds dictate and probably will go the distance with most rounds being close with lots of action and hard to score.
Pick: The lean here is to the underdog Faber who just shouldn’t be this high of a price. Taking Urijah Faber to upset Dominick Cruz and become the new bantamweight champion at a very nice price of +450 or maybe +500 by fight time.