Mixed martial arts is becoming a major betting sport, which is a very tidy convergence of my past and present vocations as a professional sports handicapper and fight sport journalism god. Not to toot my own horn, but I was one of the first handicappers to seriously work on MMA back when most people—bookmakers included—considered it more of a freak show than actual sport. For awhile, betting MMA was like a personal ATM machine—no one could set a sharp line on the sport, and my clients and I took advantage and made a lot of money. The bookmakers are getting sharper, but it’s still possible to bet MMA profitably.

Now, I’m not going to bore you with a sports betting theory lecture. I could prattle on for days talking about ‘true odds’, theoretical breakeven points, and other arcane concepts that have more to do with math than sports. I am going to preface this with a couple of note on serious sports betting theory that you should keep in mind when betting MMA or, for that matter, any sport. After that, we’ll run down the main card fights from a wagering perspective as well as give you a play on the undercard that could be the best bet on the entire event.

VALUE: To make money betting on sports over the long haul, you need to find positive line value situations or what we sports gambling types call ‘an overlay’. Simply stated, these are situations where the ‘true odds’ of an event occurring make the prices offered by a sportsbook favorable. The easiest way to explain this is to think of a coin flip which over the long term is a 50% proposition. Were a sports book offering +100 on one side of a coin flip, that would accurately reflect the ‘true odds’ of this proposition. Were a book offering ‘heads’ at +150 and ‘tails’ at -175, it would be a situation where ‘heads’ is a good wagering value and ‘tails’ a bad investment.

See what we’re doing here? We’re not so much trying to determine which side the coin lands on, but finding a price that puts the ‘true odds’ of a certain outcome in our favor. At +150, the theoretical breakeven point is 40%. At -175, it’s 63.6%. So keeping in mind that over the long term the coin flip is a 50/50 proposition, simply betting on ‘heads’ will make us money over the long haul. Conversely, laying the favorite price on ‘tails’ is, simply stated, a ‘sucker bet’.

Obviously, in the ‘real world’ there aren’t a lot of cut and dried instances where you know what the true odds of a proposition are like you do with a coin flip. That’s where all of the statistical and matchup analysis comes into play. Still, what we do when we handicapping MMA or any other sport is a more complex version of the ‘coin flip’ example above.

THE LINE: It’s important to keep in mind how the lines are set and what they mean. A prevalent misconception is that they represent a prediction by bookmakers on who will win and in the case of pointspread bets by how much. There is some of that factored into the number, but more important to the bookmaker is setting a number that will divide the action evenly both ways. In some ways, it’s more accurate to consider the line or pointspread a ‘popularity contest’. Ultimately, the bookmaker is more interested in accurately predicting how the public’s betting opinion on a proposition will break down more than anything else.

So in theory, a bettor can always find value simply by going against public opinion. It’s not quite as simple as this, but there are definitely worse things to be in sports gambling than a contrarian. Some teams even come to be known as ‘public’ teams—you know who they are in team sports: the Yankees, Red Sox, Notre Dame, Duke, North Carolina. Bookmakers will typically ‘shade’ the line in games involving these teams to reflect the mainstream popularity they enjoy. In a hypothetical basketball game between Duke and a low profile program like, for example, Coastal Carolina the data could indicate the line should favor the Tar Heels by 10 points. A bookmaker might then open the Heels as a -14 point favorite based simply on the difference in name recognition alone.

This concept is particularly important in MMA—the reality of the sport is that once you get below the fighters at the very top of the food chain there’s a lot of parity. The nature of a sport full of shameless self promotion also presents opportunities where you’ll frequently find matchups between evenly matched fighters with one guy favored because he’s simply better known.

So with those concepts in mind, let’s run down the main PPV portion of the UFC 98 card. Lines are from the highly respected Internet sports book, Sports-1 and are current as of late Thursday night.

SPORTS-1 INTERNET SPORTS BOOK MMA LINES

SEAN SHERK (-300) vs. FRANK EDGAR (+240)

This looks to be the biggest mismatch on the main card, and the line accurately reflects this. Edgar is a hard working young fighter from New Jersey—he’s a tough guy with some decent punching power and a charming personality that has quickly made him a fan favorite. In theory, he’s the kind of fighter we’d look to back as an underdog but this is a bad matchup for him. Sean ‘The Muscle Shark’ Sherk is simply a freak of nature. His workouts would be labeled ‘torture’ if held at Guantanamo Bay, and are even painful to watch on video. In a sport full of well conditioned badasses, Sherk may be the most insanely in shape badass of them all.

Sherk ‘s age (35) would give us pause was it not for his insane conditioning regimen, and his experience gives him a huge edge. His only three losses are to Matt Hughes (in his prime), Georges St. Pierre and BJ Penn. His last four wins are against Tyson Griffin, Kenny Florian, Hermes Franca and Nick Diaz. Also of concern are Edgar’s comments that ‘he doesn’t know what kind of fight to expect’. You can be sure that Sherk knows what to expect.

Edgar is a nice kid who always has the proverbial ‘puncher’s chance’ but he’s in here against a fighter who has only been knocked out by BJ Penn and GSP. Sherk is just the tightly wound type of guy who’d you’d expect to roll with a nickname like ‘The Muscle Shark’ and almost certainly ‘impose his will’ on Edgar. Look for Sherk to take Edgar down early and often and maul his way to an easy decision. At the high price, however, I’m not really interested in getting involved from a wagering standpoint.

DAN MILLER (-200) vs. CHAEL SONNEN (+160)

We’ll take the dog price on our Portland, OR homeboy and Team Quest member Chael Sonnen. Biggest concern is the large amount of weight (36 pounds) that Sonnen had to lose to take this fight in a short amount of time. He was a late replacement for Yushin Okami, who was injured in training. Unless Sonnen looks like a walking dead man at the weigh in, we’ll gladly take the price with a tough veteran. All of the Team Quest guys—from Matt Lindland on down—are just freaks of nature, double tough and technically proficient. Like someone asked me at the “Affliction: Day of Reckoning” show “I’d ask Matt Lindland if he puts milk on the nails he eats for breakfast in the morning, but I’m afraid he’d think that I was calling him a pussy by suggesting that he just doesn’t eat them plain.” That’s the kind of environment Sonnen trains in. Sonnen lost his last fight to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu god Demien Maia, and there’s no shame in that as Maia may end up being the most formidable BJJ fighter in the sport’s history. Sonnen once KO’d SAVSCI favorite Tim Credeur on a BoDog Fight event, and you’ve got to be a tough dude to do that. Miller is a solid fighter, but he’s never faced anyone of Sonnen’s class.

CHAEL SONNEN +160 OVER DAN MILLER

DREW MCFEDRIES (+145) VS. XAVIER FOUPA-POKAM (-175)

Foupa-Pokam, who does have the cool nickname ‘Professor X’ was a late replacement for James Irvin. McFedries could be fighting for his UFC career, with two straight losses and four in his last six fights. Foupa-Pokam hasn’t shown much when he’s stepped up in class, and is off a loss to Denis Kang. Were the price higher, might have some interest in McFedries in a matchup of journeymen fighters but as it stands we’ll PASS.

MATT HUGHES (-260) VS. MATT SERRA (+210)

This matchup of aging fighters in the twilight of their career is interesting due to the personal animosity between the two. You can read more about that in ‘The MMA Professor’ Grady Roy’s preview of the matchup at SAVSCI. Hughes has lost two straight and three of his last four, though they were to opponents at the very top of the MMA foodchain—as in GSP twice and Thiago Alves. After each of his previous two losses, Hughes has seriously considered hanging it up and win or lose this is all but certain to be his last fight. That’s a good thing since he looked awful in losing to Thiago Alves, and reportedly suffered a torn MCL and a partially torn PCL in the loss. He never had surgery, but that might not be a good thing—Frank Shamrock suffered a similar injury awhile back, didn’t get surgery and it’s almost completely destroyed his ability to ‘shoot’ for takedowns. For a fighter like Hughes who needs to control his opponent on the ground to win, that can be a problem.
Serra, meanwhile, has had his own injury issues. He’s only fought once since his upset win over GSP in April 2007, that being a rematch loss to the French Canadian fighting machine a year later. He was destroyed by GSP in that fight, but given the reigning UFC welterweight champion’s ungodly form since losing the belt there’s no shame in that.

So let’s go back to the sports gambling theory lesson from the beginning of this article—at -260, theoretical break even is 72.2%. To put it another way, think of a hypothetical circumstance in which Hughes and Serra fight 100 times. Would Hughes prevail in ¾ of those meetings? At this point in his career, it’s very doubtful. That’s a lot of money to lay against an aging, physically broken down fighter who has already been thinking of retirement.

Oddly, Serra’s injuries may have worked in his favor here—he’s likely in better shape physically simply because he hasn’t been fighting. He was pounded in his loss to GSP, but didn’t suffer any serious physical damage or reinjure his back. And as a BJJ specialist who earned his black belt under the legendary Renzo Gracie, there’s a lot of ways for him to win this fight. Should Hughes try to take him down and be unable to control Serra on the ground, it could be a made to order set up for a submission.

Ultimately, the crux of this handicap is that Hughes simply doesn’t justify his -260 price and you’ve got to take the dog based on the value alone. In this case, you’re getting a pretty good fighter in a decent situation for him to get the win.

MATT SERRA +210 OVER MATT HUGHES

LYOTO MACHIDA (-210) VS. RASHAD EVANS (+170)

This is a tough match to handicap, and serves as a good example of why just ‘picking the winner’ isn’t a sufficient reason to make a bet. From a value standpoint alone, you’ve got to look at the reigning UFC light heavyweight champ Evans. He’s undefeated, and has serious KO power as he demonstrated in beating Chuck Liddell to earn his title shot and in stopping Forrest Griffin to win the title. He’s got underrated wrestling skills, and is a very well rounded fighter. In theory, he’s the epitome of the ‘live dog’.

Machida, on the other hand, is a freak of nature. He possesses surprising power, and most significantly has so far proved to be impossible to hit. His unorthodox Shotokan karate based style is almost impossible to replicate in sparring, meaning that if Evans is to be the first to ‘figure him out’ it’ll be an uphill battle. It’s a similar situation to fighting Floyd Mayweather, Jr. in boxing—his opponents have repeatedly said that there’s simply no one they can spar with to prepare properly for his skill set. Machida is very likely the same type of opponent.

Long story short, the value suggests a play on Evans but I can’t pull the trigger on it because my analysis of the fight suggests that Machida will win. In other words, there’s no option but to PASS.

UNDERCARD:

On the undercard, I like:

KRYSTOFF SOSZYNSKI +135 OVER ANDRE GUSMAO

So to recap our betting positions:

CHAEL SONNEN +160 OVER DAN MILLER
MATT SERRA +210 OVER MATT HUGHES
KRYSTOFF SOSZYNSKI +135 OVER ANDRE GUSMAO

Thanks again to the Sports-1 Internet sports betting people for these lines!!