UFC 120 Betting Preview at Bodog
By Richard Gardner

Mixed martial arts is also exploding in popularity in Europe and that’s expected to be proven true on Saturday night in London for UFC 120 between British star Michael Bisping vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama in the card’s headline fight at middleweight. The show is expected to set European attendance and gate records and will be shown in the United States on Spike, which should only help betting action at Bodog because bettors love free TV fights (it will be on delay, however). UFC 120 is the first event in the United Kingdom since UFC 105 nearly a year ago.

Bisping was the winner of the third season of “The Ultimate Fighter” while Akiyama is certainly one of the best-ever Japanese MMA fighters. Both guys are in need of a win. Bisping (19-3) started his MMA career with 14 consecutive wins but has gone just 2-2 in his past four fights. Last time out he beat former International Fight League middleweight champ Dan Miller by unanimous decision at UFC 114. Bisping, 31, has secured more than half (12) of his 19 career wins by knockout or technical knockout and has been finished only once – by Dan Henderson at UFC 100. He has never lost on British soil, going 5-0 in UFC bouts and 15-0 overall.

The 34-year-old Akiyama (13-2) enters just his third UFC fight and submitted to a triangle choke from Chris Leben at UFC 116 in July. It was his first loss in more than five years. Akiyama has been awarded a “Fight of the Night” bonus after both of his UFC bouts, making him the only fighter to win that award in consecutive bouts to begin his UFC career.
Bisping is currently the -210 favorite on Bodog’s MMA odds but Akiyama at +170 is taking a better than 75 percent lean in early betting. The line for this bout opened with Bisping as a -265 favorite but all that heavy sharp action on Akiyama moved the line to -260, then -250 and finally to its current number. We are starting to see good two-sided action where the line is now but obviously the book is still significantly exposed on Akiyama. Bisping has not lost when he opened as a betting favorite at Bodog – he was -200 in his fight against Miller.

Akiyama is an underdog for the first time in his last seven bouts. But that worked out well back then as the last time Akiyama opened as a betting underdog he knocked out Dennis Kang with a single punch at K-1 Hero’s Korea as a +220 dog.
The other main bout on Saturday is a welterweight match between Brit Dan Hardy (23-7) and Carlos Condit. It’s Hardy’s first fight back since being dominated in his welterweight title shot against Georges St. Pierre in March.
“I’ve come back with a whole new skill set,” said Hardy, who spent most of the St. Pierre bout on his back. “Things I’ve not necessarily used in the past. I have had added technical assistance from a new secret weapon, new skills which will not work in Condit’s favor on the night.”

Condit (25-5) enters on a two-fight win streak, coming from behind to TKO Rory MacDonald in the third round at UFC 115 in June. Hardy is currently the -165 favorite at Bodog and getting nearly 68 percent of the action. One betting trend we are noticing is players parlaying Bisping with Hardy and John Hathaway at -600 against Mike Pyle – that parlay would pay out at +180.

Hathaway (14-0), another Brit, is 4-0 in his UFC and enters off a breakthrough performance in beating Diego Sanchez at UFC 114 in May. Pyle (19-7-1), an American, is an 11-year veteran who submitted Jesse Lennox at UFC 115 in his last fight.
Overall there will be 11 matches on the UFC 120 card.

UFC 117 Odds: Silva vs. Sonnen Betting Preview

Take a look at any mixed martial arts rankings of the Top 10 pound-for-pound fighters in the world and most if not all of them will have UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva at No. 1. “The Spider” has won 12 fights in a row – last loss in January 2006 to Yushin Okami -- and all 11 of his UFC bouts. His bout against Chael Sonnen is the main event at Saturday’s UFC 117 from Oakland, Calif.

Silva (26-4-0) enters off an odd unanimous decision victory over Demian Maia at UFC 112. It was odd because while Silva did land plenty of punches and kicks, he spent most of the bout dancing around the Octagon and taunting Maia rather than actually engaging him. UFC president Dana White was furious and threatened to release Silva from the organization if he had similar antics in his next bout, which of course is this one. Silva has never been an underdog at Bodog’s Online Sportsbook during his 11-fight UFC career, and he is currently -525 against Sonnen after opening at -450, where he stayed until recently. Because Silva is usually so heavily favored, bettors tend to parlay him with other bouts to increase the payout of the wager. And that has been the case here, so even though Sonnen is getting the slight majority of action on the line we moved Silva to -525 after last week’s UFC on Versus 2 as 53% of all the parlays are still live after that event.

No. 1 middleweight contender Sonnen (24-10-1) is on a three-fight winning streak, the last victory coming at UFC 109 with a unanimous decision over Nate Marquardt. Sonnen’s last loss came to the same Maia whom Silva just toyed with. But Sonnen also beat Okami at UFC at 104 – in fairness, Silva didn’t technically get beaten by Okami (he has never officially lost in the Octagon) but was disqualified because of an illegal kick.
And Sonnen has been talking trash for months about Silva.

“I've beat the champion of every company except for the UFC," said Sonnen, a very skilled wrestler who could have the advantage on the ground. "I've accomplished far more in this sport than Anderson Silva.”

And: "I just don't like him. That's it," Sonnen said. "I don't offer an apology and I don't need to give an explanation. We can't all get along. I'm going to take his belt on [Saturday] and Dana's going to fire him on [Sunday]."

Silva, who has drawn some criticism in his career for lacking passion, has kept mostly quiet but promises to bring his “A game” on Saturday.
Sonnen is currently at +350, but he is getting approximately 55 percent of the handle to Silva’s 45 percent on the line on that fight; the main event is drawing better than 31.30 percent of the total betting handle for the entire UFC 117 card. Sonnen is used to being an underdog because he has been at Bodog in each of his four previous UFC fights and in six of his seven total fights offered at the site. But Sonnen has paid out nicely for players during his three-fight winning streak, going off at +375 against Marquardt, +250 against Okami and +185 vs. Dan Miller at UFC 98.

Of course Bodog will offer several props for UFC 117 – those will be available on Thursday. The “who will win Fight of the Night” generally is the most-bet prop with about 50 percent of the total prop action.

And as of this writing one of the undercard fights is actually seeing more total action than Silva-Sonnen if you throw out parlay action. That would be Thiago Alves vs. Jon Fitch, currently with Alves at Even and Fitch at -130. This bout accounts for 31.76 percent of the total card. Alves, who hasn’t fought since losing to Georges St. Pierre at UFC 100 last July, is getting 57.30 percent of the total handle. Alves (16-6-0) lost to Fitch via TKO back at UFC Ultimate Fight Night 5 in the summer of 2006. Fitch (22-3-0) hasn’t been beaten since also losing to St. Pierre, that at UFC 87 by unanimous decision. Because bettors seem to think should be a very competitive fight, it is drawing more two-sided action than Silva-Sonnen.