With weigh-ins completed, we have a locked-in fight card for UFC 284 tomorrow from Perth, Australia. While there are a handful of decent spots to bet on this card, I tried to narrow the list down to my three favorite bets for this event:
Bet #1 Jack Della Maddalena by KO/TKO (-110)
Jack Della Maddalena is 13–2 with twelve stoppages and eleven of them via knockout. Maddalena is 3–0 in the UFC and has won each of those fights via KO/TKO. He is one of the most talented pound-for-pound boxers in the UFC and packs an insane amount of power into his striking for the welterweight division. He’ll be taking a step up in competition this weekend when he faces 16–4 Randy Brown, who has stopped eleven of his wins and enters on a four-fight winning streak.
Brown will have the height and reach advantages in this fight, which I expect to cause JDM to use a bit of early caution while he works to find his distance. However, once Maddalena is comfortable dealing with the size difference, I expect him to pick and choose his spots and start landing some very heavy strikes as this fight proceeds. Maddalena lands 8.45 strikes per minute while absorbing less than half that amount.
Brown might extend this fight for a bit, but I fully expect Maddalena to find a massive KO/TKO sometime in the second or third rounds of this one. That KO/TKO round combo for JDM is currently available at +500 on FanDuel. Brown has been stopped in three of his four losses, with two of them via KO/TKO.
Bet #2: Tyson Pedro Inside the Distance (-115)
Tyson Pedro is 9–3 with a 100% finish rate in his wins and all of them have come inside the first round. He’s 2–0 since returning from an extended layoff from the octagon and both of those wins have come via nasty stoppages. He’ll be taking on 13–5 Modestas Bukauskas on this card. Bukauskas is a dangerous fighter in his own right, with eleven stoppages in his wins.
However, most of those have come outside of the UFC, where he went 1–3 in his first stretch with the promotion. He will be returning here to face Pedro in his first UFC fight since being cut following a loss and brutal knee injury to Khalil Rountree. Pedro is a very nasty striker who mixes his weapons well and can absolutely wreck an opponent on all three levels (head/body/legs).
Bukauskas has looked solid while going 2–0 in Cage Warriors competition to earn another shot in the UFC, but this will be a very tough spot to keep his streak going. While Pedro has nasty striking, five of his nine stoppages have actually come via submission, making him a dual threat. I think Bukauskas might extend Pedro past five minutes here, but I still like Pedro to find the finish sometime in the second or third rounds.
Bet #3: Yair Rodriguez R4/R5/Dec (+115)
Yair Rodriguez will be attempting to win the interim UFC Featherweight championship when he faces Josh Emmett in the co-main event of this card. Rodriguez, who is 15–3 with a 60% stoppage rate, is primarily a striker who has gone 3–1–1 in his past five fights. Emmett will enter on a five-fight winning streak, however, that is a bit deceiving in my opinion. He was outstruck by 23 strikes in his last fight, which was a split-decision win over Calvin Kattar and he has been outstruck in each of his last three fights overall.
Yair will be seven years younger in this matchup and will have five-inch height and one-inch reach advantages to work within a fight that will most likely be spent on the feet. I think Rodriguez will be able to mix up his tools in the striking and land more volume and cause a higher amount of damage than Emmett in their exchanges. Emmett has only been stopped one time in his 20 professional fights, so I really like the chances for this fight to make it into the latter rounds and most likely go to a decision. While Emmett has been extremely lucky in his past few decision wins, I think Yair will comfortably outstrike him here and should win unanimously if it goes to the judges’ scorecards.
As usual, if you are looking for a “safer” alternative to any of these lines, be sure to stick with moneylines for each fighter or remove some of the modifiers (for example: Jack Della Maddalena KO/Dec Double Chance instead of just the KO/TKO or the Over/Under 2.5 Round props for the other two fights). Best of luck to everyone this weekend!