As part of a new series that I plan to run for UFC events here at WagerWire, I’m going to start writing a feature that shines a spotlight on one fighter for each card who I feel deserves a little bit of extra time in the limelight during their fight week for one reason or another.
For this inaugural post in the series, I will be shining that spotlight on UFC newcomer Mateusz Rebecki, who will be making his debut with the company on Saturday’s UFC Vegas 67 card when he takes on fellow promotional debutante Nick Fiore.
Rebecki is 16–1 in his professional career with an 87.5% finish rate in his wins, with eight knockouts and six submissions on his record. He will enter his fight against Fiore this weekend riding a 13-fight winning streak that stretches all the way back to 2014.
In his most recent fight on Dana White’s Contenders Series, which earned him a UFC contract, Rebecki picked up a statement-making victory, submitting Rodrigo Lidio at the 3:05 mark of the first round with a nasty rear-naked choke.
What makes that win on DWCS even more impressive is the fact that Rebecki did not need to land a single strike, yet he was still able to submit his opponent without even fully having the position secured for the finish.
WagerWire.com
Prior to earning his UFC contract after that performance, Rebecki had spent a vast majority of his career fighting under the Fight Exclusive Night (FEN) banner, which is an Eastern European MMA federation that is based in Poland.
During his time with FEN, Rebecki won the promotion’s Lightweight championship and subsequently defended it seven times. In his final fight under the promotion’s banner, Rebecki defended his championship in a twenty-five minute decision win. That decision victory ended a streak of eight consecutive wins that Rebecki had earned via KO/TKO.
Rebecki was originally scheduled to face Omar Morales in his UFC debut this weekend, but Morales was forced to withdraw from the matchup due to injury. The promotion was able to keep Rebecki on the UFC Vegas 67 lineup when they reached out to Nick Fiore, who accepted the fight on extremely short notice.
Fiore is 6–0 in his professional career with a 100% stoppage rate and he has never been out of the first round. However, if you dive deeper into Fiore’s fight career and record, you’ll find that four of his six victories have come against extremely suspect levels of competition, including two wins over Jay Ellis, who has a current career record of 16–106 (and no, that is not a typo).
Fiore’s six professional opponents had a combined record of 61–234 when he fought them. For comparison, in Rebecki’s last six fights, his opponents have had a combined record of 82–23 at the time he faced them.
The bookmakers obviously are aware of these facts as well, with Rebecki currently lined in the -625 to -750 range on his Moneyline depending on which sportsbook you are using. That is a higher price than I usually prefer to bet, so I would suggest looking deeper into the prop markets once they begin to open and get a better return on your investment.
These are some of the prop bets that I would recommend looking into for Rebecki once they are available if you want to find some better value: Rebecki to win inside the distance, Rebecki to win via KO/TKO, and Rebecki to win in R1/R2.
If you are looking for more information on UFC Vegas 67 bets, you can also check out two of my other WagerWire articles: The Three Fighters/props that I like the most this week, as well as my UFC Underdog of the Week for this card.