Last weeks UFC Fight Night in Brazil was a great card with lots of exciting fights and plenty of finishes. I ended up going 4-1 with my main card predictions with Beneil Dariush the only loss from my article. I also hit on my other plays of Kevin Lee and Paulo Henrique Costa so overall a very good night.
This week the UFC is heading to London, England for another very solid Fight Night card with some great depth. The main event is Jimi Manuwa vs Corey Anderson, which should be an interesting fight and the other main card fights that I will break down include Gunnar Nelson vs Alan Jouban, Brad Pickett vs Marlon Vera and Arnold Allen vs Makwan Amirkhani.
As always I’m going to be using the odds from BetOnline.ag for this article. Here’s our full BetOnline review for you to check out if you’re interested in opening an account and placing some bets.
Jimi Manuwa vs Corey Anderson
Manuwa is coming off a big knockout win over Ovince Saint Preux that really shot him back up the rankings in the light heavyweight division. It was a very impressive performance with Manuwa outclassing OSP on the feet. That said, I think OSP is significantly overrated, so I can’t give too much credence to that win. That said, it was really Manuwa’s first big win in the UFC and it shows that he may be the real deal after not being very active in the past few years.
All of that said, I think Corey Anderson is actually the more established and proven fighter in the UFC even though he is 10 years younger than Manuwa. Anderson is coming off a nice TKO win over Sean O’Connell, which is on the back of a split decision loss to Shogun Rua. The loss to Rua was highly controversial though with 17 media members giving the win to Anderson vs only 2 giving it to Rua according to MMADecisions.com. So if you don’t count that loss you’d have to go 6 fights back to find Anderson’s last loss, which was a TKO loss against Gian Villante, who has heavy hands that can end fights.
Overall, I’m still high on Corey Anderson. I think he will be able to take Manuwa down early and often in this fight and work from top position. Anderson will be winning this fight throughout, but it being a 5 round fight Manuwa has 25 minutes to land that fight ending blow, which is definitely possible. That said, I do think Anderson gets the job done more often than not.
Play: Anderson 2.25
Gunnar Nelson vs Alan Jouban
Jouban is finally getting the top 15 opponent that he’s been asking for, but unfortunately for Jouban it’s arguably the most difficult match up for him outside of the top 5 and possibly in the division. Nelson has improved his striking significantly in his recent fights and I think he will be able to hang with Jouban on the feet in the early stages of this fight. This is key because it will allow Nelson to more easily find an opportunity to get this fight to the mat. Once this fight is on the mat I think that will be all that she wrote for Jouban. Nelson is simply on another level when it comes to grappling and I expect him to finish this fight via submission in the first round.
Play: Nelson 1.29
Brad Pickett vs Marlon Vera
This is Pickett’s retirement fight, but I don’t see him going out with a win. Pickett’s original opponent Henry Briones had to pull out of the fight, which is rought for Pickett because I do think he would have taken a win over Briones. Vera though is a youthful 24 years old and has improved significantly since moving his trainingto Jackson Wink. He’s coming off a win over Ning Guangyou where he showed big improvements over his earlier UFC fights and glimpses of athleticism that will make him very difficult for Pickett to handle.
Pickett is a brawler so he definitely has a shot in this fight. Vera has also shown the tendency to make some silly mistakes and also not be as aggressive as necessary so there are ways for Pickett to win this fight. That said, Vera definitely wins this fight more often than not so getting him as an underdog is a great play.
Play: Vera 2.17
Arnold Allen vs Makwan Amirkhani
This is fight between a couple solid prospects and I’ll be honest I don’t have a great read on this fight. I am ultimately leaning towards Arnold Allen because I’ve been impressed with his two UFC wins to date. He’s also training at Tristar Gym in Montreal and I expect him to have progressed in the past year since his last fight.
I personally won’t be betting on this fight, but my slight lean is towards Allen.
Play: Allen 2.02
Other Plays
- Francimar Barroso 2.55
- Vicente Luque 1.65
- Brad Scott 2.25