This weekend, the UFC returns to Madison Square Garden for a massively anticipated PPV event.
One of the P4P best defends his 185lb title against an old foe from his days on the kickboxing circuit, an electric strawweight clash features a champion vs. former champion matchup, and Dustin Poirier vs. Michael Chandler has clear fight of the year potential.
Check out our best bets for the incredible UFC 281 card:
Adesanya & Zhang Parlay
We start with a parlay piece, comprised of the two fights at the top of the card.
First, we back UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya, to defeat his old foe, Alex Pereira. Adesanya and Pereira have competed twice on the kickboxing circuit, with Pereira winning both fights. However, this is not kickboxing. Adesanya has been competing at the absolute pinnacle of the sport for several years now, and is yet to lose at 185lbs. Pereira is still very new to the sport, and has quickly been shoehorned to the top of the division in order to book this high-profile bout with the champ.
Next, we will back Weili Zhang to defeat the UFC strawweight champion, Carla Esparza. Zhang is an incredible athlete, with immense knockout power. Whist Esparza is a very competent wrestler, Zhang will simply have too much for her to handle. Look for a Zhang KO finish.
Parlaying Adesanya and Zhang’s ML’s will give you 2.02 odds on Betway.
Brad Riddell ML
Another product of City Kickboxing, Brad Riddell is set to take on Renato Moicano this weekend.
Riddell is an extremely slick striker with a stone chin and a solid gas tank. He takes on Brazilian submission specialist Renato Moicano, who has looked impressive since making the move up to the UFC’s lightweight division.
However, there are several reasons to take Riddell in this fight. First, Moicano is coming off a short-notice hellacious beating from Rafael dos Anjos. Admittedly, he has taken some time off from fighting, but the mental impact alone from having been beaten so convincingly for five rounds will surely leave some scars.
Second, Moicano’s durability is still questionable. He was able to survive against RDA, but three of his last four losses were via KO. His best route to victory is to take the fight to the ground and look for a submission, but Riddell is a surprisingly competent defensive wrestler.
Riddell may be live for a late KO finish, but we will take his ML which is priced at 2.00 on Betway.
Reyes & Blanchfield Parlay
Our final bet will be another 2 piece parlay.
In the first leg, we will be backing former UFC light heavyweight title challenger, Dominick Reyes. ‘The Devestator’ is coming back from a devastating KO loss to the current champ, Jiri Prochazka. Whilst this may be a red flag, Reyes has taken the requisite time to fully recover. It is also worth noting that Reyes did momentarily knock out Prochazka in their fight. This weekend, he takes on Ryan Spann, a powerful knockout artist coming off a first-round finish over Ion Cutelaba.
However, Spann has repeatedly shown there is a limit to the level of opposition he can overcome. Just as he was knocking on the door of the 205lb top 10, both Johnny Walker and Anthony Smith have come out and put an instant halt to his hype train. Look for Reyes to do exactly this, when he faces off with ‘Superman’ this weekend.
Our second leg is to back Erin Blanchfield to overcome fan favorite ‘Meatball’ Molly McCann. Whilst McCann may have a huge amount of hype around her name due to her back-to-back spinning elbow finishes, neither finish was over a particularly high-level opponent. Blanchfield is an entirely different level of opposition. Her top control grappling is incredibly dominant, and her recent standing guillotine finish over JJ Aldrich perfectly demonstrated how she can be a threat in all aspects of the fight.
Reyes and Blanchfield parlayed together will give you 1.80 odds on Betway. If you want to spice this parlay up further, adding on Dustin Poirier‘s ML will give you 2.83 odds!