Initially opening as a large betting favorite to defeat would-be opponent, Julianna Peña ahead of UFC 289 – with a switch of opponent, two-weight champion, Amanda Nunes still remains a large bookies favorite to retain bantamweight gold this weekend as she takes on Mexican challenger, Irene Aldana.
Nunes, the current undisputed bantamweight and featherweight champion, will make her Octagon return this weekend in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada – taking on Jalisco native, Aldana in a bid to kick start her second reign as queen at 135lbs with a successful title defense.
As for Aldana, the Mexico native lands her first title siege since joining the UFC from Invicta FC, removed from a scheduled fight with Raquel Pennington – booking a title showdown with Nunes in place of an injured, Peña.
Riding a two-fight winning run into her title showing in ‘The Great White North’ – Aldana most recently landed a hugely unique and quite bizarre upkick body shot Ko win over Macy Chiasson, finishing The Ultimate Fighter 28 winner with a third round finish.
However, despite her recent run of good form, Aldana is quickly closing as a betting underdog (+250) to defeat Nunes over at BetWay – with the Brazilian emerging as a stunning (-300) – in quite clear-cut fashion.
Reclaiming her bantamweight spoils in July of last year in the main event of UFC 277 in Dallas, Texas – Nunes, a native of Bahia, Brazil, turned the tide on Peña in a big way – landing a completely one-sided unanimous decision success against the Washington native to reclaim the throne at 135lbs.
Successfully scoring two previous defenses of her featherweight title, Nunes landed a one-sided decision win over Felicia Spencer, before stopping Megan Anderson with a spectacular first round reverse triangle armbar win at the UFC Apex facility.
In further activity of note at UFC 289 this weekend at the Rogers Arena in Canada, a touted title-eliminator at the lightweight limit is on deck – as former undisputed divisional champion, Charles Oliveira returns to the Octagon for the first time since October – tackling Iranian-born grappler, Beneil Dariush.
Dropping lightweight spoils to the scales last May – infamously, Oliveira is closing as a short and rather close betting underdog (+120) to defeat Dariush (-150) this weekend in their co-main event slot – with the latter hoping to score his first title opportunity, and lodge consecutive triumph number eight against the Sao Paulo native.
However, despite closing as a betting underdog to defeat Dariush outright at UFC 289 this weekend, Oliveira appears to be attracting attention with punters and bettors in regards to landing a finish via KO or submission against the former, closing currently as a -450 favorite to land a finish over Dariush, who is currently priced as a +350 underdog.
Furthermore, both men are priced at -162 odds to land a finish over one another at UFC 289 this weekend, with both men largely viewed as both knockout and submission threats, respectively – and with Oliveira, the Brazilian enters his return fight as the most prolific outright finisher and submission artist in the history of the organization.