*Source: MMA Mania
Early betting lines are out for UFC 140‘s Frank Mir vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira II and Mir is the odds on favorite at a whopping (-255), while “Big Nog” is set at (+205). That’s a good value to lay cash down on Nog in these early betting stages, but should he be the underdog?
Nog has just enjoyed the biggest coup of his career by knocking out the much younger much more odds on favorite, Brendan Schaub in the first round of his hometown UFC Rio co-main event. Yes, Nog did lose to Mir in their first match up at UFC 92 in December of 08, but Nog had suffered a staph infection days before which hospitalized him for 5 days and he incurred a knee injury during that very training camp, which required surgery a few months later.
Frank Mir delivered a second round knock out to Big Nog in that UFC 92 fight, which was the first ever KO loss of Nog’s career, but since then Mir has been plagued with a mix of losses and *”lackluster” (*Dana White‘s word) wins.
Both fighters deserve a tremendous amount of respect for where their careers stand at their mature ages in the fight game so perhaps, the betting field should be a little more even going into this one. Regardless, those who feel there is a definite resurgence in Nog’s game and it wasn’t just a hometown-inspired-fluke-victory over Schaub, should take advantage of the big underdog value in Big Nog now.