It’s a new year and the slate is clean. The UFC heads to St. Louis to kick off the calendar with a featherweight clash headlining the bill at UFC Fight Night 124 in the Scottrade Center.
Contenders Jeremy Stephens and Doo Ho Choi will look to try to ig…
It’s a new year and the slate is clean. The UFC heads to St. Louis to kick off the calendar with a featherweight clash headlining the bill at UFC Fight Night 124 in the Scottrade Center.
Contenders Jeremy Stephens and Doo Ho Choi will look to try to ignite fireworks in the evening’s main event. It will be Choi’s first fight back since his loss in the 2016 Fight of the Year contender against Cub Swanson.
In the co-main event, MMA legend VitorBelfort makes one final trip to the cage. Standing opposite him will be the dynamic Uriah Hall.
Who walks out of the cage with a win under their belt for the remaining months of the new year?
The Bleacher Report team is back. Steven Rondina, Scott Harris, Craig Amos and Nathan McCarter take a look at the four-fight main card to offer prognostications of the UFC’s first event of 2018.
Let’s jump in and see what the expert picks are for UFC Fight Night 124.
Tucked between two sizable pay-per-view cards is UFC Fight Night 124, going down Sunday from the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.
It’s customary to seek the good in a UFC card, particularly those that may otherwise be overlooked. In this instance, this 1…
Tucked between two sizable pay-per-view cards is UFC Fight Night 124, going down Sunday from the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.
It’s customary to seek the good in a UFC card, particularly those that may otherwise be overlooked. In this instance, this 13-fight slate is a bit of a slog, particularly the five contests scheduled for UFC Fight Pass.
That said, the main card and much of the televised undercard is pretty spicy, with a real thunderbolt of a main event. Here’s a look at three of the fights you can’t miss on Sunday’s lineup.
Featherweight
Dooho Choi (14-2) vs. Jeremy Stephens (26-14)
Odds courtesy of OddsShark: Choi -160, Stephens +140
Airs on: Fox Sports 1
They can’t all be curveballs, you know. Choi and Stephens make for a terrific main event that seems likely to end violently.
Fans are still recovering from Choi’s 2016 epic with Cub Swanson, but the Korean Superboy has plenty of action-fighting pedigree tracing back to his early days on the Asian circuits. He’s 26 years old but looks 13, adding some delightful cognitive dissonance to those crushing punch combinations.
Stephens has been a staple of the UFC lightweight and featherweight stables for more than a decade. His first UFC opponent? Din Thomas. Sixteen career knockouts speak to how he gets most of his wins.
Both of these guys not only go for knockouts but tend to use their fists. The battleworn 31-year-old Stephens has lost steam of late, struggling for consistency in his last few bouts. His last fight was a win, but it was over an even more worn-looking Gilbert Melendez.
Soak up the Superboy while you can, as he will soon begin the military service that is mandatory in his native South Korea.
Even before Belfort announced his retirement after this fight, the co-main event was still plum MMA viewing.
Hall is inconsistent and enigmatic as a fighter. For every highlight-reel knockout that sends fans to their feet, a basic lapse of grappling or overall fight IQ sends them to the bottle. After three straight losses, though, a bonus-winning knockout of Krzysztof Jotko got him back on the sunny side of the street.
The New Yorker has a winnable fight here against the 40-year-old Belfort. He suffered a serious string of setbacks over the past couple of years, only to rebound last year against Nate Marquardt, who is now retired.
Belfort was a great fighter in his prime, but his game relied on hand speed and preternatural power. Those things fade with age. We’ll see if he can summon the fountain of youth in one last performance.
Featherweight
Darren Elkins (23-5) vs. Michael Johnson (17-12)
Odds: Johnson -155, Elkins +135
Airs on: Fox Sports 1
Elkins was long considered a consummate journeyman. When he won, it was often ugly and involved a split decision. That was not the case last March over Mirsad Bektic in a knockout that can be counted among the greatest comeback wins in UFC history. All he did since then was beat Dennis Bermudez. By split decision, of course. It ran his winning streak to five.
He gets a big step up against Johnson, who has dropped four of five—but did so against the elite of the lightweight division. Here, he tries his luck at 145 pounds. We’ll see if the steeper weight cut made an impact on his power or stamina. Even more so, we’ll see if Elkins’ pressure can punch his ticket to contender status.
Tucked between two sizable pay-per-view cards is UFC Fight Night 124, going down Sunday from the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.
It’s customary to seek the good in a UFC card, particularly those that may otherwise be overlooked. In this instance, this 1…
Tucked between two sizable pay-per-view cards is UFC Fight Night 124, going down Sunday from the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.
It’s customary to seek the good in a UFC card, particularly those that may otherwise be overlooked. In this instance, this 13-fight slate is a bit of a slog, particularly the five contests scheduled for UFC Fight Pass.
That said, the main card and much of the televised undercard is pretty spicy, with a real thunderbolt of a main event. Here’s a look at three of the fights you can’t miss on Sunday’s lineup.
Featherweight
Dooho Choi (14-2) vs. Jeremy Stephens (26-14)
Odds courtesy of OddsShark: Choi -160, Stephens +140
Airs on: Fox Sports 1
They can’t all be curveballs, you know. Choi and Stephens make for a terrific main event that seems likely to end violently.
Fans are still recovering from Choi’s 2016 epic with Cub Swanson, but the Korean Superboy has plenty of action-fighting pedigree tracing back to his early days on the Asian circuits. He’s 26 years old but looks 13, adding some delightful cognitive dissonance to those crushing punch combinations.
Stephens has been a staple of the UFC lightweight and featherweight stables for more than a decade. His first UFC opponent? Din Thomas. Sixteen career knockouts speak to how he gets most of his wins.
Both of these guys not only go for knockouts but tend to use their fists. The battleworn 31-year-old Stephens has lost steam of late, struggling for consistency in his last few bouts. His last fight was a win, but it was over an even more worn-looking Gilbert Melendez.
Soak up the Superboy while you can, as he will soon begin the military service that is mandatory in his native South Korea.
Even before Belfort announced his retirement after this fight, the co-main event was still plum MMA viewing.
Hall is inconsistent and enigmatic as a fighter. For every highlight-reel knockout that sends fans to their feet, a basic lapse of grappling or overall fight IQ sends them to the bottle. After three straight losses, though, a bonus-winning knockout of Krzysztof Jotko got him back on the sunny side of the street.
The New Yorker has a winnable fight here against the 40-year-old Belfort. He suffered a serious string of setbacks over the past couple of years, only to rebound last year against Nate Marquardt, who is now retired.
Belfort was a great fighter in his prime, but his game relied on hand speed and preternatural power. Those things fade with age. We’ll see if he can summon the fountain of youth in one last performance.
Featherweight
Darren Elkins (23-5) vs. Michael Johnson (17-12)
Odds: Johnson -155, Elkins +135
Airs on: Fox Sports 1
Elkins was long considered a consummate journeyman. When he won, it was often ugly and involved a split decision. That was not the case last March over Mirsad Bektic in a knockout that can be counted among the greatest comeback wins in UFC history. All he did since then was beat Dennis Bermudez. By split decision, of course. It ran his winning streak to five.
He gets a big step up against Johnson, who has dropped four of five—but did so against the elite of the lightweight division. Here, he tries his luck at 145 pounds. We’ll see if the steeper weight cut made an impact on his power or stamina. Even more so, we’ll see if Elkins’ pressure can punch his ticket to contender status.
In December 2016, Korean fighter Dooho Choi was the talk of the UFC after turning in a Fight of the Year performance opposite Cub Swanson at UFC 206 in Toronto.
Choi (14-2) has not fought since, but the featherweight contender will be back inside the O…
In December 2016, Korean fighter Dooho Choi was the talk of the UFC after turning in a Fight of the Year performance opposite Cub Swanson at UFC 206 in Toronto.
Choi (14-2) has not fought since, but the featherweight contender will be back inside the Octagon as a -160 betting favorite (bet $160 to win $100) against Jeremy Stephens (26-14) in the main event of UFC Fight Night 124 at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis Sunday.
Choi fell to Swanson via unanimous decision in the aforementioned bout, which won Fight of the Night honors, to end his 12-fight winning streak. He had knocked out eight straight opponents prior to that setback and earned Performance of the Night bonuses in his previous two bouts, first-round knockouts of Sam Sicilia and Thiago Tavares.
Meanwhile, Stephens is a +130 underdog (bet $100 to win $130) at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark and coming off a UD win over Gilbert Melendez at UFC 215.
Each of his past five fights has gone the distance, with his hand getting raised just twice during that stretch. Two of those losses came at the hands of featherweight champion Max Holloway and No. 1 contender Frankie Edgar, who will fight each other for the title in the main event at UFC 222 on March 3 in Las Vegas.
Before Choi-Stephens, a pair of middleweight contenders will meet in a co-main event that should not last long, as Uriah Hall (13-8) takes on Vitor Belfort (26-13, 1 no-contest).
Hall is listed as a consensus -310 favorite and has seen five of his past six bouts end inside the distance, with three finishing before the first-round bell. He knocked out Krzysztof Jotko in the second round of his most recent fight, at UFC Fight Night 116, to win a Performance of the Night bonus after losing his previous three contests.
Belfort is a +250 underdog and also ended a three-bout winless streak in his most recent outing, scoring a UD victory against Nate Marquardt at UFC 212 June 3. The 40-year-old Brazilian had not gone the distance in almost a decade, and 21 of his wins have come by finish (18 knockouts and three submissions).
He was knocked out in his previous three fights, with one of them overturned to a no-contest after opponent Kelvin Gastelum tested positive for marijuana.
The UFC’s 2018 kicks off in two weeks with UFC Fight Night St. Louis, but the real show in January is UFC 220 in Boston, Massachusetts. Here is the full card as it stands:
Stipe Miocic vs. Francis Ngannou
Daniel Cormier vs. Volkan Oezdemir
Gian Vil…
The UFC’s 2018 kicks off in two weeks with UFC Fight Night St. Louis, but the real show in January is UFC 220 in Boston, Massachusetts. Here is the full card as it stands:
StipeMiocic vs. Francis Ngannou
Daniel Cormier vs. VolkanOezdemir
Gian Villante vs. FrancimarBarroso
Dustin Ortiz vs. Alexandre Pantoja
Abdul RazakAlhassan vs. SabahHomasi
Islam Makhachev vs. GleisonTibau
Calvin Kattar vs. Shane Burgos
Kyle Bochniak vs. Brandon Davis
The two biggest belts in the UFC will be on the line on January 20 as StipeMiocic defends the heavyweight title from Francis Ngannou, while Daniel Cormier looks to retain the light heavyweight championship opposite VolkanOezdemir.
It’s the first time the UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight titles have been featured on the same card since UFC 44 in 2003 and both fights promise edge-of-your-seat action.
Worth noting, however, is that just eight bouts have been officially announced for the event as of this writing (UFC 218, by comparison, had 13).
While UFC 220 may still be under construction, it’s worth taking a look over the event as it stands and previewing the fights that have been penned in.
Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm (11-3) has been here before, sitting as a big underdog in a title matchup opposite one of the most feared fighters in the sport.
This time, Holm will get the opportunity to claim the women&rsquo…
Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm (11-3) has been here before, sitting as a big underdog in a title matchup opposite one of the most feared fighters in the sport.
This time, Holm will get the opportunity to claim the women’s featherweight belt when she takes on champ Cris “Cyborg” Justino (18-1, 1 no-contest) in the main event at UFC 219 in Las Vegas at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night.
So far, the public seems to be siding with Holm in early wagering action, pushing her down from an underdog of around +300 (bet $100 to win $300) to +270 at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark. As MMA bettors may recall, Holm was a much bigger ‘dog when she handed former women’s bantamweight champ Ronda Rousey her first loss a little more than two years ago with a vicious head-kick knockout.
Since then, the former pro boxing champ has dropped three of four, though, including a controversial unanimous-decision loss to Germaine deRandamie for the inaugural 145-pound title.
De Randamie reportedly refused to defend her championship against Cyborg, who then claimed the vacated belt with a third-round TKO victory against Tonya Evinger at UFC 214 on July 29. Cyborg has knocked out her last 13 opponents, with one of them later overturned to a no-decision after she tested positive for a banned substance.
Cyborg remains a solid -360 favorite (bet $360 to win $100) despite facing less competition recently, which is the main reason bettors like Holm’s chances for another upset.
In the co-main event, two top lightweight contenders will square off on the men’s side, with unbeaten KhabibNurmagomedov (24-0) returning to the Octagon for the first time in more than a year.
Nurmagomedov was expected to face Tony Ferguson for the interim 155-pound belt later vacated by ConorMcGregor at UFC 209 back on March 4, but he suffered complications from a failed weight cut and was unable to compete. Ferguson went on to win the interim title against Kevin Lee at UFC 216 on October 7.
Nurmagomedov is now a big -280 favorite versus EdsonBarboza (19-4) in his first fight since UFC 205 on November 12, 2016. Barboza is listed as a +240 underdog and rides a three-bout winning streak into this matchup, taking decisions over Anthony Pettis and Gilbert Melendez before earning a Performance of the Night bonus for his second-round KO victory against BeneilDariush at UFC Fight Night 106 on March 11 in Brazil.
Tucked between two sizable pay-per-view cards is UFC Fight Night 124, going down Sunday from the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.