UFC 116 will take place Saturday night from the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas and is headlined by a highly anticipated heavyweight title clash between champion Brock Lesnar and challenger Shane Carwin. This will be Lesnar’s first defense of the title since he defeated Frank Mir at UFC 100 to unify the belt. We’ll take a look at this fight, plus highlight several other attractive betting propositions on the undercard.
MAIN EVENT—SHANE CARWIN VS. BROCK LESNAR
Carwin and Lesnar were originally slated to fight at UFC 106, but Lesnar was forced to withdraw due to an illness which at the time was thought to be mononucleosis. The bout was tentatively rescheduled for UFC 108 and then cancelled again due to Lesnar’s continued health problems. Lesnar was later diagnosed to be suffering from diverticulitis, and for a time considered potentially career threatening. Since then, however, he’s made a recovery that he describes as ‘miraculous’ and is now ready to return to the cage.
In other words, Lesnar is not only making his first title defense but is returning to action after a layoff of nearly a year but after a very serious illness that resulted in him losing over 50 pounds. That’s a tough thing to bounce back from in the best of circumstances, but doubly tough to recover from that kind of physical ailment and get back into fighting shape.
Carwin enters the bout with Lesnar with a perfect professional record of 12-0 with all wins coming by either knockout or submission. Carwin’s dominance to this point is such that no opponent has ever made it out of the first round, though he’s only recently stepped up in class to face top level opponents. That being said, he destroyed former top contender Gabriel Gonzaga in just over a minute at UFC 96 and knockout out Mir at the 3:48 mark of the first round to set up his UFC 116 title shot.
It’s also important to remember that very little is known about Brock Lesnar as a fighter. This will be only his sixth professional bout and a number of unanswered questions remain—most specifically, how well can he take a punch? Carwin will look to test Lesnar’s chin early and often. Lesnar’s bread and butter is his wrestling and ground control but he’s got heavy hands as well.
In a fight where literally anything can happen we’ll take the price. Back Shane Carwin at the best price you can find.
PLAY SHANE CARWIN +125 OVER BROCK LESNAR
CHRIS LYTLE VS. MATT BROWN
This is the first of several undercard fights we’ll take a position on, and all for the same reason—they’re closer fights than the betting odds suggest. Chris Lytle is a well traveled MMA veteran with a 28-17 record. He’s the type of fighter that always gives a good account of himself, but has never been able to break into the top tier of UFC contenders. Matt Brown is a similar type of competitor who is coming off a loss to Ricardo Almeidia at UFC 111. Worth noting that these two men fought in the United Fight League in 2007, with Lytle winning by submission. Still, this fight is essentially a toss up which makes a position on ‘The Immortal’ Matt Brown an attractive overlay.
PLAY MATT BROWN +165 OVER CHRIS LYTLE
BRENDAN SCHAUB VS. CHRIS TUCHSCHERER
Brendan Schaub has the bigger ‘name’ of these two fighters due to his runner up performance on ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ TV series. A former pro football player, he’s a strong and powerful competitor but doesn’t have the technical background of Tuchscherer. Tuchscherer has only two losses, one at the dreadful Yamma Pit Fighting event where winner Travis Wiuff took advantage of the strange fighting surface to easily take the tournament. The other was in his UFC debut to Gabriel Gonzaga in which he was TKO’d following a brutal low blow. Schaub should probably be a slight favorite here, but there’s nothing on his resume to justify a -300 or higher price. We’ll take the value on Tuchscherer.
PLAY CHRIS TUCHSCHERER +275 OVER BRENDAN SCHAUB
SETH PETRUZELLI VS. RICARDO ROMERO
You can never tell what you’ll get with a fighter making his major promotion debut. Highly regarded light heavyweight Ricardo Romero is making his UFC debut here against veteran Seth Petruzelli and we usually like playing against big favorites in this situation. This price isn’t quite as unreasonable as we’d like, but the same concept should work. Petruzelli is best known for his 14 second knockout of Internet street fighting phenom Kimbo Slice which essentially put the final nail in Elite XC’s promotional coffin. That notwithstanding, Petruzelli is a solid and experienced fighter. He lost two of his first three career fights back in 2001 and has only lost twice since, both to solid opponents in Wilson Gouveia and Matt Hamill. Petruzelli has worked a long time to get another shot at the UFC, and we’ll take him at an underdog price in the matchup with newcomer Romero.
PLAY SETH PETRUZELLI +140 OVER RICARDO ROMERO
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