Cody Garbrant vs Rob Font -115 –
This should actually be a great event in the Bantam Weight class. Both fighters are are hungry to move up into championship consideration and both fighters are ranked in the top 5 at 135 lbs. Cody Garbrant is a KO machine. He has 12 wins and 3 losses and out of his 15 fights, only 2 of them went to decision. All 3 of his losses came against top competition over the last 4 or so years and Cody has won his last fight against a solid contender in Raphael Assuncao by TKO at the end of the second round. Rob Font at 18-4 has been an up and down fighter until that last loss in June of 2018 to Assuncao. After that fight, he ripped 3 wins in a row against goof fighters like Sergio Pettis and Marlon Moraes. The thing that sticks out for me is that Rob Font has never been knocked out in his 22 fights and his 4 losses came submission or decision. Rob Font has never submitted anyone and will be focusing on the KO. I think that both of these fighters are pretty evenly matched but I also think that there is some value to to over 2.5 rounds here. I can see both fighters taking more of a defensive position being that this is a 5 round fight and I also have to think that the only way that Garbrant wins this fight is by decision being that Font is so hard to knock out. My only worry is Font knocking out Garbrant but I have to think that Cody has learned his lesson to protect his jaw for at least 3 rounds or so.
Over 2.5 rounds +100 – 1.5 stars
Edmen Shahbazyan vs Jack Hermansson -155
This should be a great fight here and it was supposed to happen last week during UFC 262, but someone in Edmen’s corner got Covid and they had to postpone for safety reasons. I am going to get right to the point here. Shahbazyan is 11-1 with 9 KOs while Hermansson is 21-6 with 11 KOs, 6 Submissions and 4 decisions. Edmen’s only loss game by KO to Derek Brunson back in August. Lets just get it right out there that I do not understand this line. Edmen was looked at as the great young and up and coming middleweight fighter at 23 years old who will soon challenge Izzy for the title until he lost to Derek Brunson. Edmon was priced at -270 vs Brunson and lost outright while cashing some of our nice plus money tickets. My question is, how the heck do you go from -270 against a great fighter like Brunson to +130 vs a tier 2 type fighter like Jack Hermansson. Edmen was also -230 vs Brad Tavares back in November of 2019. Don’t get me wrong, I like Jack and he is a very talented fighter but I don’t think that he is elite and I think that Edmen’s stand up game is still very good and that could put Jack on the ground against a guy who has never been submitted. in Jack’s last 3 fights, he lost 2 of them to tier 1 guys like Marvin Vettori adn Jared Cannonier and he beat Kelvin Gastelum by using a sneaky heal hook. Is Edmen a tier 1 fighter? I am not sure of that but I do not think he is as low as tier 3 in my book. I think the price is wrong in this fight and it should be Edmen as the favorite at maybe -140 or so. I’ll grab the dog.
Edmen Shahbazyan +130 – 2 stars
