Zarrukh Adashev vs Ryan Benoit -125
This should be a fun little fight even though these are little guys. This flyweight flight consists of 2 guys that actually have a little pack to their punch. Lets start with the Adashev. Zarrukh is 3-3 with two of his wins by KO/TKO and his losses were all evenly split by decision, submission and KO/TKO. When Zarrukh stepped up in competition his last 2 fights in the UFC, he has lost both of them. Ryan Benoit on the other hand is 10-7 with 8 KOs 1 submission and 1 decision. Five of his 7 losses were by decision and two were by submission. The good news for Benoit is that he is the much more experienced fighter and has never been KO’d. There are only 2 ways that both Zarrukh and Benoit can win this fight and that’s by KO or Decision. Neither of these guys have a ground game which makes me like Ryan has the advantage. I also like the fact that Ryan can sometimes score a few points here and there with takedowns and to this day, Zarrukh just doesn’t do that. When looking at the metrics you have to lean Benoit. He has a longer reach than Zarrukh at 68′ to 65′ inches and he is the better striker landing 45% significant strikes to 23%. This line is pretty short so I have to go experience here with these fighters.
Ryan Benoit -125 – 1.5 stars
MAIN EVENT
Uriah Hall vs Sean Strickland -220
This should be a decent main event with two very experienced fighters both having 26 fights to their name. Uraih has been a staple in the UFC and he has a very respectable 17-9 record at 36 years old. What this record doesn’t tell you is that he has fought some of the best fighters in the business such as Anderson Silva, Derek Brunson, Paulo Costa, Thiago Santos and Robert Whittaker. Sean Strickland is the younger fighter with the better record at 23-3 and most of his fights were against no-names minus his lost a few years back to Kamaru Usman by unanimous decision. Now in my opinion on the side, Uriah is being disrespected some and there might be some value in his number at +185. Strickland’s stats are better but only because of his weaker opponents. The thing that is keeping me off the side is the importance of this fight for Strickland and the age difference but I will shop around and see if I can get a +200. The play that I really like is the over 2.5 rounds. This is a five round fight and out of Strickland’s last 12 total fights (all 3 rounders), 10 of them went past 2.5 rounds. Hall has been KO’d in the past in his career, but if you take out the Chris Weidman leg break, his last 3 fights before that went past 2.5 rounds. Gonna play it safe and lean the dog.
Over 2.5 rounds -145 – 2 stars
