Gregory Rodrigues vs Julian Marquez +150
It is going to be a great event tonight in Austin where Calvin Kattar will be facing Josh Emmitt. There are some good fighters on this card with some very good matchups. I can’t wait for the Court McGee vs Jeremiah Wells fight myself. Anyways, if you are a UFC fan, then you know that the Texas combative sport commission has been lackluster at best and some of the decisions have been quite suspect. This means that you do not want to play a lot of fighters that could go to the cards.
Now, what I do like is dogs in this venue and I think we might have found one with Julian Marquez. Gregory Rodriguez is a very good fighter but I am not sure that he should be favored in this spot, especially when he took this fight on a short notice. This will be a middleweight fight at 185lbs. Neither fighter had weight issues. Robocop Rodriguez is 11-4 with most of his finishes by KO (5) and Sub (4) but he has only had three total fights in the UFC with a very nice win vs Jun Yong Park, but a tough split decision loss vs Armen Petrosyan back in February. Julian Marquez is 9-2 as a fighter with only four fights in the UFC, but he has some nice victories against Sam Alvey, Darrin Stewart and Maki Pitolo with a very smelly split decision loss vs Alessio Di Chirico. Now the reason that Gregory Rodrigues is favored is that he has the striking advantage at 5.3 significant strikes per minute to Julian’s 4.2 as well as a clear take down advantage, but what needs to be factored in is that Julian is also very good on the ground even though his stats do not show it. All three of Julian’s UFC wins have come by submission and that is where I think he has a shot against Rodriguez who hasn’t had a great strength of schedule. If this fight goes to the cards, I would much rather be on the dog per what I said earlier about the Texas commission. I am going to take a shot with Marquez +150 here in a fight that should be closer to pick-em in my opinion.
Julian Marquez +150 – 1.5 stars
Bonus Play: Parlay Calvin Kattar -240 and Kyle Daukaus -250 – +104 – 1.5 stars –
Both of these fighters are about -240 for a reason and their shear volume with punching power should be able to get it done for them. Both fighters also have over 86% take down defense so I do not think the matt will factor much into fruition.
