The UFC is hyping Saturday’s UFC 260 main event between UFC Heavyweight Champion Stipe Miocic and challenger Francis Ngannou as the “biggest, baddest rematch”. It is also a big, bad fight to try to predict a winner in, but that’s what I’m paid the big bucks for.
First off, let’s hope this fight actually takes place, because this weekend’s pay-per-view offering is snake bitten, or rather, COVID-19 bitten. Seemingly by the minute fights and/or fighters are being taken off and added to the card due to pandemic related issues. We lost the co-main event already, which was to be a UFC Featherweight Championship fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Brian Ortega after the champ contracted the virus. What we’re left with is a rather weak nine (maybe 10) fight lineup.
Tough Call in the Main Event
But the quality of a fight card has no bearing on us making money on it, so let’s get to it. As mentioned, the main event is a tough one to pick. The first time Miocic and Ngannou fought, back in 2018, the champ retained his title with a unanimous decision victory. He was able to absorb Ngannou’s punches and took him down six times in the fight.
What’s to say that won’t happen this go around? Nothing, really. Ngannou hasn’t shown his wrestling defense has improved since their first meeting. But that’s because he hasn’t had to show if it has improved or not, because he knocks out all his opponents so quickly. So Miocic’s path to victory is the same as Miocic-Ngannou, Part 1 – take him down and pound out a victory.
However, I’m betting against Miocic being able to pull this off. I’m counting on his chin not being able to take Ngannou’s punches like it did in their first fight – he’s been knocked out by Daniel Cormier since that meeting. Plus, every second he’s in the cage with ‘The Predator’ is a second that he is in danger of eating a knockout punch. Ngannou via early KO is my prediction. You can get him to win the fight at 5/7; to win via KO at 20/23; to win under 1.5 rounds at 11/10.
Can T-Wood Save His Career?
The newly elevated co-main event sees former UFC welterweight god Tyron Woodley take another stab at saving his career, this time against Vicente Luque. ‘T-Wood’ hasn’t just lost three straight fights – he’s lost every minute of those fights, 70+ minutes in all. No way in good conscience can I pick him to win this, or any other, fight at this point. Luque at 20/57 is the pick.
My “lock” pick for Saturday is Miranda Maverick in her women’s flyweight fight against Gillian Robertson. Robertson is a grappling wizard, by Maverick is too physically strong for her to implement her jiu jitsu, I’m guessing, so Maverick at 4/7 is my choice.
Underdog Picks
Ok, underdog time. There aren’t too many that jump off the screen at me for this weekend. I like Modestas Bukauskas at 27/20 in his light heavyweight battle against Michal Oleksiejczuk. Despite being knocked out his last fight, Buskauskas is still a great prospect at 205 pounds, while Oleksiejczuk has lost two straight and has been out of action for over a year. Let’s ride this dog.
And….that’s it for underdogs. I told you not many intrigues me this time. However, on a ten-fight lineup you probably will have three or four live dogs coming through. So, with time and room to spare here, I’ll give you a quick rundown of the rest of my picks:
Sean O’Malley 20/73
Khama Worthy 5/7
Alonzo Menifield 4/13
Abubakar Nurmagomedov 10/27
Marc-Andre Barriault 10/13
