The year of “never not fighting” continues as the 8643rd UFC event of 2021 comes to the Apex this Saturday night as Miesha Tate and Ketelen Vieira square off in the main event.
Saturday, November 20, 2021 – 07:05 PM EST
While you have faith in your UFC picks, especially when you’re paid to give them, saying that something is a lock is not only spitting in the face of fate, but also denotes the idea of any given night, which we’ve seen in fighting time and time again, and will inevitably happen on Saturday night’s fight card.
And when you feel you have a fairly good take on the card, the lines set by BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review) cause you to advise anyone reading your work to not bet when the lines are way too far apart, which is a trend for quite a few of these fights. The main event has both fighters at nearly a pick’em (Tate -106 and Veira a -114) which makes this fight gonna be weird and that between today and when both fighters step inside the Octagon.
This is why we’re staying away from this fight even though I wouldn’t be surprised if Tate takes the win. We’re gonna look at our co-main event as Michael Chiesa looks to rebound against the undefeated Sean Brady. This fight circles back to our “Any Given Night” mentality as Chiesa, who got tapped by Vicente Luque tapped him out at UFC 265, is looking to rebound and look more like the fighter prior to UFC 265, who was riding a four-fight winning streak.
While Brady’s been undefeated in his career, the level of competition the two have faced is a pretty big gap, as Brady’s biggest opponent to date has been Court McGee in his 2019 debut, while Chiesa defeated Neil Magny, Rafael Dos Anjos, Diego Sanchez, and Carlos Condit in his most recent winning streak.
While Chiesa has an uncredited loss to the hand truck Conor McGregor threw at the UFC 223 Media Day riot, he’s a tough fighter, and seeing him as a +140 underdog in this fight may be shading him more than putting any spotlight on young Mr. Brady.
With 50% of Brady’s fights going to the scorecards and 31.25% of Chiesa’s fights going to the judges, one would think the over would be in the offering for this fight. Buying that thinking is Chiesa being a purple belt in BJJ and Brady being a BJJ black belt, basically having both fighters looking to keep the fight standing or a lot of jockeying for position to go down in at least the first round before either guy can get a rhythm.
Also in an annoying stat that I have to tell you, six of his last seven fights (his sub over Christian Aguilera being the outlier) have gone beyond the third round or to the scorecards. With those numbers being what they are, I suggest to you that if you were to bet on ANYTHING on UFC Fight Night 198, that you place your duckets/shekels/ Geoffrey dollars on the O 2.5 rounds which are set at a not so terrible -105.
You can also find +300 for Brady by decision and +250 for Chiesa by decision, which depending on how you feel about a vet vs. a younger fighter can be a really tasty parlay piece. Think there’s a better lock on this card? Follow me on Twitter @MryanConsulting.