BJ Penn vs. Jon Fitch

By Richard Gardner

2/26/11

A very busy stretch of top mixed martial arts bouts kicks off on Saturday night when the UFC returns to Sydney, Australia, for the second time for a main card headlined by a 170-pound showdown between former two-division champion B.J. Penn and welterweight contender Jon Fitch. While the card is Sunday afternoon Down Under, it’s a Saturday night pay-per-view main card because of the time difference in North America.

While neither Penn nor Fitch is looking past Saturday’s bout, a rematch for the winner could be in the offering against welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, who some believe is the pound-for-pound king of the sport.

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Fitch (23-3) lost to St. Pierre in a five-round unanimous decision at UFC 87 in August 2008. since then, he has won unanimous decisions over Thiago Alves, Ben Saunders, Mike Pierce, Paulo Thiago and Akihiro Gono – Fitch was the betting favorite in all five. His last bout was the Alves victory at UFC 117 last August. Fitch’s past eight fights have gone to the judges.

Penn (16-7-1) has lost twice to St. Pierre, the last time coming via a corner stoppage in the Fourth round of their bout at UFC 94 in January 2009. Penn won twice following that bout, over Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez, but Penn’s career appeared in some jeopardy after the then lost back-to-back bouts with Frankie Edgar. But then Penn bounced back in a big way, crushing Matt Hughes in just 21 seconds at UFC 123 in November. “The Prodigy” knocked Hughes flat onto his back with a right cross, then unleashed a flurry of shots to his head that led to their fight being stopped. Penn had considered walking away from MMA after those losses to Edgar, but UFC president Dana White offered a chance at redemption in a third bout with Hughes. In fact, originally Fitch was to fight Jake Ellenberger but the switch was made to Penn after the Hughes destruction revitalized Penn’s stock in the division.

Ironically, Penn brought in Hughes to prepare for this fight with Fitch. Penn said Hughes brought similar strengths that Fitch will on Saturday. Fitch, especially, should test Penn’s conditioning and acclaimed takedown defense and Hughes was an All-American wrestler in college. Fitch, also a collegiate wrestler, has not been finished in a fight since late 2002 and will hold nearly every physical advantage: He is three inches taller and enjoys a Four-inch reach advantage.

“I know he isn’t exactly like Fitch as far as height and boxing and kickboxing goes,” Penn said to reporters. “But on the one area where Fitch definitely pushes all his opponents is grinding them out, pushing them on the fence and taking them down. Matt really pushed me in those areas so I gained a lot of confidence working with Matt.”

Fitch opened this bout as the -175 favorite at 5dimes.com but early heavy action on him has pushed that number to a current -200. Penn opened at +145 and now is +160. We are seeing two-sided action on both right now but are a bit exposed on Fitch at the opening number. Fitch is 7-0 in the UFC when he is the betting favorite. He is also 5-0 when fighting outside the U.S. Penn is an underdog for the first time since that second loss to St. Pierre when Penn went off at +135. He is 0-2 in his career as a betting underdog at 5dimes.com.

The winner of Saturday’s bout will be named the No. 1 contender in the welterweight division, but that might not mean an automatic shot at St. Pierre. If he beats Jake Shields at UFC 129 in Toronto on April 30, it’s expected that St. Pierre (currently -575 against Shields on 5dimes.com) will move up to 185 pounds for a mega-bout with middleweight champion Anderson Silva.

Odds on all the MMA action available at 5dimes.com Sportsbook and Casino

5/28/11

Some mixed martial arts fans are no doubt still a bit disappointed that the main event for Saturday’s UFC 130 in Las Vegas between lightweight champion Frankie Edgar and unbeaten challenger Gray Maynard was called off earlier this month due to both fighters dealing with injuries. Edgar was dealing with back and rib injuries while Maynard had a knee problem.

Of course Edgar and Maynard have fought twice previously, with Maynard getting a win at UFC Fight Night 13 and then both fighters being disappointed with a draw decision at UFC 125. The book was seeing good early action on this bout so we are disappointed as well, although the two should meet now in the fall assuming all rehab goes well.

So, the Memorial Day weekend card – always a big one in UFC — lost a bit of luster, but we are still expecting solid action overall on UFC 130 card with it being a holiday weekend in the United States.  UFC Scheduled this wisely, it appears, because there are no big boxing bouts to deflect any attention as there would have been last weekend with Jean Pascal-Bernard Hopkins. Depending on the NBA and NHL playoffs, UFC could be the only big thing going this weekend on the sporting scene other than the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600. So we could see a boost in action because of that.

The headline bout Saturday is now former light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson against Matt Hamill. And the heavyweight fight between former titleholder Frank Mir against “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 10 winner Roy Nelson will now serve as the co-main event. Additionally, a welterweight fight between Thiago Alves and Rick Story has been promoted to the main card.

Hamill may have made the mistake of motivating Rampage when Hamill said recently that he believed he could break Jackson’s will once they step into the Octagon. Originally Jackson said he wasn’t all that excited to face Hamill (Rampage was originally Schedule to fight Thiago Silva at UFC 130). That no longer seems to be the case.

“I think Matt made a mistake when he actually said he’s going to break my will, and that I’m going to overlook him,” Jackson said. “That kind of lit a fire under my ass and actually made me train harder to make sure I don’t overlook him and to make sure I outclass him.”

“The Hammer” Hamill (10-2-0) is no slouch as he has a five-fight winning streak that includes awards for Knockout of the Night and Fight of the Night. His last two bouts, against Tito Ortiz and Keith Jardine, went to a decision. A win here could vault Hamill up the ladder in terms of prestige as he’s ranked only around 15th in his light-heavyweight division right now. Jackson (31-8-0), who is the No. 4 lightweight, enters off a split decision win over Lyoto MAChida at UFC 123.

Early action at 5dimes.com is definitely favoring Rampage. He opened as the -250 favorite but has taken more than 67 percent of the action and has moved his line to -275. Hamill opened at +195 but now is up to +215. Jackson is 1-2 as a betting favorite at 5dimes.com, while Hamill is 1-2 as an underdog, but that win came thanks to a DQ by Jon Jones in “The Ultimate Fighter 10.”

Meanwhile, Mir (14-5-0), the two-time UFC heavyweight champion, enters off a third-round knockout of Mirko Filipovic at UFC 119, but that fight was mostly a dud and drew the ire of UFC boss Dana White. He faces “Big Country” Nelson (15-5-0), who knocked out Brendan SChaub in the “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 10 finale and is a former champion of the International Fight League. Nelson comes off a loss to No. 1 contender Junior dos Santos at UFC 117 in August and has dropped three of his past five fights overall.

5dimes.com opened the Mir-Nelson bout as a pick’em at -115 each. But about 60 percent of the action thus far has been on Mir, moving him to -145 and Nelson to +110. Mir is 3-1 in his career as a betting favorite at 5dimes.com while Nelson is 0-2.

So far the most lopsided action we are seeing among the main events is on Brian Stann against Jorge Santiago. Stann opened at -120 but is taking a whopping 87 percent of the action to move his line to -145. Santiago, in his UFC debut, has moved from -110 to +115.

4/3/11

Yep. You read it correctly. 5dimes.com has posted odds on this weekends WrestleMania event which takes place Sunday at the Georgia Dome. Now, before you laugh at the prospect of betting on WrestleMania, keep in mind that these type of events often times offer some very easy scores. It’s much different than wagering on, say, a basketball or a football Game.

WrestleMania is a scripted event. Which means the outcome is already known. Now, there are a couple of different ways to go about “handicapping” WrestleMania. If you are a long time follower of professional wrestling, and specifically this mega event that happens each year, you could more than likely go through each of these propositions and correctly pick most of them. There are certain outcomes that just make more sense from an entertainment point of view, and that’s what this is, first and foremost.

You can also comb the internet. News stories. Blogs. You’d be surprised what you can learn. There was a popular TV show that some sportsbooks posted odds on a few years back. Problem was, some of the outcomes for the props they posted were already posted online as “spoilers”. Lot’s of people are involved with orchestrating these events. People have a hard time keeping secrets!

Here are the odds from 5dimes.com

WrestleMania XXVII – World Heavyweight Championship Match – Georgia Dome – Atlanta, GA

Edge +350

Alberto Del Rio -500

WrestleMania XXVII – WWE Championship Match – Georgia Dome – Atlanta, GA

The Miz +160

John Cena -230

WrestleMania XXVII – No Holds Barred Match – Georgia Dome – Atlanta, GA

The Undertaker -1600

Triple H +800

WrestleMania XXVII – Singles Match – Georgia Dome – Atlanta, GA

Randy Orton -285

CM Punk +205

WrestleMania XXVII – Singles Match – Georgia Dome – Atlanta, GA Jerry “The King” LAwler -1800

Michael Cole +900

WrestleMania XXVII – Singles Match – Georgia Dome – Atlanta, GA

Rey Mysterio +130

Cody Rhodes -160

WrestleMania XXVII – Six Person Mixed Tag Team Match – Georgia Dome – Atlanta, GA

Trish Stratus, “Snooki”, & John Morrison -1400

Dolph Ziggler, LAyla, & Michelle McCool +700

WrestleMania XXVII – United States Championship Match – Georgia Dome – Atlanta, GA

Sheamus -255

Daniel Bryan +185