It’s fight day for UFC 301 and tonight’s card will be headlined by Alexandre Pantoja and Steve Erceg for the UFC Flyweight title and also features the return of the “King of Rio” Jose Aldo. While this event lacks the star power that overloaded the lineups for UFC 299 and UFC 300, there still should be a lot of fun matchups heading our way later today. Hopefully, the Brazilian fans will show up in force for what could, and likely will be, Aldo’s last fight in the UFC, as well as all of the other local talent from the region on the card. All 13 bouts on the lineup feature a Brazilian fighter taking on someone from another country.

My favorite picks on tonight’s card are Caio Borralho, Michel Periera, Alexandre Pantoja and Ismael Bonfim. Of all the heavy betting favorites on tonight’s card, I think Borralho might have the highest ceiling of the group. Paul Craig is an extremely dangerous submission artist but has proven to be pretty much limited to that at this point. Borralho should be the better striker on the feet and a good enough grappler to avoid the submission threat of Craig if the fight does go to the ground. I like Borralho’s chances to find the KO/TKO in this one.

Michel Pereira has looked exceptional so far since moving up to the middleweight division and enters this one riding a seven-fight winning streak. Ihor Poteira looked pretty good in his first fight dropping down to 185 in his last trip to the octagon, but Pereira will certainly be a much tougher matchup. I think Pereira will be the all-around better fighter in this matchup and should win a volume-based decision or potentially find a KO/TKO stoppage on Poteira, who has four of his five losses coming via that method.

Pantoja will be attempting to defend his title against Steve Erceg, who has looked pretty solid during a 3-0 start to his run with the promotion. While Erceg has looked great so far in the UFC, I think he’s being pushed into this spot a little bit too quickly. Pantoja has already proven he can go 25 minutes with the best fighters in the division, and while I think Erceg has a chance to pull an upset early, I expect Pantoja will pull away with this fight down the stretch for a pretty clean decision or late submission win.

Ismael Bonfim will be looking to get back into the win column here after a hiccup in his last outing against Benoit Saint Denis and I love this matchup against Vinc Pichel for him. Pichel is a pretty solid fighter with a 14-3 record, but he’s 41 years old and hasn’t been particularly active in recent years. Bonfim will be 13 years younger, should be able to push to the pace in this matchup, and will likely be the more well-rounded fighter here with more paths to win. Tough to nail down a method here, but I think Bonfim picks up a pretty convincing win in this one, likely inside the distance.

For the betting card this weekend, I actually ended up with more plays than I anticipated, with nine straight bets and several small parlays. The straight bets for tonight: Alessandro Costa by R2/3 Sub (+1200 for .25 units), Dione Barbosa by R2/3 Sub (+500 for .25 units), Michel Pereira by Decision (+500 for .25 units), Anthony Smith ML (+400 for .25 units), Smith by R2/3 KO/TKO (+1600 for .125 units), Smith by R2/3 Submission (+2700 for .125 units), Aldo/Martinez Ends by Split/Majority Decision – Yes (+300 for .5 units), Jose Aldo by Split/Majority Decision (+700 for .25 units) and Alexandre Pantoja by Decision (+300 for .5 units). The parlays for tonight: Barbosa by Sub or Dec + Borralho ITD + Pantoja in 4/5/Dec (+507 for .5 units), Borralho by KO/TKO + Pantoja by Decision (+1055 for .25 units) and Borralho -3.5 Spread + Pantoja ML (+104 for .5 units – originally had another NBA leg that voided). That’s a total of 12 bets for 3.75 units. I also have some untracked plays carrying Costa ML, Barbosa ML and Aldo +3.5 Spread. Best of luck to all the bettors and hope everyone enjoys the card tonight!

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