It’s fight day for UFC St. Louis and there should be a lot of exciting matchups on this card. The event will be headlined by a heavyweight clash between Derrick Lewis and Rodrigo Nascimento and also features several fighters from the St. Louis area (Joaquin Buckley, Charles Johnson and Sean Woodson). The lineup lost a bout yesterday during the weigh-in when Jared Gooden was forced to withdraw from his matchup with Kevin Jousset due to illness, leaving twelve fights scheduled for the card.

My favorite picks for this card are Mateusz Rebecki, Derrick Lewis, Carlos Ulberg and Robelis Despaigne. I think all four of these fighters are in pretty favorable matchups on this card and they will also all be live for KO/TKO finishes as well. This card is pretty evenly matched overall with a lot of tough fights to call, so I’m leaning into the spots where I think there’s a great chance for a stoppage.

Rebecki is 3-0 in the UFC and riding a 16-fight win streak heading into his matchup with Diego Ferreira. Rebecki has stopped 16 out of his 19 wins and I think he’ll continue his hot start with the promotion by finding a KO/TKO win in this one. I really like this matchup for Derrick Lewis to get back into the win column coming a 25-minute decision loss in his last outing. I think Lewis understands the assignment on this one and knows he needs to find an early knockout here to avoid a similar fate in this one. I expect Lewis will add to his promotion KO/TKO record by picking up his 15th UFC win via that method.

Ulberg vs Menifield should be a pretty competitive fight, but ultimately, I think Ulberg will pull away with this fight down the stretch with higher volume in the striking for a decision or late KO/TKO win. Despaigne looked like an absolute monster in his debut at UFC 299 back in March and he’ll try to improve to 2-0 with the promotion here with a quick turnaround. As long as Despaigne doesn’t get overly reckless in this one, I think he’ll be the more well-rounded and dangerous striker and he should be able to use his sizeable 6″ reach advantage to find the KO/TKO stoppage pretty early here against Waldo Cortes-Acosta.

For the betting card today, I kept things pretty light with two small parlays, four prop bets and a longshot parlay. The first two parlays: Derrick Lewis ML + Robelis Despaigne ML + Mateusz Rebecki ML (+270 for .5 units) and Rebecki to Win Inside the Distance + Lewis by R1/2 KO/TKO (+289 for .5 units). The prop bets: Carlos Ulberg by Decision (+350 for .5 units), Ricci/Torres to End by Split/Majority Decision (+250 for .5 units), Nursulton Ruziboev by R1/2 KO/TKO (+490 for .25 units) and Despaigne by R2 KO/TKO (+750 for .25 units). The longshot parlay: Terrance McKinney by R1/2 Submission + Rebecki ITD + Lewis R1/2 KO/TKO (+2235 for .25 units). That’s a total of 2.75 units out across the seven bets. Since I’m here in St. Louis for the event, I won’t be able to add anything to the card late. I hope everyone enjoys the fights and best of luck to the bettors!

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