It’s Fight Day for Noche UFC (UFC 306) at Sphere in Vegas and tonight should be a special card. Headlined by a pair of title fights, this card will be the first combat sports event inside the futuristic venue and the promotion has apparently put in a lot of work to make sure this a special production. In the main event, Sean O’Malley will attempt to make his second defense of the UFC Bantamweight title against Merab Dvalishvili, while the co-main features the first women’s trilogy fight in promotion history when Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko meet again for the UFC Women’s Flyweight belt.

My favorite picks for this card are Raul Rosas Jr, Sean O’Malley, Yazmin Jauregui, and Daniel Zellhuber. Rosas Jr will be opening the prelims against Aoriqileng and is the biggest betting favorite on the card by a good margin. While Aoriqileng has the experience advantage here, I’m not sure he’s going to have many others. Rosas Jr will be the much better wrestler and grappler here and should get this one to the ground pretty quick. I like his chances to find the submission or ground and pound finish in this one. O’Malley is getting a tough challenge with Merab Dvalishvili, and I think this one could end up being pretty close. Merab will probably get a round or two with his relentless pace shooting takedowns. However, he doesn’t have great control and rarely creates a lot of damage. O’Malley should take rounds off damage and catch Merab multiple times coming in for takedown attempts. I like O’Malley’s chances to get this one on the cards or via late doctor stoppage if he can exploit that cut above Dvalishvili’s eye.

Jauregui’s only loss came in a quick 20 second knockout, and that’s really the only path I see here for her opponent Ketlen Souza. Jauregui should be the better striker, and Souza has been stopped in all four of her career losses, which isn’t great against someone that can strike like Jauregui. I think Yazmin will get this one done via KO/TKO or a pretty clear decision on the cards. Daniel Zellhuber vs Esteban Ribovics is one of my picks to see a bonus tonight and should be an awesome fight between two risers in the lightweight division. Zellhuber will have an eight-inch reach advantage to work with in a fight that’s likely to stay standing and I think he’ll get the better of the striking exchanges here to pick up the decision win or late KO/TKO stoppage.

For the betting card this weekend, I have a handful of prop bets and a couple of small parlays out. The prop bets for this one: Ortega to win in R/3Decision (+250 for .5 units), O’Malley by Decision (+425 for .5 units and +450 for .5 units, 1 unit total), and O’Malley to win by Split/Majority Decision (+1200 for .25 units). The two parlays: Edgar Chairez ML + O’Malley ML (+419 for .5 units) and Zellhuber ML + O’Malley ML + Lamar Jackson Anytime TD (+543, boosted to +722 for .5 units on BetMGM). I’m loading up on O’Malley this week because I just don’t see a clear path for Merab to win this one as long as O’Malley gets any kind of striking going at all. I’ll probably place a small hedge on Dvalishvili by Split/Majority Decision since I do expect him to have some success, and also have a parlay already needing O’Malley ML to cash from last weekend too. That’s a total of 2.75 units out across the tracked bets.

As I mentioned, this event should be something special to watch with all of the effort (and money) going into this one from the promotion, so really looking forward to seeing how it turns out. There isn’t a UFC card next weekend with the next one being UFC Paris on September 28th, so I’ll be trying to update some of the other sections on our website in the down time. Stay tuned for more additions to our fighter shirt collaboration section for a handful of updates, as well as the gallery page. Also, if you happen to live in the Mid-South area, I highly recommend marking your calendars for October 28th and coming out to SEFC 31 in Southaven, MS. We’re handling all of the graphics work for the event and will also have a merch booth set up at the venue, so come catch a great night of fights and support all of the great fighters who are scheduled for the event! Best of luck with the bets tonight and enjoy the fights!

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