We’ve got a fun-filled lineup headed our way tomorrow with UFC Kansas City pulling up in the Midwest. The card features 14 matchups and will be headlined by a welterweight clash between Ian Machado Garry and Carlos Prates that should be an awesome scrap. There was only one weight miss for the event, with Giga Chikadze coming in one pound over the featherweight limit.

My favorite picks for this weekend are Jacqueline Amorim, Ikram Aliskerov, Da’Mon Blackshear and Ian Machado Garry. My favorite potential betting upsets are Anthony Smith and Jimmy Flick.

Amorim is 9-1 with a 100% stoppage rate and getting a favorable matchup in my opinion against Polyana Viana. Viana has dropped three of her last four fights and pretty consistently falls against her tougher opposition. Amorim is very dangerous on the ground and continuously evolving her game, I expect her to get this one down at some point and like her chances to put Viana away.

Aliskerov is 15-2 with 11 wins via stoppage and will be coming off his first UFC loss last summer against Robert Whittaker. While his opponent, Andre Muniz, is an extremely dangerous submission artist, he’s also very limited and has been stopped in all six of his career losses. If this does go to the ground, I think Aliskerov holds his own and stays safe, and if it stays standing, it should be an early KO/TKO win.

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Blackshear goes for his third consecutive win tomorrow when he faces Alatengheili. Blackshear has already secured four UFC victories all by stoppage with his dominant wrestling and grappling, and I think he has a similar path to winning in this matchup as well. He’s going to have a large size advantage in this one and I expect him to put it to use and bully his way to getting this one on the ground when needed for a decision or late stoppage win.

Machado Garry is 15-1 in his career, 8-1 in the UFC and ironically entering his first main event with the promotion off his first career loss. While his last fight might not have gone his way, Machado Garry held his own in a decision loss to Shavkat Rakhmonov in December. Carlos Prates has already shown he has nasty power in his striking, but I expect Machado Garry to be better all-around in this one and to have the fight IQ to largely avoid the early threat. I think Machado Garry gets this one done via submission or clear decision.

For the betting card this weekend, the tracked plays are a little light since I’m on quite a few plays with legs already headed into the event (lines listed below). For the tracked bets, I have Machado Garry to Win Inside the Distance – Yes (+180 for .5 units), Machado Garry by Submission (+550 for .25 units) and Edwards/Chandler to End by Split or Majority Decision – Yes (+500 for .25 units). I also have a two-leg parlay with Amorim by Submission + Aliskerov by KO/TKO (+155 for .5 units). That’s four tracked bets for a total of 1.5 units.

For the untracked bets, I’m invested heavily in Machado Garry ML paired with a handful of other single ML plays coming in after getting early legs from NBA plays this week. The combinations include the following fighters: Wellmaker ML, Pereira ML, Blackshear ML and Smith ML (2x). Depending how many of them reach the final leg, I’ll be placing a small hedge out on Prates by KO/TKO since that’s the only realistic path I see him winning by this weekend.

Huge shoutout to Jimmy “The Brick” Flick for being awesome enough to send us some signed copies of our recent graphic we made for him heading into his matchup this weekend! In honor of Jimmy’s generosity, we’re running a free giveaway over on our Instagram for a chance to win one of two signed copies, so be sure to head over and check it out to get entered! Winners will be selected randomly tomorrow during the card.

If you missed our announcement earlier this week, we’re extremely proud to announce we have a new merch collab available with Cody Durden heading into his big matchup at UFC Atlanta in June! There are shirts and hoodies featuring a pair of designs available through our friends at MILLIONS, so grab something from this drop today. We’re still figuring out the exact details, but we’ll be doing another giveaway for people who order, so stay tuned for more information!

Overall, this should be a really entertaining card this weekend with a lot of fun matchups sprinkled throughout it. We’ve had some really great luck with the bets recently, so we’ll see if that trend continues this weekend. Check back next weekend for UFC Iowa and we have a handful of fun podcast episodes planned also, so be on the lookout for those! As always, best of luck on the bets and hope everyone enjoys the fights!

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