It’s Fight Week for arguably the biggest event in MMA history as the UFC Freedom 250 card is set to take place this Sunday night at The White House!

The lineup features seven bouts and will be headlined by a pair of title fights as Ilia Topuria defends the UFC Lightweight title against interim champ Justin Gaethje in the main event.

Alex Pereira and Ciryl Gane will throw down in the co-main event for the interim UFC Heavyweight belt.

Normally, I wait to post picks/bets until after weigh-ins and ceremonial ones to make sure everything looks good and nothing gets scratched, but I’m posting a bit early for this one and trusting these guys to show up.

UFC White House Picks & Predictions

My favorite picks for the UFC White House card are Ilia Topuria and Sean O’Malley.

My favorite potential UFC Freedom 250 betting upsets are Steve Garcia and Ciryl Gane, depending where his line closes since it’s floating back and forth near a pick ’em.

Topuria has been on an absolute tear mowing down all-time greats across two weight classes and I expect that run to continue here with Gaethje.

Topuria should be the more calculated striker, control the distance with a speed advantage and have the ability to get this on the ground if necessary to find a finish in the early rounds.

O’Malley continues to find himself in spotlight situations despite no longer holding gold, but a victory this weekend could put him firmly in the driver’s seat for the next shot at Petr Yan.

I expect O’Malley to use his length and speed advantage to bother Zahabi, who likely won’t be looking to wrestle like most of Sean’s recent opponents, and think there’s a good chance he’ll land big for a finish at some point.

Normally, I’d have four confident picks listed, but there just aren’t four spots I feel comfortable giving on this one with only seven fights and the other sizeable favorites feeling a bit shakier.

As for underdogs, I think Garcia has shown a lot of progression on top of having nasty power in his hands and I expect him to push and potentially upset Lopes.

Garcia will need to keep this one on the feet and probably stuff a takedown or two, but Lopes tends to get reckless in exchanges and Garcia can turn out the lights if that happens here.

In the co-main event, I’ll be rooting for Poaton to make history and pull off the win, but I have to go with the proven commodity at heavyweight in Gane.

As long as weather/temperature doesn’t play a large role, I expect this fight to go for a while, be pretty competitive and potentially end up on the scorecards.

Gane has been durable in the past, has the experience at the weight and should be able to mix in some control time as well to squeeze this one out in a tight decision.

For the rest of the card, I’m picking the favorites (Nickal, Hokit and Ruffy), but would be careful stacking them up in big parlays because I can see paths for all three underdogs to be more competitive than the lines indicate or outright win.

UFC White House Betting Card

For the UFC White House betting card, I opened things up a bit more than normal and included a handful of longshots in the plays for this weekend to celebrate the event.

The UFC Freedom 250 parlays are O’Malley ML + Pereira/Gane Over 1.5 Rounds + Topuria to Win in R1/2 (+221 for 1 unit) and O’Malley ML + KO/TKO + Under 599.5 Seconds SGP (+265 for .5 units).

The UFC White House prop bets are Garcia by KO/TKO (+240 for .5 units), Chandler +3.5 Point Spread (+350 for .5 units), Lewis by KO/TKO (+400 for .5 units), Gane by Decision (+350 for .5 units) and Topuria by Submission (+450 for .5 units).

Longshot bets for UFC Freedom 250 include Gane/Pereira to End by Split/Majority Decision (+800 for .25 units), Gane/Pereira Point Deduction – Yes (+2000 for .25 units), O’Malley ML + R3 Winning Round SGP (+1000 for .25 units) and Garcia ML + Chandler +3.5 Point Spread + O’Malley ML + Topuria ML (+1275 for .25 units).

Most of the bets are pretty self-explanatory but taking a few shots against my picks on the prop bets.

Hokit took a ton of damage fairly recently against Blaydes, and if he gets overly confident in the striking he’s going to get slept here although he has an easy path to winning via wrestling if he takes it.

Chandler’s best days are certainly behind him, but I can see him handling the anticipated heat/weather better than most of the fighters on the card and think he can push Ruffy regardless.

While Chandler has been on a rough skid the last few years, 4 of his 5 UFC losses have been to absolutely elite competition and he’s been competitive in most of them.

I think he can get some takedowns, land some damage, and get this fight to go to a scrappy decision and at least pick up a round or two on some scorecards to make it close in what’s likely his last fight if he doesn’t win.

For the co-main prop bets, I think it’s foolish not to roll the dice on Gane losing a point if he gets sloppy given his past and since I expect him to have 25 minutes of opportunities to lose one, I had to take the chance.

With or without a point taken, I expect their matchup to be close and wouldn’t be shocked to see a split either way but love the chances if there is somehow a deduction.

We also have a pair of open one unit parlays, including O’Malley/Gane/Topuria (+195) and our recent cross-card play needing Garcia/O’Malley/Topuria (+555) to cash.

That’s a total of 11 bets for 5 units on the UFC White House tracked bets for this weekend.

OddSmokerMMA Merch Announcements

We’re really excited to announce a recent commission we worked on involving Adrian Yanez will be dropping next weekend during a live autograph signing with JuanMorePack on June 20th!

Be sure to go follow JuanMorePack on Instagram for updates if you’re interested in picking up some items from the signing, including trading cards from the 4-card custom set we designed featuring Yanez.

We’ve really wanted to nail down a collaboration with Adrian for quite a while, and even though this one is a bit indirect, we’re equally thrilled to be a part of it and couldn’t be more excited.

If you’re into UFC trading cards, I highly recommend following Juan and checking out the amazing offerings he posts on his website and tune in for UFC 329 on July 11th for Yanez vs Garbrandt as well.

Stay tuned for more on the trading card front, hoping to get some more of these worked into our line moving forward.

On top of that news, we also have merch collaborations available with Dione Barbosa and Alvin Hines ahead of their respective matchups at UFC Oklahoma City on July 18th, so check those out as well.

We also added a new OddSmokerMMA “Smoke Em” shirt on our MILLIONS store if you want to show some love and pick one up to support the brand.

UFC White House Notes & Wrap-Up

Reminder there will be a ton of variables at play for UFC White House that normally aren’t much of a concern, including the outdoor temperature (anticipated to be high 90s) and potential bad weather such as rain, high humidity, etc.

Also of note, particularly for any fights that end up on the scorecards or see potential controversy, the UFC is using the boxing commission for this event instead of the DC one for oversight.

Don’t be surprised if we see a random judge or two getting assigned to fights and some questionable scorecards/calls.

Dana White has gone on record this week saying this event will move forward regardless of the weather, with 3 octagon canvases ready to be swapped out if needed during the card, so this could get interesting.

Be sure to check out the press conference (Friday) and official and ceremonial weigh-ins (Saturday) for any late developments, but I feel like everything should be pretty set for Sunday.

If there are any changes to the lineup, notable events that take place, or late additions to the betting card, I’ll have them added in a special section on here by midday Sunday, so keep an eye out for updates.

I rarely mention it, but if you’re betting these fights or want to bet on the fights for cheap in general, always take advantage of these sign-up promos like the “Bet $10, Get $X in Free Bets Win or Lose” that Bet365 and others offer.

Most sportsbooks offer some variation of these sign-up bonuses and instead of playing out of pocket for a lot this weekend, you can play largely on their money and see how much you can convert to cash if you’re new to the book.

Overall, I absolutely love this lineup for banger potential and feel like some really great fights are on the way from The White House on Sunday night for UFC Freedom 250.

As always, best of luck on the bets and hope everyone enjoys the fights on Sunday!

UFC White House Quick Picks

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