Cortney Casey vs Angela Hill
It's somewhat rare that a fight that's near a pick'em is so easy to call. Every analysis on the fight (Vivisection, Kalikas, HTB, Stumberg, etc.) appears to have a similar read on the fight. That is: 'Cortney Casey is bigger and more athletic with a better ground game. But her wrestling sucks and she will get outpointed in a stand-up battle against a superior technical striker.'
There's really nothing really wrong with this analysis of course. Casey is definitely bigger, longer, and more athletic. She is a BJJ purple belt with a dangeorus ground game. She has been outwrestled in the past consistently. Hill is the superior striker technically. However, the most important part of the analysis, that Hill will outpoint and will a decision against Casey deserves a closer look, considering the oddsmaker had Hill's implied odds of victory at about 60%.
Sure, Hill by decision is one of the most obvious possible results here, but does it happen more than 60% to justify laying juice on her? I don't think it is.
People love to fade a loser, but it seems like people also avoid fighters that have some talent but fight with frustratingly low IQ. With a 3-5 record in the UFC, and with a majority of those losses being split decisions that she could have easily won (and maybe should have won) had she fought just slightly differently, Casey is both a loser and a frustrating one.
So why, despite analysts unanimously picking Hill, and a general public distaste for all things Casey, has the line moved from Hill being a -165 favorite to close to being a pick'em?
I don't know the answer, but I can tell you that I contributed to that movement by betting Casey as a dog. The generic reasons for the bet are that 'styles make fights' and that the odds justified a play. Like other deplorables including Jessica Eye and Sam Alvey, there's always going to be an inherent discount betting Cortney Casey. The reservations people have betting these fighters is justified. Alvey is too low volume to trust most times. Eye's fight IQ despite her athleticism means one has to really hold their nose before backing her. Yet both recently were underdogs in style matchups that were extremely favorable (Alvey a +200 dog to Prachnio, Eye a +150 dog to Jessica Rose-Clark). Both also won their fights convincingly.
The style matchup here favors Casey and she will need to go even more out of her way to blow her advantages. As the stronger girl, Casey should wear on Hill in the clinch. Hill clinches well but clinch exchanges really sap her cardio, which is already taxed in strict stand-up battles due to her extraneous movement (she slowed down considerably in both her recent fights against Ansaroff and Moroz despite those being mostly kickboxing matches). Casey also has a big grappling advantage if it hits the ground. As mentioned earlier, Casey is a BJJ purple belt, and Hill has no grappling credentials to speak of.
Therefore, to win, Hill has to keep the fight standing and outpoint Casey at range. While that's definitely a possibility here, it's going to be a lot more difficult than the odds suggest. First of all, remove the names and personalities from the equation, and you would have to bet that a girl with a height, reach, and power disadvantage can successfully work a striking game for 15 minutes against a taller, longer, more powerful, and more athletic girl with a grappling advantage.
Hill has done it before and just in her last fight. But that was against Maryna Moroz, the undisputed queen of the air punchers. The troubling thing about that fight was the fact that Moroz was able to land 84 strikes against Hill. That's almost double the amount that Moroz has ever landed against worse strikers. Hill looked better against a much better striker in Nina Ansaroff. This leads me to believe that Hill's outside striking game is less effective against girls with superior reach. Indeed, Hill's kick volume and striking diversity dropped drastically after the 1st round when she realized her safe kickrange was not so safe against the longer and taller fighter. Though she was able to get the nod from the judges in the fight, the 2nd and 3rd rounds were extremely close.
Despite her technical flaws, Casey throws more accurately and with more commitment than Moroz. Though she was wary of the power of the loaded left hook of Herrig, Hill doesn't really have the power or ability to fight moving backwards to scare off forward pressure. We saw this in the Ansaroff fight where Ansaroff's decision to just walk through Hill's strikes to land her own won her the later rounds and the fight. Casey has an outstanding chin (figuratively and literally) and can employ the same strategy if she chooses to. Perhaps a result of joining the MMA Lab, Casey showed an impressive new ability to step forward and land hard shots at range against Waterson when Waterson believed herself to be safely out of range.
Another benefit of joining the MMA Lab is that John Crouch will be in her corner and potentially limiting any mistakes Casey is prone to. It remains to be seen whether the camp change has improved her decision making but it's probably unfair to blame her last split decision loss solely to her decision making and not put most of the blame on some pretty terrible judging. If the judges had followed the criteria and not rewarded a couple of takedowns that resulted in nothing but sub attempts for Casey, then I doubt there would be much criticism of Casey and she may not have been the dog in this spot. Luckily the judges got it wrong and we get a discount on Casey in this fight for it.
While I expect this fight to take place mostly on the feet and in the clinch, I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up on the ground at some point either. In interviews, Casey has acknowledged her grappling advantage and actually trying for takedowns. While we've seen bad defensive wrestling from Casey recently, her takedowns against Stanciu looked very strong. Though Hill will put up much more resistance than Stanciu, one can't say either way whether it will be enough to keep the fight standing. The last person that tried to ground Hill was Ashley Yoder, and she got Hill to the ground three times in that fight despite being a much weaker girl than Casey.
Finally, Hill's cardio is one of her weak points whereas Casey has had no problems fighting hard for 3 rounds (with the exception of her very short notice debut against Calderwood). As mentioned earlier, if Casey can grind on Hill early on, Hill's mobiliity and technical advantages will be diminished later in the fight.
Betting wise, Casey decision above +200 was a great line. Another option is to livebet Casey if Hill barely edges out the first round. Hill should have less success working her game in the later rounds.
i'm not a fighter but I know a lot about fighting
