UFC Fox 23 - Pena vs Shevchenko - Denver

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MMA Goodfella said:
Valentina "Bullet" Shevchenko vs. Julianna "The Venezuelan Vixen" Pena
Fighting against Shevchenko, you are almost always going to start out behind the eight ball given her incredible versatility as a full on mixed martial artist. Shevchenko is a Muay-Thai world champion as well as being a Master of Sport in boxing, taekwondo, and kickboxing as well as owning black and brown belts in the grappling arts of Brazilian jui-jitsu and judo respectively.

A vaunted kickboxer/Muay-Thai striker Shevchenko has been on a tear lately. The credentialed striking specialist has shored up her wrestling with stout takedown defense and — as mentioned — possesses an estimable grappling game should things go south. Fighting out of the southpaw stance, "The Bullet" works behind a battering ram of a right jab which is often trailed with a sizzling left cross to finish the powerful sequence. Her striking assault is chock-full of vicious hands, knees and kicks. Shevchenko is quick and accurate enough to have success from the fringe yet athletic enough to accentuate her attack with myriad spinning techniques.

Following her victory on the TUF 18 tournament, Pena was out of competition for roughly two years after shredding her ACL, MLC and LCL in training. She's returned a beast. Pena fights much like "Diego Sanchez" circa 2007. Pressing forward with hands held high and chin tucked, she aims to bury her head into her opponents chest and make it a ugly war. Pena is a gritty wrestle-boxer who achieves success not from elite athleticism, but rather the willingness to get dirty in there.

Essentially, Pena uses her striking as a smokescreen to clinch and/or set up the takedowns. From top control Julianna is stifling with heavy hips, powerful GnP and a crafty submission mindful approach where she's simultaneously searching out choking methods.

Successful as Pena has been thus far, beating the likes of Milana Dudieva, Jessica Rakoczy and Jessica Eye does exactly your hair on fire. TBT, her only sold victory was against a Cat Zingano who had been absent from competition for over two years. Even still, Zingano was absolutely owning Pena before gassing out. The same goes with Jessica Eye. For her part Eye is on a four fight losing streak. In her fight against Eye, she was not only lit up with clean strikes in the first round, but also taken down and controlled.

Bottom line is that this fight comes down to who whether or not Julianna can bring the fight to the mat. If not, she loses. I'm betting on cannot. I anticipate the Russian sustaining the early success of Eye and Zingano as long as she is in good shape which it appears she is.

Whereas Pena has been able to bullrush her opponents and force them into a firefight or take them down, Valentina is on a completely different level of striking then anyone the Venezuelan native has faced. Look for Valentina to utilize sharp angles and technical striking to bust up the brawling Pena with clean, powerful and accurate counter strikes.

Pena is just at too many disadvantage here to bet her unless she hit +200 IMO.

I like Valentina SU and a flier on a fourth and fifth round stoppage. If you believe Pena wins then I believe that you should be doing so banking on her conditioning getting it done as in the Eye and Zingano outings. If so I would just play at her by decision.

Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone vs Jorge "Gamebred" Masvidal
This is a difficult fight to predict given that both men have fight ending abilities, are in the prime of their career. Of course Cowboy and Masvidal have both acclimated well to the WW division with records of 4-0 and 3-2 respectively. Though Cowboy is flawless, Masvidal's record may be a bit deceiving given that he could easily be 4-1 or even 5-0 with different judges. However since I believe Donald should only be around a -115 favorite, I'm going to play devils advocate for Masvidal. This is because of value and the fact that I think he has a very good chance of winning outright.

First thing, I like Masvidal's crisp boxing and tight fundamental which could make Cowboy pay for his bad habit of standing too upright and throwing strikes from the pocket with his head bolt straight. As much as Cowboy has improved, he continues to get hit too often.

This will be the first time in some while that Cowboy has faced a pugilist with the precision of Masvidal's boxing. The last time he fought a boxer who had this level of skill was against Nate Diaz where he was beaten from pillar to post. Granted, Cerrone has gotten infinitely better since that loss. That said, Masvidal has too. I do believe that Masvidal's wrestling defense is good enough to keep him on his feet and his striking is good enough to present Cowboy with enough problems to out point him. Indeed, I don't recall a time when Masvidal was unable to be competitive against an elite striker. From Santiago Ponzinibio to Lorenz Larkin to Ross Pearson and other striking specialists, Masvidal is always right there.

They only thing that holds me back with Masvidal is his history of being too nonchalant in the cage. Fighting like he's stuck in first gear with the inability of shifting through the phases. This even in a tight contest. As such, I won't be putting too much stock in him cashing my ticket. However, he does seem to understand how his passivity has cost him wins and for that seems to be performing at a higher speed. Particularly, getting out of the gate quicker than before. in what I think is a dog or pass situation I'm opting to put a little bit on the dog. Now if Jorge were to get around +150 I would get more aggressive with the wallet. As it stands, I'm putting a sprinkle on his ML at +130 and a bit more on Masvidal x decision at +241.

I will post a brief synopsis on the rest of the matches later today and if anyone has any particular questions or fight/bets to consider just ask.
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FYI -- Masvidal never fought Ponzi. I'm guessing you must be thinking of James Krause or Tim Means?

I agree though. I like Masvidal here for value too.
 
BigNasty said:
Ummm not quite! If using straight bets, that money is yours. If team A&B won, but team C lost you'd be risking 2700 that was yours. Yes, the net for the day may have been the 300 you started with but it was yours to do what you want with. Each profit is YOUR "hard earned money" before you decide to place it on the next bet.
Your logic assumes:
300 original bet
Team A odds + 200 - PROFIT 600 plus bet of 300 Bankroll = 900
Team B odds + 200 - PROFIT 1800 plus bet of 900 Bankroll = 2700
Team C odds + 200 - PROFIT 5400 plus bet of 2700 Bankroll = 8100
Total profit 7800 plus original BR of 300 for a new total bankroll of 8100.

This is a broken down how a parlay is though. To achieve this through straight bets you'd have to decide to up your stakes and bet 900 on Team B and 2700 on team C. Most people preach bankroll management and would continue betting 300 for each fight.
So if they just bet by unit and didn't "let it all ride" they would have profited 1800 vs 7800.
This is why I say some people should mix in parlays. Most of us aren't comfortable betting 9x our usual stakes when we already have the money in our account.
Note: these levels are much higher too. I recommend a much smaller amount staked for parlays.
In other words - If a bettor is accustomed to betting 300 per fight - and bets on a -300 favorite to win 100. I think it would be more profitable to do 30 $10 mixed parlays. The 300 bet alone would lose 1/4 times or so. The 3 parlays give a lot of chances to win - and that could possibly be a lot more than 100 bucks.
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no man, just no. I don't think you fully grasp the math and involved and you think the money you're losing is negligible. I'd ask you to humor me and chart your parlays for the next three months worth of events so we can test your theory but frankly I don't think you will.
 
gonzalez is 6 2 doesnt look skinny but makes LW.. how the fuck is it possible?
 
Wha the fck`? meathead missed weight? mother fuckah NOOOOOOOOO!!
 
Joseph Budden said:
Aljo most shredded fighter to weigh in. Confidence increase
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if we both get banned after this event know that it was nice 2 meet you...

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raw
 
Officer_Brown said:
Wha the fck`? meathead missed weight? mother fuckah NOOOOOOOOO!!
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by how much? and did he look bad? missed the start of the weigh-ins

edit; found the weight-in results looks like lima did not even try to make the weight =/

  • MAIN CARD (FOX, 8 p.m. ET)
    • Valentina Shevchenko (134.4) vs. Julianna Pena (135)
    • Donald Cerrone (170.8) vs. Jorge Masvidal (171)
    • Andrei Arlovski () vs. Francis Ngannou ()
    • Alex Caceres (145) vs. Jason Knight (145.6)
    PRELIMINARY CARD (5 p.m. ET, FS1)
    • Sam Alvey (185.6) vs. Nate Marquardt ()
    • Raphael Assuncao (135.4) vs. Aljamain Sterling (135.8)
    • Li Jingliang (170.4) vs. Bobby Nash (170.8)
    • Luis Henrique da Silva (205.8) vs. Jordan Johnson (205)
    • Alessio Di Chirico (185.6) vs. Eric Spicely (185.8)
    • Jeremy Kimball (204) vs. Marcos Rogerio de Lima (209.6)
    PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass, 4 p.m. ET)
    • Alexandre Pantoja (126) vs. Eric Shelton (125.8)
    • J.C. Cottrell () vs. Jason Gonzalez (156)
 
Officer_Brown said:
if we both get banned after this event know that it was nice 2 meet you...

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raw
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Also, even though I didn't see him weigh in, guessing Lima looked like shit to miss weight by 4lbs and hes usually pretty soft as is at 205. Time to hit Kimball itd as my degen stab here
 
Before people use Zingano vs Pena as a measure of her wrestling/grappling, know that Zingano was constantly trying to sweep rather than stand up, Shev won't play that game, her main focus will be to get back to her feet.
 
Joseph Budden said:
rhobh-404-dog-02.gif


Also, even though I didn't see him weigh in, guessing Lima looked like shit to miss weight by 4lbs and hes usually pretty soft as is at 205. Time to hit Kimball itd as my degen stab here
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lol @ that pic

I'm kinda thinking the opposite though myself. De Lima will have a pretty significant size/strength advantage here. This one likely wasn't going to last long either way, so I think it might actually favor De Lima. Of course if it goes past the first round that could all change.
 
Sadistics said:
Before people use Zingano vs Pena as a measure of her wrestling/grappling, know that Zingano was constantly trying to sweep rather than stand up, Shev won't play that game, her main focus will be to get back to her feet.
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she's not great at getting up from what i recall..
 
chemmy said:
lol @ that pic

I'm kinda thinking the opposite though myself. De Lima will have a pretty significant size/strength advantage here. This one likely wasn't going to last long either way, so I think it might actually favor De Lima. Of course if it goes past the first round that could all change.
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Yeah I definitely considered what you're saying, which is why I also sprinkled some money on "ends in round 1"
 
EzFlyer said:
she's not great at getting up from what i recall..
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This is true, but you gotta think she's training TDD and getups non-stop leading up to this fight as that's the only area Pena has the advantage.
 
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