What's up people, it's James from Lucrative MMA Betting and I'm here to give you my weekly free bet and breakdown article.
My most popular post is always the free betting tips article, and theres no wonder why. I have put out five of these so far and 4 have cashed, so we are batting at a very high percentage.
For those of you who do not know me I am a professional sports bettor who specializes in MMA Betting, if you want to find out more about me you can check out my website here.
This week I will be giving you a free bet on the main event, which is Alistair Overeem vs. Alexander Volkov.
I am very excited for this fight and depending on the manner of the victory, I would expect the winner to have an argument to be fighting for the title fairly soon, or at least be involved in a number one contender match-up. Alistair Overeem is currently sitting at around +160 while Alexander Volkov can be had for around -190. I suspect action to be fairly equal on both sides at the current lines so I don’t expect the odds to change much come fight time.
I can’t hate on anybody taking a shot either way to be honest, I see paths to victory for both fighters and I think the line is fairly accurate. For those who are on Alistair Overeem this weekend, they will be hoping that The Reem can continue to implement his recently adapted fight style of getting takedowns, controlling his opponent and landing ground and pound – as this has seemed to be Volkov’s kryptonite through his 40 fight veteran career.
Now as we know, Alistair Overeem is an ex K1 champion, which at one point in time was the world’s most prestigious kickboxing promotion. You may be thinking how can you trust an ex kickboxing world champion to wrestle his opponent. If you dig deeper into Overeem’s career though, you will see that he has been steadily growing his MMA game for many, many years. Overeem has an incredible 65 MMA fights and to still be at the top of the sport is some feat. Funnily enough, he won his pro MMA debut by submission (guillotine choke) way back in 1999, so to think Alistair Overeem is new to grappling would be foolish.
What he is fairly new to though, is a gameplan revolving around takedowns as much as it does striking, he has implemented this type of gameplan over the last few years and it has seemed to have come right around the time he linked up with top UFC heavyweight Curtis Blaydes, who has the divisions best wrestling by quite a margin. After Blaydes KO’d Alistair Overeem from a wrestling top position back in June of 2018, Overeem cleverly moved training camps and started working with Blaydes in Colorado at Team Elevation. Since then he has won 4 out of his last 5 fights and implemented more takedowns than he had ever done before in his MMA career.
There is a good reason why I am talking a lot about Alistairs wrestling in this article, and that's because it directly affects the bet we are going to be making. I’ll get into that in just a moment. As for Volkov's fight style, he is a very technical, surgical striker who as I mentioned previously, is a veteran of the MMA game with 40 fights in total. He likes to use his reach to keep opponents on the outside and pick them apart from range, all while trying to line up that killshot which will finish the fight. I don’t see him fighting any different here, he will want to keep Alistair at range until he can put him to sleep. Alistair is known for having a dodgy chin these days, so he is going to need to be careful fighting against a striker on the level of Volkov.
For the above mentioned reason, I believe Alexander Volkov has a solid chance of knocking out Alistair Overeem in this fight, and it’s probably the result I lean to the most, purely because of the chin issues of The Reem. The good thing is though, for our bet that is, is that Overeem is under no illusion about his chin issues. He knows his chin is not what it used to be, and he fights as such. He does not rush in much anymore, and as I mentioned he is implementing his wrestling game more and more these days (hard to get knocked out if you are on top of your opponent, right?). I expect that if Alistair Overeem is going to get knocked out, it will come later on in the fight, possibly after fatigue starts to set in and concentration begins to waiver, as it only takes one second for consciousness to be taken in MMA.
As you can tell, I’m speaking a lot about Overeem in this article, and now I will reveal why. I believe that this bet landing basically comes down to if Overeem can survive, and because of all the reasons above, I believe he can, at least for a period.
So without further adue, the moment you have all been waiting for, the free bet is:
Alistair Overeem vs. Alexander Volkov to go OVER 1.5 rounds @ -200
I cap this bet at having about a 70-75% chance of landing, so what that means is that if these guys fought 100 times, I believe this fight would go over 1.5 rounds around 70-75 times.
1.5 rounds is only 7.5 minutes in MMA, and it’s not really that much of a long time when you think that these fighters have been preparing for a 25 minute fight. With heavyweight overs though it is always a bit sweaty, and this 7.5 units may seem like 15 minutes at times during the fight, nevertheless I feel we have a good bet here.
I see both fighters starting the fight a little cagey as they will both respect each others power. They are both veterans of the fight game and they will know better than to rush in early. Both fighters’ striking games are predicated around being technical and picking their spots and avoiding damage, it wasn’t always like this, but it’s a natural progression of a fighter in hopes to extend their career longevity, especially 40+ fight heavyweight vets. I feel the first round will be a somewhat stand-off ish affair with Volkov landing shots but Overeem sticking to the outside and avoiding too much damage, Overeem may go for a takedown or two in the first round as well which will eat up some clock time, even if it's just Volkov defending them up against the fence, I feel it’s a pretty safe bet to say that this fight gets out of the first round.
If it does, then we only have 2.5 minutes left until our bet lands. I do see more shots being landed in that second round, and there may be a hairy moment or two, but I feel that this fight is going to cruise over the 1.5 round mark and I’m fairly comfortable laying the juice on this one. I am personally putting 5 units on this bet which is a pretty big bet for me to place myself and to tip to members, but that shows my confidence in it.
Sports betting ultimately comes down to finding value on the lines, and the implied probability of a -200 line is 66%, but as I mentioned previously, I think the line should imply around a 70-75% (-233 to -300) of happening, so we have a healthy 4-9% edge on the books here in my opinion.
So one last time, the free bet for this week is:
Alistair Overeem vs. Alexander Volkov to go OVER 1.5 rounds @ -200
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Let’s hope we can cash,
Bet Smart and speak soon,
James