MMA ODDS AND ENDS FOR THURSDAY: JACARE VS. OKAMI RUMORED
UFC president Dana White today revealed to reporters a middleweight bout between former Strikeforce middleweight champion Ronaldo”Jacare” Souza and Yushin Okami is being targeted for a future event. The battle is intriguing in some ways, but it might prove to be a massive stinker if Okami’s game plan would be to push Souza contrary to the fence for 15 minutes. Although Souza is a fine grappler in his own right, he is bigger than Okami and could have issues with his size if Okami’s strategy is to simply wall-and-stall, which he tends to perform in nearly all his fights. However, if the grappling neutralizes each other and the fight becomes a stand-up battle then it’s much more probable that Souza wins. The Brazilian’s hands have gotten much better in recent years and although Okami is a nice striker in his own right, his brow is quite suspect at this stage of his career and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Souza won the fight via TKO. The struggle will be nearer than the public believes, as I’m sure they will be over Souza. As such, I anticipate”Jacare” to start at about -200 together with the comeback on Okami being +150. I really do favor Souza slightly because he does have the striking benefit but if the line reaches the +200 mark for Okami the wager might be on him. It’s a close fight though and also the ideal play could just be to pass it altogether unless the lineup retains absurd value for either man. Koch vs. Poirier Added to UFC 164 According to MMAweekly.com, a featherweight lean between Erik Koch and Dustin Poirier has been added to the upcoming UFC 164 card, which takes place August 31 at Bradley Center in Milwaukee, WI, which is the city Koch stands out of. This really is an exceptional matchup between two men hovering around the top 10 of this UFC featherweight division and I expect it to become tightly contested, so much so that I see the opening betting line being about a Select’em of -115 for each fighter. Although Koch gets the striking edge, Poirier has the grappling advantage and as Koch revealed in his last fight against Ricardo Lamas, he is definitely vulnerable to being placed on his back. But when he can keep the fight standing he has a very good prospect of knocking”The Diamond” out. I don’t have a lean either way yet within this fight and my wager will probably rely on where the betting public takes the line. Thales Leites Returns to UFC Former UFC middleweight title challenger Thales Leites is coming to the UFC after winning six of his last seven fights since being cut by the advertising following back-to-back losses to Anderson Silva at UFC 97 and Alessio Sakara at UFC 101. The news was reported now by Sportv.Globo.com. Even though a great deal of people are amazed by Leites coming, I am not. Leites is actually an extremely solid middleweight fighter and in my view that he must haven’t been published in the first place because shedding to Silva was an automatic loss on his album and the judges absolutely chased him against Sakara. There has been no competition named for Leites in his return but expect him to compete on the UFC 163 card against one of the division’s lower-end fighters, perhaps someone from TUF 17.
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