Crassus' Combat Sports Thread

[NunyaBidness]

I saw it before it was changed. Seriously, why is your email address g.killian@gmail.com?

[Vaughany]

looool

Gaberzwinnerz@yahoo.com

[Crassus]

Profit so Far: 31.44U
2U on
Michael Chandler -255
Emanuel Newton -280
to win 1.78U

2U on Diet Pitbull at +100 to win 2U

2.1U on Renato Sobral at -210 to win 1U

[Crassus]

2U on Big Ben Rothwell at +100 to win 2U

2.2U on Wagner Prado at -220 to win 1U

1.85U on Khabib Nurmagomedov at -185 to win 1U

3U on Michael Bisping vs Vitor Belfort doesn't go to decision at -170 to win 1.76U

1U on Ben Rothwell inside the distance at +185 to win 1.85U

[Crassus]

Last bets for a while. Sometimes a break is good, it did me great efforts last time. Gonna bet around 15U and end this portion up 11.68U.

Total Profit so Far: 26.68U

5U on Rampage Jackson at +260 to win 13U
5U on Anthony Pettis at -125 to win 4U
2U on Hatsu Hioki at +180 to win 3.6U
3U on Zab Judah at +525 to win 15.75U

[Crassus]

Total profit so far: 26.68U

So I took a break for the last couple of events like I said and I just watched them as fan again and just enjoyed the fights. I think it was good for me. This one I'm gonna be trying out something different, I'm just gonna post my thought processes on the fights and such mainly because I think it'll help to write through it and also get feedback from you guys. I won't be making predictions on the fights, just noting strengths and weaknesses etc.

I'll post my picks on Friday once I've watched all of the tape I want to. Here's the tape I'm going to watch

Firstly: Every fighter on the cards last two fights, and in between that their opponents last two fights. so I have a better gauge of them as fighters and how they match-up.

Starting off with:

Reuben Duran vs George Roop (Will post in an hour after watching tape)

[Sacrelicious]

[Vaughany]

coolio bruv

[Crassus]

Might take a while more than an hour, forgot about some shit I had to do. But it'll happen, not to worry.

[Crassus]

alright lets start with Duran vs Roop.

Duran is 1-1 in his last two fights. Two fights ago he submitted Francisco Rivera with a third round rear-naked, in a fight where he was probably going to lose the split decision in my opinion. He displayed admirable stand-up but against a muay thai guy like Rivera (who despite losing to Erik Koch and Duran in a row, has excellent striking) but his takedowns didn't look terribly impressive and his ground game looked good but not amazing. Rivera's last two fights were against Koch and a TKO over little known Fernando Bernstein. He definitely looked bad against Koch and I was unable to find video of him vs Bernstein, but against Duran he looked good.

His last fight was almost a year and a half after his fight against Rivera, where he lost by first round KO to Hugo Viana. I think he looked a little rusty in the fight, and was definitely having some issues dealing with Viana's huge punches. He displayed a meh chin but excellent recovery, I.E. he dropped easily but quickly regained his senses ala Wanderlei against Stann. Viana before this point hadn't displayed that kind of power, his last two fights were both decisions, but with the drop I think his strength translated well with the weight-cut. Duran also looked enormous, definitely a huge bantamweight. Interestingly, Viana is fighting Rivera next fight.

George Roop:

George Roop is 0-2 in his last two fights and is memorable for KO'ing Korean Zombie and getting KO'ed by Mark friggin Hominick. Roop is dropping to Bantamweight from Featherweight, and has had a long-ish layover (14 months) due to injuries.

Roop's second to last fight was a split decision loss to Hatsu Hioki. Against Hioki Roop at the beginning looked good, strong stand-up and excellent TDD. I think he lost the first round and the second, so not a terrible decision. Roop looks lanky as hell at 145, god knows how he'll look at 135. He looked good in the last round against a gassed Hioki but displayed pretty meh bottom game during the fight overall.

Against Swanson, Roop looked solid-ish. Against a guy like Swanson who just eat his punches and kept coming in, his stand-up was insufficient to keep Swanson at bay. Roop paid once again for keeping his chin up and untucked and was down from a huge punch from Swanson in the second.

My thoughts:

Roop is gonna have to display much better abilities to keep Duran at bay. Duran has decent takedowns and is a big, compact enough bantamweight I don't think Roop will be able to stop him. If he is able to keep Duran at bay I think it's gonna be good. Roop is gonna look crazy at 135, he's so lanky and tall (like 6'1") and to be fighting at 135 is crazy. That and he's had a year long layoff. Duran has gotta show better more explosive takedowns (he didn't shoot for a single one against Viana) and he's gotta display better fight IQ. I don't think his stand-up is on Roops level and his power isn't something to really write home to knit-picky thinks he's better than me because he's all fancy and smart and knows all the big words and special rules for sentences and stuff cause he's all so high and mighty Beelzebubzy.

[Beelzebubzy]

Isn't it "write home about "?

[Crassus]

Isn't it "write home about "?

Literacy is second to picking winnerz in the fight analysis game, and before everyone freaks out, it's simply tied with Hog Analysis at second. Not to worry, I would never forget that.

[Beelzebubzy]

No worries. We are all here to learn.

Just never say "would of" it is "would have"

[Beelzebubzy]

Good breakdown. Best of luck Saturday

[Crassus]

Thanks man, are you thinking of having any action on this fight?

[MD]

I'm all over Duran. I think he wins 70-75% of the time.

[Crassus]

I'm all over Duran. I think he wins 70-75% of the time.

I mean he seems like a bad match-up for Roop. A short compact guy who thrives on takedowns off the cage, which roop is susceptible too. Also he has shown some good G&P and takes advantage of scrambles. At the same time, Duran showed some bad fight IQ (trying just to shuck off a tight guillotine, if Rivera hadn't been meh on the ground it could have been sinched up even tighter and the fight ended. Not too worried about Roop's ground game but it's still a sign of poor decision making.

[Vaughany]

alright lets start with Duran vs Roop.

Duran is 1-1 in his last two fights. Two fights ago he submitted Francisco Rivera with a third round rear-naked, in a fight where he was probably going to lose the split decision in my opinion. He displayed admirable stand-up but against a muay thai guy like Rivera (who despite losing to Erik Koch and Duran in a row, has excellent striking) but his takedowns didn't look terribly impressive and his ground game looked good but not amazing. Rivera's last two fights were against Koch and a TKO over little known Fernando Bernstein. He definitely looked bad against Koch and I was unable to find video of him vs Bernstein, but against Duran he looked good.

His last fight was almost a year and a half after his fight against Rivera, where he lost by first round KO to Hugo Viana. I think he looked a little rusty in the fight, and was definitely having some issues dealing with Viana's huge punches. He displayed a meh chin but excellent recovery, I.E. he dropped easily but quickly regained his senses ala Wanderlei against Stann. Viana before this point hadn't displayed that kind of power, his last two fights were both decisions, but with the drop I think his strength translated well with the weight-cut. Duran also looked enormous, definitely a huge bantamweight. Interestingly, Viana is fighting Rivera next fight.

George Roop:

George Roop is 0-2 in his last two fights and is memorable for KO'ing Korean Zombie and getting KO'ed by Mark friggin Hominick. Roop is dropping to Bantamweight from Featherweight, and has had a long-ish layover (14 months) due to injuries.

Roop's second to last fight was a split decision loss to Hatsu Hioki. Against Hioki Roop at the beginning looked good, strong stand-up and excellent TDD. I think he lost the first round and the second, so not a terrible decision. Roop looks lanky as hell at 145, god knows how he'll look at 135. He looked good in the last round against a gassed Hioki but displayed pretty meh bottom game during the fight overall.

Against Swanson, Roop looked solid-ish. Against a guy like Swanson who just eat his punches and kept coming in, his stand-up was insufficient to keep Swanson at bay. Roop paid once again for keeping his chin up and untucked and was down from a huge punch from Swanson in the second.

My thoughts:

Roop is gonna have to display much better abilities to keep Duran at bay. Duran has decent takedowns and is a big, compact enough bantamweight I don't think Roop will be able to stop him. If he is able to keep Duran at bay I think it's gonna be good. Roop is gonna look crazy at 135, he's so lanky and tall (like 6'1") and to be fighting at 135 is crazy. That and he's had a year long layoff. Duran has gotta show better more explosive takedowns (he didn't shoot for a single one against Viana) and he's gotta display better fight IQ. I don't think his stand-up is on Roops level and his power isn't something to really write home to knit-picky thinks he's better than me because he's all fancy and smart and knows all the big words and special rules for sentences and stuff cause he's all so high and mighty Beelzebubzy.

Worth noting tht Roop has cut to BW before in WEC against Wineland and looked very lacklustre - although obviously Wineland is no joke so may have just been more to do with him being outclassed. But still, he didnt stay at BW after that fight so clearly didnt feel comfortable there. Going back there now seems like a desperation move to me

[Crassus]

^^ good point Vaughany!

Moving on to Patrick Cote vs Bobby Voelker

This will be Cote's first fight at 170 in the UFC, he was always kind of a soft 185'er so I expect him to be insanely strong at 170 if he pulls it off right. Voelker is a big 170er himself but he's also coming off an almost two year layover. I can't tell if it's injuries or just dealing with the strikeforce takeover and lack of shows. It'll be interesting because so far as I can see, he's never had a layover this long.

Patrick Cote is 1-1 in his last two fights, but probably should be 0-2. His first loss was a decision against Cung Le in July of '12. Cote displayed decent striking (he definitely had his moments in the stand-up against an excellent striker such as Cung Le but overall he was picked apart.) He also displayed pretty poor TDD but again that can be also attributed to the fact that you don't really expect takedowns from Cung Le, who throws em in with the striking pretty well. Cung Le before that had avenged his first ever loss to Scott Smith with a kicking clinic and then had lost to Wanderlei Silva when he gassed hard in the second round and Wanderlei landed some brutal knees. Cote definitely impressed me with A) his chin (no dropping, not even rocked) and B) his cardio, he was going hard into the third round.

Cote's last fight was against Alessio Sakara, it was counted as a win because of Sakara's repeated blows to the back of the head. Still, I think the majority were legal shots and that it probably deserved to be a TKO, this is interesting given that Cote before this point had never really been knocked out, just a knee injury against Anderson Silva. I definitely think what rocked him was an elbow to the back of the head, but after that he couldn't keep up and got legitimately finished.

Cote looked lackluster against Sakara, he had him rocked and showed excellent punching defense against Sakara but once Sakara started throwing uncharacteristic elbows, Cote got rocked and eventually finished. This was in November of '12 in Montreal (Cote's home) and I think he went a little faster than usual to try and get a cool KO for the fans. I also think this will add to his training as he definitely seems to feel obligated to win for the french Canadians.

Sakara was 0-2 leading up to that fight. A thorough wrestling by Chris Weidman came first where Sakara looked decent in the first, defending a couple takedowns but eventually got worn down by Weidman's G&P. He was then knocked out by Brian Stann, in a short fight where he wasn't able to get much going and Stann was in control the entire time. Really not too telling of a last two fights.

Voelker is 2-0 in his last two fights, with both fights coming against Roger Bowling. Before his first fight with Voelker, Bowling had lost to Voelker in a technical decision and then had won a decision against unknown Josh Thornburg. Thornburg fight was impressive but didn't tell me much other than when matched up with a clearly inferior opponent, Bowling looks awesome. Whenver Thornburg found an opening his advantage lasted a couple seconds before Bowling easily swept him away.

In both fights against Bowling, both fighters had their moments but Voelker was able to power through and take out the ever game Bowling. He's definitely a hard nosed fighter, but I worried about his willingness to take punches (Granted maybe he knew that Bowling could only hurt him with the body shots.) His striking was good and he had excellent recovery for when he was hurt and took some atrocious kicks to the body from Bowling without even blinking. Saw poor TDD but excellent scrambling ability. He's definitely a tough guy but I'd be surprised if he isn't noticeably smaller than Cote despite being around an inch taller.

Interesting match-up, definitely depends on Cote's weight-cut. If it's bad, Voelker will probably have comparable strength and much better cardio.

[Crassus]

Total profit so far: 20.68U

Lost 5U though I didn't record it.

Coming back:
2U on Gilbert Melendez at +255 to win 5.1U
1.5U on Lorenz Larkin at +115 to win 1.725U
1.5U on Yoel Romero at -150 to win 1U

[Crassus]

Well this is a crazy thread, good to read back on it. Haven't recorded picks in a while, might as well start again since it was fun while I was doing it. I've been up more than down recently but meh, no big deal. Currently up 21.5U (was up 30 but then Vinny and Machida happened), but none of that is really confirmed so I'll be sure to keep results differentiated.

So UFC on FS1 is in two days, gonna go see it, pretty pumped overall. I got:

2.5U on Shogun at +110 to win 2.75U
0.5U on Shogun ITD at +260 to win 1.3U

3U Parlay of
Urijah Faber at -260
Alistair Overeem at -230
OSP -300
Joe Lauzon -225
to win 8.48U

3U on Joe Lauzon at -225 to win 1.3U

2.3U on Alistair Overeem at -230 to win 1U

1U bias play on John Howard at +335 to win 3.35U

1U on Nathan Cleverly at evens to win 1U

2U parlay of
Gary Buckland at -300
Ovill McKenzie at -260
to win: 1.6U

Total Risk: 15.3U

liking a lot of favorites this weekend other than Shogun. I can't see Browne giving Overeem much trouble, same with Alcantera and Johnson. Johnson is gonna get proper wrecked by Lauzon.

[Vaughany]

look good to me son

[MD]

You always bet on Shogun, no matter who he's fighting. I think you should have put the entire 3U on Shogun ITD, though. The odds of him winning a decision are astronomically low.

I like the parlay, all the legs are +EV in my opinion.

[Vaughany]

ye I just played Shogun ITD

[mirinquads]

What in da penetrate did you get shogun ITD +260? Thats a sick line. Liking the plays otherwise

[Ron_Paul_2012]

Well this is a crazy thread, good to read back on it. Haven't recorded picks in a while, might as well start again since it was fun while I was doing it. I've been up more than down recently but meh, no big deal. Currently up 21.5U (was up 30 but then Vinny and Machida happened), but none of that is really confirmed so I'll be sure to keep results differentiated.

So UFC on FS1 is in two days, gonna go see it, pretty pumped overall. I got:

2.5U on Shogun at +110 to win 2.75U
0.5U on Shogun ITD at +260 to win 1.3U

3U Parlay of
Urijah Faber at -260
Alistair Overeem at -230
OSP -300
Joe Lauzon -225
to win 8.48U

3U on Joe Lauzon at -225 to win 1.3U

2.3U on Alistair Overeem at -230 to win 1U

1U bias play on John Howard at +335 to win 3.35U

1U on Nathan Cleverly at evens to win 1U

2U parlay of
Gary Buckland at -300
Ovill McKenzie at -260
to win: 1.6U

Total Risk: 15.3U

liking a lot of favorites this weekend other than Shogun. I can't see Browne giving Overeem much trouble, same with Alcantera and Johnson. Johnson is gonna get proper wrecked by Lauzon.

Looks pretty good except the Cleverly play. Kovalev is going to win, probably via KO. I would arb out of that one.

[PunisherIND]

What in da penetrate did you get shogun ITD +260? Thats a sick line. Liking the plays otherwise

Rua wins inside distance +310*vs Not Rua inside distance

[Crassus]

look good to me son

aww yeah

You always bet on Shogun, no matter who he's fighting. I think you should have put the entire 3U on Shogun ITD, though. The odds of him winning a decision are astronomically low.

I like the parlay, all the legs are +EV in my opinion.

Haha yeah, I always think it's going to be his return to form fight. I think it's all the kicking he does in training videos and none of the kicking he does in the fights. Yeah I guess that does sound better, bad call on my part.

I grabbed +260 at 5D when MD and I had our first discussion about it, when Sonnen was supposed to fight Shogun in Winnipeg on short notice. Guess PUN was even faster, that's an awesome line.

I like Cleverly to win it, I think he'll outbox Kovalev. Not in it large enough to worry about arbing it, I'm confident enough for a U.

[mirinquads]

Rua wins inside distance +310*vs Not Rua inside distance

Mirin' lines

[Crassus]

Total Revenue: 3.35U
Total Costs: (14.3U)
Net Income: (10.95U)
Previous Total Return: 21.5U
Current return: 10.55U
YEEEAAAHHHH

[Vaughany]

Bad luck brah

[Crassus]

Shit...too stoned, meant to post this in the old bets thread.