The Brazil vs The World theme returns as the UFC returns to Rio Saturday and if this goes down like UFC 134, betting the hometown heroes will be profitable.
Last time, eight fights involved Brazilians and MMA fighters from the rest of the world and the hosts were 7-1, including some dramatic upsets. The UFC 142 odds menu features seven such matchups this time.
The lines have jumped around although not much movement on the headlining Jose Aldo vs Chad Mendes featherweight championship bout. The champion Aldo remains a -240 favorite at most sportsbooks while the unbeaten wrestler Mendes is roughly +200 (or 2/1 odds) at shops like Sportsbook.
Do you bet against the champion fighting in front of a rabid, noisy stadium? Do so at your peril, but Mendes has the ability to ground and pound the champ if he can avoid Aldo’s strikes and leg kicks.
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The co-Main Event features the jackhammer fists of Vitor Belfort against Anthony Johnson, an American who moves up from welterweight. But if you think that weight class jump is too much, remember that Johnson was huge for a welterweight and won’t have to cut nearly as much weight to fight at 185.
Interestingly, the best UFC odds on this one has moved in Rumble Johnson’s favour and you can get both men at -110 (basically even odds) at some shops like Sportsbook. The Phenom can be lethal but bettors see upset potential here.
The final Brazil vs USA tilt sees Rousimar Palhares facing American Mike Massenzio. Palhares is a bear at middleweight who has been winning impressively and is the second-biggest favorite on the card. (The biggest chalk is young Erick Silva facing veteran Carlo Prater in a battle of Brazilians).
While those matches feature Americans as challengers, there are also two Canadians on the UFC 142 odds menu. Sam Hands of Stone Stout faces submission specialist Thiago Tavares, who is a -140 favorite. Tavares has lost when stepping up in competition and faces a scrappy striker in Stout, who has won four of five Octagon battles.
Antonio Carvalho of Toronto faces Felipe Arantes in the other Brazil vs Canada scrap. Carvalho is -225 as the favorite.
Ricardo Funch and Mike Pyle will scrap in a battle of Americans (after Brazil’s Paulo Thiago was injured in training) with Pyle a big -450 favorite.
And in an upset pick that many MMA bettors are playing, Japan’s Michihiro Omigawa is a +160 dog against Yuri Alcantara. Omigawa has struggled in the UFC but many believe he has plenty to prove and will do it here.
Read the UFC betting preview courtesy of Sportsbook as well.
UFC Betting: Public, Sharps Enamored With Mendes at UFC 142
UFC 142 is heading to Rio de Janeiro and the card is packed with Brazilians for the hometown faithful. UFC betting fans will see as many as 12 Brazilians step into the octagon, which will undoubtedly help local ticket sales.
The card will be headlined by UFC Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo, who is fighting back in his home country for the first time since 2007. He’ll take on American Chad Mendes, who would love nothing more than to ruin the Brazilian love fest on Saturday.
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Sportsbook Sportsbook offers great value on both fighters in the Aldo-Mendes bout for UFC 142, so bet the action now before the MMA betting lines shift. Visit Sportsbook for round by round odds and whether a fight will end by submission, decision or KO.
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“Money” Mendes Attracting the Money
When we opened up the betting lines for the main event at UFC 142, we expected the early plays to come in on Jose “Scarface” Aldo. After all, he’s the champ and he’s going to have the home crowd behind him.
As predicted, that was the case as the public and sharps piled in on December 11th to move the line up to -265, which is where it’s currently at.
But in the last couple of days, we’ve seen plenty of action coming in on Mendes at +205 and if this continues throughout the week, we could see the first time that we’d be on the Aldo side in one of his fights. Usually, the public and sharps are all over him and his wins tends to cost the sportsbooks money.
Case and point: Aldo is 4-0 as a favorite dating back to his days in WEC. He’s 2-0 in the UFC (both as a favorite). If the odds closed at -265 in his favor, that would be the shortest odds on him since he fought Urijah Faber at WEC 48 when he was a -275 favorite.
Can Mendes Do The Unthinkable?
In betting terms, an upset win for Mendes wouldn’t be crazy. We see 2-to-1 underdogs win on a fairly regular basis in the sports world, so it’s not an unreasonable proposition. But from a theoretical standpoint, this feels like quite the challenge for Mendes.
For starters, he’ll be one of only four non-Brazilians on the main card. He’ll be in hostile territory in Brazil – fighting outside of the United States for the first time – with the crowd squarely against him. Furthermore, this is clearly the biggest fight of his young career and his first headline bout.
On top of that, he’s going up against Aldo, who Sherdog ranks as the fifth-best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. He’s on a 13-fight winning streak while Mendes doesn’t even have 13 fights on his resume.
Bettors love the fact that Mendes is the far superior wrestler in this bout and if he can just take Aldo to the ground, he should have the upper hand.
Mendes has been favored in all six of his lined fights (dating back to WEC) and he’s a perfect 6-0 in those contests.
Can Aldo Stay Standing?
We hear this quite a bit with Jose Aldo: if the fight gets to the ground, he could be in trouble. Sure, we saw Mark Hominick take him down to the mat at UFC 129 and give him a bit of a scare even after Aldo won the better part of three rounds, but for the most part, Aldo has been outstanding at preventing opponents from imposing their will.
We heard many of the same strategic plans expected to be employed by Urijah Faber at WEC 48 but Aldo put on a stand up clinic for five rounds and that was that.
Until we see it come to fruition, Aldo is still going to be considered one of the best and odds makers will set the lines accordingly.
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UFC 142 takes place on Saturday night and Sportsbook Sportsbook has great value on all of the betting lines for the card, so take advantage of the action right now.
