Total-MMA.com

After a hugely successful debut edition, Farrow and I return with new picks and lessons learned from last week’s debacle (in my case). Read on if you want to win some currency on DREAM~!

Last Week:

Farrow
Two winners - £143.50
One loser - (£100)
Total profit / loss = £43.50

Starting balance - £1,000
Balance carried forward - £1043.50

I was smart and stupid in equal measure last week. On the smart front, I expertly squeezed extra value out of Ryan Rhodes and Joe Calzaghe. On the dumb front, I took Pinnacle’s “draw in a mug punter” odds on Matt Serra but he was my outsider at the end of the weekend which would have made me big money but didn’t lose me anything. Still, I made a small profit on the weekend thanks to boxing. Ryan Rhodes KO’d Gary Woolcombe to take the British Light Middleweight title and Joe Calzaghe went the distance with Hopkins.

Iain
Zero winners - £0
Three losers - (£150)
Total Profit / loss - (£150)

Starting balance - £1,000
Balance carried forward - £850

Not winning a bet looks terrible on paper I admit, but I largely stand by my choices. Bocek justified my belief by winning the first round of the fight and looking dangerous. His cardio went slightly but it was value and only a small amount lost. Starnes was also worth a punt given the respective ability of the two fights and odds quoted. It was impossible to predict that he would decide to effectively retire from the sport after throwing his first kick in the fight. What can you do?

Backing Serra / GSP to go the distance was, in hindsight, probably a mistake. Although I expected GSP to take the fight to the ground I thought Serra may be more effective from the bottom and that we’d see a Sherk/Florian style decision. I was wrong but it was only a small-ish stake so no major damage done and certainly nothing that I can’t recover from this week.

This Week:

Farrow

Boxing-wise, I’m on shaky ground. Erdei is the only guy I want to back but he’s at ludicrous odds and it is hardly worth backing him. However, it’s DREAM on Monday so there are fights to back this weekend. So DREAM it is, with two matches in particular tickling my fancy. The problem with the DREAM card is that there are very few people actually offering odds on this show so it’s difficult to exploit differences between bookies. While last week I managed to improve my odds by 5-7%, this week there is no such luxury. As such, I’m not going to go as big on guys as I did last week.

JZ CALVANCANTI vs. Shinya Aoki - BetonFighting - £50 @ -250 (1.4)

I like JZ, I like him at this price. He’s one of the best lightweights in the world and, for my money, better than Aoki.

KIYOSHI TAMURA vs. Masakatsu Funaki - BetonFighting - £50 @ -145 (1.69)

Yes, I’ve gone for two favourites and that makes me a complete bore but I thought that this was decent value. I don’t think Funaki was all that impressive on New Year’s Eve, certainly not so impressive as to see his odds set to +115. Sure, Tamura isn’t the same Tamura who fought with such fire and energy in the late 90s but he has at least been active. As such, with good odds on the table, I’m going to whack £50 down on him.

I’m relying on both to come through with me, as you do when you back fighters with negative moneyline odds. It’s not how you acheive greatness, that’s for sure.

Summary:

CALVANCANTI - £50 @ -250 on BetonFighting
TAMURA - £50 @ -145 on BetonFighting

Current Balance - £1,043.50
Potential profit - £54.50
Potential loss - (£100,00)

Iain

In the abscence of any visible odds for the K-1 Amsterdam GP, the only event worth betting on this week seems to be Monday’s Dream event from Japan. BetOnFighting and BetCRIS are both offering markets on this show.

Taiei Kin is +265 against Ikuhisa Minowa. He’s obviously the better striker when you consider his K-1 pedigree and the fact that he was able to win a decision against a superior grappler to Minowa (in Kiyoshi Tamura) makes this interesting. If I was in profit then I would definitely speculate a little on this but as I am not I have to be more selective.

Similarly, as much as I like him, Zelg Galesic has proved more than beatable for his opponent to be +185 makes it worth a look. Sultanakhmedov is 4-1 and listed as a Muay Thai fighter but I just don’t know enough about him to be able to make a judgement on whether this is worthwhile. It should be noted that Zelg tends to struggle the most with people who are going to take him down and submit him and he absolutely destroyed a very good striker in Mark Weir on the feet so he is no joke either.

The main event is a rematch pitting JZ Calavancanti against Shinya Aoki. The first bout was eagerly anticipated and ultimately did not deliver the bout that many hoped for. Part of the reason for the anti-climatic nature of the fight was the utter dominance of the ATT member is controlling where the fight took place. Aoki had nothing for him on the feet and was unable to take him down. Whilst I don’t doubt that he is the better grappler and capable of submitting pretty much anyone in his weight class I also have complete unwavering faith in Calvan as being one of the best in world on a pound for pound basis. His game is so well-rounded already and when you consider that he trained with Eddie Bravo on how to nullify the effectiveness of the rubber guard then I would not be too overly concerned if he did wind up in Aoki’s guard.

I would have expected to see him at around -350 for this fight however both oddamakers list him at -250. This is not a certainty and far from an opportunity to “buy money” but I am confident in his ability to progress. My only doubts are the Japanese judges’ tendency to favour the home fighter but with Aoki having stated that he has no interest in fighting so quickly again if he does progress, I wonder if that will be so prevalent in this fight as it may normally be. I’m going to put £500 on Calvan to hopefully bring me back into the black overall and allow me to be a bit more adventurous next week.

Summary:

CALVANCANTI - £500 @ -250 on BetOnFighting.com

Current balance - £850
Potential profit - £200
Potential loss - (£500)