Mad Bets: UFC Overeem vs. Sakai Betting Odds
Minty Bets is joined by WagerTalk's Gianni The Greek to preview the UFC Fight Night main event between Alistair Overeem vs. Augusto Sakai on Sat. September 5.
Video Transcript
KELLY STEWART: UFC Fight Night is this Saturday, August 5th. I'm here with Gianni The Greek. You might have seen him on UFC as a betting analyst, and he's also my Wager Talk colleague. Gianni, we've got an exciting heavyweight bout as our main event is between Augusto Sakai, plus 165, versus Alistair Overeem at minus 190. What do you think of this one?
GIANNIS KARALIS: I've actually placed a bet on this fight, Minty. And I'm probably going to bet it again, especially as we approach fight night and the bettors get involved. Because I really do believe you're going to see an influx of money continue to come in on the Alistair Overeem side.
In fact, at one point when this line opened, it got bet all the way up to minus 270, and that's when I got involved. On the Sakai side, now he's down to around that plus 165 range. So I'm hoping I could get a little bit better by waiting, but I think there's a lot of value there.
We do have recency bias with Overeem. We just saw him win as an underdog against Walt Harris. I think that is why that recency bias gives us some more value on Augusto Sakai.
And more importantly, he's a heavyweight who's only had four UFC fights-- two wins by knockout, two wins by split decision. There's a lot of randomness that are split decisions. And I know a lot of bettors don't give fighters credit for them as a victory.
And again, that's why Sakai's the underdog here. But, real quickly, 29 years versus 40 years old. That's a huge discrepancy. Once they get over 40, them fighters lose close to 2 out two to 3 times they enter the octagon.
11 years difference? That guy usually wins close to 67% of the time. So bucking the age trend-- very hard to do, especially that far apart.
And finally, the buy-in for Sakai lands over five stripes per minute. In the heavyweight division-- unheard of. And a takedown defense of about 83%? He's just perfectly matched for Alistair, and I think it's a winnable fight for him. So at plus money, I got to get involved.
KELLY STEWART: Wow. Love the dogs. Love that pick. Thank you so much, Gianni.
GIANNIS KARALIS: Thanks for having me.
KELLY STEWART: If you weren't in on the action, head over to betmgm.com/yahoo. New users get 100% match up to $1,000. Available in Colorado, New Jersey, West Virginia, and Indiana.
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