UFC 312 Preview

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Greetings and welcome to my main event preview for UFC
three twelve. As always, I'm your host Luca Fury from
Fury's Fight Picks, and I'll be covering Sean Strickland versus
Dricus du plus C number two. Drecus won a very
close but rightful decision the first time around. Now for

(00:22):
the rematch, Drecas is at the best available price minus
two hundred. Best price on Strickland is plus one seventy five.
So as close as the first tight was and not
really too much has changed since then, it's kind of
surprising to see the line as high as it is.
I'm not quite sure I agree with that, as I

(00:43):
will get into. The only thing I could really think
of that would contribute to that is they both beat
Israel Lota Sonia. Although Strickland for the most part just
kind of jabbed and cheaped him. He did knock him
down at one point, of course, but Dricus actually went
out there and finished him. So maybe that is swaying
some of that movement towards him. But if you actually

(01:06):
look at the fights overall, Sean did better. There was
times where Dricus looked really bad against Israel, like he
was about to actually lose before he eventually got the finish,
whereas Strickland, for the most part, was kind of cruising
from start to finish. It was close. It wasn't like
you completely dominated Israel, but it wasn't like the Drekis
fight where there were times where you're like, oh man,
you might actually lose here. So again, for a variety

(01:27):
of reasons, I don't understand what the line is now
up to two to one. I will get to that
more in just a second. Here, of course, is a
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(01:47):
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(02:09):
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(02:31):
So with that aside, getting back to the fight breakdowns here,
I ultimately will be still picking drikus U plus e
to win the fight again by decision, but it's automatically
a dogger pass situation given where that line is, I
don't know if I'm going to bet strickly At this
point in time, I have not gotten to that point

(02:53):
of my analysis of it. I've done all my tape
studying everything, but now I'm still in the analysis point
where I'm just kind of digesting everything and going back
analyzing everything, determining where I think the line should be.
Is there actually value and at this one in time
again I would say that it's dog or pass. Is
there enough at plus one seventy I'm leaning towards the yes,

(03:14):
but I am still again ultimately picking Drikus du plus C.
I think it's a very close fight. I think you
should be slightly favored, but again I need to think
about it more if I actually am going to bet
strictly in near again. The reason why I'm going to
be picking du plus c though, is well, there's two reasons. One,
look at how the first fight went and now Drikus
is the champion. And something I talk about time and

(03:35):
time and time again on these podcasts because it is
a true factor that does play into these fights. There
is a champion bias throughout UFC history, not one hundred
percent of the time, but probably like ninety percent of
the time. If there is a very close decision, even
if the champion deserved to lose it, it usually goes
to them. It's a saying in boxing, I think is

(03:58):
where it came from that in order to be the champ,
you have to beat the champ, meaning you have to
do it convincingly. And some people will actually take that
literally and say, oh, well, that's the rules. Is that, yes,
it was a close decision, but to beat the champ,
you gotta beat them. So even though he deserved a
close decision, he didn't do it dominant enough to take
the bell. That's not a thing that's absolutely not in

(04:18):
the rules. There's literally nothing even remotely close to the
sort of that in the rules. However, the way judges
score the fights, it's kind of like an unwritten rule
that is there. So it's just something you have to consider.
If we get a very close decision, it's probably gonna
go to Drikus. Not only that, I'm not saying the

(04:38):
UFC sways the judges are any way like that. I'm
not accusing them of corruption. However, another thing that if
you look back through UFC history, I've been watching this
sport every single card, every single week live for twenty
years now, betting them for fifteen, which means tape studying
them for fifteen years. I have watched as much tape
out there over the last fifteen to twenty as many

(05:00):
MME fights as about anybody out there. And again, just
like there is a champion bias, there's also a UFC
favorite bias. Who they want to win generally does end
up coming to play a factor if it's a close fight,
a close decision, and Strickland is a disaster on the
MIC for the UFC He's been very inflammatory in the

(05:23):
past at a lot of stuff that is not so
great for them. They just had the whole issue with
Bryce Mitchell talking out recently that was a disaster for them,
and then now Strickland at the conferences has been saying
a bunch of crazy stuff again. Now, personally, I'm not
someone who gets bothered by any of that any words. Really,
I don't get bothered by it. Just people want to

(05:43):
say what they want to say. Okay, don't really care
unless you're actually causing physical harm or genuinely harassing someone
or something like that. I don't really care what people's
opinions are or what they have to say, even if
it's quote unquote offensive. It just words. Just again, sticks
and stones, papers, my bones. Wordsmen never hurt me, that
whole thing from when you're a kid. So personally, I

(06:05):
don't mind if John Strickland says a bunch of crazy stuff.
It does not bother me. Whether I agree with what
he's saying or not, it doesn't bother me. But for
the UFC, they don't want that, and they've been basically
said it without saying it as well. So if there's
a close decision here, we have both the champion bias
and the UFC favorite bias going against Strickland. Now again,

(06:28):
officially that's not in the rules, but I mean, I
would love for someone to prove me wrong. Go back
and just analyze all the close decisions and see if
it hm It does seem to be end up going
to the champion or the guy that the UFC wants
to win. Funny how that works out. That's actually what
we saw the first time when these two fought. Back then,
it was known the UFC did not want Strickland anywhere

(06:50):
being near champion status. With the MIC, he was open
about it. He's like, the UFC hates me being champion.
They want me to lose so bad. I already know
it because I go crazy on the MIC. Everyone knew
this going in. Despite Strickland being the champion, A very
close decision ended up going to his opponent du plus C,
So the UFC favorite bias actually overrid the champion bias there.
But now we have them both going in the same

(07:12):
way for Drikas. So maybe I'm jinxing it and this
will be one of the very rare times. Or if
you get a close decision both the champion and favorite
bias will actually not be at play and it will
go to Strickland. If that happens, great cool. It's a
fun exception to the rule. But that rule still absolutely
exists and you should include it in your handicapping getting

(07:33):
into more of the skill base of the matchup. Drikus
is just a bizarre combodity. I don't really know how
to analyze his overall game. You even hear other fighters
who are other analysts, like on the the UFC post
town and stuff, like he's the best worst fighter ever.
I think that's what Israel at Asignia. Maybe it called him,

(07:55):
or maybe it was Whittaker. One of his opponents called
him that he's like the best worst. Everything he does
is terrible, and yet somehow he makes it work. And
that is true. This dude is the sloppiest, most uncoordinated.
Just goofball in the cage like he is on roller skates.
It is insane how this man just flails around like

(08:18):
a giraffe learning to walk. It is truly unfathomable how
this man became a champion and has beat who he
has beat, considering his incredible amount of flaws, his incredible susceptibilities,
striking defense, awful cardio, weirdest cardio I've ever seen. He
has great cardio for the first round, will completely gas

(08:39):
for the second round, gets a second wind in the
third round, completely gases in the fourth round, second wind
in the fifth round. It's bizarre. You can never tell
if he's really gassing or not. There's times where it
looks like he's hurt and his shambles and is falling apart,
and not just like a temporary hurt, like oh that
rocked him, but oh, like his body's breaking down. He's
weathering a way, the damage is adding up, and then

(09:02):
all of a sudden he's just out there, aggressive and
flailing again like nothing happened. He is one of the
most bizarre fighters in my entire Again, twenty years watching
this sport that I have seen, he is hard to
get a read on. He is hard to predict the
matchups of because he looks absolutely atrocious in literally every
single fight, but then somehow finds a way to win.

(09:24):
I remember way back when he was first making kind
of some waves in the division before Robert Whittaker also
was completely shot by the way, there was talk about
him maybe fighting Hi when I was like, oh, please,
make that fight, that'd be such an easy matchup for Whittaker.
But then by the time they actually made the fight,
things had changed. Whittaker had become very shot, and Dracus
had gotten a little bit better but was still obviously

(09:45):
a very flawed like I mentioned, And so I didn't
end up betting Whittaker more because he was just shot
than anything else. Just couldn't lay money on him. And
then you saw, of course, from the fight, Whittaker looked
absolutely shot. I'm very curious to see what a fresh,
live Whittaker did against this might have been different. Same
thing for the Israel AA Sonia fight. At the time,
that seemed like a better win than it does now.

(10:05):
Israel's one and four of his last five. He's clearly
not the same fighter. I've been saying that ad nauseum
for his last few fights. But back when he first
started this losing streak, nobody myself included knew that he
was on such a decline. We thought, oh, Okay, he
got lost to Strickland, crazy upset, Maybe he took him lightly,
maybe there was an injury or something. You know, you
give him the benefit of the doubt the first time,

(10:28):
but after obviously so many Now we just know what
the story is here, so retroactively that wind does not
look nearly as great. And again, Dracus looked absolutely terrible
at moments in that fight. So you look at his
best wins, there's kind of some asterisk on them, and
he still looked horrendous in them. You look at the
Sean Strickland fight, there were moments where he looked horrendous
in it, but then there was also moments where he

(10:48):
looked pretty sharp. So he is just an incredibly hard
to get a read on. But in terms of his
overall skills, he has some power in his strikes. He
is very hittable, but seems to have somewhat decent durability
and recovery if he gets rocked. He has atrocious footwork
and sloppy punching technique, but it's almost like it works
to his advantages because he's just so insane that fighters

(11:10):
kind of can't get a read on what he's doing
and react accordingly. In terms of his wrestling, it's fine,
but it's not actually great. It's just that the wrestling
overall in middleweight is terrible. Like if he thought Chamaia,
if he's getting absolutely obliterated in the wrestling department. It's
not even close. Like literally, I will call that right now.
They fight and there's wrestling exchanges, Drake is getting smoked

(11:31):
in them, smoked, absolutely obliterated. So he's not actually a
great wrestler. It's just he's facing guys who aren't great
wrestlers themselves. In terms of his grappling, he does have
some good grappling, but it's more because he's aggressive than
anything else. Aggressively looks to pass guard. Aggressively looks to
hunt for the submissions or go for ground and pound.
You see so many fighters being overly conservative, and I

(11:55):
get doing position versus before submission. It makes sense, does
that too. He's just aggressive with it. So many of
these fighters though, they're just so conservative. Oh I got
side mount. I'm just gonna sit here and hold position
and guarantee I win the round. Oh I got full mount.
I'm not going to try to finish. I'm not going
to try to do anything with it, because what if
he bucks me off. I'm just gonna sit here and

(12:16):
do just enough so the ref doesn't stand us up.
But I also just win the round. That's not what
Dracus does. He's more like a Charles Oliver Air on
the mat you grapple with him, he is looking to
finish every second of the grappling. So in terms of
finishing ability. In terms of who's more dynamic, absolutely no question,
that is Dracus. However, Sean has shown to be quite

(12:37):
durable overall. We have seen him get rocked, we have
seen him get put down like Kamara Uspin for example. However,
overall he has shown again to be pretty durable. Obviously,
also Alex destroyed him with the left hook most recently,
but you know, I give him kind of a pass
for that, considering it was Alex and the left hook

(12:57):
of doom. But overall he's going to be pretty durable.
And while duplus he could rock him, and I'm not
gonna say he could not stop him, it does seem
relatively unlikely on the matt. In terms of the wrestling,
Strickland is one of those guys kind of like a
Volkanovski who came to the UFC as a wrestler, but
then he just couldn't offensively wrestle when he actually faced

(13:18):
remotely decent fighters, so he turned his wrestling into a
defensive tactic and then he has good takedown defense, which
then he uses to keep the fights standing in box
and strike overall. And so against duplus C again, much
like the first fight, he's probably going to be relatively
good at defending the takedowns, but maybe he could get
taken down here or there. I just don't think he's
gonna get finished there. So again you have a guy

(13:40):
in duplus he who's super sloppy but more aggressive and
the better finisher, versus a guy in Strickland who is
fairly durable but also a bit more basic in his
approach and also has a better defense, even though it's
not excellent or anything. And we also already saw them
go five rounds to a close decision with not really
any near finishes. So once again here it seems like

(14:03):
that's probably gonna happen right now. I will say, it's
not like a solid rule like the favorite bias or
the champion bias like I mentioned. However, there have been,
I mean, honestly, quite a lot of fights in MMA
history where you have a very close decision in the
first fight and then they do the rematch and it
ends like a first round finish or second round finish,

(14:24):
or just a dominant finish for one fighter that's actually
happened a lot. For example, a recent example, relatively anyways,
Volkanovski versus islamikashev very close, Niptock absolutely razor, close decision
the first time, second time blowout, knockout win for Islam.
It actually happens quite a lot. So obviously history is

(14:46):
a lot of times the best way at predicting the future. However,
an mma, again it's not a super solid rule like
the others, but it happens enough that I don't just
confidantly go, Okay, well this fight went like this, so
it's gonna be the way that the next time. That said,
I do still expect a close decision here, possibly even

(15:07):
a split. But again, the champion bias, the favorite bias,
I think those will play a factor. Also, I thought
Dracus deserved to win the first fight. It was very close,
but I thought he actually deserved it, and the reason
was he was just more damaging. He was more offensive
and aggressive. Sean with that I car Lee style, with
the teeps and the jabs and not really doing much.

(15:29):
It's great if you're fighting a guy who's gassed, who
can't fight off of his back, foot and you're pressuring
them and pushing them near the fence and you're just
out landing them, so the judges automatically give it to you.
But when you're facing an insane, unhinged retard like Dracus
du plus c who will just run face first through
your punches and not give a flying shit that doesn't work.

(15:49):
He's gonna get through. He's gonna pressure you, he's gonna
land shots on you, and they're gonna be more damaging.
They're more likely to blood you up, and even if
you're durable and can survive, like Strickland, it's probably gonna
be what sways the judges, especially again with that champion
and favorite bias. So I have to go with Dracus
for the official pick here. However, two things dogger pass

(16:11):
considering where the line is A and then B live
betting potentially for a couple of reasons. Actually live betting
might be good. One just because it might be a
competitive fight, and maybe you can get Drecus at some
point as an underdog or pick him something like that,
and if you like him in the matchup, I would
imagine at some point throughout, considering how it's going to
be competitive, you will get a better line than minus

(16:33):
two hundred. When I generally say these types of things,
I'm almost always right about it. Sometimes, yeah, there's a
crazy blowout, but not usually in the case of also,
just the way the fight's going to play out. Again,
look at their first fight, look at some of the
other fights from Drecus is the weird on fire for
one round, completely guessed, the next on fire, then the
next round after that again great for live betting opportunities.

(16:57):
When he's on fire, maybe you bet Strickland has a
good dog price. Then the next round, when he's completely
gassed and they put him to a pick him or something,
or a very small favorite, you hedge for free money.
I do that all the time. Probably I don't know
the exact number, but for sure a significant amount, if
not quite possibly the majority of the amount of actual

(17:18):
dollar profit I make on live betting is hedge spots
like this. They happened so often and they're usually easy
to see coming. A recent one was morob Versus. Umar
said this exact same spiel on the pre fight podcast
Why You Bet morab or ex used to be Umar
at minus four hundred when there's probably gonna be close
moments you can get him at a better price if
he's even going to win, or you might be able

(17:40):
to do what I just said and get both at
dog prices and have a free money spot. Well guess what,
that's what happened. That's exactly what happened in the fight,
and you could have gotten free money over and over
and over getting both underdogs at different points. So live betting,
that is something that you should absolutely be factoring into
your stretch, not just oh, I think this guy's going

(18:02):
to win, so therefore I'm going to bet him no
betspots When you're like, okay, he's a good sized underdog,
but the way the fight's going to play out, I
know this line is either going to get much closer
or maybe even flip and I can get the other
guy as a pickup on an underdog and set up
literal free money. And then when we go to a
close split decision with the three blind mice goofballs at
cage side who can't score a fight to save their life. Well,

(18:24):
in that case, when they rob one fighter, I don't
care because I got a free money situation set up.
That's how you should be doing live betting, not all
the time. Sometimes you should be betting props or a
guy to win, but a lot of the time you
should be thinking forward to the future rounds how it's
going to play out, and set up those free money
hatch spots. And also books are generally accepting of that.

(18:45):
I've not had an issue with it. If you bet
both sides of a line pre fight. Yes, a lot
of books will get mad about that. They don't like
you arbing it with them. But when it comes to
live betting, some books, I will say, maybe get a
little bit annoyed by that, but generally speaking, books have
allowed it. So again, include that in your strategy. It

(19:07):
is an important and very not even important. It is
almost a mandatory part of live betting. If you are
not doing that, you are missing out on so much money,
I promise you so rent Aside about that. Closing thoughts here,
I do like drecus duplicity to edge out a close
decision for the reasons I mentioned, can't justify minus two hundred.

(19:29):
I don't know if I'm actually going to get to
the window with Sean Strickland in all likelihood, at least
if I don't do that, or what or just say
whether I do that or not. With Strickland pre fight,
I will absolutely be making the live betting a main
focus for this matchup. Even if I bet say I
don't know I unit on Strickland pre my main action,
my main risk amount is going to be trying to

(19:50):
setting set up good spots in live betting, so take
that for what it's worth. But again, official predictions still
will be Drink's Duplicy by a decision and that will
do it for this episode of the free podcast. Remember
there are more breakdowns, including the main card podcast available
on the Patreon that is Patreon dot com Slash Furies

(20:11):
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(20:32):
filmed them a long time ago, they're still permanently relevant.
Check out those as well if you're a member. And
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One hundreds of units long term, including seventy five units
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as well as some other events that are aside from

(20:53):
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So again, Patreon dot com Slash Furies Fight Picks for
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than that, good luck on your action this week. I'll
be back next week for another free podcast. We do

(21:15):
have a current streak of eleven straight weeks with UFC events,
so nice run with some busy action, lots of money
making opportunities. Again, hopefully you join us on board over
at patreon dot com slash Furies Fight Picks, but if
not happy to join it even here for the free content.
Hopefully it could be useful. I genuinely want to give
you guys, actual valuable content. I try to actually put

(21:39):
real effort into these and provide angles that aren't just
simply oh yeah, this guy's a good wrestler. This guy's
a good striker. I like to actually get down to
the nitty gritty and apply my several years, by multiple
decades of experience in this industry, not just as a fan,
but specifically as a better So even though I do
these for free, I get as leave nothing out of these.

(22:01):
I put just as much effort into them as anything else,
and I help you guys genuinely enjoy that and actually
find that effort of value. School if it's entertaining whatever,
that's nice, but I actually want to genuinely provide you
guys value with the analysis. So I know sometimes that
means being critical and maybe saying some things that are
not so positive about some of your favorite fighters. But

(22:23):
even if that's the case, I always understand I'm doing
it from a good place, trying to again provide you
with real value and help you with your betting to
win some money. So until next time, I'm Luca Fury,
and thank you for listening.