MMA & UFC Betting

A few days ago we talked about Polish strongman turned MMA fighter Mariusz Pudzianowski and his recent comments calling out Brock Lesnar and Fedor Emelianenko.  While his fanboys may be preoccupied with notions of Pudzianowski beating Fedor, Lesnar and a back from the dead Bruce Lee at the same time for his second MMA fight, his next scheduled opponent is a more reasonable test of his skill.  While the proposed US fight with Tim Sylvia is still in the works, Pudzianowski has signed his name to a deal to fight a fellow Pole, Robert Paczkow, at KSW XIII in Katowice, Poland on May 7.  Since we’ve talked a lot about Pudzianowski it seemed prudent to get some background on Paczkow.

The last we heard from Polish strongman turned MMA fighter Mariusz Pudzianowski we reported on his proposed US debut against former UFC champ Tim Sylvia.  That was until I entered my local newsstand to see him leering at me from the cover of a MMA magazine (see photo) calling out current UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar.  Clearly, Pudzianowski has every reason to want to break into the lucrative US marketplace though I’m not sure the fight sport equivilaent of jumping in front of a speeding semi on the freeway is the best way to go about it.

Whether or not the Sylvia fight comes to fruition, Pudzianowski already has a future opponent.  He’s signed to meet another Polish sports star, Robert Paczków, in Katowice, Poland on May 7th.  Paczków is definitely a good match in terms of experience–he’s 1-0 in his MMA career with a win over James McSweeney (who would later be a cast member on ‘The Ultimate Fighter).  Paczków will be an interesting test since he’s not only a big dude himself going 6′2″ 310 but has a background in Greco-Roman wrestling and sumo.

We hit the WEC Bowles vs. Cruz undercard in our previous post, and now we’ll move on to the televised main card.  As we discussed in our previous post, the undercard of this event actually has better wagering opportunities than the main card:

WEC BOWLES VS. CRUZ MAIN CARD:

BART PALASZEWSKI VS. KAREN DARABEDYAN

Palaszewski has a ton more experience, but is only 4-5 in his last 9 fights dating back to the IFL.  Darabedyan is a real up and comer on a 7 fight winning streak.  He trains with Karo Parisyan and Manny Gamburyan, so he’s got sick judo skills but prefers to stand and bang which he’s also very good at.  Not sure how much Palaszewski has left but can’t justify laying -255 with Darabedyan.

PASS

LC DAVIS VS. DEIVIDAS TAUROSEVICIUS

As if there weren’t already enough sports betting action on Saturday we’ve got a big MMA card as well.  The WEC’s latest event will feature a bantamweight title defense by Brian Bowles against Dominick Cruz.  The WEC is, of course, owned by UFC parent company Zuffa LLC and focuses on the smaller weight classes.  They may put on the most consistantly excellent fight cards of any promotion in the world, so the event is worth watching on its own.  And there’s no better way to make an already exciting fight card even more exciting than some betting action.

If you’re not familiar with betting on MMA make sure to check out a couple of articles that I wrote awhile back:

How to Bet on MMA

MMA Handicapping Basics