UFC 239 – Best Bets

The Octagon returns to T-Mobile Center in Las Vegas for Saturday night’s 11-fight UFC 239 card.

The series features a set of name conflicts, together with MMA’s best-ever fighters around the men’s and women’s side defending their individual belts.
Jon’Bones’ Jones is set to take on Thiago Santos in the main event. Jones was a -600 favored at most books as of Tuesday, but the Westgate SuperBook had Jones in -850 late Friday afternoon. Santos was a +575 underdog at the Westgate. A number of overseas stores had Jones in a cheaper price in the -650 area. The total has been 2.5 rounds (‘under’ -135,”over’ +105) at most areas.
Jones (24-1-1 MMA, 18-1-1 UFC) has had his hand increased 25 occasions in 26 career conflicts. His only”loss” was a disqualification for prohibited 12-to-6 elbows at a blowout win over Matt Hamill on Dec. 5 of 2009. His third-round knockout win over Daniel Cormier in UFC 214 was overturned and transformed to some no-decision when Jones tested positive for the PED turinabol.
Jones appears — for now — to be on the ideal path outside the cage lately. This will be his third fight in a span of six months and a week, marking his most activity since 2011-12. He’s indicated he wishes to fight at least three times in 2019.
Jones is off a unanimous-decision win over Anthony Smith in UFC 235 in March. He dominated Alexander Gustafsson with a third-round KO success at UFC 232 on Dec. 29 of 2018. Before those two victories, various suspensions and arrests allowed him to compete only four times in a period of over five decades.
Jones has cleaned the light-heavyweight branch during his career. At a five-fight stretch from March 19 of 2011 to Sept. 22 of 2012, he won the belt and successfully defended it four occasions. All five of these wins came over former champions — Shogun Rua, Rampage Jackson, Lyoto Machida, Rashad Evans and Vitor Belfort. Just Evans went the distance with Jones during this span.
Santos (21-6 MMA, 13-5 UFC) is 8-1 in his past nine struggles since February of 2017. He has bagged six fight-night bonuses during this stretch. The 35-year-old Santos competed at middleweight his whole career until moving up to 205 pounds to face Eryk Anders from the UFC Fight Night 137 headliner in Sao Paulo past September.
Anders took the battle on six days of note if Jimi Manuwa pulled his departure with Santos because of an injury. The former University of Alabama football player had to fly to Brazil and also make weight in quick purchase. Plus, he was heading up a weight class for the very first time in his profession.
The scrap was a slugfest that got Battle of the Night honors. Regrettably, Anders collapsed due to exhaustion while attempting to walk back to his corner once the third round finished. The referee immediately known as the fight to give Santos a TKO victory.