UFC on ESPN 38 Post-Fight Analysis

 Well, if you follow my Twitter you already know I got butchered in tonight's event. Yet I am left not even feeling like I necessarily could have done much differently. I don't know, let's try to dissect it a bit.

Main Card

Obviously the main event was not a robbery. The rounds were razor thin, seemingly Arman edging the first two just with bigger moments, landing those loud kicks, while numbers and exchanges were very even. Then comes third round and it starts to seem Arman is actually feeling the pace a bit. Still he rallies and finishes the round strong. If you scored that round for damage, it's very close, you could argue Arman had it, but with lot of grappling control early I can understand if you scored it for Gamrot.

Then comes fourth round where Arman again clearly outlands Gamrot, but ends up taken down and being in some tricky grappling positions. He also seems very weathered at this point of the fight. However, he rallies to finish strong in R5. Soundly outstrikes Gamrot for most of the round, Gamrot only having some moments of limited grappling success. 

Those varying levels of grappling success were enough to get Gamrot all of the three rounds. I think Arman should have had at least round 5, and I don't think it's terrible to even give 3 and 4 to him. I expected a close decision and figured some judges would have it for Gamrot but I dunno... just doesn't feel right a little benign takedown negates landing damage for most of the round.

Still, we know judging to be what it is and we should bet accordingly. So my bed overall was bad, but not horrific. It was more unlucky to have to face a 7u swing there, but perhaps I could have bet on something else that would not have exposed me to so much variance like overs.

Besides, even before the co-main event I was deep in the hole, hoping the big numbers play in Magny could make the fight scrappy and steal a decision. Shavkat was not gonna take any chances with the judges, Magny got finished inside two rounds. 

Perhaps only bit of good luck I had tonight was Josh Parisian winning a chaotic match against Alan Baudot. Baudot had him hurt, but gassed and quit. 

My read on Thiago Moises being better than Giagos was solid, I mean pretty much everyone else made it but he easily covered, the problem was he was just way way better, so much so it didn't even take him gassing to get finished. So I ended up making pretty good call but still losing money on the fight. Bet selection needs to be better once again.

Nate Maness never had a chance to KO Umar Nurmagomedov, and Umar was just content to ride out top control for a decision. Don't take me wrong, he did really go after the damage, but he wasn't gonna risk losing top position to get a finish. So again, I lost but without feeling like I did a lot wrong. How often does Umar not finish there? Gotta see it as something of a rarity. 

Also in Curtis v Vieira match I expected violence, instead I got pretty measured approach from both guys with Curtis showing excellent takedown defence and Vieira showing good durability and at least improved gas tank. So the fight went to decision and all my bets lost again. Simply bad read to think Curtis takes over so clearly, he still had to be measured to avoid the takedowns even when Vieira slowed down.

Prelims

Most of the prelims, I actually was doing alright - pretty much in line with how I have historically done. I'm good at gauging glaring holes in people's games, which are there to be seen in low-level guys, but not so good when margins are tight at higher level fights. As for Nchukwi v Ulberg, I don't know if that was a fluke or something always gonna happen with Nchukwi having lost his chin and Ulberg turning out to be the mega athlete we originally expected him to be. Future will tell if that was a bad bet or just random result.

TJ Brown definitely was a bad bet, for he did not really edge much of the striking, and fight was mostly grappling anyway. There Nuerdanbieke soundly dominated and got clear UD. 

Morozov looks fragile but managed to keep it together enough to get past Paiva as we expected him to. JP Buys got killed by Cody Durden in what was my most successful bet of the night. The man just can't avoid getting hit constantly clean. 

Mario Bautista was expected to edge Brian Kelleher, but he dominated him everywhere and got him out of there quickly, that surprised most. Demopoulos and Frey fought a shitty fight to a close decision, in which I obviously lost, though that one I deserved, poor performance from Frey against someone who has no reach and little in way of skill either.

My Picks

In pre-fight leans, I got 7/12 again. Not great, but at least beating the 50% clearly. In GTD/DGTD predictions, I got 6/12. Need to get better at those, but I'm still not even betting a lot on whether it goes the distance or not.

Best bet, as said, was Durden ITD, was always gonna cash with Buys having no defence, worst bet is a bit trickier cause most of my clearly bad bets were just small punts, or playing a big number, so I can't really berate myself too much for them. 

I guess just the combined 2.5u on various Vieira/Curtis finishes was the biggest misread of the night, just assessed Vieira's grappling ability as too good, Curtis' takedown ability as too bad, Curtis' power as too high and Vieira's cardio as too bad. Lot of wrong assessment for one fight and as such, I called it completely wrong. Curtis decision would have also been probably the best bet of the night. As much as you have to recognize your bad bets, even more you have to realize when you missed out on a great opportunity that could have been easily observed before the fight.

When I reloaded my bankroll, I immediately ran to a very huge profit. Unfortunately now like a month later I have lost all of that profit and find myself back at starting point. That said, most of the losses have come outside of MMA, hopefully get some gains outside of MMA too to get back to profit. In the meantime, just have to improve my process. Margins are tight and luck decides whether you win on individual night or not, but regardless you can do everything to get as much of edge as possible.