UFC on FOX 27 Odds For Main Events – The UFC is in North Carolina this Saturday night with the UFC on FOX 27 card headlined by Derek Brunson vs Ronaldo Souza.
The UFC’s middleweight division is wide open and both of these men are looking to line up a title shot as soon as possible. The UFC allowed the return of Georges St Pierre to interfere in their title picture as they fast tracked the returning welterweight world champion into a title fight with Michael Bisping.
With all due respect to Bisping, who is one of the UFC’s longest running acts, his title run could almost come with an asterisk. Bisping was a short notice replacement to face champion Luke Rockhold back in June of 2016 and he broke through and scored a knock out. Rockhold had waxed Bisping in an earlier meeting and you would need two hands to count the contenders ranked ahead of Bisping at the time. Yoel Romero, Chris Weidman, Ronaldo Jacare, Rockhold, Gegard Mousasi and Derek Brunson to name a few. Yep, two hands.
The UFC gave Bisping aging Dan Henderson in his first title defense. It was a rematch and the fight gave them a chance to headline Bisping in Manchester, England in a winnable fight. If Bisping had faced one of the above mentioned contenders he most likely would have lost his belt and the UFC would have a pedigreed middleweight champion.
Would the UFC have put St Pierre in with any of the other middleweight pack? What would St Pierre have looked like against the monsters in the division like Romero or “Jacare?”
St Pierre as a draw and an all-time great moved right into the fight with Bisping, and won the belt. He promptly vacated the 185 pound title and that ruins the value of the middleweight belt. Robert Whittaker, who isn’t even on the list of above contenders, won the vacated belt. Whittaker is on an eight fight winning streak that includes wins over Romero and Souza among others. Whittaker is a solid champion and he would have benefited from taking the belt rather than grabbing a vacated one. These things are supposed to be important in combat sports.
So that leaves us matches like Brunson and Souza. This too is a rematch, as the pair met back in 2012. That fight saw Souza score a KO in less than a minute. Brunson has worked hard since then, going 9-3 against an array of top talent. The difference this time around is that “Jacare” is now 38 years old and though he is still fearsome, he is not quite what he was at the time of their first meeting.
Souza is looking to pull a “Bisping” and that means he would like to close out a long career with a run as UFC champion. He lost to Whittaker in his last fight this past April so he would also like to avenge that loss. In the case of Brunson, he needs to beat one of the top guys to get a crack at the belt.
Four fights are scheduled for the FOX broadcast, you can catch the lines for those fights below.
UFC on Fox 27 Odds – Spectrum Center – Charlotte, North Carolina – Fox
Middleweight 5 rounds –
Derek Brunson +115 o1½ -130
Ronaldo Souza -135 u1½ +110
Featherweight 3 rounds –
Andre Fili +135 o2½ -190
Dennis Bermudez -155 u2½ +165
Lightweight 3 rounds –
Jordan Rinaldi +435 o2½ -155
Gregor Gillespie -570 u2½ +135
Welterweight 3 rounds –
Frank Camacho +140 o2½ -110
Drew Dober -160 u2½ -110
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