UFC 231 – Best Bets

The Octagon returns to Toronto on Saturday night with Max’Blessed’ Holloway defending his featherweight belt against undefeated Brian’T-City Ortega at the UFC 231 headliner at Scotiabank Arena.
At early Friday night, many novels had Ortega (14-0-1 MMA, 6-0-1 UFC) listed as a -125 favorite with a total of 3.5 rounds (‘under’ -125,’over’ -105). Holloway was the short’chalk’ for several months before Thursday if the 27-year-old Ortega took on the favorite role.
Holloway (19-3 MMA, 15-3 UFC) has won 12 consecutive battles since losing a unanimous decision against Conor’The Notorious’ McGregor in UFC Boston on August 17 of 2013. During this unbelievable run, the 27-year-old Hawaiian has completed nine of 12 foes and accumulated five fight-night bonuses.
Holloway entered the title picture in 2015 by submitting Cub Swanson, beating Charles Oliveira and earning decision victories over Cole Miller and Jeremy Stephens. Then in 2016 Holloway knocked off Ricardo Lamas by choice, enticing’The Bully’ to a swing-for-the-fences contest in the final 10 seconds of the scrap (it was barbarous!) .
The victory over Lamas garnered Holloway a shot at the interim 145-pound strap against former lightweight champion Anthony’Showtime’ Pettis. Holloway won the belt by simply taking out Pettis with a third-round knockout at UFC 206 at Toronto.
Next,’Blessed’ took on the mythical Jose Aldo Jr. to combine the featherweight belts. Holloway went into Aldo’s hometown of Rio and beat him by way of third-round KO in UFC 212. Then from the rematch at Detroit at UFC 218, Holloway once again won using a third-round KO of Aldo on Dec. 2 of 2017.
Advertisement Coming into 2018, Holloway had the look of one the promotion’s most dominant champions. But he needed to withdraw from his scheduled March 3 title defense against former lightweight champ Frankie Edgar because of an injury. When Tony Ferguson was hurt doing press a week before confronting Khabib Nurmagomedov for Ferguson’s interim lightweight buckle, Holloway accepted an offer to confront Nurmagomedov on just six days of notice.
The fight on April 7 didn’t happen, though, because the New York Athletic Commission forced Holloway to stop cutting weight — from health/safety concerns — on Friday morning. He had been also scheduled to defend his featherweight title against Ortega at UFC 226 on July 7, but he had been pulled in the struggle because of”concussion-like symptoms.”
Holloway was placed on the shelf while doctors ran different tests. The health care people never really figured out what the problem was to get the featherweight kingpin, but they nonetheless cleared him to return to fighting. There was a whole lot of chatter concerning how Holloway’s weight cut would go, but he stepped on the scale this morning and hit his mark with a half-pound to spare at 144.5 lbs.
Ortega also had an easy weight reduction and was one of the first fighters to generate his or her number. He’s less than 24 hours away from his shot at fulfilling a lifelong fantasy.

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