UFC 239 – Best Bets

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

The show features a set of name fights, together with MMA’s best-ever fighters around the men’s and women’s side defending their respective belts.
Jon’Bones’ Jones is set to shoot on Thiago Santos at the main event. Jones was a -600 favorite 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 offshore shops had Jones in a less expensive price from the -650 area. The total has been 2.5 rounds (‘under’ -135,”over’ +105) at most spots.
Jones (24-1-1 MMA, 18-1-1 UFC) has had his hands increased 25 occasions in 26 career conflicts. His only”reduction” was a disqualification for illegal 12-to-6 elbows in a blowout win over Matt Hamill on Dec. 5 of 2009. His third-round knockout win over Daniel Cormier at UFC 214 was overturned and changed into a no-decision when Jones tested positive for the PED turinabol.
Jones appears — for now — to be on the ideal track outside of the cage recently. This will be his third battle 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 occasions in 2019.
Jones is off a unanimous-decision win over Anthony Smith in UFC 235 in March. He dominated Alexander Gustafsson using a third-round KO victory at UFC 232 on Dec. 29 of 2018. Before those two successes, many suspensions and arrests allowed him to compete only four times in a span of over five years.
Jones has cleaned out 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 times. All five of those 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 previous nine struggles since February of 2017. He has ripped six fight-night bonuses during this stretch. The 35-year-old Santos competed at middleweight his whole career until moving up to 205 lbs to face Eryk Anders in the UFC Fight Night 137 headliner in Sao Paulo past September.
Anders took the fight on six days of note when Jimi Manuwa pulled his bout with Santos because of an injury. The former University of Alabama football player needed to fly to Brazil and also make weight in quick purchase. Plus, he had been heading up a weight class for the first time in his profession.
The scrap was a slugfest that earned Battle of the Night honors. Unfortunately, Anders collapsed due to exhaustion while attempting to return to his corner when the third round finished. The referee immediately known as the fight to give Santos a TKO victory.

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