Every time I post on here late at night when I’m contemplating bets they end up losing horrendously so let’s see...
Edson @ + is ridiculous. Grapple fucked by Khabib and Lee. Dismantled Hooker, Kod by gaethje. Beat Felder, beat ige. He’s going to kick the shit out of Shane’s legs and avoid anything significant. When you come at Edson with no threat of a takedown and being able to hold him down he fucks everyone up (I consider gaethje on a way higher level than ‘everyone’ and Edson made the mistake of the stand and bang game with him very early on instead of keeping range)
Also think Olivera is going to piece Chandler up on the feet. His boxing was ridiculously sharp vs Tony, if chandler can get consistent takedowns (which I also doubt) he’ll get caught in a transition over 5 rounds.
parlaying both ML heavy
I'm very much with you on the Barboza at + odds. I haven't seen anyone suggest any rationale why Burgos should be favoured other than "he puts on pressure." Ok, cool. He gets hit and dropped a decent amount too. He leaves his lead leg out there. He keeps his hands down.
Since nobody wants to offer much insight into what might be the tastiest odds on this card, I decided I'd play devil's advocate for myself.
How does Burgos win? Well, as people who have discussed it briefly pointed out, pressure. I've seen the Gaethje fight as something people think Burgos can replicate. I don't believe that. Burgos does not hit like Gaethje, he's not in the same ballpark.
So what's another loss that Barboza has to a pressure fighter? Michael Johnson, back in 2015. It was a close fight, but one that Johnson absolutely won because of his pressure. It was almost 100% a kickboxing match, and Johnson won it. Barboza did very little with his hands in this fight. He threw the occasional wide looping shot, but it seemed like every major strike he landed was a kick. This was also, in hindsight, one of the very best versions we've seen of Michael Johnson (and when he's on, he's a pretty effective MMA kickboxer).
Johnson put on not just a high pace, but also featured an absolute ton of movement. Compared to Burgos, Johnson was moving
a lot more. Barboza never found a great opportunity to land kicks on Johnson, the few times he went for the flashy stuff Johnson was long gone (though he did land one nice spinning back kick later in the fight). Johnson's movement, pressure and volume won him the day.
The biggest takeaway here for me, aside from how effective Johnson was, was how much Barboza has improved his hands from 2015-present.
How about another loss Barboza has to a notoriously high-paced fighter in Tony Ferguson. Immediately off the bat, Barboza's hands look better, and this is in the same year (beginning vs Johnson, end vs Ferguson). Ferguson, like Burgos, is hittable. Barboza lands some good shots on him while Tony chases him around. They end up on the ground, and Tony hits him with an illegal upkick that seems to rock Barboza a bit. Tony continues to chase him around, but is losing most of the striking exchanges by eating counters as he charges in.
At the end of the first, Tony's pressure seems to be draining Barboza, something that didn't seem an issue vs Johnson. The second round starts out with much the same, Tony chasing and eating counters but he lands an elbow that busts Barboza open real bad. A nice spinning elbow from Tony and a scramble ends with him snatching his siggy D'arce choke and that's the fight.
Textbook Tony fight. Lost the first round (imo, 2 of Sherdog's 3 play-by-play scores had it 10-8 due to a point deduction, other had it 9-9).
Is Burgos capable of replicating this? I doubt it. He doesn't bring quite the same pace that Ferguson does, not will he offer a ground threat (Tony went for a bunch of Imari rolls).
If anyone is going to bet this, I would suggest watching Charles Rosa vs Burgos. Rosa is like a bum-tier version of Barboza, and he has no problems landing kicks and overhands on Burgos.
In conclusion, Burgos does not move like a Tony Johnson or an MJ, and does not have the kill power of a Gaethje.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.