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 in Scotiabank Arena.
At early Friday night, most books had Ortega (14-0-1 MMA, 6-0-1 UFC) listed as a -125 favored with a total of 3.5 rounds (‘under’ -125,’over’ -105). Holloway had been the brief’chalk’ for many months until Thursday when the 27-year-old Ortega took over the favourite function.
Holloway (19-3 MMA, 15-3 UFC) has won 12 consecutive fights since losing a unanimous decision against Conor’The Notorious’ McGregor at UFC Boston on August 17 of 2013. In this unbelievable run, the 27-year-old Hawaiian has completed nine of 12 foes and collected five fight-night bonuses.
Holloway entered the title picture in 2015 by submitting Cub Swanson, beating Charles Oliveira and making decision successes over Cole Miller and Jeremy Stephens. Subsequently in 2016 Holloway knocked off Ricardo Lamas by decision, enticing’The Bully’ into a swing-for-the-fences contest in the final 10 minutes of this scrap (it was savage!) .
The success 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 using a third-round knockout at UFC 206 in Toronto.
Next,’Blessed’ took on the legendary Jose Aldo Jr. to unify the featherweight belts. Holloway went to Aldo’s hometown of Rio and defeat him through third-round KO in UFC 212. Subsequently in the rematch at Detroit in UFC 218, Holloway once again won with a third-round KO of Aldo on Dec. two of 2017.
Ad Coming into 2018, Holloway had the look of one the promotion’s most dominant champions. But he had to withdraw from his scheduled March 3 title defense against former lightweight champ Frankie Edgar because of an injury. When Tony Ferguson was injured 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 note.
The battle April 7 didn’t happen, however, since the New York Athletic Commission compelled Holloway to stop cutting weight — out of health/safety worries — on Friday morning. He was scheduled to defend his featherweight title against Ortega in UFC 226 on July 7, however, he was pulled in the fight because of”concussion-like symptoms”
Holloway was placed on the shelf while physicians ran different tests. The medical individuals never really figured out what the problem was for its featherweight kingpin, but they nonetheless cleared him to return to fighting. There was a good deal of chatter concerning how Holloway’s weight cut goes, but he stepped on the scale this morning and hit his mark with a half-pound to spare at 144.5 lbs.
Ortega had an effortless weight cut and was one of the fighters to generate his number. He’s less than 24 hours away from his shot at fulfilling a lifelong fantasy.

Read more: walker-sports.net