UFC 75: Sifting the wreckage

My 1000 units in wagers on UFC 75 returned a net profit of 136.92 units. You won’t hear any hoorahs coming from my way, however.

I avoided complete disaster only because of the split-decision victory that Michael Bisping was able to steal from Matt Hamill. Unlike Bisping, who taunted Hamill after the bout, I’m sitting here humbled.

I picked correctly with Bisping and Houston Alexander but missed with my Dan Henderson upset (see my bets at the bottom of this post). In the Bisping match, I greatly underestimated Hamill’s stand up and greatly overestimated Bisping’s desire to put this one away early.

I think this match probably hurts Bisping in the short term. He came across as a jerk in victory and was even booed by his fellow Brits. Stick him in there with Alexander next time and see if he comes out there lackadasial again.

And though I didn’t bet the Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic – Cheick Kongo bout, I looked rather foolish saying that there was “no way” Cro Cop would lose to Kongo. Ooops. I was both very lucky for not betting this bout and a little stupid for not putting a value bet on Kongo.

I had also avoided the Marcus Davis fight because I just didn’t have time to really break down his opponent and was a little worried about the hometown crowd. Well, with last night’s performance, Davis has pretty much assured himself another main card bout. He looked phenomenal in coming back from some hard shots and hitting the arm bar after Paul Taylor left it dangling on the reverse.

But hey, I still finished ahead for the night and that’s the bottom line. In the last three bouts I’ve handicapped, I’ve gone 8-3 in my bets with a net profit of 1002.16 units, or a 39 percent ROI. Not bad but nothing to brag about.

Here’s my favorite lines from today’s posts:

Jesse Holland at UFC Mania: “As for Michael Bisping? Not since Edward Longshanks have I’ve loathed an Englishman with such vigor.”

Kid Nate at Bloody Elbow: “Those knees to the groin were cheap and really summed up the fight for me — poor Mirko slumped against the cage cradling his smashed nads.”

Fightlinker has too many too choose from but I’ll go with: “At this point I thought to myself “Oh boy … Bisping really needs a dumb judge like Cecil Peoples to pull this out of the fire!” And lo and behold, as if summoned by my thoughts, Cecil Peoples rode in and saved the day: 29-28 Bisping!”

Sam Caplan at Five Ounces of Pain on Alexander being described as violent: “It’s kind of a weird statement considering this is fighting and fighting by nature is violent but Alexander kind of elevates the level of violence in his fights. It’s almost like not watching MMA but more of a guy assaulting another dude.”

Adam Morgan at Sprawl ‘n Brawl: “I’m pretty sure Houston Alexander is a gorilla wearing a human suit. This guy’s power is INSANE.”