Lines swing fast. Underdogs win ugly. Judges ruin parlays. MMA betting is full of hype trains getting derailed and “locks” tapping out early. If you’re betting on names, you’re already late.
In MMA fighting, there are plenty of ways to derail the hype train.
A lock is a lock until he isn’t. And underdogs win more than you’d think, while judges can also impact the final decision.
With so many variables, we see plenty of opportunities for the smart money to score a knockout.
Check out the latest UFC/ MMA odds at Lucky Rebel
Underdogs Win More Often Than You Think
It’s combat sports. Adrenaline and survival instincts can make one fighter stronger while they cause another one to make mistakes.
Fight fans don’t always think of the intangibles though. The casual bettor on UFC and overall MMA fights has a simple thought process: Fighter has better record? Fighter has bigger profile? Bet that fighter.
We get it. It’s tempting and easy to go with the favorites in MMA. It’s king (or queen) of the jungle sport, survival of the fittest.
But the numbers don’t favor the favorites like you might think. Since 2010, underdogs in UFC matches have won close to 35% of the time. Sometimes even more than that; the 2020 women’s flyweights saw ‘dogs dominating 45% of the time.
The nature of the sport makes it more likely for things to go wrong for the favorite compared to favorites in other sports.
In MMA fighting, Lucky Rebel bettors can watch for certain things that could provide a solid underdog pick with a healthy payout:
- Look for live dogs: Some underdogs will have a style advantage over the favorite. Maybe the ‘dog has unusual punching power and the favorite has a weak chin. Or you could have a grappler underdog that can take down a favorite who prefers standing up and striking. “Styles makes fights” is a boxing saying, and it applies equally to MMA.
- Don’t fully trust the hype. A fading fan favorite with a big pre-fight smack game (Conor McGregor), will always get more money bet his way. The public is generally not into analysis – they want a show. But hype never wins fights. And no UFC fighter ever talked his way to a KO.
- Ring rust is a thing. Go through some fight history and it’s littered with favorites who came back after a year or more out of the Octagon and who got a rude welcome back from an underdog. GSP, Nick Diaz, Dominick Cruz, Ronda Rousey, and more. When betting on a fight, it’s table stakes to check recent fights in order to spot any rust.
Value can be found by sharps in all these areas. In MMA, one mistake and it’s lights out, favorite or not.
Finish Rates Vary by Division
On top of identifying all the variables that can change fights fast, bettors who want to bank on the action need to understand that finish rates vary by weight class. Your strategy for a heavyweight fight has to change for middleweights and then again for flyweights.
As a general rule, heavyweights end fights before they go the distance, and as you move to lighter weight classes, the time in the ring for both fighters increases.
The sportsbooks know this too, of course. That means you’re unlikely to find a mispriced prop bet on rounds for any weight class.
But solid betting strategy means knowing the odds inside and out, without feeling the need to score a major payday with every bet.
In this case, it means knowing that heavyweight fights end inside the distance 70% of the time. Picking a KO/TKO or a submission in each later round gets less and less likely. Digging deeper to find value means looking at the fighters’ individual finish rates. If both of them are early finishers, you might lean into a first or second-round KO/TKO.
Lighter divisions like flyweight, bantamweight, featherweight, and most women’s classes go to decision far more frequently. For bets on these groups, the odds for the fight going to decision or total round Overs are the play. These bets do offer lower risk – like we said, the books also do their homework – but steady returns are just fine too.
Hype Fighters Are Overvalued
The raw energy and physicality in MMA brings out the biggest emotions in bettors. It can feel like life or death in the Octagon, and fans feed off it too.
They especially feed into the hype machine when there’s a big brand name involved. Remember Chuck Liddell? He was a monster for a while, but towards the end of his career he was getting outclassed in every fight. Fans bet on Liddell well beyond his best before date. The biggest talkers and attention-seekers get overhyped and overbet too. McGregor is the most obvious one, but Covington, Strickland, Masvidal and others like to make a lot of noise too. And they get humbled regularly come fight night.
Sure, they do it mostly to boost the hype and bring attention (and pay-per-view buys), with maybe some psychological warfare in there to throw their opponent off their game, but it works on most of the casual bettors.
Winning streaks are also hype magnets. Fighters on a 5-fight (or more) streak regularly get inflated odds, even though tougher competition and regression are waiting in the Octagon.
Big finishes are another hype-creation tool. A massive spinning heel kick KO will get endless replays on social media and boost a fighter’s odds for the next fight, deserved or not.
Those casuals help to overvalue the talkers, the knockout artists, and the fighters on legit winning streaks. The books are content to oblige by creating inflated lines to meet the demand and expectations. But sharps know better.
They’ll avoid the hype trap by mapping out recent fights to see who’s got momentum and who might be rusty. The smart money also analyzes style vs style for any mismatch value. And they’re not diving into every bet on the fight card if there’s no value to be found.