The first set of betting odds have come out for the recently announced mega-fight between former champion,Brock Lesnar and the number one contender, Junior dos Santos. In a slight surprise, the line has opened with Lesnar being pegged as the underdog.
Brock Lesnar +125 vs. Junior Dos Santos -155
Odds courtesy of Joey Oddessa.
While only a slight underdog, this line is more indicative of how far Lesnar has fallen in the public eye compared to his chances of actually winning this fight. Betting agencies cater their odds to who they think the public will put their money behind as opposed to who they themselves think will win.
With that distinction in mind, I'm going to take a quick stab at breaking down the fight to see where I think the odds actually lie.
Both Cain Velasquez and Shane Carwin were horrible stylistic match-ups for Lesnar. That much is certain. While Lesnar is a mountain of a man with some high class wrestling skills, this doesn't mean that his shot will just knock anyone over. Anyone with a high class wrestling pedigree and enough size will be able to keep the fight standing up if they keep their ground. Carwin and Velasquez both showed this and were then able to exploit Lesnar's desire to not get punched in the face. Fortunately for Lesnar, outside of Carwin and Velasquez, no one else in the UFC's heavyweight division really has that skill set and even more fortunate for Lesnar is that Dos Santos is included in that.
In his fights with Roy Nelson and Gabriel Gonzaga, Dos Santos showed good hips and very good takedown defense. Gonzaga managed to trip Dos Santos to the mat but was unable to secure the position in time as JDS showed some quick scrambling to bounce right back up. Against Nelson, JDS thwarted every takedown easily but Big Country was basically a zombie after two minutes in that fight.
But as I was quickly reminded recently, Brock Lesnar is no Big Country (whodathunkit?). While people only seem to remember Lesnar's poor attempt at the Yes! cartwheel in the Velasquez fight, he did still manage to put Velasquez on his back for a brief moment which is no small feat. With that in mind, I'd have to believe that Lesnar could very easily put JDS on his back where I very much doubt Dos Santos has the bottom game to threaten Honky Kong.
The great leveller in this fight is the concussive power of Dos Santos and what can only be a more tentative stand up game from Lesnar. While it has become a cliche in every combat sport, JDS is truly one strike away from changing the result of this strike. Even a glancing blow in my opinion will be enough to send Lesnar's mind back to the game of Twister he had with Velasquez.
Weighing up all of the above, I believe that Lesnar has two of the three areas of the fight covered (wrestling and ground) but if he doesn't demoralise Dos Santos ala GSP/Thiago Alves then he will always be playing with fire at the start of each round. For this reason I believe that this fight is as close as the initial odds suggest but with Lesnar the favourite at -155 and Dos Santos at a very live +125.
Source: www.headkicklegend.com
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