Max Holloway Considerable Favorite To Defeat Anthony Pettis

Published on December 9th, 2016 3:09 am EST
Thanks to a bit of imagination from the UFC (to put it kindly), the main event of UFC 206 will feature a title fight.

Now, this wasn't the title fight that everyone first imagined would take place at UFC 206. The original main event of UFC 206 in Toronto was slated to be Daniel Cormier vs Anthony "Rumble" Johnson, though an injury to Cormier forced the cancellation of that fight.

Thanks to Daniel Cormier's injury, the UFC was left without a compelling main event for UFC 206. So, what did the promotion do? They stripped Conor McGregor of the Featherweight title, they named Jose Aldo as the Featherweight champion and they made Max Holloway vs Anthony Pettis a five-round title fight for the interim Featherweight title.

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Max Holloway is in the midst of a long nine-fight winning streak and is the favorite to win on Saturday night. Here are the current betting odds for this tilt:

Anthony Pettis, +175
Max Holloway, -210

According to these odds, a successful $210 wager on Max Holloway would return a total profit of $100, while a successful $100 bet on Anthony Pettis would return a total profit of $175.

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Why is Anthony Pettis, a former Lightweight champion, the underdog in this fight?

There is no question that Pettis is a supremely talented fighter, though many believe that his opponents have "figured him out".

Fighters such as Eddie Alvarez seem to have figured out that the way to beat Pettis is to keep him against the fence and try to keep him on the ground. This nullifies any striking advantage that Pettis might have, and it was worked to great effect at the end of his Lightweight run.

Can Holloway take Pettis to the ground and keep him there? That is the $64,000 question heading into Saturday night. Having said that, there is no doubt that Holloway is a very talented striker as well, which means that Saturday night's fight could turn into an absolute slugfest.

This should be a great fight.

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