Jon Jones Currently -170 Favourite To Beat Cormier

Published on July 24th, 2014 6:23 pm EST
In case you haven't heard, Alexander Gustafsson has been forced to pull out of his planned fight against Jon "Bones" Jones at UFC 178. Daniel Cormier was offered the fight and quickly accepted, so now Cormier will be squaring off against Jones in the main event of UFC 178 in Las Vegas.

The odds for this fight have just opened and they currently look something like this:

Daniel Cormier, +145
Jon Jones, -170

So, according to these odds, a successful wager on Cormier would yield a total profit of $145, while a successful $170 bet on Jones would return a total profit of $100.

This are, by far, the closest odds of any Jon Jones fight during his reign as the UFC Light Heavyweight champion. In most cases, Jones is at least a -400 favourite to win.

Daniel Cormier presents a number of interesting challenges to Jones. Jones will not be able to rely on his takedowns against Cormier, as Cormier is a very seasoned wrestler. In fact, Jones will very much have to worry about Cormier's fantastic takedowns - just look at how easily Cormier took Dan Henderson down when they fought.

In addition, Cormier has very legitimate power that Jones will have to be concerned with. Cormier has the power to end the fight with just one punch. On top of that, Cormier's pedigree as a wrestler means that he has a very deep gas tank and can easily go a full five rounds - in fact, he has done it before.

Jones, of course, will be relying on his reach and dynamic striking attack. Jones' ability to stop the takedown and stay out Cormier's range will be the keys to this fight.

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In short, this is a compelling fight that makes UFC 178 even more interesting, at least in my opinion.