UFC 124 Prediction and Betting Contests

By Matt Pelkey, MMATorch Columnist

In the first UFC title fight since Cain Velasquez swatted Brock Lesnar like a 280 lb. fly, Georges St. Pierre will try to defend his Welterweight Title against antagonist Josh Koscheck. The two had an entire stint as coaches on a season of The Ultimate Fighter to let the rivalry grow. Koscheck actually lost credibility as a heel to me. He came off like a nine year old bully. St. Pierre came across as Georges St. Pierre; a 29 year old athletic champion in his absolute prime, and one of the best athletes in the world. He mostly seemed amused and motivated that the nine year old bully is actually a 33 year old man who he gets to put in his place in front of the world. But by all means, be persuaded by that juicy line on Koscheck. It's worth a couple hundred on a flier, right?

Anyhoo, that's the headliner of an otherwise lackluster card in terms of star-power and title ramifications, but while I'm not a believer in the "well the weaker looking cards always end up being awesome!" line of thinking, there are some potentially fun scraps on this show. Mark Bocek vs. Dustin Hazelett? I'm giddy.

But these aren't the most important match-ups Saturday night. Those would be our Prediction and Betting Title fights. At UFC 123 we crowned a new Prediction Champion in Kubi, while Cambo "Rambo" Nelson once again successfully defended his Betting Title. Saturday night, Kubi will look to notch his first title defense against Drew "Ace" Rothstein, while Nelson tries to close out the year still champion against Chris "The Walrus" Wallner. Good luck to those four, but better luck to the rest of us stuck in the pools. I don't know about you, but I plan on starting the new year with a title shot.


PREDICTION CONTEST

I'm pretty sure everyone knows how this works by now, but just in case... Basically you pick the winners of each fight, including method (e.g. KO, submission, decision) and round. The winner is the one who picks the most fights correctly. Ties will be broken by who had the most number of rounds and methods correctly predicted. In case anyone is wondering, only rounds and methods in fights where you predicted the correct winner count.


Georges St-Pierre (-500) vs. Josh Koscheck (+300)

Thiago Alves (-280) vs. John Howard (+220)

Jim Miller (+115) vs. Charles Oliviera (-145)

Joe Stevenson (-325) vs. Mac Danzig (+250)

Sean McCorkle (+120) vs. Stefan Struve (-150)

Dan Miller (-250) vs. Joe Doerksen (+190)

Dustin Hazelett (-105) vs. Mark Bocek (-125)

Ricardo Almeida (-170) vs. T.J. Grant (+140)

Jesse Bongfeldt (+130) vs. Rafael Natal (-160)

Sean Pierson (+240) vs. Matt Riddle (-300)

John Makdessi (+120) vs. Pat Audinwood (-150)


BETTING CONTEST

As you can see, there's a number attached to each fighter. That number represents how much money you can make off each fighter. The way it works is, if a fighter has a positive number he's an underdog. The positive number means if you were to bet $100 dollars on him, you would make the amount of the positive number. For example, if you were to bet $100 on Koscheck and he won, you would make back the hundred you bet, plus $300 for a total payout of $400.

If the fighter has a negative number, that number represents how much you would have to bet to make $100 on the fighter. For example, if you bet $500 on St. Pierre and he won, you'd make back the $500, plus a $100 profit, for a total payout of $600.

Each contestant has $1000 in theoretical money. You can bet it on as many fighters as you'd like, but you have to bet on at least three. The most you can bet on a single fighter is $500, and bets have to be in multiples of $100.

I'm setting a deadline of 6 p.m. (EST) Saturday to get all of your picks in. The betting lines are courtesy of bodog.com.

Note: In the event that one of the #1 contenders fails to show for their title shot, the champ will defend against the next best performer from the previous contest. You've been warned, so bring your A game everybody!

As always you can submit your picks one of three ways: by emailing me at matt6buckeye@hotmail.com, posting them on the message boards, or by leaving them in the comments section right down there. Good luck!

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/prediction_and_betting_contests/article_7787.shtml

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