Fluid Thoughts for UFC Belgrade

Thank you for subscribing and welcome to “Fluid Thoughts.”

Basically, these articles will offer my raw, unpolished thoughts on the upcoming card so that fight nerds and gamblers alike can see where I’m headed in an effort to spark your own thoughts and strategies regarding the festivities to come (to which you’re more then welcome to discuss with me or others in the comments below).

*Just understand that this is a ‘fluid’ article that will be edited throughout the week, so don’t take opinions here straight to the bank and be sure to check back to see my final thoughts – which will be locked in by Friday evening before officially posting picks and plays on Saturday morning.

Main even thoughts:

Apologies for being late this week, folks. It’s sadly been yet another crazy week as the universe is definitely making your boy pay for daring to take two days off to see family, but I digress.

However, in the effort to save time, please feel free to check out my in-depth breakdown on this fight over at MMAJunkie.com.

I hate my pick and believe it’s dog or pass from a betting perspective as I’ll be looking at D-Rod live, as well as potentially adding some of his round 2 and 3 fliers for crazy plus odds if I’m (god forbid) up by this time of the card. Good luck with whatever you end up on, as sadly Medic round knockout is the most likely outcome here.

Co-main event thoughts:

The co-headliner in Belgrade features an impromptu light heavyweight affair between Jan Blachowicz and Navajo Stirling that’s sadly the lesser of two evils considering the needless rematch it replaced.

Although I’ve long-respected Blachowicz as a live dog, he sadly looks like an old and impotent one in his latter years.

Blachowicz is still skilled and crafty enough to stymie decent parts of his opponent’s offense, but he lacks the explosion in his strikes and takedowns, as well as his consistency in output. Add in that Blachowicz has only had one win (via injury) in the past half decade, and it’s hard not to favor Stirling in this spot.

Sure, this is undoubtedly a step up on short notice, but I’ve been impressed with Stirling’s steady rise and suspect he’s catching Blachowicz at the perfect time.

Blachowicz’s chin and body parts alike could give way at any time given his age, so I elected not to get too cute and just threw Stirling in a parlay. I also couldn’t help but take a shot on Stirling’s takedown totals as well since I see most roads funneling to top control for the City Kickboxing product.

Quick thoughts:

In case the picture above doesn’t click for you, I had to give love to a reference from the legendary MMA ANALYSIS podcast, particularly when talking about the Serbian dream, “Dusky Toades” (aka Dusko Todorovic).

Despite Valentin training in my backyard of Xtreme Couture with fighters I respect, I have harder time respecting the Swiss fighter (for multiple reasons lol). But half-jokes aside, I don’t appear alone in thinking that Todorovic is live given that he’s the seeming public dog this week (which is keeping me off him outside of some round robin exposure with is KO prop).

A sub is also on the table in the event of a Dusky Toades win, but Valentin, to his credit, appears to be putting a lot of work into rounding out his grappling and I imagine is getting better at surviving said grappling given the wrestlers he’s training with in Las Vegas.

And though I officially picked Mateusz Rebecki and threw Rebecki sub in an alternate round robin, I (once again) believe that Kyle Prepolec is a way livelier dog than being credited for given his skills in southpaw vs. southpaw affairs and his deceptive resume.

Though Prepolec is technically winless in the UFC and against UFC-level southpaws alike, the Canadian has been on the wrong end of some weird beats and has been competitive standing in basically every defeat – as he was well on his way to beating Drew Dober until a brutally timed low blow allowed the American to give Prepolec his first stoppage via strikes (one of multiple terrible beats I was on in just that night, mind you… because of course).

Anyways, Rebecki should fight smart and submit Prepolec. The potential problem, however, is that the Pole never fights smart and wears damage so poorly that Buffer’s intros give him bloody noses. If Rebecki isn’t able to implement his ground game early, then it’s fair game for Prepolec to test the Pole’s durability after all these repeat wars via his check hooks and head kicks.

And despite officially picking Ludovit Klein, I don’t blame anyone piling in on Tofiq Musayev’s money line given that’s inflating over 2-1 on the plus money side of the spectrum.

I also broke down this fight in my feature via the Action Network. And considering my recent run on my betting articles with them (as well as my absolute cursed, jinx’d ass existence), I better get a thank you card for Musayev bettors – who can head to the window with confidence this weekend.

• Uros Medic, who faces fellow southpaw Daniel Rodriguez, is 2-2 opposite UFC-level lefties (Wins: Geoff Neal, Tim Means; Losses: Punahele Soriano, Jailin Turner).

• Daniel Rodriguez, who faces fellow southpaw Uros Medic, is officially 1-1 opposite UFC-level southpaws (Wins: Tim Means; Losses: Kelvin Gastelum), but he also went 1-1 with Contender Series-level southpaws (beating Ricco Farrington and losing a controversial decision to Victor Reyna in Combate Americas).

• Tofiq Musayev, who faces Ludovit Klein, is officially 0-0 opposite UFC-level southpaws.

• Mateusz Rebecki, who faces fellow southpaw Kyle Prepolec, is officially 0-1 opposite UFC-level lefties (losing to Ludovit Klein).

• Kyle Prepolec, who faces fellow southpaw Mateusz Rebecki, is officially 0-2 opposite UFC-level southpaws (losing to Benoit Saint-Denis and Drew Dober).

• Nina Milsovic, who faces Hailey Cowan, is officially 0-0 opposite UFC-level lefties.

• Medic

• Stirling

• Rakic

• Dirko Todorivir (aka Dusky Toades)

• Cepo

• Gugnon

• Klein

• Oliveira

• Nikolic

• Grad

• Rebecki

• Milosevic

• Leka

• Luciano

• Parlay: Oliveira, Rakic, Stirling = +120 (2-U)

• Stirling O 0.5 TDs -130 (1.3-U)

• Rebecki-Prepolec U 2.5 -155 (1.55-U)

• SGP: Klein/O 1.5 = -128 (1.28-U)

• Oliveira ITD -160 (1.6-U), rd 2 KO +450 (.4-U), rd 3 KO +700 (.3-U)

• Nikolic ITD +175 (1-U), rd 2 +550 (.3-U), rd 3 +1000 (.25-U)

• Trixie cycle: Nikolic sub +450, Oliveira KO -150, Rakic dec +175 = +2421 (.15-U exposure on parlay and 3 2-legger combos at .6-U total exposure)

• Round Robin/long-shot parlay: Prepolec +500, Nikolic rd 3 +1000, Oliveira rd 2 +325, Todorovic KO +375, Rodriguez +310 (.17-U exposure for each 2-leg round robin combo play for 1.7-U exposure total plus .01-U exposure on long-shot parlay at +546173)

*BETTING NOTES: There wasn’t a need for an alternate round robin given my selections, but Luciano sub, Cepo round 2 and Gugnon-Janicic ends rd 2 were legs under consideration. I did do an alternate trixie cycle to that’s untracked/you may like more, as I took Leka KO, Klein dec and Rebecki sub for +2277. I since I wanted some action on Milosevic, I put her in a parlay with Oliveira, Stirling and Medic-DRod not going the distance for +110. Prepolec, Musayev, Nikolic and D-Rod are all live targets I’ll have an eye on. Good luck with whatever you end up on.