Fluid Thoughts for UFC Vegas 119

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.

General thoughts on the card:

Apologies for both the tardiness and lack of written words for this week’s Fluid Thoughts, but your boy had a very challenging week to top off my already insane workload, as I am SPENT.

That said, I do have some solid analysis and interviews that relate to the Manel Kape vs. Kyoji Horiguchi main attraction atop this card.

Firstly, above is my interview I did with Manel Kape in our shared home gym of Xtreme Couture MMA via Home of Fight’s YouTube channel.

And though I state my usual XC/Eric Nicksick-related biases, I did my best to break down this fight, a fight I hate having to make a pick on, via my usual in-depth treatments MMAJunkie.com

I limited myself to some small Gooch exposure (pause) via my round robin below, but I’m not looking to get too involved with this weekend’s main event. That said, the Kape alternate round props of rds 1, 2 and 3 for +250 is a tempting look.

As for the co-main event, I’m looking to continue earning small victories a la cashing certain bets that have plagued me in the past. And for this weekend’s matchup between Ion Cutelaba and Navajo Stirling, I’ll be looking to follow up my Hokit round 2 cash by finally hitting a Striling in rd 2 (I missed out via an off week in his last outing, of course).

But with Cutelaba being live for the upset, round robin exposure will be all I got for that one.

I dig the slew of featherweight fights on the main card, and will have split decision and total takedown props as my targets. As far as breakdowns for those remaining main card fights go, keep an eye out over at MMAJunkie.com on fight day for those to drop.

• Manel Kape, who is set to rematch Kyoji Horiguchi, is officially 1-0 in career rematches (avenging his loss to Kai Asakura in RIZIN).

• Kyoji Horiguchi, who is set to rematch Manel Kape, is officially 5-0 in career rematches (beating Sergio Pettis, Makoto Takashi, Hiromasa Ougikubo, Darion Caldwell and Shintaro Ishiwatari).

• Murtazali Magomedov, who faces Melsik Baghdasaryan, is officially 0-0 opposite UFC-level southpaws.

• Kape 4-2, Gooch 1-0

• Cutelaba 2-2-1 (2-3-1 w/TUF), Stirling 0-0 (1-0 w/DWCS)

• Fili 3-4-1, Lokdog 1-1 (2-1 w/DWCS)

• CeeRod 4-3, Amil 3-1 (4-1 w/DWCS)

• Lima 3-0 (4-0 w/DWCS), Borjas 0-0 (1-0 w/DWCS)

• Baghdasaryan 2-0 (3-0 w/DWCS), Magomedov 0-0 (1-0 w/DWCS)

• “Bia Bia” 1-0, Mullins 2-1

• NastyMentos 4-0 (4-1 w/DWCS), Rapisto 0-0 (0-1 w/DWCS)

• Bolanos 1-1, Aswell 0-1 (0-2 w/DWCS)

• Shahbazyan 0-0 (0-1 w/DWCS), Chokheli 0-0

• Rosa 5-1, Santos 5-0

• Collins 0-0, Tanzilovi 0-0 (0-1 w/DWCS)

• Kape

• Stirling

• CeeRod

• Magomedov

• Fili

• Lima

• “Bia Bia”

• NastyMentos

• Asswell

• Chokheli

• Santos

• Collins

• Bia Bia ITD, Magomedov = +107 (2.5-U)

• Magomedov ITD -105 (1.55-U)

• Bia Bia ITD, Rosa-Santos O 2.5 = -134 (1.5-U)

• Lima ITD +125 (1.25-U)

• Lokdog O 0.5 TDs -120 (1.2-U)

• CeedRod O 2.5 TDs +110 (1-U)

• Bia Bia ITD, Magomedov rd 1 = +465 (.3-U)

• Bia Bia ITD, Magomedov rd 2 = +816 (.2-U)

• Trixie cycle: NastyMentos sub +200, Lima KO +225, CeeRod dec +125 = +2094 (.15-U exposure on parlay and 3 2-legger combos at .6-U total exposure)

• Round Robin/long-shot parlay: Lokdog-Fili split +525, Magomedov rd 1 +250, CeeRod-Amil split +400, Stirling rd 2 +450, Gooch ITD +450 (.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 +330759)

BETTING NOTES: With all the exposure above on Mesquita (“Bia Bia”), it appears the candidate for this week’s potential Topuria upset anchor is set. That said, I believe I have enough cross coverage across the board to still have a decent shot at profit in case Mesquita fails at finishing for the first time in her career in what should be a squash match. As fas as alternate round robin legs go for houses that don’t offer cheeky split or ITD props, I’m looking at Gooch sub, Fili ML, Lima sub or NastyMentos sub to group with the Stirling and Magomedov rd 1/2 flier legs (depending on what makes most sense price-wise). Good luck with whatever you end up on.