UFC 249 Full Cards Odds & Preview

Are you ready for some MMA? I’m not talking about another replay of UFC 124 or UFC Fight Night 139. I’m talking about live MMA on pay per view (with the undercards on ESPN and ESPN+). The long suspension of live pro sports comes to an end on Saturday, when Jacksonville, Florida, will host UFC 249. The main event is a battle for the interim UFC Lightweight Championship between Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje, while the co-headliner features Dominick Cruz trying to take away Henry Cejudo’s UFC Bantamweight Championship hardware. We’ve posted separate articles about the two headline events. Here you’ll find the the UFC Betting Odds for each fight on the cards as well as thoughts on some of the lower fights.

UFC 249 Full Cards Odds & Preview

 Main Card (Pay Per View)

• Tony Ferguson (-173) vs Justin Gaethje (+143) (UFC Lightweight Championship)
• Henry Cejudo (-235) vs Dominick Cruz (+195) (UFC Bantamweight Championship)
• Francis Ngannou (-270) vs Jairzinho Rozenstruik (+210) (Heavyweight)
• Jeremy Stephens (+200) vs Calvin Kattar (-255) (Featherweight)
• Greg Hardy (-176) vs Yorgan de Castro (+154) (Heavyweight)

Preliminary Card (ESPN)

• Donald Cerrone (+110) vs Anthony Pettis (-138) (Welterweight)
• Aleksei Oleinik (+122) vs Fabricio Werdum (-270) (Heavyweight)
• Carla Esparza (-128) vs Michelle Waterson (+114) (Women’s Strawweight)
• Uriah Hall (+122) vs Ronaldo Souza (-138) (Middleweight)

Early Preliminary Card (ESPN+)

• Vicente Luque (-250) vs Niko Price (+210) (Welterweight)
• Bryce Mitchell (-213) vs Charles Rosa (+184) (Featherweight)
• Ryan Spann (-400) vs Sam Alvey (+300) (Light Heavyweight)

  Francis Ngannou (14-3) vs Jairzinho Rozenstruik (10-0) should be explosive theater between two violent heavyweights. Ngannou had a swift rise in the UFC, knocking out both Alistair Overeem and Andrei Arlovski, the gatekeepers in the classification, in 2017. That earned Ngannou a title shot opposite Stipe Miocic, but Miocic was able to take advantage of Ngannou’s lack of strategy behind the big bombs. Ngannou followed that up with a bad loss against Derrick Lewis, as both of them sat back and waited for the other to take the initiative. Then, though, Ngannou knocked out Curtis Blaydes, Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos in just over two minutes combined. However, has Ngannou improved, or did the opposition talent just drop? Rozenstruik has had a similar arc to Ngannou’s early rise in the division. He almost lost in his debut against Junior Albini but came back to win, and then he needed only nine seconds to knock out Allen Crowder. He also knocked out Overeem and Arlovski, but the finish against Overeem did not come until the last ten seconds of the fight. So we have two big bombers looking to knock out each other, which could mean they both mount pressure — and it could mean they both sit back and nibble on points. Final Prediction: Ngannou wins via knockout Greg Hardy (5-2) vs Yorgan De Castro (6-0) will be Hardy’s eighth fight in UFC since the NFL exiled him because of his domestic violence issues. Hardy comes in once again as a favorite, but the problem with him is that he tends to lose interest once it becomes clear that a finish will not be possible. Hardy last entered the Octagon as a late-minute substitution against Alexander Volkov and ended up losing on the cards, as Volkov did not give in to Hardy’s pressure game and had the defense to pick his spots. Now, Hardy has returned to his former slot in UFC’s power structure, which means he’s being given another tomato can to set up and take down. De Castro did deliver an emphatic knockout of Justin Tafa when he debuted in UFC last year. He likes to fight patiently, working in from the outside, so this could be a slow, turgid fight. This could look like Hardy’s win over Ben Sosoli, as Hardy managed to avoid danger and pick up a series of points once it was clear Sosoli would not be easy to stop. De Castro’s advantage is his leg kick game, but it’s hard to argue that Hardy will let him get close enough to turn that into an advantage. Final Prediction: Hardy wins via decision.