UFC 117 Betting preview: Chael Sonnen a worthy underdog, once again
With Saturday’s Ultimate Fighting Championships’ UFC 117 event coming up, bettors are seeing a familiar story for the mixed martial arts promotion. A champion, this time middleweight king Anderson Silva, coming in as a huge favourite over a challenger that has recently shot up the ranks to earn his shot.
The challenger is Chael Sonnen, and for fans it’ll also be another familiar sight – Sonnen coming in as a sizeable underdog. Sonnen is listed at most places as being around a +350 underdog for this fight, meaning a 1$ bet will pay back $3.50 in winnings, plus the original amount bet.
The logic is simple. Silva is too good, and Sonnen’s game is too one-dimensional. Silva is hands down the most brilliant striker in MMA, able to utterly humiliate opponents, combining brutal power, pinpoint accuracy and elusiveness to leave almost all of his opponents, and every single fighter he’s fought since 2006, shaking their heads in disbelief and defeat. Sonnen on the other hand only has good striking (good striking doesn’t cut it against Silva) and is vulnerable to submissions, which Silva, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, also possesses.
Sonnen’s quest for respect
But that doesn’t tell the whole story here. It’s been easy to write off Sonnen before, and bettors have done it three times in a row. After losing by submission at UFC 95 to Demian Maia, Sonnen came in against another BJJ whiz, Dan Miller at UFC 98. Bookies had Sonnen as a 5-2 underdog because it was clear cut – Sonnen, vulnerable to submissions, coming in against a submission specialist. It was a no-brainer, right? Wrong. Sonnen outwrestled him for three rounds to pick up the upset.
He then came in against Japanese superstar Yushin Okami at UFC 104, this time as a 3-1 underdog. Again, it was simple: Okami was more well-rounded, had submissions, and moreover had a reputation for being very difficult to out-wrestle, with his legendary strength. Again Sonnen proved the world wrong by completely dominating Okami.
Lastly he came into UFC 109 against Nate Marquardt as a 4-1 underdog. Once again bettors had a handful of reasons why Marquardt would dispatch Sonnen. Marquardt had better grappling, better striking and could defend against the takedown. And once again Sonnen humiliated an opponent on route to victory, although he was almost choked out twice.
Sonnen an underdog, again
This time it seems people are once again overlooking Sonnen. Sonnen’s wrestling is simply brilliant. And he’s beaten the number four (Okami) and number three (Marquardt) fighters in the division to get to the title, something few others challengers have had to do.
Silva’s fantastic Muay Thai will be no good to him if Sonnen is able to put him on his back, and it’s been a rare sight to see Sonnen not be able to take his opponent down.
Defenders of Silva will respond immediately that Silva has faced a top-calibre wrestler before in former Olympian Dan Henderson at UFC 82, choking him out in the second round. But while Henderson’s wrestling pedigree is every bit as good as Sonnen’s, he was also older, slower, and didn’t rely on the takedown as much as Sonnen does. And in both his fights to Travis Lutter and Henderson, Silva has shown some weaknesses towards the takedown.
This isn’t to say Sonnen should be the favourite. As mentioned, Silva is a phenom, the kind of fighter that comes around only very rarely. In all likelihood, he’ll walk away the victor Saturday night. But gambling is a game of odds, and with Sonnen coming in as a huge underdog again, it’s worth the money to throw a few bucks on the outspoken American.
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