UFC
UFC Champ Jon Jones opens as huge favorite over Rashad Evans for UFC 145 headliner
Jan 30, 2012 - 4:45:51 PM UFC Champ Jon Jones opens as huge favorite over Rashad Evans for UFC 145 headliner

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

With his win over Phil Davis at UFC on Fox 2 on Saturday night, Rashad Evans finally set up a fight with former teammate and now UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones. The fight will headline the UFC 145 event in Atlanta this April, and the first odds for the bout have been released.

Online sports book Bookmaker.eu set the opening lines for the fight with the Champion as a prohibitive favorite. Jones opened at -600, with Evans sitting at +400. For the uninitiated, those lines mean a bet of $600 on Jones would net a $100 profit, while a $100 bet on Evans would net the bettor a $400 profit should he win.

The lines will fluctuate one way or the other depending on where the money comes in over the next several months, but Jones is considered the significant favorite right off the bat by oddsmakers here.

Penick's Analysis: That line may go even further in Jones' favor as the bout nears. Evans is a very good, eilte-level light heavyweight, but with what we've seen Jones do to several other elite light heavyweights, there's a reason many believe Evans doesn't have much to offer in this fight. We'll see how the lines shift in the next few months until that fight, but right now the oddsmakers don't believe Evans is going to be winning the title a second time.

[Jon Jones art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]