FACEBOOK TWITTER RSS APP PODCAST Upcoming Events UFC 110 Prediction and Betting Contests (UPDATED)

Feb 20, 2010 - 8:44:14 PM
By Matt Pelkey, MMATorch Columnist
**UPDATE** Ben Rothwell was forced out due to illness and has been replaced by Anthony Perosh in his fight with Mirko Filipovic. Also, Elvis Sinosic has pulled out of his fight with Chris Haseman due to a shoulder injury. No replacement was named and the fight has been canceled altogether. Seeing as how its late in the game, I'm going to also just drop the Cro Cop/Perosh fight from the contests, and we'll go ahead with just 8 fights. I'll do my best to notify anyone who used some of their $1000 on Rothwell or Cro Cop that there's been a change and they need to place the money on someone else.

One more housekeeping item while we're at it. Some may have noticed I put the rules for the betting contest in bold. That's because I keep getting a few people every contest who send me bets in multiples of $50. I just wanted to let everyone know that from now on, the rule will be that any bet submitted not in a multiple of $100 will be rounded down to the next multiple of $100. E.g. a bet of $250 would be counted as $200, and a bet of $50, $75, or even $99.99 would count as $0. I think discounting the bet completely would be a bit harsh, but there has to be some punishment, right?

After the decidedly "eh" show that was UFC 109, they're back in full force this Saturday, making their Australian debut at the Acer Arena in Sydney for UFC 110. We're still one more event away from some long-awaited title shots, but I'm pretty pumped for this one. The main event is basically a #1 contender fight in the heavyweight division and the rest of the main card is full of the action-assured match-ups that UFC 109 lacked. You also have Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Wanderlei Silva, and Mirko Filipovic fighting on the same card for the first time since several years ago when they were the three biggest starts (not named Fedor) in PrideFC.

Before I get to the nuts and bolts, one contest note: I said in the UFC 109 contest post that I'd start keeping track of everyone's cumulative records and name one year-end winner from each contest. Just wanted to let you guys know I'll be posting the first set of results sometime next week after UFC 110 is completed. The Prediction results will obviously be based on winning percentage, but the betting with be compiled based on your average result per event. I.e. I'll take how much total money you've been paid out and divide by the number of contests you've participated in. The person with the best per-contest average at the end of the year wins a t-shirt or something.

At UFC 109, Prediction Champ Godric Louis and Betting Champ Jamie Penick both defeated #1 contender Paul P. to retain their titles and move on to face a new challenge this Saturday. For Louis, its Fernando Trejo who posted a solid 9-2 mark at UFC 109, and for Penick its Lightning101, who nearly tripled his money by hitting on $800 worth of bets on underdogs. Good luck to those four, and also to everyone NOT involved in a title match.


PREDICTION CONTEST:

I'm pretty sure everyone knows how this works by now, but just in case...Basically you pick the winners of each fight, including method (e.g. KO, submission, decision) and round. The winner is the one who picks the most fights correctly. Ties will be broken by who had the most number of rounds and methods correctly predicted. In case anyone is wondering, only rounds and methods in fights where you predicted the correct winner count.

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (EVEN) vs. Cain Velasquez (-130)

Wanderlei Silva (-155) vs. Michael Bisping (+125)

Joe Stevenson (-260) vs. George Sotiropoulos (+200)

Keith Jardine (+135) vs. Ryan Bader (-165)

Stephan Bonnar (+155) vs. Krzysztof Soszynski (-190)

Chris Lytle (-170) vs. Brian Foster (+140)

Goran Reljic (-215) vs. C.B. Dollaway (+175)

Igor Pokrajac (+140) vs. James Te Huna (-170)


BETTING CONTEST:

As you can see, there's a number attached to each fighter. That number represents how much money you can make off each fighter. The way it works is, if a fighter has a positive number he's an underdog. The positive number means if you were to bet $100 dollars on him, you would make the amount of the positive number. For example, if you were to bet $100 on Bisping and he won, you would make back the hundred you bet, plus $125 for a total payout of $225.

If the fighter has a negative number, that number represents how much you would have to bet to make $100 on the fighter. For example, if you bet $155 on Silva and he won, you'd make back the $155, plus a $100 profit, for a total payout of $255.

Each contestant has $1000 in theoretical money. You can bet it on as many fighters as you'd like, but you have to bet on at least three. The most you can bet on a single fighter is $500, and bets have to be in multiples of $100.

I'm setting a deadline of 6p.m. (EST) Saturday to get all of your picks in. The lines are courtesy of Bodog.

Note: In the event that one of the #1 contenders fails to show for their title shot, the champ will defend against the next best performer from the previous contest. You've been warned, so bring your A game everybody!

As always you can submit your picks one of three ways: by emailing me at matt6buckeye@hotmail.com, posting them on the message boards, or by leaving them in the comments section right down there. Good luck!

ALERT: Every Tuesday night, listen to the MMATorch Livecast from 9-10:30 p.m. ET or listen now to the most recent shows by clicking here. Listen live this coming Tuesday as Jamie Penick, Rich Hansen, and Matt Pelkey discuss the latest MMA happenings. Online listen at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mmatorch or call into the show at 646-716-8090 to either just listen or participate.