The co-main event for UFC Fight Night 27 is an excellent matchup between two of the top 10 lightweights in the world, as Donald Cerrone takes on Rafael dos Anjos in what should be an absolute barnburner of a fight. The current betting line for the match at Several Bookmakers sees Cerrone as a -165 favorite (bet $165 to win $100) with dos Anjos a +145 underdog (bet $100 to win $145). This means that, so far, the early public support has come in on Cerrone, as MMA oddsmaker Nick Kalikas originally opened the fight at -120 either way. This an extremely difficult fight to bet on but, gun to head, I’m going with the dog dos Anjos and feel like there is some value in him at +145. Here’s why. Both dos Anjos and Cerrone are both well rounded and seem evenly matched everywhere, and in close fights like this it’s often better to go with the fighter who has more momentum. Dos Anjos is currently riding a four-fight win streak and has won five of six while Cerrone on the other hand is 2-3 over his last five fights, so you would think the public would have sided with dos Anjos. But instead of backing the hotter fighter the public is instead fading him slightly and I believe I know the reason why. I’m guessing the public is slightly fading dos Anjos because they feel that he lost the Evan Dunham fight, and while I did score that contest for Dunham 29-28, it was most definitely competitive enough that the judges had the margin to make a bad call and that’s exactly what they did. But I don’t believe dos Anjos should be faded here because of the Dunham decision and instead I think Cerrone is the fighter to fade here despite the fact he’s coming off of a dominant win over KJ Noons. The thing is, Cerrone is 30 now and his body has really taken a toll because of all the wars he’s been in. As we saw with Joe Lauzon at UFC Fight Night 26, there is a price to pay for all those “Fight of the Night” bonuses and Cerrone is cut from the same cloth. After getting his face beat up by Nate Diaz at UFC 141, Cerrone was also hurt badly in his fights with Melvin Guillard and Anthony Pettis and his face was marked up bad after the Noons fight despite the fact Noons barely hit him. I respect Cerrone as a fighter and he is exciting as it gets, but I correctly faded him against Pettis and I’m going to do it again here vs. dos Anjos. Again, this is a competitive match on paper and it should play out that way in the cage as well. It’s a fight that, in my opinion, will likely hit the scorecards and be close so at +145 I would say dos Anjos is good material for a round robin. But don’t go too crazy because it’s a fight that the judges could screw up and I’m not willing to bank on them getting it right since they always seem to find a way to get things wrong.
