UFC Fight Night 32 was live last night (November 9th, 2013) from the Goiania Arena in Goiania, Brazil. As predicted, the card featured a number of Fight of the Night-caliber performances. “I expect a lot of first round finishes tonight,” I said on Twitter, before the fights got underway. I was right on the money, as seven of the eleven fights on the card resulted in first round stoppages. As far as our bets go, we had a very up and down kind of night… In the Tome/Ortiz fight, which kicked things off for the evening, I had a play on Ortiz. A friend talked me out of the play, and I bought out of it by going big on Tome. I had not personally spent time handicapping this fight, so I had no problem tailing someone else. I was leaning Ortiz, but my friend was so confident in Tome that I made the switch. It was a bad move, as Ortiz ultimately stopped Tome in the third round with a TKO. It was a bad way to start the night, but things got immediately better with Martins/Cruickshank u2.5 (+130) and Fight Won’t Go Distance (+105) cashing in the next fight. I gave that play out on Twitter. A small recommended Twitter play on Tavares by KO +626 tanked, but then some more Twitter plays began to cash in the next bout of the evening, as Omari Akhmedov (-185) defeated Thiago Perpetuo via first round knockout in a Fight of the Night performance. Along with the straight play on Akhmedov, we also cashed on Fight Won’t Go Distance (-175) and Akhmedov ITD (+107). Unfortunately, though, that is where our win streak ends, as my next Twitter plays on Godofredo Pepey (+100) and Pepey by Submission (+250) both crashed and burned. Sam Sicilia TKO’d Pepey in the first round, while inside of his guard, being exactly where Pepey wanted him. That was the second time Pepey has been knocked out while fighting off his back, and will likely be the last we see of him inside the Octagon. At least a recommended play on the u1.5 (+105) cashed, so it wasn’t a total loss. Things continued to look bad, as the main card got underway… Jeremy Stephens put Rony Jason -205 away with a headkick in the first round of action, and we lost our big straight play on him. We also lost plays on Jason by Dec (+250) and o1.5 rounds (-150). We took a big hit there and went in red-territory. However, our asses were saved in the next fight of the night, where Brandon Thatch -330 defeated Paulo Thiago via first round stoppage. It would have been a TKO, but Thiago tapped, so the fight was ruled a submission due to strikes. We lost a moderate play on Thatch by T/KO (-135), but we cashed a big play on Thatch straight-up and Thatch in Round 1 (+150), and ultimately went back in the green. In the Feijao vs Pokrajac fight, I recommended a straight play on Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante (-290) over Igor Pokrajac, and he defeated Pokrajac in the very first round. Pokrajac tapped due to strikes, making it back to back fights where a fighter tapped to strikes. With the win there, we also cashed a recommended Twitter play on Fight Won’t Start Round 2 (+162). The co-main event of the evening was what should have been the original TUF Brazil season one tournament final, between Cezar Ferreira and Daniel Sarafian. I expected Ferreira to stand with Sarafian, as he is the more accomplished striker. I expected him to make that mistake and end up getting knocked out. He did start making that mistake, but once he felt Sarafian’s power, he turned it into a wrestling match, and used his clear size advantage to get the decision. With the Sarafian loss, we lost a moderate play on Sarafian (+150), as well as recommended Twitter plays on Sarafian in Round 1 (+600), Sarafian by T/KO (+600), and Sarafian (+310) live, which was offered after the second round. In the main event of the evening, we cashed a big play on Vitor Belfort (-225), but lost a big play on Belfort winning a unanimous decision, which I personally hit at +525, but recommended when it was down to +345. We walked away from that fight with a little money in our pockets, and to conclude, we had a slightly profitable evening of mixed martial arts betting. Can’t always win big, but no one else does so more often than we do. Let’s keep cashing…
