UFC 245 takes place Saturday, December 14 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The offshore sportsbooks recently opened up the betting odds for the full card, and here they are.
UFC 245 Opening Odds
Kamaru Usman -300
Colby Covington +230
Max Holloway -200
Alexander Volkanovski +150
Amanda Nunes -303
Germaine de Randamie +225
Marlon Moraes -175
Jose Aldo +135
Petr Yan -265
Urijah Faber +185
Matt Brown -350
Ben Saunders +275
Kelten Vieira -245
Irene Aldana +195
Geoff Neal -155
Mike Perry +125
Ian Heinisch -130
Omari Akhmedov +100
Chase Hooper -155
Daniel Teymur +125
Kai Kara-France -130
Brandon Moreno +100
Viviane Araujo -200
Jessica Eye +160
Punahele Soriano -145
Oskar Piechota +115
And here are my initial thoughts on the UFC 245 Opening Odds:
- On paper, this is the card of the year. There are three title fights scheduled, including Usman looking to defend the UFC welterweight title against Covington. This is a really intriguing matchup between two similar fighters. Both guys are wrestlers with incredible gas tanks and improving striking skills. The opening odds were far too skewed in Usman’s favor. Even if you don’t like Covington, you have to admit this is a competitive matchup. At the opening odds, it’s dog-or-pass.
- Next up we have Holloway taking on Volkanovski for the UFC featherweight title. Holloway is coming off of a nice win over Frankie Edgar to bounce back after losing to Dustin Poirier at lightweight while Volkanovski is a perfect 7-0 in the UFC and is on a 17-fight win streak overall. Holloway has been an elite featherweight for years so he deserves to be favored here as the champ, but Volkanovski is an extremely impressive fighter and you can’t count him out of winning this one.
- And finally, as far as the title fights go we have Nunes looking to defend the UFC women’s bantamweight crown against de Ranamie. These two fought back in 2013 with Nunes defeating de Randamie via first-round TKO. Since then, Nunes has continued her assault on the division and is arguably the top women’s MMA fighter of all time now. De Randamie is solid in her own right, but not on the level of Nunes. Of the three title fights on the card, this one seems most obvious in the favor of the champ.
- In non-title action, we have two incredible bantamweight bouts featuring Moraes vs. Aldo and Yan vs. Faber. For Aldo, there have been reports his weight cut has been rough leading up to this one, but if he can make 135lbs safely, he immediately becomes a title threat for Henry Cejudo’s belt. That being said, Moraes is a tough opponent. In the other fight, Yan is one of the hottest fighters in the division but Faber looked amazing in his comeback fight, knocking out top prospect Ricky Simon. Moraes and Yan are both favored here but don’t count out the veterans.
- After that, there are a bunch of other amazing prelim fights including Saunders vs. Brown and Perry vs. Neal, both of which could be in the running for “Fight of the Night.” This is truly the definition of a stacked card and fans watching it are sure to be in for an incredible show.
