UFC Vegas 28: Rozenstruik vs. Sakai takes place on Saturday, June 5 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada. The offshore sportsbooks recently opened up the betting odds for the event, and MMAOB staff writer Adam Martin takes a look at the opening odds below.
UFC Vegas 28 Odds
Augusto Sakai -140
Jairzinho Rozenstruik +120
Marcin Tybura -150
Walt Harris +130
Santiago Ponzinibbio -140
Miguel Baeza +120
Laureano Staropoli -150
Roman Doldize +130
Tom Breese -200
Antonio Arroyo +170
Dusko Todorovic -250
Gregory Rodrigues +210
Tanner Boser -180
Ilir Latifi +155
Montana de la Rosa -140
Ariane Lipski +120
Manon Fiorot -450
Tabatha Ricci +350
Sean Woodson -115
Youssef Zalal -105
Mason Jones -250
Alan Patrick +210
Muslim Salikhov -250
Francisco Trinaldo +210
Makwan Amirkhani -305
Kamuela Kirk +225
Jordan Leavitt -300
Claudio Puelles +250
Here are my quick thoughts on the UFC Vegas 28 Opening Odds:
- The main event of UFC Vegas 28 features heavyweights Augusto Sakai (15-2-1) against Jairzinho Rozenstruik (11-2). Sakai made his UFC debut in 2018 and won the first four fights of his Octagon career before getting knocked out by Alistair Overeem in his last fight. While Overeem was recently cut by the UFC, Sakai is getting another main event fight, which shows that the UFC is quite high on him and still believes in his potential. In this fight, Sakai takes on Rozenstruik who is 5-2 overall in the UFC himself. Rozenstruik is one of the biggest punchers in the UFC heavyweight division and he will be looking to keep this fight with Sakai standing where he will be able to catch him and knock him out. It should be an intriguing fight either way, though the oddsmakers slightly leaned towards Sakai as the opening betting favorite.
- The co-main event features Walt Harris (13-9) against Marcin Tybura (21-6). Harris is 6-8, 1 NC overall in the UFC, and is coming off of back-to-back knockout losses to the aforementioned Overeem and Alexander Volkov. It’s been nearly two years since Harris won a fight and at age 37 he appears to be on a steep decline in his career. As for Tybura, he appears to be on an upswing. Tybura is 8-5 overall in the UFC which includes his current four-fight win streak, which featured a knockout win over Greg Hardy in his last outing. Tybura appears to be on the rise in the UFC heavyweight division and the oddsmakers opened him as a slight favorite in this fight even though Harris is technically the higher-ranked UFC fighter.
- Another great fight on the card is a welterweight matchup between Miguel Baeza and Santiago Ponzinibbio. Baeza is just 28 years old and is already 10-0 as a pro, including a perfect 3-0 mark in the UFC thus far with wins over Takashi Sato, Matt Brown, and Hector Aldana. As for Ponzinibbio, he is 9-3 overall in the UFC and has been one of the top welterweights in the sport for years. However, he didn’t fight at all in 2019 and 2020, and when he returned earlier this year, we saw him get brutally knocked out by Li Jingliang in a big upset. Ponzinibbio is certainly a capable striker and he has a ton of experience in the UFC, but that loss to Jingliang is very concerning, and going up against a young stud in Baeza, this could be a hard matchup.
