The UFC is headlining UFC 265 on August 7 in Houston, Texas with a heavyweight title fight, but not the fight many expected. In the main event of the pay-per-view card, Derrick Lewis will take on Ciryl Gane in an interim heavyweight scrap.
Many expected Lewis to rematch Francis Ngannou on this card, but the champ wasn’t ready to fight in August. With that, the promotion went for an interim belt with the winner facing Ngannou sometime in early 2022 for the undisputed belt.
UFC 265 Opening Odds:
Derrick Lewis +275
Ciryl Gane -325
Current UFC 265 Odds (July 16)
Derrick Lewis +240
Ciryl Gane -300
Lewis and Gane’s recent fights
Derrick Lewis (25-7) is coming off a big upset KO win over Curtis Blades back in February. The win cemented himself as the number one contender and improved his winning streak to four. Prior to the win over Blaydes, Lewis scored a KO win over Aleksei Oleinik, and decision wins over Ilir Latifi and Blagoy Ivanov. “The Black Beast” fought for UFC gold at UFC 230 where he lost by submission to Daniel Cormier. He holds notable wins over Alexander Volkov, Francis Ngannou, Marcin Tybura, and Roy Nelson.
Ciryl Gane (9-0) has had an incredible run to a UFC title shot as he only turned pro back in August of 2018. His first pro fight, he won the TKO heavyweight title and defended it twice before signing with the UFC at 3-0. Since joining the UFC, he submitted Raphael Pessoa and Don’Tale Mayes, beat Tanner Boser by decision, TKO’d Junior dos Santos and earned decision wins over Jairizinho Rozenstruik and Alexander Volkov by decision in main events.
Are the odds surprising?
I was surprised that Derrick Lewis was nearly a +300 underdog. Although Gane is a very technical striker, Lewis has legit one-punch KO power and can be losing a fight and land one shot and it’s all over as we saw against Volkov.
It isn’t surprising to see Gane be the favorite as he has been the betting favorite in all of his UFC fights and has opened above -300 three fights with the only two times he wasn’t he opened as a -280 favorite against Tanner Boser and a -270 favorite against JDS but closed well above -400 in both of them. Lewis, meanwhile, was a sizeable +300 underdog to Blaydes, a slight favorite against Ivanov, and was only a -195 favorite against Oleinik. Lewis is usually an underdog or a slight favorite, so he’s someone the oddsmakers and betting overlook.
How might the odds change?
I do think the odds will close as we have already seen. I do think Gane will still be a sizeable favorite when the fight happens, but I think he’ll be more around -250 with the comeback on Lewis around +200. At the current price, there’s too much value on Lewis as he can end the fight with one shot.
