On the main card of UFC 266, a pivotal heavyweight bout between top-10 fighters in Curtis Blaydes takes on Jairzinho Rozenstruik. The winner could very well get a top-five or top-three guy next time out.
UFC 266 Opening Odds:
Curtis Blaydes -240
Jairzinho Rozenstruik +198
UFC 266 Current Odds (Aug. 23)
Curtis Blaydes -335
Jairzinho Rozenstruik +270
Blaydes and Rozenstruik’s recent fights
Curtis Blaydes (14-3) suffered a KO loss to Derrick Lewis last time out in the main event back on February 20. If he had won, he could’ve very well gotten a title eliminator fight. Prior to the setback, he earned a decision win over Alexander Volkov, TKO wins over Junior dos Santos and Shamil Abdurakhimov and a decision victory over Justin Willis. He also holds notable wins over Alistair Overeem, Mark Hunt, and Alexey Oleynik.
Jairzinho Rozenstruik (12-2) returned to the win column last time with a first-round KO over Augusto Sakai back in the main event in June. Prior to that, he dropped a decision to Ciryl Gane after knocking out JDS and had his first loss by KO to Francis Ngannou. He holds notable wins over Alistair Overeem and Andrei Arlovski among others.
Are the odds surprising?
I’m not surprised by the opening odds as I thought Blaydes should be around a -225 favorite as he has the wrestling advantage. We have seen Rozenstruik get taken down but he does have a 80 percent takedown defense.
On the feet, Rozenstruik does have legit one-punch KO power but he is more of a counter striker and doesn’t throw a ton of volume. Yet, Blaydes can’t be too big of a favorite as we have seen him get knocked out in all three of his losses.
How might the odds change?
As we have already seen, the public has began to back Blaydes which I expect will be the case from here on out. Blaydes is usually a big favorite and even against Derrick Lewis he closed as a -440 favorite. The public likes to back “Razor” as he has the ability to dictate where the fight takes place and against Rozenstruik, that should be the case.
I think Blaydes will get to around a -350 favorite before some money comes in on Rozenstruik which brings it back down to the -335 range he is at.
