One of the preliminary card bouts scheduled for UFC Fight Night 36 is a featherweight contest between Charles “Do Bronx” Oliveira and Andy “The Little Axe” Ogle. The current betting line for the fight at Several Bookmakers lists Oliveira as a -550 betting favorite (bet $550 to win $100) while Ogle is a +400 underdog (bet $100 to win $400). MMA oddsmaker Nick Kalikas originally opened up Oliveira at -900 and Ogle at +500, meaning the betting public has surprisingly come in on the underdog, “The Little Axe.” I do not understand the early line movement as I’m expecting Oliveira to steamroll Ogle in a blowout. Here’s why. Oliveira (16-4, 1 NC) is one of the most talented submission artists in the UFC. The 24-year-old Brazilian is a black belt in BJJ and has submission wins over Jonathan Brookins, Eric Wisely, Efrain Escudero and Darren Elkins in his UFC tenure. In fact, all of his UFC wins have come via submission, and he won Submission of the Night for three of them. However, despite his strengths on the ground, his striking is still a work in progress and he lost his last two fights in the standup department. Overall, he is 4-4 with one No Contest in the UFC since making his debut in 2010. Despite his recent losses, though, I still believe in Oliveira’s potential and think that the fights he’s lost in the UFC were just to better fighters, namely Frankie Edgar, Cub Swanson, Donald Cerrone and Jim Miller. I think Oliveira, despite the two-fight losing skid, is rapidly improving his all-around game and I expect him to really show off his improvements at UFC Fight Night 36. Ogle (9-3) was a competitor on TUF Live and has so far gone 1-2 in the UFC with a win over Josh Grispi and losses to Cole Miller and Akira Corassani. The 24-year-old Ogle is a tough fighter with decent striking and some submission ability. But he’s not really elite anywhere, and he is often the underdog going into his fights for this reason. The Brit has a big opportunity here to defeat Oliveira and move into the top 20 of the UFC featherweight division but, stylistically, this is a very difficult matchup for him and he is a big underdog for a reason. His only chance against Oliveira is likely a standing KO, but considering his reach disadvantage, that isn’t going to be likely. And if he can’t find Oliveira’s chin, he has no realistic path to victory. I think Oliveira is going to get this fight to the ground pretty early on and lock in one of his signature submissions. He might even win “Submission of the Night” for whatever move he pulls off. The UFC is clearly feeding Ogle to Oliveira in the hopes of getting the Brazilian back in the win column, and I would honestly be shocked if Ogle was able to pull off the upset against a much more talented, more skilled opponent. Even at -550, I see value in Oliveira here in parlays as I had him capped much closer to the opener of -900. I just don’t see how Ogle wins this fight outside of a flukey KO punch, and so I feel pretty confident playing Oliveira in a two-man parlay to decrease the amount of juice. I think he wins this fight in impressive fashion, and I think those betting on Ogle are doing so just because the odds are so steep on Oliveira. The total, which is set at 1.5 rounds, is an intriguing bet as well as I see this fight being finished early on and the price on the UNDER is even money.
