The mixed martial arts (MMA) fantasy website Kountermove is back with another freeroll for MMAOddsBreaker.com readers. If you’re not familiar with how the site works, here’s a brief snippet from the site owners, themselves.
Kountermove brings the traditional fantasy format to MMA. Accumulation of points and a salary cap make fantasy MMA more intriguing than your basic “pick ’em” contest. With other industry pros on the site it is the place to be if you know your MMA. The game is fairly simple on its face, games are played over a single night during one event. Prior to the event, players get a total of $25,000 fantasy dollars to pick five fighters for your team. Each fighter is given a specific salary by Kountermove. Kountermove assigns a value for each fighter based on how we believe the fight will go. Points are scored if a fighter scores a finish, wins a round, lands significant strikes, knocks an opponent down, scores takedowns, secures dominant positions or attempts submissions. The more dominant your fighters’performance, the more points you’re going to score. If you score more points than your opponents, then you win the money.
To enter the free $200 tournament for MMAOddsBreaker.com readers, just click the link below: https://www.kountermove.com/join/32646-ufc-178-mma-oddsbreaker-200-tourney-on-ufc-178-johnson-vs-cariaso-T-free/ If you don’t have an account, don’t worry, you can create one for free, but do it quickly, spacing is limited! If you’re interested in a few pointers on potential fighters to pick, I’ll be offering my analysis and potential picks to click. In case you have your doubts, I have a very nice track record of success with the website, having won plenty since its inception. Before I get to my picks, remember that to get the best value out of your team, you have to try to get an average of $5000 per fighter with your team of five fighters and your $25,000 salary cap. That means if you want to pick a big favorite from UFC 178 like Demetrious Johnson ($6100), you have to balance it out by picking some underdogs that you think will perform above and beyond. Sometimes it’s not worth it to pick the overwhelming favorite. Without further ado, here are some of the picks that stand out for me: Stephen Thompson ($5100): Thompson is an extremely accomplished striker with serious knockout ability from both his hands and his legs. If he can avoid the takedowns against Patrick Cote on Saturday night, he should be in terrific shape to not only outpoint his way to a decision, but definitely score a finish via strikes. Thompson throws with power from unexpected angles and he can do some serious damage from distance. Cote used to be known for having a tremendous chin, but he’s clearly shown deterioration after getting hurt badly on the feet by both Kyle Noke and Alessio Sakara recently. Underdog Pick of the Night John Howard ($4600): There aren’t a ton of underdogs on this card that I feel are worth taking a stab on according to Kountermove, so I’ll go the safe route and pick someone who’s the betting favorite but is surprisingly the cheaper fighter on KM. Howard isn’t a worldbeater, but he’s pretty consistent and he has a very winnable fight on Saturday against Brian Ebersole, a fighter who hasn’t looked very good as of late and has not been fighting regularly at all. Howard has pretty good takedown defense, offensive wrestling and some nice power and pressure-based attack on the feet. With Ebersole getting clipped and hurt a bit in his recent performances, we might even see a knockout from Howard if he lands something significant. Fighter to Avoid Yoel Romero ($4700): Romero is a high risk/high reward pick. He has some serious finishing ability with the power in his hands and knees, but I’m not quite convinced he’ll be in a position to pull that off against Tim Kennedy, a fighter with a solid grappling base for MMA as well as some decent stand-up skills in his own right. Romero is pretty up there in years, does not have great conditioning and also doesn’t have a great chin. Those things don’t usually get better as you continue to get older. I could be wrong and Romero could step up again like he did against Brad Tavares in his last fight, but I have a feeling he’ll struggle like he did against similar fighters to Tim Kennedy in Derek Brunson and Ronny Markes. Complete UFC 178 Preview If my fantasy preview isn’t enough for you, Fight Scientist Reed Kuhn, MMA Oddsmaker Nick Kalikas and myself did an extensive preview of the entire fight card on The Premium Oddscast, which was posted earlier this week. Feel free to check out our latest episode. There’s plenty of combinations for great teams with 11 total bouts for this event: UFC 178 Preview
Thanks for reading and good luck!