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/36033-fn-58-mma-oddsbreaker-200-tourney-on-ufc-fight-night-58-machida-vs-dollaway-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 Fight Night 58 like Renan Barao ($6000) 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: Yuta Sasaki ($5200): Sasaki is an absolute beast. The talented bantamweight is one of the best prospects in the world out of Japan along with Kyoji Horiguchi and he proved it in his UFC debut when he choked out Roland Delorme in a minute. He’s making his second Octagon appearance now and it’s actually against a significantly easier opponent, in my opinion, against Leandro Issa. Issa has been less than impressive in his two UFC fights thus far, going 1-1 in a pair of lackluster performances. Sasaki is going to have a significant height, reach, youth, speed and striking advantage. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him put Issa away in the first round and rack up that coveted 100 point Kountermove bonus. Underdog Pick of the Night Tim Means ($4300): There’s some huge value here as Tim Means is actually a decent betting favorite heading into this bout, but he’s available on Kountermove at a steep discount. Means has had issues in the past against scrappy wrestlers, but Marcio Alexandre is no wrestler. Alexandre is a striker who uses a karate stance, which earned him the nickname “Lyoto” on The Ultimate Fighter Brazil season three. Means is going to be a bit bigger and should possess a significant power advantage in pure punching strength. Don’t be surprised to see Means put a significant amount of pressure on Alexandre and keep the Brazilian from getting comfortable in space. Fighter to Avoid Darren Elkins ($4900): Elkins is a talented grappler, but he does not have a very Kountermove-friendly fighting style. His last bout against Lucas Martins was brutal, as he was only successful on about 1 out of 20 takedown attempts. When Elkins’ takedown attempts failed, he resorted to pushing his opponent into the fence and stalling the fight out, winning the bout via cage control and positioning. It was an atrocious night for anyone who had Elkins on their Kountermove team and I think we could be in for a repeat performance on Saturday with Elkins’ bout against Brazilian prospect Hacran Dias. Dias is a much better wrestler than Elkins’ last opponent and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him actually take Elkins down. I don’t like Elkins odds of winning this fight and even if he does win, it won’t be pretty. Complete UFC Fight Night 58 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 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 12 total bouts this event: UFC Fight Night 58 Preview
Thanks for reading and good luck!