One of the prelims at UFC 184 is a three-round heavyweight bout between Derrick Lewis and Ruan Potts. According to the current betting lines available at Several Bookmakers, Lewis is a -500 favorite (bet $500 to win $100) while Potts is a +400 underdog (bet $100 to win $400). MMA oddsmaker Nick Kalikas opened up Lewis at -385 and Potts at +265, and the bettors are all over Lewis. I love Lewis in this matchup and agree with the line being so far in his favor. Here’s why. Lewis (11-3, 1 NC) is 2-1 in the UFC so far with knockout wins over Guto Inocente and Jack May and a knockout loss to Matt Mitrione. The 30-year-old American is an extremely large, powerful heavyweight with vicious knockout power, having won 10 of his 11 MMA fights via T/KO. He has a decent boxing attack on the feet, but his best attribute is his ground and pound, and in most cases he has the wrestling to get his opponents down to the mat and land huge bombs on them. His cardio is also solid for a big man. A lot of people think his chin is a bit questionable after seeing Mitrione knock him out so quickly, but Mitrione can knock a lot of people out so it’s hard to say what you can take from that. What I do know about Lewis is that they don’t call him “The Black Beast” for nothing. He has one-punch knockout power in his hands, and being matched up against a guy who has gone to sleep before in the form of Potts, it makes sense Lewis enters this fight as such a big favorite. Potts (8-3) is 0-2 so far in the UFC with knockout losses to Soa Palelei and Anthony Hamilton. The 37-year-old South African has looked atrocious so far in the UFC and is lucky to get a third fight in the organization. In the UFC he has shown poor takedown defence, bad striking, and worst of all, a bad chin, someone one needs to survive in the UFC heavyweight division. Prior to joining the UFC, Potts racked up a solid record in EFC Africa over lesser competition, putting up four knockouts and four submissions. However, it seems pretty clear he was fighting a bunch of cans in Africa because he’s been blown out in both his UFC fights and it doesn’t seem like he has much to offer the UFC. Potts is in a must-win situation here, but going up against a guy with heavy hands like Lewis, he could be in big trouble and is at a high risk of being KOed once again, which is why you see the line the way it is. I don’t think this fight is going to be competitive at all. I see Lewis either scoring a quick KO on the feet or taking Potts down and beating him up for a TKO win. I feel like Lewis is one of the safest picks on the entire card and I really do see him winning by devastating knockout over Potts, a guy who should have never been called up to the UFC to begin with. At the current line, Lewis is a good parlay piece this weekend and the Lewis by T/KO prop is also something to consider playing for even better odds.
