The UFC returns to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this weekend as Amanda Nunes will be looking to extend her winning streak to seven fights when she puts her UFC women’s bantamweight crown on the line against Raquel Pennington as a heavy -900 favourite on the UFC 224 odds at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com.
Nunes has claimed opening-round wins in four of her past six outings, but needed all five rounds to earn a split decision win over Valentina Shevchenko as -110 chalk at UFC 215.
Also on the card, middleweight Jacare Souza battles Kelvin Gastelum as a -150 betting favourite, while Lyoto Machida takes on Vitor Belfort as a -260 favourite in a clash of middleweight veterans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEGIp_JUPOA
Earlier this week, UFC president Dana White dropped an interesting nugget that impacted the books.
After stepping away from MMA shortly after claiming the UFC middleweight championship with a third-round submission of Michael Bisping at UFC 217, Georges St-Pierre is reportedly set to return to the Octagon to face Nate Diaz at UFC 227 and has emerged as an early -200 favourite.
St-Pierre cited health concerns as the reason why he vacated the UFC middleweight title just two months after defeating Bisping, and he would be facing just his second opponent since November 2013 at the Staples Center on August 4.
St-Pierre remains one of the most dominant forces in the UFC, with wins in his past 13 fights. That streak includes a unanimous decision win as a -545 favourite in a UFC 158 battle for the UFC welterweight title with Diaz’s older brother Nick at the Bell Centre.
That fight was followed by a brutal clash with Jonny Hendricks at UFC 167 that St-Pierre won by split decision as a -250 wager, but which also left the Montreal native bloodied, leading him to vacate his welterweight crown and take a four-year leave of absence from the UFC.
Diaz will also be making his return to the cage after a lengthy absence, pegged as a +160 underdog. The 33-year-old Stockton, Calif., native has not fought since dropping a majority decision to Conor McGregor as a +145 underdog at UFC 202 in August 2016.
That marked the second of two entertaining clashes between Diaz and “The Notorious,” which started with Diaz’s stunning second-round win over the former two-division UFC champion as a +280 underdog at UFC 196 that earned him Performance of the Night and Fight of the Night bonuses, along with 2016 Submission of the Year honours.
However, Diaz sports a checkered record since joining the UFC in 2007, going 14-9 in 23 outings, and a middling 3-3 in his past six appearances.
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