Join Fight Booth’s UFC 175 ‘No Hold Barred’ Kountermove Freeroll

Editors Note: This article is brought to you by Matt LeBlanc (not to be confused with Joey from the hit NBC sitcom Friends). It’s his Fight Booth debut so please do us, and yourself a favor and give him a follow on Twitter @BlackEyeBowtie

With UFC 175 coming up this Saturday, the good folks at Kountermove.com have blessed us with a $50 freeroll for Fightbooth.com readers. Don’t know how Kountermove works? No need to worry, here`s a little piece straight from the founders of the site.

“About Kountermove. Kountermove, Inc. is currently the world’s leading Fantasy MMA community. Kountermove is like fantasy football or baseball, but for MMA. Our founders, Aaron Ard and Brian Knapp, are Jiu-jitsu black belts and IBJJF competitors.

Pick your team of 5 fighters. You are given a “salary cap” of $25,000 in fantasy money to spend on drafting your team of fighters you expect to perform well/win.

Each fighter is assigned a price that is reflective of his or her respective odds. For example, in UFC 167: GSP cost $6,000, while Johny Hendricks cost $5,000. Since Hendricks is the underdog, he cost less than GSP.

Score Points and Win. Once the fight card begins, you accumulate points based on how well your picks performed.

Winners are determined by the most points earned – points are awarded: strikes landed, submission attempts, knockdowns, dominant positions, rounds won, and knockout or submission bonuses.

Fight statistics are provided by FightMetric LLC, the UFC’s official stats provider.”
Here are a few extra links to get you accustomed to how the site works and how performances are scored.

> How it Works
> Scoring

Remember this is fantasy sports, so you’re not only trying to pick a winner but someone you think will finish the fight or rack up a ton of points on their way to a decision.

Starting with this weekend’s UFC 175 card, I’ll be writing up a piece on five tips to make your Kountermove team just a little bit better this weekend. They’ll include picks I like, some I’m not a fan of, fighters that are risky picks, and fights/fighters to stay away from completely.

So here are 5 tips that could help your team out this weekend:

1. I know it seems like the obvious pick but I really do like Ronda Rousey ($6000) for this card. I get that she’s really pricey and will force you to try to compensate by picking other less expensive fighters but she’s worth it. Davis is as game of an opponent as Rousey has had to date but I just don’t see her taking the belt on Saturday. The other good thing about Rousey as a KM pick is that she is always looking for the finish. I think she finds it, and finds early. There are a lot of fights that could go either way this weekend, and I like sure things. This is as close to a sure thing as you’ll find on any card, especially UFC 175.

2. The next fighter I like this weekend is George Roop ($5100). Rob Font is a well-rounded fighter who I’ve heard a lot about leading into his UFC debut but I think there are just a number of things against him for this fight. This is Font’s first fight at Bantamweight as far as I know, so the jury’s still out on how he’ll handle the weight cut. Roop is going to be coming into this fight with a pretty big height and reach advantage and knows how to use it. I think a lot of this fight is going to be spent with Font trying to work his way inside reach of the lanky UFC veteran and I can see him getting caught with something nasty on the way in. If the fight does go to decision, look for Roop’s striking and occasional takedowns to net you some points.

3. One fight to be cautious of while picking is Uriah Hall ($5500) taking on Thiago Santos ($4100). The obvious pick is Hall based on his tear through TUF leading up to the finals and his mauling of Chris Leben back in December. That being said, we can’t forget Hall’s disappointing loss to John Howard or the fact that Leben had lost 3 in a row leading up to his fight with Uriah, and retired less than a month after. For me, Hall is just too inconsistent to pay $5500 for especially when there are other expensive fighters (Rousey, Faber, and Weidman depending on how you think his fight with Machida is going to play out) who are a little more consistent.

4. I would actually recommend Santos take up a spot of your roster to save a lot of money, especially after his 53 second KO of Ronny Markes. If you plan on snatching up one of the more expensive picks on the card you’re going to need a cheap pick to balance out your team. The only other fighter as cheap as Santos is Alex Caceres ($4000). I’ve been pretty impressed and surprised by Bruce Leeroy’s success as of late but there is no part of me that thinks he has a better shot at beating Urijah Faber than Santos does at beating Hall. Santos allows you to spend important cash filling up other spots on your team while still having a shot at winning his fight, depending on who manages to get the better of the striking exchanges early on.

5. A fight I could easily see going either way is the return of Stefan Struve ($5100) taking on Matt Mitrione ($4500). The first impression pick here is Stefan Struve, with his height and reach advantage, well-rounded striking game, and feel-good story coming into this fight after everything he’s been through medically, what with the shattered jaw and heart problems. This is Struve’s first fight back after being gone for just over 16 months and there’s no telling how the combination of ring rust and what he’s been through medically will affect him coming into this fight. Mitrione on the other hand fought just 4 months ago when he KO’d Shawn Jordan. Knocking out Jordan doesn’t exactly make Mitrione a world beater, but it was an impressive finish nonetheless. For $4500 I like Mitrione here because if he wins, it’s likely going to be an impressive finish. Kind of a medium-risk, high-reward type of pick.

This last tip is pretty crucial for anyone looking to do well when dealing with the cruel mistress that is Kountermove, but do NOT ignore fighters you haven’t heard of before. That’s not just important for this weekend’s event but something to keep in mind when filling up spots on your team for any event. It’s easy enough to fall into a rhythm of only picking fighters who you’ve hear of who are likely on the main card. The preliminary cards of most UFC events are chock-full of fighters looking to finish the fight early, pick up some extra cash, and make a name for themself in the process. Kenny Robertson ($4500) is a pretty good example of this, with 12 of his 13 wins coming inside the distance, 9 in the first round. Kevin Casey ($4800) and his opponent Bubba Bush ($4800) are two other good examples of fighters looking to end the fight early. There is money to be made in picking lesser known fighters.

So there are some Kountermove tips for UFC 175. Get out there, place your bets, roll the dice, and see what happens. The entry limit for this game is 150 people so you’re going to want to put down whatever you’re in the middle of doing, log on to KM or make an account (takes 5 minutes, tops), and get going with this game because the 151st person to find this freeroll just gets to watch everyone else have all the fun.

I’ll also be doing a KM recap after the event with a bunch of interesting points like how my suggestions did, a ranked list of fighters and the points they scored compared to their cost, as well as the highest scoring combination of fighter’s you could have put together. There’s even going to be a shoutout to a few of the members who place in the top of the tournament.

Here you go!

Join the Fight Booth ‘No Holds Barred’ UFC 175 Freeroll Tourney