UFC Fight Night 52 Kountermove Preview & Freeroll

If this poster doesn’t get you excited for this event I really don’t know what to tell you. Whether you’re staying up extra late to watch the event, or waiting until Saturday morning to catch the violence, we’ve got your usual KM breakdown for this weekends event. We’ve also got a $25 freeroll for Fightbooth.com readers, brought to us by the good people over at Kountermove. This week it’s going to be a few fighters I like as well as a fight and fighter to stay away from. Before we get to that, here`s a little reminder from the founders of the site on how KM works and how fights are scored:

“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.

Here are 4 quick tips for each event that will hopefully help you make some cash on Saturday:

1.   One of my favorite picks for this event is Kyoji Horiguchi ($5,200). He was originally supposed to be fighting now title challenger Chris Cariaso which would have been a great fight but instead gets Jon Delos Reyes in what seems to be a bit of a mismatch. Reyes is a scrappy fighter who has pretty good offense but I think Horiguchi is a step above him and will get the finish in Japan.

2.   A fight I’d stay away from picking this weekend is the welterweight bout between Amir Sadollah ($5,000) and Yoshihiro Akiyama ($4,600). It’s a fight I see ending up being a close decision with neither fighter scoring you a ton of points. There’s also the big question mark of the fighters’ long layoffs and how that will come in to play for either of them. Gun to head I’d lean toward ‘Sexyama’ using his judo base to get the decision win but either way these guys aren’t going to light your KM team on fire, so I’d stay away.

3.   Another fighter I would actually stay away from this weekend is Alex Caceres ($5,500), believe it or not. I do think that Caceres is going to win this fight but I also think that it could be a lot closer than most people think. Masanori Kanehara is a game opponent with a number of first round finishes and it’s not impossible that he catches ‘Bruce Leeroy’ with something and scores the upset. I think that the more likely outcome is Caceres controlling the fight everywhere it takes place, and cruising to a decision win without much trouble. The reason I’m avoiding him for KM is because there are cheaper fighters available who I am more confident will finish their opponents.

4.   A cheap pick I’m going for the fights in Japan is Daniel Hooker ($4,500). I feel like he’s the more consistent fighter and I’m actually surprised that people seem to be giving this one to Blanco so quickly. Considering both of these guys have the tendency to come out of the gate looking for the finish one of these guys is likely going to get you a lot of points. I think ‘The Hangman’ could finish this fight on the feet but more likely than not I can see him getting the fight to the mat and sinking in a submission sometime early in the fight. Also it’s worth noting that Blanco is going to have a much larger problem fighting in Japan coming from Brazil than Hooker, who will be travelling in from New Zealand.

Entering the KM freeroll tournament for Fightbooth.com readers is as easy as clicking the link below and picking your team!

Fightbooth UFC Fight Night 52 Kountermove $25 FREEROLL

Don’t have a Kountermove account? All it takes is about 30 seconds and an email address. Be quick though because there are only 150 spots and they’ve been filling faster than ever lately!

Good luck this weekend!

Questions? Suggestions? Give me a shout on twitter @BlackEyeBowtie