UFC Fight Night 63 Kountermove Preview + .10 Cent Game

After a short break between UFC events, the promotion is back this weekend with what should be a fun card headlined by top featherweights Chad Mendes and Ricardo Lamas. It’s also an afternoon card, and I can not even begin to describe how much I’ve fallen in love with the early start time. Anyways, I digress. To get you ready for the fights on Saturday, we’ve got your regular .10 Cent Game and Kountermove breakdown including two picks I like and a fighter I’m staying away from. Before that here’s a reminder from the founders of the site on how KM works and how fights are scored for anyone who’s new to the game:

“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. Don’t have a Kountermove account? All it takes is about 30 seconds and an email address so don’t panic, you’ve still got time before the fights start.

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

1.   One of my top picks for this event who isn’t too pricy is Michael Chiesa ($5,200). I think he and Mitch Clarke are relatively similar fighters in the sense that they are competent strikers whose strengths are on the ground. The only thing is that I think Chiesa has the advantage in almost every aspect of the fight. He’s the taller, longer fighter with better cardio. Mitch Clarke doesn’t have the type of takedown defense to keep the fight standing and I don’t even think he’d want to if he could. Mitch Clarke’s last fight proved he can never be counted out of a fight but I think Chiesa impresses in this fight by finding a submission at some point in the second round.

2.   A cheaper pick that I’m going to take a risk on is Justin Jones ($4,800). He’s paired up with Ron Stallings in a fight that sees both guys getting a second chance after being completely outmatched in their first fights. It’s worth noting that they were both coming in on short notice in their UFC debuts, with Jones moving up a weight class to fight Corey Anderson. This fight will probably be a fun fight that will take place on the feet, where Stallings is probably the better offensive fighter but lacks defensively. That being said I think Jones has the power advantage and has a good chance at connecting early in the fight. It’s a bit more of a risky pick than I usually include in these articles, but I think Jones has the possibility of being a pick that most people won’t think to take advantage of. If he comes through he’ll do wonders for your team.

3.   Stay away: This should really be obvious by now, in case you’ve missed the boat you should definitely stay away from picking the ghost of Gray Maynard ($4,800). I think he’s a better fighter than Yakovlev and four years ago might have literally killed him but Maynard has really just not been even a shade of the same fighter he once was since that loss to Frankie Edgar. For his menacing reputation Maynard has actually only finished two fights, last one coming in 2007. I think he wins a decision on Saturday, but I also wouldn’t be shocked to see get dropped and finished in the first round. Not exactly the type of fighter I want to have on my KM team.

Here’s the link to the .10 cent game, get in while there’s still space!

Fightbooth’s .10 cent game

Good luck this weekend!

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