‘UFC Fight Night Nashville’ Kountermove Preview

The UFC is in Nashville this weekend with Fight Night 73, headlined by a Light Heavyweight showdown between former title challenger Glover Teixera and rising contender Ovince Saint Preux. The card also features an exciting fight between top lightweights Michael Johnson and Beneil Dariush as well as the likes of Ray Borg, Uriah Hall, Sara McMann, and Dustin Ortiz. To get you ready for the fights on Saturday, we’ve got your regular Kountermove breakdown including two picks I like and a fighter I’m staying away from. Before we get down to business, 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.   There are a number of potentially great picks this weekend but my top play is going to be Ray Borg ($5,400). He takes on Geane Herrera who is definitely a good addition to the UFC’s flyweight roster but is taking a huge step up here against Borg. Borg came pretty close to beating top flyweight Dustin Ortiz in his UFC debut, eventually losing a split decision, but has followed it up with a pair of really great performances with submission wins over Shane Howell and Chris Kelades. Both fighters here have a majority of their respective wins by submission and I could see this matchup ending up being a grappling battle when the fight goes down. I think Herrera’s willingness to grapple with Borg will eventually be his downfall, with ‘The Taxmexican Devil’ sinking in a submission sometime in the first two rounds. He’s got one of the higher price tags of the card, but Borg should rack up a good number of points in the grappling exchanges and with a potential finish. Resistance is futile.

2.   A cheap pick that I’m tagging for an upset this weekend is Sirwan Kakai ($4,400) in his matchup with Frankie Saenz. Saenz impressed a lot of people with a decision upset over Iuri Alcantara in his last bout but that win was mostly due to his wrestling advantage and his ability to take advantage of Alcantara’s weak takedown defense. I think Saenz will have a harder time taking Kakai down and if he does succeed in draggin the mat to the floor Kakai will have a better ability to get the fight back up to the feet. Once this fight gets to the feet I think Kakai will have the advantage and will rack up some nice points through the striking exchanges. I think Kakai will take a decision here with an impressive performance against Saenz but I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see the Swede take a late finish. Either way, Kakai is a steal for $4,400 and frees up a decent amount of your budget to go for some pricier picks.

3.   A fighter to stay away from who I’m never confident in playing if Uriah Hall ($5,500). Yes he should probably beat late replacement UFC debutant Oluwale Bamgbose but it really just depends at this point which version of Uriah Hall shows up. For such an expensive pick he’s a riskier pick than most of the other favorites on the card and while a quick KO victory for ‘Primetime’ wouldn’t surprise me, neither would a slow decision win. While he’s an unknown commodity for the most part, Bamgbose is a dangerous fighter, especially in the first round. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him come out and win the first round, nor would an early finish surprise me. There are some great picks on this card at the +$5,000 level but Hall isn’t necessarily one of them. For Hall’s price I like having as close to a guaranteed finish as possible and that just isn’t the case in this situation.

Good luck this weekend!

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