UFC 259 main card betting tips & odds – Saturday 6/3/2021

UFC 259 main card preview

Regardless of how the fights shake out, UFC 259 will likely go down in the history books as one of the promotion’s all-time great events with three championship bouts including the main event between Jan Blachowicz and Israel Adesanya. Before the other two title fights of Petr Yan vs Aljamain Sterling and Amanda Nunes vs Megan Anderson, these two contests will round out the main card in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

MORE UFC 259 BETTING TIPS:

• BLACHOWICZ vs ADESANYA
• YAN vs STERLING
• NUNES vs ANDERSON

Lightweight: Islam Makhachev (-350) vs Drew Dober (+285)

Islam Makhachev (18-1-0) has strung together six straight wins in the UFC since his first and only professional loss back in 2015. As a teammate of retired former champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, Makhachev has trained with arguably the best grappler in the world, and it shows in the octagon, where he has routinely taken opponents down and dominated fights on the ground with ease. The only question now is whether or not he will continue to do so against sterner competition.

Drew Dober (23-9-0) provides a good test for the up-and-coming Makhachev. Dober has invested a lot of time and training into his striking in recent years and has three straight knockout wins and two straight Performance of the Night bonuses to show for it. His path to an upset in this one will be to escape takedowns as quickly as possible and to use his striking advantage to do damage.

This is an interesting clash featuring two lightweights that could earn a top-10 fight with a win here. Dober shouldn’t be an easy out, but Makhachev is just too fluid in his movements and will in all likelihood smother his opponent en route to another win.

Light Heavyweight: Aleksandar Rakic (-155) vs Thiago Santos (+135)

Aleksandar Rakic (13-2-0) bounced back from a split-decision loss to Volkan Oezdemir with a convincing win over Anthony Smith back in August. Rakic is 13-1 over his last 14 fights and 5-1 so far in the UFC, and a win against Santos will likely put him in contention for a UFC Light Heavyweight Championship eliminator fight next.

Thiago Santos (21-8-0) was riding an 8-1 run with seven knockout wins (including one over current champion Jan Blachowicz) when he entered his title match against Jon Jones at UFC 239. Santos tore his ACL, PCL, and MCL in that fight and yet still managed to tough out five rounds in a split-decision loss. His return from injury in November was unsuccessful as he lost to Glover Teixeira by submission.

These two high-ranking light heavyweights aren’t far from title contention in a division that is suddenly wide open with the departure of Jones. All reports point to a healthy and focused Santos in the weeks leading up to this fight. If true, this should be a pretty even matchup, and we will happily take the underdog odds on Santos.

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