UFC 283 Odds, Pick & Prediction for Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Brandon Moreno: Target Over-under in Duo’s 4th Fight (Saturday, January 21)

Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Brandon Moreno Odds

The UFC 283 co-main event in Brazil will feature the fourth title bout between Deiveson Figueiredo and Brandon Moreno.

Their first fight was an impromptu 2020 title affair back at UFC 256 that officially ended in a draw (despite myself and many others scoring it for Figueiredo).

They ran it back the next year at UFC 263, but Figueiredo looked flat off a reported bad weight cut and ended up surrendering to Moreno in the third round via a rear-naked choke.

The trilogy fight went down at UFC 270 a year ago, and we saw a bit of a return to form for Figueiredo. Although the fight was competitive from start to finish, Figueiredo appeared to have the bigger moments in key rounds and was able to earn a unanimous decision that tied their series up at 1-1-1.

Tale of the Tape

It will be almost a year to the day since Figueiredo and Moreno last met, and a decent amount has changed in each of their environments.

Figueiredo, despite successfully winning back his belt with the help of the Fight Ready gym in Arizona, appears to have stayed back with his team in Brazil to prepare for the proverbial home game. Figueiredo has reportedly done some crosstraining with Charles Oliveira and the Chute Boxe team, so I'll be curious about what kind of changes – if any – we see from the sitting champion.

In their last fight, Figueiredo was much more disciplined about managing distance and staying out of extended exchanges, all while landing the leg kicks and jab counters that found him success in their first fight.

I think that Figueiredo will stick to a lot of those same themes, which means that Moreno will likely be the one making adjustments this Saturday.

Already having to adjust training camps (due to the fallout from James Krause's betting scandal), Moreno finds himself heading into this contest with noted MMA coach Sayif Saud. I believe in Saud as a cornerman and game planner as well, but it's Moreno who will ultimately have to show answers for the leg kicks that cost him in their trilogy fight.

In fact, when looking back at common threads in this series, it appears that the fighter who takes the early kicking initiatives typically ends up being the victor. We saw Moreno display a slightly better awareness of leg kicks in his last fight with Kai Kara-France, but the Mexican fighter still took a decent amount of damage in under 15 minutes.

Figueiredo vs. Moreno Pick

After calling for closer to pick'em odds for their last three fights, the oddsmakers and public have seemingly realized how closely matched these two are, roughly listing Moreno -120 and Figueiredo +100 as of this writing.

As alluded to in the previous section, he who controls the kicking initiatives will likely have the better handle on the counter-striking traffic (an area where both men make their money). That said, it's almost impossible for me to be confident in forecasting a Figueiredo fight at this stage of his career.

Aside from Figueiredo being self-admittedly destined for bantamweight, the 35-year-old is a huge flyweight who has been having life-or-death cuts to 125 pounds for some time now. For that reason, I'll be picking Moreno to take back the initiative en route to extending exchanges and pulling away from Figueiredo with volume down the stretch.

But as far as bets go, this could be a tricky one to play.

Both moneylines are in more than playable ranges should you have a strong feeling on a side, while points-handicap props remain worthwhile angles should you belong to a house that offers them.

Regardless of which side you like, I had suggested waiting until the weigh-ins to bet on this fight, and thankfully, Figueiredo weighed in early and on target on Friday morning.

Because Figueiredo looked fairly good weighing in, then your safest bet will probably be the over 4.5 rounds. And thankfully, since initially publishing this story, the odds have dropped from -155 to a playable -148 at FanDuel.

Take o4.5 if you can find it at -150 or better.

Pick: Over 4.5 rounds (-148)

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