When the cage door closes on Saturday night in Vegas, it will be five years and one day since Conor McGregor's last UFC appearance. Assuming nothing changes between now and then, that's when he'll make his return in the main event of UFC 329, where he rematches Max Holloway nearly 13 years after their first meeting. Both men went on to win featherweight titles, but have had very different careers since then otherwise.
The 14-fight card has a 5:00 p.m. ET start time, with a 9:00 p.m. main card at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
One of the first “aha!” moments I had in gambling (generally, not just MMA) was starting to think about why markets might be wrong rather than just trying to predict what I think will happen.
At its core, a betting line is a market where we can “buy” or “sell” events. These markets are usually efficient, with the “price” eventually reflecting the true odds of the event.
While this is less true in MMA — where there are far more information asymmetries than in major markets like the NFL or NBA — it’s still broadly (and increasingly) the case. Therefore, to beat the markets over the long term, we need to find the spots where they’re wrong.
That’s the point of this piece. Inspired by our NFL “Luck Rankings,” I’ll look into spots where variance has favored one fighter more than another, making the line inefficient. The biggest input will be split and/or controversial decisions, with short-notice fights, later overruled fights, fluke injuries, and out-of-weight-class fights also considered.
The focus will be on fights that are reasonably likely to see the scorecards or where one fighter holds most of the finishing upside.
UFC 329 odds as of Monday and via DraftKings except where otherwise noted. Bet on the UFC with our DraftKings promo code.
UFC 329 Predictions & Luck Ratings
Max Holloway (-225) vs. Conor McGregor (+185)
With McGregor coming into this fight five years and one day removed from his last trip to the Octagon — which resulted in an ugly broken leg — Max Holloway is clearly the A side. Even before his extended layoff, McGregor had won just one fight of his last four, making him 1-3 dating back to November of 2016.
That's a sharp contrast to the recent results of Holloway, who has alternated wins and losses while fighting exclusively top competition, including a win over Dustin Poirier, who beat McGregor twice in a row prior to McGregor's layoff.
That this fight is all the way up at welterweight, a division Holloway has never competed at, throws a bit of a curveball into the mix, though. McGregor has been open in his use of PEDs to recover from the broken leg, and a perhaps happy side effect of his regimen is packing on way more muscle than he had in his early UFC days. McGregor already had a power advantage and cardio weakness compared to Holloway, which will only be exacerbated by his new physique.
What's more interesting in terms of betting this fight is trying to time the market to get the best price available on either side. I snapped up Holloway at around -250 close to when this fight was announced, expecting it to move strongly in his direction, but we've seen movement both ways with a general trend towards McGregor. My guess is that most of the late/casual money will be on the McGregor side, leading to even better prices on Holloway this weekend.
Unless Holloway comes down inside of -200, I'll be holding off before making any more bets until fight day. If the price doesn't improve by then, this is also a perfect live betting spot on "Blessed." I'd be willing to take a worse price after Round 1, considering that's when McGregor is most dangerous, and there's a chance that the Irishman does enough to get us better odds on Holloway at that point.
Verdict: Fairly Valued
Cory Sandhagen (-148) vs. Mario Bautista (+124)
The main event isn't the only rematch on the card, as bantamweights Cory Sandhagen and Mario Bautista are meeting again more than seven years after their initial meeting at the first-ever UFC event on ESPN+ back in 2019.
Sandhagen won that by first-round armbar and thoroughly outclassed Bautista in that fight. However, it was the UFC debut for Bautista, who accepted the fight on short notice, while Sandhagen was making his third Octagon appearance and was already booked on that card. Since then, Bautista has gone 10-2 in the UFC, while Sandhagen has gone 8-5, though his losses have been to former champions and Umar Nurmagomedov, who also beat Bautista.
Still, my read here is that the previous win for Sandhagen has him overvalued by the market here. Bautista is slightly better statistically, fared better against their common opponent, Nurmagomedov, and is coming off one of the best fights of his career against Vinicius Oliveira. Sandhagen has lost two of his last three, with his win coming against a washed Deiveson Figueiredo.
This fight should be around a pick 'em, so we're getting solid value with Bautista at plus-money. The line opened as high as +170 when the fight was announced and is continuing to move the same way, so jump in on Bautista early before the plus-money disappears. FanDuel at +126 is the best current line.
Verdict: Bautista Undervalued
Ryan Gandra (-130) vs. Zach Reese (+110)
This fight checks a couple of my Luck boxes, with both factors pointing firmly to the underdog.
The first factor is Reese's most recent fight, a split decision loss that probably should've gone his way, with a slight majority of fans and media scoring the fight for Reese. Had he come into this fight unbeaten in four straight, there's a good chance he'd be favored.
The other is the discrepancy between line movement and public picks. On Tapology, 80% of respondents have picked Gandra to win, but the line movement is heading in the other direction. On July 1st, Reese was +142 on DraftKings.
That suggests most of the smart money is coming in on Reese, while the public is making smaller bets on Gandra. Neither of those things makes me especially confident in the Texan, but I'd rather be on this side of the line given the way it's moving. Give me Reese at +125 via Caesars, which has the best line at the time of writing.
Verdict: Reese Undervalued
