UFC Fight Night Predictions, Picks: Mickey Gall Among Underdogs Primed to Pull the Upset

If you like a good upset and love plus-money, Saturday’s UFC card offers some attractive options.

Two main-card matchups, including the night’s co-main event, are worth considering. Both are featuring fighters with +200 odds or better and they will each will get a half-unit play from me.

UFC FIGHT NIGHT PROMO!Bet Dustin Poirier at +200 odds instead of -220 in Main Event

UFC Fight Night Picks & Betting Predictions

Mike Perry vs. Mickey Gall

In the co-feature, welterweight and true Florida Man Mike Perry (13-6) meets Mickey Gall (6-2). This isn’t so much a pick for Gall as it is a pick against Perry, who has lost two straight and six of his past eight fights. Additionally, his out-of-the-cage life seems as chaotic as ever. After splitting with his wife earlier this year, Perry said his only official corner member for tonight’s fight will be his new girlfriend.

Additionally, he’s no longer part of an official fight team — he’s now fought twice in the past year since Vicente Luque literally caved in his nose — and recent interviews clearly suggest Perry might not be in the most stable of his head spaces (even by Mike Perry standards).

Despite all that drama, Perry should win this fight more often than he loses if based on experience and power alone. However, Gall, who keeps showing new wrinkles to his once-limited skill set with each new appearance, has the clinch and takedown skills to get this fight to the mat in a hurry, especially with the smaller 25-foot cage in use tonight.

With too-good-to-pass-up odds and so many unknowns surrounding his opponent, Gall is worth a small bet at the current +275 line.

Gian Villante vs. Maurice Green

Just prior to that bout, a heavyweight fight also presents an intriguing underdog play. After an up-and-down career at light heavyweight, veteran slugger Gian Villante (17-11) moves up to heavyweight for a bout with Maurice Green (8-4).

However, at the ripe age of 34, Villante can’t keep surviving the damage he takes in fights. He’ll gladly eat a number of shots to deliver a few of his own, and in such an unforgiving sport — and now in such a dangerous weight class filled with hard-hitting behemoths — it’s easy to see the dangers of that strategy.

Still, Greene, who’s coming off back-to-back losses to Sergei Pavlovich and Aleksei Oleinik, has been goaded into slugfests before, and he’s been quick to abandon the serviceable jiu-jitsu skills that would give him a clear edge on the mat against a fairly one-dimensional slugger like Villante.

Greene’s height and reach advantage, as well as his power, are going to be tough for Villante to overcome. But the gritty vet can make things ugly, stagger an opponent with just one shot and survive a concerning amount of damage to make him a live dog at +205 odds.