Read our UFC Serbia best bets for this live event on Saturday from the Belgrade Arena in Serbia. We have a special 10:00 a.m. ET start time for the card, headlined by a welterweight bout between Serbian national Uros Medic and Daniel Rodriguez.
Our MMA experts went through this weekend's 14-fight lineup to identify their UFC best bets and favorite picks for the card.
You can find their analysis and picks, as well as Sean Zerillo's moneyline and prop projections, on those matches below.
UFC Serbia Moneyline Projections
UFC Serbia Prop Projections
Ludovit Klein vs. Tofiq Musayev
Sean Zerillo, Senior Writer
Fighter walkouts: Approx. 12:45 p.m. ET
Tofiq Musayev is my largest projected moneyline edge on Saturday's card; I set the Azerbaijani closer to 40% implied and +150 fair odds, when he's priced north of +200.
I like Musayev on the moneyline to around +175, and I would take his point spread (+3.5, -110 at DraftKings) up to -135.
Slovakian Ludovit Klein has a three-inch reach advantage, and he's both the better and the more efficient, higher-volume striker (+0.9 to -2.1 differential per minute at distance), albeit against a small UFC sample for Musayev (less than 10 minutes spent at striking distance).
Musayev is the better grappler, however, and coming off a decision win where he controlled a much bigger Ignacio Bahamondes (four inches taller, six-inch reach advantage over Musayev) for more than half the fight (7:51 control time).
Klein is a well-rounded martial aritst and has solid first-layer takedown defense (76%), but he's shown a tendency to get stuck on bottom when he is put flat on his back (ceded 8:35 of control time to Mateusz Gamrot on six takedowns, 3:46 to Nate Landwehr on one takedown, and 5:03 to Mateusz Rebecki on three takedowns, albeit in part to a leg injury) and he hasn't faced many opponents who are reliable to proactively grapple.
Split a wager between Musayev's moneyline and point spread, or bet what I expect to be a competitive fight to go to decision (projected -148, listed -135)
Pick: Tofiq Musayev +220 (DraftKings) | Tofiq Musayev +3.5 (-110; DraftKings)
Uros Medic vs. Daniel Rodriguez
Billy Ward, Staff Writer
Fighter walkouts: Approx. 3:45 p.m. ET
As a general rule, it's usually sharper to take the under on player props. This is doubly true in MMA, since unlike other sports, there's no guarantee of an MMA fight lasting a certain amount of time. It's hard to go over any statistical category in a fight that ends in the first minute.
That dynamic is like driving the very low significant strike props in the UFC Serbia main event between Uros Medic and Daniel Rodriguez. The favored Medic has his line set at 25.5, with Rodriguez at just 18.5 — though that's risen by one since I mentioned this bet on our podcast:
Regardless, this fight being heavily favored (-195) to go under 1.5 rounds and basically a pick'em to star Round 2 is clearly driving these numbers.
Normally, betting on the under is what gives you multiple ways to cash a prop — the player/fighter could simply be ineffective, or they could receive less playing time, get injured, or in this case have their fight end early. I believe we have the opposite dynamic at play here, though. Daniel Rodriguez averages more than seven significant strikes per minute across his 14-fight UFC career, while Medic is a roughly average defensive fighter. That means Rodriguez could theoretically clear this line in about half of a round based on his average output.
If the fight extends into the second round or longer, he's a near lock to top this number, as the only two times he's fallen short of it in his UFC career were both first-round finishes — one for him and one for his opponent. I'm not especially worried about Rodriguez finishing Medic with 18 or less strikes, so a quick Medic win is effectively the only way this bet fails.
Rodriguez is fairly durable, with just one knockout loss in his career, and he defends strikes at a solid 57% rate. That should give him enough time to clear 20 or so strikes as a worst-case scenario, making the over 18.5 a great bit at close to even money.
Pick: Daniel Rodriguez Over 18.5 Significant Strikes -115 (DraftKings)
