Fools and Their Money 2: UFC 198

In a perfect world, The Sprawl’s resident fools would have made so much wonga last week that we could have chucked Uncle Dana a wedge so thick, he’d have moved UFC 198 to the living room of our new mansion so that we could literally throw actual money at our chosen fights for week 2.

As you can see from the standings below, we’re closer to chucking 50p’s into the cage at ‘Mad Barry’s Extreme Cage Brawl 7’…if we could afford a ticket between us.

THE STANDINGS

THE CARD

Even with the loss of Anderson Silva vs Uriah Hall, UFC 198 is a Brazilian beauty of a card from top to voluptuous bottom. You might go as far as to say that had Silva made it to fight night, Saturday’s effort would have trumped UFC 200 on intrigue alone.

Top of the bill is a dead-even heavyweight title clash between an unlikely champ and an unexpected challenger. A couple of years back and the prospect of a Fabricio Werdum/Stipe Miocic title bout would have raised eyebrows, but few can separate them ahead of Saturday’s main event.

The co-headliner pits age-proof, drug-and-religion powered wrecking machine Vitor Belfort against ‘Jacare’ Souza, one of the game’s most clinical grapplers. Speaking of drugs, Cris ‘Cyborg’ Justino makes her long-awaited (but not quite bantamweight) UFC debut, looking to put a cat amongst the pidgins with a win. Smith has no chance…but in the year of the upset (and more stringent drug-testing) anyone is worth a punt at those odds.

Take a look further down the card and UFC 198 is the gift that keeps on giving. Matt Brown vs Damien Maia has ‘Fight of the Night’ written all over it, Shogun Rua and Minotouro Nogueira are rolling the dice again and miniature bundle of violence John Lineker is always good value.

There’s some close lines, live underdogs and a plethora of options for proposition bets; more than that though, UFC 198 looks like bloody good fun from start to finish.

THE BETS

All bets are ‘to win’ unless otherwise denoted.

JJ Saddington: JJ kicked things off with a small loss in week 1. Undaunted, he’s backed a pair of live underdogs for week 2.

Belfort – £2
Miocic – £2

The method behind the madness: “Victor loves the Jesus”

Ben Heather: Last week’s biggest winner, Heather has stuck to his low risk, high reward parlay gameplan for week 2.

Maia by submission/Miocic double – £1.50

Maia by sub/Jacare by sub/Miocic/Lineker to finish parlay – £1

The method behind the madness: No method was offered by Ben this week. We must assume then that he was too busy throwing a dinner party for celebrity clairvoyants Mystic Meg and Russell Grant, who made his picks for him by way of thanks.

Chris Scadden: Chris’ luck may not have been in last week with his risky treble, but undeterred, he’s gone death or glory with a sexy six-fold accumulator.

Wedum/Jacare/Cyborg/Anderson/Maia/Lineker parlay – £1

The method behind the madness: “Chasing my losses, but chasing my dreams. Silva’s gall bladder has gone off sick, so Lineker takes his place in my selection.”

Brad Wharton: Wharton the elder turned a small profit last week. As he’s been telling women for years, it’s not the size that counts, it’s what you do with it. This week, he’s done something risky and upsetting.

Cummins by KO/Anderson by KO double – £1

The method behind the madness: “As a shameless Pride fanboy, I’ve committed personal treason backing two of my all time favourites to get cleaned out. PRIDE NEVA DIE (except when it does, which is always).”

Lloyd Wharton: Wharton the younger also made money last week. Confidence bolstered, he turned in something tantamount to War and Peace for his week 2 methods. They’re too long to publish in full here, but will be available over three volumes in hardback from your local Waterstones next week.

Jacare – £1.50

Miocic – £4.33

The method behind the madness: “Only two people have beaten Miocic. Since then we have seen the complete demolition of Mark Hunt, followed by him finishing Arlovski in under a minute.

Werdum also beat Mark Hunt, but it could have very easily have gone the other way until he hit that flying knee and I smashed my laptop. He looked very impressive against Cain but I have my suspicions that this was not the same Cain that took JDS apart twice or turned Brock Lesnar into a .GIF”

Thomas Young: Young’s safe looking effort last week ended up failing disastrously, just like Nickleback’s latest album. He’s put his full allowance in for the second week running though, this time on a cheeky treble.

Lineker vs Font not to go the distance/Maia/Werdum – treble – £2.50

The method behind the madness: “This week I’m taking a ‘no fear, no doubt, all in, balls out’ approach.”

Martin Ives: After squeaking into second place by a penny, Ives is hedging his bets in week 2. The crafty gent has only gone and backed both horses in Cris Cyborg’s UFC debut.

Cyborg – £5
Smith – £0.75

The method behind the madness: “A fool and his money are easily parted. With hindsight, should have only staked the potential Cyborg winnings on Smith.”

That’s the bets for the week 2 of The Sprawl’s ‘Fools and Their Money’; check back before each UFC card to laugh at our losses, marvel at our wins and eat beans for a week by trailing our bets!