UFC Fight Night 146 Betting Odds & Tips: Lewis vs dos Santos

Jed Meshew

March 7th, 2019

UFC Fight Night 146 Betting Odds & Tips: Lewis vs dos Santos

Quick Tips

On Saturday night in the INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita, Kansas, Derrick Lewis will take on Junior dos Santos in the main event of UFC Fight Night 146 on ESPN+. The contest is being billed as a heavyweight slugfest between two of the hardest hitters in the world but it’s much more than that.

A former champion on a two-fight win streak, dos Santos is one big win away from staking a claim for another title shot, if he can get past the man Daniel Cormier most recently defeated to retain his belt. Heavyweight action is incoming, so for all you fans of MMA betting, let’s get to the bets.

Derrick Lewis vs. Junior dos Santos Betting Tips

Derrick Lewis has a game that could only exist in the heavyweight division, but in this division, it is lethal. Lewis is a brawler - perhaps the most pure example of one in MMA - with little interest in the various grappling arts.

Lewis prefers to stand and bang on the feet, something he has a talent for with his overwhelming power and surprising athleticism. He’s by no means a technical wizard but when you hit like he does, fundamentals aren’t as important.

That’s not to say he is without craft though. Lewis excels at finding openings and exploiting them, and as such, he’s never out of a fight, even if he’s been beaten up for 14 minutes beforehand.

Junior dos Santos is also a striker by trade but his game is much cleaner and more refined than Lewis’. Though dos Santos does have a wide array of flashy strikes like spinning kicks, the bulk of his game is built around short counters, long jab and consistent body attacks.

In the heavyweight division, where most fighters are trying to knock their opponent’s heads off, dos Santos might be the best and most focused attacker of the body. JDS also has a BJJ black belt to fall back on should the occasion call for it, but his high-level takedown defense tends to mitigate the grappling.

Lewis vs. dos Santos Best Bets

Though Lewis comes into the fight with the better ranking, dos Santos is the clear betting favorite at -200 per 888Sport and with good reason: This fight heavily favors dos Santos’ skill set and recent run.

Though Lewis is coming off of a title fight, the reality is that he has looked terrible in four of his last five fights. His wins over Francis Ngannou and Alexander Volkov were outright abysmal, barring the 15 seconds at the very end of the Volkov fight, and his loss to Cormier was total.

Meanwhile, since losing his rematch with Stipe Miocic, dos Santos has looked like largely the same fighter.

Moreover, though Lewis’ cardio is much better than most would expect just by looking at him, he still has sub-par cardio that is only masked by his ability to remain dangerous even when completely gassed out.

Dos Santos’ concentrated body attack is sure to take the wind out of Lewis’ sails early and from there, his jab and higher output should bury “The Black Beast.”

Because of his sheer power, Derrick Lewis is never dead money in a fight, but dos Santos is the better striker and if the fight does go to the ground, he’s light-years ahead of Lewis, so dos Santos To Finish Lewis at +100 per 888Sport is great value.

On top of that bet, 888Sport also has a prop bet for Junior dos Santos by Submission at +1000, and while the most likely outcome is certainly a KO or TKO stoppage for JDS, dos Santos is a legit BJJ black belt and Lewis’s grappling is incredibly suspect.

At some point Lewis will gas out and it’s very possible that instead of getting pounded out, Lewis will give up his back like he did against Cormier and dos Santos can lock in a choke, so throwing a small amount on that is a worthy bet as well.