The much awaited product of matchmaking scrambles that is UFC 143 will headline Carlos Condit’s bout against Nick Diaz for the interim welterweight title tomorrow evening. And, with each time the men step into the arena, other men can callously break down their performance for money.

Below is a bettor’s analysis of the main card of UFC 143, evaluating the risks and rewards of the individual fights as well recommendations for spreading wagers over the card as a whole. All money lines referenced are aggregate numbers and may vary slightly between books.

Carlos Condit (+170) vs. Nick Diaz (-210)- Looking at the kind of bouts that both Condit and Diaz fight, they are an incredibly similar breed. Both natural pocket strikers, neither man ever shows signs of fatigue, even in the most hard-fought bouts. Coming off a more recent victory and with a lot of buzz behind him, Diaz is understandably the favorite. In fact, he’s a little too much of a favorite.

There’s no particular point of engagement that this fight could feasibly go to which Diaz has a clear advantage. Condit is the first opponent that Diaz will face in years that has an equal reach, which will neutralize much of Diaz’s on-paper superiority. Further, neither Condit nor Diaz can list takedowns amongst their strong point and neither of them has ever turned down an invitation to a stand-up fire fight. So, grappling skills will enter minimally into this contest.

Both men have been shaken up on the feet and came back to win against similar quality competition and both men are a similar finishing threat. If you want to pick a winner, flip a coin. The chances for victory by either Diaz or Condit are dead even.

This would not be a bout to bet on if the money was also even, as that would be tantamount to betting on a dice roll. But, Condit’s underdog status makes him a very attractive bet. Put 20% of the total amount bet on The Natural Born Killer. There’s simply more to win than there is to lose.

Roy Nelson (+125) vs. Fabricio Werdum (-155)- For as fun as this bout will likely be, as all of Roy Nelson’s bouts have been in some way fun for the spectator, it’s just a bad one to bet on. Given their past experience, it’s highly unlikely that either man will be able to submit the other or even come out at the end with clear dominance based solely on position work. Both Werdum and Nelson have illustrated that they are very capable of working strikes off the cage wall, though Werdum better than Nelson in that regard.

Werdum is more likely to eek out the decision, but Nelson is enough of a finishing threat that Werdum is only worth it at even money. If you can find an outlet that has Werdum priced at -105 or better, take him for a small amount. But, the official recommendation based on odds available is to steer clear of this bout.

Mike Pierce (+200) vs. Josh Koshcheck (-245)- Josh Koscheck is coming in as a heavy favorite with good reason. For all of Mike Pierce’s skills, the trouble that he had with Jon Fitch and more recently Johnny Hendricks indicates clearly that Koscheck is his stylistic kryptonite. Bet the farm on Koscheck, to the tune of 60% of the total. It’s as safe a bet as can be made.

Scott Jorgensen (+200) vs Rennen Barao (-240)- With a 27-1 record, Barao is just a hard man to bet against. Even steering clear of the always-faulty MMA math, Barao is way ahead by real numbers. He has dominated their mutual competition. He enjoys a significant reach advantage on Jorgensen, whose only shot to win is on the feet. Even at -240, Barao is a good buy. There simply aren’t too many ways he can conceivably lose this one. Whatever is left goes to Barao as the last solid bet on the card.

Cliffard Starks (+240) vs Ed Herman (-300)- The bottom of the main card is another bad one to bet on. While Starks is a hot up and comer, the amount of professional matches and the quality of competition that he has under his belt makes it so there is simply not enough information to adequately determine how he will perform in the big leagues. Based on the skills he’s shown off against lesser competition, he may seem to be underpriced. But without an opponent of similar quality to Ed Herman as a bench mark, a bet on Starks would be based on intuition. And betting on intuition is how people lose money.

The Bellator season six lightweight tournament has just a wee snag, as one of their competitors has been forced to withdraw due to some jail time.

The fighter formerly known as Jon Koppenhaver, War Machine will be serving a year in the slammer, but not for new charges. “Seems my year in jail wasnt enough,” War Machine lamented on his twitter. “Just got sentenced to another year in Vegas for some old bullshit. Nevermind Im rehabilitated. Nevermind Ive been out for over 6 months now and doing great and am finally back on my feet. Nevermind all my students that will miss me. Do another year and rot n waste time. Make no money, pay no taxes. Whatever, I just hope my boy @bensaundersMMA wins @BellatorMMA tournament. Fuck the motherfucking system! Fuck the bullshit! Vacation time, back to jail in 2 weeks! Cant stop me, all you can do is delay the inevitable. War Machine will always be back! Oh ya the judge looked and me and said she can tell Im on steroids and that thats prolly why I got in so many fights and am angry..lol Bitch”

The Bellator lightweight tournament will indeed continue without War Machine, and will be a disappointment to many fans who wanted to see him back in the cage and on TV. 2013 will be the comeback of War Machine for sure, so start marking the days off on your calendar.

Via Middle Easy

Bellator Fighting Championships returns to The Lone Star State on Friday, March 23rd for Bellator 62 live from Laredo, Texas at the Laredo Energy Arena. The night features the quarterfinals of Bellator’s $100,000 Season 6 Lightweight Tournament, as well a host of Texas’ top MMA talent.

Coming off an explosive knockout victory over UFC veteran Kurt Pellegrino at Bellator 59, Patricky Pitbull is back and looking to start his ascent toward a title shot with a quarterfinal matchup against fan-favorite Lloyd “Cupcake” Woodard. Patricky has produced a number of incredible Bellator “YouTube Moments” and has his sights set on adding another highlight to his collection.

Former U.S. Olympian Judoka Rick Hawn is making the drop to lightweight and meets the dangerous Ricardo Tirloni. Hawn compiled an impressive 11-1 record as a welterweight, but is confident the drop in weight will make him even more dangerous.

“I felt like I was sort of undersized in the last tournament,” Hawn said. “Everyone had a height advantage on me, and while I thought I made a good run in my last welterweight tournament, I think lightweight is going to be a better fit for me and just give me an advantage over everyone else.”

Also making the drop to lightweight is longtime Bellator veteran Brent Weedman. Always looking for a finish, “Weedman Nation” will be on full display as he battles Bellator newcomer J.J. Ambrose.

“I’ve already tested myself with a lightweight weight cut and I felt great,” Weedman said. “Over the last year, I’ve felt a little undersized as a welterweight, so I think lightweight is going to be a great spot for me. I’m excited to show off my new skills, and this tournament is stacked, so we’re going to put on a show this season.”

Rounding out an absolutely loaded tournament class, Rene “The Brazilian Bomber” Nazare will square off with top prospect Thiago Michel. A product of Team Bombsquad, Nazare always has his eye on delivering the knockout, and nothing will change on March 23rd.

MMA Fighting’s Mike Chiappetta got some real talk from Nick Diaz and his dislike of the specter of GSP over his fight.

“Yeah, I think it makes me sick,” he said. “This is Carlos’ time to be here, and to be a part of this main event. This is … half of the show is built up around me fighting Georges St-Pierre. But that’s not [right]. I’m fighting Carlos Condit. So, I don’t like it.”

The boys at Cage Potato scored their own exclusive interview with Strikeforce headliner Miesha “Takedown” Tate.

Is there any added pressure being the main event of a major Strikeforce card?

Yeah, it’s more like excitement though. It’s not like pressure in a bad way where you feel kind of negative stuff from it. I’m just excited to have the opportunity and I think it can do really big things for MMA and women’s MMA in particular.

What were your initial thoughts when Strikeforce offered you Ronda Rousey instead of Sarah Kaufman?

Well, I thought it wasn’t fair. I think we can all agree that Sarah Kaufman was next in line. She was the number one contender. With that being said, I don’t think it was fair but it’s also an entertainment business. It’s not always about the fights and who’s next on paper. Sometimes it’s about the fights that people want to see most. Without the fans we don’t have a sport. We don’t have a mainstream sport anyways. I understand that Strikeforce wanted to put on a fight that they thought would produce the most interest in women’s MMA and right now that is Ronda Rousey versus myself.

Fight Opinion brings you Dr. Margaret Goodman’s challenge to the UFC regarding drug testing standards.

Want a buy the numbers breakdown of tomorrow’s main event? MMA Mania has you covered.

Bleacher Report’s Vince Carry goes over how the UFC’s Fox broadcast is evolving.

With the Gladiator gone, what will the future bring for the UFC PPV introduction? MMA Convert reports.

Five ounces of Pain presents the bravado of Fabricio Werdum, who claims he could strike the whole match against Roy Nelson.

Middle Easy has another interview with Werdum, where the heavyweight says that he likes Nelson except on Saturday night.

View yesterday’s UFC 143 press conference highlights courtesy of Lowkick.

Fightline brings the latest news on the upcoming UFC fan expo.

Mayweather versus Cotto date is set, see the details on MMA Payout

New York’s not quite mixed martial arts MMA promotion company Heavy Hands Productions made a splash today, as a head kick knockout highlight in their last event, CNY Battleground 5, went viral. Based in upstate New York, Heavy Hands has gotten around The Empire State’s ban on MMA by promoting bouts of various rules sets between athletes with MMA experience, all hosted in a cage. This technicality allows Heavy Hands to honestly advertise “MMA fighters, cage fighting” without promoting anything that is specifically the banned sport of mixed martial arts.

Should Heavy Hands get more than flash in the pan notoriety for an entertaining show, it would be a stark reveal at exactly how ridiculous New York’s MMA ban is from both a legal and practical standpoint. Since the New York State Attorney General recently admitted that amateur MMA is not technically banned in the state, promotions like Heavy Hands may soon adopt a standard MMA rules set. Until then, the man of the hour is Robert Reese with the above highlight victory.

It’s the fundamentals of fighting that often get dismissed by students as they begin to improve with their technical skills. With so much information being thrown at them, it’s easy to forget basic things, or take them for granted when they become familiar and a part of your muscle memory. The best way to step back from your comfort zone and refresh yourself, while ideally learning a few new moves, is to grab a big fat instructional book and re-educate yourself.

“The Principles of Unarmed Combat” by Mark Jacobs offers you a second glance at those fundamentals of fighting, then expands into so much more. Made up of more than 50 chapters packed into ten distinct sections, this book covers everything from techniques to strategy to the science of combat, but does it succeed in delivering the goods, or does it fail like an undertrained noob in his first ammy fight?

Hit the jump to check out the full review of this book!

Released by Turtle Press, “The Principles of Unarmed Combat” weighs in at a whopping 340 pages, give or take, and is as tall as any of the releases from Victory Belt publishing. The major difference here is cosmetically, since this book does not feature any color photos. In fact, the book has no photos at all, nor does it have any big-name fighters names emblazoned on the book (other than Gene Lebell). Does that automatically make it lose points? Of course not.

As we have seen with other products I have reviewed from authors who might not be tremendously well-known in the MMA world, you should never judge a book by its cover. That might be the biggest detractor of this book, simply in that it comes off looking like a rather dull and plain book. In reality, this is the ultimate textbook for fighting, and does not skimp on information. This single-volume holds as much information as an entire instructional tape series, yet only costs a fraction of one of those aforementioned videos.

In terms of detail and level of instruction, Jacobs writing rivals Bas Rutten’s “Big Book of Combat” series, and even some of the great instructionals from Victory Belt that we have reviewed in the past. This is a technical guidebook to every minute aspect of fighting that you need to know, broken down on a molecular level of scientific detail. Every phase of combat, from closing the distance, to clinching, to what happens when the fight hits the ground, is dissected and collected into this tome.

What differentiates Mark’s book from others is that this is not just a book of punches and kicks and various techniques bound together. It is that, plus the addition of discussion from doctors, physicists, scientists, and other educated people that add even more depth to an already expansive book on fighting.

We are talking explanations of things like why rotating your arm to a certain angle can improve the power of a punch, or why the roundhouse kick is one of the best kicks for fighting, and how to maximize your footwork to increase your prowess in the cage.

As I have been saying, the presentation of the book is a bit lackluster compared to what I have seen from other larger companies, but the instruction is what matters. As you can see from the page on the left, instead of photos of fighters demonstrating the techniques, we have CG rendered people showing off each move. However, there are not a ton of these to look at for reference. In some cases, you can go a few pages without seeing one image (although many other places, you can get a few on each page).

I am a big proponent of visual aids when it comes to fighting, so this book surely could have benefitted from more photos, or at least some color images. On the other hand, the lack of color has also kept the price of this book down to half of the cost of a book from a company like Victory Belt, and in this case, I think it’s more than a fair trade-off.

In his foreward to the book, Gene Lebell sums up the best aspects of it when he wrote, “What you’ll get is probably the only book ever to tell you exactly why things work in martial arts, why they don’t work, how to fix them, and give you clear, simple evidence that what it says here is accurate and true.” Perfect for students of all levels, “The Principles of Unarmed Combat” offers invaluable information for any combat situation, and why techniques will succeed or fail. This is not your typical instruction manual, and is broader for overall fighting rather than just MMA or kickboxing, but it covers everything with equal attention and will have you rethinking your fundamentals within the first few pages.

You can order “The Principles of Unarmed Combat” by Mark Jacobs from Amazon for around $18. At that price, this book is 100% worth it, and, even though we are still very early into 2012, this book is definitely a front-runner for best all-around fighting instructional book for the year!

Yesterday, short film maker Mark Ward sat down for an interview with Ring of Combat light heavyweight champion Tom DeBlass. In the interview, DeBlass discusses his upcoming title defense in Ring of Combat 39 on February 10, as well as his last victory in November.

Undefeated at 6-0, the New Jersey native is one of the best unsigned prospects on the east coast. DeBlass’ record, coupled with the fact that he is currently the champion of one of the UFC’s top feeder organizations has led most local pundits to believe that his being signed by the world’s largest MMA promotion is a matter of “when” rather than “if.” Perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects of DeBlass’ young career is that he is yet to be seriously threatened in any of his bouts.

In describing his last fight with David Tkeshelashvili, DeBlass expressed the utmost respect for the foreign athlete’s willingness to travel all the way to New Jersey to fight, but also affirmed that he believes that he has never met his match in the cage.

“I wasn’t in any danger at all,” DeBlass described his last bout to Ward. “I really haven’t been in danger in any of my fights yet, which was surprising to me.”

Ring of Combat 39 will be held in the promotion’s perennial home at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Hate to burst your bubble, Carano fans, but she might not be coming back to the sport anytime soon.

In an interview with British nerdery site, Den of Geek, Carano spoke about filming “Haywire” as well as if she plans on returning to MMA. “Umm, you know, I’m starting at the beginning with films, there’s a lot I can learn and there’s a longer career that can be had them,” Carano said. “There’s a physicality that’s unique and new that I can bring to films, so I hope I can get the opportunity to do that again. But I haven’t necessarily retired from fighting either. I’m gonna do whatever I have to do to support myself and to keep going. My future’s a little fuzzy. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next.”

When asked about the infamous voice alteration of her lines in the film, Carano confirmed there was some trickery happening. “He (Steven Soderbergh) went into ADR and did some movie magic and completely altered my voice in some way. Him and his editor. So there’s truth to that, and I’m okay with it. I think he would always do things to help the film and he was really looking for Mallory and myself to be two completely different characters. He would obviously only do something like that to help it, which hopefully it did.”

Carano also added that she is hoping to land a role in the third “Expendables” film, which is a safe bet to say that there will be a threequel. She noted that she was in talks with Stallone to be in the upcoming sequel, but they needed an Asian girl specifically for the female role in this film.

Our friends at THQ have posted another of their prediction simulations using the upcoming “UFC Undisputed 3″ video game (which I played the crap out of a few weeks ago). This time, they are simulating Nick Diaz VS Carlos Condit for the interim welterweight title from UFC 143.

After simulating 25 matches with the in-game AI, UFC Undisputed 3 came to the conclusion that Diaz would win by submission at the end of the second round, specifically at 4:20… Someone must be playing a practical joke at THQ, but it’s even more ironic if they were not. Make your jokes and remarks in the comments, I am not touching this one!

Florida MMA organization “Fight Time Promotions” will be breaking a personal barrier on Friday, February 17, as they will host the company’s first women’s bout. The 115 pound matchup will also be the headliner for the event, featuring ATT standout Jessica Aguilar in a bout against Patricia Vidonic.

A top-ten ranked female fighter in the world, Aguilar is a veteran of national level promotion Bellator FC. Having lost a controversial split decision to current Bellator champion Zoila Gurgel in the inaugural women’s tournament over a year ago, Jag seems to be back on the market for a bout in ATT’s back yard.

With few places for female talent to go for regular fights, regional promotions will often find themselves with globally top-ranked fighters inside their women’s divisions. Fight Time Promotions represents the next regional organization to capitalize on the female talent pool currently up for grabs. Until a promotion with a national TV deal makes a concerted effort to sign a large stable of women fighters, the future of female MMA seems to rest in the local shows.

For more information, see the Fight Time Promotions website.