The UFC lightweight championship ended in another controversial split decision in favor of reigning champion Ben Henderson. Henderson now prepares for Nate Diaz as Frankie Edgar finally considers a drop down to featherweight.
Ben Henderson walked away with another razor close decision for the UFC lightweight championship this past Saturday at UFC 150 in Denver, Colorado
With scores of 49-46 in favor of Frankie, and two 48-47 scorecards scored for Henderson, the split decision came down to how the judges scored rounds 3 and 4, which were the two most evenly contested rounds of the match.
Many, including myself, easily gave Henderson the first round based off a series of low kicks which appeared to buckle Edgar several times throughout the round. The second frame was equally as clear to score as Edgar dropped Ben and controlled the majority of the grappling exchanges.
Having scored it 1-1 heading into the final three rounds, the general consensus has been that Frankie clearly took round 5, and likely deserved the 4th as well, which would have secured him a 48-47 decision. Compared to the first match, Henderson’s aggression and overall output was severely limited heading into the championship rounds. From the second round on, Frankie’s superior hand speed along with his ability to control the spacing and distance with his quicker feet was the most noticeable advantage either fighter appeared to have.
Henderson admitted almost as much in the post fight press conference, stating that Frankie’s overall footwork caused him to hesitate a lot more than in their first fight, which can be perceived as Henderson subconsciously or indirectly acknowledging that Edgar indeed was the fighter who made the better adjustments on the night.
This was the exact reason we picked Henderson at -160 with our UFC Predictions. Given the lack of comprehension today’s UFC Judges have of the fight game, we knew that Henderson’s misconstrued aggression would be wrongly favored over Frankie’s more tactical and effective assault.
Correct decision or not, Ben Henderson will now prepares for a new challenger in Nate Diaz while Frankie Edgar further contemplates a drop down to featherweight. Chances are high that an immediate title shot against Jose Aldo would be awarded to Edgar if he indeed decides to make the drop.
Final UFC 150 Betting Results
Aside from correctly nailing the final outcome in the UFC 150 main event, we also went a perfect 4-0 with our remaining UFC Predictions, bringing our profit on the night to a little over $1600, as was documented on twitter @ https://twitter.com/BrianMMA11.
Our biggest UFC prediction of the night was a 3k wager on Donald Cerrone over Melvin Guillard.
Cerrone was dropped in the first 15 seconds but managed to survive Melvin’s early onslaught and eventually catch him with a grazing head kick and a fight ending straight right, handing Melvin his first official knockout in his career.
Max Holloway was our second most profitable wager on the card as he went on to stop Justin Lawrence with a body shot in the second round. Before the match, we mentioned how the MMA odds makers were inflating Justin’s betting lines based off the hype he received from his recent stint on the ultimate fighter.
Against Max, that again turned out to be the case as we were able to lock up the young Hawaiin at prices of +125 and -120 before he ultimately closed well over -150.
And finally, on the undercard, Erik Perez solidified our featured prediction with a 17 second, record setting knockout over Ken Stone.
This was a match where we highlighted why Perez was the perfect underdog play against Ken’s frail chin: however, the betting line never reached a playable range so we reluctantly strayed away from betting what was clearly the correct play.