With a big day ahead, let’s get to our Brandon Moreno-Brandon Royval pick, odds and preview. Be sure to check out the rest of our UFC articles, including our full-card breakdown, and or our betting model’s top picks
YBrandon Moreno-Brandon Royval Pick, Odds and Preview
Brandon Moreno-Brandon Royval Odds
Odds via DraftKings
Weight Class: Flyweight
Moreno: -325 | Royval: +225
Moreno -5.5: -145 | Royval +5.5: +110
Over 3.5: -145 | Under 3.5: +114
Brandon Moreno-Brandon Royval Pick & Preview
The main event features another rematch in which the first fight ended due to injury. Brandon Moreno (21-7-2) looks to get himself back in title contention against recent title challenger, Brandon Royval (15-7).
More is heavily favored — for good reason — but I can’t buy him at the market price.
Royval’s power and submission grappling are far too dangerous for me to play the moneyline. Instead, I’m looking at playing the under in a fight that I’ll take a chance on ending earlier than the books expect.
Moreno had the advantage over Royval in their first matchup. While both fighters have improved greatly since then, Moreno’s title run, when compared with Royval’s disappointing title bout with Alexandre Pantoja, indicates Moreno is likely still the superior fighter.
In their first matchup, Moreno almost won by submission with an incredibly rare twister. He’ll look to maintain his edge in grappling in this one, as Royval only defends the takedown at a 40% rate.
It usually doesn’t bode well for the under to have long periods of the fight take place on the ground. However, watching the first fight makes clear that both Moreno and Royval are incredibly active on the ground, looking for submissions nearly the entire time while down. Neither fighter can afford to relax on the ground or they may find themselves deep in a submission before they can have time to react.
This aggression has led to results for both fighters, as each won three times by submission. Royval’s aggression hasn’t always paid off. In his first fight against Pantoja, Royval got caught in a rear-naked choke and eventually tapped. The danger each of them poses while on the ground will bring the fight closer to a finish with each grappling exchange.
Neither Moreno nor Royval has to simply rely on submissions to get a finish, as each fighter has more than enough stopping power in their strikes to knock the other out. Moreno achieved three knockouts, while Royval won by knockout once.
While neither fighter may throw a particularly large number of strikes, both landing 3.8 significant strikes per minute, the number can be deceiving. Both of them throw almost exclusively to the head, which bodes well for potential finishes. In Moreno’s most recent fight, for example, he only threw 12 significant strikes to the body and legs in a five-round fight, for a rate around one every two minutes of fight time. For his part, Royval only threw double-digit body strikes and double-digit leg strikes in one of his eight UFC fights. It’s almost certain that either Moreno or Royval will land a clean shot to the head which is all that it takes to stop the fight early.
Looking at the line for the under reveals something interesting. The implied probability for the under to hit sits around 41%. Moreno ended six of his 15 fights before the bell, which comes out to a rate of 40%. In essence, the under for Moreno alone is almost one-to-one with the line as it’s set, and this is before accounting for Royval’s numbers, who has only gone to decision twice in his eight UFC fights. Combined, the fighters ended their fights before the bell 52% of the time, leaving a nice 11% edge over the line.
Brandon Moreno-Brandon Royval Pick: Under 3.5 +114 at DraftKings
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