With a big day ahead, let’s get to our Merab Dvalishvili-Henry Cejudo 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
Merab Dvalishvili-Henry Cejudo Pick, Odds and Preview
Merab Dvalishvili-Henry Cejudo Odds
UFC 298 Odds via DraftKings
Weight Class: Bantamweight
Dvalishvili: -250 | Cejudo: +180
Dvalishvili -3.5: +110 | Cejudo +3.5: -145
Over 2.5: -330 | Under 2.5: +240
Merab Dvalishvili-Henry Cejudo Pick & Preview
Merab Dvalishvili (16-4) comes into his fight with former double-champ Henry Cejudo (16-3) on a nine-fight tear.
Usually, Dvalishvili has the decided advantage in grappling against his opponents, but Cejudo has an Olympic gold medal in wrestling. If Cejudo can neutralize Dvalishvili’s takedown attempts, he should have a striking advantage that could translate into an underdog victory.
One interesting wrinkle coming into this fight is that Dvalishvili trains at the same gym as Aljamain Sterling, who beat Cejudo in his last fight.
While some may think this will give an edge to Dvalishvili, as the same coaches will help him gameplan for this fight, it may well cut the opposite way.
Cejudo is nothing if not a cerebral fighter. He will have the opportunity to analyze the tape on his last fight, both to patch up the holes in his game that Sterling was able to exploit and to look for weaknesses in the Serra-Longo Fight Team’s approach.
Dvalishvili is not the same caliber of striker as Sterling is, landing nearly one less significant strike per minute at a success rate 11% lower, but he generally makes up for it with his aggressive grappling, landing 6.55 takedowns in fifteen minutes of fight-time. His relative inefficiency on the feet suggests that the threat of the takedown allows him to open up his striking.
This was on full display in his dominant performance against Petr Yan, who got outstruck one hundred forty-seven to seventy-five despite being the superior kickboxer. Watching the fight, Dvalishvili constantly changed levels to feint at the takedown, which allowed him to come up top when Yan dropped his hands to defend the shot.
Cejudo’s wrestling-prowess will make this strategy less effective. Cejudo already defends the takedown at an 82% rate, and while Dvalishvili scores a lot of takedowns, he does so inefficiently, successfully finishing his attempts only 36% of the time. Even against Yan, a kickboxer who struggles with takedown defense, Dvalishvili scored eleven takedowns but it took him a mind-boggling forty-nine attempts.
We’ve only seen Dvalishvili win a stand-up fight against someone of Cejudo’s caliber once, and it was against an aging Jose Aldo. Even in that fight, he was able to amass five minutes of control time in a close decision, in which he only landed fifty-seven significant strikes at a paltry 36% success rate.
Cejudo has real striking acumen and power. In his past seven fights, he won four by knockout, against prolific strikers, such as Dominick Cruz, Marlon Moraes, and TJ Dillashaw. Dvalishvili will always be in danger, even if he is able to amass control time.
Cejudo’s technical ability and experience are perfectly tailored to bring Dvalishvili’s streak to an end. Getting him as a +180 underdog is too good to pass up.
Best Merab Dvalishvili-Henry Cejudo Pick: Cejudo ML, +180 at DraftKings.
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