With a big UFC 297 day ahead, let’s get to our Raquel Pennington-Mayra Bueno Silva 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
Raquel Pennington-Mayra Bueno Silva Pick, Odds and Preview
Raquel Pennington-Mayra Bueno Silva Odds
UFC 297 Odds via DraftKings
Weight Class: Women’s Bantamweight
Bueno Silva: -165 | Pennington: +130
Bueno Silva -5.5: -115 | Pennington +5.5: -115
Over 4.5: -140 | Under 4.5: +110
Raquel Pennington-Mayra Bueno Silva Pick & Preview
With Amanda Nunes — the consensus greatest female fighter of all time — retired, a new era in women’s bantamweight will begin with the title bout between Raquel Pennington (15-9) and Mayra Bueno Silva (10-2-1).
The books relied heavily on Bueno Silva’s six submissions in the Octagon in setting her moneyline, favoring her at -175.
Riding with Pennington as an underdog should prove sharp given Bueno Silva’s lack of pressure when creating grappling exchanges.
While Bueno Silva fights aggressively when looking for submissions, her submission prowess comes more as a consequence of her opponents’ decision to engage her on the ground rather than Bueno Silva’s ability to take her opponents down.
A prime example of this in action comes from her fight with Lina Lansberg, who re-engaged with Bueno Silva on the ground after escaping before subsequently falling victim to a knee bar.
Shockingly, Bueno Silva has only procured two total takedowns in her six submissions victories in the octagon, and both came in the aforementioned Lansberg fight.
Even more shocking is that Bueno Silva amassed less than six minutes of ground control time combined, five of which came against Lansberg. Three of Bueno Silva’s submissions came with zero minutes of ground control time.
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While this suggests she has an uncanny ability to find submissions out of thin air, it also suggests a fighter can game plan around grappling. Simply put, unless Bueno Silva more aggressively seeks takedowns, Pennington shouldn’t have to engage her on the ground if she chooses not to do so. It would likely behoove her not to, too.
For her part, Pennington only attains 0.93 takedowns in 15 minutes of fight time. Given her experience in the octagon, Pennington probably won’t try to implement more wrestling into her game plan when taking stock of Bueno Silva’s skillset. Without these grappling exchanges, Bueno Silva will have even fewer opportunities to finish the fight than she normally does.
Further, Pennington has never been submitted in her seventeen UFC fights, and she has even attained three submission wins herself. That suggests Pennington’s ground game, though not a central part of her arsenal, is strong enough to potentially work out of a submission attempt if she finds herself engaging Bueno Silva on the ground.
If the fight goes to a decision, it would likely favor Pennington. Firstly, Pennington has a 9-4 record in the thirteen fights that went to decision. This compares favorably to Bueno Silva’s 1-2-1 record in decisions, of which her only win came against the 1-5 Wu Yanan. Stylistically, the fight would seem to favor Pennington as well. She employs strong boxing and good striking defense, only absorbing 3.34 significant strikes per minute while defending at a rate of 62%. Bueno Silva, on the other hand, was out-struck on the feet in many of her fights, including those she went on to win by submission.
I can’t see where Bueno Silva might have an edge on the cards due to her struggles with taking opponents down and gaining control time. The bookmakers seem to concede this, as Pennington’s odds to win by decision sit at +200 while Bueno Silva’s odds to win by decision sit at +330. Pennington is even comparatively favored when accounting for the knockout, as her odds to win by KO/TKO/DQ or decision are set at +165 compared to Bueno Silva’s at +185.
I expect Pennington to keep the fight standing and to refuse to engage Bueno Silva on the ground. If she can do this successfully, she should have the edge if Bueno Silva can’t find a way to generate takedowns.
Best Raquel Pennington-Mayra Bueno Silva Pick: Pennington ML +130 at DraftKings
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