UFC 225 Best Bets – Seher Elhayat

How Heavy is Saturday’s UFC 225 card at the United Center in Chicago?

A former light-heavyweight champion (Rashad Evans), a former title challenger and present No. 1 flyweight contender (Joseph Benavidez) and a sure-to-be exciting lightweight scrap between hometown underdog Clay Guida and also Charles’Can Bronx’ Oliveira are buried on the FightPass prelims.
There were supposed to be two name conflicts, including the most important event between middleweight champ Robert Whittaker and Yoel Romero. But, Romero missed weight by only 0.2 pounds when he tipped the scales at 185.2 pounds.
For title conflicts, the allowance isn’t granted. Romero was 186 pounds. He was given two hours to shed 1 pound. According to tweets from MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani, the mind of the Illinois Athletic Commission overruled a physician about the scene and compelled Romero to quit cutting weight one hour to the two-hour time period.
That is when he went to the scale and came up 0.2 pounds short. His camp was reportedly upset and felt if given another hour that he was presumed to be granted, Romero would have hit his mark. He affirmed that in his interview with Joe Rogan at the weigh-ins that were early Friday night. “I don’t why the Commission decided to not give me the two hours,” Romero said.
Whittaker still wanted to fight and wasn’t interested in placing weight limitations on Romero for Saturday (such as we saw with Darren Till vs.’Wonderboy’ Thompson in Liverpool two weeks back ). The most important event will still take place, although Whittaker’s strap will not be on the line.
Whittaker (19-4 MMA, 10-2 UFC) was a -220 favorite for most of this week. Night, the amount was up into the -250/260 range. Romero was the +210 underdog (risk $100 to win $210). The total has been 4.5 rounds (‘under’ -165,’over’ +145).
Whittaker has won eight consecutive battles since dropping by first-round knockout to Thompson in UFC 170. His only other defeat from the Octagon came by split decision in August of 2013 from Court McGee. The 27-year-old New Zealander is 7-0 since moving upward from welterweight to the 185-pound loop. In the previous seven fights of Whittaker, he engaged in 3 Fights of the evening and has garnered three Performance of the Night bonuses.
Whittaker won the interim middleweight belt by beating Romero by unanimous decision (48-47 across) at UFC 213 in Las Vegas last July. He became the undisputed champ when Georges St. Pierre relinquished the name because of an illness.