UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs. Imavov Odds & Picks: Bets for Dolidze, Dober & More

UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs. Imavov may not have the big names that upcoming cards like UFC 298, 299 and 300 promise, but we nonetheless have an interesting mix of bouts between fringe contenders and prospects that will all play a role in determining the futures of each division. Let’s dive into the odds and picks for UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs. Imavov. If you’re hungry for more action, check out the rest of our UFC articles and or our betting model’s top picks!

UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs. Imavov Odds & Picks: Bets for Dolidze, Dober & More

Prelim Spotlight: UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs. Imavov | Azat Maksum-Charles Johnson Pick

Johnson’s lackluster takedown defense will play into Maksum’s game plan, and without an effective ability to counter, Johnson could find himself on his back for long portions of the fight. His last two fights arrived at similar results in very different ways. In each bout, his opponents procured over nine minutes of control time out of the 15 minutes of fight time. In his last fight, Johnson was able to stuff a whopping nineteen of his opponent’s twenty-two takedown attempts, which is counter to his prior performance against Cody Durden in which he was taken down 11 times in 17 attempts. This plays well for Maksum, who attempted 11 takedowns in his first UFC fight. Regardless of how well Johnson can stop takedown attempts, Maksum will have plenty of opportunities to control Johnson

There is little reason to believe Johnson will be able to pull off an underdog win via knockout. In his six UFC fights, he has just one knockout win, which came against Jimmy Flick, a grappler who has yet to land more than fifteen significant strikes in the UFC. Meanwhile, Maksum defended himself well in his last fight, in which his opponent, Tyson Nam, came out with a high-output strategy to pressure him on the feet. Nonetheless, Maksum was able to defend 61% of Nam’s significant strikes. The numbers look even better for Maksum when only looking at significant strikes to the head. Nam only landed 27 of his 149 significant head strikes for a rate of around 18%.

This has the making of a long, grinding fight with Maksum in a dominant position for most of the time. As such, riding with Maksum on the point spread at -110 looks to be the best play here. For bettors seeking a riskier play, backing Maksum by submission at +500 may be worth a small bet if he can capture some of his pre-UFC dominance.

Best UFC Maksum-Johnson Bet & Pick: Maksum -3.5 -110 at DraftKings

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UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs. Imavov | Gilbert Urbina-Charles Radtke Pick

In his UFC debut, Radtke looked for takedowns often while battling through a bad eye injury. While he only attained one takedown on six attempts, he procured over nine minutes of control time in the 15-minute bout, grinding it down to a long decision victory. With such a slow pace, it shouldn’t be surprising that he landed only 2.33 significant strikes per minute. With Urbina displaying strength and aggression on the feet in his previous two UFC fights, Radtke will likely stick to a similar game plan to try and win on the cards.

For his part, Urbina is no stranger to grappling, and he embraces it as a big part of his game. In his first fight, a submission loss against Bryan Battle, Urbina attempted six takedowns and procured two of them before succumbing to a rear-naked choke. In his knockout win against Orion Cosce, he secured takedowns on both of his attempts and controlled over three minutes of fight time in the eight-minute bout.

Both of Urbina’s UFC fights didn’t make it to the third round, but they are more outliers than indicators of a predictable trend. For example, his submission loss stands as the only such loss in his nine professional fights, and his victory over Cosce was only his second knockout. Even more telling about his win against Cosce was that it came from a teep kick to the body that broke his opponent’s rib. While this demonstrates Urbina has real power in his strikes, it’s such a rare method of victory that betting on it to happen again would be a fool’s errand. Before these unique outcomes, four of Urbina’s seven professional fights went to decision.

In total, 45% of Radtke’s and Urbina’s 20 combined professional fights went to decision. While this has an edge on the implied odds of decision (40%), I would take the half-round buffer and play the over 2.5 rounds at +124. Either option offers an edge, but with Urbina’s aggression, there is always a chance he finds a late knockout, especially if he gets controlled on the ground in the first two rounds.

Best UFC Urbina-Radtke Bet & Pick: Over 2.5 Rounds +124 at DraftKings

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UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs. Imavov | Aliaskhab Khizriev-Makhmud Muradov Pick

Muradov had an interesting turn in his last bout. In his first five fights in the UFC, Muradov didn’t attempt more than two takedowns. He made a major change to his game plan coming off of two losses and attempted sixteen takedowns, landing thirteen of them. The drastic change in style reflects a willingness and ability on Muradov’s behalf to attack his opponents’ weaknesses rather than brazenly forcing his own perceived strengths.

Khizriev hasn’t been tested in the same way. Counterintuitively, this is a bit of a drawback as Khizriev will take a major step up, both in terms of his opponent and the stage on which he’ll fight. His only other fight on a UFC card was on the prelims against Denis Tiuliulin, who went 1-4 in his UFC bouts and was finished in all of them.

Muradov will prove to be a much more difficult test for Khizriev. On the feet, he possesses a great deal of power and lands a solid 4.21 significant strikes per minute. Even more impressive is his ability to defend himself on the feet, only absorbing 2.56 significant strikes per minute at a 61% defense rate.

Muradov’s defenses will be difficult for Khizriev to crack, as his base is grounded more in grappling than in striking. If Khizriev cannot take down Muradov — who has a solid takedown defense rate of 77% — the fight will be a difficult one on the feet. While Muradov fell victim to a submission once before in his career, I don’t put too much stock in that outcome relative to this one, as it came against a submission specialist with nine submissions in his ten UFC victories.

There isn’t such an apparent edge in this one, but given Muradov’s advantage on the feet and experience against stronger fighters compared to Khizriev’s, I like him as a +120 underdog.

Best UFC Khizriev-Muradov Bet & Pick: Muradov ML +120 at DraftKings

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UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs. Imavov | Vivian Araujo-Natalia Silva Pick

If you haven’t watched a Silva fight, you may think I’m exaggerating by saying that she may have the biggest advantage in striking relative to her position in the rankings out of any fighter on the UFC roster. Just one look at her opponents at the end of their bouts with Silva should be enough to prove this isn’t hyperbole, and watching her tape confirms that she has a stark advantage on the feet against every fighter around her rank in the division.

With such an advantage, it’s unsurprising that Silva knocked out two of her four UFC opponents. However, even the two that made it to the final bell were wobbled at multiple points throughout the fight, and they easily could have been finished at any moment. In a division that only sees 18% of fights end in a KO/TKO, a 50% knockout rate is impressive regardless of whether it could be higher.

Silva’s opponent, Araujo, is a UFC veteran with ten fights so far. While it may seem risky to bet on a person who wasn’t knocked out in any of her previous fights to succumb to one this time, Araujo never faced anyone like Silva. Araujo’s ten opponents have fought a combined 171 times in the UFC and only totaled five knockouts. No fighter recorded more than one. Despite the small sample size, Silva’s knockout rate will never come close to sitting at the 4% rate Araujo’s opponents have combined for.

Araujo has respectable striking numbers on the surface, landing 4.34 significant strikes per minute and defending at a rate of 55%. Nonetheless, she depends on getting the fight to the ground, as all but one of her decision victories came with grappling playing a significant role. In her four decision losses, she could not get the fight to the ground and was pieced up handily.

With Silva’s power and technique, Araujo will have trouble bringing the fight to a decision without the takedown. However, Silva is not simply a striker. She boasts an impressive 92% takedown defense rate and displayed good ground defense the sole time she was taken down against Tereza Bleda.

Silva has every chance to make it to the top of women’s flyweight quickly if she can maintain her pace. I expect this fight to go the same way her previous efforts have — with a knockout always on the horizon. The implied odds for Silva to win by knockout are trading at only 16%, making this wager a long-shot bet worth playing.

Best UFC Araujo-Silva Bet & Pick: Silva by KO/TKO/DQ +500 at DraftKings

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UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs. Imavov | Randy Brown-Muslim Salikhov Pick

Brown is something of a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to his victories and his losses. With two wins by knockout, three wins by submission and six wins by decision in the UFC, he lacks a consistent winning method. The same could be said with his losses, as he was knocked out twice, submitted twice and lost by decision once. This balance extends to the length of his fights, with eight finishing before the halfway point of the third round and eight coming after.

Salikhov is similarly balanced, making this one of the more unique fights with seemingly any outcome on the table. In his six UFC victories, Salikhov won by knockout three times and by decision in the other three. Further, he lost once by submission, knockout and decision. Out of his nine UFC bouts, four went over 2.5 rounds while five ended earlier.

Part of this balance can be explained by the fighters’ well-rounded abilities. Neither fighter puts out a particularly high amount of strikes, with Brown landing 4.38 significant strikes per minute and Salikhov landing 3.37. Both are also solid grapplers, landing around one takedown per 15 minutes of fight time and defending the takedown at a clip just above 70%.

Because each fighter has such a well-rounded game, formulating a game plan will be tricky for either fighter. In this instance, it likely helps slant this fight toward the under, as an overly conservative plan will likely put the fighter in more danger than it’s worth. Both Brown and Salikhov will need to try to control the pace, as there is not a significant edge for either fighter in taking it to the scorecards.

With 13 of their combined 25 UFC fights ending under 2.5 rounds (52%), playing the under for odds of +130 leaves a nice edge.

Best UFC Brown-Salikhov Bet & Pick: Under 2.5 Rounds +130 at DraftKings

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UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs. Imavov | Renato Moicano-Drew Dober Pick

It seems that this bout could only end one of two ways: either Dober knocks out Moicano or Moicano submits Dober. Not only are Dober and Moicano relatively strong in their respective martial arts, but they are relatively weak at defending against the other’s strengths. For example, Moicano submitted six of his opponents in his nine UFC wins, while Dober was submitted four times in his eight losses. On the flip side, Dober won by knockout in nine of his thirteen victories in the UFC, with Moicano suffering knockouts in three of his five losses.

With such a disparity in each of the fighters’ relative strengths and weaknesses, it will likely come down to whether Dober can keep the fight standing. There are certainly holes in Dober’s takedown defense for Moicano to exploit. He only defends takedowns at a 56% clip, which can put him in danger quickly against Moicano.

However, the numbers don’t tell the entire story. In his last five fights, Dober has only been taken down three times. Further, in his 21 decisive UFC bouts, he was taken down more than twice in only four of them, with one of these occasions being against lightweight champ Islam Makhachev.

Moicano hasn’t produced takedowns at a high rate. He only procures 1.66 takedowns per 15 minutes of fight time and only attempts around four takedowns per bout — although some of this stems from the fact many of his opponents weren’t high-output wrestlers. Still, Moicano will need to raise these numbers to give himself the best opportunity to submit Dober, as part of Dober’s takedown defense is to win the fight by knockout before the takedown becomes a problem.

With around 42% of Dober’s UFC fights ending in a knockout win — and 60% of Moicano’s losses coming by knockout — the +225 for Dober to win by KO/TKO/DQ leaves a nice edge for bettors willing to ride with the underdog.

Best UFC Moicano-Dober Bet & Pick: Dober by KO/TKO/DQ +225 at DraftKings

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UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs. Imavov | Roman Dolidze-Nassourdine Imavov Pick

The oddsmakers seem to have given Imavov a boost for his admirable performance against former middleweight champion Sean Strickland. For that reason, you can find some value by riding with Dolidze as the slight underdog. Both fighters are well-rounded: they can take their opponents to the ground or stop them on the feet in the blink of an eye. The fight should be a live wire from the first second to the last.

Dolidze’s previous two wins, knockouts over Jack Hermansson and Phil Hawes, show how scary he can be on the ground and on the feet. While not a high-output striker, only landing 3.02 significant strikes per minute, Dolidze saw an opening in Hawes’ defense and starched him with a clean combination. Dolidze also showed his wizardry on the ground against Hermansson. He turned a takedown into an arm bar before using the threat of a calf slicer to flatten Hermansson on his stomach, ending the fight with a brutal ground-and-pound sequence.

Because of how dangerous Dolidze is on the ground, Imavov will have fewer opportunities to exploit than against a normal opponent. It would be in Imavov’s interest to keep the fight standing for the majority of the time, but this exposes him to Dolidze’s power. Further, Imavov has yet to win a decision in which ground control time wasn’t a factor in at least one round, so there are questions as to whether he can win a five-round fight predominantly on the feet. While he has a higher output than Dolidze, landing 4.55 significant strikes per minute, Dolidze defends himself solidly at a rate of 55% strikes defended.

With the danger that Dolidze poses on the ground, whether in a dominant position or not, he will likely have a more flexible game plan that could give him the edge in such a tight matchup.

Best UFC Dolidze-Imavov Bet & Pick: Dolidze ML +140 at DraftKings