UFC Vegas 110 Predictions:
The UFC returns to its APEX facility for this week’s Fight Night event. The fight card features 13 scheduled bouts in the smaller APEX 25-foot octagon.
International combatants descend on Las Vegas to propel their careers by overtaking other specialized fighters arriving from every corner of the globe.
To date, favorites are running 64.6% in the UFC.
Digital results (20-27 -4.80u) have been unsatisfactory, but there are another six fight cards to make that profit show positively. That’s exactly the goal.
Steve Garcia -120 vs. David Onama +100
Featherweight (145 pounds) main event
Onama, 6-2 in the UFC, trains in Kansas City, MO. He arrives at this main event after having won four straight fights against solid competition. A refugee from Uganda, Onama’s background of despair and immigration to the U.S. is a compelling one.
Athletic and brutally powerful, Onama makes fights by forcing the throwdown. He is fit, experienced in the UFC, and packs ridiculous power in his hands despite the fact that he’s earned decisions in each of his last three bouts. Understand, however, that those recent foes were grizzled UFC veterans themselves.
When the bell rings for a fight, Onama simply walks down his adversary and initiates an immediate throwdown in the center of the cage. Those who allow him this form of fight are often finished as it takes deft movement, precision striking laced with speed, quickness, and effective strike evasion to make it a full fifteen with this young aggressor.
In Steve Garcia, we have a fighter who could be described using the same breakdown I just gave Onama.
Garcia has the same aggressive approach, the same power, and has arrived with wins in his last six bouts, five of which were finishes.
In this slugfest, it is Garcia who will be the slightly taller and longer man, fighting from a southpaw stance. Garcia sports a kickboxing and jiu-Jitsu background and has now folded fluid boxing into his repertoire. His defense and strike evasion are what stand out as blatant differences between him and his Ugandan adversary.
This fight will be an absolute barnburner of a standing battle unless one man gets zapped, in which case we may see a takedown attempt.
Onama’s willingness to take a strike to deliver one puts Garcia in a slightly more advantageous position. Garcia’s strike defense is foundational to his game as he gets hit with only 2.2 significant strikes out of every five minutes of fight time, while his opponent Onama receives a whopping 4.73 per five minutes of fight time.
Evading power fists, elbows, and kicks are as important as landing them. It is in the balance of Garcia where I find advantage for this fight.
Garcia’s patience, his experience, and the ability to evade strikes together make him a very reasonable position, and he stands just under his opening number.
UFC Vegas 110 Best Bet: Steve Garcia -120
Total in this fight: 1.5 Rds. Over -225
Waldo Cortez-Acosta -110 vs Ante Delija -110
Heavyweight (265 pounds)
Huge men with power, stuffed into the smaller 25-foot octagon, have the potential of a dynamically violent outcome.
Cortez-Acosta has the more substantial UFC experience. He arrives to this battle 7-2 in the UFC but off a loss in his last battle to Sergei Pavlovich.
The Dominican Acosta, nicknamed Salsa Boy, has prodigious power in all appendages and uses all mixed martial arts weaponry to great advantage. Cortez-Acosta’s strongest fight attribute may be his well-rounded ability, as well as his granite beard. Cotez-Acosta has never been knocked out or submitted; his only losses have been by decision.
In Delija, we have a new athlete in the organization. He has far less experience, as well. He has faced a lesser set of competent fight adversaries than Cortez-Acosta has.
The Croatian Delija is a beneficiary of this opportunity because after competing with the PFL, his move to the UFC has produced two first-round decimations over both Yorgan De Castro and Marcin Tybura.
In one corner, we have Cortez-Acosta with a depth of UFC experience, substantial power and little wrestling ability other than sturdy takedown defense.
In the other corner, we have an athletic, adroit power striker in Delija, who is more explosive and damaging with his strikes than his opponent. However, he has not seen the second round of a fight since 2023.
This fight is lined 2.5 Under -125 for a reason, and that’s because one of these mammoth men is going to clobber the other.
Which one is it?
I handicap it to be Delija, the more explosive, quicker, fresher mixed martial artist.
UFC Vegas 110 Best Bet: Ante Delija -105
Friday, the ‘Bout Business Podcast drops in the morning hours at GambLou.com, catch all my final releases there! Thank you for reading, and enjoy the hostilities!
