Here are the sports betting lines for the Andrei Arlovski versus Francis Ngannou fight at UFC on Fox 23 on Saturday, January 28th at the Pepsi Center in Denver Colorado, brought to you by SBG Global offshore bookmaking sportsbook:
Andrei Arlovski 1½ (+160) +340
Francis Ngannou 1½ (-185) -425
Sports Betting on Andrei Arlovski
Arlovski is the more experienced of the two, but at 37 years of age and one loss away from matching his worst streak, the Pit Bull might just be on his way over the hill. The Belarusian was big in the mid-2000’s, when he had a storied rivalry with Tim Sylvia – whom he beat for the UFC heavyweight title at UFC 51 on February 5th, 2005. Arlovski dropped the belt back to Sylvia at UFC 59 the following year, and failed to regain it in the next-to-last installment of their tetralogy later in 2006 (Arlovski and Sylvia fought to a no contest at ONE FC:
Pride of a Nation on August 31, 2012, but that was to their first series of matches what Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was to the first three Indiana Jones films). Arlovski toiled in Strikeforce, WSOF, Affliction, EliteXC, ONE FC and M-1 Challenge before returning to UFC in 2014. The Pit Bull won his first four fights back but then lost three straight to current heavyweight champ Stipe Miocic, Alistair Overeem, and Josh Barnett. These are some of the reasons that offshore bookmaking is not to keen on favoring Arlovski.
Francis Ngannou
The sports betting lines do favor Francis Ngannou, though. The Cameroon-born French fighter is 9-1 in his mixed martial arts career and 4-0 in the UFC – all while leaving a path of destruction in his wake. Ngannou is younger, taller, heavier, and has a longer reach than Arlovski. And as he told Bloody Elbow, he is also “better,” but not because of his physical superiority but because his “advantage is (his) mind.” “I want for people to see I am a great fighter”, Ngannou said, “and I think to be a great fighter you are supposed to fight a great one.” Or as the Nature Boy out it, “to be the man you gotta beat the man.” He added that “after my fight with (Anthony) Hamilton, I feel now I need top ten because I need to be recognized as a great fighter.”
He got his wish, Arlovski being currently ranked 9th in the official UFC heavyweight standings. The French brawler plans to counter Arlovski’s in-ring experience with his life experience. “It has never been easy. Nothing in my life has been easy,” the Predator said. For example, mixed martial arts are illegal in France. It’s like the Kumite in there. “‘It’s difficult to find training partners, to find competition, to even get sponsors,” Ngannou told Metro.co.uk. The Predator submitted Hamilton with the dreaded gyaku ude-garami, while Arlovski tapped out to Barnett’s coquina clutch. Does that mean offshore bookmaking sports betting odds point to a submission finish on this one? Not necessarily, but certainly a possibility.