The UFC is returning to the Big Apple this weekend with UFC 295 taking place tomorrow night at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The lineup currently features 13 scheduled bouts with plenty of great matchups sprinkled throughout the card and it will be headlined by two championship bouts. Below are a few prop bets to consider for tomorrow’s main card fights:
Alex Pereira to Win and Ov1.5 Rounds (+180 DraftKings)
The main event of this card will feature Jiri Prochazka taking on Alex Pereira for the vacant Light Heavyweight title. Both of these fighters are extremely dangerous strikers with high finish rates in their wins and I’m expecting this to be a great fight. I expect both fighters to take things slow in the early minutes of this matchup while they develop their reads, and then pick things up from there heading into the second round. I think Pereira will be the more technical and patient fighter in this matchup, while Prochazka has a tendency to get a bit wild at times and leaves himself open defensively. I’m picking Pereira to get this one done via a late KO/TKO or decision win, and I think the Ov1.5 Rounds prop is a good place to start looking for a plus money bet here.
Sergei Pavlovich by KO/TKO in R1/2 (+170 FanDuel)
This matchup was put together late when Jon Jones was forced to drop out of the original main event for this card against Stipe Miocic a couple weeks back due to injury. Pavlovich and Tom Aspinall will now be competing for an interim UFC Heavyweight title in the co-main event of the evening in what should be an absolute banger. Both of these guys have steadily made their way through the heavyweight division to get to this spot, and while it’s a close matchup that could go either way, I’m liking Pavlovich’s chances to get the win. He has won his previous 6 fights via first round KO/TKO and is one more knockout away from tying the all-time UFC knockout streak. I think he’ll get the job done in this one with another early finish, but I prefer not to limit my play to just the opening round, so I’m taking my chances on the KO/TKO combo in R1/2.
Matt Frevola by KO/TKO (+390 FanDuel)
This one should be a lot of fun and an absolute firefight between Matt Frevola and Benoit Saint Denis in a perfect celebration of Veteran’s Day weekend with both fighters being former members of the military for their respective countries. Frevola enters this matchup on a three-fight winning streak with all of the wins coming via first round KO/TKO. Saint Denis has a 100% finish rate in his wins, and while he hasn’t been finished officially, his one loss would have been ruled a KO/TKO stoppage by 99% of MMA referees on the planet and only made it to decision by a gross oversight by the official in the cage. While Frevola is the slight underdog in this matchup, he’ll have the advantage of fighting at home in front of the NYC crowd and I think there’s solid value in sprinkling his KO/TKO prop in this fight to catch Saint Denis in an exchange.
