UFC 272 - Covington vs. Masvidal Betting Odds, Picks and Preview

Let’s take a look at the opening odds, early betting pick and breakdown of Saturday’s UFC 272 main event. UFC 272 takes place Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. UFC 272 is the first PPV headlined by a non-title fight since UFC 264 — McGregor vs. Poirier III.

There are currently 13 fights scheduled for UFC 272 with a few notable names on the card despite there being no gold on the line. That said, the card is certainly built around the main event at the top of the bill, a grudge match between friends turned rivals. Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal have a long history as both training partners and friends, but things quickly turned sour after Colby Covington was forced out of American Top Team. Both of these welterweights have lost twice to Kamaru Usman in title fights, and the loser of this matchup is likely to find themselves at a real crossroads in their career with the winner getting another high-profile bout.

Covington vs. Masvidal Odds

Here are the latest odds for Covington vs. Masvidal, courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook.

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Unsurprisingly, Covington enters this bout as a considerable favorite. Covington is priced at -320, meaning you have to lay $320 to win $100 on “Chaos” to get back on track. Masvidal is lined as a large underdog in this matchup with a betting line of +250, meaning a $100 bet would profit $250 should “Gamebred” pull off the upset against his rival.

Covington vs. Masvidal Fight Breakdown

This is a fight that has seemingly been building ever since Covington and Masvidal were teammates and their relationship began going downhill. However, the matchup has gained a ton of traction since Covington was forced out of American Top Team and switched gyms to MMA Masters. Once Covington and Masvidal were no longer teammates, they began trashing each other publicly to the media and have gotten so much attention that they’re now headlining a PPV event with their grudge match.

Inside the cage, Covington has been mostly dominant throughout his 14 fight UFC career outside of an early slip-up against Warlley Alves in 2015, and more recently his two matchups against Kamaru Usman. Covington is widely considered the second-best welterweight on the planet after giving Usman two competitive matchups, but it’s worth noting that he currently has no wins over ranked welterweights on the UFC roster. Covington’s last win came against Tyron Woodley in 2020, prior to his most recent matchup against Usman in November. Stylistically, Covington is primarily a wrestler whose best weapon is the pace at which he pushes opponents. While Covington will always be a wrestler first ever since his collegiate career at Oklahoma State, it’s worth noting that his striking has improved a ton since his UFC debut in 2014. Covington remains a takedown specialist, averaging well over one takedown per round throughout his UFC career, but it’s worth noting that he isn’t a great control grappler and often allows opponents back to their feet. Despite that, Covington uses his rinse-and-repeat takedown style as a weapon since it gasses out his opponents and Covington has some of the best cardio in MMA.

Masvidal of course rose to fame following his five-second highlight-reel knockout of Ben Askren in 2019, but he has been around since the Strikeforce days. This will be Masvidal’s 51st career fight and his 23rd inside the UFC octagon. Masvidal has dropped consecutive matchups to Kamaru Usman coming into this fight. He took his first fight against Masvidal on short notice and lost a fairly one-sided decision. In the rematch, Usman landed a massive overhand right on Masvidal and handed the veteran just his second career knockout loss. Stylistically, Masvidal has some of the best boxing inside the UFC and is known for his boxing-heavy striking style. However, most people tend to think that Masvidal being primarily a standup fighter means he isn’t a well-rounded martial artist, which couldn’t be further from the truth. While Masvidal is unlikely to offensively wrestle in any of his fights, he is an improving defensive wrestler and has solid defensive grappling once fights hit the ground. If there’s a knock on Masvidal, it’s that he isn’t a massive hitter at 170 pounds and has slowed down a bit over longer fights throughout his career. Masvidal is a solid fighter, but he has struggled when facing legitimately elite competition.

MMA Betting Picks — UFC 270

Once we strip away all the narratives and stories coming into this fight, this is a very straightforward matchup to break down in the sense that we know the objective of each fighter. Covington’s ideal fight is one where he’s able to break opponents with his pressure and spam different types of kicks and strikes to set up takedown attempts. Once his opponents get up, Covington is going to try and drag them back down as a way to deplete their cardio and grind them out.

Meanwhile, this is a fight that Masvidal knows needs to stay on the feet for him to have a chance to win. Masvidal is likely going to have to stuff takedowns early on in this fight while still maintaining enough energy down the stretch of the championship rounds to remain competitive if the fight hasn’t been finished yet. While Masvidal is of course capable of defending takedowns and has a very underrated get-up game once fights hit the mat, it’s hard not to favor Covington by a large margin in this bout. Despite Masvidal being the more traditional standup fighter in this matchup, Covington has a unique ability to push a crazy pace while in kickboxing range, and that in addition to a large number of takedown attempts should be enough to slow Masvidal down and win this fight down the stretch.

While I favor Covington, I do not think there is value on his current betting line that implies he wins this fight over 75% of the time. However, I do think there is a lot of value in Covington decision props and betting overs in the totals market for this fight. With Masvidal coming off a knockout loss to Usman and Covington’s most recent victory coming by finish it feels as though the market is massively overrating the finishing ability of Covington. He only finished Woodley due to an injury and prior to that fight, Covington’s last five wins had come by decision. When you add in the fact that Masvidal has only been finished in 27% of his losses, it becomes clear that this fight is likely to hit the championship rounds, and if a finish comes early, it’s likely from the underdog.