UFC Vegas 37 betting breakdown

Welcome to my betting breakdown for UFC Vegas 37: Smith vs Spann, which goes down Saturday night in front of a small crowd at the Apex facility in Las Vegas. After a week off for the UFC last weekend, the promotion returns with a 14-fight offering headlined by two light heavyweights who are trying to climb the divisional ladder under the bright lights.

While this card is fairly large in terms of the actual amount of fights, I haven’t personally found too many spots that are worthy of betting opportunities. I currently have bets on just two of the 14 scheduled matchups this weekend, and don’t anticipate having too many more.

You can find all my plays free in the FTN Bets Tracker. I’ll be writing this best bets article weekly with extended breakdowns for up to three of my best bets and occasionally some leans if I don’t have three plays. I will be in the FTNBets Discord for about two hours before the early prelims this weekend to answer any questions that readers have. We’d love to continue building the community through Discord.

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UFC Vegas 36

Heili Alateng vs. Gustavo Lopez odds

Odds: Alateng -125 vs. Lopez +105, DraftKings Sportsbook

After beginning his UFC career with back-to-back victories, Alateng came up short against Casey Kenney in a fight that was largely one-way traffic back in October of 2020. Alateng doesn’t have great metrics to this point in the UFC and is not somebody that I’m extremely bullish on over the long term, but he does have some solid skills. His boxing is probably average at best, but he has a wrestling background and we’ve seen him go to that part of his game in both of his UFC wins. In Alateng’s fights against Dana Batgerel and Ryan Benoit he was able to land 3+ takedowns and bank some control time en route to victory. Defensively, Alateng certainly appears to be a durable fighter as evidenced by some of the shots he ate against Batgerel in addition to getting his body totally destroyed by Casey Kenney via kicks for a full 15 minutes.

Lopez is a tough guy for me to rate because his strength of schedule within the UFC has been so hot and cold, meaning he’s been up against stiff tests in Merab Dvalishvili and Adrian Yanez, but has also fought the lowest tier of the division in Anthony Birchak. Predictably, Lopez came up short against the top of the division while getting a win over the bottom of the division, which ultimately doesn’t tell us much at face value. However, I just haven’t loved the way Lopez has looked in either of his losses to this point. Lopez is a guy who needs to make fights dirty and push a pace against his opponents, but in the Yanez fight especially he looked like a deer in headlights and his volume was lacking considerably behind where it needs to be for him to win fights at the highest level. I’ve yet to really see Lopez have successful minutes against any fighter that isn’t at the bottom of the barrel.

As previously mentioned, this isn’t a fight where I could see the winner making any real noise in the division. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t find an edge. Despite neither fighter being what I would consider “good”, I think Alateng simply has more tools to win this fight. I project the standup to be competitive, but Alateng has shown more willingness to throw strikes in volume and more importantly, shoot takedowns. Lopez’s 27% takedown defense in the UFC is massively skewed due to only having faced takedown attempts from Merab (who takes down everybody) but he is still not a great defensive wrestler and I do expect Alateng to get this fight to the ground more than once.

Bet: Heili Alateng -105 1x until -120 (Placed 9/7 on BetMGM)

Tony Gravely vs. Nate Maness betting odds

Odds: Gravely -220 vs. Maness +180 , DraftKings Sportsbook

Gravely got his UFC run started off on the wrong foot with a submission loss to Brett Johns, but has bounced back with consecutive wins including a KO finish in his last fight. If you’re watching Gravely fight for the first time this weekend, it won’t take long to see his gameplan. He is a wrestler by nature and has landed over six takedowns per 15 minutes inside the octagon so far through three UFC fights. Wrestling is obviously Gravely’s best skill, but his hands are slowly improving as well. He still lacks a real boxing base to his striking game, but he has power for the weight class and has a decent overhand that he’s landed a few times throughout his UFC run. The biggest knock on Gravely in my opinion is that when the going gets tough and fights are extended and competitive, he tends to wilt. That’s what we saw in the Johns fight where he was having some success, but ultimately got tired and made mistakes down the stretch. Ultimately, Gravely has a lot of skill in my opinion, but holds himself back at times.

Maness is undefeated in the UFC, but I’ll be the first to say he has not impressed me so far. I’ve found it easy to poke holes in each of his victories. In his debut against Johnny Munoz there were multiple fouls down the stretch and he was controlled for over ten minutes of the fight, although he did defend 14 of 16 attempted takedowns from a solid grappler. Against Luke Sanders, Maness was able to find a second-round finish but he kind of pulled it out from nowhere as he was getting largely outclassed for most of the fight leading to the finish. Maness has decent cardio and isn’t necessarily “bad” at any specific aspects of MMA, he just hasn’t really shown me any reliable skills that he’ll be able to go to fight after fight to string together victories.

The talent discrepancy is pretty massive in this spot. Gravely is nothing short of an elite offensive wrestler, and Maness is a controllable fighter who doesn’t have the striking skills to make up the other aspects of his game when he’s likely to fall behind. I make Gravely a fairly large favorite in this spot, but am going to be careful with how to approach wagering on somebody that allows fights to get sketchy. I viewed the early Gravely money lines as a massive edge so I took those, but now at -220 I’d prefer to play him in the “Decision Only” market, that will void any bet where Maness may find a finish, as a guillotine or late third-round finish is really his only path to victory in my estimate. Of course this bet type also would void if Gravely was able to finish the fight, but I just prefer the extra safety blanked should he let us all down.

Bets: Tony Gravely -160 1x until -185 . (Placed 9/7 on BetMGM)

Tony Gravely MONEYLINE – DECISION ONLY -190 0.5x until -220 (Placed 9/15 on DraftKings)