UFC 333 Underdog Pick: Why Dominick Reyes Is Worth a Bet

Many feel the way that you have to bet on UFC is parlaying heavy favorites together, but underdogs win approximately 35% of the time in the world’s largest MMA promotion. Don’t be afraid to hunt for plus money.

Years ago, I developed a predictive model that uses in-fight stats and fighter attributes to simulate UFC fight outcomes — so long as the combatants had at least 30 completed octagon minutes or five total fights. I found that, in the UFC, moneyline favorites are usually overvalued.

How is that possible? Well, in a fight environment with as many variables per second as MMA, it’s hard to see the difference between -150 and -350 in real time. Great bets can lose. Terrible bets can win by lucky measures.

Every week, I’m going to give you my favorite underdog bet of the week. They’ll usually be showing value in my model, and I’ll explain their path to victory.

Here’s my favorite bit of plus money available for UFC 333: Volkanovski vs. Evloev.

Note: All fight odds come via Polymarket, the official prediction market of UFC.

Swaim’s Underdog of the Week: Dominick Reyes (+190)

Model Odds: +137

Model’s Favorite Exact Outcome and Implied Odds: Decision (+358)

Luckily, I’m a man of principle and won’t cop out with an “underdog” being the slightly less favorable odds of one of six pick ‘em fights on this card. It should be a great Saturday.

Instead, I’m going a little deeper in the light heavyweight featured prelim between Azamat Murzakanov and Dominick Reyes. A top-10 spot in the rankings is on the line, and the Russian, who should have support from the home crowd, is favored.

Murzanakanov is aptly nicknamed “The Professional” because, at 5 '10”, he has to use unbelievable rhythm and timing to compete with much larger guys. He’s done that to great effect with a +1.20 striking success rate (SSR), and he was undefeated in UFC entering his last bout.

But, Paulo Costa exposed some of those limitations badly. Murazakanov, 37, faded deep into the fight, and he really had trouble with leg attacks. He was stopped in Round 3 by the future title contender from Brazil.

Dominick Reyes has twice challenged for a world title, but I don’t believe he’s taken as seriously as he should be because of four UFC losses by knockout. But, I really don’t know if he’s chinny or ran into the division’s all-time fighters when Carlos Ulberg, Jan Blachowicz, Jiri Prochazka, and Ryan Spann were the ones to find the button.

That’s three champions and a ginormous Spann, who now fights at heavyweight. Is Murzakanov on that level? It really didn’t seem that way in the Costa fight.

Reyes has six inches of reach and seven inches of height on Murzakanov. It’ll look like a different weight class. The power discrepancy isn’t large, but effective range and movement are.

At the end of the day, this is a volatile fight in the division with the most UFC knockouts annually. These two have combined for 11 to their name, and both have a knockdown rate of at least 1.19%. There’s a good chance someone is going to sleep.

I just don’t know why there’s so much confidence Murzakanov wins the standoff when four of his seven UFC-affiliated opponents aren’t on the roster. Reyes, through his warts, is fighting championship-level competition — and largely KO’ing anyone that isn’t.

My model has Reyes at 42.2% likely to win the fight compared to 35% odds on Polymarket. I’m pretty split on decision (21.9%) or knockout (18.1%) with the added context that I’ll be grinning earlobe to earlobe if this fight starts Round 3.

Reyes’ experience, length, and volume all should be dominating an opponent who tends to fade as the fight progresses by that point, but he’s also still live for that early haymaker.

At some books, they offer “decision only” bets that void if there’s a knockout. I’ve seen Reyes floating around +125 on those. My model would have him around -112 in that market, and you don’t have to sweat the chin whatsoever.