Back in the day, we’re talking back in mid-2021 or thereabouts, we did a “picks” and “locks” segment on the Man and the MITH podcast for pay-per-view events. I was excellent at this. In the most recent run with the pod I think I went something like 11-1 on my locks, oftentimes pegging a ripe underdog as the master play.
Did I dredge up a guaranteed winner from the relative obscurity of the prelims from time to time? Damn right I did.
My co-host at the time, Shaun Al-Shatti, wasn’t nearly as effective. He hovered around .500 with his locks, which means it’s possible he misunderstood the exercise (which was, you know, to point people towards the money). For whatever reason his crystal ball always seemed to me the color of a dense London fog. The podcast’s producer, Tyler Hunt, was only marginally better. He circled Ciryl Gane a lot, even in times when Gane wasn’t fighting. He blamed analytics.
But I was great.
In podcasts like that, we merely make our case and broadcast our picks and locks. For this new column that I’m doing in partnership with my friends at DraftKings, I am reprising the “locks” and “picks” in the written form. This way it’s easy to print out and mark up with one of those small pencils you find at sportsbooks.
I will pick all the fights. Some will come with breakdowns. I will also give two locks of the night, one from the main card and one from the prelims. As a fearless and accountable person, I will keep a tally of how I do from event to event.
Here goes — please use responsibly!
UFC 269 MAIN CARD
(Odds and Lines subject to change)
Dustin Poirier (-160) vs Charles Oliveira (+140)
I see this main event as a true diehard’s delight, in that Poirier is a recovered Conor McGregor victim who’s stormed back like the Count of Monte Cristo, and Charles Oliveira is breaking UFC records with the stealth of a thief.
Poirier’s 2021 has been very loud, though — very, very loud. He is on the verge of not only becoming the UFC’s lightweight champion, but of also making his case for Fighter of the Year. For that reason, he is a kind of darling in the match-up. It helped that Poirier beat McGregor twice, the first time via TKO and the second time via a doctor’s stoppage after McGregor broke his leg. Betting lines love attention.
If you saw those fights, you saw a Poirier who was unaffected by all the spoils of a big fight. He couldn’t be rattled by the magnitude of the event. He wasn’t bothered by McGregor bombast. He wasn’t intimidated by McGregor’s striking. He didn’t buy into any auras. He wasn’t the same kid who faced him and drowned in the circumstance back at UFC 178 in 2014.
Poirier is at his peak in terms of his skills, and is dialed in mentally. He is genuinely at the top of his game. Then again, so is Oliveira. Nine straight wins with eight finishes makes him an absurd underdog. If anybody is being slept on in here it’s the champ Charlie Olives, who has been an underdog against the recently released Kevin Lee and a fading Tony Ferguson. He was only a slight favorite against Michael Chandler, but the way he knocked him out would’ve had you believing he was a -500 favorite.
It’s a true clash of momentums. But getting Oliveira, the man with the most submission victories in UFC history and precision knockout ability, at plus money should give you a devilish grin.
The pick: Oliveira by third round TKO
Amanda Nunes (-900) vs Julianna Peña (+600)
When discussing a dominant champion, your mind can play tricks on you. The “what if’s” creep in to justify a lark. What if Julianna Peña catches Nunes? What if a clash of heads renders Nunes dumb for a minute? What if Nunes snaps an ankle? What if this is Peña’s Holly Holm moment?
But Peña’s long odds here are actually not long enough. The thing is, Nunes doesn’t just have explosive power, superior grappling and the mental acuity to take a fight where she wants it, she has a death grip on complacency. No champion has guarded against the silk sheets since Georges St-Pierre. Nunes always comes prepared. She takes every challenge seriously. She wrecks whoever is put in front of her — from the husk of Ronda Rousey to Cris Cyborg to Valentina Shevchenko — as if she’s insulted to even be matched against them.
Peña wanted this fight, because why not? Why not take a crack at an overthrow? To make history? To end the tyranny of Amanda Nunes!
Ain’t happening.
The pick: Nunes by second round TKO
Geoff Neal (+110) vs Santiago Ponzinibbio (-130)
A couple of years ago, after he booted Frank Camacho’s head into the mezzanine at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, I was telling people to watch out for Geoff Neal — the waiter-by-day who didn’t suffer fools lightly. I projected he’d be fighting in a title eliminator no later than…let’s see…right around now.
How silly to project that far ahead. Neal was rolling along nicely with five straight wins in the UFC’s welterweight division after breaking through on Dana White’s Contender Series, but then he ran into a master pointillist in Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson and got picked apart. Neil Magny ever so subtly did the same thing to Neal five months later, leaving my future contender in a tough spot heading into this weekend against Ponz.
I like Ponzinibbio. Largely unsung outside of his native Argentina (where he is a folk hero), he just wins. He has won eight of his last nine fights, and if Li Jingliang didn’t catch him on national television, here’s guessing he’d be a 3-to-1 favorite in this match-up.
Something tells me Neal will be trying to do vintage things with a sense of urgency. Things like finish the fight. Emphatically. Early. And I can envision a caution-to-the-wind exchange, and somebody going down.
The pick: Ponzinibbio by first round TKO (in any case, the 1.5 round under at +120 is the gut feel)
Kai Kara-France (+115) vs Cody Garbrandt (-135)
Should be a banger. Garbrandt is making his flyweight debut, and so long as the weight cut doesn’t doom him this could be a reinvention for the former bantamweight champ. Kara-France is no slouch. He got his first KO finish his last time out against Rogerio Bontorin, and you got the sense that he was like a bowstring that had been pulled back for the last several years who’d been let go.
Still, I like Garbrandt’s length and his ability to use that in his boxing. I better not end up on Cold Takes for saying it, but I think Garbrandt going down a weight is a smart move. “No Love” is going to roll here.
The pick: Garbrandt by unanimous decision
THE MAIN CARD LOCK
Raulian Paiva (+235) vs Sean O’Malley (-300)
“Suga” Sean O’Malley was sizable favorite against “Chito” Vera back in 2020, and for good reason. He’d schooled Jose Quiñónez and Eddie Wineland with first round finishes, and looked very much like one of those guys who shines brightest when the spotlight gets hottest. Then he lost to Vera and parlay tickets were being torn up with a great rumbling of disgust.
Scariest part of betting O’Malley is his durability. He was hurt in that Vera fight, which cost him, and he was hurt in his fight with Andre Soukhamthath, too, which ultimately didn’t. In the Soukhamthath bout he had to do the post-fight interview with Joe Rogan from a prone position on his back, still in immense (yet ecstatic) pain. These are cautionary tales.
But you know what? Screw all that!
O’Malley’s last two fights have been borderline burlesque. He had a walk-off knockout against Thomas Almeida that didn’t count at UFC 260, so he knocked him out again in the later rounds. Then he turned Kris Moutinho into both a punching bag and a cult figure at UFC 264, by snapping crisp combos into his face for 14-and-a-half minutes before the referee finally said enough. It was a master class striking display by the gangly O’Malley, whose hair alone has many dimensions.
Can he do that against Paiva, a fighter who’s won three straight and seems primed to do a Chito trick? Hell yes he can. And he will.
The LOCK of the Night: Sean O’Malley via second round TKO — LOCK IT UP!
UFC 269 PRELIMS LOCK OF THE NIGHT
Ryan Hall (-200) to submit Darrick Minner (+170)
I told some friends to watch Ryan Hall in his last fight against Ilia Topuria this past summer, and you’d think I asked them to check out the cinematic version of “50 Shades of Grey.” I’d built him up, so most were texting to express disappointment in my unsolicited advice. One friend said Hall was the worst fighter he’d ever seen. And to be fair, it was a comical UFC fight.
Hall’s rolling attacks to snatch a leg were par for the course, given that Hall is a jiu-jitsu wizard with no visible emotion. But when that didn’t work and the repeat cycle started, it looked a little like a bear somersaulting into a snow bank again and again (and again). It became evident there was no Plan B. Hall later said he suffered a broken hand, so I’ll go with that as an excuse.
Hall won’t need it a Plan B against Minner. If Grant Dawson and Herbert Burns can submit the Nebraskan, Hall will treat him like human origami.
The prelim LOCK of the night: Hall defeats Minner via second round submission
OTHER UFC 269 PRELIM PICKS
Dan Ige (+145) def Josh Emmett (-165)
Dominick Cruz (+100) def Pedro Munhoz (-120)
Tai Tuivasa (-110) def Augusto Sakai (-110)
Bruno Silva (-365) def Jordan Wright (+280)
Andre Muniz (-335) def Eryk Anders (+260)
Alex Perez (-335) vs Matt Schnell (+260)
Tony Kelley (+155) def Randy Costa (-180)
Gillian Robertson (-400) def Pricilla Cachoeria (+300)
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