Former lightweight champion, Frankie Edgar returns to action against The Korean Zombie on Saturday. The featherweights will trade leather in Busan, Korea at the Sajik Arena and the event will air on ESPN +. Edgar is the underdog according to the oddsmakers who have it closer on paper than we did.
Bovada has Edgar at +140 and Chan Sang Jung, who now wants to be called just ‘Zombie’ at -170. BetOnline is a tad closer with Edgar at +141 and Zombie at -161 whereas Opening has it much closer at +129 Edgar and -151 Zombie.
We had Edgar at +165 and Zombie at -170. Frankie may have a better chance than our odds show because we have zero clue as to what version of Edgar will show up. If the guy who beat Cub Swanson shows up then Zombie might be in for a hard night but if the Edgar he gets is the version who was knocked out by Brian Ortega it might be curtains quickly for the 38 year old if Zombie is on point.
The light heavyweight co-main event is an interesting one indeed. Volkan Oezdemir went on a 5 fight tear before failing to capture the light heavyweight title in his UFC 220 bout with Daniel Cormier. He lost his next two fights to Anthony Smith and Dominick Reyes but there is no shame there because Smith went on to challenge for the belt, and Reyes is slated to face Jon Jones at at UFC 247. In Oezdemir’s last outing he knocked out Ifir Latifi at a fight night in August of this year. You would expect a former title challenger coming off of a KO victory to be the favorite in his next bout. You would be wrong.
His opponent Aleksander Rakic is no joke. He is on a truly impressive 11 fight win streak having lost only one professional bout – his first and he’s coming in off of a knockout win over Jimi Manuwa at a Fight Night in June. You can see why he is the favorite here with that kind of momentum.
Opening has it +145 Oezdemir and -175 Aleksander Rakic. Bovada set Oezdemir closer at +115 and Rakic at -145 compared to BetOnline’s +125 for Volkan and -145 for Rakic.
We have it at +110 Oezdemir and -120 Rakic.
What do you think of these odds?