Three Underrated Tilts That Could Save UFC 161

he Ultimate Fighting Championships is set to make its debut in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and while MMA fans that bet on sports are looking forward to the action, this event will also be a reminder of one of the biggest problems that the UFC has faced. Injuries are something that can’t be prevented in a sport as dangerous as MMA, and their inevitability means that there are going to be times when a UFC card suffers because of it.

That is certainly the case for the UFC 161 card, as the interim bantamweight title fight between champion Renan Barao and No. 1 contender Eddie Wineland has been scrapped due to Barao suffering a foot injury, while another bout between Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua was also cancelled following an injury to Nogueira. That has left former UFC Light Heavyweight champion Rashad Evans to take on Dan Henderson in the main event, and while it may not be the championship fight the home fans wanted to see, but there are a couple of underrated tilts that could end up salvaging what is left of this event.

One of those fights will feature former Strikeforce champion Jake Shields clashing with Tyron Woodley in one of the more anticipated tilts of the night, and that bout didn’t even make the main card. Shields has struggled with the transition to the UFC and is coming off a no contest in which he was booked for a failed post-fight drug test, but he still represents a good online sports betting challenge for Tyron Woodley in his UFC debut. Woodley is coming off a first-round knockout win over Jay Hieron that took just 26 seconds, and another knockout win would be a tremendous boost to his stock.

Another live sports betting fight that should be on everyones radar is the women’s bantamweight bout between Alexis Davis and Rosi Sexton, which is the next chapter in the promotion’s development of the women’s division. Davis is a terrific grappler that the casual UFC fan may have never even heard of, and Sexton is just good enough to actually provide a legitimate challenge and make this fight more interesting than the bout we saw between UFC Bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche.

he online sports betting tilt between Henderson and Evans should be able to hold its own as the main event of the night, one of the more underrated fights to look forward to will feature Roy “Big Country” Nelson going up against Stipe Miocic. Nelson was a late addition coming off of his win over Cheick Kongo at UFC 159 in April, and the only reason he is able to fight on such short notice was because of how dominant his first-round knockout win was. Nelson has now won three-straight fights, all via first-round knockout, and if he adds a fourth-straight to his resume in decisive fashion versus Miocic, he could find himself as a dark horse contender in the UFC heavyweight division.