Alessandro Costa -535 over Matt Schnell + Sean Brady -192 over Gilbert Burns...Final Price -125

Alessandro Costa -535 over Matt Schnell

Pretty easy handicap here as Schnell’s durability is gone, and he’s ripe to be knocked out here.  He got knocked out by Erceg in his last fight, and before that he got knocked out against NIcolau, which is now a really bad look.  He beat Sumudaerji is one of the craziest fights ever, but Sumaderji had Schnell within seconds of being knocked out before he got the miraculous submission win, but it turned out Sumudaerji had a torn ACL going into that fight so it was a terrible look for Schnell.  In his last 6 losses, 5 have been by KO, and it appears that his chin is all but gone at this point.

That’s bad news for him as we’re high on Costa who has really good power.  Costa made his UFC debut in 2022 on short notice against Amir Albazi, and while he got knocked out in the third, he put on a great performance against a really good opponent, and the UFC rewarded him by giving him Jimmy Flick in his next fight who he knocked out.  His next fight he lost a close decision to Steve Erceg, who is proven to be a legit UFC fighter, and in May he got the KO win over Kevin Borjas.

Schnell’s only path to victory here is to get the takedown, and get a submission win, but he’ll have to avoid catching strikes from Costa, and we think Costa is too good at striking to not land some big shots.  Costa is very strong, and has shown some good takedown defense and clinch work at times so even if Schnell gets inside, it’s not a guarantee he can even get Costa on the ground.  We love what we’ve seen from Costa despite his 2-2 record and we’ve seen him improve over his fights with his movement, patience and power.  If Costa catches Schnell just one time clean on the chin, it will KO Schnell or at least wobble and knock him down which will lead to ground and pound.  Costa is the big favorite for a reason, we see him keeping this fight on the feet and being too powerful for Schnell.  Costa for the win.

Sean Brady -192 v Gilbert Burns

This is really a fade of Gilbert Burns as there are a lot of red flags on him.  He’s 38 years old, and after he lost to Belal Muhammad he had to have pretty serious shoulder surgery so he had to take a year off, and he came back earlier this year and lost to Jack Della Maddalena.  He was up on the scorecards going into round 3, but eventually got knocked out in the third.  He was able to win the first couple rounds with 5 takedowns, but he won’t be able to take Brady down with Brady’s elite wrestling.

Burns is also really getting into podcasting, which is a big red flag for us as we love fading fighters who seem to be looking to their next career outside of the UFC.  The other thing about Burns is that he’s only winning against older fighters.  His last 5 wins are against Masvidal (Masvidal’s last fight in the UFC), Neil Magny, Stephen Thompson, Tyron Woodley and Demian Maia.  All these guys were 36 years old or older, and only 2 are still fighting professionally.  His power isn’t there as his last KO was in 2020, and his wresting and submission game are still decent, but his struggles against Maddalena are a gigantic red flag as Maddalena is a pure striker, and he doesn’t wrestle or go for submissions so for Burns to not excel in that fight is a big problem

Sean Brady is 16-1, and his only loss is to Belal Muhammad who is the current Champion.  He got pieced up on the feet with Belal’s striking, but Burns can’t deliver that level of striking so I don’t see Brady struggling with that.  Brady took a year off and came back to fight Gastelum, who’s a tough fighter, and Brady wasted no time getting Gastelum to the mat until he locked in the submission win in the third round.  Brady is 31 years old, and in his physical prime while Burns has lost 2 in a row, and he doesn’t seem to be able to beat anyone who isn’t old and almost done fighting.  Brady’s physicality will be too much, I think Burns will look too slow everywhere, I expect a dominant performance from Brady here.