Tale of the tape for John Dodson vs. Merab Dvalishvili

UPDATE: Fight day odds and betting splits for Dodson-Dvalishvili

It’s a battle of ranked bantamweights to open the main card of UFC 252 on Saturday night when #12 John Dodson takes on #15 Merab Dvalishvili live from the UFC Apex facility in Las Vegas.

Dodson is 35 years of age and enters with a 21-11 MMA record, but perhaps most impressively he’s never been stopped in his career. With a 10-6 record in the UFC, he’s fought for the flyweight championship twice but fell short on both occasions. He averages 3.30 strikes per minute and just 0.76 takedowns per 15-minute bout, and has 10 knockouts and two submission wins on his resume. He stopped Nathaniel Wood in the third round on February 15th in his last outing.

Dvalishvili has won four in a row by decision after dropping his first two bouts in the UFC. Entering at 11-4 overall, the 29-year-old from Tbilisi in the nation of Georgia leads all of the promotion with an astonishing 8.67 takedowns per 15 minutes of octagon time. But where he fails is to get stoppages: He only has two knockouts and one submission win in his MMA career.

Here are the betting odds at DraftKings Sportsbook for John Dodson vs. Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 252 on August 15th:

Money line odds

John Dodson: +188
Merab Dvalishvili: -240

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