After a new champion was crowned at UFC 323 with Joshua Van, two more Flyweight contenders, No. 2 Brandon Royval and No. 6 Manel Kape, will go toe-to-toe. Kape has picked up two knockout victories in the last year, while Royval has won two of his previous three fights.
Check out my best bet and preview for the Main Event of this week’s UFC Fight Night between Brandon Royval and Manel Kape.
Fight to go the distance (+130)
Royval is 6-4 in his previous 10 UFC fights, but context matters. All four of his losses in the UFC have come against UFC champions: Alexandre Pantoja, Brandon Moreno, and Van. Royval has excelled as an underdog, most recently against Tatsuro Taira.
In this contest, Royval is taller by four inches (5’9″ vs. 5’5″), while both fighters have a 68″ standing reach. On the feet, Royval has the slight edge as he lands 0.51 more significant strikes per minute. But Kape has something that doesn’t pop up on the stat sheet: power. Flyweights aren’t known as the most powerful strikers in MMA, but Kape is an outlier to that.
On DraftKings Sportsbook, Royval is a +225 underdog with Kape being the favorite at -278. This bout has an over/under of 3.5 rounds with the over being -130.
Royval’s last four fights have all gone the distance, while Kape has seen three of his previous five bouts go to the judges’ scorecards. Since this fight is a very close matchup with two good strikers, it could end up being a three-round war like Royval’s last fight. You can get this fight to go the distance at +130.
