The latest UFC betting scandal has fans wondering what, if anything, will become of it. And just how prevalent (and easy to get away with) might this kind of thing be at the highest levels of MMA? All that, plus a little UFC 322 discussion as we look ahead to this month’s title-tastic event at Madison Square Garden.
Conor (@NeedXtoseePosts) asked, “What are the odds (humor) anything comes of this betting hullabaloo?” and the question is certainly a valid one. Unless an investigation conclusively shows that it was all a big misunderstanding – Isaac Dulgarian still has not made any public statement, as of the time of this writing, which seems odd, considering what he’s accused of and the potential for it to basically end his whole career – something has to happen this time. Especially because so very little has come of the last one. Which is to say, the last one *that we know about*.
It’d be a little too naive of us to assume the only times this kind of thing has happened in the UFC are the times people got caught. If the success rate for catching people in this kind of betting scheme was really 100%, you’d think that would be a deterrent. Even so, the Darrick Minner situation from 2022 still hasn’t landed anyone in jail or even a courtroom. The only penalties were athletic commission sanctions, and even those weren’t exactly severe.
According to UFC CEO Dana White, the investigation into that one is still ongoing even three years later. White also insisted that the UFC is going hard after those who would do this kind of thing. “If you try to do this, I’ve been very vocal and very open about this, we will be your worst enemy,” White told TMZ Sports. “We will immediately go after you, guns a-blazing, with the FBI and whoever we need to get, and we will do everything we can to make sure you go to prison.” So far, that’s been more talk than action. It’s not a great look. You can yell into a microphone about it all you want, but at some point we need to see something get done. At least if we’re ever going to believe that it won’t just keep happening.
Rob The Radical Lefty (@Rob83871601) asked, “Do you think fighter pay has affected the potential of thrown fights? You would think if fighters made more it would be much harder to convince them to get involved in illegal activities.”
It can’t help that fighters are among the lowest-paid athletes you’ll ever see on ESPN (and at this point that includes many college football players), but we also shouldn’t pretend that higher pay would fix *everything*. The recent NBA betting scandal suggests that even people making millions of dollars can be convinced to risk it all through greed or pure stupidity.
As for Sean Shevchenko (@BFTDMMA), “I think Valentina’s best and safest path to victory is a slow, somewhat boring fight. Zhang Weili is faster and more dynamic in basically every aspect of the game at this point. Shevchenko has begun to slow at age 37, but she’s also a savvy veteran of the game who can make up for what she’s lost in athleticism with smart, tactical game-planning. The more fun this fight is to watch, the worse it probably is for Shevchenko.”
Patroklos Stefanou (@formyxscarfalo1) asked, “Do you think Islam or JDM takes it next weekend?”.
“I can’t bring myself to pick against Islam Makhachev at this point. Even up a weight class, he’s just so dangerous everywhere and so capable of making everyone fight his kind of fight.”
And finally, Jed Meshew II (@JedKMeshew) asked, “If you were a fighter and were going to throw a fight, how would you do it?”. “There’s the question of how to do it, and then there’s the question of how to get away with it. The first one is a lot easier to answer than the second. This sport offers so many ways to lose, and not all of them involve great bodily harm. Trying for a half-hearted takedown to force a grappling exchange and then giving up your back en route to a rear-naked choke – just as a for-instance – would be a great way to lose on purpose without having to get punched in the head a bunch. But how do you profit from it at the sportsbooks without setting off alarms? That’s the hard part. The betting handle on some UFC Fight Night undercard bout from the APEX is typically not at Super Bowl levels. If too much money comes in on one otherwise unremarkable fight, or on specific props like a first-round finish, that’s probably easy for online sportsbooks to notice and flag in advance. And if the bets come from accounts that are not usually very active, that makes it even easier. No way someone lets their account sit dormant for two years only to wake up one day and put $10,000 on a UFC Fight Night prelim bout to end via first-round submission or whatever.