The Ultimate Fighting Championship makes its long-awaited return to London’s o2 Arena after three years. Russia’s Alexander Volkov takes on Englishman Tom Aspinall in the main event. Read on for our free predictions and betting tips.
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Eleventh ranked heavyweight, Tom Aspinall (11-2) has home field advantage as he takes on sixth ranked Alexander Volkov (34-9) in the main event of UFC London.
A win here for Aspinall will put the Englishman on the brink of the UFC Heavyweight Division’s top five fighters after just his fifth UFC fight.
Aspinall has won all four of his UFC fights so far with his last two coming against high profile opponents in former UFC Champion Andrei Arlovski and most recently against Sergey Spivak.
In his professional MMA career, Aspinall has never fought past the second round. While his wins mostly come courtesy of his heavy hands, Aspinall also showed he can get it done on the mat with his win over Arlovski coming by rear-naked choke.
Aspinall at a height of 6’5” and a reach of 78 in normally comes in with a height and reach advantage over his opponents. However, this will be one of the few times ever he will come in slightly shorter as he takes on the 6’7” Volkov who also has a slight reach advantage of two inches.
There is also a massive experience discrepancy here as Volkov has fought 43 times compared to Aspinall’s 13 with 11 of these fights in the UFC. This will be Volkov’s fifth main event fight compared to Aspinall doing it for the first time.
After winning his first four fights in the UFC, Volkov has since gone 4-3 inside the Octagon. However, those losses have come against former title challenger, Derrick Lewis, perennial contender, Curtis Blaydes and the former Interim Heavyweight Champion, Ciryl Gane.
Volkov has also defeated two former champions in Fabricio Werdum and Alistair Overeem.
Prediction
William Hill has this one priced closely with Aspinall the slight favourite at 1.73 compared to 2.1 for Volkov.
Aspinall at 28 is the younger fighter and it is hard to believe given his experience that Volkov is still only 33 years old.
The Englishman should have the crisper striking of the two and has had finishes in all of his wins so far, but Volkov has over three times as much experience as Aspinall, has slight advantages in height and reach and has fought many of the biggest names in the heavyweight division.
The step up in competition might be too much for Aspinall and I would have liked to see a better price on the Aspinall win. The value looks to be with Volkov, so we predict a Volkov win.
This fight is scheduled for five rounds, but we don’t see it lasting that long. The fight not to go the distance is priced at 1.53.
Single: LostSingle: Won22:30/19 marVolkov vs AspinallBet: Fight to not last the distanceto:50% players believe that this bet will win!