The Octagon returns to T-Mobile Center at Las Vegas for Saturday night’s 11-fight UFC 239 card.
The show comes with a set of title fights, with MMA’s best-ever fighters around the men’s and women’s side defending their individual belts.
Jon’Bones’ Jones is set to shoot on Thiago Santos at the primary event. Jones was a -600 favored at most novels as of Tuesday, however, the Westgate SuperBook had Jones in -850 late Friday afternoon. Santos was a +575 underdog in the Westgate. A number of offshore shops had Jones in a cheaper price from the -650 neighborhood. The total has been 2.5 rounds (‘under’ -135,”over’ +105) at most spots.
Jones (24-1-1 MMA, 18-1-1 UFC) has had his hand raised 25 times in 26 career fights. His only”reduction” was a disqualification for prohibited 12-to-6 elbows at a blowout win over Matt Hamill on Dec. 5 of 2009. His third-round knockout win over Daniel Cormier at UFC 214 was overturned and changed into a no-decision when Jones tested positive for the PED turinabol.
Jones appears — for now — to be on the right track outside of the cage lately. This is his third fight in a span of six months and one week, marking his most activity since 2011-12. He’s indicated he wants to fight at least three occasions in 2019.
Jones is away from a unanimous-decision triumph over Anthony Smith at UFC 235 in March. He dominated Alexander Gustafsson using a third-round KO victory at UFC 232 on Dec. 29 of 2018. Before those two successes, many suspensions and arrests enabled him to compete only four times in a span of over five years.
Jones has cleaned the light-heavyweight division during his dominant career. In a five-fight stretch from March 19 of 2011 to Sept. 22 of 2012, he won the belt and successfully defended it four times. All five of these wins came over former champions — Shogun Rua, Rampage Jackson, Lyoto Machida, Rashad Evans and Vitor Belfort. Only Evans went the distance with Jones during this interval.
Santos (21-6 MMA, 13-5 UFC) is 8-1 in his past nine fights since February of 2017. He’s ripped six fight-night bonuses in this stretch. The 35-year-old Santos competed at middleweight his entire career until moving up to 205 lbs to face Eryk Anders from the UFC Fight Night 137 headliner in Sao Paulo past September.
Anders took the fight on six days of notice if Jimi Manuwa pulled his departure with Santos because of an injury. The former University of Alabama football player needed to fly to Brazil and make weight in quick purchase. Plus, he had been heading up a weight class for the very first time in his career.
The garbage was a slugfest that earned Battle of the Night honors. Unfortunately, Anders collapsed due to exhaustion while trying to walk back to his corner once the third round finished. The referee immediately called the struggle to give Santos a TKO victory.
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