(By the way, he’s supposed to be Danny Zuko from Grease. I’m guessing these costumes were not his idea.)

Dan Henderson fans, get your cash out. MMA Mania gives us the heads-up that Hendo is as high as a +196 underdog for his UFC 157 fight against Lyoto Machida on February 23rd. (In other words, a $100 bet on Henderson would return $196 in profit if he wins.) Considering that Henderson is coming back from a knee injury, it’s understandable that the oddsmakers don’t have complete faith in him. But considering how dangerous Henderson has looked in his last four fights — the epic war with Shogun Rua at UFC 139, and his knockouts of Fedor, Feijao, and Babalu in Strikeforce — it still feels like he’s being sold short.

Then again, you have to consider how Henderson matches up with Machida specifically. Sure, Hendo can turn your lights off with that H-Bomb if you stand in front of him, but he might have a problem with Machida’s skill at evasion and his perfectly-timed attacks from unorthodox angles. Are the odds juicy enough to warrant a bet on the old ‘dog?

In a related story, Ronda Rousey — who opened as a ridiculous -1500 favorite against Liz Carmouche — is currently sitting at a still-ridiculous -1050.

(Keep it together, Ronda. Never go full Sally Field. / Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com)

According to BestFightOdds, UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey opened as a -1500 betting favorite against her UFC 157 challenger Liz Carmouche, who opened at +700. Since then, the odds have leveled out somewhat; SportBet currently has the line at a more reasonable -1110/+690, which means that you’d need to put up $1,110 in order to turn a $100 profit on Ronda if she wins, while betting $100 on Liz would…you know what, I’m not even going to finish that sentence. Please do not bet money on this fight.

The current odds make Rousey vs. Carmouche rank among the most lopsided UFC matchups of all time, which comes as no surprise — before the booking was announced, many UFC fans may not have even been aware of the existence of Liz Carmouche, who is an unknown quantity to everyone except hardcore fans of women’s MMA and Strikeforce. Plus, Carmouche fell short both times she faced champion-level competition, suffering a decision loss to Sarah Kaufman in July 2011 and a submission loss to Marloes Coenen four months prior, although Carmouche was winning that fight until she was stopped.

(If you are implying that this photo has anything to do with odds…you’re probably right.) 

You’ve gotta love the kind of needless analysis and ridiculous speculation that the Internet era has brought to modern sports. Despite the fact that the Ronda Rousey vs. Cristiane Cyborg fight is still trapped in MMA purgatory, the mere possibility of the matchup is apparently enough for several gambling sites around the MMA blogosphere to start laying out the betting lines for what could be the biggest fight in WMMA history. If it ever happens.

Currently, the women’s bantamweight champion is listed between a -160 to -170 favorite over the former featherweight champ on various sports gambling sites. Sure, Cristiane hasn’t fought in nearly a year since she was stripped of her title for a positive steroids test, and Ronda hasn’t met a challenger with anywhere near the kind of devastating knockout power that Cyborg possesses, but who are we to judge the motives of our cyber-bookie overlords?

(“ERMAHGERD. WERST GERMBLING ERDS ERVER”)

Since the Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar replacement main event at UFC 153 was announced, I’ve been waiting patiently to see what kind of absurd betting line would be tied to this fight, and the oddsmakers didn’t disappoint. As MMAWeekly informs us, Silva has just opened as a -1350 (!) favorite, compared to Stephan Bonnar’s +850 underdog line. Gambling n00b translation: A $1,350 bet on Anderson would net you just a $100 profit if he wins, while a $100 bet on Bonnar would pay off $850 in profit if he does the unthinkable. And if you’re trying to decide which guy to put money on, I can confidently say that either bet would be stupid as fuck.

That -1350 line represents the most lopsided odds for an Anderson Silva fight ever, and even surpasses the -1300 opening line that was given to Jon Jones against Vitor Belfort. In general, once the gambling line passes -1000 for the favorite, it’s a pretty clear sign that the fight is a dangerous squash match that shouldn’t have been booked in the first place. (Example: Cris Cyborg‘s -2000 opening line over Jan Finney, a fight that turned out to be exactly as competitive as we thought it would.)

(Hey, I keep tons of random trash in *my* car too! SOUL MATES. / Photo via @RondaRousey)

On March 3rd, red-hot women’s MMA prospect Ronda Rousey will drop to 135 pounds for the first time to challenge Miesha Tate for her Strikeforce women’s bantamweight title. Rousey’s pro MMA career isn’t even a year old yet, and she’s already facing the world’s top-ranked 135′er, a woman who holds victories over such big names as Marloes Coenen and Zoila Gurgel.

And according to oddsmakers, Miesha Tate is dead meat.

Props to MiddleEasy for alerting us to the current betting odds for next month’s Tate vs. Rousey showdown in Columbus, Ohio. Due to her string of armbar victories within the first minute of her fights, Ronda Rousey is as high as a -375 favorite in the matchup, with Tate slated as a +275 ‘dog. That, my friends, is insane.

(“Overeem is my son. Scott Coker is my uncle. Gina Carano is my hot cousin. Josh Barnett is my sister’s meathead boyfriend.”)

Betting odds for the complete lineup of tomorrow night’s Strikeforce card were released yesterday, and looking over these numbers, it seems like the perfect opportunity to dig yourself out of the hole you put yourself in by following our previous gambling advice. Now, we don’t actually recommend the use of off-shore gambling sites these days, in light of the government’s recent eRaids, but hey, entertainment purposes and all, right? Check out the juiciest lines for Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum, courtesy of BestFightOdds.com, then listen very carefully to what we have to say…

Main Card (Showtime, 10 p.m.)
Alistair Overeem (-321) vs. Fabricio Werdum (+300)
Josh Barnett (-319) vs. Brett Rogers (+309)
K.J. Noons (-144) vs. Jorge Masvidal (+135)
Daniel Cormier (-300) vs. Jeff Monson (+325)
Valentijn Overeem (+111) vs. Chad Griggs (-122)

(I’m only giving this face-off a 6 out of 10, since Velasquez didn’t have his championship belt with him, and his teammates weren’t in the background throwing middle-fingers at the crowd. Props: UFC.com)

With Cain Velasquez‘s shoulder injury taking him out of action for all of 2011 (so far), Junior Dos Santos was forced to keep busy with a coaching gig on The Ultimate Fighter and a #1 contender fight against Brock Lesnar Shane Carwin. Any number of misfortunes could have befallen Cigano in the interim, but he managed to keep his spot at the front of the line, and will face Velasquez later this year in the heavyweight title fight that should have happened all along. (By the way, Velasquez’s return on October 8th in Houston isn’t guaranteed yet, due to his health status.)

Between Velasquez’s long injury layoff and Junior’s outstanding body of work in the UFC — culminating with a three-round drubbing of Shane Carwin on Saturday that saw JDS out-strike and then out-wrestle Carwin — the oddsmakers are looking very kindly upon the Brazilian challenger. At this point, Dos Santos is a -120 favorite in the fight, compared to Velasquez at -110.

(Please, Rampage. Your fist-pose means nothing here.)

For those of you who like to plan ahead in your MMA gambling, listen up: Several betting sites are already offering odds on Rashad Evans vs. Rampage Jackson at UFC 130 — a match that is completely unconfirmed at this point — and the purely hypothetical superfight between Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre, which would depend on a GSP victory over Jake Shields. The most favororable odds right now are…

Rashad Evans (-185) vs. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (+155)
Anderson Silva (-170) vs. Georges St. Pierre (+155)

("Is your person Russian, or commonly mistaken for Russian?" Image courtesy of MMAMania)

MiddleEasy passes along the helpful info that at least one online sportsbook, 2betdsi.com, is offering a prop bet on who will win the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix, even though only two quarterfinal matches are actually scheduled at this point. Interestingly, some of the numbers have wildly inflated since they were first posted at the beginning of the week. Check out the latest figures below. If you’re an MMA betting noob, the ‘+’ figure means that you would make that many dollars in profit for a $100 wager.

FEDOR EMELIANENKO +160 [opened at +125]
ALISTAIR OVEREEM +200
JOSH BARNETT +400
ANDREI ARLOVSKI +900
FABRICIO WERDUM +1400 [opened at +700]
ANTONIO SILVA +1800 [opened at +900]
SERGEI KHARITONOV +2000 [opened at +1400]
BRETT ROGERS +2200 [opened at +1900]
SHANE DEL ROSARIO +3000 [opened at +2400]
VALENTIJN OVEREEM +3500 [opened at +2600]
LAVAR JOHNSON +4000 [opened at +3200]
RAY SEFO +4500 [opened at +3600]
FIELD (any fighter not listed, which would include Chad Griggs and Gian Villante) +5000

Some thoughts…

("Listen, Jacare, those hotel carpets are usually covered in…you know what, forget it.")

Strikeforce Houston is set to blast off this Saturday and your old pal Gambling Addiction Enabler has just one question: Could you loan us a few bucks until payday? Seriously, man, we’ve got some can’t-miss fight picks cookin’, and we swear it won’t be like last time. Thanks, bro. For real, you won’t regret this. Would it be cool if we used your shower?

The available betting lines, courtesy of bestfightodds.com:

Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal (-376) vs. Rafael Cavalcante (+375)
Ronaldo Souza (-255) vs. Tim Kennedy (+215)
KJ Noons (-205) vs. Jorge Gurgel (+205)
Bobby Lashley (-500) vs. Chad Griggs (+370)
Daniel Cormier (-1350) vs. Jason Riley (+700)*
Andre Galvao (-280) vs. Jorge Patino (+240)**

* The Cormier/Riley and Galvao/Patino prelim fights will both be streamed live on Sherdog before the Showtime broadcast.

** Jorge Patino is a late replacement for Nate Moore, who has dropped out of the event due to injury. Please make your Fightpicker changes as necessary.

Anyway…

(Feelin’ lucky?)

Okay, I know it’s too early to do a Gambling Addiction Enabler on Strikeforce’s "Fedor vs. Werdum" show (June 26, San Jose), but I just had to pass along the squashtastic betting lines that have been released for the top four fights on the card. Check it out:

– Fedor Emelianenko -1000 vs. Fabricio Werdum +500
– Cristiane Santos -2500 vs. Jan Finney +1000
– Cung Le -400 vs. Scott Smith +275
– KJ Noons -500 vs. Charles Bennett +360

Let me try to put this in perspective. According to BetUs.com, if you place a $100 parlay bet on all four of the underdogs listed above, and they all somehow manage to win their fights, you would walk away with a profit of $89,150. A more modest $20 parlay bet would net you $17,830. 

(Props: CagePotato reader Mitch C.)
 
After making a solid profit on Heavy Artillery, the Gambling Enabler is ready to let it ride on UFC 114. Are you ready? Or are you too chickenshit to claim what’s yours in this life? Seriously, if you don’t have the balls to make hypothetical online wagers on UFC fights, then LEAVE NOW BECAUSE WE DON’T WANT YOU. Odds are only being offered on seven matches from the #114 card, but that’s enough to make us a little cash, so lets take a look at the numbers courtesy of MMAMoneyline…

Rashad Evans (-115) vs. Quinton Jackson (+105)
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (-540) vs. Jason Brilz (+375)
Michael Bisping (-185) vs. Dan Miller (+160)
Todd Duffee (-430) vs. Mike Russow (+325)
Diego Sanchez (-220) vs. John Hathaway (+185)
Amir Sadollah (-130) vs. Dong Hyun Kim (+120)
Efrain Escudero (-400) vs. Dan Lauzon (+350)

Now then…

(Props: Snakefinger)

Before we get started, we gotta ask: Have you made your MMA FightPicker selections yet? If so, please note that we had to change two of the "Worlds Collide: Mayorga vs. Thomas"-related questions today, as Travis Galbriath has pulled out of his match with Murilo "Ninja" Rua and has been replaced by UFC vet David Heath, and Nick Thompson has reportedly been replaced by Derrick Noble against Eduardo Pamplona. It’s a real mess, so please revisit your pools and make any necessary changes.

The betting sites are only taking action on six of the fights for this Saturday’s Strikeforce: Heavy Artillery show, so wager wisely. Here are the odds, courtesy of MMA Moneyline:

Alistair Overeem (-255) vs. Brett Rogers (+220)
Andrei Arlovski (-170) vs. Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva (+160)
Roger Gracie (-435) vs. Kevin Randleman (+325)
Ronaldo Souza (-480) vs. Joey Villasenor (+380)
Vitor Ribeiro (-130) vs. Lyle Beerbohm (+105)
Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante (-195) vs. Antwain Britt (+165)

So how can you make some cash this weekend? Well…

(Fun fact: Jose Aldo got that scar when he was a baby, after his sisters rolled him onto a barbecue pit. Well, maybe that’s not so much a "fun" fact as a completely horrifying one. Depends on your definition of fun, I guess. / Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Now that some of you are sitting on hefty tax returns from defrauding the government while in prison, it’s time to see if we can turn those little nest eggs into big, throbbing piles of money. WEC 48 is this Saturday — only on Pay Per View! — and there are plenty of opportunities to beat the oddsmakers. But before we share our red-hot, sure-thing, can’t-miss tips*, let’s take a look at the betting lines, courtesy of BestFightOdds.com…

MAIN CARD
Jose Aldo (-295) vs. Urijah Faber (+289)
Ben Henderson (even) vs. Donald Cerrone (-110)
Mike Brown (-600) vs. Manny Gamburyan (+500)
Shane Roller (-140) vs. Anthony Njokuani (+115)
Scott Jorgensen (-250) vs. Antonio Banuelos (+230)

PRELIMINARY CARD
Leonard Garcia (-130) vs. Chan Sung Jung (+110)
Anthony Pettis (-550) vs. Alex Karalexis (+505) 
Brad Pickett (-127) vs. Demetrious Johnson (even)
Chad Mendes (-465) vs. Anthony Morrison (+375)
Takeya Mizugaki (-150) vs. Rani Yahya (+130)
Brandon Visher (-300) vs. Tyler Toner (+240)

* We kindly request that you don’t consult previous editions of the Gambling Enabler to verify this claim.

Damn, a lot of surprises here…

(Odds of "King Mo" taking another costly Rockstar bath? Considering that this fight happens right after tax season, call it a longshot.)

Strikeforce invades Nashville this weekend, which means there’ll be plenty of fried food, Elvis worship, and a whopping three title fights to throw your money at. We have some legitimately tough choices to make this time around, so let’s gather all the change we can find from the ashtray of our mother’s Chevy Nova and get serious about this.

Betting lines come to us from BestFightOdds.com:

Dan Henderson (-395) vs. Jake Shields (+295)
Gegard Mousasi (-275) vs. “King Mo” Lawal (+215)
Gilbert Melendez (-160) vs. Shinya Aoki (+130)
Jason Miller (-1200) vs. Tim Stout (+700)

The breakdown…

(Lyoto Machida walked into the gym that day just to learn a little jiu-jitsu, but he walked out as a witness to murder.)

With Labor Day weekend upon us we are forced to admit that MMA’s Summer of Weird – the summer that saw us reach new highs with UFC 100 and bizarre new lows with the Affliction: Trilogy cancellation – is over.  Waiting for us in the future is a fall fighting season full of fistic goodness.  But since there’s no significant action until mid-September, we decided to take a look at some of the current betting lines on MMA’s coming attractions.

Naturally, we turn to our friends at BestFightOdds.com for the most profitable lines on some select match-ups:

UFC Fight Night 19: September 16

Melvin Guillard (+215) vs. Nate Diaz (-220)
Gray Maynard (-264) vs. Roger Huerta (+264)

UFC 103: September 19

Rich Franklin (-150) vs. Vitor Belfort (+135)
Frank Trigg (+310) vs. Josh Koscheck (-355)
Junior Dos Santos (-127) vs. Mirko Filipovic (+115)

(Just then, in mid-thai clinch, Anderson Silva realized that hurting people no longer gave him any pleasure. He could not help but be overcome by the meaninglessness of it all, and he resolved that he would find a way to remain champion without ever harming another human being again. And the people, he felt certain, would love and cherish him forever…)

If you want to know how much of a difference oddsmakers think the move up in weight will make on UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva, you need look no further than the general consensus formed by the betting lines.  No one has Silva as anything less than a 3-1 favorite at the moment, with one even tagging him a 5-1 favorite.  Is it weird that online bookmakers aren’t even giving Forrest Griffin, the former UFC light heavyweight champ, a decent chance to send “The Spider” back to his own division?  Maybe.  But we should also remember that these are the people who handicap fights for a living.  And they seem to be predicting a serious ass-whipping.

The most favorable lines on the internet come to us courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

B.J. Penn (-228) vs. Kenny Florian (+215)
Anderson Silva (-345) vs. Forrest Griffin (+301)
Amir Sadollah (-115) vs. Johnny Hendricks (+104)
Ricardo Almeida (-145) vs. Kendall Grove (+139)
Josh Neer (-195) vs. Kurt Pellegrino (+190)
Aaron Riley (-150) vs. Shane Nelson (+140)
Tamdan McCrory (-175) vs. John Howard (+174)
Thales Leites (-330) vs. Alessio Sakara (+325)
Matthew Riddle (-150) vs. Dan Cramer (+153)
George Sotiropoulos (-380) vs. George Roop (+260)
Danillo Villefort (-180) vs. Jesse Lennox (+170)

The breakdown…

(Try as he might, the referee could not focus on the fight as long as he was haunted by his dying mother’s wish that he do whatever he wanted with his life, as long as it did not bring upon his family the shame of the bow tie.)

The finals of Dream’s welterweight tournament goes down in Japan on Monday, and if there’s anything we’ve learned over the years it’s that betting on Japanese MMA is like buying heroin in a strange neighborhood.  You never know for sure what you’re getting, or whether it’s even halfway legitimate, but damn if it isn’t a rush.  Dream.10 betting odds come to us courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Shinya Aoki (-200) vs. Vitor Ribeiro (+175)
Hayato Sakurai (-600) vs. Marius Zaromskis (+475)
Andre Galvao (-360) vs. Jason High (+300)
Melvin Manhoef (+105) vs. Paulo Filho (-130)
Andre Amade (+145) vs. Katsunori Kikuno (-160)
Dong Sik Yoon (-225) vs. Jesse Taylor (+190)
Seichi Ikemoto (-150) vs. Tarec Saffiedine (+125)

Our thoughts…

("After I’m through with you, your face is going to be as stylishly distressed as our premium denim." Photo courtesy of OCRegister.com.)

Betting odds have been posted for some of the key matchups at this Saturday’s Ultimate Chaos show (props to BloodyElbow for the tip), and oddsmakers have labeled Affliction VP/occasional fighter Tom Atencio as the favorite in his fight against Randy Hedderick, who is 4-3 as an amateur and will be making his pro debut against Atencio. Hedderick welcomes the attention that comes with fighting The T-Shirt Guy; in a recent Ultimate Chaos press release, he was quoted as saying:

So let’s peep those odds, shall we?

(The best financial investment since GM?)

There aren’t a whole lot of internet sportsbooks offering lines on more than a couple of the fights from Saturday night’s TUF 9 Finale – something about laying odds on dudes most of us have only seen in the context of reality TV must be unappealing when it’s how you actually make a living – but fortunately you can find just about anything on the internet, whether it’s Asian Nazi porn or odds on the Cameron Dollar/Jason Dent fight that absolutely no one is talking about.  Here are the most current lines from BestFightOdds.com:

Diego Sanchez (-270) vs. Clay Guida (+251)
DaMarques Johnson (-310) vs. James Wilks (+250)
Chris Lytle (-225) vs. Kevin Burns (+185)
Ross Pearson (+165) vs. Andre Winner (-205)
Joe Stevenson (+136) vs. Nate Diaz (-145)
Brad Blackburn (-115) vs. Edgar Garcia (-115)
Melvin Guillard (+195) vs. Gleison Tibau (-245)
Mike Ciesnolevicz (-125) vs. Tomasz Drwal (-105)
Cameron Dollar (+215) vs. Jason Dent (-275)
Frank Lester (+195) vs. Nick Osipczak (-245)

Our picks…