The day before every major event, The Post’s MMA expert Marc Raimondi breaks down what you should know in order to intelligently wager on the fight.
On Saturday, the UFC is in Sweden for a pieced-together main card headlined by Gegard Mousasi and late fill-in Ilir Latifi. Randy Couture’s son Ryan makes his UFC debut against Ross Pearson and Brad Pickett meets Mike Easton in what should be a Fight of the Night candidate.
Here are the lines from 5dimes:
MAIN CARD (Fuel TV, 2 p.m.)
Gegard Mousasi (-1200) vs. Ilir Latifi (+775)
Ross Pearson (-390) vs. Ryan Couture (+320)
Matt Mitrione (-325) vs. Phil DeFries (+265)
Brad Pickett (-175) vs. Mike Easton (+155)
Diego Brandao (-220) vs. Pablo Garza (+180)
Robbie Peralta (-380) vs. Akira Corassani (+315)
PRELIMS (Facebook, 10:30 a.m.)
Michael Johnson (-240) vs. Reza Madadi (+200)
Tor Troeng (-240) vs. Adam Cella (+200)
Adlan Amagov (-180) vs. Chris Spang (+158)
Conor McGregor (-160) vs. Marcus Brimage (+140)
Ryan LaFlare (-205) vs. Ben Alloway (+173)
Tom Lawlor (-175) vs. Michael Kuiper (+155)
Papy Abedi (-125) vs. Besam Yousef (+105)
There are so many reasons to like Mousasi in this main event, because of the circumstances. Latifi wasn’t really training and he took this fight on four days notice when Alexander Gustafsson was injured. On Monday, the Swedish wrestler was 26 pounds over the 205-pound weight limit. You do the math.
Latifi is an unknown and probably won’t be at his best. But then you consider his wrestling pedigree and it makes you nervous, because Mousasi struggles with guys like him. Still, you have to stick with the Strikeforce veteran to lead your parlay. He’s extremely talented, much more experienced and should have a chip on his shoulder by now, one that will offset Latifi’s hunger and guts for taking this fight.
Pearson and Mitrione are both strong favorites and belong in your parlay. Couture has never fought anyone as polished or experienced as Pearson and Mitrione is just a physical, athletic mismatch for DeFries. Rounding out your parlay, snatch up Peralta, the red-hot prospect. He’s explosive and could end that fight very quickly.
Pickett-Easton is the most exciting fight on the card and could go either way because both men will be willing to stand and bang. But Pickett just has more tools and more experience. He’s flat-out better standing up than Easton. McGregor would also make a good straight bet. The Irishman is heavily hyped and while I don’t like taking guys in their UFC debut the odds here are good. He should beat Brimage.
Cella was destroyed on “The Ultimate Fighter” by Uriah Hall and will always be the answer to the trivia question “Who was the victim of the most ridiculous knockout in ‘TUF’ history?” But he’s a solid fighter and has good kickboxing. He can take Troeng and at those odds it’s worth it.
BEST BETS
POT: 1,050.20 (+260.14)
(Original pot: $1,000)
Parlay
Mousasai, Pearson, Mitrione, Peralta
$100 to win $127.43
Straight bets
Pickett over Easton
$52.50 to win $30
McGregor over Brimage
$32 to win $20
Upset special
Cella over Troeng
$20 to win $40
LOOKING BACK
Hot, then cold. Cold, then hot. Right now, BEST BETS is on a hot streak and UFC 158 kept things going. The parlay of Georges St-Pierre, Jordan Mein, Rick Story and TJ Dillashaw was perfect and Jake Ellenberger and George Roop, in the upset special, both came through.
The lone loss? Carlos Condit fell to Johny Hendricks in a three-round, back-and-forth war. Yeah, we’ll take that.
mraimondi@nypost.com