These are two fighters making their respective UFC debuts.
Matthew Semelsberger was originally supposed to fight Philip Rowe who is a legit guy and potentially a future top ten fighter in the UFC’s Welterweight division.
I first heard about him while I was watching a Mike Perry vlog…I know…forgive me.
Watch out for Rowe in his next fight.
I had him pegged to defeat Semelsberger.
Carlton Minus steps in here on less than a week’s notice and the Alaskan fighter has a long way to travel but at least there won’t be much of a time zone shift.
Minus is a counter striker with clean boxing but from the tape I watched, he doesn’t land with a lot of power.
He was spending a lot of time on his bike circling.
Semelsberger is a straightforward fighter so something has to give with these two.
The online sportsbook BetOnline.AG has the betting odds for us this week. Let’s get to our pick.
Carlton Minus (-120) vs Matthew Semeslberger (+110)
My goodness. I spoke of this fight maybe having the best value on the card but apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had that idea.
Matt opened as a (+255) favorite… THAT WAS the spot right there. I still like him here, though, at roughly even money. I think he wins at least 6/10 times against the backpedaling Minus.
Carlton Minus, out of Alaska, has not faced very good competition in his career.
I watched Minus fight Schon Ellis, a tough guy but short stocky, sloppy, and slow. Carlton barely won that fight, in my opinion. He ran from Schon the whole time only landing the smallest jabs and 1-2’s I think I’ve ever seen at Welterweight.
Heck, GSP hits harder than that. Just kidding, Georges.
Ellis also took him down easily but to Carlton’s credit, he did get back to his feet with haste and that likely saved him from a loss.
If Schon would have had just a little bit more length, I believe he would have secured the victory that way as well.
When I see Minus fight, I see a guy who can box for sure but didn’t show any power in his hands and he also didn’t throw a lot of kicks, knees, or elbows.
Carlton stays backing up and circling, though, and against a master blaster who can match his length like Semelesberger, I see Carlton having a hard time.
It’s not like the Ellis fight was that long ago either. It was his most recent fight and it came right after his first loss which should have leveled him up at least slightly.
The sharps crushed this betting line when it came out but that doesn’t necessarily mean the betting line is now devoid of value. We know who is going to be the fighter coming forward in the small Octagon at that.
If the same Carlton Minus that fought Schon Ellis fights Semelsbeger this Saturday night, I think Matt wins 7 or 8 out of 10 times. Minus is on short notice too…
Carlton has 3 TKO wins in his pro career. Two of them came against 0-0 fighters and the other was against a 15-11 guy.
I realize people were sleeping on Uros Medic because the Alaska scene is low level and he proved people wrong and looked amazing on Dana White’s Contender Series but Minus is not Medic.
Carlton could circle and jab his way to victory or possibly catch the aggressive Semelsberger coming in but I have Matt in this one.
I will take the forward fighter against a guy we haven’t seen dominate with wrestling or have stopping power or diversity in his strikes.
In Conclusion
Not the best card for betting this weekend, guys.
I have to be 100% clear with you.
I do like this play on Semelsberger, though. He is the bigger guy, the more aggressive guy, the more powerful striker, the more diverse striker…
And we have only seen weak wrestling from Minus.
I keep wondering what the oddsmakers saw when they lined Carlton Minus as a 3-1 favorite fighting on a week’s notice.
Maybe they will prove me wrong but you guys aren’t just taking my advice here with this pick.
The line has already moved significantly away from Minus.
The only question that remains is if we still have value on Matt and I think we just answered that.
Bet smart here. I know I laid on the persuasion pretty hard but both are still UFC debutants so don’t go crazy.
