Betting on a short night for the big boys: 'Fights ends inside the distance' -225
Nine of Alastair Overeem's 12 UFC victories have come inside the distance, while three of Volkov's five promotion wins materialized via KO. Combined, these fighter boast a 71% stoppage rate in successful outs.
Additionally, "The Demolition Man" (Overeem) was KO'd in all seven of his Octagon losses, while, in two UFC defeats, "Drago" (Volkov) was stopped once and went the distance once (albeit against a relatively soft puncher in Curtis Blaydes). This aggregated 8-1 record implies an 89% finish(ed) rate in losing efforts.
Thus, propensities evident at the fighter level suggest an ending via stoppage is highly probable. But an examination of the broader history validates this conclusion. The BetMMA.tips database contains record of 325 heavyweight fights since 2013. These fights ended via stoppage about two times out of three, or 66% of the time, meaningfully more often than the 52% historical probability of the end coming inside the distance across all MMA fights.
Moreover, BetMMA.tips identifies 87 heavyweight fights where the age difference between the combatants was 6-10 years. Bouts ended early 71% of the time from this position.
UFCStats.com lists Volkov as 15 lbs lighter than Overeem. When meaningfully younger heavyweights fought at a weight disadvantage, the judges' scores were made irrelevant 74% of the time, in 38 instances.
Finally, The Action Network's Sean Zerillo's crowdsourced projections too suggest value with the 'fight ends inside the distance prop', finding a 72% chance that the outcome is decided before the final bell tolls.
Remarkably, Zerillo's figure is quite similar to stoppage rates for these fighters in wins, and that of observed heavyweight bouts featuring big gaps in the fighters' age.
In summary, a pretty good swath of history, plus the wisdom of the crowd suggests Overeem vs. Volkov is somewhere between 71-89% likely to end inside the distance. The current listed price of -225 implies a 69% chance of a short night. As such, we see modest value betting on the event we think is most likely to occur. We are takers.
Happy betting!!