UFC 323 Betting Picks: Jan Blachowicz Vs. Bogdan Guskov

Betting the Biggest Value Pick on the UFC 232 Card: Bogdan Guskov +112

It has been more than 11 years since Jan Blachowicz first set foot inside the octagon. The Polish combatant made short work of Ilir Latifi in his promotion (at UFC Fight Night 53), scoring a first-round stoppage. It would take years, though, for Blachowicz to reach the apex of his career, when a second-round stoppage of Dominick Reyes at UFC 253 landed him the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship (Blachowicz defended the belt twice, lost it, and reclaimed it within the following 27 months). The going has been tougher of late, however. Now 42 years of age, Blachowicz's 1-3-1 record over the last four years suggests the sun is setting on his MMA career. Nonetheless, Jan is slated to face Bogdan Guskov, nine-and-a-half years his junior, at UFC 323 in Las Vegas this Saturday.

Guskov lost his first UFC fight at Fight Night 226 but has since rattled off four consecutive wins—all by stoppage. We are siding with Guskov Saturday in what might be (...i.e., probably should be) Blachowicz's swan song. In fact, Guskov's moneyline is our highest-conviction betting pick of the entire UFC 323 slate.

As we have noted on several occasions by now, fading older fighters is one of our favorite angles, as the (inverse) correlation between age and win rate is well-documented. For instance, Reed Kuhn has observed that fighters in their 40s tend to go down after about 25% of the head shots required to fall fighters in their 20s.

More to the point, per the BetMMA.tips database, since 2014, fighters off losses are a meager 24-67 (26%) facing opponents who won their last fights and who are more than eight years younger. The 74% historical win rate for fighters facing circumstances akin to 33-year-old Guskov's proved statistically significantly different than the 47% probability of success implied by his listed odds (+112 at Bovada.lv as of the time of this writing).

The current moneyline renders Guskov +112 the biggest mispricing of the entire UFC 323 lineup, per our reckoning (the 74% historical win rate for fighters in this position suggests Guskov should be a -280 favorite, while the average odds for fighters in this spot is -221).

Also supporting the case for the Uzbeki fighter, Guskov is a more active and accurate striker than Blachowicz. And while he is inclined to rely primarily on his hands to dispatch his competition, the submission win over Billy Elekana at UFC 311 demonstrated that Guskov's brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is not just for show. Blachowicz is the more likely of the two to shoot for takedowns; however, his grappling is mainly meant to set up a ground-and-pound effort (Jan has not submitted an opponent since 2019).

Happy betting!