UFC 309: Mauricio Ruffy vs James Llontop Odds, Picks & Predictions

Tonight's UFC 309 main card kicks off with a lightweight bout between Mauricio Ruffy and James Llontop.

UFC odds have Ruffy as a massive betting favorite at -900, while Llontop returns at +550.

Here are my free betting picks for Ruffy vs. Llontop at Madison Square Garden in New York on Saturday, November 16.

Ruffy vs Llontop prediction and pick

• My fight prediction
  Ruffy ML (-900 at BET99)
  
  
• My best bet
   Ruffy by KO (-150 at BET99)

Fight analysis

One of the biggest stories in MMA over the past few weeks, aside from anything related to Jon Jones, has been the meteoric rise of the Fighting Nerds gym. Barring anything unforeseen over the final stretch of the calendar year, the Fighting Nerds are going to win Gym of the Year.

In 2024, the Fighting Nerds are 11-1 in the UFC. These fighters include Carlos Prates (4-0), Jean Silva (3-0), Caio Borralho (2-0), Bruna Brasil (1-1) and Mauricio Ruffy (1-0).

Ruffy looks to move this record to 12-1 and oddsmakers are extremely optimistic that he will do just that, given his hefty -900 price tag. Meanwhile, James Llontop should be a relative lay-up for someone of Ruffy’s pedigree.

Llontop earned a contract to the UFC with his win over a relatively unproven Malik Lewis in Dana White’s Contender Series. Since then, he has dropped both of his UFC opportunities in losses to Chris Padilla and Viacheslav Borshchev.

On top of that, Padilla and Borshchev are a combined 23-10-1 in professional MMA, which is a far lower winning percentage than Ruffy’s 10-1 record thus far.

Best best analysis

It’s not a hot take to predict Ruffy to win this fight, and there is no way I’m laying nine dollars for him to do so. Instead, we will take a look at the prop market, where his method of victory props are as follows:

• KO (-150)
• Decision (+200)
• Submission (+875)

We shouldn’t be too concerned about the longshot submission prop, given that Ruffy is a power puncher with all 10 of his wins coming by knockout. His knockout prop is only listed at -150 because Llontop has never been KO'd across 18 professional bouts.

With that said, I think that -150 is an over-adjustment to that fact, especially when you consider that he was once knocked out as an amateur. The UFC is also going back to the old gloves for this PPV, which should lead to an increase in knockouts compared to what we have seen over the past half-year.

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Mauricio Ruffy vs James Llontop odds

Method of Victory	Ruffy	Llontop
To win outright	-950	+575
To win by KO/TKO	-150	+1900
To win by decision	+200	+1250
To win by submission	+850	+3300
Draw	+2500	+2500

Odds as of 11-16.

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Mauricio Ruffy vs James Llontop tale of the tape

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