UFC Odds on Jardine beating Bader

There are few light heavyweights who are more inconsistent than Keith “The Dean of Mean” Jardine, but in a certain respect, that inconsistency makes him a very dangerous man to bet against.

By the same token, it also makes the underdog Jardine in UFC 110's fight vs. Ryan Bader a tough man to bet on as well.

Simply put, you never know which Keith Jardine will show up on any given night: the one who went toe to toe with Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and almost won the fight in the third round, the one who soundly beat Chuck Liddell, or the one who got brutally KO'd in a matter of seconds by journeyman Houston Alexander.

Ryan Bader on the other hand is just as hard to predict going into this fight because no one knows how the former Arizona State wrestler and Ultimate Fighter season winner is going to react as the UFC betting favorite going into UFC 110 against a tough veteran fighter like Jardine.

Bader has great wrestling and knockout power, but few bettors know if he has the diversity needed to beat a guy like Jardine who has seen all the tricks inside the UFC's Octagon.

The BetUs.com Sportsbook has odds out on the fight, and Bader enters as a -155 favorite compared to +125 odds for the underdog Jardine.

When the fighters come out in this one, Jardine, who holds a 14-7-1 SU career record, will probably look to use his herky-jerky, powerful kickboxing style to bomb away at Bader with leg kicks before going in for a knockout blow.

The leg kicks are probably the biggest strength in Jardine's game, but he will have to be wary against the UFC betting favorite Bader at UFC 110 because his takedowns are among the best in the division.

Bader is going to have to come into this fight focused and ready to give the best performance of his career to win this one, and many folks in the MMA betting community think that Bader (11-0 SU record coming in) will be ready to do exactly that.

This is going to be a grueling war of a fight between two huge, powerful guys, but in the end, UFC betting fans should give the edge to Bader because his style as a powerful wrestler is much more reliable than Jardine, who gets by on guile more than anything else in most of his fights.

MMA and UFC betting things can count one thing for this fight, however: it should be an entertaining contest between two of the strongest and most intense, scrappy fighters in the divison.

Ryan Bader could use this fight at UFC 110 to be a springboard to stardom and Jardine needs it to stay relevant, so the intangibles edge should be a push.

But Bader has shown no signs of slowing down yet in the UFC, and UFC 110 will be his own personal stage after he outlasts the cagey Jardine in a battle of wills as the betting favorite before moving on to bigger and better things in the near future.

The pick: Ryan Bader (-155) by unanimous decision.