Since joining the UFC in 2012, Max Holloway has been one of the top featherweight fighters in the world. On Saturday night at UFC 240, the 27-year-old is looking for a legacy-building win over the legendary Frankie Edgar. Holloway (20-4) will be making his fourth title defense, but is coming off a loss to Dustin Poirier where he tried to become a two-division champion with the UFC lightweight title on the line. Edgar (23-6-1) is himself a former lightweight champion and he's won eight of 10 since losing his featherweight debut to Jose Aldo back in 2013. Holloway is a -400 favorite (risk $400 to win $100), while Edgar is a +325 underdog in the Holloway vs. Edgar odds. Meanwhile, Cris Cyborg is a -680 favorite in her co-main event against undefeated Felicia Spencer, who is +490 in the latest Cyborg vs. Spencer odds. But before you make your UFC 240 picks, be sure to check out the predictions from SportsLine MMA expert Kyle Marley first.
Marley won the first-ever "ToutMaster" UFC betting contest sponsored by MMAOddsBreaker and is in contention to win this year's contest. He also appears regularly on multiple MMA betting and DFS shows. Over the past year, $100 bettors who have followed Marley's picks are up more than $21,000.
Just last week at UFC on ESPN 4, Marley predicted that Greg Hardy (-115) would knock out Juan Adams (-105) in a battle of heavyweight prospects. Hardy finished Adams in 45 seconds, and anyone who followed Marley's advice booked an easy winner.
What's more, at UFC 239, Marley advised SportsLine members that Jon Jones and Amanda Nunes would be successful in their title defenses. He also correctly called Michael Chiesa's dominant unanimous-decision victory over veteran Diego Sanchez in their welterweight clash on the main card. Anyone who has followed the MMA analyst's advice is way up.
Now, with UFC 240 fast approaching, Marley has carefully studied every matchup on the 12-fight card, identified the best value in the UFC odds and released his MMA picks for every single fight. He's sharing those selections only over at SportsLine.
Marley knows Holloway, who is No. 6 in the UFC's coveted pound-for-pound rankings, will be eager to get back on the winning track after seeing his 13-fight win streak snapped in his last bout. Holloway moved up to lightweight in an attempt to win the interim belt and perhaps put himself in position to become a double champion.
But Holloway, 27, came up short in a unanimous-decision loss to Dustin Poirier, who will now fight sitting champion Khabib Nurmagomedov for the title. Even so, Holloway has yet to see a major challenge during his reign as featherweight champ, which includes a pair of knockout victories over former champ Jose Aldo.
He's likely to face resistance from Edgar, 37, the resilient veteran who will be competing for a title for the first time since losing to Aldo for the interim featherweight belt in July 2016. He responded with two straight victories and was scheduled for a title shot against Holloway last year.
But the champion had to pull out because of injury and Edgar instead faced Ortega, who knocked him out in the first round. The fourth-ranked Edgar rebounded with the win over Swanson and will now get his long-awaited meeting with Holloway.
We'll share one of Marley's UFC 240 predictions here: He likes Geoff Neal (-325) to beat Niko Price (+265) in a welterweight fight on the main card.
"Handz of Steel" Neal has earned the reputation of the nickname throughout his career with three first-round knockouts via punches and a total of six knockouts on his way to an 11-2 record. Neal's standup pace is frenetic and he'll look to dictate the tempo against Price.
Neal lands a staggering 5.95 significant strikes per minute to Price's 2.93 and he dodges or parries 67 percent of significant strikes to Price's 54 percent. With a 91 percent takedown defense in UFC fights, Neal should also be able to stymie any attempts to take the fight to the ground by Price.
Marley also has strong picks for Edgar vs. Holloway, Cyborg vs. Spencer and every other bout on the stacked UFC 240 card.
Who wins Edgar vs. Holloway and Spencer vs. Cyborg? And how exactly does each fight end? Visit SportsLine now to get detailed picks on all 12 fights at UFC 240, all from the incomparable expert who's up more than $21,000 on MMA in the past year, and find out.
