What can we take away from the opening betting line?

Conor McGregor is back. After a nearly two-year hiatus, The Notorious returns to the Octagon to coach alongside Michael Chandler on The Ultimate Fighter. This season of TUF will debut on ESPN on May 30th.

A date and location for that fight will be announced soon, but the lack of those details hasn’t stopped fans or bettors from checking out the odds. Right now, odds makers are looking at this fight as a pick ’em, with McGregor and Chandler both listed at -110. And those odds make a lot of sense. We know Chandler loves the limelight and always wants to put on a show – and for that reason alone he’s not a huge favorite.

Finally, in his last fight against Dustin Poirier, we saw Chandler use his wrestling to a high standard, giving him round 1 and round 2 until he gassed. He was then caught and submitted by Poirier in round 3.

Throughout his career, Chandler is willing to take one to give and has no problem walking on his shield. For him, the question is, if he gets tagged early by McGregor, can he recover and use his wrestling to get back into the fight? He showed that ability against Justin Gaethje in 2021, although he later lost that fight.

I’d like to say that the road to victory for Chandler is to wrestle and control the pace so he doesn’t burn, but he just doesn’t have that kind of mentality in him. The thrill of a potential knockout on McGregor could take over his strategy when entering the fight and most likely make this an exciting brawl.

For McGregor, the big question is how the layoff will treat him, and as a true welterweight, how will the transition to lightweight affect his speed? Of all the possible matchups for McGregor’s return, this one makes the most sense for his style. And because of Chandler’s lack of saves, I think McGregor will have every opportunity to use his precision hitting to get the knockout — especially if Chandler is true to his word and willing to stand in front of him and trade punches.

Since the odds are even on both sides, I’d like to see the lines move in either direction based on the interactions between them on the show and as we get closer. I’ll look at the over/under props and lines in non-distance combat.

Neither of these men have great cardio as both tend to slack off towards the end of Round 2 or the start of Round 3. This should be an exciting fight while it lasts.

Forecast: Fighting isn’t about distance.