Fight odds for Strickland vs.Du Plessis, Volk vs.Topuria, O’Malley vs.Vera

Dana White's blockbuster announcement Monday has set the stage for an action-packed first quarter of 2024 and betting is now available.

Uncle Dana unleashed a trifecta of upcoming title fights, starting with Sean Strickland squaring off against Dricus Du Plessis for the middleweight belt at UFC 297.

Strickland (28-5) will be seeking his first title defense, after upsetting Israel Adesanya for the belt in September.

The South African Du Plessis, who is 20-2 and 5-0 in the UFC, earned the title shot by knocking out former champion Robert Whittaker in July.

Du Plessis had previously said he would not beg for a UFC title shot as it appeared more likely that Khamzat Chimaev would be next to take on Strickland. 

“It took me maybe a week or so to almost stop feeling sorry for myself like this is unfair,” Du Plessis said. “Life’s not fair, and the fight game is definitely not fair. I just said what I’ll do now is I’ll run over the whole division, I’ll run over the top five of this division, which will only make my move to light heavyweight quicker and easier."

Next up in February, Alexander Volkanovski and Ilia Topuria are set to clash for the featherweight championship at UFC 298. And March will be madness with the highly-anticipated rematch between Sean O’Malley and Marlon Vera at UFC 299.

The undefeated Ilia Topuria dominated Josh Emmett for the biggest win of his MMA career in the main event of UFC Jacksonville back in June.  ESPN had Emmett ranked No. 7 and Topuria No. 10 in the world at featherweight coming in.

"I showed once again no one can match my level of skill inside the cage," Topuria said after that fight.

SportsBetting.ag has set odds for each of the bouts, which you can find below. The O'Malley-Vera II line was initially set 2.5 months ago, and the movement toward the favorite has been drastic (outlined below).
 

UFC Fight Odds

Dricus Du Plessis +165

Sean Strickland -190

Ilia Topuria +145

Alexander Volkanovski -170

Chito Vera +215

Sean O'Malley -255

(This line first opened on August 21 at O'Malley -150, Vera +130)

- Ean Lamb, Gambling911.com