Another day, yet another injury — in fact, this time there were just two. For the current MMA Odds and Ends, I will record the 2 fights which were changed and provide my thoughts on each of these. Mark Eddiva vs. Levan Makashvili, UFC Fight Night 66 Alex White was forced to pull from his struggle with Mark Eddiva in UFC Fight Night 66, and Levan Makashvili will now take on Eddiva on extremely short notice as the card takes place May 16 at Mall of Asia Arena at Pasay, Philippines. Eddiva is 1-1 in the UFC with a surprise decision win over Jumabieke Tuerxun along with also a TKO loss to Kevin Souza. He has actually outperformed expectations inside the Octagon and general is a fairly solid grinder who can bang a bit. Makashvili, meanwhile, is still a grinder-type who’s making his UFC debut. He was supposed to combat Nik Lentz back in UFC Fight Night 60, however, the fight was cancelled in the last minute when Lentz got ill. This is a difficult one. I’d assert Makashvili is the better fighter and the greater prospect of this set, but Eddiva gets the UFC experience and he will be fighting in his home nation of Manila here. Eddiva isn’t the type of fighter that will get much respect from the betting public, but he’s pretty strong and I believe he sets up a fantastic fight against Makashvili. I would expect a close line for this one having a small lean towards Makashvili since he has a bit more hype surrounding him, but it’s a struggle I think could go either way. Jake Collier vs. Ricardo Abreu, UFC Fight Night 68 Due to an injury to Daniel Sarafian, Ricardo Abreu had a new competitor and the UFC called upon Jake Collier to fight him at UFC Fight Night 68, which takes place June 6 at Smoothie King Center at New Orleans, Louisiana. Collier is 0-1 at the UFC using a first-round knockout loss to Vitor Miranda in his introduction. He was doing very well in the fight and then in the conclusion of this first circular faded badly and compensated for it using a KO conquer. Abreu, on the other hand, is undefeated at 5-0 in his profession and defeated Wagner Silva via submission in his UFC debut. On the other hand, the struggle was a year ago and that he has not fought since, so he’ll have some ring rust going into this one. This is another tough one. I think Collier is the better fighter of the two, however he is not a person to be reliable with your hard-earned money after we watched what happened in his UFC debut. I really don’t think Abreu is as good as his record indicates, but he has a good chance of picking up a win in this struggle. It’s a close one, though, one which could go either way, and that I expect the line to signify that.
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