One of the more interesting upcoming UFC fights on this London card this weekend is the featherweight showdown between two of the most exciting prospects in the UFC. Lerone Murphy is putting his undefeated record on the line against the one-loss Joshua Culibao.
Read more for the breakdown of this fight and the official Murphy vs Culibao prediction ahead of making your bets this weekend.
Murphy vs. Culibao Information
Lerone Murphy vs Josh Culibao
Location of the fight: O2 Arena, London, England.
Date and Time: Saturday, July 22. 3:00 PM ET main card start.
How to Watch: ESPN+
Last Fight Record
Murphy is coming off a narrow split decision win over Gabriel Santos in March of this year in the O2 Arena.
Culibao fought in February of this year in his home country of Australia and beat Melsik Baghdasaryan via rear-naked choke.
Murphy vs. Culibao Betting Analysis
Lerone Murphy
Murphy is a 31-year-old featherweight fighter with an undefeated record of 12-0-1. With 7 TKO/KO finishes and is trying to stay healthy and consistent to get his UFC career going. He trains at Manchester Top Team with a solid group of fighters. And is coming into this weekend with a lot of confidence.
“The Miracle” averages 3.58 significant strikes landed per minute and absorbs 2.64 as well. He is a decent-sized featherweight at 5’9” and a 73” reach.
Josh Culibao
Culibao is a 5’9” Aussie featherweight fighter with a professional MMA record of 11-1-1 with 6 finishes. After losing his UFC debut to the dangerous Jalin Turner back in 2020, he has gone undefeated with one submission victory.
His stats aren’t anything to write home about, averaging 2.96 significant strikes landed and 3.13 significant strikes absorbed per minute in the octagon. Culibao is virtually the same size as Murphy and has a solid 82% takedown defense.
Updates
No injuries have been reported to the UFC.
Murphy vs. Culibao Betting Preview
As we get closer to arriving at the Murphy vs Culibao prediction, the available UFC odds are the most important thing to look at. Murphy is coming in as the -136 betting favorite over the +116 Culibao.
The over 2.5 round total is favored with odds of -200. This means the oddsmakers expect this fight to go the distance. The fight is -175 to reach the scorecards, and +145 not to. The most interesting prop bets available are both fighters being at +320 to win inside the distance.
When Wrestling Matters
On the technical side of things, this fight is very interesting because Murphy and Culibao are very similar in style. They both have evolved enough that wrestling is a part of their game, and they can use it when they need to. Murphy struggles in takedown defense, though.
Murphy seems to have more power in his hands. And a slightly better ability to find his shots as the fight goes on. He has good eyes, and his corner does a great job of trying to adjust the game plan between rounds.
Murphy vs. Culibao Betting Prediction
This is one of the toughest UFC picks to make this weekend because of how evenly matched these two are.
- The official Murphy vs Culibao prediction is that Murphy gets his hand raised on Saturday night and keeps his “zero.”
Honestly, this was almost the rare non-British pick of this card. But after going back and forth, it’s tough to go against Murphy right now. He has too much pop in his hands and can beat Culibao to the punch while countering the Aussie’s slicing strikes he throws while closing the distance fast.
Look for Murphy to land some big knees to the body and some good counterpunches to win this one on the scorecard. The moneyline is plenty to bet on for Murphy, so don’t try to do too much with betting on him winning inside the distance.
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