Raquel Pennington the underdog against Amanda Nunes at UFC 224?
When Raquel Pennington steps into the octagon on May 12 at UFC 224 it will have been the first time in 547 days that she has competed for the UFC.
Pennington (9-5) will challenge current UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in what is arguably her toughest opponent to date.
The last time UFC fans saw Pennington grace the octagon was at UFC 205 at Madison Square Garden on November 12, 2016. It was on that night that she not only defeated but retired former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate.
So what are the odds that Raquel Pennington can get the job done?
If you are betting on UFC 224, odds would show that Nunes is the favorite. Not only is she the champion, but she has been more dominant, and obviously, more active than Pennington.
Both combatants hold wins over Tate, the former champ, but it is the dominant performance over the most dominant female champion in UFC history, Ronda Rousey that makes Nunes stand taller in the options. It took just 48-seconds for the lioness to dispatch of the Rowdy one. Nunes also holds two decisive wins over Valentina Shevchenko, arguably one of the best strikers in all women’s combat sports.
If you are counting Pennington out however, DON’T!
Raquel Pennington may be coming off of several injuries to include those that happened both inside the cage and ones out, but she has never been more dangerous.
“I had three major surgeries after I fought Miesha,” Pennington told MMA Fighting. “I had my shoulder completely redone, my right shoulder. And then I had to have wrist surgery and I had mouth surgery.”
“Rocky” has racked up four wins in a row, leaving her last loss back in 2015 to former champion Holly Holm.
She holds consecutive wins over Tate, Elizabeth Phillips, Bethe Correia, and Jessica Andrade.
UFC 224 fight card:
Amanda Nunes vs. Raquel Pennington
Ronaldo Souza vs. Kelvin Gastelum
Mackenzie Dern vs. Amanda Cooper
John Lineker vs. Brian Kelleher
Vitor Belfort vs. Lyoto Machida
Cezar Ferreira vs. Karl Roberson
Alexey Oleynik vs. Junior Albini
Davi Ramos vs. Nick Hein
Elizeu Zaleski vs. Sean Strickland
Warlley Alves vs. Sultan Aliev
Thales Leites vs. Jack Hermansson
Alberto Mina vs. Ramazan Emeev
Markus Perez vs. James Bochnovic
How sports betting works
Understanding how UFC betting odds work is really not as complicated as it may seem at first. When you bet on UFC you are basically looking at money lines that will favor one of two fighters who are going to face each other. One of the fighters may be at for example -240 while the other one at for instance +200. What this actually means in plain English is that you would be risking $240 to win $100 if you bet on the favorite. The favorite would be the one with the minus sign, while the one with the plus sign would be the underdog.
