Shayilan Nuerdanbieke vs. Darrick Minner fight under investigation due to suspicious betting activity
The UFC Vegas 64 main card fight between Shayilan Nuerdanbieke and Darrick Minner is under investigation by a U.S.-based betting integrity firm.
Throughout fight week Nuerdanbieke was just over a -200 favorite, yet just hours before their fight money poured in on Nuerdanbieke to win, and to him win by knockout in the first round, as well as the fight lasting under 2.5 rounds. Several sportsbooks ended up taking the fight off due to the amount of money coming in as Nuerdanbieke’s odds moved from -220 to -420 in hours.
When the fight began, Minner threw a kick and immediately began hobbling and grimaced in pain, and eventually fell down after another kick. The Chinese fighter then landed heavy ground and pound shots to win by TKO which was Nuerdanbieke’s first finish in the UFC and first since 2020.
After the fight and the way it played out, several sportsbooks in multiple states reached out to U.S. Integrity who is now investigating the matter.
Matthew Holt, president of U.S. Integrity, said the company cannot reveal any details of an ongoing investigation.
“Our goal as always is to notify the industry of any potential nefarious, abnormal or suspicious activity as soon as possible, so they can take action as quickly as possible,” Holt told ESPN. “In this case, we hope that by sending a couple hours before the fight started, we may have helped prevent some more suspicious bets from getting through.”
On Monday, the UFC responded for comment on Monday and said they have no reason to believe either fighter or team behaved in an unethical manner.
“Like many professional sports organizations, UFC works with an independent betting integrity service to monitor wagering activity on our events,” the UFC statement read. “Our betting integrity partner, Don Best Sports, a leading global supplier of real-time betting data for North American sporting events, will conduct a thorough review of the facts and report its findings. At this time, we have no reason to believe either of the athletes involved in the bout, or anyone associated with their teams, behaved in an unethical or irresponsible manner.”
Darrick Minner’s manager Andrew Lee said he was also unaware of anything going on. However, a source inside Minner’s camp told ESPN that his left knee “was absolutely injured going into the fight.”
As of right now, the investigation is still ongoing with some sportsbooks believing the fight was fixed while others thinking most bets were made due to leaked information that Minner had a serious injury.
Some were convinced that Minner threw the fight, while others believed the bets were based on leaked information that Minner was hurt severely and shouldn’t have been fighting.
