The UFC Fight Night 39 card is this Friday, April 11th and it features a headliner of Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera against Roy Nelson. Right now, BETDSI has Nelson as a slight (-155) favorite over Noguiera, who returns (+135). The co-main event featuring featherweights Clay Guida and Tatsuya Kawajiri is also a tight affair at the sportbooks, as Guida sits as a (-135) favorite over Kawajiri, who returns (+115). It is unusual to see two feature fights at a UFC that are this close when you look at the odds at the sportbooks, and both are pretty solid match ups on paper.
The Nelson-Noguiera match-up is a fight between two veterans on the late side of their career who both are in bad need of a win. Nelson has dropped two in a row, and he has looked slow and fat in doing it. For his part, Noguiera has gone 1-2 in his last 3 fights, with his one win coming over Dave Herman after Herman bad mouthed Jiu Jitsu. The elation of a submission win hid the fact that it took Big Nog late into round 2 to defeat Herman, who is no longer with the UFC. It will be interesting to see who has more left in the tank at this point.
Guida too, is in need of a win, as he is 1-3 in his last 4 outings and what is worse, he has not reminded anyone of the go for broke, balls to the wall style he flashed in his heydey. Kawajiri is on the far side of 35 and he is only 1-0 in the UFC, but his 7 losses are to the absolute top names in the game (Gilbert Melendez, Eddie Alvarez, Shinya Aoki among them) and Guida is certainly not on that level. Kawajiri has to be focused on one more run at the top, where he has operated for over a decade. As good as Guida has been, he has never been on the level of Kawajiri overall in his career. This becomes a battle of who is more focused on a win, is it Guida, who is fighting for his job, or Kawajiri, who is looking to keep winning in the UFC?
