UFC 116 Betting Odds: Vegas Picks and UFC Predictions

The heavyweight championship bout between Brock Lesnar vs Shane Carwin will headline a main card of 5 feature fights in UFC 116 betting odds which takes place Saturday, July 3rd from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. In this unification title bout between Americans, Lesnar opened as the -145 favorite in UFC predictions at online sportsbooks while Carwin is a slight +115 underdog. In middleweight action, Yoshiro Akiyama of Japan will take on Chris Leben of the United States. Sportsbooks opened with Akiyama as a -205 favorite in UFC picks with Leben the underdog at +165.

In a light heavyweight match-up on the main card at sportsbooks has Poland’s Krzysztof “The Polish Experiment” Soszynski as a -240 favorite in UFC 116 odds against American Stephan “American Psycho” Bonnar who opened at +190. In a preliminary card bout that can be seen on Spike TV Brendan “The Hybrid” Schaub opened as a -295 favorite in UFC 116 betting over Chris “The Crowbar” Tuchscherer +235 in another match-up of Americans. In a middleweight bout on the preliminary card for the Vegas fights, Croatia’s Goran Reljic is a -155 choice over American Kendall Grove who was a +125 underdog.

Lesnar and Carwin were supposed to square off at UFC 106 but Lesnar fell ill and had to pull out. This will be Lesnar’s first bout in UFC betting odds in more than a year. There was a lot of scrambling to put the rest of the schedule together for this UFC 116 event in Vegas. Cheick Kongo was to face Roy Nelson but Kongo suffered a back injury that has put him out of action for an indefinite period of time. Alessio Sakara was scheduled to have a match-up with Nate Marquardt but had to withdraw because of the death of his father. Jacob Volkmann and Paul Kelly were also slated to square off in Vegas but Kelly had visa issues that kept him from making the date.