posted February 27, 2008 at 21:31 in UFC / MMA Articles

If you're a big fan of betting on the underdog, UFC 82 is the card for you! The event is stacked from top to bottom with fights that are either complete toss ups or total massacres. That means lots of opportunities to take the bookie to the cleaners on a whole slew of matches. But which underdogs to pick? The boys at Fightlinker have you covered with a totally sweet analysis of which dark horse to ride and why.

Yushin Okami (-200) vs. Evan Tanner (+160)

The key to remember here is that Yushin Okami likes to lie on people for drawn out boring ass decisions. On the other hand, Evan Tanner likes to bang, slam, and sub his opponents. Given Yushin Okami's track record, Evan Tanner will have 15 minutes to knock out or submit the boring Asian. And if it goes to a decision? Evan's track record is on his side: Only three of his fights have gone to decision and he's won them all.

As for the questions about Tanner's condition after a few drunken years away from the Octagon, you can look for yourself. Evan keeps a blog online where's he's documented his training and nutrition over the past few months. While I wouldn't bet on Tanner never drinking again, he's clearly off the sauce at the moment, and that's all that matters as far as this bet goes.

But what about ring rust? Bah, I say. Beating the shit out of people is like riding a bike; you never really forget how to do it. Plus Evan Tanner has been hitting up the first real training camp of his career and by all accounts looks like he'll be coming in better prepared than ever before.

Josh Koscheck (-500) vs. Dustin Hazelett (+350)

We joked that Dustin Hazelett would need to spend some time off in the woods firing guns and doing other manly things after the sportsbooks castrated him with such terrible odds. I'm still not really sure why we're all bowing down to the altar of Koscheck. 2007 saw Josh perform terribly against a sick and weakened Diego Sanchez, and then get outwrestled by Georges St Pierre. While Dustin Hazelett hasn't shown me anything to prove he deserves to be a contender yet, he sure does have a pretty good collection of submissions on his record. And in the rock-paper-scissors world of MMA style matchups, jiu jitsu is a pretty effective way to defeat wrestling. If Koscheck puts Hazelett on his back, that sets Hazelett up to do exactly what he does best: submit fools.

Cheick Kongo (-155) vs. Heath Herring (+125)

It's a bit hard to make an argument for Heath Herring taking this because Heath has been sucking some serious ass lately. However, I'm also of the opinion that Kongo isn't the superstar everyone thinks he is. The guy hasn't managed to finish a fight since August of 2006, which doesn't exactly make him the deadliest striker in the world. And despite regular retreats to Big Bear with guys like Tito Ortiz and Quinton Jackson, I'm willing to bet his ground game still can't hold a candle to Heath Herring's. Combine his inability to finish tougher opponents with the likeliness that he'll be spending the majority of this fight on the ground and you've got a recipe for a loss.

 Ryan Harkness is the head editor of the mixed martial arts community site Fightlinker.com and host of the top rated MMA podcast The Low Blow.