MMA ODDS AND ENDS FOR THURSDAY: TWO INJURY REPLACEMENT BOUTS ANNOUNCED

Another day, yet another accident — in actuality, this time there were two. For today’s MMA Odds and Ends, I will record the two fights that were changed and provide my thoughts on every one of these. Mark Eddiva vs. Levan Makashvili, UFC Fight Night 66 Alex White was forced to pull from his struggle with Mark Eddiva in UFC Fight Night 66, also Levan Makashvili will now take on Eddiva on extremely short notice since the card happens May 16 at Mall of Asia Arena at Pasay, Philippines. Eddiva is 1-1 in the UFC with a surprise decision win over Jumabieke Tuerxun and a TKO loss to Kevin Souza. He has actually outperformed expectations within the Octagon and general is a pretty solid grinder that can bang a bit. Makashvili, meanwhile, is a grinder-type who is making his UFC debut. He was supposed to combat Nik Lentz back in UFC Fight Night 60, however, the fight was cancelled in the last minute when Lentz got ill. This is a difficult one. I would assert Makashvili is the fighter and the better prospect of the pair, but Eddiva gets got the UFC experience and he will be fighting in his home country of Manila here. Eddiva is not the kind of fighter who will get much respect from the gambling public, but he’s pretty solid and I think he puts up a good struggle against Makashvili. I’d expect a close line with this one having a small lean towards Makashvili since he’s got a little more hype surrounding himbut it is a struggle I believe could go either way. Jake Collier vs. Ricardo Abreu, UFC Fight Night 68 Due to an accident to Daniel Sarafian, Ricardo Abreu needed a new opponent and the UFC called upon Jake Collier to fight him UFC Fight Night 68, which takes place June 6 at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. Collier is 0-1 in the UFC with a first-round knockout loss to Vitor Miranda in his introduction. He was doing very well in the fight and then at the conclusion of this initial round faded badly and compensated for it with a KO conquer. Abreu, on the other hand, is undefeated at 5-0 in his career and defeated Wagner Silva via submission in his UFC debut. However, the fight was a year ago and that he hasn’t fought because, so he’ll have any ring rust going into this one. This is another tough one. I believe Collier is the better fighter of the two, but he’s not someone to be trusted with your hard-earned cash after we watched what happened in his UFC debut. I don’t think Abreu is like his record indicates, but he’s a fantastic shot of picking up a win in this fight. It’s a close one, however, one which may go either way, and I expect the line to reflect that.

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