UFC Fight Night Preview: Lemos vs. Andrade Odds, Expert Picks, Predictions, and Props

MMA betting expert Liam Heslin takes you inside the octagon to preview UFC Fight Night odds and give you his Lemos vs. Andrade prediction and picks for Saturday night. Check out our BetMGM bonus to get a $1000 risk-free UFC bet!

Lemos (+190) vs. Andrade (-225), BetMGM

Women’s mixed martial arts continues to progress in leaps and bounds, and the headlining bout for this Saturday’s UFC fight night is further evidence of this fact. The history of this fledgling sport can hardly be understood without the name of Jessica Andrade. Andrade has carved out a significant legacy in the sport, securing championship gold as a strawweight (115lb.), contending for a championship at flyweight (125lb.), and securing wins across three of the four women’s divisions in the UFC (Straw, Fly, Bantam). Andrade has only been defeated four times since 2015 (9-4 record) and each loss came against UFC champions (Rose, Joanna, Weili, Valentina). 

Meanwhile, Amanda Lemos limped on to the scene in July of 2017, being dispatched by Leslie Smith via Rd. 2 TKO in her UFC debut. After serving a suspension for Stanozolol, Lemos reemerged as a new woman at a new weight class, dropping from bantamweight (135lb.) to strawweight (115lb.) where she is much better suited to compete physically. She has rattled off five straight UFC wins with 60% of those wins coming inside the distance, dusting Monserrat “Conejo” Ruiz (TKO1: 3-2 combo), Miranda Granger (SUB1: No Hooks RNC), and Livinha Souza (TKO1: Left Jab & GNP). This fight with Andrade represents the biggest step up in competition of Lemos career as well as her biggest opportunity to establish herself as a contender or future champion.

UFC Fight Preview: What Does The Tape Say?

Despite the fact that Jessica Andrade is the fighter returning to the strawweight division after finding success at flyweight (up a weight division), she remains the fighter with a smaller frame, standing 5’1” compared to 5’4” for Lemos. Lemos will also carry a 3” reach advantage into the contest, with a reach of 65” compared to only 62” for Andrade. In total, Lemos has a 1.1 height to reach ratio compared to ~1 ratio for Andrade. Despite the advantages in frame for Lemos, she will be the older fighter by ~4.4 years (~30.5 for Andrade vs. ~34.9) and she is significantly less experienced as a professional. Andrade has had over 30 professional bouts, with 60+ percent of her career fights taking place under the UFC banner. Meanwhile, Lemos began training and competing in her adulthood, sporting an 11-1-1 professional record with only 6 UFC bouts compared to 20 for Andrade. This is a classic fight dynamic. Will the more experienced, seasoned contender be able to hold back the bright eyed, hopeful prospect?

Training Tor The Fight

Amanda Lemos is training with Marajo Brothers Team in Brazil under retired UFC fighter Iuri Alcantara and Brazilian Wrestling Champion Peterson Vieira. She trains alongside a regional strawweight hopeful in Rayanne Amanda (11-5 Pro @115lb.). Lemos is managed by Walid Ismail, promoter of the Jungle Fight regional promotion in Brazil from which Lemos emerged a star after a 3-0-1 title run at women’s bantamweight. It is worth noting that Lemos served a PED suspension which gave her two years to focus on training and improving her skills. However, her cardio was somewhat suspect at 135lb., and it has looked just as bad down at 115lb. Lemos has a labor intensive style, so if she is wise, she will have trained her cardiovascular capabilities as a point of emphasis for this fight. She is also working with Brazilian nutritionist to the stars Rafael Andrade (worked with Deiveson, etc.) so she is likely to rehydrate a large percentage of lost water weight between weigh in and fight time. Lemos took up training for fun, and she has been competing professionally since 2014.

Jessica Andrade is training with Parana Vale Tudo, her long time home gym in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has also cross-trained in Vegas at Gracie Humatia Las Vegas, competing at and winning an IBJJF Championship Series event on 3/13/2022 (according to her instagram). Her main training partners include Karol Rosa, Jessica Delboni, Maria Oliveira, and Istela Nunes.  Andrade lists herself as a BJJ blackbelt, and she has been grappling at a casual level since her school days training judo, training jiu jitsu since the end of high school. Andrade has been fighting professionally since 20

The Matchup

Jessica Andrade is a come forward, pressure style fighter that likes to swing heavy hooks upstairs, rip body shots, level change for takedowns, and slam her opponents. Her grappling game is sound; aside from a one sided size-based beatdown from flyweight boogeywoman Valentina Shevchenko, Andrade has dominated most of her UFC opponents (below 135lb.( in the clinch, wrestling, and grappling portions of the fight. She won her championship title by countering a kimura attempt from Rose Namajunas with an elevated slam onto Namajunas’ head. Andrade has spent nearly 40% of her fights in grappling positions, and she is dominating control positions 73% of the time. She is the most prolific finisher in women’s MMA aside from Amanda Nunes, and her records are all the more impressive given the weight divisions in which she competes, having scored 3 Knock Down(s) and 5 KO/TKO(s) at the UFC level. Andrade has a 70+ % career finishing rate and a staggering 7 of her 13 UFC victories 

Amanda Lemos on the other hand is a bit of a Southpaw slickster in the striking, electing to make reads early, snap off low kicks, firing straights and hooks to the body and the head of her opponents, often in preset combinations (i.e. 3-2, 1-2, etc.). She is capable of switching stances, firing combinations that include punches and kicks, breaking clinches with elbows and body hooks. Lemos is not the most defensively responsible striker, relying on her durability and overwhelming power to carry her through competitive striking exchanges. Her footwork and angles are impressive early, but tend to fall apart quickly as her cardio diminishes. Lemos carries her power in later rounds, but her ability to follow up on big lands is severely compromised. Both regionally and in the UFC she has shown a propensity to slow down over the course of 15 minutes, and this will be her first scheduled five-round main event. 

Andrade vs. Lemos Prediction

PREDICTION: Andrade submits Lemos via Rd. 3 Rear Naked Choke

Amanda Lemos will have to close the show early on Jessica Andrade to give herself the best chance of winning, and that outcome is not outside the realm of possibility. Andrade is making her return to the strawweight class, so the weight cut may be a factor in diminishing her durability. However, Andrade is historically extremely durable; when she lost to Weili Zhang in rapid fashion, it was shortly removed from her own title victory and she had to fly halfway across the world to make the title defense on a short turnaround. Andrade tried to get after Zhang early but she was unable to take strikes like normal, getting staggered early by elbows in the clinch and finding herself unable to recover.

In terms of a Lemos victory, I imagine it would somewhat resemble the Zhang fight; Lemos has decent finishing instincts, good power, a size advantage, and sharp counter striking early against a more winging opponent. However, Lemos has been finished at the UFC level by a much worse technical striker in Leslie Smith (albeit at 135lb) and it was a style similar to what we see from Andrade. Smith walked her down, crashed the pocket constantly, absorbed the damage she needed to to win, and put it on Lemos to the point she folded under the pressure in Rd. 2. If Andrade is smart, she will be wrestling early and often in this fight, forcing Lemos to expend a ton of energy and fill her big muscles with lactic acid. I think that Andrade will be able to break Lemos with pace, pressure, tenacity, experience, and physical aggression, but I acknowledge she is liable to be clipped and hurt early at distance.

How to Bet Lemos vs. Andrade

Jessica Andrade has been a solid bet thus far in the UFC, returning her ML backers a 13.04% ROI on a 13-7 record. Her average ML price has been -126 (~55.8%) despite her actual win rate of 65% (~10% greater than expected). Andrade has actually performed quite poorly as a betting underdog, producing a 1-4 record for a -30.4% ROI. It is as a betting favorite she has shined, securing an 80% win rate (12-3) at an average odds of -186 (65%), a full 15% better than expected. Her ROI as a favorite has been 27.5%.

Amanda Lemos has a much smaller sample size, but her betting indicators are quite strong. Lemos has a 5-1 record in the organization (83% win) with an average odds of -128 (~56%), meaning she has outperformed market expectations by 27% through six fights. If you backed her in every ML opportunity, your ROI would be 53.6%. Lemos is more familiar with her role as a favorite, having closed an outright favorite of greater than 2-1 in her three most recent UFC bouts. Backing Lemos as a favorite has returned a 34.6% ROI on a limited sample biased by an extremely low level of competition. She has been a betting underdog three times in her first three UFC bouts and produced a 2-1 record (67% win rate) and a 72.7% ROI as an underdog.  

Lemos has never seen the five round distance, and the indicators we do have show us she may not be cut out for a five round war. Jessica Andrade seems the woman more likely to be able to respond to adversity and come out the other side with a victory, but laying the 2 to 1 numbers on Andrade is a bit less tempting when she has such a dynamic underdog in front of her. I will be looking at totals and props for this fight, but ultimately siding with Andrade to get the job done inside the distance.

Best Bet: Fight Doesn’t Go To Decision @-188 via Betway

Sneaky Props: Andrade to win via SUB @+600 via DraftKings/FanDuel

Andrade unlikely to have pure striking advanatage while fresh, but she is the superior grappler and has been training tons of jiu jitsu in the lead up to this fight. Perhaps for good reason.

Lemos Rd. 1 @+850 via Fan

Lemos has secured all but one of her career finishes inside the first round. Andrade has been finished twice in the first round, so it is not outside the realm of possibility at 8 and a half to one.