UFC Fight Night Underdog Pick: Julian Erosa (+150) vs. JeongYeong Lee

Many feel the way that you have to bet on UFC is parlaying heavy favorites together, but underdogs win approximately 35% of the time in the world’s largest MMA promotion. Don’t be afraid to hunt for them.

Years ago, I developed a predictive model that uses in-fight stats and fighter attributes to simulate UFC fight outcomes — so long as the combatants had at least 30 completed octagon minutes or 5 total fights. I found that, in the UFC, moneyline favorites are usually overvalued.

How is that possible? Well, in a fight environment with as many variables per second as MMA, it’s hard to see the difference between -150 and -350 in real time. Great bets can lose. Terrible bets can win by lucky measures.

Every week, I’m going to give you my favorite underdog bet of the week. They’ll usually be showing value in my model, and I’ll explain their path to victory.

Here’s my favorite bit of plus money available for UFC Fight Night: Moicano vs. Nolan

Note: All fight odds come via Polymarket, the official prediction market of UFC.

Swaim’s Underdog of the Week: Julian Erosa (+150)

Model Odds: -108

Model’s Favorite Exact Outcome and Implied Odds: Decision (+282)

I’ve said time and time again on our weekly YouTube show that I want nothing to do with retiring fighters, but Michael Chiesa and Niko Price have gone out winners in 2026.

UFC is getting a little more human with these “calling it quits” matchups overall, and I think that’s evident for Julian “Juicy J” Erosa this weekend, too.

The 37-year-old is 9-9 across 18 UFC bouts and is a talented fighter, but he’s lost 7 times by knockout. His 48% striking defense isn’t great. The obvious and humane thing to do to get him a winnable final fight is someone without much power, and I think the UFC did just that.

JeongYeong Lee hasn’t dropped any of his three official UFC opponents, and his overall knockdown rate (0.63 KD%) is low with just one drop through the Road to UFC program in Asia, as well. Erosa just went the distance with Christian “CeeRod” Rodriguez and Melquizael Costa in the last 24 months, so I don’t think it’s a “he can’t just take punches anymore” situation.

With that being the case, I think Erosa is the better fighter everywhere. He lands 6.18 significant strikes per minute, towering over Lee’s average (3.38) in a sample of over 147 octagon minutes. He pushes a great pace and clearly has the grappling edge, per four UFC wins via submission to Lee’s zero.

“Korean Tiger” is yet another Road to UFC alum that hasn’t had a lot of success in the big show. Those fighters are 6-6 in men’s divisions this year, and Rei Tsuruya and Rongzhu are doing a lot of the heavy lifting with the wins. Lee’s lone UFC victory came over Blake Bilder, a fighter who later admitted to psychedelic use during his fights with the promotion.

Erosa’s knockdown rate (0.22 KD%) isn’t high, and he averages a fair 0.7 submission attempts per 15 minutes, so it wasn’t a huge surprise my model thinks an Erosa win is a longer fight. He’s gone the full distance in two of his last five wins.

But, the submission danger is real, and Lee has been a knockout victim with poor head defense previously:

That’s why the best bet — as is always the case with my weekly underdog pick — is the moneyline. I’ve got Erosa 51.8% likely to win his swan song.