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The gambling spotlight continues to disappear, reappear, and evolve.  It started as straight picks, and then moved onto profit/loss margin, and now I offer advice depending on your gambling tendencies.  This will provide people with a shoe in of the week, immortal lock of the week, guesses by some dude who likes to gamble.   Below I offer three recommend, at your own risk, choices for three different type of picks.  There is the upset special, the mortal lock, and close competition choice.  This is not Fox NFL Sunday so my upset pick is not the Cowboys who are giving a measly 1.5 points simply because they are on the road.  The upset pick must have one combatant with odds at +250 or greater.  The ultimate goal is not to accurately select an upset every night, but hit it with enough frequency to come out on top.  On the flip side, the mortal lock must be a fighter with -250 odds or worse (depending how you look at it) as they are the safest bet on the card.  The close competition bet are fighters who fall between minus and plus 200.  The 50 point gap eliminates fighters who could fit multiple categories based on which site you use.

Bets are after the jump:

All lines via mmamoneyline.com

SBN coverage of UFC Fight Night 20: Maynard vs. Diaz

Upset of the Night

UFC Fight Night 20 is a night for favorites as I do not really want to throw money down for any of the heavy dogs.  However, if you are a risk taker (which you probably are if you are taking my gambling advice) your choices for an upset pick are Nate Diaz (+260, 5 Dimes), Tom Lawler (+260, 5 Dimes and Sport Bet), and Kyle Bradley (+305, BetCRIS, Bookmaker, and Diamond).  Maynard is going to win, but if you are looking for value than Nate Diaz is not a bad option.  Plus 260 is pretty solid, especially for fighter who has already beaten his opponent in the past.  I know Maynard is nowhere near the same fighter, but I bet that has some psychological weight.  There is also the possibility (even though I hope it does not happen) that the talk of Edgar getting a title shot before Gray will change Maynard's fighting style opening him up for mistakes.  If you want a relatively big pay day and want to take a chance I would go with Diaz at +260.

Close Competition

This group provides you with seven different fighters, but five of those seven are underdogs.  One of those underdogs is Brad Blackburn.  Sadollah got hit too many times against Baroni for me to believe he will survive the onslaught from Blackburn who is known for KOing opponents.  If this fight extends later into the fight then it sways heavily for Amir, but at +135 I am willing to take the chance Blackburn finishes early.

Odds on Favorite:

 Similar to most people I am a big Tom Lawler fan and would love to see him keep winning.  He has also turned himself into a solid well-rounded fighter.  However, he has not faced the power or talent level that is Aaron Simpson.  Simpson is a more powerful version of Lawler.  Lawler has enough of skill set to hang around the UFC so we will definitely get our fix, but Simpson will walk away with this fight.  Trust me, take Aaron Simpson at -310.