Spinning Back Clique: Heavy odds in Chimaev vs. Burns, UFC 273 title fights, more

Check out this week’s “Spinning Back Clique,” MMA Junkie’s weekly show that takes a spin through the biggest topics in mixed martial arts.

This week, our panel Mike Bohn, Matthew Wells, and Brian “Goze” Garcia discuss these five topics with host “Gorgeous” George Garcia:

• It’s UFC 273 fight week and we’re looking forward to two big title fights. In the main event, Alexander Volkanovski puts his featherweight title on the line against “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung. Volkanovski enters this one as a significant favorite, around a -850 favorite according to Tipico odds. With two title defenses under his belt, where would Volkanovski fall in the greatest featherweight of all-time conversation if he picks up his third on Saturday?
• The co-main event of UFC 273 will see bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling face former champ, Petr Yan. Their first meeting ended via disqualification due to an illegal knee from Yan, which led to a lot of criticism sent in Sterling’s direction. Considering the first fight wasn’t going Sterling’s way before the illegal knee, should he show up and turn in a dominant performance to defend his title, will he get the respect he deserves? How will his title reign be viewed?
• The feature bout of Saturday’s pay-per-view event is a fantastic matchup between top welterweights Gilbert Burns and Khamzat Chimaev. While the matchup itself is intriguing for a lot of reasons, one thing that is turning a lot of heads is how wide the betting odds are in this one. Tipico Sportsbook has Chimaev as a -550 favorite while Burns is +370. Do the oddsmakers have this one right? Should Chimaev be such a wide favorite considering his competition thus far when Burns has been in there with the welterweight champ Kamaru Usman?
• Keeping with the UFC 273 main card, there is an important strawweight battle between Mackenzie Dern and Tecia Torres. Although she’s entering on a loss to Marina Rodriguez, Dern was running hot on a four-fight win streak. She’ll look to snap the streak of Torres, who has hit a stride as of late a winner three straight. Both of these fighters were viewed as potential world champions, so who has more pressure to keep that alive heading into Saturday?
• WrestleMania 38 was this past weekend and it featured a number of athletes who competed in MMA at the highest level, including former UFC champions Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey. We have some fun with this one and take our picks who would do well crossing over from MMA into the world of pro wrestling and vice versa.

“Spinning Back Clique” is released each Tuesday on MMA Junkie’s YouTube channel. You can watch the full episode in the video above.