Season 10 of Dana White’s Contender Series wraps up tonight, Tuesday, October 13, at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The welterweight bout between Luis Francischinelli and Will Rentz is drawing more betting attention than anything else on the card. DraftKings had Francischinelli at -245 and Rentz at +215 as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the Action Network’s Week 10 preview, which Yahoo Sports also ran. That preview went the other way and backed Rentz to win by decision.
The card streams on Paramount+ starting at 7 p.m. ET, and walkouts for this fight are expected around 8:15 p.m. ET. Dana White will be cageside to decide who gets a UFC contract. That means a win isn’t automatically enough, and a loss isn’t automatically the end. The Action Network writer didn’t sound thrilled with the overall card. He said the season is going out with a bit of a whimper and that several of the prospects aren’t quite UFC ready. UFC Brasil pointed out on X that the finale is stacked with Brazilians, and Francischinelli is one of five on the card.
The tale of the tape is ridiculous. Francischinelli is 6-foot-6 with an 80-inch reach, and most welterweights don’t come close to either number. He fights the way you’d expect from that frame, with a long jab and straight punches. He recently dropped an opponent with a jab. He also throws kicks at the end of combinations, jumps in with flying knees and superman punches, and uses knees to catch opponents who walk into range. The trouble is on defense. The preview called it the bad version of “tall man defense”: he pulls his chin back and up to lean away from punches when he should be moving his feet. It nearly cost him last time out, when he got dropped by an overhand right. His opponent then chased the knockout and never tried to take it to the ground. Francischinelli stops takedowns well at the first level and will scramble for as long as he has to. Once he’s on his back, though, he mostly tries to limit damage and wait for the referee to stand them up.
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Rentz is 8-2, 27 years old, and trains under former UFC fighter Billy Quarantillo. He stands 6-foot-0, has real power, and usually looks for takedowns once a fight gets past the first minute or two. His best win came this summer, a 25-second finish of Nick McCarty, who was 7-2-1 at the time. The preview did flag one problem. Rentz is comfortable fighting on the back foot, which has worked against shorter opponents. Against a guy with an 80-inch reach, retreating is probably the worst thing he can do. He’ll have the edge in speed and power up close, so he needs to walk forward and get there.
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The Action Network writer admitted he isn’t sure Rentz can get a takedown. He still argued that Rentz’s edge on the mat is bigger than Francischinelli’s edge on the feet, which he said makes Rentz “an easy click at north of two-to-one odds.” FanDuel and BetRivers had the best Rentz price at +215. DraftKings Network also published its own pick for the fight.
Here’s my take. At -245, the book is giving Francischinelli roughly a 71 percent chance, and I can’t get there for a fighter who was just dropped by an overhand and whose main ground defense is hoping the referee steps in. Rentz’s record is thin, and one 25-second win doesn’t prove much. But the matchup is clear. He needs to close the distance once, take a shot, get a clinch, and find a single takedown in each round. Francischinelli can’t let that happen even one time. I’ll take a small bet on Rentz at +215, and if he spends the first two minutes backing up into the fence, I’ll go stand in the kitchen and think about my choices.
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