Daniil Donchenko goes into UFC Baku on Saturday as the clear betting favorite against Theodor Berggren, with the line sitting at -500 for a fight that could push his UFC run to three straight wins. Berggren is priced at +360, a number that reflects both the step up in competition and the fact that this will be his first walk to the octagon.
Those odds translate into an implied win probability of about 83.3% for Donchenko and 22.2% for Berggren before the sportsbook margin is factored in. For bettors, that is a wide gap for a matchup that still carries a live complication: Berggren arrives with a relentless grappling style that can drag opponents into scrambles and clinch battles, even if Donchenko is the better striker and has one-punch knockout power.
Donchenko has earned the market’s trust by winning his first two UFC bouts. In August, he stopped Matt Dixon in the first round on The Ultimate Fighter 33, then followed that with UFC victories over Rodrigo Sezinando and Alex Morono. That record gives him the look of a fighter who has adjusted quickly to the level, and it explains why he is being treated as the safer side of the matchup inside the National Gymnastics Arena.
Berggren, though, is not arriving empty-handed. His last pro stretch produced wins over Moein Ahmadi, Daniele Battaglia and Abdulatip Samedov, but it also included losses to Justin Burlinson and Leonardo Damiani. The mix tells the story of a fighter with enough pressure and physicality to make things messy, while still carrying questions about how that style holds up when he meets someone already proven in the UFC.
That is what makes this fight more than a simple favorite-versus-underdog line. Donchenko is trying to keep the momentum from his first two UFC bouts and avoid handing a debutant the kind of upset that reshapes a division’s early-card expectations. If Berggren can force long grappling exchanges, the odds will look less comfortable in the cage than they do on paper.
