We extended a long streak of losing weekends when Montana Love turned in the best performance of his career on his biggest stage yet. The only bet we’ve picked right in seven weeks was between a Youtuber and a retired mixed martial artist. We’re still outperforming our mutual funds over the last year, but could use a winning week:
Boxing Betting Annualized Rate of Return (since 9/17/20): 40.86%
Mutual Funds Annualized Rate of Return (since 9/17/20): 33.51%
Boxing Betting Return On Investment (ROI): 13.86%
This week we’re betting an undercard fight on Saturday’s Matchroom card, Jovanni Straffon vs Maxi Hughes. Hughes, at 31, is on the best run of his career with wins over Jono Carroll, Viktor Kotochigov and Paul Hyland Jr. who were a combined 50-3-1 before losing to Hughes. He uses his southpaw style and timing to stay out of wars. He won’t use a lot of lateral movement but he can control the pace and distance of the fight if he gets you measured. We think he has a bit more power than his knockout record indicates, but he’s not a one punch threat. Straffon will come straight to him and look to land something big. He does have some pop but most of his fights have come against fighters who were willing to stand and trade. We haven’t seen enough of him to know if he can deal with a more defensive style and Hughes has been in there with a much higher caliber of competition. We’re expecting to see Straffon throwing a lot the first three rounds before Hughes finds his timing and controls him with jabs and counters. The line makes this nearly a coin flip fight. We’re going with Hughes.
$28 on Maxi Hughes at -106
We’re also betting the main event rematch on the same card, Mauricio Lara vs Josh Warrington. Lara scored a huge upset in the first fight earlier in the year. He was in his first big contest as an unknown quantity and let his hands go even though he was in with a quicker fighter. We still haven’t seen any footage of him except for that fight. He has been stopped but also handed Eduardo Baez his only loss when Lara was 19 years old. You can make the case that because Warrington got caught with a good shot and just never fully recovered he will fare better in the rematch by coming out more defensively and avoiding getting clipped. And the betting line opened with Warrington as the favorite indicating most people think that’s what will happen. But Lara either clipped Warrington with one big shot or he has naturally heavy hands and was hurting him more often. Neither bodes well for Warrington’s chances as he’ll have to stay in range long enough to outwork Lara and give him plenty of chances to land a fight changing shot. The line has moved a bit in Lara’s direction but he still comes in as the underdog. It seems like a tough style matchup for Warrington and we think Lara gets it done again.
$28 on Mauricio Lara at +104