Well, our string of profitable betting weeks ended last time out when Ricardo Sandoval put together a good performance to stop Jay Harris. We did salvage one winning ticket when Erickson Lubin dominated Jeison Rosario. Our portfolio is still outperforming our mutual funds:
Boxing Betting Annualized Rate of Return (since 9/17/20): 63.02%
Mutual Funds Annualized Rate of Return (since 9/17/20): 34.54%
Boxing Betting Return On Investment (ROI): 19.43%
We’ve mulled over two fights on Friday’s Golden Boy show on DAZN, probably a little too much. In general we don’t like spending a lot of time re-watching older fights to come up with our plays, which probably sounds counterintuitive. Don’t get us wrong, we like to revisit old fights. But we’ve found that when we do it to inform our bets we tend to analyze the fights in a way that confirms the opinion we held before we pressed play…no matter what happened in the fight. If we felt like a fighter’s hand speed advantage would be the key to an upcoming fight we might watch an old fight and come away really believing in his hand speed even though he eventually got knocked out. For fights that feel like coin flips anyway, we may change our opinion a couple times whether we are watching old fights or not. So we’ve come to favor spending less time analyzing film if it isn’t going to clarify things. At any rate, let’s look at our bets this week.
We’re betting a solid undercard fight, Hector Tanajara vs William Zepeda. This is the kind of fight that Golden Boy puts on more than any other major American promoter. Both fighters are in the same stable and they are each facing the toughest opponent of their career. Some promoters would protect both of these guys and match them in easier (and less interesting) fights to build their records. But here the fans will get a well matched battle and Golden Boy will end up with a fighter who has notched a signature victory over a fellow prospect. The loser will likely still be a viable contender and Golden Boy has ended up with trilogies out of prospect matchups like this before. Zepeda is a southpaw who will come forward and look to break Tanajara down. He’ll try to deflect shots with a high guard and cut the ring down and look to land something big. He does carry fight ending power. Tanajara is a bit of an anomaly for Robert Garcia‘s gym. He’s not an aggressive action fighter. He’s rangy and moves well to control distance. Instead of trying to knock Zepeda out he’ll try to neutralize his offense on the way in and not let him get set to land heavy shots. We don’t know how big the ring will be here but Zepeda had the benefit of a tiny ring last time out. In a more standard sized ring we think Tanajara’s feet will keep him out of trouble and his jab will be the difference.
$44 on Hector Tanajara at -121
We’re also betting another undercard fight on the same card, Javier Fortuna vs JoJo Diaz. Even though the line is wider for this fight than Tanajara-Zepeda, we think it’s a tougher fight to call and it should also prove to be a solid action fight. Fortuna is a solid veteran who has decent hand speed and power and likes to scrap. He’ll fight as a counter puncher or as the aggressor depending on who’s in front of him, but he doesn’t like to spend a great deal of time on the inside. He can be a bit wide with his shots but he’s durable and has fought at 135 or higher for the last five years. Fortuna will be the fifth straight southpaw that Diaz has fought, which is highly unusual. Many orthodox fighters have a difficult time getting in rhythm and letting their offense flow against southpaws. We don’t expect that to be a problem here. The biggest question mark for Diaz is whether or not he’s sturdy enough to withstand the punching power of true lightweights and whether he has enough pop to affect them. We expect him to have the advantage inside and to try to keep the fight at close quarters. He may not have the quicker hands but he throws the shorter, straighter shots. Diaz missed weight his last time out at 130 but was the stronger man down the stretch in his draw with Rakhimov. We’re betting that he’ll outwork Fortuna, but he may have some dicey moments and he’ll absorb some punishment in the process.
$59 on JoJo Diaz at -227