But before we look at that fight, let’s take a look at how we’re doing. Ruben Villa made a good account of himself last weekend and won 6 of 12 rounds against Emanuel Navarrete. But he was dropped twice early in the fight and that made all the difference. So that continues a little hot streak for us and this is how our portfolio currently stands:
Boxing Betting Annualized Rate of Return (since 9/17/20): 261.95%
Mutual Funds Annualized Rate of Return (since 9/17/20): 52.10%
“He has talked himself into so much that I know exactly how I’m going to hold that fight. I’m going to hold him accountable in that fight for every word that has been said.” It was back in April of 2019 that Teofimo Lopez had already said so much that this was Vasyl Lomachenko’s response when asked about a potential fight against Lopez. And a lot more has been said in the 18 months that followed. At 23 years old and only 15 fights into his professional career Lopez now stands on the precipice of either likely punching his ticket into the boxing Hall of Fame or taking the kind of demoralizing beating that has torpedoed the careers of many young fighters whose egos eclipsed their experience level. When you try to recall the times when a fighter 23 years old or younger has beaten a pound for pound level fighter in his first major step up you don’t come up with many names. And the fighters we can think of who have done it are in the Hall of Fame – Wilfred Benitez beating Antonio Cervantes at the age of 17, Roberto Duran beating Ken Buchanan when he was just 21, Muhammad Ali stopping Sonny Liston when he was 22. Fernando Vargas took this kind of leap against Tito Trinidad when he was 22 and found after the bell rang that he wasn’t ready. But most fighters just simply aren’t able to put themselves in a position to find out this early in their careers.
Lomachenko, by stretching the physical limits of his body and fighting at 135 pounds, is giving opponents advantages that at least make a Lomachenko defeat remotely possible. He’s been dropped and stung on different occasions by punchers that don’t possess the power of Lopez. He has given up the reach advantage in all of his fights at 135, usually by three to six inches. His footwork, timing, and technical skill are always going to be better than anyone who gets in the ring with him. But Lopez is one of the few fighters who can probably match his hand speed. The biggest threat to Lomachenko might be his own body as he has had shoulder problems in more than one of his recent fights.
Lopez is not the type of pressure fighter to swarm Lomachenko and really press a physical advantage but he is a strong lightweight. We’ve seen his output be somewhat blunted when he had trouble with Nakatani’s height. He won’t have to worry about that here but we think Lomachenko’s southpaw style will likely have a similar effect as Lopez has only fought one other southpaw. The question for Lopez is whether he can land one or two flush shots because we don’t know much about Lomachenko’s chin. Lopez has been emotional in the weeks leading up to the fight when talking about his relationship with his father/trainer. Some could see that as an indication that the moment is getting to him, but we aren’t going to read much into it.
The odds available to us are Lomachenko at -410 or Lopez at +320. We think Lomachenko will win the fight but the odds reflect a 77% probability of it. And that’s a little high, so we aren’t crazy about betting on Lomachenko. There are two ways we can net $35 on this fight. We could bet $11 on Lopez or $145 on Lomachenko. There is enough risk here against the favorite that we’re going with the underdog bet because it will hurt a lot less if it misses. But, hey, we don’t really know what we’re doing.
$11 on Teofimo Lopez at +320
We’re also going to bet the co-feature bout of Arnold Barboza Jr. vs Alex Saucedo. Barboza takes a fairly big step up against the more seasoned Saucedo. We should be in for a good action fight here. It will be interesting to see how Barboza handles the pressure of Saucedo. We’ve seen him stand and trade at times, and he’s a sturdy 140 pounder but he doesn’t possess huge power. He probably has a little more versatility than Saucedo but we could see large portions of this fight being fought in close quarters. We think Saucedo will be the one to crack in a war of attrition and a worthy co-feature to Lomachenko-Lopez.
$66 on Arnold Barboza Jr at -227