Boxing Betting Free Picks
Boxing Main Event Mosley vs Margarito
by Charles Jay
BetUS Sportsbook bettors who love to wager on professional boxing will get to see one of the welterweights who has created great excitement during 2008 on Wednesday night (December 24) when Antonio Margarito, who posted one of the year's most significant wins when he stopped Miguel Angel Cotto, defends his WBA welterweight crown against former lightweight, welterweight and junior middleweight champ Shane Mosley in a 12-round bout that is scheduled for the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Here are the BetUS Sportsbook boxing sports betting odds:
WBA Welterweight Title
January 24 -- Los Angeles
ANTONIO MARGARITO -500
SHANE MOSLEY +300
For betting purposes, let's size up the contestants:
MARGARITO (37-5, 27 KO's), the -500 favorite in the BetUS boxing sports betting odds, is considered a Mexican because he lives and trains there, even though he was actually born in Torrence, CA. He turned pro at the age of 15, as a lightweight, then moved to the welterweight level where he's been for a dozen years. He lost three of his first twelve pro fights, when he was just a kid.
But he went undefeated for eight years after that. Margarito challenged for the WBO welterweight crown in July of 2001 and clashed heads with Daniel Santos, opening up cuts on both fighters that caused the bout to be stopped as a no-contest in the first round. He had better luck eight months later when he beat Antonio Diaz for the vacant WBO welterweight title and defended several times before trying to move up to 154 against Santos again, this time with the 154-pound WBO title at stake. In that fight Margarito got cut from an accidental head butt and had the fight stopped. When the decision went to the scorecards, he was on the losing end.
Margarito maintained his welterweight crown through four more defenses but lost his title when he was beaten on decision by the tall southpaw Paul Williams in July 2007. He won the IBF 147-pound title when he knocked out Kermit Cintron in six rounds (a rematch of a previous KO of Cintron) and then got his biggest exposure on July 26, when he pursued Miguel Angel Cotto for ten full rounds before stopping him in the eleventh to annex the WBA belt.
MOSLEY (45-5, 38 KO's), the +300 underdog at BetUS, has been in more than his share of high-profile fights throughout his career. A storied amateur, he won three straight U.S. amateur titles then turned pro in 1993 and stayed unbeaten until 2002. His first world title was the IBF lightweight crown, in which he beat Phillip Holiday and he eight successful defenses of it before moving up to the welterweight division.
The big win was in June of 2000 when he beat Oscar De La Hoya for the WBC welterweight title, having skipped the junior welters altogether. At that time he was considered by many to be the world's best pound-for-pound fighter. In his fourth defense, Mosley was soundly beaten by Vernon Forrest, who had also beaten him in the 1992 Olympic Trials. He lost a rematch to Forrest just five months later but resurrected himself when he won a rematch - albeit a controversial one - over De La Hoya in September 2003.
Mosley's stock dropped again when he lost a pair of fights to Winky Wright, and he rehabilitated himself to some extent when he TKO'd Fernando Vargas twice in 2006. But when stepping up to fight Miguel Angel Cotto in November of last year, he lost a decision despite a commendable effort, losing by two points on two judges' scorecards and three points on another. Mosley comes into this fight having scored a 12th-round KO win over former welterweight champ Ricardo Mayorga on September 27.
Golden Boy Promotions, Oscar De La Hoya's organization in which Mosley is a partner, has done a good job of milking his notoriety for all it is worth. Mosley has not been the kind of fighter you'd put on a top ten pound-for-pound list for quite some time. Some of the wins he got to build momentum were against so-so opposition like David Estrada and Jose Luis Cruz, and fighters who are washed up like Vargas and Mayorga. Don't get me wrong; he can still fight, but he is not at the elite level any more. Also, the second win against De La Hoya has been tainted as Mosley revealed to a grand jury investigating the BALCO scandal that he took performance-enhancing drugs in preparation for that bout.
Mosley has always been a fighter with great gifts, but the implementation of those gifts has been based on his speed and quickness but the guy is 37 yards old now. If he was a wide receiver, you would say that he's lost a step. You can bet steroids won't be part of the agenda this fight. So while he may indeed be quicker on balance than Margarito, his reflexes and stamina won't allow him to execute the way he used to. I don't regard him as the kind of fighter who going to win his fights on guile and savvy, in such a way that it can make up for other things, like, say a Roberto Duran could.
Margarito has paid his dues and then some. He has learned enough to be called an industrious fighter. He is much closer to the top of his game than Mosley is. He is relentless and is going to fight three minutes of every round. He has a way of chopping at the tree until it is ready to fall. I don't necessarily think Mosley's going to be dispatched inside the distance, but Margarito is going to take away his will. At the end, Mosley has enough to survive twelve rounds, and may even have a lot of energy left. But I don't see him landing the winning blows over a sustained period of time. And he would be well-advised not to trade with Margarito either. I usually look for something about the underdog that gives me a reason to take the price, but I don't see one here.
For me, it's Margarito in a modest recommendation at -500 in the BetUS boxing sports betting odds, and the end of the line for Mosley - that is, unless he agrees to fight De La Hoya in a "make-good" match, which is another subject entirely, and one that we'll tackle later.
JAY'S PLAY: MARGARITO TO WIN (-500) **
(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)
(Charles Jay of www.totalactionextra.com is a former manager, matchmaker and color commentator in professional boxing. He currently pulls no punches in the BetUS Locker Room)
