BetUS Boxing Betting Odds

WBC Super Middleweight (168-lb.) Title

April 25 -- Mashantucket, CT

JERMAIN TAYLOR -140

CARL FROCH +110

Over 10.5 Rounds -170

Under 10.5 Rounds +140

For betting purposes, let's take a look at the contestants:

TAYLOR (28-2-1, 17 KO's), the -140 favorite in the BetUS boxing betting odds, is of course the former U.S. Olympian who won the bronze in Sydney at 156 pounds. Taylor didn't go in easy when he turned pro, fighting Chris Walsh, who would beat Hector Camacho three fights later. Taylor was getting paid pretty well, and was fighting on HBO, so he had to go against experienced fighters most of the time. Along the way he won the WBC Continental Americas title, and defended it a few times, with wins over the likes of Alex Bunema, Alex Rios, Raul Marquez and William Joppy. When he took his big step up, he did it with a flourish, beating Bernard Hopkins on a 12-round split decision to win the undisputed middleweight crown in July of 2005. Five months later, he beat Hopkins again, with slightly more room to spare. After a draw with Winky Wright and wins over the undersized Kassim Ouma and Cory Spinks, Taylor came out and scored an early knockdown over mandatory contender Kelly Pavlik in his fifth defense, and looked like he was going to end it. Pavlik hung in there, though, and taylor lost steam, to the point where by the seventh round, he just couldn't withstand a barrage of punches from Pavlik, going down and getting stopped to lose the belt. After that, he decided it was time to move to the super middleweight level, and that is where the rematch with Pavlik was contested. It was a different result, with Taylor going the distance, but he lost a decision. In his last fight, which was held on November 15, Taylor banged out a rather one-sided decision over former 168-pound champ and Olympic teammate Jeff lacy in which he actually looked pretty good.

FROCH (24-0, 19 KO's), the +110 underdog at BetUS, who is known as the "Cobra," is was the first British amateur boxer to win a medal at the World Championships (senior division). His pro debut was a little different than Taylor's, in that he faced someone with a 4-52 record, and promoters were relatively careful with him, steering him clear of serious and semi-serious threats until he stopped previously undefeated Alan Page in seven rounds in November 2003. He won the Commonwealth 168-pound title over Damon Hague in September of 2004, stopping him in one round. Then it was Henry Porras, an 8th-round TKO victim in what was Froch's one and only appearance in the U.S. From there, it was a matter of taking care of the best Great Britain had to offer, including Ruben Groenwald, Brian Magee, Tony Dodson and Robin Reid. The last fight was the most important, as he scored a unanimous decision over Jean Pascal to capture the vacant WBC super middleweight title last December. That crown had been vacated by the retirement of Joe Calzaghe.

If you wanted to point to a certain edge Froch has in this fight, it's that he's been more of a natural super middleweight for his entire career, while Taylor has not. To me, that is mitigated to a large extent by the fact that Taylor has grown into his pretty naturally himself. Taylor's people had been talking even before he won the middleweight title about eventually moving to 168 pounds, and this is one of those cases where the fighter's frame can handle it, so it's not one of those things where a fighter has lost and is now moving up to demonstrate that he was beaten because he had dried himself out previously.