Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images
Errol Spence is the wide favorite over Shawn Porter this weekend. Too wide?
Saturday night, Errol Spence, Jr. and Shawn Porter head to PPV for a world title unification fight at 147 lbs. Both men are ranked in the top 5 of one of the sport’s true marquee divisions. Here’s a look at the odds and who is expected to come out on top, courtesy of Bovada:
Errol Spence Jr. -800
Shawn Porter +500
At 25-0 and with 21 KOs, the undefeated Spence is predictably the favorite here. He is the better technical boxer, he has good stopping power, and he’ll enjoy the height and reach advantage. The 30-2-1 Porter definitely has a shot though – he’s a durable, rough fighter who will try to get inside and just beat Spence up. No one has ever really done that, so we may see how Spence responds to that kind of war here. If he responds poorly, the door will be open for the upset. For both men, this would be the biggest win of their career, which certainly makes it interesting.
One surprising point about these odds is that they are significantly wider than we saw the last time Spence was in action, taking on Mikey Garcia. There, Spence was the favorite at just -380, though from my perspective, Porter has the significantly better shot at winning, simply due to his size and style. Perhaps Spence impressed enough in that fight that he has become the bigger favorite here, or perhaps people are looking at Porter’s losses to Keith Thurman and Kell Brook and seeing him as an easy win. Either way, the head to head comparison of these two fights surprises me.
Here are odds on the rest of the PPV card:
David Benvidez -1000
Anthony Dirrell +600Mario Barrios -165
Batyr Akhmedov +135Josesito Lopez -380
John Molina Jr. +290
Here’s a quick round-up of some other upcoming big fights in the world of boxing:
Gennady Golovkin -500
Sergiy Derevyanchenko +350Oleksander Usyk -5000
Tyrone Spong +1400Canelo Alvarez -400
Sergey Kovalev +300Deontay Wilder -800
Luis Ortiz +500
And finally (sigh), I guess I should put this here:
Logan Paul -160
KSI +130
Ugh.