Picks of the Week - Free Sample


The ratings system: How it works

Five stars: Pick of the week.
 Four stars: Looks like a winner.
Three stars: Solid selection.
Two stars: Cautiously optimistic
One star: Speculative play

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ANDRE BERTO vs JAN ZAVECK

Losing to Victor Ortiz last April cost Andre Berto a crack at superstar Floyd Mayweather Jr. Now Berto seeks to come right back by capturing a welterweight title when he meets tough Jan Zaveck, from Slovenia, in HBO’s main event from Biloxi, MS, on Saturday.
 
If Berto can win this fight in good style he will not only leave the ring as IBF champion but he will have put himself firmly in the picture for the really big fights.
 
The loss against Ortiz might not be as damaging as it first appeared. At least Berto lost in an exciting fight that saw each man dropped twice. It has since transpired that Berto was anaemic going into that fight, so he can say with some justification that he wasn’t at his best physically. If Berto can pull off an impressive win over Zaveck he will make up a lot of lost ground in one fight. This is the Berto camp’s gamble in coming right back against a champion rather than have their man take part in one or two so-called confidence-builders.
 
As longtime readers will know, I take note when a fighter seems to be going to greater lengths to achieve perfection. Berto is doing just this, having relocated from his home state of Florida to train in San Carlos, CA, close to the HQ of nutrition and physical endurance expert Victor Conte, who has been advising Berto on the conditioning aspect of his training. While Conte is considered controversial it is widely acknowledged that his methods get results. So it is possible that we will see a more explosive Berto than in the past.
 
I believe that the Berto who lost in the exciting fight with Ortiz is good enough to beat Zaveck. If the Conte connection helps produce a more vibrant, sharper Berto, one who is able to fight harder, longer, then we could be looking at a dominant display on Saturday and perhaps even a destructive one.
 
Zaveck is not at all a bad fighter. He is a rugged sort, quite heavy handed, who keeps his gloves up high and likes to press forward and throw hooks and right hands. However, Berto is the boxer with the greater pedigree, both as an amateur and professional, and at 27 he is the younger man by eight years. I see Berto as the faster, more polished fighter and the better puncher, and he is on home ground in the United States. Although Zaveck has boxed in Poland and South Africa, this is by far his biggest fight, whereas Berto has become a staple on HBO. Zaveck is the champion but, make no mistake, Berto is the fighter with the star quality. This is a fight that has been made for Berto to win, and quite naturally he is the solid betting favourite.
 
I am expecting a Berto victory but I am not too keen on laying the price of about -450. The Berto by decision proposition is attractively priced at around +150, and on paper this is a good bet because Zaveck has never been stopped. However, after a day of research I am getting the feeling that Berto can win this fight inside the scheduled 12 rounds.
 
Zaveck is sturdy and seasoned but I wouldn’t call him exceptional. It came as a distinct surprise when Zaveck won the title by stopping Isaac Hlatshwayo in the third round in South Africa in December 2009. Hlatshwayo looked slow and seemed to have no punch-resistance whatsoever that night. I am wondering if this was a case of a fighter suddenly coming apart overnight, because, in his next bout but one, Hlatshwayo was shockingly knocked out in the third round again, this time by Naoufel Ben Rabah, who is not regarded as a seriously hard hitter.
 
Knocking out Hlatshwayo was a stirring performance by Zaveck but that result might have flattered him because I am now beginning to suspect that the South African boxer was ready to be stopped.
 
Zaveck’s best win apart from the one in South Africa was a defence of his IBF title at home in Slovenia against Rafal Jackiewicz, when Zaveck gained revenge for his only loss. Judges from Britain and Bosnia had Zaveck winning by wide margins while a judge from Poland had the bout a draw. However, the consensus scoring — where at least two judges agree on which boxer won the round — came out at 114-114.
 
So, it would appear that Zaveck had two struggles against Jackiewicz, the Polish boxer having won their first bout on a split decision in Poland, and Jackiewicz is really just a gritty workhorse — Britain’s unbeaten Kell Brook is something like -1500 to defeat him when they meet in Sheffield on Oct. 8.
 
I was surprised at the difficult time Zaveck had in stopping Rodolfo Martinez, an Argentinean boxer who, while game, possesses only average ability and is not what one could call a hard puncher. There were moments when Martinez was backing up Zaveck and outworking him. Zaveck won every round on two judges’ cards before stopping Martinez in the last round, but I can’t imagine Berto being extended almost the full 12 rounds by a boxer of Martinez’s ability-level.
 
As an amateur, Zaveck boxed internationally (under his birth name of Dejan Zavec) but my records show him losing in his opening bout at the European and world championships, and Italy’s Leonard Bundu beat him comfortably — 8-0 on the electronic scoring system — in an international tournament in Liverpool.
 
I think that Zaveck could be called an over-achiever. He may have been in the right place at the right time when he stopped a possibly diminished Hlatshwayo — although in fairness to Zaveck he had to go out and take care of business.
 
Berto, to me, is the higher calibre fighter who has all the advantages on Saturday. Zaveck is obviously durable and strong, but he hasn’t faced the type of firepower that Berto is capable of producing. I don’t see Zaveck as being especially hard to hit despite his high guard — the Argentinean Martinez was able to catch him quite often, particularly to the body. I believe there is a good chance that Berto can hurt Zaveck underneath, confuse him with hand speed and wear him down for a stoppage win in about nine or 10 rounds.
 
BETTING TIP: Berto to win by KO TKO or DQ was available at even money at Bet365 and Boylesports on Wednesday evening PT, while Skybet had a proposition of Berto to win in rounds 1-12 (any method) at evens. I had some action there, and I also took Berto to win inside the distance at -120 at 5 Dimes. Any of these plays I will make a two-star selection. I must say that my initial thinking was Berto to win on points, but the more I looked into the fight the more I came round to the position that Berto can close the show before the final bell. I wouldn’t go much higher than -140 on these plays, but due to Zaveck never having been halted, and doubts about Berto after the Ortiz loss, I don’t see the odds creeping up too high on the Berto inside-the-distance proposition. 

JAMIE McDONNELL vs STUART HALL

Some fights are so evenly matched on paper that it is very difficult indeed to get a solid “read” on them, and one such fight is tomorrow’s bantamweight bout in Doncaster, northeast England, between local favourite Jamie McDonnell and unbeaten Stuart Hall, from the neighbouring county of Durham. McDonnell defends the European and Commonwealth titles and Hall risks his British championship. The fight should provide a cracking start to the new boxing season on Sky Sports TV in the U.K.
 
Frankly, I have gone back and forth on this one. Hall, a late starter as a professional at 28 (he is now 31), is the boxer who was calling for the fight. McDonnell, 25, always maintained that he saw a fight with Hall as a backwards step, that he saw himself in terms of boxing for a world title. There was a perception in British boxing that McDonnell was avoiding Hall. Finally, McDonnell says, he asked his promoter to make the match so that he can, as he puts it, shut Hall up.
 
Boxing is full of interesting characters, and Hall is one of them. A respectable amateur boxer — he was a finalist in the English national championships at bantamweight in 2005 — Hall spent five years on the Spanish island of Ibiza, a tourist hotspot particularly popular with British revellers, living, by his own account, something of a dissolute lifestyle. However, he realised he needed to take a grip on his life’s direction, returned to his hometown of Darlington and became a professional boxer, impressing observers from the start of his pro career as a fighter to be reckoned with. Hall is without doubt the puncher in Saturday’s fight, and although both men are big for bantamweights at 5ft 8ins Hall has much the stronger look physically.
 
McDonnell, although, the younger man, is the more experienced of the two fighters, though. As an amateur, McDonnell was a bronze medallist in the Junior Olympics. He is on a run of nine consecutive wins and he has been the 12-round distance four times, while Hall has never been past 10 rounds.
 
Each man has beaten the slick and crafty Ian Napa, McDonnell on a split decision and Hall on a corner retirement after eight rounds. However, Hall’s stoppage win over Napa is a bit misleading. Napa was in front on the scorecards, enjoyed a good round in the eighth, then abruptly quit in his corner, saying he was exhausted, which seems to have been a result of losing too much weight too quickly compounded by the sweltering conditions in the arena that night. (The Sky Sports commentary suggested that Napa’s body punches were hurting Hall that night, although I must say I didn’t notice this myself.)
 
Hall seemed to improve almost overnight after taking the British title from Napa and he has stopped his last three opponents, all title defences. Hall showed hard-hitting form and excellent technique when stopping the game Martin Power in the 10th round of their rematch, having halted the London boxer in eight rounds in a previous meeting, and he followed this by stopping Gary Davies in seven rounds and overpowering John Donnelly in the fifth round.
 
While Hall was impressive in these fights, in Power he was meeting a veteran who had lost five of his last seven bouts. Gary Davies was considered dangerous but he had been stopped twice previously and subsequently told the Liverpool Echo newspaper that he had drained himself making weight for the Hall fight and had “nothing in the tank” on fight night. As for John Donnelly, sad to say he was never in the fight and looked intimidated and mentally beaten even before a punch had been thrown. It could be said that, while Hall was powerful and precise against Donnelly, he did only what was expected of him against a smaller opponent who had never been past six rounds.
 
McDonnell, then, is clearly the stiffest test so far for Hall. I consider McDonnell the faster and more versatile of the two men. Hall has the superior punching power, but McDonnell has the greater workrate.
 
What worries me about McDonnell in this fight is that he has been alarmingly easy to hit at times. Stephane Jamoye wobbled him into the ropes with a right hand in the second round of their scorching fight for the European title in January, while the Kenyan Nick Otieno was catching McDonnell with what the British call “silly” punches — that is, rather crude and sloppy blows that a well-schooled boxer should be able to avoid.
 
However, McDonnell has shown that he can come back from adversity. Rocked by Jamoye and obliged to hold on in the second round, McDonnell was coming back strongly by the end of the round and later in the fight he had the Belgian boxer under pressure.
 
McDonnell’s finest performance came when he went to France and knocked out Jerome Arnould in the 10th round to become European champion 17 months ago. The betting underdog, McDonnell outclassed the French fighter with a high-energy display, wearing Arnould down and discouraging him. McDonnell’s body punching was particularly impressive in that fight.
 
Each man is talking a great fight. “I know that in the back of his mind he is scared and very nervous,” Hall told the Middlesbrough Gazette newspaper this week. Hall feels he will simply be too strong for McDonnell, who he feels has made disrespectful comments and is looking past him. “They [the McDonnell camp] are going to get the shock of their lives,” Hall promises.
 
Yet, while Hall can bang, McDonnell feels he can take his opponent’s blows. “I don't think his hardest shots are going to trouble me if I’m honest and I think Stephane Jamoye, is a better fighter,” McDonnell told the Sheffield Starnewspaper. “This is the fittest I’ve ever been and the most mentally prepared. This is an easier fight than what I could have had at this stage and I’m supremely confident that I can do a job on him.”
 
My slightest of leans is to McDonnell. He has shown he can come through a crisis and he might be able to win most of the rounds with constant movement and busy punching. My nagging doubt, though, is that 12 rounds is a long way to go against a physically stronger man who will be bringing pressure in every round. McDonnell is going to get caught and hurt, I have no doubt about that. The question is: Will McDonnell be able to recover, rally and regain the initiative? I think he can do it, just about. Hall wasn’t able to knock down a gritty but outgunned Martin Power and he faced an apparently weight-drained opponent in Gary Davies; Ian Napa was compromised by a combination of heat and weight-loss while John Donnelly was completely out of his depth. This is not meant to denigrate Hall’s hitting power — he can punch very hard — but I’m not sure he can do quite enough damage to get McDonnell out of the fight. It’s a close call, though, and with the fight less than 24 hours away I am still not certain which way it will go.
 
BETTING TIP: The fact that wagering lines have barely budged — McDonnell a narrow favourite — shows either that players are staying away from this fight or that betting has been evenly distributed between each man.
 
The conventional thinking is that if McDonnell wins it will be on points while if Hall wins it will be by stoppage. I broadly agree, but I would not entirely rule out a punch-accumulation stoppage win by McDonnell.
 
Because I am coming into this weekend after two strong weeks in a row I have decided to chance my arm with a “winner” and a “saver” bet, to use the British terminology. I am taking McDonnell to win but will put a little on Hall by KO TKO DQ at odds of around +450. This way, if McDonnell wins I show a profit while if Hall gets the stoppage — and this seems Hall’s most likely method of victory — I don’t get hurt too much. I won’t make this an official endorsement, though, because there are too many imponderables here. If I get a better feel for the fight before the wagering cutoff I will send out an update.
 

FEMALE FIGHTS/RUSSELL vs MIRANDA

Here’s a look at a few of the fights on Saturday where wagering opportunities are offered. (I won’t waste time on fights involving massive favourites.)
 
A rematch between women boxers tops the bill in Karlstad, Sweden when the unbeaten Frida Wallberg meets Canada’s Olivia Gerula in a rematch for the WBC female 130-pound title. Swedish “Golden Girl” Wallberg won a unanimous eight-round decision over Gerula in Stockholm last November but the Canadian woman felt she was unlucky not to have won. I watched the bout on YouTube and Wallberg seemed a clear winner to me.
 
Gerula is a better fighter than her record indicates. She is quick, tough and has a busy-punching style, and she is a spirited individual. Gerula has the greater professional experience, and she had won five bouts in a row before losing to Wallberg, which included victories in Tokyo and Paris.
 
Wallberg, though, was a world amateur champion at light-welterweight. She is technically sound and looks the bigger, stronger woman. Although Gerula hustled earnestly, to me Wallberg was landing almost all of the quality punches in the bout last November.
 
In another women’s bout on this show, Sweden’s Mikaela Lauren meets Eva Halasi, from Serbia, in a six-rounder. Lauren is 35 but she is on a four-bout winning run. Her only loss was on a seventh-round stoppage against the female superstar Cecilia Braekhus; Halasi lost in three rounds to Braekhus. I’m expecting a win for Lauren here. She is boxing at home and she seems the naturally bigger woman, having boxed as a welterweight her whole career while Halasi turned professional as a lightweight.
 
Irish firm Boylesports is the only book to offer odds on the all-southpaw featherweight bout between unbeaten Gary Russell Jr.and Mexico’s seasoned Leonilo Miranda, which is the opening contest on HBO’s Boxing After Dark show that features Andre Berto against Jan Zaveck in the main event.
 
Russell was a U.S. national champion in the amateurs but failed to make weight for his opening contest in the Olympics and was scratched from the tournament. Guided by the influential Al Haymon, Russell has hardly lost a round in winning 17 successive bouts.
 
Miranda lost a narrow decision to Cuban Olympic representative Luis Franco in a sizzling bout on ShoBox last February. He is a pressure fighter who throws lots of punches, and he bangs the body quite effectively.
 
This is Russell’s first real test as a professional but I think his speed and boxing ability should see him through in what could be an extremely lively eight-rounder. Russell is a -225 favourite, which I think is a fair price, and I would endorse him as a two-star selection at this price — but Boylesports is a Euro-rules book so if you are playing Russell you really should put something on the draw. Russell by decision or technical decision is available at about +138 and this could be an alternative play, also a two-star choice, but, again, some insurance on the draw is recommended.
 
 

THREE-FIGHT PARLAY

Parlays were winners for us last week so I am trying again with a three-fight parlay for this weekend.
 
We start with the junior lightweight bout between Eloy Perez and Daniel Jimenez on TeleFutura on Friday night. I like Perez in this fight. He is strong, fast and busy, he is boxing in his hometown of Salinas, CA and he is the house fighter on this Golden Boy show. (BoxRec lists the bout as a 12-rounder but the Golden Boy Promotions website gives the distance as 10 rounds. Whether 12 or 10 rounds, I am going with Perez.)
 
Jimenez has to be respected. Born in the Dominican Republic but a Puerto Rican resident, Jimenez can box and punch. He is coming up for 31 years of age, however, and I think that he might be going down the other side of the hill. Jimenez has boxed only once in the past two years, a blowout over a Mexican trial horse last February. That bout was in the junior welter division, so Jimenez is dropping two weight classes in six months. Maybe he will be just fine at 130 pounds, but the weight loss is something to consider.
 
Perez, 24, is the fresher fighter, unbeaten and eager to go places. He is at home and looking to shine. While Perez isn’t a very hard puncher, as shown by his record — just five opponents halted in 23 bouts — his high-volume peppering can be discouraging for the other man.
 
Jimenez is the puncher in the fight, but Perez is clever at slipping punches, and Perez’s excellent left jab could keep the visiting fighter a bit off balance and thus unable to unload the big shots as effectively as he would like.
 
On paper this is a dangerous fight for Perez, but Jimenez might, I feel, have been diminished by wars with Roman “Rocky” Martinez and Marcos Jimenez. These were brutal fights, each ending in the last round. Martinez stopped Jimenez, and although Jimenez stopped his namesake Marcos Jimenez he took a lot of punishment. Daniel Jimenez was swollen over both eyes by the finish and cut over one eye, and he was behind in the scoring when he pulled out the victory with a huge right hand in the 12th round. I made the note that Daniel Jimenez’s legs weren’t looking quite right at times in that contest and he even had what I call a “could go” look about him. That fight probably ruined Marcos Jimenez as a prospect and I suspect it took a great deal out of Daniel Jimenez, too.
 
The odds on Perez are a bit too steep for me to recommend him as a straight bet, but I do feel he is worth including in a parlay.
 
Next up we have the 12-round fight in the 168-pound division between Thomas Oosthuizen and Aaron PryorJr., which takes place on the Berto-Zaveck show in Biloxi on Saturday night. (Unfortunately HBO will not be televising Oosthuizen-Pryor although British fans will be able to see it on the Premier Sports presentation of the Biloxi show.)
 
“Tommy Gun” Oosthuizen is highly regarded in South Africa. He is unbeaten and has rightly been made the favourite although I think the price of -250 at some books is on the high side.
 
This fight is intended to showcase Oosthuizen in the U.S. but Pryor is no pushover and I see this as being a highly competitive fight. Both men are long, lanky types but Oosthuizen is a southpaw with, I think, an advantage in punching power. Pryor is a difficult opponent for anyone, though, with his awkward, gangling style and long-reaching right hand. Pryor’s comfortable points win over Dyah Davis now looks very good indeed after Davis ended Marcus Johnson’s unbeaten record. Pryor’s biggest win, though, was his narrow, upset points victory over Librado Andrade. I think that this result might flatter Pryor a little, though. Andrade hadn’t boxed for a year and he looked sluggish and unmotivated. Even so, Andrade seemed to me to win enough rounds on sheer strength and pressure to earn at worst a draw.
 
I think that Saturday’s intriguing fight is going to be a largely a battle between Oosthuizen’s southpaw left hand and Pryor’s straight right down the middle. Oosthuizen seems to me to be a bit more talented, smoother in his technique, perhaps a bit quicker, and from what I have seen of Oosthuizen I would say his southpaw jab is a bit more effective than Pryor’s left hand.
 
Oosthuizen likes to move and counter, and he has been guilty of showboating, so I can see a chess match here, with some hard-to-score rounds. For me, though, Oosthuizen has a little more upside and I can picture him landing a few more punches in most of the rounds to come away with a decision win.
 
To complete the parlay I am including Andre Berto, who is a -450/-500 favourite (depending on the sportsbook) over Jan Zaveck. I have already previewed this fight and I make Berto a two-star selection to win inside the distance — I will be very surprised if Berto loses this fight.
 
Obviously, if just one fighter loses a parlay is dead in the water, but I feel solid about Perez and Berto and reasonably confident about Oosthuizen. Last week we hit a winner with a five-fight parlay, so, after that, a three-fight accumulator doesn’t seem too risky a gamble.
 
BETTING TIP: At Sportsbook.com, as of Thursday evening PT, Perez was sitting at -360, Oosthuizen at -210 and Berto at -500, so a parlay here will work out at about +120. At Bet365, Perez was priced at -500, Oosthuizen at -250 and Berto at -450, and the parlay here works out at around +105. I will make either of these accumulators a two-star selection.
 

HANK LUNDY vs DAVID DIAZ

The odds were released exceptionally late this week so I will keep this short and sweet for the benefit of subscribers in various time zones around the world. Slick-boxing Hank Lundy meets always tough David Diaz in a 10-round lightweight bout on Friday Night Fights from Hammond, IN, and even though Diaz is boxing in his Chicago home area and is vastly more experienced I like Lundy in this fight. Lundy is not as good as he thinks he is, but he is fast and clever. He was outboxing the dangerous John Molina for almost all of the first 10 rounds but tired and got overpowered in the 11th round. In his last fight, Lundy stood up to pressure to win a unanimous decision over Patrick Lopez, who is similar to Diaz in that he is a southpaw who keeps coming at his man.
 
You have to respect Diaz, who is very experienced and has a big heart and will never give in. However, Diaz is 35 and in his last fight he had his hands full in winning a unanimous 10-round decision over Robert Frankel, who, while tough and competent, isn’t quite as quick and slippery as the switch-hitting Lundy. I’m picking Lundy by 10-round decision.
 
BETTING TIP: Lundy was available at -155 at Sportsbook a short while ago (1:00 p.m. Pacific). I make him a three-star play at this price and I also like the over 9.5 at -160 as a two-star. I do expect a good, competitive fight but I will be a bit surprised if Diaz pulls out the win.