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Boxing betting tips: Adam Aziz vs Ohara Davis live on Sky Sports Boxing
Chris Oliver is operating at a 50% ROI for the year after two more winners last week. Get his take on Adam Azim's fight with Ohara Davis.
Boxing betting tips: Saturday October 19
2pts Adam Azim versus Ohara Davies to go the distance 100/30 (Sky Bet)
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It’s a classic battle of youth versus experience when Adam Azim takes on Ohara Davis at London’s Copper Box Arena on Saturday, live on Sky Sports.
Azim is being hailed as one of the brightest prospects in British boxing and the youngster from Slough has impressed in his 11 straight victories so far, with eight of them coming early. He is still only 22 years old, though, and this may be a little tougher than his odds of 1/8 would suggest.
Davies is as big as 6/1 and that is largely down to his last performance, when he was stopped inside two minutes when challenging Ismael Barroso for the WBA interim super-lightweight title in Las Vegas earlier this year. That may be a sign that the 32-year-old is on the slide, but it could also have been that he was just caught cold early on by a big hitter. Barroso may have been 41, but he still carries serious power and Davies never fully recovered after being hit with a big shot in the opening exchanges.
Davies has still only lost three times in 28 outings, with his other two defeats coming against world class opposition in Josh Taylor (TKO7) and Jack Catterall (UD). Prior to the Barroso loss, the man from Hackney rattled off seven wins on the bounce and the most recent of those was a good victory when halting Lewis Ritson in the ninth round with a lovely body shot.
Azim made a lot of noise when stopping six of his first seven opponents, most of them pretty early, and developed a reputation as being very heavy-handed. However, his power hasn’t been as effective since stepping up in class and that run of knockouts came to a halt last year with a pair of 10-round decision wins over Santos Reyes and Aram Faniian.
Those rounds were certainly needed, and he has looked more mature in his last two victories, but it took him 10 rounds to get rid of the overmatched Frank Petitjean (24-6-3 at the time) when capturing the European title and, in his first defence, Enock Poulsen didn’t seem to be going anywhere before an injury forced him to pull out in the fifth round.
The favourite is all about speed and reflexes, as he generates his power by whipping in his lightning-fast attacks and has proved hard to hit cleanly so far. If Davies’ punch resistance is dwindling in the twilight of his career, then he could be in trouble and an Azim stoppage victory would be more than likely. However, that outcome is only 2/5 and that looks too short to me as he takes a marked step up in class.
Conversely, Azim is 7/2 to win by decision and I think that is overpriced. Davies boasts the power to get the younger man’s respect and then some, while he has long arms for the weight and knows how to make full use of his reach. We have seen him negate a better opponent’s strengths before, too, as was the case when he took Catterall the distance in 2018, and he is unlikely to make it easy for Azim.
The possibility of the younger man being too fast and too fresh here is very real, but the more seasoned veteran may just know enough to look after himself and take this fight deep. For almost the same price as Azim winning on points, you can have can the upset (and the draw) on your side as well with the 100/30 for this fight to go the distance and that could prove to be the value in an interesting contest.
A fascinating British light heavyweight title contest between Dan Azeez and Lewis Edmondson could well be the best fight of the night.
A previous holder of this belt, Azeez (20-1-1) has by far the stronger form in the book, but he looked awful when drawing with Hrvoje Sep over eight rounds in June. That was his first outing since losing a decision in his big fight with Joshua Buatsi and questions are now being asked about how much he has left at the age of 35.
Edmondson, on the other hand, has gone about business well in winning all nine (three early) so far, but this is a big step up and we should find out a lot more about the 28-year-old from Southampton here.
Support for Edmonson this week sees him edging favouritism now at a best price of evens (as short as 8/11), while Azeez is available at 5/4, and this is as tough to call as the betting suggests. For that reason, I will be keeping my powder dry and enjoying this one without a financial interest.
Posted at 1055 BST on 18/10/24