Betting the Right Side of the Mayweather-Pacquiao Championship Fight

Tonight’s absurdly overhyped championship fight doesn’t interest me in the last, except as an opportunity to make money, and I expect to make a few easy dollars sitting around and doing nothing, a skill I’ve pretty much mastered at this stage of my life.

Normally, big spectacles like this don’t offer much in the way of betting value for serious gamblers.  Why not?

Well first off, there’s no such thing as “inside information” or finding a pick that’s “under the radar,” as one might uncover in far more obscure sporting contests.  Second, the gargantuan sums of money bet on this fight worldwide have pretty much hammered the numbers into place, exactly where they should be.  Face it, most of us lack any really useful information that the rest of the world doesn’t already have, so there’s really no such thing as “wise guy” action.  Third, just about everything these two fighters do is covered to the max by the media.  We know what they eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  If one of the boxers sneezes, it’s ticker-streamed across ESPN.  Fourth, the house take on many props is ridiculous, and frankly prohibitive.  Some sportsbooks are holding a whopping 25-35 percent on various props, making them terrible bets no matter what we think will happen.  Finally, given boxing’s horrid reputation for corruption, some baffling scoring decisions in past fights, and the gargantuan profits going into lots of pockets, there’s always the chance a win-by-decision could be influenced which will intentionally rig a mandatory re-match, where all the greedy paws of this filthy “sport” can double-dip into the golden well for more mega-millions.

But, I’m going off on a tangent.  Back to how we can maximize our own greediness and squeeze out a profit.

One presumes that you’re here to read what I think about tonight’s championship fight and see who I believe will win.  I’d be perfectly willing to share my opinion with all of you, but as I said, I don’t really give a shit and haven’t followed any of the pre-fight hype.  Seriously, I haven’t watched one second of the buildup.  Hell, I even had to Google “Pacquiao” a few times just to make sure I was spelling his name right.

What I’ve learned from sports gambling over three often miserable decades isn’t to try and be the smartest guy in the room.  No.  The idea of winning is to try and stand next to the smartest guy in the room, and then shut up and listen to what he says.  Who knows, maybe we can all learn something.

The smartest guy in my so-called “room” of nolandalla.com is Matt Lessinger, who many of my readers already know quite well from his picks on the big annual awards shows.  His boxing handicapping also tends to be solid, and I’ve followed him for the past 15 years.  For the record, just a few months ago Lessinger shared his picks on the Grammy Awards, which were posted here at the site.  He went a perfect 4-0, including hitting a 10 to 1 longshot.  That’s what I call a knockout night.

Lessinger isn’t betting any longshots tonight.  However, he did share this with me and a select group of sports bettors.  Here are his thoughts on the Mayweather-Pacquiao championship fight.  By the way, I got Mayweather this morning at -185 offshore:

The more I think about tonight’s fight, it is harder and harder to envision a scenario where Pacquiao can win.  While there is no proof, I have to go with the logical theory that Pacquiao was juicing through about 2010.  When he knocked out (Oscar) De La Hoya, it was a shocker not just because of De La Hoya’s talent but because De La Hoya was such a naturally bigger man.  Pacquiao is an 8-division world champion which is unheard of because you simply don’t move up in weight (from 105 lbs to 147 pounds) and continue to knock out bigger and bigger men.  When you’re Barry Bonds, you simply don’t start hitting more and more home runs in your late 30s.  When you’re Nolan Ryan, you simply don’t continue to throw in the 90s into your mid-40s (Yes, I believe Nolan Ryan will go to his grave avoiding justice for PED use, but that’s a whole other story).

The point is, now Pacquiao has come back down to earth and doesn’t seem to have the same power he did then.  Could be age, could be lack of pharmaceutical help, could be both.  At any rate, even his knockdowns of Chris Algieri were not overpowering.  He simply was able to tee off on a guy with suspect defense and a suspect chin.  Tonight this is no Chris Algieri he’s fighting, this is Floyd fucking Mayweather.  Pacquiao is not going to be able to land with any consistent accuracy, plus Mayweather has shown a good chin in the past, plus Mayweather is going to come in as the naturally bigger man.  The combination of a stiff Mayweather jab, a legendary defense, and some solid counterpunching should have him controlling the fight from the start.

The more I watch the hype surrounding this fight, especially from the Filipino community, it reminds me of at least three historic fights:

Cooney vs Holmes
Ali vs Holmes
Tyson vs Lewis

In all three of those cases, the first fighter mentioned received an undue amount of support, both from the fans and at the betting windows, not because of their current form but because of what people had seen that fighter do previously, and what they *hoped* they could do to a better fighter, not what they could legitimately do to that fighter.  Tyson was a shell of his former self when he fought Lewis, but people wanted to believe he could regain that killer persona for one night and pull off the shocker.  I feel the same sort of vibe here.  People are betting with their hearts, not their heads.  They want to see Pacquiao be the Pacquiao of 2009 and knock out a guy they simply don’t like.  It doesn’t change the fact that it’s extremely unlikely to happen.  Pacquiao is +425 to win by KO when it should be more like +800.

I’m starting to believe that this fight could be a lot more one-sided than the betting suggests.  I still have my action on the draw, but I’m no longer going to bet on the split decision and majority decision.  I’m simply going to go with Mayweather.  It helps to have so many people I know supporting Pacquiao and therefore we can split the juice, so I’m laying less than 2-1.  That’s a steal.  The people who set the opening line at -300 knew what they were doing.

Even the intangibles favor Mayweather.  Pacquiao is already thinking of the good he can do with the purse money.  Whether he wins or loses doesn’t even seem to be a primary concern.  He will have a life after boxing.  On the other hand, boxing IS Mayweather’s life.  His undefeated record is part of his identity.  The win means more to him, and he will get it.

Matt L.

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