This weekend in Nottingham, the WBA World Featherweight title will go on the line at the Nottingham Arena on Saturday night.
Home favourite Leigh Wood will be the defending champion with Mexico’s Mauricio Lara traveling to England to challenge for the title. Both boxers have excellent professional records and despite Lara being a decade younger, he already has plenty of experience under his belt. This should be a fantastic contest with some great opportunities for betting as well.
We breakdown the bookies’ odds with bookmaker William Hill and offer up our suggestions of the best wagers to make ahead of the first bell on Saturday night.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: February 17th, 7:00 P.M. (GMT)
In a rare event, bookmaker William Hill actually has the challenger as the favourite in this title fight with Mauricio Lara ahead at 1.40 in the outright winner odds compared to 3.00 for defending champion Leigh Wood.
There are a few factors here that put Mauricio Lara ahead of Leigh Wood coming into this fight. Some view Wood as beyond his prime years now at 34. Even though the champion has a professional record of 26-2-0, one of his losses did come three fights ago. The Brit will be fighting at home, however there are questions over how he will fare against a younger, more confident boxer.
Mauricio Lara, on the other hand, is a whole decade younger than Leigh Wood. However, at just 24 years old, Lara has already stepped into the ring 28 times as a professional, accruing an impressive record of 25-2-1 to date. This will only be his fifth fight outside of Mexico, so granted a lot of his success has been within the domestic circuit of Mexico, but regardless, he has proven himself to be a vicious hitter with a knockout rate of 64% and 18 knockouts to his name.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: February 17th, 7:00 P.M. (GMT)
Since 2019, Lara has scored ten knockouts with only one of his fights going to the judges—excluding a 2021 match that was ruled a draw due to an accidental headbutt. We say that this is the most likely way this fight will end. While Wood will make a good fist of this clash, not wanting to give up his belt easily in front of a home crowd, Lara is too hungry and lethal for the incumbent champion and should win this one by knockout somewhere in the middle rounds. Back the Mexican to win by knockout for a 1.50 return.
