This Saturday concludes the exciting Showtime Bantamweight Tournament with Joseph Agbeko squaring off against rising Mexican star Abner Mares. The fight was originally scheduled to take place in the spring of this year, but Agbeko had to pull out at the last minute after suffering a sudden onset of Sciatica. The odds in Las Vegas currently have Abner Mares listed as a -170 favorite and Joseph Agbeko as the +150 underdog. Both men possess slick boxing ability, the ability to brawl when necessary, and an outstanding will to win. It's hard to imagine a scenario where this fight doesn't turn out to be one of the more exciting fights of 2011.
First let's take a look at Joseph Agbeko. Agbeko would probably be considered by most to be more of a brawler than Mares is. He also possesses good upper body movement and an above average chin. His last fight with Yonnhy Perez was one of the more exciting slugfests of the year. It was a very impressive performance by Agbeko, dominating Perez for most of the fight and landing some hard shots on him. Perez then later went on to get completely dominated by Vic Darchinyan in the consolidation bout for 3rd place in the tournament, when he put forth arguably the worst performance of his professional career. After watching those two fights, one can't help but wonder if his best days are behind him? Was the Yohnny Perez that Joesph Agbeko so easily dominated just a phantom of his old self? I think it's entirely possible.
Now let's take a quick look at Abner Mares. Mares is a slick boxer that possesses a tremendous heart as well as an equally strong chin. He showed that he can overcome a great amount of diversity in his first fight of the tournament against Vic "Raging Bull" Darchinyan. Darchinyan put Mares down with a flash knockdown early in the fight and also opened a severe cut on his left eyebrow that left observers wondering if the fight would have to be stopped early. In addition, Mares was deducted a point for a low blow early in the fight, which put him even further behind on the scorecards. Mares could have easily packed it in right there, but he comes from a different breed. Mares fought the remaining rounds like a man possessed, continuing to move forward on Darchinyan and walking through some of Darchinyan's thundering shots that would have had anybody else on the ground. He alternated beautifully between body shots and head shots and never let the cut over his eye bother him.
When I watched the replay of the first two tournament fights recently, I kept asking myself the same two questions. Does Agbeko have the power to KO Mares? It's hard to imagine that he does after watching Mares take shots right on the chin from one of the most ferocious punchers in the division and not be phased by them. Then I asked myself, does Agbeko have the ability to outbox the younger Mares? Again, the answer to this was no. In my opinion, Mares is too slick of a boxer and much too active to let Agbeko outbox him. We are in an era of boxing where volume punchers reign supreme and can do no wrong in the eyes of the judges. I expect this to be the case on Saturday night. Look for Mares to outwork and outland Agbeko and win what I think will be a fairly close decision and an exciting match to watch. I strongly believe that Abner Mares has the potential to enter peoples' top ten pound-for-pound lists within the next year or so. He's an outstanding talent and Saturday night will be his coming out
party with a hard fought victory over a very well-respected opponent. Thus, my official betting recommendation for Saturday night is:
Abner Mares -170
Good luck.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: FightHype would like to welcome the talents of Jeff Pleiman to the team.]