On Saturday night, the sweet science brings us a match between Jesus Rojas and Joseph Diaz Jr. as Rojas defends his WBA “regular” featherweight title in Hollywood, on Facebook Watch. Damon Allen Jr. and Jonathan Navarro square off in the co-main event with the Rojaz-Diaz fight. On the same night, Mariana Juarez and Terumi Nuki will spar for Juarez’s WBC women’s bantamweight title. Take a look at our boxing betting predictions for each of these matches.
Top Boxing Betting Picks of the Week – August 6th Edition
Joseph Diaz Jr (26-1, 14 KO) is coming off the first loss in his career, as he went down to WBC featherweight champ Gary Russell Jr back in May. He pushed Russell to the cards, but he gave away too many points early to be able to come back and deliver the win. He faces Jesus Rojas (26-1-2, 19 KO) who has not lost a fight in ten years. He won the WBA title back in September, when he stopped Claudio Marrero. Marrero was no easy win, as he delivered vivid knockouts of Carlos Zambrano and Jorge Lara in his fights before and after his loss to Rojas, needing only 2:03 of combined fighting time to deliver those wins. Rojas sits at #13 in BoxRec’ featherweight rankings, while Diaz is at #9. This will be Rojas’ first fight since that September win, so there could be some rust factored into this bout. The fight will be on Facebook Watch’s Golden Boy Fight Night, which viewers can access by following the Golden Boy Fight Night page on Facebook. The stream will begin at 6:00pm ET, with an undercard that also features Aaron McKenna vs Rolando Mendivil in a four-round welterweight bout, and Ferdinand Kerobyan may have a six-round welterweight bout as well, but his opponent remains TBA. Either way, this bout (and the co-main event below) should deliver some entertaining boxing action that is free to view. Boxing Betting Prediction: Diaz wins via decision Also on Facebook Watch, we’ll see Damon Allen Jr. (15-0-1, 5 KO) squaring off with Jonathan Navarro (14-0, 7 KO) in the co-main event. Allen Jr. is a 25-year-old prospect from Philadelphia. He has taken down some impressive prospects in Luis Arceo, Gamaliel Diaz and Margin Honorio. He’s moving up from lightweight to the 140-pound division for this bout. Navarro will be in his third fight of the year already. Allen Jr. has the advantage in terms of quickness and hands, while Navarro will have the advantage in size, as he is a natural 140-pounder and has all of his wins in this division. Given the difficulty in coming up to a new weight class, I like Navarro to handle Allen on the cards. Boxing Betting Prediction: Navarro wins via decision Terumi Nuki (10-3, 7 KO) has her third chance at a world title coming when she faces Mariana Juarez (49-9-4, 18 KO). This is a rematch of a 2017 bout between these two cagers. Nuki landed some solid punches but ended up dropping a unanimous decision that was not close, as Juarez simply piled up the points. Since that meeting, Nuki has gone 1-1, also losing convincingly on the cards to IBF women’s super flyweight champ Debora Anahi Dionicius in February but then rebounding by taking down a Thai tomato can in brutal fashion in May. Some think that Nuki has not done enough to get a third title fight so soon. Juarez has defended her belt successfully three times since she took town Nuki. She does have the disadvantage of age, given that she is 38 years old, but Nuki has not shown that she has the talent to represent much of a threat to Juarez. Boxing Betting Prediction: Juarez wins via decisionThe World Boxing Association (WBA) Classifications Committee announced its rankings for July, 2018 #WBAranking https://t.co/m8ROo6xIgX pic.twitter.com/DtKXFgt9O7
— WBA Boxing (@WBABoxing) August 1, 2018
