Quote from: darkangel11 on November 27, 2023, 06:55:05 PM

Quote from: bisdak40 on November 27, 2023, 10:38:11 AM

The pressure to win is so much on Team Ryan Garcia considering that he is coming from a knockout loss to Tank Davis.

But we should also note that Oscar Duarte is a 135-pound fighter/boxer, meaning this would be his first fight at 140 which Ryan Garcia is comfortable at. I don't know if Duarte still has that power at 140 but definitely, this fight favors Garcia though on paper, this an interesting match but the truth to it is that for me this is still a cherry-picked opponent.

The pre-fight odds are reflecting exactly this, people seem to be favoring Garcia heavily, even though he has less fights to his name, but he's younger and ranked higher. They put these two against each other bacause they both have just a single loss, so on paper this looks like a good match, like they both have a lot to lose, but Duarte is going to need some mistakes from Garcia to win. If they both are in good form on the day of the fight he will be at a disadvantage and people know it, which is why bookies are paying much more if you bet on Duarte.

It's not surprising at all since Garcia is a popular boxer and became a champion before getting KO'd by Tank Davis, while Duarte has not won a championship yet, and his current division ranking is not even in the top 3. So, I can't blame people for thinking that this is just a cherry-picked fight for Garcia to increase his ranking after his loss to Davis. Regardless, I still consider this fight interesting for the reason that Duarte is a KO artist.