Josh Taylor v Teofimo Lopez: Market Movers

Boxing compiler and industry insider Ian Vickers looks ahead to this weekend’s WBO super-lightweight world title bout and tells us how the betting trends have altered the markets since the fight was made.

Many sportsbooks across the country opened up with Josh Taylor as the short-priced favourite at 8/11, we opened at 8/13, and he’s now been hard-pressed in to 1/2 with most books across the UK and US, including ourselves.

With that sort of move obviously the method of victory prices have come in too, in terms of the KO and points.

We opened at 13/5 for the KO and we are now pricing up a Josh Taylor win via KO at 9/4, with the prices on the money-line moving as well.

There has been a lot of money coming in for the knockout, so as the week goes on, punters are really starting to get behind the notion that Taylor will find a way through and get Teofimo Lopez out of there long before the final bell.

It’s worth noting that we are top industry price on this market, in both the UK and the US, although we are seeing a bit of business on Lopez from customers across the pond in the States. 

In terms of British and European money though, it’s largely coming in on Taylor, especially via KO which, as I say, is well priced at 9/4.

My personal opinion on this fight is that it all depends on what frame of mind Lopez is in come fight night.

He looks to be in a real fragile place when he has been interviewed recently, and if he goes into the ring in the same frame of mind then I can fully get behind Taylor stopping him inside the distance.

George Kambosos bullied him in their dust-up, so there is absolutely no reason as to why Taylor, who is a better fighter than the Australian in my opinion, can’t do exactly the same.
 

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It’s not the best combination for Teo to still be trained by his father, Teofimo Lopez Sr either; we all know what sort of relationship they have. To be honest, I can’t see it lasting much longer than this fight – regardless of the outcome.

In terms of where my money would be going in the early hours of Sunday morning, I’d have to lean towards a Taylor victory on points (8/5), and maybe by a wide margin too; I certainly don’t see it being a split or majority decision.

Neither have flattered in terms of their most recent outings, Taylor, as we know, scored that controversial points win over Jack Catterall, whilst Lopez edged Sandor Martin on points, although the general consensus was that he should have lost that fight.

That relative inactivity for them both shouldn’t make too much of a difference given they are both in the same boat really, so in that regard it’s a level-playing field.

But as I say, Lopez has looked a little wild in the mind in recent weeks, which, for me, definitely gives Josh Taylor the edge as the hours and minutes tick down towards fight time.

Having said all of that, there has been some movement with our competitors in terms of a Lopez stoppage victory, enough to slim prices on that market from 6/1 to 5/1.

There’s no doubt that he has got power in those hands of his, we saw that against Richard Commey, and it was a tremendous effort from him to dethrone Vasiliy Lomachenko back in 2020, but he has fallen off the cliff since then.

You can never write anybody off in boxing, especially somebody like Teofimo Lopez, who has proven previously how good they can be, but for me, if I was pressed for a verdict on how the fight pans out, I’d be looking at the 8/5 on offer for Taylor to retain his world title via Decision or Technical Decision.

View the latest Josh Taylor v Teofimo Lopez odds

Odds displayed within this article were correct at the time of writing and are subject to fluctuation.
 

Ian Vickers

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