bet365's boxing expert Rob Tebbutt previews Saturday's super-bantamweight showdown between British duo Liam Davies and Shabaz Masoud and explains where he feels the betting value can be found.
Liam Davies and Shabaz Masoud meet for the IBO super-bantamweight title and local bragging rights on Saturday night.
The match-up pits two of Shropshire’s finest against one another in Davies (3/10) and Masoud (5/2) with the winner moving on to a potential bout with pound-for-pound star Naoya Inoue.
Both men are unbeaten and full of confidence, but the recent form guide favours defending champion Davies, who has been the busier man and fought the higher calibre of opposition in the professional ranks.
Slick, switch-hitting Masoud has struggled for meaningful fights in recent years, due to some promotional misfortunes, but on his day is a box of tricks and a difficult puzzle to solve. In fact, Masoud holds two wins over Davies in the amateurs and, with his fast hands and feet, you can see how he’d be able to out-hustle the more considered Davies over the shorter format.
However, this is professional boxing and I feel this fight may have come at the wrong time for Masoud. I don’t feel he has been in a position to kick on since his career-best win over Jack Bateson in November 2022, while Davies has gone from strength-to-strength in stoppage wins over Jason Cunningham, Vincenzo La Femina and Erik Robles Ayala.
I expect Masoud to be tricky early on, but despite his flurry of early finishes, Davies is a patient, methodical operator and I think he finds the stoppage somewhere in the mid-to-late rounds after Masoud’s legs start to slow.
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