After plenty of talking and knockout promises, Jake Paul and Tyron Woodley will settle things in the ring on Sunday night in Cleveland.
Paul is as high as -209 and as low as -185 across multiple sportsbooks, while Woodley is listed at +170 on the low end and as high as +155.
So, how should bettors approach this very unique matchup? Our combat crew previews the best available props to wager on in this match below.
Sean Zerillo: Tyron Woodley by Decision (18-1, DraftKings)
Betting Analyst, The Action Network
Former UFC champion Tyron Woodley is currently listed between +155 (39.2% implied) and +175 (36.3% implied) around the betting markets for his boxing match with Jake Paul, but his decision prop is listed at +1800 (5.3% implied), which caught me by surprise.
The fight is lined at -1100 (more than 91% implied) to end inside the distance, so a finish is highly likely.
Still, at +1800, books are only making a decision victory between 13.5-14.5% of Woodley’s win condition, and that still seems low to me.
Conversely, Woodley’s knockout prop is generally listed 10 cents higher than his moneyline, and at DraftKings, for example, it’s considered to be 96% of his win condition. Combine those two prop numbers, and you can find a book hold in that prop market north of 10 percent.
That being said, if you make a decision closer to 20% of Woodley’s win probability, the line should be +1277. A 25% probability would move the number to +1000, and a 30% projection would place that line at +818.
It doesn’t take a ton of fluctuation to move that decision prop line around. The question is how much of a chance do you give Woodley of winning on the scorecards, as opposed to by knockout?
Is it a greater split than 15% by decision, and 85% by knockout? Is it 20/80? 75/25? 70/30? If you think the answer is somewhere in that range, or higher, then there’s definitely value in this juicy prop.
Erich Richter: Fight Goes To Decision (+500, PointsBet)
Contributor at The Action Network
The line here has dropped substantially since opening, and I would expect that to continue as we lead up to the fight on Sunday. The expectation is that this fight ends inside the distance 89% of the time. Jake Paul has knocked out every opponent that he has faced.
However, he has not fought an actual fighter who is truly motivated. Tyron Woodley is exactly that. Woodley wants to fight Jake Paul and he is taking boxing seriously. To say that Jake Paul knocks out Tyron Woodley 63.77% (-176 odds on PointsBet) is blasphemous. Surely it could happen, but to say it happens 60% of the time is extremely hard to believe.
I already bet on Woodley to win by decision at +2000 odds before they moved. I think that bet is excellent, as Sean detailed. That line will continue to shrink so get that in as quickly as possible.
The fight to go to a decision rather than betting on Woodley is a worthy bet as well because Paul has shown an excellent propensity to land body shots. Moreover, Woodley initially asked for this fight to be six rounds and two minutes per round.
Instead, Paul chose to make the fight eight rounds and three minutes per round. The difference between 24 minutes of fighting and 12 minutes is obviously substantial.
Paul pushing for the longer fight, and seeing what happened to Conor McGregor in the Floyd Mayweather fight is definitely worrisome. Furthermore, Paul to win by decision has climbed down to +700 on many books. This fight to go to a decision surely happens more than 11% of the time.
Woodley has taken punches from real fighters and is a legitimately excellent athlete. He has said that he intends for this move to boxing to be an extended stay. If Woodley does win, Paul negotiated an automatic rematch clause in there.
There is no lack of motivation for Woodley to put his best foot forward and go toe to toe with Jake “The Problem Child” Paul.
Billy Ward: Over 3.5 Rounds (-112, FanDuel)
Contributor at The Action Network
There's a lot of reasons this fight is hard to handicap. The line has bounced around pretty significantly, and I’ll be interested to see if there’s a late pitch one way or the other come Sunday evening.
While I think the line has moved slightly more than it probably should, with Paul as a -200 or more favorite at the time of writing, it’s pretty close in my estimation, and not a great value either way.
What I’ll be looking for is live betting opportunities in this fight. Woodley is, clearly, the far more experienced fighter. He’s made it 25 minutes with both Kamaru Usman and Gilbert Burns (among others), while Paul has never made it more than halfway through the second (much shorter) round. Of course, this is because he’s dispatched all of his prior opponents before that point, but that brings me to my point.
What I’ll be looking for is to see if Woodley can survive the first round or two, and then place a live bet on him. Ideally, he loses these rounds (but doesn’t get knocked down or hurt) so we get better odds, but I’m firing if he wins the first or survives through the second.
I’m sure Paul is training hard and in great shape, but that doesn’t always hold up once the fight starts, and Woodley has shown us time and time again he can survive in deep waters. I see this fight getting better for Woodley the deeper it goes, so there should be plenty of opportunity to bet on him.
If I was forced to make a bet pre-fight (nobody is making me, but I’m going to anyway), I like over 3.5 rounds. Remember, these are only two-minute rounds, so all we need is seven minutes here.
Woodley likely isn’t going for broke from the opening bell, and he’s also durable enough to survive a Paul onslaught, so at -112 at FanDuel this feels like a value to me.
