Countdown For Amanda Serrano-Erika Cruz Continues

Fight night comes to the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York on February 4th. In one co-main event, Alycia Baumgardner will defend her WBC, IBF and WBO super featherweight titles vs Elhem Mekhaled. The winner will hold the undisputed super featherweight crown. In the other main event, Amanda Serrano takes on Erika Cruz for the undisputed featherweight title. Serrano holds the IBF, WBC and WBO titles while Cruz owns the WBA crown.

The 34 year old Serrano has had quite the landmark career as she holds the women’s record for most boxing world championships won in different weight-classes, having taken a total of nine titles in seven divisions. She has at various times held the super flyweight, bantamweight, super bantamweight, super featherweight, lightweight, and light welterweight crowns in addition to the featherweight title she currently holds. She started fighting professionally all the way back in 2009 and took her first title, the WBC-NABF featherweight crown, in 2011.

She holds an impressive 43-2 all-time record, with one draw. 30 of those wins were via knockout. Serrano also dabbled in Mixed Martial Arts, joining Combate America in 2018 and winning two of her three fights before the circuit went on hiatus during COVID.

Cruz holds the WBA featherweight crown, having won it in April 2021 over Jelena Mrdjenovich. She has defended the title twice, including a rematch with Mrdjenovich last September. The 32 year old Cruz joined the fighting circuit relatively late and has only had 16 bouts since debuting in 2016. She has won 15 of them, though only three by knockout and one of those was when Mrdjenovich had to resign due to an accidental head clash in their first bout.

Caesars Sportsbook posts Serrano as a heavy -550 favorite vs +400 for Cruz.  Caesars has available a new customer’s Promo Code for the upcoming fight not to mention that earned that Caesars has a reputation for offering larger bonuses, don’t miss out on this one.

The other fight has even steeper odds as Caesars has Baumgardner -700 vs +500 for Mekhaled. Baumgardner has a 13-1 career record, with seven knockouts to her name. She won her first title, a then vacant WBC super featherweight crown, back in February 2018 in only her fifth career fight with a unanimous decision over Nydia Feliciano. She lost the belt only 5 months later, but then won the IBO title via a fourth round knockout over then-champion Terri Harper in November 2021. She has since defended that title twice and added IBC, WBA and The Ring belts with a 10 round split decision vs Mikaela Mayer last October.

Mekhaled, from France, holds the European super flyweight title and won the WBC super featherweight crown in a unanimous decision over Danila Ramos back in March 2019. She defended her share of the title twice, the last of which came in December 2019. She is undefeated in her 14 professional fights, but has not fought in over three years and only two of those wins came via knockout.

While money lines remain the most popular way to wager on boxing, there are many other ways to bet on the matches. Many more lines come out on fight week, but some are up already.

Round Betting

These bets combine both correctly picking the fight winner and the round in which the fight ends. FanDuel has these up for Serrano-Cruz.

• Serrano To Win in Round 1 +4500
• Serrano To Win in Round 2 +3300
• Serrano To Win in Round 3 +2700
• Serrano To Win in Round 4 +2000
• Serrano To Win in Round 5 +1900
• Serrano To Win in Round 6 +1900
• Serrano To Win in Round 7 +1900
• Serrano To Win in Round 8 +1900
• Serrano To Win in Round 9 +1900
• Serrano To Win in Round 10 +2400
• Draw +1800

FanDuel lists Cruz at +10000 on every round except for Rounds 6, 7 and 8 which they price at +8500. Cruz is a decent longshot to win the fight in any manner, thus betting correctly on her in any specific round generates a very big payday.  If the fight ends between rounds, the books deem it to have ended in the prior round for betting purposes.

FanDuel also lists Alternate Group Round Betting.

• Serrano To Win in Round 1 – 2  +2000
• Serrano To Win in Round 3 – 4  +1100
• Serrano To Win in Round 5 – 6   +950
• Serrano To Win in Round 7 – 8   +950
• Serrano To Win in Round 9 – 10   +1000
• Cruz To Win in Round 1 – 2        +7000
• Cruz To Win in Round 3 – 4        +6000
• Cruz To Win in Round 5 – 6        +4500
• Cruz To Win in Round 7 – 8        +4200
• Cruz To Win in Round 1 – 2        +5500

Method of Victory

These wagers combine both the winner of the match and how the bout ended, such as these on FanDuel for Baumgardner vs. Mekhaled.

• Baumgardner Points or Decision -145
• Baumgardner KO/TKO   +250
• Draw +1600
• Mekhaled Points or Decision +700
• Mekhaled KO/TKO  +1200

Total Rounds

This is the combat sports version of an Over/Under as it is a straight wager on the length of a fight. Nothing out yet on either of these matches, but look for it to center around 5.5 rounds or so for each. Total Rounds markets generally list in half rounds. The rounds go three minutes, thus an over/under of 5 ½ rounds for example means that if the fight ends before the 1:30 mark of the sixth round, the under wins, otherwise the over hits.

Props

Again, not much out here yet for either fight. Props that combine endings, fighters and rounds will list on fight week. Expect markets in props like “Serrano to win by knockout in Rounds 1-3” and so on.

FanDuel does have “Will the Fight Go the Distance” props out on both matches. For Baumgardner vs Mekhaled, “Yes” is -210 and “No” is +162. Serrano vs Cruz has “Yes” at -164 and “No” at +128.