Boxing is doing its best to recapture the attention of the larger sports world.
One the heels of the biggest fight in the past decade between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford, Netflix will air the other huge fight of the year between Jake Paul and Gervonta Davis on Nov. 14.
There’s just one problem: Bettors likely won’t have an opportunity to bet on the event due to the fight being sanction as an exhibition bout.
The announcement that Paul and Davis would fight one another was pretty shocking due to their weight difference.
In his past five fights, Paul has weighed-in between 199.5 pounds and 227 pounds. Davis’s heaviest weigh-in weight was 139.75 pounds in 2021.
Those aren’t frivolous details. For this fight to be officially sanctioned as a professional bout by a governing body, the state needs to approve everything from contracted weight to the size of the gloves.
According to a report from USA Today, the fight had to be moved from State Farm Arena in Atlanta to the Kaseya Center in Miami because the chairman of the Georgia Athletic and Entertainment Commission would not sanction the bout.
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The Florida Athletic Commission won’t sanction the bout as a professional fight either, according to more reporting from USA Today, because of the weight disparity.
“I don’t know when they understood it,” Jake Shipman, executive director of the Florida Athletic Commission, told USA Today, “but it’ll be an exhibition fight.”
Without the approval of the sanctioning body, the fight will be seen as an exhibition in the eyes of legal sportsbooks in the United States, which means they aren’t guaranteed to offer odds for the bout because it doesn’t count on the record of either fighter.
Many of the rules for the Paul vs. Davis bout — total rounds, contracted weight etc. — are still being worked out, but don’t expect to see odds for this one.
This isn’t the first time one of the Paul brother’s faced challenges from the governing body with regard to getting a fight sanctioned as a professional bout.
In 2021, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Logan Paul fought in Miami at Hard Rock Stadium but sportsbooks in the U.S. wouldn’t offer odds because the bout was an exhibition.
Despite the messy details, Paul vs. Davis will still be a massive draw for Netflix if the fight holds together by Nov. 14.
Just don’t expect to add this one to your betslip.
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Malik Smith has been immersed in the sports betting industry since 2017. He’s a data nerd with a particular focus on the NBA and combat sports. He spends his weeknights in the winter looking for edges on plus-money NBA player props.
