Posted on 4/10/2008 2:27:36 PM

Sportsbook Boxing Betting – Not Much of A Road Block for Cotto

By Charles Jay

The sports betting community has seen Miguel Angel Cotto, overcome a few stumbles to become a two-division world champion. He will put his WBA welterweight championship on the line on Saturday in Atlantic City, when the exciting Puerto Rican star steps into the ring against Alfonso Gomez in a fight scheduled for 12 rounds - or less.

BetUS Boxing Betting odds:

WBA Welterweight (147-pound) title

April 12 -- Atlantic City

MIGUEL ANGEL COTTO -1200

ALFONSO GOMEZ +700

UNDER 9.5 ROUNDS -160

OVER 9.5 ROUNDS +120

For sports betting purposes, let's size up the contestants:

COTTO (31-0, 25 KO's) has long been groomed as the next De La Hoya by Top Rank, ever since Oscar bolted from Bob Arum's promotional organization. He may not ultimately fit the part, but he unquestionably has ability. And though he has had some close calls (most notably against Ricardo Torres and light-punching DeMarcus Corley, who both staggered him), but he hasn't been toppled yet. He is a crisp, hard puncher, and is particularly effective with the left hook,which he can throw with equal potency to the head and body. Whether he is an improviser or not is a subject of deliberation. And he can have problems with opponents who exhibit a lot of lateral movement. But those opponents have to be able to take a punch as well.

Cotto is right now in the midst of a pretty good run for himself, in which he has scored wins over the previously undefeated Torres, Paul Malignaggi, Carlos Quintana, Oktay Urkal, Zab Judah and Shane Mosley. In fact, Mosley was his last opponent, and in a very good fight, Cotto won by two points on two judges' cards and three points on the third.

GOMEZ (18-3-2, 8 KO's), the 7/1 (+700) underdog at BetUS Sportsbook, got off to a slow start as a pro, losing to one-time prospects Ishe Smith and Jesse Feliciano and sustaining a technical draw in his first eight fights. Then he went on a streak, of seven wins in a row, which included bouts in "The Contender," the reality series that was televised on NBC. there he beat Peter Manfredo and Ahmed Kaddour, before losing a rematch to Manfredo. An attempt to capitalize on his minor celebrity included a rematch with the aforementioned Feliciano, from whom Gomez could not extract revenge, boxing to a draw. By far the best result of Gomez's career was last July, when he scored a seventh-round TKO over Arturo Gatti, who was a totally shot fighter in his ring farewell. And in his last fight, he registered a rather easy decision over the shopworn Ben Tackie. Though one could not assert that he is a stiff or a mere "opponent," Gomez has is a list of very unremarkable foes and a career that is propped up almost completely by a reality show.

Products of "The Contender" have not done very well when moving up to genuine class opposition, and Gomez doesn't figure to be an exception. While he was able to hurt Gatti, who was virtually sleepwalking in the ring, Gomez is going to find a level of opponent that is several steps higher than what he has encountered before. He simply does not hit hard enough to keep Cotto from pressuring him for any sustained period of time, unless he gets lucky with a shot that hits the Puerto Rican squarely on the button. More likely, however, is that Cotto starts to impact the Whittier, Cal. resident early with his left hook, and forces him into a defensive posture. What the 27-year-old Cotto can use is an impressive knockout, as he is eyeing some of the bigger fights that might make themselves available in the welterweight division, especially if people like Floyd Mayweather, Ricky Hatton and De La Hoya are still around a year or so down the road. If he goes after that KO, he'll get it against this level of challenger.

And so we're going UNDER the total that is posted in the BetUS boxing betting odds.

JAY'S PLAY: UNDER 9.5 ROUNDS (-160) ***

(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)

Betting on boxing has never been so easy and you can get your bets in now in the BetUS sportsbook. Go to Other Sports: Boxing. Find tons of props on the fight and the fighters in the Future / props section as well!

(Charles Jay of www.eBookies.com is a former manager, matchmaker and color commentator in professional boxing. He currently pulls no punches in the BetUS Locker Room)