Anthony Joshua will face Otto Wallin in December as the co-main event of a mammoth card in Saudi Arabia, and some punters reckon that the two-time champion may be in for a surprise.
Joshua has twice defeated Wallin as an amateur and sparred the Swedish heavyweight as preparation for Charles Martin in 2016.
Despite neither being a known trash-talker, the press conference for the contest turned from respectful to fiery after Wallin claimed that ‘AJ’ was well past his peak, to which the Brit stated that his opponent has ‘never seen a peak.’ The pair then engaged in a fierce face-off.
As the press conference was heating up, the betting odds for the bout saw a massive shift, with fans clearly believing that the underdog, who gave Tyson Fury one of his toughest fights to date, was being massively underrated.
Joshua opened at odds of around 1/12 (-1250) when the event was confirmed, whilst Wallin was given little chance of pulling off the upset at almost 13/2 (+650), on US betting site FanDuel.
However, in just hours those lines saw a dramatic shift, with Wallin backed in to around 3/1 (+310) to become the third man to triumph over Joshua, who drifted out to 2/9 on the site, as shown in a tweet shared by Fight Ghost.
In the United Kingdom, confidence in the Brit seems to have dropped even further, with the best price for Joshua to win, as of writing, at 2/7 (-350) and Wallin at 11/4 (+275). At those odds, Joshua’s chances of winning are deemed closest to when he first faced Oleksandr Usyk, when comparing his fights since he faced Wladimir Klitschko in 2017.
Helenius – 1/16
Franklin – 1/12
Usyk 2 – 13/8
Usyk 1 – 4/11
Pulev – 1/10
Ruiz 2 – 1/2
Ruiz 1 – 1/25
Povetkin – 1/9
Parker – 1/9
Takam – 1/33
Klitschko – 2/5
Joshua-Wallin will take place on December 23 in Riyadh as ‘AJ’ aims to prove his doubters wrong and score what will be seen as a solid win.
