Alberto Machado vs Andrew Cancio Pick - WBA Boxing Prediction for 2-09

Rising Puerto Rican boxing star Alberto Machado makes his 2019 debut as he defends the WBA (regular) super featherweight title against challenger Andrew Cancio on February 9, 2019 at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, California.

El Explosivo

The 28 year old champion Machado enters this fight with an unblemished record of 21-0 with 17 knockouts. 14 out of his last six bouts have ended via knockout with 12 of those stoppages coming inside two rounds. Known as “El Explosivo” because of his explosiveness, Machado will be making the third defense of the title he won in 2017. Although he is a right-hander, Machado has fought as a southpaw ever since. He stands 5-10 with a reach of 72 inches.

Machado has a very fan-friendly style because he likes to go toe to toe with his opponents. His size and punching power have been the difference in most of his fights. But while he is explosive as his nickname suggests, Machado isn’t the most mobile fighter and as we saw against Jezreel Corrales, Mahado doesn’t have a granite chin. He can be hurt and he can be dropped.

What’re the Odds?

Alberto Machado vs Andrew Cancio 2/9/19
Moneyline Odds: Machado -1887, Cancio +1000
Odds from betonline.ag as of 2/7/19

El Chango

Andrew Cancio enters this fight with a record of 19-4-2 with 14 KOs so as you can see, the challenger also has knockout power in his punches. The 30 year old Cancio turned pro in 2006 and has tucked in 132 rounds under his belt. He stands 5-6 and has a reach of 68 inches so you can see, there’s an obvious size difference between these two fighters.

Known as El Chango, Cancio also possesses punching power and has a very solid chin. Although the Joseph Diaz loss was recorded as a TKO, Cancio never hit the deck against Diaz despite taking tremendous punishment. He isn’t really a brawler but as we saw against.

The previously unbeaten Aidar Sharibayev, he can go toe to toe with his opponent. Cancio has been working on his body punching which is interesting because if he can consistently connect, we may see Machado forced to drop his guard low and he may leave his chin open.

Not A Walk In The Park

Alberto Machado proved his mettle against Jezreel Corrales in October 2017. Machado was dropped and was behind on points but came through and got the win by knocking out Corrales in the 8th round to capture the WBA (regular) super featherweight title. Then in his last fight at the Jacobs vs Derevyanchenko undercard, Machado stopped Yuandale Evans in the first round of his second title defense.

Evans was coming off a win over the previously unbeaten Luis Rosa. But despite his recent conquests, Machado is still somewhat unproven at the world level. You could say that he is in his best shape ever at 28 years of age but he has yet to go 12 rounds (not his fault) and we don’t know how he’ll fare against the other champions- Gervonta Davis, Miguel Berchelt and Tevin Farmer, unless he get a chance to face them. He will have to win convincingly over Cancio to do that.

Machado isn’t headed to a walk in the park in this title defense because Cancio is surely no bum and is here to win the fight. His record is a decent 19-4-2 with 14 knockouts and he owns wins over Rocky Juarez, Rene Alvarado, Hugo Cazares and Jerry Belmontes. Two of his losses were close decision losses, a third one was against Ronnie Rios and his lone stoppage loss was to Joseph Diaz in 2016.

Cancio has a proven chin as he took a heavy pounding against Diaz but he never went down and was stopped standing. However, I think Machado packs a better punch than Diaz and is one weight class bigger too. I think Machado can hurt Cancio in this fight with a stoppage very much as possibility.

Betting Prediction

Cancio isn’t a step up in level of opposition for Machado but he is a tough customer.I think this will be a competitive fight but I think Machado wins this. His heavier hands are going to be the main difference here. I think Machado stops Cancio in the middle rounds.

Prediction: Alberto Machado by stoppage, probably in the middle or late rounds.

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