Joe Cordina vs Anthony Cacace: Betting Odds & Prediction
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Joe Cordina looks for the second defence of his IBF super-featherweight title when he takes on Anthony Cacace on Saturday evening.
The pair collide on the undercard of the undisputed heavyweight title fight between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Tale of the Tape
Cordina (17-0, 9KOs) is part of a rare group of fighters to become a two-time world champion without having ever lost a title in the ring.
The Welshman first claimed the IBF belt with a stunning second-round knockout of Kenichi Ogowa back in June 2022. Cordina was stripped of the title four months later, though, when a hand injury prevented him from defending against mandatory challenger Shavkat Rakhimov.
The Tejikistan fighter picked up the vacant title and was then ordered to defend against Cordina in his first fight as champion. Fortunately for the Welshman, Cordina dropped Rakhimov on the way to a hard-earned split-decision win in his home city of Cardiff to reclaim his title.
The 32-year-old followed the win with an underwhelming performance against Edward Vasquez in his first defence back in November. Despite running out a deserved winner by majority-decision, Cordina looked flat and will be hoping to remind the division of his capabilities this weekend.
Meanwhile, Cacace (21-1, 7KOs) finds himself in the biggest fight of his career so far. The Irishman has struggled with inactivity, though, and has only fought once in each of the last three years.
Nevertheless, the 35-year-old knows defeat here could spell an end to any aspirations of competing at world level, and a narrow points loss to Martin J Ward in 2017 remains his only defeat to date.
His last fight saw him defend the IBO 130lb title with a UD12 win over Damian Wrzesinski. Cacace has also previously held British and Commonwealth titles at super-featherweight. His last eight fights have all gone the distance, with his last stoppage win dating back to September 2016.
Prediction
Cordina winning via decision/technical decision remains the most sensible pick here. Despite impressive knockout victories over Ogowa and Joshuah Hernandez (KO1, 2021), the Welshman has never been a huge puncher, as evidenced by his 52% knockout ratio.
He is also the better technical fighter out of the two, and has remained active with two twelve-round fights over the course of last year. The same cannot be said of Cacace, who has fought just three times since November 2019.