The latest boxing betting tips from expert analysts. 100% free boxing tips for all of the major fights throughout the year taking place in the various divisions.
Son of former undisputed champion, Kostya, and younger brother to former world champion, Tim, Nikita Tsyzu (11-0, 9 KOs) is keeping up family traditions by winning titles and headlining shows.
He and Michael Zerafa (34-5, 22 KOs) clash in ‘Bad Blood’ on Friday, January 16, in Brisbane, Australia, live on Kayo Sports. The middleweights clash for the vacant WBO International title over 10-rounds in the main event of a stacked[ No Limit Boxing show.
The 27-year-old Nikita from Sydney has boxing in his blood, so it was no surprise when he began winning national junior championships as an amateur. However, in an unexpected turn of events, he quit boxing at 16 to focus on his schooling, eventually attending university to earn a Bachelor of Architectural Design, working in the industry for several years before returning to the sport at the later age of 23.
In just a year’s time, he was making his pro debut at the age of 24 on March 3, 2022, which fell 30 years and two days to the day that his dad made his pro debut in 1992.
The youngest member of the fighting Tszyu family marked the anniversary with a second-round stoppage. In his first two years, he went 8-0 and won the Australian super-welterweight title. In his third year it became strap season, adding the IBF Australasian and WBO Inter-Continental super-welterweight titles, the latter he held twice, after his brother Tim won it in his comeback fight from back-to-back defeats in 2024, then vacated to fight for another world title.
Veteran Michael Zerafa made his pro debut 11 years earlier than Nikita and is six years his senior at 33. Despite debuting in 2011 and winning regional titles with all the governing bodies – WBC, WBA, WBO, IBF – his world title shot didn’t materialise until 2024. Unfortunately, that world title shot that he waited 13 years for ended in just two rounds when he was stopped by the WBA middleweight champion, Erislandy Lara, with one second to go in the second stanza.
The Melbourne man has since bounced back with three stoppage wins, all within a years time between August 2024 to August 2025, against competition with a combined record of 82-10, proving that he still has plenty to give.
He now holds the WBO Inter-Continental middleweight title, and ranked WBA #4, IBO #7, WBO #8, IBF #13 means that just one more win could well land him another shot at a world title, currently held by Janibek Alimkhanuly (IBF and WBO), Carlos Adames (WBC), and Erislandy Lara (WBA).
That’s certainly a big carrot dangling in front of him, and complemented with his momentum of three successive KOs, he is going to present a dangerous opponent for Nikita, who is equally as hazardous with the confidence that comes with being an unbeaten contender with a high KO ratio, who also has a huge incentive and opportunity to take over his foe’s world ranking positions.
This will be the ‘Pretty Boy’s’ 40th fight in his 15th year as pro, clocking up 223 rounds in that time, almost five times more than his next opponent. It’s certainly a fight between experience versus youth.
Nikita is young, fresh, powerful, unbeaten and confident. The southpaw is sharp and slick. When he was knocked down in the first round against Dylan Biggs, he didn’t panic and remained composed to stay in range and trade with Biggs, slipping shots and countering the bigger man, completely unfazed by the early knockdown and dreadful start to the Australian title fight. He ended the first-round by staggering Biggs and, by round five, the champion was exhausted and stopped by brutal body blows.
Nikita is a master at mid-range, staying within an area where he can land copiously with his high workrate, but still slip shots despite the proximity. This inevitably means that he gets caught often though. He is known as ‘The Butcher’ for a reason, due to his aggressive, assiduous nature. He breaks opponents down and stalks them relentlessly when he knows the time is right.
He has one-punch power too, dropping multiple opponents with single shots, just like in his last fight where a blisteringly fast one-two felled fellow southpaw Luzim Ismaili once, then another forced him to turn his back in agony, the backhand right doing all the damage. He quit on his stool after those first three minutes of hell.
Zerafa is experienced and capable and will be a big step up in levels for Tszyu. Despite five defeats and two knockouts, the ‘Pretty boy’ is still a force and starts fights brightly, but after a decade-and-half in the pro boxing ranks, his reactions have slowed and he is increasingly hittable.
I can see Nikita landing his southpaw right-hand jab with ease, due to his slick speed and Zerafa’s slowing responsiveness. Zerafa was KO’d by Erislandy Lara with a sharp one-two, which is a combination Tszyu just knocked out his last opponent with in only one round.
Zerafa will want this fight at long-range where he can utilise his lengthy limbs, but Tszyu will be looking to fight at just half a step closer than that. If the younger man can control the range of the fight to suit him, then he should be able to land copiously on the inside to weaken the armour of the former Commonwealth champion. If stood at mid-range, Tszyu should be able to slip and counter Zerafa constantly, but half a step back from that and it’s a 50-50 exchange.
Zerafa knows that a quick start could catch Nikita unawares, so expect the older man to fast out the traps.
But I believe Tszyu wins with his speed, power and workrate, but for the best odds, I would place your bets on a knockout.
Prediction: Tszyu to win via KO
Extra Tip: Tszyu to win via KO in rounds 1-5
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Tim Rickson is the WhichBookie boxing analyst who joined the team midway through 2022 and will be providing boxing betting tips throughout the year for all of the big fights.
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If you’d like to back any of the selections, we recommend a bookmaker to do so with. These are usually the bookies offering the best odds on the selection at the time of posting the tip but it may be worth checking other bookies in case the odds have changed. There may also be betting offers associated with the tip that are only available with specific bookmakers that are worth taking into consideration.
We never recommend an actual stake to use for each bet as this will vary between people depending on the size of their betting bank. Never bet more than you can afford to lose and always stick to your staking plan.
WhichBookie boxing analyst Tim Rickson will publish tips whenever he finds value in a bet. If there is a big fight coming up, it’s likely that he will cover it but generally, they’ll be posted whenever a good bet comes about.
Many of the big boxing matches are only available via Pay Per View. However, you may be able to find streams of some of the less-popular fights via the Bet365 Live Streaming service. Bet365 provides over 100,000 live streams of sporting events every year and is regarded as one of the best services for streaming sports online without charge.
There are several options when it comes to betting on boxing, and the more you know, the better your chances of success. We will now go into more detail about some of the different betting markets that you will find, and discuss a few potential strategies you could use.
As with most sports, the outright market is probably the simplest, because you’re just betting on who will win the fight. There are no other criteria to consider, other than the fact that with many of the best bookies for boxing, you can also bet on the draw. However, draws in boxing are very rare and not many people tend to back this outcome.
Bear in mind that in many fights, one boxer tends to be a heavy favourite and it’s usually quite easy to pick the winner. There don’t tend to be that many shock results. Therefore, the odds on the favourite are often very low, even if you use the bookie with the best odds as described earlier in the article.
If you’re happy betting at short odds, you can certainly get a good success rate simply by backing short price favourites in boxing. But many people prefer to look for bigger wins. So you may sometimes need to look at some of the other markets to get a better return on your bet.
This market lets you choose not only who will win the fight, but how they will win. Different methods of victory are usually grouped as follows:
So because there are more possible outcomes in this market, the odds are higher than just the outright win market.
The Round Betting market offers the opportunity to get the highest odds. Here you can bet on which fighter will win, and which round he/she will win in.
Options to bet on a fighter to win on points, or to bet on the draw, are both also included in this market. In a 12 round bout, that gives 27 different possible outcomes. Therefore, the odds on each one are naturally going to be much higher. Think of it as the equivalent of the correct score market in football betting.
So the round betting market offers the biggest potential wins when betting on boxing. But of course, it’s harder to predict the outcome. You do have the option to split your stake to cover more than one outcome though. So if you felt that a fighter would win within the first 3 rounds, you could split your stake to back him to win in round 1, round 2 and round 3. The odds would mean you’d get a good profit if any of those outcomes happened.
This is a simple market in which you decide whether the fight will last all 12 rounds or not. Therefore there are only two outcomes to bet on, Yes or No.
It’s possible to get a decent success rate when betting on this market. Check the stats and the history of each boxer and ask yourself the following:
The answers to these key questions should give you a good idea of whether the fight is likely to go the distance or not. There can still be surprises, but you’ll certainly win more bets than you lose.
This market allows you to bet on the total number of rounds the fight will last for. The advantage here is that you do not need to specify who will win, just how long it will last.
For example, let’s consider a market of Over/Under 3.5 Rounds. There are only two options to bet on, either Over 3.5 Rounds or Under 3.5 Rounds. Therefore, you would approach the market as follows:
You will find that similar markets are available for Over/under 4.5, Over/Under 5.5, Over/Under 6.5 etc.
As any professional punter will tell you, the key to making a profit is not knowing who will win every time. Because obviously, that is not possible. The real trick is making sure that when you do win, you get the best possible odds on your bet.
We studied the odds for outright bets on every professional boxing match over a period of three months. We wanted to find the best bookies for boxing odds over a prolonged period of time.
As you would expect, Betfair and Bet365 are better than most of the competition. But the results showed that Betfred have the highest odds overall and came out well in some of the other markets like round betting.
Betfred were consistently best or equal best odds on nearly every outright market we recorded. They blew some of the other online bookies away in terms of the value they offered on boxing, and their user ratings are good too. So if you don’t have an account with them yet, we would definitely recommend joining.
| Best Bookies For Boxing | ||
|---|---|---|
 | Betfred | Visit |
 | Bet365 | Visit |
 | Betfair | Visit |
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