Boxing Betting–Muhammad Ali vs. Teofilo Stevenson Betting Odds
–The death of Fidel Castro has revived interest in the Cuban sports system.
– Heavyweight boxer Teofilo Stevenson was one of their biggest successes–and greatest tragedies
– A matchup between Stevenson and Muhammad Ali never happened but would have been fascinating
One of the more interesting things about my professional activities is that there’s always something new to consider. That was never more evident than this past weekend where I got a flurry of emails after the death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. There’s been plenty of coverage of Castro’s death but the question I was asked repeatedly was extremely interesting and one that I hadn’t seen covered anywhere else: What would have happened had Cuba’s greatest boxer Teofilo Stevenson fought ‘The Greatest’ aka Muhammad Ali when both men were in their prime. What odds would I set on the fight?
I love questions like this. I’m a huge boxing geek and among my peers have developed a reputation as the ‘go to’ guy for hypothetical fight matchup analysis. The one I hear most often is ‘Muhammad Ali vs. Mike Tyson’ in their prime. In fact, I’ll probably do an article on this at some point but the reality is one that Tyson fanboys don’t want to hear–it would be a mismatch. If they fought 100 times Ali would win 100 times. We’ll address this in detail in the future but you get the idea what I’m talking about. As far as the odds on a Tyson/Ali matchup that would require more thought–my ‘true odds’ on the fight would have Ali as a huge favorite. But oddsmaking isn’t ‘making a prediction’–it’s trying to attract money to both sides of a proposition. Given the legion of Tyson fans he’d get plenty of action. And as a bookmaker that thinks Ali would destroy him I’d want to set a price to attract all of the Tyson money I could.
THE TEOFILO STEVENSON STORY
At the height of his fame it was suggested that after Fidel Castro himself the most beloved person in Cuba was heavyweight boxer Teofilo Stevenson. To be fair, much of Castro’s ‘popularity’ among the Cuban people was more narrative than reality. When a population sees that most people that *don’t* love a dictator have a strange habit of winding up dead they quickly figure out that the best way to not join them is to embrace their leader. This analysis isn’t intended to be an examination of Castro, of course, but he was inextricably woven with Cuban sports. To understand Stevenson it’s not only necessary to consider Castro but to unravel his ‘myth’ from reality.
Stevenson was the perfect representation of the ‘ideal’ that Cuba sought to sell to the world. While much of the narrative surrounding Stevenson was pure propaganda his skill as a fighter was 100% legit. One of only three boxers ever to win three Olympic Gold Medals along with Hungarian László Papp and fellow Cuban Félix Savón. That’s no joke. Had Cuba (along with the USSR) not boycotted the 1984 Olympics he had a good look at a fourth gold medal. Some accounts suggest that he would have been a ‘lock’ for gold medal #4 but that’s simply not true. He would have been 32 in 1984 and depending on whether he found as a heavyweight or super heavyweight would have had to get past one of two very capable American opponents (Henry Tilman or Tyrell Biggs). And don’t forget that the US boycotted the 1980 Olympics–Stevenson won a gold medal there but against a significantly diluted talent pool. Most of what would have been the 1980 US Olympic boxing team tragically died in a plane crash in Poland. It’s impossible to speculate with any accuracy but based on the historical success of US Olympic boxers there were almost certainly some potentially first rate pros among the dead.
You can make a case that Stevenson is the greatest boxer in Olympic history but here’s where things get murky. He was an excellent fighter to be sure, but there has been a tendency to mythologize his ability–a combination of Cuban propaganda ‘hype’ and the Cold War tendency of the international political left to fawn over the USSR and their surrogates. For example, several hysterical assessments suggest that Stevenson had the ‘most deadly right hand’ in boxing history. That’s nonsense. It’s a decent right but not in the same area code as Earnie ‘Only God Hits Harder’ Shavers’ right hand. I’ve watched a ridiculous amount of fighting including as much historical footage as I can find. I’ve never seen anything like Earnie Shavers’ right hand. I’d compare Shavers’ right hand to getting hit with a lead pipe only I think I’d rather take my chances with the pipe.
The more you dig into the Stevenson story the less the ‘narrative’ makes sense. The fuzzy thinking type that likes to sing Castro’s praises often points to the Cuban sports system as some sort of ‘validation’. Stevenson in particular is frequently cited as an ‘example’ of the Cuban people’s ‘love’ for Castro. It’s easier to make a case that Stevenson was a victim of Castro and the Cuban system. The story of Stevenson and other boxers is the same as generations of Cuban baseball players that could have been stars in the Major Leagues–Castro took away their potential for greatness to make them ‘props’ in the phony storyline he sold to the world. Sadly, many people gladly ‘drank the Castro KoolAid’.
ALI VS. STEVENSON–THE BETTING ODDS
Stevenson v. Ali in their prime could have potentially been a great fight. At least at first glance. It would have definitely been an easy fight to ‘sell’ and from the standpoint of an oddsmaker an easy fight to book. So let’s set a price and then I’ll explain my thinking:
WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT BOXING CHAMPIONSHIP–12 ROUNDS–MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, NEW YORK CITY
MUHAMMAD ALI (CHAMPION): -350
TEOFILO STEVENSON (CHALLENGER): +275
I set the fight at 12 rounds though many of Ali’s championship fights were at 15. My guess is that this would be necessary to make the fight in the first place. I know that were I representing Stevenson I’d veto any deal with a 15 round fight. Olympic fights are just three rounds so in theory the longer the fight the more it would favor Ali. Ali’s manager Jabir Muhammad would have had no problem conceding on this point knowing that his fighter’s advantage wouldn’t be much different at 12 rounds. I made the venue Madison Square Garden for a simple reason–at the time that’s where the big fights took place. Most big fights today are in Las Vegas but during the Ali era things were different. Ali fought several times at the Las Vegas Convention Center but against lower profile opponents–past his prime Floyd Patterson, Joe Bugner and Ron Lyle among these. With an ‘official’ capacity of 6,300 it just didn’t work for bigger fights. The seating configuration at Madison Square Garden has been changed several times but it can hold at least 20,000 for boxing. Today, this fight could be held in Las Vegas at several venues including the MGM Grand Garden, the Mandalay Bay Events Center, the Thomas and Mack Center or the future home of the city’s NHL team the brand new T-Mobile Arena.
At -350 the ‘implied probability’ on Ali is just over 77%. The ‘true odds’ in my opinion would be higher but if you set a price too high you can ‘scare off’ underdog bettors. For example, I’d suggest that the true probability of Ali winning would be at least 90% which would make the ‘true odds’ on him -900. I’d have no problem in this situation writing tickets on Stevenson all day at any price but it would be easier to attract backers at +275 than at +700. This may seem counterintuitive, but the message that many bettors would get with the higher price is that the fight is a mismatch. This can also hurt betting action on the favorite. Most bettors hate ‘laying a lot to win a little’. To get back to the true purpose of betting odds–something that can’t be stressed enough–I want to set a price that gets good two way action. I’m not worried about being ‘right’. Once I get that price in this case, however, I want to tweak it a bit to attract as much Stevenson action as possible. My expectation is that there would be a ton of media attention for this fight and plenty of it would be favorable to Stevenson. I don’t want to set a price that would mess up the narrative that the Cuban would be a strong contender–there’s too much money to be made by playing along. The other consideration is always what prices that other shops are dealing. That would be less of an issue booking this fight in the 1970’s but now every bettor and sportsbook has access to live odds from every book in the world. I want a price that isn’t completely out of line with the market but at the same time would attract Stevenson bettors.
Notice what I didn’t do when setting these prices–I didn’t handicap the fight. It’s often unnecessary to set a line. I’m more concerned with understanding the ‘public perception’ of the matchup so I can get an idea on how they’ll bet. Like I’ve said before, it’s more appropriate to say that I’m ‘handicapping the betting marketplace’s opinion of the matchup’ rather than handicapping the matchup itself. In this specific case, however, I’m going to use my boxing expertise to (hopefully) make some more money than I would by bringing in balanced action and collecting the vig. There’s definitely a risk to this. If I’m running a book for someone else they might not want me doing this in the first place. This is the default scenario in today’s corporate Las Vegas which in the opinion of many (myself included) has destroyed the prestige of the Nevada bookmaking industry. Corporate ‘bean counters’ want sportsbook managers to minimize risk, not ‘take bets’. Even if you’re running your own book or working for bosses that don’t mind you ‘taking bets’ there’s another problem–convincing yourself that you’re such an expert on every sport on the board that you can ‘take a position’ on every game instead of following good bookmaking procedure. It’s one thing to take advantage of favorable situations for fun and profit. Another thing entirely to delude yourself into believing that you can do this with every game on the board.
ALI VS. STEVENSON–THE MATCHUP
I’ve always had a rep as an expert at analyzing this kind of hypothetical matchup but it has to do more with my approach than being some kind of boxing savant. It’s easy to go down all kinds of speculative rabbit holes but once you start doing that you’re essentially guessing. Maybe it’s an ‘educated guess’ but it’s still ‘guessing’ and not analysis. My approach is to base everything on a clear progression of logic based on demonstrable facts. For example, a frequent argument I hear from Tyson fanboys about why he’d beat Ali is that ‘Ali never tasted power like Tyson’s’. Not only do I know this to be false based on my understanding of the sport and it’s history it’s something I can validate in a logical manner. To disprove this opinion it’s not hard–you just need to look at the list of Ali’s opponents which include a number of the most powerful punchers in history. In fact, Ali not only ‘tasted power like Tyson’s’ (and in actuality superior to ‘Iron Mike’s’) he was never knocked out and never stopped inside the distance until the end of his career. You can also disprove this on the Tyson side of the equation. Tyson got a lot of early knockouts against overmatched opponents by simply overwhelming them. It wasn’t so much ‘one punch KO power’ (like Earnie Shavers) but just the ferocity of the onslaught. He also got a lot of knockouts in mid to late rounds based on ‘accumulation’. It’s one thing to ‘overwhelm’ Donnie Long and Marvis Frazier, another thing entirely to do that to Ali. We’ll return to Ali vs. Tyson at a later date but these are good examples to understand my approach.
Teofilo Stevenson was a huge dude–6’3 to 6’5 depending on which measurements you believe so ‘on paper’ you could argue that he would have been a handful for Ali physically. Of course that was the same rationale by which Sonny Liston and George Foreman were supposed to destroy Ali and we know how that worked out. Of greater significance, Ali’s 78″ reach would have been the perfect counter for Stevenson’s height. Ali was a legit 6’3″ and–no big secret here–moved amazingly well for his size. If you watch highlights of Stevenson’s career its evident that he’s got power but you’ll also notice that he has a tendency to look really awkward at times. Against some opponents he looks very smooth but against others he looks alternately plodding or even off balance. At his best, his footwork is nothing special and he often looks like he’s not effectively maintaining distance. On one hand, it could be argued that he was facing opponents that didn’t require this effort. On the other hand, that also suggests that he might not be able to ‘fight at the next level’ which he’d need to do against Ali.
Stevenson lost to Igor Votsky twice including once by KO. That makes me think that Ali would be on another competitive level for Stevenson. Votsky was a decent enough fighter but lest we forget Ali fought monsters like Liston, Foreman, Shavers, Frazier et. al. and was stopped by…uh…no one until the final two fights of his career. Ali actually sparred with Votsky on a ‘goodwill tour’ of the USSR but can’t take anything from that. Overall, Stevenson had a career record of 302-22. Comparing an amateur record with a professional record is ‘apples and oranges’ and losing by points in a three round fight can be as much a function of judging as anything else but it also underscores the difficulty that Stevenson might have transitioning from amateur to professional boxing. Another big difference–both men were by all accounts complete gentlemen in ‘real life’. Between the ropes, however, Ali became a ‘cold blooded assassin’ with few peers. That’s something that Stevenson wouldn’t be used to at all.
MYTH VERSUS REALITY
A better question might be this: how good could Stevenson have become if he’d had the access to the same training and coaching resources that Ali did? In the hypothetical matchup we’re discussing Ali’s legendary trainer Angelo Dundee would be a huge advantage both in formulating a strategy but also making tactical adjustments during the fight. Even the most starry eyed and romantic depiction of the Cuban sports system couldn’t argue that they had anyone close to Dundee’s level. How good would Stevenson had been with similar advantages?
That’s not the easy question that it at first might seem. The ‘accepted storyline’ is that Stevenson turned down a professional contract of $8 million (nearly $36 million adjusted for inflation) to stay in Cuba. The ‘usual sources’ spun the simple narrative that he chose ‘country over wealth’. In reality, the answer to that question isn’t so clear cut. There’s any number of scenarios–from the ‘decision’ being made for him to the realization that he needed the insular Cuban system as much as it needed him. Or maybe he did choose ‘country over wealth’ but other than having to give up his amateur status that isn’t a binary option. Castro could have as easily seen him as a ‘propaganda tool’ as well as a nice source of revenue. Fidel didn’t end up with a high nine figure ATM balance by accident. Stevenson also turned down a $5 million payday to fight Ali. Adjusted for inflation that’s over $22 million. There’s a very good chance that Castro realized that Stevenson was a great amateur fighter but that there was no guarantee he’d be equally adept as a pro. A few losses and his value as an ‘example of Cuban superiority’ goes out the window. Castro might have been a loathsome excuse for a human being but no one has ever suggested he was stupid. Certainly, he had to realize that once you cut through all of the hype the simple fact was that Stevenson simply wasn’t in the same class as Ali.
The conclusion ends up being similar to the question I’ve answered a million times on a hypothetical Tyson v. Ali matchup. Ali was never KO’d in his prime despite fighting guys who could clearly had the pop to do it. Facing another guy in Stevenson that would likely have to KO Ali to win my handicap stops there. Ali, conversely, had a number of ways to win. Factor in the disparate competitive class they faced, the genius of Angelo Dundee and Ali’s unmatched mental toughness and it’s hard to see a scenario outside of the realm of the purely speculative in which Stevenson can win. And that’s why the world called Ali ‘The Greatest’ and it wasn’t hyperbole.