The O2 Arena in London sees Showtime boxing and Heavyweight title action as IBF World Heavyweight Champion Charles Martin travels to England to face Anthony Joshua. The sport books have placed Joshua (15-0) as a -550 favorite in the fight with the return on Martin (23-0-1) paying +425. The twelve round bout has the over/under coming in at 5 1/2, with the over paying +125 and the under at -155. Joshua is a favorite, and for the last few years he has been the most talked about Heavyweight prospect on the planet. Fifteen wins with fifteen KO’s and a 2012 Olympic Gold Medal hint that the 6’5 fighter is the total package. Since turning pro he has been under the guidance of promoter Eddie Hearn, who has kept a watchful eye ovr his development. Putting him into a world title fight at this stage of his career may seem pre-mature, but then again Martin is not much further along his career path than Joshua. Martin won the IBF World title when it was strippd from Tyson Fury and he faced Vyacheslav Glazkov for the vacant belt. He won the belt in the third round after a Glazkov knee injury, but really did not have a chance to show championship pedigree. To this point in his career, he has under 80 total rounds to his name, which puts him only a step ahead of Joshua. Both fighters are a bit green, but here they have a chance to perform on the biggest stage of their careers. The co-main event bout sees IBF Featherweight Champion Lee Selby put his title on the line against the challenge of Eric Hunter (21-3). This twelve rounder does not have an over/under posted on it, however Selby enters as a -900 favorite versus Hunter, who is returning at +550. Selby is looking to make the second defense of the belt he captured in May of last year when he defeated Evgeny Gradovich via technical decision. Hunter has won four fights in a row since his first round DQ loss to Mike Oliver for hitting on the break back in September of 2013. Hunter is a bit of an unknown but Selby is coming off a tough title defense in Arizona against former world champion Fernando Montiel, so he is getting some “home cooking” for this one. The last of the fights set to air on Showtime comes in the Super Welterweight division and features the tightest line of the show as popular veteran Mathew Macklin (34-6) is a slight underdog paying +120 as he faces Brian Rose (28-3-1), who is returning at -140. Rose has avenged two of the three losses in his career, and the third was to Demitrius Andrade for the WBO World Super Welterweight title. Despite that, Macklin has the much higher level of competition under his belt over the last few years and at 33, he is only two years older than Rose. A lot of the rules for this one may be out the window, as Rose is from Blackpool and Macklin is from Birmingham and you have the usual British bragging rights on the line as well.
