Opening odds released for Francis Ngannou vs. Anthony Joshua

The opening odds have been released for the boxing fight between Francis Ngannou and Anthony Joshua.

On Friday afternoon, MMA journalist, Ariel Helwani through Turki Alashikh, announced that Ngannou would return to the boxing ring against Anthony Joshua on March 9. The fight will be ten rounds and will take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The two will also have a press conference in London to start the promotion of the boxing match.

Originally, Anthony Joshua was supposed to fight on March 9 against Deontay Wilder in Saudi Arabia. But, after Wilder lost to Joseph Parker on ‘The Day of Reckoning’ Card, Eddie Hearn and Joshua ended up making the fight with Ngannou come to fruition.

Earlier this week, Hearn said Ngannou was one of three potential opponents for Joshua and thought the fight between the two of them would be massive.

“So right now we have three fights that we’re in discussions for,” Hearn told iFL TV. “They’re all big and that doesn’t involve Deontay Wilder for March. Our aim, and we’ve expressed this, is to fight the winner of Fury-Usyk. That’s all we want to do. Obviously, there’s the [Filip] Hrgovic fight out there for the world heavyweight title. There’s a Francis Ngannou fight out there, which would be absolutely colossal. There’s other heavyweights as well. The [Zhilei] Zhang fight possibly as well with Queensbury.”

After the fight was confirmed on Friday evening, BetOnline released opening odds for the boxing match between Francis Ngannou and Anthony Joshua.

Francis Ngannou vs Anthony Joshua Opening Odds

Francis Ngannou +125
Anthony Joshua -155

Ngannou opened as a slight underdog, and if you like the former UFC heavyweight champion, a $100 bet would net you $125 if he pulls off the upset. If you think Joshua gets the win, you would need to bet $155 to win $100 on the former boxing world champion.

Francis Ngannou (0-1 boxing, 17-3 MMA) is coming off his pro boxing debut back in February when he dropped a split decision to Tyson Fury. In the fight, Ngannou dropped the heavyweight champ and many thought he did enough to win. That fight was his first in a year and half after leaving the UFC in free agency as their heavyweight champion.

Anthony Joshua (27-3) is on a three-fight win streak and coming off a fifth-round stoppage victory over Otto Wallin. Also on the win streak, he beat Robert Helenius and Jermaine Franklin, He’s also the former WBA, IBF, and WBO heavyweight champion