Newly minted WBA super featherweight champion Jazza Dickens will look to continue his improbable career revival this Saturday against the surging Anthony Cacace atop a DAZN show in Vegas.
Bad Left Hook will have LIVE coverage of the card starting at 3:00 pm ET.
Dickens (36-5, 15 KO) went from interim to full titlist after the sanctioning body stripped Lamont Roach Jr, while Cacace took the IBF title from Joe Cordina in 2024 before vacating it in the face of an ordered bout with Eduardo “Sugar” Nunez.
Will Dickens rattle off a third straight upset, or will Cacace knock off yet another domestic rival and rejoin the ranks of boxing’s active titleholders?
Who will win Dickens vs Cacace?
If Dickens was just a little bit bigger and hit a little bit harder, I’d call for the upset. For as much as Cacace likes to move, he’s got two key problems that play into Dickens’ hands: a lack of upper-body movement and a tendency to rush in a straight line. Dickens’ defensive prowess and sharp combinations give him a clear edge on the inside, and while he may not be particularly swift on his feet, that’s not as big an issue when your opponent regularly hurls himself into the pocket.
Dickens’ issue, however, is that he needs to either force protracted phone booth exchanges or meaningfully hurt Cacace in the brief times they do mix it up. Cacace showed off his ability to avoid the former against Josh Warrington, sharpshooting on the outside and quickly tying up when his momentum carried him into his opponent’s preferred distance. Though Dickens is better-suited for 130 than Warrington, he’s still significantly smaller than Cacace, limiting his ability to initiate the sort of forehead-to-forehead exchanges where he thrived against Batyrgaziev.
He’ll thus have to outshine Cacace’s long-range bursts in the time between Cacace charging in and him tying up, which is easier said than done. He’s better on the inside than Cacace, but not so much so that he can swing the fight’s momentum his way in such limited windows. Cacace’s physicality is a lot to overcome, especially when Dickens is at a clear power disadvantage.
For all his laudable skill, there’s just too much going against Dickens here. The hometown ref should give Cacace plenty of leeway to roughhouse when Dickens tries to trade in the pocket and what licks Dickens does get in figure to be the sort that even neutral judges might miss or fail to appreciate. Eye-catching flurries at a distance and strategic neutralization on the inside should carry Cacace to a win that’s wider on the scorecards than in reality.
Prediction: Anthony Cacace by unanimous decision
