Oscars Fight: Will Smith Favored by Betting Odds to Beat Chris Rock in Boxing Match

After last night’s altercation at the Oscars, oddsmakers were quick to jump on a potential Will Smith versus Chris Rock fight. They’re backing the Fresh Prince to get the victory in a hypothetical fight with the legendary comedian.

Kyle Newman

Mon, March 28, 12:00 PM EDT | 5 min read

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Oscars Fight: Will Smith Favored by Betting Odds to Beat Chris Rock in Boxing Match

Last night, Chris Rock and Will Smith made Oscars history. The altercation between the two legendary actors is without a doubt a moment that will live forever in Oscars infamy. Now oddsmakers are getting in on things.

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Will Smith and Chris Rock Fight

Oddsmakers have listed preliminary odds on a hypothetical boxing match between Will Smith and Chris Rock. They think Will Smith is the easy favorite. Will Smith is given -450 odds, or an implied 81.8% chance to win the fight. Meanwhile, Chris Rock is given +340 odds, or an implied 22.7% chance to pull off a hypothetical upset.

To put these odds into perspective, Will Smith’s chance of winning this fight is nearly twice as good as Olivia Rodrigo’s odds to win Best Album at the Grammy’s, a 44.1% chance. On the flip side, Chris Rock’s odds of winning the fight are worse than the odds Donald Trump gets indicted this year, +300.

Honestly, despite the massive difference, those odds are really close considering the potential fighters. Will Smith is about 5 inches and 60 pounds bigger than Chris Rock. One would expect the odds to be heavily in Will Smith’s favor, yet Chris Rock is given a better than 20% chance to win the fight. So, clearly oddsmakers see something in Chris Rock.

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This reminds me of the Deron Williams vs. Frank Gore fight. Williams had the combat background and was significantly bigger, but the odds were tight. Williams was given -165 odds and Gore +135. The fight was as one-sided as any on the card.

Oddsmakers tend to overestimate the chances of those with little background as a fighter. Is this one of those situations? It's hard to tell considering we don't know what the combat sports background is for either Will Smith or Chris Rock. Still, given Will Smith's massive size advantage it's hard to see how Chris Rock has a better than 20% chance of winning the fight.