Cecilia Breakhus (36-1) has had an amazing career. She was the unified WBC, IBF, WBA and WBO Welterweight Champion for many years and beat everyone in her way without much problems. That was until she ran into Jessica McCaskill who managed to beat her by a close majority decision last year. Now she is nearing the end of her career at 39 years old and you wonder how much is left for the future hall of famer. There was a rematch clause in case she lost to McCaskill which is common practise and she decided that she did want the rematch after giving it some thoughts. They will hve their rematch on the undercard of Estrada-Gonzalez who also happens to be fighting for the 2nd time. Going in to the first fight between Breakhus and McCaskill it was expected that Breakhus would win fairly easy and do so by a decision as she is not known as a knockout puncher. This time around Breakhus is just a slight favorite to win the fight and she is currently priced at - 125 (1.80 decimal odds) and the champion McCaskill priced at +130 (2.30 decimal odds). The fact that the bookies still have Breakhus as the favorite going in to this fight tells you that they don´t quite know what to make of the situation with Breakhus. Was the last fight evidence that she has slipped and is now over the hill? Did she underestimate McCaskill? Did McCaskill have the night of her career? Prior to that fight we had only seen McCaskill plod straight forward with wild punches and it was perceived that Breakhus would have no problems with a style like that as she would pick her apart. But what happened that fight was that McCaskill won by outworking and overwhelming breakhus who just didn´t do enough although she had the more elegant work when she did throw. So McCaskill wasn´t really much different than her usual self that night but one thing to consider is that she is physically very strong and that was to a big help for her in coming forward. The only real question here is which version of Breakhus shows up?
We think that Breakhus wouldn´t have taken the rematch if she didn´t sincerely believe that she could win it. She wasn´t her best self that night and she knows that so this time around she will make sure that she is a sharp from the get go and she will win the rematch on points. McCaskill will plod forward just like she did in their first fight but she will not have the same success. This is not to say that this will be easy for Breakhus because she is 39 years old and there is now way around that but we believe she can produce one more quality win here and it wouldn´t be surprising to see her retire after retaining all her belts. The Pick is Cecilia Breakhus to win this fight by Decision.