The judges had different ideas as WBA/WBC/IBF champion Jermell Charlo and WBO titlist Brian Castano battled to a draw in a very good fight that was only marred by one scorecard.
I had Castano winning 115-113 which was the same score as one judge, and if I wanted to give every close round to Charlo perhaps I could agree with the judge that scored it 114-114 as a draw.
And then (cue the Bea Arthur Maude theme) came to judge Nelson Vasquez, who not only had Charlo winning, which I didn't see unless you had your scorecard filled out early but 117-111!
As in nine-three in rounds!
That's an awful card, but Charlo did have the two biggest opportunities in the fight stinging Castano late in the second and during much of the early half of the tenth round and Castano did give Charlo the final three rounds on my card (although the twelfth could have been given to either fighter) to allow him to make the fight close and pull out the draw- unless you were Nelson Vasquez, who must have spent the evening watching Tim Duncan highlights.
Castano threw more punches, controlled the exchanges by brushing Charlo's countering attempts aside with his gloves and aside from the tenth round counter left hook that had Castano in serious trouble, managed to keep himself inside the heavier hitter's strike zone.
To have this fight close (and I did), you had to give Charlo every benefit of the doubt (which I also did give him my two toss-up rounds in rounds five and twelve), so while I don't have a real problem with a draw, I do think that it's a stretch to get there and even more so to give Charlo the duke.
I'd think that a rematch would be in order, but the sanctioning bodies could get in the way with mandatory contenders, which is more of a problem for Charlo than Castano.
Why?
Well, PBC seems to be the promotional organization that loves those minor titles most (WBA regular, interim, WBC silver, diamond, etc) and each sanctioning body has a rule that they do not rank another organization's champion.
Which would be OK- BUT the minor titles are considered titles as well, so if you hold one of these worthless trinkets you are not eligible to be rated by any of the other three.
That is why top contenders Erickson Lubin (1st in WBC and their Silver champion) and Erislandy Lara (WBA "regular" champion) aren't in the other three's rankings which weakens the mandatory contender pool and forces more time to drag mandatory defenses out, which is a major problem when champions often fight twice a year.
While the Charlo-Lubin rematch (Charlo stopped Lubin in one in 2017, but Lubin has worked his way back into contention) does have some intrigue and Charlo-Lara would be a solid fight, although the WBA has a way of rarely having their "super" and "regular" champions face each other, neither rank with the prestige of a Charlo-Castano rematch and resulting in a four titleholder.
Castano would have an interesting mandatory and a chance to make a large purse, should he decide to face Tim Tszyu, the son of former junior welterweight champion Kostya, in his native Australia in what based on styles could be a real barnburner.
It's ironic but the underdog that most feel won the fight has better options in front of him if a rematch cannot be agreed to than the more established star and that seldom is the case in boxing...
Lightweight Rolando Romero rolled late substitute Anthony Yigit in seven rounds, scoring less than ten points per round on my card and that was due to a point deduction.
Romero knocked Yigit down in the same round (the fifth) that he lost a point in for excessive rough tactics for a rare 9-8 on the scorecards.
Romero reminds me of a wide-open free swinger like a Ricardo Mayorga type that is crude but makes fun fights at times but can be made to look very ordinary against even an average boxer.
Romero likes to play the heel like Mayorga used to and called out Gervonta Davis after the fight.
Both fighters are with Mayweather Promotions and PBC, so that could be easy to make and could be fun for a while but Davis has superior hands and is likely to overpower Romero.
It would be interesting and Romero is naturally larger but I'd favor Davis pretty strongly in such a matchup.
In the boxing challenge, I earned two points for the Romero knockout to Ramon Malpica's one to move my lead to 100-90 on the season.
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