By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya, the promoter of IBF bantamweight champion Abner Mares (22-0, 13 KO’s), believes that Mares deserved to get the decision over Joseph Agbeko (28-3, 22 KO’s) last Saturday night at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Unlike the vast majority of boxing fans who felt that Mares should have been penalized and/or disqualified for the high number of low blows he landed in his decision win over Agbeko, De La Hoya feels that Mares wasn’t throwing low blows. De La Hoya saw the punches landing on the belt line rather than low, which is what they appeared to be in watching the slow motion replays by Showtime.
“I watched the fight again and those punches were on the belt line,” De La Hoya said on his twitter account. “The last one hit Agbeko’s glove. I still have it 115-111.”
Whether De La Hoya wants to admit it or not, boxing fans saw Mares as fighting a dirty fight and they’re not happy with the results. They collectively want a rematch between the two fighters, and it might be a mistake if De La Hoya chooses to ignore this. Mares is in the position where he’s going to need to fight Agbeko again if he wants to quiet the restless fans.
He can’t just move on because this fight and his fight with Vic Darchinyan were both marred by low blows thrown by Mares. He’s got to at least fight Agbeko again, and ideally fight Vic Darchinyan again as well, but with a different referee. They need Vic Drakulich to work their rematch, because as we saw in disqualifying Edison Miranda recently for low blows, Drakulich won’t hesitate to disqualify a fighter if they throw repeated low blows.
It’s not surprising that De La Hoya is siding with his fighter. That’s kind of expected, but to say that those shots were landing on the belt line, that’s a bit much.
Comments are closed.