By Eric Thomas: Making his third defense of his World Boxing Organization featherweight title, champion Steven Luevano (35-1-1, 15 KOs) was forced to settle for a draw with his 10th ranked WBO challenger Mario Santiago (19-1-1, 14 KOs), and should consider himself lucky that he escaped with that on Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The final judges’ scores were 117-111 for Luevano, 113-115 for Santiago and 114-114.

I personally had the fight scored a draw, and if I were to have to pick between the two of them, I’d have given the fight to the 29 year-old Santiago from Puerto Rico, for he landed the much harder punches, initiated most of the action and took the fight to Luevano on most occasions. However, due to the fighting being ruled a draw, Luevano, the champion, gets to keep his belt. I don’t know about the judge that scored the fight 117-111 for Luevano, because that would have meant that he scored rounds for Luevano even during the stretch of the fight (rounds five though ten) in which Luevano was staggered, badly battered around the ring, and made to look nothing like a champion.

No way could I see Luevano winning any of those rounds, which makes me wonder about the poor scoring. In the end, it didn’t matter because the fight was still ruled a draw but it seems strange nonetheless to see scoring that strays way outside of the boundaries of the fight that most boxing fans and writers were seeing on Saturday night.

Luevano, 27, a fighter with little power but a lot of boxing skills, did well in the early rounds of the fight. He used his jab on a constant basis, and moved well. However, early in the 2nd round, he showed that he had no defense against the left hands from Santiago, one of which nailed him and dropped him to the canvas. Luckily for him, he immediately returned the favor, knocking Santiago with a big left hand. I’d say Luevano’s knockdown was the better of the two, for it knocked Santiago back a couple of feet and appeared to legitimately hurt him. Luevano finished the round strong, taking the fight to Santiago and nailing him with good left hands for the rest of the round.

In rounds three and four, Luevano continued to fight well, as he showed rare power in many of his straight left hands and hooks to the head of Santiago. Luevano stalked Santiago around the ring, making sure to stay out of range of his shots, and methodically picking him apart. If this is all one would have seen of the fight, they’d have thought that Luevano was clearly the better fighter of the two by far.

However, in the next round, Santiago would come out on fire, ripping into Luevano with left hands, and almost of them getting through Luevano’s wide open guard. Luevano was later staggered in the round after running into a big left hand from Santiago, and in classic move to perhaps buy time, Luevano lost his mouthpiece and had to have it reinserted by the referee.

The crowd hated it, and booed what they felt was Luevano trying to interrupt the flow of the action and buy some time. It didn’t change anything, and if anything, Santiago fought even better after the brief stoppage, nailing Luevano with a couple of more lefts before the round ended shortly thereafter.

Santiago would continue to punish Luevano without stop in rounds six through eight, hitting him with straight left hands that would snap Luevano’s head back. He simply had no defense against Santiago’s left hand, and it seemed surprising to me. Luevano, a southpaw, should have had extensive training against other southpaw fighters while in preparation for this fight, yet he fought as if this was his first fight in his entire boxing career against a southpaw opponent.

An often missed point about southpaws is that they, like their orthodox counterparts, rarely fight southpaws themselves, and when they do they’re often as lost as any other fighter is. In this case, Luevano looked totally clueless with what do against Santiago’s shots, and didn’t even come close to blocking any of his punches, especially his big left hand shots.

After taking a major beating in rounds six through eight, Luevano came back and appeared to win the 9th round, albeit narrowly, by boxing on the outside with his jab. He seemed to win the round mostly because Santiago looked to have taken the round off, more than a case of Luevano fighting especially well. Luevano didn’t look good, pawing with his jab and looking slow and tired, much too tired for a fighter of his age. After all, Luevano is two years younger than the 29 year-old Santiago.

Santiago came back strong in rounds ten and eleven, pummeling Luevano with big shots and hurting him once again with a big left hand, this time in the 10th round. Luevano took a tremendous amount of punishment in the first half of the 10th round, a ton of straight left hands to the head. In the process of battering Luevano, Santiago punched himself out and could do little in the last minute of the round. However, Luevano, whose head must have felt on fire from all the punches he took in the round, couldn’t take advantage Santiago’s diminished output, as he only offered up a few weak jabs while chasing Santiago around in the last minute.

In the 11th, Santiago chose to box, staying mainly on the outside and tagging Luevano often with jabs. This was a shutout round, despite Santiago not throwing his power shots, because Luevano only threw four punches that I could see during the entire round. Instead, he followed Santiago around and faked a lot as if he were going to punch.

Santiago let up in the 12th round, not punching, moving constantly, as if he thought he had the fight in the bag. In hindsight, the move cost him the victory, because the fight was far too close to ease up at this point. Luevano once again took advantage of Santiago not punching and jabbed his way through the round.