By Jason Kim: World Boxing Council (WBC) Silver bantamweight champion Abner Mares (22-0, 13 KO’s) put on a clinic in throwing beautiful low blows on Saturday night in defeating International Boxing Federation (IBF) bantamweight champion Joseph Agbeko (28-3, 22 KO’s) by a very controversial 12 round majority decision on Saturday night in the finals of Showtimes’ bantamweight tourney at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The final judges’ scores were 115-111, 113-113, 115-111. I’ve personally can say I’ve never seen a fighter throw as many low blows in a fight before as I have Mares and get away with it. Mares threw enough low blows to last six or seven fights, yet he was never penalized once by referee Russell Mora.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Agbeko was knocked down twice in the fight and neither of them looked legit to me. In the 1st round, Agbeko was hit by a looping left hand by Mares as he was slipping. Mora ruled it a knockdown despite Agbeko appearing to slip as the punch was thrown.
The other knockdown occured in the 11th when Mares landed a hard left hand that hit Agbeko straight in the groin. It wasn’t even close to being a legal punch, yet referee Mora failed to call it a low blow. But was was worse is that after Agbeko hit the canvas holding onto his groin, the referee ruled it a knockdown. That move basically put the fight out of touch for Agbeko, forcing him into a situation where he absolutely needed a knockout to win. Mares played it safe after the 11th round knockdown, choosing to move and keep away from Agbeko for the remainder of the 11th and most of the 12th.
After the fight, when asked if he would give Agbeko a rematch to clear up the controversy of the fight, Mares reluctantly agree. However, it won’t be up to him, as his promoters from Golden Boy Promotions might have other ideas if someone like WBC/WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire shows interest in fighting Mares. I wouldn’t like Mare’s chances at all against Donaire.
He wouldn’t have a chance even if he tees off all night long with low blows. Mares just isn’t powerful enough to compete with a guy like Donaire, and a different referee will likely penalize Mares over and over again until he’s disqualified.
In all honestly, Mares didn’t deserve to win tonight’s fight because he really should have been penalized at least once in every round because of his constant low blows. And sadly, this was the second consecutive fight for Mares where he’s landed a ton of low blows. In his fight before this against Vic Darchinyan, Mares was teeing off on Darchinyan all night long with low blows to the point where Darchinyan could hardly do anything without getting tagged south of the border.
In that fight, Mares was penalized once, although he arguably should have been disqualified for his storm of low blows. But tonight’s fight was all time high for Mares in terms of low blows. I lost count after the 20th low blow. There may have been as many as 30 by him in the fight, which is incredible given that he was never penalized. We saw recently Edison Miranda get disqualified by referee Vic Drakulich for throwing only a tiny portion of the low blows that Mares threw. I wonder how long Mares would have lasted in this fight had Drakulich been working it instead of Mora.
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