By Eric Thomas: Newly crowned IBF bantamweight champion Abner Mares (22-0, 13 KO’s) says he’s open to giving Joseph Agbeko (28-3, 22 KO’s) a rematch after beating him by a 12 round majority decision in a low-blow plagued fight last night at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mares wants to move on to bigger fights such as a unification bout with WBC/WBO bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire.

However, because of the public anger over how many low blows Mares landed in the Agbeko fight, he might find it hard to walk away from this fight and ignore Agbeko’s requests for a rematch. Showtime’s Jim Grey asked Mares if he would agree to give Agbeko a rematch, and he said he would. Mares said he thought that his shots were landing on the beltline during the fight, and the ones that he did land low where when Agbeko was pulling down on his head.

Mares had a point. Agbeko did pull down on Mares’ head frequently and that did cause him to land a lot of shots below the beltline. However, Mares appeared to land many more shots low even when not being pulled behind the head.

Agbeko’s promoter is lodging a protest to the International Boxing Federation about the job that the referee Russell Mora did in the fight, and will be trying to get the IBF to mandate a rematch. It’s unclear whether they’ll do that. It might not be needed if Mares does opt to give him a rematch. It’s going to be up to him and his promoters from Golden Boy whether they want to live with this decision and try walking away or whether they want to clear up the controversy by fighting him again.

Showtime analysts were livid watching the fight, counting as many 20 low blows from Mares. They felt he should have been penalized multiple times by Mora. However, it never happened and when Mares knocked Agbeko down with a clear low blow in the 11th, it really set the analysts off.