(Photo credit: Showtime Sports) By Dan Ambrose: WBC super bantamweight champion Abner Mares (25-0-1, 13 KO’s) defeated challenger Anselmo Moreno (33-2-1, 12 KO’s) by a hard fought 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night to retain his World Boxing Council 122 pound title at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. 116-110, 116-110, and 120-106. The scoring was kind of off on one of the judges card that scored it 120-106.

That’s pretty sad scoring of a fight because there’s no way Mares won every round of the fight. In fact, I thought Moreno had won at least six of the rounds, so it’s sad to see a judge that had Mares winning every round.

Mares lucked out in a couple of ways in this fight. First of all, he got away with a knockdown of Moreno in the 5th where the only punch he landed was on the backside of Moreno. How the referee Raul Caiz Jr. could have not seen that the punch was an illegal shot to the backside is the question. The second way that Mares lucked out was with the referee Caiz Jr. taking a point away from Moreno in the 11th for Moreno pulling down on Mares’ head.

While Moreno did do this it wasn’t as if he had been doing it all night long. In the issue of fairness, Mares was landing low blows in every round of the fight and yet the referee didn’t take a point away for that. So it just looked strange that Moreno would have a point taken away for pulling down on the head, something he didn’t do that much, while Mares was able to get away with landing low blows and shots to the back without having points taken away.

If you took away the knockdown and the point deduction the fight was a draw, which is what it should have been.

After the fight Showtime interviewer Jim Gray asked Mares if he would be interested in facing IBF bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz next. Mares said “I want to fight Nonito Donaire. That’s a step back for me. Are you kidding? Let’s pressure Bob Arum and Nonito. We want that fight.”

Moreno said “I definitely thought the scores should have been a lot closer, but I fought a great champion in Abner Mares.”

Mares shouldn’t waste his breath asking for the Donaire fight because it’s not going to happen. Arum already said that he’d make the fight if and when Mares’ contract with Golden Boy Promotions expires. In other words, it doesn’t look as if the fight will happen unless Mares leaves Golden Boy. Will he do that just to get the Donaire fight? That’s the big question.