By Scott Gilfoid: WBA World bantamweight champion Jamie McDonnell (29-2-1, 13 KOs) and his promoter Eddie Hearn gave no indication that they’ll be giving a rematch to #2 WBA contender Liborio Solis (25-5-1, 11 KOs) after beating him by a very, very controversial 12 round unanimous decision win last Saturday night at the Salle des Etoiles in Monte Carlos.
The judges had McDonnell winning by the following scores: 117-111, 116-112 and 115-113.
The 30-year-old McDonnell says he was surprised there was any controversy, because he felt he won the fight. Hearn believes that McDonnell did just enough to nick the decision. Unfortunately, many of the boxing fans at ringside and on the internet disagreed with the decision, as many of them feel that the 34-year-old Solis had done more than enough to get the win.
What’s sad though is that McDonnell and Hearn are not showing interest in clearly up the controversy by giving Solis a rematch. Hearn says he thinks it’s time for McDonnell to move up in weight to the super bantamweight division, as he feels there are some big fights for him in that weight division. McDonnell says he’s leaving it up to Hearn to find him a big fight. He wants to move forward with his career. In other words, there won’t be a rematch with Solis to clear up the controversy. That’s sad news, because so many boxing fans felt that he lost the fight last night.
You hate to see fighters get dominated as badly as McDonnell did and have them move on, as if they won the fight. I had Solis winning 9 rounds to 3 last night. I couldn’t give McDonnell more than three rounds. I felt like I was being kind to him by giving him three rounds, because honestly, he only appeared to win two rounds. The rest of the fight was all Solis, as he bloodied McDonnell’s nose and gave him a royal pounding from start to finish. McDonnell fought well in two rounds near the end of the fight, but that’s about it.
“I thought the scorecards were very wide,” said Hearn after the fight. “I had Jamie just nicking the fight. Great performance from Solis. That’s the fifth defense of his bantamweight title. Dave Coldwell said to me, ‘I think it’s time to move up.’ There’s some great fights at super bantamweight. That was an incredible effort from Jaime McDonnell. That was a very tough challenge from Solis. People gave Solis very little chance. He’s a former super flyweight champion of the world, and a great fighter. That was a voluntary that Jaime and Dave Coldwell chose. After three rounds, I was wondering why they chose it. Great fight and great performance,” said Hearn
It’s pretty sad that Hearn can’t admit when his own fighter has been beaten. It’s refreshing when you see a promoter admit that their fighter got worked over. Hearn wasn’t willing to admit what was painfully obvious from last Saturday’s fight. McDonnell got dominated by Solis in what many fans saw as an old fashioned hometown decision.
“We move on, we won,” McDonnell about his fight against Solis. “Let’s see if Eddie can pull a big name out of the bag.”
If McDonnell does move up to 122, Hearn might opt to put him in with Scott Quigg. That would be a mismatch though. Quigg would destroy the light hitting McDonnell in my view. Hearn can’t put McDonnell in with WBA champion Guillermo Rigondeaux, because he’s too talented for him, and he’d end up getting clowned by the Cuban. Hearn also can’t put McDonnell in with WBO champion Jessie Magdaleno, because he’s too fast, and would embarrass him as well.
Of course, if you have judges scoring the fight in the way that they did last night, I guess McDonnell would be fine against Rigondeaux and Magdalenlo. But if you have good judging, then McDonnell would be hopelessly over-matched against either of those fighters. Judges wouldn’t matter in a fight between McDonnell and Quigg. McDonnell would simply be knocked out. Hearn could go after WBC super bantamweight champion Hozumi Hasagawa. He’s clearly the weak link right now at 122, but I don’t think it would be a ‘big fight’ for McDonnell. It would be a small fight. It would be another paper title for McDonnell. If he won the belt, he wouldn’t be the best fighter or even the second best fighter at 122. He’d just be a paper champion. McDonnell would lose to the top guys in the 122lb division in the big fights.
If Hearn wants to call a fight between McDonnell and Hasagawa a big fight, then that’s him. I don’t think it’s a big fight. McDonnell won’t be able to stay at 118 for too much longer before his luck runs out and he gets beaten. I doubt the World Boxing Association will drop Solis too far in their rankings after the questionable decision from last night. Solis will keep the pressure on McDonnell and get another title shot before long. Unless you get another highly questionable decision, McDonnell will lose to Solis in the rematch. I honestly think that Solis beats McDonnell every day of the week. The only way McDonnell beats Solis is with oddball judging like last Saturday night’s.
Solis is a former WBA super flyweight champion. He clearly had the faster hands and the better punching power compared to McDonnell in this fight. Solis looked like the far better fighter of the two. The fight was so one-sided that it was a judge-proof fight. It was the type of one-sided affair that you would think that no judge, no matter how poor, could mess things up. Well, we saw for ourselves that these judges saw a different fight than many of the boxing fans that viewed it as a slam dunk win for Solis.
The win for McDonnell was his fifth successful defense of his WBA title. McDonnell had looked good in his previous defenses of his title. It was surprising how bad he was last night. It wasn’t an off night though for McDonnell. He was just in with a better fighter than himself, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. The 5’4” Solis was able to get inside the long reach of the 5’10” McDonnell, and pound him with shots over and over again. Solis was able to back McDonnell to the ropes and pound the living daylights out of him.
Normally when judges see that kind of thing happening round after round, they’re able to figure out which fighter won the fight. This time they didn’t. They gave the guy that was getting worked over the win by giving it to McDonnell. You’ve got to feel sorry for Solis, because it was such a poorly scored fight. It was the type of fight that seemed so obvious who the winner was. It’s too bad that Solis won’t be getting a rematch, because he deserves one in my view.
Solis was too quick for the long-armed, slow-handed McDonnell. Right from the outset, Solis was all over McDonnell, nailing him with blistering fast shots to the head and body. It didn’t matter that Solis was giving up six inches in height to the 5’10” McDonnell. He was simply too fast and too powerful for him. McDonnell’s nose was bleeding from round one after he took some big shots. Things looked bleak for McDonnell, as it appeared that he was on his way to losing the fight. What we didn’t know at that time was that the three judges that worked the fight were seeing a different fight from many of the fans. What appeared to be Solis dominating the fight was seen the opposite way around. Look at the scoring from two of them judges who gave the fight to McDonnell by the scores 117-111, 116-112. Those were shocking scores. I thought it was a clear win for Solis. I guess I was wrong.