By James Slater: Last night at The Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, unbeaten lightweight Brandon Rios retained his “0” with a 12-round split decision win over Cuba’s Richard Abril. Oxnard’s Rios won by scores of 115-113 and 116-112, the third judge gave the score as 117-111 for Abril, the WBA interim champ.
25-year-old Rios, who is now 30-0-1(22) does not claim the WBA 135-pound belt, as he failed (once again) to make the 135-pound limit on the scales. 29-year-old Abril, now 17-3-1(8) retains his position as WBA interim champ despite the loss.
Right, that’s the official particulars out of the way; now on to the truth. Last night’s split decision “win” for Rios was not only a disgusting robbery, it was arguably one of the WORST in boxing history. No way Rios, who was sluggish, slow and easy to hit, won this one. This one was just wrong.
Abril, to quote commentator Brian Kenny, “took Rios to school.” Did he ever. For round after round after round, the classy Cuban put on a fine Floyd Mayweather Junior impersonation as he out-boxed Rios, countered his crude attacks and cutely blocked 90-percent of what came his way. If you were being generous, you could maybe have given Rios two rounds (the 3rd and the 8th – I had the fight 10 rounds to 2 for Abril).
Rios tried to push the work out at times, but he never once cut the ring off on Abril, instead just walking in. Once he did get inside, Rios’ attacks were wild and amateurish, with the too-clever Abril using his superb defensive skills and then launching his own shots; punches that were accurate – his left jab and his right hands to the head being especially impressive. Time and again an advancing Rios was made to pay with right hands to the head and jaw. Abril also worked the body well at times.
Neither man was ever hurt in the fight – an engrossing 12-rounder that will have made the purists smile due to the smart work of the gifted Cuban who had talked his way into last night’s fight after countryman Yuriorkis Gamboa messed up his own shot at Rios – but the disgraceful scoring of two of the three judges will not only have hurt Abril, it may have hurt the sport as well.
In fact, last night’s decision was so bad, an investigation will surely be forthcoming. Watching the fight live on T.V, I said to myself, “there’s no way they can possibly rob Abril!” But they did, and boxing is in a far worse place for it.
Rios got lucky in the fight being allowed to even go ahead after his lack of professionalism on the scale – he got even luckier when the judges handed in their cards. This one was bad enough to turn off many a fan for good!
In other fights on the card:
Mike Alvarado UD 10 Mauricio Herrera
Mikael Zewski TKO 6 Brandon Baue
Terence Crawford KO 5 Andre Gorges
Tremaine Williams TKO 1 Jesse Anguiano
Anthony Flores KO 1 Gabriel Medina
Mercito Gesta TKO 8 Oscar Cuero