Last night at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, unbeaten 135 pounders Rolando Romero and Jackson Marinez squared off for the interim WBA lightweight title. At the end of the 12 rounds, almost everyone felt Marinez, 19-0(7) going in, had more than done enough to have won. But no, a unanimous decision that has stunned many, outraged plenty, was instead turned in in favour of Romero.
Romero, now 12-0(10) was awarded the fight by a whopping 118-110 margin, along with two closer scores of 116-112 and 115-113. Mayweather fighter Romero, Floyd’s newest world champion, was bombarded with questions regarding the legitimacy of his win at the post-fight presser, Romero fast becoming visibly annoyed.
“You guys say I had a bad performance. I don’t think I had a bad performance,” Romero said. “He came out a little bit tougher and slicker than I thought. But all he did was move around the entire fight. He didn’t try to engage at all. I hurt him multiple times, with body shots, with a few hooks. There was one moment I hurt him with a right hand and he pulled my head down. It was hard to finish him off because I hurt him a lot at the end of the rounds.”
Marinez strongly disagrees, and he has plenty of people on his side; people who feel Marinez did a great job of outboxing Romero, of “taking him to school.” Romero is wrong when he says he hurt Marinez “multiple times,” these people insist.
“That was pure robbery,” Marinez said firmly. “I won the fight. I out-jabbed him, outboxed him. You could tell he didn’t think he won the fight right afterwards. It’s a robbery.”
Trainer Robert Garcia went further. Speaking straight after the fight with ES News, Garcia was fuming:
“Romero shouldn’t be proud of himself. Mayweather isn’t proud of his fighter,” Garcia said. “[Marinez] boxed the shit out of him! It’s embarrassing. I gave Romero three or four rounds at the most. Those judges, they know who they’re working for.”
A rematch has been called for by almost everyone who saw last night’s fight. For his part, Romero says he will grant Marinez a return:
“Yeah [I would give him a rematch]. He didn’t do anything special,” the victor said.
There is no doubt last night’s scoring of what looked like a commanding performance by Marinez needs looking at by the WBA, and it seems this will be the case. Robbery of The Year 2020 so far? Maybe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=becL0eunKR4
