Adrien Broner and Jessie Vargas put on a show this past weekend, reminding all of us how exciting an action-filled boxing match can be.
Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY, Adrien Broner (33-3-1, 24 KOs) and Jessie Vargas (28-2-1, 10 KOs) gave the 13,964 fans in attendance one heck of a fight.
Unfortunately, no winner was declared as the fight was ruled a majority draw. Judge Julie Lederman scored the fight in favor of Broner 115-113, but the other two judges, Eric Marlinski and Kevin Morgan, scored it 114-114.
We at Elite Sports NY scored Round 1 a draw and we had Broner winning the fight 115-114.
After the fight, Broner adamantly proclaimed that he won the fight.
“I beat him 7-5 [in rounds]. As you can see, I was letting my hands go more. I felt great. I ain’t got a scratch on me. He’s f—ed up.
“I want to thank Jessie Vargas. He’s a two-time world champion for a reason. He came to fight, but at the end of the day, you all know I beat him. Point blank, period. I was connecting with right hands. I got warmed up in the early portion of the fight before taking over.”
Vargas also expressed that he felt he won the fight during his post-fight interview.
“I saw myself winning, but if the judges said it was a draw, you have to respect that,” Vargas said. “I think it was a good fight. The fans seemed to like it. I hit the body, I worked inside. In the beginning, I worked the distance. In the later rounds, I let him come at me and was looking for the counterpunch.”
.@AdrienBroner and @JVargasBoxing has been declared a majority draw. #BronerVargas pic.twitter.com/ausY8NBW6M
— SHOWTIME Boxing (@ShowtimeBoxing) April 22, 2018
Vargas controlled the action in the early rounds by being the aggressor and landing punches to Broner’s body. But Broner began to come on in the middle rounds and was landing the harder and cleaner punches.
Those shots eventually caused Vargas’ face began to swell up and Broner opened up a cut on Vargas’s left eye in round 11 after landing a right hand.
Punch stats show Broner landing 194 out of 507 punches (38 percent) compared to Vargas who connected on 203 out 839 punches (24 percent).
Broner earned $1 million for the fight while Vargas’ payday was $500,000. If there is a rematch—and after giving fans a good action-filled fight, you can be sure that a rematch will be in demand—both fighters should see their purses increase.
After all, we still don’t know who the better fighter is.
