December 3, 2011 was a night of rematches free of controversy. The crowd at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California was electric as they witnessed Abner Mares (23-0-1 13 KOs) out box and out work Joseph “King Kong” Agbeko (28-4 22KOs) This time it was a clear unanimous decision. In their first fight Mares won a controversial decision which overshadowed his achievement of capturing the IBF bantamweight title.
This time though from the sound of the first bell you could tell Abner was determined to prove to everybody that he deserved to be the champion.
The first round started out with Agbeko working his jab and working the body. It was slow paced in the beginning but it picked up with some great exchanges. Abner seemed to abandon his body work in the first round fighting a very safe clean fight. It didn’t stay like that much longer.
The second round was close at the start but Abner with seemed to have the upper hand in the exchanges. Landing clean hooks to the body and head of Agbeko during those exchanges, at one point he had Agbeko off balanced and attacked him before the round was over. Mares suffered a cut over his right eye from a clash of heads in the middle of the round but even with the blood covering his right side of the face, it did not affect him.
Round 3 Abner let loose. Possibly due to the cut over his eye, he was throwing to the body and head. Agbeko was warned in the round for pulling down on Mares head.
The 4th had to be one of the slowest rounds for both fighters with Abner controlling it. The next round seemed to be one of the closest rounds. Agbeko was looking good until the end of the round when during an exchange he got rocked right before the end of the round.
Rounds 6-7 were all Abner. With him continuing to attack the body and getting Agbeko to exchange in close quarters giving Mares the opportunity to land the hooks constantly. The eighth round was a round filled with multiple exchanges. Except this time Joseph Agbeko had the slight edge. That would be the last round Agbeko had any edge.
From the 9th – 12th Abner controlled and out work Joseph Agbeko. Mares raised his hands in the 12th round getting the crowd in a frenzy and still slugged it out with Agbeko. Once the bell rang, both fighters put their hands up in victory but the crowd already knew who won.
All three judges scored the fight the same, 118-110 in favor of the IBF Bantamweight Champion, Abner Mares. Joseph Agbeko and his team were very upset thinking they won but this time there wasn’t any controversy in the decision.
Abner was taken to the hospital afterwards for his eye and was not at the press conference.
In the co-main event Anselmo Moreno (32-1-1 11 KOs) retained his WBA Bantamweight Super title by out boxing and out smarting former champion Vic Darchinyan (37-4-1 27 KOs). Moreno won a unanimous decision but with some controversial scoring. Judge Jen Kin had it 116-111, Judge English had it 117-110, and the widest margin was Judge Cobian 120-107 not giving a round to Darchinyan. In the post fight press conference promoter Gary Shaw was outraged about the scoring and asked that the California State Commission to investigate that judge and suspend him for scoring like that, regardless if the winner is correct, he believed it was bad for boxing.
Josh McDaniel
Original Story:
http://ropeadoperadio.com/xn/detail/6...
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December 04, 2011
