Thrills, Chills and Spills in Las Vegas

Posted by Ryan Bates on 10.31.2009

DeMarco pitches a shutout, Perez squeaks one by, Joe Cortez can't stop fights properly, judges fail at scoring.


Photo by Tom Casino / Showtime

In what was a much closer fight than judges would have you believe, Yonnhy Perez won the IBF Bantamweight championship from Joseph "King Kong" Agbeko.

Both warriors traded the entire fight. Agbeko changed his fight plan around round three, beginning to fight as a shorter man, and it worked well, until it went too far south and headed to the low blow region. Perez took advantage and put Agbeko on defense in the middle rounds.

From that point on it was a matter of who could land just one more. The middle rounds were very close and could have gone either way. When you thought one had it up, the other landed another big punch. Perez started to slow down toward the end of nine.

In the tenth round, Agbeko and Perez clashed heads a second time, and Agbeko complained about the butt. Referee Tony Weeks, however, did not call a halt to the action, and Perez, playing by the adage of "Protect yourself at all times," took advantage, knocking down Agbeko, costing him a point.

The last two rounds were the two boxers throwing everything they had left in the tank. Back and forth the action went. I had Agbeko up by one single point, 114-113, but if Perez's hand was raised, I would not have been surprised.

But I was surprised. Not by the decision, but by the wide margin. Unanimous for Perez, 117-110, 116-111, and 117-110. As they would say in the other sporting event that happened tonight, wide and outside.

"He head butted me in round 10. I don't think that was fair," said Agbeko. "The reply clearly shows what happened. I was fighting well to that point. I thought I was winning the fight. Perez seemed energized after being awarded the knockdown and I was never the same after his head hit mine. We will never know what would have happened had there not been a head butt."

"I knew I was winning the rounds and I deserved to get the victory. I trained to throw a lot of punches," exclaimed Perez. "I know Agbeko likes to throw a lot of punches, so I knew I had to be better conditioned. All the hard work and preparation paid off. This is a dream come true. (On the knockdown) I don't think he was in good shape. I think he went down to catch his breath. I felt I was more consistent, more active and I pressed the fight throughout."
As for the co-main event, to say there was a boxing match between Antonio DeMarco and Jose Alfaro is kind of a misnomer. It was no match.

DeMarco cleanly pummeled Alfaro for 9 and 2/3 rounds before Alfaro fell a third time in the 10th round. DeMarco expertly used his jab to break open Alfaro's defense and set up the straight right. And when the straight right landed, so did the left hook, right uppercut, and everything else DeMarco decided to through.

Alfaro managed to land a few punches in round 4, but that's about it. The beatings continued until round ten, when finally Alfaro finally succumbs to a sharp right uppercut off the ropes and goes down. Joe Cortez let the fight go on but Alfaro went down again. Amidst the crowd's pleas to stop the fight, Cortez let it continue until Alfaro finally succumbed in the corner at the 2:07 mark in a half-knockdown, half-knee.

Said DeMarco in an emotional interview after the fight, "I can't explain this. I've been thinking about this for so long."