Edner Cherry took home a decision tonight on FS1 over Omar Douglas. I have been having a real hard time trying to figure out why ever since. Overall it was a night of questionable judging in pretty average fights. No fights were terrible, but none were particularly good either and two had very unsatisfying decisions. All too often boxing is not at its best and tonight was one of those nights.
Cherry came out in the first winging power shots as he often does. Douglas was unable to get much going in response. Douglas controlled the second behind his jabs and two good left hooks with about a minute to go in the round. Cherry did nothing until the ten second warning at which he flurried and may have slightly wobbled Douglas at the bell, but it was too late to win the round.
In the third Cherry was a little more active and landing a few bigger shots whereas Douglas was largely ineffective except for a couple nice hooks in the last twenty seconds, but too little too late there. Douglas spent most of the fourth confusing Cherry with movement, but he didn’t really land anything. Cherry established his jab in the last minute and that is always good for him.
Round five was the best round for both fighters so far, but I liked Douglas’ hooks a little better. Six was a very good round for Douglas. He can’t fight and move, but he was able to pick when they were fighting and got the better of it easily when he did. I had it an even fight through six rounds.
Douglas lands a big, lunging left hook to close the seventh. Probably won the round too. Cherry’s meaningful output had fallen hard at this point. Over eight and nine it largely felt like Douglas was controlling the action, and Cherry did next to nothing but hold in the tenth.
Fan scoring had an easy win for Douglas and I had him winning 97-93 too. I felt uneasy about how I scored the fifth for Douglas, so if we swing that back to Cherry we get a 96-94 Douglas win. To find two more rounds for to swing to Edner Cherry is difficult in my mind and that would only get us to the two 96-94 Cherry cards that were turned in. The 98-92 card is indefensible. The FS1 TV crew felt the judging was poor as well.
Look, I hate robbery cries. Kovalev/Ward, for example, was nothing even close to a robbery. Every year we get fans of one fighter who loses a close fight calling robbery in every direction they can possible yell it. They rarely are.
This though? Maybe. This was close to a robbery. It might have been. I am just hesitant to ever use the word.
A shot of a despondent Omar Douglas leaning on the ropes and staring down trying to process what just happened to him was heartbreaking. He now falls to 17-2 (12 KOs) and will need to put a string of wins together to recover from the damage judges incorrectly inflicted on him. Cherry gets a second straight decision he probably didn’t deserve and moves to 36-7-2 (19 KOs). He will probably get a title shot now. If I was say on team Geronta Davis, I’d be itching to get Cherry in there.
I’d also like to take a second to call out the larger boxing media who have been matter of factly reporting the result of the fight without any editorializing. Boxing isn’t the NFL; you do not get a clean score that means something clear at the end of the night. Certainly not every night, anyway. To report this result without discussing its at minimum questionable nature is to further steal from Omar Douglas. It also tells me these sites likely didn’t even watch the fight, which is the most concerning point of all.
Anyway, on the televised undercard first Frank De Alba (22-2-2, 9 KOs) decisioned Ryan Kielczweski (26-3, 8 KOs) with some controversy. The controversy isn’t necessarily that he won as it felt like a fight that he could have narrowly nicked, but the unanimous decision he received felt especially generous with one card somehow coming back a shut out. I scored it a draw.
In the second fight Philadelphia’s Stephen Fulton Jr moved to 11-0 (5 KOs) with a hard fought, well earned unanimous decision over Puerto Rico’s Luis Rosario who falls to 8-1-1 (7 KOs). Rosario found success inside about every round, but Fulton was usually able to match him there while completely controlling the outside and fairly winning the majority of rounds. I scored it 78-74 Fulton Jr.
