Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter fought to an extremely close decision in the Barclay’s center with Porter wearing the belt after the final bell. Yordenis Ugas and Adam Kownacki picked up wins as well.
The main event opened with a strong round from Danny Garcia (34-2, 20 KOs). “Showtime” Shawn Porter (29-2-1, 17 KOs) tried to fight more at range and it left him ripe for counters. The difference in the second round wasn’t quite as dramatic, but it was still the same story. It was clear to me that Porter’s decision to box early wasn’t going to win him many rounds. Round three was the closest of the fight in its early stages. Danny still won it though. His left hook was working and Porter was using a strange strategy and backing up far too much.
While he didn’t come forward with the same intensity as he had in other recent fights, Shawn Porter did up his aggression enough in the fourth to clearly take his first round of the fight. The fifth was a slower and very close round. Porter was more active and even landed a few nice counter right hands out of character, but Garcia ripped well back to the body too. I shaded it to Showtime Shawn. The sixth was again similar. Stylistically this was not the fight that everyone had expected.
The seventh wasn’t close. The Shawn Porter we’ve come to know showed up, headbutts and all. Garcia was never hurt or in any serious trouble, but he got touched up just the same. Shawn also had a great eighth round, especially in its first half. His Philly opponent did settle down and dig well to his body at the end of the frame though. In fact, he carried that bit of success through the ninth. Garcia’s left hook returned and he got some rights in too. I had Shawn Porter up only one round going into the double digit rounds.
Round ten was both intense and a good amount of fun. Both men brawled in the center of the ring for parts of it. This made the sharper, more accurate shots coming from Garcia the effective ones. The margin separating the men in the eleventh was crazy narrow. It was basically a toss up round. Round twelve wasn’t much clearer, but I did feel comfortable scoring it to Porter. I had the fight a draw and the official cards came back 116-112 and 115-113 twice for Shawn Porter. He is your new WBC welterweight titleholder.
Post-fight Errol Spence Jr entered the ring to hype up the inevitable unification fight with Porter. That’ll be another big one. Danny Garcia complained a bit about the decision as fighters sometimes do, but there is no issue with the decision. It just needed to be close and it was.
Yordenis Ugas (23-3, 11 KOs) put on a dominant display over lesser know Argentinian fighter Cesar Barrionuevo (34-4-2, 24 KOs) in the co-main event. Boo birds rang down on the combatants, but I thought that was a bit much. The fans at the Barclay’s Center were just spoiled from the heavyweight slugfest that came before it. Even though I didn’t find the fight boring, it was extremely one sided and it did get repetitive at times tough. Basically Barrionuevo would attack from too far away with his powerful on paper at least left hand and Yordenis would rip him underneath with fierce counters to the body. There were times I thought the unknown Argentinian was about to crumble, but in truth Ugas is a pretty terrible finisher. He gets reckless and throws long, aimless combinations that don’t amount to much because so little lands whenever he thinks he has his man hurt. That is why he doesn’t get finishes. In the end he got close to a perfect shut out with one 119-109 dissenting against the two expected 120-108s.
Boy, what an opener this show had. I said in the preview that I liked the fight, but that I thought Adam Kownacki (18-0, 14 KOs) would roll over Charles Martin (25-2-1, 23 KOs) about halfway through their scheduled ten round fight. I was wrong. It didn’t look that way as Kownacki was close to as dominant as I expected early, but instead of folding “Prince” Charles actually ended up rallying down the stretch as the two big men warred on the inside. Both men landed hellacious blows as time counted down in one of the better heavyweight bouts of recent memory. The scores came back 96-94 across the board, but really both men come out winners from this one. Kownacki got the literal win and continued his climb towards a title shot, but in many ways Martin might have come out of this with the more important result: legitimacy. I don’t think there is any real question that Charles Martin was the least deserving heavyweight titleholder in the modern history of the sport. He was a punch line coming into this fight. Now we can take him seriously as a fighter for the first time thanks to his performance here in a close loss.
