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Without meaning any disrespect to Bryant Jennings' effort in a split decision win tonight on HBO over Mike Perez, the story of the fight unfortunately wound up referee Harvey Dock, whose one-point deduction from Perez for hitting on the break in round 12 cost Perez what would have been a draw, handing him his first professional loss.
Jennings (19-0, 10 KO) won on scores of 114-113, 115-112, and 113-114, a split decision victory that wound up coming down to that single point deducted by the referee. Without that, scores would have been 114-114 on two cards, and 115-113 Jennings on the third, making for a majority draw.
Perez (20-1-1, 12 KO) can't entirely blame Dock, however. The Cuban started well, winning the first three rounds by most eyes, and the first four on our card, which eventually went to Jennings, 114-113. After that, he seemed to tire, and also seemed to lose his concentration pretty consistently, allowing Jennings to grind his way back into the fight over the middle rounds. Perez and his team can blame Dock, and it's understandable if they do, but there were a lot of rounds where Perez was simply outworked and outfought by Jennings, who had dug himself a hole early and didn't look comfortable at all. He adjusted, and Perez didn't.
CompuBox had Perez landing 149 of 513 punches (29%), compared to 116 of 571 from Perez (20%). Power punches edged to Jennings, who was 136/362 (38%) to Perez's 104/345 (30%).
How did you score this one?