Daniel Roman and TJ Doheny met in a 122-pound unification fight that had some fairly high expectations going in, and it’s safe to say that the two men surpassed those expectations in a fantastic 12-round war.
Our Rungvisai-Estrada 2 live coverage continues here!
In the end, it was Roman getting his hand raised and adding the IBF belt to the WBA belt he came in with, taking a majority decision win on scores of 113-113, 116-110, and 116-110. Bad Left Hook had it 114-112 and 116-110, both of our unofficial cards for Roman.
Roman (27-2-1, 10 KO) and Doheny (21-1, 15 KO) both absolutely fought their guts out in this one, and the action was consistent throughout the fight. Doheny went down in the second round on a left hook, more a shot that caught him a bit off-balance than anything, which Roman seemed to realize, as he didn’t try to jump on a finishing effort when the fight resumed.
Doheny battled back, with a crowd-pleasing flurry in the fourth round and a good stretch in the seventh that saw him seemingly hurt Roman a bit. But Roman’s relentless body attack wound up making the difference in the fight, as he punished Doheny’s ribs — promoter Eddie Hearn speculated during the fight on social media that Doheny may have broken some ribs — and just kept bringing the fight to Doheny.
Doheny was buckled in the ninth round, then hurt clearly on a body shot late. Roman continued the body work in the 10th frame, and then finally put Doheny down again in the 11th on another wicked body shot.
The game Doheny got up and carried on again, and even put in work in the 12th round. It stayed a true competitive fight all the way through, even when Roman was clearly breaking Doheny down and sapping some of his power.
“TJ, all my respect for him as a fighter, as a person. He was strong,” Roman said after the fight. “I don’t take nothing away from TJ. He’s a great champion.”
Roman called out WBC titleholder Rey Vargas (33-0, 22 KO) for further unification, but may have to deal with WBA mandatory challenger Murodjon Akhmadaliev. There will also be some demand for a rematch with Doheny, but that just might not be doable right away.
Doheny was as classy in defeat as Roman was in victory.
“I wanna congratulate Danny. He’s a great figher but more importantly, he’s an absolute gentleman. That’s more important to me than anything,” Doheny said. He said that Roman caught him with a good body shot in the middle rounds that he felt he never fully recovered from.
CompuBox saw Roman landing 195 of 742 (26%) total punches, and 174 of 532 (33%) power shots, while Doheny connected on 150 of 503 (30%) total punches, and 127 of 356 (36%) power shots.