ShoBox highlights and results: Jamaine Ortiz stays unbeaten, Marquis Taylor unlucky in draw with Paul Kroll

The latest edition of ShoBox: The New Generation is in the books, with lightweight prospect Jamaine Ortiz impressing in a main event victory, and controversy in the co-feature.

We’ll get to the co-feature in a moment, but first let’s talk about Ortiz, who goes to 15-0-1 (8 KO) with a clear 10-round decision win over Nahir Albright on scores of 97-93, 97-93, and 98-92. Bad Left Hook had it even clearer in Ortiz’s favor, scoring it 99-91.

Ortiz, 25, was effective pretty much throughout the fight, just showing more dimensions to his game than Albright (14-2, 7 KO), who had moments in almost every round and was there to go to war late when Ortiz tried for a stoppage in the eighth and ninth rounds. When that didn’t happen, Ortiz laid back a bit but still had a good 10th round, landing the better shots.

Ortiz was coming off of a draw with Joseph Adorno 10 months ago on a Top Rank card, a fight where Ortiz was really the better fighter overall, probably, but did get dropped twice, and that counts. He showed he had learned from that one, and his gas tank looked good going 10 rounds for the first time in his pro career. He’s not a blue chip guy, but he’s a talented fighter that high level promoters have on their radars at this point. If nothing else, he figures to be a good action fighter, his fights are never boring.

Paul Kroll D-8 Marquis Taylor

A horrible decision, as Taylor clearly deserved to win this fight. Bad Left Hook had it 79-73 for Taylor, same as Showtime’s Steve Farhood. One judge (Joe Ware) was in line with that, giving every round to Taylor for an 80-72 score. The other two had it 76-76 (Alex Levin), which is bad enough, and 77-75 Kroll (Tito Wilgo), which is even worse.

Kroll (9-0-1, 6 KO) seemed to at least partially recognize that he was lucky to not take an L here. He and Taylor (12-1-2, 1 KO) weren’t on the microphones or anything, but they weren’t combative after it was over, though they had very different body languages as you’d expect. Kroll could be heard telling Taylor they could run it back, and they should.

Kroll, a 26-year-old Philadelphia junior middleweight, was wild and never found a real rhythm in this fight, got no momentum, but through three it was pretty close. Even through four, maybe. But starting in the four round, Taylor, 28, took over. He hurt Kroll a bit in the fifth and sixth rounds, nothing huge, but certainly noticeable. The best card I can see for Kroll is 77-75 in Taylor’s favor. He had no business getting four rounds or more here.

You really have to feel for Taylor, whose pro blemishes are this, a 2019 draw with Luke Santamaria (who can fight), and a 2015 loss to Ladarius Miller (who can fight) in a four-rounder. He may top out at prospect checker, but he deserved to win this fight.

For what it’s worth, CompuBox had Taylor landing 109 of 440 (25%) total punches, including 98 of 290 (34%) of his power shots, compared to Kroll at 84 of 323 (26%) total punches and 71 of 242 (29%) power punches. Sometimes the numbers don’t tell the story, but they kind of do in this fight, including that Taylor started really taking over in the fourth. It’s a tough break for Taylor, a lucky one for Kroll.