Davis vs Garcia full fight video highlights and results: Roiman Villa upsets Rashidi Ellis with two 12th round knockdowns

Roiman Villa pulled one out of the fire tonight, winning a controversial majority decision over Rashidi Ellis thanks to a pair of 12th round knockdowns.

The fight was scored 113-113 by one judge, and then 114-112 for Villa by the other two. Bad Left Hook scored the fight 114-112 Ellis on both of our two separate unofficial cards.

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Ellis (24-1, 15 KO) understandably feels he got the short end of the stick here, and said as much after the fight, though he simply said he felt he won, and that he’d like a rematch, there wasn’t a lot of moaning about it, really. Villa (26-1, 24 KO) also said he’d be up for a rematch — and said it before Ellis, for what it’s worth.

The fight was an IBF eliminator, so in theory Villa is now in line for a shot at one of the belts currently held by Errol Spence Jr, right in the mix with the winner of tonight’s upcoming fight between Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Karen Chukhadzhian, which is for the interim title. If, in theory, Spence were to vacate this year, the winner of Ennis vs Chukhadzhian likely will get promoted to full titlist status, and then Villa would be in line for a shot at him.

Ellis, 29, appeared to dominate the majority of the first eight rounds, but Villa, also 29, just didn’t go away, didn’t get overly discouraged, never gave up on the fight. He started finding some real success in the final four rounds — all of which he won on every judge’s scorecard, including obviously getting 10-7 cards in round 12. One knockdown would have been enough to give him a split decision win, the two made it a majority decision.

Ellis won all of the first five rounds on every judge’s official card, too, so the fight really boiled down to how judges scored from rounds six through eight, and in the end, Villa did what he could to close the show, and he got the nod, though it is a debatable outcome.

It was also, simply, a good fight, and while it may not be business-smart for Villa to take a rematch right away, I doubt many people would argue with seeing one.

SHOStats saw Villa land 114 of 631 (18%) of his total punches, a percentage that was badly impacted by him throwing a good amount of jabs (277) and landing very few (13, for a 5% connect rate). His power punches were more respectable, as he landed 101 of 354 (29%). Ellis was definitely more accurate, landing 268 of 604 (44%) punches, and had a great jab for most of the bout, landing 165 of 395 (42%), plus 103 of 209 (49%) power shots.

How did you score this one?

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