At the Salle des Etoiles, in Monte Carlo, Jamie McDonnell made his fifth successful defence of his WBA world bantamweight title.
However, whilst McDonnell may have gotten the verdict on the scorecards of all three judges, the result was the most controversial of the night.
The majority of those inside the arena, including the Sky Sports pundits, were of the opinion that McDonnell was soundly beaten by his Venezuelan opponent Liborio Solis.
In fact when the scores of:
? 116 ? 112
? 116 ? 113
and
? 117 ? 111
all in favour of McDonnell, were read out, they were greeted with booing from a disbelieving crowd.
The challenger started the fight well and McDonnell, courtesy of some hard punches from Solis, had a bloody nose as early as the second round. Solis looked the more complete fighter and it was soon obvious that McDonnell has no answer to the pace at which his opponent was unleashing the pinches, often caught on the ropes desperately trying to cover up.
Indeed, it wasn?t until the ninth round that many believed McDonnell actually won a round with the champion catching the challenger with a big left hook to the head followed by a flurry of follow-up punches.
The early zest in the work of Solis faded in the tenth rounds and McDonnell looked as if he was finally going to get on top. But the last two rounds were, in my opinion, won by Solis courtesy of his better work-rate and more accurate punching.
However, the judges clearly felt different and the result, as we mentioned before, questionably went to McDonnell.
Now whether the WBA will order a re-match or not remains to be seen but if I was in Solis? camp I?d certainly be making noises for the #2 WBA challenger to be given a second crack at McDonnell.
The win takes McDonnell?s record to 29-2-1 with 13 wins coming by way of knockout whilst Solis sees his slip to 25-5-1 with 11 wins coming by way of knockout.
McDonnell Retains Title in Controversial Decision
