ESPN Boxing

I was absolutely furious on Saturday night when the decision in favor of Brandon Rios was announced. How could they do that to poor Richard Abril? Another atrocity in favor of the house fighter! Has Las Vegas relocated to Texas?

Then something happened on Sunday night that altered my attitude: I watched the fight.

My initial reaction was based on the response of the Twitter-verse, as I had opted not to order this past weekend's pay-per-view card. As a boxing writer, however, I knew this was a fight for which I was obligated to have my own scorecard in order to engage in any future discourse. So I fired it up on YouTube some 24 hours after the fight, prepared to be disgusted, curious whether I would award Rios a single round.

Well, I did give "Bam Bam" a round. And then another. And another. At the end of the fight, my scorecard read 115-113 for Abril. Almost every round in the fight was close. Several that I gave to Rios could have gone the other way, but most of the rounds I scored for Abril were tight enough to swing in Rios' direction, too. I can see how Adalaide Byrd arrived at her scorecard of 117-111 for Abril, but I can also see how Glenn Trowbridge scored it 115-113 for Rios and even how Jerry Roth came up with a 116-112 tally in Rios' favor. It was that kind of fight.

And my best guess as to why it didn't seem like that kind of fight to those who watched it unfold live is that their expectations were very different than mine.

Rios was generally expected to steamroll Abril. Even after failing to make weight for the second fight in a row and giving everyone cause to wonder about his physical preparedness, undefeated rising star Rios was a prohibitive favorite over the unknown Cuban. On paper, this was little more than a tuneup for a possible Rios-Juan Manuel Marquez showdown.

When you expect Fighter A to walk right through Fighter B, every round in which he doesn't feels like a victory for Fighter B. When Fighter B lands a combination, it grabs your attention. When Fighter A does the same, you wonder what's wrong with him that those punches lack the snap to put Fighter B on the floor.

That's an oversimplification, of course. But in this fight, there were numerous rounds in which Abril succeeded in frustrating Rios, succeeded in flashing good defense, but didn't succeed in doing much offensively. So at the end of three minutes, what did you like? Did you give Rios any credit for stretches when he'd get inside and throw 20 unanswered punches to the body and head, missing 17 or 18 of them? Did you penalize Abril in close rounds for holding? Did you reward Abril for "ring generalship" in moving backward and dictating the style of the fight without landing many telling punches, or did you reward Rios for ineffectively coming forward and outworking Abril?

And, importantly, were you listening to the broadcast crew?

I'm a fan of Brian Kenny, Rich Marotta and Raul Marquez, and I like all three of them immensely on a personal level. (I recently learned that Marotta, like me, is a die-hard Springsteen fan. What's not to like?) But in this fight, they collectively latched on early to the storyline that Abril was in total control, and they barely seemed to notice anything semi-effective that Rios did the rest of the way. They got into group-think mode, and as a result, much of the PPV audience shared in that group-think.

It's not that their scoring and their take on the fight was "wrong." It's just that it offered only one perspective when, to my eyes, there were a couple of perspectives possible in each round. Sometimes you need someone on the broadcast playing devil's advocate, which is why I've always liked Showtime's use of "press row scoring." You get three independent opinions in addition to whatever the commentators are seeing, often forcing the commentators to pause and acknowledge that their view isn't the only viable one.

I'm not saying Rios deserved to win this fight. I scored it for Abril, after all. What I'm saying is that this looked more like a classic case of the subjectivity in boxing scoring that so often creates controversy, rather than the flat-out robbery at pencil point that was reported on Twitter in the moment.

If you want to curse me out the same way you cursed out Roth and Trowbridge, you're entitled. But first, I suggest you watch Rios-Abril one more time, with no sound and no expectations, and see if the fight didn't just get a whole lot closer.

With about 40 seconds left on the clock in the spellbinding ninth round of Saturday's Orlando Salido-Juan Manuel Lopez rematch, Showtime analyst Al Bernstein asked, "Can you say Corrales-Castillo?"

Bernstein was, understandably, swept up in the moment and overstating the case. Only with the passage of time, with some distance and perspective, will the boxing world be able to accurately and unemotionally assess precisely where Salido-Lopez II ranks among the classics.

What we can say safely now is that it will at least be a contender for fight of the year. What we can also say with certainty is that the ninth round was the featherweight brawl's best stanza.

But what we most definitely should be saying is that the 10th round was the most indispensible round in terms of allowing Salido-Lopez II to possibly go down as a classic.

Was it as sensational as the ninth? No. But without the 10th, all 32 seconds of it, we wouldn't be talking about the thrills that Round 9 offered. We wouldn't be talking about the events of Saturday night in San Juan being good for boxing at all.

If not for Round 10, all we would be talking about is another atrocious decision soiling the night for a sport determined to sabotage itself at every turn.

Sixteen seconds into the 10th, Salido, his shoulders squared up after missing a left hand, connected with a right hook that stunned JuanMa. The Mexican followed up with a left uppercut, then a destructive right uppercut and finally a straight left hand that provided the directional force needed to send Lopez to the canvas. JuanMa's head rocked diagonally as he collided with the canvas, jolting from an alignment of left ear with left shoulder to right ear with right shoulder. The resilient Lopez got up immediately, but he was in a fog and referee Roberto Ramirez correctly waved off the contest.

Lopez was brave but outgunned, and for the second time in 11 months, Salido had TKO'd him. The right fighter had won.

And had Lopez survived the final three scheduled rounds, that almost certainly would not have been the case.

Through nine rounds, judge Denny Nelson had the fight even at 85-85. His colleagues, Michael Pernick and Cesar Ramos, both had the local fighter, popular Puerto Rican Lopez, leading 86-84. If Lopez had stayed on his feet and won just one of the final three rounds in the eyes of the judges, he was getting the decision. Yet he probably wouldn't have deserved it even if he'd swept all three of them.

A mere three weeks after Tavoris Cloud received a decision over Gabriel Campillo that was so astonishing that Cloud's mother fainted when Jimmy Lennon Jr. announced the winner's name, another major Saturday night fight on Showtime was tracking toward "everything you just watched means nothing" status.

Every sport has its controversies, its mistakes by officials that swing outcomes. But no sport promises as consistently as boxing does to suggest there is no link between performance and outcome.

Maybe Salido versus Lopez wasn't a total blowout. After all, Lopez scored the fight's only knockdown through nine rounds. But there was no doubt who was winning. At worst, Salido should have been ahead 86-84. Most observers had it more like 87-83 or 88-83. Yet on the judges' cards, Salido needed a dramatic rally to win. Good thing he delivered one.

The ninth round is the one we'll be talking about in December, come year-end awards time. But the 10th round is the reason we'll remember Salido-Lopez II as something other than a disturbing night for a periodically magnificent but perpetually mismanaged sport.

We know that Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. won't be fighting each other in the first half of 2012. And we know who Mayweather will be fighting instead on May 5: Miguel Cotto.

So that leaves one part of the spring-season super-duper-star equation left to be revealed, and that's PacMan's June 9 opponent.

Initially, the list of options included four names: Cotto, Juan Manuel Marquez, Timothy Bradley Jr. and Lamont Peterson. Then Mayweather's name was added. Then it was scratched out. Then Cotto crossed himself off.

That leaves three. All indications coming out of every corner of the boxing world suggest that it will be officially announced next week that Bradley will get the assignment.

Nothing against Bradley, an excellent fighter by any measure, but it's time to say what not enough people seem to be saying: This fight should have gone to Marquez. In every conceivable way, he's a better opponent for Pacquiao than Bradley. In fact, as he's proven repeatedly, he's a better opponent for Pacquiao than anyone not named Floyd Mayweather.

In terms of entertainment value, every Pacquiao-Marquez bout is a fight of the year candidate. Every Bradley bout is a technical draw candidate.

From a business perspective, Marquez is the fourth-most bankable name in boxing (behind Pacquiao, Mayweather and Cotto) and his third fight with Pacquiao last November generated an estimated 1.4 million pay-per-view buys. Bradley doesn't have a fan base, meaning a Pac-Bradley pay-per-view will draw however many buys the Filipino legend can draw with just his name and face on the poster.

With regard to who deserves the fight more, the majority of fans believe Marquez deserved the victory over Pacquiao last time out -- in a fight nearly everyone expected PacMan to win by knockout, by the way. Bradley is the top-rated junior welterweight in the world, but his lone fight in the past 12 months, against a used-up Joel Casamayor, hardly qualifies him for a shot at the people's champ.

Looking at what's best for the fans, for fairness and for the folks counting the receipts, it's Marquez over Bradley all day long. So why was Marquez never given serious consideration for a fourth fight with Pacquiao in June? Why was Cotto the frontrunner initially, and why is it Bradley now?

The only explanation that makes sense is that Marquez fought a little too well for his good in November. Say what you will about Bob Arum and his team at Top Rank, but there are no dummies working in that Las Vegas office. Goal No. 1 is to not let Pacquiao lose (except maybe against Mayweather, when Manny is a fight or two away from retirement). And with Marquez, the third fight illustrated that at any weight and on any date, JMM gives Pacquiao fits.

Again, there's nothing wrong with a Pacquiao-Bradley fight. The man known as "Desert Storm" is a top-10 pound-for-pounder and a credible foe.

But he's no Marquez. Not in terms of name value, not in terms of in-ring excitement and not in terms of what's best for the sport.

I guess the Mexican master was never getting a fourth fight against Pacquiao, no matter what transpired last November.

If Marquez had gotten bowled over, as many predicted, it would have provided a conclusive end to their trilogy.

Instead, we got an ending inconclusive enough to ensure that another chapter won't be written.

Boxing fans will never be satisfied -- nor should they be -- in a world in which Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather haven't fought each other.

But in terms of access to the sport they love, there isn't much for fight fans to complain about these days. Between HBO, Showtime, Epix, ESPN, Fox Sports and various Spanish-language stations, there's as much boxing on TV as ever. And most importantly, there's an easy way to watch just about any fight that isn't on TV: YouTube.

This year's most action-packed fight took place in Tokyo in October, pairing two 105-pound pugilists whom even the most hard-core of American fans knew nothing about. Thanks to YouTube, those hard-core fans now know the names Akira Yaegashi and Pornsawan Porpramook, and anyone who doesn't has surrendered the right to call himself a serious fan.

I wrote a blog on Grantland two months ago declaring Yaegashi-Pornsawan the leader in the clubhouse for fight of the year, and despite a credible late challenge posed by Lamont Peterson's inspired upset win against Amir Khan, Yaegashi-Pornsawan holds up as my pick. If you haven't seen it yet, it's not too late to redeem yourself. So enjoy my original postfight blog, with the YouTube video embedded.