By: Sean Crose

Boxing needed a good night on Saturday. The sport had been in a bit of the doldrums as of late. Actually more than a bit of them. Devin Haney wasn’t scheduled to fight anyone, neither was Shakur Stevenson. Canelo Alvarez was at the tail end of his career and Tyson Fury was indicating that he wasn’t going to fight Anthony Joshua after all. Again this sort of news was far from thrilling for anyone. Boxing is meant to be exciting both in and out of the ring. Too little was happening out of the ring and often inside the rain as well.

Fortunately two well-regarded fighters we’re willing to put it all on the line against one another in Las Vegas. Rolly Romero had stunned a lot of people when he defeated Ryan Garcia. Now a WBA welterweight champion he was up against Teofimo Lopez, who surprised a lot of people himself when he bested the great Vasyl Lomachenko several years earlier. Lopez was favored to win walking in, but frankly it could have been anyone’s fight. Both men were talented and could be very exciting in the ring. Again boxing needed a good night on Saturday.

The first was something of a feeling out process though towards the end each man began to actually engage. Lopez, who was the challenger, employed effective aggression in the second against champion Romero. And sure enough Lopez went on to dominate the third. Romero seemed to be looking for openings that weren’t there. With that being said the champion had a far more aggressive and effective fourth. Things took quite a turn in the fifth when Romero banged up Lopez thoroughly. Not only was the challenger’s face bloody at the end of the round, he had almost hit the mat.

To his credit Lopez came back and took the 6th. Lopez managed to outland his man into the 7th. Ramiro intended to be the aggressive fighter at least through the first part of the eighth. He wasn’t particularly active however.  Indeed Romero’s output remained low again in the 9th. Time was running out for the colorful combatant. Lopez landed hard in the 10th. Was Romero starting to break apart? The 11th was punctuated by a wild punch lodged by Lopez. The 12th and final round was honestly more of the same. It was clear to everyone that Lopez was in control except perhaps for Romero who may have looked surprised after the judges ruled in favor Lopez after the bout had ended.

It was a strange fight in that Romero was never really participating fully save for the fifth round. After that moment however things more or less went back to normal and the fight played out as it previously had with Romero doing  little and Lopez doing enough to win. At least Lopez was playing it safe off an effective strategy. Boxing really needed a high level fight. And although it had two high level fighters in the ring, the high level fight was not provided. Even Lopez himself admitted that it wasnt all that great a performance on his part.. though he was deservatively happy with his win.

And so boxing remains in the same spot it was before this weekend – seemingly in quicksand. Although the sport never really dies and comes back when everyone thinks it’s finished, there’s little doubt that this is not a good stage of professional fighting. Work needs to be done perhaps with the promoters thinking more about the fans than squeezing out all they can out of little fifedoms. They can’t keep making big dollars if less and less people are interested in watching after all.

* Image: DAZN