In a must-win fight for Adrien Broner and Jessie Vargas, both men did their best to avoid a loss at the Barclays Center and succeeded.
In the main event of a Showtime Championship Boxing telecast, Broner and Vargas fought to a majority draw with judge Judie Lederman scoring the fight in favor of Broner 115-113 while judges Eric Marlinski and Kevin Morgan scored the fight a 114-114 draw. During its live coverage of the fight, Fightful scored the fight 115-113 in favor of Broner.
Vargas started the fight on a roll, landing numerous jabs while Broner stood idly by, waiting for a chance to launch a counterattack. Vargas dominated the first few rounds, but Broner was in control throughout the second half of the fight, opening a cut around Vargas’ left eye. Vargas managed to hurt Broner at times, especially when it comes to landing left hooks to the body.
Towards the end of the fight, Broner managed to break down Vargas, whose cut managed to open up to the point where blood was running down his face and chest. After the fight, Broner said he would be open to a rematch against Vargas, but only in his hometown of Cincinatti, Ohio.
“I would love to fight Vargas against, but let’s go back to my town to do it,” Broner said.
As for Vargas, the former WBO welterweight champion believed he was the better fighter against Broner. Due to the nature of the fight, however, Vargas said he isn’t sure how other people viewed the fight so he accepted whatever the judges had scored the bout.
“I thought I won the fight. At the end of the day, I can’t argue because I was fighting on the inside of the ring so I don’t know what you saw from the outside. I was landing clean blows. It was a good fight, but at the end of the day, I can’t dispute the decision,” Vargas said.
Vargas by far the busier fighter, throwing 839 total punches and connecting 203 of those punches (24 percent), but Broner was more efficient with his punches, landing 194 of 507 total punches (38 percent). Broner did outpunch Vargas in the power punch department 152-141, according to ShoStats.
The fight was a success for Barclays Center officials. The main event ended up drawing a final attendance of 13,964, despite none of the fighters from the television card being New York natives.
The draw keeps both Broner and Vargas in position to challenge for a title in their respective weight classes. Broner is ranked No. 4 in the WBC’s junior welterweight rankings while Vargas is ranked No. 3 in the WBC’s welterweight rankings. Broner was originally supposed to fight Omar Figueroa Jr. in a junior welterweight title eliminator before Figueroa got injured and Vargas had been linked to a fight with WBC welterweight champion Keith Thurman in recent months before the fight fell through twice.
