The belt holders in the Super Welterweight division remained unchanged, as Jermell Charlo and Brian Castano couldn’t be separated in a split draw for the undisputed crown in Texas on Saturday.
Charlo walked into the AT&T Center in San Antonio as the WBC, WBA (Super) and IBF champion at 154 pounds, adding two belts to his WBC belt with an eighth round knockout of Jeison Rosario last time out in September 2020, while Castano claimed the WBO strap in his last contest, a dominant points win against Patrick Teixeira in February.
There would be no four belt champion here though, as some questionable scoring allowed Charlo (34-1-1, 18 KOs) to escape his hometown with his titles in tact, in a contest that looked like it was going the Argentine’s way.
After a pretty tentative opening couple of rounds, Castano (17-0-2, 12 KOs) shaded the third, landing two hooks to Charlo’s head along the ropes that hurt the 31-year-old right towards the end of the frame.
The cleaner work was certainly coming from the South American, and rounds four and five saw him land with some flush shots, with ‘Iron Man’ using his footwork to try and stay out of danger.
Ahead of the seventh, Charlo’s trainer, Derrick James stressed to his man that the fight was in the balance, but he allowed Castano to get the better of the exchanges to take the round.
The pattern continued, although the Texan rallied in the championship rounds, with the tenth seeing Castano, 31, holding on after being rocked with a solid shot.
The penultimate round was another big one for Charlo, as he unloaded with a barrage of punches to catapult himself back into the contest.
Ahead of the final round, Charlo’s trainer informed his man that he needed a knockout, but it didn’t come, although the unified champion looked like he edged the round with his work rate.
As the bout went to the scorecards, it looked as though Castano had done enough in the early going to get the nod, but the three scoring judges saw differently. A 114-113 verdict for Castano was equalled by a ludicrous 117-111 tally for Charlo. A third card at 114-114 ensured that neither man would be declared the winner.
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Romero retains WBA title
Rolando Romero retained his WBA interim Lightweight title, as he stopped Anthony Yigit in seven rounds. The title was only at stake for Romero (14-0, 12 KOs), as former world title challenger, Yigit (24-2-1, 8 KOs) weighed in a whopping 5.2 pounds over the limit.
The Swede was no match here for Romero though, down three times in all as the Las Vegas native scored a ruthless victory and then called for a showdown with Mayweather Promotions stablemate, Gervonta Davis.
Remaining undercard results
Uruguayan knockout artist, Amilcar Vidal had to go the full ten rounds to take a majority decision win at Super Middleweight against Immanuwel Aleem.
Two scores of 97-93 trumped a 95-95 card to move Vidal to (13-0, 11 KOs).
At Super Welterweight, Bakhram Murtazaliev outscored Khiary Gray over eight rounds to take his record to (19-0, 14 KOs). Two scores of 79-73 and a third at 78-74 gave the Russian the win.
There were three Featherweight bouts on the card. Over six, Pablo Rubio Jr (13-0, 4 KOs) took a decision win against Eric Manriquez (7-12-1, 3 KOs), while over four, Amed Medina (3-0, 3 KOs) knocked out Reginald Hinson (1-1) in the final round, and Xavier Nunez (2-0, 2 KOs) halted David Alfaro (1-5), also in the final frame.
At Heavyweight, Roberto Zavala Jr (2-0, 2 KOs) knocked out Levi James West (0-1) in the fourth and final round.
