Shabaz Masoud resisted some questionable judging to earn a split-decision victory over Liam Davies after producing the finest performance of his career.
The 28-year-old Davies had entered their super-bantamweight contest, at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, England, with such momentum he was being spoken of as a potential opponent for the great Naoya Inoue.
Instead, over the course of 12 intense-and-entertaining rounds, his limitations were exposed by a superior technician who showed the potential to compete at world level in a way that Davies never has.
The scores of 116-112, 115-113 and 113-115 in Masoud’s favour, on an evening when his punch selection and judgement of timing and distance made Davies’ work ethic look one-dimensional, did a disservice to Masoud’s execution of his tactics.
As early as inside the opening minute there existed clear signs regarding the size of Davies’ task. Masoud – also 28 and considered, pre-fight, the significant underdog – started, against an often-fast starter, with admirable sharpness and repeatedly landed authoritative jabs.
He had twice defeated Davies as an amateur, and throughout the opening rounds why that might have been increasingly showed. Davies persisted in attempting to march forwards, but he was repeatedly punished for doing so by getting jabbed and countered, and as early as the fourth looked reliant on Masoud fading down the stretch.
It was also in the fourth that he was cut by his right eye, and in the fifth when he continued to struggle with the distance established by Masoud.
When in the sixth Davies landed a strong right hand but was later caught by a left on the inside and later another left on the counter, his hopes of recovering a sense of momentum were again undermined.
The former WBC super-middleweight champion Richie Woodhall, commentating from ringside for the broadcaster TNT Sports, questioned if Davies been “over-confident” in the build-up to his 17th professional contest, and in the eighth round a right-left combination from Masoud stung Davies again.
Such was the underdog’s dominance that it seemed likely that Davies was the one at risk of tiring. He briefly succeeded in closing the distance between them and capitalised by letting his hands go, but he was then caught by a left hand when Masoud worked back away from him, which served as a symbol of why Masoud so regularly looked in control.
Before the ninth round Davies could be heard asking his corner, “Am I getting back into it?”, and in the 10th, with Masoud finally tiring, Davies responded to a left hand by finding his rival with a right.
Davies’ cut had worsened, and he fought to secure the stoppage he needed to win, but as they remained competitive until the final bell and his left cheeked swelled up it was increasingly clear that he had done too little to deserve to win.
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