Cesar Mateo Tapia, Endry Saavedra fight to thrilling majority draw

Australia’s Cesar Mateo Tapia and Endry Saavedra of Venezuela fought to the most entertaining of majority draws Saturday in the first non-pay-per-view fight of Premier Boxing Champions’ broadcast deal with Amazon Prime.

The middleweight contest, matched largely because the main event at the Caribe Royale in Orlando, Florida, features Tapia’s fellow Australian Tim Tszyu challenging Bakhram Murtazaliev, featured four knockdowns and, like so many of the very finest fights, concluded with both fighters trading toe-to-toe at the final bell.

Saavedra, like many observers, will have felt that he deserved victory, but it was Tapia who was scored the winner via a score of 94-92 from one judge. The two others scored it 93-93, ensuring a rematch can be expected.

Tapia fought with aggression from the first round, when he succeeded with a right to the body and a right cross, and two right hands that, though not clean, also posed a threat.

Tapia, 26, followed that in the second with successive lefts to the body, a further right cross, a further right to the chin and then another right cross before taking a left-right in return that hurt him sufficiently that he reset his stance in an apparent attempt to be less open.

His neglect of his defense, much like Saavedra’s, regardless largely defined what was to follow. Saavedra assumed the momentum when forcing Tapia back towards the ropes, where a barrage of punches forced him down. Tapia returned to his feet, but he fought instead of seeking to cover up, and as a consequence was again quickly in trouble by the ropes, where a left to the body again knocked him down.

How open he remained was demonstrated by the extent to which his head was snapped back by a jab at the start of the fourth round; his troubles worsened when he landed a right hand that made little dent in his 33-year-old opponent, and Tapia’s right eye started to swell shut.

The right hand he had so obviously been looking to land then threatened to change what was unfolding when he knocked Saavedra down.

Tapia succeeded to the body in the sixth but was then hurt by successive right hands, and in the seventh landed two further right hands – the second of which was clean and yet convincingly absorbed.

When he succeeded with a left in the eighth, it came at the expense of punishment to the body. In the ninth, while under pressure on the ropes, he was forced down again and briefly appeared at risk of falling out of the ring.

Again, however, he admirably recovered and continued to fight with the same aggression, and was rewarded when landing a clean right hand and then an uppercut on the impressively durable Saavedra, who was perhaps unfortunate not to have been awarded his 17th win.

At junior middleweight, the promising Cuban Yoenis Tellez later stopped Johan Gonzalez of Venezuela in seven rounds.

Tellez was already in the process of breaking down his Venezuelan opponent when, in the sixth round, a right cross buckled the 33-year-old Gonzalez’s legs and he was sufficiently hurt that he took a knee. When Gonzalez returned to his feet Tellez punished him with a right uppercut, suggesting that the ending was near.

An explosive left hook put Gonzalez down again in the seventh, when he was again under pressure towards the ropes. He again returned to his feet but was struggling to defend himself when another right hand again knocked him down and referee Emil Lombardo intervened to rescue him after 1 minute and 57 seconds, rewarding the 24-year-old Tellez’s maturity and patience.