Down after nine, Vergil Ortiz’s corner pushed for strong finish against Serhii Bohachuk

LAS VEGAS — Vergil Ortiz’s team didn’t know exactly what the scorecards said, but they knew the junior middleweight fight with Serhii Bohachuk was probably on the line going into the final rounds.

“We knew the fight had to be close,” said Robert Garcia, Ortiz’s trainer, speaking to reporters after Ortiz’s majority decision over Bohachuk on Saturday night. “Every round was very close.”

Indeed, after nine rounds, Bohachuk was up on all three scorecards, thanks to the two knockdowns he’d scored on Ortiz in Round 1 and Round 8. Judges David Sutherland and Steve Weisfeld had Bohachuk ahead 85-84, while Max DeLuca had things slightly wider at 86-83.

“Coming into the last three rounds, we did push Vergil to win those rounds, especially because of those two knockdowns that were counted,” Garcia said. “The fight was close, so we have to motivate our fighter, push him to finish strong, especially those last two or three rounds. We can’t tell him, ‘You’re ahead, take it easy and lose the rounds and lose the fight.’ We have to push, especially when we know the fight’s so close and the fight’s so tough. You got to motivate him to finish strong and make sure you win this round.”

All three judges had Ortiz sweeping rounds 10-12, which brought Sutherland’s and Weisfeld’s scorecards into Ortiz’s favor, 114-112, while DeLuca wound up even at 113-113.

Examining the scorecards, the three judges only differed on three rounds.

All three judges scored:

-Round 1 for Bohachuk, 10-8 by virtue of the knockdown he scored on Ortiz.

-Rounds 2 and 3 for Ortiz

– Round 4 for Bohachuk

– Round 5 for Ortiz

– Round 8 for Bohachuk, 10-8 after another knockdown (one can question whether Ortiz’s actions after the knockdown should’ve narrowed that gap, as knockdowns don’t have to mean an automatic 10-8)

– Rounds 10, 11 and 12 for Ortiz

The only rounds they disagreed on, then, were the sixth, seventh and ninth:

– Round 6: Sutherland and Weisfeld gave it to Ortiz; DeLuca gave it to Bohachuk

– Round 7: DeLuca and Weisfeld gave it to Bohachuk; Sutherland gave it to Ortiz

– Round 9: DeLuca and Weisfeld gave it to Ortiz; Sutherland gave it to Bohachuk

If we were to take a score from “majority rules” — in which a fighter gets the edge from at least 2 of the 3 judges for that round — then Ortiz would’ve won eight rounds and Bohachuk would’ve won four rounds. With the knockdowns, the final card would’ve been the 114-112 cards that Sutherland and Weisfeld turned in.

If you consider those three rounds to be “swing rounds,” then a reasonable range of final scores would be anywhere from 115-111 for Ortiz to 114-112 for Bohachuk.

Of course, there were many tight rounds in this closely-contested battle. It’s not surprising to see that fans and observers had varying tallies after the 12 rounds we saw Saturday night.

Follow David Greisman on Twitter @FightingWords2. His book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.