Isaac Cruz-Lamont Roach Draw Culminated Bizarre Boxing Week in San Antonio

A bizarre week of buildup finally culminated with the last Premier Boxing Champions pay-per-view of the year in San Antonio, TX and not even the main event could salvage the weird/ crazy sport that boxing can be sometimes. That's because, ultimately, there was no winner in the WBC interim 140 lb championship fight between Isaac "Pitbull" Cruz and Lamont Roach. 

The final bout of the pay-per-view ended in a majority draw with most believing that Roach had done enough to win the fight coming on strong in the second half of the bout. Instead, the verdict was  a score of 115-111 for Cruz being overruled by two scores of 113-113.

 Two key elements contributing to the draw were that Roach had suffered an early "flash knockdown" in the third round from a Cruz left hand that caused the D.C. native Roach to stumble, touch his glove onto the ground and thereby, cost him a point. However, the Mexican Cruz gave back that point later in the fight for excessive low blows during round seven.  Interestingly, the official judges cards had Roach leading going into the 12th and final round on the two cards that finished 113-113, but both of those judges gave Cruz the final round for the draw.

"All I want is a fair shake,” said Roach in the ring post-fight. “I think I should have won a close victory. All I want is a fair shake. That’s it…I don’t know what I got to do. I don’t accept this at all. I clearly thought I won a close fight. I’m tired of this.”

 "I did my job,” said Cruz late Saturday. “I did my work. The ref was on his side. The judges too. The crowd in San Antonio saw I won this fight…Absolutely I'd do a rematch. With a different referee who is not on his side. The referee took this fight from me."

It's a particularly disappointing end for Roach, whose last bout in March with Gervonta "Tank" Davis also ended in a controversial draw. And, while there had been long discussion about a Davis rematch, it never came to fruition. So, Roach instead turned his attention to fighting Cruz Saturday and got no satisfaction there either.

The rest of the card was a "soap opera-like" mess.

The co-feature fight saw Texan O'Shaquie Foster win an easy decision over Philly's Steven Fulton, but that's not the whole story. The real story was the comedy that the World Boxing Council put on, when Fulton came in 2 lb over the junior lightweight limit of 130 lb. Friday afternoon. The WBC decided that instead of the fight being for Foster's WBC championship in the 130 lb. division, that now, not only would Fulton be allowed to fight despite missing the weight, the Foster fight was going to be for the vacant WBC lightweight Crown (135 lb.)

Bizarre.

Ultimately, the fight itself proved Foster was the bigger, dominant fighter scoring with his long reach and using the southpaw stance to his advantages with a good right jab followed by lefts behind it to keep Fulton at bay. Foster landed a 191 to 56 edge in punches and won virtually every round by final scores of 119-109, 118-110 and 117-111, . Comically, Foster now has his full world championship at 130 lb. and the interim championship at 135 lb.

Moving down the card,  the planned unified middleweight title fight was also part of the craziness early in the week in San Antonio. That's when WBO/IBF middleweight champ Janibek Alihmkhanuly was learned to have tested positive in mid-November for a PED and kicked off the bout with WBA middleweight champ Erislandy Lara.

The 42 year old Cuban Lara ended up fighting last minute replacement Johan Gonzalez and dominated him in a fairly dull fight over 12 rounds Saturday night to retain. The official scores in the 12 rounder were 120-106, 119-107 and 118-108 for a bout no one will long remember.

All in all the pay-per-view will be more remembered for the craziness and stupidity from the WBC Friday that went on in fight week leading up to the night than it will be for the outcomes in the ring.