Roberto Vasquez v John Mark Apolinario II

Less than a week since reports broke about the WBA possibly doing away with "Interim" titles, we saw a rematch between Panamanian Robert Vasquez (32-5-2, 22) and Filipino John Mark Apolinario (17-2-3, 4) for the WBA interim Bantamweight title. Rather surprisingly the title remained "vacant" as the two men fought to a draw, the second successive bout.

The two men, who fought for the first time just 4 months ago, drew when they first met in Argentina with neither man managing to get an upper hand for any stretch of time. This time however things looked different, things seemed to be flowing wonderfully for the Panamanian who had previously held titles at both Light Flyweight and Flyweight.

At the mid way point in the bout it was very easy to feel that Vasquez was in a clear lead. He wasn't beating the ever loving snot out of Apolinario but he was clearly winning more rounds than he was losing and he was at home with the fans getting well behind him. According to Argentinian television station "TYC Sports" Vasquez had bagged 5 of the first 6 rounds and was surely on his way to the title.

Vasquez continued to look a class better than his lesser known opponent in the second half of the fight as he showed his experience and seemed to sweep the second half of the fight to what appeared on paper to be a clear decision. Vasquez's domination of the bout had seen Argentinian TV score it 119-109 in his favour and seemingly saw him claiming the title by clear decision. The came the judges decision which rather oddly saw the bout much, much close than most scoring it 116-112 each way and 115-115 to leave us a majority draw.

Interestingly when the men first met it was viewed that Apolinario was robbed, this time however it seems that Vasquez was denied a clear victory in a shocking case of boxing karma.

Arthur Abraham v Mehdi Bouadla

WBO Super Middleweight Champion Arthur Abraham (36-3, 28) successfully defended his title for the first time as he stopped Frenchman Mehdi Bouadla (26-5, 11) becoming only the second man to stop Bouadla (following in the footsteps of the recently crowned WBA Super Middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler).

Abraham, a former Middleweight champion was regarded as a heavy handed fighter, especially at Middleweight and he showed why once again as he came out attempting to take Boudla's head off with some nasty hooks up close. Although the challenger managed to survive the early rounds it didn't take long for Abraham's power to start to take it's toll.

Sadly for fans expecting a good bout Bouadla had neither the ability or the power to to earn Abraham's respect. This instead allowed the champion to do as he pleased and he did just that as he slowly but surely ground down the challenger, busting his eye up in the process. It would be a cut around the eye that would eventually save Bouadla from further punishment, though it genuinely did appear to only be a matter of time before he'd have been down anyway.

For Abraham this was genuinely an easy defense, we'll hope next year that he faces a tougher test. Be it Mikkel Kessler, George Groves or even Lucien Bute. For Bouadla though his level has been found, he's sub world level and hopefully he'll not get another undeserved chance like this.