Two fighters, one on each side of the Atlantic, preserved their titles in differing fashion on Saturday.
In Sheffield, WBC junior welterweight champion Dalton Smith squeaked by Alberto Puello via split decision in a fight I thought would be nip and tuck, though perhaps a little more physical.
I had no gripes about the type of fight it was. I know it wouldn’t have suited the more bloodthirsty fight fans, but it would have appealed on other levels to the more tactical and considered connoisseurs. I enjoyed it.
The action then headed to Texas, where O’Shaquie Foster dominated Emanuel Navarrete in what could possibly be the finest performance of any boxer this year.
What did we learn from Dalton Smith vs. Alberto Puello?
Not a lot. We knew Smith was very good and he probably had the edge in power. We knew Puello was a handful, particularly if he could find any kind of rhythm and disrupt Dalton’s flow. You could also say we learned that the ‘home’ fighter will always get the call in a close fight, but that doesn’t take into account the one card that read big for Puello. It does, however, remain part of the conversation. I had Puello edging it (115-113), but that is not entirely fair (because my DAZN stream buffered in the storm, so I would lose the feed for 15-20 seconds here or there). That said, I was scoring round by round and keeping a tally, so I didn’t pluck the figures from thin air. But that’s the cap on a big year for Dalton, who grabbed the title with an excellent stoppage win over Subriel Matias in January and now has beaten Puello.
