Denton Vassell vs. Bethuel Ushona & Matty Askin vs. Neil Dawson RBR

Round 12

Vassell has his arms wrenched in these grappling contests. Consequently neither has a free fist to work with. It's really just a test of strength as each tries to contain the limbs of the other. Ushona is a horrible SOB. Vassell tries some body punches. Ushona clips him back. Vassell doesn't get the KO.

 

118-111
117-113
117-112

for Vassell

OK. Fair enough. :conf

Don't really fancy seeing either again, tbh. (although that might be harsh on Vassell, given what he was dealing with)

 

Really, you had it that clear for Ushona? :think

I'll have to go back and have a look at my cumulative score tally (once the Dimitrenko-Sosnowski crapfest is over) but it seemed a close enough affair overall to not really be a landslide either way. Vassell as the home fighter getting the benefit of the doubt for his aggression in the majority of really ugly rounds just seemed like a given. I just don't see the decision as all too shocking.

Again, I'll have to go back and tally my individual round scores...but I think it was close and probably for Vassell on my card.

 

What a day. This was my first free moment, since the Top Rank undercards started pretty much straight away once the shock of the Dimitrenko-Sosnowski KO wore off...

So, all told I had:

1 V
2 V
3 V
4 U
5 U
6 V
7 V
8 U
9 V
10 V
11 V
12 U

116-112 Vassell

However, from about the 6th round on my attention was split between this and Dimitrenko-Sosnowski. The action was sufficiently thin in both fights that it was actually easy enough to watch both in split-screen and still type up the contents of the rounds fairly comprehensively. :yep

For scoring purposes though, a more watchful eye might have spotted a few more of the subtleties in what Ushona was doing. To me he just looked awful and negative, while on the other end Vassell looked terribly ineffective but at least logging some actual work.

I did think that Ushona was able to drop his counter 1-2 on Vassell's face pretty much at will...but two things kept me from scoring rounds favorably based on just that consistently reliable combo. 1) they seemed very weak and didn't serve to accomplish much for Ushona other than **** Vassell off and 2) they were few and far between, as Ushona was far more concerned with not getting hit cleanly himself.

Now, I am normally something of a "quality over quantity" guy but at a certain point when two boxers are being largely ineffective and one is just getting outworked you have to go with that. Besides, if we're going with quality over quantity - do the weaker and less telling blows count as "quality", even if they're landing a bit cleaner? Vassell was throwing more and throwing much harder but missing loads (or only partially/bluntly landing). Ushona landed cleaner but landed very infrequently, and landed like a wet noodle.

I guess I don't have a problem with Vassell winning, nor with someone having a large number of those rounds scored differently and having the major haul for Ushona.

Ultimately I think it was just a really ugly fight where neither impressed. :!: Like Mosley-Mora. Almost not even worth scoring.