Robbie Davies Jnr was dropped and shaken in the 10th and final round but kept his career alive with a narrow decision victory over veteran former titleholder Javier Fortuna.
Davies won by a score of 95-94, and his volume and strength were rewarded over some of Fortuna’s cleaner work, but it was overall an uninspiring and messy contest.
In the ProBox TV co-feature at the SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the fighters fell in a heap midway through the first, by which point Davies had tried to apply pressure, but the southpaw Fortuna had caught him with a couple of long left hands.
Liverpool, England’s Davies, son of an Olympic boxer and trained by former lightweight belt holder Anthony Crolla, tried to forge forward in the second, but Fortuna was dangerous with that left hand and he clipped Davies with it clearly.
The Dominican Republic's Fortuna, 38-4-1 (27 KOs), landed less of note in a scrappy third. Davies tried to maul forwards, and sometimes they exchanged outside of the clinches, but it was physical without being gripping.
Fortuna, who didn’t make weight for the fight, dropped his hands and tried to dazzle in the fourth, but the fight continued to be untidy.
Davies worked in close and switched to southpaw for moments in the fifth, but he was cut over his right eye in a livelier sixth. Davies was able to physically push forward in the sixth and seventh while Fortuna was working less and seemingly starting to slow.
ProBox TV analysts Paulie Malignaggi and Chris Algieri discussed how demanding that is on a fighter’s engine, and it explained why the pace of the fight – never breakneck – was slowing further still.
Near the end of the ninth, Davies started to find some timing and distance with his right hand, but in the 10th the Englishman was knocked down. Davies was initially caught by another left hand, then a left uppercut, and as he tried to walk through the shots, Fortuna caught him again with several shots.
Davies, who started to bleed from the nose, complained that it shouldn’t have been judged a knockdown, but he held or moved away for most of the remaining 45 seconds of the contest and, as it turned out, had done just enough.