Bradley blots Vargas’ record; referee’s mistake clouds finish
CARSON, Calif. — The seconds were ticking away. The end was near for Jessie Vargas.
After Timothy Bradley had been getting the best of him for the better part of 12 rounds, Vargas had one last chance. He had just landed a huge right hand to hurt Bradley with 14 seconds left. But just when Vargas was going in for a potential knockout, referee Pat Russell stopped the action with four seconds remaining.
The 4,711 in attendance at the StubHub Center were confused, and it was bedlam inside the ring. Vargas jumped into the arms of trainer Erik Morales to celebrate what he thought was a miracle victory. Bradley was standing in his corner dazed and trying to comprehend what had just happened.
Despite Russell’s glaring mistake, the fight went to the scorecards and the judges gave the victory to Bradley by unanimous decision, 117-111, 116-112 and 115-112.
“Those last seconds cost me the fight,” a disappointed Vargas said after he lost for the first time in his career. “I was ready to finish him, and all I needed was one more shot when the ref stopped it.
“You’re telling me I wasn’t going to get one more punch in during the last eight seconds? I was going to knock him out.”
Russell, a veteran referee, said he simply made a mistake.
“It was very loud in the 12th round, and I thought I had heard the bell,” Russell said. “You don’t always hear the 10-second warning. You like to. But I thought I heard the bell, and I made the call based on what I heard.
“That’s all I can say. It was an honest call on an honest issue.”
Bradley, who captured the interim World Boxing Organization welterweight title, was a confused winner after improving to 32-1-1.
“I didn’t really know what happened,” he said. “I thought it was the end of the fight. But even if the ref had let him go, I would have survived the round. I’m an experienced fighter. I know what I’m doing in there.”
Vargas (26-1) plans to file a formal protest with the California State Athletic Commission over the way the fight ended. It probably won’t give him the justice he is seeking, but he said he owes it to his fans and himself to get a wrong righted.
“The bottom line is I didn’t get to finish the fight,” said Vargas, a 4-1 betting underdog. “It’s not fair to me. It’s not fair to the fans. It’s a three-minute round, not two minutes and 52 seconds.”
Vargas, who said he felt a numbness in his right hand when the fight started, didn’t get untracked until well into the fight. Bradley appeared quicker and was beating him to the punch, and Vargas was not using his head and body movement the way he and Morales had worked on.
“I thought my jab was working well, and he wasn’t hurting me,” said Vargas, who received two stitches above the corner of his left eye after the fight but said his right hand felt fine. “I knew he was a quick fighter, and he landed some good shots. But I thought I adjusted and got better as the fight went on.”
Vargas, who threw 295 jabs and landed 94 to Bradley’s 89 of 329, needed more than that to convince the judges. Until the big right hand in the 12th round, Vargas’ best work had come in the eighth round. He was landing combinations while moving his head and body to avoid Bradley’s blows.
But that was the extent of Vargas’ success, as Bradley came out in the ninth and went right after Vargas, landing some heavy blows to the body and head and re-establishing his control.
Vargas said if the fight had gone to its rightful conclusion and he had not been able to finish off Bradley, he could have lived with the judges’ decision.
“I wouldn’t have agreed with the scores, but I could accept it,” he said. “But the way the fight ended, it’s very unfulfilling and very frustrating for me. We’ll never know what would have happened if the ref had let us finish.”
Bradley, who had an edge in punches landed (232-203) and power punches connected (143-109), said he would be glad to give Vargas a rematch. And that’s fine with Vargas — as long as they fight in Las Vegas.
“Let’s just start where we left off,” Vargas said. “But we’re not going to do it here. I won’t fight him here again.”
In the co-feature, Mexican featherweight Oscar Valdez Jr. improved to 17-0 with a 10-round unanimous decision over fellow countryman Ruben Tamayo (23-6-4). Valdez was ahead 99-90, 98-90 and 98-90 on the scorecards, winning easily despite a questionable knockdown in the first round when Tamayo stepped on his foot and Valdez fell after Tamayo landed a left hook seconds before the bell rang.
Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.
