Sometimes scorecards don’t reflect what actually happened in a fight, even if that doesn’t necessarily mean the fight was a robbery.
Callum Walsh defeated Fernando Vargas Jnr by a wider-than-expected unanimous decision, winning by two scores of 99-91 and a third score of 100-90 in their junior middleweight fight on Saturday night at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
Walsh improved his record to 15-0 (11 KOs) with the win, but he was tested more than expected against the relative novice Vargas, who is the son of former boxing champion Fernando Vargas. Vargas Jnr dropped to 17-1 (15 KOs) with the first defeat in his five-year pro career.
In the opening round, Walsh, a 24-year-old from Cork, Ireland, took an awkward trip to the canvas after taking a jab from Vargas, but it was ruled a slip. After a similarly uncomfortable feeling-out round, Vargas began to pick up the pace in the third, targeting Walsh’s longer torso with his right hook. A number of the shots strayed low, but Vargas was cagey enough to wait until referee Harvey Dock was on the other side. Dock caught on to Vargas and began issuing numerous warnings, but not before the right hooks to the midsection caught Walsh’s attention and stopped his offense momentarily.
After being given a final warning for low blows, Vargas adjusted in the sixth, throwing straight lefts as Walsh dropped his lead hand. A pattern began to emerge in the second half of the fight where Vargas would start rounds strong, while Walsh would increase his output in the second half of the round. That manifested itself in this round, too, when Walsh closed the sixth with a number of body shots that Vargas inexplicably didn’t answer.
Vargas had another strong round in the eighth, finding the target with his left hand again as a tiring Walsh began to fall over his lead foot – but Walsh once more came alive later in the round. Walsh turned in his most dominant round in the ninth, as he used his footwork and combination punching to outpoint Vargas, who followed his opponent around waiting for one punch that never came. Vargas heeded his father’s words to get more aggressive in the 10th round, but he found himself getting countered as he tried to force the action without working his way in.
The fight was a moral victory of sorts for Vargas, who, at 28, had yet to fight anyone of Walsh’s caliber.
Walsh, who now trains in Los Angeles, is guided by International Boxing Hall of Famer Freddie Roach.
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
