By Keith Idec
LAS VEGAS – It’s over.
That’s about the best that could be said Saturday night about an utterly forgettable lightweight title bout between Robert Easter Jr. and Rances Barthelemy. When it mercifully concluded, Showtime’s Jimmy Lennon Jr. announced a perfectly appropriate result – a split draw.
Judge Tim Cheatham scored their dreadfully dull 12-rounder 115-113 for Easter. Judge Eric Cheek scored it 115-113 for Barthelemy.
The third judge, Glenn Trowbridge, had it even (114-114). While the judges weren’t in agreement, their unremarkable bout undoubtedly lacked action, so much that there was barely a clean punch landed in numerous rounds.
The WBA world lightweight title remains vacant because neither Easter nor Barthelemy won the main event of Showtime’s tripleheader from The Chelsea inside The Cosmopolitan.
The 28-year-old Easter (21-1-1, 14 KOs), of Toledo, Ohio, expressed disappointment that he wasn’t able to become a two-time lightweight champion. He was the aggressor for most of their bout, but he couldn’t connect enough to earn a clear victory.
“I feel I did enough to win this fight, but the judges saw it differently,” Easter said. “They saw it a different way.”
The 32-year-old Barthelemy (27-1-1, 14 KOs, 1 NC) is a right-handed boxer, but the Cuban-born Las Vegas resident competed almost exclusively from a southpaw stance over the final 10 rounds. He troubled Easter earlier in their fight with that look, but Easter adjusted and didn’t absorb many flush punches during the second half of their bout.
Barthelemy spent most of the fight moving backward, keeping out of Easter’s punching range.
“Rances is a crafty fighter, an elusive fighter,” Easter said. “I tried to take the fight to him, but he wouldn’t take it. It was hard to land my shots.”
The unofficial CompuBox statistics indicated just how few punches were landed during this fight. CompuBox credited Easter with connecting on just 54-of-415 total punches, still two more than Barthelemy (52-of-328).
Barthelemy had the slight edge in power punches (36-of-104 to 33-of-134). Easter edged Barthelemy in jabs (21-of-281 to 16-of-224).
“We were prepared for a different Robert Easter, the one that attacks,” Barthelemy said. “But he didn’t show up, so I couldn’t deliver my strategy.”
Nevertheless, Barthelemy believes he won.
“I landed the cleaner and more accurate shots,” Barthelemy said. “I feel I threw more punches. I was the busier fighter. I won the fight. I think this was a missed opportunity for me. I really feel I won this fight.”
The 12th round, like virtually every prior round, was devoid of action. Easter pressed the action and Barthelemy backed away from him, as if he believed he had done enough to beat Easter.
A right cross by Easter connected early in the 11th round and backed Barthelemy into the ropes.
Easter finally blasted Barthelemy with a straight right hand about 50 seconds into the ninth round. The rest of the round mostly mirrored the first eight, in that neither fighter could cleanly connect with shots.
Easter attacked Barthelemy early in the eighth round and pushed him back into the ropes. That drew a roar from a crowd clearly dissatisfied with a lack of action to that point in the fight.
Easter didn’t attack for long in the eighth round, though.
The seventh round unfolded the same way as many of the previous rounds. Easter couldn’t land anything clean on Barthelemy, who landed one overhand left to Easter’s head.
Barthelemy continued to elude Easter’s punches throughout the sixth round. Barthelemy landed a couple lefts to Easter’s body in that round as well.
Barthelemy landed a left to Easter’s body about 30 seconds into the fifth round. A looping left up top by Barthelemy made Easter move backward several seconds later.
Easter landed a right hand with about 30 seconds to go in the fourth round, one of the few flush blows in that round. Bayless warned Barthelemy for landing a low left hand just before the fourth round ended.
Barthelemy turned southpaw early in the third round. He showboated, but he had as little success from a left-handed stance as he did from his orthodox stance during the first two rounds.
The second round was almost as uneventful as the first round. Barthelemy did land a right hand to Easter’s body, but other than that, there wasn’t much action in the second round.
Barthelemy and Easter each spent the first round attempting to establish his jab. Neither fighter landed that punch with any regularity in those first three minutes, which lacked action.
The first round was indicative of what was to come over the ensuing 11 rounds.
For Easter, the draw denied him in his bid to bounce back from a decisive defeat to Mikey Garcia in his last fight. Garcia won their 12-round lightweight title unification fight by unanimous decision July 28 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Barthelemy also failed to become a two-time lightweight champion. Like Easter, he once owned the IBF 135-pound championship.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
