Following his controversial, lowblow filled win over Joseph Agbeko last month in the final round of the Showtime Bantamweight Tournament, Abner Mares said to Showtime's Jim Grey immediately after the fight, "I never hit him low."
Plain and simple, right?
Well, not so fast.
The new IBF Bantamweight Champion Abner Mares was a guest on the Ring TV Radio show today discussing the fight and said to hosts Michael Rosenthal and Doug Fischer, "That 11th round knockdown, the lowblow, obviously was by far way off, I didn't mean to hit him down there, I went for a bodyshot, I was aiming for the body and I went low and the ref started counting. I thought he was gonna take a point away from me."
http://www.fightclubwriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/MaresAgbekoLowBlow.jpg
Of course Abner, we all did, which made your post-fight comment to Jim Grey all that much more exasperating and hard to take seriously. So which is it Abner? You never hit him low as you told Jim Grey or you expected a point to be taken away when Agbeko went down from the lowblow? There is much to admire and respect Abner Mares as a fighter but that's an obvious contradiction and one that Mares has no real way of getting around.
Hit play below for the full audio of Mares discussing the 11th round.
LINK: http://fitefansho.blogspot.com/2011/09/contradiction-of-abner-mares.html
his initial response was in the heat of the moment. the ref is the one who screwed the pooch on this one. you warn mares about hitting low and agbeko as well for pulling his head down. if either guy kept doing what they where doing, you penalize them.
its as simple as that.
You're making too much of it. There are plenty of bad guys in boxing (like in any profession). Abner is not one of them.
Minutes after high level competition, with adrenaline still pumping, I don't expect all these guys to come clean. Poor comments post fight? Sure. He's not the first. He's also now had time to not only replay the fight in his mind but on video as well.
BTW. PW said he thought he beat Lara in his post fight comments. Different circumstance, yes I understand. Still, I don't hold that against him. The point is that while I'm sure he didn't believe what he was saying I didn't really expect him to say otherwise.
![Rico Verhoeven [right] clouts Oleksandr Usyk in Egypt on May 23, 2026](https://photo.boxingscene.com/uploads/Oleksandr-Usyk-Rico-Verhoeven-20.webp)
