By Lance Pugmire, Los Angeles Times
The long-stagnant heavyweight division sprang to life Saturday as Riverside's Cris Arreola and Poland's Tomasz Adamek engaged in a compelling battle of slugging versus boxing, with the lighter Adamek edging out a majority decision.
Adamek was awarded a 115-113 advantage by judge Barry Druxman, a 117-111 score by Joseph Pasquale and judge Tony Crebs scored the bout 114-114.
Adamek (41-1) delivered a swollen face with his precision blows on Arreola's head, even as the Southern Californian's relentlessness and brawn proved impressive in the entertaining clash in front of 6,256 at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario.
Arreola (28-2) hurt Adamek in the rounds he won, stunning the former two-division champion with an uppercut in the 10th, and twice in the fifth round, backing up the Pole with a hard left and right.
In the end, Arreola said he agreed with the decision, applauding as the final score was read.
"I had him in the fifth round," Arreola said. "I hurt my left hand in the fifth, but I kept going, but it hurt real bad. He has a hard head."
Arreola also said he endured some head butts and joked he "feels like … Shrek now."
Adamek's superior boxing ability allowed him to connect on 70 more punches than Arreola, snapping a scoring left to the face and consecutive combinations in the first and repeating the effort often through exchanges that elicited roars from a crowd thrilled not to be subjected to another one-sided Klitschko-involved bout.
"This was the toughest fight I've ever had," Adamek said in his third bout as a heavyweight after previously winning world light-heavyweight and cruiserweight belts. "This is why I feel I can be world champion."
Adamek dedicated the bout to his country's president and 95 others who perished in an airline crash this month.
Arreola consistently fought like he knew he could take the other guy's best punch, charging ahead in the second and hitting Adamek in the head with some big punches.
Adamek withstood the 33-pound weigh-in disadvantage by landing quick combinations, ducking out immediately afterward as Arreola charged forward in the third.
Adamek was showing pride in taking Arreola's punches until the fifth, when Arreola flung a left that sent Adamek reeling backward and clearly left him on guard. A big right by Arreola again backed up Adamek, but the ex-champ rallied by the bell with a good combination.
The scoring deserved questions. Judge Pasquale surprisingly differed with his peers in the sixth and 10th and Druxman surprisingly gave Adamek the first five rounds. Most ringside reporters had the fight scored as a draw, or a narrow margin either way.
The crowd booed Adamek before the sixth when he took an extended break to adjust his left shoe after being battered.
Arreola, vowing a renewed focus on fitness would help him better chase down Adamek, fulfilled his promise and forced the action, even if Adamek would meet him with scoring combinations at times. Arreola's faith in his chin was on display, and he even took to dancing a bit at the height of his success in the 11th.
In the co-main event, Coachella's Alfredo Angulo produced a superb effort in a tough WBO interim junior-middleweight fight against Colombia's Joel Julio, dropping Julio with a straight right he leaned into in the 11th round for a technical knockout triumph. Julio's right jaw and nose were belted by the blow, and when he struggled to get up, referee Raul Caiz Sr. stopped the bout at the 1:39 mark.
The three judges each had Angulo (18-1, 15 knockouts) ahead on their scorecards at the stoppage, although Angulo said afterward he thought he was trailing, and Julio said he believed he was winning.
"I made a mistake and I paid for it, but I was going to get up," Julio (35-4) said. "It was only one more round.
"They stopped the fight because this was [Angulo's] backyard."
Angulo disagreed: "If the referee let him continue, it'd be the same result."
Angulo started as the aggressor, sticking Julio with jabs, and delivering a hard combination and tough hook that backed up the Colombian. Angulo showed little bother to a nice combination by Julio in the second, backing him up again with a straight right.
Julio scored more in the third, and the fourth had moments of a slugfest, as each delivered one of their finest rights. Julio was showing more swagger, smiling at the bell after a scoring left.
Angulo's right eye started swelling in the fifth, and Julio landed a stinging left, but Angulo's determination remained strong.
The fight appeared dead even after six, as Angulo belted Julio on the ropes, flinched through a sensational exchange of combinations, then ended the round with two hard blows to Julio's body and two more to the head.
The pair swapped rounds again in the seventh and eighth, but Angulo's power edge defined the action, as he rocked Julio early in the eighth.
Julio sustained a cut over his right eye in the ninth, and started to look less energized after a nice left by Angulo and more scoring combinations. Julio's fresher 10th was muted by the deciding blow.
Earlier, Covina lightweight John Molina knocked out Mexico's Jose Antonio Izquierdo in the second round to improve to 20-1 with 16 KOs, saying "the internship is over, now I want to get to the top."
lance.pugmire@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
Source: latimes.com
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