Saturday night’s Showtime co-feature bout between Rolando Romero and Jackson Marinez has probably been the most widely criticized decision of 2020, with Romero winning by unanimous decision — and comfortably on two cards — while almost everyone else had Marinez winning the fight.
Our own Wil Esco scored the bout 116-112 for Marinez, and he’s far from alone. Romero’s “win” has been roundly dismissed and ridiculed by nearly all viewers — the Showtime broadcast team, media, fans, and other fighters.
The win gave Romero (12-0, 10 KO) the interim WBA lightweight title, and after the fight he said, “I don’t think I had a bad performance. I thought I won the fight. Regardless of everything, I’m the world champ now. I’m happy.”
Romero, 24, also said he’d give the 29-year-old Marinez (19-1, 7 KO) a rematch, and WBA President Gilberto Mendoza Jr says the sanctioning body will consider that possibility:
“That was pure robbery,” Marinez said after the fight. “I won the fight. I out-jabbed, out-boxed him. You could tell he didn’t think he won the fight right afterwards. It’s a robbery.”
Mendoza saying the WBA will look into the idea doesn’t mean it will happen, of course. It very well might, but that could also just as easily be a way of half-fielding and half-sidestepping the criticism, waiting for people to forget this happened (it never really takes that long), and then just moving on from it.
Coming into the bout, Romero was definitely the “A-side,” a prospect that Mayweather Promotions hope will become a star, but the general assessment is he was simply beaten by the unheralded Marinez, whom Romero boasted pre-fight he would KO in brutal fashion, which he obviously did not.
Official scores were 115-113 (Don Trella), 116-112 (Glenn Feldman), and 118-110 (Frank Lombardi), all for Romero.
For his part, Romero does say he’ll give Marinez a rematch: