Now having had plenty of time to reflect on last month’s split draw in his undisputed title unification fight with Jermell Charlo, WBO junior middleweight champion Brian Castano tells RingTV that he’s rewatched the fight a number of times now and fully believes he did enough to take the win.
“I’ve watched it a couple of times and I’m still convinced I won that fight,” Castaño told The Ring through his manager, Sebastian Contursi. “I put the pressure (on him) for almost (all) of the bout and landed many punches. He rocked me in the second and 10th and I rocked him in the third.”
The fight did have plenty of back-and-forth action throughout, basically everything you’d hope for in an undisputed title unification, but there did seem to be a bitter taste left in the mouth of most fans who thought Castano earned the win. The fight was competitive, no doubt, but the general response was that Castano should’ve taken it. We here at BLH, for instance, ended up scoring the fight 115-113 for Castano on two separate unofficial scorecards.
“(It was a) great fight against a great fighter like Charlo. But I’m frustrated, because I feel they took away from me the chance of making history by becoming the undisputed champion.”
Certainly the biggest criticism of the fight was less on the draw itself much more on the unconscionable 117-111 scorecard in favor of Charlo which went ran counter to what everyone else saw happen in the ring. Castano openly calls the scorecard a ‘joke’ and you’d be hard-pressed to find many who would disagree.
If there is to be a rematch between Castano and Charlo — which Castano is pressing for immediately — Castano isn’t exactly inclined to fight again in Charlo’s home state of Texas, instead preferring to take the bout to Las Vegas or California where Charlo would presumably receive less favoritism. But as of right now Castano is hoping for PBC to press the issue of the rematch, with his team strongly believing he’s deserving.