The substance hardly ever matches the hype. The return of Abner Mares against Houston's Miguel "el Michoacano" Flores came with all the Fight of the Year type of hype. All action, all-Mexican slugfest between two fighters who desperately needed the win. The pair delivered and the substance matched the hype. 36-year-old Mares, a Hawaiian Gardens, California resident, returned from a four-year-layoff. He had not fought since a 2018 points loss to the legendary Leo Santa Cruz. If there was ring rust it didn't show as Mares got to work landing thudding counter shots on an aggressive Flores. Building up a lead in the early rounds, Flores began to flip the script in the fourth as he got his timing down and was able to get on the inside of Mares. As the fight evened up going into the final two rounds Mares looked faded as Flores was surging. The Houston native was willing to eat some clean right hands from Mares to get on the inside and rip body shots and clean left hooks that were taking a toll on the former three-division world champion. By the time the bell sounded to end the 10th round it certainly appeared that he had done enough to everyone in the Crypto.com Arena, except the three judges The Future Hall of Famer Mares got some home cooking and was awarded a majority decision draw with two judges scoring it 95-95 and the third handing in a shockingly bad 96-94 card.
Also on the card was the Fort Worth Wolf Tony Lopez, the Fort Worth native is no stranger to having tight decisions go the wrong way, and Sunday evening in the Crypto Arena was no different. A determined Fort Worth Wilf seemed to out-work and out-hustle his skillful opponent, Anthony Garnica boxed sharp from the outside using his reach to score with a sharp jab to try and keep The Wolf at bay he scored with the occasional right-hand that would stop Lopez in his tracks momentarily, but Lopez stayed determined and kept getting on the inside and slowing the unbeaten prospect down. At the end of a really close fight, California-based judges favored the Californians with two ogf, the three judges scoring in favor of the jab and movement of Garnica by scores of 59-55, and the third judge handed in an even card of 57-57, which is how most of the boxing world viewed the fight Garnica moved to 10-0-1 and Lopez fell to 17-11