The fight was strange in some ways but no one would argue about the outcome.
Junior welterweight prospect Mykquan Williams outboxed, outworked and outslugged Yeis Solano to win a unanimous decision in a 10-round bout Wednesday at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn.
Williams (16-0-1, 7 KOs) had success both inside and outside, landing cleaner punches than Solano (15-1, 10 KOs) and making the determined Colombian miss a high percentages of his shots with slick defense.
Solano had his moments with a high work rate, particularly in the first half of the fight, but didn’t do enough to win in the end.
Williams put Solano down in the eighth round with a right hand to Solano’s right shoulder, which seemed to be more a result of poor balance than the power of the punch.
Then the fighters, referee Danny Schiavone and members of the Connecticut Boxing Commission served up a weird final round.
Schiavone docked Solano for a low blow early in the round and he later ruled a knockdown when Williams hit the canvas, which would’ve made it a 9-8 round for Solano.
However, after the final bell, the commission overruled the referee on both counts: no point deduction, no knockdown. And the commission seemed to be correct. The “low blow” actually hit Williams’ belt line and he went down after he was cuffed around the neck by Solano’s arm.
Thus, a 9-8 round for Solano evidently became a 10-9 round for one of the fighters. (The officials scorecards weren’t available at the time this article was posted.)
The final scores were 97-92, 96-93 and 96-93, all in Williams’ favor. That means that Williams would’ve won even if the 9-8 round in Solano’s favor had stood (94-93 in Williams’ favor on the second and third cards).
The CompuBox stats also favored Williams, who outlanded Solano 200 (of 646) to 147 (519) overall and 188 (of 542) to 124 (of 394) in power punches.
Williams is from Hartford, Conn., about a 45-minute drive to Uncasville.
In a preliminary bout, Aram Avagyan (10-0-2, 4 KOs) and Jose Nunez (11-0-2, 4 KOs) fought to a majority draw in an eight-round junior lightweight bout.