Badou Jack kept his hopes of landing a cruiserweight title fight alive — barely.
The former 168-pound titleholder defeated relative unknown Richard Rivera by a split decision on the Oleksandr Usyk-Anthony Joshua II card Saturday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Two judges scored it for Jack, 96-94 and 96-94. One had Rivera winning by the same score.
Jack (27-3-3, 16 KOs) was outworked by Rivera (21-1, 16 KOs) — particularly in the first of the fight — but he appeared to be more accurate and land the cleaner shots.
Jack also evidently benefitted from an extended Round 8, which reportedly went almost four minutes as a result of the time keeper’s error. He did particularly well in that extra minute.
Jack, 38, is now 3-0 as a full-fledged 200-pounder.
Rivera, from Hartford, Connecticut, took a significant step up in class for the fight.