The pay-per-view broadcast for Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Victor Ortiz kicked off with a battle between Josesito Lopez (29-3, 17 KO) and Jessie Vargas (16-0, 9 KO) from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The two men had a brief shoving match at the weigh in which hinted at action once the two got in the ring.
Vargas managed to edge out Lopez by split decision in a very entertaining fight. The official cards were 95-94 Lopez, 96-93 Vargas and 95-94 for Vargas. MMA Nation had the bout scored 96-93 Vargas.
Vargas came out in the first round mixing it up to the body and head before Lopez started top open up with some power shots to the head of his own. Vargas was by far the more effective fighter in the early goings of round one, mixing up his combinations off of hard counter hooks while Lopez attempted to chase him down.
Lopez was able to find his spots with more regularity in the second round but Vargas was still effective with his combinations and had built a two round lead on the MMA Nation scorecard.
Round three saw Lopez come on strong, starting to land the more effective, harder punches. As Vargas got hit more he continued to fire back but appeared to be wilting a little bit. Instead of continuing to try to go toe-to-toe with his foe in the next round, Vargas started to use movement and land before Josesito could get set.
HBO's commentary during the middle rounds began to paint a very odd picture. With pretty much everyone agreeing that Vargas had a small lead, the commentary team was selling that a Vargas decision would be due to some sort of influence from Floyd Mayweather talking him up.
Lopez poured on some heavy punches late in round six pulling the HBO scorecard to 57-57 even and the MMA Nation card to 58-56 Vargas.
The close rounds piled up as the fight wore on, Vargas landing more punches but Lopez landing the harder shots, but in a strange moment in round 8, Vargas landed a low blow and had a point deducted despite not having received a warning. Knowing he needed to win the round Vargas upped his punch output and seemed to have done enough to win the round and save himself from a 10-8 round.
Vargas stepped it up in rounds nine and ten, the last two of the fight. Suddenly with forty seconds left in the round, Lopez cracked him with a hard shot that appeared to rattle Vargas. Jessie rode it out to the final bell and got his hand raised by way of the split decision.
For the best Mayweather vs. Ortiz coverage around, make sure you follow us here at MMA Nation and our boxing blog Bad Left Hook.