Antonio Tarver (29-6-1) fought Lateef Kayode (18-0-1) to a split decision draw to retain his cruiserweight title on Showtime Championship Boxing. Tarver was tentative early, but became effective in late rounds. Kayode has an awkward fighting style that caused trouble for him early and the crowd booed in distaste at the lackadaisical action. In the second half of the fight, the action picked up with Tarver's southpaw straight left landing hard on Kayode in round six and kept landing flush over the next few. Neither fighter ended the last round strong. Even though Tarver clearly won some rounds, many of the rest were difficult to score. The final scorecards were 115-113 Tarver, 115-113 Kayode, and 114-114.
On the featured undercard, "Kid Chocolate" Peter Quillin (27-0) defeated veteran "Winky" Ronald Wright (51-6-1) by unanimous decision in a 10 round middleweight bout. Coming off a long layoff, Wright was knocked down in round five from a straight right to the chin. Kid Chocolate landed good combinations and Winky looked much weaker than his younger opponent. Wright did land some clean punches, but they had little effect on Quillin.
In the most boring fight of the night, Austin Trout (25-0) beat Delvin Rodriguez (26-6-3) by unanimous decision in a light middleweight title bout. Rodriguez lacked his usual energy and Trout boxed well moving while counterpunching with mostly one shot at a time. Trout needs to be matched better stylistically for a television fight or left off television altogether.
The opening bout of the night featured Leo Santa Cruz (20-0-1) defeating Vusi Malinga (20-4-1) by unanimous decision for the vacant IBF bantamweight title. It was an action filled bout controlled by Santa Cruz nailing Malinga with shots throughout the fight while tallying over 100 punches per round.
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