In the main event of DAZN‘s first US card, Jessie Vargas (28-2-2, 10 KOs) and Thomas Dulorme (24-3-1, 16 KOs) ended in a majority draw. The judges inside Chicago’s Wintrust Arena scored the fight 115-111 for Vargas and 113-113 twice.
Round 1 started off slow, plenty of jabs to start the fight from both fighters. Dulorme caught Vargas right as the bell was about to ring with a clean, three-punch combination.
Round 2 ended with an accidental head butt leading to a bad cut above Vargas’ right eye. Dulorme was the more comfortable fighter in the early rounds of the fight, which was surprising to many spectators.
Vargas found a home for his right hand in the fourth round as he caught Dulorme a handful of times and had him hurt.
The bad blood started to show in the fifth round of the fight. Each fighter trying to outmuscle the other which also included rabbit punches and plenty of holding.
Vargas’ right hand is hard to stay away from for an entire 12 rounds as he showed the ability to continuously land it against Dulorme, stopping the Puerto Rican dead in his tracks.
The problem was, Vargas didn’t throw with volume in this fight. A very uncharacteristic thing in a Jessie Vargas fight.
Vargas fought off of his back foot the entire fight. He let Dulorme bring the offense, and counterpunched the entire night.
Vargas landed a clean straight right that floored Dulorme in the 10th-round of the bout which seemingly had him in control of the fight.
But, the deciding factor in the fight was the 12th round when Vargas was knocked down. He seemed to be complacent and cruising to a win when he got caught with a shot.
“It really caught me by surprise, I’m not going to lie,” said Vargas after the fight. “I was really confident in the 12th round, thought I had everything in control. I started with a punch and then I went on the attack, I saw him coming, backed up, he caught me with the punch and I was knocked down.”
Neither fighter was happy with the decision as they both thought they did enough to earn a victory.
“I felt like I had the edge but I can’t complain about the draw,” said Vargas who reacted much differently to the draw with Dulorme compared to the draw in his previous fight against Adrien Broner. “If that’s what the judges saw, all I can do it respect it.”
Vargas could have fought a better fight technically, as well as followed a better strategy. Dulorme fought to his potential, leaving it all in the ring to earn the draw.
Vargas was sent to the hospital to attend to the cut above his right eye after the fight.
Unfortunately, this fight didn’t answer many questions for either fighter, and one can only guess what the future holds.
“I’m going to leave that up to my promoter Eddie Hearn and my advisors,” said Vargas. “Whatever they say goes. I’m looking forward to coming back real soon, but for now, it’s back to the drawing board.”
Header photo by Amber Williams/Round By Round Boxing
