Photo by Stephanie Trapp/Showtime
The main event of ShoBox’s landmark 200th episode featured Antoine Douglas (14-0, 9 KOs) vs. Michel Soro (23-1, 13 KOs) in a 10-round bout.
The bout was marred with weird outside factors, starting with the arena lights going off for a brief period and then Soro’s glove ripping in Round 4.
After the light issue was settled, the fight began with a feeling out Round 1 for both men.
Douglas was definitely the more comfortable of the two as he worked behind his jab and touched the body a bit. Soro on the other hand was extremely gun shy and perhaps he was getting accustomed to Douglas’ quick hands.
Before the fight, Douglas stated that he wanted to see how Soro handled his pressure and body work.
The answer was evident early on because Soro was very tentative and Douglas landed double the amount of punches.
In Round 3, Soro opened up a bit and landed some clean punches, only to be met with hard combinations in return from the speedy Douglas.
One thing about Douglas is although he lands a lot of power punches–landing 20 of 41 in Round 4–he doesn’t have devastating power. He is only 21 year old, so maybe that will change, but at the moment he needs to continue to rely on his jab to carry the fight.
As the fight went on, Soro began retreating more and more, as Douglas’ mom who was shadow boxing in between rounds was probably throwing more punches.
Photo by Stephanie Trapp/Showtime
In between Round 5 and 6, Soro’s corner begged their man to be more active, obviously seeing the same fight everyone else was.
Although Soro did throw a few more punches in the middle of Round 6, the rest of the time he continued to play it safe in and showed no real interest in trying to change the pace up.
Douglas didn’t really wow the judges either, as he chose to play around with his transformer-like upper body movement and picked only a few spots to jab.
And then a funny thing happened. As Douglas began to do less, Soro began to pick up steam.
Perhaps thinking he was in control, Douglas took his foot off the pedal, allowing Soro to inch his way back into the fight. In Round 8, things got interesting as Soro landed a big counter right that wobbled Douglas.
Soro jumped on Douglas immediately as the young undefeated fighter staggered around and held on for the remainder of the round.
In Round 9, Soro looked to pick up where he left off in the previous stanza as Douglas was obviously not all there. Douglas spent most of the time in the corner with a high, tight guard as Soro continued to find a home for his hard right hands.
Soro dominated the round, outlanding Douglas 23 to 7.
Going into the 10th round, the fight seemed to be up for grabs as Douglas slowly began to get his legs back under him.
The round went through ups and downs for both men with Soro controlling the beginning and end and Douglas seizing control during the middle.
It was a tale of two fights for Soro who ended up making the fight exciting after nearly putting the crowd to sleep during the first half of the fight.
After a back-and-forth Round 10, the fight went to the judges scorecards.
96-94 Soro, 95-95, 95-95 for a majority draw. #ShoBox
— SHOWTIME SPORTS (@SHOsports) July 26, 2014
The fight could have gone either mans way and while neither fighter looked thrilled with the decision, they didn’t protest it either.
Ringside commentator Raul Marquez said that even though he didn’t get the win, Douglas will learn from this fight.
It remains to be seen what’s next for the young prospect, but perhaps a rematch with Soro on ShoBox could be in line.
Douglas’ records goes to 14-0-1, 9 KOs, while Soro’s goes to 23-1-1, 13 KOs.
