ANTHONY PETERSON W12 FERNANDO TREJO; VANES MARTIROSYAN W10 ANGEL HERNANDEZ

The two unbeaten favourites easily won their showcase fights on Versus but what we had were two full-distance glorified sparring sessions.

I expected more from Anthony Peterson, which might sound unfair seeing as he won a shutout decision on two scorecards, 119-109 on the third, over durable Mexican veteran Fernando Trejo in their lightweight 12-rounder.

Peterson showed hand speed, a swift jab and some nice left hooks to the body but he was content to keep in control of the fight, opening up whenever Trejo rallied but otherwise just boxing his way through.

The TV commentary was critical, with Nick Charles describing Peterson’s win as “serviceable but not spectacular” while Wally Matthews brought out the big guns. He thought that Peterson popping away at Trejo was like watching someone casually throwing darts at a dartboard, a performance lacking in passion.

One round was like another, punctuated by the annoying sound effects Peterson makes as he punches: “Ah! Ah! Pap-pap-pap!”

I was expecting to see Peterson, a lightweight meeting a boxer who has fought his career as a junior lightweight, really taking it to Trejo and ripping to the body, and he has been aggressive in other fights, bouts in which he has looked to close the show. In this fight, it was almost like he was going through the motions.

As critical as Wally Matthews was, I have to agree with him in large part. When a prospect has an outclassed opponent in front of him, someone who poses no real threat, you would like to see something extra, a bit of urgency and daring. Peterson was placing his punches nicely but it was as if he was throwing them to score points rather than to hurt his opponent, while Trejo was content to throw just enough punches to stay in the fight and go the rounds.

The problem with going right at someone like Trejo and trying, as we say, to get him out of there, is that the fight will become harder because the veteran will not quit and he will offer gritty resistance. This means that it becomes a fight in which the intensity level is raised, and not just 12 rounds of target practice.

Peterson wasn’t willing to cross that line and try to put real pressure on Trejo. He made the fight easy. This is fine, but it made for unexciting viewing and I am sure I wasn’t alone in feeling underwhelmed. Let’s put it this way. I love watching boxing but as the rounds drifted by I was thinking: “Do I really want to be watching this?”

As for the junior middleweight Vanes Martirosyan, it was much the same thing, a talented young fighter dominating every round against a durable journeyman, and once Hernandez had survived some first-round bombs, including getting knocked down, the fight was always going to go the full 10 rounds.

Martirosyan was sharp and classy but he got caught by some looping right hands, which made him show caution.

Here again, I think that if Martirosyan has really gone for it, dug down, backed up Hernandez and let his hands go, he could have forced a stoppage — I noticed referee Russell Mora cast a few anxious glances at Hernandez as the Chicago veteran got hit by big shots. Martirosyan, though, was content to box on the outside, use the jab and look to land one hard punch at a time. The very experienced Hernandez began to see the right hands coming and as the fight wore on he either ducked them or rolled away from the punches.

It was overall a sound enough performance from the U.S. Olympic representative of Armenian heritage, but — and I must be in a hard-to-please mood today — I expected a bit more. Yes, Hernandez is tough and he was always willing to throw the overhand right, but this was a faded veteran who had slipped into semi-retirement and was a massive underdog. I gave Hernandez no chance in the fight, as I wrote in the preview, and I thought this was a fight where, had Martirosyan been aggressive and stepped to his man, he could have landed enough punches to have forced a stoppage.

Had the fight been off TV, say an undercard bout before the start of the a big PPV show in Las Vegas, the 10-round workout would have been perfectly OK. This was a TV fight, though, and I just had the sense that Martirosyan missed an opportunity to score the sort of win that would have had the boxing world taking notice.

A very knowledgeable Las Vegas boxing insider told me before the fight that he thought that the stumpy Hernandez was made for the tall, rangy Martirosyan, saying: “Vanes should look sensational with this guy.” Well, Vanes got the easy win, but he didn’t look sensational.