YONNHY PEREZ W12 JOSEPH AGBEKO

Heavyweights often disappoint but the little fighters consistently provide big action, as we saw again when Colombia’s Yonnhy Perez outfought Ghana’s Joseph Agbeko to win the IBF bantamweight title in Showtime’s Halloween Night main event from Las Vegas.

The Treasure Island casino hotel’s first boxing show could hardly have been any better. The crowd and TV viewers saw a scorching fight, 12 rounds of nonstop, punch-for-punch fighting.

Perez was a deserving winner although the judges’ unanimous scoring was wider than I had expected. The unbeaten challenger got off to a strong start, and Agbeko, hard though he fought, was never able to get his nose in front.

When Agbeko took a knee in the 10th round after catching Perez's head in his face, to be given an eight count, he lost any chance he may have had of somehow pulling the fight out of the fire.

Even though the so-called knockdown didn’t affect the decision, with Perez getting the verdict by margins of 116-111, 117-110 and 117-110 again, Agbeko lost the momentum that he seemed to have been gaining in round 10.

What looked like being a 10-9 round in Agbeko’s favour became 10-8 in favour of Perez — a three-point swing. Any hopes Agbeko had of eking out a decision were immediately dashed.

That said, Perez simply looked the stronger, better fighter and the harder puncher. He rose to another level in this fight.

Even before a punch was thrown, I sensed that this was going to be Perez’s night. He looked relaxed and ready to fight as he made his entrance, and he seemed utterly sure of himself.

Then Agbeko came into the ring in that ridiculous King Kong mask, led on a chain by a Fay Wray lookalike.

Here’s what I thought at that moment: I thought that Perez had the look of a man who was going to start hard and fast, and I thought that Agbeko might not be mentally prepared for the ordeal he was about to face.

Agbeko was visibly shaken by Perez’s determined and totally committed start to the fight.

Instead of jabbing and moving and looking to counter with straighter punches, which I thought would most likely be his strategy, Perez was carrying the fight right to Agbeko, meeting him toe-to-toe and getting the better of it. When Perez rocked Agbeko with left hooks in the first round it set the tone.

Although Agbeko made Perez fight for every point it seemed that the Colombian boxer was landing the better shots — the sort of hard, clean deliveries that impress the judges. Agbeko got in his share of quality punches but the blows seldom seemed to have any real effect on Perez, who looked much the bigger man.

It was weird, but every time analyst Al Bernstein suggested that maybe Perez was starting to weaken, the Colombian fighter would nail Agbeko with a solid right hand or left hook, right on cue, steadying the New York-based Ghanaian, stopping him in his tracks and even knocking him back a couple of steps. So, it seemed to me, all the effort and activity of Agbeko was being cancelled out by the better-quality punching of the challenger.

Agbeko was always right in the fight, doing some good punching to the body, jabbing Perez’s head back, getting in his right hands and left hooks, but Perez matched him for punch-volume and appeared to be coming back with something better in most of the rounds. Thus, Agbeko could never put himself into the sort of position from which he might have been able to mount a major offensive. His attacks faltered because Perez refused to be bullied and stayed with him in the frequent heated exchanges.

The only time I felt that Agbeko might clearly be turning the fight his way was in the seventh round, but his ascendancy was momentary. Perez came right back at him in the eighth and it was Agbeko who gave ground. At this point, I thought, it was Perez’s fight to lose, and he wouldn’t let himself lose it.

When it was over I had Perez up by 115-112 and the one-sided scoring did surprise me — but the winner won.

Promoter Don King showed the magic touch to deliver one of the year’s best fights to Treasure Island owner Phil Ruffin for the property’s boxing debut. The result was an upset, but an unbeaten fighter who believes in himself usually has a good chance of winning, and Perez took his chance — and took it magnificently.