By Tom Donelson (BWAA) Member Boxing Writers Association of America

O’Shaquie Foster defended his WBC super-feather weight title with a tough win over Abraham Nova with a split decision win  It was a close fight, and the scores were 115-112 and 116-111 for Foster and 114-113 for Nova.    Foster victory was his 12^th victory in a row and his successful defense of his title that he won from Rey Vegas.  The final round saw Foster knocking Nova down with twenty seconds down for a 10-8 to cement his victory. 

Nova, however, did give a good account of himself and put himself in a position of another championship shot. 

Foster began pushing the action during the first round, but the action was cautious through the first three rounds as neither fighter took many chances. 

Foster threw two effective combinations in the fourth round, but Nova out landed him twelve punches to four and was the most active over most of the fight but while Nova threw more punches, Foster was the more accurate punches.  This fight was close according to CompuBox numbers 139 punches landed for the champion and 122 for the challenger with several rounds either tied or decided by one or two punches but Nova needed 701 punches to get his 122 landed punches and had less than 20 percent accuracy whereas Foster landed nearly 33 percent of his punches including 40 percent of his power shots. 

The difference was that Foster took control of the fight in the second half and the knockdown with twenty seconds left sealed the deal. I had the score 116-111 with the last round a 10-8 but there were several close rounds that a judge might given to one or other fighter but in my view, Foster was the better fighter as he was more accurate and set the tempo. 

Undefeated super featherweight Andres Cortes continued his undefeated streak in the co-event as he stopped Bryan Chevalier.  Cortes started the fight aggressively and dominated the fight with body shots and pushing Chevalier.  In the four rounds that were fought, Cortes landed double digit punches in every round.   What this fight showed is that Andres Cortes is a legitimate contender for the super featherweight.

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