It was supposed to coronate boxing's first undisputed king at junior middleweight during the modern four-belt era.
Instead, the major fight ended in neither Jermell Charlo nor Brian Castano reaching boxing's hallowed ground as they fought to a controversial split-decision draw at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Tex. on Saturday night. Judges had it 114-113 for Castano, an inexplicable 117-111 for Charlo and 114-114. DAZN News scored it 114-114.
Charlo clipped Castano with a counter left hook in the second and wobbled the Argentinian with an offensive burst in the 10th round for his strongest frames of the fight. But there's no denying Castano's pressure for a majority of the bout as he brought the fight to the unified world champion.
Castano clipped Charlo with a left hook in the third round and consistently closed the gap thereafter, getting inside of Charlo's power jab whenever he bit down and committed to doing so.
DAZN News had Castano up 87-84 entering the 10th round. Despite Charlo winning the 10th and arguably the 11th and 12th rounds, the 117-111 scorecard in his favor was definitely a head-scratcher.
So, despite looking to become just the sixth man to be crowned undisputed champion during the four-belt era in boxing history, Charlo retains his WBA (Super), WBC, and IBF titles, while Castano holds onto his WBO championship with the taste of unfinished business in their mouths.
Both Charlo and Castano felt like they did enough to win the fight.
"The draw wasn't what I wanted to hear," Charlo told Jim Gray on Showtime. "If anything, I won this fight. I hurt him way more than he did."
Charlo added: "This is my first time experiencing something like this."
Castano countered that by offering Gray: "Basically, I won the fight. There are some rounds that he hit me hard but I won the fight."
Though a rematch is desired by both Charlo and Castano, each champion's upcoming mandatory bouts might have a say in that matter.
Here's how the entire Charlo vs. Castano main card went.