Disputed Draw: Kaye Scott vs. Olivia Curry Can’t Be Split In World Middleweight Title Fight

Disputed Draw: Kaye Scott vs. Olivia Curry Can’t Be Split In World Middleweight Title Fight

It might be a fight that goes under the radar, but the ten-round war that Olivia Curry and Kaye Scott served up on Friday night in Detroit for the vacant WBC and WBA world middleweight titles deserves a far wider audience than it will probably generate. Curry and Scott battled to a majority draw, and the odds are that they will have to do it all over again.

Nobody will complain if the two fighters do indeed share a ring together down the road. It won’t win any fight of the year awards, but it will definitely be in the conversation when the multitude of media outlets compile their end-of-year awards. It was a gruelling twenty minutes, and both deserve immense credit for delivering the type of fight we got.

At times, it wasn’t pretty, and I thought Scott got dragged into her opponent’s type of fight after an impressive start to her second world title opportunity. However, the Australian can still consider herself extremely unfortunate not to leave America as a unified world middleweight champion. I thought Scott did more than enough to win the fight. One judge saw it her way 98-92, but when the two subsequent scores of 95-95 were ready out, Scott must have felt hard done by.

Scott (4-1-1) bossed the opening two rounds. She found space and demonstrated her better boxing ability. The extensive amateur pedigree that Scott had in comparison to her rugged opponent seemed to indicate she was in for a relatively easy night.

But the American never stopped coming forward, even though I thought Scott was winning the majority of the rounds with her cleaner, classier work. Curry (7-2-2) had success, but I thought Scott had more of it and won her rounds far more clearly than her opponent. While I thought the 98-92 scorecard was perhaps a little wide, I thought the two even cards were wide of the mark and not really reflective of what we saw. I wouldn’t call it a robbery, but I still think Scott won the fight beyond any reasonable doubt.

Both Curry and Scott want to run it back, and that seems the likely next move for both.

Photo Credit: Stephanie Trapp/Salita Promotion