.

R1- The jab of Napoles is out there, but Muniz is doing a good job of defending himself from it. Muniz is also the aggressor and is able to wing in some lefts and rights. Nothing drastic occurs here, but I felt that Muniz won the round off of volume.

R2- Muniz gets under a series of shots from Napoles earlier, but he is unable to put up a successful counter offense. Meanwhile, Napoles still catches him with a good right soon after and pot shots at a solid rate in the round. While Muniz is evading some shots, Napoles is definitely showing the better defense between the two.

R3- After getting hit with some rights early, Napoles starts to display some impressive counterpunching. Even with Muniz forcing the action and bringing the fight to him, Napoles takes advantage by getting under his shots and delivering left hooks and looping rights over the top or body shots instead. Muniz scores with some power blows of his own, but takes more in return and misses more as well.

R4- Muniz is notably coming in with his head and Napoles’ left eye is swollen bad, clearly bothering him. The pressure by Muniz is constant, as he is able to keep Napoles on the ropes as he pleases and pick off rights and lefts as a result. Napoles is throwing some big counters with moderate success, but Muniz is connecting more and showing increasingly improving defense up close.

R5- Despite all the clinching going on, Napoles is showing some real clean head movement on the inside. Napoles is also doubling up to the head and body well, slipping plenty of uppercuts and hooks to deliver sharper and accurate shots to Muniz.

R6- Both are having success with the straight right, but Napoles is landing more and missing less. Even with Muniz’ aggression, Napoles is tattooing him with uppercuts and left hooks from his left hand, rocking him twice and drawing blood soon after. Napoles slips into the ropes after missing a big left hook, but this does not detract from how sharp he was in the round.

R7- Rather than walk in with a couple of power shots, Muniz is now using his jab and/or effective footwork to get inside on Napoles to land his combinations. Muniz is even hopping back to evade Napoles’ shots at times. Napoles is still getting in counters, mostly when Muniz randomly turns southpaw at one point, but Muniz is outscoring him and making his aggression seem more effective because of it.

R8- Both are showing damage around the left eye, especially Napoles due to the massive swelling. They are trading two and up shots at a time to good success. Napoles is typically getting off first, which is allowing Muniz to display more impressive counterpunching than before. Muniz starts to keep his right hand close to him, allowing him to catch several stray shots from Napoles. I felt the defense in between edged this swing round for the challenger.

R9- The hand speed of Muniz is on display early, as he snaps back the head of Muniz with a rapid right hand. However, Napoles returns the favor with a 1-2 soon after. It’s odd seeing Napoles get outjabbed, but his defense has sharpened up from the past couple of rounds, allowing him to catch several blows on the arms or make them whizz over his head before landing counter combos to the head and body. It’s worth noting that Napoles hurts Muniz with a low blow late, but Muniz had not seen anything yet at that point.

R10- Napoles starts to score with the jab off the backfoot, but then shows willingness to exchange some more. Upon doing this, Muniz staggers him with a counter right (that is seemingly thrown with his hand in a vertical angle. Muniz gets the better ground on the inside, allowing him to land his uppercut more and keep more shots off of him. Both become bloody messes, with a good amount being from Napoles’ left eye, presumably. Already having the round won, Muniz capitalizes further by stunning Napoles with a right hand. Napoles is left standing still, allowing Muniz to rock him multiple times after with right hands before the bell. Not a 10-8 round due to how many shots of his own that Napoles got in, but still a great one for the challenger and perhaps the most lopsided round of the fight.

R11- The face of Napoles is a giant mess and he comes out with a hige amount of vaseline on it. Most of the round consists of three things- ugly clinches, Napoles getting his head snapped back by rights, and Napoles persistently hitting Muniz below the belt. Napoles even crouches late in the round to have a better chance at landing low blows. The referee does an absolutely pathetic job by letting all these foul shots slide by. Muniz does show shocking resilience south of the border and real professionalism for never retaliating though. By the standards of judging then, Napoles should have had this round taken away, but by today’s standards, he should have lost two (not one) points or even been disqualified. Then again, maybe a single point deduction would have prevented some of these low blows from occuring.

R12- The two are only allowed to fight for an approximate minute due to the horrible condition of Napoles’ left eye. When ugly clinches are not occuring, Napoles still has Muniz’ nuts on his mind, while Muniz is able to snap his head back a few more times with rights. Napoles is declared the winner by technical draw in an ugly robbery. A poor way to spoil what was a great fight. I normally would never declare a fight that I scored 7-5 a robbery, but the fact that Muniz got done incredibly dirty by the ref, who never warned or deducted points for Napoles’ persistent fouling is siper bogus. The fact that the scores went three ways en route to a draw on paper and even mathematically to Muniz makes Napoles winning more peculiar. Napoles had clearly seen better days, but landed a lot of nice counters. However, Muniz kept coming all night and tweaking his pressure, while the better adjustments and landing the superior shots overall. Napoles took a beating in the last three rounds and such a bad one that he developed an obsession with Muniz’ genitals for the rest of the fight. Sad to see such a world class fighter be this way in any stage of his career. Despite making it into the IBHOF without a title, Muniz was cheated out of a signature win and the undisputed championship here. Napoles would relinquish his WBA title after this, but he would win a dominant 15-round UD against Muniz next, even scoring a knockdown in the process. Sadly, film for this fight is gone, but given the official scores, I am sure that Napoles won close to or maybe every round in what was likely a great performance. Something significant about that win is it would garner Napoles an excellent record of 17-2 (11 KOs) in rematches.