Commonwealth light heavyweight champion Lyndon ‘King’ Arthur 18-0 (12) retained his title with a 12-round split decision win over Anthony Yarde 20-2 (19) at Church House in Westminster, London on Saturday night.
The fight was fought at a slow pace with Arthur’s jab and boxing ability winning the fight over Yarde’s sporadic attacks.
By the mid-rounds Yarde knew he had to pick up the pace and came on strongly in the last four frames. In the 12th a big right hand from Yarde rocked Arthur and the champion was forced to hold on to survive.
When the final bell rang judges Michael Alexander and Marcus McDonnell both had the fight for Arthur by identical scores of 115-114, while judge Ian John Lewis saw it for Yarde 117-111.
After the win, Arthur admitted the fight was close.
“I thought it was close,” he said. “If the points would’ve went on his side, I wouldn’t have said, ‘That was a robbery’.
“But it went to me, so I’m not going to say that either.”
Yarde insisted he deserved the victory.
“I’ll be honest with you. Lyndon’s not out here lying to nobody. There were parts where it was a bit close,” he said.
“But if you look at who landed the clean, effective punches – the punches he landed were jabs, I landed my own jabs.
“This is boxing, you’re not going to go out there and be reckless.
“From what I know that happened in the ring, I landed cleaner, I was pressing the whole fight.
“This sums up 2020 for me anyway, I’ll go back and watch the fight, congratulations bro, it’s Lions In The Camp, I’ve got a strong mentality.
“I personally and strongly feel that was a robbery. I’ll be honest, I don’t like to scream the word robbery but I feel like I won the fight.”
Both boxers were adamant they would welcome a rematch, with promoter Frank Warren saying afterward he would like to make it happen in front of a live crowd.
