Revisiting Lamont Roach Jr.'s back-to-back draws: Did he do enough to win both fights?

I was live-blogging both fights and scored Roach’s battle against Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis in March a 114-114 draw. However, I scored his fight against Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz in December, 115-111 in favor of Roach.

With Roach clashing with William Zepeda for the vacant WBC lightweight title this weekend, live on DAZN, I went back and watched each of Roach's draws from last year. Did my original rulings change upon a second view? Let’s find out.

Revisiting the majority draw between Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis and Lamont Roach from March 1, 2025

Reexamining the original majority draw ruling between Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis and Lamont Roach from March 2025 is simple. Davis took a knee and rushed to his corner in the ninth round of their fight, but inexplicably didn’t have it registered as an official knockdown by referee Steve Willis.

The aftermath of the bout had Davis explaining that he got his hair done and grease from the hairstyle seeped into his eye, necessitating him going to the corner to get it tended to.

Counting that knockdown upon review gives Roach the slight edge on my scorecard to have his hand raised in a victory that would have made him the new WBA lightweight champion of the world. And by the way, had the knockdown counted on the actual scorecards from the fight — the way it should have been — Roach would have won by majority decision because two of the judges had it knotted at 114-114.

Revisiting the majority draw between Roach and Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz from December 6, 2025

Judges originally scored this fight 115-111 for Cruz, 113-113 and 113-113 for the majority draw. However, upon rewatching this fight, I scored it the same way I originally did — 115-111 for Roach.

After suffering a third-round knockdown, Roach weathered the storm in the pocket with Cruz, bearing the brunt of his ferocity in cramped quarters. But then, Roach made the adjustments necessary to put 'Pitbull' on a leash.

I had Roach winning six of the last seven rounds, including a 10-8 seventh, which had the referee deducting a point from Cruz for excessive holding and punching while pulling Roach’s head down.

While watching in real time in December and upon review, I thought Roach did an excellent job of adjusting, catching and shooting and finding a largely unanswered home with a stinging left hand, especially his hook. He showed the ring generalship to win handily, successfully overcoming the first knockdown of his career.

Final analysis: DAZN News’ Mark Lelinwalla

Upon review, 2025 should have been Roach’s best year yet. Not only should he have notched the biggest wins of his career in becoming a three-division world champion, but the Washington D.C. native was well-deserving of a spot on boxing’s pound-for-pound list.

All this being said, ‘The Reaper’ can still become a two-weight world champ and gain entry on the P4P with a clear win over William Zepeda with the vacant WBC lightweight title on the line, live on DAZN.

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