The final 10 seconds of Ossie Duran and Caleb Truax's middleweight bout turned into a street fight at Target Center on Friday. A tightly contested fight came down to the final round, the 10th, with both fighters hoping to land that final blow to give them the win.
Neither did. The first live fight of ESPN's "Friday Night Fights" ended in a 95-95 unanimous draw by all three judges, with both fighters disagreeing with the decision.
"I'm pretty upset about this one," Truax said.
Duran (28-11-3) felt he was a victim of a bias decision with Truax, an Osseo native, fighting in his home state. Duran said if Truax came close to winning the fight, the judges would have given him the decision.
"I won the fight clearly," Duran said. "I beat the crap out of him in his back yard. I did everything I was supposed to do to win this fight."
Truax (23-1-2) hoped this fight, which was scheduled two weeks ago after Duran replaced Derek Ennis after suffering a rib injury while training, would have been one of the final obstacles to a world title shot. Instead, he suffered a setback.
Truax got away from his game plan as the fight progressed and didn't work off his left jab, which he regretted after the fight. He worked Duran effectively with the punch in the first two rounds, but he adjusted and Truax couldn't figure out how to break him defensively.
"He was just tight, real compact," Truax said. "Just a good defensive battle and hard to open him up."