McEwan beats Boone by split decision

LOS ANGELES – Journeyman Darnell Boone doesn’t always win his fights but he makes his opponents work hard. Ask Craig McEwan.

McEwan, the Freddie Roach-trained prospect from Scotland, left the ring on the Victor Ortiz-Marcos Maidana undercard Saturday with a bruised, bloody face and a split-decision victory to preserve his perfect record.

Two judges had McEwan winning, 77-75 and 79-73, while the third judge scored it for Youngstown, Ohio fighter, 77-75.

The fighters are actually similar in that they both can box but have limited power, although McEwan (16-0, 9 knockouts) is much more polished. For seven rounds, McEwan outboxed and outworked Boone (16-11-2, 6 KOs) but wasn’t dominating.

In the eighth, Boone, who put down Andre Ward in their 2005 bout, hurt McEwan with a right uppercut but was unable to finish the job.

In other fights, former amateur standout Adrien Broner (10-0, 7 KOs) stopped William Kickett (15-2, 5 KOs) at 2:58 of the sixth round of a scheduled eight-round lightweight bout.

Broner, from Cincinnati, put his Australian opponent down with a slapping left hook in the fifth round and then ended the fight with a left upper cut in the sixth.

Mike Perez (3-0-1, 2 KOs) of Newark, N.J., outpointed Thomas Herrera (2-2-1) of Tucson, Ariz. In a four-round lightweight bout.

And Sergio De La Torre (11-11-3, 1 KO) of Escondido and Jaime Orrantia (11-24-5, 3 KOs) of Los Mochis, Mexico, fought to a majority draw in a four-round junior middleweight fight.