Promoter Salita sees both sides of the sword this weekend

Dmitry Salita had fighters involved in two controversial decisions, one a winner and the other taking an L.

It was an “interesting” weekend for promoter Dmitriy Salita, who experienced both sides of the sword.

His hitter Jermaine Franklin got the W in a heavyweight scrap Friday evening on a ShoBox card co-promoted by Salita, from Tacoma, Washington, against underdog Jerry Forrest.

Did Franklin, a Michigan-based boxer, “deserve” the win? Seemed like the internet didn’t think so.

Then, the sword flipped over. On Saturday, in Newark, New Jersey, on a Top Rank card topped by Shakur Stevenson, Salita’s fighter Nikolai Potapov (20-2-1; age 29) did good work against the favored Joshua Greer Jr (21-1-1; age 25) in a bantamweight mashup.

But the judges didn’t as much agree. Greer won a MD-12, and so Salita today waffles between smiles and frowns, and rips up his membership card in the Judge Lindsey Page Fan Club (Page had it 116-112 Greer).

I asked Salita, who also handles Claressa Shields and Jarrell Miller (with Greg Cohen), about that. Not overly surprising, he thought more of Franklin’s showing than it seemed the masses who weighed in on social did.

”I felt that Franklin won a close fight and Potapov lost a fight he dominated,” the Ukrainian-born and Brooklyn-based deal-maker said.

You all can watch both the tangoes if you haven’t already, and make up your own minds.

Fight-writer Keith Idec pulled no punch in opining that he saw Forrest doing more in the heavyweight scrap.

“I didn’t think it was that close,” Franklin (19-0; age 25) said after. “I won more rounds. I think you could give him a couple of rounds, but it wasn’t that close. Even when they said split decision, I knew it wasn’t that close. I wasn’t worried.”

All three Showtime commentators had Forrest winning the fight, for the record.

“You heard the crowd,” Forrest said. “I don’t have to say what I think of the decision. Look what the crowd thought. He missed a lot of shots, but he threw a lot of shots and they gave it to him. He was supposed to win.”

Showtime stats showed Franklin landing more power punches, 94-76 and throwing more punches, averaging 46.6 punches per round compared to Forrest’s 38.2. The loser, aged 31, drops to 25-3, but his stock rises.

“I got better at doing certain stuff, but I was trying to kill him too much. I said I was going to fight my fight, but I was loading up. I got taken out of my game plan. I still have to stuff to work on,” Franklin stated.

My take: I think that stats back up Salita’s take on this faceoff. (BTW, he had to deal with more hubbub when BJ Flores vs Otto Wallin was scrapped, because Flores (see his Tweet take below) didn’t pass his medicals. Wallin, a Salita fighter, found out the bout was axed when he got to the arena!)

Regarding the next evening’s controversy, Salita sent me a video of Tim Bradley, the ESPN commentator, opining that Salita’s Russian client Potapov got the short end of it.

Greer went 160 of 424, and the Russian went 139 of 638. Often the person who throws more will get the nod, but it helps to enter the favorite, and also statistically you aren’t hurt when your promoter is running the card.

Swords: live by them, and — well, you know the saying.