Luke Campbell thoroughly outboxes Yvan Mendy in rematch, takes unanimous decision

Luke Campbell (19-2, 15 KOs) took full advantage of his boxing ability today to avenge his 2015 loss to Yvan Mendy (40-5-1, 19 KOs). It was clear that Campbell came out with a plan to box & move on Mendy, and he did it with great effect to take a unanimous decision on official scores of 119-109, 118-111, and 116-112. I scored the fight for Campbell pretty wide as well, 118-110.

Campbell’s perpetual motion and smooth footwork lead him to the win here as he was able to jab, throw combinations — pretty much whatever he wanted — because he always finished with a turn to get himself out of danger before Mendy could respond.

Mendy, who was fighting behind his patented high guard, was able to pick off a lot of Campbell’s headshots with his gloves, but his problem was that Campbell was seldom there for a response which allowed Campbell to accumulate a points margin as the rounds wore one. Mendy seemed to realize that he was falling behind on the cards in the second half of the fight and tried to press more, but Campbell’s conditioning was good enough for him to keep up his mobile tactics that Mendy just couldn’t cope with.

With the win Campbell is expected to be in line to face world titleholder Mikey Garcia in what would be a bout of two very polished technicians.