Giovani Santillan (26-0) escaped his Top Rank debut on Tuesday night with a majority decision victory over Antonio DeMarco (33-9-1)  The final scores were 95-95 and 96-94 twice.

The bout served as the co-feature bout underneath the Joshua Greer-Mike Plania event. The entire 5 fight card was televised on ESPN live from “The Bubble” in the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino.

The former champion DeMarco was credited by CompuBox for landing 9 more punches than Santillan. ESPN analysts Andre Ward and Timothy Bradley both had DeMarco winning the fight. He seemed to land the heavier shots and controlled the pace for most of the fight.

"What can I tell you?” A dejected DeMarco told BoxingScene.com immediately after the fight. “A fighter gets in the ring to do his job and enjoy the evening and the fight. I felt that my experience helped me relax during each round and I thought I was dominating the fight against an undefeated fighter in his natural weight class. I don’t agree with the judges scores n they are entitled to their opinion.”

DeMarco has now lost 3 fights in a row but he was competitive in each one. The 3 opponents had a combined single loss at the time of their fights. The other two fighters were Jamal James and the late Maxim Dadashev.

DeMarco doesn’t believe he is slowing down and feels like he has plenty of gas still left in the tank.

“Honestly, I feel like I am 24-years-old again and I think I demonstrated that today with my boxing, with my conditioning and my stamina. Like I said, I think my experience really helped me in this fight,” said DeMarco.

As for a rematch, DeMarco said he is open to it but would leave that up to Top Rank.

“We will leave that to the promoter. I want to say thank you to Top Rank for this opportunity. This is just the way boxing is. The judges didn’t have the same results as most everyone else. We will see if I get rematch or what they want to do,” DeMarco explained.

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