By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Lou DiBella realizes he’s splitting hairs.

The promoter still thinks Keith Thurman-Shawn Porter took the lead from Francisco Vargas-Orlando Salido for “Fight of the Year.” Thurman (27-0, 22 KOs) retained his WBA world welterweight title by earning a unanimous-decision victory over Porter (26-2-1, 16 KOs) in a thoroughly entertaining slugfest Saturday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Vargas and Salido previously thrilled fight fans by engaging in an incredible battle between Mexican warriors June 4 in Carson, California. Their unforgettable fight, filled with non-stop action for 12 rounds, ended in a draw.

“I was talking to a couple different writers and a couple of them disagreed with me – they picked another fight [Vargas-Salido],” said DiBella, whose company, DiBella Entertainment, was the official promoter of the Premier Boxing Champions card headlined by Thurman-Porter. “To me, this was the ‘Fight of the Year.’ And the reason it was the ‘Fight of the Year’ was because it was a war, but it was fought on a tremendously high skill level. It was really two of the best fighters fighting a war, not two guys with seven or eight losses fighting a war. Which, by the way, I take nothing away from guys with seven, eight losses who fight wars because Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward were two of my favorite fighters of all-time and they made the greatest trilogy in history.

“But to see guys that good fight a fight that competitive and that brutal, that was great stuff. And when Shawn comes in here, he should be happy. And I think he’s gonna be, because he knows what he did. He fought a great fight. And Keith retained his belt in a great fight. They’re two guys that should both be happy. And the people that should be most happy were the people that were in the Barclays Center [Saturday night] to watch it, or saw it on CBS, because it was a great fight.”

According to unofficial CompuBox statistics, Thurman landed an astounding 50 percent of his power punches (203 of 405) during a fight that was televised on free TV by CBS in prime time. Porter connected on 177 of 460 power shots (38 percent), according to CompuBox.

CompuBox credited Porter with landing one more overall punch than Thurman (236 of 662 to 235 of 539) and more jabs (59 of 202 to 32 of 134).

In comparison, Vargas landed 386 of 1,184 overall punches (33 percent) against Salido, who connected on 328 of 939 overall shots (35 percent). Salido landed 316 of 817 power punches (39 percent), slightly more overall than Vargas (299 of 776, 39 percent).

Vargas jabbed more effectively, though. He hit Salido with 87 of 408 jabs (21 percent), while Salido connected on only 12 of 122 (10 percent).

DiBella made it clear that he loved watching Vargas-Salido as well. Witnessing Thurman-Porter from a ringside seat, however, made him appreciate their fight a little more.

“Here’s what you got,” DiBella said. “On paper, everyone was hyping this fight, hyping this fight, hyping this fight. How many fights have we seen over recent years, particularly on pay-per-view, that everyone was hyping and turned out to be dogsh*t? We’ve seen a lot of them. And what we got [Saturday night] on free TV, on CBS, was what we were promised. Two of the best fighters in the world, fighting each other, fighting the best fights that they could fight, and it was a war.”

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.