Edward Vazquez was frustrated in the immediate aftermath of his close loss to Joe Cordina on Saturday night.

“The Welsh Wizard” was a 14-1 favorite according to DraftKings sportsbook, but Vazquez was very competitive in their 12-round fight for Cordina’s IBF junior lightweight title at Casino de Monte Carlo in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Judge Jeremy Hayes scored their back-and-forth fight a draw, 114-114, but judges Deon Dwarte and Jean-Robert Laine scored eight rounds apiece for Cardiff’s Cordina, who won 116-112 on their cards.

Eddie Hearn – whose company, Matchroom Boxing, promotes Cordina – acknowledged in the ring that Cordina-Vazquez was closer than Dwarte and Laine had it. Hearn believes Cordina did enough to win, but Vazquez vehemently disagreed after suffering a majority-decision defeat.

“I’ll be back, man,” Vazquez stated during his post-fight interview in the ring. “You know, everyone in this room in here, everyone watching around the world knows I won. Eddie Hearn knows I won. But guess what? They did it to me again! But they can’t stop that Fort Worth kid, man. Texas in the house. We made noise. You know what it is. I’ll be back, baby.”

By “again,” Vazquez referred to his only other professional loss – a 10-round, split-decision defeat to American Raymond Ford in February 2022 at Footprint Center in Phoenix. Ford (14-0-1, 7 KOs), a southpaw from Camden, New Jersey, is also represented by Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing, which promoted that show, too.

Vazquez (15-2, 3 KOs), of Fort Worth, Texas, won that featherweight fight on judge Dennis O’Connell’s scorecard (96-94). Judges Rubin Taylor (98-92) and Chris Wilson (97-93) both scored Ford the winner.

On Saturday night, CompuBox counted almost the same number of punches landed for Cordina as Vazquez.

According to CompuBox’s unofficial tally, Cordina connected with 170-of-527 punches, just six more than Vazquez (164-of-568). Cordina landed more power punches (143-of-331 to 128-of-405), but Vazquez connected with more jabs (36-of-163 to 27-of-196).

Cordina (17-0, 9 KOs) revealed that his trainer, Tony Sims, informed him before the 10th round began that Simms thought their fight was “probably level.” The champion admitted that his victory over Vazquez wasn’t conclusive, but the 31-year-old Cordina feels he did enough to win a main event DAZN streamed worldwide.

Vazquez argued with Cordina, a 2016 Olympian, about the official outcome before they were separated and left the ring.

“He wasn’t able to do anything he wanted to do the whole fight,” Vazquez said. “He was in scrambles. He couldn’t land his little right hand he talked about the entire buildup to the fight or the left hook.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.