Fifteen months away, and Floyd Schofield looked like he never left. He came out of the corner bouncing and threw 41 punches in round one, more than he would throw in any round the rest of the night, while Lucas Bahdi spent three minutes trying to find him.
Round three is when it got loud. Bahdi, the heavy-handed one, ran into a check left hook and hit the canvas. That was Schofield at his best: quick feet, quick hands, and a punch that arrived before Bahdi knew it was coming. For a few rounds it looked like a coronation.
Then Bahdi started getting his licks in, and that is the part we can’t shake. He found Schofield clean in the sixth and again in the ninth, when a knee touched the canvas and nothing was scored. The jab that carried Schofield early went missing late, and by the eleventh he was throwing it and landing none of eight. Every time Schofield got loose, he handed Bahdi a way in.
The eleventh brought the strangest moment of the night. Bahdi landed while stepping on Schofield’s foot, Schofield went down, and it was scored a knockdown. Ringside saw tangled feet. It didn’t change the outcome: Schofield out-landed Bahdi by 43 punches and the judges were with him, Dave DeJonge 116-110, Alfredo Gallardo 119-108 and Steve Weisfeld 115-111, with Ben Rodriguez refereeing. We had it 115-112. He is the WBA champion. Whether he looked like one is a different conversation.
| Segment | Schofield | Bahdi |
|---|---|---|
| Total punches | 117/360 (32.5%) | 74/315 (23.5%) |
| Jabs | 43/161 (26.7%) | 23/143 (16.1%) |
| Power punches | 74/199 (37.2%) | 51/172 (29.7%) |
| Body punches landed | 19 | 16 |
| Jabs, rounds 1–6 | 30/102 | 9/72 |
| Jabs, rounds 7–12 | 13/59 | 14/71 |
| Round 3 (knockdown) | 17/39 | 3/20 |
| Round 6 | 13/28 | 10/30 |
| Round 9 | 7/29 | 9/32 |
| Round 11 (scored knockdown vs. Schofield) | 7/26 | 7/31 |
| Round 12 | 6/21 | 6/33 |
| Rounds out-landed | 8 | 1 (3 tied) |
| Official scorecards | 116-110, 119-108, 115-111 | — |
| Blotter scorecard | 115-112 | — |
No fabricated stats · All featured fighters accounted for
| Fight | Blotter Call | Result | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Schofield vs. Bahdi | Schofield, decision (Lean) | Schofield UD12 | HIT |
| Mendoza vs. Sandoval | Sandoval, decision (Lean) | Mendoza TKO5 | MISS |
| Rivera vs. Valdez | Rivera, decision (Lean) | Rivera UD10 | HIT |
| Harvey vs. Castaneda Castro | Harvey, decision (Lean) | Harvey TKO3 | HIT (WINNER) · METHOD MISS |
| Program Device | What It Said | What Happened | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Judge’s Chair · Round 6 | Still boxing off the jab at round six, it is his card. | Jab 5 of 9, his best percentage of the fight. Schofield won on all three cards. | HELD |
| Judge’s Chair · Round 5 | In the pocket by round five, start giving Bahdi rounds. | Round 5 was tied on landed punches, 6 to 6. Position is not in the CompuBox data. | NOT MEASURABLE |
| Judge’s Chair · Round 9 | Jab still working at nine, the late-round question is answered. | Jab 4 of 12, power 3 of 17, and Bahdi’s only round out-landed. | SPLIT |
| Championship Round Bank | Schofield BUILDING (8 rounds at 9+), Bahdi MODERATE (11). | Each man adds four rounds: Schofield to 12, Bahdi to 15. Tiers unchanged. | UPDATED |
| Crisis Execution | Schofield UNVERIFIED. Bahdi TIER II. | Schofield was down in round 11 after the foot tangle. One more data point, still no rating. | UNVERIFIED |
| Chin Report | One knockdown in 19 for Schofield. Neither stopped. | Schofield dropped once more (round 11). Bahdi dropped once (round 3). Neither stopped. | UPDATED |
| Weight Discipline Check | Anomaly, not a pattern. | Missed at 135.6 on the first attempt, made 135 on the second. No earlier miss found. | LOGGED |
| What This Fight Settles | Late rounds, mid-fight adjustment, ranked opponent. | Schofield led the late rounds on landed punches, but his jab faded and Bahdi kept hitting him. Neither man answered it. | NOT ANSWERED |
Neither fighter looked elite. The belt was a WBA title, but neither Schofield nor Bahdi showed he belongs on the level of the division’s other champions: Zepeda, Stevenson and Mason. The Blotter leaves this fight with more questions than answers.
Schofield is extremely athletic. His speed, movement and reflexes are good, and he is always bouncing. But Bahdi is a straightforward fighter with average speed, and he hit Schofield far too often and too cleanly. Schofield also has a bad habit of throwing punches while he is in the air, mid-bounce, and he drops his hands too much. Against elite opposition like Zepeda or Shakur Stevenson, that is a real problem.
Bahdi earned his relevance by beating Sylve as a big underdog and by winning another fight that could have gone either way. What we saw in the ring was a contender. The Blotter sees two contenders here, not crossover material, and both men’s personal stories are more impressive than how they looked in the ring.
One fair caveat: both fighters had been out of the ring for more than a year, and Schofield for 15 months. That context matters, but it adds to the questions instead of answering them. We will revisit both fighters’ Grind and Climb placements in the next volume.
Oscar Collazo withdrew from the Sandoval fight on September 18, about three weeks out, and said afterward that he still wanted to fight Sandoval later. Mendoza, the replacement, has now stopped Sandoval. The Blotter doubts Collazo wants any part of Mendoza, who is very tall and long for 112 pounds.
Here is the Blotter’s condition. If Collazo’s next opponent is anyone other than Taduran, Mendoza or Sandoval, we will call it a MAJOR DUCK!, remove him from the P4P Radar, and side-eye any publication that still lists him.
Grant Flores’s round-two stoppage meets the program’s own line for a step toward a ranked opponent. Rivera won 99-89 on all three cards with a knockdown, and Harvey stopped an inactive man in three. The open question for both is who they face when the opposition stops being a stepping stone.