The main event of the latest Golden Boy Promotions on ESPN2 event was a close one as Michael Perez outdueled fellow lightweight Nicolas Lopez over 10 rounds. Both men landed their fair share of clean, hard punches and nearly each stanza came down to the wire, and when the final bell rang, a clear-cut winner was nowhere to be found.

Though Perez (25-2-2, 11 KOs) controlled the action a bit more than his counterpart, he wasn’t blowing him away. In fact, things turned for the worse for Perez in the eighth when Lopez (32-2-1, 17 KOs) drilled him with a perfectly-time shot to the head, dropping Perez in the process. Perez recovered rather quickly and eventually resumed control of the pace and rallied late to steal the fight via split decision. One judge had it 96-93 for Lopez, but that score was overturned by the same score for Perez by the other two ringside officials.

The co-main event inside Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, N.Y., was nearly as close as the headliner as Rashidi Ellis (18-0, 12 KOs) edged John Karl Sosa (13-3, 6 KOs) over 10 rounds at welterweight. The combatants tore into each other early and often, but Ellis landed the far better punches and was crisper during the exchanges. In the end, Ellis won via majority nod with scores of 995 and 97-93 (twice).

Also on the card, Eddie Gomez (20-2, 11 KOs) toppled Dennis Dauti (14-2, 7 KOs) via eight-round unanimous decision; super middleweight Jimmy Garcia (5-0, 3 KOs) stopped Albert Tulley (0-1) after knocking him down at 1:46 of the opening round; and light heavyweight contender Vyacheslav Shabranskyy (18-1, 15 KOs) clubbed Larry Pryor (10-16, 5 KOs) badly as he knocked him out 54 ticks into the second.