He was disqualified by Referee Jay Nady when the 21-year-old Pacquiao protege threw two punches after the bell sounded at the end of Round 7. It dropped the Mexican-American into the canvas when the current champion has already lowered his hands and was preparing to touch gloves with the Filipino rising star.

In an interview with Freddie Roach on the post-fight, he said that the punches were never intentional. He called it “Late Punches” but he agreed that the disqualification was justified. Ring side doctors ruled that Luevano cannot continue due to the flagrant punches.

Steven Luevano is a known distance fighter. He controlled the tempo of the match opting to fight outside rather than mixed it up with Concepcion’s brawling style. It must have been the reason why Bernabe grew frustrated for not making a clean shot at the champion. But the “Late Punches” proved that Luevano cannot take Abe’s power punches.

If the fight not for disqualification and the fight had to stop, Luevano still would have won the fight via split decision. The scorecards after two of the three judges ruled in Luevano’s favor with Steve Morrow and CJ Ross scored 67-64 and 68-65 in favor of Luevano while Glenn Trowbridge saw the fight for Concepcion at 67-66.

The championi, who improved his fight record to 37-1-1 with 15 of his wins by way of knockout, said he is open to a rematch with Concepcion later this year. It was also Luevano’s fifth chance to successfully defend his title. With the experience that Concepcion had in this fight, we can look forward for a better match later this year. The rematch is initially scheduled on December.