William Joppy v. Cory Cummings.

Three-time former middleweight champ William Joppy made his return to the DMV Saturday night for the first time since March 2007 but couldn’t pull off the win against Cory “Black Ice” Cummings of Baltimore, settling for a majority draw in an even if often ugly middleweight contest.

After the fight Joppy seemed content and said it felt good to be back in the ring, while Cummings was considerably less satisfied with the scorecards, one of which gave Joppy the fight by a score of 96 to 94. Cummings said he felt he won the fight and claimed the ref stopped his momentum by checking his tape in the final round, which I scored for “Black Ice.”

Joppy seemed the more effective fighter at times and has no one but himself to blame for the loss as he basically surrendered the fifth round without much resistance. He rallied after taking some stiff shots in the final round, indicating he has more left than he showed tonight.

Despite believing he should have won, Cummings conceded he had squandered an opportunity by overworking at times.

“I needed to relax a little bit,” he admitted before asking for a rematch. Whether he gets it may be a matter of how much the boxing world thinks Joppy has left after failing to win his last three fights, though the previous two were admittedly against much stiffer competition (Lucian Bute, Sebastien Demers).

At 40 years of age the day may not be too far away when Joppy decides to hang up his gloves. While not a definitive judgment, Saturday night was an indication that day is drawing close.