LAS VEGAS – Jermaine Franklin Jr. and Ivan Dychko weren’t able to rise to the occasion, and the heavyweight contenders delivered a dud on Saturday during the undercard of the Canelo Alvarez-Terence Crawford event at Allegiant Stadium.

The clash unfolded at a slow and calculated pace, with each contestant trading jabs, holding and not loading up on much of anything really significant. But a winner still needed to be announced, and the judges felt Franklin did enough to get the nod as he was awarded scores of 97-92, 96-93 and 95-94.

The corner of Franklin (24-2, 15 KOs) implored their fighter to let his hands go and show more urgency, aggression and a volume of punches throughout the fight, but neither fighter was necessarily up to the instructions or challenge.

The 10-round bout was filled with several quiet rounds, and the boo birds broke out from the fifth on from the listless showings.

Franklin, a 31-year-old from Saginaw, Michigan, came into the fight with a heavy heart, having lost his father late last month. He also carried tremendous experience on the global stage, albeit in decision losses in the United Kingdom against Dillian Whyte in 2022 and Anthony Joshua in 2023.

In the second half of the fight, Franklin had a handful of positive moments but never built any real momentum. Dychko (15-1, 14 KOs) was deducted a point for holding in the eighth.

Dychko, a 35-year-old from Kazakhstan and a 2012 and '16 Olympic bronze medalist, fought past the third round for the second time in his career and it showed as he appeared fatigued from the midway point. Dychko also never showcased the power he previously had and failed to leverage his towering 6-foot-9 frame and six-inch height advantage to outdo Franklin.