LAS VEGAS – Elijah Garcia felt the canvas, felt Terrell Gausha’s leather and then felt the love of two favorable judges Saturday night.

Returning from his first career loss, Garcia, the former WBA top-ranked middleweight from Arizona, emerged from a first-round knockdown to edge the veteran Gausha on Saturday by split decision scores of 94-95 (Chris Migliore), 95-94 (Don Trella) and a suspect 96-93 (Zachary Young) in the Premier Boxing Champions’ Prime Video opener at Mandalay Bay.

Lifted by the knockdown, Gausha, 37, appeared to have been effective enough by steadily landing effective head punches to deal Garcia his second straight defeat.

“I thought I did what I had to do,” Gausha said. “The decision is unfortunate, but all I can do is regroup and get better.”

Whether it was Garcia’s increased activity in response to getting decked or his more pressing need as the younger fighter to receive the nod, he gained it, much to the surprise of those who witnessed all 10 rounds.

“People can think what they want. I went in the ring and fought my ass off against an Olympian,” Garcia said. “He’s only lost to world champions, and I went in there and beat him. He’s very experienced, very crafty. He was able to do some things that he wanted, but I figured out as time went on.

“Whoever thinks I lost … whatever. I won.”

Garcia, 21, returned from a dispiriting split decision loss to Kyrone Davis in June that sent him free-falling from No. 1 in the WBA ratings down to No. 15.

He left his Arizona home as a training base under his father and aligned with Las Vegas-based trainer Bob Santos, seeking to display his strides against a two-time title challenger and former U.S. Olympian in Cleveland’s Gausha, 37, who fought for Carlos Adames’ WBC belt (and lost) in his most recent bout.

Gausha, 24-5-1 (12 KOs), met Garcia, 17-1 (13 KOs), swiftly with a flush right hand to the face that knocked down Garcia in the first round, a horrid start given what his rebuilding plan was.

“I figured after he dropped me, that was the hardest I was going to get hit,” Garcia said.

Garcia brushed off the malaise in the second by working the body and then creatively landing uppercuts off the midsection shots. Gausha, however, wisely countered with effective head shots.

“We’ve been working on the right hand,” Gausha said. “He leaned forward a little bit and I caught him at the right time. I give him credit. He’s a warrior.”

The pair deemphasized defense to pursue their offensive wishes, each landing several head-rocking blows in the fourth and fifth to heighten the filling arena’s interest in the bout.

Gausha landed several punches to the head during the final minute of the sixth to override Garcia’s earlier work.

Overall, Gausha outlanded Garcia 189-154 in total punches and landed more than double the jabs (54-23), according to CompuBox statistics.

The confidence of doing so allowed Gausha to swing and deliver again in the seventh, an obvious increase in activity from the title fight against the harder-punching Adames.

Gausha worked the ninth with a combination up top, keeping Garcia at bay. Even when Garcia cornered Gausha, he didn’t hurt him, sliding away and exchanging punches to close the round.

The 10th was anyone’s round as both let loose with their best blows, especially during the final minute.

Welterweight Freudis Rojas Jnr closed the pre-Prime Video portion of the card by defeating California’s Maurice Lee on unanimous decision scores of 80-72, 80-72, 79-73.

Rojas, 26, is now 15-0 (11 KOs) while Lee drops to 15-2-2 (6 KOs).

Robert Guerrero Jnr, the son of the former two-division champion, produced an impressive second-round TKO of Sean Armas, pounding two jarring right hands to Armas’ head as he was retreating, convincing the referee to stop the fight 1 minute into the round.

Guerrero, 18, improved to 6-0 (3 KOs) following his pro debut one year ago this month.

Mexico’s Alberto Mora, 13-0 (9 KOs), maintained his perfect record with a unanimous decision triumph over Viktor Slavinskyi, 15-4-1 (7 KOs), of Los Angeles, in junior lightweight action.

With fellow Arizonans Jesus Ramos Jnr and Garcia still to come, Phoenix junior featherweight Brayan Gonzalez, 3-0 (2 KOs), unleashed a finishing barrage punctuated by left hands to stop Justin Marquez, 5-2 (4 KOs), by fourth-round TKO.

The left-handed Gonzalez, 19, gained the stoppage at 1 minute, 54 seconds of the round.  

Junior featherweight Alexis De La Cerda, 6-0 (4 KOs), followed a third-round knockdown of Sharone Carter, 14-10-1 (3 KOs), with two damaging body shots that dropped Carter for good with 1 second remaining in the round.

The 21-year-old De La Cerda has now fought twice this year.

Joseph Brown, an 18-year-old junior middleweight from Vancouver, Canada, flashed his talents with a sixth-round TKO of Texas’ Ezequiel Duran, improving to 5-0 (4 KOs).

A product of Mayweather Promotions who fought with Floyd Mayweather Snr watching from ringside. Brown was assigned a rugged foe in Duran.

Trying to respond to both an effective right uppercut earlier in the bout and a fifth-round knockdown, Brown sought to deliver finishing flurries each time, only to see Duran, 4-1 (1 KO), rally and extend the action.

That didn’t happen in the sixth, when two hurtful uppercuts and following shots backed up Duran, convincing the referee to wave off the bout at the 1-minute 54-second mark.

“He is amazing, one of my favorite young fighters,” said Mayweather Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer.

Opening the card, the Netherlands’ Jersey Vargas, 5-0 (4 KOs), scored a fourth-round knockout of Omaha’s Uhlices Avelino-Reyes with 1 second remaining in the fourth round. The 5ft 4in Vargas delivered a vicious body shot that sent Avelino-Reyes, 3-2 (2 KOs), to his knees, and he was unable to rise by the count of 10.

Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.