By Jake Donovan

Chris Arreola vowed during fight week to be the Grinch who stole Travis Kauffman's Christmas.

If crowd reaction was any indication, then it was the judges who played that role as Arreola escaped with a 12-round split decision Saturday evening at AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas. 

Scores were 114-113 Kauffman and 114-113 (twice) in favor of Arreola, who survived a 3rd round knockdown to rally late in pulling out a close and debatable victory.

Arreola declared prior to the fight that he wanted to punish Kauffman before stopping him somewhere in the middle rounds. It was the game plan he carried out early in the night, digging to Kauffman’s soft midsection and fighting as if he truly believed his opponent was little more than a sparring partner for hire. 

Despite this representing a massive leap in competition, Kauffman quickly adjusted and never wilted. The perception was that Arreola was the bigger puncher, but the switch-hitter from Reading, Penn. worked around that, showing what he's learned from 200 rounds of sparring together over the past nine years. 

In fact, it was the underdog who produced the bout's lone knockdown. A body shot froze Arreola in place just long enough for a right hand to separate from his senses in round three. The heavyweight slugger from Riverside, Calif. attempted to hold on for dear life but slid down to the canvas. 

"It was that one right hand, I didn't see it coming," Arreola told BoxingScene.com of the shot. "That f****r caught me good, but that was the last time he was going to get me like that."

The sequence suggested a turning point in the fight, but Kauffman wasn't able to land the type of home run shots to permanently swing the fight in his favor. The 30-year old heavyweight applied pressure in rounds four and five, but not enough to put the fight out of reach.

Momentum swung back and forth in the middle rounds, which provided the widest disparity among observers attempting to casually score the affair. Kauffman was the busier fighter, while Arreola was statistically more efficient. 

The way his corner told it, Kauffman was beginning to run away with the fight as action moved into the later rounds. The truth was that round nine - highlighted by Arreola getting caught with a low blow late and taking upward of two minutes to recover - was the last frame he swept on the judges' cards. 

Kauffman was up 86-84 on all three scorecards after nine rounds. It meant the fight was mathematically still in reach for Arreola as long as he dug deep to go after it, right in line with an honest assessment from his corner by that point. 

"I don't sugarcoat anything, I let Chris knew he was down," Henry Ramirez, Arreola's longtime trainer and close friend - in that order when it comes to fight night - told BoxingScene.com. "I told him the fight was getting away and he had to win every last round to get this fight." 

Arreola did just that on two of the three judges' scorecards. Rounds 10 and 11 were pivotal in the veteran contender's comeback, outworking Kauffman in stretches but more importantly landing the cleaner punches. 

The late rally meant it was anyone's fight heading into the 12th and final round - even if Kauffman and his team thought it was already decided long before that. 

"I know I won the fight," insisted Kauffman, whose 12-fight win streak was snapped as he falls to 30-2 (23KOs), but his stock rising in defeat. "But all that aside, I'm proud of my performance and what I was able to do in there."

Kauffman was able to stand and trade with Arreola - often getting the better of the exchanges. The two gave whatever they had left in a free-swinging 12th and final round, one of three frames on which the judges didn't unanimously agree. 

Judge Wilfredo Esperon (Texas) had Kauffman winning the round and thus the fight. He was alone in that viewpoint, with judges Valerie Dorsett (North Carolina) and Ursulo Perez giving Arreola the round and the win by the same margin. 

"It was a close fight, I thought the judges had it right," Ramirez noted. "If they said Travis won by one point, we wouldn't complain about the decision at all. It was that close fight, but the work Chris did in the last 3-4 rounds won him the fight." 

The viewpoint wasn't necessarily a popular one. 

"They came in here cheering for Chris, but the crowd is leaving cheering for me," Kauffman said after the fight, pointing out that - at the very least - he earned everyone's respect. 

Included among them was his former sparring partner. 

"I give Travis Kauffman all the credit," Arreola said afterward. "I'll gladly give him a rematch. He's a tough, tough fighter. We can do this again." 

The bout aired live in primetime in the season finale of Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) on NBC. 

Jake Donovan is the managing editor of BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox