Chavez Regains Crown in a Bizarre Twist : Saturday’s fights: He defeats Randall by technical split-decision after head butt opens a gash in the eighth round.

It wasn’t revenge, it wasn’t anything close.

Julio Cesar Chavez got back his title in as bizarre a circumstance as could have been imagined Saturday night.

Chavez and Frankie Randall were getting into the heart of their bout, then they had to stop. Then everybody had to wait.

Then the MGM Grand Garden crowd of about 14,000, almost completely pro-Chavez, expressed relief and bizarre merriment when Chavez was announced the winner of a technical split-decision, giving him back the World Boxing Council super-lightweight title he lost to Randall last January.

After Chavez, who was getting hit hard all night and was trying to keep close to avoid Randall’s long rights and lefts, received a large cut over his right eye with two seconds remaining in the eighth round because of an accidental head butt from Randall, the fight was stopped because Chavez was ruled not able to continue.

The fight went to the scorecards through all eight rounds. Following WBC rules, Randall was deducted one point for the inadvertent butt.

Judge Tamotsu Tomihara of Hawaii scored it for Randall, 76-75. But judges Ray Solis of Mexico and Dalby Shirley of Las Vegas both ruled in favor of Chavez--Solis (who favored Chavez in the first Randall fight) by 77-74, Shirley by 76-75.

Without the point deduction for the butt, it would have been a draw.

“I don’t like winning this way,” Chavez said. “I don’t want any controversy. I wanted to win without any doubt. I think open-scoring should be a part of boxing so the public doesn’t walk away with a bad feeling.

“(But) I don’t think that butt was unintentional.”

If the butt had been ruled intentional, Randall would have been deducted two points.

After the decision was announced, Randall and his trainer, Aaron Snowell, bolted from the ring at a near sprint in visible disgust.

Seconds before the decision, Randall said: “It was close all night, we were going in and out, we were both trying to get off first. I didn’t want to butt him. . . . If I did, it was an accidental butt, but I think I still won the fight.”

The fight began as an accelerated repeat fo the first, with Randall (49-3-1) delivering more punishment more swiftly.

Chavez (90-1-1), who said before the fight that he would put constant pressure on Randall, opened up on the attack and landed a few of his famous hooks to the body in the first round.

But also in the first, reminding of when he lost two points for low blows in the first bout, Chavez was warned by referee Mills Lane for a low blow.

In the second round came the exact left-right to the jaw combination from Randall that knocked down Chavez for the first time in his career in the January fight.

This time, moments into the second, Randall’s straight right arched over Chavez’s lowered left and buckled Chavez, almost putting him down again before Chavez regained his balance.

Randall was warned himself later in the round for a low punch that had Chavez grimacing in pain for about 10 seconds.

The third was more of the same, with Chavez chasing and being punished for it by Randall’s apparently unblockable right hand. By the third, Chavez was cut over the bridge of his nose--again, similar to the circumstances of the first bout, when Chavez sustained several welts on his nose and cheeks.

In the fourth Chavez slowed the charge and seemed to locate a better rhythm by landing several left hooks to the body and staying away from the more violent Randall shots.

The fifth saw the best action of the fight--for one 40-second period, Randall caught Chavez against the ropes and fired long right after long right to Chavez’s face. Chavez answered with a couple of hooks to the body, but Randall came out of the round having scored the hardest and most punches.

Solis gave Chavez the fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth rounds.

Chavez was more effective in the sixth, but Randall came right back at him in the seventh and eighth, leading off the combinations with sharp lefts that had Chavez teetering back two or three steps.

Then came the eighth, and, and Chavez was a champion again.