As ever, Vinny Maddalone provided a big-hearted, blood-and-guts effort as he biffed and battered his way to a majority but well-earned decision over Jermell Barnes in a welcome return to live televised boxing on the Madison Square Garden network.

I thought Maddalone was in big trouble when he was cut over the left eye in the third, which was just what he didn’t need in a fight that was tough and closely contested from the start. The crowd-pleaser from Queens, NY, looked slow, he was getting hit (no surprise there) and when he landed one of his big swings or hooks he was not budging Barnes.

Unable to dent his opponent’s extremely reliable chin, Maddalone had to win this the hard way by outlasting the superior stylist.

I had Barnes up by 67-66 after seven rounds but Maddalone seemed to find a second wind. Barnes, with his tight, gloves-up guard, was hard to hit cleanly but Maddalone did his best to bludgeon his way through, and he turned the fight his way with some heavy-handed wallops in the eighth — a lot of heavyweights might have “gone” from the blows that Barnes absorbed in this round.

Although Barnes did not go anywhere I think that those big whacks took a bit out of him — certainly they seemed to push him into being a little too cautious at a time in the fight when he needed to be letting his hands go. It was Maddalone who finished the stronger, gritting out the victory with scores of 95-95, 96-94 and 97-93.

A well-known problem with Barnes is that he does not throw enough punches, which he acknowledged afterwards. Maddalone simply outworked him. I did get the distinct impression, though, that it was a good thing for Maddalone that Barnes is not a seriously hard hitter (just four opponents stopped in his 30 previous fights).

Maddalone’s promoter, Joe DeGuardia, made the point afterwards that Maddalone can be matched with anyone and it will be an exciting fight, and he is probably right. Whatever faults that Maddalone has artistically, his fights have a cliff-hanger type of excitement: Will he get knocked out? Will he knock out the other man? Will he get stopped on cuts? Will he run out of gas when he has the fight seemingly won? All of these things seem distinctly possible whenever Maddalone, God love him, steps between the ropes.