ONTARIO, California – Mark Magsayo and his promotional representative expressed outrage in the immediate aftermath of his lopsided points loss to Brandon Figueroa on Saturday night.
Magsayo thought the two points referee Thomas Taylor deducted from him might’ve factored into the decision once their 12-round, 126-pound championship match ended. Neither Magsayo nor Sean Gibbons, the president of Manny Pacquiao’s promotional company, could believe, however, that judges Gary Ritter, Fernando Villarreal and Zachary Young scored their fight for Figueroa by such huge margins.
Ritter (117-109) and Villarreal (117-109) scored nine rounds apiece for Figueroa, who won 10 rounds on Young’s card (118-108). Young scored each of the final nine rounds for Figueroa (24-1-1, 18 KOs), a Weslaco, Texas native who won the WBC interim featherweight title in a main event Showtime televised from Toyota Center.
The Philippines’ Magsayo (24-2, 16 KOs) lost a 12-round split decision to Mexico’s Rey Vargas (30-1, 22 KOs) in his previous bout, which cost Magsayo the WBC featherweight title July 9 at Alamodome in San Antonio. Judge Jesse Reyes scored that fight 114-113 for Magsayo, who dropped Vargas in the ninth round, but judges Tim Cheatham (115-112) and David Sutherland (115-112) scored Vargas the winner.
The former champ and Gibbons were much more bothered by the scoring of his decisive defeat Saturday night.
“We just wanna say the man fought in San Antonio, fought his ass off, lost a very close, disputed [split decision], which I thought he won,” Gibbons told a small group of reporters in Magsayo’s locker room. “Here tonight was pathetic. I’ve never seen – you cannot, no matter how you add it up, score rounds four [through] 12 for Brandon Figueroa. You just can’t do it.
“And also, I wanna know why the state of California changed one of our judges. I was told Monday there was three judges. They changed Rudy Barragan. Why? … Pathetic. This man fought his ass off. And everybody saw the fight. Even with the point deductions, could’ve been 15-13, 14-14. But 17-9? No.”
Gibbons explained that Villarreal replaced Barragan as one of the three judges during fight week, but that Ritter and Young were assigned by the WBC to score Figueroa-Magsayo all along. Ritter and Villarreal both scored eight of the final nine rounds for Figueroa.
