Magsayo says point deductions cost him the fight against Figueroa

By Boxing News - 03/05/2023 - Comments

By Adam Baskin: Mark Magsayo (24-2, 16 KOs) insisted after his fight with Brandon Figueroa (24-1-1, 18 KOs) that he would have won if not for the referee twice taking points off for his holding last Saturday night at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, California.

Magsayo maintains that he and Figueroa were both holding and that it’s a normal part of the sport. However, the referee and many boxing fans on social media felt differently, seeing Magsayo clinching to keep Figueroa from hitting him in the body because he appeared to be bothered by those shots.

In the championship rounds, Magsayo was leaning forward much of the time and holding in reaction to Figueroa nailing him with hard shots to the bread basket. It seemed apparent that Magsayo was bothered by those punches.

Magsayo was clinching in a manner that suggested that he was trying to survive because he looked like he was fading and close to being stopped by the body shots from Figueroa.

Along with the clinching from Magsayo, we saw him fall down several times in what appeared to be a move to escape the hard punches Figueroa was tagging him with to the body.

How the referee didn’t count those as knockdowns is unclear because it seemed Magsayo was going down in reaction to escape the body shots like a fighter spits out their mouthpiece to escape getting knocked out.

The other thing that Magsayo & his manager Sean Gibbons were upset about was the scoring from the three judges.

They didn’t see it as a fight that was as one-sided as the judges did, but obviously, they were looking at Magsayo’s body language during the second half of the fight, which suggested that he was tired and wilting badly.

The scores were 117-109, 117-109, and 118-108.

“Floyd, he do that all the time in the Maidana fight. It’s normal,” said Mark Magsayo to the media when asked about his two deductions for excessive holding. “No,” said Magsayo about whether he’d been warned by the referee prior to his point deductions.

“He said, ‘Brandon, Mark, stop, stop.’ That’s boxing. We’re holding & holding, and that second deduction, we’re punching and then a deduction.”

“He’s punching when the guy took a point. How does that happen?” said manager Sean Gibbons. “I don’t know how three people see it differently from thousands and thousands of people watching,” Gibbons said about the scoring from the three judges being too wide.

“We’ve all been in boxing a long time, and we see wacky decisions. They changed one of the judges.”

“I think I’m going to move to 130,” said Magsayo.

“He was feeling moving up to 130 before this opportunity came. We were going up to 130, and then the Figueroa came,” said Gibbons. “He said, ‘For this type of fight, I’m going to make it again.’ As you saw, it wasn’t easy. That took a little something out of him also.”

“Without the two deductions, I feel like I’m going to win the fight,” said Magsayo. “I hit him with clearly with solid punches, and he was hurt.  He pushed me down,” said Magsayo about the times he fell down during the fight.

“The referee should have done something about the pushing. Mark was bending over a little, and he [Figueroa] was leaning,” said Gibbons.

“I was like this [Magsayo bending forward at the waist], and he pushed me like that,” said Magsayo. “It’s hard to go up because he’s holding you.”

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