By Brian Webber: Former WBA & WBC super bantamweight champion Brandon ‘The Heartbreaker’ Figueroa weighed in at 125.8 lbs, and his opponent, former WBC featherweight champ Mark Magsayo weighed in at 126 lbs for their 12 round headliner fight for the interim WBC 126-lb title this Saturday, March 4th at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, California. The event will be shown live on Showtime this Saturday at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT.
The 26-year-old Figueroa (23-1-1, 18 KOs) is coming off a sixth round knockout win over Carlos Castro last July. Before that, Figueroa had lost his WBA & WBC 122-lb titles to Stephen Fulton by a 12 round majority decision in November 2021.
Magsayo initially weighed in at 126.8 lbs on Friday in his first weigh-in attempt, but he was given two hours to take off the weight. He later returned to the scales and successfully made the 126-lb weigh-in limit, coming in at 126. We’ll see on Saturday if this took anything out of him having to lose a pound today.
Magsayo (26-1, 16 KOs0 lost his WBC featherweight title to Rey Vargas last July by a 12 round split decision in San Antonio, Texa. Vargas took many big shots from Magsayo in the first half of the contest but then came on strong to dominate the championship rounds to get the victory.
Undercard weights
- Jarred Hurd 159.2 vs. Armando Resendiz 161
- Amilcar Vidal 159 vs. Elijah Garcia 158.6
- Terrell Gausha 156.6 vs. Brandyn Lynch 155.6
- Travon Marshall 145.6 vs. Justin DeLoach Dock 147
- Enriko Gogokhia 143 vs. Samuel Teah 141.6
The winner of this Saturday’s fight will be able to challenge Rey Vargas for his WBC featherweight title. Vargas suffered his first career defeat last month, losing to O’Shaquie Foster by a 12 round unanimous decision in a failed bid to win the vacant WBC super featherweight title that had recently been lost by Shakur Stevenson on the scales in his fight against Robson Conceicao last year.
In the co-feature weights, former IBF & WBA junior middleweight champion Jarrett Hurd (24-2, 16 KOs) weighed in at 159.2 lbs, and his tune-up opponent Jose Armando Resendiz (13-1, 9 weighed in at 161 lbs for their 10 round middleweight bout.
The 32-year-old Hurd is coming off a two-year layoff since losing to Luis Arias by a 10 round split decision in June 2021. Hurd hasn’t looked like the same fighter he once was since his war with Erislandy Lara in 2018.
Although Hurd won that fight by a 12 round split decision, he suffered a shoulder injury and took a lot of punishment, which was normal for him, but it seemed to impact his last four performances, resulting him losing to Julian ‘J-Rock’ Williams and Arias.
Being out of the ring for two years after losses to Arias and J-Rock probably won’t help Hurd, and it wouldn’t be surprising if he were to lose to Resendiz.
He shouldn’t because Resendiz isn’t an average fighter, losing to the unheralded Marcos Hernandez by a 10 round unanimous decision in 2021. Hernandez, for those who don’t remember him, was blown out by Anthony Dirrell and Jeison Rosario.