Here are the most eye-catching stories from this weekend’s boxing news and ring action:
– There was lots of fan-friendly action in Saturday’s Showtime main event at Toyota Arena in Ontario, California in the Brandon Figueroa-Mark Magsayo scrap for the interim WBC featherweight title. There was also some controversy.
Although the 26-year-old Figueroa getting the win wasn’t all that controversial, the three wide judges scores in his favor (117-109, 117-109, 118-108) were a bit of a head-scratcher. Referee Thomas Taylor’s decision to deduct two points over Magsayo’s failure to break was also widely criticized although, ultimately, the points deductions didn’t affect the outcome of the bout.
With the victory, Figueroa, a former two-belt world champ in the 122 lb. class moves one step closer to a shot at the WBC 126 lb. title, currently held by Rey Vargas.
Magsayo, meanwhile, has been wildly critical of both the ref’s point deductions as well as the judges’ scores. After the fight, the Filipino former WBC featherweight champ, told media that he’d be moving up to the 130 lb. division.
– On the Figueroa-Magsayo undercard, former two-belt junior middleweight champ Jarrett Hurd failed in his comeback bout against Jose Armando Reséndiz. The 10-round middleweight contest was stopped by the ringside physician at the beginning of the tenth round due to a severe lip laceration on Hurd. At the time of the stoppage, all three scorecards were in Resendiz’s favor.
The win is a bounceback performance of sorts for the 24-year-old Mexican, who was 1-0 since suffering his first career defeat back in 2021 against Marcos Hernandez.
The loss for the 32-year-old Hurd is his second straight. The former world champ is now 1-3 in his last four bouts and without a significant win since beating Erislandy Lara in 2018.
– Manny Pacquiao is reportedly back in training for a career comeback and, according to his team, there’s interest in fighting second generation UK star Conor Benn.
The son of former world champ Nigel Benn was recently cleared of wrongdoing by the WBC over a failed doping test. Blaming the adverse finding on an abnormally high consumption of eggs, Benn has been the target of derision and social media ribbing over the “egg situation” since the WBC ruling.
The 26-year-old is still suspended by the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC) and being reinstated by them will be a tougher task than being cleared by the WBC.
In a recent interview with FightHype.com, however, Pacquiao advisor Sean Gibbons seemed to walk back the idea of Pacquiao facing Benn a bit.
“There are discussions but there’s a long way to go,” Gibbons said. “I mean, would people love to see Manny in the ring? Yeah. Conor? Yeah. Two big names. So it’s kind of just been thrown out there, and there’s where it’s kind of at. It’s an idea that Eddie Hearn had and Manny said I’m up to hear about it. But until Conor got cleared by the WBC for the issues with the tests, Manny wouldn’t fight him. Now the guy’s cleared, so, you know, if it can happen, I think it would be a fun fight.”
– Saul “Canelo” Alvarez appears to be all set to face the UK’s John Ryder on May 6 in his hometown of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. This will be Alvarez’s first bout in his native Mexico since he stopped Kermit Cintron in five rounds back in 2011. The 32-year-old is the reigning, unified 4-belt super middleweight champion.
– Jake Paul says that his recent pay-per-view bout with Tommy Fury generated 500,000 buys and earned him a fat $30 million payday. Other sources, notably Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter fame, places those numbers at 200,000 and $10 million, respectively.
