Cortes ruins Magsayo plans at lightweight with unanimous decision

MARK Magsayo was dominated by undefeated American-Mexican Andres Cortes, who carved out a unanimous 10-round decision on Sunday (Manila Time) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Cortes closed the distance from the opening bell and denied Magsayo the space to get his rhythm going, allowing the Mexican to dictate the pace early in the undercard of the Ryan Garcia-Conor Benn WBC welterweight title bout.

That was more the enough for the 29-year-old Cortes to win their lightweight bout as Magsayo’s attempt to rally in the later rounds came far too late.

Scores of the three judges were all 97-93 in favor of Cortes, who kept his unbeaten record at 26-0 with 13 KOs.

It was a disappointing loss for the 31-year-old Magsayo, who is fighting in the lightweight class for just the second time under Zuffa Boxing.

The Tagbilaran, Bohol native saw his record fall to 29-3 with 19 KOs and stymied his bid to win a world title in a division where he earlier expressed ‘feeling stronger and powerful.’

Magsayo once held the WBC featherweight crown, although briefly.

Aware that he was trailing in the scorecards, the Filipino went for broke and appeared to have shaken Cortes in the ninth and 12th rounds, but couldn’t build enough momentum to turn the outcome around.

Twice, Magsayo went down, initially in the third round when his glove touched the canvas following a right hand by Cortes, and then in the fourth when the Filipino dropped to his knee.

Magsayo claimed he was pushed in both instances, which the Nevada State Athletic Commission later affirmed, leading to the reversal of the knockdowns.

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