Nearly a decade ago, "Panterita" Omar Figueroa of Weslaco put the Rio Grande Valley on the boxing map. He became the first world champion from the "valley" when he out-hustled and beat down Nihito Arakawa to capture the WBC Lightweight title. Nearly a decade later, with the 956 as one of boxing's newest hotbeds, his little brother, Brandon, will look to become the RGV's first two-division world champion. He secured the right to fight current WBC featherweight champ Rey Vargas by disposing of former champ Mark Magsayo at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, California.
After somewhat of a slower start, a slow start for Figueroa's standard at least, the younger Figueroa brother got cooking in the middle rounds. Pressing forward and switching between the conventional and southpaw stances, "The Heartbreaker" began breaking his man down with body shots and hooks, along with a pinpoint uppercut that he landed from both hands from both stances. Figueroa's pressuring styles started to pay dividends as Magsayo was twice deducted a point for holding and clinging to the Rio Grande Valley native. Facing disqualification, Magsayo could no longer hold on, and Figueroa slammed on the gas and wore Magsayo down in a highly entertaining final few stanzas. Removing any doubt and swinging the fight in the south Texans' favor. With two judges scored the fight 117-109, and the third had it 118-108. As he now moves on to fight Vargas for his WBC featherweight belt.
Vargas found out what happens when you mess with Texas when he was outclassed by Houston-area native O'shaquie Foster for the vacant WBC super featherweight strap. He will now battle with the RGV native for his WBC belt.