Pacquiao vs Algieri results: Jessie Vargas beats Antonio DeMarco in hard-hitting PPV opener

Jessie Vargas' first fight under new trainer Roy Jones Jr has to be considered a success, as the 25-year-old junior welterweight remained undefeated with a solid victory over former lightweight titleholder Antonio DeMarco tonight in Macau, opening up the Pacquiao-Algieri pay-per-view undercard.

Vargas (26-0, 9 KO) won on scores of 116-112 across the board, retaining his WBA "world" (or "regular") title. DeMarco falls to 31-4-1 (23 KO) despite a game effort and a lot of marks left on Vargas' face. BLH had it a bit wider, scoring it 118-110 for Vargas.

Vargas was a bit more offensive minded than we've seen in the past, something that almost surely comes from Jones' tutelage, as the story goes that Jones offered to show Vargas how to better throw a strong left hook, and wound up as his new full-time trainer after that. Vargas will never be Roy Jones Jr -- nobody will ever exactly be Roy again, probably -- but the improvements he made, at least from a fan friendly stance, were welcome.

DeMarco's always-leaky defense surely had something to do with that, too, but it's not as if the Mexican warrior rolled over. DeMarco was there fighting with Vargas the entire night, busting up his nose, cutting him under the left eye in round two due to a clash of heads, and landing plenty of clean shots along the way. Vargas was just the better man.

Both fighters were accurate with their power punches. Vargas landed 220 of 495 for a 44% connect rate, with Vargas landing 148 of 356, a 42% clip.