Results: Mercito Gesta and Carlos Molina fight to draw, undercard filled with early KOs

Mercito Gesta and Carlos Molina both badly wanted the win tonight, and each man fought as though it were indeed a must-win situation. Unfortunately, neither of them left with a W, as the judges scored their exciting 10-round fight a split draw tonight at the Fantasy Springs in Indio, California.

Official scores were 98-92 Molina, 96-94 Gesta, and 95-95. BLH had it 96-94 for Molina, giving him the first and last three rounds, with Gesta taking the middle rounds (4-7).

Molina (17-2-2, 7 KO) came out aggressively, looking to stop a two-fight losing streak that dates back to 2012, with losses to Amir Khan and Adrien Broner. In those fights, he was booked as a tune-up opponent. In this one, he was evenly matched against Gesta (28-1-2, 16 KO), who took a few rounds to really get going, but landed some good shots once he started letting his hands go.

It's a testament to Molina's toughness that he never backed down from Gesta in this fight, and pushed him hard all 10 rounds. There were plenty of debatable rounds in this fight, and the ultimate draw results is not a bad call. Of the score cards, Molina's 98-92 win is the most questionable, but there may be some defending that, too.

On the undercard, we saw three early stoppages that only filled about 40 minutes of TV time. Jason Quigley improved to 6-0 (6 KO) with an early second round stoppage of Justin Snyder; Jeffrey Fontanez (16-1, 12 KO) trucked spoiler Jose Hernandez (15-10-1, 7 KO) at 1:43 of the first round; and Rafael Gramajo (3-1-1, 2 KO) stopped Luis Cosme at 1:07 of round one.