PBC on CBS results: Omar Figueroa, Jamie McDonnell score wins in Texas

Omar Figueroa got a debatable decision win over Ricky Burns in the main event of today's PBC on CBS card from Hidalgo, Texas, a good action fight arguably overshadowed by the performance of referee Laurence Cole, whose name is synonymous with controversy in a state where outrageous officiating and scoring is often the norm.

Figueroa won the fight on scores of 116-110, 116-110, and 117-109, benefiting from a pair of questionable point deductions of Burns, both for holding. I didn't score the fight, as my cable and internet were out until the end of the fifth round of the main event, but I did get to see the deductions, but the general feeling on social media and in our thread was that while there was an argument for Figueroa winning a fight that could have gone either way, the scores were too wide.

Figueroa (25-0-1, 18 KO) was his usual self from what I could see, a brawler who never makes a fight easy on himself, because it's not in his DNA. Whether or not he'll be successful at 140 may depend on if his power is really translating or not. He'll always have the pressure, but his leaky defense (or approximation of defense) isn't going to help him, so if guys at 140 take his shots easier, that could be a problem for him.

Burns (37-5-1,11 KO) certainly showed he had something left in the tank by standing in there with a tough and busy opponent, and really looked better than he has since he beat Kevin Mitchell in 2012.

In the co-feature, Jamie McDonnell scored an upset of Tomoki Kameda to retain his WBA "world" bantamweight title, and establish himself as a serious player in the division with no more doubts. McDonnell (26-2-1, 11 KO) won on scores of 114-113 across the board, coming off the canvas in round three to take the unbeaten record of Kameda (31-1, 19 KO), who gave up his WBO title in order to make this fight happen. I didn't get to see any of this fight thanks to the perils of modern technology where a pair of rabbit ears and some tinfoil aren't good enough to get by, but the reviews were good and I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Since I'm so relatively useless here, what did YOU think of the fights?