Omar Figueroa Jr. escapes with a win over Ricky Burns in his debut at 140 lbs. that seemingly was a comedy of errors. Figueroa Jr. who missed weight yesterday by a pound and half, in his first time moving up from lightweight to 140 lbs., which is not a good sign, appeared the worse to be getting the worse of the majority of the exchanges between himself and former 2 division champion, Burns. 

Burns, who started fast built a decent lead to start the fight as he was able to box Figueroa who only looked content to walk forward and through punches i.e. brawl. It is as if Figueroa has the fighting spirit, but not the boxing acumen one might say and makes any fight he is in much harder.  As the fight was fought with a gentlemen’s agreement to not move to far away from one and another as the two fighters slugged away as Burns began to stifle the action by holding.

A sad note of the fight was Laurence Cole, the referee who we all know his name. Teddy Atlas once said you never want to know a referee’s name since it is not a good a sign since the good refs tend to be invisible in the ring. Cole was far from that as he accosted Burns throughout the fight even grabbing his arm when he was clinched with Figueroa. The most shameful moment from Cole was when deducted two points from Burns in the eighth and eleventh round for excessive clinching, which one could of been justified , but the two deductions looked like a bit of hometown cooking.

In the end Omar Figueroa earned the decision over Burns with the cards being 116-110 two times and 117-109 on another. The cards seemed to be a bit off especially the final card as many of the media had the fight razor close on their cards. Nonetheless, Figueroa earned his first win in a new weight class in his hometown, but more question than answer loom large for the former champion. 

The fight was the main event of Premier Boxing Champions series on CBS that took place from Hidalgo, Texas.