Mark Magsayo edges Andres Cortes in chaotic fight on Garcia–Benn undercard

At T-Mobile Arena, on a night built for Ryan Garcia and Conor Benn, it was Mark Magsayo who stole an early slice of the spotlight with one of the oddest, grittiest wins of the card.

The former world champion walked away with a unanimous decision over hometown favorite Andres Cortes, all three judges scoring it 97-93. On the page, it looks routine. In the ring, nothing about it was.

A fight that never quite made sense

From the opening bell, Cortes looked like the man in control. He pressed forward, snapped out the jab, and dug to the body. His right hand found a home early, enough for MMA Fighting to give him the first round 10-9.

Magsayo, though, refused to sit back and let the fight drift. He came out sharper in the second, countering with fast combinations and circling well, clipping Cortes with a big right and leveling the unofficial score at 19-19. It felt like a proper Las Vegas firefight brewing.

Then the rhythm broke.

Cortes continued to command the real estate, walking Magsayo down in the third and landing short, heavy shots in close. One of those cuffing punches sent Magsayo briefly to a knee. The referee ruled a knockdown, only for replays to show the Filipino wasn’t badly hurt so much as off-balance and awkward. MMA Fighting still leaned Cortes’ way, 10-9, to make it 29-28.

The fourth brought more of the same chaos. Cortes drove in with the right hand, Magsayo complained about the clinching, and the referee had to step in to calm the chatter. Another glancing right, another trip to a knee for Magsayo, another knockdown call. The fight seemed to be slipping away from him on optics alone.

Then came the twist: both “knockdowns” were later wiped from the books.

Cortes in command, Magsayo refusing to fold

With the knockdowns erased, the story became simpler but no less tense. Cortes’ volume and accuracy were starting to tell. He was the one dictating pace and distance, punishing Magsayo whenever he dipped his head inside. MMA Fighting had him up 49-46 after five and 59-55 after six, a wide gap that reflected the American’s cleaner work.

Every time Cortes got into range, that right hand punished Magsayo. The Filipino’s habit of ducking low into Cortes’ body left him off-balance and vulnerable. The referee repeatedly warned him about it. The body language was terrible, the optics worse: Magsayo dropping to a knee in non-knockdown moments, squatting under pressure, inviting frustration from Cortes and his corner.

Yet he would not go away.

Cortes kept banking rounds, snagging the seventh on the unofficial card to stretch his lead to 69-64. He was cruising. Magsayo was swinging big, landing in spots, but losing the bulk of the exchanges. The fight looked like it was drifting towards a clear points win for the Las Vegas native.

Then the tide, finally, started to turn.

Late surge flips the script

In the eighth, Magsayo began to look like a fighter who understood the urgency of his situation. He fought like a man behind on the cards. He let his hands go in bursts, found a home for his uppercut, and strung together the kind of combinations that had been missing earlier. Cortes still landed that right over the dipping head, but the momentum shifted just enough for MMA Fighting to give Magsayo the round, trimming the gap to 78-74.

The ninth was his best spell. Magsayo mixed tricky movement with sharp counters, digging to the body and threading uppercuts through Cortes’ guard. A left hook appeared to shake Cortes, and for the first time the arena could sense genuine jeopardy for the hometown fighter. Again, the round went to Magsayo on the unofficial card: 87-84, Cortes still ahead, but no longer comfortable.

Cortes tried to steady the ship in the 10th, stepping back behind his jab and working the body. Magsayo kept pressing, still the aggressor, still trying to break through with volume and power. A brief complaint about a low blow punctuated the final round, but the closing stretch lacked the all-out chaos that might have swung it decisively one way or the other. MMA Fighting sided with Cortes in the last, seeing it 97-93 in his favor.

Judges back the aggressor

When the scores were read—97-93, 97-93, 97-93—all for Mark Magsayo, it underlined just how subjective this fight had been. Where one set of eyes saw Cortes’ control, another clearly valued Magsayo’s aggression, his heavier moments, and perhaps the visual impact of his late charge.

The erased knockdowns played a crucial role. With those off the table, Cortes lost the clear cushion he thought he had built. Magsayo’s cleaner, more eye-catching work in the second half suddenly carried far greater weight.

For Cortes, it was a bitter pill: a night where he often looked like the more composed technician but walked away empty-handed, visibly annoyed by the awkward falls and the referee’s interventions. For Magsayo, it was messy, strange, and far from his most polished performance—but it was a win, banked on a major card, against a dangerous opponent in his own backyard.

On a stage headlined by Ryan Garcia defending his WBC welterweight title against Conor Benn, Magsayo’s victory will not dominate the headlines. It will, however, linger in the memory as one of those Las Vegas fights that never quite fit the usual script.

And for a fighter rebuilding his path at the top level, that kind of ugly, hard-earned result might be exactly what keeps the bigger nights coming.