Franco keeps belt amid controversy

In a fight that featured more controversy than action, Joshua Franco ended up retaining his super flyweight belt.

The San Antonio fighter is still world champion. Technically.

His fight against Andrew Moloney of Australia was ruled a no contest at the spectator-less

MGM Grand in Las Vegas after Franco suffered a severely swollen right eye in the first round.

Prior to the start of the second round, Franco told the ring doctor he could not see out of the eye.

Referee Russell Mora ruled the injury was the result of an accidental head butt and because the bout did not go at least four rounds, it was not ruled a legal contest.

Had Mora determined that the injury to Franco’s eye — it was badly bruised and swollen shut — resulted from a punch, Moloney would have been ruled the winner by TKO and taken the WBA 115-pound belt back that he lost to Franco (17-1-2, 8 KOs) in June.

Moloney (21-1, 14 KOs) and his team believe the injury was the result of multiple jabs that landed cleanly on Franco’s right eye.

“I hit him with a jab early in the first round,” Moloney said. “And I hit him another 50 times. That’s why his eye is shut, not the head butt. There was no head butt. I can’t believe they took this away from me.”

The night went even worse for a pair of San Antonio boxers fighting on a Premier Boxing Champions card at Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Eddie Ortiz Jr. (11-1-2, 4 KOs) was knocked out by Amilcar Vidal (12-0, 11 KOs) of Uruguay at 1 minute, 58 seconds of the second round of their 10-round middleweight main event.

On the undercard, super bantamweight Henry Arredondo (7-1, 4 KOs) lost a controversial majority decision to Eros Correa (10-0, 7 KOs) of San Jose, Calif., in an eight-round bout.

At first, Arredondo was announced as the winner by scores of 80-72, 78-74 and 76-76, a decision that was later reversed after it was discovered the judge