ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey – Gary Russell Jr. was stunned when Jimmy Lennon Jr. uttered the words, “And the new,” late Saturday night.

Russell was certain that, even with just the use of one arm for eight-plus rounds, he had done more than enough to defeat Mark Magsayo in their 12-round, 126-pound title fight at Borgata Event Center. Judges Mark Consentino and Henry Grant disagreed.

They scored Magsayo a 115-113 winner of their “Showtime Championship Boxing” main event. Judge Lynne Carter credited Russell for winning one more round than Consentino and Grant gave him. She had their fight even, 114-114, on her card.

Magsayo still won a majority decision and ended the longest reign of any champion in boxing. The 33-year-old Russell, who was a 4-1 favorite, had held the WBC featherweight title since March 2015.

“I won 10 rounds to two, nine rounds to three,” Russell told a group of reporters after suffering his first defeat since June 2014. “I out-boxed him. Hurt my arm – I knew my arm was hurt coming into the fight. You know, I already stated that I had a injury coming in. I just didn’t wanna reveal what the injury was. Caught a slight head-butt early in the fight. But small things to a giant. I still believe that I out-boxed him, out-classed him, out-skilled him, at least, like I say, nine rounds to three, 10 rounds to two, hands down.”

Limited to one hand, Russell deftly defended himself against Magsayo, who had trouble catching the slippery southpaw with flush punches over the final eight-plus rounds. Russell didn’t throw as many punches as his undefeated Filipino opponent, but he was very accurate with straight lefts when he did let his hand go.

CompuBox counted 81 more punches for Magsayo than Russell (150-of-543 to 69-of-323), in part because Russell was limited to using one arm after aggravating his right shoulder injury when he landed a punch early in the fourth round. An aggressive Magsayo made matters interesting in the championship rounds, but Russell can’t comprehend how the judges didn’t value his defense, ring generalship and accuracy.

“It wasn’t even a Plan B, Plan C type thing,” Russell said. “It was more so that I knew that my skill set was just much more superior to his. You know, he couldn’t hit me. I was able to land my shots at will. Whenever I wanted to punch, I was able to control the real estate when I wanted to. If he wanted to fire any shots, I would slide in, smother him, take away any type of effective shots that he attempted to try to throw. My ring generalship and everything, my boxing IQ, it spoke for itself. I wonder what the fans got to say about this. I wonder what the fans got to say about the judges is saying, you know, cuz I’m pretty sure a lot of the fans would disagree.”

Russell (31-2, 18 KOs), whose only previous loss was a majority decision to three-division champion Vasiliy Lomachenko (16-2, 11 KOs), couldn’t have a rematch clause inserted into his contract for the Magsayo match because Magsayo (24-0, 16 KOs) was the mandatory challenger for the WBC 126-pound championship. Regardless, the Washington, D.C, native is expected to have surgery to repair what Russell told Showtime’s Jim Gray is a torn tendon in his right shoulder before he returns to the ring.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.