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By: William Holmes
The Del Mar Arena in Del Mar, California was the host city for tonight’s Golden Boy Live card on Fox Sports 1. The main event was between undefeated Antonio Orozco (19-0) and Martin Honorio (32-8-1) in a junior welterweight bout.
The opening bout of the night was a six round bout between Manuel Roman(16-2) and Jose Silveira (15-10) in the junior featherweight division. Roman was nine years younger and significantly taller than Silveira and it showed in the ring.
Roman began to bout by attacking the body but Silveira was able to apply semi effective pressure and landed short shots of his own. Both fighters were fairly active, but it was painfully obvious early on that neither boxer had significant power.
The second round started off with Roman connecting with lead left hook, and then both boxers exchanging and landing punches to the head. Silveira started to slow down at the end of the round and Roman was piling up his punch counter with short shots to the body and head.
By the third round Roman began to dominate the action inside the ring and stopped fighting defensively by applying the pressure. His uppercuts were starting to snap the head Silveira’s head back. Silveira was struck by a low blow from Roman in the fourth round and the referee, surprisingly, took a point away from Roman.
The point deduction did nothing to change the outcome of the bout.
Roman continued to dominate in the fifth and sixth rounds, but failed to score a single knockdown against a steadily fading opponent. The final scores were 59-54 on all three scorecards for Manuel Roman.
The second bout of the night was between Manuel Avila (14-0) and David De La Mora (25-5) in the junior featherweight division.
Avila had both the height and reach advantage, but De La Mora’s hand speed was comparable to Avila’s. Avila made the first round a jab fest and he was accurate with sharp, crisp jabs. He connected with a hard counter right hand in the middle of the first. He established his range but De La Mora showed a willingness to fight.
In the second round a hard left hook from Avila knocked De La Mora down out of nowhere. He was able to get up but he looked like he was still feeling the effects of the knockdown. Avila came forward and connected with several straight right hands and left hooks, stumbling De La Mora at one point which led to De La Mora holding on. Avila knocked De La Mora down again with a short uppercut. De La Mora stayed down till the count of nine but he had glassy eyes when he got to his feet. The third and final knockdown came shortly after when Avila knocked De La Mora down with a short right hand.
The referee waived off the bout at 1:52 of the second round.
A swing bout between Elias Espadas (5-1) and Jamal Harris (5-8-4) in the middleweight division was also televised. Harris, despite being forty two years old and a losing record, boxed well and showed a willingness to exchange. He should have won a mild upset, but the judges gave the bout to Espadas with scores of 40-36, 39-37, and 39-37.
The main event of the night was between Antonio Orozco (19-0) and Martin Honorio (32-8-1) in the junior welterweight division.
Orozco was seven years younger than Honorio and had a good reach advantage, but he was giving up several inches in height. However, Orozco was the naturally bigger man since this was Honorio’s first fight at the junior welterweight limit.
Orozco came out fighting aggressively, but his aggression led to a clash of heads that drew blood near his ear. Orozco was landing good body shots in the first. Orozco began to walk Honorio down in the second round connected with severeal lead left hooks. At one point Orozco tagged Honorio with a hard hook that left Honorio shaking his head no, but the punch clearly hurt him.
Orozco completely dominated the third round and was throwing and landing the harder punches. Honorio’s nose and an area near his eyes started to bleed. Orozco closed out the fourth round with a hard straight right hand, but he also had some blood coming from his eyelid.
Orozco showed why he earned his nickname as he was “relentless” with his pressure and was battering Honorio from corner to corner. He was landing his power punches nearly at will and continued to do so for the remainder of the bout.
Honorio had a decent sixth round and at one point surprised Orozco with a clean right hook, but Oroczo took it well. Orozco showed no signs of slowing down and came out strong in the seventh round, and busted the nose of Honorio in the eighth round with a stiff jab.
Orozco battered Honorio in the final two rounds with heavy body and head shots, but Honorio was able to make it to the final bell. The final scores were 100-89, 100-89, and 99-90 for Antonio Orozco.
