Body shots work for Torres
Esquibel wins decisively in 6-round co-main event
Al Torres could not have asked for a better birthday present.
Albuquerque welterweight boxer Josh Torres, with his birthday-boy dad working his corner, conducted a brutal clinic in defeating Mexico’s Francisco Castro by eighth-round knockout Saturday night at Expo New Mexico.
Torres improved his record to 20-6-2 with 12 knockouts. Castro is 28-10 with 23 KOs.
The power reflected in Castro’s impressive knockout ratio never appeared to be a factor, though Torres said he was “buzzed” by a couple of Castro right hands midway through the fight.
Torres, though, avoided or smothered the vast majority of the Mexican fighter’s punches. The hardest blows Castro landed were with his head, one of which opened a cut outside Torres’ right eye in the fourth round.
The end came when Torres dropped Castro with a left-fight combination. Castro was counted at 1:16 of the eighth.
It was a steady barrage of body shots and combinations, Torres said, that wore Castro down.
“I felt in control the whole time,” he said. “… We broke him down. We knew that (the body work) would be a factor.”
In a six-round welterweight co-main event, Matthew Esquibel threw a near shutout at fellow Albuquerquean Willie Villanueva, winning by judges’ scores of 60-53, 59-54 and 59-54.
Stymied by Esquibel’s head movement and high-held gloves, Villanueva struggled to land punches. When his missed punches were quickly countered by Esquibel, Villanueva almost stopped punching altogether.
“We worked a lot on head movement in the gym,” Esquibel said. “We practiced countering. … My team had a good game plan for (Villanueva).”
Esquibel dropped Villanueva with a body shot in the second round. Villanueva complained that the punch was a low blow, but the knockdown stood.
Villanueva landed one big right hand in the fifth, but Esquibel responded with a flurry of his own.
Esquibel improved to 12-0-1 with five KOs. Villanueva is 11-6-1 (five KOs).
In a featured bout, Albuquerque’s Jose Luis “El Guero” Sanchez (9-1, four KOs) staged a sensational performance in scoring a fifth-round TKO over Aztec veteran Joe Gomez Martinez (22-8-1, 10 KOs).
Sanchez’s faster hands were evident from the first round, and they were answered only occasionally.
In the fifth, Sanchez stunned Gomez Martinez with a right and dropped him to one knee with a flurry. Sanchez then landed another right while Gomez Martinez was down and was docked a point for the foul.
Shortly afterward, another Sanchez right hand dropped Gomez Martinez again. Though a black towel-like object flew into the ring from the direction of Gomez Martinez’s corner, the outcome was ruled a referee stoppage at exactly two minutes of the fifth.
“I knew I was going against a tough fighter, so I worked my ass off in the gym, to put on a good show,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez, whose younger brother Jason is an unbeaten featherweight under contract to Top Rank, Inc., put on a performance against a veteran opponent that might well catch the eye of a major promoter.
“I’d like to do what my brother did, fight one of (Top Rank’s contract) fighters on one their cards. … A lot of people here were doubting me, but I knew with all the hours of hard work I’ve put in in the gym I could do this.”
In undercard fights:
■ Aaron Angel Perez (7-0, five KOs), defeated Isaias Martin Cardona (26-18, 17 KOs), Guadalajara, Mexico, by first-round TKO. A thoroughly battered Cardona did not come out for the second round.
■ Amy Salinas (2-0), Las Cruces, defeated Danielle Saldanha (2-2, one KO), Fort Collins, Colo., by four-round unanimous decision.
■ Christian Castillo (3-0, three KOs), Albuquerque, 148, defeated Albert Jones (pro debut), Midland, Texas, 143.4, by second-round TKO. Jones’ corner opted not to send him out for the third round.
■ Lorenzo Benavidez (2-1), Albuquerque, 175.4, defeated Rico Urquizo (5-7, three KOs), Clovis, 181.2, by four-round unanimous decision.
■ Adam Ramirez (pro debut), Albuquerque, 159.6, defeated Larry Sanchez (0-3), Midland, Texas, via second-round KO.