Notebook: Barboza overcomes late trouble, outpoints Zorrilla in battle of unbeatens

Muratalla cruises; Torrez scores 1st-round TKO; BetUS show; Quick hits; Show and tell

Jul 16, 2022

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Junior welterweight contender Arnold Barboza Jr., fighting in front of a full house with numerous friends and family on hand in his first main event, dealt with some difficult moments in the final round but otherwise dominated Danielito Zorrilla in a one-sided decision win on Friday night.

In a battle of undefeated fighters, Barboza handed Zorrilla his first defeat by scores of 98-92, 97-93 and 97-93 before a sold-out crowd of 2,836 in the headline bout of the Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card at the Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula, California.

Barboza largely cruised through the fight despite hurting his right hand in the sixth round. Still, he used the right to wobble Zorrilla in the seventh round.

By the eighth-round Zorrilla was a bit desperate and the fight turned into a brawl with both men landing shots.

Barboza (27-0, 10 KOs), 30, of South El Monte, California, who was fighting for the first time in 11 months, had to hang on a bit in the final round when Zorrilla (16-1, 12 KOs), 28, of Puerto Rico, nailed him with two hard right hands that shook him. He took a combination also and Zorrilla sensed he might have an opportunity to win and went on an all-out attack as they traded for much of the final minute.

But once Barboza made it to the final bell there was little doubt about the outcome.

“I was a little rusty. It’s been awhile,” Barboza said. “I’m not going to be inactive like that no more, man. I’m going to be fighting constantly.”

Of his 10th-round difficulties, Barboza added, “I was more off balance. I was right there. Once you saw me off balance, I was right back to my thing. Shout out to my conditioning. My conditioning was on point.”

Barboza was mentioned as a possible opponent for former unified lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez, who is moving up to junior welterweight and returning on Aug. 13. Lopez will face Pedro Campa, but Barboza said he would like to fight him eventually.

“My manager (Rick Mirigian) knows if we can’t get a title shot, you know who it is. We want Teofimo. It’s either a title shot or him,” Barboza said.

Barboza landed 171 of 600 punches (29 percent) and Zorrilla landed just 66 of 352 (19 percent), according to CompuBox. Barboza outlanded Zorrilla in every round except the 10th — when Zorrilla had a 15-9 advantage, the only round in which he landed double-digit punches.

Muratalla routs Valtierra

Lightweight prospect Raymond Muratalla scored a knockdown and manhandled Jair Valtierra with his jab en route to a shutout decision in the co-feature. Muratalla won 80-71 on all three scorecards.

His biggest moment came in the fourth round when he tagged Valtierra with a solid four-punch combination punctuated by a left hook near the temple that caused Valtierra to wobble, step back and go down on a delayed reaction.

Valtierra (16-2, 8 KOs), 20, of Mexico, hung in for the rest of the fight but Muratalla (15-0, 12 KOs), 25, of Fontana, California, dominated from start to finish, including landing 113 jabs, according to CompuBox. Overall, he landed 246 of 519 punches (47 percent) and Valtierra landed a measly 33 of 355 blows (9 percent).

Despite the utter domination, Muratalla was critical of his performance.

“I did OK. I felt like I was a little bit sloppy,” Muratalla said. “I could’ve done a lot better. There are better days to come. I just want to stay active, keep fighting, and whatever opponents they bring to me, they bring to me. I just want to get to the top, and I’m going to keep fighting and fighting.”

Torrez smokes Zavala

Heavyweight Richard Torrez Jr., a 23-year-old southpaw and the 2020 U.S. Olympic super heavyweight silver medalist from Tulare, California, blitzed Roberto Zavala Jr., 34, of Del Rio, Texas, in a first-round knockout victory.

Torrez (2-0, 2 KO) needed only 58 seconds to put away Zavala (2-2-1, 2 KOs), doing so with an onslaught of power punches. He connected with a right and two lefts that forced Zavala to the ropes and then landed two more lefts and a right, forcing referee Eddie Hernandez Sr. to step in to save a defenseless Zavala.

With such a quick night’s work, Top Rank announced after the bout that Torrez will return to face Marco Antonio Canedo (4-2, 2 KOs), 30, of Mexico, in a six-round fight that will open an ESPN-televised tripleheader on Aug. 27 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The card is headlined by a 10-round junior welterweight fight between former lightweight titleholders Jose Pedraza and Richard Commey and will see heavyweight prospect Jared Anderson versus Miljan Rovcanin in the 10-round co-feature.

BetUS Boxing Show

If you missed the BetUS Boxing Show live at 1 p.m. ET on Friday on YouTube, please check out the replay (and also subscribe to the YouTube channel). We previewed and picked the Arnold Barboza Jr.-Danielito Zorrilla junior welterweight that headlined Top Rank’s ESPN card on Friday night (and I gave you Barboza and the over, thank you very much). We also previewed and picked the Ryan Garcia-Javier Fortuna bout that headlines the Golden Boy card Saturday night on DAZN. We also took viewer comments and questions. Check it out here:

Quick hits

Weights from Los Angeles for Saturday’s Golden Boy card on DAZN: Ryan Garcia 140 pounds, Javier Fortuna 139.8; Alexis Rocha 146.6, Luis Veron 146; Lamont Roach Jr. 129.8, Angel Rodriguez 129.2 (WBA junior lightweight eliminator); Ricardo Sandoval 111.8, David Jimenez 111.2 (WBA flyweight eliminator); Oscar Collazo 105, Victorio Saludar 104.2 (WBA strawweight eliminator); Diego De La Hoya 126, Enrique Bernache 125.2; Miguel Gaona 138.6, Abdiel Padilla 136.

On Wednesday, Donnie Nietes lost a one-sided decision challenging Kazuto Ioka for his junior bantamweight title in Tokyo. On Friday, Nietes, 40, of the Philippines, who has won titles in four divisions, said he did not plan to retire again despite such a poor showing and falling to 1-1-1 since coming out of 2½-year retirement after beating Ioka for the vacant belt in their first fight in 2018. “I was not able to put as much pressure on Ioka as I would have liked,” Nietes said. “I was waiting for Ioka to move in and throw his shots, so that I could hit him with my big counters, but it didn’t happen often enough. I was defeated but, without question, I can still fight for word titles again. I see myself probably having one or two more fights at world level before I hang up my gloves.”

Promoter Sampson Lewkowicz announced he has signed Argentinean featherweight Mirco Cuello (8-0, 7 KOs), 21, a 2020 Olympian, to a promotional deal. He had more than 100 amateur fights and turned pro before competing in the Tokyo Games. He is 4-0 since last summer’s Olympics. “It’s a pleasure for me and my team to sign with Sampson Lewkowicz, a recognized promoter who can help me better develop my boxing and be the next world champion for Argentina,” Cuello said. Lewkowicz promoted one of Argentina’s all-time best in former junior middleweight and middleweight champion Sergio Martinez. “Mirco Cuello will be a great champion from Argentina,” Lewkowicz said. “He has the right schooling in the amateurs to become a contender very quickly.”

Show and tell

After Donald Curry lost the undisputed welterweight title by sixth-round knockout in a huge upset to Lloyd Honeyghan, he moved up to junior middleweight. He notched two victories and then challenged fellow Hall of Famer and long-reigning WBA junior middleweight titlist Mike McCallum in an HBO main event at the famed Caesars Palace Sports Pavilion in Las Vegas. Curry was the favorite and it looked like the right call early on. He rocked McCallum with a right hand in the second round and, as it turned out, he had been ahead 40-36, 39-38 and 39-37 going into the fifth round. But that is when McCallum suddenly landed a long left hook on the chin that flattened Curry. He got to his rear end by referee Richard Steele’s count of eight but was nowhere near being able to get to his feet as McCallum celebrated a classic one-punch knockout to retain the title for the sixth time. KO Magazine picked it as the knockout of the year. The fight was on July 18, 1987 — 35 years ago on Monday. Here is a program and a site poster in my collection.

Photos: Mikey Williams/Top Rank

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