NEW YORK – Michael Angeletti responded about as positively as his handlers could have hoped to the biggest challenge of his career thus far Saturday night.
The undefeated featherweight prospect dropped Jeremy Adorno twice during the second round and hurt him enough during the fifth round for Adorno’s trainer, Raul “Chino” Rivas, to stop the action before the sixth and final round began on the non-televised portion of the Deontay Wilder-Robert Helenius undercard at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Angeletti, of Spring Texas, improved to 7-0 and recorded his sixth knockout by stopping Adorno (7-1, 3 KOs), a southpaw from Allentown, Pennsylvania.
After suffering two knockdowns during the second round, Adorno mounted a comeback and landed the harder punches in the third round. Agneletti regained the momentum in the fourth round and landed the type of flush punches during the fifth round that made Rivas decide Adorno had taken enough punishment.
In the previous fight Saturday, unknown heavyweight James Evans Jr. rocked Geovany Bruzon several times during the third round to win their four-round heavyweight bout by technical knockout.
Evans never dropped Cuba’s Bruzon, but he landed so many hard head shots during a completely one-sided third round that referee Eric Dali stepped between them to halt the action at 1:18 of the third round. Bruzon dropped Evans in the second round and hurt him badly again before the bell sounded to end the second round, but Evans recovered quickly and took control as soon as the third round began.
Evans, of Toledo, Ohio, upped his record to 5-0-1 and produced his fifth knockout. Bruzon (7-2, 6 KOs) has lost two of his past three fights.
Earlier Saturday, welterweight Keeshawn Williams comfortably out-pointed Julio Rosa unanimously in their six-rounder.
Williams (10-1-1, 2 KOs), of Lanham, Maryland, won by scores of 60-54, 59-55 and 59-55. Rosa, of Orlando, Florida, fell to 5-2 (2 KOs).
In the first non-televised fight Saturday, Philadelphia’s Miguel Roman scored a first-round knockdown and shut out Jose Negrete on all three scorecards in their four-round featherweight fight.
Roman (3-0, 0 KOs) defeated Negrete (2-1, 2 KOs), of Hanford, California, by scores of 40-35, 40-35 and 40-35.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.