By Dave Lahr: Welterweight prospect Antoine Smith (10-1-1, 6 KOs) stopped an over-matched Aaron Torres (16-7, 6 KOs) in the 3rd round on Wednesday night of a scheduled 10-round bout at The Roxy, in Boston, Massachusetts. Smith dropped Torres two times in the fight, once in the 2nd and another time in the 3rd, knocking him down with a big right hand. After the second knockdown, Torres elected to stay down and was promptly counted out by the referee Javier Colon at 2:25 of the 3rd round.
Torres, 29, who had lost five out of his last seven fights going into Wednesday’s bout with Smith, started off quick out the gates, throwing a steady series of jabs at Smith. It was apparent immediately that Torres for all his activity was going to have problems due to his unusually slow hand speed in comparison to the fast hands of Smith. However, Torres stayed busy in the round and gave Smith few chances to get his own offense started in the round. Indeed, Smith landed only a few shots in the round but he showed impressive power on those rare occasions that he chose to let his hands go.
In the second round, Torres only had time to throw one jab when Smith suddenly let loose with a big right hand that stunned Torres, causing his knees to sag for a fraction of a second. Smith, wasting no time, followed up with a tremendous left hook that dropped Torres to the canvas on his backside. Torres dragged himself off the canvas, looking badly hurt, but was deemed okay to continue fighting by referee Javier Colon. Instead of going right after Torres, and perhaps ending the fight right then and there, Smith fought very calmly, picking his shots carefully as if he wanted to prolong Torres’ suffering in the round.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, Smith continued to land big shots but he did it very slowly, throwing one shot at a time and carefully picking the spots where he wanted to land. Torres, of course, was in no shape to fire back with his own attack, thinking of mere survival as he clinched whenever possible. He was lucky in that Smith’s methodical punching style slowed things down enough for him to weather the storm, when he would have likely have been blown out in the round by most other fighters. The rest of the round was entirely owned by the 21 year-old Smith, who used Torres as a punching bag.
Torres still looked bad going into the third round, and he should have been thinking of staying away as much possible from Smith. Instead, however, Torres went right at Smith as if this was a continuation of the start of the first round. With Torres right in front of him, Smith began pasting him with right hands. Torres at least had clearly his head enough to fire back a couple of meaningless right hands in his own defense, but it did little to slow the stem of Smith’s onslaught.
Smith who had been fairly accurate with his shots in the first two rounds, suddenly began missing with a whole of his shots and looked really sloppy. It didn’t matter, though, for he eventually connected with a huge right hand that staggered Torres, causing him to take a step backwards and then take a knee on the canvas. He then stayed on one knee as referee Javier Colon counted him out at 2:25 of the 3rd round. As soon as Colon stopped the bout, Torres got to his feet and looked good as he walked away, as if he’d never been knocked down at all.