By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated lightweight contender Jorge Teron (22-0-1, 15 KOs) stopped Michael Lozada (29-5-1, 22 KOs) in the 6th round on Saturday night at the Aviator Sports Arena, in Brooklyn, New York. Teron, 23, ranked #7 in the WBO lightweight division, knocked Lozado down twice in the 6th round with left hands to the body. The bout was stopped after the second knockdown by referee Pete Santiago at 1:23 of the 6th round. Teron, a tall 6′ lightweight with a slender build, wide open offense and equally wide open defense, was too much for the shorter 5’7″ Lozado from the beginning of the fight, hitting him with hard left hands to the head and body. Lozado, 25, gave almost as good as he got, hitting the string bean Teron with some big shots as well, but in the end, he didn’t have quite enough power to fight competitively with him.
The opening round was close as Teron, a 3-time New York Golden Gloves Champion trained by famous amateur and professional fighter Mark Breland, went right at Lozada, firing off shots from every angle and giving Lozado huge problems with his enormous flow of hard punches. The shorter Lozado tried the best he could to keep the fight in close, moving in on Teron and ripping shots at close quarters. In most cases, a taller fighter would normally try to get some distance from the shorter fighter so as to get out of danger and to a safe distance where they could utilize their height and reach.
With Teron, though, he was more than comfortable to fight at close range, even though he seemed to be getting hit with a lot of needless shots from the shorter Lozado. On the outside, Teron’s lab was nothing to speak of, a kind of weak, probing shots that he seemed to be using more as a range fighter than an actual weapon. Teron seemed more intent on throwing power shots and finesse punches like jabs didn’t really fit into his game plan against Lozado.
In the second round, Teron threw some really hard shots to the body in the first two minutes of the round, but in the last minute of the round Lozado came on and began to nail Teron with hard combinations to the head and body, backing him up and forcing him to fight with his back to the ropes. It was surprisingly easy how the smallish Lozado was able to back the spindly-legged Teron up to the ropes and nail him with shots. It wasn’t a good sign for the future for Teron to be backed up so easily, even though he was trying not to be. His legs and built seemed to slight for the weight class that he’s fighting in.
Teron dominated the action in rounds three and four, hitting Lozado with hard combinations to the head. Lozado didn’t do much in either round, too slow and plodding to get off his punches before getting hit with a storm of incoming shots form Teron. He would try but didn’t have the arm length or the boxing skills to effectively pressure the taller more-skilled Teron with anything sustained. Lozado took nothing but punishment in the 5th round, only bothering to throw a couple of shots during the entire round.
From appearances, Lozado looked frustrated and more than a little discouraged, seeming not to know what to do against the lanky Teron. In the 6th round, Teron went after Lozado with a different attack plan, working almost entirely to the body and forgetting all about head shots. This immediately paid dividends when Teron landed a crushing left hook to the body that sent Lozado down to the canvas.
He immediately got up, but wasn’t given a reprieve by Teron, who promptly fired off another big left hook to the body that sent Lozado down to the canvas for the second time in the round. This time, Lozado was too hurt to get up and staid down while referee Pete Santiago counted him out at 1:23 of the 6th.