By Francisco Salazar

   

Martin Honorio has had the reputation of usually making things difficult for his opponents.

The tables were flipped on Thursday night as Antonio Orozco made things difficult on him.

Orozco scored the biggest win of his young career thus far, besting Honorio over 10 rounds at the Fairgrounds in Del Mar, CA. The bout headlined a Golden Boy Promotions card and was televised live on Fox Sports One and Fox Sports Deportes.

Orozco was coming off a 2nd round knockout over Miguel Angel Huerta on January 24th in Indio. In that bout, Orozco was hurt in the first round. Although his best fighting days are behind him, Honorio was thought to give Orozco a serious test.

From the opening bell, Honorio worked from the outside, getting on the inside of Orozco's guard and attacking the body. Undaunted, Orozco landed straight right hands that connected to Honorio's head.

As the bout progressed, Orozco was able land often and with more frequency. The increase in his punch output made it difficult for Honorio to keep up with Orozco and made him have to fight more defensively.

Things got worse for Honorio as he was hurt from a hard left jab that him square on the nose. Honorio was in retreat mode while grabbing his nose. The outcome was no longer in doubt, especially in the ninth round when referee Jose Cobian deducted a point from Honorio for hitting Orozco on his back.

All three judges scored the bout in favor of Orozco, 100-89, 100-89, and 99-90.

Orozco, from nearby San Diego, improves to 20-0, 15 KOs. Honorio, from Mexico City, DF, Mexico drops to 32-9-1, 16 KOs.

UNDERCARD

Middleweight Elias Espadas won a four round unanimous decision over Jamal Harris. Espadas (6-1, 3 KOs) controlled the first two rounds of the fight by being the busier fighter and connecting more. Harris (5-8-4) was the busier fighter in the second half of the fight. Espadas' punch output dropped considerably, but was able to make it until the final bell. All three judges scored the bout in favor of Espadas, 39-37, 39-37, and 40-36.

Unbeaten super bantamweight Tino Avila scored the most impressive of his young career thus far, knocking out former world title contender David De La Mora in the second round. After a competitive first round, Avila (15-0, 6 KOs) began to take the fight to De La Mora. During an exchange, Avila dropped De La Mora with a counter left hook to the head. After De La Mora (25-6, 18 KOs) got up, Avila pressed the fight. His perseverance was rewarded as he dropped De La Mora with a right-left combination to the head. De La Mora tried to rally back, but was on wobbly legs. Moments later, Avila dropped De La Mora a third time with a right hand to the head. Referee Pat Russell immediately waved the fight over at 1:52.

Manuel Roman cruised to a unanimous decision over Jose Silviera in the Fox Sports 1 televised opener. Scores were 59-54 across the board for Roman (17-2-3, 6KO), whose lone hiccup in an otherwise whitewash was a point deduction in round four. Silviera (15-11, 6KO) was game but never came close to winning a round in the bout.

The win marks two straight for Roman since suffering a competitive points loss in Aug. '12 to current bantamweight contender Randy Caballero.

Francisco A. Salazar has written for Boxingscene.com since September of 2012 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. He also covers boxing for the Ventura County (CA) Star newspaper, RingTV, and Knockout Nation. 

Email: santio89@yahoo.com 

Twitter: @FSalazarBoxing