Middleweight Fernando Vargas Jr. (2-0, 2 KOs) made easy work of Salome Torres (0-3), knocking down the hapless contender twice in the first round for a ferocious finish in just 2 minutes and 13 seconds. 

The 24-year-old southpaw prospect, the son of two-time light middleweight champion Fernando Vargas (26-5, 22 KOs), scored the TKO with a series of jabs and thudding left hooks that connected at will on the winless and outmatched 36-year-old.

“I feel good. I just plan on getting better each and every fight, grow, and listen to my father,” said Vargas Jr. immediately after the fight. “I know he felt my punching power.”

“His boxing intelligence is part of his DNA. I’m proud of him. He was focused and did what he needed to do to win the fight,” said Vargas Sr. 

The fight took place Thursday as an undercard main event on Twitch TV, which was part of the Ring City USA show on NBC Sports at the Municipal Boxing Gym in Puerto Rico headlined by the super welterweight clash between Serhii Bohachuk (18-0, 18 KOs) and Brandon Adams (22-3, 14 KOs). 

In other action, in a fight featuring a pair of welterweights making their pro debuts, 20-year-old Puerto Rican Jorge A. Diaz-Flores (1-0, 1 KO) made his coming out party a memorable one by besting fellow countryman Luis Felipe Munoz Crespo (0-1) with a second-round knockout. 

Puerto Rican lightweight Harold Laguna (2-0, 2 KOs) fought in his backyard and easily dismantled Darwin Alvarez (0-1) with a first-round knockout that was set up with a debilitating body shot. 

Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or on www.ManoukAkopyan.com