By Keith Idec

Jamal James wasted little time Friday night in making his hometown crowd happy.

The welterweight contender knocked out Mahonry Montes with a body shot in the second round of their main event at The Armory in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The taller, longer James improved to 24-1 and produced the 11th knockout of his career.

Minneapolis’ James has now won four straight fights since suffering his lone loss, a 10-round, unanimous-decision defeat to Cuba’s Yordenis Ugas in August 2016. Mexico’s Montes (35-8-1, 24 KOs) lost by knockout or technical knockout for the third time in his 11-year pro career.

Montes kept pressing the action in the second round, just as he did during the first round. James began letting his hands go late in the second round, though, and landed hard shots to Montes’ head and body.

James connected with a straight right hand to the middle of Montes’ face late in the second round. Then he snuck in a left to Montes’ body that ended the fight.

Montes went down to his gloves and knees as he attempted to catch his breath. He fell over, onto his side, and referee Mark Nelson waved an end to their scheduled 10-round fight.

The time of the stoppage was 2:58 of the second round.

In the co-featured fight before James’ victory, middleweight contender Willie Monroe Jr. easily out-boxed Javier Maciel in a 10-round middleweight fight.

Monroe (23-3, 6 KOs), a sharp southpaw from Rochester, New York, stayed in control from beginning to end by using his jab and movement to keep Argentina’s Maciel from landing any damaging punches. Monroe won all 10 rounds on two scorecards (100-90) and nine of the 10 rounds on the third card (99-91) in a fight that lacked action.

The 33-year-old Maciel (33-7, 23 KOs) took the fight on short notice. He fought for the second time in less than a month.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.