Bruce Carrington, Delante Johnson make statements on Foster-Nova card

NEW YORK — Bruce Carrington had a tough puzzle in front of him to solve, but when he solved it, he really solved it. The 26-year-old started off his 2024 campaign with a one-punch knockout of crafty southpaw Bernard Angelo Torres on Friday, Feb. 16 at The Theater at Madison Square Garden. The time of […]

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NEW YORK — Bruce Carrington had a tough puzzle in front of him to solve, but when he solved it, he really solved it.

The 26-year-old started off his 2024 campaign with a one-punch knockout of crafty southpaw Bernard Angelo Torres on Friday, Feb. 16 at The Theater at Madison Square Garden. The time of stoppage was 2:59, as Carrington (11-0, 7 knockouts) of the Bronwsville section of Brooklyn, N.Y. turned out the lights on Torres (18-2, 8 KOs) with a single overhand right.

Carrington, who was The Ring’s Prospect of the Year for 2023, showed he had a few more hits in the pipeline. Torres, who was born in the Philippines but has resided in Norway since he was a teenager, presented some early challenges for Carrington early on, using his southpaw movement to elude the right hands of the much larger Carrington.

WELCOME TO SHU YORK CITY

That highlight reel KO from ringside. pic.twitter.com/MnIYmx746o

— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) February 17, 2024

Carrington, fighting behind a high guard, continued to impose physical pressure on Carrington. He cranked up the intensity significantly in the fourth, landing left hooks to the body which cut off Torres’ movement and forced Torres to exchange more than he wanted to.

Carrington solved the puzzle for good, dropping Torres hard with no need for a count.

Top Rank Vice President Carl Moretti told The Ring earlier in the week that the plan is to match Carrington with veterans throughout the year, with the goal of arranging a title opportunity by the end of the year.

Delante Johnson (12-0, 6 KOs) made a statement in his junior welterweight bout, blasting out Brazilian spoiler Paulo Cesar Galdino (13-8-2, 9 KOs) at 2:49 of the first round. Johnson, 25, of Cleveland, Ohio dropped the southpaw quickly, using a pair of right hands to get inside before a left uppercut deposited him on the canvas. Galdino beat the count, but “Tiger” pounced on him, forcing referee Ricky Gonzalez to stop the fight.

The stoppage was the first for Johnson, a 2020 U.S. Olympian, in five fights, dating back to December of 2022. Since then he had been held to a split decision and majority decision in successive bouts.

Italian heavyweight Guido Vianello narrowly avoided a no contest in round one, hurting Moses Johnson with a right hand followed by an uppercut while Johnson was being headlocked in the first round. Johnson hit the deck hard, with his eyes crossed, and the referee gave Johnson a few moments to recover.

Instead of milking the foul, Johnson returned to battle almost immediately, and paid for it with four subsequent knockdowns which ended the fight at the 2:59 mark of round one.

Even with the controversy, Vianello (12-1-1, 10 KOs) showed impressive finishing ability, mixing in uppercuts and body punches which led to the stoppage. Johnson (11-2-2, 8 KOs) loses for the second time, with his first loss also being a first round stoppage against Walter Burns last June.

Euri Cedeno (8-0-1, 7 KOs) scored a brutal fifth round stoppage of Antonio Todd (16-10, 9 KOs) in their eight-round scheduled middleweight bout. Cedeno, a southpaw from La Romana, Dominican Republic, used his right hook to line up the Atlanta-based boxer for left hands which landed with discomforting regularity, leading to a stoppage at the 2:39 mark. The bout, which was a stylistic mismatch from early on, could have been stopped as early as the fourth round, as Todd’s face began to swell and bleed.

Cedeno, 24, is promoted by Marshall Kauffman and has won two straight since his lone blemish, a split-draw against Dayan Depestre last October.

Other results:

Isaah Flaherty (7-0, 3 KOs) of Elmont, N.Y. won a unanimous decision over Julien Baptiste (6-4, 3 KOs) in a six-round middleweight fight, with scores being 60-54.

Ofacio Falcon (11-0, 6 KOs) of The Bronx, N.Y. shut out a limited but game Edward Ceballos (11-5-1, 6 KOs) in a six-round junior lightweight bout. Scores were 60-54 in a fight that wasn’t very

The show kicked off with Arnold Gonzalez (14-0, 6 KOs), an Ecuadorian-American welterweight from Harlem, N.Y., winning a six-round unanimous decision over Charles Stanford (7-5, 4 KOs) of Cincinnati.

Ryan Songalia has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler and The Guardian, and is part of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism Class of 2020. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com.

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