The “Last Chance” 140-pound tournament, featuring fighters in dire need of a career boost, kicked off with an eight-rounder. Puerto Rican native Jeffrey Torres, from Connecticut, held a 10-1 record coming. The 25-year-old signed on to get an opportunity to excel and show fight fans and dealmakers he’s not “just” a New England plugger. He toed the line and saw Antonio Moran, age 29, from Mexico, staring at him.
This fight went the distance, and it was tight enough that those in attendance held their breath as Lichtenfeld announced a 79-73, 77-75, 77-75 UD for Moran.
Moran met, then, 25-0 Arnold Barboza in his last outing and looked decent against Devin Haney in May 2019 before being stopped in the seventh. Torres, meanwhile, didn’t have a career-defining fight to his credit—if he beat Moran, that would fill the bill.
In the first, Torres didn’t act like he was awed by being in with a seasoned battler. It made sense, according to Torres, that he’s picked up tricks of the trade sparring people like Shawn Porter and Javier Fortuna. The 26-5-1 Mexican got backed up and took shots to the body from Torres as the second round progressed. Through two, Torres didn’t look out of his depth at all. “He got Moran backing up a lot more, uncomfortably, than in the first,” Paulie said.
Moran picked up his pace in the third he was busier with his feet and hands. His accuracy stood out as he looked for openings and found them, while Torres spent more time covering up.
“Torres is more like the Mexican,” Roy noted at the start of the fourth, seeing Torres lean in and try to pressure Moran.
Paulie got off a good one, Tarver especially liked it when he said, “If only these rounds were four minutes, then Torres would be really happy,” having picked up on the trend which saw Torres coming on late in rounds.
It happened again in the sixth, Torres took it to Moran, and Paulie saw that the CT-based fighter seemed surprised that Moran wasn’t dropping. In his previous fights against sub-world beaters, more so, but now, no, Paulie said, chuckling heartily. Torres’ form deteriorated some, with fatigue barking at him. He dropped his hands more, and his balance wasn’t stellar, but he hung tough and tried to close strong as was his habit in prior rounds. Once again, Torres had to hope the sport would embrace four-minute rounds because he did some decent damage in the last 15 seconds. A jazzed-up Paulie suggested to viewers it would not be unwise to go to ProBoxTV.com, to subscribe to the service so they could watch the rest of the card. “This is worth $1.99,” the fighting pride of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn shouted, unable to contain his genuine enthusiasm. “Go to ProBoxTV.com now, get the rest of this tournament, three more quarter-finals tonight, plus Pascal vs. Meng, and then you’re gonna have it for the Last Chance semifinals and the finals,” he blared as Tarver howled. “You wanna watch the rest of this tournament, subscribe now!”
