Middleweight titlist Daniel Jacobs hoped to become the first fighter to knock out durable Sergio Mora and he succeeded, stopping him in the second round - albeit because of an injury - in a shootout on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Jacobs, who retained his secondary 160-pound belt for the second time, also got knocked down in the wild first round in the co-feature on a Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN card headlined by the welterweight fight between Danny Garcia and Paulie Malignaggi.
"I wanted to stop him. I didn't want him to quit on the stool," Jacobs said. "I wanted to beat him on my own. But I think he knew what the outcome was going to be a few rounds later."
First, Jacobs dropped Mora hard with a right hand. He went right after him when the fight resumed and left himself open as Mora nailed him with a left hand to knock him down, and then yelled at him as he hit the deck.
"I said, 'Did a guy with nine knockouts really knock me down?'" Jacobs said of his thoughts when he was floored.
Both were wary of the other for the rest of the round, but Jacobs finished strong as he cornered Mora and landed a couple of hard shots. Late in the second round, Jacobs (30-1, 27 KOs), 28, of Brooklyn, landed a right hand on top of Mora's head along the ropes and Mora (28-4-2, 9 KOs) went down, injuring his right knee and ankle in the process. Mora, 34, of East Los Angeles, limped to his feet and was shaking out his foot and having trouble, causing referee Gary Rosato to stop the fight at 2 minutes, 55 seconds.
"I know it's broken. I heard it pop," Mora said. "I told you I came here to fight. I give him credit, but I came to take this championship. I want a rematch."
Don't count on it.
"No rematch, no reason to go backward," Jacobs said. "Thank God for this victory, but I'm not going to give him a rematch just because."
Jacobs, who not only survived a near-death experience with bone cancer but was able to resume his career in late 2012, won a vacant secondary belt (Gennady Golovkin holds the organization's top belt) by fifth-round knockout of Jarrod Fletcher at the Barclays Center last August and made his first defense in April, a 12th-round knockout of Caleb Truax in Chicago.
Then Jacobs, who made $500,000, came home for the defense against Mora, whose purse was $225,000. Mora gained fame as the winner of the first season of "The Contender" reality series and then held a junior middleweight world title for three months in 2008, winning it and losing it to the late Vernon Forrest.
This was Mora's first title shot since and it ended in huge disappointment and with him being taken out of the ring on a stretcher and to the hospital to have his leg examined.
"I heard my knee pop and want to see [the] replay because I know my ankle is broken," Mora said.
Jacobs will likely move on to a major fight later this year against fellow Brooklyn fighter and former middleweight titlist "Kid Chocolate" Peter Quillin (31-0-1, 22 KOs), as long as Quillin wins a fight he has scheduled for Sept. 6, although his opponent has not been determined. On April 11 at the Barclays Center, Quillin fought to a draw against titleholder Andy Lee, but Quillin was not eligible to win the belt because he did not make weight.
"I want Peter Quillin next," Jacobs said. "It's what fight fans deserve. Brooklyn always comes out and supports both of us and it would be a great way to close out the year."
Also on the card:
• Brooklyn light heavyweight Travis Peterkin (15-0-1, 7 KOs) and Lenin Castillo (12-0-1, 7 KOs), of Miami, fought to an eight-round draw in an awkward fight filled with holding and wrestling. One judge had it 76-74 for Peterkin, but the other two judges had the fight 75-75. Peterkin lost a point for a low blow in the fifth round, which cost him the fight. Castillo bled for most of the fight from a cut over his right eye.
• Brooklyn featherweight Rafael Vazquez (16-1, 12 KOs) scored a first-round knockout of Mario Macias (26-17, 13 KOs), of Mexico. He dropped Vazquez to a knee with a right hand and although Vazquez beat the count he was unsteady, and referee Shada Murdaugh stopped the fight at 1 minute, 50 seconds.
• Brooklyn heavyweight Adam Kownacki (11-0, 10 KOs) dominated and knocked out Maurenzo Smith (12-10-3, 9 KOs), of Houston, in the second round. The fight was all Kownacki, who rocked Smith several times before flattening him with a short right hand at 2 minutes, 26 seconds of the second round as a group of around 100 Kownacki fans cheered him on wildly.
• Heather Hardy (14-0, 3 KOs), of Brooklyn, bloodied and stopped Renata Domsodi (12-7, 5 KOs), of Hungary, one second into the seventh round of their female junior featherweight rematch. Hardy gave Domsodi a bloody nose in the third round and it got worse as the fight went on until the ringside doctor recommended that the fight be stopped. The fight was a rematch of their three-round no contest on April 11, also at the Barclays Center (on the Garcia-Lamont Peterson undercard), when Domsodi was ruled unable to continue following an eye injury caused by an accidental head butt.
• Junior lightweight Thomas Velasquez (1-0, 1 KOs), of Philadelphia, scored a spectacular fourth-round knockout of Gabriel Braxton (2-11, 1 KOs), of Red Oak, Georgia, in his professional debut. Velasquez dominated the fight until turning out the lights with a right hand on the chin that flattened Braxton, causing referee Michael Ortega to wave off the fight without a count at 1 minute, 20 seconds.
• Junior lightweight Titus Williams (1-0, 0 KOs), of Elmont, New York, rolled to a shutout decision in his pro debut against Michah Branch (2-15-1), of Cincinnati, winning 40-36 on all three scorecards.
Article Courtesy of ESPN