Errol Spence scores first round KO of Carlos Ocampo

It was a short night of work for IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence in Showtime’s main event. Spence (24-0, 21 KOs) came in as the heavy favorite and showed why, stopping Ocampo (22-1, 13 KOs) in the first round by way of body shot knockout.

The first round was rather nondescript with both fighters feeling each other out but just as the first round was about to end Spence tagged Ocampo with a solid left hook to the body which dropped Ocampo. Ocampo was unable to recover by the count of 10 and that was that. Really there’s not much more to say about the fight because nothing else had the chance to happen.

In the aftermath Spence says he was a little disappointed with the early knockout as he was hoping to give his hometown fans their money’s worth and he didn’t even get a chance to break a sweat tonight, but, as they say, it is what it is. Spence said he wanted the winner of Shawn Porter-Danny Garcia next, but didn’t think he’d be able to secure that fight before the year is out.

On the undercard super bantamweight titlist Daniel Roman (25-2-1, 9 KOs) was easily able to handle challenger Moises Flores (25-1, 17 KOs) en route to a unanimous decision win. Roman beat Flores’ body like a drum for 12 full rounds but that didn’t keep Flores from marching forward from start to finish. Flores has a good motor but his wide shots and suspect technique lead to him losing basically every round. Official scores were 116-112, 118-110, and 120-108, while I scored the fight a gentleman’s sweep for Roman, 119-109. Flores missed weight so was ineligible to win Roman’s title, but that was a moot point as he to an L here tonight anyway.

The Showtime opener was a junior welterweight fight between Javier Fortuna (33-2-1, 23 KOs) and Adrian Granados (18-6-2, 12 KOs). This fight had all the makings of a good scrap but the fight quickly unraveled in the fourth round. In that round Fortuna took two suspect point deductions in about a 20 second span before Granados bullied him through the ropes, causing him to fall outside the ring.

Fortuna complained of banging his head against equipment outside the ring but television replay couldn’t clearly indicate that was actually the case. The crowd booed Fortuna as they believed he was looking for a way out of the fight — something Granados also accused Fortuna of. Medical personnel quickly put Fortuna in a neck brace and escorted him to the back on a stretcher, officially ending the fight before the fourth round ended. Because of that, and because it wasn’t ruled a deliberate foul by Granados, the fight would officially be declared a no contest.