All photos by Ed Mulholland/HBO
Hometown hero Cletus Seldin (21-0, 17 KOs) patterns his boxing style to the throwback fighters from the 20’s and 30’s and in his HBO debut he scored a third-round TKO victory over Roberto Ortiz (35-2-2, 26 KOs) on the Daniel Jacobs vs. Luis Arias undercard at the Nassau Coliseum.
The official time of the stoppage was 2:23 of the third round.
Seldin has graduated from years of appearing on club shows in his native Long Island to fighting at Nassau Coliseum in front of a partisan crowd who came hungry to see blood spill. Seldin did not disappoint as he stormed out of his corner in the opening round, unloading on Ortiz who was overmatched from the start.
The 31-year-old Seldin who goes by the moniker “The Hebrew Hammer” dropped the Mexican Ortiz in the first 30 seconds to start the bout. Ortiz managed to get up but was clearly dazed. Seldin jumped back on Ortiz and landed a fluid combination of right and left hooks.
Seldin then landed a body shot to force Ortiz to peel over and Seldin landed a perfectly placed right hand on the top of Ortiz’s head dropping him for the second knockdown of the round. Ortiz managed to get up and survive the round.
In the second round, Seldin opened a cut on the bridge of Ortiz’s nose with a hard right hand. Ortiz had no choice but to back up as Seldin came forward with hard right hands up top.
Seldin almost scored a third knockdown with a another big right hand, but Ortiz started covering up and held on to slow Seldin down. A right hook by Seldin opened a nasty gash over Ortiz’s left eye which caused the ringside physician to examine the cut between the second and third rounds.
Ortiz had little chance of continuing much into the third round and the first right hand caused Ortiz to kneel down in pain from the cut. Blood started gushing from the cut into Ortiz’s eye causing the referee to ask the doctor to take another look, which caused the doctor stop the bout.
