In the opening bout of the Miguel Cotto-Sadam Ali undercard at Madison Square Garden, Brooklyn native Zachary Ochoa (18-1, 7 KOs) scored a sixth-round unanimous decision victory over Erick Martinez (14-10-1, 8 KOs).
The official scores at ringside were 60-54 three times.
The 25-year-old Ochoa was too quick and sharp for Martinez who struggled getting past Ochoa’s stiff jab. Ochoa had the boxer from Tijuana in trouble in the both the third and fifth rounds by doubling and tripling his punches though Martinez’ guard.
Martinez tried to counter-punch Ochoa but couldn’t quite catch up with Ochoa who had the support from the Puerto Rican fans in attendance for Cotto’s farewell bout.
Ochoa had huge fifth round keeping Martinez on the ropes by landing blistering combinations and keeping Martinez off balance. Ochoa took most of the sixth and final round off by moving well and allowing Martinez to chase after him before tagging the slower Mexican fighter with his sharp right hand.
When Martinez managed to land an overhand right, Ochoa quickly perked up and landed a big right hand of his own to punctuate the round.
This is Ochoa’s second consecutive win since suffering brutal TKO loss at the hands of Yves Ulysse on the David Lemieux-Curtis Stevens undercard in March of this year.
“This puts me in a great spot in my career,” said Ochoa. “I was shaking off a lot of dust since I haven’t been able to fight consistently, but this proves to me that I’m still worthy of the sport. I still have work to do, but when I was able to land my shots I was able to connect them crisp and effectively. I hope that I’ll be able to fight a lot more this year.”
