Antonio Orozco beats Emmanuel Taylor on TruTV opener
In a tough fight to be a judge for Antonio Orozco defeated in Emmanuel Taylor in a good bout the TruTV portion of Top Rank Promotions’ Friday night fight card in Phoenix, Arizona.
In the first two rounds Orozco was able to close the distance and work combinations to Taylor’s body. The third looked to see a shift in momentum as Taylor began to use his reach, but Orozco landed a hard punch towards the end of the round and seemed to be stealing the round as Taylor began to back off late. Orozco began to throw a lot of hard shots on the body as Taylor went into sniper mode looking to land one big shot. As Taylor waited it appeared he began to fall behind on the scorecard as rounds went by in the key moments of the fight in which Taylor was just not active enough.
By the sixth round, Orozco seemed to show his inexperience on the big stage as he appeared to tire as the fight went on. In that same round, Orozco literally stopped throwing punches and turned his back on Taylor as he felt he was the victim of head butt, but the ref didn’t agree as the fight to continued and Taylor began to unload on Orozco who looked a tad naive in the ring as the two threw wild punches in the middle of the ring. Even when Taylor had positive exchanges he fought in spots and that simply wasn’t ideal for this match up and in the end appeared to cost him
In the eighth round Orzoco seemed gassed out as Taylor began to reverse roles with Orozco as Taylor became the pressure fighter and Orozco began to box. Taylor had opened up a cut over Orzocco’s eye late in the fight that appeared to bother him in the ring. Taylor finished the fight strong, but appeared to just start to late to come away with the win.
In the end, the judges favored the work output of Orozco who won the fight via the scores of 96-94, 96-94 and 98-92.