Joseph Adorno had his most successful night in years on Friday night.
The former amateur standout, who went 0-1-2 in consecutive 135-pound fights in 2020 and last year, defeated Hugo Roldan by unanimous decision at 140 at Bally’s Event Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
It was the 23-year-old’s first victory in a fight scheduled for 10 rounds.
Adorno (17-1-2, 14 KOs) played Roldan’s bullfighter, expecting the aggressive, sometimes wild Argentine to attack and then counterattack.
He did particularly well in the first half of the fight, when he landed left hook after left hook to stun Roldan (21-1-1, 7 KOs) multiple times and build a lead on the scorecards.
Adorno’s biggest round came in the second, when he scored a quick knockdown with a left hand moments before the bell rang.
However, the tough and determined Roldán rallied in the final stretch, outplaying a less active Adorno to get back into the fight and leave the result in doubt.
And indeed, the score was close. All three judges scored it 95-94, meaning the knockdown was the difference in the outcome.
Adorno drew with Hector Montes and Jamaine Ortiz and then suffered the only loss of his career in his biggest fight, a lopsided decision against the talented Michel Rivera last March.
He recovered to stop two officials in scheduled six-round fights, the first at 140, after the setback, but needed a more significant win to get back on track.
He got it on Friday even though he wasn’t as dominant as he would have liked to be.
Now he’s in position to get another big fight, though it’s unclear if it will be at 140, where he might be giving up some power, or at 135.
