Joseph Ornament. Photo credit: Kaitlin Kuc
Joseph “Blessed Hands” Adorno knows what he did wrong. The junior welterweight from Allentown, Pennsylvania, had a promising future that he is trying to rekindle. The first step is to recognize mistakes. It’s also a good time to catch them, because Adorno is 23 years old and the window is still open on what he could do in boxing.
Adorno is a talented fighter. But like many talented young athletes, the obstacle they often encounter is themselves. In the recent past, he didn’t train the way he was capable of. And he knows it. He didn’t diet or discipline himself between fights. And he knows it, too. He wasn’t getting good advice from his team, and that knowledge forced him to bond with his father, Hannibal.
Trained the last three fights by Chino Rivas, Adorno will get another chance on a big stage, once again on short notice, when he fights Hugo Roldan in a 10-round junior welterweight co-feature on Showtime’s ShoBox: The Tripleheader of the new breed at Bally’s Event Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Friday night.
Adorno (16-1-2, 14 KOs) is riding a modest two-fight win streak and replaces Roldan’s original opponent, Shinard Bunch. Although before winning his last two fights, Adorno was 0-1-2, losing his first fight to the exceptional Michel Rivera in March, following consecutive draws against Héctor García Montes, in January 2020, and Jamaine Ortiz, in April 2021.
“The only one of those fights that I really want to get back is the one with Jamaine Ortiz,” said Adorno. “I needed the Rivera fight. I learned a lot from that loss. That was a learning experience. Rivera told me after the fight that he trained for four months. I got three weeks’ notice for Rivera and had to lose 35 pounds. He wasn’t training for the Rivera fight. He was cutting weight. He had never done 10 rounds before, and he had a lot of them at once.
“For Ortiz, it was me and Jeremy, my little brother, training. It was during COVID, and my parents split up and I’m not going to lie, I needed the money and I took the fight. My dad is out of the picture. Chino has been training me since the fight with Rivera. I only took two weeks off since my last fight. When I got the call from Roldan, I was ready. I feel ready. I arrived in four weeks of training. I was in my own way. I’m not going to make excuses. I should have trained between fights.”
After Ortiz’s draw, Adorno admits, he spent seven months without training. He got careless. He gained weight. He says that he only trained when he called Top Rank. Top Rank stopped calling because they let him. Adorno has since been picked up by promoter Vito Mielnicki Sr., the father of Vito Mielnicki Jr., and is managed by David McWater’s Split-T management.
“I wasn’t doing well going into the Ortiz fight, and my dad and mom split up, and my dad closed the gym, and Jeremy and I trained together, and all we did was run and lose weight,” said Adorno. . “The same thing happened with Rivera. I was fat. I wasn’t thinking straight. I had to lose weight. Ever since my dad closed the gym, we haven’t talked. I have no connection to my father at all. It’s been 23 years of the same thing over and over again. He needed to move on and I’ve done it with Chino.
“After the fight with Rivera, I was really upset that I let everyone down. I always thought I was going to be great, but how can I be great if I’m not working? I admit, Rivera beat me, but I saw that fight 6-4. Once I got home after that fight, everything would have been very different.”
Adorno took a week off and has been in the gym ever since, working out with Rivas in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He says he doesn’t know much about Roldan (21-0-1, 7 KOs), even though he knows he’s clumsy. Adorno is a counterpuncher and could be the aggressor on Friday night. The weight of it is good.
“Every day I tell myself to keep going and keep running,” said Adorno. “I am surrounded by guys who work hard. Back in Allentown, he worked when he wanted. Now, I work every day to keep up with everyone around me. I’m glad everything went well because I’ve been my own worst enemy. I needed to change that.”
Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter who has been working for Ring Magazine/RingTV.com since October 1997 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. You can follow him on twitter @JSantoliquito [twitter.com].
