Olympic heavyweight silver medalist Richard Torrez won his pro debut but it wasn’t pretty.
Torrez put Allen Melson down three times and stopped him at 1:23 of Round 2 of a scheduled six-round bout Friday night in Fresno, California, not far from Torrez’s hometown of Tulare.
Torrez put the wild, awkward Melson (6-4, 3 KOs) down with a left hand about two minutes into the fight. Then things got weird.
The Olympian appeared to end the fight with a second knockdown when referee Marcos Rosales waved his arms above the fallen Melson. However, Rosales was indicating that it was a slip, not the end of the fight.
Then, in the final seconds of the opening round, a collision of heads resulted in a deep cut above Torrez’s right eye that bled profusely.
In the end, the cut didn’t matter. Torrez scored two more knockdowns with left hands during moments of wrestling. The last one put Melson on his back, prompting Rosales to end the fight.
The official time was 1:23 of Round 2.
Torrez, who is 6-foot-2, weighed 228.25. The 5-foot-10 Melson came in at only 201.75.
Torrez lost to Bakhodir Jalolov of Uzbekistan 5-0 in the gold-medal match this past August in Tokyo.
In other featured preliminary bouts, two-time former world title challenger Joet Gonzalez (25-2, 14 KOs) stopped Jeo Santisima (21-4, 18 KOs) at 2:05 of Round 9 in a scheduled 10-round bout.
Gabriel Flores Jr. (21-1, 7 KOs) defeated Abraham Montoya (20-3-1, 14 KOs) by a majority decision in a 10-round junior lightweight bout.
And Hector Tanajara (19-1-1, 5 KOs) and Miguel Contreras (11-1-1, 6 KOs) fought to a draw in an eight-round lightweight bout.