Baltazar Returns, Defeats Solorio on a Knockout

Frank Baltazar, fighting for the first time in more than two years, scored an eighth-round knockout of Mario Solorio in the junior welterweight main event in front of about 800 Thursday at the Irvine Marriott.

Baltazar (40-3-1), who last fought in March of 1989, looked slow at the outset. He had stopped fighting to take a job with an insurance company, but, once he was done training for the job, began to train to box again.

His punches became more crisp as the fight continued and about a minute into the eighth round, he popped Solorio (10-4) on the chin with a hard left.

Baltazar then pinned Solorio in the corner with a pair of combinations. Solorio escaped but Baltazar followed him and landed again, and the bout was stopped.

“I just turned 33 two weeks ago,” Baltazar said. “I realized I have maybe a year or two left, so I had to get started.”

On the undercard:

Joey Martin of Anaheim improved to 5-0 with a fourth-round knockout of Ricardo Cruz of Colton.

Martin, who fights out of the La Habra Boxing Club, started slowly, but became more active in the second record. He landed two solid combinations in the third that slowed Cruz.

In the fourth, Martin was coming off the ropes and threw a right to Cruz’s midsection. Martin followed with a left hook to the chin that dropped Cruz.