Lopez Stopped by Espino in 7th

Henry Lopez showed over and over that he could take a punch Wednesday night at the Country Club in Reseda. Even when he was knocked down in the fourth round by a right cross and in the fifth by a left hook, he came back for more and even landed some punches on his own.

What the wiry Lopez could not withstand was a left hook/right cross combination from Cecilio (El Torito) Espino. It knocked him down at 2 minutes 9 seconds of the seventh round of the bantamweight bout.

Although he reached his feet by the count of nine, the referee, noting the glaze over his eyes, stopped the fight, much to his dismay.

To chants of “El Torito, El Torito, El Torito,” Espino of Michoacan, Mexico, secured his 22nd knockout and improved to 25-3.

“I was surprised, I thought he couldn’t take a punch,” Espino said. “He took a lot of punishment because I hit him with my best shots.”

Lopez, a Mexican native living in San Diego, fell to 22-9-1.

In a fierce battle of lightweights on the undercard, North Hollywood’s Chuck (Narly Charlie) Goossen edged Rudy Cruz, who wore his hometown of Fresno tattooed on his back.

After splitting the first two rounds, Cruz did not throw enough punches in the third round. Sensing that Cruz was coasting, Goossen went on the attack.

“I felt I forced it a lot more in that round,” Goossen said. “He was tired and he wanted to rest for the last round.”

Cruz was more aggressive in the fourth and final round as the pair exchanged punches throughout. It finished with a flurry, Cruz hammering Goossen with a barrage of punches to the head and the body and Goossen somehow absorbing them, then countering with a few, including a roundhouse right, seconds before the bell.

“I didn’t know when the bell was gonna ring, I just ended up throwing a good combination,” Goossen said. “He was a tough guy. He came to fight.”

By scores of 39-38, 40-36, and 39-38, Goossen won, preserving his undefeated record at 3-0 with two knockouts and proving to himself that he could win without knocking out his opponent.

“He was the toughest guy I’ve faced,” Goossen said. “It’s gonna get me used to doing what I have to do: keep my hands up, my chin down and not think that I can punch someone out with my power.”

His brother, P.J. Goossen, used a knockout punch at 1:35 of the fifth round to save him from allowing the judges to decide his fate in a bout with 33-year-old Adolfo Gasca, who appeared to be carrying a few extra pounds on his 5-foot-6-inch frame.

Gasca also had an excess of relentless tenacity.

“I knew it would be a tough fight,” said Pat Goossen, P.J.’s father/trainer. “I wanted to test the waters.”

P.J.’s inability to hurt Gasca in the early rounds and his backpedaling style drew a few boos from Gasca’s supporters.

“I knew I had to stop backing up and not let him go forward,” P.J. said. “I couldn’t get his head up in the air unless I could get him to go back.”

It took several rounds for Goossen to recover from a first-round left hook by Gasca that popped his eardrum, making it feel “like you have 20 cotton balls in your ear.”

Once he got Gasca on his heels, he used a lengthy combination of consecutive jabs, a right, a left cross and right-handed knockout.

With the knockout, his seventh, Goossen, 23, improved to 8-0.