Vargas Defends Title, Knocks Out Correa

Yoni Vargas of Westminster made the fourth defense of his California state lightweight title by knocking out Isreal Correa of Oxnard in the fourth round before a sellout crowd of 1,366 at the Irvine Marriott.

Vargas sent Correa to the canvas in the first round with crisp left hook to the head. But he had a difficult time finishing off Correa. In the second and third rounds, Vargas appeared overanxious as he stayed inside and threw short, chopping uppercuts and hooks.

In the fourth round, he went to the body and began to slow Correa down. After absorbing a round’s worth of body shots, Correa went down after getting hammered with left and right hooks to his body and a chopping right to his head.

Vargas admitted he might have been trying to end the fight too soon.

“I have to sharpen up my boxing skills,” he said through his manager, Norm Kaplan. “I was a little wild out there. But I wanted to make a good showing, show off my power.”

Middleweight Enrique Ornelas of La Habra showed his power early and often against Akinori Okada of Tokyo in the six-round semi-main event. Late in the second round, Ornelas (8-0) connected with a short right hand and sent the charging Okada flying. When Okada (3-2) landed, referee Vince Delgado stopped the fight.

Okada’s corner claimed their fighter had slipped, but Ornelas denied that.

“I was just waiting for him to come at me,” Ornelas said. “He was going into me and that’s what made the punch seem even harder.”

Ornelas didn’t disagree with Delgado’s decision.

“I think it was best for [Okada],” he said. “He wasn’t trained to be a fighter.”

The highlight of the undercard was the pro debut of Escondido’s Jorge Martinez, a bronze medalist for Mexico in the 1999 Pan Am Games. Martinez used a lot of energy in the first round against Ulises Pena (3-2) of North Hills and had to hang on to win a majority four-round decision.

Martinez landed a lot of body punches and looping left hooks in the first round. He kept up the pressure in the last three rounds even though his punches didn’t have the same sting in them.

Heavyweight Javier Mora of Westminster raised his record to 4-0-1 with a second-round knockout of Billy Zumbrun (4-2-1) of Ogden, Utah.