Gonzalez Stops Young After Eight Rounds

Julio Gonzalez of Huntington Beach appears to have completed the transformation from a sluggish fighter that Roy Jones Jr. used as a punching bag last July into a more agile one Saturday night before 3,732 at the Arrowhead Pond.

Gonzalez used quick right hooks to swell Jonathan Young’s eyes before referee Marty Denkin stopped the light-heavyweight bout after the eighth round because Young was having trouble with his vision. Gonzalez, 25, improved to 30-1 with 20 knockouts after winning his third fight in a row since dropping his first career fight, a unanimous decision to Jones at Staples Center.

“I realized how slow I was when I fought Jones,” Gonzalez said. “I’ve been working on a lot of speed workouts ever since then and now I feel like I’m twice as fast.”

Gonzalez went to work on Young (10-5-2) midway through the seventh round. He recorded a knockdown after connecting with right-handed uppercuts to the head.

The semi-main event featured Brazil’s Kelson Pinto against Bell’s Dagoberto Najera in a super-lightweight fight, with Pinto (12-0) winning a unanimous decision over Najera (15-4). In other bouts, Anaheim’s Javier Mora (14-0-1, 13) recorded a second-round knockout against Leroy Humphries (3-4-1) of Austin, Texas, San Pedro’s Raul Torres (1-2) won a four-round split-decision against Mexico’s Aldo Merino in a welterweight bout, and Robert Ortiz of Simi Valley won a unanimous decision over Jose Luis Torres of Canoga Park in a featherweight bout.