By Fausto Perez Villareal, Photo by Alfonso Cervantes/EL TIEMPO – With his face intact, without any mark of the punches he received on Saturday night, Ricardo Torres returned to Barranquilla last Monday. “I’m tranquil and optimistic. I know I was impressive on Saturday. Kendall Holt isn’t a better boxer than me. I lost because of an accident. He has to return the belt. He didn’t do anything to win it.”
“Mochuelo,” who suffered his second defeat in 34 professional bouts, arrived along with his trainer Orlando Pineda and his representatives Sergio Chams and Alberto Agamez. He was welcomed by relatives and a crowd of followers at the Ernesto Cortizzos airport. “Look at my face. I don’t even look like I fought! Holt, on the contrary, is all swollen. His eye is cut and imflamed. He didn’t defeat me..”
After the bout, Ricardo Torres recognized that up in the ring, during the fight, he wasn’t aware of the involuntary head butt that sent him to the canvas. “When I knocked Holt down for the second time, I knew he was done. That’s why I came after him, to finish him off. I cornered him, then I released a right and then a left. I don’t know what happened next. When I regained counsiousness, I was in the corner without gloves. They told me about the head butt and that I had lost by a knock out. They took me to the hospital to make sure I was fine. The also took Kendall to close the wound I made on his eye. Later I saw the video and I had no doubt: Holt didn’t knock me out cleanly. That fight must be declared a no contest.”
“Mochuelo” Torres recognized, however, that the head butt was unintentional. “Holt didn’t have the intention to hit me with his head and I have to recognize that fact. We have to fight again. I’m gonna take two weeks off and then I will resume training. That belt will return to Colombia, I promise.”