Bracero accomplished what few people thought he was capable of accomplishing, and it was as decisive as they come?
Saturday night at Lowell Memorial Auditorium in Lowell, Massachusetts, in a fight televised live on NBC, 34-year-old Gabriel Bracero (23-2, 4 KOs), from Brooklyn, New York, KO?d 30-year-old Danny O?Connor (26-2, 10 KOs), a southpaw from Framingham, Massachusetts, just 41 seconds into the first round.
This was a fight O?Connor was supposed to win. Fighting out of the blue corner in blue and green trunks in front of a hometown crowd, this was his chance to exact revenge on Bracero, who handed him his first loss in 2011.
But Bracero, fighting out of the red corner in red trunks trimmed with gold, who had lost two of his last seven fights, including a fight six months earlier, accomplished what few people thought he was capable of accomplishing, and it was as decisive as they come.
O?Connor threw a lazy left from the southpaw stance. Bracero stepped to his left and delivered a perfectly time right hand that landed flush. O?Connor didn?t see it coming and hit the deck with a thud. He was out cold.
It took several anxious minutes before O?Connor was permitted to sit on a stool. Fortunately he was okay. But it was a devastating knockout, a career-ending knockout, from a man whose last early stoppage was in 2012.
Each fighter landed two punches.
But only one of those punches mattered.
