ATLANTIC CITY ? Glen Tapia displayed patience Saturday night he wasn’t equipped to exhibit before his lone professional loss to James Kirkland.
Taking his time was the key to the junior middleweight contender from Passaic picking apart Donatas Bondorovas on his way to a fourth-round technical knockout victory in the main event of a seven-bout card at Bally’s Events Center.
Tapia (22-1, 14 KOs) opened cuts over Bondorovas’ right and left eyes and dropped him with a right hand that knocked Bondorovas through the ropes early in the fourth round. Bondorovas (18-6-1, 6 KOs) reached his feet before referee David Fields counted to 10, but Fields stopped the scheduled 10-round bout because Bondorovas was disoriented.
“I just wanted to [knock him out] before the seventh round because that was the earliest he had been stopped,” said Tapia, 24.
“I could’ve done it sooner, but it was cool that I took my time.”
Tapia’s patience will especially please his head trainer, the renowned Freddie Roach, who was busy preparing Manny Pacquiao for his Nov. 22 pay-per-view fight against Chris Algieri and could not attend Saturday’s bout. Marvin Somodio, Roach’s assistant, worked Tapia’s corner in Roach’s place.
“I did a couple things that Freddie taught me, a couple things we’ve been practicing and practicing,” Tapia said, referring to training sessions at Roach’s facility. “The first is being calm, using my mind more than my heart. He always tells me that.
“It is getting through. I’m taking my time more, instead of just rushing. I’m more effective. I feel like I was young in the Kirkland fight, 23 years old. I was tough and I was stupid, too. I went out there and just used my heart from the first round, when I could’ve just taken my time and been more effective.”
Tapia won a second straight fight since suffering a sixth-round technical knockout defeat against the heavy-handed Kirkland (32-1, 28 KOs) on Dec. 7 at Boardwalk Hall. He needed just 1:22 to stop journeyman Keenan Collins on June 14 at Bally’s.
Bondorovas, a Chicago resident raised in Lithuania, has lost three of his past four fights. His loss Saturday night marked just his third defeat by knockout or technical knockout.
Earlier Saturday night, Hasbrouck Heights’ Julian Rodriguez (6-0, 5 KOs) also won by fourth-round TKO against Atlanta’s Christian Steele (4-11-2) in a junior welterweight fight that was scheduled for six.
Rodriguez, 19, floored Steele once apiece in the second, third and fourth rounds.
Referee Rick Vera stopped the bout at 1:35 of the fourth, when Steele failed to beat his count after Rodriguez’s left hook knocked him on his back.
The win was Rodriguez’s fourth straight by knockout or TKO.
“I really got to work on what we worked on in the gym, which was utilizing my jab and actually using my skills to the full potential,” said Rodriguez, one of boxing’s top prospects.
“The other guys, once we hurt them, we just went in for the kill because we knew we could.
“But in this one we wanted to take our time more, get used to [possibly fighting] six rounds, use our legs, which I think I did beautifully, and use angles because his defense was a little awkward and it was the only way to get past it with cleaner shots.”
