KENDALL HOLT KO1 (61 secs) RICARDO TORRES

One round finishes can be disappointing but I don’t think that anyone was complaining after the wild, 61-second shootout between Kendall Holt and Ricardo Torres on Showtime.

There was an almost impossible amount of action and drama packed into that 61 seconds of boxing. We had Holt down twice, cut over the right eye and hit by an illegal punch when getting up from the second knockdown, followed by Torres staggering after running in to Holt’s head and then getting bombed out by a monster right-hander before he could steady himself.

It was simply sensational.

Torres, defending his junior welterweight title, banked everything on a violent, all-or-nothing attack. Having almost been stopped by Holt in their first, controversial fight in his Colombian homeland, I thought that Torres would take a more measured approach but, no, he practically hurled himself at Holt.

As noted in the Showtime commentary, Holt had no chance to box, move and be slick. He had to bang right back or get overrun. And bang back he most certainly did. It reminded me of Holt’s fight with David Diaz when he got dropped, seemed to be in real danger of losing, then changed things in an instant by catching his onrushing opponent and turning the tables in dramatic fashion.

Now we know why Mike Arnaoutis was hesitant to press the fight in his rather tame points defeat against Holt — he knew that one slip could lead to his sudden downfall.

Torres seemed to have the fight in his grasp but I noticed that Holt had his legs under him and his wits about him, even after the second, worrying knockdown — in the first flooring he seemed to have been bowled over more than anything, but the second time I thought he was clearly hurt.

When a fighter is in tiptop condition, though, he can come through such early calamities, although, having been down twice inside a minute, I doubt if Holt, in his wildest imaginings, could have expected to win by KO moments later.

At first I didn’t realise that Holt had caught Torres with his head just before the ending. Holt dipped down to hook to the body and Torres just seemed to charge right into him.

Friends in Britain tell me that the analyst in the Setanta TV studio was screaming about injustice and saying that the referee, Jay Nady, should have called a time out and given Torres time to recover.

I cannot fault Nady because the action was so fast it seemed to be flashing before our eyes like a Japanese bullet train. At first I thought it was a short right hand on the inside that caused Torres to stagger.

Holt, like a true professional, took immediate advantage of his opportunity, stepping in to land the blockbuster of a right hand that crumpled Torres to the canvas, down and totally out.

It was emphatic payback for the stoppage defeat that the Paterson, NJ boxer suffered when losing in Colombia, but the head clash was a bad break for Torres. Yet there is no guarantee that Torres would have won had he not run into Holt’s head. Holt was positioning himself to meet fire with fire. Someone was definitely going to go, and it could have been either man. Holt prevailed. The collision between his skull and his opponent’s jaw obviously helped Holt considerably, but he might well have won anyway. He seemed to have recovered remarkably well from the two knockdowns, and Torres, who does not have the best chin in the world — as is often the case with big punchers — was scorning defence.

Colleague Mark DeSisto, at ringside at the Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, emailed to say that he was telling people next to him just before the ending that Torres was making a mistake attacking so wildly because “Holt wasn’t that badly hurt”.

Holt, meanwhile, didn’t just have to overcome the two knockdowns — he was hit by a heavy left hook when getting up the second time. before referee Nady could step in to impose an eight count. It was a clear foul by Torres. A fighter who scores a knockdown should, under the rules, immediately go to the farthest neutral corner, not stand over his man and nail him when he gets up in the manner of Jack Dempsey. Referee Nady let Torres get away with it. What would have happened had Holt done a Luis Santana routine and swooned to the canvas? We would have had boxing’s second Las Vegas controversy in seven days, that’s what.

Luckily for us — and for boxing — Holt not only has too much pride to try to cop a win on an acting job, his first priority was to hit back at Torres as hard as he could. I am sure he would rather have boxed a nice, classy fight, but desperate situations call for desperate measures and, as Steve Farhood noted in the commentary, with Torres coming fast and hard, Holt had no choice but to stand his ground and unload some bombs of his own — Torres made him fight — but all was well that ended well.

A rubber match would be fun, but Torres suffered a bad knockout and he will need a long rest. In fact, I wonder if he might ever be the same fighter — it took a long to get him up and back to his corner.

Sixty-one unforgettable seconds. Torres risked all to win all, and the gamble nearly succeeded. We could spend another lifetime in boxing and never again see a one-round fight such as this.