Holt confident heading into rematch with Torres

Cans, cups and bottles filled the air, and the ring had become slippery. The crowd wanted blood. The referee appeared to have lost control.

Kendall Holt had two things on his mind: Could he finish off Ricardo Torres to win the WBO junior welterweight title, and could he get out of the ring alive?

Holt managed to do the latter, but only after referee Genaro Rodriguez suddenly stopped the fight in the 11th round, giving Torres a technical-knockout victory in Barranquilla in his native Colombia.

Holt claimed he was robbed and threatened to sue. Instead, he was granted a rematch tonight at Planet Hollywood's Theater for the Performing Arts.

The circumstances appear to be much more in Holt's favor this time. The Paterson, N.J., native is fighting in his home country and figures to be safe, at least from the crowd, inside the ring.

He shouldn't have to worry about getting hit in the head with a full can of beer, as he claims happened in the sixth round of the first fight on Sept. 1.

In other words, Holt should have no excuses this time.

"I need to finish what I started," said Holt, whose purse is $75,000 for the rematch; Torres is receiving $150,000. "I was winning the fight, but I wasn't active enough. In that fight, I was falling asleep. I wasn't 100 percent focused mentally."

Both fighters weighed in at 139 pounds Friday, a pound under the limit.

Holt (23-2, 12 knockouts) remains the betting favorite, though his odds have dropped from 3-1 to minus-250 at the Planet Hollywood sports book. Torres is plus-215.

This might be the 27-year-old Holt's last shot at a title. But he refuses to put that kind of pressure on himself.

"I feel I'm at a crossroads in all of my fights," he said. "I know I can beat him because I'm better prepared this time. I've worked on my jab and my right hand. I went to Florida to train so I could focus. I've never been more ready for a fight."

Holt said he wasn't ready for the hostile crowd and didn't totally respect Torres as a power puncher even though he should have.

Torres gave Miguel Cotto all he could handle in September 2005, when Cotto took some big shots before knocking out Torres in the seventh round.

"I should have given (Torres) more credit than I did," Holt said. "Torres hits pretty hard. I knew he was a hard puncher, but he hit harder than I thought."

Torres (32-1, 28 KOs) said he's fine with giving Holt another chance.

"I have no problem with that," Torres, 28, said through an interpreter. "If that's what needs to be done right now, that's what needs to be done.

"I know the first fight was controversial. I know that Holt didn't get hit with anything. The only thing he got hit with were my punches. That's why he went down."

The card is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m.

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913.