By Francisco Salazar

Junior bantamweight contender Pedro Guevara knocked out Nicaragua’s Marvin Solano late Saturday night at the Plaza de Toros Monumental in Cihuatlan, Jalisco, Mexico.

With the win, Guevara, a former world junior flyweight titleholder improves to 34-3-1, 20 knockouts.

The 29-year-old Guevara outpointed veteran Jorge Guerrero on Dec. 8 in a stay-busy fight. Guevara was scheduled to fight Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez that same day in Carson, California on the last HBO telecast, but Gonzalez pulled out of the fight due to an injury.

Solano lost by disqualification in his previous fight against unbeaten Jeyvier Cintron on Dec. 7 in Puerto Rico.

Guevara was the more-effective fighter through the first three rounds. Solano was the aggressor, but Guevara countered with shorter and sharper hooks and crosses to the head of Solano.

It was in round four when Solano had his best round of the fight, utilizing his longer reach to connect more consistently than in previous rounds on Guevara, though many also landed Guevara’s arms as well.

About a minute into round five, Guevara landed a right hand to the chin of an advancing Solano, dropping him to the canvas. Solano barely beat the count, but referee Javier Pena stopped the bout at 1:16 as Solano was in condition to continue.

“It has been a while since we’ve scored a knockout in that fashion,” said Guevara, who resides in the boxing hotbed of Mazatlan, Mexico. “I think the results speak for themselves because of the preparation we did for this fight. We want to be considered amongst the best of all the super flyweights.”

Asked about whom he would like to face next, Guevara is hoping a fight against Gonzalez still plays out.

“I want to fight ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez. It’s now been two times that we have been scheduled to fight, but it falls through. I hope that this fight takes place later this year.”

Also on the Promociones del Pueblo card, bantamweight Karim Arce (15-0-2, 6 KOs), the nephew of Jorge ‘Travieso’ Arce, fought to an eight-round draw against Francisco Alarcon (7-2-2, 4 KOs).  

Francisco A. Salazar has written for Boxingscene.com since September of 2012 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. Francisco also covers boxing for the Ventura County (Calif.) Star newspaper. He can be reached by email at santio89@yahoo.com or on Twitter at FSalazarBoxing