NEW YORK — Junior lightweight Felix Verdejo scored two knockdowns, the second on a vicious right-left-right combination for the first-round stoppage of Steve Gutierrez at Radio City Music Hall.

Verdejo-Gutierrez was on the undercard for the HBO-televised junior welterweight clash between RING and WBO junior featherweight champion Nonito Donaire and WBA counterpart Guillermo Rigondeaux.

In the next bout, popular light heavyweight Sean Monaghan, (18-0, 11 KOs), of Long Beach, N.Y., scored a first-round stoppage with a vicous right hand against Rex Stanley (11-5, 5 KOs), of Kansas City, Mo., Monaghan was coming off a crowd-pleasing decision over Roger Cantrell (15-3, 8 KOs) in January at Madison Square Garden.

In the fifth fight, 6-foot-2 Philadelphia super middleweight Jesse Hart (7-0, 5 KOs) scored two knockdowns, the second in the third and final round for the knockout at the 1:33 mark over Florida’s Marlon Farr (2-3). Hart is trained by his father, Eugene “Cyclone” Hart, a premier middleweight out of Philadelphia through the 1970s.

Eugene Hart’s final record of 30-9-1 (28 KOs), included a victory over Sugar Ray Seals, a draw and a loss to Bennie Briscoe, and losses against Bobby “Boogaloo” Watts, Willie “The Worm” Monroe, Marvin Hagler, Vito Antuofermo and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad.

Jesse Hart debuted with a 33-second knockout of New Mexico’s Manuel Eastman on the undercard of a disputed split-decision victory by Tim Bradley over Manny Pacquiao in June at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

In the evening’s fourth fight, junior middleweight Glen Tapia (18-0, 10 KOs), of Passaic, N.J., out-slugged Puerto Rican opponent Joseph de los Santos (13-12-3, 6 KOs) for an eight-round unanimous decision. Tapia was coming off a second-round stoppage of Ayi Bruce at Madison Square Garden in January.

In the night’s first bout, Detroit lightweight Erik DeLeon (3-0, 1 KO) won a four-round unanimou decision over Diamond Baier (2-5-1, 0 KOs), of Phoenix, AZ. Next up was Canadian welterweight Mikael Zewski (19-0, 15 KOs) dropping New York’s Daniel Sostre (11-9-1, 4 KOs) twice in the second and final round, where referee Arthur Mercante reached the 10-count at 49 seconds for the knockout.

In the third bout, junior middleweight Tyler Caning (2-1, 0 KOs) of Lander, Wy., pulled a mild upset over Dario Soccia (2-1, 0 KOs) by four-round split-decision.

Also, junior lightweight Toka Khan Clary (5-0, 4 KOs), of Providence, R.I., scored three knockdowns during his first round stoppage of Gadiel Andulez (4-5-1, 2 KOs), of San Juan, P.R.

Photo by Chris Farina, Top Rank

Lem Satterfield can be reached at [email protected]