Peñalosa floored current WBO top bantamweight contender Mauricio Martinez three times on the way to a stunning ninth round TKO upset over the heavily-favored Panamanian in the super bantamweight clash between former world champions yesterday at the Don Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas.
It was nothing less a rousing debut for Peñalosa under the wings of Oscar de la Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions.
Peñalosa, who is now trained by Freddie Roach, decked Martinez in rounds one and four before finishing him off at 1:06 of the ninth round.
The former WBC super flyweight champion Peñalosa improved his record to 51-5-2 now packed with 34KOs. Martinez fell to 31-7-1 (21KOs).
With his impressive showing, Golden Boy reportedly promised Peñalosa of a world title fight soon mostly likely against Daniel Ponce de Leon (30-1, 28 KOs), who retained his WBO super bantamweight crown with an eight round knockout of Al Seeger (27-2, 21 KOs) in yesterday's main event.