By Ryan Maquiñana
Manuel “Tino” Avila breathed a sigh of relief Monday when he learned that neither of his hands were broken.
“They’re just badly bruised,” Avila told BoxingScene.com.
Avila (16-0, 7 KOs) injured his left hand in the opening round after using it to floor Sergio Frias twice with left hooks in a Fox Sports 1 headliner last Friday. To compound the problem, Avila hurt his right hand in the fourth frame, barely using it at all in the fifth.
However, the 22-year-old junior featherweight from Fairfield, California, displayed veteran composure fighting with two possibly fractured fists. With nary a show of emotion, he coolly broke Frias down in the eighth round with a variety of punches upstairs before finishing the job with a pinpoint left hook to the liver.
“In the amateurs, you learn to fight with it,” said Avila, who reached as high as sixth in the USA Boxing rankings before he turned pro in November 2010.
The Northern California-based Avila, who is promoted by Golden Boy and managed by Cameron Dunkin, plans to return to the Vacaville PAL gym next Monday.
Ryan Maquiñana is the Boxing Insider at Comcast SportsNet Bay Area and the Editor-in-Chief of Norcalboxing.com. He is a full member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Follow him on Twitter @RMaq28 or email him at rmaquinana@gmail.com.
