Julio Cesar Martinez is retaining his belt…

The 29-year-old Mexican professional boxer, the WBC flyweight champion, twice knocked down challenger Angelino Cordova on Saturday with left hooks in the first minute of the third round.

Martinez (21-3-1 NC, 15 KOs), of Mexico City, then had Cordova (18-1-1, 12 KOs), from Caracas, Venezuela, wobbly in the fifth round with another swift left hook before settling in for a majority decision (113-113, 114-112, 114-112) to successfully defend his belt, and give Cordova his first defeat.

But not without enduring a pair of gnarly-looking cuts, one to the side of his right eye in the eighth round and diagonally through his left eyebrow after an incidental headbutt with 23 seconds to go in the 10th round.

Cordova tried to set the tone in the first two rounds before Martinez went on the offensive with his pursuit. With a pro-Mexico crowd chanting the name of his home country, Martinez responded with a straight right to his opponent’s face, stunning Cordova 35 seconds into the seventh round.

The most entertaining round was the eighth, the two 112-pounders going toe-to-toe with haymakers in the middle of the ring. It was also when, with Martinez bleeding heavily from the cut on his right eye, Cordova was clowning and connecting, with a combo of a Sugar Ray Leonard windup punch and an Ali shuffle, despite having already been knocked down numerous times.