Hozumi Hasegawa of Japan defeated Alejandro Valdez of Mexico by technical knockout in the second round to retain his WBC bantamweight title Thursday.
Hasegawa, making his seventh title defense, dominated from the start and sent Valdez to the canvas with a left hook with one minute remaining in the second round.
Valdez returned to his feet but referee Mike Griffin stopped the bout after Hasegawa landed a flurry of punches to the head of the challenger.
"I didn't think it would end with a knockout," Hasegawa said. "I thought it would go to a decision, so I'm very pleased."
Hasegawa improved to 25-2 with nine knockouts, while Valdez dropped to 21-3-1.
On the undercard, champion Oscar Larios of Mexico retained his WBC featherweight title in a split decision over Japanese challenger Takahiro Aoh.
Aoh knocked Larios to the canvas in the fourth round but the veteran boxer recovered and dominated the later rounds.
Two judges scored the bout 115-111 and 114-112 in favor of Larios, while a third had it 114-112 in favor of Aoh.
Larios improved to 63-6-1 with 39 KOs while Aoh dropped to 16-1-1.
