Juan Manuel Marquez retained his WBA and WBO lightweight titles with a bruising ninth-round technical knockout of Michael Katsidis on Saturday night.
Marquez bided his time in the decisive round before hitting Katsidis with a flurry of punches -- a series of uppercuts and straight rights that had the challenger backing away.
Finally, referee Kenny Bayless stopped the fight at 2 minutes and 14 seconds, giving Marquez (52-5-1, 37 KO) a TKO over the rugged Katsidis.
"We knew it was going to be a difficult bout. It was so difficult he even surprised me," Marquez said afterward through a translator.
The surprise? Katsidis (27-3) knocked Marquez to the mat with a left hook in the third round after the champ left himself wide-open.
Not surprising? This was one heck of a fight.
The boxers landed a ton of throws in the punch-a-second action, with neither one backing down. They fought inside through eight and a half rounds -- one count had them landing a combined 82 punches in the seventh. Slow rounds saw them land 50 or 60.
Marquez looked like he was beginning to back off in the ninth round, slowing the fight down as he gained clear control over Katsidis. But he picked it up, perhaps sensing weakness from an opponent that had begun to stagger, and landed the decisive series of punches in quick succession.
Marquez, a 37-year-old veteran from Mexico, is angling to remain in the race to meet Manny Pacquiao 
again after losing their last bout in 2008 (he earned a draw in 2004).He offered a simple explanation on Saturday for why a third fight hasn't happened already.
"Pacquiao has been avoiding us," Marquez said.
The MGM Grand crowd saw a much shorter fight before the headliners.
Andre Berto retained his WBC welterweight title with a first-round TKO of Freddy Hernandez, landing a right cross that sent the challenger to the mat.
Berto (27-0, 21 KO) stepped into the punch and snuck it through Hernandez's hands, which were up. It was only the ninth punch he landed in the bout.
After dropping quickly, Hernandez (29-2) got off the mat, but referee Russell Mora stopped the fight after just 2 minutes and 7 seconds.
"I just jabbed to the stomach and came up top with that right," Berto said after barely breaking a sweat in his first fight since a TKO of Carlos Quintana in April.
Source: miamiherald.com
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