CANIZALES TKO's LU BIN IN 12TH ROUND, RETAINS WBA TITLE

AXIATA ARENA, KUALA LUMPUR ? Carlos Canizales of Venenzuela retained his WBA world flyweight title by stopping courageous Lu Bin of China in the final round on the undercard of the Pacquiao-Matthysse welterweight championship here Sunday morning (Saturday night in the US).

Lu Bin, fighting his second professional fight and chasing history to become the fastest pro to become a world champion, made good account of himself by starting fast and outboxing the veteran Canizales in the early rounds. It soon appeared however that Lu Bin lacked to power to gain the respect of Canizales and the Venezuelan begun to tag Lu Bin with telling blows in the middle rounds.

Showing a lot of heart, Lu Bin, a Rio Olympian who drastically fought a 12-round fight, fought toe to toe against Canizales in the 8th round in the fight's most exciting round where Lu connected well in the first half of the round but Canizales came back strong in the second half.

Canizales began to control in the 9th round connecting with heavy punches against the fading Lu Bin. In the 11th round, Canizales staggered Lu to the canvas. Although Lu did go down, Referee Gustavo Padilla of Puerto Rico counted Lu as Lu held the canvas to remain standing. In the last round, it was clear that Lu was just trying to survive as Canizales stalked the Chinese all over the ring. Canizales connected with solid punches to the head as Lu went down against towards the close of the round. Lu got up but the referee waved off the fight after seeing Lu unfit to continue. Time of stoppage was at 2:59 of the final round.

After the bell, Lu, who appeared to totally gas out, was put on stretcher and rushed to the hospital.

Canizales remained undefeated registering his 21st victory with 17th stoppages.