MONTREAL - Lucian Bute of Montreal battered veteran William Joppy round after round and finally stopped him at 1:08 of the 10th on Friday night to retain his IBF super-middleweight title before 13,858 roaring spectators at the Bell Centre.
Bute (22-0) knocked down Joppy (39-5-1) with a right in the ninth and forced the American to take a knee again in 10th. He finishing the scheduled 12-round bout with a flurry of shots in a neutral corner as the crowd chanted the Romanian-born champion's name.
The southpaw Bute, who turned 28 on Thursday, sailed his left through Joppy's defence three times in the first round and probably won each round except the third.
It was Bute's first defence of the title he won with an 11th-round TKO over Alejandro Berrio on Oct. 19 at the Bell Centre.
The 37-year-old Joppy was in his 15th career world title bout. The Washington, D.C. native held the WBA middleweight title three times, first winning it from Shinji Takehara in Japan in 1996. His record includes losses by decision to top middleweights Bernard Hopkins and Jermain Taylor.
The only previous time Joppy was stopped before the limit was a fifth-round TKO at the hands of Felix Trinidad in 2001.
In the co-feature, 35-year-old southpaw Renan St-Juste (16-1-1) of Repentigny, Que., won the vacant WBC Continental Americas middleweight belt when he stopped Mohamad Said (23-8-1) of Brazil at the 3:00 mark of the fifth round.
St-Juste knocked Said down in the first round, but was backed into the Brazilian's corner when he dropped him with a sharp left. It was St-Juste's first fight for promoter InterBox since leaving rival Groupe Yvon Michel. Said was coming off a loss to Sebastien Demers of St-Hyacinthe, Que., in December.
In another 12-rounder, Romania-native Victor Lupo (17-1-1) retained his Canadian welterweight title when he stopped Peru native Leonardo Rojas (7-6-3) at 2:53 of the ninth round of a bout between Montreal residents.
Still another Romanian, southpaw JoJo Dan of Montreal (20-0), knocked out Jose Leonardo Corona (8-8) of Mexico with a straight left at 2:37 of the third round of a six-round welterweight bout. Corona is 0-3 in Canada in the last 13 months, also losing to Antonin Decarie and Stephane Desormiers.
Bantamweight Sebastien Gauthier (12-1) of St-Jerome, Que., rebounding from his first loss in July, won all six rounds over Diego Herminio Sananco (15-7-3) of Argentina.
And Pier-Olivier Cote of Quebec City won his pro debut with a fourth-round TKO of Martin Huppe (1-7) of Victoriaville, Que.