Juan Urango climbed off the canvas to stop Randall Bailey in the 11th round on Friday and retain his International Boxing Federation junior welterweight title.
The action-packed bout saw Colombian-born Urango dropped in the sixth round, barely beating the count.
He responded by sending Bailey down with a left to the head in the ninth. Bailey got back to his feet, but Urango again punished him with lefts and floored him again.
Bailey escaped the round, but still looked shaky as he was knocked down again in the 10th. Urango got the technical knockout at 1:51 of the 11th, when referee Tommy Kimmons stopped the fight at the request of Bailey’s trainer, John David Jackson.
“It was a very tough fight,” said Urango, who improved to 22-2-1 with 17 knockouts. “He hurt me in the first couple of rounds. I kept going. I got up off the canvas.”
Urango had surrendered the crown to Britain’s Ricky Hatton in 2007 but won back the title in January with a unanimous decision over Canada’s Herman Ngoudjo.
Urango stepped up to welterweight in May to fight Andre Berto but lost and returned to the lower weight division.
On the same card, Tavoris Cloud claimed the vacant International Boxing Federation light heavyweight title with a dominant 12-round decision over former champion Clinton Woods of England.
Cloud wobbled Woods in the eighth and 10th rounds and earned the decision by 116-112 on all three judges’ scorecards.
The 37-year-old Woods had no answer for his 27-year-old opponent’s power.
Cloud remained unbeaten, improving to 20-0 with 18 knockouts as he seized the title vacated by Chad Dawson when Dawson opted to take on Glen Johnson last November.
Woods fell to 42-5 with 1 drawn and 24 knockouts.
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