First, Mike Anchondo lost his junior lightweight title on the scales. Then, he lost his perfect record.
Jorge Barrios of Argentina stopped Anchondo in the fourth round in Miami to claim the vacant WBO junior lightweight title in the main event of ESPN's Friday Night Fights.
Anchondo, who was supposed make the first defense of the belt he won last summer, was stripped Thursday when he weighed in at 134½ pounds, well above the 130-pound division limit. With the title vacant, only Barrios, who was 128½ pounds, was eligible to win it.
Barrios (43-2-1, 31 KOs), whose first title shot resulted in a 12th-round TKO loss to then-champion Acelino "Popo" Freitas in 2003, dominated Anchondo (25-1) from the start.
Before the fight, Barrios called Anchondo and his team "a disgrace" for not making the weight and then he predicted a knockout.
Good call.
Barrios knocked Anchondo down near the end of the third round with a right hand behind the ear.
Anchondo was still dazed when the fourth round started and Barrios continued his assault. Midway through the round, Barrios dropped him to all fours with a left-right combination. When he dropped Anchondo again moments later with a series of clubbing shots, he hit Anchondo while he was down and had two points deducted.
But it didn't matter. Seconds later, Anchondo trainer Buddy McGirt climbed into the ring to force a stoppage and save his fighter from more punishment.
"I predicted a sixth-round knockout but I did it in four. I guess I cheated you out of two rounds," Barrios said as a throng of Argentine fans celebrated in the background.
Besides being stripped of the title, Anchondo also had to give Barrios $30,000 from his $250,000 purse as a punishment for not making weight.
Also on the card, Colombian slugger Joel Julio (22-0, 19 KOs) dominated Carlos Vilches (43-6-2), forcing him to quit on his stool after three rounds of their welterweight bout.
In another bout, former heavyweight contender Michael Grant
overcame a first-round knockdown to score an eighth-round technical
knockout over Wallace McDaniel.
Grant (40-3) dropped McDaniel (6-11) three times in the eighth,
the third forcing referee Jorge Ortiz to stop the fight with 2:18
left.
A one-time challenger to Lennox Lewis who stopped him in two
rounds five years ago, Grant has fallen from contention after
knockout losses to Jameel McCline and Dominick Guinn.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.