By William Mackay: NABA super bantamweight champion Olivier Lontchi (18-0-2, 8 KOs) took out challenger Cecilio Santos (23-10-3, 13 KOs) in the 7th round on Saturday night at the Montreal Casino, Montreal, Canada. Lontchi, 25, making his 4th defense of his NABA belt, landed a perfect left hook to the midsection of Santos in the 7th, sending him down on the canvas on one knee. He never attempted to get up and was counted out by referee Marlon Wright at 0:39 of the 7th.
Lontchi, ranked number #3 in the WBA, #6 in the WBO and #12 in the IBF and WBC, had his share of problems in the fight, taking a lot of hard body shots from Santos and having problems matching the Mexican’s devastating body attack. At the time of the stoppage, I hadn’t given Lontchi one round.
Of course, being that Lontchi is a Canadian based fighter, he was well ahead on judges’ scorecards. Ignore that, though, because Santos was clearly the superior fighter through six rounds mostly because of his good body work.
In the 7th, Santos continued to blast away at the body of Lontchi early in the round. However, after hitting Lontchi with a hard right to the midsection, Lontchi fired back with a perfectly thrown left hook that sent Santos down on one knee in obvious pain. The bout was then stopped by referee Marlon Wright at 0:39 of the 7th when it was apparent that Santos wouldn’t be able to get up from the knockdown.