The latest player at 140 pounds didn’t show much love for his opponent.
Montana Love put Carlos Diaz down three times in Round 2 and then stopped the Mexican in Round 3 on the Devin Haney-Joseph Diaz Jr. card Saturday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Love (17-0-1, 9 KOs) was coming off a break-through seventh-round stoppage of former titleholder Ivan Baranchyk in August.
The 26-year-old Cleveland fighter started this matchup with a misstep, missing weight by almost four pounds on Friday. However, he was allowed to fight.
Diaz (29-2, 19 KOs), who made the 140-pound limit, was competitive in the first round and for 30 seconds of the second. Then things went south quickly, as he hit the canvas three times in the next minute and a half.
Love wasn’t able to finish the job in Round 2 but referee Raul Caiz Jr. kept a sharp eye on Diaz’s welfare after the knockdowns. That’s evidently why he stopped the fight after a single flurry that didn’t seem to do much damage.
The official time of the stoppage was 1:22 of Round 3.
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