It wasn’t Demetrius Andrade’s prettiest performance but it was emphatic.
Andrade, seeking a knockout almost the entire fight, put an overmatched Luke Keeler down in each of the first two rounds and stopped him in Round 9 in defense of his middleweight title Thursday night in Miami.
Andrade (29-0, 18 KOs) has made only three successful defenses of his belt but, with other top middleweights evidently unwilling to fight him, he said he plans to move up in weight.
“I want to go up to 168 and fight Billy ‘Joke Ass’ Saunders and that’s what I’m going to do,” he said after the fight Thursday.
Andrade scored one of the quickest knockdowns possible, putting Keeler (17-3-1, 5 KOs) down with a left in the first few seconds of the fight. The game, fit Irishman survived. Then, in the final 30 seconds of the second round, a big overhand left put Keeler down again and this time he was hurt. Still, he survived.
After that, Andrade, a southpaw known for his sublime skills, looked sloppy at times as he tried – arguably too hard – to stop an opponent so limited he probably shouldn’t have been in the ring with him.
Finally, with about a minute to go in Round 9, Andrade landed another one of those overhand lefts and hurt Keeler again. This time, the champion battered his prey until referee Telis Assimenios stopped the fight with one second remaining in the round.
Andrade landed a high percentage of his power shots, 50 percent, according to CompuBox. And, in spite of his less-than-refined attack, he was typically difficult to hit. Keeler landed only 10 percent of his punches.
“I thought I was good,” Andrade said. “Luke Keeler is a warrior, a future champ one day. But today was my day. … I went in thinking to myself, ‘I could put him out.’ And that’s what I did.”
Andrade said he hasn’t given up completely on fighting one of the other elite 160-pounder, all of whom fight for rival companies. Eddie Hearn, his promoter, reportedly made an offer to fellow titleholder Jermall Charlo but was turned down.
“Eddie Hearn said he sent an offer [to Charlo] and didn’t get no response,” Andrade said. “If they want to send an offer this way, I will respond.”