Darchinyan retains titles with TKO

ANAHEIM, California (Reuters ) - Vic Darchinyan of Armenia stopped Mexico's Jorge Arce to retain his IBF, WBA, and WBC super flyweight titles on Saturday.

The fight ended after the eleventh round when the ringside physician ruled that Arce could not continue because of a severe cut above his right eye.

At the time of the stoppage, all three judges had scored 10 of the 11 completed rounds for the champion, who fights out of Sydney and has taken out Australian citizenship.

"I wanted to punish him," Darchinyan said. "I think you could see in round 11, when the round finished, he was almost ready to go down.

"I wanted a clean knockout, not a technical knockout, but still I am happy with my fight."

Arce, a former light flyweight and super flyweight champion, had some moments of success in the third round, landing solid left hooks at close range as the two men swung at each other wildly.

As the fight progressed, however, Darchinyan proved increasingly able to keep Arce at range with his jab, and use right hooks to steer Arce into left hand power shots.

By the middle rounds, Darchinyan's powerful blows appeared to have taken their toll, and entering the eleventh round, Arce looked ragged and a left hand from Darchinyan opened the cut that prompted the stoppage.

"I don't know why the doctor stopped it in the last round, because a fighter has a punching chance if he has a strong punch," Arce said.

"I want to see if there could be a rematch."