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Jirov defends cruiserweight title against Canadian
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Vassiliy Jirov was the best boxer in the 1996 Olympics. On Saturday night, he showed he's also pretty good as a pro.Jirov defended the IBF cruiserweight title he won in his last fight by stopping previously undefeated Dale Brown of Calgary in the 10th round of their scheduled 12-round fight.
The Olympic gold medallist from Kazakhstan knocked down Brown in the fifth round. He finally finished him off with a left hook to the body that left Brown sprawled on the canvas and unable to get up as Richard Steele waved the fight to an end at 2:52 of the 10th round.
The fight topped the undercard of the Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad welterweight title showdown at the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino.
Jirov (22-0, 20 knockouts), who now lives in Phoenix, was defending the cruiserweight title he won June 5 when he stopped Arthur Williams in the seventh round.
He dominated much of the fight against Brown, cutting him on the forehead and putting him down late in the fifth round with a left to the body followed by a right to the head.
But Brown (18-1-1) came back and made it a competitive fight, getting the best of some toe-to-toe action in the eighth round. The fight appeared headed to go the distance until Jirov's left hook suddenly ended it.
"I got him with a good shot to the liver and it paralysed him," said Jirov, who was voted the most valuable boxer in Atlanta.
Both fighters weighed 188 pounds.
In other fights, Olympian Eric Morel remained undefeated in a super flyweight fight, taking a unanimous decision over Miguel Angel Granados of Mexico.
Morel (23-0, 16 knockouts) knocked down Granados in the second round with a right hand, but bruised his right knuckles in the round and did the same to his other hand two rounds later.
Morel won by 10 points on one ringside card, and eight on the other two.
Granados, who weighed 116 pounds, to 115 for Morel, fell to 19-9-1.
In two speciality bouts, heavyweight Butterbean and Mia Rosales St. John both won their scheduled four-round fights.
Butterbean, who outweighed Ken Craven by 110 pounds, stopped the Ellisville, Miss., fighter, with a flurry of punches in the second round. Butterbean, 320 pounds, improved to 47-1-2, while Craven fell to a reported 12-6.
St. John, who will be featured in next month's Playboy magazine, improved to 13-0 by outpunching Kelly Downey of Merriam, Kan., in a featherweight fight that was stopped with 20 seconds left in the final round.
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