Martinez delivers the stoppage he promised, retains title over Plantic in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES — Lester Martinez's trainer, Brian "BoMac" McIntyre, said before the weigh-in that he wanted a stoppage, a message sent straight to Canelo Alvarez and Christian Mbilli. Martinez delivered exactly that Saturday night, stopping Luka Plantic in the 10th round at the Galen Center to retain his WBC interim super middleweight title and push his record to 21-0-1.

It didn't start like a statement fight. Plantic came out throwing bombs early, backing Martinez to the ropes in the opening round and showing no interest in respecting the champion's power. Martinez answered late, catching Plantic clean on the inside as the round closed, and the tone of the fight was set: this was going to be a close-range battle, not a boxing match.

Plantic had his moments. He found the left hook to Martinez's chin in the second round and walked him into hard exchanges in the third and fourth, drawing genuine praise from the broadcast for how he handled the champion's power at range. But Martinez kept finding the bigger shots when it mattered, closing rounds with combinations and body work that piled up on the scorecards even as Plantic made him work for every one of them.

The turn came around the midpoint. By round six, the broadcast noted Martinez had vastly outlanded Plantic in power punches, and by round seven, McIntyre was coaching Martinez through it live: "You see him slowing down right? Now you start picking it up." Martinez obliged, working the body and picking his spots on the outside as Plantic increasingly resorted to smothering and holding, a tactic that read less like strategy and more like survival.

It got serious in round eight, when the referee stopped the action to have Plantic checked by the ringside doctor. He was cleared to continue, but the warning signs were already there. Plantic's corner knew it too, telling their fighter point blank, "If you show me you can fight, I won't stop it." Martinez kept landing the same straight right hand over and over, snapping Plantic's head back each time, and by round nine Plantic's corner and the referee were both demanding he show them something just to survive to the next bell.

He didn't get one. Plantic's corner sent him out for round 10 with a blunt warning: the referee was only giving him one more chance. Guatemalan flags were already waving through the crowd when Martinez landed a blistering right hand, then dropped Plantic with a straight shot to the body. Plantic beat the count, and both fighters kept trading, but referee Ray Corona had seen enough. He stepped in and waved it off at 2:23 of the 10th, an ending that came almost mid-exchange, and Lester Martinez was still the champion.

The Galen Center emptied its lungs for him. Interviewed in the ring by Beto Duran, Martinez didn't hide how much the sold-out crowd meant to him. "I hear the noise here and I hear the noise in Guatemala," he said. "I am super happy for this. Thank you, Guatemala! Guatemalan athletes need this." He closed it out in front of his people with the only line that fit: "Arriba Guatemala!"

Then came the question everyone in the building already knew was coming. Who's next? Martinez didn't blink. "We completed with a WBC defense, but right now we have to wait for Canelo and Mbilli," he said. Asked which of the two he wanted, his answer was the same as it's been all camp: either one. "I want to show that I can do this too." Canelo and Mbilli will meet on Halloween night, October 31 for the undisputed title, and Martinez just made sure he's the first name on the list waiting for whoever survives it.