Bute retains belt with KO

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Lucian Bute has retained his IBF super middleweight title after scoring a fourth-round knockout victory against Librado Andrade in Quebec City, Canada.

The win was the Montreal-based Romanian's second against his Mexican-born opponent in a little over a year - the first seeing Bute score a unanimous points win in controversial circumstances.

On that occasion, in Bute's adopted home city, he survived a final round knockdown with a count that was timed independently at 21 seconds before gaining the verdict.

However, matters were more clear cut on Saturday as Andrade failed to beat referee Benjy Estevez's count three seconds from the end of the fourth.

The victory is the 25th in Bute's unbeaten career and was also the 20th knockout - the southpaw not part of the 168-pound division's Super Six tournament that features fellow belt holders Carl Froch and Andre Ward.

Bute bossed the early rounds of their first meeting and he made another good start at the Pepsi Colisee.

He landed a string of clean combinations in the third round while a seemingly unperturbed and more industrious Andrade hit back with good rights.

Trouble

There was plenty to trouble Andrade in the fourth, however, as the Los Angeles-based Mexican was first dropped with a quick short left.

He looked comfortable after getting quickly to his feet but a big left from Bute to Andrade's stomach finished the contest - the latter clearly hurt and unable to get off the canvas.

"Tonight was my night, everything went as planned," Bute told HBO television through an interpreter. "I was confident from the opening bell.

"Stephan (Larouche, Bute's trainer) said 'you've got to use your jab effectively and if you do so he will go down, so that's what I did."

Earlier, South Africa's Ali Funeka was denied what seemed a convincing victory over Dominican Joan Guzman when their vacant IBF lightweight title bout was scored a majority draw.

Funeka looked to have comprehensively out-boxed former two-time world champion Guzman over 12 rounds only to get the verdict from just one of the three judges.

Meanwhile, Scottish middleweight prospect Craig McEwan stretched his unbeaten record to 17-0 (9 KOs) with a unanimous decision against the previously undefeated American James Parrison.