BOSTON (AP) — Demetrius Andrade won the vacant World Boxing Organization middleweight title with a 12-round unanimous decision over Walter Kautondokwa of Namibia on Saturday.
Kautondokwa was a replacement for Billy Joe Saunders. Saunders tested positive for a stimulant in a drug test administered by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency. The WBO stripped Saunders of his title after the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission declined to give him a license in a hearing on Oct. 9.
Two judges scored the fight 120-104, and the other had it 119-105.
In the first round, Andrade (26-0, 16 knockouts) dropped Kautondokwa with a straight left hand while Kautondokwa was off balance.
Andrade sent Kautondokwa to the canvas again in the third with an overhand left that landed on the top of Kautondokwa's head. The knockdown followed Kautondokwa's first significant offense of the fight, three punches to the body.
In the fourth, Andrade scored two more knockdowns, both with left hands to the head.
Andrade, of Providence, Rhode Island, previously held junior middleweight titles in the WBO and World Boxing Association. He was a member of the 2008 U.S. Olympic team.
The 32-year-old Kautondokwa, the WBO African middleweight champion, dropped to 17-1 with 16 knockouts.
The fight was one of three world title bouts on the card. In the co-main event, 2012 Olympic champion Katie Taylor of Ireland retained her International Boxing Federation and WBA lightweight titles with a 10-round unanimous decision over Cindy Serrano of New York. All three judges scored the bout 100-90 for Taylor.
Tevin Farmer of Philadelphia defended his IBF super featherweight title, stopping James Tennyson of Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the fifth round.
In an IBF featherweight title eliminator, Kid Gallahad of Sheffield, England, won a 12-round unanimous decision over Toka Khan Clary of Providence.
