By Mark Vester

At the Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, WBO super bantamweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (25-0, 23KOs) stopped a game Gerry Penalosa (54-7, 36KOs), the current WBO bantamweight champ, after nine rounds of action.

Penalosa came out being very cautious of Juanma's power. Juanma was leading, trying to get through Penalosa's guard with his hard punches. Juanma began battering him in the second. Penalosa tried to stand his ground and fight toe to toe with Juanma, but ate a lot of hard punches for his trouble.

Juanma continued to keep the fight on the inside in the fourth by unloading to Penalosa's body from different angles. The fifth and sixth rounds were brutal. Juanma was just beating Penalosa up all over the ring. There was a miracle in the seventh and eight rounds. Penalosa continued to stay in the pocket with Juanma, taking a ton of punishment and countering with punches when given a chance.

Penalosa's trainer, Freddie Roach, gave his fighter one more round as the ninth round was about to start. Penalosa continued to take more punishment during the ninth. Before the start of the tenth, Roach told the ref to stop the fight.

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