By Francisco Salazar

Former middleweight contender Curtis Stevens won by knockout Saturday night, but it was the actions outside the ring afterwards that was more newsworthy.

Stevens stopped Carlos Jairo Cruz at the end of the fourth round at the Gimnasio Multiuso Nani Marrero in Santiago de los Caballeros, in the Dominican Republic.

Referee Steve Smoger stopped the fight, but that did not stop people in attendance from charging the ring.

Video circulating social media shows boxing fans in attendance storming the ring with plastic chairs, charging Stevens, his corner, and Smoger. Stevens' team fought back in attempt to defend themselves and escaped the ring, along with Smoger, running back to their dressing room.

As they ran back to their dressing room, people pursued them and fought with people in the crowd who traveled with Stevens or others in attendance. Moments later, as people climbed out of the ring and milled about the venue, multiple gunshots were fired inside the venue, sending more people running to the nearest exits.

Local authorities arrived, where tear gas was used to disperse the crowd.

There is no explanation why the commotion began or who fired the gunshots. The fight card, which was promoted by Cruz y Rodriguez Promotions, took place in Cruz's hometown.

Cruz (18-3, 12 knockouts) has lost three of his last four bouts.

Stevens (30-6, 22 KOs), who resides in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, N.Y., was fighting for the first time since his third round knockout loss to David Lemieux in March of last year.

Bantamweight Junior Almonte, who also resides in Santiago de los Caballeros, knocked out Sander Diaz (7-4-1, 4 KOs) of Venezuela at 1:55 of the opening round to improve to 10-0, 8 KOs.

Junior lightweight Luis Porozo (12-0, 6 KOs) of Ecuador stopped Alan Guzman (20-5, 14 KOs) in the second round.

Lightweight Dean Burrell (13-1-1, 8 KOs) won an eight round unanimous decision over Andres Zapata (8-4, 5 KOs.

Francisco A. Salazar has written for Boxingscene.com since September of 2012 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. Francisco also covers boxing for the Ventura County (Calif.) Star newspaper.  He can be reached by email at santio89@yahoo.com or on Twitter at FSalazarBoxing