Welterweight contender Custio Clayton knocked out Diego Ramirez in round eight Tuesday night at the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

With the victory, Clayton improves to 18-0, 12 knockouts.

Clayton, who resides in Montreal, Quebec, had not fought since June 29, when he defeated former junior welterweight contender Johan Perez by unanimous decision.

From the opening bell, the 32-year-old Clayton broke Ramirez down. Ramirez’s fought in spurts, but his punch out dropped with each passing round.

At the beginning of the eighth round, Clayton backed Ramirez up in a corner. Clayton threw and landed a left jab to the body, prompting Ramirez to go down to the canvas, where he remained as referee Floyd Porter counted him out at 26 seconds.

Clayton is ranked No. 5 by the IBF and No. 6 by the WBO.

Ramirez, who resides in Santa Fe, Argentina, drops to 21-4, 6 KOs.

In the co-feature, middleweight Steve Rolls (20-1, 11 KOs) knocked out Gilberto Pereira dos Santos in the fourth round.

Rolls, who was knocked out by Gennadiy Golovkin in his previous fight on June 8, was fighting before a hometown crowd that saw him mostly dictate the action over the more-methodical dos Santos.

A left hook hurt by Rolls hurt dos Santos in round four. Dos Santos was sent reeling backwards against a corner where Rolls landed a barrage of punches, sending dos Santos to the canvas. Referee Mark Simmons stopped the fight at 2:00.

The 42-year-old dos Santos, who resides in Goiania, Brazil, dropped to 16-11, 12 KOs.

Middleweight prospect Hurshidbek Normatov of Uzbekistan dropped Mexico’s Uriel Hernandez (13-6, 7 KOs) once en route to a unanimous decision victory.

All three judges scored the bout 80-71 in favor of Normatov, who improves to 10-0, 3 KOs.

Promoter of the card was Lee Baxter. 

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