ERROL Spence Jr took a few rounds to find his rhythm and range after a long layoff. In the end, he had another championship belt.

Spence became a three-belt welterweight champion by defending his WBC and IBF titles in a unification bout in front of a home crowd, when his fight against Yordenis Ugás was stopped in the 10th round Saturday night because of the WBA champ’s right eye that was almost completely swollen shut.

“I think when the fight first started, I was kind of impatient,” Spence said. “Later rounds, when I started setting my shots up, and placing my shots and picking my shots, and not throwing it hard, but letting them go, I was catching him a lot and working him down. I felt him breaking down, because he wasn’t throwing like he usual does.”

The fight was scheduled for 12 rounds, but 1:44 into the 10th, referee Laurence Cole sent Ugás to a corner to have his eye checked out by a ringside doctor for the second time. Unlike two rounds earlier, when the fight was allowed to continue, it was stopped this time despite protests by Ugás.

Spence, fighting for the first time in more than 16 months, improved to 28-0. His 22nd knockout marked the first time in his last four fights the 32-year-old southpaw didn’t have to go the distance.

Ugás, the 35-year-old Cuban who dropped to 27-5, left the stadium in an ambulance and was being taken to a local hospital.

“I kept punching, and I thought the ref was going to stop it a lot earlier,” Spence said.

Cole had initially sent Ugás to the corner with just under a minute left in the eighth round, when the doctor spent an extended time checking the fighter’s peripheral vision before the fight resumed.Now it appears there could be a fight between Spence and undefeated WBO champion Terence Crawford to crown an undisputed champion in the 147lb division. Spence had said leading up to the fight that was he was aiming for that, and repeated that afterward.

“I’ve been saying it this whole week,” Spence said. “One belt to get.”Soon after the fight, Crawford tweeted congratulations to Spence, writing “great fight now the real fight happens. No more talk no more side of the street let’s go!!!!” Crawford (38-0, 29 KOs) last fought in November, a 10th-round TKO of former champion Shawn Porter when defending the WBO title for the fifth time since claiming it nearly four years ago.

Canelo Álvarez last November became the first undisputed four-belt 168lb super middleweight champion when he stopped Caleb Plant in the 11th round. The Mexican pound for pound superstar added the IBF title to his own WBC, WBA and WBO belts. (The Guardian)