Hooker vs Saucedo results: Maurice Hooker stops Alex Saucedo to retain title

Maurice Hooker got off the canvas tonight to come back and stop Alex Saucedo, retaining his WBO junior welterweight title in an action-packed ESPN main event from Oklahoma City.

Hooker (25-0-3, 17 KO) was down on a hook in the second round, but recovered well and made Saucedo (28-1, 18 KO) pay for expending a lot of energy early. As the fight wore on, Hooker began to take over, and battered Saucedo in the sixth and seventh rounds.

In the seventh, he dropped and eventually stopped Saucedo to retain his belt.

Here’s a look at how the finish went down:

Hooker, 29, is now in the mix to potentially unify with Jose Ramirez next year, and we’ll have to see how the World Boxing Super Series at 140 plays out, too, because the winner of that will definitely be gunning for more titles, as well.

On the undercard, Egidijus Kavaliauskas (21-0, 17 KO) likely secured a date with Terence Crawford with a third round knockout of Roberto Arriaza (17-1, 13 KO). It was a controversial KO, with Kavaliauskas dropping Arriaza cleanly, but then landing an extra shot while Arriaza was down, which the referee did not call. Arriaza didn’t answer the 10 count.