LONG BEACH, California – To put yourself, at the age of 23, in the company of Vasiliy Lomachenko is a rare feat.

Mexico lightweight Luis Torres joined three-division champion Lomachenko as the only men to ever defeat veteran Nicholas Walters, doing so the same way – by stopping Walters on his stool after a third-round knockdown – Saturday at Thunder Studios.

Torres, 21-1 (12 KOs), halted the comeback attempt of Walters, 39, with a thunderous combination that prompted Walters to turn his back and step to his corner.

This wasn’t last week at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, where lightweight titleholder Gervonta Davis did the same against Lamont Roach Jnr and wasn’t sanctioned. 

This time, referee Rudy Barragan counted to eight, and Walters, 29-2-1 (22 KOs), barely motioned that he would continue. Following the final seconds of the round, Walters’ corner informed Barragan the fight was over.

“It’s a great win for me, knowing only a great champion like Lomachenko had taken [Walters] down. … Now it’s me and Lomachenko,” Torres said.

Walters was away from boxing for seven years following his 2016 stoppage loss against Lomachenko during his “No-Mas-Chenko” run of stopping four consecutive opponents on their stools.

Walters, best known for his 2014 stoppage of four-division champion Nonito Donaire, resolved to make a final pursuit toward a title as age 40 approaches, and Saturday was his fourth bout in two years.

Dealing with the southpaw Torres, the Jamaica-born Panamanian Walters initially relied on head shots from his potent right hand to answer Torres’ more busy jab and activity.

“I had the right conditioning and preparation to take those hits … frankly, I didn’t feel them,” Torres said.

In the third, Walters found the pace and pain of Torres’ punches were too intense, and he turned away from the beating.

“I had to trust that the referee would count, but I knew the fight was over from that,” Torres said.

Before that co-main event to the Joet Gonzalez-Arnold Khegai featherweight main event, welterweights Jesus Saracho and Luis Lopez battled to a 10-round majority draw in a patented evenly matched ProBox TV scrap.

In his third consecutive ProBox event, Mexico’s left-handed Saracho leaned on his whipping power punch to keep Lopez mostly in a defensive posture until Lopez, 16-2-3 (5 KOs), opened up with an effective combination in the third that sent Saracho, 14-2-2 (11 KOs), reeling.

The pair exchanged in the fourth, much to the delight of the crowd, with Saracho backing Lopez to the ropes late in the round. Saracho added to the damage in the fifth, a right hand igniting a combination to the head that left Lopez uneasy on his feet.

Lopez surged in the late-going, turning Saracho’s head with a hard right in the eighth, and they went toe-to-toe in the end, producing scores of 96-94 Lopez and two 95-95 cards.

Prospects opened the card by flexing their talents.

Ireland junior welterweight Brandon McCarthy, a Wild Card Boxing Club gym mate of countryman Callum Walsh, flashed keen attention to body punching, movement and footwork to quickly bloody the nose of Jose Rodriguez and proceed toward a unanimous decision victory by scores of 60-54, 59-55, 59-55. 

Trained by Wild Card’s Marvin Somodio, who corners Saturday main-event fighter Arnold Khegai and WBA welterweight titleholder Eimantas Stanionis, McCarthy, 5-0 (1 KO), displayed the ability to position and land the telling shots of each round.

“It was a good, tough fight – tough opponent who pushed me for all six rounds,” McCarthy said. “But I think my footwork, movement and defense carried me through.”

In the fifth, Rodriguez, 7-3 (3 KOs), flashed his durability by landing some effective rights to the head of McCarthy, but the Irish product went back to his basics and outworked Rodriguez in the sixth. 

“If you take a shower, you’re going to get wet. In boxing, you’re going to get hit,” McCarthy said. “It’s how you recover from it, and I thought I showed in the sixth round, you saw that.” 

Joshua Anton, 26, of Palmdale, California, rallied from a showing that went the distance in January in nearby Commerce – and from getting struck by power blows in the first round – and began systematically breaking down foe Tariq Green, 5-4-2 (3 KOs), of Philadelphia, with punishing head and body shots.

By the fourth, Anton, 10-0 (9 KOs), was landing at will and he opted to unleash a devastating attack in Green’s corner that sent him falling down nearly atop the ProBox TV analysts, with referee Rudy Barragan waving the bout over at the 1:57 mark.

“I used the first to assess and see what was there for me, and I saw he was open for what I wanted to do,” Anton said. “When I saw him go back on the ropes, I took advantage of it and got him out of there.”

Justin Viloria, the nephew of former two-division champion Brian Viloria, moved to 8-0 (6 KOs) with his sixth knockout by decking veteran opponent Juan Centeno with body shots and then finishing him just 1:04 into the first on a barrage of head shots.

Making his pro debut, junior middleweight Emilio Garcia opened the card impressively, scoring three first-round knockdowns of Jose Adolfo, 2-7 (2 KOs), to end the fight by TKO at the 1:32 mark of the first round.

Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.