CAL­I­FOR­NIA – For­mer World Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion feath­er­weight cham­pi­on Nicholas ‘Ax­e­man’ Wal­ters’ re­turn to the ring end­ed in de­feat when he lost to Mex­i­can Luis Tor­res in Long Beach in the the Unit­ed States over the week­end.

In his first fight in over 11 months, the 39-year-old Wal­ters re­tired at the end of the third round in a fight that was sched­uled to go 10 rounds, to record just his sec­ond de­feat in 32 fights.

With the re­sult, Wal­ters’ record dropped to 29 wins, two loss­es, and a draw, while Tor­res im­proved to 21 vic­to­ries and one loss.

The Ja­maican was out­gunned by his 23-year-old, south­paw op­po­nent, who at­tacked him from the open­ing bell.

While both men ex­changed punch­es in the open­ing two rounds, Tor­res be­gan to im­pose his dom­i­nance in the third round, catch­ing Wal­ters with a sol­id left hook to the head that hurt him.

Fol­low­ing the hit, Wal­ters backed away, took a knee and then stood up and turned his back.

He man­aged to last the 10 sec­onds re­main­ing un­til the end of the round, but his cor­ner threw in the tow­el be­fore the start of the fourth round to sig­nal the end of the con­test.

CMC