FRISCO, Texas – Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez gave every skeptic emphatic proof Saturday night that he has championship-caliber boxing left in his 32-year-old body.

Nearly 2½ years after suffering a brutal knockout defeat, Gonzalez won another super flyweight world title by beating up the previously undefeated Kal Yafai and viciously knocking him out in the ninth round. Gonzalez’s crushing right hand knocked Yafai flat on his back early in the ninth round, so hard that referee Luis Pabon almost immediately waved an end to their scheduled 12-round, 115-pound title fight on the Mikey Garcia-Jessie Vargas undercard.

Nicaragua’s Gonzalez (49-2, 41 KOs), a four-division champion, became a two-time super flyweight champion by winning the WBA title from England’s Yafai (26-1, 15 KOs) at Ford Center at The Star, the Dallas Cowboys’ training center.

Before facing Yafai, Gonzalez – once considered boxing’s best fighter, pound-for-pound – had fought just twice in the nearly 2½ years since Srisaket Sor Rungvisai knocked him out in the fourth round of their rematch in September 2017.

Sensing a fast-fading Yafai was ready to go, Gonzalez drilled the former champion with a vicious right hand that left Yafai flat on his back. Yafai tried to get up, but Pabon didn’t finish his count and stopped the fight 29 seconds into the ninth round.

Gonzalez continued his vicious assault on a clearly fatigued Yafai during the eighth round. Yafai finally fell to the canvas late in the eighth round, seemingly from an accumulation of punches, but he got up to finish the final few seconds of the round on his feet.

Gonzalez unloaded on a fatigued Yafai throught a completely one-sided seventh round. A sweeping right hand knocked Yafai off balance late in the seventh.

An accidental clash of heads opened a cut around Gonzalez’s right eye early in the sixth round. Gonzalez spent much of the rest of that round assaulting Yafai to the body, which made Yafai hold him at times.

Gonzalez hit Yafai with two right uppercuts within a 10-second span in the final minute of the fifth round.

A left hook by Gonzalez backed up Yafai with about 15 seconds to go in the fourth round. Several seconds earlier, Yafai caught Gonzalez with an overhand right.

Yafai knocked Gonzalez backward with a straight right hand about 45 seconds into the third round. For the second straight round, Pabon broke up the action to give Yafai time to put back in his mouthpiece, this time with 32 seconds to go in the third round.

A left hook to the body by Gonzalez landed early in the second round. Gonzalez landed another left to the body and then two right hands to Yafai’s head later in the second.

Pabon called for a break in the action with 54 seconds remaining, so that Yafai could retrieve his mouthpiece. Gonzalez continued landing to Yafai’s head and body once the action resumed.

Gonzalez landed two hard lefts to Yafai’s body in the final 35 seconds of the opening round.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.