By Elisinio Castillo

Former welterweight and junior middleweight champion, Ricardo 'El Matador' Mayorga, 45 years old, should have stayed retired, because the boxer was once against knocked out.

Mayorga was seen in the ring last November, when he traveled over to Russia and was stopped after nine rounds in a super middleweight contest with undefeated prospect Andrey Sirotkin (14-0).

In January, Mayorga appeared on a television show in Nicaragua and announced that he was leaving the sport - but then quickly changed his mind when he received some money to take a fight in Texas.

Mayorga announced that he accepted a deal with American promoter Lone Star Boxing, to fight Rodolfo "La Cobrita" Gómez at the Laredo Energy Arena in Texas.

The decision forced Mayorga's personal friend and manager, Rosendo Alvarez, to walk away.

Gomez, who is based in the United States, knocked out Mayorga in the eight round of the fight.

Despite his age, Mayorga was doing a good job against Gomez, boxing and connecting with a good number of shots that seemed to have him ahead in most of the rounds.

As always, Mayorga stuck his face out on several occasions, lowered his hands, let himself be hit, dared his opponent to trade against the ropes and talked trash constantly.

But in the eighth round, Gomez landed a series of hard power shots to send Mayorga to the canvas. Mayorga rose to his feet, but the referee inexplicably said the former two division champion was in no condition to continue and he decided to stop the fight.

Mayorga had issues in the contest all weekend. The contest was set for a limit of 168 - but Mayorga was overweight and had to pay a fine after Friday's weigh-in, because he weighed in at 175.

Gomez, a 28-year-old fighter based in Laredo, saw his record rise to 13-4-1, with 9 knockouts.

Mayorga has his record drop to 32 wins, 10 defeats, 1 draw and 26 wins by way of knockout.