By Francisco Salazar

Fringe lightweight contender Tony Luis returned from a 13-month layoff to stop Edgar Ramirez Saturday night at the Montreal Casino in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Luis (26-3, 9 knockouts), who resides in Cornwall, Ontario, was the aggressor from the opening bell, switching from conventional to southpaw and connecting with two or three-punch combinations to Ramirez’s head.

By the fourth round, Ramirez’s punch output dropped significantly, content to throw one punch at a time.

Sensing Ramirez was mentally done in round six, Luis closed the distance between the two, ripping several combinations to the head and body. Referee Martin Forest saw enough and stopped the bout at 1:44.

Luis has won his last seven fights.

Ramirez, who resides in Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico, drops to 17-14-1, 14 KOs.

In middleweight action, Jose de Jesus Macias of Mexico won an eight round majority decision over hometown fighter Francis Lafreniere (17-7-2, 10 KOs).

One judge scored the bout 76-76, while the other two judges scored the bout 78-74 and 77-75 for de Jesus, who improves to 24-9-2, 12 KOs.

Junior welterweight and Montreal resident Mazlum Akdeniz (7-0, 3 KOs) stopped Mexico’s Javier Pena (12-12-1, 6 KOs) at 2:08 of the sixth and final round.

Junior featherweight Vislan Dalkhaev, who is originally from Russia and now resides in Montreal, improved to 10-1, 3 KOs with a third round knockout of Emmanuel Villamar (10-6, 2 KOs) of Mexico.

Francisco A. Salazar has written for Boxingscene since September of 2012 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. Francisco also covers boxing for the Ventura County (California) Star newspaper. He can be reached by email at santio89@yahoo.com or on Twitter at FSalazarBoxing