By Mac Arnold
Fighting Side Editor

Who would have thought Andre Berto would have returned so soon to such a rousing battle after being dethroned for his WBC Welterweight title by Victor Ortiz in April?

The Haitian-born pugilist put on yet another impressive bout and regained a welterweight title on Saturday night against a game Slovenian champ Dejan Zavec, who fights mostly in Germany but said in coming to fight in the United States that "he wasn't going to hide behind his title" in Europe.

After initially thinking the fifth-round stoppage was a bit premature, I rethought this belief once I saw the fifth round over again.

Zavec, despite his protests to his corner who threw in the towel basically, was in rough shape. His right eye was nearly shut and had a nasty 2-inch gash on the eyelid and another similar cut on his other eye.

There was some talk in the corner after the fifth round of Zavec (31-2 18 KOs, 1 NC) having trouble seeing, so the technical knockout was for the best, although I always like to see the defending champ go down swinging and not sitting on his stool.

Berto (28-1, 22 KOs) came out aggressive from the opening bell and threw every punch with bad intentions. His left hooks to Zavec's body were impressive and definitely took a toll on the Slovenian.

But to the former IBF champ's credit, Zavec gave back as good as he was getting in the exchanges and as he said during the post-fight interview, "I would liked to have seen how the fight went late if no injuries."

Good fight. Good stoppage.