Ryan Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) weathered the storm of Oscar “La Migraña” Duarte (26-2-1, 21 KOs), emerging with an eight round stoppage on Saturday night at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.

Duarte as advertised brought the pressure but was met with the speed and mobility of Garcia who got him out of there in the eighth with Duarte unable to beat the count. Time was 2:51.

“I just had to slow his momentum down,” said Garcia, 25. “He was building momentum and I was like, ‘Man, I got to cut this off somehow.’ … He was a strong fighter. He took a good punch. … I hit him with some hard shots, and he just kept coming”

“It was tough. It was very tough. I have the killer instinct. Sometimes when I hurt somebody that bad, I just be cracking them.”

Duarte was left upset with the referee’s decision to score the fight a knockout said afterwards, “I feel like it was unfair because I still got up, I still felt like I could keep going.”

Garcia who was fighting under the guidance of Derrick James gave his take on the nights tactics “Derrick said, ‘Start using your legs a little bit, it’s going to open up the shot,’ and it literally did that, It’s our first fight together. We’re going to build off this, and we’re just going to get better. I’m committed to becoming a world champion.”

On what the future holds, Garcia concluded with “If Rollies wants that, bring it on, Rollies,” Garcia said. “Let’s keep building, and then we can go after Devin Haney and all the other dudes — Teofimo. But you know, we gotta take our steps.”

Unbeaten WBA #5 lightweight Floyd “Kid Austin” Schofield (17-0, 12 KOs) destroyed Ricardo “Explosivo” Torres (17-8-3, 12 KOs), dropping him four times in the first round. Time was 1:51.

Middleweight Shane Mosley Jr. (21-4, 12 KOs) stopped Joshua Conley (17-6-1, 11 KOs) in six.

Super middleweight Darius Fulghum (9-0, 9 KOs) annihilated Pachino “Chino” Hill (8-5-1, 6 KOs) in two rounds.