Andre Ward beats Paul Smith in long-awaited return to ring

Andre Ward made a triumphant return to the ring after a lengthy absence, delighting his home crowd by stopping England’s Paul Smith in the ninth round Saturday night in a nontitle fight in Oakland, California.

Ward (28-0) was fighting for the first time in 19 months because of a protracted legal dispute with his former promoter, the late Dan Goosen.

He dominated from the start against the former British champion Smith (35-6), whose corner threw in the towel to stop the fight in the ninth round with Smith’s face covered with blood.

Smith spent most of the fight in defensive mode, trying to block Ward’s many punches instead of throwing many of his own. Smith did stagger Ward with a big right hand in the seventh, but Ward responded with a flurry and Smith was cut late in the round.

Ward landed more big punches in the eighth as blood started dripping down the left side of Smith’s face. The round ended with a stare-down between the two fighters to the delight of the partisan crowd of 9,016.

Another cut opened in the ninth as Smith’s face was covered with blood before the fight was called at 1:46 of the round on a technical knockout after trainer Joe Gallagher threw in the towel. Smith said he thought he broke his nose in that final round.

Ward had not fought since winning a lopsided unanimous decision against Edwin Rodriguez to defend his WBA super middleweight title in November 2013. The absence from the ring stemmed from the dispute with Goosen, who died in September 2014.

The fight was just Ward’s second since beating Carl Froch in December 2011 in the Super Six super middleweight tournament final.

The co-feature between junior featherweights Antonio Nieves (12-0-1) and Stephon Young (13-0-2) ended in a split draw.

Porter outboxes Broner in Vegas

Shawn Porter beat Adrien Broner in a unanimous decision in a key welterweight matchup at Las Vegas.

The judges scored the fight 114-112, 115-111 and 118-108 for Porter (26-1-1, 16 KOs), who got off to a strong start and held on after Broner (30-2, 22 KOs) knocked him down in the final round.

In the co-main event, undefeated former Olympian Errol Spence (17-0, 14 KOs) scored an impressive third-round TKO over veteran Phil Lo Greco.

After a measured first round, Spence landed numerous body shots that slowed Lo Greco. A right hand floored Lo Greco early in the third round and Spence followed with a number of calculated power shots, forcing the referee to stop the fight at 1:50.