Another undefeated opponent, another stoppage for Charles Conwell.

Cleveland’s Conwell dismantled Argentinean Gerardo Vergara on his way to a seventh-round knockout Saturday night on the Alexis Rocha-Raul Curiel undercard at Toyota Arena in Ontario, California. Conwell clipped Vergara with a left uppercut late in the seventh round, hurt him more with a left hook and unloaded a series of left hooks that made referee Thomas Taylor step between them to spare the strong southpaw from taking more punishment.

Taylor halted their scheduled 10-round co-feature at 2:51 of the seventh round. Vergara (20-1, 13 KOs) was on his feet when Taylor waved an end to their one-sided bout.

Conwell (21-0, 16 KOs), a 2016 U.S. Olympian who is listed ninth among The Ring’s 154-pound contenders, has beaten four undefeated fighters either by knockout or technical knockout in his past nine appearances, dating back to October 2020. This impressive victory should keep him in the No. 1 position in the WBC’s 154-pound rankings.

“You know what? I felt good about the performance,” Conwell told DAZN’s Chris Mannix during his post-fight interview. “There’s always things I can improve on and get better at. I’mma go back to the gym, get better, keep growing. But overall, I think I broke the guy down and got him outta there, like I said I was.”

Ideally, the 27-year-old Conwell would like to fight the winner between WBC interim super welterweight champion Vergil Ortiz Jr. (22-0, 21 KOs), of Grand Prairie, Texas, and Uzbekistan’s Israil Madrimov (10-1-1, 7 KOs) in two months. Ortiz and Madrimov are set to fight February 22 as part of the Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol undercard at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Unlike Ortiz and Madrimov, Buenos Aires’ Vergara was unproven versus championship-caliber opposition. His 20-0 record had been built exclusively against unknown boxers in his native Argentina.

Vergara couldn’t hurt Conwell, nor did he live up to talk of becoming 2024’s version of Marcos Maidana or other then-anonymous Argentineans who came to America and knocked off favored fighters. The 30-year-old Vergara was just the second left-handed opponent of Conwell’s seven-year pro career, yet the crisp Conwell had little difficulty dealing with him.

Conwell caught Vergara with a left uppercut toward the end of the fourth round that affected Vergara and foreshadowed the punch that initiated the sequence that led to Conwell’s knockout victory three rounds later. The sharper Conwell’s combination and defense enabled him to build a huge lead entering that fateful seventh round.