Lucian Bute of Montreal retained his three minor titles when he stopped James Obede Toney of Ghana at 2:49 of the eighth round of their super-middleweight bout on Friday night.

Bute (18-0, 16 knock-outs) had Toney (18-2-1) against the ropes, landing punches at will, when referee Mike Griffin stepped in to end the scheduled 12-round fight before a crowd of 8,072 at the Bell Centre.

Bute, ranked in the top five by the WBC and the WBA, kept his three North American titles _ the NABF, NABA and WBC Continental.

The southpaw had Toney in trouble in the fourth, sixth and seventh rounds, keeping the aggressive Ghanian at a comfortable distance and then moving in to land combinations.

In the co-feature, light heavyweight Adrian Diaconu (23-0) of Montreal won all 10 rounds of a unanimous decision over Olando Rivera (15-6-2) of the United States.

The undercard had more lopsided wins for the locals.

Jean-Francois Bergeron (25-0) of St-Jerome, Que., knocked out Edgard Alazao Silva (14-10) of Brazil in the fifth round.

Antonin Decarie (11-0) of Montreal stopped Jose Luis Alvarez (2-4) of Mexico in the second round and JoJo Dan (15-0) of Toronto scored a third-round TKO over Jorge Daniel Miranda (20-2) of Argentina in scheduled six-round super-lightweight bouts.

Bantamweight Sebastien Gauthier (8-0) of St-Jerome took out Sandro Orlando Oviedo (24-22-2) of Argentina in the first round.

In a women's pro bout, Danielle Bouchard (5-1-1) of Montreal fought to a four-round draw with Maria del Carmen Potenza (2-4-1) of Argentina.