Cris Arreola broke down in the ring after the fight. He cried uncontrollably after not being able to catch a Vitali Klitschko, 6-foot-7, 252-pound heavyweight for 10 rounds. Klitschko, with his hands down for most of the fight, put on a show nailing Arreola throughout with six and seven unanswered punches at a time. By the end of the tenth, the big Russian was leading 10-0 and 9-1 on most cards, and had outlanded Arreola 301-86. Arreola's trainer Henry Ramirez told referee John Schorle that was it. Klitschko, 38, retains his WBC heavyweight title with a thudding technical knockout victory over Arreola at Staples Center.

"He was taking too much punishment," Ramirez told the L.A. Times. "Arreola was irate. It was not an easy decision, but we had discussed it, and I had to do it."

Arreola, weeping for minutes after the fight, could barely pull it together to speak with HBO announcer Larry Merchant:

"I couldn't get to him," said a sniffling Arreola (27-1, 24 KOs). "He ran when he was supposed to. Whatever I did he found a way to counteract that."

Klitschko (38-2, 37 KOs) was super confident from the start holding his left hand by his side. Arreola stood in front of the big guy the entire fight and got nailed by three and four-punch combinations. When it wasn't three or four punches, Klitschko was masterful pcking apart Arreola with two-punch combos and then sliding to his left or right. Arreola couldn't pull the trigger after getting drilled or would simply swing and miss.

"I don't know [what happened] man. I worked my ass off. [Expletive]!," said Arreola. "Vitali is a strong [expletive]. He hit hit hard."

The 28-year-old from just outside L.A., in Riverside, was distraught about the fact that his corner threw in the towel:

"That's never in me. I didn’t want to quit. I knew he was [expletive] me up. I'm sorry guys."

Schorle had no choice. By the middle of the fight, Klitschko's confidence soared as held both hands at his side and landed almost everything he threw. He mixed together clubbing lead left hooks, straight rights and wicked uppercuts to puff up Arreola's face.

Arreola's best rounds were No. 4 and 8. Yahoo! Sports' writers on the scene in Los Angeles, Kevin Iole and Martin Rogers, each had it 89-82 for Klitschko. I had it a clean sweep for Klitschko. Klitschko led 99-91 on the cards of Anek Hongtongkam and Ken Morita, and Guido Cavalieri had it 100-89.

The final punchstats illustrated just how dominant Klitschko was. He outlanded Arreola by 215 and threw 471 more shots. He also landed 151 power punches (53-percent) to just 24 for Arreola. "Dr. Ironfist" still looked very fresh even after throwing 802 punches.

It's difficult to see what's on the horizon for Vitali and his brother Wladimir (53-3, 47 KOs), who holds the other major heavyweight titles. The brothers have been resistant to the talk that they fight each other. Who else is out there? Arreola may have been the last American heavyweight for a while who can challenge the massive Russians.