Butterbean gets quick win

      The main event may have had Sweet Pea, but the undercard had "The Bean."
      And it took less than two rounds Saturday night for Eric "Butterbean" Esch to turn Ed White into a vegetable.
      Fighting before the Oscar De La Hoya-Pernell Whitaker main event at the Thomas & Mack Center, the 320-pound Butterbean knocked White to the canvas twice in the second round, stopping his fellow heavyweight at 1 minute, 14 seconds of the four-rounder.
      Esch (30-1, 24 KOs) retained his fringe International Boxing Association super heavyweight championship. But it wasn't easy.
      Giving seven inches away to the 6-foot-7, 255-pound White, Butterbean was tagged several times in the first round by White, who won the round on all three judges' scorecards.
      Butterbean came back and dropped White with a solid right hand early in the second round. White beat the 10-second count, but a barrage of punches sent him through the ropes, forcing referee Joe Cortez to halt the fight.
      White, of Parsons, Tenn., fell to 4-2.
      "He's so tall, it took me a little bit of time to get in where I wanted to get in," said Butterbean, who sustained a cut under his left eye in the second round. "He hit pretty good, but I went out (in the second) to finish it up."
      After an AIDS benefit fight this week in Tulsa, Okla., Butterbean said he would set his sights on a much-hyped showdown with NHL enforcer Marty McSorley of the San Jose Sharks.
      "It's looking good. I'm ready for it," Butterbean said of a possible July or August fight with McSorley, the younger brother of Thunder coach Chris McSorley. "I want to show him that hockey players don't need to be in the ring. They fight good; they're bad. But I want to show him he doesn't need to be calling big guys out. You don't pick a fight with a 300-pounder."
      In another undercard fight, Las Vegan Floyd Mayweather needed 90 seconds to knock out Bobby Geipert in a six-round junior lightweight bout. A 1996 Olympian, Mayweather (6-0, five KOs) dropped Geipert early in the first round with a short right hand, then finished off the Gretna, La., resident with a right-left-right combination.
      In a 10-round junior welterweight bout, Mickey Ward, who had lost all six rounds on the judges' scorecards, dropped Alfonso Sanchez with a left hook to the body at 1:53 of the seventh round to earn a stunning victory. Ward, of Lowell, Mass., didn't even land a jab, but still improved to 30-7 with 21 knockouts. Sanchez suffered his first loss in 17 pro fights.
      In a 10-round bantamweight fight, Paulie Ayala of Fort Worth, Texas, moved to 21-0 after earning a unanimous decision over Nestor Lopez of Tabasco, Mexico. The fight originally was scheduled to be for Ayala's NABF bantamweight title, but Lopez, 120 1/2, failed to make the 118-pound weight limit.
      In other bouts: Eric Morel of Madison, Wis., scored a unanimous decision over Jesus Lopez of Denver in a four-round flyweight fight; Gary Bell of Brooklyn, N.Y., improved to 14-0 by scoring a knockout over Cesar Rendon at 1:13 of the third round in a four-round heavyweight bout; and Ronald Weaver of New Orleans improved to 21-1 with a majority decision over Phoenix's Kevin Lowther in a six-round junior middleweight fight.