It was scheduled to be an eight-round bout, but that didn't matter to Monty Meza-Clay.

"I'm telling you," he said, "I could have gone 20 rounds."

It took him less than three rounds to dazzle fans in his home city with his first win in more than two years.

Meza-Clay (29-3) stopped Allen Litzau at 2:47 in the third round of a super featherweight match at the Rivers Casino Saturday night, Meza-Clay's return to boxing after a year off due to injuries.

"If there's a word, I can't find it," he said of his feelings after the fight.

"In other words, speechless," offered Kevin Corlew, his assistant trainer. Meza-Clay agreed.

"There you go."

Meza-Clay worked short, powerful hooks to Litzau's body and head and pinned him against the ropes in the third round while continuing to land punches. Litzau's trainer signaled to a representative from the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission that he wanted to stop the fight, and the representative signaled the referee from just outside the ropes. The fight was ruled a TKO and Litzau fell to 13-6.

Meza-Clay's left hook powered him through the bout. He led off the second round with five consecutive left hooks and used the punch liberally throughout the fight, although he didn't realize it.

"It becomes second nature," he said. "I'm on autopilot in there."

The 14-month layoff and surgeries on both elbows, his hand and his shoulder didn't affect Meza-Clay. His right arm bothered him somewhat, he said, but not enough to influence the outcome.

Meza-Clay put on a show before he stepped into the ring, shadowboxing for the crowd at the Rivers Casino amphitheater, which was playing host to its first boxing event, from the second-floor escalator as he made his way outside. He followed his pre-fight game plan: Get inside Litzau and stay inside.

Meza-Clay controlled the action in the first. He blocked or ducked most of Litzau's power punches and kept Litzau on the perimeter of the ring.

"That was never going to touch me," he said of Litzau's overhand right. "I knew he was going to throw it before he knew he was going to throw it."

The fight was a culmination of several points of emphasis in the past few months that Meza-Clay and his trainer, Tommy Yankello, had worked on, mainly holding his hands higher and jabbing his way inside.

"I told him after the first round, don't change anything," Yankello said. "It's the best round I've ever seen you fight.

"He's never used a jab that good, he's never kept his hands up like that."

In the second round he caught Litzau with a flurry of close-in punches in the middle of the ring. Right at the bell, he landed a left-right-left combination straight to Litzau's face that dropped Litzau against the ropes.

Meza-Clay weathered Litzau's shots to get inside, and then worked the body in the third round. A left uppercut and a left hook set up a 30-second tirade of punches that ended with Litzau taking a knee. When the fight resumed, Meza-Clay pinned Litzau against the ropes and landed left and right hooks to the rib cage and chin before the fight was stopped.

Next up for Meza-Clay could be Litzau's brother, Jason (27-2), a 135-pounder.

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