Aram Amirkhanyan had quite the U.S. debut Saturday night.

Amirkhanyan stopped Keandre Gibson in round 3 at the Marriott Events Center in Burbank, California.

With the victory, Amirkhanyan improves to 13-0-1, 4 knockouts.

The 30-year-old, who was born in Yerevan, Armenia and now resides in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, had fought all of his professional bouts in Russia as a junior middleweight.

Amirkhanyan had not fought since December 2018, when he won a hard-fought unanimous decision over Khuseyn Baysangurov in a clash of unbeaten fighters. In his previous fight in June 2018, Amirkhanyan defeated Stanyslav Skorokhod by majority decision.

The 29-year-old Gibson, who had fought under the Golden Boy Promotions banner, had not fought since a first-round knockout victory over Joel Juarez on June 28.

Both fighters had their moments during the first two rounds, standing in the pocket and exchanging effective combinations to the head and body.

Amirkhanyan began to sit down on his punches in round 3. With less than a minute left in the round, a left hook to the head dropped Gibson to the canvas. Gibson beat the count, but was dropped again by another combination, prompting referee Raul Caiz, Jr. to step in and stop the bout at 2:35.

Amirkhanyan trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood and is trained by Freddie Roach.

Gibson, who now resides in Las Vegas, drops to 19-3-1, 8 KOs.

Welterweight prospect Vlad Panin of Belarus suffered the first loss of his career, losing by unanimous decision to Moises Fuentes.

The Los Angeles resident dropped Panin (7-1, 4 KOs) with a left hook to the head in the opening round. Panin rallied late in the fight but had dug himself a hole to get out of.

Scores were 58-55, 58-55, and 57-56 for Fuentes, who improves 5-1, 1 KO.

Middleweight Steven Pichardo defeated Rowdy Legend Montgomery (6-3-1, 4 KOs) of Victorville, California by unanimous decision over six rounds.

All three judges scored the bout 60-54 in favor of Pichardo (7-1, 1 KO), who resides in the Los Angeles suburb of Gardena.

In junior middleweight action, Oleksiy Barker (4-0, 3 KOs), who is originally from the Ukraine and now resides in Fullerton, California, defeated New Orleans’ Donnis Reed (3-7, 2 KOs) by unanimous decision. Scores were 40-36, 40-36, and 39-37 for Barker.

Bash Boxing and PR Promotions co-promoted the card. FOX 11 Los Angeles sports anchor Pablo Alsina and Manouk Apokyan called the action from ringside for a future regional broadcast. Apokyan covers boxing for the Los Angeles Times and BoxingScene. 

Francisco A. Salazar has written for Boxingscene since September of 2012 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. Francisco also covers boxing for the Ventura County (Calif.) Star newspaper. He can be reached by email at santio89@yahoo.com or on Twitter at FSalazarBoxing