LOS ANGELES (AP) – Vitali Klitschko both staked his claim to the heavyweight title and avenged his brother’s defeat Saturday in a dominating performance that left Corrie Sanders battered and bloodied and unable to fight back in the eighth round.

Klitschko showed that he belonged among the heavyweight elite, winning the WBC title vacated by the retirement of Lennox Lewis when referee John Schorle stopped the fight at 2:46 of the eighth round with Sanders helpless along the ropes.

Klitschko landed his jab early and often and was sharp with almost all his punches.

, while Sanders grew increasingly desperate to land a big right hand to try and stem the onslaught.

The fight came to an end after Klitschko landed a big left-right and then backed Sanders up with a flurry of punches. Schorle kept watching to see if Sanders would respond, but when he didn’t punch back he wrapped his arms around Sanders and called the fight to an end.

Klitschko’s younger brother, Wladimir, who was knocked out by Sanders last year, rushed into the ring and embraced his brother.

“I had a dream. It’s just not my dream, it’s a dream of the two brother’s Klitschko,” Klitschko said.

Klitschko landed more than half of his punches – 230 of them by ringside count – to only 51 by Sanders. The only suspense after the early rounds was whether Sanders would land one big left hand to turn the fight around, and he couldn’t.

“I was surprised he never went down. He took so many punches,” Klitschko said. “Unbelievable. I was surprised.”

Sanders was bleeding badly from the nose and around the mouth, and his face was marked and swollen by the time the fight ended.

Klitschko was a 3-1 favorite, but there were many questions still to be answered about the 6-foot-7 heavyweight even after he went six strong rounds in the same ring with Lewis last year before being stopped on cuts.

He answered most of them in a fight that had the crowd of 17,320 standing and cheering much of the way.

“This was a big relief,” Klitschko (33-1, 32 knockouts) said. “I feel a lot of weight off my shoulders.”

Lewis was at ringside to watch Klitschko and Sanders fight for his old title, just as he was in New York last week when IBF champion Chris Byrd and WBA champion John Ruiz each defended their titles.

There has been some speculation that Lewis might come back because of the fractured state of the heavyweight division.

“I hope Lennox Lewis makes a comeback,” Klitschko said. “He promised me he would fight me again.”

Sanders left the ring without comment, and his manager said he was taken to a hospital for treatment of an injury to his left ear.

“He was exhausted, he was tired,” Vernon Smith said. “He did not disagree with the referee’s decision to stop the fight. His biggest regret is he couldn’t land his left better.”

Klitschko came out cautious, perhaps mindful of what Sanders did to his brother, Wladimir, when he knocked him out in the second round 13 months earlier. Sanders, meanwhile, went right after Klitschko and caught him with 20 seconds left in the round with a big left hand that sent Klitschko back across the ring into the ropes.

The fight was fought in flurries, with periods of little action followed by both fighters trading punches at will. Sanders (39-3) often tried to lure Klitschko into a corner or onto the ropes, where he would launch a left hand counterpunch.

By the fifth round, Klitschko was controlling the fight with his jab and, suddenly, late in the round, landed three straight right hands that sent Sanders staggering backward. Klitschko went after him and landed a flurry and Sanders was nearly out on his feet as the bell sounded to end the round.

Klitschko was three inches taller than Sanders, a South African who had fought less than four full rounds in the last four years. Now living in Los Angeles, he entered the ring to the song “Hotel California” and cheers from the crowd.

Klitschko stood next to his brother, Wladimir, while the fighters were introduced and both stared unblinking at Sanders for several minutes.

The Klitschkos had been boxing’s ultimate feel-good story, two giant brothers from Ukraine who were carefully groomed to become heavyweight champions. But Sanders knocked out Wladimir Klitschko last year, resurrecting what had been a mediocre career, and he came into the ring at Staples Center looking to do the same thing against his older brother.

Sanders, a sometimes reluctant warrior who talked before the fight of retiring and attempting to play golf for a living, was so relaxed in the moments before the fight that he was lying down on a table in his dressing room.

AP-ES-04-24-04 2319EDT