Unanimous Decision for Whitaker : Boxing: He beats Paez, retaining his lightweight title for the eighth time.

Pernell (Sweet Pea) Whitaker staved off every charge by Jorge Paez Saturday night and retained his undisputed lightweight boxing championship with a victory by unanimous decision.

It was Whitaker’s eighth defense of his championship, and the question afterward was if it was his final appearance at 135 pounds. He earned $1 million Saturday, but much bigger paydays beckon against 140-pounders such as Julio Cesar Chavez, Edwin Rosario and Hector Camacho.

There were no certain plans for Whitaker’s future.

“(Whitaker) can still make 135 pounds if he has to, and he does have a mandatory defense coming up against a South Korean,” said his promoter, Dan Duva.

“But we’d love to step up (to junior-welterweight) and fight Julio Cesar Chavez or Edwin Rosario.”

Said Whitaker: “As far as I know, it was my last fight at lightweight, but I’m a team player. I don’t pick opponents. I do what my people tell me to, I fight people they put in front of me.”

Whitaker fought at a measured, almost slow pace against the unorthodox Paez, who was a clown in his family’s Mexicali circus before he became a fighter.

Throughout, Whitaker was far more sharp, landing many more stinging blows than Paez. He fought flat-footed and seemed to glide through the bout, but his punches were effective.

“The game plan was to go hard to the body, which I did, and then to let him have it with the uppercuts, because he comes in low, his head open,” Whitaker said.

The judges had Whitaker winning by margins of 116-110, 115-112 and 115-111. The Times card was 119-108 with Whitaker winning every round except the 11th, when referee Mills Lane deducted a point from the champion for holding.

Whitaker’s style was a flurry during the fourth round. He hit Paez with nine consecutive punches, all of them solid shots. Yet the battered Paez, who earned $250,000, walked through them all, and landed a leaping right hand that briefly rocked Whitaker (27-1).

The two butted heads with two seconds left in the sixth round and Paez (39-4-4) came away with a long, deep cut through his right brow. Although Paez’s handlers stemmed the blood flow as best they could, there were periods in the fight when it seemed to bother Paez.

Turn-of-the-century great Joe Gans defended the lightweight championship 13 times, Roberto Duran did it 12 times and 1950s champion Joe Brown had 11 defenses. Whitaker won’t have that many, but boxing nonetheless might have seen one of its great lightweights in a final show Saturday.

On the undercard, Mexico’s Luis Ramon Campas made short work of Reno journeyman Frankie Davis. Campas, in his U.S. debut, stopped Davis in the third round after battering his opponent from the opening bell.

Campas is 38-0, according to his handlers. Saturday, he was sharp and showed quick, short, jolting left hooks and straight rights to the head.

He dropped Davis (18-8-2) in the first round and battered him without letup. The referee, Vic Drakulich, seemed to allow the one-sided match to continue too long.

Egerton Marcus of Toronto won a silver medal at middleweight at the 1988 Olympics, but has had only six fights as a pro. Thought to be one of the major pro prospects out of the Seoul Olympics, he turned pro in 1988, suffered a major hand injury and underwent surgery twice.

Saturday, Marcus (6-0) shook off Campo, Calif., light-heavyweight Randy Leaks (10-4) routinely, stopping him in the second.