DAVID LOPEZ W12 SAMUEL MILLER; DAVID RODELA W8 (split) KEVIN KELLEY

David Lopez calls himself The Destroyer but the Mexican middleweight is actually more of a technician than anything, as he showed in his comfortable 12-round decision win over Colombian Samuel Miller in Telefutura’s main event on Friday night.

This was an impressively efficient performance by Lopez, I thought. At a couple of stages in the fight he seemed to have Miller ready to be stopped, but the Colombian was strong and game, and he hit with sufficient power to keep Lopez just a bit wary.

Miller looked a bit swollen around the eyes but he was never in serious trouble. I think that a concerted two-handed assault from Lopez might have paid dividends, but things were going so well for him there was no need to take risks. As it was I thought that Miller shook him a bit with right hands a couple of times in the 10th and 11th rounds, nothing too alarming but a warning to Lopez to tread carefully.

On the same show, I thought David Rodela was a bit disappointing although there seemed little doubt that he done enough to get the decision over Kevin Kelley in their junior lightweight eight-rounder.

The split scoring really surprised me here, with one judge having it for Kelley, 78-74, while the other judges went for Rodela by scores of 78-74 and 77-75.

It seemed to me that Rodela won the fight by 77-75 but I actually could see 78-74 in favour of the boxer from Oxnard, CA.

Kelley was moving forward and he landed the better single shots, with some of the left hands from his southpaw stance knocking back Rodela’s head, but, to me anyway, these punches were too infrequent for him to have won the rounds he needed to win in order to secure a decision.

Rodela was a bit of a slapper with the left hook but he just seemed much the busier fighter and he boxed quite nicely at times, using his legs to get off the ropes when Kelley tried to keep him bottled up.

Kelley looked much the stronger man — not surprising, as he had a 2 1/2-pound weight advantage — and for a 41-year-old he was in excellent condition, standing between rounds and coming on strongly in the final round. If the fight had been a 10-rounder, I think the ninth and 10th would have been a real struggle for Rodela. As it was, he did enough to eke out a fair decision but it wasn’t in truth an impressive showing for the 26-year-old former national amateur champion and it is difficult to see him going too far on this showing.

As for Kelley, the former featherweight champion showed that he still has something to offer as long as he isn’t matched too ambitiously, it’s just that he can’t quite pull the trigger the way he once could. He allowed himself to be outhustled by a boxer who, even a couple of years ago, he would probably have handled comfortably. The Kelley of the Carlos Hernandez fight would most likely have stopped Rodela, but unfortunately two years can be a long time for a fighter around the 40-year-old mark.