By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Edwin Rodriguez didn’t produce a pretty performance in his first fight in over a year.

The onetime super middleweight championship challenger did defeat Mitch Williams on Saturday night, though. Rodriguez, of Worcester, Massachusetts, hurt Williams badly during the fourth and fifth rounds, overcame some significant defensive deficiencies later in their 10-round cruiserweight contest and beat his durable opponent by unanimous decision at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Rodriguez, 33, still supposedly can make the light heavyweight limit of 175 pounds. He weighed in at a career-high 198¼ pounds for this fight on the Brian Castano-Erislandy Lara undercard.

The taller Rodriguez (31-2, 20 KOs) was the busier, sharper fighter, particularly during the first six rounds. Williams (16-7-3, 11 KOs), a 36-year-old southpaw from Jackson, Michigan, landed left hands at times as Rodriguez pressed forward, but never hard enough shots to truly hurt Rodriguez.

Rodriguez hurt Williams badly toward the end of both the fourth and fifth rounds. In each of those instances, Rodriguez might’ve stopped Williams if he had several more seconds to follow up on his punishing punches.

Williams’ toughness and ability to fire back at least a punch or two kept him from losing by technical knockout in the fourth and fifth rounds.

A rejuvenated Williams came back to have a solid seventh round. By then, Rodriguez appeared tired and Williams caught him with a few flush left hands.

Williams also clipped Rodriguez with a counter left hook just after the midway mark of the eighth round. Several seconds later, Rodriguez and Williams got tangled up and Williams went down to the canvas.

They continued trading hard shots over the final minute of that round.

Williams finished their fight strong and left Rodriguez holding at times during the 10th round.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.