SAN ANTONIO – Michel Rivera was workmanlike Saturday night on his way to out-pointing Ladarius Miller.
Rivera was busier overall, at times landed hard shots to Miller’s body and won seven of the 10 rounds on all three scorecards. Each judge scored him a 97-93 winner on the non-televised portion of the Gervonta Davis-Leo Santa Cruz undercard at Alamodome.
The 22-year-old Rivera (19-0, 12 KOs), a Miami resident raised in the Dominican Republic, won the previously vacant USBA lightweight title.
Las Vegas’ Miller (21-2, 6 KOs), a veteran southpaw who came in 3.4 pounds overweight Friday, wasn’t eligible to win the USBA 135-pound championship that Rivera captured.
Miller, seemingly sensing he was down on the cards, went after Rivera to start the 10th round. They traded hard shots until Rivera began unloading hard body shots on him.
Rivera went down with a few seconds to go in their bout, but it was rightly ruled a slip.
Miller caught Rivera with a left to the body early in the ninth round and followed with a left up top several seconds later. Rivera and Miller traded hard shots while standing in the center of the ring in the final 10 seconds of the ninth.
Miller landed a straight left early in the eighth round and another later in the eighth. Rivera let his hands go just after the midway mark of the eighth, and he landed hard shots to Miller’s body.
Rivera continued to out-land Miller during the seventh round, particularly to the body. Miller was more active in that round, yet he didn’t land many effective punches.
Rivera nailed Miller with a hard left to his body in the sixth round.
Following four mostly unremarkable rounds in which Miller didn’t throw a lot of punches, Rivera opened up on Miller early in the fifth round.
Rivera landed a right uppercut and attacked Miller’s body with rights and lefts early in the fifth. Miller drilled Rivera with a straight left hand just before the fifth round ended.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
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